Ep. 222 - Darby Orcutt & Sasquatch DNA!

(00:02):
Big food and be on with Cliffand Bobo. These guys are your favorites,
so light share, subscribe and raidit Timesta and me day and listening
watching always keep it squatching and nowyour hosts Cliff Barkman and James Bobo Fay,

(00:31):
Hey, Bob's what's happening? HeyCliff? How much? How's it
going? It's going alright. Justhave another beautiful day hanging out. Going
to talk to the great guests todayabout a great subject I'm kind of excited
about. That's about it, really, man, haven't done a lot of
big foot stuff. Although I'm takingoff to go to Ohio over the weekend.
That's gonna be nutty. Oh HockeyHills, Yeah, Hacke and Hills,
Yeah. Down in Logan. Bythe time this error would have been

(00:52):
over, I'm sure it's gonna bea fantastic gig that these these kind of
things. Usually are planning on goingout to location Rule soon to film some
stuff for LEGI Meet Science. Don'twant to talk too much about that it
yet until it's done. I'll filleverybody in over over the next couple of
weeks or so as things kind ofcome to fruition. Just kind of chomping
at the bit to go camping atthis point. I saw dougs Hi check

(01:15):
for Legian Science too. They gotthat camp. So it's just the way
I always wanted to do it.Have multiple floodlights out there. There are
floodlights that you can flip on withall the cameras all go like a just
one snap. Everything's so no matterwhere it is inside of your camp,
it's gonna it's gonna get film runningout of camp somewhere or another. I
saw that's set out there running.They're running it up there on the border

(01:37):
Minnesota and Canada. And yeah,he's done it with Abe del Rio's Minnesota
big Foot research team. And ifyou don't know what Bob was talking about,
I guess he has some sort ofcamera array or something going being set
up. It's completely set up,of course, but it's live ready to
record it a push up a buttonremotely. So that's kind of what's been
going on lately. I guess Doug'sbeen losing a lot of sleep with that

(01:59):
because you have to be ready allnight long or something. But I'm sure
all the details are going to beLegimat Science too. It's going to be
a great production, and of course, you know, I don't know if
if we've talked about this very much. We had Doug on the podcast because
he was trying to raise some moneyfor it and whatnot, and he basically
told us that it was our audiencethat pushed him over the edge. He
says, I congratulated him on aDoug on getting completely funded, and then

(02:22):
he said it was pretty much becauseof this podcast. So of course Doug
did all the rounds. I'm sureof the entire podcast community helped out significantly.
But Doug's words were, you know, thanks to you. Guys,
really really appreciate you having us onthe show. It really made a big
difference. So that's us, that'sour listeners, that's our listeners. And
at the bottom line, so thankyou guys from helping make science happen here

(02:42):
in the Bigfoot world. You guyshelped out a lot. We really appreciate
it. So as Doug's legs meetscience too, is this gonna go to
our Is this going to go throughthe program that our guests today is gonna
have running? Is that part?Well? Yeah, yeah, our guest
today who is Drby or Cutt.He's doing a DNA thing. Will let
him explain it, because I lovethe way he worded it. It's not
aasquatch thing, but the sasquat.It's basically a sasquatch thing. But he
didn't work it that way, andthat's how he got it going through his

(03:05):
university. So yeah, that isalso going to be going through legend legide
science too, But we should probablylet Darby talk about that. So why
don't we just bring Darby on?We'll start talking. How are you doing?
Darby? Hi am doing well?How are you good? Doing right?
Pushing forward? So thank you somuch for coming on. You have
such an exciting project here. Butbefore we get going on that, I
was looking up. I was goingto try to familiarize myself with your biography

(03:30):
and the nearest correct me if I'mwrong, But the nearest I can figure
is you're kind of you. You'rea librarian as some sorts, you're a
research of variety of subjects, andit seems like you're a facilitator more than
say an instructor or something like that. Is that is that correct? That
a good way to categorize you?Well, I am an instructor as well.
Yeah, I'm on faculty at NorthCarolina State University. My primary faculty

(03:54):
appointment is as a librarian, butas as you know, a cliff not
not doing the sorts of things thatmost people think of when you think of
a librarian. But also I doteach, and I am very much involved
with research and my work as alibrarian, especially for many many years,

(04:15):
my job has been to help puttogether and support highly interdisciplinary research teams to
tackle really tough questions, so toput together the right people and to help
translate between fields in such a waythat people can deal with real world issues
that require expertise that's coming from anumber of different areas. Now, this

(04:43):
is your role here needed because thedisciplines don't tend to speak to one another.
That is sometimes the case. Expertsin different disciplines oftentimes either don't know
how to speak to one another,or sometimes don't realize that they're asking questions
along similar lines or about similar subjectsin ways where they could be working together

(05:05):
and getting further that way. Sometimesthey don't know how to speak one another's
language, and so I play thisrole of matchmaking and translating and facilitating.
For you, you must be kindof familiar with a huge number of disciplines

(05:26):
then to even know what's going onin any of them and realize that there
might be connections that could be madebetween them. Yeah, very much so.
In fact, I'm usually the personin the room who knows the most
about everything and the least about anygiven subject. I am also one of
those people, which is why Ibecame an elementary school teacher. I was

(05:49):
pretty good at everything, but notreally great at anything in your career path
or in your personal life, becauseobviously these things intersect on a regular base
is for everyone. What led youdown the path to sasquatch Well. I
had been teaching courses for a numberof years, and particularly been teaching courses

(06:12):
about how science works, not justthe sorts of things that say you might
have taught your students in elementary schoolof how science says it works, no
hypothesis and testing and experimentation, thosesorts of things, but also culturally speaking,
how science works. What are theeconomic structures that underlie scientific research.

(06:39):
What are the ways that people communicatewith one another, How do scientists communicate
with the general public as well aswith one another, with funding agencies,
with government, with industry, andhow sciences, scientific discoveries are applied in
the real world. So there's alot that goes into science that oftentimes even

(07:02):
scientists are not fully aware of themselves. And so I've been teaching classes on
that for a great many years,and I came upon this idea that I
thought would be really interesting of lookingat fringe sciences or people doing scientific work
in areas that are oftentimes not consideredscience that might be might be referred to

(07:30):
as pseudoscience or dismissed in that way, and I thought it would be very
interesting to teach a course and thisis what I started doing that looked at
some of these areas and ask thesequestions of why are these subjects dismissed by
quote unquote mainstream science or the generalpublic. Are they being dismissed for good

(07:55):
reason? What can that teach usabout the ways that we we make decisions,
the ways that cultural aspects play intoour scientific questions and practices. And
so I started engaging with some ofthese fields, including the field of sasquatch
research or sasquatch investigation, and itwas very very interesting to me and one

(08:20):
of the things that I really wantedto do with my students was to challenge
them to look at the very bestevidence in each of these areas, because,
as you know, there are lotsof people making lots of claims,
and you can find lots of sillythings in any of these fringe or paranormal

(08:46):
or edge science fields. You canfind plenty of things to make fun of.
But it's much more challenging to dealwith the best potential evidence in these
areas and see what it says,because any potential evidence is actually evidence of
something. So the question is,really, let's figure out what it is.

(09:09):
Do you have a list of thebest evidence that you're going to focus
on right now? Well, youknow, I think that there are a
number of areas where there are interestingquestions to be asked with regard to potential
sasquatch investigation. In my current study, the one that I'm leading with my
colleagues now that we're talking about today, I really wanted to look at the

(09:35):
physical biological evidence that could potentially yieldDNA. And the reason for that is
that DNA is really the gold standardfor the establishment of a species, and
that is of course one of thebig questions or one of the big hypotheses

(09:56):
that the sasquatch phenomenon could potentially beexplained at least in large part by a
unique biological species. You don't knowunless you look at the evidence, unless
you examine the evidence what it is. And that's that's something that I found
was that there were people who werefinding hairs, there were people who are

(10:20):
finding other sorts of physical samples,and they were asking me, where where
can I send to have this tested? How do how do I go about
that? And I really found thatI couldn't find a commercial lab or a
or a university or any anywhere reallythat I could really feel confident saying,

(10:41):
yeah, this is the place tosend this if you have a potential unknown
And so that's why I got togethera team and created that myself with his
study. So this is a universitysponsored study. Is that correct? Well,
it's university sponsored in the sense thatmost studies are university sponsored. What

(11:05):
what that means really is that inthis case, there are there are four
of us UH faculty colleagues who havewho are collaborating on this and who have
set the scope and the parameters ofthe study. And we are all on

(11:26):
faculty at NC State University. Soit's it's university sponsored in that sense.
The other thing is is that itis a it is an official study,
and so I've gone through the paperwork. I had to go through what we
call Institutional Review Board approval, whichis our ethics committee that makes sure that

(11:52):
when we do any research that weare treating both both humans and with respect
and care and properly ethically. Soyou have to fill out probably a mountain
of paperwork for this thing, andthen somehow still squeeze it back and squeeze
it through rather knowing that this iskind of a sasquatch study, but you

(12:16):
couldn't put sasquatch in the forefront,right, So how did you get around
that? You know this is andthis isn't a sasquatch study? And what
we're really interested in in this case, and this is what the name of
the study is. It's a studyof allegedly morphologically anomalous physical samples. So

(12:37):
what does that mean? Basically,that means these this is a study of
biological specimens that people have found thatthey claim have unusual traits or unusual appearances
or something unusual about them, andthat is what we're studying. Now,

(12:58):
this comes from my own hearing andtalking with folks, particularly in the Bigfoot
community, who have found samples,for example, found hair samples that folks
who are actually very good at identifyinghair of known species in North America cannot

(13:22):
identify. There are certain properties tothese hairs that they reportedly have in common,
and yet they don't look like thoseof known species. That's an interesting
question. What are these So theseare the types of questions that we're trying

(13:43):
to answer. What are these things? Every physical sample that will be submitted
to us is a sample of something. We don't know what it is unless
we look at it. Why wouldn'twe want to look at these? Stay
tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond withCliff and Bogo. We'll be right back

(14:05):
after these messages. So at thispoint, what we've done we just launched
the online intake survey at the tailend of May, so we started.
We've had a trickle of offers comingin thus far, and it's just started

(14:30):
to pick up over the last coupleof weeks. So at this stage,
as of this recording, I amstarting to reach out to those folks,
starting to arrange brief interviews with them. I have some questions to learn and
make sure that we understand a bitmore about the samples and the circumstances under

(14:52):
which they were found. And thenat that point we'll be giving those folks
instructions as to how to physically submitthe samples that we're prioritizing at this time.
So I imagine that certainly by earlySeptember or so, I imagine we

(15:13):
will have the first samples in handon campus and in the lab. So
let's think about it from a userperspective first, and then we'll talk about
it from the more the mechanical side. I guess your side of things.
So if someone like say, Ifound sasquatch footprints and they went by a

(15:35):
tree, and there were a numberof strange hairs on the tree, and
I collected them. Now, ofcourse I'm perhaps slightly better equipped than your
average Joe in the forest. Iwould put these underneath the microscope and take
a look at them. If Icouldn't easily identify them as bear or deer
or anything like that, and Iwanted to submit them, what would I
do? Well, what you woulddo is you would go to the intake

(15:58):
survey form that's online. Okay,by the way, we will have that.
We will have that link in theshow notes below, so anybody who
wants to take a look at it, whether you have samples or not,
the link will be in the shownotes below. Thank you very much for
that. I appreciate y'all getting theword out. So the first thing you
would do is fill out well,I mean, the first thing you would
do, obviously is collect the sample. And folks ask me, hey,

(16:18):
what's the best way to collect thesample? And there are certainly lots of
folks out there who who describe goodtechniques for sample collection, but the most
important things to do are to tryto collect the sample if you can,
in a sterile way, so withsterile gloves or sterile instruments. Most samples,

(16:42):
if they're hair or something like that, something that isn't moist wet,
you know, like blood or something, but hairs, most of the samples
that folks are offering thus far,it's best to collect those into a paper
envelope and stick them in the refrigeratoror the freezer, so that that's the

(17:04):
best way to store samples. Collectin store samples. So then you would
fill out the online survey, atwhich point, like I say, I'll
be reaching out to people to thenschedule a brief interview by phone or on
the computer or or what have you. And at that point we'll be asking

(17:26):
folks, will be identifying, youknow, which samples we want to get
in some priority order, and we'llbe testing those. Anyone who submits a
sample in that form can can choosewhether they want to be identified publicly identified
with their sample or whether they wantto be completely anonymous, because some people

(17:52):
want to be identified and some peoplejust want to know what something is and
they don't want anybody to know thatthey had any thing to do with sasquatch.
Either one is fine. Under nocircumstances will we be disclosing specific locations
where samples were acquired, just we'llbe giving general locations. But everybody who

(18:19):
submits a sample will receive the resultsfor their sample. And what sort of
timeline would that be. Well,here's the thing left. Real science is
not a speedy process. So I'mtrying not to promise a specific timeline to

(18:41):
folks other than we'll do it aswell. We will do these things as
quickly as we can, but thatcould depend on a large number of factors.
So if if the sample, ifthe sample that's submitted is something that
we come in, we look atit, we run a test, and
oh it pops up. Oh thisis a black bear, and it's very

(19:04):
clearly black bear. And you know, you may get a response in a
matter of a couple of months.If it's a sample that is more degraded
that we have or having trouble pullingsequencing information out of, we may be
working with it for a while.It really just depends on so many things

(19:27):
that are beyond our control or thecontrol of the people submitting these things as
to how long it could take.But I do promise you you will receive
a response. You will receive areport for your for your sample. Yeah,
you would have to be extraordinarily careful, of course, because if you

(19:51):
say, for example, it happeneda sasquatch hair is submitted, it's in
good shape, it passes the microscopicanalysis and the DNA comes back, is
what the hell is this? Right? Even then it would have to be
tested and retested because a false positivein this particular scenario could sink everything.

(20:12):
It could just make the subject andthe study just a laughing stock. So
you'd have to be extraordinarily careful andjust very very conservative in how you assess
the samples, especially if it seemsthat we're onto the right thing for the
first time. Well, absolutely,and if that is, if that is

(20:33):
a finding of the study, that'sone of the reasons that one of the
reasons that I have recruited the teamthat I have, because these folks are
absolutely tremendous and this team is whenyou receive a report, you're going to
know that that's what it is.If what you said, If if there

(20:53):
is a sasquatch out there to befound and there are samples submitted and we
find that, well, uh,this team is going to you know,
very carefully document that and present thatagain if that's if that's the finding.

(21:14):
Um, you know, at thisstage, we haven't looked at any samples.
The salient point here is is thatwe don't know what the samples that
will be receiving are until we lookat them. And that's what makes this
really exciting is that there are alot of rather interesting sounding samples out there

(21:37):
that have not been looked at bya credible scientific team, and so I'm
really excited to see what our resultsare. So so there's four of you
on the team. Who are thereare three people other credentials. Yeah,
so there are well, there arefour of us on the core team,
myself um, and then two geneticist, genomicists and one microscopist so microscope expert,

(22:07):
think of that. And so thisis the core team. And this
team also has a lot of expertisein forensics and wildlife forensics as well.
So this is the core team.But the fun thing about this is is
I also have a whole host ofexperts in particular areas who are ready to

(22:33):
come on and join us if andwhen we find an interesting specimen in their
area of expertise. And these arethese are faculty researchers, not just from
NC State, but from across thecountry. So, for example, I
have someone on board who is anphysical anthropologist and an expert in all things

(23:00):
OSTEO. So if a bone ortooth sample that is interesting is submitted for
this study, she is ready tojump on board and get involved and really
excited about it. But again,if we don't have something in her area
of expertise, well she's going tostay in the bigfoot closet for now for

(23:25):
that genome, for doing the fullgenome yeah, yeah, it's here stuff.
Like last time we talked to Meldrin, we said about four hundred and
thirty thousand, four and forty thousandfor a full genome sequencing. Is that
like us gonna ask about your budget, like how it got to prove that?
How much they give you? Andthen like when you hear those high
numbers, is that going to becut weight out? Since these guys are
on faculty staff, like they're alreadypaid through the university. How does that

(23:48):
worry? I'm sorry, but butspecifically Meldrum said in the six figure range,
and most of that would be forpersonnel, right, And so that
is probably pretty reasonable to expect ifyou were going to go out and hire
and hire the work done by someonewho might know what they're doing. Now,
in this case, since we havethe we have the machines on campus

(24:15):
that are available to us where wecan do nuclear DNA sequencing for those samples
that may warrant it, then uh, you know, we have an in
house price schedule that looks quite abit different than that, to be honest,
and because my colleagues are the oneswith the expertise, not having to

(24:38):
hire my colleagues to work on ourown study that actually reduces the cost dramatically.
How many think you could run likefurther with your budget you have for
the year, Like, how manysamples do you could run like twenty or
fifty year? Well, see,this is the thing. We don't have
a set budget for this project.And the reason we don't is that there

(25:03):
are quite a few different needs andquite a few different goals that this project
can potentially help us to achieve.One of those that's really important is training
of PhD students in genetics. Soour PhD students in genetics who work in
the labs of my two colleagues whoare collaborators, they need to teach these

(25:30):
students anyhow, and they see thisas a really interesting way of having the
students work with true unknowns or withunusual samples, and so this is a
great way for them to be ableto train their PhD students, like I
say, which they need to doanyway, right, they need to be

(25:53):
studying samples of something, so whynot the samples that are associated with this
study. In addition, the teamwe've talked about ideas that might help push
forensic understanding forward, so that mighthelp us develop new forensic techniques that could

(26:18):
be that could be useful again notjust for this study or for this topic,
but could be very useful in thefield for all kinds of things.
And so, and these are justa couple of examples. There are some
other things that some other outcomes thatwe are imagining from the types of samples

(26:41):
that will be looking at. Soa lot of the costs of the study
are costs that are already being born. Anyhow, if you have to you
know, if you have to havea PhD student studying a sample of something,
well it's going to be the samecost whether studying a sample from this
study or a sample from some otherstudy. Right, How hard sells it

(27:07):
to the university to fund this?Yeah, well it's interesting. I mean,
again, it's not a funding issueper se, because the funding is
the funding that is already happening throughthe labs. Like the institutional reputation that
they're worried about. That there isnot really a concern with institutional reputation because
of the way that we are framingthe study. Again, because we're looking

(27:33):
at this, we're looking at samples, We're looking at specimens that are something
right, and it's a matter offiguring out what they are. We are
not going out there. This isnot a study about looking for Bigfoot.
This is a study of looking atseemingly unusual physical samples to determine what they

(27:57):
are. Now we know that anumber of these samples are coming from the
Bigfoot community. They are the resultof folks having an experience they feel as
a sasquatch and then finding these specimensin connection with that. Well, they're

(28:21):
still interesting specimens, so we certainlydon't want to be prejudiced against those specimens.
In fact, I think, ifanything, the experiences that people are
having in conjunction with finding these typesof samples make them all the more interesting
to me for us to take alook at. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot

(28:42):
and beyond with Cliff and Bobo willbe right back after these messages. So
we talked a little bit about theuser's side, like someone like me who
might get a sample and want tosubmit it. We talked a little bit
about the the budget and how yougot this past the gatekeepers at the university

(29:04):
and basically how you sold sold theidea, which is brilliant. Of course,
then it's fantastic because working with unknownsthat could yield a real fantastic mind
altering a discovery is just brilliant.But what does it look like from your
side, like your team? Whenwhen after I fill out, I fill

(29:26):
out the computer survey thing, myname, this and that, whatever,
M I still have the sample,you get that email? What happens in
UM from that? And we'll justuse an example of a hair because obviously
if you have a bone or aflesh or blood tissue sample, it would
be probably a slightly different process.But we'll just deal with hair for now
because that's probably I'm guessing that'll probablybe with the majority of the samples you

(29:47):
get or hair samples. So whatwould that look like from your end from
when you receive that email to whenUM, I don't know when you put
the sample down? I guess Idon't know. Well, again, we
have to prioritize samples that we're lookingat. How would you prioritize something like
that? We don't have a folksask me, you know, what's your
formula? We don't have a setformula for that. But certainly what we're

(30:11):
interested in is we're interested in lookingat First of all, we're interested in
looking at samples that are that appearto be the most interesting, and that
appear to be the freshest, mostlikely to yield genetic information. So,

(30:33):
for example, if you were tooffer us a hair that you found twenty
years ago and it's been in yourgarage, that's going to be a much
lower priority than someone who's who says, hey, here's a hair that I
found last week, and by theway, I put it under a microscope

(30:53):
and it's got a little bit offlesh attached to it, and it doesn't
look like a known animal. Sure, sure, but now the user,
well, the users aren't going tobe able to determine that. That would
have to be I mean, onyour end, someone like me or something.
Yeah, sure, I've got amicroscope. I'm that level a nerd.
But the average Joe who may haveseen a sasquatch and wanted to submit

(31:14):
a sample, they would they wouldn'tknow that. So you just get a
hair and a story essentially on anemail. No, absolutely, and to
give you an idea. So there'sa sample that was offered to us that
sounds interesting because the person offering itreported seeing a sasquatch one night. He

(31:40):
said it was peeking out at himfrom behind a pine tree. He went
back the next morning and in thesap of the pine tree found a hair
stuck there, and so he collectedthat. And that was just several months
ago. That to me is muchmore interesting than this. Is not one
that was offered. This was somethingthat somebody talked with me about a couple

(32:04):
of years ago, someone who says, hey, I have a clump of
hair that I think is sasquatch hair. And I say, well, what
makes you think it's sasquatch hair?Why is it interesting to you? And
they say, well, I foundit stuck fifteen feet up in a tree.
And what else would be fifteen feetup in a tree? Could it

(32:24):
be the hair of a sasquatch?Sure, of course you don't know until
you look at it. But ofcourse there are plenty of other things.
There are things that climb trees,There is wind, There are birds that
use clumps of hairs nesting material,and they can fall down. You know,

(32:45):
there are lots of ways that haircould get fifteen feet up in a
tree. So again we have tolook at and it'll depend on how many
how many things are offered to us, but we have to be able to
put these in some sort of priorityorder, because we're not looking to just
test any and every hair that thatsomeone finds in the forest. Of course,

(33:07):
not so say you have a goodsample, say that this person who
saw the sasquatch and there's a hairassociated with it, or you know,
um, you get another sample thatseems very promising to you. What is
the process at that point I'm assuming, I mean, I'm just guessing here
to you'd probably put under a microscopefirst, talk to your microscope dude or
a gal, and then um,and then move forward from there or what

(33:28):
actually does happen after the point?Absolutely well, the first thing is obviously
yes, we will be looking atit microscopically. If we if we get
a specimen in and it looks,you know, like, for example,
this this hair that was found inthe in the sap of the pine tree,
if we put it under a microscopeand it looks exactly like the hair

(33:50):
of a gray squirrel, which arecommon to that area and climb up trees
all the time. If it looksexactly like that, it's a classic presentation,
and well we've identified it at thatpoint, we don't need to move
on to genetic analysis. To saythat's a great squirrel. But then you
know what we'll be doing is we'llbe looking at these things in step wise,

(34:15):
a step wise way throughout. Sowe'll be looking first, We'll be
looking first at the at the morphology, so again the appearance of these through
the microscope, seeing you know,what is readily identified. If we find
things that aren't readily identified, orthat look somewhat unusual or really unusual or

(34:37):
whatever it may be, that's whenwe'll move on to genetic analysis. And
we're going to proceed with that verycautiously because one of the things that we
don't want to do is we don'twant to be destructive any more than we
need to be. We don't wantto be destructive of the samples that we

(35:00):
seeve. And this is one thingthat told me that I had recruited the
right team was that our very firstteam meeting back when it was one of
my colleagues who said we need totreat every sample that comes to us as
precious, because these samples are goingto be precious to the people who are

(35:23):
submitting them. And I was like, wow, I couldn't have said that
better myself. And so we're goingto be proceeding very cautiously in the least
destructive ways possible, and we're goingto be. We will go as far
with the analysis as we need togo in order to determine what the sample

(35:46):
is. So with a hair sample, we'll you know, certainly looking at
it microscopically, first looking at themitochondrial DNA, and then again, if
warranted, taking that to the staffof looking at the nuclear DNA, looking
at the full GENO. So withhair samples and again correctly if I'm wrong,
I don't know very much in general, but there's no there's no nuclear

(36:09):
DNA, there's just mitochondrial DNA.Do you think that, unless, of
course you have the follicle if Iremember correctly, But let's just say that
you have a partial hair sample,and it could the mitochondrial be enough to
indicate the presence of a new speciespotentially? Yes, absolutely, m I

(36:30):
you know, I do think thatwe would we would want to try to
have multiple samples certainly where we wouldfind that. I do think that having
like one sample with mitochondrial DNA wasdifferent would be really really interesting, but
probably not enough you certainly to establisha species. You know. The interesting

(36:53):
thing is is that you know whenpeople submit a hair sample off times,
Yes, we don't know will thatsample have the follicle in it? Will
that sample actually have a skin cellstill attached where where it came out of
the body. And certainly a skincell would contain a complete genetic sequence.

(37:19):
So again you're you're absolutely right.Hair is generally not going to give us
a full genome, but a samplethat when thinks of his hair could potentially
do so. And I guess itdoesn't come down to one sample at the
end of the day, because thisis science and you want repeatability, and
certainly sasquatches are real animals, andpeople start sending you a flood of hairs,

(37:43):
a very small percentage of those hairswill probably represent sasquatch. And I'm
assuming by comparing the results of theseanomalous samples, that's where the real positive
affirmation is really going to lie.Is the repeatability of the same novel sequences.
Is that correct? Absolutely? Ifwe just get one novel sequence,

(38:07):
again, that's a really fascinating result. That would be that alone would be
enough to keep us looking and lookingand looking. Perhaps, um, but
yes, it's it's the idea ofhaving multiple of that, and so in
an ideal world, at a minimum, I think, if you're if you're

(38:30):
if if the idea is, ifyou're asking me, what would it take
to establish a species, I thinkthat actually as few as say, three
samples coming from three different locations butthat share the same novel sequence, I

(38:50):
would think that that that in andof itself, something as simple as that
simple ha ha, right, somethingis you know, as little as three
samples could could be enough to essentiallyprove species. Fantastic. Now, one
of the things that we spoke aboutwhen we were speaking in person last in

(39:13):
Tennessee, where I met you faceto face. Something I believe that sets
the study apart from the many manyother studies that have kind of come up
empty after all this time is thatthis study isn't dependent upon you. And
I think that's an important thing weprobably want to put out there because I
imagine a lot of our perhaps slightlymore conspiratorial minded listeners out there are thinking,

(39:37):
well, this is just going tohave more positive results, and the
results are gonna go missing. Youknow, the Smithsonian's going to take them,
the roth Child are going to sendtheir their spy team in and take
them or whatever sort of you knowfantasies are out there. I don't know.
I don't know. I'm not aconspiracy guy. I don't buy any
a lot of that stuff. Butwhat would stop the samples after they're submitted,
especially the positive hits, if sucha thing does exist, what would

(40:00):
stop them from being lost or mishandled, or or going into the Smithsonian where
all the illuminati of the world willburn them in some sort of ritual.
Well, um, sort of anabsolute catastrophe, and you know, we
don't need to talk about a nuclearevent or something like that. But now,

(40:21):
I mean, this is this iswhy I was determined to set this
up as a as a as areal study. This is not me,
as a factory member at NC Statesaying, hey, send me these samples.
I'd like to take a look atthem. I spent years putting together
the right team, going through thepaperwork with the university. As they said,

(40:45):
I had to go through this ethicsreview. Part of that ethics review
is having a plan so that whensomebody submits a sample and we say we're
going to give you your results,there is a plan in place that that
person will receive those results even ifsomething goes wrong, even if something happens

(41:07):
to me, if I die,you will still get your results. And
that's something that's very important. Yousay about all these studies that have happened
in the past, but there aren'tactually all these studies that have happened in
the past, Cliff, in termsof looking at them as actual studies.

(41:28):
There was the Brian psych study,which is the only other university study of
any alleged sasquatch DNA ever, andthat was a very limited study. They
looked at a very small number ofsamples. Other than that, folks looking

(41:52):
at these things in university settings havebeen individual researchers who have been doing this
on the side out of personal interest, as a favor to someone. In
a few cases, universities, Iknow some universities offer a similar service to

(42:14):
what commercial labs do, where they'lllook at a sample for the general public
pays to have those samples examined.But there hasn't been a large scale university
study period that's been inclusive of thispotential evidence. And that makes a huge

(42:34):
difference. Because I was talking witha bigfoot investigator a couple of months ago
who had collected some very interesting samples. A few years ago, a faculty
at a university I shall not namesaid hey, I'd like to take a
look at those in my lab.And he sent them off to this faculty

(42:55):
member who was very well intentioned,and just never got back to him,
never got back to him, nevergot back to him. And so I
asked him, I said, well, who was this? Let me try
to reach out the faculty of facultyand I found out that this factor member

(43:16):
was deceased, and I'm trying toI'm trying to get to the right person
in his former lab to find outwhether these samples are still around. But
I'm almost certain we're going to findthat when he passed away, they weren't
part of an official study, sothey just got discarded. It's what I'm

(43:36):
sure would have happened. When somethingis not part of an official study.
You're really reliant on You're really relianton the individual. And again, I
think a lot of very well intentionedfaculty have taken samples from folks and not

(43:57):
given back the type of type ofreport, the type of information, or
any information in some cases, again, despite the best of intentions. Stay
tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond withCliff and Bogo, we'll be right back
after these messages. So Cliff,you may recall several years ago we had

(44:27):
some conversations online and you had guessedin my university class, and thank you
again for that. That was awonderful time for the students. I am
still an educator at heart. Wellit shows and it's great. But at
that time you and I had discussedone on one. You had you had
come into possession of a very interestingsample, and I know you were saying

(44:52):
to me, Hey, I'd loveto send this to you. I'd love
for your folks to look at this. And I know at the time I
said to you, I said,hold on, hold on, I don't
want to take it yet. Idid not want to be that person who
take samples again with really great intentions, but outside of an official study,

(45:14):
because I feel like I owe itto folks that if they're going to submit,
they need to know that they're goingto get back good results, they're
going to get them back regardless again, regardless of me, and that they're
going to be treated with respect.And was that the Mattress prints is that

(45:37):
we weren't referring to. Indeed,Yeah, and I know we're talking about
ways that you might be able tosubmit part of that now, So I'm
gonna be talking that over with myteam at our next meeting to see how
we might work with a sample likethat. I was thinking massaking like the
other night as fallen asleep, andthese are the sort of things that put

(45:59):
me to sleep, I guess atthe end of the night, I guess,
although it gets me too excited andworried about stuff, so I can't
actually sleep. It's a horrible circularthing I live in. But I was
thinking maybe send you like a likea square centimeter or something like that of
a place where I know that it'sstepped and I don't know, there's lots
of ways we can do that.And also I did have the foresight of
collecting the soil off of the fabricitself, and I still have that in

(46:22):
my files. It has been refrigerated. Unfortunately I didn't was unaware of that
component, but it's in my filesin a paper bag. So there's also
that. I'll talked about that lateroff the air. Of course, back
to the question I was going toask as that you mentioned various other I
said, studies, but perhaps that'snot the right word projects that had have
been done over time. And Ididn't you mention to me when we were

(46:44):
in Tennessee a few weeks ago aboutusing or looking at least at other people's
data to kind of like in thesame way that doctor Haskell Heart did with
the Sasquatch genome project. They justused their data and came up with different
results. Are you looking for otherformer projects, I guess, and trying
to get ahold of their data aswell, And if so, for what

(47:06):
purpose? Well, yes, Ihave been trying to do that, um,
And that has been I've been tryingto do that over the last several
years. UM. And that's beena rather frustrating, frustrating process, Cliff.
And it's been rather frustrating because whatI find is that there really haven't

(47:28):
been that many analyzes done period.There really isn't data to look at hardly
at all. In fact, whenwhen Haskell Haart did his interpretation of the
catch him at all study data thatyou're referring to, um, ironically,

(47:51):
that is the only real data sequencingdata that has been made available by anybody
who's looked did alleged sasquatch samples.So one thing that the Ketcham team did
right was that eventually, at leastafter they self published their paper, they
did release that data, so thatHaskell and myself and others can take a

(48:15):
look at that. Now in thecase of that study, with the data
in hand, it's easy to seethat the interpretation that was given by that
team is wrong. Now Haskell haslooked at that and noted a few interesting,
potentially interesting things in the data,but these are really just questions at

(48:39):
this point. Yeah, And Ithink that's interesting because at the end of
the day, Haskell is not ageneticist. He's a chemist. He's a
retired chemist and just realized that well, biology and DNA that I mean,
we're just big old bags of chemistrywalking around talking to each other at the
end of the day. That's whatlife is, just chemistry essentially. And
I think he kind of taught himselfwhat he needed to know to kind of

(49:00):
do the examination of the data.So it's need that someone outside the discipline,
I think paid attention to it andis perhaps drawing attention to these things.
And it's maybe it's because he isoutside of the discipline. It's a
perfectly normal thing that he just sayesn'thave that knowledge to explain, or maybe
it's just a new set of eyeslooking at something from a different direction that

(49:22):
you wouldn't get from the inside ofthat discipline. Yeah, So what Haskell
has done there is he's raised areally interesting question, but it's a question
that simply cannot be answered with thedata that we currently have. The data
might be available for a couple ofthese previous studies, right, so does
the data do you any good ordo you actually need the physical samples to

(49:45):
make any progress on this? Well, the data, in one sense,
the data could do some good.And I think that one of the things
though, is that I've found thatthe data just si isn't there There are
On the one hand, I've foundthat there are far more rumors of genetic

(50:08):
analyzes having been done, in fact, overwhelmingly more rumors of genetic analyzes being
done than actual analyzes that have beencompleted. And it's really interesting to me
because, as I said, I'vespent years trying to track down every example

(50:30):
that I can of an analysis thatwas done the genetic analysis. And so
when someone says, oh, youknow, my friend had a sample tested
and it came back from the labas such and such. I've said,
okay, well who's your friend?May I contact them? And again and

(50:53):
again. What I find is Icontact the friend and they say, oh
no, that wasn't me, thatwas my other friend. Like oh,
okay, well what's your other friend'sname? And then I go and I
talk with that person and they say, no, no, no. I
didn't say that I had a geneticanalysis done. I said, the sample

(51:13):
that I found looked like the samplethat was featured on one of the Snellgrove
Lake episodes of Monster Quest where theygot such and such a result. And
I kid you not half a dozenof the specific DNA analyzes that had been

(51:36):
shared with me verbally, I tracedback to that one same episode of Monster
Quest where someone was talking about thatand it had become misinterpreted in a game
of telephone. Again, I thinkeverybody trying to be sincere, but everybody
believing that it was their friend whohad this sample tested. I have found

(52:00):
actually very few instances where there wasa sample actually tested or somebody claims that
they actually had it tested, andfar far fewer than that where somebody can
actually show me a report. Andso there really don't seem to be that

(52:22):
many practically none that have been done. So that's that's really interesting. They're
really we're operating in a space wherethere isn't really any data at all,
and so that's why we need toproduce some. Absolutely, And will the
data from this study be shared publiclyor will how will it be packaged up

(52:45):
and shared with other scientists even forthat matter, Yeah, definitely, the
data from from this study will beshared. I'm not promising a particular timeline
for that that. It depends ona number of factors and certainly depends on
what we find as to how wego about sharing that. It will be

(53:06):
public, yes, indeed. Nowwill the negative hits also be made public?
Like if you get a black bearsample, the black bear sample,
and that will be put out asblack bear Yes, yes, through the
public as well as the sample owner. Yes, that's the idea. Yeah,
we're planning, and you know,we're certainly planning publication out of this.
You know what we are obviously,what we publish and where we publish

(53:30):
and when we publish. All ofthese things are going to depend on,
you know, what are the resultsthat we are getting. There are quite
a few rather interesting results that wecould have. There are lots of things
that could help push science forward.I know that your listenership is particularly interested
in what if we were to findan unknown species, And in that case,

(53:57):
I think that's where it's particularly interestingbecause in that case we probably would
hold back at least for a whileon sharing publicly. We would certainly have
it peer reviewed, but from sharingpublicly the the sequencing the sequence data of
a novel species, simply because itwouldn't necessarily be ethical to to put that

(54:25):
information out there publicly until we understoodsomething about that species. What are its
numbers, are the what are thefactors that may be impacting it? You
know, what are its social customs? You know? These all these sorts
of things, the culture, ifyou will, those things would all be

(54:46):
very important because we don't know atthis page, I mean would we don't
have any idea. I mean,I don't have any idea whether such a
species even exist. If it does, what is it like? Is it
endangered? Do we need to makesure it's on the endangered species list before

(55:08):
we release this information? Are?What are those steps? Need to think
very carefully because we want to beethical about how we how we we release
not the information that it exists,but release specific information that could potentially be
used to threaten those species. Ifyou did get a positive and my god,

(55:32):
there's something out there, there's athing out there, and it's it's
it's it's here on the evolutionary tree, and blah blah blah, you had
all this that that you had allthe stuff that DNA could tell us about
the next step. The actually theactual ecological study of these things would basically
have to start from ground zero becauseof the dubious nature of the vast majority

(55:54):
of the data that has been gatheredthus far, even sighting reports. Now
luckily there's probably enough siding reports saidstatistically you could probably do some stuff and
squeeze some information out of it becausethe outliers would separate themselves. But between
the cultural and uh well, justthe filters that the investigators who listened to

(56:19):
these reports, who recorded these reports, even even they're like cultural perspective and
all that plut comes into play here. And this isn't a this is not
an objective database. There's a lotof subjectivity in here, as there would
be with any soft evidence, likelike like testimony. I imagine a thorough
ecologic study of these these critters wouldbe five or ten years down the road,

(56:42):
because scientists who've been denying their existencefor so long, no far less
than you know, us amateur investigatorsdo at this point, even though much
of probably what the vast majority ofbigfooters think or will probably be proven wrong
at some point, you know,or certainly vastly refined. Are you suggesting
that if you did get a hitthat you think would be strong enough to

(57:05):
prove the species at least a geneticistswho understand the sort of data, that
it may not be announced for untilan ecological study is done on the animal,
which could take five or ten years. No, No, I'm not
suggesting that. What I'm suggesting,though, is that if if, for
example, such a thing were shownand there were a specific you know,

(57:28):
there were specific novel DNA sequences thatidentified this species versus any other species on
the planet, right, which isthat that's what DNA does when you have
a you know, full genome,you have a new species, you have
known species. The problem then isthat releasing the particular sequence could potentially put

(57:52):
it in the hands of individuals orparticularly potentially corporations to create primers specific for
that species that could that could enablethe species to be tracked down, hunted,
so on and so forth, andso again we're talking, we're talking

(58:16):
a what if scenario here. Butit wouldn't be responsible of me too,
even if I think that there's avery small chance of that happening, it
wouldn't be responsible of me to notthink a little bit down the road about
that. But even thinking about thejust think, for example, about the
pharmaceutical industry. Well, the pharmaceuticalcompanies might be competing with one another to

(58:40):
try to track down such a speciesthat would presumably be closely related to human
because of the possible discoveries to beto be had there and the possible money.
Yeah. So I think the bottomline is just that you know,
not the not the fat active anew species, but specific information about that

(59:04):
species that could that could compromise apopulation. That's the information that might might
need to be kept very close tothe vest for a while. What's interesting
to me about this is the rangeof folks who are really excited about this

(59:24):
study. And I get it.I know that you know, some people
are using the term historic, andI have to confess, yes, it
really is to have the team that'sworking on this to have these things looked
at in a scientifically credible way thatthis is not just we're going to look

(59:50):
at eight or twelve or fifteen samplesand call it a day. It is
historic. I find support, onthe one hand, from folks in the
bigfoot community who are convinced that thiswill be the study that's finally going to
prove the Bigfoot as a species.I also have part of folks who are

(01:00:13):
more skeptical in their ideas, whothink, ah, this is finally going
to be the study that looks atlots and lots of the quote unquote best
samples and figures out that they're allknown species, and maybe this Bigfoot thing
will go away. I have peoplewho say, Oh, this is going
to find that Bigfoot is descended fromthe given family. I have others who

(01:00:37):
say, Aha, this is what'sfinally going to show that it's it's descended
from paranthropists. You know, everybodyhas their ideas, everybody has their their
thoughts as to what we'll find.I'm just really curious. I'm just really
curious to see what do we havehere, and it will be what it

(01:01:00):
is yet to summarize John Green intoHindon. Something is making these footprints,
and it sounds to me like you'rejust on the quest to find out what
it is. Except now we're livingin a more modern age. It's no
longer just footprints. It's actually DNAand biological material. So fantastic. Yeah,
I'm excited. Well, Darby,thank you so much for coming on
and sharing about the project. Thisis an exciting thing. I think any

(01:01:22):
bigfooter who is looking at the goalpost here and wondering, can we can
we move the ball? Well,I shouldn't use sports metaphors, you know
me, but man, any bigfooterthat wants some sort of resolution to this
should be excited about this project.And I can't can't do anything else but
wish you the best of luck.But I'll tell you I'm going to put

(01:01:42):
my boots on the ground in mybest areas, and I'm going to put
the word out to all the bestresearchers I personally know to participate in this.
And of course it is open toanybody. If you have our listeners,
if you have big foots on theproperty, this is an opportunity for
you to participate as well. Whoknows it could be your sample to actually
you know when game here, Soshow that the links are in the show
notes of places you can submit samples, like if you want to fill out

(01:02:07):
the entry form for Derby's project,the link is in the show notes.
And also something we didn't mention,this is an ongoing project. There is
I mean, Bart Derby said itseveral times. There is no, there's
not necessarily a budget that is goingto run out here, but it's not
like they couldn't use a little extramoney either. And there is a donation
form. We'll put that link inthe show notes as well. If you
want to throw fifty bucks or fivebucks, even how about a dollar anything

(01:02:30):
towards it. It goes straight tothe university. And this study is that
correct, Derby is a way peoplecan help out and participate. Yes,
any donations are a tax deductible donationsto the nonprofit, the North Carolina State
University, and they are are earmarkedfor my research area. But you'll see
online fantastic we're not shaking our tincup. But some people out there may

(01:02:53):
not have samples or may have nohope of getting any, and maybe they
want to participate in some of theirway as well. So there is that
any final thoughts Darby before we getgoing, Well, I really appreciate I
really appreciate y'all getting the word out. I think that we, you know,
folks, need to understand that wecan't find what we're not offered samples

(01:03:14):
of. So this is this isthe opportunity for those who who feel like
they have something compelling, This isthe opportunity to present it. This is
the opportunity to find out what itis. Bottom line, this is the
opportunity and it depends on you.Thank you very much, Darby. Really

(01:03:35):
appreciate your expertise, your talents andthe opportunity to maybe get this thing done.
And thank you so much for comingon the podcast. Yeah, thanks
for what you're doing. Thanks forcoming on, Sharon. All right,
folks, you here here, wegot Darby Orca from NC State University.
They're on the case. So let'sget up some samples and until next week,
y'all know what to do. Keepit squatchy. Thanks for listening to

(01:04:04):
this week's episode of Bigfoot and Beyond. If you liked what you heard,
please rate and review us on iTunes. Subscribe to Bigfoot and Beyond wherever you
get your podcasts and follow us onFacebook and Instagram at Bigfoot and Beyond podcast.
You can find us on Twitter atBigfoot Beyond That's an end in the
Middle, and tweet us your thoughtsand questions with the hashtag Bigfoot and Beyond