Ep. 247 - Kelly Berdahl

(00:02):
Big food and be on with Cliffand Bubo. These guys are your favorites,
so like say subscribe and raid it. I'm star and righteous on yesterday
listening watching Limb always keep its watchingand now your hosts Cliff Berrickman and James

(00:29):
Bubo Fay. Hello, Bobo,how you doing today? Good Cliff,
it's a really good day, actually, really good day. We have a
great guest lined up today, KellyBirdall from Montana. We'll be talking to
him in just a few minutes.Yeah. He's a good friend of ours
for a long long time actually too, so yeah, we're gonna get get
into that interview in just a fewminutes, really really soon here, because
we just talked a couple of daysago, I don't have much much of

(00:51):
an update for you except for museumstuff. Repping Meldrem at the museum this
week. But he's not the onlyone. The lovely and talented Matt Prue
will be out with his lovely andtalented wife Emily and going to have Michael
Freeman and Ken Gerhart staying at thehouse on Thursday night before we go to
squatch Fest this weekend. A lotof stuff going on, dude, I'm
bombed. I can't make it upthere. For especially with Proop in there.
I was like, gods, like, we could do this live,

(01:14):
like, you know, all threeof us in the same movie. Great,
but it's not working out. Well, you know, maybe there's a
chance later on in the year whereI was talking to Matt about maybe bringing
him out later in the year orsomething for an event, because people were
asking if Matt's can be speaking atthe museum anytime soon, so well,
there's a good reason to bring himout. I've also been going to get
a lot of feedback on some commentsI made a few weeks ago about the

(01:34):
Ape Canyon stuff. A lot ofpeople are asking there. I've been fielding
emails about what kind of event it'sgoing to be, and it's going to
be a small event, just sopeople know, like we'll have Mark Marcell
at the museum, and although thedemand seems to be there that maybe we'll
just do two nights in a rowwith Mark, which is great because that
means Mark's sleeping at the house andwe're hanging out having a campfire. And
there are a few people on theplanet that I love more than Mark Marcell.

(01:56):
Oh God, Yeah, he's thebest. He's the best. So
finish one of the displays that's goingto go hopefully later in the week as
well. Oh oh, check thisout. I have some connections and this
is pretty mature, but there's anever so slight chance that I have a
line on the original mining claim forApe Canyon, the vander Whitemine, like
the actual original. Yeah, Iknow, I'm not crazy. We'll see.

(02:19):
I mean, that's such a longshot, but there's actually a little
glint of hope in there that thatcould end up with the museum. So
anyway, yeah, cool stuff's happening. But that's insane. It is insane.
It is insane. If that happens, don't you worry. I'll be
telling the world about it. Butright now, it's just a it's a
big, big maybe in a bigbig question mark. So that's like kind
of the Magna Carta in your museumor something. Let alone the other thing

(02:43):
I told you about a couple ofweeks ago that has some comeing to fruition
yet, like the NYBC might behome to some really interesting uh you know,
artifacts, like legit historical artifacts,downright religious artifacts honestly, So yeah,
you told me those things. Ifthat works out, that's going to
be incredible. Yeah, cathedrals inEurope may have like the big toe of

(03:04):
Saint So and so man, butwe're gonna have some amazing things in the
NABC for people to come check out. And you know, pray too.
Yeah. Yeah, So a lotof stuff's happening at the NABC, of
course, and you know a lotof stuffs happening with the podcast as well.
And one of the things that we'redoing every single week I think everybody
knows is we have a member section. So after we talked to Kelly,
we're gonna be doing a whole newmember episode there and we're going to try

(03:24):
to answer some questions we didn't getto last time in our Q and A.
So if you want to become amember, go to the website to
hit membership. The website, ofcourse is Bigfoot to be on podcast dot
com hit membership stuff, and youknow, for five bucks you get another
hour of content every single week,every single week. In case you don't
have enough Cliff and Bobo in yourlife, here's your opportunity. And of
course Matt PreO it's often on thecall with us as well, So with

(03:47):
that though, Let's hop into theKelly bird All interview. I've been looking
forward to this for a little whilebecause Kelly's a good friend and I'm looking
forward to a great conversation. Well, folks, clipping Boba here for we
got a special guest today. Well, I guess we're special, but we
got an old buddy guy we've knownsince we got into the game. You
know, as far as meeting people, is a long time well respected researcher,

(04:10):
Kelly Burdall from Montana. Welcome aboard, Kelly. Welcome Kelly, Thanks
Cliff, Thanks Bobo. I wasgoing to say, Bobs, Barrickman and
bird All back together again. Itsounds like an awesome expedition team. I
think a law firm. Yeah,the three Bees and calls the Killer bees

(04:30):
Man. So like I was thinkingof just the other day, man,
we've known you a long time,A long time, Yeah, for sure.
You know, I think my veryfirst expedition was way back in ninety
nine with John Friedis, and that'swhen I met bobes for the first time.
Bobo was out there. John dida mission night Scream. It was

(04:51):
a thing through the BFRO back inthe day, and it was my very
first thing. I just honestly justdiscovered internet and search engines at our school
because we got computers and internet atour school, and anyway, locked onto
the BFRO and got on a mailinglist and John got me. I got

(05:11):
in touch with John and we hadMission Night Scream and and so you know,
we're pushing close to thirty years.I'd say, yes, No,
I mean I think I met you. I think I personally met you at
the the conference up in Bellingham.But what year was at two and five?
Two thousand and five? Yeah,yeah, so it's nineteen years for

(05:31):
us, and even on Bobo evenlonger. That's insane. Man. You're
a music teacher, right, Kelly, Yeah, yeah, I do.
I'm a high school band director outhere in Bozeman, Montana. I think
you're a math major. Over thirtyyears, so yeah, you know those
early Mission Night Scream things. Imean, it seems like that has kind

(05:53):
of been lost to history, butthat was a big thing for quite a
while. I mean, it wasan important event. Is one of the
old semi organized expeditions out there atthe time. And I think that Mission
Night Scream in one way or anothereventually kind of planted the seeds for the
BFRO expeditions that are still ongoing today. But Mission Night Scream was something special

(06:16):
because it was BFRO related, butit wasn't BFRO wasn't really sponsored by the
BFRO or John Fredis just kind oftake that and run with it before he
was Yeah, he was Fradus wasinto that thing. So, yeah,
tell us about those because that's somethinga little aspect of Bigfoot history that I'm
gambling that I'm betting here that most, if not you know, ninety nine

(06:36):
percent of our listeners probably know nothingabout. Yeah. Well, I think
John, being a former police officer, had he had a really great idea,
and I think that, like yousaid, it's a precursor to even
that call blasting idea that really wentviral basically for technique purposes. And so

(06:59):
his idea was, hey, man, let's get a bunch of people up
in some vehicles. Let's go wayup in these mountain roads and spread out
at almost quarter to a half mileintervals with John and a giant damn speaker
he had in the back of thetruck, and he would broadcast some alleged
bigfoot calls and the Ohio Howell asan example, across the you know,

(07:21):
the mountain canyons, and we'd bespread out probably over the span of four
miles and with each person with somekind of recording device. And then the
idea was if we did hear areply, then we would break into an
active response team people, maybe aperimeter team, followed by or prefaced by

(07:45):
maybe a quick response team that getstries to get in the location in an
effort to get some footage. AndI think that was the initial idea behind
those boats. It was a basicidea, but it was a great idea
and it worked. I mean hehad he didn't have success for a couple
of years he started, didn't haveany success with them. He got in

(08:07):
the right spots and he really startedstarted working. Well, this stuff was
mostly centered around northern California because helived up there in the Crescent City,
right. Yeah, he started offgoing down well, he first started going
down southern Humble in the uh RobertLetterman's arranger down there in Redwood State Park.
So what kind of results were obtainedon these expeditions. Well, I

(08:31):
remember on that first one, youknow, at the time, we were
still using that high pitched call thatpeople had attributed to a big foot,
but was later identified as a barredowl, and we we we had barred
owl responses, and so at thetime, you know, most of us
had assumed that was a sasquatch,and so so it was really exciting at

(08:52):
that time. But later, youknow, we realized this is probably just
that big screaming owl. But therewere, you know, the various things
happened. We had something close itwas crashing through the brush one of one
of the nights out there. Andas Bobo said, you know, John
had some good responses because he didtwo or three of those mission night screams.

(09:13):
I think I only went on thefirst one, maybe the second one,
but it spearheaded me in that samedirection, and I would borrow John's
equipment and go up to northern Californiaand kind of do that kind of thing
myself. Where were you living atthe time. I was living all the
way down in Bakersfield, California,Central California, and so it was a
trap. Man. I did notrealize the length of the state, you

(09:37):
know, so I would have todrive twelve to fourteen hours to get to
that northern California area. Were youaware that there were Sasquatches in the Sierras
at that time. You know,I was still brand new at that back
in the mid to late nineties,and so I didn't necessarily at the time.
It wasn't until I really started goinginto research into the topic, realizing,

(09:58):
you know, and the hairy Manpictographs are there, the Sierra's are
right there. I've got Sequoia,you know, a couple hours away.
I was just missing a gold mine. Actually, I had no idea.
Yeah, I didn't. I didn'tquite realize that either, because when I
started getting into it and back inyou know, ninety to ninety three four
or somewhere in there. Yeah,Krantz was the only go to really,

(10:20):
I mean for me, because Ilike the science side of things, and
Krantz focused on the Pacific Northwest becausethat's where he lived. But he did
comment it seems to be a lotof good habitat in the Sierras, just
not a lot of stuff in therecoming out of there to his ears at
least, you know, I hadno idea about all the stuff that was
being done there at the time untilI started teaming up with Kathy Musquitz.
At the time, it ounced Kathy'strain. She kind of showed me what

(10:41):
was going on out there in theSierras, and that became my go to
when I was living in Long Beach, California, you know, the southern
Sierras and whatnot right outside of Bakersfield, the Current River and all that jazz.
Yeah, exactly, Now, whatput Bigfoot on your radar or what
put freightus in those guys on yourradar? Really? After that? I
mean you said the Internet, Yousaid the Internet, but like, but

(11:01):
when you sat down at the computerto look at the Internet for the first
time, you had to type inthe word Bigfoot, Like there, what
was the seed of that? Theseed for me was probably overall looking for
something more than just our everyday lives. That's that's around us there. For
some reason, I've had this drivingpassion for more than what we all know.

(11:22):
And I remember I there was aan old book my dad had in
a bookshelf, a little paperback,but it's got a picture of the Patterson
picture frame of the Patterson subject onthe cover, and you know, but
it was for me, it wasjust anything outside the note the known quote
unquote known world that most of usare trapped in. And sometimes I feel

(11:46):
like it was the matrix right,there's there's got to be more out there,
and so yeah, so I've alwaysbeen fascinated with things outside, you
know, just the physical world that'sright in front of us. And and
so then it did lead me whenit be a day after work one time
at the school I was teaching at, like I said, we had just
got an Internet, and I justsaid Bigfoot. I just did a search

(12:09):
for Bigfoot, and then I sawa title that said Bigfoot Sounds, and
I was like, what the hell? And so I clicked on and that's
when I heard the Ohio howell throughthe BFRO site first, and I was
absolutely blown away. I had nevereven thought that, well, of course
they would make sounds, and sowas the That was the number one kickoff

(12:30):
for me. I investigated a littlefurther, got on the mailing list of
the BFRO because I was like,this is so interesting. And shortly thereafter
is when Fredis sent out the note, Hey, we're doing this expedition in
northern California looking for people to comealong. It's called Mission Night Scream,
you know, and the rest ishistory. On the Night Scream when that
you were on, was that theone in Bluff Creek. It was.

(12:52):
We did start in the Patrick Creekdrainage up there on the one ninety nine,
I believe, and then in factwe started the Patrick Creek Lodge for
a big steak dinner and just kindof get to know each other and I
think there were maybe about fourteen ofus all together, and then it did
lead down. We did that thefirst night, and then we did come

(13:13):
down and we did Bluff Creek also, and then like Bobo said, we
had moved over to I can't thinkof some of the names further to the
east and maybe the southeast from theBluff Creek area, hay Fork and those
kind of things. Oh wow,he covered a lot of ground. Yeah,
that's the one thing that might bedifferent is that it was about covering

(13:35):
as much territory as possible, tryingto get a vocal reply. What do
you remember about those events, BoboKelly's good looks. Yeah. Just after
that, I did a trip withJohn alone and we went to Patrick Creek
and he said, he goes,yeah, I've got reports out of here.
But and he lived in Christian City. So that's del Noark County and

(13:58):
Patrick Strickson County and so I wentout there with him, and that's where
I learned squatches because John was aterrible sleep app in you guy just snorting,
you know, like sounded like growlingand all kinds of just crazy sounds
come out, and he was loudsnore. And when we when he turned

(14:18):
in zip up his tent, hestarts snoring. And I know it,
within like ten fifteen, twenty minutes, there would be I'd hear something coming
up, and then we had thesetwo things walking around the camp on two
legs, and I was trying towake John up, and then I'd try
to wake him up and they'd stopmoving for like ten minutes and he wouldn't
wake up anyways. And so ye, that's why that's when I and I

(14:41):
ended up. The next time.I thought that I recorded him snoring.
That's why I used the snoring recordingin my tent. I actually had a
couple of approaches doing that. Sothat was one thing I learned early on
on those things. Stay tuned formore Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo
will be right back after these messages. So so Kelly, at the time,

(15:09):
you probably picked up a lot oftechniques and probably contacts and whatever from
these expeditions, because those are reallythe value of going on public expeditions is
learning new techniques and meeting new people. What did you do with that information?
Like, how did that help youin your own research? Sure?
Well that I tell you what thatmission night scream. You know, again,
not ever having been involved with fellowresearchers or any other people that are

(15:33):
interested in the topic, seriously interested. I wasn't sure what I was getting
into, Like, am I goingto get put into this pile of crazy
people? You know? I reallyknew. I didn't know what to expect.
And when I met John, Imet Bobo, and I Autumn Williams
was on there. Manny from Bedford, Oregon loved Manny. So I met

(15:56):
all these amazing people and it wasand it was so exciting. And the
idea of there's tangible there's tangible resultsout here that that can substantiate, you
know, what we're trying to findand put all those things together. That
was the impetus that put the permanentor put the hooks in me. I
shouldn't say permanent, put the hooksin me to really be serious about this,

(16:19):
and like wow, like my mindis blown. But it wasn't until
the next one when I stayed friendswith John and I asked if I could
borrow his blast, his broadcasting equipment, And that's when I took a small
group. I took three of mystudents, my high school students, my
sister and here fiance at the time, and borrow John stuff. We drove

(16:41):
all the way in northern California andwe went up Bluff Creek, and that's
when we had a major, whatI'll call a major incident at fish Lake.
Both you guys are familiar with fishLake, I'm sure, and that
was the absolute permanent hooks. I'min this top to bottom to the end,
because it was it was unreal thatwhat had happened there, well tell

(17:06):
us about it. So we haddriven up to the gate to go down
to fish Lake. In fact,it was either John or maybe through Bobo.
Through John. From Bobo, somebodyhad talked about what about fish Lake.
We've heard some stuff going on overat fish Lake, and so was
this was I believe either over springbreak or it really doesn't matter. But

(17:30):
the point is that the gate atthe top of the access to fish Lake
was locked. It was early enoughin the season. They don't have people
coming down there, so the gatewas locked. So we set up the
broadcast equipment. This is this ismid afternoon. We blew some calls across
the canyons, you know, setit out there as loud as we could,
just with the intent to try toattract anything. Put the stuff back

(17:53):
in the truck, locked it up, put on our packs, and we
hiked down the road, just walkedthe road down to the like, which
was about three mile walk. Therewas one other car there, those folks
had we met them on the wayout. They got in the car,
they drove away. So we arealone in this this drainage up here,
and so we get down. Weget to the campground. Literally, it's

(18:15):
the campground at the lake. Youknow, it's a it's a campground area.
And it wasn't week They're about fivesix pm. It was about nine
nine thirty and we're putting cooking alittle bit of dinner and setting up the
tents, and all of a sudden, about fifty yards away from us,
we hear this whistle, like twoshort whistles, and then it was answered

(18:38):
by the most god awful scream Icould ever imagine, the type of scream
that feels like it's peeling the skinoff your face. It defies the scription.
Of course, this is before wehad you know, automatic sound activated
recorders. I mean, we hada freaking cassette recorder where I have to
hit record with your thumb in orderto you know, to actually record anything.

(19:03):
And so we missed that recording.But it was the most frightening thing
for all of us there. Ofcourse, you know, I'm way into
this, but that's scared the crapout of me, and the other five
people were like ready to die intheir shoes. So finally we settled.
Now, you know, we flippedon a couple of flashlights. We looked
over there. We didn't see anyeye shine. We didn't see we didn't
see anything that could indicate what thatcould be, you know, And in

(19:25):
my mind it's like, well,I know that mountain lion screams can be
terrifying, and that would be afine explanation if you didn't whistle the first
time, you know. All right, So one example, well, let's
fast forward three hours later. It'sabout midnight, midnight thirty, and we
are settling in for the night.A couple of us are standing over the

(19:45):
campfire, and the young kids arein the tent and they're they're nervous,
but they're going to they're ready togo to sleep. Whatever it was circled
around behind the camp to the exactopposite side. So again I said,
the first one was about fifty yardsaway. This was about twelve yards on
the opposite side, through a bigwall of brush, but clearly in the

(20:06):
campground. The same sequence, weget the two whistles, and then even
closer and more insane scream right inour faces. You know, we hit
the record on everything, bust outthe two million candlepower spotlight. All you
can see in the video is justthe foliage reflecting the giant light. You
know. It's thick brush on thatwall right there. And so we're just

(20:29):
like freaked out, you know.And and so then we're looking around.
I see something move. I lookover, and this little fox comes out
and kind of trots away, andwe were like, oh, okay,
that's what it is. The foxhas a has a really big defense mechanism
to find off larger predators. Andit was everything we needed just to rationalize

(20:52):
our fear at that time. Becauseit was so close. We didn't have
any weapons. We just we're justyou know, ignorant kind of eye eve
new researchers. But that was enoughfor us to settle down. And then
again about five hours later, itwas about five I remember five twenty three
am. I hear the whistle again, and for some reason, I'd just

(21:12):
woken up and I hear the whistleagain. It screams in the middle of
our camp again. But I'm sotired and distraught and mentally just like fried,
like what the hell is going on? And some kids are yelling like,
mister birdle, that's just a fox, right, And I couldn't hear
what he was saying. I wasyelling. I'm like, speak up,

(21:33):
I can't hear you. You know, we're all just derailed here, and
so whatever, me raising my voiceactually sent it off pretty quickly, and
we heard it scream one more timefrom the forest as it kind of took
the paths around fish Lake, andthat was the last we heard of it.
So and it really wasn't until laterthe afternoon of that same the day

(21:56):
the next day that we sat andreally thought about it, and I said,
you guys, this fox thing isnot sitting well with me and everybody
agreed, and we're like, thatwas not a fox. That was so
immensely powerful that sound, and wekind of said, it sounds like a
mad woman, like a crazed womanof the of the woods, which doesn't

(22:17):
make any sense, but you know, it was with depth. And so
that was the defining moment for mefor sure, that holy grat there's something
really big happening out here to thisday of the thing that scares me those
about sasquatch, like as far asgetting hurt by one is having a heart
attack when they do that scream frompoint blank, like in the dark,

(22:40):
like hidden just out of view,and just the blast is so just so
overwhelming and tremendously tremendously big and loudand hits you just like you feel it
through your whole body. It's like, man, you could really have a
heart attack in one of those things. Right well, after these events,
the early days of your field experience, you became a bfro o AT investigator

(23:00):
around that time, I'm guessing,and you're still living in California. So
do you remember any particular citing reportsor events that you were involved in that
you think would be fun to listento? Honestly, because I left shortly
thereafter to go to Montana. Tocome to Montana. It wasn't until Montana

(23:22):
that, you know, it's alittle bit more of a You got a
lot of people in California that areinto Bigfoot, looking into it, researching
whatnot. And I felt like outin Montana it was quite substantially less folks
out here, you know, andyet many stories going around. So it
wasn't really until out here that Istarted talking to folks and hearing the different

(23:42):
stories and getting connected with BFRO reportsand that type of thing. So I
would I would say one of themost kind of surprising ones that I had
out here was I think Matt calledme personally or emailed me person and said,
hey, we've got this. We'vegot this thing that happened in North

(24:03):
Dakota. We had a flap inNorth Dakota and we're looking for an investigator
to go and like, my grandparentslive out of there. My parents are
from North Dakota. And I waslike, yeah, man, I could
check it out. You know,it's an eight hour drive, but it's
big for I'll do it. Butat the same time, I'm thinking,
have you guys seen North Dakota.What the hell are you talking about?
You know, it is like theworst drive from like Mandan to Fargo.

(24:26):
It's terrible. But this, thisparticular incident happened up at Newtown, North
Dakota, and it was which isit's about fifty miles north of Dickinson,
right off the Dickinson's right on thenine ninety four, and in fact it's
right near that huge oil boom afew years ago. But this is way

(24:47):
back and I don't know, I'dsay like oh four or so. And
what had happened was there. Itwas a flap of probably four different sightings,
and it was so interest because itwas in the winter, and there
was a guy that worked in thetribal office. It was on a reservation,
and he had taken photographs of aline of tracks along the highway,

(25:15):
and so we had a photograph ofa line of tracks. So as I
went up there, we arranged tomeet with the folks at the tribal office.
And hearing that somebody was coming totalk about or ask questions about Bigfoot,
and people just started showing up.It was really interesting and so as
we put it together what happened thefirst incident was north of Lake Sakakawea as

(25:38):
while they call it out there,and there was a mother and two or
three young kids. The kids wereoutside playing right next to a cornfield or
some field, and a bigfoot hadstepped out and walked along the edge,
and of course just in doing soterrified the kids and they the mom heard

(26:03):
them screaming. The mom saw itas it went into the field and kind
of dispeared and all that, andeverybody came running inside. We tried to
talk to the mom and have,you know, just to interview her,
and she absolutely refused. She says, I want my kids to forget this
ever happened. And I'm thinking,you know, I've been a teacher for
a long time, that's not goodchild psychology. That maybe to repress this

(26:27):
experience, right, and so anyway, so we had no luck there,
but through the course of the investigation, what we realized is that somehow it
came from up there in the northernpart, came down, then it walked
across the frozen lake Soakakawia, whichis almost a mile across frozen ice wide

(26:48):
open. Of course, probably didit at night, right, But I
just thought that was so interesting thatit just came across the entire lake and
based on where the next incident was, and it was another gal who was
working in her kitchen, working inher house, and I don't know if
she heard something outside, and maybeshe's standing at the sink and washing dishes,
but she looks up at the windowand it's staring at her through the

(27:11):
window, which for any normal person'sgoing to scare the living crap out of
you. So she was just absolutelyfreaked. I think we talked to her
for a little bit, and itshortly after she screamed or whatever, it
took off, and then it wentthrough another person's property and there was a
brief sighting there, and then thefinal sighting was these three guys were in

(27:33):
a pickup truck and they're driving southon the main highway that heads to Dickinson
and there it is walk They cresta hill on their truck and in broad
daylight, there's the subject walking downthe side of the road away from them,
so they see it's back. Itturns and looks at them and then
just jumps, jumped, just goesoff the edge of the road down into

(27:56):
a little ravine and kind of disappeareddown there through the light timber and brush
that they have there because the locationis right adjacent to the the Teddy Roosevelt
National Park, which is the badLands of North Dakota, and a lot
of those little ravines are filled withtimber and brush. It's really interesting terrain

(28:17):
and wind blown and whitewashed, andyet there's there are all these pockets of
timber and whatnot, and so andso we did talk to two of the
guys, the two younger guys inthe pickup truck, and they both verified
that. We talked to the guywho took the photographs. I asked if
I could have a copy of thephotograph of the line of tracks, you
know, and he said no,no, I'm hoping to sell these,

(28:37):
and I said, good luck.And but what was probably most telling is,
you know how the beliefs can beso strong amongst Native American folks,
and the shortly, like within acouple of weeks after that sighting in the
pickup truck, the older gentleman whowas driving passed away unexpectedly, and so

(29:00):
that was a real tough thing forfolks to even want to talk about it,
because their belief was that if yousee one of these things it's coming
to tell you that something bad ishappening. And then the man died two
weeks later, and so it wasa very tender, and I say tender
like sore, raw experience for folksto share those stories of what happened.

(29:26):
But I was so surprised, youknow, to see that happen in North
Dakota again rolling hills or flat fieldswith very little cover. But I think
the timber, any kind of coverand brush and that type of thing does
follow the Missouri River all the wayback into Montana, and I think,
I think it can hold some cover. But to me, it was still

(29:51):
surprising. Second most surprising thing wasthen talking to all the folks again.
Like I said, we're sitting inthis conference room in the tribal office,
and these folks coming in and comingin, and somebody else has a story,
and then they would tell somebody andthey would show up and they were
just a dozen stories. Is Iknow both of you guys are really familiar
with on the reservations. You justget so many stories and it's so just

(30:17):
common knowledge, you know, aboutall of these these incidents or reports that
these folks have, And I wasjust kind of blown away at how many
folks had had stories out there.Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and beyond with
Cliff and Bogo. We'll be rightback after these messages. That leads me

(30:44):
to another one here in Montana.Obviously, in Montana, we have a
number of reservations here, and youknow, and sometimes it's tough to get
in touch with some tribal folks thatwe're willing to even reply to you and
talk to you about anything. Butsomehow, I, one of my best
friends, ended up marrying a galwho is part of the Flathead Coote and

(31:07):
I tribe up by pouls in Montana, up there at Flathead Lake, and
got me in touch with a galwho she worked with who has a friend
named Alan, and Alan and Iare still friends to this day. And
Alan had gave me a lot oftips about the area up there, and
again on their reservation. It's veryvery common knowledge that you know that they're

(31:27):
up there, And in fact,Alan was working on a logging crew and
as they were coming down at theend of the day, they're driving down
a gravel road and he happens tolook up at the side of the road
and there's one on this open hillside, there's a bigfoot running across, and
he said it unleashed a scream athim and then sprinted up and disappeared into

(31:48):
the timber. And so he's beenhe's been actively investigating too, and had
had some really cool experiences out there, he shared with me. And so
I've been able to out there acouple of times as well, you know,
and talk to different folks, butmostly hang out with him and talk
about just some of those experiences,you know, the typical well we went

(32:08):
through and when we came back downthe road there was a log laying over
the top of it, or we'vegot these reply wood knocks, or we've
heard some distant vocalizations. And there'san area on the south end of that
reservation called the Jocko. They callit coincidentally enough, right, they call
it the Jocko and that's their wildernessarea that frankly, no white man can

(32:30):
go. And I really wanted toinvestigate that area. And they'll say,
well, you can go up tothe edge and this is as far as
you go. You guys can't goin here. And they were very gracious
to me, you know, inallowing me to just check out the area
and everything, but that's the onething. You can't go into that area,
and that does border what's called theRattlesnake Wilderness, which is straight north

(32:52):
of Missoula and out of Missoula,and that Rattlesnake area has come a number
of reports too, So you know, it's a thick timbered mountainous area,
and and it's at the southern endof the Mission Mountains, which are really
magnificent, super steep, beautiful mountains. And you know, without a doubt
there's there's an active population up theretoo. In your general area in Montana,

(33:15):
I don't think there's a lot ofinvestigators out there doing much. I
mean there's some. I know thatthere's a handful of them, but it's
not like you know, say Washington, where you throw a rock and you're
gonna bring down a couple of bigfootresearchers. You know, out of Montana,
there's just fewer bigfooters doing things.But you're one of them, and
a lot of stories, I imagine, do come your way. And you're

(33:36):
located in Bozeman. Are you findingthat the reports come out of the same
areas again and again or do youor they're a little bit more random.
I think what you'll find in Montanais there are pockets of mountainous area.
For instance, if you imagine thetown Great Falls, it's kind of like

(33:58):
the center of the state. Alittle bit to the west inside and anything
east of Great Falls you have asudden mountain range that pops up, surrounded
by hundreds of square miles of ranchesof just flat or rolling hills. And
then a little bit further there'll beanother mountain range that pops up as you
of course, as you go furtherto the northwest, it's heavy timber mountains

(34:22):
going right into the panhandle of Idahoand eastern Washington. And so even here
in Bozeman we have kind of thesame thing. We're in a valley and
directly to our northeast is a mountainrange that probably runs twenty thirty miles,
and directly south of us is anotherrange, and it's more of a a

(34:45):
thicker, wider chunk of mountainous areathat will go south all the way down
into Yellowstone. And so I thinkwhat we find is you'll get the reports
from those pockets of areas, andso I obviously they tend to correlate with

(35:06):
those little pockets of mountains. Asyou get into the further northwest, I
mean there's some serious remote wild areas. The Bob Marshall Wilderness, for instance,
is an immense amount of a millionacres essentially square acres that that it's
roadless, it's wilderness, you know, and people just don't go out there

(35:29):
unless you're on foot, and it'sso immense that they're just there's just not
a tangible correlation between the population andthen going out there because there's so few
folks that that really get into thethick of it there. So I think
it also correlates with the sighting reportswill correlate with where people are going.

(35:51):
You know. For instance, there'san area south of Great Falls, between
Helena and Great Falls, little drainagearea called the Deerborn River, and there's
been a number of reports that havecome out of the Deerborn and so it's
just you know, it's where peopleare going to recreate and catching the edge
of some of these wilderness areas.And as I was saying about Bozeman,

(36:14):
you know, when you guys wereout here with the Finding Bigfoot show,
we talked to a friend of minenamed Redge and so directly west of Bozeman
is another mountain range that kind ofruns north south, you know, and
then it'll stop and and and there'sbeen a number of reports between here and
Butte, you know. And you'vegot that the high nineties, the major

(36:35):
major thoroughfare through the state, andthose there are reports that come from that
area. And there's a big recreationarea even in an off road ATV area
just north of that that freeway thata lot of people will drive through there,
and yet you still have you havereports from that area too, So
so I guess it's it's random inthe sense that the state is so damn

(36:59):
big, but they do tend tofollow areas of forests and mountains or even
river bottoms. And the case inpoint is as the Missouri River makes its
way meanders from the Great Falls areasstraight to the east, there have been
a number of reports on the riverbottoms between Great Falls and say Sydney,

(37:22):
Montana, which seems surprising because that'sstraight open, similar to North Dakota terrain.
But there have been a number ofreports, and those of course coincide
with Native American reservations. So Kelly, I mean like being a you know,
a Copper Forest ranger park ranger.Like everyone knows that that's a great
way to get reports or here stuff. But you being a high school teacher,

(37:44):
like a relatively large high school,you know for Montana, you must
get reports that way through the kidssince you're known there's a bigfoot guy,
and like you get a little reportslike former students and like parents of students
that sort of thing. Is thata great spot for you, there's away
from you to generate reports. Absolutely, Yeah, it's a great way to

(38:06):
generate that. I'll tell kids aboutsome of my history and share some stories
with them, you know. Andit's interesting too, is more and more
kids come through. I feel likethere's a higher and higher level of skepticism,
which kind of surprises me a littlebit. But it's my job to
educate, so that's what I'm goingto do. But yeah, it's a
huge network. You know. It'llbe talking about something and after class,

(38:30):
maybe a kid comes up, oreven in the middle of class because kids
like to raise their hand and getsome attention, and the kid will say,
spurt all my uncle so blah blahblah. You know, gives me
a story or totally random opportunities fallinto my lap, which could be a
coworker of mine who said, yeah, whatever, bigfoot, Yeah whatever,

(38:52):
you know. And then he's outelk hunting one time, not too far
from here actually, and he said, yeah, out really early, was
still dark. I was torn tryingto get to my spot. So it's
about five in the morning, andI hear the loudest, deepest call I've
ever heard come out of these mountains, and I said, could it have

(39:13):
been cattle? Sometimes they run cattlethrough there. He's like, I wondered
that too. He's like, noway, that was not cattle, no
matter what. And then in thesame area, like a couple months later,
he's hunting Summit generally the same area. Thought he saw something brown through
the forest and he's ready. He'slike, oh, it's an elk.
I'm going to go down there.But as he's watching it, he sees
legs, like bipedal legs, taketwo steps and kind of disappear in the

(39:36):
brush, and he's like, whatthe hell you know? So and so
it's just happened to be a guyI happen to work with at that time.
And then I have a custodian cometo me and tell me Hey,
I know you do Bigfoot. Mybuddy went up with his wife. They're
backpackers, they're way up in theback forty and they were harassed all night
long. Just growled at green dad, branches, broke, dirt thrown,

(40:01):
I mean, everything was crazy.And he said his wife they've been doing
this their whole life. His wifewill no longer go in the mountains with
him, period. Paragraph And I'mlike, tell me where it is I
need to go, you know,And the guy says he thinks it's too
dangerous. He doesn't want to tellanybody. And I'm like, dude,
so you know, so I justI sit there helpless sometimes, you know.

(40:23):
Or here's another one. As Imentioned Reg before, he's the guy
who had the sighting that ran acrossthe interstate up on top of the Butte
Hill that Cliff was reenacting some yearsago. And Reg just came into my
office one day to look for abass player. He needed a bass player
for the band. He runs andthen he looks at the wall behind me.

(40:44):
He says, so you're into bigfoot, huh. I was like,
yeah, that's cool, and Ido that and he says, well,
I saw one, and I said, what he says, well, I
saw one it ran across and youknow, and that's how Reg and I
met, basically, and that storyjust fell into and it's pretty legit because
he was never looking for publicity,you know, and he just told it

(41:05):
as it were. And another kidwho's whose trains horses and rides horses in
this arena, and the gal thatowns the horse ranch or the arena told
her that she had a sighting.But I had to go to extreme lengths
just to find out, find out, find the gal, you know,
it's to make contact with the gal. And she told me, in fact,

(41:27):
that was one that Bobo had totry to reenact on a major road
just south or just north of Bozeman. And when you guys were out here
too, and she wasn't looking forpublicity, it just stumbled across into my
lap. And so I do finda lot of those things happening, and
it's really fun. And I'm sureas you guys find too. You know,
you've got a little bit notoriety withyour faces and your shows and whatnot,

(41:51):
but as people hear your story,if you're out to dinner with a
group or and somebody says, callI hear you do some bakefoot stuff,
then it lends itself to another,Yeah, my sister in law or blah
blah blah, and those stories juststart popping in. But for sure,
you know, the high school isa pie slice of all of society,

(42:12):
right and and with that you getall different types of networking capabilities. Stay
tuned for more Bigfoot and beyond withCliff and Bogo will be right back after
these messages, Kelly, I waswondering, what patterns have you noticed even

(42:37):
though over the twenty years now researchor in your your zone in Montana,
what do you what do you seemlike we're settings like elevation wise, like
certain times of the year. Andthen what food sources have you seen like
or hear about them repeatedly? Goingto man, you've got things from the
spring as the thaw happens, youknow, and that's you're not going to

(43:00):
get nearly as much evidence as itwere in the winter, I feel because
you have so fewer people generally speaking, that are actually in the mountainous areas.
Because frankly, the Forest Service there'stwo steps here. The Forest Service.

(43:21):
They first of all, they shutoff all the little back roads that
you could go just about anywhere.And that's one thing I've always noticed about
Bluff Creek is, Man, you'vegot a paved road that will drive like
eighty miles anywhere in the mountains,and then there's offshoots there. I mean,
your access is almost unlimited in Montana, at least in our area.

(43:42):
But I think generally speaking, thefish, Wildlife and parks have basically said
in the Forest Service, actually thefor Service has said that we're going to
close us off because we want tokeep it more pristine, and so they
closed off so many of those littleoffshoot roads into that here too. Bluff
Creek's been way shut down like thatwhole like yeah, like all the forces
out here have then shut down,like they use there's always an like they

(44:07):
always have some kind of and otherbudgets are less and road maintains is expensive.
But they decommissioned to eighty percent ofthe roads out out here. I
did not know that. Yeah,so you know, so then you you
couple that with in Irony there tome is okay, we're going to try
to maintain this as a as awilderness area, but we're going to concentrate

(44:27):
all the human visitation into just theseareas and just beat the tar out of
it, right. But secondly,in the winter, then they close off
the main tributaries off the main roadentirely because you know, people are going
to try to get up there,and they're going to spend millions of dollars
trying to rescue all these idiot peoplewho don't understand snow driving or what have

(44:49):
you. And so and so theaccess in the winter, basic is what
I'm saying is you have so fewerpeople going into the back country in the
winter, relatively speaking, compared tothe summer months. And so I think
it's hard to gauge a good weatheror a season pattern for that type of

(45:10):
thing. I know there was areally I had a report of a long
line of tracks in the snow.This is years ago on the western side
of it's called Baldy Mountain, justto the west of excuse me, just
to the east of Helena's Canyon FerryReservoir. It's one of the biggest freshwater

(45:31):
reservoirs in the state. And anduh, you know, just a long
long line of tracks in the snow. You know, as you guys well
know get you get both and thenand then the spring thaw was where they
revealed that footprint which brought the Findingb foot team out here, that footprint
that was submitted to Bfroro by thosefolks in the mud which is just in

(45:52):
the drainage south of Bozeman right here. So I don't think I give you
a really good ants are in termsof seasonal patterns. No, you didn't.
And I just honestly, I justI think it's it's that and the
extent of the maybe we have seventeenmillion acres of forest in Montana or in

(46:16):
Montana, and it's kind of like, man, how do you even determine
that? You know? And andthen in all fairness, I've been just
kind of unplugged a little bit,having young kids and and so just trying
to start getting back in the gameand really getting after this again. I
will say to answer your second question, the food, the food options are

(46:37):
immense. You know, You've gotyou've got all kinds of freshwater fish in
all the waterways in Montana, includingshellfish. We got you know, all
kinds of you call them crayfish orcrawdads, but they're they're rampant through the
streams. And you've got any amountof small mammals from we got the woodchucks

(47:00):
to rabbits, to squirrels, toraccoons, porcupines if they want to go
that route, you know, andthen a massive amount of deer and especially
elk. The elk population is reallyhigh right now in Montana, and in
fact, the fishing game are lookingat public comment and how to manage these
massive alkords and so, you know, and not to mention berries, why

(47:22):
do we have such a huge populationof bears, because there's also an immense
amount of natural wild berries throughout throughoutall of our deforested areas in Montana.
Well, Kelly, it's been greatreconnecting with you. I mean, you're
an old friend that we never neverhave a chance to get together. That's
one of the greatest regrets about findingBia going off the air is that I
don't get a chance to see myfriends that I would see every once in

(47:45):
a while because I'm not traveling extensivelylike I used to see, or like
I like I used to do.And I don't think i've even seen you
since we filmed in Bozeman. Iknow, we reach out every once in
a while and say hi and thestuff, but it was great to reconnect
with you once again. So wegot to make sure that we do this
little bit more often. Yeah,definitely, I feel the same way.
And you know, there's the peoplelike minds and like purpose are just you

(48:09):
know, they are special people inour lives. And I definitely appreciate the
time I've had with both you guysand learned from your expertise, and you
know, and hopefully we all learnfrom each other. And I just love
hanging out with you guys too,And so anytime you're in the area,
you let me know, and I'dlove to love to see in person.
Yeah, Kelly, thanks so much, and good luck all your adventures you

(48:30):
got going on, and say howto the kids for us, I certainly
will. Guys, thanks so muchfor the time. I appreciate it,
all right, bar all right,folks, hit like hit share, give
us some comments on Google Reviews.We appreciate it very much, and until
next week, you all keep itSquatchy. Thanks for listening to this week's

(48:53):
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