Big food and be on with Cliff and Bubo.
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Just on us today listening watching lim always keep.
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And now you're hosts Cliff Berrickman and James Boobo Fay.
Hello, Bobo, Matt. How are you guys doing?
Pretty good? Happy new Year?
Almost huh it's coming, whether ready or not.
I'm ready?
Yeah, why not? Twenty four has been good.
Though, yeah, no coing plasure for me. Very good.
Well, pro you're back there somewhere, aren't you.
I am indeed celebrating the disclosure of an awesome year. Twenty twenty four was indeed good.
Yeah yeah, So end of the year episode. So we're going to be looking back at this year and hopefully and maybe a looking at head a little bit to twenty twenty five. Hopefully there's a good couple of good things on the horizon out there. So what do you guys think here?
The highlight?
Yeah, highlights, I mean a couple of the big ones for me of course, or you know, every year we start and we're doing it again. This year is squatch Fest in January. I love squatch Fest. It's easily one of my favorite gigs. Number One, I can drive there. That's always a pleasure. You know, it's an hour and a half from the house or something like that. I really appreciate that. But also the roster of people coming to speak every year is just fantastic. Last year we
had Meldrum. He's not gonna be on it this year, I guess, but but last year we had Meldrum and Matt Pruitt and a handful of other people that make my day as well. And a lot of people just pop by to say hi too, Like where else can you go to a conference and you know, have Mark Marcel come by to say hi because he wasn't that far away, or you know, or Chris Spencer or Shane cor Olympic Project guys usually speak there, so if they
have a booth, that was a great gig. I always look back on that one fondly and I always look ahead to that one and to a patient.
Only been to one, and it was that's why I met Mark Marcel. I was liket this homeless guy in here. Keep an eye on him, so I'm going to steal something, and it is Mark Brcell.
I was like, no, way.
I had a great gift idea for Mark Marcel I was gonna and it's a long term one. And I don't know if Mark listens to the podcast or not. But if he does, sorry Mark, And if you don't, good.
He strikes me as someone who does not listen to podcasts.
That's what I think too.
He seems like someone who more listens to like the grammarphone, you know what I mean.
He does.
Yeah, yeah, one of those record players with the horn, yeah, instead of a speaker.
Totally. Yeah.
I want to get him a gift. I want to buy him like a variety pack of socks, but then pull him out and mismatch him so none of them match the other one, and then like ball him up like we do, you know, And then I'll give him like a half dozen socks that don't match one another. And then the following year, for his birthday, I'll give him the other half, you know, the other set that doesn't match. Since he matches his socks by thickness instead of color.
The Hill insist to come from a good will and be used.
Well, well, it'll come with goodwill.
I love that guy. I think if you could instantiate the Pacific Northwest into a single being. It would be Mark Murcell.
That's a pretty good representation.
I'd say Mark is great.
That would be a good gift idea, very creative and generous.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's kind of hard to believe that Squatchfest was almost a year ago, because I feel like I was just there and just at your house, and now we're getting ready to do that again, Like, oh, that was like the other day, but now it's happening again because it was a year ago, because it's been a crazy,
hectic year. Well, another great thing about that trip is that our friends who were the you know, the Bluff Creek Bigfoot guys, Doug Shay and Todd Samples and Carrie, you know, they came up for that trip and decided to make a day trip before squatch Fest started and had a sasquatch siding before the conference, and then you and I and my wife Emily got to go out there with him, and there were still tracks left in the ground and Emily got to cast one of those tracks.
We did a podcast episode about it, you know. It's kind of one of our earlier episodes in the year, episode two hundred and fifty and so that was a super eventful weekend, and I guess your museum members would know, like we filmed the video one of the secret spots one night and then filmed a lot of this stuff from that investigation with Doug and Todd and Kerry, and so a lot happened that week.
I still hadn't even I have not even made that the footage that we got up at the sighting location into a museum video yet. I've been kind of crunched for time, as I always am, and I want to make that one spectacular because not only did you and I and Emily go up there on Sunday after the event with the witnesses, I think I went up there three more times, at least two, but I think I went up there three more times afterwards, and I filmed every one of them, and on one of them we
got a vocalization like Keith and I were there. We're on our knees looking at a track and then off the hills. So and we happen to be recording video at the time. So so much happened with that, and we got so many casts, and it was such an interesting circumstance because the guys didn't see it for very long,
but they got a good enough view. We found about one hundred and fifty yards of tracks, We found hand prints, we found where the things sat down in the ferns and waited for the dudes to go away, and then we have vocalization on the follow up stuff. Yeah, so
much happened. I've wanted to really really focus and make that an excellent video because a lot of times I'm doing these things kind of you know, I got three or four days to pieces video together, and I just feel like that one deserves more time and more attention. So I've not been able to do that yet, but maybe I'll do that for the one year anniversary. You know, maybe I'll do that for the last one in January. Because this week I'm also up against the wall. I
have another video to make. So Shane Corson and I went out to a spot we call it the Outer Rim because it's pretty hard to get to and it's totally far away. I started going there last May and we so found footprints, seventeen inch footprints several times up there. So I brought Shane Corson up there with me and I said, hey, I want to show you these spots where we got these footprints, and we found a ton more a ton of footprints cast of like eight or
nine of them that one day, three different individuals. It was fantastic. So that's the one I'm piecing together this week for the museum members.
What was the story that made you send of those guys out? There's something that just recently happened there, right.
Oh, well, it turns out that they wanted to go hiking at Mount Saint Helens. And this is like on Wednesday or Thursday, I think Thursday. They wanted to go hiking at Mount Saint Helens, but the weather was lousy. It was raining everywhere. So they pulled up their weather app and looked at the radar and there was one little patch where there was no rain forecast and it was down by Mount Hood Sandy Ridge trailhead about it, you know, less than ten miles from where I'm sitting
at this very moment. And they said, well, let's go hiking there. You know, we want to go to Mount Saint Helen because of the history on that jest, let's go hiking there. At least it's not gonna be to rain. And that's why they chose that spot and they ran into they literally saw his assquatch late in the afternoon.
So cool. Those guys are great. Man.
Yeah, I just saw I felt so bad. I just saw that small town monsters talking to me Alex did on the go ro and I was in it, and those guys were They're like, they're talking about their snow tracks and they're like, yeah, we called. We called Boa and he actually got back to us right away. He occasionally answers, but not usually, so we knew it was. It was a good fine And I was like, oh man, I felt so bad. I'm like, those guys are totally cool.
Like I never like to say I'm not going to call those guys back and I just stuff I don't know, like just don't follow up on time and stuff. But those guys are super cool. I want I want to get those guys involved. That new spot I'm going to go to on the coast. I'm gonna do that, like a get a place where could take the quads in and more.
There's a lot of gravel.
We can you know, kind of hide the tracks a little bit and get the quad sitting off the off the main road. Then have a place set up there where we can go to so we're not trying out to Bluff Creek two and a half hours, you know, like drive twenty thirty minutes and we're there for sure.
And Doug, Todd and Carrie don't feel bad Bobo doesn't always answer or return our calls either. I think, of all my friends, you're the hardest person to get ahold of that. I know, Bobo.
I just didn't have a ringer on. I don't carry my phone all the time.
Yeah, when we first started doing this podcast, like five and a half years ago, i'd get your voicemail that was like, hey, I'm going to be out of service for a few days. Just leave a voicemail and get back to you. And so I'd call Cliff and I was like, hey, I tried to get ahold of Boo. I guess he's out in the woods, you know. And Cliff was like, oh, no, that's been his voicemail for like ten years.
I think I'll change it.
I guess, Well, what was the thing recently, like you you sent me this list of a slew of ceremonial rites or rituals. You said, like I can only get texts like if I'm in my truck on Bluetooth, and I opened my contacts and I clear. So I was thinking, like, holy get texts when the sun's edit zenith in my back is to the thirty fourth parallel, and my left foot is pointed west, in my right foot east and I use my left thump. It was a lot.
When do you think about it, Think of the troubleshooting that Bobo had to go through to defind, to actually discover the combination of events that needs to be aligned in order to receive a text.
Yeah, that's what I was curious about.
It was all happens to that. I wasn't trying to figure anything. I was just I mean, I was besting around like I was in the truck. And also I was like, well a text came through and I could hit I parked the truck and didn't drive and put it in park.
I could hit view and see it.
That's all I'm saying, Doug Todd, Carey, don't don't take it personally. Clip and I don't always get responses or answers, But you know, it's funny. This has happened to me more than once. I remember the last time it happened to me. I was in the theater being Emily went and saw a movie. It's like, sometimes I'll call Bobo. Well, most times i'll call Bobo, he doesn't answer. But there's times when you want to talk to me and you'll call like six times in a row until I answer.
Bobo was like, no, you will be available.
Now, that's just something excited.
Well, you know, getting back to last January when we were up there at Sandy Ridge trailhead for that siding, again I mentioned I went there at least two or three more times after you and Emily had left, because I was trying to track the animal further and in both directions, where did it come from? Where to go to?
We left some good tracks in the ground that Sunday when we were out there, so I wanted to go see if I can record those and cast those, you know, take some GPS coordinates and all that sort of stuff. But one of the days, it was Friday, whatever, I think it was probably February third, or you know, early February that whatever that Friday was. After all that I was on my way up there, I was you know, you can't drive to the spot, you have to walk in. And it wasn't that far of a walk, but it
was uphill. They were probably half mile three quarters of a mile or something, probably just shive a mile somewhere in there. And so I had already done I think, two trips up with plaster put you know, put the plaster in the ground cast mist, and those were drawing, and I had gone back to the car, maybe dropped a castop or something, I don't remember. And there's also no water down there, so I had to drag water up too. So I was hoping and I was alone.
I was alone, and one of these walks up there, I was pretty tired at that point. I was getting close to the spot. I was well more than a half mile in there. And then I get a call from a fellow research for a friend of mine, and I pick up because he doesn't call me very often. I go, Hey, what's happening, and he goes, I just saw one. I just saw your big foot, blah blah
blah blah. But he's freaking out, freaking out, And in long story short, he had just observed the two sasquatches we have been tracking in one of my other research areas for a couple of years. He didn't get a great look at him. But he walked in on one of the roads that we continually look at that I even found tracks there a couple of weeks ago. You know, he walked in on that road because he had never walked down there before, supposedly, like he just never had
gone down there. He he always works a different area a few roads over. So he says, well, I'm going to go down Cliffs Road to day, you know. So he goes down there and there's two large animals down slope in the shadows and the cedar shadows down there, stomping and breaking branches and whatever and going back and forth, and he's scared him really really badly, scared him really badly. Actually, he was afraid to go back to his truck on the road because he thought that he'd be They're gonna
get him or something, you know like that. But you know, it sounds ridiculous right now saying it, but when you're in that situation, it's not so ridiculous, honestly, not at all. Yeah, So he was, he was quite frightened. So he went back straight up the hill to the main road and think took the long way around basically, and then so I think that was on the Friday or something, if
I remember right, maybe a Thursday. I don't remember that to look, but so so I got together with this guy the next day, him and another friend of his that he does a lot of research with out there, and we went to the spot. And I know this state because the photographs are from February third, so I know that, so he must have seen it on the second. And we went there and we went down the slope to where he said these these things were moving around. He said there was a big one and a smaller one.
He said one was nine feet when was six feet. But he was afraid and he was above them, and people are bad, you know, estimators of that sort of thing. Anyway, so I don't think they were quite that big, because he'd seen the smaller one before, and he said, he said six feet this time, but he had actually observed the smaller one before, and he said the thing was
probably about my size, a little smaller. And I'm five foot eight, so the thing was five and a half feet tall or something probably, so not too far from six,
you know. And again he was scared, so we expect him to exaggerate a little bit, so a big one in a small one basically, and when we got to the site, we found sign down there where he observed these things, including a handprint on the side because it was a steep slope that this thing was moving back and forth with on and then broke, breaking the branches and all that sort of stuff. There was a handprint
on the end cline. It wasn't really good, but it was clearly a hand more than one actually, and then footprints going back and forth. And then we back tracked it down to the creek and then up the other slope, kind of found the general area where it came from before we lost it, and then we hiked up the creek a little bit and came back on the road that we normally hike in and out on and the snow was melting away. It actually had melted quite a bit in the rain the previous night. But yeah, we
found tracks. We found tracks, and it was the same two I believe it was the same too, that we've been tracking for years, the twelve inch in the fourteen inch. So that was really encouraging, and it was quite an active week. I thought, Man, if twenty twenty four is gonna be like this, it's gonna be a ridiculous year. It hasn't really proven to be that ridiculous of a year.
There's been actually a smaller number of sidings than what we're used to, but two in the first like five weeks of the year was quite good, especially since I think in the first between those two sidings alone, I think I emulated something like twelve or fifteen casts. So the year started with the bang.
I'll tell you that, stay tuned for more Bigfoot and beyond with Cliff and Bobo. We'll be right back after these messages.
I'm definitely looking forward to next year's trip in a few weeks, and hopefully something equally squatchy happens that we can go run around and check out and see if there's a fire where someone sees smoke, so to speak, that would be great. But it will be great to get back to the Northwest and see the NABC again and all that. But we I got really lucky to do a lot of events with you this year, because you know, there's plenty of years like we just don't
see each other. We live you know, you live in the Northwest. I live in the Southeast, and pass don't cross, but this year, we actually got to do a lot. We did four different events together and then we went
to see Dead and Company in Vegas. But so maybe that trend will continue to some degree, although I've only committed it two making events next year, and I'm going to try to keep it to that so i can work on other sasquatch related projects, you know, specifically field stuff and also writing projects too.
Where's your film?
We're going to be pro North Georgia. Nine out of ten trips, I'm still going to North Georgia these days. There's some other areas of like Tennessee and Kentucky I like, but I've just spent so much time, so many years in North Georgia and I just might as well drive the extra couple hours and get down there and be in some of my favorite spots and places I just know like the back of my hand, and you know, like the county I grew up and alone, I just
know so many places, let alone the surrounding county. So try to get down there as much as possible in twenty twenty five, for sure, But with Squatch Fest coming up, yeah, I'd love to see some of these places that close finding tracks because we only got to go to a couple of places when I was out there, so I'd love to see a different spot if possible, if time allows. But who knows.
Well, you get in kind of early on Wednesday, you know, and if we can get out of the report kind of early, that gives us a few hours of daylight, and I can my spot's are only an hour away,
you know, so that's easy. And of course Thursday we have that event with you at the Museum's probably going to release tickets, probably around the time that this podcast airs too, by the way, so like maybe the last week of December is what we're kind of thinking at this point, at the latest, first week of January, of course. But on Thursday, I'll probably maybe wake up early and take you out again or something to show you the woods.
There one who be the tickets available for people that hear this, I don't think, well there all the members will get them all what.
They Well, what will happen is that I'll release them from museum members first, and then I'll give them about a week to buy tickets, and then after that week, what we'll do is we'll open them up to the podcast members next, you know, and there'll be plenty of tickets for people who want to do it. We can only sell about forty tickets a little less, actually, I usually limit it's about thirty two or so because I've got a bunch of dead beat friends that tend to
show up, and I would too. I'm one of those dead beats that would be happy to show up and take a free ticket, you know. So like Boba, if you show up, you're coming in for free. If Bart shows up like he says, he's coming in for free. You know, usually the Olympic Project guys want to come or something like that for the good speakers, and you know, so I try to set aside like a number of you know, deadhead tickets so to speak, you know, free tickets.
So I usually sell about thirty two in person tickets, and they sell out pretty quick. With Meldrum and Michael Freeman. This past November, I think we sold something like twenty six tickets to the museum members because you know, a lot of our members don't live nearby, so they don't go that quickly. About twenty five twenty six tickets for museum members, and then the last six or so would go to six or eight of them would go to podcast members, and so we never have a problem with that.
But what we started doing is that we actually live stream the events. Now people can buy a much less expensive ticket because it's you know, we got to pay for stuff. You know, I got to pay for my employees and all this other stuff. I got to sell the tickets for like twenty or thirty bucks somewhere in there to make any money whatsoever. And we're not making much. We mostly do these because they're cool and fun and it's a neat way to get people involved in the museum.
You know, we're not making hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars or anything like that, don't get me wrong. But I have expenses we have to cover because it is a business, and then the business has to make a little something. So what we've been doing to help out is we've been live streaming the events on Zoom. So Nico sets up like a livestream camera and we hooked the sound system into the computer and so people buy less expensive tickets and they can watch it from
their living room. We do it over Zoom, and the Zoom level that we have I can accommodate ninety nine people, and we've never come even close to that, even close to that. So if anybody listening out there does want to see Matt pro At speak, that's a great way to do it. It'll be probably like I think we sold tickets for eight bucks or something last time.
I've done a couple of them. It's cool.
I listen to Mark Marcell and Mike Freeman and yeah, I listen to a few of those are watched whatever, it's cool.
I liked it.
Yeah, it's kind of a fun way to get people in different parts of the world who can't come in person involved. And of course at the end time with assuming we have time, and we usually do, we take questions, and people watching in their living room from you know, North Carolina are asking questions of these people. It's a neat way to interact with somebody even if you can't attend in person. So we'll be doing that again with Matt Preuitt on the on January twenty third.
I think it is so I do hope you'll make it up because it would be awesome. The three of us have not done an in person event in almost four years, and so we're definitely overdue for people who talk you know, once or twice a week for public consumption and more than that, like you know, privately on the phone. We should definitely get together in person. I just think it'd be super fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, you know another, let's get back to Bigfoot thing a little bit.
I was thinking. Yeah.
So in February I made a pretty big score for the museum that reads resulted in knocking down a couple or at least one historical hoax and exposing it. The guy named some guy named Walt was selling fake stompers on eBay and a good friend of mine reached out and said, hey, man, are you Are you aware of this? And I said no, I never saw this before. And I was looking at the stompers and you know, they kind of looked like a Mullins stomper, like Rant Mullins,
and I wasn't sure. But he wanted way too much money, way too much money, you know. So and the eBay thing says you buy these, I'll tell you how I used them and all this other stuff, and it was just so intriguing. So I wrote him and said, well, I can't afford what you're asking for them, but I'll give you this much if they don't sell asking. I think it was like fifteen hundred bucks. Yeah, it's kind
of a lot for these things, you know. And I said, I can't afford that, but you know the museum can't either. So but I run a museum. Maybe you want these things preserved historically. I can give you this much with and he goes, well, I'm going to try to sell for this much, and he did. He didn't sell them, but he tried to sell them for that much, and then a week or two and by that nobody bid at all. He lowered the price a little bit and
I said, hey, my offer still stands. I emailed him through eBay about it, and he goes, well, I'm going to try. I'll let you know. And so he didn't sell it at that price either. So he reached out to me and said, okay, I'll take your price, which was cool, and so I said, well, I can drive out to you. He lived on the coast somewhere. I can drive out to you and pick him up. If he said no, no, I want to go. I want
to see your big Foot museum. It's all great. So he came to the Bigfoot Museum with the stompers and I sat him down for an interview. I did a taped interview. One of my great volunteers in my archiving department transcribed the interview and he told me the story and he said, yeah, I used him in Idaho, I used him in southern Oregon. And he was telling me the story. And I got him from this this guy's lumber company. He lived in Toledo, Washington, and of course
Bell started going up Toledo. Well that's where the Wallace has lived. But this didn't look like a Wallace stomper to me. It looked like a Mullins. But I never could figure out exactly where these stompers came from, although I am eighty percent sure they are Wallace stompers. Of course, the museum owns the original Wallace stompers from nineteen eighty two that he probably carved special just for the little
TV spot that he did. You know, there's a very the famous picture of Rant Mullins is and doctor Meldrum spoke where he's holding up these stompers. We have those exact stompers in the museum, and I know it's those because you can see the marks and the photographs and you can see the marks on the actual stompers, and in fact, on the back of these artifacts is Rant
Mullins autograph and this is nineteen eighty two. And that's when the little news item popped up where Randon was talking about his his pissing match with the Wallaces and stuff about who's a better hoaxer and stuff. But anyway, these look a lot like that.
I'm a better lot than you are.
I know, I know. It's like, no, you're not, and blah blah blah, I invented Bigfoot. No, I see the whole thing with Mullins and stuff. And of course we can. I don't if we talked about that when we had Vince on the podcast back in the day from Pacific North weird, but I guess somebody promised somebody money for carving these stompers and used them and they got all the attention and newspaper coverage and I don't know, just
weird attention stuff, just ego stuff. But anyway, this guy's telling me about using these stompers at a shake mill down in Renton, Oregon, and he's telling me the story and he's saying, yeah, there are these two kids there and there's a horse corral and and and it's sounding awfully familiar. And I eventually pieced it together that these actually were the Stompers that were used when Barbara Wasson found and cast the only footprints that she'd ever founded cast.
And of course, the museum owns the Barbara Wasson collection, all of her correspondences, all of her research, all of her book notes, all of the original graphs and stuff, and also the one original cast that she made. So I pulled out the original cast and compared to the Stompers, and sure enough, one hundred percent match. So unfortunately, Barbara Wasson came and went, and now she's passed away. And the one cast that she pulled that was an original cast of her own, turns out was made by these
same Stompers. So I thought that was fantastic. I think it's fantastic to bust historical hoaxes.
I think it's great that she got to go to her grave without cliff ruining her one cast she.
Got, I know, but because of these casts, I was put in contact through a wonderful woman named Darlene lives up in Toledo with a member of the Wallace family and another guy who owned the logging company that this this other guy who got the stompers worked for. And so I went up and interviewed both of them. Because both these guys, one of them that the young one was like ninety two and the other one was literally
one hundred and one years old. There was like two hundred almost two hundred years of tom foolery in that room along with me. And I interviewed them about what they knew about the hoaxing and all this other stuff. And Buzzwell was that was the older of the two
gentlemen's names, Don Buzzwell Boswell, one of those two. He talked about using stompers and being and like he said a couple of things that I thought made me think it was the Blue Mountain tracks, because the Blue Mountain Tracks are are I think I mentioned it recently Maybe not.
I thought I was on the podcast recently and mentioned this that I think they're probably probably hoaxed, right, And he was mentioning, you know, pulling somebody in a car with a rope to simulate longer step length and all this stuff on a logging side, and thinking, oh, that's that's Blue Blue Creek Mountain, Blue Creek mountain tracks. I said, blue mountains, really, but I met Blue Creek mountain tracks and it turned I said, well, was that was that
in the Bluff Creek area? And he goes, oh, no, No, that was out by Whiskeyville or somewhere. So there's another track thing over there somewhere, and he doesn't remember the date, but yeah, So anyway, it was a really interesting interview with these two older gentlemen, and I got to I really kind of went in trying to find out, what do you know about the Blue Creek mountain tracks? Can we nail those down as a hoax? And it turns
out that both these guys knew nothing about those. So even though I think they're probably hoax based on that line or whatever that's in the casts from that fake stomper from the Wallaces, neither of these guys knew anything about the Blue Creek Mountain.
Tracks at all.
So I tried to bust two historical hoaxes, but I only got away with one.
Great work though, and that was a good find and we chatted about that a lot back when it happened, and super cool that you got to meet with him too. I'm sure they were a cantanker as bunch.
One of them was full of smiles, the other one was not.
Well.
If you can imagine being that like disagreeable and much of a prankster when you're young, and then when you're that age and you have no f's left to give, you know, you're probably ten times as cantanker as you know.
Oh yeah, I'll go ahead and I'll send you this picture here of the two gentlemens, A gentleman, the two gentlemen around the table, and you can tell me what you think of their attitude. Yeah, they thought I was They thought I was an idiot man.
For the Bigfoot thing. So they're no gentlemen.
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo. We'll be right back after these messages.
When I was digging back through, you know, I was, I was scrolling through all the podcasts we've put out this year, just trying to go through the year recap and looking back at things we discussed and things that have been happening. You know, we got some great witnesses this year too. You know, we had Jeff Deisinger back, and I guess that we had him in April or May.
That was the best one.
Yeah, He's somebody I'd been familiar with for years, and just through a member of the podcast, found out that he and I basically lived pretty close to each other, and so we met up and had started chatting, and I was like, Hey, would you be willing to tell that story on the podcast. I'm really glad we got him, kept in touch with him and hung out with it
a few times since then. But people really love that episode of a lot of people reach out and say, hey, if I want someone to hear about the subject and they're not familiar with it and they want to hear a good signing, that's the episode I send them. So that was very cool to get him on there.
They had a couple of dead leads too, you know, like I got called out to the coast for some tracks turned out to be elk tracks, But I did get to go on a boat with these dudes for a while because the tracks were across this big sandbar and a couple of them looked pretty good, and a couple of them didn't look real really good actually to me,
but it's Bigfoot's one of those things. Man, if you don't get out there, you're going to miss some stuff, you know, And it's one of the aggravating things about it. I've wasted a lot of days. Yeah, waste is probably too strong of a term. Honestly, I've spent a lot of days chasing down leads that didn't come to fruition, and so I got to I did have to go to the coasts or whatever, but I did make a
good contact out there. Turns out this guy lives a spit in distance from months and Falls outside of Tillamook, and that's where most of the stuff happens in the Tillamook areas Munson Falls area. So this guy has eyes on out for me now and kind of boots on the ground and with my phone numbers, hopefully that'll turn up with something.
So oh no, that'd be great. It kind of reminds me like we talked about in the last main show episode, is you know, some of the regrets that I have from the past or are not following up on those things because I was too quick to go, ah, this is probably too good to be true, or just didn't
really sit right. And then as time progressed and more details came out, it was like, man, that actually might have been something, and I probably should have dropped everything and gone and looked, because there's plenty of times I have dropped everything, gone and looked, you know, like many many, many, many times. And then after enough times of that, you know, sometimes it pans out. A lot of the times it doesn't. But there's only one way to know, and that's to
drop everything and go look. So you're still doing good work there, even if it just turns out to be elk tracks.
When I was in the BFR, like, there's times where people be like this guy sounds nuts, or like all the reports, like the initial investigators say probable hosts without even talking to the person, or like the the spelling and grammar would be so bad you can really hardly understand what they were saying, Like this guy sounds like an idiot, you know, And then I'd follow up, but
I like those would payoffs. Sometimes you're like, just follow up because you think it's a dead end, but then it turns out they're like a great witness, you know.
Absolutely. There's a couple of my favorite reports that I got from the BFRO that no one had ever taken, where someone had submitted it as a report and not a comment, but they had just said something like, hey, I'd really love to talk to someone, right, And so people never because they're like, oh, there's no information here,
and they move on. And I was like, well, let's just see and then I get to talking to them, and after they sort of felt it out and realized I wasn't a lunatic, they'd go, hey, man, I got to tell you what I saw, and it would be some incredible report. You know, it's just something amazing. So I was glad that I followed up on those because some people are just so reticent, you know, they don't necessarily want to lay all the cards on the table.
They're like, let me see what these people are about first, and then if I feel like I can trust them, I'll tell them this thing that I saw that no one would believe under any other circumstances. And so things like that are definitely worth following up on.
Yeah.
Then I also had some things happened this year where if you didn't have recorders, you wouldn't even know there was action going on, or like when I went out and figued with our buddy from Pennsylvania, you know, it was all super storm. It was like the biggest storms of the year. Again that the week we were out and we were there, we spent the whole night, We spent several hours into one spot on the coast.
And we left the record.
He let the recorder go and we came back out the next day and showed that there was a bunch of knocks, you know, like twenty knocks over fifteen minute period that came up, you know, got closer to the recorder and then just stopped when they got.
By the recorder.
But you know, it wouldn't even have known, like would have done that if you hadn't let that recorder out. Go on audio, you know, it happened a few times this year. The audio showed like, oh they were around. They just weren't being like aggressive or you know, like they're not being is loud and you know, like whe they're trying to get the message across to leave, like these they were more just like doing their own trip, not trying to engage us.
You know, it's cool getting they were still there. Certainly.
You know, when I was thinking about other evidence that I had seen this year, I only got to see him for a couple of minutes, just because it was at a hectic event, But I thought those tracks that Eric Alton cast that he brought to the Ohio Bigfoot Conference were pretty compelling, you know. Like again, I only got to spend a couple of minutes with him, but they were very compelling to my eye.
Yeah, yeah, that was really really cool. Those were probably I'll say those were the best tracks out of Pennsylvania that I'm aware of. Not a lot of stuff comes out of there.
Honestly, I think it happened in April or right at the first of May, because that had just happened when he came to the Ohio conference, which is what on May fourth or fifth or something like that, So it was early May.
Yeah, looking back in my text, it looks like I've got photographs of the originals on April twenty ninth, and I have photographs of them in the ground I think from just a smidge before that. So yeah, that must yea April twenty eighth somewhere in there. You know, Eric, if you're listening, by the way, still waiting for my copies, no pressure, but yeah, so looking for the copies of those casts. I really want to get into those. We spend a little bit of time with them, at the
Ohio Conference, another great event. Super stoked to be involved in that. So, yeah, I spend a little bit of time with them there, but I really really want to get into these things. So Eric made great latex molds of these things. I'm very much looking forward to putting my eyes on them and spending a little bit of time, you know, because twenty minutes with cast doesn't tell you very much. Yeah, you really have to spend some time,
you should. I mean, you guys have both see my garage and there's castling around everywhere, and so I go out there or whatever, and you know, I spend I get very distracted, very easily. So I spend five or ten minutes looking at a cast sometimes and that's where I do most of my deep dives, my learning about what the footprints are looking like and what the nuances would be. So I'm really looking forward to getting my mits on these things.
Yeah, we had him on the podcast shortly thereafter, So if people haven't heard that episode you want to go listen to more of that story, just go back. It would have been sometime in May, right after that. I don't have the episode list in front of me, but we did have Eric on to talk about those. I was super stoked too, speaking of podcast episodes, to get John Zada on because I loved his book In the
Valleys of the Not Well Beyond. And you know a lot of these authors who were published through like major publishers, who were not necessarily like enmeshed in the Sasquatch research community. You know, it's not like a friend of a friend or something like that. I'd never would have really thought
about just trying to make contact somehow. And so he was actually the one who initiated that because I had I think I had republished maybe I hadn't republished it, but I had referenced that classic episode, A Terrifying Night in the Marble Mountains, which I did re release this year through the Classics, And John commented on our Instagram and he was like, oh, I recommended this episode to so many people, And so I messaged and I was like, I'm surprised to hear that you listen, because man, I
loved your book, and would you be willing to come on the podcast? And he was up for it. And I thought that was a great episode, and you know a lot of people did too, So I hope it drove a lot of people to read his book if they hadn't yet, because that's such a great book.
Besides that, Jeff Dice did your interview. The most times I got this year about a podcast was the rerun of Sarah's sighting in the Marble Mountains.
People love that episode. I love that episode. I've listened to it multiple times me too. That's my favorite boo surprise because you had just said, hey, I have a witness lined up, and we said okay, and hopped on a call and started recording. And then as soon as she started telling the story, I was like, oh my god, I've heard this, I've read this, I've read this report before it. So I was just amazed to talk to her in person and I was like, I can't believe
you found this person. That's amazing, dude.
Yeah, she's awesome.
Another great witness interview that we had was Irving, the guy who saw the Sasquatch it close range from his vehicle and got a really good look at his face. That money maker hooked you up with, Cliff.
Yeah, yeah, that was very kind of Matt to let us have that one. And he was a great witness, fully smoked. What a great look and he's all on fire. Now he goes. I think he's gone back there now and heard from him, but he's gone back a couple of times, maybe twy. I know he went back initially and then he's planning another trip I think before ye're in, So I don't know if you got back out there or not.
Yeah, between his episode and Jeff's episode, I think those were the two strongest eye or at least two of my favorite eyewitness episodes that we had this year in twenty twenty four.
Yeah, Jeffs is the one that's one. I want Rugan to here because he's because Ruggan's always all. I never heard you know a good hunter say that you know a good guy? You know, I've never met one or heard anyone that knows me one. It's like, well here's one dummy.
Yeah.
Friend of mine, a really good guy named Allan. I actually literally spoke to him this morning. Good friend of mine. He was he saw one of these things in October, I think it was it was October, and he asked me where to go. He's going to be done by Florence. They go, oh, go to the spot over here. I ran into him there before. I've heard him there at least I think, And he went there and he saw one. He saw a little guy he said, about three four
feet tall or so something like that. He said, would have been about the size of a he said, like a six seven year old human something like that. He was walking and the thing ran across the cliff and it was upright. It was running on two legs. It was all black in color. It just appeared on one side out of the bushes and dropped down to the ravine on it. I don't know what it was. It's like, dude, well what else could it be? What else could and
so why I don't know what it was? Well, it was it was up it wasn't no, no, it was on four legs. It was on two legs. Man, listen to yourself, you know what it was. It's like, why would you deny yourself that you.
Know, yeah, have a set of balls, buddy.
And you heard him Allan Bubo says you need some balls.
I mean I mean in general, not not him not well yeah, him too, but all these guys that I was like, you know, they know they're real, but they're they're too afraid of the heckling. It's like everyone that had the settings, you know, came out or whatever. Encounter is that the like you know of audio encounter really compelling tracks whatever, everyone if everyone came forward started talking
about it. It's like the UFO thing on the pilots start going public, you know, it's like stigma lessons and lessons and more and more info and get closer to the truth.
Yeah, you scratch the service and everybody here in the Pacific Northwest as the story or knows somebody with the story. One of the cool things about having a bigfoot museum for Meles is that you never know who's going to come by, you know. And we had a couple really notable visitors this year, maybe besides the regutters. Of course, Bobo and ten ten were work by, and of course
Matt was there. Everybody knows. We had Michael Freeman drop by, and we did an event with Mark Marcel earlier in the year, and because of that we had the three young gentlemen who rediscovered the mind the actual Ape Canyon mine. We did that event. But you know, of course both Alex and Eli from Small Town Monsters were in the museum at various points filming various things. But old friend Randy Chase dropped by this year. It's always a pleasure
to see him. The Wizard though, I had to open up Facebook for something in the last couple of days and I saw Randy dressed as Saint Nicholas. And I don't mean like Santa Claus. I mean like as a saint, like with the long red robe and the Saint had on. Man, that guy's so cool, so cool. I love that guy.
Yeah.
Of course. We had Clyde lewis well known sort of paranormal radio host. He's a friend of ours and he's dropped by the museum for the first time and I showed him around. He's a real nice guy. But probably the biggest find, I guess, or the biggest name in my opinion that came by the museum is Ron Olsen.
Now.
Ron is a huge historical figure and doesn't even realize that I'm still trying to nail him down for an interview. He lives a few hours away from me, but I'm willing to make the drive. Of course, he made that real schlocky Bigfoot sort of pseudo documentary. You know where they call a big horse trail? Was it called Sasquatch? What is it called matt You know the name, isn't it called Sasquatch? The legend of Bigfoot? Yeah, I think that's about right.
It's about right. Yeah.
From the nineteen seventies. It's where these people do a horse packing trip into some wilderness area and cougar jumps on him and all this other stuff. But that they did a reenactment of the Ape Canyon stuff, and it was that reenactment that put Mark Mercell on the trail back in the day. And of course Ron Olson, I'm trying. I want to get his I want to get the historical scoop, you know, so to speak from what I understand, and I could be incorrect, which is why I need
to talk to mister Olson about this. I believe Ron Olson took over Roger Patterson's Northwest like organization thing that he'd you know, like his little fan club that he did back in the day. I believe Ron Olson took that over from Roger Patterson when Roger passed away. So I want to find out more about that. He had like an actual office for Bigfoot stuff. He's the guy that would put that initiated the Bigfoot trap down down in Applegate. Oregan he had. He has so much history
in him. He came in the museum one day and I was actually not even at the museum. Nico I think called me, or one of my employees, I think it was Nico called me and said, Hey, some guy named ron Olsen's here. You know that name, don't you. When I went, holy crap, hold him down. I'll be there as soon as I can. And I hopped in the car and went down and I met him. It was fantastic, absolutely fantastic. I look forward to meeting him again and sitting them down and asking them these questions.
I've been saying that for far too long, but again, my schedule has been pretty tightly.
Yeah, and speaking of the small town monsters, folks, since you brought up Alex and Eli, like two of my favorite memories from this year, I participated in two different productions with them, one of which Seth directed in western North Carolina that he made a film out of called The Ancients. That was so much fun to be a
part of. Myself and doctor Russ Jones. For the most part, the two of us were there for everything, and then some of our friends came through as like talking heads like Adam Davies and Micah Hanks and my friend Jeff Carpenter. But then Alex came out and joined Darryl Callier and I when we were out in the field in North Georgia. Daryl and I went out for a week and one of my favorite places, and Alex came out for the
last few nights. And he's put together a series called The Appalachian Bigfoot Files and use some of that footage in the first episode. And I think he's going to do a Georgia centric one with more of that footage, but I could be wrong about that either way. That would hadn't been released yet. But all those small town monsters folks are so much fun to be around and always just a joy to work with, and there's no pressure and it's just like hanging out with great friends.
So and I love the stuff that they shot there at Mount Hood in the museum, and like Bobo mentioned that Go Road documentary that Alex recently released, all great stuff.
What's funny is if you don't like I don't look at it. I look at the you know, the YouTube home channel whatever, for like a month or two, I'll click on it. There's nine new titles you know, in like six weeks, those guys pump out so much stuff it's crazy.
Oh yeah, they're super productive. I mean because you've got that much talent and that many people just sort of doing their own thing, all under that umbrella of small town monsters or something for everyone, you know, which is really great.
Yeah, film with both those guys this year. I guess they're they're they're planning on something about the NABC, which would be cool. That's Eli sing And I know Alex was here. And I think a day or two before Alex showed up, one of my other employees, Dave, ran into a sasquatch up there. He was up there with some friends of his, some of the researchers, and something was knocking at him pretty close. And again, Dave's the skeptic in our crowd. You know, he's the guy I've
told talked about him in the podcast before. If Dave thinks something is true, it probably is because he'll look at footprints and go, well, that one's a great one. That one's a great one. The next one, I don't know if that's one, but the one after that is a great one too. So it was like number three. You doubt at a four. Come on, man, he's super, super skeptical, so if something convinces him, something is going on.
So I know, Alex and I went out with Dave to the spot I think a day or two after he ran into those things, and we filmed out there. I haven't seen it or anything like that, but it's out there if people can go watch it. I know we found footprints while we're out there. Hopefully that made the cut. I don't know.
Yeah, everyone who listens to this podcast should be subscribed to Small Town Monsters on YouTube. They just do great staff. I imagine most of them already are.
Yeah.
Probably stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo. We'll be right back after these messages. Of course, at the museum again, we rounded out the end of the year. Michael Freeman came down did a presentation, a brand new presentation just for the NABC members. I was in November, and of course we're looking forward to the museum getting our hands on and becoming the curators of
the Paul Freeman Collection when doctor Meldrum retires. So we're looking forward to that, and we made an arrangement with Michael Freeman, so we'll be the caretakers of those casts, the originals. We already have several of the original Freeman casts in the museum in various displays, so people can combine and see those in.
Whatever they like. But yeah, Michael and I continue to be very very good friends and kind of plowing ahead and trying to make some plans about some possible projects in the future. As they come to fruition. I'll be able to share things with people here in the podcast. I guess that's looking forward to twenty twenty five though, I guess very cool.
I know we're going to talk about some things we're looking forward to in twenty twenty five over at the members section on the Bonus podcast there. We did that last year and I went back and listened to that in preparation for this and some of the things we were anticipating that we're still kind of waiting on, you know, not our own projects, but projects other people are working on.
So we're going to endeavor to get those people back on Bigfoot and beyond to maybe give us updates on a few of those projects.
I can say this, We've got James Fox coming up in a few.
Weeks people love that documentary. I haven't gotten to see it yet, but a good friend of mine just watched it and said it was amazing.
Oh, it's that. What is it called?
It's out, It's called the program.
But you gotta have a like not who is something like that? Yeah, there's some like one of those sign up services.
Yeah, it's on any of the video on demand services like Apple Movies or Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video. Yeah, all that stuff.
Oh, I thought I was only on one thing.
No, No, it's it's available for purchase and then in two weeks from the release date, I think it'll be available for rent, but you could you could purchase it right now through Amazon, Apple, a lot of those big ones.
Well, I've been discussing. I mean, I normally wouldn't say what I think is going to happen in the future, because I'm very often incorrect about that stuff. But several times over the last month or two, Darby has reached out to me and mentioned the podcast. I haven't forgotten Cliff, and we want to set outside a date and we want to do this. He wants to come back on and just even if it's a twenty minute update, just
give us an update. On how that North Carolina study is going any of the interesting things about it, because you know, the Bigfoot community in general is rather impatient about these things. He gets a lot of emails saying, what's up with this? How comes whatever? And it's even to the point where some people are thinking that the whole thing's fake because nothing has happened yet, when the fact is science happens very slowly.
He told us three to four years, he said, he goes to three to four years.
Apparently the Bigfoot community didn't get the message, you know, because they're they're you know, sending him emails constantly and saying, what is up with this? What is up with this? So Darby said that as soon as he gets a little bit of time, and maybe even soon. Actually I think he might be on that winter break, but he does have family obligations. But he has not forgotten. He mentions it to me probably every two or three weeks. I haven't forgot about the podcast. I still want to
come on. You guys are going to be the people that we want to go on with and talk about the projects and stuff. So that we will be getting an update from Darby probably in the next month or two I think.
Well, unfortunately, everyone wants to get academic and like scientific recognition and you know, involvement. It's like, well this, you got it. This is what real science is like. It's not like to start yelling all your early results or you know, like what you suspect. It's they're doing the real professional academics scientific protocol.
Yeah, and he's extraordinarily, extraordinarily conservative about this, as he should be if you rush out of study like this. And if he gets any positive results, I don't even know if he has. I know he's got some interesting results, but I don't know if he's got any positive results. So and you have to be so cautious because if he's if if any of this screws up, you know, like a false positive is put out there, it's going to do more damage and good and that's the last
thing he wants to do. So we'll be getting some sort of update at some point.
That'd be great. I know a lot of listeners are looking forward to that because we get a lot of emails about it, so that's good news.
So yeah, twenty twenty four has been a great year. Busy, busy. I hope to be a little less busy next time, but still I'm busy with bigfoot stuff. So have that going to be I hope twenty twenty five it produces a few more sightings I was. We're a little low on local sidings in my opinion, you know, three or four or five maybe or something like that. I'd like to have maybe one a month. First year or two of the museum. We're getting about about one a month.
I think we got nine or something local sightings the first year, so a little less than one a month. I hope that picks up a little bit. But I can't complain as far as footprints go, and I certainly can't complain with as much as I've been getting out and finding footprints independently of anybody else. So that's always a good sign. When you find a footprint and nobody told you what was there, you could be fairly sure it's a reasonable chance that it's not faked.
So there's that.
So hopefully we'll just keep gathering more data and building a mountain of data to stand upon and try to draw some conclusions out of this, out of these things to see where they go, where they move, And as long as I'm out there once or twice a week. You never know, and it might stumble acron upon one of these things. And there is not a day I go out that I don't walk around with the camera literally in my hand. So if I can get footage this year, that'd be awesome.
Leave the camera at home, clip and have a sighting.
Now, how would you feel about if you saw one and I forgot the camera that day.
I do not expect to ever film one during the daytime. Only chances are the therm at night.
Well, I know a guy who's seen him three times during the daytime in my area in thirteen months.
It's so quick, though, I'd never get the camera ready. I mean, it's always so fat, you know, it's like that's till I got that stuff trying to get together, turn it on, get it focused, and be like gone.
That's why I carry it in my hand and not my backpack.
But what would have a camera that only works when he's in his truck and it's connected to Bluetooth.
He's all right, folks, Thanks again for tuning in to Bigfoot and Beyond. We appreciate you spending another year with us, and we're gonna get over to our Patreon section for our members and continue on the fest over there. And so you guys, thanks again, have a happy New Year or squatchy one and keep it squatchy.
Thanks for listening to 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 on Facebook and Instagram at Bigfoot and Beyond podcast. You can find us on Twitter at Bigfoot and Beyond that's an N in the middle, and tweet us your thoughts and questions with the hashtag Bigfoot and Beyond