Big Food and Beyond with Cliff and Bubo.
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On Yesterday and listening watching Lima always keep its watching.
And now you're hosts Cliff Berrickman and James Bubo Fay.
Greetings, Bobo. Anything good going on? Anything you want to share?
Well, I still haven't had my found my phone for over a week. I'm going back up their final shot today. Paul's got a metal detector actually at his house. I'm gonna go grab and my buddy always gonna go up there with me and we're gonna go metal detect for it.
You know what is funny is you having lost your phone. I haven't noticed a difference in my ability to get a hold of you.
Really. Yeah.
I just email you now and you tend to get back. So I mean, how's that you don't need that phone?
Well, because I can type better on the computer. So if that's the problem is a lot of times I'll look at email, then I don't answer. I think I'm going to answer, like when I get back on the computer, then I don't. I don't get on the computer for a while. And then I forget or whatever. But yeah, but I'm on the computer. I can just type real easily, so that's when I do it. Oh yeah, yeah, maybe that's fast. Nothing to do with it. Well, anyway, I hope you find your phone.
Man. That kind of sucks and it beat expensive thing to replace, of course, but.
I know, dude, Plus all the photo I mean, that's the main thing is I thought at all I have an automatic backup, and I couldn't find it. There's stuff that I like, the last six months of pictures. I couldn't find the oh the pictures of the field. Right.
I just got back from the Blues man. It was a pretty good trip.
Oh yeah.
I was only out for a couple of nights too. I had to cut the weekend short because when I was out there, people started showing up, thinking what's going on. Then I realized, oh yeah, yeah, Labor day, Labor Day weekend. I got to get out of here. Man, everybody's gonna come up. And then I found out on the way
out from this other guy who is coming up. I spoke to He's driving his truck up and we met on a very narrow road and I had to back up a couple of hundred yards until his place, you know, and so he stopped and we talked for a minute. I also didn't know that I was driving out on Friday because all the people were showing up. Apparently Saturday was the opening day of Elk season. So it's like, oh, yeah, we got to get out of here now before everybody shows up, because the Elk season in the Blues is
really good. Yeah, anyway, I got out. But so I just spent a couple of nights out there. But man, what a what a great trip? I think squatchy Oh yeah, yeah for sure. But you know, other than that too, like historical stuff, you know, like I reconnected with Dar Addington, a legend. She's a she's a legend. She's not only just amazing as a person, but like she she was hanging out with and big footing with John Mayenzinsky and stuff. It's like and people say, I don't know who Dar
Addington is. She can't be anybody important. Yeah, okay, ask John Maynzinsky about her. You know, like there's nobody in the big foot field that doesn't respect John Minezinski and he sings her praises. So yeah, Dar's just a legend. Man, she's so cool, and she knew John before she started big footing. Turns out that they were both goat packers.
So yeah.
So I hung out with Dar for an afternoon, which is awesome, and then to go do some work with her next spring about her Coyotie grove tracks that are detailed in Michael Freeman's excellent book. Went out that night. You know, I came in and out of town several times, so I dropped by Dar's house and hung out with her, and then we went up that night and spent the night at deduct, you know the side of the Paul
Freeman d duck footage. So I took two really good three D scans of the entire foot entire footage site and also the entire stretch because I did it last year, but I made some mistakes. It was my first three D scan of an area outside, so I learned a lot from doing it wrong. I learned mostly from my mistakes, it seems, so I'm learning a lot all the time. And then I went and did two scans not only just where Paul, from where Paul was standing to where
the animal walked. Initially, as I walked in front of that fir tree, but also a longer set from down by the pond all the way up past that area. So I got two really really decent quality three D scans of the area. I'm not sure what I'm going to use that for yet, but I've got some ideas. Nothing bigfooty, well something. That night was kind of weird. Actually, at some point we decided to do some knocks because there was nobody around, and we went for a walks.
We found, you know, lots of animal tracks in general, you know, mostly deer, a lot of deer and elk there, tons and tons and tons. But that night I went to go do a knock and you know, so I was walking like hundred and fifty yards from camp in the dark. And as I was walking away, like my Nico was there. My friend Nico, he is also the manager for the NABC young guy tracker. I left him at camp and I was walking out towards this tree, this one lone tree out there to do a knock.
And about halfway between the camp and the tree, I hear Nico walking behind me, right. I said, oh, he got up and left or whatever, and then I'm over by the tree knocking. I did one or two knocks, and then I walked back and I saw I don't see Nico. And then I get back to camp and he's in campg oh, all right, But it turns out he never left. He never actually even got up from where he was sitting, so I don't know what was behind me. I thought that was a little weird. I'm
not saying it was a bigfoot. I'm not saying it's a bear. I'm not saying it's anything. Maybe I just heard something, you know, scraping the gravel or whatever, but a shirt. I fully expected him to be standing in the dark about halfway between camp and where that tree was from what I heard. But that's not even the cool stuff. That's just something weird that happened that I just remembered as I was telling you. So that was on whatever night, the Wednesday night, I think it was Thursday.
I went back into town and I met up with another historic bigfooter, a guy named Brian Smith. Brian Smith was a very common name back in the probably late nineties early two thousands in bigfootland. Brian Smith was probably best known for the Cuterville, Idaho cast from two thousand and one. That's probably his biggest mark speak. But he's a witness. He investigated a ton of reports. He was
out there with Wes Summerlin mostly. He met Paul Freeman one time, he said, but didn't really hang out with him so much. He's he hung out a lot with Wes Summerlin and Bill Lowry. I met him at a burger place in Walla, Wallet and I laughed because the name of the burger place is f U Burger. Huh, and like they have all these play on words and slightly prophanic sort of inclinations and all there. It was a great place, a solid burger. I'll tell you, if you ever around, go to f you Burger. It was
really really good. But yeah, so I interviewed him and recorded the interview. So I'm gonna get one of my volunteers to transcribe that interview, probably get him on the podcast at some point too. He's a great speaker and has so much to share. Super interesting guy. But forget about that. I mean, the new Bigfoot stuff is really really cool and I enjoy doing it. But talk about a great guest today.
Oh yeah, we got a new guest coming on. So when I discovered several months ago and I'm surprised hasn't gotten more popular because she has a really cool data As a matter of fact, she's running a project called the Sasqua Sasquatch Data Project, and I've found some interesting stuff on there. And I know you're numbers were both numbers, guys, all three of us, And yeah, and she's all about the number. She's a data cruncher, kind of a math nerd,
which is exactly what we need. So welcome to the show Terrestrial.
Thank you.
I'm so excited to be here, and just thank you guys so much for inviting me.
Oh, our pleasure, our pleasure. And I do have to admit, and I'm sorry to say this, I didn't know anything about what was going on. I've heard some whispers in the background or whatever that there's a woman out there doing great data work. But I figured it'll across my plate when it needs to, and I guess it finally did. So I didn't even know you existed. So I think in one way it's going to be great because Bobo and even Matt they know about what you're doing. They've
been paying some attention and whatnot. But I am completely new. I mean, of course I was forwarded your paper and I'm looking at your website right now. But this is my first exposure to all this, and I think that's going to be the case for a lot of our listeners as well. So I think that's going to be beneficial as as a gateway between you and our listeners, because I don't know much about what's going on. So tell me, I guess, tell us about what's going on.
What are you into? This looks fascinating.
Yeah, So my main interest with the whole bigfoot thing is the data analysis and statistical analysis part. Essentially, what I'm doing is going through bigfoot witness reports and putting them into a format that's optimized for data analysis.
So essentially I just have.
Like a giant spreadsheet of bigfoot witness reports and what I've done is basically taken out the useful bits and put this put them into this structured format. So that's essentially what I'm doing. The goal is to have a resource that sasquatch, you know, researchers can use for whatever kind of investigations they want to do.
To data.
But I think at the core of it, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm also trying to, I guess, change the narrative a little bit too on what we say, like within the Bigfoot field, like making sure that we actually have numbers and data and information to back up whatever our ideas are regarding sasquatch.
So I guess, in a nutshell, that's what I'm doing.
Well, I think that's a not only a noble mission, but it's also very much needed. Years ago, I was having a conversation with doctor Annata Karris about various sasquatch things, and you know, she's interested in the subject, she's not convinced they're real. Then she was asking me questions and I was telling her what I thought and whatever, and she kept challenging me, which I thought was fantastic. I do like to be challenged on my assumptions, I guess.
And she pointed out that a lot of the things that I thought I knew about sasquatches were actually just assumptions because I didn't have data to back them up. And that's why I'm always banging the drum on the podcast and in the museum and my regular life. It's like, okay, so you think that sasquatch which are responsible for this or that, or whether it be stick structures or even Knox for that matter, show me the data, like why
do you think that? And it seems like every time I do a public presentation of some sort I end up kind of brating the audience in some sort of way. It's like, Oh, you think that, but most of you are basing that on gut feelings instead of actual data. Show me a sighting report of them making a TP stick structure, for example, and you can't, basically, So I therefore have become very skeptical in the community I think in general, and not of sasquatches, but of what people claim.
And I'm doubting or at least questioning, I should say, I think it's a better word. I'm questioning these quote unquote givens of Bigfoot. They do this, they're this smart, they don't do that, all that kind of stuff, the things they like, the things they don't because the data is lacking. And so I think the project like yours is much needed for a level headed and sober talk about questions.
Yeah, that's kind of the side that I'm coming at it from, too, is like we have so many things that get said and have just kind of been constantly perpetuated throughout the big Foot community for decades, but there's really not much to back up whatever that idea is. So yeah, I'm definitely very much so trying to at least provide that resource and then also maintain a very
neutral stance on things. Just kind of like showcase what the data is saying, showcase the different patterns, and you know, give some options from both like an ecological, biological or you know, even humanistic side of things as to you know, what the patterns could be showcasing. Really it's up to interpretation. But yeah, I definitely am trying to at least drive home that idea that like this is you know, actually, at least for what I have access to, this is
what the data is saying. Here are some options. But also I try not to really pick a side on anything. I try to try to stay neutral.
Yeah, and numbers are very neutral, I think, and in general I think if the numbers indicate something is probably real, then it probably is real. And you know, you're also making new ground here. The only other person I'm aware of that's in a pretty good job that got some attention and published something was doctor Henry Fahrenbach. Of course, with the size scaling statistic paper that he wrote and I think is still available on the BFRO website. I think Matt is that true.
It is, and that's a great paper. There's also a great paper by King at All that I think was there was a lot of contribution from Richard Greenwell that studied Green's database, John Green's database statistically. That's really good. That came out a few years ago. So I'll linked that in the show notes as well. But I was fortunate enough to speak to Terrestrial recently, and you know, I think it'd be good for the audience to sort of explain to them maybe a bit about your professional
background and qualifications. You know, I learned so much about your project and what you were doing through the lens of your background and experience. I think that would be great for people to learn about.
Yeah.
So I have a Bachelor's of Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology or Georgia Tech, and I studied Earth and atmospheric sciences while I was there, but more so like planetary science.
I'm a big like space.
Nerd, so my degree was very much so tailored towards that. But while I was at Georgia Tech, I had a really cool opportunity to work on a NASA mission called the Dawn Mission, and I did that for about three years.
So through that experience, it really.
Opened my eyes as to the level of research that's required to make you know, contributions to just your field
or science in general. And I also had just really I had a really great professor that I was working under who was like, you know, working on this mission, and she really she basically gave me a really great opportunity to lead this team of undergrads in this research that we were doing on regarding the dwarf planet series, and I was really given a lot of uh like freedom and liberties to kind of take the project how I wanted to, but I also was expected to research
at you know, a certain level so that we could get papers published and contribute to the team and whatnot. So that experience working on Dawn really has created the foundation of what I'm trying to create with the Sasquatch Data project. I've definitely taken a lot of the things that I learned from that experience and a lot of the research methodologies that we used, and I'm trying to apply that to you know, the sasquatch topic.
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You took on some topics that we've talked about the community for years and years, and like Matt was saying, like there's people who have done work with John Green's data and PFRO data, but I like, like you took on some like obvious ones that you know, seeing the numbers is interesting, like the whole thing about size, like Bergmann's law applying to sasquatch, like the ones in the southeast, the skunk apes are smaller, and the ones in the
west Northwest are bigger, uh, you know, up north especially, and that the ones in the south were meaner, more aggressive, and the ones in the northwest are more passive, and your data, like, you know, just those assumptions got you know, dismissed.
Yeah, and that's a that's definitely part of the basis of what I'm trying to do. And you know, and all of this too is kind of preliminary because I'm still working on going through all of the BFRO reports and you know, things definitely can change over time. I'm very open to that, very open to being wrong too
about my interpretation of the data at different points. But it is important to note that, you know, if we are looking at things regionally, I've basically gotten the southern and the western regions done, uh for reports, Like you know, these things that have been said for so long are not necessarily reflect and the data, and I think it's
really important to start acknowledging that. And instead of that, I guess bumming us out, like making us excited that there's new questions to be asked, right, there's more information to be and to be learned and to be brought to light, and that's been admittedly one of the most fun parts about this is seeing like which things hold up when you start running the numbers and which just kind of fall apart.
Yeah, I think you hit upon something that's really interesting that I've noticed in the Bigfoot community for a long time. In these sacred cows that get slaughtered every once in a while. You seem to like that, and I love it. I absolutely love it. And some of my sacred cows have been slaughtered mercilessly over the years. And I think that a lot of people don't like that. They're uncomfortable with their assumptions being incorrect. They're uncomfortable with maybe having
to admit their in some sort of way. But it seems to me or even uncomfortable thinking that they don't know something. I know several Bigfooters that seem to have an answer for everything, and there's no way they could know that sort of stuff, but they they've got it in their head, right. And it's not just big Footers. I mean that's and then everything that's in you know, politics or religion or economics or any any subject. People think these things and they hold on to them very
very tightly. But what so many people don't keep in mind, I think at least, is that you kind of have to be wrong to grow. You kind of have to not know things in order to learn. You know, a container is only useful if it's empty, so to speak. You can't put anything in there if it's already full of stuff, you know. I think I'm a pretty decent example of it, because I'm on television, you know, saying
that the London tracks are real and they're not. I learned after the TV show actually been aired, through my own experimentation and research, that these things are almost they are certainly fake prints, you know. But today there's even people out there today that still think they're real. And one person even suggested that the a real Sasquatch made its own footprints look like fake stompers in order to fool me. So there's a lot of ridiculous straws being
grasped at, I think. But to admit one is wrong, or to learn that, like your sacred cow has been slaughtered, that that maybe they don't do these things that you thought they did, that's an important step in growth and learning about this subject.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, it is. It is one of my favorite things to do, like just to be honest, like I love I love challenging these ideas and and even challenging my own ideas, like you know, I form my own hypotheses about things and then it turns out I'm totally wrong.
But it's good to know.
And like you said, that's exactly how you learn, and that's how we you know, create a solid foundation to uncover potentially something even cooler. You know, it forces us to ask better questions, I think when we start seeing these things not necessarily pan out like how we want them to. So yeah, that's definitely one of my main
interests with this. And I really love taking like people's questions and whatnot and then just going into the data set and seeing if you know, the seeing how the answer kind of falls, and seeing if the ideas behind it are potentially supported or not.
One of the studies you did was on skull shape Are they rounded or are they chronical? And I was thinking like that that was that was a good because we talk about like the big males having like the psychomatic arches and the saginal crest, and you know, we have this like kind of images in our mind and you kind of went through and broke that all down. I
thought that was great. But another thing I thought would be interesting was that a lot of these I've read reports of the people have done I went to sketches to when the sketch artist you know, does the drawing of the subject they saw. You know, it'd be interesting to see of those drawings of the sketches, which ones have conical or non conical, like you know, dome shape or what do you call it again, domed or is that say, is that the word you used?
Yeah, just like well the headshapes. It was kind of interesting.
They actually fell into four different categories, which was kind of unexpected. It was conical, domed, round, and then square, which that one was.
Kind of interesting.
But yeah, that was one of the I just ran those numbers the other day actually, or a couple of weeks ago, and that was something that surprised me because it's often said that like the conical head, that's like the iconic you know, feature of a legitimate sasquatch sighting. Right, Conical heads are more so reported over rounded heads, but rounded heads make up you know, a significant part of Yeah, it was like it was like almost half yeah, like
forty percent of sighting reports. And there's a couple of different ways to take that too. It's like, well, you know, to a human witness whose brain is conditioned on you know, more human features, which is a rounded head, are folks just not bringing up the head shape because it's not odd so it doesn't stick out to them, so therefore they don't mention it.
Or where like.
A more conical head, like you know, a gorilla or something that's more notable. So our folks just like bringing that up more? Or is it really you know, this like roughly sixty forty split on head shapes and like to go back to like the idea that the conical head shape could be like a sexually dimorphic trait. You know, I ran numbers and again this is all you know.
It could change, but as things stand right now, there's really no difference in the height estimates or the body builds of sasquatches between like conical heads and rounded heads. Their average heights were exactly the same, and the body builds, like whether they were more muscular and large or more lenky and lean.
They didn't differ.
So it's just looking at these things are it's just so interesting to me. And obviously we can't draw any like definitive conclusions from this, but it's worth at least discussing and bringing to light that things might not be laying out as we had envisioned.
I didn't really make myself clear on that I was saying. What I was trying to say was that it'd be interesting to you know, get all these because there's been a lot of compositive sketches about like you know, like you know, skilled artists doing what just you know, drawing
a drawing of what the person says they saw. It'd be interesting to you know, just from the drawings go by and you know, analyze which is fits those shape shaped heads and then go back and compare if they mentioned the reporter not head shape, or you know, like uh, it'd be another way to kind of get factor in the human the human factor, like the how the human perception enters the equation because someone might say, you know, I just said, like they don't mention anying about the
head of them, and they do the drawing, it's obvious got to pronounce conical head or or the opposite. You know, it just kind of seemed to see what people mentioned and then what comes out in drawings, you know. Yeah, No, that.
Would be interesting to kind of compare like, yeah, what the witness thought to bring up when they were talking potentially with like the follow up investigator versus what they mentioned with the sketch artists. Yeah, you could probably do like an entire study on that in itself, just from a purely like a psychological standpoint, right.
Yeah, because I think there is a I think there is a sexually dimorphic difference between the males and the females. I mean, the females seemed to be shorter, squattier, you know, more brick shaped, and the males I got that pronounced you know a lot of them got that pronounced V. Upper body you know, like the broad, broad shoulders, more tapered down, whereas the female seemed to be more like, you know, just all the way down, you know, stocky.
Well that's that's a thing, right. So, have you done any work on where the sex of the animal was clear, you know, some genitalia or breast or something like that was visible with body shape? Is there any correlation or anything that you've explored in that realm as far as your.
Data so as things stand right now, I really don't have enough data to look into that. So far, I've I've gone through just over twenty five hundred reports now and literally less than five of them actually mentioned like a definitive sex of the Sasquatch. And unfortunately that's not enough to you know, do any kind of analysis on.
So I really can't I really can't say right now.
But you know, maybe as I go through more reports that might come up, or I might you know, have a large enough sample size to look into it. But it is definitely something I'm interested in is start, you know, to make those are to start looking into those different features and see if there is kind of any kind of correlation. But as things stand right now, I unfortunately cannot do that.
You'll eventually find out that is the case.
I guess we'll find out.
We'll see you'll eventually find out that Bilbo is correct. From a statistical perspective, how many reports do you need to have a meaningful data set to get to the bottom of us? They think, so some of these answers are to these questions we're asking might just start coming into focus. It's clearly the Bigfoot data. Even though there's you know, thousands of reports, it's still pretty slim. So how many do you actually need to get something meaningful?
Yeah, so it kind of depends on these statistical tests that you're running and the analysis that you're trying to do. But typically if you have anywhere from thirty to fifty data points per category, like that will give you a pretty solid idea of what you're working with. I think, you know, for some statistical tests, you really only need
if I'm remembering correctly, like five data points. But you know, for me to feel comfortable or even moderately confident in what I'm saying, I really like to shoot for like thirty to fifty data point range. And you know, you touched on something pretty interesting, which is that, Yeah, most of the reports that I go through, they honestly don't
contain that much information. And I think that was one of the most surprising things to me when I started like looking into this and I started trying to pull out information from the reports with how much there wasn't Like there weren't in.
The majority of reports.
There's really not a ton of information that you can draw out of them. Just for example, like I've gone through so many Class A siding reports that don't even have like a hair color mentioned.
That's probably the most easy. That's probably the most documented one, I'd imagine, isn't it hair color?
Yes, hair color is one of the most documented features. I would follow that up with probably height, but hair color, if anything, usually is reported. But I mean, it's it's honestly surprising how many reports don't even you know, just mentioned that the hike can get a little tricky, because obviously that's extremely subjective, like you know, as you know, people aren't super great at estimating heights or distances of things. But yeah, it's it's honestly surprising at how much is
it mentioned. And also just to give like a little example too, Like in my data set, I'm trying to keep up with one hundred and eighty different variables. So basically, any question that you can ask about bigfoot witness reports, I'm trying to have a column or a variable to
answer it. And these things range from like environmental variables to physical behavior or physical traits, witness information as well like ages and occupations and things and fear levels you know, sasquatch behaviors, footprint information if that's included as well, and definitely for the majority of reports, I can't pulling out, you know, one hundred and eighty columns worth of information, but there's still stuff there that you can look into for sure.
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo. We'll be right back after these messages. Well, you know, I was forwarded your paper Beyond Random Chance Multivariate analysis of Sasquatch Witness reports with lunar, seasonal and psychological data. I'm clearly looking at it right now because I can't remember, but it looks like it's published on your website, so other people can go read it, and of course the
website once again at Sasquatch Data Project dot com. But one of the things I was impressed about then I just had. I've done one quick read through of it.
I need to.
I'm the kind of reader that needs to read things two or three times to really digest it, to settle in and sit well with me. So I've only had one quick read through of it, and I apologize for that. But one of the things I was impressed with is the psychological aspect of your work here looking at the you know, the mindset, so to speak, of the witness
during the reports. And how that might factor into things, because the only other, really the other main source for any psychological data is are levely and talented producer here Matt Pruitt and his book and the Phenomenal Sasquatch. He addresses a lot of psychology that's almost even the premise of his book. You know, our sasquatch is a psychological phenomenon or a physical one. But you're addressing this, I think goes along ways as well, because I've been ranting.
I've found over the years that people are just so incredibly unreliable in estimates of numbers like heights and distances and weights, And it's not their own, it's not their fault or anything like that. Just that's something that people aren't good at for the most part. And you take into consideration height estimates versus fear levels. Tell us a little bit about that work and what you found.
Yeah, So that's actually one of my favorite things that I've ever looked into, because another facet of this whole thing that I'm so interested in is trying to look at almost like backdoor ways to either you know, to kind of like and this is my own bias, but supporting that you know, this is an animal, this is a thing that exists, right, So what are things that we can look at that would be extremely difficult to
hoax over decades and over a large geographic span. So the fear height analysis essentially I categorized witness fear into a couple different categories mild, moderate, elevated, and extreme, and then I looked at the heighth estimates that they gave to the sasquatch during their sighting. And I only use Class A sightings for most of like ninety nine percent of my research that I do, so these are only for Class A sightings and only when a fear level
and a height for the sasquatch was given. And I really like this analysis too because you know, it's not necessarily about having an accurate height measurement. It doesn't really matter, you know, what the final number is. It's more so
about the differences between the heights between fear groups. So what I found was as fear level goes up, so did the average height of the sasquatch overall, and the difference between the mild fear group and the elevated and extreme fear group estimated heights was significant.
So that was really interesting.
Essentially, the mild fear group had an average of six point eight feet, the moderate was I believe seven point three, elevated had like a seven point eight average, and then the extreme fear group had a seven point seven foot average. Something that's not included in the paper, but it's kind of interesting too, is that if you're looking at estimated heights over eight and a half feet, eighty percent of those reports fall into these elevated and extreme fear groups.
So that in itself is also really interesting.
Or it could be people there's extra scare becus of thing's so freaking big.
Well, yeah, and that's the other part of it too, right, that's really interesting. It's like, there's so many different ways
you could look at this. It's either, you know, a larger animal elicits a larger fear response, or you know, it could be it could be this thing called fear and do size distortion, where you know, essentially, when you're really freaked out, you can perceive things as larger than they actually are and in some cases of to thirty percent, which is crazy, especially when you're talking about such large heights. So you know, yeah, there's a couple of different ways
you can look at it. And that's honestly part of what's so fun about these investigations because it's like, I don't know what's causing these trends.
What about distance distances?
You know, I haven't looked into I haven't really done a lot with distances, so I'm not not sure.
I mean, I think that'd be like people that run into one like on a trail and like I literally steps out from behind a bush or a tree or something, it's literally fifteen feet in front of When they look up, those people like crap their pants. Yeah, you're one hundred yards away and you're in a car on the highway. You know, you can't catch you like you're it could be like a big one or whatever size, and you're
not going to be nearly scared. You know. It's there's a I know you take all this into an account because I watch your videos and i'd be like that, like that's kind of like you know, like I'll kind of question like your results or what your findings from what just from my personal experiences is what I've read over the years. And I read your paper, I was like,
oh my god, this is this is deep. I didn't I didn't realize it was I was trying to figure out the equations, like I can't even figure it, Like I'm not like a math major, but I was. I was pretty impressed with how in depth it goes.
Oh yeah, I try to. So there's kind of two sides to my research. There's a paper side and like the more in depth side, which I really enjoy, which is, you know, I try to take you as deep as I can go into the math, into the science and the reasoning behind like what I'm doing and the steps that I'm taking to get to these places. And then there's like a social media side where you can't go really as in depth as what I'm actually doing behind
the scenes. So I will say that, like pretty much everything I put out, there's way more work that goes into it than what I you know, make known, at least on social media, because there's only so much time you can say, and most folks aren't really too interested in like learning about all the equations and stuff. But yeah, I definitely I love to do those deep dives, and I love to write up my findings in a more structured paper format and whatnot. But and also to go
back to your distant stuff. I haven't looked at how distance plays into fear level, but it is on my list of things to do.
Let us know what you find out.
Oh yeah, absolutely will.
Well, let's talk about the lunar aspect of your paper as well, because you address those statistics and come to
some conclusions. For years and years and years, I've been told by other people, and I've never really thought either way that sasquatches are less active during moon full moons and this and that because they like sneaking, and they had all these sort of reasons, and I never really put much stock in it any way, because to me, the animals are out there no matter what the moon is, They've got to be doing something, and so I never really thought that, you know, it mattered very much other
than humans can see better during full moons. But you have some interesting findings, and I even read in there that you have eliminated the visibility aspect to some degree in your findings. So talk about that for a while if you will.
Yeah.
So, actually this is the question, Like, this is the component that actually made me want to start the sasquatch data project because I had heard the statement right that like the moon phases influence behaviors, and I realized, I'm like, well, you know, it would be really interesting, it would be really interesting to look at that, and it'd be pretty easy. Like all you need is a is a complete date of the siding and then you can calculate the moon illumination percentage for that date.
So yeah, Essentially, what I found is that sighting.
Reports significantly increase in the upper lunar illumination conditions, so meaning between eighty and one hundred percent, that's when things kind of peak. And that difference in siting report frequency between these upper moon illumination conditions and the lower are significant. So something's you know, something's going on. Essentially. You know, you can look at this from a couple different ways,
like a couple different standpoints. If you want to look at it from like an animal point of view, this actually, you know, it does mirror what we see in other If you want to assume sasquatches are nocturnal, it does mirror other nocturnal predator behaviors and that they increase their
activities during new and full moons. During full moons, prey have actually learned that nocturnal predators, you know, in particular, they can see better under full moon conditions, so they have been documented to decrease their activities anywhere from forty to seventy percent during these times, and predators have figured this out, so they're having to take more time to hunt because they aren't finding as much prey. They're also using this time to stake out territory, find mates, that
kind of thing. So that's interesting in itself. On the flip side, from like a more human aspect, I suppose humans have been documented as being more also more active, or staying awake longer during full moons. If I'm remembering correctly, it's really only like forty five minutes to an hour longer or something. But you know, we don't know that could make a difference in siding reports or at least
the frequency of sighting reports. And also, yeah, like you said, someone did a study on how well humans can see at night and they were comparing, like, you know, does a full moon significantly increase our visual acuity? And it turns out that it probably doesn't. The difference and illumination between a new and a full moon only differs by about one order of magnitude, and it's not really enough to make a huge difference for humans to be able to see better see.
I disagree. I just I know it's like you got stats on that, but it's like, I think there's there's other factors, Like it's what kind of canopy is there around you? You know, And there's no doubt that if you got more of a canopy, the full moon makes a huge difference what you can see around your camp at night. And I know that they say that's only one order of magnitude difference, but that's still that's quite a bit.
I think, Well, well, let me ask you this real fast. When you say one order of magnitude, I am also well, I mean, you're way more pro than I am, But I am an amateur astronomer, and I've got pretty nice telescope and all that kind of stuff, And so I know, at least I seem to remember that a magnitude isn't that an exponential measurement? So one order of magnitude isn't that an exponential increase?
Yeah, So a new moon hangs around point zero three looks, and a full moon hangs around like zero point two six lucks, which are both well under the threshold of humans being able to see well. I think, like in a movie theater, the average is if I'm not mistaken, like, it's no lower than three or four looks. So yeah, like it is one order of magnitude. But for our eyes and how you know, our eyes aren't adapted to
see in the dark, you know, or not nocturnal. It's at least in that study, they found it really didn't make a big difference in a person's ability to see. And you know, this is another situation where I'm like it if I read a paper where like they find it actually is enough.
That's cool too.
But one of the potential explanations for that too is that when you have a really bright object like a full moon against a dark background, it can make it appear brighter than it actually is.
So yeah, I don't know that.
It was just an interesting, interesting study that I found that I wanted to include because I had often heard that.
Yeah, I think. I think what I've said a lot about the full moon is that they don't come into like the researcher, like if you're doing knocks and calls whatever, they don't come in nearly as close when there's a full moon, Like I don't think that affects our other activities, or maybe it affects our activities like what they're doing because they got they got obviously better night vision than
we do. So if full moon could be a lot brighter for them than us, whatever, But I think when I don't know as far as when I talk about the activity at full I mean as far as them coming close to camp. Whenever I've had them come close to count, there's been like a third of a moon or less.
Oh that's interesting.
Yeah, you know, there is somewhat of an increase in siding reports under new moon conditions, like from zero to twenty percent, but when you're looking at which this is kind of interesting in itself too, because sighting reports do kind of follow the trends of the moon phases, where you know, the moon spends more time in the extreme
phases versus the middle. So there is like, there is an increase in sighting reports during new moon phases, but it's not enough to be significant when you're comparing it to what we like, what you would expect based on just how much time the moon spends in those phases
in general. It would be interesting though, to look at again, like distances, particularly with witnesses who are like camping or hiking or something, and compare that to the boon phases, it would be that would be an interesting one.
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo will be right back after these messages. Well, I have to assume that the data for the moon work that you've been doing is based on nocturnal sightings, first of all, but maybe it's not. I don't know. And also these sightings that are in the database, they aren't got to keep in mind that they're not necessarily observations, or maybe they are, they're not necessarily at least it's not clear to me that it is not necessarily observations
of a sasquatch using only moonlight as illumination. The flashlights or car headlights and that sort of thing are probably involved. So what it seems to me, at least from my quick read through, what seems to be pointed out here is that sasquatches are more active during those times. Is that correct? Am I in my on to something? Or you smell when I'm stepping in here?
Yeah, So for this particular investigation, something else that's this. This whole paper like was just pretty cool in my you know, personal opinion, because like, there's so many different ways you can take this. But so, yeah, the moon phases actually don't depend on the time of day. So that was something else that was interesting that cropped up from this, Like, no matter the time of day, we see the same trend in citing frequency, So that in itself was interesting. Not really sure what to.
Make of that.
But also, you know, I hesitate to say that these increases in siding reports are due to increased activity because at the end of the day, we don't know, because it could be more human reasons, you know that we're seeing these increases in citing reports. So yeah, it's just there's there's a lot of different ways you can take it.
But I guess did I answer your question. I'm sorry.
What I hear coming out is that science and data crunching like this, like the stuff that you're doing basically doesn't give us good answers necessarily. It gives interesting results, but not answers. But what it does do is generate some really fascinating questions.
Yes, yeap, I would totally agree with that statement. Yeah, like we can't make definitive conclusions. What we can do is ye draw really interesting patterns and potential information from things. And also part of that is like I'm just in general, like very careful with how I word things and how I kind of approach things, just to.
Try and eliminate like potential bias that.
I might put into things, because you know, to be honest, when I'm looking at data and when I'm looking into these things, I do kind of form ideas in my head of you know, what I think the causes of these patterns are. But when it comes to like papers and that kind of thing, you have to be very neutral.
One of the things I wanted to ask you about is if you had tried to cross reference anything with the salunar charts or salunar tables. I guess the other thing that would be difficult beyond that to Bobo's earlier point is that you know, moon phases and visibility are not intricately leaked because they don't account for weather data, which would probably be a lot harder to get a hold of accurately, because you could have a full moon and a very very thick cloud cover and still be
left with no visibility. So even though the moon phase is such and animals might be active influenced by that moon phase. It doesn't necessarily mean that human witnesses are going to be able to see better.
Yeah.
Yeah, so that's another thing that I hadn't taken into account with this paper. I've since added very thorough or extensive weather data to the data set, so that would actually be really cool to revisit is actually look at like what the weather was on those days, at least for the encounters where I was able to derive some
kind of moon illumination from. But yeah, I haven't to go back to your first question, there does seem to be, yes, some kind of correlation between animal behaviors and the lunar phases. I haven't looked at the table that you mentioned, but I do reference a couple of different papers in my paper that we're talking especially about like black bears and different other nocturnal predators as well, and how their activity is affected by potentially the moon phases and the illumination conditions.
Yeah.
I'll send over some of that data because there are plenty of people in the outdoor space, anglers and hunters specifically, who use those as almost like predictive tools as to when to go hunting and I've seen a lot of really interesting anecdotal support for that, and I've experienced some of it myself, and then you know, it's a whole
nother conversation. I don't want to derail it. But there was someone years ago, as part of another project, who would clued me into this and sent some peer reviewed papers showing that there was a positive correlation. And he also said, take this data set, go through all the reports that you firmly think have validity and cross check them against these charts. And everyone that I looked at was in a predicted period of like peak animal activity, and so I was like, h I think there's something
to this. Like it was kind of at first I thought, ah, this is a little wooy, But I changed my tune pretty quickly in terms of being proven wrong. So I'll send over that information.
No, that's really interesting.
The last aspect of your paper, that is the seasonal data that you took into consideration and the patterns that you looked at there. Of course, this is done very early on in the game. John Green did that with his data back in the day and found out what one would expect. Really, sightings seemed to peak in or July August, the July ish pretty much and they drop off in January February. And John Green I remember writing
something effective like that's almost certainly a human factor. Now you've you've found that a summer is was it second place to fall or is it about the same? I don't remember which, And the winter and spring of all things were the lowest. So can you talk about what your your findings were, your methods and findings and your thoughts on that.
Yeah, so summer and fall had definitely the most siding reports, their frequencies were the highest, and then there is a huge drop off in the winter in the spring. So again there's a couple of different ways to look at this.
You know, animal activities do increase during the summer in the fall, whether it's for foraging reasons, you know, different running seasons come into play in the fall, or I think it's juvenile black bears they actually start separating from their mothers during the spring, and they'll increase their ranges and whatnot, and so all of these things basically increase the chance that a human has some kind of interaction with the animals because they're expanding the rages that they're
becoming way more active and.
That kind of thing.
So you know, if you want to look at things from an animal perspective, there's that to potentially support the increase during the summer in the fall. On the other side, yeah, humans are way more active in the summer in the fall. You know, they're camping, they're hiking, they're hunting in the fall.
I think I even reference to paper in there talking about how humans are more likely to be in more remote areas during the fall, Like there's a significant increase in human presence, you know, therefore increasing your chances to have an encounter with anomalist phenomena or you know, an
animal you didn't quite expect. And you know there's other aspects too, like in the fall, they found that you can see up to six percent further into a forest because of the lack of leaves, you know, again increasing your chances of having some kind of sighting. So those those things were pretty interesting and honestly expected. I wasn't really surprised by the increase in siding reports. What did
surprise me? And I've thought about this a lot more since I published this paper, But actually, the decrease in siding reports during the spring is really interesting because, oh yeah, because you would think from like in the animal perspective, you know, that's when they kind of wake up in a sense, they're becoming way more active and trying to recoup all the last calories and whatnot from winter, and
they're becoming just way more active after wintertime. And then you know, also humans are becoming more active and going outside more. So that was that's become one of the biggest questions for me, and I don't have an answer for that one. Like I don't really know why there's such a big decrease in siding reports during the springtime, but it's just one of those things.
It's really interesting.
Well, I would think that during winter and spring it must be weather related in some sort of way, at least from the human side of things, because these areas are are difficult to get into, certainly during the winter and in springtime. You know, I know that your data mostly focuses on this southeast and the Pacific Coast states and out here in the Pacific Northwest. I mean, it's a sloppy, wet, muddy mess out there for most of spring.
It's difficult to get out there, and you have to be a hard headed stubborn jerk like myself to force yourself out into those areas to try to even see a sasquatch or find footprints or do that kind of thing. But does your finding suggest that there's more to it than just the human aspect of can't get to those spots in those times a.
Year, I think for the springtime, Yes, suddenly I do think that there's there's something going on that I don't know. I just I haven't found either enough information on or I haven't you know, dug deep enough into some papers to find out like what could be causing this in the winter time, you know, I definitely think that it's probably a human thing where yeah, like humans aren't going into these more remote areas the weather's gross, are just
staying inside more and whatnot. But again that's where I'm not, you know, I'm not really sure if I can give a give a good answer for that.
Yeah, for my own work, I mean, I find about I find more stuff during non summer months, and of course I'm trying to see an animal, of course, but uh, I don't, you know, for whatever that's worth. But I
do find footprints. I find a good, pretty good number of footprints and winter, late fall and up to early spring are the best times because you can actually see the ground, and I do find a fair amount of prints during those times, so it doesn't seem and of course I don't have the data to back me up. I wish I did, but it seems to me that they're still out there doing their thing during those months, and I don't see any indication of hibernation or topea
or anything like that. Winter seems to be very very good, at least in my areas. So it was an interesting find, and again I look forward to rereading your paper several times to really digest it.
I definitely don't think that they're going anywhere during these times, especially during the winter. Like I am pretty firmly on the side that it's probably like more of a human thing. But you know, that's part of what's so interesting about this work is that it might bring up some surprises, and you know, until we can build upon it, and until I go through more data as well, so you know, just to bring in another side of things that it
could be as using. The majority of my data set is from the BFR, so that already kind of introduces some bias because it's all of the public reports, so it's you know, you're basing this information on you know, first of all, presence only data, So we only have data on when someone actually experienced something and then felt compelled enough to report it to someone and then it had to be followed up on and then published. So there's a couple of different layers that make this kind
of tricky as well. So you know, for all we know, too, it could be some kind of bias that's also influencing this, maybe for some reason, like spring and winter reports, you know, they are publishing more of for whatever reason. So yeah, that's where it's also important that at some point got to do this, bring in more data sets, in more different you know, more different data sets into my data set, so that we can have a more well rounded point of view of the information that we're looking at.
Would raw, uninvestigated reports be more useful then if I if the filter of an investigator taking the time to call the person and talk to them, write up a report and publish it, and would raw reports be have a different value to you than investigated reports.
That's a really good question. I would say it really depends. It really depends on the source of where those raw reports are coming from right now, at least as things stand, at least from looking at reports like purely from the BFO, I do prefer reports that have been followed up on and at least you know, contact was made with the witness and you know they kind of passed a first check.
But you know, it would be interesting to see how those reports compare to the raw report worts, because that, you know, in itself, could give us some indication of how different like it without having that filter, Like are these reports just inherently different? Are there things that are just different between the two, things that are mentioned or not mentioned that either you know, make it through or
don't make it through that filter. So, yeah, that's a that's an interesting question, and I haven't really thought about that before, but I would I guess I would say right now, it.
Would depend on the source of the raw reports.
I'm sure people would like to hear what you actually found, Like as far as a hair color, I was looking at some of the notes I took on that is that like dark, you compared the South versus the West. I think there was eighteen or nineteen states involved, and like for dark in the West, there was twenty two percent. In the South that was thirteen percent, and in red brown it was nine point two percent in the West
and sixteen point eight percent in the South. And white it was one point four six percent in the West and five point six percent in the South. And gray was two point four to three percent in the West and eight point three percent in the South. Of all the dead I saw you collect, that was the most divergent because so many other ones line up so well together. But that was the biggest of the five subjects that
you covered that I saw. I thought that was pretty interesting, Like that was the biggest difference was coloration between the South and the West as opposed to track size, height estimates and aggressiveness and all that.
Yeah, So the regional differences and at least physical characteristics is something that I'm particularly interested in. I love looking at the data and seeing if there are actually regional differences, and with the hair colors in particular, there are at
least as how things are reported. So like you said, like in the South we have more where we have an increased frequency of reports of red, brown, gray, white, and I think blonde too, And those differences and frequencies are statistically significant when you're you know, comparing them to
the Western regions. You know, that's interesting in itself because especially when you start looking at things in a more like granular way, I guess, because you start to see these like clusters of hair colors, especially for the white and the gray like reports.
I remember that in Alabama.
There's like a couple of little clusters where there's a notable increase of citing reports of white hair colored sasquatches.
What.
Yeah, And so it's funny because like I didn't even know that was a thing until after I found that, And I'm like, well, there you go. That explained that, like this is a thing that's known in that region. But yeah, the hair colors are pretty interesting. I'm not sure why there's such a differ diference. I will say, like I have heard throughout the years that the South does have more like red or red brown sasquatches, and it leaves out the data stands right now that is
supported that claim. But I thought it was interesting the gray and the white hair color was interesting that there was so many more in the South versus the Western states.
If you guys Oklahoma, do other area, like what was you guys saw what do you have eight or ten individuals you guys have identified or something like that, and there was a couple of gray ones. You know.
I didn't have any sightings there. But it really just depends. I don't think you could arrive at the number that I would estimate is much smaller than that, because what one person calls cinnamon red and another person calls light brown might be exactly the same color, you know, and so and then if individuals change over time. But one of the things that I think is interesting is that there is a sort of like a rule or a law,
and the name of it escapes me right now. That has to do with the color of plumage or pelage of a given species in its distribution over latitudes, and a lot of it has to do with relative heat and sunlight distribution, because obviously, if you're an animal of a certain size and you have a lot of internal heat, you know, giganto thermy that applies to very large animals, well, it's not very beneficial to be dark colored as an adult, you know, with large mass in a place that's very hot,
that gets a lot of sun. It would be more beneficial to have lighter coloration, so that you're reflecting more of the sun's light rather than absorbing it, and then vice versa. If you're in a northern climate where you know, you don't get a whole lot of direct sunlight year round because the winters are long and a little bit more brutal, it would be more advantageous, especially for individuals of a certain age or size, to be of that darker coloration, so they are absorbing more of the heat
from the sun during the day. And that seems to be sort of like present in that north south distribution, which I think we could kind of look at as a east west because usually we're talking like southeast versus northwest, so there's still a south component. But in area X, yeah, there were multiple sightings of like one particularly large gray individual. Out of all of those in my memory, there was one siding where one member saw what he believed to
be two pairs of legs. He only saw him basically from the waist down and brush two pairs of gray legs, grayish you know, slate gray legs. And so that's where the idea that oh, maybe there's more than one of these you know, larger gray ones around, but no one had like a clear sighting of like two gray ones from the waist up or you know, head to toe or anything like that.
I know, I know in the Northwest and like Northwest territories in Yukon and Alaska, that black is like about eighty percent of all the sightings. So that makes sense too, you know, And then we need to restrially go crunch to that data to tell us if that's what the real number is. But she's think there's a lot more
black ones up there. Then another interesting thing he had in there was aggressive encount and only seven percent of the cases you found were aggressive, and only one percent or less involved chest beating, car shaking, those types of those type of things. And it was for aggressive you had seven point nine percent of encounters in the South and five point four percent in the West. I was
expecting this. The highest percent for aggressive encounters was fishing at sixteen percent, because that's kind of what we've always imagined was that was fishing seem to get the most aggressive encounters because I guess with aggressive, like you know, it includes rock throwing, like you know, throwing pine cones or like a fishermen, I think they know things being thrown a lot more because it plops in the water in front of you, like they throw stuff in the
water around the fishermen, you know. And I think that that accounts for like the aggressive why that was stuck out so much higher in the aggressive account.
Yeah.
So, yeah, the aggression thing was something that I had heard about, Like just I heard of folks say that, you know, the saf squashes in the South are more aggressive than anywhere else in the United States. And at least for how you know things are reported, there are more reports of general aggression or intimidation behaviors reported in
the South. And I do like to say too, the like encounters that are explicitly aggressive, like you know, bluff charges or the witness genuinely felt like they were in danger, they make up, you know, less than five percent of reports, because that's something I get asked about too, is like, you know, are they are they going to hurt you? And to which you know, I can say, I don't know, but at least you know, the reports we do have.
That's the stat on that. But yeah, so, so in the South they are expressing at least aggressive behaviors more frequently than those in the West. And it does include things like object throwing, tree shaking, bluff charges, stuff like that.
But the number of reports where the sasquatch was like, you know, trying to harm the witness in some way, you know, like legitimately is very very low, at least how they're reported, and that, you know, in that in itself could be due to well, maybe the witness, you know, doesn't want to report something like that because it was you know traumatic or you know, really difficult for them to talk about. So we might we probably don't have all the data on those kinds of reports. And yeah,
so so we do. We do see aggression at least more frequently in the South, but that definitely still happens.
In the West. You know.
I've got some questions about that sort of thing, and I also want to know a little bit more about your personal journey into the world of Bigfoot as well, and I think we should continue that compstation over on the members side, So we'd love to have you join us over there, of course, and I think you're doing fantastic work. And I want to thank you for joining us for the public side of our podcast before we
go over to the members. So thank you so much, not only for coming on the podcast and spending time with us, but also from freeing us from our own assumptions by using data.
Yeah, no problem.
I'm I just appreciate you guys so much for having me on. I love love talking about this stuff. And I don't think I got to mention this, but you guys had such a huge influence on you know, me even pursuing this project and just being interested in Sasquatch in general. So I honestly just feel really humbled to be talking to you guys.
So it's our fault.
Wow, thank you. Yeah, I want to say thank you, Yeah, thank you, thank you for coming on the show, but way more important, thank you, huge, huge, thank you for doing this for us. Would be statistically, you know, boring, you know, just I wouldn't want to do it. But I'm so glad you're doing it. I'm sure everyone else is too, So thank you. Treasure that you can follow Tresha on Instagram and face. She's on all of them. She's got some interesting things on there. It's not so technical.
If you go to our videos and stuff, it's really entertaining. She presents it clearly and easy to understand. So, okay, we're going to go join her now at the Patreon section. So until next week, y'all, keep it squatchy.
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