Ep. 343 - Darby Orcutt Returns!

behind the scenes. The Bigfoot community in general is clamoring for some sort of update, and you've been promising for months and months that when there are updates you will come back on BigMan and Beyond. So thank you so much for coming, Darby. How you doing men, I'm doing well, and thank you so much for having me. I welcome the opportunity to come back on the podcast because I think I'll have such a reach to the community and I'd like to update as many people as possible and

one go. So Darby, hell, let's let's in case there are some new listeners or in case there's some people out there who don't know what's going on, tell us a little bit about the project, what you're trying to do, and you know how long it's been going on, and all that sort of stuff. Just a brief overview.

I think that's the last time I was on the podcast was about two years ago, launched a call for biological specimens that people think maybe or alleged to be from Sasquatch, and my rationale for that, well, the long rationale for that one is that I think this is a very interesting phenomenon field that needs more scientific inquiry.

And these people have been finding these oftentimes very interesting samples, mainly hair samples, but other types of biological samples for essentially decades, and there have been very very few credible scientific and academic analyses of these samples.

with regard to this question. As I mentioned, there have been only there have been only that I've been able to find two formal academic studies, and together they published results for I believe it's eleven samples from North America,

all of which were determined to be known species. So there really hasn't been a lot of work done in a formal way, and in fact, where we are now, we've already been able to do genetic analysis on dozens of samples, and we haven't published yet, but when we publish, we will have increased the data set in this area by many, many, many times what it has been previously.

They had the best intentions of looking at the samples, but they sat in their office for years, if not decades. In one case in particular, I was trying to help one Bigfoot investigator see if he could recover his samples after a faculty member at another university had taken them

and then unfortunately passed away. And so that was one of the things that was really important to me because I feel like this has been a this has been a community in many ways that's been burned a lot in the past, been burned by people who are say that they're going to do a credible study and then that's not what comes about, or who have taken samples and not given people feedback on what the findings were.

And so I wanted to approach this in a very again, a very formal way, and that means that you know, even if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, there would be a mechanism at the university to reach out to the participants in the study, those who provided samples, and let them know it had come of those return the samples. This sort of thing. I did not want to be another one of those people who didn't do it.

Absolutely buy the book and correctly and so, like I say, it took quite a few years of planning and paperwork and all of that before the call even launched, and then I had to wait for samples to start coming in. And then the important thing about this study is that I am going to be with my collaborators looking at these things very deeply. What's really important is to look at these to the level that I can really say at the end of it that we did our due diligence.

We truly investigated each and every one of these samples to the point that we feel absolutely comfortable with reporting this information. These are the findings. So it's a process that unfortunately takes a long long time, but at the end, everyone who's providing a sample will get those individual results and can take those to the bank.

That's the rumor. That's oftentimes what media productions, television shows will lead you to believe, because hey, that sounds really interesting and salacious and it gets viewers. But unknown really means as a result, really means either we couldn't determine.

But the same really means we couldn't determine what the sample is and we either couldn't determine it because the sample itself was so degraded that we just couldn't get that data out of it, or it means that we didn't do deep enough testing to be able to differentiate that, you know, what that is from other like species. And I think that's really important because I've seen this happen.

I've seen this happen again again, for example, on television shows where they will do a basic level of genetic testing, a level of genetic testing that wouldn't be able to tell you, for example, the difference between one primate and another or between you know, and including humans. Okay, it would just say well, okay, we know this is primate, and then they they leave it at that, They go, wow, it's primate and it's unknown, you know, like it's unknown which primate it is.

the hair. The features of the hair can differ on different parts of the body or depending on whether it's part of an undercoat or an overcoat, and there are so many various factors, many of which just haven't been documented.

And there really are very very few people who are doing that work anymore because genetic testing has come so far, so why would somebody invest the time in really trying to figure out how to identify microscopically a hair when they can run a quick and dirty genetic test and in most cases determined pretty quickly the species. It's an interesting situation. I've got a colleague at INC State, one of whose students just in the last couple of years

discovered a new feature of lemur hair. And this was an undergraduate who found something that science did not know, and in part was able to do that because they were about the only person in the world, maybe the only person in the world that year, who is even

really looking at lehmar hair and it's morphology. And I think that's one thing that is really significant to understand is that science has a wonderful understanding of the world, but it's an understanding that has gaps because there are lots and lots of questions that we've never asked before. And that's what comes back to my study is that there are these questions that have never been asked before.

What are what are these things that people are finding, these these hairs, these other biological samples that people are finding that for them correlate with what they think maybe bigfoot or sasquatch encounters or other evidence, or or these hairs that may be morphologically unusual that we can't readily identify.

And so this is what's really important, is looking at these things, because the scientific tools are wonderful way of understanding our world, but they can only help us understand to the extent that we use them to ask questions.

be a verb of some sort. I'm going to science that and figure it out, you know, because science is a process about asking questions and making a guess and seeing if you can gather information that supports your guests, you know, and if it doesn't, then you change your guess, like what what's going on here?

where Bigfoot kind of sits culturally for us. I mean, you ask most people in this country about that, and they think that it's a joke. I do also think that in media and and in social media, we find that nearly all of the folks who are engaged with Bigfoot or Sasquatch already have more or less made up

their minds about the answers to potential questions. And I think that that that dynamic, it's represented through this very buying, very understanding of you know, Bigfoot believers versus Bigfoot skeptics, right, and these are really ways of talking about two groups that have already made up their minds about about the evidence.

shilling their stuff here. And since this particular subject, the sasquatch subject, has been a target of ridicule and hoaxes and all sorts of you know, snake oil salesmen for decades. We need something like this, right, like some a conservative of sober perspective looking at this mystery. What can you tell us about your study? Because I know there's a

lot you can't say. I guess it's me really the long way around to saying that there's a lot you cannot say because you are being appropriately conservative with this study. What can you tell us about what's been going on? Though? What can we know?

I take that trust very seriously. That's part of this is that I want to make sure that the results that I deliver our rock solid, that they are a true understanding of what this potential evidence is. So that's one thing I think I've also come to realize that, you know, people are impatient, and people's understanding of a lot of their understanding of the science comes from television shows. And I'm not talking about the paranormal shows or the

Bigfoot shows or what have you. I'm talking about things as simple as like CSI, where we're used to seeing, Oh, okay, here this DNA was this DNA was found scene of a crime, and within less than an hour, we have results. We've got the you know, they spit out the home address of the perpetrator and there we go, and it's quite easily done, right, And it doesn't work that way in the real world, and especially doesn't work that way in the real world when it comes to a research

project where you're dealing with potential unknowns. I think people see also in the news, they see a lot of amazing things, almost magical seeming things that folks are able to do with DNA in terms of identifying suspects and finding trace evidence at crime scenes and things like that. And people think, well, way, if it's if they're doing these amazing things, then why can't we be applying that

with it to the big photo sasquatch question? And the answer to that really comes on what's hidden, what's really obfuscated in the media about how genetic analysis works, and that is is that so much of our understanding of it is based on the data sets that we have.

So for example, when you're talking about identifying a human a particular human, or a human particular family, or humans particular regions of the world, or whatever it may be, you have to understand that we have so much data, We have so many human sequences, medical research and all all all that there has been so much work done on analyzing human genetics, for example, that we can do a whole lot more with that, right, Whereas when you start to work even with even with known species, there's

a whole lot less that we know, for example, even about bears. So if you if you if you want to find out about bear populations and things like that, there's there's a whole lot less data to work with. Well, take that to a potential unknown species where you have essentially no data to work with, and it's a it's a completely different undertaking. And so that's that's part of it, is that the bioinformatics problem is not a small one.

The bioinformatics basically refers to how you do data analysis on DNA sequences in order to glean information from them. That's huge, right there.

And so I guess the best example of this is if we were if we were looking for a known species in a place where that species is not known to be. And I've actually got a project now doing that, collaborative project doing that with regard to mountain lions or cougars. And we can talk more about that another time if you're interested. But we're looking to see there are a lot of reports of these in a place where they shouldn't be, and we're looking to see, you know, are

they in this place where they shouldn't be. That's such an easy question when it comes to it, because you can analyze the data and we know exactly what sequences to look for to find a known species, even in a place where it shouldn't be when we're looking for a potential unknown species, that is an infinitely work upplicated question. Again, not an insurmountable one, because all species on the planet are related, but it's a much, much, much bigger proposition.

But yet here we are two plus years into the study and you're still doing it. That that, at least to me, implies that there's some promising results that have not gotten to the bottom. You haven't got to the bottom of yet, So there's enough here that keeps you going.

interesting to me after several levels of analysis. And let me put this in perspective. I did listen to your DNA episode that you did a month or so ago, and I thought y'all did a pretty good job with that. I did here. I did hear my metaphor reflected in your discussion there of thinking about thinking about DNA sequencing as the different levels of resolution of say a photograph. Okay, And I think that's a great way to think about it.

Just that you start out and you're you're looking at something and you say, okay, here is maybe a highly pixelated image.

the picture. Okay. Great. And so you have these level upon levels of magnification that you might go through, and the DNA study works in much the same way where we start off with these. You know, we start off by looking just at the morphology. There have been a few samples that we've been able to identify pretty readily just from just just from looking at them. There have been a number of studies that you know, once we do Boba mentioned the electron microscopy, Once we do electron microscopy,

it becomes very clear. Okay, this is a classic presentation of say, raccoon hair. All right, great, Then we get into the genetic analysis. And I think one of the other misconceptions that people have is they think DNA analysis is one thing, and it really isn't DNA analysis. There are probably one hundred different subspecialties of DNA analysis, And so when I work with geneticists, you know, geneticis is

not one kind. There are geneticists over here who do this type of thing and don't understand what their colleagues in this other subfield of genetics really do, and vice versa, and so it gets very complex very quickly. But essentially, what we're doing is the first test that we might do might be the the quicker and the less expensive tests that only gets you resolution to a certain level, all right, and that level.

potentially interesting. And and there's several though that I'm going to bring to the next level of analysis, which will really be able to That's about the I don't want to say it's the highest level of the deepest level of sequencing we can do, but it's it's it's approaching that. And as you can mentioned, each of these tests, they're they're increasingly laborious, they're increasingly expensive. So there's this kind of triage process, but I hesitate to This has been

part of the thing. People always ask, well, what about the results? What about the results? And I think this is something that people need to understand and why I've been a little reluctant to really release results or give numbers yet because well, for a number of reasons, the numbers that I can give you now aren't necessarily uniformly

representative of everything in the study. Okay, For example, we have focused in the first the first rounds of analysis, we have focused on the I'll say, I hate to use this term, but let's say the less precious samples. So the samples the hair samples, for example, that are more robust that there's more hair there, because any genetic testing is going to be at least mildly destructive of the sample. So we haven't yet proceeded to samples where there's a single hair.

the in the mail. I mean, how some like like they said that I got a letter saying that I was. It said, uh, you're you cannot bring in animal parts from other countries. So I'm like, how in the hell will they know there's a single or two hairs folded inside of an envelope that you know, like just normal mail, Like how how would they know there's a hair in there? You know?

a that's a that's a difference. I do think that there are certain guidelines when it comes to things like for example, shipping blood samples and things like that, things that could potentially contain pathogens, things that could be dangerous too, you know, I mean, could be dangerous to postal employees if a package like that were to start leaking, you know,

could it could it pass along a disease to someone? Well, that's yeah, that's something we got to think about and something we need to prepare for and make sure that those packages are labeled and shipped properly. And so that's part of why I tell everyone, you know, don't ship me anything until you've talked with me, and you know, I know that it's coming, and I've given you the instructions on how to send that, because I don't want

things to you know, go missing in the mail. I will say, knock on wood that I have not had any any sample that somebody talked with me first told me they were shipping and shipped to me. That I have not any sample that has been hasn't arrived in perfect perfect condition.

preparing for? What preparations are you making now for that eventuality? Because I think you're going to do it, and you're gonna have to deal with a lot of problems that none of us foresee.

And as I say, as you can imagine because I started talking about that, that's sort of almost like a triage system where you know, we use deepening deepening levels of analysis, and some of the samples start to be identified each step along the way, and then some still maintain their interest and really require a much more deeper level of analysis. So what that means is and I've thought about this and This is an imperfect metaphor, but I'll toss it out there. I think about in terms

of releasing results. For example, I could start releasing results as we had them, but that would start to give the impression that everything that we're finding is a normal animal. It's it's definitely you know, there's It might start to

suggest that there's nothing there. It would be like if you were like standing outside of the emergency room and you start watching people go in, and the first people that start coming out, you know, they've just they've taken their temperature and they've stuck a band aid on them and they've sent them home. And you start realizing there's all these people coming out and they just gave them

a band aid. So you wonder, well, why do we even have an emergency room anyway, because everybody's just getting a band aid and coming out, And what you're not seeing is the smaller number of people who went in there and they're not out yet because well, they might be in surgery for a grave condition. So you could easily start to say, well, wait a second, i'm looking

at it. I'm looking at a samp. I'm looking at samples that are not representative necessarily of the whole and so and that, and as you can imagine, that's what's going to happen. I mean, that's what's already happened with. You know, lots of people don't send them to me because it doesn't look interesting to them. It looks exactly like a raccoon pelt or bare hair or what have you. And so they they've already you know, and so that's what I'm you know. So the one thing is I

don't want to I don't necessarily want to feed. I don't necessarily want to feed the people who say, well, there's no there, there, there's no this is not worth studying, because as you can imagine, there's going to be. My expectation heading into this was that most of the samples that I received, at the very least most if not all, the samples I received, would be identifiable as an own species.

So I was at a bigfoot event in Oregon this summer and somebody asked me, you know, what percentage of the samples that you get do you suspect to be sasquatch versus a known species? And I turned that question back around on the person. I said, well, what do you think you're the you're the person who spends time investigating reports and talking to witnesses and things like this. What would you expect? What what what percentage of things that people might think or sasquatch do you think would

actually be sasquatch? And he says, well, I don't know, maybe one, one or two percent. And I said, well, I said to the crowd, because it's a crowd of people, many of whom are active investigators, like you might know better than I. You know from your perspective, you know, what do you think? What percentage? And I said, how many of you say? One hundred percent, no hands, fifty percent no hands, twenty five percent no hands, you know.

And I go down the way and I found that in that group, the overwhelming maturity thought that about one percent of samples might be the real deal. Well that's really interesting to me. Now I have no basis. I have absolutely no basis at this point for answering that question myself. I need more data. I need data to even note that there's a species there. But that was interesting to me that the Bigfoot investigators felt like I might get about you know, one percent, that's one in

one hundred. Well, how many examples then do I need to look at in order to even to find what they expect will be one in a hundred, well at least one hundred, right, Yeah, And so that's part of what keeps me going is that you know, we again we don't have This is a this is a data poor field in many ways. And I talk about that with my other projects as well, because the DNA study is just one of these. I have data science projects I have, I have e DNA projects. I have a

new acoustics project that's starting up, audio project. In all of these areas we have we have a lot of anecdotal data, but we don't have a lot of data that we can really do a whole lot with. And that's what I'm looking to change with with my entire

research program. And so with regard to the DNA study, you know, if if those investigators are right, and one in one hundred samples is going to be sasquatch right and again, and I already know also that I'm going to much more quickly identify the ones that are obviously not sacequatch right, so I could release results, you know, if one in a hundred is the correct guess I could release, you know, a couple one hundred or more results that are all normal animals, and we still wouldn't

have achieved that. So do I want to do that? Do I want to give the impression that there's no there there until I know I don't. That's a tough one. But people are clamoring for results, and I want to be able to give results. I want to be able to show them momentum of the study, so that because I want people to be able to still when they find something interesting, I want them to submit it because

I need the I need the good samples. And so I thought about, you know, do I need I think I I think I'm at the point I'm gonna I'm gonna just throw this out there. But I think I'm at the point where I'm thinking, well, I need to start letting some of these people know. But with the understanding that there's gonna be a lot of caveats there. One is that again, it's it's easiest and quickest to identify things that are known species. So the first people

that get results are going to be disappointed. Right. The other thing, though, the flip side of it, though, is those who don't get results right away. I would have to also understand that, you know, well, no news is good news, and that maybe they found what they what they what they think they've got. Maybe they'll get those

results down the road. But at the same time, there would be a lot of caveats, a lot of reasons why I don't have results for them yet, and those those things would include one I mentioned that we haven't we haven't proceeded to the samples that are very small,

that are single hairs yet. So somebody could have given me a single hair early in the submission process and i haven't looked at it yet, so I'm not going to have data for them yet because it's a single hair in some cases, you know, I'm I'm always very upfront. I'm not looking for Bigfoot as a species. I'm looking to explain the Bigfoot phenomenon, what it is that people are experiencing, the sorts of the sorts of things that people correlate with an idea of bigfoot or sasquatch, and

I'm looking to explain that. Well. I may hold back on some of these because, for example, I may find that I'm already starting to question whether certain experiences, types of experiences that people have that they associate with Bigfoot may actually the analysis that I'm doing maybe pointing towards particular species known species that seem to correlate with those types of reports. I'll give you an example, and this is not a real example. I'm just going to make

this one up. But let's say, you know, people say, okay, there are tree breaks, right Bigfoot does these tree breaks, and you know, okay, there's these tree breaks going on. Well what if you know, what if I were to find that, you know, hey, when people are collecting hairs off of tree breaks, they generally turn out to be bear hair, and we might say, okay, well maybe bears are really accounting for those tree breaks, or maybe they turn out to be I don't know, whatever else it

may be, or trying to explain that that situation. I will say that another example of why I might not release data right away. I have I have at least one sample where I know what it is. Okay, I know it's a known species, but I'm trying to figure out how this sample from this known species possibly got into the context in which it was found. I'm really curious about that.

were mistaken. So I'm not, at least thus far seeing that like, hey, it's it's usually a bear. I'm seeing a wide range of identifications. I'll say that.

it is huge, It really is huge. The fact that I have been able to me, the fact that I am still interested in some of these samples after the levels of rigorous analysis that we've put them to, makes me very hopeful that we might find something interesting. There's

still potential normal explanations for what I'm seeing. But I would say I hate to say this, I don't want to get people hyped up, But at the same time, I would say that if I were the person in Las Vegas who sets the odds that a new species would be identified, I think maybe those odds have ticked up a little bit for me.

I did several when I was first launching because I wanted to get the word out and get samples. I don't do a lot of these podcasts. I turned down tons and tons of events. Don't really do too many of those because I want to be doing the work. My goal is not to be a celebrity. My goal is to answer my own curiosity about what is going on here?

find their way to me. I also, quite frankly, I'm not a again, I'm not a big self promoter, but I will say that the funding helps. The funding helps considerably, and the more donations that I have to the project, to the research program, the faster things will go. And I have now set up and I hope you'll link in the show notes. I have recently updated my university website and that has ways that you can give directly

to the research program through the university. I know that some people are not comfortable, you know, for whatever reasons, donating two universities. So I also have recently set up a private mission driven company. It's called Science Without Boundaries, and there are ways that people can also give through that, and that, again is a mission driven company. One hundred percent of anything that goes there goes into the research

and the educational programs. That I run. And I also I also should mention, you know, when I do give talks and things like this, as you know, Cliff, because I gave one when I was out in Oregon this summer for the museum. Who did I have you write the check too?