Ep. 351 - The Value of 'Squatchy History!

You know, five years might be kind of close. But I bet, you know, whatever worst case scenario, I lose it and I have a steak dinner with some bourbon with doctor Todd Disstel. He's cool, he's funny, he's weird. I like him, you know, I'm cool with that. But yes, that's the only bet I have rolling right now. What did I talk to you last? I mean today, today's the twenty first of January. It's a Wednesday. I know that we did a podcast last week. I told you about finding tracks, right.

to know the area more. I went on Monday and Wednesday and Friday, so I was out in the woods three days last week. And then on top of that, I'm for the rest of the week. I'm going to be preparing my presentation for squatch Fest, which is on the thirtieth and thirty first, So I'll be up there with Katy's strain that squatch Fest, but I am going to be talking about the nineteen ninety six five points trackway that Doctor Meldrum cast because I've got a lot

of cool artifacts. If you're a museum member, you saw a video that I made at the end published at the end of December about that trackway. So I'm going to be doing a live presentation about it and taking questions and all that sort of stuff. So the video itself that I published was about twenty minutes long, is kind of a long one. It's like twenty minutes, so you're gonna get a full hour of it if you come to squadch Fest. So I'll be speaking about that,

tipping my hat to my good friend doctor Meldrum. So yeah, should be good. Should be good.

ivin't had a chance to take her. So she asks, hey, if you Melissa are going one on it, go is So she's gonna come out with me tomorrow. I'm gonna show that really good track I sent you a photograph of and see if there's anything else because I haven't been there since Friday, so who knows what's been walking around in that valley or the adjacent valleys in the meantime. This is the time of year there, now and low.

So if you're listening to this and you're a big footer and you want to go out and put the boots on the ground, here's the advice, best advice in the world I can give right now for bigfoot. Well two things, find where they've been seen before this time of year, and number two, stay below the snow line. It's as simple as that. Man, go there and just keep on going and you're gonna get something. Yeah, So I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to that. Cool.

sixty plus years ago. And I understand why multiple people were researching the same events and writing down their findings. You all have a passion for the history of the topic, and because those things were published, there's a shared pool of knowledge to discuss those events. But why don't we have the same level of enthusiasm for contemporary events. We've got the same critters out there doing the same things they were doing sixty years ago, but nothing is generating

excitement and researchers the same way. So what's changed? Did the novelty wear off? Has the expectation for what we find exciting moves so far that it takes something outrageous to get folks to care. Do we lack someone like John Green willing to head out for all these stories? And I think there's a whole lot to be said for all those points and a whole lot of other ones that weren't listed in that question.

I'm like, wait, what, like we're still you know. But a lot of it for me is that I think other and other people too, is that there was like nowadays you can read I mean I see some of the reports coming into just AI you know, or just you know, like it's so easy to fake a report now before like you could, like people did, there was so much knowledge out there, and like when John Green was putting his stuff together, there wasn't like there's there was no database to go to or you know, a

bunch of books or it was just you could it was a lot more pure, you know. It was you were getting just what people like, more unadulterated, like I didn't like, not as influenced by pop culture and this and that reports. And John Green was a pretty thorough guy and pretty good at sewing people out. So that's why those are important to me and a lot of

other people. I mean, I guess it's the main thing is that it wasn't like a lot of cutting paste, copycat stuff going on, you knows, really, like you can count on the being not as false applied as a lot of other ones like later on.

to be proactive and investigate viable habitat. You know, when I first got the question, my sarcastic thought was like, oh, yeah, it would be really cool, Like maybe if Cliff and Bobo did go around looking for witnesses and following up on evidence and looking for tracks, and you know, maybe maybe you guys could like document that somehow, and hell maybe you could go to Canada or Vietnam or Australia or China.

up with those witnesses. But after you've gotten so many of those under your belt, you eventually get to a point where you take that knowledge and shift it into being proactive and you know you're not waiting for a report to come in. And god knows how different that was in the nineteen fifties, when there were basically no reports coming in because there was nowhere to come in too.

There was no centralized hub, no BFRO or database, and so someone like John Green, who was solictening reports and who had the time and money to go follow up could drive down to northern California. But eventually he started being more proactive there. But I don't think the idea that there are no John Green's in the world anymore, people that don't follow up on things, Like everyone on this call and most of the guests we've had who are researchers all fit that bill well.

One ran across the car. It looked like a dude. It was this tall blah blah blah, and there's no way to verify that. We can just go to the BFRO. We can go to anybody's website, like any of these bigfoot researchers who love siding reports and publish them. We just go there. We can listen to any of a half dozen or a dozen podcasts and get a great siding report. Whether it's true or not. We have no idea,

you know, and we can replicate another one. But back in the day, they didn't have that, they didn't have that template that they can use. And there's so many other examples that are parallel of this that I find extraordinarily compelling. And it's beyond siding reports. You know, Paul Freeman's stuff for example, he gets such a bad rap because there's a small group of people that think that he faked a bunch of stuff based on the word of other people, you know, instead of looking at the evidence.

But when you look at the evidence, like the nineteen eighty two knuckle track or a knuckle print for example, that thumb position, you have to realize there were two other handprints in the world at that point two, and they were both collected in like seventy I think or something like that, seventy or seventy one, and they at the same time, in same place. And so like, what did Paul build that? How did Paul build that that hand structure? You know, how did he know about the

thumb position and whatnot? When Paul was largely illiterate, honestly, and he was introduced to the Sasquatch subject six days before he found that. I don't think he tracked down Grover Krantz's research paper in Northwest Anthropological Research Notes reddits, which is probably beyond his ability anyway, and figured it all out and then replicated some sort of prosthetic stomper to put inside of an off limits watershed and not have the other guy who was with them observe him planet.

You know what I mean, It's a similar parallel to this what are they basing it on? So I think these older reports are are frankly more valuable than the stuff that we get today as a general database. Now, mind you, we've had so many more observations of sasquatches since that time. We have so many more glimpses in this odd behaviors that they might be doing. We know a lot more than we did. And so I'm not saying that nowadays the stuff is garbage and it is

easily faked. I'm saying that the early stuff is extraordinarily precious because they had no influence, and it's also the baseline. It's the foundation on which a lot of the other stuff that we know now was built. What I'm finding, see, I'm starting to slowly scratchuate a book right now as well. Right I'm trying to finally get that out of my life. I owe it to doctor Meldrum to do this thing right. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to

rely more heavily on the older reports. And frankly, when I say older, what I kind of mean is pre finding Bigfoot, because finding Bigfoot changed the landscape a little bit. And that's not to say that Mysterious Encounters didn't do it before that. I mean, that is the first series on Sasquatches. You know, we have to tip our hat to the good folks over there at that show. But at the end end of the day, it wasn't quite as large a hit as finding Bigfoot was. So finding

Bigfoot changed the landscape. Who I mean, how many people in the civilian population knew that sasquatches not before finding Bigfoot? Not many. Right, as I'm proceeding forth with this thing I'm trying to write, I'm relying more heavily on the early reports and also the fact that nowadays, like knocking is a good example, we have lots and lots of reports of knocks, Like I literally got two or three on my email today, you know, like they're very common.

But it would mean so much less, I think if the knocking things started with finding Bigfoot. But yet we can go back to nineteen fifty eight or fifty nine. I think it was fifty eight that Bob Tipmas was following a Sasquatch. He was following a trackway of Sasquatch tracks, at Bluff Creek and he said he thought he was just behind the animal, and he reported hearing a sound like taking a log and beating it against another and it would reply to him when he did it. You know,

like that's extraordinary. That's why those old reports are so fascinating. That the fact that nobody knew that back then, and it really set the foundation for what we're doing now. And if they were reporting it then, and we're obviously we'd probably still be getting it now, which we are, But it's the stuff that we're getting now that wasn't reported then that I think we need to take a good hard look at six structures, for example, paranormal claims,

all that sort of stuff. If people are saying it now and it wasn't at all being reported, then it deserves a second look or more. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo will be right back after these messages.

need to go there because Cliff is there. And if something happens in the Southeast, Cliff doesn't need to go there because I'm there, And the same with Bobo in California. And so we do have good people around the country

that we trust and communicate with and network with. And you've heard the if you're listening to this podcast, like you've heard us have Joel Thomas on to talk about things he's found in Oklahoma, and you've heard us have Larry Anderson recently, and that subset of the Cascades in Washington, and on and on and on all around the country. And so there really isn't a need to say, hey, there were tracks found in Texas. Craik your cars, Cliff

and Bobo, I'll meet you there in two days. You know, they just we have people there to go handle those things. And so that doesn't mean that there aren't exciting things happen, or that we're not excited about what's happening now. It just means that there are other people who can handle those things that we trust and would defer to to document and collect that evidence. If you look at it from a bird's eye view of space and time, it

seems like a lot. It's like, how many photographs or casts documentation have you seen of tracks from around the country in the last five years? Probably a lot, you know. Now if you zoom in on, like, well, how many were found in Texas in the last five years, Well, it might not seem like that many. Or how many have we featured from Texas on this one podcast, It

might not seem like that many. So I think there's a difference between what you're seeing and interpreting as the excitement of today's researchers about today's events and what's actually happening communication going on behind the scenes. You know, a lot of people finding stuff that don't necessarily want to come on the podcast or any podcast and talk about it. They're just doing their work quietly, communicating a networking and

that's totally fine. And so it's just a very different landscape than it was back then, when they were literally only maybe half a dozen people on the entire North American continent who were looking into these things.

I was thinking that I remember in my earlier days of big footing before I kind of understood what I just said, you know, like that's the area that was active at the time, and they didn't know about the other stuff for the most part. Is this a long drive? It's a long drive. It's like twelve hours or something from yakim to Bluff Creek or more, you know, And why would you do that?

I'm not going to go I mean, for the most part, it's gonna like I'm gonna go to the Olympics in February, but that's because I'm going to some cool people. You know, I'm not gonna I wouldn't just go necessarily unless I was actually taking some sort of vacation. But if it's just for bigfoot stuff, I've got areas, Man, I don't

need to go that far. If I'm going to be a reactionary bigfoot guy, like it's going to be because that sighting is less than a week old or maybe two weeks or something like that, I'm not going to travel like if somebody saw one a month ago, that what does that do for me. I'm looking for evidence, and they were too, I think, and that's probably why they went a lot of these places. But I just don't see the point of driving that far. Well.

features that are seen in the tracks on the ground, and so that changes the history. It brings it back to life and revivifies it. Now it needs new discussion, and Mark Marcell's done that with Ape Canyon. He's going to do that with Thompson Flats. I mean, there's a number of cases that we've talked about on this podcast that you've looked into, Cliff that were quote unquote settled for a very long time that like what's this, what's this in Mildrem's archives, or what's this that walked in

the door of your museum? That changes things? That updates things. It's worth revisiting and recasting history in a way. So all those cases, like, none of those cases are dead and gone and like, oh that we if you want to know about it, just go read this book. Like no, they're worth ongoing conversation and ongoing energy and investigation.

historical record is expanding, and I think that's important. Whether I'm participating in that or not. It doesn't even matter. If anybody looks into cold cases, they usually find something that's pretty cool. I mean, look at these people online who are still scrambling about the Patterson Gimmin film for God's sake, and that there's there's daily discussions on that film and it's too much for me personally. I think we should just like admire it and go get another

one personally. But if they're into that, that's great. Like some of the cold cases I've looked into that there's been new discoveries on because I was poking around. Is the Bossburg case like the Cripplefoot cast, you know, through a series of events and having you know, an Intenda that's out. People contacted me. I've located the SUSA Milk casts which have been hidden for I mean, I still haven't seen him, but I know where they are, and I know the family personally who has the Susan mil cast.

And of course for the I imagine a lot of our listeners know. But just in case you don't. The two footprints set everybody sees, the one that doctor Krantz, you know, drew the bone structure on and stuff. Those were cast by Ivan Marks and then they were copied by Rende Hinden and Fine Sand And those are the ones that are largely you know, traded. For example, Krantz licensed his molds to bones, Clones and Skeletons and limited. I think, you know, you can actually purchase those on Amazon,

I believe now. I don't know if they're still up there, but they were at one time resin copies of those casts. Well, there's another set of casts that were obtained at the site. See you would think that like a famous site, a famous situation like that, a famous case, there would have been dozens of footprint casts taken, and there weren't. There weren't. There were There were four No. Five five casts, right, two of the ones that everybody knows about because they're

in all the books. Those are the ones that I think reneede to Hindon. His sons probably have the originals if they're in Mark's collection. Who knows what happened to them. Last thing I heard Biscardi had his hands on the Ivan marks stuff, so we'll probably never see that stuff. But John Seussi Mil was a Border Patrol agent who was patrolling the opposite side of the river at the time. It's the Columbia River. They called Lake Roosevelt up there

because they dammed it up. He was patrolling the opposite side of the river about five miles up from Bossburg, behind lock Gates on private logging land, and he ran across that same animal's trackway and he cast two of them. So those prints were recently rediscovered, as well as some

other replicas. Nobody knew that was there. And on top of that, a new photograph, or it's not even a new photograph, I mean a photograph of John Susi Mil, the Border Patrol agent in his uniform holding those footprint casts was uncovered. Didn't know that existed, right, That's cool, by the way. That's hanging up in the NABC if you ever want to see it, and you can come in and check it out, as well as some of

the artifacts from the Bossberg stuff. A footprint cast taken in snowy doctor Grover Krantz of the Bossberg Critters footprints. There's a there's a wonderful photograph that we have at the museum as well of doctor Krantz leaning down, pointing out a print in the ground, lifting up this piece of cardboard. It is that cast. That is also the cast that put doctor Krantz on the trail of Sasquatches.

guy at a dramatically reduced price. Because I wasn't going to pay that much money for that. I can't don't have that kind of much money, so it's easy not to pay it if you don't have it. But anyway, that got the stompers, and the guy said that I can interview him about when he used them, and long and short, he's telling me the story. And as oh my god, that's the first chapter of Barbara Wahson's book. And of course, since the NABC has the Barbara Watson

collection in their archives, I went to the archives. I pulled the personal letter to Barbara Wasawson out that put her down in that shake mill in rent and where she cast this footprint that was made by those stoppers and she never knew it, you know. So these cold cases, there's always something you can get out of them, and I think that those are not only fascinating to kind of set the record straight. In the case of Barbara Wasson's track, you know, and how would she know she

it was fake? You know, there were like a dozen footprint casts in the world at that point or twenty or something. They didn't have a big data set like we have now. Of course they wouldn't know. But these cold cases, all of them are worth looking into because there's always something else to learn, and sometimes it's disappointing, like oh, like that track was fake, okay, But sometimes there's cool stuff like, oh my god, look at this

picture of doctor Krantz literally pointing at the footprint. That can then some sasquatches are real, literally pointing at that cast or that that footprint of the ground before he cast it, like a snapshot in history that changed the course of everyone's life. If you're interested in Bigfoot, that stuff is significant, like the weight of history is never lost upon me.

actually are familiar with those things. So that's I think the first level is that, well, if you're into this subject, and you're naturally into the history, and you speak publicly about the subject, then there is a bit of an obligation and an opportunity to lay out that history for

people who wouldn't be confronted with it otherwise. But then also, you know, if you do find these new revelations about old cases, well of course you have to talk about it because otherwise it'll remain in that quote unquote settled category. But that's a big part of what we do with this podcast is so that if such a thing does come up around the campfire, let's say somewhere, someone could go, oh, actually, did you know that Cliff Berckman found X, Y and

Z about that? Yeah, let me share the episode with you. Check this out, you know, because you're not going to write a book every time something gets overturned or changed, right, So this is the most direct efficient way to keep people up to date about new revelations with the history and to educate people about the history in general, because most of the content related to this subject is just modern encounter stories you know, on YouTube and other podcasts.

There's not a lot of other places digging into that history. So you know, I would say to Brian, like, that's why you hear us at least talk about it so often, is like, that's kind of the job. It's kind of the obligation, like we we love the history, and you would not want me to assume that you have read everything that I've read, because then half of what I

say won't make sense to you. You know what I mean, there's not the same If we haven't read all the same information, have the same familiarity with the history, then there's not a common language to draw upon or borrow from. You know, if Cliffs says, oh, yeah, this is this is like you know, the Glenn Thomas site, But well, if no one knows what that is, it's not going

to make any sense to them in a conversation. So our job is to inform the audience about every one of these cases and instances and the foundational events and the foundational literature that we all stand upon without even knowing. Half of the audience not even knowing that they're standing on a foundation, you know.

played twentieth century and whatever music like. But nonetheless, when I got a degree in my instruments, I had to go back and learn about Gregorian chant had I had to go back to the beginnings of written music, and we don't know anything about the music before that because it wasn't written, you know, I mean, so we had to go back to the beginning of the literature and

start studying from there. I had, you know, five hundred years, six hundred years of you know, music education, so I can better unders understand my guitar, my guitar, you know. And and I think that being a semi professional speaker

on the subject of sasquatch, that's my responsibility. It's my responsibility to the subject because whether I like it or not, a whole bunch of people are now Bigfooters because of the show that Bobo and I were on right and and it would be a disservice to the subject if we didn't give background and thoughts and and and and share the foundation of our our subject of study. It would be a disservice. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo will be right back after

these messages. I don't go online very often, but when I do, I see a lot of people who are self professed experts, people actually literally claiming to be experts, which is silly, I think. And then if they're not claiming it, they have podcasts, or they produce blogs, or they're on YouTube doing something. And all these people are putting themselves in a position of being somewhat of an

expert on Sasquatches. And I have to wonder how many of those people really know who the you know, who who Archie Buckley is or somebody like that, you know, just throwing a name that you know. Forty years ago everybody in Bigfoot would know, and nowadays you gotta wonder. I've spoken to people at the conferences in the museum, how oh, they're really into the subject and they love this and now they spend their time doing this. But

maybe heard of John Green. It's like, what you're not you have it?

And I think that that is why that we are emphasizing the historical stuff, perhaps even more than the modern stuff, because the discoveries the vanguard of the subject was then, because not as much stuff is really happening now. I have a hard time thinking of really anything off the

top of my head. I'm sure there's stuff I'm just not thinking of it that that's really important that has been pushed ahead in the last say five years or ten years, even you know, in the sat in the Sasquatch Field, I don't know what that would be beat. But yet back then they were all new discoveries, which also brings up another thing that I think we I've said a couple of times the early guys, as great as they were, weren't that great. I know that's sacrilege

to say. I mean, it's super sacrilegious to say for some people. But you know, Renee de Hinden didn't know tracks, He didn't know about footprint tracks. You know, Bob Timmas, who knows what he knew? He didn't write anything down, who knows. We only have rumors in what little he did right on the back of footprint casts. Krantz knew

his stuff. He was a respected anatomist and an anthropologist and the specializing in bones and stuff like that, you know, But on John Green he was very good at the interviewing stuff and writing things down and chronicling that sort of thing. Very good about that stuff. Peter, I don't who knows.

improved upon? And my argument at the cold cases, but every time I look into one there's new stuff. That's an example of that. That's evidence for the sacrilege I'm slinging right now is that they were the first. They did not have the benefit that we have of standing on their shoulders. We're only as good as we are now, and we know so much more than they do than

they did. It's because we're standing on their shoulders and it's interesting to look at what they were doing at the time with the context of our present day history of the subject.

have some successes doing that. In a lot of times you get out there and they turn out to be bear tracks or they turn out to be boot tracks,

or whatever the case may be. But you also, once you start being really proactive, I think you get to a point where when you get a phone call from two states away, or you know, a day and a half's drive away, you say, like, you know, there's nothing I can do that you can't do, So let me walk you through how best to photograph these and you know how best to place your tape measure or your scale item in these photographs and let me walk you through where to go get plaster or how to mix

it up, or let me send you some links or some YouTube tutorials. And so it doesn't really require a John Green to be on the scene. To quote Tommy Amerone, it doesn't require that anymore. Is that, like you know, anybody can go do this, and so like, if you were to find something somewhere, the best thing you could do is do your very best to document it instead of placing a call to a sasquatch research sure and

hoping that one of them will show up. And may be great if you had someone in your area and if there was something that was like if the timing worked out and it was near enough to me, but I'd love to see it. But for the most part, what I've been telling people for over a decade now, when I stopped really investigating witness reports, was just saying like, well, hey, here's the audio recorder I would suggest you invest in. If you say you're hearing these sounds every night, you

can capture them. You can capture a lot better than I can for me having to drive ten hours to your place and set up an audio recorder or you know, here's how to photograph these things, or pour plaster into tracts, whatever the case may be. And so I think that's a big part of the reason that Brian or others

might not hear that same. Like it's almost like the old documentaries presented it as if you remember, like Tom Buscardy had the vehicle that was wrapped with all the logos and everything, and so there's this vision that's been presented in the media of like the team scouring the country. I think there was a TV show that started in like twenty eleven about a team scouring the country chasing things down that might have contributed to some people's thoughts too,

you know, with you guys wrote it around. But I think maybe that's what people think, is that bigfoot research as you know, a team in cool vehicles who are like ready to when the bat phone rings, you know, hop in the batmobile and go. But it's not like that, and it's not necessary because there's nothing that any of us can do that a person couldn't do on their own.

you know, that's all I would do. I may have some interesting insights on what to ask or some patterns that they don't recognize or whatever, but that comes with time and there's no other substitute from actually doing it yourself. A lot of people are more than willing to pass on the expertise to somebody else, and sure there are experts.

Doctor Meldrum was an expert in food anatomy for example, you know, there are there are literally experts and a lot of different things, but as far as the bigfoot like thing, there's are very few people should be considered an expert in this. In fact, arguably no one should be considered an expert in this because really what they're doing is copwork. You know, we're going out and interviewing people, we're talking, we're filing papers. That's kind of it.

you know say ad nauseum. But that doesn't mean, oh well, I don't need to read a book because there are no experts. It's like, no, if there's anything you can be an expert in, it's at least the history.

it at the end of the day. You could do that. You could do that about your own bigfoot encounter and then start looking ato other ones. You can go to the woods. Man, I'm not going crazy on the woods. I'm walking abandoned roads, that's it. And I'm finding good stuff. Man. I take pictures and I take video, and I take notes and I file it.

there's lots and lots of ways to research. Of course, you know, there's lots of good armchair researchers that do great things as well, lots of good ways to research. But you know, you just have to do it this. Don't depend on other people to do it for you.

people to come here and look at it. And that was the side of the argument that won, and ultimately almost no one looked at it. Well, today's world is mostly digital. You know, that was like twenty five, twenty six years ago. So in today's world, it's like, if you've done the things we just suggested about documenting something really well, well, if you want people to look at it, you could create a mold and poor copies of those casts and send them to you know, just a year ago,

doctor Meldrim before he passed. You could send one to Cliff. You can send one to anybody who's willing to look at it. You can take three D scans and photographs, and you can send those to multiple experts without ever asking, hey, are you willing to pack up the car and drive eight hundred miles to come see these tracks in the ground like people used to do sixty plus years ago, And so you can still have the same effect that

you're you're searching for. Is you know, if your thought is, well, I need to get a bunch of different researchers to ais on this. Well, the better you document it, the more people you're going to be able to convince to take a look at it, the easier you make it for them. And that's a lot of what we end up doing nowadays. If we're not in the field ourselves

trying to, you know, proactively find evidence. We get sent things and evaluate things all the time, and like how much of what you have in your collection with things that people sent you, or like Joel, for example, finding that cast he sent it to you, you made a copy, et cetera. That didn't require you going to Oklahoma.

on the jetties and stuff. And I noticed for a long time, when I've caught halibit in a certain area, I'd catch a couple then like the bite would turn. If it went back the next week or the same tide, and a couple days later or something, I would catch more hal of it there, Like that was a spot for hal of it, And so I was commenting to Moneymaker one time about how sasquatches appear at the the same places again and again and again. I mean, this is a long time ago. This is, you know, thirty

years ago. I was probably talking Tom about it, or almost thir twenty thirty years ago. He coined the term. He credited me with it, which is really nice. But he's the first guy to publish it for sure on his website. If a spot had bigfoots once, they'll have bigfoots again, unless that area has changed dramatically, like has been paved or something like that. And so these older reports are kind of cool in that sort of way

that you can see the ongoing activity after all these years. Man, I think that alone makes them interesting from a historical perspective, because if their sasquatches there today, then certainly there must have been sasquatches there fifty sixty eighty years ago. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo will be right back after these messages. I think we mentioned this last year at some point on the radio

about that article. I think Warren Thompson wrote it. I think it was Warren Thompson who wrote it, and it was the state of Sasquatchry today or something like that anybody seventy one, I think, and I was commenting about how virtually nothing has changed since nineteen seventy one. Not a whole lot of new knowledge has been added to

the board since that time. It could have been written yesterday and it would be a good article even still, So I have to ask if the gentleman who asked the question, whoever it was, is arguing that we should be continuing that tradition of doing it, I have to ask where did that get us? It got us to the point where we were in nineteen seventy one, and

not much further since then. And of course we all start our bigfooting careers like that in a reactionary sort of way, chasing down siding reports and doing that stuff. But look at the people who did that for decades, Like Peter Burrne told me several times he spent six million dollars of other people's money chasing down bigfoot reports.

It's like, well, where did that get him? Like one track find that that not even sure is real, and maybe he's been around Bigfoot twice or something like that, and eventually come to the conclusion that they went extinct in twenty two, two thousand and six, until because there were no incredible reports after that, Like, I don't know, I mean, where did that get you where? I mean, it didn't make It doesn't make sense to me. So that reactionary sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, it's in my

back pocket. If a report came in today that somebody saw one right now on you know, on whatever road, you know, on Lusted Road over something or something like that, I would run out one hundred percent. But what do you do in the meantime? You just can't sit around and wait for a call to come in. Man, you got to I think that the most important thing to do is go out there and start building a model of what you think these animals are doing. And that's

why I do that. That of course, that's also probably why I think is the most important thing, because I'm doing it is something I'm actually I feel that is for furthering the subject and furthering at least my own understanding or at least my model of what the sasquatches are up to. And I think that has value. But I do have a lot of incoming information. I'm very lucky that if somebody does see a sasquatch, I'll probably hear about it, and not too long, you know, or

maybe not probably, but I might hear about it. I have a better chance of hearing about it than a lot of other people do because at the museum and whatever, you know, just how accessible I am. But I would say I would argue that back in the day, they were doing the best they had with what the best they could with what they had. But we have so much more now. And maybe that's his argument. It's like, well, we should be paying more attention to what's going on now,

but where is it? Where's the results of that? I don't see it, So I don't know. I don't know. I'm hoping for something good, like another piece of footage or something like that, or I'd love to see one that's just for my own personal benefit. It wouldn't help the subject necessarily. But you know, what else are we going to be doing here? I mean, if it's not DNA or you know, carrying around a high powered rifle, Like, what else? What else are we trying to do here? Well?

far from me. And so I think nowadays, like I mentioned earlier, we all have a big enough network collectively with friends that we know and trust, colleagues that we like and trust that you know, a lot of that stuff's covered and doesn't require us to crank the car and drive that far.

they're here every night. Then I would spend several nights there and not much would happen, and I would try to walk them through how to document it themselves, and then you know, you get a late night call or eleven pm text like hey, they're here. Now are you going to come here? And like, no, I live five hours away. I can't really come there right now, And like, oh, well, I thought you were serious. I thought you were a serious researcher. After a while, you're like, I'm not doing that anymore.

can understan that. Back then it was like, well, you don't know when or if you'll ever see or hear about another track, so you are willing to drive, you know, eight hundred miles to go try to find them and cast them. But you know, after many hundred of examples of tracks from around the country, and that not constituting proof. It's like, well, no, I'll drive eighty miles, but I

don't have to drive eight hundred miles, you know. Whereas I think something different would be if there was a really credible report or a potentially credible report that involved remains, well, then yeah, I think there are still levels of things. Because I was thinking about Brian's question when he said, has the expectation for what we find exciting moved so far that it takes something outrageous to get folks to care. It's like, no, we all we care about tracks, and

we care about you know. I still care a lot about siding reports of you know, certain kinds, siding reports

of a certain nature, siding reports from certain areas. But again, I don't think it would take something outrageous to get the quote unquote community to care, but something really substantial that it's like, oh, this really could make a difference versus like, I don't know that me driving eight hundred miles and casting a track is going to make much of a difference when A I probably know someone who can go do that who's closer, or b I can instruct witness, how to cast it, all the things we've

already previously discussed. But yeah, I do think there are levels to that. You know, if if Cliff and Bobo heard a credible report from like central California remains, I'm sure you guys would make the drive. You know, Well, that's just it.

I just lost and I couldn't find after that. They didn't disobear, they didn't you know, that whole paranormal nonsense. I just I'm not a good enough tracker to follow them. Lost them. No big deal. But it's got to be something special or I'm not going to go that distance. And back then everything was special because you know, it took John Green until like nineteen what seventy eight when he published Apes among Us it is that seventy eight and I think it's seventy eight. It might be seventy six,

it doesn't matter. It took him till the late seventies to get together. You know, sixteen hundred sighting reports, sighting reports, you know, and I mean sixteen hundred sighting reports nowadays is a lot, but it's not that many. There's probably several researchers who are diligent and pulling reports that have documented and written down follow up reports on that many. There's probably you know, Charlie Raymond or somebody like that

probably has something like that. I have no idea, but looking back, the last time I drove any reasonable distance was a couple of years ago because there were snow tracks down and where was that southern Oregon, somewhere at north of Klamath. Where was that? Doesn't matter where it was. Yeah, so I had to drive four hours to go try

to get snow tracks that appeared the night before. And I probably would have done that for a fresh set of tracks anyway, but snow tracks for something special because I was hoping to get e DNA out of them. You take e DNA out out of the forest, you're gonna get DNA of squirrels and deer and bear and elk and everything else that lives there. But if you have fresh snow tracks that have been laid down in the last day or two, pretty much the only thing that you're gonna get DNA out of from that snow

is the thing that made the track. And that's why I went down there. It was an effort to try to get DNA of the species so we can prove them without killing one. See, that would push things forward quite a bit, quite a bit. But just a track or something in the duff, or a siding report or somebody saw one across the road. Yeah, I'd probably drive an hour or two or three maybe, you know, But I'm not going to drive seven or eight or ten

most likely, you know. If the good tracks, I might do that, but just because I'm kind of a track guy and I think they're cool, but not for a sighting report to go look around and probably not find anything. I've done that lots and lots and lots of times for.

went to Area X twenty four times. That's a thousand mile round trip for me. So that's twenty four thousand miles right there in a seven year period, you know. So it's not like we're not doing those things.

the thing there. But yeah, squatch Fest is this weekend. I'm going to be talking about Doctor Meldrum's track Fine in nineteen ninety six and some of the historical consequences of that show you some things you've probably never seen, some historical artifacts and that sort of thing. It should

be a good time, that generally is. Squatchfest is one of those gigs that I enjoyed doing, not only because it's close, because there's good people, you know, good people around, So hopefully I'll see you out there.