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Hey everybody, this is Less Striving. Yes, yes, I know aka Survivor Man, and you're listening to Brian on Sasquatchis you, guys, and welcome back to Sasquatch and Potas. Thanks so much for clicking play. I hope you guys are having a great week and have an amazing show lined up for you. But before we get there, I want to start by inviting me. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. You can get me a Brian Apparentimal World
Productions dot com. You can head over to the website and check it out. Became I remember there and he'll support this show. I decided to do something that I haven't done in quite a while. I have remastered some of the older episodes in the past and did some more editing and improved the quality of the audio. And I was actually doing that today for a show that we're going to air over on w d j Y ninety nine point one FM in Atlanta. We are on the radio now, but I actually went way
back to like October of twenty twenty one. It was episode sixty eight. It's the Less Stroud Survivor Man interview, and he was on a computer and he wasn't using a microphone, and there's a lot of echo in the background, and I wanted to clean that stuff up and take out some of the talking I was doing. I was really excited to talk to Less Stroud. I've been a Survivor Man fan forever, and I was doing a whole lot
more talking than I should have been. So some of the stuff that you've heard from me before, I took that out and I shortened the episode to about fifty minutes or so. I am, frankly really proud of what I was able to do with the audio in this interview. It's much better. The echo's gone. It sounds like Less is right here in the room in the studio with me. So I think you're really really going to enjoy it. Or without further ado, I'm going to stop bumping my gums and let
the music play. You gotta sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Our girls will want to welk on my guest tonight. It's none other than the Survivorman himself, Less Stroud welcome to the show. Lest Oh, thank you very much. I just want to get right into it. I've looked forward to this interview. We've been working to get you and our schedules aligned, and it's finally happened. So this is an encounter show, so obviously I want to talk about some of your encounters. But before that, I
became a fan of Survivor. Man. I'm sure people have probably heard the story, but would you mind taking us back to the beginnings of Survivorman and sort of lay the foundation of your survival training and what that show started, and then we'll just move on from there. Oh, I'll try to keep it brief. Then that's a long story in the end though, after a career essentially a career if you want to call it that, as an outdoor
guide. You know, one of my disciplines that I love so much dearly was survival training everything involved with that, walitable plants and shelters and fires, tanning hides and borrow and arrow hunting and all the rest. So I did that for a lot of years and I always wanted to well put together just a you know, it would have been a home VHS video series back when I originally had the idea and I just wanted to do that and teach the
lessons and do it well. But in the end, to make a long story short, time passed on and eventually I pitched the idea to a television network and got it on air first in Canada, and the idea was that, Really, the idea always stemmed from my desire to teach, and so Survivor Man, from day one to the very till now, has always been about teaching and teaching skills and those skills being a facilitator for getting you out in the woods. Because all I really want to do is get people out
in my woods, right, and these skills facilitate that. So yeah, I created it, which you know that was going back ninety nine was inside of my conversations two thousand and one as when I got the first pilot on
air and nothing there was nothing else like it on television. Fast forward that just a few years and it's now a big hit, and that's when the copycats came along, and you know, which is why, you know, in the end, I get credited for creating an entire TV genre, because without Survivor Man, you don't have man versus Wild or Naked and Afraid or
a Loan or any of these shows. Survivor Man was in. It was the first one, and I was told by networking, these network executives that no one was ever going to want to watch survival on television, and I just said, I just think you're wrong, and I proved them wrong. And then boy did it ever? Did they ever get proved wrong? Because it spawned I wish I had somehow the ability to patent the whole scenario and I'd be a rich man today. But it spawned an entire industry of survival
television that still is going strong. There's so much credibility to what you did on Survivor Man. I was a cop for sixteen years, and you know, you don't always write tickets and answer calls. So I used to literally sit in my patrol car and that was one of the ways I passed my time, was watching Survivor Man on my phone, you know, and it was clear that what you did was real, and that lends so much credibility.
And when someone with that much credibility takes a look at something like Bigfoot and does the Survivor Man Bigfoot show, it makes people stop in pause. It's almost like the Jeff Meldrum. And when somebody at that caliber in their field takes a look at something like this in a real way, I think it just lends that much more credibility to what you're doing in the subject in general. Look, I'm no saint in this world. But the thing is,
I'm addicted to nonfiction and documentary filmmaking. I mean, I quit Shark Week because of the crap they wanted to say, or they wanted me to say while making Shark Week shows. I pulled away from you know, it was a dream come true at the time, but I pulled away from National Geographic because doing the series Grizzly Gaunlet Fro Nat Geo Wilde, they wanted me to say a whole bunch of crap that wasn't true about the bears and cariboon such and so it was the same thing with Survivor Man and now. I
mean, that's how the rest of the series came about. Was I was asked to be a fraud, essentially, as asked to cheat the show, and I said no, sure, I'm sure all the others and bear girls of the bear girls of this world are laughing on their way to the bank. Good for them. But I'm not a dancing monkey, and I can just speak anywhere I want to with complete truth because what you saw and what I did is what you've got. There was no drama imposed upon you as
the viewer. All the other shows staged it, you know, to this day, I mean Alone doesn't stage it, but Alone's storyline is still manipulated by producers to be something it wasn't. So yeah, that authenticity was always important to me. And again I'm not saying here, you know, but in the world of art and then creating art and creating my documentary filmwork, authenticity was super important to me. Now being on the first time with Joe Rogan and he's like, I can see it in your eyes. You can't
get eyes like that if you're sleeping in the hotel. You can't look like that if you've been eating it fine for a few days. You know. So it really did. I didn't have to portray anything. It really showed itself. And so yeah, you're right. Even the concept of me doing the Bigfoot series or the whole Bigfoot part of my world opening up, you know, that came about because I answered one simple question. Honestly, you
know, nobody'd ask me anything about bigfoot. And one day I'm on the Opi and Anthony Show and they asked, and they ask it, you know, with a smirk on their faces, like hey, dude, yeah, seeing big foot out there, you know they and of course me being me, well actually yeah. So that opens up the story, and I end up telling my story on the Opi and Anthony Show, and then I just see all of this postings and social media was happening then. But I still
sat on it. And I'll tell you why I sat on it to further this point and to further what you were just asking me about. I sat on it because if I jumped on it right then and there, there would have been nothing authentic for me. I would have been doing it like I'm
just going to try and manipulate this, capitalize on this. And I said, when something happened to me on a Survivor Man episode in Alaska, I sat on that and didn't tell anyone because I didn't want everybody getting caught up in the bigfoot question when I was trying to teach them how to make a shelter. I didn't want Bigfoot getting in the way of survival. Why because I loved my survival teaching and so yeah, so then I waited for the
right time kind of thing. Would you mind sharing with us your first encounters and what really propelled you towards the search for what this bigfoot creature, this Sasquats creature is. I'll bet you anybody who spent a lot of time going down this road, what might be able to say sort of the similar thing. Once you believe or feel let's let's throw the word believe out of the equation, or once you feel that you've had at least a very bizarre encounter
that you can't explain. I'm not talking about visual. Let's keep visual over on the shelf for now. Seeing one straight on close up, not being high, not making mistake, that's a thing. That's a big thing. When you start to go down this road. Then when you look back at your life, if you did a lot of life in the wilderness, you start to go you know, I wonder if that thing that time when we were fishing on that lake, I wonder about that now, and that happens
that happened to me. So when you asked the question my first bigfoot encounter. It's actually a matter of my memory and saying, wow, I can tell you the first time I thought like or I really was down the road. But there were times before that that I look back at now. So, for example, the first time was in Ontario, Canada, and I was just practicing survival with a buddy and we were staying on a lake off of the Moon River in Ontario. He built his shelter a few hundred yards
away, on the other side of a berm. I'm over on this side of the berm's and I built my shelter, and at some point around midnight, I'm at the shore of a lake and I just hear this most god awful, horrifying screaming that sounded like women being tortured in a Satanic ritual. I mean, if you ever get the hebgbs, this was the time to get them. Because Wow. Now, granted that could have been Portcubine's fighting. It could have been a strange bunch of cougars, so it was weird.
But I will tell you that it scared me, and I'm never scared in the woods. It scared me out of the woods. I went over, I woke up my buddy, dog who slept through through the whole bloody thing. I'm like, dot, did you hear that? No, it an't. I'm like, well, I'm not staying. I'm not staying after hearing that, and I left. So that number one. Number two, I spent a year living in the woods with my ex wife. During the year leading up to that year living in the woods, we went up and
did a research trip and we were camping. One night I heard walking towards the tent. This is literally that quote unquote middle of nowhere scenario and far northern Canada, and I heard walking through the woods towards the tent, a very heavy, you know, bipedal walking. Now, I'm really comfortable and familiar with moose and bear and everything that's out there, and this was not that there's not a bear walking in its own tracks or anything like that,
or this wasn't bipedal and heavy. And I for this day will regret not unzipping the tent and looking out. But the reason why didn't I was scared. Now, that's the funny thing about this. You know, everybody thinks they're gonna be all tough when they get out there, but when you're in
these situations. It's incredible, this strange innerfere that grips you and stops you from doing the things that you should do that everybody's going to criticize you for not doing later when you try to tell your story and you go, I don't know why I didn't do it, but I couldn't do it well. I didn't open up my tent and I just yelled out like I would if it was a barrowett hey or over here. And I heard thump, thump, and just like the little pregnant pause and almost like you could hear it
turning around and I heard thump up and just walking away. And I remember, and this is long before any of this, long before survivor man or any of this, turning to my ex wife and saying, I think that might have been a big foot, and she went, I know it was the weirdest thing, but that's just a couple of people camping in the woods
here and something strange and kind of conjecturing. Because because because I mean this, long before finding Bigfoot or Doug high checks work with Munster Quest, long before any of that stuff, I guess it'd be the nineties, early early nineties, so those are the first two that I would say are that I look back now and think, okay, they are not what spurred me on
to do Survivor Man Bigfoot. But to answer your question more directly, those are my first two what I believe to be potentially some kind of encounter experience. I do not rest in the camp. I believe that there's a lot of extremes in the Bigfoot world, and I always believe that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I know you've had other experiences that were more than just stomping and vocalizations in the woods. Would you mind sharing your other encounters
that were more of the not flesh and blood camp. Sure, but I think it's good to premise us with a little bit of backdrop to it. For one like you, I'm a very I'm a I'm a weird cross between skepticism and a wide open mind, you know, And that's what I thought I needed to create Survivor Man big Foot. I'm gonna go in skeptical but believing everything you tell me. So you tell me that your grandfather used to feed them pancakes off the back porch. Great, Do you mind if I
go camp in your backyard. So I'm not you know, including you know, I've been with controversial figures like taught standing and so on. I'm not going to and jet Meldrum and Jump Binnernagel and Stop Carpenter. Not that they're all controversial, but all these different individuals, and I'm just wide open. Do you say this thing, then I say, okay, prove it to
me or show me or take me there. And you're kind of jumping to the end of my journey in many ways because that thing you said about you're not in a particular camp, I discovered along the way that there is really it's like a baseline of what people believed, you know, and over here it's a big, really smart ape, bipedal ape, and over here it's
aliens and everything in between. So I was caught up in that for a while, trying to see, you know, where I would go in this doing Survivor Man Bigfoot created for me an absolutely incredible opportunity to experience so much interview, so many go so many places you know, be out there that I quickly learned I don't want to be in any one of those camps. And I even said I'm not going to be the poster boy for anybody when I do this series, and a lot of people wanted me to be a
poster boy for their perception on what Bigfoot is. I remember doing a keynote a while ago for David Politis and I said, I tell you one thing, and this isn't going to endear me to anybody, But nobody in this room has a freaking clue what it is. Don't pretend like you do. We don't know. I understand why Jeff would sit very solidly in Gigantopithecus. He really needs to with his peers, and he takes a lot of heap where he is as a professor. And I understand why John Binnernagel did the
same thing. Why he was so focused more on other scientists accepting what he accepted. So when you would speak to John, for example, if you brought up orbs or the ability to manifest energy, he was out of the conversation. Conversations over because that would not fly with other scientists. I didn't have that weight on my shoulders. I could believe whatever I wanted to believe,
listen to whoever I wanted to listen to. That was good because it kept me very open, and again, like I say, you're kind of going right to the end of my journey in a way, even to where I am today. I think what became appared to me was paying attention to what I would say, are the attributes of a phenomenon. What are these attributes? Well, now you have all the attributes to talk about throwing of rocks, vocalizations, knocking up sticks on trees, smells bad, defecates,
hair samples, screaming. Then you have get stuck to get a little more like like, okay, what about mine speak? And what about their? You know, seems like they could change, change their appearance, you know, almost even disappear. I kind of landed in a place where we're already
dealing with an incredible phenomenon. That's what I like to call it, phenomenon, right, And so I just one day looked at all of these attributes, all of these hundreds to thousands of anecdotal reference is all saying the same thing, and I thought, what if it actually just has all What if let's mesh them all together and see what we get. Maybe it is gigantopithecus, But maybe Gigantopithecus has all these attributes, you know, and all these
different abilities. So that opened me right up to kind of where I am today. But to go down the road that you've asked, it probably started my god, I do I remember this correctly? I don't want to misquote my own self here and when I did this, because I'm trying to remember whether I was with Scott Carpenter in Tennessee or with taught standing in Radium Springs,
and which one came first in that situation. And I ended up and Todd and I went up to the top of the mountain and you know, we tadd you know, no offense, Todd, but everything is a sasquatch, every every stamp, every break, everything, you know, it's kind of like that. To his credit is because he's so intensely interested. And I would and he knows I would argue with him at saying I don't think so I could have been an owl. Oh you know, they imitate owls.
I could have been a raven. He knows, like, oh, they could imitate ravens. Okay, now now, no, no, sorry. So I would argue with a lot of different people out there, you know, in this situation. And I even tried to tempt Jeff Meldram into the conversation of more paranormal attributes, which is a fun tempting scientists. True
and true. Although, Jeff, if you're listening, one of these days, and I know you're a good Mormon man, but one of these days, I think I would just like to give you a couple of beer and then pull you aside and then see what you really think. As I think about a lot of these different individuals who I respect so much, but I think they hold inside some of the stuff they really think is going on. And Jeff Maldram has hurt and learned so much, but he has the respect
of his peers to consider. Right, David Politis, he's learned no so much, but again, so much is kept in. I don't blame them in a way. It's their own right to do so. Me I don't. I don't really care. And so for me, you know, here I am going up the mountain with Todd standing, and I'm still looking for a big ape. It has to be very, very smart, because that's facing. If it was a big ape and it wasn't all that smart, we'd have one in ensue, we'd have them stuffed in lodges around the world,
but we don't. So whatever, if it's just an ape, okay, granted, justin a it better be incredibly smart within its scope of experience and the way it lives. So I'm up the mountain looking for this now. But this was the first time. So the first night, Todd stays not and the apples disappear off the tree, and it's kind of weird. It's like, oh, but the camera fell for crying a lot. Really the camera Todd leaves goes down the mountain. Next night, I'm up.
I'm up on the top of a mountain by myself in heavy grizzly territory. That's just me getting across my badassarre right now, you know, trying to make contact with a phenomenon that has a reputation of everything from being benevolent to killing you and abducting it and everything in between. Stay tuned for more Sasquat jealousy right back after these messages. So I'm up there, but I just stayed really open, wide open to the whole thing. Now I fall asleep.
I know what everyone's going to say when I tell the next part of my story. But I'll tell the story first, and then and then then I'll disqualify it. I'm in a sleeping bag and I'm on my left side, and I sleep with the sleeping bag up over my head. I was a childhood or something come back. When I was at the head stating bag
right up over my head. I believe I was away. Something was putting pressure on my side, and for the life of me, it felt like a big set of buttocks sitting on my side, like as if your big brother came over and sat on you and you're a sleeping bag and said, ah, you can't get up. And my right arm was down my side and I couldn't move it, and I try really harden it. All of a sudden, I'm trying to reach and as I'm getting the thing down to go get my head out, it just sort of releases and I come out
of the bag and I'm kind of looking around. Now. I know what people are thinking, Oh, that's the old lady syndrome of sitting on your chest. It's lucid dreaming. Hey, you might be right, but I've actually experienced that too. This didn't seem like that. That's all I can tell you. All you have is my word that This didn't seem like that. So now what am I talking about here? Now it's sounding like freaking magic, Like, what do you mean he sat on you and then he
disappeared? All I can tell you is that's what it felt like. So I got I didn't sleep the rest of that night. As you can imagine. I got up and I went over to the edge of the mountain and I'm looking across the sky and I'm looking out and I saw the four biggest lights in the sky I've ever seen in my life. They weren't that far away, but they were far away in a strange way, and they were massive. There's no such a thing as an airplane this big, and these
four big lights lined up. Now here we go into that other side of this. I'm a filmmaker. I'm there with my cameras to film. Why didn't I film them? I didn't. I didn't even think about filming the part of me Again, just like when I had the experience in Alaska while I was doing Survivor Man, I didn't want to highlight Bigfoot. Then I didn't want to highlight the lights in the sky this time, like no,
no, no, no, I'm here because of the sasquatch phenomenon. That looks like I don't know that God, that looks like UFA, What am I gonna do with this? Right? So I just let it go. I turned away, and a few minutes later and they were just gone. But they were huge. I can't explain them as they were not airplanes. I can guarantee you that, but I don't know what they were. Okay, So then I have this experience. The ending of this story is that
the next morning I go down. We'd put apples and chocolate bars and things up on a tree and we put them sixteen feet up because I stood on todd shoulders to place them up in the tree, and my night vision camera was left there to film pointing up at them. And in the end, get down and I pulled the cards out of the cameras, like, oh my gosh, the cards have been it's been triggered. Go down, look at the footage, and these apples disappear on frame. They just they just
disappear on frame, as if it was a magic trip. You know, I'm a filmmaker and I know cameras. I'm hard pressed to give you an answer as to why they would just disappear. Even if they fell off of the camera. I mean dust triggered that camera. You would have seen the fall like it would have triggered the camera as it was falling. But these things were they were stuck on hard. They weren't going to fall. You'd
have to work them to get them off. Everything was in a situation, saving for many maybe for one of the chocolate bars, it was just sitting on a branch. Everything was in a situation. It was stuck on the tree. So nothing's going to just you know, gently roll off a branch because of a a win. And they were just gone. No explanation for
that. Months later, we're in the edit of that show and I'm expecting that to be shown and my editor goes, what do you want me to do about that last thing at the end of that head that bumps into the end the end of the scene. I went, what head, Well, you know the thing that happens at the very end of No, I didn't see that, and rush out any and that's when he showed me some kind of forehead kind of bumps into the bottom of the frame of what we're watching
just for a second there. But I know that that frame was sitting at about seven feet off the ground. So all of that happens. Again, blending with your commentary on mixing the paranormal with sasquatch and so on, is to say again, nobody listening to this, not one person listening to this, knows what they are. Even if it's somebody who's even seen one, which I have not, you still don't know what they are or what they're capable of. And truly, if they exist, they're capable of stuff that
we can't do, which rubs a lot of people the wrong way. It doesn't mother me at all. I'm sure they can do lots of things we can't do. They can't write a symphony, and they can't make airplanes or motor boats or cars, but they can do a lot of other stuff we can't do. So to the last time around, which was for the first time in my life, I went out with Devin Masson and we shot what was actually in my last Bigfoot episode that I've ever shot so far in Portland
area and I saw my first or what's that all about? I saw a light fifteen feet away hovering off the ground and it changed size and it's like, so, what do you want me to say to you. You know, I was in the middle of the woods. There was nothing flashing. It wasn't car lights, it was hovering right there. What are we left with? You know, I think we're left with a very fascinating phenomenon. It has all kinds of attributes that we were barely scratching the surface of and
we didn't even get into mind speak yet. So but I'm gonna shut up and have a drink of my wine. I think what happened was along the way it became a macho pursuit. It became you know, who's going to discover Bigfoot first, Who's going to expose Bigfoot to the world first, Who's gonna hunt one and shoot one down first? All of that and a lot of that came out of well, I've often said I'll say this, and I will come back later and qualified if you want, because it's a little
bit of a finger throwing the ring. But but I've often said that finding Bigfoot was the worst thing that ever happened to the pursuit of Sasquatch, and the phenomenon itself was barn I'm the worst thing. Doug Hicheck, that guy's a complete fraud total. Oh no, I'm just kidding. I just want to see it, he said, what now, Doug Hicheck inspired me. His work on Monster Quest was unparalleled. Love all of his work and what he's done. Doug, forgive me if I get this story wrong. I've
quoted his story a couple of times. I remember him saying to me, and I think, Doug, if I'm getting it correctly. It was a matter of him going up and I believe it was a fishing trip, and I believe it was Quebec and landing on a lake can a float plane and finding these massive footprints with a massive stride, and then following them for a mile or more and then up which they just kept going because you gotta understand there's long, big sand beaches in the High Canada, and then getting a
horrifying feeling all of a sudden and just turning around and stopping his pursuit and leaving. Sorry, Doug if I got some of the details wrong, but that's one of the ones I referred to and say. It is like, look, that ain't hoaxing, you know. It's not like somebody went up on that shore and put a bunch of big foot tracks for the odds that someone might land there on a float plane. There's the middle of nowhere in Canada. Right, this thing, this bissiveness is it's really unfortunate. It's
dying down now. I think I think everybody wanted to be on Finding Bigfoot. Every we wanted to be on the town hall. Everybody wanted their story told, everybody wanted their big Foot Symposium to be sold out. Right, started getting a bunch of those, right. But the people who really truly
are into this are There are some really wonderful people. David Politis, wonderful man, Doug high Check, Jeff Meldrum, God rest his soul, John Binnernagel, Scott Carpenter and no, I'm forgetting people now They're gonna mad because I forgot them. There's also Todd Standing. Lakam or hate him, there is Todd Standing. I have no problem talking about Todd because I know he's a controversial figure in all of this, because he's done so many things that
either excite people or rub them the wrong way. But all of these individuals and all it's all of the competing beliefs about this. It's like, in the end, it's like, come on, we none of us know. Even if you saw one in the flesh, you still don't know what it is. I mean, I wish I was you. I wish I had had that experience you had, but you still don't know what it is. And so that's what I try to say to people who don't care about it
at all. It's like, look, it's just a really interesting phenomenon with thousands of years to it, hundreds of cultures to it around the globe, tens of thousands of anecdotal references. Come on, if there's that much behind it got to be something. And it's cool in the end if it gets you out in the wilderness. Once again, that's my big there. We've did a couple of times. I have to get the Todd Standing conversation out of the way, because in preparation for this, I went back and looked
at some of your interviews. I've heard some of the things that you've said about Todd Standing. I will be the first to admit I have called him out on this show because I've had a problem with some of the things that he's put out and presented as fact. As a matter of fact, I'll
listened to it today. What your take on his videos as a filmmaker, and I'll be honest, for the first time, it gave me pause because what you said make sense when you gave your opinion on the videotapes in particular, because I've said it before and I'll say it again, and I've always done this. I do believe Todd Standing has had multiple encounters with sasquatch. I just don't know about all the evidence presented. So I guess my question to you is where are you on that with him? And what is your
professional opinion. Let's just take the videos for example. You're a filmmaker, so you've looked at those. Would you mind sharing your opinion on just the videos? Yeah, I've held the video hard drives in my hands, and you know, the hard drives downloaded from his cards in my hand and put them up in my added suites. And I know Todd's going to listen to this. So Todd, he knows how I feel about everything. I don't have an axe to grind, and I also don't have any need to pander
in one way or the other. By the way, another name I said I'd forget a name, Bigfoot. Stacy Brown Jr. One of my bros. The guy is phenomenal and he's true to heart and everything he wants to do when it comes to a researching skunk ape and sun squats. So another another fantastic person in all of this, Bigfoot Stacy, Hopefully you're listening and give me a shout, Yo, me a call with Todd. Sure you know I've alreadys said that Todd can be overly enthusiastic. Shall we say?
He's incredibly focused and driven in this subject matter. He has the focus and drive of quite frankly, you know, boring on what you might consider be the autism or or Asperger Synder. Now, I'm not saying that he has those. I'm saying that his drive and his focus is like that. It's very intent and very this is at it. You know it's going to happen, and God love him for that. But that intensity turns off a lot of people. We look at individuals and I can't stand that guy. That
guy's an asshole. You know. We say things like that about people with a strong intensity. I'm very judgmental, don't get me wrong, but I don't judge people if they have either of them. I'm not saying any of this is true about Todd Standing. But I'm saying I don't judge people if they have a massive ego or if they're an asshole or whatever, especially if they have something I want, you know, because sometimes I'll be dealing with
someone with a massive ego. But hey, he's the ticket in So when a personality like Todds is there and he's doing any one of his talks or his videos, people get a vibe. And many people don't like that vibe. All right, fair enough, But regardless of whether you're not you have a bad vibe. It's got nothing to do with whether or not he's telling the truth or presenting real evidence, nothing whatsoever. So I went out with him on several occasions, and what I can say about him this, to
his credit, the man his boots on the ground. Absolutely, he will be out there for weeks on end. Again, there's that drive, there's that focus. So if anybody's going to get something, he stands a good chance because he just doesn't quit. He's relentless. By the same token, when we were out there, I called him many times, Todd, I don't think that's a big foot at all. I think that's an owl and to his credit, he would say, oh, you might be right.
Now to somebody else, they might go, oh, that's a big foot and they might just buy into it. Right. I never bought into anything. And when you that way, he did respond in kind. He responded with, okay, you got a point, but just saying the stuff that he presented, Jimmy was a lot of I mean, at first, outlood at things and I thought, did Todd build this stick structure? Did he make these things? Like? You know, like you think that right?
And I'd say that right to him, like I'm trying to think like, But then I'm looking at it, going, well, he's a strong dude, but not that strong. So you wanted me to speak more about the film, but I wanted I had before I get to the film. I had to premise my beliefs in about Todd. Right, So again, it is everything that he presents real and accurate. I don't know, haven't got a freaking clude. But I say the same thing about Stacy Brown or David
Polidas or Doug Hijack. I don't know. Maybe doug story about the footprints in Quebec is a bunch of bullshit. I don't know. But I like to just say, but you know what, I'm gonna believe you anyway, because you know, life's too short. Not too it's more fun to go, yeah, this is cool. So same thing with Todd. All right, So now we have his footage and maybe this is what you're referencing. I'm not sure what you're referencing about the footage, but I had it.
I looked at it. There's something I have some issues with it. And I've told him that I don't understand Todd why we don't have all of the lead up footage. Where's all of the lead up footage of you scrambling and this happening? And you know, you would say things to me as explain things to me as to why he doesn't. And I'm not going to share that. That's for him to share, but I'm going to say that I'm
not so sure. I agreed with him, and I told him I I don't know, you know, but anyway, that was a concern of mine. Where's all the lead up footage? Just all we ever see is and I'm now working with you as a producer. I want everything leading to that, and he didn't have it. I was very questionable but what the sasquats look like? I get it, big deal. Joe Rogan starts giggling in uncontrollably when he sees it. Good on him, you know. But look,
man, I come from a very lower than blue collar background. I've sat in enough fockey arenas, in dressing rooms listening to a big ass buffoon jock who owns the room because he's laughing and if you don't laugh with him, and he's going to kick the crap out of you. You know, I've been around that a lot, and so fine, you know, you can get on there with different people who are just going to look at that imagery that Todd Standing has and laughed their ass off, which gets everybody else
laughing, which makes it like a high school thing, right. But I'm like, well, you don't know, it's not. And I know guys like Thinker Thunker have gone into the film stuff, and every time I look at something online that claims to be able to debunk todd Standings footage, I can see the debunking. In their debunking. I can see where they're saying
something nuts, that's not right. What you just said is wrong, and now you're basing everything that you're criticizing this footage on on what you just said, and even though what you're saying might make sense, what you're basing it on doesn't make any sense. I'm not going to get in detail. But
I've seen that in looking at stuff online. So here we are. Here's the crux of this though, and I think maybe this is what you're getting at here we are looking at these I believe it's these two face images when everybody goes, oh, looks like an e walk and you know, and then people try to say, oh, his wife worked as a special effects artist. She was a hairdresser for crying out loud, And then there's the time laps thing where you see Todd's face and then hey, that's all that's
all fun, you know, photoshop type work. Hey, have at it. You could probably do that in a lot. You could probably do that with just about any photo. Probably do that with me and Patty. So I don't buy into any of that. But what I can say is this, from my experience of knowing Todd standing and seeing that footage and having it in my hands, I can't, as a filmmaker say that it's fake. I can't as a person who knows Todd say that he's lying, and I
would if I could, but can't. So what are we left with these two images? What is the problem everybody has with it? Here's my throwback to the crowd of you know, everybody in the community, as you say, the quote unquote community, it's this. First of all, they don't really like him. Second of all, he shows us this footage that. Third of all, if it's real, it's way better than Patty. And we love our Patty. We're just have such an infatuation with Patty. Now
we all want a better image. But here along comes Todd, standing with a personality that is difficult to manage and handle when you're listening to him speak and he shows you this footage and you're instinct his go, that's bullshit, that's made up, that's fake. But everybody, including and I respect Thinker Thunker for the work he does, but including Thinker Thunker in this situation, you don't know, and I don't agree with the little synopsis of how it's
all fake because we don't know that it's fake. And if it's not fake, it's way better than Patty. It's a freaking frontal facial long term video in focus. So this is what we're afraid of. I don't know. I guess maybe if it had been David Politis who presented those photographs, we either would have vilified David or we would have accepted it because he's much more likable, shall I say, or Jeff Meldrow. Let's pick on Jeff. Jeff Is like you want him to be your dad. He's a wonderful human
being. If it was Jeff's footage, we would have accepted it. But because Todd has this intensity to him, I think that's where we're at. So I still sit here today. Todd reached out to me just recently to go on an expedition with him. I can't go because I'm busy, but I would. I would also say, you know, I would be the same skeptic that I am and I've always been, and so should everybody that
goes with him. You know, he's very charismatic and to some people, but also very problematic to others, maybe maybe most So there you go. Did I touch on the points that you were thinking of that I reached before? Did I miss something? No, you absolutely didn't, And I really appreciate it. Like I said, I've called him out on the air. I've invited him on the show. I never heard back from him, So I just reached out to him on Facebook and some other places, and I
would love to have him on the show to talk about those things. Like you said, there's some things that you can't speak to that I think are important for him. Well, maybe he doesn't feel the need. I guess at the end of the day, maybe I don't give a ship. Well, and I'm going to say, you know, if this is a man who's had dozens and dozens of encounters, would you feel the need. And that's the other thing. We all get injured. How many people have said
in this situation, I don't care what you think. I know what I saw. And Todd's been up with many a Randy Greeson up in Canada, amazing individual. Sonya oh, Sonya, forgot your last name. I got to look it up real quick. Another amazing researcher. But Randy up in Canada and Golden Ears Park. I mean, Randy opened me up to some crazy experiences up there. Todd's been up with them, and Todd's been out with Jeff Melderman. We all say the same thing, you know, very
intense. I'm being generous here, and that makes him difficult to be around too many. Every snap is sasquatch. But on the other hand, an intensity of focus and drive that you know, puts him in a situation where you know, I mean he he put me on the top of mountain and I went willingly. It was pretty over the top of an experience for me,
so, you know, as I've explained. So so I don't know if we're not laying anything to rest here, We're not putting anything to bed in anyone's minds, But I do want to say to people, check your emotions on things, because if you are upset that someone out there has a better video footage than Roger Roger Patterson, Bob Gemmen, well that shouldn't be your motivation for judging it. You know, judge it Apart from that's that's my own take on it. I just think I don't know what we want
to happen. But we're so addicted to Patty now that if my good buddy Bigfoot Stacy Brown Junior put up a video tomorrow of a skunk cape and it was clear and concise and everything, I bet you people would say, well, he's been in this for a long time and he hoaxed it. If it was better than Patty, you know, if it's worse than Patty, we're okay with it. You see where I'm going with that? Oh?
Absolutely. And I've had to call myself out on my own show because I've talked about Todd staining in the past, and then I'm like, well, I'm those people, right, because I talk about all the time the people that, well, we want the best evidence, and then somebody gives it to you and it's too good, so it's got to be a hoax. So I'm interrupting. But it's like hair samples that are shown with a certain
DNA that's not explained. You give that to someone who's not into this subject at all, and they're like, oh, well, then it's just crap. It wasn't That's just bullshit? God a DNA sample? Now, Like, well, come on, where else where are we going to go with this? You know? Like I said, when it comes to Todd, I've had to call myself out because I become that person. You know,
it's too good to be true, so it probably is. And I do want to believe that it's true because like you said, if it is in fact real footage, it is the best footage we have ever seen and may ever see. And I want to talk a little bit about that. I'm going to go circle back around to the mind speak thing. I want you to just touch on that experience if you wouldn't mind. And I do want to talk about some of the weirder things that happen and some of your theories
on why we don't have the evidence. Why can't we catch these things on trail cams? Are they just super smart or is there something else going on? Do you have an opinion about that? Stay tuned for more Sasquatch jealousy. We'll be right back after these messages. I don't know how I want
to say it. How about methodology for determining when someone is presenting evidence to you that I would love to give to you, I'd love to share with your audience, because I'm clearly speaking, we're preaching to the converted here.
There's nobody on here who doesn't have an interest in the subject matter unfortunately, so I kind of watch I'll watch my words that way, because I don't need to waste their time with let's call it beginner stuff that we all sort of I've gotten passed, but just the same I've got a great methodology for dealing with people who don't believe at all sort of thing. So with all that said, repeat your question, where did you want me to go again
with it? It was something to do, Oh, the mind speak and just the mind speak, and why we don't have more evidence in trail cams and in that kind of thing. Why we don't have more evidence? Were the first answer I could say, is what you want more? Right? Just like we were just saying, part I mean wants just to say cynically that you want you want more evidence? You want more than thousands of people with experiences from rocks to sightings. What more DNA samples proven this way that,
what more castings? What more do we want? Right? So why don't we have more? The real question, maybe that's underlying, was like why don't we have the trailcam footage? If you're thinking of it being a great ape of some sort, then you're going to think, oh, it senses an energy, it senses the light to this, and that I throw that in the mix of all of the attributes of it's so much more than just an ache or at least it has. Let's let's let's not be wooy
about it. Let's not get into ancient aliens. Let's just say it has abilities that baffle us that we're not really that maybe we don't have. I mean, an octopus can change color like that, you know, and so on and so forth. Right, So put all of these abilities into one being sort of things, it becomes you know, yeah, now we're talking like X men or something. But so why can't it be seen on it
on a camera? I mean, if you put a beach ball in my kitchen and that beach ball represented something dangerous, and I come walk in the living room, I'll see that beach ball way before I get in the kitchen. The wilderness, and I'll tell you what this is something I learned from Todd Standing. The wilderness is their home. You don't think it's exactly like their living room. To them, they know every leaf, every branch, every tree, every rock, human trails to them, they might use them
once in a while, but mostly they're traveling their own pathways. They don't need us. So you put a trail cam. They probably can smell you, sense you, feel the energy, you know and know how to bypass it, or then we get into other realities things that I experience, for example, or maybe they know how to play with the electronic the magnetic field. Who knows. But again, you know, facetiously, part of me wants to go what we need more evidence? I mean for a lot of
us listening, we don't need more evidence. We just, more than anything, we want to have our own experiences. At this point, I think we'd all be thrilled beyond belief to watch a clear footage cap should buy less strout as he's outdoing survivor Man Bigfoot. I'd probably be called to hoax, but also given all the credit for it. But by the same token, I think most of us would rather just be out there and have our own experience, a full on experience, a safe one, you know, more
than anything else. So why don't we have more of these things? We have tons of them all the time, and people are sending me footprints in the sand and different things all the time. And there's another one. There's another one, you know in another vocalization to ask Ron Moorehead, how many
vocalizations? Oh, there's another individual, Ron Moorehead again, another great in this field, you know, lots of evidence is already out there, you know, and we're paying more attention all the time, which is good. But the camera thing, that doesn't bother me at all. I mean, sure a deer can't do it and a bear can't do it, but that doesn't mean that a sasquatch doesn't have the ability to mess with your camera and even just make it so electronically it's not working. Kind of thing the mind
speak, So this began for me. I've had four mind speaking experiences, and this began for me with Scott Carpenter in Tennessee. Scott and I are out and we are He's showing you the different things. Wonderful man, wonderful, different perspectives. He was the first one that showed me a lot about leaving gifts, but not in the way like like with Todd and different individuals.
It was leaving gifts that you think that they will take apples or what have you, that sort of thing, But with Scott it was more about utilizing the gifts as a way of communicating. Scott talked about leaving down rocks and sticks and things and then having them move them around or turn them sideways
or doing different things with them. So Scott and I are out we're doing filming Survivor Man Bigfoot, So we were actually filming the show, which, by the way, one of the criticisms of Roger Patterson is he really needed this footage because that's what he was out there to get, and it was close to the last day, and that's why he faked it, right, that's one of the comments. Well, I was out to film Survivor Man
Bigfoot, and I did start having things happen while I was filming. So I'm not as critical about Roger Patterson anymore because you could say the same thing to me, and well, of course you got this stuff less you were filming a show about Bigfoot. Naturally you're going to something happened. Would nudge nudge, wink wink, right, But you guys know me, I'm just
like now, I'm just gonna say what happened or didn't happen. Notwithstanding the fact that I withheld certain things like the sitting on me in the sleeping bag. I didn't say that in that show. You know why I didn't. Viewers of that show weren't ready for that, And I don't mean that in a condescending way. They just weren't ready. It was still a big ache to everybody still is for the most part, to be honest with you.
Scott and I go out in the woods and he's showing in the different things where I see that he's had some experiences and vocalizations, and he's played me the tape. We played it on the show and song, and I said, well, here's what I want to do. I want to stay out here by myself, you know. So there's me and my matchiess MO Mode going yeah, I got It's Tennessee. Nothing here can hurt me. So I go out there. It was a dark and stormy night. That was
crazy. It was kind of dark and stormy, but not raining. And that's important, by the way, because I have noticed very very very few anecdotes ever take place in the rain. In fact, the opposite, nothing happened in the rain when people are looking anyway. I'm out there. I let it get really dark. Scott is in the park a lot, and so I go to leaving, and now I'm walking this couple of miles on a trail in the woods in Tennessee. It's windy, it's stormy a bit,
it's kind of spooky. It's it's got full on Halloween feel to it, right, And this was the first occurrence, and I felt all the hair go up on the back of my neck, and I felt like I was in maybe not in danger, but something was there. I never get that, you know, I just never that just doesn't happen. And then as sure as I'm sitting here, I just feel right in the center of my head, like I couldn't say it was on my left ear or my right ear. It's like right in the right in the center of my head.
I just hear these words, which were if I remember, if you want to see us stay the night, I'll tell you. It really freaked me out, Like I just stood there going whoa, you know, I mean, it felt like, for the life of me, it wasn't mine. It didn't feel like my mind. I wasn't even looking for this. I didn't even heard the term mine speak at that point. I was just
like making my show, you know, try and experience stuff. And well this happened, and I actually I just felt like, okay, I felt it was real and regardless of feelings not being facts, so I felt it was real. And so I said, in my mind, I'm not ready. No, And I truly was not ready. I was afraid to turn around, like I felt like there was something right over there on that heel, and it felt again feelings and facts right, but it felt like it
was a large male and then a young a juvenile. That's what it felt like. That's what was in my brain. And this large mail said to me this thing, and I said, no, I'm not ready, and I could. It's like I sensed them right there over there on that hill, about one hundred and fifty feet away, and the answer was like, it's fine. And then they just turned and walked away. And as they turned and walked away, in my mind, hair on the back of my neck went down, because there's no hair on the top of my head.
Hair in my back of my neck went down, and I completely relaxed, and it was a big WTF moment. I'm like, oh boy. I didn't even tell Scott Carbon about it when I came out. I just kept it. It's like the first time when I had the occurrence occurrencial ascal I was filming big Foot once again, this thing happened just like on top of the mountain. I'm not telling anybody this not yet Nope, nope, nope,
nope, nope, this one's this one's staying just for me. What we have to ask is the question is, so, what are you saying now, Oh, now you want to say they're telepathic. Well, my answer would be, well, first of all, lots of scientists and science will point to the ability of telepathy and people to pick up on thought energy and it's just thought energy, Like, so, what if that was just like norm for them. But if they were and we could get into Christine,
well, because I believe he's tapped into something thought of autism. What if they were so severely savant and one of their savant abilities was telepathy. Did to use it like speaking? Yeah, but what are you saying, He's spoken English to you? Lesque? No, my mind gave it to me in the way my brain comprehend would ever. It was that they were getting across to me and yes, that's going to be the English language. And if I was Chinese, it would be Mandarin, you know, if
I was from South America to be Spanish. But it happened to be English in my brain because that's the way my brain has been trained to decipher thoughts and so on. So this thought comes to me. It's deciphered as communication. That sounds like quote unquote mind speak, quote unquote telepathy. Sure they
could have that ability. We're okay with humans having certain abilities. And that's where we get into this other thing about and why I kind of always kind of sing Crystal els praises on this is I like to say, what if they were a severely autistically savaunt species and their abilities were existence in nature, telepathy, cloaking. What if they have the ability to manipulate their own life
force energy? So if we give them that, this is not even dream world stuff anymore, and it's not even science fiction stuff anymore, because you know this stuff is also being research. So telepathy to me, I'm like, gosh, so that happened. I told no one and then I've had three other experiences since then. One was in Texas and it felt a little menacing that was also well filming. One was on my way to the Portland experience with Devin when I filmed that episode, And one was on my own
here. The funniest one ever was on my own here going to hike brisby pointing in southern Oregon. And I so now I put it out there, and if anybody wants to experiment with lepathy in a situation like this, here's what I would advise to do. Put it out there. Just try to think for a second, if there's anyone in this area, any of these whatever they are as in this area, and you're about you're at the trailhead right, and you can there and you say, I'm coming out and I'd
love to have an encounter and experience meeting you. And I'm just coming in whatever you want me to know as peace sort of thing. And it's kind of put that out there, right and listen, and just you know, I do it all the time. Nothing had ever happened. One time, bam, right in the middle of my head, I just got we're sleeping. How is that? We're slaping? It's like we're sleeping going home?
Right. I will say this close off of this binds is that after that experience in Tennessee with Scott Carpenter and hearing those voices, hearing that voice, I went into a counselor to find out if I was schizophrenic. That's how powerful it was. I said, listen, this thing happened. I'm going to tell you about it. And I'm just worried, Like am I Like, I've never experienced anything like that in my entire life. Hasn't happened since
that day. Can't explain it, And even the therapist or the councilor would have said, it sounds to me like what you experienced was a gift and you are not schizophrenic. First of all, you wouldn't be asking if you were. This counselor actually said that. I went okay then, and then, as I said, I've had three other encounters since then. So so that's my take. Why do we even call it mine speak? That's just
too cute. Let's just call it telepathy. That's what it is. We're talking about their ability with telepathy mine speak because they're bigfoot, because they're sasquash would have to give it a cute name. It's telepathy. We've already accepted the concept of telepathy in humans. Why can't we accept it within other species? Let alone what a dolphin can do? You know, I don't ever close that door because experience is very much like that. You can't explain that
any other way. So I want to be respectful of your time. I know we need to close out, but I want to talk about what's going on now? What projects do you have going on? What's the future Survivor Man, Bigfoot, can you share anything that's coming up? A kah yeah, and then I'll leave you with my little method of when someone tell it, gives you story sort of thing. So I'm asked a lot. What I can say. I'm not finished, it's not over. I have more
work to do in the field. It's a matter of timing. The pandemic has has obviously disrupted a lot of people's normal flows of living in existence, and certainly mine as well. By the way, for everybody listening, I've put everything I've ever done with Bigfoot online now on my YouTube channel. It's all there, including all my Survivor Man stuff. So I'm really having a lot of fun with YouTube and putting all of that stuff out there and more
music. So this year as well, I'm releasing a ton of content every Friday every Saturday on my YouTube channel. Survivor Man Less Stroud is new content, and there will be Bigfoot stuff coming. Absolutely. I have friends such as Devin Masson or Bigfoot, Stacy Brown Junior. We're always talking about doing something together. I know, sooner or later one of these days, Stacey and I will do something. I have a full feature share documentary film in
my brain that I would like to do on Sasquatch. Those things are, shall we say, in the works. That's the best thing I can say is if you go to my YouTube, that's the best place to go for all my work. And I have my new podcast, Surviving Life with Less Stroud, which I do broach the subject there. In fact, in season one there's a three parter. I also interviewed John Zada, who is the author of In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond about his search for Sasquatch amongst
indigenous cultures. Yeah, so my stuff is all all on the podcast and mostly let's go to my YouTube. Everything is really there. So now to finish out my little thing that I want to say is every once in a while, I'll have someone say, oh, you know my aunt, you know she claims to have seen big put twice now on her property over the last fifteen years, and you know, she worked in conservat as a conservation officer, and and they'll finish this little thing and they'll say, ah,
but you know, I don't know. And that's what I love to pounce. I'm like, what do you mean you don't know? I don't know if they're if they're real or not. I mean, I mean, oh, oh, so your aunt's a liar. Then oh what are you saying? No? Well, I mean hang on a second. And here's where I go with this. And I did this at David Polidis's symposing thing that he did. Actually, I said, oh, well, everybody to stand up and stand up. That's had a big foot encounter. And there's like
thirty people stand up. Now, everybody sit down who their encounter was not visual. A bunch of people sit down and left with about seven people sitting up there. Before I get to what I did next, I'll say this, we only have a couple of options. If somebody says to you they saw a big foot or they had a big foot encounter, you only have, well, especially mostly the visual thing. Right one they were high drawn, two mistaken identity. Well, so hopefully we can rule up to being
high and drawn mistaken identity. A lot of these times, these are police officers, conservation officers, nature instructors, people who are travel hunters, anglers, people who travel the woods all the time. They know what a bear looks like right, So you want to rule out identity, okay, and now you're left with two Either they're lying or they're giving you an act,
the actual and factual representation of what they saw. So if you're going to rule out mistaken identity and they weren't high or drawn, then you got to look at them and go, you're lying. You're a liar. Because if you can't look at them and say you're lying, then you're left with what they're telling you. They were fifteen feet away from something that was ten feet tall. It was big and hairy, it stunk, scared the crap out of me, It looked at me, and then it turned and ran away.
So what is that again? We'd ruled out mistaken identity, We've ruled out hundred So then if they weren't lying, they saw what they saw, and if they saw what they saw, well, then about a thousand or a few thousand times over, they exist. Right. That's the thing. It's so easy for people. If I were my niece said, oh do you still do that big but show? Giggle, giggle, giggle, giggle. Right, that's a conversation that's over for me. I mean, someone
comes up to your party. Hey, dude, so I hear you believe in bigfoot conversations over right? No, no, really, I want to know. No, no, you don't less. I can't thank you enough for your time. It's been an honor and a pleasure to have you on this show. Man. It was a load of fun. Maybe we'll have to do it again. When you put out some more bigfoot stuff, you can come back on the show and we can talk about it. I appreciate
that I've enjoyed it. I don't do these very often. I don't get a chance to talk about it very often, but as you can tell, I'd like to be candid about it because I think there's a lot of Oh, there's a lot of big egos and buffoonery and this I'll close it by saying, none of us, even if you've seen one, you still truly don't understand what it is or what it's capable of. And I, still
sitting here, can't say they exist. I really truly can't. But I've got, you know, maybe seventeen eighteen experiences under my belt now that I can't explain as being a deer or a moved sort wolf so in or a bear or anything. So it's a fascinating subject. I'm glad you're doing this and I appreciate every time. Absolutely man Less Stroud The Survivor, Man Survivor, Man Bigfoot. You guys go check it out on YouTube. Thanks so
much, Less, I really appreciate it. My play. They say, you don't want to go home, but you can't stay here, and I don't want to be alone the world out time, this job, that time, everything coming right back right baby, my joy for me to stay right now. I'm coming right away. Ssssst R calls us used us as