SYSK Selects: How Bigfoot Works

and open heart. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works, Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always a Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and um that makes this Stuff you should Know the podcast A right? Is that a wookie? That is me Messing with Sasquatched? It sounded more like um Frankenstein from Sarah. I remember that. I love that bad Fonto and Tarzan Tarzan classic skit.

Have you seen the commercials Messing with Sasquatch? Yeah, Jack Links It's pretty funny. Yeah, all of them are. It's one of my favorite spots. Actually, well it contradicts um. I witness reports that paint Bigfoot is kind of a benign, shy creature. Now, as far as Jack Links is concerned, he goes a gro when you um, when you mess with him, I guess that's where it is. So I have an actual intro for this one. All right, let's here, we're talking big Foot, and very recently there was some

enormous huge news um and UM. We should probably preface this one like, if you are a skeptic, don't worry. We're gonna give your side of this too. But we have found over the years that UM, it's very respectful to give voice to both sides. We try to and UM, we're not insulting you by speaking the other person's side. Will express your side as well, and when we do that, we're not insulting the other side. And at the end of the day, it's about Bigfoot. So let's not get

so worked up. Calm down, you know, it's all just fun. There's a a self professed veterinarian with twenty seven years experience including forensics named um Dr Melba Catchum Melba s Catchum and she supposedly she claims got her hands on some uh samples of bigfoot hair and has been testing it do running genetic tests on it, and recently announced and wrote a paper that's under pure view as it stands now, UM that she she managed to isolate three separate nuclear um d n A. Okay, uh, that that

came from three separate groups. So one is the nuclear DNA. Remember, so you have um nuclear DNA is the mixture of the mothers and the father's DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is strictly from the mother. So the researcher found that the nuclear DNA came from a human bigfoot, which is a hybrid of the human and this third species, a non human species. Doesn't know what it is yet, but supposedly that's what

this hair sample showed. Really, then this is just now right, Yeah, I believe they made this announcement like in late November, early December, which is now under it is under peer of view. That doesn't mean that it's going to pass

peer of view. She submitted the paper for peer review. Um. Now, she said that the the mitochondrial DNA in the sample was human, which means that this third thing, bigfoot, is the product of a female old woman and a this non human species, the mystery species reproducing informing Bigfoot, and she says that she isolated it to about fifteen thousand years ago. Now, anybody who's followed Dr Ketchum's career can

poke holes all in this. There was apparently I read an early draft of the paper that she said this third this third um species was an angel. And people skeptics love beating up on people like this. But my hat is off to her for first of all, undergoing this using the scientific method to root out um the unexplained that's extremely forty in in nature and I love that stuff um. And then secondly to put it up for peer of view and to face that that kind

of criticism. One of the big problems that she she isn't saying like where this sample, how she knows this is a sample of Bigfoot's DNA. She didn't say where she got it, not that not that I could find. And I actually saw in one article that she's not saying where where it came from. So there's a lot of holes in it. But if you wanted big current Bigfoot news, that's about as big as it gets. That's right, Uh, not quite as current as our our own uh law

officer here in Georgia. Is that last year or the year before the one up in the North Georgia. Yeah, man with with his freezer, I didn't follow that very close. I'm gonna go ahead and say that I really want to believe in Bigfoot, or not want to believe. I want to. I want there to be a Bigfoot. I don't think there is that means you want to believe in Bigfoot, but I still want to. I want to believe it's out there because it's just it would be

so cool. And whenever, when I when I saw that story, the sheriff and I think he was a sheriff or deputy in North Georgia. It was a hoax, of course, but he said he had a body in a freezer, and they showed pictures of this uh uh what you know? It was in a guerrilla suit, right, that's what ended up being with and it had guts, had like animal entrails, but it looked like initially like oh, man, that looks like a dead big Foot, and then you look closer and it's like a suit that you can get online.

I wish I had that kind of time to do stuff like that. Yeah, apparently portrayed a hoax. Apparently they were trying to try drum up potential business for leading big foot tours in North Georgia. It's a sound way to do it until you get found out and then ultimately either retire or get fired. No enforcement officer, things could still work. Oh well, okay, he lost his day job, is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, you can't do stuff

like that. If you're a cop, you can't pull a hoax. No, you can't pull a hoax and try and snow people for money. It's not it's not legal. I don't know that it is illegal to uh to snow people for money, to promise them something that's not true and charge This guy says that you call it fraud, No, it's a hoax. There's a big difference between fraud and a hoax. If

he had the business, it would be fraud. No. That would be like if he promised that you're going to see bigfoot, not a big foot tour, but he said you're gonna see bigfoot on this tour, and so he didn't, then you could get him for fraud. I think he would still be fraud if he founded that business and advertise it on a false premise, which is I found this thing, look at it. Yeah, I see your point. Yeah,

he's a jerk. Let's let's talk about Bigfoot. This guy up in North George is pretty far from the only person to pull a declared Bigfoot hoax. Um. What keeps this thing going is that there's some stuff out there that's considered this body of evidence of Bigfoot's existence that hasn't been definitively debunked and right. One of them other things that I think people who are believers in Bigfoot, like the ones that are out there like looking for

Bigfoot and believe in Bigfoot. One of the things that keeps them going also is this correlation between big Foot sightings among people of European descent and big Foot legends of Native American tribes long before the Europeans ever got here.

And if you, um, if you look at the names of that these different tribes have and take a step back, you're like, wow, these tribes were all over the place there somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, somewhere in Florida, somewhere in um the north, northeastern United States, and eastern Canada, and all of them have this weird um tall giant hairy man legend that they have a name for um even though they're you know, geographically scattered all over the place.

And it's possible that they these all of these different um legends share a single common ancestor that it's further back, maybe located on the steps of Eurasia. But it's also kind of noteworthy that they all have different legends for it. Uh, the Himalays, even the Yeti, the acominable snowman in Asia very popular. Um. Apparently you hear that one more than you see it. Yeah, which I didn't know. But we should call this thing sasquatch because that is the most

common name they use nowadays. And um, even though some of the names from Native American tribes when Dago, yeah, yeah, that was Ohma Rugaru and books is some of the names that has gone by Native American lord, but sashquatch shash squatch comes from I have no idea how to

pronounce that. It looks like sess shock anyway, that that word in another word from the area around British Columbia were similar enough that in the nineteen twenties, white school teacher named J. W. Burns coined the term sasquatch, and it's basically it's the umbrella term for any big foot like man, right, so we should. Even though these sightings have varied in their description over the years, they're a

few marks that pop up. One is that this is a tall beast between seven and fifteen feet, which is that's is enormous. Yeah, I haven't most of the ones I've heard of between like seven and eight feet. Have you seen the troll Hunter? I saw that recently. Actually, that first troll that they watched, the guy zap and trying the stone. That thing was about fifteen ft tall. That's huge. Yeah. That was a pretty good movie. I buy ten ft no way, no way. Yeah. Did you

like the movie? Hunter was excellent? Yeah? I kind of got it, kind of wore on me towards the end. I thought it was a little long, but it was pretty cool. Yeah, and the imagination that it used it was just beautiful. Totally agreed. Hunter people. Um it walks on two legs, that's a big one. Was that bipedal? That what they say? Um, it's upright and has a

loping gate. Um, he's seen that elf? Right, the movie Elf? Yeah, the one shot where they mimic the uh the famous sixteen millimeter film where it's it's Will Ferrell and Central Park and they like have that from frame three fifty two of the sixteen millimeter film. It's pretty funny. So Will Ferrell's doing sess it says like, you know, the strange elf was seen wandering through Central Park and they mimic that. Yeah, yeah, that's very good. Um. And then

long reddish fur. That's a big one, reddish brown that's and that's really interesting that it's um that sasquatch is typically described as having long, reddish brown fur. Yeah, that's a really specific thing for everybody to report. And again it's possible that like people have heard other reports and said, you know, that's what they're expecting to see or that's what they're reporting because that's what Sasquatch has. But it's still it's significant. Um, you said that the YETI uh

was more heard than seen. Yeah, Bigfoot is usually more seen than heard. But when Bigfoot is heard, um, the he makes gurgling noises, howling noises, noises that sound totally alien to the people reporting it. Yeah, I've heard weird noises in the woods camping all my life, and I've never thought, oh, that's a big Foot. I just think that's just something some animal making a strange sound that

I've never heard because you live in the city, that's right. Uh. Supposedly this uh sasquatch also has sort of a man like face, and reports from either being really really really smelly to not smelling at all. Oh, yeah, that's not in this article. I forgot about how smelly Bigfoot is supposed to be. Yeah, I supposedly have heard that many times. Um. They're also supposedly very wary of people, but also at the same time intensely curious about us. Um and Uh.

A lot of people who have made eyewitness reports say that they weren't scared, which is weird. Yeah. Most people say that, like I didn't feel threatened, right, and that kind of jibes with UM. Most Native Americans legends about Bigfoot that it was Um, it's a a benign creature. Uh, and often it's it has intellect and um, it's given spiritual powers in Native American lower So it wasn't something

to be afraid of tasquatches, your friend. Yeah. Uh. They usually are by themselves, but there have been reports of several of these sasquatches hanging out together and chatting. Yeah, but for the most part they're usually alone. Right. Um, So you put all this together and you've got like a pretty good common It's like the A. K. C.

Breed for sasquatch. These are its characteristics. I love it. Okay. Um, if you take this at at face value, which you should, sure if you're a skeptic, you should always look at things at face value, not just immediately dismissed her poop po it. Yeah, try to get to the bottom of it. And that's what we're about to do now. The first question is, um, could a creature that matches this description

possibly exist? Yeah, And it's important when considering this to point out that we'd have never despite all the sightings and little still shots and film clips and audio clips, there's never been any conclusive evidence. They've never found bones, but that's huge or anything like that. Um, a lot of footprints and stuff like that. So moving forward, could this exist perhaps in the giganto pithecus, right, because that's a creature that that actually did exist at some point.

And it says here in the article that the gigant epithis Epipthecus, which was the largest primate in the fossil record, lived between one and nine million years ago. Actually, I saw um an article that had updated that to about a hundred thousand years ago, which meant that humans and gigant Epithecus lived side by side. Have you seen this thing? I have? It looks like a big foot, um, you know. Yeah, and then like, oh, well, I guess if someone saw that in the woods, I would think it was a

sasquat um. It lived in Southeast Asia or in Central Asia, and it's a relative of the orangutane yeah, big time, So it looks a lot like one. Yeah, this is all extremely interesting stuff in case you didn't know, because orangutans, for starters, have reddish hair, reddish orange hair, so that's one connection to gigant Epithecus. Yeah. They've got the long arms like that. Yeah. Um. They walked up right about

ten feet tall, usually about pounds um. And if since orangutans are the closest modern relative of gigantapithe kiss it um, it makes sense to kind of look at them, look at their behavior. Does it match bigfoot stuff? Yeah? They have teeth similar to humans, so that could account a little bit for the man like look that people often talk about, uh make occasionally will make a loud howling

calls uh that sound odd to other orangutans. Another thing that kind of separates them too, aside from being um Asian whereas most primates are African um, is that they tend to live solitary lives, so they don't aggregate in groups. They live by themselves mostly. Okay, so chalk one up for the big Foot enthusiasts. Yeah again, they're like, okay, well that's it's gigantapithe kiss. Uh. They live a long time, and because they are widely dispersed, they may not even

see other orangutangs for many long stretches. So of course they may not see a human either exactly, you know. And if they're intellectual or if they have intellect um, as people who believe in Bigfoot like to point out, they would be able to successfully hide from humans, probably especially if their habitat was the woods and the mountains. Um. And so you put all that together that they have a long lifespan, meaning there's not a lot of them

dying frequently. They live, they're spread out population wise, and they tend to live in remote geographic regions that if you add all that up, that's a pretty good reason why you wouldn't have found any bones. Yes, because bones can decay and the wild like that between five and ten years. And um, the author of this was this the Grabster. This is Tom Harris. I'm Harris. He's a good one to um. He points out that the Bob never gone on bigfootbone hunting expeditions, so like people aren't

looking for these things, so they may not have found him. Well, yeah, there is a guy actually who's um looking for Bigfoot, his Idaho State anthropology professor, and he has he's crowdsourcing blimp to hunt for Bigfoot with thermal imaging cameras and stuff like that. And he's three and if you're interested in it, you can check out that I thought it was. But he's got his own website called Falcon Project UM

and that's what he's trying to do with it. So there is at least one person trying to do a rigorous scientific hunt for Bigfoot. But and then there's all kinds of groups looking right. Yeah, there's even a show on Animal Planet, one of our UH Discovery Channel stations, one of our I would call it a sister station, but we're not a station one of our colleagues. And it's uh, what's it called finding Bigfoot? And these people

are out there hunting Bigfoot. And I have even watched bits of it because I just think it's cool and interesting and uh, it's kind of a fun little show. So I recommend it. And weren't we weren't even asked to plug that. I'm just plugging it go. You know, Um, do you have a possible link between the orangutan, um right, and Bigfoot? And that link might be a gigantopithecus. Question is still remaining. Um, how did gigant Epithecus get here? Uh? Well, we walked over the Uh was that the land bridge

bearing land bridge? Yes, yeah, just like we did. Sure, not you and me, But you know, well that's one theory. Um. But the big problem here, Chuck, is the absence of proof doesn't prove anything. The fact that we haven't found bones, even though you can explain it, we still haven't found any bones, and it doesn't mean that something exists, and that's a it's a big problem in this debate. You

can also point to, though very happily, the Ceila canth right. Uh, Cela Kanth was thought to have gone extinct sixty five million years ago. It's a fish I thought to have gone extinct in the Late Cretaceous period, and then they found it swimming off the coast of Africa. So you can point to that and say it's entirely possible that

gigantopith kists survived somehow and we just didn't know. Yeah, and scientists are they'll point out that there are all kinds of creatures that are still undiscovered, but most of them are sea creatures. And that makes sense too because we don't spend very much time under the sea now, we don't, um, whereas you know, we spend a decent amount of time in the woods. Um. Okay, So if you're a skeptic, everything we just said probably made the hair on the back of your neck bristle in irritation.

And um here's why, because, like we said, the absence of proof doesn't prove anything true. Um. And it's entirely possible that all of this evidence, this body of evidence, Um, it's just basically a bunch of independent hoaxters fooling a bunch of people over time. Yeah, or uh, innocent mistaken identity they're not all hoaxters. Some people have perhaps gotten confused about things, said, boy, that mangie bear doesn't look right.

It's standing up on its back legs too. Or the recent photo that was that still image captured at night and that's what they said it was, was a mangie bear. But that thing was kind of weird looking, I think. Yeah, it was like a Knight image shot and it was on it was on four leg or four you know, I don't know if their arms or what. Um. And you know, it looked odd, but they, you know, they explained it away as a mangie bear. Um. But yeah,

lots of hoaxes over the years. Yeah. And if you go into the woods and you're even the least bit familiar with any kind of big foot lore and you see something that's that possibly fits it, you may be the victim of wishful thinking or being impressionable or what have you. Yeah, that's a that's a pretty good accusation, a skeptical level against somebody reports a big foot siding. And the first, um, an easiest way to hoax someone,

to pull a hoax on someone is the old fake footprint. Yeah, not too hard to do, you make a fake foot, you wear it on your feet and you perhaps run along in the woods, maybe lope, maybe leap to make the footsteps you know, the gate correct, Um, and then

you make a plaster mold of it. Uh. The problem with these is there hares in so many over the years that it's like clear that they're hoaxes, because this one is two toes, this one has claws, this one has eight toes, And you know there are people aren't

getting together on these and making them consistent. Um. Probably the most contentious bit of Bigfoot evidence was that sixteen millimeter film you mentioned that was made seven by a guy named Roger Patterson, the Patterson Gimblin Film, and it's from Bluff Creek, California, and basically it shows Bigfoot walking across basically a clearing into the woods, and Bigfoot is aware that he's being watched, and he turns and looks

at the camera. Like you said, Will Ferrell didn't help. UM. And I remember years ago like watching this and when I was back in my time life books phase like I'll believe anything, just tell me, um. And they were saying that one of the reasons that this thing was so convincing that it was Bigfoot? Was that and he looked over his shoulder rather than looking with just his head.

Just turning his head, Bigfoot turns his whole shoulder and torso along with his head, which is something that a primate would likely do, and non human primate, I should or someone in an ape suit shad possibly that's another possibility to They also point out that bigfoots walking with his knees bent in this that's another sure sign of primate, whereas I did that today. By the way, is it hard? Well, it's not the easiest thing, but what it makes you do is sort of lope along with a kind of

a funny gate, a loping gate. Yeah, yeah, um, that's That's something that bigfoot enthusiast point too, is that this thing was walking with knees bent um. And I didn't realize this until I read this in the article. But humans lock their knees with each step. We don't walk with our knees bent um. And then also the lastly that the creatures fur is clearly rippling, like the skin beneath his rippling, and like some costumes, some ape suit

isn't going to do that on its own. Put all this together, and if you're a big Foot believer, this is irrefutable evidence that there's such thing as big foot. If you're skeptic, you can shoot a hole in all of those, can't you. Sure? Um? Since this film came out in seven it's been like the most reviewed and made fun of or backed piece of evidence ever for Bigfoot or Sasquatch. And um, Roger Patterson it turns out

was making trying to make a movie about Bigfoot. Yeah. Yeah, so he wasn't just some guy out there that happened to have a camera. He was trying to put together a film. Um. Since this has come out, there have been various people. One guy came out and said, you know what, I made the suit for him. He paid me a thousand bucks to make him the suit. Well, the guy who supposedly did make the suit is never admitted to. Well, now there's a bunch of guys that's

not the same guy. There's Chambers, and then there's this other dude. They aren't the same people. That's why it's it's kind hinky because multiple people have claimed they made the suit. This one guy says that he was the guy in the suit, and um, but his suit story didn't match up with the guy who claimed he made the suit did match up with his suit story. But then people said, you know what, Patterson could have altered that original suit to match the guy who said he

was in the suit. Then there's Chambers who other people say it made the suit, but he says he didn't make the suit. Well, it's a longstanding Hollywood rumor that actually John Landis, the director of American Werewolf in London.

Um came out and and and said, yeah, this is true. Um. When he was a young pup, he was working at one of the studios and he became friends with John Chambers, who did the ape suits for Planet of the Apes, which came out right around that time, right, Um, and Uh, he had heard that Chambers had done this, and he befriended Chambers and said, yes, it's true. This is John Chambers. And Chambers never has never taken credit for it. He's

never come out and said, yeah, I did it. But if you ask the average special the effects guy or makeup guy these days, if you show them that, they're like, yes, this is ape suit. There's a water bag underneath that's making the skin ripple. Um and I like, that's a guy. That's a man. Right, I watch it again today, like five times. Yeah, I mean too, it's really neat. Yeah, it's kind of fun. I mean just the detail they

went into, like the the crooked legs, the bent knees. Yeah, the shaky cam like it looked like someone scared and discovering something. Yeah, it's it's perfect. If it's a fraud, it is perfect because think about it. The thing was shot in nineteen sixty seven. It's two thirteen, and people

are still debating whether or not it's authentic. Oh yeah, and it's it's gone through lots of rigorous testing by people that study whether or not the film was tampered, and they have determined that nothing was tampered post shooting. Like if it was anything, it was a dude in ape suit and they really went out there in the woods and shot it. Uh. But like I said, this is all just kind of fun to me. People get

so worked up over this. I don't get it. You know, Yeah, what's the harm unless someone's like defrauding people out of money? You know. Um, there are people who dedicate their careers to this. There's a woman named um Kathy moscowitz Strain, and she is a forest archaeologist for the U. S Forestry Service who basically became an anthropologist and an archaeologist so that she could hunt for Bigfoot. And she's very

respected even among skeptics who counter all of our arguments. Um, but she is very much searching for Bigfoot and has been for many years, and she believes or just wants to get to the bottom of it. She believes that there's a bigfoot, that there's another species out there, some

primate species that is what we call sasquatch or bigfoot. Yeah, the arguments against like, to me, if you can't say something like, well, somebody would have definitely seen it, Mike by now and proven it, Like you just can't say that, like the Pacific Northwest is so vast that an animal could probably hide if there was only a few of them left from people, you know. But on the other hand, you also like, I can't say it exists because of this these hoaxes and these sounds, and like you need

some sort of like scientific evidence. Bones, bones would help. You do need that unless you're just enjoying thinking about it. Yeah, Um, another thing you can enjoy that's kind of related is watching the Mystery Science Theater three thousand of the Legend of Boggy Creek to se that one. It's arguably the best episode that. Oh my god, it's hilarious. Strong statement, but it's related. It's a based on a big foot

like creature. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Tom points out to that the reason people want to believe in stuff like this is the same reason some people want to believe in aliens. Um that like, the sense of adventure is seemingly lost these days. There's nothing new to discover. And God, if we could just discover a big foot, that would be so huge and so monumental. Um. And I get that that's probably why I want to believe. You know, yea, it would rock the world of science. Oh it totally one.

But then we'd put it in a zoo. Yeah, poke it with electricity we humans. Yeah. Um, all right, well, uh, let's see, if you want to learn more about bigfoot, you can type that word into the search part how stuff works. Um, there's an adorable picture of a baby oranguting in this article, so you want to take that out. Um, that's b I G F O O t um. And it'll bring that up and since I said search parts time for listen to mail, I'm gonna call this. Uh.

I don't even remember what this was. Oh, meth showers, H Josh Chuck and Jerry A k A L. Chuck Tran. My name is Jimmy Griffith from leon Or, South North Carolina. Uh or linoiff I'm not sure you pronounced that. I'm originally born in Brazil, A relatively young listener, and after listening to how meth works reminded me of a story from my college days. I used to know these identical twin brothers that went to Appalachian State with me. You

know what goes on that school? Yeah, they beat Michigan with a bunch of hippies, a bunch of party kids at friends that went there. Uh. At one time, one of them was having um explained hallucinations see what I mean, and other weird psychological issues. That twin with hallucinations feared that he might have schizophrenia, but that did not make sense since his identical twin did not share the symptoms. As I understand, if one had the disorder, the other

would also have it since they are identical. And that's right, that's true. It's probably like a percentage fail. I think it's automatic um. After dealing with his issue for a little while, the twin with hallucinations decided to see a doctor and, after running a few blood tests, tested positive for meth. This made no sense since he had never

used meth. Uh. After a few questions about the daily routine, they found out that most of what they did was similar, except one of the twins preferred to take baths, the one suffering hallucinations, and the other preferred showers. This led to further investigation of the rental house they lived in. They found out there was a high concentration of meth on the bathtub on the porcelain of the bathtubs, which indicated whoever lived there previously made meth in the bathtub.

As you would expect, they shut down the house, the twins moved out, and cleaning crew with has met suits moved in. The twin with issues ceased to have hallucinations involuntarily. He says, I probably need to point that out, and he came back to his old self. I just wanted to share that if you're having a great week, someday, I hope to visit the studio in Atlanta and meet Jerry. Yeah, and that right here is Jimmy Griffith from North Carolina

originally from Brazil. Dude, thanks, thanks Jimmy. We hope you're having a good week too, and we're glad your friend turned out. Okay, geez, can you imagine tested for meth? It's like elaine? Yeah, testing positive for poppy seed bagel yeah, opium yeah, or puppy see more heroin? Yeah, good stuff opium? Um. Yeah, that's a good one man. What that signild? Yeah? Um, I have one. If you are a skeptic and a believer in bigfoot, we want to hear from you. Um. You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.

You can join us on Facebook, dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, and you can send us a good old fashioned email to stuff podcast How Stuff Works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works for more podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.