Yeah, spanning the entire globe, involving hundreds of different cultures, explaining the same phenomenon by different name.
The nature of the footprints, namely their remarkable consistency, their biomechanical appropriateness. You know, those.
Aspects that that are are extremely compelling.
Mm hmmm.
Hey guys, welcome to the big Foot Influencers. My name is Tim Howaran and.
I'm Dana Halleran, and we're so excited today that have a very very special guest we do.
We have an awesome guest coming on and we'll tell you who it is in a second, but we leave you hanging for a minute, not that long.
But so what's going on within I was just.
Like reading an article today. It was actually in Popular Mechanics, and it's about a giant rat that was supposed to be extinct. You know, hence going into the whole idea that there are a lot of things that either we think or extinct or don't exist, but we're discovering all the time. And so researchers had long feat fear that this Vanguonu giant rat is native to the forest of
the Solomon Islands, had gone extinct. You know, they had a lot of people that lived there who had you know, eyewitness accounts, you know, kept on telling everybody this thing is still around. It's about twice the size of a normal rat, so it's not like a tiny creature. And finally in twenty seventeen, some loggers had found a dead one and so they set up like one hundred trail camps all throughout the island and we're able to capture four images of this creature and so it's not extinct.
It does exist, and it's a pretty big animal for them thinking it was extinct. So just goes to show you could be the same thing with a lot of other animals that we have here on earth.
Yeah, so that actually, I mean our guests will probably have had kind of been sight in on that.
He's so well rehearse even though this is a big foot show.
But you know, yeah, but other things all related.
Yeah, And so this just so you know, if you want to look into it. It's a popular mechanics article from December first. But I thought it was really interesting.
That is fascinating. So let's talk about our guests.
Yeah, let's talk about.
So we have.
Ken Gerhard joining us today and I was so fortunate to meet Ken last summer. Right we were I was in I was at a conference at the Cryptid and Paranormal Festival in Perthay and Boy in New Jersey, and I was there and I knew Ken was speaking, and I was catching up with our friend Estabon Sarmiento. So we we got to break bread beforehand, and we hung out for dinner, and I.
Just got no Ken.
He's just such a genuine, intelligent, well rounded I just I just love him.
He's just a great guy.
And that's why I'm so excited to meet him too, because you know, after having this time with Ken, Tim was just going on and on and on about him, and you know, we see him all over the documentaries and he's got you know, a bunch of awesome books out, but you know, I don't think he gets interviewed very often, and so we we feel a great honor and privileged to have him here on the show too.
It is definitely and he's going to be at in January, so we're going to be at squatch Fest. So for the audio that's coming up in January, I think we're going to have some folks from squatch Fest the organizers on the podcast to talk about it. I think they've done it for thirteen or fourteen or fifteen years, and it's in Washington State. There's gonna be an amazing lineup. And Ken Gerhart's gonna be there too, I know so,
and we're gonna be there. We're gonna We're not gonna be speaking, but we're gonna do some things to help the event.
I think a little bit, are we, Yeah, a couple of things.
Tim always gets me into things that I know nothing about. So I'll arrive someone and be like, oh, guess what, Tina, Yeah, we have to do a speaking event.
Anyway, let's bring Kennon.
Yeah, it's Ben. Wait long enough, let's bring him in. All right, there he is.
Hey, Ken, Hey guys, it's great.
To be awesome to have you on the show.
Oh, thank you so much.
I appreciate it, so excited.
Appreciate your kind words, and it's an honor and a pleasure to be here with you.
Awesome.
So what do you think about the giant rat thing?
Yeah, it's pretty cool. Several people. Typically when something like that breaks in the news, people will send me the clips and links and so forth. Yeah, you know this is a perfect example of the Lazarus taxing. There's something that happens in zoology where an animal is thought to be extinct Lazarus, like Lazarus from the Bible, and taxing taxonomy is classify. Yeah, it comes back, you know, the
yellow wallaby, the Chacohan pekeery in South America. So yeah, these are things you know that science sometimes writes, writes things off a little bit too soon. And it's always a great pleasure as a obviously as a cryptosoldist, but also just a naturalist and a fan of of the animal kingdom in general. I think it's always cool and when a species is kind of rediscovered, so so yeah, obviously that this adds a little bit of ammunition to the argument that there are things out there that that
science is not aware of. And of course on the remarkable end of the spectrum would be something like Bigfoot or the sasqua but it's not impossible.
Yeah. And also being that the Sasquatch is, you know, a highly intelligent creature and much more capable of being aware of activities probably done by us, they're much better at being elusive.
Yeah, I mean that's that's certainly one way to characterize it. You know, one of the theories that I kind of put out there is what I refer to as avoidance behaviors. So intelligence in the animal kingdom can be measured in a lot of different ways in terms of how animals are able to overcome challenges and so forth. In terms of bigfooter sasquatch, if it exists, I'm assume, I'm assuming that it's an incredibly rare animal, so it's you know,
something that there. If there were more of them, you know, we'd probably know they exist by now, so they must be very rare. But I think moreover there, probably they've have behavioral adaptations specifically to avoid being found by us.
So they would be intelligent enough to go to your point data to recognize that humans, Homo sapiens, are the greatest threat for their extinction, and perhaps if we've lived alongside them for thousands of years, they saw what happened to some of the other hominins that Homo sapiens eradicated
or replaced, out competed, and so forth. So, you know, would makes sense that these avoids behaviors would include, you know, living in areas that humans don't go moving around quite a bit and moving out of the area when we're around. You know, I think generally these are reticent animals that
don't want any contact with us. And you know, I think that that can be you know, but there's evidence of that in the patters in Gimlin film and numerous encounters where people and you see these things and they're hiding behind trees. You know, they tend to move away from us quickly when they're when they're seen.
Yeah, and Ken, you have you have you found? And I know the answer is yes, but I just want you to explain it other animals that are known to us that do the same thing well as or as the avoidance piece.
You know, a lot of animals, particularly the animals that have that are hunters and predators. Things like cats are very elusive obviously there. Yeah, any cat species is built to not be seen. I mean, they're ambush predators, so they don't want to be seen by anything. They're hunting. But they're typically not seen by humans, even in areas where we know they're healthy populations. For example of pumas, you know, we see their tracks, we see other evidence
that they're there. There's scap piles and so forth. But what we don't see is the actual animal very often. Now, of course, if you spend enough time in the outdoors, you might catch a feeding glimpse of a bobcat or a puma at some point. So typically it is animals that are higher up on the on the intelligent scale.
But you know, you see examples every day. I go hiking every morning, and there's tons of deer around where I live, and you know, sometimes that dear will be right out in front of me on the trail and it just takes a few steps into the brush and I can't see it anymore. Even if the brush isn't real heavy, it just has a way of kind of
camouflaging itself. So so I think there are a lot of examples in the animal kingdom of species that recognize humans are dangerous or sense that humans are dangerous and move away from us quickly and are just good at not being found.
That's a great point. I was actually reading another article today about how Homo sapiens, you know, like what happened to all the other Homo genesis in the in the world that existed. You know, Neanderthals were thought to exist about thirty to forty thousand years ago and what was their demise? And scientists are thinking that it was the Homo sapiens that into bread into bread and kill them off, or we're just lot more intelligent were able to survive longer.
Yeah, I mean that's a fair assumption. To some extent, we assimilated them, but we also eradicated them, probably in direct conflicts. Same can be said of the denisivans in Asia, Homo floresiensis, you know, Homo noletti and Africa was around only fifty thousand years ago. But all these species presumably are no longer around now. I don't want to sound like a hypocrite because I think bigfoot sasquatch is the exception.
I think there is one species of relic, Homminin that did survive, and very small numbers probably, And again much of that may be due to these avoidance behaviors that they basically just figured out at some point that they needed to stay away from humans and retreat farther into the deep wilderness.
And what do you think about the possibility ken that it could also be their size and strength that made them a lot more resistant to you know, human you know, danger from humans, being like if this thing is, you know, really seven feet eight feet tall. I mean, you know, there's only so much we can do.
It's something that really can't be hunted and chased down because they can fight back too.
Yeah, that's a fair point from an ecological standpoint. I frequently make the argument that bigfoot is very similar to to the bears that we have here in North America black bears versus AMERICANUS brown bears of course, versus arc dose MIDDENDORFII. Not so much polar bears. But they feel a similar ecological niche in that they are probably, based
on the evidence, generalist omnivores opportunistic dominnivar. So they eat a lot of things, a lot of different types of things, and they would have to if they're big and endothermic, and they live in they seem to live in a
lot of the habitats. Yeah, I'm sure you guys have heard about that study that was done a few years ago, and also the overlays and correlations between populations of bears and assumed populations or alleged populations of bigfoot that those overlap very well, and that would make sense in terms of animals that fill a similar ecological niche. You know, keystone species, they're apex predators when it comes to the pretty much anything on the food chains. So yeah, they're big,
they're powerful. Jeff Mildrim of course, also always likes to talk about how, you know, we're built for brains and Bigfoot is built for brawn. That's obvious to some extent because of the sheer size and stuff. But I think, you know, short of like tool use and fire use, we don't have any evidence of anything along those lines culture,
language or anything like that. But again, you know, they may have a level of intelligence in terms of recognizing, you know, what is dangerous to them, and there probably aren't many things out there the threat them are that are dangerous to them because of their massive size and mobility and so forth.
But we certainly are Well, you just mentioned language can and so do you think I mean, there's been some recordings obviously, maybe one of the most famous is what the Cira sounds?
Do you think?
Do you think there's some type of language from everything that you know, everything that you've researched and looked.
Into, I haven't seen any evidence of that, And of course i've heard our Scott Nelson do a presentation on you know, on the Sierra sounds, and you know, he's he obviously is a linguist, and a lot of people have put a lot of weight into his conclusions. It's interesting. I don't know how much of that, if any, has been peer reviewed, and I think that's where you would really have to go to, you know, build an argument
for that. But certainly, as primates, they are you know, good at communicating, and there is ample evidence that they use a variety of different types of vocations whistles, howls, screams, moans, teeth clacking, wood knocking, and all these different things. So they probably have ways to communicate with each other. And a lot of animals, do you know, primates, monkeys and things use a lot of facial expressions but also a variety of different types of sounds with each other to
communicate to each other. Other animals species have ways of communicating with each other that are more subtle, you know, particularly things like danger and follow me and that kind of stuff. So yeah, that would make sense. But you know, in terms of language, I mean, again, certainly there's no evidence that they have any civilization or culture or anything
like that. So I think in terms of what we consider to be language in our species, which is a pretty advanced and complex and we actually have probably thousands of languages on our planet, right, So, but languages are, you know, have a pretty it's a pretty in depth concept in terms of the number of different types of expressions and ideas that can be conveyed. And I don't see any reason based on their physical descriptions, which we've
already talked about, that they would have that capability. And also you know the fact that most people have described their heads as looking like what kind of receding right, kind of that conical head with the receiving foe and the heavy brow ridge that's that's frequently described, So that would indicate that they do have a somewhat of a smaller brain or more of a primitive you know, maybe more in lines of a great ape or something like
Homo erectus or an australiapithesceene, not the fifteen hundred cubic centimeters that we have on average, but you know, maybe something half that. So it just doesn't make sense to me that they would have a true language, right, And.
I think we get hung up in my ignorance too with it is.
They all aimals communicate, so they know how to communicate with each other.
Whales, so yeah, birds obviously great communicators.
So mm hmmm, yep, Yeah, they definitely know if they even Yeah, when we're eating chicken and she wants.
Them, she.
Has a yeah, it's.
Well and in ken'scott it. You know.
Obviously, in addition to traveling the world doing you know, studying different types of potential cryptids and things like that, he also works at the San Antonio Zoo, so he gets I mean that he's with animals all the time. So do you want to share just a little.
Bit about that.
Yeah, I'm actually a docent or a volunteer educator at the San Antonioso. Have been there eight years and it's been an amazing experience. You know, at first, I'm not sure they knew what to do with me, but in recent years they've really kind of welcomed me into the what I do. And you know, I as a voluntary educator, I do, you know, tours for class classes kids, and I interpret exhibits at the zoo for people that are visiting.
But in recent years they've actually had me doing lectures and presentations on cryptozoology and things like Bigfoot at the zoo for some of the guests, which is actually a
pretty big deal because we're a scientifically accredited organization. We carry three major accreditations, including the AZA, and so we are a full on scientific organization and so the fact that they've kind of let me in and let me talk about some of these topics is pretty exciting because you know, we're in the big fulfilled we're always bemoaning the fact that science doesn't take an interest in what
we're doing or talking about. Now, I'd also add in that the San Antonio Zoo is the only zoo that's ever mounted an expedition for something like Bigfoot to my knowledge, and this was back in nineteen fifty seven when they searched for the Yetti. They actually the San Antonios sponsored one of the Tom Slick Yetti expeditions back ineteen fifty seven in the Himalaya. So we have a history at our zoo of actually you know, or a connection to cryptozoology, I should say, which is pretty cool.
So, Ken, I have oquaick question for you, because I'm sure that most of your time, uh like on these type of programs or whether you're in a documentary. You know, probably a lot of the time you're talking about Bigfoot, what is what is like the So what are some of your other cryptos that you are very interested in?
Well, I kind of started my feet my journey in the field of cryptozoology seriously with reports of what are called thunderbirds or big birds, which are giant wings you know, birds or some people described and was looking like giant flying reptiles, like pterodactyl type things, but not certainly not. Reports are not as prevalent as Bigfoot by a long shot,
but there are, you know. I've interviewed dozens, if not hundreds, of seeing an incredible eyewitnesses who swear they've seen winged animals with fifteen twenty foot wingspans, and of course science doesn't acknowledge it. Anything like that exists. That was a subject of my first book, which was called Big Bird,
Modern Sightings and Flying Monsters. I've been on a number of television shows about the so called Chupacaba, you know, about both here in Texas and in Mexico, and of course most people will think of Puerto Rico and other Latin American countries. I've written a book about the Mofman, which I guess would kind of go in the wing
cryptid category. And just recently I returned from Lockness. So I've done research at Lockness for the Lockness Monster and other lake monsters across North America, Canada and so forth, big mystery, big cats, black panthers. So yeah, I'm blessed to be considered one of the generalists in the field of cryptozoology. Or you know, I do research a lot of gift subjects, not just Bigfoot or sausquatch.
So so I don't really have much knowledge at all about the thunderbird. Can you, like, do you guys have evidence or like I mean, I'm looking behind you and you've got tons of big Foot footprints behind you, and we've got you know, we've got some video footage, whether people believe them to be true or not. What do you do you have anything like that on any of the other cryptids.
Unfortunately not. Let's use thunderbirds as an example. Unlike Bigfoot, where like you said, we have physical trace evidence and the Patterson Gimmen film and hares and audio sample audio recordings, thunderbirds, all the evidence is anecdotal. There's no one has found to my knowledge a giant feather nest, egg, eggshell, giant pile of bird poop on their car, or anything like that. So it's it's all anecdotal. But you do have similar
to bigfoot or sasquatch. You do have many different Native American traditions all across the continent that described giant birds that are much larger than eagles or anything known to the Lakota. It's the walkingon to the Pawnee, the Huhuck, the Cherokee have the planoa. You know, there's just a bunch of different names for them, but they're all essentially described thunder beams or thunderbirds giant birds. In modern times,
there have been many sightings. There's one controversial film from Illinois from nineteen seventy seven that hasn't really convinced a lot of people, but it's interesting. But other than that, it's just a lot of people that I've run into that swear to me that they've seen something. And the
average wingspan describes about fourteen feet. Now, it's an estimate, and obviously people have a tough time estimating size on things that are flying through the air or you know, different heights, and but the average wing span estimated is about fourteen feet. Some people say that it's much larger. Feathers usually solid dark color like black, gray or brown,
hooked beak like an acepterorid, a raptor. So pretty consistent eyewitness descriptions like Bigfoot, many Native American traditions like Bigfoot, but very very little evidence or no evidence really outside of these stories and reports. So in that sense, it's much harder to make an argument for some thunderbirds. The evidence for lake monsters is very good. You have some compelling photos you have and films, you have some very
consistent eyewitness descriptions. All of the lakes where these things are described and reported seem to be very similar types of lakes, very deep, cold, the Northern hemisphere kind of glacial lake like lock Ness, Champlain, Okanagan and so forth, inhabited by similar species of fish. There's sonar evidence of large contacts of large unknown objects in these lakes, hydrophone recordings of vocalizations. So yeah, so the evidence for the
lake monsters like NeSSI is pretty strong. I think it's up there with Bigfoot or sasquatch, some of these other cryptids like thunderbirds, you know, not so much.
Mm hmm.
So here's a question about Lockness. So these monsters that are being found in these cold water deep lakes are they also because I think I don't think Lockness is connected to the ocean, is it? Or was it once it is? So there's something got stuck in there, h decided to live there and wasn't able to get out maybe or.
Well, there's a term we use, anadromus, which basically means a species that travels from the ocean to fresh water on a periodic basis. Examples of this would be salmon, eels, sturgeon, sometimes sharks, So there are species that live in the ocean primarily and move into fresh water. And now Lochness is connected to the North Atlantic on both ends by
a series of rivers, lakes, canals. Some of them are kind of shallow and well observed, so that you know that would be it would be tricky for them to get in and out. Lake Champlain where we have champ Champi, is connected to the Atlantic Ocean also by way of the Saint Lawrence River and then even Lake Okanagan and Canada where we hear the Ogo Pogo is connected via
tributaries to the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. So it's not impossible that these lake monsters are really sea monsters and that they only travel into lakes from time to time, which is why they're not seen all the time. And in fact, there is a long tradition you know, cryptozoology actually before it would because cryptozology was known as romantic zoology back in the nineteenth century, and the big topic back then was not bigfoot, it was sea serpents.
And there are many reports, you know from the in the eighteen hundreds that the HMS data lists, the HMS Valhalla. You know, many people out at sea, usually in sailing ships, would see these things that look just like a lockness monster out at sea.
So what's interesting is I think we have one close to us in the Chesapeake Bay called Chessie.
Chess Yeah, yeah.
So we're like we are. We live on the Den Marba Peninsula, so the west of us is the Chesapeake Bay. But I mean, who knows.
That's so cool. And I just did a clip on CHESSI for a show I'm on called The Proof Is out There, which film in the new season, And there was someone that actually filmed something off the coast of North Caro Line, but which is not too far off, you know, south of there. Yeah, Chessie. There is actually some footage shot in nineteen eighty two. It's known as the Fru footage fr W, and it shows seemingly shows this animal that's you know, kind of undulating up and
down on the water that's kind of unknown. That video was so compelling that it actually almost prompted the state of Maryland to declare Chessie a protected species. And in fact, the footage was shown to seven scientists at the Smithsonian Institute, including a guy named George zud who was a world famous herpetologist, and they agreed that it was an animal
that they weren't familiar with. So that's that's some of the most compelling footage of an aquatic cryptid is of Chessie in the Bob Fru footage nineteen eighty two.
Wow, we're going to write in my backyard, my whole life and that. Yeah, and you mentioned the Columbia River and we were watching something recently about before you know that they damned their dams all over the Columbia River. Now and then they find, yeah, they find sturgeon that probably got trapped and they get humongous, and people may mistake them for big sea serpents because they get big, but they're stunk because they can't get out anywhere, So right right.
That that probably does happen. And yeah, well that's an example of an Anadramus species is the Pacific sturgeon Asa pencer montanus. But you know, there are some ten and eleven foot specimens that have been found in that Columbia River and some of the lakes in British Columbia and Idaho and so forth. So yeah, I could certainly explain some of the lake monster setings from that part of the country.
Very cool.
So, so you have so we're gonna get in Bigfoot here in a few minutes, I think, and we can already have. Yeah, but I want to talk about so ken has you've written how many books? Now?
Six?
Wow?
So can you just for the audience, can you do it like a brief? You know, I know you run down I think you mentioned some of them already of what those books are, and maybe we can talk about where people can get the books if they won't get them.
Yeah, thank you, guys, I appreciate that. Yeah, my first book, Big Bird Modern Sightings of Flying Monsters. It's about the thunderbirds. I co authored a book called Monsters of Texas with my good friend and colleague, Nick Redfern. I live in Texas, so it was simple for us to kind of cover all the cryptids and monsters here Encounters with Flying Humanoids, which is about Mothman, and unfortunately that book is out of print, but I'm trying to revise that one at
the moment. The Essential Guide to Bigfoot, The Essential Guide to the Lockness Monster and other Aquatic Cryptids, and a Menagerie of Mysterious Beasts, which covers a wide range of cryptids. And all of those books are available on Amazon. If people just go to Amazon and type in Ken Gerhard, I'm sure it'll take you to my author page and you can get copies there. Yeah. And I think we also people want to signed or personalized copies, they can contact me through social media and I'm happy to to
send those directly as well. If people like the autograph.
Or whatever, that's cool.
Yeah, that's the nice touch. I always like doing that.
Yah. And I think but one thing that I can say about your books is that it's I mean, I don't want to say, easy read, like it's like third grader kind of stuff. But it's just like you just have a great way of explaining things, and that I think the average person can really enjoy and even like especially The Essential Guide to Bigfoot. I think that's a great book first book for somebody or even somebody who
is really into Bigfoot. There's going to be stuff in there that they just never knew, So I think it's it could be good for a newbie or a person who is already into the subject for sure.
Well, well, I appreciate that. I do consider it to be mainly a primer or an introduction to the topic, because you know, with the successive shows like Monster Quest and Finding Bigfoot and Expedition Bigfoot and all these different shows, there's a whole new generation of people that have become interested in the subject of Bigfoot, but unfortunately they don't have access to a lot of the resource materials that were kind of really important to my generation of bigfoot research,
or the books by John Green and Grover Krantz and Peter Burne, and you know, all these guys are made to hinton the horsemen so as we call them, so so yeah, and you know, there's a lot of unfortunately, because we're living the world of clickbait and you know, people trying to direct traffic to different sites and articles. There's a lot of really bad information out there in terms of people making things up or you know, misinterpreting,
or you know whatever. And I think if people are serious about the subject, I think we owe it the respect to get the facts right, the details right, and for people to have in order for people to form their own opinion about bigfoot or sasquatch, it's important to
have reliable information that's been vetted. And you know, I often tell people there are a lot of things that we don't agree on in the big foot field, but you know, there are a lot of things that we do, and there are studies, analytical studies have been done on reports and footprint evidence and different things that have led us to some pretty decent conclusions that I think, at least for now, you know that that are the most sensible and pragmatic things. So I'm certainly not an advocate
of the you know, paranormal aspect of bigfoot. I haven't seen or experienced any evidence of that, and I've been searching for forty five years all over the continent, and so I guess I'm classified as well. I started when I was like nine or ten years old, and I wasn't a normal kid. I mean, I've got a picture of myself in the Amazon at age nine with a primitive Yagua tribe. And you know, I was at locked Ness when I was fifteen years old doing field research.
So this really has been like a lifelong pursuit of mine. I certainly never expected to make a career out of it. It's just been very blessed. But I've had a lot of fun.
Can How did you end up in the Amazon at nine years old?
Well, my mother was a travel agent and she was very adventurous, and so she arranged for she and myself and my sister to go to the Amazon, the proving Amazon, and basically we stated a remote jungle camp and for a week or two and met some of the local tribes, the Hivarro, the Yagua, saw a lot of amazing animals. I actually got scolded for picking up a wild tarantula, which you know what nine year old wouldn't do that, right? So yeah, so I've had a you know, the Galopagas Islands,
I visited that same year. So yeah, I didn't have like a mini naturalist and want to be adventurer my whole life.
Wow, I thought we had. Our youngest son is a big traveler too. I thought his passport was good. I mean, he's twenty, but I thought his passport looked good for a twenty year old. I'm sure Ken's was like, that's super super cool. Thank you, especially going to Scotland because you said you went to because that's where Lockness is, right, Yeah, yeah, so you were there when you were fifteen.
Yeah, my mom arranged for me and my dad to go to Lochness. And my dad's a big angler or fisherman, so he you know, he mainly was a want of fish. But I spent the whole time kind of hiking around. I had a little eight millimeter film camera. Certainly I was spent a lot of time sitting staring out at the lake hoping I would see something that I could film it. But I also interviewed local people, talked to a lot of the locals about, you know, what they
thought it was and stuff. So that was kind of a seminal event in my young life when I was actually at a location where there was this great mystery and having an opportunity to do my own investigation.
So how did you so had so you just recently got back from Lockness.
Correct, was the.
Last time you were there when you were fifteen?
Yeah? Yeah, this was kind of like Itol. It was. It was I've been trying to get back there for years, but I finally had an opportunity and it was very surreal. The hotel that my father and I stayed at when I was fifteen is now the Lockness Exhibit Exit Exhibition Center. I got the title. It was a big lockedness Nessy museum there in the kind of drama drocket.
How is that from Edinburgh?
Oh you know it's about two and a half hours.
Okay, yeah, because that's my friend Nikki is moving there, so maybe.
That's all to go check it out, beautiful. Spent some time in Edinburgh. Edinburgh. It was during a big festival there that's very popular, so it was packed and there was a lot of people celebrating and playing music and so it's a it's a great culture. Scotland is and the closest town really or small city to Lockness is called Inverness, which is right on the north end and you know, it's grown a lot since since I was there when I was fifteen. I remember kind of a small, rustic,
quaint town. But now they're like, you know, convenience stores. I remember walking into a convenience store there at Edinburnes and thinking, you know, this could be anywhere in the States. I mean, it's just the convenience stars.
I'm still you hear a little bit, and then when you hear somebody talk, you're like, what did you say. I know, for my time living in Europe and you know, having Scottish tourists come down to Italy where I lived.
Yeah I could understand them.
Did you have that same situation to some extent?
And I was actually working with a film crew, so you know, not only Scotland, but you have different English People from different regions have different kind of accents. So you're talking to someone from Yorkshire. It's different from a Londoner from someone who's Welsh, you know, and so you just kind of you can usually understand. I can usually understand most of it, but yeah, there are.
Times Scottish for me was just like well the just in general.
The guy that was running the Lockness Expedition, Alan McKenna was a really cool guy. And uh he was a Scottish. I mean it was like a perfect Scottish rogue. And what I thought was really awesome is that he said I a lot whenever you said anything, I such aish phrase, I guess. But yeah, that was cool, and I got to admit the food it was it was great, but not very healthy, you know. I tried the black pudding and the pagas and the fish and sticks and pretty
much everything there is deep fried and salty. So there was one time.
A lot of salads are not known for their cuisine for sure.
A lot of vegetables or salads around that I come across. But anyways, great beautiful country, beautiful people. It was a lot of fun.
That's so. How did you how did you get hooked? Well? When did you know that this creature that.
We know as bigfoot or sasquatch or all the other indigenous names. When did you what piece of evidence or what hooked you said, Wow, I think this thing is really out there.
Well, about the time I turned nine years old, I had two passions as a young boy. One was animals and the outdoors. My father was a forestry professor, so I kind of grew up in the outdoors. Our first pet was a small alligator, and I had like lots of exotic animals I collected as a kid. So I loved animals in the outdoors. And then I also loved monster movies, you know. I grew up watching Godzilla movies and King Kong and Planet of the Apes and all
that stuff. So when I was nine years old, I remember watching Saturday Morning Cartoons and they did a little news segment during the commercial on Bigfoot, and they showed a clip from the Patterson Gimlin film. There are pictures of guys holding casts like the ones behind me here, and I mean, it was just like it flipped a switch. You know. I just thought it was the coolest thing ever because it combined my two passions, which were animals, because this thing seemed to be some type of ape
or unknown animal, but also it was a monster. A lot of people were portraying it as a monster, so that was kind of it for me. I've told Jeff Meldrum that the first time that I saw that film, when even though I was, granted I was only nine years old, the first time I saw the powis in Gimven film, and I grew up watching monster movies and costumes.
I said, that's not a costume. You know, I can see like the muscles, the mass looks natural, the hair, you know, it's just it just it was a completely subjective, intuitive thought, it's not a costume. That's real. Yeah, And so that was probably a big deal for me back And also the film was actually shot a week after I was born. I was born in October thirteenth, nineteen sixty seven, so exactly a week after it was born. So that was kind of like kind of a symbolic
to me. So I've never wavered from that position. By the way, I've seen the film, like everyone, hundreds of times, different enhancements, stabilizations, and I've never you know, I've never thought that that was a man in a costume. I still am convinced that it's a real animal. And that's probably one of the things, one of the reasons I'm still here doing this is that's you know, that's pretty convinced.
What are the biggest skepticisms of the film that you've heard, and then what do you how do you you know, how do you explain what the people think they're seeing well.
You know, and again the scientific position to take. Even as sure as I sound about the veracity of the film, I'm only going to say I'm ninety percent convinced it's real, because there is a chance. It's not impossible, it could be a hoax. Right. The best skeptical arguments I've heard against it are the fact that the lighting. Well, first of all, the story, which you know, I've heard Bob.
I met Bob Gimlin for the first time in like two thousand and four, two thousand and five, and I've heard him tell the story like many people have many times, and he hasn't really he doesn't. I mean, it's a pretty solid, pretty consistent retelling of the events of that day.
But there are some discrepancies in terms of what they said immediately after the filming, in terms of the amount of time it took them to get from the camp site into town and they had to get the film developed, and they stopped along the way and met with Al Hobson and different people, So some of the timelines are
a little curious. There's an argument out there the skeptics are using in terms of the shadowing and lighting in the film, because you know, Patterson and Gimlan claimed they filmed that in the afternoon, you know, one point thirty three o'clock, somewhere in that timeframe. I think I've heard a couple of different versions, but the shadowing doesn't seem, according to the skeptics, to line up with that time
frame or that time of day. You know, the fact that Patty as we call her, the subject in the film, has hair covered breasts. Obviously when she turns, we see those memory glands or breasts. Scientifically speaking, there are no great apes or hominins that have hairy breasts. They have to be accessible to the young, So that's an unexpected physical characteristic, although I think the way the breasts look
and move I think is actually very convincing. And you know, the size, obviously, the size estimates have come down through the years. For a long time, seven foot three inches was the average or the most accepted possible height for the subject in the film. That's come down now through analysis by different people that maybe we're talking more of like six and a half feet, which is not outside
the range of a human. You know, obviously seven foot three would have been harder to accept that there was a person in the suit if that was the height. So there are some you know, reasonable skeptical arguments. I'll tell you the best reasons. Well, one of the main reasons I don't think is it's fake is because of the trackway that was left behind, because there were you know, nine tracks, at least nine tracks that were observed documented
there were backway that Bob Titma's cast. Patterson and Gimlin got a couple so you know, the just to fake the film would have been one thing, but the trackway, which is actually some pretty compelling footprint evidence on top of that, right, so it's like we have two lines
of corresponding evidence, you know. And also just the location itself, because you know, there could have easily if it had been a guy in a suit, there are a lot of things that could have gone wrong, could have been seen by someone else or a hunter god for did you know, shoot at it. And also the fact that you know, Patterson and Gimlan really didn't make that much
money off the film. I mean, Bob never really has He sold his rights for ten dollars to renate a hint in Patterson tried to make a little bit of money here and there, but you know, We all know that tragedy of Roger Patterson was that he was dying in nineteen seventy two of leukemia and he really needed money for medical treatments. Wouldn't you have been I mean, this is just my opinion, but wouldn't you make a lot more money exposing it as a hoax than trying
to stick to your guns? And you have this film of an unknown animal, which is controversial because once it becomes the greatest hopes of all time, then there's books and lectures and who knows, So I don't know. Great, it's a great argument either way. I'm convinced it's real. Even recent enhancements and stabilizations that have been done, we can see even better detail, like the toes curling up when it walks and things like that. It's sort of
an unnatural walk for human but not impossible. Who knows, great mystery.
Yeah, I mean, and let's not forget you know, costume design capabilities in the late sixties.
That's kind of what I'm when I meant by that's not a costume. But you're right, it was even worse back then. And you know what, there have been a couple of attempted recreations on TV shows right where they've tried to get national geographic did one with Bob Eronymous and Philip Morris. There was another show that came on Bigfoot in the nineteen nineties where they tried to do
a sort of a quasi reenactment on a sandbar. And this is like in using nineteen nineties technology special effects experts to design the costume, and when they did the side by side comparison to me, the Patterson Gimma film still looked way better even though they.
I haven't seen that.
That's interesting, Yeah, I think it's in the early nineties, there was a show. It was just called Bigfoot, Get the name of the you know there some of our friends were at Rob Warhead, Todd Nice and some of those guys were in it. But yeah, they did a recreation with a special effects guy. I've I've had some
spirited conversations. We were talking about skeptics. One of my friends is a guy named Ben Radford, the editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and you know he's arguing, it has been arguing lately, what no one's really done a real recreation. You know, big Footers need to get out there, make a costume, go to the actual film site and prove to us that it can't be recreated. So they didn't actually go to the actual film site for that particular episode.
So he kind of argues that, well, that's not a technically, that is not a recreation if they were at the right site. But they did choose an area that looked like the site of the film.
So yeah, because even the site that we saw in nineteen sixty seven is not the same now.
No.
I mean, if you figure, you know, over fifty years, nature changes, Trees get bigger, rass grows, rocks get moved around.
You know, so it has changed. I was at the film site two years ago, and yes, it doesn't look recognizable. But anyways, maybe that's a project I would I would like to see a recreation attempt, you know, but it's you know, logistically, it's going to be very difficult to do something like that. And sadly, most big footers, as you guys probably know since you talked to a lot of them, we don't have a lot of resources to do a lot of the things we want to do.
So very few people are able.
To like sustain a decent living.
Yeah, yeah, enough, and I think that was that he has enough.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well if you've got big foot in your life, you don't need too much more. But you know, research, research can be very expensive. I just when I got back from Lochness, I had a water sample that I took from a possible sighting location that happened seven hours earlier, and I had that e DNA tested out of my own pocket, and it wasn't really that expensive because it was a fisheries lab, so it was like they were
just looking for different like aquatic species. But Cliff has you know, explained to me that in order to actually have an entirely new genus sequenced, you know, we're talking about six figures. So for a few thousand dollars, if you have the right primers and you had bigfoot DNA, you might be able to place it within the grade eight family. Right, So if you did ajit what they call a gem blast of that sequence, you would get human, human, Japanzee, gorilla,
a ragutang human gym. That's what a bigfoot DNA would look like without the proper primer, since we don't have actual bigfoot DNA in the gen gen bank. But in terms of being able to determine that it is a sequence that is novel and not Homo sapiens and not gorilla and not chimp, but something whatever. You think bigfoot is some type of grade ap or hominin. Now we're talking talking about six figures, you know, to get a lab to do that kind of study. So you know,
there there certainly are. There isn't anyone I know in the bigfoot field that's got one hundred thousand dollars laying around to take a shot on some bigfoot DNA and who knows.
Maybe Yeah, think that. You know, we have two of our sons, one that just got his doctorate in biology and has you know obviously, and then we have my youngest also who's in school as a biologist. Yeah, it would be a lot for university to be able to get funding, even if it wanted to be studied in the university, to get funded. Who would fund that program?
Well, I should mention I'm sorry to interrupt, but I should mention and give credit to a gentleman named Darby or Cut at North Carolina who's going to be speaking at the Ohio Big for conference here. He and I Court have corresponded in recent months over the issue of DNA, and I'm working with a guy named doctor Haskell Hart
who's working on trying to collect Bigfoot DNA. So Darby is actually facilitating anyone in eight foot research or can send him what they think might be Bigfoot evidence, whether it's a hair or skin or bone whatever, And he's trying to facilitate the DNA testing. So but I don't know to what extent. Again, you know he's able to without even he's got to do it through the university and probably there's you know, some some funding that.
Needs to he can't just sneak it back there. And just.
I've talked to Darby a bunch of times.
Actually, Darby's gonna Darby schedules so crazy, so he's he's going to jump on here soon, said Darby. If you're listening, we are letting Catter back just to give us an update, because he did a few episodes he did.
I think he was on with Brad and and.
And he.
But now it's been a few months, so now we're going to get some we're going to get some updates, so Darby said, in the future we'll hog.
It on with us.
Yeah, Darby's at NC state, and he's got funding, not unlimited funding, but he's got funding to run a DNA project for anyone who wants to. He's got a process that they vet out, you know, what people are sending in. But you can send your potential DNA to an NC state and Darby's team and he'll take a look at it.
And that's the first step. And then actually that's a nice segue to it. I'd like to talk about an example I had over the years, many people had sent me what they claimed could be bigfoot hairs. I had a drawer full of hair samples from Oklahoma, West Virginia, whatever,
you know, pretty busy guy. I didn't really have a micro I still don't have a microscope or anyway to but eventually I collected all these hair samples up out of the drawer and I gave them to doctor Haskell Hart who lives just up the road from me in Canyon Lake, Texas. And Haskell, of course has a PhD from Harvard and chemistry and a pretty smart guy. He has a really nice microscope, and he's retired, so he had the time to go through look at the different
and hair. You know, this is just a general statement for all bigfoot researchers out there or aspiring researchers. Hair doesn't go right to the DNA stage because a lot of people will send me a big foot hair and
get the DNA tests. It's like, no, First what you do is you vet it at, putting it into a microscope, And every mammal species has distinct hair characteristics in terms of the medulla, the scalation patterns, banding and tapering patterns, colors and so forth, so you can actually look at and Haskell was able to write me a nice report and the hair samples turned out to be from a cat, a horse, a cow, you know, some other known animals.
So he was able to identify virtually all of them except for one from Oklahoma that was interesting and he's like, heah, this almost looks like human hair. I'm going to hold on to it. And I think he's still kind of
taking a peek at that one. But you know, just to you know, as an instructive thing to bigfoot researchers out there, if you do collect what you think is bigfoot hair, find someone with a microscope, do a little bit of research on what different types of animals had different types of hairs, and there's a very strong chance that you might be able to explain it and say, oh, gosh, you know, it's a horse hair or a goat or you know whatever, and that would save you from, you know,
having to figure out how to get DNA testing and all that kind of stuff done.
So you can get you can get DNA from a hair sample, not all hairs.
I mean, I think there has to be it has to be fairly fresh hair, and it has to contain you know.
So it's so sometimes when I'm like working in the mirror for a gray hair and I pull out my gray hair, there's like a little bit of tissue from my scalp. Is that where you need to get the DNA from?
Yeah, that's that's true. That you can't you know, can't get That's another thing I guess I'm glad you brought that up. You can't necessarily get DNA from every hair, so those hairs are graded or fleshy part's gone or whatever. So then it comes down to just comparative analysis, which is what we were doing.
But that's still not a bad way at least.
So if you can put it under microscope and rule outer other things at least it's compelling.
Yeah, well, we've been able to do that for quite a while with hairs, being able to distinguish what animal hair can come from. But but that's interesting that the one from Oklahoma, he was unable to clearly identify. But he said he thinks it looks human, looks human like.
Maybe it is human, you know, But I guess we have gotten to that next level with that one. But yeah, you know, I'm a I'm an advocate for researchers using real science and what you know Jeff Melbourne refers to as citizen science. It doesn't always have to involve a lab at the university. We can empower ourselves as researchers with a few simple tools like microscopes and different ways to analyze whatever audio waves or you know, you know,
whatever whatever you're into. You know, empower yourself with the to kind of at least vet things out of the system so that you're not, you know, going trying to go all the way up the ladder with you know, something you're just not sure about.
So right, right, great advice too. Yeah, So, Ken, why don't you share with everybody so I know that there's probably a lot of different ways that people can follow you, So why don't you tell us a lot of the ways that we can follow you.
Well, thank you, guys. I appreciate that some very insightful questions and always fun to discuss this stuff. I My website is currently under construction. I'm gonna it's Ken Gerhard dot com, but hopefully I can get that uh the early part of the year. But in the meantime, people can reach me. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, X I have a YouTube channel if people want to check out some
of the videos I've done. So yeah, I'm pretty pretty easy to get in touch with or follow on different social media platforms.
Well, I'm just I have to just ask you this question because it's super cool, Like what is this your house? Because it's so cool. How far back it goes? Like do you live in like a like a trucking container.
No, it may be.
Into Yeah, it's super cool.
I think it's the camera and the angle maybe okay running along this wall here, but it's really not that big.
It's really cool and like, what the heck it's like go straight back.
Yeah, and we'll make sure we add links to for the audience to Ken's the books on Amazon, how you can track them down, YouTube and all that other things, and uh yeah, do you have any other closing things you want to share with the audience as far as if they're they're you know, I want to get into the subject, or they have any questions you want to close out with.
You know. Again, check out my book, The Essential Guide to Bigfoot. I think it's a good climber, but there are a lot of nuggets in there, even for experienced bigfoot researchers. I've had several of the economy and say I didn't know that about you know whatever. I finally uh dug deep on that one.
And it's an easy read. It's not like heavy. You don't have to reread the thing a hundred times and be like.
What the heck?
Yeah, I appreciate that.
Yeah, yeah, I mean the Grovelcrantz's book and doctor Jeff's book are amazing. But it's like, especially for someone like me who's that smart, like you.
Are smart, baby, Like what am I reading? It's true? Like you're like it's like you're reading like a college textbook.
Yeah, yeah, it's good, it's amazing. It's just it's just you've got a highlight walk up.
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that.
Yeah, detail flows and it's we loved book.
Yeah yeah, Like you said, I'll be at squatch Fest. Squatch Fest in January in Washington State.
And you're going to meet us in person. Are you so excited to meet us?
Well, Sam, we had a good time, but I'm excited to meet you, Dana.
Maybe I'm excited to meet it too, can It's going to be super cool.
It's a great event, my.
First time in the Northwest.
I know, right in the shadow of a canyon right there near Mountain Are.
Is our boy Mark Marcel going to.
Be there speaking St Helens.
St Helens, Mark Mark speaks, has spoken at that event. He's not on the on the on the the docket, but Mark show up.
He'll probably be there. I think he was there. Jay Robert Alley, who's a friend of mine, He's going to be there. He's they're usually there every year, and Todd probably. There's a lot of big footers, you know, from that area that are very well known that show up to that event. Last last year I met oh gosh, I can't I can't remember his name, but you know, I'm a big nerd, big foot nerd when it comes to some of this stuff too. Oh friand Zoni hery friend
Zone met him. Oh my god, he so really cool guy I've always wanted to be love.
Yeah, we've had twice on our show.
We just love Henry. He's the coolest dude ever.
Yeah.
But Ken, it has been an honor and a privilege to have you here on our show. And we're super grateful, super excited of all the things that you had to share, and everybody, just make sure you go out there get the Essential Bigfoot uh you know, essential guide to Bigfoot. Go check out Ken on his social media. We're super excited about you revising your website. And also you said you were revising your book on the Thunderbird right on Mothman because there's a lot of big Mothman people out
there too, but Man's popular. Again, Ken, thank you so much for being on our show.
Thank you, guys, appreciate its for listening.
Everyone, take care, take care, Ken, Thank you.
I don't know if we have anything else to say. Really, that's awesome.
Ken's just super cool.
Yeah, I'm so.
It's just yeah, it's just so grateful to meet him and then just turned into him being you know, you know, there's a lot of.
Good people in the bigfoot world, in the crypto world, and he ken is definitely up there.
Yeah, and he I will say, when he has a way to deliver when he does presentations, he makes it just like his book, right.
I mean he'll say some things that I.
Have no idea how in other word, but it flows he makes. He makes it where you can understand it and you can grasp onto it. So yeah, he's a great educator.
And that's so important that it's being a good communicator in this because you're reaching out to more people and you're you know, educating them on the possibility of all these creatures that are wandering around out there that we don't really know that much about.
So so anyway, we appreciate you, guys, we do. I hope you enjoyed this episode. We had what a great time.
We did have a great time, and we're super appreciative to ken Ye and to you guys.
And don't yeah, you know how to follow us, you know, catch up on us with all the social on all the social media platforms, the YouTube until radio. I am like to subscribe, send us some comments and let us know what you think.
Just reach out. We appreciate you, guys, We do appreciate you.
Thanks for joining us.
Take care,