Bigfoot Society - Bigfoot Tales in the Appalachians with Jeff Carpenter (Archive Episode)

Episode Date: August 25, 2024

Join Jeremiah on the Bigfoot Society Podcast as he dives into the mysterious world of Bigfoot with seasoned researcher Jeff Carpenter from North Carolina. Discover Jeff's fascinating heritage and delve into his incredible firsthand Bigfoot sightings in the Appalachian region. Learn about the significance of Judaculla Rock, the critical role of audio documentation, and hear gripping stories that include mysterious lights and emotional witness accounts. Jeff shares insights into the primate-like characteristics of Sasquatch, the psychological impact of encounters, and the challenges faced by genuine researchers. Don't miss this intriguing discussion packed with real-life encounters and scientific perspectives on the elusive Sasquatch.Resources: Foxfire books - https://amzn.to/3LoMTWN (Amazon affiliate link)Share your Bigfoot encounter with me here: [e-mail] to call in and leave a voicemail of your encounters for the podcast - Check this out here - https://www.speakpipe.com/bigfootsociety(Use multiple voice mails if needed!)🔴 Subscribe to hear more Bigfoot encounters: https://www.youtube.com/@BigfootSociety?sub_confirmation=1Share this video with a friend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5v75Od-X38Watch more episodes of the Bigfoot Society podcast here – https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3t1vwtsKh-MGeHs0XglFJE5LwUHpmJm_&feature=sharedRecommended Playlist – New Jersey Bigfoot Encounters - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3t1vwtsKh-Mk4032IyZtWgP6LVPU8uat✅ Help me help others share their Bigfoot Encounter by joining the community on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thebigfootsociety✅ Hear ad-free episodes early by joining the community on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Qq45W6iaTU8FE9kelxT7Q/joinLet’s connect:Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/bigfootsociety/Twitter – https://twitter.com/bigfoot_societyTiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@bigfoot.societyAffiliate links mean I earn a commission from qualifying purchases. This helps support my channel at no additional cost to you.My Audio Interface: https://amzn.to/3L1q8XYPut some pep in my step by buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bigfootsocietyPick up some merch here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/bigfootsociety/?etsrc=sdtSend mail here:Bigfoot Society125 E 1st St. #233Earlham, IA 50072Send business inquiries to: [e-mail]

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and sometimes even more episodes. Head on over to patreon.com forward slash the Bigfoot Society, and now let's get on with the show. All right, Bigfuss City, you've got the privilege of talking to Mr. Jeff Carpenter from the great state of North Carolina tonight. How's it going, Jeff? Good. I was just laughing a little bit about that Mr. thing. Jeff works just fine. Mr. Makes me feel real old, Jeremiah. Mr. Carpenter is my father.

You are in a cool part of North Carolina. You're out in the western part near Cherokee and the Great Smoky Mountains, and you got all that cool stuff. going on. And just to give a little background about you, and we'll hear much more later, but you're with the BFRO, you're with the KBRO, which is a Kentucky Bigfoot Research organization, and you've got some other, another group you're in, but we'll hear about that later. But how's it going tonight out there, Jeff? It's going good, a little better than the first time we tried. I think we both were having some electrical storms going on last week. But doing great. Jeremiah, I live in a little background,

living in Silver, North Carolina. That's S-Y-L-V-A. It's right near Cherokee, North Carolina, where most people know because of the casino now and the Smokies. We're just right outside. I'm about 10 miles out of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in western North Carolina. And lived here. My family's been here in Western North Carolina since the early, late 1700s probably.

And we have a rich, I like to talk about a little bit if it's okay about my Appalachian history. And when we were talking on the phone, it was really neat to hear that you and your dad both had read the Foxfire books. And I like to tell people my family are just Appalachian people that grew up right outside of Clayton, Georgia on the North Carolina line in Otto, North Carolina. And they were, our grandfather, Harley Carpenter, and I think he might have a picture of Papal there. He was one of the first people interviewed for the Foxfire Book series. And later on, they made a play out of the book. And yeah, that's Papal telling the tell there. He was definitely a mountain man for sure and loved a lot of things, you know, there.

He was one of the first people getting interviewed for the Foxfire books. And my great aunt, Airy Carpenter, by marriage, was the person they made the movie about with John Denver and Hugh Crone and Jessica Tandy. She played Aunt Ari Carpenter. And that's on the cover of the first book, I think, that you said you have there. Oh, was there a movie about it, too? Yeah, it was made as a Hallmark movie. Yeah. The whole gist of the story, which is really impactful nowadays, is, you know, her husband had died.

And she was their son, which was John Deerbors, trying to get her to sell her mountain property and moved down to outside of Atlanta. And she just didn't want to do that, you know. And she lived in a little cabin, little cabin type thing. And I'm just very proud of my mountain heritage. And I bring this up at all my presentations because I do want people to understand where I'm from and my family, my background, because it's a little different. I had a great upbringing by my parents. Now, they were very country. Some people would call my family's dirt people, which is a derogatory mark in my mind, but they're Appalachian Mount people.

And there's my father, Irvin Carpenter. he was just hard for me to talk about my dad he's been passed away about 30 years now it gave you that picture because he's really proud in that when he won the biggest gobbler contest in 1981 but that was a daddy was a mountains man mountain man now he uh they've written stories about my daddy's nickname was old high top uh he just loved the mountains more than anybody ever met and i grew up i think i went raccoon hunting the first time when i was maybe six years old or five with my dad. So I'm very comfortable being out in the woods of a night in a dark. And Daddy helped, by the way, give you a little tidbit there, Jeremiah. He helped restock the

turkey bag in western North Carolina through the Wild Turkey Federation. They were about gone. Papaw used to call them mud hens. That was one of his nicknames for them. And grew up, learn how to call them with a briar leaf and things like that. But I always tell people, Appalachian people, you know, were looked down upon. A lot of it's caused. the movies and things, but they were probably the most resourceful people. You know, they, in my opinion, vented recycling. My grandfather on both sides never would throw away a nail because it was hard to get come by.

The reason I bring all this up, though, to kind of cut short here is to people understand my background as my father raised me. He was a master tracker. And again, we ginseng hunt, deer hunt, raccoon, fish. But we just would just spend a lot of time in the woods. And, you know, he taught me about looking at tracking sign. It's not a, the big things you look for is to subtle things that you try to find, you know, that type of thing. And he was just the best.

He raised a lot of other guys besides me and my brother out in the woods. And he was just a real special person and I always paid tribute to dad. He kind of got me here. I'll never forget, Jeremiah, real quick. Like we were sitting in a place called Deer Cove and hopefully some of your listeners might know where that's at if they're Macon County, North Carolina. but it's a real remote place. We were genocide hunting sitting on a ridge, and I never forget Dead was sitting over on a log away from,

just doing that faraway look, you know, which I always kind of dreaded when I was a kid because that means we're going to go walking over that next ridge. There's no flatland where we live at, and he just said, you know, Jeff, you need to listen to the woods or the mountains. Sometimes they've got something to say, and I found that very prophetic now,

kind of what I've gotten into, you know, so I don't think he is. ever had any strange sightings he never missed to him but he did see mountain lines he's seen two mountain lines in his life and which is a very rare thing to see here i know people say they're not here but they do cruise through the area sometimes i do believe and i've seen tracks but i'm not actually seen one of the things though is appalachian people uh telling the truth is a big thing as you probably know just the way we're raised and uh lying's kind of a sin pretty much much and it's just you're supposed to be straightforward and truthful to people and

honest that type of thing and I always kind of preface that because the things I'll tell people are actually what happened word for word siding for siding what I heard what I heard is just who I am and it's been very successful for me for what I do but this is what I am and also my background to tell people that's listening I was a parks and recreation director for about 28 years. I worked for Jackson County, North Carolina for 32 years, and I'm a Parks and Recreation graduate from Western Carolina University, and one of the first people in my family to graduate from college. So really proud of that, and that's a lot of my dad's doing again. And, you know, he was just very much about education and learning things. But he taught me a lot about the woods

that you just can't, you just can't get any other way if that makes sense. I think that makes a total sense. A lot of that knowledge about the woods, especially from that area, you're not going to find in a book. If you do, it's in the Foxfire books. You know, as you alluded to, I guess you could say my father was a naturalist slash camp director, and he had those books. And just the info in those books were just incredible. You know, I read them when I was about 10, but I was my first. introduction to the ways of Appalachia, even though we lived up in the Northeast.

And it's just cool listeners, I'll have the links in the show notes. They're cool books if you can find them. You're kind of hard to find nowadays. They're very hard to find, yeah. And by the way, there's a museum in Diller, Georgia, Jeremiah, if you ever down this way, and if you are, I appreciate your holler at me. I'll kind of take you around. But there is a museum there that's really neat for people to see.

It's in Dealer, Georgia. It's the official Foxfire Museum. Oh, wow. Yeah, totally. I'll put that on the trip list, because we'll get over there eventually for Expedition Bigfoot Museum. So I wanted to real quick, like, explain to people about our area that we live in, Jeremiah. Absolutely. Near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

And, you know, years ago, you know, I didn't really think about Bigfield a lot. I've seen the film. But, you know, that was kind of thing out northwest, you know. It's kind of cool, you know, but it just didn't really think about it being here at all. But one thing a lot of people don't know about is how much public land we have in western North Carolina. I just want to give your listeners a little stator. Everybody thinks about the Smokies, but the Smokies is really basically the smallest, one of the smallest that we have.

So, and these are all connected, Jeremiah. They're all connected. There's Pesga National Force. I'm going to look at my notes if you don't mind, so I'll get the numbers right. Pizga National Forces, this is near Asheville, is 512,000 acres. Then we have the Nantahela National Force, which, by the way, in Cherokee means land of the noonday sun. It has 531,000 acres. And then we have Chattahoochee National Force, which is kind of North Carolina, Georgia, kind of, you know, kind of goes across two or three states.

That's 86,000 acres. And then the Smokies has 522,000 acres, a little more than that. So you have 2,432,000 acres that's connected. That's public land. And that's how big an area it is. And people don't really look at it. That way they look at the smokies and they just, I guess,

just don't really realize that they're all connected. And it's a vast area. So what I'm getting at is a good friend of mine. I'll mention I think you've interviewed him, Matt Pruitt. He's one of the better researchers you'll ever meet. Yeah. Great book out, by the way.

I'm talking to him this week about his book, actually. So I'm excited to talk to him again. Yeah. Yeah, tell him. I said hello. And we talked once or twice a month. Matt got me into this stuff, and I'll mention here in a minute. But he's like, Jeff, why do you go other places?

You've got the best place on the east for sure to research in. So I spend a lot of time here doing a lot of research. And I'm more of a field researcher, Jeremiah. I like this is the way I grew up. And since I'm retired now, I've been retired about 10 years. I get to spend a lot of time now. I'm just recovering, fully recovered now from my fifth knee surgery, but from old college basketball injury.

But it's a little setback this spring, but usually say last, I think it's last year, a year before last I camped 82 days maybe doing research. And I just like it. Most time I'm by myself. And that sounds crazy. And that's not a good thing for the listeners to do. but again, I'm a little comfortable with that,

and I make sure everybody knows where I'm at. And I do like the idea of putting yourself out there a little bit where not a lot of people, if that makes sense. You know, so, but that's our area. And it's, again, if people's not been to the Western North Carolina area, it is very beautiful. The Smokies is the most visited park in the National Park System. And also a little stat for people that don't know.

it's also the most, if I can get this right, because it constantly changed, Jeremiah. It's the most biodiverse park in the national park system. But also, they're documenting the different species, and this has been ongoing for years now. I think they've documented 19,000 different species in the smokies. And they think when they're finished, it could be up to 100,000 different species of, you know, plant life, animal life, different things. It's just, they found all kinds of salamanders all the time. They're just a different species. It's a really interesting study there for sure.

Such a diverse area and a wide area of land. There has got to be, and I already know the answer. I know because I've talked to people, but there is a history of Bigfoot in this area. That is intense. Yeah, for sure. Is that anything that you could share about? How far does this big foot these reports and the legends go back in the history of North Carolina where you're at? And now Matt's documented some of those by doing research on newspapers.

He can tell you even more. But due to my lucky, I'm just the luckiest guy in the world sometimes things. Sometimes I think something's guiding me to this kind of research. It's kind of weird. but as a park director, I was over a judicolor rock project, which is a piece of county property now that was donated to us, which is the largest petroglyph in the southeast. It's great.

And I think you have a picture of judicolor rock there. In a drawing we had depicted of judicola, which is actually tuticola and Cherokee, which means slant-eyed giant keeper of the forest. And the Cherokees have, that was an artist rendering. In the background, it was an actual picture, taken years ago where they had done the I guess it's kind of like

it's not spray pack but chalk in the symbols there's hundreds of symbols in this rock and even a copy of Judah Cullough's hand kind of type of thing but Judah Cullough was a big legend if you may of the Cherkees and he was a keeper

of the forest which a lot of people have heard about was a female and then Stone Man was a big around, but I guess an enemy of spearfinger, but stone man, if you see stone man, you turn to stone. We'll be back with more Bigfoot Society after these words from our sponsors. Plan B made over-the-counter emergency contraception legal more than 20 years ago.

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Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to heighten taste? Hmm. That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a recess. knew the Colonel approved of his new honey, chili, crisp and jalapeno ranch sauces the moment he tasted them and said, that's right, no notes, just absolute silence. Turns out some flavors don't need explaining. They just need dipping. It's saucy season at KFC with new honey, chili crisp and jalapeno ranch. Get dipping with a boneless bucket today. Prices in participation vary. Now, my interpretation of that, Jeremiah, would be you go into shop pretty much. And there's also I'm missing, see, other local legends, and it's not Cherokee.

This would be more an English legend back in the 1800s was Boosom, which is a local brewery now in Wainsville. But Boosium was a person that came into mining camps and would steal their food. And then there's also Hoot Nanny, one of our famous authors here, John Paris, he's passed away years ago, but he wrote about mountain stories. And Hoot Nanny was a legend in Haywood County near a place near Laurel Ridge. There was a lodge there in the 1800s. And they would see this hairy, wild woman, it would come and whistle and hoot. And that's where the term he says, hoot and nanny comes from, although that's debatable, you know,

because that means dancing, too, you know, that type of thing. but there's just a lot of legends here locally of that, you know, that type of thing when you dig into it, and there's a lot of stories that go, I constantly get things that pop up out of the clear blue. One was years ago a guy told me about his grandfather building the first train into Asheville. His great-grandfather would talk about they had food being stole in their logging camp. He was a logger, and they thought it was the campers getting in.

and sneaking the cook did and they hired a person to come in he said with dogs this was relayed by his grandson to me that and they shot it and it was they said uh looked like a monkey with no tail now keep in mind this was in the late 1800s so they didn't know about gorillas in those days so that i found that to be a fascinating report he told his family of stories for years before he passed away but there's a lot of older stories stuff and history in the mountains here. And of course, the Smokies has the mist, so it makes it mysterious, too, if that makes sense sometimes.

It's a very mysterious place. Did he say, so they just shot at it, or did they actually, do you know if they actually killed the creature? Now, I never met the man. This is a second-hand story, but he said it was shot, and it was a smaller monkey, is what he would tell his family without a tale. This is a random story. A guy just riding a horse

one day bumped into me and said, hey, are you doing what I think you're doing? I kind of said, you know, when you hear that as research, you're like, uh-oh, here we go. But then I found out he was akin to my wife. His cousin is distantly related to my wife's cousin. So it was somebody now.

This guy was in Georgia when I was talking to him, but he was referring to an instant that happened to on what's called Black Mountain, when they're building the railroad up to Black Mountain in Nashville, North Carolina, you know, that type of thing. But that is Judah color there, a reading of that. It was a great project. We worked with archaeologists on that project.

I did for probably about four years and worked with the Eastern Rock Art Society and the Forest Service. And it's a great, mysterious thing. We've had a couple of TV shows, and I don't want to say which one. I was before retired against them coming to film it because it went against a historical record that we had uncovered about the rock, you know, how things can get changed a little bit or put into certain people's interpretations. But the county let them do it. So they've been two documentaries plus numerous YouTube videos done at Judah C-U-D-C-U-L-A-J-A-U-T-A-U-A-U-T-L-L-A is the English way of saying that. that is extremely interesting and those those those those legends and how they're they're woven into you know native american uh history it's just it's just so fascinating how you know you can you can start to wonder you know how how much of that is is related to bigfoot in saskatch and i know on the pacific northwest you have a lot of that with the

the totem poles. But that's something I didn't know with the judicola rock. That's very cool. I'm going to look more into that for sure. Thank you for sharing that. It's really cool. Yeah, they, you know, most myths are based in some form of reality, you know. And real quick, you'll hear me mention in just a minute about my son.

He's an athlete. He's now a basketball recruiter for a school. And then my daughter has an interesting job. She's older than my son, but she's my anthropologist by degree, and she's a zookeeper by trade, and she works with grilism primates on a daily basis is what she does. So I'm a little different than a lot of researchers. I have heard about the ideas off of it's tough for her. Since she works at the North Carolina Zoo, she can't really comment publicly on things

because they have to go through their media people. But commission is very knowledgeable, so I know a lot about primate behavior for sure, you know, because of her. That would be a really interesting. Oh, I bet you have some really interesting conversations. That would be cool. Yeah, we do.

I'll mention one here in a little bit. I don't know if she'll appreciate me bishing it, but it's a little theory she had about just, you know, Sasquatch, which I like better than Bigfoot. You know, Bigfoot makes you think of just one. Sasquatches makes you think of mini kind of thing. And it's just a better name, I do believe.

but yeah i've had two sightings uh jeremiah that uh well i guess i should tell you how i got into this absolutely yeah and again it starts with my kids i'm again parks and rec director and your dad ran i think you said a summer camp wouldn't a camp director so you know being his son how that works you don't get to see him a lot it's interesting it's a lot of fun but it's interesting yeah yeah so as a recreation programmer and recreation director for 20-something years i was working a lot. But my son got up. My daughter never was interested in hunting, and I've quit hunting just because I'm into this. And I don't know, it doesn't really fit my profile really good. I never was much of a, if I'm going to shoot something, I'm going to use it. You know, I just can't do that. I just

always been my nature. And so I was taking my son, the very first thing that I noticed here was he was about 10 or 11. I just took him an airport day. So we was trying to figure out, it's been so long go. He's a B-30 this year. And I took him to go deer scouting to teach him, you know, how to deer scouting. What it is, my dad had a little secret honey hole down near a river there in our area that was just a secret, good little place. And I was, we always put out salt blocks or apples, things like that, but we never hunted over it, if you know how that works. And so I took him and it is a heck of a walk down this really steep mountain into this little hole near the river, perfect little pocket area.

And he was just tenderly, he's wore out, not much interesting things. But as we were coming back up the ridge line, I don't know if you know about scouting, but you don't want to profile yourself on a ridge, though. You want to kind of stay below the break of the ridge and just kind of look over the ridge. So I was trying to show him that, and he was laying down the leaves. He's like, Dad, I'm tired, you know, that type of thing. And I look down in this area, and it's kind of a bowl, and that's where we're usually

hunted at, but the salt block was over behind us, kind of. And I looked at her, and in the middle of this little Harry's a little opening, and there were two hemlocks, you know, probably about, if I can get to the direction, about, you know, yay, big around. Uh-huh. And I knew they were there. I just happened to notice that the tops were out of them. Well, me being me, I kind of get into things as you asked other researchers,

I just walk off lots of times to leave people. I just took off down the hill because I thought there's a bow hunter and had my hunting spot, because we had a stand in there. So we, and again, it's not a salt block. It's over the ridge from it. So I go trumps them down through there. I just leave William, and it's just getting close to dark. You know, we get down there and I look up in these two big hemlocks, you know,

about eight foot, I think I measure it's about eight foot forward, both of them, and they're kind of growing together, kind of, you know, side by side. But there's nothing anywhere around them, close at all. The tops, when I got there, I was befuddled. They were twisted, twisted, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and peeled. The peel probably was at least two foot long. And I was just blown away.

You could see the fibers in the tree, Jeremiah. It was just, I'd never see anything like that. I've seen plenty of black bear. I see, I think two years ago, I've seen 17 black bear, you know, out research and just goofing around. But they, you know, they'll climb a cherry tree and strip it, you know, and then go down the bottom and eat the cherries off of it, you know, that type of thing. So I'm looking for the tops, right?

because I'm just befuddled, and Williams made it down there, and he's laying the leaves again. He's like, Dad, you're stupid. They're underneath the tree. And there was both tops stuck point first underneath the tree. They were dead. Really? So I pull them out, and I'm looking at them. I'd already checked a tree.

You know, hemlocks have really thin branches. They're not really, so if something climbs it, you could tell, he'd break it like a bear or something. And raccoon couldn't have done it. That's the only thing possible could have been a black pair. Well, the tops had no bottom marks on. Nothing. Absolutely. Now I'm really befuddled. It's hit me that Williams asking questions.

I don't want to scare him because I want to go back in the woods. You know, I'm like, what is going on? So I go back there a couple weeks later, and I find two more of these things. And I'm really befuddled. So I start going online. This was, again, I think, 2004 maybe. And, geez, I'm just befuddled. I'm doing all kinds of research now.

And I've heard about Bigfoot. You could research it on the Internet, doing tricks. twist. I'm like, what? There's no way that can be here in western North Carolina. That's stupid. And then another time, me and him were doing some scouting, and we came across this little spot.

It's hard to describe it. I'm trying to describe things. I hope I'm doing a good job putting pictures where people can imagine, but we were on old trail, and there's some barbed wires and it was like a little bit of a wet weather spring, Jeremiah, where water was seeping up, and it's kind of mossy.

But I could tell, again, subtle, that something had went through there, I had just barely broke some of those briars a little bit. So I'd stop to show William, and it was just about dark, getting dark and dusky dark, and we're close to the truck, and he's like, dude, I don't want to go. And I was like, we've something's been in here.

Let's see what he is. So I stepped in there. Once I got into that mossy wet weather area, there it was, this cleanest day. About a 15-5-inch human-like footprint. There were four of them. I didn't know what to think. I was befuddled. and my son's best friend played basketball.

I won't mention his name because I hadn't asked to say his name. At North Carolina, he's 6 foot 8, and his dad's 6 foot 9. He always has this really, you know, he has a large foot. And we didn't know how to refer. He said, Dad, that's bigger than my buddy's foot, you know. And I was like, he said, what is that? And I was like, uh, you know, I didn't want to scare him. There's no way it was a double track because, you know,

I'm used to bear tracks and Dad was a bear hunter. You can tell there'll be a little break. that line of the track if that makes sense where you'll you might not see the toes but it won't make an even line if absolutely yeah and uh i just like no way and then we went back over again uh growing up with my dad we'd do night rides a lot just to see wildlife when i was a kid so i've always done those so i started doing more of those and one night me and win was driving on a gravel road close to this spot uh maybe four months later five and we hear the loudest how you'll ever hear we were driving where the wind is down and heard the how.

That's how loud it was. So we stopped and then and how it again. And of course, he figured out by then what was going on. He's like, Dad, is that a big foot? What is that? I said, well, it's not a coyote. It's not howl. And that's the way I kind of think to tell listeners out there.

I try to, as much as I can, Jeremiah, debug things. Because it doesn't make any sense to go to the least likely thing first. You want to go to the most obvious thing first. and then try to work your way down to that, if that makes sense. But that's the way I got started. So years later, I come on a website, come upon a website, this guy in North Georgia, and I was like, hey, that sounds cool. I'll call a guy, and his name was Matt Pruitt.

And Matt, he says it was two to three years. We have a constant argument about how it took him to get me to come to one of these BFRO things, because I was just like, I'd say, I'm going to go out there with them crazy people, you know, and he finally taught me into it. And again, it was a good time because I was retiring in 2013. And it was in my area. He wanted to do one.

He wanted to use me as a resource and then as a lead, you know, kind of a, you know, trail lead guy if a night. And what was weird was when we were talking the first time, he said, hey, if you've been to this such and such spot, and that was where I was having all this activity at, and I hadn't even mentioned it to him.

It was just a weird coincidence. But me and Matt has become really close. And I know you've interviewed Matt and going to again, as you said. He's just a great resource and just a phenomenal. He studies stuff. It's amazing. And he's just a really good friend. He lives, you know, so it's a little hard to get up with Matt.

You know, we still get together some. And again, I was wrong about the, when I went there, I met a lot of people, biologist people, you know, all kinds. of good researchers. It was a good thing. And after that night, that weekend, Matt wanted me to be a BFRO investigator. And so I started doing it. I'd been doing a little on my own for four or five years. And so I agreed to do it reluctantly, as you can tell, as I'm, where when you call me or got hold of me, I'm just, I kind of like to be in a shadow sometimes. It's just my way of being things. But Matt was a great resource, and I do appreciate him to get me started on this kind of mystery.

And it led to, again, my first sighting in 2015. So I think you have a picture there of that somewhere. We'll be back with more Bigfoot Society after these words from our sponsors. Plan B made over-the-counter emergency contraception legal more than 20 years ago. It's a safe, effective backup birth control option that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is the number one OB-GYN recommended brand, and the only one that you can, can find at all major retailers in all 50 U.S. states. There's no minimum age requirement and you don't need an ID to buy it. You can order it through DoorDash and other major delivery platforms

too. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for a recess. Like this commercial break, did you need 15 seconds away from music or 15 seconds to eat arreases? Perhaps it's true. Everything happens for a reases. Agents who are realtors more than open doors. They analyze market trends, interest rates, comps. They can tell you about flood zones, mixed use zones, and decode acronyms like HOA, APR, MLS. They connect you to lawyers, contractors, even Phil, the Seward scope guy. They negotiate, coordinate, advocate for you, close the deal with you, and hand the keys to you. They bring you home. Realtor's are members of the National Association of Realtors, right by you. Let's see. So that

That would be the, is it the drawing? Yeah, the artist rendering. Got you. By the way, Jeremiah, that was done by a researcher, a good friend of mine, Sheila Johnson in Kentucky. Okay. She's kind of taking a little break from research, her and her husband, T.J., but Sheila had done some artwork.

And the way this worked, again, like I mentioned, I like to take night rides. And, boy, I don't know, I got the best supportive wife in the world that's put up with me. but it was a i think it was uh june i have a note here somewhere june 23rd i think or it was June in 2015 and it was very green but what it was is the wax and crescent moon which is you know a good hunting moon it was real clear night and i was like you know it's like 10 o'clock at here where i live and this is research area where i saw it at was well actually i wasn't in a research area i was just driving one uh it's about 30 miles away so i just said hey i'm going to go out and ride tonight and see if I hear something and make a little noise and take my

recorders, which I do. So I was going on up the road. Actually, I was listening to ACDC, which Charlie Raymond loves, if you know Charlie with the Kentucky Bigfoot group. He loves that story because he likes ACDC. And down at the bottom of the mountain, I see three deer, right? I was like, oh, yeah. So I start slowing down, you know.

And as I'm climbing up this mountain on Highway 64, I don't like to give out the exact locations, is Jeremiah, and I apologize to everybody about that, but there's a reason behind it. One is a lot to keep an area fairly pure, because if you get a lot of people in area making noise, you just don't know what's what, you know. And then also nowadays, there's a lot of people with thermoscopes, and they say they'll want to shoot one. And I just don't know. That's not a safe thing, if that makes sense.

But there's Highway 64, and I was climbing up the mountain there. So I'd already slowed up, and as I come into what I call an S-turn, going through this S-turn, I was only doing 20-mile iron. I see a coyote. And a coyote was not, it just struck me on it. He was on the right-hand side of the road. And I just about stopped. I let off the gas because I didn't know if he was going to run in front of him,

but he wasn't looking at me. I'll never forget. He was not looking at me. He was looking across the road, which I thought was weird. He never looked at my truck. And so I just about stopped because I thought he might run in front of me. I didn't want to hit it. And then when I just kind of panned the way he was looking,

and this is what I saw off the guard behind the guardrail. And it's very steep where this was at, so it's hard to tell the size of it. But that's what I saw. And she did a good job on the drawing. It had one of his arms kind of curled like that. And I will tell you, it didn't have fur. I got about a good three-second look because I just kind of coasted by.

And I had audio running, so the audio was just that if I played it, you would laugh so crazy because I'll start talking to myself. It was just, I couldn't believe what I saw. Again, a no neck, a low, like a dome for a head. And again, one of the reasons from talking to my daughter is, you know, the jaw line for some primates are below the shoulder. So from the back, it will look like there's no neck. You know, they're not like our jaw line, which is above the shoulders kind of thing.

That's incredible. I didn't know that. That's awesome. Yeah, if you look at guerrillas, you know, you'll see her chimps where their jawline. It was particularly grillas. And it didn't have fur. That's a big thing. I always like to give people my presentation, the tips that I saw.

It had hair, scraggly hair. This is June, so it's kind of hot. It did have some stuff in its hair. I remember seeing that, and I could definitely see the back line, you know, the spine line. And as she drawled there, I couldn't, it's such a quick glance at it. I couldn't see if it was gray hair or just kind of grayish, light skin kind of. it did move and I just coasted by I couldn't believe it and I couldn't turn around real quick I had to go up and then I started trying to tell myself oh Jeff you seen a dead pine tree because this thing was like a burnt brown color you know how a dead white pineal look jeremiah and so I said okay that's what was you're just jumping to conclusions you know which is kind of like confirmation bias you know you're going to look listen for something maybe you just thought you saw something so I cruise back down nothing there's absolutely nothing there now.

And I was like, holy cow. And I made some calls, coyotes bark, you know, of course there's a pack of coyotes because there's that one. Didn't, uh, didn't hear anything weird, went back up. I spent about four hours of our poor man. I called him at 1230 at night, just losing it, you know, and this is how great Matt he is. And I keep complimenting.

He's going to pay me $5 or something. But he immediately said, Jeff, just. draw. I mean, I walk him up. He's like, Jeff just start sketching, which was a great tip. So I felt like the guy from close encounters, you know, where he's building the Wyoming thing, you know. Absolutely. I must have 75 sketches here where I was drawing. And I couldn't figure out the arm for a while. Then it hit me that. It just had it curled up. And interesting tip bit on that. My 90, my mother passed away last year. She was two weeks away from being a hundred years old. And I'll never forget showing her this the first time about a

year later because she kind of got interested in just watching shows and stuff. And like the first time I showed her a cast from out west, she said, oh, that's not a human. It doesn't have an instep. This very, very matter of frank country rock, you know. And then when I showed her this, she said, what time of year was? And I said, June, she said, oh, it might have had a baby in its arm. I didn't even think about that.

Wow. That's an incredible observation thought. That's not. Yeah. Yeah, it was just a thought by her because that coyote was there. And I don't know. I did have one of my best friends whose son played at North Carolina. He's six foot nine.

He went there. I can't believe he did. It stood on the side of the road the next day. And I can't tell you the heights, but I can tell you it was way bigger than him width-wise. It was very broad. It had a very athletic, if you notice a narrow waist. But it was definitely had to weigh. close to 400 500 pounds probably probably around 400 it's you know people always

underestimate or overestimate like bears here you know it's a 500 pound bear when most the time it's 250 pound bear and I do think that happens to Sasquatch a lot but it was incredibly sight it was just an amazing thing I'll never forget a I said a little prayer because I'm a very faith-based person and I just couldn't believe I I knew I'd seen something very, very rare, and I hope to see another one. And what was really weird about this siding, Larry Sidwell, I think you said you had interviewed Larry. I've talked to Larry. He's a great guy, yeah.

Yeah, he is. I couldn't do this report. He had to do it on me because I'm an investigator, you know. So he did a report. But what was weird is before this, Larry didn't know I had a siding. He calls means like, Jeff, you've probably heard of the BFRO database, which is a, The flats, we call it. Big database of possible sidings.

Now, a lot of them not being investigated, but there's just a bunch. And he said, Jeff, there's a siding close to you. A guy had really not siding, I should say, that heard a how and found some track. The guy was on the Appalachian Trail doing like a weekend hike around this National Force there at Nautahela. And well, I'll tell you, it's standing Indian National. on a campground area and I talked to the guy. I didn't even tell Larry I had a siding yet

and I told him later but that happened four days after my side and it's 4.5 miles from where I saw this at. So could be a weird coincidence or it could be the same one. They had heard a hell of a night

that woke him up. It was not a coyote. This guy raises Christmas trees. He has coyotes on his property up in the Virginia, North Carolina line all the time. He's a great witness. So the next morning they were going down Appalachian Trail and his buddy's boot hill come off.

So they looked at the map and seen this little hidden trail. It's amazing they found it on a map. And I know it real well because of Dad. And it goes down to the campground. So they're trying to take a shortcut as they went down in this. And if you'd imagine in Smoky Mountains or our area, this is outside of the Smokies, but we're a tempered rainforest. just like out west.

So in June and July, I got in there about July 4th where they were at. The weeds are 6-7-foot tall in this area. It's just crazy. But they had found where something had went through this trail crossed, and they followed it for a little bit, and they started finding these big imprints in the leaf matter. That's hard to find because, you know,

the substrate dictates how you can find a track. People don't realize that. Hove's animals are completely different. Flat-footed animals. It's even hard to find barrax for people tracks. He just can't. But this was a kind of a wet area they were seeing that. Then he found some weird stuff like mushrooms that were picked,

but turned upside down, sitting on a log near these tracks, which is kind of wild. And the guy was a great witness, but it was wild that it was only four days after my sighting. And it's a good, what I would call, and I'm starting to give you information. I don't really give before.

I call them corridors. These things are constantly on the move. I wouldn't say they're nomadic, in my opinion. These are just my opinions, Jeremiah. But I would say they have a massive territory, though, and they're constantly moving because that's the only thing that makes sense. But that was my first sighting there. So sorry to ramble so much there.

About your citing. So I have two questions. Could you see any muscle definition underneath? the hair. Any, the two seconds, but just curious. That's a good question. I definitely could see some muscles in the shoulder area.

I'm trying to remember. And I definitely could see what's it called? I don't know a proper term for it, but you know in the lower back area, above the butt area. Yep. The indentations. And I will also notice when

Si stood there, you know how people's shoulders roll in? kind of. I noticed it shoulders rolled in kind of at the top of the shoulders. But I did see muscle definition in the lower back for sure. It was very muscular. I don't know if you remember the wrestler Big Bam Vader that wrestled in the W.

For a long time, he had this massive. Oh, yeah, yeah, Vader. Yeah, but you know how he had a thin waist.

That's the way this thing, this thing had some massive shoulders. And then this really athletic looking waist. It was phenomenal. It just took me back. But, you know, like I mentioned to you before we started, and I hope I'd say this quote, I tell people when they ask me what happened,

you know, it's a hell of a thing when a myth turns into reality. And your body, I just, I didn't realize till I went back in town like four hours later to on out Walmart to get me something to drink. Oh, I walked in, the guy, of course, said, welcome Walmart. And then I realized I was drenched and sweat. I had this crazy, my wife when I called her, she said, what is wrong with you? I just had this reaction. And that's one thing I look for in good reports is the way I don't tell people by I'm looking.

It's hard to explain when you see something that's not really actually supposed to be there. It really affects a person, doesn't it? Oh, it's, yeah, it kind of, yeah. you can't let it go. And then my second siding real quick, like was from the East Coast. That's a group we have, a researchers,

basically on the kind of Midwest, East Coast area. A great group at Charles Kimbrough and Lori Wade and some other people that starred Larry, great people in there. And we got some reports about two fishermen on separate occasions and see something at a state park in Virginia. So we went up there and real quick,

like this siding, It was just again luck, but I was walking up to a group we'd been separated because I like to do a little technique where I stay back behind people and listen. And a guy just started researching who's a really good friend of mine now in a fellow researcher, George Wrigley, was with me wanting to stay back. And we kept hearing some things, which I think was a separate one. But as we come close to the group, my cell phone went off. My wife had texted me. You know, how you can just randomly get a message signal, you know. And I was like, oh, no, because I didn't want anything like light in my phone.

my face that night. I wasn't even using thermals or anything, but the moon was out. And Georgia went past the group and the other two people with Rick Relis. I don't think they'll mind me, mention your name. He's a BFR investigator. Rick's a great guy. He's one of the first guys I talked to like four years ago. He's so good. Yeah.

Yeah, great fella. And then Steve Poppleton, who's from Georgia, was with us. And as I walked up the group, I looked up the ridge because one of the techniques today he always showed me hunting. So you profile again, the ridge line. especially on moonlit night because you can see something move like an ear flip or something's bedded down. So I was looking for movement. But this wasn't on the ridge.

It was below the ridge. I see this big, large, I thought it was a burnout stump. You know how I kept, I remember saying myself, I don't remember that being a fire, people talking about a fire ear. It's just dark thing. And it was pretty well lit up there, not where you could see facial features, but you can see just something dark. So I'll come up and Lori said they like to call me Jeff Squatch. and that's another story for different time in Kentucky. It's a funny story.

If you read Charlie Raymond's book, it's in his book while they call me that. And George, again, it went on. And she just said, Jess, watch what's up. And I said, I just sorry about my phone going off. And we were talking. I remember Rick was wrapping up his parabolic mic. And we heard just sound. And we were like, George, is that you?

And he on the audio, we didn't catch it because everything else happened after. George goes negative like this real quiet, you know, like, uh-oh. And, uh, well, I just told Lori, I said, Lord, I think that was George, you know. And then I just made eye contact. I looked up the ridgeline again. It's kind of a gull and kind of like this. Straight up, very steep. We'll be back with more Bigfoot society after these words from our sponsors.

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Use as directed. It said everything happens for a reason, but maybe everything happens for a reases. Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block? hearing to heightened taste? Mmm. That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a recess.

You know, again, that stuff was there. When I made eye contact with it, I remember Rick was talking to Steve and putting up his parabolic, and he was kind of turning towards me, I see this arm come out, and you had hair hanging down. Now, keep in mind, I know bears real well, bears can't do that kind of movement, you know, where your arm goes out like this. You know, they don't have clavicles, you know, they don't have shes. shoulders, but they just can't do that.

And it kind of took me off guard. And then I see a leg, and then it just takes off running astronomically fast. It's hard to describe how fast this was. And then Rick kind of sees it at the tail end of it, because it goes kind of past my eyesight. There's a little knoll there. And he, because I say, sorry, a cuss word that I do sometimes. And I hate to do that because it's startle me, you know. And the best way to describe what I saw.

was a catcher in a squat. And he takes off running, but he don't stand up. He's just kind of leaning forward. Now, the movement, I've never seen, you know, again, I'm a basketball trainer. I train kids for basketball, used to all, you know, for 40-something years. I know movements. And I see Bear, Bear, you know, can't do a smooth move, Jeremiah. Or if they were squatted or standing up, it's more of a plop kind of, you know.

They just can't control. that if you ever seen that in a video. It's just weird. They can walk a little bit, but when they want to go down to four, it's just pulled. And this thing was on two feet, by the way, leaning. And one of a lot of Blackburn's books later on, I found a sketch that looks just like, and I forgot to send you a picture of that. Of course, I hadn't asked Lyle to use it, but it's more like what I saw. It was about leaning just about completely over, and it was so fast. but now it was slowly kind of standing up. I seen it maybe five steps.

And, of course, Rick saw it, and then we kind of lose it. But that was that siding there, and it was phenomenal to see the movement. That was something in all my years, I've never seen anything move like that. The only thing maybe I've seen accelerate that fast is when I used to go El Cut, I've seen Antelope out west that could accelerate that fast. Wow, that must have been really fast. How long was the hair hanging down from the arms? Well, it was about, it was a debate, and we had George go up there and run the next day,

and it was just way bulk here in George. But it's hard to tell, again, it's nighttime, but I did see hair hanging out. But I would say two, three inches, good enough to tell they were hair there, if that makes sense, in the moonlight. Maybe longer than that, but I definitely saw hair coming down. and the arm come out straight from the body, not forward, you know,

from the body towards me. It was to the side. Okay. That floored me, you know, uh, you know, that's only, people can only do that,

you know, it's just not a normal movement for any wildlife you see. And again, the size of it, George, I think weighed 200 pounds. He said in those days, I'm getting him pretty good right now.

I said those days. He might be a little more than that. But, uh, it was just so much more bulky. year than him. And I'm talking about the width of the thing. That's what I can't. Everybody gets focused on height. I can't get off how wide and how strong these things are. They have to do a lot with their shoulders. They're probably on all fours a lot sometimes, you know, or, you know, digging.

They just, what I saw was very powerful both times. It was a fascinating thing. So that's my stories and I'm sticking to it. You know, that I'm like the first, the first encounter, I have to ask, though, what ACDC song was playing when you saw the Bigfoot? Before it, I'd cut it down when I saw the deer. It's a little quieter because I'd roll the window down. Yeah. You know, because I, you know, might see some wildlife. Right.

I think it was a highway to hell, if I'm not. Okay. All right. That works. You sound like you like ACDC. No, but, I mean, if someone's going to make the movie of your sighting, they have to know what, you know, they have to know what. You know, they have to know what song to play. I hope you don't do that.

Maybe they get Brad Pitt to play me because. There you go. That'll be a bad interpretation of me if they get Brad Pitt. That's funny. Hey, Jeff, we should play some of these sounds. What do you think? Yeah, that's one of the things I've gotten into. Again, thanks to Mahongaheli and David Ellis and people, Charles Kimbrough.

I've gotten into just, I love doing audio and we do long duration of recorders. But the first one that I sent you there, the one, it's a, I recorded, it's just hard to explain. I had this area, and that's for another podcast probably because it's just, I've had so many things happen. But I had an area where Lori was doing an expedition, Lori Wade, if you know Lori with the BFR. She does great expeditions, by the way, and I was doing a field here again. I had five people with me that had never been in the woods of an eye. We had a four-pound rock thrown at us. I found the rock.

Wow. It was crazy. So I kept going back to this area, having some things. I was working on Pavlos theory, you know, where I, and make one sound immediately leave. Well, this time I decided I'm going to aggravate George and Lori. So I went up to this little field where we'd been having some activity and was trying to call them because of a signal there. So I broke my pattern a little bit. And basically what you'll do is you'll hear me.

I was, you know, texting me, y'all are working, and I'm just out here goofing off because I'm retired. I'm in woods, you know. And, of course, I got them for a second, but I thought I heard something, and then you'll hear me walking a little bit. And then you hear a very clear wood knock. And you hear me do what's called a descending whoop call, which they do a lot. And then you'll hear the reply. And I did amplify that reply, Jeremiah, just so in my presentations, people can hear it better. All right.

So I'm trying to remember which one. 1029, 18, I think, or something like that, 10, something 18. Okay, yep, yep, yep. All right, let's try this one. Yeah, this is it. You'll hear me walking. That's the wood knock. And then that's the reply I got back.

Yep. I kind of cut it off. I did say a bad word at the end of that, sorry. But I was just startled. It sounded like a disembodied voice to me until, again, Again, the good thing about audio, you know, it's hard to prove stuff with audio, but you can also just document better what you can hear. And sometimes, Jeremiah, you won't hear something, but there's actually something going on, too.

It's just weird how that works. But I sent that to Mahongahaley, David out west. And there's a little bit of debate of whether it's one or two, but he thinks it's a triple whoop. I think it might be two. We put all our audio on Adasty, which is a. Probably when we can do a spectrograph and look at it in the hertz that's at. And it seems to me it might be another one kind of quietening down another one like a younger one. But it mimicked me right back.

And wow, I was just startled, to be honest. It was crazy. But audio is a good way to get involved in the research. It's very simple. Just keep your recorder with you. I use mine on my backpack. It's constantly running. I've learned my lesson.

Learn that from turkey hunt with dead. You can slam the door going turkey hunting all so and there's a gobby real close. In other words, you better cut that audio on right when you get out of the truck. You just don't know. The randomness of this stuff amazes me. And again,

that's the way nature works. It's just random when you see things or hear things. There is another audio. I'll try to give your listeners a wide variety of things. Everybody focuses on the big house. The second one I like for your play. is a recording that it was given to me from another researcher, and I can't give you the location,

but there's a hiker on Appalachian Trail years ago recorded this. This is the North Georgia vocals. I use this as a presentation. It has a lot of different sounds in this one, Jeremiah. Okay. Hear the whoop? That is wild. So you said it's North Georgia?

Yeah, on Appalachian Trail. He just happened to have a video recorder with him. He recorded that on a video recorder of a night. It woke him up. And they do make, in my opinion again, these are all my opinion and experiences, they make more subtle noises than they do the big loud ones. And the perfect example there of a whoop, which is kind of like a gibbon will make. Yeah, exactly.

It's a, on a spectrograph, it'll look like a backslash. I've heard that. Yep. It's hard for people to really make that call the way. way they can control it. It's very hard to duplicate it. Believe me, I practice it every red light. You know, I don't know what people think about me in another car, but I like to practice my calls, you know. I think you do have to get them to interact, well, not interact, but react to noises sometimes. We really know if they're in a location. Although I will tell you, a lot of people

confuse coyote calls with Bigfoot calls. And they are, yeah. I'm one of the rare people that's seen both together. They are, maybe symbiotic. In other words, one works off the other one, kind of. I don't know.

They're not walking around like one on, got one on a leash or something like that. But you know what I'm talking about? Maybe one makes a kill. The other one comes in and robs from the other one kind of thing. There's tons of things in nature that are symbiotic, you know. Oh, yeah.

People don't know that term. That's the little bird that's sitting on the back of the rhino or whatever. You know, he's eating all the bugs off the rhino kind of thing. but so they'll confuse calls and I encourage anybody wants to get in research you got to know your sounds and there are a lot of good sound labs you know at Cornell University has a great one has ever known mammal bird sound but to really you got to eliminate the the obvious things first but there's not many things that are here that make that whoop sound I can tell you that for sure you know yeah I don't know if the house

I sent you will play really good. I've tried to remember what I sent you there, Jeremiah. I recorded it in the Smokies back last fall. Just luckily, we're talking about, I think it was a bobcat. We saw it on the thermal and then our other researchers walking up up and behind us on a ridge where there's nothing, this is howl comes from. All right. We'll see if this is the right one here.

Those guys are coming. Yeah, it's a great scene. Yeah, it's faint in the background. and probably if they have headphones, they can hear it, but probably if they don't have headphones. But it's definitely a how. Again, we try to vet everything. It's pretty good and send it to multiple people.

One of the things you'll notice with the howls, the good howls, is the way they end, you know. And Mongahel can explain that better because he's an expert in the field. But they end with the, I guess it would be like the ooze sound kind of thing or awe sound, like I have a little. little cheat sheet here. I can tell you it's like a, uh, the who would be like mop. And then the other sound that canines can't make is the boot sound, if that makes sense, the double O saying. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So if you notice at the end of the

North Georgia louder sound, you'll hear the aw, kind of thing. Canines can't make that sound and all. Oh, that's cool. And then also durations a big thing because canines usually are very simple wolves you know of course there's we have red woods and work climate they're down on the coast but uh and they're not like the gray wolves you know up north but they can how longer and do different sounds and there is an audio i didn't send you but it's on youtube the uh st louis county minnesota sounds that were recorded by a bfro investigator for like he had a lDR out long duration recorder and it lasts for close to 40 minutes we'll start them off but again something

comes closer it makes what's called a zipper call which is just like a whistle you know the whistle thing you use in the band yeah it's just crazy sound i don't know what can make that but it sounds like a zipper yeah it's like that real quick oh yeah yeah i've heard that okay okay i've also heard of an actual like big foot making a zipper type noise as well and they can can do that, and they do do that, but keep in mind I did debunk some years ago because it happened to me. And then I thought I had one then to realize what it was. There's a bug flying by my life. We'll be back with more Bigfoot Society after these words from our sponsors. Plan B made over-the-counter emergency contraception legal more than 20 years ago. It's a safe,

effective backup birth control option that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is the number one OBGYN-R recommended brand and the only one that you can find at all major retailers in all 50 U.S. states. There's no minimum age requirement and you don't need an ID to buy it. You can order it through DoorDash and other major delivery platforms too. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. It said everything happens for a reason, but maybe everything happens for a reases.

Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to heightened taste? Hmm. That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a Rees. Oh, interesting. Yep. Okay. But they do make a zipper call, though.

And then, you know, the whoop calls are like gibbons. If you know, again, my daughter, she listens to these, and she said, Dad, that's gibbon. You know, that's like a, it's, you know, fascinating sounds. But the audio is a good way to document things. and I thoroughly enjoy doing that, Jeremiah, you know, for my own purposes. My whole thing as an investigator is to document things. I've been working now really hard. This spring's been tough since the knee surgery, but to get quality evidence.

And I'm just really doing that to turn it over to somebody like my daughter in the future. Everybody wants me to work on a book, and I might do that. But my goal was 10 to 11 years of documenting things. And then I have probably right now about what I'd call, and this first time I really talked about it publicly, about 85 data points in my area that I consider very credible witness reports, sightings of mine or other people's, or good audio occurrences. And I've tossed a lot that's not in there.

but I will tell you they do fit a little bit of a corridor kind of thing. One of the things that's fascinating in our area is we have a lot of man-made lakes. If you know anything about Western Carolina, Fontana is our biggest, which is right near the Smokies. But there's way more than that and in Georgia. So not to let the cat out of the bag a little bit, but those lakes force things to go places, if that makes sense. Oh, I totally get it, yeah.

And I'll hopefully talk more about it, but I want to have in the future just way more documentation and more thought into it than just throwing something out. And the Bigfoot world is a very skeptical place, as you know. And it's just human nature with people. You know, most of the reports I get, I'd say 75 to 80 percent are misidentifications. Maybe somebody just wanting to be famous, whatever. But it's like Dr. Krantz used to say Grover Krantz. the famous anthropologist that it only takes one track to be real to make it real. You know, so 20% of those, in my opinion, that I've worked on have been real things.

And again, I just two weeks ago had a contractor in our area, stopped me in Ingalls. In fact, he was so animated. I was in a checkout line. And he's a family friend of mine. I've known him for 50-something years. And he said, Jeff, I got to tell you something. You still do that stuff.

You know, it's funny how that stuff. It's not like it's a taboo word to say. But he said he was working by himself in a real remote area, building and retaining while and got off his back hole and heard a wood knock sound. And he don't really believe in this stuff. And he didn't know what think. It startled him. It was so loud.

And he turned around and looked in rhododendrum. And he's seen its head and shoulders in this rotor dintram patch looking at him. And then when he made eye contact, it popped back down and was gone. It freaked him out really bad. I mean, he'd been looking for me for about three or four months to find me to, you know, yeah, you could just tell this guy had seen something. It was just, he was just animated. And he's 60-something years old, you know. Wow.

Yeah, again, equipment, by the way, Jeremiah, I've had some experiences where heavy equipment's been left. And they're in the area. I don't know if it's curiosity. You know, that happened, you know, was it Bluff Creek, Willow Creek? Oh, sure, yeah, exactly. building log roads. But like when we got, I think there's one other audio there that's a wood knock.

I sent you if you want to play that. That's a, but there's a motor grader parked there where we parked at night. It's a great example of a wood knock. I think it says W-A-Y-A-H, which means wolf in Cherokee. Okay. Here we go. You hear it sound like a baseball app.

That was wild now. It stopped us in our tracks. We'd been out all night. Didn't have anything happening with my good friend researcher, George Wrigley and his son. And I really wanted his son to experience something. He'd never, in fact, we're walking towards this old cabin at 4 o'clock in the morning. I just wasn't going to stop.

Again, I get that way. I just will keep going. And we'd had some, I'd found a track there. And a bow hunter had sent me a report real close to there. He'd seen one bow hunting. And so I said, let's go down in the old cabin. I remember out going, Jeff, I'd just rather, they'd be a big foot here. And it's scary.

It's like a ghost could be here. And then that would knock happen right when we got close. And it stopped us in the track. And we kind of messed up and went around this cabin, hurriedly trying to cut it off. And it ended up what I think. I could hear it in the leaves crawling. I think it dropped down all fours.

But I would call that a sentinel kind of thing. Because I think they do that sometimes while the family group's feeding. They'll have one on a lookout kind of. And they won't do that until you get really close to something or they get agitated. but there's no there's nothing i put an lDR there for four months and only heard one other wood knock like that i could hear acres hitting the cabin i heard all kinds of stuff but nothing that you know how that was christ jeremiah just sounded like a baseball bat hitting a ball yeah definitely not not an acorn i mean that's that's that was very very distinct yeah and it has force behind it

you know in a christmas i don't know how they do that I do think sometimes they'll do a mouth clack, which sounds like a wood knock, but it's not. But, and then it could do a chest slap to, I think Rick Reillis tonight, we had deciding had heard a chest slap right before I'd walked up to them there. That's one of the reasons he had his parabolic out, you know, that type of thing. So, but that's, you know, audio is a great thing to do there. And it does document some unknown sounds that biologists can't. explain and, you know, and it's just kind of fun, too, to be honest, those recorders kind of like put you there every night and you don't have to be there.

It is, you know, one thing, Jeremiah, about this stuff, research and there are people that want to be researchers, but they like, and I'd say this, pretend to be researchers, but to do true research or documentation of data and things like that is one of the hardest things I've ever done. And I'm retired. This is incredibly hard. I tell people it's like looking for a needle and haystack, but haystack moves around constantly, you know, and to get, you know, something like a crisp wood knock sound, not a tap, not a limb break and not an acre and falling, not a, uh, uh, what's it called up your way, the hedge apple falling, you know, them things, you know, they're huge, you know, when they file. Yeah.

So, but again, I think what's important to new people getting into this is you need to know the sounds. Now, keep mind, I grew up raccoon hunting on my dad of a night with a lantern and that was it. And night sounds. So from age five to probably 14 or 50 when I got into high school sports and was too busy, I did that all the time. I just loved it to go with my dad. It was kind of, you know, he's kind of like, I don't know, a superhero, walk around in dark, you know. but these were places he grew up as a kid you know and my grandfather had a and my great-grandfather had a hunting well before they were national parks here they

led them free-range cattle and pigs mineral companies own the rights to massive tracts of property but you could apply in free range you know what you wanted to raise and they would do that but they had a remote cabin way back in standing Indian national or not a Hayley National Park. And Daddy and his brother would walk in the supplies when they were just kids and then walked back of a night with lantern. So he knew this area where I'm talking about and had my first sighting by the back of his hand.

So I have a big advantage there. And then knowing the night sounds, and I still, I studied. Tonight's a pretty night I might end up riding. We got the Blue Ridge Parkway here. I might go up and go to a few overlooks and just sit and listen, you know. It's just a really neat thing that I enjoy to do. And I stumbled in on this and thanks to Matt Pruitt, I'll throw that in there case he listens to this.

It's his fault. I think it's really cool how you have that friendship with Matt Pruitt. It's very cool. I would say so ending out our discussion together. And Jeff, thank you for. for hanging out tonight. But probably a question you may have gotten before, but thinking of the Sasquatch,

what do you think it is that we are dealing with out there? Have you come to grips with, it's probably more this type of thing rather than another thing. Or do you have any thoughts about that? Well, that's the loaded question, isn't it? It is, yeah. It always pops up. I love it. And by the way, you do a great job. We've just kind of met this past few months.

And I've listened to some of your podcasts. I really appreciate the way you approach things. And even asking that question is a good one. I will tell you, I can't remember who was it. Is it Grover Cranch or somebody? You can't answer, solve a mystery with another mystery. You can't. So I tend to be more on the, you know, and I'm open-minded. I've seen some weird things out in the woods and you will, weird lots. things like I told you when we're talking on the phone, you know, kind of debunk.

And I've seen what my mother called mineral lights or spirit lights. These are like the brown mountain lights. I've seen two of those are weird. But I don't see how people make, well, let's say example. They see a weird light in the sky, but then they see a big foot later. What makes you think they're anywhere connected at all?

You know, you can't do that. You're just, you know, you just can't do that. And I'm more, I try to be more, I guess scientific based or just fact based. I'm going to. Sure. But what I saw particularly the first time and then saw move was very primate-like. I should say that.

Now, that goes into all kinds of territories. People always say, well, Jeff, you know, I'm not an ape. Well, you are a primate. And then the religion thing pops up. But I don't, Jeremiah, get into, I think one of the problems humans have is we want to try to be God. Does that make sense? And we're not. We're actually, what's that? There's a term anthromorphism,

anthromorphism, if I'm saying it right? Which is a Greek term that means that we were taught by the Greeks. They taught that we're over nature, over things. And actually, we're just a part of nature is what it is. And here lately, I think a lot of people's got that kind of throat in their face a little bit. We are. We could die out and the world's still going to go around.

So what I saw was definitely a living creature. Now, I don't know, and it was upright, very muscular. It was not an apparition. Let me tell you'll go through. Did I see an apparition? Did I see something time playing itself? You'll go through all these things in a true siding. It is amazing.

I had a young lady report of siding. It's not posted on BFRO yet. When I called her, it's been a year and a half ago, she started crying. and she couldn't even talk at work. She had to go outside her car. It was such an emotional experience for her to send this thing. We'll be back with more Bigfoot Society after these words from our sponsors. Plan B made over-the-counter emergency contraception legal more than 20 years ago.

It's a safe, effective backup birth control option that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is the number one OBGYN recommended brand, and the only one that you can find at all major retailers in all 50 U.S. states. There's no minimum age requirement and you don't need an ID to buy it. You can order it through DoorDash and other major delivery platforms too. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for a recess. Like this commercial break.

Did you need 15 seconds away from music? Or 15 seconds to eat a Reese's? Perhaps it's true. Everything happens for a recesses. And it is. It's just, but I do think it's a living, breathing form of a primate.

I've heard noises. I've heard them, and I've got documentation of them walking. And that was at Standing Stone in Tennessee, where Mary Green did a lot of research, if you know who Mary Green was. It was either that. You know, on a spectrograph, Jeremiah,

you can tell if it's bipedal by the lines, you know, you know and this was definitely bipedal i'm sitting in pitch dark it's walking and another researcher with a kentucky and bfro jack smar who's a great guy he likes to take a tom tom and i knew he's going to do that so i'd snuck off from the group i really believe to get a a perimeter area about 200 yards keep mind these things can hear probably really really good so they're coming close but not as close as you think until they feel more comfortable they just want to kind of figure out what's going on. So I'm trying to, you know, get out there and listen. And I heard this. And it was definitely, it steps over a log. You can hear it taking a longer step.

Oh, wow. I was beside myself because if I cut my light on and it's standing in the road, it was up above me on in the leaves, is how I could hear it. I would have just passed out, you know, because there's this thing. But it was either that or a person. And it's more creepy that it's a person that's walking around in a dark in the middle of nowhere. I mean, that's kind of weird. But I do think to answer your question, it's some form of a primate that I saw, particularly the movement that I saw run. It looked very ape-like. And I get to see guerrillas a lot, so I see how they move. It's moved more like a chimp would move kind of, but fast like that, you know, not lumbering like a grilla. It got gone. And I think it was a juvenile in the rock clack we heard was a warning that it got out to open because Lori saw it come down. Ridge and stopped and she was afraid to say anything. I forgot to mention that. She just thought

she was seeing things. And then when we talked about later, she said, I did see something move. I just thought it was I seen things. So I think it was a juvenile that got out in the open a little too much. That's what that rock clack was for. And when I broke the audio down, you can hear a little bit, I think I have four recordings now. And you have to really listen to them with headphones, but it's like a nervous tick. You'll hear a whine. kind of, you know, like a dog will do sometimes. Oh, wow, yeah, right. You kind of thing.

And you could hear that very faintly. And another time when we had a tree pushed over, and I walked up to an area, and I could hear something moving. I heard a little bit of a mumble. Now, not talking, but a just, you know, a noise and then a whine kind of thing. Now, of course, bears could make different sounds, too,

but they make more of a huffing sound. And then if you're, you know, sightings, if people see an upright bear to tell you, you know, their ears will be on top no clavicles, so when they stand up, they look like an egg. There's no shoulders. There's no shoulders at all in the bear. Yeah. They just don't have clavicles.

And so, and then you'll see ears on top of the head. That's telltale thines for people, you know, to see. There's lots of times people will see different angles so it looks different. You know, and misidentifications is a big thing in this, but keep minding on. only takes one credible thing, like Dr. Crant said, for it to be a real thing. And, um, exactly. And by the way, just a little shout out for Dr. Meldrum. I don't know if you heard, he had it.

It hasn't happened on the cruise. And I hope he's doing well. I hope he's doing good, too. We're kind of all waiting to, to hear the news about how that is. But yeah, that standing stone state park comes up more often than not on this show. It's weird, man. Like that area, there's. there's something going on because it comes up over and over on my show.

It is. Very interesting. Yeah. And a lot of it's due to Mary Green's great research. Sure. By the way, Matt knows new Mary. I don't know if you know that. And he can talk a lot about Mary, if he will.

I don't know if he'd want to do that. And he's saying because he's talking about his book. But he knows a lot about that. And she did some great research there and spent a lot of time. document and things. And again, if you ever go there, it's a small state park, but there is a lot of,

there's a national, there's a forest around it too, which is totally different. You know, it's not, you know, there's two different places namewise. So it's a bigger area in what most people think, and there is water there,

lakes and a lot of little tributaries. And it is, what I, my opinion, a great corridor, a good transition area where they kind of move through sometimes. You know, again, if these things, thing stay in one cove as big as they are, Jeremiah, you're going, after a while, you're going to see fine of them.

They would just mat everything down weed wise. It's just common sense, you know. So they're constantly probably moving in foraging, what's going on. But it's a great thing. And I encourage people out there if they've never been into an expedition or been out. I know you've been out sometimes, I think I've seen you've been out here recently. It's just a big thing to do. Yeah, I bet two times in Iowa.

Yeah. Oh, in Iowa. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'm from central Iowa, so that's where we go out. It's fun. It's fun. Yeah, I hope to maybe get your, my son's moved to Wisconsin now.

He's up near Waukesha. Oh, yeah. Les Paul's from. Okay. They are working now. He just flew back today, him and his girlfriend. But hopefully I get up here. I'm going to be up in Ohio working the Susan Fairchalks and Matt Moneymaker,

the drum thing there. Very nice. And then I got a private thing doing Ohio to in Kentucky. And I've been up to Ohio, spoke at B Mills. I don't know if you interviewed B. I haven't yet. But I know what you're my. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, she's very good. And her festival, I think the first year was last year. And I spoke there. We had 12,000 people at the festival. This year they had 42,000 people show up. That was Hawking Hills. right hocking hills yep holy then 42 000 i think 41 42 000 that's wild man

you know they did that from drone footage wow and be she does a great job of that but yeah she has some great audio by the way too and just some good track finds but uh yeah it's and like i said i was wrong about my first trip into this there's some great people in this i've met some who just off the charts uh great people and very knowledgeable and they do a lot of work in it. I think lots of times the research gets misinterpreted. And, you know, you got a lot of couch people out there that, you know, want to, you know, I encourage people to get out and experience things for yourself,

like a sunrise or, you know, go out in spirits, you know, a starlit night, you know, a moonlit night, go out in the woods and, you know, go with credible people, be safe with it. But it is a great experience. And then if you can get lucky and have something happen, And it's really unique, you know, but they are a real living thing. Absolutely. I know that for a fact, for sure.

I agree with you there. Jeff, it has been such a fascinating conversation. You're one of those guys. I feel like I could chat with forever, but I thank you for coming on. Thank you, Jeremy. A fun one. Is there a way that, you know, let's say someone was listening to this and they're like, oh, man, you mentioned this area.

I had something to have. happened in that area. Is there a way people can contact you or do you kind of just keep under the radar with this stuff? They can post stuff on a BFRO site. All right. But if you're not comfortable with that, they can send me an email at a Jeff Carpenter 16 at yahoo.com. Cool. And I check my email there. I prefer not giving out my phone number. I get more of my reports, Jeremiah, just by word of mouth people contact me. You know, hey, you're the bigfoot guy kind of thing. And I'm amazed at how many people, particularly professional people,

like a policeman, I've had park rangers. They won't talk about things until they're really retired. Oh, yeah. I've had some good reports from I could go on and on about different things. And hopefully in the future we can do another one. I'd like to talk to you about what I call the orange incident that happened at the bait station. It would take a whole episode talking about it. All right. Yeah.

Well, hey, it sounds good to me. I'll be in touch. But, yeah, they can contact me there. And I do encourage people. I do think a lot of people don't do reports because they feel like they would be labeled crazy, you know, kind of thing, or they just want to follow it away. Or sometimes maybe their memory is a repressed memory. I found in my... Plan B made over-the-counter emergency contraception legal more than 20 years ago.

It's a safe, effective backup birth control option that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is the number one OBGYN recommended brand and the only one that you can find at all major retailers in all 50 U.S. States. There's no minimum age requirement and you don't need an ID to buy it. You can order it through DoorDash and other major delivery platforms too. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for a reason. Like this commercial break, did you need 15 seconds away for music or 15 seconds to eat or Reese's? Perhaps it's true.

Everything happens for a Reese's. Talk, if people will talk about things, it's kind of like a girl I was talking about, young lady. After a while she said, Jeff, this has been therapeutic. I've kind of got this off my shoulders. I guess that's a lot. They kind of have post-traumatic stress disorder. Absolutely. Absolutely.

It's, you know, of course, Dr. John Barichick, if you know, know Dr. John, he's a psychologist. We talk a lot about that. I was at his first expedition and helped him out a lot. He's a great guy, but his specialty is post-traumatic stress disorder. So they do, after they talk about it, they feel so much better because it's such a weird thing to them that they saw. It's kind of like if you see Jesus walking down the road, he's just, wow, you know Jesus was a real thing, but it's just hard to imagine. It's a little different when you see them on the road, yeah.

Well, you know, I'm just saying, or Santa Claus or something. You're just like, wow, there's Santa Claus, you know. It's just a, but it is a real thing. And I have to emphasize a lot of people. It was very hard for me to come out publicly of the library here when we do a presentation. And I thought I'd have 30 people come. And I had 250 people show up. My goodness.

It was this year, it's 2019. years ago. I couldn't believe. Wow. And I had a lot of Cherokee people come and had some sightings. And, you know, some of them were kind of questionable signings. Other people would say, but some of them were very good. And I followed up. And then, of course, I had a park ranger show up. He wouldn't give me his name, but they had some things. And that led to a siding a couple years later that a lady had. And I was following the area. And she got a hold of them, you know, on the Blue Ridge Parkway. And it was right where these rangers, two years before that, it said, hey, you need to keep an eye on that place where it's a weird stuff happening.

Oh, wow. And mostly noises. And, yeah, again, that's probably, I hate giving out information when they don't approve me doing that. Oh, yeah, I totally get that. I want people to understand when I'm kind of, and I'm reluctant to talk about locations just because of purity and safety, if that makes sense. Yeah, purity for my research, because, again, I'm documenting a lot of stuff. I want to make sure I can, you know, not have 10. people doing bigfoot calls in an area that I'm trying to, you know, narrow something down,

you know, it's kind of hard. Luckily, we don't have many roads in Western Royal Carolina, so that helps a lot. So it's one way in, one way out, Jeremy. Yeah, there you go. Thank you again for the office. It's been a pleasure, and you do a great job and good luck with your podcast. I love your logo, by the way. Oh, thanks.

Yeah. Shout to Jonathan does for doing that for me. But, Jeff, thanks so much for coming on, sir. You have a good night. Please take a minute to help out the show by subscribing on YouTube, making sure you hit the bell so you don't miss any notifications, and share the episode on YouTube with a friend. Also, if you're listening to us on a podcast,

thank you so much. Make sure that you're subscribed, share the show with a friend. Really, it's all about sharing the show wherever you can. If you've had a Bigfoot encounter related to the following or know someone who has, please reach out to me at Bigfoot Society at gmail.com or pass on my email. Here's the list. If you've had any encounters in Oregon, which I'm sure there's probably a few of you out there,

please feel free to reach out immediately. You can use email Bigfoot Society at gmail.mil. A special thank you to all the Bigfoot Society Patreon and YouTube channel members. It's your support that helps keep the show going, and I extremely appreciate it. If you want to join in the fun, you can join over at patreon.com forward slash the Bigfoot Society. I'll see you there. And again, thanks for listening. Her and I can get on here.

We can tell our stories. Maybe there's somebody else out there listening that's too afraid to tell their story. Maybe this will give them the courage to come out. And now I feel so bad about it. Who cares what anybody thinks? I know what I saw. I know what's out there. That's all I care about.

Please let people know. Please let them know if you ever see one of these things. You need you tell. Because if you don't, then shame on you. You know? Shame on you. Plan B made over-the-counter emergency contraception legal more than 20 years ago. It's a safe, effective backup birth control option that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts

by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is the number one OBGYN recommended brand, and the only one that you can find at all major retailers in all 15 U.S. states. There's no minimum age requirement and you don't need an ID to buy it. You can order it through DoorDash and other major delivery platforms too. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for a recesses. Like this commercial break. Did you need 15 seconds away from music or 15 seconds to eat arreases?

Perhaps it's true. Everything happens for a reases. Plan B made over-the-counter emergency contraception. and legal more than 20 years ago. It's a safe, effective backup birth control option that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is the number one OBGYN recommended brand and the only one that you can find at all major retailers in all 50 U.S. states. There's no minimum age requirement and you don't need an ID to buy it.

You can order it through DoorDash and other major delivery platforms too. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. Hi, Diva. It's Rachel. And Jordan. Yeah, hi. Quick question.

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