Bigfoot Society - Unraveling the Freeman Bigfoot Files: A Deep Dive with Michael Freeman

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

Join us on the Bigfoot Society Podcast as we dive deep into the fascinating world of the elusive Sasquatch with our special guest, Michael Freeman, son of the legendary Bigfoot researcher Paul Freeman. In this captivating episode, Michael shares incredible insights, stories, and revelations from his father's life and research, as documented in the book "Freeman Bigfoot Files." Listen in as we explore the extraordinary evidence, controversies, and enduring legacy of one of the most significant figures in Bigfoot research history. In this episode, you will learn:The origins of Paul Freeman's interest in Bigfoot and his first encounter.The story behind the famous Freeman footage and its significance.The role of the Blue Mountains in Bigfoot research and the collaboration between researchers in the region.The controversies surrounding Paul Freeman's research, including accusations of hoaxes and how Michael has sought to clear his father's name.The importance of the Patterson-Gimlin film and its connection to the Freeman footage.How Michael has continued his father's legacy and the process of compiling the "Freeman Bigfoot Files" book.The role of technology in enhancing and analyzing Bigfoot evidence, including the limitations of the Freeman footage and the potential of AI.The lack of tree knocking and structures in Paul Freeman's research, and the implications for modern Bigfoot research.The significance of audio recordings in Bigfoot research and Paul Freeman's attempts to capture Sasquatch sounds.Michael's thoughts on the future of Bigfoot research and the importance of educating oneself to draw informed conclusions.Don't miss this rare opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the world of Bigfoot through the eyes of Michael Freeman, who grew up surrounded by the mysteries, discoveries, and controversies of his father's research. Subscribe to the Bigfoot Society Podcast and immerse yourself in the captivating stories and evidence that continue to shape our understanding of the enigmatic Sasquatch.If you want even more exclusive content, become a Patreon member and gain access to extra audio, a Patron-only Discord and much more over at https://www.patreon.com/thebigfootsocietyDo you have a personal Bigfoot encounter you would like to submit for me to share on the podcast? Please head over to www.bigfootsocietypodcast.com and fill out the "Share your Bigfoot Encounter" form. Use as much detail as you can and please specify if you would prefer to remain anonymous or what specific name you would like used with your encounter if it is chosen to be shared.Join our private Facebook group "Bigfoot Sasquatch Encounters" for a chance to connect with others who have had similar experiences. Follow the directions to ensure your entry is accepted.https://www.facebook.com/groups/5762233820540793/?ref=share_group_linkTune in to our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Qq45W6iaTU8FE9kelxT7Q) for new episodes of Bigfoot Society, and visit our website (www.bigfootsocietypodcast.com) for all the links mentioned above and more. Don't miss out on the Bigfoot action!Resources: Freeman Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZGH8J3RssIBooks: Freeman Bigfoot Files by Michael Freeman (affiliate link) https://amzn.to/3UWmOln Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science (affiliate link) https://amzn.to/3LkxY06Video:Sasquatch Archives: Paul Freeman on Good Morning America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gni92KbAlc Paul Freeman Home Video pt. 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPjDPCRPBeo Paul Freeman Home Video pt. 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My-ADWPOvG4 Paul Freeman presenting “Bigfoot in the Blue Mountains at the 1989 Sasquatch Evidence Symposium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtrbAu8yEAIMike Casey Deduct Spring video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwbCBxqSbsI——Affiliate links mean I earn a commission from qualifying purchases. This helps support my channel at no additional cost to you.—— MY GEAR ——My Audio Interface: https://amzn.to/3L1q8XYMy Podcast Mic: https://amzn.to/3AlYwb9My Computer: https://amzn.to/40CCjQy My Headphones: https://amzn.to/40A8gcrMy Webcam: https://amzn.to/3NqfddhThe best Bigfoot book: https://amzn.to/41x8IcNLose the weight along with me on Noom. Get 20% off your subscription with link below.(Consult your doctor first) https://noom.com/r/GdkaWNddL?1251Join Whatnot and pick up some sweet video games and vintage shirts. Use my link below and we both get $10 credit after you place your first order. https://whatnot.com/invite/bigfootsociety

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Valid through 527, while supplies last. Selection varies by location. See Lowe's.com for details. Visit your nearby Lowe's on West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. He started to get a little scared as you would, and by his account, the one that was there, at least the one, started to become somewhat aggressive and to make some aggressive vocalizations toward him.

And that's put him in a worried state of mind. I guess you would say my dad ended up crawling down into a hole under some tree roots where a tree had been fallen over and pulled out of the ground. Welcome back to the Bigfoot Society podcast. On this episode, we talked to Michael Freeman, the son of legendary Bigfoot researcher, Paul Freeman. What really happened that day in Dedux Springs when Paul took that famous video? Find out this and much more on this week's episode of the Bigfoot Society podcast. All right, BigFest Society.

I have the privilege of talking to Mr. Michael Freeman tonight. How's it going, Michael? It's going pretty well. I can't complain. How about yourself? Oh, it's great, man. It's a nice weekend out in Iowa. We're like 33 degrees.

So I'm hoping it gets back to summer soon. I think it's going to be like 60 coming up soon. But man, I'm just excited to talk to you. It's been a while coming, but I'm glad we got it all set up. But just a little intro about yourself in case people don't know. And most people probably know who you are. We mentioned that in the pre-chat. But of course, Michael Freeman is the son of Paul Freeman, who most people will know from the famous Freeman footage,

where you see the Bigfoot go across. screen. You may remember Paul says, oh, there he goes, is the famous line. But as I read through your book, the Freeman Bigfoot files, there's much more to what Paul was able to do for Bigfoot. And it's amazing. And I can't wait to talk to you about it. Is there anything else that the audience should know about you, Michael? I guess what surprises most people is that I'm a professional gymnastics coach and have been doing that for about 22 years. I'm married to an RN, a charge nurse. Her name is Whitney. I've got three boys. And yeah, I'm the son of a big foot legend, I guess. Some people would say. I would agree with you that definitely a big foot legend, especially after you dig into

this book. There's a lot more to this guy than just that few minute video. It's intense. But in your own words, Michael, how would you describe your father, Paul Freeman? Larger than life. That's my description for him. My first chapter in the book is entitled my very own Superman, and that's pretty much sums it up to what he was personally for me. He was a large man in stature, but also a large man in personality and in heart as well. He was very caring and very generous, and you will hear stories from people about his generosity, how he was ultimately to help people and give him things and take time to chat with him and

things like that. But yeah, larger than life to be the one little sentence I would use to describe him in both stature and in personality. A few other things I learned about him pretty quickly from that book is I didn't know how avid a hunter he was. He was going after all sorts of different wildlife. And to know that fact really plays into, and we'll talk about it later, just the story. about what happened before that famous Freeman footage video is such an interesting story. We'll talk about that later, though. The first thing I really like about the book is because I'm a guy who loves tech. Our culture is all into that. And the book has multiple QR codes where you're reading and it's, oh, let me scan that.

And it's literally your father recording about different things he experienced. parts of his life to do with Bigfoot. And it is fascinating. If you ever wanted to hear what I imagine to be the Paul Freeman podcast episode that never existed, just get this book and go through the QR codes. And a lot of people, I think, make fun of the whole, oh, there he goes. but when you take the time to read this book and you're going through the QR codes and you're listening to your dad talk and you're like that's just the way he talked dude it's not that he's like talking weird that's I'm a monotone guy so I get it and I'm like man people need to give this guy a break like he's just a salt of the earth guy who got into Bigfoot and he had some amazing experiences and it's all in the book and I just want to to say that to you. I learned a ton about your dad and it was very cool. So thank you for sharing that

with the world and with me by providing a copy of the book as well. I do want to ask you, what was it like growing up in an environment where it's Bigfoot all the time? It was tough to be honest with you. It was normal because I didn't know any better from the time I was five years old that was in my life. Bigfoot was normal. It was always there. And it wasn't one of those things that you question something that was. But as I started to get older, it became a little tougher because I started to get scrutinized a little bit by my peers and other adult. It's like school. And there was a time period there where my dad was a crazy guy in town.

Big foot nut. It doesn't get accepted in our social culture as it is today where it's an entertainment. straight himself back in the mid 80s and the early 90s. He was the crazy guy. And so I was always the son of that guy that was crazy in Walla. But at the same time, he was well liked by all my friends and my peers and everyone that we knew because of his personality. He just necessarily wasn't well liked or perceived in the media or by other people that were passing judgment or opinion. Also, Some people find it interesting to find out that the subject of Bigfoot wasn't the topic of discussion around our house. It wasn't what we talked about sitting around with dinner tape or hell on Saturday afternoons. Like it's something my mother didn't allow. We all knew it existed and we were all part of it. And my mom and dad had discussions about it behind closed doors and things like that.

But she didn't allow it to completely preoccupy our lives. And therefore, me and my mom and brother and my sister. didn't fall into that obsession. It's very interesting. From how you wrote in the book about your mother, it sounded like she was just an incredible lady that really stood behind your dad in multiple ways because there are many sacrifices that your parents had to make

to try to make this whole Bigfoot research adventure work. It was very intense, probably more than most people realize. And I think I wrote something about it in the book, but I often think about what life would have been like if we would have stayed in Camas, Washington, and ran that deli. And this Bigfoot obsession wouldn't have taken over and forced us to go back to Wallet. Those little things like that butterfly effect, life probably would have been completely different. I certainly wouldn't have been on here with you today.

Yeah, that's, it's crazy to think the little. choices we make in our life your choice to make a book about your father. My choice to just start a podcast four years ago led to us. Both choices led to us talking to each other tonight, which is really weird to think about. It's a little heavy. As you started to go out with your father in the field as you got older, do you remember any times that really stick out in your mind where it's like I was out with my dad and this happened and it was a little bit crazy. Yeah, the one time that really sticks with me is when my dad took me mushroom hunting and I was 12 and we were up on Green Peak and we had been going down this old trail looking for morels and it started to rain on us and the rain became a little heavier and

my dad decided at that time that we should probably double back and go back to us pick up. We could have our lunch or whatever and we could wait out the rain. And as we turned around and we started back up the trail, we maybe made about five minutes from where we were when my dad stopped dead in his tracks and pointed out to me that there was a footprint, a big foot print on the side of the trail. That was fresh. And when I say fresh, the trail we were walking on was getting wet. Our clothes were wet. I remember my shoes being muddy. That's one thing I do remember is worried about my shoes, 12-year-old worries.

And it was so fresh that this print had not yet begun to dampen with the rainfall. And I just remember my dad doing this to me and pointing at that. And he looked at it and he turned and he looked around the other side of the trail. And he looked behind us. And then he grabbed me by the arm. And we double-timed it about as fast as we could back to the pickup. Where we got in, it was an old scout international. And what I do remember about that is he rolled all the windows up.

And he started it, he turned the heater on, and he reached behind him. And he got that 350 Norma Magnum that he carried out of the back window. And he laid it across his lap. And I remember the fogging up. We were on the inside and he was rubbing the glass off in front. And him telling me basically to just relax, we know what's watching us. we may not have seen it, but it sees us for sure. We're just going to sit here a little bit.

And we sat there. I don't know how long it was, maybe 20 minutes, maybe an hour. I don't remember. What I remember is being scared, honestly, and I get goosebumps, like talking about that still today. And then we left, and he dropped me off at the house, and he went directly to West Summerlin's house. And he got him, and I think they called Bans Fortert or one of those guys, and they went back up there. But that's the closest I've ever been to one. And it was close.

And we didn't see it. But as I said in the book, I'm sure that it saw us. And it was close enough for me. I don't know if I want to be closer than that. Do you have any desire to go back out someday looking for Bigfoot yourself? I'm okay with where I'm at right now. But do you think about going back out. I would like to.

And the one place that I would like to go is I'd like to go back to D-Duct Spring, where my dad got the footage. I haven't been there in about 15 years, 16 years maybe now at this point. So I would like to go back there sometime and I get offers all the time. I probably had 40 people at least since I announced that we were going to come out with this book that I've offered to go and stay the night or stay the weekend or go on expedition or whatever and go to D-Duct Spring. Some of them just want to go and spend a night.

Some of them want to do a section and set up cameras and record stuff. And some of them want to do measurement. And so there's all these different agendas for that. But I think when I do go out, that's probably where I'm going to go. And on occasion, we have activity around where I live in Spokane. If something does happen here and I get word of it, I might drive out and check it out. I did.

I must have been, I think it's five or six years ago. We had some tracks out in the world. Wildlife Refuge, one winter. And I went out and took a look at those. They were a couple days old at the time. And I'm pretty positive. They were on moose tracks. But it's something that made the paper and somebody thought it was Bigfoot and this and that.

But I will do stuff like that. But I'm not a hardcore boots on the ground, spend every weekend out in the mountains, the type of researcher. I don't have the resources to do it. I have too much going on at home. I've got three kids and a wife. And the one thing I did learn. from my dad and everyone should take note of that and from Renee to Hendon as well is that there's a slight little curse that comes along with this and it will pull you in if you're

not careful and it's easy to get obsessed and I'm not going to let that happen. I think that's very wise of you, Michael, because I've heard many times on my show, many different people have mentioned the curse and the curse is referred to as different things. Henry Franzoni talks about it going too far down the road to Seattle. But yeah, it sucks you in. And unfortunately, it can lead to things that you might not want to happen with your life. So balance is definitely recommended. And that's the lesson for today for listeners.

If you've never heard people talk about it, here's your introduction. And when I first said I was going to write this book and I was spending a lot of time and I was doing a lot of research and all this. it's one of the things Cliff Bergman warned me of. He said, make sure you're taking time and spinning it with your family. And you're not just obsessing over Bigfoot and Bigfoot related topics. So I do have him to think for reminding me every once in a while to take time for the other things and to not think about Bigfoot for a while. It's hard. And I can't say that I wouldn't let it happen, honestly.

If I was out there, if I went back to Deduct or I went out with someone about myself and if I saw, one, if I had an encounter, I can't say that I wouldn't get obsessed with trying to prove that it was real in trying to get evidence and get something. Like, I can totally understand what happened to my dad and what happens to a lot of other people. Like, I can see it happening. But thankfully, or maybe not thankfully, I've never seen one. And most likely, I probably never will, to be honest with you. So. Do you think there's still an activity in the D-Duct Springs area? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. As a matter of fact, in 2008, which really isn't that long ago, Brandon Tenant from Pocatello, Idaho had an encounter at D-Duct and also found 17-18-inch footprints that I've seen photographs of.

Also, with that last summer, last August. Mike Casey from Richland, Washington here close to me, found some tracks at Deduct as well. We're not entirely certain what they are, we're pretty certain what they're not. And there's a possibility that they certainly could be Sasquatch tracks. Also, Jonathan Summerlin, who's the grandson of West Summerlin and one of the contributors to my book, he's there in Wala, and they still have activity there. He just doesn't publicize it as much as some of the old timers from that area publicized it and let it get out in the newspapers.

And it's like that to draw attention to it. Hi, Diva. It's Rachel. And Jordan, yeah, hi. Quick question. Why are you not spending your Venmo balance? Yeah, we're concerned. You can, like, buy stuff with it.

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Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. It said everything happens for a reason, but maybe everything happens for a recess. Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to heighten taste? Hmm. That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a reason.

There's a lot of activity still goes on in the mountains. Most people to say that all the Bigfoot left when my dad left, that is dead wrong. There's a lot of activities that goes on there still. Absolutely. I like to consider Mike Casey a good friend. We've talked for many a time about his adventures out in that area. And man, he's, he really gets into it. And now he's all over the country getting into it.

So we'll leave that at that. that, but I'll have Mike's YouTube channel linked in the resources. It's going to be a lot of resources for this episode. Mike has a few about Dduck Springs, so you want to definitely check that listeners. Mike's a good dude. Mike and I got connected, actually a mutual acquaintance of Mike and I's suggested to him when he moved to that area that maybe he given contact with me because I might have some advice on some areas to go and investigate.

And Mike sent me a message and was very polite and respectful. and asked me if I had any advice. And if you've read my book, first and foremost, I don't hide that stuff. I let locations be known, and I let, you know, the evidence to be known and all that stuff because I want people to find evidence. And so I gave him some advice on where he might go.

And he did a few videos, and we chatted some more, and we actually ended up becoming pretty good friends. So, yeah, he's a super solid guy. I actually introduced Mike to Dar Addington, who was one of the contributors in my book. and trusted him enough to take her camping in overnight and stuff like that. And he's actually learned a lot from Dar as well. And they've forged a friendship, which is good for her.

Because she's really excited that she's able to get back out there and do some big footing and some things like that. So I know she's having a good time. It's a win-win. Another fun thing from the book is I loved how it talked about how it wasn't just your dad in that area. There was a whole bigfoot team of researchers. But you just mentioned Dar Addington and others. And it was just so interesting to see how he was constantly checking in with the Summerlands with Dar. And they would go out looking for stuff.

And it is just very cool. The resources in that book, I really have to say hats off to you. There's so many photos. There's all of your dad's map with annotations about, okay, this means this is this. We don't know what this means. So you're going to have to figure this out. And it's just so cool. It's well worth it.

Something I wanted to chat about is so you also have a brother, Dwayne, who is 11 years older than you. Being 11 years older than you, he was maybe involved in a different way because he was older. Were there some interesting situations that happened when he would go out with your father in the field? Yeah, Dwayne is almost 12 years older than me. And when my dad had his first encounter in 82, when he was working for the Forest Service, Dwayne was 16, almost 17 years old. And I was five. And Dwayne was already an accomplished hunter and almost an adult, things like that.

So he was a little more involved in the actual going out and going on, or whatever you want to call it, and looking for Bigfoot. But one of the best pieces of evidence, visually speaking, at least, that we have are the photographs from outside of the watershed from October 5th, 1988. And my brother actually took those photos. He was deer hunting

with my dad at the time and my dad was carrying a camera and rented video camera at that point in time. He would rent every time you would go out or go hunting and things like that, which my dad was holding and my brother happened to have the actual just photographing

is what he was holding that day. But yeah, my brother got those, which are very important and they're always credited to my dad. The copyright is still in my dad's name and that sort of thing. But I always like to let everybody know that my brother's actually responsible for taking those pictures. With that being said, interesting story from that day and that happening is after my brother snapped a couple of snapshots, two or three, he actually got up and ran towards my dad. It was about 150, 200 yards away, depending on the estimate. I think that's what my dad says about 200 yards probably. And it changed the trajectory that the Sasquatch was walking.

Because originally, from what I've heard, the information we have is that it was walking directly towards my dad. And when my brother got up to run towards him, he startled it, and it changed its trajectory and went in a different direction. And so my dad has always said, damn, Dwayne, if you just stayed there, it would have walked out 20 feet in front of where I was sitting, which means either A, we could have gotten maybe better pictures or B, there's a dead center shot because that was still the point in time or my dad was dead set pretty much on shooting one of them. And so just my brother getting up and getting scared and getting anxious to run towards my dad and yell and tell him what he just saw changed the course of what could

have been future events as well. And this may be my, yeah, I'm still relatively new to the Bigfoot field within five years. And I read the book and I was like, wait, there's pictures from another event that his son took. And I looked at these. And I was like, oh, my goodness, these are amazing. Like, why are the Dwayne Freeman photos not talked about more? These are some of the best Bigfoot photos I've seen. It's nuts, Michael.

I don't know why they're not talked about more, to be honest. They are super good pictures, actually. And if you look close enough on what I call the main picture, which is the one where it's walking away and its head slightly drew to the side, you can actually see its ear. And you can see that its face is like a slightly lighter color. But you can see the outline of what looks to be in ear. You can see that it's extremely broad-shouldered. You can see that it has extremely long arms. They're fantastic photos, actually.

There's also, there was some study done in the early 90s to mid-90s. to mid-90s or whatever, or someone had thought they could make out some of the muscles in the bodocks and some anatomical features like that. But they don't get a whole lot of credit. They were in the local newspaper, I believe, on October 9th. And I included that article, the book. And there was a book that was put out, I believe, in England sometime in the early 2000s that featured those photos in there at some point.

But aside from that, you don't ever see them. And they are as far as still photographs. go, not moving video, they've got to be one of the top sets of pictures that's out there. They should be referred to as one at the top. I've still blown away by it. Is Dwayne still involved with Bigfoot as currently anymore? He's not really involved with it. No, that's one way to put it. My brother is different than I am. We have different personality types. He also experienced different things than I did. And my brother being older and being a in high school at the time when it all started, being 16, almost 17, he took a little bit

more of the ridicule and the criticism that went on in Milton Freewater, Oregon when my dad was working for the Forest Service and that whole circus that went down there. There's a lot to that. And I didn't even touch on everything in the book, but there was a court injunction that was filed. And there was all kinds of things that happened surrounding that. My dad eventually leaving the Forest Service and we were getting crank phone calls. People were calling my dad crazy. They were teasing my brother. Our house got vandalized.

Somebody spray-painted crazy on our house. I think there was a broken window at one point in time. And this all kind of led to us moving away from there. And I think my mom was tired of this kind of stuff, basically, which is why we left. But Dwayne went through that. And Dwayne also went through everything else in the D-Duct video and all that stuff. And there just came a point in time where he told my dad and something my dad talks about in his audio recordings in the book. I just don't want to do this anymore.

I'm tired of talking to people. I'm tired of talking to reporters. I'm tired of answering questions. And I think he was tired of being Paul Freeman's son, to be honest with you. And he never got credit for the photos he took. And so one thing he really did legitimately add to the research like he didn't get credited for. And at this point in time, now, Dwayne doesn't even really talk to me about Bigfoot. It's something he doesn't talk about a lot.

I think he would just like to forget about it. And when we do get together, he might answer a question for me in the shortest way possible. He's private. And I think I said directly in the book, like, we all have our own personal feelings about Bigfoot in the Bigfoot community and in certain people in that community. My brother was also there and present and older than me to see things like Renee DeHendon completely belittle my father and cuss at him in Pullman, Washington. in 1989 and those kind of things. And it struck a chord. And I was there in Pullman in

1989 when that happened. I was at the hotel swimming with my sister. We didn't actually go inside to see that conference. But Duane was there. And so we have a different outlook on it. And I did ask my brother if he wanted to be involved in the book. And if he wanted to write chapter and he could write about anything he wanted to. And if he didn't feel like writing it, then he could record it or whatever. And I would type it out and transcribe it or do whatever he wanted to. And to put it in context, to be honest with you, I was writing the book and this conversation took place when my brother was up here because my sister had been killed last summer in a motorcycle accident. And so there was some emotions going around with that as well. That's why he was up here and

he was staying in my house and all this stuff. But he said he'd think about it and he went home. And I think is about two weeks later. He gave me a phone call and he said, you know what, Mikey, I don't really want to do this. Don't hold it against me, but I'm not interested. And as I did state in the book, like I did my best to try to include how important he was to the research. But he chose not to be a part of it and he chooses not to be a part of it pretty much in any way. That's his right. To totally respect him for that. That whole, you mentioned the 89 conference, that is so fresh. in my mind because I just watched the video on that literally an hour before the recording of this

and my heart breaks that your brother was present for that just absolute disregard for I'm just going to say that it's not okay for a person to treat another person like that and I'm sorry you guys had to go through that and there's other instances of that in that particular individual and things they said about other people and one things and I have my own feelings and I also, one of the things I made clear for the book was that I was not going to speak ill of anyone. I won't do it. And I have opportunities to do. But one of the reasons I chose not to is because my dad did not do that.

You won't find anything that's written or recorded or taped or said about my dad ever saying anything negative about that. Which is pretty astonishing in itself that he was able to let that roll off his shoulders and take the higher ground and not stooped that level and not fire back. absolutely talking about people like Renee DeHinden so growing up in that that Bigfoot research culture and you started to get involved I believe in the book it said around like age 10 or 11 do you remember meeting these people like DeHindon green titmiss crants burn people like that are there any of that stick out in your mind oh yeah absolutely I met all of them Wow. Renee DeHendon really sticks out in my, from the beginning in 1982.

And he used to come, most people don't realize this, he used to come and spend the night at our home. And he would sleep on the pull-out sofa in our living room. And then him and my dad would get up early in the morning and they would go up to the mountains. And they would ride these little trail bikes together. Renee used to like to ride those. I got some pictures of them. I actually have family photographs that weren't included in the book. They're just family photographs from the family album.

have Renee DeHendon and him. Him and my dad would challenge each other to do these crazy stupid things on these trail bikes and right off this hill or through this pile of mud or whatever. But he was around a lot. I remember that. I remember he used to give me candy, these butterscotch candies that he used to eat. People don't realize him and my dad were big kind of buddies like for a while. Just one of those things. But Crance as well, Krantz is the other one that I really remember. And so I remember being, I've been in Krantz's lab at WSU. He was at the house a lot.

I remember looking at all the things in his lab. And I remember as a kid being fascinated with a cat skeleton of all things that he had on one of the lab tables and stuff like that. And just the kind of a cloud of smoke that was always encircling Grover Kranz because he was this two or three pack a day chain smoker. And so he kind of looked like pig pin from peanuts with the dirt around him. But it was like cigarette smoke. But he was always really nice. and I have really fond memories of Peter on Kranz. But yeah, I've also met Bob Tedness and I've met John Green as well and some other people along the way.

And a lot of memories of those people, yeah, for sure. Oh, Peter Byrne, that's the other one. I met Peter Byrne in 1987. Yeah. Thinking of all the different pieces of evidence that your father was able to gather over the years, was there a, did you have a favorite piece of evidence? from all those different things that he found regarding Bigfoot. Hi, Diva. It's Rachel.

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Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. It said everything happens for a reason, but maybe everything happens for a recess. Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to height and taste? Hmm.

That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a recess. Oh. Man, that's a tough question. My favorite piece of evidence. Just personally speaking, I think my favorite piece of evidence is the 1980 print. That's my favorites. And that's the cat that has the big rock that stepped on the rock and force that forward and down into the ground.

It's about an 18 inch cast, 18 inches long, 9 inches wide. Cliff Bergman talks about it pretty extensively in the chapter he wrote for my book. I think it's my favorite piece of evidence because I think it's the coolest cast anyone's ever taken. And yeah, just personally. I am rather taken back, though, with anything that has to do with wrinklefoot and that particular individual. And I'm not quite sure why she has just always seem to be my favorite of the individual Sasquatch that we're around in that location during that time period. And I just like the name. I like the fact that Krantz named her that because she had these odd looking textures to the bottom of her feet that reminded him of these wrinkles

and how her toes have this extra splay to them. And her feet, her cast at least, prints look slightly different in what you would normally think that you would see from these, but It's transformized that they might actually be more accurate to what Sasquatch foot actually looks like than a lot of the casts that we're getting. But she's always been intriguing to me. And the 1988 rock footprint at this point, we're pretty sure that it is wrinklefoot and it's 18 inches long because the foot slid when it made contact with the rock. And it turned what normally would be about a 14 inch print into an 18 inch print and

over exaggerated a toast blade. And so you get this big, massive. looking cast that looks like this giant alpha male. And in reality, it's this little old lady who may or may not have had some injury to her foot. And that's something that Cranston talked about as well. And I believe it was Chillicut. If I'm pronouncing the name correctly, you found scarring like on the feet, like pretty deep scars that had healed and they had healed inward as cuts would. And so it surmised that at some point in time, there could have been a somewhat of significant injury that had taken place to at least one of her feet.

Let's, yeah, there's those. As far as, aside from just my favorite, but as far as importance goes, I think that the dermal prints from June 16th, 19802 at Elk Wallow are probably the most important evidence that he ever found, even more so than the D-Ded up spring video. And I say all the time that I like pictures and I like Phil and I like the Patterson film. Don't get me wrong. I like my dad's film. I like my brother's photos. But I think footprint casts are much more important in the scope of. proving the existence of the photo. And I think that we can learn more from them than what's tangible physical evidence that you can hold in your hand and you can make comparisons to and with the dramatic glyphics and the scarring and water striation

lines and skin pores. And you can see the mid-tarsal break and the dorsiflection and all these anatomical features that come along with the footprint gas. I think they're really important. And those dormant prints from 82 certainly are some of the most important tracks that

ever found and the originals of those the left and right dermals are still in the Smithsonian. They've got them somewhere or overran from there. Wow. There's a story that's, or sorry, I should say account, it's an account that's called out in another book about your dad that I don't believe was called out in Freeman Bigfoot files. And I'm really curious if you have any thoughts or on it. It's May, May 1993 in Dry Creek, the casting of the buttocks of a big foot. I got to hear your thoughts about this, dude.

It's wild. Sorry, this is called out in Sasquatch Legend Beat Science by Dr. Jeff Meldrum. Yes. Yeah, Dr. Meldrum, it is in his book, the Dariere or the Asquatch is how I refer to it from time to time. But yeah, there's people on both sides of the fifths on that one. Dr. Beldrum can break it down for you and how it has all these anatomical features and it has these biological feminine features.

I guess that's the most modest way. Yeah, that's a modest way to put it. Good call. Yeah. And point that out. And there's other people on the other side that think that could have been an elk that had backed up against this mud bank and sat down. The funny thing is with, that's actually one of the.

the pieces of my dad's evidence that I'm the least familiar with, to be honest. I don't have a personal copy of that cast, so it's not something that I have personally studied extensively. So I haven't really formed a strong opinion on it. But when it comes to the matters of evidence and anatomical features that are present in that evidence, I tend to trust people that have spent their entire lives getting doctorates in that field. And when Jeff Meldrum points things out to me and says, this is what this is and this is what this is, I have a tendency to believe the things that he's telling me. And I don't have a problem with that.

There's a skukum cast as well. My dad's isn't the only one that has shown this type of behavior. And for people that think that it's odd or it's funny or whatever, they can't stand. hand up their whole lives. They've got to sit down at some point. Yeah. We've got to lay down at some point. We've had instances in the past of handprints and knee prints next to pawns and creek banks and things like that. They've got to sit down. They've got to lay down. They're going to deal down to rest. They're going to do all these things that we do as well. So I don't think it's out of the ordinary. People just like to point out and laugh. I think it's something to take seriously,

actually. And when I was down at, when I was down at the North American Bigfoot Center last August, and I was pregnant and Larry Lund was there when Larry Lund is a skeptic here and there and whatever, and I got to meet him, he's actually interested in that. He thinks it's pretty interesting. I don't know what that tells you, but. Speaking of the NABC, which is a great place and everyone should support them, that's Cliff Berwickman's Museum in Boring, Oregon. Are there a lot of your dad's, artifacts in that museum, I would imagine there's a few.

Yeah, I would surmise close to 50% of the evidence that's on display is from the Blue Mountains. Not entirely all my dad's. There is a lot of evidence from my dad. The 82 dermals are there. The thumbprint from the dermals, the knuckles is there. My dad's 94 Biscuit Ridge handprint. the 86 handprint, the 88 rock foot, the 84 wrinkle foots are there, 91 Mill Creek Road has its own display.

The juvenile prints from 1992 at Gifford Peak are on display there, the butt print from 93. There's a ton of evidence from my dad in the Blue Mountains there, which I think is funny because I have encountered at least on one occasion, someone who is not a fan, per se, of my father and his research, go into the ABC and make public comments that the information and the evidence on display is so good that it will turn any non-believer into someone who seriously considers this, not realizing at the time what they were even looking at, And that probably 50% of it or close to it is my dads are from the Blue Mountains, which, yeah, I guess that's all I have to say about that.

It's really funny. I say all the time, I wish people would judge Bigfoot evidence, not just Bigfoot, but all cryptid, paranormal, whatever. I wish they would judge by the evidence and take a look at the evidence for yourself and educate yourself with the evidence, make yourself familiar with it, read about it, get all the education you can on each particular piece of, evidence and then draw a conclusion from there and stop listening to something Renated Hinden said in 1989 or whatever. But let's actually take a look at the evidence because, like I said, we have instances of people who didn't know that this cast or whatever was from Paul Freeman, and they think it's fantastic. But then you ask them about Paul Freeman and they will tell you a bunch of discouraging negative things about him. It's because they're not familiar with the

evidence whatsoever. They're just listening to rumors and hearsay. And one of my tag lines that I was throwing around for a while there and I was making it really prominent was this business of Bigfoot is the business of evidence. That's it, period. And if you're not bringing evidence, you're not bringing anything. We don't listen to rumors and hearsay. We want the evidence. Bring me something that I can look at and I can draw my own conclusion from and something

that somebody who's grumpy or jealous or whatever may have said or said to somebody else that said to somebody else. I don't care about that. I don't care about any of it. So it is number one for sure. I am a guy who, if I'm reading a book and there's pictures of people and I don't know a person, I'll try to look up the person. There was a person that I couldn't find anywhere.

I'm curious if you know who this guy is. It's in your book. Who's Ted Butters? I don't know that. Ted Butters. Ted Butters is the gentleman on the cover. Yeah. My book, Dad, and Bob Titmus, and the picture that's also featured inside the book as well.

I don't know, to be honest with you, or became Ted Butters or how he's doing or even if he's still around or anything like that. But he was a protege, excuse me, a protege, so to speak, Bob Titmus at the time. And certainly when that was taken, that was June 26th, I believe, 1982, probably had no idea of the level of giant. in the field that he was next to when they took that photograph. But yeah, he was a, I get J or an understudy or someone that was hanging around with Tickness at the time. But we chose that photo as the book cover because it's cool. I'm going to be on to you. That's why we, that's why we chose that picture.

We chose that picture because all three of those guys look like maybe there had James Dean lived and not died in that car wreck. Maybe they represent James Dean at different periods of his life. And they all just look like they're badass. excuse my language there. And when I see that photograph, I want to be there with those guys. I want to hang out with those three guys. And that's honestly, that's why he chose that picture. Thank you for answering about Ted Butters.

That picture is awesome. So the search for Ted Butters starts right now. So listeners, if Ted Butters is still around, or if you're Ted Butters, just reach out to me at Bigfoot Society at gmail.com. Let me know if Mr. Butters is not with us either. and that would be unfortunate. But he just seems, I'm like, this guy is so young. He is so young in his photos. He has to still.

He's such a young-looking guy. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see. The other person that's in my book, and there's photographs of him in there as well, that if we're going to start a public service announcement for missing persons, is Greg May. And Greg May was the wilderness survival instructor

at Washington State University. And a proje of Crances, and I know it has to be a fact that he is not deceased because Washington State University publishes the deaths of their alumni. And he's not listed as a former professor of that because I did look it up that's deceased. But he was an integral part for a while of some of that. Richard wrote some field reports and did a lot of tracking with my dad. And I would love to get a hold of that guy. So if anyone knows where Greg May is, yeah, reach out to Jeremiah or myself as well. I have a feeling.

He got wrapped up in his job and his wilderness survival training and all that and probably went off the grid somewhere. But I don't know. We're going to pull him back in. I've tried to find him. We're going to pull them back in. Bigfoot Society, you need to find Ted Butters and Greg May. And you need to let me know so I can let Michael Freeman know. We're going to find these guys.

And then I'm going to interview him. Wink, if they're up for it. It's awesome. Yeah. This community is as they. have a lot of knowledge, so we'll see what happens. In the book, you mentioned that your father at some point thinks he found some nest sites. Is that anything that you remember or being involved with finding those or anything of that nature?

I was not there for finding the nest sites. That was in the early 90s, 92, 93, right around there. I'm involved in that. I do remember, though, a story from him of, trying him in Vance Orchard actually trying to preserve these nest sites and move them away from where they were to bring them home to our house to put them with the other evidence and like begging some of it up on I think they tried to put them on like big pieces of cardboard and then put that board and batch bags from each end or something like that and as the story goes

they were driving home and it was cold and my dad turned the heater on in his truck. And as it got warmer and warmer in the car, both of them started smelling this foul, awful stench as things were warming up and come to this over here rolling the window down accusing my dad of smelling and my dad's rolling the window down accusing fans of smelling or whatever. And coming to find out it was their clothes and hands and stuff from handling the SNS site. that's also one of the things, because there's a couple things, but that's one of the things that my mother would not allow in the house was remnants of this nest site.

The other was what my dad had thought at the time, maybe scat from a Sasquatch that, so if you read the towel, interview in my book, you can hear that funny story that my dad had wanted to dry in the oven or whatever. And my mother had told that he did that, he better not come home ever again.

Something like that. Yeah. She did keep check on him. But yeah, there were some Nests found. I believe there's a picture in my book of my dad checking out the Ness site. And I say I believe you think that I would know every picture that's in there because there's 180 photographs that were used in the book. But to be honest with you at one point in time, I really had 500 photos laid out on a big table.

And I was trying to decide which 100 of them I was going to put in the book. And actually ended up with 180 of them. Sometimes I'm like, wait, did I say? stick that in the book and then I want to look and check to make sure it was in there. But I'm pretty sure there's a picture of my dad who's bent over next to what we at least think are one of these nesting sites. And there's a few nesting sites or beds. I believe he called them beds that are documented on the map. Hey, I just Venmoed you for rent. Nice. Now I can instantly spend it whether I'm checking out online with Venmo or using a Venmo debit card. Say more. More exactly.

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Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. They say everything happens for reason, but I suspect everything happens for Reese's. 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.

Yeah, yep, I believe you're right. It's just, it's fascinating. You think of your dad had dealings with that. You've got the Olympic project with their nests. And even there's, I believe it was an interview with Emily Flur from the Forest Flur when she's talking to Peter Byrne. And he was talking about finding nesting sites. of some area way back in the day. So it's just, it's an interesting Bigfoot thing that comes up every once in a while.

And we'll see what comes. Yeah. As we touched on earlier, they have to sleep somewhere. They're not going to, you just lay out on the road. And all great apes, you don't make nests and build nests. And I think there's two different sides of people feel different about it. But at least in my dad's opinion, they weren't living in caves. He had come to that conclusion.

There's a lot of caves in the, the Winaha Two Cannon Wilderness, which is part of the Blue Mountains there, he had been in a lot of those cave systems and had not found sign of them ever. And he had surmised that they weren't living in caves. They probably wouldn't live in caves. They would never inhabit a cave that didn't have more than one opening to it where they could get out. And my dad's kind of feeling on it was that they would probably only seek shelter in a cave in an emergency, see some kind of increment severe weather or something like that, but they did prefer to live

out in the more open where they could see and hear everything and that they were building nests and that they probably moved frequently so they weren't nesting in the same place for very long. So that's just his thoughts on that. But I tend to agree with the cave hypothesis there, at least of his. It's very interesting. in the book, there are a few times where things are called out in the audio clips from your father that are not necessarily called out in the book itself in the writing, which is really interesting because they're almost like little hidden Easter eggs. And there's one of them where I wanted to ask you, he refers to there is a point where or a time where your father actually had a big foot in the crosshairs. but it's gloss.

Do you have any information, more information about that time where there was, he says he had a big foot in the crosshairs and I believe it was a view of the creature, but he couldn't pull the trigger. Yeah, that's when my brother took the photographs, October 5th, 1988. Oh, okay. Yeah, after my brother had taken those and ran off towards my dad and it had changed its trajectory instead of walking out right in front of him. And I don't know. All I have as far as information goes on that is just the story that I've

heard about that, which is my dad did have the crosshairs on its back. He said he had a center shot. And as he was watching it, it turned its heading and looked back at them, at which point he couldn't pull the trigger because it was too human. And that's actually a catalyst for him deciding that he didn't want to kill one. And moving forward from that, eventually by the time that he died at the end of his life, just wanting them to be completely left alone. There is another reference possibly earlier, 83, 84 maybe in the Winnihaw wilderness, of catching a glimpse of one and trying to get the crosshairs on it.

but it just being too elusive and too quick to ever sit still long enough to be able to possibly take a shot. But those are the two instances that I know of where there was at least an opportunity to do that. One thing I do know, though, that always made my father nervous was he knew, suspected knew, that they weren't traveling alone and that you hardly ever were encountering one of them. We have a bunch of instances in my book as well in one of the sections of all the times that we have documented cases of them being together in small groups. But he was always worried a little bit that if he did shoot one, that he may not make it home, but that type of thing. And that you'd be putting yourself in danger and whoever was with you in danger as well. That's also sitting on your shoulder whispering in your ear as you're trying to get a shot.

You're trying to look at one. I believe it's Grover Kranz, even said it's not the one you shoot that you have to worry about. the best thing you can do is reload. You know, so. You have to worry about. Yeah. Or it's mother or it's made or whatever.

But yeah, there's, he definitely was dead set. He was, I'm killing one. And in his mind, that was the only way that he was going to prove to the world

that he wasn't crazy and this thing existed. Krantz was behind him at the time, a thousand percent. And wanted him to shoot one as well. And at one point in, time, everybody knows who Tom Slick is. At one point in time, Slick had offered my father a million dollars if he would kill one and get him the body. Wow. Interesting. That is a really

interesting case of information. That never happened. But yeah, I have some information that leads me to believe as well that Grover Krantz had been in content. with the Smithsonian Institution and had claimed to the Smithsonian that he and my father could deliver to them irrefutable evidence of the existence of

Sasquatch if they'd be willing to pay the sum of $1 million. Now, I'm not sure what Grover was talking about with irrefutable evidence, but I can only believe that it would have to be a body because the Smithsonian ended up with the dermal prince. He couldn't have been talking about that.

Dude, that's intense, man. Michael's got the receipts or something. That's awesome. Michael's got the receipts for something. Yeah. Yeah. Let's backtrack on that. Just talking about that conversation,

Grover had told my father, basically, you don't kill one. If you kill one, you don't kill one, and then go to the news and exclaim that you've killed one because he told my dad what's going to happen is some people are going to show. up at your door and they're going to take the body away from you and they're going to discredit you to the point where no one's going to believe you. So Grover gave my dad the advice that the first

thing you do is you find a buyer and you kill one and you sell it privately. And then when they come to your door to discredit you and make you look like a lunatic, you still have a million dollars. And that's the advice that Grover had given to my dad, which makes perfect sense. Like, you can be the crazy millionaire or you can be the crazy person and has nothing. That's awesome, man. Oh, man. Your dad is a smart guy, too. Like, in the book, it talks about how he had plans.

Like, if he got one, obviously it's going to be so big. You can't drag the whole thing out. So he's like, do I take a hand? Do I take the head? And it's very similar to the Artemis protocol that the NAWAC has, which is public knowledge in the wide open research episode, with Daryl Collier, if listeners want to go check that out, that's a fantastic episode from Dr. Russ Jones,

but their thinking is very similar to what your dad was thinking, okay, I'm not going to be able to drag this out. I'm going to have to maybe just take a hand or something, but crazy stuff, crazy stuff. Take what you can. You take a head. Yeah, exactly. You take a foot.

Yeah, no doubt. I would love to spend some time talking about the actual Freeman footage that most people are going to be. familiar with. Would you be able to walk us through what happened to your father that day that he was able to film the Sasquatch at Dedock Springs? Oh yeah, absolutely. It was more than a day, honestly. It had been leading up to that day for quite some time. The week leading up to him getting the footage, he had actually been at deduct every single day. And he'd been up there for hours. And he was getting off work because he was working at night job. And he was going at about 4 a.m.

and he was getting up there about 6 a.m. And he knew they were going to be there. That's no secret. At this point in time, we had years and years of map data, like telling him that they were going to be there. And what time of year they were going to be there. And they were going to find evidence. And he had been going there.

It was a hot summer that year. It was dry. A lot of good water sources. And he expected that he was going to find him there. But he wasn't having a whole lot of luck. To be honest, maybe some disturbances. things like that. He was noticing, but nothing groundbreaking. Now, the big moment, honestly, came the night before when he got a phone call for my sister.

And her car had broken down and it wasn't starting. And she had asked my dad if he would come over and fix it for in the morning. And of course, he said yes. And so that morning, instead of getting up and going to D-Duct, he went to my sister's house and fixed her car. and then he went and got a cup of coffee, and he was going to come home. And about halfway home as it goes, he decided, what the hell? My mom was at work. She had a job at that point of time, and I was hanging out with some friends,

and he didn't have anything else to do. And if you listen to any of his audio, the one thing you'll pick up on is there's no place else. He would rather be anyway. And that's the only place he wanted to be was the mountains. And so he decided just to go up there and take a look around because he was thinking, hey, maybe I'm going to find some evidence, maybe you know, this or that. You never know.

Hell, I'll just kill some time. It'll be a good day or whatever. But by all estimations, he ends up getting up there three to four hours later than he normally was getting there. So we think sometime after 10 a.m. And normally he was getting there around six. And so I say he walked right up on one. And it's always led me to believe in him as well that they were there every day that he was there and they were watching him. And when he was leaving, then they were coming to the pond and

they were getting water or they were doing whatever it is that that they were doing after he was gone. And they were somewhat used to him, but still not enough to want to hang out and socialize. Say, hey, Paul, that type of thing. I firmly believe that we're watching him and they were waiting for him to leave. And he had it in his mind that they were coming before him and that they were leaving and that he was missing them. And it was actually the exact opposite. So what ends up happening, happenstance, because my sister's car breaks down,

and he's got to go spend a couple hours to fix that. And he's late getting up to his normal spot. He's not there at his normal time. Since he's not there that day, I guess you could say they made a mistake. That's usually the way that I phrase it. But it's just one of those things. He was able to walk right up on one due to him not being present

when he normally was and when they were used to him being there. The thing that gets me about your father's encounter that comes out in the book, people will watch this video. So if you've seen the video hundreds of times, probably if you're into Bigfoot, you've seen the Freeman footage over and over. But what you didn't know is what happens after it. And for a while there,

stuff gets really touch and go for your dad. And like when I read that part in the book, I was, I had this step away for a minute. I was like, this is really intense. He almost, man, is that something you feel comfortable sharing? What happened after that sighting to your dad? It's intense, Michael. Yeah, absolutely. No, mistakes were made.

And we know that the individual Sasquatch and that footage made a mistake that day. My dad made a mistake as well. And the mistake that he made on that day was he actually thought that there was two them and to adult Sasquatch, which I'm not saying there weren't, but we don't have evidence to support that. We have one set of footprints that were found there, that all the footprints belong to the same individual. And so in my mind, at least what I think happened was that when she moved from left to left, my dad lost track of her. He was trying to track her. And she pops up in a different location than where he had thought she went to.

And now we know why she went to that different location and why she was trying to be elusive to go there. And that's because that there was a small juvenile there that we can now clearly see in the enhanced footage and those things. But when she pops up there for the second time, my dad, she was farther away. She was about 100 feet away. He was at a higher elevation than she was when he gets that shot. And to him, she looked like she was a smaller adult.

And so he thought that she was a second one. And that immediately put it in my dad's brain that he had one on each side of him. And so he started to get a little bit nervous. And what he decided to do was to continue down the trail and loop himself back to where he was parked outside of the pond, instead of turning around and going the direction he came in because he thought that he had one behind him at that point in time. And so he started to get a little scared as you would. And by his account, the one that was there, at least the one, started to become somewhat aggressive and to make some aggressive vocalizations toward him. And that's put him in a worried state of mind,

I guess you would say. Yeah. And there's a decent, I believe it's. the Tucci Valley Ramblings, but Van Sorchard wrote a pretty good article where my dad talks about this and gives an account as well. But something you ever want to, you want to look up. But my dad ended up crawling down into a hole under some tree roots where a tree had been fallen over and pulled out of the ground and it made like a little din under there. And my dad's estimate. Hi, Diva. It's Rachel. And Jordan. Yeah, hi. Quick question. Why are you not spending your Venmo balance? Yeah, we're concerned. You can like buy stuff with it. Oh, you love buying stuff. and earn cashback on eligible purchases.

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slash podcast right now. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. It said everything happens for a reason, but maybe everything happens for a recesses. Take noise-canceling headphones. Do they block hearing to heightened taste? Hmm. That sound seems to show. Everything happens for a recess. Was that he was there between over an hour, possibly one to two hours, which I don't believe. I don't think that's true. And I'm not saying that I don't believe my dad. But the time frame doesn't fit with when he got home and when we think the video was taken. There's not enough time that to happen. I think that

my dad never wore a watch, not one day in his life. The camera was off at that point in time, but it didn't have a time stamp on it anyway, and this was pre-cell phone. So I think most likely what happened was my dad got down on there and he was scared. And this thing was making aggressive sounds because it wanted him to leave because it has a baby. And that my dad may have been there between 20 and 30 minutes. And by his own admission, sweating profusely

and cowered down. And I think that 20 or 30 minutes maybe felt like two hours, to be honest with you. And so what ends up happening is after some of these aggressions subside a little bit, he ends up crawling himself up out of there. And he actually uses like a drainage ditch from the spring that leads back to the main road. And he kind of army crawls through it halfway and halfway walks through it to get up and get out of there. And it's brave enough or whatever, I guess you want to call it, when he gets back to the main pond to stop for a second to check out the first tracks that he sees as he's going in again real quick,

which you can tell at that point at the very end of the video. And you didn't even see that part a lot. And I believe it's in the raw footage section in my book, but it's not in the enhanced footage. It's a little shaky at that point in time before he gets in the car and drives back home. But yeah, it's it was touch and go. And he thought there was two of them. And like I said, I'm not saying there wasn't, but still all we have is one matching set of footprints, all the footprints match to the individual we call Big Jill. And so I think it's a case of mistaken identity, although he wasn't entirely wrong because there was two of them, but one of them happened to be a baby.

Also, what's really interesting is in the interview that he gives to Vance Orchard about that situation, he tells Fans Orchard that the second one that he saw, what he presumes to be the second one, and we've touched on that, that I don't believe is the second one, that it looked like it was deformed and that it could have possibly been a hunchback or it had a lump on the side of its neck and head. This is after it had picked up the baby and the baby had crawled onto its back and that's what he was seen that he perceived to be a back. And for all the listeners out, there if you're not familiar, keep in mind, you know, that this video was shot in 1992, August 20th. And my father never knew that there was a baby in that video, never spoke of it,

never even knew the existence of it until the year 2000, eight years later when Doug Heichick discovered it and brought it to my father. My dad never had, he never knew that. And so when he says that he thought it was conform, he thought it was a hunchback at 100 feet through the trees, he couldn't tell that it was a baby. but he certainly did see it. He just didn't realize it until eight years later when Doug Hichick happened to find that little anomaly in the film and break it down and zoom in and figure out what it was.

Chapter with Doug Hichick alone is worth the price of admission for the book because you literally get Doug shares with you, okay, here's my criteria for looking at a Bigfoot footage and knowing if it's fake or not. And it is fascinating. And also you share in there one of the QRs, barcodes. Two of them are the enhanced version of the Freeman footage. And it is wild the way that you can stuff is brought out. And man, that is just the coolest. Are there things being worked on with the Freeman footage and maybe other things that are still in progress tech wise for the future? We always want to get the best version of it, of course. And so there's all kinds of ideas that have been.

been floated around and this and that and AI and using forensic tools and all this stuff because we want the best version of it. The problem with my dad's footage is it's 8mm digital magnetic tape. It's not actually filmed. It's more like what you're in a cassette tape to play music from like the 80s. And it's 400 pixels max, something like that. You go to zoom in on it and it blurs out. Now, for the time, it was convenient technology and it was cool and you had your little camera and you pop the tape in and all this stuff, and you could come home and plug that into your VCR, and you could watch it immediately. And it was good for family videos, and it was cool technology.

But it's not good technology, and you basically can't do anything with it. And even though it was shot in 1967, with Patterson Gimlin film, at least it's film. And film is much easier to work with, and it's much more clear and we can enhance it better. My dad's footage, honestly, it may not get a whole lot better. And people have tossed around the AI thing. I don't use AI to enhance it. We have this program and that program and this and that. It's something we're looking into.

And we've done a little bit with stills, not all the main footage, but with some stills from the footage and other stills as well. The problem with AI is that AI adds things that aren't there. You're not getting a true representation of what you're looking at. And right now that's like the issue that I have with AI is it's going to add things that aren't actually there. And then how reliable is that? But one thing I can tell you as far as the film that has been done

that is being done is there have been some measurements taken at deduct recently and just trying to really decipher this is exactly where we think he was standing. We know where the tree is because there it is. It's right there and we know where the stump is and we know how tall they are now and things like that. But there's been some measurements done really trying to figure out, I'm first and foremost, the size of this thing, how big was she really? Fascinating stuff. I think another researcher Jonathan Easley was there one time with Mike Casey to a deduct. I think he's got a future video coming out. People want to make sure that you're subscribed to Western Bigfoot exploration. I think Jonathan's going to get that out eventually. But one last question, Michael, before I let you go, did your dad ever make any audio recordings? Did you ever have an audio recorder out in the field? He did. He tried. Nothing fancy. We're talking like cassette tape and a player, a handhold player. I can tell you,

it's not in the book. I chose not to use it in the book. I have one potential Sasquatch audio. The problem with it is that it's very staticy. And although you can hear my father talking and him talking about, listen to that, you can't hear it. And that's one of those things that in the future, maybe I can try to have that pulled out a little bit or enhance so we can get some type of audio on that. But we didn't do that for this time. And there's not really a whole lot there. But that is like the real one instance we have of that.

We do have some references of him talking about them, producing vocals in making audio. And we have some references of him saying that they could mimic other animals. He's heard them try to mimic elk, bowl elk and bugle like an elk, but even though it sounds like an elk, you can tell if you know what you're listening to that it's not exactly the same and that there is a difference there

and that he thought that they could potentially mimic other things as well. And that fits with... Hi, Diva. It's Rachel. And Jordan, yeah, hi. Quick question. Why are you not spending your Venmo balance? Yeah, we're concerned. You can, like, buy stuff with it. Oh, you love buying stuff.

And on cashback on eligible purchases. Mm, you love. I love purchasing eligible things. So the money your friends sent you yesterday, that's today's ramen or ridechair or eyepatches. The skincare kind, not the pyrokind. Spin with Venmo, and you can earn cashback with Vimmo Stash. Vimmo's bundle terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cashback per month.

See terms at Vimmo.com. ID verification required to use a Vimob balance. All right, quick quiz for the hiring managers out there. What's worse? Being understaffed or being poorly staffed? Well, that's a trick question, because both are recipes for chaos. Either way, just say to yourself, This is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs.

You'll get matched with candidates that meet the skills, certifications, and everything else you're looking for. Or go a different way and get no traction. Seriously, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. It really is a no-brainer. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a new thing. is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit

to help your job get the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. They say everything happens for a reason, but I suspect everything happens for Reese's. 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. Some of the modern thinking

we have as well as they mimic sounds really well and things like that. But no super audio. Sorry everybody out there. We have the video. We don't have a lot of audio recordings. Nothing that's good enough to hang my hat on at least at the moment. Also interesting, no tree knocking

in that 15 years of research. Oh, yeah. And interesting but not interesting. Really at the same time. You get sometime in the 70s a reference to it. Bob Timus makes a reference to it at some point, maybe once, but it's not something that's really talked about until the last like 20 years.

Or maybe even more than that, all of a sudden it's like a thing. My dad never talks about any type of tree knocking. No structures either. Ever found or thought to be found. The only thing my dad ever discovered that correlates with that was, I believe, up on top of,

I might have been Black Snake Ridge. One of those ridges I'd have to go back and check, but some type of rock formation potentially. My dad thought that it was possibly like very old Native American and didn't really equate it with Bigfoot, but there is a reference to it. And at least that's something. That's a possibility right there. But I always, when I talk to people, I think it's interesting in this day and age where it's every time this person A or person B goes out, here's this stick structure. Here's this thing that's built. Oh, and I heard all these wood knocks or whatever, but we have my dad and Bill Lowry and Vance Orchard

and West Summerland and Dar Addington and David Bean and all those guys from the Blues for 20 plus years and we don't get a single mention of structures or wood knocking. That's so interesting. Wow. Yeah. It's either something you're not paying attention to or it's regional for some reason or it's just it wasn't part of their research. it's been a delight getting a behind the scenes of you being involved and really the first part of your life and being able to talk about your father and everyone needs to go out get a copy of this book it's worth it you'll be able to see the video hear the audio you need to pick up Freeman Bigfoot files if you haven't already but Michael if there's anything else that you'd like to make sure the listeners know at this time, feel free to share that right now. Yeah, first of all, if anyone wants to get in contact with me in any way, Facebook is a good way.

Michael Freeman, pretty accessible on there. But so, yeah, before I go, I just, I want to say that, first of all, it's a pleasure speaking with you. It's been a long time coming. I know I called into your show once. I think people should, what I would really like to see and what I'm really trying to promote is just people do educating themselves and out and looking at evidence and drawing their own conclusions based on the education that they've given themselves and drawing their own conclusions

on each piece of evidence instead of listening to what somebody else thinks about it. And that's great. If you want to read Meldrum's book or Kranz's book or my book or whatever, that's fine. And there's always good information there. educate yourself outside of that as well and take a look at the evidence. And at the end of the day, if you decide that you don't believe in something, that's fine as well because we're all entitled to your own opinions and everybody has one and we all have the right to that. It's just the one thing I grow tired of a little bit is people forming opinions about my father or myself or my family

when they're uneducated on the amount of research that actually went into his life. So That's just the one thing that I would like to see a little bit more of. But I think the tide is changing a little bit and things are starting to turn. And we'll see what the future brings. And if I ever get back out there and if I do, I'll make sure to come on the show and tell you back. Heck yes. We'd love to have you back on for an update in the future. And thanks again for coming on, Michael.

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate it. It was a fun conversation. I was looking forward to it. Become a supporting member of the Bigfoot Society podcast by going to www. patreon.com forward slash the Bigfoot Society and receive extra episodes and early ad-free episodes as well. If you've got a personal Bigfoot encounter you would like to submit for me to share on the podcast, please head on over to www.bighfootsocietypodcast.com. There you'll find the share your

Bigfoot encounter form a little lower on the page, and please take a minute to share as many details as you can. Please state if the encounter is anonymous or what name you would like associated with the encounter. And as always, thanks for listening. Hey, I just Venmoed you for rent. Nice. Now I can instantly spend it whether I'm checking out online with Venmo or using a Venmo debit card. Say more. More exactly, because the more you do with Venmo, the more you get. Like earning up to 5% cashback with Venmo Stash on a bundle of brands. So, order more pizza. The math demands it. Get the Venmo debit card. Vimmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. See terms of Venmo.com.combe. Vimmo checkout not available at all merchants.

Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bank Bank N.A. All right, quick quiz for the hiring managers out there. What's worse? Being understaffed or being poorly staffed? Well, that's a trick question, because both are recipes for chaos. Either way, just say to yourself, this is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. You'll get matched with candidates that meet the skills, certifications, and everything else you're looking for, or go a different way and get no traction. Seriously, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. It really is a no-brainer. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time. More risk. Less time. More

results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. They say everything happens for reason, but I suspect everything happens for or Reese's. Like this commercial break, did you need 15 seconds away from music? Or 15 seconds to eat or Reese's? Perhaps it's true. Everything happens for a Reese's. Your social media feed delivers plenty of advice. But it doesn't know you. It doesn't ask questions. It doesn't give physical exams

or order tests. Doctors do. At the American Medical Association, we believe the best care starts with a real conversation with someone who understands the science and your unique health. So stay curious, ask questions, but when it's time to make decisions, make them with a doctor. Learn more at AMAHealth versus hype.org. That's AMAHealthVShype.org. This is Daniel Fischel. And Ryder Strong from PodMeet's World. As cat parents, Ryder and I know the feeling of being ignored by our cats. I often wonder, does my cat even love me? Well, there's only one solution to solve that, Shiba.

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