Bigfoot Society - When Research Turns to Experience: A Conversation with Lisa Semmler and Dr. David Mitchell

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

Join Jeremiah Byron from the Bigfoot Society as he dives deep into the intriguing world of Sasquatch and psychic phenomena with guests Lisa Semmler, a PhD candidate in Integral and Transpersonal Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and Dr. David S. B. Mitchell, an expert in cryptid studies specifically Sasquatch. Discover how their research bridges the gap between spirituality and psychology, focusing on experiences such as Sasquatch encounters and other exceptional phenomena. Hear personal stories, academic insights, and learn how you can participate in ongoing research. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, this episode is sure to expand your understanding of these mysterious subjects.Contact Lisa Semmler directly using this email: [e-mail] Dr. David directly using this email: [e-mail] apply directly to Lisa's study please fill out the questionnaire at the following link: https://ciis.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0rcGzNq7PpR8N9AResources:California Institute of Integral Studies - https://www.ciis.eduExceptional Experiencer Empowerment -https://e3-initiative.comEdge Science Journal -https://scientificexploration.org/Edge-ScienceMindfield Bulletin - https://www.parapsych.org/section/16/mindfield_bulletin.aspxDr. David Mitchell's article "“What goes bump in the psyche”: Relict hominoids and reality shifts as existential threats to Western culture" can be found in this book:Paranormal Ruptures (pages 21-57) | Amazon Affiliate link:https://amzn.to/4fN6EnXEdges of Science by Thom Powell | Amazon Affiliate link:https://amzn.to/4ighnJd🔴 Subscribe to our Youtube channel and leave a comment here: https://www.youtube.com/@BigfootSociety?sub_confirmation=1Share 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!)Share 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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while supplies last. Selection varies by location. See Lowe's.com for details. Visit your nearby lows on West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. Welcome to BigFa Society. If you have BigFet activity to report from the same areas discussed in this episode, please reach out to me directly after this episode. And if you'd like to be on the podcast to discuss a personal BigFet activity,

foot encounter please reach out to me directly at bigfoot society at gmail.com do you wish there is more bigfoot society to listen to every week well there is now if you become a supporting member over at patreon you get a special members only episode every single week on wednesdays 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 big foot society we've got the privilege of talking to a pair of of new friends today. We've got Lisa Semler, who's a PhD candidate in the Integral in Transpersonal Psychology Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies in Dr. David S.B. Mitchell, who specializes encrypted studies, particularly Sasquatch. So I'm excited to have both of you on here

today. How's it going, guys? Great. Wonderful. Thank you so much for having us. Awesome. Is there anything else that my listeners would want to know about you guys, what you do what the Institute is about and all that good stuff. Yes, both being connected to the California Institute of Integral Studies, which focuses on Integral, which is more or less a kind of holistic approach to being in human diversity and the human experience. Our particular program being focused on integral transpersonal psychology and also somatic psychology is somewhat of a niche field or sub-discipline,

but we are really focused on bringing more research-oriented approaches to the larger discipline of psychology, and specifically to the gap that often persist between spirituality and psychology, such as everything from near-death experiences, non-egoic states where you're just going beyond, the ego and a variety of other experiences that people can experience or kind of pursuit. And so that's basically what the California Institute of Integral Studies is.

And we're one of just several institutions in the United States that focus on this particular aspect of psychology. Very interesting. So a lot of listeners probably right now, they might be thinking, that sounds awesome. What does Bigfoot have to do to play into all of this? I might be able to answer that. All right. Go ahead, Lisa.

There's a little background on myself. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist in Boise, Idaho. And when I got my master's degree, I went on to get a PhD in marriage and family therapy, but then realized a solely Western approach was not, didn't align with what my interests were. And so I went to make a switch to what kind of psychology into. integrates the spirituality. And that's how I found CIS. And because of my own personal experiences of either paranormal experiences,

psychic experiences, states of higher consciousness that Western psychology would explain, but not really help me in figuring out how to integrate it within myself. And that includes part of the reason why I'm here today is because I do study. study phenomenon related to extraterrestrial or star family or aliens for a broader term of our interactions with those beings and how it affects our ability to perceive and integrate that

reality into our lives. And through my own studies, that's how cryptid experiences come along as well. So when I had originally reached out to you, it was in the vein of, hey, I've noticed that a lot of spirituality, connection, psychic connection, energetic exchange exists between humans and Sasquatch as well. Which is fascinating because over the few years that I've done this podcast coming up on it's past five now, I believe, I have started to have the theory where it feels like these witnesses that I talk to, these experiencers, it's almost, it feels weird almost even saying it

but that like they have these experiences, they have these interactions, they're in an area, and then it almost feels like they have something unlocked. It's very strange. And I don't know if that's even, that might be close to what you guys are saying too, but it just,

I keep seeing it come up over and over again, and I'm not really sure how to wrap my mind around it, but it's a very strange thing. Absolutely. I'll just jump in briefly. So two things. one is absolutely what you're saying, Jeremiah, those kinds of experiences can be wrapped into this larger umbrella of experiences, which we could refer to as entity encounters.

At least that's how they're referred to in the literature, which are a subset of exceptional experiences. And exceptional experiences themselves, which are a group of experiences that people can have, everything, again, from trips, as you would, to experiencing a variety of events. entities, from non-humanoid entities to humanoid entities, et cetera, and more. These exceptional experiences are one facet of what transpersonal psychologists can study, but also they're a facet of what parapsychologists can study. And parapsychologists have oftentimes been associated, at least in popular literature and popular culture, with things like ghosts and other types of

encounters. So that's one thing. Another thing is that our program doesn't explicitly offer training or education in crypted encounters specifically around Sasquatch, but this is an area that is ripe for more research, qualitative, quantitative, quantitative mixed methods research, and there's also an area that some of our cousin or even sibling institutions like C-IHS, the California Institute for Human Sciences is also another place where you have some of these things being looked at. University of West Georgia is another. But we're just a small number of institutions, institutes that are starting to look more so directly at some of these matters like entity encounters or kind of adjacent phenomena. So I just wanted to bring that up as well.

Have you found that people that have Sasquatch encounters will tend to also have interactions with other things such as maybe UFOs or aliens and that there seems to be a real connection where they're not just going to experience the one thing, but they're probably going to have other things happen in their life as well? That was a segment of the dissertation proposal that I had worked on in order to get approval to do the research I'm currently conducting. which is there's a lot of research in the literature for the past four or five decades that shows a link between people having UFO or EET encounters and then experiencing more parasitological phenomenon, specifically more encounters either with poltergeists or cryptids or Sasquatch or developing a clairvoyant ability to see some. spirits or fairies or elementals. So there is quite a bit in academic research that points to that. And part of the reason I chose my field of study is because I looked at all of that research

and tried to figure out where is a gap in research. And one of the gaps I found, which I eventually went with, my study is called the ET human connection that leads to psychic development. And so the study I'm currently conducting is a qualitative study, having interviews and discussions with people who have had direct encounters with extraterrestrials or beings whom they identify are not human, but also not originating from Earth. So whether that be what they identify as extraterrestrials, aliens, or interdimensional beings, which is where a lot of Sasquatch researchers, put Sasquatch in the category of interdimensional being, which would explain why humans have a lot of encounters with Sasquatch that they capture on video or in photographs or they have a physical encounter or a psychic encounter. They hear them in the woods. They see evidence in footprints or hair or mysterious things like broken branches or gift exchanges. But no one can't.

can seem to capture a body or have like, you know, an interview on a podcast with Saswatch. There is a lot of research to point to say that, yes, these things are connected. So my research aims to talk to people who have had ET encounters who then develop psychic abilities as a result. And psychic abilities is a category that includes increased parapsychological events or anomalous events. And so with some of the data I've collected so far, some participants have noted encounters with what they interpret is Sasquatch after they started having contact with extraterrestrials from other planets, other realms, other dimensions. That's fascinating. So this contact that they're starting to have, would this be in all use terms used in the community? And if you're not familiar with them, please feel free to ask. Would this be considered like when people start to have mind speak happen?

Thanks for bringing that up. I think I alluded to that in my communications with you before this interview. I had my first experience with that this summer. And when it happened, I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to make of it. Of all the psychic experiences I've had or paranormal things happen in my life, that was the first time where I had. no context for what just happened. And I knew it was significant. I knew it was big. And so I had to reach out to other people, Dr. Mitchell included, to say, what was that? Only to have my experience validated by other people who actually have had direct contact or experiences with SAS spot. Wow, that's fascinating. So did that happen in the middle of your research or is that at the beginning or it was july 6th of this year the little backstory to that so because of the research

that i do i've been paying attention to a lot of Sasquatch based either documentaries books research i also follow indigenous content creators on social media Stephanie big eagle is one of my favorite content creators so i've learned through her and that the Lakota and Dakota tribes talk a lot about how Sasquatch is telepathic and they can read your aura, your energetic field, and determine if you are safe to be in their space or if you are not a safe person to be in their space. So I've been learning all these things about how Sasquatch prefers to interact with us if we're going to be in the same geographical area.

And I experimented with that when I went to Whitefish Montana in May of 2024. And I specifically went with the goal of, I'm going to put myself in a forested area. I'm going to create the mantras to commune with them, to meditate with them, experience telepathy if they're willing. So I went with good faith and gifts of apples and fruits. I brought a rose quartz heart-shaped pendant to leave as an offering in the forest. And so I have these mantras of, hello, I would love to meet you, I'm safe for you, I'm not going to harm you, I'm not going to harm your babies.

If you feel like showing yourself to me, please do. I'm not going to put you on the internet. I'm not going to tell anybody where you live. So I tried to create this environment, hoping that I would have an experience. And of course, I didn't, at least not in that moment that I know of. So I left the pendant high up on a tree. I left gifts of fruit and then said thank you and came back home to Idaho. So that was in May.

And then on July 6th, that was a particularly very stressful week for me. And I woke up at 6 o'clock in the morning with lots of racing thoughts, lots of worried thoughts about what was going on in my life. And I'm a therapist. So I tried to use my therapy skills of try deep breathing, stretch your body, use thought stopping, try soft music. Nothing would make the thought stop. And so I was just in my head going, oh, I won't these stop. And then out of nowhere, I hear a really loud, ooh.

I had no idea what that was. I had no context for what was that? All I know is it was loud. It got my attention. It shook me up. It stopped all the swirling that was going on in my head. And I was overcome with a sense of relief. And I was able to go back to sleep.

And when I, so I sat there for a couple minutes before going back to sleep and thought, that that was a saskwash that's the sound they make in in the forest those that's what i've seen or heard about and and so i thought wow it felt the energy of it felt feminine and so i thought oh i wonder if you got my necklace so that was just my experience with it but still had to take a lot of time to think about it because i had no idea what was that what happened and so that's when I started reaching out to other people who maybe would know more about this than I would. And one of my good friends named Alex, who I know has had a lot of, a lot more paranormal experiences than I have. And she had disclosed to me that she's had encounters with

Sasquatch. And she said, ah, all of that makes sense. They come to you when she described it as they've tagged me. So I went into a natural space. I made peace. I made the connection. and that was probably their recognition of, we saw you and we're now connected. And she also said Rose Quartz happens to be their favorite crystal. Courts is just from interviews I've done. If there's areas where there's big deposits of courts, there can be a lot of activity.

I'm curious, why did you happen to choose that particular location in Montana? That was based on a lot of synchronicity. So Dr. Mitchell is smiling because he's a part of it. So over the past year and a half, two years, with all the research I'd been doing for my own studies, I kept coming across this Whitefish Montana. And it would stand out. Bigfoot Society will be right back after these messages. If you want something done right, you do it yourself. That's why you change your own oil.

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And I would think, oh, that's so strange, but why whitefish? Why does that seem to have a lot of UFO or ET encounter reports? And then it was last December when we were about to go on Christmas break, I was having a conversation with Dr. Mitchell. And he had mentioned, oh, I'm reading this book called Edges of Science. It talks a lot about the research that you're doing. So I ordered the book on Amazon and got it. The first chapter is about experiences in Whitefish, Montana with Sasquatch. That's like, that's it.

That's like the third major ping. And so I waited to book a flight because flights were really expensive at that time. And then it just happened to be that, oh, I set up a Google Alerts for flights. And I got a ping that the flight was like $200 cheaper. So I went to go book my ticket. And then while I was booking my flight, the price went down again by $80. And so I was like, okay. message received.

I'm supposed to go to Whitefish, Montana. And so that's how I ended up there. That's some weird synchronicities for sure. When you got back to your home, did you have any vivid dreams that started after that? Yes and no. So vivid dreams always happen for me. I'm a lucid dreamer. I don't recall any lucid dreams that were related to anything.

anomalous. However, after my experience with the sask, disrupting my anxiety thoughts and giving me a sense of calm, I was trying to figure out other people sometimes know the name of their Sasquatch being. And so I just meditated on it and put out a thought of, I would love to know her name. And then about two weeks after I had that thought and that put out that intention, I had a dream that was really significant in terms of a significant actor showed up in it. So one of my college advisors showed up, someone I very much respected from 2008. And she was sitting at a desk and very serious. And she leaned over at me and she said, Kyrie. And then that was it.

And that was the end of the dream. And I woke up going, what the heck is a Kyrie? Why did Dr. Reader show up to say the word Kyrie? That's weird. And I thought, oh, here's the answer I've been looking for. I've wanted to know what's the name, what's the name. And then I have this random chance, really vivid dream of my old college advisor

are showing up to say one word. So that did happen. So you go from studying and doing research to now you're quite in the middle of things yourself. And it sounds like are continuing to progress and probably become more and more intense, right? That's correct. And it's slightly off topic, so I won't go too far into it. So another, just for my own personal studies, more got to, goddesses started coming into my awareness, particularly synchronistic moments when other people would mention to me,

hey, Lisa, Artemis is trying to reach out to you. Artemis is the goddess of natural spaces and animals and nighttime hunting. And so I thought, oh, if there was going to be a goddess connected to natural spaces like forests and forest creatures, and one of her primary animal symbols is a stag or a deer. I thought, okay, that could be a spiritual connection that I was not aware of. So my own personal research went in that direction. It is learning which deities are reaching out to me and how are they all connected. That's fascinating, Lisa.

And Dr. David, we are going to get to you in a minute. This is a fascinating conversation. Have you had to set boundaries yet with the individuals that you have been in contact with in any way? Not related to Sasquatch. I've had to set boundaries with, I don't want to call them poltergeist because I don't know if that's what they were. I've had to set boundaries with energetic spirits or ghosts, if you will, bothering me in my home. And my boundaries work. I've also, with some of the clients I work with, I've had to teach them how to set firm boundaries with either spirits or extraterrestrial energies that were effective.

but it's not been part of my experience that boundaries had to be placed with anything related to this as well. Okay, that is super interesting. And be careful how I say it, but it's so incredibly par for the course. There are so many people out there that are also experiencing this. They go to an area. They come back. Stuff starts to happen. And then these people are like, what's going on?

they're just totally blown away. And it's like the story gets repeated over and over. And it's like, yeah, someone has to figure out what all this, why it's happening, what this means. It's so interesting. And maybe that's just my lack of knowledge as well. But Dr. David, have you had any interesting experiences with Sasquatchewars yourself? It sounds like you're really into the topic of it. Yeah.

So before, first of all, this is a. wonderful conversation. Thank you both for having me, inviting me. I have had some somewhat, what I would say, are ambiguous, in other ways, very clear encounters. No class A, class B, encounters per the BFRO classification, but what I have had are one or two visions or dreams that were for me meaningful, I guess I would say. So I don't have any trace evidence, no footprint casts or hair samples or anything. But I had this one dream, actually, for example. I'm waiting to share this other vision that I had because I want to get some more feedback from the person I was with first and maybe do a regression on it. But because I don't, there are some pieces of it that I don't

entirely remember. So I just wanted to say that. But this dream I had was interesting. I have been rather ambivalent in real life, in waking life, about whether or not to do any field investigation. I'm not a field investigator. And the reason I've been ambivalent is because of what we might call in academia ontological ambiguity. There's this question that keeps persisting in the bigfitting community as to what is Sasquatch, right? And so that question is at the heart of ontological ambiguity, ontology dealing with the reality of the thing. And that, ambiguity being just that, the confusion about that nature. And so there have been all kinds of hypotheses and narratives put forth about Sasquatch from ETs or star people to demons,

to angelic beings or deific beings, to them being purely flesh and blood, of course, apes or everything from great apes to human. And so, So the question around not knowing what I'm spending this time of mine, thinking about, writing about, etc., has been something that has kept me playing double-dutch, doing this kind of, I'm not sure, approach avoidance kind of thing. So that's the background. But in real life, I had tentatively committed to not do any field investigations at least yet. And so in the dream, even though I had made that commitment in waking life, I had involved myself in a BFRO expedition.

I think in the dream it was somewhere in Alaska. And we'd split up, we'd been given an orientation the night before our field outing, and then we'd split up into different groups. And at some point, I'd encountered this cave that was up on this kind of ice shelf or something like that. and ended up getting a head injury or something to that effect. And as oftentimes happens in dreams, the scene shifts. And suddenly I'm laying on a cot in my room, this room that we had ridded out or something like that. And all the lights are off, except for there's a,

all the lights are off in the room, except for down this hallway that my cot is facing, there's a light way down the hallway. And so then I have this, I'm looking at the wall lying on my back and there are these two shadows, one massive, rather

large shadow and a smaller one that are approaching my bed. I can't see what's making the shadows yet because they haven't entered, they haven't come around the corner in the hallway. And then they enter the room and it's a large male Sasquatch and a little one, like

hugging on his leg. And so the large one, I don't think he ever actually said anything. But But he comes over to the cut and he sits me up. And I think at some point I had to heave to move some things out of my system, either before or after he did this thing where he picks me up and he plings me over his shoulder. And he hums. He hums.

And I grew up with cats. And so it reminded me of a cat's purr. And we oftentimes hear about infrasound and these incredible frequencies that Sasquatch beings can apparently generate. And so his hums were energizing my body, the front of my body, along my vagus nerve, if you will. And then he puts me back down. And after he puts me back down, I'm staring at the two of them. And I'm not really getting much in the term, in terms of detail, right?

I'm looking at them because there are really no lights on in the room. There's no ambient light coming in from outside. And so I'm looking at them. And then the little one finally peeks from around his father's leg. And he's staring at me and I'm getting this intense, radiating sense of joy and happiness coming from the little one. And it's just, it's almost overwhelming. And I'm like, wow, in the dream.

And then after I woke up later, wow, this is really this amazing amount of positivity coming from this being. And then at some point, I think there's this communication of his name. and it's something to the effect of Banu. And I was like, that's very interesting. And then at some point thereafter, soon thereafter, I woke up. And don't have any particular, I stake no claim in terms of what Sasquatch is. I'm interested in all accounts and all that the data decide for me what Sasquatch is.

But my main question isn't so much about what Sasquatch is. it's more so about what does Sasquatch do? And what do they, what does that tell us about who we are as humans? Where's the overlap between who we are and what they are? And are they truly human? Are they the original humans, as some people have suggested? And then what can we learn from the narratives about Sasquatch? And some of those narratives, in my opinion, include dreams. It doesn't matter if the dream is quote unquote ontologically real or not. It matters what we do with that, the meaning that we make, at least from my position in psychology. And so I found the dream to be interesting.

It overlaps to some extent with some of what I've heard elsewhere in the literature. And so I find it to be personally meaningful and potentially insightful. Again, mostly in terms of how Thasquatch seem to use sound in their behavior, in either mundane ways or more mysterious or mystical ones. And so, yeah, that's one one quote unquote encounter that I've had, even if it was just in my mind. And I found it to be meaningful again. So thanks for asking. That is pretty cool.

And I understand that whole you're not wanting to cross the line or get in. There's that thing. And I'm pretty sure, yeah, I crossed that pretty hard about a year ago or two years ago. my buddy was just like yeah you got to come out with me come out with the and then man stuff started kicking off and before i know i'm out in Oregon in the middle of the willamette national forest 30 miles out on a forest road and we're getting roared and screamed at and it's like once you yeah you need to know if you really want to cross over that line especially in your situation because man it can change things lisa knows that herself she went to whitefish and then she gets back

and it's just like bam when you were in Whitefish, Lisa, did you try to find people that had experiences as well? I did. Everyone just gave me the side eye. In fact, I had a surreal experience and I don't know. I don't want to derail too far. So I have a, with all my synchronicities of how I booked the trip, I was telling some of my clients who I work with, hey, we're going to have to reschedule your appointment because I'm going to be out of town this week. And one of my clients of female said, oh, where are you going? And I said, I'm going to Whitefish, Montana. And she said, that's so strange. I was born in Callisville. I grew up there. And she's had, as far as I know,

I'm not asked her if she's had a Sasquatchen counters, but she's had other kinds of experiences there. Bigfoot Society will be right back after these messages. If you want something done right, you do it yourself. That's why you change your own You wouldn't trust your engine to just anybody. So go with the full synthetic motor oil you can trust. Penzoil Ultra Platinum offers engine protection for the lifetime of your vehicle. So do it right with Pennzoil Ultra Platinum. Stock up now at Walmart.

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automates, all in one place. Learn more at intuitt.com slash ERP. The Starbucks ice torchata shaken espresso is back for the summer. crafted with cinnamon, vanilla, and nutty notes of toasted rice. Handshaking with smooth blonde espresso and finished with oat milk for a creamy touch. Made for summer. Only at Starbucks. And I thought, oh, this is okay. This is in line. Okay. And she recommended that I go to Moose's Saloon. She said it's the best pizza and beer you'll ever have.

And so I walk in and I'm like, this is very like old school, dark tassizabeth. cavern, animal heads on the wall, like, these are all locals. So I sit up at the bar, and I'm looking around going, okay, I stand out. Like, I really don't belong here. And so it was hard for me to strike up conversation with anybody. However, I kept having a strange experience. I was sitting at the bars, the bar stools are very old school. There was a, like a six-inch back, rest on the bar stool and so I was leaning up on the bar and waiting for my pizza and I kept feeling this thud on the back of my bar stool like someone was coming by and just whacking my bar stool and I kept looking behind me who keeps running into me why are people like shoving past

me are people tripping over am I in the way and no every time I would turn around and see what has just hit me there'd be nothing there And so it happened probably three or four times before I just tapped on the person who was two bar stools away from me. I said, so sorry, bother you. Is this bar haunted? And he was like, probably. I don't know. And so I was like, oh, okay.

Something keeps whacking me and I don't know what it is. And he's like, oh, okay. So that kind of led to small little chit-chat. And then later on, we just make little chit-chat as we're sent. there but nothing serious and then the bartender who was quite a salty individual i had i think one and a half glasses of wine which is enough for me to feel tipsy and i said hey barkeep what's the local word where do i need to go to meet saskatch oh no you're one of those and so he dismissed me pretty easily and so he said i've been

hunting my entire life i've never seen a saskwad so i thought okay uh and then later on i said okay one more question where do i got to go to have an et encounter where do i have to go in this town to see ufos and he again just dismissed me it was like lady you are full of all the questions aren't you and i was like yeah it's kind of why i'm here so i died um there were other restaurants i went to where i just made casual conversation with the server or the bartender and they were all like I don't know. So no humans. We're on board with me there.

I bet there is someone listening to this that could probably provide one or two. I think we're going to have ways to reach out to you guys in the show notes. If you're cool with that, like emails and stuff. I would adore people's recommendations. I really tried to find them before I went, which is how I was told to go to Moose's saloon. And then, but yeah, I would love if your listeners have recommendations for particular spots to go. My Airbnb where I stayed was quite magical and lovely.

It was probably about nine miles outside of the downtown area of Whitefish. It was located in the middle of the woods. I got that recommendation. And the most excitement I saw there was a bear. In your research so far, and I'm going to ask, and you can decline, there might be stuff you can't talk about. Sure. I would imagine you're probably partnering with people that are experiencing this as well,

and it's part of your research. Are there any interesting things you've come across where people are having these interactions that you might be able to share? And if not, that's okay. I think I can share generalities without giving specifics. So if anyone happens to be listening to this, they're not going to know, oh, she's talking about so-and-so for this state. There are a couple of things where one of my participants reported that, and she didn't have ET contact until adulthood. And part of it was living in a remote area where she and her spouse had acreage and some wooded areas nearby.

and she had a particular encounter in her driveway and that led to not very long after that maybe days or weeks seeing bright orbs of light moving through the trees of her property and when she would go and investigate and she would try to decipher what am I seeing here are these ETs again are they back but they're just coming in orb form but then her understanding as she was trying to locate them or interact with them. She never did go up and touch or talk to or have an encounter with the orbs. But the telepathic communication that occurred in that exchange, she surmised that it was Sasquatch Energy presenting as an orb. And then the other one pointed to, it wasn't a place where she lived, but a place where she had visited in Weeks, Vermont, where it was described as a portal. where lots of inexplicable things happened to either plant life, corn crops, animal mutilations,

not the kind of animal mutilations that you hear about in UFO sighting reports, but more large animal, large predator carrying away a deer carcass, like those kinds of reports. Yeah, another one of my participants did say that she did visit a place like that where she did encounter not Sasquatch itself per se, but the after effects, seeing the destruction to several rows of corn and seeing what she described as, it seemed like an entity just picked up a young tree from the roots and just tossed it aside. Something just picked up a tree and tossed it. So that has come up in my research. That is entirely fascinating. Yeah, that really lines up with people. I've talked to as well.

Dr. David, have you, and you've been doing this for years, and I'm not sure if this is just because I'm getting more and more interested in this subject, but have you felt like there is a increase in more sightings or more experiences over the last few years? Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that question. So maybe. There might be a kind of sampling error where it might be that there's just as many experiencers having encounters. It's just that people are more likely to share thanks to some folks in the big-fitting community who were aware of. And Jeremiah, you might have mentioned this yourself at some point since post-2017.

And this is something that Lisa and I talk about. You have this surge, this kind of sea change in how the UFO and ET topics, are discussed in popular culture since the publication of the New York Times article that discussed the existence of the previously secret program A-Tip. And so I think that in some ways what we might be seeing is potentially due to that and also due to the presence of Sasquatch in popular culture, thanks to shows like Monster Quest and Finding Bigfoot, and maybe folks' kids who used to watch Monster Quest are now coming back around to it.

I think that there is a bit more space for people to discuss these things. It's just that even though they're still fringed, as it were, there's a little more comfort. And people might not get as many side-off. even though I think there are still very, there are still more side eyes. There's still more denial than I would like. And that's something that I would like to change. But long answer to your question, maybe.

Perhaps, perhaps. But I think that would take maybe some research. It's an empirical question. Absolutely. I like the answer to that. It's something I got to work through myself as well. Guys, it's been a fascinating conversation, but is there a way that my audience can help you in what you are researching right now? Oh, yeah, thank you.

I'm not, I am currently working on some research, but that's a bit afield from basically, I'm working on some writing projects, but we've already collected the data for most of them. but the other most of the manuscripts I'm currently working on are not involving they're more theoretical and speculative as opposed to research oriented but I can share my contact information and I'd be more than welcome to have people reach out to me and I think Jeremiah you said you'll be putting some of our contact info in the show notes absolutely yeah thanks but yeah Lisa please sure I I also need to back up a second I I just realized I hadn't provided this information yet for your audience. Dr. Mitchell is actually my dissertation chairperson. He heads my dissertation committee for the research of doing. He's my chair person at CIS. My internal member of my committee is Dr. Dean Radin. For those of you who aren't familiar with him,

he's the chief scientist at the Institute of New Edic Sciences, has a long history of doing doing research on these topics as a history in electrical engineering, I think, and physics, and PhD in psychology. And then my external member is Dr. Sean S. Bjorn Hargans. He is the Dean of Integral Education and Noetic Sciences Program Director at the California Institute for Human Science. My entire process is being overseen by these three experts in their various fields. And so the interaction I would love to see with your audience if it happens to pertain to them, if it speaks to them, is so I'm halfway through my research study, and I still have to recruit 10 to 15 more participants. And essentially, the criteria is they have to be over the age of 18, speak and write fluent English.

It is worldwide, so anyone from the globe can participate. And there's some other screening criteria that they would have to meet. But essentially, if they've had life experiences where they've experienced ET contact and then started to develop psychic abilities, whether that be parapsychological events, anomalous experiences, if they did start to notice in encounters with Sasquatch, or the psychic abilities, the umbrella term, also includes things like if you've had a near-death experience, if you have electrical or technology interferences, being able to astral project or remote view, having telepathy or telekinesis, biolocation, mediumship. So a lot of different

ways that humans higher consciousness evolves as a result of that. their contact. So if anyone in your audience can reflect on their life and go, yeah, that's me. I would love to talk to them. And there's a three-step process. So it would be the initial screening questionnaire that determines if they're eligible for the study. And then there's a follow-up questionnaire asking about, I provide a checklist of about 20 different psychic abilities. that also includes an other field. So if they happen to have a different kind of psychic related experience, they can enter that.

And then also it asks about if they have any identifiers for what beings they encountered, like labels, did you meet a gray? Did you meet Sasquatch? Have you met or did you develop animal communication as a result? And that's how you interact with Sasquatch now. So there are open fields for people. to describe what their experience was. So those are the first two processes.

And then the third process is a one-hour Zoom interview where I have structured my interview questions. There's five main questions asking about their experiences. And then with each question, there might be three or four follow-up questions. And then from there, I examine the transcripts and look for commonalities and what people are reporting to me. When you are done with this, I'm just going to say a project just as my lack of upper terms.

I'm not in this. I'm in the big foot field. I'm not in the educational field anymore. So my apologies. But will you be publishing a paper or anything like that regarding this? Yes. This study I'm conducting is for my dissertation to achieve my PhD. Maybe Dr. Mitchell, if you have more insight on this.

So I know internally within our school, they make an announcement of who is defending their thesis. And in my own outreach, either on social media or things, I can announce when I'm going to be defending my PhD. So that kind of announcement would be made. But I'm not sure how it would work if CIS makes a broader announcement to the world. Dr. Mitchell, do you know? Yeah, that's a great question. I'm not sure that they typically do, but we can definitely share your, I think, the Zoom link that they end up giving you with the Bigfoot Society podcast community. Folks might be interested in attending.

And then also, after you publish your dissertation, people can look it up and get access to it online through most likely. I think it's either ProQuest or one of the other databases. Yeah. Fascinating. I know definitely a lot of listeners would love to read through that once that comes out. But Lisa and Dr. David, this has been just a really, really interesting discussion. I've learned a ton from it, and I will be keeping up to date with your future work as well. But did you guys have any closing thoughts before we wrap up our conversation today?

And also, what's the best way people can keep up to date with what you're doing with the university? Great. Lisa, do you want to go first? Or do you want me to? Sure. I guess some final thoughts are, once I started becoming aware of your work, Jeremiah, I love the content that you bring. And I love the energy that you bring to the, I guess, the world of the Internet and how we discuss these topics, bringing legitimacy and rational. discourse to these topics. I really appreciate that about you. And then being able to keep in touch,

I would love if we could do that. And I would imagine that just in my own social medias, or the social media accounts that I have, I'm just not very popular on social media. So yes, I plan on announcing to the world when my research is published. And I plan on maybe producing my own copies and giving them out for Christmas gifts. But I will definitely let you know where the general public can find that information. Awesome. And Dr. David? Yes. So a few hopefully quick shoutouts here. So Lisa and I are members of the exceptional experiencer empowerment initiative. And it's a group of individuals who are mostly mental health professionals, but we're engaged in educational resources and community building and sharing around ways to help mental health professionals be more prepared to support individuals who have,

for example, entity encounters like encountering Sasquatch, et cetera. And so we do have a website, and I've provided Jeremiah with that link. Another thing is the Mindfield Bulletin from the Parasychological Association, as well as the Edge Science Journal with the Society for Scientific Exploration. Those are two, organizations that are professional, that also produce peer-reviewed journals. And Mindfield Bulletin and Edge Science accept publications, except submissions from people. So if you're a solid writer and you have information that you want to share with the world, both Edge Science and Minefield are more public-facing and are, that is, they're focused more on layfolk and not necessarily on academic or the academic community. And so I highly suggest people look at those

organizations and those publications. I'm on the editorial board for Mindfield Bulletin. The last thing I would say very quickly is that there's a book, Paranormal Rupures that I contributed to as an author, and that book received one of the 2024 book awards from the Parapsychological Association. And the chapter that I wrote on it is about the disconnect between Western culture or Western science, mainstream science more generally, and the pursuit of or discovery of Sasquatch. So I would just say that for anybody who's interested or okay, picking up a book that has paranormal of the title, definitely check that out. And you can reach me at DSB Mitchell at gmail.com.

And I'd love to hear from you about any questions or anything you want to share. So I'm really glad to be here, really thankful, Jeremiah, for all that you do and for the community that you've cultivated. Fantastic. Lisa Semler, Dr. David S.B. Mitchell, thank you so much for coming on this. the show and we will definitely be in touch. But thank you again. To participate in Lisa's study or contact Lisa or Dr. David directly, please go to the show notes which contain that information. And thank you for listening. Here at Bigfoot Society, our goal is to provide a platform for

those that have encountered Bigfoot to share their encounter in a safe and respected environment. But we need to hear your story. If you've experienced, something that you just can't explain. Please send me an email at bigfoot society at gmail.com. Then we can start the conversation. I know a lot of you have not shared your encounter at all. It's been 20 years and it's time that you get this off your chest and then you can get some well-deserved for rest because I know you haven't been sleeping.

I understand what you're going through and I appreciate every one of you listening. Bigfoot Society podcast hosted by our captain, Jeremiah Byron, where it's all Bigfoot all the time. Have you ever had the urge to do more, to be more? Now you can by joining Bigfoot Society on the Patreon. Get ad-free episodes and even member-only episodes. Take part in movie night and even live video chats. Interact behind the scenes with Jeremiah and other Patreon members like me, Slaya. The powerful podcast goes on and you may contribute a verse in our Patreon community.

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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 GML.com or pass on my email. Here's the list. These are all in Oregon, by the way. Oak Ridge, Dexter, Fall Creek, Deschute National Forest Area, Coltis Lake, Spirit Lake, Suttall Lake, McKinsey River area, Sweet Home area, the area west of Crater Lake

east of 230 West Diamond Lake Highway and north of 62 Crater Lake Highway. You can use email Bigfoot Society at gmail.com. 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.

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