Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:221 Deep in the woods

Episode Date: May 23, 2016

The Olympic Project is an association of dedicated researchers, investigators, biologists and trackers committed to documenting the existence of Sasquatch through science and education. Co-Founder Derek Randles of the Olympic Project has an expedition this weekend in Washington State. My good friend Shane Corson from Monster X sent me the invite. I interviewed several of the Olympic Project members and they will be sharing their encounters with us tonight. I will also be interviewing Thomas Steenburg who is an author and researcher.

Shane and I are still out on our night hike walking our way down a ridge line again it's like 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning, something like that. The Olympic Project Expedition for people out there, if you get a chance, if he can come get into an expedition with these guys, I learned so much. One of the things I thought was really cool today was Tom's presentation with the group going out

and he got dressed up like a Sasquatch. People knew they, well, explain it to the audience. Yeah, first of all, yeah, Tom Baker, it was kind of a group. It was the last minute thing. We do this for our group. We've done multiple experience with Thurms at night. We've decided that Tom Baker's got a pretty funny looking Sasquatch costume that he would go out for this particular expedition.

We'd go out and do roadside crossings, ridge crossings. He would just stand still. And the goal was to see who would spot him and how quickly they could capture him on film or, you know, camera. And I will say this, we were very safe that nobody, he would not get shot, you know, that no, somebody wouldn't shoot him. He did have orange best on when he was not doing his thing. So very careful, obviously, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, someone's going to shoot him. No, we're pretty remote and took all the precautions. But having said that, it was very interesting.

nine times out of ten nobody saw him whether he was walking and everybody was very very attentive um you know he was spotted at times but basically nobody could get a get him on film or on camera you know when they did guess what they captured a bobsquatch yeah that's what the part i thought was amazing the looking at the people's pictures some of the crappiest pictures i've ever seen And the group knew he was out there, kind of knew kind of where he was going to be at, and just to see if people could get pictures. You know, a lot of people complain nowadays where it's like, well, we have all this technology, we have all these cameras, we have all this, we have all that.

Well, you take 20 people out, tell him to bring their cameras, and try and capture him on film. And some of the pictures, I was like, there's nothing there. And he had to, like, blow it up. And I'm like, oh, I guess I kind of see him. It was amazing. I mean, it was completely amazing. You think, and that was the whole goal, is to get him on film or get him on a good picture of him in the suit. And it was nearly impossible.

I didn't really see one good picture. Actually, the one good picture I saw was from a lady that didn't even know he was there. She was snapping pictures of the cave. And she didn't even realize he was standing there. It was the craziest thing ever saw my life. Yeah, yeah. That was hilarious. And I didn't notice him because I was taking a break, but he ended up where we were.

we were at and walked across the cave opening and she was just flashing a picture and when she went back to look at picture he was there and we all started laughing but yeah funny and very true this is how this is a that it's so difficult uh to capture um Sasquatch on Bayward film I don't think people realize how difficult is let alone you know we're talking about an unproven species uh try that with a lot of known species bear and deer when a lot of times elk and cougar and everything else very difficult and uh but it was a it was a really um us as the lent project members learned just as much as those attending this event um and i learned a ton and uh you know it's a it's a little bit thinking outside the box you know and uh and learning and just showing you how hard it is and we

all learned something from that yeah it was real eye-opening for me i mean it was really eye-opening i thought for sure someone's gonna come back with a crystal clear picture yeah that was the whole goal of the group and no one knowing that you were he was out there knowing that he was out there and that you had a good opportunity to spot him and yet apparently not good enough and the other thing I thought was cool is he was talking about how

if he just stood still didn't move everyone walked right past him within five or ten feet everyone's just walking right past him and the thing was this particular costume was a god awful color too it didn't really match any of the stumps out here it you know most of the saskatch in this area are reported to be dark every once in a while Auburn but very you know dark brown to black this was uh what would you say was i don't know it looked like our uh carpet yeah yeah yeah reminds me matilda or something that famous a lot yeah but definitely a carpet and just kind of did stick

out and so and still uh could not capture on film um definitively Yeah, no, it's been a blast. Three, two. When I had come down this hill, I had seen this creature cross the road. They would have ripped my locked door from my truck, extracted me from my vehicle, and they know what a damn thing I could have done about it? This thing I got to notice in its eyes.

His eyes was real, real evil, real sinister looking. You know, the look it was given. See you! Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That's son of a bitch is about six foot. Yes, I'm looking right, Eddie. A place where people share their encounters. Let's start the show.

One, thanks for being here tonight. I'm actually coming to you from the Olympic National Forest. I had a chance to hang out with the Olympic Project, the people from the Olympic Project. And I want to thank Derek Randalls. I want to thank Shane Corson, all the guys and gals from the Olympic Project. Had a great time. Learned so much. I've been out here since Thursday.

Absolutely had such a great time. It's so beautiful out here. The show sounds a little bit different than it normally does. I actually have a portable studio I'm using. So you'll have to forgive some of the sound quality tonight. But absolutely beautiful out here. As you drive out here, there's rolling green hills, there's mountains in the background. As you step away from the road and actually walk into the forest, it's like you're in the Amazon.

The river's out here crystal clear. The lakes are crystal clear. Absolutely beautiful. learn so much from the people at the Olympic project in four days. I just can't believe how much I actually learned. And I can't thank the people from the Olympic project. Again, Derek Randall, Shane Corson, Tom Baker, all the people from the Olympic project. Thank you so much for having me down.

Had such a great time and it was very warm and welcoming. They had kind of an itinerary of everything you're going to do every day. Everything was optional. so it was very relaxing, very cool time, and I want to thank him again for having me. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you so much for listening. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com.

And if you get a chance, check out the website, Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Become a member. Help support the show. Thank you again so much for being here tonight. Again, the show might sound a little bit different. I'm in a little portable studio I set up so that, you know, I could do interviews out here. Most of the people you'll hear on the show tonight are from the Olympic Project, and they're sharing their own personal encounters with us.

So let's jump right into it tonight. All right, I'm hanging out with the Olympic Project and talking with Jess. Jess, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. It's good to see you. Yeah, it's good to see you. And if you would, tell us about your encounter, your first encounter you ever had with a Sasquatch, then we can talk about what got you into it.

Well, my first sighting was kind of a surprise. Of course, I'd had some interesting things happened prior years, but this fall at the end of both season in September, we were out camping, and Larry, one of my teammates there was with us. And Larry and Chris had gone out looking for elk that morning, and left. camp and about nine o'clock in the morning I heard his diesel up over the ridge line and had been scanning the ridge line thinking you know okay they're going to be popping over the top of the hill and coming back and as I was scanning the tree line you know where it you know the sun's coming down and it's part of the hillside is quite lit or I should say it's coming up because it's nine

and then of course there's a section of the trees that's still very very dark but I see something step out from behind the tree. And my initial assumption was that it was my boyfriend was coming out and maybe going to, you know, flesh the elk out. And it took a few steps forward. And then I realized that it wasn't Chris. It was very, very large. And then it took a few steps forward and it was just skirting along where the sun kind of hit into the tree line. And it walked across the hillside. and a couple times its coat caught the light and then it stopped and turned after traversing across the hill and I mean basically making eye contact with it

but you can't see its eyes because of the distance but it's no different than being out on a football field and I look at you and you look at me and you make eye contact even though I can't necessarily see your eyes and then it sat and looked at me for a minute and then just casually step behind a group of trees and then played peekaboon, who would stand up and kneel down and pull a branch down.

And when it was done, it just stepped up and took one step back, and it was gone. And when I had first heard Larry's truck, I had looked at my cell phone, and it was right about 9 o'clock in the morning. And when it finally disappeared, it was about 906, 907. So it was a full six minutes of watching it and it watching us.

And I had the two girls with me, so they saw it as well. well. So it was kind of, you know, it was a long encounter and I think I was probably more the subject that was being watched than it. I think, you know, it waited for the guys to leave and had decided to come and take a look and it probably wasn't anticipating me noticing it. But from its vantage point, had I not noticed it, I would have never seen it. I mean, it was so well camouflaged. Can you kind of describe what you saw? Well, it was definitely really big. and when it walked across the hillside,

it had a very smooth, even, even gate, and it had a, you know, I hate to reference the Patterson Gimlin film, but it's like the one thing that people have readily seen where they can kind of, you know, say it was very similar to that. And right, they can reference that. It was forward leaning, no neck, head,

head and shoulders were just massive. It had a longer arm. The upper, upper leg was longer than the lower leg. and it had a very forward walking gait with kind of, you know, very pendulous movement from the hip to the knee. And so, you know, I mean, you could duplicate the walk, but you can't duplicate the proportions. And so that definitely stood out. When you say the lower leg, like the knee was in a different spot? Well, I mean, the length from the hip to the knee was fairly long in comparison to the knee to the ankle.

Now, of course, I couldn't see that far down. because of all the slash. And so I could just see just to blow where the knee was. But even at that distance, you could see the way the hair would kind of lay against some of the musculature. And so you could see how large the muscle groups were. And even though I couldn't tell you definitively, you know, describe the face, the way the shadows and the hair laid, I could still, I'm terrible at drying,

but I could still sketch out the hair line in relationship to the forehead. the nose and the features. And it was very, very flat-faced. I would describe it as maybe more gorilla-like in terms of shape and the nose being more flat. But, you know, very large and then a very large cranial ridge or brow ridge. And then, of course, the top of the head had that, you know, on the dogs that you look at, they have that kind of that mucle bone.

It was the same thing. It had, you know, more pointy head would be, I guess, a basic way or conical-shaped head. that just angled down into the shoulder with almost no neck. So extremely dense musculature through the neck and the shoulders and very broad across the chest. How tall would you say it was? Well, when we did a recreation of it after the fact,

I sent the guys up there and we measured, and we were estimating right about the eight-foot mark and wider than both Larry and Chris standing side by side. I sent him up there and directed him from down below, And it was wider than what they were. So. How far away were you from the creature? You know, what, Larry?

I'm just going to ask him, like football field and a half. You know, so, I mean, a fair distance, you know, and I call it kind of like a fishbowl in the sense that I was at the bottom of a clear-cut area surrounded by hillside on three sides. And the hillside is very, very steep. And so it would be kind of like looking up into stadium bleachers and that I had this direct line of sight of clear-cut hillside. side. So it was, it was nothing debris wise between it and us. What was it about it that caught your

attention? Well, initially I was like, oh, here comes Chris. And then, you know, immediately it was the size. The size difference was, was significant. And I didn't even realize how significant until the guys went up there and kind of made asses of themselves trying to climb the hillside. Definitely the size and the way that it walked. I mean, Larry, and Chris couldn't walk through the slash without falling and dropping. And I mean, it was really funny, actually. This thing walked so smoothly through the undergrowth. And you have to understand, I mean, the slash there's probably three to four feet with lots of logs and lots of hidden holes.

And it didn't stumble. It didn't struggle. It didn't have to step over things. It just simply walked like we would on fairly, like on a path or, you know, pavement. I mean, it just was very, very smooth, very at ease and territory that we would have to really work hard at getting through. So that was the big thing. And that it was just very comfortable and very confident in its environment and very interested in what we were doing. Did it make you nervous?

I realize you're at a distance away from it, but you got your two kids there and then you see something that big. Were you worried at all when you looked at it? You know, I mean, I probably, maybe I should have been. But, you know, I always laugh and say, it's not like you go turn on the news on CNN or Fox and say that some kid was absconded by Bigfoot. So, no, I wasn't worried. I think I have a healthy respect for it in terms of its size. But we weren't bothering it. And it clearly came in and watched and was there to do whatever it wanted to do.

So, I mean, you know, there wasn't any threatening behavior. It just was there to watch. So maybe if it was like a bear charging you or if it was a little bit of a little bit of, you. or if it was a little bit closer, I might have been a little bit more concerned. But, I mean, there was just nothing about its behavior that gave me any reason to be concerned at all. Yeah. No, and I understand that. Sometimes you talk to people and, you know, these things growl at them or they bluff charge

and people have a different take on these things than that type of encounter where it's more curiosity where it's just checking you out. Sure. I mean, I don't think there are probably any different than people. my personality is different than yours. It's going to change depending on the situation. And I think age, obviously, in maturity, probably just like people alter how we interact at different times. And I think they probably, I mean, I've experienced really aggressive noises in the past. So yeah, I mean, I think there is the possibility of having extreme aggression, especially if they have or share any type of primate traits. There's definitely the possibility of physical aggression as part of how they express.

themselves, but in my experience, and I think in others, it's more of bluff charging. It's more of moving you along the trail with noises and sounds without ever showing itself because they don't want to give themselves away, but it's very easy to use noise and sounds to intimidate to get you to move directionally where they want, kind of like cattle dogs. They're able to move what they want to move, just using their body language and sounds. And so I don't see what they're doing as much different than that. I think it's interesting your boyfriend had an encounter, and he was kind of, as you and I were talking earlier, I mean, he was kind of supportive, skeptical, which is understandable.

You want to tell us what happened with that? Yeah, we were out. I guess it's been about three weeks now, and we'd actually just gone out camping. We weren't out bigfooting, and we'd taken the jeeps, and we were out with friends, and they'd gone out nightwheeling, and there was a section of road that kind of goes over top, a clear-cut area, with a stream and he locked up his brakes and and slid the jeep about 20 or 30 feet and saw something come up the side of the hill, crossed the road, go back down. He apparently got out of his Jeep and went and watched it, you know, cross the meadow. And he said at one point it turned and faced him

as it was going down the hill and that it did growl. But I haven't really asked him a whole lot because he's still processing and this is not really the time to be, you know, throwing a bunch of questions at him because he's still kind of processing the whole thing. But they did come back and get us and you can see where he'd skinned. And he was honestly scared. I mean, I haven't seen him shaken up over very much and he was physically shaking, did not want me to get out of the Jeep. He chambered around. He was so concerned. And, you know, I don't know. I think the longer you spend out kind of having these experiences, the less worried or the less scared you get because you're more familiar with what's going on.

And he just isn't there yet. And so, you know, I'm out there. Oh, let's run down the hillside and see what I can find. And he's like, no, it's dark. I don't want you going away from the Jeep. You might get eaten because he just doesn't have that. He just doesn't know. And I think he'll get more comfortable with it the more he goes out,

maybe the more experiences he has. Can you describe what he saw or did he tell you what he saw? He said it was big. And when we went back and measured a spot, I think we're figuring, between the seven and a half and eight foot range. And in my take, the reason it growled at him is when he saw it, he hopped out of his Jeep and he ran towards it initially.

And at that point, it was already down the other side of the embankment when he said it turned at him. And so, I mean, yeah, if you startle something, a wild animal and you run at it, don't be surprised if it exhibits a warning behavior to say, hey, you know, don't follow me. You know, they can be quite intimidating. So he described what he described was very large, very masculine.

And then what was really ironic is that my teammate Larry had had a site in there maybe two months. Yeah, six weeks, eight weeks prior to that. And the one detail that Larry hadn't shared was a detail that was one of the first things Chris had noted is that it had a white spot on its neck. And when he said that to Larry, Larry was like, you've got to be kidding me. And then Larry pulled out the drawing that he'd sketched of it with the grade out patch. And it was with, I mean, the same exact location of Larry's

sighting just a month and a half or two months prior to that. And so, and I can't remember the time of day Larry's siding was, but this was 10 o'clock at night. So, yeah. Does he want to go out anymore? Is he done? No, he does. He definitely wants to go out more. I just don't, I don't think he has quite figured out what all of it means yet. You know, I think he's interested to have more experiences, but I think it's a bit unsettling initially because it's just something very new. And you don't really have a reference to it. It doesn't quite behave like any animal he's ever experienced. And so it's going to take him a while to get comfortable and figure it out. And, you know, big footing isn't his hobby. He goes in support of me. Of course, we weren't big footing that night.

We were four wheeling. But, you know, it's big footing. But, you know, it's bigfooting isn't his hobby. He goes in support of me. But you just don't know. I mean, you could go out and research for years and never have an experience and go out bike riding and see something. So it's kind of probably a little bit luck of the draw for some people. And, you know, we spend a significant amount of time out in the field. I haven't switched this year since my accident. But, you know, when you're out in an area every weekend, wildlife start to desensitize a bit to you. And I think they start to build a comfort level, whether it's the deer or the coyote or

whatever. They start coming closer into camp, and I don't think that this is any different. Have you ever had anything aggressive happen when you've been out? Oh, yeah. I mean, we've had growls. I've had a giant rock hurled in my direction, and it landed right behind me the year prior in that same area. And it was Gunner and I sitting, Gunner Monson and I sitting around a campfire about midnight. And we were actually talking about Oregon Primate Research Center and I hadn't really thought much about it but I was had just made some a primate call and at that time we heard this crash and a whoosh and then a thud and this ginormous rock landed a foot behind my chair and so when it landed it made such a crash of course I flew over

the campfire tripped over him and just about roosted myself because if you hear of something you know land behind you at midnight. Your obvious reaction is you need to get up and turn around and face it because it landed right behind me. So I catch a lot of shit for that. I'll be honest. But when we went back and reviewed the audio. Something throws it a rock out. I'd be jumping over the fire too. Right. It's like, oh God, you can't see what it is and it's dark. And so I tripped right over his feet into the fire, just trying to get my feet underneath me so I could face it. But when we went back through the audio, Gunner was like you've got, you're not going to believe this. And so you can hear as Gunner and I talking, you can hear some grunting and growling going on in the background. And then

right before it throws us, you can hear the, really, really deep. And then you hear something step forward, and then you hear the whoosh, and then you hear it hit the branches that it's going through. And then, of course, you hear it land, and you hear my, oh, I don't know, fuck shit. Sorry. It was lots of four-letter words, I'm sure, and then landing, and then it was gone. So the next morning we did crawl up to that area because there's no rocks in that area. So whatever it was, had to have been carried in from the road. And there was a landing point that was maybe 25 or 30 feet up from where we were sitting. That was just pine needles, and you could see something had been there.

It had been kind of tamped down. And it had a perfect, we never realized until we climbed up there, had a perfect view. of the campsite, but she would have never seen it. Yeah, that would scare me, especially, you know, we were sitting around the campfire right, where you and our sitting right now, and we heard something moving back here, and it could have been anything, but it was moving. And then Shane had his recorder set up back here, and we actually heard a little vocalization back this way, so I'm hoping that Shane captured it.

Was that last night? Last night, yeah. Oh, that's interesting, because when we were hiking, Larry and I, being old, me being fat, were last and so we'd kind of broken off from the group and the group had gone over in that direction which would I think would be west and we heard a single howl from the ridge line on the east side and Larry and I both stopped and actually Derek heard it because Derek made a vocalization back and we didn't initially know if maybe somebody else from the group had made that so when we caught up James Million was like no we heard that as well and they had of course made some noises that we

knew it was them, but it was in that same direction. Yeah, no. Late yesterday afternoon. Yeah, no, we were out here. It was after everyone got back. We didn't come out here until, I think it was after midnight. It was like 12.31 o'clock when we came out here. Well, I mean, James has had something happened down there where he saw something,

and I don't know if that was last year. And then when I was up here, I don't know, two years ago, I was walking back to my Subaru, which had been parked. just right out here. And I was backed right in against the bushes. And I had something flank me all the way from the porta potty up. And it wasn't quiet. And it was pushing pretty hard through debris.

And it literally was keeping up with me. And so when I slowed down and stopped, it did. And when I walked, it kept coming. I don't know what it was. It could have been a cat. It could have been, who knows. But it was definitely, it made a lot of noise. And it drew attention.

And then I got in my Subaru and got into my bed. And about 10 minutes later, I had something thrown at the back of the Subaru. And then I got up the next morning, and there was a rock sitting at the base of the Subaru. And it cracked. I mean, it cracked pretty hard. Yeah, I don't want to give away too much on the location where we're at, but this whole area is notorious for sightings. If you ever look up sightings in this area, it's just notorious for people seeing creatures

and all kinds of roadside crossings are here. and I've talked to loggers through here that I've had encounters, and this is a great area. It certainly is. You've got the power lines. And so I think anytime you have the power lines and you've got some clear cut, people, oftentimes it's still pretty steep and there's a lot of slash so people don't choose to hike through there,

but it makes real obvious corridors for something that has the ability to go through it pretty easily. And so interestingly in our research area, besides here, down on the Oregon coast, We have similar theories about the power lines and how they use those as travel corridors, and we've had a significant amount of sightings. And my siding, ironically, if you look behind, the hillside behind where it was, there's power line and there's a power line corridor. The siding where both Larry and Chris had, it's a power line corridor, and there's also a creek underneath it.

And so, you know, you start to really mention to that. Yeah, I think those are the areas to assess. up shop, you know, as a hunter, those are the areas I'd go to because that's where all the prey goes. And then it's such an easy, it's the easiest path to go from point A to point B. Sure, and you get a lot of deer down there. You get a lot of elk. You know, the elk will hover kind of in the tree line, but, you know, we'll drive through there and you'll see elk down there. And so, you know, if they're using it as a travel corridor and coyotes use it, why would, what I would consider an apex predator?

why would it not do the same? It's following the food, it's following the water, but it still has shelter. I mean, it's really an ideal setting. I think I thought it was interesting last night when Derek was talking about how in the past they've gone out and they'll set up four guys along the trail vocalizing and they'll give everyone thermals,

they'll give everyone cameras, and nine times out of ten, can't find those guys, you know, and they're telling you ahead of time. And I don't think a lot of people realize how thick and dense it is out here. I mean, I could go 10 feet back from where we're sitting, lay down, and you'd never see me. He'd probably never find me unless you came right up on top of me. No, that's really true. And, you know, the joke is it's the world's champion hide and seek. But it is. I mean, its whole job is to avoid detection. And that's obviously what it's done. And it does it well. And it's well suited to the

the environment and we're visitors. So yeah, I mean, in this environment, you can go just 10 feet behind Shelley's tent there, even seven feet, there's that tree there, and somebody could stand right there and you never see them. And in our area, we've had that same, that same, same occurrence. And we were out this last winter, and it was pouring down there, and it was the most horrific conditions. And it was cold and it was wet, and it was pushing up near midnight. And my little dog, Foxy absolutely went bananas. Now they've been bigfooting with us since they were puppies and they're not bothered by a whole lot. And she started barking and growling and pacing right at kind of the brush line. And so I have an inexpensive imager that I bought for my tablet. And we hadn't we hadn't

used it yet. So I'm like, okay, well, let's pull this out. I figured we had a fox or maybe a coyote or a raccoon or something that was coming into camp and that's what I anticipated seeing. And what we ended up seeing was something very tall and very large, peeking out back and forth behind a tree. And, you know, it's not a high quality thermal. So you don't have the benefits that these high dollar equipment have, but you can take still shots. You can take video. And when we broke it down, even frame by frame, you can see that whatever it was was significantly large, not proportioned like a human would be and it didn't have that same

it didn't have the gate that we would choose to walk in that would be difficult to kind of emulate but in terms of size it's with that imager it was very hard to try and recreate I mean we we did some test runs and I would still say between six and eight feet

because it was larger than anybody we sent out in that same location but it was pouring down rain and you know I like to see that. I can show it. I actually have it with me. And it's not great. Like I said, it was our first time using it. And so I guess, you know, I'll plug this piece of equipment for their company.

You can thank me later. But both Fleer and Seek Imager have these tiny little, I'll have to show what I actually have it with me. They come in this tiny little case and they can plug into your tablet. They can plug into your phone. So they have both the Android and the iPhone. and they run between 2 and 300, and I compared them. They have their pros and cons. They're not fabulous, but they're perfect for somebody who wants to go out and wonder what's not too far in front of them.

Now, the Seek XR, which is the one that I purchased, was about $300, and it has a range up to, I think, a thousand feet, which is pretty significant, and it's got a little manual focus on it. But you can take stills and video, and you can actually take still shots as you video, and, um, It comes in several different color palettes, and so you can, you know, select through it. And honestly, for the money, I think it's fabulous. It's something that the average person can afford. It'll give you a peek into the woods at night. You know, you have to learn how to use it and how to read it. But if there's something large and in charge and throwing off heat, you're going to see it.

So we could even see the dogs. We sent the kids out. We could see the kids. Poor Shane, we were testing it one night. and I went probably 500 feet and then I mooned him. And you can see that. So, I mean, you can actually get some pretty good detail off of it. Of course, the more clothing you have on, the less detail you have.

And so that was something that we did notice. But I mean, for the money, I think for a piece of equipment that's easy to carry with you, money well spent, you're not going to get a Nobel Prize for, hey, Patterson Gimlin film, but you're certainly, it's a tool that you can use and have. to say, okay, that's something, that's a coyote or that's a fox or that's a Larry. Yeah, last question. What do you think Sasquatch is? Oh, you know, there's so many theories. My personal take is that they probably share similar DNA to us, as do other primates.

There's probably much more similarity than difference. my opinion is that it's, you know, similar to humans in terms of evolution, but its own little branch. And they've continued to adapt and evolve to the environment that they're in, much like we have. So we've gotten less hairy over thousands of years and more refined. It's probably the traits, obviously, that would be best suited or coat and musculature and strength and stealth. and so and I think it's similar to what we are. I think it would be similar and related to primates, but its own species.

I, you know, I don't think, I mean, I thought a lot about the possibility of it being a hybrid. You know, that's been tossed out a lot, and I suppose that's a possibility. You know, the Native Americans talk about it interbreeding with women. Is that a possibility? I don't know. I mean, there's some, I mean, look at horses and they can do.

that and you can get mules. So who knows? But I think it's probably very similar to us in terms of genetics and physiology, but I think is its own species. It does a good job of keeping itself well hidden. And so it just hasn't been categorized yet. Jess, thanks so much for sitting down with me. Oh, thanks for having me.

Well, I'm sitting here with Mike Leone. Mike's, every time I've gone to a conference or been out on expedition, he's always been there and he's like the lone hiker he's like uh chuck norris you know he's like the guy that goes out by himself uh mike thanks for coming on man sure thanks for having me enjoy the show thanks man and if you would uh you had two encounters i know your first one of us up at uh mount st hollins do you want to tell the audience about it sure um it was july 2009 and it was the end of july last weekend and it was really hot that weekend and I was out doing my mountain biking thing and that day I

mountain biked the Lewis River Trail and then made my way over to Mount St. Helens and parked right out in front off Forest Road 83 there right by the Lahara viewpoint off the little service road forest road there yeah I was just relaxing enjoying a beer in front of the mountain, sunset, it cooled down, it was beautiful. It was a Sunday night and just, it was literally about 10.50 p.m. and just out of nowhere, whoop, whoop, whoop, super, super loud and clear and almost immediately off in the distance to reply, oh, whoop, it went back and forth for about 10, 12 seconds, and then the one that was whooping, whistled twice, like two sharp whistles, and that was it, and went dead silent. And, you know, I was always been a believer, and then that just

changed everything, you know, that became, as Bobo would say, a knower. I mean, nothing else makes sounds like that. And I just stood there in awe and literally started crying. I'm like, wow, they're for real. They do exist. I had no recording devices. I had a little camera. I went in my car, got the little video camera. I sat there shaking with my hand on the record button. And of course, nothing happened. So I waited about half hour, and then I decided to walk down. It was about a half mile walk to the two parking lots. The ape canyon and lava canyon parking lots. And there was no cars there. And there's one trail in between both of them that leads down the Smith Creek. And that's, I walked in there maybe 50, 70 yards, whatever, and just sat and listened.

It was dead quiet. And that was it. But, man, it just blew me away. And I still get goosebumps thinking about it. It was, it was awesome. It was. Were you worried at all? I mean, here you're in a position to where you're by yourself, which is crazy to begin with.

You know that, right? Yeah. I do a lot of solo. Bigfooting, as they say, and some people think I'm crazy, but, you know, it's a rush. And that, you know, I had the adrenaline going, and it was just like, I don't know what I was going to do anyway in the dark alone, but I just, that's the only thing I could think of to do. And plus, I wanted to go down there and see if there's any cars. It was before Finding Bigfoot was on TV, so it wasn't any other people making those sounds.

And, man, if I only, and ever since that time, I always have a reference. quarter out now because yeah that's interesting about your encounter is the whistling and then everything stopped yeah you know to me they were just locating each other it was really hot those might have been the hottest weekend of the year that summer and i do believe they travel together in groups or you know at least they keep track of each other and that's they were locating each other and that's that's all my theory on what was going on and they were going about their whatever they do. And then you had a sighting in 2012. Do you mind telling everyone about that? Certainly. It was the end of September, 2012. I at the last minute decided to drive out to the

spot out by Mount Hood. It was a Thursday night. And I hadn't been to the spot in a couple years it was just very convenient so i drove in it's off low low pass road near riley horse camp i have no problems telling people where it is you're welcome to go there and just drove down parked in the little inlet at the time i had a honda element and i had the back set up as a little camper and that night was dead quiet beautiful warm evening no bugs and um literally i fell asleep in my chair woke up up, crawled in the back of my rig, slept, woke up. It was about 8.30 in the morning, and I literally just sat up to take a look around, because I pulled in there at night, and caught movement to my left, and there was a big foot right there just walking away from me. I only saw it from

behind, and I watched it for a few seconds. It rounded the bend out of view, and I was like, no freaking way. It just was just like, wow. And, you know, it was about six and a half, seven feet, just your big, broad shoulders, no neck, just hunched over, lumbering along the road. After a few seconds of amazement, I jumped in the front seat, grabbed my little video camera, and I went after trying to videotape it. And, of course, it was gone, and it was really dry. We were in a drought at that time, so it was really hard to find any kind of track. or anything. So I was in my, I walked down to the end of the road where it was burned off about 50 yards.

I was in sandals at the time and looked around, couldn't find any tracks, went back, got my shoes on, walked down a little further. And I was maybe about half hour after I saw it. I'm walking back to my car. And off in the woods, I hear this, like yelling. And I was like, whoa. And to me, my, I thought that, you know, that Bigfoot made it back to its companion or whatever and was getting yelled at. Like, what the hell were you doing out this earlier this late?

Because it was 8.30 in the morning and the daylight. And that's the only thing I could think of. That they're that intelligent where, you know, they were in the woods there. That's where they were hanging out. And, yeah. What color was it? It was dark brown, black. And was there anything about how it was proportioned that threw you off?

Just big, broad shoulders, you know. I didn't look at the legs or feet, you know, because it was so quick, I just was looking at the head in the back and the left arm swung out as it rounded the bend. And, you know, it wasn't ginormous, but I think it was like an adolescent or something. I'm just guessing because it was probably out when it shouldn't have been out. and there was a couple can't sites down the road. They were closed for the season, or at least during the week they were closed.

And there was nobody else around for miles, because I had my bike, and I biked down, just to see if there was anyone, and there was no one back there. So, yeah, it was just luck, playing simple. You know, if I would have, I think it was right in the road, walked out of the woods,

was watching my vehicle and when I sat up, it realized someone was in there and it turned around and started walking away, and that's when I saw it. Wow. Yeah, it's kind of life-changing to see one of these things, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it just confirmed what I already knew from the vocalizations, but yeah, it was really cool.

I'm very fortunate just to have those two encounters for sure. I'm just lucky guy, and I just tell people, just go out and do your thing, may get lucky. Yeah, it's always, it's amazing, isn't it, when you are actually looking for them, it seems like they never come around. We were talking about that last night around the campfire. It was like when you're sitting around the campfire and you're just BSing, that's when

something always happens. But if you're out there tromping around for whatever reason, nothing ever happens. Yep. I tell people when you least expect it, expect it. And you just never know. So just always try to be on guard. I always, when I get to camp, just start a recorder and always try to have a camera on you. You know, it's because you never know, and someone's going to get good video or picture.

It's just, you know, a matter of time. But that's all you can do because you can never really prepare for when you're actually going to have it and what you're going to do once you encounter one. What do you think Bigfoot is? I think they're a biological creature. They're definitely an intelligent species. You know, just like Derek says, they're very hyper-sensitive, hyper-aware. I always tell people, Sasquatch have a very high woods IQ. I mean, this is their home.

And it's real easy to stay undiscovered, you know, just walking. You see the steep terrain of these hills and how thick forests. And, you know, one could be right across the street there. And, you know, he's fine because no one's going to be bushwhacking up that steep terrain. So it's, you know, mainstream people don't understand how fast and thick some of this forest is. And there's so many places where people just don't go and they're safe there. Yeah. Well, Mike, thanks for coming on, ma'am.

All right. Thanks for having me. All right. I'm sitting here with Larry, founder of the Tillamook Research Group. That's all right? Tillamook Force Group. And Larry, thanks for coming on, ma'am. Hey, you're welcome. Glad to be here.

And if you would, I know I was just talking with Jess, and she was telling, you were sitting there with us, and she was telling us about her boyfriend seeing that one Sasquatch with the white stripe on its neck. And you had actually seen that one before. Do you want to tell everyone what you saw? and kind of what you experienced prior to even Jess's boyfriend seeing it. Sure, about, I'll say about 40 days before that, I was out in our area. I do some writing, so I wanted to get away from home. So went out to a place, started a fire, just sat and did some writing.

And it came about noon and I was like, I'd better go home and get something to eat. So I'm barreling down the logging roads at about 40 miles an hour. And there's one area that's always intrigued me as a Beaver Dam complex area. So I always glanced down there, and it's kind of a dip in the road. So as I was cresting the hill, I'm seeing this guy crossing the road in front of me. Now, mind you, I'm going 40 miles an hour, and I'm going, why is that guy all in black? Why is he wearing a ski mask?

What's wrong with his nose? And as I got up to him, it turned over its right shoulder, looked at me, and I was still going, as I passed it, I was like, Well, that was a big foot. And, of course, then I tried to stop, and as soon as you hit the brakes on gravel road at 40 miles an hour, it's like you're going on ice. So as I'm trying to control my truck on the road,

slide all over the place, I finally turned it around and went back to where I saw it go in. I had a torque half of the time. Got out of my truck, ran on down the hill where I went in, and there was this trail. So I ran down this trail for about five minutes, and realized I was completely alone, so it was like, well, that wasn't a guy.

I knew what it was to begin with. So I did a zigzag pattern, and I couldn't find any tracks or anything. So I ran up back into my truck and ran up to where I got cell coverage and contacted Shane. It was coming back from San Diego. He got the excited Larry about the siding.

I got home. After a while, I got home, and I'm not much of a drawer, but I actually drew its face to a T that would have looked at me, went across the road. We went back the next day that Sunday, went back and did some measurements of how wide the road is, because I only saw it take two steps and it was gone.

If there was a three steps, I didn't see the first one. I only saw as it came from my left to the right, I saw two steps, so the road was 18 feet long. Yeah. And as it got across the road and was taking its last step, it just turned and looked over its right shoulder at me and then just went straight off the side. Well, its face was imprinted on my mind like a negative,

and I literally drew it. A little known to me going to Jess's story, Chris, I showed him the picture of that. He goes, that's exactly what I saw, right down on the white patch that I drew. You hadn't even told him about the white patch or anything. No, I didn't tell them at all. So I said, what did you? Would it look like this?

And he just, he couldn't believe it. For the audience, will you describe to them what you saw? Basically, the height of the thing, I guesstimate about eight feet. And the reason why I say that's because its hips came up to the top of the grill. my 2003 full-sized Dodge Ram 4x4. It did have a conical-shaped head. And the unusual thing to me was kind of a flat-hooked type of a nose. Kind of a beady brown eyes.

The hair that I saw was kind of flowing off of its neck. There was no neck to write home about. It was more like set into its shrew. shoulders, massive shoulders. The hair was kind of like a cape that came up, up the head, down over its neck and it had this white patch on one of its sides, like what we would have, like, if it was like a patch of gray or something like that. Massive legs, huge chest, I had a side profile, until it turned at me. But it was a massive creature. I could, I could, I couldn't even tell you how big their legs were.

It was gigantic, in my opinion. What is it about this area that you guys go out to? Why do you think that they're in this area? I'm not really sure. I think I do have a theory. I think it's because there's constant food in there. There's deer and elk all over the place in there. You don't have to go too far to find an elk or deer.

They're always around. There's ground food there. There's year-round vegetation that you can. could eat there. And plenty of water is always water year-round as well. It's relatively stable in temperature, except for your freak storms that come in. The temperature gradient during the summer, for instance, if it's like 80, 80, 90 in town, it's 20 degrees cooler. It doesn't cool off as much. During the winter, it might get, every five years, you'll get a snowstorm that's an aberration, but basically there's, it's like its own microclimate, and it's pretty stable there.

It's kind of like a, it's a top of a bowl, topographically speaking. It's just, it's a sheltered area. What type of localizations do you guys get in that area? I mean, how would you describe it for the audience? We've got stuff similar to the Ohio calls, whoops, whistles, mouth pops. They sound like that, like that. we get some verbiage. I'm going to call it verbiage, not chatter,

because you have no idea what they're really saying. But we don't get conversational chatter per se. It's just like, whoop, come sit. That's kind of what it sounds like. I have a recording that actually sounds, whoop, come shoot me. But that's not what it, you know, it could be something else.

It's just how my mind interprets it. But there's all sorts of different, vocalizations that they do. We got one that's a real high pitch. I think that you play that in episode 28. If you guys can refer back to that, I think you'll hear two. One I've never heard, again, was one on episode 28.

It was a two-minute call between. It was nearly between two of them. Then the Ohio one, I haven't heard since. But we mostly get whoops. or some sort of screams, that type of thing. Have you gotten any aggression in the area? I know I was asking Jess about her boyfriend's encounter, and he kind of went after it,

so it turned and growled at him, which terrified him. And I don't know, I'd really call that aggressive behavior because he was kind of the aggressor in the whole situation. But do you get any aggressive type behavior in that area? I'd have to say never. I think that while I've in point blank range to them in the sense of where they reach through my tent and grabbed my head and I've been close enough to them to see them 30 yards in the dark,

they're just curious. There's no aggression whatsoever. However, Gunner and I were pushed out of an area once that we've never gone to at night, and they have this capability of making this, for lack of better term, a boombox sound that's penetrating. I'm not going to go to infrasound. I'm not sure it's that, because you could audibly hear it.

Real deep bass sound. But it was, they were, they know to stay out the distance just enough where your flashlights can't penetrate. That's how many yards it is. Or wherever it is that dark zone is, they stay right there. But that night I called the Jurassic Park night because it literally pushed us off the mountain and was just staying out of sight. And the weird thing was, is prior to that, we heard one whistle to the southwest, and then we heard another one to the northeast. So we knew there was two of them in there because we were the only ones up there, period.

Because all we were going to do is just leave audio and leaf. And we were up in there, and I set up a parabolic dish, and that's when we heard the first whistle. and then when we got off the, got back in the woods, we stood on the path, went dark, and we heard this boom, boom, boom. But similar to if you would think that somebody was walking down the woods with a boom box, but imagine the base, that irritating base,

blasting at you, coming straight for you. So I finally convinced Gunner to get, we got to get out of here. We have to leave. I pushed him. I had my 45 out. I don't know what I was going to shoot at,

because I couldn't see. And we ran on down the, walk down the hill swiftly. As we got down the bottom, towards the bottom at the road, there's another path that's coming off from the south, and we had another one coming up that path making the same noise. Boom, boom, boom. I got that all recorded. And we left and deployed the mics, but we got out of there.

And I did get that recorded. Is that like a vocalization that you're described? driving? The boom, boom, boom. If that's a vocalization, it's the first time it's ever been recorded anywhere. I ran it over to David Ellis, he's never heard anything like it. Interesting. How often do you guys go in that area? On average, we're up there every week, every two weeks, year-round. And what's kind of the hope when you're up there?

You guys trying to get track cast? You guys trying to get them on film? What's kind of the ultimate goal up there? Wanted to put a bullet in one? I'm in the no-kill part. I think the whole Tillmore Forest is no-kill. But if we get a track, that'd be good. That's good. We've actually gotten more settings now since we've been up there so much.

And I think part of the rule of thumb is, at least for my looking back, is that they get to know you after a while. They know what vehicles you're driving. They know the sound of your vehicle just by the metallurgy in your engine. how it sounds. There's a uniqueness to everything. Your voice is unique. They learn that. I guess you can hypothesize they learn to trust that or get used to you. Usually when I go in there alone, it takes me about 20 minutes to acclimate back to the woods, decompress. And after a while, I could tell they're around. I've had them walking around in the dark, whistling, mouth popping,

breaking sticks and stuff. Get real close within maybe 15 yards. I just can't see them because my campfire light doesn't go. that far. I've learned not to flash a flashlight out because they don't like it. And we've had him throw rocks out as before. They've whistled where my dog took off right after him. I thought I was going to lose my dog. Shane was with me that night. And we got him back and a minute, 38 seconds later, another whistle came from another direction. There went my dog again. A border call, he's a pretty fast, so he could have been right up to it for all we know. And he, you know, We got Cody back, but most of the time our motive operators is let them come to us.

And we get some awesome audio. I think we've gotten some chest beats. We've gotten grunts. We've had them throw rocks into our camp. One time there was one that was so close to our camp. It threw a rock, and we hear this tink, tink. We didn't know what it was until the next morning. What it was is they threw a rock and hit my tailpipe on my truck.

But what was really fascinating is that the one that was in camp got all excited and had this, ooh, that type of sound. But it was a grunt thing, but he was really excited because it made a big noise. And we've had them come, they imitate bird sounds. It's kind of weird, but they've got a pretty repertoire of whistles that they do. You know, they've got your regular standing like that. And they've got the high pip sound type of whistles that they can do. And a different type of octave of top.

if you will. It's not like what you and I would comprehend, but it's not human. What do you think, Seth, watches? I mean, you're lost out of that. I haven't got a clue. You know, I don't know. I think it's some sort of ape that's learned to walk up right. I don't think it's of the giganticis genome at all. It's something else, and I just haven't put my finger on it. kind of like

some of it would be like an upright walking gorilla with a human type of face for lack of better term they are powerful hugely powerful well Larry thanks for coming on man I appreciate being here there no problem thanks a lot all right I'm sitting with the great Thomas Steenberg

I'm a huge huge fan I've been in this for a very short time I know you've been looking into this for a long time but I appreciate you me interview. My pleasure. My pleasure. I know you've written four books.

I've written three myself and co-authored two others. I also done editing work on a few more. Where can people get your books, and would you mind going through the ones you've written and the one you co-authored? First book that was published was called the Saskwich in Alberta. It was put out by Western Publishers, which has gone under. I mean, they went out of business quite a while ago, so it's rather hard to find that book nowadays. The second book was called

The Continuing Mystery. Sascuance Beach for the Continued Mystery. It was done by Hancock House Publishers. You could still find it in any store that sells Hancock House books on the Sasquatch. The third book was called In Search of Giants. That came out in 2000. Same thing. Hancock House Publishers. Still available. And then I co-authored Meet the Sasquatch with Chris Murphy and John Green. That came out in 2004. That's still available. and the last book was Sasquatch of British Columbia, again with Chris Murphy and myself, and that came out in 2012. How long have you been looking into this subject?

I started serious research in 1978. I've been added ever since, but I was interested in the subject in general long before that. And what got you interested into? What made you actually, you know, most people don't realize the time and effort and the money and everything else that goes into looking into this, what got you to that point to where you're like, I'm really seriously going to look into this?

Well, it all started when I was a weird kid. So my parents, this is like the mid-1960s, my parents brought home from my sister, myself, a hardcover reader's digest book. You know, one of those educational textbook type things that has a chapter on hurricanes and a chapter on volcanoes and this and that. It had the usual section in the middle on dinosaurs with all the old paintings,

with the old T-Rex standing straight up, dragging its tail on the ground, and we can only run. And suddenly right in the middle of that dinosaur section, there were two pages with these creepy black and white blurry pictures, and the title of the article was The Thing in Loch Ness. I must have read that a hundred times. I became fascinated with it and wanted to watch everything and read everything about it, and I started scouring libraries for books.

course when you go looking for books on this you find books with other things in it and I knew very young I wasn't going to move the Scotland so so I started reading about this thing in western Canada called the Sasquatch but what really did it was not too long after that sneaking down stairs when my parents are watching a movie in the old black and white TV I go walking around the corner thinking I'm going to get hell for being up and says you know let's let the lad watch it my father says. Let's him watch this. He's interested in this kind of thing. I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, he's going to have nightmares.

My father won. I'm sure he's regretted that ever chance. And what was playing was that old hammer horror film classic starring Peter Cushing the Abonable Snowman of the Himalayas. Do you remember that one? It was Sasquatch from that moment on. That was it.

And I started reading and collecting and studying and researching. Everything I could find on the subject, and I started physically researching the matter in, like I said, 1978. And when did you meet John Green? I first met John Green, not too long after that, 1980, I believe, 7980. I met René a couple of years later. And the late Robert Titmus soon after that.

I knew them all, the late Grover Krantz. The only one of the originals that I really didn't know until recently was Peter Byrne. Yeah, I didn't really meet him physically to 2010, even though we exchange letters all the time. Yeah, I'd like to say one of the greatest achievements was I was able to be friends with all these guys and do research and work with all these guys and not get sucked into their personal wars.

You know, because half the time you couldn't get these guys in the same room together. You know? Not much has changed. Oh, I mean, Renee would go meet Renee in the bush, And he'd go, so what did that tip me say about this or that? You know, and I'm not telling you, Renee. He says, I won't tell you what he said, and I won't tell him what you say. And they never held it against me.

I don't know why, but they didn't. Yeah. What was some of the most memorable encounters that you've looked into? I'd have to say two of the best ones I looked in was, one was the Crandall Campground incident in Alberta and the Victoria, this weekend in 1988. It was four witnesses in Crandall Campground in Waterton Lakes National Park. They were all playing cards at the peak table when the one couple decided to go down the trail to the public washrooms to brush your teeth and turn in for the night. Well, halfway down the trail, this thing was standing on the trail and they almost bumped into it.

It let out a large grunting noise at them and she pulled away from her husband. Her name was Susan Stone asked. She, now it's Susan Ray Adams. And she ran running back to the campsite yelling bear. But Scott, he slowly backed up and he kept his eye on. He saw what was basically a large shadow move off the trail to the left. And of course, the other couple back at the campsite, when they heard the word bear was helter-skelter for the cars.

Scott came back, tried to get into the car with his wife, but she had locked the door and she wouldn't let them in. Guess somebody had to be sacrificed. And he ended up getting in the car with the other couple. Well, they turned on the headlights of one of the cars. They didn't see anything. They turned on the headlights of the other car. And this thing walked into the aerial lumini lights,

and they all saw it as it disappeared in the trees towards the man of black stonebrook. But here's where it really got interesting. The two men wanted to go drive around the seat again, because Darwin Gillies, he knew exactly what it was. I mean, he said, you're not going to believe that you know what the hell that was. That was sort of thing, blank, blank, blank, blank, yeah. The two men wanted to go after.

Two women wanted nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, Susan wanted to pack up and head back for Calgary. But they calmed her down. So they ended up getting all piling in one car and driving around the campground and seen if they could see it again. It had been in the general direction where I had gone. And they ran into a pickup truck or three other people. And it turned out these three people had seen something strange too,

and they were looking for it. So we may have a case here, not with four witnesses, but seven. But the problem is I was never able to identify those three in the truck. and I have no idea to this day who they were. But here's where our four main witnesses did the interesting thing. They decided to report it to the park warden's office the next day. That's in national parks in Canada. They're called wardens, not rangers.

And Darngillis insisted on making out a written report about what they saw. They were willing to just hear the story and let it go at that. But no, he insisted in doing a written part. And Warren Allen did, I interviewed him, and he told me he did everything he could to convince these people that, oh, it must have been a bear you saw. Sometimes they didn't hear nothing of it. And it's known as the Crandall Campground Campground Inc. I wouldn't be surprised that some day it's considered another Sasquatch classic. That's interesting.

What did they think it was? What did the other people? I knew there was one guy there that he knew what it was. But did they describe what they saw? Yeah, yeah. They all basically said the same thing. Susan thought it was just over seven feet tall. The other thought it was closer to eight feet tall.

Susan thought they were, you know, about 90 feet from it. The other thought they were over 100 feet from it. My measurements, they were about 80 feet from it when they saw it. So they overestimated them. But I interviewed all four witnesses separately. And even though there were little variances in description, they were all generally describing the same thing. And it was very soon.

I mean, Darren Gillis knew exactly what he was looking at. And it only took a few months for him to inform everybody else what they were looking at, and they all had to agree with them. Yeah. That's interesting. What was the second one? You said there was two memorable ones? Yeah, my second favorite.

Well, I've had a number of them, but the second favorite is 2008, in the Lower Mainland, there's a area called Bribe Falls Forest Service Road. A married couple were up there in the high observation point looking at all the lights of the lower mainland. They were on their way down. This is like two in the morning. The wife never really really. sought because she was paying attention to CDs. She was fiddling with CDs or something. And all she remembers is her husband breaking to a halt and saying, did you see that?

And she goes, what? What did you see? Some big hairy guy just walked in front of the truck. It's a narrow mountain road that they were coming down on. And she started asking them questions. And eventually it clicked into what he was talking about. And she said, are you saying you saw a Sasquatch? And he said, no, that's not this thing is a Sasquatch. And this witness, still to this day, I don't say it was a Sasquatch. He's told me, I don't know what else it could have been. It certainly fits the description.

But of course, it wasn't a sasker. She said there can't be any such things. Some people don't even believe their own eyes. And he told her, don't tell anyone about what I saw here tonight. Don't tell anyone. But she told her friend, who told her husband, who used to work at the mill where I was,

I lived and he knew me and what I did. So within 24 hours this happened, I'm phoning him up saying, I'm curious about this thing you saw in Bridal Falls Forest Service Road last night. He's going, how the hell did you find out about it? He was not happy. And so we went up there and I went to his place after I calmed him down and assured him that Adam and entity would be respected. And to this day, he won't reveal his identity.

He agreed to do an interview and show me exactly where this happened. So I interviewed a men as home, and I interviewed his wife, and then with Bill Miller in company, we went the following day up to where this happened. And just by coincidence, the Chilliwack Press was doing a story on Sasquatch in general, and we said, well, we just had this recent signing report, we'll tell you about it, and we're not revealing any names. So they did, and they wrote a story about it, and they titled the story, if you go in the woods today.

And another young man read it and said, my God, that's the same, I saw something the following evening on that same road. And he came forward and he contacted us. I said, I saw something the following evening. And he had no idea until he read that article about this incident.

So we said, well, tell us all about it. And we agreed to meet him there and we met him at the spot where it happened because it was right beside an old nursing stump right off the road. And it was only like a barely a kilometer from where the first incident occurred. Yeah, and while interviewing him,

suddenly realized he didn't see it the following evening. He saw it four and a half hours before. Really? Yeah. So his sign occurred at 10.30 p.m., September 18th, 2008. Midnight rolls around. It's now September 19th, 2 a.m., the witnesses from the first story are coming down the hill.

So even though I can't say with 100% certainty, it's a fair bet that both these, accounts involve the same animal. Can't say it was 100% certainly, but when two incidents happened, four and a half hours apart, barely a kilometer apart in the same Forest Service Road, it's a good bet it was the same animal.

And they knew nothing about each other. That's interesting. Yeah. What's kept you going in this whole thing? My own curiosity, to me, I want to know one way or the other if the thing exists or if it doesn't. I'm a researcher.

And to be a researcher, you have to admit there's a possibility you may be wrong. It's very possible, and I accept the possibility, even though at this stage I still don't believe it, that I'm just pursuing a great piece of Western North American folklore and mythology. I don't believe that yet, but it's possible. Other researchers, a lot of them,

they're not really researchers. They're more like religious leaders pushing a faith. there's no way you convince them that they're wrong because they believe in it so wholeheartedly and that's not a researcher and that's an advocate it's like a religious leader pushing of faith I mean the Sasquatch mystery is going to be solved it's going to be solved by research

and inquiry and investigation not an act of faith yeah do you think they're dangerous I don't think they're particularly aggressive as a habit most encounters I know the thing moves away from you fashion you move away from it but I do believe

it's a primate therefore it's an animal and any animal can react violently if it feels cornered or threatened and let's face it we do have people who disappear in wellness areas every year without tracing I think if you ran into a hostile one of these things you would tend to disappear

but do I think they go out of their way to harm human beings or we've got some sort of monster are out there? No, if that was the case we'd know more about them by now, in my opinion. Yeah. Why do you think they're so hard to catch? Because they're so elusive by nature.

And I don't think they're in danger or anything like that, but I don't think there's a great number of them. An old friend of mine, the late Grover Crants once did an estimate that he thought there was maybe one saskets for every hundred black bears in any given area. And to me, that sounds reasonable. He's probably right.

Yeah. I tend to go along with that. The odds of you being in the right place of the right time, or the wrong place of the wrong time, depending on you look at it, it's shot in the dark. Yeah. And that's why I get, you know,

my red flags go up for me when I run into people who claim five encounters, six encounters, and more than that, yeah. That sounds a little, because in 37 years of looking, myself, I may have had a fleeting glimpse once and only once.

Yeah. What did you see? In the summer of 2004, I was going up the west side of Harrison Lake Road. There's a large valley. We were on one end of it going down through it to go up to the other end, and that's where the turn off to the fellow I was with named John. He was the watchman up there. We saw a figure crossing the cut line where the power towers were,

right at the crest of the next valley, and it crossed from the middle of that cut line to the trees and the right. outside in about five seconds. It was big. It was walking upright. But it was really too far away to possibly identify. You couldn't see any fine details. And my philosophy from the beginning,

it's always been stick to the facts and never deviate the facts. The facts are I saw a figure. The facts are it was moving upright. The facts are he was jet black, or appeared to be jet black. But also the facts are, he was too far away to positively identified. If that was a large man, I have as yet never seen a Sasquots. If it was a Sasquatch, I've seen one. Yeah. Have you heard vocals that made you stop and kind of...

I've heard a lot of sounds, a lot of strange sounds, and who knows. But nature and animals play a lot of strange tricks. I mean, you've ever heard a cougar screech? It doesn't sound anything like what you hear in the Disney films. You know, and people don't recognize these things. To me, a noise in the bush. or a noise at night is just that unless you saw what made it you know it's just a noise even if it was this ass-quatch yeah you got to see it yeah i mean it could be but we don't know i hear people hear noises all the time and things like that and i think a lot of them are probably misidentification of common animal noises or human noises i mean there was a whole bunch of famous ones that i thought i had put it a stop to a number years ago. You've heard of the Chehala sounds? Yeah. They sounded just like the Pauwalt

recordings of the late 1960s, the Homer's recordings in 1979, and the Klamath recordings in 1993. And when I saw a coyote uttering those sounds, as far as I'm concerned, that answered all those others too. Yeah, they're probably coyote, yeah. Because if you don't see what did it, it may freak you out, but that doesn't mean it was a Sasquatch. Yeah. One thing liked about Grover Krantz and I never met the man and I never got a chance to meet John Green. I know he's still around but I never got a chance to meet him and I know a lot of those guys were real quick to say put a bullet in it and I tend to agree with that. If for do I, and people get upset when I say that, but do it, it doesn't mean you should slaughter

everyone you see. That's not what I'm saying. But what's your, what you're feeling on that? It's just the reality of it. When you ever asked, the major institutions, and that would be the Smithsonian and the National Geographic Society or whatever, what do you need to confirm that the species does exist and is alive and thriving on our little of those areas? And they're unanimous. They need a body or piece of the body. Nothing else will do. And when they say that, that's exactly what they mean.

And no amount of wishful politically correct thinking is going to change it. Now, we don't go out shooting a whole bunch of them, but I agree with the late Grover crats. I mean, if killing one would terminate the species and they're doomed anyway, it's going to happen. I don't like the idea in doing it, but that's what has to happen. The only way around one is to find the remains of one that's already dead. Yeah, but that's what has to happen. Do you think the government is covering this up? No, I don't think the government cares, to be honest with you.

It's not something they're overly concerned about. If it doesn't affect profits and taxes, they really have no concern. And it's not like they're killing people and taking them away. I mean, the government is the government. They don't really care one way or the other, in my opinion. That goes for Canada as well as the United States. To them, it's irrelevant whether the Sasquatch exists or not. That's the way I look.

There's no big conspiracy theory like that. I don't buy that for a minute. John Green once suggested that a Royal Commission in Canada, as we call it, or a commission of Congress where witnesses are interviewed. could possibly establish the existence of the Sasquots, but, you know, people can come in and lie through their teeth. Just because it's something official doesn't mean they're not going to, trying to prove them wrong.

That's the problem. So, no, witness, eye witness testimony. I mean, there are still people every year who claim to see Elvis all over the place. So, you know, and the government's not going to declare him still alive, change it, you know. I don't think the government, the American government or the Canadian government really gives one hoot whether or not the Sasquatch exists or not.

That's not important. Yeah, that's interesting. And it's pretty big over where you're at. I mean, Sasquatch, you're in Harrison Springs. Harrison Hot Springs. Harrison Hot Springs. And that's kind of a hotbed of activity, isn't it? Oh, yeah.

Harrison Hot Springs, and right next door where the Shahis Reserve is where the name Sasquatch was first coined. Yeah. a man by the name of J.W. Burns was a school teacher. He was a white man. And he was writing articles because he came very friendly and was well liked by the community there. And the Shahis people were telling him

about this creature in the mountains called the Susquehaven. Well, the Susqueh. It all depends on who you talk to and how they pronounced it. And he wrote an article from McLean's magazine that was published April Fool's Day, 1929, called Introducing BC's Harry Giant. And he took the word Saskahavik or Susqueh. And he misspelled it and mispronounced it,

and he called it Sasquatch. And that's how the name caught on with the non-native community in Canada. It's been known as Sasquatch ever since. The name Bigfoot came about in the late 1950s down here in the United States when a man named Jerry Crew made castings of footprints

around his bulldozing equipment, and he went into the newspaper, the Humbolded Times. And a reporter named Andro Gonzoli took a photograph of it and had the article, Bigfoot prints. And that went on the Associated Press and where Bigfoot was born. And, of course, they never heard of Canada's Sasquots. So Bigfoot was the name Bigfoot was born. So basically Bigfoot's the American name and Saskatchezer's Canadian name for the same thing.

Yeah. Do you still take reports today? Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Can you tell us about a recent report you took? The most recent report that I have happened in late April on Vancouver Islands, another roadside crossing with possible footprints. A researcher I know on the island who I passed the information onto

has set up trip cameras in the area and hopefully we'll see something. But you never know. It's another roadside crossing, but it's the most recent one. It scared the heck out of the guy. Yeah, I got it. The roadside crossings crack me up because, you know, as you know, I mean, you're a wilderness guy. you're out here you can hear a car coming on two miles away you can hear it coming and for whatever reason

they seem like they kind of sit and wait until you're just like deer there's like rabid just like raccoons oh it's like wait until there's a chance they're going to get hit and they'll dash out you know I don't get it but that's what happens and it continues to do so have you had any reports of one being hit by car or a hunter shooting one or yeah yeah I've have a few reports of hunter shooting them but never bringing them in. Never died. I know of a few accounts where people have hit them, but they have not killed them.

Matter of fact, down in an American case, said, a man down in Oregon, he almost pretty well lost his job because he refused to change his story and, like his boss wanted him, to explain the damage to the front end of the truck for insurance reasons. He said, a bear did it.

You hit a bear? I said, no, I didn't. What I hit was on two legs. There's nothing there. So I take it he didn't have that job for very long. I know of a fellow logging truck. I'll just call him. Well, I won't call him because he didn't want his name revealed.

He backed, he damaged a building because he was looking at a Sasquatch and the tree line out in the front of his truck. And he backed into the building. Got some damage. Didn't hit the Sasquatch, but he sure damaged the building a bit. And when he said, why didn't you do it? Why weren't you looking at what you were doing? I was looking at the saskawats.

So if you're going to make up a story to cover your ass, you're going to come up with a better one than that. But I think he was telling the truth. That's what he was doing. He was just dumbfounded about what he was looking at. He sort of forgot he was still slowly backing up. And he took out the corner of the building. What do you think saskwatch is?

I think it's a higher primate. I think the old theory hypothesis of gigantic pithicus black eye crossing the lambridge and coming into north america at the same time the ancestors of our first nation people did that to me that makes the most sense i could be convinced otherwise that they have an instrument but still as right now to me that's the one that makes the most sense a higher primate an undiscovered eight yeah i tend to agree with you the only thing that throws me off is the footprints yeah the footprints are very human-like in appearance or not uh but the rest of the description i'm

I'm with you on. Yeah, basically their feet and the way they walk, and that's where the human similarities in. After that, it's a... When you first got into this, was there a lot of... I know nowadays, you hear so much paranormal stuff, you hear people saying they mind-speak, they have special Jedi powers, and they have... When you very first started into this, was any of that going on?

Oh, yeah, but not to the extent today. I mean, today, the Sasquatch field has literally become an asylum that's been taken over by the inmates. That's stuff, and the tabloid mentality of the media is just drawn to that. There are people, like I said, and this is another reason why the government doesn't take it seriously. It's because the media is dominated by people who come out with these stories. And these television programs don't help. I mean, there are shows on now that make Finding Bigfoot look like a Masonian special. You know, the only way to describe them as Duck Dynasty Hunts Bigfoot, you know, ridiculous.

So why would they take it seriously? It's a huge honor to have you on the show. Well, that's it. Thank you for asking, no problem. Thank you, sir. All right, yep. And that's it for tonight, everyone. Remember, if you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email.

My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. please visit the website Sasquatch Chronicles.com again I want to thank the people from the Olympic project Shane Corson who hosts Monster X and Derek Randalls for inviting me down

thank you so much guys had a great time from the Olympic National Forest I will see you guys next time I'm Tom Martin and I'm a veteran sports analyst and respected sports handicapper who will help build ESPN's brand

I've been recognized and awarded by Pro Football Weekly and Gaming Today magazine as the honest handicapper. Let the other guys give you the same old boring sports talk with the same tired storylines. We'll give it to you straight here every Friday on Wagering Week. Don't gamble with other podcasts. Let SportsGuard Network's Wagering Week help your bottom line.