Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:519 John Bindernagel Tribute

Episode Date: February 28, 2019

Feeling a little down and thinking about the Doc.   John Albert Bindernagel (December 22, 1941 – January 17, 2018) was a wildlife biologist who sought evidence for Bigfoot since 1963. He published a book in 1998 entitled North America's Great Ape: the Sasquatch (ISBN 0-9682887-0-7). His second book, The Discovery of the Sasquatch – Reconciling Culture, History, and Science in the Discovery Process, was published in 2010. Bindernagel grew up in Ontario, attended the University of Guelph, and received a PhD in Biology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.He moved to British Columbia in 1975largely because the region was a hot spot for Bigfoot sightings. Over the years, he collected casts of tracks that he believed belonged to Bigfoot. He also claimed to have heard the creature near Comox Lake in 1992, comparing its whooping sound to that of a chimpanzee. Bindernagel believed that the Bigfoot phenomena should receive more attention from serious scientists, but remarked, "The evidence doesn't get scrutinized objectively. We can't bring the evidence to our colleagues because it's perceived as taboo." Bindernagel was a true pioneer in the field of cryptozoology and was a regular on the classic History Channel show MonsterQuest. Bindernagel and Dr. Jeff Meldrum often appeared together on the show and had a real-life friendship. Together they formed the bedrock of the Bigfoot Research Community. Bindernagel was a familiar face on the History Channel appearing on a number of their specials.

You know, I don't think people really knew how sick John actually was, and all of us that were close to him knew how sick he actually was. But he never complained about it. He would never, you know, he was always positive. He was always, I remember it was probably a week or two ago. He was trying to say goodbye to me on the phone. And I mean, like, goodbye. And I always loved John. He used to always say bye for now.

and I asked him one time, what do you mean by for now? Why do you always say that? And he said, it's never goodbye, Wes. And two weeks ago, he was trying to say goodbye to me. And, you know, I just wouldn't hear it. He was loved. Sorry, man, breaking up. He was loved.

And he'll be missed. That's for sure. say it anyway Today is another day To find you Shying away I'll be coming for your love Okay and take

On me To say I'm odds and ends But that's me I'm stumbling away Slowly learning That life is okay and Say after me It's no better to be safe than sorry and Take on

Is it live or just to play my worries away Here are all the things I've got to remember You're shying away I'll be coming for you anyway know any way Take on And for the audience too, if they go to YouTube

and type in John Bendernoggle You'll find his YouTube channel And I'll put a link to the website I highly recommend people go to John's YouTube channel He does presentations on And they're very professionally done John He does presentations on

The Sasquatch And they're very informative And, you know, John, as you and I were saying before we're on air, as I was telling you, you know, you do such a great job at dumbing the subject down. I don't know if that's a proper term to use, but you don't talk above anyone, but I would imagine a scientist could sit and watch it. I would imagine someone who's not a scientist could sit and watch it and get information from your videos. And the other thing, too, is, and I wish I really had this, you have a very warm, compassionate delivery of, of how you do it. It's very engaging. And I think that's something natural. I don't think you can really teach someone that, but you do such a great job with these presentations. I really wish at these

conferences for the Bigfoot researchers, investigators listening, if you might give a speech, I would say go and copy what John's doing. Take his model, steal it, and use this as your model for when you give a presentation. And I don't know if you can copy John, but, you know, take it. a look at what he's doing as far as his presentation goes. It's very professional, very concise, and I get a lot out of them, John. I post him to the Sasquatch Chronicles all the time. Well, thanks. I just want to say, go on, go on. It's very encouraging, Wes. Because, you know, I came to this, I guess it's a conclusion that, you know, people are not reading books the way we use to. We are watching a lot more video. So I started this kind of new, well, for me a new idea,

They have research videos trying to keep them short, but they still go 10 to 20 minutes. You know, I know it's long for YouTube. And I've got them linked now to Erpa's very, well, almost a major part of my website. My son is helping me because some of them on YouTube I've actually upgraded and re-edited and we get the kind of final version with a bit of explanation and introduction on the website under the heading research videos. And just commenting on that other point about compassion. Well, I am compassionate with eyewitnesses and amateur investigators because it's so hard to get a hearing.

It's so hard to, you know, get our, well, I witness descriptions talked about in a proper context. And I have to be careful. I am trying to bring the subject into the context of an unfolding scientific discovery, which it is. So anyway, that's just a bit of background. Thanks again for the encouragement. No, no, absolutely. And you know, it's interesting when I, when I, we were at Beachfoot, I interviewed you a couple of years back. I think it was 2015.

I interviewed you. And shortly after that interview, I was contacted by, by a very prominent professor. I won't say what university, but he's a primatologist. I'm sure if I said the university, it'd be easy to track this guy down. But he, his students kept coming to him because they listen on their phone. They listen on iTunes. They listen on Stitcher. and they kept coming to them and saying,

hey, you've got to hear the show. You got to hear the show. Because, you know, the show is basically, the bulk of the show is people's encounters, people saying what they've seen. And you're right, it is very hard to get people to come forward. I would say for every one witness you hear on the show,

I've probably talked to 10, 15 people that don't want to come on the show, but want to tell someone their encounter. And so he started listening to it as a goof. He thought, well, this is ridiculous, but I'll entertain my, students and let them know I listen to it. And the first show he listened to was actually my Beachfoot interviews.

And he looked you up on Wikipedia. And he said, if, if Dr. Benner-Naggle is willing to take a look at this, maybe I should take a look at this. So he started listening to the shows. And he told me, he goes, you know, Wes, in the scientific world, eyewitness accounts really isn't evidence, but it kind of is. I mean, you learn a lot from what eyewitnesses say. but on the record, I'll say that's not evidence.

Off the record, I'm fascinated by it. And he said, you know, you start to see a lot of very primate, non-human primate type behavior with the Sasquatch. And he'll email me, you know, once every two months or so and say, hey, you know, that last show you did, here's kind of a comparison with the great apes, here's kind of a comparison with chimpanzees, here's kind of. And so he'll give me a little bit insight, but it's interesting. because here's a professor who's a closet, Bigfoot enthusiast, but he won't say it publicly.

And I know you kind of went through that. I think you had more, you have more. Still. Yeah. Well, and forgive my language, but I think you have more balls than a lot of these scientists because you're willing to. Thank you for that. Well, you're willing to put your neck out there. And people don't understand that.

Well, you know, it sounds arrogant, but it's because we're right. And I can't say that. You know, we do have to reserve, you know, some doubt. We're called that as scientists, you know, even if you feel 99.9% confident that your conclusions are correct, which I do, you do have to say, oh, are they all hoax? But no, no. And the reason I am so confident in the evidence is because of, you know, the work that you do and other amateur investigators do. They collect and they document evidence and they bring it to our attention. and I'm on side with this primatolid saying, you know, we can make sense of that.

I think that's our kind of scientific obligation. You know, we've studied primate, like non-human primates. We say, hey, this is very consistent with what we see in, like I'm doing right now, something on that short, thick neck. You look at the well-developed trapezias muscles of a gorilla. You say, oh, gee, that's the way people are drawing Sasquatches for me. You know, these, it's almost a taper. from the head down to right out to the shoulders.

It's an anatomical explanation. So it's kind of exciting when you see things falling out to place, and you can, into place, you can say, hey, we can explain that. So I really would like to get in touch with this person. I'm encouraged that he, you know, found my take on it, you know, worth following up, because I'm not getting that from my scientific colleagues elsewhere. But anyway, thanks. And, yeah, no, absolutely.

And it's fascinating to me because there is a lot of, professionals that listen to the show, but they do it in a private setting. They don't really talk about it. But I think a lot more scientists are probably interested in this than most people realize. I think, well, we can kind of go into it. You know, I know back in 1963, you started looking into this. And for the audience out there, you have your PhD in biology from the University of Wisconsin. And, you know, there's a mindset I don't think a lot of people realize, you know, I hear this moan and cry all the time from the Bigfoot world that why don't scientists take us seriously? Why don't scientists? And, you know, being a respected wildlife

biologist, what really drove you to look into this topic? Because as you and I both know, that's very taboo. And it could cost you your career looking into this. What drove you to look into it? Well, for what I want to say, I do all that moaning myself. I mean, you know, my big push right now is to, try and get my scientific colleagues on side. And I'm talking about colleagues in the relevant scientific disciplines. Well, mammology, primatology, you know, physical anthropology, and certainly my professional wildlife colleagues. But, you know, this treatment of the Sasquatch is scientifically taboo is so longstanding.

It's quite difficult. Anyway, but thanks for raising that. Oh, so yeah, what I keep saying to them, you know, it's way too late for us to look proactive, but we don't have to look as if we have our heads in the sand, which is the way it's coming out. And something came up. I think it was at that same Beachport conference you were talking about, Stan Avery from Band, and we made a really good comment. He said, you know, the point I made in a recent video is that eyewitnesses are puzzled by the absence.

of scientific participation in this discovery process. Well, they're more than puzzled. His question was, I don't understand why scientists would squander their hard-earned reputation for openness, you know, by ignoring this evidence. So anyway, that's all background. So very briefly, yeah, it was 1963. I was a third-year student in the actual course was Wildlife Management. small class, about 13 of us.

And I had, at a barbershop actually, seen a copy of a true magazine. I know, I know, I probably shouldn't even mention it was in true magazine. But it was an article by Ivan Sanderson, who's written extensively as a wallageist, who's written extensively on the Sasquatch and other hominids. Anyway, and it was the William Roll account of 1955 in central British Columbia, really good account. And anyway, and there was an illustration there. So I raised this in class at the end of a class.

We always had a little discussion. I said, what about this ape man? You know, talking about in BC and my classmates, you know, they laugh. Ha, ha, ha. Come on, come on, John, you know. And the professor said, oh, I'm sorry. We don't have time for that sort of thing. We need to keep studying on, you know, reproduction and habitat choices in wolves,

moose, deer, you know. And it was just that attitude of dismissal because I was, what, about 21, 22 then, still, well, I was still idealistic. I guess I'm still idealistic, but now I guess it's more like naivety, but for being so idealistic. But anyway, I thought, gee, we shouldn't be dismissing this so out of hand, should be. But you know, there was almost nothing available then. but by the late 60s, John Green's book started to come out. And there were these IWinth's accounts, and there was John Green being very, very good about his writing, very serious.

So that got me going, and it led to our family moving out here to Bruce Columbia, 1975. But, you know, for a long time not admitting my, or trying not to admit my interest in this subject, because I was trying to remain employable as a professional wildlife biologist. I was doing consulting. And it's only been more recently that I would say come out of the closet, but come out more forcefully with regard to my colleagues because I think we should be involved. You know, one of the things I want to ask you is,

do you think there's a fear or there's with scientists, and you can speak to this level, do you think it's more of a fear of if I look into this, there might be something to it, or do you think it's more of, well, I'm not going to risk my reputation on this? Oh, for sure. And this is what forced me in that second book into this area called philosophy of science, history and philosophy of science, which sounds dry as bones and deadly boring. But actually, it's kind of exciting because a lot of it is the scientific discoveries.

And one finds that if a discovery claim is perceived as far, far-fetched, oh, the discovery process gets so prolonged. And I think this is going to be a record. Like, it's been over 100 years from our early historical accounts, not even mentioning the reports from Aboriginal people in early American. But good published historical accounts, I'm now, you know, back at 1841. Anyway, so that's why I spend a lot of my time now in philosophy of science, trying to understand, you know, this resistance.

And that's where Lila had cheek, the Princeton PhD, who helped me edit the book and who wrote a very, very impressive forward for it, helped me out. And she kept directing me to people like legal scholars and archaeologists. You know, some scientists have, they've kind of questioned scientific ideals. We really aren't as open-minded as we like to think we are. And especially if the claim is, well, like the Sasquot. I mean, you know, it's very clear. What?

You're saying there's a seven foot tall, 600-pound upright mammal looking like a primitive human or an ape here in North America, and it's still not in mammal field guides, the Peterson series, the other books. You know, it just sounds incomprehensible. So this is what we're off against. Do you think it would be different for scientists if, let's say instead of Sasquatch, we plugged in a tiger? and we showed footprints from Washington State, we showed footprints from British Columbia, we showed footprints from Ontario, we showed footprints from, and we had eyewitness reports of seeing this tiger. Do you think it's because it's more on the primate side that they're unwilling?

Do you think it's irrelevant that they probably wouldn't look into a tiger either? Yeah. No, I totally agree. I mean, the thing is you bring it a bit cat like that. Well, at least we've got, you know, cougars, mountain lions. We've got bobcats, you know. I mean, at least the group is represented here. You know, as far as primates, I mean, we're it.

We humans are considered to be it for North America. So here we are saying, actually, there's another primate here. Well, I'm saying non-human primate. But, you know, in that group, hominoidia, more broadly the primates, we're saying, no, there's another primate here. It's living alongside. Well, that's part of the problem of that claim. being perceived as far-fetched.

And there again, there's a wonderful area in philosophy of science called prematurity in scientific discovery. Very briefly, a discovery is considered premature if there aren't a lot of links and steps leading up to it in generally available knowledge. Where you see in 1958, there was Jerry Krew with a Bigfoot cast suddenly. and in 1967, the Patterson Gimlin film, equally suddenly. And, you know, then the media is saying, well, there's no background for this. Well, that's why the historical accounts are actually very, very important, saying,

oh, no. First, there were these reports of a monster, and then that so-called monster becomes better described. And you get people back in the 1800s saying, you know, it looked like a gorilla and like nothing else. That's an Oregon report from the Sixes River. You know, I've got those in the book, and I'm working on another video now to show, this isn't actually a premature discovery. We were, if we were paying attention, and I don't want to fault anyone, but those reports languished. Well, you might say, and for good reason, they didn't fit, you know.

Anyway, but there was a lot of stuff leading up to Jerry Kruh in that first, Bigfoot, well, the first track, and leading to the unfortunate, I call it an unfortunate name Bigfoot, and then to the Patterson Gimlin film. And of course, as we all know, and continuing. And you're right, there is a long historical accounts. You know, people would call it the monster. They would call it the wild man. They would call it the grass man.

They would call it the chicken man. And so, you know, all around, there's always been this legend of this thing around. And it wasn't until recently people start calling it. Yeah, I'm with you on the Bigfoot thing. I'd rather call it Sasquatch. but, you know, and it fits basically historical accounts have been going on for 100 plus years or more or longer. I wanted to ask you about your own siting, and I've never talked to you about your own personal siting. And as I was telling you, the audience, this show is mainly about people's sightings.

There's a lot more I want to get to beyond the siting. But I wanted to ask you about your siting. What were you out doing? And then for the audience, what did you see? Well, it wasn't a great sighting, and that's why I don't talk about. I find the other evidence like the track photographs and track cast, and even I witness descriptions and drawings, more compelling. But, yeah, anyway, it was, oh, gee, about 2007, Adrian Erickson had been sponsoring a project in Kentucky,

invited me there saying, John, if you stayed for a week, I think you might see this. There's some kind of semi-habituated Sasquatches on this piece. the land. Dennis Foal is there. Lila Hadd's cheek is there, a scientific advisor. So I did spend pretty much a week and around the middle of the week. They said, oh, you should come out. There seems to be one standing in a fence roll, you know, kind of looking out over the field to seeing what's going on. So we went out and we could see from the house, actually, out the window. Yeah, there was some upright creature in the fence. When I say creature, because it was gently rocking side to side. It was pretty obscured by vegetation, but I could see a shoulder and what

appeared to be a head, and there was this rocking motion. And then the woman there who had been habituating them by feeding them, she went out with some pancakes and, you know, spoke in the high-pitched voice, which seemed to reassure Sasquatches in the past, and they thought it might emerge. Well, it didn't. It kind of got spooked, actually, and turned and walked into the forest, but as it turned and walked, the big arm came up swinging backwards as it kind of took off. So that was probably the best part of it for me. But I mean, well, I was going to say there's better stuff on these YouTube clips, but

of course, you need to have the backstory. And there's always this fear with, I mean, some very convincing YouTube clips, but, you know, as soon as a, and I understand why a scientist might want to come forward and say, gee, that looks pretty interesting. And then someone's going to say, ah, gotcha. That was my brother-in-law, da-da-da-da. You know, so we do need more complete, well, what we've come to call the backstory for these things to know who saw what, what they were doing, and what were the circumstances. But anyway, that's my small sighting. That was a, and that was a great siding. But, you know, that's a famous case out there

in Kentucky. And I wanted to ask you as a wildlife biologist, because I always tell people don't feed these things. And, you know, I don't have their credentials to really say one way or another. I can just tell you what seems common sense to me is not to feed them. And it seems like there's a lot of bad stories when people stop feeding these things around their property. And I've had a lot of witnesses on that have been feeding them. And then all of a sudden they stop and things go bad really quick. It seems to anger the Sasquatch. They seem to have very short tempers. But as a wildlife biologist, Would you recommend that someone feed these things if they see them around their property? Well, actually, feeding of any wildlife, of course, is not encouraged.

But, I mean, to me, this is kind of a special situation where I think habituation is the, well, I mean, Jane Goodall was actually criticized for this, for feeding chimpanzees to kind of encourage them to hang around the camp for more observations. And it worked out. But that was controversial. I think it's a tool, and I think we're stuck in limbo here. You know, poor Grover Kranz, he suggested we, well, a lot of people say, we're not going to get anywhere without a type specimen. Grover suggested collecting a type specimen was strongly, strongly criticizes.

It meant basically shooting one. His point was, once we have one, we'll then get protection for all the rest of the population, but that wasn't good enough. Okay, we're getting good video. clips, you know, and people are saying hoax, still saying hoax. We're getting some really good track cast, whereas people are understanding the need to document cast, and I've been trying to actually purchase, acquire some of these now, and I have been doing so. So I still think tracks are pretty good evidence. But anyway, habituation does provide an opportunity for good

filming for sound recording, for recording tracks, for observation, either from a blind and, you know, the various trail cams and other cams and just cams and monitors, you know, so with the technology is widely available and coming down in price. If someone would do it in kind of a disciplined manner, you know, I mean, you know, maybe putting out foods that are somewhat natural for the Sasquatch. And I think it's quite possible to develop, I don't know if you'd call it rapport, But, I mean, these are primates. They are not unintelligent. They're very intelligent.

And I think they would respond to what would be a positive overture, such as supplying food. And that's why I love John so much. I miss him a lot. And one thing, I remember, I'll tell you a quick story. One time, I got so many John stories, I used to call him the doc. And I don't know if he liked it or not, but I used to just call him the doc. he was because he kind of reminded me of Emmett Brown from back to the future John wasn't as crazy as Emmett Brown but he was kind of

he was really always animated when he talked when he spoke to you was very animated and I could just I remember just his presence and the way how he projected himself you couldn't help but fall in love with the man but one time I was asking him about dogman and I said John this I said I don't know what to I don't know. You know, it's a big foot show. I don't know if I really should have anyone with dog man.

I don't know what to make of this dog man. And he said, Wes, do you believe the people? And I said, yeah, I believe the people. He said, are the reports consistent? I said, yeah, absolutely. The reports are consistent. He's like, does a dog man make any physical sense to you as far as on a biological level or science level? His dog standing up running around?

And I said, absolutely not. He goes, you need to have more on the show then. Because there's something out there. people are seeing something. You need to look into it. And he did the same thing with the lights. He did even the rape creature. He, you know, he was like, and he would always say that to me.

Do you believe him? I would say, yeah, of course. And he would say, are the reports consistent? Yeah, of course. It doesn't make sense to you on a scientific level. I'm not a scientist, but, you know, he always talked to me like I was equals with him, even though we weren't. And I would say, no, Doc, it doesn't make any sense. we always say have them on the show

because people are seeing something out there and he goes even if it makes no sense to you it's going back to your point about researchers how they're so close-minded if it doesn't fit into their box they won't look at it and the doc used always tell me

that's very disingenuous that's not how a scientist operate he used to always say that's not how scientists thinks or operates Wes you look into everything that's what a true true science is nothing more than curiosity you need to look into it. But fresh off the International Bigfoot Conference,

I want to welcome Dr. John Bendernoggle to the show. John, thanks for coming on. Again, I really appreciate it. Sorry. Hi, Russ. Thanks very much. No, no, you're doing it. How are you doing today?

I'm good, thanks. My voice comes on and off a bit weak, but I think I can speak up. Oh, no, you're doing great. And I know we're both off the International Bigfoot conference. I know you were there, a lot of great speakers. I didn't get a chance to see anything that you presented.

I was over in the vendor area. But walking away from this conference, John, and thinking about this conference, what did you take away from it? Well, I'm still processing that because, you know, you go there. And we had some really good teaching. I guess that's what, I mean, Jeff Meldon always gives a good presentation. But Cliff Barrettman talking about the anatomy of the Sasquatch hand based on 13 casts.

I didn't know there were 13 hand cast of Sasquatches, and he was very good at teaching and working away on that. And then the other one for me was, well, several, but David Ellis talking and pulling together, all these, I won't call them all vocalizations because some of them were percussive sounds. So David's very good. He's very conservative.

He said, these are recordings that have come to my attention. We attribute some of them to the Sasquatch or Bigfoot, others were unclear of, and he's doing largely what I think I'm trying to do, bring this forward for the attention, well, in this case of bioacoustics experts, who can say, oh, that's actually been documented as so-and-so, here's a recording, let's do comparisons, and let's look at the spectrogram. So that's progress, and that's really exciting. And I guess the third for me was that, gee, David Floyd, coming from a university in eastern U.S., the Sasquatch Well, the hominid images in the literature, and he went way back, and he's dealing, like I have done with Aboriginal accounts, yes, this is embodied in myth, and yes, are we dismissing it too easily as merely a supernatural being or a hallucination, or should we be taking this as more seriously, early knowledge or early pointing towards current knowledge?

So good stuff, good stuff, yeah. Yeah, I really walked away. I really enjoyed what little I heard of it and so much evidence. And you're right about David Ellis. I know he's with the Olympic Project and I'm sure he's listening. But David's one of the best ones to send. If I had some true audio I needed analyzed, I would send it to David Ellis. I've seen him at work.

I know sometimes you hear. Go ahead, John. He's my guru. Yeah, yeah. He helped me a lot. He came early to a conference the other year and spent a whole day with me. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I know I do different mixes with audio.

And like in the last couple of shows, I did a thing with the ape canyon. And I know people are amazed by it, and I'm like, you should see what David Ellis can do with audio. If you think what I do is good, you should see what he can do. Was there anything that – what was the main thing that stood out to you, though, from the whole conference? Was there one thing you walked away from that you couldn't stop thinking about? Well, it keeps going back to that same. old thing. There, I just talked about your two real, basically tutorials, lectures, especially Cliff and David. And at the same time, the skepticism persists. I come home into what I call

the real world. That was kind of a three-day, almost in isolation there. I come back to the real world. And, you know, so that, to me, that's difficult because I don't have to back way off from, I don't have to, but it seems that there's a necessity to back way off from So, say, Cliff, except talking about the hand there. Two, does this thing exist or not? And, you know,

all the emails I dealing with and all the, oh, gee, apologetic emails I'm dealing with now saying, gee, I can't, I don't want you to use my name, but here's what I saw, you know?

And I got a real good one from BC the other day, and I'm actually thinking of heading up there because it's recent, two weeks, good sighting. You know, but the guy didn't have his cell phone with it. I don't, I don't,

I don't fault people. No one's expecting to see wildlife that needs photographs. But, you know, I had this distressing thing, and I might have blown it. We have a CBC Canadian Broadcasting Station found out that I was down there at a U.S. conference, and they're right here in Vancouver, B.C. And they called to do a 10-minute radio interview from the B.C. coast area. And I said, well, great, love to do it. And, gee, ah, and I should be more, I should be ready.

but the woman, very, very good journalist who interviewed me, he started off. So you're at this gathering of believers. And I said, oh, gee, that is, she doesn't know how offensive that is. She doesn't know how hot a button she's pushing. And so I tried to say, we actually don't consider ourselves believers. You know, we actually consider ourselves investigators, and we work on evidence-based investigation. But I'm afraid it got my backup,

and I haven't actually heard what came out. It seemed okay, but I said to my son, I think I might have sounded a bit ranty. Well, that's what so-and-so thought. It was a bit of a rant, Dad. Oh, shucks. I mean, with you and your listeners, I think you understand why I tend to rant,

and maybe it cut me a bit of slack. But here's this journalist expecting a nice review. of what the Sasquots looks like and what sort of evidence really is there. And I'm thinking, oh, we are so far past that. But then that makes me sound delusional. You know, either ahead of the curve or delusional. Well, you know, the easiest answer for that one. So, anyway.

Yeah. So I'm still working through that. But, you know, but that's good. It's good when that happens because I'm kind of out of the loop here. And I need to know what's bothering people. And, you know, can I address it? Yeah, no, and I'm glad that you came on. I asked the listeners for some questions, and there's definitely some great questions from the listeners. But, you know, there's a lot of skeptics that show up at those conferences. I talk to many of them, and I love skeptics. I absolutely love them. They have some of the best questions. They don't have any preconceived notions about anything. And I actually like speaking to skeptics, not so much like, you know, someone who's just down on the topic that wants to tear apart everything you say. I'm okay, having a lot. an argument with someone like that. But the skeptics themselves, you know, the people on the fence,

they don't really have a dog in this fight. They haven't ever seen one. And they're kind of on the fence. They don't really believe, but they don't really disbelieve. Those are my favorite people to talk to because, you know, you can share so much with them. And then they tend to walk away and go, wow, I didn't know that there was that much evidence regarding this creature. And I didn't realize that many people had seen this creature. That's the other thing, too, when he talked to, lot of these skeptics. There's a shock that many people have seen them. I guess they see the Patterson Gimlin film and they think, well, that's pretty much all that's happened in the last 50 years, but a lot's happened since then. No, gee, that's good, West, because you're right about skeptics.

Yeah, I mean, gee, anyone who turns up at a conference. Now, that's, that's open-minded, healthy skepticism. That's what we encourage. You have questions, raise your questions. You have doubts, express those doubts. We need to address them. Can we address them? You know, so really a lot of People who consider themselves skeptics are really agnostic in the sense that they're not saying, no way can't exist. They're saying, I haven't seen enough evidence, or I haven't been convinced, or I need to learn more. And this is, it comes back to my rant, but I don't see a whole lot of scientific colleagues there saying, gee, these people may have something to say to us, and we may be missing it.

But anyway, let's cut that one off right there. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the hand. I didn't get to hear that presentation. I just had a gentleman on, and I want to come back to it, Richard, my head on Friday night's show, where he had a good look at three of these creatures, a young one and two adults. And remind me, I got a question for you about that later, but he was talking about the hand. And as we were talking about the hand, he said, you know, Wes, the thumb isn't exactly in the place where our thumbs is at. It's actually a little bit lower.

He said, but their hands are like catchers mitt. He said this thing could walk up, scoop up water, and drink out of it. And it was that thick of a, that deep of a hand when he looked at it. What was it about Cliff Brackman's presentation or him talking about the hands that stood out to you? Well, you mentioned that, that the thumb is not positioned like it is in the human. It is down up towards the wrist. That scoop-like aspect of the hand that you were talking about, that's come up in reports. And there's a, gee, I know one eyewitness drawing, it's actually from Ohio, very much shows a scoop like a large scoop like hand.

Yeah, you mentioned the size of a catcher's mitt. Gee, there's that report from the 60s with an eyewitness drawing, a prospector from British Columbia here. And he actually, this thing was standing across a pond from him, sort of rocking back and forth, upright, hands and arms swinging slowly. And he said, in the hand, were like canoe paddles. I mean, they really impressed him. So it's not just big foot. It's big hands in the sense of maybe being disproportionately large compared to a human. And Cliff mentioned another thing.

Like sometimes the fingers appear short. And he said that's probably webbing at the base of the fingers, where we have a slight webbing. We as humans, there seems to be more webbing. Yeah, you know, it's stuff, and it's coming forward like that. Yeah, and then seeing the actual hand track, you know, I stopped and talked to Cliff, and Cliff was actually a really nice guy. I've never actually talked to him before, and I was a little taken back on how, I don't know why I was taken back, but he was actually a really super nice guy,

and he was kind of showing me some of the different track casts. And one question I want to ask you, Doc, is, you know, I had Richard on Friday night's show, and I'll send you a copy of it if you want to listen to it. I know you're on the site too as well, but he had talked about seeing this young one, and it looking like a monkey. He said it looked very much like a monkey in the face, except for a human nose. Now, he had actually seen the female had actually walked over,

crossed his path. They were out hunting, crossed him and his friend's path, walked over to the tree, and actually got the baby out of the tree, and it climbed on the mother's back. But one thing he said is the mother's face looked very human-like. The other one was a little,

the male was a little bit more scarier, a little bit more dirty, a little bit. And he went into details about that. But the part of the encounter I found fascinating was he talked about the young one looking very much like a monkey and as the adults looked very much human-like. And I almost wonder if they grow into their face or not. I don't know. That isn't the first time I've heard that.

I've heard that about four or five times off the air from other eyewitnesses that have seen the young ones and said they look like monkeys. And then the adults look like humans. What's your take on that, Doc? No, that's good. That's good. And you know what's one of these questions. But, you know, it's interesting. If you get reports of like, well, infants or juveniles, they, you know, maybe still spending most of the time on all fours, not totally upright as to become sub-adults. Yeah, and I've got a report from here. And it was, he said baby chimpanzees. So that was his take. Again, very, very monkey-like. And, you know, it's interesting. You know, I mean, we do have these discrepancies, especially. Especially the nose when it comes to facial features. Some say ape-like, some say much more human-like. Okay, and then this thing about the nose, some say, oh, very flat,

simply to outward-facing nostrils, like the face of a gorilla. Another say, oh, no, a definite sort of structure, more like a human nose and downward-facing nostrils. So is it variation that's going on or just misinterpret, not misinterpretation, but differing interpretations? I don't know. But, you know, I actually went to something because you asked the other day when we're just talking a bit about nomenclature, rules of nomenclature. And see, the group I use is, it's called hominoidia. Well, first of all, primates, since we're all primates.

And then hominoidia is apes and humans. And now that's as far as I go. I don't want to go further into making it, calling it an ape or as others do call it a human. Because it gets us into divisiveness within ourselves, and that's, I don't think we need. We don't need any more to visit this. So I back off from Great Ape and say, if we can say anthropoid, that includes. And it leaves room for these human-like features without saying, if it's got human-like features, it can't be an ape,

or if it's got ape-like features, it can't be a human. We're not there yet. Yeah, I think even, you know, if I look at chimpanzees, and it's kind of crazy I'm in this field because I'm not a huge fan of primates, they creep me out for some reason, Doc. I don't know why. They just do. Like when I go to the zoo and stuff, they just kind of creep me out.

It could be what? The actual, like, when you look at chimps and apes, they kind of creep me out. Because there is a lot of human in them. And, you know, even with great apes, the known great apes and with chimpanzees, there's a lot of human-like behavior with them too as well. Oh, yes. So I don't think there's a big difference in the primate world since we're all primates. Yeah. Well, you know, I got an invitation a few years to go speak at a local university in the class was primatology. And it turns out that the students were in what is called early childhood education, and they were being taught, primate and including ape behavior to understand kids, you know, hitting out and intimidation behavior. And I thought, whoa, that's pretty broad-minded because, you know, we're usually not very willing to learn.

about humans from from apes, but I mean, you know, most, well, say, most scientists, certainly anthropologists do not, well, physical anthropology, do not draw that bold line between humans and apes any longer. You know, this is kind of a continuum. But, you know, we get into trouble when we start to kind of catalog, as I'm reminded about, well, a really good investigator I spent time with back in Ontario, central Canada. And he kept saying, and I was calling them mammals. And I said, gee, and he said, oh, sorry, John, I really can't go with you on mammals. It's definitely, you know, well, he was very, very human-like. And I said, well, Mike, even if it's a human, it's still a mammal. We humans are mammals. Oh, okay, okay, then.

But I mean, you see, this is the problem because we, again, the rat, because we haven't engaged our scientific colleagues who could really speak eloquently like Jeff Meldon does. On the people, you know, they're out and they're kind of missing some of the basic stuff. We should not be arguing about mammals if they got hair and then warm blooded their mouths. That should not be controversial. So that's why I'm reluctant to take it down too far within primates. Yeah, no, and I understand that. I understand that.

I think that there's a lot of behaviors you can draw between the SAS. You know what shocks me, John, I know you're a wildlife biologist. the one thing that surprises me the most about Sasquatch is you will find it acts very animal-like in a lot of situations, very much like an animal. And then there's other situations to where it acts very human-like. And I can't really... I'll give you an example. The guy had on Friday, Richard, probably one of the best encounters I've ever heard.

And this female Sasquatch had walked over, grabbed the young one, taking it out of the tree, put it on its back, and it just looked at him. And I was telling Richard, I said, you know, if that would have been a black bear, if that would have been any other predator on the planet, you probably would be dead. Because they don't, you know, bears, chimpanzees, I mean, any known predator out there is not going to tolerate you being that close to a young one. they're just not and the fact that this thing didn't attack him kind of threw me off he reached for his knife i'll tell you john he reached for his knife and he said the the female saskatch gave him a look like don't do that and that really stuck with him and that's very human like i mean that is very human like to get a look from a creature and know right off the bat it's a look like don't do that and so that throws me off with the saskatch what are your thoughts with the with the behaviors

being human-like and animal. Well, you raise very good point because we, and this is this thing about, we draw this line between humans and apes, I think, without a very full understanding of apes, and I include myself in that, you know, although I worked in parts of Africa and did see chimpanzees, I should have gone to observe guerrillas in the wild, and I didn't. I didn't know I was going to get into this area of research. But anyway, yeah, humanly, if we, If those primatologists who study ape behavior, they see human-like, well, what we would, you know, popularly describe as human behavior all the time.

And this is what Jane Goodall keeps emphasizing, you know, these apes, they need this kind of social stimulation and psychological stimulation. You can't just put them in a cage and inspect them, you know, to thrive because they don't. They, you know, and there's this maternal strong maternal instinct, stinks, there's assistance with each other, a lot of stuff going on. And so we have this unfortunate popular conception of apes as knuckle-dragging brutes, you know, and as she, Jane Goodall, it's one of the ones. I know, we must get over that. They're much more human-like than we realize, but it's not maybe quite as widely known as people. like her realize. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. You've, you've looked at that Cocoa, the Gorilla John, haven't you? Yeah, yeah. There's a famous, and I watched this on the video,

and I was really blown away by it. And it really opened my eyes as far as, you know, my dog, for instance, I love my dog like my son. There's nothing I wouldn't do to protect him. There's nothing I wouldn't do to, you know, make his life easy. But, you know, a lot of times as humans, we look at animals and we think of them just as like animals. And I remember Coco was smoking one time. Or no, she was trying to get out. She was actually, she was halfway out the window. And the people had stopped her because she was living in this enclosure with the people. They had stopped her. And they said, what are you doing? And she said, I'm going out for a smoke. Well, she was breaking out to leave. is what she was doing.

But the fact that she signed back to the humans, I'm going out for a smoke. She'd watched the humans go out there for a smoke. It blew me away. It completely blew me away. It made me stop and go, well, what is human? What is it that we're, what defines us as human beings?

You know what I mean? Well, you see, no, see, that's good. And I think part of that defining. And, you know, oh, and it comes up in cultural anthropology, just like you talked about your dogs as animals, but the implication is we're not, we're human. Well, this is the same thing. Again, we are animals.

You know, I mean, we're mammals. But no, anthropologists, cultural anthropologists keep getting, well, I won't say they get us into trouble, but they're, in terms. One of their really popular cultural explanations is that we humans have a need to separate ourselves, and they say from animals. I think what they really mean is from other animals. And we embody this in the big foot or the Sasquatch, which bridges that gap with what they consider animal-like qualities and behavior and human-like behavior. And so that sounds good. And then so other scientists, oh, thank you very much, cultural anthropologists.

I think we now understand how we have Bigfoot in our culture. That's a good explanation. No, no. Well, I don't know if we humans have this need or not, but I don't think it is a very good explanation. in light of all the physical evidence we have, you know, the tracks and the eyewitness descriptions that you're describing, the vocalizations. But we kind of allow it ourselves to be stuck there. And I wouldn't like to say it myself, but I heard others say, yeah, a scientist being intellectually

lazy. Well, maybe that's it. Just take the easiest solution and make that a conclusion and say, that's it. So it's me going on a bit. No, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. You know, I think as humans, we tend to, and I know there's a scientific term, I think it's anthroformis, you know, we tend to put human-like chiroistics on a lot of animals. I mean, I do it with my dog.

And so when people do it with Sasquatch, I completely get it. I mean, I'm not too hard on people when they do that because I think my dog understands what I say. He understands my body language. He understands. And he probably doesn't. He probably has no clue. But I feel like he does. And I think that's more of a human thing than it really is on him.

It's more on me. And I think a lot of people with Sasquatch, they do the same thing. Whether they think it's an animal, whether they think it's a person or people, whatever people, you know, call them. It depends on your experience with them. And it depends on how you view that relationship. And so, you know, I'm not too hard on people when they, when they, I used to be, John. I used to be really hard on, I'd be like, no, they're animals. Nothing more, nothing less.

And today I'm a little bit, maybe I'm getting soft in my old age. Yeah. Yeah, well, me too. Because, I mean, you know, I think no one should be faulted for their interpretation because it's basically open season on how you interpret Sasquatches and Sasquots evidence and what you hear because, I mean, it's, you know, since there's so little informed scientific comment, available, you feel free. I mean, just, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and I think with eyewitnesses, you know, because we don't have one in a cage, we can study, I always say I don't have one of my garage I can study, but with eyewitnesses, it's like I was telling Richard on Friday night show, you know, I was asking him what his opinion on Sasquatch is, and he was like, well, I'm not in a position to speak about that. You're in the absolute position to speak about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Most of the eyewitnesses or most of the true fans of the show, probably know more about Sasquatch than most researchers out there. Oh, yeah.

Because you can learn so much about the behavior, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I'm so glad that you're archiving and pulling these reports out of the human population. Because we will return to those. You can probably tell the whole focus of my research these days is that, you know, okay, for some of the people, of us, it's been discovered. We moved on, just like Cliff and David Ellis, we moved on in our studying hand anatomy, vocalizations, you know. But that leaves us so exposed, you know,

standing out there sort of naked, looking over our shoulders, saying, what are we doing out here looking delusional? And maybe I take that on too much. And that's another good thing about these conferences, like you say, certainly skeptics there, but lots of you. young people, very, very open, not with all the hang-ups that my colleagues have and much more amenable to this. No, it's still an alternative explanation beyond it being merely a cultural phenomenon. So, yeah, yeah, good, good stuff, Wes. And that's why I like having you back on the show, John. You're actually a huge fan, especially with college students. I had a lot of college students contact me, and they were having their professors listen to the show. And especially

when you're on, they have their professors listen to the show. They're like, hey, if you won't listen to eyewitnesses, listen to this guy. And you're right, there's a younger generation coming that is more open to take a look at this and not so afraid of, I think the generation of scientists that are afraid to look into this

are dying off. You know what I mean? Well, you know, I'm going through this with Jeff Meldrum and he's invited editorials for his journal, R.H. And, you know, I'm really, I'm I'm not coming out of the closet.

I'm out of the closet with my acceptance of this, but I'm getting a little more ready to start poking at my scientific colleagues for their unwillingness to scrutinize the evidence. And I've been so deferential. And, you know, saying, and it's what gets me into trouble. You know, I say, yes, I understand your resistance to this. Yes, it's partly justified. It does seem like a far-fetched claim.

And then I, again, this investigator I work with back east, and we said, I know I have said this another time, John, I understand your need to appease your scientific colleagues. Well, there's another hot button. I don't want to appease them. I don't want to look as if I'm enabling them to remain silent and uninvolved. I'm trying to attract their attention. So I saw my little presentation.

I was trying to poke a little fun at them in that, little sort of satirical cartoon I presented. So that's what I'm sort of going next because I'm encouraged by these younger people, because we have senior curators of mammals, senior scientists in physical anthropology, basically pronouncing what is acceptable, what are acceptable subjects for scientific investigation in which are not. And they're absolutely silent on the Sasquatchew. Bigfoot. And I want to address that because that silence speaks volumes. It says, no, this is not a subject for

scientific scrutiny. It doesn't warrant scientific attention. And basically, I don't want to hear any more about it. But behind all those scientists are younger colleagues, interns, grad students, and a minority of people, even my age, like Veldham and I, say, whoa, whoa, you're speaking for us. and you're not representing us, and that's when Milded more successful at this than I am. That's why, permit me to address your next conference so I can illustrate some of this evidence and not convince you of our conclusion, but show you the evidence and why we think it warrants investigation. So I'm nibbling at the edges of my cage here coming out of it. We're starting to poke a bit. No, I think it's smart, John.

I really do. And you know, a lot of times, that's been my biggest complaint, really, with the science world. Hey, whether you believe in Bigfoot's irrelevant to me, just take a look at the evidence. Take a look at some of the eyewitness reports. Let's look at some of the trackcast. Let's listen to some of the audio. And if you want, we can look at some of the video. But let's just take a look at all of the evidence. And then tell me what you think. And I think most scientists are unwilling to do that. And the fact that you are, you're a professional, John, I think he holds a lot of weight when you speak. It holds a lot of weight. Years of taking encounters.

And it could be anyone, maybe someone you met at a Bigfoot festival, but who impacted you the most over that period of time and has affected you in a positive way? Yeah, that's a tough one to answer too. There's been a lot. You know, I could say Pop Gamelin. I would say the one. The one person that affected me the most would have to be John Bender Noggle. I just loved him. I just absolutely love the guy.

And it was more of, I don't really want to say grandfather, grandson. It was more of a father-son type relationship. Every time he always called me, he would always talk to me like, I was his kid. And that's how he treated me. You know, how you doing? Always a concern for how you doing. and how are things holding up? And, you know, John really impacted me.

Most people, and I mentioned this on the last show, but one of the things how John really impacted me with, I would bring him weird stuff constantly. Just weird, weird stuff. You know, three-toed tracks, lights, dog man, this rape creature people are seeing, which, you know, between you and I, that maybe that's a skin walker, I don't know. but just the real weird stuff. And I said, John, am I wasting my time doing this? I mean, you're an actual real scientist, unlike most of the Bigfoot World, who pretends like they are. You're actually a real scientist. And I said, am I wrong in doing this?

I said, in my heart, I feel like I'm doing the right thing. And I said, some of the stuff sounds very unbelievable. But, you know, Sasquatch sounds very unbelievable. And I said, you know, a lot of these people, it's just, there's really, I don't see a scientific answer for any of this stuff. And he said, Wes, let me tell you something. He said, keep doing what you're doing. And have those people on the show. And I made the joke.

Everyone thought it was me giving the illustration about the jolly green giant. But this is exactly what John said to me. He said, Wes, if you get one person that says they saw the jolly green giant, you can pass it off, brush it off. He goes, now if you get 20 people that said they saw the Jolly Green Giant, might want to look into it. And he said, that's my advice for you. Same thing with Dogman. He goes, I don't know where to start with Dog Man. I don't know what advice to give you on Dog Man.

He goes, I don't really know what that thing is. He goes, but I've listened to some of the interviews on your show. And I would send him after I had a dog man or the rake or, and I would send him to John. And every single time, he said, Wes, I believe the person. I don't know what that answer. I don't know. But he would go even further than that. He would say, you need to have this stuff on your show, whether it be lights, dogman, have the stuff on your show.

If you're getting more than one person that's seeing this, have them on the show. And he said, that's what a true scientist does. He goes, all these guys got it wrong. They think it's a scientific method, and you know, you've got your beakers out there, and you're mixing this with this, and you're testing this and this, and you're trying to repeat this process. And he said, that's all nonsense. He goes, that's what real scientists do when they already had the answer. By the time you start going through and you're trying to repeat the process, you already have the answer. You're only doing that for the next scientist to come along or for your work to be peer reviewed.

He said, but before you get to that point, science starts with curiosity. He said, it always has. And any time a new creature is found, it always starts with an eyewitness. And so he said, keep doing what you're doing. And he said, if you are, you don't have to have to have. answers for people. You don't have to be the answer, man. There's nothing wrong, and he used to always say this to me, and I hear myself repeating, and I was thinking of John, he would say you don't have to have the answer. It's okay to say, I don't know. But the more of those people you have on, the more you start to search for answers. But he goes, a true scientist, number one, it starts with curiosity. So have those people on. Do not be afraid to shy away from some of the stuff. He goes, It's crazy enough that people, you know, that these guys chase an 800-pound ape in the woods. And he goes, I truly, he goes, I've seen it.

I truly believe it's out there. But it sounds crazy to your average person. It sounds crazy to a scientist. He goes, but we know that it's real. He goes, but, you know, this other stuff keep searching for answers and have them on your show. Don't be afraid not. He goes, people are going to say whatever they're going to say about you. That says more about them than it does you.

And he goes, just have them on the show. And so it really meant, I guess, and I'm just rambling, but John really meant a lot to me because he always gave great advice. And not the type of advice, you know, someone gives you just to hear themselves talk. He would actually give you real advice. And he just meant the world to me. You know, and there's many conversations him and I had up until he died. And I'll cherish my time with them. And, you know, I just love the man.

And he really taught, the other thing, too, and I'll lunch you go, but the other thing too with John is, John always, I would watch John at conferences on how John dealt with people. And John would get flooded a lot like Bob Gimlin, where everyone's just around him, there's a line around him, the guy barely has a chance to breathe. John always treated people with a lot of respect. And I saw a lot of crazy people go up to John. And after about 30 seconds, I'm thinking, this person's insane. John would sit and talk to him for an hour. And so he always treated people with respect. So I learned so much from just watching him, watching how he dealt with people,

listening to advice he would give me, listening to how he would approach different topics with me. And I know it's not the John Bender Noggle show, but the guy meant the world to me. He really did. And I was embarrassed, you know, when I did remember in John Bitternoggle because I couldn't hold it. I was breaking down in tears every two seconds and I was really embarrassed about it. But I was like, it is what it is, man. You know what I mean? Sometimes you hit home runs.

Sometimes you don't. And the only person that meant anything to me was hopefully John was looking down and said, good job, Wes. Everyone else said, you know, it is what it is. I think that added to it. And, you know, Wes said every single time I've talked. Tia, you know, we've talked several times now. There are two guys you always talk about, and that's Bob Gimlin and John. And, I mean, you can just tell that they meant a lot to you.

Now, I never had the privilege to get to speak to either one of them or meet them. But I've watched, of course, a lot of videos on them and interviews and whatever. And when it comes to the Bigfoot community, there are so many people out there that are not, like them and and they give the community a bad name but the the two things that I pick up that Bob Gimlin and John both had is they always remained humble and how you know we all have family members or know people that as they get older they believe they know everything and so they stop learning anything because they know everything but those guys I think they've affected the Bigfoot community more than anyone

just because of who they are and not necessarily what they contributed to the community as in evidence or whatever, but it's it's who they are. And so people like you and people like me look up to them and it's a it's big shoes to fill. But you can tell that that's someone that meant a lot to you and everyone mourned him in the Bigfoot community when that happened. And John seemed to be an awesome guy. Yeah, John was the best. He really was the best, and I miss them. All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces, worn out faces, their daily races, their tears are filling up their glasses, no expression, no expression.

ground my sorrow, no tomorrow. I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever It hard to tell you, I find it hard to take When people run in circles, it's a very, very, the day they The country faster than the coronavirus and wagering week is your antidote. 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.