Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:653 Collecting A Specimen With Matt Pruitt

Episode Date: May 10, 2020

Matt Pruitt joins us tonight and discusses collecting a specimen and determining the value of evidence. Matt is apart of The North American Wood Ape Conservancy. The group is trying to actively collect a specimen. For more information check out the North American Wood Ape Conservancy.

It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind. It either heard me or smelt me, and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up. That shocked me. They don't make people that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything moved like that in my life. What I'm glad? They were screaming at each other in gibberish.

It sounded like a language and they were chumtering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forwards. I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet but what I saw were bears. What's going on, sir? That's son of a bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know. Do you see a mouse, sir? Yes, I'm looking right here. Uh-uh. This is Ricky Harold, and you are listening to Sasquodge Chronicles.

In 1967, there was a piece of footage shot in Northern California by two Cowboys. It would be later called the Patterson Gimlin film. The film has been subjected to many attempts to authenticate or debunk. The film itself wasn't quite proof, but it did draw interest from scientists. I'm Grover Krantz. I'm a professor of anthropology here at Washington State University. I teach courses in dealing with physical anthropology, introduction to the subject, human evolution, human races, the human skeleton, and sometimes seminars on advanced subjects. At the time, Grover Krantz was not only one of the few scientists to investigate Sasquatch, but he also openly expressed his beliefs in the animal's existence. Well, I'm satisfied that this Bigfoot thing exists.

Trying to make the case or argue for it on the present evidence is largely futile, but I'd like as much as possible to let the word out as to what I found out and what I'm doing. This interview was done 28 years ago. What evidence do we have today that's different from what Grover was able to look at 28 years ago? The answer is nothing. What would it take to prove that this creature? is out there. Almost any scientist will tell you in no uncertain terms that you will prove the existence

of the Bigfoot or Sasquatch by bringing in a body or a substantial piece of one. No other evidence is proof. They are adamant about this. Why don't we just go find a dead body? That seems simple enough, right? My preference certainly would be to find a body of a natural death or one that was already dead for other reasons. But the chance of achieving that is so near zero as to be almost silly to pursue it.

Nevertheless, I have tried as much as possible. I might point out that nobody has yet come in with a body of a bear unless it was killed by human action. The bodies of animals that die natural deaths and have the ability to choose their place of dying are notoriously difficult to find. There's at least 100 bears out there for every one Sasquatch. So the lack of a body discovered doesn't bother me at all. I would be most puzzled if one did come in.

I'd want to know. I'd be very suspicious. I'd smell a rat if somebody said they found one. There's always been a debate whether to kill a Sasquatch or not in the Bigfoot community. And I use the word community very loosely. The argument to kill a Sasquatch always becomes an emotional argument. Never a logical argument. When Grover talked about killing one of these creatures, it wasn't out of anger.

He was talking about preserving them, preserving their habitat, giving them room to run around, even possible protection for them. I watched an interview with Grover around the same time as this interview, and he brought up a great point. He said, I hate to break it to everyone. They're being shot now. And he's absolutely correct. I've talked to many hunters who have claimed to have shot and injured these creatures. because they didn't know what it was, and they were terrified and armed at the time.

In the absence of a body, I wonder what would pique the interest of a scientist to take so much time and effort to look into this topic. Well, one good reason to take it seriously is the footprints that are available. When you try to consider what are the alternatives, and there's really only two choices when you look at a lot of them, they are either fabricated by a human hoaxer, or they are made by the Sasquatch. And when you consider the possibilities and the difficulties and the requirements for a hoaxer to do not some, but all of them, you find you run into an absolutely impossible situation.

So the way I like to put it is the Sasquatch is ridiculous. The alternative of a hoaxer is impossible. Therefore, the ridiculous must be true. With all the evidence that Grover examined, I wonder how he would answer my question. What is Bigfoot? Bigfoot is a large, massive, hairy, bipedal, higher primate. You could describe it as a gigantic man covered with hair and being rather stupid, or an oversized, upright, walking gorilla.

And we're talking body sizes of six and a half to eight feet tall, body weights 500 to 800 pounds. covered with hair, incredibly strong, ape-like faces, arms a little bit longer than usual, no constriction at the neck. You've got a fair description. Definitely a fair description. I wonder though, why would a scientist believe in Bigfoot? Well, I wouldn't say I believe there was something out there. And let's, well, the term belief usually means an opinion held because it makes you feel good. The first time I ever heard of these things. I think I was about 16 years old. Oh, I believed them instantly. But did I think they were real?

No, no way. I was here at Washington State University for about two years before I finally got hold of some direct information, and that amounted to a pair of footprints. I saw some in the wild, and I got casts, and analyzed them, and the right and left foot were quite unlike each other. They weren't mirror images. One of them was obviously crippled. I analyzed those, and this is back in 1970, and finally decided that the design of foot that's implied by the crippling was exactly what you would expect for a creature about eight feet tall and enormously heavy. And I finally decided if somebody faked that and put all these subtle hints of the anatomy design in that, he had to be a real genius, expert at anatomy, and very, very, very,

inventive and original thinking. He had to be outclassed me in those areas. And I don't think anybody outclasses me in those areas, at least not since Leonardo da Vinci. And I saw such a person I'd say is impossible, therefore the tracks were real. You either love Grover or hated him. I got his deadpan humor. I thought he was great. I wonder though, 28 years ago, what evidence was Grover looking at back in 1992 and what is different today? The best summary of where things stand in 1992 is just more of the same. The number of people who are reporting seeing them is just gradually climbing higher and higher.

It's over 2,000 now in John Green's reports, and I would doubt that he has more than 1% of them. He has another thousand of footprint accounts. Again, he's got maybe 1% of the observed footprints, and the observed ones couldn't be 1% of the actual ones out there. Bits and scraps of other evidence, hair samples, bits of blood, other things that they've done to the environment keep being reported and coming in, analyzed. In some cases, these have been dismissed and found to be fake or mistakes.

In other cases, they seem to stand, but we don't know what to do with them. I would say the best new evidence that's come in in the last even 50 years, is really two things, the Patterson film of 1967, and the footprints with a clear dermal ridges, like fingerprints that came in in 1982. We've gotten no more films since then, at least none that are legitimate, though we have gotten a few more footprint casts with dermal ridges. As far as I know, we are no closer to getting a body now than we were 50 or 100 years ago. Why isn't there more scientists like Robert Kranz looking into this subject?

They're not going to embrace the idea of the existence of the Sasquatch until the definitive evidence comes in. A few of them will accept it when they have done a substantial fraction of the kind of research that I've done. When they've talked to enough people, they're going to be convinced that there is no other explanation. But until they do so, and not all my colleagues can do it, There's simply not enough time in their schedules and they can't reach all the people. Until they do that, they're taking a legitimate skeptical attitude of they want to see the definitive proof, a body, or a piece of one. That will convince them instantly. So I don't anticipate convincing anybody on the evidence that I've got.

Now, in the meantime, they continue to be, for the most part, skeptical, but there's a substantial number who, I do think it's real and some who take the possibility quite seriously. And they are now feeling a lot more comfortable about that than they were 20 years ago, for instance. Twenty years ago, this was a taboo subject. I almost got fired here for investigating it and talking openly about it. Now, if nothing else, I've got the president of the university supporting me. Now, that doesn't get me any money or any release time or any improvement in salary. I still have to do this entirely on my own, but I've got a good moral support now.

This interview is a fascinating insight from almost 30 years ago, and I'm glad the egos in the Bigfoot world have not changed much in 30 years. I wonder why there was so much contention. Here are the Bigfoot community, and again I use a word community very loosely, would not welcome us a real scientist into the community. Everyone wants a discovery to take place, correct? No more hunters accidentally shooting them. We can finally be done with this, learn more about these creatures,

possibly preserve and protect them. That's all good stuff, right? Why would anyone be against that? Those who are really devoted to it, if they really devote their lives to this, all their life is to search for the Sasquatch. That's their only claim to fame. When it is found, they're going to be shoved aside by the scientists and become nothing. They don't want this to happen.

They want either the mystery to remain or that they find it. That science ever takes over and shoves them aside is very frightening to them. Now, there are some of these hunters and investigators who are very nervous about me because I may be nudging the scientific world into acceptance. And because of that, they would do anything they can to stop my investigation. It's a shame that not much has changed in 28 years, and we still have the same egos running around. I get crap all the time for my stance on once you be shot, killed, and brought in. But it's always from the same people.

They have 38 encounters. They claim to have some weird relationship with these creatures, yet provide no proof. I also enjoyed Grover's observation regarding Bigfoot researchers and why no one gets along. and I could not agree more with what he was saying. Most Bigfoot researchers have an ego the size of Texas, and they want to be the ones to prove it. They want to be the ones with the evidence. If someone else proves it, it'd be the worst day of their life.

For most Bigfoot researchers, again, not all. Somewhere in their tiny minds, there's somebody important in this Bigfoot world. Bigfoot is all they have in their lives. The minute you take that away from them, their life is ruined. They're no longer somebody important in their mind. Something sad about that.

I truly believe that this creature can be proven, and the discovery of the Sasquatch can take place. It would just take a group of people with their resources and efforts working together to prove it. I can't wait to see my hate mail in the morning. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you tonight.

We're going to be talking to Matt Pruitt. and Matt actually is part of the North American WoodAid Conservancy, and they are actively trying to kill a Sasquatch. And he's going to be talking tonight about their evidence and kind of protocols that they use. It should be a great night. 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 to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com,

you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Matt to the show. Matt, thanks for coming on. Thanks so much for having me, West. It's great to talk to you again. Yeah, it's great to talk with you again, Matt. I really appreciate you being here.

And I know you have your own podcast called Apes Among Us. Great podcast for anyone out there. Whatever you listen to Sasquatch Chronicles on, definitely go check out Apes Among us with Matt. And Matt, I know you're part of the North American WoodApe Conservancy Group, and you guys are actively trying to kill a Sasquatch. Let me ask you, how did you get involved with that group? You know, I'd actually been aware of them for quite a long time.

You know, they previously were the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, and they were mainly based out of Texas, but they spread out their field efforts over that general region, being Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas. And I actually got introduced to the group mainly through one of the members, Brian Brown's podcasts. Brian is a co-host of Apes Among Us. He's really the primary host.

I'm the co-host there. But Brian had a podcast called the Bigfoot Information Project years ago. I mean, this must have been in the mid-2000s. And among other topics related to the Sasquatch phenomenon, he did an episode in Area X that kind of highlighted their work there. The group, like I said, they focused on the general region, but they had three primary areas. They were areas X, Y, and Z.

And then over the years, Area X just happened to be the one that produced the most activity. and so they became a lot more focused on that one particular location. So I met Brian. It was actually 10 years ago this year. I went on a trip with Cliff Berrickman down to the Patterson-Gillam Film site and some other areas there of Northern California. And so I met Brian on that trip as well as Bob and Kathy Strain. And so I always had an interest in what they were doing. But I was with the BFRO for a long time for about seven years.

And I resigned from that group in early 2014. And we was kind of going back to just doing field research on my own, but really kept up with Brian's output related to that work because he had another show subsequently another podcast called The Bigfoot Show. And that was a fascinating dive into their work because in a way, like for me, Brian's kind of like the John Green of the digital age because he was reporting on all these various Sasquatch related things. But he had this kind of singular narrative voice that guided you through those experiences. And then when he became more heavily involved with the group and had his own experiences and assigning an area X, you're kind of like listening to it and going

on that journey with him. And so I found that to be really compelling. So after a few years, I finally decided to apply for membership. You know, I'd kind of written off the whole group dynamic of being in an organization and felt like I would be happier, kind of alone in this vacuum or with my small circle of friends, but I'm really glad I did because it's a really inspiring group. I think what they've accomplished is incredible. And, you know, I've got a very strong familiarity with the history of Bigfoot research. And I've known a lot of the major players. and been involved in the periphery of some of those projects. And I can absolutely say, honestly, that I think what the NAWC is doing constitutes the strongest effort that's ever been made in the history of this subject to prove and demonstrate that these animals do exist and then to hopefully enact upon discovery and recognition some kind of conservation.

That's the main focus of the group. So I'm constantly humbled and inspired by them. I'm the low guy on the totem pole in that group for sure. Yeah, I was a big fan of the Bigfoot Information Project that podcast that Brian Brown put together. I thought it was one of the most brilliant podcasts I'd heard on a long time. And they also did that second one, the Bigfoot show, it was Brian and it was Scott, correct? Yeah, Scott Harriet and Paul Vela and Sam Rich, who's another Georgia native. He grew up.

It's funny, Sam and I both grew up in the same general area of North Georgia. But yeah, the Bigfoot show was great. And you probably heard that same transition where it was kind of topical and a discussion just about the subject in general. And then once Brian got really involved in Area X, then it really shifted into like he was kind of opening the doors on letting the public in to see what this group was doing. And man, those were really, really compelling episodes. We actually just re-released one of those in December. We had planned to take December off because our podcast Apes Among Us that Brian hosts with me and Brandon Lentz, the other co-host. We were going to take December off and I said, let's re-release one of those Bigfoot shows because I was just so enamored with those, the production and the narrative and everything.

So listeners, if they check out, Apes Among Us can hear one of those there as well. Yeah, and I want to talk a little bit about Area X, if you don't mind. I know, I kind of want to unpack what you said as far as, you know, them moving it forward. And I'm all forward. I know most of Bigfoot world's not. that every, every delusional guy wants to be the guy to solve it. And I don't think you're going to get anywhere with that attitude. And I also believe that one should be shot and brought in.

And I know, I'm sure I'm going to get like 20 emails tell me what a scumbag I am. Because every time I say that, people get upset. But in reality, that's what it's going to take. And I know that's what the main goal is out there with ARIX. If you would, would you give the audience kind of a background of ARIACs? that, you know, someone who's never heard of what we're talking about, would you mind giving us a history on Area X and kind of what you're trying to accomplish out there?

Certainly. Well, it's a, I guess you could define that as like a small region within the greater Wachitae Mountain ecoregion, which the Wachitaas comprise what's part of the U.S. Interior Highlands, kind of these several mountain ranges being the Wachita's and the Ozarks there that are separated by a fairly large valley. but the Washington is extend between Oklahoma and Arkansas, and that region has a long history of observation and encounter reports with Sasquatch is going back as far back as you can look in print media or recorded history there.

So I think there had been multiple efforts, at least of individuals collecting reports from that particular region. And so the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy made some contacts there. primarily our director emeritus Alton Higgins, who is based in Oklahoma City, was making trips out there and then got access to this particular valley and some private land there and found tracks, very compelling, large, typical Sasquatch tracks.

And so there were some group efforts there that occurred in the early 2000s. But then again, as the group was kind of formalizing, they were spending a lot of time in these other regions, too, in parts of Texas and Arkansas, but found that that tended to be the most productive. And so over time, the efforts shifted more and more and more to area X, which, you know, it has kind of a dramatic sounding name.

But again, there were just random letters that were chosen for areas X, Y, and Z. And it just happened that X was the one that ended up being the most productive and required the most attention. And so they started spending more and more time there. And they found that the longer that they could occupy this particular site, the more the activity would increase. And I think a lot of that has to do with, you know, these first, of all, these are very rare animals that seem to have very, very large home ranges and are highly mobile in those home ranges. And so people like myself, I mean, I've been to field research for 16 years this year. But again, I'm always restricted to either having, you know, a day job or other

obligations. So I'm lucky to be out three to five days at a time before I have to come back home or go back to work or whatever the case may be. And I think that these animals can tolerate that kind of, you know, human intrusion, whereas, you know, people can insert themselves into a wilderness area for a few days, and they think, well, okay, well, not much it's happening. Maybe I'm in the wrong place, etc. So this group was finding that the longer that they would stay there, the more activity would ramp up, as if the animals, you know, the Sasquatchers were losing their patients or trying harder to encourage the people to leave their own volition with these intimidation displays. And so in about 2011, they started doing these summer operations.

that I think first were around somewhere in the neighborhood of like 30 to 45 days. So the way that we pull that off and we're still doing it to this even now and this year is a team will come in, let's say, on a Saturday and occupy the site until the following Saturday, at which time they're relieved by another team. So it's not the same four or five people for 30 days straight, but rather it's members of the organization cycling in and out, occupying it for that long. So the first year produced this tremendous amount of activity and that also produced the first visual observations because they had heard sounds in there and had found, again, tracks and had like indications that these things were around, but it really ramped up during these prolonged observational field studies. And so that's just extended year after year. In fact, this year,

the plan is 15 weeks, you know, obviously with the current pandemic situation, that's a little bit up in the air in terms of, you know, how can we logistically pull this off? Stay six feet apart. You'll be okay. Exactly. And we're in small groups anyway. I mean, our teams are usually like four to six individuals at a time. So it's not like there's a large congregation down there at any one time.

But just over the years, they've been, like I said, extending that. I mean, a lot of that, the first several years of those observational field studies were written up into a monograph that's up at the NAAWAC's website at wood ape. dot org called the Washtataw Project Monograph. So you can read a great deal about that there, along with sound recordings and other evidence that's been gathered there. But that's essentially, you know, the primary focus of those operations is to occupy this place that we think might constitute a core area. You know, animals will have, let's say, a home range. And I know you know this, but mostly for the benefit of the audience. Like your home range, your home range is everywhere that you access to gain the resources that you need to sustain yourself. So for a human,

And let's say it might be your favorite grocery store or the farmer's market where you get your produce or your favorite coffee shop and the gas stations where you fill up your vehicles, et cetera. And then you have a territory, which is within that home range. And that's the area that you defend. That might be your property or your yard, et cetera. And then your core area, which might be the safest and most defensible part of your territory. And so over the years, they've observed that this activity has been very constant in this particular valley in the Washtas. And it seems like this is a resident population of multiple individuals that don't seem to be, if they don't disappear for years at a time or anything like that. So it seems like it's either part of a territory or potentially a core area.

I would say it's probably one of the most resource-rich environments I've ever been in after doing this many years all over the country in various environments. So it makes sense that it would be the kind of place that would sustain animals. a core area very often can be the kind of place where females will, you know, maybe occurs and then gestation occurs and then early childbirth and rearing that child. And that's a really resource intensive activity. And so those kind of places tend to be the most defensible, protected places with an abundance of food. And this certainly fits that to a team.

So that's, I guess, a bit of it in a nutshell is why we return to the spot and we have access to this private land and pour all of our energy there into the summer months. Yeah, no, I appreciate you giving a background because I know a lot of people may not know about Area X or anything like that. And I knew about it because I remember hearing Brian talk about it. And there was some compelling stuff that they bring out. I mean, for the longest time, they didn't publish really anything publicly. And I think they were smart doing that. But they were getting everything together is what I assume before they were going to, you know, put it out for the public. Have they been able to get any very very?

video evidence up there? You know, that's not even been much of a focus historically, and it is something that I'm very interested in, and so we've been putting more energy into methods to make that happen, but also technology. And so, again, you know, in this mission statement of trying to prove to the world that these animals exist for the sake of official recognition and therefore protection and conservation of habitat, that requires a specimen, as controversial as a topic as that is within the Bigfoot realm. You know, it's funny because I do a lot of public speaking on this, and the general

public is very much in support of that notion, and they tend to understand it. It's mostly the Bigfoot community where it becomes divisive or polarizing. But to that end, I mean, we've always had an understanding that, well, visual evidence is not going to constitute proof. And we're kind of myopically focused on this one particular goal. And so there hadn't been a tremendous amount of effort. Now, prior to that, they did spend about five years on an extensive game camera, camera trap project called Operation Force Vigil. And those were at cameras there in Area X as well as some of these other places in Texas and Arkansas as well. But, you know, that, as you know, game cameras have not yet borne the fruit that we're all looking for.

And so now I think technology is advanced enough that, you know, we put more time and energy and resources into the highest quality thermal imagers that are available today that have amazing resolution and recording abilities. We're deploying a camera array, kind of a wall of game cameras in a very unique array that will cover this entire valley floor so that nothing that moves through this one particular area. It's a bit of a choke point or a bottleneck in the valley. it should be photographed and at any given time by a minimum of three cameras, but typically it would be by about five cameras at a time. So I think we discussed that on the last episode of the podcast that we published called Variants, which is about Operation Variants, which was last year, summer operation. So there is more of an impetus and effort now because, you know, there's always going to be a hunger for visual evidence. And just me selfishly, like I've never seen one of these animals. So I'm personally very hungry for visual evidence.

So I'm always very interested in the pursuit of trying to get video or photographic evidence. And so we are putting a lot more energy into that now. We've done a lot with audio recording and these autonomous recording units over the last few years. But now I think the attempts to get better and better video and photographs are going way up, especially this year in 2020. What is the most compelling audio evidence that you have? Was there anything that really shocked you? I mean, beyond whoops and howls, because my audience is pretty educated audience, actually.

But is there anything beyond like whoops and howls? Was there any audio evidence where you thought, hmm, that's strange? Well, they've encountered a number of sounds there that are pretty unique. Again, I think it may sound like Area X is a very special place. I think it is personally. But we also don't know how many places like this, exist in the country. Just if you could put together an effort, let's say, near where you are

in southern Washington and have a group of 35 people who can coordinate and occupy one remote creek drainage or river valley for 15 weeks, you might get all the same amount of activity because you have so many observers in an environment specifically looking and listening for these animals over such a long time. That just doesn't happen very often. So they have observed and heard things that are unique, but you can find other correlatives or similar things in the dataset. I mean, one of the sounds that they talked about hearing that multiple people have heard over the years is this angelic choir type vocalization that sounds like this high-pitched singing. And, you know, it sounded bizarre.

And then I heard Doug Hichick on your podcast talk about hearing that at Snowgrove Lake. And I hadn't heard him tell that story before because, you know, I had only seen the Monster Quest productions of the filmed segments. when Meldrum and company are there. So I immediately told the group of us, like, oh, you have to listen to this episode of Sasquatch Chronicles. Because what Doug described was identical to what those members had heard. That section of the Wachita's is incredibly rocky, just a whole lot of exposed rock.

And it's really bizarre. It's not like any other part of the country I've ever seen because the rock, for whatever reason, it fragments at right angles. So all the rocks, they look like. these big shaped cubes. It was very strange. Like you don't, where I grew up in the southern Appalathans in North Georgia, you don't see anything like that. And I remember growing up and being told, oh, if you see a right angle, it's probably something man-made. So if you're out in nature and you find formations like that, it could be the foundation of an old homestead or the remnants of

an old chimney or something of that nature. But out there, everything's shaped that way. Because it's so rocky, there's a whole lot of these rock-throwing incidents. And some of which they describe as being as loud as like rivaling dynamite. Like if something lifted a massive boulder and smashed it into the dry creek bed against other rocks. In fact, in 2018, on one of the first nights I was there, I was there for two weeks in 2018, the first week of the operation and the last week of the operation. And one of the first nights on the first week, we heard a sound. I was making calls and trying to, you know, elicit responses or an approach or just, you know,

announcing to the environment that, hey, we're here. This is well after dark. And I heard a rock, all five of us heard it, get thrown, essentially it went what would be upstream. But a lot of these creek channels stay dry for most of the year unless there's a heavy rain. So it was in a section of the dry creek bed. And I heard this rock that sounded like it was the size of like a big laundry hamper or something. And it crashed and then it went upstream laterally for what sounded like. don't know, 20, 30 yards, just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Like you were throwing a bowling ball up a lane. And that was incredibly impressive, you know. And we do have, release a lot of sound recording. So there's a lot on our website, but there's one particular episode of the podcast that's called Soundscape X that is kind of the highlights of some of the most compelling sounds that we've recorded. We have these autonomous recording units that are out in the environment. They record all summer long and sometimes longer.

So I think the most at a given time they will record is anywhere from like four and a half to five and a half months. And so we partner with Dr. Angelo Caparillo Caparillo, who's an amazing, I think he's retired now. He's a professor, but he actually has his students pour through some of this information because it's just so many days and hours of raw audio. Takes a lot of work to go through. We actually have a couple of summers still to go through. So who knows, we might have more sounds. but I think if anyone wanted to hear those sounds, you could check them out at the website

or on that episode of Apes Among Us called Soundscape X. Yeah, and for the audience, definitely check out Apes Among Us. Very cool podcast. I enjoyed the last one you did. What was the guy in South Africa? Oh, Gareth Patterson, absolutely. Yeah, I really enjoyed. I really did enjoy that.

If I thought it sucked, I would tell you I thought it sucked. But you don't want to, and that is fascinating. You guys have actually heard this scene, that weird. I've had a few witnesses talk about that. And they're always ashamed to, I don't know if a shame is the right word, but off the air, they'll be like, yeah, should I talk about? I mean, it happened, but I don't know. It's just weird.

I had one lady in Canada that heard of the same thing that Doug talked about. And there's more to that encounter, but she heard that. Out of this area, have you guys had any what you would consider as aggression? There's certainly intimidation displays, and there have been bluff charge. is a very loud, menacing displays of branch breaking and thrashing and vegetation tree pushing. And again, one particular bluff charge that comes to mind prior to me joining the group that happened in 2012. And then Brian, I think, talked about on the Bigfoot show because he was there on that particular team. But that happened to one individual who was in an observation post by himself during the day.

Hearing sounds around him that were these, that sounded like mouth pops. kind of like a I don't know if that translates through Skype or not but like you would pop your mouth or pop your tongue, click your tongue. So I was hearing these sounds from multiple points around him and he thought, oh, that's pretty odd. I wonder if those are the apes, you know.

And so he made the sound back and got this pretty menacing growl and then the thing actually charged him and he saw it only briefly and he fired what essentially was a warning shot and the thing stopped its advance and turn and retreated. it shook him up pretty badly.

But nothing in terms of, you know, like direct confrontation or anything that seemed, it tends to be like fairly typical great ape intimidation behavior. Kind of a lot of correlatives to what you see, you know, gorillas do or chimps do in similar contexts or scenarios, et cetera. So, you know, and again, I've been doing this for such a long time. I've probably interviewed over 1,500 witnesses myself and just haven't encountered that many, you know, it's easy to interpret it as aggressive or confrontational, but as you know, I mean, when you speak to witnesses, even still so many of those testimonies, they involve, like the Sasquatch is still, it's being intimidating, but it's doing it from, you know, behind dense vegetation or from behind big obstructions, almost like they're still afraid that you'll see them. You know, they still do it from some point of safety like big hairy cowards, even though they're terrifying. But, you know, they're not necessarily like step. out in front of someone all the time and having like a direct face-to-face confrontation in that

regard. And that certainly hasn't happened in area X. Yeah, no, I agree with you. And I think a lot of their behavior is to get you to leave. I have often, you know, I've changed my opinion a lot about these things over the years. And even after my encounter, I was terrified of them. And, you know, I wanted them all dead. But you, I think after a while, once you start to really talk to eyewitnesses, you start to kind of look into it, I honestly think a lot of their, behavior, not always, because there is aggressive behaviors. There's definitely aggressive behavior from these things, you know, of them coming after people. It doesn't happen as much as most people would think. But I think a lot of their behavior is to try and get you to leave.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it seems like that is the imperative, is to have humans vacate the area of their own volition and to hopefully do so without being seen. And, you know, that's what happened to me in my first encounter and that compelled me to look at to other people's experiences. And so you see that time and time again. And I personally think that has a lot to do with resources. Because you'll see, you know, this 99% of these encounter stories are like, they're spontaneous. And the person sees the Sasquatch and the Sasquatch sees the person and they both go in opposite directions as quickly as they can. You know, that's the bulk of the spontaneous on-foot encounters. And then you have this subset where they are being intimidating.

So it is, again, I don't want to call it confrontational. I guess, it is to some degree, but it's not like directly confrontational, but they're willing to betray their presence with the use of sound and vocalizing or thrashing brush. And it seems like one of the paths that I went on in this, you know, journey of trying to study these things or research this, the subject has been seeing the commonalities in the contexts of when they display those behaviors. Because I think that's a big key. I mean, for me personally, like, I want them to display those behaviors. So I think that there is a bit of a trick to getting them to do that. Obviously, it requires still a bit of luck because you've got to be in the right place and within their

range, et cetera. But it seems like, you know, there's something about the environment in those times that they are not willing to seat it to the humans. They're not willing to, you know, leave and go into the next drainage or into the next basin or the next valley that they decide, we need to maintain control of this place and therefore you need to leave. And seeing those commonalities between all of those reports, you'll find that they're in environmentally very similar context, and I think it has a lot to do with resources, food resources, particularly, and typically with mammalian prey like deer, elk, wild hogs, etc. Yeah, you're right.

With a lot of encounters, I would agree with you. I think that you'll find a lot of aggression towards fishermen, and you'll generally find a lot of aggression towards hunters. Average hiker running into one, not so much. It's at what you were talking about before, the parting of ways. But there's something different, man, when you're out there. It seems like with a lot of hunters and a lot of fishermen, they generally get interactions. And I think it has to do with resources.

Let me ask you, so what's a procedure out there for killing one? You know, let's say it's a night and tonight we're going to set up to kill one. What does that whole procedure look like out at Area X? what do you guys do? Well, you know, there's been a number of different methods attempted over the years. And obviously, you know, one thing I say often is, you know, we don't have a legacy of successful Sasquatch hunters to learn from. So there's a whole lot of experimentation.

One of the things that impressed me so much about this group that compelled me to join, and especially once I was invited to Area X and got to see the operation and was just blown away, was that there were very, very few shots fired. There's been many, many more opportunities to take shots where shots were not fired than there have actually been shots fired. So, first of all, within the group, there's only a small handful of people who are authorized to carry long guns and to be in a position to be a collector or to take a collection opportunity or try to collect a specimen. So we're not all carrying. Like, for example, I'm not. I carry a sidearm for protection.

But, you know, I'm not carrying a long gun. I'm not an approved shooter. that's not my role in this particular group. So I know that there might be some public perception that everyone's walking around with firearms, but it couldn't be farther from the truth, which is, again, you know, I wouldn't be down there. I value my life a little too much to be down there if that were the case. That said, you know, there are a number of different techniques. So there's certainly hunting during the day, which, you know, conventional hunting techniques apply

and camouflage and scent cover, et cetera. You know, one of the things I hear so often, you've probably heard this a million times, this, within the mythology of the Sasquatch, is that, oh, you can't fool them, they can't be tricked, they can't be fooled, you know. And it's like, okay, well, let's go through the data set of witnesses and look how many witnesses are hunters who have extended daylight sightings. Why? Because they were wearing camouflage and they were using scent control and they were stationary or they were in a blind or a tree stand. I mean, these things can be fooled. Otherwise, we wouldn't, you know, hunters would never see them. It just so happens that, you know, one of the things I always tell people is like, if you, if you put a camera in every car that had a Sasquatch crossed the road in

front of it, you'd have a library of footage that would, you'd have like thousands of clips, they'd all be one or two seconds long. Versus if you look at these hunter observations, which you know, because you've spoken to so many of them, these people are seeing them for minutes at a time, very long extended sightings where they get a good long view of the animal. Now, sometimes the animal might detect a person or, like you said, have some aggressive display, but a lot of the time, the Sasquatch has no clue that there's a human in the environment. So we do utilize conventional hunting techniques, and then we do utilize, you know, thermal imaging scopes at night. One of the things that we've done and talked about heavily, we talked about it in the monograph and on the

podcast, because we do anything that we think works, we release that information publicly through one of our outlets, hoping that other people will try it, even trying to collect one, whatever will allow you to have a shot opportunity will also allow you to have the opportunity to film or photograph one. So all the same things can apply, even if you are someone who's just trying to have a visual or trying to get footage. But one of the things that the group had found, and I wish I had known, I didn't know this when I had a full-time project and several thermal imagers. I didn't know this at the time, but thin black plastic. like the plastic of a trash bag,

or we use this plastic that's a millimeter thick for holding mulch. I guess it's kind of like a landscaping product. But a thermal imager will see through that like it's not there. So we've built structures and blinds and almost like faux tints out of that stuff. So it looks like this huge black tint. When you're inside of it at night,

I mean, you can't see your hand in front of your face because there's no light. But with the thermal imager, you have this perfect 360-d-degree, review around you. You can see everything as if the plastic wasn't even there. So we use that as a sort of night blind with the thermal imaging optics. And there have been visual contacts obtained that way. And even last year we had visuals using similar methods. So one of the things I'm so I guess optimistic about this year is that all the new thermal imagers that we have have these

massive onboard hard drives. They're incredibly high resolution and they'll record with the click of a button whereas the thermal scopes that we had for hunting previously could not they weren't record i mean they were just older AT and thor units that didn't report so now you know even if we have a visual observation that doesn't result in a shot opportunity we should at least have a video clip that we could share you know with the public but so yeah that's you know day hunting divided with you know if there is any hunting at night it's under extremely strict protocols and typically using that method because obviously safety is paramount. We've never had anyone be hurt down there.

And I'm the field team's manager now. So I'm kind of in charge of that. And safety is extremely important to me. And again, I wouldn't risk my own safety down there if I didn't trust those guys with my life. So, and I literally do. So I respect every shot not fired as much as I respect the small handful that have been fired at this point. Yeah, no, I agree.

It's like, well, you know my feeling about Bigfoot researchers. Most of them I wouldn't trust to make me a sandwich, let alone go out in the middle of the night as they're popping off shots. I wouldn't be out there. And I know that safety is important. I've heard Brian talk about that. I've heard people who go out there, they're impressed with that. And I think that's the way it should be, you know, so no one gets harmed except for the Sasquatch. But when you're out there, one question the audience is sinking.

So how long have you been out at, how long have the guys been out there actively trying to kill one at Area X? This year, if we do go into the field with the summer operation this year, this will be the 10th summer. So nine previous summers. And I'm not breaking your balls, but the audience is thinking the same question. Why hasn't one been shot yet? Certainly. Well, obviously, a question like that doesn't have a simple one-dimensional answer, so I'll have to break that down a little bit. Well, first of all, again, safety being paramount.

And we do have extremely experienced people that are shooters and that actually comprise the bulk of the group. I mean, many of them are military veterans. A lot of them are current or former law enforcement officers. A lot of people involved with wildlife biology who have collected specimens of other types of animals and even one particular member who was part of collecting specimens that constituted entirely new bird species in the neotropics. So people are extremely experienced at that. But there's a whole host of factors that, you know, first of all, you have to have visual contact, which, as you know, is hard enough. Especially when you're – one of the fortunate things about this environment is that it is fairly untouched. I mean, like most of America, it was logged at one point in time. So now it's primarily secondary forest and maybe in some places tertiary growth.

But it's incredibly dense, and it's been, you know, privately owned for so very long that it's not constantly managed or cut or burnt or any of that. it's like eastern jungle in a lot of ways. So the shooting lanes are fairly tight and narrow and short. So when something crosses over one of those lanes, it's typically extremely brief, you know, a very short opportunity. So the number of visual observations that have happened are far, that's a larger number than the number of optimal shot opportunities. One thing that we are not interested in doing is wounding an animal. That's absolutely not an option for us. And so we don't take shots that seem like they would result in. in an animal being wounded or being injured or being able to get away.

And so, you know, the collection opportunity has to be, a lot of kind of the stars have to align for that to occur. But the other major part of this that I've seen happen to so many people before I joined this group, just interviewing witnesses around the country and then my own experiences.

I mean, it's happened to me personally more than once, not a visual sighting, but in other contexts. But, you know, your brain, you have two hemispheres of your brain, your left hemisphere and your right hemisphere. Generally speaking, the right deals with unknowns and the new and the novel, or you could say unexplored territory, and your left deals with known and rectifying things against your

explored domain, the territory that you know well. So what happens to a lot of these people, when they first see one of these things, especially if it's at any distance, they immediately think it's a person because it's upright and it's walking on two legs. And so very, very many of these people have said, you know, in our group and otherwise, that when they first initially saw it, and so there actually have been a few shot, things that could have potentially resulted in a shot opportunity where someone saw an upright figure at the end of the shooting lane and thought that was one of their teammates. And unfortunately, you know, because you don't want to compromise safety, you're not going to point your rifle at it and glass it with you. your scope because then if it is your teammate you're pointing a loaded weapon at them you know yeah it's so very often that you know they're these kind of like i'm paraphrasing a host of different events but essentially that happens get on the radios why the hell are you down creek what are you talking about

i'm 20 yards behind you i haven't moved in two hours oh my god that wasn't my teammate opportunities missed it's it's over it's gone so that kind of thing comes into play too so one of the things we're talking about doing this year, again, if all goes well and we're able to pull this off and get out there, is just having anyone who's not a shooter, anyone who's not in a hidden position or in a post, if we do have people in the environment. Now, again, we don't, all of this is done under such strict protocol that no one's really ever walking down range of someone. Like, we know when someone's going to deploy in what area they're watching, and we might have someone being bait of sorts or trying to elicit attention or be a diversion or a distraction.

But from now on, I think anything we do like that will probably wear some kind of very bright identifiably visual, you know, like maybe the green construction safety vests or Hunter Orange or something like that. So that it hopefully could reduce that reaction time a little bit, that if you see an upright thing that isn't green or blaze orange or something like that, glass it, look at it. I think if you go back and listen to our podcast, especially. especially again, the one about last year's summer operation variance, two of our senior most members, you know, very tenured, very experienced guys, separated at a point with one plan to go up to a certain

point in the creek and another one to go to a certain point at the foot of the mountain, to remain perfectly frozen and still, and to reconvene at another point later in time. And in the middle of that, where neither of them had moved, they both saw an upright thing, and they assumed, oh man, why is he getting up? We weren't supposed to get up until, you know, whatever it was, 6.30 in the evening. And it was like, I don't know, 4.45, you know, I'm paraphrasing here. But, and neither of them put up binoculars or anything and looked at it. They just, that's what your brain kind of does in those environments.

When you know that, you know, your buddies out there, the first thing your brain goes to is that's what I'm looking at. Because you're not always afforded that great up-close view where you can see all those differences in proportion or see that it's covered in hair or something like that. So all of those factors kind of collectively conspire to make it extremely prohibitive to kill one of these things. Yeah. But there have been shots fired, like I said, but those have not resulted in a specimen yet, obviously, or else the world would know about it by now. Yeah, and that's a fair answer. And I respect your answer, and I'm glad to hear that.

I think most Bigfoot researchers are reckless. They're into sensationalism and drama. and, you know, guys going out with guns trying to kill him. Sounds like a disaster to me. But again, with this group that you're out there with, I've always respected that. You know, I've heard Brian kind of give that same answer, and I always kind of respected that answer because the last thing you want to do is shoot your buddy out there. And I can see that happening, you know, thinking, oh, it's a Sasquatch,

and you blast it, and it's Matt, it's Matt Pruitt on the ground. Do you know what I mean? it'd be the worst thing that could happen out there. Oh, and we're highly aware that, you know, so we don't take any risks. And again, like last year, summer operation, there were no shots fired. I believe that was the same for the previous two for 2017 and 2018. So it's not even like we're firing every year. I mean, it's a very rare event.

And so, again, there is now a lot more of an impetus on also. I mean, we purchased an incredible thermal drone. So it has a thermal pod and also like a really, powerful optical zoom camera pod on it so we'll be deploying that so the focus is on other other avenues too so like I said you know there's other types of DNA that we could collect including eDNA I mean ultimately it will take a specimen that's just been made clear for so many decades now that people have been pursuing this subject and this group is the only group that's ever actively tried to collect the specimen with any kind of concerted effort so you know again I would say to

people, I mean, you know, it took decades to collect the first panda specimen after a pelt was encountered and purchased or bones, I believe, in a market. And then expeditions were underway in Asia to find and shoot and collect, you know, the type specimen of the panda. I think it took about 60 years. And again, we just don't have a legacy of Sasquatch hunters to learn from. I mean, nobody's done this the right way. It's a constant combination of figuring out what seems to have worked for others in the past, you know, other researchers that have led them to have some degree of success and repeatability. And so you build this structure of tradition, so to speak, of the knowledge that's come before or what's worked for us in the past. And you're

building upon that. But you're also trying to like revivify it every year with brand new ideas and entirely new methods and just thinking outside of the box. And there's got to be some balance between those two. So you're not just throwing away the past. starting from scratch every year, but at the same time, you're not, you know, clearly what we're doing isn't 100% effective or else that's what would have happened by now. So we're constantly trying to upgrade those things and bring in new information and new blood and new ideas. So eventually, I think we'll strike the right balance. And then obviously, as you know, there's there's always a bit of luck that you have to have with these things. So yeah, it's a ton of luck.

Yeah. Yeah, it is, man. It's, uh, I wish you guys luck out there. I really, it would be the greatest day of my life if you guys shot one. Can you speak to the fact, let's say tonight you guys are out there and you shoot one and it drops. Now what? Now what do you do? Yeah, there's constant talk about that. And a lot of that has to do with documentation and, you know, thorough documentation. And then obviously procuring the specimen and securing it in a way that it can be studied quickly and then, you know, assembling the right team of people to study that, which again, it would probably take, I mean, I would imagine a specimen of an animal like that could be studied for years, you know, by a host of different specialists. As you know, like most academics or scientists, they're specialists. And so you might have a specialist who is solely focused on dentition, who only looks at teeth and tooth morphology and how they process food.

and then you have someone whose specialty might be, you know, in locomotion. And so they're looking at how all of these muscle groups work together to propel the animal, etc. So I think it will be a long time coming before we fully understand it. But yeah, the plan would be to secure the specimen, to document it to the nth degree, and to try to publish something quickly to establish that they exist. And so, I mean, the overarching goal is to have them officially recognize so that habitat is protected. Now, I personally don't think that these are endangered animals. I think there's a lot of them.

Yeah, I think they have a large distribution. And from my personal experience, like, I think they're at least in the Appalachans and the Ozarks and the Washingtonaws and the Rockies and, you know, the Pacific Northwest like the Sierra's, the Cascades, the Olympic Mountains, etc. They might be many other places, too, but at least in these places that produce the bulk of the reports. I think the only threat they face is habitat loss or degradation or fragmentation or alteration. I don't think that clearly they're not in any direct threat of humans hunting them or pursuing them. This would have happened 200 years ago. But certainly they would face the dangers that any animal face in a habitat that's being altered and destroyed. And so one of the debates that I understand people have this emotional commitment to a position that one should,

not be killed because that's a concern for the individual and I can respect that. But I think, you know, if you have a concern, let's say, for white tail of deer, you understand that the money and the conservation and all the effort that goes into protecting that species and to learning about that species comes from hunters. Not that, you know, clearly white tails don't need protection because they're prolific. But that being said, you know, collecting one of these animals to be studied so that their habitat requirements can be understood and therefore protected is necessary. And unfortunately, it just won't happen via any other means. Now, we could collect a specimen in a host of different ways.

I mean, I think we would all be very happy and very relieved if someone else shot one first or if someone else hit and killed one with, you know, a semi-truck or a logging truck or if somebody, you know, found the remains of one naturally deceased because then we would shift into the latter part of our mission, which is conservation, but, you know, we intend to continue trying to get footage and better video. And even once we collect them, we're not done. I mean, we just, we put the guns down and pick up more cameras and solely focus on trying to document behaviors. But, you know, in a nutshell, like, there are qualified scientists who should be doing this work. And the problem with this subject is that when it was first brought to

the attention of the, let's say, the American or North American public, you know, U.S. and Canada, there was no place to fit this in our understanding of evolutionary biology and human evolution. So we were in the dark ages of understanding apes. We were in the dark ages of understanding our ancestors and other bipedal hominoids that walk the planet. So the visceral reaction at that time was like, oh, well, this can't exist. There's no way this can be real. So it's not real. It can't exist, therefore it doesn't exist. Therefore, anyone who claims to have seen one is either crazy or they're lying. And that just stuck. And so for years, that's created this taboo that qualified scientists, for the most part, have refused to look at it. And then that

creates this void. And the void gets filled by amateurs. And again, I'm definitely an amateur. I'm not a scientist. You know, I don't have a degree. But, you know, there's other amateurs that are more enthusiastic and maybe a little bit more, let's say, I'm trying not to use. use a pejorative or a derogatory word, but you know how to. There's people that make outrageous claims. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puss. And that drives these qualified scientists even further away. And so I think the point is that we need these people to be involved in order to understand

these animals and figure out what they are, where they came from, what their habitat requirements are. And the only way that those people will get involved is if a specimen is produced. And that's the challenge. I agree with you, 100%. 100% with what you're saying. I agree. One of the questions I want to ask you, and you may not be able to answer, so you may not be a part of it.

So you shoot one, and these things are huge. What do you do? Cut it up, start cutting body parts off and take it out that way. Do you guys have a helicopter on standby to airlift it out? Those are the questions, because you know, it's easy to pull a trigger, but now what? And then do you send it off to scientists? I mean, what's kind of the – and again, if you say, I'm not really a part of that. I'll accept that as your answer.

but what's kind of the process of now we've pulled the trigger, now one's dead, now what do we do? I would call my attorney, but I'm not a part of, I'm not a part of area X. Well, what's kind of the procedure that you guys would do out there? Well, it is a constant discussion, and it is always being updated, and the plans and the protocols are being thought through. In fact, you know, as part of this new infusion of membership that we have, we have, we have a Ph.D. molecular biologist who works with samples, you know, biological samples, et cetera. And we've got another geneticist in the group. And we've got trauma surgeons and, again, wildlife biologists who have identified new species through specimen collection. So we've got a lot of informed input. But yeah, I mean, there are a host of challenges,

like you mentioned. I mean, you're talking about a very large animal. Now, again, a type specimen could literally be a finger. It could be a hand. You know, if we found a tooth of a naturally deceased individual, that can be, you know, the holotype of giganapithecus is a single molar. So you can establish the existence of a new species with just a piece of it. So again, killing one doesn't have to be the only way to procure that specimen. It just happens to be the most direct and efficient way to collect the largest amount of biological material. But that being said, it would just depend on the circumstances. You know, if it's able to be moved and can be recovered intact, I mean, with any luck, and I hope listeners understand this.

Like, you know, we care about these animals. We want to see them listed and recognize and protected across the country. And then hopefully that will enact action in these other places where I think these animals or their closest relatives live, like obviously Canada, because that's North America, but parts of Asia and Australia. Hopefully, this will be the one and only specimen that's ever collected. And so, of course, we want to do everything in our power to preserve it as intactly as possible. I mean, I hope the thing ends up in some museum for the world to see, you know, and that second one never has to be collected. You know, I think once you collect the specimen and you can sequence that genome, you will be able to detect other populations via EDNA or some other methods where you sample the environments that they live in. I don't think you'll have to collect multiple animals.

And again, to the point of the kill-no-kill debate, I mean, if you're familiar with the history of this subject and some of the claims, I mean, if you believe these claims, made by some credible people and investigated by very credible researchers, you'll find that people have shot these things many times over the last 100 plus years, 150 years, and maybe many of those have died. And, you know, maybe those things will continue to happen. I mean, again, there was the one popular story about almost 10 years ago of the guy who claims he shot two in Northern California. I don't know him. I, you know, I have friends who worked on that case. And so I'm not making any claims to the veracity or the illegitimacy of that case. I'm just saying as a story, a narrative, I could see that happening or someone see something and as a reaction, they take a shot

and then they feel some kind of fear or remorse or just confusion and they leave. And those are the kind of stories that have proliferated the history of this subject. I'm not saying his is true or false. I'm making no such claim. I'm just saying, if you believe that these things are real, then you have to accept that that's probably happened many times. And that's all the result of them being unrecognized and that people not having any understanding about these things. And so once they are officially recognized and therefore protected, they'll probably never, ever happen again. And so if you really love these animals and you want to see them protected, then you have to take some action. Because, yeah, I try not to be hypercritical of the Bigfoot research community, but, you know, going out at night and harassing them with their own sounds, you know,

whooping and knocking at them, basically modifying, encouraging them to modify their behavior as they figure out that humans are using their own sounds in these confrontational ways, like, for your own jolly so you can get scared in the dark and have fun. Like, if you think that's doing these animals any favors, you're absolutely wrong. So we've got to do something. Now, again, there's this argument that, well, what if they're so endangered that you kill one and adversely affects the whole population? Well, if they're that endangered, it's too late anyway, and we need to throw everything we have at it.

And on the flip side, people say, oh, well, they're doing just fine. There's so many of them. Why do they don't need protection? Okay, great. If there's so many of them and they're doing just fine, what's the harm in collecting one particular animal? So there's a lot of different ways to look at it. I do understand the emotional reaction, but, you know, it's unfortunately, it is an undeniable necessity, as one of our members put it. And it's, there's none of us that are excited about it.

And we have very, very heavy hearts about this. And I'm certainly extremely emotional. But it is, it is a necessary step in this discovery process, unfortunately. You're 100% right, Matt. You're 100% right. And I've talked to people who've claimed to have shot them. And a lot of the people, I believe that they shot them. And most of it is injuring them.

And so I think it's a little ignorant to take, a stand on not shooting them, or not collecting one specimen, if you want to put it that way. I think it needs to be done. I think it absolutely has to be done. One question I want to ask you, have you guys ever had anything weird

to happen out there at Area X? Nothing weirder than, you know, massive unrecognized apes, you know, assaulting us with sounds or throwing stones or things like that, but nothing of like the paranormal sort. And I have to say, too, I mean, I've been pursuing this for so long,

across the country. I've never had anything of that nature happen. I've heard stories, and so I know people do have experiences that are difficult to explain or hard to categorize, and so I know that there's this phenomenological element to all that, but it hasn't happened to me personally or any of us down there in Area X. I hear you. And the other question I want to ask you, you mentioned it earlier. I know you haven't had a siding, but what was the moment where you thought, you know what, I'm going to spend some time looking into this? Was there an, encounter or did something happen to you to where it made you stop and go there's something to this there's something out there running around yeah it was kind of a gradual process um you know i grew up

in the in northeast georgia very close to where deliverance was filmed that's typically like the cultural reference point for northeast georgia so i i go ahead and lead with that so i grew up there in the deliverance country in the mountains and uh i came from you know a very analytically minded family my dad's a doctor, my mom's a nurse, my brother's a EMT, my sister's a pharmacist, and so, you know, not prone to any like interest in the fringe or esoteric or anything like that early on. But I always loved animals in nature. It was obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid, so I was always reading lots of books about, you know, various critters.

But as we got into high school, so it was the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. Like, I played music. I had a band in high school that used to play clubs. Atlanta and Athens starting when I was like 15 and 16 years old. Like as soon as I could drive, we were playing gigs in the city and stuff like that. And so our little group of friends were like the brainy, nerdy, artie musician type. So we weren't like deer hunters and football players for the most part.

So we had just these intellectual interest. And so one of the things we got interested in were these historical references where we grew up of like strange things or haunted places. And there was one particular mountain that had all these stories of being haunted. So like I remember during the school year, we would ask our teachers like, oh, have you ever heard of anywhere being haunted or anything weird happening where we can go? And there were a lot of references to this one particular mountain. And the story went that there was this rich, I guess, farm plantation agricultural owner, magnate, who knows? So it's all a story, you know. But it's like supposedly some rich guy had this home.

home at the foot of the mountain. And so he had this Cherokee woman, because Cherokee were the predominant tribe of North Georgia. And this Cherokee woman was like his shaman, healer, magician, witch doctor, kind of all the above, and that she had a cabin up on this mountain. And that her ghost still roaming the mountain. And one of the things people said was that she could shape-shift

in this huge, like, hair-covered thing that walked up right, like this big monster. So we heard all these stories. And so one night on a whim, it was totally unplanned, but we were again, it was summertime. It was between my junior and senior year, we were at my house and I was with some friends. And one of my friends had this camcorder that he had borrowed from his parents. And he would use it to like record our band practices and things like that.

And so we decided to go camp at this mountain. And we had been told that there were the remnants, again, that supposedly this woman lived in a cabin up on the mountain. And that the remains of the cabin were still up there. This is all now, you know, it's not, there's no residences there. maybe around the foot of the mountain, but this is on public land or adjoining public land. It's kind of mixed public and private. But anyway, so we were like, oh, we should go camp at the foot of this mountain and then hike up there and try to find this cabin.

We had no idea. We just knew it was on this particular mountain. So we went in two vehicles, set up two tents, and, you know, none of us were drinking. None of us were even old enough to buy alcohol. So we just had, you know, waters and maybe like mountain dues and hot dogs to cook over this fire. And we went walking up this mountain. It was like the middle of the summer, it was extremely hot. And so the bugs were very loud.

It was really hot and humid. But a long story short, so we were hiking up this mountain in the dark. We started hearing things paralleling us on either side. And so we, oh, you hear that? You know, it's kind of for a while. We're like, what is that? What kind of animal is that? Do you think it's people?

And so we would stop and turn off our flashlights and just stand in total darkness. And it would be, you know, no sound. And okay, whatever, turn on the light, start walking. the things are walking along with us again. You know, okay, this is strange, and it escalated into whoops, and you could hear branches being ripped off trees and then powerful wood knocks on either side of us. And again, my friend had a camcorder,

so we have all these sounds recorded. I need to get that tape digitized. I only recently retrieved it out of storage a couple of years ago because it was in storage and more Georgia. But it all culminated in the series of terrifying sounds and a big tree getting pushed over that we ran. We ran all the way back down in the mountain, We got in our cars.

We drove back to our mom's house, and we went to get our tents the next day. We're like, we're not going back until the sun's up. And had no explanation, just thought, yeah, this is a weird place and weird things happen because we knew it wasn't people. In fact, at one point, we were like yelling. And none of us, I don't even think we had anything more than pocket knives. We certainly didn't have firearms. But we were yelling saying, oh, we've got guns.

We're going to shoot you. Identify yourself, blah, blah, that kind of thing. No responses, of course. and we knew that these things didn't have flashlights, whatever they were, and they weren't behaving like bear or deer or any of this. So it was just one of those weird experiences, and we went back. I can't tell you how many times I went back there in my teens and early 20s, and nothing ever happened again. So we just thought it's some quote unquote supernatural, paranormal, strange out of the ordinary occurrence. And it was later that I found Bigfoot information, and I literally remember laughing and thinking like,

how ridiculous it is that somebody thinks that there are big apes running around North America. Ha, ha, ha, ha, how silly, you know. And I started reading about intimidation displays and some of these encounters that people had. And I thought, man, this sounds exactly like what we experienced in the same context and the same behaviors and this escalation of sounds getting louder and louder and more intimidating. And then when I found recordings like Ron Moreheads, you know, whoops and the knocks and some of the sounds. and some of the Ohio Hals that Moneymaker had recorded, they were identical to what we had recorded on this tape. And so I wasn't having to just go off my own memory

and try to like remember the sounds. Like I had this document to compare them against. And that really started to set the hook. And then I started trying to find local witnesses and doing historical research. I found a lot of information pre-1900 old print media articles of people describing these things in North Georgia and the Southern Appalachians

and then local witnesses. So it was this gradual thing of once I was introduced to the idea of Bigfoot and realized how similar that was to my experience, I was kind of trying to kick the legs out from under it. And the more I dug kind of the deeper, as you know, the rabbit hole gets deeper. Eventually I got to a point where I'm like, these things are real. They are real and I ran into them. And what am I going to do about it?

And so I started going out. I was looking for tracks interviewing local witnesses. And then in about 2004, I really started going to go. went out heavily and trying to have a siding and trying to elicit an encounter. You know, and I'm still trying to have a siding, but I've had a handful of encounters over the years. But that was essentially like the process that started the whole thing. Yeah, I appreciate sharing that, man. God, I'd love to see that video. I've got it here. I need to get, it's on a VHs, VHSC tape. So I, and I actually have the VHC to VHS

adapter. I just need a VCR and like the coupling unit that goes to RCA out. to like USB in because I would love to digitize it and put it up on YouTube. One of the more compelling parts about it because I talked about this before and a lot of my researcher friends have seen it. Like most of my friends in the Southeast have seen it.

Like when I lived in Atlanta for a long time when I was first doing field research, you know, people would come over and see it. And then I moved to, I was in Seattle for three years and in Oklahoma for a while and then South Carolina and then back to Georgia.

Now I've been in Tennessee for this will be six years. So it's done all over the country even doing this. but I had a lot of that stuff in storage. But one of the most interesting parts that, because the camera had like a halogen illuminator on it, just a little bulb like the yellow ugly, like a decal battery flashlight bulb, you know.

I remember him, yep. And my friend never looked through the viewfinder. He was just kind of holding the camera up and pointing it as we were walking around because this is very thick Southern Appalachian forest, a lot of vegetation. So you couldn't really see anything anyway. And so we're just shining the light.

around. So he wasn't like looking through the viewfinder, but we just had it running and trying to hear these sounds. And at the point before the tree crashes, I mean, there's this big tree that goes, pop, snap, and they come boom, very close to us. The camera pans over and that halogen bulb hits these two big almond-shaped red reflective eyes. And they narrow as if they're starting to close. And they turn downward as if like they hit the eyes and ahead and the eyes start to close in the face turns away. And it's right after that that this tree comes down. And so when we got back to my mom's house, you know, we were just totally frazzled and freaked out and we're all 17, 18 years old, you know, just like, what the hell? And we put in the tape and watched it. And then my friend's like,

oh my God, did you see those eyes? You know, what the bleep was that? And because none of us saw them there in real time. We're all looking in different directions. And my buddy wasn't looking through the viewfinder of the camcorder. And so that part now that it's been, God, 21 years, summer. I would love to see if we could like digitize that and if any other detail would be present. But yeah, I definitely need to make that happen. Yeah, I would love to see it, man. I'd love to see a copy of it. Have you ever been back to that area since that happened? I have. That's very close. My mom still lives in the same house where I grew up. You know, it's funny is because I worked on finding Bigfoot because I was in the BFRO for a long time

before that show happened. And so when Animal Planet started working with the BFRO, it was like, they were asking some of us to put together information packets about areas that might make for good episodes. And so I had so much information for this part of North Georgia where I grew up because I've been any of your witnesses there since like 2002. And so I put all this information together. And that was the first episode to get the green light to go into production. And they actually was really nice. So they took that information and they said, well, why don't we just hire you to be the field coordinator and the fixer?

So I got to help schedule and line everything up. So I was there on site for two weeks. We do one week of pre-production and one week of filming. And where I grew up, the house I grew up in is on the edge of a very, very large conservation area that was first privately owned and then became publicly accessible but still privately owned and is now managed by the Georgia State Park system. And it's connected to the greater 866,000-acre Chattahoochee National Forest. So, I mean, it's out there.

And there's, you know, a whole lot of amazing habitat all around that house. And so when we filmed that Georgia episode, we were literally right behind my mom's house, maybe about a mile or so. When Moneymaker was hearing the sounds on this one particular trail, and when he said, I do think there's a squash in these woods. And then that became, you know, in the title card of every episode. So that's literally in the woods behind my mom's house. So, yeah, I've been back to that area many times because that's pretty much home, you know.

And so most of my, even though I've done research all over the country, like the bulk of it, there's any one place that I've spent the most of my time. It's been Northeast Georgia. That's very cool. I appreciate sharing your own personal encounters, Matt, and kind of giving us a background on Area X and kind of what you guys are doing down there. I always thought you guys did great work down there. And I wanted to talk to you for the longest time to find out kind of what you guys are doing down there. And I really do wish you nothing but success down there. I hope you do end up bagging one and proving it be the greatest day of my life.

And thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate you having me. And as you can tell, I'm passionate. I love to talk about the subject. So I'll talk on that if you let me. So I just appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and hope your audience enjoys it to you. Yeah. And for the audience out there, definitely check out Apes Among Us, a podcast with Matt and Brian.

and if you want to check out the North American WoodApe Conservancy, go to woodApe.org and check out some of the stuff they've posted. Matt, thanks again for coming on, ma'am. Thank you so much, Wes. And that's it for tonight. Everyone, remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. If you get a chance, check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows.

Until next time, everyone.