Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:655 An Anthropologist Encounters Sasquatch

Episode Date: May 17, 2020

Tonight I will be speaking to two guests. James writes "When I was younger my family would have reunions in the summer at my grand parents house and the kids would camp out in tents in the early morning hours before day light a few of us would wake up to howls in the distance not really loud but like they were far away we heard this almost every night. When we visited our parents just played it off and teased us that it was the boogie man eventually my parents was transferred to Pennsylvania from Virginia we moved to the next county over from the one my grand parents lived we lived in a very rural area. I made a friend that lived about a half a mile from me we met at the mom and pop store it was early summer, school was out he asked if I liked to fish and said yes so we rode our bikes to a dnr service road about a mile up the rode was a train trestle that went over a good size creek. We explored all day, we did this for about two weeks everyday. We decided to do a weekend camping and fishing trip and go deeper into the woods to find a better place to fish. The first day was good we made camp got fire wood then started to fish things got really quiet no birds or squirrels we could here pebbles hitting the water from the ridge above where the gravel road we heard something moving around we thought it was a black bear because we have seen one earlier that week about a mile up the creek. We started to holler go away bear and make noise to let it know we were there so we had a radio and turned it on we built a fire pit and started a fire it was getting dark so we ate about 11 pm we went to sleep we were woke up a few times that night to what we thought was a bear snooping around the camp. What I now know as wood knocks we woke up that morning and our fire pit was wrecked and our fishing poles were scattered around but we just really didn't think about it but later that day was going to change our lives again pebbles started falling from the ridge above the movement now was like something was pacing back in forth above us every now and then we heard a huff and rocks would land behind us in the woods we still had no clue what it was a bout an hour later this thing starts coming down the ridge like a tank through the woods about 20 yards up from us and walked right into the creek. It looked at us growled then 2 strides to the other side and went into the woods on the other side we both was shaking all over and both peed our pants could not move then my friend hollered let's get the the F out of here. We ran and left everything we ran all the way to my house my parents was like what's the matter we were white as ghosts. We told them and they wanted to go there the next day I didn't wanna go so they called the dnr office and they sent a officer to talk to me and my friend. We reluctantly took him there and he found foot prints and cast them but told us it was a bear but I know what I saw and it was no bear I have only to my family about this and got teased alot about it so im so glad for you and your show thank you wes for what you do ."     I will also be speaking to Kathy Strain. Kathy Strain is a West Coast investigator who studies the role of bigfoot and Native American cultures. She holds a master's degree in anthropology from California State University, and is employed as the Forest Heritage Resource and Tribal Relations Programs Manager for the Stanislaus National Forest, located in Sonora, California, where she continues to study sasquatch. She has worked in archeology, and is an author who in 2008, published the book "Giants, Cannibals & Monsters: Bigfoot in Native Culture," a compilation of stories about the "hairy man" phenomenon in North and South America.

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's... They were screaming at each other in gibberish.

It sounded like a language and they were chuntering 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... What are you reporting? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know. Do you see a bounce, sir?

Yes, I'm looking right here. Uh-oh. My name is Pam, aka Purple Rose, and you're listening to Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show planned for you tonight. We're going to be talking to James. And James comes to us from Pennsylvania.

He had a pretty terrifying encounter when he was young. James and a friend of his started yelling at what they thought was a bear. But it ended up being one of these creatures, and the creature came down to confront them. them. And then we're also going to be talking to Kathy Strain. And Kathy's actually part of the North American WoodApe Conservancy. And she's been down to Area X. I know I had Matt Pruitt on. He talked about Area X. Kathy's going to be sharing her own encounters from that area. And Kathy's actually a West Coast investigator. She studies a role of Sasquatch in Native American cultures.

She holds a master's degree in anthropology from California State. She's also worked as archaeologist. She published a book back in 2008. The book is called Giants, Cannibals, and Monsters, Bigfoot in Native Culture. If you get a chance to check it out, it's on Amazon, and I'll throw a link in below. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance, check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. into it tonight. I want to welcome James to the show. James

thanks for coming on. You're welcome, Wes. Yeah, I really appreciate you being here. And I know you had quite the encounter when you were younger in Pennsylvania. If you would, just kind of take us back to that moment. Kind of tell us what you were doing and

what happened. Okay, well, every summer, my family would have a family reunion and we'd go to my grandparents' house who lived in Pennsylvania. So we'd go there every year. The kids would stay out in tents and the adults would stay in the house and we'd kind of make it like a camping event. They lived in a suburb of, it wasn't quite a town, but it wasn't quite in the country. It was kind of like a borough, if that makes

sense. Over the course of a couple of years, sleeping in those tents, every now and in my cousins with elbow me and say, hey, do you hear that? And I would say, what are you talking about? And in a distance, we could hear a how. We asked the grownups about it, and they just kind of played it off, like, well, you're hearing a fire siren or, you know, you're just hearing an animal or something like that. They just played it down. So eventually we came back to Virginia, and my parents got transferred to Pennsylvania, southwestern Pennsylvania. We got a house in the next county over, which is Green County. I was in high school at the time. And I met some friends. And I met just one guy in particular, and I'm going to call him Billy because I'm not sure that he would want his name out there.

So me and Billy become really good friends. And we got to hanging around. We rode bikes a lot because that's how we got around there because it was rural area. So if you didn't have a bike, you walked. So we spent a lot of time riding bikes and stuff like that. And he says, hey, man, do you like to fish? And I said, I really like to fish a lot. So he says, I've got a spot here that we can go to.

There's a creek. He says, it's about a half a mile, mile up the road. He says, and I go there all the time. He says, because I get bored. I said, okay, we'll do that. So we go up to the service road. It's a DNR road, like a fire road for the DNR in case that there was a fireback there or something. We would go there and we'd go up to a train trussle and we'd walk across the trussle to the other side.

And we'd fish. And we did this for a couple of weeks or so. it was frequented by a lot of people because they'd leave their beer cans and use cigarette butts all over the place. So we knew people were frequently at that area. So, you know, we didn't think nothing of it. And we, like I said, we did that for about like two or three weeks. And so we wanted to find out what was further across from the trussle.

So we started hiking and going deeper into the woods. And as we went deeper into the woods, it got thicker. and you could tell people wasn't back there much. And the only trails that we could go down to get to the water was like deer trails. So we kept on, and we did this for about another week. We just hiked around to look, see what was back there. We come across a spot that there was like a deer path that went down to the water because the road was up on a ridge.

It was a dirt road or gravel road. And up on that ridge, you could overlook it if you got close enough to it. But there was trees lining it. So you really couldn't see over there unless you really got to the edge. And so we found a spot in that deer trail where the water was really shallow. You could walk across it. So we walked across that. We went over to the other side, which was really pretty clear over there.

You know, we didn't have a bunch of overhang or growth of brush or anything like that. So it was, and the dirt was really soft. It was moss covered. It was shaded area because the tree overhang. So we found a spot there that was about 20 feet wide and about 10 feet off the edge of the tree line. So we thought, hey, this would be a great place to camp. And he says, well, let's plan on camping here one weekend or something. So we went ahead and did that.

We planned on that. So like I said, we had to ride bikes in there. So we had to take just bare necessities. We had a basket and stuff like that and a duffel bag that we could. carried, you know, a little bit of food and our fishing poles and an old canvas tent that we had and that we scrounged up from our parents. And, you know, we just was going to make a weekend of it and just have, you know, just a good time. Boys being boys, I guess. We get up to this place and the wildlife flourished up there. It was nothing to see dears, rabbits and squirrels. It was really

active with wildlife. Apparently nobody went back in that area because of the growth and stuff. And like I said, the DNR really used that road to travel back and forth on. So we went ahead and did it. We set up a camp and the first day was fantastic. We were having a blast because the water was deep enough that we could swim too. So like I said, everything was going well. We were just having a blast. So over the course of the day, as it was getting later, we noticed pebbles coming from the top of the road down the ridge, and they were just dropping into water like, you know, somebody was walking up top. And that was kind of pretty impossible because we were way out there.

So that kind of got our attention, but we really didn't pay no attention to it because black bears are really common there. So we thought it was a bear. So we started to begin to yell at it, you know, go away, bear, go away. and just to let it know we were there because a lot of times if you're in the woods and you come across a bear and it's, or if you think

you're around a bear, if you make noise, it'll go away. But it stopped. But then it started again. So we thought that was kind of odd, but it was up top and we were down to the bottom, so we really didn't worry about it. It started to get kind of like dark

and we noticed like rocks being thrown into the woods. And that really got our attention because that was really weird. And this was a time when we didn't have internet. We never heard of this. And most of the stories we've heard was either word of mouth or from a television program, like in search of or mysterious monsters or something like that.

I think I did at that time, I had seen the Legend of Boggy Creek. So, you know, but when you've seen it on TV, you look at it, you know, that's not around here. So we don't worry about that. We went ahead and we ate something. and it was getting dark and we went ahead and called it a night. While we were sleeping sometime during the night, we started to notice something moving around our camp. It didn't come really close to the tent, but you could hear it around us. And it just sounded like something was walking.

So we thought, oh, here's the bear. Now, we're going to have to deal with this issue. So we just started making noise, a little bit of noise, and we could hear it go off into the woods. So we just dealt with that. We thought, okay, that's, that's probably that bear. Well, when we got up in the morning, the fire pit had been, it looked like something to walk through it and kicked it. It was just the rocks were all going that we had dug out and put it. The rocks around, they were, it was just messed up. And our fishing poles were scattered all over the place. And we, we just thought that that bear had just noticed through the stuff. And we were convinced

it was a bear. The next day it was different. We got more rock throwing. And we thought we thought people were messing with us. So we got loud. We started hollering and you know, we were saying that you know, we're going to kick your butt if we have to come up there

and you know, and then it's kind of stopped. But you could still tell something was pacing up top of that hill. It was going back and forth, back and forth. And we started hearing a huffin noise like

we'd hear that every couple you know minutes or so and then it would stop and then we started to get a little concerned what's going on here and sometime during that night too we woke up to what we thought was a tree breaking or or a knock and sound like somebody was hitting wood with it together neither one of us knew what

a wood knock was because like there was nothing to reference that we just kept on and it started to get about five five o'clock or so in the evening. And all of a sudden, it sounded like something was coming through there, like a tank coming down through the hill. And this thing stepped out.

And it turned toward us and grout. And if the motion was so fluent, it didn't turn with its neck or anything. It barely had a neck or if any neck at all. But the whole thing just turned and stared at us and growled this really low, you really made me mad kind of growl. And we just, we lost it. We lost all control of bodily function.

We were only about 20 yards away from this thing. We were close to this thing. And if it wanted us, it had us. We wouldn't have no chance. And we kind of hung our heads down. And when we broke eye contact with it, It walked off. And before, while it was growling, the funny thing, I keep saying I noticed the mouth because the mouth was just, it was wide.

It had a very wide mouth and a narrow lip that when it growled, it was like it was purposely showing us its teeth. And we were stunned there for, we just, he looked at me and says, let's get the F out of here. I can't deal with this. and we took off. We left our bikes. We left everything. We just started running. And I got to my parents' house.

We got to my parents' house, and my parents knew something was wrong. They could see it in our face. They could see it. And they said, what they asked both of us, what's the matter? I said, I don't want to talk about it. I just don't want to talk about it. And it took a little bit of coaxing for them to get it out of us. Because me and him, we didn't even talk about it when we were running.

We were just, we were trying to get out of there. And the eyes on this thing was just, it was just, they were black eyes. It didn't even look like it had a soul. It just looked like it was looking right through us. And it was like it was telling us, okay, make a move. This thing was crazy big. And so my parents said, okay, we need to call somebody about this because you've seen something out there and you, there's something wrong here. We don't peed all over ourselves and everything.

Like I said, we lost total body control. We couldn't stop shaking. We were terrified. My parents said we were white as ghost. And so my parents called the DNR, the local DNR. And they said that we'll send an officer out. Well, the next day, he came down there. And he wanted us to go up there and show him where it was at.

And we were reluctant to go up there. we didn't want to go. We were at the point of tears. We begged him not to make us go up there. And my parents says, well, look, we'll go with you and we'll go up there. So we all went up there. And I just didn't want to go down to that spot. We stayed up on top of the ridge while they were down there.

We stayed in the car. And so eventually they wanted the DNR guy wanted to talk to us to see exactly what we've seen. and I took them to where it walked out of the water, and there was prints there. So he says, oh, look at this. He says, we got some bear tracks. West, those were not bare tracks. They looked like human feet.

So he said, well, I'm going to go ahead and take a cast of these. And he casted them. And my parents said, well, if it's bear tracks, why are you casting it? My parents could see the same thing. They see the same thing that we've seen. my dad said that is not a bear and he was so adamant about that bear he says well i was scared when i first seen my first bear too unless we that's not the first time i've seen a bear my parents went camping a lot of times and we went fishing all the time we came with cross bear before and you know he was

very adamant about that so he wrote it down in a report that was a bear sighting and um he tried to convince us that it was a bear and after he cast to cast, he walked over through it to smash all the tracks down. That's kind of weird. On purpose. Yeah, he just walked across it. Because like I said, the ground was very soft.

It was moss covered and very soft on that side of the hill. So when we got back to the house, the way it affected me is I wouldn't even, when it got dark outside, I went upstairs. I had put a thick blanket over my window. I did not want to see nothing outside after dark. I turned radio one to a volume where I didn't want to hear nothing outside.

I didn't want to have to look outside. And I lived like that until after my parents decided they were going to relocate back to Virginia. And we left and I lost contact with my friend. and that's basically what happened. The DNR part is fascinating, and I've heard them do that kind of stuff before. That guy's probably seen bear tracks all day long, you know, and why cast him?

It's bizarre behavior. One of the things I want to ask you, so when it ran out, you said it was about 20 yards from you? Yes. Can you kind of describe the face? I mean, would you compare it to more of, and he did a pretty good job describing it,

but would you compare it more to like a great ape or more to like human? Well, from the bottom of the nose down reminded me of a monkey. I wouldn't know what kind of monkey, but it just looked like a monkey. But from the top up, it looked kind of human.

The nose in particular, it wasn't like a monkey's nose where it was just holes in front of it, but it actually had a nose like, It wasn't like ours. It wasn't pointed, but it was like a flap. And it was wide. So it kind of had human terroristics from the nose up.

And it had long hair. And except for the cheeks, I remember seeing like gray skin on the cheeks and on the chest. It had like bare spots. Did it have canines? No. The funny thing about that is I did notice the teeth were square. and they were big. They were like

they were like four or five times a size of our teeth. They were huge. What do you think set this thing off? Why do you think it came out the way it came out in your opinion? Well, I really think that we were really naive about the situation

and because we didn't know about what they know about today about the wood knocks, the rock throwing. I think we kind of pushed the limit a little bit by yelling at it and screaming at it. And I think it might have been defensive of that. Or I just think that we were in a place where, you know, he just didn't want people there. And it could have been with the wood knocks, I've got to thinking later that maybe there was more than one. And maybe there was a family there.

And I've since researched. And in Green County, there was three documented sightings, and they all involved teenagers. And this happened around 81 or 82. And they have one documented in that county in 83, 20 miles from where we were. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. Like I said, Pennsylvania has a long history of Sasquatch, a long history of it there. And I can't imagine being, you know, 14, 15 years. years old and having this saying come out and start growling at you it's almost like you're right you make

one wrong move and you're dead yeah and you know it's affected me in my adult life too because now that i'm aware of that and now that i know and and and see it 20 years ago we didn't have the internet to just jump on there and check the stuff out so when i started to get on the internet and start hearing other people's stories about the wood knocks and the and the rocks throw and i'm like oh my Goodness, man, we were really pushing our luck with this thing. We were really, he would, basically, when they start that kind of behavior, I think they're saying, okay, we're here. You know, now, now it's your move. It's like a warning almost.

Yeah. They want their presence known because I think that's their warning because I don't think, I think they avoid us at all cost. but if they feel like they're being that there's a threat or you know they're a predator too I believe you know they you know they're going to defend their

area and I believe that the way we were acting now you know we like I said we were loud we were playing music we were we were screaming at this thing we were we thought it was people throwing rocks I thought maybe somebody followed us in there

heard we were talking about going up there. And, you know, I didn't even know that we've seen a Sasquatch or, or, I didn't know what I called it a monster. I thought we seen a monster. Yeah, I think most people, they have that reaction and they think that it's some sort of monster. I mean, because what other box do you put it in? I think everyone thinks they're going to run into Patty. And the fact is that's generally not what people see. Yeah, and this thing was nothing like that.

I mean, it was nothing like that. What do you think that they are, James? What's your opinion? Well, I believe they're flesh and blood, and it's an animal, and it's a wild animal. But I also believe it's intelligent. And because I think that, I think with our reaction, when we broke eye contact with it, I think he was just saying, okay, next time's going to be a different story. I think he wanted us to see him, and I think he was protecting something.

Did you ever go back to that area after this incident happened? I haven't been there since, but I did Google, I did Google map it. Since then, there's been a lot of construction around there, and a quarry went in around there. And if we would have went another half a mile up, there's a lake out there. Yeah, well, thank God it didn't try to harm you or hurt you. And was there any smell that you could notice? You know, I really couldn't tell you because down there, It was kind of musky smell in any way because it was creek water.

So I didn't notice any unusual odor. Yeah, I was just curious. Sometimes people report it most of the time they don't. But it's a terrifying account, James. I would imagine it affects you for most of your life. It's like I was saying the other day, you know, when people see this, it turns their world upside down because it's, I think it's so out of the norm. people aren't sure what to make of it, you know?

Well, here and other people's, the only reason I went ahead today to do this is because it was people's stories like mine that helped me realize that I wasn't singled out. That a lot of people are having these experiences, a lot. And a lot people don't come forward because they're afraid of the ridicule. And they're afraid, I didn't talk about it for a long time because my closest family looked at me. On my birthday, they made me a birthday cake with a flip on it. Okay? As a joke. And it was not a joke in matter.

This was a serious thing. To me, my parents would have never done that, but my cousins ribbed me about it a lot. You know, and even with my kids, I've never gave my kids an in-depth. This is going to be the first time that my kids are going to ever hear of the whole story. I just told them, I've seen it. it's not good. If you ever know what you hear this, this and this, you leave, you know. Yeah, that's good advice.

It's good advice. And I'm honored you would come on. I really am that you would take the time to come on and share it. Because, you know, we learn from hearing other people's experiences. You know, like in your encounter, there's a lot of behavior and a lot of, you know, reaction to what you guys are doing. And I think you just learn more from eyewitnesses and try and figure out the behavior. and obviously most of its opinions and everything, but until we have one in a cage, we can study,

you know, it's nice to hear from eyewitnesses, but I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and share it. Thanks again, James. I'm glad that you have a platform to let people share their stories because I've learned a lot from the other people out here, and I appreciate them too for having the courage just to give their story

because beyond the ridicule and everything, this is the only way we can learn. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I'm honored you would come on. Thank you again, James. Well, next up on the show, I want to welcome Kathy Strain. Kathy, thanks for coming on. Oh, thanks for having me, Gus. Yeah, I really appreciate you being on.

And I've been a fan of yours for a long time. I know you're part of the North American WoodApe Conservancy Group. And you hold a degree in anthropology from California State. And I've worked closely with the Native Americans. You've even written a book, Giants, Cannibals, and Monsters, Bigfoot in Native Culture, and spending all this time with the Native Americans, you know, talking about behavior, descriptions, and kind of working closely with them. What information or what knowledge have the Native Americans shared with you regarding Sasquatch? Well, I mean, there's a lot.

I mean, mostly it's characteristics that they associate with him. What's his purpose? Because all animals, in their opinion, have a purpose. Most tribes believe he's a protector of the forest and that he's somehow related to us. He's like a brother, but he's not us. He's not human in that sense, but he's related to us. Most tribes have a healthy respect, and most of them like to just keep away from him at most that they can, you know, just that's their, his berry patch, and this is our berry patch,

don't eat at his berry patch, those are for him. So it's pretty universal in general across the United States, but there are some tribes that have a very good relationship, and he's not only a protector of spaces or places, he's a protector for them as a tribe. So it can vary across. But I've learned a lot. I've been in the field before with tribal members and have something happen. And they tell me, you know, that's related to Yaya Ali and this is what just happened and that kind of stuff. And that's always exciting, you know, because that particular item that happened, it wasn't something I had ever experienced before. And so it was kind of like, okay, that's, that's pretty interesting.

Yeah, I'm curious, Kathy. Tell us what happened. Well, we were out looking at a meadow because we were talking about doing some of, restoration to plant some native plants back. And one of the tribal members had left his keys on the windshield because, you know, if someone's going to steal your car, you know, just take it. Don't knock my windows out and all that stuff that goes with. That's a pretty common practice around here. And we had went in and they did quite a long walk, came back, and his car keys were gone. And we looked around everywhere. We thought, oh, maybe, you know, they fell on the ground somewhere.

I mean, we looked everywhere. And it just so happened that a guy was standing next to a tree, and he turned around and looked, and the guy's keys were in up on a tree branch in the nook of the tree. And he was mad as I'll get out. And he said, that Yall, Yali, did that. And he's a trickster and all this stuff. And he just went off. And I don't have any other explanation for that because there was an absolute, we were totally in a remote location.

We were the only people there. We stayed together all the time together. and nobody left and wandered off or anything, and we all returned together at the same time. And so, you know, I don't know that that can, was a Bigfoot that did that. I certainly didn't notice anything else. We looked around to see if we could see any footprints

if somebody had, you know, had wandered into our area, tire tracks, anything like that. We never found anything besides the fact that his keys were up in the tree. It's very strange. Very, very strange. You know, when you talk to a lot of different Native American tribes, some believe it's an animal, some believe it's the Forest Brother, the protector of the woods, some believe that they'll kill you, you know, they'll kill you and eat you. And I know even some of the tribes will say they'll walk in between two worlds. Did you notice that when you were talking with the Native Americans as far as their beliefs? Oh, yeah. All tribes have different beliefs in what they think Bigfoot is. So it's not unusual. But you can, you can. find concentrations. Like in the South, all the stories and belief systems is that he's very violent

and you want to stay away from him. But in the Pacific Northwest, he's not as violent, even though he stills children, but he's not the kind that, you know, he dismembers people and leaves their bodies for you to find. It's not that. But they will still children for food resource. And they don't have those kinds of stories like up in the New York area. So every area is kind of different. And I think it's based maybe on different personalities of a Bigfoot, I guess. I mean, you're always going to have a rotten apple and even in humans. So it wouldn't surprise me that individual Bigfoot's have different behaviors or different characteristics that make them more or less scary to the tribe. So it's hard to know.

A few years ago, I guess more is more like 10 now. I've been here 20-something years. I used to have to go out to the reservation at night because we were having meetings. and talking about certain things. And we could only do it at night because we needed the elders there. And they had been having trouble with a big foot on the reservation. And they had already told me, you know, if you hear a whistle while you're here, do not go outside.

Stay where you're at and we'll take care of it. And one night they had to escort me to my car because there had been so much activity that particular day they were concerned for my safety. And so that's actually a real life experience with a tribe being fearful for people's lives. Yeah, that is. And one of the other questions I wanted to ask you, you know, when you're working with the different tribes,

have they ever talked to you about skinwalkers? And do you have an understanding of what the skinwalker is? Obviously, it's not Bigfoot related, but I'm just curious because you spent so much time working with the Native Americans. No, I really didn't because it's hard enough getting your head wrapped around what their beliefs in Bigfoot is.

And so, you know, I've heard of them before they were brought up, and I just didn't want to do a deep dive on it. There's this other thing called a water baby, which is more Californian West Coast kind of thing. And I've heard it mentioned before, but I never pursued it just because I got enough going on in my head. I don't need any more things in there. But yeah, I mean, I've heard of them and they tried to tell me stories,

but it just wasn't something that I wanted to focus on. Yeah, I understand. I understand completely. I think most Native Americans don't want to focus on skinwalkers. A lot of times if you ask him, they don't want to talk about it. If you would, I know you've had a few sightings. Would you take the audience back on your first sighting, kind of tell us what you're doing and just what happened? Sure.

I have been friends with people that are in N-A-W-AC. I'd say that right. North American would. He sounded like me when I say it. I know. I was like, where? What's the initial? You know, so it's like Daryl Collier and, of course, Alton Higgins. And they had approached me when I was giving, I think my last talk in Texas,

they said, you know, Kathy, we'd really, really like you to, or maybe it was before that. I don't remember exactly when, but they said, you know, there's all this stuff going on at this place we call Area X. And we sure would like to invite you down to see it for yourself. and see what you think. And I said, well, you know, I think I'm interested in that. We can use it as an opportunity to run through Texas and see some of our family and then go on to Oklahoma and just stay a week, you know, no big long time and see what happens. And so Bob and I drove out there.

A really nice trip, too. It was just beautiful country. I believe we arrived on a Sunday, and it gives me if I'm getting my days wrong, but it was in May of 2012. And it was a really quiet day, nothing exciting. So the next morning I really wasn't expecting much else, but essentially, I would say my life changed that day, that everything I'd ever wanted, you know, having my own sighting was happening. And I don't think I took it very well. But essentially, there's cabins there.

And something had been throwing rocks onto the tin roof. and it just makes this horrible sound. And so basically they were playing ping pong between going running over to this cabin, running back over here, run into that camera, and run back over here. I was entertained if I had at least, you know, there has to be something causing that kind of thing. And this place is very, very remote that when we first started down the road to this place, I was like, yeah, this isn't so bad. This is no different than a Forest Service road that I drive on all the time.

and then it got horrible. I thought, oh, my God, we're never going to get out of here. We're going to die down here because it was the worst road I've ever been on in my life. But we made it. And so I instinctively knew there's not anybody else here. It's just us because we would hear your car. We'd see you. There's just no way for you to hide from us.

And so I thought, well, this is pretty exciting. You know, there's something going on. And, you know, okay. So after the last rock throw, there was all five of us. us that were there. We came back and we were sitting down and it was a pretty warm day and it was still daylight. One of the gentlemen Marks say, wow, I hear something walking and we stopped and we stopped talking and started listening and we could hear it. And I'm looking right down this place. It's called the bottleneck. I'm facing it because I'm sitting in the chair that's

looking right down. And then there they are. There's two of them, a big one and a small one. I I have always said I have no proof for it. It's just my initial instinct that it was an older sister caring for her younger, rotten sibling. And they're coming right at us. And I stood up and I go, there they are. And I pointed at them and then I ran at them. And had I waited just maybe a few more seconds, we had a camera there. And I'm the one who triggered it when I went past it.

And so we did not get them on film. but after I ran at them, they bolted up this hillside like nothing I have ever seen in my life. It was so fast because they were somewhat loud coming towards us because I don't think they knew we were there. But the way they moved up that hillside was seamless and quiet and elegant. And it was like they had been on a bungee and the bungee went and popped them right up, right up the hill. And I remember thinking to myself, if I was a ghost hunter, I would have just thought I saw two ghosts. They were so fast and graceful of what they did. So of the five of us, four of us all saw it.

So the fifth guy was looking in the wrong direction. I don't know what he was looking at, but he didn't get to see any of it. And then it did just the whole rest of that week was just mind-blowing. It was just rock after rock after rock. I heard some mumbling. We had something bluff rushes. We had just all kinds of stuff happening. And so it was just, it was the trip of a lifetime for sure.

And to be fair, I literally had a meltdown immediately afterwards because it finally, not only was everything I believed. Actually, they're right there before my eyes, but their speed and their size startled me so badly. I just turned around to Bob and I said, we can't win this. We just, let's just go home. We can't win this. And he's like, what do you mean? And I'm just falling apart. You know, I was just like, if they wanted to, they could have grabbed me and took me up that hillside.

And nobody could have done a thing about it because they just would have outpowered him, outran. You know, and it was just, it was an overwhelming feeling at that moment. So, anyway, that's my story. Especially after all. years of studying with the natives and what made you run towards it? I was going to get them. I don't know. I could tackle them.

Get some hair. I don't know. It was just my instinct of I got to get closer. I don't know. It was just my instinct to do that. And, you know, now I had I thought it through, had it been more competent. But it was, you know, my first one, I should have, I think they were heading to try to get behind a shed that was there. Because that's looked like that's what they were heading.

But they probably would have ran anyway once they realized we were there. So I don't think me running at them would have made any difference other than they could have triggered that camera that had they passed and we would have least gotten something. But, you know, it is what it is. Yeah, and I'm not giving you a hard time. It's exciting. You know, people get excited when they, either people freak out or I've actually heard of hunters doing what you did. And I'm like, what made you chase them? You know, and I think it's just our brains kind of get.

Even though you've known about the subject, you've read about it, you've heard about it, you've, you know, and then, but seeing is believing, you know what I mean? And it's pretty powerful that it was too. They looked exactly like Patty from the Patterson Gimlin film. I just couldn't hardly believe that it was their speed and their size was just, oh, you know, they're not kidding when they say that. You know, we used to hear those reports that people saying they were driving and, and the Bigfoot was running with the car or chasing the car and I used to go, sure, you know, and now I'm going, well, maybe that did happen because they're pretty darn fast. And they're agile in the sense that, you know, that hillside is really steep.

You know, I had really only been up there a couple times because it was, you know, didn't feel very good trying to get up there. And they did it with no problems whatsoever. It was, it was like they were on downhill, you know, as fast as they were going. Plus, with all the green briar and the rocks and stickers and snakes and everything else that's around there. So, you know, they're definitely amazing creatures. Yeah, it almost seems unnatural how fast that they can be, you know, when they want to be. Have all of your sightings taken place there out in Area X?

Yes, yes. And the next year in 2013, I thought it was a baby chimp in the tree. and it was on the end of a branch or limb, and it was jumping over to another limb. And I said, oh, yeah, I've seen that before in the zoo, you know. And then I went, Kathy, there's no baby tips out here. And then I went, ah. And I, so we ran towards it, tried to find it again,

and I didn't find it because it had obviously already moved on. And it was, you know, pretty small. And later on that week, I believe one of our other team members saw it again. And so, and we, other people in that area have since seen more than a few babies there, which would make sense. I mean, in order to have a, you know, population, you'd have to have big foots at every age that there is. So, you know, that wouldn't surprise me. It was just like, where's your mom? You know, and then I got to think, well, mom's got to be somewhere near here.

We didn't hear or say anything else. How far away from you was this thing up in the tree? Oh, it was pretty high up in the tree. but I was sitting on a porch and the only shade there was at the time. And so I was up above everybody else. And I would say it was like, it would be 40 yards at the most. I mean, but it was good up in the train. I only noticed because of the movement, you know,

that there was something large, larger than a squirrel in a tree and that it was out there on that limb and that it was going to jump over. And I said, you know, it looked exactly like what you would think of baby you chimp would look like. You know, it just didn't have a tail. It was, it was, had a nice flat back. It's hairy all over. The same color that the two I'd seen the year before, dark brown, just moved with grace. Like that was some way it traveled all the time. Yeah, I've had a lot of witnesses talk about them being in trees. I've had a lot. And the part that, you know, and so I think for a lot of people go out there and look for this thing, they're always looking down at the ground, you know, for tracks or whatever. But I think it's more important. And, you know, I think it's more important. important to look in the trees because I've had so many eyewitnesses, even large ones in trees, you know, where they'll be out there, coon hunters will be out there in the middle of the night, and it sounds like an elephant dropped out of the tree and landed on the ground and took off running. So I think even the bigger ones get up in trees. Oh yeah, I had not in, I wasn't

a sighty, but I had a very unusual experience in California here. I was doing an archaeology project in the forest. And I had. had something approached my tent at night. We had camped out there with a bunch of volunteers and we're doing a recording aspen carvings. So we were camping. And all my archaeologists were there. And I heard something approach my tent. And I had yelled at it. You know, is that you, Lisa? What are you doing? Kind of thing. And then it reached and touched my tent. And but went from like, you're trying to unzip a zipper, but it went from the top down to the bottom. And I was like, oh, man, now, now this is on.

So I got out of my tent and jumped over to catch it. You know, it was late at night. Man, me, this has been about two in the morning. And I went, ha, like this, to catch it. Because I just assumed it was one of my archaeologists, you know, and there was nothing there. And so I ran over to the other side of the tent. And I said, ha, hi, ha, I got you caught. And there's nothing there.

And I went, okay, well, maybe I just imagined that. And, you know, oh, well, wait, you know, whatever. It's my archaeologist, Steve, I'll kill him in the. morning, you know. And so I got, got back into my tent, zipped it down, got into my sleeping bag and was just about ready to zip it up when something went, bam, right to right next to the tent next to my head. And I realized it had been in the tree, whatever it was. And so I was like, now I'm scared. Now I'm not willing to get it back out because I didn't know what I was dealing with. And then I heard it walk off up some granite because I could hear the smaller pieces of granite dislodge.

and pebble off. And so, and then other things happened that particular week to one thing each for each archaeologist. It had some very strange things that happen, but I don't necessarily want to go into that. Yeah, I hear you. That still is terrifying. You get out and you realize it was up in the tree. I think that they do. I think if the tree's big enough and it will hold them, they'll climb up it.

Even a big one will. That's my opinion, of course. but tell me about your last sighting. Yeah, that would have been in 2014. It's interesting because the rim fire, one of the largest fires in California, not anymore, but at the time happened in 2013. And I had been to X in that year, the year of the baby, I was there for three weeks without Bob. Because he went for three weeks without me so that somebody could be home for the kids. And so that was right before the rim fire.

So I remember in 2014, I just said there's just no way we're going to be able to go because, you know, I'm just still, we're still working on this fire, recovering, trying to help the arc sites. And Bob just said, no, let's take this time to just go ahead and go and revive ourselves because it had been such a long, hard year. So we went and I'm standing on the porch, had just gotten up, everybody else was outside already and, you know, talking about what they're going to have for breakfast. And because I'm standing on the porch, I have a direct line of sight over through these. There's a few places in this property where you can walk. It's got enough clearance or you can see through, but not many. So I'm standing on the porch and looking across the property and all of a sudden I see a very large gray thickfoot. And so I saw him from about, it would be his chest at his neck and down.

to, I would say maybe the knees, something like that. And I saw him walk by. So I saw his arm. And he's humongous. I mean, but really great, just like a gray person would be. And not white, but the gray. And so I say, hey, there goes one. And they all turned around and looked in about five people ran that directions toward it.

And they found where it had been laying. and then how it walked down to the creek. And as they had gone over there, it had picked up pace and just took off. And so in a reenactment, I stayed put where I was, so I would not change my point of view. And I told Bob to go over there

and stand in that location, and Bob looked like a little tiny butterfly compared to that guy. And we took a picture of it at the distance of what he looked like. He didn't even remotely. He was like a third of that open. and this animal had been this at least two-thirds bigger than him, and Bob is six-foot tall.

So he had to have been gigantic. So, and he's been seen before, we call him old gray, so. Yeah, I wanted to ask you, do you think he was sleeping and then stood up and you just saw him standing there? Do you think he was in? I have, again, no evidence for this whatsoever. I think he was our night watchman. he was in charge of making sure we didn't do anything stupid and once i had gotten up for some reason he thought all of us were present and so now he could leave and let the next person come in

and i like i said there's no evidence for that is just something in my head what i thought maybe what was going on or because i don't he had definitely had been laying down because we had found the the location where it was all matted down in the exact location where he was so but i just don't see that. It was too close to us for him to have been sleeping there. That would have been stupid in my mind. For something that large, he's obviously very intelligent, and I don't see any reason for him to have been in that area except for taking a look at us. One question I want to ask you, what makes you think that they have night watchmen? And again, I know it's opinions and theories and impressions, but those are important too. Whenever I interview eyewitnesses, I'll all

ask them, what was your impression as far as what was going on? And a lot of times they're dead on with what I think, too, is what they said happened. You can kind of match up some of the behavior. But I'm just curious, what gives you that impression that they have, Night Watchman? It is something that Native Americans have conveyed to me for many tribes and many locations. But I think it's also just the general feeling that we had is that we were constantly being watched. I can't even go into all of it, but just whenever we potentially were too close to one, something would always happen to lead us away from that location. So, you know, it was a constant, like something was always there making sure we didn't get to a certain place

or get something trapped or something to that effect. And it just always felt, if you'll read the monograph that's on the website, it kind of details some of those things about where we thought we had a Bigfoot pin down over here and then something would always happen behind us or to get us over to this other direction so whatever was over that we thought we had pin could get away and that can only happen in my opinion if you have you're being watched at constant timing and we also had a lot of weird things happen like when somebody knew was coming in to relieve a tame member or we had a new vehicle coming in almost always there was a wood knock announcing that to somebody that

that somebody was coming. And so it was like clockwork. I got you. No, I know a lot of natives say that. And even a lot of people have, they have that same opinion and impression. I was just kind of curious on your thoughts on that. I don't believe they do it when people are not there.

I think they only do it when people are there. Kind of keep an eye on the other predators. Yeah, and just, I think they don't know what we're doing there for. You know, why are you guys here and what are you up to? And we better watch it just in case you go someplace you shouldn't or you're doing something we don't want you to be doing or something to that effect. You know, and I was just kind of curious if other primates do that. I mean, I know humans do that.

There's tribes in Africa, and they have watchmen so that Tyre doesn't come in and kill everyone. But non-human primates, I wonder if they exhibit that same type of behavior where someone's kind of watching over the tribe. I believe that gorillas are known to do that, and I believe chimps are also known to do that. A male is assigned to make sure nothing creeps up on them that they are not aware of. And then they alarm to let the rest of the troop know. And then they head up into the trees for safety. And so I think it's a natural, we're primates as well. So I think a primate instinct to want to protect your group, including probably pregnant females and very small ones that can't defend themselves.

And so I would think that's natural. it wouldn't surprise me that at certain times that, I mean, for me, I guess, old gray being the largest, I would assume because of his coloring, that he's the alpha. And why in particular the alpha would bother taking care of us suggest that there was something important or something happening or something that the head had to be there, not one of the more or less inexperienced animals that are there in that group. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.

I want to come back to Bigfoot, but I want to ask you real quick, what's the coolest thing you ever found while doing archaeology? Even the strangest or even the coolest thing that may be able to dig or what's something that kind of stands out to you? We, there's more than a few. The rim fire was also one of those life-changing events. It burned a significant part of our forest. And for the first time, we commonly joke that one of our districts is the Groveland Ranger District. And we joke about that place having old growth poison oak because you always get poison oak when you go there because it's just everywhere. So this fire, though, you know, it consumed absolutely everything.

It was down to ash. And so that gave us the opportunity to do some surveys with actual being able to. see everything on the ground. And so we found some amazing thing out there. And I didn't particularly find it. Another group found it, but I went back to the site. But we found at a place that tribe had told us was one of their traditional hunting grounds. And we found a soapstone. We also called steatite bold about the size of, you know, it's like a doll sized one. So it's really super tiny. that they would crush ochre in and then use it for their hunting, both on their body to disguise their bodies and on decoration for their bows and arrows.

And I had never seen one before. And so it was just exciting. And when I told the tribe and showed it to them, they knew exactly what it was. And they asked me, is this where it was found? And I said, yeah. And they go, yeah, that's our traditional hunting area. So that doesn't surprise me at all. So I found that to be just spectacular.

And I guess one of the other cool things that I personally found was this really cool craft mayonnaise lid that had Bing Crosby on it, advertising his radio show. And it was this beautiful colors you could imagine and didn't look like the fire had harmed it at all. And I remember I was with three other archaeologists and only one other of them knew who Bing Crosby was. The other two were too young. They were like, who? I was like, all right, I'm not having it now. It was just too much, but it was that. That was one of the cool because it just looked like it was something had just

sewn it down yesterday. It was just amazing. Yeah, it's like going back in time, finding stuff like that. Yeah, and we also had just because it's related to Native Americans, we had one of the coolest sites I had ever been to it. We had collected about 100 arrowheads off of it or projecto points that we call it. of every size, shape, color, material, you could imagine. In one of my other arts, we had all noticed these weird little round balls.

They look like marbles, but they were made of stone. And they're all over this site. And I was like, well, maybe we should have collected a couple of these and ask them what they're doing. And so I had been to this other tribal event. And I took them out and I showed it to them. And I said, this site is just covered with these things. And they go, oh my God, take those back. And I said, well, why?

And they go, because those are, they call them shaman stones. And they're meant to keep that site from being discovered. It's an important place for that tribe to be going. And so it's a ritual that you put that site to bed, hide it with these shaman rocks. And so I'm like, okay. And so I was like, well, we're going to have to go take these back. And we did, we did. But it was, I never would have known that if I hadn't shown it to.

the elders of a tribe because I didn't have any idea what they were. That's really cool. So he puts them around to remember the place or you said to keep people away? Yes, to keep white people away. Oh, I got you. Yeah, because inside was really important and for it to have that many projectile points. And the funny part about all of this is two years before that, I had taken some student archaeologists to this location.

We attempted to get to this site, but you couldn't get to it because the brush was so thick. You couldn't see any of it at all. I mean, we couldn't even push through the brush. And that's exactly how it looks like now, right? It recovered. A lot of places on the forest are still in recovering. They don't have any brush, grass, anything growing back yet. And this was one of the first places that recovered.

It was covered in brush within a year. And what did the Native Americans do? So let's say you go out to a site and you, you find stuff like this. What do the natives do with it? Do they put it in some sort of museum? Does it go to the tribal elders? No, it stays with the U.S. Forest Service because sites are considered federal lands and these are federal artifacts.

And so the reason I collected them because we don't normally have a collection policy was because it's so open. Anybody coming to this area would have what we call pot hunted, they would have stolen the artifacts. And so I took them. We GPS where we get them from. We cataloged them. And then we store them until such time as we can safely put them back, you know, or we learn from them or whatever we need to do. But, yeah, they belong in federal custody until such time as we return them to the site.

Oh, so they return them to the site. But the feds don't give them to the tribe or then in turn turn turn it over to the tribe? No, no. The only things like that that we turn over are things like human remit. veins, funeral objects, things like that are things of cultural patrimony. It's a law called NAGRA that we have to follow, but we don't, none of these items fall under that. I have a very strong list of what those items are, and we don't touch those things. I got you.

Going back to Bigfo out there at Area X, so you've been out there for almost 10 years, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, we didn't get to go this past year in 2019 because I hurt my knee and plus I had did a detail for the regional office in Vallejo. And so there just wasn't any time in the summer to go. But yeah, we've been going since 2012. And the group itself had been going to that area much longer because they did a camera set up prior to that. And so they've been going to that area for, I don't even know, maybe 15 years, probably longer. I don't remember the exact date.

They started all summer operations, I believe, in 2011, where we put group after group, after group after group, starting, you know, May to at least September, constantly occupying the location since 2011. I got you. A long time. Over that time, what have you taken away or what have you learned, you know, from Kathy showing up day one and Kathy being out there now over that time period. Has there been surprises or has there been anything to where you thought, oh, that's why they do that?

Anything new that you've learned? Well, I've learned a lot since that first trip. I mean, there was definitely things that I had heard people say witnesses report and personally got to witness that exact same thing. I think the greatest lesson I've learned is that there are extraordinarily curious about us. Like, why are we here? Why are you still here? What's your purpose?

Why don't you have any hair in your body? You know, why do you guys do the things you do? And they, like I said, they're constantly watching us. And we, I think that's a universal feeling throughout the group that they're always there somewhere. at any given time and you have to just be diligent all the time because you don't know when you're going to run into one of them. And so if people are interested in monograph that's on the website, it gives details for some of the most important things that we've noticed during our time there.

It hasn't been updated, but we do keep a record of events that happen, where they happen, time of year, weather conditions, those types of things so we can start seeing patterns. And I think the most fascinating thing, I think, was the Tag 7 paper, if you ever get a chance to read that. It was fascinating. We were able to put a sensor on a big foot because we had it up, you know, in a branch at a height than a normal animal would not have had it stuck to them. It was in a bur. And so, you know, kind of like a cacabur. And so the device was embedded in that.

And so when it hit the animal's fur, it gets tangled up into it and then would be able to be tracked using these devices. I'm not as good as a stupid device never worked for me. But we were able to track where we got those pings of where it went. And so there's a Tag 7 paper that discusses the seasonality. We could see at different times of months and seasons. That tag was moving to different places in order to exploit the resources that are available in that valley. And so it's a very unique, didn't surprise me in the sense if that's how I would think any animal would move. You know, Native Americans did that when the resource was only good or only found in this location in May,

that's where I'm at in May. This other resource that I need is only found way over there in June, so that's where I'm going to be in June. That's how people move throughout the environment, so it wouldn't surprise me that Bigfoot would do exactly the same. Yeah, and I'll put up a link for that. You said it's called Tag 7? Yeah, Tag 7.

It's also on the website. I can send you the links for that. Yeah, please do. How long does that sense, or how long does that last and how long did you track this thing for? Oh, well, that's, Bob's the one that usually handles those questions because I haven't, I can't remember, months, it lasts for months. And I believe we, we were able to track it for a significant period of time. I mean, it was months that we were able to pinpoint where they were at that time.

And we have a couple of pilots in our group, and they were able to find the pings by using airplanes and flying over the area and getting the, getting the same. signal that way as well. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's well worth reading just to, and it's not necessarily that we're looking for people to go, you know, wow, that's really monumental. That proves Bigfoot's real. It's more of, here's a technique you can also use in your research that you might find useful. Yeah, it's very useful. I can't wait to read that. Tag 7, I'm going to look that up. You know, one of the things in the Bigfoot world is, and I try and see out of that whole community for obvious reasons. But, you know, they'll, they, they freak out. I get hate mail when I talk about, because I think one should be shot. And not, it's not a hate thing. It's not that I

want them dead. It's that once you shoot one and bring it in, you, you can prove it at that point. In my opinion, you'll never prove it with blood samples, hair samples, audio, video, all that stuff is fascinating, but it's not going to prove anything. You can take all the, and you know, you hear Bigfoot researchers say, oh, if I can get crystal clear HD footage, it's not going to, you're going to get eaten alive if you post that. It's not going to prove anything. But a body will prove it.

And, you know, a lot of people get upset with the thought of killing one. I've had several hunters on the show that have wounded them, shooting at them, because they're terrified. They don't know what they just ran into. So I'm on the opposite side of the corner. And I'm kind of with your guys' group. I've always hoped that, you know, I get a, I'd show up on Google that you guys had finally done it. What's kind of that process look like out there as far as shooting one?

And then what do you do after you shoot one? What's kind of the next procedure? What do we do next? Well, you know, we're pro-science. And so we, and I have wanted to maybe change those narratives of kill. no kill kind of thing. It's more of pro-science or pro-sudoscience. You know, I have a very strong feeling that people put Disneyland characters on Bigfoot, like he's some big fluffy bunny rabbit, and he's our forest friend and all that other crap. And it bugs me to any extent possible. They're not your

friend. They're not a big fuzzy loving furball kind of thing. And our goal is Science requires a body so that they can place its genus species in that tree of our kingdom to know exactly what they are, what they're capable of. Can they talk? Because you'll be able to analyze the vocal cords, all that stuff that goes with that. Our intent is to save the species as a whole because as we continue to go down the road of cutting down trees and all that other stuff that goes with it, they're losing their environment. And so to lose one to save the hole is worth it. And because I would be greatly saddened if this species went away. If 20 years from now we're not studying them in a scientific method in a classroom,

get people getting degrees, or they're reading about them in the extinct book because we did nothing, you know, that kind of thing. And so we do have very strong protocols in place because, I would hazard to guess if we were successful in killing one, that there's probably going to be another one, someone nearby. So you need to know your protocols. What do we do in this scenario? Here's what you're going to do. Here's who you call. This is how we preserve it. This is how we do this. This is how we do this. And then our goal is to give it to science. We will never, ever, ever make a dime off of it. It's not our interest to do that. We want science to have it so that the announcement can be made that at least in Oklahoma, although if Oklahoma has it, you know darn well,

California, Oregon, Washington, Vancouver, blah, blah, blah, all have it, right? They're here in Oklahoma. We're going to preserve the species from this day on. They're protected. The government's going to pay for science to be done so that we can know exactly what they need in their habitat. and that's the road that it goes down, the Endangered Species Act. And I would hope people would look at it like that, that they stop personalizing that this one big foot is somehow so special that we shouldn't be doing anything. Well, you're dooming the whole species when you have that attitude.

I couldn't agree more. So kind of pass it off to science once you guys have killed it. Yes. Yeah. And we have goals in no case we can't get the whole thing, you know, but, you know, you're getting the most important part. safeguarding the rest of it until we can get a larger party or, you know, cranes, not a crane, but a winch out there to, because I suspect they weigh quite a bit.

Yeah, you'd probably have to cut it up as gross as it sounds. But I do wish you guys luck, and I don't think it's a bad thing to kill one. You know, Grover said that for years, that one should be shot. And I think he was right. You know, I think he was, you know, how many more audio recordings are we going to listen to? How many more track casts are we going to look at? How many more, you know, it's like the same old, same old time and time again. And I think the only way to actually open the door is to kill one.

Yeah, and we already have fabulous footage in the Patterson Gimlin film, and that's still not good enough because some Yahoo's going to come up and say, oh, no, that was me in the suit, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you'll go, we'll show me the suit. They show you the suit, and there's no way that's them. But, you know, but then you put a little seat of doubt in somebody's brain. now it's not proof anymore. And so the only thing you can't fake where someone claims they fake is a body.

Why do you think after 10 years it's been so hard to kill one? I think because most of our sightings are seconds long. And so by the time you get the gun prepared to shoot, it's gone. You know, we believe we have wounded one before in the past, the Echo event. And, you know, it happens. You have to have the time, the opportunity, and it has to be there at the right time with the right person. And so I know that I always carry a gun.

I have a 357, and there's no way my gun would have done anything to those two that I saw the first year. It wouldn't have stunned them at all. They would have just kept on running. And so, and I sort of would hate to have that happen where you shoot and would one and then it died somewhere else for no reason. So you have to have the proper weapon and the right opportunity and the time and length. Out of all the years that you've been down there at Area X, what would you say is the top three best evidence out of all these years that the group has to offer?

That if someone came along and what would be the best evidence you would present to them? I think the diversity of the people who have had eyewitness accounts. I mean, we have other anthropologists in our group. We have doctors. We have pilots. We have all kinds of professional military people that have had sightings down there. And I think that is credible because we're so diverse. We have lots of sightings where there are multiple people who saw the same

thing at the same time. For me, I work for the federal government. I have a master's degree. I'm well regarded in my profession. Why would I want to lie about it? I mean, that didn't do me any good whatsoever. And I think we have a lot of recordings as well that describe the rock throwing, the thing we call the rain of rocks, which we still don't really understand. But the diversity of the grunts, the whistles, that gibberish thing, like what you hear on the Sierra sounds, I think that's very valuable because it shows a lot of diversity in what they're capable of in one spot, and it supports the Sierra sounds. And I know that we had a blood sample. We still have yet to have anything come of that. I think that's good evidence. But I think tag seven is probably the number one thing.

I think it's unique what we were able to accomplish with that. I think it aids our knowledge about what they're capable of. And I think it introduces a new technique that if we could deploy it on a larger scale throughout the United States, at one point it's going to be successful and land us being able to pinpoint where one is at one time where we can be there already in order to get the body that we need. I hear you. Yeah, it's, I really do wish you guys luck out there. I really do. I hope you guys are successful out there. And I know it's odd in the Bigfoot world to have someone wish you success. But I do wish you guys success. It would be the greatest day in my life if you guys shot one tomorrow and it was over with. You know what I mean? I know. There's a lot of people I go, huh, yeah. But yeah, no, I've never, I don't think I've ever been on a show or, or. in a position where somebody was upset with our position. I mean, I've been in Bigfooting a long time.

I had this belief when I first started. I've always been pro-science and pro-body. And so somebody knows me and wants to talk to me. There should be aware of that position. And so I've never had anybody that I know of not wish a success or say something like, oh, well, I hope Bigfoot get you guys first or anything like that. So I think in general, I think the N-A-W-W-R-W-W. UAC is well respected in what we're trying to achieve.

Yeah, I think when they have people like you in the group, it's hard not to respect what you guys are doing because you are professional. And so why wouldn't the group be held up? You know, if someone just told me there's a bunch of Bigfoot researchers out in the woods with guns trying to kill Sasquatch, I'd be a little nervous. I told Matt Pruitt, a lot of people in the Bigfoot world, I wouldn't trust to make me a sandwich, let alone hand everyone a gun and run around out there to shoot one. You know, and I know there's procedures in place, and Matt kind of went over that. And so it is safe. I mean, it's, you almost want someone who doesn't really want, that's more cautious before they pull a trigger, as opposed to someone who's trigger happy because that could end in disaster really quick.

Yes. And plus, I think there's people out there who want to shoot one in order to make a million dollars or whatever they think that they're going to get from that. And that disgust me because you shouldn't kill anything. I, well, it's just my personal beliefs. I would only shoot an animal for food. I don't shoot an animal to sell a body part of it. Or it's for science because I want the species to continue on. And so, yeah, there's a lot of people out there that have belief systems that I definitely do not agree with. And those are people that shouldn't have a gun and be doing that because that's when accidents happen. And we're always very careful. We have protocols of when and where you can take a shot. shot, you have to have a hunting license, you've got to have the right gun. You know, it's all laid out strictly and you have to follow the protocols. And people who break those protocols, we kick you out of the group because we don't allow that. We don't allow people being irresponsible.

We don't, we just don't, your gun on. We don't give you a second chance. Yeah, and that's the way it should be. You know, one question I ask everyone, Kathy, and there's no wrong answer because no one truly knows. But what do you think that Sasquatch is? What's your opinion? Oh, I think they're a primate. I think they're probably closely related to orangutans. Very likely could be gyopithecus. I don't know for sure, but a primate is no problem with me whatsoever to say that. So they're in that line somewhere. How close to any of those do we really know? Well, that's what you need the body for. And we had an interesting discussion the other day that Bob and I were talking about, coronavirus and the potential for this animal to get that, you know, because we now know that some animals have contracted it. And that would even be more horrible if they got wiped out by this, by this. But we won't know those things unless until we can study their DNA and where they fall in relation to those things. And that is even a better reason why we need

a body is to protect them from outbreaks like this. You know, what, what's the the chances of us going to X this year that we contaminate the area for that population. And that's something I wish we knew in advance, but we don't know. And we are taking precautions for that because we don't want that to happen. But, you know, it's very likely to me that they're in the primate line somewhere. They're not human. I'm very sure of that. I've seen no evidence that they can do anything related to culture. They don't have fire. They don't make tools. They don't do of that stuff. And so I'm not worried about, you know, making that argument that there's somehow some homo species that we're unaware with. I would say there, if anything, Meldrum's close to

write with the Gio Pythicus hypothesis. Yeah, that's one of those fun questions I like to ask everyone, because there's really no wrong answer. Definitely check out Kathy's book. Kathy Strain, author of Giants, Cannibals, and Monsters. Bigfoot in Native Culture, and I'll throw a link underneath this episode. If you want to go to Amazon and get yourself a copy of it, Kathy, I really enjoyed having you on. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Oh, thank you for having me. 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 to check out

Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone. She is my son The intoxicating danger I lie An epiphany Bring the short of