Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:750 Hulu: Sasquatch

Episode Date: April 18, 2021

Hulu: Sasquatch - Journalist David Holthouse calls the urban legend "the craziest story I've heard heard," and he's just crazy enough to look into whether the tale actually happened in Hulu's Sasquatch, as seen in the exclusive trailer above. Tonight we will be speaking to the director Joshua Rofé on his new documentary. A must see! We will also be speaking to Rob who is a Canadian and a Veteran of the military. Rob shares with us his strange encounters in the Canadian forest. Rob has had two sightings of the creature.

Someone doesn't have to be out in the woods too long to feel like I might not belong here and something is going to take me out. I've been a journalist for about 25 years, embedding with street gangs, going undercover in Neo-Nazi Skinhead. Now I'm going to tell you the craziest story I've ever heard. I was working on a cannabis farm up to Northern California. I remember a guy telling me about three bodies torn to pieces. He said a Bigfoot killed those guys. A Bigfoot murdered three guys on a dope farm. There's always been rumors of legendary violence.

The story of Sasquatch or of Manlike Monsters has been with us from the very beginning. There's a belief in supernatural forces that runs deeper up here than most places. You believe that Sasquash can teleport. No. Yes, you do. No, I do not. You do. Do not go there.

The Emerald Triangle is famous worldwide. for producing cannabis plans. It's just the best in the world. People came here to get rich quick. They don't want outside or something. The rate of missing persons cases is the highest in the United States by far. Old-time cannabis glists are willing to sit down and talk to me,

but there's no way they're ever gonna go on camera. Many of people have been killed up there and never found. I'm venturing into dangerous territory with all these hippies listening to the Grateful Dead, like packing an AR-15. We probably have more bodies than we could even count. It's pretty bad. Tell me about the crime of your son witnessed.

I really can't talk about that. People pass through here, and they just see how beautiful it is. They have no idea the shit that goes on in this area. As scary as some of these stories are, we still want to figure it out. People are afraid of the unknown. The evidence convinces me. The Sasquatch is dangerous. Scared the crap out of me.

I don't know if I believe in Bigfoot, but I sure as hell believe there are monsters among us. 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. And 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 move like that in my life.

They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language, and they were chuntering away back and forward, back and forwards, back and forward. I know what a bear looks like, and there is no way on this planet that what I saw were bears. What are you reporting? Jesus, Quake, you better. Sure. See you. Hello.

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 him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right here. This is Jason from East Tennessee, and you're listening to Saskatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight.

Got a great show plan for you. We're going to be chatting with Rob. And Rob comes to us from Canada. He's actually a veteran, and he's had a couple very strange things happen to him out in the woods, including two sightings of the creature. So he'll be sharing that with us tonight. We're also going to be chatting with Joshua Rofay, and he's a director of the new project coming out of Hulu.

It's a documentary. It's called Sasquatch. And so we'll be talking about the film and the whole project and why he got into it. 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. Well, let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Joshua Rofay to the show.

And Josh is the director of this Hulu project called Sasquatch. It comes out on 420, so in two days. And I really hope everyone goes and checks it out. I have to tell you, Josh, I've been to Hollywood. Don't take offense to this. I've been to Hollywood. I've talked to executive producers. I've talked to directors.

And there's not a creative bone in most of them. They're all bean counters. And, you know, this is. So with regard to Sasquatch, you know, I've watched almost everything. I kind of drowned in this world of Bigfoot, as you can imagine. But your project was very different. It was very cool. The way it was put together, the way it was shot, the creativity on a

how the whole thing was shot, the content that was involved in the presentation. It was awesome, man. I mean, I clicked it on and I kind of dragged my feet on watching it because I was like, I'm not really interested in watching another B horror film with Bigfoot because they're terrible. You know, I thought, well, after two minutes, if I'm not interested, I'll just turn it off. And I sat and watched all three episodes in one sitting. And I was very, very impressed. It's very cool. It's very different. It has a different feel to it. I guess if you love a murder mystery and you love just a mystery in general, it's so well put together. I can't tell you how I impressed I was. And I'm not saying that because you're here. I would have you on for two minutes if I

wasn't impressed and we'd promote your thing and I'd see you later. But I really want to talk to you about it because it was so well put together. And I was so impressed by this documentary. again, Sasquatch comes out on Hulu on 420. Everyone go check it out. Amazing job, Josh. Thank you for that, Wes. I really appreciate that. It's, you know, I am, I know I'm here. You know, I'm the director, so, you know, I put that in, you know, put that in quotes if you want.

I'm the director, but I don't make these things alone. I've got an amazing team that I work with. And so it's really, it's all of us just giving it everything we have to, try and make, make something that, that is compelling. So it's really awesome to, to hear you say that.

And I'm a, I am a huge Sasquatch Chronicles fan, and I know we'll probably get into that as it's really the show. I mean, your show was in many ways my inspiration for wanting to pursue, you know, what I would refer to as, you know,

just some sort of Sasquatch-centric story even. So very, very cool to be on here. And thanks for those words. I appreciate it. Yeah, and thank you again, Josh, for being here. You know, one of the things that really impressed me when I was watching, beyond just getting wrapped up into this whole murder mystery and the mystery of Sasquatch

and everything else, one thing that really impressed me when I was watching it, I was sitting there thinking, wow, these guys really know the topic of Sasquatch. I mean, these guys have done their homework and it's so well put together. What made you create a documentary about Sasquatch? because I know it's kind of out of your wheelhouse. Yes, I can tell you exactly how and when. So February 2018, I was having dinner with a buddy.

His name's Zach Kreger. And he's also one of the exact producers on this show. So Zach is a huge Sasquash Chronicles fan. Zach's jealous that I'm on this today, and he's not here with me that I can guarantee you. But he's a huge fan of this show. And his parting words to me after our dinner, where, hey, by the way, you got to listen to this podcast, Sasquatch Chronicles.

I love it. I think it's incredible. You're either going to love it or think I'm crazy for loving it. But just give it a listen. I'm not going to be S-U-S right away. When he told me that, I had no interest. I'm not a monster movie guy. I just, I was not, I mean, granted, I grew up in New Jersey and, you know,

there was a certain amount of fear of the Jersey devil that I had as a kid in camp, you know, in the Pine Barrens. but cryptids were just not my thing. And he said, and, you know, Zach basically said, I'm telling you, just listen to one episode. And so the next day, I listened to an episode. Cut to four days later, I've listened to 11 episodes. And the thing that struck me in all of these stories was visceral fear was present. It was so clear that the fear that I was feeling from these people telling their stories,

stories, it was authentic. And I felt that it was unquestionably authentic. You know, does someone believe in Bigfoot? Do they believe the details of a story? Those things really were sort of irrelevant to me. I knew that I believe these people because I believe that they were afraid. And that really struck me. You know, I thought there was something really, really, really profound and deep there. And so I spent the next week just sort of having a conversation with myself, which is, I got to make a Sasquatch something. I don't know what it is. And then there was another part of me to thought, you're not a, you're not a Sasquatch guy. You know what I mean? Like, that's not your thing. You make social issue documentaries that, you know, what are you talking about?

And where I landed at the end of that week was, I am going to tell a story that is somehow set in the world of, you know, of Bigfoot. And then my next thought was, well, what if I found a murder mystery that is somehow intertwined with a Sasquot story? There's obviously a ton of true crime out there. And a lot of it does feel sort of tired. And there's, you know, there's tropes that have become tropes because we see them time and time and time. And I felt like this, if I could find this story, I thought, God, that would be really, it could be something fresh in me. What I would hope is that I could find a story that could capture a sort of even next level spirit of that, that visceral fear that I was sensing from the folks that you were talking to. And so I reached out to a friend and colleague, his name is David Holt House, and he's been an investigative journalist for about 20 years.

On top of being an investigative journalist, David spent years as a gonzow journalist. I mean, really hardcore, deep, deep, dangerous worlds, he was immersing himself. And so I sent David a text message. And I said, hey, man, this is the craziest text I'm going to send you for the next five years. I want to find a murder mystery that's somehow wrapped up in a Sasquot story. and if it exists, pursue it as the next project. He wrote me right back. He said, I love it.

I got one, and I'll call you in five. And then what he perceived to tell me is that in the fall of 1993, he was 23 years old. He was living in Anchorage, Alaska. That's where he's from. And he was a young Gonzo journalist, really sort of burning it at both ends, learning the hard way that not everybody gets to be Hunter S. Thompson.

And he was writing a story about, some street gangs that he was embedded with. And he had gotten crosswise with some folks. And even local law enforcement told him, hey, man, you might want to leave town for a little bit until this settled down. And so David reached out to a friend of his who was working on a cannabis farm in Northern California out in Messino County. And, you know, he told him what was going on.

And his buddy who was working on the cannabis farm said, hey, why don't you come out here you'll spend a week you'll smoke great weed take some mushrooms and trip in the woods I promise you will go back refreshed and you know the 23 year old David that sounded amazing

so he heads out that way flies down from Anchorage grabs a car and starts to make his way up to out to Mendocino and the first omen was that it was pouring rain

I mean he could barely see out of the front shield. Then he gets to the farm. He notices that you can cut through the tension with a knife. It was truly palpable. Everybody is setting up booby traps on the perimeter of this of this cannabis farm, of the patches of weed. And there are whispers of violent Sasquatch in the area. There are also people who are guarding these patches who are carrying automatic rifles. And so his idea of some sort of, you know, very chill vibe that he was going to go and waltz into to sort of unplug for a little bit, you know, that was quickly dismantled. And he, he saw that this, this was, this was a level of intensity, almost absurdity that he, he wasn't prepared for.

He didn't know how to make heads or tails of it, but he was just trying to go with the flow. The second night he was there, he was in the A-frame cabin owned by the own. owner of the cannabis farm. They were watching Monday Night Football. They were smoking a joint. It was David, his buddy who he was visiting, and the owner of the farm. And all of a sudden, the phone rings. The owner of the farm picks up the phone, mutters a few things back and forth.

Seems there's a little bit of urgency in his voice. David doesn't think anything of it. Homer sits back down. They keep watching Money Night Football. About 15, 20 minutes later, the headlights of a car shone through the front windows of this a frame. And keep in mind, this cabin is in the middle of the woods. There are no streetlights.

It's still pouring rain. And these two guys come in, and they are terrified. They are exasperated. And, you know, they're basically freaking out. They eventually get the words out to the owner. And what they tell the owner that David hears them say is that, A little bit further up the mountain on another weed farm, there was a murder, and it was a triple murder. And there were three guys who were found quite literally torn limb from limb, and all the eyewitnesses had the same account.

And that was that either a Sasquatch or multiple Sasquatch came out of the woods and ripped these guys to pieces. And the body parts, because the first thought would be like, oh, well, of course, you know, some people did that. Well, guess what? This is a world where, you know, money rules everything, right? That's the whole reason to grow, to grow the product. Well, the body parts were found tossed amongst what was literally worth $250,000, this patch of weed. And it was, and the weed was left untouched. And so that was the story that David told me that he heard that I don't want to, I don't want to mischaracterize it as it haunted him for the next, you know, 26 years or whatever it was until I reached out. But it was, it immediately became the wildest story he'd ever heard. It was a story that was sort of so intense and so extreme that even he, a gonzo journalist,

did not feel comfortable going to the editor of his various newspapers or publications that he worked for over the years and say, and, you know, and say, hey, what if I went and wrote about this? It was that, it was that type of story that you just don't tell anybody else. because they're going to tell you you're crazy. And then, and as soon as he told me that, I just, number one, I thought it was, I thought it was the greatest story I'd ever heard. I thought it was one of the most compelling things anybody had ever told me.

And I knew that that was something that I wanted to pursue and an attempt to make a documentary about. I think you, it wasn't, it was a little more than an attempt. I think you pretty much hit a home run on it. And I was so impressed by it when I was watching it, you kind of, from my, perspective and people who love Sasquatch Chronicles will definitely love this. And I think a lot of my audience will kind of understand why the creatures came out and probably killed these guys based on what they were doing. But you have to watch a show to understand that I know my audience will probably pick up on it really quick. With regard to David, I was sitting there watching him, David Holthouse,

the investigative journalist that's on the show. Man, the guy's got huge balls. One of the things, there's a lot of suspense because he starts talking to a lot of people in that underworld that he needs to be careful talking to and he starts asking questions. He might want to be careful asking. And then he goes out and he meets these people. There was a lot of times where I thought Dave's going to end up without his head. That was a huge part of our experience. You know, what you experienced watching those moments, they were happening time and time again

over the course of a couple of years of making this. And, you know, one of the things he mentions in episode two is doing this sort of constant risk analysis, you know, when he is stepping into a situation, when he's talking to people, when he's considering what information should I or should I not release publicly? What's the potential fallout here? And, you know, he always said that the line is short of getting killed. and sometimes you don't know that you're touching that line and it's too late. And that was a real concern throughout this because he truly entered what could be described as the criminal underworld deep in the forest, up in the mountains. And, you know, there's no cell service in those places.

And nobody knows where to come look for you if you go missing. and it was scary. It was scary. There were a lot of times West where David would go meet with a potential source. They would change the location on them multiple times. And that's a bad time. I mean, that's super sketchy because now you're meeting at 3 o'clock p.m. in a public place. Well, now it's 11 p.m.

And the place that you're going to meet that person is, you don't know this, but it's closed. And when you walk in, there's the person you were going to meet and aid other people. You didn't even know we're going to be there. And these meetings, they go on, they're a few hours deep, people are having some drinks, people are eating some food, people are talking. And then they turn to David and they say, hey, so you're looking into X, Y, and Z. And, oh, you should talk to a buddy of mine. Well, let's call them right now.

Somebody gets on the phone. Everybody says, you know what? I know all about that. Why don't you come out and see me? And David says, yeah, I'd love to. You know, what are you doing? Are you free tomorrow? And they said, no, now, why don't you come now?

And then the guy's saying next to one will say, I'll drive you. And we're talking about being offered to be driven somewhere else, deep in the woods, three hours away in the middle of the night, and you have no idea where the hell you're going. It was a lot of that. So when you start to mix that element with the visceral fear of the Sasquatch element, And some of the stories that people have out there, it's just, you know, it's kind of like a graphic novel come to life in a way. But you just got to be, you got to be so careful. You got to be so careful.

Yeah, there was a few times where I thought David was going to get whacked, just watching him go out to these different locations and talk to these people on the phone and just getting involved in that underworld. there's definitely a lot of suspense watching David, but watching the whole story unfold. And what's cool is you watch the documentary and it's about this murder mystery, but there's takeaways. You'll take away and kind of tell a history of Sasquatch. Bob Gimlin's in there. You'll kind of tell different aspects of Sasquatch and kind of a history of Sasquatch along with eyewitnesses, which is even cooler because the murder mystery is enough, but all the rest of stuff as kind of icing on the cake. I got to ask you, are you guys going to make another one?

You got to make another one, ma'am. You know, I think if enough people who listen to the Sasquash Chronicles tell Hulu that they, that they want more episodes, then maybe they'll let me make them. You know, I think that, I know this, you know, even this story aside, there's a number of stories that I think are really interesting in this sort of realm. that I can tell in a similar fashion that I'm very much, very much thinking about. It's,

there's so much more to the world of, you know, folklore and cryptids than the average person would think. You know, I knew when I was making this that, that people who, who are believers or enthusiasts, you know, of cryptids of folklore,

I knew that they, I knew they'd be into it because it speaks to that thing that they already know is super, it's super interesting, you know, and it's really, it's just, it, the world. I mean, it's why your show is great. It, it is a rich tapestry. You have so many different people from all walks of life who have experiences that scare the hell out of them. And now, what happens if you really start to, to dig into some of these things? Are they all going to yield something that should be, uh, documentary series, of course not, but some of them will. And I think that, I think it's a world that I really want to continue to explore and, and see what other boundaries we can push. Yeah, I really hope that you get put in a position to do more, Josh. And I hope the audience does contact Hulu. I'll be contacting Hulu and asking them for more. You know, it comes out on April 20th on Hulu. So in two days, definitely check it out. It's called Sasquatch. And, you know, the whole project, it's almost like you've been putting together Sasquatch documentaries your whole life.

It was that well put together. And I know I've been praising you on it. But it's so, and the audience will understand when they watch it, it's very, very different than any Sasquatch documentary you've ever seen. And I wanted to ask you, Josh, this being outside of your wheelhouse, and forgive me, I don't generally watch a lot of TV. Tell me about some of your other projects. Because as I was watching this, I was sitting there thinking,

I kind of see what else this guy's done. Oh, thanks, man. I really appreciate that. Well, my first documentary was called Lost for Life. You can see that on either Amazon or iTunes. It's about juveniles who are serving life in prison without parole, all convicted of first-degree murders. A pretty harrowing story of these kids.

Well, they were once kids. They're now adults who had committed really brutal murders when they were teenagers. I think you can go on YouTube also. I think it's on there too. And then my second film, this one I know is only available on through either iTunes or Amazon. It's called Swift Current. And it tells the story of a former NHL player named Sheldon Kennedy, who he was sexually abused by his junior hockey coach, who was one of the most respected men in junior hockey at the time. It's Sheldon's story about his recovery from.

from that type of trauma. And then just before this, sort of the thing that was really, I guess you can call it my big break, was I made a documentary series for Amazon called Lorena and did that one with Jordan Peel, who made Get Out and us. That story is about the story of Lorena Bobbitt.

And, you know, everybody knows that story is the crazy lady who cut her husband's penis off and threw it out the car window, right? But really that story is about a woman who she was beaten and raped for years by him and before she did that. And so, you know, what we tried to do was re-contextualize the story of this victim of horrific trauma who had become, really, she was turned into a total punchline by the media. And everybody should have been talking about domestic violence and how serious that that issue is. and instead they, you know, everybody just essentially made fun of her.

And so we, we re-contextualized that story and, and gave you the, gave you the real, the real story. It's four episodes on, it's on Amazon. That's what I was making when I first heard this story from David. David was working on Lorena with me. Yeah, I'm going to have to check that out, Josh. I knew the story of Lorena Bobbitt. I didn't know her backstory.

I think everyone knows the Lorena Bobbitt story. of how she ended up in prison. But I'm definitely going to have to check that out. I think that's what makes the Sasquatch documentary you put together so cool is you had these fresh eyes. You didn't come from, you haven't spent time in the quote unquote bigfoot community or bigfoot world. And I can tell you from firsthand when you're dealing with not so much eye witnesses,

but when you're dealing with these researchers and experts and it can be very soul-sucking at times. and I think the fact that you didn't come from that, you kind of had fresh eyes, is what makes this documentary so cool. You know, I just did a show on Sasquatch and their language. I saw that one pop up. I haven't listened to that one yet,

but I literally this morning I saw that one pop on for the new episodes of my various podcasts. Yeah, I saw that that popped up. Sorry, go ahead. I appreciate it. I hope you give it a listen, but Claire's account, there's a one.

that came from the UK to the United States. She was here on business. And she was pretty high up in the business food chain world. She was in technology. And on our off time, she went out to the beach. You've probably heard it at 515. I kind of... Wes, that's one of my favorites.

That's one of my favorites from the show. I appreciate it, man. Yeah. No, I love that episode. That's one of my favorite episode. Yeah, I appreciate it. that man. I appreciate that very much. Claire's encounter, yeah, it could be made into a very cool episode. There's a lot of different aspects to Claire's encounter, you know, from language to

injuries to a cover-up. And there is a cover-up going on regarding this topic. And you get a glimpse of that in Claire's encounter. With regard to what you did, Josh, with your talent, I think you could pretty much do anything. I'm sure you don't want to do Sasquatch the rest of your life. But it would be very cool if Hulu picked it up because there's a lot more content. And if you need content, give me a call. There's a lot of different avenues and directions you can take this subject. And just how you, again, I can't, I know I'm repeating myself, but the way you put this together, the way you came in and out of shots, the creativity you used to putting it together, I really want Hulu to do another season of this.

I got to see more. Really amazing to hear. And, you know, as far as the history of Sasquatch as it relates to the, you know, whether it's the Patterson Jimlin film or even just, you know, just culturally, you know, what is it to be a squatcher? You know what I mean? What is it to be a part of a community? That was something that I wanted to, you know, sort of, it,

least attempt to gain some understanding of before embarking on this. And so I mentioned Zach Craigor earlier. So Zach and Steven Berger, who's my producing partner, we went to the, it was one of the Bigfoot conventions in Kennewick, Washington. And it was in, I believe it was in August 2018. And actually, I should say that Sam Craigor, who was Zach's brother, Sam was the one who told Zach, hey, you got to check out this podcast, Sasquatch Chronicles, even further back. And Sam, he came out and met us there. And, you know, we just spent a couple. We met you.

You were awesome, by the way. You didn't know who the hell we were. You treated us like really, you know, so kindly with your time. Obviously, a lot of people wanted to talk to you. You know, Mr. Gimlin, the same thing. And getting to see people get together in a, in a. community where, hey, you know what? The outside world, it doesn't always look too kindly on this. It doesn't always take this seriously. People laugh at certain beliefs that people have.

But all of a sudden, you're in a place where everybody is being treated, everybody's beliefs, and those beliefs on Sasquash can even be different, right? But everybody's beliefs are being treated with dignity and respect. And you realize very quickly, at least I did, just how special this is. And this is not something that can be easily dismissed. This is something that Sasquatch aside, it has a lot of humanity and the sort of the connection that that people have around Sasquatch, even if they differ on what Sasquatch is, even if they are completely obsessed with Sasquatch but aren't full-blown believers because, hey, they haven't seen it. And I mean, for me personally, I'll know Sasquatch exists when I

see it. And until then, I'm not interested in being one of these people who just says, I believe in something without seeing it with my own eyes, you know? But I know that I continue to be, I could, I continue to be compelled and I continue to just feel like the richness of that world. I, you know, my hope was that would bleed into the show. And so absolutely, you know, we want to talk to, Gimlin, who want to talk to Meldrum, and really just, also just regular folks who you don't know their names, you know, the average person doesn't know their names. These are not, these are not famous names that they're people who have had encounters. They are believable when you hear them tell it. Ah, the International Bigfoot Conference. I didn't know we met there.

Yeah, Russell, he, Russell Accord runs a tight ship on that, and I know it kind of got shut down with this whole COVID thing. But that, you know, you captured that. You know, within the documentary, you captured the eyewitness, and that's what I really enjoyed. I think that's why the time goes by so quick. I mean, you're yanked off into different directions, but it's the whole of a story. It's not like you're losing it by going and talking to an eyewitness or bringing Bob Gimlin in or telling the history of Sasquatch around this murder mystery. It's very, very cool. Let me ask you, I ask everyone, and there's no wrong answer, but in your case, I'll ask it a different way. if Sasquatch exists, what do you think it is? For me, I think that if Sasquatch exists,

I think it's a blood and gut creature. I personally don't subscribe to an interdimensional being, but that's just me. Yeah. Yeah, I think that if it exists, it's some offshoot of evolution. Yeah, and that's a fair answer, Josh. It's definitely a fair answer. and I really hope people go and check it out.

It's on Hulu, a Hulu original Sasquatch. And, you know, in the Bigfoot world, I guess Monster Quest is the best thing we got. This blows Monster Quest out of the water. And it really, after three episodes, it'll leave you wanting more. If you like it, please write Hulu. We need more of this stuff in this genre of Bigfoot. We need people taking it serious and creating really cool content. It pulls people into this subject.

And Josh, I can't thank you enough for coming on, ma'am. Wes, thank you so much for having me and for your kind words. And I want to leave with a shout out to Wayne and Georges, who are in the Dock Series and are huge Sasquatch Chronicles fans. Thanks again, Wes, for having you out. Sasquatch documentary on Hulu comes out in two days on 420. Hope you guys get a chance to check it out. Hope you guys get a chance to watch it.

I am sure as you guys know, I enjoyed it. I thought it was awesome. Next up on the show, I want to welcome Rob. Rob, thanks for coming on, ma'am. Oh, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Yeah, thanks again, Rob, for being here.

And I know you were a veteran up there in Canada, and even though it's not the United States, I'll still say thank you for your service. You guys are always over there helping us, assisting us, and doing everything that we're doing. and so I always respect a volunteer, especially a military volunteer. So thank you again for your service. I know that you had four very strange encounters.

Two of those were sightings. If you would, would you take us back to the first incident? Kind of tell us what you were doing and walk us into what happened. This happened approximately, let's see, I was 14, 15, so 36 years ago. I belong to a group. I joined back in junior high and it was an adventure club. And we ski and hike from my hometown of Calgary, Alberta. And from Calgary, you can go south and you get rolling hills. You go north, you get foot hills. You go east. You get rolling hills and prairies. And you go west. like I'm talking an hour in any direction and you have the Rocky Mountains.

So we have landscape everywhere. One of these trips that we did, I just need to catch more breath here. And one of these trips that we did was out to at Shaw Valley, which is approximately an hour east of West, sorry, west of Calgary on the way to Banff. I'm sure Banff is well known. and so our hiking group went out to Exhaw Valley and we did hear a story at the time about the X-Shaw Beast. They had told us this long before we went out there. And so, you know, you're going camp and fireplace stories. We got out there, dropped us off.

There was probably a dozen of us. And we had to go back and we walked back into the, in terms. of the bush, oh, I'm going to say a couple of kilometers. It wasn't that far. And we found a really nice stream and it seemed to be a fairly clean water. And, you know, 34 years ago, there was, there was, you don't, you don't, you know, you don't boil your water. You just fill up your canteen. So we slept beside the water, a dozen of us. We put a tarp down on the ground. We put a tarp up in the sky and then we all slept under it just in sleeping bags. It's more, like I said, and it's a venture club.

So there's no real niceties. It's whatever you carry on your back is what you bring. So we went to sleep, and I'm going to say it was dark. It was late. And something had woken me up. We were laying on a little bluff on the other side of this little bluff from the water. Now, it's a very small bluff, two feet, three feet maybe. and I woke up and I looked to my right and the fella that was sleeping beside me,

his eyes were wide open. Like he was maybe six inches away from me. We were tightly packed. And he didn't say anything. I looked at him. I may have said something to him. I don't recall to tell you the truth. And then I heard two deep splashes like splash, splash, splash.

And as I described to yesterday, it's like somebody threw a giant boulder into the water. And when the rock hits the bottom, you get that metallic clang. This didn't have a clang. So it was big, hard steps. And then two loud thumps on the ground. So whatever it was, walked, took two steps through the water, two steps on land, and stopped. and the two steps on land, I wouldn't say it shook the ground, but I felt it. Yeah, that's interesting. I know a lot of eyewitnesses talk about that.

I've had a lot on the show. They'll talk about being in a tent and hearing this saying walk towards their tent, and they'll describe the ground shaking. And I don't know that the ground is necessarily shaking. Maybe it's more like a tremor, I guess. That's kind of how it felt for me was a tremor. It just is such a, it was such a, a heavy thump. Eventually within the next few seconds or so, everybody woke up. All dozen of us and we had instructors with us and, you know, they kind of took a look around the area.

We didn't know what it was. And I didn't hear another sound. That was it for that night and for the rest of that trip. Didn't see anything. So that was my 14 year old experience. Yeah. What did you think it was at the time, Rob? I mean, what did you think was going on?

Well, they had just told us about the X-Shaw beast, so I was sure it was the X-Saw beast at 14 years old. I know it wasn't our counselors or anybody else, because we were far enough in that that would have been just a terrible joke at 1 o'clock in the morning. And not only that, but there's nobody I know that can walk that heavily on the ground. So I thought it was whatever the X-Shaw beast was. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah. Well, tell me about the next incident. How many years later did this happen?

And if you would, just kind of walk us into it. Kind of what were you doing? So it was the same group. It was approximately two years later, and I was in high school. And I just got home from football practice. That's how I know I was in high school. I'm going to say I was probably 16, so grade 10, grade 11. And we were going hiking out to this play called Fay Hut.

which is in the interior of Alberta. I'm not exactly this sure, but if somebody needed to look, they could just Google Say Hut, and it'll show you. So it's approximately, this is my recollection, it's approximately five kilometers in and two kilometers up. So we drove out there, nothing extra, about a three-hour drive, four-hour drive. We stop, we get all of our gear to give us a briefing on where we're going to be walking,

and we just walk along this pile for five kilometers. didn't see anything. Then we get to the spot and we take a hard right. On the left is a lake and on the right hand side is a near up vertical climb. Where we were going two kilometers up was to the base of a glacier where there's a cabin. And it's made for hikers and etc. And there was probably about the same amount of people. So we spent the whole day going up there. We got into the cabin. It's just a big open floor. That's it. There's nothing else in there. We all just throw us sleeping bags out. We kind of walked around for a little bit. Didn't want to go too far. We don't know the area. We don't know what's out there, cooers, bears, et cetera, right? And there's big bears out there.

So we take a right at the bottom of the hill and we start climbing up the hill. We go up. You know, we get up to the tent. We get all set up. Sometime in the middle of the night there was some racket going on outside and yelling, screaming. I'm not sure what it was. counselors got up they went outside they told us to all stay in the tent or in the cabin i should say

um and so we stayed in the cabin and we could hear noise outside and they were only gone for maybe three to five seconds and they all kids came back in the door and the door was open and there was three of us kind of walked over to the door and they the guys coming in were saying there's a moose there's a moose out front and the when they opened the the counselors opened the to come back in, we looked out. Now it's black, but it was fairly moonlit night that night. And 10 to 15 meters away, I think that's all it was. Up against the trees and kind of within the trees was a massive white figure. I couldn't, I could make out the size, but I couldn't make out any features because it was so quick I saw it.

Three of us saw it. We were shocked. Then they pushed us kind of pushed us back into the cabinet and shut the door. It was eight feet, nine feet, high, and oh, I swear it looked like it was four feet. And it was very square, almost like you would see on a, like a football player, wide shoulders, wide, wider waist, wide in the legs. Now, where we were at, deer, I don't know, deer could even get up there. Deer couldn't moose absolutely, even if there was any in the area, which I highly doubt. Nothing of that type could get up to where we're at, you know, just with the rocks and everything. And that really put quite a fright into us.

So we didn't really go anywhere. We stayed there for four nights and we didn't leave the tent after dark, regardless of what. the reasons were. And the rest of that trip kind of went to just quiet like that. Yeah, I want to ask you, so you see the same standing up, was it on two legs like a man? It was standing on two legs bipedal. And it was standing facing us with its arms to its side, almost like if you were to see a bouncer standing at a door. That's kind of what it looked like. just straight up shoulders wide, arms out, like the figure I saw, that was it. It was just straight and didn't make a sound, didn't do anything.

But once we shut the door, of course, we were all frightened. And I'm not really sure what color it is. I have slight color blindness, so it's really hard to tell, but it was a light color. It wasn't dark. It was almost matched the surrounding shale from the mountain. because it's kind of shale and rock or shale and trees in this area. So, but it kind of matched it. Now again, this is nighttime and it's just reflections, right?

So I don't really know what color it was. Yeah, I'm colorblind too. I have troubles with reds and greens. So do I. Yeah, me too. And darks. Yeah. So do you think it just left?

I mean, you guys closed the door. It was pretty much quiet the rest of the night? Yes. For that night it was. Now, we did hear noises. No, now I'm kind of thinking of it. We did hear noises throughout the few days, but, you know, most of the time they just say, I don't worry about it.

That's elk. Don't worry about it. It's mountain lion. Don't worry about it. It's this, it says. And they just kind of talked off whatever it was. And, you know, we're not really scared. We were more excited as to all these sounds and stuff because I don't think we'd ever been

in that deep in hiking. Yeah, I'd love to go back. time and know what you guys heard, you know, as far as the sounds go. I mean, it was faint. Yeah, there were faint sounds at nighttime. Well, tell me, I know there's two other incidences we'll get to. Let me ask you, going back to this one we're talking about now, what did you think it was? I mean, with, you see this saying, it's kind of light colored. It's obviously standing on two legs.

What was your opinion as far as what, I mean, what did you think the saying was? A Bominable Snowman was the first thing that came to my mind. to tell you the truth. When at 14, that's what I remember. Abominal Snowman is standing out there. Because that's, that's what it looked like to me. Like the abominable snowman out of, you know, the old Rudolph the Redd-N-N-Nose reindeer cartoon.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, with the Abominable Snowman. It kind of looked like that. Just the face wasn't, as I couldn't really see a face. It was just all fur or hair or whatever it is. Yeah. But that's the first thing I think.

It was not it. It was not a moose. I've done quite a bit of hunting and hiking my whole life. Since I was a young kid, my brother's been taking me out. And there was no moose. It was, like I said, the abominable snowman. And I wasn't really sure what I was looking at. And it took me probably a decade to really realize what I saw.

Because I know what I saw and I still have the picture in my head. But, you know, it's like seeing something you've never seen before. you don't know how to react and I had no idea. I thought maybe, eventually I came to the fact absolutely Sasquatch. Yeah, and I know that there was another time where you actually had a run-in, a very close run-in with one, but before that happened, there was kind of another weird incident that happened to you. If you would, would you tell us how many years later it was and kind of walk us into it

before we get to you walking up on the same in the middle of the night? Okay. So this is 10 years later, in 1996. And I was posted from an Army base to an Air Force base out on Vancouver Island in Canada. And so my wife at the time and myself and her parents, we all came out in a motorhome. And we camped along the ways. I've never been on Vancouver Island. I honestly had no idea. I was expecting to see just forested and, you know, Something out of Australia Outback. Then I got here and realized, no, it has roads and stuff. So we were coming to, I was posted as CFB Comox, and we were going to be living in the Comox Valley. And we decided to go camping at this place called Comox Lake.

So from Comox Valley to Comox Lake, it's approximately, I don't know, 15 minutes, and it's a municipal campground. So we went camping there and we parked in the lower, there's a lower and upper and we parked in the lower part. And because my mother-in-law and father-in-law, they had the motor home and my wife at the time. And I think my son, he may have slept in the tent or in the motorhome. So at 1 o'clock in the morning, I had heard what I thought was growling. And like a growl. I thought maybe there was a dog around or something. And this is a very packed campground.

So that's why I found it a little confusing. Like there's people everywhere. There's whatever. And so I listened to it and I couldn't really tell. So I woke my wife up and I said, do you hear that? She said, yeah. So it sounds like growling. She's like, yeah, it sounds like growling.

She didn't care. So I crawled out of the tent and I went out. and I sat and listened. Now I was in the army at that time, so I had been, you know, I think I just got out of the field. So, you know, used to sitting in the black and listening for things. So I stood there and listened and for up 15, 20 minutes or so, I heard howling. But it wasn't a, it wasn't a howl. Okay, first of all, we have no wolves.

coyotes, fox in this area. We only have black bears and cougars. I think that's the only two real ones we have on the island. There are no grizzly bears

on the island. There aren't no moose on the island. You know, some things are not. Anyways, so I got out and the sound that I heard was it was low and it changed so it would change octaves. It would change levels, but it never changed octaves.

And it just and it was coming from the mountains behind me. I'm going to say easily a good kilometer away. But it was, it was very clear and it was very not like anything I'd ever heard and all my years of being outside. And it was, it's, that one didn't freak me out as much as it just confused me because,

by that time I'm 26, a few things have been more on TV, you know, I'm still, I'm getting more into being a Sasquatch fan, but, you know, my family and my military career came first, so I was really, like, I think somebody said on one of the ones I read an armchair, armchair researcher, and I started getting into John Bendernego and Jeffrey Meldrum, Love, Lest Stroud, and I started watching these guys because they seemed very legitimate. And they, that's how I figured out that that wasn't anything else screaming out in that forest because I really wanted to know my first time on the island, I don't know what's out here. It could be Madagascar, right? So, that's when I started reading. The first thing I came up was, you know, John Bindernegal and then I

started reading a little more and a little more and a little more and a little more. Plus I have a couple of John Green's books I have read. I don't know if I mentioned that before, but yeah, so he started getting a little bit more information about it. And that's when I went, to, okay, you know what, that thing I saw back at Faye Hut and the thing I saw there, that's, that's got to be a Sasquatch. Yeah, very strange, especially not being able to pinpoint that noise. Did anything else happen while you were camping there? No, it just, it went on, Well, no, that's not true. Just the, the howling went on and off throughout the night for the remainder of the night.

Just about every, I don't know, seemed like about every hour and a half, every two hours, and I would hear that again. Yeah, that's very strange. I think in a lot of those situations that it's so odd it stays with us. I think if it would have been a natural animal, it wouldn't have stayed with you. And I know you served in the Army, in the Canadian Army, and, you know, you're a veteran, and you guys. have been out in the woods. You guys have heard all kinds of weird things. I don't think it would have stuck with you like it did after all these years. Tell me about the last incident. When did this happen, Rob? 2003, summer 2003. I just finished the last 18 months or so doing tours and training.

And my son was here in the valley with his mom and stepdad. And I, him and I always do things together, but because I didn't get much of a chance, we went camping a lot that summer. So I took my son and his buddy. I'll just call my son R and his buddy B. So it was a nice camping trip. We'd gone up to the Comox Lake. This is the same Comox Lake. You have the bottom where I had the Howling in 96.

And then you have the top part. Now in the top part, it's tenting only, it's dry camping, and it's very small, a lot more trees because it kind of butts up against the mountain a little bit. There is some space, like it doesn't go straight up from there, but it slowly climbs out up into the mountains at the back of the campgrounds. And so you don't generally get a lot of people there a lot of times. Most people stay down low because that's where the beaches is crowded. and they get snack bars, but then you go up top and you're in a completely different park. So we had set up the tents, parked the car. We had all the room in the world because there was no bail's camping.

So we just kind of, I parked the truck in one, set the tent up in another, and then we put the fireplace right beside it. We had, it was just the three of us, and we had spent the whole day there. And between there and the water, which was a 10-minute walk in the lake, and we would come back and forth and then, you know, mid-afternoon, the boys that were done. So they just spent the day playing. Now, where our campsite was, there was a camps, there was three, four, five campsites, and behind, on one end of the campsite, one side of the campsite is a hill that's raised. And on the other side of the hill is bush and forest, and then it goes back in. to the front of the campsite is just the road that goes around the campsite.

So I'll jump forward here a little bit. I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous. I'm just trying to catch my breath. All right. You're doing fun, ma'am. So we went camping. We spent the evening there just playing around, doing, you know, campfire games with the kids. and I was teaching them how to, you know, use an axe and a hatchet and a knife and light fires and just doing what I can because my brother and my dad taught me and I wanted to pass that on to my son.

And now my son, I just became a grandpa last week. So now my son's going to pass him on to his son. It was late at night and they were in the tent and they had just gone to bed. And I walked out and I sat down beside the fire and I stoke the fire up a little bit because, There's nobody else wrong. High trees. It wasn't really a fire issue. Probably about an hour after the kids had gone to bed.

And I'm just sitting out by myself. I hear, Daddy, Daddy. And so, yes, son, walked over to his tent, zipped it up, and he said, Daddy, I hear growling. I said, you hear what? I hear growling. So I look around and there's nothing around us. And frankly, you know, it's a nine-year-old's attention, I think, is what it was, Gramped at it or something else.

I said, okay, son, I'll go take a look at it. Okay, dad, but you got to go to bed. You put your head down. It was, look, okay. So I zip the zipper down. I said, Dad's going to go get it for you. So I got my hatchet. I'm telling him what I'm doing.

He was like, okay, Daddy. And then, you know, that was it. So I grabbed my hatchet. I had a hatchet in one hand, right hand. I had a flashlight in my left hand. And I also had a buck knife with me, like a great big one. Just on my hip, the kids get a kick out of it. I don't really use it for anything, but the kids get a kick out of it.

So I'm walking down the little road with my flashlight. Now there's the flicker of the fire against the trees. And because there's no other vehicles, it goes down quite far. and so I walked down and flashing my life light to the left and looking in the first camp site second campsite behind the campsites there's nothing back there I know there's nothing back there there's a tree so I get to about the third campsite and there's a tree as I walk around the side of the tree I am face-to-face with as I described to you yesterday I was as shocked as if you came around the corner in a grocery store and saw

a red Anga's bull, a thousand pound bull staring at you. That is the shock I got. What I saw was two eyes shine. I didn't flash the light directly into its eyes because, well, I didn't need to it.

As I was bringing the flashlight up, that's when I saw the eyes, and I stopped at whatever angle that was. I'm going to say about 30, probably about 30 degrees down. 60 degrees down, sorry. 30 degrees up. and it was very wide. It was, its head was twice the size of mine.

I could make out the size of its shoulders, which were, and I'm a big guy. I'm six foot three, three hundred and ten pounds. And this thing just made me look like a rag doll. It was 10 feet away. I'm going to say roughly 10 to 15 feet everything's close so as I see this it's slowly I know you hear this a lot rocking back and forth very slowly so it rocked one side the other one side the other and when it came back to the other side, two small eyes poked out from the side of it. It was the exact same color eyes, kind of almost an amber, amber to red, from what my colorblind I see.

So, you know, it could have been green and purple. So when I saw that, up to that point, my fear level was about a nine, about a 10. after that it was about a 15 because as you and I talked about this was a probably a parent with an offspring and the last thing you want to do in the forest is run into an animal with a parent and an offspring pretty much anything is going to hold you back so I was definitely frozen I didn't hear anything I didn't smell anything, but I saw these two things. And the one on the back, it looked like it was hanging on to the shoulders, or it was extremely tall.

I measured, so where I was standing and there was a stump and the head was above the stump. The shoulders were wider than the stump. When I walked over to the other side, there's an, an indent, a gully that dropped about five feet in that exact spot. And then behind there is a path that goes right into the forest. Because the road ends by that point, and it goes right into the forest. So I went and looked at it. Now, I saw this the next day, not that night.

So I was petrified. I slowly started walking backwards. I kept my eyes down, but look. up. So I kept my eye on face down, but I just kept my eyes looking up because I wanted to keep an eye on what this thing was doing. So from the time I walked around, saw the first one, that was probably five to ten seconds. Then the second one came off, and that was about another three seconds. And then that's when I decided that I would no longer want to be there. And I feared for the kids, because these two boys are nine years old, and we're in the middle of nowhere,

and the gates locked. And we're not in the middle of nowhere, but, I walked backwards, the 30, 40 feet back to my trailer, just shaking, or back to the fire pit. I stoked the fire pit up and I strategically put my chair down so that we had a vehicle on one side of the tent. The fire was on another corner of the tent and my chair was on the other corner of the tent. So the boys were kind of in the middle in the tent and I stayed up all night long with, a hatchet in one hand and my buck knife in the other hand and just, I swear I flipped my head at every sound. It was a nerve-wracking night. And the only way I was able to relax is that another person group came in first thing in the morning about eight o'clock or so

and set up a tent literally right across the road from us 20 feet away. So I said, boys, boys had gotten up and said, boys, don't go anywhere, stay right here, don't go swimming, don't go anything. They're very good kids. So they're not going to listen to anything. And we're in a very safe area, so I don't have to worry about somebody taking them away. I said, I'm going to sleep. I went to sleep for a short time, woke up, packed up, left. And, well, that's not true.

I did that. So when I woke up, I went back and looked in that area. So it's daytime. I'm quite lit. And that's when I walked back over in that area. like, what the hell did I see? And that's when I saw the approximately five-foot drop. My head came to about the level of the ground.

And the thing I saw his head was at least two feet above that. It didn't have a cone head, but it wasn't really rounded. It was almost flatter, if I could say that. I could see the size of it. So I had the whole outline of it. I could see the muscles and I could make out the face, the nose a little bit, the lips a little bit because they were a little bit lighter. And the eyes, wow, they never changed.

And yeah, that was my experience. Yeah, it's a very fascinating account, Rob. I really appreciate you taking the time to share it. And as you and I talked about that behavior, it always fascinates me. I don't know if it's females or I can't quite figure it out. You know, if you come across a black bear with their cubs, you're dead. You come across to cougar with its young, you're dead. Pretty much anything in the forest you come across and they have their young with them,

they're going to kill you. And what's weird about Sasquatch is that doesn't necessarily happen. A lot of times they seem to just kind of. stand there and watch you. It's a very fascinating account. What do you, what do you think that they are, Rob? What's your opinion?

Oh, I think it's the missing link. I think it's a, it's, it's not, well, I know what I saw, and when I saw it was flesh and blood. I think it's a,

like a lot of people do, I think it's a, it's a, it's a, bipedal, shoot off of, you know, homo sapiens at some

part or however that works. That's what I think. I think it's an animal. I think it's an animal doing exactly what animals do because we were there all day long. And so we made a ruckus on the top of this hill. I think it was watching us during the day and or at nighttime it came to watch us. And I just happened to catch it watching us.

That's what I think it was doing. Yeah, you could be right. I mean, you could be right, Rob. I hope you're right. And I can't thank you enough for, know you're nervous coming on and and uh but you did great and i really appreciate you taking the time and effort to kind of recount what happened to you in your life man and and thank you so much for your service i know hey the canadians americans uh at the end day we're all people were all on the

same side and thank you so much for your service oh thanks west i appreciate it this has been the highlight of my my life i've been wanting to tell this story since i was since it happened and have it recorded and official. And I thank you, Wes, for that. Thanks again, Rob, and take care of yourself. 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.

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