[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.

[SPEAKER_02]: My friends, Kurt here, today's episode is a revisited episode from 2018 Laura Cranz.

[SPEAKER_02]: And she's talking about searching for Bigfoot and also her podcast wild thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a really fun episode.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've heard it a few times, Mason is the host on this one, but I love the mystery of Bigfoot, which you probably know if you listen to my Bigfoot episode.

[SPEAKER_02]: The idea that something...

[SPEAKER_02]: might be out there that we've not yet captured and positively identified, but that so many people have encounters with.

[SPEAKER_02]: I love the idea of mysteries, of things that are just beyond the human ability to quantify.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I will say there are anthropologists who have studied big foot extensively and who agree.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's something out there.

[SPEAKER_02]: believe it or not and here's something I saw I don't know a couple of years ago but there was an extinct animal in Africa that people thought hadn't lived in forever and then one day someone is in the Congo and this extinct animal walked up and got a drink of water out of the stream and they got a picture of it so [SPEAKER_02]: But this animal supposedly did not exist, everyone says it wasn't there.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not only that, even guerrillas, when people first saw guerrillas in Africa and reported them, the scientific community said, no, that animal doesn't exist, and now of course we know they exist, so could there be something even more elusive?

[SPEAKER_02]: then these sorts of animals that is out in the woods that smart enough to stay away from humans and numerous enough to have become part of the iconic, I'm going to call it an archetype.

[SPEAKER_02]: an archetype for the big scary thing in the woods that humans have dealt with for thousands of years.

[SPEAKER_02]: Native American tribes say, of course, he's out there.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've been living with big foot forever, you know, it's just a crazy idea that we don't have one that's been captured.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have one that's been dissected.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have one that's been analyzed yet, but it doesn't mean he's not real.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where do you believe it's possible or not?

[SPEAKER_02]: One thing that is fun is to entertain the mystery and ask the question, what if?

[SPEAKER_02]: Hope you really enjoy this throwback episode.

[SPEAKER_02]: Please do share it with a friend.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let others know that the Adventure Sports podcast is out there encouraging people [SPEAKER_02]: to be active in nature, to have a sport that's rewarding, to have a more meaningful and healthier lifestyle.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the goal of the Adventure Sports podcast to make a difference in the world.

[SPEAKER_02]: So enjoy your weekend, can't believe it's Friday already, but I hope that you have a fantastic one and now here's Mason.

[SPEAKER_03]: we talked to Laura Crans about a crazy story when she came across, she was related to an anthropologist who had spent much of his career looking for big foot.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so after writing an article about this crazy coincidence and kind of all the things she began to find while looking at the life of her relative [SPEAKER_03]: um she made a podcast about it a really good podcast and at the time she was working for NPR started this podcast to just explore kind of the relationship between science and society and study the folks who who look for a big place so it's a really interesting idea and what i love about this and how it ties into adventure sports podcast is [SPEAKER_03]: just the concept of exploration.

[SPEAKER_03]: I love when I run into, you know, an unexpected and unexpected things happens, you know, that in a certain day.

[SPEAKER_03]: I live for [SPEAKER_03]: the spontaneous and for the unexpected, just the other day, I think I might have already shared this story.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was kayaking, but probably a month ago now, and an old man was on the shore, I was with my son.

[SPEAKER_03]: I actually, we were paddle boarding, and we get to talk in this guy's almost 80, and we're just literally talking, talking about our life, and there's a connection made.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mentioned my grandfather's name, he goes, whoa, I know who that is, and this is, you know, hours away from where I grew up, [SPEAKER_03]: come to find out we're related me and this man I've never met before at a beach that I hardly go to that I was paddleboarding on with my son.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're cousins and I just I love stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this story is so so cool because you never know where [SPEAKER_03]: If you just start looking, start unearthing things, start following curiosity how it can just lead to more and more adventure.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's what it ventures all about as following curiosity and following that feeling of what's around the corner.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this podcast has three seasons very well produced, very well, critically acclaimed.

[SPEAKER_03]: Lots of awards give it a shot and it is called wild thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: So look for the podcast wild thing on your podcast app, give it a listen and listen to Laura's story.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then it turns out he was also the country's pre-eminent academic expert on Bigfoot.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I find out about this guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was probably about 10 years ago and he had already passed away.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here he is, this like serious scientist.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a physical anthropologist.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's well-respected in his field.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then he also is looking for Bigfoot.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of thought, well, if this guy's a scientist, [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe there's something more to this than I actually thought because I always thought of Bigfoot as being kind of a joke, tongue and cheek, campfire story, you know, the kind of story you tell when you're sitting around the campfire after a long day of hiking or camping.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that was the genesis for the podcast was going out and looking at the evidence and hearing some of the stories of people who have had Bigfoot encounters and going out into the woods with them.

[SPEAKER_01]: and sort of seeing what it is about this creature that fascinates so many people even though they don't necessarily believe.

[SPEAKER_03]: So far, I've listened to a handful of episodes and you admit that you're pretty skeptical and that it seems crazy, especially if anyone involved in academia did that opinion change for you.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know you can't reveal too much about the show, but how did you feel going into it and why [SPEAKER_03]: your experience you worked for in PR, you've done other sorts of programs, but why big foot?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, the big foot thing was because of this family relationship.

[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that this guy was my grandfather's cousin that he had been so well-respected and then he was looking for big foot.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I really wanted to sort of square those two things and figure out exactly why it was that he, [SPEAKER_01]: was willing to sort of put his credentials on the line, put his reputation on the line to go out and look for Bigfoot.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that was the reason I got into it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And going in, I kind of expected there to be a lot of tin foil hat types, conspiracy theorists.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm my real exposure to Bigfoot has been the cover of a, [SPEAKER_01]: the weekly world news and the national inquire or our stuff like Harry and the Henderson.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it seemed very, very silly.

[SPEAKER_01]: But as a journalist and as someone who has worked in journalism for a long time now, my goal was to go in and try and be an open-minded as possible about the experience and what it was that was drawing people to this creature and making them [SPEAKER_01]: trying to find real scientific evidence and proof the kind of physical evidence that would convince people of Bigfoot's existence.

[SPEAKER_03]: So who did you first tell about your idea to start this podcast?

[SPEAKER_03]: Were you were like, is this a good idea?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there, you know, Bigfoot, there's a, there's kind of a cultural thing with Bigfoot where if it's, if you're talking about it, [SPEAKER_01]: and it's just kind of as a joke, then it's okay to talk about Bigfoot.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the minute you sort of cross that line into thinking about it from a little bit more of a serious perspective and saying that, okay, maybe this is real, then I think you run into a little bit of a, it's almost a taboo away, like people are kind of like, oh, maybe you're crazy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I don't think you're [SPEAKER_01]: I was a little worried about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was a little worried that in tackling this topic, even from doing it, doing it from the perspective of trying to do it openly and really looking at what information was out there, that I would kind of be tired with that brush of being a crackpot or a crazy person.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that, you know, that [SPEAKER_01]: I think continues a little bit like people will ask what have you been working on in the past year and a half and I'm always a little embarrassed to say well I've been working on big foot and then they kind of look at you with a raised eyebrow, but I found that when I explain what I'm doing and what the [SPEAKER_01]: Where this came from and why I'm interested in it, a lot of people kind of start nodding their heads and then they start asking questions because they've got their own theories about big food or even if they haven't put a lot of thought into it, it's enough of a presence in American culture and North American culture that people are interested and they are curious and they want to know more so it's been fun from that standpoint, even the people who are the die hard skeptics often end up really wanting to have a conversation about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you know, you presented in a really interesting way in your right.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the, the, I believe stickers, I see them all over cars.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a huge part of our culture.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, or at least growing, when I was first heard about the podcast, I was like, okay, all right, if she's serious or what?

[SPEAKER_03]: Cause, you know, most people are probably pretty skeptical.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you approach it in a way where you're like, yes, I know the sounds crazy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I am skeptical.

[SPEAKER_03]: But here are a few things that are really interesting about it, and you can decide for yourself what that means.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you present the people in a way that doesn't make them sound so foolish.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're like, oh, these are normal people, and these are real experiences that this guy had.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what would you do if you feel like you really saw this?

[SPEAKER_03]: After, you know, I'm not even ever even thinking about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that was my goal.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really didn't want it.

[SPEAKER_01]: My goal was not to go in here and make fun of people or turn them into a laughing stock or the butt of some sort of joke.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I really wanted to go in with an open mind and talk to people who were trying to pursue this from the standpoint of being [SPEAKER_01]: Curious about the world around them and curious about an experience that they had had and I can't discount their experience I can't say you didn't see that you didn't have that experience that didn't happen to you I wasn't there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what they saw But they clearly saw or experienced something that changed their perspective on the natural world and on this creature So from that standpoint, it's you know, it would be Pretty rude of me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think to go in and be like you're an idiot [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I really just wanted to hear their perspective on things and I also, ultimately, what I found out is, you know, they're curious about the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have a question and they want to find an answer to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: They want to understand what either happen to them or happen to their friend or [SPEAKER_01]: understand more about the the possibility for creatures like this existing out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And to me, that's no crazier than people who are looking for life and outer space or, you know, trying to bottle consciousness or all the other sort of weird science things that we're constantly coming up with.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's like that's part of being human is asking those kinds of questions and trying to figure out the world around you and trying to to figure out if [SPEAKER_01]: What happened to you is really what happened or if it's a misinterpretation of evidence?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I just really didn't see what the issue was by the end of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know people and I've had experiences myself that I just, to this day, I can't really explain.

[SPEAKER_03]: And every time I think about them, it is a few hours of like, what was happening there?

[SPEAKER_03]: Why, why have I not pursued knowing what that meant more?

[SPEAKER_03]: But it's so daunting.

[SPEAKER_03]: that, you know, you just kind of tend to want to move on with your life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think for some people, they kind of have those experiences and then they move on with their lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think for some people, it's really life altering.

[SPEAKER_01]: They see something and it really changes things for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I talked to a couple of people who picked up and moved states, moved their whole family, quit their job, and really became [SPEAKER_01]: almost obsess, not to the point where they couldn't keep a family and have a job and live a normal life, but it really became their driving force.

[SPEAKER_01]: They really wanted to see this creature again, or have that experience again and really understand what had happened to them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now to be fair, I was a little bit selective in the people I talked to.

[SPEAKER_01]: because Grover, this relative of mine was a scientist and was approaching this from a more scientific standpoint.

[SPEAKER_01]: My feeling was those were the kinds of people that I needed to be talking to in order to pursue this the same way that he might have pursued it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if someone said that Bigfoot was dropped off by aliens or Bigfoot exists in another dimension or Bigfoot travels through time, [SPEAKER_01]: I tended to steer clear of this sort of paranormal, supernatural, magical bakefoot, because that to me was just, that was a bridge too far.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was something that was going to be very hard, aid, approve, and be, I just, I didn't see how that could work.

[SPEAKER_01]: How could this be the only creature in the universe that has those kinds of attributes, whereas every other creature on the planet is pretty well stuck with the biology that it's been given.

[SPEAKER_01]: talked to people who attended to be pretty grounded in the laws of physics and nature and reality.

[SPEAKER_01]: These were people who and a lot of them were outdoor enthusiasts.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're people who have spent a lot of time backpacking and in the back country they were people who were working for the Bureau of Land Management or the US Forest Service and really would be out in the middle of nowhere and have these kinds of experiences that that changed their [SPEAKER_01]: perspective on things, but they were people who were familiar with the outdoors, who were familiar with the wildlife in an area.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so they weren't someone who were going to be easily startled by the bear and not be able to recognize what it was.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's take a quick message break in here from the folks that help make this show possible.

[SPEAKER_04]: That is plenty of that for now.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's get back into the episode.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, one of the biggest proponents of the big foot that I knew of growing up was Professor at the University of Florida, the friend of mine's mother and she didn't teach anything they had to do with that, but she was obviously a very sensible person and she just almost enjoyed the thought of there being an animal that big out there that we haven't discovered and she was a believer, I don't think it was much from a scientific standpoint more of like an entertainment value, but still, [SPEAKER_03]: Um, they're not all, like you said, aluminum foil, hatware and UFO, the searchers, so, so did, did seeing those kinds of people, um, who had maybe these inexplicable experiences as well as maybe just a belief without having any, um, previous experience did that change your perspective on what you view someone who believes in Bigfoot now.

[SPEAKER_01]: at that completely changed my perspective.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there was a couple of people I talked to, one of whom had been with the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, and Fish and Wildlife, he'd worked for all three of these departments in one time or another, spend a lot of time out in the middle of nowhere, in wilderness areas, and his story, he was camping, he was in the [SPEAKER_01]: You know, he never, never even entered his mind that this was, this thing was big foot, but it was behaving so strangely and the experience was so contrary to any other experience he'd had with a bear, that he just, you know, he, it really puzzled him and then after he has this experience where the scene is sort of by his tent and then is throwing things at him and breathing really strangely, you know, he goes back to [SPEAKER_01]: to his back-to-base camp or back to the forest service outpost that he was sort of working out of any mentions as to his boss, and as boss says, did you ever consider the fact that it might be big foot?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because other people had called into the forest service and said they'd had similar experiences in this area.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, for John, this guy's name was John [SPEAKER_01]: Bigfoot was not something he'd ever even really thought about and then his boss made that suggestion and it'd be the pieces kind of fell into place for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so to hear his story, someone who still to this day is doing a lot of work out in wilderness areas, he really, that changed his mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's very soft-spoken, he's not a braggard, he's not out there telling some sort of crazy story to try and get attention.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't really bring it up in polite conversation unless you're asking him specifically about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So to me, that really makes those stories hard to dismiss.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're too crazy to be just sort of thrown away as just made up stories.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm curious.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did this experience producing the show make you change the way you view things that other people believe that you might have viewed before as crazy or unscientific.

[SPEAKER_03]: I found.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that is a good question.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I hadn't really thought about that because I would guess some of the other ones might be like Loch Ness Monster or the Yeti or [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, chupacabra, but maybe even religiously, I don't know, like anything that's kind of like, is there any proof for any of that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, and I think, I think that's a, that's a hard one to answer because ultimately, with, with bigfoot, there's still that hard evidence [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a really good question.

[SPEAKER_01]: I tend to view religion with a little bit of a skeptical eye, but I think that comes more from sort of what the negative effects of religion can have on the the world at large sometimes.

[SPEAKER_03]: I guess it wouldn't be very sporting of me to say you should consider you should be open-minded about Bigfoot, but close-minded about God, like that's good because I'm pretty skeptical to when it comes to anything that I can't necessarily can be proven or at least plenty of evidence for, but I listen to people that I know specifically your podcast, I listen to [SPEAKER_03]: are really good-hearted sincere and they have this belief that there is this giant freaking animal in this little peninsula you know what I mean that people are always back back in and and I was just an Olympic about a month ago and yeah yeah I mean it's crazy to think there's like something the size of the gorilla out here and maybe possibly I think you mentioned uh [SPEAKER_03]: 2000 of them, roaming the earth.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's wild to me, but I can't dismiss that, you know, these personal experiences these people had and I wonder bring up why do you choose that area just because that's where your family member was focusing his attention?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, you know, the the 2000 number I think is for big foot in general, big foot [SPEAKER_01]: Um, they are, it's more than just the Olympic pendant to like, you know, big foot is supposedly been cited in every state, but Hawaii mainly because Bigfoot can't swim that far supposedly.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is funny.

[SPEAKER_03]: You say that, because I just looked up a map of all the big foot sightings.

[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, it's worldwide.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, you know, different variations of Bigfoot from the Yeti to Sasquatch whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they were a couple on islands.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, [SPEAKER_03]: How the heck did he get over there?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, and you know, I would imagine that there are a fair number of stories out of there that come out of the bottom of a whiskey bottle as opposed to like an actual experience that's maybe a little sober.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I would say that, you know, it's [SPEAKER_01]: It is a little hard to imagine when you think about the number of people out there in the woods with cameras in their pockets, essentially, you know, more and more people are encroaching on these territories are out hiking in them are exploring them and that certainly does lower the possibility of something like this existing, since there hasn't been the kind of conclusive evidence and photograph photographic evidence that would really, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: settle this matter once and for all.

[SPEAKER_01]: The reason I ended up on the Olympic Peninsula is partially because that's where Grover, my relative did some of his work, but also because when I went out there or when I was doing the research on this, I was invited to come look at these giant ground [SPEAKER_01]: company owned a bunch of land out adjacent to the Olympic National Forest and its private timber land gated and locked and a member of the family that owns that land was out doing a timber survey and he was kind of walking through looking to see which trees they were going to be cutting for the next harvest and he came across these giant nests and they were basically [SPEAKER_01]: nine feet across, they were ground nests and they were very intricately woven.

[SPEAKER_01]: They look like bird's nests.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like much more not just like a heap of debris but sort of deliberately manipulated and put together.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a guy who's been out doing this job for decades now and he hadn't seen anything like it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's kind of scratching his head about the whole thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then he goes to, he calls up the Department of Natural Resources in Washington and he calls up this group called the Olympic Project, which is the sort of local Bigfoot research group.

[SPEAKER_01]: And representatives from both of those groups came out.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're all scratching their heads wondering what this is.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't look like a bear bed.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't look like a deer bed.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the timber company says, okay, we're curious enough about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to give you five years to figure out what these things are.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll go log somewhere else.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to give you keys to the land and we'll let you do this for five years.

[SPEAKER_01]: But at that point, we've got to come back.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've got to do the harvest.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this was about three years ago now and they, the Olympic project sat on these nests for [SPEAKER_01]: two years because the nests had been freshly made all of the flora and it was fresh was green still had been freshly broken off and those nests were basically maybe a month old at the most.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they kind of thought all right well whatever made these might be coming back so they sort of sat on and not literally but like sat near them and observed them for a couple of years to see if [SPEAKER_01]: So then they brought in another big foot specialist, a guy named Jeff Melderum, who's an anthropologist at Idaho State University, and who kind of picked up the mantle from my cousin Grover, and he came out and looked at him, and was also kind of confused.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said, they look a lot like guerrilla nests, because if you go online and you google guerrilla nests, you will see guerrillas making these big ground nests, [SPEAKER_01]: And it's something that's taught, like they teach the younger generations how to make these nests.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can actually see video of them weaving these things together.

[SPEAKER_01]: So again, nobody can say definitively that these were made by Bigfoot, but they are definitely weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the decision was to take some samples from those nests and ship them off to a lab at New York University where there is a molecular primatologist out there who runs DNA [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's a big part of the storyline for the podcast is trying to figure out what these nests are.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I assume you won't share your views of that right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: Of what?

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to give away the ending.

[SPEAKER_03]: I, okay, perfect.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I didn't realize that the story was going to follow this nest so closely.

[SPEAKER_03]: So man, I'm excited now because I actually looked up some pictures after I heard that and it's really bizarre.

[SPEAKER_03]: It does look like a lot like realaness.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's like if someone out there pranking people, is it?

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, is it just something on on what what is actually on them?

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, so I'm really curious.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is a very bizarre part of the country.

[SPEAKER_03]: But isn't it beautiful out there?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, it's totally gorgeous.

[SPEAKER_01]: And while I was up there, I had a chance to go up to what is it, Kate?

[SPEAKER_01]: Kate Flattery.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And man, what have you from that?

[SPEAKER_01]: That is just like, that's so beautiful up there and just the view out over the water and like that pristine forest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's just, it's phenomenal.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really loved it up there.

[SPEAKER_03]: The combination of the mountains and the rainforest and the salmon and the ocean all kind of coming together and just this perfect, just example of beauty and it's like every kind of animal [SPEAKER_03]: possibly big foot so there's there's so much to love about the area and so for you this this story was kind of started because you you know you found a long lost cousin of yours.

[SPEAKER_03]: Is there the possibility from a scientific view that Bigfoot is a long lost cousin that used to exist, even if it, here she doesn't exist.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was actually, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was one of the questions I was really interested in exploring actually because the other, the flip side of a lot of the eyewitness accounts is that there's also a tremendous number of Native American and First Nations accounts, and they go back centuries.

[SPEAKER_01]: They go back colonial times.

[SPEAKER_01]: So then you start to wonder, okay, well, [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe there was a creature once upon a time, even if there isn't one now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if that's the case, where would it fit in the evolutionary tree?

[SPEAKER_01]: Would it be related to us?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is it more closely related to other species?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so second episode, I really spend a lot of time exploring the evolution of all of this and trying to figure out where and how big foot would fit into fit into the overall [SPEAKER_01]: And their sort of two main theories, you know, one is that big foot is more closely related to the great apes that it's descended from a giant species of ancient ape out of Asia, and it would have come along come over the bearing land bridge along with a lot of other species that ended up in North America, including bears.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one theory.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the theory that my relative Grover subscribed to.

[SPEAKER_01]: The other theory is that it might be what's called a relic hominid, which is to say it's much more closely related to humans.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it would be descended from a more from a human ancestor, a hominid ancestor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Once upon a time there were as many as eight different human likes species walking the planet around the same time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the, those are the ones that we know about because there's a lot of stuff in the fossil record that we don't really have evidence of because it just, you know, if you want to be a fossil, you have to die in the right place at the right time at the right conditions, with the right sediments nearby and then you have to survive however many thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then you have to be uncovered at the right place at the right time by the right people who know what they're looking at.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, if you think about it from that standpoint, there's probably a lot of stuff out there that we don't know about existing ever.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, this could have big foot could have been or something like big foot could have been could have been one of them.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's take a quick message break in here from the folks that help [SPEAKER_04]: That is plenty of that for now.

[SPEAKER_04]: Let's get back into the episode.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a good point because my imagination is definitely open to the fact that, oh yeah, this exact animal of what we're picturing is big or very, very similar could have easily existed at some point and the fact that, you know, fossils haven't been found while I live right next to dinosaur ridge here in Denver and it's literally a road that they started building.

[SPEAKER_03]: and just started uncovering all these skeletons and all these footprints and now they're all on display, but they stopped the process of building the road because they just were disrupting too many of these possible or finding too many.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was taken too long to build just this little road over a ridge, and just I think last year they were building a police station here, and an entire triceratops fossilized skeleton was underneath.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's amazing.

[SPEAKER_03]: They stopped in tire production.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was like one of the most well-preserved specimens ever found all because they were building a new police station.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you have no idea what's under there, you're totally right about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you enjoy the process?

[SPEAKER_03]: Was it fun?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was a blast.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, not only do you get to kind of like, you get to kind of come at this from almost like you're a little kid.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, your goal is to sort of spend your disbelief to spend your previously held opinions on it and to just go in and ask questions and be curious and get to know these people and learn about what something that's very important to them and go out into the woods with them on adventures and hear their stories and it really was a lot of fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoyed talking to people a lot more than I kind of expected.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was a little worried about, you know, am I going to be able to, are they going to trust me?

[SPEAKER_01]: Am I going to be able to relate to them?

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but everyone was very welcoming and they opened up and they let me ask questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and it just, it really was a lot of fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: Plus I enjoy camping, I enjoy hiking, and I got a couple of opportunities to go out and do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you add on the big foot element of it, and it kind of makes it a little bit spooky and a little bit, um, a little more thrilling.

[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I had a blast.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is awesome.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, so what's been the reception of the show so far?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: People have written, I got in tons of fan mail, which is fantastic.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've gotten very little hate mail, which is also fantastic.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think for bigfoot people, [SPEAKER_01]: uh...

people who are already really deep in this world and well versed in it uh...

a lot of what i talked about was kind of old hat and so i think there was some like you know you haven't told us anything new but this really wasn't aimed at people who are already in the world of bigfoot [SPEAKER_01]: It was aimed at people like me who hadn't really thought about Bigfoot or just kind of considered it to be something of a joke.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I was surprised at how many people just were really receptive to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they wrote in, they said I was a complete skeptic.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought this was silly, but I listened and now I look over my shoulder when I go hiking like they're just.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's something fun, I'm curious.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, anxiety in people is a mess.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's something fun about Bigfoot and even if you don't subscribe to the possibility of it, it's just there's something very compelling about the world being wild enough and unexplored enough still that something like this could be out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that really [SPEAKER_03]: Now, was that your goal?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, totally.

[SPEAKER_03]: Congratulations.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I want people to go outside to the mountains and, and, and kind of be looking around corners and be curious about what they're seeing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, take your headphones out of your ears, except when you're listening to this podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, um, years.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: Listen to the sounds of nature and be observant and, you know, and, and savor the possibility that something really fascinating and interesting is out there.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, so with those antennas up out while you're out in, you know, a pretty remote, it's popular, but it's a remote area.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and I actually watched documentary.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think I was in high school.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was a guy that like living full time in the Olympic peninsula.

[SPEAKER_03]: He'd only come into town like once a year to get.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, some sort of meat that he couldn't get anywhere else and toilet paper toilet paper or something.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it was, it was really bizarre, and my mother was actually, she told me she goes, I'm worried that you're going to be like this man at some point, but, but, so with those antennas up and that level of curiosity, did you discover anything out there that you didn't expect, like a body or just some random stuff or people living anywhere that you [SPEAKER_01]: I did not find any bodies, I buried some, but I didn't find any.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm just saying.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, holy cow, is that in the show?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just, I just confessed to a murder.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there was, let's see, there was part, where were we?

[SPEAKER_01]: We were on the same land where the nests had been found and there was something, I have to think back on this now.

[SPEAKER_01]: these trees that had been infested by a fungus and they were pine trees and the fungus was like way up in the topmost branches and what was interesting and this was sort of behavior that had not been documented before but raccoons had basically like excavated this fungus and [SPEAKER_01]: quite a bit of times since I was out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd probably have to go back and look this up.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this was behavior that a number of people who were out there said, you know, we've never seen anything like this with raccoons before.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they really wanted to try and get some scientists out there, but to look at that behavior, you know, the big foot, big footness, society's groundness aside.

[SPEAKER_01]: They wanted someone to look at this too.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think the association with Bigfoot was making it hard for them to get people out there to check this out.

[SPEAKER_01]: It could very well have been completely normal behavior just kind of rare because this fungus isn't all that rare.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's the kind of thing where it's like, these people are out looking for big foot, they're out observing stuff in the woods.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they're seeing other things that are interesting natural behaviors.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought that was kind of cool too.

[SPEAKER_01]: Another example of this is there's a guy in Scotland.

[SPEAKER_01]: who's decided he wants to run DNA analysis on Loch Ness, not because he thinks that he's going to find the Loch Ness monster.

[SPEAKER_01]: But by doing this DNA analysis on the water and some of the sediments, they think that they might find what kinds of other animals are living in the lake or have lived in the lake, because DNA analysis has now gotten to the point where it's so powerful that they can find [SPEAKER_01]: They can identify species based on very, very small fragments of DNA and old ones too.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I thought that was, you know, that's kind of cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like you're going out, you're looking for something that may or may not exist.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you're finding out some really interesting things about the natural world.

[SPEAKER_03]: And honestly, I mean, that's probably the most positive byproduct of this is, you know, bringing people together getting them outside, hiking being active, and hopefully not going too crazy trying to find this.

[SPEAKER_03]: But treating it as a pursuit that they can enjoy kind of like you did.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I know there are some people who are dumping a lot of time and money and energy into this.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said, you know, there are some people who get very obsessed with this.

[SPEAKER_01]: He compared it to gold fever, you know, if I can just find the body, if I can just get that photo, if I can just get this, this thing that will prove it, and they just get a little bit obsessed.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that has less to do with big foot and more to do with, uh, [SPEAKER_01]: people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there are just people get obsessed about certain things.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, in this case, it's just to be big, but most of the people I met were pretty, you know, that families and jobs and other hobbies and big foot was one thing that they're very interested in, but it hasn't prevented them from living a normal, a normal life.

[SPEAKER_03]: Good.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think so far, what I've listened to, you've done a really good job of breaking that down, because [SPEAKER_03]: You know, we covered adventure sports, we cover everything from climate Everest to, you know, getting off the couch for the first time to go hiking.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so, you know, obviously with stuff like that, people get really obsessive.

[SPEAKER_03]: People spend their life savings to go climb Mount Everest, which, you know, it's super dangerous and it's it ethically wrong.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's all this stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: They neglect their children for it.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we try to stay away from those kinds of people.

[SPEAKER_03]: But, um, [SPEAKER_03]: finding that balance is really important.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this can be, you know, searching for a big put, but it can be a sport in itself.

[SPEAKER_03]: So just, you know, once, you know, this is not an ongoing, ongoing series.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of like a serial.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's all released together at once and there's a final episode.

[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think is next for you?

[SPEAKER_03]: And has this experience shaped the way you're going to be a journalist moving forward?

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know entirely what's next.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to sort of figure that out right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the last episode for this podcast came out two days ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now your listeners are lucky.

[SPEAKER_01]: They can binge on the whole thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have a great week to week.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, they'll be a couple more bonus episodes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some extra interviews that I did with interesting people who didn't really fit into the overall storyline.

[SPEAKER_01]: But our, we're just fun interviews.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those will still to come out.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the main, the main episodes are all done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now, yeah, I need to figure out what I want to tackle next.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I'm going to do something else cryptosoological simply because the reason I got into this was because of the relative that I had and the relationship his relationship with Bigfoot.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's really what drew me in.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really have that feeling with any other creature like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So [SPEAKER_01]: Um, now I'm trying to figure out what what else would be interesting for me to cover and what else is kind of weird and compelling for listeners.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's finding that that balance like how am I going to get people who were fascinated by big foot to talk to listen to something else.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I have to find something that's probably equally a little bit out there.

[SPEAKER_03]: So no idea is rolling around yet or Oh, I've got it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I'm just not ready to talk about him because they're not fully fleshed out and I don't want any of your listeners to steal them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want you to steal them.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's, you know, that's what I did before this.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was engine.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just kidding now.

[SPEAKER_03]: Great job.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's really entertaining so far.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really excited to listen to the rest and knowing that I can pretty much binge on it all today.

[SPEAKER_03]: I probably will.

[SPEAKER_03]: How many episodes is it total just so we can hear listeners now?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so there are nine main story episodes, and then there will be four bonus episodes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Two of those have already become out, and then there'll be two more.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can go and find my podcast wild thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's available on Apple Podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's available on Stitcher.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pretty much anywhere you get podcasts.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can also check out our website, which is wildthingpodcast.com.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't listen to podcasts through the normal channels, you can hear it there too.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so listen, listen, listen, listen up and then tell all of your friends.

[SPEAKER_03]: Perfect.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was my next question was how can people listen?

[SPEAKER_03]: How can they be in touch with you?

[SPEAKER_03]: There's anything else you want to plug, feel free.

[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, thank you so much for being on the show.

[SPEAKER_03]: This has been really, really fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you're welcome.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me, and yet if you go to the website, you can find a way to contact me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm also on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and the handle for that is wild thing pod.

[SPEAKER_03]: Perfect.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I will plug all that when we release the show.

[SPEAKER_03]: Awesome.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for doing this.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I look forward to your future stories.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm excited to see what the next one's going to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome, thank you so much, take care.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, you have a good one.

[SPEAKER_01]: You too, bye-bye.

[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.

[SPEAKER_03]: First of all, thank you so much for listening.

[SPEAKER_03]: It means the world to us that you choose a lesson of the show.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you'd like to help us further, you can leave a review on iTunes, share us with your friends, your family, goes a long way to grow in the show.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can also support us financially through patreon.com slash adventure sports podcast.

[SPEAKER_03]: And also, if you have an idea of who could be a good guest for the show, we're always looking for people to tell their story about the outdoors or adventure.

[SPEAKER_03]: So if you know someone, please reach out, email us at infoedadventuresportspodcast.com.

[SPEAKER_03]: And until then, get out there and have some fun.