Ken Gerhard

Views and opinions expressed by the guests of Sasquatch Experience do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the host, sponsors, or affiliates of the Sasquatch Experience. As always, listener discretion is advised. We got some one or something rolling around out here. See what it was? Was it a person or an animal? Or I can't go. I know that my thunderweight came on and I did that with a Glenn be the thing running across the other. Good by man, there's something looked by the name. I don't know what it was. Back in two thousand and five, we set out with one goal to give voice to the mystery and those who pursue it. Sasquatch Experience Podcast has been your go to source for serious Bigfoot discussion, where we separate fact from folklore. Always grounded in research and respect. We've interviewed eyewitnesses, experts since to the like because understanding Bigfort isn't just about belief, It's about the journey. Nearly two decades later, we're still chasing shadows and sharing stories. The search never stopped. Welcome to the Sasquatch Experience. Hello, get somebody out here, and good evening. Everyone, Welcome to the Sasquatch Experience, returning here Monday, November tenth, twenty twenty five. Guys, it's great to be back on the air after an impromptu hiatus. Life really kicked us all right. In the Yeah, okay, kibbles and bits, tweets and Berry Wow. We. Have overcome and here we are. But I wanted to just take a moment and just kick off tonight's show with a little. Memoriam. If you look up there in the corner, Billy Green passed away in the middle of October while we were on hiatus. Bill was a big part of our show in the early days on blog talk radio. Yeah, and it sounds like we have Henry somewhere on Everybuddy's I'll just meet him until he's ready to come on, as we've had no he's not popping up anyhow. As we had Bill on the program with us back in the day when we were more of a call in show than we were a I don't know, I guess a full fledged podcast. At the time. Bill would always call in and want to know what's the latest and Bigfoot research and if we had a guest on such as can our guest tonight. He would ask what's the latest in his area and what was new in his research, and just kind of I called him the ambassador of goodwill for Bigfoot. You know, Bill, what you see is what you get. He didn't have any ulterior motives. He was a good. Cat and a good friend, and we're going to miss him pretty tremendously, a big part of us as we got started. And just rest in peace, Bill Green. And now you have the answers to everything you were seeking, my friends. So to our friends, his friends and family and our friends, we send our condolences. And he's going to be missed. I'll tell you that. Here here God speed. It's just been a long, long year for us in the big Foot field. A happy Veterans Day to all our listeners out there, especially those who have served and Vance and Matt for their service. Thank you very much, gentlemen for taking the time out of your busy lives and to serve this great nation. We really appreciate it. And the final piece I'll add before we move on to reading Ken's bio with Squatch out Hunger, Guys, we still have a long ways to go to hit our goal. We're at about the five hundred dollars mark at this point, I guess even more so now than ever with everything going on and we. See how. Unstable the environment is, you know, the least we could do is take a moment an opportunity to feed a neighbor. And with Squatch Out Hunger, that's what our goal is. To help raise money to Feeding America so we can make sure folks don't go without food. Insecurity is one of the largest causes of depression and anxiety through all age groups, whether you're a child or you're a senior citizens. So let's do our part to help squatch out hunger and get folks, you know, especially as we get towards the holidays. Everything in the holidays seems to be around that, the joyous festivities around food. Let's open our hearts and our wallets and get squatch out Hunger furnished up as we go to at ends eleven twenty. So we've got a long waist to go, folks. So that's all I have for announcements. Now for the part everybody here has been waiting for the bio and our guest, and then I'll kick it over to you vance to get us kicked off and Ken, thanks for joining us tonight. Ken's been in the green room and he's been out here with us going through the news, so we appreciate the extra time Ken spent with us so far. It's great to be here. Thank you, so folks. Ken is a renowned cryptos whologist, author, and television personality whose lifelong quest has taken him deep into the mystery of Sasquatch and other cryptozoological topics. With field investigation spanning six continents and nearly every corner of the United States, Ken has become a leading voice in the search for elusive creatures. He's the author of the Essential Guide to Bigfoot and has appeared in over one hundred television episodes, including Monster Quest, Missing in Alaska, which is one of my favorites and The Proof Is Out There. Ken's research blend's folklore, witness accounts, and scientific inquiry, making him a respected figure in both academic and paranormal circles. Whether trekking through remote forces or speaking at conferences nationwide, Ken continues to push the boundaries of what we know about North America's most legendary cryptis. And that's our guest tonight, Ken again thanks for joining us, buddy in vance, I'll let you get us kicked off. Thanks Sean. Well, one question I did have for you, Ken in your neck of the woods where you live now, which none of us will give out that location, but is there any hotspots in your area? Oh? Yeah, I was actually well about two hours north of me is a very iconic hot spot I guess place Pulled, all New York, Okay, was up there recently for the first time. It was a pretty amazing experience, but actually I can't remember it might have been there. In fact, when I was speaking to someone that came up to my table and he said he had found a pretty good big foot track. Near where I'm living now. So he actually knew me to locate the exact location. It's probably only about, you know, a few miles up. I'm in the cat Skills, I mean, we can reveal that. So it's you know, I'm kind of in a somewhat of a squatchy area, I think, But I haven't found a lot of reports on databases or anything like that, but you know, I'm close to the Adirondacks cat Skills obviously, how there is an active team out here, and of course I heard a really you know, Western New York. I was going to say, as we get you know, closer to pa and stuff, I mean, we got the Alleghany Mountains there. I heard a really good report from the Alleghanies. Recently, a couple came up to my table at the last event and they were very credible. They said, we never gave Bigfoot a second thought. We thought it was a joke, a legend, whatever. And we saw this thing running up the hill on two legs and it turned back on us and they said, we are one hundred percent shirt that was bigfoots. I get those kind of reports, So yeah, I'm excited. I had to be up here in the Northeast and see what's shaken good. So just a follow up question, do you have a particular favorite of this cryptid research in what you are doing? Man? I get asked that all the time, honestly, Yeah, And you know I used to joke. Well, after this, nobody will ever ask that question again because everyone will see it. True. I used to joke with people that my friends who were parents that well, you know, I can't you know, it's like choosing your favorite kid, and they'd. Pull me say yeah, you do have a favorite. I didn't know that, but no, honestly, people ask me that a lot. I love investigating all of them, you know, the diversity is really attractive to me, in the diversity of the field. But I guess I always kind of fall back on thunderbirds because that's kind of how I started, you know, in this field, or making a name for myself, you know, twenty five years ago or whatever, is investigating reports. There weren't any other research was really focused on that at the time. And I've you know, I've collected so many reports. I have a pretty active database of a couple hundred fairly credible sightings, and I don't know, honestly, it seems far less credible or probable than something like this. But I love the thunderbird mystery. I would love to see a giant bird with a fifteen or twenty foot wingspan soar overhead. I think that would be pretty cool. Ken At the last conference that Matt and I did in Central PA, we had a gentleman share his thunderbird's report with us, and he said, this thing had at least a fifteen foot wingspan on it, and he felt like it swooped down at him when he was in his backyard, and he said the only thing that he thinks prevented him from being actually captured was that his back was against the wall of his building and felt maybe that was the saving grace for the encounter. But he described it as a very large black very large, like I said, huge blackbird with a fifteen foot wingspan. And I don't know, Matt. After you and I talked to him, I was pretty convinced he experienced something. Yeah, yeah, definitely, And I mean to me, it sounded it sounds very similar to the to the condors, but he said, this was just so much bigger. The other thing too, Ken is north central PA is a hot spot. Oh yeah, thunderbird. So you're in You're in a great area. There, Now that's true. I actually went out there about two or three years ago. I did a little mini expedition out there, and I went to all the famous locations where oh gosh, I can't even think of his name right now. I guess it's it's a little bit late for me. But there were a couple of researchers back in the day that were collecting around of ports. But yeah, I'm kind of I'm on the Susquehanna River now kind of fire up, but the Susquehanna River Valley in north central Pia Potter County, Powder's Port, Kettle Creek, Jersey Shore where a lot of those places long history and tradition of thunderbird reports. You're right, that's literally my backyard ken the whole. Yeah, and actually right near our area. So we got to get you out here to check out those those spots with us and our research area. I think you'd be pretty I think you'd like it out here, to be honest. Sounds like you've already probably been there. Yeah, it's beautiful up there, not too dissimilar from here. But yeah, that's definitely right. And actually coincidentally, there's a Golden eagle migration going over right now. We have a bird watch that and I grew up to up here on the mountain and help the Audubon Society and you got to be willing to really brave the coal. But I'm really looking forward to trying to see this Golden Eagle migration as it comes out. That's going to be pretty amazing. So well, that's pretty interesting. I wasn't aware of that. That is there a particular like, is that an ongoing thing or is it is there going to be like a couple of weeks where it's more engaging, We're going to be able to have like more chances to observe it. Well, I think about right now is when they migrate from Canada, a lot of them down to some of the southern United States. So yeah, I guess. I guess there's a specific time we went up there a few weeks ago when we saw like forty six hawks. That were migrating. You know, they were just in a big. Well you know what too, this is a time of year, and this is the time of year where they mate because ingestation period takes place over the winter, then comes spring they're building the nest. So yeah, they kind of congregate together, and you know, it's kind of like a hawk nightclub. I guess I'm not sure. Here, I'll pass along a real interesting little tidbit. Fact, less than five miles from More I'm at, which I'm thirty miles due west of Chicago. Every spring, we have a Pelican migration that comes within two miles of where I'm at, and they just load the lake up with pelicans. I'm like, who would have thought you know, northern Illinois would have pelicans, but yeah. We do. So the show's really gone to the birds. Yeah it as will see what you did there, dad joker. Yeah right, anyway, I'm sorry I digress, but no, I mean those thunderbirds are a huge part of cryptozoology. I mean it's something that doesn't often get talked about in circles. The only time can I really get to talk about is when I see Stan Gordon m oh. Yeah, right, stands awesome. He'll uh every time, He'll leave messages on my phone all the time. Ken, I've got a thunder report marse sixteenth nineteen, names two four individuals and. Such a sense. He's like a paper reporter. Stan is awesome though funny, you know he's great. Yeah, he is great. He's got great recall and ye like he's the same with me. Kenny's always sending those reports over and like with with stanying to get like two seconds of pleasantries and it's right in the business. Love. I love it. But you know, more so you moved out to the east, which is you know you moved back to the East. Correct, No, I wouldn't really say back. I kind of moved back to the north north right right, And I was texting my friend in Buffalo today. I said, Man, it's it's started snowing out here today. It's November eighth. I haven't experienced this for fifty years, which basically I grew up in Minnesota. So when I was born in Michigan and grew up in Minnesota, so I was about maybe eleven, So I remember, you know, snow, And I've worked in Alaska and Canada and stuff, so I've encountered snow. But yeah, this is weird living somewhere where you're driving going I'm driving, so hmm. It's like riding a bike though, come on, you don't forget Yeah. No, you don't, like write a squad right right down. So I mean, aside from the Thunderbirds there, Ken, what drew you into the Bigfoot mystery? What what hooked you? Oh? Man? Well, what I always tell people, you know, I grew up loving monster movies. I was raised on Godzilla movies and Creature from the Black Lagoon and all that good stuff from the back in the day. And my father was a forestry professor. He taught at Michigan State and then the University of Minnesota. But so I kind of. Grew up in the woods, and it was a big collector of critters, you know, salamanders and snakes, and my first pet was a caman alligator and so I so, when I was about eight or nine years old, I was watching Saturday morning cartoons, probably Scooby Doo and Memory Surgery correctly, and there was a news break and they did a little short segment on bigfoot. I'd never heard of it before, and they showed a clip from the Patterson Gimlin film pictures of guys holding plaster footprints, and it was just it was like a light came on. I thought it was the most amazing thing ever, that this thing seemed like an animal of some kind unknown to science or whatever. But it was also kind of a monster, you know, big and hairy and scary and monstrous. And so. It's just been a lifelong passion of mine. I certainly never planned to make a career out of it. I've just been very blessed and you know, just stuck with my passion or obsession, I guess. But I tell people I've never seen one. I've been researching for decades. I'm convinced I've heard them a few times at close range. I've found other physical trace evidence, footprints and things, and of course I've interviewed hundreds of people that have had amazing experiences encounters, and so it all becomes very convincing, you know after a while. Right, yeah, no doubt, Ken, you know what's foreign to me is at times you know, we've you know, been arguing over the Patterson give On film, not arguing. I think most of us can settle on it actually you know, probably being a creature more than a man in the suit. But you know, and first initial impressions with me or everything, as with most people, when I first saw that when I was a kid, at no point in my mind even did I go to that's a man in a suit. To me, it always looked like an animal. And you know, I guess kind of the question for everybody in the panel, for those of us that do you know or do think you know? Lean more towards the Patterson film being real. You know, I have a hard time understanding how people look at that and say it's a man in a suit, Like where did that first inclination come from? Like even trying to play Devil's Advocate, I can't see it right. Well, the interesting just an interesting little tidbit to throw into that is, when that was shot, Planet of the Apes was a thing. Now, I'm sorry, the costumin a Planet of the Apes was nothing compared to what you saw with Patty. But Ken, I need to ask you a question because your experience is extremely similar to mine. I was watching Svengouli and they broke in on Sengouli and showed the same thing that you just described. But my question to you is, did you think at that time when you saw it, that was the only creature that existed? Oh, Ben, I can't say that, but I'm gonna channel. I actually have a piece of the Patterson Gimmon film site right here. This is a piece of the Biggest Night you see laying across. It's still there. It's rotty and stuff. But uh. No, I never never really thought that. Well, I mean, I guess when I thought there there was just the film from California and the footprints, I guess I thought it was maybe more of a of a West coast. There was a. Population over there, you know, in the area of northern California, in that deep wilderness area. And then of course the uh short either after I watched the Legend of Boggy Creek and you know, a huge influence on many big Foot researches of my generation. And what that did is it shifted the paradigm of Bigfoot from the West right in the United States. And you know, they never really say the name Bigfoot in the film. I think they say Yetti one time, right obviously what they're talking about in the movie, like that's Bigfoot and now it's in Arkansas. You know, So that kind of opened up that whole my whole perspective in terms of, okay, wow, these things are you know, spread out across the US or something. So well, especially with technology becoming what it is today, there's a lot more reports that are influx especially with you know, sites like DFRO, and people have a little bit easier of a time having their experience and a place to put their experience, whereas back in the sixties, seventies and eighties that just wasn't a thing unless you wrote a book and then you have to hope, you know, that somebody would buy your book or check it out from the library. But you know, so yeah, at different times, more reports. Yeah, I just kind of took a little heat for that when I said, you know, in like the seventies and eighties, there wasn't a whole lot of literature on it like there is now, and by it there's not like even libraries maybe had a handful of books if you were lucky. And you know, just today and Ken, you've been a contributor to that, you know, writing books on the subject that didn't exist when we. Were younger men. You know, we really had to wait for information as opposed to now when it's at our fingertips. How do you think technologies advanced this field? Do you think in terms of the dissemination of information it's been overwhelmingly positive or do you think it's been given a lot of opportunities or you know, what do you really think? Well, that's a great question, Sean. I guess, first off, social media has been a huge I think that has been a huge contributing factor in terms of the well, for example of my own situation. You know, it's been a lifelong interest of mine. But then when the Internet came out in the late nineties, you got online and you could find, oh there's other people interested in bigfoot. There's a forum here, and there's a group here and it was like there was suddenly there was networking, and so I kind of cut my teeth, you know. I joined a Bigfoot group back in the day through this group and showed up at a conference and met people like Lauren Coleman and John Binder Nagel and stuff, and then it was like, you know, so definitely social media has been a positive contributing factor in terms of bringing people together and collaboration. You know. On the other hand, I find now that I'm constantly having to spend a lot of my presentation time sort of challenging a lot of these kind of misrepresentations online, you know, bad information and falsehoods and assumptions that people have, Oh I heard this and I read that, and you have to say, no, that's that was debunked. You know, here's the actual story and so forth. So it's it's. Very difficult for people that are on the outside of the Bigfoot field, I think, perhaps to figure out what is what. Is the truth? You know, is it? So? So yeah, the technology is kind of you know, like everything in life, it's a double edged sword, right, so you take the good and the bad there. But you know, I think with AI and this is I've become a strong advocate now of you know, with AI, now we really have to completely disregard any photographic evidence, right, Are we beyond photograph photos and videos? At this point? I feel like, you know, what's what's the merit there in terms of if people are so are able to so easily create videos and. Right right, and I can only imagine that probably three to five years from now, it's just going to be practically impossible to tell AI from an actual footage unless we go back to the original way of doing things, which Sean and I have discussed on the show a number of times. To use actual film where you can't manipulate it. Well, you know, it's a lot harder to do. Yes, it's a lot harder. But if you're shooting something, you know, on sixteen mil or whatever, just a film camera or movie, no, that would be pretty convincing. Maybe the high definition of it wouldn't be as good, but you know, try going to the Walmart and buy a camera. Good luck with that. But I think, oh, sorry, but I think a conversation that was had on Stark Talk with Neil de grasse Tyson was he said, the Internet's going to do itself in in about five years, because there's. Going to be so many fake videos that people are just not going to believe any of it. And I think the same thing is going to happen with this, And like we had a rush, you know, we talk about this all the time about how we help people fake a sighting, we help whatever. We had a rush of fake castings and fake sightings and fake whatever, and then eventually people stop listening to them. You know. I mean, like I don't want to I don't want to say that I believe in everything the man says. But when a certain man said fake news, he knew that was a word that put people on put people on track, because unfortunately, we see a lot of it, you know, and so you you only got to believe a little percentage of what's going on. And I think with this feel a lot of it has to do with the fact is that people who have kind of seen something want to see more and want to believe more, and people that are on the fence want to eat more of this data up. But like the average person's kind of like, you know what, this is just too much and they're walking away. And I think I think you'll see in the probably next couple of years. That's what I love of these festivals. They have festivals everywhere, but a lot of them are getting zipped for attendance because too many you know, it's there. Is, there is and I I just need to interject here, there is a positive to AI. And we've had this with our guests like Terrestrial and and our friend that is a data cruncher where AI uh by we're not talking about the artistry end of it, but for data plugging all the all the information in uh it really does help a lot for those those of us that are out in the field to get a better idea on Hey, when's the better time to go out to the field, or you know, what's a better location, you know, based on all the data that we got. So it's a curson of blessing. Yeah, that's a good point. I think it's like any other tool, guys, it's it's the intent behind the use of it, and you know, people are getting bent out of shape about it, but it's really about how we're choosing to apply it in what we're doing now. To Ken's point that he had made, it's getting a lot harder to discern reality from some of these photographs. So I mean, we can all be honest and saying that Hollywood still has gotten it down pat yet right like you look at King Kong and Godzilla, they still look like CGI generated. Start blending the practical with the special effect, you start spending time in that, it does get a lot more difficult to discern. If and you know to then go to Baker's point, you know, and when he said we help people hoax, I don't want people to think, you know, we're out there helping people hoax. What he's what he's saying, he's not inferring. What is We put the information out there so much folks can really have a field day and really create almost the perfect hosts that our hoax that they listen to what we're talking about. But you really do a good job of putting information out there, and if you're really good at detail, you might be able to pull it over on us. And so in the quest to be sharing information and to get information out to the public, we're also hurting ourselves unintentionally. But it's with anything else again, it's the intent of the use of the tools, I think, And but you know, ken to your point, it's going to get there. Well, we're not going to be able to tell the difference between what was AI generated and what was really taken from someone's cell phone or video. Well okay, And with that point taken, there may very well be software in the future that can identify an AI product that's being put out there by separation digital separation, and that might be the only saving grace. Who's to say it's there now, But there's always a bigger fish, you know, along the line, someone always got to break the system and come along and do something better. We then have to get or we are, someone much smarter than all of us has to get has to get into the source code and figure out how they did it right. They have to be able to look at something right now. Metadata tells the story of a lot of things. Uh. You know, when you're able to start manipulating that and make it seem like nothing's touched it, then it gets a lot more difficult. And that goes well beyond mid and comprehensions. Guys, So, ken, I don't know if you picked up on what he just said a minute ago that we're not that smart. I don't know. You guys are making me think about a lot of the. I'm the thing. With a lot of this is the other thing that always you can have real a video that no one manipulated, but you only show me three seconds. Right, That's where I have the argument of what were you doing beforehand? What were you doing after him? You know? And I think that's where like, like we've had, we've you know, we can we could stomp this all day and still have seven more episodes. But I mean the fact is that, like I think we just need to know that, you know, there's a difference between faith and there's a difference between science, and. We all need to be able to blend it, right, because if you have too much faith, then you then you everything's a bigfoot, and if you have too much science, then nothing's a big foot. You know, you kind of have to. Blend a little bit. You got to believe a little bit here and there and then but you're also gonna say, hey, uh, that just doesn't seem right. You know, that's a good point. See, now we're a little bit smarter. All right, Right, we. Hit the bottom of the hour here, so we're gonna have to go and take our break. Folks, you're listening to Sasquatch Experience, Sean Forker, James Baker, Van Stezbat, Henry May, Matt Arner, and our guests tonight, ken Gerhai, we'll be back right after this. Stay tuned, Newstead A symbol. I believe in Bigfoot. I think Bigfoot's real, but I think his whole thing is that. He uh, you see what you're camping, here's camping. Your tent opens up and you're. Like, oh man, it's Bigfoot, and he's like, nobody's gonna believe you. Bro Ah, Yes, well doesn't that paint a disturbing picture? Well, happy evening to you all from the news center here at the big Foot Bullhorn, and I hope this finds you all well. And speaking of John Fetterman, there was a witness account from Pennslvania. The witness the witness, yeah I know how to speak vance trust me. The witness a statement is as follows. We were traveling westbound on I eighty and when he says we, it's he because the wife later goes on to make her opinion be known. So this is coming from his perspective. We were traveling westbound on I eighty in Pennsylvania, which is funny because I could throw baseballs from my house onto Interstate eighty. As a matter of fact, there was a mountain lion that was hit on I eighty, not very far from me. So go figure, when you think of where I'm at, I'm sure you think of a metropolis, and it's really not where I'm at. But anyway, this isn't about me. They were near mile marker one sixty nine no snicker in Baker, following another car which was about one hundred and fifty yards ahead of me. I was matching traffic speed at seventy seven miles an hour. There are four lanes of paved roadway, two for driving on, and then there's a shoulder on each side. Looking ahead at the car in front, I noticed something in the center of the right shoulder. It began moving to the left towards the car in front of me. I immediately thought, what the hell is he doing. He's gonna get hit. I thought it was a person at first, because it was moving in an upright position on two legs. It crossed in front of the car. How far in front I really don't know, but I could still see some portion of the head above the car in front. It was a Subaru. Man, that's pointless, who cares what kind of car it was. I thought for sure there was going to be impact, but I continued and passed in front of the cars. At that point I had some more clear visual on it. It was completely dark, all the same color from head to toe. There wasn't any thing that stood out that was different in appearance. It had more of a slendered, slim build, you know. It was the way it moved and crossed the road that shook me. Nothing quicker, jerky, like a sprinter. It was fast, but almost like a glide or sliding motion to it. The whole incident may have lasted two to three seconds. It disappeared over the rail completely effortlessly. It never stopped to climb over it, and I thought, well, maybe there was a cutoff there where the state troopers would like to sit, but there wasn't any. My wife was in the truck with me, but was taken in the scenery outside the passenger door window. She did not witness, but heard me yell what the hell was that. By the time she looked towards it, it had already crossed the road. After seeing what I saw, we checked the Internet, and there are other reports in the same area Bullbeagle Park, Penn State and Milesburg. I just want to add I know what I saw, but I don't know what I saw. I'm an avid hunter with fifty plus years of experience in the woods. This one's not a bear. Interesting. The glide thing comes up yet again when we come back. Let's get on our bicycles, put on our shorts, and take a nice ride to Febuary. You're listening to the big football horn right here on the Sasquatch experience. As anybody ever told you. Hey, nice knockers. If not, just visit got knockers dot org read about the encounter. They kick this whole thing off. Plus you com purchase one, two, three or more tree Knockers. I'm not sure what you thought we were talking about. Gott Knockers has a plethora of gifts and merchandise two from awesome apparel, ware, and even something for the baby. Find jewelry and sauceage to please anyone's taste. Bud stop on buy and give a hello to Gwendolyn and Michael herself. Now that you know where to get some great knockers. They make fun gifts or accessories for the squatch bag. Just visit Godknockers dot Org again. Got Knockers dot org. So before the break, did I actually say let's get on our bikes and put our shorts on? Because that would be kind of awkward. Well, guess what, folks, It's the third annual Bucks County Para Con. It's coming up February twenty eight, of twenty twenty six. Some of the speakers will be Dominic and Eric Mantel, Jim Krugg, kod Trina Weedman, Nick Pope, and of course Ken Gerhard. I know him from somewhere. I just can't put my finger on it. This location will be at Zeelock Performing Arts Center, located at two seventy five Swamp Road in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Hope you're there. Thanks again for listening to this edition of the Big Foot Bullhorn right here on Anomalous Entertainment's Sasquatch Experience and is Ken your heart always says to a big Foot meet again. I'm sure you folks miss that the big Football Horn. Everybody, Thanks Vance for that uh wonderful mid show break. As always Vance Nesbit folks, send your email. To Vance No spend it to Sean, Send it to Sean Sean Attention me, Anomalist Entertainment. The dance Nesbit, bicycling shorts. What I'm moving about. To address that one thing report you brought up from Pennsylvania. Matt and I. Emails and messengers have been blowing up within wanting to get our take on it. And I don't want to speak for Matt, though I will. This whole Central PA or State College PA thing has been kind of problematic because of just being put out there so precisely to where these sightings have happened. It's really contaminating what Matt and I would want to be able to do and kind of keeping the the area secure for any kind of evidence gathering or anything. Also to say nothing, if you really look into some of this, you know that's major roadways where this is happening, and hopefully we would have more than just one or two eyewitnesses popping out with us, particularly at the time of day they reported that sighting. Matt and I I have a little bit of concerns about that considering the frequency of the traveling of that road. So I believe that was like five PM. Yeah, that's well, it wasn't dark out, you know, and it's heavily traveled. It's not a lightly traveled road, so no, it's an inner state. Yeah right, Matt and I. Will be getting out to check this out. We were going to go Sunday, but we both had some things going on, So we are going to be getting out to those areas rather we have an invitation or not. Because this is the second report we've got from that vicinity, I mean, and then there's other antilar reports that have happened around that area. We're going to be checking out. So stay tuned, folks for more on the state college situation down there. Matt and I will be investigating. We'll get back to you promptly soon as we get out there. But the show's not about us. It's about Ken. Ken. Get out our guests and we're going to go from central Pennsylvania to let's see Alaska. How did you get roped into Missing in Alaska? Ken? Because actually I really enjoyed that program. Oh thank you. Yeah, that was quite an adventure and it's hard to believe it's been ten years since we filmed that. But let's see. Uh Man, I don't remember how the discussion started but I know they were talking to several possible cast members cryptid investigators and actually my doppelganger, Lyle Blackburn, he was He and I had the same TV agent at the time, and they were talking to him too, and he said, no, that's too cold, man, I'm all about swamps and I don't want to I'm a Texas boy. I don't want to go up in the cold. So I was like, you know, he kind of stepped aside, so he took himself out of there. There running for that one. But yeah, it was it was an amazing experience I had. Alaska had been high on my bucket list. I'm sure high on many people's bucket lists for a long time, and so yeah, it was just one of those things. I guess they reached out to me and we're auditioning cast members, and of course I had never met the other cast members. We the three of us kind of did a little, uh skype call if you remember skype back in the days, but we did a little Skype call and we talked about. You know, how are you know. Of course they had never done any television. I'd done a little bit at that point, but yeah, it was quite an adventure. You know, I will, I guess ten years removed from my NDA and all that kind of stuff. I frequently tell the stories about how you know, when the producers were first talking to me, they said, oh, this is going to be very scientific. It's going to be like monster quests and science and science. And I was like, oh, this sounds great. And then when I got up there, someone at the network had the idea, well, let's make this a little more fun, you know, and so so ultimately it was a little bit of a of a challenge for me. You know, I told them from the beginning, I know, I seem like a professional weirdo, which I guess I am, but I have a lot of integrity in this field and credibility and I'm not going to fake anything or hoax anything. So there were there were some maybe some tempted shenanigans by the producers here and there, and I ultimately made some of them cry, and it was you know, but you know, we we figured out a way to like, you know, let's let's do this thing. We're here, and you know, I was definitely fascinated with, you know, not only the Alaskan version of Bigfoot, but I mean, the opportunity to investigate Lapin thunderbirds and Lake Leo'mna monster and right Rock and the Cushtaka and all these things that I had heard about. I was like, Wow, this is you know, it's again about the diversity. You know, let's let's look at Alaska has a great wealth and diversity of legends and creatures and all kinds of things. So UFO activity even so, Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Now that I mean, once you guys moved on from Alaska and there's been in the last maybe three or four years, once again a huge focus on Port Chatham and other areas. What are your thoughts on that, you know, especially that show Alaska Killer Bigfoot. You've been in these places, ken, you know, do you get frustrated because sometimes it seems to be a little bit more fantasy than reality. Well, yeah, obviously, and you know we've come full circle to what we were talking about earlier. You know, there's there are advantages to the Bigfoot shows and programs in terms of getting you know, people more into the subject of Bigfoot, and then there's disadvantages in terms of sometimes they overplay their hand and they make it a little bit you know, a little bit too much fiction and not not so much the embellishment, right, the embellishment and things like that. I will say that, you know, we got pretty close to Port Chatham. We didn't get as close as we wanted to because of logistical issues with a whole crew and lots of people. But right after the show aired, there was a local guy in Alaska who sent me an email and he was like, hey, ken Yeah, I saw you were up there Port Chattle and it looked a little bit different. He said, I went out there by myself. This guy like freaking wrote a kayak act like to the Kenai Peninsula, camped out at Port Chatham by himself for like a week. I mean, so why are these all you know, suddenly you have this community of people that are terrified at Bigfoot, but like a real Alaska person will go up there by themselves and be like, hey man, you know here I am so. I mean, I think Alaska has more, I mean probably more potential to harbor an unknown species of large place to scene type hominin than anywhere else in North America. I think we could all agree on that. I mean, it's just ridiculous how much wilderness, inhabit thirty seven mountain ranges, and so much coastline, millions of lakes. I mean, it's just it's it's incredible. So I think there, I think if Bigfoot does exist, we would definitely be able to make the argument that that's where we're most likely to find them, I think. But yeah, I think a lot of the again, the embellishment, as Dance was saying, I mean, it's just u you know, it erodes from the reality of what we're all in this for, which is, you know, to try to prove that this thing really exists as improbable as it seems to the public at large. You know. I also its just sense a bad tone that you know, every time you go out there, you're going to experience something, and you know, Matt and I, at least in our presentations, we are really trying to give the emphasis that Bigfoot and can be boring and most of the time you're going to come up empty, and that you know, these shows still entertaining don't give you the accurate representation. Then when you're even more like stoked by the mythos of places like Alaska and you have all that great scenery, it's even more difficult to kind of take folks back and say, hey, you know what, you think it's boring ear, you have things that can really kill you up there in Alaska that you're dealing with, let alone some sort of killer Bigfoot. So it's kind of a different temperature. But to think it's all going to be Bigfoot is silly, and I don't like people to get that expectation. But one of the things I love is, particularly with the small Town Monsters Crew Ken going out to those places, I think they've given a lot of credence to what that's really like. They're had a friend Larry Baxter, who spends a lot of time out in who lives in Alaska, that you know, it's a great place, beautiful scenery, but that doesn't mean again, Bigfoot's going to be in your backyard stealing huckleberries every half, right, And if Bigfoot is real, Ken, what do you think it is like? Do you have a in your mind? Do you kind of have it narrowed down to a couple different conclusions, or. Well, I have my favorite hypothesis, and I guess tragically, with the passing of Jeff recently, you know, I feel like the number of Crancians. I consider myself descended from the Crancian line of Bigfoot researchers, and you know. I'm an aper. I'm still in on the apor thing. You know. It's it seems to look like many of the hominins that were evolving in Africa about two million years ago, you know, although they were much shorter, but when you look at things like Parampupus boisei and some of those robust australopithesenes home on a letti, things like, you know, they were basically bipedal apes. They still had they were a mosaic, They had primitive characteristics, but they walked up right. They may have used very primitive tools, but probably just like you know, stone flakes and things like that, they didn't use fire. They had most of them had the kind of the reduced cranium, you know, half half the brain capacity that we do. So they had the course, the sloping back forehead and the head shape and the sagull crest and things that people off in the port with bigfoot. So it just seems to me like the most pragmatic explanation is if things like Bigfoot basically did exist, you know, two million years up to maybe a hundred, you know, hundreds of thousands of years ago in African Asia. Why can't Bigfoot just be a relict population of those or you know, an evolved population from that same lineage. I mean, that seems to make the most sense to me. I just kind of have a conversation with Cliff Berrickman and Matt Preuitt, like, you know, a worst a worst. You know, you know, I got called and that was a little offended by that. I'm like Hills, an apor and an apist, ready to have it, you know. But I guess in my mind, like it leaves physical evidence, it has physical presence. Uh And while maybe it there's a chance and some maybe slight chance it has some abilities, maybe we don't. It still doesn't have to take away from the fact that it's core. It's an eight. And I think once we can prove it exists, then maybe we could start talking about some of the more fantastical elements of it. But until then, I think we really have to stay kind of grounded. Can at least it's just my thought of let's prove what this thing is and then we can go to the you know, the crazier notions. Once we have something to show for all this research we've done. Yeah, I agree, one hundred percent. And I have a new presentation that I've been doing called the Sasquatches and Undiscovered Species, And I really do, at least for the luder part. The beginning of the presentation, I talk about cryptozoology and how new things are being discovered all the time, and how much wilderness is left on our planet and all, you know, kind of building a case for the possibility of an undiscovered eight or large species. But the latter half of the presentation, where I asked the audience not to throw on megetables at me, I basically try to argue against this whole idea of an interdimensional, paranormal Bigfoot, and I bring up a lot of I've done a lot of research in terms of where this idea came from, how it became ingrained in you know, popular culture, how these ideas kind of evolved in the starting in the seventies. But I mean, if you look at the horsemen of our field, I mean, none of those guys ever concluded that Bigfoot was paranormal. I'm not aware of any of them seeing orbs or cloaking bigfoots. Or anything like that. So why do you why can you disregard two hundred and fifty years of combined research from all those pioneers in the bigfoot field and then suddenly you know, it's like, oh no, it's something else completely. You know that these guys never never came to those conclusions. But anyways, I don't want to make any enemies here today. I'm not trying to. There's anyone in your eyes. I'm open minded, but it just doesn't seem like the probable conclusion. Yeah, but I'm okay with making enemies because you know, I've been doing that for thirty years of this. You know, why where did it come from? Where? When did we descide this was something more than just an ape? You know? And it's you know, and that'll be another topic for another show. We'll save that because we could go on a whole episode for that. But Henry, you did have a question. I wanted to make sure you got a chance to ask it to Ken You there, Henry, Yeah, I had a question. I'm here and I had a question for Kea about the Dwendy and the sisamite. M h, what are those? Yes? Well, in two thousand and four, I mounted an expedition down to Belize, the Maa Mountains and Belize in Central America to investigate accounts of two mystery hominins. One is called the Duende, which in Spanish means goblin, and it's ivan. Sanderson was the first one to point out that it wasn't just a fairy type thing, but that people were describing He had spoken to locals who described as like, basically like the orang pendeck, kind of like a pigmy sized bigfoot, about three to five feet tall, but still very robust, with broad shoulders and a peaked head. And there's also the sism Cisamito or sis Sisamite, which is basically described just like a sasquatch, And a lot of sightings from southern Belize from the Blue Creek, a place called Blue Creek Village, and I spoke to some Maya people from down there and they said, yeah, it's just it's a gorilla that's about seven feet tall, it walks like a man, and it lives up in the mountains and so, and there was a recent account of some giant human like footprints being found near a shrimp farm. So all I could not a lot of recent reports that I was able to glean, but people, many of the old timers talked about hearing the screaming and calling and whaling sounds coming from the mountains. So I actually do a presentation on Bigfoot south of the border. A lot of people aren't aware that there are a number of big Foot reports in Mexica, throughout Mexico and also down into Central and South America. So Bigfoot does not recognize any border walls or political delineations or anything like that. He just keeps going where the habit. Is question for you. I don't remember specifically the year. I want to say two thousand and two, but the discovery of the Billy ape. Yeah, it's about right, you know. Yeah, but it's the same description of you know, six foot tall, bipedal chimp type of creature. Anyway, it's not a chimp, but it's part of the primates. But it is. Well, okay, I don't know that much about it other than the discovery of it, and I found it pretty fascinating that, you know, here we are, our DNA is telling us we're the only bipedal creature on the planet, and then this happens. It's like, oh, that's different. But I can't be the only one that gets excited about the Billy Ape being proven that it exists, even if fan z or I don't care, because that started off as ken and you probably agree with us as legends, this eight that could break the neck of a lion, and you know, the villagers were all talking about this, and again in US honkeys are like, oh, it can't be real, we don't have proof. But then they get it on video and like that's exciting, and you're talking about a discovery in the twenty first century. Yeah, and not just similar from the recent discovery of the top Anulla orangutan pongo top of Neulliensis, which you know, they kind of knew they were there, but nobody really you know, they were rediscovered and then you know, they did DNA testing and said, wow, these are like actually bordy and orangutans in Samatra, and so yeah, I mean that's these are all very you know recent examples that large apes you know, are are still yet to be discovered. Perhaps right, And I get excited about it, particularly again we go back to the Billy Ape, and you know, because there's so many to me parallels to that to bigfoot right, large bipedal at times primate. And that's also a testament of our science. You know, we're getting to the point we're able to collect these specimens and get concrete DNA. What if the point comes and we collect a sessimen and we realize that some of these samples we collected long ago have been this all along, and maybe it does share more commonalities with other primates than we've. Expected it to. And again we go through you know, the Fopper record, and we go through the human tree or the you know, the tree of apes or whatever. Who knows what is in between those branches. You know, we're covering new stuff all the time. That's really exciting to me. And I don't know, we go down again another topic. We go down for all these I guess my final question before I ramble on into oblivion, ken to you, what is the most compelling piece of evidence you've encountered and big footing. That I've encountered? Oh gosh, Well, August eighteenth, two thousand and three, I was with some other researchers down in Texas. Chester Moore was one of them, and we had heard of recent bigfoot sightings at a place called Cottonwood Lake. So we went out there one night and right after sundown I heard we all heard and recorded deep grunting sounds sounded just like an ape, just like that coming at us from the brush. We couldn't see it. It was a heavy brush. We tried to flush it out. We saw some eyes shine and we shined a spotlight in there. So it was a whole bunch of stuff going on that night. But the next morning we made camp and we heard like Ohio hall vocalizations all night long. The following morning, we made our way through the brush where we'd heard this thing, and there were deep human like footprints in the sand on the beach, and I've got pictures of a number of large turtles had been ripped in half from top to bottom, like literally torn in half. And you know, I've. I've raised turtles, and you know there's like there's no I mean, there's nothing that can rip a turtle in half. I'm sorry. That was like to me, it was like the human like. Footprints, the vocalizations, and those mutilated turtles. I thought, Okay, this has got to be Bigfoot. I can't think of any other rational explanations. So personally, that's the best thing that I've you know, at least for me, kind of turned the page and said, Okay, I'm you know, really onto something here. This seems to be real. So that's a pretty good example of that. Yeah. One of the things we found up this way, because you kind of mentioned turtles, is we've been finding half eaten frogs. Oh it's kind of like. Strown about for no apparent reasons, and freshwater clams just kind. Of oh, yeah, they love molluscs. That's something that's universal sasquatch. And where we're finding and we really shouldn't be finding that. So it's interesting up in the Alleghanies, I mean in terms of just land on land close to water. So who knows what's doing it, but we're going to find out. Ken, It's been a pleasure. We're already at that time for the night. Yeah, any final thoughts or shameless plugs or anything you'd like to do before we end the show. Well, I'm picking up my online cryptozoology course. If anyone's interested in that, they can go to Exploring Cryptozoology on Patreon or with me up on Facebook. In the middle of session two, so I'm doing a class on living dinosaur cryptids here in a couple of weeks and then we're covering all kinds of good stuffs. I've had a lot of success with it, and people seem to really enjoy it. So if you really want to get really in depth on a whole bunch of different types of cryptids, look up my online course. Ken Gehard folks a great friend and we're glad to have him on the show. Was finally nice to sit down with him at the last conference we were at together. Yeah, you know, folks travel these conferences sometimes you don't get a chance to not work and just kind of hang out and enjoy the company. So it was Ken, it was good to see you. Thanks for popping on with us tonight. Thank you, Thank you. Great to be here. One one more programming note. The latest episode of Investigating Investigation Bigfoot with Matt Arner and myself and the Small Town Monsters team is out. If you're a squad member, go to YouTube at small Town Monsters check that out. If you are not a squad member, you can see that dropping later on this week. It's a continuation of the mini series we have going on. It's a fun episode. I do a lot of hugging in that episode. I don't know what I thought. I was a lots of hugs, but uh okay again taking. Of small town monsters. Speaking of small town monsters, I want to highly recommend the Siege of Eight Canyon. Oh yes, I think that's released for everybody tomorrow, correct, even yeah. Eleven eleven And if you were a Kickstarter, you've already had access to it. So guys, I mean it's you're going to enjoy it. Lots of great content coming your way. And again we'll be the old head and say, I wish we had this stuff. When we were growing up. A whole new generation. Uh so, Henry, take us out with those dulcet tones, My friend, Henry, you'll be good, be good at it. There it is, There it is again in two weeks. Keep on squatching. Everybody you've been listening to The Sasquatch Experience, Please rate and review wherever this podcast is consumed. For more information, please go to our website, Sasquatch Experience dot com. Keep on Spatching