Dr. Jeff Meldrum: A Life Focused on the Truth!

0:00 You're listening to Bigla Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron. In this show, we go beyond the campfire stories to bring you first hand encounters from people who say they've seen something impossible. From backwoods trails and remote mountain haulers to quiet farms and crowded highways. The stories come from everywhere, and each one leaves us with more questions than answers. These are the voices of the people who've lived it. So settle in, because today you'll hear another account that just might change the way you see the woods forever. So stay with us. The following episode is a re release of an interview that I did with doctor Meldrum in twenty twenty one. Doctor Meldrim is an individual that will never be matched in this community. His love for people, in spreading knowledge of the subject and his patience is unmatched.

0:50 We unfortunately lost doctor Meldrim too soon, much too soon. His last date with us was September tenth, twenty twenty five. If you've heard this interview, you still will want to listen, as the last part of it was a member's only section that many people never got to hear, especially back in twenty twenty one. In that I ask doctor Melgrim some questions he really was not used to answering, and he shares about some events of high strangeness that happened throughout his life. I hope you'll enjoy and that you will fondly remember the memories we have of doctor Melgram, and hopefully, through those memories, will be inspired yourself to teach this knowledge to the next generation that's coming up, and to be patient towards those that maybe don't have as much info as you quite yet. And together, maybe if we work together, we can get further in this subject. Enjoy.

2:03 All right, thanks for coming back to the Bigfoot Society Podcast. I have the privilege of having doctor Jeff Meldrum with me today, so thank you so much for green to come on. Doctor. We're going to start out by reading through his bio from Idaho State, just so that everyone knows exactly what we are in for here. Doctor Jeff Meldrum is a full professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University since nineteen ninety three. He teaches human anatomy and the graduate Health Professions programs. His research encompasses questions of vertebrate evolutionary morphology, generally primary locomotive adaptions, more particularly and especially the emergence of modern human bipedalism. His co edited volume From biped to Strid, The Emergence of modern human walking, running, and Resource Transport, proposes a more recent innovation of modern striding gait than previously assumed. His interest in the footprints attributed to Sasquatch was peaked when he've examined a set of fifteen inch tracks in Washington in nineteen ninety six. Now his his lab house is well over three hundred foot printing cast attributed to this mystery primate. He conducts collaborative laboratory and field research throughout North America in the world such as China and Russia, and has spoken about his findings and numerous popular and professional publications, interviews, television and radio appearances, public and professional presentations.

3:31 He's author of things such as the Sasquatch Legend Needs Science, which explores his and other scientists of evaluations of the contemporary evidence and also affords difference to tribal people's traditional knowledge of the subject. He also has published two field guides, one focusing on Sasquatch, the second casting the net more broadly to consider the potential of relictive hominoids around the world. And he's also editor in chief of the Skylar Journal, The Relic Hominoid Inquiry. That's a lot. That's a lot. It's probably the longest bio we've ever had. But yeah, you should have edited a little bit. But that's yeah.

4:13 Yeah, what's your what's your favorite part? What are you most proud of in that bio? Oh? Gee, I haven't been asked that. That's a new question. That's hard. I'm terrible with favorites, favorite because there are pros and cons to every aspect of that there. I'm the type of person who's a generalist, maybe more so than than a singular specialist when I put really go all out into it and deeply into it. Don't mean to say that, but I'm the type that likes to follow where my curiosity and where opportunities present themselves, rather than force the circumstances to some preconceived program. And I've been criticized and complimented for that quality as an academic and as a person. But I think that I have pointed out some interesting aspects of the evolution of hominid Bie pedalism, some that have gone unacknowledged or unrecognized. Finally, after beating a drum for ten or fifteen years, you see people acknowledging and sighting and recognizing that. Maybe they don't come out and say it, but implicitly, maybe Meldrim was right after all, And with Bigfoot holding the door ajar By, if someone like me had not stepped into the lane and grabbed that baton from Grover Grants, I'm afraid the door would have really resoundingly slammed gut as far as the academic community went.

5:44 I agree. So if I'm a voice of even the lone voice in the wilderness, I should point out too, now that I said that, that that may be just a matter of perception, that there's a lot of interaction I have with my colleagues and other academics both here in the state and around the world, who behind the scenes have a deep seated interest and curiosity about this question. But they're just not in a position, either because of their professional discipline or their research to pursue it, nor are they at liberty to pursue it openly. Gray haired retired types like I'm getting very close to who suddenly take on an apparent interest in satisfies. It's been there all the time, haven't been at liberty to discuss it openly in their academic circles.

6:37 So yeah, I'll tell you it's extremely hard to interview scientists about bigfoot. I have a thing where I try, and I would say for every you get one yes for every fifteen nos. Because did people they want to keep their job to be honest. Sure, oh sure absolutely, And yeah it can have a it can have a very chilling impact, and especially for young academics, I sense a thawing of the attitude there. There are more more nods to the of relic commonoids.

7:18 I can use the term and discuss with my colleagues the prospect of persistent species of hominin or eight under the auspices of relic commonoid. But as soon as the word sasquatch or especially bigfoot comes to the. Force shuts down. Yeah, I don't talk about that exactly. So it's but still there's about We're about a generation, not a generation about a decade away. I asked to me for generational shifts, I'm getting more and more interaction with young academics just getting their PhDs and the landing positions and so forth, who on the sly acknowledge that they are very interested or I keep in touch with me.

8:01 You got to keep it until you have security. I mean, that's one of the reasons four tenure is to you with some academic freedom, that there isn't unjustified repercussion for pursuing a topic or a question which is not perceived by the consensus as acceptable. It's just interesting. I just served on a subcommittee for our Faculty Senate to reevaluate and rewrite our academic freedom policy on campus, and the committee member or the committee chair specifically asked me because of some of the experiences I've had on campus. And it was interesting because there was a point where one of the members, and I don't think it was an intentional I don't think she really realized the implication of the verbiage she had lifted from another document incorporated into her summary statement, but it made the statement to the essence that faculty had the response of ability because we had a responsibility of it. For academic freedom statement, faculty had the responsibility to convey content in their courses that was generally accepted by their discipline.

9:12 Oh wow, it's crazy. Yeah, I said, that's just what we're talking about. Yeah, this isn't a progress in knowledge through consent, not a democracy. A very lively conversation about that, and she quickly acknowledged and recognized she just hadn't really read it that way, and if she sought from what she was perceived as being the other way that you have some then control over wild hairs on the fact that don't get off in the weeds. But hey, even that sometimes is a stimulating circumstance to have students engage in conversations even about topics that are that are a little bit out there.

9:52 But anyway, that's it's an interesting dimension which certainly has impact on the way that this topic is perceived by the because doctor Krantz would say this scientific. Establishment fascinating, fascinating. Do you mind it? As my email said, do you mind if we talk about Star Trek for a bit? So I've heard this from multiple a few people and they're like, you got to talk to doctor Meltrim about Star Trek. I was like, he's a big Star Trek guy, and they're like, yeah, totally, And I'm like, hey, if he's up for it, that would be cool, and everyone listening to this is why are you kidding me? But it's okay, We'll get to the bigfoot stuff in a little bit. Just settled down. So what is Star Trek like? How do you define? What is this Star Trek thing?

10:36 What is it for me? What is it to you? Yeah? In general? Oh, it was who didn't our generation that was the vehicle to get beyond the horizon, to imagine what it would be like explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go. I can remember Racing Home because they were in the reruns in the afternoon right about three thirty. It was like three thirty four, three or three or four to five before the news, And I remember racing Home before we went out to play. During that stretch, we would watch Star Trek. My brother and I would watch Star Trek so sure, and I've got my remastered original set on DVD. And I remember at a conference at dinner afterward, the conversation turned to just what was the basis of life?

11:30 What was the boundary and the chemical basis? And I made some off the cuff remark about the horta and someone said, you know what the horta is. I'm guessing that's a big Star Trek reference, I know. And so they stared up and said, hey, everybody, doctor Beldred knows what a horda is. That's amazing. So anyway, yes, I think, as I mentioned to you, I was invited to here at Salt Lake City they had their first comic exactly, and they I was invited to give a talk, and so I tried to try to play to the audience a little bit and how can I how could I fold that in so that a cryptid had a little more solid position and it didn't take much. The connections could also satisfy not only Star Trek, but Star Wars. So I had I had some I did a remake of the cover of my book instead of instead of those Sasquatch eyes, I had to cut out, Oh you forge, you know, I had a crop image of Chewbacca's phase.

12:35 Oh that's awesome, Yeah, totally. Prince instead of Sasquatch. And of course my topic, the theme, the whole Star Trek theme, was to seek out new life and still are corners of our globe that are unexplored or that need further exploration and new forms of life are being discovered, both on land and in the sea, and there's some parallel themes that zoology. So it was fun. It was well received by the by the audience. And that's awesome. What is your what's your favorite? So there's of course different series of Star Trek. Is there a favorite all that stands out to you? Oh, I've got to be I'm dedicated mostly to the original series, although although Star Trek Enterprise was I really liked the way they did that. I had hard time with the Next Generation the first season. Really I couldn't watch it. I still watch episodes from the first season.

13:27 It took them a while for those characters to mature and get rid of a few that didn't belong on the bridge their behavior and personality and emotional profiles. But there were some that were really quite good. I'm not a cable TV person, so I've only seen a little bit of the Star Trek Discovery series, and again, it just it's always risky when you were weaned off of the original, then you can never get away entirely from comparing to those of relationships, and so there's always a little bit of disappointment sometimes, but it's so funny when you think about it, when you set aside the special effects and the spaceship, and it's still the plots all boiled down to just human relationships. It's all drama, and every once in a while there's an interesting twist. I was like the time travel paradoxes and things like that.

14:26 I was just going to ask, do you have a favorite scene? Favorite scene? Actually, one of the most poignant where I think they really reached in deep into the emotional response is the episode where in Star Trek Next Generation. I think it was actually a two part where they encountered the Probe, which connected with Picard and the borg right. Pardon the borg right, No, not the Borga. It was a probe sent out from a civilization that was about to succumb to their okay, and he learned that's where he learned to play the recorder. Remember, and then after this he literally lived vicariously a second lifetime this experience. Then when they brought the probe on board and opened it up, here was a little case that had that recorder in it. And can you imagine what it would be like to live, to lie, to have to live an entire life and close it out. Yeah, and then suddenly wake up and realize you still have your own life to finish out.

15:29 It'd be crazy. I just thought that was really quite an interesting point of ending as he retired back to his ready room with that recorder, and they reflected on that whole lifetime of experience that he'd had in a very vivid dream state that anyway, there's all kinds of things like that that are interesting. Oh yeah, I always liked the scene in Star Trek six where it's like the President's about to get shot and they're like, oh, save the President, and they all rush inside and just at the last minute, Kurk jumps on them, and yeah, that's process. Yeah, so how do you make the Can you teach me? How do you make the Vulcan salute? Do you have a how do I make it? I mean, just you know, I like this.

16:13 Nice, that's it. Yeah. I often end my emails with that. Now. After we started the lot's awesome, Live long and prosper was a good wish in these times of uncertainty. Oh that's true, that's true. Greg from the Patreon. He so he's gonna call you out specifically where he asks if you had to choose Kirk or Picard. Who are you going to choose? Yeah? Yeah, Like I said, Picard really matured into his role, but I still would have to go with Kirk. I'm a purist, so yeah, makes sense. Although I think I think more often than not, I relate more to the Spot character. When we had a pair a couple of a guy, a friend of mine that I always seemed to hang out with, and and he was a little more bombastic than I was. I was a little more intellectual, a little more reserved. Sure he was bombasting. He was a few inches shorter than me, So he struck me. It struck me even then that we looked like Kirk and Spot.

17:17 Oh that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, So not that anyone ever recalled this that, But. All right, are you ready to get into some crazy bigfoot questions? Oh? Sure, you're ready for whatever it could be. All right. The first one is so my buddy Jonathan, you actually had shared a photo from him on Facebook like a few days ago, but you got to look into this. It was the is the photo where it's like a gorilla next to Patty and he's can doctor Meldrum comment on Patty's right thigh possible herniation, a difference in hair. What do you think right there? There was There's always been some attention drawn to some of the irregularities in surface of the apparent irregularities in the surface of the skin. And the explanations have varied from the interesting possibilities to the absolute ludicrous. That it is a pocket in a pair of waiters, and Hieronymous didn't take his car keys out of his pocket, and that's what's bulging.

18:17 That's Bob Heronymous, not Ta Peronymous for everyone. Yeah, there you go. And of course it was actually Doug hi Tech who drew attention to what he thought could be a herniation, and I started doing a little looking into that and being an anatomist, and discovered that indeed, there is this condition where the fascia lata in the lower extremity, especially the deep fashion that encompasses the muscle compartments, is much thicker, it's stouter. It's a it's an adaptation to assist with creating intra compartmental pressure to help milk the venous blood which is under low pressure stream against gravity to this heart.

19:03 That's way it has to go up three or four feet. Yeah, that's calm that's why we have the one way ban alls in our veins, that thick connective tissue sheet. It's like support hose, but under the fat layer sometimes can break down through disease tuberculosis can cause damage to connect a tissue, or through a traumatic injury, a penetrating wound. And this was the funny thing I used to We had a lecture in my Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy gross anatomy course, and at the very end we had we used to have a lecture where we would spend a part of the class reviewing and then usually that would taper off, and I would then use the Patterson Gimblet film as a way to get them to think about surface anatomy and muscle groups and so forth, and action relates to gait, and so I would show this very high quality clip that was produced from the color channel separation scanned images, which lent tremendous clarity to the result.

20:12 And then MK Davis had strung those individual frames together and stabilized them and played them, set them at the proper film speed about sixteen to eighteen frames per second, and she was just memrizing to watch this loop. And I would project this up on the screen so that it's not full size, but it's pretty big, and you could watch the details, remarkable details. And I pointed out this quadriceps herniation and this student raises her hand, Oh, oh, she said, I have that. I said, well, she said, yeah, I was years ago. I was bucked off the horse and we were out in the brush and I was bucking horse and landed in a brush pile and had this big stab wound in my thigh. And the fasci Lada never quite ill properly. And she happened to be wearing gym shorts because we go in the lab and they wear their scrubs over over their clothes, and so sometimes they wear athletic wear just they don't want their nice clothes in there in the wet lab. But so she could demonstrate, she just she simply flexed her quads when she was walking. She took a step forward like lunch, and boom, this golf ball sized bulge half golf ball pops up under the skin on her thigh. And then when she slips right back in just exactly on the film.

21:29 In addition to that one singular bulge, there are other sort of irregularities that people have rationalized must be just a poor job at packing the padding under the clock of the costume. It's interesting because a lot of the lines and dimples and bumps that you see are at find you can easily find correlates in human examples. And that this is the paper that I've often referred to the readers to Bill mun and I did a paper on the skin and adipose tissue as inferred from the person Gimlin film and and Bill had gone through and called a number of pictures of just regular pictures a regular people rather not models, but middle aged to upper aged people that he actually gleaned from websites for naturists of the locations camps where people were walking around al fresco and when there wasn't a lot of toned bodies and life was sucked and you could see the normal wrinkles and dimples and grooves and so forth, muscle groups and fatty areas and fascia, and the congruence is just remarkable.

22:46 Then I went through and called through just images on the web of great apes, chimpanzees and gorillas particularly, and showed similar patterns of the way the skin hangs on the back in a bilaterally symmetrical way. And Bill had shown that similar folds on a fur cloth suit. If it's just like a pajama top, when there's a fold, it will often run all the way across the midline to the other side, not have that great look where it's tacked down right. Its processes of the of the spine, and so that was quite I was quite intrigued when someone posted that image with the red circle because it showed some irregularities in the fatty tissue, or whether they were like pomas fatty tumors, or whether they were just just the natural appearance of a little excess had a post tissue on a gorilla in captivity. In the wild, they often don't have the excess food available that they can become obese that great apes in captivity can take on or can become obese through their sedentary lifestyle and overeating, and they lay on lay down fat s Q fat just in the same pattern that humans do. Yeah, it's just that you don't often see it in the wild. Wow, just as you don't often see obesity in gatherer society.

24:14 More the premium, it's important I think to not be not have on the basis of a snap judgment. Say oh, that's fake, But say what could explain these different appearing aspects and when you consider them in concert with everything else, and there is an explanation that is absolutely biologically sound and appropriate. To me, that's the more parsimonious explanation than to concoct some scheme of somebody having created a costume and incorporated compelling to experts in the field.

24:56 Oh man, that's interesting answer. Thank you. Thank you to John then Easily from Western Bigfoot Exploration on Instagram for setting that in. Next up, this one gets really intense. So yeah, get ready, So Josh, I glad you. Josh. She was from the Patreon. This is his question. If multiple DNA samples collected from an area were to be matched to one another to exclude the possibility of contamination, present genetic markers that belong to the hominid line and contain a clearly identifiable m DNA profile the species and the homogenous would that be sufficient proof to genetically establish an ichnospecies of the Homo genus.

25:45 Oh okay, Oh, that that's an easier question. I guess to answer them. I thought he was going to get it. It's a lot easier for you to answer it than for me to read it. Yeah, when you mentioned the mitochondrial okay, okay, afiliating the mitochondrial genome to a human a Homo sapiens, which is part of the argument that Melba ketchum and her appearance have proposed as evidence for hybridization to account for the origin of sasquatch. And let me just say that their I find no merit in those arguments or no credibility. But boiling it down to the question is if we just to say it in shorthand, if we found a non human primate genome on the North American continent, would that be sufficient? That is a question that is open. Still, there is no precedent that I'm aware of acknowledging an entirely novel species on the basis of DNA alone. Now, DNA has been used to maybe segregate closely related species, say from museum specimens, where someone notices some consistent distinctions between two populations, and then so they go ahead and take a little snip off of the pelt of some of those museum specimens and test them, and sure enough, there's they discover that by their standards or criteria, there's sufficient differentiation to call them different species or different subspecies or whatever. There's a precedent for that. But those specimens exist.

27:16 The physical specimens are in museum drawers already, so that's different. But there's a growing body of literature and discussion in the professional literature about the notion of acknowledging a novel species on the basis of a novel DNA sequence, especially as it pertains in conservation situations to rare and endangered species, and even more especially the as it applies to species that have long life spans and social structures, that the taking of a life specimen may have a sick impact on the dynamics on the social dynamics of that group and its survivability. Sure well, Bigfoot might be a interesting and interesting test case of that proposal on the basis of DNA alone, But I tell you that there's just so much controversy surrounding this topic. At this point I got reaction. My suspicion would be that short of a physical specimen and a very significant specimen, either a corpse or a skull, that that acknowledgment won't be forthcoming Without that conclusive piece of physical evidence.

28:37 It Actually that leads quite perfectly into the next one, which you can probably guess what it is. Greg from a Patreon order sixty six Star Wars podcast says, So, what would you do if you came across the mortally wounded sasquatch a mortally that's a tough that's a tough question. Well, I'd probably sit down. I was in a position to render assistance, I would perhaps then to try that. But when you're dealing with any animal, one that's potentially eight feet twelve hundred pounds and it's wounded under any circumstances, I think one would have to be very cautious. But I actually wouldn't go home. I would wait until such time as maybe the possibility of collecting the specimen.

29:25 If it was shortly gotcha, gotcha, it presents itself. But yeah, no, I'd stay. These people who turn tail and run home after an encounter, you have to wonder, I can appreciate the impact that it has on people, especially when you're alone. There's a different mentality when you're alone. That's interesting. Yeah, that's a tough call. I think it definitely comes down to how you view what bigfoot actually is. Personally put them looking at it as it is an unknown grade ape in North America. But there's many different ways to look at that, you know, right, yeah. Sure, yeah. If that was what they were after to make that distinct, that's a whole different conversation. And totally let me just say, because so many viewers they pigeonhole me and the label or not the label, but the assertion that I think it's and I put this in quotes or amphasis underline it just a grade A. First of all, anyone who uses that expression has no appreciation for the nature of grade as I spent time not in the wild, but under circumstances where I could interact to a great deal and closely interact with grade apes and fully appreciate what a magnificent animal they are. I mean, you can have some of those same experiences with your your your dog, or your cat or your cockatoo. Will you have long as a society underestimated I think the

30:59 intelligence and the gents, if you want to use that word, the consciousness of animals. But but I've never pigeonholed. Yes, I've used the term North American grade ape and so forth, But as others have pointed out, while we don't really consider ourselves great apes, we are homonoids. That's why I like the word relic homonoid. But the term homonoid it has two references. When Porshnev pointed the term, he used the term hormonoid in the vernacular meaning man like, but in a more precise taxonomic sense, it means a member of the superfamily hominoid Ea, which includes us and all of the apes from the lesser to the great, the gibbon and sea among and arrangue, gimps and gorillas and ourselves.

31:49 We're part of that superfamily. We're split off separately in the hominine in a tribe. We even share the same AMENI day with the African apes. We're in the same family. And it's splitting hairs. It's quibbling over something, getting the horse before the cart before the horn. We can discuss what it is after we've proved that it exists. There you go, still had to do it beforehand. But you know, what I'm suggesting is that the difference is just one side of the fence. It's not a long ways away from the fence. If it is on the hammin in side, it's a very early offshoot, like a paranthropist, a robustne or something like that, something that predated a consistent, sophisticated stone tool culture that we can recognize in the archaeological record.

32:39 It's a significant brain size, and that even that has been quibbled in the history of anthropology for a long time. What was the cutoff for humanity? And Arthur one hundred years ago put it at seven hundred and fifty ccs. The robust Australia pithescenes come in there just about fifty c sees bigger than a chimper gorilla at about five hundred and fifty, So it's a couple hundred shy And even when we start talking about absolute volume like that, there's differences. There's differences that don't necessarily mean anything about intelligence because they just have to do with relative body size. Sure, pigmies in Africa have a different cranial capacity than than somebody's six foot six American football players. Maybe not. No, I'm just kidding.

33:27 That's a whole different episode right there. But I get what you're saying. There's so there is actually a there's a rift in the cryptozoology community about you. So I need you to pick aside. So there is one camp that is mustache doctor Meldrum, and there's one camp that is beard doctor Meldrum. Which side the mustard right, that. Must be newbies watching reruns there it is? It's monster quest doctor Meldrum, isn't it. Yeah, I'm afraid if boy, if I would recognize myself YouTube videos where the dad cuts off his beard and drops the towel and the baby starts crying. If I saw myself in the mirror, I might start my chin.

34:12 It would have it will look like either my chin has melted into my neck, or I may discover that I've actually got a couple extra chins that I. There you go, there you go? Yeah, and meet both. Yeah. The one the one that I don't care for though I probably shouldn't even say it, but is the question that the dark mustache. I've been called it. It looks like a cops mustache, which I don't mind so much. But I've also been it's been suggested that I look like a particular porn star with that dark I wouldn't know. I don't know where we can. Yeah in the. Wow cool You never know what people are going to bring up right, that's right. You never know what is what's the one thing you wish you had known when you started your career?

35:01 Oh gee, yeah, that's a tough one. I don't. As I look back, people often ask me if I would, if I had it to do over, would do this? And I mean I remember that there was literally that that fork in the road. And it happened when I was kneeling down looking at these fifteen inch tracks in the mud there and outside of all of Washington Nicks and I had just come from doctor Krantz's office. This end of mine that was began as a youthful interest had become quite latent, and it was only because of a series of circumstances that it had risen to the surface again. And I was involved in a documentary to evaluate a piece of video footage which I had taken on as just a fun exercise, like a little Sherlock Holmes sleuthing the clues to and I thought i'd you straightforward to point out the zipper and it wasn't and that got the wheels turn into again. And I had just visited I went up with my brother to visit Grover Krantz, and so I was very keenly aware yeah doctor's career and the impact that his interest in this subject had of that. And he was admittedly a bit of a maverick and a bit of a out there thinker on several things, many of which likewise proved to be quite prescient. Is some of his outlandish ideas, not all of them, but you throw enough spitballs against the wall.

36:31 But I can remember having that that that moment, that of introspection, as I'm needing there looking at this and thinking what do we do here? Do we go down this road? And I've often described it was almost like the little cartoon imp on each shoulder of you sure you want to do this, and the other one saying how could you not? How could you? I wasn't really a devil angel. It was just the two alternate realities exactly from this right now, and of course that one one out, how could I walk away? I'm a scientist, in my estimation, is the most compelling evidence I've ever considered on the subject. And there were no if sands or butts really about it. There was no unity, Let's put it that way. It was no middle ground. It either was hoaxed or it wasn't. And I think I have enough wherewithal and savvy and experience when it comes to interpreting footprints. Given that's what I've spent an awful lot of time and ensure.

37:30 So here we are, Wow, fascinating. What are the best resources that have helped you along? I guess you could call it you bigfoot journey through your career. Yeah, let's see you. Certainly you can't do what I was able to do without funding. And I didn't even think of that. Yeah, the prospect of attracting extramural funding for this kind of a project. And so I do owe a debt of gratitude. There was a philanthropist to an interested person and who gave a very generous award that helped myself and working at that time very closely with and consistently with John Manzinski, a wild black biologist in Wyaoming, and so it funded our research efforts to its significant degree.

38:24 For quite some time. We were able to get night vision monoculars, with camera equipment and the just the logistical things that allowed us to spend long periods of time out in the field. So I had the opportunity to every summer to spend at least a month, sometimes a whole month in one place researching and doing that. So that was an important part. The other is just it's I guess, well, that's hard to call. Some people in the past, I think have made the mistake of being entirely reactionary, and that is they wait by the phone until someone reports aside and race out and chase it down.

39:04 And that's that. That is a strategy. I shouldn't be critical of that, but I think it was important. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to get out and do proactive research to look for things find them myself, and we had some successes. There have been opportunities to find footprints in the field on several different occasions. I've heard vocalizations, I've had things visit or camp and stuff like that tense and so we've had those minor successes, but just not the not the real brass ring. Yeah well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you think of maybe a particular book that was very influential in as you were coming up through the years that you really relied on.

39:50 Oh yeah, the first book I ever asked for as a gift from Saranta. Yeah, Ivan Sanderson's almost no man legend come to life, and I devoured that. I read that multiple times as a kid, and was a pretty young kid. I was probably sixth grade when I got it. Read that through That's how I learned geography and was fascinated with maps and plotting things and understanding the terrain where the habitat for these absms as he referred to them as acronym for a vomitable snowmen. And so it was that certainly had probably significant influence. And then shortly on the heels, right about the same time, I guess, because it would have been just before that I got Roger Patterson's book. I had attended showing of the film and Spokeanne in sixty eight and.

40:44 Wow, really book, right, oh man. Then the third one, I think was the those first three were really the significance was John Green's On the Track of the Sasquatch, because it turned out that my librarian at my elementary school was John Green's niece, and she and spaking new copy of his book that he had just sent down to her when I was doing report on Sasquatch as a sixth grader while we did our unit on primates, and she had his book and a whole filing clippings file with newspaper and magazine articles that she had accumulated because of her interests, her family's interest in or her uncle's interests. And wow, so those three, I think we're the We're the three and I still have those. I still have those.

41:36 Oh you still have the original copies. Yeah, that's so cool. That is so cool. Wow, very cool. I can't imagine like the synchronicity or the like related. Yeah, that's weird, man. I know it's crazy hindsight in hindsight, but I say for anybody who ends up somewhere hindsight, it seems that the stars will want if you step back and you think about the circumstances that dictate which forks in the road you select, it really is pretty amazing. And yeah, it's some of the circumstances and coincidences that happened are really uncanny. And it's been an interesting right, no matter what the outcome. Yeah. I always tell people that not to expect to go out on a weekend and solve, and that you need to cultivate and enjoyment of the process.

42:34 That is just as much an important part. That's why I get a little disappointed. We were actually discussing the possibility of doing something on television and how could it be done differently. And one of the conversations I was having with the producer was the people who were watching, the real loyal audience. They're interested in the process. It's a big joke that find but after what twelve seasons, hasn't found Bigfoot? That's fine, but if you followed them, yeah, you got to visit all of these different places. I was here this morning actually was watching some old episodes that I had not seen. As I said, I'm not a cable guy, but since we've got our firestick plugged in and we subscribe to a couple of stations, I can catch up with it. And when they do that, when they actually show you the process, it's interesting. It's disappointing when they gloss over the process. It was one episode and I won't mention who's doing what. But they were in a cave and there were actually bones, there were deer bones probably, but they just oh, yeah, dear when they walked on. That's the whole reason to be in the cave is to look for remains. Look for that's where again Epithecus teeth were found when a porcupine carried a jaw into a limestone cave, chewed it up and the bits got fossilized in the limestone the alkaline environment.

43:57 So that's what it's the process. Bring in ar and they were mapping the inside the cave and that was quite interesting. But it's always superficial. They always splash these images that don't really convey anything except the impression of what was done. And I was trying to impress the producer that you need to do something that's more of a documentary style rather than this sational where you build up to the commercial break in the right. Oh man, at tension is the only thing that you're apt for ratings, I said, The ratings will follow. The ratings will follow if you give them meat on the bones. But true, True'll see, Yeah, you'll have to. They did a new special. There's actually a new Finding Bigfoot special on Discovery Plus. You have to check it out.

44:43 It's been Expedition Bigfoot. You no, Finding Bigfoot came back for special? Oh no, I see on Discovery Plus. Yeah, it's pretty cool. They go to West Virginia and stuff. Oh all right, okay, what observations do you remember from seeing the film in sixty eight at that presentation. Yeah, when I reflected back, it's see what you remember and what you don't remember. Not an impression even more than they make a memory. You have flashes of the visual of course, when that when the Patty, if we can call it, that goes walking across the screen larger than life. We were in that that gigantic projection screen, and I and my father and I and my brother were on the third row, and so it was larger than life walking across that and then it started open the close ups and it was just amazing. The others there were just bits and pieces that made impressions, but it was always that was the main impact. Mike Rugg had come upon a copy of the theatrical release of that film, that documentary, the Showcase, and he showed it at one of his confidences that I spoke at. It was interesting because I didn't It was like, in some ways it was like seeing it anew because I'll though that had such an impact on me. It was only ten at the time, and there were a lot of parts of it that I didn't remember at all.

46:08 Interesting. That's interesting, But. It was mostly the it was mostly that that film clip seeing that. Was the that's awesome. Yeah, what have been the what would you say the top three people that have been influential to you over the years are. Oh yeah, let's see, the list could have been longer. Had some unfortunate interactions with a few people that were extremely Yeah, we'll go stay with the positive ones. Yeah, I'm just saying that it sometimes people don't realize the impact that they're having on someone. That's a good lesson. Yeah, I think. Yeah, this is a great story too. That the first Doornity short story, the first doc tunity I had to present some of my findings and conclusions, was based on the what became known as the Redwoods Video or the Playmate video, also known as and that was up at Harrison Hot Springs. And I got up there and had been told that the arrangements had been made. Of course, arrangements had been made for my travel and so forth being a speaker. And when I got to the front desk, there was no room for me. Boke nothing, no cancelations, no nothing. And so I jokingly said, hey, can I at least camp on the beach down by the lake and here on the lodge grounds, and I heard this voice from behind me says, don't be ridiculous, you're coming home with me. I turned around and it was John Green,

47:40 whoa cool I just was starstruck. And so I got to spend that entire weekend as his house guest, on the downtime between conference sessions. And to boot his other house guest was none none other than John Bindernagel Wow to the to the persona on a personal level. Then to spend my evenings with those two, that's where we discovered that my librarian was his knees And he goes, how did you? How do you know so much? Because I had When at that age when I got interested in a topic, I was a little bit obsessive and really dug deep, as I said, even though my interests would bounce around, and so I had my own you know, it's the end. Also, in preparation for this report, I did a lot of research, but I did lots of things.

48:35 I in addition to clipping newspaper articles and finding magazines and so forth, going looking on the microfilm at the library. When the documentaries would come out, we'd wait until they came to the drive in theater and then we would record the soundtrack on a cassette record. Well, that's so cool, so you can listen. Or even I even smuggled and I got a smaller when I'd smuggle it into the to the into the movie theater and I would record those and then I would listen to them at night. I would all amazing into rock and roll music. But listening to that, he always follows the Greeks stop track to the legend of Boggy Creek and the creature of black Clay and so forth. Wow.

49:16 Oh. We didn't have coffee machines, and so when I would check out a book from the library with a passage about the bomb Snowman, I would sit my mom's typewriter and with two fingers type out that transcribe that section so I could so I would learn these things really thoroughly. So John was how he was very curious. And then I told him about doing this report and that miss or the librarian. I couldn't remember he name. It just said librarian. And he said do you remember her name? And I said no. He asked which school it was, Indian Trail Elementary and Spokane, Washington. Do you remember your library? No? I don't remember. It's been forty forty years, thirty years, twenty years back then. And he said, was it Mary Bessecer? And you know when someone said and you remember the familiar? And he dropped and immediately he said, that's my niece. And he reaches over and he picks up the foot dials or number. Hey, Mary, you'll never guess who's sitting across the table from you.

50:15 Remember that little who was the first one to check out your book? And she did, she remembered, So that is so cool. It was just really amazing. Oh man, there's something I want to ask you about. I'm gonna I'm going to really put myself out there because I can't verify what I'm about to ask. But we'll see if this is actually a thing. Okay, so be nice if I'm totally off. But I think I remember hearing Danny Perez tell a story where there was a group of you that took a car down to the film site. Is that actually a thing? And it was like you and some other people. The occasion was the dedication the grand opening of the new wing of the Willow Creek Museum.

50:57 Okay, and in. Concert with I think the conquer. It was held in concert with them, or I may be conflating two events, but in any case, there was a conference at the Willow Creek Museum and it included a field trip, and so I rode a bus down with one of the groups and hooked back up with them. I got a nice portrait with me and Danny and Bob and the whole bunch of Dmitri Balyanov was there and so on. John Binder Nichol was in the picture, and we got to actually go down there, and I was right there at John's or Bob Gimlin's elbows. He and this was his first opportunity to be back, so he was remembering back all those years place, and the place was overgrown with alders when we were there. It was very different.

51:49 When he was there. There had been a couple of seasonal bloods, rather severe floods, that had showered the creek bed and opened up that sand bar, so you sea paddy walking across the open are All that sandbar had been overgrown with alders and it was pretty thickly vegetated. So it was interesting to see him remember remember landmarks, big trees or walk out crops and so forth, and they were pretty sure that they were darn close to the spot. That was interesting to be there. I scooped up a little sample of the sand Oh yeah, film canister, both as a memento but also I actually when I did the Ichno taxonomy and we named the footprints, I had a colleague of mine who's a physical geologist, do a formal description of the geological and chemical characteristics of the sand of the sandbar in which the tracks were made.

52:51 When he made the call, he said, it's interesting because the sand was not the granite kind of quart side type of sand. It was a very eroded shale and very angular grains which when compacted when moist, really held their shape. And that's why the footprints were so clear and could be this is that went there even weeks, if not months after the fact and still see the trackway for seeding. It was, Yeah, it was quite interesting. That is really cool, as there's a ton like the interest in Bigfoot right now is extremely high. I would say over the last few years, it just keeps getting grazier and crazier. If you're thinking about the current generation, even younger than I am, twenties eighteen around there what are what are the skills that the next generation really needs to focus on in order to be effective bigfoot researchers.

53:52 There's so many facets to the research, and that's one of the challenges of appearing to be the only academic seriously involved with it. Is one of the one of the hats I do down is ringmaster if you will, do you want to call it a circus, It feels like a circus sometimes, but trying to direct resources and personnel towards particular topics, or rather direct the topics to people who can have an impact on it, whether it's bioacoustics, or whether it's DNA analysis, or whether it's hair analysis and so forth, and so in an individual researcher, if they can certainly educate themselves in a variety of ways.

54:32 When I sometimes when I speak at conferences, we add on some workshops. I've done this as a primary topic of presentation as well, just a footprints one oh one, oh wow, Yeah, what is it that we're looking at and what's the nature of the dynamic signature of a footstep of a static foot Totally there's been a an upsurge as well in MISSI identification of bear tracks for example, and interesting bear sightings bear photographs. I can go on fine and look for bigfoot photos, and I was for this presentation I did on bears and bigfoot the similarities and differences, and I easily pulled out more than a half a dozen examples that have been attributed photos that have been attributed to sasquatch that are absolutely clearly bear.

55:25 Prominent amongst those the Jacob's photo which has created all kinds of heat and very little light in the conversations about it. But anyway, there are such tremendous resources available to someone online. I point out that being able to differentiate a bear from a bigfoot it's really not rocket science. It does take a knack for noticing detail and so forth, but with a little effort, you too can do this at all. You can. Yeah, you can create your own atlas. You're a little of bigfoot track by just googling I'm sorry, bigfoot tracks, no bear tracks as far of the miss book bear tracks by googling bear tracks and put together and get familiar with the differences. Now you may need someone to walk you through to really notice and recognize the distinctions, but it won't take you very long to be able to tell the difference. And there's again also some embarrassing situations where people who should have known better, have whatever motivation, either naivete ignorance, or have attributed bigfoot or sasquatch status to what's obviously a bear print. So that's one I tell people again, you pick out an area close to you a rule of thumb. Since we're talking about bears, there's been a very interesting paper published that shows remarkable similarity in the estimated range of sasquatch with the known range of black bears, really various bioclimatic

56:59 factors and so on, and it makes sense. It's not really because you've got too large on divorce and while they're preferred, resources certainly are distinct but overlap and anyway. But the point is, so a rule of thumb is, I think, is a starting point. A reliable rule of thumb is are there black bear in your selected study area? If there's not, if there never have been, or they've been extirpated because of population growth and development and expansion and impact hunting and so forth, then if a bear can't make a living in that spot, it's not very likely that a eight hundred or eight foot thousand pounds sasquatch.

57:42 Yeah that's smart. Yeah, social unit could as well. But once you've got that narrowed down, then just get familiar with it. Instead of all over thinking thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side, it's better to get familiar with an area that you can spend time. Man. Yeah, encounters are serendipitous by chance. People who so it's like wintering at winning a lottery. It won't win unless you buy a ticket. The more tickets you buy, so the more time you can spend in the field. That was one mistake I made early on in my efforts. I was trying to network with a lot of people to maximize the eyes and ears and hands and feet that were employed in this effort. But in the process we would spend an awful lot of time and resource traveling to these far flowng areas in the Pacific Northwest and so forth, and then realize that, hey, there are lots of reports right here in eastern Idaho and western Wyoming that we on and spend, like you said, spend more time weekends and so forth checking things out. And so that's what I encourage people to do is cultivate research and familiarity with their own yard. If you will understand the animals, it's become a naturalists, become an amateur naturalist and enjoy doing this.

59:12 That is man, that alone right there, that is worth the price of listening to this podcast, which is zero. But that was amazing, Like, that's awesome answer, thank you. Is there a thing that you wish? So here's the thing I found out about you. You do a lot of interviews, like, hats off to you. You are all over the place, like you really get a lot of stuff. Is there a thing that people never ask you that they wish you wish that they would bring up? Or no, it's all over that. I try even when I get the repeated strids, I try to put a different spin on it each time. But yeah, nice, it's hard to know or hard to answer that. I can't think of specific things. Sometimes questions are very specific. Something's just happened. But the footprints that were found wound up in the British Columbia. The rams now online and this set a footprint in the mud. So I responded on Facebook and post someone shared it with me. Thankfully. People do send me things and sometimes I preface it with you probably already know about this, but I'll send you anyway, and oh, hey, I appreciate it. I don't have the time to sit there with bolts all the time. It's like I said, more eyes and ears sharing things that are going on. But this someone shared this with me and I took a look at it. In the first glance, I was described as huge footprints, huge footprints that were lopping eleven inches long, that's on the upper end of human, but not quite. And they were measuring to the outside

1:00:44 of the extrusion of the footprint, and so instead of down inside where the actual footwidth was documented. It was only four inches across, not six or seven inches across. And it had an arch. It had the human toad dis position, the big toe and then the little toes are much smaller pads that angle down and so forth. It was a very distinctive heel imprint. There's a great opportunity. What I try to do on my Facebook page is take those circumstances and bend them to a teaching opportunity and educate a little bit as well, And not to put down anyone or anything, but to educate what.

1:01:26 Are the top books that someone just getting into Bigfoot should get on Amazon, like today. Yep, you got to get Sasquatch, Leisure, Meade Science, I mean at number one, right, that's the thing, right, And then I'll put a plug in for my field guide that has turned out to be a real useful little tool because totally sad and not only for more experienced seasoned outdoors enthusiast who get into this, but it's been a great tool for kids as well. Yeah, fun too, so that when kids go out in the forest, they're looking for and they're asking questions about footprints and nests and different things that they find. So I always enjoyed that kind of feedback other books. It depends on what you're trying to do. If you're trying to really get a sense of what I believe Sasquatch. His books like John binder Nagels Orth America's Great Ape to Sasquatch is great, Robert Howe's Rainco Sasquatch is great.

1:02:27 Oh yeah. From a historical perspective, Chris Murphy has done a fantastic job with his Meet the Sasquatch and Know the Sasquatch. I have a very visual learner and a book that's replete with all these historical photographs. Photographs is just an amazing treasure trove of information. Of course, the classics like John Green's his trilogy, plus then the Apes among Us is a really a mustery. I think Sanderson's is a classic. It's one that you have to read to say that you've read it, and you'll still gain a lot. And he's got so many such an archive of accounts. To the extent they're reliable. There's always a question about the reliability of some of those anecdotal reports, but but there are things, there are problems. Grover Krantz's book is still great introduction to footprints as well. I've really stood on Grover's shoulders in many ways, many many aspects, and was able to push forward and I think correct tweak a few misconceptions that he had. His specialty was he was a very accomplished anatomist and physical anthropologist, but he wasn't a specialist in footprints, and so we had some enlightening conversations about the Bossburg tracks and about the mid Tarsal break and so on. Boy the list though, yeah, that's a good start.

1:03:52 I have a few topics and I'm curious what your snap reactions to them are. All Right, here we go, Mothman. Oh, it's curious. I don't have enough information, enough personal study to have a informed opinion. Okay, I don't equate those types of paranormal phenomenon with what I'm taking to gotcha, whether it's biological species behind the legend of Sasquatch? Okay, cool? Van meter visitor? You ever heard of it? Ooh, it's an Iowa cryptid called the van meter visitor. Have you ever heard of it? I've never heard of that. It's cool. You should check it out. You should check it out. Okay, it's like this, like wings pterodactyl terrorized a town in the eighteen hundreds. It's pretty cool. I always bring it up. Anyways, the nineteen seventy six movie In Search of Bigfoot. Any thoughts sure that.

1:04:41 Was the one with Leonard Neimoy? Was that with Leonard Nimoy or was that with Peter Graves? I usually focus on Robert W. Morgan, but Nonemoy's in that. I'm pretty sure Niemoy was the host. Yeah, you know, and Peter Graves was Mysterious Monsters. That was also a great movie. But yeah. Have again, the impact was more substantial now than my recollection of the detail. Gotcha, I had Peter Graves or the book that was spawned from Mysterious Monsters the documentary. Oh cool, those images are a little more reinforced. Yeah. Now, I like In Search of Bigfoot and also the In Search of series. Does I know they're separate, but I like both of them.

1:05:21 Hey there's another Star Trek connection. I've been true. That's true. I've been introduced by Leonard Nimoy and Jonathan Frakes. Oh have you really? That's awesome, that's so cool. Eight Canyon attack? Eight canyon attacks? Is that the story or the. Story in nineteen twenty four had? Sure? Oh? Yes, again. It's it's an interesting how much is historical and how much is historical embellishment. I think it very likely when you went through a lot of the some of the chaff, that something occurred and that they did have encounters. Why not? Area is prime country, and so I don't know what motivation they would have.

1:06:06 And I can understand motivation of somebody to prank them potentially to scare them off a claim, or to afford their efforts or something like that, But why those individuals would claim such things and precipitate such ridicule on themselves at that time. At that time, it was still pretty risky business. To Yeah, and it's so far out there too, it'd be hard to go out and prank them. But yeah, it's such a classic bigfoot story historically. The air sounds fascinating. I again, I have had the opportunity to get very well acquainted with Ron moorehead and understand him, and I have There's just a couple of reservations that I have, and the one that still hitches.

1:06:51 There's two two. One is the footprints associated with the circumstances. Interesting. The footprints are not satisfying, okay, in that they just aren't anatomically very satisfying, is what I mean. They're very wet shaped. You cannot tell whether you're looking at a right or left foot. They're bi latterly symmetrical toes straight across the end. There's no toe angle, there's no differential size. There's no nice big rounded heel, at least in the examples that I've seen, And I can't say if that's exhaustive or not sure. The only thing is I find the vocalization is really interesting. I'm especially intrigued by the whistles because there, even to my ear, there was the sense of a harmonic as if there was an overtone being created by the modulation of the fairynx. That ties into the potential of extra laryngeal air sacks and also associate with that the production of infrasound, which I think is a fascinating totally but nevertheless, but I don't think I'm not I stopped short of acknowledging that there's evidence of language. Okay, had some interesting discussions with Scott and Nelson.

1:08:08 I still hope we can continue those, but he hasn't convinced me of all of the conclusions that he's drawn from those vocalizations. Totally hoping we can get some more involvement with that. I keep pushing him to write up some of his findings and to submit him to the Relic Hominoid Inquiry. There's another listeners should avail themselves out is my online journal that I edit, and if we could get those out and involve some other linguists commenting and dialoguing on that, I think that would be very productively, very fascinating. Yeah, there's such the info on that journal is so cool. I had interviewed doctor Haskellhart due to an article he has up. There's very cool.

1:08:52 Yeah. But last, but not least so last one is have you ever heard of Skinwalker Ranch? I have, I've read a little bit. I've had a lot of people send me stuff about it. I watched a little bit of it on the TV in one of the documentaries. Not impressed. Just not don't I've any time. I don't dismiss paranormal phenomena. I have just not personally experienced any of the things that are being asserted. Sure that occur on Skinwalker Ranch, and whenever i'm there present nothing happens. Or when someone produces documentation of their experience.

1:09:35 For example, there was a man who was just trying to convince me that he had been seeing orbs of light taking pictures. Yes, of course I've taken pictures. There. We go, send me the best example you have of orbs. So he posted the picture, sent me an email picture. It was a flash photo taken at night all and comes straight down and he goes, look there's orbs everywhere. So yeah, those pollen grains. I've been out there. I've been we were a couple of summers ago in Colorado when the big Ponderosa pines were pollinating. That pollen ends up being inches thick because it blows around on the ground, but as it's flying, you turn on your headlight, you go back to your tent, and you couldn't hardly see.

1:10:19 It was like you were in a blizzard. Oh man. People are interpreting things like that as orbs of light. So same thing with Skinwalker Ranch. I'd love to be proven wrong. I think it'd be fascinating to explore some of those phenomenon, but so far, no one's ever provided the pudding. Just to clarify because I know a few people are going to ask this, So have you It sounded like you'd been there, but I'm thinking you have it, Okay. I just want to clear that I've actually been there. Okay. Cool. I've been to some locations or sites where people have had claimed, have had silver and so forth. Gotcha, gotcha, I'm a stick in the mud. I guess I'm the party pooper.

1:11:01 That's all right. You're busy enough with all the bigfoot stuff, so we want you to focus on that. Oh man, Doctor Meldrum, this has been like super fun thank you so much for hanging out. I remember when I first approached you about this. Are you still okay with staying a few minutes on after the episode. Oh yes, sure, that's fine. Perfect. Sorry about not checking with that earlier on. But yeah, remind the listeners how they can best follow your work. Yeah. I don't have a web page, per se. I do have a face page and I try to post. There are sometimes some lapses, so my Facebook page which is under my full name Don Jeffrey Meldrum. Okay. But also I would again highly recommend checking out the Reliccommanoid Inquiry definitely at www dot isu dot edu. So my university I SU dot edu, forward splash r hi, or if you just google Relic Hoomanoid Inquiry you'll find it.

1:12:00 And we're in our tenth year now, so we've got accumulating quite a number of interesting articles, some research papers, some great historical translations, transcriptions of Marria Jing, Kaufman's paper, Moginer's paper from Mongolia, his writings, and so forth. There's some great book reviews. Again, and the book reviews not their essay style book reviews, so they're really media, not just this book was published and it has two hundred pages and three figures in the table of content it goes. They go deep into the topic and oftentimes actually have responses from the. Authors to the Oh that's cool. Yeah, totally.

1:12:41 So we try to get a lot of comments and dialogue going back and forth. But that's a great way to see some really interesting stuff. Awesome. We thank you. It's been reviewed peer reviewed. Very good, very Thank you again so much for coming on tonight, doctor Meldrum, and thank you again to all the listeners for hanging out with us. I think I already know the answer is the first one. I'm guessing. So no UFO or ghost stories. I actually have a UFO story. Oh you do, okay, Yeah, and I actually have an interesting ghost story too, Oh okay, all right, yeah, if you want to do that my us. It's not very dramatic, but it was. I was on a date and we were stargazing, literally stargazing and the person getting quainted. But we were on YU campus in Utah and okay, out by the clock tower and watching the sky. And as a kid, we often had most of the homes in my neighborhood had sun decks, and so we would often have slumber parties, the kids in the neighbor the kids on our street, about thirty nine kids in K through twelve on our street, lots of families.

1:13:49 But so we oftentimes had these summer slumber parties and just wall the wall, sleeping bags on the deck, and we'd be watching the stars and pointing out constellations, and of course watching for satellites or shooting stars and this. So I was very familiar with what a satellite looks like when it's dejects, and all of a sudden we saw something. Instead of an oblique trajectory from northwest to southwest or something like that, this thing was moving in a similar fashion, but moving due from north to south, just straight as narrow. And that wasn't that unusual, except that once it got right over the top of us, and it was just a little spot of light it made it executed two right angle turns, just as sharp as if you had a square up there. This man and I'm watching that for a second, and I turned and I looked at my date and I don't even remember, Nate, did you see that? She said, yeah, have you ever seen anything do that? And no, I have never. How could anything actually do that.

1:14:46 So that was the one that's crazy. The other one happened. It was the ghost story happened up at in Wyoming at John Manzinski's place. John and I have spent a lot of time together. And I was up there and he has a cabin that he built himself and has a little guest cabin for people that visit. It's just one hundred one hundred and fifty yards down this trail separated from his cabin, and it's just a little one room. And I was in there and during the night I something woke me up, or I became aware of something in the room. I thought, now I don't have great vision. I'm twenty two thousand something. Legally, I thought my contact lenses were going wow. So at night I still see, but at night my vision is compromised in my classroom, right where I put them. Then I'm in trouble. But I rolled over and and this cabin has these huge picture windows around the almost all the way around on three of the four walls have huge picture windows with no curtains or drapes, and it's pretty dark, but the little ambient starlights coming in and standing next to my bed, he brought up moth Man.

1:15:58 This almost looked like man. It was this sort of ambiguous looking rounded shape with these two luminescent eyes, and it was just the shimmering apparent appearance was just my blurried vision. And I looked for a second and it was just two or three feet removed from the bed, and I looked at it and I just thought it's weird. And I rolled over, turned my back to it, and went back to sleep. The next morning, I just had this kind of creepy feeling about it. And the next morning I asked I told him. I didn't ask him. I just said, oh, I had the weirdest dream last night, I said, I dreamt. I rolled over and I described what I saw. He's sitting there just looking at me.

1:16:41 He said, we're about the third person who's described that, no way, And then he told me about his experience. He had something. It has deep Indian tradition roots, but something had There was a short cut from down there. He lives just outside of Atlantic City, which is just an old ghost town almost, and there was a shortcut. His cabin is up on the shoulder of the hill above the town, and he was walking that shortcut, which took him past this big, old dead snag of a tree, and he had a dog with him at that time, and the dog as they approached the tree, the dog started to bristle and growl. The dog kept watching the tree as they walked past, and he called the dog and the dog came along. He went into the cabin and the dog came in and turned around and just watched the door of the cabin and then the dog.

1:17:39 He said, the dog's eyes followed something come through the door into the cabin. The dog walked paste it with his eyes flowing across man. Anyway, that night, John had a dream about a figure that was like on his was a little clear. It was like a giant owl. And suddenly the owl and in his at least dream, you thought it pounced on him. And in this owl it stands like by people they were wrestling, and he said he felt like this was a life or death struggle for him. And anyway, he woke up the next morning just covered in sweat. His bed linens and things are just ripped apart, and the floor and anyway, he talked to a shaman about it, an elder, and he immediately recognized it. There's a name for it. I can't remember what the name is. Really, the creature that the spirit that that when your life is at a crossroads or very depressed or whatever, sometimes you encounter this spirit and you you said, if you had lost your fight, your battle with this, you may not have survived. Tell about it. Oh man, So this is very deeply entrenched in their traditional beliefs, and so I may have caught a glimpse of that. I that's a perceiving any cross in my life. I was trying to think back to the circumstances at that time if there was something going on, But apparently it wasn't so bad that that it was deemed I needed to wrestle with the Yes, wrestling with

1:19:11 the angel the biblical. Exactly Old Testament style. Yeah. Last question, so when people, for some reason around my generation, we really like the Monster Quest episode when you're in Snellgrove Lake, it's just it's something about it's like it's all over the place, like people really like it. Do you have any memories from being in that episode or that. Was very big? Yeah, and you're referring to the first one, the first that's true. There are two, aren't Yeah, there were two. The first one, yeah, it was, and it was funny too because the way it was edited about the more sensation a little bit. And that was when the rock.

1:19:58 So for those who don't aren't familiar with the baseasically, we often after the day's activities, we would tend to stay up late at night to listen for things, and sometimes to do a wood knock. On those days do a wood knock. And I wasn't a huge fan of it even then, but and we'd throw our voices make calls because out there on the lake when cold night, boy, it would just carry. And when it was really still, you could hear things on the opposite side of the lake a good half mile away, as if they were standing right next to you, as if the sound was going to go next. So that was really care anyway, one night and that night we heard a vocalization seemed to be responding to one of our YenS, really just a distant trailing call. And then so we would, like I said, we'd often stay up later on. This campfire was basically a culvert sunk into the ground, stuck up about two feet with a rim sparks down and I was I'm not a great night out and back then especially was I was orderedlying narc elliptic. I'd really discovered that I had actually have central sleep apnea. Oh wow, yeah, dealing with now. But I was notorious. I could fall asleep just if I sat still, or if I was in the passenger seat of the car, or if it got past ten o'clock, I would just fall asleep anyway.

1:21:23 And so by about eleven twelve, I was really starting to get punchy, so I went in the cabin to just splash cold water in my face. While I was in there, the producer's son came out onto the porch. He didn't want to go to the outhouse, which was about oh twenty yards behind the cabin, down a catwalk in the dark. It's quite removed, and he goes on the porch to relieve himself, and all of a sudden twange, just the sound of a like someone had shot a beaty agun against this metal siding on the cabin was sighted all the way around, as well as a corrugated roof, and something that thrown just a little pea sized rock or something. It just made a ping, one of those ping sounds. But it was right next to this kid and his eyes were the size of saucers, and he's hiking his pants back up, and CON see him running back out to the fire. So I finished what I was doing, dry it off, and came out and they said, did you hear that? Did you? Guys say yeah, I did.

1:22:21 I said, which one of you did it? I looked at everybody, we were all over. I was just probing them. Then Hurt Nelson picks up a rock. He said, I'm going to throw a rock in that direction, and I jokingly said, don't throw anything too big. It might throw it back. Oh man, He picks up a golf ball sized rock and he lobs it back. Then you could hear it report bounce off a couple of trees and nothing. So about ten to fifteen minutes go by that much, and I just happened. I was on the right side, the correct side, away from the cabin and my out of my peripheral vision, I just happened to glance up because into the illumination of the firelight comes this the roof of the cabin, the direction he'd thrown it. It was off from a different angle, but nevertheless, the coincidence was there, and it was so funny because they all go running into the cabin and I'm saying, where are you going? Oh, this is why we're here exactly, this is it. Yeah, And it was funny because there was some firewood when when the producer's son, he wasn't a real outdoors kid and not a lot of experience, you know how you when you when a youngster has his first experience with an axe, they chopped, actually chop anything, but he chopped all this firewood, this little cord wooden and it was in the shadow cast from the covert lip.

1:23:46 I didn't see it. As I stepped back, I stepped on one and rolled my ankle. Oh no, I went falling down. So from the cabin it looked like I'd been beaned by the second rock or a second rock. Not the second rock, but a second rock. To their credit, the team came out to my rescue to make sure. Nice of them. Yeah, But then unfortunately on camera Kurt saying here we are cowering in the cabin. I got so much email as a result of that. One mine, what are you doing in the cabin? Why aren't you out there looking for And I said, well, here's what actually happened. That's intense. Yeah, wow, Now what happened. What was really interesting though, is that we finally did by about two thirty, I was falling asleep, almost falling into the fire, and I said, I'm gonna go to bed this nothing else is happening.

1:24:34 And we had gone back into the woods. We had a very at that time, a very sort of primitive sort of thermal imager. It was not like the little miniature Fleers and in fact, the only way we could use it is if a technician from the company came with it, oh wow, to handle it. And we also had night vision, and we had gone back into the woods looking. We had ventured out, but you couldn't see anything. It was precarious because up there on the Canadian shield it can be very rocky with all kinds of splits and crevices, and there's moss covering it, and just like you step and break a leg and so trakes in around in the pitch black was a little bit precarious.

1:25:16 So we eventually regrouped around the fire. Finally I said, I can't I'm going to fall asleep and fall in the fire. So we went all to side. We all go to bed, but we keep our boots on just in case. Yeah, just in case, like firemen on the ready for that arm to go off. And I tell you, the lights had gone out and my lids were just getting heavy, and all the bang across the roof last time, it wasn't a little rock. It was a big chunk of cordwood from the woodpile back in the back. Oh really wow, across the roof and fell off the stoop and was on the catwalk in the back. We looked out the first of all, there were screams. You would have thought we had some on the in the group with us. But lights went on. I said, turn the lights off. Turn the lights off, I said, so we could see out and they couldn't see it. And I was so eager to go running out into the darkness if it was raining cord wood. But still no sign of anything, and nothing happened. So that was the extent of it. But it was an interesting that is really cool.

1:26:18 That is cool to hear your side of that. Yeah, oh man, wow, Thank you so much, doctor Meldrein. This has been fantastic and I really appreciate you taking your time tonight and hanging out. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Big Society Podcast. Every encounter we share reminds us that the world is bigger and stranger than we think, and that the truth is often hiding just beyond the tree line. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the channel on YouTube hit the bell so you don't miss the next episode, and share this with a friend who's into mysteries, monsters, or the unexplained. And if you're listening to us on Spotify or Apple podcast, please follow the show there and leave us a five star positive review because all that helps more people discover the show. And remember, if you or someone you know has had a bigfoot sighting, please I'd love to hear from you, so email me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com and let's start the conversation.

1:27:14 If you haven't gotten a chance yet, check out our membership community over at www dot Bigfoot Society podcast dot com and that's where you can hear tomorrow's episode today early in ad free and members only episodes every week. Also, it's a place to connect with other people that are into the Bigfoot subject as much as you are. Thanks again for following along with the Bigfoot Society. Until next time, keep your eyes open, trust your gut, and never stop asking what else might be out there? And see you in the woods.