Jeff Carpenter, Western North Carolina Bigfoot Researcher

0:00 Either you're listening to the Big Fast Society podcast and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Every week I talk to individuals who have experienced sasquats in some way or another, so you won't want to miss an episode. Make sure you're subscribed on the platform that you're listening to, and share this episode where the friend does not cost a thing, and it helps the show continue to grow. If you'd like to hear Bigfoot Society episodes early in ad free, you can do so by becoming a Patreon supporter or a YouTube channel member. Links to those are in the show notes and big Foot Society. I've taken far too much of your time so far, so let's get on with the show. Three two one, All right, Big Faciety. You have the privilege of talking to mister Jeff Carpenter from the great state of North Carolina tonight. How's it going, Jeff good. I'll just laughing a little bit about that, mister thing.

0:58 Jeff works just fine. Mister makes me feel real old Jeremia. Mister Carpenter's my father, and you are. You are in a cool part of North carol You're out in the western part near Cherokee and the Great Smoky Mountains and you got all that cool stuff going on. And just to give a little background about you, and we'll hear much more later. But you're with the BFRO, You're with the KBrO, which is a Kentucky Bigfoot research organization, and you've got some other another group you're in. But we'll hear about that later. But how's it going tonight out there, Jeff, It's going good, a little better than the first time. We try to think. We both were having some electrical storms going on last week, but doing great.

1:42 Jeremiah, living a little background, living sel, North Carolina. That's s y o Va. It's right near Cherokee, North Carolina, where most people know because of the casino now on the Smokies. We're just right outside. I'm about ten miles out of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in western North Carolina and lived here. My family's been here in western North Carolina since the early late seventeen hundreds probably, And uh, we have a rich I like to talk about a little bit. It's okay about my Appalachian history. And when we were talking on the phone, it was really neat to hear that your you and your dad both had read the fox Fire Books and I like to tell people my family are just Appalachian people that grew up right outside of Clayton, Georgia, on the North Carolina line and otto North Carolina.

2:30 And they were my grandfather Harley Carpenter, And I think he might have a picture of Papa there. He was one of the first people interviewed for the fox Fire Books series, and later on they made a play out of the book and yeah, that's Papa telling telling the tale there. He was definitely a mountain man for sure, and loved a lot of things, you know there. Uh, was one of the first people getting interviewed for the fox Fire Boo books. And my great aunt Airy Carpenter by marriage, was the person that made the movie about with John Denver and Hugh Crohne and Jessica Tandy. She played at Airy Carpenter And that's on the cover of the first book.

3:13 I think that you said you have there. Oh, was there a movie about it too? Yeah, it was made as a Hallmark movie. Yeah. The whole gist of the story, which is really impactful nowadays, is you know they didn't want her husband had died and she was there a son which was John Denver was trying to get her to sell Hear mountain property and moved down to outside of Atlanta, and she just didn't want to do that, you know. And she lived a little cabin, little cabin type thing. And I'm just very proud of my mountain heritage, and I bring this up in all my presentations because I do want people to understand where I'm from and my family, my background, because it's a little different. I had a great upbringing by my parents. Now, they were very country.

3:58 Some people would call my families dirt people, which is a derogatory mark in my mind, but they're Appalachian mountain people. And how's my father, Irvin Carpenter. He was just it's hard for me to talk about. My Daddy's been passed away about thirty years now. Now. It gave you that picture because he's really proud of that when he won the Biggest Gobbler contest in nineteen eighty one. But that was a daddy was a mountains man, mountain man. Now he they've written stories about. My Daddy's nickname was Old High Top. He just loved the mountains more than anybody ever met. And I grew up I think I went raccoon hunting the first time when I was maybe six years old or five of my dad. So I'm very comfortable being out in the woods of a night and a dark and Deddy helped, by the way, give you a little tidbit our jeeryman. He helped restock the turkey back in western North Carolina through the Wild Turkey Federation. They were about gone.

4:55 Papa used to call him mud hens. That was one of his nicknames for him, and grew up learned how to call them with a brier leaf and things like that. But I always tell people Appalachian people, uh, you know, we're looked down upon a lot of it's caused the movies and things. But they were probably the most resourceful people, you know. They, in my opinion, vented recycling. My grandfather on both sides never would go away now because it was hard to get come by. The reason I bring all this up though, to kind of cut short here is two people understand my background. As my father raised me, he was a master tracker. And again we jin sang hunt deer, hunt raccoon at fish. But we just would just spend a lot of time in the woods and uh, you know, He taught me about looking at track and sign it's not the big things you look for us to subtle things that you try to find, you know, that type of thing. And he was just the best. He raised a lot of other guys besides me and my brother out in the woods, and he was just a real special person and I always paid tribute to Dad. He kind of got me here. I'll never forget Jeremi real quick.

6:02 Like, we were sitting in a place called Deer Cove and hopefully some of your listeners might know where that's out of there and making County, North Carolina, but it's a real remote place. We were jin Saint hunting and sitting on a ridge, and I'll never get dead. Was sitting over on a log away from just doing that far away look, you know, which I always kind of dreaded when I was a kid, because that means we're gonna go walking over that next ridge and there's no flat land where we live at. And he just said, you know, Jeff, you need to listen to the woods or the mountains. Sometimes they got something to say. And I found out very prophetic now kind of what I've gotten into, you know, So I don't think he ever had any strange sightings. He never missed to him, but he did see mountain lions. He's seen two mountain lions in his life, and which is a very rare thing to see here.

6:48 I know people say they're not here, but they do cruise through the area sometimes I do believe, and I've seen tracks, but I'm not actually seen one. But one of the things though is Appalachian people telling the truth is a big thing, as you probably know, just the way we're raised, and lying's kind of sin pretty much, and it's just you're supposed to be straightforward and truthful to people and honest, that type of thing. And I always kind of prefaced that because of things. I'll tell people where actually what happened, word for word, citing for sighting, what I heard, what I heard. It's just who I am, and it's been very successful for me for what I do. But this is what I am, and also my background to tell people that's listening. I was a parks and recreation director for about twenty eight years. I worked for Jackson County, North Carolina for thirty two years, and I'm a parks and recreation back A graduate from Western Carolina university and one of the first people in my family to graduate from college. So really proud of that. And that's a lot of my dad's doing again, and you know, he was just very much about education and learning things. But he taught me a lot about the woods that you just can't you just can't get any other way. If that makes sense. I think that makes a total sense. A lot of that that knowledge about the woods, especially from that area, you're not going to find in a book, but if you do, it's in the fox Fire books. You know,

8:22 as you alluded to, you know, my my I guess you could say my father was a naturalist slash camp director and he had those books and just the info in those books were just incredible. You and I read them when I was about ten, but it was my first introduction to the ways of Appalachian Appalachia even though we lived up in the northeast. And uh, it's just cool listeners. I'll have the links in the show notes. They're cool books. If you can find them. You're kind of hard to find now that they're very hard to find. Yeah, and by the way, there's a museum in Dealer George did Jeremy if you've ever done this way, and if you are, I appreciate horor at me, I'll kind of take around. But there is a museum there that's really neat for people to see.

9:05 It's in Dealer, Georgia. It's the official fox Fire Museum. You know. Oh wow, Yeah, totally. I'll put that on the on the trip list because we'll get over there eventually for expedition Bigfoot Museum. So I wanted to real quickly explain to people about our area that we live in Germany, to live near the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and you know, years ago, you know, I didn't really think about Big phil Lot. I've seen the film, but you know, that was kind of thing out in Northwest. You know, it's kind of cool, you know, but just didn't really think about it being here at all. But one thing a lot of people don't know about is how much public land we have in western North Carolina. I just want to give your listeners a little stature.

9:52 Everybody thinks about the Smokies, but the Smokies is really basically the smallest, one of the smallest that we have. So and these are all connected. Did jeremither all connected? There's Pezgan National Force. I'm gonna look at my notes if you don't mind, so I'll get the numbers right. Pezgan National Forces near Asheville is five hundred and twelve thousand acres. Then we have the Natahla National Force, which by the way, in Cherokee means the Land of the Noonday Sun. It has five hundred and thirty one thousand acres. And then we have Chattahoochee National Force, which is kind of North Carolina Georgia kind of you know, kind of goes across two or three states. That's eight hundred and sixty six thousand acres. And then the Smokies has five hundred and twenty two thousand acres a little more than that. So you have two million, four hundred and thirty two thousand acres that's connected. That's public land, and that's how big an area it is. And people don't really look at it that way. They look at the Smokeys and they just, I guess, just don't really realize that they're all connected and it's a vast area.

10:56 So what I'm getting at is a good friend of mine on Mitch and I think you've interviewed in Matt prude. He's one of the better researchers you ever meet. Great book out by the way. I'm talking to him this week about his book actually, so I'm excited. Talked to him again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell him. I said hello, and we talked once twice a month. Matt got me into this stuff. And I'll mentioned here in a minute, but uh it's He's like, Jeff, why do you go other places? You got the best place and on the East for sure, to research. And so I spend a lot of time here doing a lot of research. And I'm I'm more of a field researcher Jeremy. I like, this is the way I grew up. And since I'm retired now I've been retired about ten years, I get to spend a lot of time now. I'm just recovering fully recovered now from my fifth knee surgery, but from old college basketball injury. But it's a little set back this spring.

11:50 But usually, say last I think it's last year or year before last, I camped eighty two days maybe doing research, and uh, I just I just like it. Most time I'm by myself, and that sounds crazy, and that's not a good thing for the listeners to do. But again I'm a little comfortable with that, and I make sure everybody knows where I'm at. And I do like the idea of putting yourself out there a little bit where you're not a lot of people, if that makes sense, you know, But that's our area, and it's again if people's not been to. The western North Carolina area is very beautiful. The Smokies is the most visited park in the National Park System and also a little staff for people that don't know. It's also the most if I can get this right because it constantly changed her it's the most bildiverse park in the National Park System. But also it had they're documenting the different species and this has been ongoing for years now. I think they've documented nineteen thousand different species in the Smokies and they think when they're finished, it could be up to one hundred thousand different species of you know, plant life, animal life, different things. It's just they found they found all kinds of salamanders all the time. They're just a different species. It's a really interesting study there, for sure. Such a diverse area and a wide area of land there has got to be and I

13:22 already know the answers. I know because I've talked to people. But there is a history of bigfoot in this area that is intense. Yeah, for sure. Is that anything that you could share about, like how far does this bigfoot? These reports and the legends go back in the history of North Carolina where you're at. And now Matt's documented some of those boyle doing research on newspapers. He can tell you even more. But due to my lucky I'm just the luckiest guy in the world. Sometimes things sometimes I think something's guiding me to this kind of research. It's kind of weird. But as a part director, I was over Judah Color Rock project, which is a piece of county property that was donated to us, which is the largest petroglyph in the Southeast. It's great and I think you have a picture of Judah Color Rock there and a drawing we had depicted of Judah Color which is actually tutacolor in Cherokee, which means slant eyed giant keeper of the forest, and the Cherokees have that was an hardist rendering. In the background is an actual picture taking years ago where they had done the I guess it's kind of like it's not spray packed, but child in the symbols. There's hundreds of symbols in this rock, and even a copy of Judah Coulor's hand kind of type of thing. But Judah Color was a big legend if he may of the Cherokees, and he was a keeper of the forest, which a lot of people have heard about. Was your female. And then Stoneman was around,

14:58 but I guess an enemy of spear fingers, but stow men. If you see stone men, you turn to stone. We'll be back with more big Foot society after these words from our sponsors. Now my interpretation that Jeremiah would be you go into shop pretty much so. And there's also I miss and see other local ledges and it's not Cherokee. This would be more an English leggs. And back in the eighteen hundreds is Boogeum, which is a local brewery now in Wangsville. But boogem was a person that came into mining camps and would steal their food. And then there's also hoot Nanny. One of our famous authors here, John Paris. He's passed away years ago, but he wrote about mountain stories and hoot Nanny was a legend in Haywood County, near a place near Laurel Ridge. There was a lodge there in the eighteen hundreds and they would see this hairy wild woman. It would come and whistle and hoot. And that's where the term, he says, hooting nanny comes from, although that's debatable, you know, because that means dancing too, you know that type of thing. But there's just a lot of legends here locally of that. You know that type of thing. When you dig into it, and there's a lot of stories that go I constantly get things that pop up out of the clear blue. One was years ago a guy told me about his grandfather building the first train into Asheville. His great grandfather would

16:33 talk about they had food being stoled in their logging camp. He was a logger and they thought it was the campers getting in and sneaking. The cook did and they hired a person to come in he said with dogs. This was relayed by his grandson to me that and they shot it and it was they said, looked like a monkey with no tail. Now keep in mind this was in the late eighteen hundreds, so they didn't know about gorillas in those days. So that I found out to be a fascinating reportant. He told his family of stories for years before he passed away. But there's a lot of older stuff in history in the mountains here, and of course the Smokies has the myths, so there's makes it mysterious too, if that makes sense. Sometimes it's a very mysterious place. Did he say so they just shot at it or did they actually do you know he's actually killed the creature?

17:29 He uh, And I never met the man. This is a set story. But he said it was shot and it was a smaller monkey, is what he would tell his family without a tale. This is a random story. Guy just riding a horse one day bumped into me and said, Hey, are you doing what I think you're doing? I said, you know when you hear that as researcher, like, oh, here we go. But then I found out he was a king to my wife. His cousin is distantly lady to my wife's cousin, so it was somebody. Now. This guy was in Georgia when I was talking to him, but he was referring to an instantly happened to on what's called Black Mountain. When they're building the railroad up to Black Mountain in Nashville, North Carolina. You know that type of thing. So, but that is due to color there or rending of that. It was a great project. We worked with archaeologists on that project. I did for probably about four years and worked with the Eastern Rock Arts Society and the Forest Surface and it's a great mysterious thing. We've had a couple of TV shows and I don't want to say which one I was before retired against them coming to film it because it went against the historical record that we had uncovered about the rock. You know how things can get changed a little bit or put into certain people's interpretations. But the county let them do it. So there've been two documentaries plus numerous YouTube videos done at

18:59 due to color row and that's a j u d uh see you illil a judicolor is the English way of saying. There. That is extremely interesting. And those those uh, those legends and how they're they're woven into you know, Native American history. It's just it's just so fascinating. How you know, you can you can start to wonder, you know, how how much of that is is related to to Bigfoot in Sasquatch. And I know on the not on the Pacific Northwest. You have a lot of that with the the totem poles. But that's that's something I didn't know with the judaicole of rock. That's very cool. I'm going to look more into that for sure.

19:48 Thank you for sharing that. It's really cool. Yeah. They uh, you know, most myths are based in some form of reality, you know. And real quick thought. You hear me mentioning just me about my son. He's an athlete. He's now a basketball recruiter for a school. And and then my daughter has an interesting job. She's older than my son, but she's my anthropologist by degree, and she's a zookeeper by trade, and she works with grillas and primates on a daily basis is what she does. So I'm a little different than a lot of researchers I have heard about ideas off of It's tough for her since she works at the North Carolina Zoo. She can't really comment publicly on things because they have to go through their media people. But Camisca's very knowledgeable, So I know a lot about primate behavior for sure, you know, because of her that would be of really interesting. Oh, I bet you have some really interesting conversations that would be cool. Yeah, we do. I'll mention one here in a little bit.

20:49 I don't know if she'll appreciate me bishing it, but it's a little theory she had about just you know, sasquatch, which I like better than Bigfoot. You know, big Foot makes you think of just one task. Watches makes you think of many kind of thing, and it's just a better name, I do believe. But yeah, I've had two sightings Jeremiah that, uh, well, I guess I should tell you how I got into this. Absolutely yeah, and again it starts with my kids. I'm a again parks and rec director and your dad ran I think you said, a summer campus and a camp director, you know, being his son. How that works. You don't get to see him a lot. It's interesting.

21:29 It's a lot of fun, but it's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, so it's a recreation programmer and recreation director. For twenty something years, I was working a lot, but my son got up. My daughter never was interested hunting, and I've quit hunting just because I'm into this, and I don't know, it doesn't really fit my profile really good. I never was much of a if I'm gonna shoot something, I'm gonna use it. You know, I just can't do that. I just always be my nature. And so I was taking my son the very first thing that I noticed here. He was about ten or eleven. I just took him there a port to day. So we was trying to figure out it's been so long ago. He's be thirty this year, and I took him to go deer scout, to teach him, you know, how to deer scout and what it is.

22:15 My dad had a little secret honey hole down near a river there in our area. That was just a secret, good little place, and I was We always put out salt blocks or apples, things like that, but we never hunted over it, if you know how that works. And so I took him and it is a heck of a walk down. It's really steeping mounting into this little hole near the river, perfect little pocket area, and he just generally his war out, not much interesting things. But as we were coming back up the ridgeline, I don't know if you know about scouting, but you don't want to profile yourself on a ridge though. You want to kind of stay below the break of the ridge and just kind of look over the ridge. So I was trying to show him that, and he was laying down the leaves, like Dad, I'm tired, you know, the type of thing. And I looked down in this area and uh, it's kind of a bowl and that's where we usually hunted at. But the salt block was over behind this kind of and I looked at her.

23:10 In the middle of this little area is a little opening and there were two hemlocks, you know, probably about if I can get the direction right about, you know, yay, bigger around and h I knew they were there. I just happened to notice that the tops route of them. Well, me being me, I kind of get into things, as you has to other researchers. I was walk off lots of times to leave people. I just took off down the hill because I thought there's a bowl hunter and had my hunting spot because we had a stand in there. So we and again it's not at the salt block, it's over the ridge from it. So I go trumps and down through the arn't just leave with you, and it's just getting close to dark, you know. We get down there and I look up and these two big hemlocks, you know, about eight foot I think I measure about eight foot four both of them, and they're kind of growing together, kind of you know, side beside, but there's nothing anywhere around them, close to all the tops. When I got there, I was the fuddled. They were twisted, twisted and peeled. The peel probably was at least two foot long, and I was just blown away. You could see the fibers in the tree. Jeremy, it was just I'd never seen anything like that. I've seen plenty of black bear, I see.

24:18 I think two years ago, I've seen seventeen black bear, you know, out researching and just goofing around. But they, you know, they'll climb a cherry tree and strip it, you know, and then go down to bottom and eat the cherries off of it, you know, that type of thing. So I'm looking for the tops right because I'm just a fuddled, and Winds made it down there and he's laying the leaves again. He's like, Dad, you're stupid. They're underneath the tree, and there was both tops that point first underneath the tree. They were dead. So I pulled him out and I'm looking at him. I'd already checked the tree, you know, hemlocks have really thin branches. They're not really so if some climbs that you could tell he'd break it like a bear or something, and raccoon could have done that. The only thing possible. It could have been a black bear. But the tops had no bottom marks, nothing, absolutely nothing.

25:06 Now I'm really befuddled. It's hit me that William's asking questions. I don't want to scare him because I wanted to go back in the woods, you know, I'm like, what is going on? So I go back there a couple of weeks later, and I find two more of these things, and I'm really befuddled. So I start going online. This was again, I think two thousand and four maybe, And jeez, I'm just fun. I'm doing all kinds of research now and I've heard about bigfoot. You could research it on the internet doing tree twist. I'm like, what, There's no way that can be here in western North Carolina. That's stupid. And then another time and him were doing some scouting and we came across this little spot. It's hard to describe. I hope I'm trying to describe things.

25:48 I hope I'm doing a good job of putting pictures where people can imagine. But we were on old trail and there's some barbed wires and it was like a little bit of a wet weather spring Jeremiah, where water was seeping up and it's kind of mossy. But I could tell again subtle sign that something went through there, had just barely broke some of those briars a little bit. So I'd stopped to show with him, and it was just about dark getting dark and dusky dark, and we're close to the truck and he's like, duh, I don't want to go, And I was like, Weave, something's been in here. Let's see what he is. So I stepped in there. Once I got into that mossy, wet weather area where it was his clean's day, about a fifteen a half inch human like footprint.

26:30 There were four of them. I didn't know what to think. I was a fuddle and my son's best friend played basketball. I won't mention his name because I hadn't asked to say his name at North Carolina. He's six foot eight and he's dad six foot nine. He always has this really you know, he has a large foot, and we didn't know how to refer he said, Dad, that's bigger than my buddy's foot, you know. And I was like, he said, what is that? And I was like, uh, you know, I didn't want to scare him. There's no way. It was a double track, because you know, I'm used to the bear tracks and Dad was a bear hunter. You can tell there'll be a little breaking that line of the track, if that makes sense where you you might not see the toes, but it won't. It won't make an even line if absolutely dead. And I just like, no way, and then we went back over again. Growing up with my dad, we'd do night rides a lot just to see wildlife when I was a kid, so I've always done those. So I started doing more of those. And one night, men Win was driving on a gravel road close to this spot, maybe four months later five and we hear the loudest how you know.

27:32 Ever here we were driving with the winds down and hurt to how that's how loud it was. So we stopped and anyhow it again, and of course he figured out by then what was going on. He's like, Dad, is that a big foot? What is that? And I said, it's not a code and it's not a ow, And that's the way I kind of think to tell listeners out there. I try to as much as I can, jar M, I debunk things because it doesn't make any sense to go to to the least likely thing first. Do you want to go to the most obvious thing first and then try to work your way down to that, if that makes sense. But that's the way I got started. So years later, I come on a website, come upon a webside of this guy in North Georgia, and I was like, Hey, that sounds cool.

28:12 I'll call a guy and his name was Matt Prutt and uh, Matt, he says it was two to three years. We have a cost an argument about how long it took him to get me to come to one of these BFR things because I was just like, I hate to say, I'm gonna go out there with him crazy people, you know, and uh, he finally taught me into it. And again it was a good time because I was retiring in two thousand and thirteen and it was in my area he wanted to do when he wanted to use me as a resource and then as a you know, a lead, you know, kind of a you know, traill league guy and I and uh. And what was weird was when we were talking the first time, he said, hey, have you been to this such a such spot? And that was where I was having all this activity yet and I hadn't even mentioned it to it. It was just a weird quinstance. But me and Matt has become really close. And I know you've interviewed Matt and going to again. As you said, he's just a great resource and just he studies stuff. It's amazing, and he's just a really good friend. He lives, you know, out so it's a little hard to get up with Matt. You know, we still get together some and h and again I was wrong about that. When I went there, I met a lot of people, biologists, people, you know, all kinds of good researchers. It was a good thing. And after that night, that weekend, Matt wanted me to be a b fr O investigator, and so I started doing it. I've been doing a little on my own for four or five years, and so I agreed to do it reluctantly.

29:45 As you can tell as ill when you called me or got hold of me, I just I kind of like to be in a shadow. Sometimes it's just my way of being things. So but Matt was a great resource and I do appreciate him get me started on this kind of mystery and it led to again my first sighting in two thousand and fifteens. So I think you have a picture there of that somewhere. We'll be back with more Bigfoot society after these words from our sponsors. Yes, let's see. So that would be the is it the drawing? Yeah, the artists rendering. And by the way, Jeremiah, that was done by a researcher, a good friend of mine, Sheila Johnson in Kentucky. She's kind of taking a little break from research her and her husband t J. But Sheila had done some artwork and the way this worked again, like I mentioned, I like to take night rides, and boy, I don't know, I got the best supportive wife in the worlds put up with me. But it was I think it was June. I have a note here somewhere June twenty three, I think, or it was June in two thousan fifteen, and it was very green. But what it was is the waxing crescent moon, which is you know, a good hunting moon. It's real clear night and I was like, you know, it's like ten o'clock at night here where I live, and this is research area where I saw that was well, actually, I wouldn't any research. I was just driving one. It's about thirty miles away.

31:15 So I just said, hey, I'm gonna go out and ride tonight and see if I hear something and make a little noise and take my recorders, which I do. And so I was going on up the road. Actually I was listening to a CDC, which Charlie Raymond loves. If you know Charlie with the Kanucky big Foot group, he loves that store because he likes a CDC. And down the bottom of the mountain, I see three deer right, and I was like, oh yes, So I start slowing down, you know, and as I'm climbing up this mountain on Highway sixty four. I don't like to give out Zach locations. Jeremiah and I apologize to everybody about that, but there's a reason behind it. One is a light to keep an area fairly pure, because if you get a lot of people in the area making noise, you just don't know what swat, you know. And then also nowadays there's a lot of people with thermoscopes and they say they want to shoot one, and I just don't know. That's not a safe thing, if that makes sense. But there's Highway sixty four and I was climbing up the mountain there, so I had already slowed up.

32:13 And as I come into what I call an S turn. Going through this S turn, I was only doing twenty mile iron I see Cody and a code. He was not. It just struck me on he was on the right hand side of the road, and I just about stopped. I let off the gas because I didn't know if he's gonna run in front him. But he wasn't looking at me. I'll never forget he was not looking at me. He was looking across the road, which I thought was weird. He never looked at my truck, and so I just about stopped because I thought he might run in front of me. I didn't want to hit it. And then when I just kind of panned away, he was looking and this is what I saw off the guard behind the guard round. That's very steep where this was that so it's hard to tell the size of it, but that's what I saw. And she did a good job on the draw and it had one of his arms kind of curled like that. And I will tell you it didn't have fur. I got about a good three second look because it just kind of coasted by, and I had audio running, so the audio, it's just that if I played it, you would laugh so crazy because also I started talking to myself. It was just I couldn't believe. Well, saw again a no neck, a low like a dome for a head. And again one of the reasons from talking to my daughters.

33:28 You know, the jaw line for some primates or blow the shoulder, so from the back it'll look like there's no neck. You know, they're not like our jaw line, which is above the shoulders kind of thing. I didn't know that. That's awesome. Yeah, if you look at grillas, you know, you'll see here chimps where their jaw line is, particularly grillers. And if it didn't have fur, that's a big thing. I always like to give people my presentation. The tips. I saw it had hair, scraggly hair. This is June, so it's kind of hot. It did have some stuff in its hair. I remember seeing that. I could definitely see the back line you know, the spine line. And as she drawled there, I couldn't It's such a quick glance at it. I couldn't see if it was gray hair or just kind of grayish light skim kind of it did move, and I just coasted by. I couldn't belive it.

34:16 I couldn't turn around real quick. I had to go up. And then I started trying to tell myself, oh, Jeff, you've seen a dead pine tree, because this thing was like a burnt brown color, you know how I did white pine of look Jeremiah, And so I said, Okay, that's what was. You're just jumping to conclusions, you know, which is kind of like confirmation by us. You know, you're going to look, listen for something. Maybe you just thought you saw something. So I cruised back down. Nothing. There's absolutely nothing there now, And I was like, holy cow. And I made some calls Cody's bark, you know, of course, says a pack of Cody's because there's that one. Didn't didn't hear anything weird, went back up. I spent about four hours a poor man. I caught him at twelve thirty at night, just losing it, you know. And this is how great mad he is, and I keep complimenting he's going to pay me five dollars or something, but he immately said, Jeff, just draw. I mean, I'll walk him up.

35:15 He's like, Jeff just starts sketching, and which was a great tip. So I felt like the guy from Close Encounters, you know, where he's building the longing thing, you know, absolutely, I must have seventy five sketches here where I was drawing, and I couldn't figure out the arm for a while. Then it hit me that it just had curled up and interesting tidben on that my ninety. My mother passed away last year. She was two weeks away from being one hundred years old. And I'll never forget showing her this the first time about a year later, because she kind of got interested in just watching shows and stuff, and like the first time I showed her a cast from out With she said, oh, that's not a human. It doesn't have an instant, just very very matter of frank country, right, you know. And then when I showed her this, she said what time of year wasn't And I said, Jim, She said, oh, it might have had a baby in its arms. I didn't even think about that. Wow, that's one pitable observation thought, that's nuts.

36:13 Yeah, yeah, it was just a thought by her because that code. He was there, and I don't know. I did have my friend, one of my best friends whose son played in North Carolina. He's six foot nine and he went there. I can't believe he did. It stood on side of the road the next day. And I can't tell you the heights, but I can tell you it was way bigger than him. Brought with wise. It's very broad and had a very athletic if you notice a narrow waist, but it was it would definitely had to weigh it close to four hundred five hundred pounds, probably probably around four hundred's. You know, people always underestimate or overestimate, like bears here, you know, I said, oh, it's a five hundred pound bear, when most of the time it's two hundred fifty pound bear. And I do think that has a sasquatch a lot. But it was incredibly sight It was just an amazing thing. I'll never forget. I said a little prayer because I'm a very faith based person and I just couldn't believe I knew I'd seen something very very rare, and I hope to see another one. And what was really weird about this sighting?

37:20 Larry said, Will I think you said you had interviewed Larry. Larry he's a great guy. Yeah, yeah, he is. I couldn't do this report. He had to do it on me because I'm an investigator, you know, So he uh did a report. But what was weird is before this, Larry didn't know I had to sighting. He calls means like, Jeff, you've probably heard of the bfr O database, which is the flats. We call it big database of possible sightings and a lot of them not being investigated. But you know, there's just a bunch. And he said, Jeff, there's a sighting close to you. A guy had written on sighting. I should say that heard a half and found some a track and the guy was on the Appalachian Trail. Uh, doing like a weekend hike around this National forest there in night a hala and will tell you it's standing in Indian National Campground area. And Uh, I talked to the guy.

38:16 I didn't even tell Larry I had a sighting yet, and I've told him later. But that happened four days after my side, and it's four point five miles from where I saw this app So could be a weird coincidence or it could be the same one. They what they had heard the hall of a night to welcome up. It was not a coyote. This guy raises Christmas trees. He has coodes on his property up in Virginia, North Carolina line all the time. He was a great witness. So the next morning they were going down the Applachian Trail and his buddy's booth he'll come off. So they looked at the map and seeing this little hidden trails amazingly found it on a map and I know it real well because dead and it goes down to the campground. So they're trying to take a shortcut as they went down in this and if you'd imagine in Smoky Mountains or our area, this is outside of the Smokies, but it's we're a tempered rainforest just like out west. So in June and July, I got in there about July fourth.

39:17 Where they were at, the weeds are six sem foot till in this area. It's just crazy. But they'd found where something went through this trail crossed and they followed it for a little bit and they started finding these big imprints and in the leaf matter, and that's hard to find because you know, the substrate dictates how you can find a track. People don't realize that hoods animals are completely different flat footed animals. It's even hard to find bear tracks for people tracks. He just can't. But this was a kind of a wet area they were seeing that. Then he found some weird stuff like mushrooms that were picked but turned upside down setting on a log near these tracks, which is kind of wild. And God was a great witness, but it was wild that it was only four days after my siety. And it's a good what I would call And I'm starting to give you information I don't really give before. I call them corridors. You know, these things are constantly on the move. I wouldn't say they're nomadic in my opinion. These are just my opinions, Jeremiah. But I would say they have a massive territory though, and they're constantly moving, because that's the only thing it made sense. But that was my first sighting there. So sorry to rambles so much there, but about your savings. So I have two questions could you see any muscle definition underneath the hair any seconds? But just curious, that's a good question. I definitely could see some muscles in the shoulder area I'm

40:51 trying to remember, and I definitely could see what's it called. I don't know the proper term for it, but you know, in the lower back area above the bud area, the indentations. And I will also notice when Sisto stood there, you know how people's shoulders rolled in kind of. I noticed it shoulders rolled in kind of at the top of the shoulders. But I did see muscles definition in the lower back for sure. It was very muscular. I don't know if you remember the wrestler, Big Bad Vader that wrestled in the WWE for a long time. He's had this massive but remember how he had a thin waist. That's the way this thing. This thing had some massive shoulders and then this really athletic looking waist. It was phenomenal.

41:42 Look, it just took me back. But you know, like I mentioned to you before we started, and I hope I can say this quote. Yeah, I tell people and want to ask me what happened. You know, it's a hell of a thing when a myth turns into reality and your body. I just I didn't realize to back in town like four hours later, to all out Walmart to give me something to drink. Oh. I walked in. The guy of course said welcome Walmart, and then I realized I was drenched in sweat. I had this crazy my wife when I called her, she said, what is wrong with you? I just had this reaction. And that's one thing I look for in good reports is the way I don't tell people but I'm looking. It's hard to explain when you can't. You see something that's not really actually supposed to be there, So it really really affects a person, doesn't that Oh it's yeah, it kind of yeah, you can't let it go. And then my second siding real quick like was from a East coast that's a group we have a researchers basically on the kind of midwest East coast area, A great group at Charles kimbro and Lorie Wade and some other people that starred Larry. Great people in there, and we got some reports about two fisherman on separate occasions. I see something at a state park in Virginia. So we went up there and real quick, like this sighting was just again luck. But I was walking up to a group. We'd been separated because I like to do a little technic

43:15 where I stay back behind people and listen. And a guy just started researching who's a really good friend of mine now a fellow researcher, George rig who was with me wanting to stay back, and we kept hearing some things which I think was a separate one. But as we come close to the group, my cell phone went off. My wife it texts me, you know how you can just randomly get a you know, a message signal, you know, And I was like, oh no, because I didn't want anything light in my face at night. I wasn't even using thermals or anything. But the moon was out and uh, Georgia went past the group and the other two people were Rick Rellis, I don't think they'll mind me miss your name, who's a BFR investigator. Guys I talked to like, yeah four years ago, he's so good. Yeah, yeah, great fellow. And then uh, Steve Poppleton, who's from Georgia was with us. And as I walked up the group, I looked up the ridge because one of the techniques. Daddy always showed me hunting and see you profile again the ridgeline, especially on the moonlight night, because you can see something move like a ear flip or something's bedded down. So I was looking for movement. But this wasn't on the ridge. It was blow the ridge. I see this big large I thought it was a burnout stump. You know how I kept I remember saying myself, I don't remember there being a fire. People talk about a fire here. It is dark thing and it was pretty well lit up there, not where you could see facial features, but you could see just something dark. So come up, and Laurie said, they like to call me jes squatch. And that's another story for a different time in Kentucky.

44:40 It's a funny story if you read Charlie Raymond's book. It's in his book. While they call me that, and Georgia again, it went on so and she just said just watch what's up? And I said, I just sorry about my phone going off. And we were talking. I remember Rick was wrapping up his parabolic mic. And then we're here just sound with and we like, George's at you and he rely on the audio. We didn't catch it because everything else happened after George goes negative like this real quiet, you know, like oh and uh, well, I just told Laurie, I said, lawd, I think that was George, you know, and then I just made eye contact. I looked up the ridgeline again this kind of gull, you know, kind of this kind of like this, go straight up, very step, We'll be back with more big Foot Society after these words from our sponsors. And you know, again, that stuff was there when I made eye contact with it. I remember Rick was talking to Steve and putting up his parabolic and he was kind of turning towards me.

45:47 I see this arm come out and he had hair hanging down. Now keep in mind, I know bears real well. Bears can't do that kind of movement, you know, where arm goes out like this. You know, they don't have clavicles, you know, they don't have shoulders, but they just can't do that. And it kind of took me off guard. And then I see a leg and then it just takes off running astronomically fast. It's hard to describe how fast this was. And then Rick kind of sees it at the tail end of it because it goes kind of past my eyes out there's a little nol there and he because I say, uh sorry, a cuss word that I do sometimes, and I hate to do that because it's startled me, you know. And the best way to describe what I saw was as a catcher in a squad and he takes off running, but he don't stand up. He's just kind of leaning forward. Now, the movement I've never seen. You know. Again, I'm a basketball trainer.

46:44 I trained kids for basketball, or used to all, you know, for forty something years. I know movements. And I see Bear Bear, you know, can't do a smooth move jeremile or if there were squatted or standing up, it's more of a plot kind of you know. They just can't control that. If you ever seen that in the video, it's just weird. They can't walk a little bit, but when they want to go down to four, it's just pull. And this thing was on two feet, by the way, leaning and one a lot of Blackburn's books. Later on, I found a sketch that looks just like it. I forgot to send you a picture of that. Of course, I you know, hadn't asslow to use it. But it's more like what I saw. It was about leaning just about completely over and it was so fast, but that was slowly kind of standing up. I seen it maybe five steps, and of course Rick saw it, and then we kind of lose it. But that was that siding there, and it was a phenomenal to see the movement. That was something in all my years, I've never seen anything move like that.

47:44 The only thing maybe I see accelerate that fast is when I used to go el cut and I've seen antelope out with that could accelerate that fast. Wow, that must have been really fast. How long was the hair hang down from the arms? Well, it was about as a debate, and we had George go up there and running next day and it was just way bulkier and George but it's hard to tell. Again it's night time, but I did see hair hanging out, but I would say two three inches good enough to tell they were hair there, if that makes sense. In the moonlight. Maybe longer than that, but I definitely saw hair coming down and the arm come out straight from the body, not forward, you know, from the body towards me. It was to the side that floored me, you know, you know, that's only people can only do that, you know.

48:35 It's just not a normal movement for any wildlife you see. And again, the size of it, George, I think Wade two hundred pounds, he said in those days. I'm getting pretty good right now, I said those days he might be a little more than that, but it was just so much more bulkier than him. And I'm talking about the width of the thing. That's what I can't everybody gets focused on the height. I can't get off how wide and how strong these things are. They have to do a lot with their shoulders. They're probably on all fours a lot sometimes you know, uh, or you know, digging. Uh. They just what I saw was very powerful. Both times, it was a fascinating thing. So that's my stories and I'm sticking to it, you know, the first the first encountered. I have to ask, though, what a what ac DC song was playing when you saw the big foot before? And I'd cut it down when I saw the des a little quieter because it rolled the window down. Yeah, uh, you know, because I you know, I might see some wildlife and right I think it was a highway to hell.

49:42 If I'm not all right, that works you sound like you're like ac DC No. But I mean, if you're someone's gonna make the movie of your saying, they have to know you now, they have to know what signed to play. So I hope you don't do that. Maybe they get Brad Pitt to play me, because you know, that'd be a bad reputation to me if they get Brad Pitt. But that's that's funny. Hey, Jeff, what we should play some of these sounds? What do you think? Yeah, that's one of the things I've gotten into again thanks to my Hunga Haley and David Ellis and people Charles Kimbro, I've gotten into just I love doing audio and we do long duration recorders. But the first one that I sent you there, the one's I recorded, it's just hard to explain.

50:27 I had this area, and that's for another podcast, probably because it's just I've had so many things happen. But I had an area where Laurie was doing the expedition Laurie Wade if you know Laurie with the BFR, she does great expeditions, by the way, and I was doing the field here. Again, I had five people with me that never been in the woods of an we had a four pound rock thrown at us. I found the rock. It was crazy. So I kept going back to this area having some things. I was working on Pavloss theory, you know, where I and make one sound immediately lead. Well, this time I decided I'm going to aggravate George and Lori. So I went up to this little field where we'd been having some activity and was trying to call him because it's a signal there.

51:13 So I broke my pattern a little bit, and uh, basically, what you'll do is you'll hear me. I was, you know, texting my Hey, y'all are working, and I'm just out of here, goofing off because I'm retired. I'm in the woods, you know. And of course I got him for a second, but I thought I heard something. And then you'll hear me walking a little bit, and then you hear a very clear wood knock, and didn't you hear me do what's called a descending whoop call, which they do a lot, and then you'll hear the reply. And I did amplify that reply, Jeremiah, just so my presentations people can hear it better, all right. So I'm trying to think that ten twenty nine eighteen, I think, or something like that, tens something eighteen.

51:59 Okay, yeah, yep, yep, all right, let's try this one. Yeah, this is it. Okay, you'll hear me walking. That's the would knot m hm. And then that's the reply I got back.

52:57 Yep. Uh, I kind of cut it off. I did say a bad word at the end of that. Sorry, but I was a startled. It sounded like a disembodied voice to me. Until again. A good thing about audio. You know, it's hard to prove stuff with audio, but you can also just document better what you can hear. And sometimes, Jeremiah, you want to hear something but there's actually something going on too. It's just weird how that works. But I sent that to Manga Haley David out West and there's a little bit of a debate of whether it's one or two, but he thinks it's a triple whoop. I think it might be two. We put our all our audio on audacity, which is a problem to do a spectrograph and look at it and the hurts it's at, and it seems to me it might be another one kind of quietening down another one like a younger one, but it mimiced me right back, and wow, I was just startled. To be honest, it was crazy. But audio is a good way to get involved in the research. It's very simple.

54:00 Keep your recorder with you. I use mine on my backpack. It's constantly running. I've learned my lesson. Learned that from Turkey Hunt with Dad you can slam the door going Turkey Hut. And also there's a gobbler, real cloth like in other words, you better cut that audio on right when you get out of the truck. You just don't know. The randomness of this stuff amazes me. And again that's the way nature works. There's not you know, it's just random when you see things or hear things. And there is another audio. I'll try to give your listeners a wide variety of things, and everybody focuses on the big House. The second one I like for you to play is a recording that it was given to me from another researcher. And I can't give you location, but as a hiker on applast and trail years ago recorded it. This is the North Georgia vocals use this as a presentation, has a different a lot of different sounds in this one Jeremiah, Okay, you're the whoop that wild So that's you said, North Georgia. Yeah, on Apple Ach and Trail. He just happened to have

55:30 a video recorder with him. He recorded that on a video recorder of a night he woke him up. And there they do make in my opinion again is are all my opinion and experiences. They make more subtle noises than to do the big loud ones. And the perfect example there of a whoop which is kind of like a gibbon, will make you know it's a exactly it's a On a spectrograph, it will look like a backslash. And I've heard that it's hard for people to really make that call the way they can control it. It's very hard to duplicate it. And believe me, I practice it ever red light. You know, I don't know what people think about me in another car, but I like to practice my calls. You know, I think you do have to get them to interact or not interact, but react to noises. Sometimes I really know if they're in a location.

56:22 Although I will tell you a lot of people confuse kyote calls with big foot calls, and they are I'm one of the rare people that's seen both together. They are and maybe symbiotic. In other words, one works off the other one kind of. I don't know, they're not walking around like one got one on a leash or something like that. But you know what I'm talking about, maybe one makes a kill the other one comes in obs from the other one. Count there's tons of things in nature that are symbiotic, you know, and people don't know that term. And that's the little bird that's sitting on the back of the rhino or whatever. You know, he's eating all the bugs off the kind of thing. But uh so they'll confuse coles. And I encourage anybody wants to get any research. You got to know your sounds. And there are a lot of good sound labs, uh you know at Cornell University has a great one has ever known mammal bird sound.

57:16 But the really you got to eliminate the the obvious things first. But there's not many things that are here that make that whoop sound. I can tell you that for sure, you know. And I don't know if the hell I sent you will play really good. I'm trying to remember what I sent you. There, Jeremiah, there I recorded it in the Smoky's uh backlash fall. Just luckily we're talking about I think it's a bobcat we saw on the thermal and then our other researchers walking up and then behind us on a bridge where there's nothing. This is how it comes from. All right, we'll see if this is the right one. Here those guys are coming. Yeah, yeah, it's faint in the background. Probably if they have headphones they can hear it, but probably if they don't have headphones. But it's a it's definitely a howl. Again, we try to vet everything.

58:13 It's pretty good and send it to multiple people. One of the things you'll notice with the howls the good house is the way they end, you know, and Mork Haley can explain that better because he's an expert in the field. But they will end with the I guess it would be like the ooze sound kind of thing, or all sound like I have a little cheat sheet here I can tell you it's like a the who would be like mop And then the the other sound that canines can't make is the boot sound. If that makes sense to double Oatskay. Interesting. Yeah, So if you notice at the end of the North Georgia louder sound. You'll hear the aw kind of thing. Canines can't make that sound and all that's cool. And then also the duration is a big thing because canams usually are very simple woods you know, of course there's we have red woods and were kid but they're down on the coast. But h and they're not like the gray wolves you know up north, but they can how longer and do different sounds. And there is naudio I didn't send you, but it's on YouTube the Saint Louis County, Minnesota sounds that were recorded by a bfr O investigator for like, he had an LDR out long duration recorder and it lasts for close to forty minutes.

59:28 Wolves start them off, but again something comes closer it. It makes what's called a zipper call, which is just like a whistle, you know, the whistle thing you use in the band. Yeah, it's this crazy sound. I don't know what can make that, but it sounds like a zipper. Yeah, it's like like that real quick. Oh yeah, I've heard that, Okay, okay, I've also heard of an actual like big foot making a zipper noise as well. And they can do that, and they do do that. But keep in mind I did debuck some years ago because it happened to me and then I thought I had one. Then to realize what it was is a bugfly bibla lines. We'll be back with more Bigfoot Society after these words from our sponsors. Oh interesting, yepkaym bye.

1:00:25 But they do make a zipper call though, and then you know, the whoop calls are like gibbons, if you know. And gave my daughter. She listens to these and she said, Dad, that's gibbon. You know, that's like a it's you know, fascinating sounds. But the audio is a good way to document things. And I thoroughly and enjoy doing that. Jeremiah, you know, for my own purposes. My whole thing is an investigator, is to document things. I've been working now really hard. This spring has been touted since the knee surgery, but to get quality evidence and I'm just really doing that to turn it over to somebody like my daughter in the future. Everybody wants me to work on a book, and I might do that, but I'm my goal was ten to eleven years of documenting things and then I have a probably right now about what i'd call and this first time I really talked about it publicly, about eighty five data points in my area that I consider very credible witness reports, sightings of mine or other people's, or a good audio occurrences. And I've tossed a lot. It's not in there, but I will tell you they do fit a little bit of a quarter or kind of thing. One of the things that's fascinating our areas.

1:01:46 We have a lot of men made legs. If you know anything about western North Carolina. Fontana's our biggest, which are right near a smokies, but there's way more than that, and in Georgia, so not to let the count of the bag a little bit, but those lakes forced things to go places, if that makes sense. So I totally get it. Yeah, and I hopefully talked more about it, but I want to have in the future just way more documentation and more thought into it than just throwing something out in the bigfoot world is a very skeptical places, you know, and you know, and it's just human nature with people. You know. Most of the reports I get, i'd say seventy five eighty percent or misidentifications.

1:02:30 Maybe somebody just wanting to be famous whatever. But it's like doctor Krantz used to say, Grover Krantz, the famous anthropologists, that it only takes one track to be real, to make it real, you know. So twenty percent of those, in my opinion, that I've worked on have been real things. And and again I just two weeks ago, I had a contractor in our area stopped me in England. In fact, he was so animated we were I was in a checkoutline and he's a family friend of mine. I'm owned him for fifty something years. And he said, Jeff, I got to tea something. You still do that that stuff? You know, it's funny how that's that stuff, Like it's a taboo word to say. But he said he was working by hisself in a real remote area of building retaining while and got off his back ho and heard a would knock sound and he don't really believe in this stuff, and he didn't know what I think.

1:03:22 It startled him is so loud, and he turned around and looked and rohdeo dendrom and he's seeing its head and shoulders miss rohto dinner patch looking at him, and then when he made eye contact, it popped back down and was gone. It freaked him out really bad. I mean he'd been looking for me for about three or four months to find me too. You know, Yeah, you could just tell this guy's seeing something. It was just he was just animated. And he's sixty something years old, you know. Yeah again equipment by the way, Jeremiah, I've had some experiences where heavy equipment has been left and they're in the area. I don't know if it's curiosity, you know that happening, you know, was it Bluff Creek, Willow Creek? Building? Log roads? But like when we got I think there's one other audio there that's a wood knock I sent you if you want to play that. That's a but there's a motor grader park there where we parked at night. It's a great example of a wood knock. I think it says why w a y ah, which means wolf and Cherokee. Okay, here we go. I can't agree you hear it sound like a baseball app It stopped us in our tracks. We'd been out all night, didn't have anything happening with my good friend, researcher George Wrigley and his son, and I really wanted his son to experience something he'd never In fact, we're walking towards this old cabin at four o'clock in the morning. I just wasn't gonna stop again. I'm I get that way. I just keep going, and we'd add some I'd found a track there, and a bowl hunter had

1:04:54 sent me a report real close to there. He'd seen one bowl hunting, and so I said, let's go down to the old cabin. I remember how it going to Jeff. I'd just rather they'd be a big foot here. Then this is scary. It's like a ghost could be here, and then that would knock cabin right when we got close, and it stopped us in a track, and we kind of messed up and went around this cabin hurdly trying to cut it off, and it ended up what I think I could hear it in the leaves crawling. I think it dropped down all fours. But I would call that a sentinel kind of thing, because I think they do that sometimes while the family groups feeding, they'll have one on the lookout kind of and they won't do that until you get really close to something or they get agitated. But there's no doubt there's nothing. I put an LDR there for four months and I only heard one other would knock like that.

1:05:45 I could hear acorns hitting the cabin. I heard all kinds of stuff, but nothing that you know how that was Chris Jeremy. I just sound like a baseball bat hitting the ball. Yeah, definitely not an acre. I mean that's that's that was very very distinct. Yeah, and it has forced behind it, you know, in a Christmas I don't know how they do that. I do think sometimes they'll do a mouth clack which sounds like a wood not but it's not. But and then it could do a chess slap too. I think Rick rellis tonight we had deciding and hurt a chess slap right before I'd walked up to them there. Uh, and that's one of the reasons you had is parabolic out you know, that type of thing.

1:06:26 So but that's you know, audio is a great thing to do there. Uh. And it does document some unknown sounds that biologists can't explain. And uh, you know, and it's just kind of fun too, to be honest, to listen those records kind of like put you there of a night and you don't have to be there. It is you know, one thing Jeremiah about this stuff research And there are people that want to be researchers, but they like, and I hate to say this, pretend to be researchers, but to do true research or documentation of day and things like that. It is one of the hardest things I've ever done. And I'm retired. This is incredibly hard. I tell people it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, but haystack moves around constantly, you know, And to get you know, something like a Chris Wood knock sound not a tap, not a limb break, and not an acre and falling, not a what's it called up your way? The hedge, apple falling? You know them things. You know they're they're huge, you know when they fall. So but again I think what's important to new people getting into this is you need to know the sounds. Now, I keep minding, I grew up raccoon hunting when my dad of a night with a lanner and that was it and night sounds. So from age five to probably fourteen or fifteen, when I got into high school sports and was too busy, I did that all the time. I just loved it to go with my dad. It was kind of you know, he's kind of like a I don't know, superhero walk

1:07:58 around in the dark, you know. But these are the places he grew up as a kid, you know. And my grandfather had a uh and my great grandfather had a hunting uh. Well, before they were national parks here, they let on free range cattle and pigs. Mineral companies owned the rights to massive tracts of property. But you could apply and free range you know what you wanted to raise, and they would do that. But they had a remote cabin way back in standing Innian National or not Hating National Park. And Daddy and his brother was good walk into supplies where they were just kids, and then walked back of a night at lantern, so he knew Sarah where I'm talking about and had my first sighting at the back of his hands. So I have a big advantage there. But and then knowing the night sounds and I still I studied. You know, tonight's pretty night.

1:08:51 I might end up riding. We got the Blue Ridge Parkway here. I might go up and go to a few overlooks and just set and listen, you know, and it's just a really neat thing that I enjoy to do. You know when I stumbled in on this and thanks to Matt Prue, I'll throw that in our case he listens to these, it's his fault. I said. I think it's really cool how you have that that friendship with with Matt Prue. That's that's very cool. I would say, so, you know, ending ending out our discussion together and Jeff, thank you for hanging out tonight. But probably a question you may have gotten before, but the thinking of the Sasquatch, what do you think it is that we are are dealing with out there? Have you come to grips with it's probably more this type of thing rather than another thing, or do you have any thoughts about that? Well, that's a loaded question. It is. It always pops up. I love it in bo Well, you do a great job.

1:10:00 But we've just kind of met this past few months and I've listened to some of your podcasts. I really appreciate the way you approach things and even asking that question, it's a good one. I will tell you, I can't remember who was Grover Cranch or somebody you can't answer solve a mystery with another mystery. You can't. So I tend to be more on the uh, you know, and I'm open minded. I've seen some weird things out in the woods, and you will weird lights and things like I told you when we're talking on the phone, you know, kind of debut. And I've seen what my mother called mineral lights or spirit lights. These are the brown mountain lights. I've seen two of those are weird. But I don't see how people may call let's say, example, they see a weird light and sky, but then they see a big foot later, what makes you think they're anywhere connected at all? You know, you can't do that.

1:10:53 You're just you know, you just can't do that. And I'm more I try to be more I guess scientific based or just fact based, I want to. But what I saw, particularly the first time and then solid move was very primate, Like I should say that now that goes into all kinds of territories. People always say, well, Jeff, you know I'm not an ape, Well you are a primate, and then the religion thing pops up. But I don't jeremyd get into I think one of the problems humans have is we want to try to be God. Does that make sense, and we're not. We're actually what's that. There's a term at throw morpheism, anthromorpheism and find sent right, which is a Greek term that means that we were taught by the Greeks. They taught that we're over nature or over things, and actually we're just a part of nature, is what it is.

1:11:49 And here lately, I think a lot of people's got that kind of throwed in their face a little bit. We are we could die out and the world's still gonna go around. So what I saw was definitely a live creature. Now I don't know, and it was upright, very muscular. It was not an apparition. Let me tell you. You'll go through did I see an apparition? Did I see something time playing itself? You'll go through all these things in a true sighting. It is amazing. I had a young lady report of sighting. It's not posted on bfr oh yet. When I called her, and it's been a year and a half ago, she started crying and she couldn't even talk for work. She had to go outside to her car. She was just it was such an emotional experience for her to see this thing. We'll be back with more big Foot Society after these words from our sponsors, and it is, it's just but I do think it's a living, breathing form of a primate. I've heard noises' I've heard them, and I've got documentation of them walking. And that wasn't standing Stone in Tennessee where married Green did a lot of research. If you know who Mary Green was, and it's either it was either that you know, on the spectrograph Jairm you can tell if it's by a pedal by the lines, you know, because of quite a pedal shuffle kind of you know, And this was definitely by a pedal. I'm sitting in pitch dark. It's walking. And another researcher with a Kentucky and bfr Jack Smart, who's a

1:13:25 great guy. He likes to take a Tom Tom and I knew he was going to do that, so I'd snuck off from the group. I really believe to get a perimeter area about two hundred yards. Keep mind, these things can hear probably really really good, so they're coming close, but not as close as you think. Until they feel more comfortable. They just want to kind of figure out what's going on. So I'm trying to, you know, get out there and listen. And I heard this and it was definitely it steps over a log. You can hear it taking a longer step. I was beside myself because if I cut my light on and it's standing in the road, it up above me on and in the leaves is how I could hear it. I would have just passed out, you know, because there's this thing. But it was either that or a person. And it's more creepy that it's a person that's walking around an adult filling nowhere.

1:14:14 I mean, that's kind of weird, but I do think answer your question, it's some form of a primate that I saw. Particularly the movement that I saw run. It looked very ape like, and I get to see gorillas a lot, so I'll see how they move. This move more like a chimp would move kind of but fast like that, you know, not lumbering like a gorilla. It got gone, and I think it was a juvenile and the rock clack we heard was a warning that got out to open because LORI saw it come down the ridge and stopped, and she she was afraid to say anything. I forgot to mention that she just thought she was seeing things. And then when we talked about it later, she said, I did see something move. I just thought it was I seen things.

1:14:58 So I think it was a juvenile that got out in the open a little too much. And that's what that rock clack was for. And when I broke the audio down, you can hear a little bit. I think I have four recordings now and you have to really listen to them with headphones. But it's like a nervous tick. You'll hear a wine kind of you know, like a dog will do sometimes, oh wow, yeah kind of thing, and you can hear that very faintly. And another time when we had a tree pushed over and I walked up to an area and I could hear something move and I heard a little bit of a mumble, now not talking, but a just you know, a noise, and then a wine kind of thing. Now, of course bears can make different sounds too, but they went more of a huffing sound. And then if you're you know, on sidings, if people see an upright bear, to tell you, you know, the ears will be on time. No clavicles, so when they stand up they look like an assay. There's no shoulder. There's no shoulders at all in the bear, just don't have clasicles and so and then you'll see ears on top of the head. That's tell tale things for people, you know, to see. You know, lots of times people will see different angles so it looks different, you know, emissidifications. He is a big thing in this. But keep minding only takes one credible thing, like doctor Krantz said, for it to be a real thing. And exactly and by the way, just a little shout out for doctor Mildrem. I don't know if you heard yet. It happened on the cruise and I hope he's

1:16:30 doing well. He's I hope he's doing good too. We're kind of all waiting to hear the news about how that is. But yeah, that's standing. Stone State Park comes up more often than not on this show. It's weird. Man like that area. There's there's something going on because it comes up over and over on my show. He is very interesting. So yeah, and a lot of it's due to Mary Green's great research. And that's sure. By the way, Matt knows new Mary. I don't know if you know that. Uh, And he can talk a lot about Mary if he will, you know, I don't know if he'd want to do that. And he's thinking because he's talking about his book, but he knows a lot about that, and she did some great research there and spend a lot of time document things. And again, if you ever go there, it's a small state park, but there is a lot of there's a national there's a forester around it too, which is totally different. Uh, you know, it's not you know, there's two different places, name wise, so it's a bigger area and what most people think. And there is water there, lakes and a lot of little tributaries, and it is what I am my opinion, a great quarter or a good transitionary where they kind of moved through sometimes. You know, again, if these things stay in one cove as big as they are, Jeremiah, you're going to after a while, you're going to see sight of them. They would just mad everything, damn.

1:17:55 Leadwise, it's just common sense, you know, So they're constantly I'll be moving in forgance what's going on. But uh, it's a great thing. And I encourage people out there if they may ever been into an expedition or been out I know you've been out sometimes, you know. I think I've seen you've been out here recently. It's just a thing to do. Yeah, I've bet two times in Iowa. Yeah, oh, in Iowa, Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm from my central Iowa, so that's that's where we we go out. It's fun, it's fun. Yeah. I hope to maybe get your My son's moved to Wisconsin now. He's up here at Wakasong Less Pauls from they are working now. He just flew back today, him and his girlfriend. But uh, hopefully i'll get up heround.

1:18:40 We'll be up in Ohio working the Susan Fair, Chalk's and Matt Moneymaker the drama thing there. I've got a private thing doing uh Ohio too, in Kentucky and I've been up to Ohio. Spoke at b Mills. I don't know if you've interviewed b but but you haven't. Yeah, but I yeah, yeah, she's very good. And her festival, I think the first year was last year and I spoke there. We had twelve thousand people at the festival. This year they had forty two thousand people. Sure that was Hawking Hills, right, Howking Hills, Yep? I think forty one forty two thousand. That's wild man. You know, they did that from drone footage and she does a great job of that. But she has some great audio by the way too, and just some good track finds. But uh, yeah, it's a and like I said, I was wrong about my first trip into this. There's some great people in this. I've met some who just off the charts, great people, very knowledgeable, and they do a lot of work in it. I think lots of times the research gets disinterpreted, and you know, you've got a lot of couch people out there that you know wanted you know, I encouraged people to get out experienced things for yourself like a sunrise or you know, go out in spirits, you know, a startled at night, you know a moonlight night, go out in the woods, and you know, go with credible people, be safe with it. But it is a great experience and then if you can

1:20:13 get lucky and have something happen, it's really unique. You know. But they are a real living thing, absolutely know that for a fact. For sure. I agree with you there, Jeff has been such a fascinating conversation. Uh you're you're one of those guys, I feel like I could I could chat with forever, but thank you for coming on a fun one. It is there a way that, you know, let's say someone was listening to this and they're like, oh man, you mentioned this area. I had something happened in that area. Is there a way people can contact you or do you kind of just keep under the radar, can post stuff on the bfr O side, all right, but if you're not comfortable that, they can send me an email at a Jeff Carpenter six team at yahoo dot com and I check my email there. I prefer not giving out my phone number. I get more of my reports, Jeremiah, just by word of mouth. People contact me. You know, hey, you're the big foot guy kind of thing. And I'm amazed at how many people, particularly professional people like a policeman. I've had park rangers. They won't talk about things until they're really retired. And yeah, I've had some good reports from I could go on and on about different things, and hopefully in the future we can do another one. I'd like to talk to you about what I call the orange incident that happened at debate station. It would take a whole episode talking all right, Yeah, well, hey, I'll be in touch,

1:21:47 but yeah, they can contact me there. And I do encourage people. I do think a lot of people don't do reports because they feel like they would be labeled crazy, you know kind of thing, or they just want followed away where sometimes maybe their memory is a repressed memory. I found in my talk if people will talk about things, it's kind of like the girl I was talking about, young Lady. After while, she said, Jeff, this has been therapeutic. I've kind of got this off my shoulders. I feel so much. They kind of have post traumatic stress disorder. Absolutely, it's a it's of course doctor John Barcheck. If you know doctor John, he's a psychologist and we talk a lot about that. How was it his first expedition and helped him ally. He's a great guy, but his specialty is post traumatic stress disorder. So they do after they talk about it, they feel so much better because it's such a weird thing to them that they saw this. Kind of like if you see Jesus walking down the road, he's just wow, you know, Jesus was a real thing, but he just it's just hard to imagine. It's a little different when you see him on the road. Yeah. Well, ye know, I'm just saying or Santa Claus or there, Santa Claust. You know, it's just a but it is a real thing, and I have to emphasize to a lot of people. It was very hard for me to come out publicly the library here when we do a presentation, and I thought I'd have thirty people come and I had two hundred and right, two hundred and fifty people show up.

1:23:20 My goodness, oh it was this this year. It's two thousand, nineteen years ago. I couldn't believe. And I had a lot of Cherokee people come and had some sightings, and you know, some of them were kind of questionable signings other people would said, but someone were very good and I followed up. And then of course I had a park rangers show up. He wouldn't give me his name, but they had some things and that led to sighting a couple of years later that a lady had and I was falling the area and she got a hold of them, you know, on the Blue Ridge Parkway and it was right where these rangers two years before that, and said, hey, you need keep an eye on that place where it was some weird stuff happening, oh wow, and mostly noises and uh yeah, again that's probably I hate giving out information when they don't approve me doing that. People to understand when I'm kind of and I'm reluctant to talk about locations just because of purity and safety, if that makes sense, purity for my research, because again I'm documenting a lot of stuff. I want to make sure I can, you know, not have ten people doing big foot calls in an area that I'm trying to, you know, narrow something down. You know, it's kind of hard. Luckily, we don't have many roads in western North Carolina, so that helps a lot. So it's one way in, one way out there. You go, thank you again for it's been a pleasure, and you do a great job, and good luck with your your podcast. It's I love your logo by the way.

1:24:46 Oh thanks yeah. Shout out to Jonathan dies for for doing that for me. But Jeff, thanks so much for a coming answer. You have a good night. You're a big for Society. Article is to provide a platform for those that have encountered bigfoot to share their encounter in a safe and respected environment. But we need to hear your story. If you've experienced something that you just can't explain, please send me an email at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. Then we can start the conversation. I know a lot of you have not shared your encounter at all. It's been twenty years and it's time that you get this off your chest and then you can get some well deserved for rest, because I know you haven't been sleeping. I understand what you're going through, and I appreciate every one of you listening