Squatchin' Gear Chat with Mike Anne, Tactical Bigfoot Research

0:00 Either you're listening to the Big 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 an 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 Bigfoot Society. I've taken far too much of your time so far, so let's get on with the show, all right, Big Society. We've got the privilege of talking to an old friend tonight, mister Mike and from tactical Bigfoot Research. How's it going, Mike? Good brother?

0:53 How you doing, dude, I'm so I'm doing. It's so good. It's a great Thursday night out in Iowa and we are just burning down. I don't know if it's like that out in New York, but we're raining tonight, so not too bad here. But I you know, I pulled up the map because we got a bunch of friends up in Michigan for the big parafest up there, and I'm like, yeah, I'm happy I'm not in the Midwest or you know, up the Upper Penisula because I'm watching those storms and I'm like, no, thanks, guys, keep with my rain. It's it's it's a it's a rough one out here, but thankfully Friday night, the heat's gonna break. But dude, I'm so excited to have you on because, like back in the clubhouse days, a group of us we used to chat quite a bit and I al was like, man, i gotta get Mike on the podcast. And we've been trying and try and try, and finally it worked out. We had a great chat at monster Fest last year and that was fun. We had a we had a supper together that was that was good stuff. But I'm glad to have you on here. Mike. Let's start start with so, how did you get into the whole Bigfoot game? How did the name tactical Bigfoot Research come about?

2:07 I haven't heard that story, I think, so it's it's weird. Actually, I were a couple of jokers and one of the guys always said that he was related to Bigfoot, and I was home sick and got on the internet and started gooling big Foot sightings in my local area because I was like, they, I'm gonna find something, and we're gonna just you know, like the meme, gonna send it to your you know, your friends and stuff like that. Well, when I started doing the research, I found a sighting less than five miles from the house that was in the local newspaper and pretty contempt temporations to that, I mean within a few years, and factor's a local paranormal group getting ready to a whole show on it.

2:55 And it was like, I can't believe this is down the street for me. So I get on the text message, I send a link to everybody to you know, a bunch of our friends, our small little group of fishing and honey guys, and they're like, yep, he's got friends, he's got family. And then I started getting side pings from some of the folks that yeah, we've got guys working for us looking in this particular area in this park, and we've got other guys looking at this. And then I got a buddy from college, It's like, wow, there's a state agency that releases one big Foot and one mountain lion, one big Foot and one timberwolf together, just you know, a haha kind of thing. Well, that got me thinking, I'm full of useless information. When it gets locked up here, it's up here, I can see names and faces, and you know, I won't forget a name and I don't forget to face.

3:44 Sometimes I can't put them together at the same time. But useless stuff. But I had been talking to an individual in law enforcement that worked for an agency, and I was asking him, what do you know about the mountain lions? And he says, wow, I really don't believe in the mountain lion thing coming through New York. And that's where I'm at, and he goes, But when I was working in the Chautauqua County area, we took a lot of crazy stuff related to big Foot, and you go on look at the BFR thing and you can you can kind of see one of those sightings. Well that started me on a deep dive. So I'm home for like I said, some surgery. I start doing some searches. I come across to the Seth breed Love's Small Town Monsters, The Beast of Whitehall, which had some law enforcement stuff in contacts. And that's my field is I work in law enforcement. And I had a background in archaeology and the athropology when I went to college. So I started doing some more deep diving.

4:41 So now I see this and I'm like, all right, I gotta see what else is going on. So I start googling the stuff in Chautauqua County, more stuff in New York. I start coming across the old Monster Fast stuff, which I probably caught here and there. You know, like most folks, I saw the Leonard Nimois stuff, the Answer stuff as a kid, but I really wasn't my thing. But I find this stuff down in Chautaqua County and there's a festival down there, and I find a kid down there, Ryan reading, and I start watching his channel and I'm like, take my niece and nephew. I'm still out of work. I can't really do anything. Let's go down and see what's going on. Well, I end up meeting Ryan and he introduces me to Steve Calls and you've met Steve, the Squats detective. And we're out shooting in a you know, the breeze out front and talking to Steve, tell me a little bit more about this, and you know, his background, my background. And Steve sends me a friend's request later that day Facebook and he offers, Hey, if you're up in the Capitol region, New York, come on, we'll go up to you know, Lake George and the areas he's had his sightings.

5:46 And happened to be a couple of months later, I was up there for a conference and we popped. I went over, got changed out of my suit that I was in for the conference, and went up to the mountains and nothing happen. And I thought, hey, this is great if I'm going out with it. You know, this guy says he's in a big foot and everything and nothing happens. That's great because I'm like, if I get up there and there's something goes on, I'm gonna be a little iffy about the things. So Steve takes me to all those famous places in Whitehall and you know, the Abear Road and down and then we end up in Vermont. We end up going over you know, everything's really close over there, so over to where the Vermont Trail camp footage in Frank's place, and you know, we kind of hit it off as friends. I start doing some stuff with him, and at that time I was making tactical knives and tomahawks for military law enforcement folks and doing some survival gear, and he goes, okay, join my group. He goes out to do his talks, and I would go along kind of watch the table, and I would bring on tactical stuff and say, hey, you know, if you're going into the woods, that there's gear that you should take with you. You should take a good knife with you, you should take you know, first aid kit, backpack. Stuff people don't think about and they want to go right out in the woods. And so that's kind of where tactical bigfoot research kind of came from, was taking my actually tactical knife company combining it with the big foot thing, and I started doing some big foot quote unquote knives

7:18 and that's where we kind of kind of rolled into this thing. And then it's been an ongoing thing where I go out and I worked with Steve and he introduced me to the guys from Nestra who've been around since the old Internet forums, you know, back when it was just message boards. And then I got introduced to Eric Altman and the guys in Pennsylvania and his group and had my first my first scream down there with I love to call j Fred because I can ever say bo cha Chen properly, and I puchered every time. Good friend and all. But you know, I got in with a bunch of good, good folks that introduced me to some stuff, and I just I've seen some stuff I can't explain and has kind of kept me on the go to the point that Amy Boom brought me in a zoo book and their team, and you know, got to work with Seth and I've got to work with a lot of great folks. And then I have a research partner, actually two research partners, but my main one is a field biologists and the other one's an entomologist. When we can get out and it's great to bounce different ideas off of them. And I've got a couple of their projects that we'll talk about a little later. They're working with some folks.

8:33 So yeah, you got you got some cool stuff going on. Mike. How how many years ago did this did this all start? I think, what are we at now? I just I was just trying to do a deep dive in I got a bunch of external hard drive. So I was just doing a deep dive in and we're probably it's six years now, seven years now, So you know, I came to us later in life, like I said, it kind of came outward. But then I started doing a lot of conferences and with the some of the disciplines that I have that I teach and work with and stuff in my in my career field, like I work with a lot of military and law enforcement guys, and you know, guys will pull me aside when they find out that I'm into this and like, hey, you know, we were doing this or we were doing that, and kind of spun off. Then I started doing my own podcast, but the information and every time I get ready to walk away from the subject somebody else, I get a call out of the blue, like hey, you want to check this out and I can't explain this. And documentation is a key, And if they can document it and we try to replicate it and we can't or we can get as much data, it just keeps me going to see what the next thing is and to help folks. Document is kind of what keeps me going. The best way to collect the best evidence that's that they can. You know, I'm working on a thing right now, and the big point is that a citizen scientists. And sorry it's

10:11 late for me tonight, so my words aren't coming out so great. I'm overthinking because you and I have talked about so many things over the years. I'm trying to remember where we're at. But we're the funding, the cost, the you know, if your i's your family and your friends you're going out with to do this. We're not major corporations funding major institutions funding this thing. So I'm always trying to figure out what the most reasonable, priced and unexpected an expensive way of keeping documentation is there, even though I have a lot of really cool toys that I'm allowed to have and get to work with. If mom and Dad want to take Junior out to learn about the woods and learn about this subject, I don't want them to spend an arm in the leg. I want to get that that young individual or that family involved in science and in the outdoors, and if sasquatches the Bigfoot is the lead to that, and that kid finds something somewhere else in life. Hey, I'm right behind that. So that's kind of where I'm at with the subject of educational stuff. What do you feel, Let's say, what do you feel a new person to big footing they want to go out in the field, do some research. What should they have in their their bag when they go out? First thing, first aid kit, second thing, some

11:46 water, third thing, some food. Then this is important. You know, we just we just had a mutual friend hown in Florida. You know, pull different thing from getting some infection. You don't know if it's ben out in the woods or whatever. And I've had friends that you do a lot of friends that have naked fraid and other things. And you know, what do you get bit by in the middle or are you tripping your fall? You got to know these things. And that first sak it as we go along? Is it going to be pretty helpful? And I'll kind of show you how that goes along. But the other big thing is keeping a notebook, be it a big one, be it a little one, record what you got going on. And I'm dropping stuff as we go here. You know, having a flashlight, and this one happens to be it's not blind anybody here, but this one that I've got is a multicolored flashlight.

12:35 It does blue it does green, it does alter a violet and UV is very big for me, as you'll find the reds, the greens, and the blues, because when we look at different things in nature, you're going to see different things under different lights, and that's a big thing. Color combinations for me is important, so you know that first. In communications, Gere, I also carry a cell phone, an extra cell phone, and an extra tat or tablet to hook up to some of my expensive thermals and night visions and drones and stuff, but also for some of the applications that I use and is a backup communication device. And communication device is so important to be able to communicate with friends, family and whatever when you're out there.

13:24 So those are really huge things to keep it there. And another thing is like little things like Leaf and Learn, you know, live and learn this one here which has different tracks and I'm probably gonna turn my green screen off for us tonight and it's just you. I mean, we're not really doing audio, but the little little flash cards, a little foldouts that have you know, animal tracks. I have bigger ones with different snakes and birds and sounds and such that are so important to keep going. I mean, my gearbag is I carry a sling bag, but I right to carry as light as I can. You know, a way of marking out where you're at, you know, so again we're gonna turn that out and it happens.

14:13 I thought we were in the predator for a minute. Yeah, all right, so used to be doing it from my side. I'm trying to remember how to turn around out there, I think, so around this side. You know. Not that I don't use this every day for my nice you know that. So, but I like tearing and you see me hand these out. Is the cloth tape measure, the tailor's tape measure. Yes, some folks will say with little water, it'll stress, it's not gonna stretch to much. This particular one is plastic coated and it's one hundred and twenty inches. It gives you a known length. It's also cordage. That's the other reason that I carry it. We'll be back with more big Foot Society after these words from our sponsors. So if you've got to make a splint and tie yourself up, you can do it. But you also have the ability and being the cloth plastic fabric that it is, it doesn't make a lot of noise. So when you take a regular tape measure, and usually I have one on my bench here, but I moved it. Do you get that smell you know that comes through with a you know, and it's it's there and it closes up and now it drags through the middle of it. You know, if you find a print or something like that, it's a nightmare. Just think about trying to do construction at home. So one of these is great. I also will carry paracord with a ring on

15:48 the end or a dog hook, and the reason being for these twofold known length. So this one I know has this black one here has eighteen foot of cord on it, but it's got a ring, so I can hook this to itself, or I can hook it to a tree. It's weighted, so I can put that known length up in the tree. If so somebody says I've seen something at this headlight or you know this height, I can throw something up, and I've done the same thing. I've put the rings on the tape measures as well, and it just allows me there, but it also allows me to do a circle search. So folks that say I've lost my track, So for years I was searching recovery diver. I still do underwater robots stuff. But I can put a steak down if I find a print, or I can take a flag, my little flags, I make out a tape and bamboo. Or a friend Emily or at their fourst floor, she does some cute little orange ones. You've seen Alex use them. Yeah, I show to these little ones and then she's like, hey, can I make big ones? I'm like sure, but he's a little smaller. So I love it because it's out there. And you know, like I said, Alex has used them all and you know an Eli, those guys have used them quite a bit. Our friends, you know, she uses them all the time. I use the small flags too.

17:18 Full for using the small ones like this because I can use them as a trail marker and the evidence. So if I find that print, I find that hair, I can put these markers down, just like a police officer doing a forensic thing or an archaeologist start setting those marks. But then I can put that ring on my steak, and sometimes I'll carry a tent steak in there that'll fake physically fit or being a hole in a loop. I can run the string through and tie it to my branch or whatever. But then I will do consecutive known circle to look for additional evidence items. And again I'm documenting them either by video when I'm out there with my phone or I generally carry a pretty good sized DSL or camera with me, or you know, a goal pro with me to record as much information that's out there.

18:10 And you know, like I said, we're going through my pack quick. I also have envelopes paper envelopes for hair, so and big ones and the big ones, so the little ones the coin size, and I have the big ones, and it's a good thing I turned this off so on these great two are my evidence so and we're might get into the race spot. This is my sample, the date, the location, all that information. So we talked to somebody like Derby Derby Orcott at NC State University who's doing the DNA study. What's going to come up better than we can send something like that with the full documentation. I do have a UV hair collection program going on, uh kind of something I've been working with with Doug Hijack a little bit, just kind of inspired some of the information after talking to him doing some UV light with some hair. But again how I collect that data? Big paper bags. They're in my bag, so I can collect again, pair of samples, you know, this one here, a bag of porcupine here, you know, that's in there that we collected, and we got some other stuff and eventually they get moved onto slides and you know, we go from you know, so you'd slide them up with what animals they are? So what else is in there? Gloves, sterile tweezers and

19:45 those are you know, to get me started mask Most everybody's pretty much carings. So that's what's generally going into my my backpack. So I've got that stuff with me twenty four seven, So I might have a uth, like I said, a little UV flashlight or the big flashlight. Usually got a bunch of flashlights and then who knows one of three thermal cameras or night vision cameras with me. Why would it be important to have gloves and sterile tweezers with you? So we don't want to we don't want to cross contaminate. If we come across something, we don't want to cross contaminate that information. You know that that item that we found, you know, be it scat hair, skin, you know, you want to make sure you've got that stuff there. If you're using casting materials, sometimes it's nice to keep that casting material off your hand because some of that stuff will burn a little bit if you can't get a washed off right away. That's one reason I carry the extra cell phone and the other tablets. A lot of times I run light, so I'm not carrying the extra twenty five pounds of hydrocal that's usually or dentist stone that's usually in the car are I use three D scanning apps.

21:03 I use bird apps to turn around and get that information, so I have it be it polycam or scan three D. And not only if I find that track, am I scanning the track, I'm scanning the whole area so I can go back and take a look at things. Most folks when they take that single photo, that's what they get. But again that's what I'm saying, take your tape, measure and measure it out. But using a three D scanning application, photopictrometry is what it is. It will build. You need to take at least twenty photos to really give you that depth. There are some new three D scanners that are out there, and the prices are coming down that don't have to be hooked into a computer, but a lot of them have to be hooked into computer phone. So you're using a lot of memory units that turn around and you know, a big processor to get that stuff out. But you can do this three D scanning like lighter stuff with the newer iPhones, right, new new iPhones. New.

22:04 I'm an Android person, so I started using this stuff a couple of years ago. Actually, I got a text message from a researcher in Massachusetts and carries like, I'm in the middle of the woods and I have no casting materials. What do I do? And I'm like, what do you got for a phone? And I said, get a scanning out. So she was my first guinea pig on a possible sasquatch track and the first one outside. Pretty much my partner and I know, really using it. He's, like I said, a research biologist, and he was using him in the field. He's actually got a big scanner to hooks the new a laptop.

22:49 But for quick for the phone, I mean, that was great, and we've been pushing that non stop. You know, if you've got him in again as the technology and the phone comes along, So what you know the iPhones have is that light our sensor on them that some of the androids don't, So you may get a little different definition than but it's better than not having anything, and it's better than not having that single photo, you know. I've had that talk with with a couple of folks that that's what their specialty is is doing like three D scanning and printing and stuff, and they're like, well you can't. Well, yeah, I don't have fifteen thousand dollars you know for a big expensive industrial scanner, or eight or nine hundred dollars to throw into one of the cheaper scanners. What I can do for either free with ADS or you know, two dollars or a dollar a month is I can go get a scanning app and I at least I have it on my phone. I can come back and I can use my my PC and I can look at it multiple different angles to see what I have.

23:56 That's that's the thing, is that what we what we can pull and what we can do is it's just amazing on the information that's out there. And I switch to a different machine so I don't see if I can find a scan for a you know, a quick overview is that you know, I know we've seen someone of our other friends. I mean, here's a see if I could download this one quick for you and give you a share here, yeah, screenshot to put that there. No, of course now it wants to take it. You know, this is the same screen shot and over right the other one. Right, let's pull up the other screen here and so and I know you're not using much of the video, but just kind of give you an idea what's going on. So we can pull in from come back over to stream yard and give you my share my screen.

25:26 So I just sent you the share. So I mean that's the three D scan using you know, we can actually look at some of that definition. And if I go and pull the original file which is loaded into something else, I really can go take a look at the whole rundown of it using some of the three D apps. So you know, if you go into Basic Windows, there's a three D viewer right on your desktop that you can pull and I'll pull that one up and share that screen. Can you print out these three D scans using a three D printer as well? In a way if you have the right the right printer and you have the right file, so let me sure and switch screens. So you know, okay, what I just sent you. So this is the three D viewer that's right from from Microsoft. That's right in there. So I mean you can go and find your file, you know, and I have to go back and look into my my folder and stuff like that and pull it back out again.

26:38 But where you would actually be able to go in and you know, take a look with all these things. Cool, this is one you know, this is just a sample. But again, I just I just updated this PC four doing the podcast. Everything else has been on my laptop, gotcha. This is a really good episode because it's been a while since I've really been able to dig into solid research related info. And I think this will be helpful for a lot of listeners. You mentioned in passing, I think you were mentioning or alluding to the Merlin Bird app. Merlin Bird app. Can you spend a few minutes talking about how it's important to have that on your phone if you're going out. So Merlin is awesome. So it's from Cornell University, and so good shout out to one of those New York State you know, area coologists. But so We've got bird dot Net and we have Merlin, and we pull up Merlin's on my front page on my phone. So so Merlin sound ID I'm coming in here allows you to go in and actually hit the sound id. Not only does it allow you to record what birds are they are, but it gives you a visual like you know, we talked to the guys on the op about us an Audassey.

28:07 But at least I can take a look at things when they're going along. And if I pull up and pull up one of my lists in here, so my sound recordings, I can go back and I can look at my recordings and if I play them through, it's not gonna go through now. Right now, the apps I can work right now, that's weird, but it'll get It'll give me a list of you know, what birds are there and stuff, and I can go back and look at that audio it is. But the other thing about Merlin is I can set it down in front of my computer, in front of the speakers, and if I got a general idea where they're at, you can go pick the geo location and look.

28:55 So there's a lot of time, there's a lot So there's a lot of there's a lot of time that I may watch other live shows and such, and may drop the Merlin app and kind of watch to see what comes up in the background, be it owl's crows, great horn, you know, or great blue herons, or I'll get a call from another investigator, Hey I got this recording, Well, as long as I can get it, you know, clear enough where I don't have the dog, and you know it was recorded and then recorded and then sent over you know, through the computer. Yeah, it's it's it's usually pretty good. And you can use that to try to figure out like where the recordings from, Well not so much for the recordings from. If I've got a general idea, there's there's different folders from around the country that so I can actually you know, pick up you know where and so you've got a geo spot man. Sorry, the camera just as not staying clean tonight. But I can go up in the corner and kind of search by different areas to look for things where they're at it searched by you know, the time of the year, the family, you know, Like I've been from here down to Florida, so I've got like Zephyr Hills, Florida, I've got Fort Lauderdale, I've got you know, down to Miami and into the glades. We'll be back with

30:26 more Bigfoot Society after these words from our sponsors, and I can look at that time of year. So but again, like I said, there's been a couple of times where I'm watching a show or a documentary somebody's done and oh hey, let's take a look and see what's there. You know, bird wise that is so smart. Oh man, that is That's a really smart dude. And the other thing about that is if you're going to get that app on your phone and then go out in the field, make sure you take the time to download the huge file that goes with it, so you don't get out there and you're like, oh no, I can't really use it now, and you know we all end up with it, you know, half a dozen extra phones over the years, you know that you're just downloading on those. I got like this extra little palm thing or whatever that has like my backup remote for like my dash camera and everything. So literally I don't have to use my use my regular phone. And then birdnot Net is similar. Again, it's another Cornell app. But again I can visibly watch this, but this one I physically have to go in and sample what I'm looking at, where the other one will identify as it goes along.

31:44 I'll actually say, oh, I want that section, and I can pull that recording and then I can go back and look at those recordings as well. Another one I'll run is Physics Toolbox, which allows me to you know, have sound meters and everything else and kind of watch some of the stuff that's out there. So it's got you know, your sound meter, you're your skilloscope, your spectrum analyzer is all right there. So again, keeping yourself quiet and listening is just great, but it's it's good to know your animals that are out there, because after I've got bird dot Net going or I've got Merlin going, and there's another sound and I don't quite recognize it, you know, Like I said, taken from from Chris and and David and stuff like that in the op where they're saying, hey, thrown into you know, one of the spectrum analyzers. There's a couple of hunting apps that you can get, like I Hunt Sound and calls that you can go and pick those different animal sounds and go compare them and It's amazing how many times I noticed that folks are using gators bowls, bison uh in your sound. And a lot of times when I go out and do education purposes, I'll bring a Bluetooth speaker else to get in the middle of the audience and Hey, what's that, you know, And I'm like, God,

33:15 that's the t Rex from you know, Jurassic Park, or that's that's that's Sasquatch. I know it's Sasquats. That's what I heard of TV. And You're like, well, it could be, but here's this and now we can go online. We'll call their videos from you know YouTube of you know known you know, scientific shows or something like that. You know. I'm still a big proponent on listening for gibbons sounds as a as a young kid, I spent time as a volunteer at the local zoo and spent a lot of time with chimps and rings, gibbons and spider monkeys behind me on one side of the particular building and the other side of the building that just had some different reptiles and little stuff in between. You had you know, a lion, a tiger and some other you know, bigger birds and stuff during the winter, so listening to those sounds all the time as a kid man, if I hear something different, it's like okay, but then I'll pack it those up and we'll ship them off. They're our friends. So totally I apologize for the dogs there tonight. So you know, do you use on X at all? I don't. I probably should. A lot of folks that I go out with do, But I like using Scott's big Foot Mapping Project map when I'm out. We use that in Florida. I just

34:45 used it last weekend. We're up in the outer aroundex just looking for moose, just as a fun thing, kind of a roll off from my show, because I missed that once looking for moose and got lost. And you know that's another thing. Keeping your bag. Put a map, a good old fashioned map. Put the old fashioned map in a car. The first weekend we went looking for moves. You know, we're like, oh, use your phone, that's not gonna work. We had a GPS. That was weekend. Garman decided that they were going to get hijacked, so they had no satellites. So going back to a good old fashioned map is so much and pre planning. It's just the way to go is keeping a map, Leeping a good map and knowing how to read a map is amazing.

35:29 It's a it's a lot of start today, man, it truly is. I mean having a compass, having a map, having a first aid kit. Those are the basics. And again going back to the first aid kit, you have sterile tweezers. You have your gloves. Sometimes you have a mask. Now you generally have a plastic bag or something in that first aid kit. You have alcohol swabs, so I have your fire starter. Again, you're tweezers to collect in a lot of those little tweezer containers. I don't think I had. I think I've moved everything in another bin. But the ability to find what's in your first aid kit now to help you collect data is so important. You know you can in there there you got some white tape and you got guess what you got. You got medical tape and you got a lot of times I have obstacle sticks in or a tongue of pressure of some sort. It gives you an evidence plague. Oh yeah, So having a good first a good first aid kit so important to have that stuff and usually a lot of them come with a pair cord. Now, so, man, this is a solid this is a solid episode. Let's let's switch gears for a little bit. Has there been a time when you've been out in the field and you've experienced something and you're like, oh, things just got very serious bigfoot related it And I'm not sure how comfortable I

37:01 feel right now, or maybe I'm super into this right now, you know. Well, I'd say there's not a time that have been like, oh, man, you know, like I feel threatened or something like that. So my first PA bigfoot capping adventure, you know, gun out and it's just a rainy weekend kind of thing. And like I said, I'm talking to Jay and all day the day before, I'm talking to different witnesses. You know, this is my first like real exposure big foot type thing besides a little chataka when we have here, which is an awesome event if you're in western New York. Peter runs a great event. I mean, he's had Meldrum, he's had Cliff, he's you know, he said, Seth there. Steve's there all time in great great area as well. But I'm there and everybody's talking about Hey, it went to a card I have a cigarette. You know, I went out to get my smokes hanging out with friends while they have and I'm like, all right, what's the deal with that? So I jokingly look at a Jay and I'm like, hey, dude, you gotta smoke, and he goes they hand me a cigarette.

38:07 As he does, we hear a scream coming from the woods. Now it's a family camping event. It's it's great, uh, you know, and here we are, you know, talking about a cigarette. Unfortunately. So but we've got families up with us, and we're broken in a couple of three different groups and we're up on this pipeline area and we hear that scream and I just kind of looked at him like what do we got going here? And you know, we're kind of the responsible adults there. So Jay gets on the radio and it starts calling other folks like, hey, did you guys do a scream? Did you just and just not a human scream? You just you felt in your chest? Well, I got parents with with young children. So now I'm like, all right, I'm dealing with bear spray and everything else. We try to let's get everybody circled up, Let's start bringing the groups, and we bring everybody in. I kind of have everybody standing shoulder the shoulder facing out. I'm trying to calm everybody down.

39:04 I'm like, all right, let's say everybody just do a scream, just kind of whatever everybody is or scream. We get some responsible and I'm like, oh, well, they're not really paying attention because they're all giggling, laughing. But I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I'm bouncing Jay and Joe and somebody else was Ryan Jim. All right, so Jay always comes out of the woods right we'd gone in dark. I'm like, all right, so I light everybody up and we start kind of marching ourselves out, and I'm like, everybody just watched the ground because we went up this way. I want to see if anything is gonna come across the trip. And some lady, you know, a couple of people down for me.

39:45 He's like, hey, what do I got? So we find an impression, let's start following the impression. So what we're taking photos and again I've got guys that've been out there doing this for years, and then there's me with like it's six seven months experience looking for the stuff at that point, and We're like, okay. So we started with like fifteen twenty people and next thing, you know, there's like four or five of us standing there and really where did everybody go? You know? And as we walked out, we felt, you know, we could hear something kind of pasting us out, but again we have no confirmation on what it was. We had a small seek thermal camera and we had my night vision at the time that the bousche I had, which is is great or bushnell that I have.

40:28 It's great for open fields, but closed in it you get too much I r bounce back. No, actually I didn't have it. I had this old Russian unit that I have. Cool. Oh oh yeah, this is like Gen one. I gotta make sure like the covers are on it still. You know, this is like you don't point at any light source because yeah, you just take your eyes out. Oh yeah, take your eyes out. It's it's green. It's that you know, oh man, And yeah, my buddy gave it to me when he gets really expensive PS fourteen. You know, but it's it's clear. But you know, us an I are illuminator or something and down it just so that that stays on the treasure shelf right, but so that one was like, okay, I heard my but I can't tell you one way or another. Like I said, we got an impression. It looked like a print, you know. And come back. About two years later, we're up in the Aderondex. We're sitting over top of car where Steve had his sighting where we filmed part of on the trail of the Journey, and I'm leaning over the top of the car and I've got a you know, a no name action camera I mounted on my chest, I got the recorder going, I got a thermal camera in a pocket and given somebody else the night vision were. But we're waiting for Steve to set up a camera and I'm leaning over to hope of the

42:00 Chevy Equinox when the older style, the bigger ones, and something comes across the hood and hits me in the forehead and I'm like, oh, well, it didn't come from above. And I'm looking for eggcorns. I mean we've been up there. We've hit this spot I don't know how many times, and I'm like, what you know, another one comes across. I get hit again. I'm like, all right, that's two. And I'm like, hey, what's going on? You know when I look down and look at the action camera and it's the batteries dead. I mean, it's those things last, you know, fifteen minutes if you're lucky. If now I now see that some of the bigger corporations come on these giant batteries you can plug in aside and even run other cell phone batteries into him. Now and given up on him slightly and just gone with an expensive DSLR that'll do like a hybrid camera like the loomis like Larson carries. But then see's like they're throwing rocks. And also it was like a handful of rocks just hit Pepper the side of the car, and we're like, okay, now I'm running around the car the thermal cameras, you know, turning the thermal camera on. But by the time we've scanned the area, there's nothing there.

43:07 But you're like, I can't we don't hear anybody running off, We don't, you know, that's just one of those things. You're like, Okay, well it goes in the book. You know, we know we have known sightings in the area. Do we say it's X, Y or Z. No. But again, We're not under kid corn. We weren't under pine tree. It came in horizontally, it didn't come from above, you know. It wasn't a bouncing roll. It was definitely a skidding hit, you know, and you had the whole side of the car get proper. And again we're on the top of the mountain. We're like, there's nobody around, you know, because we'd already drove the area. We've been sitting there for a little bit and it was raining. I mean, it was like it didn't make any think. We heard some some stuff going in and and now taken from the knocks and whoops, depending on where were are, I kind of take a half check because I found this really great area.

43:58 And then I was at another festival and this guy I was like, yeah, I'm down there screaming and doing hoops and knocks and everything else, and I'm like, not this particular location, but I've been to a couple others like their sightings in the area, and You're like, well, no, I know this guy's doing it. And that's that's a big thing now, is that you get these places that have been featured on some of the shows and stuff, and how much can you take for knocks, and how much can you take for screams? You know, I mean you can you can kind of feel the difference. But again, that's something. So I don't want to bang on trees anymore because there's that, and there's the pine cone issue. Where as you ask, you know, if you had one day that you just kind of like, oh, I had taken a co worker and her daughter out because her daughter was going to write a paper on the subject, kind of you know, a pro con kind of thing. So I take them up to an area. Yeah, there's supposedly some sightings.

44:59 It's close to this one here, and I know the area pretty decent, so I know there's a nice bench, so I walk them over. I set them down the bench. One gets the night vision, one gets the thermal. I do what you do when you get on fishing, you know, you grab your cell phone, you start playing around because nothing happens. I'm not really paying attention to where I'm standing. I always remember where you're standing. I didn't realize we're standing on a piece of slate and something bluff charges us there. Now. Could have been a bear, could have been a deer, could have been something else. I don't know, we'll be back with more Bigfoot society after these words from our sponsors. But as I turned to get my flashlight on what it was, I trip and fall.

45:40 They start to scream at the top of their lungs. Neither really seasoned once pretty easy to scare. Kind of look at her sometimes and she, you know, is there and you know, a mom, looks a daughter and a couple of Expoto was about turning the flashlight on. I get back up, got my flashlight and whatever it was was gone. But it was just kind of weird. So the next day I go up there with my science buddy. We're walking through. He gets a phone call from his wife and about the same time I hear something whipping through the trees and I'm like, wow, here's the thing we had this, you know, whatever go on, I've got something coming to the trees. So I'm like, I need to go see what it is. So I go charging off towards the sound, and I'm about fifty yards into the tree line and I realize it's not coming through the trees, is coming down from the trees. I'm in a high stand of pines and there were pine cones coming down well, the pine cones were about six and a half of seven inches long, so they're about a half a pound. Because they're nice and green, and as they're coming down their heart so as they're hitting the other tree limbs coming down, they sound like they're knocking coming through the trees, and when they hit the ground, they give you a pretty good thump. And I don't have it right here in front of me. I will share that audio and visual with you there because it's kind of an interesting thing because if you take the visual out, everybody's like, you got knocks, you got knocks? No, what I have as pine cones, excuse me. And after doing some research and

47:15 calling some botanists that we know, we found it. You know, the pine cones drop at different times of the year. It doesn't have to be a temperature phase. It just when their chemicals hit a certain thing, they just start dropping pots. And we kind of looked at that year around so a lot of folks are like, oh, I heard a knock. I heard a knock. Well, are you standing in the middle of a pine forest? Because it will really make a difference on how that sound comes down and the echo you'll get off coming those those things, and like I said, I will look for that's it's all in a presentation I have on the laptop that I use as part of that audio. I've never heard that that viewpoint before and that is incredible. Mike, Like, that's what I like about use your way of things thinking about things. And I mean you're one of the one of the guys that you contact me quite a bit after certain episodes and you're like, dude, I don't know about like and you're throwing stuff at me. I'm like, yeah, that's a solid point, Like you're really looking into stuff. But you know, like I said, I have a friend that had an encounter in South America with what they believe was a moping warry Steve's interviewing. You can listen to his and I've interviewed rate on my show as well and talked to his family. But I've also talked to a couple of the other gentlemen that were with him in South America during that particular operation, all swearing on their families, lives, their jobs, their careers. Some can't come because they're still working particular in particular fields that

48:52 they can't come out. I know, as they get closer to retirement. They've all offered to kind of come public with it, but they're like, we saw it, we're up close. If we would have shot at it would have given away where we were. And you know, talking to those folks, talking to you know, Brian Gosling and some of those guys in the White Hall, the law enforcement, the military, the doctors that I've talked to and say they're there. You know, I've had folks take me to their locations and I've watched and seen the physical response that they've had. I had one witness take me to his spot. Nobody had been there. I think his wife had been there. It was the only other person that not even into the location where he had his sighting and watching a very large grown man breakdown in tears saying this is what I saw, this is what I saw here, and you know, seeing the traumatic experience in his face, and can say, Okay, what did you see and where were you and how can you describe it? And Joe and I actually just did a presentation together, and it would it just happened to coincide a couple of weeks before and I think you and I talked about, you know, the paint sample idea. You know, we taught you talk to witnesses now all over the country, all over the world, and it's like I saw something that's brown, or I saw something that's green. Well, I had a gentleman that was up in the Adirondack area and he says, you know, I saw something and it was it was this color. Well, okay, what's great to you and what's great as somebody else's brown to somebody else. So I'm like, go to your local box store and get some paint chips.

50:25 That's a good idea, man. So you go to that local big box store and you pick up the paint chip, and I can say, this particular brand is this particular color for it's this particular color. And again here's the interesting thing. So you and I are looking at this on a computer monitor with using a computer monitor, and yeah, there's another way of doing things as a computer monitor. But depending on what your settings are, if you've got warm settings, cold settings or whatever, it's gonna look a little different. But having those hard physical copies in front of you very important. But you know, and this is why we network in this business or in this field. Find a buddy that that's got some talents or some skills.

51:13 We all have something to offer. So maybuddy Matt Larson there in Central Florida, Bigfoot, who's a photojournalist and he's a camera guy. He's an artist. Well, his wife's also nervous. They said, get panatones. So I didn't even I don't think I even had these when we were in Ohio. These are industrial color standards. Ye, so somebody anywhere around the rock. Now, this particular rock is not cheap. These are an old use set. But what I use for my presentations now I want an Amazon for twenty four bucks. Oh wow, and I got it's a fabric. So Joe sat there and I said, what did you see and what color? He could go right down and pick the color. Wow, And that's now.

51:55 I can take it into a log or we can have somebody you know, and I've mentioned it's a Scott and putting it into his thing and say hey, this is what it is, or that you can you can print them off, but again depending on what you're printering. But at least you will get you close. Now here's the other things. You have somebody that has color blindness or some kind of visual thing still having this color. When they pick that color out, you have an idea of what color they saw, what color in their mind they saw might be different, but you can still document that kind of thing. It's having those little documentations that we can log. So now when I talk to witnesses, usually I take the small binder with me, or I'll take the panatones with me. There is another way with your phone. You can use like Adobe color wheel to get you a general because you know, as we design, you know simple things.

52:51 I'm going to share this this one with your right now, let's see if it'll let me do it. Here, come back up to the screen. Get shout out to Matt from Central Florida. Bigfoot. He's a cool dude. So yeah, I definitely gonna. I am getting him into Ohio. Oh yeah, I'm gonna. I'm doing my best to get him there. So if we A'm gonna pull this screen up here so I can see. So if I make this bigger, of course, it's not gonna do it all right, clothes, I make this bigger, so simple little color chart. But as we go in and we look at things, it's gonna be a little different. But we can go in and pick our shading. But when we do a custom color, it'll give you this hex number down at the bottom. And I don't know if you can see that or if I need to blow it up a little bit. But by picking that custom color we can take that gives us an industrial standard and you know, and you can use that code everywhere to find that color. Yeah, yep. So if somebody takeshim, goes on their machine and says, hey, this, at least you're going to get in within three or four shades of what we're doing. I get both going here, so I'll put you back down.

54:06 So oh man, that's another that's another project I'm working on that that'll you guys will be seeing soon. But you know, it's just like I said, it's just going and getting Oh, well, let's see, I'm gonna paint the house this color. Oh and this color happens to be all these shades of gray or brown. So tomorrow, jeremiahen you're not running around to this weekend, stop and get some paint samples. Particularly, get a couple of shades of gray and a couple of shades of brown. Okay, now, and what you do, go out in the front yard, and walk up to your first pine tree and your first maple tree, your first birch tree. Wait till you get a couple of sightings in. So maybe you want to hold off on sending this one out for a couple of days.

54:55 But look at the color shades you're gonna get. And how when somebody says gray, black, brown. Yeah, And that's what happened is as I was talking to this gentleman and he says, it wasn't only gray, it was black and it was brown. And then when he sent me the color schemes, and I said, please go to the location that you're at and tell me what trees are there. Take me some pictures of the trees. Well, those species of trees, if we compare those color schemes, blend almost into him. So if you were still and that's something else we'll be sharing through Matt coming up soon. Because usually when I want something done video wise, I may talk about it. He's the guy I used to the bring it to the world. They would say that this is been this has been awesome. Man. The reason I love talking to you is I feel like, for one more people need to know about tactical bigfoot research because you have the tricks up your sleeve like crazy. So I'm just glad you were able to share some of them in this episode. Man. Well, so you know when I was getting ready to walk away, dude, you started clubhouse and brought our group together. In that group, you know, is it's a family and we kind of share a lot of information. And that's that's a big thing. You know, there's another thing. What's so important about this topic. Think about the benefits the friendships you make. Yeah,

56:28 we get into battles and stuff like that, and and those folks that really are you know, it's it's all about you know, me, myself and I It's it's not that I've met some wonderful people doing this. I've seen some amazing country and gone to some amazing pieces of property, and I've learned a lot of different tricks and trades for myself. But the benefits of getting out and going for a hike. Your health benefits, oh yeah, you know, the weight loss, the cardio, getting kids and families involved in projects together and not sitting on a couch anymore. Absolutely. I mean it rekindled my interest in going back and looking at archaeology and anthropology and when I started doing that, I did a deep dive and found one of my college professors actually spent time doing papers on primate dermoglyphics. Wow, that I was able to pass along to Alex when they were doing their stuff in Alaska, and it was like, okay, well that professor passed him out onto somebody else, and it was kind of but again where we go. You know, when you talk to a witness and you know, like, what do they have to offer? You know, it's it's the the garbage guy that's out at the road at three o'clock in the morning, or the newspaper delivery man, and I'm like, well, what do they Well, they saw, well, I guess what, who's driving the road at that time in the morning. Who knows if Missus Jones's cars there, the trash cans are in the right spot. You know, it's a repetitive motion. Excuse me,

58:04 are you talking to an artist? And when they say it's this color burnt orange, or it's this color pink, you know, or this color brown, and you can say they're picking up on those little things, or the hair kind of went this, or talking to a barber or something, it went certain ways. Or an architect, you know, do I always go on the tree stop. Sometimes I don't because of living in the Northeast and living through a couple ice storms up here and looking at snow load and falls and stuff. But there's another big thing. I go from here and then I go down to Florida. Well, if I'm out with the guys in Florida, I want them to explain what goes on in nature. The same thing if I came out to Iowa to hang out with you guys, what you're seeing with you know that stuff. There are folks in Oklahoma with you know, they get all the crazy stuff out there. Yeah, and more sighting is than anybody lately. I don't you know the Southeast man Southeast Oklahoma dude. But man, what what a fun time, Chatt and I am so glad you're able to come on. Thank you so much, Mike for for stopping by. I'm sure people are going to be wanting to try to keep up to date with what you are up to. Is there a way they can do that? So I'm most active on Instagram. We also do a podcast, probably a couple times a month. Where's My Sage?

59:36 So tactical Bigfoot Research on Instagram and on Facebook and on YouTube. I also do a podcast, Where's My Sage my co host Christy London, and usually Tuesday nights a couple times a month. Right now, Christy's getting a wedding ready for a wedding for a daughter, so we're not getting out there, but we do everything from big foot to the paranormal. She's a medium, so we'll do reading shows. But we've talked to folks from Jetila, from the Food Network and about life's journeys. We've talked to survivalists from Naked and Afraid, you know. We talked to military and law enforcement guys about you know, some of their their life's journeys and paths. Like I said, we all have something to offer. We can all learn from somebody. So that's where you can generally find us. I generally don't respond. If somebody tries to send something to my personal Facebook, send it to Tactical Bigfoot Research.

1:00:29 That's that's the best way to kind of get in touch with me. Awesome. Oh, it's so good. Thank you for hanging out, Mike. No problem, brother, you know I always been here for you here at big Foot 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. And 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