"We Saw a Bigfoot While Fishing the Lake in Arkansas."

0:00 Either you're listening to the Big Fort Society podcast and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Every week I talk to individuals who have experienced Sasquatch 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 with a friend. Does not cost a thing, and it helps the show continuing 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 in Bigfoot Society. I've taken far too much of your time so far, so let's get on with the show, all right, Big for Society. You've got the privilege of talking to Rusty today.

0:49 Rusty is a MD and a surgeon. He's a specifically a cancer surgeon and also an outdoor enthusiast down in the area of Arkansas. How's it going today, Russie? Good, Thank you very much. I was excited when you reached out to me. You've got an interesting story and it's also one of those that are also documented on the BFRO, which is always fun. But how are things going down there in your neck of the woods right now? Well, we've had a really hot summer, so I'm hoping it's about to cool down because it's been hard to even get out door as much at all this summer. Otherwise, things going pretty well, fantastic. It's it's always interesting when you're when I'm able to talk to someone who has such an interesting background and might we might get into that later. But one thing I wanted, let's start with this, So looking at the BFRORO report, there's one detail that I noticed that before, you know, I let you share your story. It might be interesting to start here. Your encounter happened in the year nineteen eighty per the report. Correct, it was submitted by yourself on March first of two thousand and six. Why did it take you twenty six years to report this because I didn't know the BFRO existed until shortly before that

2:22 time. You know, I was in college at the time, and there was no such things, well, no such things the internet even you know, in nineteen eighty U and I went to college, went to medical school, did my medical training, and worked very hard. And as you might guess, that takes a lot of time for many years, so I really just kind of put it out of my mind. And then somehow I stumbled on you know, I forget exactly what it was, but some Bigfoot related topic online and it, you know, brought reminded me of my experience that I had so long ago, and I searched around a little bit and found the bfrovent and reported it then simply out of you know, a happy accident.

3:05 If nothing else. That's very interesting. I guess that makes total sense with the timeframe that it took place in. Listeners, if you're younger, you have to realize that the internet wasn't around forever, so pretty pretty wild stuff. But Rusty, let's go back to that time in nineteen eighty and yeah, I'd love it if you'd be able to share kind of what happened and what was going on in that timeframe. Sure. Well, I was in college at the time, so I was twenty twenty one years old. It was the summer of nineteen eighty and as a college job, I was working at a resort type lake in Arkansas, and in the evenings my buddy and I he and I worked out there together and had been friends in school, so we were very close in the evening after the lake closed and we sent all the picnickers and swimmers and stuff home. He and I will go fishing most nights. So one evening in I want to say, it was probably late June or so, so it was probably seven pm and still bright daylight in that part of the country in late June. We're out fishing as we normally did. We were in a like a fourteen foot aluminum john boat with a trolling motor and just slowly paralleling the shore, probably ten fifteen yards out from the water's edge, you know, slowly moving down the parallel the

4:41 shore, like I said, and didn't hear anything, and all of a sudden we heard a little rustling on the shore, you know, again like I said, fifteen yards maybe away from us, and looked up and there was a best I can describe it is the head and shoulders from about I just maybe nipples up of a manlike creature that was covered with hair except for the face looking back at us basically, and you couldn't see the rest of him because the brush was so heavy there. So it was like behind, you know, trees and bushes and stuff from like I said, from a bounce, nipples down, so I really couldn't make out anything defendingly, you know, beyond that his face was I've always said it was more or less human. I thought it was more human than ape like for example, but it was dark skin. Then there was no hair really on the face.

5:47 It only started like at the hairline and like the jawn line and downs. Really it didn't seem to register any expression. I think I took it at the time as we might have just surprised it because we were quiet, We weren't even speaking, we were just slowly drifting and like we just happened up on it by chance and cried by surprise, like maybe he was coming down to the water. He or she was coming down to the water to you know, just get a drink or something. Who knows, and just happened up on us. This is This lake is pretty isolated. It's right off the Mississippi River. It's one of the old horseshoe type lakes where the river changes course and leaves a lake behind. And it's on private property, so there was nothing surrounding it but Forrest by Spence wallps for several miles, so it's relatively isolated. Any rate. So we sat there looking at him for maybe ten seconds at most, not any more than that, and it turned and walked back into the undergrowth, and within a few seconds we couldn't see it anymore. We heard it for a few more seconds. You could actually hear it moving through the undergrowth, but it didn't seem to make any kind of vocalization. And like I said, within a few seconds of turning away from us, he was gone. Here she was gone. And we never

7:17 heard anything else really that we were convinced or saw any sign after that of it again. And obviously, as I guess, we were fairly unnerved at the time because I was twenty and my buddy was, you know, maybe a year older. So we left immediately at that point. We went back to our cabin, which is at the other end of LA and stayed there and talked about it. And we really didn't tell anybody about it, not even his parents who actually owned the property, because we didn't know what to tell him. You know, we thought Jesus is just weird. I mean, we both knew of the Bigfoot phenomena, but had never really thought much about it. You know, we've seen the movies and so forth, but never really thought much about it, so we didn't know what to say or what to anticipate if we did say anything. And what would you say, you know, Oh, there's a monster loose on the property. Oh yeah, sure, were you guys drunk again last night? You know. I mean, that's the kind of thing we were worried about. So we basically kept quiet about it, like I said, for in most of those years.

8:24 I eventually told my wife a number of years later, who was actually my girlfriend at the time, and then, like I said, many years later, reported it to DFROO, and I talked about to a number of people, you know since then. My buddy actually died a few years ago, so he was my only other eyewitness. So that's pretty much the story that is really really interesting. Do you have a few questions for you, if that's all right? So few about the sighting of the actual creature. What you saw, So you said there was kind of a dark skin that you noticed. Do you remember an actual color to the skin or just that it was a more dark skin you know, I guess I would say just a very dark brown, not quite black, but pretty close to it.

9:20 And it wasn't even like Ploicrin phrase this. It wasn't even like, it didn't seem like a human skin zone. It was like a black man versus a white man. You couldn't even I wouldn't even say that. I mean it was darker than that. Interesting. That is very interesting. You said that the features that you saw in the face were more human than ape. Were there any specific features that you remember seeing that that kind of contributed to you thinking, Okay, this is definitely seems more like a human creature than an ape type creature. You know, I think the nose was probably the distinguishing factor that that led me to think that, you know, instead of having what you would imagine as an ape or a monkey having sort of flattened, large nostril up flared nostril nose, it was very much human nose.

10:18 It's fairly narrow pointed downward. You know, it really had, like I say, more, it looked like a human nose. Interesting that the hair, did you did you notice anything? You know, you said that it was covered with hair except for the face, not the entire face, But did you notice anything about the length of the hair, color, anything that you notice the ordinary to do with the hair that was on the creature. Yeah, I thought the hair was was brown, but not as brown the face. And there's the face. I thought the skin was distinctly darker than the hair surrounding it. And I would have guessed the hair was several inches long anyway, if not longer. And it did seem to be kind of what's the right word tangled or matted to some degree, you know, unkempt.

11:24 I guess might be a working use for a human. And like I say, I didn't see anything below the nipples, so I couldn't tell you anything about like the palms or the soles of the feet, but that really the face was the only part that seemed to be from our vantage point. You know, here free interesting and you know, just to come right out and ask it. A thing that you've mentioned multiple times is as a point of reference. So when you say around the point of the nip, is that something you actually saw or is it a thing like I would guess those are where they would be on the creature, right, that that was really it. I didn't mean to mister lead you. I could not say that we definitely saw any nipples, you know, I will say we could see how would I phrase this, you know, a prominence like your pectoral muscles, and there was you know, a really well built man, i'll have big pectoral muscles that stand out, and that this thing had that. But no, I did not see any nipples per se. Very interesting, did you could you see anything to do with the type of teeth that the creature had, that they have an open mouth or anything at that time? Yeah, I don't believe it ever opened its mouth, you know, And actually it was kind of that's the thing about the mouth. The mouth was pretty small. I thought again, maybe that was another one of the things that made me think it seemed more human, like you know, the mouth was

13:01 you know, proportional to the nose. There was this narrow middle of the face not upturned. It did not have the mouth didn't seem to have you know, enormous flexible lips like you know, an april monkey would. It's very interesting, you know, all the time that you spent there, was that the only time that you had interaction with a creature like that, or did you ever maybe smell anything or hear anything out of the ordinary things like that? You know, we heard things a few times out there that we couldn't explain like howls or roars or something like that. But you know, there were other animals out there that could potentially make that sound. There were lions or you know, cougars, mountain lions that lived in the area.

13:52 So we you know, we kind of resumed it was that or coyotes or something. Did not hear anything when we actually saw the creature others, I couldn't tell that it made any vocalizations. I did not smell anything you know, unusual, and never did. We didn't find when we didn't go back looking for tracks, but we never spend any tracks anywhere else, including like you know, around Earld cabin or anywhere else that we couldn't explain. So now you know, we, like I said, over the few weeks after that, maybe we heard screams a few times, but that's about as specific as I could be. That's very interesting. So there were screams at times.

14:33 That's that's pretty cool. Remind me, if you if you had to guesstimate, like how how tall the creature was that you were looking at, did you have any point of reference to see how tall it was? You know, yeah, it would be difficult to do more than estimate, because I see, we didn't see its feet, so you know, we didn't see it, you know, the whole thing, the whole body. We'll be back with more Bigfoot Society after these words from our sponsors. From the uh, you know where we from what we saw, it was wide.

15:15 It seemed to be like wider shoulders than a normal man would and we presume based on that in the size of the head that it had to be at least the size of a above or a human, so you know, a human above six feet tall, but really beyond that, I couldn't say. I mean, you know, he could have been kneeling down thro all I know, although I don't think so. That's that's a good point. Absolutely. You're thinking back to that that time in late June that you had that sighting. Do you remember how it affected you emotionally, like what you were feeling, you know, during the encounter, how it affected you afterwards, what kind of conversation and you had with your friend, things like that.

16:03 Uh, well, I can tell you immediately we were we're pretty scared. We we actually when we when it, when it went away, we started our big motor up and got back to the cabin was maybe a mile away on the water. As fast as we could, we were in the cabin. We did load allar guns. I don't know what we thought we were going to do, but we did and stayed in the cabin the rest of the evening, which was unusual for us. And like I said, we talked about it a fair amount then and several times after that, because, like I said, we were in college at the time, so we saw each other pretty regularly. And we decided, since we couldn't figure out how to explain this to anybody that you know, I guess the best thing is just not to say anything. I suppose, you know, did have any effect on me long term, you know, I think not at the time.

17:02 You know, I was, like I said, twenty year old kid in college. I was still trying to figure out, you know, what I was going to do with my life at that time. But thinking back on it now, as time went on, I think it made me more open to unusual ideas, are more skeptical in a sense of established ideas, more willing to look at new ideas that you know, may not have or may not be accepted by the mainstream, If that makes sense. Yeah, sure, you know, and that's something that I definitely run into with other people's, other people that I've talked to, and maybe even myself. You know, you start looking into one thing that might lead to another. So I definitely definitely get that. Did you ever hear of any other foot sightings happening in that that maybe general area or that region of Arkansas? Yeah, okay, both before and after. Before we had heard the fishermen, because we had commercial fishermen who had come on the lake, you know, and they'd be by themselves and so forth, so they would claim to see like something, and we always thought it was either a bear or maybe a cow or that loose or something like that, you know, big black animal in

18:33 the trees. But in retrospect, you know, it made me wonder, what, you know, was what they were seeing really the same thing as what we saw, which was clearly not a bear or a cow or anything else. And then later on afterward, there was a story in West Memphis, Arkansas, which is just as the crow lies. It's it's maybe ten miles from where this is actually I say it was in West Memphis. Is actually in on what's called President's Island in the Mississippi River. So it's kind of between Memphis and West Memphis, and it's sort of an industrial park but although largely still forested. And there's been more than one report of things being seen on President's Island, which you know, it's very similar to where we were, except it's just you know, across half the channel of the Mississippi River. In fact, I think there's one or two still maybe on the BFRO website. And I had heard of others from around there later too.

19:37 I remember one time, uh we were. I was fishing later there, maybe just a few years later, and I remember talking to one of the game wardens, because at that time you had to go in and get your fishing license from the game wardens office. And the game warden actually mentioned it, actually asked me, had I seen, you know, any animal, see any bears? That's specifically what he asked me. Yeah, I said, no, how come? And he said, well, somebody saw something on President's Island. He didn't know what it was, you know, he kind of thought it was a uh, bigfoot kind of a thing, or a monkey or something. But and so it has been reported in the neighborhood.

20:22 You know, I don't know of any more substantial information than that. That is extremely interesting. I mean, that's the first I've ever heard of that. And the great thing about this podcast is so many Yeah, let's say a fair amount of people listen to it, and those people have a lot of weird experiences. And I'm sure someone out there has heard something about President's Island and maybe creatures being seen on there, And if you have, leave something in the YouTube comments or email me Big for Society at gmail dot com. But that that is very interesting when you said they're fishermen seeing it.

21:02 So was that on President's Island or was that on uh the same lake? Yeah, that was in our lake that we were in, which I don't want to give the name of the lake because it's i mean still there and it's owned by another party now, so I don't want to give anything away, but it's it's still there and they still have commercial fishermen who use it. So they rent a license from the owner to go out on the lake, and I think they mostly catch catfish for a commercial or restaurants so forth use any rate. And so there was probably all at the time we were there, maybe eight or ten of them who would go out on the like regularly, so there's there was somebody usually on the lake and they would come early in the morning, like four or five in the morning in stay till like eight or nine, so we didn't see them too much, but we knew where they were always there, so there was probably somebody out on the water from oh gosh, it's as soon as it got warm, like March or April, all the way through like November, almost every day.

22:07 Very very interesting. I was doing some research about that area of the sighting and I believe it's Crittendon County, so I was on BFRO looking around. There's another class A sighting as well that's really interesting on Mounds Road near West Memphis in two thousand and six. The creature that was seen that time reddish brown hair but also kind of similar to they said an orangutang. Anything. Does that jog any any memories or things that you've heard as well, or you know, I think I read that report at one time, and I do know where Mounds Road is, and yes, it's not far at all from where we were where we had our experience. And maybe again as the crow file is maybe five mile there are no roads that go directly between the two. So my road is probably twenty five miles. You know, I wouldn't have called what I saw in around the time. I would not have made that the connection. But you know, who knows absolutely And you know, maybe interesting question here. So in that same area, you know, sometimes when we hear reports of bigfoot or we see weird things, have them.

23:30 Have there been other things reported that you've you've heard of as well? You know sometimes people see things like UFOs or dog man or any other weird things that you've heard of over the years in that area. Yeah, the only thing I can think of, which it turns out it was not you know, unusual or supernatural paranormally thing was they? Like I said, we used to hear screens that we kind of thought or mountain lions and supposedly, uh, they were I don't know if extinct is the right word, but they were not found in our in that part of Arkansas for like the previous one hundred plus years. And you know, we heard them and we even saw footprints of them, you know, giant cat primps outside of our cabin.

24:21 And you know, we told people, I think they're out here. I haven't seen one but I think they're here, And then eventually it was documented, you know, there's there there. Since then there have been you know, photographs and videos of actual mountain lions in well really on both sides of the Mississippi River. So there, they definitely are there, although in days in times past that might have been considered something of a you know, a cryptid. I guess, oh sure. Absolutely. Another thing that just came to mind, We know there's fish in the area because you were fishing in the boat. How are there other food so versus that you remember seeing around the area as well. Uh, well, there's lots of animal sources.

25:07 I mean there it is. There are cattle, uh, not too far away, you know. Every once a long, like I said, a cow would escape and make its way down into the lake. Uh. And other than that, there certainly was deer. There were certainly turkey, and lots of small animals, you know, rabbits, squirrels. We saw skunk every once in a while. So it was it was very you know, biodiverse, I guess you would say. I mean it was. It was full of wildlife. Various lots of snakes too, alligators, Yeah, they didn't have alligators then but apparently they do. Now somebody has found an alligator in that area, so maybe the alligators are coming back there too.

25:56 Man, that's something I've I've never heard of a a bigfoot alligator interaction. That would be interesting. If anyone's heard of that, let me know. But man, I wonder if that would be considered a food source. Who knows. I'll give you my hypothesis on it, absolutely, but if you'd like it. Yeah. So that summer, the summer of nineteen eighty in that area was like the hottest on record for the time. They had had like thirty plus days in a row of temperatures over one hundred degrees and without any rain, so it was very dry. It was very hot. I wondered if the creature was trying to get down to like, if nothing else, maybe just to cool off in the water, because I remember it was way hot that day, you know, and I can't imagine a creature that's covered by hair wouldn't be you know, very hard to cool off. I always thought, you know, in retrospect, I thought, you know, maybe this thing was coming to the water, either to get a drink or to get in. I even had the you know, the fault later on, maybe he was going to, you know, get in and swim in the water. I don't know, but it certainly seemed like it to me in retrospect that that would be a reasonable conclusion as to what he was doing there. Oh, I think you're absolutely onto something there, because I've I've

27:27 heard similar hypothesis from some other people that have or more I guess researchers you know that have told me say, hey, if it's if it's hot out, it's probably you want to be by somewhere where there's a water source, because it just it makes perfect sense. I mean, imagine how hot you are, and now imagine if you are completely covered by hair. Yeah, a big hair covered creature. He must be sweltering. Yeah. Absolutely. You mentioned that seeing this back in the eighties kind of opened up your minds of other interesting things. Any any any other interesting things happened because of this, or you've or you noticed certain things in your life for anything cool or anything that's anything that you care to elaborate on. When you when you said that, well, sure, you know I have always been interested. I've been answered a long time in old hotels and particularly if I have a haunting story. So it's part of my job. I have had to travel a fair amount across the US, and when I go to some when I have a trip coming up to someone, I will look for, you know, an old historic hotel in the area that can stay it. I can't say, and my wife will laugh at me for this because when she goes with

28:59 me, she says it's because of her. You know, we don't see any ghost because she's there. If I went by myself, I really see him. But I can't say that I've absolutely seen or experience anything at any place. We'll tell you interestingly, and this is just another chance happening. So we actually live in New Orleans. Now. I was in Arkansas for I grew up there, but as for most of my adult life, I've been in New Orleans. Our house in New Orleans is in the Uptown area, which is one of the older parts of town. The house was built in eighteen eighty by a retired Confederate general who died in the house, and there have been haunting stories in the house concerning presumably the general. I have not, me and my family have not experienced anything with the general, but the people we bought it from did and they told us a story. They had a five year old girl daughter who was in the house one morning.

30:03 Her mother was in the kitchen. She was in another part of the house and came in the kitchen and told her mom. I asked her mom, who is the policeman standing on the stairway. We'll be back with more Bigfoot society after these words from our sponsors, and mother said, there's nobody else here. I don't know which time about. So they went and looked, and there was nothing there, And so the little girl describes it. And then later on, apparently they took her and her sister, I guess to the Confederate Museum, which is also in New Orleans, and the little girl pointed to the picture of the general who built her house, which is on display in the museum, and said, oh, that's the guy. And apparently she was what she was looking at was the general in his I guess, like uniform. So this little girl supposedly saw something in a uniform standing on the stairwell of her house, which is the original part of the house.

31:10 But as I say, neither me or my family can say that we've experienced anything extremely interesting, not the first time that you know, I've heard a younger child seeing things. It's almost like, you know, maybe they're not at the point where their minds are clouded by the who knows, but it's some very interesting things exactly. Yeah, oh man, that is that is wild. The question for you if you had the chance to or not, if you could make the call and someone was like, I can put you in a situation where you would absolutely see another bigfoot, would you take or not take the opportunity? Oh? Absolutely, yeah, I'd love to.

32:07 In fact, believe it or not, I went on my first sort of bigfoot expedition. I guess, for lack of a better word, just this spring bends anything. But that's what it was designed for. And I'm trying to go again, hopefully this fall sometime. So yeah, absolutely, I'll do it again. And what is it you think that that draws you back to trying to see one again? Oh? I just think it's fascinating, you know. And I kind of a phrase this, I I if you ask me what I think it is. Number one, I think the thing we saw couldn't be anything else other than whatever a bigfoot is, you know, whatever that that's what it was. Whatever a Bigfoot is. Now, if you ask me what what is big I have to believe it is some kind of undiscovered primate. In other words, it is some kind of living creature. It is not paranormal, not supernatural on other people who, as you mentioned, you know, associate with with some of those things.

33:17 But I, you know, I guess my mind is still logical enough that I can't believe it's anything other than an animal that we just hadn't found. I think it's a very rare animal. I think it's probably to some degree migratory, and that they're probably clusters of them in certain parts of the country, but there's probably not more than a few thousand in the whole United States. So therefore they're and they're relatively intelligent, so they know how to hide, you know, you think about it, whoever sees a mountain lion in the wild, very few people for something that's even more intelligent than that. You know, it makes sense to me that this is a living, breathing, real thing, probably a primate of some kind that we just haven't found yet. Oh. Absolutely. And you know, the great thing about this show is there's many different viewpoints, but I personally as well have the viewpoint that we are looking at some kind of you know, undiscovered great ape that you know, can be found in most states, but definitely loves to hang out around southeast Oklahoma and the Pacific Northwest and maybe even southeast Iowa, all over the place, right down in Arkansas specifically, you know, as you'd said. But you know, I think here's my other sort of hypothesis about it. I think you could surmise that it uses the river valleys in the

34:50 southeast as sort of a highway. Like if you look at the Mississippi River lower Mississippi River Valley, it's surrounded on at least one side almost completely up and all the way up and down from say certainly from Memphis down to New Orleans by wide patches of swamps and forests on either side, like you know, twenty and thirty miles or more a forest on either side. So it's a very undeveloped, very you know, undisturbed natural area. I wonder if these things use that as something of a you know, a highway or a migratory path, you know, to get to some other part of it.

35:34 So you maybe, like as you said, in southeast Oklahoma and western Arkansas, and excuse me, East Texas. You know there's in theory there is a sort of cluster of signings. Well, what if they followed, say the Red River or the White River or the Arkansas River down to the Mississippi Valley and then could go up or down the Mississippi Valley, you could certainly stay undercover. A large creature could stay undercover in those river valleys for long periods of time and for long distances. So I kind of wonder if if that's, you know, how they're doing it. Like I like this thing. I suspect it did not live full time where we were where we saw it, but it was passing through for whatever reason. Uh. And like I said, it just came down to get a drink or get in the water or something, but was on the way to somewhere else. And it just seemed logical to me again to think it could be walking along the the green space on the either side of the river valley to get there. Go.

36:37 I think you're you're absolutely definitely onto something. And there's there's actually been some really interesting maps that have been created. Uh. You know, of my friends Scott with Bigfoot Mapping Project has made some maps that are are pretty similar to to what you were were seeing there. How they call out different byway is that you know Bigfoot could take But you had mentioned earlier that you know, you're down in the New Orleans area, so down in Louisiana. In your time down there, have you have you run into any sightings or reports of that you've heard about a bigfoot or even other cryptids like I know they have the ruguru down there, other dog man type things. Yeah, you know, I have heard the stories. You know, perhaps the most if famous, for lack of a better word, or recognized, is the Honey Island Swamp story. So Honey Island Swamp is just to the east of New Orleans proper, and it's basically the delta of the Pearl River is an empties into the Gulf of Mexico, and it is a stretch of about oh gosh, fifty plus miles across by probably that long of swamps and unbroken you know, cyper swamps and forests, and so there's a wide area. And

38:08 there have been reports in there for years of a big foot like creature in there, and there have been several that were pretty well documented. There was a I want to say there was an episode in the it was the nineteen seventies, although I can't remember for sure now that made like various newspapers around the country about the Honey Island swamp monster, So that's probably the most recognized. I guess, you know, the idea behind the rugaroo it was sort of a that came from more from Cajun country, which is kind of to the west of New Orleans in the swamps, you know, near like Blafayette and so forth, and so that it has more of the Cajun French I guess culture attached to it. And the rugarou supposedly was something like a were wolf or like you said, a wolf man or dog man, or you won't call it, you know. I don't know that there's anything that I would say has any significant documentation, but you know, I always wondered if if that was mostly a way for a relatively uh uh, poorly educated culture, and I don't mean that in a disparaging way to use, you know, to keep the kids close to the house. And I you know, if you live in the swamp where the alligators can get you, you scare the kids into staying close to the house, but tell them that you know, the ruber u will get a get you. You know, I always

39:39 wondered if that was more of that story, but you know who knows. Yeah, And I mean, you know, i'd even say that probably you know, runs across many different cultures, you know, as a way for the adults to to maybe you know, throw a story out there and so that their their kids would, uh, you know, behave when it's time for bed, like you know, the boogy man will get you if you're not quiet or something like that. Yeah, yeah, do you think No, I wonder if that was you know, a sort of a French an old French story or custom that just kind of marked into the Rugaroo when they came to Louisiana. Absolutely, you know that that area. I've talked to a few people from down in New Orleans and it just seems to be, you know, just like there's so many interesting things that happen in that area.

40:34 Do do you have you ever thought about, like, are there certain reasons why this area is so you know, drenched in just really interesting. I don't know if you could almost say, you know, spiritualism or things of that nature. Have you ever noticed that? Yeah, I think it's several reasons, I think, one of which is that Louisiana, our New Orleans, particularly among American cities, even American season in the South, was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, you know, it still is still is largely Roman Catholic, and it was a Roman Catholicism that was very you know, intense or very very devoted Roman Catholicism, you know, and that you know, it's is somewhat mystic to some degree. So I think that leaves people, you know, with kind of an open mindset about you know, uh, unprovable or fantastic events. So I think that's part of it. I think the fact that New Orleans is maybe the most multi cultural city in the United States and has been, you know forever. The you know, is originally founded by the French and Spanish, had a large black population, both from refugees from Haiti after the Haitian Revolution as well as Africans brought over his slaves.

42:04 Then obviously has the Anglo population that came you know a little bit later on from eighteen hundred on, and there's a significant Native American population in the words, and all of those things I think contribute to the stories, you know, if you mix all those cultures together, you know, you're bound to get something new. It's kind of like the food. You know, you get something good, you get gumbo when you mix all of those things together. So the same idea, I think all that you mix those those cultures together and you get better stories than any of them would have had otherwise.

42:44 Yeah, one other thing I think, and again I don't mean to disparage anybody, but and I don't think anybody will to deny that both New Orleans and Louisiana in general are are and have been a relatively who were part of the United States, and as a result, they've been relatively poorly educated. You know, in the Planter area, there was a fair amount of wealth, but it was concentrated in the hands of you know, very few people, so that most of the population was not educated and did not have you know, access to uh, you know, more cultural things. So they depended on the stories they told more than you would perhaps if you had more education. So I think you throw all of that together, and I think that's what makes for you know, all the good stories we hear from New Orleans, and there are good ones, you know it too, absolutely, and you know I haven't been able to visit yet, but it's just it's a beautiful culture, you know, beautiful folklore. It's very very cool, and it looks like delicious food as well. But a few more questions at the end here, and I appreciate you hanging out with me. You know, you've said that you know you have the account of seeing the Bigfoot, and you know, sometimes I'll ask people, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever seen? Would you say that that is the weirdest thing that you've ever seen out in the woods, or was there maybe something even weirder than that.

44:16 You know, as a physician and a surgeon, I've seen some pretty weird things. But if you were just limited to what I've seen outdoors, yeah, that that's got to be the weirdest. I mean, I've gone fishing and hunting for many years, but I can't say that I ever saw anything you know, that I couldn't explain like that was You are already mentioned that you have this you went big footing already. But if you had the ability to go bigfooting anywhere in the US, and there is no limit to what to where you could go or who you could go with what would be your perfect spot to look for Bigfoot at? Hmm, you know, I guess it would be the Pacific Northwest. You might be like, maybe I would say northern California where you know, the Bluff Creek Willow Creek area where the Patterson Gimlin family was shot. I mean, obviously that's the I would say most people would agree that's probably the single best piece of evidence that exists, So you know, why not go to the source in a sense?

45:30 Uh yeah, I think that would be probably, uh where I would go to if I really you know, if there were no limits, that's probably what I would do. Awesome. I agree with you. You know, I've heard the stories and I've talked to plenty of people from that area and it's it's definitely one of the best areas I think you can go to in order to see Bigfoot. And listeners, if you have another idea of a better idea, you feel free to share in the YouTube comments. But Rusty, it's been pleasure chatting with you, and we went places I wasn't expecting, but it was a fun chat along the way, and I wish you best of luck in your future. Bigfoot expeditions right. Thank you so much.

46:14 I enjoyed it. Also here at Bigfoot Society, our goal 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.

46:55 I understand what you're going through, and I appreciate everyone of you listening.