Zapped in Yellow River! | Iowa | Archives

0:00 You're listening to Big for Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Tonight's account comes from the archives from the overlooked forest of the Driftless region of Iowa, where something ancient still. Rome's Bob Barr Height, Iowa BFRO investigator and come with us to find out what waits in the woods of northeast Iowa. So stay with us all right side of the privilege of talking to mister Bob Barr Height today. He's a Midwest based Bigfoot researcher with the BFRO and it's a pleasure to talk to you tonight, Bob. Oh, that's my pleasure. Sounds like this is going to be fun. Oh yeah, it's gonna be a good one. You know. I'm I'm based just outside of West and Moines kind of western Iowa, so there's not many people to talk to you out there about Iowa in Midwest Bigfoot and we have a mutual connection. I think we both know Ontario Richardson. Yes, so we we had a nice chat during our last expedition about your name came up a few times, so I was like, I've got to talk to Bob if I can, If I can do that, eventually, so I'm glad that this happened. But Bob, you know, I'd love to ask you, what was it that got SHA into this whole wild bigfoot thing to begin.

1:14 With the legend of Boggie Creek. I saw that when it first came out with my group of friends and we slept for two days with the lights on, and it was awesome. I think we were eight years old, maybe ten, something like that, but it was wonderful. And then we used to order books once a month through our grade school Scholastic Reader, and they had tons of bigfoot books and UFOs and sharks, and I still have a bunch of them too to this day. But I was hooked. It was a lot of fun reading it. And I had the opportunity in a speech class my sophomore year in high school to interview a guy up in Northeast dial where I grew up. He must have been pushing eighty. They didn't even have running water in the house. He had a siding back in the Depression, so it was about forty five years before I interviewed him.

2:11 He had one on his farm. It was really cool to talk to this guy. Wow, that was Northeast Iowa. Right yep, up in the northeast corner. Oh, man, do you remember many details about that? Absolutely? He was out clearing stumps in spring and there is a stump on the edge of his field that he didn't recognize and was right where there's a bunch of woods, and he started driving his tractor over to it, and the stump got up and walked away. He said it was all brown and he thought it was just some hobo, but it was too big. My history's a little rusty, but this is twenties. I think it was about thirty one, okay, thirty two when he saw it.

2:56 There's a lot of Bigfoot stuff up in the northeast, as people may be aware if they've you know, if you've watched the Finding Bigfoot Iowa episode, then you know about Yellow River and all that good stuff. Was this in an area where it's still known for Bigfoot to this day or was it kind of like a one off? No, it's an area north of Yellow River, I think, fairly close to French Creek and back in the woods in there. So yeah, it's it's still active. Interesting. And then so after you did that, did things just keep escalating and you were like, wow, this is kind of interesting.

3:37 Or well then, so that was my sophomore year in high school, which would have been seventy nine. Life kind of took over and I saw the show Finding Bigfoot and went out to the website and by guy, you know, they had expeditions and I signed up for the first one twenty twelve. So that's the first time I really you ever did anything with the bfro. Hold on, hold on by I'm missing a big connection here that I just realized. So this is seventy nine that you interviewed a guy about Bigfoot in northeast Iowa. And so do you mind if I asked, like, where you're based out of at this time?

4:17 This time is over in the Driftless region just west of Madison. Okay, so you're in Wisconsin or Iowa. I'm in Wisconsin. I grew up in wakan wak On, Iowa, not too far from where like Yellow River, French Creek, Uper Iowa River, all that. Okay, So at this time, did you have any connections with guys that were also interviewing people in Iowa. No? Oh, so there's this big gap of time. You know, we had kids moved all over the country, lived out in Oregon for a while, but the Bigfoot thing really never came up, and moved back to the Midwest in nineteen ninety eight, and you'd hear a little flashes. My sister still lives in Wakan, so you know she mentioned something about Bigfoot or like, you know, your friends still see it once in a while. Yeah, sure, okay, And I just got curious most the show hit in really twenty teens, right around map that I just you know, started watching it, and yeah, it was It was a lot of fun.

5:29 The reason I brought that question up is that this at the same time pier so one am I really like. I guess you could almost say my Roman Empire is nineteen seventies Bigfoot Iowa history. Yeah, it's wild. So at the same time that you were having that interview, there was a group of guys in Iowa called the Iowa Bigfoot Information Center, and that's that's a whole side thing. But it's kind of cool that you were doing your own thing. You interviewed a guy about Bigfoot in seventy nine. At the same time, there are a bunch of other dudes that were looking into things like the Lockridge Monster, case other things in southeast Iowa, the palas siting, Humboldt County sightings, all that. There's a lot of crazy stuff, as you're already probably aware of. In the seventies in Iowa it got really crazy. But there's other episodes that you can listen to listeners if you haven't where I talked about that a lot. So finding Bigfoot got you all all into it, and then after that you've really got into I mean, you got into quite a bit of bigfoot expeditions. It looks like your resume is pretty wild.

6:46 I mean, you did stuff in Iowa. I want to say you did stuff in Minnesota, or it says throughout the Midwest, in Oregon public in private expeditions. You've been all over the place. Were they were they public expeditions out in Oregon. Yeah, that was a public expedition in twenty thirteen on the south side of Mount Hood. Wow, and that was really cool. We were following up on a report this hunter and his son had They were out scouting and yeah, they were hassled for about five hours by a couple of bigfoots.

7:28 Can you elaborate what hassled would mean? Sure? Yeah, So they were out archery hunting, and they initially heard this nondescript mumbling, and the dad described it as like two mutes or two hard of hearing people trying to talk to each other. And he went to sleep. The son heard footsteps around the tent and he saw this hand pressed down toward his father's face. Dad was snoring really loud, so he thought that the sun thought that whatever it was outside was curious. So the kid screamed and the kid, nineteen year old kid screamed. The hand disappeared. Dad woke up, and that's when the fund started because they could hear things walking around mumbling to each other. What was really interesting is when the hand was pulled away. They both described the sounds they heard is like the same sound that dad makes to his kid when the kid does something dumb. So it's like the dad Bigfoot was chastising the small one or the youth bigfoot for putting his hand close to a person's face.

8:43 It finally ended when they both had to go to the bathroom and they ran out. They went outside and the dad shined this flashlight and probably twenty feet away there is a good eight foot tall bigfoot standing there. It didn't move. All it did was turn its head and block the light with his hands, and that's it, we're going. So they threw everything in the back of their truck and they just raced away. Wow, that is fantastic. Did you find anything when you guys went out there. Yeah, we found a trackway behind where the base camp was.

9:27 It had gone up the side of the hill which was kind of brushy, so you could see the indentations, and then it came back down the others back down to this one track road two track road that had been following It looked like the day before the expedition. Before I got there, they had a visual sighting out in a clear cut of a sasquatch standing on two trees stumps, and it didn't notice they were driving up on it coming around this logging road until it was one hundred feet away. It saw it and it kind of did like Chris Farley hop and then it just ran away. So they nicknamed that one.

10:08 Tommy boy, that's the greatest thing I've heard in five years. Yeah, and yeah, it was plausible because I know the investigator pretty well and we didn't have much go on until the last night of the expedition. Then we had eye glow and there was something in the brush watching us because we did this big cookout thing, and it was good at the very least. It was very scenic, and I really enjoyed meeting a whole different group of people that I'm used to hanging out with. Absolutely. So that was the Oregon trip, and then you've had it sounds like multiple expeditions in the Midwest. Are there any things that stick out in your mind about things you've experienced over the years from those West expeditions that you could share?

11:02 Oh? Man, how much time do we have? Right? Yeah, the very first expedition I went on in twenty twelve, it was the Wednesday before I normally we don't like people coming in really, but they allowed me to come in. Got there about seven o'clock and got everything set up, and a couple hours later, three of us went out to examine this horse trail that they've always wanted to go on. So we walked the horse trail and then it empties into the back of a field. We walked the edge of the field to where it drops down where a creek is. So we were just hanging out there and within two minutes, three minutes, really quick. We all saw it at the same time, these two red glowing dots off to our left and about ten o'clock high, so up above head height. And over the course of about thirty seconds, those two dot slowly looked like it went into the ground, moved left to right and then down and they were really highper Yeah, that's eye glow.

12:09 We saw eye glow. And we went back the next day because nobody could figure it out. Wyat disappeared into the ground. We went back and whatever was there you could see where grass had been pressed down. It walked down the side of a gully, and that's how it made its escape away from us. Within twenty minutes of the first time I ever went out. You know, it's like hitting a home run the first time you're up to bat. In the major leagues, there's been a lot of eye glow stuff going on. We did an expedition up in Yellow River where there was a large group and we got split. We were split up, and I was with some seniors who were in a women's choir from Chicago, and we stopped and let them catch their breath and they started singing and just talking. They you know, breaking all the rules. We want some quiet, you know, we want to see what's going on. So they're just talking away gap gap gap, and from atop a hill right across from us, these two white spots appear really close together, and slowly it came down the hill toward us, and the spots got you know, further apart until you can see in the center of the two white spots the black pupil or what appears to be a pupil, and then there's eye glow that came around are left in our right, so they're trying to out flank us.

13:40 And that went on for about twenty minutes. It was the most impressive display I've ever seen. So you're it sounds like you're saying those those were eyes, right, it's our understanding, and I know it's kind of hard to believe, but their eyes somehow are in mid light. Yeah, I don't, you know, it's not like it's a flashlight, although I've seen the flashlight effect before, but I don't know. We're thinking that Lisa group, I'm with that it's a way to communicate over distance without making a sound. So, you know, one bigfoot could be on one ridge and one on the other side and one eyes go are white and kind of blank, and like, oh, there's Fred over there.

14:28 Just a way to communicate and be silent. That is very interesting. You said that that was in I guess your first one was that in Iowa. Yeah, the first one was in Fayette County. Oh yeah, yep, okay, very nice. I talked to a gentleman a few years ago and he shared what was the weirdest story that I've ever heard. One of the weirdest stories I've ever heard. I've heard a few, but this was out of Backbone, Oh, in Iowa. And I'm just curious if you've ever heard of it as well. There's a gentlemen who said that there was a group of them and they saw like blue lights, blue orbs, and they were looking at the oars, and they looked behind them and there was a bigfoot that was seemed to be controlling it. Is that anything that you've ever heard of?

15:26 I haven't heard that, but man, backbone is such a great place. Oh really, we did an expedition there. Oh, it was about this time. It was about this time of year, and last night of the expedition, and it had been active. We had all kinds of tree knocks. We had vocalizations. It was perfect. And there's an old fish hatchery in Backbone and about twenty five about twenty five of us were there, just kind of meeting up to see what was going to go on for the rest of the night. And then there's this the loudest tree knock I've ever heard. It was like a Verry Bomb's home run within one hundred feet of us, and you could hear everybody just gasp. And there was an investigator standing right behind me and he about plowed me over trying to get out of there. It was really a spectacular noise.

16:27 Wow. So, yeah, Backbone is a great place to go. I enjoy it. I believe I've heard like a lot of people in that particular area they'll get almost escorted out of the park or. Yeah, yeah, we had that. So a group of three guys were up in this one spot in the park and one of them did a whoop, and then of from the distance, they heard the whoop come back. That's pretty cool. A couple of minutes later it was closer, another whoop. A couple of minutes after that, it was like right on top of them and they just and these are season investigators. They just turned in like bolted out because they it was spring, so they were thinking, well, maybe it's mating season. Maybe we said, hey, baby, what's up right?

17:20 Hopefully not. Not a way to not a fun way to go out, I suppose, but I was right. So for among people that really care about Iowa Bigfoot research, which there's not a lot of us, or at least not a lot, I know, it seems like a question that always comes up is which one do you think is more squatchy Backbone or Yellow River? I would say Yellow River, but personally I haven't been over there in four or five years to check it out.

18:02 We didn't exactly want to give it up for finding Bigfoot because it had been so active. But you know, once the show comes out, you can't really control who goes in there and what they do. But I do have a friend that occasionally goes in there, and he was there at the end of March, and it was, at least in his opinion, it was starting to get active again. There were tree structures, there were a couple of hoops. You know, take it as you want, but yeah, he thinks it's becoming active again. When you've been out looking, have you ever heard any sounds that don't seem to fit the location that you're at.

18:51 Yeah. I think the best examples are just having my jam block, which is a percussion instrument for jazz, and use that for a tree dock. Having that mimic back at me is a very specific ping, and I've never heard it outside of me hitting the jam block and having it come back at me. That's just that's one example. We've had whoops which don't sound like, you know, like an owl or a loon. They don't sound like a coyote or a wolf or any other critter that lives in the woods, So those are unusual. I think the really unusual ones those when you do a knock and you get that back, and then you do a couple more knocks and you get the exact number of knocks back at you. Yep. And I've had that happen a couple of times up in northeast Ilad as well.

19:44 Have you ever heard anything like a car door for a rusty gate? Yes? Really, thank you? Yes, oh boy, I've heard that twice in Fayette County. First expedition we went, I took a guy down in I was where we had the eye glow, and we went back in there and we heard the car radio effect, like chattering. But there's no radio anywhere near us. There's no road. Sorry, the car radio effect. I've never heard of that before. Okay, it sounds like a distant car radio, but there's no there's nothing around. There's no car where we were standing.

20:27 It would have to have been like a hundred watt like a mini who concert going on for us to hear a car radio. Sure, there's no houses, there's no other people in there that we knew of, no of It just sounded like somebody was playing music. You couldn't quite make out the words. And then we heard chattering when we were checking out the same location about three years later, right at the end of March, and we were walking up to the main campsite, and all along our on one side, we kept hearing sound like a radio, like somebody was trying to talk on a radio to us the whole way up to where we were going.

21:12 It's just there's nobody who had a radio on. Nobody had a walkie talkie. That's the best way to describe it, as somebody's trying to talk to you, oh man rusty gate. Yeah, I've had that actually not that far from Madison in Blue Mountain State Park for the Wisconsin listeners, which is a small park, but there's been I've had quite a bit of activity in there. I've had stuff thrown at me and eyeglow and seeing shadows out in the distance on the horizon moving around. But yeah, they sounded like a gate swinging like you described it. Now, do you have any explanations for that, because let's say, I know, this gets brought up in a few paranor like not so much Bigfoot podcast but paranormal ones, and they want to say, like, okay, meybe it's a portal.

22:01 Maybe there's something dog man related. So it kind of comes up sometimes in Bigfoot conversations as well. My hunch would be that they're mimicking sounds as a diversion, trying to get our attention away from something going on either behind us or off to one side. That's consistent with having stealth thrown at me from behind that there's something more active, like it's like they want me to turn around and look at him because there's something out in front of me they don't want me to see now whether it's like a juvenile or something else, but that's my feeling, that's my suspicion.

22:44 Another interesting thing that has been mentioned in two different parts of the US recently. Eli Watson talks about it in an Olympic Project doc he just did where it almost sounds like there's some sort of and then Alton Higgins also says that he heard that in the Area X on their podcast. Is that anything that you've ever heard anything where it almost sounds like there's some singing in the background or anything close to that. Yeah, that would have been the radio effect. Oh yeah, it just. Sounded like a distant car radio, like there's a song on.

23:24 We were conversing beforehand, and you'd mentioned the Driftless region, which from what I'm aware, that is northeast Iowa, a lot of the western side of Wisconsin, and a little bit of the southeast corner of Minnesota. Is that correct correct? Yeah, And it goes down into Illinois like around Dubuque, Cross River and Galina on that side too, but most of it's in northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota, and especially in Wisconsin. So a lot of listeners and I did this before I moved out here too. You think of the midwestern Iowa as cornfields and the field of dreams, it's important to know that places like the Driftless Region exist and would you be able to explain why that region is important, especially when it comes to bigfoot research.

24:24 Right, So the Driftless Region exists because the last Rondic glaciers missed it. So instead of getting scraped down like western Iowa, it's this area that's kind of lost in time. Steep hills, underfed streams. It's just amazing. It is heavily wooded, it has low population, and it has an abundance of food. Yeah, you've got deer, You've got all kinds of fishing going on in the crowd streams and the cornfields that they still grow in there, you know, is a great place to go if you don't want to be seen. You can follow rivers, you can follow streams through the woods obviously and just never be seen by anybody. So you have means of escape. So it's like if you're a bipedal, a foot tall creature, creeter creature, if you're something like that and you want to move and not be seen.

25:36 Northeast Iowa, Wisconsin Minnesota the best place to go. Mm hmm. The reports that come out of the northeast part of the state are are wild and these are things that I get every once in a while. Directly to me, I mean Dubute County for sure. All the all the time people are bringing up to Butte County, little Macocata River. It just sounds like if all these people are legit, like there's a lot of action going on in the Debute County area. Right I've helped investigate an area just south of the Mines of Spain. It was great. We've gone in there a couple of times. The investigation we were doing. It was a father and his kids, and it was kind of lake fall. We were standing on the side of a hill and there's this spot where these these couple of bowlders just you know, still sitting there, and we're all kind of waiting around seeing what's happened. All of a sudden, we all see this thing swirl and our first thought was it was an owl taken off, but it was a branch about three feet in size, not like a baseball bet and whatever through it had to throw it downward over the top of these boulders. Which you're about six feet tall something very tall through it.

27:06 It wasn't like a tree branch breaking because it twirled in the air, you know, like you throw a branch sidearm, same effect. It's swirled and landed about ten feet from us. And there's been other sidings down in there. We've had the flashlight effect on our way out, which is like the eyeglow is so strong that it's looking at a base of a tree and you can see it and it looks like somebody's trying in a flashlight of the ground. Really, it's a great place, and little Mcocata, the whole area up there is it's a place that needs to be investigated more thoroughly than it is right now.

27:51 Have you ever heard of anything coming out of the Macocota Caves area. Yeah, we've heard a couple of reports. I'm not sure if they came in through the message board from the BFRO or if they were just stuff that I've picked up on Facebook or other podcasts, but yeah, there's been stuff that's happened in there. I've always meant to go and spend a weekend down there, but that hasn't quite come to fruition yet. Gotcha. There's a question that I wanted to make sure that I asked. This is from Scott from the Patreon.

28:32 It has to do with when you do investigations. When doing investigations, are there any techniques and cues that help establish the integrity and truthfulness of the witness? Sure Face to face contact is one embellishing a story. So the more they tell it, the more details a person remember, you know, adds to it. You Before we even call anybody you know that's submitted a report, we check out the weather, we check out time of day, the location that they try to give him the report. Sometimes they're very exact, sometimes they're not. Just the veracity of the report, I guess, you know, because we get all kinds. We get reports from people who I've got a sasquatch living in my basement, Okay, thanks for letting us know all the way up to people who've written like two or three pages in word and copied and pasted into the report, and there's way too much detail for somebody to remember. It reads more like a short story.

29:43 And then we get the reports like the gentleman out in Oregon with his son and having talked to him and listened to him tell the story, the body, his body language, how he reacted, how his son. You can see his son visibly become upset. The ratest speech the guy was using as he was telling the story, and the more details, you know, when he got into what was happening, it was like his heart was increasing. He was speaking kind of kind of like this, like I am right now, where you just kind of start and stop and and have nerves that whatever happened to them, you know, it was it shook him up. And then when we go into the location to do a follow up investigation, is it plausible? I mean, did they see what they see? What they saw again based on time of day and the weather conditions, and you know, Moon, I hope that answered the question for him.

30:51 I'd say that that's a really good answer for sure. And a lot of that I'm like, yep, I know exactly what you're what you're talking about, because it kind of goes over to when I talked to people for this, you had mentioned that there was a situation where you took a friend to an active location and then something kind of funny happened. Oh yeah, so again that was in Blue Mountain State Park, It was about nine o'clock at night, and a group of my like three people and myself, a guy and his girlfriend, another guide me. We had dinner together, and you know, they just go, there's no such thing as bigfoot, and they're just kind of egg and beyond. Let's go see what happened. Let's let's go see where you go.

31:40 All right, It's about fifteen minute drive where we were, and we park on the side of the road and everybody gets out. Overcast night, a little bit of a chill in the air, damp it had rained, and I do a high pitch boop and immediately from the it's behind us, the poop comes back at us and from right in front of us, whatever it was, and make my hoop, my woop right back at us again and make us pile it into the car. Well, we got to go. It's like, come on, the show is about to begin. But you know they wanted to go, so I had to take them home. But it was that was fun.

32:25 That just man, that blows my mind. And you just you hear situations like that over and over. It's like someone wants to get into the situation and then something happens and they're like, we got to get out of here. It's like, dude, why did you even like? And I mean I get it. I've experienced some weird stuff in Iowa. I haven't well, let's see tree pushed over wood Knox, but I heard whoops in my tent. I guess nothing that would really scare me yet. I mean it was all really cool. But had it happened with a guy who acted military.

33:07 We were down in Fayette County and we were walking this dead end road that goes to a bridge and we get to the spot where there's water that trickles down the side of a hill. I think it would stop and I tell him, you know, this is a spot where stuff usually happens. And he looks at the hill and said, what are all those white lights looking at us? Oh? They're checking us out. He turns around and wants to leave right away. I've seen it. Wow. Yeah, I mean for some people that that is enough, you know, and they're they're out. Have you ever had a situation where you've actually had a visual or what do you feel that the closest you've been able to come to one?

33:50 Would be good question. So when we did an expedition at Iowa in I think it was twenty fourteen. In Fayette County, we do a big cookout when we were doing this. Up by West Union, there's a park that was built by a civilian conservation Corps during World War right before World War Two, and everybody was in the shelter and they were eating and having fun, and I was just standing out on the periphery of it, just watching this area down below us, and I saw something very tall, all one color, stride between two trees and just stop. And we knew where everybody was at the time, so it wasn't anybody in our group, and it was uniform in color, it was tall, and it was thin.

34:52 And this was mid April, late April. Again to my satisfaction, Yeah, I can say I've seen Sasquatch. I've had shadows. I've been with another investigator in Fayette County standing on a dead end road for the and the bridge there and we both have seen something big and white move between a couple of rocks on the river. So I've had I haven't had the classic Patterson Gimlin road crossing high how you folks do, and I'm just look away type type thing. But I've had to my satisfaction. I can say I've seen something that I can't identify.

35:38 That's that's really cool. Though maybe someday I will get to that. We will see. I just need to get more out on the field. Another question that comes up in Iowa big Foot circles, is everything good happens east of Des Moines. How do you feel about that? Well, being from northeast Iowa, Yeah, I can see that, I don't you know. I'm more familiar with the eastern part of the state, and I've driven to like go Maaha and around there, and I went to school in Amazon City. So it's not as heavily wooded. It's more it's flatter. You still have some rolling hills. I wouldn't say there's one hundred percent correct, because as you get closer to Missouri from Des Moines, there's activity down there.

36:33 So we've had reports of rocks hitting cars. You know, people have been just stopped on the side of the road and the sky had a windshield cracked by a rock that cat flung at him. Oh wow. So I wouldn't say it's one hundred percent accurate accurate that the good stuff happens east to des Moines. But definitely if you're in Des Moines and you want to check out Stuffy in a county park that's out in the middle of nowhere, just look for water and look for trees. Google maps, best friend. You could have Yeah, that actually leads to a good, quick, good question. So and you may have just answered that, what are your factors you look for? If let's say you're in a new area, new state, and all you've got is like you're using your map, what are the main things that you're you're looking for to find the places?

37:28 I look for a few roads, so not like western Iowa where you have crossroads about every half mile, quarter mile or something like that. So it's not checkerboard like that. But you look for trees, you know, woods, You look for water, and just like that's a good example of the state forest up in northern northern Wisconsin. You look for areas where it hasn't been heavily clear cut yet, where there's still older trees fifty sixty seven year old trees and have them been cut down, but there's ponds in it, for example, and not very many people. And for me, that's a good place to start.

38:15 Gotcha, do you ever focus on what the annual amount of rainfall is. Not exclusively, Okay, I look more towards when does spring start coming in, when does winter come in? What are the temperatures. I've had activity again at Blue Mountain State Park in Wisconsin during heavy drought. It's a constant source of water. So if there's no rain, it's a lot harder to find water. So you find the water and wait for them. They're going to show up. Sure, has there ever been a time when you were either like, you know what, this is too intense. If I could get out of here now, I would. Or have you ever heard of anything reported to you from someone else that was like wow, If that happened to me, I would be like, I'm out.

39:12 Well, I think the guy in Oregon they have the and his son had invent stock, that would yeah, I'm out. Yeah. Personally Fayette County again, first time I ever went out by myself, and it was a Memorial Day weekend and I got into the park really late. It was like eleven thirty already at night, and I had to park and walk into the same spot where I initially saw Igeil. The very first time I ever went out and made my way down in there, and I thought it was in there like two or three hours. And I got a videotape camera going an old Sony with night vision, and I hear something rustling to my left and I look over and whatever it was, it was kind of standing down in a ravine, but it was almost my height.

40:04 And when I look at the video, yeah, you can kind of make out a face, but you can definitely see the shape of the head and the eyes, and it kind of is swaying back and forth. And sometimes the discretion is a better part of valor. So I got out of there really fast. Yeah, and I went back and when I did watch the tape, I was only in there maybe twenty minutes. But time wise, when you're standing in kind of like up against a pine tree, time stops. Right. Yep, you made the right choice probably getting out of there. That sounds pretty pretty interesting. It was intense. Yeah.

40:46 Have you ever had any discussions with DNR officials or the equivalent of such about Bigfoot? Yes, in Wisconsin, I had a good DNR connection. They would field reports and just put them in a very equivalent of the a dead letter office. Just put him in a drawer and he would give me some, you know, he'd give me the better ones or the ones that the DNR themselves had. Specifically, it was up around the Wisconsin Dells several years ago. DNR guy out he found tracks about eight feet apart. So something very tall walked through this freshly maintained gravel road and you can easily see the footprints. He said, huge stride. Whatever it was was very tall. Now you can't rule out basketball player from the UW coming up to the Dells, but they were.

41:48 They get reports, they don't follow up on them. They'll let's put them away. How does one go about starting that type of connection, because that's an incredible thing to have going on. I met him through his wife. We would there's a place in Mount Horror, Wisconsin where we would go, you know, spend the evening, and once he got comfortable enough knowing me, we had other hobbies that we enjoyed. He's a big hockey fan. I love hockey. He teaches snowboarding. I don't snowboard.

42:30 I just plummet up. We would chat and once he trusted me enough he started That's when he started giving reports. So it's usually it's like a second hand connection. I guess you could say, gotcha for me, it seems like it's the best way. And just coming up and approaching a d NR officer, Hey what you got for bigfoot? Right? Yeah? That never goes well. No, usually doesn't work. Guys, don't do it. Do you have any like bigfoot stuff on your vehicle? I have one tiny sticker on the back window. It's there along with the American Needs Farmer sticker University of Iowa, A twins and a Viking, So yeah, everybody knows I'm certifiable.

43:15 Nice. Has having that sticker led to any any people coming up to you or anything interesting at that. I've been waived at. Somebody would pass me and wave. Yeah maybe I was just going the speed limit and they didn't like it, but they would wave. But people coming up and wanting to talk, no, and I kind of like it that way. Gotcha? You know? Have you ever had any thing happen in the Kettle Moraine area of Wisconsin. We had an expedition in the Southern Moraine sout Maraine. Apparently I picked a bad weekend because there was some stock car races or tractor pull or something going on that was relatively close. I haven't had anything happen, but the Northern Braine would be my preference to go to.

44:11 Up there's a fire tower. There's a loop that has a fire tower on it, and that is one of the creepiest places I've ever walked. You can go in there midday and there's so much growth in there is like you're in at night. And I know an investigator that lived up around there and would go there quite a bit, and he had all kinds of activity. He's had chattering back and forth around him. He's been escorted out numerous times. He just he says, it just gives him a really bad vibe going in there. Is that j Patrocian? No, it's Rick Rellis.

44:52 Oh yeah, Rick's the guy that told me the story from Backbone. That would have been our expedition. Really, yes, Bob, are you holding out me? No? So you were on the expedition for the orbs in the Bigfoot. Yeah, okay, dude. So they kind of questioned whether it was orbs, but okay, that should be our expedition because we've got in there a couple of times and it's a great place. Again. So were you there for that incident or was it a thing where like people were split up and then they told you later about what happened.

45:36 I didn't find out about it until the next morning. Okay, his group, you know, we divide up into groups. It's not like one massive people to go out, so we'll split into like usually it's one investigator and about four or five other people, and we have areas where we want to go. And they had a pretty good activity. They had a good times. It's such a crazy and it's a wild story. It's one of the wildest. Rick is a cool guy. Did he tell you about the happening that he had? This is in Wisconsin. I don't know. It's been I've solid four years. It's been a while. It doesn't really it doesn't sound familiar.

46:23 Okay, it was out a Wisconsin expedition. It was he a family of four who have never gone out before, and then another investigator behind the group. And they were walking this road and it felt like they walked into a wave of electricity. So the first person felt it and like, oh, what's that? And then person behind him, oh my god. As they kept moving, so it was like they hit a wall. Is there any other explanation for what that could be? I leaned towards like infrasound, because there are other mammals that produce it, right, and it seems like the most plausible explanation.

47:13 Usually larger predators, right right, Yeah, which in that area would we be looking at, like mountain lions or. There's a couple in that area. I don't think they would produce it. I don't think they're big enough. I think they would just growl and be very annoyed with you. But the feeling that you're walking into a wave of electricity, I've had. That happened a couple of times myself. One was up in Yellow River. I'd crawled into the back of my truck for the night, and then this wave hit me, and it was a tingling sensation. If you've ever been shocked, like you know, plugging in something into an outlet and accidentally have your finger on the tongue, it's not quite that intense, but it was similar. And I remember disagreem that you're yelling like stop it, I'm going to bed, and it stopped right away.

48:09 Really, oh wow, that is interesting, And no health issues, no, no. Long term effects, but that it was just an annoying somebody something was annoyed that I had parked my truck so close to where they were going to go fishing. It was next to a creek actually not that farmore we filmed the Finding Bigfoot. So my feeling is that I just annoyed something and it was letting me know. Just realized I'm missing an obvious question. You were not involved with the filming of Finding Bigfoot?

48:50 Oh? Yeah, I was involved. You were okay the trailer? Yeah, okay. I was like, come on, that's a question to ask my internal thoughts. Can you share anything from that experience of being involved with that episode? Sure? If you haven't seen the episode, churn out the last five minutes please or are you going to see me on thermal? Because what happened? All the good stuff happened when there wasn't a camera crew around. So there's a fire tower up and Yellow River, and there was a group of us hanging out there and I had something chucked at me like a walnut just come flying past my head, just missed me. Hear the whiz from it, and hear it land right right behind me. So that that happened. There was a couple of investigators walking the fire tower road and something landed at their feet and an investigator picked up a rock and threw it back in the direction where the stuff came. Not a good idea.

49:59 You get stuff frown constantly then, so they irritated something. But that last night was it was interesting. It was a good idea, a good plan of having us all positioned around on this road and money meant Moneymaker and Cliff were walking along the edge of a creek and I'm trying to get their attention because on the other side of the creek, right behind him, something with red eyes was moving back and forth. Their walkie talkies weren't on, and obviously they couldn't see me because it's pitch black, so I'm trying to run up to them and get their attention. So that's why I'm on TV in Thermal.

50:45 And afterwards we started questioning the crew because it's not a huge crew. Ten to fifteen people that came with them, and none of them were in that area where we were seeing the y club. They were all at the designated parking area, so something was pacing behind him on the other side of the creek. But as the show goes, that was a fair representation of a BFRO expedition. You know. Again, we divide it up into groups and we had a big cookout when it started, and it was a lot of fun, except for like the last again, the very. End, right exactly. Yeah, it becomes an interesting episode for sure.

51:27 People don't know the Iowa episode. You should go watch it. I think it's like on Discovery Plus. Are there any things that you would want to clear up about what people might think about it. It's definitely not a way to make money. I know we charge, but we've got overhead, we pay insurance, there's the upkeep of the database and the website, so you're not going to get rich holding an expedition. There's you know, we try to keep it as scientific as possible. There's no joking, no firearms, no pranking. We don't want people to disclose where we're going. Afterwards. We encourage people to go back out into the site. You know, that would be my main concern. People that I hear on different websites that you know it's just a way to make money, and no, I spend way more than anything I ever get from it.

52:26 Gotcha, the thing I hear over and over and I haven't been on on myself, so I'm kind of outside person looking in. But the thing I see over and over is that everything is faked. That happens on those. Oh definitely not. No, okay, that's what I figured I would say. I don't know, guys. I mean, at the very least, renting the Jacklinks costume. That thing's really expensive. Right, Yeah, you'd have to really raise the price. Yes, no, there's absolutely there's no faking. We don't plant evidence and oh hey guys, let's go over here. No, gotcha, that's that's good to hear. Have you ever captured any interesting audio evidence yourself personally?

53:16 After once? They've been doing this since twenty twelve, so after eleven years. Last year up in Minnesota, I caught something which most likely as a howl. It doesn't match up with any known again known critters. There's no, it's not coyote. It doesn't match that wave, that sonogram, it doesn't match you know, wolf or bear. Yeah, it just the spectrogram. It looks like something very large, very big, very deep chest did a whoop. You can see it go up, comes down, and at the very end it goes back up again, sort of like the Ohio howl.

54:03 Gotcha? That is really that's awesome. What are your you know, being up in Wisconsin, do you have any feelings towards non bigfoot cryptids. Everybody talks about the dog man, right the Beast of Bray Road, And coincidently enough, in the town I live in, there's a Bray Street a block from me. It's like one block long, and there's a beast that lives on it. It's a heck of a dog. You go out for a walk, it's kind of say hi to you. I haven't encountered any other cryptids. I enjoy the stories. One of my best friends sponsor to borrow my recording equipment and go sit in cemeteries. My goodness, knock yourself out.

54:51 Yeah not for me, dude. Yeah. The whole dog man thing freaks me out. I'm like, I really, I've gotten a few reports from Iowa, but I'm like, man, I hope we don't have any of those down here. But I know there is a guy who contacted me in northwest Iowa. I'm sure everything weird is over in southeast Iowa, so I'm sure there's something over there. Do you have any advice for people that would be wanting to kind of get into the going to look for a bigfoot thing. Any advice for people just starting out. Sure, there is a great book by Robert W. Morris. Oh, Robert Morgan won, Yeah, that one. It's so good, it really is.

55:36 Unfortunately, we were packing up to move and that book got packed up and I don't happen to remember the name of it right now, but it's fantastic. It tells you how to do this, It tells you how to set up a tent, how to select a campsite. The best advice in the book act natural and be quiet, whether you're at the campsite or you go out in the woods. Just now be yourself. Don't blair music really loud, don't do anything dumb like that. There's a lot of great organizations that you can hook up with, or at least investigate yourself and check them out. You know. Besides the BFRO, there's low Land Investigators, which is in Iowa.

56:23 I happen to think they're great because I work with them. Right, I think that's the only non BFRO related organization for bigfoot, right is Lowlands. That's all I could find. There should be other ones in Iowa, Okay, I don't know how active they are. There's other organizations in the Midwest that are something that should be active. But again, if you want to do this, spend some time studying the subject and find it. You know, if you're comfortable walking at night, do it without your head lamp on. You should get used to being able to see in the dark. After a few minutes, you know, your eyes will just and just walk a dead end road again, eyes open, mouth closed, and just listen, see what's around you.

57:15 Yeah, that's that's good advice. Definitely, I would say stick to the roads. Yes, for at the beginning. Yeah, I've seen people dive into uh, you know, six foot tall brush thinking they saw you know, eye glow, bigfoot and they run into this cover and you know, for God's say, they were chasing the moon. Oh yes, sure. So again there's another piece of advice. When you go out, make sure you know where like cell phone towers are, if you're going to a spot, you know, headlamps from car, headlights, tail lights. Just check it out and make sure that you know your surroundings before you commit to going out for three four hours at a time.

58:01 Yeah, this is not a thing where it's like you decide to do it at nine and you go out at ten, like you need to put stuff, you need to put time into preparing for this and know, like, are there snakes in the area I'm going to, Maybe I need to be prepared for if a snake is there, like a poisonous snake. That's kind of a big deal in Iowa in some parts. Yeah, definitely do your homework and you have a buddy that helps out too. But yeah, that's my advice to tag on anyways. But yeah, Bob, this has been a really fun chat. There are a few things I want to ask you afterwards if you have a few extra minutes. But I just really thankful for you for coming on the show and just sharing some really solid information about the Midwest in Iowa when it comes to Bigfoot, there's not a lot of people to talk to, and I just appreciate you coming on.

58:52 Are there any ways that people can do you have online presence at all, or ways people can contact you or kind of in the shadows and like to live that way. I lurk in the darkness Lowlanders. That website you can content me through there. If you have a report, you can put it on the BFRO website for Iowa and request me to be the investigator. That's the best way to do it too. Those two awesome. That's great. Well, thank you so much for coming on, Bob. Yeah, my pleasure. It was a blast.

59:34 Just want to say thank you for listening to this episode of the Big Fist Society podcast. Bob's encounters are the kind that stay with you, not just because of what he saw, but because of what watched him back from the woods. It's a huge thanks to Bob Barheight for sharing his stories from Iowa, Wisconsin and beyond and reminding us that some parts of the Middle West are still wild in ways we can't explain. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the channel on YouTube, hit the bell icons you don't miss what's coming next, and share this one with a friend who's into bigfoot Iowa or just loves a good mystery about what's out there. So if you're listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and make sure you're following the show there, and if you leave a positive five star review, it really helps more folks discover these accounts. If you or someone you know has had a bigfoot encounter, especially in the Driftless area or around places like Yellow River Backbone State Park or Fayette County. I would love to hear about it.

1:00:26 Please email me at Big for Society at gmail dot com. Thanks again for being part of the Big for Society. Until next time, trust your gut, stay curious, and never stop asking what else might be out there? And see you in the woods.