Episode 12: The Man, The Foot, The Legend: Bigfoot and the Murder

One of the most recognizable cryptids to every win the world wide hide and seek championship, Bigfoot skulks forests and woodlands tormenting campers, hikers and hunters with his howls and his putrid smell. But how much do you really know about Mr. Foot? Today we deep dive into Bigfoot as we read some encounters, talk about the likelyhood of its exhistance and explore a murder that happened all in his name. Join us on the Odder Side for a walk with Bigfoot!

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Music Credit:
"Air Prelude" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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"Gnarled Situation" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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"Willow and the Light" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Main Theme
"Dream Catcher" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Hello and Welcome to the Odder podcast. I’m your host Madison Paige, and today we are hiking out into the forest to find a worm riddled log and see if we can find a couple jumbo sized footprints in the mud. Today on The Odder, we are looking for Bigfoot and the murder that was commited in his name. So lace up your hiking boots, pack your bug spray, and make sure you have the shakiest, grainest camera at your disposal and let's go!
Good Morning, Midnight, or whatever time of the day you are tuning in. I hope everyone had a good time with the last episode and the haunting vision of Telenoid didn't tuck itself into bed with anyone. I am still creeped out by the whole concept and I feel like now that I know more about it I keep seeing it in old movies I used to watch as a kid. There was just a whole era of dead eyed, overly animated movies that we were all victimized by. If you have your own example of The Uncanny Valley or something you feel is close to it, let us know by commenting on our instagram, twitter, or facebook. You can even hit us up on Tiktok! Remember that the Uncanny Valley was a requested episode and if you want to have your own request episode send us an email to theodderpod@gmail.com and include what name you would like to be called or if you would like to remain anonymous. Now today is an episode I am very excited about. I am an avid camper and I grew up curled up in a tent while my dad cracked jokes about Bigfoot coming. That's right, we are doing the big man himself. Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti- No matter what you call him, it all comes back to a big, hairy, unidentified being slinking through the woods. Now I love a good bigfoot sighting so if you have your own or know your friends or if you have a crazy uncle Earl who once saw Bigfoot skinny dipping in a reservoir then I want to hear about it. Send your story to our email, one more time, theodderpod@gmail.com. But for now, let's all get comfy and cozy in the woods, gather round the campfire, and get to talking about Bigfoot.
In the early afternoon of October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson and Robert “Bob” Gimlin were riding horseback upstream along the east bank of Bluff Creek. They rounded a bend where they spotted a figure on the opposite bank. The sight of it left both men in a state of shock. Patterson described it as tall, between 6’6 to 7 feet tall but later measured it closer to 7’6. Large with wide stock shoulders, and silvery brown or dark reddish brown hair, the creature was apelike but stood bipedal like a human. The men were about 25 feet away from the creature and the horses reared up in alarm. Sliding out of his saddle, he grabbed his camera and ran toward the creature. He yelled back to Gimlin to “Cover him!” as Gimlin crossed the creek while trying to get a gun out. He dismounted, rifle in hand, but did not point it at the creature. Patterson ran after the creature as it lumbered away, desperately trying to capture what he was seeing on film. That film, while shaky and grainy, would go on to become one of the most well known pieces of cryptid evidence, affectionately called the Patterson film. This film depicts a long limbed creature with distinct ape-like features strolling through the water up into the woods. This creature would be identified as Bigfoot.
Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yowie, Yeti, Skunk Ape, all these names describe the same Cryptid. Bigfoot is often described as a large muscular bipedal ape-like creature covered in hair that has been described as black, dark brown, reddit brown, silver, or white. Really about any color you can imagine. Descriptions on height vary but usually falls between 6-9ft with some descriptions even raising that number up to 15 ft tall. Let's use the american measuring system of arbitrary items and say that bigfoot could be as tall as 6 mini fridges or 17 comic books, or 1.5 kayaks. Sometimes bigfoot is described as very human-like, especially in the face. In 1971, multiple people in Oregon reported sightings of an overgrown ape and one of the men claimed to have sighted the creature in the scope of his rifle but couldn't bring himself to shoot it because of how human it looked. Some descriptions include no necks, long arms, broad shoulders and eyes that glow in the dark. The worst descriptors are of the smell. Some people compared it to rotting garbage or an animal carcass. That skunk ape name was not given with affection. Michael Rugg, owner of the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Northern California claimed after an encounter with the creature that the smell was like a skunk that had rolled around in dead animals and hung around the garbage pits so really the best of all worlds.
Bigfoot as the name implies is known for the size of his tracks which some report to be as large as 24 inch long and 8 in wide. Some footprint casts also show signs of claw marks. In 1958, Jerry Crew, a bulldozer operator for a logging company in California discovered a set of 16 inch long human like footprints.
For context, those that think well that's not that big, the Guinness Book of World Records reports the largest size shoe recorded in history was for a man named Robert Wadlow who wore a size 37AA equivalent to 18.5 inches of foot. So our buddy bigfoot here is only about 1.5 inches smaller than the tallest man who ever lived.
But back to Jerry Crew. When he told some of his coworkers about it, they relayed they also had seen similar tracks as well as other oddities around the work site like an oil drum that weighed 450 lbs that had been moved mysteriously. They soon began to use the term Bigfoot to describe the culprit and the story of the logging crew besieged by a strong man prankster leaked to the newspapers and the use of the name Bigfoot began to circulate when describing sightings of the tracks or the large hairy ape man himself. Now get ready for a head whipper. In 2002, the family of Jerry Crews deceased coworker Ray Wallace stated that their father had been secretly making the large foot prints with carved wooden feet and he had been making the tracks. Despite this revelation, many people still consider those claims legitimate and credit it as the origin of the name Bigfoot.
That is not to say that Jerry Crew and the crew were holding Bigfoot’s baby book, Sightings of the hairy hooligan have existed for ages. Many of the indigenous cultures across the North American Continent had their own tales of mysterious creatures living in the woods. These stories differed in their details both regionally and between families. On the Tule River Indian Reservation in Central California, petroglyphs from the Yokuts at a site called Painted Rock are alleged by some to depict a group of Bigfoot called “The Family”. The local tribesman called the largest of these depictions “Hairy Man”. This petroglyphs are estimated to be between 500 to 1000 years old. 16th century
Spanish explorers and Mexican settlers in California whispered around campfires and cooking pots about the Los Vigilantes Oscuros. Apologies if I mispronounced it, My accent is fighting me today, but this translates to Dark Watchers . These were large creatures alleged to stalk their camps at night.
A French Jesuit priest living with the Natchez in 1921 in what is modern day Mississippi reported sightings of hairy creatures that would scream loudly and steal livestock.
Not all these stories originate from tribes, even famous figures in history have recorded tales of the hair creatures. Take President Theodore Roosevelt who wrote in his 1893 book, The Wilderness Hunter, of a story told to him by an elderly mountain man. The man told Roosevelt of a soul smelling, bipedal creature that ransacked his beaver trapping camp. The creature stalked the man and his companion before turning violent and breaking the companions neck in the woods near the Idaho-Montana border. This is one of the few tales in which the creature is reported to have directly attacked or killed someone. A more relaxed story comes from Reverend Elkanah Walker in 1840 who spoke of Giants that lived among the natives in Spokane Washington. These giants lived on and around the peaks of the nearby mountains stealing salmon from fishermen's nets.
Now this wide display of differing behaviors has stumped many in the Bigfoot Community. While this is a cryptid and there are no captive or even recorded wild specimens to study, Bigfoot Researchers do agree on some things. Throwing rocks and cracking blows against trees also known as wood-knocking are believed to be communicative or used to mark territory. Broken and twisted foliage have also been attributed to bigfoot as well as lodgepole pine and other small trees bent, uprooted, or stacked in patterns that resembled weaved and crisscrossed, leading some to theorize that they are potential territorial markings.[87] Entire deer skeletons have been found suspended high in trees and in Washington state, a team of amateur Bigfoot researchers called the Olympic Project claimed to have discovered a collection of nests, and they had primatologists study them, with the conclusion being that they appear to have been created by a primate.[89]
There is also some belief that these creatures are nocturnal and that they may live in family groups similar to gorillas. The Vocalizations are what is most well known about Bigfoot. Whole TV shows circle around the concept of a group of researchers in the woods hooting and howling to try to get a response. Bigfoot has been blamed for howls, screams, moans, grunts, whistles, and even a garbled form of language. These behaviors crop up in several different encounters which leads proof to the existence of this species
A story from 1924, often referred to as the "Battle of Ape Canyon", presents miners being attacked by large, hairy "ape men" that threw rocks onto their cabin roof from a nearby cliff after one of the miners allegedly shot one with a rifle. This rock throwing display is common and appears in several mainstream and pop culture stories of Bigfoot terrifying people in the nights.
Some have been critical of Bigfoot's rise to fame, arguing that the appearance of the creatures in cartoons, reality shows, and advertisements further reduces the potential validity of serious scientific research but still others propose that society's fascination with the concept of Bigfoot stems from human interest in mystery, the paranormal, and loneliness. The act of searching for or researching the creatures is often referred to as "Squatching" or "Squatch'n" which was popularized by the Animal Planet reality series, Finding Bigfoot. Bigfoot researchers and believers are often called "Squatchers".
During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bigfoot was known as the "Social Distancing Champion" and was used in several promotional campaigns.
The pop culture popularity of the hairy horrors is not something that can be denied. I can't even tell you the amount of bumper sticks, t-shirts, life size statues, heck this podcast episode about him will most likely be lost in the billions of others out there. Bigfoot is a loved and honored icon and the mysteriousness of its existence does nothing but help to boost it.
Now this does not mean bigfoot is without its believers. Experts do not give credit to the allegations of the existence of Bigfoot. They feel it is mostly hoaxes, confusion, or delusions. In 1996, Washington State Zoologist John Crane said "There is no such thing as Bigfoot. No data other than material that's clearly been fabricated has ever been presented."
Climate and Food supply issues would make survival of the creature in the reported areas highly unlikely. All recognized nonhuman apes are found in the tropics of Africa and Asia. No Great Ape has been found in the fossil record in the Americas and no physical remains have ever been located. A creature that lives must die and its body must be left behind. Even if there were family groups with burial rituals, some remains would be dug up by other animals or overturned during building. Phillips Stevens, a cultural anthropologist at the University at Buffalo stated the following “It defies all logic that there is a population of these things sufficient to keep them going. What it takes to maintain any species, especially a long-lived species, is you gotta have a breeding population. That requires a substantial number, spread out over a fairly wide area where they can find sufficient food and shelter to keep hidden from all the investigators.”
Jane Goodall, yes that Jane Goodall was even asked her opinion of Bigfoot in 2002. "Well, now you will be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure that they exist." She later added, chuckling, "Well, I'm a romantic, so I always wanted them to exist", and finally, "You know, why isn't there a body? I can't answer that, and maybe they don't exist, but I want them to." Huffington Post later caught up to her to ask for another take on the Bigfoot myth in 2012. Goodall said "I'm fascinated and would actually love them to exist," adding, "Of course, it's strange that there has never been a single authentic hide or hair of the Bigfoot, but I've read all the accounts."
Author and Paleontologist Darren Naish states in a 2016 article for Scientific American that the lack of evidence found is the biggest issue with the possibility of the existence of the cryptid. He summarized it in three parts. In order for Bigfoot to exist there would need to be
1. Consistent reports of uniform vocalizations through north american
2. An abundance of easily found tracks that can be verified by scientist
3. Several samples of DNA such as hair, blood, and feces that can be tested and compared.
Unfortunately, these things are just not available. At the present time, most sightings are blamed on bears, escaped chimps or other humans. Now the site of a bear is to be expected. While upright, adult black bears stand roughly 5–7 ft and grizzly bears roughly 8–9 ft both within the range of anecdotal Bigfoot reports. Some have proposed that sightings of Bigfoot may simply be people observing and misidentifying great apes such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans that have escaped from captivity such as zoos, circuses, and private owners. The most dangerous of these misidentifications is when a human is mistaken for Bigfoot. In 2013, a 21-year-old man in Oklahoma was arrested after he told law enforcement he accidentally shot his friend in the back while their group was allegedly hunting for Bigfoot. In 2018, a person was shot multiple times by a hunter near Helena, Montana who claimed he mistook him for a Bigfoot. Now you might be wondering if this is the Murder that the title referenced but actually if gets even weirder.
On July 9th, Larry Doil Sanders was out noodling with his friend Jimmy Glen Knighten on the South Canadian River. Noodling is when you fish using your hands to catch the fish directly. This fun outing between friends would end in a murder. Sanders was arrested on an outstanding warrant after he came back to Knightens residence alone and told his daughter that while he was out on the River he found out that Knighten planned to feed him to sasquatch. According to Special Agent Justin Brown Sanders believed Knighten was trying to get away from him so that sasquatch could eat him. Sanders grabbed Knighten and punched him before striking him with a stick. They then tusseled on the ground before Sanders choked Knighten to death near the river. Deputies who arrested Sanders reported he seemed to be under the influence of illegal drugs and had a history of drug abuse. He would later draw a map and provide directions that helped searchers find Knighten’s body.
Now this story is bonkers and details are appearing every day as more comes to light. But killing your buddy so he won't feed you to bigfoot is definitely not a common theme. Hoaxes though are. There are several admitted hoaxers who have come forward to reveal their schemes. Just recall our friend Ray Wallace.
Tom Biscardi, long-time Bigfoot enthusiast and CEO of "Searching for Bigfoot, Inc.", appeared on the Coast to Coast AM paranormal radio show on July 14, 2005, and said that he was "98% sure that his group will be able to capture a Bigfoot which they had been tracking in the Happy Camp, California area." A month later, he announced on the same radio show that he had captured Bigfoot and was arranging a pay-per-view event for people to see it. He appeared on Coast to Coast AM again a few days later to announce that there was no captive Bigfoot. He blamed an unnamed woman for misleading him, and said that the show's audience was gullible. Oh our good buddy Tom though he had a lot of swings and misses. On July 9, 2008, Rick Dyer and Matthew Whitton posted a video to YouTube, claiming that they had discovered the body of a dead Bigfoot in a forest in northern Georgia. Tom Biscardi was contacted to investigate. Dyer and Whitton received $50,000 from "Searching for Bigfoot, Inc."[133] The story was covered by many major news networks, including BBC,[134] CNN,[135] ABC News,[136] and Fox News.[137] Soon after a press conference, the alleged Bigfoot body was delivered in a block of ice in a freezer with the Searching for Bigfoot team. When the contents were thawed, observers found that the hair was not real, the head was hollow, and the feet were rubber.[138] Dyer and Whitton admitted that it was a hoax. And Just like Tom, Rick Dyer went for another spin.
In January 2014 Dyer said that he had killed a Bigfoot in September 2012 outside San Antonio. He claimed to have had scientific tests conducted on the body, "from DNA tests to 3D optical scans to body scans. It is the real deal. It's Bigfoot, and Bigfoot's here, and I shot it, and now I'm proving it to the world." He said that he had kept the body in a hidden location, and he intended to take it on tour across North America in 2014. He released photos of the body and a video showing a few individuals' reactions to seeing it but never released any of the tests or scans. He refused to disclose the test results or to provide biological samples. He said that the DNA results were done by an undisclosed lab and could not be matched to identify any known animal.[145] Dyer said that he would reveal the body and tests on February 9, 2014, at a news conference at Washington University,[146] but he never made the test results available.[147] After the Phoenix tour, the Bigfoot body was taken to Houston.[148]
On March 28, 2014, Dyer admitted on his Facebook page that his "Bigfoot corpse" was another hoax. He had paid Chris Russel of "Twisted Toybox" to manufacture the prop from latex, foam, and camel hair, which he nicknamed "Hank". Dyer earned approximately US$60,000 from the tour of this second fake Bigfoot corpse. He stated that he did kill a Bigfoot, but did not take the real body on tour for fear that it would be stolen.[149][150]
As long as people wander the woods looking for Bigfoot, there will be people also wandering the internet looking for people to scam. And no matter what side of the debate you fall on, we can enjoy the fun and whimsy that Bigfoot brings and we can all enjoy gathering around the campfire to listen to Uncle Earl spring his yarn one more time.
Well, that's all for this episode. So what do you think? Do you believe in bigfoot? What evidence do you think is most compelling? What would it take to convince you of this Cryptids existence.? Let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and leave a review. The Odder Pod is now on TikTok. Come follow us there!Have a suggestion for a show? Send me an email at theodderpod@gmail.com with your request and whether you’d like me to mention your name, your alias, or nothing at all. Remember this is The Odder Side so give me something cool, creepy, or confusing to deep dive for you. If you liked the show, leave us a review! They really help! I’m actually headed into the woods now for a camping trip so I’ll keep my eyes peeled for Mr. Foot. The Odder Podcast posts every other Thursday. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time on The Odder side.

The Odder

Episode 12: The Man, The Foot, The Legend: Bigfoot and the Murder

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