Bigfoot: Cryptid, Forest Spirit, Alien, or Hoax?

The Bigfoot question sounds simple until you actually try to prove it: how can a seven-foot, 700-pound biped live across North America with no confirmed bones, no clean DNA, and nothing but footprints, stories, and one legendary strip of film? 

We dig into the Indigenous roots behind the modern “Bigfoot” brand, where regional names and oral histories describe hairy people as real beings and sometimes as caretakers of the deep woods. From there we put the spotlight on the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film, the gait and anatomy arguments, and the reasons it still holds up as the reference point for every Bigfoot debate. 

Then we turn to the evidence that can be measured: footprint trackways, mid-foot break claims, and what plaster casts can and cannot tell you. We also lay out the strongest counterpoints, including bear misidentification, statistical ties between black bear populations and reported sightings, and repeated DNA tests that come back as known animals or contamination. And when the conversation gets weird, we go there: the “Oz factor” silence, vanishing tracks, and other high strangeness that pushes Bigfoot into paranormal territory. 

If you love cryptids, Sasquatch folklore, Bigfoot evidence analysis, and the line between science and story, hit play, then subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review. What’s your best explanation for Bigfoot: animal, hoax, spirit, or something else entirely?

Links mentioned: 

• Oregon Experience: Call it Bigfoot, Sasquatch or Istiyehe: Indigenous peoples know it as Protector (25 minutes)
• I Love Docs: Why They Devote Their Lives To Bigfoot - Bigfoot's Reflection (45 minutes)

Transcript

Josh 0:03

Aliens. Aliens.

Travis 0:07

Yes. But maybe no.

Father’s Day Intro And Banter

Travis 0:19

Welcome back to the show. Aliens, yes, but maybe no with Josh and Travis. I am Travis. I'm Josh. And this is another worldly podcast as ambiguous as our title. Yeah, yeah. So just to timestamp this, guess what is happening today? Do you want me to It's Father's Day? We're recording this.

Josh 0:41

I knew. I just didn't know if you were waiting for a listener to say something.

Travis 0:46

Oh shit. Yeah, waiting for a listener. Hold on, hold for emails to come in.

Josh 0:50

It's Father's Day. And we're doing our favorite thing. We told our family, like, this is what we want to do.

Travis 0:56

Actually, Josh, this is my favorite thing.

Josh 1:00

I know.

Travis 1:00

I love recording this show so much. And my other show, shout out Cinema Roast Bunch. I love talking about things that I'm interested in. I just need to get now a show about beer or wine. And then maybe Beanie Babies. Yeah, that I already have that. That's called Travis and Ty. Ty being the Beanie Baby company.

Josh 1:21

Oh yeah.

Travis 1:22

Um it's not doing so well. I can imagine. So very niche. If you guys are interested in Beanie Baby Talk, hit them up. Ty and Travis, look it up. Where do you find podcasts?

Josh 1:35

I have to look at what we did last episode.

Travis 1:38

Was it about a base?

Josh 1:41

No. It was about a bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge.

Travis 1:44

Yes! The Brooklyn Bridge incident. Okay.

Josh 1:48

Way wilder of a story than I would have ever imagined when hearing the title.

Travis 1:53

I'm like two episodes behind on remembering what we just recently covered.

Josh 1:58

Oh yeah.

Travis 2:00

What are you gonna do though?

Josh 2:02

So Brooklyn Bridge. That episode was wild. Just loops and twists and turns and everything. Okay. So at the end of every episode, like we do, we do a quiz. Yeah. That's when we find out about our next topic. Classic us, classic show. Yeah.

Why Bigfoot Dominates The Northwest

Josh 2:20

We are doing Bigfoot.

Travis 2:23

Um let's work on our phrasing a little bit. Big feet? No, we're not doing Bigfoot. Oh. We're going to be discussing Bigfoot. That was a thing that I thought was really funny. Not the doing it part, because I mean, what a wild ride that would be. Where was I going with this? Um the cryptid of cryptids. Bigfoot being the cryptid of cryptids. One of the funny things that I thought about some of these videos were they would call them Bigfoots. Big Feats. I mean, Big Feet's is still, I feel, wrong. I would just say Bigfoot in the way that you would say like moose.

Josh 2:58

Well, if there's multiple, you know, if there's like a family, Bigfoots.

Travis 3:02

Yeah, I would just say there's a family of Bigfoot. I don't know how like I think Bigfoots is I think it's okay. You don't say look at all those mooses. If there's a bunch of mooses, you would say like a herd of moose. So you'd say, like, look at that tribe of Bigfoot. Right?

Josh 3:20

I mean, you could, yeah.

Travis 3:21

It was just a funny thing, as they would say, like, we have thermal imaging looking into the bush, looking for families of Bigfoots. And I was just like, that just I don't like the way that sounds.

Josh 3:32

It might be right. Yeah. We watched a few different videos, and I don't know. Travis and I both live in the Pacific Northwest. I've lived in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. I grew up in the woods.

Travis 3:46

Yeah, and I've lived in Idaho and Oregon.

Josh 3:48

Yeah. So it is everywhere around here. I mean, bumper stickers, keychains, posters, flags, festivals, flags.

Travis 3:57

Shirts. There's a distributor here in Eugene called Bigfoot Beverage.

Josh 4:02

Down the road from my house. There's a sexy Bigfoot on the back of a pickup truck.

Travis 4:07

Oh, now we're talking.

Josh 4:09

Yeah.

Travis 4:09

Hell yeah. Put it on the side of an economy van, man, and I'm I'm totally down.

Josh 4:14

So I mean it's it's everywhere. I don't know. It's probably not that way around the rest of the world, but I think to the Pacific Northwest, this is the elite. I mean, we've just grown up with the elite.

Travis 4:26

This is the S class. Yeah. This is top of the line.

Josh 4:31

Which I actually talked to Jordan about this, and she thought it was a good idea. And maybe this is a teaser. Maybe the listeners can let us know. We did our battle aliens episode, but what if we did cryptids? Like battle cryptids. Ooh. That would be super fun.

Travis 4:48

That'd be good.

Josh 4:49

But we do need to know if that's what the listeners want. Maybe throw out some cryptids that you want in the bracket. Sure.

Travis 4:56

Definitely we'll have all of the ones that we've we've covered previously, plus some other cool ones. Chupacabra. Yeah, grinning man, mouth man.

Josh 5:06

Now Bigfoot. Now Bigfoot. Well, so should we uh talk about Bigfoot?

Travis 5:12

Yeah. Do you have any more personal Bigfoot anecdotes? Have you seen a Bigfoot? No. I haven't either.

Josh 5:18

I've formulated, I think, my opinion after doing a little bit more research. I've always kind of been on the fence, but after doing a little bit more research, I think I have an idea of what I believe.

Travis 5:29

I think, Josh, I don't I don't know if we're gonna come together on closing thoughts, but I do feel like as Pacific Northwest boys, there is an assumed knowledge that Bigfoot exists and is out there and is just waiting to be discovered. Like everybody here falls on that spectrum that Bigfoot does exist. I I think. And people will talk about it like in a jokey way or in a very serious kind of wanting to be academic way. But I think everybody here falls under that spectrum of belief that it does exist in some sort of iteration. Like is it early man or is it like curse or you know, which I will talk about in my closing argument.

Josh 6:17

Well, let's get into it.

Travis 6:18

Let's figure this

What Bigfoot Is Supposed To Be

Travis 6:19

all out. So let's just give like a pretty broad overview of what we are talking about today. And to do that, we're going to set a scene. Okay? Yeah. So imagine you're in a forest, it's quiet, the birds have stopped, the wind has died down, and the environment feels completely still. A strong wild beast odor drifts through the brush. A massive seven-foot silhouette appears in the timber line, watching you back. Uh-oh. In these exact moments, reports emerge of a tall, heavy, bipedal creature observed at the edge of the woods. The phenomenon has been documented across North America for centuries, existing as a biological and cultural anomaly that contradicts standard scientific categorization. While the wilderness is usually a place to relax, there are times when the map goes blank. The situation shifts, and your entire worldview changes in an instant. By all accounts of modern science, a breeding population of 700-pound primates simply cannot exist without leaving behind a single verified bone or scrap of DNA. Yet highly credible witnesses, from game wardens to law enforcement, keep reporting the exact same giant entity moving effortlessly through the rugged terrain, turning a simple campfire tale into one of the most enduring mysteries of the continent. So we'll talk a little bit about the 1967 film wrecker, looking at the classic Patterson Gimlin reels, heard of it. That's the film. Yeah, if you imagine a Bigfoot on film, that's the one you're imagining.

Josh 7:51

Yeah.

Travis 7:51

It's the one.

Josh 7:52

It's the only non-blurry thing.

Travis 7:54

Yeah. We are looking at the trackway analysis that's talking about footprints and classic plaster casts. And then wildlife data, which is checking out how sightings match up with local bear populations in the current state of DNA testing. Pretty exciting. I mean, this we're going to be covering a lot of ground today. Yeah. A Bigfoot's amount of ground, you might say.

Josh 8:16

I would I would like to say that. Yeah. Because their feet are big.

Travis 8:19

Yeah, I assume. Except for baby big feet. Yeah, who knows? Maybe they're just like smaller versions. Or are they all just born with giant feet and you grow into them? Kind of like a hobbit. Puppy dog ears and puppy dog feet and hobbits.

Josh 8:32

Yeah, maybe.

Indigenous Roots And Names

Josh 8:33

So we're gonna look at kind of this the history because there's history. Let's let's face it. So to understand why this mystery persists, we have to realize that it didn't start with a newspaper headline in the 50s.

Travis 8:47

Interesting.

Josh 8:48

Yeah. The investigation began centuries ago, embedded in the very landscape of the continent. We are looking at a timeline that stretches from ancient rock walls to modern logging roads. For many indigenous nations across North America, these beings were never classified as cryptids, urban legends, or spooky campfire monsters. They were treated as an established physical reality of the natural ecosystem. So unlike spirits, ghosts, and shapeshifters that belong purely to the supernatural realm, tribes often categorized these giants as an actual flesh and blood population of intelligent, reclusive hominids. They were viewed simply as another tribe sharing the landscape, one that chose to live completely apart from the human civilization in the most inaccessible terrains. So in a lot of the Pacific Northwest oral histories, they're seen as caretakers of the deep woods. If a human hunter became greedy, disrespected the land, or took more game than the village actually needed, the giant would make its presence known. They would use heavy rock throwing structural intimidation or a specific vocalization to enforce ecological balance and push humans back. Now I'm going to get into the evolution of the names. This is going to be rough for me. The problem with the modern and commercialized image of Bigfoot is that it completely flattened the vast network of unique regional identities. So across the continent, different nations had specific names that reflected their direct cultural interactions with this being.

Travis 10:12

Oh boy, he this is the funnest part of the show for me.

Josh 10:15

Oh man, me trying to pronounce words. This is fun. Let's do it. Let's hear it. First name, Sasquats. Right on. It's from the Coast Salish. This is the literal linguistic origin of the word Sasquatch. Translated closely, it refers to the wild man of the woods, or hairy man. To the Coast Salish, it denoted a distinct wild entity that possessed its own language and complex social structures completely separate from humans. And then there's the Sciotic or Sitko, the Puget Sound and Cascade tribes. In these regional accounts, the beings were described as nocturnal, incredibly stealthy, and possessing an eerie ability to blend perfectly into the timberline. They were often used as a cautionary figure to keep children from wandering into dangerous mountain passes alone after dark. And then there's also the Mayak Dat, the Yokuts, Yokuts. As mirrored in the ancient pictographs of Central California, this tradition views the hairy man not as a terrifying beast, but as an ancient and sorrowful figure. Oral history says that he actively participates in the creation councils of the world and wept because humans eventually grew to fear and misunderstand his kind.

Travis 11:29

I love that. I think that's very, very sweet and sad.

Josh 11:33

Yeah.

Travis 11:34

I think that's my favorite version of this creature. I would agree.

Josh 11:38

And then a couple other, I mean, in central the painted rocks in central California are 500 to 1,000 years old. It depicts the Mayok de Tat, the hairy man alongside a family unit. And then the 1958 Discovery, which is what made Bigfoot go wild. It hit the newspapers, it was everywhere. Construction foreman Jerry Crew brought a 16-inch plaster cast to the media after finding tracks surrounding his heavy logging machinery. Nothing was stolen, but something with enormous stride had navigated the site. And the media coined the name Bigfoot, and the Continental Hunt was born.

Travis 12:16

It's just so funny. I was talking with my wife about this earlier today. What if like all cryptids, their name, colloquial name, was just a physical feature of them? So like the The Grinning Man? I mean, that's not a cryptid. Well, I mean, traditionally, not a cryptid.

Josh 12:35

He he was everything, wasn't he?

Travis 12:37

Like oh, I maybe a little bit. He was, I think he falled under the otherworldly category, which we're not going to get into right now. No. Because a lot of people feel cryptids are not from this planet. But like, what if Mothman was just like uh fuzzy wing guy? That would be that'd be cute. Or Chupacabra, which is also known as like the goat eater or whatever. But what if it was just like Teeth Gremlin or something like that? It's just funny, like, to take one characteristic of this creature and just go with it. And then that's its name. Like, we don't have I mean it's Sasquatch, but only among certain groups it is more well known as Bigfoot. Yeah. We don't say like Woodsman or Harry Man of the Woods or Protector of the Woods. We say we say Bigfoot. It's just it's just funny. I think it likes a little bit of imagination, but it's not up to me.

Josh 13:34

From what I'm reading, it sounds as though there was a whole complex social community. So it sounds like there was like a tribe or something, and they probably have names. Well, that's what I'm saying. And we've belittled them. Calling them a Bigfoot. I mean Sasquatch means wild man of the woods or hairy man. I think Sasquatch is probably sure.

Travis 13:53

Sasquatch is great. And then there's Yeti, which is like another version in Tibet, right? Around like Mount Everest. So there are different versions.

Josh 14:02

Yeah. Well, some some news person just came up with Bigfoot and it stuck.

Travis 14:07

Yep. Okay. So now let's take a little bit of time here and we're gonna talk about the Patterson Gimlin

Patterson Gimlin Film Under The Microscope

Travis 14:13

film. This is that iconic film that everybody, even if you have a passing interest in Bigfoot, you have seen because this is ever present. It's been on like nightly news as almost like a joke. Yeah. Right? So this took place October 20th, 1967. Bluff Creek, California. It's 59.5 second sequence that has withstood years of forensic scrutiny by some of the world's leading image analysts and anatomical experts. Bob Gimlin and Roger Patterson were out exploring on horseback on the remote banks of Bluff Creek in Northern California. Around 1.15 in the afternoon, their horses suddenly panicked as it came around a bend in the creek. Across the mud, they spotted a massive, heavily built, upright figure covered in dark reddish-brown hair, walking easily through the fallen logs. Patterson jumped off his horse, grabbed his shaky 16 mil movie camera. I don't know that his camera was shaky, and ran through the mud to capture 953 frames of film. Almost six years later, nobody has been able to definitively prove it was a fake. I don't know that that's true.

Josh 15:17

It's not definitive. There's been lots of people coming forward and saying they were part of it or anything like that, but the big thing is we don't know.

Travis 15:26

Yeah. So natural proportions. Just like the layout of this thing they captured. The subject, nicknamed Patty, did not resemble a classic Hollywood monster costume, but moved like a real living animal standing over seven feet tall and weighing an estimated 700 pounds with heavy muscles shifting naturally beneath thick dark hair. Uh, okay, good. We're gonna talk about its boobs.

Josh 15:49

Mm-hmm.

Travis 15:50

Whew, man, I was starting to get sweaty because I was like, did we are we not gonna talk about Bigfoot boobs? So frame 352, as Patterson ran, and now we're talking about frame 352, so like out of the 953 frames. Yeah, a little more than a third of the way through. As Patterson ran forward with a camera, the creature did something incredible right at frame 352. It turned its upper body toward the camera, looking straight at Patterson while keeping up its smooth, heavy stride into the trees. Pretty freaky. It is too bad they didn't capture audio because there was probably a lot of screaming happening. And pooping. If oh, can you yeah. I mean, if this really happened and you captured this, like you would hear my breathing absolutely stop, and you would think that I had probably died of a heart attack. Yeah. So anatomical cues, here we go. One of the most talked-about details in the film, rightly so, is that the creature is distinctly female. Hong Kong, beep beep. Oh my god, featuring prominent, hair-covered breasts. What do you think about that, Travis? Boobs are boobs, love them. The unique walk, movement experts have pointed out that the creature exhibits a compliant gait. This means it keeps its knees constantly bent and takes long, flat-footed strides that a human being would find incredibly difficult to maintain while moving at that speed through rough, uneven terrain. Some costume limits, Hollywood special effects masters from the late 1960s, including the teams who worked on the original Planet of the Apes movie, openly stated that the costume technology of 1967 simply couldn't replicate the natural skin movement and muscle ripple seen on the tape. Now, having seen Planet of the Apes, have you seen Planet of the Apes? Yeah. Well, I mean, a long time ago. Yeah, those costumes look fucking ridiculous. They're real. They look like a a a monkey.

Josh 17:45

Monkey person. Yeah, would look. Yeah. And for them, I mean, they're so real at the time they would be considered the elite of costumes and makeup. And if they're saying it can't happen, yeah, then it can't happen.

Travis 18:00

One of the documentaries was like, if this were to be a hoax, the amount they said that it could be done, but with Hollywood, you're working on a budget and time, and so you don't get a lot of opportunity to make something look real, and it also has to be functional, right? Like camera ready. Yeah. If somebody who had a pretty good knowledge of how to make a suit like this, like put their power towards it, it could be done, but it would just be so fucking painstaking. You would be hand-gluing all of these strands of hair on this costume. You would have to find the right, they'd have to be big, but you'd have to find the right actor to wear the suit to make it look real. Because if you cast somebody that's five, six in a seven-foot-tall costume, it would look like a deflated hairy balloon. Yeah, it'd be weird. Like imagine what that would look like.

Josh 18:57

There are some things that we can get into later that might change some of that. But yeah, I mean, it doesn't seem as though it is a costume.

Travis 19:06

Well, we we talk about this a lot. I mean, I think it does seem like a costume, but also like not. I'm on the fence. It depends on the day. Like, yeah. If I'm feeling uh specially salty, then I'm like, it's a costume. Of course it's a costume. But if I'm feeling a little more whimsical, which I tend to be in my later years, I'm like, why not? Why can't this thing exist? Like having magic in the world, there's nothing wrong with it. And just believing that something like this that is a protector of the woods just seems so beautiful to me. Like, I just love that idea. And that's why I think why not? Why not Bigfoot? Why not why not Sasquatch?

Josh 19:47

Yeah, why not? Well, let's talk about the physical anthropology versus potential prank tradition. Hopefully there's at least one more mention of boobs. I guess we'll find out.

Footprints And The Biology Argument

Josh 19:57

Yeah. Okay, so the biological case. Early researchers began mapping footprint trackways from all over the continent to study how these creatures are physically built. What they found was a strange consistency in weight, distribution, and foot flexibility across miles of rough terrain that pranksters would have a very hard time faking on a whim. So the ancient ape connection, the core biological theory suggests that Sasquatch might be a surviving group of ancient primates, possibly related to or descending from the gigantopithecus black eye. So this was And what was that last part? Black eye, black with eye at the end, blackie? I don't like either one of those. This was a massive extinct ape from Asia that could have crossed over the Bering Land Bridge during the ice age and spread out across the North American landmass.

Travis 20:48

So, really quick, the state in which I used to call home, which you still call home, the state of Idaho, has the most wild, uncharted wilderness of any state in the Union. Really? So, like we're not talking, we're not talking about Canada or, you know, parts of South America or Central America, but a huge chunk of the middle part of the state of Idaho is just uncharted wilderness where people don't really know what is inside of it.

Josh 21:17

So then there was the mid-foot break. Dr. Grover Krantz, a physical anthropologist at Washington State University, risked his entire professional reputation to study footprint casts. He argued that a close look at the tracks showed a moving mid-tarsal break, a flexible joint foot that humans don't have, but that you would expect to see in a giant primate. He believed a casual hoaxer making fake feet wouldn't know how to perfectly alter the bone leverage for a 700 pound body, which is true. The cripple foot trackway, so one of Krant's most famous studies, looked at the long trail of tracks found in the 1969 Bosburg, Washington. The cast showed a distinct foot deformity known as a club foot. Kant's argument. Argues that the way the weight naturally shifted across the deformed foot looked completely real and was way too anatomically precise for a prankster to pull off. And then the massive weight distribution across various trackways documented in British Columbia, Alberta, and the Pacific Northwest, the deep impressions left in mud and snow consistently show that whatever made them had a body mass well over 700 pounds, leaving perfectly uniform four to six foot strides across the That's like four of us, Josh.

Travis 22:29

Two of me, two of you. Seven hundred pounds.

Josh 22:32

Yeah, that's insane.

Travis 22:33

That's a that's a big being. That's huge.

Josh 22:37

So the fake print lines, for a long time the mystery was complicated by what look like tiny skin ridges, essentially fingerprints for the foot, found on casts in different states. However, a researcher named Matt Crowley later proved that when you pour wet plaster into dry soil, the drying process can naturally create tiny lines that look exactly like skin prints, which took away from that specific piece of proof. So people are doing the hard work. I wouldn't have done all this hard work, I wouldn't have dedicated my life to foot casts. No, no. Do you think he has a foot thing? Do you think it is just foot casts of Bigfoot? Maybe, but no. We've dedicated our life to podcasting.

Travis 23:17

So what's the difference?

Josh 23:18

I guess that's true.

Travis 23:20

Everybody has their niche, right? Yeah. I mean, like, I also love fantasy and I love, love, love movies, and I've dedicated a lot of my time to both of those interests. Aliens and cryptids are a new one, but I'm getting to be all in on it. So Me too. This level of obsession, I totally understand. And what we learned, and what totally makes sense to me, is a line from that last documentary, the 45-minute one, which I'm sure we'll have in our show notes. They they talk about scientists being people of obsession. Like they go all in on whatever it their discipline is, and they dedicate their life to researching that.

Josh 24:08

Yeah.

Travis 24:08

If you can justify your work and keep it going, keep and especially the funding, because that's like a big part of scientific research, is like trying to find funding, then yeah, it doesn't feel like your life is wasted.

Josh 24:20

Yeah. One person in that film also I really like. He's like, scientists don't like to go into a field that has a lot of hoaxes, like that just muddies the data and the water. Like scientists don't like that. So that's why we don't see a lot of scientists going after this, is because of the funding, and there's a lot of fake stuff out there. They don't want to waste their time.

Travis 24:41

Well, a lot of fake stuff, and it's like we talked about at the top of the show, it's kind of a a jokey thing, you know, like talking about Bigfoot has become such a like a keystone of the Cryptid Foundation or Arch. And there's a lot of information pro and against it. And why would you want to like get involved in that when you're gonna find both sides so heated and already have their minds made up? So why wouldn't scientists get involved in something less controversial, has so much more room to explore versus something like Bigfoot or even like extraterrestrial lives, which we're like thankfully seeing a lot of research going into extraterrestrial life. But like there is so much information out there about Bigfoot, and it is like so overanalyzed uh that I don't think there's like an underanalyzed piece of this myth. Like everybody knows or has access to all of the information that we have out there about Bigfoot, and so I feel like a lot of scientists don't feel like there's any more they can, like you were saying, there's not anything they can add to this. So why waste your time researching this when you know, until somebody actually goes out and captures this thing? And that was a sad part of that second documentary. They're like, well, if we're looking for proof, how do we get that proof? And it sucks because they're like, well, we would fucking shoot it, and then we would drag that body in and dissect it. And I'm just like, why I don't know, why would you want to kill that thing? Why would you want to put it in a zoo? Let's just observe it in its habitat and let it just be its beautiful self. Yeah, I agree. Why not? No, let's do it. Why not Bigfoot? So, mainstream science demands a body, and so far the woods

Bears, DNA Tests, And Hoaxes

Travis 26:36

have been silent. We are cross-referencing sighting reports with black bear populations and analyzing the genetic dead ends that frustrate the biological theory. So, this is a case for misidentification. A large breeding population of giant animals needs territory, an enormous food supply, and a healthy mating pool. Critics point out that after a century of heavy logging, mining, and millions of trail cameras being set up across North America, no one has ever found a single bone, tooth, or physical body. Correct. Bear misidentification is one of the absolute strongest explanations for sightings. Black bears can easily stand upright on two legs, walk through thick brush, look much bigger than they are in low light, and leave overlapping tracks that look surprisingly like a long human foot, except for the giant fucking claws. Yeah. Data scientist Flo Foxon ran a major statistical check on North American sightings. The math revealed a direct match. For every 1,000 additional black bears living in a specific region, Sasquatch sightings went up by about 4%. I think that's pretty small. I mean, it's a small percentage, but any percentage increase. This strongly suggests that a lot of reports are just people misinterpreting normal bear behavior in the dark or under strange forest conditions. So this is like the new owl? Possibly, yeah, the owl for the cryptids. Yeah. Yeah. The hair tests. DNA testing has posed a massive hurdle for the biological theory. Systematic genetic testing on more than 30 high-profile hair and tissue samples pulled from different habitats across North America consistently came back as known animals. Local bears, black bears, dogs, raccoons, cows, or just human hair contamination. That's silly. Stupid humans. An ice age trace. While no primate DNA turned up, one unusual hair sample did match an incredibly rare extinct brown bear line from the Ice Age, proving that unique wildlife anomalies are still floating around out there in the deep woods. The Ray Wallace hoax. The skeptical side of the argument got a permanent anchor in 2002 when a Northern California construction contractor named Ray Wallace passed away. His family stepped forward and publicly showed off the hand-carved wooden feet that Wallace had been using to stamp giant tracks into the dirt since 1958, showing the world how easily a media sensation could be fake. Now, what does that remind you of? Crop circles? Our couple of buddies in an English pub talking about crop circles. Yes indeedy.

Josh 29:04

Yeah. But he never came forward. He kept the secret. His family stepped forward after he died. That's what's wild.

Travis 29:10

I know. Those fucking Judases just betrayed him.

Josh 29:13

Yeah. Well, and there's another thing I saw that Ray Wallace was actually the one that gave Roger Patterson the location to film. So a known hoaxer gave Patterson the location. Because Patterson came to Ray Wallace saying, like, hey, I really want to do something. I want to get some money. That's the rumor. And then Ray's like, well, why don't you go check in this area over here? And so that's why he rented the camera. That's why he showed up at that spot and was filming and why they got that. He went out to find Bigfoot and he found Bigfoot, which is bizarre. Yeah. But I mean, that is a huge thing. Ray Wallace, who faked it, was the reason that Patterson filmed and made the Patterson Gimlin film. Let's not forget Gimlin. Yeah. Gimlin, son of Gloin. King under the mountain. Yeah. So High Strangest and the Paranormal

High Strangeness And Vanishing Tracks

Josh 30:07

Crossover. So the High Strangest research looks at cases where these creatures don't act like standard animals at all. Instead, they show up alongside things like strange lights, vanishing tracks, and moments where the entire environment seems to change around the witness. So in 1924, Ape Canyon Siege, the initial blueprint for modern Bigfoot Mania started back in 1924, near Mount St. Helens, Washington. Five gold miners reported that their log cabin was attacked in the middle of the night by a giant rock-throwing gorilla man. Forest Rangers dismissed it as a prank by local campers, but in 2013, researchers actually found the physical cabin foundation and verified old square nails from the exact era, proving that the cabin was real, even if the monster attack is still heavily debated. And then there's the Albert Osman kidnapping in British Columbia in 1924. Albert Osman's case is a bizarre survival story. Osman was a Swedish-born Canadian prospector who went camping near Toba Inlet. While he was sleeping inside a sleeping bag, a massive creature picked him up, sleeping bag and all, and carried him like a sack of potatoes through the mountains for three hours.

Travis 31:13

That's like fucking Jason gag in Friday the 13th, where he just picks somebody up in a sleeping bag and just beats the shit out of them against a tree. It's so funny.

Josh 31:23

It's horrifying. I'd be so scared. So when he was finally let out, he claimed he was trapped on a high plateau with a full family of four Sasquatches, an adult male, an adult female, and two younger ones. They didn't harm him. They treated him almost like a unique pet or a guest, feeding him vegetation and spruce needles. Osman was trapped with them for six days until he came up with a brilliant escape plan. He offered the massive, curious adult male his tin box of snuff tobacco. The creature swallowed the whole thing, got violently sick and disoriented, and Osman grabbed his rifle and sprinted back to civilization. Also, he doesn't talk about this very much. He didn't talk about it for years because he didn't want to look crazy. He's a normal person. Then another high strange thing, the Uniontown craft incident. On October 25th, 1973, a researcher named Stan Gordon documented a famous crossover case in Pennsylvania. Witnesses reported seeing two eight-foot-tall hairy creatures with glowing green eyes standing next to a glowing red domed craft in a field. The very second the dome disappeared with the loud, high-pitched whine, the creatures instantly vanished from sight as well. And then the Oz factor that we mentioned earlier, witnesses all over North America frequently describe a strange environmental shift right before they see something. The forest completely drops its normal background noise, birds stop chirping, insects go quiet, and the wind completely dies down, giving the witnesses the distinct feeling that they have stepped into a parallel space or an altered state of awareness. That would be one of the spookier things. You're strutting along and then weird energy, silence.

Travis 32:58

I mean, I don't know how often you've gone backpacking, but like if you are in a group of people, that happens just naturally. Like birds are quiet. Some bugs, crickets, they'll go quiet. You won't hear a lot of chirping until you just like settle down and then the forest comes back to life.

Josh 33:14

Yeah.

Travis 33:15

They're so predator aware they don't want to give up their space.

Josh 33:20

It can happen, but I think there's a little bit more, like the energy around everything, and then the wind dying. There's everything just feels weird. Okay. Then there's also the vanishing tracks. Search and rescue teams and local trackers across northern regions have occasionally documented clear, heavy bipedal trackways in deep snow that simply come to a dead stop in the middle of an open field. So there's no jumping marks, no wing impressions, no backward steps. They're just completely defying normal physical logic. They're just gone.

Travis 33:49

What if we're looking at this the wrong way? What if their feet are on backwards?

Josh 33:54

But where'd they start? They uh it has to be from somewhere or going somewhere.

Travis 33:58

They jumped down off of something.

Josh 34:00

But in the middle of a field? Come on. You come on. What are you gonna jump from?

Travis 34:05

Where did it go? They had to have gone somewhere. What do you what are they saying? That they were beamed up?

Josh 34:09

There is the possibility that big foots are big, interdimensional.

Travis 34:15

So it just like jumped into a wormhole, a portal? Possibly. Or beamed up.

Josh 34:20

It is a thing. I'm not sure about it. I'd have to do a lot more research on that. But there is bizarre situations, and there are researchers that do the research on that. I'm glad you're on the case.

Travis 34:32

I am. Fear not. I I never did. Trust in Josh, that's what I have tattooed right above my butt.

Josh 34:39

Right next to the sexy Mothman?

unknown 34:41

Come on.

Travis 34:42

I wouldn't have a sexy Mothman tattoo that I'll ever tell anybody about. So, regardless of its existence, the legal system has already made its

Laws, Conservation, And Bigfoot Symbolism

Travis 34:52

verdict. Wow. Court. Yep. The Scamania felony law of 1969, in order to handle the massive influx of armed hunters flooding the woods, Scamania County, Washington officially passed an ordinance making it a felony offense to purposely kill a Sasquatch, punishable by heavy fines and jail time.

Josh 35:12

Yeah.

Travis 35:12

Great. Good. But we also have that for bears and eagles and all sorts of things, and that still happens. So whether or not it'll deter. It'll still deter. You gotta imagine, like, if someone were to find and kill a Sasquatch, the amount of money they would make just in their story would far outweigh whatever fines and jail time they might maybe they might endure. Oh no, 100% it would. People would be so interested in this story. I mean, and a heavy fine, what is that gonna look like? $5,000, $10,000? We're talking about if you find and shoot a Sasquatch, millions of dollars on the line for that person who found that. They could sell that to a museum or anybody to the highest bidder, that body. It may not be their property. It wouldn't matter. They were the ones that shot and killed it and discovered it and now dragged it out of the woods. Even if that's taken from them, their story is going to be worth millions of dollars.

Josh 36:15

That's true. Now they would make a ton of, I mean, yeah, they would have a Netflix show. They would, I mean, there'd be a bidding war.

Travis 36:20

Yeah, there would be absolutely. So, like a fine of $10,000, $20,000 is just like, okay, no big whoop. I could totally handle that. Also, what what is jail time gonna be? 30 days of jail time that I'll probably get dropped for community service or whatever. I mean, it's like it's poaching.

Josh 36:40

And that was pretty early for that law, too, 1969.

Travis 36:43

Yeah.

Josh 36:43

That's impressive.

Travis 36:44

So Whatcombe, County, Washington went a step further and legally declared its entire geographical territory a Sasquatch protection and refuge area, treating the unverified creature like an endangered natural resource. Pretty cool.

Josh 36:58

Yeah, I actually lived there up in Bellingham. Beautiful area, deep, dense wood butting right up against the ocean that looks out all over the islands. It's beautiful.

Travis 37:07

Oh, Pacific Northwest, nothing like it. It's gorgeous here.

Josh 37:10

Yeah.

Travis 37:11

Forest conservation. Environmental groups like Oregon Wild frequently use the Bigfoot legend to help protect old growth forests. They argued that if a giant primate population were to survive, it would require massive connecting networks of untouched wilderness using the symbol of Bigfoot to save real-world habitats.

Josh 37:29

Smart.

Travis 37:30

The public health mascot. The reach of the symbol went totally mainstream during the pandemic when government health agencies across North America widely adopted Bigfoot as a public icon for successful social distancing because he is famously reclusive and stays completely away from crowds. I loved that part of lockdown so much. It was great.

Josh 37:50

The Bigfoot, or just being away from crowds. I like that.

Travis 37:53

I love being away from crowds too. I love that's what I loved about it.

Josh 37:57

And canceling plans.

Travis 38:01

Thank you. I was like, oh man, nope. Sorry, I had a cough today. And people were like, oh no, totally. You you've got to stay home.

Josh 38:08

Yeah.

Travis 38:08

Oh, so good. What a time.

Josh 38:10

So now we have the whole complicated picture. Ancient regional names, the 1967 film reels, the distinct foot deformities stamped in plaster, continental bear tracking math, zero physical remains, and local laws protecting the creature, no modern science has ever touched or seen.

Closing Beliefs And Coexistence

Josh 38:30

So the data is split cleanly right down the middle. I have a weird mixture of what I believe of this. I'm saying Bigfoot does exist.

Travis 38:39

Cool.

Josh 38:40

But I'm definitely leaning towards the more indigenous mindset of that. And in the video that we watched, one of the videos, which I'll post all of them, they say he can't be caught. Like it's impossible.

Travis 38:53

He's an elemental being, like, just cannot be captured.

Josh 38:58

I mean, they want to coexist, they want to celebrate this Bigfoot. It is a very spiritual thing, a connection to the environment and the forest when the world is doing well and nature is where it should be. That is when the Bigfoot is happy. So I I really like that a lot. I think there's definitely sightings. Absolutely, there's sightings. But a lot of the evidence just doesn't line up for me personally. But I do believe that there is something there, and it could be a spirit of the forest. I don't I don't know. But I don't think it is catchable. They can keep trying.

Travis 39:33

I hope. No, I hope they just let it go. And I I want it to be a thing that presents itself to you like any whimsical, magical being when you are ready to receive it or witness it, right? Like I don't like the idea of people being able to go out and track this thing down and hunt it and maybe trap it and kill it. I I like the idea of it being like a force of nature. And if you are being respectful of nature, it will show itself to you. I I

Early Human Theory And Violence

Travis 40:06

like that idea. So I also wanted to paint a little bit of a narrative. We didn't talk about this in the beginning, but this was something that came up in my ecology anthropology class.

Josh 40:15

Okay.

Travis 40:16

At one point in our human history, Homo sapiens, which is what we are, and we are now experiencing a new kind of evolution where we're like now considered Homo sapien sapien. But at one point, Homo sapien and Homo erectus coexisted. And Homo erectus, a very primitive version of humans covered in hair, very hunter-gatherer focused. Had boobs. Well, yes, they had boobs. The women and more on that in a little bit. Oh. They shared the same environment and the same hunting grounds, but Homo sapiens, you know, our direct lineage being what we are, a very violent and territorial person, started waging war on this other community and almost completely wiping it out. Now, when you think about war and ravages of war and like what happens, there's a lot of rape, right? There's a lot of stealing and leaving some people behind, not everybody dies. And so, because our DNA is so close that there's the ability to procreate and give birth to like something.

Josh 41:24

Yeah.

Travis 41:24

Whatever that would be called. So I think that there is a version of that out there where, yes, there is kind of an evolution of these two beings, and maybe they became very reclusive because of their interactions with Homo sapiens, because they were, you know, like we all know, were very violent and and can be very aggressive and xenophobic and like afraid of others. And so that pushed them underground into like more forested areas where it was harder to find, and we're even now, like within the last hundred years, are finding tribes in Borneo that have never been discovered before or we didn't know existed. So there are communities, there is a possibility that Bigfoot could exist in some way or form, but a lot like you say, I like the idea of Bigfoot being more of like a spiritual caretaker of the woods. Yeah.

Bigfoot As Cain In Mormon Lore

Travis 42:20

So another thing that I was talking about at the top of the show is a curse, right? And I grew up Mormon. There's some we've talked about this on the show, but there is some narrative in some groups of Mormon culture. So you think back on like Adam and Eve, they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, they gave birth to two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel, so that was the first homicide, the first murder that had ever happened. I mean, if you were to believe that text in human history, right?

Josh 42:51

Yeah.

Travis 42:52

Cain's curse was that now he has to walk for the rest of his days on earth. And in the Mormon church, they believe that Cain is covered in hair and like he's got very dark skin. And that is his role now, is to just roam, to live forever, essentially, and to never die.

Josh 43:10

Interesting.

Travis 43:11

And so certain people among the Mormon church believe that Bigfoot is maybe Cain, which is wild.

Josh 43:20

I like that though.

Travis 43:22

That's wild. That's a wild take. It's an interesting take, but it is a wild one.

Josh 43:26

Bringing cryptids into religion?

Travis 43:29

Yeah.

Josh 43:30

Okay.

Travis 43:31

Sure.

Josh 43:31

I like that though.

Travis 43:33

So anyway, I love I love Bigfoot. I love talking about Bigfoot. He's probably my definitely top three cryptid of all time, depending.

Josh 43:42

Yeah, I mean, I'm not a fanatic when it comes to cryptids, but he he's definitely in my top three.

Travis 43:48

Love him. And I don't know what the other two are. Yeah. I wish he got to spend a little more time with his adoptive family, the Hendersons. But that was probably one of the best times of his life. It probably was the The best time, the most exciting time of his life for sure. Yeah. And then John Lithico had to be mean to him to get him to understand that he needed to leave. That was very sad.

Josh 44:09

You gotta do it when there's love involved.

Travis 44:11

Yeah.

Listener Email From Sweden

Josh 44:12

We do have some fan mail. Uh oh. This was actually an email. An email. It is from Anna Ronblom from Stockholm, Sweden.

Travis 44:22

Oh, international.

Josh 44:24

Very cool. Yeah, very cool. I hope I said that correctly.

Travis 44:29

That's something that we should say when you include your name. Tell us how to say it.

Josh 44:33

Like we're four.

Travis 44:34

Yeah. I mean, we struggle enough pronouncing some of the things on this show.

Josh 44:39

Yeah. So she says, Hi guys, I just want to tell you that I am listening to you from Stockholm, Sweden. I found you about two weeks ago, and I'm listening to episode 33 as I'm writing this. Wow. Keep up the good work and don't stop. Love it.

Travis 44:53

Oh, love it. Thank you so much, Anna.

Josh 44:55

And then she had an alien emoji and then a bye.

Travis 44:59

Well, hi, Anna.

Josh 45:01

And thank you for the email. Bye. I love it. Okay.

Next Topic Quiz Westall UFO

Josh 45:06

So that brings us to our baseline quiz. Mm-hmm. This is how we figure out what our next topic is going to be, because we don't know. Okay. Westall UFO incident.

Travis 45:18

For West All Ins. For those of you that were worried that we were going just straight cryptid. Nope. No, sir. No, ma'am. We're back into incidences.

Josh 45:28

Okay. So I don't, I mean, we've done a handful of these. Let's just get right into it. So Westall. Okay. Where did the Westall UFO incident take place? A. Melbourne, Australia. B. Berlin, Germany. C, London, England, or D. Johannesburg, South Africa?

Travis 45:46

Westall. I have it between two.

Josh 45:48

And is England one of them?

Travis 45:51

No. Oh. Nor is Berlin. So spoiler, it is between Melbourne and Johannesburg. Um I'm going to say Johannesburg.

Josh 46:03

Okay. I am gonna do Australia. Oh. I have no idea though.

Travis 46:08

Latitudinally pretty close. Like they share a very similar latitude, South Africa and Australia. Also, white people coming in and taking over indigenous places. Horribly. Yes, oh horribly. So anyway, Johannesburg is is my my vote.

Josh 46:25

Okay. So next one, what year did the Westall UFO incident happen? A 1952, B 1966, C 1968, or D 1989? Well, I mean, I have no idea. So I'm gonna say 89.

Travis 46:44

Okay. I was just looking like what was a hotbed of UFO incidences and all of these decades pretty much covered from the 50s to the 80s.

Josh 46:54

I'm gonna say I think if it was earlier, I like if it was in the 50s, we probably would have heard about it.

Travis 47:00

Sure. I'm gonna say 78 because that is like when UFO culture was starting to become like not quite monoculture, but that's when we saw like Star Wars and uh around that same time David Lynch's Dune and Flash Gordon and all of these other like sci-fi adventure stories, and so could have been lost in that.

Josh 47:24

It was hot. It was hot. It was a hot topic.

Travis 47:26

Hatsatatsu, yeah. Yeah. So I'm saying 78.

Josh 47:29

Okay. Next one, roughly how many people witnessed the event? A, two to four people max, B over 50, but possibly 70. C at least 200, but maybe up to 400, or D, easily thousands of people.

Travis 47:44

Holy shit. Easily thousands of people? Easily. That's a big claim.

Josh 47:49

Well, I mean, this is a big spread. Could be any of these. I mean, I don't know where Westall is, so I mean, an incident, it's kind of like a party, right? Like you can't have a party with two people.

Travis 48:01

I mean, you can. It just really gives it just really sucks. That I mean, that is just like an embarrassment of friendship.

Josh 48:09

50. I'm gonna say 50 to 70, because that's a good gin dig.

Travis 48:12

I'm gonna say 50 to 72.

Josh 48:14

I think two hundred 200 is gonna be too much small talk.

Travis 48:19

Uh I'm with you though. I think 200 to 400, it's a lot of people to have experienced a singular but it is possible.

Josh 48:26

I mean, we saw that with the Phoenix lights, you know. I mean, if this was a big over uh city thing. Sure.

Travis 48:33

I mean, and we talked about it. We talked about what being an experiencer looks like, and you know, a lot of people that have experiences never report them. And so where two to four doesn't seem adequate enough, but two hundred seems like too many.

Josh 48:48

Okay, next one. What did some witnesses say they found at the alleged landing site? A a glowing orb, b a piece of metal with hieroglyphs, c stinking green ooze or D, circular grass patterns.

Travis 49:02

I already locked it in, stinking green ooze. I love that idea.

Josh 49:06

I don't know why. I don't, man, I would throw up not knowing what it is. I guess it depends on the smell.

Travis 49:13

Did it have what is it, TMI label on it? Did somebody drink it? Did somebody bring their four pet turtles and a rat along with them? And then just kind of like it. I just like it. I think that that's it's interesting. Stinking green news. It's fun.

Josh 49:34

All right, next one. Who were many of the witnesses? Uh-oh. So A, students and teachers at a school, B, military pilots in training, C, diners and wait staff at a restaurant, or D trick-or-treaters with their parents. I like the diners and wait staff idea.

Travis 49:53

Does yeah. Does Australia and South Africa celebrate Halloween? I don't know. I don't either. I think that at the time it probably wasn't like a huge But everyone eats at diners. Everyone, everyone does eat.

Josh 50:06

That's locked in for me. I'm doing that one.

Travis 50:08

Okay. Military pilots and a training. No, that doesn't really justify 50 to 70 students and teachers at school. You know how I hate that. I think I'm going to go diners with you and wait staff.

Josh 50:20

Okay. All right. Last one. What conventional explanation is often used for the Westall incident? Is that A, traffic lights? B meteor shower. C weather balloon or D flock of birds. An owl's a bird.

Travis 50:35

Yeah, I was going to say if that was flock of owls, that would lock it in for me 100%.

Josh 50:40

Oh, they don't flock, do that though.

Travis 50:42

No, they're pretty solitary.

Josh 50:44

Yeah, good for them.

Travis 50:45

Yeah, they're very smart. I'm still gonna say that because actually actually my gut is telling me weather balloon, but I'm gonna do flock of birds anyway.

Josh 50:52

I'm gonna do meteor shower.

Travis 50:54

Oh, okay. Like an actual thing.

Josh 50:58

Yeah. All right. I'm gonna submit. We'll view our accuracy. Oh. Boy. Jeez.

Travis 51:04

100% wrong.

Josh 51:06

Oh my god. I got one right. And the one I got right, it was in Melbourne, Australia. So where did the Westfall UFO incident take place? Australia.

Travis 51:16

Yeah, I said Johannesburg.

Josh 51:17

Okay. We got the rest wrong. So now it's learning.

Travis 51:21

Yeah.

Josh 51:21

What year did the Westall UFO incident happen? I said 1989.

Travis 51:25

Yep. I said 78. It was a decade before.

Josh 51:28

It was 66. Okay. How many people witnessed the event? We both said 50 to 70. It was 200. Maybe up to 400. Yeah. Which is wild. That's too many. It's a lot. And then what did some witnesses say they found at the alleged landing site? We both said stinking greed ooze. It was circular grass patterns. Don't like it. Yeah, I don't either. Who were many of the witnesses? It was students and teachers at school. The worst one. Perfect. Hey, at least the teacher saw it this time, right?

Travis 52:05

Aerial school. Uh that was also South Africa, right?

Josh 52:10

That was uh Zimbabwe.

Travis 52:12

Okay.

Josh 52:12

And last one, what conventional explanation is often used for the West Hall incident? I said meteor shower.

Travis 52:18

You said I talked myself out of my one right answer. I said flock of birds, but in my head, and I said this out loud, I was like, I feel in my gut it's weather balloon.

Josh 52:30

I'll edit that out though.

Travis 52:32

Good, perfect.

Josh 52:33

It was weather balloon.

Travis 52:35

So yes, it was weather balloon. That was what my gut was telling me, and I went against my gut.

Josh 52:40

So it looks like in 1966 in Melbourne, Australia, 200, maybe 400 people, these people are students and teachers, saw a craft land and there was grass patterns around it. The government or military probably said it was a weather balloon. Like us, they always do that. Okay. Well, I'm excited for this. I love these.

Travis 53:01

Yeah, they're fun. I think this is gonna be a good time.

Josh 53:04

Yeah. And I love Australia too, by the way.

Travis 53:07

I'm sad to see Bigfoot go.

Josh 53:09

Yeah, he'll come back.

Travis 53:10

Yeah.

Wrap-Up And Cryptid Bracket Tease

Josh 53:11

And maybe come back sooner if we do a battle cryptids episode. That'd be great. That would be super good. Jordan, if you're listening, go ahead. Start putting it together now. Like I said, shoot us some cryptids you want in our brackets.

Travis 53:26

Only your most powerful cryptids. I don't I don't want some weak ass shit.

Josh 53:31

Yeah. And if you want, you can try to convince us of why they're the most powerful. That'd be fun.

Travis 53:37

Yeah, we're looking for the top of the top, the beefiest, toughest ones, the elite, the S class.

Josh 53:44

Mm-hmm.

Travis 53:44

Not tiny little fish people. Fucking garden gnomes. All right.

Josh 53:49

Yeah.

Travis 53:50

You fish people. Like seriously? You have one area. It's the water. How many people live in the water? Give me a break.

Josh 53:57

Well, thank you for listening. And thank you, Jordan, for everything that you do for us. She is our researcher and everything. Thank you, Jordan. And we will chat at you next episode. Okay. Bye.