Ep:93 Wood Apes of Area X

Another young guy and I decided that we were dairy hunting. We got packed
in by outfitter on horseback. We went twelve miles in, but we had
rented two horses and a mule. While we were there, the outfitter had
told us how to how to take care of each of the animals, and
this mule Nancy. Her deal was you put her out on about a thirty
foot lead and he'd say, tired to a tree out of the meadow.
She'll just graze all night, that's what she wants. So that's what we
did. We were not ready to pack it in that night, and Nancy
just started going nuts. She was scared. She had her leg pulled up,
had been injured, and her eyes were big, her airs were back
or nostrils were flaring, and she was staring off out into the darkness.
We so, what the heck happened? And injured her leg and she couldn't
put any weight on it. Just about the time we're ready to get back
into our tent, we heard this thought for a scream that was I mean,
to this day, I mean, it still makes my blugger and cold
thinking about it. It started out like an awkward Hitchcock woman getting murdered,
just do already murdered, scream and then it went into this long drawn out
thing and ended in life where the lions working and lasted, you know,
ten twelve seconds and we don't what in the heck was that? And we
got out, you know, looked all around everywhere, couldn't see anything,
and it's just dead quiet out there. Let me tell you what we were
shook up. We were shook up, well, I'll tell you. And
I had been hunting for several years, and I'm not too proud of man
to tell you that. I start with my loaded thirty out six inside my
sleeping bag with me that night. I was I was petrified. Joining me
on this episode of Bigfoot Crossroads is a guy that I should have gotten on
years ago. It's someone I followed through the years. He happens to be
married to a wonderful, wonderful lady that I've also known for years and years.
Mister Bob Strain, how are you, sir? Oh, I'm doing
pretty good, Matt. It's good to talk to you. Brother. Yeah.
Man. Then yeah, you're originally from Texas, right, that's correct,
and then you moved out to the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, I did,
back in back in the seventies. I was born and raised in West
Texas and went to school there in high school, a couple of years of
college University of Texas, and my dad lived out here in Sierras in California
and came out here. And you know, there's no comparison to you know,
High Sierras to West Texas. They are completely different. Yeah, yeah,
I like, yeah, did you grow up with you know, some
sort of interest into Bigfoot or anything. No, I really didn't. As
a matter of fact, I really had a very little, you know,
knowledge of Bigfoot at all. It was never on my radar screen growing up.
I mean, I'm I have seen you know, clips from the Patterson
Gimlin film and maybe the Leonard d. Moy show that that was on back
in the day. But I never paid any attention to it, never gave
it any stop, never even really thought about it. And it's just something
that kind of, you know, crept into my life years later. But
I mean, I'll tell you, I'm a big hunter. My dad was
a big hunter. And year I graduated in high school nineteen seventy five,
he and I went on a week long hunting trip up in Idaho, and
I had some experiences up there that kind of stuck with me and kind of
like, you know, sat in the back of my brain. It was
one of those conundrums I could never figure out. And then with the advent
of the Internet coming along and you know, late l last century, early
two thousands kind of crept back in as I started reading more about it and
put two and two together and realize the experiences I had in Idaho back then
and other experiences in the eighties out here in California as well, that it
was the only explanation that I could find was that it was it had to
be bigfoot, And you know, that's that's where it all started. The
incidents that happened, especially the one when you were hunting with your father.
Yeah, did those things kind of stick with you through the years and like
bother you oh oh yeah, oh oh oh absolutely. You know, it's
just you know, those remembrances of your earlier life kind of you know,
as you start to get older, more mature, you start to like like
to try to put everything in its place. And that was something, especially
the Idaho experiences, that I could not I could not reconcile. I just
couldn't and it did bother me, and I thought about it from I would
think about it from time to time, and you know, it was just
one of those things that it really troubled me. And you know, it
was something I was fortunate enough in two thousand and two to just happen,
just by happenstance happened across the old Bickford forums that Brian Brown started in two
thousand and two when I was one of the first members there, and you
know, I kind of felt kindred spirits there and it was through interactions with
the people there whom I became friends with, many of them kind of helped
me sort through it and realize that that's that, that's what I had experienced
was some some you know, fairly close interactions with bigfoot. You know,
I had I had a sighting in nineteen seventy five that, uh the several
minutes long as a matter of fact, and I watched this creature on the
hillside through my rifle scope that I initially thought was a bear, and I
was going to shoot it and I was waiting for it to get to a
spot to where it wouldn't fall down into this really steep canyon and I was
trying to make it easier on us to retrieve, and they climbed up to
a level spot on a hill and I was just about to pull the trigger,
had it in my side, so it was in my crosshoads and my
finger on the turbut trigger I was starting. I was control of my breathing
and trying to figure out my drop of my bullet at that range. And
it stood up on two legs and turned around and walked one way and walked
the other way, and I realized that it was not a bear, and
at that time I thought it was human. I couldn't exactly figure out why
human was doing that and why it was all dressed in black and covered in
fur, and you know, but I was I was kind of I was
kind of upset that I almost almost shot a person, as what I thought,
and I just watched it walk away. And a couple of mornings later
we were it had had snowed. The next day it snowed pretty heavy and
so we hung out in camp. And then the day after that, before
dawn, we were driving up this this mountain logging road, fire service road,
and it was a little two track and before dawn, and our headlights
reflected off the snow, and it looked like a burned out stump on the
right side of the road. And as we're approaching it, the stump because
it started morphing. In other words, it was tall and you know,
not really thin, but it was broad, but it was tall, and
it started shrinking and got wider, and then it slowly crept across the road.
Excuse me, looked like a scraped it as an oil slick, moving
across the road very very slowly, and then went down over the edge and
knocked a bunch of snow off the tree. And we stopped where it went
over the side, and went and sent a guy off over the edge with
a flashlight and a pistol and said, you know, here's a chance to
be a man. Go figure out what that was. And he came back
and had a big hurry and said, nope, nope, nope, let's
go, let's go, let's go. And he didn't want to talk about
it. And he said it was covered in fur. And first he said
it was an animal hiding in the tree, and he wasn't gonna shoot at
anything he could not identify, and we went up to the top of the
mountain and hunted and didn't see anything. And we came back to the truck
and it had continued to snow, and so it was fresh snow all the
way around the truck, and we found these giant footprints. They were huge,
and we were looking at him and I asked my dad, my dad,
that doesn't look like a bear. He says, it's got to be
a bear. Son. There's nothing else, you know like that. And
it looked like giant human footprints that had circled the truck, and and you
know, all these the combination of things, you know, just I could
not I could not write my head around it. And on the way back
down the hill of that day, we stopped at the same spot again and
tried to see if we could find any kind of tracks or anything where the
thing had crossed the road. And by this time the guy that went over
the edge had come up with he'd come up with a story. He said,
well, I've been thinking about it, and I think the only thing
he could have then was a hunter on horseback wearing a frare coat with a
hood pulled up over his head. A thought, how how did you come
to that and did you see a horse? And said, well, no,
but had to be a hunter on horseback because that's the only way he
could have been that tall. And so he did see something walking away from
him, and I said, he didn't see a horse. And I thought,
you know, anybody who was saddy enough to ride a horse in the
snow and those mountains is not going to be wearing a fair coat, black
fair coat with the hood pulled up over his head and Idaho. You know,
they just didn't make sense to me. And it was in an extremely
remote location on the edge of what was then called the Salmon River Wilderness Area
now it's the River of No Return Wilderness Area up near the Montana border north
of Chalice, probably fifty miles north of Challice, Idaho. And that was
it just I for years it bothered me, you know, it's just something
like what, you know, what is going on with that? And I
couldn't figure it out. We were big hunters, and we had a group
of us that about eight or ten that we would go hunting with friends of
my cousins. And we had another experience several years it was about nineteen eighty
or so, I'd say and we were in the Trinity River Trinity Alps Trinity
Alps Wilderness area here in northern California, not parked in the Marble Mountain wilderness
and up towards the Six Rivers area, which is where Bluff Creek is,
and another young guy and I decided that we were there hunting. We got
packed in by outfitter on horseback. We went twelve miles in and he left
us there for a week and came back and retrieved us later. But we
had rented two horses and a mule while we were there, and so me
and this other kid took the mule and put our some overnight camping gear on
it and hiked up. I had the mule pack our stuff up to the
edge across this big valley where we were camped. And we're having our little
you know, spike camp up there. And the offender had told us how
to how to take care of each of the animals. And this mule,
Nancy. Her deal was you put her out on about a thirty foot lead,
and he'd say, tired to a tree out of the meadow. She'll
just graze all night. That's what she wants. So that's what we did.
It was only maybe one hundred feet from our tent, and we were
ready to pack it in that night about ten o'clock at night, and Nancy
just started going nuts, just absolutely bonkers. So we ran over there check
her out. She was scared. She had her leg pulled up, had
been injured, and her eyes were big, her ears were back or no,
nostrils were flair, and then she was staring off out into the darkness.
It's what the heck happened. Had injured her leg and she couldn't put
any weight on it with a Something had clearly bothered her and harassed her,
we figured, and we didn't know what it was, so we, you
know, we untied her. We brought her back into her little camp area
and tied her up just right next to our tent, and she was unsuddled.
We were unsettled all night long, and just about the time we're ready
to get back into our tent, we heard this good, awful scream that
was I mean, to this day, I mean, it still makes my
blugger and cold thinking about it. It started out like an Alpert Hitchcock woman
getting murdered movie sound effect, just bloody murder scream, and then it went
into this long drawn out thing and ended in life with the lions where and
lasted, you know, in twelve seconds. And we thought, what in
the heck was that? And we got out, you know, looked all
around everywhere, couldn't see anything, and it's just dead quiet out there.
Let me tell you what we were shook up between those two weeks, you
know, we shook up. Well, I'll tell you. And i'd been
hunting for several years, and I'm not too proud man to tell you that
I slept with my loaded thirty out six inside my sleeping bag with me that
night. I was I was petrified, and of course we didn't see anything.
The next day, we didn't see any dear nothing, And so my
dad and a couple others came up to check us out. The next day
about noontime. They showed up and we told them what happened, and so
we all, you know, packed up about our gear and we had to
lead that mule back. And on the way back down, I found the
spot that looked like a bed, I mean, not exactly a nesting area,
not like the Olympic Project nests, but but it was a flat area
and had been completely uh, cleaned off of all sticks, branches and everything,
and it was about four inches thick of pine needles. It was a
perfect overlook over and overlooking the entire valley. And I sat down in it
and I thought, man, you know, you get a great hunting view
from from here. And and I never really thought about it. As time
went by, you know, I'm starting to like all these things. They're
starting to add up. Well, go about another year in time, and
my dad and I not far from where we live right now, as a
matter of fact, up here in the Stansas National Forest. My dad and
I again getting ready for deer hunting, went up on the edge of the
wilderness area and we we were gonna deer hunt there, and so we went
in about a month ahead of time to build some deer blinds, brush up
some blinds, just natural blinds. And we rolled in late at night in
our camper and there's nobody, nobody there. We were at the end of
the road. Actually it was a trailhead for the wilderness area, and we,
you know, camped the next day. All day long we hiked and
built deer blinds and then came back to our camp. We're sitting around the
campfire, just two of us, nobody else up there. And Dad's sitting
next to the campfire and he's looking out through the darkness and he says,
the sun, come over here and look out there and tell me what you
see. You know. I look down in the darkness and I see these
two giant red like bicycle reflector lights, not really illuminated lights, not like
a tail light, but more like a reflector, a bike reflector. And
I said, the young dad looks like a couple of bright eyes out there
in the dark. He goes, yeah, what do you suppose that is?
And I said, well, I don't know, Dad, Maybe you
know, maybe a raccoon up in a tree or something, because it was
really high off the ground, not that far away. And he goes,
hmm, well, yeah, could be. He said, the problem is,
Son, that's a meadow and there ain't no trees out there in that
meadow. So what do you suppose is that high off the ground? And
I said, I don't know. So I kind of walked out there a
little ways and the eyes kind of turned sideways and disappeared. Had little little
bit, you know, a little flashlight, little puny flashlight. I shot
my light I didn't see anything. Came back, the red eyes appeared again,
and they just you know, for like half an hour, and they're
watching us. So we're like, you know, starting to get a little
like what in the world. And we look over there again. Now there's
two sets of red eyes, and the other one was just a little shorter.
And then out there the last time I went out and looked, there
were three sets of red eyes and two of them two pair kind of close
to each other, and then one real close to the ground, way off
to the side. Man what, I had no clue, So you know
that said, well, I'll get hungry. Let's get in the campers a
cab over camper and you know, camper on the back of his truck.
And we got inside the camper and we're sitting there talking and he's making some
sandwiches, and up and smacked the side of that camper like dam, just
this huge explosion of a slam on the side of the truck. Not light,
I mean it was big. It rocked the camper. As a matter
of fact, that his rearview mirror is an old Ford pickup with those big
giant mirrors on it, and reverting the mirrors on his truck reverted bury did
you could hear going like that? Man, what the hell? So we
get out of the camper with our flashlights and our pistols and were running around.
We're looking and there's nothing out there, absolutely nothing, no tree limb,
no unconscious deer laying there. Nothing, man, what the hell?
And so we're starting to get back in the camper and that blood off,
that blood curdling scream not quite as long as the one I heard in the
Trinity Alps, cut loose, and it was off off the hill in front
of the truck, down in the dark. And then immediately one exactly like
it answered from back where the red eyes were. We thought, what is
going on? You know? And all night long I kept hearing something movement
all around the truck all night long, crunch crunch, crunch, crunch,
crunch crunch, And in the in the you know, heavy leaf litter and
sticks and everything is unmanicured forest, and it was very unsettling. All those
culminated, you know. And and years fast forward, twenty years later is
when I just stumbled upon the Bigfoot forums. And not by for looking at
bigfoot. It was just stuff a link, but that I had found to
it that Brian had posted on some other website, not I'll click on that,
and I'm looking and I started reading, and I thought, what the
heck, And I, you know, wasn't going to use my real name
at the time. I'm real paranoid, you know, So I put in
you know, my my moniker, you know, RB, just something I
came up with on the spot. And I thought, yeah, well,
I'll just be anonymous here, nobody don't know me. And next thing,
you know, man, I'm in it. I'm in it. And then
a year later, the Bigfoots, the International Bigfoots Symposium in Willell Creek came
up. It was two thousand and three in September, and I had talked
to a couple of guys and Brian was one of them. Brian Brown was
one of them, and Tim Collin and a couple other guys. I said,
well, let's, you know, let's go to this thing, you
know. And it wasn't cheap, is like one hundred and fifty bucks,
and you know, it's like this is a commitment to go to this thing,
you know. So you know, we all got together and Brian flew
up from Minnesota and and uh, you know, we went to uh went
to the symposium and I'm still just trying to figure out what's going on,
you know, with this whole thing. And man, I'm That's where I
met Bob Kilon, John Green, you know. I mean there was a
lot of a lot of people. There were still big names in the in
the business today, you know. And after that, we uh we went
and camped a couple of nights up at Bluff Creek. Uh. I thought
it would be cool to do. So we went up and visited the film
site and camped at Loust Camp and so, you know, just just sort
of that's where I met Kathy. Kathy was a presenter there. I met
her and we started dating, and I had read all of her reports on
the bf R row. She was a member of the b f RO at
that time, and and she got me involved in the b f R RO
and she was a curate and I became an investigator and a curator with the
b f r O, and you know, went on a couple of their
very first expeditions that they gave, and up in the Redwoods and up in
the a little bit of peninsula and out here in California and it's just sort
of it's just it just sort of happened, you know. I mean I
wasn't really yeah, you know, but I I tell people, you know
a lot of people say, well, do you believe in Bigfoot? And
I said, well, I don't really have a choice to believe in you
know. You know, I I come from a little bit different aspect than
most people who get into, you know, researching Bigfoot. I I don't
say I'm a you know, nowhere versus believer or whatever. That it's just
a part of my reality, you know, I don't I don't have to
be convinced. I mean, I know they're real. I've seen them.
I've watched them. You know. I know that there's there's something out there
that's bipedal and it's covered in fur. It can do some amazing things,
and you know, and that's and you know what process of elimination. That's
the only thing it could be, you know, And it's it's sort of
it's just sort of where I'm at now, you know. I I you
know, it's it's uh, it's just like I said, it's it's it's
part of my reality. It's you know, I didn't go looking for Bigfoot.
Bigfoot found me and you know, I don't know whether it's a blessing
or it's a curse, but it helped me meet Kathy, and best thing
that ever happened to me. You know, she's she's very knowledgeable and you
know, and you so that made some really good friends and that's sort of
those friendships and experiences. And we started researching, of course on our own,
you know, our dates when we were when we were dating, before
we got married, and of course even after we got married. You know,
our our dates were Bigfoot related. She had, you know, we
she right after I met her in Willow Creek, she had help facilitate the
recording of the Tahoe Scream up in Tahoe, and she had a research area
there at Lake Tahoe, and she took me up there and we had some
amazing experiences there as well. And that's where I met her. The I
met some more you know, great people there, and it's just sort of
it's just it just sort of it took off us, and you know,
I she and I got out of the b f R O. There wasn't
really something that something that really worked out well for us, you know,
for a lot of different reasons, but you know that's neither here nor there.
But we did meet people like Alton Higgins and Daryl Collier and you know,
of course, Brian Brown was a member of the at the time it's
called the Texas Bigfoot Research Center and then became the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy,
and then they invited us to come out and in Oklahoma. They had some
they had some experiences in an area that they had been researching in Oklahoma,
and they they wanted our our opinion, and that's what it was, and
that's how we ended up going to Oklahoma. Was was by invitation and we
spent probably the most eventful week of our lives there where first time we went,
you know, to what's known as Area X and came out of that
week basically the PS and PTSD. How many years, I mean, I'm
not trying to tell anybody what to do, but for years I have said
to people out in the Pacific Northwest, especially come to Oklahoma. The haystack
is a lot smaller. Oh, it is a lot absolute And in situations
that are crazy, yes you do, Yes you do. I concur wholeheartedly.
Again, growing up in Texas in West Texas. I grew up out
in Abele and my exposure to to Oklahoma had only been on the western side
of Oklahoma. And that's how you know, there's the way, yeah,
Panhandle, what are you talking about? Exactly, It's just yeah, there's
there's a bar and you know, flat plains and all that. And I
had never really, had never really been to southeastern Oklahoma. And for those
people that are listening who have never been to Southeast Oklahoma, it's it's it's
a different environment. It's it's much like Arkansas. So if you've been to
Arkansas and you've been to western Arkansas, it's basically the you know, real
close was like in southeast Oklahoma. It's primitive. And began researching southeast Oklahoma.
It has the second highest rainfall in the continentally United States annual rainfall,
And of course it doesn't compare to the Pacific Northwest because you know that gets
an enormous amount of rainfall there. But Southeast Oklahoma is real close and that
means lush, green vegetation. But at the same time, it's a completely
different environment. It is not the fast growing, you know, soft woods
conifers that you find in Washington and Oregon it's you know, hardwood forest,
it is you know, oh, and everything there trying to kill you.
But yeah, sure, yeah, you know, if you want to if
you want to go, if you want to go somewhere to have the environment
kill you and consume you, Southeast Oklahoma is your ticket because it is unforgiving
and and something else. I didn't know that Washingtalls are the oldest mountain range
in North America and they they go, uh, they oriented east and west,
as opposed to most all the other mountain ranges in North America that are
oriented north south, and they are highly eroded. So there's a lot of
bedrock and so, which makes the the terrain very inhospitable. In other words,
is a lot of exposed rock. But the greenbrier and the poison ivy
don't care, and it covers everything and so oh and it's a perfect environment
for every venomous snake in North America love it there. And so, you
know, so you'll find all of that very primitive, very Jurassic Jurassic like,
and you don't have to be very far from a paved road before you
are in the thick, and you can anybody who's been in the Pacific Northwest
knows you can walk twenty feet off of the paved road and you can be
completely unseen from the roadway. It's so thick. Much the same in Southeast
Oklahoma. So it's a perfect environment for you know, for the bigfoot creatures.
And and of course it was a North American Wood Ape Conservancy, who
Kathy and I are members of. You know, we call them wood apes
and it's basically it's and that's probably more descriptive than Bigfoot. You know,
Bigfoot has a connotation of a big, you know, friendly creature that you
know that you know, Harry and the Henderson's and all that, But the
temperament of these creatures in Southeast Oklahoma is not friendly. They're not they're not
your friend. You may want them to be, but they don't want to
be your friend. And uh and and I can understand why, because if
I had to live in that environment, i'd be pretty cranky too all the
time. Yeah, totally. But yeah, no, they're there, Oh
yeah, Oh, they're there and have been for a long time part of
the culture in Southeast Oklahoma and Arkansas as well. You know, it's it's
you know, people don't really talk about it so much. The locals don't,
you know, why would they, you know, and for people that
are not familiar with the culture in in you know, Texas, Oklahoma,
Arkansas, Louisiana area. Those people, the locals, they don't really give
it given dame what you think. They don't, you know. But they're
also not the you know, going to go out and go out of their
way to try and you know, convince you, you know, what's real
and what's not. You know, it's it's up to you, you know,
to make your own determination. And and yeah, so we were very
fortunate to find their way through all these experiences and happenstances to end up,
you know, researching Southeast Oklahoma. And it's it's it's it's different when you
research when you research these animals in Southeast Oklahoma is different. It's different than
when you do it out here on the West Coast. It's a completely different
methodology. And you know, they're they're not as vocal for one thing in
in Oklahoma, and they're not they don't really need to, which leads you
to believe that they're vocalizations, you know, probably more for you know,
locating others, a communication of some sort and when you're in a closer environment
like Southeast Oklahoma, they do vocalize and they do I mean, I won't
say that they have a language. I'm not ready to make that leap,
but I will say that they do communicate, they do interact with each other,
but they're being a lot closer. They can do it in different ways.
They don't have to scream and holler to do it, you know.
And I was fortunate enough to UH to meet someone that is an all the
audiologist. And there's a paper on a on our on our website which is
uh wood eight dot org. That's Wood eight dot org, which is North
America Wood, a conservancy that you know, has offered a lot of you
know, a brain trust of people that have gotten together and of members of
this organization and those that are involved in the phenomenon as well. You know,
start to try to answer a lot of the questions, Like like a
big question that I had early on was, you know, well, then
we don't get these things on a game camera? You know, what is
it about a game camerall? Why not? You know? You know,
well, for one thing, it's kind of like a hit and mess proposition.
You got a game camera and because of a very small area, and
you know, something has to come right in front of it in order to
get a picture. But if we and the North America the group had a
had a multi year project going on where they had put out lots of these
game cameras of all sorts in this area that we research in now and never
got any a picture of anything other than bare here and the other local fauna.
And you know, I mean, I'm an inquisitive type, and I'm
wondering, well, you know, let's let's go by the process of elimination.
Is there anything about a game camera that that these things would avoid?
And of course site would be one of them. But you know, sounds,
you know, what are the what are your senses to where they could
sense these things sites sound? And I thought, okay, well, you
know, do these things, you know, admit any kind of a sound
that they could hear? And and so in researching that, I reached out
to an audiologist with the University of Commonwealth of Virginia, uh Martin Leinert,
doctor Martin Lionert, and I asked him, I said, you know,
without tell me what was going on, I said, you know, I've
got these game cameras and we're just trying to figure out if they admit a
sound, you know, kids, Is there any way I can test them?
And he said, well, you can send one to me and I'll
test it for you. And I thought, okay, So we boxed one
up, we sent it off to him, and he put it in his
lab and got his graduate students on it, and he came back and said,
we this particular game camera. Anyway when we said him admitted no sound
whatsoever, not any not infrasound, not ultrasound, nothing, No audible sound,
human audible sound. And I said, okay, well thanks, and
he said, well, let me ask you. Why are you asking this?
And I said, well, you know, he told me he goes
Man, why didn't you say? So? He goes He grew up in
New Jersey and then the Pine Barns, and he had experience is in the
pine bear and so he wrote a paper for us and it's on the page
about vocalizations of primates and in his findings, his estimation, his opinion was
the primates, if they make a vocalization, it's emotional response. It's not
like they sit there and they're gonna tell a story and they consciously emit,
you know, sounds, it's emotion. It's like it's like a toddler.
I've got a three year old granddaughter and you give her a piece of candy
or an ice cream and she squeals. That's an emotional response, right,
and so that would be the same with these creatures. So their vocalizations are
an emotional response. So that was something that I found, you know,
very interesting. And uh so when we talk about communications, you got to
if you put it in that context, then you know, them having a
language is probably not something that it would become developed because it they don't need
it. You know, it's not something that that that doesn't any good.
It's just something that is inherent in them that they that they screamed, that
they vocalize. So the screams that I heard in the Trinity Wilderness and and
in the Sierras here were you know, like excitement or pleasure or our irritation
or you know, they're trying to locate one another through these vocalizations. Now
they do that in the uh in the Washington's as well. That they they
do like communicate in a method that is and we've heard mouth pops are real
big and one that we called uh uh uh like like croaks, like like
a frog croaking or clicking. But and of course rock tapping and and and
and the wood docks as well. And you know, we've we've tried to
discern what all of those are. And you know we I mean, we're
not one hundred percent sure on any of those. I mean, there's no
way you really can be, but uh, but we've we have had uh
these mouth pops. And when I say mouth pops, you know, there
are different varieties of mouth pops, you know, and the ones that are
most unsettling are it's like it's like a a talk like Cliff Rickman doesn't really
good. It's like we put your tongue to the top of your roof of
your mouth and you pop it down and uh more like a you know,
talking talking sound. And we've we've heard that, we've heard all of those,
and of course what we call the faux speech or the you know,
samurai chatter, you know, whatever you want to call it. You know,
we've heard a lot of instances of that as well. And uh,
one real unsettling is that after being there and Kathy and I have spent you
know, multiple weeks there at times, you like, we'll go and have
gone for like three weeks at a time, and after being there a while,
you know, when you're out of the woods and and you've you know,
you've been interacting with other humans. And of course my name is Bob.
And if you go out there in the woods and you're all by yourself,
and you know, there's nobody else around, and you hear hey Bob,
Hey Bob, Hey Bob, You're like looking around, it's like there's
nobody here but me. It's that can be a little unsettling, you know.
So we think that you know, of course, you know, mimicry
is probably comes into play there, but yes, so it's it's offered us
the ability to the opportunity to to try out a lot of different things.
And I'm sorry that I'm just rambling on. No man, I'm just taking
it all in. I mean, you know, I just like hearing the
stuff. I love hearing your thoughts on the stuff. You know, I
I have a lot of witnesses on this show. People hear a lot of
different stories, and I know that there's probably people listening to your story.
And you know, whenever you start you know, kind of poopooing on a
few things a little bit. You know, there's some people who are listening
are going to be like, well, of course they have a language.
We already know that they have a language. Why doesn't this guy doesn't know
that they have a lank? I want everybody to understand that, Bob,
you're part of an actual research group that's actually conducting research, and you guys
tackle things one at a time and try to figure them out. You don't
put the cart for the horse in any situation, So speculation is kind of
off the table in this scenario, other than coming up with possible solutions and
reasons to things that you guys encounter out there. Yeah, right, Would
I be correct in that? As you would? You would be? You
would be? And I think that's that is the probably the greatest favor any
person could do for themselves in trying to research these animals is don't have any
preconceived notions, okay, because we had the preconceived notion. I know I
did the first time I went there, I thought, this is going to
be a snap, This will be no problem whatsoever. You know, we're
going to go in there. It's gonna be a done deal. Hell no,
how many years later are we? Yeah, well it's right now,
it's twenty Well, oh, I'm sorry that we've been going to Oklahoma.
It's ten years, but twenty years since I met Kathy and I've been really
researching this. But you know, getting in the well, what it comes
down to two is you is you? Is you like try something and we'll
And that's one of the great things about this group is that we're able to
go in there and be able to, if we will, to try to
do let's say, an experiment as it is. As it were, we
have the ability to do it over the entire summer, over like a three
to four month period. Because anybody who's not familiar with the North America with
a conservancy, what our deal is is that we have land that's available to
us, I mean his private land, and it is in the heart of
the Washington Mountains and it is off the grid. There's no running water except
for a creek, and uh no electricity and very very limited cell service at
spotty at best and generally not available. So when you go into our research
area, you're you're going back in time and uh so you're kind of left
to your own wits and so to try, uh well, try and figure
out the same way that I was telling you about the game cameras, all
right. So, uh so that was one aspect, was the sound emissions.
And we're fairly convinced that these things don't create a sound, not enough.
If any of them do, it's not enough to be a deterrent.
So there are other things visual, all right. So we would camouflage cameras.
I mean, we would hide them inside. We would take tree bark,
you know, big sections of tree bark, hollow it out, you
know, put a camera inside and you know, just just an opening just
big enough for a lins to poke through and adhere to a tree and not
with straps or anything like that. So it became an actual part of the
tree if you were to look at it on first glance. And so we're
trying to hide it that way, and and we said, we still don't
get anything. You know. Now, these cameras are triggered by an IR
emitter and so you know, motion detector, and so that was one of
the things that we were trying to, you know, try and figure out,
well, what is it about the I R. And you know,
one of the mistakes that we made early on is that we had, well
initially we had availability to a cabin. And this cabin is an ancient cabin
and it well not ancient, no, it's not primitive, but might as
well be primitive. It's off the grid over no water, electricity or anything.
And it was a pretty old cabin, been there for a long time
and very rarely used. And so we set up our base of operations in
that for several years. And we thought, you know, these things are
coming around and slapping the side of the cabin at night, I mean and
slapping it hard, I mean hard, so dust would fall off the ceiling
when you're in there laying in bed. Bam, you get up and go
outside and run around nothing quiet. You know. It's maddening, that's what
it is. So it had to come up with a bright idea, Well,
let's put up a security system, security cameras, and so we had
to put up solar panels on the roof for a battery bank, and got
you know, you know, uh, the system that would record all night
long. We had eight cameras and we put them all around the place and
we never got anything. Never, And if we would turn the thing on,
we would have no activity whatsoever. If our security system was turned on.
We ended up calling and there would be nothing happened. We ended up
calling it the ape shield. If you wanted to get a good, nice
sleep, you turned on the APE shield and just turn on the outdoor cameras,
the outdoor security cameras, and I think absolutely guaranteed nothing would happen.
And so we started and and so we took pictures of the thing of the
security system with cameras and IR cameras at night to see in the daytime and
at night to see if we could see if we could see the difference.
And at night you could barely see because these were IR cameras so that they
would record, you know, in the dark, and you could barely see
a very faint, discernible IR glow from the emitters. And so we figured
that that's probably what it was. So if we could see it, and
especially on IR camera, that maybe the apes could see it as well.
One thing we started doing was as we figured out, well we would use
thermal images as well. And one of the things we figured out that that
in IR, I mean a thermal imager, we'll see through black plastic if
it's thin enough, like a garbage bag, like one of those hepty garbage
bags, and we would slid them open. We would stretch them over a
window or it's over. We wrapped an entire tent frame you know, canopy,
pop up canopy and these black plastic bags and you could sit. We
would sit inside it all night long. Oh my god, you talk about
a sensory deprivation chamber. And spent a few nights in that. It's like
you're ready, you're talking to yourself by the end of the night, and
and nothing would happen. Right after we first put it up, we did
see a couple of encroachments, but they were very but they were checking out.
They were clearly checking out the tent. You know, our CA people
not getting close enough to really get any kind of a good and any kind
of a good visual on them, but you could tell that they were there.
They were they were in the area, and they were checking us out.
And and then it got to be to where if somebody was inside there
at night, they would throw rocks at the tent. And we thought,
all right, well they were seeing us get into inside the tent, so
we would like make this big, huge, diversion, and we would send
people out in all directions and try and drive them back. So somebody could
sneak in there, and he'd sneak in there. He'd sit in there,
quiet and light discipline, no lights, no sound allowed in there at all,
and still they would bust you and and they would throw rocks. And
some of them were really big rocks too, not little pebbles. I mean,
we had we have a trauma surgeon that was in there one night and
he got a about size of a football barely missed his head. And so
they're like, how, how, how how you know? So we started
thinking and we come up with these ideas, and we try and test them
and then you see where it goes, and then you try to make some
kind of a conclusion from that. And of course we can't prove this,
but it is my opinion that these apes can see at least a little bit
into the IR spectrum, into the infrared spectrum. They have great night vision,
maybe not you know, perfect, but certainly better than ours. And
I don't think anybody can dispute that. And my theory hypothesis is that if
they can see into the IR the spectrum, that's what thermal images are doing.
They're sitting into the eye IR spectrum and they're seeing into black plastic.
That if we can see out using the infrared spectrum, that maybe they can
see in through using the IR spectrum. So that's the case, then if
someone is sitting inside of a tent wrapped in black plastic thin enough for a
thermal imager to see through it, it's possible that they can see you inside
there because they can see into the IR spectrum as well. IR is there.
It's there, it's it's in the environment, and if they can see
into it, then maybe they can see through the black plastic just the same
way we can using a thermal imager. And if that's the case, you're
not going to fool them. We clearly have nut pulled them using that.
And when we're not out there and we're not in it, they come around.
If they're not If and we called it the overwatch tint, and if
nobody's in the overwatch tint and the ape shield the security system was not turned
on, they came up and they they encroached upon the cabin. And if
somebody was in the overwatch tint or the or the our cameras were on,
they did not, So I mean that kind of you're starting to eliminate the
usefulness of a game camera, you know. I mean it's if they can
see the light. And if you if you've ever looked using especially night vision,
at a game camera when it goes off, oh, it looks like
a tail light on a Ford pickup, you know, brake lighted bright.
It's bright, It's really bright. You know. So now you know you're
starting to think, well, what are you supposed to do? You know,
I mean, these things are incredibly adapt to their environment, and uh
so, which is one reason why they remained elusive, you know, for
so long. And and so that first week that we were there, we
had quite a few really amazing experiences. And and and you know, if
if when you're reading reports, witness reports, if you'll like like pay attention
to the minute details and start, you know, piece and start connecting the
dots of all of those like like their ability to hide, the ability to
climb trees. You know, these all of these things start to fall all
all these pieces of the puzzles start to fall into place. Like there's a
report that I read many years ago about a guy watching a bit creature in
the Pacific Northwest, and he was watching through a clear cut across across the
canyon and he sees something he thought was a man, you know, ended
up probably being a bigfoot. And long before this human ever heard the sound
of this truck coming down the dirt road, the creature obviously detected it heard
it so really great hearing, and it flattened down behind a log until the
truck passed, and then it got up. When the truck was passed,
it got up and walked on its way. Now I paid very little attention
to that detail, but it came into play that first week that we went
in to Area X and we had an occurrence, and there were five of
us there, and they were using a distraction technique to where uh and all
this activity really ramps up, uh, you know, in about an hour
or so before sunset, and you know, which is when your activity starts
to ramp up as well. And and we were hearing these these sounds,
these rocks impacting uh, this metal the metal roof of a shed off on
the off to the west and went off to the east, and clearly rocks
hitting this roof bam bam as it rolls off, and we would all run
over there and then way back on the other end of the little compound.
Bam. But that went all right over there, bam. We're all right
over there. It's like you know the Clowns show. We're going back and
forth, and Kathy, would you know what, I'm gonna stay right here
in the middle. And she's just she's just planting herself right in the middle
of everything. And she said, I'm going to see if I can see
or hear anything when you guys, as you guys are running around like crazy
guys, and she's there and she's looking down this down this trail, and
she sees a branch on a tree. It didn't snap down and back up.
It moved down slowly, and it moved back up slowly. And she,
you know, as we're going back and forth from one end to the
other, she stops me and she goes, hang out here for a second
and let those guys go over there. And she goes that tree right there,
I've been watching it like clump of trees. She goes, I think
there's something in there. Go check that out. And so, you know,
went over there. There's clump of trees and I stick my head in
there. There's like a little ditch, like a little drainage ditch depression there,
and I had this had this fallen, fallen tree out in the trail.
You had to walk around the tree to get down the trail. And
I walked around this dead tree, this fallen tree, and I stuck my
head in there, and I'm looking around, you know, and I'm looking
and I could see through to the other side, and I could see the
hillside, and I could see a game trail going up there. And I
didn't see anything. And I came back and I said, you know,
there's there's nothing in there, and she goes, well, I've been watching
it. It didn't leave. And I said, well, there's a game
trail leads directly away, you know, from the back side. Something could
have escaped, you know, that way. And she's like, I don't
know, I don't think so. And I thought, you know, I
didn't see anything, you know, there again my preconceived notion. I'm looking
for a Patty, you know, Harry to Henderson, some big creature standing
there. And but when I had stuck my head in there, I had
I thought, well, you know, I could get to the other side
of this little clump of trees, I could like walk on this d this
fallen tree, and I could like and I look down and I see a
little ditch and looks like a couple of you know, dead logs down there
in that ditch. And I thought, hm, I could like put one
foot here, one foot there, and I got Daniel boone across. You
know, I thought, nah, you know, I've only been there about
three days. I don't want to, you know, hurt myself and twist
an ankle or something like that. Besides, there was no need, you
know, I could see the other side, and so I didn't really give
it any more thought. And then we came back and we're sitting down and
Ken is we're document everything thoroughly, and so he's got the video recorder and
he's interviewing each of us. What did you hear, What did you hear?
What did you hear? What did you do? What did you do?
We're documenting everything, and then we hear crunch, crunch, crunch,
and Kathy turns and looks and there's two of these wood apes walking along the
bottom of the hillside, coming from right where she had just seen the branches
move, and they're coming towards this little woodshed that was out behind this old
cabin. And she goes, oh my god, there they are. And
she jumps up the trooper that she is. She ran right at him,
right at them, you know, and ran past the the the game camera,
which caught her own game camera, but it didn't catch the wood apes.
They hadn't gotten close enough to it yet. And you know, they
stopped and and four of us got an amazing view of them. It was
brief, but there was a bigger one in front. There was a smaller
one right behind it. And the bigger one stopped and turned around and like
went bam, like like they bumped into each other, like you know,
kind of like the Keystone cops. They stood there for a second and kind
of went oh and boom. They shot up that hillside, very steep hillside,
like it was nothing man, I mean gliding. I mean like they
were snapped up on a bungee cord. It was amazing. The big one
ran up on two legs, held its arms against its chest and splayed its
feet outsideways and right up that hill, and the other one went down on
all fours and there was a fallen smaller diameter tree and used it like a
ladder and ran up that thing all the way to the top of the hill.
And they were boot gone, solid black, dark, no discernible,
you know, other markings on it. All. We were close enough to
see the face, but it was too dark. I mean, their faces
were too dark and they were in the shadow. So I mean that night
was that night was chaos. I mean we saw glowing eyes on the hill.
I heard what sounded like a five hundred pounds squirrel right up a tree.
We had more rocks, we had cabin slaps. I mean, it
was like, you know, it was like World War three all night long.
We were exhausted the next day. So the next morning when we get
up and Ken, who had videotaped us, he goes, Bob, he
goes, you told us about going over there and checking out this clump of
trees, and let me let me, you know, let me film you
when you go walk us through what you did. And went back over there,
and I said looking, and I'm looking here, and I see this
dead tree. And I pushed the branches away and I thought, you know,
I could cruise, so did the other side. If I step on
this log. Then I step on one of those down there, and I
looked down there and those two logs that were in the ditch that I had
seen the day before were now gone. So I stood six eight feet away
from these two wood apes that they had the discipline to lay down in that
ditch and let me almost step on them. I've told this story on the
show before. You and I have never discussed, but there was a time
where virtually the exact same thing happened to me. Really, I was in
a scenario where there was a fallen tree and I was it was beyond dusk,
I mean, just barely visible. I didn't have a flashlight or anything
like that. Activity was going on at the time, and that's why I
was in this position. But there was a large fallen tree, and then
on the back side of that tree, it looked like that real tall you
know. I don't know what kind of it is, you know, I'm
sure you've seen it before down here, like basically, hey, you know,
tall grass, and it was the grass was dead, you know,
and it was kind of humped over the back of this fallen tree, and
it looked kind of weird to look kind of out of place, and everything,
and I had a big walking stick with me that I just took with
me everywhere, because, as you said, everything's trying to kill you here.
And I thought for a second, just the brief impulse just to poke
it with my stick, but I didn't, and I just went on.
And then a few minutes later I meet up with the guy that I was
out there with and we go walking back down that trail by that log.
And as we walk up to the log, I can't help but notice on
the backside of that log it's completely empty all the way to the ground.
There is no large pile of dead grass growing up over it or anything.
And the only thing I come up with is that was the bigfoot that was
messing with us that night. And it was, like you said, had
the discipline to just lay there up against that log perfectly still. And what
would have happened if I had poked it with a stick, Just like what
would have happened you said, You know, I'm gonna go ahead and step
on that log down there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well we might
not be talking right now. Yeah. Everyone who done that, who knows
that's just crazy that they'll just do that sort of thing, though, yep,
yep, yep. It is. It is amazing, amazing creatures,
masters of their environment. And people say, oh, well don't you see
one? Well, yeah, you know what, they don't want you to
see them, and your brain doesn't see them, right, you know,
your brain, your brain just like you you saw grass, I saw logs.
Yeah right, that's what we're up against. We're not only combating the
abilities an intellect of these creatures, but you're also battling your own brain and
it's something you have to reconcile. Have you noticed any differences between their behavior
here and their behavior in the Pacific Northwest? Well, of course, I
think that the biggest difference is they're vocalizations. They vocalize out here on the
West coast much more than they do down there in southeast Oklahoma because of the
distances are so they're like you say, it's a it's a it's a bigger
haystack out here. They are more separated and more easily separated out here.
You know, they have a much bigger yard territory, their playground is much
larger. So in order to uh, you know, to locate each other,
then you know, the vocalizations, that's where the vocalizations come in handy,
But I mean other other than other than that, I'd say they're they're
probably and maybe their temperament in Southeast Oklahoma is a little more you know,
obstinate, a little more cranky than then, uh than out here. And
and they may grow, they may grow taller, larger. It's like any
animal in their environment. They will grow to as big as they need to
be or you know, within reason, you know, for for their for
their environment. I mean that's why geriafficicide long next because they eat stuff that's
really high. You know, they can start out along next and just in
evolved that way, So you know they I mean I've had I've been I've
been stalked out here. I've heard I've heard the samurai talk out here.
They're hunting a lot, you know. I I generally, when I dare
hunt, I like to go to the very edge of the wilderness area where
it's easy for me to get to. But yet it's in an area that
is that that the game feels safer, and the wilderness area has a lot
fewer people in it. And and so you know, they'll I think they'll
they'll they'll come in closer, probably in Oklahoma, they'll probably come in closer
because they need to to be able to see you. I think they're very
curious and they want to see you and then when I observe you. And
in the Sierras is more open than even in say the Olympic Peninsula is very
dense, you know. But we've had they're very similar behaviors, you know,
from from from one to the other. So stick formations, do you
put any credence in those? Are you finding them in Area X? What
are your thoughts? Well, I mean, I'll tell you I've never been
a big had I had never been a big supporter of the stick formations.
I really couldn't understand why they would do that, because they're you know,
if you think about it, it's like, well it's a landmark. Well,
my god, you know, it's like four hundred million acres. How
are you going to find the landmark in that? They're probably better off in
in memorizing the terrain they are any kind of a stick formation. This is
my own opinion. I think that any stick formations, if they are legitimate,
they're probably the work of juveniles because they don't have toys and there's probably
something for them to do. I can't see an adult spending the time and
energy, you know, resources in creating a stick formation and something that really
isn't going to do them any good. But I can see I could definitely
see juveniles doing that. Now we did have However, that being said,
here in the Sierras, we do put a lot of stock in broken trees
because I've seen many broken trees and that are very similar diam trees broken about
the same hip. Now I realize bear can break trees. You know,
cubs will climb to the top of a thin tree and I'll bend over and
it'll snap. But when you get a tree that has been apparently snapped and
maybe twisted, you know, you've got to pay a little more attention to
that. And when they're all about the same height, you have to pay
attention to that as well. You know, I've seen a line of broken
trees. Kathy and I followed a line of like twenty broken trees in a
direct line from a mountain side down to the water, and they are in
a perfect line. That's not natural and humans didn't do that, And a
bear cub is not going to do twenty of them in a row. You
know, so there's something to be said. But I will tell you in
area X, no we don't see. We don't see uh uh stick formations
in areas. However, we did have a spot to where we had an
observation point that was in a creek bed and we had a member get bluff
charge there and again this mouth talking was going back and forth on either side
of him, and then he had got a bluff charge. And this is
an observation point that we had set up and was used over a multi week
period, which is probably in retrospect, not something you want to do,
because they're gonna they're smart, they're going to key in on that. If
you're going to use an observation post, use it for a day or two
and then be gone, you know, and do as natural as possible.
Don't use any artificial type, you know, things like a like a blind
and dear blind and any of that kind of stuff, because they're going to
clue in on that right away. They're really smart. But he was sitting
in a deer blind behind some manufactured you know paneling a ghostline, you know,
these mirrored panels, and he got the mouth talking on either side of
him and he got bluff charged, and so we went up there the next
day to try and find some tracks or any evidence, and coming from the
backside, which is really dense, I found an X marked with sticks that
were not trees that were broken there. They were brought there about the diamond
of a baseball bat and about ten feet long eggs each and had created an
X. And in the crook of this X was another stick was about eight
foot long stick, and it was perfectly balanced in the crook of that X.
You could touch it with your finger and it with teeter totter back and
forth. It did not happen natural, not saying humans didn't do it,
but I don't understand why human would do something like that. It takes a
lot of time to do that. So but if from this location of that
X, you could look down the hill and you could observe from above that
observation post. So I mean, I'm not going to discount that they could
be used to mark something. I don't know that there. I don't know
that we have enough information and we put it that way to be able to
correlate what those might mean or that all of them, you know, and
once finding love Cliff and Bobo brothers of mine love them to death. But
ever since that show came on, you almost can't trust anything out in the
forest anymore because everybody's seen that. Everybody's there does strict stick structures. You
know, humans will do it. It's all along the Appalachian Trail, you
know, these little cheap piece of sticks and vocalizations hollows and wood and hollering
and all that kind of stuff, you know, So it's kind of put
the kaibash a little bit on those types of things. So you know,
it's it's really like I say, if you will go out and research these
things and keep an open mind, and rather than seeing a stick structure and
immediately assume that it's bigfoot, you will have to start doing some detective work
and think how close to a trail is it, how close to humans?
You know, could it be? Do you see any other things that would
lead you to believe that they're not human? Cost you know, you know,
created by humans, And so you have to kind of like you have
to be a little bit skeptical. Skeptics love to think that they're the smartest
humans on earth, you know what I mean. But we both know one
yeah, oh, yeah, yes, at least at least yes and UH
and and good people. I'm sure they're great people, you know what I
mean. But but by the same token that that that people are UH fervent
about everything being bigfoot, there are just as many people about UH skeptics saying
nothing is bigfoot, And you know what, neither one of them are right
somewhere in the middle. So you know, it's you know, it's it's
something you're gonna have to. You have to you have to be a detective,
and you know, before we get too far gone, I do wanna.
I do want to encourage people to UH to please visit the North America
wood A Conservancy website and wood ape dot org and see some of the research
of the work that we've done. We're continuing to do it. We're not
giving up. We may change our method methodology as time goes by. We
try to adapt, you know, our methods and try and try to do
everything we can. One of a couple of the big things that I think
that the group has accomplished is number one. We've put out a research paper
documenting the first four years that we were in Area X doing this long term
study UH called the Washington Project Monograph the OPMS as you can download it for
free. It's not a short read, a couple of hundred pages, but
it's free and it documents with sounds, recordings, uh, photographs and a
documentation of everything. And those were certainly the most active years uh there uh
you know wood ape activity wise. And another thing that we have there is
called the Tag seven paper. It's the paper that we did on a project
that we had. We had some great minds in our group and we came
up with a method of placing a attempting to put a radio transmitter tag on
an animal, and we succeeded it and attaching a radio transmitter tag to an
animal some kind of animal. We go through in described in that paper of
why we think it is a wood ape and not a bear or any other
creature. And we tracked this radio transmitter was used in wildlife you know,
uh research all the time. There was a little nanotag and then the mid
so like a little inaudible beat. You can pick it up on a directional
radio receiver with an antenna directional antenna and we tracked it for nine months till
the battery went dead, and we tracked it over an area of you know,
like you know, forty square miles and from that able to deduce seasonal
range and it ended up making a complete loop, you know, and in
the summertime habitat area and the winter time and the fall in the spring,
through all this areas and and trying to you know, figure out where the
release. This tag went through that nine months and we were able to get
quite a few radio hits and we lost it immediately right at first when it
was deployed. We described the methods, all the equipment that we use and
the methodology and tracking it and with pictures and explanations. So if anybody wants
to replicate that, they can, and we encourage everybody to do so.
You know, it's not easy. We lost it initially, we couldn't find
it. We thought we were done, and we finally through an air search,
through a private plane doing a grid search, we were finally able to
locate it several miles away and then from there we tracked it both in the
air on foot. We tried to track it down, we tried to chase
it, we tried to move in with multiple teams closing in on it.
We're unable to do so, and finally the battery went dead, but we
did get a lot of data from it. So that's Tag seven. It
was it was Tag seven because we had eight tags out there and that was
the one that got deployed. It was number seven. I was a huge
fan of that project, by the way, I thought that was what I
thought. It was brilliant, groundbreaking at the time. For sure. What
was the closest you got to the tag physically? Oh? Probably the first
night was within a half a mile. And then I was on a team
and we located it and it was we tracked it going. It was fast,
let me tell you what fast. Within a matter of just less than
ten minutes. It went from the bottom of a canyon all the way up
the next ridge and over the top. And we could track it just because
it's a it's a directional and then you got to aim it right. And
I was on a ridge and we located the way down at the bottom.
Within ten minutes, we had tracked it all the way up and had disappeared
over the ridge and we'd lost the signal. And that was probably half a
mile less, no less, maybe a quarter mile, you know. So
the thing is you don't really know how close you are except by the strength
of the signal. Oh, I take that back. No, Actually they
did get within a couple of hundred yards of it. When we had two
teams out there on ATVs and with the plane overhead. They were able to
get certainly within a couple of hundred yards. But the thing was to move
through the thickest, most inhospitable terrain possible, and we could never just out
distance some like nothing. It just it moved, it was gone. But
they got pretty close to it with that as well, but was never able
to get a visual on it. Have you guys thought about uh taking a
modern stab at that same project, using like drone technology or anything. Yes,
As a matter of fact, there's nothing. Let me put it this
way, nothing is off the table. Nothing except high explosives, which I'm
in favor of, however it's frowned upon. But other than other than that,
other than napalm and guided missiles, nothing is off the table. And
yeah, we have we have thermal drones, we have yeah, definitely drone
technology. And we're have been just recently discussing for this upcoming year the possibility
of GPS UH recreating and We've been trying to tag seven against since then and
we haven't had any success. So if it was a bear, you know,
then how come we didn't do it again. But but there's lots of
bear and they washing the tas. But with GPS tags. The problem with
the GPS, uh, look at her tags is the size and also,
uh, it's not as simple as just like, oh, it was like
put a GPS you know, tag on it. You can find it anywhere
in the world. No, you can't. Actually it has to be Uh.
It's what the GPS tags do is they collect the data and then when
it gets close enough to a receiver, it will download the data. But
it have to come back to the receiver or you have to get close enough
with the receiver in order for it to download the data. So it doesn't
give you real time. There are there are GPS devices out there that do
that, but there's a size of a pack of cigarettes. You know,
it's not the size of a marble, which is like what we used.
It's the technology is not there for that. If you could just get one
to steal a cell phone from you, oh absolutely, no, hey I
leave out No, I don't really, but I want to leave out like
a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Either give them a
liver or lung disease. Yeah, exactly whatever, you know, I mean
the voice of a silts, you know. But no, we try and
be responsible, and you know that's that's the constraints that we have. We
are ethical, moral, responsible researchers, and uh so we do have we
do have some constraints. Science comes at a cost, I mean, it
does, it does, and it's gonna take a body, I mean,
bottom line. And I know I've had, you know, people literally threaten
my life for advocating the taking of a specimen. And I'm sorry. It's
the way it is. You know. I don't make the rules, you
know, it's just it's just the way it is. You know, you
want DNA, DNA comes somehow, It doesn't. You don't get a wood
ape to come up and spit in a bottle for you and send it off
ancestry dot com. It doesn't happen that way. If you want blood from
an animal, you have to take blood from an animal, you know.
If you want tissue from an animal, you have to take tissue from an
animal, you know. And it's just it's just the way it is.
But it's not easy. Clearly, We've been doing this for at least ten
years in Area X, and we haven't proven it yet. We've come really
close, but we're collecting a lot of good scientific data and in fact the
data that when whenever the thing is proven to be real. I believe that
the North America would a conservancy is going to be a go to resource,
you know, for you know this data and everybody that's out there, I'm
researching this animal. I encourage you to do it in a scientific method and
that whatever experiment that you you know, put that you put out there,
you do it so they can be repeated in a repeat use the scientific method
to do it, you know, because it's one thing to be a hobbyist.
And I've got nothing against hobbyists. You want to go out there and
hoot and holler and scream and have something to scream back. Yet yeah,
and then you know, you get scared and go home. That's great,
that's fine, but it's not doing anything for the animal. You know.
We need. Our focus is to first of all, prove the animal to
be real, second of all, to conserve it and its habitat, it's
resources. The North America is losing more than five thousand acres of open space
per day per day, and not just through development, but also through fragmentation
of their habitat all. Right, if you imagine a big giant aquarium with
fish in it, you know, that's great, that's great habitat. You
could lose a sliver of that, But if it's right in the middle of
it, that becomes two aquariums. You have isolated, two separate groups.
And that's what's happening in America today. Through development and through you know,
and through deforestation. The Pacific Northwest, you can cut down one hundred thousand
acres and it'll grow back in a few years. But what they cut down
was conifers, and conifers grow back. In Southeast Oklahoma, hardwood forests,
nut bearing hardwoods. You know, that is an ecosystem. And when the
timber companies come and they cut down all the walnut and hardwood, nott producing
hardwoods and replanet with fast growing conifers. For the cardboard industry, you know,
God bless Amazon. But those cardboards and cardboard boxes, you know,
people don't poop them out. You know, they come from trees and they
come from trees that are grown and you know, in Southeast Oklahoma, unfortunately,
is a producer of paper products. And so that's what we're trying to
do, is to conserve them and you know their habitat. And so if
somebody really really loves these animals and you want to save them, you want
to save them, you need to, you know, do your research in
a right way, something that is going to prove that those animals exist in
that area. So document, document everything to the best of your ability.
Photographic, prints, sounds, audio, run audio. From the minute you
get out of your car, have an audio recorder in your pocket. As
soon as you get out of your truck, wherever it is, turn it
on, set it on the top of your truck, let it run the
entire time until you leave. You know, photograph everything, measure everything,
document it, record it, you know, write it down, keep diligent
records. Please. So with all that being said, is the group actively
trying to harvest a specimen. Yes, yes we are, but it's not
all we do. We do everything else, any possible means to document audio,
visual, photographic everything, prints, hair, everything, every single thing.
But yes, and in a responsible way. And adhering to the law.
And it is and not just because you're in the group doesn't mean you
are approved to be able to carry a long gun. It's not. We're
not out there. You know, we do it, and we have very
strict, very strict stranger rules, guidelines, rules of engagement, and protocols
that we have to meet and and it's and it doesn't happen with every team
that goes out there, So it's it's actually fairly rare that someone is out
there trying to collect a specimen. So we don't all just show up with
them sixteen's and you know, and go out there and shooting everything that moves.
We've taken very few shots and there hasn't been a shot taken in several
years. I was going to ask, has there been any close calls?
There has been, Yeah, there has been, and and and we learn
a lot from the close calls as well. And then that's including caliber and
ballistics. You know, you need a weapon that is suitable for large game,
close range, uh, and to be able to shoot with a projectile
that is not easily deflected such a horrible shooting environment. Oh terrible, Oh,
absolutely absolutely, well, gage is not going to do it. No,
I don't. I think people don't really realize what a difficult task it
is to get a clean shot on one of these things in their environment,
especially in the environment that we're talking about in southeastern Oklahoma. I mean,
one limb in the way, the bullet's going to ricochet right off trajectory and
it's pointless. Yep, yep, And that has happened. And that's why
nobody uses thirty out sixes. The weapon of choice is the forty five seventy
you know, I mean I have one of those. I also have a
four fifty eight on Winchester magnum that there is might preferred. But after being
there ten years, have not taken a shot on target or not taking a
shot at a target, I mean at an animal. One more question and
then we'll get things wrapped up here, just out of curiosity, how did
Area X come to be? Was this just hey, let us look for
bigfoot here or was there something going on there to begin with? Well,
well, there was something going on there to begin with, but we could
include in on it because we have some very intelligent members and Alton Higgins,
who as our chairman emeritus, also was a speaker at the International Bookness Symposium
and in two thousand and three, and a member at the BFR lives in
Oklahoma, and he thought, you know, and he spent some time in
southeast Oklahoma. Man, this is this area is really prime. And so
he got out a map and he said, if I was a bigfoot,
where would I be? And he checked out several areas and went to what
is now the general area of Area X and found a mud hole and where
water you know, collects, you know, rains are quite a bit.
And I found some prints, found some tracks and ended up meeting up with
someone who had property in the area, got invited to the area and had
history of encounters with these creatures. And this gentleman, his motivation was the
same as what ours are is through conservation and because of all the clear cutting
that has been so prevalent all over southeast Oklahoma and changing the hardwood forests and
changing the ecosystems into a conifer forest, and realized that that was going to
negatively impact this population. And so we got invited. And that's how that's
how he first gained access to what is now Area X. And Aria X
got its name was because the Texas bigfo group had areas of operation they called
X, Y and Z, and Y and Z did not pan out,
one of which was the Big Thicket down in southern Texas south southeast Texas.
And none of those panned out for a multitude of reasons, and we ended
up being an area X and so it could have easily been called a B
and C when two and three, you know, and it's just sort of
evolved. There was a lot of activity and getting in friends with landowners there,
and how we ended up having private property that we operate on. So
we have a pretty good chunk of private property that we operate on. So
we are not on public land. We are on private land, which most
land in Oklahoma is private, most of it. Yeah, yeah, big
obstacle. If you're a big footer in Oklahoma, you run across a lot
of those barbed wire fences. Yeah, yes, you do. You don't
want to get caught on the wrong side of one of those. No,
no, no, no, no, no, you don't. And and
and we we stay. We stay in our own backyard. We don't have
to go anywhere else. The apes are there, they come there, they
will come to you. We have we did they come visit when we're there,
they come to see us. Bob, I appreciate you coming on,
spending this time with me, telling us all the stories. You know,
I know you're fending off COVID. You're a trooper, man, you're a
trooper. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. It's been a pleasure,
Matt. I really had a good time. Oh you made my job
extremely easy. Man. Just askod to talk and they don't shut up.
But yeah, check out whatape dot org. Is that the address? That's
it? What ape dot org Bob's train. Thanks again, thank you,
sir. It's my pleasure, Matt. And if you've had your own encounter
with a wood ape, but Bigfoot, of Sasquatch, an alien, a
ghost, anything at all, send me an email at Bigfoot Crossroads at gmail
dot com. If you get a chance, check out the website Bigfoot Crossroads
dot com. You can find links to merchandise, past episodes, social media,
everything you need all in one place. And until next time, remember
there's something in the woods.