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October 21, 2024 18 mins

Guest Host George Knapp and Stanley Milford Jr. discuss Stanley's experiences with the Navajo Rangers, Bigfoot and a cattle mutilation case.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Stand Just so people understand that you aren't chasing ghost
stories in Bigfoot all the time, I'd like you to
sort of give us a broad scope of what the
challenges of the job were.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Like.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Navajo Nation, of course, is gigantic. I mean it's enormous.
You have the same kind of crimes out there and
law enforcement duties that cops would have in a big city,
but also special challenges given how big the area is,
how desolate it is, how few rangers there were to
cover it all. Tell me about the nature of that
challenge about and maybe as an example, that very serious

(00:36):
hunt you did for these murderers, these militia fugitives who
gunned down a cop in broad daylight.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, I mean it's hard for people to realize that
this size of the Naba Reservation is twenty seven thousand
square miles. That's not acres, it's miles. And this is
the size of the state of West Virginia. And you're
trying to provide enforcement over and protections over all the
natural resources. You know, your timber, your wildlife, your archaeological

(01:09):
resources which are spread throughout the reservation and you're trying
to do that with eight commissioned law enforcement officers. At
the time that I left, there was eight rangers remaining.
These are federally commissioned law enforcement officers, and it's just
not enough personnel to do that job. As a ranger,

(01:30):
you had to be a standalone officer. You know, you're
out there on your own. You know, in the city
you might have a backup partner or you know, on calls,
your backup is less than minutes away, you know, if that.
On the reservation. As a law enforcement officer, your backup

(01:50):
maybe well over an hour hour and a half away
if that. So you had to be highly trained. And
Jonathan and I were federal firearms instructors, so we taught firearms.
We conducted the qualification courses, you know, several times a
year with the pistol, rifle and shotgun. But yeah, you

(02:15):
had to be able to stand on your own two feet.
You didn't have somebody standing there holding your hand, so
to speak, as you did your job.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
You have all the same kind of crimes, but also
a lot of special challenges. I mean, Monument Valley you
got all kinds of tourists coming through there. As you
note in the book, Mom and Pop driving an RV
at twenty miles an hour, not paying attention, Hollywood celebrity
types driving a Maserati at one hundred and fifty bus
an hour, drunken locals, crazy visitors from all over the world.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Right, very true. You do have the challenges that you
have in the bigger cities. For the navamation. Let's say,
in the summertime, a lot of the youth will will
travel to the inner cities and spend time with their
cousins during their summer break, and they end up bringing back,

(03:08):
you know, at a time, they brought back the gang
activity that you would see like let's say in Los
Angeles or some of these other metropolitan areas, and they
bring that gang activity back to the reservation and it
ends up being a serious problem. You have homicides, you
have drug trafficking, human trafficking, all of these problems that

(03:31):
you see in the inner city.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
These militia guys so three bad own brace they are
pulled over and stolen water truck and they gunned down
a cop right one morning, and then take off and
you're part of the You're right in the thick of
this pursuit tell us about that story.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
That's very true. It was only days that I actually
completed the Federal Police Academy and I was asked to
bring some watercraft up to the scene where they had
staged the operations following the death of the Cortes police

(04:11):
officer Dale Claxton, and there was a man ensued where
there were officers that had been injured and shot by
these militia and they took off out into the desert,
and so that asked for my assistance, and I quickly volunteered.
Once I got on seeing one of the commanders knew me,
and he asked if I wanted to participate in the operations,

(04:35):
go out with his swat team, so to speak. And
I told him, you know, if we get the permission
by my commanders and the Chief Ranger, that I would
happily be a part of that. And that's what I did.
So I spent the next month out there crawling in

(04:55):
the river bottoms in the San Juan River basin and
learning what it meant to be a technical officer technical operator.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
And there were some tense moments that you describe in
the book, and you got close to them a couple
of times but didn't catch them, and eventually at least
the remains of two of them were found all over
the place, right.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
That's very true. One of the there was, so there
was three militia personnel, and one of them ended up
committing suicide early on in the very beginning of that event,
and the other two eluded capture for a long time
after that. People would have sightings in and around that

(05:40):
particular region. These individuals grew up in that particular area,
having worked in the oil fields of that area and
being a part of militia, and they knew that area
like the back of their hands, and they had already
staged food stuff, that staged ammunition and other supplies in

(06:04):
areas that led up to that event on what was
known as Y two k. You know, there was a
preparation by certain individuals that there was going to be
a financial collapse and society would collapse, and these individuals
were firm believers in that. That's what they were what

(06:24):
they were banking on, is that that this was going
to occur at the change of the year two thousand
and so.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah, Livestock are an important part of the novel economy,
as you note and as a young officer, that's part
of your duties is livestock inspections correct and that that
eventually leads you to these dead sheep. This rapport on
dead sheep that before you're a ranger, you go out
to a very strange case. Tell us about that.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
Actually I was already a commissioned ranger, but that was
one of my early cases, and so I was dispatched
to respond to a situation where there were twenty six
head of sheep that were discovered dead by a family

(07:13):
on the reservation. They woke up one morning and there
was no indicator that night that there was any type
of disturbance with these animals. Typically, if there was a
predator that got into the sheep crowd, the dogs would
be the sheep. Dogs would be carrying on and you
would immediately be awakened by something. But in this situation,

(07:37):
there wasn't. That didn't happen. They woke up and they
discovered that all of their sheep, twenty six were dead,
and the sheep aron there was already a veterinarian from
the nomination that was onseen and I arrived there and
this guy was wide eyed and he just shrugged his shoulder.
He didn't know what had caught the death of these

(08:01):
twenty six sheep. You know, I grew up around livestock
in Oklahoma, and so I get there and immediately the
sheep dogs wouldn't come near the corral, which usually on Navajo,
your sheep dogs are the ones that are providing protection
for these your flock, and so I get in there,

(08:25):
I didn't look into the corral. All of these sheep
are dead, but you don't see the telltale evidence of
a predatory kill. If a bear or a mountain lion
or bobcat gets into a corral and kills some animals,
there's obvious evidence, so that you have entrails and blood

(08:49):
and a lot of myths really within that coral, and
you didn't have that with this particular situation. All of
the animals were dead, but there was no blood within
the corral. And these sheep were slid open from their
neck area all the way down to their growing And

(09:10):
it's a pretty tough feat to be able to cut
through a sheep's wool with standard scissors or shears or
something of that nature. It's not that easy. And all
of these were slit in a precise straight line from
the neck to the groin, and again there was no
blood within the corral, so it was very odd. There

(09:33):
was an obvious stinch in the air as you approached
a corral that was not normal. It was it. I
describe it similar to that of a petroleum smell, like
what you smell in the oil fields or something like that.
And it was just really odd and really nauseating smelling this,

(09:56):
And yeah, it was just a really odd case that
I investigated.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yet, I mean, what what would have done that? You know,
the dogs should have heard something and that would have
blurted the people, but nobody heard anything. There's no blood
on the ground. Something carved these sheep up in that way.
What did they use to do it? How did they
do it without getting detected? What are your thoughts that?

Speaker 1 (10:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
I've never seen anything like it, and I don't think
the bed and Aaron had ever seen anything like it either.
He was just kind of shocked by the whole thing
because typically when you do have livestock killed, you know
you're going to see the evidence of what killed. Either
you'll have bear tracks or mountain lion tracks in the soil.

(10:41):
And there was there was nothing like that to support
this particular caste. And the daughter was the middle aged
daughter was extremely upset because her parents were crying and
upset and she wanted answers, but we didn't. We didn't
have any answers. I mean, it didn't follow the normal
fill till signs that you have with predatory keels.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Well, gosh, I guess we would be upset. Number One,
that's an incredible investment for them. That's like they're life
savings in those sheep. And two whatever, did it could
come from people for people the next time?

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Well, that's that's that's very possible. Did we didn't know
the source of what it is that caused this action?

Speaker 2 (11:22):
So does that seem like it's comparable to cattle mutilation
cases that are elsewhere around the world? And did you
ever see anything like that elsewhere where on the Novajo Nation?

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Well, there were lives thuff cattle mutilations. You know, I've
read and I had met with Linda molten how at times,
and the research she's done in regards to cattle mutilations,
it's very fascinating. And I do you know, in looking

(11:53):
at that particular case at that time, I think it
would fall under that particular umbrella of cattle mutilation.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
One other question, no blood, but was anything taken out
of the animals, any organs or anything, or just sliced,
you know.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
I inquired that to the veterinarian, and to my knowledge,
there weren't. There weren't any internal organs that that were missing.
But because of the unknown, uh, something of that nature,

(12:29):
you're you don't nor know the source of this is,
is there is there some type of disease. I mean,
that's kind of far fits as far as the disease involved,
but you don't. It's a big unknown, and you've got
to be really careful whatever cause the death of these animals,
You certainly don't want to be on the receiving end
of something like that, you know. So I think at

(12:52):
that time the there was a large trench that was
dug and the animals were disposed in there and and
and burned and then after they were in semon, you know,
burned up and they were covered up.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
You know. So you mentioned earlier we touched on briefly
about the first call you went out with on with
John Dover is because these two other cops had sort
of sloughed off this lady's report about a bigfoot. You
guys go out there, take it seriously, you calm her down,
and you start investigating. Share with us what did you find, what,
if anything, you found.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Well, in those particular cases, a challenge is a lot
of times people will report these kind of incidents, let's say,
a siding of what people were commonly referred to as
a bigfoot or sasquatch. They may report it days later
and out here on the reservation because the arid environment,

(13:48):
you know, the evidence a lot of times that's left
is going to be degraded. In criminal investigation, when you
get let's say a homicide, do you want to get
there as soon as you can so you can start
documenting and collecting evidence before it degrades. And in this situation,

(14:10):
sometimes you would have somebody reporting an incident that may
have actually occurred months earlier or sometimes even years later.
You know, you would get to talking to them and
it actually occurred a year earlier or something like that,
which doesn't leave the investigator with any let's say, credible

(14:31):
evidence to be able to work with. So, yeah, it
can be a challenge.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Did you find tracks in that case? I think I
remember from that part of your book that you didn't
find any.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Tracks in that particular case. I know, in and around
the sheep Corral there was there was nothing tangible that
could be recorded in that as far as like being
able to cast something or photograph some type of tracks
or tractive.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
You had a lot of other big foot cases though,
that you took seriously and you think there there are
indications that something really was going on. The smell definitely, right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Definitely, there's you know, commonly in big foot cases there's
often associated a certain smell and over the years, you know,
I did experience that in some of these cases where
you have this odd wet dog smell. Sometimes it can

(15:32):
be more leaning more to a the foul odor involved
with like an eggs ful free eggs smell, and it
can be it can range to something that smells like
like something dead. And so yeah, there's there's often odors

(15:55):
that are they can be associated with those events.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
And I know you did find tracks here and there,
you made tracks, so you know, people would think, all right, Bigfoot,
he's up in Washington, Oregon, up in the big trees.
What's he doing out there in Monument Valley or Novo Nation?
What do you say that right?

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Well, you know the case that I mentioned earlier involving
the coin of Ports. Again, that phenomenon made me realize
that they're like with the coins, the coins had to
be materializing from somewhere else, from some other plane of existence.
They did I mean, I mean I witnessed the coins
fall out of thin air. And so if the points

(16:37):
the coins were traveling from point A to point B
to the floor of an office building there in winter up,
they had to originate from somewhere else. So I began
to look at this these different phenomena like like the Bigfoot,
like the UFOs, and realize that these things are coming

(16:58):
into existence into our physical world from some somewhere else.
And you know, John and I never followed this idea
that bigfoot were migrating from one location to another across
North North American continent or something like that. We lived
out in the woods and we didn't see the evidence

(17:19):
of that.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
They just pop into our reality and then pop back
out exactly.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
I think the witchcraft up the shape shifters to use
the same same technique and going in and out. I
think at times you're experiencing naturally occurring what people refer
to as vortics, where there's a crossing between one plane
of existence and to another. UFOs I feel do the

(17:47):
same kind of thing, but I think that's the commonalities
dimensions or you know what people referred to, there's dimensions.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM evere weeknight at
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