February 21, 2020 • 9 mins
In his 1893 book The Wilderness Hunter, TR wrote about what he called "a goblin story that really impressed" him. Mental Floss Science Editor Kat Long joins Erin to discuss "The Bauman Incident."
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Floss. Hello and welcome to a very special bonus
(00:20):
episode of History Versus, a podcast from Mental Flaws and
I Heart Radio about how your favorite historical figures faced
off against their greatest foes. I'm your host Aaron McCarthy,
and today we're going to be exploring a tale Theodore
Roosevelt wrote about in his book The Wilderness Hunter, a
Memoir of his time on the Frontier, which was published
in Many of the stories in the book are just
what you'd expect from a big game hunter like tr
(00:43):
but there's one unusual tale that stands out from the
rest when the Roosevelt called a goblin story, which rather
impressed me. Here to tell us about what's now known
as the Bauman Incident is Mental Flaws science editor Cat Long,
who wrote a piece about the event for US A
couple years ago. I visited a small village on the
central coast of British Columbia where members of the kittasue
(01:05):
hey Hey First Nation have cultural stories about Sasquatches or
buckwhists in the local language. They also shared with me
a lot of stories about Sasquatches and their personal encounters
with them um in their ancestral territory? Is that why
when I asked someone to write this story you volunteered
so quickly. Yes, it is okay. So what was the
Bowman incident? The Bowman incident supposedly occurred in the mountains
(01:32):
of western Montana and northwestern Wyoming, which in the late
nineteenth century was still the Montana territory. On one of
trs hunting trips to the region, he met a grizzled
old trapper named Bowman who told him a wild tale.
Tr doesn't mention Bowman's first name, but it may have
been Carl L. Bauman. According to a Montana Historical Society journal,
(01:54):
this Carl L. Bauman was born in Germany and he
moved west in the eighteen sixties and died in Montana
in nine So that timeline and geographical detail fits with
TR's account, but we don't have any proof that he
was the one. Bowman told TR how as a young man,
he and a friend went to the Montana for Us
(02:14):
to hunt beaver, and they set up their traps in
a mountain pass that had been the scene of another
trapper's mysterious, gruesome death the year before. So over a
few days and nights, Bowman and his friend were tormented
by a strange animal that destroyed their camp and howl
with the cover of the trees, and watched them as
they slept in all kinds of like creepy activities. And
(02:35):
in the morning they found footprints indicating that the creature
walked upright. Finally, after a few days of this, they
couldn't take it anymore, and as they packed up to leave,
Balman had to walk a few miles away to gather
ups and beaver traps from stream, and when he returned
to the campsite, he found his friend dead with fang
marks in his neck. The scariest part about it was
(02:56):
that the beast had not devoured the flesh, but early
and this is what tr wrote, romped and gambled round
it in an uncouth, ferocious glee. What did they think
was the culprit? Tr rights in the beginning of the
story that the culprit could have been quote merely some
abnormally wicked and cunning wild beast, but no man can say.
(03:18):
He also suggests that Bowman thought it was something either
half human or half devil, some great goblin beast. Bowman
doesn't tell tr what he thought it was, and tr
never comes right out and says it. But he seemed
to imply that it was a sasquatch. But he wouldn't
have called it a sasquatch or a bigfoot because according
to the Oxford English Dictionary, we weren't even using those
(03:38):
words yet. Sasquatch didn't come around until the late nineteen
twenties and bigfoot until the late nineteen fifties. So anyway,
why do people think this incident involved a sasquatch? Was
that something that they believed in? At that time? Tales
of hairy giants or wild men of the forest were
already circulating around the Pacific Northwest, and indigenous people's in
(03:59):
the region had led including saucequatch like characters. So they
shared these tales of seeing and interacting with the actual
sasquatches with the white trappers that they met, and then
the white trappers and hunters had picked up the tail
and retold the story. Are there any differences between what's
in this account and what's in the account of indigenous
people's encounters with the sasquatch? The kids who say that
(04:21):
saucewatches are shy and generally stay out of people's way,
and they are definitely not known as bloodthirsty murderers. But
they do, however, scream really loudly in this really high pitched,
freaky sound, and they also really stink, and tr mentioned
those two characteristics in his account of the Baman incident
as well. So what are some of the encounters that
(04:41):
the Kidtasu told you about with Sasquatch. I remember one story,
um that was told to me by one of the
leaders in the community that they were out overnight on
a beach gathering clams because it was like the time
of year where they could where the tide was out
and they could dig them up out at the beach
really easily. So they've been doing this all night and
were sort of gathered around the beach. Some of the
(05:02):
members of the group heard this crazy scream coming out
of the woods. But they looked over to the elder
in the group, and the elder wasn't doing anything. He
didn't seem alarmed at all, so they were like, okay, well,
we'll just continue doing our thing. But they kept hearing
this scream, you know, just out of the woods, and
it's very quiet up there, like it's really I mean,
it would have been shocking, and so kind of gathered
(05:25):
closer and closer and closer to the boat that they
had all come in on. The elder said, why aren't
you out gathering clamps? You know what's going on? And
and all of a sudden, this piercing, super loud scream
just came out of the woods, and he suddenly looked
incredibly shocked and started banging like the anchor on the boat,
trying to scare whatever it was away, And everyone jumped
(05:47):
in the boat and just motored off the beach like
as fast as they could. So in that story, you know,
we hear we see like the sauswatch screaming. They didn't
see him, you know, it really stayed out of sight.
But it was kind of like the Sasquatch might have
been a little curious about what they were doing and
was just trying to get their attention. But then they
just got the hell out of there. They were like,
(06:09):
we don't see you, and based on that noise, we
do not want to see you. How often are they
having encounters like these? I mean, are they common? A
lot of people in the village have had them, um,
but they don't happen like, you know, every day or
anything like that. They might happen like to each person
maybe like a few times in their life. And what
did they say to Western sciences belief that Sasquatch isn't real?
(06:33):
They understand like a lot of people, I don't think
that they're real, or they don't believe them when they
say that they've seen them with their own eyes. And
their response to that is, well, you know, we don't
need some Western scientists telling me whether they exist or not.
Like I've seen them, or elders in our community, you know,
have seen them and I believe what they say or
our stories over generations and generations all talk about them,
(06:55):
So how can they not exist? Yeah? And the one
thing that I thought was really interesting from your peace
was I think he went back to one of the
elders and you asked him, right, and he said, you know,
just because we haven't found like a skeleton or bones
or anything doesn't mean anything. I've never found a bear
skeleton in the woods either, exactly. A pretty good point. Yeah, Yeah,
it really makes you think, you know, like we know
(07:16):
a lot about what's out in the forest, but there's
a lot that we don't know, and so we'll just
have to kind of leave that where it is. So
Tira was a pretty practical dude, and he was not
really given to flights of fancy, So how did he
describe what happened here? Tr said that Bauman was of
(07:36):
German ancestry, must have heard all kinds of ghost and
goblin lore, so that many fearsome superstitions were latent in
his mind. He also said that Bauman had heard tales
from the Native American medicine men of snow walkers, specters,
and the formless evil beings that haunt the forest. He
says that Bauman must have believed what he said, for
he could hardly repress a shutter at certain points in
(07:59):
the tail. Have any scientists thought about what the animal
actually was? I don't think any real scientists have looked
into this because from a scientific investigation point of view,
there aren't many specific clues to go on, and and
no physical evidence that could be tested for like sasquatch,
d an a or they don't have any material to
test for stable isotopes, which can show where an animal
(08:22):
has been or what it's eaten or that kind of thing.
So besides the walking on two feet thing. To me,
it kind of sounds like it could be a mountain lion.
People say that a cougar screaming sounds like a woman
screaming for her life. Tierra himself once said, no, man
could well listen to a stranger and wilder sound. What
I was thinking is maybe a cougar was attacking a
(08:43):
bear that was walking up, which would cover all the
bases that was definitely, it was definitely, definitely it. Um Well,
I guess this is just one of those mysteries that
we are never going to solve. Thanks to cat Long
for joining us, and thanks for listening to the special
bonus episode of History Versus. We'll be back with another
bonus episode in a few weeks. History Versus is hosted
(09:04):
by me Aeron McCarthy. The executive producers are Aaron McCarthy,
Julie Douglas, and Tyler Clang. The show is edited by
Dylan Fagan and Lobra Lante. History Versus is the production
of iHeart Radio and Mental Floss.
History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Mental Floss. Hello and welcome to a very special bonus
(00:20):
episode of History Versus, a podcast from Mental Flaws and
I Heart Radio about how your favorite historical figures faced
off against their greatest foes. I'm your host Aaron McCarthy,
and today we're going to be exploring a tale Theodore
Roosevelt wrote about in his book The Wilderness Hunter, a
Memoir of his time on the Frontier, which was published
in Many of the stories in the book are just
what you'd expect from a big game hunter like tr
(00:43):
but there's one unusual tale that stands out from the
rest when the Roosevelt called a goblin story, which rather
impressed me. Here to tell us about what's now known
as the Bauman Incident is Mental Flaws science editor Cat Long,
who wrote a piece about the event for US A
couple years ago. I visited a small village on the
central coast of British Columbia where members of the kittasue
(01:05):
hey Hey First Nation have cultural stories about Sasquatches or
buckwhists in the local language. They also shared with me
a lot of stories about Sasquatches and their personal encounters
with them um in their ancestral territory? Is that why
when I asked someone to write this story you volunteered
so quickly. Yes, it is okay. So what was the
Bowman incident? The Bowman incident supposedly occurred in the mountains
(01:32):
of western Montana and northwestern Wyoming, which in the late
nineteenth century was still the Montana territory. On one of
trs hunting trips to the region, he met a grizzled
old trapper named Bowman who told him a wild tale.
Tr doesn't mention Bowman's first name, but it may have
been Carl L. Bauman. According to a Montana Historical Society journal,
(01:54):
this Carl L. Bauman was born in Germany and he
moved west in the eighteen sixties and died in Montana
in nine So that timeline and geographical detail fits with
TR's account, but we don't have any proof that he
was the one. Bowman told TR how as a young man,
he and a friend went to the Montana for Us
(02:14):
to hunt beaver, and they set up their traps in
a mountain pass that had been the scene of another
trapper's mysterious, gruesome death the year before. So over a
few days and nights, Bowman and his friend were tormented
by a strange animal that destroyed their camp and howl
with the cover of the trees, and watched them as
they slept in all kinds of like creepy activities. And
(02:35):
in the morning they found footprints indicating that the creature
walked upright. Finally, after a few days of this, they
couldn't take it anymore, and as they packed up to leave,
Balman had to walk a few miles away to gather
ups and beaver traps from stream, and when he returned
to the campsite, he found his friend dead with fang
marks in his neck. The scariest part about it was
(02:56):
that the beast had not devoured the flesh, but early
and this is what tr wrote, romped and gambled round
it in an uncouth, ferocious glee. What did they think
was the culprit? Tr rights in the beginning of the
story that the culprit could have been quote merely some
abnormally wicked and cunning wild beast, but no man can say.
(03:18):
He also suggests that Bowman thought it was something either
half human or half devil, some great goblin beast. Bowman
doesn't tell tr what he thought it was, and tr
never comes right out and says it. But he seemed
to imply that it was a sasquatch. But he wouldn't
have called it a sasquatch or a bigfoot because according
to the Oxford English Dictionary, we weren't even using those
(03:38):
words yet. Sasquatch didn't come around until the late nineteen
twenties and bigfoot until the late nineteen fifties. So anyway,
why do people think this incident involved a sasquatch? Was
that something that they believed in? At that time? Tales
of hairy giants or wild men of the forest were
already circulating around the Pacific Northwest, and indigenous people's in
(03:59):
the region had led including saucequatch like characters. So they
shared these tales of seeing and interacting with the actual
sasquatches with the white trappers that they met, and then
the white trappers and hunters had picked up the tail
and retold the story. Are there any differences between what's
in this account and what's in the account of indigenous
people's encounters with the sasquatch? The kids who say that
(04:21):
saucewatches are shy and generally stay out of people's way,
and they are definitely not known as bloodthirsty murderers. But
they do, however, scream really loudly in this really high pitched,
freaky sound, and they also really stink, and tr mentioned
those two characteristics in his account of the Baman incident
as well. So what are some of the encounters that
(04:41):
the Kidtasu told you about with Sasquatch. I remember one story,
um that was told to me by one of the
leaders in the community that they were out overnight on
a beach gathering clams because it was like the time
of year where they could where the tide was out
and they could dig them up out at the beach
really easily. So they've been doing this all night and
were sort of gathered around the beach. Some of the
(05:02):
members of the group heard this crazy scream coming out
of the woods. But they looked over to the elder
in the group, and the elder wasn't doing anything. He
didn't seem alarmed at all, so they were like, okay, well,
we'll just continue doing our thing. But they kept hearing
this scream, you know, just out of the woods, and
it's very quiet up there, like it's really I mean,
it would have been shocking, and so kind of gathered
(05:25):
closer and closer and closer to the boat that they
had all come in on. The elder said, why aren't
you out gathering clamps? You know what's going on? And
and all of a sudden, this piercing, super loud scream
just came out of the woods, and he suddenly looked
incredibly shocked and started banging like the anchor on the boat,
trying to scare whatever it was away, And everyone jumped
(05:47):
in the boat and just motored off the beach like
as fast as they could. So in that story, you know,
we hear we see like the sauswatch screaming. They didn't
see him, you know, it really stayed out of sight.
But it was kind of like the Sasquatch might have
been a little curious about what they were doing and
was just trying to get their attention. But then they
just got the hell out of there. They were like,
(06:09):
we don't see you, and based on that noise, we
do not want to see you. How often are they
having encounters like these? I mean, are they common? A
lot of people in the village have had them, um,
but they don't happen like, you know, every day or
anything like that. They might happen like to each person
maybe like a few times in their life. And what
did they say to Western sciences belief that Sasquatch isn't real?
(06:33):
They understand like a lot of people, I don't think
that they're real, or they don't believe them when they
say that they've seen them with their own eyes. And
their response to that is, well, you know, we don't
need some Western scientists telling me whether they exist or not.
Like I've seen them, or elders in our community, you know,
have seen them and I believe what they say or
our stories over generations and generations all talk about them,
(06:55):
So how can they not exist? Yeah? And the one
thing that I thought was really interesting from your peace
was I think he went back to one of the
elders and you asked him, right, and he said, you know,
just because we haven't found like a skeleton or bones
or anything doesn't mean anything. I've never found a bear
skeleton in the woods either, exactly. A pretty good point. Yeah, Yeah,
it really makes you think, you know, like we know
(07:16):
a lot about what's out in the forest, but there's
a lot that we don't know, and so we'll just
have to kind of leave that where it is. So
Tira was a pretty practical dude, and he was not
really given to flights of fancy, So how did he
describe what happened here? Tr said that Bauman was of
(07:36):
German ancestry, must have heard all kinds of ghost and
goblin lore, so that many fearsome superstitions were latent in
his mind. He also said that Bauman had heard tales
from the Native American medicine men of snow walkers, specters,
and the formless evil beings that haunt the forest. He
says that Bauman must have believed what he said, for
he could hardly repress a shutter at certain points in
(07:59):
the tail. Have any scientists thought about what the animal
actually was? I don't think any real scientists have looked
into this because from a scientific investigation point of view,
there aren't many specific clues to go on, and and
no physical evidence that could be tested for like sasquatch,
d an a or they don't have any material to
test for stable isotopes, which can show where an animal
(08:22):
has been or what it's eaten or that kind of thing.
So besides the walking on two feet thing. To me,
it kind of sounds like it could be a mountain lion.
People say that a cougar screaming sounds like a woman
screaming for her life. Tierra himself once said, no, man
could well listen to a stranger and wilder sound. What
I was thinking is maybe a cougar was attacking a
(08:43):
bear that was walking up, which would cover all the
bases that was definitely, it was definitely, definitely it. Um Well,
I guess this is just one of those mysteries that
we are never going to solve. Thanks to cat Long
for joining us, and thanks for listening to the special
bonus episode of History Versus. We'll be back with another
bonus episode in a few weeks. History Versus is hosted
(09:04):
by me Aeron McCarthy. The executive producers are Aaron McCarthy,
Julie Douglas, and Tyler Clang. The show is edited by
Dylan Fagan and Lobra Lante. History Versus is the production
of iHeart Radio and Mental Floss.
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