July 17, 2025 • 29 mins
When tonight’s guest, Rusty, was 20, he and a friend of his went fishing, on a lake in the West Memphis area of Arkansas, one evening. It was an unseasonable hot night and they were fishing from a boat. All of a sudden, they heard a rustling noise coming from the shore, just a matter of yards away. They were using the boat’s trolling motor, so it would be easy for them to go undetected. What happened next is proof that you can sneak up on a Sasquatch, given certain circumstances. We hope you’ll listen to tonight’s show, so you can listen to Rusty detail exactly what happened that night.
If you’ve had a Sasquatch sighting and would like to be a guest on the show, please go to BigfootEyewitness.com and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.
If you’d like to help support the show, by buying your own Bigfoot Eyewitness t-shirt or sweatshirt, please visit the Bigfoot Eyewitness Show Store, by going to https://Dogman-Encounters.MyShopify.com
I produce 4 other shows that are available on your favorite podcast app. If you haven't checked them out, here are links to all 4 channels on the Spreaker App...
My Bigfoot Sighting https://www.spreaker.com/show/my-bigfoot-sighting
Dogman Tales https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/dogman-tales--6640134
Dogman Encounters https://www.spreaker.com/show/dogman-encounters-radio_2
My Paranormal Experience https://www.spreaker.com/show/my-paranormal-experience
Thanks, as always, for listening!
If you’ve had a Sasquatch sighting and would like to be a guest on the show, please go to BigfootEyewitness.com and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.
If you’d like to help support the show, by buying your own Bigfoot Eyewitness t-shirt or sweatshirt, please visit the Bigfoot Eyewitness Show Store, by going to https://Dogman-Encounters.MyShopify.com
I produce 4 other shows that are available on your favorite podcast app. If you haven't checked them out, here are links to all 4 channels on the Spreaker App...
My Bigfoot Sighting https://www.spreaker.com/show/my-bigfoot-sighting
Dogman Tales https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/dogman-tales--6640134
Dogman Encounters https://www.spreaker.com/show/dogman-encounters-radio_2
My Paranormal Experience https://www.spreaker.com/show/my-paranormal-experience
Thanks, as always, for listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My name is Rusty. You might see me sometimes online
as William. That's my real name, but Rusty's kind of
a nickname that stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
At any rate, my.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
History is that I'm a recently retired physician. I was
in practice for many years in big urban inner city
cancer are big urban inner city hospitals. I was a
cancer specialist during that time. Just retired a year and
a half or so ago, and living a retired life
(00:32):
now of fishing and golfing and seeing my grandson and
that sort of thing. At any rate, the sighting of
mine actually precedes the time when I became a physician.
It was when I was in college, which was then
in nineteen eighty. This was the summer of nineteen eighty
and I was working as a lifeguard at a lake
(00:56):
in Arkansas. And this lake was just across the Mississippi
River from Memphis, just south of West Memphis, Arkansas. And
it's called Blue Lake. It's not there, or the lake
is there, but it's not. It's in private property now
and it's it's not open to the public anymore. But
any right, this lake kind of functioned as a swim
fish picnic camp resort at the time, so they hired
(01:19):
college kids to be lifeguards, and that's what I was
doing that summer anyway, So myself and the other primary
lifeguard would work during the day. Then we would clear
the swimmers out in you know, like a seven or something,
and most nights he and I would then go fishing.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
We had a boat there that we could take out onto.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
The lake and we would go fishing, just slowly trolling
up and down the edge of the water for whatever
freshwater species, who are going to crappie or bram or bass.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And we did this most nights.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And this particular night was in probably late June, although
I'm not exactly sure, but it was certainly in that summertime,
so it was very bright.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It was very hot that summer.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
That summer in fact, and that may be a note
of interest, the summer of nineteen eighty in that area
was one of the hottest on record in decades. We
had had over twenty days above one hundred degrees in
that area at that point, so very warm, and no
rain during that time. So anyway, everything's very hot. So
(02:28):
we go out fishing that night and we're slowly moving
down one edge of the lake and like I said,
we were trolling, and if you've ever done that, if
you've been fishing, be a trolling motor. That was quite
electrically run. And it was slowly going. So we're moving,
you know, just very slowly, about maybe ten to fifteen
(02:48):
yards out from the edge of the water and running
parallel to the edge of the lake itself, and weren't speaking.
We're very quiet, just moving slowly, just kind of relaxing.
It was beautiful day, still bright sunlight. It was, like
I said, it was late June, so it was still
sunlight at seven pm. Are right, We're moving slowly down
(03:11):
the edge of the water's edge, and we hear something
rustling on the shore, and both he and I look
up at about the same time to look in at
the shore, and we noticed, just like staring at us
from about shoulders up with it was this creature or
(03:32):
thing or whatever it was that was more or less
shaped like a.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Very large human, but with.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Dark brown to black hair all over except for its face,
and it was looking at us, and we got the
impression we had probably startled it or surprised it, you know,
it was almost like it had been knelt down at
the water, heard us and then looked up for real fast,
or stood up halfway, stood up real fast, and he
was kind of behind some brush at the water's edge,
(04:05):
so we could only see him or her from about
no chest level up, so we could see the head,
the shoulders, maybe down like I say, maybe down to
about nipple level, and it was looking directly at us
from this advantage point like I say, maybe fifteen and
maybe he was a yard or two end from the
(04:26):
water's edge, so maybe maybe seventeen eighteen yards away, and
we just both looked at each other, didn't say anything
for you know, what seemed like an eternity, but it
was probably no less than are no more than ten
seconds or so.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And then he.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
She whatever turned very quickly and ran off into the
brush up the bank, because that was a levee at
the edge of the lake right there, so and it
was covered with very thick.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Undergrowth and trees.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
This is the lower Mississippi Delta, so there's Cyprus trees everywhere,
and so we could hear him, and he disappeared from
side very quickly. We could still hear him running up
the levee, but we could not see him within like
seconds or so, and he took off. We could hear him,
like I said, maybe for I don't know, fifteen twenty
(05:20):
seconds after that until it was gone. And then we
looked at each other we really didn't and said what
was that?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
And he didn't.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
My buddy and I neither one knew what to say
about that. We decided we needed to get out of
there and go back to our little cabin we stayed at.
We actually spent the night at the lake there in
a cabin that was down the way. So we pulled
in the motor and got going rapidly as back as
we fast as we could back to the cabin. Pulled up,
(05:49):
we went inside the cabin, closed the door. I think
we locked up everything and loaded all the guns at
the same time because we didn't know what was going on,
and we decided we didn't know what to say about
this at that point, you know, we said, you know,
this was we didn't really In fact, I had heard
of the concept of bigfoot or sasquatch, but it just
(06:10):
hadn't registered really, I guess to either one of us.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
But that's what that was.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I think we probably did use the word at the time,
was that a bigfoot or something like that. And you know,
and the other guys said, I don't know, I don't
know what it was. And we both said we'd never
seen anything else like that before. And after sitting talking
for a while, we decided maybe we should just keep
(06:36):
this to ourselves. We didn't know who to tell. My
buddy's parents actually owned the lake, their family owned it,
so we.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Didn't know what to tell them.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You know, there's a monster running around on the lake
that looks like a giant gorilla.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
They would tell us we'd been drinking again, and we
didn't know, you know, should we go to like the
sheriff in West Memphis.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
We didn't know.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
We didn't think that do any good anyone, So we
just kept quiet about it. And that was my As
I said, it was nineteen eighties. It was my senior
year in college, so we.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Just kind of put it away.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
He and I both just didn't talk about it anymore
after that for many years. I got married, I started
medical school. I had a lot of other things on
my mind, including family, kids, practice, all of those things.
He left and went to the West Coast and was
in a international trading business. He died about fifteen years ago.
I guess or so now, so I'm the only one
(07:34):
now who's left who remembers it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I've told my wife. In fact, I hadn't told.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Anybody for many years until I guess fifteen years or
so ago. I was just kind of looking around online
on the computer and started to notice Bigfoot related sites online.
In fact, I think the first one I noticed was
the BFRO or big Foot Field Research Organization, which I
(08:02):
thought was cool because it had a register where you
could sign in and report your siding, you know, in
your area, and had like a whole map in the
United States, so he could pick out which sidings or
in your area and that sort of thing. So I
thought that was interesting. So I did that and I
reported the siding way back then, and they called me back.
(08:23):
The BFRO people called me back and said, well, we'll
tell us some more about this, And you know, I
got to talking to the guy.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And we kind of became friendly.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
We talked back and forth on the phone several times,
and he asked me, would i'd be willing to tell
the story in other places, because there are very few
cancer surgeons are now retired cancer surgeons that would be
willing to tell the story if they had it, so
I did, and I talked to several other people online
and elsewhere, and I started popping up on our other
(08:57):
shows like this, started calling me to ask about it,
and it's gone from there. As it turns out, then
people I've been invited and have gone on several searches
or campouts or hunts or whatever you want to call them,
UH in various places and have really enjoyed that. I
haven't seen anything on any of the hunts, but I
(09:17):
think some of the people I've gone with have and
I've become friends with a number of people in the
uh you know, bigfoot community for lack of a better word,
and and it's been a lot of fun. Actually, in retrospect,
I wish we'd had something like the Internet back then,
you know, that I could have share this on because,
like I say, we just we just put it away
(09:39):
for you know, decades basically and didn't do anything with it.
So it's it's been refreshing in a sense to to
let people know about it and to you know, get
to relive it in a sense and to be able
to you know, do something else. You know, it's sort
of a hobby again, particularly now that I'm retired as
(10:00):
as a hobby to you know, keep me active and interested.
So that's pretty much the story. Like I said, it's
very straightforward. If the total sighting time was maybe twenty seconds.
There were no vocalizations, nothing else we could hear other
than the thing rumbling through the brush.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
There was nothing we could smell.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
We never saw anything, saw or heard anything else before
or after. We never saw any tracks around the area.
It really it was a one shot deal. Yeah, it
was a fascinating one shot deal, but that's all it was.
I can't say I'm like other people who have had,
you know, multiple experiences in that way, but it was.
(10:46):
It was impactful for what it was on a twenty
year old college kid.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Oh I'm sure it was never a dull moment.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Huh No, kidding.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, i'd say so. You told us that you only
saw that sasquatch his shoulders up. Was that brush that
he was standing behind so thick that you couldn't see
any other parts of his body? Or could you see
little snippets here and there.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, little snippets maybe here and there, but the brush
was really thick. I don't know if you've ever been
to the South Mississippi Delta. The areas right around the
water are it's like a jungle, you know, it's that thick,
and you really can't see much, you know, below the
level of the brush. So the brush was probably in
(11:32):
chests on him, it was chest high. And people asked
me how tall was he? And I said, I really
can't say because I never saw his feet, you know, so,
and I don't know for sure that he was he
or she was standing upright. You know, if you asked
me how big he was, I would say his shoulders
were considerably wider than what you would think for a
man at that distance, because we you know, we could
(11:54):
put it in perspective that way, but we could not
really tell how tall he was.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
The head, it.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Again was seemed to be bigger than a regular human
head would be. But again, I, you know, that's that's
about as good as I can say.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
In other words, I can't say, oh, he was seven
feet tall the way some people can, because I never
really saw it. We never really saw him him or her,
you know, standing up and walking at full extension like that.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Oh No, you could only see what you could see,
So you can't be faulded for that. You mentioned his head.
Did he have a sagetal crest or was his head round?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
No, it seemed to be more round, you know. And
I've heard about that sagular crest idea since then, but
we didn't see it for whatever reason. It was hairy
and the hair was long, you know, it was like
a dark brown to black and kind of crazy, you know,
kind of like tangled up and stringy. But he didn't
(12:56):
cover his face. The face itself was they are basically
gray to black. And you know, people asked me, well,
was it like a man, was like an ape? And
all I can say it was somewhere in between. The nose,
for example, was wider than a man's nose, is more
like an ape's nose. The mouth, however, I thought, looked
(13:17):
more like a human mouth. The lips were narrower, the
whole width of the mouth was narrower. The eyes were
again were more human like.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I thought.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
They were not sunken in. There was not a big
brow ridge, so, you know, as I said, overall, I
thought it was something between. The facial appearance was somewhere
between an ape and a human.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
If his nose looked more like that of a gorilla.
You're seeing that its nose wasn't hooded at all.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
No, exactly, it was flattened with the nostrils, you know,
kind of flaring.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Okay, I see what you're saying. And swimming. As much
as eyewitnesses report seeing them out there swimming, it sure
makes you wonder how they can do that effectively. They
seem to be really good at swimming. But if they
don't have hooded noses, that would really complicate things.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Well, you know, I've heard that, you know, but although
I haven't thought of it quite that way before, but
that that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
You've got me on that one.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Seems like they're so good at everything they do it's
almost not fair, I guess. So, yeah, i'd say, so,
you're pretty close to him, just yards away. Did you
ever smell anything strange?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
No, And I've thought in retrospect, I've thought about that
because so many people have reported smelling something and we
really did. Neither one of us really did. Because we
mentioned that, you know, and you know, it was quiet,
the wind wasn't blowing you. I would think if there
was some smell there, we would have gotten it, and
we didn't really get anything at all. So I can't
(14:55):
say that that there was any odor associated with it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Well too, it depends on which the wind was blowing.
But yeah, you were awfully clothes, that's a fact. Did
you ever give any indication that he might have been
thinking about ducking down behind the brush instead of running
away or moving away from you?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
You know, what I thought was it was this.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
It was as if we caught him completely off guard,
like he was standing up, he had happened to stand
up or you know, from where he had been down
at the water.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
This was my take on it. So this is just
subjective that he or she.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Had been standing or had been bending over, maybe even
into the water to drink or cool off or do whatever,
and he stood up or you know it partly stood up,
saw us standing or you know, sitting there floating out
in front of him, and all of a sudden he
realized we'd made him. You know, we we knew he
was there, He knew we that we knew he was there,
(15:52):
and so he then he kind of panicked, he or
she panicked and turned and ran just you know, fast
as it could. That was all my take on the
sort of the uh, you know, the process of the experience.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Sounds like he is probably almost embarrassed by you guys
catching them with his pants down.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Maybe maybe you know, like I said, it was so
hot that day and it was still hot. This was
probably you know, after seven at night by that time,
but it was still just miserably hot. So I see,
you know, a big primate, you know, hair covered. It
must be awful for something like that to keep hydrated
at that time of year. So I bet they were
down at the water. This has been just my thought
(16:33):
in retrospect, down at the water a lot, you know,
to try to cool off, and because he was so hot,
he was just distracted, you know, and just wasn't it
wasn't used to seeing people out there during the day
because nobody ever came out there during the day. It
was just us at night after the swimmers had gone,
So he wasn't used to seeing people out there at
that time and place. So we caught him off guard.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
And you must have been in a spot out there
in the water that a lot of people on fish from,
so he hadn't a reason to expect.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yet exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
There were fishermen occasionally out there, but the family owned
the lake so they could lock it in the off season,
so there weren't that many people there. The only people
there most of the time, particularly in the evenings were us,
my buddy and I, so that it was pretty rare
for people to be fishing out at that side of
(17:25):
the lake at that time. So yeah, he was probably
surprised that he wasn't alone for once.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Well, I'm sure he was. And if you were on
the other side of the lake from where most of
the action was, well, you're far enough away from other
people were when you're fishing there, you couldn't hear activity,
you couldn't hear people.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yes, we're pretty far away. And actually it's kind of
this is hard to describe this, like across the lake
and around the corner, so that you couldn't see where
the swimming area was either, so you had to go
around like the lake kind of curved. I don't know,
if you're familiar with the bow type lakes and the
lower Mississippi Delta, it's where the Mississippi River change is
(18:04):
coarse and leaves the lake behind. That's in the shape
of an ox bow, you know, or like a big u.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
That's what this was.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
So the fishing area was on one foot of the
the swimming area excuse me, was on one foot of
the U kind of, and then we were fishing over
on the other foot of the U, so we were,
you know, completely separated by both side and sound from
the regular swimming area.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, that would be a perfect spot for a sasquatch
to go down to the edge of the water and
get a drinker, tried to cool itself off. So no
wonder he was there, I would think. So, yeah, it
makes perfect sense. Do you think that you caught him
by Surprisely you did because you were on the water
number one and number two, you were using that trolling.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Motor exactly because it's quiet. You know, you can barely
hear it from within the boat. And uh, you know,
if you're not expecting anybody out, you know, you wouldn't
figure humans to be out in the water, particularly and
at this remote location, you wouldn't figure anybody be out
there at all. So yeah, I think that's exactly what
(19:11):
it was. He just didn't anticipate it.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right about that. I'm sure
he didn't. Some of those trolling motors are better than others.
Some are louder than others. Some are just dead silent.
You just can't hear them at all. And yeah, you
guys must have had a pretty good one.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
To Yeah, it was pretty quiet. It was pretty quiet.
As I remember.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
We used to have to steal the car battery out
of my buddy's father's car and put in to power
the trolling motor, and he would get mad as because
we put the battery back and it I'll be run down.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Well that's a dirty trick. But no, I understand you
guys were just kids back then.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Oh yeah, you know you got to go fishing. You
got to go somehow, That's right.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
No, I've done worse than that. Did you two ever
go back to the lake after that day or did
you have avoid that area at all costs?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
No, we did, we did you know that.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Like I said, that was probably late June, so we
were working for the whole summer. So we were there
for another whatever it was six eight weeks, and we.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Lived out there. You know.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
We went back and forth in Memphis occasionally, but but
we've spent the nights out there routinely. So we were
there like every day basically, and we, like I said,
we never saw or heard anything else. We even went
around in the boat to that place again, you know,
and would troll up and down, you know, just looking around.
(20:36):
And by this time now we're looking at every spot
on every edge, you know, every of the water as
we're trolling around. But we never saw anything like it.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Again, Yeah, that's how it normally goes. You didn't have
an interest in Sasquatch back then, so I'm sure you
didn't look into it. But have ever tried looking into
other Sasquatch sidings that might have been reported in that
West Memphis area.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yes, In fact, I started that when I looked at
the BFRI website, and there are a handful members maybe
three four within fifty miles of there, so there's not
a lot. You know, there's way more sidings over in
the western part of Arkansas than in the eastern part
of Arkansas. There was maybe three or four, but they're
(21:20):
all sort of clustered right around the Mississippi River. So
there's like one I remember on the Hatchie River, which
is another river that empties into Mississippi on the north
side of Memphis, on the Tennessee side, less than fifty
miles away from there. There was one reported on what's
(21:40):
called President's Island, which is an island in the river
just below Memphis that is maybe ten miles from where
my siding was. And then there's been a sidning just
on the outskirts of West Memphis itself, and I think
at least the last time I looked at BFRO, those
were the only ones listed, so there haven't been many
sightings there, but you know, a handful, which makes me
(22:04):
wonder if, if probably that area is not routinely inhabited.
I guess, for lack of a better word, by them,
maybe it's just just just individuals passing through. You know,
maybe they're passing up and down the Mississippi River barrider,
which is pretty rugged in most places, and you could
easily hide in the swamps and the trees through most
(22:25):
of that area. So I would think, you know, that
area that the river could kind of act as a
passageway or a highway for them to you know, move
around unnoticed, because there's there's lots of covered or lots
of ground there that's fully covered by trees and swamps
and are relatively inaccessible to humans.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
During the daytime. It'd be a breeze for them to
remain undetected. But especially so at night. It'd be a
piece of cake for them.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh absolutely, you would have any trouble having something even
pretty large. I would think creature hiding out there. I
mean there have been bears reported out there occasionally. There
have been mountain lions reported on the Arkansas side for sure,
So there can could be large creature, large primates out there.
(23:16):
I don't think there's any doubt that the area would
support that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Oh, definitely, it'd be a perfect place for them. That
whole area. It's so suitable. It's perfect for them, to
the point that it's amazing that you don't have sightings
inside the grocery stores there. I mean, it's just perfect.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
It sure seems like you know, but what is perfect
for the for that creature. We simply don't know enough
about it to say what what is the ideal sasquatch
or bigfoot, you know, habitat. We know where we see
or where they're reported, but we don't know enough about
the biology of them. I don't think to say this
is where they will really do the best. You know,
(23:56):
the places where we where they are reported, you always
have remember that's going to be the places where people
are too. I would think the best place for bigfoots
are any kind of you know, large creature like that,
would be in places that were so isolated that there
were very rarely people here to begin with. In others,
to have a sighting, you have to have two things.
You have to have the creature, plus you have to
(24:18):
have the person who cites it, so they both have
to be present in the same area. So it would
seem to me like the best area for the creature
to go on discovered it would be in places where
people don't.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Go ever, you know.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
And therefore I think the sightings we have that are
closer to civilization are just the you know, the exceptions
rather than the rule. I guess that's just when, like
I said, maybe a bigfoot's in transit, maybe he's off guard,
maybe it's sick, dying, who knows what, something like that.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Maybe that's the case, Maybe it's not. I've thought about
that quite a bit. In my opinion, it might be
the way that you're describing were they just seek out
the most remote areas they can possibly find. But on
the other hand, if they tend to come in close
to civilization, then they can take advantage of a lot
of resources like dumpsters that they can raid at nighttime
(25:13):
and grab pets unfortunately, and do other things I mean
hanging around farms and raid fields things like that. So
in my opinion, I could see it going either way.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Now, you're exactly right.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
We simply don't know what you know enough about the
biology of these things to know what they really do routinely.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Oh sure, yeah, there's so much we don't know about them.
It's not even funny. Being a cancer surgeon the way
you were, did you do all you could do to
try to keep your sighting under wraps before you retired
for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
You know, yes, but maybe not for the reason that
you would think at first yes, I would guess I
would say yes.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
In the first few years. Number One, you don't really
we did at the time. And I don't know how
old jr.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Vic.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
But at nineteen eighty when I was there, I was
twenty years old. Who would you even go to then?
There was no internet then to you know, to tell
somebody about that. They would have laughed. As for being
you know, drunk or stoned or something at that point,
so there was there was really not an alternative. I
mean acknowledging that you had seen Bigfoot was just not
(26:27):
something that occurred in polite society more or less, I guess,
so we just didn't really mention it.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
And then, like I said, we hit.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
My buddy and I both got occupied in other ways,
you know. I went directly from there to medical school,
got married at the same time, went from that to
residency to fellowships. I was in training for a long time,
and you're when you're in training in medicine at that
in that era particularly, it was very difficult, very demanding,
very time consuming. So I didn't have time to think
(26:58):
about anything else. I didn't want I want to think
about anything else. It was really not until I got
outer training into practice by like in the nineteen nineties,
that I started to even think about it again.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
And then with the rise of the Internet in.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
The late nineties two thousands, I guess that's when I
started to realize, you know, let me think, rethink that
all that.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I just kind of put it out of my head.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
I don't know if I was scared to tell it
from a professional standpoint, although I will admit now that
I'm probably a little more comfortable talking with somebody like
you now than I would have been ten years ago,
you know, when my colleagues might have heard it, you know,
on the air at the hospital, and so I'm kind
(27:44):
of glad of that. So I'm certainly to some degree. Yes,
I was probably a little reluctant to speak of it
while I was in the earliest years of my training,
but at the same time, it was partly just that
I had more things to do, you know, I just
didn't have time to think about bigfoot very much at
the time, and now I do, and it's been facilitated
(28:07):
by the Internet, and now I don't have to worry about.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Anybody saying me anything about me. So it just what
has worked out.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, it sounds like it has. And yeah, I think
that was the best course to take to not bring
it to light back then when you're still a physician
for the reasons that you laid out and more. I
definitely get it. And yeah, I agree. Yeah, back in
nineteen eighty coming forward with the sighting that you had,
that wasn't necessarily the best move because yeah, people didn't
(28:34):
respond to that sort of thing back then the way
they do now. So I get it. I do well, Rusty.
I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing
the details of that experience with this. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Listen, I appreciate that. Vic.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
You're very welcome, and I'm sorry I was so much
trouble getting this arranged.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Oh that's all right, life happens. Just glad to be
able to get you on here so you can put
that story out for the listeners. I really do appreciate it,
and of course if I can never help you out
in the future, please let me know.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Thank you so much. I will.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Oh, you're welcome, Thanks again so much, and have a
great night.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
That's it for another episode of Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio with
Vic Kundiff. If you've had a sasquatch encounter and would
like to be a guest on the show, please go
to Bigfoot eyewitness dot com and submit a report. We'd
love to hear from you. Thanks for listening, have a
great night.
My name is Rusty. You might see me sometimes online
as William. That's my real name, but Rusty's kind of
a nickname that stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
At any rate, my.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
History is that I'm a recently retired physician. I was
in practice for many years in big urban inner city
cancer are big urban inner city hospitals. I was a
cancer specialist during that time. Just retired a year and
a half or so ago, and living a retired life
(00:32):
now of fishing and golfing and seeing my grandson and
that sort of thing. At any rate, the sighting of
mine actually precedes the time when I became a physician.
It was when I was in college, which was then
in nineteen eighty. This was the summer of nineteen eighty
and I was working as a lifeguard at a lake
(00:56):
in Arkansas. And this lake was just across the Mississippi
River from Memphis, just south of West Memphis, Arkansas. And
it's called Blue Lake. It's not there, or the lake
is there, but it's not. It's in private property now
and it's it's not open to the public anymore. But
any right, this lake kind of functioned as a swim
fish picnic camp resort at the time, so they hired
(01:19):
college kids to be lifeguards, and that's what I was
doing that summer anyway, So myself and the other primary
lifeguard would work during the day. Then we would clear
the swimmers out in you know, like a seven or something,
and most nights he and I would then go fishing.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
We had a boat there that we could take out onto.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
The lake and we would go fishing, just slowly trolling
up and down the edge of the water for whatever
freshwater species, who are going to crappie or bram or bass.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And we did this most nights.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And this particular night was in probably late June, although
I'm not exactly sure, but it was certainly in that summertime,
so it was very bright.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It was very hot that summer.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
That summer in fact, and that may be a note
of interest, the summer of nineteen eighty in that area
was one of the hottest on record in decades. We
had had over twenty days above one hundred degrees in
that area at that point, so very warm, and no
rain during that time. So anyway, everything's very hot. So
(02:28):
we go out fishing that night and we're slowly moving
down one edge of the lake and like I said,
we were trolling, and if you've ever done that, if
you've been fishing, be a trolling motor. That was quite
electrically run. And it was slowly going. So we're moving,
you know, just very slowly, about maybe ten to fifteen
(02:48):
yards out from the edge of the water and running
parallel to the edge of the lake itself, and weren't speaking.
We're very quiet, just moving slowly, just kind of relaxing.
It was beautiful day, still bright sunlight. It was, like
I said, it was late June, so it was still
sunlight at seven pm. Are right, We're moving slowly down
(03:11):
the edge of the water's edge, and we hear something
rustling on the shore, and both he and I look
up at about the same time to look in at
the shore, and we noticed, just like staring at us
from about shoulders up with it was this creature or
(03:32):
thing or whatever it was that was more or less
shaped like a.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Very large human, but with.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Dark brown to black hair all over except for its face,
and it was looking at us, and we got the
impression we had probably startled it or surprised it, you know,
it was almost like it had been knelt down at
the water, heard us and then looked up for real fast,
or stood up halfway, stood up real fast, and he
was kind of behind some brush at the water's edge,
(04:05):
so we could only see him or her from about
no chest level up, so we could see the head,
the shoulders, maybe down like I say, maybe down to
about nipple level, and it was looking directly at us
from this advantage point like I say, maybe fifteen and
maybe he was a yard or two end from the
(04:26):
water's edge, so maybe maybe seventeen eighteen yards away, and
we just both looked at each other, didn't say anything
for you know, what seemed like an eternity, but it
was probably no less than are no more than ten
seconds or so.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And then he.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
She whatever turned very quickly and ran off into the
brush up the bank, because that was a levee at
the edge of the lake right there, so and it
was covered with very thick.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Undergrowth and trees.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
This is the lower Mississippi Delta, so there's Cyprus trees everywhere,
and so we could hear him, and he disappeared from
side very quickly. We could still hear him running up
the levee, but we could not see him within like
seconds or so, and he took off. We could hear him,
like I said, maybe for I don't know, fifteen twenty
(05:20):
seconds after that until it was gone. And then we
looked at each other we really didn't and said what
was that?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
And he didn't.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
My buddy and I neither one knew what to say
about that. We decided we needed to get out of
there and go back to our little cabin we stayed at.
We actually spent the night at the lake there in
a cabin that was down the way. So we pulled
in the motor and got going rapidly as back as
we fast as we could back to the cabin. Pulled up,
(05:49):
we went inside the cabin, closed the door. I think
we locked up everything and loaded all the guns at
the same time because we didn't know what was going on,
and we decided we didn't know what to say about
this at that point, you know, we said, you know,
this was we didn't really In fact, I had heard
of the concept of bigfoot or sasquatch, but it just
(06:10):
hadn't registered really, I guess to either one of us.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
But that's what that was.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I think we probably did use the word at the time,
was that a bigfoot or something like that. And you know,
and the other guys said, I don't know, I don't
know what it was. And we both said we'd never
seen anything else like that before. And after sitting talking
for a while, we decided maybe we should just keep
(06:36):
this to ourselves. We didn't know who to tell. My
buddy's parents actually owned the lake, their family owned it,
so we.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Didn't know what to tell them.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
You know, there's a monster running around on the lake
that looks like a giant gorilla.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
They would tell us we'd been drinking again, and we
didn't know, you know, should we go to like the
sheriff in West Memphis.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
We didn't know.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
We didn't think that do any good anyone, So we
just kept quiet about it. And that was my As
I said, it was nineteen eighties. It was my senior
year in college, so we.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Just kind of put it away.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
He and I both just didn't talk about it anymore
after that for many years. I got married, I started
medical school. I had a lot of other things on
my mind, including family, kids, practice, all of those things.
He left and went to the West Coast and was
in a international trading business. He died about fifteen years ago.
I guess or so now, so I'm the only one
(07:34):
now who's left who remembers it.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I've told my wife. In fact, I hadn't told.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Anybody for many years until I guess fifteen years or
so ago. I was just kind of looking around online
on the computer and started to notice Bigfoot related sites online.
In fact, I think the first one I noticed was
the BFRO or big Foot Field Research Organization, which I
(08:02):
thought was cool because it had a register where you
could sign in and report your siding, you know, in
your area, and had like a whole map in the
United States, so he could pick out which sidings or
in your area and that sort of thing. So I
thought that was interesting. So I did that and I
reported the siding way back then, and they called me back.
(08:23):
The BFRO people called me back and said, well, we'll
tell us some more about this, And you know, I
got to talking to the guy.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And we kind of became friendly.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
We talked back and forth on the phone several times,
and he asked me, would i'd be willing to tell
the story in other places, because there are very few
cancer surgeons are now retired cancer surgeons that would be
willing to tell the story if they had it, so
I did, and I talked to several other people online
and elsewhere, and I started popping up on our other
(08:57):
shows like this, started calling me to ask about it,
and it's gone from there. As it turns out, then
people I've been invited and have gone on several searches
or campouts or hunts or whatever you want to call them,
UH in various places and have really enjoyed that. I
haven't seen anything on any of the hunts, but I
(09:17):
think some of the people I've gone with have and
I've become friends with a number of people in the
uh you know, bigfoot community for lack of a better word,
and and it's been a lot of fun. Actually, in retrospect,
I wish we'd had something like the Internet back then,
you know, that I could have share this on because,
like I say, we just we just put it away
(09:39):
for you know, decades basically and didn't do anything with it.
So it's it's been refreshing in a sense to to
let people know about it and to you know, get
to relive it in a sense and to be able
to you know, do something else. You know, it's sort
of a hobby again, particularly now that I'm retired as
(10:00):
as a hobby to you know, keep me active and interested.
So that's pretty much the story. Like I said, it's
very straightforward. If the total sighting time was maybe twenty seconds.
There were no vocalizations, nothing else we could hear other
than the thing rumbling through the brush.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
There was nothing we could smell.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
We never saw anything, saw or heard anything else before
or after. We never saw any tracks around the area.
It really it was a one shot deal. Yeah, it
was a fascinating one shot deal, but that's all it was.
I can't say I'm like other people who have had,
you know, multiple experiences in that way, but it was.
(10:46):
It was impactful for what it was on a twenty
year old college kid.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Oh I'm sure it was never a dull moment.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Huh No, kidding.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah, i'd say so. You told us that you only
saw that sasquatch his shoulders up. Was that brush that
he was standing behind so thick that you couldn't see
any other parts of his body? Or could you see
little snippets here and there.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, little snippets maybe here and there, but the brush
was really thick. I don't know if you've ever been
to the South Mississippi Delta. The areas right around the
water are it's like a jungle, you know, it's that thick,
and you really can't see much, you know, below the
level of the brush. So the brush was probably in
(11:32):
chests on him, it was chest high. And people asked
me how tall was he? And I said, I really
can't say because I never saw his feet, you know, so,
and I don't know for sure that he was he
or she was standing upright. You know, if you asked
me how big he was, I would say his shoulders
were considerably wider than what you would think for a
man at that distance, because we you know, we could
(11:54):
put it in perspective that way, but we could not
really tell how tall he was.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
The head, it.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Again was seemed to be bigger than a regular human
head would be. But again, I, you know, that's that's
about as good as I can say.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
In other words, I can't say, oh, he was seven
feet tall the way some people can, because I never
really saw it. We never really saw him him or her,
you know, standing up and walking at full extension like that.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Oh No, you could only see what you could see,
So you can't be faulded for that. You mentioned his head.
Did he have a sagetal crest or was his head round?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
No, it seemed to be more round, you know. And
I've heard about that sagular crest idea since then, but
we didn't see it for whatever reason. It was hairy
and the hair was long, you know, it was like
a dark brown to black and kind of crazy, you know,
kind of like tangled up and stringy. But he didn't
(12:56):
cover his face. The face itself was they are basically
gray to black. And you know, people asked me, well,
was it like a man, was like an ape? And
all I can say it was somewhere in between. The nose,
for example, was wider than a man's nose, is more
like an ape's nose. The mouth, however, I thought, looked
(13:17):
more like a human mouth. The lips were narrower, the
whole width of the mouth was narrower. The eyes were
again were more human like.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I thought.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
They were not sunken in. There was not a big
brow ridge, so, you know, as I said, overall, I
thought it was something between. The facial appearance was somewhere
between an ape and a human.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
If his nose looked more like that of a gorilla.
You're seeing that its nose wasn't hooded at all.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
No, exactly, it was flattened with the nostrils, you know,
kind of flaring.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Okay, I see what you're saying. And swimming. As much
as eyewitnesses report seeing them out there swimming, it sure
makes you wonder how they can do that effectively. They
seem to be really good at swimming. But if they
don't have hooded noses, that would really complicate things.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Well, you know, I've heard that, you know, but although
I haven't thought of it quite that way before, but
that that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
You've got me on that one.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Seems like they're so good at everything they do it's
almost not fair, I guess. So, yeah, i'd say, so,
you're pretty close to him, just yards away. Did you
ever smell anything strange?
Speaker 1 (14:35):
No, And I've thought in retrospect, I've thought about that
because so many people have reported smelling something and we
really did. Neither one of us really did. Because we
mentioned that, you know, and you know, it was quiet,
the wind wasn't blowing you. I would think if there
was some smell there, we would have gotten it, and
we didn't really get anything at all. So I can't
(14:55):
say that that there was any odor associated with it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Well too, it depends on which the wind was blowing.
But yeah, you were awfully clothes, that's a fact. Did
you ever give any indication that he might have been
thinking about ducking down behind the brush instead of running
away or moving away from you?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
You know, what I thought was it was this.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
It was as if we caught him completely off guard,
like he was standing up, he had happened to stand
up or you know, from where he had been down
at the water.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
This was my take on it. So this is just
subjective that he or she.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Had been standing or had been bending over, maybe even
into the water to drink or cool off or do whatever,
and he stood up or you know it partly stood up,
saw us standing or you know, sitting there floating out
in front of him, and all of a sudden he
realized we'd made him. You know, we we knew he
was there, He knew we that we knew he was there,
(15:52):
and so he then he kind of panicked, he or
she panicked and turned and ran just you know, fast
as it could. That was all my take on the
sort of the uh, you know, the process of the experience.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Sounds like he is probably almost embarrassed by you guys
catching them with his pants down.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Maybe maybe you know, like I said, it was so
hot that day and it was still hot. This was
probably you know, after seven at night by that time,
but it was still just miserably hot. So I see,
you know, a big primate, you know, hair covered. It
must be awful for something like that to keep hydrated
at that time of year. So I bet they were
down at the water. This has been just my thought
(16:33):
in retrospect, down at the water a lot, you know,
to try to cool off, and because he was so hot,
he was just distracted, you know, and just wasn't it
wasn't used to seeing people out there during the day
because nobody ever came out there during the day. It
was just us at night after the swimmers had gone,
So he wasn't used to seeing people out there at
that time and place. So we caught him off guard.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
And you must have been in a spot out there
in the water that a lot of people on fish from,
so he hadn't a reason to expect.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yet exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
There were fishermen occasionally out there, but the family owned
the lake so they could lock it in the off season,
so there weren't that many people there. The only people
there most of the time, particularly in the evenings were us,
my buddy and I, so that it was pretty rare
for people to be fishing out at that side of
(17:25):
the lake at that time. So yeah, he was probably
surprised that he wasn't alone for once.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Well, I'm sure he was. And if you were on
the other side of the lake from where most of
the action was, well, you're far enough away from other
people were when you're fishing there, you couldn't hear activity,
you couldn't hear people.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yes, we're pretty far away. And actually it's kind of
this is hard to describe this, like across the lake
and around the corner, so that you couldn't see where
the swimming area was either, so you had to go
around like the lake kind of curved. I don't know,
if you're familiar with the bow type lakes and the
lower Mississippi Delta, it's where the Mississippi River change is
(18:04):
coarse and leaves the lake behind. That's in the shape
of an ox bow, you know, or like a big u.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
That's what this was.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
So the fishing area was on one foot of the
the swimming area excuse me, was on one foot of
the U kind of, and then we were fishing over
on the other foot of the U, so we were,
you know, completely separated by both side and sound from
the regular swimming area.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yeah, that would be a perfect spot for a sasquatch
to go down to the edge of the water and
get a drinker, tried to cool itself off. So no
wonder he was there, I would think. So, yeah, it
makes perfect sense. Do you think that you caught him
by Surprisely you did because you were on the water
number one and number two, you were using that trolling.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Motor exactly because it's quiet. You know, you can barely
hear it from within the boat. And uh, you know,
if you're not expecting anybody out, you know, you wouldn't
figure humans to be out in the water, particularly and
at this remote location, you wouldn't figure anybody be out
there at all. So yeah, I think that's exactly what
(19:11):
it was. He just didn't anticipate it.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right about that. I'm sure
he didn't. Some of those trolling motors are better than others.
Some are louder than others. Some are just dead silent.
You just can't hear them at all. And yeah, you
guys must have had a pretty good one.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
To Yeah, it was pretty quiet. It was pretty quiet.
As I remember.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
We used to have to steal the car battery out
of my buddy's father's car and put in to power
the trolling motor, and he would get mad as because
we put the battery back and it I'll be run down.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Well that's a dirty trick. But no, I understand you
guys were just kids back then.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Oh yeah, you know you got to go fishing. You
got to go somehow, That's right.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
No, I've done worse than that. Did you two ever
go back to the lake after that day or did
you have avoid that area at all costs?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
No, we did, we did you know that.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Like I said, that was probably late June, so we
were working for the whole summer. So we were there
for another whatever it was six eight weeks, and we.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Lived out there. You know.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
We went back and forth in Memphis occasionally, but but
we've spent the nights out there routinely. So we were
there like every day basically, and we, like I said,
we never saw or heard anything else. We even went
around in the boat to that place again, you know,
and would troll up and down, you know, just looking around.
(20:36):
And by this time now we're looking at every spot
on every edge, you know, every of the water as
we're trolling around. But we never saw anything like it.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Again, Yeah, that's how it normally goes. You didn't have
an interest in Sasquatch back then, so I'm sure you
didn't look into it. But have ever tried looking into
other Sasquatch sidings that might have been reported in that
West Memphis area.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yes, In fact, I started that when I looked at
the BFRI website, and there are a handful members maybe
three four within fifty miles of there, so there's not
a lot. You know, there's way more sidings over in
the western part of Arkansas than in the eastern part
of Arkansas. There was maybe three or four, but they're
(21:20):
all sort of clustered right around the Mississippi River. So
there's like one I remember on the Hatchie River, which
is another river that empties into Mississippi on the north
side of Memphis, on the Tennessee side, less than fifty
miles away from there. There was one reported on what's
(21:40):
called President's Island, which is an island in the river
just below Memphis that is maybe ten miles from where
my siding was. And then there's been a sidning just
on the outskirts of West Memphis itself, and I think
at least the last time I looked at BFRO, those
were the only ones listed, so there haven't been many
sightings there, but you know, a handful, which makes me
(22:04):
wonder if, if probably that area is not routinely inhabited.
I guess, for lack of a better word, by them,
maybe it's just just just individuals passing through. You know,
maybe they're passing up and down the Mississippi River barrider,
which is pretty rugged in most places, and you could
easily hide in the swamps and the trees through most
(22:25):
of that area. So I would think, you know, that
area that the river could kind of act as a
passageway or a highway for them to you know, move
around unnoticed, because there's there's lots of covered or lots
of ground there that's fully covered by trees and swamps
and are relatively inaccessible to humans.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
During the daytime. It'd be a breeze for them to
remain undetected. But especially so at night. It'd be a
piece of cake for them.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh absolutely, you would have any trouble having something even
pretty large. I would think creature hiding out there. I
mean there have been bears reported out there occasionally. There
have been mountain lions reported on the Arkansas side for sure,
So there can could be large creature, large primates out there.
(23:16):
I don't think there's any doubt that the area would
support that.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Oh, definitely, it'd be a perfect place for them. That
whole area. It's so suitable. It's perfect for them, to
the point that it's amazing that you don't have sightings
inside the grocery stores there. I mean, it's just perfect.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
It sure seems like you know, but what is perfect
for the for that creature. We simply don't know enough
about it to say what what is the ideal sasquatch
or bigfoot, you know, habitat. We know where we see
or where they're reported, but we don't know enough about
the biology of them. I don't think to say this
is where they will really do the best. You know,
(23:56):
the places where we where they are reported, you always
have remember that's going to be the places where people
are too. I would think the best place for bigfoots
are any kind of you know, large creature like that,
would be in places that were so isolated that there
were very rarely people here to begin with. In others,
to have a sighting, you have to have two things.
You have to have the creature, plus you have to
(24:18):
have the person who cites it, so they both have
to be present in the same area. So it would
seem to me like the best area for the creature
to go on discovered it would be in places where
people don't.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Go ever, you know.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
And therefore I think the sightings we have that are
closer to civilization are just the you know, the exceptions
rather than the rule. I guess that's just when, like
I said, maybe a bigfoot's in transit, maybe he's off guard,
maybe it's sick, dying, who knows what, something like that.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Maybe that's the case, Maybe it's not. I've thought about
that quite a bit. In my opinion, it might be
the way that you're describing were they just seek out
the most remote areas they can possibly find. But on
the other hand, if they tend to come in close
to civilization, then they can take advantage of a lot
of resources like dumpsters that they can raid at nighttime
(25:13):
and grab pets unfortunately, and do other things I mean
hanging around farms and raid fields things like that. So
in my opinion, I could see it going either way.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Now, you're exactly right.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
We simply don't know what you know enough about the
biology of these things to know what they really do routinely.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Oh sure, yeah, there's so much we don't know about them.
It's not even funny. Being a cancer surgeon the way
you were, did you do all you could do to
try to keep your sighting under wraps before you retired
for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
You know, yes, but maybe not for the reason that
you would think at first yes, I would guess I
would say yes.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
In the first few years. Number One, you don't really
we did at the time. And I don't know how
old jr.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Vic.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
But at nineteen eighty when I was there, I was
twenty years old. Who would you even go to then?
There was no internet then to you know, to tell
somebody about that. They would have laughed. As for being
you know, drunk or stoned or something at that point,
so there was there was really not an alternative. I
mean acknowledging that you had seen Bigfoot was just not
(26:27):
something that occurred in polite society more or less, I guess,
so we just didn't really mention it.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
And then, like I said, we hit.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
My buddy and I both got occupied in other ways,
you know. I went directly from there to medical school,
got married at the same time, went from that to
residency to fellowships. I was in training for a long time,
and you're when you're in training in medicine at that
in that era particularly, it was very difficult, very demanding,
very time consuming. So I didn't have time to think
(26:58):
about anything else. I didn't want I want to think
about anything else. It was really not until I got
outer training into practice by like in the nineteen nineties,
that I started to even think about it again.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
And then with the rise of the Internet in.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
The late nineties two thousands, I guess that's when I
started to realize, you know, let me think, rethink that
all that.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I just kind of put it out of my head.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
I don't know if I was scared to tell it
from a professional standpoint, although I will admit now that
I'm probably a little more comfortable talking with somebody like
you now than I would have been ten years ago,
you know, when my colleagues might have heard it, you know,
on the air at the hospital, and so I'm kind
(27:44):
of glad of that. So I'm certainly to some degree. Yes,
I was probably a little reluctant to speak of it
while I was in the earliest years of my training,
but at the same time, it was partly just that
I had more things to do, you know, I just
didn't have time to think about bigfoot very much at
the time, and now I do, and it's been facilitated
(28:07):
by the Internet, and now I don't have to worry about.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Anybody saying me anything about me. So it just what
has worked out.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, it sounds like it has. And yeah, I think
that was the best course to take to not bring
it to light back then when you're still a physician
for the reasons that you laid out and more. I
definitely get it. And yeah, I agree. Yeah, back in
nineteen eighty coming forward with the sighting that you had,
that wasn't necessarily the best move because yeah, people didn't
(28:34):
respond to that sort of thing back then the way
they do now. So I get it. I do well, Rusty.
I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing
the details of that experience with this. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Listen, I appreciate that. Vic.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
You're very welcome, and I'm sorry I was so much
trouble getting this arranged.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Oh that's all right, life happens. Just glad to be
able to get you on here so you can put
that story out for the listeners. I really do appreciate it,
and of course if I can never help you out
in the future, please let me know.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Thank you so much. I will.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Oh, you're welcome, Thanks again so much, and have a
great night.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
That's it for another episode of Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio with
Vic Kundiff. If you've had a sasquatch encounter and would
like to be a guest on the show, please go
to Bigfoot eyewitness dot com and submit a report. We'd
love to hear from you. Thanks for listening, have a
great night.
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