September 12, 2025 • 48 mins
In the aftermath of the heartbreaking loss of Dr. Jeff Meldrum, we'd like to share this episode of our bonus show ("Beyond Bigfoot & Beyond"), originally recorded and released in March of 2023. Dr. Meldrum was a true pioneer in the field, and was a dear friend to Cliff and Bobo. He will be missed, and our hearts are with his friends and family.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Greetings everyone, it's map pro It here. Obviously, we're all
reeling and very heartbroken at the news of the loss
of doctor Jeff Meldrim, who was a huge influence on
all of us but a dear friend to both Cliff
and Bobo. Usually on Fridays we re release old episodes
that we call classics, but this morning I decided that
I think it would be better to release this bonus
episode that we recorded with Jeff Meldrim back in March
(00:28):
of twenty twenty three. So this was originally recorded then
after we recorded what was our two hundredth episode. This
was originally just for members of the podcast, but we
wanted to put it out here on the main feed.
I know that Cliff and Bobo will have a lot
to say about doctor Meldrim and his tremendous contributions to
the field at some point in the very near future,
(00:51):
but in the meantime, here's an interview that the main
listenership hasn't heard, and we hope that everyone enjoys This
discussion remembers Jeff and celebrates the many, many contributions that
he made to this field.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Okay, everybody, welcome to Beyond Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff
and Bobo, and we really appreciate your membership. Today we're
a continue our conversation with doctor Jeff Meldrim for our
two hundredth episode. Jeff, thank you so much for sticking
around for a membership section.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
We really appreciate it. Glad too, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
In the main episode, we're having great. I was enjoying
the conversation, so I'll call it and call it great,
A great conversation about various bits of anatomy and details
like that. There's a couple other bits I wanted to
ask you about, and then we want to talk a
little bit about research, modern and all that sort of
stuff and potential. But as far as anatomy goes, one
of the things I didn't get a chance to ask
(01:47):
you is about their eyes, because much has been made
about their eyes with eyeshine or eye reflectivity and all
sorts of stuff, and their night vision. But some people
Daryl Collier, for example, was on our show and he
mentions that from his observations, maybe not visual, but he's
had several his observations of sasquatches an area X, he's
(02:08):
starting to think that perhaps they don't see as well
at night as people give them credit for. Do you
have any thoughts on that or i reflectivity to pede
and lucidum or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Well, sure, if we just first establish an anatomical baseline.
So the rule sort of is that higher primates, monkeys
and apes do not have a reflecting membrane that to
pay them lucidum, and that was seen that the loss
(02:41):
of that seems to correspond to to the evolution of
the fhovia Centraali's the focal point where there's an area
of the retina that is relatively well much more sparsely vascularized,
so you don't have the interference of the basku that
(03:01):
you realize that our photoreceptive cells are at the back
of the retina. We have kind of a back ass
word design where the light has to come through several
layers of cells being diffracted by the nuclei and other
cell structures and as well as the vasculature. So we've
(03:24):
evolved this phobious centrallis an area and you may have
heard the macula macula that surrounds it. Macular degeneration is
a condition that plagues some people, but that area is
much more sparsely vascularized, and the overlying layers of cells
is thinned out, and the depression has therefore more surface
(03:48):
area and a greater concentration of cones, which are much
more sensitive to visual acuity. There's a much higher ratio
of innervation. Each nerve has fewer receptors, and so it's
much more specific in its response to discrete information, you know,
discrete photons and so forth. Anyway, so there's that, So
(04:11):
there's that distinction. The lower primates, the lemurs and lorises
and so forth, they have the reflecting membrane, and many
of them are dedicated nocturnal species. Now there's a couple
of interesting exceptions. There are a couple of monkey. There's
a monkey, a South American monkey, the darakuli, the owl monkey,
(04:35):
which has secondarily re evolved nocturnal behaviors. But in the
with the lack of a tapatom, what they have done
the strategy is to just greatly increase the absolute size
of the eye, so it's light gathering capacity relative to
the organism itself is greatly enhanced. I mean, I mean,
(04:58):
it's it's really an app salute quality. It's not dependent
on the size of the organism. The other example is
the tarsire, which is kind of this in between. It's
a very primitive, you could say, a very primitive monkey.
It kind of straddles the division between the lemurs and
(05:18):
lorises on the one hand and the monkeys on the
other hand. But in any case, it's similar to monkeys
in that it has lost it's to pay them as
well and has a phobia. But it is also nocturnal
and as a result, its eyes, because it's a small
little critter, you know, hamster size, its eyes have gotten enormous,
so big that one eye is bigger than its brain.
(05:40):
It's huge. They're huge to for that light gathering capacity.
So having said that, with that in mind, what do
we have. Oh one other anecdote, a behavioral anecdote, and
that is there was an effort to habituate chimpanzees in
(06:01):
Uganda to human interaction in order to try to exploit
some eco tourism industry and a researcher that you may know,
I don't know if you ever met Owen Caddy.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I did meet him very briefly. I can't say I
have a relationship with him, but I met him well.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Owen was over in Africa with the Peace Corps, and
then when his stint was done, he stayed on and
got a job as a park ranger in a Uganda
excuse me park and they were tasked with this job
of trying to habituate the chimps. The problem was the
(06:42):
chimps had been so traumatized by all the warfare that
was going on in the country that they had become
behaviorally nocturnal. That is, they would come out in the
twilight hours of the evening to forage and then you know,
they would then bed down in the middle of the
(07:03):
night and get up before dawn and forage. And but
during the daytime they stayed out of side. They stayed
in thickets or hidden way up in the canopy, and
so they had real trouble finding them. They were so elusive,
but they eventually did were able to interact with them.
And you know, my question was, well, were they stumbling
(07:26):
around in the dark, like did they have white canes?
And he said no, it was really quite amazing. They
were actually quite adept at getting around by starlight or
by moonlight. And you know, you think about it, we
get so used to all this light pollution. If you've
ever had the chance to be out in the outer
(07:46):
doors for a long period of time, your eyes and
your ability to see, do you know you accommodate. I
guess nothing is really enhanced. It's just you're powers of
navigation and interpretation of what you're experiencing. And you learn
how to see too. Because because of our focal point,
(08:10):
because of that phobia and the concentration of cones, that
means that that area is less sensitive to dim light,
to gray scale light. And so you'll notice this if
you go out in the dusk, say you're going out
in the parking lot to your car, and you drop
your keys. If you look straight for them, straight at them,
(08:34):
or where you think they are, you see this kind
of a wispy, kind of ghostly mist that sort of
obscures your vision at that point. If you look just
to the side of your keys, so that the image
of the keys falls more on your peripheral vision, where
there's a much higher proportion of rods, you can see it.
You can't see it quite as clearly as you would
(08:56):
in daytime, you know, on your focal point, but you
can see it. Try that experiment home and you'll be
really quite amazed.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
One of the things we used to teach newcomers on
finding Bigfoot, and we had the trump around on logging
roads all nights is a it's a technique called averted vision,
which is something I picked up from my amateur astronomy pursuits.
When you're looking at faint and nebu lee or galaxies
or anything like that, they don't contrast against the dark
background very well. So it sounds like a very zen
(09:23):
thing to say, is that if you want to if
you want to see it, don't look at.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
It right exactly. And it's a technique that you have
to a skilled you kind of have to develop a
little bit. It's because it's counterintuitive. It's not a natural
thing to do. But once you discover it, you you
can pick up on it anyway. So with all that
in mind, the plasticity of behavior in the chimp, which
(09:49):
is otherwise a diurnal you know, lacking the to pay them,
and the strategy exhibited by those very few species who
have secondarily gone back to knock internality by simply increasing
the absolute size of the eye. Now think about sasquatch,
So what what might be Maybe the capacity is much
(10:10):
greater and as far as sensitivity and into the infrared.
You know, I don't know of any studies that have
really engaged that. The questions have really never been asked
where that that kind of data has been collected for
great apes or monkeys, to be quite honest, to see
what kind of variation. We have a limited number of
(10:32):
species to draw from anyway, and you can't You've got
to avoid falling into the trap that chimps and gorillas
and rings represent all of apeedum. They don't, you know,
They're a narrow, narrow sample, you know, could be a
very skewed representation of the different strategies that other apes
(10:54):
have evolved. Anyway, But take size. If if that cranium
scales up to the size of a sasquatch, and the
eyes have scaled isometrically, in other words, they've kept the
same proportions, they've gotten really big. The eye of a
(11:15):
sasquatch would be like the size of a tennis ball,
and much like the increased size of the owl, monkey
or the tars here, it would have greater light gathering
capacity than would a human under the same circumstances.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, you know what I think of a tars here
as well, they're cute little guys. They are hanging in
the trees and stuff. But one of the things that
stands out is sure they have big eyes, but the
almost the entirety of their eye is taking up by
the iris, which which is just a muscle for opening
up the lens anyway, or focusing the lens and opening
up the aperture of the eye, rather.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Open up the aperture of the pupil. And that was
the next point I was going to make, is that
is that with that eyeball the size of a tennis
ball and then an iris or a pupil that can
open up remarkably largely. And many people you know, have
talked about sasquatch eyes being these dark, deep dark, you know,
(12:15):
almost alien eyes. And if you've looked at the tars here,
that isn't that isn't blinded by the photographer's flash at night.
Its eye, its pupil is enormous, like you said, it
nearly fills the whole visible portion of the of the eye.
And so so yeah, I think those combinations would allow
(12:37):
a sasquatch to and and clearly they're not strictly and
absolutely only nocturnal. I mean, when was Patty encountered, you know,
in the afternoon. So I think that there again there's
some behavioral plasticity as well, and it may be that
(12:58):
the nocturnality is as well. It could be one of
two things, at least avoiding interaction with humans, but also
partitioning the large omnivore niche with bears which have rather
maybe just to offset your activity profile. That is a
(13:21):
well documented strategy that other sympatric species species that occupy
the same region utilized in order to differentiate similar niches.
Is dividing up the activity profile, the daily activity profile
when you're out, so that you're not out at times
(13:44):
that you're going to be in direct competition with or
interaction with a competing species.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Hey, Jeff, have you heard about people talking about there
being the secondary eyelid that comes out from the side
like a reptile. And then also the person I heard
talking about said like astrolopithesene or some early hominid hominids
had that same feature.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Is that true?
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Well, I haven't. I haven't heard that, and there'd be
no way to infer that from the skeleton. We don't
even have a good There isn't a good correlation between
the bony orbit and the size of the eyeball across
species comparisons. You know, So some people have looked at
(14:29):
you look at a Neanderthal skull, and their orbits are
noticeably larger in proportion to their skull than are human orbits.
And some have said, well, that's because they must have
had bigger eyes and they were nocturnal predators, see they
evolve nocturnality. Well that's possible, but when you go and
look at a whole array of other species of primate,
(14:54):
great apes and monkeys, there isn't a real tight correlation
between those those two measures. So you're you know, you're
going out a limb. But as far as the third eyelid,
that nictitating membrane, you know, like your dog has, you
you know there, it's not present in primates. It's it's
very rudimentary in humans and great apes, it's just not
(15:20):
it doesn't slide across. We had a dog who was
just hated to have its fingers toenails clipped and so.
And he was big enough and strong enough. It was
hard to handle and you'd get scratch. He wouldn't bite
or any but he'd scratch and claw and and so
my my wife would slip him a happy pill sedatium
(15:41):
a little bit, and for like the next eight hours,
his his third eyelid would come over about half It's
like he lost control of it and it would come
over about halfway across his eye. It was the funniest
looking thing. The poor guy was so spaced out. But
as far as I know, primates don't have that quality,
that feature.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Have you heard anyone any witnesses describers. I've heard some
good witness descriptions up close studying as they said, they
definitely saw that.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
And did it? Did it go across like a windshield wiper?
I mean, is that did they notice it like that
or was it just.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
I guess when they blinked that that the what do
you call it, the nictitating nictitating membrane? Yeah, slid across, Yeah,
that would go That would be like almost all it
would be like halfway across whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Then the top one would come down.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Well, I could I could go back to literature and
look in my my familiarity with anatomy doesn't include any
description of that feature being present in I we'd have
no way to assess it from the fossil record obviously,
and it's certainly not present in humans, but it could look.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
If the nocturnal tendencies, because they're certainly not strictly nocturnal,
the tendencies of sasquash be nocturnal, have developed some sort
of a greater nocturnal vision in low light vision, and
it's it's based almost solely on just a different design
of the eye, like a larger eye, a larger perhaps
pupill area opening that sort of thing. Let alone, it
(17:14):
could change the shape I mean, I guess owls have
a different shape of their eye that like almost like
a cylinder, which somehow amplifies the light for them. But
if that those are the things going on, then this
red eyeshine that is often reported, could that be a
different a different expression of the same sort of thing
where you take a picture with the flash and you
know Grandma has red eyes at Christmas.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Right exactly so, so a very large pupil opened up
would and and if if there is you know, the
right perspective by the viewer, they might see that highly
vascularized retina, which in the absence of it to pay
(17:57):
them where there are you know, molecules that help to
reflect and depending on which what the molecular profile is,
there's a yellow eye shine or a blue eye shine
or a green eye shine. It just has to do
with whatever crystals, whatever molecules are in the tapayed them.
(18:17):
But in the absence of that, the pinki the phenomenon
you described that, you know, the photographer's bane of pink
eye that seems to particularly afflict those with lighter colored,
less pigmented irises. But also when the pupil is dilated,
there's more tendency for a pink eie effect. You know,
(18:37):
it doesn't really if the flash is fast enough and
short aperture time, exposure time, then sometimes the constriction of
the pupil doesn't eliminate it. Yeah, that would now people
who argue that they are self illuminating, that their eyes
(18:59):
glow in like in the daylight. I mean, first of all,
stop and think about it. It h if such a
phenomenon did occur, it would make no sense for it
to occur within the eyeball. If you if there was
tissue within the eyeball that could self illuminate, it would
(19:21):
just scramble any incoming visual signal. I mean, it'd be
like someone shine in a flashlight in your eye. Now,
So the only thing that would make sense is if
there was something in the say the iris, that was
illuminating in response to the light or something or I
(19:42):
can't imagine any mechanism or any selection pressure for uh
for for self illuminating irises. But then again, if if
our earlier discussion about extreme enlargement of the pupil is
true to the point that it feels the visible you know,
covers the visible the iris is pulled back completely, then
(20:04):
that does that explanation doesn't work very well because you
wouldn't you know, there wouldn't be much iris left there
to illuminate to give off light. So I'm my experience
has been and I hate to make generalizations, but drawing
upon my direct experience when people have shown me eyeshine,
(20:28):
I mean, we had one experience where the witness you know,
immediately pointed out eye shine, Oh there, look there it is,
that was it, and he claimed, you know, these eyes
were eight feet up in the air. Well, we went
and investigated, and there was a recent duff of snow
quarter inch of wet snow on the ground, and we
(20:50):
found that they weren't eight feet up in the air
because it was a slope that you couldn't see from
our vantage point that once you got there, the eyes were,
if anything, were on the lower branches of this tree.
And guess what was right underneath the tree? A set
of raccoon tracks, as clear as could be. And I go, okay, well,
let's just you know, evaluate this. We we've saw glowing
(21:13):
eyes that were very characteristic of a reflection from a
night vision to pay them, lucid them and it was
close to the ground, and there are raccoon tracks, but
no sasquad tracks. What do you think you saw? And man,
it was tough to get him to admit, oh, it
was probably just a raccoon. But that's been my experience
(21:37):
is that people overinterpret their what they see.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And belief is a real strong drug. Oh yeah, it
really is. Well, Belief confriended with evidence is a is
a paradigm shaking moment. A lot of people aren't very
uncomfortable with that, I think.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
Especially when you have a dose of ego mixed in
for levining.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Now, Bob, but you want to ask about some research
and whatnot, do you anything right off the cover. I
can take the lead on this one because I've got
a couple of things I'd like to ask.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, go go ahead, Well.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Okay, so Jeff, as far as current or future research
or even past research, what do you think is valuable?
And my own my own, my own position, of course
is people should enjoy the subjects in whatever way they
are most interested, if they want to take stories from people,
(22:26):
and and that's that's great, do that sort of stuff.
But but what do you think is going to push
the ball a little further down the field in the
absence of a type specimen?
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah, that's and that that ultimate question, that's really the
you know, the brass ring. That's the take home message.
And I think that the best well I've I've often
advocated that I think there's there's two lines of two
directions of research that will possibly push it forward, push
(22:59):
the question for and that is short of a type specimen,
a DNA voucher, there already is a DNA specimen, a
voucher specimen of DNA that can be replicated and sequenced
and identified as an unknown And see, that's that's part
of the problem, right.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
There is that in gen Bank.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Well, that's just it. We don't have any known specimen
of sasquatch DNA in a gen bank, and so most
identifications occur by taking the the sample in question and
comparing the sequence to those that have been cataloged in
the gen bank. So it's kind of like with identifying hair.
(23:39):
You know, hair is typically identified by comparing an unknown
to a known specimen, a catalog specimen. And without a
known sasquatch hair, all we can conclude is that that
this hair has primate like characteristics.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
There's a fully sequence genail that's on.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
No, I say, if there was, if there so, so yeah,
well I'm saying, I'm saying the best you could hope
for is if you had a sample that indeed was
with sasquatch. Is that your investigator, your analyst would say, well,
this is unknown. It matches nothing in gene bank, gen
bank or gen bank, and so and just like with hair,
(24:23):
we can say, well, this hair doesn't match any known wildlife.
It's an unknown. So but but these all these unknowns
are remarkably consistent and uh and you know, attest to
originating from some some consistent species, you know. And so
(24:44):
same with the DNA. If if we got multiple samples
that were identical to one another, and could not be
matched to any known sample, then that would potentially represent
an unknown species. And then what you do is you
go in and compare it to the gnomes and you
(25:05):
and there are techniques that allow you to determine what
its nearest neighbors are, which group does it cluster with,
based on derived traits derived sequences, and then you know,
you could say, well this this most closely matches or
clusters with a clade of great apes, or it is
(25:28):
most similar to human to the exclusion of all other apes.
So therefore it's related to humans somehow, like a hominid
like paranthropists. If it was that the paranthrapist model were
to hold up, we would assume that there are some
derived traits that would separate it from all other apes.
(25:48):
So that's that's the But see, that's going to require
if we're talking about a creature that is potentially identical
to humans down to a difference of a half of
one percent, then you've got to do a pretty complete
sequence in order to find those scattered markers that only
(26:11):
account for you know, zero point five percent of the
gene sequence. Most studies that are tests rather not studies,
but most tests that are conducted on an unknown sample,
or you know, a real pretty quick and dirty look
at one or maybe two spots in the mitochondrial gene
(26:36):
genome rather collection of genes. And if that, if they're
even doing complete plow sie, you know, if they do
more than a say, a thousand base pairs, you're you're
probably paying lots and lots of money to have that done.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
Do you have a do you have a in your
back pocket or hidden away? Do you have a sample
that you're holding onto that you think is most like
you're really confident would be you know, it could show
a sasquatch genome.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
No, I don't. I don't honestly. I mean, because we
what what things we have had in the past. You know,
we've we've submitted for testing, and and that kind of
testing usually consumes the sample. So no, I don't, uh,
I mean there are and and the problem with you know,
(27:26):
the most common samples are hair, and hair is notoriously
challenging to get DNA from because of this distinctive characteristic
of a cellular medula, you know. And I used to
say this is interesting because I used to say, well,
that's not you know, some mysterious feature that's not uh
(27:49):
that that that's that's a known characteristic of some types
of hair. But as I as I started digging a
little more and looking through the catalogs, one, there are
really aren't any species out there in polar bear supposedly
has hollow hair with an a cellular medulla, you know,
for insulated qualities. But there aren't really many, if any
(28:10):
other species. So it is a very distinctive characteristic. There
aren't many other species that have that characteristic. It is
a very distinct characteristic of sasquatch. That is remarkably consistent.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Now, isn't it true that red headed humans have a
similar structure.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yes, yes, red red or very blonde, very light, lightly
pigmented individuals often have a cellular or or at least
in what they call discontinuous medulla.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Now would there be a connection there since one of
the other possible traits of sasquatch hair is it shines
red when backlit. Is there? Do you think there's a
connection there any in any way?
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Well, not necessarily, because I from my experience and reading,
it hasn't been particularly redheads so much as it is
very pale blonde toe heads where there's a lack of
pigment in the hair. With red heads there is the
(29:15):
presence of the fail milan and the reddish pigment which
is present in the sasquatch hair as well. They have
eumulanin and fail milanin. The yumilanin is the dark pigment,
fail milan is the reddish. And so you get as
you it's kind of like you've got these two rheostats,
you know you can alter, so you get an individual
(29:38):
that has very little of either. And these are the
quote white Sasquatch, you know, the rare white Sasquatch. And
then you go on up and you get the beige
or buckskin and the reddish reddish brown, dark brown black,
almost mahogany where there still is a little bit of
red highlight in there. Interesting is across that entire color spectrum,
(30:04):
chromatic spectrum, they all have an a cellular medulla, and
so that's what's different than human, whereas it's usually just
the very light pale hairs that occasionally have an a
cellular medulla. Even there it's not consistent oner sent but
across Sasquatch and I hope we're not cherry picking imposing.
(30:28):
I don't think we are because in other words, only
attributing those with an a cellular medulla to be a sasquatch,
you know, we subliminally or unconsciously accept that as a
distinguishing characteristic, and so anything that does have a medulla
couldn't be a sasquatch because there are other features. I mean,
the hair are approximately sixty five microns across, they have
(30:52):
parallel sides, they have a blunt tip where there's no taper.
I mean, the the only other species that has those
characteristics is human. So that's why we end up with
this notion that there and this is why I think
(31:13):
Henna Fahrenbach was a little reluctant to make a more
take a more conclusive position, was that there's always that
chance that you have something that is just a misidentified human.
And he was hoping that the DNA would would you know,
be the final arbiter for that.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
What's happened with DNA costs since it's been on last
It's been about a couple of years since we had
you on what how much does it come down to?
Speaker 6 (31:40):
Know?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
It's always dropping in price?
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Well, I I don't have a real good sense of that.
I mean, my, my, you know, discussions recently with the
idea of maybe undertaking an environmental DNA study, it was
to do it thoroughly and extensively was extremely expensive. I
(32:02):
mean we're talking about a project, a multi year project
that would be several many hundreds of thousands of dollars
to undertake, and I mean I'm sure that we could
trim that budget somewhat. Some of that was the ambition
to include postdocs and graduate students in order to do
(32:25):
the legwork.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Wouldn't if they if they found something real promising, like well,
this is this is a unique strand here, would they
would they just want to do it for free at
that point, just for the scientific glory.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Well, if you if you had something that was compelling enough.
But even getting that first initial undertaking, I mean I
was shot in the well. I surveyed. I contacted rather
a number of labs, you know, by calling through the
literature and finding laboratories at at universities where they were
(32:59):
doing molecular studies on grade apes and publishing regularly. And
you know, I figured they would have the expertise, they
would probably have the manpower, the post docs and so forth,
because they're an active molecular lab. And unfortunately, because of that,
they were adamant that they couldn't do even if they
(33:21):
were interested, and they you know, I didn't get a
uniform formally positive reception, but even the ones that were interested.
It's such a dog eat dog funding environment out there.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
You know.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
The latest figures I've heard for National Science Foundation were
ten percent or less of the submitted proposals were funded
and so, and that's sometimes that's on the first round,
you know, blah blah blah, but people argue, but still
it doesn't go out very high, very very much further
than that. And so with that level of competition, the
(34:00):
labs are under extreme pressure to produce and and not
do anything that would jeopardize you know, that some reviewer
could could hoist as a red flag for a grant
renewal or a proposal. So that was the reception I got.
(34:22):
So that's that's the problem. You know, it's the funding,
and it's also the willingness of the unless you just
go to a commercial lab and you contract it, but
then the costs are inordinately higher than if you went
through an academic institution with.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
That hit like a million dollars, you think.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
Oh, I don't know if we'd go if it got
that high for for you know, straightforward test. It's just
I really think that we're going to have to do
an extensive nuclear genome in order to find those few
markers that distinguish and convincingly.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I'm you know, I mean, I'm fairly active in the
field and whatnot. I know that I have my own
biases that tend me towards finding footprints and trying to
predicts where these things are going and what they're doing
and whatnot. But you know, the vast major ninety nine
percent of our audience probably are just amateurs who are interested.
(35:21):
Where do you think those research efforts should go? Because
even after the academic exception, acceptance of the sasquatch is
a real deal. You know, everybody knows they're real animals,
there's still going to be a role for amateurs at
some point because you know, academics are teaching, they're doing
their own research things. But so the chance encounters, which
(35:42):
is what tends to happen with sasquatches, are still going
to be happening. What can amateurs do to not only
move the ball down the field, but also to not
bruise ourselves because you know, and Darren Darren Nache visited
my home and I shared a bunch of footprint casts
with them, and he told me that there's a lot
of academics out there who are closely watching what happens.
(36:06):
And that just made me shuddered thinking about these ten Yeah,
that's like the representatives who get the media attention. It
just that just scared me in a way. And so
what could we be doing as amateurs to help.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Right, Well, one is continually to educate yourself, you know
that this was one of the goals of the Field
Guide was to kind of provide a little leg up
in that direction, but to uh cultivate and practice you know,
the most objective and systematic forms of data collection and
(36:46):
documentation and reporting, and not to just advocate. I mean,
I think we collect actively shoot ourselves in the foot
when over eager individuals, you know, for want of another
(37:10):
click post and repost things that are obviously or have
been repeatedly debunked, and that that just creates so much
distraction and interference that it's it makes it that I'm
sure a lot of things slip between the cracks because
(37:32):
you know, they're just they're tainted by association kind of
or lost in the in the fog. So when it
comes to footprints, you know, just basic things like scale,
like cultivating good habits of the techniques of photography UH
and documentation it and and doing the the contextual leg
(37:58):
work establishing the scene. I mean, if you're if you
if there's six inches of snow on the ground, wet snow,
and you find absolutely what appear to be Chris Christine footprints,
you should be able to track that creature for considerable distance.
And if all you present is an abbreviated YouTube video
(38:18):
that shows one or two or three footprints with yours
trumped all over the place to make the scene almost unintelligible,
you've done really a disservice, or you've I should say
you've you've you've not risen to the to the mark
and uh and you've you've missed the opportunity to perhaps
document a very compelling case with a large data set
(38:44):
from which things like gate parameters and associated behavior food scat.
You know, you find a place where they've urinated, you know,
and scoop it up in a pint jar or something
things like that. But so that's that's one thing. And
then also, obviously one of the other big areas are
(39:08):
all these quote blob squatches instead of just throwing out
every shadow, every this or that. If you think, and
especially if they are items that a photograph that you've
taken associated with a first hand experience of your own,
(39:29):
you know, reinforced by that experience. You look at that
image and it reinforces or you can be confident in
what it portrays. But someone who doesn't have the benefit
of that firsthand experience, it must rely on your ability
to make a compelling case for this questionable image.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
So you're saying, but you just said, Dirk, like soil
that or a sasquatch, you're in it.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
That's useful these days?
Speaker 4 (39:57):
It could be yeah, if you if you respond quickly enough,
if we got that sample into ethanol or some other
way to stabilize the proteins and possible DNA you know
that could be extracted from that from from slough cells
or whatnot. I mean, it's a biological fluid, so there
(40:20):
there are things that could be done with it, presumably,
but it's it's a narrow window. But a lot of
it is just to up the ante up the game
so that the evidence is more compelling, that it has
much greater contextual establishment. You know, the comparison shots with
(40:43):
you know, someone standing in the same spot, the picture
taken from the same place, I mean goes that speaks volumes.
Not all sasquatch are going to be extra humanly large.
But if if what your portray train is that narrows
down the or strengthens the likelihood of it being something
(41:07):
rather than just a you know, a figure in the
distance or a fisherman or this that or the other.
So I guess that I don't know. That's not a
real satisfy. It's kind of a clumsy answer, But in short,
it's just up the game and be much more methodical
in your in your data collection instead of instead of
peeking through the not hole, you know, offering the notthle
(41:30):
to art to your viewer to watch the game, knock
down the whole section of the fans so we can
really see what's going.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
On, and then of course behave in an appropriate and
sober manner as far as presentation goes.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Well, sure, I know it's hard to take a YouTube
video seriously when it's been then set to some weird music.
You know, or we Spooky Spook Galley, you know theme song.
It's I mean, why would you do that if you're
serious and this is a legitimate I mean I've I've
(42:11):
conditioned myself my thinking to where I realized that in
this day and age. I mean at one time I
would say, well, if someone was serious, they would never
post it on YouTube, they would look up an expert,
they would take it to a university here. And now
I realize, no, that people wouldn't do that, right, that's
(42:32):
the way people think today. But it doesn't surprise me
that people do that. So I've got to I ward
off the tendency to just dismiss something that's been posted
on YouTube, because that's the way people communicate today. That's
the public bulletin board, you know, the town hall bulletin board,
so town square bulletin board.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I mean, well, then that brings up and probably maybe
the final point before we let you go. I think
if someone does get good compelling footage, or even mediocre
pretty compelling footage, what should one do with it as
far as the release goes?
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Yeah, Well, that's you know, and I can understand when
people are concerned about you know, some proprietary claim to
it and I and there are ways, I mean, I'm
personally not familiar with them, but with all the copyright
laws that exist, you.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Don't need to. No, No, you don't need to because
I know a little bit about that from being a musician.
If you hold, if you hold the camera, it is yours.
You don't need to file papers. You don't need to
do anything. And did you catch that news item where
there was a sort of baboon or monkey that accidentally
took a selfie and and that went to court because
the person who owns the person who took the picture
(43:43):
owns it. And there can a monkey own a picture?
Speaker 4 (43:49):
How funny?
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah, So if you if you photograph, if you if
you film a sasquatch, it is yours. You don't actually
have to file papers. You can, but you don't have to.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Well with that reassurance, then I think that if a
person is serious, there are individuals like the three of us,
or there are others out there are who have established
a reputation of serious investigation and who are very experienced
and have dealt with a lot of different forms of
(44:18):
evidence and examples of photographic evidence that you would want
to seek out their advice and their reaction. I mean,
it's just like with the footprints, you know, I have
a constant stream. I mean, every day at least there's
an example of a footprint that comes across my computer screen.
(44:38):
And you know, the vast majority of them are readily
attributable to other interpretations or other identifications. But there are
every once in a while ones that I mean, there
are those that are so ambiguous you just can't say
one way or the other. I mean that people are hopeful,
but every once in a while those there are some
(44:58):
that are really quite intriguing, and and then hopefully the
investigator has had the where with, you know, the presence
of mind to do their own little investigation, shoot as
many pictures as they can. You know, in this digital age,
what's what's stopping you from taking dozens and dozens of
(45:19):
pictures and and walking a little further for and aft
of the find to see if there's any other sign,
you know, further along that would would further substantiate.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Well, there you go, Jeff, thank you so much for
joining us again for beyond Well, actually there's the first
thing you've been on. Beyond big thing and beyond our
membership thing. We really appreciate your extra time and and
just the wealth of knowledge that you bring to the subject.
And I would really really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah, thank you, Jeff.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
It's always a learning experience for me too to think
through some of these things and hear your your questions
and comments and insights. I appreciate it as well. It's
got up to doing for me.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Well, I thought it'd be fun to angle this one
really heavily towards anatomy, since that is your specialty, and
it's such an interesting aspect. And if it's so everything
is so congruent. I guess I keep using the word
congruent because that's just the way I see it. You
know that these things, yeah, that they share some anatomy
and characteristics with chimpanzees and humans and gorillas and and
(46:17):
whatever's going on here. Like I say it often on
stage where people can crucify me. Yeah, whatever these things are,
they evolved here. They have so much in common with
everything else that we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Why would we go.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
Outside the box in that sort of way, And it's it's.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
Really neat to do that. Yeah, it's always interesting to
kind of rain the audience back in Have you been
present when I've shown the various slides that have Like
there's one where there's a very comely female in a
bikini walking and I've got walking away from the camera,
(46:53):
and I've got the partying kind of the shot of
angled shot of Patty, and one on a vanbam. I mean,
you know, you do something like that and people chuckle.
But if they'll stop and think, I mean, it's so obvious,
they become fixated on something like, well, the big toe
isn't divergent, so it's not an ape, and they know
to ignore everything else about it. It looks like an
(47:14):
eight one thing tips the scale, you know, So a
picture like that, while it's a little tongue in cheek,
it's really meant to give you pause and consider what
is it that you're focused on?
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Right, Yeah, whatever this thing is, it makes sense in
context and that that's really striking to me at least.
So yeah, all right, Bobs, you want to get us
out of here?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
All right, folks, thank you.
Speaker 5 (47:38):
The Jeff Belgium, the doctor Jeff Belgium from Idaho State University,
and he's got a cool website you got to check
out at the relicommoned inquiry at RhI At, Well, it's
RhI at is U dot E d U, the State University.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
That's awesome.
Speaker 5 (47:56):
So until next time, folks, keep it beyond squatchy
Greetings everyone, it's map pro It here. Obviously, we're all
reeling and very heartbroken at the news of the loss
of doctor Jeff Meldrim, who was a huge influence on
all of us but a dear friend to both Cliff
and Bobo. Usually on Fridays we re release old episodes
that we call classics, but this morning I decided that
I think it would be better to release this bonus
episode that we recorded with Jeff Meldrim back in March
(00:28):
of twenty twenty three. So this was originally recorded then
after we recorded what was our two hundredth episode. This
was originally just for members of the podcast, but we
wanted to put it out here on the main feed.
I know that Cliff and Bobo will have a lot
to say about doctor Meldrim and his tremendous contributions to
the field at some point in the very near future,
(00:51):
but in the meantime, here's an interview that the main
listenership hasn't heard, and we hope that everyone enjoys This
discussion remembers Jeff and celebrates the many, many contributions that
he made to this field.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Okay, everybody, welcome to Beyond Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff
and Bobo, and we really appreciate your membership. Today we're
a continue our conversation with doctor Jeff Meldrim for our
two hundredth episode. Jeff, thank you so much for sticking
around for a membership section.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
We really appreciate it. Glad too, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
In the main episode, we're having great. I was enjoying
the conversation, so I'll call it and call it great,
A great conversation about various bits of anatomy and details
like that. There's a couple other bits I wanted to
ask you about, and then we want to talk a
little bit about research, modern and all that sort of
stuff and potential. But as far as anatomy goes, one
of the things I didn't get a chance to ask
(01:47):
you is about their eyes, because much has been made
about their eyes with eyeshine or eye reflectivity and all
sorts of stuff, and their night vision. But some people
Daryl Collier, for example, was on our show and he
mentions that from his observations, maybe not visual, but he's
had several his observations of sasquatches an area X, he's
(02:08):
starting to think that perhaps they don't see as well
at night as people give them credit for. Do you
have any thoughts on that or i reflectivity to pede
and lucidum or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Well, sure, if we just first establish an anatomical baseline.
So the rule sort of is that higher primates, monkeys
and apes do not have a reflecting membrane that to
pay them lucidum, and that was seen that the loss
(02:41):
of that seems to correspond to to the evolution of
the fhovia Centraali's the focal point where there's an area
of the retina that is relatively well much more sparsely vascularized,
so you don't have the interference of the basku that
(03:01):
you realize that our photoreceptive cells are at the back
of the retina. We have kind of a back ass
word design where the light has to come through several
layers of cells being diffracted by the nuclei and other
cell structures and as well as the vasculature. So we've
(03:24):
evolved this phobious centrallis an area and you may have
heard the macula macula that surrounds it. Macular degeneration is
a condition that plagues some people, but that area is
much more sparsely vascularized, and the overlying layers of cells
is thinned out, and the depression has therefore more surface
(03:48):
area and a greater concentration of cones, which are much
more sensitive to visual acuity. There's a much higher ratio
of innervation. Each nerve has fewer receptors, and so it's
much more specific in its response to discrete information, you know,
discrete photons and so forth. Anyway, so there's that, So
(04:11):
there's that distinction. The lower primates, the lemurs and lorises
and so forth, they have the reflecting membrane, and many
of them are dedicated nocturnal species. Now there's a couple
of interesting exceptions. There are a couple of monkey. There's
a monkey, a South American monkey, the darakuli, the owl monkey,
(04:35):
which has secondarily re evolved nocturnal behaviors. But in the
with the lack of a tapatom, what they have done
the strategy is to just greatly increase the absolute size
of the eye, so it's light gathering capacity relative to
the organism itself is greatly enhanced. I mean, I mean,
(04:58):
it's it's really an app salute quality. It's not dependent
on the size of the organism. The other example is
the tarsire, which is kind of this in between. It's
a very primitive, you could say, a very primitive monkey.
It kind of straddles the division between the lemurs and
(05:18):
lorises on the one hand and the monkeys on the
other hand. But in any case, it's similar to monkeys
in that it has lost it's to pay them as
well and has a phobia. But it is also nocturnal
and as a result, its eyes, because it's a small
little critter, you know, hamster size, its eyes have gotten enormous,
so big that one eye is bigger than its brain.
(05:40):
It's huge. They're huge to for that light gathering capacity.
So having said that, with that in mind, what do
we have. Oh one other anecdote, a behavioral anecdote, and
that is there was an effort to habituate chimpanzees in
(06:01):
Uganda to human interaction in order to try to exploit
some eco tourism industry and a researcher that you may know,
I don't know if you ever met Owen Caddy.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I did meet him very briefly. I can't say I
have a relationship with him, but I met him well.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Owen was over in Africa with the Peace Corps, and
then when his stint was done, he stayed on and
got a job as a park ranger in a Uganda
excuse me park and they were tasked with this job
of trying to habituate the chimps. The problem was the
(06:42):
chimps had been so traumatized by all the warfare that
was going on in the country that they had become
behaviorally nocturnal. That is, they would come out in the
twilight hours of the evening to forage and then you know,
they would then bed down in the middle of the
(07:03):
night and get up before dawn and forage. And but
during the daytime they stayed out of side. They stayed
in thickets or hidden way up in the canopy, and
so they had real trouble finding them. They were so elusive,
but they eventually did were able to interact with them.
And you know, my question was, well, were they stumbling
(07:26):
around in the dark, like did they have white canes?
And he said no, it was really quite amazing. They
were actually quite adept at getting around by starlight or
by moonlight. And you know, you think about it, we
get so used to all this light pollution. If you've
ever had the chance to be out in the outer
(07:46):
doors for a long period of time, your eyes and
your ability to see, do you know you accommodate. I
guess nothing is really enhanced. It's just you're powers of
navigation and interpretation of what you're experiencing. And you learn
how to see too. Because because of our focal point,
(08:10):
because of that phobia and the concentration of cones, that
means that that area is less sensitive to dim light,
to gray scale light. And so you'll notice this if
you go out in the dusk, say you're going out
in the parking lot to your car, and you drop
your keys. If you look straight for them, straight at them,
(08:34):
or where you think they are, you see this kind
of a wispy, kind of ghostly mist that sort of
obscures your vision at that point. If you look just
to the side of your keys, so that the image
of the keys falls more on your peripheral vision, where
there's a much higher proportion of rods, you can see it.
You can't see it quite as clearly as you would
(08:56):
in daytime, you know, on your focal point, but you
can see it. Try that experiment home and you'll be
really quite amazed.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
One of the things we used to teach newcomers on
finding Bigfoot, and we had the trump around on logging
roads all nights is a it's a technique called averted vision,
which is something I picked up from my amateur astronomy pursuits.
When you're looking at faint and nebu lee or galaxies
or anything like that, they don't contrast against the dark
background very well. So it sounds like a very zen
(09:23):
thing to say, is that if you want to if
you want to see it, don't look at.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
It right exactly. And it's a technique that you have
to a skilled you kind of have to develop a
little bit. It's because it's counterintuitive. It's not a natural
thing to do. But once you discover it, you you
can pick up on it anyway. So with all that
in mind, the plasticity of behavior in the chimp, which
(09:49):
is otherwise a diurnal you know, lacking the to pay them,
and the strategy exhibited by those very few species who
have secondarily gone back to knock internality by simply increasing
the absolute size of the eye. Now think about sasquatch,
So what what might be Maybe the capacity is much
(10:10):
greater and as far as sensitivity and into the infrared.
You know, I don't know of any studies that have
really engaged that. The questions have really never been asked
where that that kind of data has been collected for
great apes or monkeys, to be quite honest, to see
what kind of variation. We have a limited number of
(10:32):
species to draw from anyway, and you can't You've got
to avoid falling into the trap that chimps and gorillas
and rings represent all of apeedum. They don't, you know,
They're a narrow, narrow sample, you know, could be a
very skewed representation of the different strategies that other apes
(10:54):
have evolved. Anyway, But take size. If if that cranium
scales up to the size of a sasquatch, and the
eyes have scaled isometrically, in other words, they've kept the
same proportions, they've gotten really big. The eye of a
(11:15):
sasquatch would be like the size of a tennis ball,
and much like the increased size of the owl, monkey
or the tars here, it would have greater light gathering
capacity than would a human under the same circumstances.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, you know what I think of a tars here
as well, they're cute little guys. They are hanging in
the trees and stuff. But one of the things that
stands out is sure they have big eyes, but the
almost the entirety of their eye is taking up by
the iris, which which is just a muscle for opening
up the lens anyway, or focusing the lens and opening
up the aperture of the eye, rather.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Open up the aperture of the pupil. And that was
the next point I was going to make, is that
is that with that eyeball the size of a tennis
ball and then an iris or a pupil that can
open up remarkably largely. And many people you know, have
talked about sasquatch eyes being these dark, deep dark, you know,
(12:15):
almost alien eyes. And if you've looked at the tars here,
that isn't that isn't blinded by the photographer's flash at night.
Its eye, its pupil is enormous, like you said, it
nearly fills the whole visible portion of the of the eye.
And so so yeah, I think those combinations would allow
(12:37):
a sasquatch to and and clearly they're not strictly and
absolutely only nocturnal. I mean, when was Patty encountered, you know,
in the afternoon. So I think that there again there's
some behavioral plasticity as well, and it may be that
(12:58):
the nocturnality is as well. It could be one of
two things, at least avoiding interaction with humans, but also
partitioning the large omnivore niche with bears which have rather
maybe just to offset your activity profile. That is a
(13:21):
well documented strategy that other sympatric species species that occupy
the same region utilized in order to differentiate similar niches.
Is dividing up the activity profile, the daily activity profile
when you're out, so that you're not out at times
(13:44):
that you're going to be in direct competition with or
interaction with a competing species.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Hey, Jeff, have you heard about people talking about there
being the secondary eyelid that comes out from the side
like a reptile. And then also the person I heard
talking about said like astrolopithesene or some early hominid hominids
had that same feature.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Is that true?
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Well, I haven't. I haven't heard that, and there'd be
no way to infer that from the skeleton. We don't
even have a good There isn't a good correlation between
the bony orbit and the size of the eyeball across
species comparisons. You know, So some people have looked at
(14:29):
you look at a Neanderthal skull, and their orbits are
noticeably larger in proportion to their skull than are human orbits.
And some have said, well, that's because they must have
had bigger eyes and they were nocturnal predators, see they
evolve nocturnality. Well that's possible, but when you go and
look at a whole array of other species of primate,
(14:54):
great apes and monkeys, there isn't a real tight correlation
between those those two measures. So you're you know, you're
going out a limb. But as far as the third eyelid,
that nictitating membrane, you know, like your dog has, you
you know there, it's not present in primates. It's it's
very rudimentary in humans and great apes, it's just not
(15:20):
it doesn't slide across. We had a dog who was
just hated to have its fingers toenails clipped and so.
And he was big enough and strong enough. It was
hard to handle and you'd get scratch. He wouldn't bite
or any but he'd scratch and claw and and so
my my wife would slip him a happy pill sedatium
(15:41):
a little bit, and for like the next eight hours,
his his third eyelid would come over about half It's
like he lost control of it and it would come
over about halfway across his eye. It was the funniest
looking thing. The poor guy was so spaced out. But
as far as I know, primates don't have that quality,
that feature.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Have you heard anyone any witnesses describers. I've heard some
good witness descriptions up close studying as they said, they
definitely saw that.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
And did it? Did it go across like a windshield wiper?
I mean, is that did they notice it like that
or was it just.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
I guess when they blinked that that the what do
you call it, the nictitating nictitating membrane? Yeah, slid across, Yeah,
that would go That would be like almost all it
would be like halfway across whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Then the top one would come down.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Well, I could I could go back to literature and
look in my my familiarity with anatomy doesn't include any
description of that feature being present in I we'd have
no way to assess it from the fossil record obviously,
and it's certainly not present in humans, but it could look.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
If the nocturnal tendencies, because they're certainly not strictly nocturnal,
the tendencies of sasquash be nocturnal, have developed some sort
of a greater nocturnal vision in low light vision, and
it's it's based almost solely on just a different design
of the eye, like a larger eye, a larger perhaps
pupill area opening that sort of thing. Let alone, it
(17:14):
could change the shape I mean, I guess owls have
a different shape of their eye that like almost like
a cylinder, which somehow amplifies the light for them. But
if that those are the things going on, then this
red eyeshine that is often reported, could that be a
different a different expression of the same sort of thing
where you take a picture with the flash and you
know Grandma has red eyes at Christmas.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Right exactly so, so a very large pupil opened up
would and and if if there is you know, the
right perspective by the viewer, they might see that highly
vascularized retina, which in the absence of it to pay
(17:57):
them where there are you know, molecules that help to
reflect and depending on which what the molecular profile is,
there's a yellow eye shine or a blue eye shine
or a green eye shine. It just has to do
with whatever crystals, whatever molecules are in the tapayed them.
(18:17):
But in the absence of that, the pinki the phenomenon
you described that, you know, the photographer's bane of pink
eye that seems to particularly afflict those with lighter colored,
less pigmented irises. But also when the pupil is dilated,
there's more tendency for a pink eie effect. You know,
(18:37):
it doesn't really if the flash is fast enough and
short aperture time, exposure time, then sometimes the constriction of
the pupil doesn't eliminate it. Yeah, that would now people
who argue that they are self illuminating, that their eyes
(18:59):
glow in like in the daylight. I mean, first of all,
stop and think about it. It h if such a
phenomenon did occur, it would make no sense for it
to occur within the eyeball. If you if there was
tissue within the eyeball that could self illuminate, it would
(19:21):
just scramble any incoming visual signal. I mean, it'd be
like someone shine in a flashlight in your eye. Now,
So the only thing that would make sense is if
there was something in the say the iris, that was
illuminating in response to the light or something or I
(19:42):
can't imagine any mechanism or any selection pressure for uh
for for self illuminating irises. But then again, if if
our earlier discussion about extreme enlargement of the pupil is
true to the point that it feels the visible you know,
covers the visible the iris is pulled back completely, then
(20:04):
that does that explanation doesn't work very well because you
wouldn't you know, there wouldn't be much iris left there
to illuminate to give off light. So I'm my experience
has been and I hate to make generalizations, but drawing
upon my direct experience when people have shown me eyeshine,
(20:28):
I mean, we had one experience where the witness you know,
immediately pointed out eye shine, Oh there, look there it is,
that was it, and he claimed, you know, these eyes
were eight feet up in the air. Well, we went
and investigated, and there was a recent duff of snow
quarter inch of wet snow on the ground, and we
(20:50):
found that they weren't eight feet up in the air
because it was a slope that you couldn't see from
our vantage point that once you got there, the eyes were,
if anything, were on the lower branches of this tree.
And guess what was right underneath the tree? A set
of raccoon tracks, as clear as could be. And I go, okay, well,
let's just you know, evaluate this. We we've saw glowing
(21:13):
eyes that were very characteristic of a reflection from a
night vision to pay them, lucid them and it was
close to the ground, and there are raccoon tracks, but
no sasquad tracks. What do you think you saw? And man,
it was tough to get him to admit, oh, it
was probably just a raccoon. But that's been my experience
(21:37):
is that people overinterpret their what they see.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And belief is a real strong drug. Oh yeah, it
really is. Well, Belief confriended with evidence is a is
a paradigm shaking moment. A lot of people aren't very
uncomfortable with that, I think.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
Especially when you have a dose of ego mixed in
for levining.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Now, Bob, but you want to ask about some research
and whatnot, do you anything right off the cover. I
can take the lead on this one because I've got
a couple of things I'd like to ask.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, go go ahead, Well.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Okay, so Jeff, as far as current or future research
or even past research, what do you think is valuable?
And my own my own, my own position, of course
is people should enjoy the subjects in whatever way they
are most interested, if they want to take stories from people,
(22:26):
and and that's that's great, do that sort of stuff.
But but what do you think is going to push
the ball a little further down the field in the
absence of a type specimen?
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah, that's and that that ultimate question, that's really the
you know, the brass ring. That's the take home message.
And I think that the best well I've I've often
advocated that I think there's there's two lines of two
directions of research that will possibly push it forward, push
(22:59):
the question for and that is short of a type specimen,
a DNA voucher, there already is a DNA specimen, a
voucher specimen of DNA that can be replicated and sequenced
and identified as an unknown And see, that's that's part
of the problem, right.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
There is that in gen Bank.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Well, that's just it. We don't have any known specimen
of sasquatch DNA in a gen bank, and so most
identifications occur by taking the the sample in question and
comparing the sequence to those that have been cataloged in
the gen bank. So it's kind of like with identifying hair.
(23:39):
You know, hair is typically identified by comparing an unknown
to a known specimen, a catalog specimen. And without a
known sasquatch hair, all we can conclude is that that
this hair has primate like characteristics.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
There's a fully sequence genail that's on.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
No, I say, if there was, if there so, so yeah,
well I'm saying, I'm saying the best you could hope
for is if you had a sample that indeed was
with sasquatch. Is that your investigator, your analyst would say, well,
this is unknown. It matches nothing in gene bank, gen
bank or gen bank, and so and just like with hair,
(24:23):
we can say, well, this hair doesn't match any known wildlife.
It's an unknown. So but but these all these unknowns
are remarkably consistent and uh and you know, attest to
originating from some some consistent species, you know. And so
(24:44):
same with the DNA. If if we got multiple samples
that were identical to one another, and could not be
matched to any known sample, then that would potentially represent
an unknown species. And then what you do is you
go in and compare it to the gnomes and you
(25:05):
and there are techniques that allow you to determine what
its nearest neighbors are, which group does it cluster with,
based on derived traits derived sequences, and then you know,
you could say, well this this most closely matches or
clusters with a clade of great apes, or it is
(25:28):
most similar to human to the exclusion of all other apes.
So therefore it's related to humans somehow, like a hominid
like paranthropists. If it was that the paranthrapist model were
to hold up, we would assume that there are some
derived traits that would separate it from all other apes.
(25:48):
So that's that's the But see, that's going to require
if we're talking about a creature that is potentially identical
to humans down to a difference of a half of
one percent, then you've got to do a pretty complete
sequence in order to find those scattered markers that only
(26:11):
account for you know, zero point five percent of the
gene sequence. Most studies that are tests rather not studies,
but most tests that are conducted on an unknown sample,
or you know, a real pretty quick and dirty look
at one or maybe two spots in the mitochondrial gene
(26:36):
genome rather collection of genes. And if that, if they're
even doing complete plow sie, you know, if they do
more than a say, a thousand base pairs, you're you're
probably paying lots and lots of money to have that done.
Speaker 5 (26:53):
Do you have a do you have a in your
back pocket or hidden away? Do you have a sample
that you're holding onto that you think is most like
you're really confident would be you know, it could show
a sasquatch genome.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
No, I don't. I don't honestly. I mean, because we
what what things we have had in the past. You know,
we've we've submitted for testing, and and that kind of
testing usually consumes the sample. So no, I don't, uh,
I mean there are and and the problem with you know,
(27:26):
the most common samples are hair, and hair is notoriously
challenging to get DNA from because of this distinctive characteristic
of a cellular medula, you know. And I used to
say this is interesting because I used to say, well,
that's not you know, some mysterious feature that's not uh
(27:49):
that that that's that's a known characteristic of some types
of hair. But as I as I started digging a
little more and looking through the catalogs, one, there are
really aren't any species out there in polar bear supposedly
has hollow hair with an a cellular medulla, you know,
for insulated qualities. But there aren't really many, if any
(28:10):
other species. So it is a very distinctive characteristic. There
aren't many other species that have that characteristic. It is
a very distinct characteristic of sasquatch. That is remarkably consistent.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Now, isn't it true that red headed humans have a
similar structure.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yes, yes, red red or very blonde, very light, lightly
pigmented individuals often have a cellular or or at least
in what they call discontinuous medulla.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Now would there be a connection there since one of
the other possible traits of sasquatch hair is it shines
red when backlit. Is there? Do you think there's a
connection there any in any way?
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Well, not necessarily, because I from my experience and reading,
it hasn't been particularly redheads so much as it is
very pale blonde toe heads where there's a lack of
pigment in the hair. With red heads there is the
(29:15):
presence of the fail milan and the reddish pigment which
is present in the sasquatch hair as well. They have
eumulanin and fail milanin. The yumilanin is the dark pigment,
fail milan is the reddish. And so you get as
you it's kind of like you've got these two rheostats,
you know you can alter, so you get an individual
(29:38):
that has very little of either. And these are the
quote white Sasquatch, you know, the rare white Sasquatch. And
then you go on up and you get the beige
or buckskin and the reddish reddish brown, dark brown black,
almost mahogany where there still is a little bit of
red highlight in there. Interesting is across that entire color spectrum,
(30:04):
chromatic spectrum, they all have an a cellular medulla, and
so that's what's different than human, whereas it's usually just
the very light pale hairs that occasionally have an a
cellular medulla. Even there it's not consistent oner sent but
across Sasquatch and I hope we're not cherry picking imposing.
(30:28):
I don't think we are because in other words, only
attributing those with an a cellular medulla to be a sasquatch,
you know, we subliminally or unconsciously accept that as a
distinguishing characteristic, and so anything that does have a medulla
couldn't be a sasquatch because there are other features. I mean,
the hair are approximately sixty five microns across, they have
(30:52):
parallel sides, they have a blunt tip where there's no taper.
I mean, the the only other species that has those
characteristics is human. So that's why we end up with
this notion that there and this is why I think
(31:13):
Henna Fahrenbach was a little reluctant to make a more
take a more conclusive position, was that there's always that
chance that you have something that is just a misidentified human.
And he was hoping that the DNA would would you know,
be the final arbiter for that.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
What's happened with DNA costs since it's been on last
It's been about a couple of years since we had
you on what how much does it come down to?
Speaker 6 (31:40):
Know?
Speaker 2 (31:40):
It's always dropping in price?
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Well, I I don't have a real good sense of that.
I mean, my, my, you know, discussions recently with the
idea of maybe undertaking an environmental DNA study, it was
to do it thoroughly and extensively was extremely expensive. I
(32:02):
mean we're talking about a project, a multi year project
that would be several many hundreds of thousands of dollars
to undertake, and I mean I'm sure that we could
trim that budget somewhat. Some of that was the ambition
to include postdocs and graduate students in order to do
(32:25):
the legwork.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Wouldn't if they if they found something real promising, like well,
this is this is a unique strand here, would they
would they just want to do it for free at
that point, just for the scientific glory.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Well, if you if you had something that was compelling enough.
But even getting that first initial undertaking, I mean I
was shot in the well. I surveyed. I contacted rather
a number of labs, you know, by calling through the
literature and finding laboratories at at universities where they were
(32:59):
doing molecular studies on grade apes and publishing regularly. And
you know, I figured they would have the expertise, they
would probably have the manpower, the post docs and so forth,
because they're an active molecular lab. And unfortunately, because of that,
they were adamant that they couldn't do even if they
(33:21):
were interested, and they you know, I didn't get a
uniform formally positive reception, but even the ones that were interested.
It's such a dog eat dog funding environment out there.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
You know.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
The latest figures I've heard for National Science Foundation were
ten percent or less of the submitted proposals were funded
and so, and that's sometimes that's on the first round,
you know, blah blah blah, but people argue, but still
it doesn't go out very high, very very much further
than that. And so with that level of competition, the
(34:00):
labs are under extreme pressure to produce and and not
do anything that would jeopardize you know, that some reviewer
could could hoist as a red flag for a grant
renewal or a proposal. So that was the reception I got.
(34:22):
So that's that's the problem. You know, it's the funding,
and it's also the willingness of the unless you just
go to a commercial lab and you contract it, but
then the costs are inordinately higher than if you went
through an academic institution with.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
That hit like a million dollars, you think.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
Oh, I don't know if we'd go if it got
that high for for you know, straightforward test. It's just
I really think that we're going to have to do
an extensive nuclear genome in order to find those few
markers that distinguish and convincingly.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I'm you know, I mean, I'm fairly active in the
field and whatnot. I know that I have my own
biases that tend me towards finding footprints and trying to
predicts where these things are going and what they're doing
and whatnot. But you know, the vast major ninety nine
percent of our audience probably are just amateurs who are interested.
(35:21):
Where do you think those research efforts should go? Because
even after the academic exception, acceptance of the sasquatch is
a real deal. You know, everybody knows they're real animals,
there's still going to be a role for amateurs at
some point because you know, academics are teaching, they're doing
their own research things. But so the chance encounters, which
(35:42):
is what tends to happen with sasquatches, are still going
to be happening. What can amateurs do to not only
move the ball down the field, but also to not
bruise ourselves because you know, and Darren Darren Nache visited
my home and I shared a bunch of footprint casts
with them, and he told me that there's a lot
of academics out there who are closely watching what happens.
(36:06):
And that just made me shuddered thinking about these ten Yeah,
that's like the representatives who get the media attention. It
just that just scared me in a way. And so
what could we be doing as amateurs to help.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Right, Well, one is continually to educate yourself, you know
that this was one of the goals of the Field
Guide was to kind of provide a little leg up
in that direction, but to uh cultivate and practice you know,
the most objective and systematic forms of data collection and
(36:46):
documentation and reporting, and not to just advocate. I mean,
I think we collect actively shoot ourselves in the foot
when over eager individuals, you know, for want of another
(37:10):
click post and repost things that are obviously or have
been repeatedly debunked, and that that just creates so much
distraction and interference that it's it makes it that I'm
sure a lot of things slip between the cracks because
(37:32):
you know, they're just they're tainted by association kind of
or lost in the in the fog. So when it
comes to footprints, you know, just basic things like scale,
like cultivating good habits of the techniques of photography UH
and documentation it and and doing the the contextual leg
(37:58):
work establishing the scene. I mean, if you're if you
if there's six inches of snow on the ground, wet snow,
and you find absolutely what appear to be Chris Christine footprints,
you should be able to track that creature for considerable distance.
And if all you present is an abbreviated YouTube video
(38:18):
that shows one or two or three footprints with yours
trumped all over the place to make the scene almost unintelligible,
you've done really a disservice, or you've I should say
you've you've you've not risen to the to the mark
and uh and you've you've missed the opportunity to perhaps
document a very compelling case with a large data set
(38:44):
from which things like gate parameters and associated behavior food scat.
You know, you find a place where they've urinated, you know,
and scoop it up in a pint jar or something
things like that. But so that's that's one thing. And
then also, obviously one of the other big areas are
(39:08):
all these quote blob squatches instead of just throwing out
every shadow, every this or that. If you think, and
especially if they are items that a photograph that you've
taken associated with a first hand experience of your own,
(39:29):
you know, reinforced by that experience. You look at that
image and it reinforces or you can be confident in
what it portrays. But someone who doesn't have the benefit
of that firsthand experience, it must rely on your ability
to make a compelling case for this questionable image.
Speaker 5 (39:49):
So you're saying, but you just said, Dirk, like soil
that or a sasquatch, you're in it.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
That's useful these days?
Speaker 4 (39:57):
It could be yeah, if you if you respond quickly enough,
if we got that sample into ethanol or some other
way to stabilize the proteins and possible DNA you know
that could be extracted from that from from slough cells
or whatnot. I mean, it's a biological fluid, so there
(40:20):
there are things that could be done with it, presumably,
but it's it's a narrow window. But a lot of
it is just to up the ante up the game
so that the evidence is more compelling, that it has
much greater contextual establishment. You know, the comparison shots with
(40:43):
you know, someone standing in the same spot, the picture
taken from the same place, I mean goes that speaks volumes.
Not all sasquatch are going to be extra humanly large.
But if if what your portray train is that narrows
down the or strengthens the likelihood of it being something
(41:07):
rather than just a you know, a figure in the
distance or a fisherman or this that or the other.
So I guess that I don't know. That's not a
real satisfy. It's kind of a clumsy answer, But in short,
it's just up the game and be much more methodical
in your in your data collection instead of instead of
peeking through the not hole, you know, offering the notthle
(41:30):
to art to your viewer to watch the game, knock
down the whole section of the fans so we can
really see what's going.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
On, and then of course behave in an appropriate and
sober manner as far as presentation goes.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
Well, sure, I know it's hard to take a YouTube
video seriously when it's been then set to some weird music.
You know, or we Spooky Spook Galley, you know theme song.
It's I mean, why would you do that if you're
serious and this is a legitimate I mean I've I've
(42:11):
conditioned myself my thinking to where I realized that in
this day and age. I mean at one time I
would say, well, if someone was serious, they would never
post it on YouTube, they would look up an expert,
they would take it to a university here. And now
I realize, no, that people wouldn't do that, right, that's
(42:32):
the way people think today. But it doesn't surprise me
that people do that. So I've got to I ward
off the tendency to just dismiss something that's been posted
on YouTube, because that's the way people communicate today. That's
the public bulletin board, you know, the town hall bulletin board,
so town square bulletin board.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I mean, well, then that brings up and probably maybe
the final point before we let you go. I think
if someone does get good compelling footage, or even mediocre
pretty compelling footage, what should one do with it as
far as the release goes?
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Yeah, Well, that's you know, and I can understand when
people are concerned about you know, some proprietary claim to
it and I and there are ways, I mean, I'm
personally not familiar with them, but with all the copyright
laws that exist, you.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Don't need to. No, No, you don't need to because
I know a little bit about that from being a musician.
If you hold, if you hold the camera, it is yours.
You don't need to file papers. You don't need to
do anything. And did you catch that news item where
there was a sort of baboon or monkey that accidentally
took a selfie and and that went to court because
the person who owns the person who took the picture
(43:43):
owns it. And there can a monkey own a picture?
Speaker 4 (43:49):
How funny?
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah, So if you if you photograph, if you if
you film a sasquatch, it is yours. You don't actually
have to file papers. You can, but you don't have to.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Well with that reassurance, then I think that if a
person is serious, there are individuals like the three of us,
or there are others out there are who have established
a reputation of serious investigation and who are very experienced
and have dealt with a lot of different forms of
(44:18):
evidence and examples of photographic evidence that you would want
to seek out their advice and their reaction. I mean,
it's just like with the footprints, you know, I have
a constant stream. I mean, every day at least there's
an example of a footprint that comes across my computer screen.
(44:38):
And you know, the vast majority of them are readily
attributable to other interpretations or other identifications. But there are
every once in a while ones that I mean, there
are those that are so ambiguous you just can't say
one way or the other. I mean that people are hopeful,
but every once in a while those there are some
(44:58):
that are really quite intriguing, and and then hopefully the
investigator has had the where with, you know, the presence
of mind to do their own little investigation, shoot as
many pictures as they can. You know, in this digital age,
what's what's stopping you from taking dozens and dozens of
(45:19):
pictures and and walking a little further for and aft
of the find to see if there's any other sign,
you know, further along that would would further substantiate.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Well, there you go, Jeff, thank you so much for
joining us again for beyond Well, actually there's the first
thing you've been on. Beyond big thing and beyond our
membership thing. We really appreciate your extra time and and
just the wealth of knowledge that you bring to the subject.
And I would really really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah, thank you, Jeff.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
It's always a learning experience for me too to think
through some of these things and hear your your questions
and comments and insights. I appreciate it as well. It's
got up to doing for me.
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Well, I thought it'd be fun to angle this one
really heavily towards anatomy, since that is your specialty, and
it's such an interesting aspect. And if it's so everything
is so congruent. I guess I keep using the word
congruent because that's just the way I see it. You
know that these things, yeah, that they share some anatomy
and characteristics with chimpanzees and humans and gorillas and and
(46:17):
whatever's going on here. Like I say it often on
stage where people can crucify me. Yeah, whatever these things are,
they evolved here. They have so much in common with
everything else that we're looking at.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Why would we go.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
Outside the box in that sort of way, And it's it's.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
Really neat to do that. Yeah, it's always interesting to
kind of rain the audience back in Have you been
present when I've shown the various slides that have Like
there's one where there's a very comely female in a
bikini walking and I've got walking away from the camera,
(46:53):
and I've got the partying kind of the shot of
angled shot of Patty, and one on a vanbam. I mean,
you know, you do something like that and people chuckle.
But if they'll stop and think, I mean, it's so obvious,
they become fixated on something like, well, the big toe
isn't divergent, so it's not an ape, and they know
to ignore everything else about it. It looks like an
(47:14):
eight one thing tips the scale, you know, So a
picture like that, while it's a little tongue in cheek,
it's really meant to give you pause and consider what
is it that you're focused on?
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Right, Yeah, whatever this thing is, it makes sense in
context and that that's really striking to me at least.
So yeah, all right, Bobs, you want to get us
out of here?
Speaker 2 (47:36):
All right, folks, thank you.
Speaker 5 (47:38):
The Jeff Belgium, the doctor Jeff Belgium from Idaho State University,
and he's got a cool website you got to check
out at the relicommoned inquiry at RhI At, Well, it's
RhI at is U dot E d U, the State University.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
That's awesome.
Speaker 5 (47:56):
So until next time, folks, keep it beyond squatchy
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