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August 16, 2025 50 mins
Originally released in January of 2024, this "classic" episode features Cliff Barackman, James "Bobo" Fay, and Matt Pruitt speaking with Liz, a former composite artist who was asked to sketch an unusual "suspect" many years ago! Liz relates the experience of working with the witness, discusses the importance of narratives, and much more!

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Big Food and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo. These guys
are your favorites, so like say subscribe and rade it.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm starck and me greatest, go on Wish.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Today listening a watching lim always keep its watching. And
now you're hosts Cliff Berrickman and James Boobo Fay, Good day, Bobo.
How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Good day, sir, I'm excellent, excellent?

Speaker 1 (00:36):
All right, Well, hey, well we have a guest here.
I don't want to, I want to. I'd want to
keep her waiting for too much longer here. I just
wanted to catch up with you for a minute.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Who is she?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Well, you know, oddly enough, I don't know that much
about her because the lovely and talented Matt Prewitt set
this up. So we are going to I mean, I
know a little bit about what we're going to be
talking about here, but I'm going to toss this to
Matt Prewitt to do the introduction, and then you and
I can learn about the witness and her importance and
she's on the show together. I was good, Matt, you
want to take it? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
So we get so many excellent emails from our awesome listeners,
and we got an email on Christmas that I was
really intrigued by. So I was reading this very nice
email from a listener named Liz who was talking about,
you know, enjoying the podcast and had mentioned sort of
briefly a bit about a story that kicked off her
interest in the subject. And so I immediately wrote back

(01:24):
and was like, Oh, that's pretty interesting. Can you tell
me more about this story? And she wrote back very detailed,
sort of a breakdown of what had occurred that started
her interest to investigating this particular subject, and I just thought, Man,
this is fascinating on multiple levels. And then we exchanged
some other emails. I was really impressed with her background,

(01:45):
and I just thought this would be so great for
the podcast, because again, I think listeners will hear there's
a lot of different elements that I think are really
intriguing that we can go into after we hear the story.
But you know, I do think with you two guys,
as in a way, you're sort of like the proxy
for the audience, and I think some of the best
episodes we've had have been when you've talked to people

(02:08):
that are sort of new to you and so you're
discovering the story or their experience at the same rate
as the audience does, and so it causes you to
generate questions that are probably the same kind of questions
that the audience has when they're hearing it. So I
set this up. I only gave you guys a little
bit of information about this, but I think it's going
to be a great episode, and so we want to

(02:28):
welcome Liz. Liz, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Hi, thank you, Matt, Hi Cliff, Hi, Bobo, nice to
talk to you.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Thanks for being here with us.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, yeah, thanks for listening, and also thanks for the
email and being willing to come on the podcast and
tell us about your story. Bobo and I know very
very little about it, So would you like to, first
of all, maybe share a little bit about who you are,
your background, whatever you're willing to share, and that we
can get into what started your interest in the subject.

Speaker 4 (02:55):
Sure, well, it started after college. I left college. I
had an art degree and I wanted to be an
art teacher, but there were no jobs, and so during
the summer I was involved in a shooting. I didn't
shoot anybody, but somebody shot at us, and when we
went to the police department, they asked if I could

(03:18):
identify the person and I said, oh, I can draw
a picture of them for you. And they were like amazed,
and I said and they said, would you like a
job And I said, your kid and doing that and
they said yeah. So they hired me as a criminal
composite artist. Well, of course you don't do that full time,
even in a large department. They only call you when

(03:40):
there's things going on, and so I did that. But
on the side, I mean, most of the time I
was doing things like dispatcher, jailer, breath liser, operator, all
kinds of those other jobs that civilians do in police departments.
I guess it was about my third year, which would
have been nineteen seventy eight. Was either late seventy seven

(04:02):
or early seventy eight, I get a call from a
friend that's a cop and he said, I have a
friend that has been doing ride alongs with me that
is a cop from a northern state and he wants
to get you to draw somebody for something for you.
I think, he said, I don't know. He said do
a drawing. It wasn't clear and I said sure, and

(04:25):
he said, can we come out on the weekend. I said,
sure when I'm off, you know. So they came out
and he brings in this big guy. I mean he
was I'm short, but i'd say he was six y four,
probably big guy. And he says, well, I'm going to
tell you a story, and I want you to draw
what you know, just what I describe. And I said sure,

(04:48):
So sat down and he starts telling the story and
it ends up that he's telling me about a bigfoot,
that something that happened to him. So the story was
and I have to tell you, you know, from doing
drawings with people, I mean, working in law enforcement anyway,
even though you're not a cop, you deal with a

(05:10):
lot of people, and you learn when people are telling
you the truth and how they react when they're excited
or they're reliving events. So I always kind of pay
attention to that to see how true what they're.

Speaker 5 (05:25):
Telling you is.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
And so this guy, that was one thing that stuck
with me with him because here's this big, strong cop
that was a canine officer and he had moved to
O'calla after he had been I think let go from
his police department, but I'm not sure. There was a
layoff of a lot of people and so he had

(05:48):
moved to Okaala, where his wife's family was from, and
they lived out in the country on a dirt road,
sand road in Okalla National Forest, and he was looking
for a job and his wife was I think a nurse,
but I'm not positive. And they had a little baby
that was just a toddler. And so the husband tells

(06:10):
me the story of oh, he had two dogs. They
were however, he's at Malinois shepherds and he let them
out to do their business at the end of the
driveway and they, I mean they ran out to the
end of the driveway to the road and there was
nobody out there, so he didn't worry about him getting
hit or anything. And he said they didn't come back
in right away, and so he heard them and they

(06:33):
were out there.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
It was like they were playing.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
And it was, you know, dark thirty. So he went
out there with his kel light and the kel light
I don't know if you all know what that is,
but it's a big metal flashlight, all black, heavy metal,
and he took it out there and you could really
see far with it, and he said that at the
end of the driveway was the dog.

Speaker 5 (06:58):
The two were the two dogs, and they were playing
with a bigfoot.

Speaker 4 (07:03):
The bigfoot was playing with the dogs, and he had
I don't remember if he said he had just done
with him or he went back in and got it.

Speaker 5 (07:12):
Yeah, he went back in.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
They wouldn't come to him, so he went back in
and got his service revolver, came back out and called
for the dogs. They came, and he shot at the
bigfoot and hid it square, he said, square in the chest,
and the thing let out a scream that he said,
he just said, it just went right through you, and
it screamed, and it went off into the woods. So

(07:38):
he said that he was afraid. He was trying to
get a job as a police officer, and so he
was afraid to call anybody. But I do remember, I'm
not sure that he said he called the deputy out
and made a report, but I'm not positive about that,
so don't quote me. And so his description of it

(08:00):
really stuck with me because at the time, I mean,
I knew about the Abominable Snowman, you know, but I
didn't really pay that much attention to stuff like that.
And he described the bigfoot as very large. I don't
remember exactly how large he said, but it was much
larger than a human. And he said the thing that

(08:22):
stuck out to me as he said, it had a
cone shape head, and I had never ever heard of
that before. And he said also that it had humongous
shoulders and arms, it hung down below its knees fingertips
below the knees, and it was massive chest, very built

(08:43):
up muscular chest and arms and upper arms and lower arms.
That it was very shaggy, reddish brown color. It had
red eyes, but I don't know what. He didn't know
if that was red eyes from the from the light
or what, but he said the eyes were red.

Speaker 5 (09:03):
And see, I'm kind of nervous telling this.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
I mean, it brings back all the things that happened,
you know. But anyway, so that's the way he described it.
And he said he took a cast of it the
next day.

Speaker 5 (09:18):
So that's the picture. That's the story.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
And the drawing that I did. No. I gave him
the drawing and I made a copy, but I don't
have it.

Speaker 5 (09:28):
I can't find it.

Speaker 4 (09:30):
I swear I never got rid of it, because I
have the other drawings I did of suspects for different things.
But I don't know what happened to it. But I
can still see it like you know it was yesterday
and it was nineteen seventy seven or eight.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo.
We'll be right back after these messages. Hey, Boba, whatever
happened to your gone squatch hat used to wear and
finding big Foot? Now?

Speaker 3 (10:01):
I don't have that hat anymore. I gave it to
Lauren Coleman for his museum, but I might be asking
for it back because I'm getting a little nervous in summertime,
getting too much sun on the scalp up there now,
and I'm getting bit by a mosquitoes. There's not a
big lush crop to fend them off. It's it's hell, Bobs.

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restrictions and important safety information. One of the things that
I found compelling about your email is you had sort
of alluded to his behaviors as he was recounting the stories.
I don't know if you want to share any of

(11:48):
that with krypenbogor the audience.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
Yes, so, like what I said at the beginning about
you know, really paying attention to what people are telling
you when you work in law enforcement or work with
people that might be telling you the truth. I really
paid attention to that, and he did several things that
really told me that this was the truth. First of all,

(12:10):
I mean, the story itself. Why would you come out
if you're a cop and you want a job and
just make this up, you know, and tell it to
somebody and swear I'm to secrecy, you know. So that
was one part of it. And then the other part
was that he chain smoked the whole time he was talking,
and he shook, I mean he was shaking. He would

(12:33):
pace the floor and then sit down for a second,
but he wouldn't sit for very long, and then he'd
get up and he'd keep going, and you could tell
he was really really reliving it. I mean there was
even goose pumps at one point that I noticed. That
really convinced me, and that led me to really start
paying attention to what I read about it. And then

(12:56):
years later when I heard that they had, you know,
crests or whatever you want to call it on their heads,
I was like what, because that's what he described. He
also described no neck and like the head fit the
head sat lower in front of the shoulders, So you know,
just his behavior has told me that it had to

(13:18):
have happened. You know that he was reliving it when
he was telling it to me too.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Liz, how long did this interview take?

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Like?

Speaker 1 (13:25):
How long do was he describing this? And how long
does it take did it take you to make the drawing?

Speaker 4 (13:30):
Probably I'd say an hour at least.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Okay, so he's fidgeting and pacing and smoking.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yes, well, he's describing it, and then afterwards, I after
I drew it, then you revise so you you know,
you say, is this what you saw? And he said no,
you know, there wasn't. I don't remember exactly what he said,
but I remember him saying something about the head not
being that hot, like there wasn't a neck, so I
had to lower the head on the body, and you

(14:01):
know that the hands.

Speaker 5 (14:02):
Were lower, the arms were lower. So you just revise
as you go.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
Until they feel comfortable that that's the closest proximity to
what they've seen.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Did he still have like issues with it at the
end or was he completely satisfied? It's like, no, that's
about as close as we can get.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
No, he was he was very satisfied with it. And
when I say an hour, I don't know, because this
is forty years ago.

Speaker 5 (14:25):
You know, it could have been.

Speaker 4 (14:26):
An hour and a half, but it was about as
long as what usually would happen with other ones. So
here's the rest of the story, though. Do you have
any questions about that part?

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Well, I have more questions about what he observed. Of course.
I don't know if you want to get into that
now or should we just wait and go through the
rest of the story. What do you feel be better.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
Lizy, you might want to hear the rest of the story.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
All right, laid honest, because I have an handful of questions.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
He said, I can't pay you or anything for it,
and I said that's fine.

Speaker 5 (14:59):
You know, it was an interesting story to me.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
And.

Speaker 5 (15:03):
Here comes a win. And so he took the picture.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
I don't remember how I made a copy, but I did.
And he came back in about a week or two
and he brought me. He pulls up and in the
trunk of his car he has a box and he
has jewelry in it.

Speaker 5 (15:28):
It's turquoise jewelry.

Speaker 4 (15:31):
And he said, I want you to pick out any
piece here and he was a jeweler. I didn't know it,
but he did arts and crafts bears and he said,
you can pick out and I can't really pay you
because I'm out of a job, but you can pick
out any piece of jewelry you want. And so I
picked out a turquoise ring, and I still have the ring.
And then he told me the rest of the story.

(15:53):
So he took the picture home because he didn't tell
me this at the time when I first did the drawing,
but he had taught He didn't tell his wife or
his mother in law about it at all for a
long time, and then he finally told them, and the
mother in law said she would babysit the baby when

(16:17):
they went to work or when he went looking to
work for work. When they were up in Okalla, and
they had a deck on the front of the trailer,
and so across the front of the trailer were windows,
and so she could see out onto the deck, and
in the afternoon she would watch her soap opera and

(16:38):
put the baby out on the deck right outside the
windows so she could see him in a playpen. So
one sunny afternoon she was over there, she said, and
it was nice and pretty and not too hot, and
she put the baby out there to watch her soap opera,
and she was sitting on the couch which was right
up against the window so she could just look over

(16:59):
her show at the baby, and you know, had the
windows open so she could hear and everything. And she said,
she's watching her soap and all of a sudden she
sees a shadow go across the TV and she so
she turns around, thinking that one of the family comes home.
And she said there was a sasquatch leaning into the crib,

(17:21):
but it wasn't like it was going to take it
or anything. It just leaned over and when it saw her,
it ran off. So that's the rest of the story.
I never met the lady or anything.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
This was before I shot it. I don't know ken
has he to be playing with the baby If I
got shop just for playing with a dog.

Speaker 5 (17:41):
That's true, totally. I agree.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
You mentioned that it was playing with the dogs at
one time, and then now this other story that we
don't know where the time. If it's in the timeline
of it playing with a baby, do you have any
information or did did he relay anything to you to
give any sort of indication of how it was playing.
I would like wrestling. Was it like, I mean, poking

(18:06):
at it? Or is it I mean, what how was
it interacting with either of these things?

Speaker 4 (18:11):
It said it was wrestling with the dogs, but it
wasn't like it was trying to hurt them, because the
dogs were like yipping, they weren't growling or anything. And
these are trained dogs. And then the baby, she just
said it leaned over like it was like, and the
baby was looking up at it smiling. You know, she

(18:32):
did say that like it it wasn't scared. So but
I don't know a lot more information about that. I mean,
it was third hand, you know.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
So sure. Did the initial witness tell you how far
away the creature was from him when he saw it?

Speaker 4 (18:49):
I don't remember exactly, but I know it was a
little bit longer driveway. I always kind of thought maybe
thirty yards forty yards, you know, not that far, not
like one hundred yardards or anything.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Okay, And while while you were hearing this story for
the first time, all the way back in the nineteen seventies,
and he was unloading this probably fairly unbelievable or certainly
unexpected story upon you, did you believe him right then
and there, or did it take the whole hour or
hour and a half or however long it was for

(19:22):
you to for this to settle in and you think,
oh my gosh, this guy's telling me the truth.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
No, I did not believe it right away because I
kept thinking, what are these two guys trying to pull
on me? You know, because cops are notorious for joking,
and so you know, I kept watching that, and that's
why I really paid attention to the way he was
acting and what he was saying, and then him saying,
don't tell.

Speaker 5 (19:45):
Anybody, you know.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
He repeated that several times, and being worried that he
would not get a people would think it was crazy.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, sure, I think that's a reasonable fear for someone
trying to get a job in law enforcement, because I
mean law enforcement, you could be you know, you're going
to go on trial at some point, You're going to
be a witness in somebody's trial. And imagine some scumbag
lawyer right saying like, so I understand you believe in sasquatches,
is just calling your credibility in the question. You know,
they have to be very very careful about that sort

(20:16):
of stuff.

Speaker 5 (20:17):
I don't. You know, I don't know, but I know it.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
It really changed my thinking, and it may and especially
years later when I heard, you know, I heard about
like the crest, not the crest, but you know what,
I'm sagital crest.

Speaker 5 (20:32):
I guess it's called.

Speaker 4 (20:34):
And when I heard things like their arms, you know,
the size, the and I didn't even think about them
being in Florida.

Speaker 5 (20:41):
I always thought it was just like I said.

Speaker 4 (20:43):
You know, somewhere in Nepal or somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
I never thought, you know, why would they be anywhere
else if there was one? You know, even years later
I thought that, so, you know, it was just a surprise.
I guess, like, what were they doing in Florida? Going
on vacation?

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Do you remember what time of the year it was?

Speaker 4 (21:04):
No, I don't, But in Florida, you know, there's not seasons.
There's hot hotter, Yeah, hot and hotter.

Speaker 5 (21:11):
You got it.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
Now, since that time, you've gone on and I mean,
you have a PhD. For goodness sake, and one of
your specialties in general is correct me if I'm wrong,
of course, and elaborate a little bit further. If you
could something to do with a perhaps like oral tradition
or storytelling, Like there's some facet in your specialty that

(21:34):
directly has to do with the way people tell stories
and how people tell stories. Can you tell us about that?
Because you know, one of the things about in Bigfootland
is everybody and their mother has a story. Everybody has
a story, and they want to tell you no matter what.
Like I want to tell you this story that happened
to me twenty thirty fifty years ago, and I want
to know first of all, why, why that is true?

(21:56):
Like does what is this need of human beings? I
know we have two or three hundred thousand years of
sitting around a campfire before they invented before we invented writing,
So I know that has something to do with it,
like the epigenetic aspect to us about storytelling. But there's
something else going on here, and since I have a
specialist here, I want to hear your take on it,
if you wouldn't mind.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
Okay, Well, my degree, my last degree is in literacy studies,
but that's teaching reading and so. But my PhD studies
were in looking at the way teachers learn and what
sticks with them and what are the best types of

(22:38):
professional developments that you can do with teachers that will
keep that information stuck with them. And you know, Cliff,
from being a teacher, you can go to those service
days and not learn a thing and put the information
away in a closet and you never see it again,
and you never try it. So I was very fascinated
with what sticks with teachers, But what can you do

(23:01):
to help them retain the knowledge? Try out things, come
back and talk about it. And it came out to
that It started with book studies. So I tried professional
book studies and I realized that what I saw in
the people that were participating was that they told stories
to explain their understanding of the books they read, of

(23:25):
their experiences, and that solidified solidified their understanding of the
concepts that they were learning. So I started looking more
into the importance of story in our own lives and
how we use it to, like I said, solidify or

(23:46):
understanding explain experiences. And there's a lot of neurological science
that has to do with that that it has to
do with dopamine levels and how when you tell a story,
listening to a story, it increases your dopamine too. And
stories also because they are based on something experiential and

(24:09):
they build on themselves to a conclusion. They're easier to
remember in the brain than if I stood up and
told you a bunch of facts about something. So that's
why I think I listened to you, Cliff when you say,
you know you don't like I don't want to say
this and get you mad at me, but that you
don't like hearing another story, you know. And that's really

(24:32):
why I contacted that, because I thought, well, that's I
understand that completely, because after a while, what's a new
story going to do. But it also because of the
importance of story. It helps people to understand their experience.
It helps us to find patterns, it helps us to

(24:57):
solidify our understanding of something, and so I think it's important.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Oh, I'd never be mad at you for what you think. No,
I'm not gonna be mad at you. Everything's fine. But
after a few thousand road crossing stories, i'd like you
to hear I'd like you to tell me that same
sentence again.

Speaker 5 (25:15):
I can understand that.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and
Bobo will be right back after these messages.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
One of the things that I found so compelling about
Liz's email, And the context of this particular case is that,
you know, if we are talking about something like finding
Bigfoot or Bigfoot and Beyond, or you know, when I
investigator reports with the BFRO or whatever the case may be,
like when you have a sort of big billboard to
the public that you're soliciting sasquatch stories and then people

(25:51):
come directly to you with those stories. Of course, anybody
you know, worth their salt as an investigator has to
be somewhat skeptical upfront that like, well, you'd have to
at least expect, like a certain degree of the reports
I'm going to receive are going to be intended to
make me believe the claimant, because I am in a
position to receive such reports. And these reports end up

(26:13):
in a television series or a podcast, or on a
website or in a book or whatever, and so I'm
always more compelled by these sorts of stories that come
about through these other means. And you know, some of
the best witnesses I've ever met and the most compelling
stories came to me through means that were not Sasquatch related.
And you know, growing up in a time, especially, I

(26:35):
started investigating reports in the two thousands, like sasquatch was
pretty popular, and it's already become much more popular. So
for you to have received this report, you were almost
thrust into like this involuntary sasquatch research or position, because
you're having to basically vet or investigate this person's claims
in the nineteen seventies, you know, at a time before

(26:56):
the huge popularity of the subject, and you're outside of
the Pacific Northwest. All of that is me lends more
credibility to claim it, all those contextual things, and I
think it should serve as an indicator to the outside
world that there are a lot more of these people
out there. There are so many people who've had observations

(27:18):
or experiences that we will never hear about because they
almost tell no one and they only ever tell a
hand few of people, if any at all. And so
your story I think was a perfect example of illustrating
all those points.

Speaker 4 (27:31):
That was the other reason that I, you know, I text,
I mean, I've emailed you because there are so I
think there are so many, and you know it may
be a lot higher, you know.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Oh definitely. I mean there's reports that I included in
the book or that I've mentioned in other places that literally,
you know, I've never talked about the sources of some
of these reports. But like, for example, I used to
work as a recruiter, a phone based recruiter, and one
of the first recruiting job that I ever had was
hiring people for a very specific kind of role and
you had to have a certain license for this role.

(28:05):
And so we had a database of every license holder
who could have filled this potential role in the country.
And it was a searchable database, and so literally I
would search it based on ZIP code of my favorite
areas to do field research, and so I would get
these people on the phone and see if they were
looking for a job and whatever the case would be.
And then I would always ask kind of like coily.

(28:27):
I would say like, oh, hey, you know, I've been
to that area. Have you ever heard any good bigfoot
stories from around there? And there was one guy in
particular who was like, hey, man, that's not funny, And
I said, sir, like, I promise you no one takes
it more seriously than I do. And he told me
about this class a siding that he had. Funny enough,
he asked me he said, well, have you ever heard

(28:48):
of a little town called Helen, Georgia? And I was like, yeah,
I grew up there. That's where I do most of
my field research for a lot of it. And so
he had a siding there and so, and of course,
one thing I always ask people is like, well, did
you ever feel inclined to report this to anyone like
authorities or local law enforcement or local media. And he said, oh,
absolutely not. And he said, I've not even told most

(29:08):
of my family members this story. And so little insights
like that just show you there are so many of
those out there in the world that we'll never hear about.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah, like the dash can VideA you got down there too.
If you didn't know the deputy personally, that would neither
come to life.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Oh, certainly, that's certainly the case. And so, you know,
reading Liz's email was like, because she had mentioned, you
know in her original email, oh, I had done a
sketch for someone who had seen one in the seventies
near O'calla National Forest. And I was like, oh, can
you tell me more about this? And so and then when,
like I said, when I learned about her background, I
was like, oh, this is really relevant because I'm in

(29:45):
the same boat, like I'm fascinated by stories. And you know,
I referenced in my book one of the sources that
I referenced here, and there was a great book called
The Storytelling Animal. I know I've recommended it to our Patreon
members before, but to our general listenership, I would definitely
recommend reading that book. You know, we do sort of
perceive the world through a narrative structure, and so we
reflect that back through our narratives. And we're such narrative

(30:08):
biggest creatures that it's like, you know, you hear people
say like, oh, well, we should just stick to the science. Well,
what is a hypothesis. It's a story. A hypothesis has
a narrative structure. It's just a more quote unquote science
y word for a very convenient sort of story. And
hopefully it's a story that accurately gives a proposed explanation

(30:28):
for an observed phenomenon. But let's be really, it's still
a story. It has to be tested. But you know,
we live in a realm of stories, and stories are
definitely very important.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Well, I have a question for you, Liz. You don't
know where you're drawing is I would love, of course,
love to see it. Do you think that I can
convince you, or maybe even pay you if I need to,
to drew another one to the best of your recollection
of what the gentleman described.

Speaker 4 (30:54):
Here's the thing about that. I've bought about that cliff
a lot. But my problem is that my mind is
now skewed by all of the experience or the things
that I've seen, So I don't want to say that
it would be accurate. You know, I can keep looking
for it, but I mean, I could draw it, but
I wonder if it would be the same as what

(31:16):
I drew. It'd be cool to draw it and then
come try to find the other one.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
That's what I was thinking. Wouldn't that be an interesting
experiment in itself where you drew what you believe you
remember and then compare it to the actual one when
it turns up. Because one of the things I've noticed
over the years is the longer somebody tells a story,
the more they believe their own story, even if it
changes a little over time through no fault of their own.

(31:43):
The details get skewed or introduced or whatever, and then
they remember the version of the story that they've been
telling instead of what perhaps it was at the first
go through.

Speaker 5 (31:54):
I absolutely agree with you.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
That's why I, you know, I hesitate about, like telling
you about the face because I don't remember that part.
Other than the eyes and the nose. I don't remember
the color. I don't remember if it had hair, for sure,
you know so, And I know it was hairy all over,
but I don't remember the face part, which is crazy

(32:16):
because that's usually what I drew, were faces. But yeah,
I can draw it again, I'll try.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
I think that would be really cool. I mean, and honestly,
i'd put it up in the museum. I would be
happy to display that in the museum. Actually too so cool.

Speaker 4 (32:30):
Well, I know it was yellow, I mean like brown,
light browns and reddish, you know. So that was another thing.
When I heard about that some of them had reddish hair,
I thought, well, wow, because he said.

Speaker 5 (32:43):
The same thing.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
But it was like a mixture of hair colors, a
yellish blondish brownish anyway, it wasn't solid black or anything.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Well, yeah, if you feel like even doing a sketch,
I would love to see it. Then of course you
can email to you know, the podcast, or you can
send it to the museum. I'll see it either way. Okay, sure, yeah,
no pressure. I'll send you a little something in return
as well.

Speaker 5 (33:06):
Oh no, you don't have to do that.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
I don't have to, but i'd like to.

Speaker 5 (33:10):
Oh well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
So, as far as storytelling goes, when somebody tells the
story you said, it releases endorphins, it it reinforces what happened.
There's a lot of dopamine. I'm sorry, yeah, the dopamine. Sorry,
there's a lot of things going on psychologically in the
storyteller's mind. So they get something out of it, right,

(33:32):
It's not just to share, it's also to what is
to share, but it's also to convince. It's to express something.
I mean, I'm not sure what I'm trying to They
had to encapsulate what I'm trying to ask there. Well,
what does a storyteller like? How do what does storytelling
do for the storyteller? I can see what it does culturally.

(33:53):
It reinforces cultural ideas, reinforces cultural traditions. There's a lot
going on there, but for the individual, it's him or herself.
What's going on there? Like when when somebody wants to share.
Are are they pleading with you to understand? Are they
pleading with you to experience what they did? What I mean,

(34:16):
I guess the answer is that it depends on the person.
But what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 4 (34:20):
From what I saw with the people that I studied,
they were doing several things. One was that they're telling
the story for themselves so that they could say out
loud what they were thinking in relation to what they
were learning. So they were trying to find an example
of what they were learning in their experiences with students,

(34:45):
or if they didn't have one, they would That's where
the conversation would come in where other people would say, oh, yeah,
I've seen that before, or I had this trouble and
this might help it. You know, this technique might help that.
And so they're trying trying the problems I've solved orally,
and that gives them another way of getting their brain

(35:06):
to work instead of just keeping it in. You know,
you need all those different modalities to help you understand things.
And so the other thing is I think they're trying
to elicit understanding and maybe getting support back from the
you know, the other people that are listening. Support in

(35:26):
the fact that you know, when you nod, like in conversation,
you nod to somebody, that's a reinforcement of what they're saying,
so they keep going. It's the same thing in storytelling.
They're looking for those nonverbal cues to help them go
on with the story.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Okay, yeah, you know that's actually something I had to learn.
I thought, I thought for myself. At least, I did
give a lot of like nonverbal cues that I was there.
I was just listening because I didn't want to interrupt,
so I didn't even nod or anything. I just kind
of stared. And I learned after a long time and
a lot of harsh lessons that kind of freaked people out.
But I'm socially awkward in many many ways, that's not

(36:05):
just the only one. Yeah, it's kind of funny that
you mentioned that. So people it sounds like people are
looking for looking for understanding, looking to the feel that
that perhaps they're not alone. I imagine some people are
looking to impress, at least that's that's the impression I
get from it, honestly, sometimes, and they're they're looking for
maybe some validation that they're they're not alone in their experience.

(36:29):
Perhaps and that's not not not isolating Bigfoot as a
subject either, it's just whatever they're sharing with you. You know,
I drove real fast one night, or you know this
this this milk costs too much or something like that.
They're they're looking for a feeling of not being alone.
It's like some sort of group adherent like adhesion or
something like that.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
Well, I'm glad you brought up feelings, because that's an
important part of it. The when you tell stories, the
person that's listening may not have had that exact experience,
but they may have. They've felt fear before, they felt
pride before, they've felt all those emotions that we share
as human beings. May be different in different experiences, so

(37:12):
that also is a way to build community. You know that. Yeah,
I've been scared before or was it that It may
have been, you know, something else that caused it, but
we have that same emotion, so then we can put
ourselves with that person in that same experience that way.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, you also mentioned the modality, which is a teacher.
I didn't know that word until I was a teacher.
And I've heard that word, of course before, but I
didn't understand the context of it. Until I was a teacher,
and it's basically the idea that people learn in different ways.
You know, Like I'm a very visual learner with a
secondary of an audio learner, so I mean I learn

(37:49):
I might even skew towards audio learner more actually, because
I'm a musician after all. But you know, visual learners
very often have things color coded and organized and all
that sort of stuff, and that's definitely not me. And
there's also kinesthetic learners who have to kind of do
things to understand, and mind you, everybody is one of
the everybody's all of these things, but they tend to

(38:11):
be more dominant in one. And there's other modalities as well,
you know, as the theory has been like kind of
strung out a little bit more and plumbed a bit
more in depth. But the kinesthetics have a reputation of
being the pain and the butts in the classroom because
they're the ones that have to stand up and do
things all the time, and they're the ones that don't

(38:32):
necessarily sit down well at their desks like teachers very
often want them to do. So I would very often
let them stand up at their desk and do what
they need to do it's in order to learn it.
But the audio learners, they're the ones that used to
drive me nuts because probably because I am one to
a large degree. But also what I find is that
for them to process things, you know, audio learners have
to hear something to really understand it in a way,

(38:54):
but for them to process it, they tend to talk
about it that way. They can hear themselves and process
it that way. They're processing the information and integrat to
get into themselves somehow by listening to that information. But
sometimes they have very often they have to say those
things out loud. So they're the ones that just won't
shut up. And I am that sometimes. You know, I'm

(39:16):
rather long winded and I keep going on about things
and I probably should have stopped talking about a long
time ago, like what I'm saying now, for example. But
you get what I'm saying. So the storytelling aspect is
probably what I'm hearing is has something to do with
that as well. It's a processing through talking and therefore
through listening, so you kind of the storyteller gets it both.

(39:37):
They get at both ends there. It's like they're saying
it and they're also listening and processing the information at
the same time.

Speaker 4 (39:44):
Yes, and the auditory learners, really good storytellers can build
a picture of what they saw in detail, so you
get you if you're a visual learner and not an
auditory processor, you can and visualize that thing that they're
describing by the detail they give you. So the more

(40:07):
detail they give you, the better.

Speaker 5 (40:08):
It is.

Speaker 4 (40:09):
Just like, it was kind of funny when you were
asking me more information about what did it look like?
I was thinking, Oh, Cliff's a visual because he's asking
me more in depth you know, about it, and I'm
an auditory processor. It drives two of my sisters crazy,
and the other two are both like me or the
other ones like me.

Speaker 5 (40:30):
So we drive them crazy. It's kind of funny when
we're all together, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, we all have a little bit of it all
in us though at the same time. So it's just
doesn't matter what modality is dominant. Stay tuned for more
Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo will be right
back after these messages.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
One of the skeptical arguments that's always sort of irked
me was that, oh, well, if an event like you know,
so and so sasquatch siding really happened, they couldn't possibly
have remembered this or that. And you know, in writing
the book, I mean, over the years, I've really been
interested in the sort of not only like the physiological
neurological responses that people have distressful events, but also psychological responses,

(41:17):
but especially in terms of memory. And you know, I'd
found quite a bit of literature on that, which I
condensed just to make a few relevant points in the book.
But you know, i'd mentioned I'll just read it from
the book because that's easier than trying to paraphrase it quickly.
But in chapter six I had mentioned that quote. Studies
indicate that two categories of events are more accurately recalled

(41:38):
than mundane ones, negative experiences and novelty. Negative experiences are
remembered in higher resolution or vividness than positive ones given
the relationship between negative emotion and sensory processing. Since negative
or frightening experiences engage more of the sensory processes necessary
for survival, these events and the elements within them are

(41:58):
retrieved and recalled in greater detail than positive ones. Moreover,
neuroimaging studies demonstrate that the process is utilized during the
retrieval and recall are the same processes using during the
encoding of a negative event. This results in a stress
response during memory recall. And so I've always been motivated
by that too when I see peoples as you described,

(42:21):
like the way that they're behaving as they're reliving the
event or offering the claim, let's say. And of course
there are great actors and people went oscars and things
of that nature, but most people are not talented actors,
and some of those responses would be near impossible to fake,
especially when you're seeing physiological responses. I mean, like when

(42:41):
you mentioned the dopaminergic response to hearing stories and or
telling stories. It's easy for us to go, oh, that's
interesting psychology. It's like, that's not psychology, that's biology. That's hardwired,
you know, nuts and bolts, flesh and blood biology, and
so some of these things are so deeply rooted and
instantiated that I think they point to reality that this

(43:04):
person is telling the truth. They really observed and experience
what they claim to have.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
I love that you did that, that you read that passage,
because I highlighted it. I was I was in there
raising my hand giving you hot fives. When I read it,
because it's so true and it's so clear that that's
exactly what why you see that in people. It is
not easily acted out.

Speaker 5 (43:31):
It is biological.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
So it's one of those tells I guess you can
use you know that something's going on.

Speaker 5 (43:39):
I highlighted a lot in your book.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Well, I appreciate that very much, and especially given your background.
So I'm glad to hear that those sections resonated with
you because I tried to accumulate a lot of literature
on those things, but obviously I'm not an expert, not
even close to it in those fields. Well, yeah, I
know we're coming up on our time frame here. But
the question that I would have that I think the
audience would have to is, Liz, since we're all invested

(44:05):
in listening to stories that come from claimants or you know, witnesses, observers, experiencers,
et cetera, like, what should we be listening for? Are
there any tools that we should arm ourselves with to
evaluate claims and stories of that nature because we are
sort of swimming in a sea of them at the moment.
As regards the sasquatch, So is there any advice from
your expertise that you could offer to us or our listeners.

Speaker 4 (44:28):
I don't think any that we've you know, Like I said,
I mean, my expertise is not in storytelling, but you know,
I've been a student of it, I guess is the
best way to say it for all these years because
of what I've.

Speaker 5 (44:39):
Done, you know.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
But just keeping your eyes white and your ears wide open.
And I think you all are pretty expert at that
by now because you take a lot of reports, so
you know how to wage through the junk, you know,
and be able to ask the right questions. That's that's
an import thing that I learned when I was doing

(45:02):
the composite work and being able to because when I
saw people, they usually it was right after something happened,
like a bank robbery, you know, and so you had
to calm them down first to even get anything out
of them. And so being able to just keep your
eyes and your ears open and read between the lines

(45:22):
and be able to ask the right questions that ell
elicit more response.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
How often would you have to do this sketches like
it was pretty common? It was only for major crimes.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
No, it was mainly major crimes are ones that they
didn't have. It was a lot of bank robberies, a
couple of some murders. It was usually those, and then
a sasquatch. You know, they were fine, especially when you
have I had one one time that was a bank robbery.
It was up here where I live now. And because

(45:55):
when I left Florida and I moved up north, I
still I did criminal composites for a while with the
police department. And I had one that was a bank robbery,
and it was a bunch of women, and so I
had to.

Speaker 5 (46:10):
Get them to calm down.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
And then once I got the picture, the funny thing
was the guy was wearing a railroad conductor's hat, and
he was an older man, and he had a railroad
conductor's hat, and he had sat down in the lobby
for quite a while, and all the women said the
same thing, the hat. You know, well that's something I
don't even need to know what he looks like if

(46:33):
he had the hat on. And the agent came in
and took one picture of one look at the picture
and said, I know that guy. Let's go pick him up.
He just got out of jail, out of prison.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
So if you were going to commit a crime, would
it be better to wear something like that, like a
Abe Lincoln hat, because you were going to look at
the hat and not your face. Or is it just
try to people that remember you. Bet. I mean they're
going to remember you better because of the Habit would
make them remember your face less.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Oh, don't give Bobo advice on giving on doing crimes careful.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
I'll ask you for a friend.

Speaker 5 (47:07):
That's a good question, you know.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
It seems like, yes, that would be a good thing
because it would draw the eye to that thing and
not to your face. That's a great idea, Bobo, But
I'm not giving that out to people.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Well, well, Liz, thank you very much for coming on
Bigfoot and Beyond. We really do appreciate it, and it
is an interesting story, and I really appreciate the psychological
aspects that you brought to the conversation. And it's fun
to hear all the old teaching lingo again too, as
I've been out of the classroom quite a while now,
so talk about modalities and all that stuff. I really
do use that stuff probably on a weekly basis even now,

(47:43):
even now, because you know, at the museum here we
try to be we try to cater to multiple modalities.
You know, we have things to listen to, we have
things to see, we have things to touch, all that
sort of stuff and smell even you know, we have
We try to attack the various modalities here or in
the shop because I may not be in the classroom
any longer, but I still view myself as an educator.

(48:05):
It's one of the three main components to the mission
goals that the NABC is to educate the public. The
sasquatches are just real animals, just doing what they do.
So we really do appreciate your time and expertise and
your thoughts and just thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
Well, thank you for having me on. I didn't think
I had anything to add, but.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Yeah, thank you, Liz. I really do want to see you.
I'd love to see you draw, just as like a
little exercise on memory draw and you think it looked
like and then when you find the original comparison, I
think that'd be really interesting.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
And I wasn't joking. I would be happy to display
that in the museum. So if you do happen to
do that, reach out to me at the museum North
American Bigfoot Center at gmail dot com and just just
shoot me an email let me know that you've done.
You take a picture of it. I'll print it up.
I'll take all the costs, all that sort of stuff,
and I would just I would just love to see
what you come up with. So if you do that,
please do reach out to me.

Speaker 5 (48:59):
Okay, okay, I will all right.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Thank you so much Liz for coming on, and I'll
let Bobo take it out from here.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Ye, thank you, Liz. That was really interesting. That was
a good conversation. Okay, folks, thanks for listening and tuning in.
Hit like hit Share. Tell your friends and tell me
about us, Get them on board, convert them to the
squatch them Until next week, y'all, keep it squatchy.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Bigfoot and Beyond.
If you liked what you heard, please rate and review
us on iTunes, subscribe to Bigfoot and Beyond wherever you
get your podcasts, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram
at Bigfoot and Beyond podcast. You can find us on
Twitter at Bigfoot and Beyond that's an n in the middle,

(49:48):
and tweet us your thoughts and questions with the hashtag
Bigfoot and Beyond.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
A dist
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