Ep. 279 - Joe Bongiovanni & Mount St. Helens!

Cliff Barackman speaks with sasquatch researcher Joe Bongiovanni! Beyond Joe's relentless pursuit of the sasquatch, he's also the curator of North Fork Survivors, a museum that hosts the world's largest collection of original artifacts collected from the blast zone of Mount St. Helens! Cliff and Joe discuss field research in the Mount St. Helens area, Joe's experiences, and much more!

Donate to Joe's mission here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-joe-preserve-mt-st-helens-artifacts-and-human-history?qid=814b63d9afdbd6e8f79e7d090d6ad224

Watch Eli Watson's documentary featuring Joe's work here: https://youtu.be/gK3vN5Lh0BY?si=uqbFQ5Xjr2Jk1PQ0

Sign up for our weekly bonus podcast "Beyond Bigfoot & Beyond" and ad-free episodes here: https://www.patreon.com/bigfootandbeyondpodcast

Get official "Bigfoot & Beyond with Cliff & Bobo" merchandise here: https://sasquatchprints.com/bigfoot-and-beyond-merch/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Big Food and Beyond.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
With Cliff and Bobo.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
These guys are you favor It's so like say subscribe
and rade.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
It live Stock and.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Greatest Gone Yesterday and listening watching Limb always keep its watching.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
And now you're hosts Cliff Berrickman and James Bubo Fay. Hey, everybody,
it's Bigfoot in Beyond with Cliff and usually Bobo. But
Bobo is off tonight. He has taken care of some
family matters and that's all fine with us, you know,
because everybody's got a family and they matter. So it's
just Cliff tonight, although Matt Preue is lurking around here somewhere,
as he always is, probably off in the dark corner somewhere,

(00:49):
making sure that your listening experience is as good as
it can be. We have a great guest tonight, so
I think it is going to jump into that because
we have an awful lot to talk about this next
hour or so. The guests tonight. I've known him for
a number of years, and I met him on Finding
Bigfoot if you remember right, and or one of our episodes.
I think it was a Washington one. Remember the dude
with the giant military truck that they drove around in

(01:11):
and then try to find bigfoots and stuff. That's him,
that's him. It's Joe ban Gievanni. I had to practice
the last name. I'm not good at this sort of thing,
but Joe, thank you very much for coming on Bigfoot
and Beyond with Cliff and usually Bobo. How are you
doing today?

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Outstanding? Yeah, it's very cool to be here.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Oh, you know, I've been meaning to have you on
for a long time just because of your experience out there,
and also you have a museum out there. It's called
the Mount Saint Helen's Museum at North Fork Survivors. I
think it used to be called the Sunken A Frame
or something, is that correct.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
The area is known as or the location is known
as the Buried A Frame and has been that name
for us since nineteen eighty one. Started as a tourist location.
Our location was the end of Spirit Lake Highway from
nineteen eighty erupt into about nineteen ninety two when the

(02:02):
new Spirit Lake Highway opened.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Very good. It is the eight frame buried from the
mountain explosion.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, it is actually about eight feet. The location we're
at was known as Maple Flats and in kid Valley,
and on May eighteenth, the mudflow came through this property
at about quarter to eleven in the morning, across the
street from us. We used to have thirteen homes and

(02:28):
the mudflow took those off the foundation, removed the foundations
and the bedrock that they were on, sent those to
the Columbia River and then hit the corner of the
river and.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Backed across our property.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
The airframe was owned by and built by my friend
Blair Barner. He had built it in seventy nine and
finished it in nineteen eighty. Was brand spanking new when
this happened and the mudflow came through about eight foot deep,
went through the front of the building and completely buried it.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
They spent a year.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Trying to put to excavate this building out, and it
was to no avail. The water table changed on the
property due to the mudflow and the water slipping between
the mudflow and the original land underneath, and now it
fills with water, so essentially it was dead where it stands.
The property while they were trying to dig it out,

(03:19):
was used originally as a vacation homes. There's two homes
on the property and so while Blair and his friend
Ron Ranier, were trying to dig this building out. People
were coming up trying to see the effects of the eruption,
and the blastzone was cordoned off by the federal government
as a disaster area, and so they can only get

(03:40):
so close and this was the end. And so people
started hanging out in the property, looking up the valley
and so forth, and the wives of Ron and Blair,
they got this idea to set up a table out
in the front of the property and they made items
and they started selling stuff, and they were pretty smart,
as wives tend to be. And finally the guy caught
on and realize, huh, we might be able to do

(04:03):
something with this as far as a tourist location. So
they purchased a trailer, put it on the property and
found that it actually worked. And in nineteen eighty one,
the end of nineteen eighty one, they built our shop
building that's on the property and Northfolk Survivors was born
at the Buried A Frame and that was the Buried
A Frame was kind of the local nickname for the location.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
And the inside of the A Frame has been dugout.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Now, yeah, it's dugout. Between nineteen eighty and about nineteen
ninety four. Roughly, you used to be able to walk
through the a frame. There was a little donation box
there with stairs going down. You'd walk through, and the
rooms were filled with ash. The kitchen was intact. All
of the appliance has still had tags on them. They

(04:52):
were brand new. You can look in bedrooms and then
you go out the back of it. Over the years,
the building has aged because of being in the ground,
and it got to the point where it was so
dangerous to go into it that that had to be changed.
So now the guests are able to walk around the
building and just not go into it anymore.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Very interesting now. Of course, people out there listening just
in case, I'm assuming everybody knows about the Mount Saint
Helens eruption in nineteen eighty happened to be on May eighteenth.
I remember that date very well, just because that was
that's my parents anniversary.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, it is kind of cool. It's an easy way
for me to remember it, of course, But you know,
we do have international listeners, and there's definitely a chance
that there's people out there don't know what we're talking about.
But Mount Saint Helens is probably arguably the world's most
famous volcano. I think, certainly in the United States. I'd
say it's the most famous volcano active volcano, and it

(05:46):
erupted back in nineteen eighty, So a lot of what
we're talking about today is going to be based around that.
But this is Bigfoot and Beyond. And you are a
bigfooter and met you big footing on finding Bigfoot. But
and you know, to me, the centerpiece of your place
is that giant statue. I knew about the statue. I
had seen photographs of it. I knew about it years

(06:07):
before I even knew it was on that property. I
didn't know where it was in the world. What can
you tell us about the history of that statue?

Speaker 1 (06:14):
So that one was built in nineteen ninety two to
nineteen ninety four. It's made out of concrete in Mount
Saint Helen's ash and it was built by a lady
by the name of Beverly Roberts. She was known for
making statues around the Northwest, and she did all different
kind of animals. This is the only Bigfoot that she
made prior to this one being here, though she had

(06:37):
built one out of carpet and kind of chicken wire
skeleton underneath it and so forth. And we had some
rambuctious neighbors over here that their kids kind of got
trouble and they decided to set it on fire in
the middle of the night and burned the Bigfoot down.
So when somebody burns your bigfoot down, you build it
out of concrete and then they can't burned it down

(06:58):
after that. What she did was is she made it
out of concrete mixed with Mount Saint Helen's ash, which
gives it a very distinct coloration. To my knowledge, this
is the tallest concrete bigfoot statue in the world at
twenty two feet. Obviously northern California. They've got taller ones
made of redwood carved and so forth, but as far

(07:20):
as concrete skill skeleton, apparently he's the tallest and fun
fact to throw it out on this radio broadcast for
people that visit here. His official name for the last
many many years, in well since nineteen ninety four when
it opened. Barney is his name. He's actually named after

(07:40):
Blair Barner, who was on the property here.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Oh, it's a nice, a nice tribute to him. Yeah, absolutely,
you're giving me ideas about what to do with my
crewmated remains. When that eventuality hits it. You know, it's like,
I wonder if I can end up in a statue somewhere.
That'd be pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Yeah, We'll make a giant statue out of concrete and
we'll call it Cliff, and nobody will know why it's
named Cliff, but like you're incorporated into it.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
That'd be kind of cool.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
That'd be really cool. Yeah, it'd be really cool. If
I ever end up owning the property where the NABC is,
maybe I'll do that. You know. Now, now, of course
you you were on the Finding Bigfoot episode with us.
What was that your first television appearance or had you
been on television before.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
No, I had done television before. I didn't.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
That was my first time doing anything with UH that
was Bigfoot oriented. Before that, I was kind of in
the talk show world and worked with an audience coordinator
out of Kaufman Astoria Studios and Queens on the East Coast,
and some of the listeners would know a TV show.

(08:44):
Ricky Lake worked with Montel Williams worked with what was
this name? I can't remember, there was one on w
W or or it'll come to me probably like two
o'clock in the morning. Another one was Sassy magazine editor
Jane Pratt. That was another kaffin Astoria Studios. But anyway,
just yeah, kind of got involved with the talk show world,

(09:06):
and Bigfoot world's a lot better. People think bigfoot researchers
are crazy, go in the talk show world and all
of a sudden you'll understand how crazy things can get.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Now, what did you do on these talk shows? I mean,
you certainly have the voice for broadcasting. I mean you're
fantastic speaker. I think everybody can hear that is very obvious.
But what did you do on these shows? Were your
production somehow or were you with this guest that did
the talk show circuit or what were you up to? No.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
I would go on every once in a while as
just like little tidbits here and there. But most the
most part of my job was audience.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Coordination, which is what what does that even mean?

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Audience coordination is basically, you you coordinate your audience with
what the topic is for that particular day and uh
and then arranged to get whether you have to send
buses or you know, find people in locations advert ties.
When you get on set, you get everybody in there.

(10:04):
You kind of divvy up what where should people should
be in the studio audience, get prelminary ideas of what
people are thinking about so that you can let the
host know, hey, you need to talk to this person,
and you go to talk to this person and kind
of set the flow using your audience and have it
work with whatever the show topic is.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
You're doing all this stuff back east. How did you
end up in the Bigfoot World?

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Oh, Bigfoot World?

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, So my original career after the whole TV East
and I got involved with ophthalmology and was a surgical
coordinator for twenty one years, and I did retina, ocultarplastics
and cornea for ten years. I was at Southwest Medical
Center and moved to the Pacific Northwest in twenty ten.

(10:53):
My reason for moving out here is, well, it was
pretty simple. My wife and I got married in two
thousand and five. We came here on our honeymoon, loved
it so much, bought a house and then kind of
wound things down on the East Coast and just moved
here and stayed here. A beautiful place, wonderful people. I mean,
what can you complain about? And so my thought was, Yeah,

(11:15):
I'll do the ophthalmology work and we'll raise a family and.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Live the good life.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Until I decided to go look for a campsite with
two friends of mine on Forest Road thirty and give
her pinchot.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
And so we're prison there.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
It's mid September in twenty eleven, and I'm checking side
roads as we're driving, and the idea was to try
and find a campsite off the beaten path. We didn't
want to be right on the road, and so we're
just like pull in and go down these roads. Look
it's too dark, whatever. And so I'm coming up to
a curve that kind of curves to the left, and
there was a road on that went off to the right,

(11:53):
dirt road to track, and I turned to my friend Kenny,
and I said, Hey, what about this road here? And
at the same time, instead of passing it, I hit
the brakes and kind of stopped short and pulled in
as I'm saying this, and immediately at the same time,
all this stuff happens at the same time. Something I
would say about my height would be the guests in
my height six ' four so about six foot comes

(12:14):
out from the right, runs across in front of us
and through the rhododendrons and the blackberries on the left
side of the road very fast. It was all black
top to bottom. Face was a darker color, I'd have
to say, like dark brown on black. Couldn't see the
face as it was running. It was running slightly leaning
forward and was doing a real weird arm flail, almost

(12:37):
like somebody stepped in a beehive or something and they're
chasing them, and went right across the road, didn't even
slow down.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Needless to say, it crashed our afternoon.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
It says September, you know, mid September afternoon, about five
point thirty in the evening, dry road, no footprints, Like,
we're trying to figure out what the heck this was.
Kenny's wife's in the back seat screaming too.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
And it's like, well, what the heck did we just see?

Speaker 1 (13:04):
And so he's he's full blooded Crode Native and he
finally turned around and he said, I think we saw
a bigfoot and I'm like, nah, no, it's it's that
that's not even real.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
We heard about it. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
And the more I thought about it, it's like, well,
it didn't move like a guy. It didn't look like
a guy. It wasn't shaped like a guy. I don't
know what that was. And so the journey begins from
there of looking into it. You know, equisitive minds want
to know, and we started looking into it. Started out

(13:35):
completely backwoods research. Let's put a bell in a tree
with an apple and see what happens. Let's walk into
this area, started doing wood knocks and stuff. And then
one night I'm at home and I see an advertisement
on Animal Planet and it says this show Finding Bigfoot,

(13:58):
and this guy, I know, Barkman is on it. And
I called up Kenny and I said, hey, we're not insane.
There's actually a TV show about what we're doing here.
So there's other people out there doing this, and we
kind of stayed isolated, didn't really.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
I watched Finding Bigfoot.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
That's that show was like the the weekly thing, waiting
for that to come on, and and learned a lot
from that, but also kind of figured out our own methodology.
Places to go, how to do field calls, you know,
different ways to do wood knock sounds. And then I
got into almost like that Bobo would appreciate this. I

(14:38):
call it the Bobo bigfooting which is you go out
in the woods and you do something so stupid and
out of ordinary to try and draw them in. We've
done everything from music to disco balls, fireworks, you know,
playing instruments, barbecues, just all kinds of stupid stuff because
the thought was, we're never going to chase these guys down.

(15:01):
The only way really to get any kind of data
is to make ourselves interesting and work on that comined
sense of curiosity to come in and take a look,
and maybe we'll get lucky.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Well, I'm glad you recognized that, because we certainly got
a lot of grief over the years about our ridiculous
Bobo methods for lacke of a better term, And sometimes
Bobo did think those things up. Sometimes the production bought
them up and said, Bobo, are you okay with this?
We say, yeah, sure, whatever, it's fine, because you know,
we got a lot of grief from Hunters especially It's
like you're doing it all wrong. You need to descend

(15:34):
and go in and sit in a tree for eight
hours and not making noise and then thinking who's going
to watch that? Right? That's lame TV. It's terrible. So,
and of course we also have cameras with us, and
we have to do battery changes and light changes and
card changes and notes, and there's a small troop of
people following us around. You may not see them on camera,
but they're there, and you know, there's no other way

(15:54):
to do it except for going big and ridiculous and
hoping that we can draw a curious onlooker. So I'm
glad you recognize that as what it was, as opposed
to like what one maybe perhaps should really do. Sometimes
I think it's a really really good strategy if you
have the energy for it. Of course, you know, to
go big and just see what comes in and takes
a look. So kudos to you. Stay tuned for more

(16:18):
Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo. Will be right
back after these messages. So, of all these ridiculous things
that you've done in the woods, what are some of
the things that have worked for you in the past
to actually bring them in for a closer look.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
So one of the one of the best ones that
ever worked is is it makes perfect sense in retrospect,
is to wait during black tail deer season. And you know,
some people agree, some people don't. But the reality is
when we go deep out in the woods. I carried
a sied arm with me and one of the message

(16:59):
that I used during blacktail deer season or elk season
is to wait until probably fifteen minutes before sunset and
go to an embankment and fire a single shot into
the embankment and sit and wait. And we have gotten
a lot of luck doing that. And here's why I

(17:19):
think a lot of hunters report bigfoots following them. There's
a thought that, you know, these guys are really smart.
They might be following hunters to pick up what's left
over when an elk gets quartered out or a deer,
and it's a free meal. You don't even have to
work for it. And so my thought is they hear
this single shot and they think that you got a deer,

(17:41):
and then they show up and they find a bunch
of guys sitting in the woods doing absolutely nothing with
no deer, and the thought is, well, what is this
something interesting, something different? And we've gotten a lot of
got a thermal hit with doing that, and got a
lot of really good would not conversations that I call
them on a video where we do a wood knock

(18:04):
and an individual won't answer and do another one back,
and then from another direction another one will answer back,
and this would go on for fifteen twenty minutes when
they were documented. But yeah, single shot in a hillside
and draw them in, make them think that we got
a deer. I'm not a hunter, so but I can
make a loud noise and get them to come in.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
You know, the way you're talking, I think you're hitting
upon something that I don't think we hammer enough on
this show. And that's the idea of reproducibility in science.
That's one of the key components of science, you know,
is doing an experiment that is reproducible. And it sounds
to me like you've had this happen, You've been successful
with this technique a number of times? Am I correct

(18:47):
in that assumption?

Speaker 1 (18:48):
Correct enough times to actually make me comfortable in thinking
that these guys are or what we'll say is our
target subjects are active monitoring what we're doing.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
You know, as a species, they recognize hunting season and
then they recognize that, hey, we can get some free
food and realize that the noise of the firearm is
associated with the free food, almost like we're ringing a
dinner dinner bell and uh, and then you know, they
show up. And there's also reproducibility of these wood knocks,

(19:24):
which to me is making me think that the wood
knocks are just not a random sound that they're doing
to get your attention or whatever. But it seems like
that it's a communication between the individuals of how they're
coordinating their efforts, whether it be be quiet, there's people around,

(19:45):
or this is a total waste of time, let's leave,
you know, that kind of a thing. So it's it's
demonstrating that that these are these are sentient beings, these
are these are smart individuals. And you know, over the years,
I've kind of come to feel like we're we're dealing

(20:05):
with people here and not you know, there was there's
the whole bandwagon with gigantophysicus Blackie. To me, no, this
is this is not a knuckle walker, This is not
an orang antan or something like that. This is a
hominade two feet and higher order brain, more developed frontal
cortext you know, social structure and curiosity, you know, and

(20:28):
spoken language just like us. And and every time we
reproduce things like that, this it to me, it proves
that there's there's learning and there's sentient thought behind what's
going on now.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Of course, all of those things you mentioned, with the
one exception of spoken word a are ape characteristics. I
want to point that out. Communication and curiosity and sentience,
and none of that stuff is beyond that of Bonobo's chimps, rangutans,
et cetera. The only thing you mentioned there is some
sort of verbal speech which begs a question, have you
heard that yet?

Speaker 3 (21:04):
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (21:05):
On numerous occasions. We have a member his name is Jackson,
and he's trained as a linguist and had him listen
to stuff and his take on it is he says, well,
the way it's put together, it sounds like spoken language.
You just everything about what we would expect from a
spoken language. However, it's not the Resetta Stone.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
We don't know what they're saying.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
I have no idea, and from these small samplings you
really can't tell what it is they're saying or put
it back together. The researchers that are out there, I
mean all these citizen scientists that are out there putting
in their time and recording stuff and going out in
the woods and all of this. I'm hoping that we
can build a database big enough to be able to

(21:51):
start looking into this phenomenon as people record it, and
you know, I'm trying to win out maybe we can
kind of figure out getting gist of what it is
that they're saying.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
That'd be great, But it sounds like you're also onto
the next step, which which is having a people who
are who have some level of expertise in certain areas
taking a listen as well. Because there's plenty of big
footers out there, not as many as I once thought
out there actually trying to collect data and all that stuff,
you know, collect something to share other than just siding
reports or something like that. I used to think there

(22:24):
are probably more people doing it, but I don't think
that anymore. But there are some people out there doing it,
like yourself, you know, out there trying to get recordings
and trying to get footprints and trying to get actual
physical or you know, some or even digital evidence of
some sort. But the hard part is to find somebody qualified,
somebody who has some level of expertise to weigh in
and give their two cents, you know, on a piece

(22:46):
of evidence that is collected. It sounds like you probably
have at least one person you mentioned, but maybe more
what's going on in that realm as far as your
research goes.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, we keep it. We keep it pretty small. I
have four individuals that work with us and kind of
take shifts. We've been doing a lot lately because I'm
tied up with so much other stuff. Been doing a
lot with remote operated equipment in the woods. Person that's
been helping out with that over the past year and
a half or so Chris Spencer from the Olympic Project.

(23:19):
This guy is just an absolutely brilliant researcher. I'm pretty
sure you know the name.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, of course, he's actually been a guest on the
show and he's a good friend. He's been to the
house actually I've shared my cast with him. He's been
to the museum as well. And yeah, Chris is a
good friend of ours actually.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
So yeah, absolutely awesome individual and.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
He's one of the best people out there in the
field in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Absolutely absolutely and dedicated and so yeah, he's been doing
a lot as far as recording work and stuff like
that provides things for us, and everybody we have has
their own specialty. My thought was is that in order
to solve something, as you know, whenever you're faced with
a question that's super complex, I think the best way

(24:02):
to figure it out is is to surround yourself with
a whole bunch of people that are way smarter than
you are.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
That's my theory as well. Exactly right.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
You know, you just you kind of work together and
everybody's got their their things. So yeah, so there's four
of us that really go and and do this when
we have to. We have the So you had mentioned
with finding Bigfoot that we used a big military truck
that was completely goofy and dangerous in the woods.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Well, so is finding Bigfoot in a lot of ways
goofy and goofy and dangerous in the woods.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Absolutely. Yeah. I have some stories with that I can
share with you too.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
Oh I'd love to hear it, of course.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, they tried to kill me on uh with the truck,
but yeah, I'll come back to that. We ended up
changing and we use a hum V now with someal
imaging and stuff to do these wide area scans. And
it's just a single tool in this toolbox of stuff
that that we use out in the woods.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, you are a gadget guy, Am I safe? Is
that a safe accusation to throw at you?

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Well, I wouldn't say I'm a gadget person. What I
do is is I look at the problem and say, well,
can I solve this by putting on a backpack and
going out in the woods and sitting somewhere and just
being quiet and listening, or can I use technology to
kind of refine this research or make myself more efficient?

(25:27):
And then the thing is is I'm all about efficiency
with stuff. So if I'm going to use a vehicle
out in the woods, well it should be equipped to
be able to handle the terrain, and then it would
be equipped to be able to handle thermal imaging and
any kind of documentation, data collection, making notes, keeping my backpack,
cooking dinner, all that stuff, and put everything in this

(25:49):
one thing so that if I need to go out
and do something, I don't go around the house looking
for fifteen different items. I just go push the start
button and go drive away. So I don't know, and
I guess as I get older, I get lazy and
want to make things like work smart and not hard.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, here here is the thermal imager on their HUMV.
Is that how you got the thermal hit or is
that what they handheld?

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (26:14):
No, that was off of the hum V that was
the short range thermal imaging. It's actually a proprietary system
I built here at North Fork Survivors. And when I
built it, I set it up so that it did
what I wanted it to do. And one was, have
you know, a clear image turret system, remote controlled record

(26:37):
all the video and so forth. And then the other
thing was is I wanted to rule out for false targets,
because with thermal imaging you get termite mounds and logs
and all this warm rocks and all this crazy stuff
in the woods. And so when I built the system,
I managed to get it dialed in with software changes
to recognize between ninety eight and one hundred and two

(26:59):
degrees in height. I have no idea what temperature these
guys are. It seemed like a good range to go.
And so what it does now is if it picks
up something within that temperature range relative to the ambient
background temperature, it'll put a yellow box on it and
say you have a living thing. And uh, the hit

(27:21):
that we got northeast of Mount Saint Helens, that hit
we know isn't in an artifact because the computer locked
onto it saying that this temperature was absolutely between that rings.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Joe, I hate to break this to you, but I
think you actually might be a gadget guy. Okay, you
know if you did that, I think I think you
probably qualify. I mean, just to be fair, So what
other what other tools do you have on the humby
that that help you? And also, by the way, it
sounds like it's a it's at least a two person operation.
Is that correct?

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Absolutely that that's the biggest downfall with the hum Vy
as one of the reasons why I say it's just
one tool and toolbox because the person who's doing the
imaging is the one who's essentially driving the vehicle, and
then the driver follows his command, so it takes two
people to make the system work. I guess I should

(28:14):
explain what the thought thought process is behind it because
one of the things I always hear and when I
did that documentary with Eli Watson, who by the way,
is another genius when it comes to documentaries, a lot
of the comments were like, Yeah, this whole system is
completely idiotic. I don't get it. Why would you take

(28:35):
this loud, stinky thing and go out in the woods
and try and pick up bigfoot? They're not stupid, and
that's exactly what the whole point is. They're not stupid.
And my thought was, well, they if you're driving down
a logging road in the middle of the night and
you have your headlights on, our target subjects who are
really smart will see the headlights coming, duck for cover,

(28:57):
let you go by, and you won't see anything. So
I started doing experiments with documenting the number of mice
that cross a road in front of you with headlights
on versus the number of nights that cross the road
in front of you without headlights, And just to put
it straight forward, the number without the headlights is absolutely

(29:19):
huge because they don't see you coming even though there's
noise and all of this other stuff. So I got
to thinking and saying, hmm, so if we take this
hum v. It's got a diesel engine, which to me
is very similar to like a logging truck or something.
It's a sound they're familiar with. It smells it's a
diesel engine, so they can smell it. But what if

(29:40):
we don't have any headlights and no interior lights and
change up the stimuli where one of them is missing,
And the possibility is is kind of like this. If
you're going to cross a road in the middle of
the night and hear a vehicle coming, the first thing
you do is look for the headlights. Well, if you
see headlights, you wait, let him go by. Well what

(30:01):
if you don't see any headlights. So now you're sitting
there and looking, well, is it coming down the road,
is it stopped? Is it on another road? Is it
going away from me? What's going on here? That ten
seconds of trying to figure this situation out? Is the
idea between behind all of the Well, I guess, says
gadget guy, all the gadgets in the hum V is

(30:22):
to give me that ten second advantage that maybe I
can get a video or a photo or something while
they're trying to figure this out. And northeast of Mount
Saint Helens that event when it unfolded, Uh, the individual
was actually up on the road and the researcher in
the back seat called that we had a target on
the road had just gone to the left. Kobe Russell's

(30:45):
in the right seat. He swings the turret around with
thermal imaging and tells me to stop. I stop, and
he acquires it and then tells me to pull forward
and then back up and there we go. We have it.
It seemed like our individ ran off the road, heard
something coming and then stopped to look back, and he

(31:05):
was doing this thing where his feet and this is
another thing that was was not made clear with the documentary.
His lower body was facing away and his upper body
he twisted around and was looking back, so he had
his feet in the direction to travel. And then when
we moved forward on the on the video part of it,
we only released a snapshot of it, and on the

(31:26):
video part of it, his upper body he turned quick
and ran away into the woods. And I should I
have to bring that to you so that you can
you can look at it and make sure you're seeing
the same thing that I am with it. But it's
almost like he was sitting there and looking back at us,
but there was no reflection. It was dark, but he
could hear it. He knew there was something there, but

(31:48):
where is it? And then when I moved the truck forward,
he acquired it was whoa, it's right on top of me.
And he took off and was out of there.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bobo.
Will be right back after these messages. That's interesting because
it's essentially it's a different flavor of what we were
talking about earlier, doing something unexpected, kind of getting them
curious about something. You're just doing the same thing, but

(32:18):
in a mobile sort of unit. You give them something
that they should be kind of familiar with, you know,
the diesel smell, the diesel sound, headlights, vehicle on a
road at night. Certainly they see these things, probably on
a weekly basis, depending on where they live, of course.
And then you throw a wrench into that, you do
something a little bit different, Which is interesting because so
many times I hear from like long term witnesses, for example,

(32:40):
who have sasquatches near their property and they see them occasionally,
maybe you know, once or twice a year or more
or something like that. They tend to see these things
when they break tradition, when they break their habit, when
they break their routine. Shall we say, and you kind
of did the same thing here, and you attribute that
to I'm assuming you tribute that to the surprise factor

(33:01):
of what you were explaining before. Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Yeah, it's just it's it's making them making them second guess. Uh.
The only the only problem I.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Have with the system is is that these guys are
really smart and I'm pretty sure that that that that
individual that we think we imaged in the end. Uh,
you know, everybody who is involved with that would agree
it's a thermal imaging hit on a screen. We need
something better to be able to uh determine exactly what
we're looking at. But everything fits of what we think

(33:31):
we're looking at. But my thought is is that if
I do it to them once, it's probably not going
to work again. And so it's like you have one
time that that it'll work in an area. I'm I
think they're pretty smart and we'll catch on quickly and
it won't work. Kind of like using a drone in
an area. You know, if you catch them on thermal
or something with a drone and they hear the drone,

(33:52):
then you're probably not going to get them in the
area again with the drone because they know the sound
at that point.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, it's worth a shot though, whenever that's worth it's
worth a shot.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
I think that they can be fooled more than once.
That's you know, there's more than one individual in an
area too, maybe you're gonna catch the other one or
something like that. So I would keep trying the things
that work if you.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
Can, unless they talk and tell on me.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, and that jury is still out, you know, because
think about you're a technique with shooting a single bullet
into a burm and waiting for them to come in.
You would think that they would have talked to each
other before that and said, yeah, that that doesn't work.
Of course, how many times does it work? So maybe
that's what the thing here that would be different. It's
like they've they've succeeded so many times at that one
or two or three or five times of coming and

(34:37):
seeing you guys hanging out. Maybe that wouldn't be enough
to deter them because of the successes and positive reinforcement
they've received in the past. But something to consider anyway.
I wouldn't give up on that one quite yet. If
I were you, what's your thoughts on it?

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Do you think?

Speaker 1 (34:49):
I mean, you've you've been doing this for so long
and seen so much? What is what is your thought?
Do you think they are talking to each other?

Speaker 2 (34:56):
I suspect they are. I suspect they are, And again
I don't. I I heard something last month that I
thought it was two people, and I was literally on
my knees documenting a footprint at the time, but I'm
not sure that's what it was. The direction of travel
of what I heard was not the direction of the
trail that was nearby, and nobody came down the trail
and I was literally thirty feet from the trail, so

(35:17):
there's that. But I do suspect that they're talking to
each other in some sort of language or proto language,
whatever that means. See, I'm not sure exactly what constitutes
a language versus just general communication either. I'm sure there's
some linguists and things like that out there who would
probably school me very deeply on that sort of stuff,
but it's just not my area of expertise or interest.

(35:38):
But it did. Sure, I heard two things talking and
I couldn't understand what they're saying. I just assumed it
was distance at the time. But I personally hesitate to
attribute too much intelligence to them. I think that they
have higher than ape like intelligence, but not necessarily a
human like intelligence, and there's several reasons for that. I

(35:58):
do think that they can be They don't seem to
care about some stuff that I think that they would
care about. Like you know, shooting ranges and stuff, if
they were a little bit more on top of things,
so to speak. And all those things, except for the
language thing you mentioned earlier, are typical eight behaviors. So
they are absolutely apes, but then again, so am I
human beings. Homosapiens are apes. That's our family. And then

(36:21):
I want to encourage everyone who listens to speak about
these things in biological terms. I think that does the
subject well. But I think that they're probably probably smarter
than bonobo's and chimps and orangutans, which are orangutans are
generally thought of as the smartest of apes. But I
don't think they're a human like and intelligence. And part

(36:42):
of the reason I say that is because there's that
wonderful mosaic photograph that you can find on Bill Munn's website,
and it's a frame by frame version that's framed by
frame mosaic photograph of Patty from the Patterson Gimlin film
Turning her Head, and it really gives a lot of
insight into the crany structure, and a couple of things
that really stand out to me is that the face

(37:04):
is very flat and actually doctor Krantz talks about this
in his book. The face is very flat and immediately
above the brow ridge there's almost a ninety degree turn
in the head shape. Whereas humans have this big globular
sort of forehead structure because of our large frontal lobe,
and sasquatches are missing that. They're completely missing that. And
that's where a lot of that sort of like human

(37:26):
stuff happens in the brain, is that in that frontal lobe,
and sasquatches are physically missing that. And also when you
look at the head, what you see is you see
a sagital cress. You see huge zygomatic arches and a
huge jaw structure, which to me says that the vast
majority of their cranial structure is dedicated to chewing. They

(37:46):
are a chewing machine like a paranthropist would be or
something like that. And whereas that does not necessarily I'm
not saying they're dumb by any means. They're very intelligent
and very smart and very I think that they show
a sense of humor some times, I think that they
might be speaking to one another. They show strategic use
of their environment and also their groupings. They are communicating

(38:08):
on some level, but they don't. In my opinion, they
don't have a human like intelligence. And there's actually a
physical reason I believe that, and it's the cranial structure.
So that's my take on it. But that doesn't mean
that they're not smart. I want to make that very
very clear. They're the smartest things walking around out there,
But that doesn't mean that they have human like intelligence either.
And the question is does language indicate that? And I

(38:31):
don't think it necessarily has to. I don't think it
necessarily language necessarily means that you have to have a
human like intelligence. It just means that you have to
have the capability of thinking symbolically because words are audible,
like they're basically small mouth noises that represent things, you know.
So that's my take on it. But dude, I mean,

(38:53):
I'll tell you, Joe, I don't know. I've been doing
this thirty years. I'm a learner. I'm no expert. I
have some experience, but I'm no expert in these animals.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Absolutely, there's no such thing as an expert on this.
And what you're saying, I really like it makes perfect
sense and it would explain Actually have a question for
you because it would explain here in Mount Saint Helens,
and so I don't go all over I haven't been
all over the country looking into this stories everywhere and
so forth, and I think there might be some regional

(39:23):
differences in kind of our target subjects. But so for
Mount Saint Helens, we're not seeing any indications of like
any kind of structure building or not seeing anything like art,
tool making stuff like that. And what you're describing explains
why we're not seeing that those major components of what

(39:46):
makes us human missing. The question I have for you
is in your experience, have you seen any indicators of
tool making? And I'm not talking about tool use like
smash a rock on something, but actual maybe a napping
kind of a thing, or any kind of art or
anything that indicates there's those kind of expressions.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Never once, never ever once. And a big concern of mine,
especially with these stick structured things, is that no one
has ever told me like little t pee things, you know,
I think they break trees. I found some very odd
things in these tree breaks that I believe or sasquatch
associated and I'll explain why I believe that in the moment.
But all these stick structures and glyphs and this, and

(40:29):
that's that people are attributing to sasquatches. To my knowledge,
no one's ever seen one do it. And you think
about how many structures are out there, and how many
people are attributing these things they find in the woods
to sasquatches, you would think that at some point somebody
would have seen one and told me about it, or
you about it, or somebody about it. Because I think

(40:50):
of all the other purported behaviors of sasquatches, from rock
throwing to killing deer, to breaking trees to knocking to
you name it. There are not just one or two reports.
There are numerous reports of them doing that out there
in the database, you know, in the sighting reports. And
never once have I heard somebody saying, yeah, I was

(41:12):
making a tepee structure at it sticks or never once,
So that really bothers me. I'm open to it. I
argue with Bobo back and forth a lot on this
program about it. I'm open to it. I'm just waiting
for somebody to convince me. And I'm not going to
believe it just because someone says it's true.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, I have to agree with you, and that because
I haven't seen anything like that either, The only thing
I've ever seen that's any kind of, you know, major
environmental alteration would be tree breaks and tree breaks that
are in lines that seem to be equidistant the tops
of the trees facing the same direction. I don't know,

(41:50):
is that a territorial boundary or is it just dumb
luck that they're like that? Founded on quite a few
occasions up by Mount Adams, and that's about the only
thing I've ever seen as far as a structure, tepe
structure or something like that. Every time I've ever found one,
you can look at it and kind of reconstruct the wind,
snow storm or the snowstorm or whatever that had created

(42:13):
this anomaly in the middle of the woods, but nothing
that indicates like it was put there with some sort
of intelligence or intension behind it.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
I've taken a couple of reports of them breaking trees,
and usually at a stress I believe. I think that's
a stress reaction to being observed by a human. But
in the last few months, I've been trying to zero
in on some of these broken trees in one of
my research areas, and we've found some unusual things about

(42:42):
these broken trees. But the thing that really strikes me
is that twice now within three feet maybe five feet
at the most of these broken trees with these unusual
other aspects to them. I have found footprints twice now,
like thirteen inch foot print in one case, and then
there was a twelve inch footprint another. So that to

(43:04):
me is a direct correlation, one to one correlation footprint
on the ground next to this weird broken tree that
I can't wrap my head around how it could be done,
you know, in a natural fashion. That's it, you know,
And that's what I think is lacking with the structure
stuff in general, direct one to one correlation. And of
course there's lots of broken trees in the woods, just

(43:27):
lots all sorts of things break trees right Elk break trees,
for example, bears break trees, wind snow, et cetera, and
sasquatches we have reports of them doing so. And these
particular trees are very unusual because of the other branches
that are still left on the tree in those two cases.
In about a half dozen more cases, the branches, the

(43:50):
small side branches that are probably less than a centimeter
in diameter, that are kind of sticking out horizontally from
the trees are pulled back around on the tree and
generally stuck in some weird position or wrapped around another
branch so it stays there. And that stuff, you know,
snow doesn't do that. And those were grabbing my attention.

(44:10):
It's like, whoa, what the world is doing that? I
wonder if the bigfoots are And then you know, fast
forward a couple months or whatever, and I have now
found two of these broken trees with these little dude
ads on them, with footprints, the sasquatch footprints right and
not just one like a trackway right next to the tree.
So I'm inclined to think that that is probably a

(44:31):
sasquatch related thing as well. So again I think these
are probably stress reactions because so far we've only found
them next to roads and trails. Now a skeptic, of course,
would say, well, that's because a human is doing it.
But then I spent a lot of time walking off trail,
you know trails. I'm very often on roads because that's
where we're flying, you know, decommissioned forest roads. Not there's

(44:54):
nobody driving these things, but that's where we're finding most
of our footprints. But at the same time, I do
spend a lot of time just off trail, and I
have never found one of these things off trail yet,
but I have found them next to human trails and roads,
whether they're active or decommissioned. So I think that these
are probably stress reactions that the sasquatch, you know, pops
up and there's a road and I, you know, maybe

(45:16):
we don't know what happened when if the sasquatch is
doing this, and that's an if, I don't know that.
We don't know what was occurring at that moment. Maybe
a car was driving by, maybe a car just went by.
I have no idea. And maybe that's why they broke
a tree. It's like I'm going to show these humans
who's a big bad guy here, and that shows them.
You know, Kathy's Strain, years and years and years ago
told me that she thinks that the higher a tree

(45:37):
is broken, that or she's hypothesizing that the higher the
tree is broken, the bigger and more badass the sasquatches
pretending to be Oh interesting, Yeah, yeah, it's an interesting thing.
It's interesting possibility. But yeah, so I don't know the
tree breaks. I'm with it now. I think that's going
on the structures not so much yet. I'm not there,

(45:58):
not sold.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Yeah, I'm with you on that, just not sold on that,
but I would agree with you the tree breaks.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and Beyond with Cliff and Bogo.
Will be right back after these messages now, now, Joe, obviously,
the Sasquatch, the conversation is fantastic. I'm super into it
and your delight to speak to you really really are.
But that's not exactly the only reason I brought you

(46:29):
on the podcast here is because you have this other
project going that you have a go fundme for, and
it is a totally worthy topic and a totally worthy endeavor.
It's fantastic and I want, I want to tell all
of our listeners about it, but I mean, you know
it better than me, So tell us what this other
project that I was talking to you about just yesterday

(46:49):
the day before, and what you have going on there
out at the Mount Saint Helens Museum.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Well, first of all, I have the most understanding wife
on planet Earth, Diana. When she's listening to this, yes,
I have to give her credit, because the poor girl
has not had a night out or a vacation in
nine years, because we have all this stuff going on,
and because we were so busy, I figured why not

(47:15):
throw something else on it. And basically what it is
is that when you go to the visitors centers in
our area and you learn about the Mount Saint Helen's eruption,
well you hear a lot about geology, you hear about volcanology,
you hear about environmental recovery. Are all relevant subjects. And
the problem I had was is there were fifty seven

(47:37):
people that lost their lives in this eruption. There were
countless people.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
That lost homes. There was toallenge changed forever, and this
wave sent through the Pacific Northwest that we still feel
today from this event that happened in nineteen eighty and.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
So ended up going on this crusade now to say,
the memories of those involved with the eruption victims, as
well as people associated with it, logging crew's, law enforcement,
National Guard personnel, everybody and anybody, even down to those

(48:14):
that remember being a little kid and picking ash off
the car and have a story and a little envelope
of what they save for the last forty four years,
every single person is relevant. And so now I have
this gigantic collection of original artifacts that are associated with
the eruption, things that are iconic pieces, people that we

(48:36):
get to talk about. Robert Landsberg and these photos that
he took on the west side of Mount Saint Helen's
one of our own right here, Red Blackburn from the
Colombian and Vancouver and his story, just Harry Truman. I
have items from Harry Truman. I have his hat, his shirt,
and his pants and his boots, and notes from the lodge,

(48:59):
his shave being kit, one of his whiskey glasses, and
things that people you know, read about in books and
then they come here and all of a sudden, these
physical items bridge this gap between present day and nineteen
eighty and instead of hearing about it, they're physically looking
at something that is associated with this individual or this story,

(49:22):
and it has become almost all consuming now.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
I can it would have to be, and just for
our listeners, I mean, because I was very interested. I
was like nine years old when when the when the
mountain blew up. You know, I turned ten later that year,
and actually, for whatever reason, my parents ought to be
a good vacation to come up to the Pacific Northwest
that year to check out the devastation and stuff. And
of course, being the Pacific Northwest, I couldn't see the mountain.
It was all cloudy and rainy and stuff like that.

(49:47):
But I do remember it was very, very weird that
all the ash was, you know.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
Knee deep.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
It looked like snow, but it wasn't. Its dangerous to
breathe and all that sort of stuff. So I was
interested in it even back in the day. You know,
I even found my old mount Saint Helen's book about
the eruption. There's a wonderful cartoon in it of a
Sasquatch putting a plug into the top of the mountain,
complaining about the rumbling and whatnot. We have that cartoon,
by the way, hanging in the bathroom at the North

(50:13):
American big Foot Center. It's always really struck me, and
because my bigfoot stuff goes back to when I was
just a little kid. But Harry Truman, you mentioned that
name a couple of times, and I'm sure some people
are probably unaware because they're thinking Harry Truman the President. No. No,
there was this old dude in the mountain that basically
refused to leave even though he knew it was going
to be his demise, and he was almost like the

(50:34):
face of the of the eruption in some sort of
ways because of his curmudgetiness, if that's the right word,
and his stubbornness. And he went down with the mountain.
And it turns out that actually, I don't know if
you know Larry Lund. He's a very good friend of mine.
He's an older gentleman, been big footing for fifty years
or more, sixty years something like that, maybe maybe longer actually,

(50:56):
but he knew Harry Truman. He would go up there
and hang out with Harry Truman and fish with them
at Spirit Lake and stuff. And so he's kind of,
to me, at least, kind of the face of the
stubborn Pacific northwesterner who went down with the ship.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
You know, oh, absolutely, Harry Truman to me had the
most glorious demise that you could ever have. And here's
what I mean is that, you know, all of us
will face our own demise at one point.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
And you know, the.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Regular routine is as well, you pass and your family mourns,
and then they go through your items, they sell things,
they sell your car, your home gets sold whatever. Harry Truman,
he's at this place that he was at for fifty
four years, loved spirit lake, loved the mountain, loved what
he did, and decides he doesn't want to leave, and
he's defiant against everybody that's telling him to leave. The

(51:50):
mountain erupts, destroys his lodge, all of his belongings, everything
is just absolutely erased, and he goes with the mountain,
the lake and the area that he loved. And on
top of that, now he doesn't have a headstone, he
doesn't have a memorial in some park somewhere. Everybody that
goes up and looks at that mountain, the first person

(52:10):
that you think of is Harry Truman and his lodge.
That's his legacy. And to me, that is pretty awesome
to be able to do that, you know, forever be
associated with that area.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Oh absolutely, that's any one of us could could only
hope to go out like that. Now I have images
in my head because I've seen these photographs and I'm
not good at names, like you clearly are excellent at
this sort of stuff. There was a geologist who is
seen like there's a photograph of him, like a week
or two before, probably a week or two, maybe a month.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Before the eruption, sitting in front of his camper in
one of these nineteen seventies fold out chairs and watching
the mountain and he's smiling, and he took pictures as
the mountain was erupting and sliding towards him, and I
think he sheltered. Did he shelter his camera with his body?
And then they recovered the photographs? Who's that guy?

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Yeah, so you have like four stories mixed together on
that one.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah. Well, you know, Bobo is my partner in this
sort of adventure here is in this podcast, So it
makes sense. That's funny as long as I'm kind of
right for me. That's close enough.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
First thing you're talking about in the chair sitting in
front of the the RV with the International Scout behind him,
that's David Johnston USGS.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Oh. They named the observatory after him.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Name the observatory after him. His story is.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
One of almost bad luck because he was a gas scientist.
He studied gas emissions on volcano, spent a lot of
time actually on Mount Saint Helen's collecting samples. However, he
wasn't a observation field guy, and he had no business
up at Cold Water two sitting there that day when

(53:54):
the eruption happened. And what I mean is is there
was a volcanologist by the name of Harry Lincoln who
was actually up there monitoring Mount Saint Helens.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
He had gotten a call.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
That he needed to go to California for some sort
of postdoctorate interview or something like that, and so he
calls around seeing who can cover him up there, and
he asked Dave Johnson, Hey, can you do me a
favor and cover Saturday night into Sunday morning till nine am,
and we'll get another researcher, who actually was Don Swanson,

(54:27):
was supposed to go up there and cover him nine o'clock.
And so Dave's up there, and that photo you're talking
about was taken by gelogist by the name Carolyn Dreger,
and she had actually visited him that evening and was
going to stay the night for camping, like just to

(54:47):
kind of hang out, and Dave told her, no, it's
dangerous up here, you need to leave, and her and
her friend actually left, and then the next morning this
event happens. But he had no business. It's just the
wrong place, the wrong time, and he literally got involved
with this by half an hour they taking the photos

(55:07):
of the eruption. That was Gary Rosenquis. There's actually two
people that took those pictures, Gary Rosenquez and Keith Ronholm,
who were at bare Meadow northeast of Mount Saint Helen's
and they took the kind of these famous photos of
the start of the eruption from the northeast side. And
Gary Rosenquis, you know, he took off in a car

(55:27):
to get out of there and running along a ridge
line of Forced Road ninety nine going out and the
surge goes on either side of them and survives. And
you know, you've got to always have a witness for
these events. And that's where those photos came from. The
story with the person protecting the film is one of
the people that we actually talk about here because I

(55:50):
have quite a few of his personal belongings and I
have his car, and that's Robert Landsberg, if you've ever
heard that name. And so Robert Landsburg, we were talking
about being a badass. When I do presentations on him,
I tell people straightforward, Robert Landsberg was a total badass
and here's why. So he decides to take pictures of
Mount Saint Helens on that weekend. And one of the

(56:12):
things a lot of people don't know about is is
that the rumor mill in this area was that we
were going to have a king tide that weekend. And
there's this thought that these king tides not only do
they affect the ocean but level in streams and so forth,
but they may also take pressure off of mountains and
landforms and so forth. There's no proof backing it, but

(56:35):
this was the thought. And so mister Landsberg hears about this,
and you know, I'm gonna go out there and I'm
gonna shoot some photos. It was known by the public
that there was a risk that the north side could
collapse and go into Spirit Lake, not even talking about
an eruption, just that we can have a huge avalanche
because of all this quarter mile of material sticking out

(56:55):
of the mountain. And so mister Landsberg positioned himself accordingly
on the southwest side of the mountain, and his thought was, well,
if the mountain collapse, it will go away from me.
And so that morning May eighteenth, he shoots these photos
of the landslide and the subsequent pyroclastic surge that comes

(57:17):
from the mountain, and he feels that he's safe, except
that he didn't realize that not only did the surge
go out, but it kind of did a rollback from
his position, and also the collapse caused a pyroclastic surge
to come down the west, south, and east sides of
the mountain at the same time. He has nowhere to go,
pulls his camera off of the tripod, folds up the

(57:39):
tripod and we know this because I have his tripod here,
and then he rolls the film back into the camera,
drops the camera and a backpack, throws it on the
ground and lays on top of it to protect the film,
and the surge goes over him at four hundred degrees fahrenheit,
blows his sixty nine Dodge coronet in half. The front
end lands in the road with the wheel sticking eye up,

(58:00):
and that's the end of mister Lansburgh. Seventeen days later,
the Nash Guards flying over and they see the wheels
of his Dodge cornet sticking up, and they land and
they bring mister Landsburgh home. They check the backpack, find
the camera, find the film, and the film's intact. He
had actually pulled it off and so as a photographer.

(58:21):
One of your things in life is is you want
to get in some sort of a good periodical time
magazine something like that. Well alone and behold January nineteen
eighty one. He's center spread of National Geographic Magazine, his photos,
his story and so forth. Paid for it with his life,
but he pulled it off. And to me, it's this
unbelievably impressive human story. You know, facing your own demise,

(58:45):
what decisions do you make at that last second? And
what's your legacy going to be with those decisions in
that last second? And to me, mister Landsbergh is just
a shining star of leaving this legacy. And forty four
years later, now we're looking at his photos. I have
his car here, and I'm like, there's got to be

(59:07):
more to this story. And it's just something was eating
at me. And so Dave Keeler, who's one of my
colleagues that does these archaeological endeavors here with me, we
decided to last August in September to take mister Landsberg's
car and turn it over because I have it presented
on its roof with the wheel sticking up, because it

(59:29):
was integral to his story and being found and so
we took the car. We strapped it and carefully turned
it over until it was sitting on its wheels again.
And the idea was, is there anything in this car left? Well,
when we went through the car, we found a glove
compartment with all of his personal items still in it.
There were tools inside of it, lots of paper clips,

(59:51):
I mean he was a not paper clips, excuse me,
but clothes pins. He was a photographer and makes sense.
A bottle of cedrin was in there, and that one
was super fun because expired in nineteen seventy one, which
means it rolled around with him for nine years before
this event even occurred.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
And then a little pack that had.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
You know, bandages and so was kind of a little
medkit that he had with him that he had bought.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
And then the interesting ones.

Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
We found his driving sunglasses still in there, a comb
with him and if you've ever seen a picture of
mister Landsberg, he presents really nice, and in fact, with
our team we kind of call him the distinguished gentleman
of the group. He just presents really nice. You can
tell it was a very educated and elegant person.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Yeah, that's what we refer to Bobo. As here around here.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Actually, I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
I think Bobo would probably have a brush rather than
a comb, though, right, But I wish he was here.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
I wanted to pick on him so bad.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Oh, he's going to listen to this episode. He listens
to all of our episodes, and so he's gonna regret this. So, Bobo,
you're out there, I know you're listening. You should have
been on this one. Man. It was cool.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Yeah, I was waiting the whole day. Man, But that's okay,
I'll have to do this again or some other subject.
But one of the things we found was mister Landsburgh.
That was pretty neat is that history. He was known
as kind of an amateur photographer that was up there,
And I pulled out six of his business cards from
an envelope that was folded inside of it and they

(01:01:26):
were still intact. And apparently he owned a company called
Robert Landsberg Images out of Portland. He did thirty five
millimeter film, sixteen millimeter film, corporate consultations, editing. It's by
no means an amateur. This is what this gentleman did
for a living. And all of a sudden, now we're
changing the story. After forty four years there was no

(01:01:47):
record of Robert Landsberg images anywhere, so pretty.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
Neat, absolutely fascinating, just absolutely that the human stories that
you're pulling out of this are just phenomenal, phenomenal need
to be told. But at this point because we're kind
of getting to the end here, although I do want
you to stick around for a bonus episode because I
think that we barely scratch the surface here. I think
these these stories are just exhilarating, amazing, right, And of

(01:02:14):
course you're talking to the nine year old Cliff Berrickman
here where you know, I'm still fascinated with the eruption.
I've been living here for fifteen years. I keep hoping
it's going to pop again at some point, but it
just hasn't. I know it does periodically, of course, but
you know, smoke plumes and stuff. I just would like
to see that. But it sounds to me like from
our conversation the other day, you could use a little
bit of help, so you set up a go fundme

(01:02:35):
about that. Can you please tell us about that? Because
I know that some of our audience is going to
want to kick down like five bucks here and there.
That kind of stuff goes a long way. It is
when it starts adding up with a few thousand people.
So tell us about what they can do to help
your a project here because these stories need to be told.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
The project is is to save as many original artifacts
for the you know that are related to the Mount
Saint Helens eruption. These stories absolutely do need to be told,
and it's a part of our history in the Northwest
and the United States. People come here and they see

(01:03:14):
these items and go, wow, I can't believe you own this.
I can't believe you own that. And I tell them
I don't own any of this. It belongs to every
single person that walks in this door, everybody that's interested
in the subject. I am just the keeper right now.
I'm the guy that yells at people and tells them
not to touch things and keeps them safe. But eventually
I won't be here anymore and somebody else will take

(01:03:37):
care of this stuff. And then the idea is is
that this collection is put together and documented and cataloged
and set up properly, and that when I'm not here,
it can move forward as one piece, safe and secure.
The problem is is it takes one generation to not
realize what grandma and grandpa have in their basement or

(01:04:00):
their garage, and people clean out a house and an
entire section of history is erased. And so my mission
now is to prevent that from happening. Because with the
Mount Saint Helen's story here we are forty four years later,
we're losing items that are involved with, you know, related
to this e then at an exponential rate, I can

(01:04:21):
go through ten stories of items that were lost just
in the last few months of people selling homes and
clearing things out and throwing stuff in the garbage, absolutely
iconic pieces, and they're lost. And once they're gone, they're gone.
And so not only do we have mister Landsberg's car,
but a lot of the listeners may know the name
Reed Blackburn, who was a reporter for the Colombian that

(01:04:44):
was working up there, and he's associated with this super
famous photo of a car buried an ash up to
the door, and his car was supposedly scrapped in nineteen
eighty one, and well we found it two years ago,
abandoned on a property, and I recovered it and brought
it back here, and it just completed a one year

(01:05:05):
preservation process so that it can be presented to the public,
and it's this iconic piece of Northwest history, national history.
The thing is, though, is I also have the vehicle
as we mentioned before, from Robert Landsberg. I have a
pickup truck from Harold and Joyce Kirkpatrick out of Redmond, Oregon.
And then I have a pickup truck from Arlene and

(01:05:26):
Jolene Edwards out of Portland, Oregon. And you know these individuals,
we tell their story here, we educate the next generations.
The problem I'm having is is that there's only so
much I can do with my savings to preserve this stuff.
It's very expensive, so multiple vehicles, all of them should
be undercover, all of them should be research, and everything

(01:05:47):
involved with them should be preserved for future generations. And
so I retired from ophthalmology four and a half years
ago and now I'm on this crusade. But the problem
is is I'm using the entirety of my savings to
save all of this stuff, and there's only so much
I can do. So my thought is, as well, it

(01:06:09):
takes a community to make great things happen, and so
I thought I would put together this go fund me
and those that would be able to help can help,
or they can spread the link via social media and
somebody out there that can help could get involved, and
we'll have the kind of the community work on this
for our future and preserve all of these things and

(01:06:32):
maybe get a building built or something like that. For
people that are interested in if you go on go
fund me, it's quite easy to find. You just type
in in your search mount Saint Helens. There's not a
lot of Mount Saint Helen's stuff on GoFundMe, and you
just type in mount Saint Helens and you'll see a
thing come up and it says help Joe preserve Mount

(01:06:54):
Saint Helen's artifacts and human history. And there is a
picture of Red Blackburn's car in its beginnings of its display.
It's not completed yet. And for people that listen to
the show, I have to mention that the car, the
way it's preserved, and the walls and the base that
it's on and all that that was all covered by

(01:07:16):
the public to make that happen. I mean absolutely forever
in debt to these individuals that have helped us make
this happen and preserve this car properly. But that piece
right there with the car is one hundred percent the
community that made that happen.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Super cool.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Yeah, you're doing something for the public with the public,
and I think that's just absolutely cool.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Cool isn't even the strong enough word for what's going
on here. Man, You're doing something historic and you should
be commended for that. And I will be kicking down
some loot for this one man, for sure. This is
a worthy cause. It is part of the cultural history
of not only the Pacific Northwest, but the United States.
And you've also tugged at my heartstrings in the right
way because I am saying, you know, Sasquatch and Bigfoot

(01:08:02):
research collections being thrown away. I've missed several of those
so far, and I'm trying to do the same thing
with that through my museum. So you hit me in
the right spot, man, So I encourage all of our
listeners you have an extra three bucks, throw it at Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
This is a fantastic cause and something that you can
actually go and check out yourself, because he's on the
road to the Johnston Observatory. Man, it's just on the
side of the road. There's a little museum, there's a
cool Bigfoot statue, and I mean even listening to Joe
for the like the last hour. He's clearly intelligent, he's
clearly articulate, he's clearly passionate. Drop by and say, hey, man,

(01:08:39):
I heard you on Bigfoot and Beyond. I just want
to come check out what you have because it sounds
really cool. Everybody should get into this, man, whether you're
on the East Coast or West coast, this is a
group participation thing that we can all help with. I can't.
I can't reinforce that more strongly, you know, or strongly
enough I should say, I'd like you to stick around
for our members episode. So if you wouldn't mind stick

(01:08:59):
around for that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
That'd be great. Yeah, no worries, I'm here.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
That Kickstarter there, Matt Prude has put that in the
show notes, so you don't have to search for anything.
Just go to the show notes. It's right there. Click
that link. If you have an extra three bucks or something,
throw it at Joe. You have an extra three thousand dollars,
throw to Joe. It's going to go to good use.
It's going to be preserving history for the future. Well, Joe,
thank you very much for coming on Bigfoot and Beyond.
I wish Bobo could have been here, and he's going

(01:09:24):
to I mean, he's listening right now out there, and
I know he's bummed he didn't show up. But I'll
continue the conversation in just a few moments with you,
with our members here and for everybody out there and
you know, bigfoot Land. Thanks for listening, and until next time,
keep a squashy. Thanks for listening to this week's episode

(01:09:47):
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