06-24-24 Interview - Joseph Granda - Could Sasquatch Be Real?

COULD SASQUATCH BE REAL? That is the question considered in a new film by filmmaker Joseph Granda who has a new film coming out about some recent Sasquatch encounters that defy previous descriptions. Watch the trailer below and Joseph joins me at 1 to talk about it. Find out more about the film here.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
A man who has dug deep intothe legend that has been around since the
beginning of legends, really, andthat is the legend of Sasquatch. And
of course, if you don't knowwhat Sasquatch is, we're talking about Bigfoot.
Oh wait, I should ask,because I just made an assumption there,
something that I always thought was theright way. Joseph Granda, the

(00:21):
maker of the new movie Sasquatch andthe Missing Man, our Sasquatch and Bigfoot
the same. They are the samething. The difference is that the name
Sasquatch comes from a Native American ofcourse tribe. And then Bigfoot was originally
from a guy who actually faked somefootprints in nineteen fifty eight, right with
the big concrete feet. I rememberseeing like I watched a special on the

(00:44):
unmasking Bigfoot or whatever or whatever.It was disappointing, Like most of things
today, can go yeah either way. So first of all, let's start
with you. You are a filmmaker. How long have you been making films
and doing that kind of stuff.I've been in the film business for thirty
years. I started as an actoron Broadway and TV movie throw that out.
I started as an actor on Broadway, and then I just went from

(01:06):
there, like, what show wereyou in on Broadway? Let's see,
I did a couple original ones.One was called Clubhouse Madness, I did
hair, I did Wow. Ididn't do the nude stuff, So I
say, you were Broadway? Youwere? And then I moved and I
got a break in film and startedworking in LA and then you know,

(01:26):
it just got to a point.You know, Hollywood is the only place
where somebody could break your heart andthen you have to drive past the billboard
with their face on it for thenext three months. Yeah. I moved
out here about eighteen twenty years agowith a reputation where I didn't have to
live there. Could I be makingmore money right right? Divorce three times
to rehab and still live in Hollywood? Yeah? Probably, But I have

(01:47):
a lovely wife and a family,and so decided to make a more family
friendly move there. Well, we'rehappy to have you exactly. So how
did you stumble upon this particular story? And I put the trailer to the
movie on the blog today so wecan see the trailer. But how did
you stumble on this story which Ihad? I didn't hear anything about this
so tell a little bit at sunNail Sketch where this came from. So

(02:09):
I came on board. Tony Merkleis a guy who is sort of the
Joe Rogan of paranormal podcasts, apodcast called The Confessionals, and we had
a meeting and we talked about turningone or two of his best episodes into
a document into documentary films, andthis was one of them. Because the
main character in Sasquatch and the MissingMan is a guy named Wes Germer.

(02:30):
Wes Germer has the largest sass watchpodcast. It's called the Sasquatch Chronicles.
That's all they do is talking aboutBigfoot. That's it, and he's been
doing it for twelve years. Hehas a massive following. I think he's
got half a million downloads a week. And so we went out to retell
his story, the sort of genesisof the night that this thing happened to

(02:52):
him. He had an episode wherehe believes he fully saw what he believes
the Sasquatch, even though it didnot behave as a traditional Sasquatch you would
think of, right, which createdall this controversy into the Sasquatch bigfoot community,
which there is one, and youknow, they're very serious people.
Listen. I was brought on boardit to produce this movie of Tony because

(03:14):
I was kind of a skeptic agnosticyeah sort of yeah, like whatever,
you know, I my fee andwe'll make it work out. So yeah,
So we went out to Washington fora little over a week and I'll
tell you what I met with peoplethat it was nothing. It was not
There was no positive for them tosay outside, you know. And then

(03:37):
we visit a family called the Brownsand their kids and and they they have
these things that have been visiting theirproperty for ten years. She showed us
if you watch the film, andI hope you do, you can watch
it at mercle films dot com.She'll show you pictures and it's just undisputable
that they'll show you infra red andit's really really I mean, these are

(03:59):
very sane, salient people. Andso, you know, as I came
along and then we went and wewe lived in this r V really up
kind of out in the middle ofnowhere where the Societys had taken And while
we were there, we found anunabandoned UH truck like a little mini van
kind of thing. And well,first we found around this campsite there was
these huge bags of marijuana and soI don't know, of course Bigfoot smoke

(04:23):
sp I mean big Bigfoot likes torelax at the end of a long day.
It's not a big don't be judgmental, come on man, and so
so you know it had for ithad out of state plates and we didn't
think anything of it. And itwas April, so it was still kind
of snowy. But each time wecame back to this location, the people
who had these events wouldn't come withus at night, and we wanted to

(04:45):
go and explore this this area rightat night. So each time we came,
this van was still there. Hishis park past was expired. Ultimately
we called we called the share localsheriff in the rain and anyway, they
came out and lay look, theyswept the five mile radius looking for this

(05:05):
guy. I don't want to giveaway the ending of the movie, but
we did discover what happened to him, and we talked about it and reveal
his name and his picture at theend of the film. So it was
very it was very strange, butwe did. What happened was we were
out in the middle of nowhere.It's raining, it's two o'clock in the
morning, and all the crew thefilm, the sound guys, they're all

(05:27):
Midwest hunters es. They're from Texas, they're from Ohio, so they're they're
real hunters, and we recorded soundsthat they're just like. That is nothing
I've ever heard. And the experiencethat I had you'll see because I end
up in the film because I say, you know, I think all of
this is nonsense, But that momentwas real. Something knocked and shook on
the RV in the middle of nowhere, and we went out to see what

(05:51):
was out there because we had infraredcameras and stuff, and we had that
experience that all these bigfoot people talkabout, is this horrible smell over us,
and we could tell something was movingup in the It was very it
was very weird. And you know, there's people who will tell you that
it's a woodland ape. There willpeople that it's part of the fay.

(06:12):
And here's the thing about this,And in Florida we have the Skunk Ape,
so we have a different like creaturein Florida. But at some point
we would have discovered a woodland ape. I mean, unless you're talking about
an ape of an intelligence level willbeyond any any of the apes that we
are currently aware of in the wild. The thought that a woodland ape could

(06:34):
exist in Washington State and not havebeen identified, Yeah, it is almost
ridiculous, you know what I'm saying. It just seemed. But why is
this story? So? Why areso many people listening to a podcast about
Sasquatch? Why is there a Sasquatchcommunity? Well, the irony of that
is that after I made the film, I went on and I wrote and

(06:56):
directed and started a film that'll beout next year that answers that question.
Because I went out and I hungout with these grown men, and let
me clear, there are worse thingsthat grown men can be doing, sure
than hiking around the woods looking forfor a woody ape or something that comes
from mythical creature. And so gettingto know them and hearing their stories,
the question that I ultimately asked gettingto know them and their background their childhood,

(07:18):
is do you think that maybe you'rejust really out here looking for your
old men? Yeah? And itreally hit some of them really hard because
they come from broken homes and that'ssort of the legend of the wild man
who will go through life, andso I took it from there. But
this story sas which The miching Menis a documentary about that experience, and

(07:39):
there's different people in it that hadthe same experience as Wes Germer in the
original. So when you go totalk to people, you said, none
of these people there was no upsidefor them telling this story. There's it
feels like there's parallels to the peoplethat have been talking about alien abductions and
seeing aliens and seeing alien aircraft fordecades now, and then you know,

(08:01):
during COVID, the federal government's like, oh yeah, that, yeah,
we had a lot of stuff wecan't explain, like they just kind of
dropped it out there, like everyone'sdistracted by COVID. Sure, we'll just
admit that UFOs are a thing.Do you think part of it is that
some of these people who have hada sieting or an experience are just want
to know that people believe them.Yeah, I think that there's I think

(08:22):
that sixty percent of it is eitherpeople hoaxing. I think another thirty percent
is what they call paradoia, whichis when you see a shape and a
shadow and you see faces and imageson that right. But I think genuinely
ten percent of it is really unexplainable. I'll give you an example. I

(08:43):
talked to two guys who were Idon't know what the scientific name is,
but they test water in streams,sure, and so they were sent out
in the Pacific Northwest and they hikedabout thirty miles in and they were going
to a point where they were goingto be picked up by helicopter and they're
testing each stream and taking samples.But out there, thirty miles in,
they found bigfoot footprints that like fourof them, and then they just ended.

(09:05):
And so that's the other theory isthat it's this sort of interdimensional thing
that can come in and out ofdimensions, and so there was nothing in
them to have taken these pictures andsaid we found these thirty miles into the
wilderness, and you know, whywould they ruin their reputation. So what
I just heard from you, andyou can correct me if I'm wrong,

(09:26):
is that you went into this aone hundred percent skeptic, and now you're
willing to say, okay, tenpercent is unexplainable. And so we'll just
leave that as the unknown. Isthat where you are now? I am,
and you know myself I had I'ma Do you feel crazy like that?
A little bit? I don't feelcrazy, But here's why. Because
I'm a Christian, so I havea Christian worldview. So if there's angels,

(09:50):
you know, in my belief structure, then there's demons and why not
mess with people. I think thatit is some sort of a spirit that
is just messing with people. Imean throughout history there's been these, I
mean ghosts and goblins and whatnot.So I think there's something very real to
it. But I don't think it'sof this world because, like you said,
if there was a Woodland ape,there would be bodies and size.

(10:15):
They have an explanation for, well, they bury their dead and this and
that. But there is something goingon out there and it's not just all
fake. And is it just inWashington State or did you talk to people
WODAD sightings and other places? Imean, are we talking about is this
movie about one specific potential sasquatch inone area of the country. No,
this this takes place. It's threepeople up stories up in Washington State and

(10:41):
parts of Oregon. But you know, if you go. There's a place
here in Bailey called the Saasquatch Outposts. Yeah, and Jim Meyer who runs
that. If you go in there, you'll see the whole chart of Colorado
and all the sidings that people havehad. So, you know, is
it the craziness of masses? Idon't know, but if you talk to
Jim and he'll tell you he's stoodthere right in front of the thing too.

(11:01):
Are there other parts of the countrythough, outside of Colorado? Is
it? Excuse me, is itwherever there's woods we could have a Sasquatch
or does it seem to be relegatedto the western half of the United States?
It's you. When you watch themovie Sasquatch and the Missing Man at
Merkel films dot com, you'll seea woman there and she believes that the

(11:24):
reason that they're seen in these differentparts of the country is that they're always
near a water source. Ah,which would make sense, Yeah, unless
they're coming from UFOs. So youknow, is this your first time dipping
your toe into sort of a supernaturalstory as a documentary? No, this
is the This is the third filmI've made with Merle Merkel Films, and

(11:46):
so what were the other two aboutSo the first one was called The Shape
of Shadows. At Merkel Films dotcom, you can rent all these movies
The Shape of Shadows. So wewent out to the Ute tribe in Utah
at a place called Space Wolf Researchthat overlooks Skinwalker Ranch, Okay. And
I got there early with the directorand we were trying to figure out what

(12:07):
was up on the and the buston the vista there, and so he
took out a big long camera andlooked through it with a big lens,
and this thing comes out of thesky, shoots across the lens and goes
straight up. And I said,please tell me that you were running the
camera, And to his credit,he goes, why would I look through
a camera if I didn't turn iton? And so this thing and it's

(12:30):
in the movie too, The ShapeShadows. And so later on that night,
we're hanging out with the tribe andthe chief. He's hanging out and
we're by this the same ridge andwe're looking and this thing, at like
two o'clock in the morning comes outof the sky. It's lit up this
time, it's almost silent, andit shoots straight across and straight back up
and the crew is and myself isjust freaking out, and I look at

(12:50):
the chief and he goes, uh, those are the sky people. They
know you're here, that are performingfor you. And then we had an
archaeologist that took us to their petroglyphs, and as we're driving out there,
he'd say, you would think thatpeople that were going to carve in stone
the history of their people, itwould be their festivals, their ways.
And you go there and it's sixfingered giants with like crafts up in the

(13:13):
sky. So I don't know,how does all this jibe with your own
Christian beliefs, because you mentioned thatalready is this. I think it's interesting
that you were like, look,you know what, if I believe they
are angels, then maybe there couldbe demons as well, and maybe this
is just a bigfoot demon of somesort, and that would explain the gnarly
smell if you're if you're aware ofthe Biblical they describe things like the smell

(13:39):
of the demons, a smell ofdeath, and things of that nature.
So I'm the whole crew are guysof faith, so we're all sort of
like trying one of the things tofigure out what is this is this without
invoking something on ourselves? So thatmakes it even more interesting. So everybody
that appeared in this movie, didanybody truly say, aside from the people

(14:01):
that are in this movie, didyou talk to anybody who said, Look,
I had this experience, but Iam not going to talk about it
because everybody thinks I'm crazy, soI'm not going to do this. I
interviewed a guy who had had Hebelieved he had been abducted when he was
a child, and he didn't talkabout it for fifty years because every time
he confided with anyone, they alllaughed at him and thought he was crazy.

(14:24):
But then when the internet became athing, he found all of these
other people online that had the exactsame experience he had. So do you
have people that have these experiences thatare like, Nope, not going to
discuss it, not going to bea thing. We talked. Yeah,
there was a guy that we talkedto who was a neurosurgeon and he's like,
I'll tell you the story, butyeah, I don't want to record
it. I want my name,And it was very convincing. He said,

(14:45):
this thing threw a rock at him, which is one of the traits
of Bigfoot. It likes to throwpeople. They were rocks of people.
But I'll tell you this. Sowhen you watch the film, there's a
moment where we all, it's nearthe end of the film. Something is
knocking on this RV and and makingsounds and whistles, and so we decided
to load up our cameras and goout there. I don't know why,

(15:05):
but I ended up stepping out first, which is not what a producer should
do. You were the meat,when you were like the bait. They
were just like, hey, throwout there. And so we heard these
calls, like there were two ofthem calling at each other. And then
as I stepped out there, thishorrible, horrible smell hit me. And
we're standing in a circle with cameras, and it's the only time in my

(15:28):
life where I can honestly say thatI felt terror, Like yeah, like
it just struck you. At thatThere was some which is why I talk
about maybe it was something evil.There was some sort of presence there.
I could feel it, and hadI not earlier relieved myself, I certainly
would have about that moment. Imean, in all kidding, that's what

(15:50):
I thought about later that's why thathappens to people, because I felt like
I had lost all sense of likecontrol of like what something real is happening
right now. So I didn't seeBigfoot, but everything that I have read,
interviewed and talked to people like that'sthe very atypical experience of like this
these sounds and the smell and thepresence of something there. I have been

(16:11):
in the presence of what I consideredto be evil. And it was in
a courtroom actually a guy who butthe guy that I was there to cover
his sentencing was a horrible person.This was in Florida. He had murdered
someone. In his trial for thefirst degree murder charge. He asked for
the death penalty and they didn't giveit to him. They gave him life

(16:32):
from prison. So they took himto the prison. He walked into his
cell, they slammed the door,and before the guard made it off the
unit, he murdered his cellmate strangledhim to death immediately as soon as he
walked in. And I had togo cover the sentencing of this guy.
And there's nobody in there's no family, he has no so it's just basically
me in this courtroom. And whenhe came in and saw me, he

(16:55):
started staring at me, and itwas it was kind of like what you're
talking about. So I believe thatsome there you can feel evil when you
are in the presence of evil,yes, And so for you to say
that to be to feel terror,I wasn't terrified. Obviously, it was
a very controlled environment, but Iknow that man was the personification of evil.
Yeah, And so when you feelthat, it's very powerful. So

(17:17):
what are the weird stuff are yougoing to work on next? Now?
You got sold squatch. So afterwe finished that, we went to Kentucky
and Tennessee with this guy who hasbeen recording portals, interdimensional portals, so
much so that there's a very famousvideo that this guy took. He since
passed away from cancer. So wewent out with this son. This portal

(17:41):
video was so authentic that Netflix boughtit from him and they're doing a film
about this experience. So we wentdeep into this cave and we brought one
of the other producers with us who'snever really been out in the field,
and we brought this guy who whocreated these two sound devices. Is that
he claimed, you know, likethe Buddhist when it goes. Yeah.

(18:03):
Yeah, So he created these devicesthat made these sounds that he said could
open up portals to another world.Ye, exactly, that's exactly what it
was. That's so funny that youknow that you're talking about that. Yeah.
And so we went deep in thiscave with this guy who claims to
be able to conjure UFOs from thesky se five close or CE five clos

(18:30):
encounters five. This guy he doesthese things, all of us. But
so we're running these things and hesaid, make sure that you wear headphones
so that you don't get a headacheor whatever. And as we're running these
things, this one guy with us, Joel Thomas, he's the go getter.
He's he stood in the middle ofhim because he wanted the portal to
take Hi where it would go.He's hilarious. He's in the movie.

(18:52):
And so there was this moment wherewe all had like we looked at each
other while these things were running,and nobody wanted to say it first,
and so I actually went first,and I looked at the other producer who'd
never been on the field that way. Did you did you hear that?
He goes? I heard little girl'svoices and then we went to the guy
in the back of the cave andhe goes, I go, did you
hear anything? It's like, Ithink I heard little kids. Oh my

(19:14):
god. It was really I lovestuff like that. It was really,
really freaky, and it just sohappened that we were in that cave on
Halloween night if we didn't plan itright, But it was very, very,
very strange. So that's that's that'llcome out sometime next year. You
feel like they kind of like messingwith the you know, the the like
the whole five hundred and eighty hurts. The tone that you're talking about is

(19:36):
also known as the I don't wantto call it the God tone, because
that's wrong. That's what he callsit. Is it the God tone?
But it actually can be very therapeuticin certain situations. It can be a
mood elevator. I mean, there'sa lot of a lot going on with
that tone, and it sounds crazy, but but obviously I knew it.
You know, you're talking about thesame thing now, conjuring up UFO.

(19:56):
So there's just so much that wedon't understand. Yeah, right, And
I think that's what you're kind ofdoing, which is why I talk I
sort of talk it up to aspiritual a common spirit, a spiritual realm.
You know that I will probably neverknow, but I think there is
a bigger story to be told aboutwhy people are enamored with Bigfoot. Yeah.

(20:18):
I have that myself because my fatherleft when I was young and I
sort of like had this strange infactuationwith I mean, he's everywhere, He's
on yeah, T shirts and cups, and so I think society there is
something about being free and roaming aroundand never being seen but being recognized and
being famous without having to be famous. So no paparazzi. No. I

(20:41):
mean there's some out there that arevery, very convincing. You know the
Patterson Gimlin film, you know fromnineteen sixty eight, where that's what it's
the famous one is walking across andthey they've yet been able to disprove that.
Well. The movie is called Sasquatchand the Missing Man. I put
a link. I put the traileron the blog today. I all to
put a link to Merkel Films.So we've referenced that over and over again.

(21:03):
So that is the first link onthe blog today. If you want
to go watch any of these films. Joseph, what a fascinating life you
have. That is the coolest thingever. So we'll have you back on
to talk about the next thing aswell.