Episode Transcript
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It's a big world out there.Welcome to Bigfoot's Wilderness Podcast. Growing up
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in a small town in northern FrederickCounty, I spent all of my available
time outside. Small towns are great. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
The best part of it is youend up knowing everybody. It's comfortable.
The biggest drawback having a limited numberof friends, especially as a kid,
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but I could always find something todo. Most importantly, I stayed
busy exploring till my mother would callme from the front porch to come home
for dinner. Forgive me, asI inject a little humor, I tend
to do that. At the ripeold age of nine, I pretty much
owned my little town. I ranthe fields, woods, and on rare
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occasions would find an opportunity to playping pong at my girlfriend Becky's house,
or maybe even play pool at myother friend, Enzo's house. That was
it, because friends were a hardcommodity to come by in our little town.
Did I mention? I was Italiansecond generation as my dad was what
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they call fresh off the boat.He set down roots here on a dream
of building a winery, not thekind of winery with gift shops and restaurants,
but a place where wine is made, bottled, and sold. It
was a business that he and afew relatives had invested in. Aside from
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the creation of a vineyard, therewas one thing that my dad did to
relax, which was go hunting.Friday evenings with my dad. He would
pack the car with his ye foran early Saturday morning departure. Since we
only had one car, Mom hadto drop him off and then swing back
in the afternoon to pick him backup. They usually hunted small game like
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rabbit, pheasant, pigeon, dove, but on his friend's farm, which
was private property, an occasional deerwould be taken. Not three hours after
dropping off my dad did he calledto be picked back up. Mom was
flustered as she wasn't prepared for suchan early pick up with loads of errands
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to run and having to bring meto tag along. It was one of
the few times I wasn't playing hereor there. I was excited as it
was rare I could visit the farmhouse. I wanted to see the guns and
of course whatever game they'd killed.Pulling up in front of the barn,
a group of men lingered around.They seemed to be quite animated, with
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a fair amount of gesturing while theycarried their drinks in their hands. Of
course, wine some taste testing goingon. I'm sure we Italians never missed
a meal without some My dad's friendswere also Italian, and so were most
of my father's friends. We allkind of stuck together. I was raised
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bi lingual and listened intently to justwhat they were talking about so excitedly.
My mother, although a second generationItalian and born here in the US,
didn't understand the language as well,and asked me just what was going on.
Apparently, earlier that morning, atabout sunrise, a deer had been
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shot and strung up in the barn, but now it was missing. The
fact that it was missing was curiousin itself, but the way it had
been taken was gory as well,because whoever took it down had shown absolute
brute strength and force in the process. The fact that the buck's body had
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been ripped apart and away from itshead. As the men chattered and my
mother cringed, I managed to snakemy way into the barn, but when
Mom saw me, she dragged meback out, covering my eyes, but
I'd seen enough. From what wassaid, a rope was bound around the
deer, and it must have beentoo difficult to untie. Italians, including
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myself, can be a superstitious lot. There were lots of talk of devilish
curses and demons, and all kindsof harmful diseases wished upon. Whoever did
this? Why all this devil talk, my mom said to my dad.
Dad, a bit red faced froma little too much red wine, stumbled
over to the station wagon, stowedhis gear, and chuckled as he took
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another drink. He spoke Italian andlooked down at me and chuckled again.
He said that Antonio talked about astrange occurrence that happened not long after the
deer went missing and Mom had droppedoff my dad. While these men began
their hunt through a meadow, Antoniohad witnessed what he was sure to have
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been a trespasser. His English wasn'tso good, but he yelled out a
hey. But the trespasser never brokestride, nor did it turn. It
simply ignored him. Maybe Antonio didn'tmind that this stranger happened to be a
good two feet taller than him,standing over seven feet tall and happened to
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be brown in color all over.Antonio himself stood five feet three inches and
probably weighed a hundred and thirty pounds. Soaking wet, my dad said he
was shaken up and refused to continuehunting that day. He clutched his twelve
gage like it was his best friend. Bird Shot. Wasn't going to do
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shit to this thing, Dad saidin Italian? What seven feet tall?
A monster here? This was themost exciting thing I'd ever heard. I
may Dad tell it to me overand over for the next week, but
eventually the legend of the field demonwas slowly forgotten. Antonio the only witness
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who had gone back to Italy monthslater, his experience simply forgotten. Nine
years later, I'd begun to takeup interest in hunting once I'd completed a
hunter's safety course. My dad broughtme to the same farmhouse to do some
small game hunting. The story cameflooding back to me, and like a
nine year old all over again,I began asking my dad all kinds of
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questions a little greyer, and justas Kurt, he told me to stop
talking and pay attention. Well,he actually cursed me out but I don't
think I want to share all ofthose details. You see, Dad could
be pretty hot tempered, hard tobelieve. Right. It was a cold
and rainy November morning, and thehunting was poor. I lost interest and
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daydreamed I had fallen back aways,and being bored, I'd poked my head
in and around the bushes in anattempt to try and flush out something,
a bird, anything. The nextthing that happened was totally unconscious, maybe
more instinctive and reminiscent of my earlychildhood, but my dad had called out
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to me. He was only probablythirty maybe forty feet ahead. We weren't
big guys at eighteen and fully grown. I stood at about five foot ten
inches anyway, Being playful and childish, I decided to duck down. He
called my name again, and Icrawled right into a nearby bush, not
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really looking at what I was doing, but still facing outward, but walking
backwards and waiting for Dad to comeby and then I would try to scare
him. After a few moments ofsilence and hearing the wind and rain pick
up even more, I started noticingthat I was actually kind of comfortably covered
in this thickly covered twine together bush. This is neat, I thought,
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and as I turned around to seeif I had more room, my hand
hit something A rock or no,maybe just one of many, but they
all seemed to be lined up.So funny, Jesus, these aren't rocks.
I probably took a few more secondsto validate exactly what it was that
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I was now seeing, and Ipopped out of that bramble bush so fast
I'm certain I tore another new holein my partially shredded brain. PUNCHO,
Dad, Hey, Dad, waitup over here. At this point,
he was a football field away fromme, and I sprinted to him.
In a flash. I saw something, A skeleton. It was huge.
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I found it in a bush backthere. Do you want to see?
And almost as the words left mymouth, an absolute downpour opened up and
we ran for the barn. Thebarn. Oh my gosh. Now I'm
remembering the story the trespasser, thedevil beast. I thought it really was
curious, back all those years ago, Dad, I found a skeleton and
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it was huge. I could havesworn I saw hands, I touched them.
I didn't see any antlers, though, Do you want to go see?
Maybe if this let's up, mydad said. I remember standing at
that creepy old barn looking up atwhere the deer had been strung up and
apparently left to bleed out, butits whole body had been torn away and
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its head just dangled. The beaglesthey licked the blood pools right off the
floor. I never told anyone atall, but alone. It gave me
a few nightmares finding out a fewweeks later that he'd sold the property.
Tried like hell to find that bush. I searched the property where we had
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hunted, but I just couldn't locateit. I could kick myself, as
it was the craziest thing that's everhappened to me. I believe that skeleton
was of the stranger that trespassed andmore widely known as a bigfoot, from
the way my dad reacted all thoseyears ago in the barn and listening to
Antonio's story, he seemed skeptical,and when I found the bones under the
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bush, well, I think thatwould have probably changed his mind. But
like I mentioned earlier, he wasstrong headed, impatient, and cynical about
the subject. I've told lots ofpeople about my experience, and it's pretty
much fifty fifty people believe what theywant to believe, and sometimes will simply
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validate with the it's a crazy world. Who knows? Yeah, I agree.
I never did hear or read anythingabout a discovery of bones found on
that property. It's been more thanthirty years, and I kind of hope
that the bones are still there undisturbed. But if someone were to find them,
then Bigfoot or whatever this was wouldtruly exist, and the skeptics like
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my dad would have to accept it. America is not a young man.
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It's old, dirty, old,before the series, before the Indians.
The evil is there waiting. AnthropologistGrover Crantz of Washington State University makes the
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startling conclusion from actual footprints made bya bigfoot. The prints were discovered after
a US Forest Service ranger stumbled onone of the creatures in a forest in
Washington States, Walla Walla region.Detailed plaster cast of the animal's massive footprints
reveal they were made by a primatethat's neither ape nor human. These are
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the best set of prints ever made, said doctor Krantz. What makes the
evidence so convincing is the discovery ofvery fine skin patterns similar to fingerprints,
called dermal ridgets, says doctor Krantz. These convince me the tracks come from
a higher primate, and it isn'tsupposed to exist, So we have an
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interesting problem here. Paul Freeman,a thirty nine year old forest service manager,
encountered the animal on a clear morningin the Umtilla National Forest. He
recalls, I saw something suddenly steponto the road. It was about ten
feet high, and he saw meat about the same time I saw him.
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He looked like all the pictures I'veseen of prehistoric man. He was
real hairy, a reddish brown hair. The hair was so thick you couldn't
see through it on his shoulders,arms, or legs, but on his
face and chest it was thin enoughto see his skin the color of brown
leather. Freeman estimates the creature wasapproximately sixty five yards away. Even at
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that distance, I could hear himbreathing real heavy, and I could see
the muscles in his stomach moving.Freeman, a wild life expert, adds,
I was scared and started backing awaya few feet. When he saw
I wasn't coming any further, heturned and walked off. The ranger believes
the big foot weighed well over fourhundred pounds, an estimate later confirmed by
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the depth of its tracks. Freemanand other rangers returned to the scene with
pographic equipment and material to make plastercasts. Amazingly, they were able to
document twenty one medium to full sizedfootprints from not just one creature, but
two. Doctor Krantz confirms that theprints, the largest, fourteen inches long
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and seven inches wide, were unlikehuman feet because they had no arch.
He says it would have had astride of some six to eight feet compared
to three feet for an average man, and the anthropologist adds the most remarkable
argument for the existence of bigfoot isthe dermal ridges. You can't fake evidence
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like that. This story involved teenagerswho were fooling around shooting off their Daisy
rifles and Red Rider BB guns nearLake Camanche in Wallace, California, in
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nineteen forty eight. The six ofthem were led by a former commercial fisherman
named Dixon. He was an uncleof one of the boys who took them
out to teach them proper rifle etiquette. During a break for lunch, the
sixty eight year old Dixon caught windof a foul smell. At first,
he thought his thermis had gone rankon him, but smelling again more closely,
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the coffee was fine. By thenthe boys smelled the odor in the
air and thought it might be adead animal. Curious as growing boys are,
after lunch, they took off investigatingthe smell. Towards the center of
the lake. On the north side, they found a rotting corpse, but
only some parts of it. Whatwas left of it lay sprawled on the
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back, with the right half ofthe pelvis gone, toning down the graphic
remarks just a little. It wassaid that maggots had decimated most of the
remaining corpse, and the cloud ofblack flies were thick over a large foot
which laid partially rotted and a puffycolor white in the water. The left
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leg and left buttocks were covered inblack hair about one to four inches long,
but nothing else was around the areato be found. Of the rest
of the body. They figured whatwas left on the male genitalia was probably
pulled off and eaten by coyotes.None of them had heard of the abominable
Snowman. They thought it was probablyjust a local vagrant who lived in the hills.