EP 126: Bigfoot Forensics with David Zigan

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
The views and opinions expressed by the guests of Sasquatch
Experience do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the host, sponsors,
or affiliates of the Sasquatch Experience. As always, listener discretion
is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
We got someone or something growing around out here?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Does a legend walk among us working in the forests
of our world?

Speaker 4 (00:35):
Did you see what it was?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Was it a person or an animal? Or I can't
go Oh, I know as if my thunder light came
on and I heard happened to glimp and see this
thing running across the yard A good fight man or
something works like a man. I don't know what it was.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
For over fifteen years, we've talked with scientists, researchers, investigators,
and witnesses trying to gain insight and proof around the
existence of this mysterious entity.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Jesus, Hello, get somebody out of here.

Speaker 5 (01:14):
What's going to announce there?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
A bit about six foot nine? I don't know, easy
announce there? Yeah, I'm working right out. Oh, okay, hand on, yeah,
got you're bigger? Okay, what're you doing in your yard?

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Join us as we continue into the investigation of the
Sasquatch Experience. Good everyone, Welcome to the Sasquatch Experience from Monday,

(02:04):
June The Nerland two twenty five. I almost this in July.
I'll not quite there yet. All right, We've got a
great show lined up for everybody tonight. But before we again,
we'll our guest tonight, David of the John. We're going
to have a quick some quick notes, because the guest
is far more important than anything I'm going to accusation note.

(02:26):
Our last episode just uploaded with Smelman. Well, I apologize
for the delay and that folks. It took me a
long time to edit, and due to that edit, I
completely redid the audio here at the studio. So hopefully
we've got some of those long lasting noises and things
hammered out here. So bet our listenings the damn Fountain

(02:48):
of Bakers again. We've got some great guests lined up
for much of the summer. We've got Shelley Covington, Montana,
Alexander Petticov's coming back, Andy McGrath from across the Pond
into the UK. He'll be joining us for a few episodes.
So we've got some good stuff lying down the pike
this summer. And of course if you all want to
stay ahead of it and you want all the extra specials,

(03:09):
you can join our Patreon for as little as two
bucks a month, two dollars. It's just two dollars, and
it helped to raise the cost of everything that we
do here at Anomalos Entertainment Sasquatch experience can pay for.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
You know, Sean's drug rehabilitation sent himself.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean i'd throw I'd throw money towards Vance's audio,
but that just seems like But anyhow, tonight's guest, as
you can see down at the bottom of the corner,
is David's agone. He is a well, he's probably the
most professional guest we've had on the show besides Doctor
Meldrum and.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Doctor Bender Naugle.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Right, And I don't know what that says about us,
but let's hear what we have to say about David.
A seasoned investigator with over twenty years of experience as
a certified peace officer and Georgia currently works at a
crime scene investigations unit in North Metro Atlanta. He's a
certified latent fingerprint examiner, certified crime scene technician, and a

(04:10):
graduate of the prestigious National Forensic Academy in Oakridge, Tennessee.
Zigon's experience includes bloodstained pattern analysis. He's kind of like
our own dexter, advanced shooting, incident reconstruction, and crime scene reconstruction.
He's an expert witness in numerous cases involving latent fingerprint
examinations in crime scene processing. A highly sought after instructor,

(04:32):
he has served as an adjutant instructor at the National
Forensic Academy, where he delivered presentations and hands on training
on advanced fingerprint processing techniques. In addition to his teaching credentials,
he has acted as a latent fingerprint verifier and structure
and consultant for various agencies. Now, David is applying his

(04:53):
extensive forensic expertise to the investigation of bigfoot evidence, including
analyzing casts and purported dermal ridges found in such casts.
His goal is to promote a scientifically rigorous approach to
bigfoot research by educating the community on proper evidence gathering techniques.
By combining his vast knowledge of crime scene processing with

(05:14):
his passion for uncovering the truth, Zigon is working to
elevate the credibility of bigfoot research and help the field
gain greater acceptance in mainstream science. It's like the Skies
opened up and delivered us an angel, is what I think.
Because David, we're so glad to have you on the show.
Thanks for joining us for one, but two, this is
some of the things we've been talking about for twenty years,

(05:38):
and we've had different folks lend credibility, but what is
absent And this is something I think Matt you can
speak of too. Being a member of law enforcement is
really people learning how to collect evidence. And even though
I'm sure David you've seen the YouTube videos out there
of people trying to do their best, it's great to

(06:00):
have somebody with your credentials that are going to say, well,
you're not going to try your best, I'm going to
show you how to do the best.

Speaker 6 (06:05):
Yes, I mean we have problems even within law enforcement ourselves.
I mean we're always training new people. You know, we
have turnover, We're always training people, training people, and you know,
so I'm not expecting the world when it comes to
trying to educate and help teach about collecting evidence the

(06:26):
right way. I mean, we have problems ourselves.

Speaker 7 (06:28):
So I'm just.

Speaker 6 (06:32):
I'm trying to figure out a way to get into
this and have fun as well. So if I can
end up finding some evidence along the way that I go, hey,
you know that looks kind of interesting, which I've had
had one lately, which is kind of cool. But it's
also starting to get me out camping and you know,

(06:55):
hanging out with some cool people out in the woods
that I never would have met, kind of opening up
my door to meeting people outside law enforcement too, which
is kind of cool because I think, as was it
at your law enforcement, you can attest that sometimes maybe
we're a little guarded until we start to open up

(07:15):
just a little bit. It took me a while to
know these people, but I'm fairly comfortable and they're a great,
great group of people. I'm really enjoying myself. But to
get out of the lab setting and get more into
the the outdoor setting has been kind of interesting for
me in regards to looking for Bigfoot because I used

(07:36):
to be a turkey hunter, so I'm not new to
the woods. I'm just new to this in the woods.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
So how do you translate into Bigfoot?

Speaker 7 (07:45):
All right? Translate how did you get into this?

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah, how did you get into this? Like you're credentialed,
You're you're in a real, you know, serious field of occupation.
How did you think Bigfoot was going to work into
that equation?

Speaker 6 (07:58):
So it was kind of organic, Like I mentioned just briefly,
spending a lot of time in the woods turkey hunting.
I have some friends that we had a three hundred
and sixty three to almost said degree, three hundred and
sixty three acres. It was like lease land from a
paper company, and we used to go out there and

(08:20):
go turkey hunting. And my brother and I were really
good at turkey hunting, and so it became a thing
for me because I enjoyed the stalking portion, not just
to sitting back and doing calls and things like that.
So I'd go out and find them, find out where
they're roosting, and I would mark them like you know,
put a pen in the phone, and then I'd come

(08:40):
back to camp and tell everybody where they were so
they could go turkey.

Speaker 7 (08:44):
Hunting in the morning.

Speaker 6 (08:46):
And so that meant that a lot of times I
had a lot of walks back by myself in the dark,
right for for long periods of time, you know, you know,
a good mile mile and a half sometimes and I
had quite a I had three pretty good experiences in
the woods that I can't attribute to a bigfoot, but

(09:08):
I can attribute to something crazy unknown, which opened up
the door for at least keeping an open mind that
something is out there. Like I know something's out there,
I can't tell you what it is, and for my experiences,
I can't automatically attribute what I experienced into this was
a bigfoot, but I can tell you it wasn't normal.

Speaker 7 (09:28):
It wasn't an animal, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
So uh.

Speaker 6 (09:32):
One of my sergeants who worked out there, who worked
with me, who shared the least with us, he was
really big into bigfoot, and we used to sit around
and joke around about it by the fire, and then
we started watching all the shows together, you know, And
this was a culmination of several years going by, and
then it became a thing, you know, Like we were

(09:56):
joking around about bigfoot, always watching the shows, and then
day I was sitting behind my desk and I was thinking,
you know, I've been studying distortion and how that plays
a role in being able to help understand context within
fingerprints or footprints and whatever substrate they're stepping into, whatever

(10:17):
it's touching but understanding the context and that distortion to
help me figure out, you know, which way something was
moving or how much pressure was being applied. That's becoming
a new thing with crime scene reconstruction, not just using
prints to identify things, but to understand what was happening
when those prints were deposited. So I decided, hey, you know,

(10:40):
wouldn't it be cool if we just got through talking
about Bigfoot? Wouldn't be cool if I got online and
tried to find me some footprints with thermal ridges. Well,
I mean, you guys already know, which I didn't find
out until like a year and a half ago. That's
very few and far between. And then even the credibility
behind how some of those were collected, the stories behind them,

(11:04):
it gets all muddled and want you know. And then
I saw one particular impression that intrigued me, but the
photograph was taken incorrectly, and it dawned on me that
there might be other professionals out there who might have
a you know, a brief interest. But then they go
online and they do what I did, and they're just
sitting there swiping, you know, click, click, click, you know,

(11:27):
going from picture to picture because they're honestly looking what
I was looking for. The pictures taken correctly, but then
we just swipe through them and go right by them.
And then, you know, I had that thought of what
if I had actually looked at a real Bigfoot impression,
But I just swiped by it because the photographs were
taken incorrectly, And that's kind of how I got into it.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
I muted myself. How about that, David, Now you said
that was the photographs swiping through seeing something that we're
taking in correctly. When you started getting into that, noticed
you you know, you had a background and fingerprint, you know,
latent fingerprints. Did you look at the work of Jimmy
Chilcutt at all. Did you stumble up on any of

(12:14):
that and have any conclusions on what he had written
or done?

Speaker 6 (12:19):
I did, But what you just said written, I don't
believe he's actually written anything. I know he did several interviews,
he participated and you know mentioned in Meldrum's book. I
actually did reach out to him to try to acquire
his his research.

Speaker 7 (12:40):
If you would say his.

Speaker 6 (12:45):
I would just say that times have changed. We have
different types of standards now, you know, and I think
that's one of the things that needs to be introduced
into bigfoot research. But as far as fingerprinting and studying
your prints, you know, back when he was doing it,
I think he had about all the training you could get.

(13:06):
So I can't bad mouth them because it was a
different time period in a different era within the fingerprint world.

Speaker 7 (13:13):
So now.

Speaker 6 (13:16):
You know, there was a in two thousand and nine,
you know, there was a report that came out about
how horrible forensics and the standards in forensics was across
the board, especially in the federal government. So different organizations
popped up about introducing standards. And now for me, you know,
I had to take so many classes, so many different

(13:37):
you know, basically instructions types of classes, then take a
third party independent exam to become certified once a year,
I'm sorry, twice a year.

Speaker 7 (13:46):
I have to.

Speaker 6 (13:49):
Basically take a third party competency exam. Still and it's
an ongoing educational process. And now things are expected if
you're going to call yourself an expert in a field,
especially during wadir in court, we have to be able
to articulate what it is that we do and how

(14:10):
we went through the process. You know, gone are the
days of being able to say I match this, because
I matched this many points. You know, we don't even
call it points anymore, you know, So it's gotten a
lot more complicated. So when I look back on that past,
you know, the comments made or what was said during

(14:31):
the interviews, I have to take that with a grain
of salt because I can't really attack the people that were.

Speaker 7 (14:38):
Doing it then.

Speaker 6 (14:40):
But I will say that the Onion Mountain cast that
they had that big debate about where they talked about
the friction ridges or the dermal ridges running vertical on
the outside of that cast, and you know, Matt Crowley
came out and said those were just artifacts from Waring. Well,
you know, yeah, I mean he's right, But anyone in

(15:03):
this field now at a certain level, would be able
to look at that cast and tell you that I
don't even need to look those are vertical lines running
on the outside of the foot, and that is not
how friction ridges or dermal ridges form on a foot.
If there's going to be any vertical ridges, they're going
to be towards the center.

Speaker 7 (15:22):
They will never be on the outside.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (15:25):
So that was that was an immediate like I don't understand,
you know, I had just started getting into this and
doing research looking for it, and my first thought was,
I don't understand what the debate's about. So I had
to open my mind and figure out, you know, how
did that process.

Speaker 7 (15:41):
Come into being a debate?

Speaker 6 (15:43):
And you know, I look back on it, and I
think one of our biggest issues is even for me,
is if I come out and say, all right, I've
made this discovery, and you know, say, you guys send
me a cast, and I go, yes, those are actually
absolutely dermal ridges. Those are not human, those are not
bear And we still have a problem. I'm the expert
that said that we need someone to come back behind

(16:05):
me and check my work. We need peer review in
this as well, especially when we're talking about experts. And
I think one of the biggest problems we're having right
now is we're having we're using experts to fit within
our narrative, you know that to help.

Speaker 7 (16:20):
Us, you know, go saha, see this is this is
what it is.

Speaker 6 (16:24):
But no one's going back and checking behind our work.
I think that needs to start as well, which I
totally realized that would be a very difficult thing to
do because now you have to find someone my skill
set or hire to check my.

Speaker 7 (16:37):
Work, because that's how it's done in our fields. Right,
I just rambled.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
I'm sorry, go ahead, Oh that's all right, because I
found that answer very fascinating because you make an excellent
point of going back and looking at you know, looking
at the past and a lot of things I think
that we took for we started to take for almost
absolutions that these are real bigfootprints and this is why.
And if you're saying that's done on incorrect findings, based

(17:03):
on new new techniques and new new learnings, that's incredibly important.
And I think we owe it to ourselves to be
honest about that and to be able to you know,
then admit, Okay, well now we've got to look at
more and and as someone of your background or it is,
we get more scientifically minded and oriented folks into this,

(17:24):
you know, we may have to accept some of those
things and you know, move forward from it. I think
it's incredibly important what you just said. And I'm glad
folks got to hear that. Matt and I follow up
on that.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Now.

Speaker 8 (17:37):
I'm I'm just I'm just kind of going along with it. So, yeah, I.

Speaker 7 (17:44):
Had a long day.

Speaker 8 (17:45):
It worked too, So I'm yeah, as as out hear
what ire and everything else. I'm just like it's coming
right back to me because we had a trial coming up.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
So yeah, now I have a question to for you.

Speaker 9 (18:00):
David Meldrum has a cast with the dermal ridges, and
I don't know if you ever had a chance to take.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
A closer look at those, but if not, I can
let that go. But if you did get a closer
look at that, what was your opinion?

Speaker 7 (18:21):
Can you tell me the name of the cast? I cannot.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
I know that doctor Meldrum did present these and he
showed a close up of these dermal ridges that were
in this cast, and it was it was pretty amazing
how the cast was done. It was very detailed.

Speaker 9 (18:44):
But I'm sorry, I cannot give you the name of
it off the top of my head.

Speaker 6 (18:49):
So currently, the reason I asked for the name. Right currently,
I have somebody sending me some first generation copies of
some of those really really nice casts that supposedly had
dermal ridges on them. I've been providing some reports back
to them, the same kind of reports that I would
provide to you know, like doing for my job, that
I would make for courts. So uh, it's the only

(19:13):
way I know how to do it and to stay
unbiased while I do. You know, so I've treated it
like it's a foot impression I recovered from a crime scene.
And now let's start to do the analysis.

Speaker 7 (19:23):
And it is it is what it is, when it
when it, when it's over.

Speaker 6 (19:28):
And you know, I'm not trying to make anyone mad
or no, no, but uh, one of the things. And
I have to say that it's gotten me into and
this is like a science step, but something I think
again needs to happen more. I kept hearing as soon
as I started looking into this, uh, it's definitely not

(19:50):
a bear, because bears don't have dermal ridges, right, And
I've heard that so many times, and you know, my
initial thought was, Yep, you're right, because they told me
in class that you know, these animals have them, and
these animals have them, but nothing that large. But then
it hit me that if I was ever gonna call

(20:13):
something conclusively not a bear, then I should be studying
bear paus'. So I have I'm working with seven different zoos,
a couple different sanctuaries who are providing me with pictures
of paul pads at different times during their life. And
I have found some really interesting results which has ended

(20:37):
up it initially started about bigfoot research, but now it's
actually turned into a professional paper that I'll be submitting
because it kind of went in a whole new direction
because I actually did find that in basically two different
stages of a bear's paul pad's life, that there are

(20:59):
certain areas on bears or on their pads that can
resemble human dermal ridges real and once we've you know,
once I've finished frighten this in documenting it, because I
do have some great pictures. So basically what happens is
is you've seen the bottom of dog paul pads, right,
it's got the little they're called dermal papilay. They're little
peg like formations right well, on a bear, they start

(21:25):
off as like little knobs and they don't continue well
for a little while. They start off as little nubs,
and sometimes their arrangements can look similar to a human's
friction ridges. Then what happens is as it starts to
grow those dermal papillay they'll grow up and they will
fold over on top of each and they'll create something

(21:48):
that looks kind of like a line. And it only
happens in little sections, you know, about the size of
like a fifty cent piece or something like that. But
sometimes I saw it takes to accidentally, you know, say hey,
those are normal ridges, and when we see lines in
a footprint, we think human, dermal ridges, or the unknown

(22:08):
that we've been looking for. So I mean you, I
mean you have to take it all into context. I mean,
you know, bears have different shaped toes, different shaped feet.
You know, there's all different kinds of things. But sometimes
that double stup and you happen to get something that
looks like dermal ridges. I could very easily see how
that could be accidentally misconstrued.

Speaker 7 (22:27):
For something else.

Speaker 6 (22:29):
But as far as me doing the forensic work on
the cast, I figured I needed to know all of
this to be able to conclusively.

Speaker 7 (22:37):
Rule out bear.

Speaker 6 (22:39):
You know that way when I say those don't will
like human, those don't like bear, Well, what's that leave us?
That leaves us with something else, you know, because I
don't have an exemplar to say, hey, this looks like
a bigfoot, you know, but if I can rule out
human or bear, then I'm left with something. So that's
really what I'm after.

Speaker 5 (23:01):
That's a smart approach, I mean that's what we've We've
always said is kind of look at look at what
it possibly could be narrowed down, never really say it's
sasquatch or bigfooter or some other cryptid you know, just say, hey,
I don't know what this is, but this is what
I know of of what it isn't, and this is
what I've learned so far that it could be. With

(23:24):
what we've learned so far. It's good to have that
kind of attitude because that way, then you're not fitting
the you're not fitting the research or the evidence to
the narrative.

Speaker 7 (23:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (23:37):
I mean, the thing is is I'm instead of just
emailing back or talking to someone on the phone, I'm
actually providing reports with my name on them. And I'm
still active duty, so I have to be careful about
what I actually put on paper or put in writing
right now. You know, I actually did a book on
how to cast in different types of souls and substrates,

(23:59):
and I was actually asked about that in court about
three weeks ago. Luckily I had a prepared answer and
it didn't go as well as they thought it was
going to go. But nevertheless, they're still paying attention. I
also know that my agencies. They also are continually looking
at our social media, especially those of us who are

(24:21):
participating in so I have to be really careful about
what I say, how I say it, and especially what
I put on paper.

Speaker 7 (24:29):
So if I'm going to do.

Speaker 6 (24:30):
All of that, then I have to do it right,
and I have to stay along the lines of how
we would process that kind of evidence in our lab
or in the forensic world as far as courtrooms and
things like that.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
We do have a question from the chat David, kind
of along the vane what we were talking about here
from Troy. Would David feel comfortable submitting evidence to his
peers to be reviewed depending on the evidence how it's collected.

Speaker 6 (25:00):
Of course, I have one person that would he's actually
my h my partner, my partner work. He's working on
his doctorate in bloodstain right now, and he's really good
at you know, at friction ridges.

Speaker 7 (25:18):
Things like that.

Speaker 6 (25:20):
He's been published a lot. But he would be somebody
that I would send to. But I think the best
route for me to do something like that would be
like a like a blind lineup, you know, kind of
like a you know, submit pictures and findings without telling
them anything and just ask for the opinion, because if

(25:42):
I mentioned bigfoot, or I mentioned do these look human
or anything like that. I mean just even say does
this look human? That introduces uh, I'm already introducing bias
into the findings.

Speaker 7 (25:54):
So they don't make that will.

Speaker 6 (25:56):
Be saying, hey, peer review this work I read or
I wrote a paper about. Let suppose a bigfoot cast,
but I might get pictures and ask for their professional
opinion on what they're looking. That would be the better
route to go.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
Okay, well there's your answer.

Speaker 7 (26:14):
Gentlemen.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
We're going to take our break here real quick, and
as soon as we are back, we'll continue on with
this discussion. Folks, Sasquatch Experience, Sean Forker, James Baker, Vince Nesbitt,
Matt Arno, and our guest tonight, David's Agone. We'll be back.

Speaker 10 (26:29):
A symbol.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Has anyone here witnessed a bigfoot sighting?

Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (26:41):
Would you please stand that?

Speaker 5 (26:43):
Would you please stand that?

Speaker 3 (26:45):
Would you will the real bigfoot witness?

Speaker 10 (26:49):
Please stand up.

Speaker 5 (26:55):
You don't have to say your name.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
I just genuinely want to know what was what was
your experience? Pasha Ah, Yes, Bigfoot in the pot shop
kind of made me think there for a minute. Maybe
I want to rename this segment from the Bigfoot bullhorn
to the Bigfoot bong. Well, happy uh Monday night to

(27:21):
you alas were headed face first into the warm season.
And speaking of Wisconsin bongs. Recently a new sighting was
reported and placed on the map, and this one is
in a small city in Wisconsin with a recent population
of under four thousand, four thousand. What people are bigfoot

(27:44):
doesn't really specify the bigfoot sighting reported in Wisconsin on
May twenty six of this year. According to the Chamber
of Commerce, Chilton, Wisconsin, the county seat of Calumet County,
is a family friendly community. The city is home to
award winning schools and a superior part Oh.

Speaker 7 (28:06):
My god, who the hell cash.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
And it's just about thirty minutes from all major cities
in eastern Wisconsin. Now Chilton is also possibly home to
a bigfoot. The bigfoot sighting reportedly occurred in Chilton on Monday,
May twenty sixth this year. According to the report, the

(28:31):
sighting of a black, eight foot tall creature included hearing,
wood knocking, and viewing footprints. The report says it was
a warm night, so I'm assuming it was dark out,
and the person filing the report and a friend were
walking down a road for the fun of it when
they saw an eight foot tall creature walk or nearly

(28:54):
crawl over the road. Now, come on which one is it?
Did it walk or did it crawl? Because if it
was crawling it might be a little bit hard to
estimate eight foot tall. That's just my editorial thrown in.
I frozen shock, Like, what the hell am I supposed
to do? The person filing the report stated, thankfully, they

(29:17):
hadn't parked far away from where the sighting happened, so
they quickly ran back to the truck with their hearts racing.
So what exactly did they see? There could be a
lot of speculation about this reported sighting, but the fact
that large footprints and wood knocking were also involved.

Speaker 7 (29:38):
Means it could be a big foot.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
The person filing the report cautions anyone thinking that they
want to head to Chilton to investigate to be careful
for what they wish for. You don't want to find them,
are the final words in the report, after the interviewer
bludgeoned them over the head with their clipboard. Nah, that
part up. When we come back, I'll give you a

(30:04):
dollar if you can guess where we're going. Yeah, I'm
not that wealthy.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Big foot bullhorn right here on the Sasquatch Experience.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Take as anybody ever told you, Hey, nice knockers. If not,
just visit gottknockers dot org. Read about the encounter. They
kick this whole thing off. Plus you can purchase one, two,

(30:42):
three or more tree Knockers. I'm not sure what you
thought we were talking about. Gott Knockers has a plethora
of gifts and merchandise two from awesome apparel, ware, and
even something for the baby. Fine jewelry and sauceage to
please anyone's taste. Bud stop on buy and give a

(31:03):
hello to Gwendolyn and Michael herself. Now that you know
where to get some toy knockers. They make fun gifts
or accessories for the squatch bag. Just visit Gotknockers dot
Org again Got Knockers dot Org Country Road.

Speaker 10 (31:28):
Take it hold.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
To the flame. Yes, it's the fifth annual West Virginia
Bigfoot Festival and will be held on June twenty sixth
through the twenty eighth of this month at Holly Gray
Park in Sutton, West Virginia. It will be a three
day event featuring a variety of activities including famous speakers,

(31:54):
live music, vendors, food trucks, and the opportunity to check
out the West Virginia Bigfoot Museum. The festival is open
to all ages and is known for its family friendly atmosphere.
Admission is five dollars per adult and parking is free,

(32:15):
or pay five bucks to park and get in for free.
Either way, Thanks again for listening to this edition of
the Bigfoot Bullhorn Bong right here on the Sasquatch Experience.
And as Godzilla always says, to Tokyo, until we meet again,
keep your tone in the mind.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Got a great show here tonight. Our guest tonight David
Zigone from Bigfoot Forensics dot Com on All Around Great
Guys got his own podcast. I've been tuning in listening
when I've had some time. I just appreciate what you're doing, David.
You know, and I think it's well well needed.

Speaker 10 (33:04):
Well, I'll give you that.

Speaker 9 (33:07):
And that's what I appreciate is the new aspect of it.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Right why like the the you know, the answer we
gave before the break was looking back at the old stuff,
and you know, using modern techniques and current day learnings
to kind of go through that and it's important. Well,
I think if we have one takeaway, that's going to
be it for you tonight. Go ahead, David.

Speaker 6 (33:28):
I was just gonna say, you can kind of look
at it like, uh, like a cold case investigation. You know,
we we it Bigfoot's not solved. We have a bunch
of evidence from the past and maybe it's time to
go back and review it and see if we miss
something instead of just taking it or dismissing it, uh,
because we don't. We don't really know right now. And

(33:50):
that's one of the things. I actually belonged to a
Cold case task coorse and say that. You know, you
read through these cases and you think, oh man, you know,
what were they thinking or And that's where I got
the mindset. You know, I'm not going to criticize chillcut
because this working on a cold case task force taught

(34:11):
me that, you know, times were different, different resources were available.
You know, people were just doing things differently. The mindset
was completely different. So you know, it shouldn't be we
shouldn't be judging what was happening in the past. But
definitely we need to go back and relook at some
of those older pieces of evidence and see if there's

(34:33):
anything that we recognize differently now, especially since we have
new technology, at different mindset and a different way of
doing things right.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
And I think that's very diplomatically said too, like it's
not an attack, it's just using what's available now that
sometimes we wish we would have had back then to
get different results that are maybe the correct results. And
that's a huge, huge victory for everybody. We should be
celebrating that. And uh, I hope that leads to some,

(35:04):
you know, really great stuff down the road. But David,
you've been getting out and about and going to different
areas and doing investigations, and why don't you tell us
about some of those?

Speaker 6 (35:14):
Oh man, Yeah, I guess I just go with the
most recent one. I mean, I've had a few things
that are unexplained. One of my biggest, I would say
pet Peeves for me is I'm putting out, you know,
trail cameras like I did when I was hunting, but
now I'm also deploying like long term recording devices. I

(35:36):
can't afford the high end stuff, so I'm using the
zoom h ones and h one ends, you know, just
connected to a power source and and I make you know,
I made a little like cylinder to protect them from
the weather and stuff like that, and deploying them out,
deploying them out with the with the cameras, and you know,
nothing makes you matter that when you get something that's

(35:57):
really strange that you can't can't really you know, say oh,
that's this or that's that, and you realize that you
really don't have any evidence unless you have something else
to go with it. You know, that singular recording, and
you know it technically means nothing unless I got something

(36:18):
else to go with it. You know, kind of like
in court, you know, one thing doesn't mean anything. But
if I have a series of things, now I got
a bunch of circumstantial evidence that adds up to something.
But uh, when you get something that sounds like a
bunch of tree banging and like someone's almost building a
house in the middle of the woods, you know, like
someone's doing construction and it's just a bunch of trees,

(36:40):
you know, banging and knocking, and it goes on for
like three straight minutes and then it just stops.

Speaker 7 (36:47):
Out of nowhere.

Speaker 6 (36:48):
That's yeah, it's kind of weird, you know. So I
put that up in my well, that's kind of a
weird thing, you know. And I got that recording.

Speaker 7 (36:55):
And then.

Speaker 6 (36:57):
That was when we were at Land between the Lakes.
I was with a group manimal research, really yep. And
what I did was that particular recorder was about a
half a mile up on a ridge from our camp.
I chose that site specifically because it was on a
point where four different valleys like met so I knew

(37:18):
that if I got found one, it was kind of
like putting it in the middle of the big gar,
you know. So you know, we had a big storm
come through. That's why I was laughing when he mentioned tornadoes.

Speaker 7 (37:31):
You know.

Speaker 6 (37:32):
We had a big storm come through. A tree fell
on the back of my truck. Luckily, the truck's fine,
but the camper, Gill's dead. So after the storm was over,
I pulled the truck out into the middle of the
camp and me and my little dog, he was only
four months old at the time, we were sleeping in
the front seat of the truck and I reached over.

Speaker 7 (37:54):
To touch him. It was like it was three forty
three in the morning.

Speaker 6 (37:57):
Because I sent my my recorder's cry and I reached
over to touch him, and I didn't feel him, so
I reached for a flashlight and I hit my car
keys and I turned the alarm on my truck and
it goes honk honk, and I turn it off just
as fast. And then I'm looking around, looking around trying
to see if I woke up anybody. I'm sure I

(38:18):
had to or nobody came out. But on my recording,
about four seconds after the horns, you hear a loud crack.
It sounds like someone smacking a baseball bat up the tree.
And I was like, oh, when I was listening to it,
I was jokingly I said, I made you mad, did I?

Speaker 1 (38:38):
You know? And then that land between the lakes.

Speaker 7 (38:43):
Yeah, this is that land between the lake.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
Then play any of those yeah, sure to. You tell
me which one to play and I'll play it.

Speaker 6 (38:52):
Just hit the one that says my car horn.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Okay, and we'll do my best, folks for you to
hear this here.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
We away wow, wow, only crap.

Speaker 6 (39:16):
So you know, I can't tell you what that is
for what it was. So I can tell you I
have done an experiment to check with my recorders, you know,
slamming my car door you know, in the neighborhood and
recording it to see what it would sound like close,
but not it right, because it turns out those recorders

(39:40):
are adding a little bit of trouble to the to
the recordings, so but it's not the car door. So
then later on during that night, so that was at
three forty three am and at four it's almost.

Speaker 7 (39:56):
Exactly two hours later.

Speaker 6 (39:58):
It's three minute long recording, but it's if you're listening
to like the hours of recording. It just goes and
then all of a sudden, all this banging and knocking starts.
It goes for three minutes and then it just stops.
So nothing for you know, the day and a half
before and nothing after. So I don't know what to

(40:19):
make of this one, but there is a lot of
there's a lot of banging.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
You know.

Speaker 6 (40:24):
My joke was it looks not like someone building a
house and.

Speaker 7 (40:27):
The yeah.

Speaker 9 (40:30):
Jenk st yeah that one yeah sure, yeah.

Speaker 6 (40:36):
That one was actually called Lots of woods, you know,
wood knocks. That was the recording if you want to
hit it, but yeah, it uh.

Speaker 8 (40:53):
Yeah, h.

Speaker 7 (41:16):
M h yeah.

Speaker 6 (41:21):
That is a little beaver, so you know, I mean,
and it goes on like that for another minute and
a half. I don't I don't know what that is. Unfortunately,
you know, no no howling, no footprints, no sightings, no
nothing to go with it, just that, which is frustrating,

(41:43):
and you know, it's exciting and frustrating all at the
same time, because I can tell you if I was out,
you know, walking back from turkey hunting and then I
heard all that commotion going on in the middle of nowhere,
I wouldn't have been happy.

Speaker 11 (41:56):
You know.

Speaker 6 (41:57):
You know, I can give a tree falling, you know,
a tree to another tree falling, you know, something slowly breaking,
stuff like that, but there's a lot of actual banging
that's happening with that, so I don't know what to
make of it.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
Unfortunately, we just started a little correspondence back and forth
tonight on those and you know, the one thing I
commented was that, you know, especially with the lots of woods,
that was very succinct. You know, it was quite on.
It's very compelling stuff. I mean, it's audio right, it's
it's the best we can do, and you know, not

(42:31):
having somebody to visually see it, it's still pretty damn cool.

Speaker 6 (42:35):
Yeah, Yeah, it's interesting to me, but for me Uh,
that's all I think I can actually say until I can, which.

Speaker 7 (42:45):
I probably never will. I'm hoping I will, but I
probably won't, don't. I don't know. I'm a little just harden.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
You know.

Speaker 6 (42:52):
You listen to everybody's stories and stuff like that, and
it's it's tough, you know, because you hear animals, you
hear things. And well also, one of the things I've
been doing lately is just really studying the crap out
of just different four sounds and different animals, you know,
that make noise. I thought I knew all the animals
that make weird noises at night, but uh, that's just

(43:12):
not the case.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (43:14):
I've been looking some crazy stuff and I'm like, okay,
well that makes sense, you know. And then I found out,
you know, people talking about bigfoots making whistles. And then
I found out that the stupid mocking bird you know,
can actually be active at night. And you know, as
I'm like, well, crap, man, what if it hurt a
big foot whistle and it's flying around making big foot whistles?

Speaker 7 (43:36):
Now, how do we know the difference?

Speaker 1 (43:37):
You know?

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Well, crap, Yeah, that deepens the question.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
There's so much weird coming out of that area of
the you know, the lb l Uh. There is so
much and I have, you know, watch so many documentaries
and interviews.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Ah, I don't know what to make of it.

Speaker 11 (44:00):
But the.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Piles of evidence audio evidence, I should add, coming out
of that area is so mysterious. I don't know what
to make of all.

Speaker 7 (44:13):
Of it, but it's creepy. I'll give you that much.

Speaker 6 (44:17):
I will tell you. I did record some very low
uh sounds almost sounded like explosions. Chris Blaylock from our
group was able to determine that there's a bunch of.

Speaker 7 (44:29):
Active minds still going on there.

Speaker 6 (44:32):
That was an actual possibility that that's where some of
those low it did. It did sound like explosions far
away in the background. And uh, she really you know,
hit the research and came up with that, and I
was very appreciative.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
Now, what would they be mining over there?

Speaker 7 (44:51):
Is still call yep Okay.

Speaker 6 (44:55):
I was like, I don't know, but she I think
she found like five or six active minds that were
on southern end.

Speaker 4 (45:01):
Yeah, wow, that's interesting.

Speaker 7 (45:05):
I haven't heard of anything. Okay, I got my homework
to do.

Speaker 6 (45:11):
Yes, something right, I mean it's the miners, Yeah, I
mean it's just, you know, you have to just keep eliminating,
you know, something else to add to the mix. And
now you got to wonder, you know, if they're mining there,
how long have they been mining there? How many tunnels

(45:33):
still exist? You know, there's so many different you know,
any more questions you have to ask, you know, have
they actually been sealed up or.

Speaker 7 (45:42):
Properly?

Speaker 6 (45:44):
You know, I don't know the answers to all of that.
But the one thing that didn't happen that I was
told would when I got there. I was told that
as soon as I get there, I'm gonna feel you know,
like a weird you know vibe or or was just
heavy or and I'll tell you I felt none of that.
It was just it just felt like I was at

(46:06):
a beautiful, you know, beautiful place, and you know, besides
the storms and all the rain, you know, the ticks
were really really bad, and the group. Yeah, I've been joking,
not really joking, but at the time, I think I
posted something like I'm never coming back. And that was
just when I was angry as a tree just fell
on my car or on my truck and then I

(46:28):
picks off me and my dog and it's been raining
the whole time, and I was like, man, you know,
it just just isn't like this in Georgia.

Speaker 7 (46:37):
Go back to North Georgia, Henry.

Speaker 10 (46:42):
I yeah, I have a question for David. What do
you think is the current state forensics when it comes
to big foot and what can be done to improve
that state?

Speaker 6 (46:56):
The current state of forensics concerning bigfoot, I would say, yeah,
there's only a select few that are actively participating in
different different areas within that. As far as how we
do better, that's something that I kind of been preaching.
I think the only thing that those who haven't been

(47:19):
you know, I would say that the next step really
if you want to catch the attention of someone like
me as far as thermal ridges or foot impressions go
or someone like Darby Orcut for collecting DNA, or you know,
Cliff and Meldrum for looking at you know, the biomechanics

(47:40):
of the foot and stuff like that. When we collect
these things, we got to stop thinking of them as
like souvenirs while we're out and start thinking about it
like its actual evidence. And I know it's really easy.
I mean when I see it all the time with
beginning police officers beginning crime scene investigators, you get excited
when you see something and you get tunnel vision, and

(48:03):
your first thought isn't okay, let's secure the scene and
keep everybody out. Your first thought is, hey, I want
to show somebody this, right.

Speaker 7 (48:13):
I mean, the.

Speaker 6 (48:15):
Problem is as soon as everyone starts walking over for all,
you know, you just had people walk across a whole
bunch of more footprints or step on some evidence that
something got touched. I would like to see some of
these things, like where people are saying someone took a
tree and stuck it upside down, someone found some glyphs,
someone found tree structures or something like that, instead of

(48:39):
just photographing them and walking away. I'm not seeing that
many people. Now I'm not saying everybody, I'm not seeing
that many people going up and really analyzing these structures,
looking for a hair, looking for areas that may have
been touched. If something may have been touched, or it
was a probability that something was touched in a certain
area because they could have only held it that way,

(49:00):
then maybe we need to be taking DNA samples from
those areas as well. So, like one of our prime
examples is when I'm processing something that a scene. If
I see something that looks like a bad fingerprints, and
luckily I'm a fingerprint examiner, so I can actually look
at it right then at the scene and tell is
it worth taking is it not? If it's not worth

(49:22):
taking for identification purposes as far as matching fingerprints, I'm
swabbing it for DNA, right, So I think two, and
I'm going to get back to catching these science people's attention.
You're going to have to photograph these things, right, and
you're going to have to do it in context. These

(49:45):
photographs of at an angle or from far away looking
straight down, that's great and all, but you know, you've
got to have that scale. You've got to get that
camera parallel to the ground, and you have to take
pictures of everything inside that impression, not just a whole impression,
but the inside as well, because you got people like
me who were going to want to look at what

(50:07):
happened within the footprint. You know, is are there dermal ridges?
Is there anything showing me the type of distortion that
happened when that foot touchdown? You know, there's a lot
of key indicators that we can look at just from
that that depositional pressure when it hits the ground to
where I could go, eh, there's multiple impressions inside here.

(50:29):
This is looking kind of fake or you know, suspect,
or I can go holy craft, that looks like the
whole thing was deposited all at once. This is something
we really need to take a look at. But you know,
there's all different kinds of ways, and I think it's
going to be really tough. You know, I'm not like
super popular, you know, as far as it goes trying

(50:50):
to get the word out. Plus it requires a lot
of work, and you know, ultimately, I think we all
have to decide individually what is our end goal when
we're out doing this. You know, are we trying to
gather evidence and trying to do this, you know, in
a scientific manner, or are we trying to experience things?

(51:11):
And do we even care? You know, I think everybody
has a certain level of where they're at in this
type of investigations.

Speaker 5 (51:23):
Very interesting, and thank you for some of those points,
because you brought up points earlier about how we need
to look at evidence from the past that today's lens
and in the way, by the way you're explaining is
if we take pictures today and we take evidence say yes,
maybe it won't be as useful, but somebody in the
future can look at it with that lens and go Okay,

(51:44):
because they did it right, I've got something to work.

Speaker 6 (51:48):
That's absolutely true. In fact, since we started that cold
case unit several years ago, due to that, we've actually
started collecting evidence differently at our police department because we
started seeing things like okay, yes, well, well there's things

(52:09):
that we don't know, just like things they didn't know
at the time. We don't know what's going to be
happening in twenty years, so we're collecting a lot more
than we normally would, and we're taking samples of things
we normally wouldn't, uh, just in case the case goes cold.
So now we're trying to process these scenes like it
may end up being cold, just in case.

Speaker 7 (52:33):
And it's been. It's been.

Speaker 6 (52:34):
It's been helpful actually already because sometimes you know someone
you know trying to do the aha, I gotcha moment
on the stand, Why didn't you know did.

Speaker 7 (52:40):
You collect this?

Speaker 6 (52:41):
And they're like yeah, We're like yeah, and they're like
why and we're like, well, actually we don't know yet.

Speaker 7 (52:46):
You know, we're going to be super honest.

Speaker 6 (52:48):
And said, we took everything, but when we have, you know,
like I said before, you have to decide what your
role in this is and what you want to get
from me. So that's what been one of the questions
that I ask when I run across people out in
the field is what is your goal while you're out here?
Are you trying to have an experience? Or are you

(53:10):
trying to collect real evidence? And if so, how are
you doing it? And you know, can I help or
something like that. But if you don't truly care and
you're just out there having fun, well then I can't
fault you for that either.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
But you never know, Wow, could you believe? Were almost
out of time already? That's a great place to kind
of wind it down, David. Where can folks find out
more about you? And you know, pick up your book
and tune into your podcast.

Speaker 6 (53:40):
So my book is Casting Bigfoot Evidence a guide. It
was made specifically. I originally made it for the crime
scene world. It was something that I wish I would
have had when I started all it was already pre
written almost I just went in and changed it to
the to apply to the big footwear. So each chapter

(54:04):
is about how to cast your footwear or your foot impression,
and a different type of soil or substrate, and then
all the tricks and tips on you know, the things
that can go wrong how to fix that. And there's
also a chapter on how to photograph all these things
properly and how to do it in context. So I'd
made it as like a little guide where you could

(54:25):
just stuff it in your backpack. It's for sale and Amazon,
but that's it was my first attempt at trying to
help out the big foot field.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Everybody that's had a copy that I've talked to has
loved it, and our friend Jay has been promoting it
everywhere I've been with him. He's been speaking its praises,
so you know, well done. I got to get a
copy myself. I can't say I own one yet and
I'm so on reading, but I do need one because
Matt and I, you know, hit the woods pretty heavy,
and you know, I think you know, treating treating evidence

(55:02):
like evidence and not a souvenir. You know, that was
a very strong statement and I think that one's going
to stick stick as well. I think that was very
apt and Scott to Tarley, one of our listeners, interesting.
I've always thought when out in the field, I was
looking for evidence and not a souvenir. I guess my

(55:22):
mindset is always an investigative, scientific mindset. I think, Scott,
that's something I've got to you know, pretty much still
reinvigor you know when that excitement hits when you see something,
stop and think, am I going to contaminate something? Or
am I just happy because I got something I could
take a picture of. But if you're listening to David,

(55:43):
take a lot of pictures. Just don't step in it.
Take a lot of pictures.

Speaker 7 (55:48):
You have all day. It's yours, right.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
Talent, gentlemen. Any other questions for David before we wrap
it up. No, no, David, thank you so much for
joining us here tonight. It went by too brief as usual.
I'll have to get you back on for a part two.
Pardon me for keep looking out my window here. We're
starting to amp up, folks, as you've heard, we've got

(56:13):
some great guests coming down down the line. Stick with us.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
We've been putting a lot of extra content out during
the week though on the Patreon, and eventually that will
migrate to our free platforms as well. So just stay tuned.
You don't know when we're going to drop new stuff
your way. And until next week, Henry, drop your words, buddy.

Speaker 8 (56:34):
You'll be to be good.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
There you go West, you next week or in two weeks.

Speaker 7 (56:40):
Keep on squatching.

Speaker 11 (56:48):
You've been listening to Sasquatch Experience. Please rate interview where
this podcast has been consumed. To share your experience, visit
us on Facebook, our website, or email us info at
Sasquatch Experience means dot com.

Speaker 7 (57:02):
Keep on squatching

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EP 126: Bigfoot Forensics with David Zigan

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