January 1, 2013 • 35 mins
For centuries North American tribes have told stories of a hairy wild giant in the wilderness, and once Europeans arrived they claimed to see it, too. Chuck and Josh examine the claims of believers and the rebuttals of skeptics in this evenhanded episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff works dot com. Chuck, before we get started,
let's plug our Brooklyn thing, our live event. Guys. We
(00:25):
are throwing a premiere party for the TV show Slash
Stuff You should variety show at the Bell House and
Lovely Goanas, Brooklyn, New York. This is January eight, and
uh this says tickets were covering a cost on this
one and tickets are ten dollars. You can go to
uh the Bell House in y dot com or just
(00:47):
google that junk and go to the Bellhouse. Findus on
the calendar January eight. Show starts at seven thirty. I'm sorry,
doors at seven thirty. Show eight. Yeah, and we got
special guests like comedians of music. John Hodgman is going
to be there, other comedy ends. Do you want their
stand up? Lucy warning right, Roach is gonna play singing
with her pretty dang voice. Right, So we're going to
have a nice little blowout agreed at the Bellhouse. Come
(01:10):
celebrate with us. It'll be a fun festive occasion. Yeah.
We love the Bell House and we love for our
fans up there, and I'm sorry guys if we haven't
come to your town yet, we would love to trust
us and maybe we will. Yeah. So there, okay, so
now onto the show. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark with me as always a Charles W.
(01:31):
Chuck Bryant and um that makes this stuff. You should
know the podcast. A right, is that a wookie? That
is me messing with Sasquatch? It sounded more like, um,
Frankenstein from starright Live. I remember that. I love that
frankast Panto and Tarzan Tarzan classic skit. Have you seen
(01:54):
the commercials Messing with Sasquatch? Yeah, Jack Links, it's pretty funny. Yeah,
all of them are. It's one of my favorite spots. Actually,
well it contradicts, um, I witness reports that paint Bigfoot
is kind of a benign, shy creature. Now as far
as Jack Links is concerned, he goes a gro when you, um,
(02:14):
when you mess with him. I guess that's what it is.
So I have an actual intro for this one. All right,
let's here, we're talking Bigfoot and very recently there's some
enormous huge news um and um, we should probably preface
this one like, if you are a skeptic, don't worry,
We're gonna give your side of this too. But we
(02:36):
have found over the years that UM, it's very respectful
to give voice to both sides. We try to and UM,
we're not insulting you by speaking the other person's side.
Will express your side as well, and when we do that,
we're not insulting the other side. And at the end
of the day, it's about Bigfoot. So let's not get
(02:56):
so worked up. Calm down, you know, it's all just fun.
There's a a self professed veterinarian with twenty seven years
experience including forensics named um Dr Melba Catchum Melba s
catchum and she supposedly she claims got her hands on
(03:18):
some UH samples of Bigfoot hair and has been testing
it do running genetic tests on it, and recently announced
and wrote a paper that's under puer view as it
stands now, UM that she she managed to isolate three
separate nuclear um d NA. Okay, that that came from
(03:43):
three separate groups. So one is the nuclear DNA. Remember,
so you have UM. Nuclear DNA is the mixture of
the mothers and the father's DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is strictly
from the mother. So the researcher found the nuclear DNA
came from a human Bigfoot, which is a hybrid of
(04:04):
the human and this third species and non human species
doesn't know what it is yet, but supposedly that's what
this hair sample showed. Then this is just now right, Yeah,
I believe they made this announcement like in late November,
early December, which is now under peer review. It is
under peer review. That doesn't mean that it's going to
(04:25):
pass peer review, but she submitted the paper for peer review. Um. Now,
she said that the the mitochondrial DNA in the sample
was human, which means that this third thing, Bigfoot, is
the product of a female woman and a this non
human species, the mystery species reproducing and forming Bigfoot. And
(04:49):
she says that she isolated it to about fifteen thousand
years ago. Now, anybody who's followed Dr Ketchum's career can
poke holes all in this. There was apparently I read
an early draft of the paper that she said this third,
this third um species was an angel and people skeptics
(05:11):
love beating up on people like this. But my hat
is off to her for first of all, undergoing this
using the scientific method to root out um the unexplained.
That's extremely forty in nature and I love that stuff um.
And then secondly to put it up for peer of
view and to face that that kind of criticism. One
(05:32):
of the big problems that she she isn't saying like
where this sample, how she knows this is a sample
of Bigfoot's DNA. She didn't say where she got it,
not that not that I could find. And I actually
saw in one article that she's not saying where it,
where it came from. So there's a lot of holes
in it. But if you wanted big current bigfoot news,
that's about as big as it gets. That's right. Uh,
(05:54):
not quite as current as our our own law officer
here in Georgia. Is that last year the year before
the one up in the North Grogia. Yeah, man with
with his freezer, I didn't follow that very close. I'm
gonna go ahead and say that I really want to
believe in Bigfoot or not want to believe. I want to.
(06:14):
I want there to be a Bigfoot. I don't think
there is that means you want to believe in, but
I still want to. I want to believe it's out there,
because it's just it would be so cool. And whenever,
when when I saw that story, the sheriff and I
think he's a sheriff or deputy in North Georgia. It
was a hoax, of course, but he said he had
a body in a freezer and they showed pictures of this.
(06:35):
Uh ah, what you know? It was a guerrilla suit, right,
that's what ended up being with and it had guts,
had like animal entrails, but it looked like initially like,
oh man, that looks like a dead bigfoot, and then
you look closer and it's like a suit that you
can get online. I wish I had that kind of
time to do stuff like that. Yeah, apparently portrayed hoax.
(06:56):
Apparently they were trying to try drum up, but potential
business for leading big foot tours in North Georgia. It's
a sound way to do it until you get found
out and then ultimately either retire or get fired. Could
still work. Oh well, okay he lost his day job,
is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, you can't do stuff
(07:18):
like that. If you're a cop, you can't pull a hoax. Now,
you can't pull a hoax and try and snow people
for money. That's not that's not legal. I don't know
that it is illegal to uh to snow people for money,
to promise them something that's not true and charge This
guy says that you call it fraud, No, it's a hoax.
(07:39):
There's a big difference between fraud and hoax people. If
he had the business, it would be fraud. No. That
would be like if he promised that you were going
to see Bigfoot, not a big Foot tour, but he
said you're gonna see Bigfoot on this tour and he didn't,
then you could get him for fraud. I think you
would still be fraud if he founded that business and
advertise it on a s premise, which is I found
(08:02):
this thing. Look at it. Yeah, I see your point. Yeah,
let's let's talk about Bigfoot. This guy up in North
Georgia is pretty far from the only person to pull
a declared Bigfoot hoax. Um. What keeps this thing going
is that there's some stuff out there that's considered this
body of evidence of big Foot's existence that hasn't been
(08:23):
definitively debunked and right. One of the other things that
I think people who are believers in Bigfoot, like the
ones that are out there like looking for Bigfoot and
believe in Bigfoot. One of the things that keeps them
going also is this correlation between Bigfoot sightings among people
of European descent and big Foot legends of Native American
(08:47):
tribes long before the Europeans ever got here. And if
you um, if you look at the names of that
these different tribes have and take a step back, you're like, Wow,
these tribes were all over the place. There, somewhere in
the Pacific Northwest, somewhere in Florida, somewhere in Um, the north,
northeastern United States, and eastern Canada, and all of them
have this weird um tall giant hairy man legend that
(09:13):
they have a name for UM, even though they're you know,
geographically scattered all over the place. And it's possible that
they these all of these different Um legends share a
single common ancestor that it's further back, maybe located on
the steps of Eurasia, but it's also kind of noteworthy
that they all have different legends for it. Him Alay
(09:36):
is even the yetty incominable snowman in Asia very popular UM.
Apparently you hear that one more than you see it. Yeah,
which I didn't know. But we should call this thing
sasquatch because that is the most common name they use nowadays.
And um, even though some of the names from Native
American tribes when day go yeah, yeah, that's correct, ohma,
(10:01):
rugaru and books is some of the names that this
has gone by Native American lord, but sashquatch, shash squatch
comes from I have no idea how to pronounce that.
It looks like sess shock anyway, that that word in
another word from the area around British Columbia were similar
(10:22):
enough that in the nineteen twenties, white school teacher named J. W.
Burns coined the term sasquatch. And it's basically it's the
umbrella term for any big foot like man, right, so
we should. Even though these sightings have varied in their
description over the years, there a few hallmarks that pop up.
(10:43):
One is that this is a tall beast between seven
and fifteen feet, which is that enormous. Yeah, I haven't
most of the ones I've heard of between like seven
or eight feet. Have you seen the troll hunter? I
saw that recently. Actually, that first troll that they watched
the guy s happen turing this tone. That thing was
about fifteen ft tall. That's huge. Yeah, that was a
(11:04):
pretty good movie. I'd buy ten ft no way, no way. Yeah.
Did you like the movie was excellent? Yeah? I kind
of got it kind of wore on me towards the end.
I thought it was a little long, but it was
pretty cool. Yeah, and the imagination that it used was
just beautiful. Totally agreed. Un people, Um it walks on
(11:24):
two legs, that's a big one. Was that bipedal? That
what they say? Um, it's upright and has a loping gate. Um,
he's seeing the elf right the movie Elf. Yeah, the
one shot where they mimic the uh, the famous sixteen
millimeter film where it's so it's Will Ferrell and Central
(11:44):
Park and they like have that from frame three fifty
two of the sixteen millimeter film. It's pretty funny. So
Will Ferrell's doing sens. Yeah, it says like, you know,
the strange Elf was seen wandering through Central Park and
they mimic that. Yeah Frell. Yeah, it was very good.
Um and then long reddish fur that's a big one,
reddish brown. That's and that's really interesting that it's um,
(12:07):
that Sasquatch is typically described as having long, reddish brown fur. Ye,
that's a really specific thing for everybody report. And again
it's possible that like people have heard other reports and said,
you know, that's what they're expecting to see or that's
what they're reporting because that's what Sasquatch has. But it's
still it's significant. Um, you said that the YETI uh
(12:28):
was more heard than seen. Bigfoot is usually more seen
than heard. But when Bigfoot is heard, um that he
makes gurgling noises, howling noises, noises that sound totally alien
to the people reporting it. Yeah. I've heard weird noises
in the woods camping all my life, and I've never thought, oh,
(12:51):
that's a big Foot. I just think that's just something
some animal making a strange sound that I've never heard
because you live in the city, that's right. Uh. Supposedly
this uh Sasquatch also has sort of a man like face,
and reports from either being really really really smelly to
not smelling at all. Oh yeah, that's not in this article.
I forgot about how smelly Bigfoot is supposed to be.
(13:15):
I've heard that many times. Um. They're also supposedly very
wary of people, but also at the same time intensely
curious about us. Um and Uh. A lot of people
who have made eyewitness reports say that they weren't scared,
which is weird. Yeah. Most people say that, like, I
(13:36):
didn't feel threatened, right, and that kind of jibes with um.
Most Native Americans legends about Bigfoot that it was Um,
it's a a benign creature. Uh, and often it's it
has intellect and um, it's given spiritual powers in Native
American lore. So it wasn't something to be afraid of. Sasquatches,
(14:00):
your friend. Yeah. Uh, they usually are by themselves, but
there have been reports of several of these sasquatches hanging
out together and chatting. Yeah, but for the most part
they're usually alone. Right. Um. So you put all this
together and you've got like a pretty good common It's
like the A. K. C. Breed for sasquatch. These are
(14:21):
its characteristics. I love it, Okay. Um. If you take
this at at face value, which you should. Sure if
you're a skeptic, you should always look at things at
face value, not just immediately dismissed her poop po it. Yeah,
trying to get to the bottom of it. And that's
what we're about to do now. The first question is, um,
(14:42):
could a creature that matches this description possibly exists? Yeah,
And it's important when considering this to point out that
we'd have never despite all the sightings and little still
shots and film clips and audio clips, there's never been
any conclusive evidence. They've never found bones, but that's huge
or anything like that. Um, a lot of footprints and
(15:04):
stuff like that. So moving forward, could this exist perhaps
in the giganto Pithecus, right, because that's a creature that
that actually did exist at some point. And it says
here in the article that the gigant epithecis Pipthecus, which
is the largest primate in the fossil record, lived between
(15:25):
one and nine million years ago. Actually, I saw an
article that had updated that to about a hundred thousand
years ago, which meant that humans and Gigantapipthecus lived side
by side. Have you seen this thing I have looks
like a big foot, um, you know, yeah, And then like, oh, well,
I guess if someone saw that in the woods, I
would think it was a sasquad um. It lived in
(15:47):
Southeast Asia or in Central Asia, and it's a relative
of the orangutane. Yeah, big time. So it looks a
lot like one. Yeah, this is all extremely interesting stuff
in case you didn't know. Because orangutans, for starters, have
reddish hair, reddish orange hair, so that's one connection to
(16:08):
gigant Epithecus. Yeah. They've got the long arms like that. Yeah. Um.
They walked up right about ten feet tall, usually about
twelve pounds um. And if since orangutans are the closest
modern relative of gigant Epithecus it um, it makes sense
to kind of look at them, look at their behavior.
(16:28):
Does it match bigfoot stuff? Yeah? They have teeth similar
to humans, so that could account a little bit for
the man like look that people often talk about. Uh.
Make occasionally will make a loud howling calls. Uh that
sound odd to other orangutans. Another thing that kind of
separates them too, aside from being um Asian whereas most
(16:51):
primates are African um, is that they tend to live
solitary lives, so they don't aggregate in groups. They live
by themselves mostly. Okay, so chalk one up for the
big foot enthusiasts. Again, they're like, okay, well that's it's
gigant epithekus. Uh, they live a long time, and because
they are widely dispersed, they may not even see other
(17:12):
orangon tangs for many long stretches. So of course they
may not see a human either exactly. You know. And
if they're intellectual or if they have intellect um, as
people who believe in bigfoot like to point out, they
would be able to successfully hide from humans probably sure,
especially if their habitat was the woods and the mountains. Um.
(17:37):
And so you put all that together, that they have
a long lifespan, meaning there's not a lot of them
dying frequently. They live, they're spread out population wise, and
they tend to live in remote geographic regions. That if
you add all that up, it's a pretty good reason
(17:58):
why you wouldn't have found any bones. Yes, because bones
candy k and the wild like that between five and
ten years and um, the author of this was this
the grabster. This is Tom Harris. I'm Harris. He's a
good one. Um. He points out that that people have
never gone on bigfoot bone hunting expeditions, so like people
(18:19):
aren't looking for these things, so they may not have
found him. Well, yeah, there is a guy actually who's
um looking for Bigfoot, his Idaho State anthropology professor, and
he has his crowdsourcing blimp to hunt for Bigfoot with
thermal imaging cameras and stuff like that. And he's three
and if you're interested in it, you can check out
(18:40):
that I thought it was. But he's got his own
website called Falcon Project UM and that's what he's trying
to do with it. So there is at least one
person trying to do a rigorous scientific hunt for Bigfoot.
But and then there's all kinds of groups looking right. Yeah,
there's even a show on Animal Planet, one of our
h Discovery Channel stay stations, one of our I would
(19:02):
call it a sister station, but I'm not a station
one of our colleagues, and it's, uh, what's it called
Finding Bigfoot? And these people are out there hunting Bigfoot.
And I've even watched bits of it because I just
think it's cool and interesting and uh, it's kind of
a fun little show. So I recommend it. And weren't
we weren't even asked to plug that. I'm just plugging it.
(19:23):
You know. Um, do you have a possible link between
the orangutan um right and big Foot? And that link
might be a gigant Epithecus. Question is still remaining. Um,
how did gigant Epithekis get here? Uh? Well, we walked
over the Uh was it the land bridge bearing land bridge? Yes, yeah,
(19:47):
just like we did not you and me. But you know,
well that's one theory. Um. But the the big problem here, Chuck,
is the absence of proof doesn't prove anything. The fact
that we haven't found bones. Even though you can explain it,
we still haven't found any bones, and it doesn't mean
that something exists, and that's a it's a big problem
(20:08):
in this debate. You can also point to, though very happily,
the Ceila cant right. Uh. The Ceila canth was thought
to have gone extinct sixty million years ago. It's a fish,
I thought you have gone extinct in the late Cretaceous period,
and then they found it swimming off the coast of Africa.
So you can point to that and say it's entirely
(20:28):
possible that Gigantapithekis survived somehow and we just didn't know. Yeah,
and scientists are They'll point out that there are all
kinds of creatures that are still undiscovered, but most of
them are sea creatures. And that makes sense too, because
we don't spend very much time under the sea, No
we don't, um, whereas you know, we spend a decent
(20:48):
amount of time in the woods. Um. Okay, So if
you're a skeptic, everything we just said probably made the
hair on the back of your neck bristle in irritation.
And here's why, because, like we said, the absence of
proof doesn't prove anything. Sure, um, And it's entirely possible
that all of this evidence, this body of evidence, Um,
(21:11):
it's just basically a bunch of independent hoaxters fooling a
bunch of people over time. Yea or uh, innocent mistaken identity.
They're not all hoaxters. Some people have perhaps gotten confused
about things, said, boy, that mangie bear doesn't look right.
It's standing up on its back legs too. Or the
(21:32):
recent photo that was that still image captured at night
and that's what they said it was was a mangie bear.
But that thing was kind of weird looking. Yeah, it
was like a night image shot and it was on
it was on four leg or four you know, I
don't know if their arms or what, um, and you know,
it looked odd. But they you know, they explained it
away as a mangie bear. Um. But yeah, lots of
(21:55):
hoaxes over the years. Yeah. And if you go into
the woods and you're even the least bit familiar with
any kind of big foot loor and you see something
that's that possibly fits it, you may be the victim
of wishful thinking or being impressionable or what have you. Yeah,
that's a that's a pretty good accusation a skeptical level
against somebody who reports a big foot siding. And the first, um,
(22:19):
an easiest way to hoax someone, to pull a hoax
on someone is the old fake footprint. Yeah, not too
hard to do. You make a fake foot you wear
it on your feet, and you perhaps run along in
the woods, maybe lope, maybe leap to make the footsteps,
you know, the gate correct um, and then you make
(22:42):
a plaster mold of it. The problem with these is
there's in so many over the years that it's like
clear that they're hoaxes. Because this one is two toes,
this one has claws, this one has eight toes. And
you know there are people aren't getting together on these
and making them consistent. Um. Probably the most contentious bit
(23:02):
of Bigfoot evidence was that sixteen millimeter film you mentioned
that was made in nine seven by a guy named
Roger Patterson, the Patterson Gimblin Film, and it's from Bluff Creek, California,
and basically it shows Bigfoot walking across basically a clearing
into the woods, and Bigfoot is aware that he's being watched,
(23:25):
and he turns and looks at the camera. Like he said,
Will Ferrell didn't help um. And I remember years ago
like watching this and when I was back in my
time life books phase like I'll believe anything, just tell
me um. And they were saying that one of the
reasons that this thing was so convincing that it was
Bigfoot was that and he looked over his shoulder. Rather
(23:46):
than looking with just his head, just turning his head,
Bigfoot turns his whole shoulder and torso along with this head,
which is something that a primate would likely do, and
non human primate, I should say, or someone in an
ape suit, we should possibly that's another possibility to They
also point out that bigfoots walking with his knees bent
(24:08):
in this that's another sure sign of primate, whereas I
did that today. By the way, it is it hard, Well,
it's not the easiest thing, but what it makes you
do is sort of lope along with a kind of
a funny gate, a loping gate. Yeah yeah, um, that's
That's something that bigfoot enthusiast point too, is that this
thing was walking with knees bent um. And I didn't
(24:30):
realize this until I read this in the article. But
humans lock their knees with each step. We don't walk
with our knees bent um. And then also the lastly
that the creatures fur is clearly rippling, like the skin
beneath his rippling, and like some costume, some ape suit
isn't going to do that on its own. Put all
this together, and if you're a big foot believer, this
(24:54):
is irrefutable evidence that there's such thing as Bigfoot. If
you're skeptic, you can shoot a hole in all of
the can't you sure? Um? Since this film came out
in seven it's been like the most reviewed and made
fun of or backed piece of evidence ever for Bigfoot
or Sasquatch and um. Roger Patterson, it turns out, was
(25:18):
making trying to make a movie about Bigfoot. Yeah, so
he wasn't just some guy out there that happened to
have a camera. He was trying to put together a film. Um.
Since this has come out, there have been various people.
One guy came out and said, you know what, I
made the suit for him. He paid me a thousand
bucks to make him the suit. Well, the guy who
(25:39):
supposedly did make the suit is never admitted to. Well,
there's a bunch of guys that's not the same guy.
There's Chambers, and then there's this other dude. They aren't
the same people. That's why it's it's kind of hinky
because multiple people have claimed they made the suit. This
one guy says that he was the guy in the suit,
and Um, but his suit story didn't match up with
the guy who claimed he made the suit did match
(26:01):
up with his suit story. But then people said, you
know what, Patterson could have altered that original suit to
match the guy who said he was in the suit.
Then there's Chambers, who other people say it made the suit,
but he says he didn't make the suit. Well, it's
like a long standing Hollywood rumor that actually John Landis,
the director of American Werewolf in London. UM came out
and and and said, yeah, this is true. Um, when
(26:24):
he was a young pup. He was working at one
of the studios and he became friends with John Chambers,
who did the ape suits for Planet of the Apes,
which came out right around that time. Right, Um and uh.
He had heard that Chambers had done this, and he'd
befriended Chambers and said, yes, it's true. This is John Chambers.
And Chambers never has never taken credit for it. It's
(26:45):
never come out and said yeah, I did it. But
if you ask the average special effects guy or makeup
guy these days, if you show them that, they're like, yes,
this is ape suit. There's a water bag underneath that's
making the skin ripple. Um. And I like that's a guy.
That's a man. Right, I'll watched it again today, like
five times. Yeah. I mean too, it's really neat. Yeah,
(27:07):
it's kind of fun. I mean just the detail they
went into, like the the crooked legs, the bent knees. Yeah,
the shaky cam like it looked like someone scared and
discovering something. Yeah, it's it's perfect. If it's a fraud,
it is perfect because think about it. The thing was
shot in nineteen seven. It's two thirteen and people are
still debating whether or not it's authentic. Oh yeah, and
(27:29):
it's it's gone through lots of rigorous testing by people
that study whether or not the film was tampered, and
they have determined that nothing was tampered post shooting, like
if it was anything that was a dude in ape
suit and they really went out there in the woods
and shot it. Uh. But like I said, this is
all just kind of fun to me. People get so
worked up over this. I don't get it, you know. Yeah,
(27:51):
what's the harm unless someone's like defrauding people out of money?
You know. Um, there are people who dedicate their rears
to this. There's a woman named um Kathy Moscowitz Strain,
and she is a forest archaeologist for the U. S
Forestry Service who basically became an anthropologist and an archaeologist
(28:13):
so that she could hunt for Bigfoot. And she's very
respected even among skeptics who counter all of her arguments. Um,
but she is very much searching for Bigfoot and has
been for many years, and she believes or just wants
to get to the bottom of it. She believes that
there's a Bigfoot, that there's another species out there, some
(28:33):
primate species that is what we call sasquatch her bigfoot. Yeah,
the arguments against Like, to me, if you can't say
something like, well, somebody would have definitely seen it like
by now and proven it, Like you just can't say that,
like the Pacific Northwest is so vast that an animal
could probably hide if there was only a few of
(28:54):
them left from people, you know. But on the other hand,
you also like can't say it exists because of this
these hoaxes and these sounds, and like you need some
sort of like scientific evidence. Bones, bones would help. You
do need that unless you're just enjoying thinking about it. Yeah. Um.
(29:16):
Another thing you can enjoy that's kind of related is
watching the Ministry Science Theater three thousand of the Legend
of Boggy Creek. To see that one. It's arguably the
best episode that Oh my god, it's hilarious. Strong statement,
but it's related. It's a based on a big foot
like creature. Yeah. Yeah, Well, Tom points out to that
the reason people want to believe in stuff like this
(29:40):
is the same reason some people want to believe in aliens.
Um that like the sense of adventure is seemingly lost
these days. There's nothing new to discover, and God if
we could just discover a big foot, that would be
so huge and so monumental. Um, and I get that.
That's probably why I want to believe. You know, it
would rock the world of science. Oh it totally one.
(30:02):
But then we put it in a zoo. Yeah, poke
it with electricity, we humans. Yeah. Um, all right, well,
uh let's see if you want to learn more about bigfoot,
you can type that word into the search part how
stuff works. Um, there's an adorable picture of a baby
orangutan in this article, so you want to check that out. Um,
(30:25):
that's b I G F O O t um and
it'll bring that up. And since I said search parts time,
if we listen to mail, Josh. Before we do listen
to mail, you should quickly plug our TV show. Yes,
stuff you should know. Television show. We call it that
because it's based on our lives as podcasters. Stuff you
should know podcasters. I played Josh, you play Chuck. Yeah,
(30:47):
we're gonna change it around. I was gonna play you,
but you just didn't work out. We tried. Yeah, Um,
but this is a show about our lives and um
here in the office, and it's fun, good stuff. Our
picture a lie. Yeah, we should point that out. We're
not giving away our real lives. But we recreated our office,
we hired actors and but it's still just you and
(31:08):
me doing our thing among them. Yeah, and it's on
Saturday night, January nine. The premieres MPM Eastern Standard time.
That's right, two episodes back to back after Aid Abroad
Series three premiere. And uh, if you don't have TV,
you can buy these on iTunes the day after the
show comes out. You can buy each episode one at
a time, that's right. Uh. And if you are used
(31:28):
to Josh and Chuck short form video content, I fear
not that'll still always be around as well. You can
go to Science Channel dot com, Revision three the number
three dot com uh, and always how Stuff Works dot
com find some good Josh and Chuck video content as well.
Let's right. Yeah, and the podcast didn't go anywhere. By
(31:50):
the way, people ask us that we're still doing the podcast.
Yeah we are. I don't care if this thing is
the hugest hit ever, We're still gonna be the podcast. Yeah,
thanks for saying that, Chuck. Okay, so stuff you should
know the television show January nineteenth, that's Saturday, ten pm.
Eastern Standard Time after the series three season three premiere
of Idiot Abroad, starting at nine, We'll see you then,
(32:10):
all right, listener Marlton, I'm gonna call this, uh, I
don't even remember what this was, Oh meth showers, Josh
Chuck and Jerry A k A L. Chuck Tran. My
name is Jimmy Griffith from Leon or South North Carolina
or Linois. I'm not sure. I'm originally born in Brazil.
(32:31):
A relatively young listener, and after listening to how Meth
Works reminded me of a story from my college days.
I used to know these identical twin brothers that went
to Appalachian State with me. You know what goes on
in that school? Yeah, they beat Michigan with a bunch
of hippies, bunch party kids at friends that went there.
At one time, one of them was having unexplained hallucinations,
(32:54):
see what I mean, and other weird psychological issues. That
twin with hallucinations feared that he might have schizophrenia, but
that did not make sense since this identical twin did
not share the symptoms. As I understand, if one had
the disorder, the other would also have it since they
are identical, and that's right, that's true. It's probably like
a percentage fail. Don't think it's automatic um. After dealing
(33:15):
with his issue for a little while, the twin with
hallucinations decide to see a doctor and, after running a
few blood tests, tested positive for meth This made no
sense since he had never used meth um. After a
few questions about the daily routine, they found out that
most of what they did was similar, except one of
the twins preferred to take baths, the one suffering hallucinations,
(33:36):
and the other preferred showers. Uh. This led to further
investigation of the rental house they lived in. They found
out there was a high concentration of meth on the
bathtub on the portion of the bathtubs, which indicated whoever
lived there previously made meth in the bathtub. As you'd expect,
they shut down the house, which twins moved doubt the
cleaning crew with hazmat suits moved in. The twin with
(33:58):
the issues ceased to have allus and nations involuntarily. He says,
I prop the need to point that out, and he
came back to his old self. I just wanted to
share that hope having a great week. Someday I hope
to visit the studio in Atlanta and meet Jerry. Yeah,
and that right here is Jimmy Griffith from North Carolina
(34:18):
originally from Brazil. Dude, Thanks, thanks, Jimmy. We hope you're
having a good week too, and we're glad your friend
turned out. Okay, geez, do you imagine you tested for meth?
That's like elaine? Yeah, testing positive for poppy seed bagel? Yeah,
opium yeah up, heroin Yeah? Good Stuffum um yeah that's
(34:40):
a good one man. What that sign him? Yeah? Um,
I am one. If you are a skeptic and a
believer in Bigfoot, we want to hear from you. Um.
You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you Should Know, and you can send us a good
old fashioned email. Too off podcast at Discovery dot com
(35:07):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
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you
Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff works dot com. Chuck, before we get started,
let's plug our Brooklyn thing, our live event. Guys. We
(00:25):
are throwing a premiere party for the TV show Slash
Stuff You should variety show at the Bell House and
Lovely Goanas, Brooklyn, New York. This is January eight, and
uh this says tickets were covering a cost on this
one and tickets are ten dollars. You can go to
uh the Bell House in y dot com or just
(00:47):
google that junk and go to the Bellhouse. Findus on
the calendar January eight. Show starts at seven thirty. I'm sorry,
doors at seven thirty. Show eight. Yeah, and we got
special guests like comedians of music. John Hodgman is going
to be there, other comedy ends. Do you want their
stand up? Lucy warning right, Roach is gonna play singing
with her pretty dang voice. Right, So we're going to
have a nice little blowout agreed at the Bellhouse. Come
(01:10):
celebrate with us. It'll be a fun festive occasion. Yeah.
We love the Bell House and we love for our
fans up there, and I'm sorry guys if we haven't
come to your town yet, we would love to trust
us and maybe we will. Yeah. So there, okay, so
now onto the show. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark with me as always a Charles W.
(01:31):
Chuck Bryant and um that makes this stuff. You should
know the podcast. A right, is that a wookie? That
is me messing with Sasquatch? It sounded more like, um,
Frankenstein from starright Live. I remember that. I love that
frankast Panto and Tarzan Tarzan classic skit. Have you seen
(01:54):
the commercials Messing with Sasquatch? Yeah, Jack Links, it's pretty funny. Yeah,
all of them are. It's one of my favorite spots. Actually,
well it contradicts, um, I witness reports that paint Bigfoot
is kind of a benign, shy creature. Now as far
as Jack Links is concerned, he goes a gro when you, um,
(02:14):
when you mess with him. I guess that's what it is.
So I have an actual intro for this one. All right,
let's here, we're talking Bigfoot and very recently there's some
enormous huge news um and um, we should probably preface
this one like, if you are a skeptic, don't worry,
We're gonna give your side of this too. But we
(02:36):
have found over the years that UM, it's very respectful
to give voice to both sides. We try to and UM,
we're not insulting you by speaking the other person's side.
Will express your side as well, and when we do that,
we're not insulting the other side. And at the end
of the day, it's about Bigfoot. So let's not get
(02:56):
so worked up. Calm down, you know, it's all just fun.
There's a a self professed veterinarian with twenty seven years
experience including forensics named um Dr Melba Catchum Melba s
catchum and she supposedly she claims got her hands on
(03:18):
some UH samples of Bigfoot hair and has been testing
it do running genetic tests on it, and recently announced
and wrote a paper that's under puer view as it
stands now, UM that she she managed to isolate three
separate nuclear um d NA. Okay, that that came from
(03:43):
three separate groups. So one is the nuclear DNA. Remember,
so you have UM. Nuclear DNA is the mixture of
the mothers and the father's DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is strictly
from the mother. So the researcher found the nuclear DNA
came from a human Bigfoot, which is a hybrid of
(04:04):
the human and this third species and non human species
doesn't know what it is yet, but supposedly that's what
this hair sample showed. Then this is just now right, Yeah,
I believe they made this announcement like in late November,
early December, which is now under peer review. It is
under peer review. That doesn't mean that it's going to
(04:25):
pass peer review, but she submitted the paper for peer review. Um. Now,
she said that the the mitochondrial DNA in the sample
was human, which means that this third thing, Bigfoot, is
the product of a female woman and a this non
human species, the mystery species reproducing and forming Bigfoot. And
(04:49):
she says that she isolated it to about fifteen thousand
years ago. Now, anybody who's followed Dr Ketchum's career can
poke holes all in this. There was apparently I read
an early draft of the paper that she said this third,
this third um species was an angel and people skeptics
(05:11):
love beating up on people like this. But my hat
is off to her for first of all, undergoing this
using the scientific method to root out um the unexplained.
That's extremely forty in nature and I love that stuff um.
And then secondly to put it up for peer of
view and to face that that kind of criticism. One
(05:32):
of the big problems that she she isn't saying like
where this sample, how she knows this is a sample
of Bigfoot's DNA. She didn't say where she got it,
not that not that I could find. And I actually
saw in one article that she's not saying where it,
where it came from. So there's a lot of holes
in it. But if you wanted big current bigfoot news,
that's about as big as it gets. That's right. Uh,
(05:54):
not quite as current as our our own law officer
here in Georgia. Is that last year the year before
the one up in the North Grogia. Yeah, man with
with his freezer, I didn't follow that very close. I'm
gonna go ahead and say that I really want to
believe in Bigfoot or not want to believe. I want to.
(06:14):
I want there to be a Bigfoot. I don't think
there is that means you want to believe in, but
I still want to. I want to believe it's out there,
because it's just it would be so cool. And whenever,
when when I saw that story, the sheriff and I
think he's a sheriff or deputy in North Georgia. It
was a hoax, of course, but he said he had
a body in a freezer and they showed pictures of this.
(06:35):
Uh ah, what you know? It was a guerrilla suit, right,
that's what ended up being with and it had guts,
had like animal entrails, but it looked like initially like,
oh man, that looks like a dead bigfoot, and then
you look closer and it's like a suit that you
can get online. I wish I had that kind of
time to do stuff like that. Yeah, apparently portrayed hoax.
(06:56):
Apparently they were trying to try drum up, but potential
business for leading big foot tours in North Georgia. It's
a sound way to do it until you get found
out and then ultimately either retire or get fired. Could
still work. Oh well, okay he lost his day job,
is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, you can't do stuff
(07:18):
like that. If you're a cop, you can't pull a hoax. Now,
you can't pull a hoax and try and snow people
for money. That's not that's not legal. I don't know
that it is illegal to uh to snow people for money,
to promise them something that's not true and charge This
guy says that you call it fraud, No, it's a hoax.
(07:39):
There's a big difference between fraud and hoax people. If
he had the business, it would be fraud. No. That
would be like if he promised that you were going
to see Bigfoot, not a big Foot tour, but he
said you're gonna see Bigfoot on this tour and he didn't,
then you could get him for fraud. I think you
would still be fraud if he founded that business and
advertise it on a s premise, which is I found
(08:02):
this thing. Look at it. Yeah, I see your point. Yeah,
let's let's talk about Bigfoot. This guy up in North
Georgia is pretty far from the only person to pull
a declared Bigfoot hoax. Um. What keeps this thing going
is that there's some stuff out there that's considered this
body of evidence of big Foot's existence that hasn't been
(08:23):
definitively debunked and right. One of the other things that
I think people who are believers in Bigfoot, like the
ones that are out there like looking for Bigfoot and
believe in Bigfoot. One of the things that keeps them
going also is this correlation between Bigfoot sightings among people
of European descent and big Foot legends of Native American
(08:47):
tribes long before the Europeans ever got here. And if
you um, if you look at the names of that
these different tribes have and take a step back, you're like, Wow,
these tribes were all over the place. There, somewhere in
the Pacific Northwest, somewhere in Florida, somewhere in Um, the north,
northeastern United States, and eastern Canada, and all of them
have this weird um tall giant hairy man legend that
(09:13):
they have a name for UM, even though they're you know,
geographically scattered all over the place. And it's possible that
they these all of these different Um legends share a
single common ancestor that it's further back, maybe located on
the steps of Eurasia, but it's also kind of noteworthy
that they all have different legends for it. Him Alay
(09:36):
is even the yetty incominable snowman in Asia very popular UM.
Apparently you hear that one more than you see it. Yeah,
which I didn't know. But we should call this thing
sasquatch because that is the most common name they use nowadays.
And um, even though some of the names from Native
American tribes when day go yeah, yeah, that's correct, ohma,
(10:01):
rugaru and books is some of the names that this
has gone by Native American lord, but sashquatch, shash squatch
comes from I have no idea how to pronounce that.
It looks like sess shock anyway, that that word in
another word from the area around British Columbia were similar
(10:22):
enough that in the nineteen twenties, white school teacher named J. W.
Burns coined the term sasquatch. And it's basically it's the
umbrella term for any big foot like man, right, so
we should. Even though these sightings have varied in their
description over the years, there a few hallmarks that pop up.
(10:43):
One is that this is a tall beast between seven
and fifteen feet, which is that enormous. Yeah, I haven't
most of the ones I've heard of between like seven
or eight feet. Have you seen the troll hunter? I
saw that recently. Actually, that first troll that they watched
the guy s happen turing this tone. That thing was
about fifteen ft tall. That's huge. Yeah, that was a
(11:04):
pretty good movie. I'd buy ten ft no way, no way. Yeah.
Did you like the movie was excellent? Yeah? I kind
of got it kind of wore on me towards the end.
I thought it was a little long, but it was
pretty cool. Yeah, and the imagination that it used was
just beautiful. Totally agreed. Un people, Um it walks on
(11:24):
two legs, that's a big one. Was that bipedal? That
what they say? Um, it's upright and has a loping gate. Um,
he's seeing the elf right the movie Elf. Yeah, the
one shot where they mimic the uh, the famous sixteen
millimeter film where it's so it's Will Ferrell and Central
(11:44):
Park and they like have that from frame three fifty
two of the sixteen millimeter film. It's pretty funny. So
Will Ferrell's doing sens. Yeah, it says like, you know,
the strange Elf was seen wandering through Central Park and
they mimic that. Yeah Frell. Yeah, it was very good.
Um and then long reddish fur that's a big one,
reddish brown. That's and that's really interesting that it's um,
(12:07):
that Sasquatch is typically described as having long, reddish brown fur. Ye,
that's a really specific thing for everybody report. And again
it's possible that like people have heard other reports and said,
you know, that's what they're expecting to see or that's
what they're reporting because that's what Sasquatch has. But it's
still it's significant. Um, you said that the YETI uh
(12:28):
was more heard than seen. Bigfoot is usually more seen
than heard. But when Bigfoot is heard, um that he
makes gurgling noises, howling noises, noises that sound totally alien
to the people reporting it. Yeah. I've heard weird noises
in the woods camping all my life, and I've never thought, oh,
(12:51):
that's a big Foot. I just think that's just something
some animal making a strange sound that I've never heard
because you live in the city, that's right. Uh. Supposedly
this uh Sasquatch also has sort of a man like face,
and reports from either being really really really smelly to
not smelling at all. Oh yeah, that's not in this article.
I forgot about how smelly Bigfoot is supposed to be.
(13:15):
I've heard that many times. Um. They're also supposedly very
wary of people, but also at the same time intensely
curious about us. Um and Uh. A lot of people
who have made eyewitness reports say that they weren't scared,
which is weird. Yeah. Most people say that, like, I
(13:36):
didn't feel threatened, right, and that kind of jibes with um.
Most Native Americans legends about Bigfoot that it was Um,
it's a a benign creature. Uh, and often it's it
has intellect and um, it's given spiritual powers in Native
American lore. So it wasn't something to be afraid of. Sasquatches,
(14:00):
your friend. Yeah. Uh, they usually are by themselves, but
there have been reports of several of these sasquatches hanging
out together and chatting. Yeah, but for the most part
they're usually alone. Right. Um. So you put all this
together and you've got like a pretty good common It's
like the A. K. C. Breed for sasquatch. These are
(14:21):
its characteristics. I love it, Okay. Um. If you take
this at at face value, which you should. Sure if
you're a skeptic, you should always look at things at
face value, not just immediately dismissed her poop po it. Yeah,
trying to get to the bottom of it. And that's
what we're about to do now. The first question is, um,
(14:42):
could a creature that matches this description possibly exists? Yeah,
And it's important when considering this to point out that
we'd have never despite all the sightings and little still
shots and film clips and audio clips, there's never been
any conclusive evidence. They've never found bones, but that's huge
or anything like that. Um, a lot of footprints and
(15:04):
stuff like that. So moving forward, could this exist perhaps
in the giganto Pithecus, right, because that's a creature that
that actually did exist at some point. And it says
here in the article that the gigant epithecis Pipthecus, which
is the largest primate in the fossil record, lived between
(15:25):
one and nine million years ago. Actually, I saw an
article that had updated that to about a hundred thousand
years ago, which meant that humans and Gigantapipthecus lived side
by side. Have you seen this thing I have looks
like a big foot, um, you know, yeah, And then like, oh, well,
I guess if someone saw that in the woods, I
would think it was a sasquad um. It lived in
(15:47):
Southeast Asia or in Central Asia, and it's a relative
of the orangutane. Yeah, big time. So it looks a
lot like one. Yeah, this is all extremely interesting stuff
in case you didn't know. Because orangutans, for starters, have
reddish hair, reddish orange hair, so that's one connection to
(16:08):
gigant Epithecus. Yeah. They've got the long arms like that. Yeah. Um.
They walked up right about ten feet tall, usually about
twelve pounds um. And if since orangutans are the closest
modern relative of gigant Epithecus it um, it makes sense
to kind of look at them, look at their behavior.
(16:28):
Does it match bigfoot stuff? Yeah? They have teeth similar
to humans, so that could account a little bit for
the man like look that people often talk about. Uh.
Make occasionally will make a loud howling calls. Uh that
sound odd to other orangutans. Another thing that kind of
separates them too, aside from being um Asian whereas most
(16:51):
primates are African um, is that they tend to live
solitary lives, so they don't aggregate in groups. They live
by themselves mostly. Okay, so chalk one up for the
big foot enthusiasts. Again, they're like, okay, well that's it's
gigant epithekus. Uh, they live a long time, and because
they are widely dispersed, they may not even see other
(17:12):
orangon tangs for many long stretches. So of course they
may not see a human either exactly. You know. And
if they're intellectual or if they have intellect um, as
people who believe in bigfoot like to point out, they
would be able to successfully hide from humans probably sure,
especially if their habitat was the woods and the mountains. Um.
(17:37):
And so you put all that together, that they have
a long lifespan, meaning there's not a lot of them
dying frequently. They live, they're spread out population wise, and
they tend to live in remote geographic regions. That if
you add all that up, it's a pretty good reason
(17:58):
why you wouldn't have found any bones. Yes, because bones
candy k and the wild like that between five and
ten years and um, the author of this was this
the grabster. This is Tom Harris. I'm Harris. He's a
good one. Um. He points out that that people have
never gone on bigfoot bone hunting expeditions, so like people
(18:19):
aren't looking for these things, so they may not have
found him. Well, yeah, there is a guy actually who's
um looking for Bigfoot, his Idaho State anthropology professor, and
he has his crowdsourcing blimp to hunt for Bigfoot with
thermal imaging cameras and stuff like that. And he's three
and if you're interested in it, you can check out
(18:40):
that I thought it was. But he's got his own
website called Falcon Project UM and that's what he's trying
to do with it. So there is at least one
person trying to do a rigorous scientific hunt for Bigfoot.
But and then there's all kinds of groups looking right. Yeah,
there's even a show on Animal Planet, one of our
h Discovery Channel stay stations, one of our I would
(19:02):
call it a sister station, but I'm not a station
one of our colleagues, and it's, uh, what's it called
Finding Bigfoot? And these people are out there hunting Bigfoot.
And I've even watched bits of it because I just
think it's cool and interesting and uh, it's kind of
a fun little show. So I recommend it. And weren't
we weren't even asked to plug that. I'm just plugging it.
(19:23):
You know. Um, do you have a possible link between
the orangutan um right and big Foot? And that link
might be a gigant Epithecus. Question is still remaining. Um,
how did gigant Epithekis get here? Uh? Well, we walked
over the Uh was it the land bridge bearing land bridge? Yes, yeah,
(19:47):
just like we did not you and me. But you know,
well that's one theory. Um. But the the big problem here, Chuck,
is the absence of proof doesn't prove anything. The fact
that we haven't found bones. Even though you can explain it,
we still haven't found any bones, and it doesn't mean
that something exists, and that's a it's a big problem
(20:08):
in this debate. You can also point to, though very happily,
the Ceila cant right. Uh. The Ceila canth was thought
to have gone extinct sixty million years ago. It's a fish,
I thought you have gone extinct in the late Cretaceous period,
and then they found it swimming off the coast of Africa.
So you can point to that and say it's entirely
(20:28):
possible that Gigantapithekis survived somehow and we just didn't know. Yeah,
and scientists are They'll point out that there are all
kinds of creatures that are still undiscovered, but most of
them are sea creatures. And that makes sense too, because
we don't spend very much time under the sea, No
we don't, um, whereas you know, we spend a decent
(20:48):
amount of time in the woods. Um. Okay, So if
you're a skeptic, everything we just said probably made the
hair on the back of your neck bristle in irritation.
And here's why, because, like we said, the absence of
proof doesn't prove anything. Sure, um, And it's entirely possible
that all of this evidence, this body of evidence, Um,
(21:11):
it's just basically a bunch of independent hoaxters fooling a
bunch of people over time. Yea or uh, innocent mistaken identity.
They're not all hoaxters. Some people have perhaps gotten confused
about things, said, boy, that mangie bear doesn't look right.
It's standing up on its back legs too. Or the
(21:32):
recent photo that was that still image captured at night
and that's what they said it was was a mangie bear.
But that thing was kind of weird looking. Yeah, it
was like a night image shot and it was on
it was on four leg or four you know, I
don't know if their arms or what, um, and you know,
it looked odd. But they you know, they explained it
away as a mangie bear. Um. But yeah, lots of
(21:55):
hoaxes over the years. Yeah. And if you go into
the woods and you're even the least bit familiar with
any kind of big foot loor and you see something
that's that possibly fits it, you may be the victim
of wishful thinking or being impressionable or what have you. Yeah,
that's a that's a pretty good accusation a skeptical level
against somebody who reports a big foot siding. And the first, um,
(22:19):
an easiest way to hoax someone, to pull a hoax
on someone is the old fake footprint. Yeah, not too
hard to do. You make a fake foot you wear
it on your feet, and you perhaps run along in
the woods, maybe lope, maybe leap to make the footsteps,
you know, the gate correct um, and then you make
(22:42):
a plaster mold of it. The problem with these is
there's in so many over the years that it's like
clear that they're hoaxes. Because this one is two toes,
this one has claws, this one has eight toes. And
you know there are people aren't getting together on these
and making them consistent. Um. Probably the most contentious bit
(23:02):
of Bigfoot evidence was that sixteen millimeter film you mentioned
that was made in nine seven by a guy named
Roger Patterson, the Patterson Gimblin Film, and it's from Bluff Creek, California,
and basically it shows Bigfoot walking across basically a clearing
into the woods, and Bigfoot is aware that he's being watched,
(23:25):
and he turns and looks at the camera. Like he said,
Will Ferrell didn't help um. And I remember years ago
like watching this and when I was back in my
time life books phase like I'll believe anything, just tell
me um. And they were saying that one of the
reasons that this thing was so convincing that it was
Bigfoot was that and he looked over his shoulder. Rather
(23:46):
than looking with just his head, just turning his head,
Bigfoot turns his whole shoulder and torso along with this head,
which is something that a primate would likely do, and
non human primate, I should say, or someone in an
ape suit, we should possibly that's another possibility to They
also point out that bigfoots walking with his knees bent
(24:08):
in this that's another sure sign of primate, whereas I
did that today. By the way, it is it hard, Well,
it's not the easiest thing, but what it makes you
do is sort of lope along with a kind of
a funny gate, a loping gate. Yeah yeah, um, that's
That's something that bigfoot enthusiast point too, is that this
thing was walking with knees bent um. And I didn't
(24:30):
realize this until I read this in the article. But
humans lock their knees with each step. We don't walk
with our knees bent um. And then also the lastly
that the creatures fur is clearly rippling, like the skin
beneath his rippling, and like some costume, some ape suit
isn't going to do that on its own. Put all
this together, and if you're a big foot believer, this
(24:54):
is irrefutable evidence that there's such thing as Bigfoot. If
you're skeptic, you can shoot a hole in all of
the can't you sure? Um? Since this film came out
in seven it's been like the most reviewed and made
fun of or backed piece of evidence ever for Bigfoot
or Sasquatch and um. Roger Patterson, it turns out, was
(25:18):
making trying to make a movie about Bigfoot. Yeah, so
he wasn't just some guy out there that happened to
have a camera. He was trying to put together a film. Um.
Since this has come out, there have been various people.
One guy came out and said, you know what, I
made the suit for him. He paid me a thousand
bucks to make him the suit. Well, the guy who
(25:39):
supposedly did make the suit is never admitted to. Well,
there's a bunch of guys that's not the same guy.
There's Chambers, and then there's this other dude. They aren't
the same people. That's why it's it's kind of hinky
because multiple people have claimed they made the suit. This
one guy says that he was the guy in the suit,
and Um, but his suit story didn't match up with
the guy who claimed he made the suit did match
(26:01):
up with his suit story. But then people said, you
know what, Patterson could have altered that original suit to
match the guy who said he was in the suit.
Then there's Chambers, who other people say it made the suit,
but he says he didn't make the suit. Well, it's
like a long standing Hollywood rumor that actually John Landis,
the director of American Werewolf in London. UM came out
and and and said, yeah, this is true. Um, when
(26:24):
he was a young pup. He was working at one
of the studios and he became friends with John Chambers,
who did the ape suits for Planet of the Apes,
which came out right around that time. Right, Um and uh.
He had heard that Chambers had done this, and he'd
befriended Chambers and said, yes, it's true. This is John Chambers.
And Chambers never has never taken credit for it. It's
(26:45):
never come out and said yeah, I did it. But
if you ask the average special effects guy or makeup
guy these days, if you show them that, they're like, yes,
this is ape suit. There's a water bag underneath that's
making the skin ripple. Um. And I like that's a guy.
That's a man. Right, I'll watched it again today, like
five times. Yeah. I mean too, it's really neat. Yeah,
(27:07):
it's kind of fun. I mean just the detail they
went into, like the the crooked legs, the bent knees. Yeah,
the shaky cam like it looked like someone scared and
discovering something. Yeah, it's it's perfect. If it's a fraud,
it is perfect because think about it. The thing was
shot in nineteen seven. It's two thirteen and people are
still debating whether or not it's authentic. Oh yeah, and
(27:29):
it's it's gone through lots of rigorous testing by people
that study whether or not the film was tampered, and
they have determined that nothing was tampered post shooting, like
if it was anything that was a dude in ape
suit and they really went out there in the woods
and shot it. Uh. But like I said, this is
all just kind of fun to me. People get so
worked up over this. I don't get it, you know. Yeah,
(27:51):
what's the harm unless someone's like defrauding people out of money?
You know. Um, there are people who dedicate their rears
to this. There's a woman named um Kathy Moscowitz Strain,
and she is a forest archaeologist for the U. S
Forestry Service who basically became an anthropologist and an archaeologist
(28:13):
so that she could hunt for Bigfoot. And she's very
respected even among skeptics who counter all of her arguments. Um,
but she is very much searching for Bigfoot and has
been for many years, and she believes or just wants
to get to the bottom of it. She believes that
there's a Bigfoot, that there's another species out there, some
(28:33):
primate species that is what we call sasquatch her bigfoot. Yeah,
the arguments against Like, to me, if you can't say
something like, well, somebody would have definitely seen it like
by now and proven it, Like you just can't say that,
like the Pacific Northwest is so vast that an animal
could probably hide if there was only a few of
(28:54):
them left from people, you know. But on the other hand,
you also like can't say it exists because of this
these hoaxes and these sounds, and like you need some
sort of like scientific evidence. Bones, bones would help. You
do need that unless you're just enjoying thinking about it. Yeah. Um.
(29:16):
Another thing you can enjoy that's kind of related is
watching the Ministry Science Theater three thousand of the Legend
of Boggy Creek. To see that one. It's arguably the
best episode that Oh my god, it's hilarious. Strong statement,
but it's related. It's a based on a big foot
like creature. Yeah. Yeah, Well, Tom points out to that
the reason people want to believe in stuff like this
(29:40):
is the same reason some people want to believe in aliens.
Um that like the sense of adventure is seemingly lost
these days. There's nothing new to discover, and God if
we could just discover a big foot, that would be
so huge and so monumental. Um, and I get that.
That's probably why I want to believe. You know, it
would rock the world of science. Oh it totally one.
(30:02):
But then we put it in a zoo. Yeah, poke
it with electricity, we humans. Yeah. Um, all right, well,
uh let's see if you want to learn more about bigfoot,
you can type that word into the search part how
stuff works. Um, there's an adorable picture of a baby
orangutan in this article, so you want to check that out. Um,
(30:25):
that's b I G F O O t um and
it'll bring that up. And since I said search parts time,
if we listen to mail, Josh. Before we do listen
to mail, you should quickly plug our TV show. Yes,
stuff you should know. Television show. We call it that
because it's based on our lives as podcasters. Stuff you
should know podcasters. I played Josh, you play Chuck. Yeah,
(30:47):
we're gonna change it around. I was gonna play you,
but you just didn't work out. We tried. Yeah, Um,
but this is a show about our lives and um
here in the office, and it's fun, good stuff. Our
picture a lie. Yeah, we should point that out. We're
not giving away our real lives. But we recreated our office,
we hired actors and but it's still just you and
(31:08):
me doing our thing among them. Yeah, and it's on
Saturday night, January nine. The premieres MPM Eastern Standard time.
That's right, two episodes back to back after Aid Abroad
Series three premiere. And uh, if you don't have TV,
you can buy these on iTunes the day after the
show comes out. You can buy each episode one at
a time, that's right. Uh. And if you are used
(31:28):
to Josh and Chuck short form video content, I fear
not that'll still always be around as well. You can
go to Science Channel dot com, Revision three the number
three dot com uh, and always how Stuff Works dot
com find some good Josh and Chuck video content as well.
Let's right. Yeah, and the podcast didn't go anywhere. By
(31:50):
the way, people ask us that we're still doing the podcast.
Yeah we are. I don't care if this thing is
the hugest hit ever, We're still gonna be the podcast. Yeah,
thanks for saying that, Chuck. Okay, so stuff you should
know the television show January nineteenth, that's Saturday, ten pm.
Eastern Standard Time after the series three season three premiere
of Idiot Abroad, starting at nine, We'll see you then,
(32:10):
all right, listener Marlton, I'm gonna call this, uh, I
don't even remember what this was, Oh meth showers, Josh
Chuck and Jerry A k A L. Chuck Tran. My
name is Jimmy Griffith from Leon or South North Carolina
or Linois. I'm not sure. I'm originally born in Brazil.
(32:31):
A relatively young listener, and after listening to how Meth
Works reminded me of a story from my college days.
I used to know these identical twin brothers that went
to Appalachian State with me. You know what goes on
in that school? Yeah, they beat Michigan with a bunch
of hippies, bunch party kids at friends that went there.
At one time, one of them was having unexplained hallucinations,
(32:54):
see what I mean, and other weird psychological issues. That
twin with hallucinations feared that he might have schizophrenia, but
that did not make sense since this identical twin did
not share the symptoms. As I understand, if one had
the disorder, the other would also have it since they
are identical, and that's right, that's true. It's probably like
a percentage fail. Don't think it's automatic um. After dealing
(33:15):
with his issue for a little while, the twin with
hallucinations decide to see a doctor and, after running a
few blood tests, tested positive for meth This made no
sense since he had never used meth um. After a
few questions about the daily routine, they found out that
most of what they did was similar, except one of
the twins preferred to take baths, the one suffering hallucinations,
(33:36):
and the other preferred showers. Uh. This led to further
investigation of the rental house they lived in. They found
out there was a high concentration of meth on the
bathtub on the portion of the bathtubs, which indicated whoever
lived there previously made meth in the bathtub. As you'd expect,
they shut down the house, which twins moved doubt the
cleaning crew with hazmat suits moved in. The twin with
(33:58):
the issues ceased to have allus and nations involuntarily. He says,
I prop the need to point that out, and he
came back to his old self. I just wanted to
share that hope having a great week. Someday I hope
to visit the studio in Atlanta and meet Jerry. Yeah,
and that right here is Jimmy Griffith from North Carolina
(34:18):
originally from Brazil. Dude, Thanks, thanks, Jimmy. We hope you're
having a good week too, and we're glad your friend
turned out. Okay, geez, do you imagine you tested for meth?
That's like elaine? Yeah, testing positive for poppy seed bagel? Yeah,
opium yeah up, heroin Yeah? Good Stuffum um yeah that's
(34:40):
a good one man. What that sign him? Yeah? Um,
I am one. If you are a skeptic and a
believer in Bigfoot, we want to hear from you. Um.
You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you Should Know, and you can send us a good
old fashioned email. Too off podcast at Discovery dot com
(35:07):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
it how Stuff Works dot com. M brought to you
by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camera. It's ready. Are
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