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America runs on Duncan.

1:15

Heya, welcome to Blurry Photos. I'm

1:17

your host, David Flora. I've

1:19

got a fun interview coming up for ya and if you're interested

1:22

in seeing the film Shadows in the Desert, the

1:24

thing Derek Hayes and I have been working on for the past

1:26

few years, it'll be in

1:29

a couple theaters soon with hopefully more on the

1:31

way.

1:32

I'll tell you the details real quick, then we can

1:34

get into the episode. So

1:36

as of right now, you can see the film in

1:38

Cushocton, Ohio on August

1:40

24th. That's if we can work

1:43

out the details of playing

1:46

the film there. But right now,

1:49

we're scheduled for August 24th at

1:51

the Shelby Theaters. You

1:53

can see it in Joplin, Missouri from September

1:56

8th to September 14th at the Bookhouse

1:58

Cinema. and you can see it in

2:00

Crested Butte, Colorado on September

2:03

16th at the Majestic Theatre.

2:06

We could be adding more, so keep up to date on possible

2:08

additions by going to boragotriangle.com.

2:12

We're still awaiting a stream date, and as soon

2:15

as we know, I'll post on all the socials

2:17

and announce on shows when that will

2:19

be. So on to the

2:21

episode. I had the pleasure of meeting

2:24

journalist, editor, producer, and

2:26

author Laura Krantz at a recent

2:28

literary festival, and suckered

2:30

her into coming on Blurry Photos to chat with

2:33

me.

2:33

Laura is the creator and host of Wild

2:36

Thing Podcast, a long-form narrative

2:38

podcast about the obsessions that capture

2:41

our imaginations.

2:43

She has produced three seasons of the show,

2:45

each focusing on a different topic, including

2:47

Bigfoot, UFOs, and nuclear

2:50

power. And she has parlayed

2:52

these seasons into a book series for

2:54

middle-grade readers, starting with

2:57

The Search for Sasquatch. She

3:00

joins me to talk about the book and her experiences

3:02

getting to know the world of Bigfoot

3:05

research.

3:06

Here is my interview with Laura

3:08

Krantz.

3:11

Enjoy.

3:15

She's the host of Wild Thing Podcast

3:17

and the author of the new book, The Search for

3:20

Sasquatch. Laura Krantz, welcome to

3:22

Blurry Photos. I am very

3:24

excited to be here and to

3:26

discuss all of the blurry photos that I

3:28

have not taken. It's funny because throughout

3:31

the series, you do

3:33

say blurry photos quite a bit in there,

3:35

and every time my ears were like, doink. Laura

3:40

and I were recently on a panel at the Mountain Words

3:43

Literary Festival here in Crested Butte,

3:45

Colorado, and I was lucky enough to grab

3:47

a copy of the book, which I'll talk

3:49

more about later. ask

3:52

you about this journey you've

3:54

taken to get to where you've been able

3:56

to write a book, and particularly

3:58

about your experiences.

3:59

being relatively fresh

4:02

to this realm of the unknown. So

4:04

you actually have a connection to this stuff,

4:06

a connection that you didn't know about for a

4:08

while, is that right?

4:09

Yeah, so I really found

4:11

out about this, well now I found,

4:14

it's 2006, so now we're closing in on 20

4:16

years ago, but what happened

4:18

was I was living and working in Washington, D.C.

4:21

and there was this big article in the Washington

4:23

Post about a guy named Grover

4:26

Krantz who had just donated

4:28

his bones, the bones of his three Irish

4:30

wolfhounds who were already dead, I have to clarify

4:33

that, some people think he killed his dogs, send them

4:35

to the Smithsonian, he did not, the dogs

4:37

were dead, but he

4:39

had donated his bones, the bones of his dogs to the Smithsonian

4:42

for them to have in their collection, and they're always

4:44

looking for full

4:46

specimens to have, and he

4:48

really wanted to be put on display, and they were like, yeah,

4:51

that's probably not gonna happen, but as

4:53

luck should have it,

4:54

they were doing an exhibit

4:56

on forensic anthropology and how you can

4:59

find out stuff from bones, and the

5:01

last piece of the exhibit, they wanted to

5:03

do something really, really cool, so

5:06

they recreated a photo of Grover

5:08

standing in someone's backyard with his dog,

5:10

Clyde, who was his favorite of his wolfhounds,

5:13

and the dogs got its paws up on Grover's

5:15

shoulder, it's standing on its hind legs, it's

5:17

licking his face, it's a very sweet photo,

5:20

they recreated that with the two skeletons

5:22

and put it on display, and so this article

5:24

in the Washington Post is all about

5:27

this particular exhibit

5:30

and Grover and all of the interesting

5:33

things he'd done, he'd been a tenured professor

5:35

of anthropology at Washington State University,

5:38

he was a scientist, oh, and

5:40

he was the country's preeminent academic

5:42

expert on Bigfoot, and

5:45

you're reading, I'm reading this, and I'm like, who

5:47

the hell is this

5:48

guy? What

5:50

a weirdo. Can you be a man

5:52

of science and a man of Bigfoot? Oh, also,

5:55

same last name, born in Salt

5:57

Lake City, which is where my dad's family was

5:59

from.

5:59

And so I find

6:02

out through my grandfather that yes,

6:05

Grover had been his cousin. He would

6:07

show up to the family picnics with calipers

6:09

and measure people's heads. My

6:11

grandfather who was several years older,

6:14

seven or eight, I think actually stole

6:16

a hand from the University of Utah's

6:18

medical lab and

6:21

gave it to Grover because he knew he was so fascinated

6:23

by all the all things that anthropological

6:26

and anatomy. I don't think that's

6:28

legal,

6:29

but my grandfather is

6:31

now dead as well. So it

6:33

goes, but yeah, I found out about this connection. And

6:35

for a long time, it was really just like cocktail

6:38

party conversation. Hey, I have a relative in the

6:40

Smithsonian and B, he

6:42

was

6:42

a Bigfoot expert, ha ha ha, isn't that

6:44

hilarious? And then I decided

6:47

to do a podcast about it. After

6:49

I found out that Grover's fourth wife, number

6:52

four, lived about 30 miles

6:54

south of me here in Colorado. In

6:59

Parker, actually I don't even know if it's 30, it's like 30

7:01

minutes, not even 30 miles. So

7:04

I was like, okay, I'm gonna go interview

7:06

her and then we're

7:07

gonna see where this goes. So the impetus

7:10

for it all was connecting those

7:12

dots that Grover was kin to

7:14

you and he had an ex-wife

7:17

or his fourth wife, you said,

7:19

near you. If

7:22

she hadn't lived near you, do you think you would have

7:24

gone that route? I probably

7:27

would have eventually, but I think that really, it

7:29

was one of those like signs from the universe

7:31

kind of things. Not that

7:33

I believe in that kind of stuff necessarily, but

7:37

I'd been sort of sitting on this story for a while

7:40

and my husband was like, you should write a book. And

7:42

I was like, I can't write a book. That's,

7:45

there's

7:45

too many words in books and I'm used to

7:47

doing audio. But I kept seeing

7:49

Bigfoot stuff everywhere and like,

7:52

we moved to Colorado and there's a Bigfoot

7:54

museum, like not that far from us up

7:56

in Bailey, Colorado.

7:59

just Bigfoot stuff everywhere. And

8:01

then the more, I

8:04

was just thinking about it more and more and more. And then I was

8:06

like, okay, I'm gonna sort of look up and see if there's

8:08

anyone who knew Grover and try

8:10

and reach out to them. And I probably would have reached

8:12

out to Diane Horton. That was his fourth

8:14

wife, even if she'd lived far away, but then finding

8:16

out that she was in Parker, I was like, okay, you

8:19

kind of have

8:19

to do this. Yeah, yeah. Kind

8:22

of writes itself after a while, right? Yeah, right.

8:25

So you talked to her and

8:27

did that kind of kick off what you thought

8:30

you could put together with this. It was, that

8:33

was the deciding factor that you then packed

8:35

up and decided to see what all the fuss was about.

8:37

Yeah, so after talking to her, she

8:40

would talk about Grover's

8:42

fascination with this. She

8:44

talked about also just how well-loved

8:47

he was as a teacher at Washington State

8:49

and how well-regarded he was. We

8:51

talked a little bit about the other kind of work he did,

8:53

which was really, he was kind

8:55

of on the forefront of a lot of the discussions about human

8:58

evolution and migration patterns in

9:00

North America. And he'd

9:02

waded into a lot of discussions about

9:05

sort of evolution versus creationism.

9:08

There'd been a big debate at Washington State in like

9:10

the 1960s, and he'd been the face of that in

9:12

terms of the evolution side. So he

9:14

was a well-known guy in anthropological circles.

9:17

And then a lot of people feel he shot himself

9:19

on the

9:19

foot because he basically wouldn't

9:22

give up the Bigfoot stuff.

9:23

And everyone was like, what the F are you

9:25

doing, man? Like, what does this have to do with science?

9:27

But he really was trying to approach it from a very

9:30

scientific perspective. And I found that fascinating,

9:32

like how this guy who was so

9:34

science-oriented was also out there looking

9:36

for a creature that most of us consider

9:39

mythological or

9:41

at least something in the very distant past that

9:43

is not around anymore. So that

9:46

kind of fascinated me. And then it's like, why do people

9:48

believe? Why are we so

9:50

fascinated with this idea of Bigfoot? Why

9:52

are there Bigfoot bumper stickers

9:55

and chocolate and socks and tires and

9:58

music festivals? And you can, I can't. I can just go

10:00

on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Because once

10:02

I started thinking about this Bigfoot idea, there

10:04

was just like Bigfoot stuff everywhere. So it's clearly

10:08

captured our imaginations, even for

10:10

people who were like, yeah, it's not real, but

10:12

wouldn't that be cool if it was? Yeah,

10:14

it seems like it's kind of the closest

10:16

thing to magic that we have, you know?

10:19

And I think a lot of people

10:22

cling onto that hope just to

10:24

have something else to

10:26

believe in, besides just like, oh,

10:28

reality is harsh. Yeah.

10:31

It's not that reality is necessarily

10:34

boring because you could go into all kinds

10:36

of stuff and really be fascinated

10:39

by the minutest details. But

10:42

a topic like this,

10:44

it really is easy for

10:46

people to latch onto

10:49

and then to want to know more about and

10:51

to understand, I think.

10:52

Yeah, for sure. And I think for a lot

10:54

of people, it's like this idea that the world is still

10:57

wild enough, that it's still unexplored enough,

10:59

that we haven't like paved and

11:00

pruned and

11:01

plasticized every single thing out

11:03

there. And something like this could

11:05

exist. Like that seems magical.

11:09

You know, what you think about the explorers of old, like

11:11

going off into the jungle and not necessarily

11:13

knowing what they were going to find out there. Like

11:15

there's an element of still wanting that

11:17

to be the way the world

11:18

is. Yeah, and I

11:20

can see the appeal to that. It's fascinating

11:23

and fun and adventurous and

11:25

a little dangerous. You know, there's all kinds of stuff

11:28

you can get out of it. But there

11:30

are several audio clips that you

11:32

include in the series on what

11:35

Grover said. Like literally

11:37

from Grover, he first

11:39

of all has an amazing voice.

11:42

I know, right? It's so good. It's

11:44

like perfect for radio. It really is.

11:46

And he's kind of like

11:48

the Carl Sagan of Bigfoot

11:51

stuff. And I thought that,

11:53

you know, from the get go and then later

11:56

in the series, it actually comes up. Someone

11:59

mentioned.

11:59

Carl Sagan in there. And I

12:02

think it was Matt Moneymaker actually, when you interviewed

12:05

him, I think he- Oh yeah, vaguely.

12:07

It's really funny that you are, because

12:10

I have not listened to it since I put it out. I was

12:13

so sick of it. And so now people ask

12:15

me about like little moments and I'm like, I don't remember.

12:17

It's my whole project. Well, this was

12:19

also what, 2018, 2017? Yeah,

12:22

it was 2018 when it came out. So

12:24

it's been a while. Yeah. But

12:26

yeah,

12:26

he did. He did mention Carl Sagan. I remember

12:29

that now. That's funny. Yeah, I think

12:31

it's great because Grover was also an educator

12:33

and you could hear in his voice that he loved teaching

12:38

and that he loved learning. And that's

12:41

kind of the approach I like to take with

12:43

this as well. I'm in it to

12:46

learn and whatever I find out, I'm

12:48

happy to teach. And I don't

12:50

know, man, it's hard when you come

12:53

up against some

12:55

difficulties with people who maybe

12:57

don't share that same view and we

13:00

can get into that later. But I

13:02

wanted to ask you, how did your

13:04

professional background

13:06

prepare you and help you for the

13:08

journey that you took with this?

13:10

Yeah, so I came from a journalism

13:12

background, which was great. I'd worked at NPR

13:15

starting in 2006 and

13:17

I worked with them

13:19

on and off for, well, I

13:21

basically for 10 years, both in DC and in

13:24

Los Angeles and in Los Angeles.

13:27

And essentially like that

13:29

gave me a lot of background in

13:31

terms of like how to conduct an interview, how

13:34

to do the technical side of things in

13:36

terms of recording, how to think about story

13:38

structure. And then a lot

13:40

of it, I just kind of winged it. Like I podcasts

13:43

had been around for a while, but really it was

13:45

like 2013, 2014 that

13:47

they were really kind of hitting like a big stride

13:49

with those longer narrative formats. And

13:52

I would listen to serial.

13:55

I listened to finding

13:58

missing Richard Simmons. which was

14:01

Dan Tversky's podcast about Richard Simmons,

14:03

and he like sort of vanished out of the public eye. And

14:05

there was all these questions about where he'd gone. And it's

14:08

a great podcast if you haven't heard it. He's

14:10

fantastic. Dan Tversky is one of my favorite hosts

14:12

of all time. But I listened

14:14

to that and I was like, I could do this. Like I know

14:16

how to do all of these things. And that

14:19

was really helpful

14:21

to hat to be to realize that I knew

14:23

the technical side of things. I knew a lot of how

14:25

to frame this stuff diving into it. And

14:28

also like

14:29

an outline was very

14:30

important. And coming from journalism

14:32

and knowing that you need to sort of have a structure

14:35

set in place before you get started. So you're

14:37

not just sort of wandering in the wilderness without

14:39

any signposts. That was really helpful

14:41

too. So those were kind of the big things that sort of set

14:44

me up. I feel like for

14:46

success in actually

14:48

making the thing.

14:49

And you have a ton of interviews

14:52

in some pretty big names that

14:54

folks would recognize too, Jeff Meldrum. Like

14:57

I said, Matt Moneymaker, he's known

14:59

with BFRO and stuff like that. You

15:01

even get Michael Shermer in there, which I was very

15:03

impressed to hear him speaking

15:06

of why people think the way they think, you know, or why

15:08

people want to believe or whatever. I've got that

15:10

book back here on the shelf. Yeah, I've

15:12

got it down here somewhere too. Yeah.

15:15

What was the process? Did you call these guys up?

15:17

Did you have any inside track on getting

15:20

those guys? Like those are some pretty

15:22

big names that I don't know if they do a lot of interviews.

15:24

Yeah. So the

15:27

first thing that I, you

15:29

know,

15:30

Grover's wife Diane was instrumental

15:33

in like sort of making, helping me make those first

15:35

connections with people who were

15:37

inside the Bigfoot community and knowing where

15:39

to go and who to talk to and where to turn. Because,

15:42

you know, like you said, I came into this with like zero,

15:45

zero knowledge. I'd seen Harry and the Henderson's and

15:48

that was pretty much the extent of my knowledge

15:50

or real, really interest in Bigfoot.

15:53

And so Diane was like, you should talk to this guy.

15:55

You should talk to this guy. And she was like, feel

15:57

free to use my name.

15:59

these people will be

16:00

very happy to talk to you. It also helped that I

16:02

had the same last name. I think that that really

16:05

did open a lot of doors. And I

16:07

was very transparent with people up front. I was just

16:09

saying, look, this is the background for

16:11

this. I'm interested in learning more

16:13

about this world and the people who are in it and

16:15

what it is that fascinates us. I am

16:18

not looking to poke fun at people. I am not looking

16:20

to like laugh at beliefs. And I think

16:22

that sort of transparency about what I was

16:24

trying to accomplish also helped. But

16:26

with someone like Michael Shermer, I

16:29

mean, a lot of these were just sort of like,

16:31

I'd send an email and he

16:33

wrote back. So I

16:35

think some of these people are more willing to talk

16:37

than it might seem like at the outset.

16:40

And it could be that they've gotten more cautious

16:43

as time has gone forward

16:45

and they've perhaps become bigger names or

16:47

there's been this sort of

16:50

explosion of podcasts and everybody wants to talk

16:52

to them. They might be a little bit pickier. But

16:54

I think too also saying, I come from an NPR

16:56

background probably helped add some gravitas

16:59

to the questions I was asking.

17:00

Yeah, I get that because

17:03

I once emailed to ask

17:05

someone if they'd come on for an interview. This

17:07

was back when the show was, my

17:10

show was a little younger

17:13

and we were, I

17:15

had a co-host, we came from an improv

17:17

background. So we'd add a lot of humor to

17:20

the episodes.

17:21

And

17:22

you don't wanna be that transparent

17:25

when asking for interviews when you're like,

17:27

hey, we approach this stuff with a little

17:29

bit of humor. We don't take it that seriously, this

17:32

and that. And then just got the

17:34

nastiest response back being like,

17:36

why would I wanna come on a comedy show? And

17:39

it's just like, okay. Oh no.

17:42

That helps the old self-esteem. Yeah,

17:44

was that from someone who was like a Bigfoot

17:47

person who didn't want you making fun of it or?

17:49

It was the same realm. It wasn't

17:51

specifically a Bigfoot

17:52

person, but someone

17:55

who deals in that stuff and

17:57

writes books and. They're not

17:59

a.

17:59

very good person outside

18:03

of that anyway. So I've heard. So

18:05

it all made sense, but it was

18:08

an experience. So I, you know, lesson learned,

18:11

you learn as you go. But speaking

18:14

of learning, how you have taken

18:16

the process that you come from and know

18:18

and applied it to this, the first

18:21

series of Wild Thing, brings listeners

18:23

with you on your quest to

18:26

basically embed yourself in the

18:28

culture and learn about

18:30

all the aspects of sasquatary.

18:34

It's nine episodes full of interviews

18:36

and audio clips and field recordings.

18:37

I'm curious, how long did it take

18:40

you to put it all together?

18:41

It took a while. I was also working

18:43

a couple of part time jobs at the same

18:45

time, which, you know, as

18:47

you well know, there's not a lot of money in podcasting.

18:50

So I was doing other things

18:53

to sort of supplement income and also was kind

18:55

of at the whims of other people's schedules.

18:57

So in terms of doing the field recordings, like when

18:59

could I fly out? When was going to be convenient for

19:01

them? You know, when were

19:04

events happening? Like there

19:06

was an event called Beachfoot, which is,

19:08

and

19:09

yeah, have you been? No, no, it

19:11

sounds super exclusive. I do not think they would

19:13

want me there. Oh,

19:14

they might. You never know. They

19:17

were a lot of fun and they were really, really nice. And

19:19

so I think, I don't

19:21

remember how I made the connection with them. That

19:24

was one of those. It's like, Diane connected me to someone, someone

19:26

else connected me to someone else. Like

19:28

I kept like laddering people on top of each other

19:30

and like using those connections as much as I

19:32

could, because I think that really helps. But,

19:35

you know, you're at the mercy of schedules of like that

19:37

and in putting things together. And also this is

19:39

the first time I had done something this big

19:42

and it took a while. Like I think the first

19:44

episode probably

19:44

went through five or six iterations

19:47

before I settled on a

19:49

structure I really liked. And then

19:51

some of the episodes I could write really quickly. The

19:53

second episode, which was all about evolution, that

19:55

was a

19:55

breeze. That

19:57

was very straightforward to write.

19:59

There was another episode that was about

20:02

sort of the taboo surrounding this topic for

20:04

a lot of the people who are fascinated by it. They

20:06

don't like to talk about it. That one

20:08

went through a lot of iterations as well and sort of figuring

20:11

out how to present this information in

20:13

a way that was not going to be just like,

20:15

look at these people, like that, which

20:17

is not what I wanted to do. Like everybody was very

20:20

nice and thoughtful and that's not what I

20:23

was out to do. So all told,

20:26

it took me about a year and a half from when

20:28

I first started working on it until

20:32

I like the episodes were going

20:34

out the door. And I also finished it

20:36

in advance of launch and then spent

20:39

about

20:39

a month doing press,

20:41

like trying to get interest

20:43

in it before I launched so that it wouldn't just sort

20:45

of like into

20:48

the, you know, the abyss of meat

20:50

of like all the media out there. Yeah. Throwing

20:53

a water bottle in the ocean.

20:54

Yeah, exactly. We're

20:58

going to take a quick break for ad space

21:00

and be back in just a couple minutes.

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we can eliminate HIV. Well,

22:35

you have three seasons of the show out

22:37

now, and the other seasons focus on

22:39

different topics, namely UFOs

22:41

in season two and nuclear power in

22:43

season three. When did

22:46

you get the notion to assemble your notes

22:48

into book form?

22:50

Yeah, so what happened

22:52

with that is season two

22:55

was out,

22:57

and I had started to get lots

22:59

of letters, mostly from parents

23:02

who were listening with their kids, which I had not

23:04

anticipated with season one. Actually,

23:07

this would have happened before season two came out, because

23:09

what happened was I

23:10

started getting those letters, and I was

23:12

like, oh, crap, I have to take the swearing out

23:15

for subsequent seasons, because I had not

23:17

anticipated

23:17

the kids would be listening to this, and I

23:19

swore a little bit, not a ton, but a little

23:21

bit in the first one, and so then you end up with an

23:24

explicit rating, and that

23:26

makes it

23:26

harder for people to find it. So

23:29

in any case, letters from parents who were

23:31

listening with their kids, letters from teachers

23:33

who were using elements of the podcast in

23:35

their classroom to talk about evolution, evidence,

23:38

scientific method, things like that, and

23:40

I realized, oh,

23:42

there's a way to approach

23:45

a different audience with this,

23:48

and my agent suggested middle-grade

23:50

nonfiction, because she said there's a dearth

23:53

of material in there that kids find interesting. It's

23:56

often very dry. It's not something

23:58

that they get very excited about. but

24:00

teachers and parents are looking for that kind

24:02

of material. So yeah, did a

24:06

whole pitch to a bunch of different publishers

24:09

and they went for it and

24:11

they wanted a

24:12

three book deal.

24:13

So yeah,

24:14

that's kind of how that happened.

24:17

Yeah, the book is gorgeous. The art

24:19

and even the

24:21

covers a blend of matte

24:24

and shiny glossy stuff

24:27

and a little puffy. I love it. Yeah.

24:30

Rafael Nobre is the guy who did the illustrations

24:32

and he nailed it. Like

24:34

I had sort of a different idea in my head

24:36

of what it would look like sort of more dreamy watercolory,

24:39

but when they sent me his stuff I was like, yeah,

24:42

that's great.

24:42

I love it. Are you sticking with him for

24:45

later? Yep, he's doing

24:47

book two and I believe they're talking to him about

24:49

book three right now. So awesome. That's

24:52

great. Yeah. So when

24:54

you're putting season one together, what

24:57

kind of difficulties did you encounter? Hmm.

25:01

Some of the things I

25:03

encountered or things that you encountered where

25:05

it's like people didn't necessarily want to talk to me and

25:07

this was more on the science side of things.

25:10

I had reached out to

25:12

the Smithsonian initially to talk

25:15

to them about the human evolution

25:16

stuff because I thought it made sense to go there

25:18

because Grover's

25:19

stuff was there and they wanted nothing

25:21

to do with it. So that was

25:23

a little, I was a

25:25

little surprised but not

25:27

wholly surprised. And

25:28

then when Ian Tattersall, who

25:30

is the curator over at the American Museum of Natural

25:33

History in New York, when he

25:35

said, yeah, you know, I don't believe in Bigfoot but I'll

25:38

happily talk to you, I was like, okay, well, that's

25:40

a

25:40

pretty sweet score. Yeah. He's

25:42

no joke. So, you know, ultimately

25:44

a lot of these things ended

25:45

up working out. I think some of the other problems

25:47

I ran into were, you

25:50

know, there were times where I was kind of struggling

25:52

with what the structure was going to look like and

25:54

how

25:55

to cover this material fairly.

25:57

And then I made a

25:59

decision.

25:59

I had a decision pretty early on to not

26:02

do anything that would be considered woo. So,

26:04

you know, telepathic Bigfoot, Bigfoot

26:07

as an alien Bigfoot lives

26:09

in my basement. Yeah. Multidimensional

26:12

Bigfoot. I just was like, like, we haven't even

26:15

proven any of that exists

26:17

in the normal world. Like why

26:19

are we just attributing that to Bigfoot?

26:21

So I stuck with what Grover's. Yeah.

26:25

Well, he just teleported. That's why you can't see him.

26:27

Yeah. Duh. Yeah.

26:29

If we would just unlock more than 10% of

26:31

our brains, we could do. We

26:33

totally could. You're just not using your

26:36

brain right, man. So

26:38

I did run into a little bit of pushback where

26:40

I would be talking to people and they would sort of go

26:42

in that direction. I'd be like, thank you. And

26:45

they'd be like, what, you know, you have to keep your mind

26:47

open and, and embrace all possibilities.

26:50

And I'm like, well,

26:52

if you can bring me some really solid evidence

26:54

that, you know, the 19th dimension

26:56

does exist, uh, then we can

26:58

talk about Bigfoot existing in it. But

27:01

yeah,

27:01

let's, let's start at the beginning at the beginning.

27:04

Other issues I ran into. You

27:07

went out in the field a lot. Yeah. The

27:09

field was, that was a lot of fun. Yeah.

27:12

Um, and I was surprised. Usually something

27:15

will go south on those kinds

27:17

of trips,

27:17

like really south. And the biggest

27:19

problem was it just poured rain at Willow Creek.

27:22

Um, when I went for the 50th anniversary

27:24

of the Patterson Gimlin film, like it was just dumping

27:26

rain the whole weekend. But in some ways that actually ended

27:28

up being helpful because it kept people

27:31

indoors and in one place.

27:32

And so it was easier to find them and talk to them.

27:34

Granted, it kind of prevented you from going out

27:36

to the site of where the supposed

27:38

film was shot, but I didn't really need to

27:41

be out there for that. So yeah,

27:43

I got kind of lucky. Like, I feel like a lot of

27:45

things fell

27:45

into place with this, like the opportunity to go

27:48

see those nests, um,

27:50

which was, you know, great. Like

27:52

they didn't have to take me out there. They'd certainly

27:55

denied other media the opportunity to go

27:57

do it. But I think by that point I had talked

27:59

to enough.

27:59

people this was a late enough in the reporting process

28:02

and I talked to enough the people who were adjacent

28:04

to that project or involved in it that

28:07

they trusted me and they were willing to let me come

28:09

out there and see it provided I didn't take any photos

28:11

which I didn't and then people were like well why didn't

28:13

you take any photos and I was like they didn't ask me

28:16

to but if you go online you can find

28:18

them. So

28:21

how many times through the process because there's

28:23

several field recordings that you have you

28:27

went out multiple times how many how many times did

28:29

you do you think you went out there to get

28:31

stuff because you went like there were some times

28:34

where you went for you saw the nests there were sometimes

28:36

you went and did like the whoops

28:38

and then tree knocks and things like that. Is that

28:41

the same trip?

28:42

Yeah some of them were the same trip and some

28:44

of the times I would use material from one trip

28:46

in multiple episodes to sort

28:48

of talk about different aspects of it so

28:51

there was let's see went out to see

28:54

the nests and that was actually

28:57

towards the end of all the reporting as I mentioned

28:59

Beachfoot was the first field recording event

29:01

that I went to and I was like

29:04

what am I doing here who are these people

29:06

I'm sure they were like who's this lady walking around

29:08

with a microphone and that was

29:10

actually one of those moments where you know it was like

29:12

hello my name is you had the tag on and it said

29:15

Laura Krantz and people were like oh

29:17

are you related to Grover? They

29:20

all knew who Grover was like one guy

29:22

one guy actually got down on his knees in front

29:24

of me and was like you know

29:26

Grover is my god and

29:28

like you know that kind of thing I was like whoa okay

29:32

and that was sort of my first introduction to how much

29:34

people really really loved

29:36

Grover and what he stood for and what he represented

29:40

represented to this community so

29:42

there was Beachfoot

29:43

then I did the Bigfoot expedition

29:45

with Shane Corso and Cindy

29:48

Caddell who were both involved with

29:49

bigfoot field research but Cindy was with Bigfoot

29:52

field research organization and the Olympic

29:54

project which are two of the Bigfoot

29:57

recon groups

29:59

She's the anthropologist.

30:01

Yeah, she's one of the anthropologists. Kathy

30:03

Strain was the other one and she's one I met

30:05

at Beachfoot. And

30:07

then I also went to Willow Creek for the 50th

30:10

anniversary. And I

30:12

might actually be doing these in the wrong order. It

30:14

might've been Beachfoot, Willow Creek, the

30:17

camp out

30:19

in Mount Hood wilderness and then the nests.

30:22

So I went out into the field at least four times.

30:24

Oh, and then there was the trip to Bailey, to

30:26

the Sasquatch outpost. But

30:29

I find going out in the field, A, it's a lot of fun.

30:32

It's a lot more work because you're just having to pay attention

30:34

to a lot of stuff. And

30:37

it's like three or four days of just recording

30:39

everything you can. And then you have to come back and kind of

30:41

sift through all that and figure out what you want to use.

30:44

But you get all this great ambient sound.

30:46

It's an opportunity to, like you said, take people

30:48

on a journey with you, if you can create

30:50

sort of a nice soundscape

30:53

behind you when you're talking about some of this stuff.

30:55

So yeah, the field recordings were a

30:57

lot of fun. I didn't get to do as much of that with other

31:00

ones or at least the sound wasn't quite

31:01

as rich with some of the other ones. For

31:03

lack of a better term, was it very creepy

31:06

or scary at times? Or was

31:09

there a lot of priming going on in your head

31:11

that maybe made it seem that way?

31:13

I will say the Mount Hood one

31:15

was a little bit on the creepy side,

31:18

mainly because we got all set up to camp

31:21

and this was an area that Shane had

31:23

brought us to because he'd

31:25

been camping there before and he'd had an experience.

31:28

The sun goes down, we sit by the fire

31:32

and he tells his story, which we deliberately set

31:34

it up that way so he would do it at

31:36

the creepiest possible moment. And

31:39

then he finishes telling the story and you're like,

31:41

oh shit, what was that? And

31:44

then my tent's on the very edge of

31:46

the camp site and I'm like, maybe

31:48

I want to move more towards the middle. And

31:51

I'm not really a nervous camper. I enjoy

31:53

camping. I've never been someone who's totally freaked

31:55

out about anything other really than bears

31:59

when you're like back.

31:59

packing in Wyoming, Grizzlies, that's

32:02

some scary shit.

32:02

But yeah,

32:05

after hearing that story, and then we went on this kind of night

32:07

hike, and you're wandering around in pitch

32:09

black darkness. Well, we had

32:11

headlamps on, but we would turn them off from time to time,

32:14

just to get a sense of how oppressive the dark was.

32:16

Yeah, I

32:18

mean, that had a little bit of an eerie

32:20

quality to it for sure. Yeah, sounds

32:24

fun. It was fun, I had

32:26

a blast. If you ever get a chance to go on a Bigfoot expedition

32:28

with anyone, you should totally do it.

32:30

Did anything in particular surprise you on

32:32

this journey?

32:33

Yeah, that I became more open-minded

32:35

about the idea of Bigfoot. I think that was the biggest

32:38

one, because I went into it being like, total hoax,

32:40

big joke, total myth, there's nothing to

32:42

it. And then, after listening

32:45

to the stuff about evolution, and hearing

32:47

about other species that had been alive

32:49

at the same time as Homo sapiens, and

32:51

thinking about how difficult it is for

32:55

the fossil record to hold on to

32:57

evidence of everything, I was like, well, maybe there

32:59

was something back then, that's hard to know. And

33:01

then there was also just people's stories,

33:06

and the stories, because I had been

33:08

so particular in selecting a path

33:12

for this podcast in terms of steering clear of

33:14

the woo, I did end up talking

33:16

to a lot of people who were fairly scientific,

33:19

or had spent a lot of their time in the woods,

33:21

and were fish and wildlife people, or

33:24

anthropologists, and had

33:27

stories that you

33:30

trusted them more, or

33:32

at least I trusted them more, because they seemed so

33:35

grounded in reality. And then they would tell

33:37

the story, and they're like, I don't know what it was. I

33:39

know I can't say it was Bigfoot, because that's

33:42

not science, but this was the weirdest

33:44

thing I have ever experienced, and I don't know

33:46

how else to describe it.

33:49

And now those kinds of things, it's like, well, something

33:51

clearly happened

33:52

to them. It's true to them, yeah.

33:54

Yeah, and I think that's what surprised me, is I

33:56

sort of came out of it. I still want,

33:58

I would want scientific evidence,

33:59

the body, I want the big piece

34:01

of the body, I want the DNA, I want

34:03

all the things that science require. But

34:06

I'm open to the possibility that that might

34:08

exist, whereas before I was

34:10

just like, total joke.

34:11

I kind of

34:14

empathize with you on that because shooting

34:17

this documentary that

34:19

I will hopefully be releasing this

34:21

summer, we went into it thinking,

34:23

well, there's all these stories about a Sasquatch

34:26

in Southern California, in the

34:29

desert of all places. And

34:31

how is that possible? Like that

34:34

sounds ridiculous, but we talked

34:36

to biologists, we talked to people

34:38

who study the

34:40

plant life out there and other species

34:43

and how many forms of

34:45

food you can find if you know where to look, where

34:47

to find the water, if you know where to look. Migration,

34:52

you know, up into the cooler elevations

34:55

at the,

34:56

it's only 30, 40 miles away, you

34:58

know, and

35:00

that's an easy trek for a big eight foot

35:02

tall thing to, if they, So you're

35:05

saying Bigfoot's a snowbird. He's

35:07

a snowbird, absolutely. Half the

35:09

time he's in Texas, the other half he's in Aspen.

35:15

But we came out of it being like, well,

35:17

you know, it's not impossible.

35:20

Yeah. If you

35:22

know what, where to look, what you're doing,

35:24

yeah, it's possible to survive.

35:27

But my question

35:29

has always been, and

35:30

this is something that Michael Shermer mentioned

35:33

in that, that episode with him in

35:35

it. He said the same thing

35:37

I was thinking.

35:38

You need a population

35:41

to survive, right? You need a

35:44

couple hundred to make sure that

35:46

it can

35:47

continue unless there's

35:50

some, like, freak of nature where they survive

35:52

for hundreds of years at a time, like turtles

35:55

or something, you know. Or maybe they're like one of those jellyfish

35:57

that, like, they get to a certain

35:59

age and they... sort of like dissolve in on themselves

36:01

and then they like reborn. Yeah.

36:04

Yeah. Yeah. They're like a Phoenix

36:06

creature. Yeah. But

36:08

again, that's one of those where it's like, well,

36:10

that jellyfish is really the only example

36:13

of that. I'd like to see something with bones

36:15

maybe that does that.

36:16

Yeah. Yeah. Or something

36:18

observable at the very least. Yeah.

36:21

And I think, you know, you're right. It's possible, but is it

36:23

plausible? And I think that becomes the big question.

36:25

Yeah. The world is full of possibility,

36:27

but what's the plausibility of it? Yeah. And that's

36:30

kind of the thing that always kept

36:32

bringing

36:32

me back. I liked the idea of Bigfoot. I think

36:34

that would be great if Bigfoot were out there. I

36:37

am hard pressed

36:40

to believe that that's the case. Mm-hmm.

36:43

Yeah. And also the photos, let's

36:45

talk about the photos. Everybody

36:48

has a camera in their pocket. There are

36:50

untold numbers of trail cams and gang cams

36:53

and security cams.

36:55

What do we have? Blob squatches. Yeah.

36:58

Bingo.

37:00

This whole podcast

37:03

might not exist if it weren't for those, those

37:06

photos. So

37:08

I wanted to ask you, is there two pieces

37:11

of advice that you could give one

37:13

to the folks who are convinced

37:16

Sasquatch exists and

37:18

then one to those who are skeptical, but

37:20

open-minded?

37:21

My piece of advice to

37:23

the people who are convinced that Bigfoot exists

37:25

is keep looking, but you're going to have to find,

37:28

if you want people to take you seriously and you want

37:30

people to take this seriously, you're going

37:32

to actually have to find the kind of evidence that scientists

37:35

and the scientific

37:35

community are

37:37

willing to accept. And there's not a

37:39

conspiracy to like keep Bigfoot hidden

37:42

or keep you down or anything like that.

37:44

Like

37:45

you haven't found the kind of evidence that will convince

37:47

them

37:48

and you won't convince them

37:50

until you do. So that's that first

37:52

piece of advice to the people who are skeptical,

37:55

but open-minded. I

37:57

don't know if I have advice for them necessarily.

37:59

Don't laugh at people, I

38:02

think would be my advice. I

38:04

think one of the things that I have been concerned about

38:06

with the Bigfoot stuff is it feels

38:08

a little bit like a gateway drug into

38:12

bigger conspiracy theories. And

38:14

so that

38:16

is a problem. I think we kind of have to set

38:18

that aside and maybe we talk about that later.

38:21

But

38:22

there's no need to laugh at people who have

38:24

a genuine question about the world and are interested

38:27

in learning more. As long as they are sort

38:29

of staying within the bounds of reality. And

38:32

so that's sort of my general feeling. And I think that's

38:34

why I

38:34

really liked doing this topic for kids

38:37

in some ways. It's because kids have this

38:39

wild imagination and all these ideas. And

38:41

there's an opportunity here to be like, let's harness

38:43

that imagination. Think about it any

38:46

way you want to, but then look at

38:48

the sort of boundaries that you have to consider

38:50

it in for it to be a real creature. And

38:53

it's this lesson

38:56

in the scientific method and in

38:59

evidence and in learning to think critically

39:01

about things and not just accepting everything at

39:03

face value. Yeah, a great endeavor.

39:07

Boy, something I wish that more people would put some

39:09

time into. And

39:11

you interview several people

39:13

who do bring up the

39:15

point that anecdotes

39:18

are great, but it's not data.

39:21

It's not empirical evidence. Right.

39:24

I mean, there's

39:24

a reason that eyewitness testimony is often

39:27

not being considered in court anymore because

39:29

it's not reliable. So

39:31

yeah,

39:32

you had a crazy

39:34

experience. I don't doubt that. But

39:37

what are the facts on the ground? What is the

39:39

actual evidence of what happened to you? And

39:42

you can't say it's Bigfoot unless

39:44

it's Bigfoot and you have proof

39:46

that it's Bigfoot. So

39:50

I'm excited for book two

39:52

about UFOs to come out. That's

39:55

coming out in October. Is that right?

39:56

Yeah. October 3rd. It's

39:59

called Is Anybody Out?

39:59

there or is there anybody out there? And

40:02

it's about the search for extraterrestrials

40:05

from amoebas to aliens. Nice.

40:08

So it's beyond UFOs even. That's

40:10

part of it. But it's also like, what

40:12

kind of life might be out there? Xenobiology.

40:13

Yeah. Are

40:16

there little tiny one cell organisms

40:18

living under the crust of Mars? Or

40:21

are we alone in the universe? That

40:23

kind of thing.

40:24

Nice. Well, we'll have to get you back on here to

40:26

discuss your experiences with that. Excellent.

40:29

She's the author of The Search for Sasquatch

40:32

and host of Wild Thing podcast,

40:34

Laura Krantz. Thank you for talking

40:36

to us today on Blurry Photos, Laura. I appreciate

40:38

it.

40:38

Thank you so much for having me on. This has been

40:40

fun.

40:44

Thanks once again to Laura for speaking with me.

40:47

You can find her book and podcasts at

40:49

laurakrantz.com and by searching

40:52

for Wild Thing on any podcatcher.

40:55

Don't forget to check out more paranormal

40:57

topics taken not too seriously by

40:59

searching for hysteria 51, find

41:02

a bunch of trivia by listening to Quiz Quiz

41:04

Bang Bang, and listen to

41:06

some short spooky stories narrated

41:08

by me

41:09

on Five Minute Frights. All

41:12

of those are searchable on your podcatcher.

41:15

Thank you for listening. And for this episode

41:18

of Blurry Photos, I have been David

41:21

Mild Thing Flora. Don't

41:24

stop blur even.

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Welcome to Breeze Line, where you'll say Todd Flora. Ta-ta,

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