Bigfoot Day

Kia ora. Hi Hayden, how are you? You're really good. I'm actually pretty famous now. You are, and I mean we can't avoid the elephant in the room. You have been on John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, which we all love. Can you just, for anyone that hasn't witnessed your appearance, can you kind of sum it up for us? Man, that is a tough question. You're pretty lucky that I'm even taking this call to be honest, but basically what happened is that our state-owned bank, Kiwi Bank, came up with a new mascot, which is a sheep mascot with green hair. A bunch of people online thought this sheep was pretty sexy, which is a pretty standard thing to happen in New Zealand, and they posted about this. Some of them just said, I want to fuck the Kiwi Bank sheep. Pretty normal sort of thing to say. Others actually drew the cartoon sheep in a variety of sexual situations. What our state-run bank, Kiwi Bank, did is they freaked out and they issued a whole bunch of notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which is a US law which tries to prevent online harm and made people take down the images of the sheep. But they didn't just take down the sexy, sexy, sexy ones. They took the people just saying, I want to fuck the sheep with images from their own ad, and that basically caused the Streisand effect to take, go into, you've done an episode on the Streisand effect, so it's going on with Kiwi Bank. Everyone's saying they want to fuck Kiwi Bank's sheep. I did a story about this. John Oliver picked up on the story, basically read out my story. I have never been internationally recognized for my work in any way, but the only thing that people know about me now is that I am a very interested in sexy sheep. I'm just curious, when you're a New Zealander and you appear on John Oliver's show, and to be clear, you were on there for a decent stretch talking while his studio audience laughed at what you had to say. What was the response? My uncle in Perth just watches the show, and he was just watching it, and he was like, that's my nephew. Imagine doing that. That's my nephew talking about fucking a sheep on the TV. I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now, in case you did not know, today, as this episode goes out, Tuesday, October 20th, it is National Big Week. Bigfoot Day. I don't think I need to explain Bigfoot to you, besides saying he or she or they are deeply, deeply American. Why is today, in particular, National Bigfoot Day? Because back on October 20th, 1967, some of the most iconic video footage ever was taken, the so-called Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film. The grainy footage of a large, hairy female figure would go on to become ingrained in our culture. I'd argue as recognizable as the grainy footage of the JFK assassination or the NASA moon landing. Is that fair, Rob? Yeah, I think that's fair. And like those pieces of footage, the Bigfoot film has also entered the larger conspiracy theory universe. And while this whole Bigfoot thing may seem silly to some of you, I think how we view this film says a lot about the world we live in, about belief, non-belief, scientific evidence, journalism, conspiracy, and adventures in the woods. And honestly, while Bigfoot has been done to death before, I'm genuinely not a fan of Bigfoot. I'm not a fan of Bigfoot. I'm genuinely excited to bring you this episode because for once and for all, I think I can tell you whether the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film was real or not. So get ready to grab your camera and shoot some grainy footage that will ignite the imagination of millions, because this is the National Bigfoot Day episode. Okay, before we get into Bigfoot, it was touched a little bit on the John Oliver segment that New Zealanders and sheep fucking has been a battle that New Zealanders have been facing to kind of get that connotation away from them. Completely. Which I will say, I recall that as a connection. Since knowing you, it has completely been lost as a thing. You've never really brought up having sex with sheep as an insult ever, which is kind of wild because you like to insult me in a variety of ways all the time. Yeah, that seems. Low-hanging fruit? Low-hanging fruit, a little too crass, and a little too discriminatory to a group. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. I'm sure everyone listening to this knows this, but the joke in New Zealand is that there are multiple, multiple sheep for every person. And because we're bottom of the planet, lonely, we clearly have sex with sheep. That's the joke. So has that been a stereotype that you've had to fight your entire life? Absolutely. That's what I want to unpack. Oh, 100%. No, I mean, it's leveled at us by every other country I've been to. Australia as well, although Australia also has sheep and they're closely linked to New Zealand. But no, New Zealand has always been a country of sheep fuckers. That's been the thing that has always been targeted at us. And what's your journey with that, Ben? My journey with it? I mean, interesting for me because as a child, I had a pet goat, Frisky. And so obviously goats and sheep are kind of adjacent creatures. I would argue goats are much sexier than sheep. Okay, you're not helping yourself by saying that. No, I mean, that's the interesting thing. It's been a push and pull. We love sheep in New Zealand. You know, they're great for our country. They're beautiful creatures. Did you see The Sheep Detective? Great film. Actually, a legitimately really enjoyable film. But it's not like New Zealand doesn't have a lot of documented cases of people actually having sex with sheep. So it is in the realm of a joke as opposed to something we actually battle. But the KiwiBank campaign, and we'll flash up an image on our YouTube. and Patreon of right now of the KiwiBank sheep. So you can see what you make of it. You would think maybe because of the stereotype, KiwiBank would distance itself from sexy sheep? You would. I mean, it's very funny that they made, I mean, you can look at the sheep and decide whether you think it's sexy or not. Have you seen it by now? I watched, yeah, I watched it. But did you think it was sexy? No, I mean, it's a, it's a, yeah, animated character. Yeah, but it's like animated characters. It can be hot. We know this. It's in Disney films. It's in, like, there's a certain, and as Hayden described in his piece, and as it was on John Oliver, people have said the sheep has come hither eyes, which is a good way to describe the sheep. But basically overnight, KiwiBank has, our national bank in New Zealand has reignited the debate about sexy sheep. And I think essentially New Zealanders are so sick of the gag. We've all basically around this ad just said, yeah, this sheep is sexy. And we want to fuck her. Yes. I, I, the part of this I like, uh, is that all of this is being reignited by yourself completely. Like we would have no idea about KiwiBank sheep. I don't think KiwiBank or the people making the joke expected it to make the jump to John Oliver. Yeah. But I do like the fact that as a way of pushing back against it, New Zealanders are just going, yeah, it's true. This is a sexy sheep. We want to fuck her. And it was a delight seeing friend of the show. Hayden Donnell, um, on John Oliver. It was just very, his thing is it all. I mean, the interesting thing was a lot of flightless bird listeners. When we pointed this out on our Patreon, we're completely unaware it was Hayden. They just heard a New Zealand man speaking, which I kind of makes sense, but it's also very funny to me. Hayden is such, has such a specific way of talking. Yes. Not all New Zealanders sound like Hayden Donnell. Well, maybe that's just what they, they think it's you or him. And that's what all New Zealanders sound like. And you know, you know what? Something else Hayden raised in his story, which is really interesting is that Kiwi Bank has basically, they've come out saying the sheep is not sexy. We do not make it to be sexy. We do not want people to be sexualizing this animated sheep. And the copyright takedown notices, um, that were going around, they described it as a sexy sheep. They know it's sexy. Just quick housekeeping. Yes. How are you doing? Since our last episode, I was very excited. Be going out of town to see where it was, it was by White Sox team was palpable. We could feel it in the episode. It was in the air. I remember how excited you were. They had three games to get one more win. I went and witnessed them give up 18 runs in two games and then lose their final game to be eliminated. Uh, it was a lot. It was still very, uh, nice to be back home and feel the energy of that team and, uh, be in the stadium for the first few innings of each of those games until they turned. We do a whole episode on our, our Patreon, if anyone wants the details of that journey, but I'm, it's been a few days. I'm recovered. You went through a blow by blow of what was an incredibly intense week and I found it incredibly entertaining. And then I had to come back Monday and listen through our episode coming out Tuesday where I could see them. Yeah, it was a different you, it was a hopeful, excited you. you not the version we had the husk we have in front of us now so much had happened since we recorded that to sort of a reminder of how quickly the world is moving at the moment like it moves at a breakneck pace and this is an example of that are you okay yes i'm i'm okay it'll be next year it was a it's a good run for the socks there's always next year right it was unexpected it was a magical season i wish it would have lasted longer but i i will survive rob thoughts and prayers as any good american would say yeah all right bigfoot now bigfoot today is national bigfoot day if you're listening to this on release day if you're not listening to it on release day then it has been in the past or is coming up in the future yes i'm sure that you will have seen either the video or the still of this humanoid creature from this particular bit of footage that is why today is bigfoot day because that is when the footage was taken and there has been massive debate about it ever since we've touched on bigfoot a few times in this show your portland live show portland live show also when i was in florida did a little side episode about the skunk ape which is their kind of version of bigfoot a bigfoot that lives in the swamps we have a version in new zealand the hairy mohawk man possibly either an escaped gorilla or some kind of humanoid undiscovered creature it exists the almas d i believe is in russia what is your general thoughts on bigfoot so i grew up obsessed with cryptozoology the so-called science of uh hidden creatures yeah um the very first podcast i did was with reese darby and my friend leon kirkbeck it was called the cryptid factor and it was just every week was about cryptozoology so before this podcast the podcast i had before this was about things like bigfoot so on a scale from 1 to 10 10 being you would bet your parents lives on bigfoot being real and one being i don't believe in this at all where do you land i have a weird relationship with bigfoot growing up where i wanted to have hope in bigfoot and so while i would typically sit around uh maybe a four with the i'm a i am a i'm a believer in bigfoot so you were like a 10 and no i i'd come in at maybe a six six but then my hopefulness that this thing you know because there's a certain joy in thinking that we've still got bits of this planet to discover right yeah believing in something like your team coming through oh rob so sorry my hope took me up to a strong nine a nine plus growing up with a obsession with harry and the henderson's the tv show which was i believe a spinoff from the film yeah which won an oscar by the way i think for makeup or something i'm a i'm a bigfoot fanatic yeah i would probably be about a two and a half i the thing about but the thing about bigfoot is there is some um logic in how a creature like that could exist like i i believe in evolution that we come from apes uh believe in the science of all of that so the fact that there could be a neanderthal type character yes somehow is believable evolution lived i don't love the like time warp the alien aspects that some bigfoot theories have yes and then i think the other thing for me why i am so low is i i feel like there would be evidence at this stage completely one would have been captured whatever skeleton would have a body would have more footage than just the gremlin patterson film yeah i think humans have explored enough of this planet that it would be hard for for a creature to fully stay away from human discovery unless i i will say the only like exception to that is maybe like deep ocean uh i i do think you're more of a loch ness monster man is what you're saying i'm sure there's i'm fairly confident i'd be about a nine that there are like there are weird creatures in the ocean that oh yeah are beyond what we know and are probably terrifying too i i think the undiscovered shit i agree is there's so much shit in that ocean that we don't know about yeah i mean you see the fish down there they're crazy where are the origins of bigfoot it's the united states oh my god these are the big questions i have no fucking idea about forest because i we could we could get into some art and stuff so new zealand has the bush right and it's a fairly large amount of uncharted territory that you can get lost we do have yes and are you ready for a sidebar about our bush sure yeah uh no i think it's interesting because even the way i think about new zealand is that we're so small it'll be impossible for anything to hide in there yeah because new zealand's a small place but even in new zealand you think that we're such a small place you can't disappear nothing can hide there yeah there's this really bleak story that happened uh um a father took his children into the woods basically took them away from their um his partner yeah into the woods and they disappeared for about three years yeah into the bush gone hunt for the wilder people yeah and the interesting thing is when that happened there was this is a major sidebar but there was this major sort of idea because hunt for the world of people if you haven't seen it watch it sort of this charming story of like getting off the grid and when this man kidnapped his children and took them in them into the bush there was a certain part of new zealand that was kind of cheering him on it's like yeah get away from that um probably you're you know yeah go go into the bush this is great go off grid no it's like you can't just take your children into the bush it's child abuse and anyway ended up three years on there was a police standoff and he got killed and there's now going to be a netflix documentary coming out about this entire thing executive produced by david not produced by me no incredibly controversial production because the person making that documentary the director is basically the so-called queen of reality tv in new zealand and so it's her move into making something incredibly serious and there's this huge sort of debate around this in new zealand because um netflix did a deal um or the director did a deal with netflix to get in with the police and so this documentary crew embedded with the cops as this horrible thing took place my point is it's a mad story and it kind of reminded me that it is possible even in a place like new zealand which is small to disappear into the bush and if in america or any country there was a big humanoid creature that is really good at hiding it could stay hidden for all this time bit of a leap going from a really bleak family story to that but yeah i i think yeah still in my mind though is people are exploring enough parts of this that you'd find it unless this is something you're trying to hide it'll hide uh it's still still not a believer still of like finding bones and yeah remains remains of some sort it would it would have been an accident and one of them died not in a hiding spot um that's that every single one of them decided they wanted to curl up under a bush when they died and that's and that's the question is there a breeding population of these things out there or hiding do they bury you know you could argue that big foot would bury each other if they're that maybe advanced and that's why we don't find their remains because they bury them in the bush or the forest as you would call it here in america yes but that then would mean they would have to be highly intelligent yes to understand that oh we don't want to be found this is true are you calling bigfoot stupid is that what you're saying i'm curious growing up in the states was bigfoot a big part of like was it because in new zealand bigfoot is so normal we all knew who bigfoot was yeah we knew who bigfoot was was it was it like a big part of i don't know like was it a big part of your like childhood with the stories about it your parents telling you about bigfoot how does that work because america has done this really good job of making this creature world known yeah no one's talking about the almasty in russia they're talking about bigfoot yeah i mean it was a conspiracy theory like you related it to the jfk assassination and moon landing and you know what that's the other thing i like about the idea of bigfoot being real is it's a conspiracy theory you know was this footage faked is this real is it not it's kind of a conspiracy theory you can toy with and it's not getting into any kind of horrible awful territory like a 9-11 conspiracy theory would go and i feel like the moon landing is a little bit like that yeah yeah jfk does get a bit political and weird yeah but bigfoot certainly in the moon landing just feel like these innocent conspiracy theories you can debate here yeah without ending up in talking about um how the jews rule the world or something which they don't by the way i don't think most of the conspiracy as a kid though was centered around whether this footage was real or not uh-huh uh it was just does this creature exist in the woods is this in the woods or not would it make you scared as a kid to go into the woods if you were dropped off was it is that was the law that much in your brain that it was a possibility it could kill you no i wasn't i wasn't fearing okay a bigfoot i think there were just regular animals would have been scared a bear would have been scarier than bigfoot coming to find us and Did this footage, the grainy footage from the 60s of Bigfoot, do you remember when that came into your life? Or was it always there? Yeah, I mean, I've seen that clip countless times. Are there any other clips that you think of that would be that kind of known and iconic? I mean, there's the moon landing footage, like you said. Yeah, moon and JFK. Yeah, JFK footage. Is there anything else? I feel like there'd be some sports footage that would be known here. Martin Luther King. Yeah, big speech. Speeches. Yeah. Yeah, some Babe Ruth, like, pointing. Yeah, it's kind of like memes before we knew what a meme was, right? Just, like, spread so quickly through the culture, pre-internet. Iconic footage. We got it. Yeah, yeah, when there wasn't too much of it out there. So I'm legitimately interested for the guests that we have on the episode today. They're two documentary filmmakers, and they discovered something that will make you see, or certainly made me see the iconic footage, a Bigfoot that we all know in an entirely different way. And I think that doc is incredible. It's also out today on National Bigfoot Day. So good timing for them. Mark Evans and Tamir Arden are the filmmakers. You know, and I do want to say this. I say Bigfoot doc, and you think sort of all the shitty sort of Discovery Channel finding Bigfoot kind of entertainment, but kind of bullshit. It's more a doc around the lore of Bigfoot and why people believe in it and the footage. And the footage, and yeah, the doc is called Capturing Bigfoot. This is our conversation. It's even if you don't like Bigfoot, I think you will like this. Um, and you look, let's just start with a very simple question. I'd just love to know your names and what it is that you do. I'm Tamir Arden. I'm the head of XYZ Films Documentary Division, and I produce documentary films. And I'm Mark Evans, independent documentary filmmaker, director, producer. What drew you into the world of Bigfoot in the first place? Was it the film industry? Was it when you were a kid? Was it just around this documentary? Like what's your history with Bigfoot? Mostly related to this documentary subject just falling in my lap, which started with this new slash old mystery film that we started calling it this film of a Bigfoot 16 millimeter film that had been locked in the safe for 50 plus years. I get an email out of the blue in June of 2022 from somebody I didn't know saying, Hey, I've got a Bigfoot film. It's the original Bigfoot film. And my dad was involved in this story and I. And I just want to see if you can maybe help me look at it. Can you project it? I work I teach at a film school and she and she teaches in the same school, but not in film different department. So essentially for I mean, we'll get into why this bit of film is so significant. But one of the most significant pieces of film and one of the biggest mysteries in America, you got access to that because someone worked in the same building. Yeah. And at first, though, it wasn't clear that they were that it was related to this famous Patterson Gimlin film from 1967. That everybody's seen the image of the Bigfoot, you know, turning back and looking. But she her family stories was that it was related. She actually thought maybe it was that film. The original version of that film has been lost for decades. And so I just said, Sure, I'll help you. Now, I had a bit of an interest because my dad had told me a version of this of the story of that famous film since I was a kid. He worked for this guy named Aldi Ali, who's a who's a big character in the story. He worked for his construction company when he was in his twenties. And so like when I when we would be camping or something. And Bigfoot would come up, he'd be like, Oh, I know the story about how all that happened. Now, in hindsight, he got a lot of it wrong, but but I but there was a bit of an interest. But without this new revelation of this new film that had been locked in the safe, I wasn't planning a Bigfoot film or anything like that. Was she trying to debunk it when she's bringing to you or just prove it's legit? Well, she her parents had died, and so she cleaned out the their their house and they had the safe that had rare coins and other things in it. But she knew that there was this Bigfoot. But she knew that there was this Bigfoot film. And her story goes way back from when she was a kid. She her house was in the woods. Everybody at school one day was talking about Bigfoot and she was getting scared. And so she comes racing home through the woods and she's crying and her dad's like, What's the matter? And she says, Well, it's Bigfoot. You know, she's all scared. And he says, Don't worry about it. I was involved with creating that whole story, that whole hoax. I made that up. Which is an amazing way to placate your child. Yeah. And so she stopped crying and she kind of wanted like she realized, like her dad's name was. Never involved in this story. And I think she kind of wanted to figure out, well, what was his role? And if he was involved, this is such a known story that maybe he should be included in that in some way as well. Wait, so just let's zoom out back to this original footage, because I think in your documentary, you explain this so well. There's these bits of film that are so ingrained into the culture. And growing up in New Zealand, it was what you see in the film. This is that grainy footage of the moon landing. There's the JFK assassination. And there's this footage of Bigfoot walking in the woods. And it's I don't know how that spread into everyone's consciousness, but that's one of the bits of film. And can you just take me into what that bit of film is, the Patterson-Gimlin film, because I feel like on Bigfoot Day, this is important that people know about. It is. And it's why Bigfoot Day is October 20th, because that's the day that supposedly that film was shot. That's very, that's disputed. But yeah, I mean, listen, I think it is epitomizes Americana. That film and all the other films you discuss, which are all also very scrutinized, you know, short every frame, every frame, we're all from the late 60s. And so it really, I think, was that time period where people were watching something, but at the same time trying to figure out, are we really watching what we're seeing? You know, because people are constantly trying to poke holes in both the Subruder film as well as the moon landing. Yeah. So they all had conspiracy floating around at the edges, right? Exactly. And they all have people that have extremely strong beliefs one way or the other on how they view the film and the legitimacy of those. And I don't think, I don't think any of them are true. Do you? It's just partially because it's a new medium and they're not realizing how you can manipulate film at that time. I mean, it wasn't really a new medium film, but I guess when you think about it from the standpoint of like home film, like being able to go out there with a camera on your own and go shoot. In the wild. Subruder and the Patterson film, those were both just still amateurish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Before people had phones and were used to that, it was this amazing random captured footage from people that just happened to have a camera. Well, or you would, a trusted film that cost millions of dollars that they're making. Yeah. Yeah. One or the other. Completely. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird. Comes from Ethos. Now, I have been having increasingly conversations about, oh, getting older, death is approaching. And life insurance is one of those incredibly mature things that I've been avoiding for a very long time and I'm now starting to think about. Well, the older we get to, you start having loved ones and family and friends that pass. It just makes you realize you have to start considering what you're leaving to loved ones after. After you go. No, completely. Because it's one thing you're not going to care about it when you're gone, but you don't want to leave your family and loved ones. Dealing with all the craziness and life insurance is incredibly important to make them less stressed. Yeah. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy. It's 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes and get same day coverage. Also, there's no medical exam, which can be quite intimidating. You just answer a few simple questions about your health and you can get up to $3 million in coverage. And some policies are as low as $30 a month. And you'll get your lowest rate from a network of trusted carriers. Ethos has a 4.9 out of 5. 5 star review on Trustpilot with over 5,500 reviews. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash bird. That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash bird. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Trustpilot rating as of August 1st, 2026. I guess that would be what the appeal is for that for sure. It's these little snippets. That were so hard to get back then when you think about utilizing film and developing it and not fucking it up and all that other stuff. And obviously, as someone who's a huge fan of cryptozoology since I was a kid, the big thing with that field is always like, why isn't anyone filming any of this stuff? And so this particular bit of film was incredible because holy shit, someone's actually managing to point and hold steady a camera at this mystery creature. Because most footage is the camera shaking. It's a terrible shot. And this film is shaking for most of it. And then it clears up, it gets still, and that's kind of the money shot. What was your history with that film? I don't even know. Growing up in New Zealand, I feel like I knew it that the still from that footage was in magazines. I would have seen it in probably Bigfoot documentaries that were on before finding Bigfoot and all that stuff. I mean, this would have been during the 90s probably. And it just got embedded into my. And just zooming out again, can you just explain? It's called the Patterson-Gimlin film. Who's Patterson? Who's Gimlin? So Roger Patterson was really the mastermind. But behind all of that, he was the one that was so into Bigfoot. He absolutely believed Bigfoot was real. He was going to prove that it was real. He was going to capture one. I mean, he was putting everything from like 1963 pretty much to his death in 1972. He died young. only five years after he shot that film. Everything was about Bigfoot. He was going to prove it. And then Bob Gimlin is the Gimlin in that was kind of, you know, maybe his sidekick a little bit. Let me in your robe. Interested in the subject, but liked hanging around with Roger. And so he was kind of just involved with what Roger wanted to do. And there's been so much debate on, you know, even people that think maybe that film's not real. Did Roger set Bob up and Bob Gimlin was just the patsy to go witness something, which would have been so dangerous because he had his he had his gun. And so if he was going to put somebody in a costume to go out there and not tell Bob Gimlin about it, that could have ended really badly, really badly. And there's been over the years, there's been a huge amount of debate and people trying to debunk this film. I mean, they've they've tried to recreate the film. Right. And it's not good. And no one can sort of do it like this. This footage has held as being possibly Bigfoot for decades now. And you come along. You find this. This is a bit of film that essentially, I mean, I've watched the doc. It's fucking incredible. You're essentially deep. In my mind, you're debunking this film. Finally, it's like you found footage of the set up in the studio where they were faking the moon landing. Right. The extended cut. It's incredible. It's not really a question. It's more just me. I'm just kind of blown away by it. You know, we were. It took us a little while to figure out what we were looking at because we get the film. And again, I think maybe it's going to be. The original Patterson film. It's not that, but there's so many similarities. And so you realize like they've got to be connected somehow. The family stories we were hearing about the family that had the film connected it to the film that we all know. And then there's the date code on the film. So on on original film, this wouldn't be on a copy, but on the camera original, it has date codes. It has certain information about the film that only the original has. And so we can we can see that it's from 1966 and we had some film. Experts look at it and estimate that. Yeah, maybe it was shot in early 67, but it had to be shot in 66, like 66 because of the quality of the image that we had. So talking to several film experts and then we start piecing it together. And then it's OK. What does that mean then if it's shot prior to this famous Patterson film? But there's all these similarities. The core, the choreography essentially, for lack of better terms, looks the same. It's walking, it's shaky, it's walking. It kind of stops and turns. And essentially the footage. And again, your doc. Is out today as we release this episode. But essentially you are looking at what looks very similar to the Bigfoot in the original film. But there are also people in shot. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. There's somebody on a horse in the beginning of the film, which is unlike the the famous, well-known 1967 Patterson Gimlin film. So yeah, I mean, listen, it was a pretty jaw dropping moment when we came to the conclusion that there's something, you know, definitely interesting. And unique to this film and what it's going to do and set course for the other film. I think for us, we were thinking, well, how are you going to make a feature film out of this? It's like it's one thing to have another, you know, 45, 60 second piece of evidence. But what's going to really bring it together? What's going to make it interesting to a wider audience? And that's when we started going down the rabbit hole. And at first, Mark found the book by Greg Long. Yeah. There's a book. The Making of Bigfoot. Which had come out in the early 2000s. And once we started reading that, that's when the holy shit moment came, where it was like the origin. These are cowboy characters. Yeah. The origin story of Roger Patterson and all the other characters that came to be to, to make this happen. And then the greed and deceit and friendships torn apart and families torn apart. Once we started seeing all that. And we knew that Greg. Yeah. We knew it was going to happen. audio interviews with characters who are now dead and some that are still alive that's when we were like okay we have the foundation for a real film because you gotta understand that was before we even got clint patterson roger's son involved and any of those other you know characters yes we started building out the edit with these tapes and with archival and with this new footage and thought okay we're making the film at this point not thinking that we're going to get this the patterson family involved because they've never they've never done interviews for never and so when clint patterson especially came on board i remember like an hour through our first interview and i was just like this changed throw away everything that we were doing because he's such a great character he's so raw and emotional this is such a big part of his life and he's now he's now our main character as someone watching the original bit of footage never thought about the people behind it and here you've got this man who's and there's so much weight on him like what this footage represents and what it did to his family as everyone got involved and essentially trying to make money off it, it got crazy, which is also like a very American thing, like commercializing this bit of conspiracy in the world, you know? Yeah. And the person I give a pass to is probably his mom, Roger's widow, because Roger dies in 1972 and she's left with three kids still living at home. They're all, you know, in their early teens at that point, not even, you know, maybe Clint's 13, I think. And he's got a younger brother and older sister. And so she's left with no money, but she's got this asset of this Bigfoot film that people are so fascinated by. And she figures out a way to monetize it. And she starts licensing it to documentaries. And then but then you've got all these the wolves that come out and she's getting sued left and right by other people that want a piece of it. And it was really just a nightmare for the family. And it caused so many problems. And you've got somebody like Clint, who, you know, he worshipped his dad, on one hand, but he was he never asked to be you know, he was born into this thing and he lived his whole life with it, with this, with this, you know, story that he wasn't sure what to do with. When we got to him, we had no idea, but he was ready to tell his story. He'd been wanting to tell it for years. And then when we approach him and got to know him a little bit, and he knew that we had this new piece of footage, that was kind of his, his out in a way to be able to tell the story that he'd been wanting to tell. I mean, it's sort of, it's kind of incredible, isn't it? This footage allows you a window into that world and people trust you suddenly as well right it's fucking crazy it is and i i'm part of what you see in the film is we we also get to explore sort of the arc of greg long the author of this book and it it's interesting because he gets a lot of stuff right in his book i don't know if i necessarily agree with some of his conclusions on roger patterson's character and the end and i'll be all of what rogers motivations were for doing the the film in the first place but what's interesting is you look at the different mediums you know like that book came out but it it didn't make a dent on the wider scale and then it also certainly didn't convince anyone in the bigfoot community then you have our film that's coming out and even just you know two or three hundred people that saw it at south by southwest what's happening on reddit and all throughout the community, you have hardcore believers that are hearing third party, what we might have in our film. And there are already some people throwing in the towel. Now, what I think is interesting is just to be clear to anyone listening to this, like Mark and I never set out to prove or disprove whether Bigfoot as an entity exists or not. All right. This is all about one big, this is about a piece of footage, a piece of footage, famous Bigfoot. It happens to be the gold standard for a lot of people that have thought bigfoot has existed the last 60 year plus years but that that's our goal with this particular film is telling that story the characters and ultimately exposing something interesting that's been hidden from the public for six decades you touched on it there but i'm curious what the feedback's been like because obviously as we speak to you i'm the head of the film's release when we record this you played at south by southwest which is primarily a dock and a film crowd you don't have room the room's full of bigfoot enthusiasts but I checked Reddit and you guys have like really fucked things up the Bigfoot community like people are just losing their minds yeah they're basically saying it's like the biggest thing to happen to Bigfoot since the Patterson film it is no and I think that I don't want to I don't want to talk that down because that's kind of incredible in this world because one thing about I think the world of Bigfoot that I've found is that no one's ever really convinced of anything everyone just kind of writes every bit of uh skepticism off but this film is making people as you say throw in the towel like how does that feel like what has that been like you're crushing people's well killing santa claus and what i think about that is like yeah you're kind of killing santa but we're not we're not just this big for you might be real guys i mean come on that's why yeah but how that all shook out was really kind of fascinating as well i mean we had our world premiere. And there was one Bigfoot person that was there that we had actually met and filmed with at a convention, you know, a year before. And she came down, you know, and was like, I'm like, you know, it was great and everything, but she wasn't going online and telling everybody about it. The next screening we get, we get wind that somebody from the Bigfoot community who has a YouTube show, he was waiting six hours in line. He was the first person in line and he's live streaming it and everything. We, and we actually hear that he's maybe going to try to record it with meta glasses or something. So we were on it. We went and we're like, "Hey man, we can't have that, "but so glad you're here, come on in." And so he watches the film and is just blown away. That night he goes and makes a reaction video that kind of ended up going a little bit viral. And that is what all the Bigfoot community saw. And he's been getting so much heat. He was getting like death threats and getting doxxed and everything. really just because he was the one like just reporting the messenger saw in the film and so then it took off and now you've got all that infighting i mean at one point you go to yahoo.com and it's me and our little bigfoot mascot and that's like the main image on yahoo.com and it says the bigfoot world is being torn apart by a new documentary so it's just like what is happening here they actually like banned us on like banned people from talking about on reddit for like a week because it was getting too hostile they're like there's not enough information about this film still out there because this was like a couple weeks ago like so we are we are halting any ability to have conversations about this film we pulled it from we had a couple other festivals we had already accepted and we were like we can't we're not going to show it until we're ready to release the film yeah we just realized like we could not have a leak of the new footage like that really that would it just part of our whole campaign is yeah it's your secret sauce exactly it would just damage the film too if that was out before the story about it was was out how the people that you interviewed all the characters in the film including his son are they what are they making of this up that this release you know as i said this podcast comes out on release day but how are they most everybody's super pumped you know you've got like clint patterson's and his cousin vale thompson you've got bob hieronymus obviously this is a total redemption story for him who's that for people that don't know so for bob spoiler alert yes spoiler alert bob hieronymus is the alleged person you know i'll still say alleged and he's been he's been making the claim since yeah he's been making the claim 1967 well but publicly since about 2000 since greg long's book that he was the person in the bigfoot suit and people were really nasty to him calling him a drunk and a liar he went on like lie detector shows like tried to clear his name but it never stuck and everyone basically that was in the bigfoot community just thought he was he was lying you know you get to see his arc throughout the film which is really amazing the subject that made us kind of most nervous about seeing the film was clint's mom roger's widow patty patterson who's she's such a sweet who's never done an interview or anything and there's it's a ride for her in this film and we showed it to them or we we decided to have like a family and friends screening in yakima washington like a few days before south by southwest because most of the people involved weren't going to be able to make it out there clint came out a couple people came out but we thought we that no one was going to be able to make it out there so we decided to make it out nobody had seen it we got to show it and clint's mom last minute was like i think i'd like to come and we thought there was no chance that she was going to be interested in so here she comes and again it's it's tough you know so we had to say like ride it out wait till the end you know don't get up and leave when you probably want to and um and she came up to us after the film and held our hands and was just like you did a wonderful job i loved it and that was quite the relief that must feel like a weight lifted off your shoulders it was a huge weight lifted off our shoulders i produced a lot of films i'd say like with this particular film it's one of my favorite ones and mostly because of the characters and how we went about over the several year process of approaching certain characters at the right time strategically figuring out how to unveil this and roll this out because that was another component to this whole project which was we didn't want this to spread throughout the bigfoot community in a way like too early on because we didn't want to be able to get people on because that could have hindered our ability to interview certain people so i think from that standpoint it's really amazing that you know i think the characters are going to really love it i think the one character that's not is bob gillen we offered him a lot of a lot of exit ramps to possibly go down and the one person we're so disappointed is not going to ever see it is jeff meldrum dr jeff meldrum because he passed away last year right yes and just for our audience who doesn't know who that is so dr jeff meldrum uh phd uh at idaho idaho state university who spent his entire life he was a child nine or ten years old when he saw the patterson gimlin film presented by roger presented by roger patterson at one of the four-walled live events and from that moment forward it was like burned into his brain about the fact that he was playing about bigfoot and he went on to become a phd in anatomy and and cryptozoology and and really was the most sort of you know grounded scientific voice in the bigfoot community really put himself out there on a limb like to the point where he got ridiculed by you know fellow associates and and people within his field you know i recently i haven't told you this i recently heard from somebody that that's a professor that said do not use my name anywhere but he's at a university in the united states and he was saying because the question has come up without jeff meldrum who is going to from the academic side or the science side going to be going to support bigfoot there's really nobody else and he is really following this closely and he reached out he says just so you know there are some of us with an interest but nobody else is willing to put our name behind it and he he's kind of on the fence on it this particular person but he said there's a group of us and meldrum was trying to get them all to come out together nobody else would yeah but he was someone that was bold enough to kind of like put his image on the line to do his thing which is pretty incredible yeah he almost didn't get tenure because of it and yeah can you talk to the scale of the bigfoot community for i mean working as closely with it yeah some people are like there's a bigfoot community exactly but you have scholars and you have people working with you as far as the size though i you know we're going to find out i guess on release day how many people are actually going to buy this movie it's hard to know isn't it because as you've got people that are genuinely genuinely into it but then i feel like reality shows like finding bigfoot maybe balloon it out to seem bigger than it is and it's more the entertainment that's interesting i don't know but even the fact that there's a big reddit community and people and yeah i mean let's let's call it you know tens of thousands how many tens who knows i also think it's a spectrum i think you've you've got the hardcore people that are actually like planning trips going out into the woods to like look for these we're going to the convention going and going to the conventions but even the people that go to the conventions i i wouldn't say are on that hardcore level because there's a lot of people that just like the sort of fantasy of it the lore of it you know social right it's meeting your friends and catching out with people exactly and doing bonfires and camping and doing all that stuff and like oh you know maybe we're going to see bigfoot so i think there's a i think there's a big spectrum and and there's obviously you've got a lot of kid friendly content for bigfoot and then you've got you've got a lot of content for bigfoot content for bigfoot and then you've got like adult like serious stuff so it's it i think there's a lot well and we made a movie that we do think that anybody interested in bigfoot will be interested in love but also we want we hope we made a movie that is more general interest to the the characters and the the stakes of these characters like the way i think about it is they just so happen to be in the bigfoot subject that's exactly right totally yeah i think your characters are just so lovable and they're just so much fun to watch and i think that's the thing that i think is really cool is that yeah i mean two of them that are battling or next door neighbors essentially there's always like a neighbors at war yeah at some point in america yep for sure what did you take away from this like did you come away with other opinions on bigfoot or on america and the way it works i don't know what did you learn throughout this process yourself it's hard for me not to just think about like this Bigfoot community, you know, and how, uh, you know, the, for the first two weeks after South by Southwest, I was watching and entertained by the conversation, but then it got um and you know i'm getting called all these names and how i'm you know just full of shit and liar and maybe i'm actually ai maybe i'm maybe the film's ai like the new film the new mystery film was ai and then the documentary doesn't exist it's ai and then like i think actually that's not a real person that director like that but he's ai could be bigfoot i don't know when people start to debate your existence so that was weird and but it kind of reminded me too of like when it like ai is like the new fake news as soon as anything could be labeled fake news everything was fake news and so now that anything could be ai everything is and so i think that's you know a conversation that's happening i think you make a really good point i mean i've heard that so often now like you can just use that to write anything off whatsoever well i think we can confirm you're not ai thank you no but who's gonna be you no i'm deeply curious to see the reaction i'm gonna be glued on reddit all day just seeing what people are saying but congrats on the film i i think i was saying this earlier but it's the first bigfoot doc or bit of unscripted um that i've ever watched where i'm like this is great this is amazing it's full blown doc it's not to be clear it's not capturing bigfoot it's a you've done the work and it's fucking wonderful thank you yeah i'm so happy is there anything else you wanted to particularly share about the film that i've completely glossed over so it's exclusively on amazon okay so that's where you're going to be able to rent and purchase it starting today so go check it out um and then yeah if you can make some of these limited theatrical event screenings that are still you know happening during the next week come see us come see us we'll be there we'll be selling merch have a beer with us have a beer i mean i feel like this is the kind of doc you want to see in a theater because there are so many fun surprising moments in there it's been great i want to watch this with some bigfoot fans that's what i want the screenings we had with an audience were awesome and then we've had a couple other like like more private screenings, but still with a pretty good crowd and just seeing those reactions. I mean, a lot of laughs. I mean, there's a lot of humor in it. You know, the goal, like my goal is always like, I want to make you laugh. I'll make you cry. I think it delivers on both of those things. And then at the end of it, it also has some big, you know, these revelations that changed a conversation that's been happening for 60 years. So, you know, that it delivers in that way as well. It's a tearjerker too. I would say anyone should be watching this film, renting it. It's a date night type of film. It's also, you know, it's just a, it's a real human story wrapped around a piece of evidence that, you know, is going to kind of flip the lid on a six decade old, you know, film. Well, as well as I think I know that footage, I had no idea about the insane backstory behind it. I'd never thought about it. Nobody does. I never thought about the number of people involved, the conspiracy theories around it, and just mainly all the interpersonal relationships all tied in to this very short bit of footage of a supposed Bigfoot. 59 seconds. Yeah, that's it. Like so much drama over a tiny bit of film. And now you've just created a whole lot more. I kind of. It's a mess. I wish I could talk more about the actual doc, but I don't want to do spoilers. Just to say it will completely change the way you see that incredibly famous grainy footage of Bigfoot. Yeah, I'm curious. I'm curious to see because you haven't seen it yet. I'm curious, though, to see who actually believed in Bigfoot that this is the show before. So the fact that you were nine before this documentary and what are you now? It's taken me down to a it's interesting because I believe it completely shows that that footage is bullshit. Yeah. So the footage wise, I'm down to a zero. Yeah. The big question that comes off the back of that is if that footage is completely bullshit, which was the main sort of evidence for Bigfoot existing at all. Yeah, flaming torch that we're all sort of heading towards. It's a confusing metaphor. I made that up. It's kind of like Bigfoot in general, maybe now he's a three, footage a zero. Let's compare that. We find out there's evidence that the moon landing footage is fake. Does that then fully reveal that the moon landing happened? That's a really good. Or they just were like, we wanted a Hollywood version of what we did. That is a great question because I don't have an answer. I need to think about this. What's interesting, if you go onto the Reddit for Bigfoot at the moment already, as we record, this has been crazy. The day we release it, the community is having huge debate. And the interesting thing is because it's about this unearthed bit of film, there's a bunch of people now in the Bigfoot community saying, oh, this is clearly just AI. Why are we believing these guys? And that's the debate. The new footage is AI. Essentially accusing the documentary makers, why should we trust them that they got this film out of an archive in a safe? Clearly it's AI to make a big stir. And that's the situation we have now with any kind of footage we see, right? It's AI. I mean, it's- But the original footage, not AI. Original footage, not AI. Not faked. Yeah. Original footage, real. Very real. Wasn't faked. So I don't know. That is a funny though take to be defending original footage with the idea that footage could be fake. It's such a contradiction. Because obviously when the original footage came out, no AI, but the debate and Bigfoot enthusiasts would largely defend it as being real. Like it couldn't be a person in a costume. This is too good. So they're defending the original footage by saying new footage is fake, but not that their original footage is fake. When you put it that way, it's exactly what's happening. And that is what is, you know, jump on Reddit today because especially after watching the film, because the debate, you're just watching Bigfoot heads lose their minds in various ways. And when the film premiered at South by Southwest, it is said there was one Bigfoot enthusiast there that ended up going back to Reddit. And there's just been debate ever since. And it's just, yeah, I really like the doc. I really admire what they're doing with it. And I'm just curious, like long term, what this will do. You know, we're also living in a world where the truth can come out about something, but things are moving at such a pace. No one takes any notice. My takeaway on that though, is that Bigfoot being real or not is really not impacting my day to day. Is it not? Are you not waking up every morning trying to riddled with like doubt about reality? So it being, debunked doesn't change the course of most of my life. Yeah, I think it definitely had an effect on me because as a kid, I got really obsessed with that footage. And I was like, oh my God, I'm watching. Right. A Bigfoot. Yeah. But you're right. It's not gonna change the foundations of reality. Right. I mean, you became a journalist though, because you watched that footage and you want it. I'm walking back. I'm not gonna do any more journalism or any more documentary. That gets debunked. Your whole life's purpose is gone. I'm out. I'm gonna go and work at a Chili's. I think that's me now. Also, it's the characters in the film, as they said, are incredibly engaging and something I hadn't picked up on, which the film goes into is you had this bit of footage and that was now this huge moneymaker. And when that happened, the way it tore a family apart is just very, also very American and also very human. Bigfoot, it's called Capturing Bigfoot. Highly recommend it. Especially on today, if you're listening. National Bigfoot Day. Feedback. Feedback. I think it's fair to say that as you predicted, Rob, the feedback from Mormons keeps on coming in. Yes. Part two. Part two. Is probably on the horizon. That is the nice thing about doing those very broad topics is the feedback often leads to deeper and different avenues to explore on the topic. Sort of niche sidebars to a very broad topic. Yes. The overall feedback, and I think it says a lot about our audience, probably is that we were too fair to Mormons, which I would personally agree with that. I would agree, but I think it's also hard to make an episode of something and attack a group of people based on their beliefs. It gets into some pretty tricky territory. Right. I'm going to read an email from Alison, because I think it's like, I think it sums up the criticisms of Mormonism in a really good way. And I found this really interesting. So I'm just going to read it out. She listened, Alison listened twice to the Mormonism episode, which I give them credit for. And mainly she said, it doesn't sit well with me that Mormons are considered as less dicey, which was a quote from me. Here is a few bits of context. And if you're interested in further reading on a critical assessment of the LDS and subsequent spinoffs like the FLDS, I recommend John Krakow, Under the Banner of Heaven. It's very well researched and presents a disturbing account of how claims to divine authority and concentration of power shape a religious community. Mormons are not as nice as you would believe. Professor Gibbons left a few things out in his discussion of Mormons, including why they were being persecuted in Illinois. And I will note at this point that Professor Gibbons spoke about what I spoke to him about. So anything that he didn't say, I'd kind of more pin on myself, David Farrier, than him, because I was the one leading that conversation. But this is what Allison thinks he left out that was interesting. It should be noted that Joseph Smith should by all definitions be considered a charlatan. He was a treasure seeker, one of those people that had a magic seer stone in a hat and charged people money to find lost treasure. He was prosecuted in the 1920s for this and later had much better luck in starting a religion. He left New York for Zion. That version was in Missouri. And after being run out of Missouri, he settled his flock in Illinois. Here's where you glossed over the reasons they had to eventually flee Illinois. Smith had secretly begun marrying younger girls, including teens. The local paper wrote an exposé on Smith alleging abuse of authority and criticizing the practice of polygamy with young girls. Smith was the mayor, and many of his fellow Mormons were on the city council. They ordered the press destroyed. Not a great move to do. No, someone decides to destroy the press. Seems similar to certain things. I'm wondering what's going on now. Not a great vibe. Opponents began protesting. Smith declared martial law and called in the Nauvoo Legion, the militia with lots of guns to support him and his followers. The governor gets involved and Smith and brother Hiram were arrested on charges of treason. The mob killed both Smith and Hiram. After a few years of continued hostilities, Brigham Young did lead the rest of the followers out of Utah. Now that this goes on, I'll just summarize this. And again, that book, Under the Banner of Heaven, is a very good read, apparently. I will be reading it. They made it into a TV show as well. You're completely right. So if you want to read, read. If you want to watch, watch. There is a pattern within the faith of problematic beliefs, pressure from outside sources, and suddenly the current prophet receives a new revelation from God and doctrinal changes follow. It happened with polygamy, which was sanctioned by the church until the 90s. 1980s. One other thing that stood out from her email to me, while taking place before the Utah Compromise that Givens spoke of, Mormons donated almost $20 million to the Prop 8 campaign in California seeking to ban gay marriage, and the Utah Compromise did not stop the church from encouraging members to vote against gay marriage in Australia in 2017. So in short, lots of shit about the Mormons that can be explored much further. Jesse also wrote in from Texas. He said, I thought it was interesting your guests didn't mention Mormons' history of treatment of black and brown people. While they had been involved in the LDS since its inception, they were not allowed to participate in the ordinances of its temples, which is required for the highest levels of salvation. They were taught that their skin was a punishment and that they should become white when they get to heaven. This didn't change until 1976. I felt this was an important thing to mention. And again, I don't want to come down on Givens. I didn't lead him into that. And I don't think it's all on him. Now I'm an apologist for us folks present for the church. And finally, Eric said, I was listening to the Mormons episode. And at about the 30 minute mark, you mentioned when Mormonism was invented. Uh oh, I thought I have no skin in the game, but wondering whether you got any grief from that statement. Actually didn't get any grief from saying invented, but I do think it was invented as most religions are. I guess my point being, like most organized religions, um, manmade religions, um, there is a lot of dicey shit going on within it. Yes. And it's funny. I was thinking about this in my mind, I felt almost more out there and crazy giving a professor and a believer their perspective in the episode. My default is just being like, this is horrible. Burn it all down. And it's such a funny thing when thinking about how we present these topics. But I do think that email was good to include because it is some of the gross aspects of the origins and current church. Yes, absolutely. If you have feedback about Bigfoot, about anything, we always flight the spread chat at gmail.com. If you want to hear Rob give a blow by blow of, um, going from an excited, um, man into a depressed shell during, um, several baseball games, then our Patreon bonus episode, latest one is about that. And, and thanks for voting us, um, for the signal awards. Anyone who did that, you're wonderful. We'll let you know if we win. Yeah, you can, you can find us on Patreon, patreon.com slash this bird. Uh, you can watch us on YouTube. You can watch us on Spotify with less ads. Yes. We are in your eardrums and in your eyeballs. Um, not the smell. We haven't done that yet. No, no, no, no. If you meet us in person, don't sniff us either. Smell is off balance. You can only see and listen. See you next week. See you next week. Bye.