メインコンテンツまでスキップ

2000年, Honobia(Oklahoma) での Bigfoot による襲撃事件 ⇒ この事件を推測する

· 約215分

前置き​

2000年に起きた Bigfoot による襲撃事件を Jimmy Akin が解説している動画から。

Jimmy Akin はこの事件は捏造ではなく、実際に起きたのだろう…と判断している。つまり、Bigfoot の襲撃が実際に起きたと。

末尾でこの事件を推測した。

概要​

AI

ホノビアのビッグフット包囲戦とコミュニケーションの謎

この情報源は、ジミー・エイキンズの「ミステリアス・ワールド」というポッドキャストのエピソード378「ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦」からの抜粋です。

このエピソードでは、‌‌信仰と理性という二つの視点から、未解明な事柄を探求する‌‌という番組の前提が提示されています。

特に、‌‌2000年にオクラホマ州ホノビア近郊で一家がビッグフットに包囲されたとされる事件‌‌に焦点を当て、その経緯や関係者の証言、ビッグフットに関する一般的な考察が語られています。議論は、事件の‌‌目撃情報、ビッグフット調査組織（BFRO）の報告、そして生存者である家族の一員のインタビュー要約‌‌に基づいて進められ、‌‌目撃された生物の行動特性、それが熊のような既知の動物である可能性‌‌などが検討されています。

最終的に、‌‌この出来事が実際の体験である可能性が高い‌‌と結論付けられていますが、その‌‌解釈については様々な意見‌‌が提示されています。

目次​

  1. 前置き
  2. 概要
  3. 事件の主な内容
    1. 1. ビッグフットによる鹿肉の盗難
    2. 2. 家屋への侵入試行
    3. 3. 銃撃戦
  4. 詳細
    1. 1. ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦の概要
    2. 2. 事件の背景と場所
    3. 3. 事件の経緯とタイムライン
    4. 4. 主要な登場人物とそれぞれの視点
    5. 5. 主な事実と出来事
    6. 6. ビッグフットか、それとも他の動物か？
    7. 7. 研究者コミュニティにおける課題
    8. 8. 解決策と結末（異なる見解）
    9. 9. 結論
  5. Bigfoot の行動と能力
    1. ビッグフットの行動
    2. ビッグフットの能力
    3. より大きな文脈と論争点
  6. BFRO の関与
    1. BFROへの連絡と初期対応
    2. 調査員の派遣と現場での観察
    3. BFROの理論とハンフリーズ家との摩擦
    4. BFROの報告とマイクの反論
    5. その他のBFRO関連の言及
  7. ティム・ハンフリーズ（父親）の体験
  8. マイケル・ハンフリーズ（ティムの兄弟）の体験
  9. Jimmy Akin の判断 : 捏造された事件ではない
  10. 時系列
  11. 主要関係者
  12. この事件を推測する
    1. (*1)
    2. 関連
  13. 情報源
  14. 文字起こし（話者識別）

事件の主な内容​

AI

ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦という大きな文脈において、情報源は‌‌ビッグフットによる鹿肉の盗難、家屋への侵入試み、そして銃撃戦という一連の主要な出来事が、ハンフリーズ家を襲った長期間にわたる恐ろしい嫌がらせの中心であった‌‌と詳しく述べています。これらの出来事は、家族が直面した物理的および精神的な脅威を浮き彫りにしています。

1. ビッグフットによる鹿肉の盗難​

  • ‌‌始まり‌‌: 最初期の被害の一つとして、裏庭の物置小屋にあった屋外の冷凍庫ユニットから鹿肉が盗まれました。これは、ビッグフットが家屋に近づき始めた主なきっかけの一つでした。
  • ‌‌規模と方法‌‌: マイクによると、物置小屋に吊るされていた‌‌鹿の死骸5頭がすべて持ち去られました‌‌。ティムの妻は、屋外の物置小屋にある大きな胸の高さの冷凍庫から「3頭分の鹿肉が丸ごと」盗まれたと述べています。冷凍庫には鍵がかかっていませんでしたが、重い蓋を持ち上げる必要があったとされています。
  • ‌‌他の食料の盗難‌‌: 鹿肉だけでなく、鶏小屋から‌‌30羽の鶏がすべていなくなり‌‌、吸い出されて割れた卵の跡が森の中に続いていたことも報告されています。これは黒クマでは説明できない行動だと指摘されています。
  • ‌‌BFROの分析‌‌: BFROの調査員マットは、ビッグフットが鹿肉を狙っていたことが、彼らが頻繁に人間居住地に現れるようになった根本的な原因であると考えていました。彼らは鹿を誘引するためにスノウピーを植えていたと当初推測していましたが、マイクはこの主張を否定し、スノウピーは土地購入時から存在していたと述べています。

2. 家屋への侵入試行​

  • ‌‌初期の嫌がらせ‌‌: 鹿肉が尽きると、ビッグフットはより大胆になり、家屋への侵入を試み始めました。ティムは、ビッグフットが家の窓から見つめ、3歳の娘を怖がらせたこと、家を叩いたり、子供たちを怖がらせたり、森の中で叫び声を上げたり、引っ掻いたりしたと報告しています。
  • ‌‌エスカレーション‌‌: マイクは、当初は週に1、2回だった嫌がらせが、その後毎晩のように行われるようになったと述べています。ビッグフットは深夜過ぎから夜明け前まで、寝室の窓を叩いたり、家を叩いたり、石を投げつけたり、窓から家族や子供たちを覗き込んだり、子供たちに唸り声を上げたりしました。
  • ‌‌直接的な試み‌‌: BFROへの当初のメッセージで、マイクはビッグフットが「複数回、家に入ろうとした」と述べていますが、彼は後に、当初は「侵入を試みていたわけではない」ものの、‌‌銃撃事件の後、彼らは実際に「決意を持って家に入ろうと試み始めた」‌‌と説明しています。ティムの妻も、単に窓を引っ掻くのではなく、「窓の一部を剥ぎ取り、家に入ろうとする試みが大胆になった」と証言しています。
  • ‌‌来訪者への攻撃‌‌: マイクの姉妹が幼い子供たちを連れて訪れた際、ビッグフットは木陰から現れ、子供たちに唸り声を上げ、車や姉妹にソフトボール大の石を投げつけました。マイクの18歳の姪が車から降りた際には、20フィート離れた場所で唸り声を上げられ、家の中に逃げ込むと、ビッグフットは窓に顔を近づけて歯を見せ、唸り声を上げたと言います。
  • ‌‌ビッグフットの知能‌‌: ビッグフットは家のモーションセンサーライトの範囲外に棒を置いてマーキングし、さらにモーションセンサー自体を空に向けて無効にするなど、高い知能と適応能力を示しました。

3. 銃撃戦​

  • ‌‌発端‌‌: 家族の恐怖と嫌がらせのエスカレーションにより、武装した防衛が始まりました。ティムは1997年頃から生物の存在に気づき、一度は発砲して命中させたと思ったと報告されています。
  • ‌‌決定的な銃撃‌‌: 妻と子供たちが一時的に避難した後、マイクとティムは家の中で武装して待機していました。ある夜、ビッグフットが窓の外で唸り声を上げたとき、ティムは「もうたくさんだ」と言って外に出て、その生物に‌‌3発発砲し、背中、頭、肺に命中させました‌‌。
  • ‌‌ビッグフットの死と回収‌‌: マイクは、撃たれた生物が「撃たれた人のように」よろめき、血をゴロゴロさせ、空気を吸い込む音を聞いて「死ぬのを聞いた」と証言しています。彼らが死骸を回収しようと近づくと、他のビッグフットたちが現れて彼らを襲撃し、撃たれた仲間を肩に担いで運び去ったと報告しています。
  • ‌‌現場の証拠とBFROの見解‌‌: 翌朝、現場には「5ガロンバケツ3つ分の血」と「脳物質」があったとマイクは詳細に述べています。しかし、BFROのマットは、血痕は鹿のものであり、ビッグフットは負傷していないと推測しました。マイクはこれに異議を唱え、彼らはビッグフットが命中し倒れたのを目撃したと主張しています。
  • ‌‌銃撃戦の継続とBFROの関与‌‌: BFROの調査員も滞在中に家から発砲する音を聞き、彼ら自身もビッグフットの目撃を報告しています。BFROは当初、ビッグフットが鹿狩りに慣れており、銃撃の標的が変わったことに気づいていないという説を立てました。しかし、マイクとティムはビッグフットを射殺する権利を強く主張していました。
  • ‌‌政府の介入と収束‌‌: 一連の銃撃事件は、最終的に州の魚類野生生物局による監視につながり、ハンフリーズ家は裏庭での無差別な狩猟や発砲を止めざるを得なくなりました。マイクは、BFROが意図的に当局に情報を提供し、彼らを裏切ったのではないかと疑っていました。BFROの報告書では、その後ビッグフットの活動は収束したとされていますが、マイクはこれを「少なくともいくらか誤解を招く」と述べ、2018年時点でも活動が続いており、彼自身はまだビッグフットを撃つ意思があることを示唆しています。

これらの出来事は、単なる目撃談にとどまらず、家族が直面した激しい紛争と、ビッグフットの知性、行動、そしてそれが人間の生活に与える壊滅的な影響についての深い洞察を提供しています。

詳細​

AI

ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦に関する詳細なブリーフィング資料

このブリーフィング資料は、「Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World」のエピソード378「Honobia Bigfoot Siege」の文字起こしに基づき、ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦の主要なテーマ、最も重要なアイデア、事実をレビューし、必要に応じて原文からの引用を含んでいます。

1. ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦の概要​

2000年1月、オクラホマ州ホノビア近郊の農村地域に住むハンプリーズ一家（ティム夫妻と2人の幼い子供）が、ビッグフットとされる生物たちに包囲されるという事件が発生しました。この生物たちは当初、屋外の冷凍庫から鹿肉を盗んでいましたが、肉がなくなると家への侵入を試み始めました。一家は恐怖に陥り、夜間に銃撃戦が繰り広げられました。ビッグフット研究者もこの絶望的な包囲戦の一部を目撃しました。

「2000年、オクラホマ州ホノビア近郊の農村家族がビッグフットに包囲された。生物たちは屋外の冷凍庫から鹿肉を盗んでおり、肉がなくなると家への侵入を試み始めた。両親と2人の幼い子供たちは恐怖に陥り、夜間に緊迫した銃撃戦が繰り返された。彼らはビッグフット研究者も呼び寄せ、研究者たちは絶望的な包囲戦の一部を目撃した。」 (00:01:20)

2. 事件の背景と場所​

事件はオクラホマ州南東部、通称「リトル・ディキシー」と呼ばれるチョクトー・ネーション内にあるキアミチ山脈で発生しました。この地域は、南北戦争後に多くの南部人が移住した歴史を持ち、またバックウッドの人々が警察に頼らず自分たちで問題を解決する傾向がある場所として説明されています。

「場所はオノビ、オクラホマで、私の住む場所から約2時間半のところにある。」 (00:03:11) 「チョクトー・ネーションで今日の謎が起こる。」 (00:04:28) 「キアミチはワシタ山脈の支脈である。」 (00:07:27)

3. 事件の経緯とタイムライン​

  • 1997年頃: ティム・ハンプリーズは自分の土地周辺の森で奇妙な生物の存在に気づき始める。

  • 1999年冬～2000年1月: 生物が家により接近し、窓から中を覗いたり、家の側面を叩いたり、屋外の冷凍庫から鹿肉を盗んだりするようになる。一度、ティムは4体の生物を目撃し、1体に発砲、命中したと考えている。

  • 2000年1月29日: タルサ・ワールド紙に事件に関する記事が掲載される。この記事は懐疑的なトーンであったものの、事件の「現代的な記録」として重要視されている。

  • 最初の銃撃事件後: 生物たちの行動はさらに大胆になり、家への侵入を明確に試みるようになったとハンプリーズ兄弟は解釈。

  • BFRO（Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization）の介入: ハンプリーズ一家のマイケルがBFROに連絡。研究者たちが現場を訪れる。

  • BFROの調査中: BFROの研究者たちも生物の活動を目撃し、銃撃戦も発生。BFROは、ティムが鹿を惹きつけるためにエンドウ豆を植えていたため、ビッグフットが傷ついた鹿を狙って集まってきていたという仮説を立てる。

  • BFROの撤退と当局の介入: BFROは「神経質な住民の銃撃」により危険な状況であると判断し、研究と抑止という目的の対立から撤退。その頃、州の魚類・狩猟局が状況を監視するようになり、一家は鹿肉の保管と敷地内での狩猟を中止するよう説得される。

  • 事件の沈静化（BFROの見解）: BFROの報告書によると、ビッグフットの活動は徐々に減少し、最終的には完全に停止したとされている。

  • 事件の継続（マイケルの見解）: マイケルは2018年のインタビューで、BFROの報告書は誤解を招くものであり、ビッグフットの活動は今日まで続いていると主張している。

4. 主要な登場人物とそれぞれの視点​

  • ティム・ハンプリーズ（一家の父親）: 銃撃の実行者。家族を守るため、生物を殺すことを決意している。BFROの研究目的には協力的でなかった。

  • マイケル・ハンプリーズ（ティムの兄弟）: BFROに最初に連絡を取った人物。事件の重要な目撃者であり、2018年のインタビューで詳細な情報を提供。ティムが生物を殺したことで、生物たちの行動がより攻撃的になったと考えている。BFROが当局に情報を漏洩したと疑っている。

  • BFRO（Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization）: 専門家チーム。現場に派遣された研究者（マイルズ、ロジャー、マット）は、一家の恐怖と誠実さに感銘を受け、ビッグフットの存在に確信を持った。しかし、住民の銃撃により危険を感じ、研究目的との対立から撤退。彼らは鹿の誘引が問題の根本原因だと考えていた。

5. 主な事実と出来事​

  • 鹿肉の盗難: 屋外の冷凍庫から大量の鹿肉が盗まれました。マイケルは5頭分の鹿の死骸と30羽の鶏が盗まれたと報告しています。
  • 家への嫌がらせ: 生物は家の側面を叩いたり、窓から覗いたり、戸口のノブを揺すったりしました。マイケルによると、これはティムがビッグフットを撃った後にエスカレートした報復行為だったとされています。
  • 投石: 生物は子供たちや訪問者、車に石を投げつけました。「テニスボール大の石を車に投げつけ、彼女にも投げつけ始めた。」 (00:23:06)
  • 子供への脅威: 子供たちが屋外で遊んでいると、生物が木立の縁に現れ、唸り声を上げたり、木を揺らしたり、石を投げたりしました。
  • 銃撃戦: ティムとマイケルは生物に対して複数回発砲しました。マイケルは、ティムが1体を撃ち、頭、背中、肺に3発命中させたと主張しています。「ティムは3発発砲し、実際にこのものに3回命中させた。」 (00:26:35)
  • 死体の回収: マイケルは、撃たれたビッグフットの死体を別のビッグフットが肩に担いで運び去るのを目撃したと報告しています。「彼らのうちの一人が実際に死体を拾い上げ、肩に担いで、残りの者たちは森の中に散らばっていった。」 (00:27:37) BFROのマットはこれを否定し、血痕は鹿のものだと推測しました。
  • 物理的証拠: BFROの研究者であるマイルズは、家にあったフェンスの損傷を目撃しました。「曲げられた箇所の総面積は約14インチだった。中央の折り目の部分に3つか4つの接触点があったように見え、まるで手がそれを包み込んで握りしめたようだった。」 (00:59:51)
  • 目撃証言: BFROの研究者たちも夜間に生物の「目」の光（アイシャイン）を目撃しました。マイルズは、それらが「ピンクがかった赤」に光り、地上7～8フィートの高さにあったと報告しています。「私はイニシャル視認の数分後に何かを見た。それは赤の反射板のように光った。」 (01:02:12)
  • 知能の兆候: マイケルは、ビッグフットがモーションディテクターライトを無効化するために棒を使って距離を測り、その後、モーションディテクター自体を空に向かって動かしたと報告しています。これは高い知能を示唆しています。「彼のモーションディテクターがすべて上を向いていた。」 (01:11:29)
  • 擬態: マイケルは、ビッグフットが木製のノックを狩猟の合図として使用し、さらには人間の声（特にマイケルの犬を呼ぶ声）を模倣して人間を誘い出そうとしたと述べています。「彼の兄弟が彼に説明したのは、マイクが犬を呼ぶ声とまったく同じだった。」 (01:26:59)
  • 政府による隠蔽説: マイケルは、ビッグフットの存在が経済（特に林業）に壊滅的な影響を与えるため、政府がその存在を隠蔽していると考えています。「アメリカには16億人の雇用がある。サスクワッチの存在が林業で明るみに出たら失われるであろうすべての雇用を考えてみてください。」 (01:33:32)

6. ビッグフットか、それとも他の動物か？​

  • 黒熊説: オクラホマ州森林官のジョン・クラークは、ティムが見たのは黒熊であった可能性を示唆しています。BFROのマットも、当初は鹿の死骸からの血痕だと考えていました。
  • 黒熊説への反論:
    • 冬眠期: 事件は1月で、黒熊の冬眠期にあたります。複数の熊が活発に活動していたとは考えにくいです。
    • 行動の異常性: 黒熊は一般的に臆病であり、発砲されても家を嫌がらせ続けることは非常に珍しい行動です。
    • 物理的な能力: 卵を運ぶ、石を投げる、死体を肩に担いで運ぶ、直立した状態から長距離を跳躍する、人間の声や音を模倣するなどの行動は、熊の能力とは一致しません。
    • 目撃された特徴: マイルズが目撃した7～8フィートの高さのアイシャインは、直立した熊の通常より高めです。窓から覗き込む際に体をかがめる必要があるほどの身長は、熊では極めて異例です。
  • ビッグフット説:
    • ハンプリーズ一家とBFRO研究者の両方が、経験が本物であると確信。
    • 目撃された知的な行動、投石、死体運び、擬態、高身長、そして熊の冬眠期であることなどの要素が、ビッグフットの存在を示唆しています。

7. 研究者コミュニティにおける課題​

  • タイプ標本の必要性: ビッグフットが科学的に認知され、法的に保護されるためには、死体または骨格などの「タイプ標本」が必要であるという議論があります。
  • 研究と保護の対立: 研究者の中には、ビッグフットを捕獲または殺害してタイプ標本を得るべきだと考える者と、保護を優先すべきだと考える者がいます。
  • 公開されない証拠: マイケルは、過去に情報を共有しようとして嘲笑された経験から、写真やビデオを公開することに消極的です。

8. 解決策と結末（異なる見解）​

  • BFROの推奨: 鹿を惹きつけるものを排除し、ビッグフットが立ち去るように仕向けること。
  • 当局の介入: 州の魚類・狩猟局の監視により、一家は敷地内での狩猟を中止。
  • マイケルの視点: BFROの報告とは異なり、ビッグフットの活動は完全に停止したわけではなく、2018年時点でも活動は続いており、彼は依然としてビッグフットを射殺する意図を持っています。
  • 一時的な解決: マイケルは、ビッグフットの行動を無視し、家の中に引きこもることが、嫌がらせを減らす上で最も効果的な方法であると語っています。

9. 結論​

ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦は、一家が経験した恐怖、ビッグフットの高度な知能、そして人間と未知の生物との遭遇の複雑さを示す、非常に興味深い事例です。ホークスではないという強い証拠があり、黒熊によるものとするには矛盾する多くの要素が存在します。

もしビッグフットが存在するとすれば、この事件は彼らが単なる臆病な存在ではなく、状況によっては人間に対して攻撃的になり、高度な知能と戦術的な思考を持つ可能性があることを示唆しています。また、その存在が明らかになった場合、社会経済に与える影響についても考察がなされています。

Bigfoot の行動と能力​

AI

ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦の文脈において、提示された情報源はビッグフットの行動と能力について多岐にわたる詳細を提供しています。この出来事は、ビッグフットが単なる臆病な動物ではなく、ある程度の知性と戦術的な行動を示す可能性のある、高度な能力を持つ生物であることを示唆しています。

ビッグフットの行動​

  • ‌‌積極性と嫌がらせ (Aggression and Harassment):‌‌

    • 最初、彼らは屋外の冷凍庫から鹿肉を盗んでいましたが、肉がなくなると家に入ろうとし始めました。
    • 家を叩いたり、窓を引っ掻いたり、子供たちを怖がらせたり、森で叫び声を上げたり、悲鳴を上げたりしました。
    • 石を投げたり、窓から覗き込んだり、子供たちに唸り声を上げたりする行動は、彼らの存在を示すために行われました。
    • 一頭が撃たれた後、彼らの行動はより攻撃的になり、意図的に家に入ろうと試みたと報告されています。

  • ‌‌戦術的行動と待ち伏せ捕食 (Tactical Behavior and Ambush Predation):‌‌

    • 彼らは人間を家からおびき出そうと、庭をうろついたり、石を投げたりする‌‌おびき出しの戦術‌‌を用いることがありました。これは、獲物を弱い立場に誘い込んで待ち伏せする捕食者の行動と一致します。
    • 狩猟の一環として、木の叩き音（ウッドノック）を使用すると報告されています。ある個体が獲物の通る道の頂上でウッドノックをすると、別の個体が下で応答し、獲物を待ち伏せに追い込む‌‌共同狩猟戦術‌‌を示唆しています。
    • 魚を捕まえる際にも、ナマズ漁の「ヌードリング」のように、水中に手を置いて待ち伏せする戦術を使うと報告されています。

  • ‌‌探知回避と適応 (Detection Avoidance and Adaptation):‌‌

    • モーションディテクター付きライトに対して、最初は後ずさりするものの、やがてその仕組みを理解し、‌‌モーションディテクターの直前で棒を置いてセンサーの範囲外に留まったり‌‌、‌‌モーションディテクターを上向きに動かして無効化したり‌‌する行動を示しました。
    • ゲームカメラの‌‌赤外線が嫌い‌‌であるため、画像に写りにくいとされています。
    • 銃の危険性を理解しており、人間が銃を持って外に出ると散っていくと報告されています。

  • ‌‌社会行動 (Social Behavior):‌‌

    • 複数の個体が同時に目撃されており、一頭が撃たれた際には、他の個体が「パニックに陥り」、‌‌撃たれた個体を肩に担いで運び去った‌‌と報告されています。これは、死んだ仲間を守り、置き去りにしないという社会的な行動を示唆しています。
    • 彼らが死者を埋葬するかどうかは不明ですが、少なくとも死体を運び去ることはあるようです。

ビッグフットの能力​

  • ‌‌身体能力 (Physical Capabilities):‌‌

    • ‌‌並外れた力:‌‌ 屋外の物置から5頭分の鹿の死骸を運び去り、重い冷凍庫の蓋を持ち上げ、金属製のゲートを「手で握って絞り出したような」 ダメージを与え、鹿の足をねじり折る ほどの力があるとされています。
    • ‌‌体格と移動:‌‌ 7〜8フィートの高さがあり、窓から覗くために身をかがめる必要があったと報告されています。四つん這いで素早く走り、その後スムーズに二足歩行に移行し、6フィートのフェンスを50〜60フィートの距離を跳び越えたという報告もあります。
    • ‌‌二足歩行の優位性:‌‌ 熊とは異なり、二足歩行の方が素早く動け、より遠くへ跳躍できるとされており、これは彼らが真に二足歩行の生物であることと一致します。

  • ‌‌感覚能力 (Sensory Capabilities):‌‌

    • ‌‌目の光（アイシャイン）:‌‌ 暗闇で目が光り、光の種類によって赤、黄、緑の色に反射すると報告されています。このアイシャインはタペタムルーシダムと呼ばれる膜によるもので、多くの夜行性動物（クマを含む）にも見られますが、ビッグフットの場合はその高さがクマよりも高いことが指摘されています。
    • ‌‌臭い:‌‌ 「麝香のような尿と焼けた毛のような臭い」がすると報告されています。
    • ‌‌聴覚:‌‌ 悲鳴が物理的に体に響くほど強烈だったと報告されています。

  • ‌‌知能と学習能力 (Intelligence and Learning Ability):‌‌

    • ‌‌原因と結果の推論:‌‌ モーションディテクターの仕組みを理解し、それを無効化する能力は、高度な原因と結果の推論能力を示唆しています。
    • ‌‌状況判断と適応:‌‌ 人間が鹿を狩る際の「スポットライティング」と銃声のパターンを観察し、負傷した鹿を捕獲する機会と認識していた可能性があります。
    • ‌‌道具の使用（間接的証拠）:‌‌ 棒構造を用いてモーションディテクターの範囲をマークしたり、木を叩くために何か他のもの（枝など）を使用したりする 行動は、道具をある程度利用する能力を示唆しています。

  • ‌‌発声と模倣 (Vocalizations and Mimicry):‌‌

    • ‌‌多様な発声:‌‌ 悲鳴、叫び声、唸り声、口笛、ホイッスル、チャタリング（機関銃のような早口の音）など、様々な音を発すると報告されています。
    • ‌‌人間の声の模倣:‌‌ マイケルが犬を呼ぶ声など、‌‌特定の人間の発声を模倣する‌‌能力があると報告されています。これは、攻撃的な模倣（獲物を誘い込むため）または人間とのコミュニケーションの一環である可能性があります。

  • ‌‌食性 (Diet):‌‌

    • 雑食性であるとされています。鹿肉、鶏、卵（中身を吸って殻を割る）、魚（ナマズ漁の「ヌードリング」のような方法で捕獲） など、多様な食物源を利用します。

より大きな文脈と論争点​

これらの情報源は、ホンビア・ビッグフット包囲戦が単純な動物の侵入ではなく、‌‌高度な知能と組織的行動を持つ未知の大型霊長類‌‌によるものであった可能性を示唆しています。特に、クマが冬眠する1月にこれらの事件が発生したという事実は、クマが犯人である可能性を著しく低くしています。クマは卵を運べず、石を投げたり、二足歩行から四つん這いへの移行、あるいは死体を肩に担いで運ぶといった行動もできないため、目撃情報と一致しません。

また、この出来事に関連して、ハンフリーズ家（ティムとマイケル）とビッグフット野外研究機構（BFRO）の間に‌‌いくつかの見解の相違‌‌がありました。例えば、BFROはティムが鹿を撃ったと考えていたのに対し、マイケルはビッグフットを撃ったと主張しています。また、BFROがビッグフット保護のために当局に通報したとマイケルが疑っている点や、スノーピーの由来、事件が完全に解決したかどうかの認識 なども、異なる視点が存在します。

マイケルは、ビッグフットの存在が公になると、林業や観光業に壊滅的な経済的影響を与えるため、‌‌政府がその存在を隠蔽している‌‌という陰謀論を提唱しています。これは、ビッグフットの存在がもたらすであろう大きな影響を強調するものです。

全体として、ホンビア・ビッグフット包囲戦は、ビッグフットが単なる珍しい動物ではなく、複雑な社会行動、高度な知能、そして人間との予期せぬ相互作用の可能性を持つ存在であるという、より深い理解を提供する可能性があります。

BFRO の関与​

AI

ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦において、BFRO（Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization）は、ハンフリーズ家から助けを求める連絡を受け、事態の調査と解決のために介入しました。しかし、彼らの関与と、事件の解釈、そしてハンフリーズ家（特にマイク・ハンフリーズ）の見解の間には、いくつかの相違点や摩擦が存在しました。

以下に、情報源に基づいてBFROの関与について説明します。

BFROへの連絡と初期対応​

  • ‌‌最初の連絡:‌‌ 2000年1月中旬、ハンフリーズ家の‌‌叔父であるマイクがBFROに連絡を取りました‌‌。彼は、イタズラではないこと、兄弟のティムが家族の身を案じていること、そしてクリーチャーが大胆になり、何度も家に入ろうとしていることを伝えました。マイクは、そのクリーチャーが「巨大で、直立歩行し、ムスクのような尿と焼けた毛のような臭いがする」と説明しました。
  • ‌‌事態の深刻さの認識:‌‌ BFROは報告を受けた後、家族に連絡を取り、最初にマイクと話しました。マイクは、少なくとも1頭のビッグフットがほぼ毎晩敷地内に出没し、ポーチに上がったり、窓をいじったり、ドアノブを揺らしたりして家に入ろうとし、屋外の冷凍庫から鹿肉を盗んでいたと主張しました。家族は悲鳴や「チャタリング音」も聞いており、妻と子供たちは一時的に避難させられ、男たちは銃で武装して自宅を守る準備をしていました。

調査員の派遣と現場での観察​

  • ‌‌調査員の派遣:‌‌ BFROは、事態の調査と血痕の回収のためにオハイオ州の航空パイロットを含む調査員を派遣しました。マットというBFRO調査員が電話で住民と連絡を取り、他のメンバーに状況を伝えました。
  • ‌‌ティムの発砲事件とBFROの見解:‌‌ マイクによると、ティムがクリーチャーに3発発砲し、背中、頭、肺に命中させ、それが死ぬ音を聞いた後、他のビッグフットがその死体を運び去ったとされています。
    • しかし、マットはティムと直接話した後、‌‌ビッグフットではなく鹿を撃った可能性が高い‌‌と考えました。BFROの報告では、血痕はビッグフットが立っていた場所から離れるのではなく、‌‌新鮮な鹿の死骸につながっていた‌‌とされています。これは、ティムがビッグフットに傷さえ負わせていないことを示唆していました。
    • この点は、‌‌マイクの証言とBFROの見解が大きく食い違う部分‌‌です。マイクは、撃たれたクリーチャーが倒れ、別のビッグフットがそれを担ぎ去ったと主張しています。
  • ‌‌現場調査員の到着:‌‌ マイルズとロジャー、そしてロジャーの父親（72歳の熟練した熊ハンター）が現場に到着しました。ティムはBFROの調査員に、自宅に戻って窓を引っ掻くようなことがあれば、どんな手段を使ってでもクリーチャーを殺すと伝えました。
  • ‌‌物的証拠の観察:‌‌ マイルズは、家に隣接する金属製のゲートへの損傷を独立して目撃しました。それは爪による引っ掻き傷ではなく、万力を使った偽造の痕跡もありませんでした。むしろ、‌‌手で握り潰したかのような、指の接触点がある曲がり方‌‌をしており、異常な力を示唆していました。
  • ‌‌目撃証言と信頼性:‌‌ マイルズとロジャーは、ハンフリーズ家や周辺の住民から話を聞き、彼らが経験したことについて‌‌誠実であると確信‌‌しました。
  • ‌‌アイシャインの観察:‌‌ BFROの調査員は、暗闇の中でクリーチャーの‌‌「赤い目の光（アイシャイン）」‌‌を目撃しました。マイルズは、それが地面から7～8フィートの高さにあったと報告しており、これはクロクマの平均的な高さ（後ろ足で立つと5～7フィート）よりも少し高いと指摘されています。BFROは、アイシャイン自体はクロクマにも見られるため、それだけでクロクマを排除するものではないとしています。

BFROの理論とハンフリーズ家との摩擦​

  • ‌‌ビッグフットの動機に関する理論:‌‌ BFROは、問題の根本原因はティムの敷地に集まる‌‌多くの鹿‌‌であるという理論を立てました。ティムがオーストリアン・スノーピー（鹿が好む植物）を植えていたため、敷地は鹿の格好の餌場になっていました。
    • BFROのマットは、ビッグフットがティムが鹿を撃つ「スポットライティング」と銃声のパターンを観察し、‌‌負傷した鹿を捕獲する機会として利用していた‌‌可能性があると提案しました。彼らは、銃声の標的が自分たちに変わったことに気づいていなかったのかもしれません。
    • この理論について、ティムは「Oh my god」と言って納得したように見えましたが、マイクは、‌‌ティムがスノーピーを植えたというBFROの主張は誤り‌‌であり、その植物は土地購入時からそこにあったと反論しました。
  • ‌‌研究目的と家族のニーズの対立:‌‌ BFROの調査員は研究を行いたがっていたのに対し、ハンフリーズ家は単に問題の解決を望んでおり、この間に‌‌摩擦が生じました‌‌。マイクは、BFROが「ジェーン・グドールのような研究」のために土地を買い取りたがっていたと述べ、彼らを「助けを求めて呼んだのであって、研究プロジェクトのためではない」と非難しました。
  • ‌‌提案された解決策:‌‌ BFROは、鹿を追い払うことでビッグフットも最終的に去るだろうと提案しました。彼らは、ティムにカカシを設置し、スノーピーを可能な限り取り除き、家の周りにもっと照明を設置するよう勧めました。
  • ‌‌発砲の継続とBFROの懸念:‌‌ ティムは、問題解決のためにビッグフットを撃ち続けることを明言し、BFROの提案に関わらず、見かければ発砲すると述べました。BFROは、この状況での鎮静剤使用は現実的ではないと判断しました。
  • ‌‌調査の中止と撤退:‌‌ 調査員は、住民の緊張した発砲が危険で予測不可能な状況を作り出しているため、長期滞在に消極的でした。また、抑止と研究という異なる目的の間に本質的な対立があるとも感じました。彼らは、住民が自分たちで適切に身を守れると判断し、数日後に撤退しました。彼らは、何らかの証拠が得られた場合に連絡するよう求めましたが、結局何も得られませんでした。

BFROの報告とマイクの反論​

  • ‌‌事態の収束に関する相違:‌‌ BFROの報告は、時間が経つにつれてビッグフットの活動が沈静化し、距離を置くようになり、最終的には遠吠えなども聞こえなくなったと結論付けています。彼らは、ビッグフットが別の地域に移動したと想定しました。
    • しかし、マイクは‌‌この報告が誤解を招くものだと強く反論‌‌しています。彼によると、2018年の時点でもビッグフットの活動は続いており、彼らが「いなくなったことはない」と述べています。
  • ‌‌当局への通報の疑い:‌‌ BFROの報告では、状況が小都市で「噂が広まった」ことで州の漁業・狩猟局（Fish and Game office）が関与し、住民は敷地内での狩猟や無差別な発砲を中止せざるを得なくなったとされています。
    • マイクは、‌‌BFROが自分たちを裏切り、当局や新聞に連絡したと強く疑っている‌‌と述べています。BFROの報告書には当局がどのように状況を把握したかは書かれていませんが、ビッグフットの保護を目的として、BFROのメンバーの誰かが当局に通報した可能性はありえます。
  • ‌‌ゲームカメラに関する知見:‌‌ BFROは、後にスー・リンドリーという別の調査員を派遣し、自動カメラを設置しましたが、何も記録されませんでした。マイクは、ビッグフットが‌‌赤外線を嫌う‌‌ため、ゲームカメラに映りにくいと説明しています。

その他のBFRO関連の言及​

  • ‌‌ウッドノック:‌‌ マイクは、BFROが行うウッドノック（木を叩く音）による研究を「冗談」と見なしており、ビッグフットはウッドノックを‌‌狩猟戦術の一環‌‌として使用していると解釈しています。

BFROの関与は、ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦において重要な役割を果たしましたが、その報告とハンフリーズ家の証言の間には、特にビッグフットの行動の解釈、射殺事件の真実、そして事件の最終的な解決方法に関して、顕著な食い違いが見られました。

ティム・ハンフリーズ（父親）の体験​

AI

ハンフリーズ家の体験というより大きな文脈において、情報源はティム・ハンフリーズ（父親）を、‌‌ビッグフットによる包囲戦の中心人物であり、自身の家族を守るために断固として行動する人物‌‌として描いています。ポッドキャストのホストであるジミー・エイキンは、彼の体験が‌‌ホラ話ではなく、実際に起こった出来事である可能性が高い‌‌と結論付けています。

以下に、ティム・ハンフリーズに関する考察と結論をまとめます。

  • ‌‌ビッグフットとの遭遇と恐怖体験:‌‌

    • ホノビアの田舎の家族（ティムとその妻、2人の幼い子供）は、ビッグフットによって包囲されたとされています。
    • ティムはキアミチの生涯の住人で、約3年前（1997年頃）から森で奇妙な叫び声や奇妙な見た目の生物に気づき始めました。
    • 2000年冬には、これらの生物が家屋に近づくようになり、‌‌窓から家の中をじっと見つめ、3歳の娘をひどく怖がらせました‌‌。
    • 家を叩いたり、子供たちが森で遊んでいるときに怖がらせたり、肉を屋外の冷凍庫からこぼしたりしました。
    • ある時は4体の生物を同時に目撃し、そのうちの1体を撃ち、命中したと考えていました。
    • BFROへのマイクからの最初のメッセージには、ティムが‌‌「家族のために怯えている」‌‌と記されています。彼の妻も、彼らが‌‌「明らかに怯えていた」‌‌と繰り返しています。
    • ティム自身、クリーチャーの叫び声を「身体で感じた」と語っており、その叫び声で食器棚の食器が揺れたと報告しています。
    • 包囲戦が続く中、妻と子供たちは一時的に親族の元へ避難させられ、ティムを含む男性たちはアサルトライフルで武装して家を守る準備をしました。

  • ‌‌行動と決意:‌‌

    • ティムは、ビッグフットの活動がエスカレートした後、‌‌クリーチャーを対処するために必要なことをする‌‌と決意しました。
    • 彼は「すべての恐怖は私の中から消え去った。彼らがどんな姿か知っている。彼らの手口も知っている。私から離れていろ」と語り、‌‌恐怖を克服し、断固とした態度‌‌を示しました。
    • BFROの調査員に対し、‌‌「自分たちの問題を解決してほしい」‌‌と明確に伝え、ビッグフットが家に戻ってきて窓を引っ掻くようなことがあれば、外に出て殺すつもりであると述べました。
    • BFROが研究プロジェクトのために土地を購入する提案をした際も、ティムは引っ越すことや土地を売却することに興味を示さず、‌‌その場で撃つ権利を強く主張しました‌‌。彼らは、クマや人間が家に入ろうとした場合と同様に、ビッグフットに対しても「手加減する必要はない」と考えていました。
    • BFROに人を送ることに同意したのは、‌‌「ハンターを派遣するならば」‌‌という条件付きでした。

  • ‌‌撮影と証拠:‌‌

    • ティムはビッグフットの‌‌写真を持っている‌‌と述べていますが、世間には公開していません。その理由として、認識のためではなく、以前に嘲笑された経験があるためだと語っています。
    • このことは、ジミー・エイキンにとって「不審な点」ではあるものの、ティムが嘲笑を避けるために公開をためらう気持ちは理解できるため、決定的な証拠ではないと見ています。

  • ‌‌ハンティングと鹿肉の関連性:‌‌

    • ティムは30エーカーの土地にオーストリアン・スノーピー（ウインターピー）を植えて鹿を引き寄せ、狩猟を容易にしていたとBFROのマットは報告しています。これにより、彼の土地は鹿の「効果的な磁石」となり、多くの鹿が彼の土地に餌を食べに来ました。
    • 彼はポーチから離れることなく多くの鹿を狩っていました。
    • マットは、ビッグフットが、ティムが鹿を撃つことで負傷した鹿を容易に捕獲できると学習したために、家の周りに集まるようになったという理論を提示しました。ティムはこれを聞いて‌‌「オー・マイ・ゴッド」とつぶやき、その理論に納得した‌‌ようでした。
    • ただし、弟のマイクは、スノーピーは土地購入時からあったもので、ティムが鹿を誘引するために植えたものではないと反論しています。

  • ‌‌BFRO調査員による評価:‌‌

    • BFROの調査員たちは、ティムが「‌‌怯えており、誠実である‌‌」と確信していました。
    • ジョン・クラーク州森林官は、ティムが見たのはクロクマだったかもしれないと考えていましたが、ティムと彼の家族が‌‌「何らかの現実の経験をして、彼を動揺させた」‌‌ことは認識していました。

  • ‌‌ビッグフットを撃ったとされる事件:‌‌

    • マイクの証言によると、ティムは家の窓から威嚇してくるクリーチャーに対し「もう十分だ」と言い、追いかけました。ティムは3発発砲し、そのうちの1発がクリーチャーの背中、頭、肺に命中しました。
    • ティムは、そのクリーチャーが「まるで人が撃たれたように」倒れ、もがき、立ち上がろうとしてはまた倒れ、最終的に家から約70ヤードの地点で死んだのを聞いたと報告しています。ティムは‌‌「この生物が死ぬのを聞いた」‌‌と述べ、血をゴロゴロさせ、空気を吸い込む音を聞いたと強調しています。
    • 彼らが死骸を回収しようと近づくと、他のビッグフットたちが現れて彼らを襲い、死骸を肩に担いで運び去ったと報告しました。
    • BFROのマットは当初、血痕は鹿のものだと考え、ティムがビッグフットを負傷させたとは考えていませんでしたが、これはマイクの証言と食い違っています。

総合的に見ると、ティム・ハンフリーズは、自身の信念に強く、家族が直面した異常な脅威に対して正面から立ち向かった人物として描かれています。彼の証言と行動は、ジミー・エイキンにとって、ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦が‌‌現実の、そして異常な体験であった‌‌という確信を裏付ける重要な要素となっています。

マイケル・ハンフリーズ（ティムの兄弟）の体験​

AI

「ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦」のより大きな文脈において、情報源は‌‌マイケル・ハンフリーズ（ティムの兄弟であり、主要な証人の一人）が、ホノビアの自宅敷地でビッグフットによる長期間にわたる激しい嫌がらせ、脅威、そして肉体的な衝突を経験した‌‌と詳しく述べています。彼の証言は、この出来事がでっち上げではなく、現実の、そして恐ろしいものであったことを強く示唆しています。

以下は、情報源がマイケル・ハンフリーズの体験について述べていることです。

  • ‌‌初期の兆候と気づき（ティムよりも早く）‌‌:

    • マイクは、兄のティムが土地を購入する前にすでにビッグフットの存在に気づいていました。彼は日中に2回生物を目撃しましたが、兄に話すことをためらっていました。「怪物がいる」と言えば兄からからかわれると思ったからです。

  • ‌‌家族へのエスカレートする嫌がらせ‌‌:

    • ある夜、マイクとティムが夕食を食べていると、生物が叫び声を上げ、その音はティムの体を震わせ、棚の食器を揺らしたほどでした。
    • その後、生物の行動は日ごとに大胆になり、深夜過ぎから夜明け前まで毎晩のように現れるようになりました。彼らは寝室の窓を叩いたり、家を叩いたり、家に石を投げつけたり、窓から家族や子供たちを覗き込んだり、子供たちに唸り声を上げたりしました。マイクはほとんど眠れなかったと述べています。

  • ‌‌食料の窃盗と奇妙な証拠‌‌:

    • 納屋に吊るされていた‌‌鹿の死骸5頭‌‌が全て持ち去られました。
    • 鶏小屋から‌‌30羽の鶏が全て姿を消しました‌‌。さらに、吸い出されて割れた卵の跡が森の中に続いており、これは黒クマでは説明できないと指摘されています。

  • ‌‌子供たちへの直接的な脅威‌‌:

    • 子供たちが裏庭で遊んでいると、木の影から3～4体の生物が現れ、子供たちに唸り声を上げ、木を揺らし、石を投げつけました。子供たちは恐怖で「怪物、怪物」と叫びながら家に戻りました。

  • ‌‌来訪者への攻撃とマイクの反応‌‌:

    • マイクの姉妹とその2人の幼い子供たちが訪れた際、車を降りて門を開けようとした瞬間に、3体の生物が木陰から現れ、子供たちに唸り声を上げ、車や姉妹にソフトボール大の石を投げつけました。子供たちは車の下に隠れ、姉妹は恐怖で話すことすらできませんでした。
    • マイクの18歳の姪が車から降りた際、20フィート離れた場所に立っていた生物に唸り声を上げられ、恐怖のあまり家の中に逃げ込みました。その生物は窓に顔を近づけ、歯を見せて唸り声を上げました。これに対し、マイクは怒りを抑えきれず、‌‌見えない茂みに向かってライフルを撃ちました‌‌。これは銃の安全規則に反する行為だとされていますが、家族の極度の恐怖を浮き彫りにしています。

  • ‌‌ビッグフット銃撃事件への関与‌‌:

    • 妻と子供たちが一時的に避難した後、マイクとティムは家の中で武装して待機していました。ある夜、窓の外で唸り声を上げるビッグフットに対し、ティムは「もうたくさんだ」と追いかけ、3発発砲しました。マイクは、その生物が‌‌「人が撃たれたように」倒れ、血をゴロゴロさせ、空気を吸い込む音を聞いて「死ぬのを聞いた」‌‌と証言しています。
    • 彼らが死骸を回収しようと近づくと、他のビッグフットたちが現れて彼らを襲撃し、撃たれた仲間を肩に担いで運び去ったとマイクは報告しています。
    • この銃撃事件の後、生物の攻撃性はさらに高まり、家の中に入ろうとする動きを見せました。マイクは、これは食料のためではなく、‌‌撃たれた仲間への復讐‌‌であると解釈しました。
    • BFROの調査員マットは当初、ティムがビッグフットを負傷させたのではなく、血痕は鹿のものだと推測しましたが、マイクはその主張に異議を唱え、‌‌現場には「3つの5ガロンバケツ分の血」と「脳物質」があった‌‌と詳細に述べています。

  • ‌‌BFROとの関係と不満‌‌:

    • マイクは最初にBFROに連絡を取り、状況がでっち上げではなく、家族が恐怖に怯えていることを訴えました。
    • しかし、彼はBFROが「調査プロジェクト」のために来ただけであり、彼らが本当に求めていた「助け」ではなかったことに不満を抱いていました。
    • マイクは、BFROが彼らを裏切り、州の魚類野生生物局や新聞に情報を漏らしたのではないかと疑っていました。これにより、ハンフリーズ家は裏庭での狩猟や闇雲な発砲を止めざるを得なくなりました。
    • BFROが派遣した70代の熊ハンターが、主に車の中で寝ることに興味があるように見えたことにも不満を表明しています。

  • ‌‌ビッグフットの知能と戦術に関する見解‌‌:

    • マイクは、ビッグフットが非常に高い知能を持っていることを示す事例を挙げています。彼らは家の‌‌モーションディテクターライトを回避‌‌するために、センサーの範囲外に棒を置いてマークしました。さらに、マイクが棒を取り除いた後には、‌‌モーションディテクター自体を空に向けて、機能させないようにしました‌‌。これは彼らが光の原因を特定し、それに対処する能力があることを示唆しています。
    • 彼は、8フィートのゴリラのようなビッグフットが庭に出て唸り声を上げ、石を投げつけることで、彼らを誘い出して‌‌待ち伏せに引き込もうとする「罠」‌‌を仕掛けていたと報告しています。
    • ビッグフットが‌‌人間の声を模倣する‌‌能力も持っていたと述べており、特にマイクが犬を呼ぶ声を真似て、彼らを森の中へ誘い出そうとした出来事がありました。
    • 木を叩く音（ウッドノック）について、BFROの研究とは異なり、マイクはそれを‌‌狩猟戦術の一環‌‌であると解釈しています。一方が獲物（鹿）をもう一方の待ち伏せ場所に追い込むためのコミュニケーション手段だと説明しています。
    • 彼らはまた、‌‌「ヌードリング」のような待ち伏せ型の漁業戦術‌‌も用いると述べています。

  • ‌‌身体的特徴と行動の観察‌‌:

    • 日中は大きな黒い目をしていますが、夜間、懐中電灯や車のヘッドライトで照らすと‌‌目が赤く反射する‌‌と報告しています。ハロゲンランプでは黄緑色に見えることもあったそうです。
    • ある時、ダンプスターの中で2フィートの距離で遭遇した生物は、立ち上がるとマイクのライフルを見て「白目をむいて」ダンプスターの中に倒れ込み、その後四つん這いで走り出し、あっという間に二足歩行に移行し、‌‌6フィートのフェンスを「50〜60フィート」の跳躍で飛び越えた‌‌と証言しています。この行動は熊ではありえないとされています。
    • ビッグフットは銃が危険であることを認識しているとマイクは確信しています。
    • 彼らは死体を埋めるのではなく、‌‌死体を運び去る‌‌と述べています。

  • ‌‌証拠の保持と公開への抵抗‌‌:

    • マイクはビッグフットの写真、ビデオ、音声を持っていると主張していますが、初期に公開しようとした際に嘲笑された経験があるため、それらを公開することには消極的です。彼は、結局のところ「死体」がなければ証明できないと考えています。

  • ‌‌状況の継続と政府の隠蔽説‌‌:

    • BFROの報告書が「全てが収まった」と結論付けているのに対し、マイクはそれを「少なくともいくらか誤解を招く」と否定し、‌‌2018年の時点でも敷地内でビッグフットの活動が続いており、彼自身はまだビッグフットを撃つ意思がある‌‌と述べています。
    • マイクは、政府がビッグフットの存在を隠蔽していると強く信じており、その理由として、もしビッグフットの存在が公になれば、伐採業界や観光業に壊滅的な経済的影響が生じ、多数の失業者が発生すると指摘しています。ポッドキャストのホストは、この見解にある程度の説得力があると認めています。

マイケル・ハンフリーズの証言は、単なる目撃談を超え、家族が直面した厳しい現実、そしてビッグフットの知能、行動、そしてそれが人間の生活に与える影響についての詳細な洞察を提供しています。彼の視点は、BFROのような外部の研究者とは異なる、当事者ならではの視点として提示されています。

Jimmy Akin の判断 : 捏造された事件ではない​

AI

ホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦の真実性について、情報源は、この事件が‌‌ホラ話ではなく、実際に起こった出来事である可能性が高い‌‌という見解を一貫して示しています。ポッドキャストのホストであるジミー・エイキンは、自身の「考察と結論」の中で、この事件がホラ話ではなかったと明言し、その理由として複数の証拠を挙げています。

以下に、その根拠となる考察と結論を説明します。

  • ‌‌BFRO調査員の確信:‌‌

    • ビッグフット・フィールド・リサーチャーズ・オーガニゼーション（BFRO）の調査員たちは、ハンフリーズ家の人々、特にティムとマイク、そしてその妻が‌‌恐怖を感じており、誠実である‌‌と確信しました。
    • マイルズとロジャーは、ハンフリーズ家や周辺住民から話を聞いた結果、彼らが経験したことについて‌‌「誠実である」と確信した‌‌と報告しています。

  • ‌‌ホラ話としては不自然な家族の行動:‌‌

    • ハンフリーズ家は、妻と子供たちを一時的に避難させ、男性たちはアサルトライフルで武装して家を守る準備をしました。このような行動は、ホラ話のためには多すぎる手間がかかります。
    • BFROの助けを呼んだ際、彼らは‌‌リサーチのためではなく、問題の解決、つまりクリーチャーを殺す助けを求めていました‌‌。
    • マイクによると、BFROが土地の購入を申し出た際も、ティムは引っ越すことに興味を示さず、土地を売却することもありませんでした。これは、ホラ話の動機の一つである金銭的利益を否定します。
    • ティムとマイクは、たとえBFROが別の解決策を提案しても、‌‌目撃すれば発砲する権利を強く主張しました‌‌。これは、単なる「研究者」ではなく「ハンター」の派遣を求めたことからも裏付けられます。

  • ‌‌BFRO調査員による物的証拠の独立した観察:‌‌

    • 調査員のマイルズは、家屋に隣接する金属製のゲートへの損傷を直接確認しました。この損傷は、‌‌爪による引っ掻き傷ではなく、また万力で偽造されたような痕跡もありませんでした‌‌。むしろ、‌‌「手が巻きついて握り潰したかのような、指の接触点がある曲がり方」‌‌をしており、異常な力が働いたことを示唆していました。
    • マイルズは、‌‌暗闇の中で「赤い目の光（アイシャイン）」を目撃し‌‌、それが地面から7～8フィート（約2.1～2.4メートル）の高さにあったと報告しました。これは、クロクマが後足で立ったときの平均的な高さ（5～7フィート）よりも少し高いとされています。

  • ‌‌外部からのホラ話の可能性の排除:‌‌

    • ティムとマイクが家から発砲している状況で、‌‌他の人間がホラ話を仕掛けようとすることは、自殺行為に等しいほど危険‌‌であるため、外部からのホラ話の可能性は非常に低いとされています。

  • ‌‌未公開写真について:‌‌

    • マイクがビッグフットの写真やビデオを所有していると主張しながらも公開しなかったことについては、疑念を抱く要素ではあるとされています。しかし、当初公開しようとした際に嘲笑された経験がある場合、公開をためらう気持ちは理解できるとも述べられています。そのため、未公開の物的証拠があるという事実だけで、事件全体がホラ話であるとは断定できないとされています。

  • ‌‌クロクマである可能性の否定:‌‌

    • この地域の森林官ジョン・クラークは、ティムが見たのはクロクマの可能性が高いと考えていましたが。ジミー・エイキンは、いくつかの理由からクロクマの可能性を低いと判断しています。
      • ‌‌損傷の痕跡:‌‌ BFROの調査員は、爪の痕がない損傷（手で握り潰したような跡）を確認しており、これはクマとは異なります。
      • ‌‌アイシャインの高さ:‌‌ 7～8フィートの高さのアイシャインは、クロクマが後ろ足で立った時の高さより少し高く、完全に一致するわけではありません。
      • ‌‌攻撃的行動:‌‌ クロクマは一般的に臆病な動物であり、家から銃撃されているにもかかわらず、家への嫌がらせを続けることは非常に異例な行動です。
      • ‌‌卵の持ち運び:‌‌ 鹿肉が盗まれた後、卵の殻が森へと続く痕跡があったとされていますが、クマは卵を前足で運べません。キツネやアライグマは可能ですが、他の行動とは一致しません。
      • ‌‌投石:‌‌ クリーチャーが石を投げたという報告がありますが、クマは両足で数フィートしか石を投げられず、霊長類のように遠くまで投げることはできません。
      • ‌‌負傷した仲間の運搬:‌‌ ティムが撃ったクリーチャーを、別のクリーチャーが肩に担いで運び去ったという報告がありますが、クマには霊長類のような突き出た肩がなく、そのような行動はできません。
      • ‌‌二足歩行と跳躍:‌‌ 目撃されたクリーチャーが四足歩行から二足歩行へスムーズに移行し、6フィートのフェンスを50～60フィートも跳び越えたという報告は、クマの不器用な二足歩行や短距離の跳躍とは大きく異なります。
      • ‌‌人間の声を模倣するチャタリング:‌‌ クリーチャーは人間の言葉のようなチャタリング音を発し、マイクが犬を呼ぶ声を模倣したとされていますが、これはクマにはできないことです。
      • ‌‌窓からの覗き込み:‌‌ クリーチャーが非常に背が高く、窓から覗き込む際に体をかがめる必要があったという報告は、クマが二足で立っても窓から覗き込むことは非常に珍しいでしょう。
      • ‌‌冬眠:‌‌ 包囲戦が起こった2000年1月は、クロクマの冬眠の最中でした。複数のクマが冬眠中に活動し、複数日にわたって人間を嫌がらせることは極めて考えにくいとされています。

  • ‌‌他のビッグフット報告との類似性:‌‌

    • ホノビアの出来事は、一般的なビッグフットの目撃報告とは異なるより劇的なものでしたが、1971年のファルク・モンスター事件など、‌‌他のビッグフットの報告と多くの点で類似している‌‌と指摘されています。

以上の点から、情報源はホノビア・ビッグフット包囲戦が‌‌実際に発生した出来事であり、その原因はクロクマではなくビッグフットであった可能性が高い‌‌と結論付けています。

時系列​

AI

  • 1997年頃: Tim Humphreysが、自分の敷地の周囲の森で奇妙な叫び声や奇妙な見た目の生物に気づき始める。

  • 1997-1999年 (詳細不明):

    • Mike HumphreysがTimより先にビッグフットの存在に気づく。敷地内で日中に2回生物を目撃し、2回目の目撃でそれがサスカッチであると認識するが、Timには伝えない。
    • Mikeの敷地で夜間に生物がドアを叩いたり、窓を叩いたり、石を投げたりする事件が週に1〜2回発生し始める。
    • 生物が子供たちに興味を示し始め、森の境界線で子供たちに唸ったり、木を揺らしたり、石を投げたりする。
    • Mikeの妹とその子供たちが車で訪れた際、ゲートで3匹の生物に襲われ、車に石を投げられる。
    • Mikeの姪が敷地で20フィート離れた場所で唸る生物に遭遇し、家に入ると生物が窓越しに歯を見せて唸る。Mikeは生物に向かって発砲するが、命中しない。
    • Mikeの敷地から5頭分の鹿の死骸と30羽の鶏が盗まれ、卵の殻が森へと続く痕跡が見つかる。

  • 1999年冬〜2000年1月:

    • 生物がTimの家に近づき始め、窓から覗き込んでTimの3歳の娘を怖がらせる。
    • 家の壁を叩いたり、屋外の冷凍庫から肉を盗んだりする。
    • Timが一度に4匹の生物を目撃し、そのうちの1匹に発砲して命中したと考える。
    • Timの妻と子供たちは一時的に親戚の家に避難する。
    • ある夜、TimとMikeは家の中で背中合わせに座っていると、生物が裏窓から覗き込んで唸る。Timが激怒して生物を追いかけ、3発発砲して生物に命中させる（背中、頭、肺）。
    • 負傷した生物は70ヤード離れた林の中で死ぬまで苦しむ。TimとMikeは死体を回収しようと向かうが、他のビッグフットの群れに襲撃され、死体を持ち去られる。
    • TimとMikeはビッグフットの死体が持ち去られた後、BFROに連絡する。

  • 2000年1月中旬:

    • BFROがMike（「Honobia一家の叔父」として）から最初の連絡を受ける。Mikeは「この生き物がますます大胆になっている」と訴え、助けを求める。
    • BFROの調査員MattがTimとMichaelと電話で連絡を取り、Timが撃ったのは鹿でありビッグフットではない可能性を示唆する。
    • BFROの調査員MilesとRoger、そしてRogerの父（経験豊富な熊ハンター）が敷地に到着し、調査を開始する。
    • 敷地で新しく殺された鹿の死骸が発見される。首と肋骨の間から内臓が引き抜かれている状態だった。
    • BFRO調査員は、ティムの敷地にあった曲がった金属製のフェンスの損傷を観察する。傷はなく、手のひらで掴んで絞り出したような跡だった。
    • 夜、BFRO調査員と家族が共に敷地で数匹のビッグフットを目撃する。激しい降雨の中、彼らはポーチからビッグフットに発砲する。
    • 近隣住民や友人が敷地を訪れ、自身のビッグフット体験を語り始める。
    • Milesは、赤みを帯びた赤い反射のような眼光を、地面から7〜8フィートの高さで目撃する。
    • BFRO調査員は、ティムが鹿を惹きつけるためにオーストリアン・スノーピーを植え、夜間にスポットライトを使って狩りをしていたことが、ビッグフットが敷地に頻繁に出没する原因であるという理論を提唱する。Mikeはこの「スノーピーを植えた」という部分を否定する。

  • 2000年1月下旬〜2月:

    • BFROの調査員は、家族が適切に自衛できると判断し、また、家族が動物を敷地から遠ざけることに関心があり、BFROの監視プロジェクトに協力する気がないため、敷地を離れることを決定する。
    • BFROは、家族に鹿の肉を全て取り除き、敷地での鹿狩りをやめるよう助言する。鹿がいなくなればビッグフットもいなくなるだろうという考えだった。
    • BFROの報告書によると、小規模な町なので噂が広がり、州の魚類・狩猟局（Fish and Game office）がこの敷地を監視するようになる。これにより、Timは家から無差別に発砲することができなくなる。Mikeは、BFROが意図的に当局や新聞に情報を漏らしたのではないかと疑っている。
    • ビッグフットの活動は大幅に鎮静化し、遠くの丘から咆哮が聞こえるものの、家に入ろうとする試みはなくなる。やがて鳴き声も完全に止まる。BFROは生物が別の場所へ移動したと推測する。
    • 数週間後、BFROの調査員Sue LindleyがHonobia近郊でソロキャンプを行い、自動カメラを設置するが、具体的な証拠は得られない。

  • 2000年以降（詳細不明）:

    • Mikeは、スポットライトやモーションセンサーライトが一時的に効果があったが、ビッグフットがこれらの技術に適応したと語る。モーションセンサーの範囲外に棒を置いたり、センサー自体を上向きにしたりして無効化した。
    • Mikeは、ビッグフットが人間のようなチャタリング音や、Mikeが犬を呼ぶ声などを模倣することに気づく。
    • Mikeは、ビッグフットが狩りの際、ウッドノック（木を叩く音）を使って互いにコミュニケーションを取り、獲物を待ち伏せたり、魚を獲る際に「ヌードリング」のような戦術を使うことを観察する。
    • Mikeは、ビッグフットが8フィートの高さの「ゴリラのような」生物を使って、彼らを家から誘い出そうとする「罠」を仕掛けていたと語る。
    • Mikeは、自身が目撃したビッグフットの写真やビデオを持っているが、過去に嘲笑された経験から公開しないと述べる。

  • 2018年:

    • Michael Humphreysが「Sasquatch Chronicles」ポッドキャストのインタビューに応じる。この時点で、彼は敷地でまだビッグフットの活動があると述べ、今後も必要であれば撃つ意向を示している。
    • Mikeは政府がビッグフットの存在を隠蔽していると主張し、もし存在が公になれば伐採産業などの経済に甚大な影響が出ると考える。

主要関係者​

AI

  • Tim Humphreys (ティム・ハンフリーズ)

    • Honobia近郊の田舎に住む家族の父親。
    • 約3年前（1997年頃）から敷地周囲で奇妙な生物の活動に気づき、2000年初頭には家族がビッグフットの包囲に直面する。
    • 積極的にビッグフットから家族と家を守ろうとし、複数回発砲する。
    • 当初はBFROの調査員に、研究よりも「問題を終わらせる」ことを優先するよう要求し、ハンターを連れてくることを条件に調査を受け入れた。
    • 敷地を売却して引っ越すことを拒否する。

  • Michael Humphreys (マイケル・ハンフリーズ) / Mike (マイク)

    • Tim Humphreysの兄弟で、事件の主要な目撃者の一人。
    • Timが敷地を購入する前からビッグフットを目撃していた。
    • 2000年の事件当時、BFROに最初に連絡を取った人物。
    • BFROの報告書と家族の視点との間のいくつかの相違点について、2018年の「Sasquatch Chronicles」のインタビューで詳細を語った。
    • ビッグフットの行動、知能、狩猟戦術、コミュニケーション方法について多くの詳細な観察結果を提供している。
    • 政府がビッグフットの存在を隠蔽しているという陰謀論を提唱。
    • 2018年時点でもビッグフットの活動が敷地に続いていると報告している。

  • Timの妻と2人の幼い子供たち

    • ビッグフットによる嫌がらせと侵入の試みにより、非常に怯え、一時的に家を離れて親戚の元に避難した。

  • Rod Walton (ロッド・ウォルトン)

    • Tulsa World紙のスタッフライター。2000年1月29日にHonobia Bigfoot Siegeに関する記事を執筆した。
    • 記事は懐疑的なトーンで書かれているが、事件が実際に起こっていたことを示す同時代の文書となっている。

  • John Clark (ジョン・クラーク)

    • 地元の州の森林官。
    • Timが目撃したのはツキノワグマではないかと考えていたが、Timと家族が「何か本物の経験をして動揺している」ことについては同意していた。

  • Matt (マット)

    • BFRO（Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization）の調査員で、他のBFROメンバーに状況を電子メールで報告する役割を担っていた。
    • TimとMichaelと電話で連絡を取り、事件の詳細を把握しようとした。
    • Timが撃ったのはビッグフットではなく、鹿であった可能性を示唆した。
    • ビッグフットの活動の原因が鹿の過剰な生息とTimの狩猟方法にあるという理論を提唱し、鹿を敷地から追い出すことで問題を解決できると考えた。

  • Miles (マイルズ)

    • BFROの現場調査員の一人。Roger Robertsと共に敷地を訪れた。
    • 曲がったフェンスの損傷が「爪ではなく指のある手」によるものであることを確認した。
    • 地元の証言者が語る経験について、その信憑性に感銘を受けた。
    • 夜間に7〜8フィートの高さで「赤い反射器のような」眼光を目撃した。

  • Roger Roberts (ロジャー・ロバーツ)

    • BFROの現場調査員の一人。オクラホマのベテラン私立探偵で、軍事情報部と警察官の経験を持つ。
    • 地元の法執行機関や地域の慣習に精通しており、地元住民が警察に頼らない傾向があることを説明した。
    • Milesと共に敷地での調査に参加した。

  • Rogerの父

    • 72歳の経験豊富な熊ハンター。BFROが派遣したハンターとして敷地に滞在したが、主に車中で寝ることに興味を示し、あまり活動的ではなかった。

  • Sue Lindley (スー・リンドリー)

    • BFROの別の調査員。事件の数週間後、Honobia近郊でソロキャンプと自動カメラの設置を行ったが、具体的な成果はなかった。

この事件を推測する​

私は、実際に起きたのは

  • ポルターガイスト現象＋共鳴認知

だと判断する。

その根拠として、強力な物理作用、たとえば

物理的証拠: BFROの研究者であるマイルズは、家にあったフェンスの損傷を目撃しました。「曲げられた箇所の総面積は約14インチだった。中央の折り目の部分に3つか4つの接触点があったように見え、まるで手がそれを包み込んで握りしめたようだった。」 (00:59:51)

という出来事はポルターガイスト現象と共通している。

さらに、Bigfoot の仕業とされがちな

投石: 生物は子供たちや訪問者、車に石を投げつけました。「テニスボール大の石を車に投げつけ、彼女にも投げつけ始めた。」 (00:23:06) 子供への脅威: 子供たちが屋外で遊んでいると、生物が木立の縁に現れ、唸り声を上げたり、木を揺らしたり、石を投げたりしました。

も、屋外か屋内かという差異を除けばポルターガイスト現象と区別は困難(*1)。

Bigfoot らしき顔や姿を見た、さらには

妻と子供たちが一時的に避難した後、マイクとティムは家の中で武装して待機していました。ある夜、窓の外で唸り声を上げるビッグフットに対し、ティムは「もうたくさんだ」と追いかけ、3発発砲しました。マイクは、その生物が‌‌「人が撃たれたように」倒れ、血をゴロゴロさせ、空気を吸い込む音を聞いて「死ぬのを聞いた」‌‌と証言しています。 彼らが死骸を回収しようと近づくと、他のビッグフットたちが現れて彼らを襲撃し、撃たれた仲間を肩に担いで運び去ったとマイクは報告しています。 この銃撃事件の後、生物の攻撃性はさらに高まり、家の中に入ろうとする動きを見せました。マイクは、これは食料のためではなく、‌‌撃たれた仲間への復讐‌‌であると解釈しました。 BFROの調査員マットは当初、ティムがビッグフットを負傷させたのではなく、血痕は鹿のものだと推測しましたが、マイクはその主張に異議を唱え、‌‌現場には「3つの5ガロンバケツ分の血」と「脳物質」があった‌‌と詳細に述べています。

のように射殺した…という証言に嘘はないだろうが、これらは 意識障害/共鳴認知 による幻覚だと判断する。

何より、これほど頻繁な Bigfoot の襲来がありながら、Bigfoot の残留物（銃弾で飛び散った肉片や血液、体毛のついた皮膚など）が現場から何も採取されていない。2000年の出来事であるから、サンプルさえあれば DNA 分析は可能。この事は生体としての Bigfoot が実在しなかったことを強く示唆する。

(*1)​

Travis Watson : 石の飛来現象：森中だと Bigfoot の仕業と解釈され、屋内だとポルターガイスト現象だと解釈されてきた　 (2024-11-05)

関連​

Jimmy Akin : ポルターガイストに関する主流説 RSPK の発端　 (2025-04-11)

Loyd Auerbach : 「生きている人間の幽霊」の事例が少なからずある　 (2025-03-14)

Kewaunee Lapseritis: Bigfoot との交流を語る ⇒ 実際は何が起きているのかを推測する　 (2024-12-30)

情報源​

動画(2:01:30)

Honobia Bigfoot Siege - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World

文字起こし（話者識別）​

展開

（以下は "Honobia Bigfoot Siege - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World" と題された podcast の文字起こしです。話者識別をしています。）

You're listening to episode 378 of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason. In this episode, we're talking about the Honnabi Bigfoot siege. I'm Dom Bettinelli, and joining me today is Jimmy Akin. Hey, Jimmy. Howdy, Dom. Folks, be sure to stick around to the end of the episode. (00:01:20)

[SPEAKER_01] : We'll have your feedback on our recent episode on the telepathy tapes. But first... In the year 2000, a rural family near Honnabi, Oklahoma found themselves besieged by Bigfoots. The creatures had been stealing deer meat from an outdoor freezer unit, and when the meat ran out, they started trying to get into the house. The parents and their two small children were terrified, and a tense series of nighttime gun battles ensued. They also called in Bigfoot researchers who witnessed aspects of the desperate siege. So, what caused the Honnabi Bigfoot siege? What happened to the family? And how was the situation finally resolved? (00:01:59)

[SPEAKER_01] : That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World. So, Jimmy, what should we know before we begin today's mystery? Well, as you mentioned, today's mystery involves Bigfoot. And we first discussed Bigfoot way back in Episode 3 of Mysterious World. In that episode, I was open to the idea of Bigfoot existing, but I was also working with some bad data at that point, and I'm now more impressed with the evidence for Bigfoot than I was then. I've thus begun a series of episodes looking at the subject in more detail. (00:02:31)

[SPEAKER_01] : In Episode 375, we looked at Bigfoot biology, based on the many reported cases of people encountering Bigfoot. And even more to the point, in Episode 359, we looked at a possible Bigfoot encounter in Falk, Arkansas. Falk is a town in southwestern Arkansas, which is pretty much right across the Oklahoma border from where today's mystery is set. So today, we're going to be looking at another Bigfoot-related mystery that has been reported in the same part of the country. We'll also look at some more in future episodes. In addition, the Falk Monster episode concerned an apparent attack by a Bigfoot on a family, and that's what today's mystery also involves. (00:03:11)

[SPEAKER_01] : So where does today's mystery take place? In Honobi, Oklahoma, which is only about two and a half hours from where I live. Just to give you a sense of things, I live in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which is in northwest Arkansas, and only just a few miles from the Oklahoma line. I live in the Ozark Mountains, but just over an hour south of me, across the Arkansas River Valley, there's another mountain range known as the Ouachita's. Both the Ozark and the Ouachita's stretch over into what's today known as the state of Oklahoma. And I say today because it used to be known as Indian Territory, because the land was set aside for Native Americans that were being moved from their original homelands. (00:03:53)

[SPEAKER_01] : These particularly included what were called the five civilized tribes, the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, the Creek, and the Seminole peoples. These tribes signed treaties with the federal government, and they were able to set up independent nations within Indian Territory. So they have a different legal status than most places. I live right across from the Cherokee Nation. It's just a few minutes away by car. So I see not only lots of Oklahoma plates, but also lots of Cherokee Nation plates on cars driving around, you know, because of the special legal status the Cherokee Nation has. (00:04:28)

[SPEAKER_01] : Just an hour or so south of me is the Choctaw Nation, and it's the Choctaw Nation where today's mystery takes place. You'll also hear another term that I should explain, which is Little Dixie. This is an informal nickname for the southeastern part of Oklahoma, and it broadly but not entirely overlaps with the Choctaw Nation. So why is it called Little Dixie? Basically, because a lot of southerners moved there after the late unpleasantness. Many of them had had their homes smashed and burned, and they were looking to start over. And there were reasons to move to Oklahoma. It had been less affected by the war than some other areas, and it was a friendly area. (00:05:07)

[SPEAKER_01] : Even though it was considered Indian territory at the time, the five civilized tribes were friendly. In fact, they had fought with the Confederacy during the war. And if you look at maps, you'll see that even though it wasn't yet a state, what's now Oklahoma was considered Confederate territory. The tribes had largely allied with the Confederacy after Mr. Lincoln made it clear that he was going to invade the South rather than let the seceded states leave in peace. That actually caused multiple additional states to secede. Originally, it was just the Deep South that seceded after Lincoln was elected. (00:05:41)

[SPEAKER_01] : Even though Lincoln was promising he would not end slavery and would leave it totally alone, so his invasion was about the Union rather than slavery, that wouldn't become a war goal until a couple of years later. But despite Lincoln's statements, the Deep South had had enough. Lincoln had been elected without a single Southern electoral vote, which in their eyes meant that Northerners had achieved a lock on the national government and they could now do whatever they wanted. At least that's how they perceived it. So the Deep South left, but the other Southern states remained in the Union. Then Lincoln made it clear that he was going to invade, so people had to choose upsides. (00:06:20)

[SPEAKER_01] : Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers from the state militias to invade the Deep South. So if you were living in a border state, you now had to choose who you were going to fight because you didn't have the option of remaining out of this. So were you going to fight against your neighbors, or were you going to fight against the Northern invaders? The Mid-South thus also seceded. So Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas all left the Union and joined the Confederacy. Their attitude was, well, if we're going to have to choose sides, we're going to fight with our neighbors rather than with the invaders. (00:06:55)

[SPEAKER_01] : Of course, there's more to say about all this, and we can cover that in future episodes. The tribes in Indian Territory also basically made the same decision. Even though they weren't part of European American society, they decided that if push came to shove, they were siding with their neighbors. And then after the war, when a lot of European Americans decided they need to leave their destroyed homes, many of them moved to southeastern Oklahoma, and it became known as Little Dixie. So that's the origin of the term. Are there any other things we need to know before we jump into today's mystery? (00:07:27)

[SPEAKER_01] : There is another term that you'll hear. In today's episode, you'll hear references to the Kiamichi Mountains. The Kiamichis are a sub-range within the Ouachita Mountains. And if you're a Star Trek fan, you may be familiar with Broken Bow, Oklahoma, which is where humans are scheduled to have first contact with the Klingon Empire in the year 2151, launched in the Star Trek Enterprise series. Well, Broken Bow is in Kiamichi country. Very cool. So how do you want to get into today's mystery? I want to begin with an article that appeared in the Tulsa World newspaper. (00:08:01)

[SPEAKER_01] : It was originally published on January 29th of the year 2000, so right at the end of January. The article was written by staff writer Rod Walton, and I'm not very impressed with the job he did. He does interview people with different perspectives, which reporters are supposed to do, but he writes the article in a way that, without firmly committing to one side or another, basically treats the subject of the article like a big joke. You sometimes see the same thing in newspaper stories about UFOs and on TV stations and stuff, or at least you did until the 2017 articles came out in the New York Times about the Defense Department's UAP program. (00:08:41)

[SPEAKER_01] : Well, this January 2000 article from the Tulsa World has that kind of tongue-in-cheek writing style, which I don't like, but it at least documents that the mystery we're going to be talking about today did happen. It's not just a tale that was completely made up after the fact, because we have contemporary documentation from it when it was still going on. So here's how the Tulsa World story begins. (00:09:07)

[SPEAKER_00] : Bigfoot believer has a bear of a task ahead. Capturing Kayamichi Sasquatch is no easy feat. By Rod Walton. Honebi. For anyone who doubts that he really saw Sasquatch lurking in the Kayamichi mountains, local believer Tim Humphreys has a cure-all for their skepticism. We'll just tie deer liver around their neck and come in the woods in the dark for a night, the longtime woodsman said. And I promise you they'll be a believer before the morning. It may take something so dramatic to convince many folks that there is indeed a Bigfoot in Little Dixie, but the experiences of Humphreys and several other locals have more and more people wondering if the fabled, reclusive, and possibly fictitious monster has migrated into southeastern Oklahoma. (00:09:59)

[SPEAKER_01] : Now, that gentleman they mentioned, Tim Humphreys, is very important to our story. He's the father in the family at the center of the mystery. So you'll want to remember him and keep him distinct from others in our story. The Telsa World went on to give us more information about him and what had been reported. (00:10:17)

[SPEAKER_00] : A lifelong resident of the Kayamichis, Humphreys said he started noticing the strange, screaming, and odd-looking creatures in the woods about three years ago. So that would have been back around 1997. This winter though, Bigfoot supposedly got up close and personal with the Humphreys. One creature went so far as to stare through a window of the family's home, scaring the hell out of Humphreys three-year-old daughter, he said. They had been beating on my house, scaring my kids, playing in the woods, yelling and screaming and scratching, Humphreys said. They spilled meat out of the freezer. (00:10:55)

[SPEAKER_00] : The closest contact may have come in the woods though, for Humphreys said he saw four at one time and shot one of them. (00:11:04)

[SPEAKER_01] : So about 1997, Tim began noticing the creatures in the woods around his property. But in the winter of 1999 going into the year 2000, they started to get closer to his house. One stared through the window and frightened Tim's three-year-old daughter. They also beat on the side of the house. They scared the children when they were playing in the woods and they spilled meat out of an outdoor freezer that Tim had. That's something we'll be hearing more about. In one instance, Tim reported seeing four of them at once and he took a shot at one of them and thought he hit it. (00:11:39)

[SPEAKER_01] : The article continues. (00:11:40)

[SPEAKER_00] : Pictures? Humphreys has them. But he said he is not ready to produce them for the world, not even the Tulsa world. People are going to say what they want to say. I'm not in this for the recognition, Humphreys said. I didn't go out looking for them. The curious, though, have come looking for Humphreys since he went public with his Sasquatch sightings. Several private investigators traveled into the woods with him and also saw the beast, he said. But hard proof is, well, hard to come by. (00:12:13)

[SPEAKER_01] : And we'll be hearing more about the investigators who came out and get their side of the story. The paper also talked with a local state forester. (00:12:22)

[SPEAKER_00] : State forester John Clark said he believes that the beast Humphreys and others supposedly saw may have been a black bear, which are fairly common in the Cayamiches. And although he doubted the existence of a Bigfoot in his backyard, Clark said he knows that something strange made quite an impression on Humphreys. It spooked him, whatever it was, Clark said. Humphreys warned that Bigfoot will end up worse than that if its kind makes another foray onto his land. All the fear has gone out of me, he said. I know what they look like. I know their tricks. They better stay away from me. (00:13:01)

[SPEAKER_00] : And Humphreys is certainly sticking to his story. I'm not calling around trying to convince people, he said. People are asking me and I'm telling what I've seen. (00:13:12)

[SPEAKER_01] : So state forester John Clark thought that Tim may have seen a black bear. And that's definitely something that needs to be considered. As you'll recall, when we covered the falc monster, I said that if it wasn't a Bigfoot, it was likely a black bear. But Clark felt that Tim and his family did have some kind of real experience that shook him up. Tim also was determined to deal with the creature and he was prepared to shoot it dead. He also indicated that he wasn't seeking publicity. Instead, people had been asking him about what was going on and he was simply reporting what he'd seen. (00:13:45)

[SPEAKER_01] : And that's the basics of the Telsa World story. It's not particularly informative, though it does give us a basic sketch of what was going on. For three years, Tim had been seeing signs of these creatures, whatever they were. And this winter, they had become much bolder and were frightening his family. So he was now determined to do what was necessary to deal with them. The Telsa World may have provided us with a general sketch of the story, but we need more information than that. What other sources of information are there? Well, there aren't a lot. (00:14:17)

[SPEAKER_01] : Despite how dramatic today's mystery is, I haven't found it written up in books, not even in books about Bigfoot in the Cayamiches. Apparently, the family eventually got tired of talking about the incident and just stopped discussing it with outsiders. However, there are two sources of more information that I've found. The first is a report by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, or BFRO. They were the investigators that got called in, and their website has a sizable report on the situation. The second source of information is a summary of an interview with Tim's brother, Michael. Michael Humphreys is another key witness to these events. (00:14:58)

[SPEAKER_01] : And in 2018, so 18 years after the events, Michael gave an interview to the people behind a podcast called the Sasquatch Chronicles. Unfortunately, they didn't record the interview, but the man he gave it to summarized it on the podcast, what Michael or Mike had said to him. This is not ideal. I'd much rather hear what Mike said in his own words, but I think it's important to hear at least what he was reported to have said, because the family and the researchers had somewhat different perspectives on the events. You know, that's not surprising. (00:15:34)

[SPEAKER_01] : You expect people to have different perspectives. But it's important that you get to hear as many different perspectives from witnesses as possible. So even though the summary of the interview is not what I'd like to have, I think it's important to compare and contrast with what the researchers said and what the family member said. Okay, so now we have two principal witnesses, Tim and Michael Humphreys, and we'll also begin meeting people from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. How do you want to cover what these two sources said? Well, I'd like to begin with some clips from the interview summary, because it covers some of the things that led up to the BFRO investigation. (00:16:12)

[SPEAKER_01] : According to Mike, he became aware of the Bigfoots before Tim did. So when his brother first bought the property, Mike had actually seen, he had two daytime sightings of the creature. You know, the first time he saw it, he really wasn't sure what to think of it. He didn't, you know, he wasn't thinking, oh, this is Bigfoot, you know. And to this day, he still calls them monsters. When you hear the story, you'll kind of understand why. So they buy this property. By the time he sees the second, has the second sighting, he realizes that this is Sasquatch on their property. (00:16:46)

[SPEAKER_01] : And he doesn't want to tell his brother. And him and I kind of laughed about it, because I could kind of understand, you know, he said, right. If I told my brother, I'd never hear the end of it. You know, it'd be, I told my brother, not, yeah, it's nonstop, nonstop harassment from his brother. So he didn't really say a whole lot. So one night, him and Tim, which is the other brother who hadn't seen the creatures yet, him and his wife are sitting there having dinner. And they're sitting there eating dinner. (00:17:18)

[SPEAKER_01] : And this thing screams at them. Oh my God. Tim said he felt the scream. He physically felt the scream through his body. It reverberated through his body. He called Mike and was like, Hey, Mike, tell them what happened. And he said, you know, we have this China set that's on inside this cabinet. It actually shook the China set. It rattled the China set. So he starts talking to his brother and Mike says, well, it's Bigfoot. At that point, you know, he was like, no, are you kidding me? So they started having, they started seeing these creatures. (00:17:49)

[SPEAKER_01] : The more and more they got around on this property, the more and more they started seeing these creatures. Mike also said this. So what started happening is Mike would say, Mike was telling me he'd be laying in bed at like two in the morning and something would come up to the front door, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap. And keep in mind they're in the middle of nowhere. Right. And so Mike would get out of bed, go up to the front door and there was nothing there. And Mike was telling me, you know, Wes, I, I gotta get up at five, six o'clock in the morning, go to work. (00:18:18)

[SPEAKER_01] : I didn't know if I had dreamt that or, you know, when it first started happening and then it started, the aggression started, it started escalating. So Mike was telling me he'd be sitting there at bed at night and he said they always came after midnight and they always left right before the sun came up right before dawn. And he said that it was different creatures at different times. He said they'd come bang on his bedroom window in the middle of the night. They'd come bang on the house in the middle of the night. (00:18:47)

[SPEAKER_01] : They'd throw rocks at the house in the middle of the night. At first it started happening just, you know, like once a week, twice a week. And then it started happening every single night. He said these things would come in and peek at the windows at him or his family or his kids. They would growl at his kids. And it just got to the point to where it was a nightly basis. He said he hardly ever slept. He could barely sleep. So what happened is they started coming up every night to the windows. They started coming and banging on the doors at night. (00:19:18)

[SPEAKER_01] : But they weren't actually trying to enter the home. When you read the BFRO report, it makes it sound like they were trying to get into the house. And that's not really what happened. So Mike did report increasingly bolder behavior on the part of the creatures. They were not trying to get into the house at this point, though, but they did steal food. And Mike says he has a shed out in his backyard and they had five deer carcasses sitting in the shed. You know, they hang the meat to let it cure. And you guys are hunters. (00:19:47)

[SPEAKER_01] : I don't have to explain to you. The next morning, one of the mornings they get up and all five deer carcasses are gone. Something actually broke into the shed and took all five deer carcasses. He had 30 chickens in his chicken coop. One morning he got up and all 30 chickens were gone. Good Lord. And there was a trail of eggs, something cracked open the eggs and actually sucked out the inside of the egg. And there was broken eggs leading back into the forest. There are several things that are significant about this report, if true. (00:20:18)

[SPEAKER_01] : First, it's unlikely that a single creature could carry off five deer carcasses by itself, especially if they've been quartered. So if five vanished at once, that would suggest multiple creatures were involved. The same thing is true if a bunch of chickens vanished at once. The number 30 may not be accurate, but it's unlikely that a single creature could have gotten a whole bunch of chickens at once. It's possible, though, that a group of creatures could have gotten some chickens and caused others to scatter, which after which they may have met with various fates. (00:20:51)

[SPEAKER_01] : What particularly interests me is the trail of eggs, because black bears do not have the ability to carry eggs in their forepaws. A bear might suck an egg on the spot, but it wouldn't be able to carry them long distances. So if there was a trail of eggs leading away from the chicken coop, that would mean something with the capacity to carry eggs had attacked. That doesn't mean it's Bigfoot or even a human. Foxes and raccoons can carry eggs away from their nesting site. But it is something that is noteworthy that would not be explainable by black bears in any likely scenario. (00:21:28)

[SPEAKER_01] : The creatures also started taking an interest in the family's children. Things got worse when his kids would go outside to play. In their backyard, they had kind of a pasture, and then it was a tree line, and his kids would be out there playing. And he said these creatures would come up to the tree line, three or four of them would come up to the tree line, start growling at the kids. They would shake trees. They would throw rocks at the kids. And his kids would come in just terrified, just white as ghosts, and all they would say is monsters, monsters, monsters. (00:21:58)

[SPEAKER_01] : And so they started realizing, you know, we need help here. We got some problems here. And as I pointed out on previous shows, bears are not able to throw rocks any distance. They can, you know, pick them up with both paws and kind of clumsily toss them a few feet, but that's it. Mike also related a couple of stories about family visitors. Mike went on to further tell me that one time his sister came to their house with their two kids, two small little kids. And to actually get into his driveway, he has a gate out front. (00:22:29)

[SPEAKER_01] : And you actually have to get out of the car, open the gate, and then drive the car in. So he's sitting on the couch. He hears this commotion going outside. He hears screaming, and he doesn't know what's going on. So he grabs his rifle and he runs out there. He's trying to talk to his sister. One of the kids is actually up underneath the dash of the car, shaking, and can't be consoled. The one in the back seat is laying down on the floor, crying, and can't be consoled. His sister couldn't even talk. (00:22:58)

[SPEAKER_01] : She was shaking. He said all three of them were white as goats. And it wasn't until the one in the back seats just uttered the word monster that he realized what had happened. Finally, his sister was able to calm down. His sister said, what happened is she pulled up to the gate, left the door open, got out of the car to open the gate. Three of these creatures came out of the woods, just out of the wood line, started growling at the kids, started throwing softball-sized rocks at the car, throwing rocks at her. And so she was screaming and just ran back to the car. (00:23:29)

[SPEAKER_01] : And when Mike had run out there, they had basically scattered. The creatures took off. He told me about another time that one of his nieces came over. And she was, you know, 18, 19. She came over. She had recently broken her foot about a year ago, and it never had quite healed quite yet. And so he's sitting on his couch, and he hears her just screaming bloody murder out front. She comes running into the house, and he sits her down on the couch. And he's thinking, well, she got out of the car, stepped off, you know, and stepped on her foot wrong. (00:24:00)

[SPEAKER_01] : And, you know, it sounded like she was in pain. She's sitting there shaking, and she's looking at Mike, and she's white as a ghost. She tells Mike, monster, there's a monster out there, there's a monster out there. By this time, this had been going on for about a year and a half, two years. Mike said he had enough. He went back to his room, loaded his rifle, went out front, and the creature had taken off to the backyard. So Mike goes after it to the backyard, and he said he heard it run back around to the front. (00:24:28)

[SPEAKER_01] : And about that time, he hears his niece just screaming. So he runs around to the front. This thing had run back into the woods, and Mike said that it's the only time he's ever taken a shot at something he couldn't see. He sees a brush moving, and he just popped off a shot. Well, he goes in there and talks to his niece, and his niece said what had happened is she had pulled up. And Mike said that lights don't bother him like people think. He said he had a big spotlight in his front yard. (00:24:55)

[SPEAKER_01] : He had a big spotlight in his backyard. His niece had pulled up, got out of the car. She actually started locking the door, looked up, and here's this creature standing there about 20 feet away from her, growling at her. And she said that when she came back in and sat down on the couch, when Mike took off, and Mike was telling me in his front living room, he has this huge bay window. She said that this thing was as tall as the gutter, and actually had to lean down into the window, and had rolled its lips back, and was showing its teeth, and was growling at her through the window. (00:25:27)

[SPEAKER_01] : She could hear Mike running around the house. Its eyes got real big. She saw the whites of its eyes, and it took off running. And about three seconds, four seconds later, she saw her uncle come around front. And I have to say that shooting at something you can't clearly see is a major violation of gun safety. That's something one should never do, because you could be killing a human. So never, never, ever, under any circumstances, pull the trigger on something that you can't clearly see. However, they would get another shot at one of the creatures. (00:26:01)

[SPEAKER_01] : Mike said that him and his brother, his wife had left. She had gone to stay with family, took the kids. And him and his brother are sitting back to back inside the house. One of these creatures came up to the back window, saw Mike and Tim, rolled its lips back and started growling at them. And he said, Tim just said, you know what, I've had enough. I've had enough of this. And he goes out after the creature. So he follows his brother out there to back him up. This creature runs off the porch, and Tim had fired three shots, actually hit this thing three times. (00:26:35)

[SPEAKER_01] : He hit it once in the back, he hit it once in the head, and he hit it once in the lungs. And he said, you know, they kind of flop around like people, like a person getting shot. They got up, tried to run, dropped, got up, tried to run. And he said it wasn't far from the house. You know, maybe 70 yards from the house. He goes, Wes, I heard this creature die. He goes, I actually, we sat and listened to this thing die. It was gurgling up blood, and it was gasping for air. And he goes, when we were out there standing on the porch, and we were basically waiting for this thing to die, we were going to drag the body back as soon as, you know, as soon as it was dead. (00:27:08)

[SPEAKER_01] : And he said, so they're sitting there, and they hear it take its final breath right inside the wood line, which wasn't far from the creature. He said, you could almost kind of tell from the body language, there was two or three of them in the tree lines that were freaking out in total panic, running around. He said they were making all kinds of noises. Him and his brother started walking out towards the body. And that's when basically they were rushed by a bunch of, you know, these Sasquatches, and they backed off of the body. (00:27:37)

[SPEAKER_01] : He said one of them actually picked up the body, threw it over its shoulders, and then the rest of them scattered back into the wood. I was going to say, he mentioned that to me too, that they would defend the dead body while the other ones were taking it away. They weren't going to leave a dead one behind. They take the body off. He said they didn't hear any more that night. It was probably one of the few nights in the last year and a half that they actually had any peace. They actually called the BFRO at that point. (00:28:05)

[SPEAKER_01] : So now the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization enters the picture, and here's how their report begins. (00:28:11)

[SPEAKER_00] : These incidents took place at a rural homestead outside the town of Hennubie, Oklahoma in January of 2000. Some BFRO contacts went to visit the family. They stayed overnight and were impressed. Weeks later, television stations and newspapers in Oklahoma mentioned the incidents, but never told the whole story. Mid-January, 2000. The first message received by the BFRO from the uncle of the Hennubie family, that is, Mike. Too many incidents to mention here. Please have someone contact us. This is no hoax, and my brother, that is, Tim, is afraid for his family. This creature is getting bolder every time it returns. (00:28:57)

[SPEAKER_00] : This thing is huge, walks upright, smells like a musky urine, burned hair type odor. He repeatedly comes back in the early morning hours after midnight and harasses them until just before dawn. It has on more than one occasion tried to enter their home. We don't know where to turn. Everyone thinks we are crazy when we mention it. Please, we don't know what to do, but I do know that something needs to be done. There are stories we could tell that would make the hair stand on your neck. The message went on to explain that the family was having problems over the past two years with one or more nuisance animals that were prowling around outside the home at night. (00:29:41)

[SPEAKER_00] : The animals were stealing deer meat from an outside shed. The situation had escalated when animals tried to get into the home. At one point, the father went outside to confront the animal. He got a good look at one and took a shot at what he claimed was a Bigfoot running back into the woods. We contacted the family after receiving the report. The man we spoke with first was the brother of the father of the family, that is, Mike. He insisted that they were not kidding around. At least one Bigfoot was coming around the homestead almost every night. (00:30:14)

[SPEAKER_00] : It was coming onto the porch, messing with a window, wiggling the doorknob as if it wanted to get into the house, and even stealing deer meat out of a freezer that was kept in an open-sided outbuilding. Whatever it was, wasn't alone. The family could hear chattering and screaming from the hills when the prowlers were near the home. The wife was too fearful to remain in the house. She and the kids were relocated temporarily, while the men armed themselves with assault rifles and prepared to defend the homestead against the nightly prowlers. On the night before the first message was received, the father, Tim, fired at one of the animals and thought he may have hit it. (00:30:57)

[SPEAKER_00] : The following morning, he found a substantial trail of blood in the yard and thought it was from the animal he shot. (00:31:03)

[SPEAKER_01] : Now, in his original message to the BFRO, Mike had said, quote, it has on more than one occasion tried to enter their home, but he may have meant that it banged on the outside of the home, rather than making a concerted effort to get in. Here, in this clip, Mike gives a more detailed account of what happened the morning after the shooting incident, and he indicates that it was the shooting that caused the creatures to actually try to get into the home in a determined manner. Him and his brother went out the next day, where they had actually shot the creature, and Mike told me, he said, Wes, you know, he goes, if you took three five-gallon buckets of blood and just threw it everywhere, that's what the scene looked like. (00:31:47)

[SPEAKER_01] : He said there was brain matter out there. He said there's blood everywhere. He said it wasn't until after they shot that creature is when they actually tried to get inside the house. They would try to actually get into the home. It wasn't because they wanted food. It wasn't because... he said... They were after them. They were after them. He told me that in his heart, he feels like these things would love a piece of him. So Mike and Tim experienced an increase in level of aggression from the creatures, which they interpreted as a determined effort to get inside the house, which they interpreted as expressing a desire for revenge for having shot and killed one of the creatures. (00:32:24)

[SPEAKER_01] : Of course, we have to be careful when interpreting the actions of a non-human animal, especially an unknown one, but that's how they perceived the matter. But now the BFRO had been contacted, and their report continues. (00:32:37)

[SPEAKER_00] : One of the BFRO investigators, an airline pilot from Ohio, offered to visit the scene to hopefully collect some of the blood that was left in the wake of the previous night's shooting. Another BFRO investigator named Matt made contact with the residents by phone and began updating other BFRO members via email. Matt said, I finally spoke with the shooter last night. When I spoke with him directly, I got the facts straight about the situation at the house and the blood. The shooter is named Tim. His brother, the one who originally contacted us, is named Michael. Tim says it was definitely a Bigfoot that he shot at and thought he might have hit it. (00:33:18)

[SPEAKER_00] : It was approximately 70 yards away at night. There is a trail of blood in the woods, but it leads to a fresh deer kill not away from the area where the Bigfoot was standing when he fired at it. Tim says the Bigfoot ran after he shot at it, but then he and his brother could hear it and the others on the hillside for several hours after the shooting. That suggests to me that he didn't even wound it, and all the blood is from the deer. (00:33:44)

[SPEAKER_01] : So Matt from the BFRO didn't think that Tim had even hit the Bigfoot. Instead, he thought that Tim had hit a deer. However, in the interview summary, Michael says that they saw that they hit the Bigfoot and that it collapsed as if dead. He says that they saw another Bigfoot pick it up and carry it off, and that they heard other Bigfoots making noise. So we have a disagreement here. Matt also mentions additional investigators from the BFRO who went there. (00:34:14)

[SPEAKER_00] : Miles and Roger will be there in a few hours and see this all for themselves and thoroughly look over the area. They will be armed. Roger's father, a very skilled 72-year-old bear hunter, will remain at the property, possibly for a few days. Tim says he doesn't care what we do there, but if the animal comes back to the house and scratches at the window again, he will go out and try to kill it. He's had to send his kids to stay with relatives, and he and his wife are clearly terrified. (00:34:44)

[SPEAKER_01] : And that goes along with what Mike apparently said. He discusses how there was some friction between the BFRO investigators who wanted to do research and the family who just wanted the problem ended. He's upset with the BFRO about doing that. And the BFRO, when they came out, he said they were wanting to buy the property from Mike and his brother so they could do, you know, a Jane Goodall research out there. They had several arguments with those guys saying, hey, we didn't call you out here for a research project. We called you guys out here for help. (00:35:16)

[SPEAKER_01] : The BFRO report also seems to reflect some of these discussions, as we'll see. Matt continues. (00:35:21)

[SPEAKER_00] : The volunteer, Roger Roberts, is a well-respected veteran private investigator in Oklahoma. He was in military intelligence in Vietnam, then a police officer for many years in Oklahoma before becoming a private investigator. He's on a first name basis with law enforcement officials throughout Oklahoma and is very familiar with every jurisdiction. Both Miles and I were very impressed by him after speaking with him at length on the phone. Roger chuckled when I said we were wondering why Tim hasn't called the police about this. Roger said there are hardly any sheriffs in this area because there's a lot of weed growing in southern Oklahoma and the federal government routinely does unannounced sweeps and arrests crooked deputies. (00:36:07)

[SPEAKER_00] : The Backwoods people do not talk to police if they can help it. Roger says this mentality is the norm for southeastern Oklahoma, firmly rooted over generations. (00:36:18)

[SPEAKER_01] : So this is interesting. Back in the year 2000, marijuana was not legal either medically or for recreational purposes in Oklahoma, though they did legalize medical marijuana in 2018. In the year 2000, it was completely illegal, but there was a lot of it being grown in southern Oklahoma, and so the federal government would periodically do sweeps looking for corrupt deputies. That is, deputies who were being paid to look the other way by the pot growers. And so as a result of that, there weren't that many cops in the area. Also, going back generations, there was an attitude on the part of Backwoods people to take care of problems themselves rather than involve the police, so that shed some interest and light on the situation. (00:37:01)

[SPEAKER_01] : In this case, Tim and Mike definitely wanted the problem taken care of. Matt continues. (00:37:07)

[SPEAKER_00] : Tim wants us to take care of his problem. He doesn't want the Bigfoot coming back to his house anymore and he doesn't care what it takes to make it stop. He will not move and not hold back from shooting at it if it returns. I told him that we're sending some people who will help him figure out what should be done. I said the bear hunter will shoot it if there's no other way to handle it, but in any case to let us handle it. There may be no other way to handle it, because tranquilizing it would be, as we learned last year, basically impossible to arrange, especially if it needs to be done within a few weeks. (00:37:42)

[SPEAKER_00] : This game may be over much sooner than that. The presence of more people with rifles at the location will be the best deterrent to the animal, whatever it is, while this situation is being assessed and we're recording audio and video there. We have always known that in the natural course of things there would someday be an overly aggressive Bigfoot that would get itself killed by someone protecting his family and property. This may be the one inevitably. (00:38:11)

[SPEAKER_01] : Matt. But according to Mike, the BFRO investigators got a bit more than they bargained for. He said these guys were so scared they started packing up their stuff after the first night and he actually convinced them to stay. He asked them to stay because they needed help. Mike thought that the BFRO investigators were acting like they'd never actually encountered a Bigfoot before, which didn't inspire a lot of confidence in Mike and Tim, but they convinced the investigators to stay a bit longer. Matt from the BFRO wrote more the next day. (00:38:44)

[SPEAKER_00] : Miles and Roger and Roger's father are at the location and setting up. I spoke with Tim's wife briefly. She reiterated how frightened they were of this thing and described some of the incidents. Far from jumping to conclusions, she said her and her husband had denied the whole thing to themselves for a few years. It wasn't until after the deer meat, three complete quarter deer had all disappeared from the large chest-high freezer in the outdoor shed, that the intruder started trying to get in the house at night. It didn't just scratch at the window, she said. (00:39:17)

[SPEAKER_00] : It had pulled off parts of the window and was getting bolder in its attempts to get in the house. The recent deer kill found outside had not been shot. One of its legs was violently twisted and broken. It had clearly been carried, not dragged, to the spot where it was found. The most interesting thing was how the predator pulled out the internal organs. The belly of the deer had not been opened. The opening was up between the neck and ribcage. The predator made a hole large enough to stick its arm in and apparently reached down from above the ribcage and pulled out the organs. (00:39:54)

[SPEAKER_00] : Yuck. Miles and Roger are surely photographing all of this right now. There is no doubt in the lady's mind on the main question. She's adamant that it is not a bear. The loud vocalizations, tree thrashing, chattering and whistling outside the house at night are the most noticeable recurring things. There was considerably more noise during the night the deer was killed. Note that the vocalization and tree thrashing aspects were not present at either the South Carolina location or the Kentucky location. I expect our three guys will at least hear something tonight. Matt. Twelve hours later, Matt added more. (00:40:36)

[SPEAKER_00] : I was on the phone with the people of the house last night for a few hours. I was asking questions and listening to what was happening. Things got very hectic at one point. These guys were actually shooting from the porch while I was on the phone. I figured it would be best to let them go at that point and said I'd talk to them later. I don't know as yet all the highlights of what happened. All I know is what I heard last night on the phone and what I heard from Tim and Michael this morning. (00:41:03)

[SPEAKER_00] : I haven't heard from Miles and Roger yet today, but they will report on what happened and what they brought back with them, if anything. As of this morning, they did not have a body, according to Tim and Michael. This morning, Miles and Roger went to check out a cave in the area which one had been seen in during the day, according to another local witness who came to speak with Miles and Roger yesterday. Apparently, they all saw a few Bigfoots last night near the property. I don't know how much, if anything, was gotten on tape. (00:41:35)

[SPEAKER_00] : I do know that it was pouring rain all night last night, which complicated things greatly, especially with the recording equipment. I assume they are on their way home. I'll try to call Roger in a few minutes. (00:41:48)

[SPEAKER_01] : So Matt says that all the people at the house, which would include the BFRO investigators, saw a few Bigfoots. That would be independent witness testimony to them, so it wasn't just members of the family. This doesn't mean that they got a good look at the Bigfoots in the darkness, but it would mean that they at least saw something. The situation also got tense enough that they were firing at the Bigfoots from the porch. The next morning, Matt discussed a theory about why the Bigfoots were causing such problems. (00:42:19)

[SPEAKER_00] : From my conversations yesterday and early this morning with the residents, we think we figured out what is so different about the situation. The underlying cause seems to be that lots and lots of deer congregate on Tim's property. He's got 30 acres in the mountains, and he plants Austrian Snow Peas all over the property, especially near the house, because the deer go crazy for them this time of year. (00:42:44)

[SPEAKER_01] : I'll interrupt at this point and note that Austrian Snow Peas are also known as Austrian Winter Peas, and that name seems to be more common, so if you look it up, they're the same thing. As the name would suggest, they grow during the winter, so they're used as a winter cover crop to cover the soil rather than for purposes of harvest in them, and deer do indeed love them. Matt continues. (00:43:08)

[SPEAKER_00] : People plant these plants specifically to attract deer. It makes it easier to hunt. Many deer come to feed on his property. There's a deer overpopulation problem in the area to start with, so his property is apparently an effective magnet for deer. There are so many deer that he doesn't even have to go off his porch to go hunting. He bags lots of deer on his own property, and has been doing it for a few years now. Ian Michael said that on some occasions, the deer carcasses were snatched away by something. We didn't get into details about each of those incidents, but some of those incidents involved frozen quartered venison being taken from a big freezer in an outside shed with no door. (00:43:52)

[SPEAKER_00] : The freezer has no lock, but does have a very heavy lid that needs to be lifted. The frozen deer parts were all taken eventually. When there were none left, Tim and his wife started hearing the attempts of something trying to get in the window and a loud hollering outside. A few times Tim ran out after it, but it would always flee into the woods. The first time he got a good look at it was the night he shot at it a few nights ago. The most baffling thing for all of us was why these things weren't running away after being shot at. (00:44:27)

[SPEAKER_00] : They'd pull back a bit into the trees, then move to a different part of the hillside and could be seen through the brush when the spotlights reflected off their eyes. Miles told me on the phone last night that both he and Roger were seeing what Michael and Tim were describing in terms of the red eyes and other movement in the trees. Supposedly, a lot more happened after I got off the phone. (00:44:51)

[SPEAKER_01] : So, this clarifies a bit more what the BFRO investigators saw. They had seen the eyeshine from the creatures, though that would not rule out a bear, because bears also have eyeshine in dark environments. The eyeshine is caused by a membrane at the back of the eye known as the tapetum lucidum, which is Latin for bright tapestry. It's behind the retina, but it reflects light back into the retina so that the animal can capture more light and better see in the dark. Many nocturnal animals, including black bears, have it, so the eyeshine didn't rule out black bears as an explanation. (00:45:27)

[SPEAKER_01] : In the interview summary, Mike also discussed the kind of eyeshine they were seeing. And he goes, during the daytime, you'll see big black eyes. And he goes, at night, their eyes reflect red. And then he said, well, let me back up. The eyeshine depends on the type of light you're hitting them with. If you hit them with a flashlight, you're going to get a red color back. If you hit them with a, you know, a car's headlights, you're going to get a red color back. He got some of the newer cars, how they have the halogen bulbs. (00:45:57)

[SPEAKER_01] : Right. He said, when you hit them with that, you're going to get kind of a yellowish greenish. He goes, so it all depends on what type of light you're hitting them with. And those same colors of eyeshine, red, yellow and green, are also reported for black bears. However, black bears are actually pretty timid towards humans. And it would be unexpected behavior for black bears to keep trying to get close to or into a house when people are shooting at them. Matt continues. He explained the game cams. He said he didn't understand why. And the only thing he's ever come up with on the game cams is they don't like the infrared. (00:46:33)

[SPEAKER_01] : And that could very well be. I mean, we don't know that much about their eyes and how they work. Maybe they can actually see that. And that's the only thing he could think of, you know, because I had asked him, you know, do you think they know what a camera is? And he said, no, I don't think they know what a camera is. So things were quite serious. However, what might be a new piece of the puzzle soon fell into place. And to explain this, I need to explain a hunting term. There is a practice known as spotlighting, where you go hunting at night and shine a light at your prey, you know, such as a deer. (00:47:03)

[SPEAKER_01] : This confuses the animal. And they often just stand there looking at the light like they don't perceive it as a threat the way they would a human. And that makes them much easier to hunt. Spotlighting is illegal in many jurisdictions. And I verified that it was illegal in Oklahoma back in 2000. (00:47:19)

[SPEAKER_00] : Matt continues. This morning, I asked him if he ever spotlights deer at night from his porch. He does. Then we established that indeed, most of the time when he's spotlighting the woods and shooting from his porch is when he's shooting at deer, not Bigfoots. So if the animals who aren't running away from the loud gunshots are some kind of predator, like Bigfoots, that's been in the area for a while, then those predators may have noticed that sometimes after those spotlighting gunshot incidents, a wounded deer would be struggling up the hill trying to get away and will be much easier to catch. (00:47:56)

[SPEAKER_00] : Deer will always take off running when they hear gunshots, especially within 50 yards. That's how they know they weren't seeing deer's eyes while the shooting was going on. The animals may have thought Tim and Michael were taking shots at deer, as they usually do, and that's maybe why they aren't running away. Tim sounded stunned when I explained the deer connection. He slurred out a long, steady, oh my god, as if it finally all made sense to him. The Bigfoots might be hanging around the property waiting to grab a wounded deer. I explained that these predators might not understand that they are the intended targets now, because all they would see is a spotlight shining through the trees toward them, then a very loud bang from an assault rifle. (00:48:45)

[SPEAKER_00] : The animals may be expecting to see wounded deer running toward them up the hill. They may have watched that pattern for years. It's possible they either don't realize that there are bullets whizzing by them, or they've gotten used to it. At that range, the shot is so loud you wouldn't hear a bullet hitting the trees next to you, and they wouldn't see when the guns are pointed right at them, because the spotlights would be in their eyes at that moment. It may appear to be business as usual with all the shooting going on. (00:49:17)

[SPEAKER_00] : Matt. (00:49:18)

[SPEAKER_01] : So the situation is that there was a deer overpopulation in the county. Deer overpopulation is a real problem. It means that there are too many deer for the food that's available, and the deer will start starving. One of the best ways to handle a deer overpopulation problem is to hunt them so that their numbers go down to manageable levels. In this case, the proposal was that the deer were being attracted to Tim's property because of the Austrian snow peas. And he was doing his part to help with the overpopulation problem and feed his family by hunting the deer. (00:49:53)

[SPEAKER_01] : He was just using spotlighting to make it easier. The Bigfoots, or whatever, then got into the habit of waiting for wounded deer to flee from the house during the spotlighting, and they didn't realize that the target had changed and that now the Bigfoots themselves were the targets, not the deer. It's an interesting theory, but there's one aspect of it that Mike has disputed. Matt reported that Tim had planted snow peas in order to attract the deer, but Mike said that wasn't true. When you read the account on the BFRO website, it makes it sound like these guys planted all these snow peas so they could poach from their property. (00:50:29)

[SPEAKER_01] : He told me that's not true. He said those snow peas were there when they bought the property, and they're still there today. So according to Mike, the idea Tim was planting the snow peas to attract the deer was false. But setting that aside, the theory is still an interesting proposal, and in its basic framework it would still work. At this point, the two BFRO investigators who were on site, Miles and Roger, started heading back. For his part, Matt answered some questions that had been sent in by other BFRO advisors. (00:50:57)

[SPEAKER_00] : Problem with that. To them, it's a dangerous nuisance predator. They said we could do whatever we wanted to, but they are going to do whatever they want to. Assume we could do the impossible and get a tranquilizing team assembled. The team would not want to lay in wait there with those guys shooting up the place. Nothing is going to stop these guys if they think they see one from the porch. Question. What has led them to take a fairly unusual step of frequenting a human habitation and attempting to break into a living space? Answer. They are after the deer and the deer meat. (00:51:51)

[SPEAKER_01] : At least that was Matt's impression. As we heard from the interview summary of Mike, it was the killing of one of the Bigfoots that prompted the attempts to get inside the house. But people have different perspectives. (00:52:03)

[SPEAKER_00] : Question. Could something be done to alter this behavior which would not put humans or Bigfoot at risk? Answer. Yes, he's got to deter the deer. If the deer leave permanently, then the Bigfoots will leave eventually. I told him to put up scarecrows and remove as much of the snow peas as he can to keep the deer away. I also told him to string up more lights around the house. Question. I can imagine that if it were me in their shoes, I'd be out there with as much firepower as I needed. But have we examined what brought this situation to its current crisis? (00:52:41)

[SPEAKER_00] : Is it unreasonable to expect that if you keep fresh game hanging around your property that it is going to attract unwelcome visitors? Answer. All I could do is ask questions to help him figure out the cause. And from that point, we came up with a simple strategy. Make the deer go away and everything should cool down. That's what they are going to do. But they're still going to shoot if they see one. These guys are very firm about reserving the right to shoot on sight. All the king's horses wouldn't change Tim's mind about that. (00:53:15)

[SPEAKER_00] : I asked him if he'd sell the property. He said it isn't for sale. They don't want to move. I suppose it's like this. Imagine you didn't know anything about this subject and you lived way out in the mountains. Recently, you've had a real live monster, maybe more than one, trying to get in your windows and now your wife and kids are petrified. You've gone out to shoot at it and it still comes back to the edge of your property and your wife and kids know that. Then some research group shows up and says, hey, don't shoot the poor monster. (00:53:48)

[SPEAKER_00] : It's special. That doesn't fly with these guys. If it was a bear trying to get in the house, they'd shoot it. They'd hunt it down if they couldn't get it in the act. If it was a person trying to get in, they'd shoot him. They don't see why they should cut a Bigfoot any slack. (00:54:05)

[SPEAKER_01] : And I agree. If a Bigfoot were trying to get into my house, I'd shoot it too. Just like if a human home invader were trying to get into my house, I'd shoot him. Isn't there a debate in the Bigfoot community about whether shooting a Bigfoot is a good idea? There is. And this has to do with getting Bigfoot recognized as a real species by mainstream science. The way zoology works, you typically need a body or at least a skeleton that can be carefully studied to prove that a species is real. This is what's known as a type specimen. (00:54:37)

[SPEAKER_01] : And new species aren't typically recognized until you have one so that it can be scientifically described and the results published. Well, we don't have a type specimen of Bigfoot, and without one, science isn't likely to recognize Bigfoots as real, which means that they won't be legally protected. Consequently, some Bigfoot researchers have proposed that we need to shoot a Bigfoot just once to get a type specimen. And then mainstream science and the law can take it from there to make sure that they're protected in the future. Some have even argued that we need to do this because there can't be many Bigfoots out there, just a few thousand, and they would likely qualify as an endangered species, maybe extremely endangered. (00:55:20)

[SPEAKER_01] : So the idea is to sacrifice one of them to save all the rest before they get to the point of extinction. Other Bigfoot researchers have suggested trying to capture a Bigfoot rather than kill one, but that's harder to do. Although we've already heard Matt from the BFRO discussing this possibility, and saying that it was impractical in this case. And other BFRO advisors also were trying to find a way to solve the problem without killing the creatures. They had offered to buy the property, they'd at least floated the idea, but as we heard from both Matt and Mike, Tim wasn't interested in moving. (00:55:56)

[SPEAKER_01] : Another advisor asked... (00:55:58)

[SPEAKER_00] : Question. I believe we need to try to at least ask these questions of ourselves. I hope as you do that the presence of a lot of armed humans will be enough to keep these things at bay. But I'd really like to know the full history of the encounters between the Bigfoots and this family. Could there have been measures taken to head this off? Answer. I think we're going to be learning some things as we go along here, but we can't stop this particular ball from rolling. I've done absolutely everything I can do. (00:56:30)

[SPEAKER_00] : I think I heard most relevant points of the encounter history with this family. It all adds up to a correlation between three species being present there, humans, deer, and Bigfoots. The deer are the things to focus on because they can be removed from the equation. If the deer leave, the Bigfoots will probably leave too. Tim and Michael are taking my word on this. They said they don't want to have to kill the Bigfoots unless necessary. Unfortunately, if they even see one, then it becomes necessary as far as they are concerned. Question. Again, I'm not there and I can imagine the fear and anger these people are feeling, but the questions must be asked. (00:57:14)

[SPEAKER_00] : If for no other reason, then it will add to our knowledge base and hopefully allow us to diffuse a future situation like this. By the way, the explanations regarding the reluctance to contact local law enforcement is entirely plausible. It really is something to have a guy like Roger around who knows the local terrain and mentality of the locals so well. I got to question what the father, who is a bear hunter, is doing there though. It sounds like this could easily turn into a hunting expedition which you weren't against. Matt also said, Tim and Michael were only amenable to letting me send people initially if I was sending a hunter in the mix. (00:57:54)

[SPEAKER_00] : Roger's father was the hunter. I didn't tell the residents ahead of time that the hunter was in his 70s. I had to explain to Michael on the phone after they arrived that they are more investigators than hunters, but they can defend themselves. Roger's father turned out to be more interested in sleeping in the car than anything else. He got out of the car and came into the house when the shooting started though. I think they were all up for most of the night and then all day long again today. That's probably why I haven't heard from them. (00:58:25)

[SPEAKER_00] : I'm as eager as the rest of you to hear all the details. Matt. (00:58:30)

[SPEAKER_01] : And Mike also complained in the interview summary about how the hunter that the BFRO sent out was in his 70s and seemed primarily interested in sleeping in the car. (00:58:40)

[SPEAKER_00] : Now, once the two investigators that the BFRO had sent out to the property got back, one of them, Miles, wrote a report which said, I met Roger Roberts and his father-in-law in Tulsa and we drove down to the arriving shortly before dark Friday afternoon. Roger is a private eye and was very helpful picking up on details and asking good questions. It was quickly beginning to cloud up with very dark ominous looking weather, which probably cheated us out of close to an hour of good daylight. We looked around the scene. The deer was badly eaten up to this point. (00:59:16)

[SPEAKER_00] : Less than 48 hours had gone by since the kill, mostly by his dogs, I imagine. He had about 15 beagles running loose. There are other predators in the area, but since it was only about 75 yards behind their house, I doubt if it was anything but the dogs that were responsible for the damage. I witnessed them eating on it. Anyway, it was too far gone to tell anything, just a skeleton from the hindquarters forward to the upper neck. The witnesses all appeared to be honest. It is my opinion that they are truthful and that there is Bigfoot activity in the area. (00:59:51)

[SPEAKER_00] : The gate was impressive. It closes against the corner of the house. There were absolutely no signs of scratches or anything that gave the impression that the damage was faked by clamping in a vice or something. The total area of the bending was approximately 14 inches. There appeared to be three or four spots along the middle of the crease that were the points of contact, like a hand wrapping around it and squeezing. They were approximately two inches apart, centered in the folded area. (01:00:24)

[SPEAKER_01] : So Miles was an independent witness to damage that had been done. There was no evidence of scratches, so it didn't look like that it had been done by an animal with claws. And there was no evidence of using a vice, which would have suggested fraud. Instead, the bent material looked like a hand with fingers had wrapped around it and squeezed. (01:00:47)

[SPEAKER_00] : Miles also reported, Several friends and neighbors stopped by throughout the evening that had heard about what was going on. When they heard about what was happening, they began to open up and relate stories of their own. For the storytelling session, we just let them talk. I can spot a liar, and Roger has a lot of experience with questioning and interviewing, and we are both convinced these people were on the level about their experiences. The session went on until about 11 p.m., and since they indicated nothing ever happens until around 1 or 2 a.m., Roger and I went driving around with a spotlight to see if we could spot anything from the roads. (01:01:28)

[SPEAKER_00] : It rained all night, by the way. Note, that area is extremely remote and heavily forested and mountainous. I have been all around the country hiking, Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, Alaska, Great Smoky Mountains, etc., and I was really caught by surprise. No, it is not as rugged and isolated as the Northwest, but it is just like the Smokies. It is a perfect spot with all the protected government land. Anyway, when we got back, they were all out on the front porch, and they said they had just shot at one across the road. That started the hunt. Basically, we hung around outside until about 4 a.m., in the rain, low 30s, shining lights. (01:02:12)

[SPEAKER_00] : The brothers shot at two more somethings that I never saw. They described the eyes as reflecting pinkish red, the term like a red reflector or taillights on a car was used. I did see something a few minutes after the initial sighting that they shot at, that reflected like a red reflector. It was there for just a second in the trees across the road, thick small saplings and brushy area, around 7 or 8 feet high. It was definitely there, not the reflection of wet leaves or anything like a tower light in the distance. Anyway, they would see something and shoot, but there would be no scream or sound of anything running away. (01:02:56)

[SPEAKER_00] : There were no screams all night or any definite moving in the brush. Of course, listening was hampered by the sound of the rain on the wet leaves. (01:03:06)

[SPEAKER_01] : So, Miles said that he had seen the apparent eyeshine and that it was like a red reflector. He also said it was 7 to 8 feet off the ground, which is a little tall or high to be a black bear. Black bears are 5 to 7 feet tall when they are standing on their hind legs, so this is a little over that. It could have been a misestimation. The BFR report then continues by saying... (01:03:29)

[SPEAKER_00] : Miles and Roger shot some videotape of the situation with their camcorder. They tried to document the eyes on the hillside, but it was too fleeting to capture on tape. The heavy rain complicated matters by forcing them to stay on the porch most of the night. The following morning, they looked for tracks on the hillside. Due to the thick leaf litter and the heavy rains, there were no tracks that could be clearly distinguished from the boot impressions of the residents. By the end of the day, it was decided by Miles and Roger that the residents could adequately protect themselves. (01:04:03)

[SPEAKER_00] : They didn't need another hunter waiting on the porch. The residents weren't interested in allowing a surveillance project or anything else that would require attracting the animals back near the home. They wanted the Bigfoots to get the message and keep out. There were other reasons the investigators were not inclined to stay longer. The nervous shooting by the residents made it a hazardous, unpredictable situation. The investigators had to cautiously position themselves much of the time to keep out of any potential line of fire. They never knew when the crackle in the brush might lead to an unfortunate accident. (01:04:40)

[SPEAKER_00] : There was also an inherent conflict between different objectives, deterrence and research. Even doing research on adjacent land wasn't a safe alternative. The investigators packed up, thanked the residents for their hospitality, told them to be safe, and asked to be contacted if any evidence of any sort became available. It never did. As with any small town situation, word got out about what was happening at the property. Not only did everyone seem to know what was going on, but the location soon came under surveillance by the state Fish and Game office. The residents could no longer do hunting off the back porch or shoot fairly indiscriminately into the night. (01:05:26)

[SPEAKER_00] : The family was eventually persuaded to stop trying to shoot the creatures and instead deal with the underlying cause of the problem. They needed to get rid of all the deer meat and stop hunting deer on the property. The increased presence of Fish and Game vehicles in the area made the argument an easier sell. (01:05:47)

[SPEAKER_01] : But in the interview summary, Mike apparently expressed a different opinion about how Fish and Wildlife became involved. When you read the BFRO report, and I flat out asked Mike this. At the end, it makes it sound like, well, the news got out in a small town and the newspapers started showing up and then Fish and Game started showing up on his property. I asked him two questions. I asked him one, was that true? And two, do you think the BFRO double-crossed you guys and called Fish and Game and called the newspapers? And his answer was yes to both of them. (01:06:20)

[SPEAKER_01] : Now, when you read the BFRO report, they don't say how the authorities became aware of the situation. They just say word got out and attributed it to be in a small town. But you can see how a Bigfoot society whose members were expressing hesitancy about shooting one, and which had floated the idea of buying the property for a research project, might want to protect the Bigfoots by reporting the situation to the authorities. And that's something that might not even be due to the organization as a whole. It might just be something that one of the members of the organization did on their own. (01:06:56)

[SPEAKER_01] : But you can see how that could happen, as Mike suspected it did. On the other hand, we don't have any proof that it did. And the authorities could have just learned in the same way the BFRO report suggested. (01:07:08)

[SPEAKER_00] : The report then says, it wasn't long before they indicated that everything died down. They said the Bigfoots seemed to keep a greater distance. They were heard off and on howling from the nearby hilltops, but they didn't try to enter the home again. The family heard less and less vocalizations as the weeks went on. Eventually, the vocalizations ceased altogether. It was assumed the animals moved into a different area. There was plenty of places for them to go. The property is in the Kayamichi Mountains, on the edge of the vast Ouachita National Forest. (01:07:45)

[SPEAKER_01] : But in the interview summary, Mike apparently indicated that this is at least somewhat misleading. And he was saying that when you read the BFRO report online, it makes it sound like these guys were telling them, you know, hey Johnny boy, go tear up the snow peas, your deer will go away. And then the deer went away and then the Bigfoots went away. And he said that's not true. They still have stuff going on there today. They never went away. And he was saying that, you know, he has every intention on shooting one. So things may have substantially quieted down, but according to Mike, they still had some Bigfoot activity. (01:08:19)

[SPEAKER_01] : And as of 2018, Michael still expressed the intent to shoot one. (01:08:23)

[SPEAKER_00] : A few weeks later, the BFRO sent another investigator from Oklahoma, Sue Lindley, to explore and solo camp in the general vicinity of the home. She came well prepared and camped for several days alone with her dog. She returned a few weeks later to set up an automated camera at a promising spot. She found and heard a few interesting things on that trip, but nothing definite. The camera trap yielded nothing. (01:08:51)

[SPEAKER_01] : It's interesting that the camera trap didn't capture any pictures of the Bigfoots because they discussed this subject in the interview summary. The host asked Michael about this. He explained the game cams. He said he didn't understand why. And the only thing he's ever come up with on the game cams is they don't like the infrared. And that could very well be. I mean, we don't know that much about their eyes and how they work. Maybe they can actually see that. And that's the only thing he could think of, you know, because I had asked him, you know, do you think they know what a camera is? (01:09:20)

[SPEAKER_01] : And he said, no, I don't think they know what a camera is. Many game cameras use infrared to determine when an animal is in front of them and take a picture. And the ones that use active infrared are constantly shining an infrared light. We know that some species can see this light and it can affect the animal's behavior. That's why other game cameras use only no glow passive infrared, which is less likely to disturb the behavior of the game. But if they were using active infrared cameras and the Big Foots can see that and don't like the light, it would explain why it's hard to get pictures of them using game cameras. (01:09:57)

[SPEAKER_01] : Mike also reported that they figured out some things about the motion detector lights they had around the house. He kind of learned a hard lesson about ignoring them. And he said before he got to that point, what he did is he set up motion detectors and lights that would go off around his house. And he said that worked for a small amount of time. It seemed to get them to back off. And he wasn't sure if they were backing off. He thinks that maybe they thought he was clicking the light on. And so they backed off. (01:10:26)

[SPEAKER_01] : And he said one day after this, they backed off for a while. Then the knocking on the window started again, the knocking on the door starting again. And he said that he went out one day and noticed none of his his motion detectors were really going off anymore. And as he walked around the property, he had seen these sticks, almost kind of, they were laid on top of each other, but kind of in a weird pattern. And he thought, well, that's odd. And then he walked over a little bit farther and saw another one. And then he saw another one. (01:10:56)

[SPEAKER_01] : And then he saw another one. And it dawned on him that where they had laid those sticks was in the direct path of the motion detector. And if you stand behind the sticks, it's too far for the motion detector to go off. The minute you step across those sticks, the motion detector goes off and the light goes off. And using stick structures to mark things is something that Bigfoots are suspected to do. We discussed that back in episode 375 on Bigfoot biology. So in this case, the Bigfoots may have figured out how far away you needed to be from the house before triggering the motion detector lights. (01:11:29)

[SPEAKER_01] : And they marked that with sticks. However, things went even further than that. He said one morning he got up and all of his motion detectors were pointed straight up in the air. So they had figured out how to they got past he could see what he would do is when he went out, he messed up all their sticks. He just would take them and throw them out and he'd get rid of all the sticks that and he said the next morning when he got up, all of his motion detectors were pointed straight up. So they had figured out what was actually setting off the light. (01:11:57)

[SPEAKER_01] : So this would provide evidence that the Bigfoots were able to identify the motion detectors themselves as the cause of the lights going on. And when Mike started removing their stick structures, they just pointed the motion detectors up so that they wouldn't detect them. This would indicate that Bigfoots have a significant level of intelligence. It wouldn't need to be human level intelligence, but it would be the kind of cause and effect reasoning that we see various animals being able to do the ones that can at least learn similar things. And it could indicate that they might take active measures to avoid being detected by things like motion detector lights and game cameras. (01:12:35)

[SPEAKER_00] : The BFRO report then concludes by stating the best thing the BFRO could do at that point was to wait to hear from more witnesses in the general area who might provide tips on another visited property. When a tip finally came in months later, an expedition was organized. The Ouachita expedition. That expedition yielded no video or photographic evidence, but the participants say they heard probable vocalizations and believe another expedition is warranted. (01:13:07)

[SPEAKER_01] : So they did organize another expedition to the Ouachita mountains. They heard what they thought were some probable Bigfoot vocalizations, but they didn't see anything. And there is information about that expedition if you want to read about it on the BFRO website.

[SPEAKER_01] : Jimmy, now that we've covered the BFRO report, is there anything else to know about the Honnabi Bigfoot siege? In the interview summary, Mike was reported as saying several additional interesting things. One of them suggested some tactical thinking on the part of the Bigfoots. He said there's this eight foot one that looked more gorilla than the rest of them. And what it would do is it would come out in the yard at night and it would pace back and forth. And it would growl and it would throw rocks. (01:15:33)

[SPEAKER_01] : Him and his brother decided we've had enough. So they go out after the creature. Well, the creature kind of goes back a little bit, back more towards the tree line. So they start engaging it. They start going after it. And it backs up a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. But it's allowing them to... It's drawing them out. And he told me that what was going on is when this thing would do that in the wood line that was almost like a U-shape around them, he would hear four or five creatures in the wood line surrounding them. (01:16:06)

[SPEAKER_01] : And he realized it was a trap. And he said that this thing would do it all the time. It would try to get them. It would try to provoke them into coming out, you know, out of the house. So they thought this Bigfoot was trying to lure them out of the house to attack them. And this is behavior that is known to exist in other animals, in some of them. Specifically, it's used by what are known as ambush predators that try to lure their prey into a vulnerable situation before ambushing or attacking them. He was sitting in his bedroom one time and he said he always keeps his night vision and his either rifle or assault rifle right next to the bed. (01:16:42)

[SPEAKER_01] : So he's sitting in his bed one night and he said this creature came to his bedroom window and actually had to bend down because it was so tall, looked in the window and started growling at him. So he grabbed his night vision gear, grabbed his gun. Before he could get out of the bedroom, he heard his wife screaming from the living room. He was out there and was like, what's wrong? What's wrong? She goes, I saw, I saw it again. I saw it again. He goes, was it gray? And she goes, yeah. How did you know? (01:17:10)

[SPEAKER_01] : He goes, it was at the bedroom window growling at me. She's like, yeah, it came out here, out to the front window and started growling at me. He actually went up and after this creature, he said every time he steps outside, they'll scatter because they, I asked him, I said, do you think they know what a gun is? And he said, Wes, they know what a gun is. And that's not surprising. Even if animals don't know how they work, lots of animals know what a gun is. Deer, for example, know to get out of dodge fast if they hear the sound of a gunshot. (01:17:40)

[SPEAKER_01] : And Susan Monceau has a really interesting book titled Playing Possum, How Animals Understand Death, in which she argues that they have a much better understanding of death than we commonly realize. But I don't find it at all surprising that a higher primate like Bigfoot appears to be able to figure out that guns are dangerous. Mike also recounted another interesting encounter with a Bigfoot. Yeah, he said one time I was on my, I went out out back and he goes, we used to have this dumpster out back. And I hear this thing digging through the dumpster. (01:18:11)

[SPEAKER_01] : He goes, I didn't know if it was one of these monsters. I didn't know if it was, you know, just a wild animal. So I go walking up to the dumpster. And he said this thing stood up, and he's probably two feet away from it. This thing stood up inside the dumpster and was looking down at him. And Mike said he grabbed his gun, cocked the hammer back, it looked down and saw his gun. And he goes, Wes, I saw the whites of this thing's eyes. Its eyes got real big and then it dropped down, back down into the dumpster. (01:18:39)

[SPEAKER_01] : He said in the backside of the dumpster there's a hole to where stuff, you know, it was a pretty big hole. Things could get in and out there. He said, I'm waiting for this thing to pop its head back up because I'm going to take its head off. So I start walking around the dumpster. And he goes, I stepped on a kind of a large twig and the twig broke. He said this thing went barreling out of the dumpster, out the back backside of it, took off on all fours. And he said, Wes, this thing was running so fast I couldn't get a beat on it. (01:19:08)

[SPEAKER_01] : He said it went, took off on all fours. And then he said it was so smooth that it went up on two feet like it was nothing and took off running like you'd see a man take off running. And so he's trying to get a beat on it. He said when it jumped, it cleared the six foot fence. And he goes it had to have jumped at least 50, 60 feet and cleared this fence. This encounter is interesting because at a distance of two feet, it would be much harder to mistake a bear for a Bigfoot. But the way Mike describes it running would rule out a bear because bears run faster on four legs than on two. (01:19:41)

[SPEAKER_01] : They are more clumsy on two legs. So a bear would not be expected to start running on four legs and then transition to running on two to get away from someone. And they especially would not get up on two legs in order to make a leap. They can only leap short distances when they're up on two legs because their legs are so short compared to their bodies. But a truly bipedal creature that has long legs like a human or Bigfoot could leap better when on two feet than down on all fours. Now I don't know about one leap in 50 to 60 feet. (01:20:14)

[SPEAKER_01] : I assume that's an exaggeration. But it sounds like the creature was leaping from a standing position much further than a bear could. With all this Bigfoot activity on their land, did Mike and Tim ever get any pictures or video of them? According to Mike and the Tulsa World article we read, the answer is yes. He goes, well, I got pictures of them. I got videos of them. I got audios of, you know, he goes, but why would I come out with any of that? When they first came out with this, he said he joined some of the Bigfoot forums and he said people just attacked them left and right. (01:20:46)

[SPEAKER_01] : And so they had enough. And he said, so why would I come out and share anything? He goes, it's going to take a body to prove it. So what does it matter what I got on video? I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I can see a person taking that attitude, especially if they had initially tried to share what they had and then got mocked. On the other hand, it's Sherlock Holmes in the case of the missing evidence, which always makes me suspicious. Still, most people who report Bigfoot encounters only have them once in very briefly. (01:21:17)

[SPEAKER_01] : If what Mike and Tim reported was true, they had a lot of interactions. So did they learn anything interesting about the Bigfoots themselves? They did. And some of this had to do with how Bigfoots get food. Bigfoots are reportedly omnivores, and one of the ways they get food is reported to be by hunting. Mike claims that they use wood knocks as part of this process. Wood knocks are sounds that Bigfoots are reported to make by hitting a tree with something else, like a branch. And if Bigfoots are making these noises, they're part of how Bigfoots communicate with each other in the forest when they can't see each other. (01:21:52)

[SPEAKER_01] : In fact, it's reported that you'll often hear one set of wood knocks answered by another. For example, here's an exchange like that that was recorded back in 1974 in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Today, some researchers, such as in the BFRO, will play recordings like this in hopes of getting Bigfoot in the area to respond in kind. You know, they'll play one set of wood knocks and then wait and see if any wood knocks answer. And sometimes this works, but Mike has a different interpretation of what's going on in these situations. One will sit at the top of the game trail, and another one will sit at the bottom of the game trail. (01:22:39)

[SPEAKER_01] : And he said this wood knocking business that the BFRO does is a joke. He goes, the wood knocking is when they're hunting. He said one will wood knock at the top of the game trail, and the other one will respond to the wood knocking at the bottom of the game trail. And almost kind of like, are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Are you ready? And he said that when a deer comes down the game trail, one of them will kind of make a commotion in the bush. Not enough to make the deer bolt, but enough to make it gently drive it. (01:23:06)

[SPEAKER_01] : Right. Drive it down the trail. Drive it into the ambush. And he was saying when it would get to the bottom of the game trail where the other one was at, it would pounce. It'd jump out and it would pounce on it. And this is consistent with ambush predator hunting tactics, as is the way Mike says they fish. The other thing he was telling me is how they fish. And I've heard this a million times from different encounters. He said what they do is they'll sit and almost like the same way they hunt deer, they'll ambush. (01:23:33)

[SPEAKER_01] : You ever heard the term noodling? Right, right. Okay. He said what they'll do is they'll basically get inside... the term noodling for people out there who don't know. A lot of these guys, especially in the south, they'll sit and wait in water and they'll put their hands down in crevices where catfish will come up and bite their hand. Well, when they bite their hand, they yank the catfish out. And he was saying they do the same thing. They'll sit out there and you'll see one with usually one hand in the water. (01:24:02)

[SPEAKER_01] : And he said he always laughs when he hears accounts where people think they're out there washing their hands or... that's not what they're doing. They're actually... and he said he's seen them eat a whole fish right there after they catch them. So, they also use ambush predator tactics on fish. Bigfoots are also reported to make chattering noises that sound kind of like human speech. Researchers sometimes refer to this as samurai chatter because it sometimes sounds kind of like a Japanese man. Here's an example that was also recorded in the Sierra Nevada mountains. (01:24:35)

[SPEAKER_01] : Imitating the noises that other creatures make is something that is reported in nature. In fact, it's sometimes used as part of an ambush predator strategy. This is known as aggressive mimicry. For example, in Latin America, they have these cats known as margays. And they also have these little monkeys known as pied tamarin monkeys. And the margays are known to imitate the vocalizations of pied tamarins while they're hunting. So, the margay is trying to make the monkeys think that one of their fellow monkeys is around and lure the tamarins into a false sense of security. (01:25:22)

[SPEAKER_01] : There are also defensive forms of mimicry. And whether offensive or defensive, it's been suggested that the samurai chatter is Bigfoot attempting to mimic human vocalizations. Mike apparently reported that they can even get more specific than just a general human sound and vocalization. And they may be able to imitate specific people. I asked him, you know, in that audio I played in the beginning with the samurai chatter, I said, have you heard that before? And he said, absolutely. He said, most of the sounds they make are screams, whistles, you'll hear the whoop. He said, but that samurai chatter, he goes, I've heard that on a number of occasions. (01:26:04)

[SPEAKER_01] : And he even told me that they mimicked him. It really threw me off when he said that. I asked him what he meant by that. And he said, Wes, one time I had left for work and my brother and my dad were out there. And he goes, Wes, every night I call for my dogs to have my dogs come in. So, my brother and my dad are out there and they hear me calling for the dogs out in the woods. They hear my voice out there calling for the dogs. Tim and his father kind of looked at each other like, is Mike here? (01:26:30)

[SPEAKER_01] : And then they realized, no, Mike's gone. He left hours ago. His car's not here. And his brother kind of felt like it was a little bit of a trap too, to get them to come out towards the woods. But the thing he said, his brother explained it to him, sounded just like Mike calling for his dog. So, it's possible that the Bigfoots identified Mike's vocalizations calling for his dogs and they later used it either as part of a way to communicate with humans or as aggressive mimicry to try to lure them in out into a more vulnerable position. (01:26:59)

[SPEAKER_01] : If so, Tim and his father didn't take the bait. Some people have suggested that one of the reasons we don't find Bigfoot bones is that they bury their dead, making them harder to find. Did this experience suggest anything about that? Well, the idea that Bigfoots bury their dead has been proposed, but I don't think it's necessary to explain why we haven't found their bones. There are multiple reasons why that might be the case, including the fact that they are fairly rare animals and the fact that predators would eat Bigfoot carcasses and scatter the bones and that North America is huge and that Bigfoots reportedly live up in the mountains away from people and the soil of American forests is acidic and that will dissolve bones over time. (01:27:46)

[SPEAKER_01] : But they did ask Mike this question. I asked him if he thought that they buried their dead and he said he didn't know, but they will carry their dead off. And that's consistent with what Mike reported about him and Tim seeing one of the Bigfoots heft up the one that they shot and carry it off. Now the experience that Tim and Mike report is very different than the brief encounters that many people report. And you've often said that we should be wary of outlier data that doesn't fit the norm. Well, what do you make of this experience? (01:28:16)

[SPEAKER_01] : Well, it's certainly not the most common kind of Bigfoot report, but there are parallels that are out there in the literature. For example, the falc monster encounter in 1971 that we reported back in episode 359 was quite similar in a number of ways. It's just that the pair of families in that situation left very quickly and didn't hang around long after the Bigfoot started trying to get into their house and attacked one of the family members. There are also parallels to other reports. On Sasquatch Chronicles, they said... He and I've emailed back and forth things, everything he's said, I have heard or seen elsewhere. (01:28:55)

[SPEAKER_01] : And the fact that both the falc monster experience and the Honobi siege experience involved apparent Bigfoot aggression does raise some disturbing possibilities. They may normally be inclined to avoid humans, but in some cases they may attack them. And Mike reported something very interesting from his own area. In his area, just a couple of miles up from his home, family was walking down a trail, down a kind of a park, again, you know, not a game trail, but you know, kind of a park walking down into the woods. And he said this, the older lady, the grandma of the group was going to go back to the car to get something. (01:29:32)

[SPEAKER_01] : And they were about 800, maybe 1000 feet down the trail. And so she just said, well, just wait here, I'll run back up to the car, I need to get something. And she vanished. She was gone. And he said that it runs actually parallel to a road. And he said that, you know, he's not saying that they're, they're directly involved with it. But he goes, people just completely vanished out this way, just gone. And never heard of them again. Didn't he say the dogs wouldn't pick up that trail? Yeah, the dogs wouldn't go after the trail. (01:29:59)

[SPEAKER_01] : In this case, nobody saw a Bigfoot, but it's at least suggestive, if the account is accurate, that the dogs wouldn't follow the trail. Because as we've covered in our episode on Bigfoot biology, dogs are reported to be really scared of Bigfoots and sometimes refuse to track them. There is a gentleman named David Paulides, who has a series called Missing 411 about mysterious disappearances, often in outdoor settings. But a number of readers have asked you to cover this mystery on the show. Could some of those people have fallen victim to Bigfoot attacks? Well, it's not impossible. (01:30:34)

[SPEAKER_01] : I do plan to cover David Paulides in Missing 411 in a future episode. However, we need evidence to support proposed explanations. And there are all kinds of reasons that people can disappear and not be found again besides Bigfoot attacks. So before I would propose that a specific disappearance was due to a Bigfoot attack, I'd want to see significant evidence pointing to that as the explanation, rather than the other equally possible and usually more probable explanations. But I can't rule it out altogether. We heard earlier that as of 2018, when the Sasquatch Chronicles episode came out, there was still Bigfoot activity on the property. (01:31:15)

[SPEAKER_01] : But things obviously weren't as tense as they had been back in 2000 when the siege was going on. So how did the situation finally largely resolve? They asked Mike that question. He put spotlights in his yard. That didn't matter. They still came up and would bang on his windows at night. He said it got to a point where he just turned on his TV as loud as it would go. And he got used to falling asleep to the TV. Right. He said he learned the best way to deal with them is don't don't address what they're doing. (01:31:41)

[SPEAKER_01] : And they they tend to go away. And that wouldn't be too surprising, supposing for a moment that Bigfoot is an ambush predator and that they want to lure you out of your house and you just start ignoring them by not responding. It wouldn't be unexpected that they would stop making the effort to get you to respond. Also, if they stop storing deer meat and other food outside, that would help, too. Did the podcast cover anything else we should be aware of? Well, there is one thing I had asked him, do you think the government is potentially covering up Sasquatch coming out? (01:32:17)

[SPEAKER_01] : And he said, absolutely. Now, as soon as I heard that, I sighed because I find it very difficult to imagine that the government would know for a fact that Bigfoot exists and try to cover it up. I find that kind of conspiracy theory to be very implausible. I don't have a problem with the idea of conspiracies. Conspiracies do exist. That's why we have laws against them. A conspiracy is an agreement between two or more people to do something illegal, and people conspire to do illegal things all the time. But it's hard to think of a good motive for why the government would know that there's a North American primate like Bigfoot and yet cover it up. (01:32:58)

[SPEAKER_01] : But Mike made a very interesting point. And I asked him, I said, why do you think the government was covering this up? He told me, imagine what it would do to the economy if it came out that there was a primate living in North America. He said, they're tough to find. We don't know how many of them there are. All logging would stop. All the timber industry would stop. Forget parks and recreation. All of that would go down the tubes. So in the United States, statistics are actually from 2012. I couldn't find anything updated to 2013 yet. (01:33:32)

[SPEAKER_01] : But there is 1.6 billion jobs that people have here in the United States. So think about all those jobs that would be lost if there was something that did come out about Sasquatch in the forestry industry. Not only with that, there is with the forestry industry and the paper products that we produce, it's 8% of the United States economy, which that equals out to $240 billion. And you remember what I mentioned before about, look like where you guys live, the Amboy area, that was a thriving, like a lot of communities, you know, through the cascade range, were thriving logging communities, you know, 20, 30 years ago. (01:34:17)

[SPEAKER_01] : And then when the spotted owl thing hit, all that ceased. All those communities, all those jobs died. I mean, the owl had a big impact, but it wasn't anywhere near what an indigenous primate would be. Okay, so this is a bit of a different scenario. It's not the government as an entity that knows Bigfoot exists. It's that individual people, some of whom are connected with the government, may know or suspect that Bigfoot exists. And those individuals turn a blind eye to the fact, possibly because of the job loss that would result. Because it's true that if we discovered proof of Bigfoot, it would mean a major hit, not just to the logging industry and all the jobs that the logging industry supports in logging communities, but to all kinds of related fields. (01:35:04)

[SPEAKER_01] : I mean, you can imagine what ecologists would do if we had proof of a major, but rare and endangered North American great ape. They would freak out and all kinds of restrictions would be imposed for years or even longer. So I can imagine lower level people in the park service or Fish and Wildlife or even the police knowing or suspecting that Bigfoots exist and that they would simply not want to look into it. So I thought it would be worth letting the audience hear Mike's proposal. I can also imagine such people not wanting to look into the existence of Bigfoot, because if they did talk about, well, I know or think this creature exists, they'd get laughed at and it would hurt their careers. (01:35:48)

[SPEAKER_01] : In fact, I know that that kind of reticence is happening because I've heard reports from forestry and game officials who take the idea of Bigfoot seriously, but hide their identities and keep their interest in the subject on the down low. In any event, I thought it would be worth sharing Mike's perspective and let listeners make up their own minds about it. Okay, let's look at the Haudenosaunee Bigfoot siege from the reasoned perspective. What do you make of it? Well, the first thing I'd say is that I don't think this was a hoax. (01:36:19)

[SPEAKER_01] : The evidence supports these people having a real experience of some kind, and there are at least three lines of evidence that point that way. First, the Bigfoot field researchers organization investigators were convinced that the Humphreys were terrified and were sincere. Second, the Humphreys would have to have gone to too much trouble for a hoax. I mean, like having Mrs. Humphreys and their kids go to stay with family members during the siege, and Tim and Mike shooting off their porch as much as reported when the investigators came out, and their refusal to sell the property, thus depriving them of one of the motives for a hoax. (01:36:57)

[SPEAKER_01] : In fact, they insisted that the BFRO send out a hunter because they wanted help killing the creature to end the problem. They weren't interested in having researchers come out. They only accepted the researchers if the BFRO would send a hunter who could help them end the problem. Third, the Bigfoot field researchers organization investigators themselves saw things that supported the reality of the experience. For example, they saw damage that had been done to the property where stuff had been bent, and there were no scratch marks or signs of a vice. And as Miles reported, they saw red eyeshine. (01:37:34)

[SPEAKER_01] : All of that indicates that we're dealing with a real experience here, not a deliberate hoax on the part of the Humphreys. What about the idea that someone else could have been playing a hoax on the Humphreys? The guns rule that out. I find it very implausible that other humans would be trying to hoax the when Tim and Mike are right there shooting off the porch at you. That would be a suicidally stupid way of going about a hoax. So no, I think this was a real experience. What about the fact that the Humphreys said they had pictures of the Bigfoots that they haven't produced? (01:38:10)

[SPEAKER_01] : Well, as I said, that makes me suspicious, but I can also understand them not releasing those photos if they tried to share what was going on early on and then got mocked. You know, especially if the photos or videos weren't that great. There's a lot of shaky or, you know, ambiguous photos of dark figures in the woods. And if you say, oh, it's a Bigfoot, some people are going to mock you. So I don't consider that decisive. And fundamentally, I think the balance of probability seems to me to be strongly in favor of this being a real experience of some kind. (01:38:43)

[SPEAKER_01] : Then the question would be how to interpret it. What do you make of the possibility that it could have been due to Black Bears? Like with the Falk Monster, Black Bears would be the most likely normal explanation. So if you flatly reject the existence of Bigfoot, well, this is the one I'd go for. But if you're open to the possibility of Bigfoot, we do have evidence that's inconsistent with Black Bears. First, the BFRO investigators said that the damage they had seen done to the property looked like it had been caused by something strong that had a hand with fingers rather than claws since there were no scratches. (01:39:19)

[SPEAKER_01] : Second, Miles said he saw a red eye shine at a height of seven to eight feet, which is a bit tall for a Black Bear, since they commonly only stand five to seven feet tall when up on their hind legs. It's not impossible that this could have been a Black Bear, especially if Miles misestimated how high off the ground they were. But it's at least a little inconsistent with the idea of a Black Bear. Also, as I mentioned, Black Bears are generally regarded as timid creatures, so it would be very unexpected for one or more Black Bears to continue to harass a house when they're being shot at from the house. (01:39:56)

[SPEAKER_01] : Even if you propose that they had become accustomed to hunting wounded deer that were fleeing the house and didn't initially realize that they were the new targets, the idea of them continuing to harass people in the home when they're shooting at them would be very surprising for Black Bears. The natural thing for a Black Bear to do in that situation would be to run away fast on all fours, because that's how they run fast. There's also another reason why Black Bears are unlikely that we'll come back to later. Then, of course, there's what the Humphreys themselves reported. (01:40:30)

[SPEAKER_01] : What do you make of that? Well, the Humphreys had more and closer encounters than the BFRO researchers, and they reported multiple things that would weigh against Black Bears being the explanation. You'll recall that after the chickens vanished, they said they found a trail of eggs leading to the woods, and these eggs had been sucked dry and crushed and stuff. And while bears do suck eggs, they can't carry them in their paws, so bears would not produce a trail of sucked eggs. The family also reported having rocks thrown by the creatures, but Black Bears can only toss a rock a few feet using both paws. (01:41:07)

[SPEAKER_01] : It can't throw them any distance the way primates can. And when Tim shot the Bigfoot, they saw another one pick up the wounded one and heft it over its shoulder and carry it off. That's something bears can't do, for one reason, because they don't have protruding shoulders the way primates do. They also saw one standing in a dumpster from an estimated 2 feet away, after which the Bigfoot started running on all fours, then transitioned to running upright, and then leapt a long distance, which bears can't do from an upright position. They also reported the creatures chattering and making human-like noises, such as when they imitated Mike calling his dogs, and that's something that bears can't do. (01:41:51)

[SPEAKER_01] : Finally, they reported multiple instances of seeing the creature looking in the windows of their house. They reported the creature being so tall that it had to bend down to look in the window, which would be very unusual for a Black Bear, even standing on its hind legs. And they would have gotten a good look at the creature's faces, which they reported as being gorilla or human-like rather than bear-like. Is there any other confirmatory evidence that would support the idea of Bigfoots being responsible? Well, this isn't strong evidence, but Little Dixie is a hotspot for Bigfoot reports. (01:42:28)

[SPEAKER_01] : They are frequently reported in the Ouachita's and the Kiamesha's. In fact, as we'll hear in a future episode, there is a site or a valley that's there known as Area X, where Bigfoots are very commonly reported. And Area X is the site of an organized multi-year Bigfoot research effort. So with Little Dixie being a home to a lot of Bigfoot reports, it wouldn't be surprising to have them reported near Honubi. Earlier, you said there was another reason why Black Bears are an unlikely explanation for the Honubi siege. What was that? (01:43:04)

[SPEAKER_01] : Well, the siege happened in January of the year 2000. But here's the thing. Black Bears hibernate. They go to sleep around the beginning of December, and they don't wake up until around March. So the Honubi siege took place in the middle of Black Bear hibernation season. Bears may briefly wake up occasionally during hibernation, but they typically only move around their den and then go back to sleep. It's unlikely that you would have a Black Bear awake and active around the Humphreys' property conducting the kind of harassment that they reported. And remember, they saw multiple creatures, like four at one time. (01:43:45)

[SPEAKER_01] : So it's even less likely that there would be four Black Bears awake and harassing them across multiple days in mid-January. Black Bears should have been snug and asleep in their dens during this period. So that part of the Black Bear life cycle makes them an unlikely explanation for the Honubi siege, unless one completely rejects the possibility of Bigfoot, in which case Black Bears would be the best explanation available. If that's what you have to say about the Honubi siege from the reason perspective, what can we say about it from the faith perspective? Not a huge amount. (01:44:20)

[SPEAKER_01] : If, as we've covered in previous episodes, Bigfoot exists and is just another member of the Great Apes, then it's just another animal. It's one of God's creatures, and we owe it care and respect like we do for other animals, but it would not be the subject of rights, and there would be no problem killing it, you know, at least in some circumstances, especially if it's become an aggressor on your property and is threatening you or your family. The Humphreys reported experiences that suggest the creatures would have a high level of intelligence for an animal, but still only animal-level intelligence. (01:44:54)

[SPEAKER_01] : We don't have evidence for human-level intelligence that's been reported. The evidence is that if Bigfoot exists, it would have intelligence comparable to other Great Apes like chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, or orangutans. And I tend to show intelligent creatures more respect and deference. I thus need a stronger reason to kill a chimpanzee than I need to kill a mosquito, so I'd be inclined not to kill a Bigfoot without a good reason. But I would not regard it as murder to do so, not given the present state of our evidence. What about the idea of killing a Bigfoot to get a type specimen and prove they exist? (01:45:35)

[SPEAKER_01] : I think that's a subject on which people can have different opinions. Personally, I'm inclined to say that if Bigfoot exists, they are likely endangered and may be very endangered. As a result, I think that there is a serious case for killing one of them to prove they actually exist so that they can get taken seriously and get legal protection before they reach the point of extinction. I'd rather capture one, but capturing a creature is substantially harder and more risky than killing one. So I think that there is a strong case for killing one to save the rest, even though that would have significant impacts on humans like the loss of the jobs that we heard about earlier. (01:46:16)

[SPEAKER_01] : And so, Jimmy, what's your bottom line? The Honebbe Bigfoot siege is a fascinating account. It's not what happens in most Bigfoot encounters, but there are parallels to it, including the nearby 1971 Falkmonster attack. I think that this experience was real. I don't think that the Humphreys were hoaxing, and I don't think that other people were hoaxing the Humphreys. The question is how to interpret the experience. If you think that Bigfoot simply can't exist, then Black Bears being responsible would be the best explanation. But the case presents multiple lines of evidence suggesting that it wasn't Black Bears, including the fact that Black Bears are hibernating when the siege took place. (01:46:56)

[SPEAKER_01] : So it's unlikely a group of them would have been awake and harassed in a family across multiple days in mid-January. Consequently, the case presents evidence that Bigfoots may be real. And Jimmy, what further resources can we offer? We'll have a link to Susan Monceau's book, Play and Possum, How Animals Understand Death. Also, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization article on the Honubi siege. The episode of the Sasquatch Chronicles that has the interview summary from Mike. Also, information about Honubi, Oklahoma. The Tulsa World article. Also, an article from the Daily Oklahoman and information about Little Dixie. And now we turn to our mysterious feedback brought to us by our feedback coordinator, Rob Leonardi. And as I said, this feedback is coming from episode 371 on the telepathy tapes. (01:47:50)

[SPEAKER_01] : Our first feedback comes from Jesse on Facebook and via email. Jesse wanted us to see this message. So Jesse says, one aspect of written communication that I expected to hear about in this program was the question of writing speech sounds, phonemes, rather than words, to convert ideas into writing. In my class of English learners, I don't expect a student to master when, win, went, and wind, or to, to, and to, to, to, to, right away. Do some spell to communicate systems use letter boards with sound combinations or are the combinations expected, the communicators expected to master spelling, grammar, and syntax from the start? (01:48:34)

[SPEAKER_01] : One of my fifth grade English learners with very little exposure to written English could write a sentence like, and it spells out phonetically, John went to town to buy a loaf of bread, but all spelled wrong, which I would accept as a complete and correct thought. I imagine based on the tapes that the spell to communicate communicator could have written, John went to town to buy a loaf of bread, all spelled correctly. Did any researcher or tester challenge this? Do current spell to communicate systems use phonemes to convert heard speech into written speech? So, in research in the episode, I focused more on the end point of spelling to communicate rather than the process of how they get there. (01:49:19)

[SPEAKER_01] : In facilitated communication, I know there were reports of people just suddenly spelling complete sentences perfectly correctly, which is very suspicious. But I know in spelling to communicate that they do have a process for getting people up to the level of spelling. And I don't know what that process involves in detail, because I haven't researched that in a lot of detail. It's possible that in some instances, the communicators don't initially spell everything correctly. And I think I've heard some accounts that made it sound like at least some of them did just start spelling totally correctly out of the box. (01:50:04)

[SPEAKER_01] : And I would regard the latter as quite suspicious. But the rebuttal answer for that would be, well, they're savants linguistically. So, they have better than normal language acquisition abilities, including for spelling. Ultimately, what we need to do is authorship testing. All right. Then Cat writes in via email, I have a 27-year-old daughter with Down syndrome and autism who uses a speech generating device with a program called LAMP Words for Life. LAMP stands for Language Acquisition Through Motor Planning. My first thoughts on these two episodes are that even with normal language acquisition, there needs to be a lot of input before you get an output. (01:50:45)

[SPEAKER_01] : To believe that someone would be able to produce complete sentences with correct spelling and grammar with no prior input in those things is a stretch to my thinking. Just a few thoughts. Intelligence in Humans is directly connected to language development. One young man who was an ambassador for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, AAC, with a company that makes LAMP Words for Life, began as a nonverbal autistic, considered as intellectually impaired, and is now very fluent in language with the use of his device and has been revealed to be highly intelligent. He explained that before he had his device, he was what he described as a zombie with no lucid thought, much as Helen Keller described herself as a ghost in her own biography before her own language breakthrough. (01:51:31)

[SPEAKER_01] : His mind and thoughts actually became lucid and ordered as he acquired language. In a way, we need language to even see the world and make sense of what we see, so for those who rapidly picked up language from the spell-to-communicate mode, it's likely there was already a lot of language input, and their manifestation of autism prevented their ability to express what they already knew. I don't know that you could count them as representative of the population as a whole. My daughter took years to become literate with her device, with much practice in drilling. (01:52:03)

[SPEAKER_01] : The Down syndrome has made that more of a challenge, probably. Yet, while using an AAC device has greatly improved my daughter's language capacity, she's only now beginning to use the device to express her feelings. This has happened as we've helped her learn words for her emotions. It's a long road we travel to bring her out of her own head. Well, Kat, I'm glad that you've been able to have this success with your daughter, and I'm really glad to hear about the young gentleman that you mentioned. It doesn't surprise me that he or Helen Keller would say that their internal life was different before they got a robust grasp of language, because you may feel things but not be able to think as sharply and clearly or express things like your emotions without the language to express them. (01:52:52)

[SPEAKER_01] : Humans are heavily dependent on learning a language, and so I think it's great that you've been able to achieve this and that he was able to achieve this. I am taking your word that the messages are genuinely authored by them. It sounds like it from what you're saying. And the fact that there is this progression, and they're not just out of the box, totally normal or even superior, is a real sign of credibility. So this sounds real to me. Then Pink Nickel Vids on YouTube writes, this raises the question how often sign language is taught to autistic children, and if not, why not? (01:53:33)

[SPEAKER_01] : Not to be demeaning at all here, but signing appears at a simple level to be learnable by primates, from what I've read. Are those primate studies also refutable due to bias or faulty protocols? So let's split this one in two and talk about sign language with autistic children and then we'll talk about the primate studies. I don't know to what extent sign language has been used to help autistic children communicate. It may be out there, but I can also imagine how some of the symptomology of classically autistic children would interfere with it, because we mentioned that one of the things they're known for is self-stimulation or stimming, where they'll do things like flap their hands and rock back and forth and stuff like that. (01:54:22)

[SPEAKER_01] : And that behavior manifestation would interfere with the ability to use American Sign Language, for example, which is dependent on having greater control of what one is doing. That's not to say that they couldn't use a similar system, but it doesn't sound to me like American Sign Language is designed for that type of communication, that it requires more control. When it comes to studies on primates, I've planned on doing an episode of Mysterious World on animal language for a long time, and I'd cover the chimp studies and the gorilla studies that have been done, like with Coco the gorilla and so forth. (01:55:05)

[SPEAKER_01] : And I did some preliminary research on that. I mean, I'd known about it for a long time, and I went back and reviewed some of the tapes and the documentaries that had been made. And like with the chimp studies, in watching them, I did not get the sense that the chimps were genuinely doing human-level sign language. I saw researchers that were having to force the chimps to make signs when the chimp clearly wanted to run away and do something else. And I have my cousin who's deaf. I had asked him if he would be willing to watch some of these tapes because it just did not look like purposeful communicative sign-in. I asked if he'd watch some of these recordings and give me his translation as a native speaker of ASL because I'm not a native speaker of it. (01:56:04)

[SPEAKER_01] : But if he'd give me his translation as a native speaker of ASL of what the chimp is actually saying, a literal translation, not one that's been cleaned up. And he agreed. Unfortunately, shortly after that, he passed away. And so now if I want to do that, I need to find somebody else who's a native speaker of ASL. But I know that there have been studies that have been done. Like, for example, there was a famous chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky, which is a pun on Noam Chomsky, the famous linguist. And Nim's longest sentence, when you translate it literally into English, was something like, orange, orange, give Nim, eat orange, orange, orange, orange, Nim eat orange. (01:56:54)

[SPEAKER_01] : And that is not grammatical ASL. Also, Coco the gorilla, all the sign language stuff that was done with her was basically fraudulent, either consciously or unconsciously. For example, a few years ago, her caretaker, Coco's caretaker, released a video of Coco the gorilla talking in sign language about global warming, and how it makes her sad and how, you know, man is man destroys things. And whereas chimps, gorillas are part of nature. And, and I watched that video. And I said, there's no way this thing is real. This, this, this gorilla does not understand the concept of global warming. (01:57:44)

[SPEAKER_01] : And the video got quickly got pushback. And they swiftly admitted that, yeah, this is really stitched together from different videos, you know, she's sitting in the same location, but we, we, she was clearly coached in what to sign, and then they stitched together the coaching. And so her, her caretaker also would say things that implied Coco had a robust sense of time and would get sad at a certain time of the year, because it's when a former companion of Coco's, another gorilla had died. And it's just very not credible. And so there, there is a sizable amount of intentional or unintentional fraud in the primate studies using sign language. (01:58:31)

[SPEAKER_01] : And now it's time to hear from you. What are your theories about the Haudenosaunee Bigfoot siege? Let us know by visiting sqpn.com or the Jimmy Akins Mysterious World Facebook page, sending us an email to feedback at mysterious.fm, sending a tweet to at mys underscore world, visiting the StarQuest discord community at sqpn.com slash discord, or calling our mysterious feedback line at 619-738-4515. That's 619-738-4515. And I want to say thanks to Oasis Studio 7 for the video and animation work. Check it out at my YouTube channel, youtube.com. I have Mysterious World there for you as well as all kinds of other videos that I'm producing. (01:59:18)

[SPEAKER_01] : While you're there, be sure to like comment and subscribe and be sure and hit the bell notification so you always get notified whenever I have a new video. And I'd like to thank Craig Hart for his voiceover work in today's episode. So Jimmy, what are we going to be talking about next time? I'm not 100% sure. I think I know what our next episode is going to be about, but I'm waiting on confirmation. So you and I and the audience together, we'll just have to see come next week. It's still a mystery. (01:59:47)

[SPEAKER_01] : So folks, be sure to check out the Mysterious World bookstore at mysterious world store.com for links to all the books and videos that Jimmy mentions in the show. Get your very own Mysterious World t-shirt mug and more in our merchandise shop at sqpn.com slash merch. You'll find links to Jimmy's resources from our discussion on our show notes at mysterious.fm slash 378. And remember to help us continue to produce the podcast, please visit sqpn.com slash give. Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World is also brought to you in part by Rosary Army featuring award-winning Catholic podcasts, rosary resources, videos, and the School of Mary online community, prayer, and learning platform. (02:00:33)

[SPEAKER_01] : Learn how to make them, pray them, and give them away while growing in your faith at rosaryarmy.com and schoolofmary.com. And by The Grady Group, a Catholic company bringing financial clarity to their clients across the United States, using safe money options to produce reasonable rates of return for their clients. Learn more at gradygroupinc.com. Until next time, Jimmy Akin, thank you for exploring with us our mysterious world. Thanks, Don. And once again, I'm Don Bettinelli, thank you for listening to Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World on StarQuest. (02:01:10)

(2025-08-25)