SC EP:1191 Remembering Dr. Jeff Meldrum Part II

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things. So I was a youngster 10 years old in sixth grade in Spokane, Washington and in 1969, which the film was shot in late in October of 67. By early 69, this was March 1st at one of the first public showings of the film to a public venue. The kids were all abuzz because there had been this newspaper advertisement for this upcoming showing on the next Saturday. So I, this just captured my imagination. I mean, I'd never heard of Bigfoot previously. Convinced my dad, we had to go see this. He and I and my younger brother went to the Spokane Coliseum sitting on the third row. You know, Roger comes out onto the stage and introduces himself and his documentary that showcased that 60 seconds of film footage, which we saw over and over and over on a giant screen, you know, in the auditorium there, much larger than life. And wow, what an impression that made. Rest in peace, Dr. Meldrum. You are missed and loved by so many. You brought a credibility to a subject that would have never had it without your presence. It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind and it either heard me or smelt me and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up and that, that shocked me. They don't make people that, that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything move like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish. It sounded like a language and they were chunting away back and forth, back and forwards, back and forwards. I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet that what I saw bears. I don't know what he was saying. He's just crazy, but... See ya! Hello! Get somebody out here. What's going on now sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know. Do you see him now sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. Uh-huh. This is Jeff Meldrum and you are listening to Sasquatch Chronicles. This is part two of remembering Dr. Jeff Meldrum, who devoted his life to the pursuit of knowledge at the intersection of science and mystery. A respected anthropologist and professor at Idaho State University, he became widely recognized for his groundbreaking research into primate locomotion and the biomechanics of walking. Yet it was his willingness to explore questions that many academics dismissed. His expertise in biomechanics and human bipedalism laid the foundation for many of his studies. Perhaps best known for his work with the Sasquatch or Bigfoot. Dr. Meldrum approached this subject with the same rigor, skepticism and scientific integrity that defined his career. When you hear the term mid-tarsal break, that term comes from one man, Dr. Meldrum on the Sasquatch foot anatomy. So anyway, the heel comes up, weights transferred through the entire forefoot and if the substrate is of proper consistency, there's the word I was after, proper consistency and there's the sufficient forward impulse, it will sometimes push up that speed bump you see, that pressure ridge behind or sometimes the substrate yields and it pushes a whole disc back into the heel. Oh, I see where you're saying. You get a pressure disc instead of a pressure ridge. But you notice there's not a whole lot of imprint of the toes. Most of the forward impulse comes from the forefoot, the toes are there for traction if necessary, but if not, they are pretty much passively extended and serve other purpose. In describing this, I mean, I'm quite confident in what I've described to you because you can watch it take place in the foot of Patty on the film. You can see her heel come up first and almost reach verticality and if it was a stiff artificial foot, a rigid prosthetic, then the rest of her foot, given the orientation of the heel, would have to stick eight inches straight into the ground. But it's not, it's just bent, it's flex and that's what we call that the mid-tarsal break, not in the sense of like breaking a stake or damaging but an axis of flexion, a strike of a flexion, a break. And that is the most fundamental distinction between a Sasquatch footprint and the human footprint. Now you don't find that feature in every print because it just depends on the circumstances. Otherwise, I mean, some prints are flat as can be, but some, if they're moving, if they're changing direction, I mean, if you have experience running or if you're listeners or runners, you've heard of the terms pronation and supination. Yeah. So I have a pronation problem when I run. Yeah, exactly. And so when the foot is pronated, the arch is depressed in the human foot and likewise in the Sasquatch foot as well because that midfoot is mobile, it doesn't lock into a longitudinal arch. So their feet, when pronated, leave sometimes this flat featureless print like the two that Roger cast, which the specialist said, oh, where is this one from? This is from the Patterson Gimlin film site. This is one of the 10 when Titmuss came back down to investigate the site. Oh, right. You said this. You said this. See, they did the Titmuss and the Gimlin and the Patterson. Yes, I know. I keep the name changed. So Titmuss, Bob Titmuss was a, he was actually a taxidermist. So he knew anatomy well. Sure. He was the one who actually instructed Jerry Crew how on how to make a plaster cast. Jerry Crew showed up at his taxidermy shop with this piece of cardboard that he had cut out with his pen knife in the shape of the footprints that were around his caterpillar and said, what could have made this? And he goes, I have no idea. I've never seen anything like that. He said, but hey, if they show up again, take this bag of plaster with you and mix it up and make a pl... A few days later, he shows up in town with this 16, 17 inch footprint. And you know, that's where the story came. But anyway, I was going to say critics have looked at that despite the fact that you can watch the dynamic action of the foot on the film. They say, oh, well, if that's the case, if that's not just a branch in the sand or something, then why just that one footprint? Why do all the rest? Well, it's really interesting because if you take, I've got 3D scans of the 10 footprint series that Tip must cast, rotate them 90 degrees and boom, eight out of the 10 have a observable pressure ridge. And then on top of that, I got to tell this, on top of that, I had a chance to go actually see the original Jerry Crew footprint from 1958, which when you see in the books, the picture was taken by a newspaper reporter with an old fashioned flash bulb. If you remember those days and very strong illumination, which tends to make things look flat. Well, I took that original cast, took it out of the little shadow box they had it displayed and you turn it on its side and guess what? It has a pressure ridge just like that. Just a little more subtle than that, not quite as pronounced. I went to China and to investigate the Chinese Yeren. There was a witness who had a sighting and had tracked it. He was actually a park ranger at the time. Found footprints where it had squatted down next to a spring, made a right and a left cast. They were going to unveil those for me to look at and evaluate. Before we did that, they wanted to set up for the interview and capture my initial reaction to it. But I had given Mr. Yuan the witness my article, which actually was the paper on the Ichnotaxonomy, which featured this particular print quite prominently in a figure that showed it with three views, three angled views to illustrate the form of the pressure ridge. He couldn't speak English, couldn't read the paper, but he saw that picture. Oh man, he got excited. And I said, okay, okay, sure enough. He opens up his little travel suitcase and out comes the tallowing, out come these two footprints and guess what? They're dead ringers for this. Right down to the exact orientation and position of the pressure ridge. So the same species. That's why I'm convinced that the Chinese yearan is the representation of the population of origin of Sasquatch that then emigrated to North America, or when you say emigrated, extended its range as available habitat presented itself into North America. Dr. Meldrum's research, which included the analysis of footprints and other physical evidence, challenged the conventional boundaries of what would be considered credible science. His willingness to entertain questions beyond the mainstream, coupled with his relentless pursuit of the truth earned him both supporters and critics, but never diminished his commitment to his work. John Maynzinski, who is a wildlife biologist, author and longtime friend of Dr. Meldrum, reflects on his passing. Many, many fond memories. I think I liked camping out with him quite a lot. We had one trip in the Wind Rivers where we were following up on some sightings that had been occurring in one area, Wind River Range in Wyoming. I've been a lot of sightings over the 40 years I'd been working in that area, so I was familiar with them. And we camped out and had a great time. We fished in a lake. We stayed up telling stories by the campfire. And I don't, this is a highlight in a very subdued way, but just the camaraderie that I had with Jeff was something he had with many other people. He was so easy to relate to. And I spent most of my life deeply involved in scientific adventures. And so did Jeff. And I think being able to talk to a real scientist in a down-to-earth way around the campfire was one of my best memories of knowing Jeff over those 27 years I've known him. He did have a sense of humor for sure. And I certainly appreciated that. We would joke, have good times like that. But for me personally, I enjoyed the scientific conversations we'd have that would go on and on. And I think some of my favorite memories besides being around campfire was driving to locations with him to do some kind of expedition to follow up on sightings. Florida set out trail cameras back when we thought that was going to really solve the whole problem. And you know, just we'd talk for hours about issues, how to treat something in a scientific way without catering to the kind of tabloid press hubbub out there that was always apt to say things. We weren't really in a position to talk about. I think just sitting in the passenger seat and Jeff driving, he usually drove. But sometimes I did to a location and having these conversations that would take us into new places where we think about things that we hadn't thought of before concluding our research programs. I think even above the humor, which was certainly a great addition to our conversations. I liked the science and how he treated science. He was the consummate scientist. There were several people who really pioneered the science of Sasquatch research. Jeff was one of them. I think he could include Grover Kranz for sure. And there before Jeff, and I worked with Grover prior to knowing Jeff. And there was John Bendenagel, who you mentioned, who was also a good friend of mine. And we went camping together also outside of Sasquatch adventures where we just enjoyed camping together. So Jeff was able to break the barrier with pure science, publications, journals and organizations to where he could do a presentation on a subject that if anybody else presented it without his eloquence of presenting the science to back up a statement, it wouldn't be accepted. And he was able to put together all of the facts in a clear, understandable way that supported any of the statements that he made. And part of that, though often people would make statements, but they didn't have the background that Jeff had in science and his ability to communicate science where they could find ways to discredit it. And you could never do that with Jeff. The things he published in respectable journals and that he wrote in his field guides was all backed up by refutable science. He and Grover Kranz was able to write and speak that way. But I think of all of them, we all respected, including John Bendenagel, we all respected Jeff's ability to communicate the truth of Sasquatch and its role in the evolution of bipedalism and primates. And also he didn't get angry when people would try to refute him with not really understanding what he was saying. They would try to refute him with things they had read in the tabloid press as a basis for their argument. And he would very calmly and with a smile point out the facts and the research and the data that he had to back up what he said. And often he would convert people at least to a point where they were willing to accept the topic, if not believe that there is a primate out there. But believing that it's a legitimate research topic was something that I think Jeff was able to convey to non-believers, to people who were quick to condemn the whole subject. Natural mentor really because he didn't show any superiority. He wasn't standoffish as an academic. And sometimes Grover could come across that way. Not that he was, but he could come across that way because he would use a lot of technical language and not reach down to a level of understanding that most people have about primate evolution. And Jeff could have done that because he was the expert on bipedalism and primates. And he had all that technical jargon in his head, but he would explain every word so that a person could understand it with such a gentle demeanor that you didn't want to back off from his academic credentials, which were outstanding. So I think it's a tremendous loss. It will not be replaced. In a different way, I felt that way about the passing of John Bender Noggle. I talked to him just a few days before he died. And he was looking to Jeff to carry on the candle in the darkness for this whole Sasquatch research subject on a scientific level. And now I don't think there will be anybody that can replace Jeff. I may be surprised, but there will be others that will take up the torch. And he used Jeff's supply of literature and videos and lectures that he had accomplished in his life to keep this a legitimate science and maybe get funding. Funding was always a problem for us. And Jeff was able to get good funding because of his ability to present things in a way that people who would write off the subject would do a turnaround and say, hmm, this is an interesting subject. Maybe the most interesting scientific endeavor that we have on this planet. Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be and he will become what he should be. A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you than you see in yourself and helps bring it out of you. I have said privately many times that if I was not as close to John Berenugle as I was, I would not be half the man I am today. Beyond his professional contributions, Dr. Mildrum will be remembered as a mentor, teacher, and kind soul who inspired countless students and researchers to look deeper, question further, and never be afraid of unpopular ideas. His legacy endures not only in his published works and field research, but in the spirit of curiosity he nurtured and others. I had no idea that Lucy's tracks had a mid-tarsal break. Dr. Mildrum, on the skepticism and challenges. I mean, I must say I was kind of in a vanguard of graduate students that were taking particular interest in hominin bipedalism, in part because of the impact, as I mentioned, of this burgeoning of the hominid fossil record. Prior to that, there were fewer individuals who were sufficiently versed in those aspects that they would have recognized. Even today, even now, people attempt the famous leotoli tracks of East Africa that Mary Leakey discovered that have been tentatively attributed to Lucy's type show a pressure ridge, but not all recognize that as for what it is. I've made the case very strongly. The accumulation of evidence and of published studies and so forth, not just on the footprints, but on the foot skeletons of these early hominins have now finally acknowledged that these hominins walked on flat flexible feet with a non-divergent big toe. See that struck them as having a weird combination. Why would you lose divergence of the big toe unless to incorporate it into an arch? Oh, I see. My argument was, no, you're getting the cart before the horse. Why would you keep a divergent big toe in a bipedal terrestrial hominin that doesn't climb around in the trees for its resources anymore? Because that's a feature that appears late in development. When you look in utero, the fetal development of an early fetal chimpanzee, its foot looks much more like a human than it does once it's born. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. And it would stand to reason that if you were going to make an evolutionary jump to being bipedal, the first thing that you're going to do is you're going to get that big toe in a more efficient place. Yeah. Yeah. That's the idea. And in fact, some apes that walk facultatively bipedal, that is, they can walk bipedally, although they're not well adapted. They will line up their big toe with the direction of travel because that works the best for the ankle and the midfoot joints. And then they end up supinating their foot into a position where the lateral digits are lined up. But there's still some idiosyncrasy, so it's not a real strong tendency. But to your original point, all of these things started to correlate together and it begs the question then, what was the inspiration for if these were hoaxed to include a feature? And some have argued, oh, it's just a byproduct of walking on a flexible artificial foot. Well, there was one fellow and now his name just for the moment slips my mind. It'll pop back in Crowley, who made some artificial feet out of latex rubber, strapped him to his feet, his shoes, and then he went walking on the beach, took pictures. All I have to do is juxtapose examples and his so-called, well, his pressure ridge that just results from the flexibility, the random flexibility of this foot, this fake foot, moves all over the place because it's not constrained by an underlying skeleton. It's just an artifact of a flexible foot. And depending on how his foot shifts in relationship or whatever, his pressure ridge, yes, there's a pressure ridge, but it's never in the same place twice. Because these are remarkably consistent because they're constrained by the underlying skeleton. There's two bones in this transverse tarsal joint, the talonovicular, the talus is the ankle bone and then the bone directly in front of it, and the cuboid and calcaneus. Calcaneus is the heel bone. So you know, the ankle bone, the heel bone, those have common names, they're a little more familiar, but the bone is directly in front of those two, which end up defining what we call a medial and lateral column of the foot. Those two bones are what provide the flexion and rotation of the forefoot relative to the hind foot that in an ape, allow them to climb up trees. And then when they're on the ground, they can still provide leverage through the heel. But see, when you're climbing up a tree, the reason to have that flexibility, when you're climbing up a tree, your foot has a dual function. The forefoot is prehensile, it grabs and the hind foot is propulsive. It's the lever with the fulcrum not up at the ball of the foot, but at the midfoot where the foot has that foot. So it can lever while still maintaining a grip. Unlike us, you know, what are our options? If you've ever watched a Hawaiian shiniapa, a palm tree, you have to put your feet, you know, like a duck. Yeah, you have to kind of like spread it. Yeah, none of them tries to spread their big toes really to wrap around. But all that has to do with the foot. So when the foot comes to the ground, it still has that midfoot flexibility. Even if the toe is no longer divergent, there are actually advantages to keeping that. And Hamanins walked on flat flexible feet for a long, long time. For the Sasquatch, what an elegant adaptation that lets it walk up steep slopes with still with a lot of toe length for prehension, but then it can have that flexible instep. To get its weight just kind of over. Right. I mean, the mental image to think of is you go off trail, you're hiking up a hillside. It's almost, you almost have to resort to like a mountaineer with crampons going up a glacier. You stick your toes in because you can't bend your foot. And then especially if it's constrained by, well, the modern hiking shoes are much different than, you know, years past when you used to wear. But you can't get the right leverage. Right. So what do you end up either turning and walking like a duck? Side hill. Switch back, just, you know, cut trail, switch back and back and forth so that you're, you're, and then you're just dealing with the pronation, supination aspects of it. But this creature has a foot that allows it to walk right up those hillsides with remarkably improved efficiency over a human. So it's a tremendous adaptation for the habitat they're reportedly existing in. Dr. Meldrum really was our secret weapon for skeptics and scientists. Bobo from the podcast Bigfoot and Beyond speaks about the loss of Dr. Meldrum. I mean, I consider him a friend and he told me a couple years back when he considered me a friend, which was a huge compliment. I thought maybe I was a little too wild for my younger days when I first met him. They had met him in 2003 at the Willow Creek Museum, the Bigfoot Museum. They, when they did the ground opening there, and it was like, it was my ultimate fanboy moment of my life. It was Meldrum, John Green, Dr. Bender Noggle, Dmitry Bainov, you know, a few other, a few other luminaries like Ron Morhead and just, you know, all these big name guys. And I was just like, wow. And yeah, I stayed in touch with Meldrum, you know, ever since. And I've got to spend some time with him, you know, he was just such a gracious guy and he was just so intelligent. And I remember when he first started doing the lecture circuit, people would be like, oh, he's boring. Like, you know, people would leave his lecture. I'm like, what are you like? The guy is hilarious. Like he, so he uses some scientific terms, you know, like up your vocabulary a little bit, just listen to the guy. He's full of knowledge and he was willing to show that knowledge with everybody. You know, he, he listened to you. If he went to an event, then there's, you know, he talked to everyone there. He listened to the same questions, answer the same thing over and over and with a smile on his face. And, you know, he's always enthusiastic about the subject when he got going, it always get wound up, you know, like who was, you hear his voice start talking quicker and stuff. And he was fun. He was fun to hang around. He was a funny guy. Like I don't think you have enough credit for that, but he was the kind of had a real dry wit. I think personally for me, it's the same as a lot of people, whether you knew him or not was we all quoted him. We all threw him out. I was like, well, Dr. Meldrum discovered this, you know, and Dr. Meldrum, he's from Monta Hosta University and he's an anthropology professor. And, you know, we all just, he made us all look a little less crazy. One thing, you know, when, when my parents heard him speak about it, you know, Sasquatch and some of some documentaries or whatever TV shows, they like, like, that guy, that guy is, you know, someone that is very compelling, you know, like from a skeptics point of view, he gave all this a little more credibility in a subject that was seriously lacking in a lot of credibility with the general public. You know, it's, it's, like from the womb, people like the furthest out wound, like the, you know, the biggest apers, the whole spectrum of what it could be. They all quote Meldrum, you know, everyone quotes Meldrum and uses him as like, you know, they hated the fact that he was not like, you know, down for any kind of paranormal things associated with the Sasquatch or anything like that. They'd still, they'd still quote him, you know, like everyone, everyone always used his data and what he, what he, you know, told us about. And he was, he was just so, so gracious and so giving, like, I mean, I just got to thank the guy for, you know, just being so willing to share his knowledge, like repeatedly over and over to like, you know, he got through there's so many people who's they did the speaking engagements all over. He did tons of podcasts. I mean, he, he really shared what he knew with as many people as he could. I mean, he wrote four textbooks at all the, all the universities around the country in Canada and like Western, you know, universities, youth on the foot morphology and the adaptation and evolution of the, of the foot, you know, from, you know, I'll show up at the scene to now homo sapien. He was, he was just an absolute, you know, like leader in that field. You know, besides the big fish stuff, just like the academics, but then he taught himself, you know, he had, you know, other professors and stuff tutoring him, but you know, he taught himself genetics and how to do all that, you know, like the, the, the lab work with getting DNA. He could, he could talk really well about the structure of the eye and why big fits like, you know, like about reflective, you know, the properties of, of the I morphology that would be required, you know, people report glowing eyes and he, he could go into great detail, you know, like an ophthalmologist almost, you know, on, on eye structure and what this means and that means. And he, he broadened, you know, and he was learning a lot about hair morphology and he was a constant student. He was always learning and, and nothing is game for sure. I mean, he was, he was a brilliant, he was a brilliant man. I'd say if I had to sum up Jeff, he was kind, he was compassionate. He was very patient. He was, you know, incredibly bright and was just a solid, good person. You know, like, do no harm. Like that was his motto, you know. And he was fun to be around and he, he was always a student. He was willing to, he was willing to take, you know, listen to you and listen to you and he was, he would consider what you had to say. I mean, he might not, you know, go along with the head of course, but he would, he would listen to you and, and a lot of people like, people like from the whatever you want to call it, the woo side of things. You know, there's more to the Sasquatch than BCI type thing. He always said like, whatever evidence you have, I'd gladly, gladly review it and look at it. You know, I said, but he's all, I have to deal with evidence. You know, it's, I'm not, you know, gathering stories. I'm trying to, I'm trying to get physical data, you know, like things like, you know, things like that, things that I can quantify and observe and test, you know, that, that sort of stuff. But yeah, he was, you know, just like, I was going to bring that up earlier. It was like, just like Dr. Bendernoggle, they're both, they were both very humble, you know, if they weren't, I guess like Grover, you know, who was, Grover passed it for those of them, Grover Cransher, Washington State professor, who got involved in like 1960 now at the Cripplefoot, Cripplefoot prints and he got really deep into it. And when he passed away in the late nineties, he passed the torch on to Jeff. And so Jeff, you know, he, Jeff spoke about it quite a bit. You know, he was like, he always would mention like, you know, I hope someone, you know, really, because there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of PhDs and scientists and professors and stuff that have, you know, that are interested. And some of them, you know, have their own experiences, no, they're real, but they're not willing to risk those research dollars, you know, like, or get like a crazy reputation when they're not getting any grants or endowments. Jeff was really hoping there would be that, like that kind of academic that came along. But he said, you know, like there was no one that really stood out, that really, you know, it was dedicated, like, you know, it was, would dedicate their life, you know, like their life works to it, you know, their professional academic life works to it. And, you know, he's like, he's like, well, Cliff's like the next best thing, you know, Cliff's, he's, he's on par with my, you know, guys who are getting their PhDs. He can, he can discuss that, that aspect of it right there with them. No problem. And he can identify the, you know, the physical features in the foot and what this and that means. And I mean, Cliff's wrong. He's been fooled before. He admits it, you know, and he's not, he's not perfect. It's just a doctor, but a lot of people would like to point out that he had a few, you know, where he had the wrong take on a couple of pieces of evidence. And they just, you know, how many, how did they still bring it up? You know, I was like, you know, it was 15, 20 years ago and he admitted he was, oh, yeah, well, and upon further review, I stand corrected, you know, and he just, he was, you know, really humble and you'd want that kind of year next to our neighbor. And Bigfoot and Beyond did a nice tribute to Dr. Meldrum. I would encourage everyone to go over and check it out. You know, many years ago, I was talking with John Bendernoggle and we got on the subject of Meldrum. And I'd never heard of Meldrum's encounter, but I remember John telling me about it. This is Dr. Meldrum's encounter. You're in Alberta. You find these footprints left by very heavy animal. And so then the flip side of that strategy, after making our presence clearly known by hiking and examining things and riding around, even further reach with the vehicles. And we had a drone. He had a big multi-copter drone so we could explore up and down the the river course, which is really nice and see the sandbar. We could actually identify and see some wildlife footprints from the drone. Then we would stay up late at night. We had a had a fire pit, a culvert that was turned on its end. And we would routinely stay up quite late in hopes that our activity, our conversation, cooking on over the fire would attract attention as well. And sure enough, on the fifth, about the fifth night, something approached camp. We were first alerted by these whistling calls. They were they were kind of avian. I've not heard a bird call at night. I mean, there are some birds that do sound off at night and some owls. But this was accompanying the sound of the most that we mentioned, stomping through the undergrowth and the the dead fallen leaf litter and so forth. It was big and there were the sound of branches cracking, whether it was simply stepping on things or whether it was intentionally cracking things to intimidate us. It was clear, but well, in one instance, it would it was quite suggestive of that. There was a member of our group who fancied herself, something of an animal whisperer, I'll say. She didn't claim to be psychic or anything unusual, but just had a real neck with animals. And so she was also very gutsy. She gets up and walks beyond the firelight into the darkness towards the where the sounds are coming, talking reassuringly and getting, you know, there were no vocalizations of interaction, but it was clearly moving around and agitated. And then it broke a branch or something. It sounded like cracking a baseball bat against the against a tree trunk. And I'm watching through a night vision monocular without the benefit of recording capability, unfortunately. But I could actually see her and this crack and her legs started to shake. Her knees started to shake at that point. I mean, whether it was any other influence. I mean, we've talked about the possibility of the production of infrasound and the effects, the physiological effects that that can have on you. She retreated back to the campfire. And at that point, I shifted my position because of the smoke had a better vantage down where these sounds were coming from. And something broke from the shadows as seen through night vision and went up the slope across the road and into the shadows on the other side. So if you, you know, if you've seen the Pat Patterson Gimlin film, if you imagine that classic strip of Patty, when she goes behind the debris, because the berm in a similar fashion, this berm catching the firelight was obscuring what I was seeing right up to about mid-thigh. But the rest of the outline, it was just silhouette against the because there was no moon up just starlight and the light colored gravel of the roadbed and kind of illuminating her backlighting her. Or it Patty would be her, but it and. But that I could see the low set head on broad shoulders and thick torso. I can see an arm move and I just for it. And it was like it was gliding. That smooth compliant gate. And then it was gone. How long was this encounter? Oh, just moments. I mean, if you imagine what would be the equivalent of maybe eight steps when it emerged and then, you know, just it wasn't bouncing though. I mean, it was just gliding, which which gave me pause. You know, because I'm looking and I don't want to read into my just seeing some shadow from some effect of the night vision. I'm sitting there looking and almost didn't say anything because I didn't want it to be over interpreted. But on the other hand, I wanted them to check out because I knew I had to leave the next morning before sunup. And I said, you guys have got to look for footprints, which they did. And Todd video documented the whole process where they, you know, it was hard ground in this case where it was exposed, where it was under the tree cover, hard ground weeds and branches and so forth. But they cut the sign. They, you know, they being Todd and John Bindernegel and this this other woman, Sonia, that was there. Broken twigs, disturbed soil and, you know, stones overturned and so forth. And boom, you know, here's the steps. They ran the tape. And I'm watching the video of this, this process. And I'm thinking, no, because I thought it was on the other side of this little ravine be given its size. I thought it was just behind the berm. It wasn't. It was on the opposite bank. But it was so big, standing probably seven, seven and a half feet tall when they filmed, when Todd filmed Dr. John Bindernegel, excuse me, walk, he stood where I had been. Film Bindernegel walked the tape line, the penny drop, they go, oh, I mean, that's right. That's where it was. That's exactly what it looked like, except what I saw was another foot and a half taller than John. And they eventually they found more footprints under the, you know, in the moss. They were able to track it for like a mile before they lost its sign. And so. You know, good chance that it was indeed. I mean, I can't imagine anyone up there to prank us. Extremely remote. There's only one approach on that road. We were armed, you know, even though it was Canada, we were armed. Had had a license to carry a shotgun because bears and cougar are an issue, especially the bears. But, you know, I just don't imagine anyone going to the trouble. I mean, why would I guess, you know, you could argue, oh, well, Todd arranged it. Todd, this was somebody, one of Todd's cohort that came up and we were. We were mentioning that. You get asked about Todd a lot. Yeah. And I was like, oh, we don't need to. We don't need to touch on it. You know, I mean, not that you were opposed to it. You just mentioned that this is we like to have these interviews where they're a little bit less the same sort of questions. So we kind of go over stuff like what's on and you get asked a bunch, right? But in qualifying and talking about this story, you should mention who Todd is. Sure. And Todd Todd standing is a personality, an individual, an investigator who resides in Calgary, Alberta, has has gained some notoriety for his activities because he gets out. He's been, you know, he's he's a bit obsessive, compulsive when it comes to this subject. And so he gets out there in the field much more than a lot of people. And and there was no question after spending five days with him. He's tall, he's athletic. He gets out there. He walked me into the ground, you know, and I was patting myself on the shoulder that I could keep up with back then. You know, I was feeling bad for Dr. Bindernegel, who was about, you know, eight years my senior. And that he he still was quite spry at that time as well. So Todd has gained some has. He's like a semi infamous like character, like not like infamy and like necessarily a bad way. But you know, people have a lot of notorious, notorious is a good way to describe for good and bad. I mean, there are people who think that the things that he's done and the things that he has presented are fabulous and fascinating. And there's others who are absolutely convinced that he's a hoaxer and prankster and and just, you know, carpet bagging, so to speak. I don't begrudge someone trying to monetize and turn a profit on their activities in order to sustain their ability to pursue their interests. That is exactly what I'm doing right now. Well, exactly. And I mean, they he certainly isn't getting rich doing what he's doing. It's not. It's not a gold mine. Unless you grab that brass ring, you're the one that brings in the specimen. And even then, it's it's not. I mean, you know, book deals and movie deals and things like that, I guess, that that's been off from that kind of accomplishment or exposure. The fallout. I mean, but it's going to have a lot of fallout negative and positive as well as positive, the negative fallout dealing with that. If you are the first person to shoot a Sasquatch, you know, you can imagine it's going to be quite a controversial topic. Long term investigator and researcher, Montreux Withers talks about the first time she met Dr. Meldrum and his impact on the subject. I had the honor of first meeting Dr. Meldrum. It was about 25 years ago. This was back at the Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Fulton, California. I'm not sure if it's even still there. I don't know if it exists anymore. But anyway, my oldest brother, Kevin and my best friend, Kathy Strain, we were going up to the Willow Creek Bigfoot Symposium. And we'd stopped there at the museum on the way up. And at that time I was with the BFRO. I was a curator and and so I'd already knew who Meldrum was. And I was like a huge fan of his because he was always just so eloquent. And even everything he would write, you know, was just like so, so perfect and informative, you know. And so anyway, we stopped at the museum and he was there. And I'd never met him in person at that point. But I was a huge fan of his. So I was kind of like instantly nervous, you know, like I'm going to meet Elvis or something. I was like, oh, my God, it's Meldrum, you know. And so so I can't remember if somebody introduced me or not. But anyway, I said, oh, Dr. Meldrum, you know, you know, I'm a fan of yours. Everything's, you know, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, oh, call me Jeff. And so and I just couldn't help it. I was nervous and I kept saying Dr. Meldrum. So he kept reminding me, it's OK. You can call me Jeff. But anyway, so then fast forward, everybody went from there on up to the Will Creeps Creek Symposium and, you know, he did his talk and everything. And I was just mesmerized because, you know, he's so eloquent. And when he talks, it's so it's so easy to understand what he's saying, even though it's stuff that's very complex and as intimidated as I was, it wasn't his fault because he wasn't intimidating at all. It was just me being a dork and I'm being a fan. But anyway, so I got to see him talk up there. And then I'd run into him every time we went to a conference. He was always there. And he was just such a nice, easy to talk to, humble person. And throughout the years, every once in a while, I'd have something that I wasn't sure about as far as the evidentiary value prints and such. And so the last time I'd sent him some prints to take a look at was. Oh, gosh, probably. I think it was like 2018 or something. And they were, they were some crazy prints that that I got up at Bumping Lake up in Washington. They were pretty deep in this kind of sandy soil that was right on the edge of where they had drained the lake. I'd written him and sent him some photos and stuff. And he wrote me back and was telling me what he thought of them. And he was thinking they were probably human because they were more narrow. But it was always so nice to have him as a resource. And I was so lucky to be able to be in contact with him. Just kind of whenever needed, he was there for anybody, anybody who had any kind of evidence they wanted to run by him just to get his opinion or something. He was just so available. You know, it's just, it's really tough to think that he's gone. I still kind of haven't digested it yet. It's just, there's just such a hole in the Bigfooting community now that. Everybody, I think, including myself, we just kind of took for granted. He had this way about him. Just it was such eloquence that he could communicate these really complicated ideas, you know, about anatomy and body structure and such that that pretty much anybody could understand exactly what he was talking about. And, you know, and he would show it on, on, you know, whatever on screen or whatever he had or, you know, and point out different things that like you were saying, you know, you'd never, you'd never know about. But yet after talking to him, it's just like, yeah, that's totally digestible. I understand exactly what he's saying. And it makes total sense. And he could always back up everything he said with actual evidence. So I just, it's really, there's just nobody like him. And it's just kind of a void now. I don't know if there's anybody up and coming that, that is anything like Dr. Meldrum, but I mean, those are going to be some really big shoes to fill. I think he really, really helped to make Bigfoot mainstream because of his education and his credibility. I think he was able to, to talk to people and, and plus he was on, gosh, every TV show I think I've ever seen about Bigfoot. And he was, he just made it so palatable where it's not what people would think of when they think, oh yeah, here's this crazy person talking about an imaginary creature. You know, you've got this professor with all these credentials who's, who's very soft spoken and very matter of fact and very, very educated, who's talking about it with such, you know, such resonance. And I mean, he just really, I think he made it so much more believable that even somebody who would scoff at the idea had to really say, well, you know, yeah, maybe he's right, you know, because he just wasn't a nut. Like what they would think. I mean, back in the day, what was his name? I can't remember. There was a guy that used to be around and he would always stand up at conferences and, and, you know, say, you know, Bigfoot's a multi-dimensional blah, blah, blah. And gosh, I can't remember his name right now. But anyway, he was always known as kind of this, this wacky guy that everybody tried to avoid. He was on David Letterman too, I believe. Of course, now I think people would probably take a second look at him and think, maybe he's not so wacky after all, but, but, you know, to have someone like Meldrum be so kind of on the forefront and everybody kind of know who he is. Even people that weren't into the Bigfoot genre was amazing. And he had that ability to take someone who was a complete skeptic and get them halfway there and that they would go, well, you know, here's this guy and he teaches, he's a professor and blah, but he lies, you know, maybe there's something to this. So I think for future generations, he's, he's going to be an icon as far as someone who was promoting the probability of Bigfoot and showing everything that he could to prove that it exists. Those who had the privilege to work with Dr. Meldrum, remembering his unwavering support for new ideas, his collaborative spirit and his generosity in sharing his expertise. Above all, his genuine love for the natural world and its mysteries served as a constant reminder that science is a journey, one that is never fully finished, but is constantly evolving. Dr. Meldrum shares why he thinks science will not look at the subject and in his style, he gives you a history lesson. The norms, the tradition, the convention is that a novel species is demonstrated by physical remains, you know, something that is diagnostic. Ultimately, in order to establish a type, I mean, it's one thing you come in with a hide or something, but the hide itself, if it's just a cut out hide, unless there's more information like DNA or, you know, a microscopic analysis of the hair or whatever. You need something physical, something that's diagnostic that differentiates it from other animals. So, you know, a jaw with, excuse me, with teeth, part of a skull. Other parts of the postcrania are less differentiating. The subtleties, I mean, sometimes you have different species, say, of a, within a genus of a rodent. And on the basis of the skeleton, you couldn't differentiate one from the other, but the teeth or the skull dimensions and so forth, it can be really subtle. Because when we're talking about a biological species, the thing that separates them into species is their inability to form viable offspring. It's more challenging with fossils, where you're dealing with just with skeletal remains. And, and that's the point is, you go into these museums, you pull the drawers out, skeletons may look remarkably the same, you know, it's very similar, but you look at the, at the pellage, the skin, and the coloration is dramatically different. You know, these are the way species recognize each other and the way they maintain barriers between hybridization crosses. Anyway, so you needed something, something physical. So in the absence of that, see, I've never argued that science should recognize the existence of Sasquatch. I've simply argued science should recognize the legitimacy of pursuing the question of the existence of Sasquatch. You know, you look at the cover of my book and it has an endorsement from Jane Goodall, the forwards written by George Scholl or a preeminent naturalist. He doesn't endorse the existence of Sasquatch, but he endorses enthusiastically my pursuit, the justification of my pursuit of the question, presenting this, positing this question based on the evidence that I have. The effort to bring it down is, again, it's multifaceted, but one of the facets is given the stigma that is attached to this. And when you, again, when you look at the history, when you look at the temporal trajectory back in the 60s, you know, the, the notion of this thing, these things existing. When, when Ivan Sanderson, who was a, well, he was a, I'm not sure what to call him, he wasn't a PhD, but he had lots of accolades, lots of initials behind his name, lots of different recognitions and memberships and honors and so forth. He, but he was, as when it came to the school of hard knocks, I mean, he was a naturalist, but he also had a very active curiosity about not only topics relating to kind of cryptozoology, but all sorts of different strange things. But, and that didn't help the perception, obviously, but he was one of the pioneers, his book on a vulnerable snowman, legend come to life, subhuman species on five continents, the subtitle, a tome, an encyclopedic tome, from his world travels, he collected all of these amazing narratives and, and evidence. I mean, you know, he's got an appendix, it was all the different footprint report attributed to these, he called them ABSMs was his acronym, Abominable Snowman, ABSM. Anyway, but the point was, he published his book in 1962, right at the height of this single species hypothesis, there can be only one, we're it. And so these others couldn't exist. So you look at the reviews of his book and it was treated like a work of fiction fantasy. And then as a result, the science pulled back and into that void comes all of the adventurers, the fortune seekers, the, you know, and the charlatans of unfortunately, and, and that has been the largely the case. And so there was an entire generation kind of tainted by that, a generation of academics tainted by that. So we see scientists, young, young generation of scientists coming up. And I've had, you know, opportunities to visit with some of these occasions, various circumstances. And they're fascinated. But, but you know, I tell them, you've got to be careful, you've got to play it close to the vest until you have tenure. Yeah, you know, you, you cultivate your skills. If you're interested in this, say, and you have a, you know, predilection to molecular biology, and get yourself in a position that once you're able, you can do the definitive genetic study on, on potential samples. Or, you know, whether it's bioacoustics, you know, get yourself in a position where then once you have tenure, then you can turn your expertise and your reputation to that problem and really figure out what's making these inexplicable noises, vocalizations. Anyway, it's happening, that's happening. So because of that, of the, the spillover of, of that phenomenon has been that there's, it's very stigmatized. It's tabloid. It's not, it's pseudoscience, right? And, you know, when you go to find a book about Bigfoot, it's not in the natural history section. It's in, it's in the New Age or the, or not the New Age, it's in the unusual knowledge, unorthodox knowledge. When my book was, was taken on by Barnes and Noble to be carried as a regular offering, I would occasionally go into a Barnes and Noble and look, and I, and, and when the book was printed, I was very adamant that, you know, they put the little categorization, I want it to be natural science, you know? And so I'll go and look, and my book was over between Bermuda Triangle and Crop Circles. And would you, would you go move it? Well, sometimes I would, or if there was more than one copy, I would put one over it, but I went up to the manager one time and I go, Hey, why is it over here? It's supposed to be right there next to Jane Goodall's books about chimpanzees. Oh, well, you'll get 10 times the traffic over here in the New Age section. Really? That's what she said. And I go, Well, that's not the point. I said, Okay, keep one there, but put one over there with Jane Goodall so that people who are looking at those kinds of books will see it and recognize that this is about a primate. It's an academic pursuit. It's not like a work, a work of fan fiction. Yeah. And I'm not, not to besmirch the, I mean, there's probably very bonafide objective investigations of Crop Circles and Bermuda Triangle. Of course, that happens all the time, man. Yeah. Yeah. So that's been the problem is that there's, there's the stigma and there's this notion that it, it reflects negatively this reaction of the, you know, department chairman to being chided about the Bigfoot guy. And yet there's so many people who they know of Idaho State University only because of moi, you know, and, and there are some that recognize that. So the director of the communications and public relations was a good friend of mine. I mean, that's his attitude. Anything that you do on this topic will cover. Matt Pruitt from Bigfoot and Beyond discusses the impact Dr. Meldrum had on this subject. I mean, my favorite memory personally is just, you know, I admired him for so very long, starting probably in about 2004, when I first saw him on Mysterious Encounters, Doug Highcheck's old show where I first saw, you know, Bobo and a lot of these people. And obviously, I would follow every interview that he gave and whether that was like print media or radio or, you know, internet radio back in the day, blog talk radio, those sorts of things. And then when his book came out, it had a huge impact on me and was really inspiring and really set up to me like a high bar that I've always been at least aiming at. I don't think I'll ever reach it, but I definitely set a standard. So to see him at so many events over the years was always great. I learned a lot from his presentations and getting to have like brief talks or interactions either after hours or at his table or booth. But last year, I did two events with him. I spoke with him at Squatch Fest in Washington and at the Ohio Bigfoot Conference. So it was really great to get a lot of extra time, you know, where the speakers are hanging out at dinner before or after the events or, you know, the night before the event starts, everyone gets into town and we went out to dinner and got to have a lot of like really good conversations, you know, human conversations, not just, you know, brief interactions at a booth or something like that. But it was really intimidating. I guess my personally, it was nice because I've been such a student of his by trying to consume, you know, everything that he put out there from interviews and podcasts and books and papers and presentations that he's given, you know, I learned a tremendous amount from him. And there were a lot of things that I learned that I thought were really applicable to other things that I was pursuing. And so at this panel at Squatch Fest last year, they had a seated in such a way and sort of like an order to who would answer audience questions. And there was an audience question about whether or not there was competition between Sasquatches and Black Bears since they're both omnibores. And I was just set to go first. And so I was talking about like temporal niche partitioning and spatial niche partitioning and all these different things. And I realized like, oh, yeah, I learned a lot of this from Dr. Meldrum who's sitting beside me. First of all, I was like, unbelievable to me that I would ever be on a panel with Dr. Meldrum. And second of all, as I'm answering, I'm realizing like, oh, man, I learned all this from him. And so when I was done, he had a big smile and he's like, well, I can tell somebody's been a very good student. And that just meant the world to me because I kind of was like, oh man, is he going to say, well, that's what I would have said if Matt hadn't stolen it from me, but he was a teacher, you know. And I think he appreciated that those of us were learning those sorts of things from him and spreading that to other people. And when we were given the opportunity to speak. So that was personally meaningful. But I really just loved watching him interact with people that admired him. He had a tremendous degree of patience. You know, I find that a lot of the people that I admire are such unique individuals that they sort of exist in a bit of a no man's land. And I think Dr. Meldrum existed in that way. And what I mean by that is that, you know, he was obviously very rigorous and studious with his research. And he was very conservative about any sort of claims or propositions he would put forward. Like he, I don't think he ever said anything hypothetically about the Sasquatch that violated any of the known established axioms or rules of his scientific disciplines. And that made him a very cautious thinker. And so you have this whole set of people who might lean towards more metaphysical or supernatural or mystical interpretations of the Sasquatch who were frustrated that he didn't share their view. And so there was this big section of the Sasquatch community that those people represent who really pushed against him. And then even on the flesh and blood side, you had these people that were constantly bringing him, you know, blob squatches and, you know, sticks laying on the ground that they took to be like glyphs or whatever. And so he was always cautious, like, well, hey, I don't necessarily think I would call that evidence. And so there was a big section of that group that thought that, well, here's a guy who's just the establishment. He's just, you know, the man, so to speak. And we have to rally against him. But on the establishment side, and I'm sure you know this, and hopefully your audience knows it, he got so much grief for so many years from fellow academics, from people in his department, from people at other departments at Idaho State University. So it wasn't like he was marching in lockstep with the institutions or with academia, you know. And so to the Squatchers, they saw him sort of, or at least a certain subset of the Squatchers saw him as like, an ivory tower kind of, you know, figure that was not one of us to be trusted. And then to the academics, like he was this weird outlier because he gave time and attention to the Sasquatch mystery. And so that kind of put him in this unique place. And I respect that a lot because he didn't count how to either side. I do think that he always handled at least everything that I saw, both in person and online, as he handled it all like a gentleman, you know, and I saw people be very rude or say really harsh inflammatory things or cast a lot of blame. And he was always a gentleman to them, you know, and that's a good example. He's he set a very high standard to try to follow in that he was very diplomatic, a great ambassador. He was open minded, he would hear people out. And not that he would take abuse, but that he would, you know, handle that in a way that was just remarkable. It's not easy, as you know, you get barraged with things and it's really, you can understand why a lot of the people of the past, you know, there's no shortage of angry cynical Sasquatch researchers who just, you know, don't treat people very well. And party is like, you know, I don't agree, but I understand it, you know, and he always had a very light touch, I would say, with with people and he was super generous. I mean, that's one of the points that kept coming up in our tribute was like, you know, if you were to look at all of the output that he gave beyond the papers that he wrote and the book and, you know, these various like formal publications, but I would not be surprised if there are well over 200 podcasts that interviews that he's given. There's probably more than that. I've never tried to go tally them all up, but he seemingly said yes to everyone and made time for everyone, which is pretty remarkable because not many people can do that, you know, and the fact that he was a father of six with a full-time job and his own pursuits and he still made time to represent the subject well that, you know, if you really wanted to, any one of your listeners wanted to really get to know who Dr. Melancholy's and what his perspectives were, you could spend, there are easily hundreds and hundreds of hours of him speaking about the subject online. And so for every person that thinks, oh, he was an ivory tower intellectual elitist, it's like, well, really, because he gave his time to podcasts and YouTube channels with like 15 subscribers, you know what I mean? He's still put himself out there to share the information, you know, obviously for no gain, you know, because it wasn't like they could pay him or that he was going to sell tons of books by being on a YouTube channel with 15 subscribers, but he still always gave of that time, which shows me like at his core, he was a teacher, he loved to teach. And I think a lot of us studied what we studied because of Dr. Meldrum, or even if you've not studied those things, most Sasquatchers are familiar with certain aspects of the Sasquatch foot because they've heard Jeff describe it or some trickle-down effect of what Jeff described to other people and then those people go on to describe in other places and like that sort of foundation that we all stand on, maybe there's a lot of people that don't even realize who laid the bricks in that foundation, but a lot of it was Dr. Meldrum, you know. I wish I had known Dr. Meldrum better. You know, we did communicate the email and I met him at a lot of events, but I wouldn't dare to say that like, oh yeah, we were friends, you know, because I wouldn't want for lack of a better term, I feel like that would be a bit of like a stolen valor sort of situation. Before, you know, we, when we had him on Bigfoot and Beyond the first couple of times, I think then he started to connect my name with the previous communications we did, like, oh yeah, I remember you. And then when we did those events last year and spent quite a bit of time together, but before that, it would not have surprised or offended me, you know, if somebody was like, oh, hey, my friend Matt Pruitt and Dr. Meldrum said, who? You know, and so I don't want to give the false impression that he was a close friend. He was a North Star to me. In many ways, not only in his thinking and perspectives, but like we talked about in terms of the way he conducted himself in public outreach and educating people about the subject, just a great representative for the pursuit of the Sasquatch period, you know, and so that was always very inspiring. I gained so much from his work. And so I just consider myself like a super fan and a perpetual student. And the big message I would want to leave people with is, there's so much of his generosity out there that if anybody else is interested in being a student of Jeff's, like, that's absolutely possible with how much is on the internet. You know, I put together like a little list of repository of things, you know, links to the book and his field guides, a number of papers that he published about the Sasquatch that are online, a handful of really long form, very comprehensive interviews, and then a few presentations that were filmed. And that's over at patreon.com slash bigfoot and beyond podcast. So it's a free post. You don't have to be a Patreon member. You can see it like right there on our front page for free. But anybody who wants to learn from Dr. Meldrum, it's all available to you right now for free on the internet. You can be a student at home and I would encourage everyone to do so. I want to thank again the Backcountry Manifesto podcast for allowing me to play the clips. Benjamin Franklin once said, Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn. In honoring Dr. Jeff Meldrum, we celebrate a life dedicated to knowledge, wonder, and the unyielding search for truth. His absence will be deeply felt, but his voice and vision will continue to echo in classrooms, fieldwork, and all the individuals who admired him. I said in the intro, he gave a subject, a credibility that would have never had it without his presence. But after everything, we remember Jeff as a good man. Rest in peace, Dr. Meldrum.