SC EP:1190 Remembering Dr. Jeff Meldrum

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 forwards, 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 was bears. I don't know what he was putting. Jesus Christ, you better. 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. It is with profound respect and admiration that we remember Dr. Jeff Meldrum, a pioneering figure in the study of human evolution and the world of cryptozoology. This passing leaves a void in both the scientific community and the hearts of those who had long admired his work, integrity and relentless curiosity about the natural world. Dr. Meldrum was once confronted by a colleague who declared, after all, these are just stories. Jeff responded, stories that apparently leave tracks. Chet hair, void scat, vocalize are observed and described by reliable experienced witnesses. Hardly just stories. Many of Dr. Meldrum's friends are going to make an appearance tonight to celebrate their friend, talk about their memories and what he meant to the subject. I want to thank the Back Country Manifesto podcast for allowing me to use these clips tonight from their interview with Dr. Meldrum. I'll include a link below if you want to watch the full interview. Jeff truly loved the subject and was a student of the subject. Bigfoot is a term that became attached to this phenomenon and there's different sort of legendary accounts of the origin of that. The most common was that when Jerry Crew, a member of the construction outfit working at Bluff Creek in Northern California back in the 50s, made what seems to be the first plaster cast of a footprint to preserve a footprint in the United States at least, brought that into town. The local editor of the newspaper, Andrew Gonzalez, I believe I'm pronouncing that correctly, took a look and reportedly said, wow, that's a Bigfoot. But I started using the term Sasquatch more preferentially because in part out of deference, as it originated out of deference to the tribal traditions, the First Nation traditions of Canada, this term was coined by J. W. Burns, who was an educator on one of the reserves there in British Columbia. He was also a writer, an aspiring writer and wrote articles about these giant hairy people, the Sasquatch, which is kind of an anglicized version of a number of Native American names, which have some common denominators. Each tribe in their own language has their own term. So Sasquatch roughly means the wild person of the woods, wild man of the woods. So it's a little bit more descriptive in that sense. It's a little more universal, a little more general of that character that we find actually find representation in literary sources all the way back to some of the earliest Western traditions and you can find similar representations of hairy wild men, even in many Eastern cultures. The Chinese Yeren, the wild man, literally translated, is remarkably similar in its description to the Sasquatch and leaves footprints that are virtually indistinguishable. So I use Sasquatch, even Sasquatch has become a bit commercialized tabloid-ish because of the popularity of the subject as a part of pop culture. And so that led to the coin, not well, the re-adoption, the resurrection really of the term relic-tominoid, which was first coined by a Russian scientist Boris Porzhnev, who was a cultural anthropologist, very interested in these stories of wild men in his country. And the term relic with a T is the preferred form of the word used in biology to make reference to a population of a species that was once much more widespread, much more common, that has now become very restricted and may be even on the verge of extinction. Okay, so Bigfoot is what you see on a bumper sticker. Sasquatch is what you have in casual intelligent conversation. If you're a researcher, you call them a relic-tominoid. And if you slip up and call them a relic-tominoid, people will be happy that you try. Yeah, I'll still be, yeah. I'm still going to make the effort, yeah. And then the following thing I want to ask you is where those footprints were first cast, that construction site, the Bush construction site, is that what it was? Bluff Creek. Bluff Creek, yeah. Yeah, the Bluff Creek construction site. That was kind of like the inciting event for Sasquatch and popular culture in North America. Would that, is that fair to say? Yes, I think that is fair to say because as a result of the publicity of that event and that photograph of this guy holding this 16, 17 inch poster cast, it was on the front pages of papers all across the country. And the public awareness of what had been transpiring actually for decades. I mean, there were stories, I mean, you can go back even to the historical newspaper accounts and so forth in the Eastern States even. And they don't have the word Bigfoot, but if you search for things like Wildman or Gorilla, you know, these types of... Great Ape of the North or something like that. Exactly, all right. Or Ablation, yeah, yeah. So this condensed it. Well, it was some physical evidence. We had more than just a story. Something made this footprint. Now then it became controversial. Were they folks? It was just a prank. And there were some that volunteered, you know, responsibility for that unjustifiably in my opinion, but and others that thought, no, that was something to this. Even when the footprints were first being discovered, it wasn't clear what was what was leaving them if they were even authentic. If they were authentic, there were theories like, well, it's just, again, a wild tribe of giant Indians that know that it was escaped detection or it was an escaped lunatic from an insane asylum. I mean, literally that was expressed or it was a mutated bear that walked up right. It had funny looking feet, you know, and then it was, there was actually a couple of guys that were out there hunting for whatever this was. And they reportedly were driving back to camp. And as they rounded the corner, their headlights caught this big figure, hunkered at the side of the road that stood up to its full height and in two steps was across the road into the trees on the other side. And it was, they described it as a giant hairy ape. There are some who argue that if you go back to J. W. Burns original descriptions of the Sasquatch, you know, you might think that he was describing a race of people, humans, with just long shaggy hair on their head. But the notion of an ape-like thing, they say was contrived later, the kind of to fit to create a narrative. I don't think that's justifiable because you look at some of the earliest accounts and you got to remember we're way before the internet, way before cable television. So the ability of these ideas to disseminate through the population was just limited to, you know, the occasional newspaper account and whatever, but whether even, even, you know, communication between newspaper outlets and things back in those days. So very early on there were, there was a report. I mean, one of the most classic stories is the account by William Rowe. And it's a very straightforward account. In its simplicity, it's very persuasive because he was out, he was an amateur prospector, was out looking for kind of, you know, the lost gold mines and so forth up, up there in British Columbia. And he describes here in this sound, he was out, he was taking advantage of some of the berries and he noticed over here is this figure. You can see it from the back and this big broad shoulders and head and covered with hair. And he said, eventually it turned and he could see the face and it would pull the, just the details he described, it would bring the, the branch up rather than picking the berries off with, with fingers. Yeah. It would just picking them off. And he taught, described the very dexterous lips, the muscular lips. And the, the drawing that you get is this tall husky, you know, a robust, long legged creature with more human-like feet and sporting a pair of breasts, human-like breasts, which was different. But the rest, the way the head was drawn, beetle, brow, low forehead, sloping, sloping skull and sort of a, you know, deep set jaws, not particularly prognathic, but a little flat nose across on, on a big upper lip. And I mean, it's as ape-ish as you can imagine. You look at that and you can't help think, but something, I mean, if not ape, then something like some primitive caveman, some primitive human ancestor or relative. But the big foot encounter, the footprints discovered in Bluff Creek in 1958, that really emblazoned it in the U.S. psyche. And from there, it just kind of snowballed in a way. I mean, but it's, it's not like it started there. I mean, that's the thing. I have been in this field longer than I thought I would. I've met the worst of the big foot world and I've met the best of the big foot world. I have been blessed to meet many of the greats, the legends, those still with us and the ones we've lost. If I had to describe them all in one word, it would be class, an unlimited supply of class. Ron Moorhead, best known for the Sierra sounds, an author, an explorer, an investigator, speaks about Dr. Meldrum's passing. Years and years ago, I met him and he was interested in what I had and I was interested in listening to him. He had a really nice voice and good personalities, a gentleman all the way. And I hung out with him in different conferences and we spoke together at different places. And I went with him into Russia and sat here with him with John Benner-Negle. He and I, the three of us, we spoke at the Darmium Museum in Moscow. And then they flew us all three over to Siberia into a little village and then bussed us from the airport to a village by the shore people. And the shore people took us out into the wilderness where they'd been seeing the wild man. So Jeff was part of that. And so was I. I was privileged to be there. A lot of fun, a lot of interest and a lot of adventure really. We were walking through the mountains of Siberia and I got stung by something. Weed or something that was there that just stuck on me and burnt and floored me bleeding and everything. I'm not sure what it was. I'm kind of an indigenous plait, I guess, or barman. Anyway, he was white with me there and he doctored me, actually. I got a picture of that from somewhere I'd like to dig up, but he's a gentleman. He always was. And he, he a nice guy to be with. You know, I sell things a little differently in the Bigfoot realm, but that's OK. He just very gentleman. I had a lot of good times with him and we had our differences, like I say, but that's OK. That's OK to have a difference, to be respectful. We're going to miss the whole Bigfoot world is going to miss him because he was very eloquent, just talking and very popular. And and it's too bad he's gone, but he's not really gone. His legacy will live on because of you and me and those who knew him. He did bring a lot of credibility to the subject and brought a lot of attention to the subject. And again, we will all miss him. I've just known him for years and he brought a lot of knowledge and a lot of a lot of interest into the subject. And a lot of people were glad to hear him talk because he was just a good and good spokesman. He was always there trying to help people get educated and help them not not think that what they saw was maybe not a bear. Maybe it was a big foot in that garbage dump or whatever. But he was a gentleman and a scholar and and he brought a lot to the big foot community and a lot to the people who want to study the subject more. They should read what he's got and study what he said because he knew a lot. And he was a very brilliant person and I enjoyed being around him. I'm going to miss him. I can tell you from knowing both men, Ron and Jeff probably didn't agree on anything when it comes to this subject. And yet not only did they remain respectful towards each other, they were friends. It's an unlimited supply of class. As a professor of anthropology at Idaho State University, Jeff dedicated his career to understanding the origins of humankind and the mysteries that still linger on the fringes of the scientific inquiry. Throughout his life, Dr. Meldrum spoke on many occasions on how important evidence is to the subject. I became involved in this topic, this question, investigation. I literally kind of shied away or kept at arm's length the film. I didn't want the perception that I was putting too much or undue emphasis on that one piece of evidence. I didn't want this argument to seem as if it's pivoted upon that one piece of evidence. Not that I doubted that whether it was authentic or not, but I just the perception of it. But as time went on and as I had more opportunity to study the footprint evidence, for example, to examine the ten casts that Bob Titmuss had made at the site. And of the Patterson Gimlin film? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I had no idea that there were cast taken there. I thought it was just that. Oh, no, this is what. And so as a person, since it was the footprints that drew me in to this question, it was a personal experience as well as, you know, against the backdrop of my expertise, my research emphasis as you introduce me, a specialist in hominin human bipedalism. That includes and in my case was prioritized. The footprint evidence of bipedalism, both the study of fossilized hominin footprints around the world, examples of that. And then in order to interpret that, a study of modern human footprints in all the variety and cultural manifestation, shod versus unshod and so on, as well as nonhuman great apes. And in order to understand the intermedia, see if so many of the characteristics of these fossilized hominin footprints and to be able to examine the timing and pattern, because it wasn't like our ancestors just immediately adopted upright posture and everything changed. Anatomically, there were features that led out others that lagged behind primitive retentions and mosaicism and eventually the modern human foot form with its distinctive characteristics like the longitudinal arch, you know, became fixed and became expressed to the degree they are. So, yes, it was the footprints in addition to the right and the left, which were cast by Roger Patterson at the film site in the immediacy of that moment and make a marvelous representation of the foot form and function. But limited somewhat, Roger made the somewhat tactical mistake of selecting the clearest, flattest, flawless examples of a right and a left. So while they make great representations of the details of the foot and the sand on that sandbar was a kind of an ang, the grains were this angular eroded slate rather than the kind of granitic. And so the footprints when compressed, that substrate interlocked and held its shape remarkably well. But to the doubters. There's like, wow, isn't it convenient that this is such a perfect footprint? Yeah, yeah. And remarkably flattened, featureless without the typical topography of a human foot with a heel and a ball and an arch. They must be just carved out of planks. They're just, they're the stereotypical flat, fake foot strapped to a hiking boot. But then thankfully in part, Bob Titmus, a former California resident who was then by this time had relocated to British Columbia, had come down to the site, had just enough plaster that by stretching it, and he really stretched it. I mean, some of the cast are hardly more than splatter or spatter coat coatings of the, of the print, but he made 10 in succession. The only problem is he didn't take metrics of the, of the gate parameters like the straddling straddle and everything and didn't number the sequence even, you know, but not that matters. But he had 10 regardless of their quality. And so it preserved some of the quirky aspects, you know, some of the, well, I shouldn't say quirky. It preserved the dynamic features of a very animate footprint rather than these apparent static impressions of a, of a prosthetic. Oh, I see. Fake foot. So we've got those 10 and, and, you know, it's remarkable. I brought one example to share with you that shows a very distinctive dynamic feature, which has figured very prominently in my characterization of the distinguishing features of the Sasquatch footprint, differentiating it from a human. And in fact, in part forming the basis of the IKNO-Taxon, which is the taxonomic name of the footprint of an, of a creature for which we don't have a type specimen of the creature itself. Oh, I see. And so that's a legitimate way to, to, to classify something related to Sasquatch when we aren't justified in. IKNO-Taxon? Yes. IKNO-Taxon. So the, the, or there are other examples of that. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a whole discipline. Well, I, I, I, they're, they're given names, but, but my focus has been quite particularly on this, this Sasquatch, but I've interacted with people who, I mean, typically it's utilized by paleontologists where the bones of an extinct species haven't been found, but these tracks have not been associated. So it's, it's just basically a way to put a handle on these and to be able to attach a description and differential diagnosis so that they can be studied and examined. So, so to like continue like that example of a paleontologist, right? Like it would be if you found a six-toed dinosaur track, right? But you were like, well, you know, we haven't found a dinosaur with a, with a fossil, but that is six toes. Right. Exactly. So we know that this thing existed, but we, we, we don't have like the physical sample. Um, I want to get to, uh, we're going to get to like skepticism, uh, particularly surrounding Patterson, Gimlin. But before we do that, I think we ought to look at one of these casts. What do you think? Yeah. Um, I'm super excited. I don't think I've ever like, like I've seen like big foot cast after big foot cast, like is a, you know, as like an item, but like I've never like held one or seen one in person. I don't think. I don't think I've ever seen it. Oh my gosh. So that is, um, one of the tip miss casts. And, uh, this one is particularly significant. This, like I said, played a real, uh, important role in my, um, assessment of the model of the Sasquatch footprint. So what, what some will look at and think, Oh, there's an arch or it's broken in the middle, that's actually a pressure ridge. So it's an artifact. The foot isn't shaped that way, but you have to remember this is not. It's not something going straight down. It's something. Exactly. And it's not a model of a foot. It's the, it's a cast of the foot. Yeah. And the footprint is a dynamic record of the entire step. So if you're transferring, I'm trying to use in front of the camera. If you're transferring weight this way, you're not going to like hop heel to heel, you're going to go and you're going to pivot. And that's why you have this. Well, right. Well, and even more significantly, the foot of the Sasquatch is essentially, it does not have a fixed longitudinal arch like a human foot. Okay. It's a flat, flexible foot, which some humans have a symptomatic flat feet or otherwise. But so you've got that entire foot in contact with the ground, but then the heel comes up first instead of the entire foot pivoting at the ball. Mm-hmm. The flexible foot pivots in the instep, what we call our instep and the heel comes up and now pressure. You see, you can see the deepest points, where are the deepest points on the, well, no, that's the highest point. Oh, okay. The deepest point of the input. Oh, sure. Exactly. That's what you think in reverse. So it's right up here. Exactly. So the foot. Well, the forefoot. Forefoot. The ball would be way up here. Always the teacher, the mentor. I had to laugh a little bit in this podcast. You see Dr. Meldrum get up and walk over and start explaining the cast and the mid-tarsal break to the host. He's like, forget your mic. I guess that's why they say legends are often remembered, not just for what they did, but for who they were. Kathy Strain is an anthropologist, researcher and author. She shares her memory of Dr. Jeff Meldrum. Well, I met Jeff in 1998, so 27 years ago, and we were both members of the BR4O, and so we would talk, you know, email, call each other just because it's, you know, there's not a lot of people who are, have college degrees, and certainly not an anthropology that, you know, study bigfoot. And so we had that kind of mutual bond just because, you know, we were basically both anthropologists and after Grover Kranz passed away, and, you know, we were the only ones. And so it was one of those mantles you have to kind of carry because that's it. And so I didn't physically meet him until the 2003 International Bigfoot Symposium. Which was the first time I was giving a paper. And I remember it's actually kind of funny now that I walked up to Jeff and I was like, oh, nice to meet you in person. And then I said, can I ask you something? And he goes, yeah, sure. What? I said, this not, this isn't the crowd that I was really expecting. I was kind of expecting different people. And I said, and I don't know if this goes down terrible, but I said, a lot of these people are crazy. And he started laughing and I said, I have to give this paper and I wrote it way too technical, you know, and he said, don't worry about it. You just be you. Do we want to educate people? We have to speak to them like they're humans. We can't dumb things down. We have to talk to them how we talk. And I said, OK, and I just really always appreciated that advice and it struck me as that he was very laid back. And, you know, just wanted to talk about Bigfoot and you, you obviously talked with him before, you know, he used a lot of technical words and a lot of technical anatomy stuff. And there's times when even I had to go look a word up because I wasn't sure what he was saying or really tried to get the definition of what this thing was that he was trying to explain. And so I think that was for me, a last time I was talking to him, he was for me, a lasting effect in what I do. I don't talk down to people. I make sure I give them the best education that I can give them. I try to convey that same passion that Jeff had. And I try to be very patient and answer every question that somebody might have. And I don't lose my temper. Normally, sometimes I do when I get things like, oh, Native Americans only believe in Bigfoot because, you know, they've got casinos or all those silly things they say. And so I think that in a lot of ways, his legacy is that tone, that temperament, that ability to just appear down to earth, even though he'd be smarter than every all of us put together. And so I think that's what I will always remember about him. He had a really good sense of humor as well. And so a lot of people don't know that about him, but he he likes practical jokes, he likes silly things, you know, kind of thing. And he would chuckle at things where I'd be going, you know, for me, girls have different sense of humors than men, you know, and him and my husband, Bob, would chuckle over these silly things together. And I don't know who's go that's not funny. That's that's like a 12 year old would think that was funny. But it was it was funny to them. And I always really appreciated that because it's just, you know, two men, you know, having, you know, thinking something was funny. And so but yeah, he he really had the ability to connect with people. And and he didn't talk over me. He generally assumed I probably knew what that word was, but I'm not. And an anonymous, you know, I'm an archaeologist. And so I would nod my head a lot and just go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I go secretly look up that, you know, these two or three words that I didn't know what it was. And it's always, you know, locomotion or something related to to that, but not using the word locomotion. So yeah, he was just a kind person. And I'd there'd be at times where I'd be at conferences and somebody would talk to me and then I'd go, you know, because I'm not one I'm not a woo person, you know. And, you know, I'd listen and stuff, but I wasn't very talkative with them because I don't know how to make a conversation about things I don't know anything about or don't really have an interest in. But they go over and they talk with Jeff and Jeff would talk to him for half an hour and I'm just like, how does he do that? You know, how does he connect with these people? Even though he didn't believe in woo, he was perfectly willing to have an in-depth conversation with these people and and never got upset. Never got mad, never told anybody go away. But he generally could have a long conversation when, you know, I don't have that ability. I go, oh, OK, so you believe in portals. OK, and then that's all I can say. I don't know what else to convey, you know. And so that's that's truly a gift that that I don't know any time soon that we're going to get somebody like that. He led credibility to us in the sense that he never backed down. You know, I know that he's frustrated with his university for a few years where he felt because of his belief and what he was doing that that cost him his full professorship. And, you know, I don't know if it did or not, but I know he was very frustrated with that, but he ended up getting it. But he never backed down and he, you know, he's talked it. I don't even want to know thousands of conferences. Did plenty of television. He was that face of maybe bitfoot believers aren't crazy kind of face. You know, where he could speak with authority and people honestly believed, well, why would a guy with a PhD who studies humans and all this stuff? Why would he put his his name at risk? Why would he spend thousands of hours doing this if he didn't really think that this animal could exist? And I think. I don't think we're going to miss it in the sense of because his legacy is still here and he's still on plenty of television shows and all that stuff, but it is a question of are we going to get anybody else like him again? You know, is his participation going to encourage young college aged kids to go ahead and get their PhDs and go ahead and put their name to be associated with Bigfoot in the future. And I'm hoping that that that's his living legacy that I got into Bigfoot because Dr. Meldrum and I want to study it and I don't care what my colleagues may say. I'm willing to put my scientific name behind this. And that that's what I really hope. And I haven't seen it yet, but there's a whole generation of kids in college nowadays that may jump right in. But I know quietly behind the scene and I won't use any names. There is a lot of people that are quietly studying Bigfoot and they let some of us know, but they're not ready yet for the public to know. But I know there's there is other people with those similar credentials that are just being quiet about it. And but I hope that, you know, Jeff will be the the hero that people go. He did it and I can do it too. He he touched a lot of people's lives, so sure. And not just because of Bigfoot, but privately and personally, you know, when I had my sighting in 2012, Jeff was the first person I told. And I had just sent him an email real quick because we were, you know, packing up and leaving. And and I remember that he got a little irritated with me because I had said, oh, gosh, Jeff, I just had a sighting. It was two of them in the daylight. It was it's unbelievable, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just kind of spewed it. Well, then I'm on the road heading back to California. And I get a message from him when I arrive like, hey, I've been waiting like five days for you to tell me the all the details of what happened here. And I felt really bad, like there was like somebody telling you, you just win a million dollars and I'll get back with you. And then the five days pass and you don't, you know, follow up on that. And so it was really kind of kind of funny. And so he asked me, of course, lots of questions. But and I thought later this week when I was reflecting on Jeff's life about I picked him to tell this to because of my respect for him, but also we're good friends. And I wanted him to know this is what happened to me. You know, this that they're real, Jeff, they're real, Jeff. And it was important for me to for him to know that. And it's just in a lot of ways, I'm just it's been a just been a long week. And I'm really good friends with his wife. And so that's the other thing I want to say is that I know that people talk about his legacy and Bigfoot, which you have to remember. He was a husband and a father and a grandfather. And his impact on them was his equal in their lives. It had nothing to do with Bigfoot. He was just a very good man and a loving man. And he was always so proud of his kids and just wonderful, wonderful with his wife and stuff. And I just I just wanted to mention that that he's he's more than just Bigfoot. He was all these other things as well. I just want to. I want to cry. Let me get myself together here. It was a good friend. I guess I just want to say that he was a good man, a good friend, a good researcher. And I know where he is right now, and I know he knows the truth. And so good for him. He knows what Patty is and and he knows where all the rest of them are to. And maybe someday he could send me a little sign of, you know, a one of two things that I want to say. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, you know, hey, why don't you go over to this spot in the forest and you can have your your next encounter would be nice. But his loss is going to be felt for many, many years to come. There's some people you just don't ever believe are ever going to go. You know, they're they're they're too. There's their light shines so much brighter than everybody else. And so you just make this assumption that that light can never go out. And so and I was very lucky, like I said, I'm good friends with his wife. And so I knew that he was having health issues prior to this. And I'm glad that I had that knowledge because I think I would have I would have just had a meltdown on Thursday and just, you know, not been able to function. And so I'm glad that I had already been crying and getting that that sense of loss out of myself, you know, so that I could at least function, you know, to some degree. And so it's just hard to believe that he's gone and that it happens so quickly. And, you know, and John's gone and so many other people are gone. And it's just a reality that life is life. And that I'll miss him because he was, you know, a good man. And that's in the end, the only thing that matters. He was a good, big footer, but in the end, he was a better man. Albert Einstein once said, try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. This is a 1000 gram iron bar. Its basic value is around $100. If you use it to make horseshoes, it could be worth $250. If you use it to make sewing needles, it could be worth $70,000. It could be worth $70,000. If you make watch springs and gears, it could be worth about $6 million. But if you make precision laser parts like the ones used in lithography, it could be worth $15 million. Your value isn't just in what you're made of. It's mostly how well you use what you have. My friend Cliff Bergman from the podcast Big Foot and Beyond shares his memories of Dr. Melderm. I've got a lot of memories with Jeff, of course, you know, and very fond ones. At first, I met him was, I think, 2005 back at the Bellingham Conference, which was the first time I had done anything, any conference like that. And they just weren't as plentiful back then. So I jumped at the chance to go and it was a very memorable, many reasons. That's where I first met Bob Gimlin and a lot of the, you know, the regular casting crew of Big Footery at this moment. But Dr. Melderm was there and that was my first chance to interact with him as well. And of course, I knew who he was. I've been kind of lurking in the background of Big Foot quietly by myself since like 94 or something like that. You know, and of course, Jeff really came on the scene towards the end of the 90s, early 2000s. I was following what he was writing on the IVBC back in the day. And I think most big footers today won't even know what the IVBC is, you know, but it basically laid the foundation for every Big Foot website that exists, period, ever. So, you know, so Jeff was kind of at the very beginning days of the internet as well. You know, so that's how I knew him, of course, because I didn't, I lived down in Southern California at the time. My first interactions with Dr. Melderm were at that conference. We're at that conference. I got to speak to him. And at that time, he was just an inspiration to me. You know, I was aware of him and I was excited about what he was doing and that sort of thing. And I had a deep respect for him even then because I've always been a science nerd. I told this story on one of our podcasts just recently too, because we did a two episodes really, a public one and then a member's one on our thoughts and memories of Jeff. I remember sitting in the audience watching Lloyd Pie, another researcher who had some pretty outside ideas tied in the whole Anunnaki thing and, you know, Sumerian texts and all that sort of jazz, you know. And then he was going on about the anatomy of fossil hominins and his interpretation of them. And of course, that's kind of one of the areas of special, that Jeff specialized in. In fact, a lot of my fondest memories of Jeff are discussing one of my deep interests, which is paleoanthropology. I really enjoy that subject. I think that if I had school to do over again, college to do over again, I'd probably go down that avenue instead of music, which is what I chose to study in this time around at least. And I remember Jeff was sitting in the row behind me. And I remember who he was sitting with at the time, but he was sitting in the row behind me and a little off to my left. And after Lloyd Pie was done talking about his ideas, which were, again, pretty out there, I think. I kind of looked back around and I caught Jeff's eye. He didn't know me at that point. I said, so Dr. Meltrum, what do you think about that? And he looked at me, and he just kind of chuckles and goes, snake oil. Yeah, yeah, all right. And now, you know, it's so ironic about that. And I said this on the podcast is that years, years, years later, you know, the Finding Bigfoot show, the production company that did that was named Ping Pong. But whatever a production company makes a TV show, they make some sort of smaller LLC or corporation in case something goes sideways and they get sued, you know, the big company can't be sued, you know, and the smaller LLC that Ping Pong owned that kind of ran Finding Bigfoot was called Snake Oil Productions. And I always thought that was very ironic, you know, talk about foreshadowing, you know, the literary device. You can see that in your own life if you look back far enough. It's another weird foreshadowing too, has happened with Jeff that I really appreciate. Last time I saw him was in June at the Charlie Raymond's conference that he helped organize out there in Kentucky somewhere, Red River Gorge, I think it was. And Jeff and I were in a Airbnb together. And we were kind of dropped off there and we didn't have a ride, you know, we were kind of like left with food and water and a place to stay. And we didn't have a ride to go anywhere. So we kind of were just stuck there basically. And it wasn't a bad thing. We woke up in the morning and had breakfast and started a conversation that lasted until like 3.30 in the afternoon. The last time I spent with Jeff was like a six or seven hour conversation. And that was just fantastic. And when we left that, you know, Jeff has been my friend for years, you know, and you know, generally shake hands robustly or give it pat in the back sort of thing. I've hugged him a few times. But on the last time I saw him this time in June, he hugged me like it was completely on him. Like he like he hugged me. And I said, oh, that's that's kind of that's very sweet, you know, and kind. And now that I look back, I don't think that was an accident. You know, I don't I don't believe in accidents very much. I think that that was the again foreshadowing, shall we say. But yeah, Jeff and I have been on expeditions together out in the woods, spent weeks at a week or two at a time, you know, like, I don't know, man, he's he's irreplaceable, irreplaceable in our field. And as a friend, I mean, I mentioned, I mentioned earlier, he he started as for me, he started as an inspiration. And then later, as we got to know each other, and he got to know me, in my interests and my enthusiasm, he became a mentor, because I really like the footprint cast, you know, and I know those pretty well, I know the history, I understand the foot a little, I'm not as well as Jeff, I mean, who can understand it as well as Jeff, he has a that's what he's perfect, his specialty was, you know, that he has an academic degree in that. But you know, going from an inspiration to a mentor, and then later to a friend, you know, that's that's quite a journey for me. And yeah, he's just left a hole, and not only in my heart, but also the community, that I don't see anybody filling, you know, people are looking at me as they were like, they're like, I can't expect me to fill that, you know, I don't think anybody can fill that. And I think that the answer to the plea that I hear coming from the community, like who's going to fill his shoes, we need this, we need that, we need something academic, we need, you know what, you know, put your big boy pants on a big girl pants on and let's let's do it ourselves, you know, just one of Jeff's passions was citizen science. That's us. Yeah, it'd be great if we had a couple PhDs who were, you know, specialists and something applicable to the subject. But, you know, it's it's our turn to rise. You know, like we have to it's our responsibility, the way I see it. No one's coming to save us. No one is coming to save us. We can't wait for someone to help us. We have to do it ourselves. And it's not that hard. Speaking a sober manner about the subject, be responsible with the subject represented appropriately, whether you're speaking in public or to your friends in private. Stay away from ridiculous ideas, support your own ideas with evidence. That's what Jeff would want. And it's our turn to do the job that he left for us in my eyes. And that's a huge responsibility on all of us. But I've been saying it for two weeks now, you know, do it for Jeff. He was an educator through and through, which I think is why we got along so well, because I'm very curious. And I think that's one of the most important character traits of any big footer, you know, is to be deeply curious about the subject and just want to know more. And Jeff loved talking about the subject or talking about tangential subjects, you know, primatology or paleoanthropology or that sort of stuff. And I'm just full of questions. And I think that's one of the reasons we got along so well is that I've always had a question for him. So, hey, I heard about this. What do you know? Oh, that's very interesting. And you'd go off and tell me about it. And that would bring up another question. And eventually, some question would be unanswerable. So, we'd start pondering ideas, like hypotheses about that and how that applies to the subject. And I think that he just really appreciated that's something that I've been reflected as like, why do you like me, you know? I'm just some guy, some enthusiast, basically, at the end of the day. You know, I maybe just, I don't know. But I often like, why me? Why did he enjoy our times together so much? Because until, I mean, until the day he died, I was just looked up to him. And I just wanted to continue learning from him. And I guess this guy called me his padawan, you know, and sometimes, you know, which is a great honor. Now, I'll take it. I'll take it. But, you know, it's a tough place to be because, yeah, there are a lot of us lectures exist online. Of course, we, you can watch his interviews online and YouTube or whatever like that. But the stuff that I loved, perhaps more than, I mean, there's so many things I love to listen to him and, you know, shoot the poop around the fire for four hours, that kind of stuff. But what is one of the things I've been thinking about this, one of the things that's going to be irreplaceable about Dr. Meltrum is his experiences with historical figures in Bigfoot. And because a lot of that stuff didn't get written down or was ever brought up in interviews, you know, most YouTubers or, you know, podcasters or whatever, or the media, they don't ask them about that stuff. They ask them about, you know, have you ever seen one or what about the Patterson Gimlin film? Tell me about this mid-tarsal break thing, you know, that kind of stuff. And he said those things ad nauseam. I mean, of course, like you were saying, he never tired of it because he always loved imparting his knowledge and his viewpoint on the subject and the evidence. But the stuff that I wish I, I mean, I have my experiences with him and listening to his stories and interactions, but the stuff that is now completely lost are those stories where he was at West Summerland's house and talking to, you know, Wes and his wife about this thing or, you know, his interactions with Paul Freeman, you know, like, what was going on then? They said, oh, well, Paul would do this. And then like, he would tell me these little tidbits about the history and the interactions of him, of Jeff and these figures like, oh, I one time I was with Grover and this happened or, oh, if you know, you have to, you kind of have to know Dr. Kranz has since a humor to appreciate what that meant. And his time with Brian Smith on, on Biscuit Ridge in the cabin, you know, and like those things from Jeff's perspective are now completely gone, erased from the universe because so much of it didn't get written down or recorded in any sort of way. And I think that, you know, to me, I mean, there's a lot of tragedies about Jeff's passing. But one of the biggest tragedies is that that knowledge, that experience, those perspectives and those memories of his are gone. And so many of them are such an integral part of Bigfoot history. You know, the 1996 expeditions with Richard Greenwell, you know, they found tracks out there, they found tracks. And yeah, yeah, you can read the Six Rivers Expedition notes and say, oh, yeah, there's a track 16 and track or whatever it was. But what were the, what was the context? What was it doing? Where was it going? And at this point, there's no record of that. There may be something, there may be something, I don't know, I mean, what we'll see, we'll see as, as records are explored and that sort of stuff. But that's, I mean, I guess I'm not going to put in words on it, you know, I didn't have difficulty with that. But to me, that's a huge loss is that those things are now gone and are perhaps irretrievable. And I think that the minutiae of the Bigfoot history is some of the most interesting parts about the subject. And, you know, and Jeff was not only smart, he was brilliant in many, many ways. And I think that his brilliance might be a little underappreciated because his brilliance spanned many, many subjects. It wasn't just that he was good at the Bigfoot thing and knew eight feet. But, but he knew about, he was a pretty darn good woodsman. He knew how to track, he took tracking from Jim Halfpinny, he took classes from him. He was like a world-renowned tracker. He knew about edible plants. He knew about indigenous cultures and the habitats in which they live and how that changed those cultures. He had a breadth of knowledge. And his breadth was not only wide, but it was deep as well. And that's rare. You know, like, I'm, I've became an elementary school teacher. You know, that's my education background. You know, I taught school for a long time because I was, I'm not really excellent at anything, but I'm pretty good at most things. I try it. I try to do. And Jeff had something similar. Obviously, he was very specialized in anatomy and physiology and that kind of stuff. But it always struck me that he was very good and very knowledgeable as such a wide range of things. I think his intelligence, everybody knew he's a smart guy because he's a PhD and all that stuff. And you take that for granted. But knowing him, like that really, really drove it home. It's like, wow, this guy is really something special. And we were lucky. We as a community, as a, as a Bigfoot community, we were very lucky that he would give us the time of day, essentially is my thought. And he would do it with such patience and grace and eloquence, whether you're the third guy in line at this table or the last guy on Sunday, right before they closed the conference, he was going to give you that time. And he was going to give you the same attention that you deserve. Yeah, he honestly, he's far better at that than me. Because I have trouble with people. You know, I'm not a, I'm an introvert and this very, very draining, you know, but he luckily, he was a little bit more extroverted than I am. And he would just do it and do it and do it and do it. And because every single person was like another student, another student for Dr. Jeff Meldrum, the teacher. And he'd make sure that everybody got their education if they really wanted it. If they would, if they would listen. If you want to know Jeff's contribution to the subject, all you have to do is read Dr. Kranz's book, because that's as far as we got at that point before Jeff showed up on the scene. In fact, Dr. Kranz's book, Big Footprints, the first edition of his book, it's called Big Footprints, I think it was published in 92, if I remember right. And then a few years later, he did a second edition with a few extra chapters at the end about new developments since he had first written it. And one of those small chapters is the appearance on the scene of Dr. Jeff Meldrum. So between the first and second edition, I think it was 92 and I don't know what the second 94 or six or something. I don't know, probably 96, I'm not really sure. But anyway, but that period of time, Jeff showed up on the scene. And so that that calibrates the field for that tells us how far we had gotten. And then everything we know since that, you can kind of point to Jeff and say, yeah, that's because of him. That's because of him. And it is a lot. It is a lot. I think that Kranz really did a great job laying the foundation. And he, Kranz even recognized the foot flexibility, essentially, which we slapped the word on mid-tarsal, that whole thing. Kranz recognized it as well. He just didn't have a name for it. And he didn't develop it to the same degree as Dr. Meldrum did. If I remember right, Kranz commented that there seems to be a considerable flexation or flexibility to the mid part of the foot, a flat foot. You know, Kranz definitely did say that it was a flat footed animal and there's some flexibility in the foot. But Dr. Meldrum being a specialist in primate feet. I mean, Jeff literally has, I believe, the largest or perhaps, or definitely one of the world's largest collections of ape feet at the university in a freezer in the building there. A world-class collection of ape feet. That was literally one of his specialties. But yeah, Dr. Meldrum is the one that recognized it and really defined it for us all. But you can see his contribution, his scientific contribution, by calibrating it with what Kranz wrote and then looking at where we are today. I think that really, Jeff has even more so than Grover, even more so than Dr. Kranz, who I never met. I deeply wish I could have. He's really framed the subject appropriately, in my opinion, into the realm of primatology. You know, you can learn so much about Sasquatches by learning about the other primates. It doesn't quite fit because they're not one of the other primates. They're Sasquatches, which is a primate. But you can learn. That's why we study chimpanzees because we learn about ourselves. We study the other apes and we learn about ourselves in such a way because we are apes. We're literally apes. That's our biological family. And I think Jeff has contributed more to the framing of the subject in that regard than anyone else has. And as we move forward with the subject, that will almost certainly be the framing of the study of these animals in the future. Now, of course, if they do in fact have language, which I think is very possible, if they certainly have culture, I mean, crows have culture. I don't think it's a big stretch that the Sasquatches do. Chimpanzees have culture that's been shown over and over and over again. It's going to be interesting to see how different they are from the other apes and in what ways they're different. And that will certainly shine a lot of light on ourselves as well, human species, homo sapiens. But Jeff is the one that laid the foundation and has put it in the appropriate framework that will almost certainly define the study of that species forever once they're actually recognized by science. Thanks so much for coming on, Cliff, and sharing your memories of them and your thoughts on the subject. And I know it's been a rough week. Thank you again. I'm not going to lie, man. I've shed plenty of tears in last week or two. Anything for you, man. Always happy to help. You've helped us in the podcast. You've helped me personally in just so many ways. And you're a good friend. I'm happy to help you in any way I can. The first time I met Dr. Meldrum, I was at a conference and I was in the conference hall and all the speakers had their table set up there. And I hadn't met Dr. Meldrum yet. I was just standing there and I hear this, hey, Wes, and kind of a low whisper, but a little bit louder. And I turned around and started to Meldrum. And I remember he called me over to his table and I was thinking I was in trouble. I was like, Oh, what have I done? I don't know why that's the first thought in my mind. But I walked up to his table and he said, you know, several times a week, I have students that come to me and say, you have to listen to this episode. You have to listen to that episode. He said, what you're doing is a good thing. Now, I'm sure that didn't mean much to him, but it meant a lot to me. I remember asking Dr. Meldrum about this cast that was on his table. And he lifts up the cast and he's explaining the cast and he gives me the whole history on it. And he's showing me different things that my layman's eyes would have never picked out. But because of his expertise, he was pointing at different things that I would have never noticed. And now kind of being on the other side, I realize that he probably explained that cast a million times that day, a million and one with me asking about it. But you would have never known that. It was like the first time he was explaining it. 13 years later, I'm in Cliff's garage, and I'm asking him about different casts. He would lift it up, give me the history on it. And Cliff would point out different things on the cast that I would have never noticed. You can really see the impact of a mentor. Amy Boo is a retired teacher and founder of Project Zoo Book. She speaks about what Dr. Meldrum meant to her. My favorite memory of him is kind of a mix because when I first got into this, and Dr. Meldrum had such an impact on me, because, you know, I don't know what I saw that day in 2012, because it was far away and I was moving in a car and all of that. But I got so fascinated in the topic. But when I started out, it was kind of like I was almost trying to prove it wasn't real, because how could Bigfoot be real kind of thing? And I quickly found his book, you know, Sasquatch, Legend Meet Science, and I watched that original documentary, and I got to go see him in person. And he just influenced me because it was like, okay, so even though at that time, now I don't care what anybody thinks about me, but at that time, it was almost like I had this shyness or something about, you know, people are going to think I'm stupid if I give this, you know, a second thought. Well, now I know that's not true. And I also know you don't have to be a scientist to not be stupid. So I'm not saying that. But what he was saying and how he was going about researching the whole topic was like, man, you know, these really smart people, this really smart man is willing to go out on a limb and say that he thinks something that is controversial to his career and to his reputation could be true. And that kind of thing just really stuck with me. And also, when I first got to meet him, and then, you know, I've met him at different times throughout the years, I would say the best memory of him is just how funny he was. A lot of people, like if they only watched him on shows or documentaries or got to hear him at a conference, would never know the sense of humor that he has. And he was just such a kind and funny and self-deprecating kind of guy. So it was just him, him that makes the best memories for me. I don't think we even know yet what his total impact on the subject was. I know that Project Zoo Book probably wouldn't exist without him, because I mean, it might, that might be an overstatement, but I don't really think so because a lot of the scientists that were willing to have a discussion and come into this think tank that we have were highly influenced by him. You know, they might have had a spark of interest to begin with, but I always sent them to him. You know, Dr. Jeff and I would email, we'd have different correspondents that way or talk on the phone once in a while, and I didn't know him. I'm not pretending to like be a dear friend. I consider him my friend, but I don't live near him. You know, there are a lot of people who know him a lot better than I do, but we would talk professionally. And just the fact that I can say that, and he took me seriously, meant a great deal to me because I'm in no way as smart as he is or at the level of his knowledge about things, you know, but just I, to have somebody that, you know, if I had a new anthropologist that was interested to be like, Hey, Dr. Jeff, Dr. Meldrum, would you be willing to talk to them? And he always would. He was always so encouraging of Project Zubok and of me, you know, as a person. And you were talking about how you could, you know, go and talk to him about a certain footprint or something. The cool thing about Dr. Jeff is that not only would he do that, but he enjoyed it. You know, he had a lot of passion about this whole topic. So it wasn't just like, you know, wrote like blah, blah, blah about this thing. Cause he said it so many times. He really enjoyed other people's opinions and minds. And he wanted to teach about what he was studying, you know, and he always did it with grace and with, um, when he never made me feel stupid, even though, even though I might feel stupid sometimes in comparison, you know, or just not, maybe not stupid, but ignorant about what he was talking about. He always welcomed people that didn't know a lot about things. And he welcomed different viewpoints. And he would tell you if he didn't agree with you, but he was never, you know, a jerk about it. Like some people can be, I don't think we know yet the totality of his influence, but I do know that it, I don't know if it's possible to replace him, you know, that like right away when we found out that he had passed, you know, the, everybody started talking about like, who's going to take his place. I'm like, nobody. I don't think anybody can. People could maybe try to take their own spot and, and that sounds weird that way. I just mean like people might try to, are going to try and still try to do their own research, but it's not going to be, you know, his, he was one of a kind, I really think. But, um, with Project Zoo Book, the, the, um, scientists that we've worked with and everything, they, one of them found me through your show. Like you had interviewed me real quickly in Indiana when we were there together. And one of our really awesome scientists was listening and she got a hold of me after that. But she was influenced by Dr. Maldrum. You know, we, we have a whole collection of people that my hope for it and, and Dr. Jeff's hope for it. And he always told me to call him Jeff, but I couldn't. I always say Dr. Jeff because I just couldn't do it. It was the respect factor. But anyway, like they, you know, they might not have come in for him, but he would join us as much as he could. You know, he was an attendee of Project Zoo Book and a, and a cheerleader for it. Um, whenever I would feel like I, you know, I don't know how this is going and what we're doing, he would give me really good advice and he's like, you're doing the right thing. You're on the right track. And a lot of, like I said before, a lot of the people in it, a lot of the scientists in it, you know, I would always, I would either send them his book or I would point them in the direction of his book, like as an opening, if, if they hadn't, you know, if they didn't know a lot about the topic before coming in. So I don't know if I said that right, but he, I don't know, he was one of a kind. He was one of a kind. And we're just going to, we always have said that we want to follow in the footsteps of, and, you know, carry the torch of Dr. Bender Noggle and trying to make the topic less taboo. And now we're going to do it for Jeff. You know, I, I was just in the woods this past weekend, I went there kind of on the spur of a moment because, partly because of his passing and I was just so sad and, and kind of reevaluating things and all of that. And I just, I'm not sure if there's ever going to be a time when I'm out there that I won't think about him. Join me tomorrow night as we celebrate Dr. Jeff Meldrum's life. It doesn't feel appropriate for me to make this a member show. I will return tomorrow with many more guests and many more clips, including Jeff's encounter and his thoughts on DNA. Dr. Meldrum's passing marks an end of an era, but his influence will endure. His work continues to challenge, inspire, and provoke thought. In the pursuit of knowledge, he reminded all of us that sometimes the most profound discoveries are the ones we have yet to make to his family, friends, and all that were touched by his work. We offer our deepest condolences. Dr. Meldrum may no longer walk among us, but his legacy will continue to inspire curiosity, wonder, and the pursuit of knowledge for generations to come. Rest in peace, Dr. Meldrum. Dr. Meldrum