CLASSICS: Gareth Patterson's Otang Encounters!

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Bobo, I understand you have a fantastic guest lined up for us today. I do, and I learned about him from you, actually. And I haven't read his book, but it's on the top of my list. We got Gareth Patterson from South Africa. Gareth, welcome to Bigfoot and Beyond, and thank you very much for your patience with us and technology and speaking to us all the way from South Africa. It's a pleasure. Sure. I just hope the call stays. And yeah, great to speak to you guys. Thanks. Thanks for coming on. And, you know, thanks for writing your book, by the way, as well. My good friend Matt Pruitt recommended the book to me. I started reading it and I went, oh my gosh, this is going to be one of the most important books on relic hominoids written at this time period. I immediately texted Dr. Jeff Meldrum and he says, oh yeah, I already know about it. I'm reading it right now. So you've already been making waves in the Bigfoot community. And we really need to talk to you about what you've learned about these things so far and a little bit about the background of what you knew beforehand. So let's start there. For people who don't know who you are, can you give us a brief rundown of your qualifications, your professional background and that sort of thing? Yeah, I mean, I come from a background of lion research and really fighting for the greater protection of the African lion as well as the African elephant. I started very young. I started at the age of about 17 as an apprentice game ranger, trainee game ranger in South Africa, and then moved to Botswana. So that was about 1983. And then I studied a population of lions in Botswana, which really opened my eyes up to, I know it's off the Bigfoot subject, but I just want to add this to the actual plight of the lion. I started studying this population, and it really opened my eyes to what's happening to the lion throughout Africa. In my working life of about 30-something years, the lion population when I first started studying lions was about quarter of a million lions, and today it's about 15,000 to 20,000, and a lot of people don't know that. But I went on from there to work with the lion man of Africa, the grand old lion man of Africa, George Adamson of Born Free fame. And he was murdered by poachers, by ivory poachers, when he was rehabilitating the last of the Born Free lions. And after his murder, I rescued his his last three lions and moved them from Kenya to Botswana, where I'd studied lions. And I, living as a human member of a lion's pride, I rehabilitated them back into the wild, which was successful. The females had cubs. And I'd like to think the bloodline of those famous lions is still going today. And in that period, I've written 12 books. The majority, I think 12 books. The majority of them have been about lions and the last two, well, I've written two about elephants, The Secret Elephants in 2009, and then this new one, Beyond the Secret Elephants, which came out in January this year. And during that time, you must have just been astounded to stumble across a Sasquatch-like creature out in the woods. Were you even aware that these things may have been in Africa anywhere, let alone South Africa, before you stumbled upon one? That's a really great question. I've never thought about it that way. We've known of creatures such as what they called historically in East Africa, the agogwe. The reports are very scant in Southern Africa. But basically what happened was that I came down to Nizna, where I'm speaking to you now on the edge of the Nisner Forest, which is an afromontane forest system of about 600 square kilometers surrounded by a massive wilderness area of what we call feimbos vegetation. I came down here in 99 by default more than anything else. I was setting up natural habitat sanctuary for three lions that I'd saved from the notorious, infamous canned lion industry in South Africa where lions are being bred to be shot by hunters. We rescued these lions. And I was basically setting up this sanctuary not far away from Neisner. And I decided to visit the area with my girlfriend at the time. And while staying in a hotel, a hotel manager told us a very strange story as we were about to venture into the forest for the first time. In short, he was telling me that some German guests of his had gone into the forest, asked him for directions into the forest as we had asked him. and he next saw them in the afternoon in the bar of the hotel and they're looking very shocked. He asked them what was wrong and they said, no, things are not all right. We went into the forest and we saw these three human-like figures running across the road in front of us. The hotel manager immediately said, no, what you saw was baboons and at that stage they got quite angry with him. They said, look, we're well-traveled, well-educated people. We certainly know what baboons are. And these were not baboons. And the hotel manager recounted this story to me as I was about to go into the forest. And at that stage, as I went into the forest, my mind was still, yes, perhaps what they'd seen was baboons, because we know that baboons will stand upright for a short period of time to look further away or whatever. But I never imagined what would come after that. two years later when I first came down to research into the most southerly elephants in the world that live here, the amazing Nysna elephants. And so you were actually doing elephant research, and then your first encounter actually was a sighting. Is that correct, if I remember correctly from the book? Yeah, what happened was that stories, as I started to research into the elephant, stories by default started drifting towards me. A forestry botanist asked me one day that, you know, during your research, have you ever come across an upright hominoid being in the forest? And I said to him, no. I said, why do you ask? And he says, no, because on two separate occasions, our forestry workers have reported seeing such a being. And other stories drifted in. And it was, yes, it was about a year later after I'd been here. It was in 2002. With the last thing on my mind, you know, an upright relic hominoid being around, I was in a remote area. It was a clear day, a Sunday. I'd done my research. I was heading back to my vehicle. And I had a feeling that I was being watched, that feeling that you get. and I turned to my left and I saw this figure of about five foot three, just peeping curiously behind a pine tree. And my bush training instinct, whatever, just told me, keep the being in sight as long as you can, just keep on walking. Don't stop because that can be seen as a threat. And I kept on walking for about, I don't know, maybe about a kilometer. And then after that, And to be absolutely honest, I just slumped to the ground in total shock with what I'd seen. Could you describe any details about what you could observe from the distance that you saw this thing from? It was to my left and distance, I would say, about 50 to 75 meters or so, approximately, if I remember correctly, about five foot three. certainly an aura, an air of curiosity, and it was just peeking with its head and part of a shoulder from the left-hand side of the tree. And for some strange feeling in sort of quick hindsight at the time, at the day, I sensed it was female for some reason. Okay. What color was it? Like a brown or a black or red? How would you describe the color? I would describe it as russic color, not unlike, I mean, it was actually, ironically, it was in Californian pines. I mean, it was a strand of pines, and it was very much the color of, you know how the pine needles, when they fall to the ground, that russic color. That was basically a little bit darker than the needles, yeah. Huh, okay. That was your first sighting, but to date, how many sightings have you had of these things? Okay. I mean, this has been, I mean, the Elephant Project and all the other work I've been doing down here has been a long period of time. So it's coming up close to 20 years now. And in that time, I've had four clear sightings and two very brief sightings. the most astonishing sighting was actually the fourth sighting because when my book The Secret Elephants came out a lot of people contacted me wanting to go into the forest with me and I started this little mini expedition thing called The Secret Elephants Forest Experience and I take groups of small groups of people into the forest and to the wilderness areas and finishing off one of those trips with a group, quite a large group for me, because I normally only take about two or three people. I was with about six people and they had all read The Secret Elephants. And we were looking down this steep gorge at a beautiful pool of water, you know, quite a few hundred feet below us. And the one woman was looking with binoculars. And then suddenly she said to us all, well, she she said to me, she said, what is that, Gareth? What is that? This was 2017. And I looked down and not in the shock of the first sight I looked down and I saw what looked like approximately I say six and a half seven foot otang walking three quarters body angle away from us And I replied to them. I said to the people, you've read The Secret Elephants, do you remember? Because I mentioned very briefly in that book about the otang, not much about the otang in that earlier book. and they nodded and I said, well, that's got to be what it is. And then it was quite interesting for me because I then saw the shock that they experienced, which mirrored my experience all those years ago in 2002. And we drove for half an hour back to our destination. And in that period, no one spoke. They were totally silenced by shock of what they had seen. that's just so fascinating the parallels between what you're describing not only in what they look like but also in the observer's behavior with what we have here in North America because a lot of people when they see a Sasquatch their mind is blown and they don't have words they have to grapple with almost PTSD to try to understand what they're doing so it's very interesting As far as their behaviors go, I'm so interested in this because one of the questions that nags me is how many species of relic hominoids are there in the world? People ask me often if the Yeti is the same thing as the Sasquatch. And of course, the answer is we don't know. But in South Africa, this is the best information that's come out, really. There's very little out of Africa in general, and only, I think, a few articles out of South Africa about possible relic hominoids like this. So in your work, have you noticed any of the behaviors that seem to be reported here in North America? And examples would be rock throwing, long moaning howls, or knocking on trees, or sounds that seem to be knocking on trees, or anything like that. Have you noticed any of those behaviors or others that maybe I'm not aware of? The parallels are really fascinating. First of all, just like with the Neisner elephants, these beings, to my knowledge, what I can see, they're not actually inhabiting so much the dense, afro-mountain forest. They're really on the forest edge and in what we call feimbos vegetation. It's a bit of a Miss Omo with the Knights of the Elephants. They equate them to living purely in the forest, but they don't. It's a very dark, dank place, particularly in winter. No one really would want to be in there. But so it seems the Otung, like the elephants, are living on the majority of the time in the periphery. It's a massive wilderness area, well over a thousand square kilometers. I mean, there's so much space here. And we have experience. I experienced in November and December, I experienced stone throwing, small stones being thrown near to, on one occasion, me and two German guests who I was taking out on a forest experience. And then with my girlfriend, Kirsten, we experienced the same thing. In terms of vocalizations, what I can only really attribute to O-Tung here was on one particular occasion, I was in an area far into this Garden Route National Park. There's an area, private land, where there's plantations, and there's only one road in and one road out. and I was in there on a Sunday morning, and I was actually beginning to head back quite a few kilometers to my vehicle when suddenly to my left-hand side, I heard a low mumbling vocalization. I'll try and mimic it. It was sort of, I know that sounds ridiculous, but that's what it sounded like. And then that got me wondering, and within a few seconds, a little bit further to the left, it was a higher vocalization and it sounded like a reply. And then it was to and froing between the two. And that was really shocking because I knew that there was no one out there. There was no tracks of people. There was no tracks of vehicles. It was very early on a Sunday morning. No one was working out there. So I can only really attribute that to the O-Tung. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot and beyond with Cliff and Bobo. We'll be right back after these messages. www.shopify.nl It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. AASR does it. So, we can listen to your podcast now. Time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. What we're noticing more and more is coming across very, very interesting tree structures. I'm talking about arches, but I mean, I'm about six foot, six foot one, and at least two and a half times my height. trees being bent over with the tip of the tree being pushed into the ground. So the head of the, I mean, it's like an ostrich bearing its head in the sand. I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but you've got this very fine tree, probably about 25, 30 years old, and it's somehow, the tip of the tree has been into the ground and it's held very firmly there somehow. somehow it's anchored. We found the first one in November last year. And then in December, in the same vicinity, after looking in the close vicinity of there, we came across another four, I think it was. And since then, we have found even more as well. The footprints, I've managed to cast the one very, very early days, long, long time ago. And otherwise, what I've done is I've photographed. There's actually a photograph in my book, Beyond the Secret Elephants, of, again, a very strange situation whereupon we came across the very small footprint of, I'd say, about 15 centimeters or less of a human-like footprint, and the footprint led on. And if you do that calculation, that 6.67 mean data calculation of people's foot size to height and age, if it was a person, it would mean that it would be a child of about three to four years old. And there's certainly no child of three to four years old walking around here in their foot in the middle of nowhere. So that really was a surprise as well in terms of footprints. So footprints, yes, we do. But the substrate, I must admit, the substrate here is not great for footprints because in the forest itself or forest edge, you've got the leaflet. And outside in the fame boss, it's quite stony. Even finding the clear footprints of the elephants, believe it or not, is very, very difficult here. If you had a look at that footprint, then you thought it looked quite interesting. date. And I'm looking at the photograph of the footprint right now, and it isn't very large, I'm assuming, because that's a lighter next to it. And you said it was pretty small. What I find interesting about it is the toe configuration, because it's not very detailed, it's not very deep. But the toe configuration doesn't suggest human because of the splay of the toes. They seem just a little bit too far apart as opposed to being compacted altogether. But at this point, I mean, with such a small data set of, you know, a handful of footprints, it's hard to say much about it. It would be nice to get like a nice 14-inch footprint or something like that to compare what an adult Otung would be compared to a Sasquatch to see if they're the same things or closely related or God knows what. That's what I'm going to be doing. I've taken some more photographs over the years. And, you know, perhaps at some time I can actually send them over to you, Cliff, because, I mean, that's your skill side rather than mine. I'd like to send them over for you to actually have a look to see what you think. Oh, I would love it. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm just one person and science is about, you know, sharing data and seeing what other people think, I strongly recommend either you send it to Dr. Jeff Meldrum, or I can talk to Jeff about it as well. So keep that in mind as well. Just share it widely and see what people see in it. Have you had any primatologists contact you about your OTAN sightings? I was in contact when I was writing The Secret Elephants. I was in contact with a very world-renowned paleontologist, South African, Zimbabwean paleontologist called Dr. Bob Brain in Johannesburg, who spoke Fontaine Caves and the Cradle of Mankind. I had contacted him because a skull of a primate had been found, and we couldn't work out what this primate was. And I got in contact with Professor Bray. And it was only during our conversation that he started telling me that for years, he himself had been investigating into potential sightings of what we know of down here as the O-Tung. So he had a professional interest in that. And I always remember him saying to me, you know, he's a very highly esteemed paleontologist. And he said to me one day, Gareth, nothing can be discounted. And that meant a lot to me, hearing it from such a figure as himself. Apart from, years ago I was in contact with, I believe, colleagues of you and Bobo actually Jeremy Holden and Debbie Matia in Sumatra with the OTONG We were communicating back in all about 15 years ago But in recent times, my colleague Ian Redmond and then Professor Meldrum. All of the above are fantastic. I'm glad that you're not working in isolation. It just blows my mind that here you are, a respected naturalist. I'm just really shocked you're not getting a bunch of anthropologists and primatologists contacting you about this. Yeah, I haven't heard from anyone that I didn't know, I must admit. But what has been very intriguing is since the book has come out, a number of people have come forward and contacted me with their own local sightings in this area. I mean, sightings that I had one lady, for example, from Cape Town, which is about six hours away from here. She's well into her 80s today, and she contacted me after reading the book, and she recounted a sighting she had with her parents about 65 years ago, and she had kept quiet about this sighting for over 60-something years. and so people are contacting me because I think they can see through the book that they can get some kind of validation and they know they're not going crazy and the bulk of the sightings that I recount in the book, they're all sorts of people, they're local people, they're indigenous people. One thing I must add is that the forest people, there's a small population of indigenous people here who have lived for decades in the forest. And to them, like this friend of mine, Mrs. Jordan, who was probably the last of her generation of what you could call the First Nation people of Southern Africa, the San or the Bushmen, to her and her family, the Otang was interesting, but no more really interesting than the elusive elephants or the bush bucks. or the bush pig or whatever, that they're just another form of life that live in the vicinity of the forest and outside the forest. And, you know, it's certainly nothing in the way of myths and legends. I mean, they would describe it as very much a flesh and blood animal and they'd describe it in a very matter-of-fact way. So they don't give it any kind of like humanistic qualities like how Native American tribes, look at Bigfoot as another tribe of just wild human beings, they see it as an animal? No, they see it as, from the people that I speak to here, they see it as something that is very much human-like. It's a human-like, when I say they don't see it any different to the other animals, I mean, it's everything in the same category in terms of inhabiting the forest and everything, and that they see them as a human-like being. Let's put it that way. Here with Bigfoot researchers, we've learned, you look back at what the natives have always said, they know what they're eating already. They already know their family lifestyle kind of groupings. Have you researched enough to find out what their diet is, what their family social structure is, and that sort of thing? Absolutely. That's a great question because that's basically where I'm at at the moment. I mean, the book was really to let people know that these beings, They do exist here. And the next stage of the research is to look into their ecology, to look into aspects of behavior very much as I studied these elusive elephants. So I'm going about it the same way by trying to find out, you know, what is their diet? What is their range? You know, what is the grouping? That sort of stuff. obviously a hell of a lot of work to be done. But I figured that what could be a bit of a giveaway in terms of a pointer of their movements and all the rest of it is we have another primate onivore here, a fairly large one, which is the Chakma baboon, which is an onivore living within the range of the otang and both being onivores and the diet of these baboons being fairly well known, I think I will get pointers in terms of what the otang must be eating. And I find that fascinating because you've got troops of about 40 to 45 baboons here. Their range is in this part of South Africa is fairly small, only about 10 square kilometers. Research has shown that these troops probably only move about four to five kilometers a day, and that is sustaining them. So that really raises a lot of questions, interesting questions about the range size and the diet of the Otang here. Well, yeah, there seems a troop of 40 baboons. That must take a lot of calories to keep moving. And then when I think of the elephants that live in the area, This must be just an astonishingly rich area for food resources. So to those ends, have you come to any early conclusions or at least hypotheses about what the otongs are eating? No, it's really, really early days. I mean, I'm getting sort of indications that they are pulling off bark and they might be going for the larvae of beetles. But it's very, very difficult. Like I say, it's very, very early stage. Looking into the diet is really just what we're starting with now. But you're absolutely right. I mean, I remember on one occasion when I was doing the DNA research with the elephants, in one morning alone, I came across four separate troops of baboons in four separate areas in the same general locality, but over a big area, four different troops, roughly about 40 baboons in each troop. so close on you know coming up to you know 200 individuals in one locality big locality but but still it it illustrates what you've just said that there is obviously the the nutritional foods there to sustain a lot of beings out there absolutely stay tuned for more Bigfoot and beyond with Cliff and Bobo we'll be right back after these messages www.shopify.nl It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. So, we can now listen to your podcast. to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. When you were describing the habitat earlier, it sounded like a fairly smallish area, but I realized you're describing one particular spot surrounded by wilderness. How big is this wilderness area? Do you have any numbers on that? Approximately what I discovered with the elephants over the years, every year it seemed as if they're recolonizing more and more of their historical range. I mean, once upon a time, elephants existed right from Cape Town, six hours away, all the way along the eastern side, eastern coast of South Africa, up into Mozambique. It was one continuous population. And it seems the elephants in this particular area, their range was increasing on a yearly basis because there's so much space in terms of mountains and real wilderness areas. You know, the elephants could carry on here forever. I mean, it's such a tiny, tiny population. No one really knows how many or how few the elephants are, but it's a tiny little population. But in terms of, you know, the wilderness areas, it's quite an amazing area because the human population is all gravitated and built up along the coast. The nearest town to me, Nisner, is a little tourist holiday maker town, very beautiful place. But everyone is, you know, congregated on the coast there with their holiday homes and hotels and all the rest of it. While you go seven kilometers inland to where I'm speaking to you now, if I walk out of my cabin up a road to the gate and I look north, I cannot, looking north, into the wilderness area at night, I cannot see a single light. It's just darkness out there. It's fantastic that such a large wilderness area still exists. So they have more than enough room to wander around in, it sounds like to me. Now, over the last X number of years, and with the footprints that you have found, do you think you have found the footprints of the same individual otang? Or do you think you found different footprints? I think I've found, I think I've certainly found footprints of different, of different O-tongues, different size O-tongues, you know, going from the very smallest that I told you about and medium, medium size to larger sizes. But, you know, it's something that's a little bit frustrating. Like I said, you know, the substrate is so difficult to work with but it's just going to get get time but certainly yes of more certainly of more than of of one individual and in and and in quite diverse areas as well i mean like the one of the of the little one is is less than two kilometers from my house whereupon another one of quite a large otang is way up in the mountains for for example years ago and it was a good size footprint, again, not walking on the road, but emerging from the vegetation up a mountain, a small mountain, and crossing the gravel road from left to right and disappearing off into the vegetation again, not walking along the road. So in the middle of nowhere, these large footprints barefoot not a person crossing a road in the middle of nowhere It quite extraordinary And how large was it I would say it was approximately about 28 20 about my foot size I'd say about 29 centimeters, somewhere around there. That's what, about 12 inches, I think, for our American listeners? Yes, about that size. Now, at that size, for a Sasquatch, the foot would be much wider than in a human. It would be at least as wide as a man's boot of the same size. Was that the case with the Otung as well? What I'm finding is an indication of whether it's male or female. Looking at particularly that one in the book and looking at other ones, I find that that one in the book, for example, I get an indication by the slenderness of it and the shape of it, like in comparison with a woman's foot compared to a male's foot. A male's foot is much more blocky, if you know what I mean, much more of a square, sort of rectangle shape as opposed to a more sort of delicate, if you want to call it that, shape of a female. So, I mean, that is early indications perhaps of male and female. with the tracks. But I've got tremendous amount of work to do, you know, on this. It's very early days with this. Very exciting early days, but early days. That's something that Dr. Meldrum mentioned to me last year, is that he thinks that it might be a sexually dimorphic trait in Sasquatches, whereas the females have more slender feet. The Patterson Gimlin film creature, for example, has a little bit more narrow feet in relation to its length, than some of the larger ones that we think are attributed to males. So it's interesting that you came across that so early on in your own study. So congratulations there. We don't know that, of course, but that's an interesting hypothesis to kind of follow and see if that bears fruit. Right. Yeah. It's so close to the coast, and Sasquatches in the coastal regions here are going to exploit the shoreline for food. Have you heard any of the natives or any reports of them coming from the ocean or then going down there picking up stuff on the beaches and rocks? It's very interesting because some fantastic archaeological work has been taking place along this coastline for the last couple of years, last few years. And actually, imprints of what was presumed to be Homo sapien dating back about 200,000 years were found, these imprints, on fossilized dunes here. And it raised an interesting question because, as we know, with the relative recent discovery of Homo naledi here in cradle of mankind was also coexisting with Homo sapiens in this part of the world around about that same time frame. and that their feet, Naledi's feet, were very, very similar to humans. It's questionable whether it's Homo sapiens imprints we've got on the shoreline here, or perhaps O-Tung, or Homo Naledi, or if maybe O-Tung is Homo Naledi, I don't know. Yeah, that brings such a fascinating question up. It's like, what these things could be? And which, of course, that question can be applied to any of the relative hominoids throughout the world. But, you know, just as recently as 30 years ago, these things could not exist because of that idea of the one species hypothesis. But now we know that human evolution isn't like that. There's all sorts of branches and whatever else. And we know that Homo nalidi, which was, of course, discovered in South Africa, existed like, what, 100,000 years ago. That's practically yesterday. geologically. To think that these things were running around with Homo sapiens in the same landscape is just fascinating. Yes, exactly. And it's still going on after all this time. Now, I didn't know about Homo nalides' feet being similar in some ways to humans. And when I look at the Otang footprint in your book, there are some human-like elements to it. The narrowness, for example. So that brings up a fascinating question. I wonder if there'd be any other identifying characteristics about Homo Nalidi that we could connect to the Otang in some way, maybe the hand structure or something like that. I just remember a quote by Professor Lee Berger, or it might have been Professor John Hawkes, that with the discovery of Naledi, they got a specialist in feet to look at the feet bones, the bones of the feet, and they were really astounded. I mean, to quote either of them, I forget which one said this, but basically they said, looking at the feet of Homo Naledi, the feet are Nike ready. Is there any indication that Otung's have an arch? Or are they more flat-footed from what you've observed in the woods? Because the Sasquatches and many, in fact, most other hominins are flat-footed with the flexibility about the mid part of the foot. There's indication that humans are kind of rare. Humans, Neanderthals, and to some degree, Heidelbergensis have an arch. But the rest of them kind of don't. So it'd be interesting to see that. That is something that I'm really going to be looking into more and more. Like you said, I've become aware of this mid-tarsal and looking at it and some of the photos, it does look like there is an arch there. Interesting. That would be fascinating. One of the strange things that is sometimes reported here in the United States with the Sasquatch, there's this idea of eyes that generate light. And I'm not ready to believe it yet. I don't think there's enough data. Have you had any strange reports about either eyes that seem to glow or, at the bare minimum, reflectivity in the Otung eyes? Again, that's such an interesting question because I've actually been in a vehicle on two occasions driving to, not me driving, but with other people driving a vehicle to where I live at night. And the one occasion happened a number of years ago, probably about 15 or about 12 years ago. And an O-Town did run in front of the vehicle. I was talking to a friend of mine sitting in the back seat. The person driving was a friend of mine and was aware, who had spent time with me in the forest and was aware of O-Tan. And she swerved the vehicle to try and keep the lights on this fleeting figure. And since then, I've actually asked her, did you see any reflection of the eyes? And she said no. And the second occasion was in 2018. It was recently. I was coming back with a cause, a friend of mine, Tembella. He's a young conservationist. He was driving me and my dog back from the vet. My dog, Tuli, my bush dog, Tuli, had just been diagnosed, unfortunately, with tumors. We were driving back home at night, and we were still on Tar Road. And he slowed down for a speed bump and then drove on. And what he didn't tell me was that a very small Otung, probably he said 1.2 meters, ran across the road. Interestingly, he said nothing to me at the time. and a week later I saw him and he said to me, these Otungas, are there small ones? And I said, yes, of course there are. They're like people. I said, why? And he said, that night when we were driving Thule back to your place, when we went over that speed bump, a small one ran in front of the car and I said to him, why? I had told him about Otung. He works as part of Alien Tree Eradication here with the National Parks and so he knew about the existence of Otank and I said, why didn't you tell me then that you had this sighting? And he gave the typical eyewitness reply which was, I was worried that you wouldn't believe me and I turned around to him and I said, well, of course I would believe you. I'm the person who introduced you to the fact that they exist and we had a chuckle about that but recently I asked him, Bella, did you see any eye shine? Did you see any reflection? and just like with my other friend, they both actually say they didn't see any eye shine, but the head of the being, of the otang, was in the direction of where it was running from right to left across the road. So it did not look into the headlights. So I can't say either way whether there is reflectivity with the eyes of the otang yet. Gareth, we've come to the end of our time here. We need to get going. But, you know, this has been such a fascinating conversation. You are you basically got in on the ground floor, shall we say, studying relic hominoids in South Africa. Not even you didn't even intend to do this. But whether you like it or not, you're there. And I don't I can't imagine you not liking it. But with the sheer number of sightings that are going on, like to see four in 20 years, that may not seem like a lot to you. but I've been doing Bigfoot stuff for 25 years, and I might have seen one Bigfoot. So you're doing great. Thank you very much for the invitation. And for our listeners out there, you have to read Gareth's book. I cannot recommend his book strongly enough. Beyond the Secret Elephants, this is going to be one of the landmark books in cryptozoology in general, but especially the study of relict hominoids. You have to read his book. He will not be disappointed. Great. Thanks very much. and questions with the hashtag Bigfoot and beyond. descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side.