Jimmy Aiken's mysterious world is brought to you by the StarQuest Production Network

and is made possible by our many generous supporters. If you'd like to support the podcast,

please visit sqpn.com slash donate.

You're listening to episode three of Jimmy Aiken's mysterious world, where we look at mysteries, both natural and supernatural, anything that's strange, odd and makes you wonder, the claims and counter claims from the perspectives of both faith and reason. And in this episode we're talking about Bigfoot.

I'm Don Betanelli and joining me today is Jimmy Aiken. Hi Jimmy. Howdy Don. So Bigfoot, what are one of these great mysteries of modern day? What is it about Bigfoot? What are we? What are people claim this is?

So obviously the basic claim is that there is an undiscovered species of tall, hairy bipeds here in North America. And they're called Bigfoot because they leave large footprints. They're also known by other names, Sasquatch based on Native American term.

There are some in some regions, they're called skungapes or momoes in Arkansas where I grew up. There's a town called Folk and the so-called Folk Monster is sometimes regarded as a Bigfoot.

And there was even a documentary back in the 70s about the Folk Monster called the Legend of Bagi Creek, that was made by a filmmaker from Arkansas who grew up near Folk.

And I was born in the 70s but I grew up in the 70s and there was a huge Bigfoot kind of explosion in pop culture at the time.

There were a lot of documentaries about Bigfoot and other monsters. It was all over the news. Bigfoot met the $6 million man on that show.

I remember that playing by Andre the Giant and so it was something that was part of my childhood. Incidentally, the $6 million man appearance of Bigfoot is interesting because in that it was like a two-parter.

And I think you may have come back after that even. But in that presentation of Bigfoot he wasn't just an animal.

He was a robot that had been built by aliens. And wouldn't you know some Bigfoot, if you follow the Bigfoot literature today, some Bigfoot investigators claim that there is an association between Bigfoot and UFOs.

Some claim that they're extraterrestrial in origin or extra-dimensional in origin from another dimension and can kind of fade in and out of existence.

Those claims are ones we're not really going to be looking into today. For our purposes today we're just going to be considering the more naturalistic hypothesis that there could be a

kind of un-discovered or cryptosoological species of tall hairy bipeds here in North America.

And I do remember that the Bigfoot phenomenon has kind of faded a little bit from popular culture. There aren't as many sightings.

It came back in a big way after the 2000s. It's kind of had ups and downs. The modern Bigfoot phenomenon began in the late 1950s.

And then there was kind of an upsurge in the late 60s, particularly in connection with the Patterson film, which we'll talk about. And then it was big in the 70s. And it kind of faded.

It's kind of come back. And these days you have a lot of people who are Bigfoot hunters who have shows on, I guess, the history channel and things like that.

There's been more than one show about finding Bigfoot. And apparently there are people who do, who will on the weekends and stuff go squachin, which as I heard one Bigfoot investigator explain it,

is really just going camping for the weekend, but with some hope you'll find Bigfoot.

...