Finding Bigfoot (2011) s01e02 Episode Script
Swamp Ape
Narrator: Tonight on "Finding Bigfoot" for generations, people in Florida have believed that bigfoot's monstrous cousin, the foul-smelling skunk ape, has been lurking in their foreboding swamps and impenetrable pine forests.
What was that? I just heard something up in front of me, guys.
Narrator: With countless sightings on record, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, led by Matt Moneymaker, heads south to investigate the latest reports, made by a frightened family who says their home is subject to nightly visits by a skunk ape.
This thing sounded monstrous.
[Growls.]
I'm thinking, "Oh, my god.
" This creature has opened my door.
I was frightened.
Narrator: As the BFRO gathers more leads, they zero in on the Florida Everglades.
And with the skunk ape quickly running out of places to hide, the team believes they may have found the creature's clandestine lair and definitive proof of the skunk ape's existence.
We got something over here.
What is that? You see that out there? It was impossibly large.
It definitely wasn't human.
I've been tracking Sasquatches for 25 years.
These animals, in fact, are real.
I've seen them.
They're here.
I'm having a really difficult time finding an explanation for this.
There's something on the hill.
[Growls.]
I do think there is a 'squatch in these woods.
I'm Matt Moneymaker.
I've been pursuing bigfoots for over 25 years, and I formed the BFRO in 1995 to create a unified scientific organization dedicated to documenting the existence of this species.
Today our search for evidence of bigfoots has brought my team and I to the state of Florida.
Bigfoots have been sighted all over this state, but we intend to find out exactly where these creatures can be found.
It's our belief that bigfoots are related to primates.
However, the ones here in the south may be unique.
According to eyewitness accounts, the southern bigfoots are more reddish in color and smaller than the ones in the north.
Locals call these creatures skookums or skunk apes, due to their unforgettable foul odor.
We're kicking off our investigation in the Florida panhandle, 20 miles outside the town of Quincy.
This part of the state is covered with forest and miles and miles of treacherously thick swampland.
In the past decade, an explosion of home-building has led to a rise in confrontations between humans and bigfoots.
There's a couple up here that have a piece of land that's in a very eco-rich area.
They're saying they've had bigfoot activity periodically for several years, coming right up at the house.
They got so worried they contacted the BFRO.
- Who they gonna call? - That's right.
They want us to come down and check it out, and that's our plan.
We're gonna go down there to find out if there are bigfoots or what they call skunk apes in this region.
And if so, we're gonna try to capture some evidence of the creatures.
Ranae: Can you show me those pictures, Cliff? Yeah, sure, sure.
So, what brought us to this location is that Caroline and Bill Bridges sent us a video and several photos.
This is supposedly a handprint.
What? So, is this on a window on the outside of the house? Cliff: I guess so.
I don't know the context of this.
I'm interested to see if they've taken any measurements off it and how large it might have been.
There you go.
This is actually a print that they cast, I believe.
I mean, this looks to be a 17-inch track.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
The toes are a little ambiguous, but it definitely could be a Sasquatch footprint.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was new construction.
You know, like they intruded now where the bigfoots have been for thousands of years, and all of a sudden, these humans put something up right where they go.
It's rare to see a Sasquatch at all, but to see one numerous times at your home it's just crazy rare, really.
Welcome.
We're glad to see you.
So, we saw the video and the photos, and we've heard just a bit about what's happened here.
- It sounds really intriguing.
- It is.
So we wanted to come here and check it out and see if we can help put your mind at ease about what's going on.
I'd really like to see the bird feeder and the bent-over pole.
Can you show us that? Yeah, sure.
- Excellent.
- Be glad to.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
The bird-feeder incident it was bent over.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
One feeder was completely gone.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
The other feeder was there, empty.
We knew it was something that was not normal going on here.
Bigfoots would be interested in any type of food left out by humans, including dog food or cat food or bird seed.
So if a bigfoot sees a bird feeder like the ones the Bridges had, it's gonna knock it down and take that bird seed.
Now, this is the actual pole that that we found bent that day, and the pole was totally in the ground like this.
And it was bent over, with this still in the ground.
I'll bet I could bend it like that.
Well, you can sure try.
All right, strong man, see what you can do.
I had to like anchor it with my foot to keep it from pulling out of the ground.
So, you know, it was something with hands and feet that pulled and bent it.
It wasn't like a bear.
So, did you come down here and bend my pole? [Laughter.]
Matt: The fact that it took coordination and the use of Bobo's hands and feet to bend the pole tells me that whatever bent it had opposable thumbs.
That means it was either a person of a 'squatch.
My question is you were talking about it being unscrewed and wrapped around something.
That's what I want to see.
- Can you take us there? - Yes.
- Awesome.
Great.
- It's down the hill.
Yeah, it's down the hill.
Okay, this is the stump.
The feeder was broken.
Go ahead and break it.
You want to break it? Be my guest.
Bobo, would you like to break it since you bent my pole? All right.
Watch your eyes, guys.
- Okay, now the gasket's - Hold the gasket out.
And this was laying here.
And this gasket was wrapped here.
Like double wrapped.
Oh, double wrapped! And this gasket was wrapped here.
Wow! Yeah.
- That's a thumb.
- That's a thumb.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
That is hard to get off once it's wrapped.
Now, it's possible that a bear pulled down that pole and one of the feeders broke loose and rolled down the hill.
But I just don't see it likely that rolling down the hill and landing on the log broke that glass.
To me, just the fact that it's broken, without even the gaskets, is very strong circumstantial evidence that this was something that had hands.
That spooked them, and it did convince us that this wasn't just misinterpretation of bear activity.
Okay, I'm gonna show you guys one other incident that happened.
Having tea on the porch one morning, I noticed this was broken, was pushed in.
Look at that.
You know what I think happened there? I think it was on here.
I think it came out of that greenhouse, and it was using this to help itself get over the fence.
And you're talking hundreds of pounds.
It really seemed to me that a Sasquatch had come over that fence, had been up at the greenhouse, and then when it retreated, it was in a hurry and probably pushed its hand down, all of its weight to pull itself out before stepping over that fence.
I headed back to the house, and as I was going back in the house, my housekeeper showed up.
As she looks down, and there's this huge footprint.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
Okay.
Oh, you got a cast here.
That's great.
And it was about wow, look at that.
That would be the toe.
Check it out, Cliff.
Wow.
That's a big boy.
Cliff: It looks like we do have a big toe here, a nice, deep heel impression here and a ball.
And of course right here, exactly where we'd expect, a little bit of a bump.
The footprint at the base of the post alone is interesting.
However, that combined with the indentation on top of the post kind of starts painting a picture for us about what might have happened that night.
The Sasquatch hurdling or climbing over the fence at that point might have been one possible reason that happened.
What I'm about to show you was the most frightening and spookiest for me.
One night, I'm awoken by this horrible growl.
[Imitates growling.]
I was spooked.
And I touched Bill and kind of shake him, and he doesn't move.
And I'm kind of in shock here because this thing sounded monstrous.
[Growls.]
How far off was the sound? It was very close.
It was here.
It was on the porch.
I was spooked.
Kind of in shock here.
The next day, right here was a huge handprint.
And I'm thinking, "Oh, my god.
This creature has opened my door.
" So that means it opened up the door Yes.
and touched it.
Yes.
I can see why you were scared.
And have been ever since.
The thumb was way long.
The fingers were huge and long.
The arm was wide.
And it was you could see the little impressions of the hair.
And it was greasy, oily.
It was nasty.
It looked similar to a human, but it was just too large.
And I'm thinking, "He popped it and grabbed it.
" Then when hit this hit his arm, I'm thinking that's when he growled.
[Growls.]
Ranae: Caroline claims that she heard this guttural growling, screaming, horrible noise on the deck.
As they opened the door, they saw this what they claim is a handprint on the inside.
We tried to figure out how big that handprint was based off of the known sizes that we can see on the door in the film.
And 7/16 inches long.
When we figured out the approximate size of the hand, we found that from the base of the thumb to the tips of the fingers was 11 inches.
Okay, well, that's a start.
My suggestion is Bobo grease up his hands.
Just with your fingerprints, Bobo, touch where she's saying to touch.
We wanted to do our best to recreate the situation where it happened.
So I got some hand lotion and asked Bobo to mess up his hands so we would have something to leave on the surface.
All right.
- So, it was about here? - Yes.
Ranae: So, lift your hand away, Bobo, without moving here we have a definite fingerprint, right? Just his handprint alone was about 8 inches.
The original print is claimed to be 11 inches.
So, if you were taking your fingertips, Bobo, and add them to where she had the length and only at the part of the way back, then drop your palm and see if you can drag your palm and recreate it.
My hypothesis is that this is a human hand that may have smeared across that glass, making it look bigger.
So now what I want to do is have Bobo take his hand, smear it across the glass, compare it against what Caroline saw, see if she notices the difference.
All right, then I'll do the drag one up here.
And then drag your palm, yeah.
Caroline, does Bobo's recreation here in any way replicate the size or any of the details that you saw in the original handprint? Not really.
Not really at all? Not really.
Wasn't even in the ballpark.
It wasn't even close.
Ranae says, "You know, it looks like it could be smeared.
" If you look at the video, to me, it looks clearly it's not smeared.
- What you saw was a - Was a handprint.
Was a handprint.
The woman is credible.
She says she could see dermal ridges, but I'm not sold.
I would need to see an actual handprint that can prove to me that that wasn't a smudge.
I was frightened.
I was frightened.
This is a unique one.
And if you're thinking this is still going on or at least they're still in the area, you're still hearing the sounds, then I think we should stay here tonight.
How about you? Is that all right with you guys? Oh, sure, it is.
After hearing about all these compelling incidents, we were very eager to go look around in the field.
Okay, well, listen the sun's going down, so if we're gonna get out there for tonight, we need some time to get suited up.
Let's go do it.
Matt: Out here on the back deck of Mr.
And Mrs.
Bridges' property is the best view down into the valley where skunk apes have come several times.
So, we're gonna do something a little different tonight.
It's a modification of the dark-man approach.
The dark man will be Ranae.
We're gonna have her down in the woods, pretty far back.
She's gonna be alone.
The dark man technique is when you get one person all alone, with no lights or no electronics whatsoever.
And that person sits alone in a place where hopefully a Sasquatch will come walking by.
Okay, guys, let's do it.
- Very good.
- All right.
Just go up against a big tree.
Oh, here's one right here.
Why don't I do this one? Yeah, this looks good.
I like this spot.
Ranae's gonna be down there at the gully, in her spot where she's gonna be looking and listening, telling us over the radio what's going on.
Cliff and I will be able to swing around and come up from a different angle, where we can get a view down where she is.
And if it's successful, we may be able to get a view on whatever is approaching her, but from a different angle.
Bobo's gonna be up at the house, on the back deck, at the highest point that he can get, making vocalizations, trying to lure one into the area.
Cliff, Matt, Cliff, Matt, do you read me? This is Bobo.
Yeah, we copy.
I'm gonna do a call from up here.
Bobo, go ahead and give a long, low moaner.
Anything for you, big boy.
[Imitates howling.]
Good one.
[Knock.]
Shh.
I just heard something up in front of me, guys.
Ranae, we heard the knock, too, in the same direction you heard it from.
It must have been real loud 'cause we were quite a distance from the property when we heard it.
Knocking is a communication technique that Sasquatches use.
I'm not exactly sure what they're saying, but I think a lot of times it's something like, "I'm here.
Where are you?" There's a lot of critters in these woods, and it didn't take long before we heard a real good knock, loud enough, where we were hearing it from probably at least a 1/4 mile away, on the next hilltop over.
So, from here, what do we do? We get in position on the ridge above the valley so we can look down into it? Exactly we're gonna move along the ridge a little ways.
Okay, I've got movement off to my right, where the knock came from.
[Thump.]
Matt: What was that? Ranae: That was directly behind me now.
Can you guys confirm? Directly behind me, 12:00, to the house.
I've got a visual on Ranae.
There's nothing behind her.
Matt: Cliff says there's nothing behind you.
[Growl.]
Whoa.
Matt: That was you, Bobo, right? What was that? You didn't do that, Bobo? Negative.
Great.
Dude, he didn't do it yet.
So, we hear this rah! big, deep sound coming from the south side of the house.
And it just struck us as saying, "Wait a minute.
Was that a skunk ape?" Bobo: There's something walking up the hill.
There's none of us walking up the hill, right? Dude, is someone walking in the forest? Oh, I got it.
I'm looking at it.
I got something coming at me on the therm right now.
I got something coming towards us.
Ranae: Is it moving toward you or moving towards me? Towards me.
Whenever you see a glowing-hot shape on a thermal imager like that that white-hot like a mammal your heart races.
I don't know what it is.
No [bleep.]
[Bleep.]
[Groans.]
Cliff: Hey, Bobes, what's your position right now? My position is straight on the ground.
I just ate it coming off the porch.
I didn't have any light.
I was coming down the steps.
I couldn't see.
I was blinded by the thermal.
And I just ate it.
And by the time I got up, whatever was around was gone.
I've lost it.
Matt: After Bobo's sighting on the thermal imager, we spent a good hour and a half out there making sounds, walking around, and listening.
We heard some sounds, but they weren't continuing.
It was kind of dead.
Ranae, how much longer you think you can hang down there? I'm ready to go.
Let's move it back to the house.
Okay, Bobo, do you want to go down there and kind of help lead her out? So, we're gonna pack up and head back to where we're staying.
We did get over that threshold where we know we're definitely hearing stuff, so we know there's some nearby.
We have been hearing knocks.
[Knock.]
What was that? We heard a grunty growl.
[Growl.]
Whoa.
Great.
Now we're starting to get a glimpse of what's been going on here, what the Bridges have had to deal with on their own.
Need some help with that? Matt: Our review of the Bridges' evidence and our overnight investigation of the property leads me to believe we've found an active skunk ape habitat.
I think we're clearly on the right track.
However, we need to narrow down our search area.
To do so, we need to learn as much as possible about the southern skunk ape's unique behavior and habitat.
So we're traveling south to native Seminole lands deep in the Everglades.
This area is the epicenter of Florida skunk ape sightings, and these native people have shared the land with these creatures for generations.
Luckily, Bobo has a local friend who knows both the terrain and the people.
Now, who's your contact actually in the village, Bobo? I know a couple guys out here.
One guy is Herbert.
He's a medicine man.
And he knows about the Sasquatch.
So, I got ahold of my friend Herbert.
He's a Seminole Indian.
And he arranged for us to have a meeting with some other natives in a chikee hut on the reservation at Big Cypress.
Yeah, our buddy Ernie - he has an airboat.
He can take us out to the village.
Excellent.
You guys ready for a little treat? This airboat these things are fun.
I am totally stoked to ride an airboat.
Yeah.
Bobo: I've talked to tribes all over North America, and I've gotten to speak to a few Seminoles, but I want to really hear their traditions, their knowledge, how they've learned to co-exist with the Sasquatch.
Cliff: We were very lucky to have Herbert speak to us at all.
Generally the older generations of Native Americans do not speak of the Sasquatch, but Herbert is younger, and he perhaps is more willing to bend the rules slightly.
Matt: What's important about this meeting is if the Seminole stories are valid, then that helps further prove that skunk apes do exist in Florida.
All right, come on.
We got to get there before dark.
Hey, how you doing? All right.
Good to see you again, Herbert.
This is Ranae.
Hello, everyone.
This is Cliff.
Hey, everybody.
And this is Matt.
Hi.
Good to have you here.
So, Herbert, we just came down from the panhandle of north Florida, where we were called by the Bridges family.
They called us in because they were feeling threatened, uneasy.
They had Sasquatch on their property.
So we thought we'd come down here to the Seminoles in south Florida since you've lived with them for thousands of years, that maybe you could give us some advice to bring back to them.
Tell them not to look at them as pests or animals.
[Growls.]
Look at them as a human beings.
The only way you can co-exist is to give them respect.
That's very good advice.
Have you ever actually seen one yourself? Yes, I have.
We were going into the swamps to cut logs out, in order to build chikees and such.
As we were walking this path, there was a palmetto tree standing there.
And just then, something grabbed that palmetto leaves down and then boom.
[Growls.]
Had to be like at least about eight feet tall.
And that happened somewhere in this area? Yeah, back in the swamps here.
Some of my cousins have seen it.
But you have to get ahold of them in order to understand what their sightings were.
I was driving along a trail, and I happened to look out the passenger-side window of my jeep.
Matt: Ron is not a Seminole Indian, but he does live adjacent to their land.
He claims he might be sharing his land with a skunk ape.
It definitely wasn't human.
I mean, it was huge.
And it was like the trees themselves just like opened up and he just sort of backed in and they just closed around him.
It was an honor coming here to meet you all and hearing about something I know that isn't talked about a lot.
You gave us insights that we wouldn't hear anywhere else.
It was really a great privilege.
Thank you for welcoming us.
Very good.
Herbert shared that the Seminole view Sasquatches as another people, much like themselves, and they treat them as another people.
I think that one of the things that the Bridges can take away from what Herbert advised is to leave them alone because the Sasquatches aren't living on the Bridges' land.
The Bridges are living on the Sasquatch's land.
[Growls.]
Matt: After listening to some stunning eyewitness reports at the meeting, we mapped out the exact locations where each of the incidents took place.
We were particularly interested in the spots where the tribal elder claimed to have seen a skunk ape behind a palm tree and where his cousin Billy may have encountered a skunk ape while walking through the woods and, finally, where Ron saw a massive beast disappear into the forest.
This narrows down our search area so we can track down exactly where the skunk apes are hiding out.
Bobo: During the course of our conversation with Herbert, he related to us that he has other family members that have had sighting and encounters.
One that stood out was his cousin Billy.
We decided Matt and I were gonna go interview Billy, and Cliff and Ranae will follow up with Herbert and go where he saw his Sasquatch.
Matt: Just like every location down here that the natives would go hunt at, this location where Billy is at is in a remote area.
You can't easily drive up to it.
We need to get on a swamp buggy to go out and meet him at this place where he's gonna be hunting.
Hey there, Billy.
Hello.
How y'all doing? All righty.
Thanks for meeting us.
So, I hear that y'all are looking for somebody that's seen bigfoot? Yep.
Well, I'm the man.
This is the place where I seen him.
Yep, it was right out here.
It was in the middle of the rainy season.
I was walking out there, and there was a cypress tree that was over.
And I walked over.
I looked to the right about 35 yards from me.
When I walked out and I looked, it went like this.
[Growls.]
Wow.
It looked at me.
My hair stood up on my neck.
I was in shock.
I'm shaking right now, just thinking about it.
I could feel him staring me down.
Did you see the legs and the feet? Yeah, I seen the legs.
I seen about like that.
He was real long.
But I remember him doing something with his feet.
I'd like to get the same distance you were from when you saw it.
Then I'll kind of try to recreate it, and you tell me how big it looked compared to me.
Would you want to do that? Okay, all right, sure.
We'll follow you.
Go right here.
Matt: This is the sort of place where, if there's a little bit of water, there's probably alligators and water moccasins.
You always walk barefoot, Billy? Yeah, all the time.
Never wear shoes.
Well, how about I'll walk down that way, and you tell me about when it's about the same distance and tell me to stop when you think that's how far it was.
Okay.
Matt: And Bobo, as he usually does he volunteered to go over and be where the Sasquatch was.
And I took the witness to the point of his perspective.
We got about the same distance, and we got kind of a sense of what he would have seen.
Right to your right that tree right there beside you, right there.
Right here? That's about where he was.
He was a little bit taller than that.
About this tall maybe? A little bit more.
Yeah, about right in there.
So, that's over a foot taller than me.
That would put that thing well over 7 foot, close to 71/2 feet.
Wow.
I got at least a foot above my head before he said, "That's how tall it was.
" So, you're talking something that's so enormous it'd weigh at least twice as much as me.
You're getting something in upwards of over 600 pounds.
So, you're saying it was doing something with its feet, like down below, like it was moving something around.
Would you be able to kick up swamp apples like that? Yeah, I'm pretty 'cause when they're not ripe, they sink.
You ever seen a swamp apple, Bobo? I've seen them, but I've never eaten one.
Matt: Florida skunk apes are known to eat a variety of different foods not just deer and wild hogs, but also snakes and frogs and alligators and birds, even swamp apples.
That's how they've been able to survive in such an unforgiving environment.
What I seen about 35 yards.
Matt: My sense is that Billy actually saw one.
There were some just kind of unusual sort of arbitrary factors to it.
And I can see his shoulder and his face looking at me.
It wouldn't be the sort of garden-variety generic sighting that somebody would make up.
My hair stood up on my neck.
It really struck me as being a legitimate incident.
It went like this.
[Growls.]
Hey, Herbert.
Cliff and I went out and met with Herbert at the exact location where his encounter occurred.
We was walking down this path here, and it was right about here when I saw it.
Right there was the creature, where it was standing.
And it sounded like he just reached up and grabbed and slapped the leaves down.
And it just turned and ran.
[Growls.]
You know, that's exactly a classic ape territorial display there making a big noise, kind of almost just like to startle you before it escapes.
Silverback lowland gorilla.
- They do that.
- Boom! Yeah.
- Maybe I'll pop in there.
- Sure.
- Yeah, go make some noise.
- Yeah.
- Try to scare us, Ranae.
- I'll try, guys.
I'm not that big.
I'm no Bobo, that's for sure.
Move forward a little bit toward the trees.
Okay, right about there.
Yeah, that's exactly where it was.
Okay, so, first you initially, you hear a crash? Yeah, like the palmetto leaves got slapped really hard.
- Okay, get ready, Herbert.
- All right.
All the branches.
I can't do all the branches.
You're not capable of making that type of noise.
So, after it moved the palmetto leaves, you said it headed in this direction? Yes, he took off right to where the trees and bushes are.
Okay.
Ranae tried to duplicate the running off into the brush to see if she can do it in a similar manner.
Here we go.
Two of her strides is probably one of his.
There's no way she can run as fast as that thing moved.
Okay.
Longer strides.
What about the arm swing? Was it the same or different? It was slower.
To me, he just looked like he was doof, doof, doof and he was gone.
Are you positive of what you saw? Is there any chance it could have been anything else? No, because I've lived out here in the Florida swamps all my life, and I've seen just about everything.
And what I saw that day was humanoid-looking.
[Growls.]
So, now we've got two credible witnesses in the same area, and if this third witness is believable, then we have ourselves a pattern of skunk ape encounters in a concentrated area.
How's it going, Ron? Very good, very good.
How y'all doing? - This is beautiful down here.
- Thank you.
This is the guy we want to talk to because he has the most similar situation to what the Bridges have up in north Florida.
Now, he is the man that we met at the Seminole Village who's been living adjacent to the Seminole tribe for 30 years.
This guy has learned to co-exist and live in harmony with his environment.
So, is this the stand of trees where you saw one? Yeah.
I was several hundred yards back.
And from back there, he was standing right at the trees' edge.
My god, he was huge.
As I got out of the Jeep, it's like the trees opened up and he took like a step back and they closed up on him.
[Growls.]
Wow.
All right, Bobo, if you'll take two to three steps directly backwards.
That's the action that he took at that time.
Whoa, he's totally disappeared.
When we had Bobo go out there, stand in position, and take a few steps back, we could see exactly what they were talking about.
It's as much as the brush moving out of the way as it is the shadows and the deep brush just kind of enveloping him.
This is typical bigfoot behavior.
They don't want to be seen.
I think Ron actually saw a skunk ape down there on the edge of the Cypress stand.
Guys, we had some great experiences talking about the encounters in this area.
There's been reports all around.
There's three of them up here, kind of a cluster, including Ron's.
The Everglades is a huge area.
Now, we narrowed down our focus to a sighting cluster of three reports along this canal.
But even that is too large.
The edges of the canals in Florida provide a number of food resources for skunk apes.
There are fish and reptiles and birds, and these canals run for miles like highways across the Everglades.
To increase our chances of pinpointing the exact location of some skunk apes, we're going to need a little help.
- Those must be the guys.
- There they are.
Matt: So we called in some unmanned-drone specialists.
- Hey.
- Hello, guys.
Hey, thank you so much for coming out.
Matt: A drone is a remote-control plane with a camera and transmitter that can relay images to us on the ground.
This will be helpful to us in pinpointing areas where various large animals, including bigfoots, may be congregating.
Okay, so, the area we'd like you to look over and record and photograph is 2613 North, 8155 West.
Would that be what you need to be able to pinpoint? We can take those coordinates and fly a large area.
We'll be able to point out game trails where you can see a lot of movement Yeah.
differences in topography that might be of interest to you as you go out in the field.
I've been waiting for 20 years to do this.
I've always thought this would be the coolest way to do it, most efficient way to do it.
You're making a dream come true.
- Okay.
Let's get it going.
- All right.
Okay, guys, this is the color video that we'll be receiving on the ground, so we'll be able to see everything that the aircraft sees.
- Is that high def? - Yes, it is.
Wow.
These little remote-control drones are perfect.
They're quiet, they're battery-powered, and they can fly right over and get a bird's-eye view.
Well, let's get her prepped and get her in the air.
Yeah, let's send that up.
Cliff: The Everglades is a huge area.
Now, we narrowed down our focus to a sighting cluster of three reports along this canal, but even that is too large of an area for our team to cover, especially at night.
So we called in drone specialists so we can take photographs from the air of what's going on right now in the environment.
If we can find out where the animals are moving around, perhaps we can find where the Sasquatches also are right now.
Okay, clear to launch.
Wow! Yeah! Yeah! Oh, that's great! Oh, gosh, check it out down here.
Oh, my god, that's awesome! - How high is that getting? - It's 200 feet right now.
The climb rate is about 750 feet a minute.
Bobo: In less than five minutes, I've already seen some areas we should definitely focus on, where a Sasquatch would be hanging out.
Yeah, this is a very, very useful tool for what we do.
We can now find the trails that would get us in and out of there because that's so thick.
We can't walk through it.
It shows us what to avoid - just as important there.
Large animal wanting to remain undetected water and cover.
Oh, look at that.
Look at that game trail.
That's where the deer are gonna be right there.
Yeah.
We were able to find two locations that had the water and had close-by grazing areas.
And you knew that's where the deer would be during the day.
They'd come out and feed at night, and that's where the Sasquatch were most likely to be also.
Well, I see where I want to go tonight.
I want to get right on that trail there.
Matt: We came to Florida to find the skunk ape.
We've used eyewitness testimony and aerial surveillance to narrow the search area and tighten the noose on this elusive creature.
We believe we found the skunk ape's key hiding place, and we're gonna hit this area for our final, most intensive search.
All right, thanks, Gene.
This is great.
Let's get suited up and get out there.
All right, we're at the fork in the trail that Gene spotted from the drone.
Ranae, you and Cliff are gonna go along this trail.
Bobo and I are gonna along that trail.
I'm sure we're gonna spot some animals.
This place is crawling with them.
All right, well, let's get going, guys.
All right.
Good luck.
I'm not seeing anything, Matt.
Ohh, listen.
Shh.
This is exactly the kind of environment the 'squatches would like.
So, we got to go through this meadow and kind of cruise the perimeter and look around through here.
Let's go in.
Yo, Cliff and Ranae, do you copy? Yeah, go.
Over.
Copy.
I'm about to do a howl I wanted to let you know in 10 seconds.
[Imitating howling.]
Bobo: What, are you going through puberty? [Low humming.]
Oh, got something behind us.
Listen.
Listen in the wood line.
Okay.
We got something moving in the tree line, behind us, to our right.
So we just want to hold off on the howls.
Let us listen for a moment.
10-4.
12:00, right off me.
We got something over here.
- Oh, there it is.
- You got it? Yeah.
In fact, there's the whole deer herd right there.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
It's not what we're after, anyway.
Yeah, that's for sure.
You see that out there? What? Can you see that? I just see a heat blip.
Oh.
You see something out there? Yeah.
Doesn't it look too big to be a deer? Yeah, it does.
That's pretty bizarre.
We got to the area that the drone identified from the aerial shots, and sure enough I looked through the thermal, and there was a large, upright figure just standing stock-still out there.
What is that? And it just froze, which was what you'd expect a Sasquatch to do in the open.
When they get caught, they just freeze and stand still.
Dude, that thing is straight up and down.
Yeah.
Look at it.
It keeps staring at us.
It was way too big to be a deer.
So I was just waiting to see the thing move to get some movement so I could identify what it was.
That was weird.
Come on.
Come on.
Let's go.
Bobo: Matt starts walking out in the meadow, towards it.
It doesn't move, and it's about the same size as Matt.
Well, I'll be damned.
Dang, from that angle, you can't tell if it's walking away from you or walking towards you.
You would think that was a person or a 'squatch.
Matt: I started walking towards it.
Unbelievable.
Whatever it was just ran off into the woods.
There it goes.
Matt: On at least a half-dozen BFRO expeditions over the years, people have spotted bigfoots, and they've observed how bigfoots could quickly step off and let the brush envelope them, which made them completely disappear.
Weird.
[Growls.]
Matt: The skunk ape legend of a foul-smelling, bigfoot-like creature hiding in the swamps has existed for centuries.
[Growls.]
We came to Florida to find evidence that would prove the existence of this skunk ape.
This creature has opened my door.
Handprint evidence That's a big boy.
a footprint cast He was right about here.
reliable eyewitness testimony.
[Growls.]
We got something over here.
our encounters in the wild What is that? and perhaps even video footage leads the BFRO to believe there are skunk apes here in Florida.
[Growls.]
What was that? I just heard something up in front of me, guys.
Narrator: With countless sightings on record, the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, led by Matt Moneymaker, heads south to investigate the latest reports, made by a frightened family who says their home is subject to nightly visits by a skunk ape.
This thing sounded monstrous.
[Growls.]
I'm thinking, "Oh, my god.
" This creature has opened my door.
I was frightened.
Narrator: As the BFRO gathers more leads, they zero in on the Florida Everglades.
And with the skunk ape quickly running out of places to hide, the team believes they may have found the creature's clandestine lair and definitive proof of the skunk ape's existence.
We got something over here.
What is that? You see that out there? It was impossibly large.
It definitely wasn't human.
I've been tracking Sasquatches for 25 years.
These animals, in fact, are real.
I've seen them.
They're here.
I'm having a really difficult time finding an explanation for this.
There's something on the hill.
[Growls.]
I do think there is a 'squatch in these woods.
I'm Matt Moneymaker.
I've been pursuing bigfoots for over 25 years, and I formed the BFRO in 1995 to create a unified scientific organization dedicated to documenting the existence of this species.
Today our search for evidence of bigfoots has brought my team and I to the state of Florida.
Bigfoots have been sighted all over this state, but we intend to find out exactly where these creatures can be found.
It's our belief that bigfoots are related to primates.
However, the ones here in the south may be unique.
According to eyewitness accounts, the southern bigfoots are more reddish in color and smaller than the ones in the north.
Locals call these creatures skookums or skunk apes, due to their unforgettable foul odor.
We're kicking off our investigation in the Florida panhandle, 20 miles outside the town of Quincy.
This part of the state is covered with forest and miles and miles of treacherously thick swampland.
In the past decade, an explosion of home-building has led to a rise in confrontations between humans and bigfoots.
There's a couple up here that have a piece of land that's in a very eco-rich area.
They're saying they've had bigfoot activity periodically for several years, coming right up at the house.
They got so worried they contacted the BFRO.
- Who they gonna call? - That's right.
They want us to come down and check it out, and that's our plan.
We're gonna go down there to find out if there are bigfoots or what they call skunk apes in this region.
And if so, we're gonna try to capture some evidence of the creatures.
Ranae: Can you show me those pictures, Cliff? Yeah, sure, sure.
So, what brought us to this location is that Caroline and Bill Bridges sent us a video and several photos.
This is supposedly a handprint.
What? So, is this on a window on the outside of the house? Cliff: I guess so.
I don't know the context of this.
I'm interested to see if they've taken any measurements off it and how large it might have been.
There you go.
This is actually a print that they cast, I believe.
I mean, this looks to be a 17-inch track.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
The toes are a little ambiguous, but it definitely could be a Sasquatch footprint.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was new construction.
You know, like they intruded now where the bigfoots have been for thousands of years, and all of a sudden, these humans put something up right where they go.
It's rare to see a Sasquatch at all, but to see one numerous times at your home it's just crazy rare, really.
Welcome.
We're glad to see you.
So, we saw the video and the photos, and we've heard just a bit about what's happened here.
- It sounds really intriguing.
- It is.
So we wanted to come here and check it out and see if we can help put your mind at ease about what's going on.
I'd really like to see the bird feeder and the bent-over pole.
Can you show us that? Yeah, sure.
- Excellent.
- Be glad to.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
The bird-feeder incident it was bent over.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
One feeder was completely gone.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
The other feeder was there, empty.
We knew it was something that was not normal going on here.
Bigfoots would be interested in any type of food left out by humans, including dog food or cat food or bird seed.
So if a bigfoot sees a bird feeder like the ones the Bridges had, it's gonna knock it down and take that bird seed.
Now, this is the actual pole that that we found bent that day, and the pole was totally in the ground like this.
And it was bent over, with this still in the ground.
I'll bet I could bend it like that.
Well, you can sure try.
All right, strong man, see what you can do.
I had to like anchor it with my foot to keep it from pulling out of the ground.
So, you know, it was something with hands and feet that pulled and bent it.
It wasn't like a bear.
So, did you come down here and bend my pole? [Laughter.]
Matt: The fact that it took coordination and the use of Bobo's hands and feet to bend the pole tells me that whatever bent it had opposable thumbs.
That means it was either a person of a 'squatch.
My question is you were talking about it being unscrewed and wrapped around something.
That's what I want to see.
- Can you take us there? - Yes.
- Awesome.
Great.
- It's down the hill.
Yeah, it's down the hill.
Okay, this is the stump.
The feeder was broken.
Go ahead and break it.
You want to break it? Be my guest.
Bobo, would you like to break it since you bent my pole? All right.
Watch your eyes, guys.
- Okay, now the gasket's - Hold the gasket out.
And this was laying here.
And this gasket was wrapped here.
Like double wrapped.
Oh, double wrapped! And this gasket was wrapped here.
Wow! Yeah.
- That's a thumb.
- That's a thumb.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
That is hard to get off once it's wrapped.
Now, it's possible that a bear pulled down that pole and one of the feeders broke loose and rolled down the hill.
But I just don't see it likely that rolling down the hill and landing on the log broke that glass.
To me, just the fact that it's broken, without even the gaskets, is very strong circumstantial evidence that this was something that had hands.
That spooked them, and it did convince us that this wasn't just misinterpretation of bear activity.
Okay, I'm gonna show you guys one other incident that happened.
Having tea on the porch one morning, I noticed this was broken, was pushed in.
Look at that.
You know what I think happened there? I think it was on here.
I think it came out of that greenhouse, and it was using this to help itself get over the fence.
And you're talking hundreds of pounds.
It really seemed to me that a Sasquatch had come over that fence, had been up at the greenhouse, and then when it retreated, it was in a hurry and probably pushed its hand down, all of its weight to pull itself out before stepping over that fence.
I headed back to the house, and as I was going back in the house, my housekeeper showed up.
As she looks down, and there's this huge footprint.
[Camera shutter clicks.]
Okay.
Oh, you got a cast here.
That's great.
And it was about wow, look at that.
That would be the toe.
Check it out, Cliff.
Wow.
That's a big boy.
Cliff: It looks like we do have a big toe here, a nice, deep heel impression here and a ball.
And of course right here, exactly where we'd expect, a little bit of a bump.
The footprint at the base of the post alone is interesting.
However, that combined with the indentation on top of the post kind of starts painting a picture for us about what might have happened that night.
The Sasquatch hurdling or climbing over the fence at that point might have been one possible reason that happened.
What I'm about to show you was the most frightening and spookiest for me.
One night, I'm awoken by this horrible growl.
[Imitates growling.]
I was spooked.
And I touched Bill and kind of shake him, and he doesn't move.
And I'm kind of in shock here because this thing sounded monstrous.
[Growls.]
How far off was the sound? It was very close.
It was here.
It was on the porch.
I was spooked.
Kind of in shock here.
The next day, right here was a huge handprint.
And I'm thinking, "Oh, my god.
This creature has opened my door.
" So that means it opened up the door Yes.
and touched it.
Yes.
I can see why you were scared.
And have been ever since.
The thumb was way long.
The fingers were huge and long.
The arm was wide.
And it was you could see the little impressions of the hair.
And it was greasy, oily.
It was nasty.
It looked similar to a human, but it was just too large.
And I'm thinking, "He popped it and grabbed it.
" Then when hit this hit his arm, I'm thinking that's when he growled.
[Growls.]
Ranae: Caroline claims that she heard this guttural growling, screaming, horrible noise on the deck.
As they opened the door, they saw this what they claim is a handprint on the inside.
We tried to figure out how big that handprint was based off of the known sizes that we can see on the door in the film.
And 7/16 inches long.
When we figured out the approximate size of the hand, we found that from the base of the thumb to the tips of the fingers was 11 inches.
Okay, well, that's a start.
My suggestion is Bobo grease up his hands.
Just with your fingerprints, Bobo, touch where she's saying to touch.
We wanted to do our best to recreate the situation where it happened.
So I got some hand lotion and asked Bobo to mess up his hands so we would have something to leave on the surface.
All right.
- So, it was about here? - Yes.
Ranae: So, lift your hand away, Bobo, without moving here we have a definite fingerprint, right? Just his handprint alone was about 8 inches.
The original print is claimed to be 11 inches.
So, if you were taking your fingertips, Bobo, and add them to where she had the length and only at the part of the way back, then drop your palm and see if you can drag your palm and recreate it.
My hypothesis is that this is a human hand that may have smeared across that glass, making it look bigger.
So now what I want to do is have Bobo take his hand, smear it across the glass, compare it against what Caroline saw, see if she notices the difference.
All right, then I'll do the drag one up here.
And then drag your palm, yeah.
Caroline, does Bobo's recreation here in any way replicate the size or any of the details that you saw in the original handprint? Not really.
Not really at all? Not really.
Wasn't even in the ballpark.
It wasn't even close.
Ranae says, "You know, it looks like it could be smeared.
" If you look at the video, to me, it looks clearly it's not smeared.
- What you saw was a - Was a handprint.
Was a handprint.
The woman is credible.
She says she could see dermal ridges, but I'm not sold.
I would need to see an actual handprint that can prove to me that that wasn't a smudge.
I was frightened.
I was frightened.
This is a unique one.
And if you're thinking this is still going on or at least they're still in the area, you're still hearing the sounds, then I think we should stay here tonight.
How about you? Is that all right with you guys? Oh, sure, it is.
After hearing about all these compelling incidents, we were very eager to go look around in the field.
Okay, well, listen the sun's going down, so if we're gonna get out there for tonight, we need some time to get suited up.
Let's go do it.
Matt: Out here on the back deck of Mr.
And Mrs.
Bridges' property is the best view down into the valley where skunk apes have come several times.
So, we're gonna do something a little different tonight.
It's a modification of the dark-man approach.
The dark man will be Ranae.
We're gonna have her down in the woods, pretty far back.
She's gonna be alone.
The dark man technique is when you get one person all alone, with no lights or no electronics whatsoever.
And that person sits alone in a place where hopefully a Sasquatch will come walking by.
Okay, guys, let's do it.
- Very good.
- All right.
Just go up against a big tree.
Oh, here's one right here.
Why don't I do this one? Yeah, this looks good.
I like this spot.
Ranae's gonna be down there at the gully, in her spot where she's gonna be looking and listening, telling us over the radio what's going on.
Cliff and I will be able to swing around and come up from a different angle, where we can get a view down where she is.
And if it's successful, we may be able to get a view on whatever is approaching her, but from a different angle.
Bobo's gonna be up at the house, on the back deck, at the highest point that he can get, making vocalizations, trying to lure one into the area.
Cliff, Matt, Cliff, Matt, do you read me? This is Bobo.
Yeah, we copy.
I'm gonna do a call from up here.
Bobo, go ahead and give a long, low moaner.
Anything for you, big boy.
[Imitates howling.]
Good one.
[Knock.]
Shh.
I just heard something up in front of me, guys.
Ranae, we heard the knock, too, in the same direction you heard it from.
It must have been real loud 'cause we were quite a distance from the property when we heard it.
Knocking is a communication technique that Sasquatches use.
I'm not exactly sure what they're saying, but I think a lot of times it's something like, "I'm here.
Where are you?" There's a lot of critters in these woods, and it didn't take long before we heard a real good knock, loud enough, where we were hearing it from probably at least a 1/4 mile away, on the next hilltop over.
So, from here, what do we do? We get in position on the ridge above the valley so we can look down into it? Exactly we're gonna move along the ridge a little ways.
Okay, I've got movement off to my right, where the knock came from.
[Thump.]
Matt: What was that? Ranae: That was directly behind me now.
Can you guys confirm? Directly behind me, 12:00, to the house.
I've got a visual on Ranae.
There's nothing behind her.
Matt: Cliff says there's nothing behind you.
[Growl.]
Whoa.
Matt: That was you, Bobo, right? What was that? You didn't do that, Bobo? Negative.
Great.
Dude, he didn't do it yet.
So, we hear this rah! big, deep sound coming from the south side of the house.
And it just struck us as saying, "Wait a minute.
Was that a skunk ape?" Bobo: There's something walking up the hill.
There's none of us walking up the hill, right? Dude, is someone walking in the forest? Oh, I got it.
I'm looking at it.
I got something coming at me on the therm right now.
I got something coming towards us.
Ranae: Is it moving toward you or moving towards me? Towards me.
Whenever you see a glowing-hot shape on a thermal imager like that that white-hot like a mammal your heart races.
I don't know what it is.
No [bleep.]
[Bleep.]
[Groans.]
Cliff: Hey, Bobes, what's your position right now? My position is straight on the ground.
I just ate it coming off the porch.
I didn't have any light.
I was coming down the steps.
I couldn't see.
I was blinded by the thermal.
And I just ate it.
And by the time I got up, whatever was around was gone.
I've lost it.
Matt: After Bobo's sighting on the thermal imager, we spent a good hour and a half out there making sounds, walking around, and listening.
We heard some sounds, but they weren't continuing.
It was kind of dead.
Ranae, how much longer you think you can hang down there? I'm ready to go.
Let's move it back to the house.
Okay, Bobo, do you want to go down there and kind of help lead her out? So, we're gonna pack up and head back to where we're staying.
We did get over that threshold where we know we're definitely hearing stuff, so we know there's some nearby.
We have been hearing knocks.
[Knock.]
What was that? We heard a grunty growl.
[Growl.]
Whoa.
Great.
Now we're starting to get a glimpse of what's been going on here, what the Bridges have had to deal with on their own.
Need some help with that? Matt: Our review of the Bridges' evidence and our overnight investigation of the property leads me to believe we've found an active skunk ape habitat.
I think we're clearly on the right track.
However, we need to narrow down our search area.
To do so, we need to learn as much as possible about the southern skunk ape's unique behavior and habitat.
So we're traveling south to native Seminole lands deep in the Everglades.
This area is the epicenter of Florida skunk ape sightings, and these native people have shared the land with these creatures for generations.
Luckily, Bobo has a local friend who knows both the terrain and the people.
Now, who's your contact actually in the village, Bobo? I know a couple guys out here.
One guy is Herbert.
He's a medicine man.
And he knows about the Sasquatch.
So, I got ahold of my friend Herbert.
He's a Seminole Indian.
And he arranged for us to have a meeting with some other natives in a chikee hut on the reservation at Big Cypress.
Yeah, our buddy Ernie - he has an airboat.
He can take us out to the village.
Excellent.
You guys ready for a little treat? This airboat these things are fun.
I am totally stoked to ride an airboat.
Yeah.
Bobo: I've talked to tribes all over North America, and I've gotten to speak to a few Seminoles, but I want to really hear their traditions, their knowledge, how they've learned to co-exist with the Sasquatch.
Cliff: We were very lucky to have Herbert speak to us at all.
Generally the older generations of Native Americans do not speak of the Sasquatch, but Herbert is younger, and he perhaps is more willing to bend the rules slightly.
Matt: What's important about this meeting is if the Seminole stories are valid, then that helps further prove that skunk apes do exist in Florida.
All right, come on.
We got to get there before dark.
Hey, how you doing? All right.
Good to see you again, Herbert.
This is Ranae.
Hello, everyone.
This is Cliff.
Hey, everybody.
And this is Matt.
Hi.
Good to have you here.
So, Herbert, we just came down from the panhandle of north Florida, where we were called by the Bridges family.
They called us in because they were feeling threatened, uneasy.
They had Sasquatch on their property.
So we thought we'd come down here to the Seminoles in south Florida since you've lived with them for thousands of years, that maybe you could give us some advice to bring back to them.
Tell them not to look at them as pests or animals.
[Growls.]
Look at them as a human beings.
The only way you can co-exist is to give them respect.
That's very good advice.
Have you ever actually seen one yourself? Yes, I have.
We were going into the swamps to cut logs out, in order to build chikees and such.
As we were walking this path, there was a palmetto tree standing there.
And just then, something grabbed that palmetto leaves down and then boom.
[Growls.]
Had to be like at least about eight feet tall.
And that happened somewhere in this area? Yeah, back in the swamps here.
Some of my cousins have seen it.
But you have to get ahold of them in order to understand what their sightings were.
I was driving along a trail, and I happened to look out the passenger-side window of my jeep.
Matt: Ron is not a Seminole Indian, but he does live adjacent to their land.
He claims he might be sharing his land with a skunk ape.
It definitely wasn't human.
I mean, it was huge.
And it was like the trees themselves just like opened up and he just sort of backed in and they just closed around him.
It was an honor coming here to meet you all and hearing about something I know that isn't talked about a lot.
You gave us insights that we wouldn't hear anywhere else.
It was really a great privilege.
Thank you for welcoming us.
Very good.
Herbert shared that the Seminole view Sasquatches as another people, much like themselves, and they treat them as another people.
I think that one of the things that the Bridges can take away from what Herbert advised is to leave them alone because the Sasquatches aren't living on the Bridges' land.
The Bridges are living on the Sasquatch's land.
[Growls.]
Matt: After listening to some stunning eyewitness reports at the meeting, we mapped out the exact locations where each of the incidents took place.
We were particularly interested in the spots where the tribal elder claimed to have seen a skunk ape behind a palm tree and where his cousin Billy may have encountered a skunk ape while walking through the woods and, finally, where Ron saw a massive beast disappear into the forest.
This narrows down our search area so we can track down exactly where the skunk apes are hiding out.
Bobo: During the course of our conversation with Herbert, he related to us that he has other family members that have had sighting and encounters.
One that stood out was his cousin Billy.
We decided Matt and I were gonna go interview Billy, and Cliff and Ranae will follow up with Herbert and go where he saw his Sasquatch.
Matt: Just like every location down here that the natives would go hunt at, this location where Billy is at is in a remote area.
You can't easily drive up to it.
We need to get on a swamp buggy to go out and meet him at this place where he's gonna be hunting.
Hey there, Billy.
Hello.
How y'all doing? All righty.
Thanks for meeting us.
So, I hear that y'all are looking for somebody that's seen bigfoot? Yep.
Well, I'm the man.
This is the place where I seen him.
Yep, it was right out here.
It was in the middle of the rainy season.
I was walking out there, and there was a cypress tree that was over.
And I walked over.
I looked to the right about 35 yards from me.
When I walked out and I looked, it went like this.
[Growls.]
Wow.
It looked at me.
My hair stood up on my neck.
I was in shock.
I'm shaking right now, just thinking about it.
I could feel him staring me down.
Did you see the legs and the feet? Yeah, I seen the legs.
I seen about like that.
He was real long.
But I remember him doing something with his feet.
I'd like to get the same distance you were from when you saw it.
Then I'll kind of try to recreate it, and you tell me how big it looked compared to me.
Would you want to do that? Okay, all right, sure.
We'll follow you.
Go right here.
Matt: This is the sort of place where, if there's a little bit of water, there's probably alligators and water moccasins.
You always walk barefoot, Billy? Yeah, all the time.
Never wear shoes.
Well, how about I'll walk down that way, and you tell me about when it's about the same distance and tell me to stop when you think that's how far it was.
Okay.
Matt: And Bobo, as he usually does he volunteered to go over and be where the Sasquatch was.
And I took the witness to the point of his perspective.
We got about the same distance, and we got kind of a sense of what he would have seen.
Right to your right that tree right there beside you, right there.
Right here? That's about where he was.
He was a little bit taller than that.
About this tall maybe? A little bit more.
Yeah, about right in there.
So, that's over a foot taller than me.
That would put that thing well over 7 foot, close to 71/2 feet.
Wow.
I got at least a foot above my head before he said, "That's how tall it was.
" So, you're talking something that's so enormous it'd weigh at least twice as much as me.
You're getting something in upwards of over 600 pounds.
So, you're saying it was doing something with its feet, like down below, like it was moving something around.
Would you be able to kick up swamp apples like that? Yeah, I'm pretty 'cause when they're not ripe, they sink.
You ever seen a swamp apple, Bobo? I've seen them, but I've never eaten one.
Matt: Florida skunk apes are known to eat a variety of different foods not just deer and wild hogs, but also snakes and frogs and alligators and birds, even swamp apples.
That's how they've been able to survive in such an unforgiving environment.
What I seen about 35 yards.
Matt: My sense is that Billy actually saw one.
There were some just kind of unusual sort of arbitrary factors to it.
And I can see his shoulder and his face looking at me.
It wouldn't be the sort of garden-variety generic sighting that somebody would make up.
My hair stood up on my neck.
It really struck me as being a legitimate incident.
It went like this.
[Growls.]
Hey, Herbert.
Cliff and I went out and met with Herbert at the exact location where his encounter occurred.
We was walking down this path here, and it was right about here when I saw it.
Right there was the creature, where it was standing.
And it sounded like he just reached up and grabbed and slapped the leaves down.
And it just turned and ran.
[Growls.]
You know, that's exactly a classic ape territorial display there making a big noise, kind of almost just like to startle you before it escapes.
Silverback lowland gorilla.
- They do that.
- Boom! Yeah.
- Maybe I'll pop in there.
- Sure.
- Yeah, go make some noise.
- Yeah.
- Try to scare us, Ranae.
- I'll try, guys.
I'm not that big.
I'm no Bobo, that's for sure.
Move forward a little bit toward the trees.
Okay, right about there.
Yeah, that's exactly where it was.
Okay, so, first you initially, you hear a crash? Yeah, like the palmetto leaves got slapped really hard.
- Okay, get ready, Herbert.
- All right.
All the branches.
I can't do all the branches.
You're not capable of making that type of noise.
So, after it moved the palmetto leaves, you said it headed in this direction? Yes, he took off right to where the trees and bushes are.
Okay.
Ranae tried to duplicate the running off into the brush to see if she can do it in a similar manner.
Here we go.
Two of her strides is probably one of his.
There's no way she can run as fast as that thing moved.
Okay.
Longer strides.
What about the arm swing? Was it the same or different? It was slower.
To me, he just looked like he was doof, doof, doof and he was gone.
Are you positive of what you saw? Is there any chance it could have been anything else? No, because I've lived out here in the Florida swamps all my life, and I've seen just about everything.
And what I saw that day was humanoid-looking.
[Growls.]
So, now we've got two credible witnesses in the same area, and if this third witness is believable, then we have ourselves a pattern of skunk ape encounters in a concentrated area.
How's it going, Ron? Very good, very good.
How y'all doing? - This is beautiful down here.
- Thank you.
This is the guy we want to talk to because he has the most similar situation to what the Bridges have up in north Florida.
Now, he is the man that we met at the Seminole Village who's been living adjacent to the Seminole tribe for 30 years.
This guy has learned to co-exist and live in harmony with his environment.
So, is this the stand of trees where you saw one? Yeah.
I was several hundred yards back.
And from back there, he was standing right at the trees' edge.
My god, he was huge.
As I got out of the Jeep, it's like the trees opened up and he took like a step back and they closed up on him.
[Growls.]
Wow.
All right, Bobo, if you'll take two to three steps directly backwards.
That's the action that he took at that time.
Whoa, he's totally disappeared.
When we had Bobo go out there, stand in position, and take a few steps back, we could see exactly what they were talking about.
It's as much as the brush moving out of the way as it is the shadows and the deep brush just kind of enveloping him.
This is typical bigfoot behavior.
They don't want to be seen.
I think Ron actually saw a skunk ape down there on the edge of the Cypress stand.
Guys, we had some great experiences talking about the encounters in this area.
There's been reports all around.
There's three of them up here, kind of a cluster, including Ron's.
The Everglades is a huge area.
Now, we narrowed down our focus to a sighting cluster of three reports along this canal.
But even that is too large.
The edges of the canals in Florida provide a number of food resources for skunk apes.
There are fish and reptiles and birds, and these canals run for miles like highways across the Everglades.
To increase our chances of pinpointing the exact location of some skunk apes, we're going to need a little help.
- Those must be the guys.
- There they are.
Matt: So we called in some unmanned-drone specialists.
- Hey.
- Hello, guys.
Hey, thank you so much for coming out.
Matt: A drone is a remote-control plane with a camera and transmitter that can relay images to us on the ground.
This will be helpful to us in pinpointing areas where various large animals, including bigfoots, may be congregating.
Okay, so, the area we'd like you to look over and record and photograph is 2613 North, 8155 West.
Would that be what you need to be able to pinpoint? We can take those coordinates and fly a large area.
We'll be able to point out game trails where you can see a lot of movement Yeah.
differences in topography that might be of interest to you as you go out in the field.
I've been waiting for 20 years to do this.
I've always thought this would be the coolest way to do it, most efficient way to do it.
You're making a dream come true.
- Okay.
Let's get it going.
- All right.
Okay, guys, this is the color video that we'll be receiving on the ground, so we'll be able to see everything that the aircraft sees.
- Is that high def? - Yes, it is.
Wow.
These little remote-control drones are perfect.
They're quiet, they're battery-powered, and they can fly right over and get a bird's-eye view.
Well, let's get her prepped and get her in the air.
Yeah, let's send that up.
Cliff: The Everglades is a huge area.
Now, we narrowed down our focus to a sighting cluster of three reports along this canal, but even that is too large of an area for our team to cover, especially at night.
So we called in drone specialists so we can take photographs from the air of what's going on right now in the environment.
If we can find out where the animals are moving around, perhaps we can find where the Sasquatches also are right now.
Okay, clear to launch.
Wow! Yeah! Yeah! Oh, that's great! Oh, gosh, check it out down here.
Oh, my god, that's awesome! - How high is that getting? - It's 200 feet right now.
The climb rate is about 750 feet a minute.
Bobo: In less than five minutes, I've already seen some areas we should definitely focus on, where a Sasquatch would be hanging out.
Yeah, this is a very, very useful tool for what we do.
We can now find the trails that would get us in and out of there because that's so thick.
We can't walk through it.
It shows us what to avoid - just as important there.
Large animal wanting to remain undetected water and cover.
Oh, look at that.
Look at that game trail.
That's where the deer are gonna be right there.
Yeah.
We were able to find two locations that had the water and had close-by grazing areas.
And you knew that's where the deer would be during the day.
They'd come out and feed at night, and that's where the Sasquatch were most likely to be also.
Well, I see where I want to go tonight.
I want to get right on that trail there.
Matt: We came to Florida to find the skunk ape.
We've used eyewitness testimony and aerial surveillance to narrow the search area and tighten the noose on this elusive creature.
We believe we found the skunk ape's key hiding place, and we're gonna hit this area for our final, most intensive search.
All right, thanks, Gene.
This is great.
Let's get suited up and get out there.
All right, we're at the fork in the trail that Gene spotted from the drone.
Ranae, you and Cliff are gonna go along this trail.
Bobo and I are gonna along that trail.
I'm sure we're gonna spot some animals.
This place is crawling with them.
All right, well, let's get going, guys.
All right.
Good luck.
I'm not seeing anything, Matt.
Ohh, listen.
Shh.
This is exactly the kind of environment the 'squatches would like.
So, we got to go through this meadow and kind of cruise the perimeter and look around through here.
Let's go in.
Yo, Cliff and Ranae, do you copy? Yeah, go.
Over.
Copy.
I'm about to do a howl I wanted to let you know in 10 seconds.
[Imitating howling.]
Bobo: What, are you going through puberty? [Low humming.]
Oh, got something behind us.
Listen.
Listen in the wood line.
Okay.
We got something moving in the tree line, behind us, to our right.
So we just want to hold off on the howls.
Let us listen for a moment.
10-4.
12:00, right off me.
We got something over here.
- Oh, there it is.
- You got it? Yeah.
In fact, there's the whole deer herd right there.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
It's not what we're after, anyway.
Yeah, that's for sure.
You see that out there? What? Can you see that? I just see a heat blip.
Oh.
You see something out there? Yeah.
Doesn't it look too big to be a deer? Yeah, it does.
That's pretty bizarre.
We got to the area that the drone identified from the aerial shots, and sure enough I looked through the thermal, and there was a large, upright figure just standing stock-still out there.
What is that? And it just froze, which was what you'd expect a Sasquatch to do in the open.
When they get caught, they just freeze and stand still.
Dude, that thing is straight up and down.
Yeah.
Look at it.
It keeps staring at us.
It was way too big to be a deer.
So I was just waiting to see the thing move to get some movement so I could identify what it was.
That was weird.
Come on.
Come on.
Let's go.
Bobo: Matt starts walking out in the meadow, towards it.
It doesn't move, and it's about the same size as Matt.
Well, I'll be damned.
Dang, from that angle, you can't tell if it's walking away from you or walking towards you.
You would think that was a person or a 'squatch.
Matt: I started walking towards it.
Unbelievable.
Whatever it was just ran off into the woods.
There it goes.
Matt: On at least a half-dozen BFRO expeditions over the years, people have spotted bigfoots, and they've observed how bigfoots could quickly step off and let the brush envelope them, which made them completely disappear.
Weird.
[Growls.]
Matt: The skunk ape legend of a foul-smelling, bigfoot-like creature hiding in the swamps has existed for centuries.
[Growls.]
We came to Florida to find evidence that would prove the existence of this skunk ape.
This creature has opened my door.
Handprint evidence That's a big boy.
a footprint cast He was right about here.
reliable eyewitness testimony.
[Growls.]
We got something over here.
our encounters in the wild What is that? and perhaps even video footage leads the BFRO to believe there are skunk apes here in Florida.
[Growls.]