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Feb. 25, 1998 - Art Bell

01:51:00

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Loren Coleman - Cryptozoology

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37:58

loren coleman

48:01

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unidentified		If you have a fax for Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye, send it to him at area code 702-727-8499.
		702-727-8499.
		Please limit your faxes to one or two pages.
		This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
		Now, here again the Azarts.
		Once again, here I am coming up in a moment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Lauren Coleman, who is one of the world's leading cryptozoologists.
		Animal guys.
		I'll tell you more about them shortly.
		So that is straight ahead, and that will probably be the central topic for tonight.
		And it's a good one, too, because I've got an awful lot of questions about what animals in general have been doing lately, and a lot of stories, too, latest out of India.
		Animals attacking people.
		Turning on people.
		I remember a movie I saw once.
		I'll never remember the name of it.
		Please don't fax it me.
unidentified		It doesn't matter.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Cats went berserk, latched onto the faces of their owners.
		Dogs biting butts of the ones who have loved and cared and fed them.
		That sort of thing.
		Goldfish jumping out and...
		Anyway, maybe it was Day of the Animals, Attack of the Animals, something like that.
		But there's something strange out there going on.
		There's no question about it.
unidentified		And we'll talk about Bigfoot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very credible stuff with regard to Yeti or Bigfoot and many of the other mythological question mark animals that we talk about.
		Just want to remind you of a couple of things.
		News-wise, there's not much except Iraq where we are not going in to inspect what we forced.
		And so they're probably moving the crates out as fast as they can.
		I'm not sure what we've won over there.
		There was a definite reaction from the good people at Nightline at ABC.
		They sent me a fax tonight.
		Nightline sent me a fax.
		In fact, I had it posted on the website.
		It says, Dear Mr. Bell, we're impressed with the responsiveness of your listeners.
		They have successfully tied up our fax machine and hurt our ability to send faxes within ABC News.
		Please don't put our fax number on the air.
		If your listeners are anxious to be in touch with us, please have them write to us at ABC News Nightline, 1717 DeSalles Street, D-E-S-A-L-E-S DeSales, I guess.
		That's DeSales Street Northwest, Washington, D.C., 20036.
		Thanks for your understanding.
		Sincerely, the Nightline staff.
		So I guess they noticed.
		All right, we're going to plunge right into the world of animals in a moment.
		Ab.
		As I said, he is one of the world's leading cryptozoologists, an honorary member of several international cryptozoological organizations.
		He is a life member of the International Society of Cryptozoology.
		Coleman has written books and more than 100 articles on the subject, has appeared frequently on radio and TV programs, has lectured from Idaho to London, has been both on and off camera, consultant to NBC's Unsolved Mysteries, A ⁇ E's Ancient Mysteries, and In Search of Discovery Channels in the Unknown and other reality-based programs, underlying reality.
		He contributes a bimonthly cryptozoology column on the trail to the London-based international magazine Fortune Times and Mysterious World to Fate.
		On October 20th, 1997, occasion of the 30th anniversary of the famous filming of the California Sasquatch, Lauren Coleman was one of the first 10 inductees into the new Roger Patterson Memorial Bigfoot Museum in Portland, Oregon.
		Coleman has been investigating in the field and in the library cryptozoological evidence and folklore since the Yeti caught his interest in 1960, which led him, I guess, to research mysterious panther sightings, reports of apes in the American Midwest, other than the ones that can be seen, for example, on the streets of some major Midwest cities.
		He's traveled to 45 states throughout Canada, Mexico, and the Virgin Islands, interviewing witnesses of lake monsters, Sasquatch, giant snakes, mystery feline, phantom kangaroo, phantom kangaroos, really?
		A thunderbird and other creature reports and folklore.
		His first articles published in 1969, then he went on to write two books with Jerome Clark, The Unidentified and Creatures of the Outer Edge.
		OS is my kind of guy, I can tell.
		Lauren Coleman has a forthcoming book, April of 99, on the international situation regarding Bigfoot and related humanoids, and a journal, The Cryptozoologist, slated for publication at the end of 98.
		So I could go on and on and on.
		He has many, many, many years of study, academic and investigative work in the field to his credit, has been all over the media.
		Here is Lauren Coleman.
		Lauren, welcome to the program.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Ark.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Great to have you.
		I've been looking forward to this one for quite a while, and I'm probably going to start out with an area that I'm not sure you're comfortable with, but there are two things.
		One, we have been getting all these incredible reports, Lauren, of dolphins and whales and other mammal Sea creatures literally running out of the sea as if they were being chased out by something.
		And there's been too much of it lately.
		Now I get a story tonight from Honolulu that a Navy ship is set to begin blasting high-volume sounds intentionally at humpback whales.
		Even after a federal judge rejected environmentalist complaints, they're going to let the Navy go ahead.
		Now, this just doesn't seem like a brilliant idea to me.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think that I heard you say something about animals attacking people and dolphins beaching and all of that, of course, really involves without people there, you wouldn't know that was happening.
		So we know that for hundreds and hundreds of years, these kinds of things have been happening.
		I think the involvement in humans sending sonic beams into water is probably not the greatest idea.
		But I've noticed, you know, over the years, if you stand back a little, a lot of it can be related to the weather.
		A lot of it can be related to the temperature of the water.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The environment.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		The environment.
		And of course, humans are part of the environment.
		So if they're burning up all the forest in Indonesia, then you're going to get more animals coming out of the jungle attacking people or orangutans being shot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		monkeys in japan attacking people we've got reports of Mountain lions beginning to stalk hunters.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What would you say about that?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've noticed the whole situation in the West has really been pretty dramatic lately because humans are getting deeper into wilderness areas where they were not before.
		So you have joggers being attacked, hunters being attacked.
		And it's mainly because man is the encroacher there.
		It's not the mountain lions are coming out.
		It's that we're going deeper into wilderness areas that we weren't building houses on the edges of wetlands and different things like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, so in other words, you think it may be us, it may be environmental, but it's not the animals suddenly turning against their owners.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Cats are not going to be leaping on old ladies' faces or anything.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, I think people forget.
		I mean, I remember during the mid-70s where there was quite a few different people looking at different animal attacks and relating them to actually the phases of the moon.
		And we have a big solar eclipse tomorrow and, you know, a new moon, so maybe we'll have more animal attacks if you believe in that theory.
		But, you know, these kinds of things have been happening for years and years and years.
		It's just that when they come in waves and they do seem to clump, then people think, well, my God, this is all new.
		And maybe that's not quite exactly what's going on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You have researched for years and years and years Bigfoot.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Bigfoot is one of my all-time favorite topics.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Lauren, in your professional opinion, is Bigfoot real or the figment of our overactive imaginations?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, I think there's actually creatures in the Pacific Northwest that are unidentified primates.
		And I have, you know, I think there's a lot of hoaxing and there's a lot of misidentification in different parts of the rest of the United States.
		But in the Pacific Northwest, there's a creature that's anywhere between six to nine feet tall that's bipedal that leaves behind footprints with five toes.
		You know, giant footprints.
		That's why they call it Bigfoot.
		And before that, up in Canada, it was called Sasquatch and still is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, shouldn't we have more than footprints?
		I mean, I've seen, as you point out, there's been a lot of hoaxing, and people walk around on stilts creating giant footprints and that kind of thing.
		How do you delineate between the hoax and the real thing?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, hoaxers forget that people that really know footprints well, which we're talking a lot about, some police investigators, forensic scientists, and different folks like that, as well as anthropologists and primatologists, the footprint leaves specific cracks and marks that are very related to it being an animate object.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not easily reproducible.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Not fake.
		So if you have a person that has a static, either a piece of concrete that's shaped like a big footprint or like the wooden things you were talking about, those show up as really much more, they're obvious fakes and people can tell them.
		And also where they show up and, of course, who's finding them, how credible are the witnesses.
		There are all kinds of different forensic investigative techniques that we use as well as psychological ones to see who these folks are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Lauren, if we have footprints, why has nobody yet shot one of these things?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, people have shot them.
		John Green and some of my other investigative friends have found over the years that there's probably upwards of four or five good stories from the Pacific Northwest of people shooting them.
		But they shoot them, and then they get very freaked out and scared that, well, I've shot something that's maybe a man, maybe man-like.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Lauren, I guess I've got to tell you my story.
		I had a man on my program.
		He spent several hours on the air, actually, because I was so amazed.
		And I believed his story.
		He came upon two Yeti in a densely populated area, not with humans, but with vegetation, low vegetation.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeti, as in Asia?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As in Bigfoot.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Bigfoot, okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And he shot two of them.
		Two of them.
		And he went through the long explanation on the era.
		It was an amazingly lucid story, and he buried them.
		What happened is he did exactly as you just said.
		He freaked out, and he and his friend said, look, this is bad news.
		You know, we're liable to be charged with murder.
		Even though when he went up and looked at this creature, it was as a Bigfoot looks.
		But it had rather humanoid features to it, the two of them, a male and a female.
		And he was prepared to take me to the site and dig these things up, Lauren.
		But by the end of the night, my audience had so freaked him out that he just disappeared.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, he was scared to death.
		And he thought he'd be charged with murder.
		And frankly, I couldn't tell him he wouldn't.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Well, you know the famous case of the Minnesota Iceman where Frank Hansen had this in 1968, you know, a carnival or a shopping center exhibit of a man frozen in ice, you know, like a Bigfoot-type creature.
		Oh, yes.
		And he said that there was a mysterious owner, a millionaire, who was behind it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And it was when he crossed back and forth into Canada that the Smithsonian told the FBI to investigate it, and they replaced the real body with the fake that they had constructed in Hollywood.
		And it's those kinds of things.
		Even when the body is perhaps, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So in other words, they took this guy into custody, Lauren, and melted the ice and found a fake body?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no, no, no.
		The FBI, when they got involved, Frank Hanson said, apparently in the middle of the night, he switched the body.
		So the local police department and FBI became disinterested because they saw that this was a fake.
		And before that, when Ivan Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans had showed up and taken pictures and smelled the rotting flesh, we knew that it was much more real.
		So the whole idea that there are no bodies, that there have not been any bodies, that there's no hair samples or things like that, it's just not true.
		But we're still really at the beginning of the stages of looking at Bigfoot.
		If you look at the securing of mountain gorillas, it took over 60 years to come up with a mountain gorilla after expedition after expedition went to Africa specifically looking for mountain gorillas.
		Well, the modern era of Bigfoot really starts in 1958, so we're still at the beginning stages, but for Americans who are everything they have to get right away, it's fast food thinking.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		How much really good evidence is there that they exist?
		There are footprints.
		You just told us a story.
		It sounded pretty good.
		Yeah.
		But what else exists?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Fur?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Has there been fur tested that is anomalous?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		There's been fur that has been said to be unknown primate, near human, and hair samples all the way from China or Nepal, for those kinds, for the Yeti and the Yarin and the Wildman, and some of the samples from Ohio of what's called the Grassman there.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		There's a new book called Bigfoot in Ohio that's really good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The Grass Man?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		The Grass Man.
		That's just a local name.
		You can go to almost any state, and if there's enough reports, you have a local name.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, what do we know about Bigfoot?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		is Bigfoot nocturnal?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Is Bigfoot Well, I think you've got several things going on here.
		Bigfoot is a generic term that's used too loosely for what I think are many different kinds of creatures, unknown primates.
		But if we're talking specifically about the Pacific Northwest Bigfoot, we know that it's man-like, it's bipedal.
		It probably builds nests.
		It is mostly nocturnal, although obviously you have witness accounts that are at the beginning and end of the Bigfoot day.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You say it builds nests?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Yes.
		Very similar to what we're finding among gorillas.
		You know, there's been, they use vacant buildings.
		They don't use caves as much as some other types of animals, but there has been incidents where different beds and different kind of nesting structures have been found in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very interesting.
		Listen, I'm short of commercials.
		Bigfoot makes nests, huh?
		That's really interesting.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Well, there's you were asking for different kinds of evidence, and that's one of them.
		You know, the footprints is another, the hair samples.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you found a nest?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I have not personally found a nest.
		I've talked to and interviewed various people that have.
		I've found footprints.
		I've heard screeches.
		I've smelled smells.
		So I've been that close.
		But there's a lot of people out there that have had very close encounters.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes, I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You say you have heard Bigfoot, huh?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I've heard a screeching type sound that could be a Bigfoot, or it could have been a type of bird.
		I did not see the creature.
		I was in an area investigating specific reports of creatures that had made those sounds, and people had seen them when they'd made those sounds.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've got something that I want you to hear.
unidentified		Here it is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that ought to do it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever heard that sound, Laura?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Is that the Alan Berry tape?
unidentified		You know what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm not exactly sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That came actually from Linda Moulton Howe, and it was represented to be the real thing, taped by some hunters.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		I'm, let me say, I want to reserve judgment on that one.
		I've heard some stories about how that might have come about with various manipulations, so I'm still up in the air about the reality of that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Don't they say that about everything?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		For example, even the best evidence there is said to be, the videotape, the Patterson tape, there's a lot of people calling that a hoax now.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yep, there have been, and unfortunately, last October on the 30th anniversary, there Was this whole story about that a guy named John Chambers in Hollywood had produced it, and John Landis knew all about that?
		Well, a woman named Bobby Short, a great investigator in Southern California, went out and did an interview with John Chambers.
		And John Chambers, who had won an Academy Award for doing the makeup for Planet of the Apes, told her that he let that story go on for years because it was actually wonderful publicity within the Hollywood community for him to act like he was responsible for the public.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no kidding.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No kidding.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		So, and that's now been published.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I published it in England, and she's published it in the newsletter of the North American Science Institute.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I take it then that you feel the Patterson tape is legit.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I do.
		I think it's, you know, and you have to start with films.
		You have to start with the people that took them.
		And I think Roger and Bob are quite credible people.
		Roger Patterson's dead now, but Bob Gimlin's still alive.
		And I've read interviews, and I've seen tapes, and I've talked to people that know him really well.
		And, you know, I've talked to quite a few people about those two gentlemen over the years.
		And that's where I start psychologically looking at the witnesses.
		Did they have anything?
		You know, was there anything in it for them?
		And Roger Patterson was passionate about Bigfoot.
		He went out there looking for Bigfoot, and he found it.
		And once he found it, then nobody believed him.
		It was a sad story.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there are a lot of people who would say, look, any investigator going out with a camera, actually looking for a Bigfoot, what are the odds of that really happening unless he had something else in mind?
		And because he was actually looking for Bigfoot, it hurts his case when he comes back with the video.
		Isn't that strange?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I mean, if a scientist goes out looking for a giant squid and finds one, then he's all a success.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's exactly right.
		Another obvious question is, what is Bigfoot?
		What in the world, if this animal exists, mammal, what is it?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's two major schools of thought.
		Grover Krantz, who's an anthropologist out west and has been talking about Bigfoot and wrote a book about Bigfoot, believes that it's Giganthopithecus blackie, which is a giant ape that may be 7, 8, 10 feet tall.
		Fossil finds really only exist in India and China and Vietnam.
		Four jawbones and about 1,000 teeth.
		So nobody knows the real structure of this animal, but anthropologists have speculated that a fun theory.
		Because it's really the only big primate that seems to be around that fits that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, but you said giant ape, but does it seem to have human characteristics with regard to consciousness, plotting, thought?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It would seem to have all those characteristics more like a human than an animal, an ape.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's why I and a few other cryptozoologists believe that it's Paranthopus robuscus, which is an osteopithecine-type.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Boy, are you getting ahead of me.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Anyway, this is another.
		It's closer to being a human.
		It's found all over Asia and Africa.
		These creatures were much more bipedal, much more upright, and seemed to be closer in terms of the behaviors as well as the structure that we find in Bigfoot.
		Because like you're saying, Bigfoot seems to be a very intelligent animal, a very intelligent primate.
		One of the reasons that they're able to stay alive for so long is that...
		Yeah, they have cunning.
		They hide.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		I'm told by scientists that human DNA and ape DNA probably don't have more than a 1% difference or something like that.
		Isn't that a little bit more?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's 97% chimpanzee.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, okay, so 3% then.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right, right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, presumably, the creature we're talking about right now would have DNA that would exhibit even closer characteristics to...
		Maybe that's all wrong.
		Maybe there could be intelligence without that additional DNA.
		What do you say?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think that that's one of the problems that when you have a piece of DNA and you take it in the lab and you have a lab come back and saying, well, this isn't human, but it's almost human, and yet we don't have a creature to base the sample on, so we don't know what it is.
		That doesn't tell us anything.
		And I mean, Grover Krantz, there's this big debate out west, which you may have heard through your show over the years, is, you know, did we kill it or do we just go photograph it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think he wanted, what he said was, I believe, that the first Bigfoot should be killed, and then there should be the death penalty for anybody who would kill one after that.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But he wants one body.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Because he feels that's the only way it can be proved.
		And he may be right.
		I mean, I live in Maine, and I think someday a lumber truck is going to kill one of them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that could be.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But if you had a Bigfoot in your sights with the 30-06, would you pull the trigger?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm not a hunter, and I don't own a gun, so I wouldn't need that.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, that doesn't matter.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can still put you out there in the woods with a gun.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If you were out there...
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I think there's ways to take DNA samples with, you know, tranquilize it, keep it in captivity a little bit, take samples, bring in, fly in some of the best anthropologists and zoologists in the world, make sure that it's still verifiable, and then make a sanctuary for part of the wilderness that it's in and the death penalty or whatever.
		But I think there's other ways Short of killing them because we don't really know what they are.
		We don't know how close to Homo they are, Homo sapiens.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so then if you wouldn't pull the trigger and you wouldn't even have a gun.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I'd pull the trigger on a tranquilizer gun, okay?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I'll go that way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've got you.
		All right.
		What then, assuming you were just out in the woods, what would you do?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I would hopefully have some photographic equipment.
		So I'd want to take pictures.
		I'd want to notice.
		I'd want to be very quiet.
		I wouldn't want to approach it.
		I'd want to become part of the environment.
		And I think that what often happens when Bigfoots are encountered is that people run away.
		They're scared, frightened, and they leave behind lots of evidence, you know, where the footprints are or hair samples or whatever.
		And they come back and all they have is a sighting.
		And then immediately the ridicule factor gets thrown at them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I would bet you about only 10% of the people who ever even see a Bigfoot report it to anybody at all.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it's more than you know, this ridicule factor.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
		Oh, yeah.
		I mean, I work in academia, and I'm very careful about who I talk about my 40 years of interest in Bigfoot, because it's all around us.
		And that's one of the reasons they haven't been found is because if you can't convince people to look, they won't see.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you take a lot of heat?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, of course.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Bigfoot is by no means the only creature that you have investigated.
		You've looked at quite a few, haven't you?
		And one that you didn't list here, but that I have found eternally interesting, is the chupacabra.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Chupacabra, sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Now, look, people, again, ridicule and joke, but gee, Lauren, there have been endless reports, beginning in Puerto Rico, then South America, then Mexico, even the southwest U.S., of goats with all the blood removed from them, two bite necks on the neck, and not only goats, but other animals, and even some humans.
		And I'll tell you, Lauren, in Mexico, they don't laugh about chupacabra.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I know.
		I have friends in Brazil.
		They don't laugh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Chupacabra is taken very seriously.
		And I think that, you know, because it's been in the Hispanic-Latino community, people have only now beginning to, you know, realize that it's a very, very widespread phenomenon.
		And it's been there quite a few years.
		And it's only recently.
		In my book, Curious Encounters, I talked about things that I called creatures of the Black Lagoon, which witnesses said look like the Gillman, look like reptilian creatures with spikes in its head and very chupacabra-like.
		And we've had these reports for decades, and it's just when some great newspaper journalists in Puerto Rico started putting it all together that I think you've got now a phenomenon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we don't have a, you know, nothing that I trust as being real as a photograph of the true bacabra, though there are some pretty strange ones.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've got a couple really strange ones on my website.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		You've got that great song, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I do.
		I do.
		But there is a creature that was killed by a car or a truck on the side of the road.
		I don't know whether you've seen that one on the website.
		It is reputed to be possibly a chupacabra.
		Whatever a chupacabra is, we don't have, I may concede we don't have a photograph of one, but we've got a gazillion photographs of its victims.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And there, I think that you sometimes have problems with that.
		I've seen the footprints from footprints of the chupacabra supposedly from Miami.
		They look very much like a big cat or a dog.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		three claws.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's not the...
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I've seen drawings of those, but the plaster cast that I have actually of the supposed animal that mutilated something like, you know, 46 chickens.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You have a plaster cast?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Of a chupacabra, supposedly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You do?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where did you get that?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, from a researcher, from another investigator in Miami.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Lauren.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And I believe it's available through one of those websites, the Chupacabra websites.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If you could give me an address, I would very much like to get a link up to that and see it.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'll email it to you, okay?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		All right.
		Yeah, I really want a photograph of that.
		Do you happen to have any photographs yourself?
		Of this cast?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, I can take those real quickly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I would really appreciate your sending me one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can scan it, get it in.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know why I'm so fascinated by this.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Chupacabra, I think, by the way, a lot of people talk about it in terms of aliens, in terms of reptilian things, but if you talk to the people that have seen chupacabra, if you read some of the reports, here again you have a bipedal creature that is covered with hair.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right, that's correct.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And that is a primate.
		So we're once again, it's almost like a relative Bigfoot, if you want to say that, but we're once again in the primate area and not in the reptile area.
		And I think a lot of people think that chupacabras are some kind of smooth-skinned reptilian alien.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no, no, they're hairy?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right, they're hairy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And ugly?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, by our standards, ugly.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And nocturnal, which most primates that are nocturnal have rather large eyes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, I'm curious.
		You're a cryptozoologist, one of the most famous.
		When I say a chupacabra is ugly, what representations I have seen of it.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Any animals are ugly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I had a feeling you might feel that way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So even a chupacabra at its fangiest worst really is a thing to behold for you.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I really like animals.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I mean, sharks are not scary.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, I mean, they're scary if you don't understand them, but we go into their environment.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		So We're going into the environments of chupacabras and Bigfoot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Tell me about.
		I've always wondered.
		I've seen these photographs on television of these maniacal people who go down in these shark cages.
		And usually, a shark comes and hits the cage hard enough to either rattle it open and eat the guy or girl and or bend the cage in a way that's really frightening.
		I mean, how could you go down in those cages?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		There was a great show on tonight on National Geographic did a show called Sea Monsters, The Search for the Giant Squid.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And Clyde Roper is doing the same thing.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		He was going down in one of those things, and in comes, it wasn't a real giant, it wasn't the classic giant squid, but it was just a Humboldt, six, seven-foot-long squid, and it gets in the cage with him and bites him on the leg.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, you wonder, you wonder, but, you know, we all go after these things and occasionally get bit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that'd be bad, actually.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I suppose in a way he's essentially locked in the cage?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, no, it had an open top.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The thing got in there anyway.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But, I mean, have you gone down and in a cage yourself, or have you gone down and spent time with sharks just with scuba gear or what?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no, I haven't done any of that with the watery creatures.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I've, you know, done the whole snorkeling bit and run into Barracuda and stuff like that, but I haven't encountered sharks.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You also mentioned something about a phantom kangaroo?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think, well, since about the 1890s, I've been able to track it back.
		Americans have been reporting kangaroos.
		And the biggest flap that occurred happened in Chicago starting in the 70s when two police officers came around the corner and they saw a kangaroo in an alley and it started punching them.
		And so for the next two weeks, all across northern Illinois and into Indiana, you had very credible witnesses seeing kangaroos hopping across their yards, leaving three-toed footprints.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And mirroring in many ways the early chupacabra reports.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		So I have used the collective name mystery kangaroos or phantom kangaroos because that's what the witnesses were calling them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that what you call a chupacabra or do you deliberately?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, I think chupacabras are something entirely else.
		You know, chupacabras are chupacabras.
		But I think that there's a merging line between some of these things that people are calling kangaroos, which I think may be more primate-related.
		And my book that's coming out in a whole year and a half, which is already written with the publisher, but sometimes publishers sit on books.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sometimes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Really talks about the whole idea that these kangaroos, as people are calling them, are really probably some form of primate.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And people will recognize what I'm talking about.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		We're going to break here at the top of the hour.
		But when we come back, what I want to ask you about is the source of these creatures.
		In other words, have they been around for a long, long time and they have simply successfully hidden from us?
		Is there the possibility that some of these creatures, whatever they are, are new?
		Because there are new creatures that appear on the Earth from time to time, right?
		Supposed to be, if evolution is as it is described.
		So they might be new, or, of course, there is a third possibility.
		They might be from elsewhere.
		Lauren Coleman, a world-famous cryptozoologist, is our guest, and we will be back.
unidentified		This is Coast to Coast AM.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Most famous cryptozoologists.
		We're talking about Bigfoot, Nessie, kangaroos that are not exactly kangaroos, the chupacabra.
		We're talking of many things.
		This man is a scientist.
		He has consulted for just about every major television program that you can imagine that deals with this sort of thing.
		He has been studying these animals for probably about, I don't know, 9 to 40 years.
		Traveled to 45 states, the Virgin Islands, Canada, Mexico, all over the place in search of.
		And so that's what we're talking about.
unidentified		Are you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, and we will get to phones.
		What about East Coasters?
		Great show, Tim.
		Well, it is a good question.
		It seems like the West, the Northwest, the Southwest has a disproportionate number of these stories, Lauren.
		What about the well, you told us about Ohio.
		What about the East?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I think the East is full of stories.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		You have Eastern Canada has the Wendigo stories.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is it what?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Wendigo.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, I don't know what that is.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Wendigo.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		W-I-N.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, no, I got that, but I mean, what is it?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		It's an Eastern type of Bigfoot.
		Okay.
		Florida and the South has what I've called napes for years and what locally different people call boogers or swamp apes or skunk apes.
		In Louisiana, you have the Honey Island swamp monster.
		Really?
		Of course, there's the famous Mothman from West Virginia.
		In Massachusetts, for many years, you had different reports of the Dober Demon, a little kind of four-foot-tall orange creature with a round orange head.
		And then all up one of the biggest things in the East, of course, is these reports of black panthers, which seem to be not mountain lions, but actually melanistic, you know, black felines, which are not supposed to exist.
		And there's hundreds and hundreds of reports of those.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you believe they exist?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I believe, yeah.
		I mean, I've found the tracks.
		I've talked to many people about them.
		It's just a whole volumes and volumes.
		They're sort of the Bigfoot of the East, as far as I'm concerned, these Panther reports.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, we'll get into more detail about these animals, but before the hour ended, I was sort of inquiring of you.
		One could imagine several possibilities.
		One, that we have a new animal or animals on Earth, that they have evolved and they are simply here, if you believe in evolution.
		I mean, it could happen.
		That's one.
		Two would be that these creatures are from elsewhere and that they pop in and out.
		I mean, there's been a million stories about dimensional holes and things like the chupacabra and things that just don't seem natural to Earth popping out and popping back again.
		Right.
		What do you generally subscribe to?
		I mean, or that they've been here all along is obviously number three and most likely, I suppose.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, I have a real, I mean, I think when I was younger and just getting into this, I looked into the psychic projection of the collective unconscious.
		In other words, were these animals projections of us and were they related to that?
		And I've really rejected that over the years because it's sort of using one unknown to explain another, which I think is a real problem.
		So let's look at chupacabra, for instance.
		You have a situation where I think you have patterns of wildlife that increase and decrease.
		And if you look at this globally, as far as anyway, the North America area with chupacabra, you may have had different reports and different kind of breeding populations of chupacabras different places.
		And there's been an explosion.
		And we don't exactly know what that's caused.
		Maybe more people having more wildlife that they can suck the blood out of.
		I don't know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, now, let me stop you there.
		Sure, and let's get into some details.
		The reports I've heard again and again, hundreds, if not thousands, of animals with the blood sucked from them.
		It is my understanding that a bat, even a vampire bat, will bite its victim and then lap up the blood.
		Sorry, folks, it's getting graphic.
		But there is no known creature that actually takes all the blood out of its victim, is there?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No.
		The vampire bat, like you said, it usually bites the toes and then licks the blood off.
		Yeah.
		And there are no animals that drain the blood.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How sure are we that all of these bodies that have been put on display by Mexican television, Puerto Rican television, even some U.S. TV, actually have had all the blood taken from them?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		We're not very sure.
		What happens after a livestock sits there for a while is the blood collagulates.
		It appears to be drained of blood.
		There's all kinds of different things.
		I think that Linda Howe obviously knows from investigating the cattle mutilation phenomena all through the 70s that there's natural predators like coyotes, different hawks and other things that are killing some of these animals, leaving them dead for 24 hours, 48 hours until their owners find them.
		And sometimes it's not related to anything mysterious.
		It's just a natural predator.
		And I think all of those natural predator deaths are being grouped under chupacabra.
		So even though I sense that there's some reality behind chupacabra, I think that this whole grouping of every mutilation, every blood draining, every animal that's being killed by something is a chupacabra.
		It's just the usual thing that happens at the beginning of any wave like this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, even Florida, here's one for you.
		Please ask Lauren if he's heard about a, in quotes, Bigfoot-like creature that lives and travels around the Florida Everglades.
		According to eyewitnesses, this thing, this creature, is so bad and stinks so badly, it literally drives people away from it with the smell.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's an interesting interpretation.
		It's called the skunk ape, and people who see it are scared of it, and it says it stinks, and they go away from it, but it's not driving people away from it because of the stink.
		It's just that's part of its natural odor.
		But the skunk ape has, there's two different variations on the skunk ape.
		One is they're large and Bigfoot-like, you know, bipedal, all of that.
		But the more prominent skunk apes are chimpanzee-like creatures that seem to go around on all fours, look like chimps, leave a footprint with a toe out to the side.
		And that very much mirrors reports all over the bottomlands and swamps of the South of these apes-like creatures that are not Bigfoot.
		They're something entirely different.
		They're more like a chimp.
		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Bigfoot.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Do you love Bigfoot, don't you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I certainly do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is Bigfoot probably a missing link or the link between ape and man, which seems a logical conclusion to jump to?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, there is no missing link that exists now because we're all evolved from things way back when fossil forms show us that we all have to be end results of these.
		So there's no missing link that exists now.
		These animals, the Bigfoot in the West, probably are a cousin, a relative, you know, somebody you would.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of ours.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, of ours.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that makes them, in a way, though, that makes them a missing link.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, they...
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Because they, you know, so I think it's just dangerous to say missing links because people really think that from that missing link that then we can evolve some other species.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And we're not quite sure that it happens that way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Lauren, is there any reason why a new species could not suddenly just show up on Earth?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, new species do evolve all the time because of environmental constraints, but sure they do show up all the time, so I'm not disagreeing with that.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		But the more complex the organism, the higher the primate, the less evolution, the less new species would happen very rapidly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What are the odds of another...
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		It's a dynamic process, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Dynamic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Then at some point, if not now, then later, another intelligent species of some sort should evolve, shouldn't it?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, it could.
		I mean, who's to say that cockroaches aren't already intelligent?
		They've been here longer than any of us.
		You know what I mean?
		Intelligence is relative.
		Dolphins are pretty bright.
		dinosaurs.
		Yes, yes.
unidentified		Yes, yes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Dolphins are pretty bright.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes, but couldn't they...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Isn't it possible that one of these others that are close could suddenly make the leap?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right, or they may have already.
		I think that Carlton Kuhn once said that who are we to say that the Yeti is not as bright as we are because if they're close to water, they don't work, they don't pay taxes, and they just get to live a life.
		Not to say that they're not brighter than us.
		He was being somewhat facetious.
		Well, they don't have TV or the Internet or a heater in their little So it all depends on what your definition of pleasure and comfort is But I mean I understand what you're saying if if mankind kills themselves though they'll probably kill these things before they can evolve to any kind of intelligent being But it is possible that one day one animal,
art bell ▲ ● ▼		a dolphin, perhaps a monkey, an ape, something or another will take the leap, I'm going back to Planet of the Apes and suddenly talk or begin to communicate in a rational way with humans.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Or, yeah, I mean, I think that what I try to do is look, we're very ethnocentric, humans are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And who's to say that the flashing of the skin patterns of the giant squid are not trying to communicate something to us, that the clicks of the dolphin already are saying things that we don't understand?
		So I think the intelligence is already out there.
		It's just that we're defining it in terms of us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're that bad, huh?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		We're not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		it's not bad I mean, we're very egocentric.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		But a scientist, Dale Russell, who studied dinosaurs up in Canada, felt that, you know, just through a slip of nature that we could have had bipedal, very brainy reptiles, you know, walking around among us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I would say then there is something good about the way nature has done its work because I wouldn't want that.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So anyway, all of this combined.
		Oh, and then there's another.
		What about this famous monster in the lake?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Loch Ness monster or Lake Champlain or.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Lake Champlain?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's begin with Loch Ness and then work our way toward Lake Champlain.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, almost all of the northern lakes, a little belt around the world, have reported a certain kind of lake monster that has a big hump on the back or two humps and a long neck.
		The surgeon's photo, the one that everybody looks at of the Loch Ness monster, which there was a big controversy, a deathbed confession that it was a hoax and all of that.
		Well, investigators have done all of the work and found out that that's probably an animate object in the water, but maybe an otter.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe an otter.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		So the pictures that are much more telling from Loch Ness show this huge, huge hump.
		And the running theory is that these things are giant otters or that they're prehistoric whales that may have survived, that are long and thin and look like a serpent.
		That's why you get the whole notion of sea serpent.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, whatever it is, there is something there.
		I mean, they've done the soundings.
		They've seen these monstrous things moving under the lake at immense speeds.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, it hasn't been publicized too much, but NOVA is going to have a program come on in the near future in which they went over there, very skeptical.
		NOVA, of course, is known for a science program.
		Yeah, it's a good science program, but it debunks a lot of people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure, sure it does.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And so they went over there to try to disprove Loch Ness, where they came back and they're going to shock everybody by their program is going to say that there is a Loch Ness monster.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're kidding.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, I'm not kidding.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		So that just came across the wire about a week or two ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you know when that's going to run?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, I've been trying to find out.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I think it may be as soon as a month from now or it may be the lead one for their new season next fall.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, Lake Champlain.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yep, there's all kinds of different lakes in the United States that have monsters, but probably the most famous investigated by a guy named Joseph Tsarzynski is Lake Champlain, which, of course, runs through, you know, between Vermont and New York and up into Canada.
		And it's a very similar-looking creature to the Loch Ness monster with the long neck and the big body.
		And, you know, there's probably six or seven good reports of it every year.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Kind of sounds like it's related to the dinosaur family, doesn't it?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's why the Pleistocene, you know, why, I mean, why the plesiosaurus, I'm sorry.
		The plesiosaurus was this large reptilian dinosaur-like creature was said to be the Lochnus monster.
		But, you know, even P.T. Barnum was involved in Lake Champlain.
		He offered a reward if anybody could bring it to him so he could exhibit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are there any reports that you're aware of of any of these creatures, don't protect them in your answer, Bigfoot to lake monsters consuming human beings?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Consuming human beings.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, or killing them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or killing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, or killing them.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I think it's interesting if you go different places.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		For instance, there's a place in the Northwest Territories called the Headless Valley.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The Headless Valley.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And there was reports of giant Bigfoot type creatures, let's call them for now.
		And for years and years, prospectors would go into the valley.
		They would either disappear or their bodies were found by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with their heads severed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not consumed.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Not consumed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Simply with their heads severed.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And some evidence that it was done by I don't know.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		The Royal Canadian Mounted Police would never say that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Stay right where you are with your head where it is, and we'll be right back.
		Lauren Coleman, a world-famous cryptozoologist, is my guest.
		Lauren Coleman, your call's coming up in a second.
		Lauren, why do you think, and I'm a victim, why do you think people really like monsters?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I think people like to get scared so that they can then master that scary feeling.
		And it's always nice to know that there's something unknown out there.
		So I think those are two big reasons.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let me relate something short to you.
		I think you're right.
		I think people, sort of right.
		I think people like to think about being scared.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They like to hear about some poor slug who got his head chopped off by something.
		But let me assure you, Lauren, one day I was talking about ghosts.
		I was doing a show on ghosts, and I had this gigantic kaboom on my door.
		And I've got to tell you, Lauren, I about lost it.
		You know, in other words, for a long time there, it was not fun.
		I was scared.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And if you really encountered one of these things, I think it wouldn't be as much fun as you think it might be.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, for you it might, because, of course, you know, that's your bread and butter, so to speak.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		For the average guy or gal, no.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No fun.
		Okay, there's a million people want to talk to you.
		People love this topic, so let's see what we've got here.
		First time, caller line, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
unidentified		Good evening, Art.
unidentified		Good evening, Lauren.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		My name is Fran, and I live in Springfield, Massachusetts.
		And in May of 1973, I was a Marine.
		We did a battalion-size exercise in an area of California known as KC Springs.
		We were told that there were no roads to get there.
		We were inserted by a helicopter.
		I was sent out on a midnight ambush with 15 other Marines.
		It was a computerized war game.
		It worked on the computer, so they send Marines out to see if it can feasibly be done.
		What we did was we were going after an aggressor force.
		We set up a linear-shaped ambush.
		It's shaped like an L. And when your victims walk into it, it's a computer kill.
		Well, we set up this ambush at midnight.
		And we had two individuals walk into our ambush, and we opened fire with blanks.
		And as it turns out, we thought they were bear.
		So we scrambled, shooting our blanks at these individuals, and they separated.
		One went one way, one went the other way.
		We got back to our PPB, which is our platoon-sized patrol base, and we told our lieutenant what had happened.
		He radioed it in to our commander, and this was the first night of a four-day war game, and it was canceled.
		We were given orders to light a large fire, to fix bayonet, and stand on a 360 around our blazing fire.
		All through that night, we heard high-pitched, the only way I can describe it is that of a deathball of a bear.
		And in the morning, we had two helicopters come in with base game wardens and some other fellas.
		To this day, I don't know who they are.
		We were made to bring them back to the area that this happened.
		Two of the individuals walked to where we directed them, and we were ordered to leave the area.
		And this is something that the Marine Corps does not do, is cancel computerized war games.
		There was over 3,000 Marines involved in this, and the logistics and the money that was spent on this, and it was canceled.
		In 1994, I was watching a Monsters and Myths program, and a fellow from Bothow, Washington got a tape of supposedly Bigfoot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I would imagine Lauren would know of that.
unidentified		Yeah, Mr. Cliff Crook, I think his name is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
		Let's stop there.
		The very infamous Crook photo.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You have any comments you want to make on that?
unidentified		A hoax.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		A hoax.
		Yeah.
		It looks like a little plastic thing in some water.
		Computer generated.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He brings up an interesting point, though.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that our government at any level officially might be aware that there are these creatures?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think it's very interesting what you said, because if they would have any evidence, any biotechnical evidence of it, it's probably in some file someplace.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And how many of us think about doing freedom of information requests to the darn right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you done any?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		When I wrote my book, Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti, I searched the FBI and CIA files for Tom Slick and Yeti information and got a few things.
		But I have not specifically asked, you know, the real problem is that you have to know what to ask for.
		You have to know exactly the right label, the right name, the right date, and if you get anything wrong, they can say there's nothing there.
		So when I found that the FBI was saying the CIA was investigating it, I went to the CIA and they said they had no files.
		I knew that I must be off by a word or something.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's right.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Very clever.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, good morning, gentlemen.
		This is John and Scott Still.
		Nice to talk to you again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, John.
unidentified		Your previous caller raised a very important point.
		Actually, two points I wish to discuss.
		First of all, a lot of the animal attacks you're talking about might be explained by the fact that more and more people are going into the wilderness unarmed.
		Unlike previously, predators are not stupid and they know this.
		Secondly, the suppression of evidence of hominoids is something that fits in with a lot of other topics you have on the show.
		You had a guest previously on your show, Lloyd Pye.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		And in it, he promulgates the theory that hominoids, as we know them, are the natural descendants of the planet Earth, and that human beings are created, genetically engineered creatures, self-evident in their own anatomy, and that that's what hominoids have been kind of pushed to the edges, but they are the natural descendants of the Earth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can embrace that concept.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, we are the ones living more unnaturally, if you will, than they're the ones living naturally.
unidentified		Right.
		Apes and presumably hominoids have 46 pairs of chromosomes where we have 20 or 40.
		They have 48, rather, we have 46, 23 and 24.
		I wonder what Mr. Coleman has to say about Mr. Pai's theory and what he might, if he's heard of him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, what about that?
		That many of the creatures we have talked about tonight and are talking about are the natural ones.
		We're the unnatural ones.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Well, I guess I have to differ.
		Coming from an anthropological, zoological background, I think that we are an animal.
		We are very much a naked ape.
		And that we have been bright enough to reconstruct our environment to make it do what we want it to do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But we're naked apes, huh?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		God, I hate that idea.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I know you do.
		Or we're the third chimpanzee, if you want to.
		There was another book that was called that.
		And I think that it's back to what I was saying about we're so close to it, we can't see how animalistic we are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Kind of interesting.
		Art, I work at a nuclear power plant, and myself and a friend of mine had a Bigfoot encounter at work.
		These happen several months apart.
		We work security and have to go deep into the woods to find a natural gas-fired plant.
		That's where my friend saw the pile of pine straw that was crouching beside the dirt road.
		He got out of the truck to unlock a gate and smelled something he described as rotten animal guts.
		He turned and saw this pile of straw get up and move into the woods.
		At this point, he left the area quickly.
		I never saw it, but I did smell something horrible on that same route.
		It was about 2,300 hours or so.
		I was going to get out of the truck at the same time, and that's when I smelled it.
		I heard a powerful bellowing sound in the woods, then crashing through tree sounds.
		Needless to say, I too got the hell out of there.
		It feels good to tell someone this story.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, I think that these creatures are great artists of camouflage, and that sounds like one of those cases.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Sounds like a good one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, Dr. Coleman.
		That's nice to speak to you again.
		Dr. Coleman, in the 70s, I worked for a research lab, and we used to get wild rhesus monkeys from South Africa to do research on.
		And my job was to handle the animals, to take them out of the cage for different types of tests and things.
		And during the courses that I had to take to be an animal handler, I was informed that they're ten times, a wild monkey is ten times stronger than a man.
		Now, a lot of these monkeys would weigh about 25 pounds and that makes them about a 250 pound strong person.
		And when I tried taking them out of the cage with double thick leather gloves, it was showed to me by a 25-pound monkey how very strong they can be.
		During these tests, they would have their canine teeth removed because they had a tendency to bite.
		They were from the wild.
		And they didn't particularly like the research work.
		The point to them getting to is that I go along with what you say about capturing or if you're going to shoot one of these things, shoot it with a knockout, an immobilizing compound of some kind.
		But then once you've done that, you talk about monsters and scary things and say this, Bigfoot doesn't want to be domesticated.
		I bet it doesn't.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		You should have a very strong cage.
unidentified		I can't imagine trying to handle a six to nine foot four to six hundred pound anything that doesn't want to be handled.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, that's exactly right.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		But we know we can do it with rhinos.
		We know we can do it with other large, several tonned animals.
		I mean, you know, I think that the technology is out there for us to study these animals and keep them safe and to keep us safe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If we did get one alive, Lauren, it seems to me it would probably be in a Bigfoot park soon, jumping through hoops or something.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, from everybody I know that's involved in this, I don't think that's probably true.
		Unfortunately, what has happened, though, is there's no really good funding around for this kind of research because it's still on the fringe.
		So who is going to do this?
		Who is going to go after and get the first Bigfoot?
		Is it going to be a person that's got a Jurassic Park type situation?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Who should do it, Lauren?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You tell me.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think it should be some university should get funded or some cryptozoological society that has a board of scientists.
		There's an organization, the North American Science Institute up in Hood River that's being privately funded for five years to do Bigfoot research.
		They're a continuation of the Bigfoot Project.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And I'm hoping that people will notice those kinds of organizations and give some funding and give some scientific backing to it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let us suppose that somebody, probably the government, they do this kind of thing all the time, suddenly graced you with a million dollars and said, settle the issue.
		Find or declare as not real Bigfoot.
		How would you go about, with enough resources, finding Bigfoot?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I would collect a group of five individuals who are very astute in the ways of the animals and just plant them in an area for six months.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And I think if you know what's going on over in Sumatra with the oranga pindek, which is a small ape-like, unknown ape-like creature that we're trying to find over there, that's exactly what they're trying to do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sentries, in effect, sentries in the woods.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And that's the way you find animals.
		You don't find it.
		Sir Edmund Hillary, when he went for the Yeti in the Himalayas, he went into a valley with 300 people.
		Now, you know that that's going to scare anything away.
		So you've got to plant yourself and become part of the landscape.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Makes sense to me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		This is Kathy from Phoenix.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		And I have a question and a comment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		I hadn't thought about it for years, but when you mentioned the kangaroos, in the town that I came from in the early 60s, there was a big to-do about kangaroo hopping around through the fields and what have you around the town.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Was this in the Midwest?
unidentified		Yes, it's a little town called Alton, Illinois.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.
unidentified		And half the county was out trying to run this thing down.
unidentified		No one ever found it that I heard of, but I thought it was kind of, I had never heard of ghost kangaroos before.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
unidentified		Anyway, the question that I have is, have you read a book or heard of a book called The Beast by Walter J. Sheldon?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Is it fiction?
unidentified		Yes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, no, no, I'm not real familiar with it.
unidentified		Well, it was so funny because I just finished reading this book and then you're on tonight.
		This was an area of land between Alaska and the Canadian border area up there, and they found a tooth.
		This is what started the book, the story.
		They found a tooth.
		And it was funny.
		You just mentioned that you'd have five people.
		In this book, they chose five people to go out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're kidding.
unidentified		Wow.
		No!
		Hunting for this Bigfoot.
		And they also had the story from the point of view of the Bigfoot.
		And they portrayed them as a large, tall, bipedal creature who were coming into being able to communicate with each other through signs and certain sounds.
		They didn't have a spoken language.
		And they referred to each other as, oh, say, for instance, big male with red hair.
		They used descriptive words to differentiate.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Joe, listen here, we're almost out of time here at the top of the hour.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you have a question?
unidentified		Yeah, I just wondered if he had heard that.
		And they had a tooth.
		Has there ever been anything like that that has been found?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Not like no bones or teeth yet.
		Nope.
		Not over in the United States.
		Some things over in Tibet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In Tibet.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, in Tibet they have different relics and hands and bones.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, what do they do with this evidence?
		I mean, this is significant evidence.
		I would presume that you could get DNA, for example, from a tooth.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, in 1991, on the Unsolved Mysteries program, they examined the Pan Boucher hand at the Berkeley DNA lab.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And they came back saying, this is an unknown, human-like primate, but we don't know which one it is because we don't have anything to compare it with.
		And this was from the hand of...
		That's as far as it goes.
		No, here's something we positively cannot explain, but The show was on in February of 92, and in May of 92, somebody stole the Pambouche hand from the monastery.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
		Dr. Coleman, stand by.
		We'll get right back to you, all right?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Sure, thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're at the top of the hour, Dr. Lauren Coleman is my guest.
		I'm Arthur.
		is Coast to Coast AM.
unidentified		My hair is hollow gold.
unidentified		It left sweet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		To Note for you on my website one, Keith in his normal way, has managed to get the Nightline facts up there.
		So if you want to see the actual facts from Nightline, it's on the site right now.
		Also, you'll note he mentions links at the top of the page.
		If you click on that, you will go to the page which has a story which is entitled What the WHO, World Health Organization, doesn't want you to know about cannabis.
		So many people requested that I put that up there, that I talked Keith into putting it up there, so there it is.
		All right, back now to Dr. Coleman.
		And I've got a fax here.
		It says, Art, I am of Native American background, and I'd like to say that our people have always known of Bigfoot's existence.
		We think of them as another tribe of humans.
		They, as well as we humans, are telepathic and can appear or disappear at will.
		They're highly advanced, intelligent.
		Should be obvious because they, as well as our Native American tribes, live in harmony with Earth by choice.
		Do you agree with that?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think that being Eastern Band Cherokee myself, I want to say that different First Nation peoples believe different things.
		So as far as this individual, that may be true among his group of people, but some individuals in the West, some individual tribal groups, believe these are flesh and blood creatures.
		Others of them believe they're more of the ghost world.
		But the baseline is that through all of these you find that there's large, hairy creatures that some of the old folklore talks about as cannibals.
		Some of the new folklore talks about them as just killing livestock and leaving big footprints.
		So it really varies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, one more for you here.
		Art in 1978, I had recently graduated from college, was living with my girlfriend in Carterville, which is located in northwest Georgia.
		One Friday evening, we were exploring some old logging roads in the hills north of Carterville.
		At the end of one of the roads, a few hundred feet uphill, we were sitting on the hood of my girlfriend's vehicle, stargazing.
		Suddenly, something emitted an intelligent but primal sounding scream, very nearly exactly like the one on the tape from Linda, and proceeded to then run through the brush, breaking tree limbs and logging debris as it moved down the hill directly toward our position.
		Now look, I'm a trained geologist, she a biologist, but we were petrified with fear as the obviously bipedal creature careened down the hill.
		It was probably about 100 feet away when we made good our escape back down the logging road in reverse.
		We never went up that hill again, even in daylight.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's a good case, and it's pretty typical.
		Here you have two scientists who aren't even willing to venture in and see if there's any traces or footprints.
		How are we going to find these creatures if geologists and biologists don't even want to are scared of them?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's a good point, but, you know, it's scary.
		It's like the moment, Lauren, people just don't think about, man, I'm going to go collect a footprint or I'm going to try to see if I can get some hair.
		It's more like, I'm going to see if I can get away alive.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I know, I know, I know.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I totally understand these folks, but on the other side of it, you know, it would be nice sometime if some of those people go back and get real evidence.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Coleman.
		Hi.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Doctor, Art.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		How are you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're fine.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Okay, I have one question for Art and several for the doctor.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		The first question is, you have a friend that's a Native American chief.
unidentified		I forget his name.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I have many in that area.
unidentified		Well, you mentioned, a few weeks ago, you mentioned that he...
		Yes, that he had went into the Rockies.
		Does that have anything to do, perhaps, with Bigfoot?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can't comment on that.
unidentified		You cannot?
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I'm sorry.
unidentified		My questions for the doctor are these.
		Many people believe that because of the concentration of Bigfoot sightings in Washington, that when Mountain St. Helens erupted, that it took out a large population of the Bigfoot.
		Big feet, actually.
		Do you believe that this is true?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I think when Mount St. Helens went up, it took out a lot of animals out, and there probably were a few Bigfoot in there.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I don't think the population density of Bigfoot is as much as bear, so I don't think it took that many out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Lauren Coleman.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
		Just Lauren Coleman.
		Hi, this is Corey from Colorado Springs.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Corey, hello.
		Get closer to your phone.
		You're kind of hollow sound.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I'm sorry.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I was calling, I was wanting to know how much attention the government pays to these studies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we kind of already went over that.
		There's no real way to know whether the government has information.
		We don't, with the exception of freedom of information requests, and then you've got to know exactly what to ask for.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And we certainly know they're not giving grants out for this stuff.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		But if somebody did find a Bigfoot or something like that, is there anybody paying attention to come in and seize that information and want to hide it from us?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there is a very good point.
		In other words, what evidence has been gathered in the past, Alarn?
		Has it been, you know, we talk a lot about the men in black people come steal things, and you mentioned something that was stolen that was a piece of hard evidence.
		Is there much of that going on?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Not really too much.
		I think the government's not too interested in this subject yet.
		I think if it blossoms into a real discovery, I think you're going to see a lot of governmental bodies around, especially if it's on forest land or national parks or something like that, which you hear the inkling of them being seen near atomic plants or things like that where there's kind of green belts around them.
		Or, you know, if one shows up in Area 51, I don't know.
		You know.
		You're going to have the government involved.
		But it's right now they're not really too interested that we know about.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		First time caller line, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hello.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Hi.
		My name's Dr. Kansky from New Jersey.
		I was wondering on the subject of evolution, Dr. Coleman, if you're familiar with the work of Dr. Michael Beatty.
		He wrote a popular book, Darwin's Black Box, where he points out that he basically argues that evolution was a theory that was designed on the gross morphological level of characteristics, and it has not really been brought to the level of precision to be testable in terms of cells and molecules.
		And he thinks that this is one of the very important topic.
		He has no philosophical problem with the possibility of evolution.
		But I think there's another comment to be made in that regard, which was introduced by Gilbert Chesterton, whose essay was collected in Martin Gardner's Great Essays of Science.
		In another essay, he pointed out that if you had two cars that were almost identical, like say the 98 or 99% similarity of DNA between us and the great apes, and if one of these cars suddenly took off like an airplane, whereas the other one didn't, the similarity actually increases the mystery rather than explaining it away.
		And I think that you talked about maybe giant squid or rational.
		I think that that's the kind of level that things have to be looked at in terms of abstract thought.
		None of the great apes that have been taught sign language have ever started discussing the justice of their imprisonment with us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that is a true statement.
		Although, Doctor, how much intelligence actually have we seen?
		I know that there has been a lot of sign language, and how far has it gone?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think there's been construction of new concepts by taking words that they knew and putting them together, like red ball means apple or something like that.
		And I think what people are looking for is beginning to show up where some of the great apes have taught language to other great apes, or at least sign language so then they can talk to the humans.
		But it's got a long way to go in that area, and there does seem to be some, there's just something missing with great apes as far as them having any motivation or the possibilities or potential for it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		But there have been great apes that seem to paint pictures of the places that they came from.
		That is true.
		And so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That is true.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		That's abstract.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And just this question.
		If we began to see sentience developing in apes, let us say, just as an example, how do you think man would react socially?
		How would we react?
		Would we begin to reclassify these animals, give them protections that they now might not enjoy, even rights, that sort of thing?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Perhaps, and I think that your question...
		Well, I think you'd have a battle among humans.
		I mean, you have it already among how to treat animals.
		And if you find out that Bigfoot is someplace in between, you're going to have even a bigger battle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		That's right.
		How do you imagine that coming out given present-day society?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, you're going to have a whole bunch of people that will think that they need to be studied and cut up and put in zoos, and there'll be other people that'll say maybe that they're yet another native Canadians or something.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you can look at it two different ways.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		West of the Rockies, you are on the air with Lauren Coleman.
		Good morning.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Hi, let's see.
unidentified		This is a question for Art Bell's guest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, he's right here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're going to have to speak up good and loud for us.
unidentified		Well, very good, yes.
		It's about an animal I saw in Taiwan, Taipei, in about 1986.
		I wanted to ask him about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, would you turn off your radio, please, sir?
unidentified		Sorry about that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Yes, my name is Art.
		I'm from Carmel.
		Okay.
		And I was on a trip to Taiwan in 86, about 86, and this little animal was in a cage downtown Taipei at night, kind of in the tourist area, and there had it for sale, and it was apparently for someone to eat, but it was a very strange-looking little, almost a fawn-looking creature, but it was tusked, had tusks, about the size of a fawn, had the same kind of molting on the back.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it sounds like a barking deer type, one of the dick dics or relations to that.
unidentified		I see.
		The two gentlemen that I was with, both Chinese, neither seemed to know its exact name, but they said it was native of Taiwan.
		It was fairly rare, but I always wondered what it was.
		Yeah.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think if you get a good mammal guidebook from East Asia, you'll be able to find it.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		They're quite common in the guidebooks.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There you are.
		Explained by modern science.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
		Good morning.
		I guess we missed you.
		Wow, Carline, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, this is Sharon from Georgia.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Sharon.
unidentified		And when I was a little girl, my mother, I don't know how much truth this is, maybe she was just trying to scare me, but she used to tell me about some kind of an animal That would come out at night, and she called him a catty mount.
unidentified		And it was kind of like a kangaroo.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you're a catty mount is an old regional name for a mountain lion.
		And some of the mountain lion reports talk about them bounding around on their back feet because actually mountain lions can stand up on their back legs.
		But a catty mount is a panther.
unidentified		Oh, okay.
		Okay.
		All right, thanks.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, I have had in my life exactly one encounter with a mountain lion.
		And I will never, for the rest of my life, I guarantee forget it.
		I was coming down the Las Vegas side of the mountain.
		We have a mountain between my little town and Las Vegas, big one, 5,500 feet.
		And I was just crested the top and was on the way down.
		And I'm telling you, Lauren, this mountain lion covered both sides of the road.
		This was the longest animal I had ever seen in my entire life.
		It was covering both lanes as it crossed.
unidentified		Wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I slammed on the brakes and missed it, but it really scared me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do they grow that long?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, some of them do, especially the ones out west.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		They can get quite big.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, man, this thing was gigantic.
		If I had hit it, I would have been dead.
		First time caller line, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Oh, hello, Lauren.
unidentified		Let me turn the radio down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, please.
		Always right away, folks.
		Come to you without notice.
unidentified		There, it's off.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, where are you?
unidentified		Sacramento, California.
unidentified		Listening to you on 6.50 KST a.m.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's the way to do it.
unidentified		Name is Brian.
		Anyway, I was always wondering if Sasquatch or Bigfoot could not be a descendant of Neanderthal.
		And I'll listen to his thoughts on that off the air.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Okay.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Neanderthals are much shorter than the reported listings of Bigfoot.
		Neanderthal, a lot of Russians believe that there may be surviving Neanderthals in East Asia and the Far East and different places like that.
		But it doesn't seem to be at all.
		Neanderthals used weapons.
		They used clothing.
		They used a much more cultured way of living that we don't see with Bigfoot.
		So behaviorally, fossil evidence, height, everything points to these creatures that are called Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest not being Neanderthal.
		But Neanderthals, you know, the one caller was talking about the strength of monkeys?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Neanderthals were so strong that they could pick up a linebacker and throw them through the goalpost.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		So the strength of some of these quote-unquote prehistoric men and women were quite a lot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's go east to the Rockies, I guess.
		You're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Yes, it's Ken from Thunder Bay, Ontario.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		I'm just wondering, you know, with the Bigfoot and Chupa cover, is it some kind of government experiment gun or eye?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, oh, that, you know, there is a possibility that I had not covered.
		Thank you.
		We are experimenting genetically and doing all kinds of things, not all of which work.
		I mean, look at Dolly, the cloning of Dolly.
		I forget, they did 100 or 200 or 300 clonings before they finally got it right, they say.
		So is it not logical to presume that either in government black ops programs or even privately in labs around the country, people are tinkering?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, anything's possible.
		We all know that.
		But in my universe of looking at things, there's so many unknowns and such a long, long thousand-year history of hairy hominoid reports that it seems not consistent with the evidence.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But there could be a mix, right?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		So it's not what I see, but I don't diminish the reality for other people of that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If you were to take all the collective evidence, Lauren, and do you think you could go into a court of law and prove that there is a Bigfoot?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's been done.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Ray Crowe in the Western Bigfoot Society has for a few times in this last decade done mock trials in which he's taken Bigfoot evidence into court and the jury of people that weren't Bigfooters have come up with the verdict that this was a real animal.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Hold it right there.
		We'll be right back with you.
		We're at the bottom of the hour.
		If you have a question for Lauren Coleman, we've got another 30 minutes ahead of us.
unidentified		I'm Art Bell, and this is Coast to Coast A.M. How are you coming on those New Year's resolutions?
		Pretty much just...
		Crily screaming
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Lauren, any idea what that might be?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Somebody's recording of a Bigfoot.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Is it from Washington State?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I really, at this point, couldn't tell you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I have collected these as people have sent them to me, but that's a pretty terrifying sound.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's pretty good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You think that might be close to the real thing?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I'd say 60-40.
		I'd want more information.
		I think like any of these films, any of these tapes, I'd like to hear more about who put them together and who's sending them in.
		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A question for you.
		Do you have any knowledge about sightings of, quote, big black birds?
		Now, this is from John in New Jersey.
		Where I live, Lauren, we have the biggest birds I have ever seen in my entire life.
		I mean, these are monsters.
		They're 20, 30 pound birds.
		They're gigantic.
		They're so big that half the time they can't get themselves off the ground.
		You know, it's like it's almost comical watching them try to get into the air.
		They finally do, but I've hit a couple with a car.
		They're so slow.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, the turkey vultures and black vultures along the east coast have been going more and more in their distribution.
		So a lot of people who are not familiar with their local bird lore and bird distribution are missing these.
		And so it sounds like one of those.
		I think that a friend of mine, Mark Hall in Minnesota, who wrote a book, Thunderbirds, I think there are definitely some large, bigger than condor-like birds through Alton, Illinois, for instance, that woman that talked about the kangaroos.
		I grew up in Decatur, Illinois, and lots of reports through the Midwest, the Ozarks, into the Black Forest of Pennsylvania.
		You have these Thunderbird-like creatures.
		And of course, being out west, there's a whole lore of them out there, of course.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
		All right, back to the phones we go.
		First time caller line, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		I'm Martha in California.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Martha.
unidentified		And I have picked berries with Bigfoot.
		You have picked berries with Bigfoot.
		Now, I had a stoke, so you have to kind of put up with me here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're doing fine.
unidentified		I was kidnapped at a young age and kept in the closet or in the closet until out grew the closet.
		And they left the door open.
		Used to keep my arms with handcuffs.
		So they left the door open, and I went outside.
		I didn't know very much.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		May I speak with you already, Martha?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Who kidnapped you?
unidentified		They're dead now, and I'm working on a case about that.
unidentified		So I don't want to tell too much about it.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Human beings.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Human beings.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, all right.
unidentified		All right.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've got you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Okay.
		So I went outside, and not knowing what people look like, I picked berries.
		And these were what I think they are, vegetarians.
		And these were plum bushes, wild plum bushes.
		And at that time, there was hardly any food.
		I'm 77.
		That's when I was about 10 years old.
		And one came up.
		I walked up and I thought this with Lauren Coleman.
		Hello.
		I'm Martha in California.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Martha.
unidentified		And I have picked berries with Bigfoot.
		You have picked berries with Bigfoot.
		Now, I have a stoke, so you have to kind of put up with me here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're doing fine.
unidentified		I was kidnapped at a young age and kept in the closet or in the closet until Howell grew the closet.
		And they left the door open.
		Used to keep my arms with handcuffs.
		So they left the door open, and I went outside.
		I didn't know very much.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		May I say, Martha, who kidnapped you?
unidentified		They're dead now, and I'm working on a case about that.
		So I don't want to tell too much about it.
		Human beings.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Human beings.
unidentified		Yes.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I see.
unidentified		All right.
unidentified		I've got you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Okay.
		So I went outside, and not knowing what people look like, I picked berries.
		And these were, what I think they are, vegetarians.
		And these were plum bushes, wild plum bushes.
		And at that time, there was hardly any food.
		I'm 77.
		That's when I was about 10 years old.
		And one came up.
		I walked up, and I thought this was a lady.
		And she was standing on the opposite side off the bush.
		And then she noticed me standing there, and she ran.
		And he had someplace.
		So then the next day, I went out again, and there was a young lady.
		I call her young lady.
		They have brown, long brown hair, probably about two feet long, brownish, reddish-brown hair, and they smelled high heaven.
		And she didn't have any, there were no plums.
		So she was going to walk away, and I motioned to her to come back.
		They have a lot of scents, and they're not animal, and they're not human.
		I motioned for her to come back, and I screamed at her, and I made a motion to come toward me, and she came back.
		I went inside, and all we had was a piece of bread.
		So I went out, and she didn't know what the bread was, and I tried to put it in her mouth, and I put some in my mouth, so she put it in her mouth, and she spit it out, because I guess she's a vegetarian, never eaten anything like that before.
		Then another time I went out, and it was a man, I'm sure, because I was handing him some of the plums, and I thought, well, I'll save this little one because I know it makes you sick when you eat green plums.
		So I was picking all these and had one little piece underneath my little finger.
		And I gave, this was like a man.
		You can tell the difference in whether they're a man or whether they're female or young.
		And so I handed them the plums, and he practically tore my hand off trying to get the other plum off.
		And then he hit me in the head twice.
		And just before he did that, he has a kind of a guttural.
		I knew he was talking to me.
		He was mad because I was not giving him all the plums.
		And he has a kind of a guttural like a man would be talking under, uh, down in his stomach.
		And I know that they have a language.
		Let's see what else I can.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're sure of all this?
unidentified		Absolutely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It wasn't the imagination of a 10-year-old who had been locked in the middle.
unidentified		Absolutely, no.
		Absolutely not.
		My son thinks that, too.
		And I also have something I want to say to Linda Moshow about how this silver thing is made.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, that would be the subject of another call.
		That's a remarkable story, Doctor.
		Have you heard others like that?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think if we take all of the abuse, which is kind of noise, you know, if we take all of that away, and it's an important element and variable to look at and wonder about this woman and her fantasy worlds and things like that.
		But looking at the whole idea that 10-year-olds in the Pacific Northwest, it's very interesting that there's lots and lots of reports of kids between six and ten years old seeing these creatures and these creatures not being afraid of them.
		Almost as if they know there's no threat from children.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I almost felt like I was listening to the old lady talk about the Titanic in the movie.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a remarkable story.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And she sounded very credible to me.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, she sounds sincere and like it was just a regular normal experience for her.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
		Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning to you both.
unidentified		This is Tom from Streamlined, Illinois.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Tom.
unidentified		Two quick questions.
unidentified		One was, I was wondering if your guest was aware of the story, I believe it was from Brazil, of the giant anaconda that came crashing through the forest, knocked down houses.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is one of the areas that Lauren Coleman has definitely investigated, gigantic snakes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Lauren, what can you tell us?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's lots of reports going back to the 1920s of giant anacondas.
		They're huge, you know, over 100 feet long.
		And I think there's this recent report, of course, that people are saying it's 130 feet long and, you know, did a swat through the forest and different things like that.
		There's definitely something down there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I saw the movie Anaconda, which I thought was ridiculous.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that was an over-exaggeration of a cryptozoological mystery.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But there are, if I saw 130-foot snake, boy, am I going the other way.
		It would be monstrous.
		Caller, anything else?
unidentified		Yeah, my second question was, I was wondering how it is that these small monkeys and Neanderthals have such a greater physical capability strength-wise than humans do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ah, very good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, a very good question.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		We're a very fragile animal.
		And Neanderthal had a bone structure that's twice as thick as ours.
		So that bone structure anchored a muscle structure that was dynamically much heavier than ours.
		So it's just basic physics, you know, and we're a very frail creature.
		I think that's why the whole theory that we may be an aquatic ape, one that evolved near water or near the ocean, and that's one of the reasons why we lost our hair, you know, we wouldn't have needed that much strength in the early water days.
		So, you know, that's just another theory, but we're a very fragile ape.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Eastern.
		First time callers, area 702-727-1222.
		And you're not allowed to use your last name on the air, so I'm going to have to bleep that out, and we'll start all over again.
		John, is your first name, and where are you calling from?
unidentified		And this is from Minnesota.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Minnesota, okay.
unidentified		And 15 years ago, I seen a strange animal chase my cat up the tree, and it was just this black, hideous thing.
		And a few years ago, I seen a picture, and it kind of looked like a Tasmanian devil.
		Uh-huh.
		But this thing looked like a crossbreed or something, and I didn't know what the heck.
		And I've never seen one before.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there anything that would be in that part of the world?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, it could have been a badger or a wolverine or a koi dog.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I mean, there's lots of things in Minnesota that sort of look like a fast-moving Tasmanian devil.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Mm-hmm.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They would chase cat, if you're not.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, wolverines would eat a cat.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They'd eat a cat.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so do coyotes.
		That's why mine stays inside.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
unidentified		Hi.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Hello?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		How you doing?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		All right, Lauren.
unidentified		Good morning, gentlemen.
unidentified		Where are you?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		This is Graham calling you from the top of the Okanagan, Vernon, British Columbia.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		I'm just barely getting you on 1510 KGA from Spokane.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I actually emailed you a while ago about that.
unidentified		I don't know if you got it or not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't know.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		His mailbox is full.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I know that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it is.
unidentified		No kidding.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Actually, yeah, I've actually just moved to this part of the country a couple years back from.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Ogopogoland.
unidentified		Well, this is what I was wondering, if you know anything about the suspected little critter that we have down in our lake here.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, Ogopogo is very famous, a little lake monster that in many ways is very similar to the Loch Ness monster and the Lake Champlain monster.
		And there's even some good films and photographs of Ogopogo.
		It's got a great long history.
		Yeah, I noticed that you sort of segued from Loch Ness directly into the Lake Champlain creature that I wasn't even really aware of.
unidentified		And I thought that Ogopogo was one of the more famous purported lake monsters in existence.
unidentified		I was kind of interested.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I wanted to hear if you know anything that you might have known about it.
		Yeah, I know about it.
		I've been there.
		I visited your beautiful lake and read the plaque and all of that.
		And it's a great place to be, Peachland, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We've got to assume one of two things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If there are monsters in this many lakes, either people make up stories about lakes as a normal course of events worldwide, not just here, or there really are monsters in lakes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yep, and it could be a combination of both.
		Lake Okanagan and Lake Champlain, Loch Ness, are very, very deep lakes.
		Loch Ness may be over 400 feet deep.
		And so the reports from some of those lakes are much more substantial than some of the shadow lakes that you get.
		People turning big fish into monsters.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that makes me ask a question.
unidentified		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Recently, I have done a number of shows on what appear to be endless holes in the ground.
		The northwest is replete with them.
		They're all over the place.
		I've got a picture of one on my website.
		Holes that go so deep that nobody can measure them.
		Now, maybe it sounds a little weird, but is it not possible that there would be creatures that would inhabit these holes more or less as a natural habitat that occasionally might come on up?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		I've run across reports from Indiana and Kentucky of these deep holes with strange creatures in them, sometimes with claws and different things, almost like lobster-like animals, kind of big ones.
		But yeah, some of the people who have done research over in Loch Ness feel that there's an underwater tunnel between Loch Ness and the ocean.
		And there's all kinds of possibilities, and sure of those things probably have animals.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we are now discovering that at the very deepest parts of our ocean where there is volcanic venting, there is life, which seems to say that wherever there is an environment, no matter how harsh it may seem to be, somehow there is some kind of life that adapts to it and thrives in it.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, nature will find a way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Precisely.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, Art.
unidentified		This is O.J. I'm a truck driver.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		I'm near Carthage, Missouri right now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		About a year ago, somebody faxed you about finding an old trunk, and there was a bunch of newspapers in it from the 20s or 30s.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		And they had found an Indian burial ground in Wisconsin or Minnesota, somewhere up there.
unidentified		And amongst the, when they were digging it up, they found skeletons that were eight, nine feet tall.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		You recall that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do, yes, of course.
unidentified		Did you ever hear any more from them, people?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Nary, another word.
unidentified		How about the doctor?
unidentified		Does he know anything about that?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		There's quite a few stories from the turn of the century about giant skeletons being found in Minnesota, Wisconsin, all the way over to Greenland.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And we're trying to dig up some of these stories because it would be great to backtrack and find some of these bones because they seem to fit right in with the Bigfoot picture.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Doctor, do you have any books that you have written?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, you have two, right?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		No, I have about eight.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You have eight?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		In that area, and then I've got eight others in the human service area.
		But Mysterious America, Curious Encounters, Tom Flick, and the Search for the Yeti.
		This book coming out in April of 1999 with Patrick Weach, a science writer from Omni.
		It doesn't have a title yet, but it's going to look at the international Bigfoot picture around the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are these generally available, the ones that are already out?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are they in circulation at bookstores?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, Faber and Faber in Boston may have a few copies, but most of them are out of print and found in old bookstores or different places like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about if somebody wants to get hold of you?
		Do you have a website?
		Do you have an email address?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, email address would be great.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		It's L V O L E M A. It was slower.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do that again, please.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		L L and then the first part of my name, Coleman without the N on it.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		C O L. C-O-L.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		E-M-A.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		And then the numeral 1.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		At Maine, like the state with the E on the end of it.
		So main.rr.com.
		And also, I'm in most search engines.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		L C-O-L-E-M-A1 at Maine.rr.com.
		Right.
		All right.
		There are many people, I'm sure, who will want to communicate with you about much of what you've said tonight and ask you questions and so forth.
		So that is the way to do it, folks.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
unidentified		Great.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		One more.
		I think we have time for one more.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Lauren Coleman.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning, gentlemen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		I'm in Orlando, Florida.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you're going to have to yell at us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're not too late.
unidentified		You're going to be better now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, oh much.
unidentified		I'll be good.
		I have a question.
		Back in the mid-50s, I recall as a child, there was a discovery out on either the St. Nicholas Islands or on Catalina Island.
		And they discovered a lead coffin there with bodies in there.
		And I think one was 10 or 12 foot tall, well preserved.
		Do you recall that?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		I've not heard of that one at all.
unidentified		A friend of mine reiterated that same story to me.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		He was from the same area.
unidentified		We were talking about that just the other day.
unidentified		I was just curious if you'd heard of it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A lead coffin?
unidentified		It was a lead-lined coffin.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You wouldn't even want to consider what would have to be buried in a lead-lined coffin.
unidentified		Indeed.
unidentified		I just thought he might have heard something about it.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Good story.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, thank you.
		All right.
		Any final words for all the people out there who probably say this guy is a crackpot?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the evidence speaks for itself, and we're turning up, you know, 10 to 20 new mammals a year, and we have to just keep looking.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I appreciate your being here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I appreciate your expert testimony, Lauren, and we'll Have you back because we're always bumping into new weird things here?
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Great art.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		It's been fun.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take care, my friend.
loren coleman ▲ ● ▼		Take care.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's Lauren Coleman, who is a leading cryptozoologist in the whole world.
		And so I suppose if you want to say, as many will, well, boy, he was a crackpot, go ahead.
		But he's a scientist, and you just heard it from his own mouth.
		Well, that's it.
		In some markets, we've got an hour of open lines ahead.
		In others, 99.

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