The Bigfoot Society podcast catches a glimpse of the enduring power of cryptids

SAM DINGMAN: Recently, our producer Ayana Hamilton told me about a fascinating podcast. It’s called the Bigfoot Society. In every episode, the host, Jeremiah Byron, interviews someone who’s had an encounter with a creature they think is a sasquatch.

What intrigued us about this project is that The Bigfoot Society is a daily show, and it’s been running for years. Byron has released over 1,000 episodes of this show, and he says he can’t keep up with the number of calls he gets from people wanting to tell their stories.

He has spoken to witnesses all over the world, including here in Arizona. And it struck me that, in trying to capture all of these experiences, Byron has given himself a really massive job.

So when I got the opportunity to talk to him, I asked him why he finds these stories so compelling.

Full conversation

JEREMIAH BYRON: Bigfoot and cryptids, they're the last great mystery I think that we have in the world today. You're not gonna find the answers by doing a Google search about Bigfoot. You actually have to go out there and figure it out yourself.

DINGMAN: So there's something about the fact that no one can give you the answer. You have to seek it out.

BYRON: Exactly.

DINGMAN: I have to ask, have you ever had a cryptid or a Bigfoot encounter?

BYRON: Sure, I've had a few really interesting things happen.

There's an area that I go out to in central Iowa that my friend showed me, and we've had some really interesting things happen out there. Everything from, I've heard whoops in the woods, wood knocks — which is when, you know, they'll make a noise that sounds like someone knocking on a tree. Whoops will sound kind of like gibbons in the zoo.

Also in Oregon, in an area called Oak Ridge out in the woods in the Willamette National Forest, I was out for a festival called Sasquatch Summerfest, and we were roared and screamed at by something out in the woods, and we were about 20-30 miles out there. Just some very, very strange things have occurred out there.

DINGMAN: Can you tell me how those experiences made you feel?

BYRON: Yeah, no, that's a great question. Excited. When you experience something like that, you see footprints in the same area that are 16 inches long, and you're like, "Wow, this thing that I've talked to people about for years, it's actually real, and there's something happening out here."

And it just, it just totally blows your mind when you're out there in the woods and all of a sudden things get extremely quiet and the pressure starts changing in your ears. It's the hardest thing to describe, but it's also the most fun experience ever.

DINGMAN: From the way you're talking about it, it sounds like it's almost a sensation that something is about to happen, something's about to be revealed or to change in my life that will in some way shape everything that happens after this moment.

BYRON: Absolutely. And you know, a lot of witnesses before they have their Bigfoot encounter, they'll even report, it feels like they'll go through some static electricity type field.

And it reminds me of a report I just took actually from the Alpine area of Arizona, where an individual in the mid-’70s, he was out in the woods near Alpine. And he saw what he said looked like a wavy cloud. Everything went quiet. There was static electricity around him, and he saw a Bigfoot actually walk out of this cloud or perhaps even a portal.

DINGMAN: So I have to ask Jeremiah, when you hear a story like that, do you believe definitively that this sasquatch really did emerge from this distorted field that this person is reporting to you?

BYRON: The way that I pursue this is I am giving a spot where these witnesses can share what's on their chest or what they experienced and not be laughed at, and sometimes I let the individual talk for as long as 40-50 minutes without butting in because they've never been able to talk to someone about that before.

So I'm not there to figure out if they're truthful or lying. I think that they experienced what they said they experienced, and there's so many things in this field where we don't understand. Science can't explain why it is that some people hear them in their heads like telepathy. There's so many weird things.

DINGMAN: I'm glad you brought up this idea of people reaching out to you because they have a story they want to tell. Because one of the things that's really remarkable to me about your show, the Bigfoot Society podcast, is that you have over 1,000 episodes, and you started in 2019. And you are releasing these episodes, am I right, on a daily basis?

BYRON: Yes, it, it is,quite the time management practice. And the reason I do this, Sam, is because there are so many people reaching out to me every day. I get at least five to six new individuals reaching out to me, and a lot of these are people that haven't talked about it for 20-30 years, and they're like, "I've got to talk to someone."

So this is really the way that I feel that I'm helping out.

DINGMAN: But you know, it's interesting to me, and I'm curious to know if this is something you've thought about. One of the reasons for me that it's very engaging to listen to, regardless of what one thinks about sasquatch, is that just by nature of what these callers are telling you about, no matter what, it's a really good story.

And I want to play a clip. This is from another one of your Arizona episodes. You'll probably recognize it.

This is a woman named Brenda, and she's talking about an encounter that she had, she was sitting in her house one night and she heard a sound on the porch.

BRENDA ON RECORDING: So I'm like, someone is on the porch because I could, I could hear — you know porches, a lot of them, they have the squeaking sound, right? And so I'm like, OK.

I thought, oh, maybe it's just, you know, the kids from next door, their dad or their mom or somebody's trying to scare us. You know, that's what I'm thinking. A few seconds later, I could see the doorknobs turning, like someone's trying to get to open the door.

BYRON ON RECORDING: No way.

BRENDA ON RECORDING: And I'm like, OK, what the heck? So I, I told my brother, I said, open the door. Let's see who it is.

DINGMAN: Now how could you hear that story and not want to know what happens next?

BYRON: Exactly. It's really, it is funny to hear myself. That's an old episode, and …

DINGMAN: Yeah, that one's from the 2023, if people want to find it.

BYRON: Right. I've gotten to the point where, you know, I will just be quiet and listen, but I mean sometimes it's hard not to react, right?

DINGMAN: Of course. 

BYRON: You want to hear what happens next, yeah, of course.

DINGMAN: Well, I also think that clip is such a nice illustration of your style as a host, which is what we were just talking about. You're really right there with her. You're like hanging on every word, and you can hear that in the audio.

I'm sure you must get criticism from some people who feel like you're elevating stories that are impossible to prove or indulging people who are fixating on something that isn't real and that's harmful somehow.

What is your answer to those kinds of criticisms? I imagine you must get them from time to time.

BYRON: I have gotten those before in the past. And really the way that I answer is that I'm there to help out an individual. You have to realize that a lot of these individuals they haven't been able to sleep for 20 years just because of what happened to them. And at the end of the interview, a lot of these, you know, older witnesses will say, "Thank you, I can actually go to sleep tonight."

If I'm able to help out people that have experienced these type of encounters, then I can go to sleep as well.