Bigfoot, Not Deer & Other Cryptids

Something is “off” in the woods, your dog freezes, and suddenly every harmless shadow has a pulse. We follow that feeling straight into the world of cryptids, starting with the perfectly named “Not Deer” and ending with the question that haunts every Bigfoot thread: if everyone has a camera now, why is the evidence still so hard to come by?

We dig into Sasquatch lore through personal stories and modern reporting, from a childhood “secret racetrack” in tall grass that later starts to sound like a Bigfoot nest, to a family member’s sighting of multiple Bigfoot figures moving fast between Iowa cornfields near the Raccoon River. We also explore how Bigfoot sightings stack up against black bear sightings, why some locations show up again and again in BFRO-style databases, and what makes classic footage like the Patterson-Gimlin film so sticky in the public imagination.

Then we get practical and a little skeptical: expedition groups bring serious tools like specialized audio recorders, software analysis, infrared, and night vision, but weather can wreck everything and hard ground can erase footprints before they ever form. We also talk about the reality of “capture the moment” panic, why even good phones struggle with distance and darkness, and how AI-generated video makes the trust problem even messier for cryptozoology, paranormal stories, and UFO-style sightings.

If you love Bigfoot, Mothman, local monster legends, and the psychology of why we believe, listen now. Subscribe, share with a friend who hikes, and leave a review so more curious people can find us. What cryptid do you swear lives near you?

Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Heidi: My sister and I were kind of going over old memories, childhood memories one night months ago, and I brought up, Hey, do you remember that mashed down part of the field that we found it was like a racetrack and we raced our bikes around in it.

[00:00:18] Heidi: The grass was so high, it felt like a secret hiding spot. We didn't know who made it. My sister brings up like, do you remember that giant rock that went by your head and almost hit you while we were, while, yes.

[00:00:31] Heidi: While we were racing around on our bikes. And I said, oh my gosh, I do remember that. And back then we thought it was supernatural. We thought it was like, oh my gosh, a ghost threw that. But thinking back on it now as adults, after we know all the Bigfoot signs and everything, it's like, oh my gosh, I think we found a Bigfoot nest. And he was probably trying to like, scare us off.

[00:00:55] Etienne: Welcome listeners. This is The Women Are Plotting. I'm Etienne Rose Olivier and I'm here with my friends and co-hosts, Heidi Willis and Jane Gari.

[00:01:10] Etienne: On today's episode, we're gonna be talking about cryptids, and I wanted to give the definition of cryptids for anybody who does not know. So cryptids are animals or other beings whose present existence is disputed, or unsubstantiated by science. There is a list in Wikipedia of all the different cryptics and I came upon something that I figure we're probably not gonna talk about in the episode, so I could just talk about it for a second here. 

[00:01:40] Etienne: It's something called Not Deer is the name of it. So, it doesn't have a cool name, like Sasquatch or something like that. It's literally called Not Deer. And Not Deer are variously described as looking like a deer, but there being something wrong with them, such as having the forward facing eyes of a predator or eyes that are just judged to be too close together, or a neck that's too long, or a head that's misshapen, or legs that are judged to be too short and are jointed or move in unnatural ways.

[00:02:10] Etienne: And these sightings have been happening mostly within Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Connecticut. But there's also been reported sight readings as far away as Texas and Norway. So I thought that was interesting. I just love that it's called Not Deer.

[00:02:26] Heidi: Yeah.

[00:02:26] Jane: That is so weird.

[00:02:29] Etienne: Oh my

[00:02:29] Jane: I am thinking that maybe Not Deer are deer plus mushrooms, but, so my fun, weird fact, is 

[00:02:50] Jane: about Bigfoot, which is a cryptid, and it was over the past 50 years, there have been more than 10,000 reported Bigfoot sightings in the US alone. And I thought that that was an insanely high number. And then I also found that a statistical study saw that as the number of local black bear sightings increases, so do bigfoot sightings, and there's not necessarily an exact correlation there, but it's maybe kind of like the Not Deer thing, like maybe some sightings might be misidentified bears, but it's like they would have to be on their haunches, know what I mean? Like they'd have to be standing up on their hind legs, but the deer that you were describing, Etty, sound very freaky to me. If I saw a deer that was looking straight at me, like the, the eyes of

[00:03:29] Etienne: The eyes are in the front. Yeah.

[00:03:31] Jane: like moving strangely, I would be, uh, I would be terrified personally and yeah.

[00:03:38] Etienne: I would be too, because deer just made are really beautiful and I love whenever I spot a deer, so I spot a freaky one. All right. That just would throw me way off.

[00:03:48] Jane: You would be like, that's a Not Deer.

[00:03:50] Etienne: Yep. I've seen a cryptid.

[00:03:55] Jane: So Heidi, what is your fun or weird fact?

[00:03:57] Heidi: So mine is also a Bigfoot one. So the British Explorer David Thompson is sometimes credited with the first discovery of a set of Sasquatch footprints, and hundreds of alleged prints have been done up since then. Whatever. So the legend grew in 1924 after five gold prospectors claimed to have had a violent encounter with a gorilla man in the gorge. And so I guess rumors spread. But I also heard that the Native Americans in America have their own lore about Bigfoot so I don't know.

[00:04:33] Etienne: Hmm.

[00:04:34] Heidi: Anyway, that came from. The Britannica website. 

[00:04:37] Jane: I personally don't think that believing in Bigfoot is that weird because there have been times, and this is like my only, I don't have a personal bigfoot sighting story or anything like that, but I will say that I spend a lot of time in the woods. I love hiking. I have my whole life. I like going to remote areas. And there have been times where I am driving at night after a long hike and we're just in a remote area, and even if I'm with other people, I'm like, oh my God, this is how I see Bigfoot. Like, I feel

[00:05:10] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:05:11] Etienne: is how I see

[00:05:12] Jane: I felt almost like on the verge of a sighting, if that makes any sense. Like that we've all been walking quietly in the woods and it's it dusk or we're finally back in the car and we have to ride on some road that's really just weird and you're just hoping no one's coming in the other direction 'cause there's just not enough room for you to pass both ways.

[00:05:28] Jane: And I just feel like, okay, this is how we're about to see Bigfoot, you just feel like there's something, like out of the corner of your eye, you see something. Or there was one time we were hiking with our dog and Tessa was staring at something intently and her hackles were up and she was growling.

[00:05:44] Jane: And my dog just does not, I mean, Etienne and Heidi have both been around this dog. She just doesn't act like that unless something's weird. And she's just staring into the woods and we're like, she sees something and we don't, and we're staring at it like one of those 3D posters just waiting for the image to materialize.

[00:06:00] Jane: And to this day, we think that she saw something that was supernatural, but we also said, well, is it Bigfoot? And he's just like, super camouflage right now, but the dog knows. Um, and I don't know, but I don't 

[00:06:13] Heidi: have a better sense of smell and

[00:06:15] Jane: yeah 

[00:06:16] Heidi: I think animals are more in tune with energy, you know? 'Cause we all kind of give off energy and you can sense it or you don't, and dogs definitely can.

[00:06:27] Jane: She was doing like the pointing thing, but she wouldn't growl at a deer. I've seen her see a deer

[00:06:31] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah, 

[00:06:32] Jane: I haven't seen her see a, Not Deer though, so maybe who knows

[00:06:37] Heidi: yeah.

[00:06:39] Jane: but Heidi knows someone who's seen Bigfoot.

[00:06:42] Heidi: So, our whole family is kind of Bigfoot nut jobs. So, my niece actually saw an entire family, apparently, when she was younger, like 11 or 12. And she was walking around town. This is like a rural Iowa town, so cornfields everywhere. So her and her little friend were walking back, I think, from getting snacks or something, and they're walking back to the neighborhood. There's a cemetery there, cornfields, and she sees it first. She sees, I guess the three, there was two big ones and like a smaller Bigfoot. She saw it first and they quickly, like within one or two steps, they're across the road, right? Like just boom. So quick. So by the time she was able to get a, you know, like, oh my God, look at this. Her friend only saw the adult and the younger one, so she only saw the two, but they were going from one cornfield to another. And what the theory is is like the raccoon rivers right nearby, and so they probably travel along the rivers and stuff. That's where a lot of sightings happen and that's where the Bigfoot group went to that I went with on a expedition this past August and we were by the Mississippi River and doing investigations out there and in one of the state parks. And it was really interesting.

[00:08:06] Heidi: We heard some stuff, didn't see anything, it was not the best weather. So, we didn't get to do too much of the night searches and hunts. But we did hear some stuff that was a little weird. And I oh, at one point, definitely all of us could feel like you could feel the energy, right? The forest went quiet and we also all got goosebumps, like your hair stands up, you're just like, oh, okay.

[00:08:33] Heidi: There's something nearby. You wanna go into fight or flight mode, you know? 'Cause you're just like, oh shit, something just arrived. So that happened that weekend. But yeah. My niece and her friend, my niece is now 30, and she still will get with this friend and be like, did we really see that? And Yep. You know, so like they kind of check in on with each other to, to be like, yeah, we really saw this because apparently they didn't even know what Bigfoot was. Finding Bigfoot wasn't out yet, so she didn't even know. 

[00:09:04] Jane: When they 

[00:09:04] Heidi: they were like 11, 12.

[00:09:07] Jane: and it was in the Raccoon River area?

[00:09:09] Heidi: Y Yeah. Raccoon River in Iowa. But she described it as a monster, harry monster, you know, so she's trying to describe it to my sister. It wasn't until Finding Bigfoot came out that my niece is like, oh my gosh, that's what we saw. And so, yeah. Kind of crazy. 

[00:09:25] Etienne: I feel like Bigfoot was really popular when we were kids. 

[00:09:28] Heidi: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

[00:09:29] Etienne: feel like the fascination with it became 

[00:09:31] Heidi: Harry and the Hendersons 

[00:09:33] Etienne: There.

[00:09:33] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. It was really popular.

[00:09:36] Jane: I loved that movie, but I also remember seeing a special on, or it highlighted as part of that In Search Of show that 

[00:09:43] Heidi: Mm-hmm. Yep. That's Incredible. Like all those shows featured Bigfoot, so we were, yeah, we were all Bigfoot. 

[00:09:51] Jane: But your nieces of the generation where that wasn't

[00:09:54] Heidi: was not a thing.

[00:09:55] Jane: Yeah. 

[00:09:55] Heidi: So she didn't know. She was just describing it and I guess it didn't really click with my sister either, what it was that she saw. So yeah, it wasn't until Finding Bigfoot came out that she was like, oh my gosh, that's what I saw.

[00:10:07] Heidi: I saw three of 'em. So, yeah, crazy in Iowa of all things from one corn, and it was when the cornfield or when the corn was really high. So it had to been like August, September. So yeah.

[00:10:19] Etienne: Well, did your expedition in August? Was that in Iowa, or was that somewhere else?

[00:10:23] Heidi: No, it was in Iowa. 

[00:10:24] Etienne: Okay. 

[00:10:25] Heidi: Yeah. So we, the corn was really high, but we were in the forest. And yeah. It was interesting and interesting to meet the team members, like the people who are going out all the time, they take it seriously. There was a couple scientists there, so people may joke about it and make fun of it, but there are people who are scientifically minded that are really trying to collect evidence, concrete evidence, like I guess the sound recordings that they're recording, they can tell, or they've analyzed enough sound recordings of all the animals that are out there, that they know this is coming from an unknown animal.

[00:11:01] Etienne: Oh, so they do have record like

[00:11:03] Heidi: Yeah, they have recordings of this thing yelling, and just from the recording and analyzing it with certain software, they can tell a human did not make this noise. This is not coming from a human voice. This is not a coyote, this is not a whatever. And we heard a couple of those things, something calling out

[00:11:23] Jane: What did it sound like?

[00:11:25] Etienne: Yeah. 

[00:11:25] Heidi: I can't even do it. Like, just this crazy. Yeah, it's just this crazy roar. And they make different sounds too, like it's not just that one. Yeah. And they like to do wood knocks and 

[00:11:39] Jane: Wait, what? What is that? A wood knock?

[00:11:42] Etienne: Like knocking on trees 

[00:11:43] Heidi: yeah.

[00:11:44] Jane: Oh, literally. Okay. 

[00:11:45] Heidi: Yes. Knocking on trees, it's apparently, it's like their telephone. Like, Hey dude, 

[00:11:51] Jane: Oh my gosh. Like communicating 

[00:11:54] Heidi: Yeah. Communicate morse code, yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:55] Jane: Sasquatch code. 

[00:11:57] Heidi: The Sasquatch code. Yeah. I kind of feel the hits I've been getting is they're more telepathic, like they can just talk to each other using telepathy and sometimes these vocalizations are more for us.

[00:12:12] Jane: I'm like, you're in my territory.

[00:12:14] Heidi: Yep. Yeah. Speaking of territory, okay, so, my sister and I were kind of going over old memories, childhood memories one night months ago, and I brought up, Hey, do you remember that mashed down part of the field that we found it was like a racetrack and we raced our bikes around in it.

[00:12:36] Heidi: And it was so cool because it felt like we had walls up around us. 'Cause the grass was so high, it felt like a secret hiding spot, right? We didn't know who made it, you know? So. We're playing in there and my sister brings up like, oh, do you remember that giant rock that went by your head and almost hit you while we were, while, yes.

[00:12:58] Heidi: While we were racing around on our bikes. And I said, oh my gosh, I do remember that. And back then we thought it was supernatural. We thought it was like, oh my gosh, a ghost threw that. But thinking back on it now as adults, after we know all the Bigfoot signs and everything, it's like, oh my gosh, I think we found a Bigfoot nest. And he was probably trying to like, scare us off, obviously, in which he did. Like we, we took off. Um, but it was a giant, giant rock. There's like.

[00:13:29] Etienne: Damn.

[00:13:30] Heidi: It wouldn't have been like little boys 'cause it was so heavy and large. But yeah

[00:13:34] Jane: And you're riding your bike around in what could have been either a Sasquatch nest or a crop circle, but either way you're just la, la, la. Just like riding around. I know, right?

[00:13:45] Heidi: Maybe I know, but it, I remember, I can still remember like the tall grass and it was like a circle and it was so cool. It was like a little hidden racetrack for your bikes, you know? And we were just riding around and we thought it was the coolest thing to discover this thing. And yeah. And then a rock goes by.

[00:14:05] Etienne: And then it tried kill you.

[00:14:06] Heidi: Yeah. And it was like, okay, better go and back then we just assumed it was a ghost for some reason and now it's like, oh no, no, that was probably a Bigfoot. I don't know. But 

[00:14:20] Jane: know which explanation I prefer,

[00:14:23] Heidi: yeah. 

[00:14:23] Jane: dunno.

[00:14:24] Etienne: Yeah. 

[00:14:25] Jane: Or alien if it was a crop circle and 

[00:14:27] Etienne: Alien.

[00:14:27] Heidi: Yeah, maybe it was an get away my 

[00:14:31] Jane: those three scenarios, I do prefer Bigfoot. I do.

[00:14:34] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:36] Etienne: I always envision Bigfoot being in the Pacific Northwest, you know what I mean? Like in these crazy

[00:14:41] Heidi: Oh no, they're all

[00:14:43] Etienne: tree areas all over. 

[00:14:44] Heidi: Yeah. 

[00:14:45] Jane: in my county, in South Carolina where I lived. I 

[00:14:47] Heidi: In Florida 

[00:14:48] Etienne: my God. 

[00:14:49] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:52] Etienne: Wow. 

[00:14:52] Jane: They're everywhere. 

[00:14:53] Etienne: Jesus. Okay. I.

[00:14:55] Heidi: Yep. Texas. Yeah. If you look at the Bigfoot research organization, they get reports from all over and what they think, when we were describing how this Bigfoot family was walking through, it's almost like they may migrate possibly. Depending on the seasons and stuff, and they're using the cover of the corn fields and everything being so full and lush and they're just like taking advantage of that to travel around and get where they need to be between 

[00:15:24] Etienne: That makes sense. Has there been an increase in Bigfoot videos since we've all become obsessed with carrying our phones everywhere with our ready-made cameras and.

[00:15:33] Heidi: Oh yeah, if you watch, what is it called? There's a reality show caught on camera or something like that. And it's huge and there's so many Bigfoot videos, but I don't know, with AI, I don't know, it's AI's getting better and better. It's gonna be hard to figure out what's, what's true and what's not.

[00:15:51] Etienne: Wow. Jane just put up on our shared screen, the Bigfoot. Wait, what is it? It's BFRO. Is this the name of 

[00:15:59] Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. It's a bigfoot resource organ. Yeah. 

[00:16:02] Etienne: research. organization? That's so good.

[00:16:04] Jane: You can look up by your state and then look up and see. I live in Kershaw County and there have been two listings and one was in 1983, and then the other sightings from 2002. And then what county? Well, we don't, you 

[00:16:20] Etienne: I'm in Charleston. I'm in Charleston. So it does show like recent report. The first one was in 1970 it looks like. And the last one was in 2006. Dang.

[00:16:31] Heidi: And my sister actually submitted her daughter's story and it still hasn't shown up. When she asked them, they said that there's like a 10 year backlog of stories that they gotta like, 

[00:16:42] Etienne: Whoa.

[00:16:44] Heidi: like so many thousands of reports that they have to vet and investigate before 

[00:16:49] Etienne: can you, 

[00:16:49] Heidi: it. 

[00:16:50] Etienne: can you list these in order of, Jane, in what state has the most sightings?

[00:16:54] Jane: I don't, 

[00:16:55] Heidi: it's Washington. 

[00:16:56] Jane: I don't know. But let's look at what Washington has. Washington has 730.

[00:17:02] Etienne: 730. See, I was thinking like Pacific Northwest.

[00:17:05] Jane: It's definitely, that's the highest.

[00:17:08] Heidi: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:08] Jane: Wow. And then Oregon has

[00:17:11] Etienne: so many. Look at this

[00:17:13] Jane: Florida has 346. 

[00:17:16] Heidi: Yeah, they call him the Swamp Man or something like that. Or 

[00:17:19] Jane: Well, that's a lot of Bigfoot. 

[00:17:21] Heidi: Yeah.

[00:17:22] Jane: Uh,

[00:17:23] Etienne: 262.

[00:17:24] Jane: California 467.

[00:17:27] Heidi: Yep.

[00:17:27] Etienne: Wow. 

[00:17:29] Heidi: I think California is where that most famous bigfoot footage ever recorded. 

[00:17:34] Etienne: that from California?

[00:17:35] Heidi: Yeah, I think it was in California.

[00:17:37] Etienne: You can see the side, he's walking. His left arm is showing in the picture. Most of his left arm as he is walking. 

[00:17:43] Heidi: Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it looks at the camera and then looks back and it's just going 

[00:17:47] Etienne: Yeah. 

[00:17:48] Jane: Gimlin 

[00:17:49] Heidi: Yeah. Patterson gi Gimlin, but there have been experts that kind of analyze it and then when they kind of enhance it, it's a female, she has breasts, right? And there's all these different features of her. That's it's kind of hard to. 

[00:18:05] Etienne: you can us the footage, Jane. Oh my goodness.

[00:18:09] Heidi: It's hard to mimic that in like a costume, right? Yeah. If you see it stabilized and kind of zoomed in, it's really interesting 

[00:18:17] Etienne: the one I was thinking of actually. Yeah,

[00:18:19] Heidi: Well, that's the one that, yeah, that's the most, 

[00:18:22] Etienne: thinking of, it's really up in some trees, that looks like it's near a river or something that we just saw. Dang. I mean, it would make sense that they'd wanna be near rivers. You know, you'd wanna be near where you know there's water.

[00:18:34] Heidi: Yep. Yeah. Food source. Yeah. So. That's an interesting rabbit hole to get into. If, if you ever wanna go down. I kind of have theories on they know when we're coming so they're able to kind of just evade being seen ' cause they know we're the worst. Right. You know, humans are not good. We're not caring for nature. So yeah, they're like, you guys are assholes. I'm not gonna let you get near me. So I think that's why they really haven't been discovered. 'Cause I think they're really good at just avoiding us. They can sense us, they can probably smell us.

[00:19:14] Etienne: Yeah.

[00:19:15] Heidi: See us better. If they got the telepathy thing going on, like they can, and there's all kinds of ways that they're just like, yeah, okay, there's a human one mile away. Let me get going and get away from this person. I.

[00:19:26] Etienne: There's another cryptid, Loch Ness Monster, and I did go to Scotland and I was right there on Loch Ness next to that lock. And I was looking real hard, but I didn't see anything when I was there.

[00:19:37] Heidi: That's like Champ at Lake Champlain. My ex, his family, they all live around that area and oh man, we would go on Lake Champlain all the time and I'd always be looking out like, okay, I would love to see Champ. It would be so epic. I was ready. I was always looking for that thing.

[00:19:58] Etienne: That'd be wild. It just feels like that one is definitely, like some kind of prehistoric creature, you 

[00:20:04] Jane: It looks like a plesiosaur. Like why wouldn't it be? But see, and that's how, I guess I feel about Sasquatch stuff. It's like, okay, maybe it's some kind of missing link situation. Right. Or like when the primate trees branched off during the stages of evolution. Like we're at the end of one tree and maybe this tree was like a little bit earlier from, and then it just stayed that way.

[00:20:25] Jane: And then Heidi, to your point, like, all right. And then it said, well, I don't wanna be around those other ones. They seem a little violent or they seem a little whatever they, and they just kind of keep to themselves. 

[00:20:34] Heidi: Yep. 

[00:20:34] Jane: Because if they meant us harm and they're real, we would've known, I think at this point in 

[00:20:38] Heidi: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:39] Jane: and then Loch Ness, it just looked like, okay, I don't know how deep is Loch Ness and is this thing, yeah, and is this thing just left over?

[00:20:48] Heidi: Mm-hmm. 

[00:20:49] Jane: like, and then it's like, oh, that's so lonely and lonely little plesiosaur. There's more than one of them in there. That's 

[00:20:56] Etienne: Yeah, because this thing is not hundreds of years old, I'm sure. But they still have sightings. I'm pretty sure.

[00:21:01] Heidi: That's the thing that, I mean, there's so many sightings that and so many video capture, right. And photos that it's just like, ah, it 

[00:21:11] Jane: And some of them have been debunked, but then also with, so with the video thing, and then Etienne to your point about so shouldn't there be more videos now with people have their phones and people have argued the same thing about UFO sightings too. Like where's the high res stuff?

[00:21:24] Jane: But even with my phone, it's not the newest iPhone, but it's not like the old one I used to have. Like it's updated now. It takes really good pictures. But if I try to take a picture of something as simple as the moon, it just looks like garbage. Unless you have the right kind of lenses and filters and you know what you're doing and you're sitting there like really even a professional photographer is sitting there with a static subject, really just trying to get the right shot and just going in at it all these different angles.

[00:21:54] Jane: Now add in the whole like, what the fuck is that moment, right?

[00:21:58] Jane: Is the first thing you're doing, fumbling through your pocket to get something. And I'm just thinking of the time, and I know this is not the topic for today, so I'm not gonna get crazy detailed, but just as an example, I did, you know, see some kind of weird UFO situation when I was a kid and the last thing on my mind.

[00:22:18] Heidi: was capturing it. Yeah, 

[00:22:19] Jane: let me run inside and get a camera. I did have a camera with film at the time, you know? No, I was just thinking like, oh my gosh, what is that? It was just like two balls of light, just hanging above the horizon before dawn, and I was with my dog and she was growling and she saw it too.

[00:22:35] Jane: Just like the thing I was saying with my dog now seeing something in the woods and just being weird about it. And then the two balls of light, it was just like a faint electric com, and then they merged and then into one ball of light and then ping just into

[00:22:47] Etienne: Oh. 

[00:22:48] Jane: and I was just standing there with my dog at six o'clock in the morning going, what the fuck? And I wasn't thinking, I wish I had photographed it. I was just, the whole time just stunned. So I could imagine 

[00:23:01] Heidi: Yeah. 

[00:23:01] Jane: if we're hiking, you know, and so even the thing that happened with the dog we're like, what is she looking at? None of us got out our phones to then like zoom in on the thing that she's looking at in the woods. That is, looks

[00:23:14] Etienne: in case. 

[00:23:15] Jane: Just in case Bigfoot jumps out, we were just like, why is she acting so weird? Like in that moment we were just thinking, well, this is really weird. 

[00:23:23] Heidi: Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:24] Jane: And I've hiked that same spot many times. It's actually really close to our house. It's not even in a mountainous area. It's at Sesco Centennial Park and Columbia, South Carolina. We've walked her in that part again, and she didn't do it again because I thought, oh, if it's like a weird energy or someone died here years ago or I got all my spooky hat on and nothing, it was just that one day something was there and nobody else could see it, but the dog.

[00:23:47] Jane: But again, we didn't get out our phones and be like, let's get high res zoom, zoom, zoom, like none of that. And I feel like that would happen if I saw a Bigfoot and I tried to take a video, what the video would be is me going, oh yeah, and then there would just be grass, and then probably me screaming and running.

[00:24:02] Heidi: You'd be hyperventilating. Yeah, 

[00:24:04] Jane: that's what the video would be of. 

[00:24:06] Heidi: Yeah, and that's most of the time, that's kind of what's happening. People are like, oh,

[00:24:12] Jane: Well, so the scientists that were on the expedition that you went on, Heidi, like did they have equipment with them or were they just there and okay,

[00:24:18] Heidi: Oh yeah, yeah. They had

[00:24:20] Jane: ready. 

[00:24:21] Heidi: Recording equipment, they had ways to mimic the sounds 

[00:24:26] Jane: Oh, to attract them almost like a

[00:24:27] Heidi: Yeah, attract them. Uhhuh. They had infrared, they had night vision. You name it, they really came prepared. So, it was really cool, and the people were cool. I really enjoyed myself, so it was a lot of fun.

[00:24:43] Etienne: How long was

[00:24:44] Heidi: Even in the rain. 

[00:24:45] Etienne: Oh, it was raining too? I was gonna say, how long was the trip, but 

[00:24:48] Heidi: it was just a weekend. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:51] Jane: Would you 

[00:24:52] Heidi: I wouldn't mind going, huh?

[00:24:54] Jane: You did do it again.

[00:24:55] Heidi: Yeah, that's what I was about to say. I wouldn't mind going on another one with them. Yeah. With better weather.

[00:25:01] Etienne: Was it just raining the whole time?

[00:25:02] Heidi: Pretty much, yeah. Raining and the rain is being picked up on the voice recorders and the recording devices. Plus animals aren't out, like Bigfoot's probably not out in the rain. Like he is just hunkered down, like hanging out with his 

[00:25:18] Jane: with an umbrella. We're just like, okay, humans suck, but this invention's pretty cool.

[00:25:27] Heidi: Yeah. So we were the only lunatics that were romping around in the woods that night in the rain. So, all the animals were probably looking at all of us going, who are these idiots? They're running around in the rain. Oh yeah. Stupid humans.

[00:25:43] Etienne: But if they actually were in the area, that'd be a good time to get footprints. So wouldn't it, with the rainy, like the wet

[00:25:48] Heidi: thought so too. We asked about that, like, oh man, are we gonna see footprints? And, the investigator guys that have been doing this for a while, they were like, no, we've been in such a drought that even with all this rain, like it's not softening the ground that much. And so it was just not, the ground wasn't soft enough to even pick up any kind of footprints.

[00:26:10] Etienne: So the people that host this weekend that you went on, have they seen Bigfoot themselves, any of the.

[00:26:16] Heidi: Yeah. Some of them had stories of seeing Bigfoot and that's why they're so passionate about it. 'Cause they're like, oh my gosh, I saw this thing and I know it was real and now I gotta try and see it or find it again. Kinda like what Jane had said like, you know, their first sighting was like, oh my god, you know, and they had no evidence of it. So now they're like, okay, now let me be prepared. Yeah. Let me be prepared with all my equipment and I wanna see it now. And yeah.

[00:26:41] Etienne: Well, I think too, for people who aren't prepared, who haven't seen it before, who've never seen it before, the first time they see it, they would be so nervous like Jane said. If I even tried to get my phone out, I'd probably drop it. I probably wouldn't even think to get my phone out. I would just be like, frightened the hell out and hoping, don't look this way, don't look this way. You know, like so worried I was gonna see me and charge me or something, you know?

[00:27:03] Jane: Oh, I didn't even think about that. That's terrifying. Yeah, because I would be thinking, it would be so shy that maybe it would just, maybe, I saw Harry and the Hendersons many times and cried, and I just thought, oh, maybe it would just be like that and it wouldn't charge me. It would just be really shy.

[00:27:20] Heidi: I think they are. I think they are shy. And they don't wanna hurt us. You know, they'd rather just scare us off with some rocks. That was another thing that was commonality for a lot of these people is, you know, they've experienced things being thrown at them as like warnings.

[00:27:37] Etienne: Oh oh 

[00:27:39] Heidi: You know, hearing the knocks and then like things being thrown at 'em. So, 

[00:27:42] Jane: Oh my gosh. So the knock was like an alert, like they're here, they're here. And then it throws it not to hurt you, but just to maybe scare you so that you go away. 

[00:27:49] Heidi: Yes. 

[00:27:50] Jane: kids out of our nest.

[00:27:52] Etienne: to protect the babies. 

[00:27:53] Heidi: Yeah. Maybe they had babies and they're like, birds do it, right.

[00:27:56] Etienne: I would, yeah. I would assume a lot of animals do it right. To like scare off anything that's might be dangerous.

[00:28:02] Heidi: Mm-hmm. 

[00:28:02] Jane: had a squirrel do that. I've had a squirrel throw hickory nuts at my head because it had a nest of baby squirrels. And that squirrel was pissed. Just like, like they make weird noises. You know? It just, I mean, just jettisoning these things at my head, just like boom, boom. And it hurt. And so I can imagine Bigfoot just being perturbed.

[00:28:26] Etienne: What giant rock like, I don't know, man. It could have killed you very easily.

[00:28:32] Heidi: But, maybe he's got perfect aim and he was just like, let me whiz this by her face to really get her amped up and scared and it 

[00:28:41] Etienne: trying to hear you yet. 

[00:28:42] Heidi: yeah, it worked. We fled the scene

[00:28:46] Etienne: Oh my gosh. 

[00:28:48] Heidi: convinced it was haunted, so we were never 

[00:28:51] Jane: didn't wanna make a, he didn't wanna make a mess. He just wanted you to go away.

[00:28:55] Heidi: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[00:28:57] Jane: So I'm curious, Etienne, in the list of Cryptids that you saw on Wikipedia was the Mothman listed as 

[00:29:04] Etienne: Mothman was on

[00:29:05] Heidi: That's one of my favorites. That's my favorites. I wanna go there and see the bridge and, yeah.

[00:29:12] Jane: So weird. 

[00:29:14] Heidi: It's so crazy. It's such a crazy story. Do you wanna, you wanna tell the story? Did you read into it?

[00:29:19] Etienne: I, me, no, I did not. I, 

[00:29:21] Jane: I saw, I saw the movie too, and the movie was enough to, like, I di I couldn't tell in the movie if I am like, I like this story or terrified of this story because it's kind of one of those things where there's just like this literal Mothman, this tall creature that has wings and flies around and comes

[00:29:41] Heidi: Harbinger of doom. 

[00:29:44] Jane: Right. Like it's trying to tell you or warn you like something bad is gonna happen in this area and all these people see it in this one particular area. And then days later, whatever it was like a bridge collapses and all these people die. But it didn't communicate super clearly. So it's kind of like, so what is.

[00:30:02] Heidi: what's the point of 

[00:30:03] Jane: It's, I know. So that was like really frustrating. I'm like, did you precipitate the bridge collapse or are you trying to warn people about the bridge collapse? And I guess that's where I couldn't decide if I liked the story or not, because I wanted it to be some kind of creature that has some kind of premonition power. Right. But it just doesn't know how to quite communicate with us. It was trying and just didn't get the message across. 

[00:30:27] Heidi: I don't think it's benevolent like

[00:30:31] Jane: See, and then that's what I thought. I got scared. 

[00:30:34] Heidi: yeah, I think it's, I think it's on the dark side.

[00:30:38] Etienne: Um. 

[00:30:39] Jane: You think it did? It

[00:30:40] Heidi: It's the Darth Vader of the Cryptids. Yeah. 'Cause you just hear of people's actual experiences with it and it's out to murder you. It wants to murder you from, from what? With the stories. These people's experiences with the Mothman is like, yeah.

[00:30:58] Etienne: Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:58] Jane: See, I just thought it was creepy, but just mysterious and then something bad happens.

[00:31:04] Heidi: The one that I'm really scared about is, and they say don't say the actual name. So we've been calling it Flesh Pedestrians. You know 

[00:31:12] Jane: What, don't say the name. I don't wanna

[00:31:14] Heidi: Don't say the name. No. 

[00:31:16] Etienne: both 

[00:31:16] Heidi: one's, That one's, the scariest one, I think.

[00:31:19] Etienne: Now I gotta look up that flesh pedestrian to know what you're talking about. And it's automatically coming up. As soon as I put flesh. It's like it's listening to us. Oh, I see what it is. Okay. 

[00:31:28] Jane: Does it rhyme with pin and then a stalker?

[00:31:31] Etienne: Oh, uh, yeah. Um 

[00:31:35] Jane: I'm not looking it up.

[00:31:36] Etienne: Like a dingo ate my baby is the other, like the dingo part? It's got part of that name in there is a different name.

[00:31:44] Jane: What?

[00:31:45] Etienne: yeah. A

[00:31:46] Heidi: Oh, oh, I know you're talking about Yeah. People confuse it with that one. 

[00:31:49] Etienne: Okay. So it's not that one. Okay.

[00:31:51] Heidi: Yeah. You're are Windengo? Windengo? That is not the same.

[00:31:57] Etienne: Okay.

[00:31:57] Heidi: They're two different things. So anyway, that, that cyrptid is the one that scares the crap out of me because it's based in, you know, like, I think it's a, was it Navajo?

[00:32:09] Etienne: Yeah, it says Navajo, yeah 

[00:32:10] Heidi: they know about it and they don't talk about it. And the few that do the stories are frightening. So that's one I never wanna encounter. Bigfoot, I would love to see. This thing, no thanks. No, thank you. 

[00:32:22] Jane: Are vampires considered cryptids?

[00:32:23] Heidi: No.

[00:32:24] Etienne: It has to be based on like a possible, you know. 

[00:32:29] Jane: but there are Native American legends about vampires or the description sounds like vampires

[00:32:34] Heidi: yeah. 

[00:32:35] Jane: So, yeah, so that's why I'm saying like, I'm not sure where the line is.

[00:32:38] Heidi: Yeah. I don't know.

[00:32:39] Etienne: I'm gonna ask if that thing that we're talking about is actually a cryptid, because I'm not sure if 

[00:32:44] Jane: Voldemort. The Voldemort.

[00:32:47] Etienne: The one that we're talking about, the one that the Navajo one is technically not considered a cryptid.

[00:32:52] Heidi: Oh, it's not. Oh

[00:32:53] Etienne: cause it's from mythology. 

[00:32:54] Jane: Okay, cool. Then we don't have to just speak of it anymore

[00:32:57] Etienne: yeah, it's not part of our episode.

[00:32:59] Jane: Yeah, well, 'cause I, there's certain

[00:33:02] Heidi: Forget we even talked about it. But yeah. But as far as like the creepy stuff that people see, like, yeah, no thanks. I don't want that

[00:33:10] Etienne: I mean, Mothman's pretty crazy. 

[00:33:12] Jane: creepy. 

[00:33:13] Heidi: I would not wanna see that one either. That one's 

[00:33:15] Etienne: Mm-hmm. How about Not Deer? 

[00:33:17] Heidi: Not Deer. No. No. There's like another one, some kind of wolf like creature and no thank you, dog man or something like that. No, thank you. Those 

[00:33:27] Jane: It's not a werewolf. 

[00:33:28] Heidi: It's basically a werewolf, but they call it dog man. And, no, thank you. Like the stories are terrifying.

[00:33:34] Etienne: Oh my God. 

[00:33:34] Heidi: I want no part Oh, and 

[00:33:36] Etienne: go back to my list. 

[00:33:37] Heidi: Mm. Mm Mm. 

[00:33:38] Etienne: I'm gonna go back to my list of Cryptics just 

[00:33:40] Jane: Oh, there's supposed to be like a lizard man here in South Carolina in Bishopville, and people talk about it and then I think, I think somebody 

[00:33:48] Heidi: attacked somebody's car and created actual gashes in their

[00:33:52] Jane: But I think that somebody finally admitted that they were like, they were the Bishopville Lizard man or something. Oh, what the heck?

[00:33:59] Etienne: Oh, seriously. 

[00:34:01] Jane: Oh yeah. I don't know if I just heard that, 'cause I taught high school for many years and I taught high school in South Carolina, so I'd have kids going like, did you ever hear the lizard man? And I'd just be like, what are you guys talking about? But

[00:34:14] Etienne: Oh, here it is. Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp, also called Lizard Man of Lee County from South Carolina, United States.

[00:34:23] Jane: A cryptid from the folklore of Lee County.

[00:34:25] Etienne: Yep.

[00:34:26] Jane: But started in 1988. Yeah, seven foot tall, scaly red-eyed creature with three fingered hands attack Davis's car. This is what you're talking about

[00:34:36] Etienne: Oh. 

[00:34:36] Jane: Causing significant damage. Since then, the legend has led to other reported sightings and car damage incidents. Sounds like someone needed to cover their tracks with like denting

[00:34:46] Etienne: They're like, I think it was the, yeah. 

[00:34:49] Jane: But the person, yeah. The original person who reported it was Christopher Davis of Lee County, South Carolina, and said it was seven feet tall and it was reptilian in nature. And then other people had stuff and they even made plaster casts of three toed footprints left in the mud 

[00:35:06] Etienne: Which looks a lot Chupacabra of Puerto Rico, South and Central America. I mean, the little drawing they have for Chupacabra looks like what you're describing, the three toed lizard looking thing. Yeah. 

[00:35:19] Jane: I had students from Puerto Rico who, who would talk about Chupacabra that I would just be like, what? I just remember thinking that that was insane. And then moving to New York and having a whole different group of kids talk about the Lizard Man. And they embrace it. They actually have a annual event called the Lizard Man Stomp.

[00:35:35] Heidi: You know 

[00:35:36] Jane: a, uh.

[00:35:36] Heidi: We have our own, so Van Meter Visitor is one of those type of stories, and like a Mothman

[00:35:44] Jane: In Des Moines. 

[00:35:44] Heidi: No, Van Meter is outside of Des Moines, just west of Des Moines. But yeah, in 1903, legendary winged creature, kinda like the Mothman, reported to have terrorized the town of Van Meter, Iowa over five nights. And this was seen by everybody in town. And so it's well documented. There's been a couple documentaries and shows done on it, and there's actually a festival that goes on. I need to go

[00:36:08] Etienne: A festival. 

[00:36:09] Heidi: Yeah, they have a yearly festival. I just haven't been around for it each year, so I'm gonna try and get to it next year. 'Cause it's, I don't know, you learn more about the incident and it's just like, it's fascinating because so many people reported on it. I 

[00:36:24] Etienne: What was the name of this one again? What's

[00:36:25] Heidi: Van Meter Visitor. 

[00:36:28] Etienne: Dan Meter.

[00:36:29] Heidi: Van 

[00:36:31] Etienne: Oh, Van. 

[00:36:32] Heidi: Yeah. Van Meter Visitor.

[00:36:36] Etienne: Okay. Here we go. A winged bat like creature. The town of several sightings in September of 1903.

[00:36:44] Heidi: Yep. 

[00:36:44] Etienne: Nine foot tall being with giant wings that could shoot a blinding light from a horn on its forehead, 

[00:36:50] Jane: What?

[00:36:50] Etienne: And was unaffected by gunfire. The creature was last seen disappearing into a nearby coal mine, and has since become a local legend, celebrated annually at the Van Meter Visitor Festival. 

[00:37:00] Heidi: Yeah, it was reported by a local businessman, including a doctor and a bank cashier.

[00:37:04] Etienne: Damn. 

[00:37:05] Jane: Right, so challenge for the comments folks. Look up your local cryptid and tell us all about it. Let's learn about all of these different things because I totally forgot about the Lizard Man.

[00:37:17] Heidi: Yeah 

[00:37:18] Etienne: Yeah, and he's on your list of cryptids, but Van Meter Visitor is not, I don't think, I was just looking for the Van Meter Visitor and he was not there. So there's still some that exist that aren't on the list of Cryptids and Wikipedia. So they should be.

[00:37:32] Heidi: I think it's 'cause this is one incident, it was a winged creature, so it's kind of like the Mothman. I don't know. 

[00:37:39] Etienne: I mean, they have another one that was winged called a Jersey Devil

[00:37:41] Heidi: yeah, the Jersey Devil Uhhuh. Yeah, and 

[00:37:44] Jane: There's a team named after them. The hockey, The hockey, team, the New Jersey Devils. Yeah.

[00:37:49] Heidi: Oh, and Maryland. When we were living there, we learned about the Goatman that terrorizes the area around where we're living. And so there's all kinds of legends and lore about the Goatman, which 

[00:38:01] Etienne: we go. Oh my gosh. There's like a whole other, oh, these are under urban legends. Okay. Maybe that's why. Yeah. Maryland's Goat Man is listed under as an urban legend for some reason. There's so many on this thing. There's crazy amounts.

[00:38:13] Heidi: mm-hmm.

[00:38:14] Etienne: Baby train. I don't know. There's some I don't

[00:38:17] Jane: Nope. Nope. 

[00:38:18] Etienne: Pope. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. What is this 

[00:38:21] Heidi: What site did you get onto? 

[00:38:23] Etienne: This is Wikipedia. It's at the bottom after the list of Cryptids. Pope Lick Monster. I don't know

[00:38:30] Jane: That

[00:38:30] Etienne: what the hell 

[00:38:31] Heidi: Oh, 

[00:38:32] Etienne: have you heard of this? Oh, it's a legendary part man, part goat and part sheep creature. Reported to live beneath a railroad trestle bridge over Pope Lick Creek in the Fishersville neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky.

[00:38:44] Heidi: Huh, 

[00:38:44] Jane: Wow. 

[00:38:45] Heidi: okay. 

[00:38:46] Jane: Well this just goes the show.

[00:38:47] Heidi: this one. 

[00:38:48] Jane: That there are so many and we have so much to learn about legends of cryptids. Whether they're true or not, they're certainly fascinating. So

[00:38:59] Etienne: gotta see what baby train is. 

[00:39:00] Jane: I don't, I actually, I wanna tell you right now that I don't wanna know. That sounds

[00:39:05] Etienne: Oh, no.

[00:39:07] Jane: It sounds like a bunch of dead children, and I don't think I wanna know. Yep. Deep, deep. That's a D. That's a different episode. You

[00:39:13] Etienne: Yeah, 

[00:39:14] Jane: about that when you talk about others

[00:39:16] Etienne: Sorry. I clicked away.

[00:39:19] Jane: Baby train sounds really fucking creepy.

[00:39:21] Heidi: What is was that like in a 

[00:39:23] Etienne: It said yeah. No, it said that. Baby train is a town that had unusually high birth rate and it was allegedly caused by a freight train passing through the town and blowing its whistle, waking up all the residents. Since it was too late to go back to sleep and too early to get up, couples would have sex. This resulted in a mini baby boom. Oh, this is a different kind 

[00:39:40] Jane: Okay. Actually that's really funny.

[00:39:42] Etienne: No, there was a different one that said it was be, there was a whole, like, there was too many babies that were dying. This is in Australia. Okay. This is the baby train also. So according to legend, a certain small town that it had, and usually high again.

[00:39:55] Etienne: No, this is the same thing. It's just in a different town again, where couples would have sex 'cause the whistle woke 'em up and then they were, it's the same thing. Nevermind. Not a bad thing. Babies aren't dying. Babies are being made, not dying.

[00:40:06] Jane: We have one of, we have a train near us that gets very freaking loud and sometimes in the middle of the night, we have been woken up by it. Never once did it occur to us to have sex.

[00:40:16] Etienne: Hey, let's have 

[00:40:17] Jane: No, we're just like, we're like pissed. Like why is this train so loud? And then we try to go back to sleep. We're not like, oh, since we're up

[00:40:25] Etienne: Yeah. 

[00:40:26] Jane: I think it's just because the nature of Brendon's job isn't such that like, oh, okay, let's just burn an hour's worth of sleep you need because the train woke us up at one in the

[00:40:35] Etienne: Yeah. It's like, no, you could probably go back to sleep. Let's be real.

[00:40:39] Heidi: Mm-hmm. 

[00:40:39] Jane: And honestly, I just don't, I just don't wanna do that in the middle of the night. I need

[00:40:44] Etienne: I would rather have sex before bed, personally. I don't know how you guys feel. That would be my favorite time to have sex is before bed. And it felt like every man I've ever been with wants to have sex in the morning.

[00:40:54] Heidi: I like it in the morning too though. I like it both times.

[00:40:57] Etienne: I mean, if you wanna wake me up like that, okay. Doing something specific.

[00:41:01] Heidi: Mm-hmm. 

[00:41:02] Jane: Yes. 

[00:41:02] Etienne: wake me up. That would be awesome. 

[00:41:04] Jane: Like that scene in Outlander. Oh.

[00:41:08] Heidi: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:09] Jane: And she's just like having a dream. And then she's like, oh, what? And she's, and he's just like, she's relax, relax you. She's like, oh yeah.

[00:41:16] Heidi: Yes, Jamie. Jamie was always, yeah, good about pleasing her. That's

[00:41:22] Jane: Mm-hmm. 

[00:41:24] Etienne: my

[00:41:24] Heidi: Perks of having a younger lover, I guess, 'cause yeah, he was a 

[00:41:28] Jane: But he's not that much younger than her.

[00:41:29] Heidi: But he was younger and less experienced, so

[00:41:32] Jane: is true.

[00:41:33] Heidi: she got 

[00:41:33] Jane: He was a virgin. He was a 

[00:41:35] Etienne: That's how I like that. Yeah. Then you can train 'em the way you want 'em.

[00:41:38] Jane: Exactly. Like this is what you do.

[00:41:42] Etienne: This is what real life sex is about.

[00:41:44] Heidi: Yeah.

[00:41:47] Heidi: That's our show you've been listening to The Women are Plotting. If you have a story you'd like to share or have any comments, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com and of course you can find us on all the socials. Thanks, and until next time, be safe and be excellent to each other.