[narrator] Previously on Expedition Bigfoot...
[Bryce] After months of silence, we got a hit.
Two upright creatures walking through the woods.
-We are here to explore this idea... -Holy crap.
...that these creatures are raising their young right here.
[drone buzzing]
That LiDAR has given us such an advantage.
-That, interesting. -[man] Oh, wow.
-[Mireya] Oh. -[man] This looks like those could be little nesting areas.
It's exciting to know that we suddenly have a target.
[Bryce] Hey, Mireya.
-[Mireya] Yeah. -Come here. I think I found something.
-Check that out. -[Mireya] Do you think you got a print there?
[whispering]
[animalistic grunting]
[whispering]
[narrator] While staking out a clearing in Northern California
in an area known as the Lost Coast,
survivalist, Russell Acord, just spotted what appears
to be two massive heat signatures just 100 yards away.
[Russell whispering]
[speaking normally]
[Russell whispering]
Bro. That's a bear.
[whispering] A big bear.
[Russell] Right in front of us.
It's aware that we are here.
Generally, a bear will run away from you
if it's alone or doesn't feel threatened.
[whispering]
[Russell] Those are big.
If this is a bear and her cubs,
we have to back out of here, and it's too close.
-[bear grunts] -[Russell] Do you hear that sound?
[bears growling]
[Russell] Holy crap.
That's moving.
[normally] Let's move out of here.
Light, light, light. Get moving.
Let's go.
We need to move out of here right now.
Watch your step.
[Bryce] So, I was just trying to sleep,
and I just keep thinking about earlier,
whatever was hunting me, for lack of a better word, paralleling me...
[whispering]
[gasps]
You know, I read a lot about these accounts of these creatures,
paralleling hunters and loggers.
But then, to actually have it happen to me was...
[chuckles] Every bone in my body just wanted to stop moving and just freeze.
I mean, we have no idea what we're dealing with.
I mean, we think we do, but we don't.
I mean, it's... "Careful what you wish for," right?
[narrator] At base camp...
Okay, so this is a sample that I collected from the tree hollow.
[narrator] ...Mireya and Bryce decide to divide and conquer.
Hey, Dr. Bondar. How are you?
Very well, thanks.
[narrator] While Mireya examines the hair samples
she collected the previous night...
Wow.
Quite a large clump of hair here.
[narrator] ...Bryce will speak with an expert on animal behavior.
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
Listen, yeah. How can I help?
We are back here in Northern California because I believe
Bigfoot is using this area as a breeding ground.
Which is why Mireya has set me up to talk with Dr. Carin Bondar,
a biologist who specializes in animal reproduction.
Well, I really want to start with this idea
of how breeding can affect animal behavior.
I mean, essentially,
the way that an animal, you know,
has sex and reproduces pretty much dictates
everything else about that animal's life.
Whether it is a decision about resource gathering or distributing,
whether it's a decision about whether to copulate with one mate or the other,
we see all kinds of interesting things across the mammalian world.
[Mireya] Okay. So, basically,
if I see anything that looks like a medulla,
I can already dismiss it
because Bigfoot is said to lack a medulla.
[narrator] The medulla is the innermost layer of the hair.
In deer and elk, the medulla is thick.
In primates, and theoretically, Bigfoot,
it should be largely absent.
I can see that this one has a very long, continuous band,
and it looks like what we have here is a hair from a deer.
What we're after does not have a medulla.
So, I can rule out this hair sample.
Let's see if I can get this one to read now.
[Bryce] What are some of these behaviors that are affected?
[Carin] So, anytime you are breeding,
there's going to be elements of competition.
But when we're thinking about mammals that have large size,
males certainly can be vicious with each other
when it comes to winning the girl, if you will.
Another layer of complication, I would add to that, is,
finding a partner might even be a bit tricky.
And so, mammals, and birds, and all kinds of animals
undertake massive migrations to find a mate and mate with that mate.
But I love this idea that, you know, these vast ranges,
which I think these Bigfoot reside in,
-it might be tough to find partnering. -Absolutely.
[Bryce] I want to speculate here for a second that
I think we've captured these things moving in pairs.
If these creatures are traveling in pairs,
would they stay in family groups together as partners?
I have to tell you that sexual monogamy does not exist in the animal kingdom.
-It just doesn't. -Right.
[Carin] A particular family group need not look any particular way.
So, it sounds like what you're saying is, if these creatures do exist
then their family structures could exist outside of the norm, let's say.
[Carin] I'm so glad you said it that way.
Because the norm... What is the norm?
We as humans have,
really, you know, we have expectations of what a family looks like.
We have to really try to leave all of our assumptions at the door.
Across the primate world, it really varies when it comes
to what a partnership might look like.
We see everything from homosexual ones to heterosexual ones.
Animals are abundantly homosexual in nature. That is just a fact.
For example, something like bottlenose dolphins,
something like even silverback gorillas.
We also see all kinds of multiple partnerships happening.
We see things akin to polyamory...
-That's incredible. -...where we have a pretty traditional alpha male
and female situation in the animal world.
We see absolutely everything.
[Mireya] In the microscope, I can see that in this case,
there is very clearly a medulla present.
So, I can rule out this hair sample.
These might not be Bigfoot hairs, but this does tell us that wildlife
is using these burnt out trees as shelter.
There are Bigfoot researchers that talk about deer as a source of food.
So, that's encouraging.
[Carin] Well, I guess what I'm getting at here
is that, essentially, the mating ritual is just beginning... [chuckles]
...when they have gotten to the breeding ground.
There's actually a lot of steps.
For example, getting to that breeding ground,
then finding a suitable mate, then copulating with that mate.
And then gestating an offspring.
So if I understand what you're saying,
then there's probably a lot of activity
taking place within that breeding ground.
And it sounds like me and my team might really be able to capitalize
by giving us more and more opportunity to catch,
I don't know, vocalizations, moving through areas,
possibly even stumble on or surprise one of these creatures.
Absolutely.
This has just been really elucidating, and I can't thank you enough.
Oh, it is my pleasure.
I wish you all the best for the expedition.
[whispering]
[narrator] Ten miles away from Mireya and Bryce's position,
Russell closes in on the Northeast target zone.
[whispering]
We know there's been a lot of activity and there's been a lot of rain in this area.
The rain can actually soften the soil beneath our feet.
So, if we can move quiet, we have that element of surprise.
I think that's a huge advantage.
[whispering]
[Russell speaking]
Well, that's a bear.
A big bear.
[Russell] Two, three.
Last night...
Those are big.
...I saw a mama bear and her babies.
A bear and her cubs right in front of us.
I know I'm still in that same proximity.
So I'm thinking in my head...
This guy this could be from the exact same creature.
You don't want to get between a mama bear and her cubs
because, if you come anywhere near them or between them,
you're sealing your fate. That's how people get killed.
[whispering] There's two.
See how the toes are pushed in here.
That's one big boy.
Maybe a year or two-year-old.
Still running with mama.
[normally] Right now, I'm looking at these prints, and...
[whispering] This one's bigger than that one.
...I'm seeing how massive this thing is.
[whispering]
[narrator] Nine miles from Russell's position,
Mireya and Bryce head east from basecamp
to retrieve the plaster cast of a possible Bigfoot print
they had discovered on the first day of their expedition.
[Mireya] How did the call go with Dr. Bondar?
[Bryce] I mean, I learned a lot about what to expect
if this is a Bigfoot breeding ground,
and the types of family structures they might have.
[Mireya] How often are they reported to be seen in a family group?
[Bryce] Well, not very often.
There's not a lot of reports about people observing the family units of Bigfoot.
So, there's really not a lot there.
So, that's pretty interesting because
if you're talking about just very rare sightings
of multiple individuals,
it would lead me to believe that you have
a male with multiple females in a group.
Generally speaking, in the primate world,
it's the male that determines that group movement
-and puts themselves out and at risk first. -Yeah. Yeah.
The females tend to stay a little bit further behind with with the young
as they go through.
And the females eventually needs to follow.
That's really interesting because it could explain why
why finding single Bigfoot tracks
are more common than finding groups of tracks.
That's definitely the case when you're out in the field with gorillas.
[Bryce] Based on what Dr. Bondar and Mireya are telling me,
the track we found yesterday could be a solo male Bigfoot
scouting ahead for a safe location for his family.
And if that's true, that means the rest of his family
could be close behind.
There it is.
I had a gut feeling this was going to be an active site.
But I had no idea that I would stumble upon my very first Bigfoot track.
[Mireya] Let's see how this turned out.
We took a cast of it, and I cannot wait to see what that plaster cast reveals.
Oh, wow.
[Mireya] Look at that. Wow, that dried nice.
-[Bryce] That's amazing. -Yeah.
[Bryce] Oh, wow.
[Mireya] Here we go.
Wow. That's wild, huh?
Yeah. After it's dried up, we'll start removing everything.
That way, we'll get a lot more detail.
That would be incredible. Okay.
I mean, it certainly looks like a foot, doesn't it?
[Mireya] Yeah, it does.
-[Bryce] Yeah. -[Mireya] Put that in there.
[Bryce] Hearing Mireya and Dr. Carin Bondar talk about
primate group dynamics has really got me thinking,
because I believe this print
might come from a large male Bigfoot looking for new nesting grounds.
[Russell] Watch your step. I'm gonna let this thing snap back.
Don't let it hit you.
[narrator] In the northeast section of the target area,
nine miles away from Mireya and Bryce,
Russell continues to head toward a possible Bigfoot nesting site.
[Russell] A lot of meltwater moving through here.
There's been a lot of rain.
A lot of landslides, a lot of downfall, a lot of turned-over trees.
It makes the terrain much different than what we experienced before.
Two years ago, this would have been a fairly small stream.
But given the last several months of nothing but rainfall,
all these little creeks are now raging rivers.
That nesting site area is just on the other side of this waterway.
I don't have time for an obstacle like this.
I'm looking at my map.
And I'm thinking, if I can't get across that water,
I have to backtrack up this very steep terrain.
We're talking two days of work.
This waterway presents a problem.
I've got this right here. An anchor point.
Across the way, that big tree over there.
If I can get that rope there and back...
I might get wet, but I can get across.
[grunts]
I only want half the rope up that way.
The other half of it stays here.
[grunts]
[Russell speaking]
[grunts]
You see all that? It needs to be over there.
Right by the trunk of that tree.
Not snaking its way down the water.
Out here in the forest, you have to think on your feet.
You have to mix ingenuity with stubbornness.
And I'd like to think that I have both.
I need an anchor. This might be it.
Stay.
Look at that.
It looks like I got it.
I'm halfway to not letting this water stop me.
This is huge.
I have a tree as an anchor point
and I have a tree here as an anchor point.
All I have to do is secure the two ends, and I have a way to get across that water.
Now comes the tricky part.
Because now, I have to find a way to grab hold of that rope
and pull it back across.
All right. I found what I needed.
Got to get this thing cleaned up and make it a little bit better.
I'm making a wooden anchor.
Or a wooden grappling hook.
It's ugly.
But it's going to work.
[narrator] Now that Russell has one end of the rope around the base of the tree
on the other side of the river...
I'll give you an idea of how it works.
[narrator] ...he will use a grappling hook to snag the loose end of the rope...
-Let's give it a try. -[narrator] ...and pull it back across.
[grunts] No, no, no, no, no.
[narrator] This will create a loop around the tree,
allowing him to easily secure both ends of the rope on his side of the river.
[Russell] The distance I'm trying to throw this rope isn't a short distance.
It's quite a ways across.
Oh. It hit the tree.
I got very, very close several times. I would catch on branches above me.
I would throw it on the wrong side of the tree.
The wrong side of the tree.
This was not going to be an easy task.
[grunts]
There it is. There it is. Come on. Come on.
[strains] Come on.
[grunts, straining]
Yeah.
[grunting]
I have an anchor point there, and an anchor point here.
Now, if I don't make all that rope tight...
tight enough to support my body weight,
we're going down into the water.
This is gonna make the difference of us crossing or not.
If I do this right, I shouldn't even get wet.
If I don't... Well, we'll see how this goes.
I don't know if it's gonna work.
But I have to try.
I just saved two days of traveling time.
This was a victory.
If you don't take a risk, you don't get the results.
Now that I've made it across, I want to shore up this rope,
raise it a little bit, make it tighter so I can get my equipment across,
and get the cameraman on this side.
That way, we can be on that nesting site right on schedule.
I have investigating to do.
[narrator] While Russell forges on, on the outskirts of town,
Bryce's newest addition to the team, former CIA agent, Ben Smith,
runs down leads after gaining critical intel from the locals.
So, part of my job as an intelligence officer,
and here, investigating Bigfoot sightings,
is to vet a person, a source, an asset.
And this place turned out to be a gold mine.
[woman] We just kind of kept hearing things, like, following us,
-like an aggressive energy, if that makes sense. -[Ben] Uh-huh.
[man] I know some people definitely that have had experiences,
that heard crazy screaming calls.
Would you mind giving me the contact information?
Yeah, I can give you the contact information.
-I mean, I can't guarantee they'll talk to you, but... -Yeah.
So, I'm headed out to meet a woman named Debbie,
a long-time resident of the Valley,
who has a really interesting experience
that actually changed her belief in Bigfoot.
Hey. Well, Debbie, thanks for making time.
[Debbie] Yes. No problem.
I'd love to hear firsthand from you
what happened. What did you see, or experience?
[Debbie] I'll never forget it.
Um, it was really early in the morning. I was asleep.
And then, I woke up and realized I was hearing something outside.
-I thought it sounded like a motorcycle. -Mm-hmm.
And the first thought was, "Gee, I wonder
who was riding a motorcycle this early in the morning."
-It's still dark at this point? -Yeah, it's still dark.
It was warm. So, the windows were open, and I went to the window...
And at that moment, the sound started getting bigger.
Like a howl. A big, deep howl.
And in a split second, my mind said, "Wow, that's not a motorcycle."
And the sound started getting louder and louder,
and the howl was so deep
that I could hear vibrating.
And when I heard it, I had the chills because it was so close.
And I said, "Well, I think I just heard Bigfoot."
Which direction did you hear it from?
I was just standing there at that window.
-The sound, I think, carried from this area. -Mm-hmm.
I don't think it was very high up on the hill.
-It was that close. -And that hill, it connects to a ridgeline
that probably extends deep into the forest.
[Debbie] Yes, yes.
[Ben] So, you're at the window.
You hear this long howl.
And how did you confirm that it was a Bigfoot howl?
I know what all the animals sound like in this area,
and your mind kind of...
fights with itself and saying, "Is this an animal?"
Because it's nothing you've ever heard before.
Yeah.
Whatever made that howl was huge
because it had to have a huge lung capacity
-in order to carry a howl that loud. -Mm-hmm.
For, like, two weeks afterwards,
my mind didn't believe what I heard.
Now that I know, for sure,
-after investigating-- -What kind of investigating did you do?
I got online, and then, I came across a Bigfoot howl.
-It was almost exactly what I heard. -Right.
-And do you think about that moment a lot? -Oh, yeah, I do.
It's scary. It's a scary sound.
-Yeah. -It's something I'll never forget.
I am a believer now.
There's no doubt in my mind now.
Now that I've heard one, Bigfoot exists.
[Ben] Debbie's account is really interesting
because she heard a long howl
from a ridge on the backside
of the hot zone that our team is investigating.
I'm really excited to pass that evidence to the team
because this could be huge in helping us identify the exact location
of where the Bigfoot might be living.
[Bryce whispering]
[Mireya whispers]
[narrator] As darkness descends on night two of their expedition...
[narrator] ...Russell closes in on the northeast target zone,
while Mireya and Bryce return to the area
where they discovered a possible Bigfoot print.
[Bryce] Tonight, Mireya and I are back at the location
where we found a print that could indicate
a large male Bigfoot may have been scouting this area
before bringing in its family.
And based on what Dr. Bondar told me,
if there is a family of Bigfoot breeding here,
then the activity is just getting started.
-[Mireya] There's new trails going in every direction here. -[Bryce] Yeah.
[narrator] Unlike the white light typically emitted by most flashlights,
red light has the longest wavelength on the visible light spectrum,
but carry the least amount of energy.
The eyes of most animals, including humans,
are less sensitive to red light,
and some animals, such as rabbits, are unable to see it entirely.
[gun cocks]
Utilized by hunters and special forces units in the military,
these specialized lights allow the team
to covertly move through the forest at night
without giving away their position.
-[Mireya] You see the deer tracks right here? -[Bryce] Oh, yeah.
-[Mireya] All of this... -Yeah.
[Mireya] ...was underwater just a week or two ago.
Any tracks we pick up on tonight, that means that it's very fresh.
So, this is a great sign.
This looks like a really active trail.
So, let's just keep heading that way 'cause the trail just keeps going.
[Bryce] You got it.
Wow.
-[Mireya] Look, it opens up over this rock. -Mm-hmm.
Oh, wow. What is this?
[Mireya] Oh. That's... That's sort of strange.
It's parallel to the ground.
Interesting geometry out in the middle of the woods, don't you think?
What immediately catches my eye is just how perfectly parallel
this large log is to the trail that we're on.
-Is there anything holding it up on that end? -No.
And not only that, but it's sitting at about nine feet high.
It's really finely balanced. Here's the tip of it.
I don't see any saw marks.
What's strange is that I don't see any trees like this around here.
Yeah, it looks out of place, doesn't it?
I mean, I don't have to tell you the stories of these creatures
using signals like this as markings for territory,
possible nesting sites.
This could be a tree structure of some sort.
Let's walk down there and see if it's connected to anything.
You know, for a second, I was reminded of those huge trees
that were stuck upside down in Alaska.
[Mireya] Oh, my God.
-[Bryce] That's weird. -That is weird.
The moss up there says that this thing's been here for years and years and years.
[Bryce] I have to admit that I was thinking to myself,
"Could this be a smaller version of that?"
Look at this.
It goes all the way back here.
[Mireya] But it's connected to the ground.
It's rooted at the end.
-[Bryce] Oh, that's buried in there. -Yeah.
[Bryce] Upon further examination...
-[Mireya] Definitely natural. -Yeah.
...we realized that this log was probably downed by the recent rains.
And we can actually see where the roots are embedded into the ground.
-[Mireya] Yeah. -Oh, that's so deceiving.
So, this is not a Bigfoot structure.
[Mireya] It's a great example of not jumping to conclusions for sure.
[Russell whispering]
[narrator] Nine miles to the northeast of Mireya and Bryce's position,
and 11 miles from where he split from the rest of the team,
Russell has finally made his way to a clearing
overlooking a possible Bigfoot nesting site.
[Russell] Tonight, it's clear skies.
It feels like almost a full moon has given us all this ambient light,
which means we don't have to use flashlights,
and we're able to move at night very, very stealthily.
Right now, I'm on this north hillside right at that nesting site
that we've identified on Pete's LiDAR scans.
[whispering]
[Mireya] You learn from every single expedition,
and I've been able to witness
some really intimate moments in the life of wild animals...
where I'm reminded that we're not dissimilar.
And one of the ones that really struck me involved gorillas
and how caring they are for each other.
There was an old silverback that was really on his way out,
and there were two of his sons,
sort of as rivals wanting that position.
And yet, the females were really calming the situation,
waiting for the male, who could not travel
as quickly as the rest of the group,
and never, ever leaving him behind.
That, to me, struck me as something that we see in our own families,
where we care for our elders.
[whispering]
[Russell speaking]
Let's see what we can find.
I'm making the decision now that I'm going to go investigate
and see what's making that sound.
Coming into this tree line, it's very daunting
because you have no idea what you're going to walk into.
But I have to continue this investigation.
I don't know if I'm going to run into a mama bear and her cubs,
or if I'm going to come face-to-face
with what I've been looking for all these years.
[rustling]
[shushes]
[rustling]
[whispering] Let's make our way down to the river.
-Let's see if we can find a spot where we can set up. -Great idea.
We're at the river tonight, right near the area where we found the footprint.
I can't wait to explore this area more,
to see if we can find any evidence of just what created this thing.
[Mireya whispering] There's a lot of different places for animals to go here.
-[Bryce whispering] Yeah. -So many trails.
It's so quiet, like everything is so still suddenly.
[Bryce speaking]
We just got a tree knock.
I heard it clearly, whatever that was.
[man] Yeah, tree knocks always happen when Bigfoot is around.
It's believed that Bigfoots communicate by hitting branches against the trees,
and every time I've heard one, weird stuff comes with it.
[whispering] I swear to God, I'm not even kidding.
-[Mireya speaking] -[Bryce speaking]
[Mireya speaking]
[device beeping]
[normally] Look, look, it's heating up.
[Bryce whispering]
[whispering]
Look, look, look.
[Mireya speaking]
[Bryce speaking]
[Mireya speaking]
[Bryce] Oh, look at that.
[normally] Mireya, I just saw eye shine.
-[strange howling] -[Mireya normally] Bryce, Bryce. Oh, my God.