[narrator] Previously on Expedition Bigfoot...
If Bigfoot is here, we're gonna find evidence.
[Ronny] We are right in the heart of coal country.
I'm on my way to talk to a preacher.
He was hearing some crazy sounds out of his backyard.
[Tracy] This is the video.
[howling]
That's wild.
[Ronny] Look at this, water, shelter.
[man] We're in the right area.
[Ronny] Maybe we could provoke something to come out.
[whispering] Poppin'. Definitely something.
[Mireya whispering] Ronny, come in.
- Come in. - [radio static]
I just heard something really big run past me.
- [low growl] - Holy [bleep]!
[howling]
[Mireya] There's something over there.
Ronny. Come in.
[radio static]
[narrator] Deep in the forests of southeastern Kentucky,
primatologist Dr. Mireya Mayor and Bigfoot researcher Ronny Le Blanc
are at opposite ends of a mile-long pathway
near an abandoned mine they believe could be a habitat
for a very large creature.
[whispering] Ronny. Ronny!
[whispering] Mireya, look.
[Mireya] Ronny, something big just ran past me.
[Ronny speaking]
No, I'm not kidding you. Something definitely large ran past me.
[Ronny speaking]
[Ronny] Something ran past Mireya.
I expect it to come in my direction.
I'm trying to find out what's at the top of the ridge here,
but I'm hearing some popping.
And it's scary as [bleep].
Dripping sweat.
I think there's something on the ridge above.
[whispering] It's moving when I'm moving.
Now it's just dead quiet.
[Mireya speaking]
[static]
[Mireya] What's going on with the walkies?
The fact that our walkies weren't working
the moment that something ran past Mireya, that is very strange.
A lot of researchers have encountered their equipment, cameras
and all these different electronics malfunctioning or being disrupted.
We had something similar happened to us last year.
[Russell] You guys got a copy?
[Mireya] Hey.
[Ronny] I think whatever ran past you got up on the ridge above me
and was following me.
[Mireya whispering]
[Ronny] Yeah.
Humans have a tendency to think that they're at the top of the food chain.
But the truth is that when you're in the wild,
you realize just how small and insignificant you are in this element.
In that moment, I very suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable.
[Ronny whispering]
[Mireya whispering]
[Russell] Been out here for a few hours now.
It's a... it's a lot more thick than I had anticipated.
All right. Onward.
[narrator] Two miles north of Ronny and Mireya's position,
former Army sergeant and survivalist Russell Acord is traveling southeast
along one of the dozens of ridges in their target zone.
[Russell] Whatever you're hunting and seeking, deer, elk, bear,
you have to fight for it, work for it. You have to climb.
I believe that Bigfoot to be an intelligent creature.
That's gonna be in the high ground.
Tactically, that's where you wanna be.
You can drop down either side of the ridge line,
being able to avoid human contact.
Hey, I think I'm on someone's property here.
There's a guy down here working. I want to go down and talk to him first.
[Russell grunts] Hello?
How you doing?
Doing a little bit of research here.
There's still people in this area, and these people see it all,
they hear it all, and they're submerged in this environment.
[Russell] Hey, sorry about that.
I didn't realize I was up on your property.
[man speaking]
[Russell] I'm sorry about that. I'm just moving through this area
with a small team. We're trying to get data
on some specific wildlife in this area.
[man speaking]
- [Russell] Yeah? - [man speaking]
- [Russell] You grew up here? - [man speaking]
[Russell] Thirty years in the mines. That's some hard work, man.
- [man speaking] - [Russell] I bet.
- [Russell] Yeah. - [man speaking]
[man speaking]
[Russell] Area's been mined for 100 years.
When you drill into the side of a mountain and you make a void,
if the soil doesn't sustain that hole,
it'll collapse right out from underneath of your feet.
Thirty years in mines and all those other guys.
Anybody ever talk about anything strange out here in the wild?
[speaking]
[Russell] You wouldn't talk about it? No?
[man speaking]
You've been here your whole life?
[Russell] So, you'd recognize if it was a coyote or a bear bawling or something?
- [speaking] - [Russell] Right.
[speaking]
- [Russell] Stuff you couldn't explain. - [speaking]
Thank you. Appreciate your time.
- [speaking] - Yeah. Thank you. You too.
He's a coal miner. Been here for 30-some years.
Let's go see what's up ahead of us here.
So he's pretty dialed in and some of the sounds that he heard,
he did not recognize what they were,
which is probably exactly what we're here looking for.
[narrator] Fourteen miles south, just beyond their target zone,
Bryce Johnson has set up his command center.
From here, he'll be able to monitor the team's movements,
review evidence and coordinate delivery
of supplies to the team in the field.
[Bryce] If I could just single this out a little bit like this...
[narrator] Bryce is using state-of-the-art audio processing software
to isolate and clean the sound of the possible Bigfoot howl that was recorded
by a local preacher within their target zone.
[Bryce] This is the video that I got from Tracy, the witness out in his backyard.
This is the actual video right here.
[howling on video]
It does sound like what so many witnesses report.
If this really was a Bigfoot creature right in Tracy's backyard,
then it's indigenous to this area.
So I'm really excited to get this out to the team in the field
and hopefully they can play it over the loud speaker system
and, uh, get a response back.
As soon as I'm done here, I'll send this to Russell.
But it's just gonna take time to go through this and just come away
with a really clean audio file.
[cell phone beeping]
How interesting.
So people are sort of familiar with who we are now,
and one of the advantages is individuals trust us
with, uh, sharing their encounter stories, uh, their locations
and even some of their evidence.
So I just got a text from a guy named,
uh, Duncan, who is in the local area.
But it sounds like this guy has grown up here his entire life
and he says he knows where there's a lot of Bigfoot activity,
and that's really kind of what we're looking for is,
we need the intel of the local residents of this community.
Can't leave any stone unturned.
Some of these are... Oh, yeah, these are boreholes right here.
Looks like they're full of water too.
[narrator] Boreholes like these are created by auger mining.
Large three-foot wide drills bore up to 200 feet
to extract coal from the earth.
But unlike larger mines built for people to enter,
these holes have no support to prevent them from caving in.
[Russell speaking]
There are hundreds of mine shafts around here.
If Bigfoot needs a place to hide
where humans would be uncomfortable going into,
this is the perfect environment for just that.
Watch out. Watch out.
These are very dangerous. See how they go up here?
Look how wide this is.
A big animal could definitely hide in here.
It would be insane for a person to go into one of these holes.
We don't know how safe they are, if the soil would collapse.
Looks like whatever is holding it up, there's not much.
[bleep]
Oh, yeah, these are boreholes right here.
I'm gonna see if there's any tracks,
any kind of evidence that Bigfoot's here.
[narrator] Russell Acord is inspecting
an abandoned 200-foot mine shaft
for signs that a Bigfoot may be hiding inside.
[Russell] These are very dangerous.
Looks like there's been a lot of erosion. [bleep]
You all right?
What's happening is they're taking the material from beneath it.
The coal, once they're done, they back up and withdraw.
Just natural gravity, from the way the rocks drops down,
leaves this mess. So I'm gonna get out and away from this.
I think I'm gonna stay out of the manmade auger holes for right now.
It's far too unstable, and that's too bad
because this is an ideal shelter for a Bigfoot.
In fact, we found some great hair samples in mine shafts just last year.
[Mireya] Line it up towards the mine.
Move it a little closer.
[man] Isn't that the weirdest thing?
[Mireya] What is that? Are those hairs?
Hey, guys, there's some reddish-brown in there.
Got it. That's long.
[Russell] Some of that loose rock is just really fragile
coming up. Cobwebs right there in the front.
Nothing's been in or out of here.
Let's get away from this. I don't...
I don't like that.
I'll keep moving.
If I'm below this ridge line, I only have a limited perspective.
I can only see 40-50 feet, so we're gonna keep marching forward.
I want to go to those upper levels
and see if I can get some information from above.
[narrator] Two and a half miles to the south,
Dr. Mireya Mayor and Ronny Le Blanc
are inspecting the 12 motion activated trail cameras
they placed along the mile-long corridor.
Their hope is that one of them captured an image
of whatever creature they heard the night before.
[Mireya] Did you see anything?
Uh, just a shot or two of us walking through, that's it.
All right. I'll go check the next one.
[Mireya] Just some shots of us walking by.
[Mireya] All right. To the next one.
Let's head back to the water source. It's right over here.
[Ronny speaking]
[Mireya] It did sound big, and I couldn't see anything at all.
And honestly, my instinct just said back away.
- Wow. - [Mireya] It was right over here
because it's before I hit that little creek.
I heard it run just along the edge of this, it wasn't that far.
Did you hear two feet? Did it sound like a deer?
It didn't sound like a deer. It sounded heavier than that.
And it definitely sounded more like a heavy human.
- Right, it was big? - Yeah.
Wow.
I don't really scare easily and I've spent enough time in the woods
to sort of know the sounds to expect,
but to suddenly hear a large animal run past me.
That was enough to get my adrenaline going.
And that doesn't happen very often.
Look, I want to check out the camera that I left by the water opening.
This is actually the camera I'm most interested in.
[Ronny] Yeah.
[Mireya] It was right here.
- [bleep] - [Mireya] I had it set just here,
pointing that way, so that if an animal came in,
we'd have the entire swathe of this little pond here.
[Mireya] There it is.
I had tied it to that log.
It may have just slipped off, or if...
Or something grabbed it.
It's still on there.
That can't move on its own.
Wow.
[Russell speaking]
Well, it was pointing that way.
[narrator] Last year, the team discovered
that a trail camera they had set up
had been intentionally moved.
- That is odd. - That is odd.
Wow.
[Mireya] I can't assume it was thrown,
but chimps in the field,
I mean, we use trail cameras all the time,
are known to mess with cameras
because they're naturally curious.
What other animal out here could have done this?
This one is rather puzzling.
Are we gonna be able to retrieve any images off there do you think?
If we have anything on it, we could damage it.
I'm a little nervous to do that right now.
Why don't we send it to Bryce
- and see if he can extract anything from it? - Great idea.
Now that we've checked all the cameras,
let's head back and we'll use the red lights tonight
so that we can see a little bit better than we could last night.
Something was definitely paralleling me,
as I was going down that way, so...
Let's head out.
[birds squawking]
I've been hearing the turkeys. Whatever eats meat.
Definitely find it on this trail.
I'm gonna stick with this, stay with this path.
If there's game moving through here, everything else is moving through.
[narrator] Two and a half miles north of Mireya and Ronny,
Russell is attempting to maneuver to the top of the next ridge.
It is in these high points that he believes
Bigfoot is most likely to be hiding.
I think as a society we've gotten used to the comforts in our life.
We've lost sight of what it's like to step out in the middle of forest,
strip everything away and get in touch with those instincts.
Especially with research, those instincts can lead you on the path
that will help find what you're looking for.
You have to learn to trust them.
Walking on this ridge, I would imagine, is the exact same way
Bigfoot would conduct business.
They take the high ground because tactically,
that is the place you want to be in any given situation.
Man, this is perfect.
Look at this whole panoramic view.
See that trail over there, how grown over that is?
If you look down into this valley, there's a plant called kudzu.
[narrator] Kudzu, known as the vine that ate the South,
was first brought over from Japan in the late 1800s
and has thrived in the southeast ever since.
This dense vegetation may provide the perfect cover
for large animals to move freely through the area.
But below all of this that you're seeing is a whole other ecosystem
that lives underneath of it. It's big enough for larger animals.
Deer and elk walk through underneath of here.
There's no shortage of food and resources here.
It can certainly feed a full-grown Bigfoot.
It's amazing.
So my idea...
anything that puts off a heat trace against this background temperature
will show up on my thermals.
I have to be quiet and not draw any attention to myself.
I don't need anything on these other hillsides to know that I'm here.
[whispering] This is where we wait.
[narrator] As Russell keeps watch over the possible Bigfoot feeding ground,
17 miles away in the small town of Benham,
Bryce Johnson waits to follow up on a lead he received from a local.
Waiting for a gentleman to pick me up. His name is Duncan.
He contacted me yesterday and told me that he knows a spot
where Bigfoots are frequently known to cross the highway.
Now, believe it or not, this is not an uncommon pattern.
Hundreds of eye witnesses have reported seeing Bigfoot as they cross the road.
[narrator] Spotting Bigfoot near or running across a road
has become one of the most commonly reported types of sightings.
One of the best known was captured on a police dash cam.
The footage shows a large dark, bipedal creature
crossing a remote highway in rural Georgia.
-[man] What the crap. Did you see that? -[woman] What was that? Yes.
[man] That looked like a bear, but it was running on two feet.
Oh, my goodness.
[Bryce] Duncan should arrive any second now.
And I'm just hoping he's right about the location where we're going.
[Bryce speaking]
[Bryce] Duncan. Hey, what's up, man? I'm Bryce.
Thank you for meeting me tonight.
[Duncan] Glad to be here.
[Bryce] You say you know of a place where Bigfoot is known to cross the road?
[Duncan] Yes.
[Bryce] Do you think Bigfoots are active in this area around this time of year?
[Duncan] I would say that Bigfoot is active in this area
all times of the year.
[Bryce] Uh-huh.
This thermal is really a great way
to canvass a very large area.
And be able to see if there's anything that stands out.
Thermal gives a really good hot heat trace.
And you're able to find it right away.
[whispering]
I'll go in and get closer, watch this.
[Bryce] Do you think these creatures are dangerous?
[Duncan] I think they could be.
I mean, any animal that would be that size would be brute strength.
If they're a hunter and they capture deer,
they've got to have the intelligence
to be able to subdue it.
We've been at this for a couple hours,
and so far it's just the elk.
I'm not seeing much activity in the bottom of this ravine at all.
[Russell speaking]
[narrator] After observing two elk feeding on kudzu,
Russell has discovered a third animal 200 feet up a ravine
that appears to be hunting them.
[whispering]
That's no bear.
That thing is putting off a big thermal.
And it just disappeared.
They elk noticed it.
And I think the element of surprise was gone.
He decided not to attack.
I think it dropped into the kudzu and headed up on the ridge.
I gotta let Bryce know about this.
[narrator] Three miles to the southwest, Ronny and Mireya
are exploring the area above the trail where Ronny believes a very large animal
was paralleling him the previous night.
[Ronny] These all look so creepy.
[narrator] But after hours of hiking, their investigation has turned up nothing.
- [Mireya] So we've been at this for hours here. - [Ronny] Yeah.
[Mireya] I think today it just doesn't wanna be found.
We go back tonight, we regroup
because I think we've exhausted this place right now.
Yeah, I agree with you.
[Ronny] Good night.
[rustling]
[Ronny] Started hearing the popping sounds again
that I was hearing earlier.
Mireya, was that you?
Something's walking around out there.
[tent zips open]
So, you know what time it is right now, right?
The witching hour.
[Mireya] Ronny, you're gonna hear sounds. You're gonna hear a lot of them.
That doesn't mean that Bigfoot is outside our tent.
I'm gonna try to go to sleep so that we can get an early start tomorrow.
-[Ronny] Sounds good. Good night. -[Mireya] Good night.
I understand why Ronny's on edge.
It's intimidating.
Especially in an area with so much history,
where you know it was so heavily populated
with tens of thousands of people and then suddenly it's down to hundreds.
Nature has really reclaimed this
and nature is powerful.
Definitely more powerful than we are.
[Duncan] We'll just ease up through
'cause this road's gonna get a little rough.
- [Bryce] This is the road Bigfoot is often seen on? - [Duncan] Yes.
[Bryce] This is fascinating. Our target zone is really just based off of processing
the data from our algorithm and Duncan has pointed us to a Bigfoot hot spot
well within our target zone. That just tells me that our algorithm works
and we have a great chance for spotting Bigfoot.
[Bryce] I brought some equipment.
I brought an infrared scope.
- [Bryce] Let's keep moving. - [Duncan] Sounds good.
[Bryce] Having this high definition thermal camera,
I'll be able to spot anything that's close to the road and thinking about crossing it.
I am just scoping the... the wood line here,
looking for anything giving off a heat signature.
[Duncan] Take a good look down deep into the woods down there.
[Bryce] Wow.
[Bryce] Oh, wait a minute, I see something. Stop right here. Do you see that?
[Bryce] I'm just scoping the...
the wood line here.
Looking for
anything giving off a heat signature.
Oh, wait a minute, I see something. Do you see that?
- [Duncan] What the crap is that? - [Bryce] I don't know.
[narrator] While investigating a road known for Bigfoot crossings, Bryce has spotted
something large on the thermal just 200 yards away.
[Bryce] It's gone now.
[bleep]
Just gonna scan the wood line.
[Duncan] It just ran in front of us to that side.
What the hell!
[Bryce] Oh, there it is again.
It disappeared. I'm just gonna focus in.
- There. See that? - [Duncan] There it is.
Duncan, pull over right now.
Duncan, can you turn on your spotlight?
[Bryce] You see anything?
Oh, yeah. There we go.
Yeah, I got something back there.
- [Duncan] That's weird. - It is weird.
- There it goes, that way. - [Duncan] Over the lane.
Nothing.
Well, what do you think, Duncan?
You know, you can't find it if you ain't out looking for it.
Amen!
All right, well, let's keep looking. I mean, we're clearly on the right track.
What we saw in that thermal could have been anything.
As we know, this forest is teeming with life,
but I don't know of any animal that moves quite like that did.
Look, we're in the southeastern corner of our target zone
and whatever that was, perhaps it was trying to cross the road and we scared it off.
The question is, where was it going and why?
We're just gonna have to keep searching to find out.
[Russell] I need to work my way up through this kudzu,
because I want to get to that space where I saw that thermal.
If I could get to that space, try to find out what it was,
and work my way up that ridge line.
[narrator] Russell believes the creature that he saw stalking the elk
escaped up the mountain above,
and now he's attempting to track the animal's movements.
The thermal hit I got last night was high above where the elk were standing.
It had positioned itself in an elevated position close to the top of the tree line.
This is the type of thing, tactically, that a very intelligent predator will do.
So today, my objective, get on that same path,
go up into that same area and I'm gonna follow whatever that was.
I let Bryce know about that strange thermal hit I got last night.
He says he's gonna send me something.
Hang on, hang on. Give me a second.
Look at that.
I just got something from Bryce and he's uploaded a perceived Bigfoot howl
from this local region, or this local area.
So it's great that I actually get a sound from this environment,
in this area that I can actually play and hopefully prompt a response.
[narrator] Last year, the team used an extremely powerful
speaker system to broadcast a reported
Bigfoot howl from within their target zone
and they received a call back from an unidentified animal.
[howling]
Hear that?
[narrator] Now armed with a new sound from Bryce,
Russell could perform a similar broadcast.
[Russell] If what I saw last night did come up this way,
this sound might be exactly what I need to track it down.
Should be a little flat up here. It opens out over top of this nice valley.
I've come over the crest of this ridge. I'm looking at a whole broad expansion.
I think this is a great place. I know exactly what I need to do at this point.
I'm gonna set up my audio broadcast to where I can actually
put a sound out there, see if I can get a reaction.
[over radio] Dr. Mireya?
- [beeps] - Hey, Russ.
[Russell] I got something on the thermals the other night
and I've been tracking this thing.
- What's your location? - [Mireya] I'm sending you my coordinates now.
[Russell] Perfect. You guys are very close to me.
Just wanted to bring you guys in on something. I'm gonna run a vocalization,
alleged Bigfoot call from the Appalachian mountains.
I'm gonna play the sound from up here on the ridge.
I want you guys in position in the hollow below.
-Great idea. -Sounds good. Thanks, man.
- Be careful. - [radio beeps]
- All right, great. - Solid plan. I like it.
[narrator] Mireya and Ronny will move into position in the hollow
below Russell, who will be armed with the speaker system.
And he's also brought a new tool.
[Russell] Parabolic mic.
[narrator] A parabolic mic is a directional microphone
used by law enforcement for collecting audio evidence
and intercepting communications.
Using the curvature of the dish, sound waves are amplified
and directed to a receiver that is able to capture even faint sounds
hundreds of feet away with crystal clarity.
If something responds to that audio broadcast,
I want to record it. I wanna know what it is.
I just hope that Ronny and Mireya are ready
for whatever might be coming their way.
- [Mireya speaking] - [Ronny] Yeah.
[narrator] Deep within their target zone, the team will play a possible Bigfoot call
that was recorded by a local preacher nearby,
in the hopes of receiving a return call.
If they can elicit a response,
it may give away the creature's position,
allowing the team to gain a visual.
[Mireya] Hey, Russell.
- Go, Mireya. - [radio beeps]
Hey, Russell. Ronny and I have just gotten into position.
[narrator] Russell is stationed on a cliff with a high-powered speaker system
that will blast the howl across the area.
Ronny and Mireya are positioned in the hollow directly below him.
[Ronny speaking]
The game plan tonight is for Russ to play that
vocalization from the ridge line and see if something responds.
One concern is if there's an animal out there,
we don't know what we'd be communicating to it.
We could be making a distress call or provoking aggression.
We just don't know.
Something we note with primates is that
they have very distinct calls and vocalizations
to express different things to members of the group.
They make one that is specific to danger like a predator,
but it gets more and more complex.
For example, there's one vocalization for ground predator
versus a tree predator.
Let's see what it produces.
[Ronny] A lot of the stories in Kentucky involving Sasquatch,
there seems to be a lot of aggression.
There's a lot of instances where they're doing
these charges or they're throwing rocks, sticks.
There's an immediate feeling that you are not supposed
to be here and someone's telling you to get lost.
If you're ready to play that call,
- we are too. - Sounds good, give me about 60 second count.
- All right, sounds good. - [radio beeps]
[beeping]
[Russell speaking]
I'm gonna turn it all the way up,
and I'm gonna hit play.
[howling]
[whispering]
[Russell softly] Now we listen.
- [animal whooping] - [Mireya] What is that?
Is that a coyote?
[animals whooping]
- [Mireya] Sounds like coyotes are responding. - Yeah.
Nature's recognizing something and they're responding to it. It's exactly what we want.
You heard the coyotes, right?
- Yes. - Yeah, we did hear the coyotes.
Stand by, 10 seconds, I'm gonna play that again.
Be listening.
- Here we go. - [Mireya] Standing by.
[howling]
[howling continues]
[howls]
[bleep]
Tell me, you heard that!
- Ronny. - Wow.
- Ronny, what was that? - I don't know.
I've never heard anything like that.
That was crystal clear.
[whispering]
That had a more of a whistle, long-term whistle.
All of the animals that I know that are here, none of them sound like that.
- Right. - So...
I can't begin to explain what that was.
I know all the animals that are here, and I could say without a question
of the doubt that that sound didn't come from any known animal here.
[howling]
Hey, Russ, are you making calls again?
[Russell over radio]
What!
I haven't played anything since the last time I told you.
There are sounds that are happening all around us.
It's sounded like something moving down here.
[bleep]
[Ronny] Let's really pay attention to where it's coming from.
I think there's one there and there's another one over here.
They're on either side of us.
[howls]
I think there's one there and there's another one over here.
They're on either side of us.
[Mireya over radio] We're caught in the middle of two vocalizations.
[Russell] Copy.
They have vocalizations on both sides of them, so they're in front and behind
where they're just traveling into it. Sounds to me like they've actually placed
themselves in the center of that attention.
- Did you hear that? - [Ronny] Yeah.
It's coming from that direction.
I heard movement.
- What is that? - [Ronny] I have no idea.
[leaves rustling]
[Russell] Did you hear that?
[Russell] Something either fell or was thrown.
[Ronny speaking]
I feel like we need to be on higher ground.
All right, then let's go that way.
Well, it's definitely a vantage point for them to be up higher.
Yeah.
[Mireya whispering] I still hear it up here.
[Ronny] You know what? I'm starting to think
this sound we heard was back there,
but whatever made that sound is probably coming around this way now
because we keep on hearing those pops and cracks.
It's gonna go... And here's it over here.
[Mireya] It's coming from over there now.
So you think whatever we heard up there is now down there?
[Ronny] Yeah, they're tracking us.
[bleep]
They're coming around now. Oh, boy.
One, two, three.
There are three, not two.
I know for a fact that if they call for me or they need my help...
[branches snapping]
[bleep]
[narrator] Next time on Expedition Bigfoot...
[Ronny speaking]
[Mireya] Ronny, slow down.
- You think there's a Bigfoot there, you charge at it. - [Ronny] Mmm-hmm.
That is something that could have not just injured you, could have injured me.
If you had been on one of my expeditions, you'd have been gone.
There's something tall and black standing just off from a tree.
The teeth on that thing was unreal.
That's the point where we just ran for our lives.
I see toe prints, a defined arch and a heel indentation.
Something large has been coming through here.
It looks treacherous, but this is where we have to go.
[cameraman] Oh, God!
[Russell] Hang on. Hang on.
[groans]
[Bryce speaking]
[distant screaming]
[bleep]