John M. Reiners: Examining Bigfoot Anatomy

Matthew: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Drunken Cryptids. I'm your host, Matthew Wharton. And of course, through Rustic Supply Co. Man, you guys are great and wonderful. Thank you. looking forward to see y'all in a week from now, less than a week, up there in OBJ, Ohio, the Ohio Bigfoot Jamboree. That's right. Make sure you guys come out October 3rd. We will be there. This airs right before we're gonna be up there. So I'll be there, Jacob's gonna be there, and Jeep Pervince is gonna be hanging out with us as well. Plus all of our friends, you know, chumming, Miss Monsters and Molus, Cryptus of the Corn, Nevermore Hollows, Cracking Cans. my gosh, this is gonna be so it's gonna like a big party reunion hanging out in Ada, Ohio on October 3rd. So make sure you check it out. Also, you guys, don't forget the Arkside Crypto Fest, May 22nd coming up next year. Great speakers lined up, good VIPs. My good friend Jason Kinsey is gonna be there, along with Carter Brashard, chumming the spirits. we've got Johnson coming in with haunted dolls. We're gonna be have haunted dolls at the fest. How cool is that? Crip is the corner to be talking again about their UFO experiences and their theories on there. And Dano, good, if I forget you, I apologize. I don't get the notes in front of me. let's see here. Also, November 7th, we're gonna be hanging out with Chum and Spirits. Make sure you go check out their show. I will be MC and speaking there. So definitely check it out. In Ohio, I'll be speaking at that one. So, is that it? end of October, yep, Arxide Paranormal Expo. We will have a booth there, and I'm a backup speaker in case somebody gets sick or something. So let's hope that doesn't happen. But anyways, you guys, and of course, if you've had an account and you want to come the show, email me drunkencribs at gmail.com, check out the Patreon, and of course, buy me a coffee, man. I like coffee. You know, you gotta be nice. But so who I have coming on, you probably see him jumping on the other camera there, is Mr. John Reiners. And the cool thing is me and him are talking over a year ago. misses back and forth talking, you know, research, you know, discoveries, stuff like that. And you know, sometimes, you know, you can the show happens and sometimes you have to wait over a year. And so finally got him on. And so John is coming all the way in from the Black Hills, and the Black Hills to me is really fascinating. I think we could do the whole episode on the Black Hills and the the mysteries and everything that took place there with the you know the the local the natives. he's a four year Coast Guard veteran. And you guys know I love veterans. That's a spot my heart. And what I like about interviewing veterans is the fact that you know they're you know they're good they're kind of black and white. And and we really are. That's just kind of what we're trained on. You know, you can't colorize a a sit rep, you know, a situation report. You have to actually, you know, black and white. You gotta make it as it is. He's been a registered nurse for over twenty six years. That tells me that he is highly disciplined. And 'cause to be able to do that in the medical field, I could not do it. So I tip my hat to everybody in the medical field as well. But he's got three books written, right? He's got
John Reiners: Correct.
Matthew: one, more than just fishing, is like his adventures with his dad. And I think that's awesome because he took something with his dad and he has made it concrete to where his dad's great, great, great grandchildren will still be able to read and hear his adventures and stuff. And I you know Something to do and I should do that with my father as well, but I have the Steelers organization. Well, the Steelers fan club for that one. Crouching Behemoth, quadrup I always mess that you know, quadrup quadruple. Thank you, quadruple Sasquatch. I can't do it.
John Reiners: Quadrupedal Sasquatch. Yeah, say it five times fast.
Matthew: And one I'm really fascinating and interested to get into is aquatic Sasquatch. And we were just talking off air, John, and a lot of our theories that you and I have, seems to be you know, really similar and close. And that's tells me that there's you know, some of us in the research, you know, and I've gotten, you know, some attacks on it, to be honest with you, my theories and told, no, you're wrong. And I'm like, which is fine. It's a theory. And if you're an expert, don't come on the show. because there's no experts. But anywho, well that sounded a lot better. So Well, John, jump in anytime in. You tell everybody about you I'll just give you a little breakdown about you. If you want to jump in, tell everybody about you and man, we'll we'll get right through your encounters and boom, we'll go from i get into it.
John Reiners: I feel like everybody in the Bigfoot community is Adding one piece to the puzzle. If you consider like a 5,000, 10,000 piece puzzle, I feel like I might have added one piece. So it's not like got answers, but that's how you come up with scientific stuff is by theorizing based on scientific fact and knowledge that you can allow you to make a good hypothesis without just total guesswork. And that's where I'll get into that in a little bit ago with my orthopedic background. So anyway, so I'm gonna start with November 17th of 2020. that was when COVID was pretty much in full swing and I don't want to get into you know people COVID was overblown whatever all that because you know believe it or not I'm not always a big vaccine guy in certain situations but it is what it is. I ended up working I worked on an immunocompromised unit and during COVID they were so short handed for the COVID floor nobody ever wanted to work there and so they would make people work there so I got voluntold that I would go and work the COVID unit a couple nights a week. So The the problem with that is though when you work around these really sick people, all of them were on respirators, every one of them, the inundated, there they wouldn't have got admitted to the hospital. So these were like the sickest of the sick, and believe it or not, there was some really sick, sick people. Usually they had to have something else wrong with them, maybe obesity, diabetes, you know, COPD, all that kind of stuff. Then when it would get a hold of them, it it could be a death sentence. And anyway, so we would get swabbed before I could go work on my home. Unit this morning I got swabbed and never think of anything about it. Went home, went to bed. Later on in the afternoon, my phone rings and it's work. They say, You can't come to work tonight, you've got COVID. Well, in those days, it was a seven-day quarantine. You can't come back in the hospital, work around, you know, cancer patients and all these different types of people that are have a compromised immune system. So I was told to stay away for seven days. Well, my dilemma was that at that time my father-in-law was living with us to Temporarily. We were trying to tread water. He got early dementia and he had some COPD issues and so forth. And we didn't want him to be around that high risk. And they were out shopping at the time, so I called my wife and I said, you know what? We've got a little cabin at Rough River Lake. It's 58 miles away. I live in Owensboro, Kentucky. And so anyway, I told her I'll meet you at the grocery store. If I'll give you a list, and she got everything on my list except beer. I told her to get a six pack, well, you for Seven days. Come on, she wouldn't even do that. So she puts all my groceries in the back of my truck. I had a F-150 at the time. And so we had no contact. I told them, you guys go get swabbed. I was worried that my father-in-law might have had it. So they went on and I went about my way. By this time it's about 9 p.m. And on this November 17th of 2020, it wasn't very bright. It was just a sliver of a moon, and later on you couldn't even see it. So I'm on my way up. And to get to from Owensboro, up here where I'm at at the lake, and that's where I'm at right now, is Breckinridge County. It's near a town called McDaniel's, very small town on the on Rupp River Lake. So to get there, you take 54 east out of Owensboro and you go about 25 miles, you get to a small town called Fordsville. At Fordsville, I take Highway 261 north, which is a left turn, so it's about an 11-mile stretch from there. And that's a really rural stretch. If you Google Earth on that highway, you'll see a lot of hills, woods. with a few breaks of woods where you get into farmers' pastures, and then if you go back behind the pastures, it turns into hilly, hilly woods, kind of a foothills type of situation. So on that road, I always gotta really watch. I've almost hit a horse one time with standing in the road. You'll get deer come out in front of you. Yeah, there's people that out in the woods that have small hobby farms and they don't tend to their fences, and they're you never know. I've had goats out on there, chickens, turkey, fox, you name it. So, you know, you kind of keep your your wits about you driving down there. And so that's an 11-mile stretch. And when you get to this little four-way stops called McQuaid, it's a little more built up now, but now I think there's four or five. Buildings at that intersection, that's it, and that's where I would go on 105. I would take a right, and that goes about another 10 miles out to the lake. So I'm about a mile, mile and a half before this four four-way stop. I'm driving down through this wood section, and on my left side, if you picture along now, this is a two-lane highway at this time of year, at this time of night, no traffic. I'd gone 10 miles without passing a car. So on the left side, there's a ravine with the row of trees coming out of the ravine, and then Behind that, about 30 yards behind that, there's a second ravine that extends about another hundred yards past it. So that's about 30 yards back from the road. So as I'm driving down through that section, just coming out of this heavily wooded section where there's gonna be some open pasture, out on the right, there's woods that go right up to the side of the road, and there is a little pond back there. If you Google Earth, you'll actually see a little pond back there, which is kind of cool. So I see this big buck. Now I'm not a hunter anymore when I grew up in South Dakota. I was a hunter. Hunter, you gotta pick one or the other. Wife says fishing or hunting, so I'm a fisherman, so that's where I spend my money. You know, six seven as the kids would say. But I
Matthew: my gosh, my kids are gonna laugh when they hear that part.
John Reiners: dropped a six seven. It's probably old by now. They'll say, that's an old term.
Matthew: Yeah, my twelve year old says, Yeah, that's older. My eight year old he's like going six seven. So he does it to antagonize
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: her to have fun with it. But I'm with you on the fishing. I'm much more of a fisherman than I'm a hunter.
John Reiners: Yeah, okay. So This big buck comes right out on the road and stops. He's not looking at me now, mind you. I'm looking at his flank. He's facing the right side. Actually, he's facing where I just described that second ravine that goes a hundred yards further. And then at the end of it, it's all farmers pasture. And then behind that there's a bunch of trees and woods again. But at this time of year, all the crops are tilled down, so you can see the field really well. But I can't figure out why this buck is standing there. It's like he's is he just wanting me to hit him or what? Like it's really Weird, so you I'm going 55. I start slowing down. I'm in this F-150. If I hit them, it's gonna damage both of us. And so I'm almost to the stop. And you know how your headlights you get that side shine that you know it kind of goes off into the into the the side of the highway and so forth. So as I'm g
Matthew: Mm-hmm.
John Reiners: approaching this deer, something catches my eye at the end of that second ravine, a big pair of gold eyes. And now I've seen mountain lines in the Black Hills. We used to have mountain lines on our property every once in a while. And you I know what the ice shine of a mountain lion, but what I realized about this ice shine that's a predator. They're not, you know, ungulates and and animals of prey, their eyes are sideways. You know, sometimes they bug out like a deer. You can tell it's a deer because they're not directly head-on. These were head-on. So this was some kind of a predator, is what I my antenna was up, but these things were about the size of silver dollars, and I they're they're a good distance apart. So as I get closer, I realize I see this big. Head, and I don't know if you remember the wrestler Brock Lesnar. That it wasn't conical shape. Brock Lesnar, if you look him up, he's from South Dakota, so I've actually met him, so I wouldn't say this to his face, he'd probably clobber me. But his head is like big and kind of squarish. That's how this thing was the size of the head was about the size of a basketball. And the thing about it, it was only like three feet off the ground, and it the head was kind of moving, kind of weird. Well, as my life. Lights start illuminating. I see this thing kind of helped a skeleton, kind of going like this. Well, at that point, I don't know if he's looking directly at me or this deer that's right in front of me. By this time I'm stopped. And you know, there's no cards, you it's a straightaway. You can see anything coming from either way. So now I'm kind of terrified, like, what the heck is that? And before long, with this deer standing there, I kind of think the deer. Well he looked tired when he got out there, and I'll tell you why I think that in a minute. So anyway, pretty soon he takes off. Now this this this entity that I wasn't sure at this point what it was yet was off to probably like my nine o'clock. This deer takes off at like my ten or eleven o'clock towards the open field. And I thought, what a dummy. Why didn't he just turn around and go back to these woods and go into safety? So he takes off. So I'm watching, and this thing that was moving like this all of a sudden turns towards that deer. deer, his leg what I thought was legs in the front, he starts galloping on all fours still. And at this point I'm like, if that's a bear, I don't know what kind of bear it is. I've never seen a bear like that. I've seen plenty of bear in my life. He didn't have a long snout. He had more like a human type of hooded nose. You could see hair and everything, but you could see kind of gray colored skin. It looked gray from my headlights. And as this thing was galloping towards it, in a fluid motion, it went from the spider to the gallop and up on two. And at that point I knew exactly what I was looking at. They do exist. And I was looking at this thing and the tallest human being I'd ever seen, when I was in the Coast Guard, I was able to get some tickets to Madison Square Garden at the time the Knicks were playing. This was back in the eighties. I'm kind of aging myself, but Patrick Ewing, he was about seven foot, seven foot one. This thing was a little bit taller than that, but he was a lot wider. And the thing I noticed about it, a couple of things. When it went up, it was smooth. It's kind of like if you see a like a paper airplane that comes like that and it goes right back up. He was on the the spider to the four to the up and it didn't slow him down. Like it did not slow down it was just as fast on two and appearingly as it was on four and I could see on the back you could see the scapula area you could see some some definition there around the scapula the hair was a little thinning and then it got kind of thin and then more around the buttocks and so forth it was more hairy and the shoulders you can see traps and I think these things do have necks a lot of times you hear people say it didn't have a neck well if you look at traps when traps are built up and traps can get built up when you're moving around on all four a lot they can build those traps up and And when your traps are up, it hides your neck. Your neck's there, it just doesn't look like it. And that's kind of what it looked like from the back. You can see those big traps. You know, I used to have something sort of like that.
Matthew: Mm-hmm.
John Reiners: But anyways, so that's what really caught my eye. Well, as I sat there and watched. This thing got out of my light. So I don't know. I know he was going to catch it because by the time he was up, he was awful close. And what my theory was was this thing, because it was a buck and it had this massive horns or antlers, I think that he went up to have a higher level than the deer. So if he's going it looked like he was gonna go for the neck and bring him down, you don't get your eyes poked out. I think if he would have stayed on four, I think he would have caught it. But if you're on four and going at least eye level and grabbing something towards you. The chance of getting a tine in your eye is increased tenfold. So I think he went up just for the convenience of making a tackle. And so after I saw them get out of sight, I rolled my window down to see if I could hear anything, maybe even smell anything. And I didn't hear anything except over on the right side of the road where that dairy came out, crash. I was like, my god, there's another one in there. And I don't know if it was a tree or him coming, another one coming through. And I was on an F-150, but it was a six-cylinder. And at that point, buddy, I hit the gas, and it took me a while to haul butt because it's slow. And I'm like, come on, this thing's gonna get me. And I think what had happened, I think this other one, the reason that I think the deer looked tired when it got on the road, there's no telling how long this thing had been being chased from island to island of all these different wooded areas. I I call island in the farmer pasture. There's areas with trees and then there's heavy woods. I think this thing had been being stalked, and the plan was for it to go. Across the road and go right in front of that end of the ravine into that open field, and that's where this thing was on. The spider was just gonna come out and grab it, make an easy kill. I think I came into the middle of it, screwed up their night, and I don't think they're real happy about it. And I think this thing on the right was give me the what for to get out of there. And so at that point, I took off. I got to the McQuaidie, has this little bitty post office, it's like a Size of a little bitty trailer. So it's it's not always manned, but they pick up the mail, and this is like real rural post office. I pulled in there and I did a welfare check on my drawers. I didn't know what was going on. I was confused. COVID wasn't known to give you hallucinations or anything like that. So I sat there and collected myself. And I thought, God, should I drive back that way and check it out? Well, before Mother Nature had a chance to clean the gene pool out for my stupidity, why would I go back? Who knows? I maybe I felt safe in the truck. But all of a sudden I hear jake brakes coming down, and a big semi was coming that way, and he was gonna keep heading heading north on that highway. So I decided, you know what? That's gonna be a scare anything away anyway. I'll wait till my seven days on the way back in the daylight. I'll check it out. Well, on the way back, seven days later, I figured maybe I'd see some horns, and it was on private property, so I was gonna go ask the farmer if I could go on his property and investigate. And he said, I don't really like people around here. I think that he knew. Something's around there. He didn't want to talk. I said, Have you ever seen anything unusual? I don't want to talk about that kind of stuff. I'm here to farm and and I've got cattle and stuff. I don't want people on my land. He kind of just it kind of looked to me like yeah, he probably knew something. But anyway, I didn't see any horns out there, and it could be somebody sometimes people in Kentucky, if they see a dead buck, they'll stop and collect the horns, you know, use them at hunting season, rattle them, or they'll mount them up and tell all their buddies that they really killed this thing. It it was big, it it had six times. I think on each side. It was a well well endowed rack. But anyway, so I thought, well, you know what? I'll go up to the cabin. I was working on my book more than just fishing at the time. So I figure I'll get up there. Well, by the time I got up there, I came in the cabin. I kind of sat down and just contemplated what I'd seen. And it was very quiet up here. This time of year, most of the neighbors don't live here full time. I've got some neighbors, but behind me is all woods, and I've got a the lake in the front. I have a fire pit. I thought about putting a fire, but I was kind of a little uneasy about being that close to the woods. Like, dang, now I know there's something in there that could tag me and take me out. So I sat in there, I called my wife, she told me call her when I get up there and make sure I'm safe. So as I was talking to her, she knew something was wrong. She said, John, what's wrong? And I said, Well, it's nothing. I was debating whether I should tell her or not. So I did she said I could tell something's wrong. She said, Is something wrong with your parents or something? I didn't want her think that. So I said I well, I had a sighting of something very unusual and I'm pretty sure it was a Bigfoot. And so she said, well, tell me what happened. So I just told her the whole story I just shared. And she did the natural thing, the doubting toms. you sure it was a bear? I said, Well, honey, if a bear could move like a spider, have a head like Brock Lesnar, go up on two feet where he's got traps, just like Brock. When I've seen a bear one time, I saw one up on two, it had no shoulders. It was like straight down. And I said, It did not look anything like a bear. A bear cannot move on two legs like this thing did. And I don't think that's the way a bear would have hunted anyway. I don't think he would have had another bear push one out. And so I think there was a team of them hunting. And she believed me. She goes, I know you saw it, but she's still kind of like, she doesn't like talking about it. She doesn't like to. She had a UFO encounter one time. She doesn't like talking about any of that stuff. She's the type, if I don't talk about it or hear about it, nom nom nom nom nom nom nom, it's not happening. It's not
Matthew: Yeah.
John Reiners: happening. So we don't talk about it that often. So what happened is when I was working on that book, I had seven days of nothing going on. I started researching. Online, I'm gonna get me a book about Bigfoot's on all four. Well, guess what? There was no no books out there about it. There was an occasional book that might have had one chapter or one little piece of anecdotal evidence. And I started making some contacts, and a couple people I was able to talk to that week. I found two people that had also, you know, I found them on a chat group and on direct message, talk to them, and then then we ended up talking on the phone. They eventually got interviewed in the book. So after I started researching. I was the type I want answers. I'm like in nursing, you know, you take a blood lab, I want to know what's going on with this person. I would look at the labs, the numbers, to you know, decide what's up with this person, share it with the doctor and see what we can do to treat them. And it was the same way with this. I wanted answers. I didn't know what I was dealing with. And the more I researched, after about three years, I decided that year, year about year and a half, you know what, I've compiled enough. I'm gonna start going towards the book. My little piece of the puzzle I can add because. Because I've spent all this time in there. It doesn't mean that I have all the answers, but I've talked to enough people. My God, I put hours and hours into researching this. And I thought, you know what? There needs to be a book about all this type of thing, not just the spider crawl, the on all four. I think they spend more time on all four than what most people are willing to acknowledge. And I feel like I'll fill the niche, and that's where that book came from.
Matthew: Well, let me piggyback off of what you just said. one I agree a hundred percent. it seems to wear when you bring this up of the off you know, the sparter crawl moving on all fours, that's been my theory going now for well over a year and a half, just based upon what we encountered, what we saw. And it makes sense. If you're gonna stop prey, like what you everything you described right there in your encounter was almost how I was picturing what they would do. You know, so to me it's cool that you you had that encounter. but when you bring it up to other fellow researchers, you get looked down upon as it's it seemed
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: like there's a stigma about it. So like, no, it's upright, you know, you know, we always see him upright. I'm like, No, we we don't. And if you w and they 'cause I think the reason why, like, we'll follow the tracks. Okay. We we have tracks in the woods, in the mud, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and they're gone. So I think they drop to all four is easier for them to move. It's gonna distribute their weight out. They're gonna be able to you know I mean, they're not gonna leave as much track behind. And if you think about with your hands, you push down, you know, they got big fingers. If they don't go all the way in, if it's not pressed, you know, with four knuckles in there, it could possibly pass off as a deer or an elk. You know?
John Reiners: Right. Yep. See I actually tried what you're talking about. I took my one time we had a bunch of rain in our in our backyard in Owensboro and I went back in this muddy area. I took my shoes off and I walked in it and I made impression. I went down on fours and you could barely see anything. So I think like you're exactly right when sometimes people say, I'm not poo-pooing the woo, I don't know enough about what I don't know. What I saw I feel was flesh and blood, so that's all my research is based on that. And I'll tell you in a bit why I just stayed off the woo for that that book. And anyway. I think sometimes it can be explained. You know, there's usually a scientific explanation for a lot of things. If I see a pair of tracks going out, maybe it's in the open, and all of a sudden they disappear. So it either went through a portal, or another scenario could be it went down on all fours. Well, if you go down on all fours, that could be an evasive technique. It realizes that I could be tracked. You know, trackers, if you you can just follow the prints right to it. But if you go down on all fours, like you said, you're redistributing the weight. Some people say they're on the fingers and the balls of their feet or toes. I'm not sure. Sometimes witnesses report they're like on the palms of their hands or the balls of their feet. It varies from from description. But if you're doing that, you're redistributing the weight, and now you may not be making such an impression. And if you look at the way they sprawl their arms and legs out, it's way off the trail. It either off the trail or in an area where it might not be muddy. So, and even if they did leave a couple in Impressions. Most people don't know what they're looking at. They think that's a different set of prints from a different animal on each side of the trail. So you know, you're just gonna explain, like, the prints disappeared. It must have vaporized. Well, it could have dropped down to all four, and a lot of times too. If you see him going from tree to tree, well, he went behind this one tree and he disappeared. Well, he probably dropped down to all four and was in taller grass or some bushes. He probably went tree to tree until he got into some cover. You dropped down and now you're gone.
Matthew: And you're gonna be quieter as well. You're gonna move a lot more silent that way
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: in that spider crawl.
John Reiners: Yeah, that's that's true. You don't you're not hitting all the branches and you know the overhanging
Matthew: Mm-hmm.
John Reiners: branches and so forth. So I'll share with you why I didn't go into the woo. So what I thought about, you talked about earlier how people tend to make fun of you. I had few people when I was researching, you know, some fairly well known people in the Bigfoot area. they don't ever do that. What a bunch of crap. Well, you know, that's your opinion, but I'm talking to more and more people that have seen this. It's just not hadn't been talked about that much. So I thought, you know what? I'll go to the source. I'll I'll talk to see if I can get up with Dr. Melgram. He'd be a good source. Let me ask him, because he you know, he's somebody that I know that's well known, and most people knew who he was. And so it took me a little bit to get in contact with him. And at that point he had had a stroke. He was on this cruise line and he had a stroke. I didn't know. I sent him back an email trying to get a hold of no answer. So I thought, well, he's probably just inundated with email. So I took a bright pink envelope. I put my fishing book in it. At that time, my fishing book was published. And I sent him a low a note figuring that if you get a bunch of mail, you're gonna vote zero in on a stack of mail, this bright pink envelope that's oversized. Huh, I wonder what this is. So I sent him that book with the note. Thank you for all the knowledge. If you don't want to take the time and let me interview you for my book, here's what the premise of the book is. And if not, here's a thank you just for all the knowledge you've imparting, all the time I've enjoyed. Seeing you. Well, I left my my email on there. One long I get an email from him. Well, it sounded like we need to talk. He got my attention. That big pink envelope did the trick. He said I'd had a stroke, and he called me back, believe it or not, his first day back to work. He had a crap load of mail he said all over his desk, but he saw this bright pink, and that was the very first piece of mail he opened. So it worked. Yeah, so we talked several times.
Matthew: Good idea. I'm to try that with some other people.
John Reiners: Excellent, yeah. There's a way to get people's attention if you're if you're creative about it. I was able to get the address, the mailing address by looking the directory up at Idaho State University. But anyway, what's cool, they had a nursing school there, so we talked a little bit about their nursing program and all that. But I asked him, I said, I would like to interview you about your thoughts on on these creatures going down to all four. And he goes, Well, I would be happy to do that, but I don't want to burst your bubble. He goes, I don't think they do that very often. And I said, Well, it's kind of like that movie Dumb and Dumber. I don't know if you remember that movie when when I think it was Lloyd was the character, Jim Carrey. He asked this really hot, I think, Elizabeth Hurley for a date. And she goes, I don't know. He goes, Well, what's my percentage chance? A million to one. And he said, I still got a chance. So
Matthew: Still got a chance.
John Reiners: I told him that and he laughed. I said, So you didn't say never. You said not very often. So I said, I don't have a latte very often. I have them every Friday on the way out of work in the morning. And I don't look at that. Is very often, so are you talking about something like that? Yeah, I could probably say every week they go down once or twice. And so I said, So you're acknowledging they do. So then we did the interview, and he had a phenomenal wealth of information that shared, you know, people have heard him talk about foot mechanics, but when he was talking about, he did concede that these things are very much equipped to go down on all four and succeed at doing it. And the thing about it is he told me he would first he would he said, I'll go in the book if you don't have. Any of the woo stuff. I don't sign. So I I told him I had one good encounter that was kind of a woo, and I called that person, told him why I was not going to include it. And so I pledged to him, I'm not gonna, it's gonna be all a flesh and blood book, but about this bizarre on all four type of encounters. And he agreed to go on the book and he went on record. It was the only interview he's ever done about Bigfoot all-on-for. And then later I was able to get Charlie Raymond of the Kentucky Bigfoot Research Organization. He'd He did a chapter in there and talked about his opinion on there. So I got a lot of witnesses. I got a couple of what I consider you know, nobody's really an expert, but very knowledgeable people and I got them included in it and got their thoughts. And there's a lot of humor. I like humor once in a while. So there's a lot of fun. It's like somebody said, Well it's not gonna be an all funny book, is it? No, I take the subject seriously. But just like in life, you can have serious things happen at work, but you still could joke around once in a while, it lightens the mood. That's how the book is. I've got some things in there that are They're kind of funny, like people find that they like them.
Matthew: I I I approaching is the same way with with humor. I I tell everybody like some of my best one liners are when I'm out there and something
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: happens, I'm like, Well, you know, and because you know, when you do have encounters, it is it's especially with something that's not supposed to exist and people are witnessing this and they're told their whole entire life. I mean it's been made of a joke. I mean, we got, you know, the Jenklings commercials, I mean cartoons, everything about it. He's been made a joke.
John Reiners: Yeah. I kinda like that kinda breaks my heart seeing that 'cause it's just lightening it up where more people make fun.
Matthew: Mm-hmm. But you gotta have fun with it. And but when you see this when you see it though.
John Reiners: Yeah. I mean I d I mean like yeah, sometimes you gotta have some fun. Like I like to have a meme on Facebook, you know, a funny meme. But I don't like to make the whole thing into a joke, so I've shift gears throughout the book. When it's a serious part, I stay serious. You know, usually at the beginning of a chapter I do research on the area they had. I'll GPS it or I've went to a lot of locations that people had sighting and walked through with them to see what they saw, where it was. You know, and then later maybe towards the end of that chapter I might go back into some humor and stuff. But Right in the meat and potatoes of it. I don't like you know, mixing the humor in when it's serious because it kinda changes the vibe. But but yeah, sometimes between chapters you need a little bit of a whoo.
Matthew: Gotta shake it up a little bit, make it just I don't know, light lighten it up and lighten the mood up because again, you
John Reiners: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew: know, it's a it's a very serious subject and it can play very harsh on some people's emotions, especially when they've had the encounters and stuff. And when you are reading and you're doing the research, it's something your book sounds like is perfect to do that, to break it up. And if it's the same thing, just going on with it, you kind of start losing a little bit of interest.
John Reiners: Sure. Yeah, there's a matter of fact, sometimes like my my experience, well, it was scary. I think the scarier ones are if you're on foot and you feel like your life's in jeopardy. I never really felt that way until I knew something was could come up on the car and rip the door off. But a good example, in that book, I'd talked to this family of four. They were from Ohio, but they were visiting down, you know where the Bogachetta National Wildlife Reserve is in Louisiana?
Matthew: I do not.
John Reiners: Well, it it's a big wildlife reserve, and there's a lot of swampland, there's some hiking trails. Anyway, they were they were on vacation down in this area. Well, their daughter was paralyzed, so they bought this special wheelchair. It had it was almost like a rick shot. It had a handle in the front and back with one big wheel underneath the chair, big knobs. So you could go, they were looking for trails that weren't mountainous. That's why they went to Louisiana. They're avid hiking family. They wanted flat trails. So they're out in the Bogachitta and they go down this gravel road. Well, then there's a more of a Rutted road and they decide they take their SUV down there. I bet we could find somewhere just to get out and walk, even if it's on this trail. Where they found these old A feed ATV trails going off into the woods. So they parked and they thought, well, this would be a great place. We could go back there and maybe see some birds we'd never seen, maybe some wildlife or whatnot. Well, they did see something they'd never seen before. They didn't bargain for it, but they were down the trail and all of a sudden they heard this big thing coming through the bushes, came right out on the trail and crossed them, and it was a wild hog. And they said it was in the hundreds of pounds. It was huge. And they think, thank God it didn't like turn on us and it went off. Well, it wasn't just seconds later before they collected their breath. A big upright creature, they said about eight feet tall, was in pursuit. And that's why this hog was running. Well, before long, I'm not going to go into too much detail, but they heard a snap and like squealing before that, a snap, dead quiet. Well, the son was looking forward because he was in the front of that rickshaw thing with the handles. He went, my God. And on the trail in front of him, it w had it been a juvenile. It looked like what they said they researched later, they said it was like a a bonobo. It's a type of chimp. And bonabows, he said it had it was a reverse mohawk. It was bald and it had hair on the side. They could tell it was young because it was a lot smaller than this other one. It was on all four. It had blue eyes. If they saw that, they were close. Enough, they said it had these piercing blue eyes, but it had its mouth kind of wrinkled up, it had a hooded nose, but it was growling, making these snarls at them, and they felt like it was getting ready to charge. And they estimated it was probably 150 pounds. But big enough, you know, like you know, a mountain lion could be in that that range and you're gonna run. Well, they just scared the crap out of them, so they turned and they got back as fast as they could. They said it was very unnerving because you can't really run pushing this wheelchair. They got loaded up, they drove, and they said it was a long. Time going back, they were staying at this resort where they were renting this cabin. They never really talked about until they got close to the resort. At the front of the campground, there was this place you could pick up these little pizzas in the convenience store. They took one of them home, and when they got the pizza and all sat down, the dad finally said, I think we need to talk about what we saw. And that night the kids didn't sleep well, and the parents didn't really sleep well. Well, long story short, they get back from their trip, they go to Ohio, kids go back to school. And the kids are not doing well. The teacher even called and said on one of the kids, I think it was the daughter, she's not able to focus well. She's very distracted. So they figured that they didn't tell the teacher what the encounter was. Well, she did see something very traumatic. And they figured like PTSD, that's a mental condition that develops after you experience a terrifying event. And so They felt like we would go to family counseling. They brought the family for counseling, and the worst thing happened to them. They go to this counselor, the counselor laughs at them. So now they're devastated. Now they got the counselor laughing at them. So they pulled out of there. So anyway, they eventually did find a good counselor. So I thought, piggyback off of that, I thought, you know, there is people that have traumatic experiences where they don't sleep well and they can't shake it. They might smell pine needles, it reminds them of the woods. They don't want to smell that anymore. them into the sweats and the jitters. So anyway, because I worked orthopedics for 21 years, I've well about 20, 21 years, and now I work in mental health. So I had some connections. I found the the big the biggest the biggest named psychiatrist in our region for treating PTSD. His name is Dr. David Harmon. He went in the record in my book. I was able to interview him, and I said, Dr. Harmon, I'm not asking you whether you believe in Bigfoot or not. I want to interview you and ask, what would you do if a family like this came? I told him the story I just told you. What would you do if a family came into your office with trauma like this? So we did a whole chapter. On PTSD and how somebody could be treated. That he said, I don't have to believe that you saw Bigfoot. All I've got to do is believe that you saw something that traumatized you. You treat the trauma. You don't judge them. You don't make fun of them. And it's very interesting article. And I've never seen a Bigfoot book that talks about PTSD. So that's a pretty cool thing, too, in the book.
Matthew: I like that too. You brought the PTSD aspect into it because there's a lot of people who've had encounters. I a good friend of mine, Justin from Cryptus of the Corn, with his encounter, and he has specifically stated, I never want to see another one again. I never want to go through that again. So that I think it's an important topic to bring up and a lot of people don't realize,
John Reiners: Sure.
Matthew: like I was saying before, that's where the humor comes in at. You know, I I've I've had some people
John Reiners: Yeah, kinda lightens it up a little bit.
Matthew: Yep. I've had some people break down, you know, for their during the interview and you just, you know, they talk it out. And again, n everybody makes fun of me. This was real. This was a real
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: enough event to traumatize them for life. I've had hunters tell me after an encounter that and they won't come on the show about 'cause they're embarrassed, they don't go to the woods again. They don't go hunting again. I know numerous hunters have said
John Reiners: Yeah. Not every encounter is benign. Sometimes there's a real fear factor to it.
Matthew: yeah. So
John Reiners: But I I know two doctors that have seen them and told me privately they wouldn't go on the record, but two I know two different doctors that both own property and have encountered them and said, I'll tell you privately, but I'm not gonna acknowledge, you know, they got career damage. I'm I've been a nurse long enough and old enough long in the tooth where I don't care if people laugh at me. I'll share what I know and you can judge. You know, I tell a whole bunch of people one time during COVID, we were all had a break. There was a couple doctors there. Somebody said, Hey John, tell your Sasquatch story. So I shared it and a couple of them were Giggling, you know, telling me why don't you go to HR? One of them said, go to HR and P in a cup, they need to check you out. Well, I noticed this one doctor was sitting in the corner, kind of just like nodding. And after where everybody broke up and this I was done telling my encounter, I told him, I said, It sounded like you didn't think this was a big joke. He looked around real close. He said, I'm gonna share a story with you in Ohio County, which is right close to Brecken Ridge between Brecken Ridge and Davis County. He owns a couple hundred acres there and was hunting, and he Said, I'll just tell you I was on a hunting stand and this thing came out in the opening, it stopped on two legs, it turned and looked right up at me. And I didn't not want to raise a gun because I felt like this thing could kill me. And then it walked off. And he said, I've told very few people, just close families, and I know you'll keep it on the QT. But it's like, wow. And this is a guy that you would think he's never a sense of humor guy or known to make stuff up. And it's like, well, thanks for sharing. That really is wild story that I'll keep keep vested. But but yeah, it's really good one.
Matthew: No, definitely. S so I looked up blue eyed primates, besides humans. The blue-eyed black lemur, which is found only in northwestern Madagascar. So that so my question for that then is with the blue eye report, you know, can this help tie in with can't think of her name on the top of my head, the lady that was doing all the the DNA work and everything that you know people were reporting in.
John Reiners: Melbourne catch him.
Matthew: That's it, thank you. And she was finding that the mother side was female. Well it was human and the the male side was unknown. So I'm wondering maybe that's where some of the blue eyes coming into place at.
John Reiners: Well, it's very possible. It's kinda like When I was a kid, I was a toehead, I had blonde hair, and as I got a little older it changed. I had another encounter in this book where this lady was in Oregon and they were getting ready to move from this property and she had a tree for it down the hill, and she saw three of them, three juveniles, one jumped down and she fell down and was looking up at it. She distinctly remembered bright blue eyes. So I'm not so sure maybe when they're young, maybe a lot of them have blue eyes, and then they just change color as they age. It might be, you know, for various reasons, but it could be genetics, like you say, from the mother side, you know, with a percentage of human. That would explain a lot of the DNA too. They always, a lot of the DNA sample sent in, it costs a lot. In my book, Aquatic Sasquatch, I put the price. I called some labs and found out what it costs to run DNA and all these different things. It ain't cheap. And it ain't
Matthew: Mm-mm.
John Reiners: cheap just to get a sample that comes back. They'll always say, well, we couldn't really run it. It was contaminated with human DNA. Well, how do you know that wasn't part of that DNA? that was in there. They just write it off as contaminated, inconclusive. Well it could be the real DNA and they're just making an excuse. Well you just paid $2,200 to find that answer. Who's got that kind of money to keep sending stuff in?
Matthew: See, that's what I think too. I think that with what she was doing, and I find that fascinating. But again, too, a lot a lot of the stuff that we do is the scientific community just frowns down upon it because it shakes up the narrative so bad. And I mean, through the research for the novel, I I mean, I'm sure you ran across that as well where there was a lot of, you know, pushback. Not from the Bigfoot
John Reiners: Yeah. Yeah. Well
Matthew: community, but from the scientific community.
John Reiners: Well, think about this. even in medical I read a l you know, several medical publications, I like to see what kind of breakthroughs are coming through. But you'll find these irritating studies where they'll find they might have spent five million dollar grant to study if butterflies can be homosexual or a caterpillar can mate with the mouse or these crazy stupid, just stupid sounding spend millions of dollars. But yet it's like Doctor Meldram always in the in the front of my A quad Sasquatch book? Let me read the very first page to you. This is a quote that Dr. Meldrum said. I've never argued that science should recognize the existence of Sasquatch. Most people think he has. I've simply argued that science should recognize the legitimacy of pursuing the question of the existence of Sasquatch. That's Dr. Meldram.
Matthew: I agree.
John Reiners: And that's what I talked to him about. They spend the money on the stupidest things, but you'd think as much witnesses That comes forward that see these things, you'd think that there could be a grant somewhere. The problem is, like Dr. Melgram, he was out on an island. A lot of his colleagues privately, he said, would tell him they supported him, but publicly their university's putt pressure. You know, he had tenure, so he didn't care at a certain point just to come out of the closet, so to speak. But a lot of them, there's more of them that believe in Bigfoot and Sasquatch and the possibilities, but they don't come forward for risk of career. They want to go to these black tie parties and they want to be well liked. The same reason you get politicians. That promise the world go to Washington, all of a sudden they're contaminated with all their buddies up there with pressure. It's the same thing. They don't want to go out on a limb, they don't want to rock the boat because there's no money to put into other studies. They're going to cut them off. So they don't get the grants. They don't publish. So there, you know, I think that's a real thing. Science, if they would darn it, if they would put a $10 or $20 million grant and put a serious science team on it, I'll bet you they could get some good breakthroughs. So it's left for people like
Matthew: We were probably get
John Reiners: me to go out there, you know, people, and you're honest. All of us put the puzzle together ourselves. We're doing the work that scientists should be doing.
Matthew: Well, I I I fully believe it's gonna be citizen scientists are gonna be the ones who finally
John Reiners: Yep.
Matthew: it's gonna be and all I I can I can picture now it's gonna be some good old boy out there doing something
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: and boom is gonna f just land right into it and
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: it's gonna just crack the case wide open and all of us are gonna be going, Finally, you know? But
John Reiners: Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew: again 'cause it you know, you do there are questions like what's gonna do for the lumber industry, what's gonna do for the tourism industry.
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: You know, into the national force and stuff. y
John Reiners: Might be one of the reasons they're not giving grants, 'cause they know that and they don't want people to know what they know and they want it just to be shut up and make people sound like they're a fruit cake out there and they're happy with that.
Matthew: Yep, and especially if the dust have human DNA with it as well. Now we gotta look at it as another type of human, you know. Exactly. Yeah, so
John Reiners: Yeah. Do they get to vote? Do they have human rights, you know?
Matthew: I you know, I had one guy come on and he was talking about to where if they were to acknowledge it, you know, could it be another tribe that they would have to you know the government have pay more money for? But this seems to be
John Reiners: And give land to
Matthew: a worldwide phenomenon to where, you know, it's not just the US that deals with these, you know, creatures, it's worldwide. And there's a few
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: out there, the smaller ones, you know, especially around Nepal, around Everest and all that stuff, that do acknowledge that these things are real. So, but you know, again,
John Reiners: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like the Belgian government was the first government, I think, to acknowledge UFOs, and our government slowly, 30 years later, finally is coming to realize we can't keep the rabbit and the hat. it's gonna come out. So now they're starting to slowly soften their stance on that. A little slow to the party. When it's there
Matthew: Yeah.
John Reiners: again, citizen scientists have been the ones breaking through on that mostly too. Yeah.
Matthew: Yep, cracking the case. And I think that's what's gonna but again I think that's where the most of the science does come from is gonna be from that. And
John Reiners: Right.
Matthew: and part of my theory on to where we had the stigma about these, you know, not just you know Bigfoot, but other, you know, cryptids as well. And you know, Cambridge is older than you know the Aztec civilization. It was around before that. So when these English explorers are going to the world, they're they're basing their knowledge off of what they were taught. And so when they do travel,
John Reiners: Right. Yeah.
Matthew: And they're, you know, I'll I'll use Africa for example. They get there like the, you know, the the native people are going, Yeah, there's a lion. They're going, You're right, that's a lion. You know, hey, there's a snake, you're right, that's a snake. Or hey, that's an alligator, you're right. We know that. Hey, there's a giant other kind of thing that is in there, and we don't go there because it will eat you. You guys are backwards, you're uneducated, you don't know anything. And these are people who've lived on the land for hundreds, if not thousands of generation, you know, years.
John Reiners: Right.
Matthew: So they know they know what an alligator looks like. They know what a giraffe looks like. And but I think a giraffe is a cryptid, by the way. I really do. There's just something reminds me of the octopus, to be honest with you.
John Reiners: Yeah, that's surreal.
Matthew: Yeah. So
John Reiners: Yeah. Yeah, it's just like if you look even through Lewis and Clark Clark's diaries, they have described some strange noises in the woods, but they also encountered catamounts. Well, catamount, a lot of people well, they're probably talking about mountain lion. Well how come in other place in their journal they specifically say mountain lion? so
Matthew: Mm-hmm.
John Reiners: what's a catamount? They also talk about wolves, coyotes, and different things, so there's nothing left that's a catamount that doesn't fit a cryptid. Because that they've used every other term that possibly a catamount could be written off as something that's non-encrypted. Well, what's a catamount to Lewis and Clark?
Matthew: Well also too the the other on that note token too though, a lot of historians were viewed those as metaphors. Well they were writing a
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: metaphor. No, these these were explorers. They knew what they were writing was going to be important. Was it gonna be important for, you know, the expansion of our country.
John Reiners: Yeah. That was one of the reasons they were there is to document the wildlife. Yeah. So yeah, so
Matthew: Yep. Exactly. It's where
John Reiners: that's exactly right. So basically after after that book and everything, I I started making some good contacts and whatnot. I started thinking about I talked to a few people that had encountered a bigfoot like one guy in Illinois saw one in his farm pond. Then another one found one I talked to out at the Green River here outside of Owensboro that saw one while they were him and his buddy were fishing. I talked to both of them. It was in some amongst the stumps, came up with the fish, saw them, took two steps off the bank and was gone. So I started thinking, you know what? I started looking there again. There was a couple of books that had stories about swimming Sasquatch, but never a whole book. So, in that book, I decided you know what, a lot of the limb usage and spider crawling and so forth would also be applicable to enabling a Sasquatch to swim. And if you think about it, dinner plate-sized hands are bigger than that, huge feet that could be used as flippers, but to be able to pull off a spider crawl and to pull off like a frog kick that you see so many people describing how they're swimming, like a modified breaststroke with the frog-like kick, to
Matthew: Mm-hmm.
John Reiners: pull that. Off, you would have to have a different type of joint. And that's where, like, my orthopedics came up with this theory, my knowledge about that. I'm not saying I'm right, but I am saying I'm right that they cannot move the way many witnesses have described them with standard joints like you and I have. And for instance, our elbow and our knee, those are hands joints. You got flexion, you got extension, and you got flexion, extension, flexion. Only one plane of movement. If you think of it, I can't really lift my knee. Up here, but if you think of a knee, NFL player, say this is a knee, what happens when they get hit by a helmet like this that blows their knee out? So
Matthew: Mm. Mm-hmm.
John Reiners: you're gonna get damaged more often that's unsustainable out in the wild. The wild, you know, that's almost a death sentence for an animal with an injured limb, if especially if you're two legged type and your knee blows out. So if you think about a thumb, a thumb's got what they call a saddle joint. A saddle joint allows you've got adduction, abduction, you've got Circumduction, you've got extension flexion, you've got all kinds of circular motion. Now, an orthopedic surgeon, I've talked to several of them say, Well, that joint's not going to be super stable to have, like in a knee. But I said, Okay, but however, what if you had a lot bigger bones and had bigger, thicker tendons and cartilage padding and all that type of stuff that makes it more vascular? You like a knee, a human knee, it's not a real vascular area, but your tendons and ligaments. Are supposed to carry blood flow. But now if you have bigger tendons like in a buffalo, that's a lot more vascular in their knee. There's a lot more vascular, and the vascular comes in, it carries blood to that joint. But the blood carries oxygen. Oxygen heals. So you got that oxygen coming to those areas, it's going to heal a lot quicker. If you have a knee that's more made like a huge saddle joint, saddle joint's got a concave part like a saddle, and then there's a rounded part that goes in there. That allows all that movement. So if you have it reinforced with a lot of extra and larger ligaments, you can take brute force to the side, and your leg's just gonna bend over to the side. It's not gonna blow like our knees because you have that motion. If you're hitting something in the motion it can go, it's not as stressing on a joint. So you can easily move around. And I would explain having your legs out like this or being able to swim really proficiently in all different kinds of movement with your legs being able to bend at Those odd frog kicking legs motion. And the other thing, if you look at human foot tracks, we've got ballm socket joints in our hip. Track, track, track, track. About the width of our shoulders is your average track. Now you take a Sasquatch, and another reason I think they have a saddle joint. If you think I can't really show too good on camera, but you see how you swing those out like that? If you have a
Matthew: Mm-hmm.
John Reiners: saddle joint in your leg, your leg's gonna lift and swing, and it's gonna go a straight, it's gonna make a straight foot path. And wouldn't you know that's what we see most bigfoot tracks seem to be in a straight line. A saddle type joint or a modified variation thereof would cause that leg to swing around and go right in front of the next one. And it's easier to hide your tracks too if you're walking in a straight line because you get off off track and you're not going to have straight tracks going where you don't see. But I think a modified saddle joint or a saddle joint reinforced really well would enable those straight tracks and how they glide. You see their head doesn't bounce. Our hinge joints cause more in our way our foot is without a mid-tarsal break and the hinge joint makes us bounce when we walk. That's why I think that these walk straight because I think they're the saddle joint's gonna swing and drop, swing and drop.
Matthew: I like that. I mean 'cause, you know, I've been trying to get my head around with, you know, my sightings to where with the eyes at night, the straight line. There's like no weaving. There's there's it it it's yeah, they're like
John Reiners: Smooth as butter. Yeah.
Matthew: Yep. That's crazy. Love that though. I mean that that that makes sense.
John Reiners: Yeah, it explains a lot. Like yeah, they can't have a hinge joint or they wouldn't be able to operate the way. So what are you left with? What we know is a saddle joint, it could be a variation of, but we know bigger animals have bigger, thicker bones, and they may have you know, most likely bigger, wider tendons and ligaments with some more cushioning in there that can absorb blows and take it from all different directions. The same thing in your arms that allows you to walk on all four in odd all kinds of odd oddball ways.
Matthew: Yeah, I mean that I mean that makes perfect sense. You know, with the trackways that I have found, there was one trackway we found where it was straight and then it cut over and then was straight. You know what I mean? So it's looked like a zigzag, but it was still the tracks were in a straight line. And I've got another one too on a sandbank to where it was a actual almost a per yeah, like you just described, on one foot in front of the other. That makes a lot of sense.
John Reiners: Yeah. The other thing too about like this aquatic Sasquatch, if you think about it, where can't you get homeowners insurance? Down in the river bottoms, anywhere close to water that's likely to flood. Well, you know what? What a perfect place to evade humans. There's food supply. We know animals, you see tracks if you go down in the river bottoms, but it's mosquitoes, we don't have hair to protect us. Humans don't like going down in river bottoms, it's very uncomfortable. We don't build down there. I think they travel the river bottoms to go, for instance, like I live in Owensboro, the Green River comes. Just outside, you've heard of the Spotsville Monster. There's a lot of Sasquatch sightings there in the Green River. And that's where I talked to the two fishermen that actually saw one in the Green River. But it dumps into the Ohio. Then you got the Ohio that travels our whole state length. Well, on the banks, there's nothing there. Occasional downtown like Owensboro's got a big cement man-made wall. But anywhere else, they're not building along the riverfront of floods. So I think they can use these rivers, and I think at night they could bypass Owensboro. You just jump in the river. And float, you look like a log if anybody even had a light out there. And you just float right on by, get out, and get back in the woods and do whatever. But I think they use these waterways for travel. And the other thing, they have to be very strong swimmers. I talked to in the aquatic Sasquatch, a person that saw Vancouver. There's ocean current out there. Well, they're frequently seeing island to island. Well, if you're navigating through current, even Michael Phelps, as good a swimmer as he is, probably wouldn't attempt some of those. And
Matthew: Yeah.
John Reiners: so I feel like Their hair, that's the other thing, helps them swim. I think that there's you know, some animals like deer. Deer's an ungulate and they got hoofs. If you look at that, they don't look very adept at swimming. How do they swim? They've got hair that's hollow, that's full of air, so when they jump in, it's like having a life vest on, they can float, and then their legs just steer the direction they're going, and their head they move like this, and it gives them some momentum. But that's why they do it. And then there's also like beaver, beaver have oil on their head. Beaver are made where they can go in the really cold water. So I think these sasquatches, and there are animals that have both hollow hair with oil around them. I mean, hollow hair for buoyancy and solid hair with oil around them. There are animals that have combinations of the two. I think that these sasquatches probably have a combination of two because sometimes they've seen in really cold, frigid waters. And how do you do that? A human can't. Well, they have to have some way to insulate themselves. And I think there's different times of year, maybe they might. Some of that off. And sometimes when people say shaggy and other areas that aren't, those could be the difference of the two different types of hair. Maybe there's areas that are more vital, like around their vital organs that have thicker hair, and then thinner, you know, the the more the more like a deer hair, the hollow, and there's the thicker stuff like what a beaver's got. It could be if they have a combination of two, aids them to swim and also aids them for thermal. So even if you've got that type of hair in cold weather, it keeps you warm. You might ride it out in a but you're still going to be comfortable in the winter if you've got the right type of hair.
Matthew: That makes absolutely like a lot of sense. I mean, that explains a lot. Yeah, I mean I've been on the theory that they do use the the rivers and do use the waterways, the ravines and everything, the lower grounds to move in, the move through. you know, you you mentioned the mosquitoes, like part of my theory why they're more grumpy down here in the south than they are out in the Pacific Northwest up north is because A, the heat and B flees and ticks. So
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: I mean, it takes you gonna dig yourself in there, but we know that. you if you're gonna in the south, you
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: know, it takes them to find its way and flee. So I think that's why they're a little crankier. But also I think that's why down here in the south, especially Louisiana, in the bayous, you'll see you hear stories of them having matted fur or muddy fur
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: pat and I think they're putting that on there to protect themselves from you know, from some of the insects.
John Reiners: It could be, yeah. Like the hippos I think at times they'll put mud on and roll the mud.
Matthew: Mm-hmm.
John Reiners: Alligators have done that in a really super, super hot times.
Matthew: definitely. So I mean how c this fascinating. Man. Man, okay, we're coming up on the hour, Mark. I could do this for another hour with you. Well
John Reiners: Yeah, it's fun. I could do.
Matthew: okay, so let's tell everybody real quick we're bringing for Lane. And and I if I can I want to get you back on for a part two. I can tell that already. you know,
John Reiners: Sure, it'd be great.
Matthew: what 'cause I know you're busy. So I mean it might be someone else down the road, but hopefully we don't have to wait another year. Hopefully, not another year.
John Reiners: Yeah, well that worked. Yeah, it won't make it so long. We won't make it so long next time.
Matthew: So tell everybody where can they find your books at?
John Reiners: Okay, I'm on Amazon. All three of my books are on Amazon. The easiest way, if you just go to my website, johnreiners.com, capital J, and then O-H-N-R-E-I-N-E-R-S dot com, all one word. It's got my email link. If anybody wants to share any stories or questions, you can email me. I'll always answer my email. And also has my books with the link, it'll take you right to Amazon. You can read a synapses of each book, and then you can click it there. Or you can just go straight to Amazon. Either way, it'll get you to Amazon. Also, I'm on Facebook. John Reiners is my name on Facebook. If you hit me up on a direct message, I'd be happy to talk to anybody.
Matthew: There you go. Awesome. 'Cause what I'm gonna do is that yeah, I'm gonna order one of the books here as soon as I we get done.
John Reiners: Your buddy, you mentioned earlier Jason Kenzie. He's in my aquatic Sasquatch. There's a whole section
Matthew: Izzy?
John Reiners: of him. yeah. He talks about how he got in to search it for Sasquatch. Great stories in there about Jason Kenzie. He's in there. I remember you mentioned him early in the podcast, but he took part in it. He's a rascal.
Matthew: Yep. I was lucky enough to
John Reiners: He's fun. He's got some fun stuff in there, too.
Matthew: He we did we filmed in Northwest Arkansas two years ago and for the Ozark Kalor. And I got invited to be part of that and I was blown away by it. So we're now working another project for next year that we're doing. It's gonna
John Reiners: Very nice.
Matthew: take us through a couple of states and everything. So he's actually become a a good friend, so I I'm proud to say that he you know and you know, he's he's a character on camera, but he takes it so seriously. He is really
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: He's really into it. And I not in
John Reiners: Yeah.
Matthew: a bad way, but he's really trying to get evidence and like when we had you know, of course you can't catch everything.
John Reiners: He's a hard worker, man. He's all over the place too. God I don't know if he ever sleeps.
Matthew: I know he's trying to go back. He's trying to go back to Ireland. He's trying to go back to Europe. the next one I think we were talking about was possibly Iceland. And
John Reiners: Yeah, okay.
Matthew: yeah, so that would be so I may you know, that that's you know, two years or so down the road. But he is, yeah, definitely a super nice guy. And I can't say enough, you know, about it. So But man, John, thank you, brother, for coming on. I I greatly appreciate it.
John Reiners: That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Matthew, I appreciate the invite. I really enjoyed it.
Matthew: You know, and this has been fun and everything like that. So again, everybody go check out John's books. I'm ordering one here directly. 'Cause you know, hey, if I have a guess that comes on and they got a book, I'm gonna buy the book. So I've got a stack of them over here in the bookshelf and it's gonna join right in with
John Reiners: Very cool.
Matthew: And do take the books with me when I go out to the field because you are in the tent at night eventually and I like to read. So
John Reiners: Nice.
Matthew: i I don't know if you know, so that'll probably I don't know if I'll read that one out there because I'm already doing you know what I mean
John Reiners: There's a lot more than just interviews in there. You'll be surprised when you read Aquatic Sasquatch. And the other one, there's a lot of fun. Like I take some liberties with some like some stuff that you haven't seen in a lot of like there's some things in there I've been told they have never seen it in another book. And there's some fun stuff, some twists and turns in there though. So I feel like there's a lot of cookie crumbles in there that you find pleasant surprises throughout the book that you weren't expecting. It's not your typical Bigfoot book, and I will say too, the editing, sometimes you'll find people with books. Books and the writing, I'm not criticizing, I'm not saying everybody's like this because there's some really good writers out there, but a lot of books you'll get, and it's got a little miss misspelled words and so forth. These books are well edited. My grammar isn't always the best. I've got a really good editor that fine-tooth combs it, and then I fix it, and they go back and look at it again. And so the grammar in there, it's really, really pleasurable reading and it flows well. It's it's it's got It just just doesn't get you distracted with misspelled words and incomplete sentences and so forth. So the stories flow really well when you're reading. I guess that's my point. I learned that from Dr. Meldrum the first time when I sent him a copy. He wanted a copy before it went in the book. I felt like I got an F on my paper. He had red circles with notes. I still have all his footnotes and everything. And I I called him, I said, dude, I it wasn't the final edit. I know that some of this stuff, but I appreciate it. But I felt like I told him I
Matthew: Ha ha ha.
John Reiners: felt like I got an F on my paper.
Matthew: I bet he got a kick out of that.
John Reiners: yeah, I've got that in in my collection. Like that's a treasure thing with all its footnotes telling me what a dumb, a dummy he didn't say the word dumb, but I felt dumb with all the red mark. I felt like I was back in elementary school.
Matthew: man, I still think it's cool that he did that for you. That's I mean, that just shows exactly you know, and I yeah, he passed before I was able to try and reach out to get him to come on the show and pick his brain. So I'm yeah, one, slight little jealous, but in in a good way. You know, I mean not that where'd it go? But so when I tell people, yeah, I'm jealous,
John Reiners: Ha ha ha.
Matthew: it's not because I'm literally like jealous or envious. I'm I'm jealous 'cause I missed the opportunity to do it. So I'm I'm glad that you were able to do that. Man,
John Reiners: Yeah, it's a real treat. Yeah. But
Matthew: how much fun. Alright. Well brother, thank you again. See, we'll keep doing this.
John Reiners: All right, Matthew, I appreciate it, man. I I really like your drunken cryptids format and I appreciate you the you give afford me the opportunity to come on. Anybody has questions for
Matthew: We had a pl
John Reiners: me, they can hit me up on an email. I'd love to answer them.
Matthew: Yep, you I mean I I was writing questions down. That's why you saw me with the pen in my hand and you kept answering them for me. So I'm I'm good. Yeah, you did great. So but everybody
John Reiners: Okay, sir.
Matthew: out there, thank y'all for tuning in to another episode of the Drunken Cryptus. Make sure that yeah, like, share, subscribe. I appreciate all the support that way, you guys. go check out John's stuff. like I said, I'm ordering a book. I'm super excited about it. 'cause for me, fest season is coming up. I'm gonna be busy traveling around and what a better way to Take a break from everything than to crack open a good book. So all right. John, appreciate it. Everybody out there, here's the missing a good beer. Y'all stay safe.
John Reiners: Thank you, Good night, everybody. Thank you.