>> PAYTON: Reclusive, irritable and covered in disgusting matted fur, but enough about me!

What's Ohio's deal with Bigfoot?

♪ Hello and welcome to "Flyover Culture," your guided tour of pop culture in the Midwest.

I'm Payton Whaley, your resident cryptid enthusiast, here with another entry in our favorite yearly tradition.

When I was hunting for cryptids to discuss, I thought I might give my neighbors in the Buckeye State a shot.

There were a few standouts, the Melon Heads, the Loveland frog, and then Bigfoot and then also Bigfoot and then a slightly different Bigfoot and then Bigfoot again.

So today we're going to look at some of these sightings, and the communities that have sprung up around them, but also where some of the scientific community stands on these Bigfoot sightings.

Let's go hunting.

In a word, Ohio is "squatchy."

Okay.

Maybe not a real word, but, it's apropos.

According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Association, Ohio ranks fourth in states with credible Bigfoot sightings.

Accounting for about 5.7% of sightings in the country.

That adds up to roughly 315 credible sightings in the Buckeye State since 1974.

There have been sightings all over the state, but they tend to concentrate in the eastern part near the foothills of Appalachia.

Salt Fork State Park has been such a hotbed of activity that it sits in an area nicknamed the Sasquatch Triangle.

Stick around long enough, and you might even be able to hear the Ohio howl.

[ Howling ] That sings at a glance, but what happens when you meet a Bigfoot up close and personal?

John Hickenbottom, a naturalist at Salt Fork State Park, says Bigfoot sightings in his area tend to hit the same big points.

The creatures are between 6 and 10 feet tall, but as big as 12 feet.

They are bipedal, with reddish brown, gray or black fur.

Can often be seen crossing roads or farm fields, and they have been seen to have piercing, reflective eyes, which aren't uncommon in nocturnal animals, but don't really show up in primates.

The evidence they leave behind can be just as striking.

Big footprints, big fur clumps, and, yeah, big feces.

First and secondhand evidence isn't unusual in Ohio.

This summer, a Bigfoot researcher recorded what she says are Bigfoot howls.

In 2020, a family camping at Pleasant Hill Lake Park heard something throwing things towards their campsite.

And when they pursued it, the father saw a tall, dark and hairy figure run off into the woods.

In 2014, a group of Bigfoot researchers near Hocking Hills State Park saw a figure approach them on a clear spring night.

They noted that as it left the area, electronics that had been charged moments before, appeared to be dead.

And, of course, there's what might be Ohio's most distinct Bigfoot-like creature, the Ohio Grassman.

The Grassman is notable for its long matted fur, its aggression, and its penchant for building structures out of grass and other foliage.

Grassman sightings go back to the 1800s, if not further.

Reportedly the creature attacked a man and his daughter out for a walk, as seen masterfully recreated here on "Monster Quest."

>> Oh, no!

>> PAYTON: And in the late 1970s, the Grassman was reported terrorizing a family in Minerva, Ohio.

It may or may not have killed their dog.

Hundreds of sightings across decades can't all be misled or just making it up, right?

Wouldn't a strange creature leaving behind visual and material evidence be worth some kind of study?

There's a decently sized contingent of academics who certainly think so.

Among them, Dr. Jeff Meldrum.

>> My name is Dr. Jeff Meldrum, and I'm a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, here in Pocatello, Idaho.

>> PAYTON: Dr. Meldrum's specialty is studying evolution and adaptations for bipedal locomotion.

In smaller words, if something walks on two legs, he studies how they do it.

And when the creature you've been fascinated by since you saw the Patterson-Gimlin film when you were a kid, mainly leaves behind footprints, it's a good spot to be in.

>> That put me in a remarkably advantageous position to have something authoritative, something to say about the nature of the most ubiquitous evidence, by far, the most compelling, in my opinion, for the existence of Bigfoot, namely the footprint evidence.

>> PAYTON: And if you are looking for the word of the day, here you go.

Meldrum says, that phrase best describes what he and other researchers believe Bigfoot-like creatures to be.

>> That refers to populations, a species of animal that at one time was probably more widespread and numerous, widespread in time and space and much more numerous, and now exists as a -- as a mere remnant of its former range and distribution, perhaps.

The term "relict hominoid" was actually coined by a Russian anthropologist by the name of Boris Porshnev, who advocated for the hypothesis that Neanderthals perhaps didn't go extinct.

>> PAYTON: So relict, meaning a remnant of a once populous species and hominoid meaning human-like.

Meldrum says much of the skepticism around these hominoids comes back to when that Patterson-Gimlin film was first released.

>> In anthropologist, at that time in the '60s, there was a dogma -- paradigm would be the -- the preferred term, I guess.

A paradigm that dominated some of the thinking of human evolution, the pattern of human evolution, and that was labeled the single species hypothesis.

>> PAYTON: Britannica puts it somewhat simply.

>> This idea they can't exist, therefore they don't exist, and it doesn't matter what evidence.

That's been thrown out the window with the dishwater, and now we have a bushy hominin tree.

We recognize as anthropologists there were multiple ways to be a hominin.

And across the landscape, at any slice of time, there were multiple -- you know, a half a dozen to a dozen different species of hominin existing.

>> PAYTON: The loss of that hypothesis opens up a lot of things, but mainly it opens the door for these relict hominoids to exist.

Why they chose Ohio is still unknown.

At the end of the day, it's Meldrum's belief that any and all evidence should be taken on its own merit, regardless of what kind of sideways glances you might get.

>> Any claim, even if it's extraordinary, should require convincing evidence.

And as a scientist, we should be evaluating evidence on its merit regardless of the implication of -- of that evidence.

In other words, we shouldn't bias our perception of our interpretation based on a preconception of how unlikely something might be.

>> PAYTON: If there are Bigfoot sightings, that's where Bigfoot enthusiasts are going to gather.

Ohio has become a hotbed in the past few years for Bigfoot-centric events, where people can meet up to share findings, exchange hunting techniques, and interact with experts like Dr. Meldrum, who was a featured speaker at the Ohio Bigfoot Conference this spring.

>> You always have to be careful whenever you get a crowd together of Sasquatch enthusiasts, and suddenly people start finding evidence.

You have to be very, very discriminating of that evidence.

For me, as an educator, it is an opportunity for academic outreach.

It's an opportunity for me, as a scientist, to guide the enthusiasm of the enthusiasts in productive ways, hopefully, if that comes across in the positive way in which it's meant.

>> PAYTON: It's at these kind of events, where Dr. Meldrum gets to interact with whom he calls citizen scientists.

>> My presentation this time focused on that, ways in which -- you know, what are the principles of citizen science?

How can we apply those to the search for Sasquatch, in order to promote more discrimination, more reliable application of legitimate, credible methodologies, the documentation -- the documentation, documentation of evidence.

So we're not just relying on anecdotes or subjective recollections or descriptions.

>> PAYTON: But as Meldrum meets with researchers and students, he still advises them to be careful with how openly enthusiastic they are about this stuff.

>> See, I was naive enough -- well naive?

I was idealistic.

I would rather say I was idealistic than naive enough, to jump into the deep end of the pool even before I had tenure.

And it nearly cost me my career.

I don't encourage new students to openly pursue this interest, but rather to cultivate the skills that can be applied.

And then once they are in a position of job security, then they can apply that -- speak from that position of authority, apply those recognized skills to this particular question as a legitimate question of science that, you know, the real movers and shakers acknowledge.

>> PAYTON: Ohio isn't unique.

Sorry, Ohio.

I know that sounded harsh, but I mean with, like, Bigfoot stuff.

Sightings of these relict hominoids have happened all over the country and all over the world for hundreds of years.

For every Ohio Grassman, there's a Sasquatch in the PNW; a Yeti in the Himalayas; a Wendigo in Canada; a Yowie in Australia.

You get it.

And I, for sure, won't be able to nail down exactly what these creatures are or where they live.

Not on this show's budget.

But in a state with so many sightings and so many gatherings to match, maybe we can get a picture of how and why these communities form.

>> The mystery, it's the puzzle of the potential existence -- you know, the demonstration of the existence of a creature that potentially is more closely related to us than any other that exists on the planet.

If you want to be part of the discovery of a novel, relict hominoid, then, you know, the train -- the tracks are at a divergence here.

And you need to decide which train you are going to climb on because they -- they're not going to run in parallel.

They are diverging, and from my perspective, the woo element does cast a pall over the serious and objective -- perceptions of a serious and objective effort to pursue the answer to a straightforward, fundamental question of biology, is there a biological species of relict hominoid behind the legend of Sasquatch, or these other forms that represent distinctive branches on a bushy biogenetic tree.

>> PAYTON: They are all out here for the same reason we all are, searching for a universal truth.

Their truth is just slightly hairier.

That will do it for our quick trip into the woods this season.

And please, if you support your local PBS station for any reason, do it to help a sad web producer attend his first Bigfoot hunting weekend.

Every dollar helps.

A big thank you to Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum from Idaho State University for lending his expertise for this episode.

You can find more of his research at the Relict Hominoid Inquiry or in his book "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science."

Thanks for watching, and I will see you lurking in the woods, or in the next video, whatever is easier.