9 Takeaways from Expedition Bigfoot “New Evidence” Pre-Show

What if you were curious to tune into the Expedition Bigfoot season 3 “New Evidence” pre-show because of the chat with Dr. Jane Goodall? However, you hadn’t watched any of season 2. Would you be totally lost?

No. The Expedition Bigfoot “New Evidence” special episode was a brilliant recap of highlights from season 2, mixed in with a preview of the new season and the Dr. Goodall chat. (Which will prompt its own post). If you hadn’t watched any previous episode, you’d be all caught up after watching the pre-season 3 premiere episode.

Let’s take a look at the nine biggest takeaways. (At least that I got from the episode. You may have gotten others. If so, I welcome you to check in and share them!)

1. Expedition Bigfoot may prove humanzees are real.

Bryce Johnson sort of served as the host of the special. The team all met via Zoom (or something similar to.) Johnson explained to the team that the hair samples they sent in for analysis came back as species native to the area. Or, as he put it, “Bear, elk, whatnot.”

But then he said that one sample came back with extremely interesting results, and that was the eDNA sample from Kentucky. It was taken when Ronnie LeBlanc and Dr. Mireya Mayor had found a tree structure.

Dr. Mayor took samples from the dirt around the structure to get the eDNA sample, which was sent to UCLA’s environmental DNA program. It concluded it was from the genus Pan troglodyte, a species of chimpanzee. 

“We know there are no chimps running around the forests of Kentucky so it doesn’t make any sense,” Dr. Mayor said. “I can’t really call that evidence, right? It’s a really surprising find, but in science, you have to be able to replicate these things. Like, you can’t just accept a result like this at face value. And so I decided to go back to Kentucky. I actually spoke to Zack, Russel’s cameraman, who had been contacted by someone about a possible Bigfoot story. So while I was in Kentucky, Zack introduced me to someone named Beau Reynolds and he told me a story I was totally not expecting. Something that he’d never told anyone. Something that really changed his life.”

Then they showed her conversation with Beau, who explained that when he was a child his father and his dad’s friend, Strael, gathered the neighborhood kids at the back of his dad’s truck. I don’t know if the dad and his friend had been hunting or they’d found something dead, but they put it in the truck and covered it with a blanket.

Beau was about eight years old at the time. He said it looked like a chimpanzee. About his height at that time, so not very tall, but no tail and larger than normal feet.

“Definitely a primate. Definitely in the ape family,” Beau said.

The first thing that popped to my mind was Oliver the humanzee, which turned out not to be a hybrid human-chimpanzee but full chimpanzee. However, he did walk on two feet and had very human features, and for a long time, until they could confirm what he was, they did believe he was a humanzee.

As far as anyone knows, humanzees aren’t real. But maybe Expedition Bigfoot will prove otherwise? Or maybe they’ll just prove there are some stealth chimps living in Kentucky’s forests?

They took more samples to see if it returns the same results. That might yield a clue one way or the other, so we’ll have to stay tuned to see what happens.

2. Kentucky may be a bigger Bigfoot hotspot than previously thought.

In season 2, the Expedition Bigfoot team applied their advanced data algorithm, which revealed the mathematical odds of a Bigfoot encounter greatly increased during a specific 21-day window in a 75,000-acre swatch of Appalachian forest in southeast Kentucky. So off they went to see what they could find.

Between their algorithm and the eDNA sample, they now feel Kentucky is a Bigfoot hotspot. Perhaps hotter than people previously gave it credit for.

3. Bigfoot and real estate share “location, location, location” in common.

Johnson asked the team what’s important about location when it comes to hunting Bigfoot? After all of the expeditions they’ve so far undertaken and all the different places they’ve explored is there anything that sticks out at them?

Russell Accord said isolation. LeBlanc said water.

Johnson asked if LeBlanc was referring to their investigation of Lake Fear, which included both essential ingredients. Not only did it have a water source (a mysterious hidden lake), but it was situated in high, steep rocky terrain that’s difficult for people to navigate and get to but not for Bigfoot to traverse.

4. The Expedition Bigfoot team has captured some compelling —and scary!—  footage on camera.

“Then there was that whatever it was,” Johnson said as he introduced the black shadowy mass they caught on film. It had no heat signature, they saw nothing with their naked eyes, but the camera filmed the shape moving. 

The whole team agreed they didn’t know what it was but they caught something anomalous. Whatever it was, it was spooky!

So was the eyewitness testimony from a Native American tribe member who shared a story about a vanishing Bigfoot. He related how he’d come across what he thought could’ve been a very tall man in a ghillie suit. That’s when it covered its face with its hands, crouched down, and disappeared.

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Also unnerving were the thermal images from various episodes that picked up moving heat signatures that would be there one moment, but then would disappear the next.

5. The team is split on Bigfoot’s cloaking ability.

Because so many eyewitness accounts include stories of Bigfoot suddenly disappearing, some theorize he has cloaking abilities.

LeBlanc was in the believers’ camp. He said that some Native American legends tell of a ritual where a young Bigfoot has to stand in front of a human while cloaked and wave its hands in front of the person’s face. (How they even know about this ritual sounded suspect to me, but who knows? I guess it’s possible?)

Accord was in the maybe camp. He knows from his military experience that the government has long been experimenting with developing cloaking technology. Maybe that’s why Bigfoot has remained a mystery. It’s for his safety as much as the rest of the world. Because imagine what could happen if that superpower really existed and fell into the wrong hands.

Dr. Mayor was neither a believer nor a doubter. “If we want to prove this scientifically,” she said, “we need to stick to physical evidence. I don’t think we can ignore any of these things, right? Because they are part of the stories that are told, but I just can’t buy into the cloaking altogether.” (Amen, Dr. Mayor!)

6. If Bigfoot exists, the government knows about it.

“Is there a bi-pedal primate roaming the forests of North America?” Johnson asked at one point in the special. 

Accord brought up the UFO report. It took a while for the government to own up to the fact there are unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) in our skies. Perhaps one day there will be a governmental Unidentified Cryptid Task Force that looks into the matter of Bigfoot and releases info collected over the years.

Then I think it was LeBlanc (it could have also been Accord) that brought up the Washington Environmental Atlas. He explained the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published it in 1975. It outlined all of the different animal life in the state, including a full-page focused on Sasquatch or Bigfoot.

Sidenote: Out of curiosity I checked to see if it existed. I’m not positive about that page of it yet, but they did show it during the episode. I also checked on Amazon, which has it listed but it’s currently unavailable.

7. Jane Goodall believes Bigfoot is possible.

“But when it comes to primatology, I think there’s one scientist who sits above them all. And we haven’t spoken to them…that is until now. Mireya, would you like to do the honors of introducing who we’re talking about here?” Johnson asked Dr. Mayor before they played her conversation with the legendary scientist.

I’m not sure that they showed all of their conversation, but Dr. Mayor categorized it as “legendary” and she wasn’t overselling it. It was.

Dr. Goodall made a couple of astounding revelations, including that it was Tarzan of the Apes books that inspired her dream of one day going to Africa and living among the wild animals.

She explained how that dream came to pass and how it just happened to be a study of primates in the wild that fell into her lap. But she would’ve studied anything to be out with the animals. 

One of the most surprising things she addressed was Bigfoot’s possible existence.

“People say they can’t exist because no bones have ever been found,” Dr. Goodall said. “But imagine a creature who has a much greater developed brain, who understands that humans, modern humans, are very dangerous. And so in order to remain hidden, they decide well if anybody dies, we’ll hide them so that no bones can be found. So we’ll remain a mystery. Just about every country has Bigfoot sightings. It’s Sasquatch, it’s Bigfoot, it’s Yeti, it’s Yowie in Australia, it’s the Chinese Wild Man, there’s even some reports from Scotland, some very interesting stories. And I’ve met people who say they’ve seen something like Bigfoot or Sasquatch and they’re so passionate and honest people.”

She didn’t come right out and say she believes Bigfoot exists, but she definitely said she’s not a stranger to the stories and thinks it’s important to keep an open mind about it.

8. Even they’re not immune to naysayers.

Dr. Mayor expressed how encouraging her talk with Dr. Goodall was because it strengthened her belief that what she and the Expedition Bigfoot team are doing is important. I don’t know why, but I was stunned to hear she has to deal with people questioning why she chases after Bigfoot.

Then they all expressed how they have to deal with people accusing them of wasting their time, but as Russell put it, “Just suppose we’re the ones that can prove it?”

Which really hits the nail on the head, doesn’t it? It’s like the lottery. Whether it’s UFOs, ghosts, or Bigfoot, all investigators have bought a ticket and they’re all hoping to cash in on the paranormal jackpot.

9. If the sneak peek is any indication, Expedition Bigfoot season 3 won’t disappoint.

Did they lose the promising trail they’d been on in season 2 before the wildfires forced them to evacuate, or did they find it again when they returned to Washington?

The end of the “New Evidence” pre-show included a sneak peek that showed they found the trail again and that Washington Take 2 was full of more surprises.

The sneak peek ended with a shot of Accord looking through a telescopic lens at what appears to be a bipedal primate. Is this the season they find conclusive evidence of Bigfoot’s existence?

We’ll find out…

Check-In

What did you take away from the Expedition Bigfoot “New Evidence” special?