John Bradshaw - Bigfoot
This is It Is Written. I'm John Bradshaw. Thanks for joining me. On a Friday afternoon in October of 1967, two men horseback riding in a remote area of northwestern California had an encounter that they would never forget. They claimed that they saw a Bigfoot, or Sasquatch. Now, what was different about this encounter is that the men videotaped it. The Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot tape is still famous today in certain circles. The largest number of Bigfoot sightings have occurred in the Pacific Northwest, but there have been sightings claimed throughout the United States, with a large number allegedly occurring in the Ohio River Valley, the Sierra Nevadas, and central Florida.
Of course, the question is, is it legitimate? Or is this all just an elaborate hoax? There have been some well-known hoaxes over the years. As far back as 1958, people claimed to have found Bigfoot tracks in the Six Rivers National Forest area in northern California. That's about the same area as the famous Patterson-Gimlin movie was filmed. But not too terribly long after that, somebody said that those footprints had been faked, put there deliberately by a man who had a, a sense of humor. To this day, people debate the veracity, the truthfulness, of that famous short film shot in which the Bigfoot walks and, and looks warily back over his shoulder.
You see, some years after that, a man came forward claiming he wore an ape suit in the movie. But of course people now question whether or not he was telling the truth. Today there are Bigfoot festivals held in various places around the United States, such as western North Carolina and eastern Oklahoma and northern Oregon. Television programs such as Finding Bigfoot have added fuel to the Sasquatch fire. Unsurprisingly, after 11 seasons of Finding Bigfoot, Bigfoot was never found.
If he had been, here's likely what he would have looked like, according to the experts. A large hairy ape-like creature, standing upright, walking on two legs. Word is, they're between 6 feet and 9 feet tall, sometimes even taller. There are equivalent legends or theories in multiple cultures. In the Himalayas, they speak of the "yeti". It's been referred to as the "abominable snowman". In the United States, it's "Sasquatch" or "Bigfoot". Now, of course, something like this, you'll find people everywhere who think it's a hoax at best or a lie at worst. But then there are true believers, and today we're going to meet one of them. And here's why.
This is part one of a five-part It Is Written series called "Conspiracy, More Than Just a Theory". You see, there is a massive conspiracy playing out on Planet Earth right now. a conspiracy that involves everyone living on the earth, a conspiracy where the stakes are high, in fact, as high as they possibly could be, and in which the conspirators are at the top of their game. Consider the world in which we live. It's wracked with social challenges and political challenges and health and environmental and emotional and just about every other kind of challenge imaginable. Of course, you could make the case that it's always been this way. The son of Adam and Eve killed his brother, after all. Wars date back millennia.
Life expectancy today is much longer than it was several hundred years ago. But no one seriously believes that this is business as usual. No, there's something going on, and we're about to find out what. But first, here in the Chattahoochee National Forest, about an hour and a half from both Chattanooga and Atlanta, there's a place called Expedition Bigfoot. It's run by David and Belinda Bakara, who are Bigfoot researchers. Look on their website and you'll find Proverbs 25, verse 2, which says, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter". David, thanks for your time. I appreciate it immensely. Let me ask you this: What's a Bigfoot researcher?
David Bakara: So, actually most Bigfoot researchers start off as, uh, Bigfoot witnesses. You're a, a young man fishing in Kentucky, and you run into one of these things, and then that progresses on to trying to find more about these creatures, and that's how usually you become a Bigfoot researcher because you're trying to find out more about something you've already seen.
John Bradshaw: So, clearly you're convinced that Bigfoot exists?
David Bakara: I certainly am. I, I've seen two in Alva, Florida, back in 2010, but that was on investigation, but I've been at this since I was about 12 years old.
John Bradshaw: Describe what you saw.
David Bakara: So I saw a, a large one, about 7 1/2 feet tall, and one slightly smaller, 6 1/2, 7 feet tall, standing next to it, both hiding behind trees, peeking at us from behind trees. Um, we were actually at a commercial fisherman's property, so we were there where we knew they were already there, and we watched them for about 11, 12 minutes before they finally turned and walked off back down into the swamp.
John Bradshaw: So where we are here in rural Georgia, Chattahoochee National Forest, you'd say there are big Bigfoots nearby?
David Bakara: Oh my goodness, yes. When I moved up here five years ago, the, information was scant. There wasn't too much out on the internet, which is pretty much we all, um, depend on now. When we opened up this place and put the graphics on the front of the building, the reports from the police officers, farmers, the sightings up here in north Georgia are numerous. Many, many sightings. But it's not just here. If you opened up one of these places in Tennessee or Kentucky or North Carolina, it'd be the same.
John Bradshaw: And if you look at the map of Bigfoot sightings, they're seen pretty regularly.
David Bakara: Certainly, so if you look online, you'll see fairly regular sightings in, uh, wooded areas. But, uh, when you become a magnet for Bigfoot sightings, you become overwhelmed with the amount of unreported sightings, and you begin to realize that these things are seen every day in every state, and there's nothing rare about them at all.
John Bradshaw: So everybody's going to want to know, if they're seen so regularly, why isn't there more concrete evidence for their existence?
David Bakara: There is concrete evidence, other than a body. We have footprints, uh, fresh footprints, hundreds of them. Many that have been studied and deemed as legitimate by a professor of anthropology, also fingerprint experts. Uh, we have films that cannot be faked. We have hair samples, thousands and thousands of eyewitness reports. But why we don't have a body? There's something more at play there, and I think it's a good idea if we don't have a body because I don't think the general public should be aware of their existence.
John Bradshaw: You've been quoted as saying, it even says on your website, Bigfoots everywhere, even in the suburbs. Do you think that?
David Bakara: Certainly, yeah, they do come into the suburbs in the evening, at nighttime; they get into our gardens. They're interested in our dogs and cats; our pets are an ample food supply for them as well. Um, not that they're vicious, but since each animal requires approximately 10,000 calories a day, it takes a lot of food to get, to keep these things going, and, uh, where there are humans, there is food.
John Bradshaw: Should people fear them? Are they a danger to human beings?
David Bakara: Uh, generally speaking, no. Um, they don't want to be seen. They work actively to not be seen by us. So there's an unspoken rule amongst themselves to stay away from us, and we're not supposed to see them, but they do come close to us at night.
John Bradshaw: So, if somebody wanted to see a Bigfoot, wanted to find one, where do you start to go about that?
David Bakara: What a great question. The easy answer to that is that you don't find them; they find you. So you really have to go into the areas where they've been seen, which is many, it's not very hard, and you've got to make yourselves approachable. So, uh, brandishing a weapon, that's not going to help you. Uh, actually, swinging around night vision, that's not going to help you. Usually, going out, and they smell food, laughing, if they hear you laughing and having a good time, they know you're distracted, and that's when they'll actually come in and check you out. And if you go into your tent at night, and they can smell food, unfortunately, bears are the same way, uh, these things will come into your campsite and check out, and sometimes they'll rub their hands along the side of your tent, and you'll hear them speaking amongst themselves. And when you hear these things speaking, you know what you're dealing with. You know you're not dealing with a bear.
John Bradshaw: So what are you dealing with? Describe a Bigfoot for me. Just what is it exactly?
David Bakara: So they're primarily described as running anywhere from the small ones, 2, 3 feet tall when they're children, all the way up to 8, 10, 12 feet tall. A variety of colors, light-colored, white, uh, with very light Caucasian-like skin, all the way up to the deepest black with extremely dark weathered skin. Some reported as having blue eyes, green eyes, but the most-reported color, believe it or not, are red eyes, and, uh, I don't understand that.
John Bradshaw: Is there a connection between the phenomenon of Bigfoot and something like, say, Loch Ness monster?
David Bakara: What a great question, and, and I think there's a lot of researchers that I work with that think Bigfoot's it, when in fact, that people see other things. They don't understand how could we have the Loch Ness monster, which is clearly some sort of, um, leftover marine reptile, but they should have been dead a long time ago. They see things like the Mothman. We get reports of large creatures that resemble the, a dog-man or a werewolf. Lot of sightings and, uh, of course, UFOs. There's a whole thing going on around us that we're not supposed to know about. And there are agencies actively making sure that these things remain in the realm of myth for the general public.
John Bradshaw: Now, let me pick up on something you said. You believe there are agencies that are committed to keeping people from knowing about this. Explain that for me.
David Bakara: Over the years, stories have evolved about government, government officials visiting either Bigfoot witnesses or witnesses that have seen unusual flying craft in the sky, and these agencies are there to strongly suppress this information getting out to the general public. Very little harm comes to these witnesses, but they're, it's impressed upon them that it's best for you to keep your mouth shut, and that's normally what they do.
John Bradshaw: You'd call it a conspiracy?
David Bakara: Oh, certainly, yeah. I'm sure that's not the only conspiracy that's out there. So, you don't have to be a conspiracy nut to think there are conspiracies out there. You know, it's just a group of people conspiring to keep a secret from you, and there's plenty of that, evidence for that out there. So, sure, but just some conspiracies are much bigger than others.
John Bradshaw: Do you see there being a time when one day there'll be some type of great reveal, what everybody would call irrefutable evidence, and the nation or the world will say, "This actually is real"?
David Bakara: Wow, so, if you asked me that question 20 years ago, I would have said, "Yes, it's going to come". But as I've gotten older and wiser, I realize that that kind of evidence probably would not be good for a lot of people. It would create a lot of fear. So that kind of revelation would have to come with additional information, but I don't think it's going to happen in my lifetime.
John Bradshaw: So when somebody says, "Man, you must be crazy," what's your response?
David Bakara: Doesn't happen. You would think people would be going, "You're crazy to think about this," and I'm waiting for that guy to come in here, but he hasn't showed up yet after three years, so I think a lot of that worry about the negativity was unwarranted. I really, I was convinced that was going to happen as well, and I was going to take it on a, uh, a case-by-case basis, but I really haven't had an argument with anybody yet.
John Bradshaw: David, thanks very much. It's been great talking with you. I appreciate it.
David Bakara: Thank you, sir.
John Bradshaw: Immensely.
David Bakara: Nice meeting you.
John Bradshaw: God bless you. So, does Bigfoot exist? Well, you will not be surprised to learn that the vast majority of Americans think the answer to that question is "no". But there are people who believe they do exist, and plenty of people, it seems, who will tell you they believe so from experience. Are they confused? Are they lying? Have they been deceived? Does it really matter? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. But transfer this over to the spiritual realm. You look into the Bible and you'll come face to face with the mother of all conspiracies.
Thanks for joining me today on It Is Written. The Bible opens with these words: "In the beginning God created". The world that God created was perfect. He called it "very good". But it didn't take long and the world fell into disarray. Adam and Eve ran from God. One of their very own children killed his brother. And while there are 1,189 chapters in the Bible, it's in the Bible's fourth chapter that we meet the first adulterer, a man named Lamech, who also happened to be a murderer. In the seventh chapter of the Bible, the earth is so wicked God destroys it with a global flood. In Genesis 6:5 we read, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually". Verse 11 says, "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence".
Now, that's a rapid descent into sin. Get over to just Genesis 11, the people endeavored to build a tower that will reach up to heaven. That's where God confused the languages of the people to restrict their wickedness. So you have to ask yourself how all of this was possible. What was it about human beings that they were capable of such a rapid descent into wickedness? And what's been the trend from that day to this? Well, we've certainly not changed course. Whether it's the big-ticket items, such as genocide, such as happened in Bosnia or Rwanda or Burma/Myanmar or Cambodia, or terrorism or other oh-my-goodness events, or whether it's intolerance and incivility and the mental health crisis that much of the planet faces, it's not difficult to see that the earth is in a really tough place.
Church membership is down, now at an all-time low. Millennials are leaving the church in droves, according to the Pew Research Center. There are now more people who profess no religion than there are Catholics or Protestants in the United States. I don't mean they're all atheists, but there's an increasing number of people who believe there is no God. So why is that?
Now, it's one thing to believe in 8-feet-tall ape-men roaming around dense forests in northern California, but it's another thing to believe that there's no God, or that in spite of the Bible being the bestselling book in the world, that there's no way to know. There's been a shift in society's collective belief away from the traditional "There is a God in heaven" and towards a more "I'll make my own decisions; I don't need the God of my parents or my grandparents". We're in a time right now where society is more and more tilting away from Christianity and Christ. And the Bible helps us understand the reason for that. It's the biggest conspiracy of all time. When we come back, we'll dive a little deeper into the reason that this conspiracy is more than just a theory.
Welcome back to It Is Written. We're talking about the biggest conspiracy of all time. And I want to pick back up in the book of Revelation, where we read these words, Revelation 12, verse 7: "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels". A war in heaven. Now, why would that be? Earlier in the same chapter you read that Satan, represented by a dragon with seven heads and 10 horns, deceived a third of the angels in heaven, that his purpose was the destruction of the Man Child who was to be brought forth. His purpose was the destruction of Jesus. Revelation 12:9 says that Satan was cast out of heaven. He came then to the earth. The passage tells us that there will be those who triumph over the enemy, but that at the end of time the devil will wage war against the church and against God's people who keep the commandments of God.
And look at how sin got started here on earth. Satan came to the earth. Adam and Eve had been told they could eat anything they wanted in the Garden of Eden, just not the fruit that grew on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Look with me at how Satan lured Eve into sin. Genesis 3, verse 1: "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, 'Has God indeed said, "You shall not eat of every tree of the garden"?'" Eve affirmed that it was so. She was not to eat of the fruit that grew on that tree. She stated that God had told her they would die if they ate that fruit. But Satan said this: "You will not surely die".
Now, as bad as that was, he added the following: "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil". Don't skip past that. Analyze that. What was it that Satan was actually saying? He was saying, "God didn't really mean what He said. God doesn't want you to eat that fruit, not because you'll die, but because you'll have knowledge that He doesn't want you to have". In other words, "God is unfair. God can't be trusted. God is playing games with you. God doesn't want you to know what He knows". That was the first time Adam or Eve had ever heard anyone suggest that God was unjust or dishonest or unfair. Take a look at Eve's response: "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate".
And that's the first human sin recorded in the Bible, Eve distrusting God, based on what the devil had told her. Now, of course, she could have, she should have checked this out. She could have gone to God and asked Him, "The serpent says this. That doesn't seem right. What do You say"? If she had, history would have turned out very differently. But that's not what she did. Genesis 3, verse 7 says: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings". And when they heard God walking in the garden, they hid from God. For the first time ever, they were afraid of Him. And this misunderstanding of the character of God plagues the human family today.
Why do people blame God for tragedies that happen? Because Satan has filled their minds with lies about what God is really like. Why do people say God is unfair? It's a misunderstanding of the character of God begun in the first place by Satan and perpetuated by him ever since. But what's God really like? The Bible says in 1 John 4 that "God is love". The Bible tells us in Exodus 34:6 and 7, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, [and] by no means clearing the guilty". God says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love" in Jeremiah 31:3. Again and again God speaks for Himself in the Bible, and when He does, you'll see He does everything He can to convince us that He is worth living for, that He can be trusted.
Today, fewer people trust God. Why is that? I'll tell you. It's because of a conspiracy, a giant conspiracy, meticulously planned, orchestrated over thousands of years, adding up to where we are today. Why do people say the Bible can't be trusted? It all started long ago when there was a war in heaven. It's taken a long while, but now people don't think about the Word of God like they used to. Societal standards we used to cling to in years gone by, some of them have changed for the better, but others have certainly changed for the worst. Where do you stand on God? Is your God good? Is your God a God of love? Can you say, "I trust the Bible to be the Word of God"? Or has this great cosmic conspiracy affected you, too?
John Bradshaw: I'd like to encourage you to trust the God of heaven, the One who sent His Son Jesus to this world to die for you, the One who has done so much to demonstrate to you that He is good. Where do the lies come from? Well, first, they are lies, and they come from an enemy, the enemy, the enemy of souls. You are not going to find any evidence anywhere to suggest that God is not good. Think about His character. God is good, God is love, and when He's your God, when your heart is open to Him, when you have surrendered to Him fully, you'll understand that experientially. Your love for God will grow and grow and grow, and throughout eternity you'll love God even more. Can you make a decision to allow that God, that good God, to be your God? Let's pray together now:
Our Father in heaven, we understand better that there is a conspiracy afoot to turn our feet out of the pathway of heaven, to turn our hearts away from Your heart. We want to trust You. For so many people, there's baggage; there's a past; there is hurt; there is misinformation. There's a lack of trust. There's a belief that You're harsh and tyrannical and unkind and unfair. We know where that began. It began with a devil who spoke to Eve and said, "Really? You think God wants the best for you? No, He does not". Thank You that Calvary demonstrates You want the best for us. Thank You that Jesus lived and died so we could believe You want the best for us, and we want the best You have, not selfishly, but to honor You.
Friend, would you accept from God the best He has? Would you do that now? And accept that God's character is a character of love and kindness and concern and goodness.
Lord, our hearts are open to You. Be our God. Let Jesus be our Savior now and forever. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Thanks so much for joining me. I'm looking forward to seeing you again next time. Until then, remember: "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"