WEBVTT
1
00:00:57.119 --> 00:01:03.000
All right, we are live, well, we're live recording. Actually,
2
00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:05.840
what happened last night is I recorded with a friend
3
00:01:05.879 --> 00:01:09.519
of mine and it went live to YouTube. Oh and
4
00:01:09.640 --> 00:01:10.640
I didn't even know it.
5
00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:13.879
But that's funny. So you're doing like the.
6
00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:16.519
Takes happening now, but I don't think it is. It
7
00:01:16.519 --> 00:01:17.560
doesn't look like it.
8
00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:20.959
Is, so okay, yeah, anyway, okay, if we start getting comments,
9
00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:26.760
Scott's Scott Tompkins Bigfoot Mapping Project, tell us who you
10
00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:28.040
are and what you do.
11
00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:32.519
Let's start with the bigfoot stuff. As you say, I'm
12
00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:38.239
Scott Tompkins. I created the Bigfoot Mapping Project, and the
13
00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:47.799
Bigfoot Mapping Project is a crowd sourced repository for Bigfoot reports, sightings, audibles, evidence,
14
00:01:48.159 --> 00:01:53.239
et cetera, all to be submitted by the general public
15
00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:56.040
who's had any experience or found anything to do with
16
00:01:56.079 --> 00:02:00.680
bigfoot into the map. So we can into the map
17
00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:05.079
further on in the episode, but essentially it's a map
18
00:02:05.400 --> 00:02:12.280
centric crowd sourced repository for people to access, explore, and
19
00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:18.919
submit any information that they have about bigfoot. Now me,
20
00:02:19.800 --> 00:02:23.319
I'm from New York, so it's nice to be chatting
21
00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:25.439
with another New Yorker, Like we were talking about in
22
00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:29.439
the green room. I'm from downstate near I'm from Beacon,
23
00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:31.879
which is about an hour north of New York City
24
00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:34.520
in the Hudson Valley, and I grew up out in
25
00:02:34.599 --> 00:02:40.080
the woods, fishing, hunting, boating, camping, you name it. And
26
00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:45.800
went to college for GIS, which is Geographic Information Systems,
27
00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:48.159
which is the background I have to be making the
28
00:02:48.199 --> 00:02:52.120
maps and the applications that I create. And from there
29
00:02:52.199 --> 00:02:57.680
I got into geophysical exploration, which is oil and gas exploration.
30
00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:01.039
Seismic some people notice seismic, and it's basically making a
31
00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:04.159
sonogram of the Earth so you can see all the
32
00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:07.719
layers and geology beneath and the formations and faults and
33
00:03:07.759 --> 00:03:11.120
everything that's beneath the surface of the earth for basically
34
00:03:11.479 --> 00:03:18.560
drilling oil wells. And from there, during the exploration I
35
00:03:18.599 --> 00:03:22.639
was doing, I would talk to people about Bigfoot because
36
00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:23.840
I was out in the middle of nowhere in a
37
00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:25.800
lot of places, and so they would tell me what
38
00:03:25.879 --> 00:03:30.039
was happening on their properties and their relatives, experiences, etc.
39
00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:34.000
And that gave me the idea to create the project.
40
00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:38.240
So my professional in a way, my professional and educational
41
00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:44.360
experience and background has directly unintentionally influenced the creation of
42
00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:47.560
the Bigfoot Mapping Project, because had I not taken that route,
43
00:03:47.759 --> 00:03:50.520
I never would have had the background, or the capabilities,
44
00:03:50.599 --> 00:03:54.560
or the understanding or idea to capture all of this
45
00:03:55.120 --> 00:04:03.680
information in a semi novice anthropo anthropologeal approach in the application,
46
00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:06.360
in the database. So that's a little bit about me.
47
00:04:07.439 --> 00:04:10.639
I think, you know, moral come out throughout the episode.
48
00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:13.439
But that's in a nutshell who I am and why
49
00:04:13.479 --> 00:04:14.520
I created the project.
50
00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:20.079
Yeah, and it's an amazing tool. I take a lot
51
00:04:20.120 --> 00:04:20.800
of notes just.
52
00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:24.000
So you know I'm here for it. I need to.
53
00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:26.480
Ever since I had a kid, I forget everything, right.
54
00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:30.240
No kidd, So what I was looking at is oh yeah,
55
00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:35.560
So and I'll ask the questions a little bit. But so,
56
00:04:35.959 --> 00:04:41.040
all right, so Bigfoot Mapping Project. Obviously, I'm pretty sure
57
00:04:41.079 --> 00:04:43.680
what you're going to answer when I say, what was
58
00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:45.040
your entry into.
59
00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:46.120
This whole world of.
60
00:04:47.839 --> 00:04:51.600
You know, high strangeness that that we kind of live
61
00:04:51.639 --> 00:04:57.800
in in this community. What was your gateway drug?
62
00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:02.120
Well? It was Bigfoot for sure, right, And so it's
63
00:05:02.199 --> 00:05:04.319
kind of a twofold answer. I touched on it earlier
64
00:05:04.319 --> 00:05:08.920
when I was doing the introducing myself. But prior to that,
65
00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:14.120
I had an experience on Mount Beacon that was kind
66
00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:18.399
of unexplainable. I was hiking with a friend around the
67
00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:20.160
backside of the reservoir. At the top of the mountain,
68
00:05:20.160 --> 00:05:21.920
there's a fire tower you can hike to, and you
69
00:05:21.959 --> 00:05:24.319
have to go around. One of the trails goes around
70
00:05:24.319 --> 00:05:26.360
the backside of the reservoir and you can get to
71
00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:28.120
the fire tower and climb up, climb up, and you
72
00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:30.120
can see the New York City skyline from the top
73
00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:34.000
of the mountains. Really cool. But as we were rounding
74
00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:39.120
the backside of the reservoir, there was basically a it
75
00:05:39.160 --> 00:05:41.360
would go. It went up a small hill, and behind
76
00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:44.079
that hill was like a ridge that dropped down. And
77
00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:48.079
immediately behind that hill we couldn't see, but there was
78
00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:53.720
something screaming, guttural, like a gorilla tiger. I couldn't tell
79
00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:57.360
you what it was, And a really large tree started
80
00:05:57.399 --> 00:05:59.879
shaking violently all the way to the canopy. And this
81
00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:04.360
is something no way A grown man that you know,
82
00:06:04.480 --> 00:06:08.800
the rock couldn't have done it, you know. So we
83
00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:13.319
were fourteen, right, this is many years ago. We looked
84
00:06:13.319 --> 00:06:15.319
at each other and bolted down the mountain right and
85
00:06:15.319 --> 00:06:18.920
that that was the first unexplainable, hair raising, scary thing.
86
00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:21.800
What it was I don't know, but we didn't have
87
00:06:21.839 --> 00:06:24.800
an easy explanation for it. So we've wondered what was that?
88
00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:27.000
Was a Bigfoot? Was it somebody messing with us? We
89
00:06:27.079 --> 00:06:31.319
really don't know. So that got some curiosity, some adrenaline going,
90
00:06:31.639 --> 00:06:34.600
and I realized that there could be some stuff out
91
00:06:34.639 --> 00:06:37.720
there in the woods that we, you know, don't know
92
00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:41.920
or haven't seen or is unexplained. Couple that with at
93
00:06:41.959 --> 00:06:45.920
the time, finding Bigfoot was really popular, right, gaining popularity,
94
00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:53.120
so it was a natural influence on what I was
95
00:06:53.160 --> 00:06:56.279
interested in and the explanations I jumped to, right because
96
00:06:56.439 --> 00:06:58.399
of course it was all over pop culture. You could
97
00:06:58.519 --> 00:07:02.680
and it was like, maybe that was Bigfoot. So fast
98
00:07:02.680 --> 00:07:06.439
forward and I've kind of forgotten about it. I've gone
99
00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:09.199
on through college and work and stuff. And then, like
100
00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:14.040
I was saying earlier, that experience out in the field
101
00:07:14.199 --> 00:07:18.560
really contributed to my idea to create the database. Where
102
00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:22.920
I was hearing other people's stories about Bigfoot, and I
103
00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:30.439
was hearing them in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Louisiana,
104
00:07:30.519 --> 00:07:34.040
all over the place. So I started to realize that
105
00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:38.839
this wasn't just a localized phenomenon. It was happening everywhere,
106
00:07:38.879 --> 00:07:42.600
and that's where I got the idea to create the project. So,
107
00:07:44.759 --> 00:07:47.120
like I was saying in the intro, my background, my
108
00:07:47.199 --> 00:07:54.040
professional career, and then it's one experience in my early
109
00:07:54.160 --> 00:07:57.120
years really contributed to my gateway drug. You know, they
110
00:07:57.120 --> 00:08:00.160
got me into big Field. And I tell you know,
111
00:08:00.199 --> 00:08:03.000
I talked to Renee occasionally and I told her, I
112
00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:04.199
was like, you know, I used to watch you and
113
00:08:04.279 --> 00:08:07.839
finding Bigfoot, and I kind of blame not blame you,
114
00:08:07.879 --> 00:08:10.199
but you had a direct influence on you know, what
115
00:08:10.279 --> 00:08:12.680
I'm doing today through your show, and I don't think
116
00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:15.920
you know, how often do you get to say that
117
00:08:15.959 --> 00:08:19.240
to someone, right, So, yeah, that's really cool. By the way,
118
00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:22.600
she's such a lovely person, awesome, lovely person.
119
00:08:22.839 --> 00:08:24.720
So good to hear that stuff because.
120
00:08:24.519 --> 00:08:27.319
Sometimes, man, she's amazing, amazing.
121
00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:28.399
Those TV personalities.
122
00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:34.440
Now she's I like her way more every time we talk,
123
00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:39.840
So I'm really lucky to have her cool. My corner
124
00:08:39.919 --> 00:08:42.240
is supportive and given advice and stuff. So I'm very
125
00:08:42.279 --> 00:08:42.919
grateful for that.
126
00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:46.799
Because I see so I see that you get some
127
00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:51.639
of the data from BFROS. You get it directly from them,
128
00:08:51.799 --> 00:08:56.039
or do do you like download what they have publicly available.
129
00:08:57.120 --> 00:09:01.320
So I started with a data set called Man's and
130
00:09:03.080 --> 00:09:07.799
that website stopped. It just stopped being updated in twenty sixteen.
131
00:09:08.559 --> 00:09:11.159
It was a really good website. It's a very good
132
00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:15.720
precursor essentially to the Bigfoot Mapping project. It's very similar
133
00:09:15.799 --> 00:09:19.879
in a lot of ways to what I'm doing. And
134
00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:24.799
what that website did was aggregate a lot of bigfoot
135
00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:27.960
databases into one map, essentially.
136
00:09:27.759 --> 00:09:29.200
Just a clearinghouse of data.
137
00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:32.879
Yeah, exactly. So I got that data set and in
138
00:09:32.919 --> 00:09:37.120
that data set, there's the BFRO, there's the Kentucky Bigfoot
139
00:09:37.159 --> 00:09:42.919
Research Organization, there's a bunch of other different organizations data
140
00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:48.440
all aggregated together. And I used that as a starting
141
00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:52.840
point to populate the map for the Bigfoot Mapping project.
142
00:09:52.879 --> 00:09:57.039
And then along with that, I started crowdsourcing reports. So yes,
143
00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:01.360
I do have to credit the BFRO and man Johnny's
144
00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:03.440
and all of the other organizations that did a lot
145
00:10:03.480 --> 00:10:05.519
of work prior to me coming along with my head, yeah,
146
00:10:06.679 --> 00:10:07.919
integrating that into map.
147
00:10:07.960 --> 00:10:10.200
But it really that they opened that up to you too,
148
00:10:11.240 --> 00:10:14.080
because sometimes you hear people protect.
149
00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:17.559
Their interestingly enough you can. Actually they have on the
150
00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:20.440
website if you find the website. I don't know if
151
00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:23.240
it's still live, but when I found it, they have
152
00:10:23.279 --> 00:10:28.120
a download section. You could just download the whole database publicly, right,
153
00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:29.519
It's very very useful.
154
00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:33.559
So why the two maps?
155
00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:39.080
Why the two maps? Well, the first one the old map,
156
00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:40.080
if if you want.
157
00:10:39.919 --> 00:10:43.080
To call it that, the classic map, I like classic.
158
00:10:43.919 --> 00:10:48.200
Yeah, so the classic map is just all the points
159
00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:50.960
on the map. And then this is actually probably a
160
00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:55.159
deeper answer than you expect with to this question. Yeah,
161
00:10:55.320 --> 00:11:00.759
the classic map really just shows you points on a map.
162
00:11:00.840 --> 00:11:06.799
There's no actual, right, the actual location, but the symbology
163
00:11:06.840 --> 00:11:11.039
with the actual points start to coalesce, and which can
164
00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:14.960
really make the map look busier in certain areas and
165
00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:18.440
give you the wrong idea about what's happening in an area,
166
00:11:18.519 --> 00:11:23.200
because it's not. Those symbols are like a font size, right,
167
00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:29.639
they're not actually true to you know, ground scale per se.
168
00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:33.360
So what I've done, especially when you zoom out, When
169
00:11:33.399 --> 00:11:36.960
you zoom in, like they'll they'll disperse right the closer
170
00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:40.919
you are to you know, one to one scale. But
171
00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:44.159
when you zoom out, things start to get crowded, right,
172
00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:46.080
and it can give you the wrong idea. And there's
173
00:11:46.120 --> 00:11:48.159
tons of maps all over the internet that look like that, right,
174
00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:50.879
there's that There's one Bigfoot map. Everybody's probably seen it,
175
00:11:50.879 --> 00:11:53.600
and it's like a bunch of bigfoot on a screenshot
176
00:11:53.639 --> 00:11:56.559
of like Google Earth, and it looks like it's like
177
00:11:56.600 --> 00:11:59.759
bigfoots everywhere, but the symbols are huge, right, so they
178
00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:01.960
cover or you know, half the state that they're in.
179
00:12:02.399 --> 00:12:05.840
And that's the problem with the classic map. It's a
180
00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:08.879
great map because you can really see, you know, all
181
00:12:08.919 --> 00:12:11.519
the points in an area. However, it can give you
182
00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:16.080
the wrong idea about what's happening, you know, in general
183
00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:19.879
in a certain area. So with that in mind, I
184
00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:21.559
created the new map.
185
00:12:21.399 --> 00:12:25.320
Which is awesome. I love it. I love that, but
186
00:12:25.720 --> 00:12:27.360
I use them both, that's the thing.
187
00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:29.080
Yeah, I mean, that's why I kept them up there, right,
188
00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:31.600
because you know, some people prefer to work with the
189
00:12:31.639 --> 00:12:34.840
points all visible, and then the new map really does
190
00:12:34.879 --> 00:12:38.240
some analysis and displays that density analysis a hot spot
191
00:12:38.399 --> 00:12:42.759
essentially in the map for you. Yeah, so that you know,
192
00:12:42.879 --> 00:12:46.919
you can really see an analysis of all those points
193
00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:50.039
and how they relate to each other in certain areas.
194
00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:54.279
That gives you better information. So The reason that I
195
00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:57.080
have two maps is you know, there's different functionality in
196
00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:00.399
each map, But essentially I wanted the map app to
197
00:13:00.519 --> 00:13:05.279
display what was really happening with Bigfoot, i e. Hotspots,
198
00:13:06.559 --> 00:13:09.639
rather than people trying to digest all those points in
199
00:13:09.639 --> 00:13:13.440
a map themselves, because they're just not going to show
200
00:13:13.480 --> 00:13:16.639
you what people are what they think they're pulling from
201
00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:20.039
the map. It's it's not informing people correctly, which is
202
00:13:20.039 --> 00:13:22.360
why I created the hotspot map.
203
00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:24.600
Yeah, which is really cool because it does kind of
204
00:13:24.639 --> 00:13:25.039
give you.
205
00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:31.159
It just gives you, and there's all different ways to work,
206
00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:32.919
right You might not care about the hot spots for
207
00:13:32.960 --> 00:13:34.519
what you're doing. You might just want to go and
208
00:13:34.519 --> 00:13:37.440
see all the points on them. Yeah, right, So I
209
00:13:37.559 --> 00:13:40.159
try to keep it open for people to work with
210
00:13:40.440 --> 00:13:42.120
things however they want to work.
211
00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:45.440
With them, right right now? What kind of data? All right?
212
00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:49.759
So this kind of leads right into one of the
213
00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:54.240
questions that I've got about the whole data collection of this.
214
00:13:54.399 --> 00:13:57.000
Now obviously a lot of this stuff is taken from
215
00:13:57.039 --> 00:14:02.360
other databases, right and from people putting in their own
216
00:14:02.759 --> 00:14:07.000
recollection of ah.
217
00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:08.080
Encounter. Right.
218
00:14:08.200 --> 00:14:10.480
Sure, for some reason, I could. I mean, I've even
219
00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:14.080
got an encounter on here, right, I I've got a few,
220
00:14:14.159 --> 00:14:17.159
but I only put in one just because I wanted
221
00:14:17.159 --> 00:14:19.480
to see what it was like. Yeah, and it's cool,
222
00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:26.000
it's smooth, it's it's everything that I'm just wondering about data,
223
00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:31.679
Like do you have a way of like crunching data,
224
00:14:32.159 --> 00:14:37.000
meaning like how many sightings of like cinnamon bigfoot do
225
00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:41.279
we have? Do you understand what I mean or like
226
00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:44.879
foot size or like in like how does that correlate
227
00:14:44.919 --> 00:14:48.480
to the map? Are you able to do that type
228
00:14:48.480 --> 00:14:49.120
of stuff?
229
00:14:50.039 --> 00:14:53.240
Yes? So there's two parts to you. There's two parts
230
00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:55.720
to your answer or your question. There's two parts of
231
00:14:55.759 --> 00:15:01.039
the answer to your question. Yes. First part is what
232
00:15:01.159 --> 00:15:05.320
makes crunching data easy is standardization. Right, So that was
233
00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:07.519
the form that you went through and filled out and said, yeah,
234
00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:10.080
that you had a good experience on. Those are the
235
00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:12.080
fields in the form. Did you see a male bigfoot?
236
00:15:12.159 --> 00:15:14.480
You see female bigfoot? How tall was it? What color
237
00:15:14.519 --> 00:15:17.080
did you see? Et cetera, et cetera. Yes, and then
238
00:15:17.240 --> 00:15:20.639
there's the additional comments, Right, what didn't I capture in
239
00:15:20.679 --> 00:15:24.840
that those standardized fields? That was still relevant to the report,