#176 – BIG FOOTPRINTS, BIG VOICE — WILD THING

🎙️ Blake Smith flies solo on this episode — co-host Karen Stollznow was sidelined by laryngitis — to welcome Laura Krantz, a veteran audio journalist and former NPR producer whose credits include Morning Edition. Laura is also the host and producer of Wild Thing, a polished, heavily reported podcast about the hunt for Bigfoot — and, as it turns out, something of a family affair: Laura is a cousin of the late physical anthropologist Grover Krantz, arguably the most scientifically credentialed researcher ever to devote a career to Sasquatch.

Wild Thing is produced through Laura’s company Foxtopus Inc. and edited in Hindenburg audio software — a program Laura gravitated toward after leaving NPR because its keyboard shortcuts most closely mirrored the proprietary system NPR uses internally. The show’s original score was composed by Ramtin Arabloui, an NPR producer and independent composer who, conveniently, had been interested in Bigfoot since childhood.

🦴 The Grover Krantz Connection

Laura’s path to Wild Thing began in 2006 when she read a Washington Post style-section profile of Grover Krantz and recognized the surname. A call to her grandfather confirmed the family connection — and produced the memorable detail that Grover used to show up at family picnics with calipers to measure everyone’s heads. After years of the name resurfacing in unexpected places, Laura discovered that Grover’s fourth wife, Diane Horton, lived thirty miles from her in Colorado. That proximity, she says, was the final nudge toward making a podcast.

Grover Krantz, who spent decades at Washington State University, famously donated his body to the Body Farm at the University of Tennessee and his skeleton to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History — along with the bones of his beloved Irish wolfhounds. His remains were originally part of the Smithsonian’s Written in Bone forensic anthropology exhibit; when that exhibit closed, his display was moved to a first-floor science education classroom on the National Mall, where — as Laura puts it — he is still overseeing the teaching of science, just as he wished.

🎙️ From NPR to Independent Podcasting

Laura came to audio by an indirect route: a history undergraduate degree, a master’s program in international relations in D.C., an NPR internship she parlayed into a full-time position through sheer persistence, then years as an editor and producer. After leaving NPR in late 2012 she spent time at KPCC / Southern California Public Radio before burning out on daily news. A journalism fellowship at the University of Colorado Boulder gave her a year to take science classes and try print journalism before she landed back in Denver — and eventually on Diane Horton’s doorstep.

🔬 The Science (and Limits) of Bigfoot Evidence

Laura frames her approach to Bigfoot the same way Grover did: if the creature exists, it is a flesh-and-blood animal subject to the ordinary laws of nature. That meant she largely steered clear of the paranormal or interdimensional Bigfoot contingent — a position she notes actually made finding credible interview subjects easier, since Diane Horton’s network was already populated by Grover’s scientifically-minded colleagues.

The most striking physical evidence Laura encountered while reporting was a cluster of large ground nests on private timberland on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State — structures eight to ten feet in diameter, built from freshly snapped green branches, in a pattern bear biologists said was too elaborate for bear beds. The timber company agreed to hold off logging the plot for five years while the Olympic Project Bigfoot research group monitored the site with trail cameras. Samples were eventually collected by Dr. Jeff Meldrum, anthropologist at Idaho State University, and sent to Todd Disotell (a recurring MonsterTalk guest) for DNA analysis — the results of which the podcast holds as a season-long cliffhanger.

Blake and Laura also note a recurring tension in the Bigfoot community: a subset of cryptozoologists are also young-Earth creationists who pursue living dinosaurs — such as the Mokele-mbembe of the Congo or the Ropen as a purported living pterosaur — as indirect challenges to deep geological time, a motivation that mainstream scientists find difficult to engage with professionally.

🎬 The Patterson-Gimlin Film

Laura conducted a bonus interview with Bob Gimlin for Wild Thing and came away convinced he is not lying — he has, she notes, maintained the same account for decades while absorbing considerable ridicule and, at one point, having to sue Roger Patterson for his share of the film’s earnings. Blake, for his part, ticks off the coincidences that give him pause: it was Patterson’s very first time filming in the field; the creature filmed was female with prominent breasts matching a drawing Patterson had published in a Bigfoot book shortly beforehand; and no one claiming to have worn the suit has ever produced it. Multiple people have claimed to be the person in the suit, with contradictory accounts. As Laura notes, if it is a hoax, the cover-up has been remarkably durable.

🌲 Going Into the Field

For one episode of Wild Thing, Laura joined a small group from the Olympic Project for a long-weekend expedition in Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon — accompanied by her producer Kelsey Ray. The group used night-vision equipment and FLIR thermal imaging on a late-night hike, heard eyewitness encounter stories around the campfire, and generally did what Bigfoot field researchers do: look, listen, and wait. No Bigfoot was encountered, which will surprise no one.

Laura also interviewed Peter Byrne — one of the so-called “four horsemen of Sasquatchery” from the Tom Slick era who is still alive and active in Oregon — and William Dear, director of 🎬 Harry and the Hendersons 💵, for a bonus episode. Blake mentions that historian Brian Regal‘s book 📚 Searching for Sasquatch 💵 covers much of the Tom Slick–era history in depth for listeners who want that backstory.

📚 Further Reading

– 📚 Big Footprints: A Scientific Inquiry into the Reality of Sasquatch 💵 by Grover S. Krantz
– 📚 Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology 💵 by Brian Regal
– 🎬 Harry and the Hendersons 💵 (1987), dir. William Dear

🔗 Related Links

– Wild Thing Podcast (Foxtopus Inc.)
– Grover Krantz – Wikipedia
– Patterson–Gimlin Film – Wikipedia
– Jeff Meldrum – Wikipedia
– Mokele-mbembe – Wikipedia
– Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
– Hindenburg Audio Editing Software

Note: ads inserted into the distributed audio alter the timestamps in unpredictable ways, so timing references in these notes are approximate.

Bigfoot nests, the Patterson-Gimlin film, DNA testing — it’s all new to journalist and former NPR producer Laura Krantz. She’s digging into the world of Bigfoot in the popular new podcast Wild Thing, and she joins MonsterTalk to discuss what it’s like to walk into the strange world of cryptozoology as an outsider.

(not missing) Links

• Wild Thing Podcast
• Foxtopus Inc
• Big Footprints (G, Krantz)
• Searching for Sasquatch (Regal)
• Hindenburg Audio Editing Software

Music

• Monstertalk Theme: Monster by Peach Stealing Monkeys