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Introducing the new Wild Thing book

Introducing the new Wild Thing book

Released Tuesday, 13th September 2022
Good episode? Give it some love!
Introducing the new Wild Thing book

Introducing the new Wild Thing book

Introducing the new Wild Thing book

Introducing the new Wild Thing book

Tuesday, 13th September 2022
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:02

hi wild things do you have

0:04

kids? do you know, any

0:06

kids or are you just a big

0:08

kid yourself? then boy, have

0:10

i got some exciting news for

0:12

you i

0:13

i am no longer just a podcast i

0:15

am an author and my very first book

0:18

is coming out on october eleventh the

0:20

search for sasquatch a middle grade

0:23

nonfiction books based on the first

0:25

season of wild things is coming your

0:27

way it's a beautiful hardcover

0:29

book with full color illustrations is

0:32

also an audio books narrated

0:34

by yours truly they're available for

0:36

preorder right now and you're probably

0:38

gonna wanna get wanna copy of both to

0:41

pick your curiosity here's a sneak peak

0:43

or is it a sneak listen

0:45

of the introduction

0:49

introduction

0:50

this

0:57

whip like bendy branches scraped

1:00

down the sides of our giant black pickup truck

1:02

like a witch's fingernails

1:04

i try not to lose my lunch as we bounce

1:07

the long a bumpy gravel logging road

1:09

in the hinterlands of washington's olympic

1:11

peninsula

1:13

just as i wrote down the window to get some fresh

1:15

air same corson my beard and mountain

1:18

man died hold to a stop

1:20

in front of a padlocked steal games i

1:22

looked around not sure if this is the right

1:24

place we were in the middle of nowhere

1:27

that shame killed the engine hopped

1:29

out of the truck and fifty keys

1:31

from his pocket the giant lock

1:33

popped open and shane loosens

1:36

the chain so he could swing the gateway

1:38

this was it

1:40

suddenly got so excited that i forgot

1:42

how bars the i just spent

1:44

we were about to go deep into a patch of

1:46

tangled woods and towering spruce trees

1:49

to see something that was off limits to

1:51

well just about everyone

1:55

shane hopped back into the driver's seat

1:57

sporting an ear to ear grin

1:59

not much further up the road he said clearly

2:02

feeling as excited as i was about what

2:04

he planned to show me we inch

2:07

forward through the sickening underbrush

2:09

and underbrush and bumpy minutes later

2:11

we had gone as far as the trip could take us

2:14

we had to have it from there

2:16

i'd met shane about a year ago on a camping

2:18

trip in oregon but i didn't

2:20

really get to know him until a few months

2:22

later because that first time

2:24

he wasn't you excited about talking to me

2:27

why

2:28

though

2:29

let me introduce myself my

2:31

name is laura and i'm a journalist

2:34

my job is asking lots of questions

2:36

and writing about what i learned for others to read

2:39

sometimes that can make the people i talk

2:41

to pretty nervous especially if

2:43

they think someone is going to make fun of them and their

2:46

ideas and beliefs and shame

2:48

i think she felt particularly worried because

2:51

of one very specific interest

2:53

the

2:54

that's right

2:55

they said

2:57

that watch himself

2:59

now if you've never heard of bigfoot

3:01

before picture an enormous

3:04

ape like creature that's ten feet tall

3:06

and might weigh as much as one thousand pounds

3:09

it's covered in hair walks on to feel

3:11

like us and the giant footprints

3:14

behind or at least

3:16

that's what we think it looks like there

3:19

are lots of fascinating and terrifying

3:21

stories about big foot from people who claim

3:24

to seen or heard although no

3:26

one has ever been able to show any real

3:28

scientifically accepted

3:29

proof

3:31

the chain more that what was hidden out

3:33

there in the woods could help make the case

3:35

for bigfoot i

3:37

jumped down from the trick presumed myself

3:40

with big spritz is a bug spray and

3:42

tightened the laces on my hiking boots then

3:45

i straightened up and followed shane into the wall

3:47

of shrubs and blooming rhododendron bushes

3:50

as we plans through the underbrush shane

3:53

kept a brisk pace he clearly

3:55

knew where he was going well i seriously

3:57

struggled to keep up behind

3:59

me

3:59

the trick disappeared

4:02

these i thought to myself i hope

4:04

i don't have to find my only back huckleberry

4:07

brambles caught on my clothes and left read

4:09

raise scratch the down my arm it

4:12

all looks so beautiful and wilde but

4:14

i didn't have any time to take in the scenery

4:17

then shane disappeared down a steep slope

4:20

and i lost sight of him for a second stop

4:23

still the dead quiet

4:25

i couldn't even hear him moving anymore just

4:28

as i started to worry i pushed through

4:30

another thick wall of shrubs and

4:32

found him standing quietly at the base some

4:34

trees he looked at me and

4:37

then looked down

4:38

here we are this is it he drawled

4:40

ho hum like it was no big deal

4:43

he moved a little bit farther and gestured at the

4:45

ground i looked to where he was pointing

4:47

and my jaw dropped if

4:49

i had been trying to play the part of a calm

4:51

and unflappable reporter i had

4:54

just failed whoa

4:56

i exclaimed not at all professionally

4:59

that's what what i had expected but

5:01

it was definitely what i'd hoped for

5:04

this is this is really

5:08

we stood in front of a pile of intertwined

5:10

sticks and branches woven together so

5:12

carefully that they look like they've been made into

5:14

a giant nest it was at

5:16

least eight feet across so

5:19

big that i could have comfortably lane don't

5:21

and i could even have stretched it

5:23

in fact shane had already done this himself

5:26

when he came out here before it

5:28

felt like a mattress he said with a grin i

5:30

felt small

5:31

very small

5:33

the truly looked like a bird's nest

5:36

it could have been have bird's nest but

5:38

of course as far as i knew no

5:40

bird on the planet made nests that

5:42

size

5:44

that wasn't the only nest either shame

5:47

pointed out six others nearby

5:49

hidden between clumps of trees with

5:51

a few small ones tucked in the low branches

5:54

he said there were others to but farther

5:56

away and a little harder to get to

5:59

you would have been amazed when we first came down here

6:01

he said obviously pleased with my

6:03

reaction three years ago

6:05

when we first saw these they looked even better

6:07

then these weren't just slapped

6:09

together the we he referred

6:12

to was the olympic project a

6:14

bigfoot research group same belongs

6:16

to

6:17

a few years ago the man who owns this

6:19

land found the nests when he was out

6:21

inspecting the trees on his property they

6:24

confuse them so them asked the olympic

6:26

project to come take come take at them twenty

6:28

one and all the see if they could puzzle

6:30

out what had made them

6:32

shane who had spent his life hunting

6:34

and fishing and camping knew

6:37

that these nest things were really

6:39

unusual it's not a bear

6:41

bed or an elk bad or a deer bed

6:44

he scraped at a tree pulling off bits

6:46

of loose park and gathering it along

6:48

with dead leaves small branches and other

6:50

debris into a loose sloppy pile

6:53

that's what a bear bed looks like these

6:55

are nests and in all my years i've

6:57

never come across anything like this

6:59

he said they look more like really

7:01

nests than anything else the

7:03

really make nests i asked myself

7:07

later i looked up gorilla nests online

7:09

and shame was right gorillas do

7:11

build giant nests similar to this

7:13

one

7:14

there aren't any gorillas in this part of the world

7:17

before i could ask more questions shane took

7:20

off down the trail again yelling back over his

7:22

shoulder for me to keep five

7:24

minutes later he screech to a halt

7:26

the scanned the woods like he was lost

7:29

no were lost and some giant

7:31

nest building thing is out here with us

7:34

i thought to myself then

7:36

he wrapped his hand around the branch of a nearby

7:38

huckleberry bush and showed me the end

7:40

of it it had been broken off i

7:43

looked at him blankly i didn't get then

7:46

he showed me another branch and another

7:48

and another all the same

7:51

the huckleberry branches have all been snapped

7:53

and their leaves stripped clean to make these

7:55

nests there are no

7:57

mark something had to have hands

7:59

to say

7:59

it off strong hands

8:02

because some of these branches are a couple of inches

8:04

thick you can't just break something like

8:06

that half he pointed out

8:08

i gave it a try

8:09

it would have taken someone or something

8:12

much stronger than i was to do it and

8:14

that nest we just saw was piled high

8:17

with those branches

8:19

what did it all add up

8:21

something with the strength to break sick branches

8:24

same thing that makes next something

8:26

that likes the solitude of the woods

8:29

the i was not the teeny bit surprised

8:32

when same finally said what we'd both

8:34

been thinking

8:36

then able to big maybe

8:38

bigfoot may be safe

8:41

we're not saying it's definitely sasquatch shane

8:43

said were saying know what made

8:46

this nests there unknown nests

8:48

with and hair mixed in with the foliage

8:50

and unknown animal behavior behind

8:53

the goal is to get to the bottom of the mystery

8:57

i knew shane lean toward the possibility

8:59

of bigfoot but he wanted to be careful

9:02

for starters they still

9:04

didn't have the right kind of evidence to prove

9:06

shane also knew that most of the world dot

9:09

bigfoot was nothing more than a big joke

9:11

amiss he'd , laughed at by

9:13

enough people that he didn't tell just any

9:15

one about his interest and even

9:17

though i wasn't sure bigfoot was real bigfoot

9:19

had started to understand how people ended

9:22

up tromping around up the woods looking

9:24

for evidence then

9:26

shane said something that was super important

9:29

and reminded me why i came all

9:31

the way out here into the middle of nowhere something

9:34

made this maybe we can say

9:36

for sure that big but made them but these

9:38

things are weird

9:40

why wouldn't we wanna ask questions

9:43

asking questions that's the point

9:45

of all this because i was standing in

9:47

front of something i couldn't explain and

9:49

while part of me felt a little silly

9:51

about being there i mostly just

9:53

wanted to find out more i mean

9:55

i'm a journalist it's kind of my job

9:58

but i felt really curious

9:59

what is big foot what do we know

10:02

about this creature wire there's so many

10:04

sightings and so little proof

10:07

why are all the photos that we do have

10:09

so blurry i had no idea

10:11

if i find sasquatch or well

10:13

some other explanation but i wanted

10:16

to get to the bottom of the bigfoot phenomenal while

10:19

we had been talking we'd hyped back to the nest

10:21

site shane bent over and looked

10:23

more closely as section of the nest were

10:25

a wedge like a big fat slice of

10:27

pizza had been removed i

10:29

wasn't the only visitor he brought out here

10:32

a few months back a scientist came

10:34

to collect samples of the nest hoping

10:36

to gather clues about this mystery in the woods

10:39

clearly a a lot of other people also

10:41

had questions and

10:43

i i wasn't sure any of of us us knew what what we we were

10:45

were going going to find

10:48

that

10:48

was the introduction to the first wild things

10:50

up the search for sasquatch, produced

10:53

by fox to put ink in partnership with kids

10:56

is available, starting, october 11th

10:58

and you can pre the

11:00

audio book and the right

11:02

now go wild thing calm

11:05

for more information

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