Two Designers Walk Into A Bar

Episode 22: Bigfoot, Iwo Jima and the Backstories of Two Iconic Images

Released September 29, 2021
© 2021 Two Designers Media, LLC

Speaker 0: You well, yeah, I wasn't gonna read it directly. But

Speaker 1: you might wanna read

Speaker 0: it. But I can. Okay. Yeah. I say five thirty two. 
Yeah. My Dick's Lexi did keep it in there. Yeah. See. I wasn't gonna read it exactly like it. 
I was gonna make it

Speaker 1: money. That's great. So people at Dantal. I don't know the fuck

Speaker 0: this guy's talking about. I don't know. I'm at I'm at thirty five thirty two. It's the credit protection. Yes. 
Alright. So I wanna talk about frame three fifties. I don't know why I couldn't say it. Welcome to two designers walking to a on a place where a pop culture created, discover design icons that make us too, and we share a few cocktails in the process.

Speaker 1: They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Speaker 0: Today, we share the stories of two iconic images that have had gallons upon gas ons of Inks build about them since their debut becoming indelibly woven into the fabric of our pop culture.

Speaker 1: So dig up your old view master, mix your off a couple of amazing Sazeracs and picture yourself strolling in to meet us back around the bar.

Speaker 0: So, Elliot, I know we're talking about iconic images today, and I've got one which everybody has seen. I'm a hundred percent sure. And I'm sure you have one that we have all been very familiar with. But let me start with a question which will give away mine right away. What percentage of Americans, do you think, believe in Bigfoot? 
Oh.

Speaker 1: So you're showing us the Loch Ness Monster Picture.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Of course. According to a poll done in two thousand fourteen, What do you think is the higher percentage of Americans? People that believe the universe was created by the Big Bang? 
People that believe in Bigfoot.

Speaker 1: What I what I think the answer is or what I hope the answer is. What

Speaker 0: what what do you think?

Speaker 1: I have a feeling. More people. You you said in the United States.

Speaker 0: Yeah. In the United States.

Speaker 1: Gosh. I would say of the two more people probably believe in bigfoot.

Speaker 0: Well, I would tell you it's exactly the same number.

Speaker 1: Really?

Speaker 0: Yeah. The same number of people, a little over twenty percent. About twenty one, twenty two percent of Americans believe that bigfoot exists and that they don't believe that the universe was created by the big bang. So you know what I say? Hashtag yay science.

Speaker 1: So what about how many people believe Big Foot created the universe?

Speaker 0: You know, they didn't ask that question, but there certainly has to be some evidence of that. But you know the you know you know bigfoot. Right? You've seen pictures of bigfoot. Right? 
You've seen statues of bigfoot. You've seen mugs, t shirts, hipster, where there's a musical festival called Sci Squad Festival. Big Foot's pretty hip and cool.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've spent some time in the Pacific Northwest. 
I've brought back some big foot souvenirs.

Speaker 0: So I wanna talk about frame three fifty two taken from the fifty nine seconds of footage shot by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin. It was shot on October twentieth nineteen sixty seven in Northern California. Do you know the image I'm talking about, the one where Bigfoot's kind of strolling. It's a green image. Yes. 
Yeah. It's a dry creek bed, fallen trees, rocks, autumn foliage in the background. On this dark brown hairy figure with breasts walking away from the viewer. Turns to look back in mid stride, left arm and right leg forward, right arm and left leg behind. Just sacheting along the dry creek bed. 
And that was captured and that created quite the stir. Bigfoot had finally been seen and captured on footage. So What do you think? You think it's real Elliot? Or you think it's a hoax?

Speaker 1: I think it's oddly convenient that these guys were in the middle of nowhere. Just happen to be, you

Speaker 0: know, like, some moving

Speaker 1: camera in the sixties. Like, today with a cell phone, you know, maybe But fifty years ago, fifty five years ago, yeah, that seems like a little bit of a stretch.

Speaker 0: Well, there was a reason for that, and I'll get into it. But let me give you a little bit of history, first of all, just real briefly. Because the legend of a Harry Force Base goes way back. To this place called the painted rock shelter on the Tool River reservation, which is in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Central part of California. 
Inside this rock shelter, there's painted pictograms and it represents things like coyotes, beaver bear, syneopides, caterpillars, humans, eagles, and a hairy man family. Now, you're asking, what is a Harry Man family? Todd. Right? I thought I heard you ask that.

Speaker 1: I I I was thinking I'm I'm taking notes as we're talking because

Speaker 0: Okay. So you're -- Yeah. -- you're catching up with Harry. You're at

Speaker 1: Actually, I'm I'm doing doodles of the Harry Man family in the margins of my notes. Okay?

Speaker 0: Okay. Good. Good, good, good. So it's a family. It's big hairy man. 
It's a hairy man woman and a hairy man baby. And experts say these pictograms date back five hundred to a thousand years. So it's not just the drawings of of Harry Mann for this native American tribe, but it's also the legends of hairy man that are really important part of Tool River culture.

Speaker 1: So question for you here.

Speaker 0: Yes.

Speaker 1: Did they think the hindersons are the ones that drew the

Speaker 0: No.

Speaker 1: No. Okay.

Speaker 0: No. No. The hinders were not around a thousand years ago. But but because I didn't know this till I was reading this research paper that I stumbled upon through my rabbit hole and it said that most states including California keep a database of all recorded sites. So based on the databases of geographic sites where this activity appears, there is no other known big foot pictographs or petroglyphs anywhere in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, or Idaho. 
So There was drawings of Bigfoot on a rock shelter done a thousand years ago. Sappi wasn't called Bigfoot. He was called a hairy man.

Speaker 1: Now who who called him, like, who discovered these drawings first?

Speaker 0: I don't know because I go so far back. It's just they've been known to be there for a long, long time. Okay.

Speaker 1: So just just they were like a local landmark. Someone said, oh, yeah. Do you wanna go

Speaker 0: see Harry Man, family, whatever? Yeah. Harry Man was a legend with the the Tool River. Culture. So much that it was Harry Man was kind of like the boogeyman, you know, where -- Right. 
-- where parents would tell their children to not stay out after dark because that's when hairy man comes out and to make sure you're home on time and don't wander too far away like that kind of stuff. But that's not the picture we're talk I'm talking about today. I'm talking about the big foot photo that we all know that was taking five hundred miles north of painted rock and the Tool River Legend. So how did those filmmakers, Patterson and Gimli, happen upon her at Bluff Creek in Humboldt County, which is right up at the Oregon, California border.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Known for its weed. Right?

Speaker 0: I have no idea about that.

Speaker 1: I'm sure you don't.

Speaker 0: But if you say, sir, if you say so, I believe you. That may have something to do with the number of big foot siding or wooded man siding up in that area because in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. There's a lot more interest in the legend. And of course, more sightings. Can you guess Do you have any idea why, Elliot?

Speaker 1: Photography, I would imagine.

Speaker 0: That might be part of it. I didn't think about that you know what I thought about? What was happening in the late eighteen hundreds in

Speaker 1: minor forty nineers? Yes.

Speaker 0: Right.

Speaker 1: West stored expansion. Yes.

Speaker 0: More people. Yeah. More people were expanding west into these wooded areas that no one had seen before --

Speaker 1: Yeah. -- manifest destiny, go west young

Speaker 0: man. Oh, yeah. Didn't know. You knew all the village people. I did. 
But that's good on you. We'll talk about that some other time. So anyway, yeah. So loggers, miners, they started interacting with the native Americans from that area, and they heard these legends and there was a lot more interest. Obviously, with a lot more interest, there's a lot more sightings because there's more activity. 
But there's really no physical evidence of what we know now as bigfoot. Not until nineteen fifty eight. And what happened then was there was a logging company and a bulldozer operator discovered these long large human like footprints sunk deep in the mud around Six Rivers National Forest, which is Humboldt County where I mentioned that previous photo was taken. And these footprints, they were, like, sixteen inches long. So clearly, Shaquille O'Neil was out there, like, somewhere in the

Speaker 1: forest. Creeventeen fifties.

Speaker 0: Right. That's right. That's right. And, anyway, so word started getting around the law logging camps and these crews started spreading stories of other weird happenings that they had seen or heard or found and other weird footprint sightings. And it was actually here in nineteen fifty eight that the name Bigfoot was first used. 
To describe this this forest creature. And, of course, with that, with the evidence, because they made plaster cast of the footprints. And it was started to be on the news. More siding started happening. Right?

Speaker 1: Well, so okay. Did they ever figure out where these initial like, was this some sort of were people mad that they were bulldozing in this forest and so they created a prank with these feet to try to scare people away or that it was some sort of ecological thing like there's this creature here. So don't do the forest clearing. Like, did they ever find out what the source of these prince was?

Speaker 0: Yes. They did. And I'm gonna make you wait for that one.

Speaker 1: Aw, man. Because

Speaker 0: that that that becomes a real key part of the bigfoot story. So but yes is the answer.

Speaker 1: So it was Shaquille O'Neil.

Speaker 0: It was Shaquille O'Neill. Yes. Sorry. Alright. Podcast over. 
Now you tell me that person.

Speaker 1: Alright. So it's time to get a Papa John's Pizza everybody.

Speaker 0: I know. Okay. Yeah. So okay. Nineteen fifty eight, they have evidence of large footprints in that area it becomes the hotbed of big foot siding. 
Big Foot Now has a name and now With that evidence, it created a lot more interest of flash forward to early Friday afternoon, October twentieth nineteen sixty Haven. Patterson and Gimland, they set out on horseback to Bluff Creek in Humboldt County.

Speaker 1: Okay. So in the very place where this other activity

Speaker 0: is -- Right. -- and -- Yes. -- they heard a lot of it about activity up there. So what happens, you know, they they could drive some, but they also brought horses with them to because it's pretty rugged terrain. What happens is their own horseback, they're following this creek north. 
They encounter this logjam. That was left over from a previous flood on the creek. And so when they get around this logjam, they spot this creature about twenty five feet away. So the horses are rearing up. They're freaking out because the horses spot the creature

Speaker 1: as well. Right.

Speaker 0: And so Roger Patterson is like, he's like trying to get out of a saddle, trying to calm the horse down, trying to get his camera to capture this. And while he's doing that, bigfoot starts walking away. And Patterson chases her down his trips, he falls, this is all on the footage. If you if you get a chance to see the whole footage, and we'll post that. He falls down. 
He gets back up. He's running towards the big foot. He finally captures the iconic image of what now we know as Patty the Big Foot, named her Patty. Okay. As she's as she's looking back at them. 
Right? And she's kinda looking back a little bit in content. You know?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, I was minding my own business you

Speaker 0: guys -- Yeah. -- gave it to my WTF.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I

Speaker 0: was here. And I was taking a bath and WTF, you know, get out. And so that iconic image was captured the whole thing lasted about two minutes. And, you know, here we are talking about it way more than fifty years later. Yeah.

Speaker 1: It's kind of the Zaproader film of Bigfoot.

Speaker 0: It is exactly that. Now there's a little more to the story as you would guess because that just gets us to when the footage was captured. But I realize that I don't know what image you're gonna be talking about, and I wanna hear a little bit more.

Speaker 1: Okay. So I would suggest of our two images, you maybe went a little bit low brow with your big fits. I I apologize to any big foot hunters and I don't know. You

Speaker 0: don't believe in science. You don't believe in science. Yeah. Okay. Okay. 
No. That's fine. Yeah. You

Speaker 1: know, well, that's fine. Whatever. Tomato. Temato.

Speaker 0: So so you're telling me that what you have is an iconic image of something that really happened and and has been proven.

Speaker 1: It really happened.

Speaker 0: Okay. It's

Speaker 1: been proven that it happened. There is physical evidence it happened.

Speaker 0: Okay.

Speaker 1: But there is still a twist to the story that I

Speaker 0: think a

Speaker 1: lot of people don't know. Okay.

Speaker 0: Okay. So

Speaker 1: I'm mentioning going a little bit more eyebrow. So -- Mhmm. -- I'm gonna be patriotic now Todd, we have talked about patriotic things in the past. Right? We talked about nineteen seventy six and the bicentennial We've talked about the poster, the Civic posters. 
We talked about the hope post with Sheppard Ferry. We've talked about a lot of different stuff here and including flags, national flags. And so this kind of weaves in to that story in a way. And I bet I can say two words. And when I say these two words, it's a proper name actually. 
And when I say it, I guarantee not only will you have an immediate image pop into your head, but anyone listening to us will have I think if we were to ask them to draw this image they would probably be able to do a reasonably good job just from memory. Okay?

Speaker 0: Alright. Give us give it to us. Let's let's do a test here.

Speaker 1: K. You ready? I'm ready. And and I'll even go one step further. It's only seven letters total. 
So how iconic is that?

Speaker 0: Okay. Well, I'm trying to figure it out because of

Speaker 1: Hold on. That. I'm not even done yet. It's also in a foreign language.

Speaker 0: Okay. Well, that blows what I thought. Because I thought it was the times square, sailor kissing the nurse.

Speaker 1: You are not too far off same.

Speaker 0: But that's not in a foreign language.

Speaker 1: No. But it's the same time period and it's around about you know, it's for the same event without a doubt. And it's around the same time period. Are you ready? Alright. 
Yeah. Yeah. Iwo Jima.

Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The flag raising. 
Exactly. The heroic flag raising? Yes. Yeah. I mean, that that image is it's it's cool. 
It's everywhere. It it talks about visually, it talks about struggle, overcoming, you know, it talks hopes and dreams.

Speaker 1: Yep. Yep. It's kinda like when you assemble a piece of furniture from IKEA.

Speaker 0: I'm not sure how that works, but I'm I'd love to hear about that.

Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking about struggles, and overcoming

Speaker 0: adversity, and hopes,

Speaker 1: and dreams.

Speaker 0: So they had an a an Allan Ritch to

Speaker 1: They did. They had a Shapeless white sort of cartoony guy helping them behind the scenes.

Speaker 0: No. I've seen I think I've seen, like, most and picture footage too that I guess was from that same time. Yes. And Yeah. And this is is this a a clip from that -- Motion picture.

Speaker 1: -- sort of. It it was recorded by two different people, but they were in about the same place at this at the same time. Okay. So let's unpack this a little bit. So as we were just mentioning, this is without argument one of the most iconic photos that's ever been taken, certainly in American history. 
Right?

Speaker 0: Mhmm. We see

Speaker 1: it everywhere And it just remains an enduring image of American Men at War and is probably the most famous photo from World War two. You mentioned the sailor kissing the the gal, the nurse, and Times Square. That's probably the second most famous photo I

Speaker 0: Mhmm. Right? Mhmm.

Speaker 1: So where did this photo come from? Like, what's the origin story? So this photo was taken by Joe Rosenthal who was a photographer with the associated press, and he took the photo on February twenty third eighteen forty five. Okay? So that was a Friday. 
Mhmm. On that Sunday, so two days later, on the twenty fifth, it appeared in newspapers everywhere. I mean, every front page everywhere. Any major newspaper. New York Times, Washington Post, I mean, you'd name the paper, this wire photo was on the front page. 
I mean, and in fact, it was so impactful it is the only photo in the history of of photojournalism to have won the Pulitzer the same year it was published.

Speaker 0: No kidding. Really?

Speaker 1: I mean, you know, so just zero competition for this. Like,

Speaker 0: everybody

Speaker 1: just thought this pretty big deal. So I thought it's incredibly a big deal.

Speaker 0: So Yeah.

Speaker 1: And, of course, for anyone who has either on their own or through a school field trip or anything this. Taken a trip to Washington DC, and they've gone to Arlington across the river from Washington DC, the National Cemetery. There is the Marine Corps War Memorial right next to the cemetery. And that is a sculpture flying a real flag, a fabric flag, but it is based on this image. They rendered it in three dimensions. 
Okay. So a lot of people know all about this. As I mentioned, you could conjure it from memory with reasonable accuracy. We all probably wish we have a dollar every time we've seen this image over the course of our lives.

Speaker 0: Mhmm. Mhmm.

Speaker 1: So now here's the part that you don't know, probably. This photo was staged.

Speaker 0: What? Yes. No. No. No. 
No. Yes. I mean, yes. Yes. Okay. 
Alright.

Speaker 1: And now and now I move in a big foot. As far as I know, not the one who staged it though.

Speaker 0: No. Bigfoot had nothing to do with this because Bigfoot had not been seen yet. That's right. Cable and bigfoot. Not not this time. 
Still hiding.

Speaker 1: Not this time. I blame bigfoot actually for most of my tax problems, but not for this specific photo being staged. Okay. By the way, the IRS, they ain't buying them.

Speaker 0: Yeah. They ain't buying the bigfoot stuff.

Speaker 1: Not anymore. Okay. So before we get into talking about this photo being staged, I feel we need to do a quick history lesson on the Battle of Ibujima. Like, how did these guys get there? Why were there a photographer? 
Is there. We mentioned there were people filming there. Like, what what was this

Speaker 0: -- Mhmm. -- activity

Speaker 1: all about? Okay. Mhmm. So as I mentioned earlier, the photo was taken on February twenty third nineteen forty five. A few days earlier, on February the nineteenth, the US invaded Ilujima as part of its island hopping strategy in the Pacific to defeat Japan. 
So this is a Japanese island. Okay? Iwo Jima was originally not the target however. But because of the relatively quick fall of the Philippines, the America Kins had extra time sort of built into their schedule prior to when they plan to invade Okinawa. So Iwo Jima is is in a strategic location. 
It's halfway between Japan and the Mariana Islands. And this is where the American long range bombers were based in the Pacific Theatre. And Iwo Jima was used by the Japanese as an early warning station and it would radio warnings back to Japan, back to the mainland when they would see these bombers. So it was obvious that America, you know, the American soldiers wanted to knock out this early warning system to give them an advantage when they were invading Japan. So -- Mhmm. 
-- the Americans after capturing the island weakened the Japanese early warning system, and then they used the island as an emergency landing strip for damaged bombers. Right? So if they were going into invade Japan and getting shrapnel, getting flak, and and they could have, like, this way station. You gotta keep in mind, you know, there weren't always aircraft carriers everywhere or anything like that. So any place that they could land these damaged bombers was helpful rather than them dropping into the ocean. 
Mhmm. So Iwo Jima isn't a very big place. It's a volcanic island, kinda shaped like a trapezoid. And in fact, the Marines on the island described it as quote a large gray pork chop unquote. So that gives an idea. 
Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's almost dinner time for us.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Okay. So and and it's pretty strategic obviously to Japan main island.

Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. So little here's another little bit of trivia here. So it would be the first Japanese homeland soil. So it was a fixed to Japan. 
Like like Japan regarded it as part of the country proper. So -- Yeah. -- this was the first homeland soil to be captured by the Americans. And it was a matter of honor for the Japanese to prevent its capture Like, so even though it was this little island -- Mhmm. -- on the ocean, you know, it's a great point of pride. 
So the island is dominated by the highest point which is called Mount Saurabachi. And it's a dormant volcanic cone at the southern tip of the island. So just like, you know, Japan is this volcanic archipelago, you know, Hawaii, of course, is another

Speaker 0: example of this, you

Speaker 1: know, the ring of fire. So tactically, the top of Saribachi was one of the most important locations on the island. Right? That's the high ground.

Speaker 0: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So from that vantage point

Speaker 0: So you could see everything. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And just you have this this tactical advantage. So from that vantage point as long as they were Japanese soldiers at the top of this mountain on this island, they could spot artillery accurately and drop it onto the Americans, particularly in the landing beaches. So as these guys are coming on the island, these guys are shelling them from this this high point. 
Okay? So that was a strategic locale on the island. And it was heavily fortified. And when the Marines initially came in, they suffered incredibly high casualties as you might imagine. And the Japanese fought most of the battle from these underground bunkers and pillboxes. 
So even though it was a volcanic island they were able to burrow into it. And it was very common for marines to disable a pillbox. They would use a grenade or use flamethrowers. So their tossing stuff in their soldiers would scatter. And then only after that, after they thought everybody was gone, all of a sudden there was this network of tunnels. 
And so these guys were coming back into the pillbox, and they were replacement soldiers, and they were again just taking up the fight again against these Americans. So it's a long struggle, a drawn out struggle. Okay? So the American effort concentrated on isolating and capturing Surabachi first. So that was goal number one. 
We're gonna start here. And it was achieved on February twenty third. Okay? So now we're getting back to our date of the flag. Mhmm. 
Four days after the battle began. So protract back to battle for for four solid days. And despite capturing that mountain, the battle still continued rage for many days afterwards. And in fact, the island wouldn't be secure until thirty one days later on March the twenty sixth.

Speaker 0: So like a month later. Yeah.

Speaker 1: So even though yeah. So even though this flag is getting raised, you know, there's still almost a month really over a month that this fighting was still going on. So most of us think about it course is a a victorious image. Right. You know, job well done. 
Let's raise the flag. So it wasn't that at all in fact. Okay. So now that we have that context about the battle, let's get back to the flag raising itself. Okay? 
Okay. Alright. So this also a little known fact, this wasn't even the first American flag raised down Mount Surabachi. Did you know that?

Speaker 0: No.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 0: Is everything I know a lie?

Speaker 1: Not not everything. Not everything. You know you of me at least four drinks at the bar. That's

Speaker 0: that's true. I know we're racking those up.

Speaker 1: We are. At

Speaker 0: least bigfoot is real.

Speaker 1: Yeah, he might pick up your bar tab for you. Yeah.

Speaker 0: There you go. Put

Speaker 1: it on a big foot stab.

Speaker 0: Alright. So this was the second flag raising. Okay. So Let me let me pause for a second. Yeah. 
What I'm it's thinking about here is if they got Mount Saribachi, it was a it was a symbolic victory. It would they kept fighting for a month later, but if they captured the top of that mountain, it was a way of showing all the troops that we were we were moving in the right direction and give them hell boys.

Speaker 1: Yeah. You're exactly right because there's still more people coming onto this island. Right? And so at the top of this island is this mountain. And if you're a soldier coming to it, you see an American flag line, you're gonna you're gonna be excited. 
You know, you're gonna think, oh, I'm I'm aiding the cause here. Right?

Speaker 0: Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1: So there was a smaller flag that had been raised earlier in the day at about ten twenty AM or so by a different group of marines. Okay. Okay. A fellow named first lieutenant Harold Schrier was a leader of a forty man platoon and he was given the American flag, the first American flag. From the battalion's transport ship, the USS Missoula -- Mhmm. 
-- and he was told by his commander, a fellow named Lieutenant colonel Chandler Johnson. Quote, if you get to the top, put it up. Mhmm. So when they got to the top, of the mountain. They found a water pipe that was among the debris on the mountain top. 
You know, there's all this detritus as you can imagine because there's all this shelling and grenades and everything, you know, everything's getting destroyed. So they found this water pipe in the mountaintop. The flag was attached to it and then it was raised by three men and sort of planted among the debris.

Speaker 0: Mhmm.

Speaker 1: So the guys start cheering. Right? They're like, you know, the pillboxes have been emptied. We put this flag out, life's good. You know, we we've won. 
So the the the sound of them cheering, the American soldiers cheering, alerted the Japanese who were hiding. So they knew that they weren't laying in wait anymore, that they were celebrating. So the Japanese popped back out and started fighting them again. Right? So they thought they had the mountain captured and they didn't. 
Wow. Yeah. So there are photographs of this first flag on Mount Surabatchy And they were taken by staff sergeant Lewis Lowry of Leatherneck Magazine. Okay? And we're gonna post that photo on our episode page as well. 
Hey, Todd. Speaking of pictures. Picture this. You making your way over to the bar to grab the next round.

Speaker 0: Well, Elliot, that's fine with me. I'll put it on your tab.

Speaker 1: Folks, while we arm wrestle over the bill, take a few minutes and refresh your own drinks as well. We'll see you soon.

Speaker 0: Hi. While we have your attention, if you wanna learn more about us and the podcast, there are a few ways to do it.

Speaker 1: Visit our website at two designers walk

Speaker 0: into a bar dot com. All of that is spelled out. No numbers. Kind of a long URL, so do yourself a favor and bookmark it. Once you're there, you can find links to more information about the subjects in this episode our episode archive and information about both of us. 
Wait. We do want people to visit. Right? Well Oh, and look for us on social media. You can find those links on our website as well.

Speaker 1: And while we're at it, if you have a friend who you feel will dig on our rambling.

Speaker 0: Tell him or her what we're up to.

Speaker 1: While we can't guarantee that they will remain your friend, we can guarantee that they will into at least thirty seconds of whatever episode you send them the link to.

Speaker 0: That's being a little shameless.

Speaker 1: And speaking of being shameless, it wouldn't be a proper ass. If we didn't mention that if you like what you hear, you can also make a donation via our website. We have a Nigerian prince handling all transactions for us.

Speaker 0: Fact he told us to mention that we have stickers to mail to anyone who donates ten dollars or more. Are we done? We're done. We're done.

Speaker 1: Okay. Before I get into the second flag raising and what that that was all about. I wanna throw it back to you and I wanna hear a little bit more about what we have going on with Bigfoot because you sort of left us with a cliffhanger.

Speaker 0: You know, I think what you just did there is probably one of the priceless moments of podcasting Elliot. Before I finish telling you about a heroic effort in World War two in Iwo Jima, I'd like to hear more about Bigfoot.

Speaker 1: So Yeah. So I I would say we have we have mix priorities here.

Speaker 0: Yes. We do. But this is a great story, nonetheless. So where I left off before, if you remember, Roger Patterson and a guy named Bob Gimlin, riding horses, came upon a sheep big foot named Patty, and they captured it on a little bit of footage one frame from that became iconic and we know it and it's sort of been the the model for all big foot yard sculptures ever since. So there's a little backstory here that starts to shed some light. 
Patterson and Gimli met while working in rodeos together. They both did sort of odd jobs and Roger was Patterson. Roger Patterson was captivated by Bigfoot. Once the giant footprints were discovered by the logging company, and he became obsessed with tracking bigfoot so much that he wanted to start making a documentary about tracking bigfoot. So This footage that he captured, he was the one behind the camera, if you remember. 
He was trying to get off his saddle, grab his his camera. The footage that he captured was to be part of this documentary. Of course, you know, he captured other stuff along the way because that's what you do when you're looking for a creature that you don't know if it exists. You're, you know, you're examining dirt prints and showing yourself horseback riding. Now Okay. 
Unfortunately, Roger passed away. In nineteen seventy two due to cancer. And with that, the dreams of tracking Bigfoot and the documentary went away as well. Now, skeptics and supporters, I would say to be fair, there are skeptics. Of the bigfoot image, and there are supporters of the bigfoot image. 
They both have analyzed it to death. Like, there's so much information about this one particular photo. The authenticity of the photo and believers fall into the camp of, there's no way this could have been faked with the technology available at the time. Hollywood producers and makeup artists, Stan Winston, you know, those guys -- Mhmm. -- they point to another one of my favorite movies planet of the apes, which was released at the same time, nineteen sixty seven. 
They point to that as state of the art, ape costuming. And -- Mhmm. -- bigfoot is far more believable with the giant shoulders and kind of long ape arms and, of course, the large feet. That doesn't make planted the apes. Any less of a classic movie, I will say. 
But it's pretty obvious there are people wearing a costumes there.

Speaker 1: I know you love end of the

Speaker 0: eves. I love playing of the eves. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Okay. That that'll be Todd for you. I'm willing we will have to do a future episode where somehow weaved in planet of the apes.

Speaker 0: We got to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe movies with the Statue of Liberty. 
Oh, shit. Did I just give that away? Well, Okay. It's a, you know, it's a fifty three year old, four year old movie. So anyway, these experts said, there's no way that this could have been faked. 
Like, these these rodeo cowboys I mean, they don't have the technology to do this. We don't have the technology to

Speaker 1: do would they know how to do it and and nail it first time out? Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 0: Exactly. Right. Right. Right. The skeptics, however, they fall into the category of maybe anthropologists and they say, like, well, the hair is a little too uniform. 
No mammal in the world has mismatched palms and soles of the feet. I didn't know that. All mammals your feet and the palms of your hands match. Meaning, like, the

Speaker 1: the color?

Speaker 0: Yeah. The

Speaker 1: color. Okay.

Speaker 0: And thank you for clearing that up. The because

Speaker 1: I was gonna say my my hands and my feet. If they genuinely matched, we would have all kinds of problems.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Okay. But Although

Speaker 1: that does explain that does explain my difficulty hitchhiking.

Speaker 0: But the colors of the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet generally match in color as do all mammals. Which I didn't know that. But the biggest so this creature had mismatched. Paul Maybe she maybe

Speaker 1: she just had dirty feet. She was in a creek bed.

Speaker 0: Well, her feet were actually a lot lighter in color than in the palms of her hands. But this is the biggie. This was the real one for skeptics.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 0: The picture of Patty, the bigfoot, had no crack. Her butt wasn't separated enough. So that's what cryptozoologists point to as this isn't real because that that eight doesn't have a crack. So

Speaker 1: there wasn't enough junk and big foot's trunk? There

Speaker 0: was a lot of junk, but it was not separated into sections. So there you go. Now, I'm I'm leaving it. For the listeners to make a judgment call. But I've got a little bit of more information that came out after mister Patterson passed away. 
So remember his partner riding with and Bob Gimlin, Bob didn't shoot the footage. Patterson shot the footage. Bob was holding a rifle but told not to shoot the creature unless they were in danger. Like, don't shoot them. You know, we wanna capture this thing alive. 
So for his role, he got majorly harassed and threatened and called a nut job for bringing this story to life.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So this this is something I wanted to ask. So -- Mhmm. -- the the guy who shoots the footage doesn't in service of a documentary. He passes away. 
The documentary doesn't come out. So how does this footage end up getting released? How is it out in the public space?

Speaker 0: Well, the the footage was released. It was shown it was shown to producers. The documentary was never finished.

Speaker 1: Oh, so they It

Speaker 0: was actually there was some footage shown in theaters and things like that in short films. Okay. So

Speaker 1: they they sort of did it as a teaser to gin out interest in the full documentary perhaps?

Speaker 0: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Because they were working on a documentary and they were looking for funding and blah blah blah and all that stuff. Got it. 
So all of that was Roger Patterson's baby. And Bob Gimlin was just, you know, the buddy along for the ride and the shooting maybe. So he went really quiet on this after Patterson's death. He became really silent on the whole big but thing. And he simply just said, I know what I saw, it was real, and it left me all struck. 
So Bob Gimlin said, it's not a hoax. I know what I saw, and I saw it it it left me all struck. It was crazy. Alright.

Speaker 1: As the northern lights of big foot sightings, it sounds like Haley's

Speaker 0: coming. Okay. Yeah. It is. I mean, it's it's it's the prize, dude. 
Okay. So I'm a start tying this bad boy together here. You remember the logging company back in nineteen fifty eight? The guys that discovered the first footprints?

Speaker 1: Yeah. I had asked you about this. Yeah.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Okay. So flash forward two thousand two, the family of one of the deceased loggers by the name of Grey Wallace comes forward and says that Grey Wallace secretly made these footprints with large carved wooden stamps as a hoax. Just to play a hoax on his fellow, loggers because obviously the legend was well known by the locals there, but there was no real physical evidence. So this guy Ray Wallace created the physical evidence that started that crazy train. 
And it's it's been proven by his family, etcetera, etcetera.

Speaker 1: They they have the molds and everything, the fifty six year old molds.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Oh, wow. And they're very, you know, obviously well done. But that just tells us how Patterson and Gimli got to that location. That it doesn't say anything about big foot being on film. 
Right?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Because he just They didn't know the logging guys or anything. Right? Well,

Speaker 0: as it turns out, Roger Patterson being obsessed with Bigfoot started asking Ray Wallace a lot of questions about where did you see these? Where was it spotted? Blah blah blah blah And Ray Wallace, the guy that made the footprints, said, you should go to Bluff Creek. There's a lot of sightings. There's a lot of soundings. 
You might be lucky up there. If I were you for your documentary, that's where I would spend my time. So that's where the two guys headed.

Speaker 1: So he had an advisory role.

Speaker 0: Yeah. He had an advisory role because, you know, again, that's where he had originally put the hoax of the footprints.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 0: So he was carrying out the hoax a little bit more. So

Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sure he he loved that this thing No pun intended. Kinda grew legs and was yeah. Even going further than just pranking as coworkers.

Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. Now it had, like, you know, rodeo guys and all that who were spending all their money to try to capture this thing. Right? Okay. So that was in two thousand two and that told us, you know, where the original footprints come from. 
Also in two thousand two. You ever heard of a Charlotte based costume company called Morris costumes Elliot?

Speaker 1: No.

Speaker 0: East in Charlotte right here, North car Northern Carolina -- Yes. -- with us.

Speaker 1: Technically Southern North Carolina.

Speaker 0: Southern northern Carol Carolina. Yeah. So

Speaker 1: anyway, you you doing alright.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Let me say that again. Southern Northern Carolina. So the founder of Morris costume company came forward in two thousand two, saying that he sold a Gorilla suit to Roger Patterson In nineteen sixty seven, and Patterson told him on the phone he wanted to use it as a prank. So Morris costumes was into the magic business and obviously costumes and things like that. 
So they thought it was like, you know, a magic prank. So they kept it quiet over the years. Mhmm. And they said the owner said, this is you know, again, this was, like, just barely twenty almost twenty years ago, the owner said Patterson called back and asked how to make the shoulders more massive, how do you make the arms longer in the feet bigger. And the customer said, let's have them wear football shoulder pads and put sticks carry sticks in their hands to extend the arms. 
And it was suggested that Bigfoot maybe wore modified clown shoes as well to create the large bypads as it were.

Speaker 1: That explains why the foot why the soles of his feet were us. We're we're bright yellow.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. And they and they squeaked twenty walls. That's right. But there's been some discrepancy, you know, that maybe that still didn't look like a manufactured costume. 
It, you know, it it was really a little bit too good.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, they gave it boobs.

Speaker 0: Yeah. Patty, the bigfoot, had breasts. Yeah. So there was some work done there that no one could really quite point to Like, this was not the smoking gun. Until a guy came forward by the name of Bob Horanamus. 
Oh, that's

Speaker 1: a great name.

Speaker 0: Yeah. And he claims to have been the figure depicted in the Patterson film. He had not previously discussed his role in the hoax because he hoped to get paid for the footage, like, from this documentary that was gonna cause this great windfall of stuff. So Roger Patterson promised to pay Gimli, Huronimus. And Ray Wallace. 
And no one got a penny except for Roger Patterson. So that's why they all started sort of telling their parts of the story. Okay. But but so he he never he told that because he obviously wasn't going to get paid he was afraid he would be convicted of fraud. Had he confessed --

Speaker 1: Oh, wow. --

Speaker 0: but after speaking to his lawyer, he was told that since he hadn't been paid, for his involvement in the hoax. He couldn't be held accountable.

Speaker 1: So so how many years later was was this? When did he so if That

Speaker 0: was, like, two thousand. Like, yeah, late nineteen nineties, early two thousand. So all of that reveal that I just mentioned from from the large footprint molds to the costume to the guy wearing it all came out just in the early two thousands.

Speaker 1: That's wild. Yeah. So for

Speaker 0: almost fifty years it had created such a stir that, you know, really convincing skeptics that Bigfoot was alive and it was wearing a giant fur coat and clown shoes. Well,

Speaker 1: what's what's interesting about this is this is sort of very plot. When you think of a lot of hoaxes, there's always someone who spills the beans generally, you know, because it's they're having fun with it, like it's too fun. If there were only three guys involved, money is on the line. And one guy drops dead. So now

Speaker 0: it's

Speaker 1: down the two guys and they really weren't the brains behind the operation.

Speaker 0: Right. Right. And

Speaker 1: they think there's some sort of payday down the road, I guess.

Speaker 0: Yeah. And that

Speaker 1: yeah. It's not like they can go to court and sue this first guy. I mean, he's dead. He's gone.

Speaker 0: They either think there's some kind of payday or they think, oh, shit. What have we started here?

Speaker 1: Right? Right.

Speaker 0: You know, this is gonna like, And again, remember at the time, Bob Gimlin was harassed. His family was harassed.

Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 0: Because people are like, you're a nut job and get out of here. You know, things are different now. Big foot's cool. Big foot and sideswatches cool. Like, as I started by saying, more than twenty percent of Americans in twenty fourteen, believe in Bigfoot. 
And this is this is evidence that that was a fake photo. Right? Right. Right. But it's highly debated. 
In in the the Internet of Bigfoot, and we're probably gonna get hate mail for it. But I say, leave it up to your own vision. Maybe maybe these guys are not telling the complete truth. Maybe there was some footage captured, but, you know, certainly, there could be a bigfoot around. It could happen. 
Why not?

Speaker 1: So do you think bigfoot might have been like sort of the o g when it came to pro wrestler? He has his character. He has his storyline. You're not sure how much of it's real. How much of it's an ad? 
And he's just largely misunderstood.

Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, why not? Yeah. I would say that I've never seen bigfoot break a chair over anybody's head, though. So True. 
True. So he does have honorable intentions. Or in this case, she had honorable intentions. Alright. So so I've Speaking of

Speaker 1: honorable intentions. Yeah.

Speaker 0: Speaking of honorable intentions. Tell me more.

Speaker 1: Okay. So as I mentioned, just jumping back in our story a little bit, we had talked about the first original flag that went up the morning. Of February twenty third nineteen forty five. And then now we are going into early afternoon with our second flag. Okay. 
So why a second flag. We have this first one up. Well, you really zeroed it on it. The flag, you know, this was very advantageous. They'd snatched this first flag off, the nearest boat, transport boat, whatever, gave it to the soldiers, stored the hill, put this thing up as a symbol. 
Well, it worked as a symbol for people sort of already on the island or in close proximity to the mountain. But as you also discussed, there were other people coming. So, mhmm, The noteworthy flag, the one that we're very very aware of, happened in the early afternoon. So the first flag was small. It was way too small. 
So it wasn't a good symbol. So people, you know, the American forces worded spread as we mentioned earlier, guys were cheering. So people were aware of this, lifting the spirits of the soldiers. But something else needed to be done, there needed to be a better symbol. Enter captain Dave severance. 
So under warders from lieutenant colonel Johnson, he sent Marines back to the top of Mount Saribachi to plant a bigger flag Okay? So this flag came from another ship. This time, a nearby ship called tank landing ship USS LST seven seven nine. So that rolls off the tongue really nicely.

Speaker 0: Yeah. I was thinking it was seven seven eight

Speaker 1: nine No. No. This is this is one better. This is one better. Okay. 
So the group of marines made it to the top of the mountain around noon. And believe it or not, after all this sort of entrenched warfare that I mentioned earlier, they were not fired on. They were actually just able to go up the mountain. So as a result, three military photographers, Rosenthal, the fellow who took the photo. Followed them. 
Okay? So on the way up, they met Lowry who was the first photographer from the image I mentioned earlier that we all have available. He was coming back down. So he actually said to the other guys, the other photographers, hey, you should go up to this mountain top. The the view from there is incredible. 
It's the highest point on the island. Right? Mhmm. And, you know, there's already a little flag up there, so they knew where to go. So the photographers arrived just as the soldiers were attaching the second flag to a different water pipe. 
Okay? So Rosenthal he actually took off his camera, set his camera down because he was beginning to pile some rocks up so that he could stand on them to get a better vantage point. You know, for this this view. So he's kind of, you know, distracted. He's going ahead, piling these rocks up, and he's not holding his camera and then he looks up. 
You know, while he was piling up the rocks, these marines had been attaching this second larger flag to this pipe. He looks up just as they're starting to raise the flag. Right? And he's like, oh my goodness. You know, I don't even have my camera. 
So he thinks he's gonna miss the action. You know? He's like, I'm there to capture this moment. So he snatches up his camera swings it up to his face, kinda is looking through the viewfinder, and and snaps this photo, like just totally spontaneously, like like, you know, takes a series of images as these guys are putting the flag in a place this. And it's funny because if you look at this still image, you think of it as kind of like struggle, you know, given the composition which we'll talk about in a moment. 
But when you watch the the footage, the film footage, it's actually a very fluid motion. And, I mean, it is over in a split second.

Speaker 0: Mhmm. Mhmm.

Speaker 1: So the fact he was able to catch this perfect moment is so incredible. So where are these flags now? Right? So we we know about you had asked about art flax. Right? 
So where where are these two flags? So both of them were actually kept by the Marines. And they can be found, you know, you think about the the famous star spangled banner that's in the Smithsonian. Well, not too far away at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, just on the outskirts of DC. You can actually find both the first flag and the second flag. 
So they're both there. Okay. Even though all of this happened, even though the second photo was staged, there was still a lot of confusion out what was going on because, you know, it was still somewhat of a spontaneous act. This photographer, you know, he's a he was a stringer, you know, he's this associate press photographer. So he was on the island, but he didn't know these guys. 
And so he was following them along, gets this photo, and then there is confusion over who was actually pictured in it. Okay? So what was known is that all of the men served in the fifth marine division on Iwo cheema. So that much was

Speaker 0: undisputed. Mhmm.

Speaker 1: But three of the six marines in the photo, sergeant Michael Strength, Corporal Harlan Block and private first class Franklin Solsey were later killed in action during the battle. As I talked about, this continued for more than a month after this flag raising. Right? Yeah. So sort of like your guy, the brains behind the operation passing away with with a lot still unresolved, same thing. 
So these three guys were later killed in battle. Okay. So block, who I mentioned, was actually identified as someone else He was identified as a man named sergeant Hank Hanson until January of forty seven. So after after the war is over. Solsley was identified as hospital Corman, John Bradley, USN, until June of twenty sixteen. 
So that lasted even longer than this big foot thing. Right? This was only four or five years ago. Then the three other marines in the photo were corporals then at the time private's first class. Ira Hayes Harold Schultz and Harold Keller. 
So Schultz was identified as Sowell's Lee until June of twenty sixteen And until October of twenty nineteen, Keller was identified as another soldier Renee Gagnon who had helped find the flag on the ship but actually did not make the trip up the mountain. So he did have a story, did have a hand in it, but he wasn't actually in the photo itself. Okay? So it's really, really interesting to me. That we're talking about these two very iconic images, indelibly stamped on our culture as we've talked about everybody from memory can probably draw both of these images. 
But there is also a lot of confusion around them, around origin story and what was going on. Right? So really really interesting to connect the dots. So going back to this woJima image. What is it that makes this photo so great? 
What makes this photo so memorable? I thought a lot about this and I kind of distilled my thinking down into three points. So the first one has to do with the era that the photo was taken. I think the fact that it's black and white is so striking because you really focus on what's happening in the photo rather than the coloration of everything, you know, because it's so monochromatic.

Speaker 0: Mhmm. It's

Speaker 1: just really, really beautiful. And in the the motion picture footage I mentioned, that actually believed or not was in color. So you can actually entrast the two different scenes. And I think that's really, really interesting. The second thing is the poses of the soldiers. 
Right? Mhmm. The flag is being raised. The soldiers are behind one another sort of starting to push it up. So there is this triangular composition. 
You know, it's not just vertical staff with a flag on it, with people standing

Speaker 0: around

Speaker 1: and looking at it, which kind of is what the first image was. The the earlier image from that day with a smaller flag. As a result of that, because it's this physical act and it's this sort of triumphant act and it's this act of teamwork, It looks like a classical painting. You know, when you think about

Speaker 0: a lot

Speaker 1: of these Renaissance paintings in these military acts or these narrative moments. This definitely feels like one of those. Right.

Speaker 0: You know, pretty It leads the eye to the to that action, the the tension of the the soldiers at the bottom.

Speaker 1: Yeah. It is just so, like I said, it's this microsecond, this perfect stolen moment. And then the last thing and this is something that as a little kid, you know, loving flags like we've talked about, I always love flags. But always bug me, but now that I love about it and I think this completely adds to the narrative element is that the flag is still unfurling. And the poll is still being raised. 
So it is this stolen moment on a windswept bluff. It's about the act. It's yes about the flag, but it's really about the the whole process, the whole act, and the fact that the flag is still unfolding as the poll is being raised, it is just so, in my opinion, poetic.

Speaker 0: Mhmm. Mhmm. It is just definitely iconic.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Just absolutely perfect. Yeah. And and to the point that it's funny, So the the memorial outside of Arlington, the flag that they have attached to it is a real flag. And I believe it's a, you know, it's a fifty star flag. 
It's not a forty eight star flag like like this flag was. And I think if I'd been in charge now, nobody asked me, but I would have liked to have had a a a flag sculpted just like the rest of the memorial in that moment. Like to me it's not it's a

Speaker 0: It's a sort of semi unfurled Yes. It's

Speaker 1: not the fact that it's an American flag in and of itself in my opinion. And it's especially if you've ever been there and you've seen the memorial in real life, when it isn't a windy day, in my opinion, it takes something away because the flag just hangs their limp. Right?

Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. But

Speaker 1: if it were this this flag, this like, if if truly everything about that photo were frozen in time, in the same way in three dimensions, I think it actually would have had more more drama behind it. And I think it would be just that one more beautiful.

Speaker 0: Yeah. See, that's because you see the you see the photo as being about the six guys, the struggle of the six guys, but clearly whoever designed the sculpture saw it, about raising a flag, a flag above the six guys.

Speaker 1: Right. Right. Right.

Speaker 0: So that's interesting and, of course, very heroic. And I'm trying to think of some corollaries with the bigfoot image and, you know, the only thing I can say is the big foot image is it it captures the body of what we knew of big foot with arms, legs. It creates enough mystery by its its sort of glance and and placement that it could be real. It creates enough question and that it could be real or as skeptics would say it's not. The biggest thing I learned, if you're gonna pull a hoax though, you need you need you need an unknowing punct along with you. 
Like, that's what these other guys were that's what Gimli was, basically. And I don't mean that in a pejorative way. He wasn't informed of this. So he was the guy that honestly said. I saw a big fan. 
Right. I think if you're gonna pull off a hoax, you need that. You need you need someone that you're not gonna tell the whole story to so they can firmly believe it and tell everybody else.

Speaker 1: Right. I think that's a yeah. That's a great point. Todd, I will say though that the big foot footage did in fact raise one thing.

Speaker 0: What is that? Curiosity. That's right, which is something that we love. I'll drink to that as a matter of fact, Elliott.

Speaker 1: Alright. Well, in that case, I'll drink to that too, which will be a drink that you will buy for me. How about

Speaker 0: that? Alright. I'll see you that then. You told a heroic story, so I'm glad to hear that. And we'll see you in everyone else. 
Next time around the bar.

Speaker 1: Sounds good. Bartender two Sazerax, please.