Johnson Interview - page 2
(My personal comments are printed in red)
I need to provide you with a bit of background before continuing. Jim and I work as a team during an interview. I make sure the specific questions I want answered are asked. He jumps in and draws the witness out, providing more depth to the interview. This allows me time to think of more questions and to hear the witness in dialog with Jim. This technique works for us.
The night Dr. Johnson sent his post to the world about his encounter, it also came across my desk. At first I had thought he had sent it to me exclusively. It was not until later that day that I discovered he had sent it out to anyone he could get in contact with, including the media.
At first I was disappointed. However, when I realized that this was an unusual action on the part of most witnesses, it began to intrigue me. As I followed his saga via the posts and e-mail that literally flew across my desk on a daily basis, I realized that I had discovered a kindred spirit. I too was concerned with witness ridicule and the way the public, media, and researchers alike treated the reports and the witnesses.
I had discussed earlier with my husband, Jim, the need for a paradigm shift in direction within the Bigfoot community. I had even posed a summit of all the Bigfoot organizations and individuals to openly discuss the issues and form some kind of unified effort. It had seemed like an overwhelming task then, but in light of Dr. Johnson's report and his subsequent efforts to create this shift himself, I knew that I was no longer alone.
As is with synchronicity, the chain of events took on their own life and I found myself not only talking with Dr. Johnson via e-mail, but planning a trip to our upcoming family reunion around a trek up into the high country to the exact spot of the sighting.
Originally Jim and I had planned on going it alone and asked for directions and a map from Dr. Johnson. However, Dr. Johnson suggested that it would be better if he escorted us so we would discover, with him acting as a tour guide, the full impact of his encounter. We accepted and began to plan the event.
Why am I putting the entire interview on my web site for the world to read? Because it is time that we (the Bigfoot Community), share our information and urge other researchers and scientists to do the same. Many fear the increase of hoaxes. I fear that legitimate reports will not be made and that our efforts will be hindered because of ridicule and sarcasm in the dealing with those who do come forward.
The following is another installment of the interview I conducted with Dr. Johnson almost one month after the original sighting. It is from our ride to the caves from Grants Pass with Dr. Johnson.
This is a view up the trail at the caves. It starts as a very wide trail and then narrows to a very narrow trail that winds through the dense forest. The trail is mostly in shadows because of the dense forest with old growth trees that loom above the hikers.
Christine: So, how did you get up to Alaska?
Johnson: Basketball scholarship (
the man is 6'9" tall)All: Ohhhhhhhhhh....
Christine: What part?
Johnson: University of Alaska at Anchorage
Jim: You got your degree while you were up there?
Johnson: Bachelor of social work degree...I met my wife while I was there...got to play against Patrick Hughing, Drexler, James Worthy, a bunch of guys in the Great Alaska Shoot-out.
Christine: I lived in Alaska for a few months.
Johnson: Where at?
Christine: Have you heard of Sunshine, near Talkeetna? It's a little train stop. If you have mail you lift it out and they hook it. Then we lived in Wasilla for a few months... in 1969.....
Johnson; I knew you were going to say 60 something...you would be surprised at how much the whole area has changed.
Jim: Has it grown up a lot?
Johnson: Oh Yeah!...
(
We had a brief discussion off the record and then we continued our on the record interview.)Jim: You look young...
Johnson: well...
Jim: You are young (
everyone looks young to us)Johnson: I'm 38...
Jim: you look in your 20's. You're taking good care of yourself.
(We spent some time with directions and getting to his office)
Johnson: The reason we are going to my office is because I want you to hear a sound that was down-loaded onto my web site last night. This is a duplication of what we (
his family) heard for 10 minutes. What we heard for 10 minutes was this "whoa, whoa, whoa", but it was deeper and more guttural than what I could say. I've heard birds and this I not a bird. This was an animal and it was guttural.We went back up there about 10 days ago or so, actually almost two weeks ago actually. We went up with a free lance journalist, writer, and another reporter from the San Francisco Examiner plus family and friends. So there was about 13 of us. When we got to the spot where I'll take you today, where we were looking downhill where I saw it, instead of downhill, up behind us in the thick trees and woods, we heard a similar sound. We all turned around and we were all like...you know... and some of us caught a faint stench and then all of a sudden this deer comes running down through the trees and the brush, like it was running for its life and stops right in front of the group of 13 people, runs right to us, and stops 10 feet from us and then looks like (he sighs heavily to show us what the deer did)... I'm safe.
Jennifer: No
Johnson: I've never seen a deer run to a group of people and then stop and stay by the group of people. But it was running down from the area where this noise was made that we were able to get on a cam- corder and my friend, who also does studio work, was able to screen out other sounds and just isolate this and put it on the web site.
If you want to check this out on Dr. Johnson's web site go to: www
.SasquatchSite.comJohnson: I am developing a web site for tonight's radio show because I was asked, "So, what am I going to do to take all these hits?"
(his answer) Well, I'll give out my e-mail address. "Well, your e-mail address is not going to be able to take all these hits."So what kind of hits are you talking about? " Well, we're talking about anywhere from 50 to 100 thousand hits."
Jim: A day
Johnson: Yeah! It was like, Dang! So, I've been working with a friend for the last two weeks to get a web site up and running and so we're going to go to the web site. I want you to hear the sound, just in case we might hear something somewhere.
Jim: OK
Johnson: I've been deluged by the media, over 60 radio interviews and TV and all that kind of stuff. Then we've had to move our household from Salem down to here. Then I had to move my office from downstairs to upstairs...
Jim: Did you expect that media attention?
Johnson: No!
Jim: The world is changing. Everybody is becoming more open, less fearful, not everybody, a large number of people are probably less fearful.
We are getting his computer up and running at this point
.Christine: What did you know about Bigfoot before this incident?
Johnson: I did a little bit of reading when I was a kid. And we have very close family friends who had their own encounter 35 years ago when they were out hunting. I remember hearing that story, but other than that...nothing.
Christine: Have you seen the Patterson film?
Johnson: I saw that when I was a kid. But, I haven't been doing any kind of Bigfoot stuff for the last 25 years.
Jim: You weren't prepared for what you saw that day?
Johnson: No! My whole reality of being outdoors was shattered as far as wildlife encounters. I've encountered a lot of wildlife in the outdoors of Alaska and I was being chased by a grizzly bear...
Christine: Did that grizzly bear have a smell?
Johnson: That grizzly, we didn't smell anything with the grizzly bear. The only thing we were focused on was move down the path, and it was moving right down the path right behind us. So, No!
Christine: How has this Bigfoot incident effected you being comfortable out in the woods now?
Johnson: (He laughs nervously) Well, I've never been afraid to go out in the woods and uh, I've been going back and back and back to this site, taking other people out, and every time I go back it gets a little easier, but I'm still very hyper-vigilant when I go out.
Jim: You feel a little something right in the solar plexus
Johnson: I'm looking over my shoulders...um.... (
he finally gets his computer up and is to the site. He reads from the text on his sight. He plays the sound that they recorded on the trip back with the 13 people previously mentioned.Christine: Is this going to effect how you deal with the outdoors in general?
Johnson: No! I'm going right back out there. We went... what he was talking about that day, (
the reading of the text on the web site), after the media went back down hill , five of us went back up the mountain three more miles into the wilderness and we saw all kinds of evidence.(
The sound comes on while we are talking. We listened quietly.)Jim: Do you know what that sounds like to me? It has the tremor that you hear from a didgeridoos. Australian Aborigines...
Johnson: What we heard on the day of my family's encounter, and we heard this as we walked along for 10 minutes, and I'll show you on the trail where we'll be walking, because this thing was paralleling us. This is faster and shorter. What we heard was deeper.
(
He again makes the sound for us himself. I am going to put this sound on my site along with this interview so you too can hear what he says it sounded like). Coming Soon!Whoa...Whoa...Whoa...
Jim: OK
Johnson: Whoa...Whoa...Whoa. It would go for five or six times, stop and then do it over for five or six times. We heard that about fifteen to twenty times over a 10 minute period. Now this is not as deep and is quicker, but it sounded very similar. It makes me wonder if it was a younger one.
Jim: I 'm wondering...
Johnson: Because they usually travel in families, from what I hear. Yeah, five, right! So what I'm wondering is um if....
Chris: That lighter sound in the background, is that a bird?
Johnson: Yeah, there were birds.
Chris: I'm glad that you put a site up because you're going to need it. (laugh)
Jim: It may stop a lot of personal questions and give you some free time.
Christine: How has the community that you live in treated you since the incident?
Johnson: Down here many people believe that it exists so it is like no big deal.
Jim: What about the professionals, from your own profession?
Johnson: I'm still getting referrals from physicians and my clients... I haven't lost any clients. Before we start a therapy session they want their Bigfoot update.
Jim: Isn't that wonderful?
Christine: What's happened with the kids at school?
Johnson: There's no school.
Christine: That's right.... engage brain! (Laugh) What about their friends?
Johnson: We just... see, here's what happened... we moved down early this year and my parents are free rent in Salem, where I grew up. My wife and my kids... my wife and my kids..... (he stops talking and listens), ..when I hear that sound....(
the Whoa was again sounding on the computer and obviously caused him distress)...sometimes I just go, ..."ugh". he kind of shivers.My wife and my kids stay with my parents, its free rent, my kids finish up the school year in Salem. Every week since January I've been driving... I would work here for three or four days and then drive up and spend the rest of the time in Salem and then I'd drive back down. I've been doing that weekly for about a year. And so finally my practice is built up enough to where we can be down here full time now. That was the goal, to be able to do that before the school year starts.
So we have a wonderful home and moved everything down just this past weekend. So, my children are fairly new here. Now, the church we were going to in Salem, the kids did know them, and it made the front page of the news paper there in Salem. They were just very nice to my kids. Down here my kids have also shared it in vacation bible school that they've been going to this past week, and the teachers and students are like, cool. No one has been teasing them or calling them crazy, or anything along those lines.
Christine: Good
Jim: It's a great world we are moving into, I think. We're finally reaching the age of Aquarius.
Christine: Are you going to have a message board for people?
Johnson: Yeah, there's a discussion form and there's a place to post stories and stuff.
Christine: Is it moderated?
Johnson: Its' going to be.
Christine: Good (laughs heartily)
Johnson: We just got this up and running yesterday, just in time for tonight's show. ...I just want to point something out, I am a Christian so I also put something down for Biblical parallels. I've been racking my brains...
Christine: Good!
Johnson: ... so I have Bigfoot to the left, the bible to the right, and mystery, the quest for truth, skepticism, and where do I go from here?
Jim: I'm going to enjoy reading your site as soon as we get back home.
Johnson: That's from my perspective and that's the only thing that smacks of religion on my site.
Christine: Jennifer, tell him about the ice-cream man. You have to tell him.
Jennifer: You know the truck that comes through the neighborhood and plays music and sells ice-cream? The whole neighborhood went out there. I looked on the side of the truck and I saw this big thing that said, "Bigfoot" . It's an ice-cream called Bigfoot. So, I said, I've got to get this for my sister. She's coming in, she'll like this. (
She continues explaining her conversation with the Ice-cream man), My sister's coming in and we're going to do this thing down there, (Oregon Caves), and he says, "Oh, yeah, OK, I will personally deliver you this ice-cream free of charge, Thursday." And I got the magnetic sign from the truck that said, "Bigfoot" .All: ( Laugh)
Christine: People just want to talk about things, you know?
Johnson: Especially down in Southern Oregon. They did this poll in Portland : 53% of the people polled believe in Bigfoot, 47% don't. Down here they did an informal radio survey and 75% believe, 25% don't.
End of page two of interview with Dr. Johnson
Grand Opening! Our New Poster Store
We just opened our doors with posters "You Must Have". We now have Posters for college students, Science Fiction/Fantasy, and Sports Posters. There will be more to come!
You can find any book, video, or CD, even toys & gifts that you need by typing your key word in the text box and clicking on our Search button.
Bigfoot Reports and Sightings
You can find any book, video, or CD, even toys & gifts that you need by typing your key word in the text box and clicking on our Search button.
©Dragonfly Hill 1998 / 2005-06
All Rights Reserved
