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In the early 1970's, John Mionczynski was studying Big Horn Sheep in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains when something happened that would change his life forever.

More info:
Why no bones?
Numbers of Black Bear in Oregon
What throws better? Primates or People?
Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science - Dr Jeff Meldrum
The Relic Hominoid Inquiry
The Scientist Grover Krantz Risked It All... Chasing Bigfoot
Scientist John Bindernagel Spent Decades Stalking Sasquatch

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Only about a decade before Neil Armstrong would walk on the moon, a posse was called in in Mountain View, Wyoming to hunt two "masked bandits" who robbed the Uinta County State Bank and then fled on horseback into the Uinta Mountains.

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In the mid 1970’s, ranchers in Wyoming’s Bridger Valley suffered extensive cattle mutilations with little explanation of why or who was behind it. Former Uinta County Sheriff Leonard Hysell shares his memories of the mutilations as well as who he believes was behind it all.

Sources Sited:
Army: Nerve Agent Near Dead Utah sheep in ’68 – Jim Woolf. The Salt Lake Tribune 1998

Did Dugway Conduct Over 600 Radiation Tests? - Lee Davidson. The Deseret News 1994.

US Army Chemical Materials Activity - Staff. US Army Chemical Materials Agency 2012.

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After going back to Rock Springs, Wyoming, Mark Pedri and his wife Kari moved into Mark's late grandfather's home and discovered a knife hidden in his bed. To learn more about this man who lived across the street from Mark for much of his life, he goes on a journey over 5,000 miles away from Wyoming to find out more about the things his grandfather never talked about.

Mark Pedri's film Dear Sirs will air on Wyoming PBS June 6th at 7pm. You can also watch it via PBS' live stream here at that time.

Please go to the Dir Sirs Webpage to learn more about screenings and other events.

If you enjoyed this episode you might also like a previous episode called Vietnam in Our Family Album.

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What happens when the old house you are given to live in for the summer has mice in the walls, lights that come on in the attic,  and gives you horrible, horrible nightmares.

Many thanks to Scott Leon Smith for his being on the show today. If you are looking for an actor or voice actor here is Scott's website Monster Vox Productions.

Scott's reading of The Burqa Cave written by Dean Petersen is available at this link on Audible.

If you would like a paper or e-copy of The Burqa Cave, please go to this link.

Photos Courtesy of James Campbell & The Library of Congress  -No, it is not a photo of the actual house Scott talks about.

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In 1881, confessed murderer George "Big Nose" Parrott was hanged by vigilantes after he tried to escape from jail in Rawlins, Wyoming. While that was the end of George, it wasn't the end of his remains. Some of them were given to a teenaged girl, some were hidden in a barrel to be discovered in 1950 when a store was being built in Rawlins, and some of them were used to make shoes believed to have been worn by Wyoming's third governor at his inauguration in 1893.

To find out more listen to this show and buy Dr. Mark E Miller's book Big Nose George His Troublesome Trail.

Also please check out the great articles written by Lori Van Pelt about key events and people from this story:

Big Nose George: A Grisly Frontier Tale
Lillian Heath: Wyoming's First Female Physician Packed a Pistol
John E Osborne and the Logjammed Politics of 1893

If you'd like to see the shoes feel free to visit The Carbon County Museum in Rawlins, Wyoming.

You can read the 1913 article about Governor Osborne and Columbus' remains here.

Photo Courtesy of The Carbon County Museum

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In 1968, my Dad, Owen Petersen, left the Bridger Valley of Wyoming for Vietnam where he served as a platoon leader in the 3rd Marine Division. After he came home, he put the photos he took into an album that collected dust with our other photos. In this interview we ask him about those pictures and what it was like to be boots on the ground in the war.

Veteran Suicide and Crisis Lifeline:  988

The varied sounds of bullets passing by:
Marine in Afghanistan
The Basinger

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Jim Moretti was born in a tiny town in Southwest Wyoming in the late forties, but as his hometown became a ghost town, he stayed in the only hotel until the mid 1980s.

The icon for this episode is a picture of the actual Carter Hotel in the story. 

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In 1969 James Barret was in the passenger seat of a plane headed to Riverton, Wyoming when the pilot suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and couldn't fly the plane. This is James' story about what he did to survive.

Links to other plane crash stories:
Crash of Flight 409 near Laramie, WY
Bomber Mountain

Check out The Wyoming State Archives Oral History Collection here.

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At 7:28 AM United Airlines Flight 409 crashed in the rugged Snowy Range of southern Wyoming on October 6th 1955. It was the worst civilian air disaster to that date in America killing all 66 people on board. Volunteer mountain climbers were called in from The University of Wyoming in Laramie to help recover the remains. Why exactly the plane crashed still remains debated and we explore some of the stories of the recovery teams and victims on this episode.

Please check out our other plane crash episode called Bomber Mountain.

Visit The American Heritage Center's Digital Collection about the crash.

Read Mel Duncan's digitized report.

See video of the crash site in 1955 here.

-List of the Victims the Crash of Flight 409-
Mrs Clifford B Ackerman
Thomas Ackerman
Robert Ainsley
Capt Charles R Anstadt
Mrs Dorthea Beck
Dwight H Benson
Herbert L Brawner
Mrs Grace Brown
Dale Brown
William H Burgin
Dr James A Bush
Airman 3/C Thomas Campbell
Mrs Helen Collins
Henry S Dean
Dr Lawrence J Devine
Endlehart
Mrs Inez C Evans
Keith F Finlay
Charles Gesas
Gerald Hadley
Mrs Edna F Hanks
Richard D Hawkins
Mrs Marian Kirk
J Lawrence Malnar
Myron Manwill
JE McGarr
Mrs JE McGarr
John B Merrill
Mrs John B Merrill
Lawrence Monk
Dale Elton Nelson
RB Nurre
Parker
AJ Plouff
Mrs C Poulakidas
Eugene Reynolds
Mrs Aceodene Schow
Mrs Betty Seare
Mrs Rhea Smuthwaite
Dr W Alan Stewart
Edward P Taylor
Mrs Darrel Tucker
Deborah Tucker
Mrs Georgie West
Earl West Jr
Staff Sgt Lewis Wood
Deloy A Montano
John P Rice
Joseph D Winsett
Alfredo G Mitotes
Charles L Missner
Ronald E Albright
Roger E Bechtold
Raymond Englehart
Richard D Cook
Daniel R Alexander
Arnold H Boggs
William R Ettleman
Russell L Kugler
Richard Lawhead
Paul C Noetzelmann
Wilbert N Witley
Herbert Willaims

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