Joe Rogan Experience #1240 - Forrest Galante

Forrest Galante 0:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:03 All right, here we go. Five, four, three, two, one. Yes! How are you, man? What's going on?

Forrest Galante 0:10 Joe, I'm stoked, man. I'm really good. Really glad to be here.

Joe Rogan 0:13 I'm stoked, too.

Forrest Galante 0:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:14 Nice to meet you. Um...

Forrest Galante 0:15 You too.

Joe Rogan 0:15 Dude, you were on Naked and Afraid.

Forrest Galante 0:17 (laughs) Sure was.

Joe Rogan 0:18 How ridiculous is that?

Forrest Galante 0:18 Sure was. (laughs) Ah, dude, it's so, it's so ridiculous. Like, to say ridiculous is such an understatement.

Joe Rogan 0:24 See, because they oftentimes will have, like, a, an actual survival expert or a wildlife expert, or someone who knows how to live in the woods.

Forrest Galante 0:30 Sure.

Joe Rogan 0:31 And, uh, that was the idea with you, to get a wildlife expert?

Forrest Galante 0:34 Definitely. I mean, I'm, I'm kind of a combo. Like I, I've practiced primitive survival for many years in a means to get closer to wildlife. Like I just got back from the Amazon, and we had to feed ourselves every day. We had to build shelter, blah, blah, blah. And I don't do it, like, for fun. I do it as a means to be out further and stay longer, kind of thing.

Joe Rogan 0:52 But it, it's gotta be a little bit of a conscious effort, right, like to, to have fun, like fishing for your food-

Forrest Galante 0:58 (laughs) For sure.

Joe Rogan 0:59 ... and, you know, putting up shelter and stuff. I mean, it's gotta be, like, kinda cool to live like that for a little bit.

Forrest Galante 1:04 It's, uh, it's human nature.

Joe Rogan 1:05 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 1:05 You know? Like we, we intrinsically wanna hunt things and fish things and build a shelter and survive. And so it's totally fun. I think it's like to your core, it's fun. You know what I mean? You just feel it, like you know that you're doing something that's like primal human nature.

Joe Rogan 1:18 Yeah, the Amazon fishing clips that you have on your Instagram page, so it's, it's, it's crazy. Like you just throw a cast out there and you were catching a big fish, like instantly.

Forrest Galante 1:26 Bonkers. Like I fished a lot of places. I'm really into fishing and spear fishing, and every... Joe, I'm not kidding, every single cast was a fish. A peacock bass or a piranha every cast. And, and where we were in the Amazon, super remote, like not a lot of people go there. I'm sure those fish have never ever seen a lure, never seen a hook before.

Joe Rogan 1:43 Wow.

Forrest Galante 1:43 And, uh, it wasn't like sportfishing. It was like, "Okay, let's go catch 10 fish. In other words, take 10 casts and we have enough food." And that was it, and it was amazing. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:52 Does it make you think of what the ocean must have been like before people fucked it up?

Forrest Galante 1:56 Of course.

Joe Rogan 1:57 (laughs)

Forrest Galante 1:57 I mean, of course. As a biologist, that's like all I can think about.

Joe Rogan 1:59 'Cause I was in, uh, Hawaii recently, and we did some snorkeling. And when you're swimming around with the goggles on, looking down at the ocean, one of the things that's kind of shocking is how few fish there are.

Forrest Galante 2:10 I know.

Joe Rogan 2:11 Like you think this, it should be like teeming with life, you, you're over these reefs and you see like three or four fish, or five fish-

Forrest Galante 2:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:18 ... or something like that.

Forrest Galante 2:20 It's so weird. I mean, there's, there are these pockets left in the world that are completely untouched. And it's like as soon as you get into one, you can see it. You're like-

Joe Rogan 2:27 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 2:27 ... "This is what it used to be like everywhere."

Joe Rogan 2:29 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 2:29 And it's like humans haven't had an impact. I don't, you know, I don't wanna disparage anyone in Hawaii, but I don't think there's anywhere in Hawaii like that, 'cause it's all so accessible.

Joe Rogan 2:38 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 2:38 And, um, it's just, you know, I've, I've been fortunate enough to see a couple of these pockets, and they're just booming with stuff. And it's like, "This is what it could be."

Joe Rogan 2:46 Yeah, I mean, I guess that's l- like what it must be to just be in the Amazon itself as well, right? You're-

Forrest Galante 2:52 For sure.

Joe Rogan 2:52 ... in the jungle, not just the rivers and the, the lakes or whatever's out there, but the actual jungle itself. It's...

Forrest Galante 2:58 It was incredible. The jungle there... So we were in Colombian Amazon, and like talk about untouched by people. There's been this kind of ongoing conflict in Colombia for many, many years. So we're, we were the first Westerners to go there in over 60 years. So the village we flew into, they'd literally never seen white people before. And then we went 200 kilometers from that, so like middle of nowhere.

Joe Rogan 3:18 Did they wanna touch you?

Forrest Galante 3:19 To... Yeah, hair.

Joe Rogan 3:20 Oh.

Forrest Galante 3:20 'Cause their hair was very dark and very different. And like I'm not particularly fair, but just to touch like the hair and see the blue eyes and stuff, they were just loving on it.

Joe Rogan 3:27 Were they, were they friendly?

Forrest Galante 3:28 Super friendly. Like, the culture was very stoic. Like there wasn't a lot of smiling or cry- you know, there wasn't like a lot of emotional exchange. But straightaway, they came and greeted us, like shook hands, you know, said hello. Um, it was really cool. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:42 Wow, that's gotta be... Now, how do you set something like that up? Do you have like a liaison that, that like acts as a go-between between you and the tribes?

Forrest Galante 3:50 Um, yeah, so we did, in this case, have one guy who communicated. I speak Spanish, Spanglish, I guess. Um, and they, they all speak Spanish from back in the day.

Joe Rogan 3:59 Oh.

Forrest Galante 4:00 So we set it all up. It's part of the wildlife stuff that I do. We, we literally flew a, uh, DC-3, a World War II cargo plane, into this cocaine dealer's airstrip.

Joe Rogan 4:08 What?

Forrest Galante 4:08 And then got... That's how we got there. I mean, like mind-blowing stuff.

Joe Rogan 4:11 Current cocaine dealer or former?

Forrest Galante 4:13 Former. Former.

Joe Rogan 4:14 Oh. (laughs)

Forrest Galante 4:14 Yeah. Well, you know, TBD.

Joe Rogan 4:16 Who knows? It's still Colombia, right?

Forrest Galante 4:17 Exactly. Um...

Joe Rogan 4:19 Wow.

Forrest Galante 4:19 So yeah, it was, that, that one was really cool, really remote.

Joe Rogan 4:22 How crazy is it that they learned Spanish from people who came over on boats from Spain and it just stuck?

Forrest Galante 4:28 Isn't that nuts? And took over the whole like-

Joe Rogan 4:31 Region. Yeah.

Forrest Galante 4:32 ... yeah, the whole world.

Joe Rogan 4:32 Except for-

Forrest Galante 4:33 And, and here's this tribe in the middle of the Amazon that has this language from another continent.

Joe Rogan 4:37 Well, and Brazil, right? From Portugal.

Forrest Galante 4:40 Right.

Joe Rogan 4:40 It's really incredible when you stop and think about it. I mean, we... Well, it's, it's incredible, but it's also part of it's a little sad. Like wouldn't you have loved to have heard what their original language was?

Forrest Galante 4:50 Oh, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 4:51 Like what it, what it sounded like?

Forrest Galante 4:52 Well, they did. So it's funny because when they didn't want us to understand what they were talking about, they would switch to their native Indian language. So they still had... They were bilingual, a community of 25 people that have never left and they're bilingual.

Joe Rogan 5:05 Wow.

Forrest Galante 5:05 It's amazing.

Joe Rogan 5:06 Now, th- w- their native language is what? What is it?

Forrest Galante 5:10 It's an Amazonian Indian dialect. I, I honestly don't even... They might have said the name, but I don't recall.

Joe Rogan 5:15 What, what is the name of their tribe?

Forrest Galante 5:17 Uh, also I'm not even sure. They're, they're so isolated, they're unaware of what country they live in. They don't even know that they're in Colombia.

Joe Rogan 5:25 Really?

Forrest Galante 5:25 Really. They're just like... To them, they're Amazonian. They're not Colombian, Ecuadorian, Brazilian. They're, they're Amazonian.

Joe Rogan 5:31 Whoa.

Forrest Galante 5:32 Yeah. (laughs) You know?

Joe Rogan 5:33 So they just stay. Like-

Forrest Galante 5:35 Stay.

Joe Rogan 5:35 ... where they are, they stay.

Forrest Galante 5:36 And the village we were in is literally... I think it's over 200 kilometers from the next, "next" village of 15 or so people. And they don't have fuel, they don't have motors, you know. They're just in this pocket, and they just substance live.

Joe Rogan 5:49 And they're all barefoot, right?

Forrest Galante 5:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:51 Do they have those crazy splayed out feet?

Forrest Galante 5:54 Big feet, you know?

Joe Rogan 5:55 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 5:55 'Cause they're, they're, they're not very big people. They're like small Indian people, but really big...... kind of useful feet. And the way that, you know, they could run up and down trees and climb stuff, I mean, it was unbelievable.

Joe Rogan 6:06 (laughs)

Forrest Galante 6:06 Like, so much more athletic (laughs) than you could imagine.

Joe Rogan 6:09 Well, I'd imagine, right?

Forrest Galante 6:10 Right. They've, th- they've been doing that their whole lives, right? Their whole lives, yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:12 Now, when, like, when I say splayed out feet, what I'm talking about is that people that walk barefoot in the jungle for long periods of time, like their whole life, their toes spread out and their feet almost look like a hand.

Forrest Galante 6:24 Oh, no way.

Joe Rogan 6:25 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 6:25 I did not, like, pay enough attention.

Joe Rogan 6:27 Oh.

Forrest Galante 6:27 That might've def- been the case, but I didn't notice it.

Joe Rogan 6:29 You just weren't looking at their feet?

Forrest Galante 6:30 Exactly. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:31 Yeah, it is kinda weird thinking staring at dude's feet.

Forrest Galante 6:33 Yeah, for sure. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:34 But, um, yeah, Steve Rinella, uh, who's a good friend of mine, told me about that. He was in Guyana and it was the same thing, and they actually got some pictures and videos of these people's feet. But look at these guys up there.

Forrest Galante 6:45 Whoa.

Joe Rogan 6:46 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 6:46 Oh, no. I didn't notice anything like that.

Joe Rogan 6:48 Yeah, um, this is the, uh, that's, uh, h- how do you say that? Huarana- Huaraní? Huaraní? Huaraní?

Forrest Galante 6:58 Huaran- Huaraní? Sounds right.

Joe Rogan 6:58 Huaraní, you think?

Forrest Galante 6:59 Huaraní?

Joe Rogan 7:00 Huaraní Indian splayed feet. So it's very strange, like it's kind of the opposite of what happens to women when they jam their feet into those little pointy shoes-

Forrest Galante 7:09 Right.

Joe Rogan 7:09 ... where they get the, the, the toes kinda smooshed onto each other.

Forrest Galante 7:12 The ballet feet?

Joe Rogan 7:13 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 7:13 Yeah, mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:13 It's horrible. Instead of that, they're all, like, crazy spread out. What in the fuck is going on there?

Forrest Galante 7:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:18 That guy's got, like-

Forrest Galante 7:19 The topless hands, I think, but-

Joe Rogan 7:20 Wood f- yeah, the topless hands.

Forrest Galante 7:21 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:21 But the bottom is, like, wood feet. Like, what-

Forrest Galante 7:23 But that's, that's gotta be, like, what our feet are supposed to be.

Joe Rogan 7:26 Probably, right?

Forrest Galante 7:27 Right?

Joe Rogan 7:27 Yeah. Thick-ass toes that actually have muscles in them that move.

Forrest Galante 7:31 That you can use like a tool, like your hand.

Joe Rogan 7:33 Yeah, yeah.

Forrest Galante 7:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:34 So, and these guys just can climb up trees with them, so they grip the, the side of the tree with their feet like a hand?

Forrest Galante 7:40 Oh, I mean, I didn't notice, like I say, the feet just like that specifically. But the way they could, like... Everything's covered in mud down there, right? It's all wet, it rains every day. And they could run up and down these tree trunks, like to get up and down the village. And here's me and my crew with our awkward cameras and stuff, and we're slipping and sliding and falling over.

Joe Rogan 7:56 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 7:56 And like-

Joe Rogan 7:57 (laughs)

Forrest Galante 7:57 ... they're, they're literally like, "What's wrong with these people? Why can't they walk?"

Joe Rogan 8:00 (laughs)

Forrest Galante 8:00 We must've looked like infants to them. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:02 (laughs) Right, and, uh, you guys probably have, like, boots on and shit that get muddy-

Forrest Galante 8:06 Oh, totally.

Joe Rogan 8:06 ... and fucked up and, you know?

Forrest Galante 8:07 Oh, tota- yeah, we're wearing, you know, muck boots and my one buddy's got waders on and, you know, we think we're all hard and cool 'cause we got all this gear, and they're just, like, r- running around in shorts barefoot.

Joe Rogan 8:16 It is so fascinating when you see people that don't have contact with the outside world, like, um ... I'm sure you're aware of, uh, that recent story of the missionary who was killed by the people in North Sentinel Island.

Forrest Galante 8:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:28 Absolutely.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 8:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:28 Which is one of the weirder s- places, 'cause they've, they've l- branched off from Africa what, 60,000 years ago or something like that?

Forrest Galante 8:34 Yeah.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 8:34 Right.

Joe Rogan 8:35 When, when you're around these people, like, what, what do they do if they get injured?

Forrest Galante 8:40 So funny you ask that, because we, we kind of had that same question, right? And they don't leave, they stay in the village. They have a shaman at the village who blessed us with a crazy green powder, and that's a whole nother story. But they have a shaman and he is their doctor. However, he has no access to any Western medicine. So it's only his learned knowledge handed down through generations, plus jungle powders and whatnot. And, um, and that's it. So we actually, we spent today, 'cause we had a medic with us, doing like kind of village help, if you will. Everybody had ringworm, everybody had respiratory infections. Uh, there were a lot of lady problems in the village that our medic had to deal with. I mean, there was a lot of health issues and you don't even realize it.

Joe Rogan 9:24 I'm gonna write something down before I forget. I'm sorry, this is totally unrelated.

Forrest Galante 9:28 No, all good.

Joe Rogan 9:28 But, um, there's a doctor named Peter Hotez that's coming on the podcast and I have to follow up on him. He, w- when you started talking about the people in the jungle, he was, he's a, an actual, uh, a doctor, uh, who is, uh, he specializes in infectious diseases in jungle and tropical climates, and he's like, "Everyone's infected with something."

Forrest Galante 9:47 Everyone.

Joe Rogan 9:47 Everyone, 100%.

Forrest Galante 9:47 He'd have a heyday down there. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:49 Yeah, I'm sure. He's probably been.

Forrest Galante 9:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:51 But, um, the... So when these people have ringworm and all these d- different infections, do they treat it? Do they have, like, some naturopathic cure or some shit?

Forrest Galante 10:02 I, I think it's kind of a 50/50. Like, a lot of it they don't treat because it's just part of everyday life. Like, when I say everybody had ringworm, I meant everybody had it. So I don't think there was any kind of treatment or cure, it was just kinda part of i- part of them.

Joe Rogan 10:14 Huh.

Forrest Galante 10:14 But other things, you know, the, the, the witch doctor or the shaman was trying to treat. Um, and then we kinda went in and we had, like, medication for ringworm, so we dewormed everybody, and with the shaman's blessing, and he was, like, super excited to have Western medicine in the village and...

Joe Rogan 10:30 Would you use, like, Lamisil or something like that?

Forrest Galante 10:32 I couldn't tell you. Um, I think it was, uh, not, it wasn't topical. I think it was, like, a Vermox, like a pill that you take that kills the, kills the worms.

Joe Rogan 10:39 Hmm. The weird thing about that is, like, don't you, you leave and then they're gonna get it again, right?

Forrest Galante 10:46 I mean, there's only so much you can do, right?

Joe Rogan 10:48 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 10:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:48 So-

Forrest Galante 10:48 Totally, that, we were having the same dilemma.

Joe Rogan 10:51 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 10:51 And it was like, do we interfere because we're from the outside world? Do we help? And, uh, we talked to the shaman through our translator and he said, "Please help. Please help."

Joe Rogan 10:59 Mm.

Forrest Galante 11:00 So we gave, including him, everybody this dewormer but, you know-

Joe Rogan 11:03 Yeah, it's like-

Forrest Galante 11:04 ... they'll just come back.

Joe Rogan 11:05 Yeah, and also they probably don't understand the consequences of taking some antibiotic that's gonna do some weird shit to your whole biome, right?

Forrest Galante 11:13 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 11:13 Right?

Forrest Galante 11:13 And these are all the-

Joe Rogan 11:14 Kills all the good stuff too.

Forrest Galante 11:15 It's such a moral dilemma. You're there and you're like, "I wanna help. Do I? Is it helpful? Is it hindering?"

Joe Rogan 11:21 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 11:21 Our medic was like, "It's undeniably gonna help. You know, they, they need this." And so we go, we went for it. And it was, you know, it seemed to help, everybody felt fine, but we were only there a couple more days before we left, so who knows?

Joe Rogan 11:34 Wow.

Forrest Galante 11:34 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:34 Now, when you're talking about ringworm, like, w- uh, these guys are covered in it? They have big patches of it? Like, what's it like?

Forrest Galante 11:39 Feet and legs had big patches of it.

Joe Rogan 11:41 Yeah?

Forrest Galante 11:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:42 And this is, uh, if you don't know, that's the same shit that's athlete's foot.

Forrest Galante 11:46 Oh, I didn't know that.

Joe Rogan 11:47 Yeah, ringworm and athlete's foot are the same kinda funk.

Forrest Galante 11:50 Oh.

Joe Rogan 11:51 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 11:51 Huh.

Joe Rogan 11:51 That's why, uh, they, people tell you to pee on your feet.

Forrest Galante 11:55 Oh, I thought that was just for fun.

Joe Rogan 11:56 Like, uh, if you have athlete's (laughs) it could be for fun.

Forrest Galante 11:57 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:57 Depends on what you're into. But, uh, I think that's, uh, the idea behind it, is that you're, um, somehow or another you're killing the bad bacteria-

Forrest Galante 12:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:05 ... when you, uh, you piss on your feet and you have athlete's foot. Th- th- that might be horseshit. Maybe... Yeah. (laughs)

Forrest Galante 12:10 No, I don't think so.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 12:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:12 With me, you always have to check.

Forrest Galante 12:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:13 Um, yeah, I definitely give that a little looksie. But, um, it's a real common thing with jujitsu.Gotcha. So guys-

Forrest Galante 12:20 Just all the mats and-

Joe Rogan 12:20 Yeah, it's real common, so just guys get it. And there's, uh, people really fuck up where they, like, put, put bleach on it and a bunch of different things to try to kill it, and it winds up getting worse.

Forrest Galante 12:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:31 And also fucks up all the natural skin flora. Jock itch, athlete's foot, and ringworm are all types of fungal skin infections known collectively as tinea, tinea? Tinea. They're caused by fungi called dermatophytes that live on the skin, hair, and nails and thrive in warm, moist areas. The jungle.

Forrest Galante 12:51 Correct.

Joe Rogan 12:51 So it seems like they're just gonna get it.

Forrest Galante 12:53 It, that's just-

Joe Rogan 12:54 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 12:54 ... what it sounds like. You know, but still trying to help.

Joe Rogan 12:57 What do they do for it, however? What do they do for it?

Forrest Galante 12:58 I didn't see them treating that at all, and when we pointed it out, they were like, "Yeah, yeah, we know about it." You know, they were more concerned with things that were, like, dire. Like, there was an infant, uh, maybe not infant, maybe three years old, and he was hacking up a lung, and he was asthmatic according to our medic. So my, our medic gave them, like, an asthma medication, and he just said, you know, "If he has an attack where he can't breathe, give him this." And like, you know, to be super real with you, when we walked away, our medic was like, "I doubt he'll live to see adulthood."

Joe Rogan 13:26 Oh, man.

Forrest Galante 13:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:28 And were you giving him inhalers? Did you give him-

Forrest Galante 13:30 I'm not sure, to be honest, what it was that he left with him.

Joe Rogan 13:33 What about, like, injuries? What if they break a leg or something like that? What do they do?

Forrest Galante 13:36 I don't think anything.

Joe Rogan 13:38 (sighs)

Forrest Galante 13:38 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:39 Did, was any... I mean, you gotta think, these people are climbing trees, they must fall.

Forrest Galante 13:42 Constantly. Fall, get bitten by stuff, there's tons of venomous snakes out there. It's wet, it's muddy, it's slippery. They're building stuff out of very rudimentary tools. I mean, it's, it's nuts. They have to get injured.

Joe Rogan 13:54 It's so interesting that we have this understanding of medicine and doctors and hospitals, but that's probably pretty fucking recent.

Forrest Galante 14:04 Oh, that, uh, of course, yeah. I'll, I'll tell you a story, Joe. I was in, uh, Myanmar early, late last year, and we're down there filming this thing, and this kid, like a 22-year-old crab fisherman, gets bitten by a crocodile.

Joe Rogan 14:16 Oh.

Forrest Galante 14:16 The croc grabs him by the arm, grabs him by the thigh, and death rolls. So it breaks the arm in, like, I don't know, 15 places, compound fracture, the real deal.

Joe Rogan 14:24 (inhales deeply)

Forrest Galante 14:24 I can show you pictures of it, it'll blow your mind. And we hear about this, and we're minutes away. We just, it's kind of one of the similar situations where we're the first Westerners to be there in a long time. We go bombing over at high speed, and we get there, and the mom is, like, off mourning the death of her child, but her child is sitting there still alive. Like, they have-

Joe Rogan 14:43 Oh.

Forrest Galante 14:43 ... written him off, and it's sh- Mom is, mom is literally mourning the death of her child, and he's, he's lying there conscious but, like, in total shock. Fortunately, just because of the situation, we had a speedboat, everything else, we bandaged him up, you know, tied, tried to keep his arm stable and his leg stable, put him in our speedboat, and it was six hours by speedboat to a village that had a, had, or to a, to a hospital, really. And so he got there and his life was saved, but I asked, we asked the, the people in the village, "What w- were you going to do?" And they're like, "There's nothing we can do."

Joe Rogan 15:13 Wow.

Forrest Galante 15:13 So he was just going to bleed out or go septic, and that was the end of it.

Joe Rogan 15:17 Ooh, what a fucking rough way to go.

Forrest Galante 15:19 Right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:20 Oof. How did he get away from the crocodile?

Forrest Galante 15:23 Uh, I don't know. I think he was just hitting it or hammering on it. He was crab fishing in the water, and it came up and grabbed him, rolled a few times, and at some point he escaped. How he even got back in the boat and made it back to the village, I have no idea, because his leg was shattered, his arm was shattered.

Joe Rogan 15:37 (sighs)

Forrest Galante 15:37 It was brutal. And it was a canoe, you know? It wasn't like he had a little motor or a wheel to drive. He canoed back.

Joe Rogan 15:42 One of the most disturbing stories I ever read was, um, these guys were kayaking in an African river, and the guy in front of them got grabbed by a crocodile.

Forrest Galante 15:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:51 And that it went under and, like, it, like, plunged like a bobber as the crocodile pulled him out of the bottom of the kayak.

Forrest Galante 15:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:00 I'm like, "Fuck."

Forrest Galante 16:01 It's awful.

Joe Rogan 16:02 Imagine being the guy behind him and watching that shit.

Forrest Galante 16:04 Right, just watching, yeah, and knowing that you're pretty much helpless.

Joe Rogan 16:07 Did you see any jaguars or anything?

Forrest Galante 16:09 Uh, I've never seen a jaguar. I've seen a lot of li- I'm from Africa, I don't know if you knew that, but... So I've seen a lot of lions growing up. My family did safaris. Um, and then I've seen, you know, mountain lions here in California, leopards, stuff like that. I've never seen a wild jaguar.

Joe Rogan 16:23 Really?

Forrest Galante 16:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:23 Even when you were in the Amazon?

Forrest Galante 16:25 I think they're really elusive.

Joe Rogan 16:26 Hmm.

Forrest Galante 16:26 I know there's areas that are, are hotspots. All of the locals were very nervous and kind of knew about them. Like, you know, I went out for bushwalks at night and stuff, and I'd just go me and one guy with a camera, and, uh, they were like, "Oh, be careful." Like, "Peligroso," you know, very dangerous, don't do it. Um, but-

Joe Rogan 16:44 Peligroso means very dangerous?

Forrest Galante 16:45 Peligroso, like-

Joe Rogan 16:46 Peligroso.

Forrest Galante 16:46 ... danger, yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:47 Oh, okay.

Forrest Galante 16:47 And, um, so we'd just go and, you know, I'm not trying to act like we were tougher than them or anything. We would love to have seen one, but they were very aware of them. So they were there, we just didn't happen to run into one.

Joe Rogan 16:57 Sort of like mountain lions.

Forrest Galante 16:59 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 16:59 Yeah, like the- they say that mountain lions are... Like, if you live in a place that has them, you know, Wyoming or Colorado or something like that, they know where you are.

Forrest Galante 17:07 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 17:08 But you- They might be around you all the time, and you might rarely see them.

Forrest Galante 17:11 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 17:12 Like, they'd be driving home and see one skittering into the, into the bush.

Forrest Galante 17:15 There was a nuts video, I think it was from the LA area. Did you ever see it? Where the security cams picked up this mountain lion that was walking through this, like, very residential neighborhood, and you'd see, like, people would walk by and then 30 seconds later, he'd, like, dip out of the shadows-

Joe Rogan 17:28 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 17:28 ... and then dip back in, and then the next set of people would walk by, and nobody had any clue he was there.

Joe Rogan 17:32 Yeah, it's crazy that a giant predator can move around like that.

Forrest Galante 17:35 Right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:36 Yeah, so when you're there, like, what, what would you have done if someone got bit by a venomous snake or a spider or something like that? Did you guys have any antivenom? Were you prepared for something like that?

Forrest Galante 17:46 I mean, that's my department, right? Like, as the wildlife guy, that's, that's kind of my, my department is make sure nobody gets bitten, make sure nothing like that happens. Uh, and we handled very ma- very many venomous snakes, and caught anacondas, and all kinds of great stuff. We did have... Like, my main camera guy, his name's Mitch, he got absolutely lit up by these wasps one night, and we all were. We got, like, 12, 14 stings each. But I look back in the canoe at one point, and his eyes are just super swollen, he's bright red, he's sweating. I'm like, "Mitch, you okay?" He's like, "Uh-uh." His throat started to close up. He was having an allergic reaction, so we had to hit him with antihistamines, and I, I'm not actually sure if the medic administered the EpiPen or not, but, uh, he was like...... we're in the middle of the jungle, we're six hours from a village that's then a full day's travel by a charter plane from a hospital. I mean, middle of fucking nowhere, and, uh, and his throat's closing up. And thank... That's why we take a medic with us. Thankfully, we had this emergency medic. He administered the antihistamines and Mitch was okay. But these things do happen. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:44 Do you ever, like, while, while you're on these crazy adventures, do you, you ever out there going, "This is the last one"?

Forrest Galante 18:49 No.

Joe Rogan 18:50 No?

Forrest Galante 18:50 No way.

Joe Rogan 18:50 Never?

Forrest Galante 18:51 No way, man. I love it. I live for it.

Joe Rogan 18:53 Wow. How long you been doing this?

Forrest Galante 18:56 I mean, like, for TV, for Animal Planet, uh, three years, I guess. But to go on exp... The reason I got into that and doing it for TV is because I've been doing it, like, my whole life. I grew up in Zimbabwe. My mom was a bush pilot, so when we weren't on safari, she was, like, flying us to these remote places in the middle of bush and we were going out on safari. And, like, as long as I can remember, this has been what I do.

Joe Rogan 19:19 Now, when you go on safari, are you in those open Jeeps?

Forrest Galante 19:22 Walking safaris.

Joe Rogan 19:23 What?

Forrest Galante 19:24 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:25 Dude.

Forrest Galante 19:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:27 What are you doing? (laughs)

Forrest Galante 19:28 (laughs) Uh, we take a 458, an elephant gun-

Joe Rogan 19:30 Okay.

Forrest Galante 19:30 ... put it on your shoulder and-

Joe Rogan 19:31 That helps.

Forrest Galante 19:32 ... walking safari.

Joe Rogan 19:33 God damn, man. Only during the day, right?

Forrest Galante 19:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:35 Obviously.

Forrest Galante 19:36 Cannot move at night.

Joe Rogan 19:36 And what do you do when you're confronted?

Forrest Galante 19:39 I mean, I've had some pretty close calls. Uh, my wife, Jess, who's here with me, I saved her from a hippo.

Joe Rogan 19:44 Oh!

Forrest Galante 19:45 Um, yeah. We've had some pretty close calls. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:48 Fuck, man. One of my, the scariest pictures I ever saw was this guy, this, uh, African guy running down the street and a hippo's chasing him, and you look at the size of the hippo and you're like, "Good Christ, that thing is huge."

Forrest Galante 19:58 They're... Joe, they are the scariest animals on earth. Like, interacting with a hippopotamus, they're so erratic, they're so unpredictable. If they feel threatened at all, I mean, they're just-

Joe Rogan 20:08 Yeah. Th- this, this video is fucking bananas.

Forrest Galante 20:09 Oh, yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:10 This is... This guy's on a row, uh, motorboat and the hippo is swimming after him-

Forrest Galante 20:15 Yep.

Joe Rogan 20:15 ... like a torpedo.

Forrest Galante 20:16 So, this is where I'm from. This is Zimbabwe.

Joe Rogan 20:18 Really?

Forrest Galante 20:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:19 So, is this common that they, they swim that fast?

Forrest Galante 20:22 They can move. I mean, this-

Joe Rogan 20:24 Look at that.

Forrest Galante 20:24 This is uncommon to have one chase the boat and come that close, but, uh...

Joe Rogan 20:27 Look how fucking big it is, man.

Forrest Galante 20:29 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:32 So, when you've had these close encounters, what do you do? Do you shoot at the air? You shoot at the ground to scare him away?

Forrest Galante 20:37 Fortunately, I've, I've never had to put an animal down, but I know people that have. Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:41 That's the picture.

Forrest Galante 20:42 Look at that.

Joe Rogan 20:42 That's it. That's the one.

Forrest Galante 20:43 Uh-uh.

Joe Rogan 20:44 What in the fuck?

Forrest Galante 20:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:46 How fast does that big bastard run?

Forrest Galante 20:48 Uh, I don't know. You'd have to look up the exact speed. But definitely, at top speed, definitely faster than a human.

Joe Rogan 20:53 (sighs)

Forrest Galante 20:53 But they don't have the maneuverability. You know, you can kinda duck and dodge behind trees, so-

Joe Rogan 20:57 So just don't run in a straight line.

Forrest Galante 20:58 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 20:59 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 20:59 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 20:59 Fuck that. 19 miles an hour.

Forrest Galante 21:01 20 miles, 19, yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:02 Yeah, what does a person run?

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:03 Up to rhinos.

Joe Rogan 21:04 A rhino runs 31.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:06 Jesus Christ. Jesus. A fucking cheetah can run 75 miles an hour?

Forrest Galante 21:10 Uh-huh.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:10 I thought it was, like, 50.

Forrest Galante 21:11 Uh-uh.

Joe Rogan 21:12 Fuck!

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:13 75? (laughs)

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:14 (laughs) Uh, crocodile's almost as fast as the fucking hippo.

Forrest Galante 21:17 Yeah. They're, they're quick.

Joe Rogan 21:18 Oh, my God.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:19 They're quick.

Forrest Galante 21:19 Quick.

Joe Rogan 21:19 18 miles an hour for a croc.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:21 Fuck that. (laughs)

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:22 Top speed for a sprinter's around 21, 22 maybe.

Joe Rogan 21:24 Ooh.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:25 But that's not sustained. It's not sustained.

Forrest Galante 21:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:27 Yeah. That's also a sprinter.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:29 Yeah, and that's what I'm saying, a sprinter, yeah.

Forrest Galante 21:30 Right.

Joe Rogan 21:30 Not a doughy white guy like us.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 21:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:33 Fuck.

Forrest Galante 21:34 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:35 Jesus Christ. So, you just... If you're chased by a hippo, is there a move that you do? Do you just have to go left and right?

Forrest Galante 21:41 Zigzag, yeah. Maneuverability. Yeah, so like, when we got chased-

Joe Rogan 21:45 Oh, Jesus.

Forrest Galante 21:45 ... we got behind a termite mount, and then it kept going straight.

Joe Rogan 21:48 No.

Forrest Galante 21:48 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:48 You're hiding behind termites. Fuck.

Forrest Galante 21:51 Yeah. (laughs) Nothing says safety like termites. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:53 Oh, my God, dude.

Forrest Galante 21:54 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:54 That's so crazy. Fuck, man. Is that the s- So- so that's the scariest thing in Africa, in terms of, like-

Forrest Galante 22:01 You think-

Joe Rogan 22:01 ... interacting with human beings?

Forrest Galante 22:03 You know what the scariest thing in Africa is? Mosquitoes.

Joe Rogan 22:05 Oh, okay. Of course, right?

Forrest Galante 22:07 Yeah. Like-

Joe Rogan 22:07 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 22:08 ... all, all, all stuff you can see, all the big wildlife, you can kinda feel it out and you put yourself in the bad situations. Mosquitoes, there's nothing... You know what I mean? You just-

Joe Rogan 22:16 Right.

Forrest Galante 22:16 ... nothing you can do about it.

Joe Rogan 22:17 Yeah, my buddy, Justin Wren, he, uh, runs Fight for the Forgotten Charity, they build wells for the pygmies.

Forrest Galante 22:22 Okay.

Joe Rogan 22:23 Um, and he's been bitten. He's gotten malaria three times.

Forrest Galante 22:26 Ugh.

Joe Rogan 22:27 Yeah. And one time, he got it, like, he didn't even get bit again. The malaria just returned.

Forrest Galante 22:33 Ugh.

Joe Rogan 22:34 So, and it must be, in some way, systemic.

Forrest Galante 22:37 I th- I believe it is. I don't r- I don't... Never had it, knock on wood. My grandfather had it, but I know that it's... It- it wrecks you for life, like, it can come back. You can get it again.

Joe Rogan 22:46 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 22:46 It's... It stays with you.

Joe Rogan 22:48 I think that's his situation, and- and he's a professional athlete. He's actually a fighter for Bellator. He's one of their, uh-

Forrest Galante 22:54 Ah.

Joe Rogan 22:54 ... heavyweight contenders.

Forrest Galante 22:55 Damn.

Joe Rogan 22:55 Yeah, and-

Forrest Galante 22:56 Has he said that it's affected his performance?

Joe Rogan 22:58 No, I don't think it has.

Forrest Galante 23:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:00 I- I think, uh, I think he's been okay with it, you know? He received treatment, but it's definitely wrecked him on three separate occasions where he was, you know, basically on death's door.

Forrest Galante 23:08 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 23:09 And one of them was when he was flying back.

Forrest Galante 23:11 Damn.

Joe Rogan 23:11 You know, and he's just sweating, and just rotting out in the inside.

Forrest Galante 23:15 Oof.

Joe Rogan 23:16 Awful.

Forrest Galante 23:16 So, you wanna ask what scares me? That's it.

Joe Rogan 23:18 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 23:18 Like, I would... I'll take a hippo, a snake, a croc, a leopard, anything over that.

Joe Rogan 23:23 Yeah, malaria's terrifying.

Forrest Galante 23:24 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:25 They say malaria's killed more people than anything ever.

Forrest Galante 23:28 Really?

Joe Rogan 23:28 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 23:29 That's-

Joe Rogan 23:29 Malaria's killed half the people that have ever died.

Forrest Galante 23:32 Oh, my God. That's insane.

Joe Rogan 23:33 Just make sure that's right.

Forrest Galante 23:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:36 That might be bullshit, too.

Forrest Galante 23:37 It sounds good.

Joe Rogan 23:38 I- I think it's real.

Forrest Galante 23:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:39 I think, I think, I think we actually have Googled this before, that malaria's literally killed 50% of all the people that have ever died.

Forrest Galante 23:45 That's insane.

Joe Rogan 23:45 Yeah, it's nuts. I mean-

Forrest Galante 23:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:47 ... people are worried about so many different things, when you should be worried about mosquitoes.

Forrest Galante 23:50 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 23:51 Well, apparently, they're, they're trying to genetically engineer mosquitoes to, uh, to, to b- be void of-

Forrest Galante 23:59 Yep.

Joe Rogan 23:59 ... devoid of, uh, malaria.

Forrest Galante 24:01 And they hybridize, right? So, my understanding is the way-

Joe Rogan 24:04 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 24:04 ... that it's done is they genetically engineer the males to reproduce with the females which are the malaria carriers, and then the offspring of that generation can no longer carry malaria.

Joe Rogan 24:14 Wow.

Forrest Galante 24:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:16 Okay, malaria killed half the people who've ever lived.

Forrest Galante 24:18 That is bonkers.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 24:20 It's a myth.

Joe Rogan 24:21 Oh.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 24:21 Yeah, it would've had to kill, it says, like, five and a half million people on average per year, every year, for all of human history, and that's not possible or something like that.

Joe Rogan 24:28 I think it kills half a million a year.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 24:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:30 I think the real number's, like, half a million a year.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 24:31 It- it says it would have to be five and a half million-

Joe Rogan 24:32 Oh, okay.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant commenting) 24:33 ... to kill everyone.

Joe Rogan 24:33 So, it's just one of those things that people say.

Forrest Galante 24:35 I like it.

Joe Rogan 24:36 Well, I should probably shut the fuck up.

Forrest Galante 24:37 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:37 But what else is new?

Forrest Galante 24:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:39 Um, so how many people have they killed?

Forrest Galante 24:41 Uh, a lot.

Joe Rogan 24:42 Okay. We'll go with a lot.

Forrest Galante 24:45 (laughs)

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 24:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:46 So are there other dis- ... I mean, is there like typhoid and shit? Isn't there like a fucking case of typhoid in California now?

Forrest Galante 24:53 Right.

Joe Rogan 24:54 I, I ... Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we've got some weird situations in this country with, um, you know, measles returning and polio returning-

Forrest Galante 25:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 25:03 ... and all these dis-

Forrest Galante 25:03 Ebola came in.

Joe Rogan 25:04 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 25:04 Yeah. What the hell?

Joe Rogan 25:05 Nah, but ...

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 25:06 Typhus outbreaks expands in LA and Long Beach.

Forrest Galante 25:09 Jesus.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 25:09 Typhoid and typhus.

Forrest Galante 25:09 Cool, thanks for having me down here, Joe. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:11 Congratulations. Did you notice my hand was sweaty when I shut it?

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 25:13 They're different, but-

Joe Rogan 25:15 It's different?

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 25:16 It's similar but different. It's not typhoid, it's typhus.

Joe Rogan 25:19 Oh.

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 25:19 It's a flea-borne disease that can be treated with antibiotics or something.

Forrest Galante 25:24 Huh.

Joe Rogan 25:24 Yeah. I'm terrified of Lyme disease too.

Forrest Galante 25:26 Have you had Lyme?

Joe Rogan 25:27 No, but I have a, a gang of friends that have had it and it wrecks them.

Forrest Galante 25:30 Well, you spend a ton of time hiking around-

Joe Rogan 25:32 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 25:32 ... and stuff out here, yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:33 (smacks lips) Well, California doesn't have much Lyme-

Forrest Galante 25:36 Right.

Joe Rogan 25:36 ... um, but East Coast, it's horrific.

Forrest Galante 25:38 It's like everybody that spends time outdoors in the Northeast seems to get it.

Joe Rogan 25:41 Yeah, and I don't know what you can do about that. There was a vaccine that they were doing for a while, but, um, one of my friends, her dad actually got Lyme disease from the vaccine.

Forrest Galante 25:53 Huh.

Joe Rogan 25:53 Like, he didn't have it, got vaccinated and wound up catching it from the vaccine, and I think they were like, "Okay."

Forrest Galante 25:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:58 "Fuck this vaccine."

Forrest Galante 25:59 Sorry.

Joe Rogan 26:00 'Cause they, they had it for a while, I believe.

Forrest Galante 26:01 Jeez.

Joe Rogan 26:02 Definitely.

Forrest Galante 26:02 Yeah, that's no fun.

Joe Rogan 26:03 Yeah. So when you were a kid, you were, you were doing this. Like, you've been-

Forrest Galante 26:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:08 ... involved. So this is like the family business?

Forrest Galante 26:11 Sort of. My family business is my mom's business actually, was safari businesses. So like, like you say, sit in a Land Rover, see the animals kind of thing. Um, and they did a little bit of tourist walking safaris, but then I grew up on a farm in the outskirts of Zim- of Harare, Zimbabwe. And then whenever I wasn't in school, I was on the farm running around barefoot, catching snakes, fishing, yada yada. And then when my mom wasn't booked up, she had this little bush plane that she used for safaris and we'd just adventure all over Africa.

Joe Rogan 26:38 Wow.

Forrest Galante 26:39 So, it was a great childhood. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:41 That sounds amazing, but fucking terrifying.

Forrest Galante 26:43 I mean, it's like one of those things where it's what you're used to, right?

Joe Rogan 26:47 Right.

Forrest Galante 26:47 I found moving to the States at age 14 and, like, trying to find my, like, place in the world being this weird little private school kid from Africa way more terrifying than going to meet a tribe in the middle of the bush.

Joe Rogan 26:58 Really?

Forrest Galante 26:58 For sure. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:59 Why?

Forrest Galante 27:00 Um, like, I'll give you examples. Like, I always carry a pocketknife on me, right?

Joe Rogan 27:04 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 27:05 My first day here in the States, I go to school, pull my pock- ... I'm sitting in my, like, uniform 'cause I went to a very proper English boarding school. Pull out my pocketknife, start cutting my apple. 15 minutes later, I'm in handcuffs and I'm like, "What did I do? What did I do?" I literally had no idea what I had done wrong. It was 'cause I had a knife at school. Everybody I had ever been to school with had a knife to cut their apple. Like, it was the standard thing. So here I am with, like, police and, you know, guns and badges, and they're throwing me in handcuffs and taking me out of the school on day one in America. And I'm like-

Joe Rogan 27:33 Whoa.

Forrest Galante 27:33 ... "This is the scariest thing I've ever seen." And I didn't even r- learn until later that day that it was 'cause I had a pocketknife, and at no point did I think having a pocketknife was a bad thing.

Joe Rogan 27:41 So they didn't tell you?

Forrest Galante 27:43 No, they just grabbed me, there was, like, this whole thing, like, the knife went flying. I was chained up and I was like, "What's going on? What's going on?" And they're like, "You're in big trouble." And I was like, "Why?" (laughs) And, uh, you know, it was, like, little culture shock things like that, that to me were, like, something I'd done every day my whole life, and now I'm, like, getting thrown in juvie for it kind of thing.

Joe Rogan 28:01 When you think back about that, do you think that's just the consequences of being in a large population?

Forrest Galante 28:07 For sure.

Joe Rogan 28:08 Yeah?

Forrest Galante 28:08 Yeah. I mean, like, we ... Like I say, I went to school every day with a knife, there was no violence issues, there was nothing like that. But then you come here where, you know, there's stabbings and stuff like that-

Joe Rogan 28:17 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 28:17 ... and it's because, uh, you know, we had a ti- ... I lived in a tiny country with a tiny population.

Joe Rogan 28:21 Do you think that it's possible that ... I mean, I mean, it's stupid, but there, there's no way you could live like that over here. I mean, there's no way you can have kids with a bunch of knives.

Forrest Galante 28:30 No, I don't think so.

Joe Rogan 28:31 Not with this culture.

Forrest Galante 28:32 I don't, yeah, I don't think so at all. I think that would be terrible. And I get it now-

Joe Rogan 28:36 No, but no-

Forrest Galante 28:37 ... as an adult.

Joe Rogan 28:37 ... nobody talked to you about it before you left the house?

Forrest Galante 28:39 No. My mom didn't know. She's from Africa. You know, she's like, "Here are your things."

Joe Rogan 28:43 (laughs) "Here's your knife, son."

Forrest Galante 28:43 I'm like, "Cool. I'll put it in my pocket."

Joe Rogan 28:45 "Make sure you sharpen it before you go to school."

Forrest Galante 28:46 (laughs) Totally, man.

Joe Rogan 28:47 Wow.

Forrest Galante 28:48 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:48 So you were doin' these, always doing these walking safaris? You, you started out doing the driving ones and then eventually you started doing the walking ones?

Forrest Galante 28:56 Uh, my family business did walking safaris. They didn't do hunting, it was all photographic. Um, and we were in the Zambezi Valley, so Zambezi River is one of the biggest rivers in the world. So we'd do these walking safaris and then we did canoe safaris as well, which is why I have so many hippo and croc stories, 'cause we'd be canoeing down the Zambezi River, um, and then taking photographs and seeing wildlife that way.

Joe Rogan 29:15 Wow. What a crazy way to grow up, man.

Forrest Galante 29:17 It was awesome.

Joe Rogan 29:18 Like, 'cause your relationship to wildlife is just so different than the average person-

Forrest Galante 29:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:22 ... in this country.

Forrest Galante 29:23 For sure. It's very intimate. Like I, I, I feel like I have ... Like, regardless of being a scientist by trade, I feel like I have a very intimate understanding of animals 'cause I grew up completely surrounded by them.

Joe Rogan 29:34 Now, what other countries have you explored?

Forrest Galante 29:37 I'm over 60 countries now.

Joe Rogan 29:38 Damn.

Forrest Galante 29:39 Yeah. So a lot. All for wildlife work, um, whether it's for the show that I do or for biology contracts before I did the show, or just because ... Like for instance, when I got done with college, I was like ... I had a little, tiny little business starting college, sold it, and was like, "I'm gonna travel the world and try and photograph these animals." And I went to 28 countries looking for wildlife.

Joe Rogan 29:59 Did you have something to do with looking for the Tasmanian tiger?

Forrest Galante 30:02 Yeah. Yeah, I did. Um-

Joe Rogan 30:04 No. What do you think?

Forrest Galante 30:05 I think (sighs) of all the extinct animals that have gone extinct at the hand of man, given their, their range ... I don't know if you know this, but the Tasmanian tiger at one point ranged from Papua New Guinea all the way down to Tasmania. So not just the island of Tasmania, but thousands, tens of thousands of miles. I think given their range, the frequency of sightings, the amount of untouched habitat in Australia and Tasmania and Papua New Guinea, where they just found a new dog species, by the way.

Joe Rogan 30:31 They did?

Forrest Galante 30:31 Yeah, the island dog in New Guinea, uh, maybe a year ago now. Incredible looking animal. Like-... absolutely. Could there be a very small remnant population of thylacine, Tasmanian tiger, hiding out in a isolated pocket of habitat? I, I totally think it's possible.

Joe Rogan 30:45 And these sightings, are they coming from credible sources?

Forrest Galante 30:48 So, I did, I did one expedition. I've done two expeditions looking for thylacine and one of them, I was literally talking to the man who is the head park ranger for, like, the entire North Queensland. So he's a scientist by trade, a biologist by degree, and he says, "I saw four of them."

Joe Rogan 31:04 Whoa.

Forrest Galante 31:04 You know, so this isn't like some crackpot drunk who's like, "Yeah, they're, they're here!" You know? This is a guy who is, like myself, a scientist, a biologist, and spends his life in the bush. He knows every animal in that area and he goes, "I saw four of them."

Joe Rogan 31:16 Wow.

Forrest Galante 31:16 So, like, how do you not ... Like, I get goosebumps talking about it 'cause how do you not, like, take that as credible?

Joe Rogan 31:22 No, that's about as credible as it gets. Whoa, look at that cool-looking dog.

Forrest Galante 31:24 There it is.

Joe Rogan 31:25 What a freaky-looking ... The, the world's rarest and most ancient dogs have been rediscovered in the wild. So this New Guinea highland dog was thought to be extinct, is that the idea?

Forrest Galante 31:33 That's right, yep.

Joe Rogan 31:34 Wow. So this thylacine, this area is, where, where they are, has there been a concerted effort to find these things?

Forrest Galante 31:41 Sort of. I mean, it's, it's one of those things where, like, I would say the thylacine is, like, the icon of animals coming back from extinction for Australia, right? It's kinda, like, everybody knows about it in Australia. They all care about it. But where these efforts are is, like, outside of Sydney or, you know what I mean? It's, it's close to home. So there hasn't been a lot of expeditions really deep in to look for them.

Joe Rogan 32:02 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 32:02 And that's what I did. So, there's so much belief that the animal is still out there that the, uh ... Shoot, it's the university in Cairns. I'm blanking on the name of it right now. The university itself put money towards funding to s- find it. So when you have a credible si- uh, institution, like a university going, "Here's money. Go and find this thing," you've gotta think, and I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, but you've gotta think they have some intel that says, "Look, we're not wasting our money to look for something that's not there. We've heard something, we've seen something, we caught something on a trail camera. Let's prove it." And so I actually teamed up with-

Joe Rogan 32:35 They caught something on a trail camera?

Forrest Galante 32:37 Hard to say, but what they did do is fund this expedition. So myself and the university, who's still ongoing with the research, went and looked in this area in North Queensland where I went.

Joe Rogan 32:46 And how far deep did you go in?

Forrest Galante 32:48 Uh, 1,200 miles.

Joe Rogan 32:50 1,200 miles?

Forrest Galante 32:52 Yep. Took 14 hours driving and then hiking from there.

Joe Rogan 32:55 Whoa.

Forrest Galante 32:56 Yeah, 14 hours on dirt roads.

Joe Rogan 32:57 Because this is the area where they've been sighted the most numerous?

Forrest Galante 33:00 Uh, this is where that sighting that I was talking about came from-

Joe Rogan 33:03 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 33:03 ... from the biologist, as well as, I think, four other sightings. The, the community up there is a place called Portland Roads. You, you could look it up. I think it's 12 people and-

Joe Rogan 33:12 Wow.

Forrest Galante 33:13 ... l- lived totally, not like the Amazon off the grid, but off the grid, you know? It's all, like, solar energy and build it yourself. There's no power lines, blah, blah, blah. So it's just this small group of kind of, like, people in the middle of nowhere and almost everybody in that community has seen them. So that's, that's where we based it out of and then went deep from there.

Joe Rogan 33:30 Almost everyone in the community?

Forrest Galante 33:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:32 And no one's taken a photograph? Do they have cameras?

Forrest Galante 33:35 Everybody's, you know, everybody's got a cellphone kinda thing.

Joe Rogan 33:37 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 33:37 But it's like, it's al- it's always the same story where it's like, "Yeah, it was there. It was late at night. By the time I reached in my pocket, it, it had gone off." Except for the biologist I was telling you about, who said it ran around with his dogs.

Joe Rogan 33:48 Whoa.

Forrest Galante 33:49 Yeah. He's out camping and he's like, "Oh, there's this red eye shine and my dog goes nuts and runs over there, and then there's four thylacine jumping around with my dog, like, for, like, 15 minutes." And he's like, "I'm trying to get a picture and, you know, that's, it's, like, 300 yards away. It's in the dark and without the flashlight and the phone and, like-"

Joe Rogan 34:04 Fuck.

Forrest Galante 34:05 Yeah. It's like- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:06 So, it's basically 100% that this thing's alive.

Forrest Galante 34:08 I mean, as a scientist-

Joe Rogan 34:09 Right.

Forrest Galante 34:09 ... you can never put that n- number. But to me-

Joe Rogan 34:12 You're pretty sure?

Forrest Galante 34:13 ... yes. That's why I've done two expeditions and I plan on doing more. I feel it's out there.

Joe Rogan 34:16 Wow.

Forrest Galante 34:16 Like, it's a gut feeling that it's there.

Joe Rogan 34:19 Did you ever see that, um, there was a Willem Dafoe movie?

Forrest Galante 34:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:22 Hunter, I think it was called?

Forrest Galante 34:22 The Hunter, that's right.

Joe Rogan 34:23 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 34:23 And he goes and shoots the last one.

Joe Rogan 34:25 Yeah. Bastard. (laughs)

Forrest Galante 34:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:27 It was a weird movie.

Forrest Galante 34:28 It was a weird movie.

Joe Rogan 34:29 Didn't really work, right?

Forrest Galante 34:30 Mm-mm.

Joe Rogan 34:30 The movie was off. It was very strange.

Forrest Galante 34:32 And there was, like, a scientific reason he had to find it or kill it or... I don't know. It was weird.

Joe Rogan 34:36 Someone was paying him, wasn't it?

Forrest Galante 34:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:38 Wasn't someone hire him to do it?

Forrest Galante 34:40 (sighs) But wasn't there a, like, he was a bounty hunter for the animal-

Joe Rogan 34:43 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 34:43 ... because it had some weird genome or... I, I don't remember. It was-

Joe Rogan 34:45 I don't remember either.

Forrest Galante 34:46 ... it was weird.

Joe Rogan 34:47 Yeah. So, but that's how they died off, right? People hunting them?

Forrest Galante 34:49 Put a bounty on them.

Joe Rogan 34:50 Yeah?

Forrest Galante 34:51 That's how bad it was. Yeah, when settlers came to Tasmania, which was the last stronghold for them, um, they were, they were killing sheep and cheap farmer's things-

Joe Rogan 34:59 Ah.

Forrest Galante 34:59 ... and the government was like, "Get rid of them." You know, "Put a bounty on them."

Joe Rogan 35:02 And what year was this?

Forrest Galante 35:03 Uh, you'd have to cross-check. It's been a while since I've read, read up on that, but, uh-

Joe Rogan 35:07 The last ones died off in, like, the early 1900s, right?

Forrest Galante 35:10 That's right, in a zoo.

Joe Rogan 35:10 The one, the ones they think, yeah.

Forrest Galante 35:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:12 They're a little freaky-looking animal.

Forrest Galante 35:13 There is one set of footage from it ever.

Joe Rogan 35:15 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 35:15 From the one in the Hobart Zoo and it's-

Joe Rogan 35:17 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 35:17 You look at it, it's an insane-looking creature.

Joe Rogan 35:20 Yes.

Forrest Galante 35:20 It's, yeah, just nuts.

Joe Rogan 35:21 You got that?

Forrest Galante 35:22 I tried to play the video. It's not playing.

Joe Rogan 35:23 Oh, it's not playing. Um, yeah, it's a freaky animal. It d- it doesn't even look real. It looks like a, like a cross between a tiger and a dog or something.

Forrest Galante 35:30 And it's, and it's kangaroo by genetics. It's a marsupial.

Joe Rogan 35:33 Yeah, it's a marsupial.

Forrest Galante 35:33 So it's got a pouch and it's just so weird, stripes and ...

Joe Rogan 35:37 But that's the strange thing about Australia and that whole area is, like, how did ... What, what's this marsupial thing and why didn't that catch on anywhere else?

Forrest Galante 35:43 Dude.

Joe Rogan 35:44 Oh, there it is.

Forrest Galante 35:44 Look at him.

Joe Rogan 35:45 There's that freaky thing.

Forrest Galante 35:46 And wait til you see the ... There's a shot where he kinda turns his face and, and does, like, a yawn and you'll see he can open his jaw the way, like, a snake does-

Joe Rogan 35:54 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 35:54 ... to almost 180 degrees. I mean, it's, it's bizarre.

Joe Rogan 35:57 Yeah, to s- swallow. Well, coyotes are kinda like that, too. Not quite so extreme, but-

Forrest Galante 36:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 36:02 ... when you see a coyote yawning, you're like, "What-"

Forrest Galante 36:05 Right.

Joe Rogan 36:05 "... the fuck?" Like, look at that.

Forrest Galante 36:06 Look at that.

Joe Rogan 36:07 Oh, that's so crazy.

Forrest Galante 36:08 Isn't that insane?

Joe Rogan 36:09 Yeah, it's like a crocodile, almost.

Forrest Galante 36:10 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:11 What a strange animal, man.

Forrest Galante 36:13 I'm th- I'm obsessed with them. I'm totally fascinated by them.

Joe Rogan 36:17 Yeah, I hope you get a photo of these fuckers.

Forrest Galante 36:19 (laughs) Me too, man.

Joe Rogan 36:20 I mean-

Forrest Galante 36:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:20 ... do they... (laughs)

Forrest Galante 36:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:21 So, uh, uh, in that area, did you guys set up trail cams and-

Forrest Galante 36:25 We did 200 trail cameras.

Joe Rogan 36:27 Wow.

Forrest Galante 36:28 Yeah, and then the university that we partnered with, who didn't go as remote as we did, but they're still doing a big area-

Joe Rogan 36:33 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 36:33 I think they have 10,000.

Joe Rogan 36:35 10,000 trail cameras?

Forrest Galante 36:36 Something crazy, like, maybe it's 1,000. It's a huge number.

Joe Rogan 36:38 So, what do you do with those? How does that work?

Forrest Galante 36:40 So you do, like, a, a grid pattern, right? So you know how a trail camera works.

Joe Rogan 36:44 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 36:44 Motion's activated, blah, blah, blah.

Joe Rogan 36:45 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 36:45 So they just, they literally ... Here's the mountains, here's whatever, and they set out all these, uh, like, undergrads and they're like, "Place one every 300 meters pointing, you know, in this direction, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And they just do a grid and they do that for a month, two months, whatever it is, collect them all, and then move to the next grid, and then move to the next grid, and just blanket the area.And I think, I could be wrong on this, but I think the search that they're doing, that university is going to be the most comprehensive trail camera survey ever conducted.

Joe Rogan 37:13 And so as far as you know, they don't have a photo of one yet.

Forrest Galante 37:17 As far as we know. But think of it this way, again, I'm not a big conspiracy guy, but if you're, if you're at a university-

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 37:23 Which is the most likely, might be one, it's like my, it's probably as close as they have, maybe on the official one he was talking about, but-

Joe Rogan 37:26 Let me see that.

Forrest Galante 37:26 ... there's a lot of these could be. There's a new one that just came out.

Joe Rogan 37:29 Whoa!

Forrest Galante 37:32 See, to me, that's a mangy fox. That's not a thylacine.

Joe Rogan 37:35 No?

Forrest Galante 37:36 Look at the base of the tail is very thin. Um, it's carrying in an upward curve instead of straight. Like, if you look at a kangaroo's tail, it's very flat.

Joe Rogan 37:43 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 37:44 Um, there's a lot of fox problems in Australia where they're introduced.

Joe Rogan 37:47 Oh.

Forrest Galante 37:47 Could be wrong. Um, you know, as a scientist, I try not to get too excited when I see something that I'm like, "This is it." But, uh-

Joe Rogan 37:53 It's hard to tell because of the way the grass is-

Forrest Galante 37:55 For sure.

Joe Rogan 37:55 ... it makes it look like he's got stripes on his back like a tiger.

Forrest Galante 37:58 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 37:59 Wow. A trail cam, uh, has captured an image that has excited Tasmanian tiger hunters to the possibility of the animal may roam freely across Australia. Wow. How big is that thing?

Forrest Galante 38:09 Uh, they're like coyote sized. Very similar to a coyote in size.

Joe Rogan 38:12 Wow.

Forrest Galante 38:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:14 So, um, don't you think, though, that if they had definitive footage that they would release it to try to get more funding and-

Forrest Galante 38:21 Dude, the problem is footage isn't definitive anymore. Like, uh, two years, last year, I got a photo of a leopard in Zanzibar, the first time in 25 years. The animal's declared extinct, and we caught a, a video, not even a photo, a video of a Zanzibar leopard and, uh, took it up the chain and they're like, "Until, unless we have genetic proof, the animal remains extinct." So I think, you know, (sighs) it's so hard to say.

Joe Rogan 38:45 Got to bring in Willem Dafoe.

Forrest Galante 38:46 Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 38:47 (laughs)

Forrest Galante 38:47 Come on, Will. Uh, so yeah, I think th- I think, you know, if the university had something, they're trying to get enough data to really present a case as opposed to like-

Joe Rogan 38:56 Hmm.

Forrest Galante 38:56 ... you know, throwing up a flag over something ind- one individual thing.

Joe Rogan 39:00 Well, is there a concern that's the, a bunch of amateur wildlife hunters would go there? What is this, Jamie?

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 39:05 This footage.

Forrest Galante 39:05 There it is. That's my leopard.

Joe Rogan 39:07 Oh, that's the leopard. Yeah.

Forrest Galante 39:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:08 Wow. Did you, uh, have you seen that photo, uh, or the footage, rather, of the jaguar that they found in, uh, Arizona?

Forrest Galante 39:15 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:16 That's really interesting too, right?

Forrest Galante 39:17 Amazing.

Joe Rogan 39:17 That they're starting to make their way up from Mexico.

Forrest Galante 39:19 It's such a weird region, that, because here's this huge Sonoran Desert that you think none of these tropical animals can make it across and for whatever reason, Southern Arizona gets jaguars and coatimundi and peccary and all these, like, tropical animals.

Joe Rogan 39:31 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 39:31 What, what the hell? I don't know the answer. What the hell's going on that all these rainforest creatures are making it through this thousand-mile stretch of desert and into Southern Arizona?

Joe Rogan 39:40 Probably bored.

Forrest Galante 39:41 (laughs) Could be.

Joe Rogan 39:42 Looking for cool, cool places to visit.

Forrest Galante 39:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:44 You know, maybe they, I mean, maybe it's just like a natural instinct to roam and expand your territory. There he is.

Forrest Galante 39:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:50 Look at that thing.

Forrest Galante 39:51 That's amazing.

Joe Rogan 39:51 That's an incredible animal.

Forrest Galante 39:53 So beautiful.

Joe Rogan 39:54 And it's huge.

Forrest Galante 39:55 Huge.

Joe Rogan 39:55 They're, they're 200 plus pounds, right?

Forrest Galante 39:57 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:57 It's a big, fucking aggressive cat.

Forrest Galante 39:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:00 What, what's bigger, a jaguar or a leopard? Leopard, right?

Forrest Galante 40:03 A leopard, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:04 Yeah. And that's even bigger.

Forrest Galante 40:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:05 But it's a, such a beautiful animal, too. And apparently they were all over North America-

Forrest Galante 40:09 Jaguars?

Joe Rogan 40:10 ... at one point in time. Yeah, like, th- uh, that area, like Texas and Arizona.

Forrest Galante 40:13 Like during the Pleistocene?

Joe Rogan 40:14 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 40:14 Oh, interesting. I didn't even know that.

Joe Rogan 40:16 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 40:16 But, um...

Joe Rogan 40:17 When did they, I mean, they, they were pushed out of... I th- I feel like that might not be true, though. I feel like there were, they were more numerous in like Arizona, in like the Southwest.

Forrest Galante 40:27 Makes sense. I mean-

Joe Rogan 40:29 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 40:29 ... you know, we had so much megafauna here back in the day, um, there would have been a lot of prey for them.

Joe Rogan 40:34 Now, because of the fact that you spend so much time in the wild and, you know, and that you have this, uh, interest in these, uh, what would you call cryptozoology animals? Like, that's-

Forrest Galante 40:45 Well, I, I'm not a crypto guy, so just to be clear.

Joe Rogan 40:47 Right.

Forrest Galante 40:47 And nothing against crypto guys, but I don't do Loch Ness or Bigfoot or anything.

Joe Rogan 40:51 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 40:51 I'm a true wildlife biologist, so I only focus on wildlife. So not to interrupt you, but I'm just very, very structured in the sense that I really only look for animals that we, we have an understanding of.

Joe Rogan 41:03 Right. Right.

Forrest Galante 41:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:04 Well, yeah. The bi- the Bigfoot one is, um, the m- the most compelling, but also probably the most bullshit.

Forrest Galante 41:11 I think there's a mix there. I think people believe that they've seen certain things.

Joe Rogan 41:15 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 41:15 Um, you know, it's, it's, do I think that there could have been large primates that we attribute to Bigfoot? Sure.

Joe Rogan 41:21 Sure.

Forrest Galante 41:21 Whether they're still here or not, whether people have ever seen them, I, I'm so like, not well read on that.

Joe Rogan 41:26 Isn't it interesting, though, that if there was one, it would probably be the most spectacular find ever?

Forrest Galante 41:34 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 41:34 But meanwhile, we have chimps and bonobos.

Forrest Galante 41:37 Right.

Joe Rogan 41:37 And you know, we have all these things that are real.

Forrest Galante 41:39 Well, 'cause there's so much like lore and culture associated with it now.

Joe Rogan 41:42 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 41:42 Right? And not just like, our western culture, but like cave paintings of big hairy creatures and like everything.

Joe Rogan 41:47 Right.

Forrest Galante 41:48 I mean, it would be like this mind-blowing discovery.

Joe Rogan 41:51 Have you ever went and looked for the Bondo Ape?

Forrest Galante 41:53 No. I know what it is, but no.

Joe Rogan 41:55 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 41:55 Never gone and looked for it.

Joe Rogan 41:56 They're, they're sure that's a real thing.

Forrest Galante 41:57 Really?

Joe Rogan 41:58 Yeah. They've got skulls and hair samples and photographs-

Forrest Galante 42:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:01 ... and video. And for people who don't know what we're talking about, it's a gigantic chimpanzee.

Forrest Galante 42:05 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 42:06 Like a six-foot-tall chimpanzee-

Forrest Galante 42:07 And-

Joe Rogan 42:07 ... which is just fucking nuts.

Forrest Galante 42:09 And it does walk erect, right?

Joe Rogan 42:10 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 42:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:10 Sometimes, yeah.

Forrest Galante 42:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:11 There's a camera trap photo. There's a guy named Dr. Carl... Oh, no, he's not a doctor. I think his name is Carl Harmon. Carl, Carl something?

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 42:20 Carl Harmon.

Joe Rogan 42:20 Harmon, is that-

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 42:20 Amman.

Joe Rogan 42:21 Amman?

Guest (secondary, likely producer/assistant reading article) 42:21 A-M-M-A-N.

Joe Rogan 42:22 Carl Amman. And he's a, uh, is it Swiss wildlife photographer? Anyway, he set up a bunch of camera traps and he got one of them-

Forrest Galante 42:28 Got one.

Joe Rogan 42:29 ... walking.

Forrest Galante 42:30 Amazing.

Joe Rogan 42:30 It's, it's freaky. And there's some photos of, um, these gentlemen that shot one, uh, near an airstrip.

Forrest Galante 42:36 Huh.

Joe Rogan 42:37 And it's fucking huge.

Forrest Galante 42:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:39 You don't know how big the, the, the men are.

Forrest Galante 42:41 Right.

Joe Rogan 42:41 You know, they might be small-

Forrest Galante 42:42 Sure.

Joe Rogan 42:42 ... and it's in front of them, but it is without a doubt, like one of the biggest chimpanzees you've ever seen in life.

Forrest Galante 42:47 It's insane. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:47 And it's... They have a crest on their head, their skull has a crest like a gorilla.

Forrest Galante 42:52 Huh.

Joe Rogan 42:52 Yeah, it has like the, the bone of the skull has-

Forrest Galante 42:55 It kind of fuses up.

Joe Rogan 42:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Forrest Galante 42:56 Interesting.

Joe Rogan 42:57 Which-

Forrest Galante 42:57 You have a picture of that? I'd love to see it.

Joe Rogan 42:58 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 42:58 I'm not, not familiar with the anatomy of them.

Joe Rogan 43:01 Yeah, it's, um, it's really interesting because I think for the longest time they didn't think they were real. It's a part of that Michael Crichton book, Congo.

Forrest Galante 43:09 Okay.

Joe Rogan 43:09 Because remember there was a really terrible movie that was made-

Forrest Galante 43:12 I, I know that movie as well.

Joe Rogan 43:13 Look at the size of that fucker.

Forrest Galante 43:14 Yeah. That's insane.

Joe Rogan 43:15 Yeah. That's one of them, I think.

Forrest Galante 43:17 And that doesn't look like forced perspective, you know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 43:20 No.

Forrest Galante 43:20 It looks like they're right in front of him.

Joe Rogan 43:22 And that's one from the early 1900s, I believe.

Forrest Galante 43:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:25 Where these guys, uh, shot one and, um, they were like, "What is this?" This is just giant chimp. Go d- see if you can find the one of the... There. Right above is the one where it's walking. Right there. Yeah.

Forrest Galante 43:36 Oh, that's the trail camera?

Joe Rogan 43:37 That's the camera trap.

Forrest Galante 43:38 Wow.

Joe Rogan 43:38 The thing walking.

Forrest Galante 43:39 And he's erect.

Joe Rogan 43:40 Yeah. He's erect and he's, you know-

Forrest Galante 43:42 Is he?

Joe Rogan 43:42 These people that... One of, one of the sightings, they saw one walk by a truck, like walk across a road. They said it was the same height as the truck.

Forrest Galante 43:52 That's insane.

Joe Rogan 43:52 So, they have like, you know, like a Toyota Hilux or something like that.

Forrest Galante 43:56 (laughs) Right, yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:56 And it's literally the si- the height, like a six-foot-tall man, but a giant chimp.

Forrest Galante 44:02 A- and I mean, you know, to go back to the Bigfoot thing, you can totally see where we get that from, right?

Joe Rogan 44:06 For sure, yeah.

Forrest Galante 44:07 You look at this huge primate that's the size of a human being and your brain instantly goes it's mythological.

Joe Rogan 44:12 And I'm pretty sure that they didn't have photos of this thing until the 20th century, like the late 20th century.

Forrest Galante 44:19 No kidding?

Joe Rogan 44:19 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 44:20 That's amazing.

Joe Rogan 44:20 Yeah, it's a trip, man. This... They nest on the ground, like, um, like gorillas.

Forrest Galante 44:24 Like a gorilla.

Joe Rogan 44:24 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 44:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:25 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 44:26 Wow.

Joe Rogan 44:26 And, uh, the locals have two different name for, uh, two different names for chimps. They call them tree beaters and lion killers.

Forrest Galante 44:35 Huh.

Joe Rogan 44:35 And the tree beaters are the ones that are up in the trees, the smaller chimps.

Forrest Galante 44:39 Sure.

Joe Rogan 44:39 And the lion killers are these big ones.

Forrest Galante 44:41 That live on the ground.

Joe Rogan 44:42 Yeah, and apparently there's some either video footage or there was some eyewitness account of one of them eating, uh, a leopard.

Forrest Galante 44:51 No way.

Joe Rogan 44:52 So, it was a dead leopard that they were eating, whether or not they killed it or they found it, but they were eating this fucking thing.

Forrest Galante 44:58 Regardless, like, to be a primate at the top of the food chain eating a big cat-

Joe Rogan 45:03 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 45:03 I mean, that's nuts.

Joe Rogan 45:04 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 45:04 It's nuts. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:06 Would you ever think of going there and trying to find those things?

Forrest Galante 45:08 Fuck yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:09 They're deep in there.

Forrest Galante 45:10 Great. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:11 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 45:12 Um-

Joe Rogan 45:12 I think they're in a place called Bili. Bili in the Congo, that's where they think they are. They've isolated a population of them there.

Forrest Galante 45:18 Really?

Joe Rogan 45:18 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 45:18 My mom just got back from the Congo and she still does, like, her own adventure stuff, and she was saying it's just like... She's been all over as well. She's like, "It's mind-blowing." Like, there's so much remoteness and unstudied area that there could be all kinds of things.

Joe Rogan 45:30 Goddamn, man. Now, what, what kind of medication do you have to take if you're gonna go there? Because you have to take some anti-malarial stuff, right?

Forrest Galante 45:36 Dude, I'm a pin cushion. Like... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:39 (laughs)

Forrest Galante 45:39 I've had so many shots and pills and, you know, like preventative, obviously. I actually don't do malaria medication, I just cover up.

Joe Rogan 45:48 Really?

Forrest Galante 45:48 Um, because it messes with your brain. I don't know if you know that. Like, I- they say the modern ones aren't bad, but the Malarone, like, you have hallucinations at night, you have crazy sweats, like, especially if you're in hot sun. So, I- I would rather be more focused, especially if I'm working with reptiles or stuff like that, that can, you know, envenomate me. So, I try, try to stay away from it and just cover up.

Joe Rogan 46:09 Wow. Is there a specific type of clothing that's like anti-mosquito repellent clothing or anything like that?

Forrest Galante 46:16 I just do long sleeves and some bug spray.

Joe Rogan 46:17 And do you do a mask as well?

Forrest Galante 46:19 No.

Joe Rogan 46:19 No?

Forrest Galante 46:20 That's silliness.

Joe Rogan 46:20 Really?

Forrest Galante 46:21 (laughs) It looks silly.

Joe Rogan 46:22 It does look silly.

Forrest Galante 46:23 Um, no, I just do, you know, good old DEET.

Joe Rogan 46:25 God, that stuff's gotta be bad for you too, though, no?

Forrest Galante 46:27 It melts you. Like-

Joe Rogan 46:28 Does it?

Forrest Galante 46:29 If you get it on, like, say these things, it will melt the painting of- the paint off of the headphones. It's so strong.

Joe Rogan 46:35 Ooh.

Forrest Galante 46:35 It's probably worse than the Malarone. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:37 Have you ever used a Thermacell? What are they called? Um, fucking... Is it called a Thermacell?

Narrator 46:43 I think so.

Joe Rogan 46:43 I think that's what it's called. Um, it's, um, it's a device that heats up. It's got like an element inside of it and like a little bit, a little canister of, uh, gasoline. And you put these sheets and it releases this very fine mist-

Forrest Galante 46:56 Oh, no kidding.

Joe Rogan 46:57 That you can kind of smell, and mosquitoes fucking hate it.

Forrest Galante 46:59 No way.

Joe Rogan 47:00 Yeah, we used it in Alberta.

Forrest Galante 47:01 Huh.

Joe Rogan 47:01 Al- Alberta has very aggressive mosquitoes when they're out.

Forrest Galante 47:05 Yep.

Joe Rogan 47:05 When they're out, they're out.

Forrest Galante 47:06 It's like clouds of them, right?

Joe Rogan 47:07 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 47:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:07 'Cause they're only alive for like three months. They're like, "We gotta go. We gotta go."

Forrest Galante 47:10 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:10 It's like Alaska.

Forrest Galante 47:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:11 Have you ever been to Alaska?

Forrest Galante 47:12 Uh, it's the worst mosquitoes I've ever seen.

Joe Rogan 47:14 Crazy, right?

Forrest Galante 47:14 They like pick you up. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:15 Yeah. They're like, they're size of pigeons-

Forrest Galante 47:17 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:17 ... and they're fucking everywhere.

Forrest Galante 47:18 Totally, totally. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:19 I went, uh, fishing with my friend Ari and we pulled up the, the car and we got out of the car and we opened the car door, and within seconds, a swarm of mosquitoes was inside the car.

Forrest Galante 47:29 It's insane.

Joe Rogan 47:30 And we were screaming like, "What the fuck? This is crazy."

Forrest Galante 47:33 It's crazy. It is like something out of a, uh, Stephen King movie.

Joe Rogan 47:35 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 47:35 Like, there's clouds and they... I, I... Yeah. That's why you asked me what I'm scared of, it's that.

Joe Rogan 47:39 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 47:39 Fucking clouds of mosquitoes, man.

Joe Rogan 47:41 Well, we're very fortunate we don't have malaria here in the United States.

Forrest Galante 47:44 Yep. Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 47:45 'Cause if it, if it made its way over here somehow...

Forrest Galante 47:47 You know, I, I, um, I wear this fabric you were talking about, Thermacell, called HEX.

Joe Rogan 47:52 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Forrest Galante 47:52 Um, you've heard... Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:53 H-E-C-S, HEX.

Forrest Galante 47:54 H-E-C-S, HEX. Exactly.

Joe Rogan 47:55 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 47:55 And, um, I wear it for a lot of reasons, 'cause I definitely feel it helps me get closer to wildlife, but I've noticed mosquitoes do not like it.

Joe Rogan 48:02 Really?

Forrest Galante 48:03 So, that's-

Joe Rogan 48:04 Explain-

Forrest Galante 48:04 ... that's one of my cover ups.

Joe Rogan 48:04 ... what a HEX suit is for, for people that don't know what we're talking about.

Forrest Galante 48:08 Sure. So, it's this f- interwoven carbon grid that actually holds the body's electrical energy and capacity, like the door of a microwave oven, like a Faraday cage, right?

Joe Rogan 48:17 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 48:17 And so you, you naturally emit electrical energy, and then when you wear this clothing, it's got this conductive carbon grid, and when you touch the ground or something, it grounds it and releases all the energy. So, birds migrate using-

Joe Rogan 48:28 There it is.

Forrest Galante 48:28 Yeah, there you go.

Joe Rogan 48:29 Now, has it been proven that this stuff actually work- I mean, it- it has been proven that it has an effect on the electrical energy that you release, but has it been proven that the animals can actually recognize that electrical energy?

Forrest Galante 48:39 With certain animals, yes. So, we know electroreception is... Certain wildlife is capable of it. Birds use it to migrate. Sea turtles use magnetic poles to migrate. Um, they just discovered, I believe, 2014, that lobsters' antenna have electrical detective s- sensors. Um, electroreception is the word. Um, so it's proven on some things, not everything. You know, our understanding of animal behavior and animal adaptability is constantly growing. So, it's passive, you know what I mean? I wear it because it's a passive technology.

Joe Rogan 49:10 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 49:11 It's like, I'm gonna wear a shirt anyway. Why not wear one that might or might not help?

Joe Rogan 49:15 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 49:15 So, I feel it helps.

Joe Rogan 49:16 My friend, John Dudley, is a, a bow hunter.

Forrest Galante 49:19 Yep.

Joe Rogan 49:19 Pretty famous bow hunter.

Forrest Galante 49:20 I know John, yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:21 Yeah. Okay.

Forrest Galante 49:22 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:22 And he, he swears by it.

Forrest Galante 49:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:24 Yeah. He wears them constantly. He's like, "It makes a big difference."

Forrest Galante 49:27 I think so. You know, like, I'm...... I'm not hunting. I'm just trying to get close to stuff and-

Joe Rogan 49:31 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 49:31 ... interact with it or find something, but I feel-

Joe Rogan 49:33 You-

Forrest Galante 49:33 ... it makes a difference.

Joe Rogan 49:34 You notice a difference personally?

Forrest Galante 49:35 Especially with birds. Um, I've noticed a huge difference. I've noticed a huge difference in the water. Some mammals, I've noticed a difference. Um, but yeah, I, I, like Jon, I feel like it's, it helps me get closer and, you know, it keeps, keeps the energy down. Do you know what I mean? Like, you're emitting all this energy. You see this bear or whatever it is, your heart spikes, your adrenaline goes, and it, it keeps that in capacity. So I think we sense that. I think certain creatures sense that, and I, I like to keep that out of the equation.

Joe Rogan 50:02 Right. The, I guess it would be that there is something coming off of your body, and it probably would be an advantage for animals to be able to recognize that just because we can't quantify it-

Forrest Galante 50:12 Right.

Joe Rogan 50:13 ... and put it on a scale or weigh it or something like that. There's probably something going on.

Forrest Galante 50:16 Predator, prey, right? Like-

Joe Rogan 50:17 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 50:18 ... if you're a lion and I'm a, I'm an antelope, and, uh, my adrenaline spikes and my heart's going and, you know, you're gonna come for me, right?

Joe Rogan 50:25 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 50:25 But if that's out of the equation, the energy stays reduced.

Joe Rogan 50:28 Well, that's one of the weirder vide- some of the weirder videos that I've seen, I should say, um, is people that are interacting with predators.

Forrest Galante 50:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 50:35 Like people that have, like, coyotes come right up to them while they're wearing those things.

Forrest Galante 50:38 Yep. Yep.

Joe Rogan 50:39 Or, and, and turkeys as well.

Forrest Galante 50:41 Turk- uh, uh, totally. Th- like I said-

Joe Rogan 50:43 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 50:43 ... birds.

Joe Rogan 50:43 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 50:43 Because birds, birds have that in their brain. They have, I'm gonna quote it wrong, but they have something that they can detect electrical signals of what helps them, uh, migrate around the world. So for sure, I think it makes a difference.

Joe Rogan 50:54 Yeah, so what else do you use? You use the hex suit.

Forrest Galante 50:58 A ton of different tools, man. I mean, I customize stuff. You know, like in the Amazon we were looking for caiman, a type of crocodile.

Joe Rogan 51:03 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 51:04 So I built like a beefed-up dog catcher that I use to try and lasso them. I have a snake hook on me at all times. Um-

Joe Rogan 51:10 A snake hook?

Forrest Galante 51:11 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:11 What's a snake hook?

Forrest Galante 51:12 Uh, so it's just this, like, it's like a golf club with a hook on the end, so I can work with venomous snakes without it reaching back and grabbing me.

Joe Rogan 51:18 Oh, wow.

Forrest Galante 51:19 Doesn't restrain them. It, it actually, like, their body sits in it. Um, I do a lot of reptile stuff, so, um, always have a snake hook on me. (sighs) I mean, the list goes on. Ton of trail cameras. I use a lot of thermal imaging stuff, like, um, especially, like, looking for wolves or something like that. Uh, we, you know, wolves are active at night. It's really hard to get a shot of them. Put a thermal bird in the air, and you can see these, these animals running through valleys.

Joe Rogan 51:43 Wow.

Forrest Galante 51:44 Yeah, it's cool stuff. You'd love it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:45 Well, I'm fascinated by wolves. I think, uh, that wolves, to me, are probably the most interesting animal in the wild.

Forrest Galante 51:53 Ca- canids, man, wild dogs of all kind are unbelievable. They're so at the top of their respective food chain.

Joe Rogan 52:00 Yeah, we have, uh, a lot of coyotes around here.

Forrest Galante 52:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:03 And basically, they're little wolves.

Forrest Galante 52:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:05 They're little sneaky wolves. But, uh, real wolves, like wolves in Yellowstone-

Forrest Galante 52:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:10 ... and, you know, wolves in the Northwest-

Forrest Galante 52:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:13 ... area of the United States, those, they're, they have got to be some of the most majestic animals.

Forrest Galante 52:18 Oh, they're fantastic.

Joe Rogan 52:19 Because they, they, they're, they operate together-

Forrest Galante 52:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:21 ... always-

Forrest Galante 52:22 Yep.

Joe Rogan 52:22 ... as these packs.

Forrest Galante 52:23 Yep.

Joe Rogan 52:24 You know, so there's some sort of weird kinda communication and...

Forrest Galante 52:27 And, and what's amazing is, like, the social dynamic, like, within the pack, you know, the hierarchy, and then on a hunt, like, you go left, I go right. But without-

Joe Rogan 52:35 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 52:35 ... any verbal communication.

Joe Rogan 52:36 Right, right.

Forrest Galante 52:36 And, and then coming together and making a kill. I mean, it, it's mind-blowing stuff. You know, you talk about not understanding wildlife.

Joe Rogan 52:42 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 52:42 We don't understand how they do that.

Joe Rogan 52:43 Right, right. We don't understand what kind of communication is going on. Do you think there's some sort of, like, telepathic, or is it just, uh, facial and recogni- recognizing c- c- cues and patterns that they've established before of they see an animal, they know to flank it?

Forrest Galante 52:58 I definitely believe it's that. Like, I definitely believe there is an intrinsic understanding of you go left, I go right. You know, facial recognition.

Joe Rogan 53:07 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 53:07 You know, your, your expression tells me to do something. You're dominant, I'm, I'm passive, you know, l- learning that way. But I, I also think there's something more than that, whether it's telepathic, whether it's a low frequency sound that we're, is not audible to us. I have no idea, but I do think it's more than just visual cues.

Joe Rogan 53:25 That's where the, apparently, the myth of the werewolf comes from, is that wolves are so smart, they think that a wolf and a person were, like, combined together.

Forrest Galante 53:34 I, uh, I don't believe that per se.

Joe Rogan 53:36 Right.

Forrest Galante 53:37 But I can see how that came up. You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 53:39 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 53:39 It's totally ... They're so smart. African wild dogs are the same. Like, they, they hunt in these huge packs. They go over these massive areas, and then they'll push a single animal into one area to make the kill. And they're not big animals. They're, again, like a coyote size, and they'll take down, you know, a kudu or some huge antelope. I mean, it's, it's incredible.

Joe Rogan 53:56 Well, African wild dogs are so cool looking, too, with those p- black spots-

Forrest Galante 54:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:00 ... and the yellow and all the-

Forrest Galante 54:01 Stunning.

Joe Rogan 54:02 They're just, they, they look angry. They're like-

Forrest Galante 54:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:05 ... freaky looking, you know?

Forrest Galante 54:06 There's, I, I think they're, they're my favorite of the can- like, you love wolves. I love African wild dogs.

Joe Rogan 54:11 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 54:11 I just think they're so beautiful and majestic and unusual, and they're just such a cool animal.

Joe Rogan 54:16 Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think all of them come from the United States. I think all of them originally came from North America. Like, I think all-

Forrest Galante 54:23 Canids?

Joe Rogan 54:23 Yeah, all canids came from North America. I think that's ... Coyote America, the gentleman who's been on the podcast before. What is his name? Um, it's escaping me right now. Uh, but he, he wrote about it.

Forrest Galante 54:37 Huh.

Joe Rogan 54:37 About, you know, all the, the various an- were there jackals?

Forrest Galante 54:40 Dan Flores?

Joe Rogan 54:41 Dan Flores. That's it. He's, uh, that is a fascinating book.

Forrest Galante 54:44 Yeah, I'm gonna read it down.

Joe Rogan 54:45 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 54:45 I'd love to read it.

Joe Rogan 54:46 It's great. And I did a podcast with him, uh, years ago that's excellent, too. And he, uh, he has all sorts of crazy insight as to Native American, North American animals that went somewhere else, like, uh, horses. Like, horses were native to North America, but they weren't here when the European settlers came. They had, they went extinct. They had-

Forrest Galante 55:06 Huh.

Joe Rogan 55:07 ... been taken. They had, they, they were other places. Like, apparently, wild horses from Europe all originated from North America.

Forrest Galante 55:15 And were taken over and then brought back?

Joe Rogan 55:16 Somehow or another-

Forrest Galante 55:17 Wow.

Joe Rogan 55:18 ... you know, from what I r- and then went extinct here-

Forrest Galante 55:20 Huh.

Joe Rogan 55:20 ... and then were reintroduced with the European settlers.

Forrest Galante 55:22 Huh.

Joe Rogan 55:23 Which is-

Forrest Galante 55:23 That's interesting.

Joe Rogan 55:24 ... crazy, yeah.

Forrest Galante 55:24 It's f- a- and that's the thing, like, with what I do, looking for extinct animals or proof that they're still out there, is, like, there are so many stories like that. I didn't know that one in specific.... America's very well covered with eyeballs, but what's to say there isn't some remnant small population somewhere in the middle of nowhere that nobody has found these horses that have been untouched by human beings for millennia?

Joe Rogan 55:47 Right.

Forrest Galante 55:48 And that's, that's what I, that's what I do, that's what drives me, right? Find this pocket, find this animal that's been hiding out undetected for thousands of years.

Joe Rogan 55:57 Yeah. So what other animals are you looking for?

Forrest Galante 56:00 Uh, a lot. Like we were talking about primates, I'm going to Borneo to look for an animal called the Miller's grizzled langur, it's a type of monkey. Um, I just got back, I was looking for an extinct caiman in the Amazon. Um-

Joe Rogan 56:11 An extinct caiman?

Forrest Galante 56:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:12 What's the difference between that and the caimans that you see?

Forrest Galante 56:15 Uh, just a different species, you know. Just like there's many types of crocodile, there's many types of caiman.

Joe Rogan 56:20 Oh.

Forrest Galante 56:20 You know, you have saltwater crocodiles, Nile crocodiles, same thing with caiman. Um, and I was looking for one with a very weird morphological variant. It looks very, very different to any other, um-

Joe Rogan 56:30 What's, what's different about it?

Forrest Galante 56:32 It's got a very elongated snout. Um, if you've ever seen a gharial, if you know what, that is a type of crocodile with this long crazy nose, it's like the alligator family, the caiman family version of that. This really long skinny face, super light, super yellow coloration, just very different. Last time one was seen was 52 years ago, and then they had one in a zoo that died in the '80s and nobody's found one since. Um, so just really cool. And so yeah, the list goes on, you know. Last year I did leopards and I did wolves in Newfoundland and a bunch of really interesting stuff, so it's fun, man. You'd love it, you should come with. I'll talk to Animal Planet.

Joe Rogan 57:06 I'm scared.

Forrest Galante 57:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:06 Scared, I'm such a pussy. Um, what about, uh, giant sloths? What are your feelings on those?

Forrest Galante 57:11 So (sighs) I've had probably three years of research into this, into giant sloths because, uh, ma- manapugiri I believe is how it's said, it's the South American name for giant sloths. There's ... I don't wanna give away too much info before I get to do a chance, a chance at looking for it, but after all the research I've compiled, there is, in my opinion, one location on Earth, it's in high Peru, where nobody goes, it's a bowl of mountains, impenetrable. The only way in is a helicopter in the center. To me, that (laughs) that bowl is going to be like a primordial Eden. All of the culture surrounding it have old stories of giant sloths. They all have different names for it, but they all have these stories of these giant sloths. Right? They were all hunted to extinction, however they've handed down these traditions. But nobody except for, you know, a tiny handful of, like, far out tribal people have ever really got into this impenetrable bowl. And I think if they're anywhere, they're in there.

Joe Rogan 58:09 Wow. I saw a documentary once about this scientist that was essentially risking his reputation trying to find a giant sloth somewhere, I think maybe in the Amazon?

Forrest Galante 58:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:18 Some- somewhere.

Forrest Galante 58:18 Probably Peruvian Amazon, that's-

Joe Rogan 58:19 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 58:19 ... where I'm thinking too.

Joe Rogan 58:20 And, uh, he, he kept talking to people that had seen it and he never could get ahold of it, but he had been there for years.

Forrest Galante 58:27 Isn't that crazy though? Like, why?

Joe Rogan 58:29 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 58:30 What ... If, if you're a little Amazonian villager, you don't read, you don't have TV, there's no reason to make up scientific, you know, science fiction. Why say you've seen it?

Joe Rogan 58:39 'Cause you like to fuck with white people?

Forrest Galante 58:40 Could be, could be. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:42 (laughs)

Forrest Galante 58:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:42 Like get that dude with the stringy hair.

Forrest Galante 58:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:44 "Hey, man. Yeah, I've seen that thing."

Forrest Galante 58:46 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:46 "Oh, dinosaurs? Fuck yeah. Come on, I'll take you."

Forrest Galante 58:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:49 Five days in-

Forrest Galante 58:50 Good point, yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:50 ... you know, you're wa- you're exhausted, covered with mosquito bites.

Forrest Galante 58:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:53 He's like, "Any day now."

Forrest Galante 58:54 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:55 "We're almost there."

Forrest Galante 58:55 Just over the next hill.

Joe Rogan 58:56 He's gonna wait for you to fucking rot out.

Forrest Galante 58:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:00 That would be a mean man.

Forrest Galante 59:01 That's a mean guy. That's a mean guy. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:02 Leave you, leave you on a log. "All right, buddy." (imitates knocking) Pat you on the back.

Forrest Galante 59:05 Right.

Joe Rogan 59:05 "This is the last spot for you."

Forrest Galante 59:07 And I'll be taking this, yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:08 Yeah, yep.

Forrest Galante 59:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:08 I'll take your binoculars and-

Forrest Galante 59:10 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:11 Yeah. Yeah, um, I mean, yeah, there's no reason for them to lie, but that doesn't-

Forrest Galante 59:15 Right.

Joe Rogan 59:15 That's like the thing that people say about everything. "Why would-"

Forrest Galante 59:18 Sure.

Joe Rogan 59:18 "... someone lie?" Well, I don't know, people lie for a bunch of weird reasons.

Forrest Galante 59:21 People do it.

Joe Rogan 59:22 People are crazy.

Forrest Galante 59:23 True.

Joe Rogan 59:23 They make shit up.

Forrest Galante 59:24 True.

Joe Rogan 59:24 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 59:25 Yeah. I mean, to me it's like you have to take an eyewitness report of an extinct creature or a f- uh, zoo- crypto creature with a grain of salt.

Joe Rogan 59:33 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 59:34 But you still have to take it. Do you know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 59:36 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Forrest Galante 59:36 You still have to bank it and consider it.

Joe Rogan 59:38 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 59:38 And so that's, that's kind of the way I go. I, I, I always talk to people, but then I come up with ... I do the biology, right? I track, I put the cameras out, I bait, I scent, I do all of that stuff to try and get evidence of my own. Because just going with eyewitness reports is, like you say, it's nothing.

Joe Rogan 59:54 Has there ever been any eyewitness reports that, uh, are just too, too ridiculous where you're like-

Forrest Galante 1:00:00 Oh, for sure.

Joe Rogan 1:00:01 Like what?

Forrest Galante 1:00:02 Oh, man. Loads. I mean, like talking about the thylacine, for instance.

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 Mm-hmm.

Forrest Galante 1:00:07 There was a guy that we met there who's like, "Yeah, yeah, there's thylacine everywhere. They run around with the black cats." And we're like, "What?" He's like, "Yeah, there's black panthers too. They, like, hang out together." And I'm like-

Joe Rogan 1:00:16 Black panthers in Australia?

Forrest Galante 1:00:17 Exactly. That's ... I made the same face you did, so I'm like-

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 (laughs)

Forrest Galante 1:00:19 ... "Okay, tell me more." And he's like, "Yeah, you know, they like to hang out over there, they're behind the trash heap, they jump around with black panthers."

Joe Rogan 1:00:26 Oh, they're just fucking with you.

Forrest Galante 1:00:26 And I'm like, I ... Well, that's the thing, I'm like, you're, you're just ... You're either crazy or you're completely fucking with me, and I'm not sure which one it is because your eyes are telling me crazy.

Joe Rogan 1:00:35 Right. (laughs)

Forrest Galante 1:00:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:36 Yeah. Well, I mean, how many different pockets in the world are there, like that basin that you said you had to get helicoptered into?

Forrest Galante 1:00:43 There's a few.

Joe Rogan 1:00:44 Yeah?

Forrest Galante 1:00:44 There's a few. Yeah, you'd be surprised 'cause, you know, we're here, we're in a city, we're so used to our modern conveniences, but there are totally untouched pieces of the world still.

Joe Rogan 1:00:53 Well, uh, do you know David Choe, the artist?

Forrest Galante 1:00:55 I don't.

Joe Rogan 1:00:56 He, um, he went to the Congo, I think it was the Congo, to look for a dinosaur.

Forrest Galante 1:01:00 No way.

Joe Rogan 1:01:01 It was a really early VICE piece-

Forrest Galante 1:01:04 Huh.

Joe Rogan 1:01:04 ... back when VICE was first starting out and D- David is one of the more eccentric people that I know. He's a multimillionaire, made a shitload of money gambling.

Forrest Galante 1:01:13 Huh.

Joe Rogan 1:01:13 And also he made a shitload of money because he ... Was it Facebook? Painted ... Yeah, he painted Facebook.

Forrest Galante 1:01:20 What does that mean?

Joe Rogan 1:01:20 He painted-

Forrest Galante 1:01:20 Like the wall?

Joe Rogan 1:01:21 Yeah, the inside. They hired him to paint, like, do these murals and they gave him stock.

Forrest Galante 1:01:27 Huh.

Joe Rogan 1:01:27 And that stock wound up being worth hundreds of millions of dollars and so-

Forrest Galante 1:01:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:30 ... now he's just this f-... freaky, t- super talented artist-

Forrest Galante 1:01:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:35 ... who is just doing weird shit.

Forrest Galante 1:01:37 Great.

Joe Rogan 1:01:37 And one of the things they did was like, "Hey, man, you wanna go look for a dinosaur?" He's like, "Fuck yeah, I'll go." (laughs)

Forrest Galante 1:01:40 Absolutely. Why wouldn't you, you know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:42 Yeah. But there's this video of him. I wanna say he was like 25 at the time, too. I think he was pretty young.

Forrest Galante 1:01:48 Super young.

Joe Rogan 1:01:48 Yeah, look at him there.

Forrest Galante 1:01:49 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:50 So he's in the jungle in search of a fucking dinosaur.

Forrest Galante 1:01:53 Huh.

Joe Rogan 1:01:53 Because ... And it was one of those things, where the, the locals were saying-

Forrest Galante 1:01:57 It's here.

Joe Rogan 1:01:57 ... "Hey, there's a, there's a dinosaur in the Congo."

Forrest Galante 1:01:59 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:02:00 Which doesn't totally make sense, but it ...

Forrest Galante 1:02:04 But-

Joe Rogan 1:02:04 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 1:02:04 ... but who knows, right?

Joe Rogan 1:02:06 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 1:02:06 Why not investigate it, kind of thing.

Joe Rogan 1:02:07 But w- I mean, how big of an area would there have to be for there to be a species that we are not aware of? Like, how big of an area?

Forrest Galante 1:02:16 Oh, I mean, you know, that's, that's a, it's a generic question 'cause we discover ... You'd have to look up the numbers, but it's like 2,000 new species a year, right?

Joe Rogan 1:02:23 But like little stuff?

Forrest Galante 1:02:24 But mostly little stuff. Uh, there's an animal discovered ... The, most recently, there's an animal called the saola. It's an animal that I'm actually working on later this year. And it is a, an antelope. Like, they call it the Asian unicorn 'cause for generations people have been talking about this Asian unicorn and Western world's like, "Yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever." And then finally somebody went down there into the Laotian mountains and, and was like, "Here's a skull and here's a skin." And they're like, "Holy shit, this is a real thing?"

Joe Rogan 1:02:50 Whoa.

Forrest Galante 1:02:51 And this is like in a po- not populated, but there's plenty of people living there. You know what I mean? This isn't like, this isn't like the middle of nowhere. This is where there's villages and tribes and people, and they're like, "Here's this animal. Here's a skin, here's a skull." And since then, I think one trail camera has f- the photo has ever surfaced. Like, nobody's ever successfully documented it because it's just this incredibly elusive animal. Like, whether it has super sensory organs, you know, hearing, sight, smell, whatever it is, or it's just super low density in population, I've ... Nobody really knows. But this animal, this, this huge, like, antelope has been around forever. People, little tribal people have been talking about it in like a mythological way, the same way they would talk about dinosaurs in the Congo. And the Western world's going, "Sure, buddy, whatever you say." And then somebody finally goes down there, does an expedition just like David did, and goes, "Oh, turns out it's here."

Joe Rogan 1:03:43 Wow.

Forrest Galante 1:03:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03:44 What is it about animals where we're so fascinated by the ones that might not be real or that might be hidden? Like, what, what is it about them? When we, we ... I mean, people love to study giraffes-

Forrest Galante 1:03:55 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:03:56 ... and things that are absolutely real.

Forrest Galante 1:03:57 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:03:57 But they also have a, um, even more compelling need to search for things that are not quite s- they're not quite sure if they exist or not.

Forrest Galante 1:04:08 I don't know, man. I think it's like, it's human nature to want to know more, right?

Joe Rogan 1:04:13 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 1:04:13 Like, we ... Of course, like, not everybody ... You see a giraffe, you're like, "It's real, I know it. Banked it." Right? Some people go to the extreme. They study every aspect of it. But as a general populous, I feel like once we know something's there, we wanna know what the next thing is.

Joe Rogan 1:04:26 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 1:04:26 Uh, I mean, we ... What do you think? Like what ... Why, why is it that we're so fascinated with it? I don't know the answer.

Joe Rogan 1:04:31 I think it's probably a side effect of our compulsion for innovation. Like p- human beings are constantly trying to find out new secrets-

Forrest Galante 1:04:40 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:04:40 ... and find out, uh, you know, like find out new discoveries and invent new things and find, explore new worlds.

Forrest Galante 1:04:47 Yep.

Joe Rogan 1:04:48 I mean, this is just something that's been a part of, of human nature forever, this desire to improve-

Forrest Galante 1:04:53 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:53 ... and to go further. Find the next best spot.

Forrest Galante 1:04:55 Sure.

Joe Rogan 1:04:55 Find the new thing, you know? And then I think that also works with animals. I think we have this desire to find animals that we didn't know were real or weren't sure were real.

Forrest Galante 1:05:04 Well, knowledge is the foundation of that, right? To, to go to a new planet, we have to have the knowledge of how to get there, right?

Joe Rogan 1:05:10 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 1:05:10 To go to a new habitat, we have to know what's there.

Joe Rogan 1:05:12 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 1:05:12 And I think maybe that's, that's kind of that deep-rooted desire, is like we need to know about this thing in order to, to understand if we can innovate off of it.

Joe Rogan 1:05:21 Yeah, maybe. Yeah, um, what did you think when they found that, um, Flores man on, in Indonesia?

Forrest Galante 1:05:28 It's amazing. Uh, like I'm not an anthropologist, so you know, that's not quite-

Joe Rogan 1:05:32 Has that been 100% ... Uh, is that 100% agreed upon? 'Cause I-

Forrest Galante 1:05:35 I've only seen kinda headlines. I, I'd-

Joe Rogan 1:05:37 Yeah.

Forrest Galante 1:05:37 ... have to defer