Peter Byrne’s Fortunate Life

The best part about journalism is talking to interesting people—people you might not ever have crossed paths with otherwise. One of the most fascinating interviews I did while researching for the first season of Wild Thing was with Peter Byrne. He, along with Cousin Grover, was considered one of the four horsemen of Sasquatchery—one of the pioneering Bigfoot researchers.

In 2018, I had the opportunity to sit down with Peter in his home in Pacific City, Oregon—here’s the interview I did with him. I was there to talk about Bigfoot, of course, but that ended up being the least interesting part of a full and fascinating life.

With that lilting Irish accent, it’s worth listening to the whole conversation but there was one story in particular that captured my attention. In 1944, during World War II, he was serving in the British Air Force on an island in the Indian Ocean. Two Japanese bombers flew overhead, strafing the a group of men on the beach, one of whom was Peter. He ended up with coral shrapnel in his wrist, which led to an infection, which led to sepsis, and his commanding officer finally sent him to the British hospital on another island.

“They put me to bed there and cleaned me up and my arm is turning green and yellow and blue and they said, ‘We have a new medicine. We're going to try it on you. It's called penicillin. We don't know if it works. We hope it does.’ I still have the arm. That was amazing. The timing—six months previous I would have had to have the arm taken off.”

He was barely 19 and he’d go on to have the kinds of adventures that most people only read about in books: big game hunting in India and Nepal, searching out the Yeti in the Himalaya, and, of course, looking for Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest, where he ultimately spent the rest of his life.

Although I try to keep up with the people I interview, I’m not always great about it. I’d last spoken with Peter about a year ago, in February 2023, when he called to say he’d gotten a copy of The Search For Sasquatch and requested another one for the local library. He sounded lively and engaged so I was sad to learn that he passed away about six months later. I feel lucky to do this kind of work and lucky that I get to talk to such interesting characters. Peter Byrne, it was a pleasure to have met you.