Nov. 9, 2025

Cryptids of the Continent: A Converstation w/Jason Offutt

Cryptids of the Continent: A Converstation w/Jason Offutt
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North America is crawling with cryptids—but how many are real, and how many live only in legend? In this episode of ParaTruth: Reborn, Justin sits down with Jason Offutt, author of Chasing North American Monsters, to explore tales of Bigfoot, Mothman, lake monsters, and more. From the forests to the deserts, we ask: what strange creatures might be lurking just out of sight—and why do these stories endure?

Guest Bio: Jason Offutt grew up on a farm near the little town of Orrick, Missouri. In his life he’s been a farm hand, journalist, photographer, bartender, and the mayor of that same small town. Jason now teaches journalism at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, and keeps the world safe from the forces of evil.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/paratruth-reborn--6273542/support.

Thanks for listening!

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Welcome Welco. Well do para Truth Truth?

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How's it going, Paratruthers. Welcome to a brand new episode

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of Paratruth Reborn. My name is Justin. As you can see,

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I'm running solo today, so so excited to be back

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with you all and to introduce our next guest for

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the show. Today, we are talking to Jason Offfed about

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his book Chasing North American Monsters. Jason grew up on

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a farm near the little town of Oric, Missouri. In

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his life, he's been a farm hand, journalist, photographer, bartender,

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and the mayor of that sane small town. Jason now

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chisch's journalism at Northwest Missouri State University and Maryville and

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keeps the world safe from the forces of evil. Jason,

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Welcome to Paratruthreeborn. How's it going man, Hey, it's going great.

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Thank you very much for having me on.

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Yeah, I mean I had your original book, Chasing American Monsters,

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and so now I was exciting to see that you

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have North American monsters. So what inspired you to do

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this book, the Chasing North American Monsters.

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Well, my publisher asked me.

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To Okay, there we go.

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That was basically you know, for for any writer out there,

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what a publisher asked you to write a book? That

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is awesome? Right?

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Yeah, Mostly it's pitching the other.

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Way exactly exactly being a.

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Self published author author, I've I've been there. So that's

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why I went the self published route because I write fiction,

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so it's sometimes even harder to get published.

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Oh and I I write fiction, uh as well, And

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it is it absolutely is.

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All right. So going into this book, what kind of

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research did you have to do for this or how

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did you gather the the legends and the stories.

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Well, I I looked into some of my favorite things

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to do or look into, uh media stories, uh, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines,

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things like that. Uh. And also to look into Native

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legends their stories. Jesus. This is one of the things

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about about Western science and and and Western you know,

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similist is all the indigenous peoples. We tend to ignore

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their their their stories, their legends, their their their mythology,

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their religion as as hokey you know this. Oh yeah,

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that's that's really that's really fun, that's really cute. But

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so so many times we find that, hey, wait a second,

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they were right. Why didn't we listen to them and Uh, yeah,

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so I I go to UH. I go to a

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lot of indigenous sources as well.

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Okay, now, which monster or cryptids story surprised you the

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most in this book?

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Oh, surprised? I don't know. I've been dealing with cryptids

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for a long time. I don't know if surprised is

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something that I can be anymore. Uh. One of the

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things that I found interesting is this had to do

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in UH A lot in the Caribbean and in UH

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Central America. A lot of monsters uh be it be

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it uh, you know, fay type creatures or or big

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foot type creatures have their their legs are backward, their

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their feet are backward, their knees are backward, and the

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the the legend is is that they can, you know,

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whenever they're walking through the forest and leaving footprints, uh,

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humans don't know whether they're coming or going because the

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footprints are backward from where they you know, where they

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normally should be. I I find that absolutely bizarre and

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hilarious at the same time.

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Yeah. That that's a different one. I don't think I've

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ever heard that information.

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Well, one is the the cismite, which is which is

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on a couple of Caribbean islands and is also uh

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in the Yucatan Peninsula. It's it's it's their their bigfoot,

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and it's from the knees. It's it's backward. So if

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their knees been backward and their their feet are on backward, which, yeah,

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I don't know where that came from. That's interesting to me.

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Now, I know you've probably had this question multiple times,

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but how much of this is just uh myth and

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legend like compared to uh, misidentification of a creature as well.

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I'm not gonna be able to give you a percentage

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of cases on this or you know, you know, a

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third of the book or anything like that. It's that

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there are quite a few that are are simply legend. There.

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There are some creation legends, Uh, there are some a

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lot of monster legends that are obviously parents didn't want

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their kids to stray too far from the house or

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from the fire or from the village because they might

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get you know, lost in the woods sort of thing,

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and these stories were to scare them enough to keep

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them home. Yeah, there were quite a few of those,

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but there are also a lot of of of stories. Actually,

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most of the stories are are people believe them. People

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are either seeing these creatures or know someone who has.

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Right well, and so I mean that kind of leads

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me to my next question. Bigfoot is one of the

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the cryptids that is probably one of the most popular

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throughout all cultures outside of the dragon as well. But

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there's so many different theories on what bigfoot is and

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you know what its capabilities are? What what is your

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take on bigfoot?

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But my take on Bigfoot is that I got a

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big take on foot. If there's any creature out there

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that is cryptozool zoological creature that's going to be found,

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I think it's gonna be Bigfoot. Uh. There's so much evidence,

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uh not not just uh you know, first hand encounters.

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I mean, I those fascinate me. But we all know

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what a witness is. A witness is somebody who tells

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you what they think they saw. Witness testimony is is

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not you know, it's not that great. But footprints with

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dermal ridges, I mean enormous footprints with dermal ridges. Nobody's

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gonna fake that. Uh. The uh skookum cast, oh my gosh,

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it had uh the tendon in in an ankle, and

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and the heel print and a butt print, and there's

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also uh, you know, DNA evidence. You know, people have

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found scat and hair and all this other fun stuff.

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I I am convinced that the amount of evidence physical

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evidence too for Bigfoot. If this was a murder trial,

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somebody would go to jail.

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Okay.

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So I I really really think that that that Bigfoot

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uh could be could be real. However, there's there's a

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lot of there's a lot of issues issues with Bigfoot.

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Back in back in the day, it was a flesh

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and blood creature. Absolutely, a North American ape unidentified. That's

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what it is, one hundred percent. Since one hasn't been captured,

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people have gone to other other hypotheses, like it's interdimensional

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or you know, it's it's it's spiritual or or or

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something along those lines, or it's it's a pet that

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got loose from a UFO whatever. I'm of the belief

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that I want it proven to not be flesh and

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blood before I'll go to one of these other explanations,

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because flesh and blood is the easiest one, you know,

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the the Okham's razors sort of thing. And I don't

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want to use interdimensional or spiritual because those things aren't

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proven either. I don't want to want to give unproven

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reasons to explain an unproven animal. And one of the

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reasons for the interdimensional or the spiritual is it vanishes

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in the forest. Okay, I don't know how many of

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these people have actually been in a forest. I've been

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in the woods a lot grow growing up. I grew

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up out out in the Boonies and I, you know,

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walking through the forest, nothing was around me, and all

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of a sudden, ten feet away, a white tailed deer

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would spring up and dash away. I mean they're not

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as big as a bigfoot, but still, well they're a

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large animal and they were ten feet away from me

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and I had no clue they were there. And if

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bigfoot is as intelligent as people think it is, I mean,

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hiding's got to be pretty easy. Yeah.

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Well, and especially with the hair, and if they are

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in a forest, they can be blending in with trees

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and you just can't tell.

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Oh, absolutely absolutely.

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Well that that is well a lot of people want

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to yeah, I want to say spiritual, or they can

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jump through portals. There are some people that believe that

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just normal animals that we know of can go through portals.

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And if there is a portal somewhere there. I mean,

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obviously humans could even walk through it if there's a

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portal there.

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But which right, And I'm not saying that that is

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not what's happening. What I'm saying is I want the

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simple answer proven firm before I'll take that step.

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Right, gotcha, I got you now. Something that I find

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fascinating about a lot of cryptids is there are quite

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a few that are specific to a place, like, for example,

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Mothman from Point Pleasant. Why do you think certain towns

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adopt these legends, or even states or regions.

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Well, it's Mathman is an interesting one. It got its

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name in the late nineteen sixties. It was witnessed a

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few times in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It was witnessed

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above the Silver Bridge before it collapsed. A newspaperman who

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liked the Adam West Batman show gave it the name

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Mothman because it sounded like a Batman villain. But John Keel,

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the great paranoral journalist from back in that day who

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wrote the Mockman Prophecies book, felt that there were probably

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His explanation for a lot of these encounters was there

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are window areas, areas where a veil is thin between worlds,

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and sometimes it's thin enough that somebody can step through,

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And that was kind of the thing that he used

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to explain Mothman in Point Pleasant. However, Mockman has been

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seeing other places other than Point Pleasant. There was a

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bridge collapse in Minneapolis, I don't know, fifteen years ago maybe,

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and people had claimed to see a Mothman type creature there.

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People claimed to see a Mockman type creature around Chernobyl

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before the before the meltdown happened. And Launce Strickler Fantoms

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and Monsters has done an absolutely wonderful job collecting all

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sorts of stories from the Chicago area over the past five, six, seven,

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eight years or more, about seventy eighty ninety moth Man

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encounters in in in that area. So I don't I

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don't think Mothman is one that's you know, contained any

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any one place, but but there are plenty that are

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you know, there are you know, several goat men stories,

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one also from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, uh you know,

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one from uh Fort Worth, Texas. And then they tend

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to uh those those encounters tend to be in about

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the same place. Where do these things go it during

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the day. I have no idea, but you I mean,

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they're they're they're localized. There could be a reason for that.

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A lot of times ghost stories are localized, you know

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it did It could be in any and any number

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of things.

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Right now, what do these legends really reveal about us

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as humans, not just about the creatures themselves. Is it's

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something where we're kind of over exaggerating the truth a

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little bit.

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Well, yeah, it very well could be. I mean they're,

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like I said, there are a lot of stories that

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are you know, little Jimmy, don't go out at night

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because the Boogeyman's gonna get you. You know, those sort

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of stories to keep kids safe. Those are all over

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the world, all over every culture's god got stories like

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that to protect the kids. But when it comes to

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these stories, and it's a lot like literature or films

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or whatever is in the zeitgeist, it's whenever the world

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is experiencing problems, we turn to ghosts. We turned to monsters.

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I mean, let's look at the great monster movies. When

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did they come out? You know, Frankenstein, Dracula in nineteen

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thirty one, King Kong nineteen thirty three, Invisible Man not

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that long after The Wolfman, and in nineteen forty it

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was altering the Great Depression, and during the during when

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World War two was starting in Europe, we had lots

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of problems, you know, in our country and on on

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the planet, and we needed something to distract us, something

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to blame blame things on. So let's let's go watch

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a monster movie during issues in you know, during the

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during the Civil War, the spiritualist movement was really big.

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You know, let's let's let's look at this instead of

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worrying about our problems that that has something to do

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with it. You mentioned, you know, are are we misidentifying things?

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I mean absolutely we can humans misidentified. I mean, how

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many times have you stayed have your has your audience

228
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stayed at somebody else's house. Maybe you're sleeping on the

229
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couch and you wake up in the middle of the

230
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night and you see a man, a dark shadow of

231
00:16:19.519 --> 00:16:23.960
a man, standing in the corner, and you're terrified, and

232
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when you wake up here you fall back asleep. But

233
00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:28.000
when you wake up the next morning, there's a coat

234
00:16:28.039 --> 00:16:32.600
on a coat rack. Right, you're right, yeah, that's uh.

235
00:16:32.720 --> 00:16:37.759
You know, misidentification is fairly easy However, taking a step

236
00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:40.960
back to Bigfoot, you know, one of the ex one

237
00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:43.600
of the explanations a lot of skeptics have is, you

238
00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:47.360
know it's a bear. Bears walk on their hind legs, right, Yeah.

239
00:16:47.480 --> 00:16:51.919
I don't think anybody who describes seeing a bigfoot has

240
00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:56.279
actually seen a bear. They they don't move the same

241
00:16:56.919 --> 00:16:57.720
at all.

242
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:05.160
Well, but I think something to take in to effect

243
00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:09.400
for that particular instance as well, is fear can play

244
00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:12.720
tricks on the mind. So what you're remembering is not

245
00:17:12.839 --> 00:17:15.400
exactly exactly what happened to.

246
00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:20.960
Right, going back to witness testimonies, not is not perfect

247
00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:26.640
in any stretch of the imagination, right, Right. But you know,

248
00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:32.440
if I'm if I'm talking to somebody, if I'm interviewing

249
00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:36.240
somebody about they were driving, you know, through the country

250
00:17:37.240 --> 00:17:42.519
and all of a sudden, this huge, dark, hairy shape

251
00:17:42.680 --> 00:17:49.200
walks in front of their car, what else would that be? Right?

252
00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:52.279
You know? I mean some eyewitness testimony I think is

253
00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:56.480
probably probably probably true. There's a lot of it. It's

254
00:17:56.519 --> 00:18:01.680
probably misidentification. I was just talking to some of my

255
00:18:01.759 --> 00:18:07.279
students today about paradolia. The fact that you know, the

256
00:18:07.359 --> 00:18:12.599
human brain is is designed to make patterns where there

257
00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:17.000
aren't any, and we see faces everywhere. Heck, in in

258
00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:21.200
my my great aunt's house when I was a kid,

259
00:18:21.799 --> 00:18:25.079
across from the toilet, if I can get there, across.

260
00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:30.279
From the toilet, the the the the wallpaper there was

261
00:18:30.759 --> 00:18:35.559
Richard Nixon's face was in the wallpaper and total paradolia.

262
00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:37.440
But you know what that was then looked like Richard

263
00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:38.000
Nixon to me.

264
00:18:39.720 --> 00:18:43.160
I mean, I've had it happen too. But I'm also

265
00:18:44.079 --> 00:18:47.319
a medium, so sometimes I see faces and they are

266
00:18:47.359 --> 00:18:50.799
probably they're just nobody else can get the right right.

267
00:18:52.640 --> 00:18:59.119
So pretty valid question here for you. How has investigating

268
00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:03.119
monsters changed the way that you see the natural world?

269
00:19:04.440 --> 00:19:07.279
Oh? It hasn't. It hasn't at all. I mean I've

270
00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:10.279
been I've been wrapped up in monsters ever since I

271
00:19:10.359 --> 00:19:14.680
was a very young young child. We had we had

272
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have TV. We had I went an independent TV channel

273
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out of Kansas City, Missouri. I grew up just east

274
00:19:19.960 --> 00:19:23.599
of there, and uh on Saturdays, man, the entire day

275
00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:27.119
was monster movies. And I'd watched that the whole day

276
00:19:27.880 --> 00:19:30.400
until my mom kicked my butt outside to go play.

277
00:19:30.440 --> 00:19:34.599
But other than that, I was watching monster movies. I

278
00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:37.599
grew up on in search of with with Leonard Nimoy

279
00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:42.160
talking about the Locknesk Monster and and Bigfoot. And I've

280
00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:48.599
absolutely been fascinated. But I've also thought, if they're real,

281
00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:53.039
you know, people see these, why aren't they real? Why

282
00:19:53.079 --> 00:19:56.759
can't they be real? Why shouldn't they be real? And

283
00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:01.079
I just have always thought that they are part of

284
00:20:01.119 --> 00:20:04.359
the natural world that we haven't you know, science hasn't

285
00:20:04.359 --> 00:20:05.839
discovered yet.

286
00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:15.039
Okay, now I ask you about Bigfoot. What are your

287
00:20:15.079 --> 00:20:20.160
take on the different lake or sea monsters that you

288
00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:28.960
hear about Lake Champlain here in the US, lackness Oga, Pogo,

289
00:20:29.079 --> 00:20:30.799
what are your What's your take on that?

290
00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:36.559
And it really really depends on the lake. In researching

291
00:20:36.599 --> 00:20:41.359
my first book, Chasing American Monsters, I found a few

292
00:20:41.559 --> 00:20:47.720
lake monsters that were located in man made lakes. I'm like, well,

293
00:20:47.759 --> 00:20:51.960
how the heck did that happen? Bet it didn't, I mean, why,

294
00:20:52.119 --> 00:20:54.400
why what are they trying to pull here? There's no

295
00:20:54.480 --> 00:20:56.759
way that there's a monster in that lake. You know,

296
00:20:56.960 --> 00:20:59.960
it was dammed up and made in nineteen thirty four. Okay,

297
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:05.559
there's no way there's a Pleaseia sore there. I I

298
00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:07.920
you know, I really don't know. There have been so

299
00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:11.319
many sightings Og Pogo. There have been a lot of

300
00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:15.960
sightings over the years, of course locked nests. Actually, I've

301
00:21:16.039 --> 00:21:20.960
I've proposed a class travel writing class at my university

302
00:21:22.119 --> 00:21:26.000
to go next summer over to the UK to look

303
00:21:26.039 --> 00:21:28.519
for monsters, and we're going to spend our last day

304
00:21:29.279 --> 00:21:32.160
before we fly home on locked nest looking for the monster.

305
00:21:32.920 --> 00:21:36.880
But I think some of these lakes are big enough

306
00:21:37.799 --> 00:21:42.039
that they can hold a creature that's large enough to

307
00:21:42.079 --> 00:21:49.279
be called a monster. Because when you have sea life

308
00:21:49.640 --> 00:21:54.799
or any anything in the water, whatever it is kept in.

309
00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:59.720
You can have goldfish in a pole in your house

310
00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:04.160
and they're going to remain three inches long, right the

311
00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:08.559
size you dump them. In a lake, these things are

312
00:22:08.599 --> 00:22:13.480
going to grow to be like twenty pounds enormous. Lock

313
00:22:13.599 --> 00:22:20.680
Ness is huge, Lake Champlain is huge, where Ogo Pogo

314
00:22:20.839 --> 00:22:26.079
is is also big. There could be something large there.

315
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:30.599
The only thing I have against any of these lake

316
00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:36.200
monsters is they've been seen for so long. Lockness especially,

317
00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:40.079
I think the first sighting was in like seven hundred

318
00:22:40.480 --> 00:22:45.359
or AD. So it's it's it's there. There's got to

319
00:22:45.359 --> 00:22:49.359
be a breeding population. You're not gonna have a two

320
00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:52.799
thousand year old monster or a fifteen hundred year old monster. Whatever,

321
00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:56.839
it's got to have a breeding population, and there haven't

322
00:22:56.839 --> 00:23:00.920
been enough sightings for a breeding population. Now when it

323
00:23:00.920 --> 00:23:05.000
comes to the ocean, that's a completely different story, right

324
00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:10.440
because we have with satellites mapped ninety five percent of

325
00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:16.480
the ocean floor, but we have also also ninety five

326
00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:21.079
percent of our oceans are unexplored. We honestly have no

327
00:23:21.119 --> 00:23:24.440
clue what's down there. We know a lot of things,

328
00:23:25.319 --> 00:23:30.599
but we discover science discovers about eighteen thousand new species

329
00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:35.000
a year. A lot of them are you know, insects,

330
00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:39.680
little lizards, but a whole bunch of them are sea

331
00:23:39.759 --> 00:23:44.200
life because we just again we don't know what's down there,

332
00:23:44.519 --> 00:23:48.799
and we keep finding things. Could there be a plesiosaur

333
00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:52.279
in the Pacific Ocean somewhere? I yeah, I think there

334
00:23:52.279 --> 00:23:57.759
probably could be. One that comes to mind is the Cadbursaurus.

335
00:23:58.680 --> 00:24:07.480
It is along the northern Pacific coast northern California, about Oregon, Washington, Alaska,

336
00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:13.160
and British Columbia. These things it's a like thirty forty

337
00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:21.000
fifty foot long snake like monster that or sea creature

338
00:24:21.160 --> 00:24:24.519
that it has been seen for hundreds of years, there

339
00:24:24.519 --> 00:24:29.440
are Native American petroglyphs in Washington of this creature, along

340
00:24:29.559 --> 00:24:35.359
with creatures we actually know about, and we actually have

341
00:24:35.400 --> 00:24:38.240
a picture of it. There was one pulled from the

342
00:24:38.279 --> 00:24:42.200
belly of a sperm whale, like back in the twenties

343
00:24:42.279 --> 00:24:45.759
or thirties, and a photo was taking taken of it.

344
00:24:46.119 --> 00:24:51.240
Although it has never been categorized as an actual, actual

345
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:54.599
living creature, that would very well well could be discovered

346
00:24:54.640 --> 00:25:00.960
at some point, right, I said, canbersaurus not cad Barry

347
00:25:01.039 --> 00:25:04.839
sores that for It's not you know, Charles.

348
00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:07.240
They were not close to the Easter yet, so right,

349
00:25:07.400 --> 00:25:15.480
right now, how do you separate genuine eyewitness accounts from

350
00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:17.480
just tall tales or even hoaxes.

351
00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:25.400
Oh, you know, hoaxes make me extremely angry. I mean

352
00:25:25.519 --> 00:25:28.799
I remember, God, I don't know how many years ago

353
00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:34.880
this was, but Thomastardi said in Georgia he found a

354
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:38.240
man who killed a bigfoot, and I saw this on

355
00:25:38.319 --> 00:25:41.319
the news. I got so excited. Yeah, I don't want

356
00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:43.400
a big foot shot, but you know what, that's gonna

357
00:25:43.400 --> 00:25:45.559
be the only way we're gonna, you know, determine that

358
00:25:45.559 --> 00:25:51.720
there they exist. And when they he finally released released

359
00:25:51.759 --> 00:25:54.920
a photo of a big Foot in the freezer. It

360
00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.359
was like an orangutan costume filled with with hogg intestines,

361
00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:04.559
you know, I mean that completely ruined everything. No, for

362
00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:06.920
all the other Bigfoot bigfooters out there.

363
00:26:06.920 --> 00:26:11.519
I remember that one. Yeah, I remember watching it multiple times,

364
00:26:11.640 --> 00:26:14.799
and I mean, of course I was. I was super

365
00:26:14.799 --> 00:26:17.640
skeptical about it. But at the same time, I'm reaching

366
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:22.039
out to my co host, who wasn't here today because

367
00:26:22.039 --> 00:26:26.000
he's a cinematographer, so he has a very analytical eye

368
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:30.559
on how to pick up fake So I asked him,

369
00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:34.640
and he didn't think it was real either, So I know.

370
00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:42.240
I mean, it doesn't just ruin things for cryptozoology, I

371
00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:45.759
mean everything in the paranormal it cast cast a shadow

372
00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:48.960
on right and and that's so so when it comes

373
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:51.920
to hoax, I mean his hoax is it's extremely frustrating.

374
00:26:54.759 --> 00:26:59.400
I anything that I think might be a hoax I

375
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:03.359
have not covered in in any of my books. Okay, okay,

376
00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:07.319
I stay as far away from those as I possibly can.

377
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:13.839
I stick with people who claim to have really seen

378
00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:18.079
them and and and seem to have been vetted by

379
00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:21.839
by at least the news media or or UH academics

380
00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:26.160
in in some cases I'm just trying to stay as

381
00:27:26.279 --> 00:27:30.160
as truthful as I possibly can. My my background is

382
00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:33.799
in journalism, so truth baby.

383
00:27:34.319 --> 00:27:40.319
Yeah, well, and that I mean that really mm hm.

384
00:27:41.960 --> 00:27:46.440
Any type of hopes, whether it's cryptid or even people

385
00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:49.400
hoaxing that their house is haunteds I have heard of

386
00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:56.640
that happening before. You know, we're us, meaning paranormal investigators

387
00:27:57.119 --> 00:28:01.200
or podcasters are trying to reach the true truth. And

388
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:07.640
that puts so much obscurity and cynicism on the paranormal

389
00:28:07.839 --> 00:28:11.200
when we're trying to make this like a very science,

390
00:28:11.960 --> 00:28:15.440
a science, and that just pushes us back so much.

391
00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:20.240
It really does. I mean, it's I mean the eye

392
00:28:20.279 --> 00:28:24.880
of the public. It just it discredits everyone. I I

393
00:28:25.039 --> 00:28:29.400
just when it comes to hoaxes, I'm really big into UFO's.

394
00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:31.200
Man.

395
00:28:31.240 --> 00:28:34.079
When balloon Boy came out, do you remember balloon Boy?

396
00:28:34.880 --> 00:28:38.160
Balloon Boy? I remember the I remember the bat Boy.

397
00:28:38.160 --> 00:28:39.000
I don't remember.

398
00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:43.160
Balloon well, bat Boy of some of the weekly world news,

399
00:28:43.240 --> 00:28:46.319
and I mean it would obviously, and they're still they're

400
00:28:46.359 --> 00:28:49.720
still telling bat Boys stories which are hilarious, but no

401
00:28:49.880 --> 00:28:50.480
balloon Boy.

402
00:28:50.480 --> 00:28:56.079
It was I believe. In Colorado, a dad claimed that

403
00:28:56.119 --> 00:29:01.599
his young son had been kidnapped by by a uf okay,

404
00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:05.519
and he had a picture of the UFO And when

405
00:29:05.519 --> 00:29:07.799
it came down to it and the investigation, you know,

406
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:12.279
to find this boy happened. Uh What they discovered was

407
00:29:12.319 --> 00:29:20.599
a UFO balloon was flying, you know, flying over Colorado

408
00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:24.480
and the young boy was found hiding in a closet upstairs.

409
00:29:25.240 --> 00:29:28.440
It was a complete hoax, but it grabbed media attention

410
00:29:28.680 --> 00:29:32.519
for for you know, a couple of days. Right. It's

411
00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:36.240
it's just it's embarrassing when when people do that.

412
00:29:36.920 --> 00:29:45.559
Yeah, what what obscure cryptid? Do you think deserves more attention?

413
00:29:47.960 --> 00:29:51.480
Oh? More attention. I'll tell you one that deserves less attention?

414
00:29:51.599 --> 00:29:56.160
Which is chupacabra. I've come I've come to the conclusion

415
00:29:56.200 --> 00:30:06.880
that that's absolutely uh bo. But which one? Wow, that's

416
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:11.960
a great question. Well one, I don't know if I'm

417
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:14.519
gonna call this. I guess I'll have to call it.

418
00:30:14.599 --> 00:30:22.880
Encryptid is giant catfish? There are catfish in Italy or

419
00:30:22.920 --> 00:30:24.599
is it Spain? I think it might be. No, it's

420
00:30:24.599 --> 00:30:27.640
Spain and in Southeast Asia that grew up to six

421
00:30:27.720 --> 00:30:35.920
seven hundred pounds. They're huge. But people for years have

422
00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:40.480
claimed that in the United States that in some big

423
00:30:40.559 --> 00:30:45.000
lakes there are catfish that big at the bottom of

424
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:51.559
the lakes. And Mark Twain, in his you know, autobiogra

425
00:30:51.759 --> 00:30:54.000
is it was a memoir. I don't know if it was.

426
00:30:54.920 --> 00:30:58.279
If he's written, if he wrote any more memoirs, it

427
00:30:58.359 --> 00:31:01.240
might be his complete autobiography. But life on the Mississippi

428
00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:03.799
is what it was called. He wrote of a river

429
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:09.400
devil that the local Native Americans would talk about, and

430
00:31:09.640 --> 00:31:11.759
it was a giant catfish that would come up out

431
00:31:11.759 --> 00:31:14.640
of the river and turn boats over and do all

432
00:31:14.680 --> 00:31:15.839
sorts of havoc.

433
00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:17.960
There.

434
00:31:18.200 --> 00:31:25.119
He interviewed a conservation agent in southern Missouri. There's a lake,

435
00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:30.759
one of the lake and the lakes in the Lake

436
00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:36.079
of the Ozarks down there has a they caught one

437
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:40.680
hundred and eighty pound catfish that is on display, and

438
00:31:40.759 --> 00:31:45.799
that catfish has a bite mark on its back that

439
00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:51.559
dwarfs any mouth from any fish that we know of.

440
00:31:53.400 --> 00:31:56.559
So it kind of looks like there are giant catfish

441
00:31:56.799 --> 00:32:00.279
in our lakes, which makes me kind of on a

442
00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:04.119
you know, skittish to go water skiing.

443
00:32:04.720 --> 00:32:07.519
Oh, I mean, I think the same thing has happened

444
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:12.039
to uh, at least one whale that I know of

445
00:32:12.319 --> 00:32:16.519
in the ocean where they found a huge bite taken

446
00:32:16.599 --> 00:32:20.119
out of a whale that could have only been done

447
00:32:20.200 --> 00:32:22.119
by the shark the size of a meglodon.

448
00:32:22.720 --> 00:32:27.680
Right, yeah, yeah, And well and there was a oh,

449
00:32:27.720 --> 00:32:31.279
there was a like a twelve foot great white a

450
00:32:31.359 --> 00:32:34.960
number of years ago that had was like bitten in half.

451
00:32:36.279 --> 00:32:39.160
And you know, pretty it was not entirely but close

452
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:42.599
to being bitten in half. And and that was the

453
00:32:42.599 --> 00:32:46.200
the bite size was was was of a megalodon. And

454
00:32:46.200 --> 00:32:49.000
and you know, talking about megalodons, are are they there?

455
00:32:49.160 --> 00:32:52.079
You know again, our oceans are enormous and we don't

456
00:32:52.079 --> 00:32:53.160
know what's down there.

457
00:32:53.880 --> 00:32:54.559
There is.

458
00:32:56.400 --> 00:33:00.640
A shark that was seen in uh, the Gulf of Cortes.

459
00:33:00.680 --> 00:33:03.759
It's been seen a number of times over the decades

460
00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:08.720
upon decades. That sounds like a megaladon. And the Golf

461
00:33:08.720 --> 00:33:11.880
of Cortes is between Baja California and Mexico.

462
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:18.440
Okay, would the would the depth be that or deep

463
00:33:18.559 --> 00:33:20.720
enough for something like that to live there?

464
00:33:22.359 --> 00:33:25.839
Uh, the ocean's pretty darn big. Well, it doesn't mean

465
00:33:25.880 --> 00:33:27.240
it doesn't have to stay there.

466
00:33:27.839 --> 00:33:30.240
That's true too. Yeah.

467
00:33:31.079 --> 00:33:34.839
It's like say, my wife and I took our kids

468
00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:39.119
to to the Gulf Golf Coast down in Mississippi. Uh

469
00:33:39.359 --> 00:33:41.279
to you know, go to the beach and hang out.

470
00:33:41.359 --> 00:33:43.920
None of the kids has ever been before. And my

471
00:33:44.079 --> 00:33:47.640
my wife, my wife, uh and and the older two

472
00:33:48.039 --> 00:33:51.559
were out in, you know, swimming and they were out

473
00:33:51.599 --> 00:33:53.319
there a little bit too far and I yelled at

474
00:33:53.359 --> 00:33:57.759
I'm like, come back, there might be sharks. My wife said,

475
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:01.519
there's no sharks here, And twenty minutes later, a guy

476
00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:05.559
surf fishing down, you know, just down the beach reels

477
00:34:05.559 --> 00:34:09.320
in a shark like, yeah, of course it's connected to

478
00:34:09.360 --> 00:34:13.440
the ocean. There's sharks out here, so yeah, any I

479
00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:16.320
mean the ocean, anything can be out there. One one

480
00:34:16.360 --> 00:34:20.400
of the stories that absolutely fascinates we has to do

481
00:34:20.440 --> 00:34:30.559
with the late Norwegian anthropologist Thor Hirer Doll, who in

482
00:34:30.599 --> 00:34:32.840
the early fifties, I think it was, it might have

483
00:34:32.880 --> 00:34:37.079
been the late forties or early fifties. He had a

484
00:34:37.199 --> 00:34:41.760
hypothesis that the islands in the South Pacific were populated

485
00:34:41.800 --> 00:34:47.199
by people from Peru because there were some words that

486
00:34:47.239 --> 00:34:51.440
were the same in their language, there were some architecture

487
00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:56.960
was similar. They had some plants that were native to

488
00:34:57.679 --> 00:35:02.400
South America to Peru that were out out in the islands,

489
00:35:03.840 --> 00:35:06.800
and people, you know, his colleagues said, no, that can't

490
00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:11.559
be because they only had these balsal wood rafts. They

491
00:35:11.800 --> 00:35:16.000
didn't have the technology to sail four or five thousand miles.

492
00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:20.320
So to prove his hypothesis, he and a few other

493
00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:25.280
Norwegian scientists built a big balsal wood raft just like

494
00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:29.519
the ancient Peruvians did, and they set sail and they

495
00:35:29.559 --> 00:35:32.800
actually they made it all the way out there, a

496
00:35:32.840 --> 00:35:36.880
few thousand miles, but on the way it was it

497
00:35:36.920 --> 00:35:40.199
wasn't in any shipping lanes. They were in the middle

498
00:35:40.239 --> 00:35:47.039
of nowhere. And Hiredahl wrote in his book Kontiki that

499
00:35:48.320 --> 00:35:51.679
there were lights under the water that followed the boat,

500
00:35:53.519 --> 00:35:57.199
and there were also at night lights would come. And

501
00:35:57.280 --> 00:36:01.400
also at nights there would be like volleyball sized or

502
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:06.199
soccer ball sized lumps that would appear beside the boat,

503
00:36:06.280 --> 00:36:09.880
and they were eyes that were staring at the boat.

504
00:36:10.920 --> 00:36:14.599
And he had no idea what those are. Honestly, I

505
00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:19.199
don't know what they are. I interviewed a marine biologist

506
00:36:19.239 --> 00:36:21.599
about this thing, and he didn't know what they were either.

507
00:36:23.079 --> 00:36:27.199
So again, ocean big stuff, we don't know.

508
00:36:32.880 --> 00:36:39.039
Now, have you found any new monsters that most people

509
00:36:39.079 --> 00:36:40.639
haven't heard about yet.

510
00:36:41.559 --> 00:36:44.320
Well, I found old monsters that people haven't heard about.

511
00:36:45.320 --> 00:36:47.559
I don't know so much about about new ones, but

512
00:36:48.960 --> 00:36:56.039
most monsters are pretty old. One of the things that

513
00:36:56.159 --> 00:36:58.920
I did find and I wrote about in this book.

514
00:36:58.960 --> 00:37:01.440
Let's if we can go back to bigfoot for a second,

515
00:37:02.119 --> 00:37:08.280
would you mind? Okay? I with my first book, Chasing

516
00:37:08.280 --> 00:37:12.239
American Monsters, and with this Chasing North American Monsters, and

517
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:17.159
I will add onto this my book coming out next September,

518
00:37:17.239 --> 00:37:24.280
Chasing the World's Monsters Fingers Crossed, Volume one. There are

519
00:37:25.960 --> 00:37:31.280
cases of three toad bigfoot. Okay, I can I can

520
00:37:31.400 --> 00:37:36.519
understand a five toad bigfoot mammle five toes ape like

521
00:37:36.639 --> 00:37:41.320
five toes. Sure, I get that. But let's start in Louisiana.

522
00:37:41.440 --> 00:37:45.400
The Honey Island Swamp Monster was a bigfoot that was

523
00:37:45.480 --> 00:37:49.800
seen a number of times back in the sixties and seventies.

524
00:37:50.559 --> 00:37:54.599
It left three toed footprints. Let's go just north to

525
00:37:54.800 --> 00:38:02.920
Arkansas to the folk monster, which the movie Oh the

526
00:38:03.760 --> 00:38:08.159
Legend of Boggie Creek was made after it left three

527
00:38:08.159 --> 00:38:13.000
toad big it's three toad footprints. Let's go upward to Missouri,

528
00:38:13.159 --> 00:38:17.559
the next state. Up Momo, the monster from the Bigfoot

529
00:38:17.559 --> 00:38:21.000
from Louisiana, Missouri, which is also on the Mississippi River.

530
00:38:21.480 --> 00:38:25.599
All of these followed the Mississippi River. Momo left three

531
00:38:25.639 --> 00:38:29.480
toad footprints. There were three toad footprints left in Iowa.

532
00:38:29.559 --> 00:38:35.199
There were three toad footprints left in Minnesota. So all

533
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:44.159
down the Mississippi corridor were three toed footprints of a bigfoot,

534
00:38:46.119 --> 00:38:51.840
which I mean, I you know, animals migrate, they tend

535
00:38:51.880 --> 00:38:55.360
to follow waterways, so I kind of get that, But

536
00:38:56.559 --> 00:38:59.079
what animals have three toed footprints? And there they're not

537
00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:04.920
just toes toes. There were claws up in Canada, and

538
00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:09.760
let's go down to the Yucatan and then down farther

539
00:39:09.800 --> 00:39:14.800
in South America and into the Amazon, there are stories

540
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:22.159
of giant, hairy bipedal sometimes other times there are on

541
00:39:22.199 --> 00:39:29.360
all fours creatures that have three toes, three claws, and

542
00:39:29.639 --> 00:39:35.320
when people some natives in Canada who reported seeing this

543
00:39:35.320 --> 00:39:40.719
thing in nineteen eighty five. More recently in the Amazon,

544
00:39:40.920 --> 00:39:45.360
some natives reported seeing one of these. They look like

545
00:39:46.559 --> 00:39:51.360
the giant ground sloth which inhabited North and South America

546
00:39:51.519 --> 00:39:58.119
during the Pleistocene. Could they still be around? I'm I'm

547
00:39:58.159 --> 00:40:01.840
I'm a proponent of there's a possibility that there are

548
00:40:01.880 --> 00:40:05.360
some animals from the Pleistocene era from from you know,

549
00:40:05.480 --> 00:40:10.599
back in the well, yeah, back in the Ice age

550
00:40:10.679 --> 00:40:14.639
that might still be living. Because there are so many

551
00:40:14.760 --> 00:40:18.199
places in in in the world. But let's look at

552
00:40:18.199 --> 00:40:27.079
North America that are uninhabited, like the United States is uninhabited. Sure,

553
00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:30.320
a lot of those places people will go into to

554
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:34.760
go to parks, drive through a desert to go you know,

555
00:40:34.920 --> 00:40:38.440
to go from uh, you know, Vegas to La or whatever.

556
00:40:38.760 --> 00:40:43.000
But there are so many places with forests and mountains, deserts,

557
00:40:43.079 --> 00:40:48.000
whatnot that are uninhabited. Let's look at Canada, Let's look

558
00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:52.639
at Mexico, look at the Amazon for gosh sakes, there

559
00:40:52.639 --> 00:40:55.239
are places to where to where these creatures can actually

560
00:40:55.280 --> 00:40:58.480
still be alive. So are they kryptons or are they

561
00:40:58.960 --> 00:41:04.440
you know, extant creatures. I don't know. I'd like to find.

562
00:41:04.199 --> 00:41:09.840
Out, right, like the thylacine or yeah, exactly right, I

563
00:41:09.960 --> 00:41:12.800
got the thunderbird very well, could be uh, you know,

564
00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:20.320
an extant territory right right now, How do American cryptos

565
00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:26.119
stories compared to those of the rest of the world, You.

566
00:41:26.079 --> 00:41:32.280
Know, it's it's really really funny going through the entire world.

567
00:41:33.400 --> 00:41:39.239
They're so similar. Yeah, they're so similar Bigfoot. There are

568
00:41:39.280 --> 00:41:43.840
bigfoot stories from every continent, not counting Antarctica, but there

569
00:41:43.840 --> 00:41:47.239
there are bigfoot stories. Uh, and and not just from

570
00:41:47.239 --> 00:41:50.880
the continents. There are bigfoot stories from Sri Lanka. There

571
00:41:50.880 --> 00:41:55.400
are bigfoot stories from from New Zealand. All right, these

572
00:41:55.400 --> 00:41:57.760
are islands, you know, you know this is out down

573
00:41:57.840 --> 00:41:59.679
out and you know, on the ocean, and there are

574
00:41:59.719 --> 00:42:05.480
big stories. There are also little people's stories from all

575
00:42:05.519 --> 00:42:09.079
over the planet. And then the fun thing about those

576
00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.119
is they all act the same. You know, if we're

577
00:42:14.159 --> 00:42:18.440
talking about puck wadgies, if we're talking about elves, gnomes,

578
00:42:18.599 --> 00:42:19.519
tom T's.

579
00:42:20.679 --> 00:42:29.719
Kobols, hobgoblins, trolls, you know, whatever we're talking about from

580
00:42:29.880 --> 00:42:36.360
North or South America, Central America, Africa, Australia has every

581
00:42:36.639 --> 00:42:39.960
continent has these stories of.

582
00:42:39.920 --> 00:42:43.679
Diminutive people between two and three feet tall. Sometimes they

583
00:42:43.679 --> 00:42:50.039
steal babies, sometimes they leave sickly babies, you know, after

584
00:42:50.079 --> 00:42:54.199
they stole the healthy one. They generally have big noses

585
00:42:54.239 --> 00:42:58.719
and big ears. They dress like the natives. They have

586
00:42:59.199 --> 00:43:02.800
bows and arrow is there either magical or poisonous. They

587
00:43:02.800 --> 00:43:08.599
can turn invisible, they can start fires. They will help people.

588
00:43:09.480 --> 00:43:15.679
If people are treating nature right, they will. If people

589
00:43:15.719 --> 00:43:19.239
are treating nature poorly, they tend to lure them out

590
00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:23.440
in the middle of nowhere and drop them off a cliff.

591
00:43:24.920 --> 00:43:31.280
And these stories are worldwide. One of the things that

592
00:43:31.960 --> 00:43:37.440
it's absolutely fascinating was in the early two thousands, well,

593
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:41.639
the Indonesian island of flour Is, there was a story

594
00:43:41.639 --> 00:43:45.480
about the Ebu go Go and that is translated to

595
00:43:45.519 --> 00:43:50.239
mean grandmother who eats everything. The story from the locals

596
00:43:50.480 --> 00:43:54.760
was these two to three foot tall humans with big

597
00:43:54.800 --> 00:44:00.519
ears and big noses would come into the camps, steal

598
00:44:00.599 --> 00:44:05.280
babies and run away, and they figured they ate them.

599
00:44:06.239 --> 00:44:09.599
And you know, Western science was like, oh yeah, this

600
00:44:09.719 --> 00:44:13.960
is as a cute story until in the early two

601
00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:18.320
thousands they discovered a cave with fully grown humans that

602
00:44:18.320 --> 00:44:19.559
were two to three feet tall.

603
00:44:20.559 --> 00:44:20.880
Wow.

604
00:44:21.320 --> 00:44:25.039
They were even called homoflorensis they have in their own

605
00:44:26.360 --> 00:44:30.760
category of humanity, whether they're a branch of humanity. They

606
00:44:30.840 --> 00:44:33.199
nicknamed them the Hobbits because the Lord of the Rings

607
00:44:33.239 --> 00:44:39.400
had just come out. But it's it's proof that the

608
00:44:39.480 --> 00:44:43.440
local stories were right about these little people.

609
00:44:49.079 --> 00:44:54.719
Do you think modern technology like trail cams, drones, DNA

610
00:44:55.239 --> 00:44:59.960
analysis will eventually prove or disprove these creatures.

611
00:45:00.039 --> 00:45:04.440
Yes, I mean, I hope so. I hope so. I

612
00:45:04.519 --> 00:45:08.079
would prefer to be something like that, other than somebody

613
00:45:08.119 --> 00:45:11.440
shooting one of these animals. I don't want. I mean,

614
00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:17.599
I understand that probably if we're going to prove one

615
00:45:17.639 --> 00:45:20.719
of these animals exists, somebody's gonna have to shoot and

616
00:45:20.800 --> 00:45:25.480
kill one or run one down with the truck. But

617
00:45:25.639 --> 00:45:31.400
I would hope that, uh, through a trail cam, although

618
00:45:31.440 --> 00:45:34.760
it seems like Bigfoot's too smart for trail cams or

619
00:45:34.800 --> 00:45:39.320
a drone or or DNA that that one is going

620
00:45:39.360 --> 00:45:43.679
to be found. The thing about DNA though, when it

621
00:45:43.679 --> 00:45:46.239
comes to Bigfoot man, we've been talking about that Harry

622
00:45:46.280 --> 00:45:49.760
guy for a long time. When it comes to to

623
00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:55.960
to the to the DNA, there was DNA found and

624
00:45:56.760 --> 00:46:01.519
analyzed in the United States and it was determined to

625
00:46:01.519 --> 00:46:06.920
be human, but with some anomalies. There was some supposed

626
00:46:06.960 --> 00:46:11.079
bigfoot DNA found in Alberta, Canada, and when it was

627
00:46:11.199 --> 00:46:14.960
analyzed it was found to be human with some anomalies.

628
00:46:15.920 --> 00:46:16.840
There was.

629
00:46:18.440 --> 00:46:20.440
I don't know if you're familiar with the case of

630
00:46:20.519 --> 00:46:26.400
the Alma named Zana in Russia. It was a bit

631
00:46:26.719 --> 00:46:32.280
female bigfoot that was captured in this village and she

632
00:46:32.519 --> 00:46:37.119
was kept for slave labor. And for some reason the

633
00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:39.679
guys in the village must have been really lonely, because

634
00:46:39.719 --> 00:46:42.480
a lot of them had sex with her, and she

635
00:46:42.639 --> 00:46:48.159
produced a few children, and one of her children, a

636
00:46:48.199 --> 00:46:55.199
British scientist, had his bones exhumed and DNA analysis done

637
00:46:55.360 --> 00:46:59.320
on him and he was found to be human with

638
00:46:59.400 --> 00:47:05.519
some Well, I'm going to run this you know by

639
00:47:05.559 --> 00:47:09.880
you that a lot of native populations around the world

640
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:15.079
consider these large hairy people to be large hairy people

641
00:47:16.119 --> 00:47:21.480
and not animals. They view them as people. So maybe

642
00:47:21.559 --> 00:47:26.719
the DNA analysis isn't showing that the DNA is wrong.

643
00:47:27.599 --> 00:47:31.519
Maybe they are actually people and it's the little bit

644
00:47:31.599 --> 00:47:35.000
of a DNA anomalies that make them what they are.

645
00:47:35.960 --> 00:47:39.039
They you know, they might be us that we don't

646
00:47:39.079 --> 00:47:40.719
invite over for a family dinner.

647
00:47:42.119 --> 00:47:47.000
Yeah. Our friend kat Ward her show's Paranormal Heart, and

648
00:47:48.159 --> 00:47:50.599
she had a guest on he was he was a

649
00:47:50.679 --> 00:47:55.119
Native American. I think it was originally from Canada but

650
00:47:55.360 --> 00:47:58.079
came to the US and is working here. But mentioned

651
00:47:58.239 --> 00:48:06.159
that cryptids are not these creatures that can just like disappear, reappear, whatever.

652
00:48:06.320 --> 00:48:11.119
That there was a tribe that went didn't want anything

653
00:48:11.159 --> 00:48:13.360
to do with technology and all, and went back to

654
00:48:13.480 --> 00:48:18.760
the woods and ended up becoming essentially wild men. Yeah,

655
00:48:18.840 --> 00:48:23.480
so I've heard that theory and it's it's fascinating enough.

656
00:48:23.639 --> 00:48:29.719
And I don't know if you ever saw this History

657
00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:33.639
Channel special of it was a what if Mermaids were real?

658
00:48:33.920 --> 00:48:39.440
But it basically said, you know, there were these hominids

659
00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:42.239
that didn't want to live on land, they wanted to

660
00:48:42.840 --> 00:48:46.960
live in the water, and eventually their legs became tails,

661
00:48:47.199 --> 00:48:51.000
and you know, hair was gone to be replaced by

662
00:48:51.559 --> 00:48:57.639
scaly skin. Who's to say the evolution didn't eventually work

663
00:48:57.760 --> 00:48:58.079
like that.

664
00:48:58.760 --> 00:49:02.440
I mean, we came from the anyway, according to science,

665
00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:05.400
there there was something and I don't know enough about

666
00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:09.519
this to talk about it intelligently, but I do remember

667
00:49:09.599 --> 00:49:13.800
reading something about the wet ape hypothesis, which is that

668
00:49:13.880 --> 00:49:19.280
humans lived in the water for a while and and uh, yeah,

669
00:49:19.320 --> 00:49:20.880
who knows what would happen to us?

670
00:49:20.920 --> 00:49:21.079
Then?

671
00:49:21.760 --> 00:49:24.480
Revolution is amazing, Yeah.

672
00:49:24.239 --> 00:49:27.800
Yeah, amazing and scary all at the same time at

673
00:49:27.800 --> 00:49:32.679
the same time. How was the Internet changed? Being a

674
00:49:32.719 --> 00:49:39.079
cryptid hunter has it kind of made things easier or worse.

675
00:49:40.360 --> 00:49:45.199
Both both. I mean it's it's made things easier because

676
00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:52.039
instead of physically going to every newspaper or magazine and

677
00:49:52.079 --> 00:49:55.440
looking through you know, their microfish and going to go

678
00:49:55.440 --> 00:49:59.920
in the libraries and looking through microfilm, uh, it's all online.

679
00:50:01.079 --> 00:50:03.360
So when I go to look, you know, look for

680
00:50:03.360 --> 00:50:07.599
for newspaper or magazine reports, I can find it in

681
00:50:07.679 --> 00:50:15.119
my pajamas, which is awesome, but it's it's also I

682
00:50:15.159 --> 00:50:19.639
think it keeps a lot of people out of the woods. Honestly,

683
00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:22.800
I don't really feel like going out in the woods

684
00:50:22.800 --> 00:50:24.960
a lot. I spend a lot of time there as

685
00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:30.079
a kid, and it's cold and lonely, so I don't

686
00:50:30.320 --> 00:50:33.199
I don't actually really want to encounter a bigfoot. I

687
00:50:33.280 --> 00:50:36.159
just want to write about it. So something that I've

688
00:50:36.199 --> 00:50:40.320
I've said a lot about all sorts of paranormal entities is, uh,

689
00:50:42.320 --> 00:50:45.800
they're fun as long as as they somebody else encounters them.

690
00:50:47.760 --> 00:50:55.079
Right. So you've never had an encounter yourself or have

691
00:50:55.159 --> 00:50:56.440
you not?

692
00:50:56.639 --> 00:51:01.320
With a cryptid? I've I've had a few ghost encounters,

693
00:51:01.360 --> 00:51:06.599
but cryptids no, okay, And again I'm okay with that. Yeah,

694
00:51:06.960 --> 00:51:09.480
let's let's talk about cryptid encounters just for a second,

695
00:51:10.079 --> 00:51:13.079
because this really gets all my nerves. When when people

696
00:51:13.079 --> 00:51:17.400
are like, why everybody's got a phone in their pocket.

697
00:51:18.679 --> 00:51:22.760
You know, all these phones have cameras. Why aren't there

698
00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:27.440
any good pictures of bigfoot? Good videos a bigfoot? Well,

699
00:51:28.280 --> 00:51:33.079
here's my explanation. If I'm out in the woods and

700
00:51:33.159 --> 00:51:38.880
an eight foot tall, seven hundred pound bipedal, skunk smelling

701
00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:45.400
creature starts approaching me, the last thing I'm going to

702
00:51:45.559 --> 00:51:49.280
do is pull out my phone and ask him to wait,

703
00:51:49.880 --> 00:51:52.639
you know, for me to put my code in and

704
00:51:52.639 --> 00:51:56.480
and you know, you know, punch the camera app No,

705
00:51:56.599 --> 00:52:00.679
I'm gonna run away, So I I I don't. I

706
00:52:00.719 --> 00:52:03.440
don't buy the fact that since we all have cameras,

707
00:52:03.719 --> 00:52:06.760
we should have good pictures of bigfoot. Matter of fact,

708
00:52:07.079 --> 00:52:11.559
I don't believe any good pictures of bigfoot. There's so much.

709
00:52:11.840 --> 00:52:14.960
I mean, this was even before AI was so common

710
00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:20.559
there there. I mean, I can make something look fairly

711
00:52:20.639 --> 00:52:25.239
decent in photoshop, and I'm terrible at photoshop. Somebody who's

712
00:52:25.320 --> 00:52:29.000
really good at it, you know, can can can make

713
00:52:29.039 --> 00:52:31.679
a bigfoot look like it's you know, drinking a Budweiser.

714
00:52:31.719 --> 00:52:35.840
On my back deck. Oh so yeah, I don't trust

715
00:52:35.840 --> 00:52:41.000
good pictures and the bad ones. You know, I put

716
00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:42.480
a little bit more faith in those.

717
00:52:44.119 --> 00:52:47.159
Well, I mean, just look at one of the most

718
00:52:47.239 --> 00:52:52.000
well known pieces of evidence for Bigfoot is the Patterson film, right,

719
00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:55.119
and there have been people that have torn that apart, saying, yeah,

720
00:52:55.280 --> 00:52:58.239
you know this this is a very old film, so

721
00:52:58.320 --> 00:53:03.639
it's very grainy, can't say things very well. It definitely

722
00:53:03.639 --> 00:53:06.639
looks like a person in a costume, and there I

723
00:53:06.679 --> 00:53:09.199
believe there was somebody that even came out and said that,

724
00:53:09.440 --> 00:53:13.159
oh yeah, that was me, which I believe was disapproven

725
00:53:13.199 --> 00:53:18.199
at this point. And then there are people now saying that,

726
00:53:19.320 --> 00:53:22.679
you know, if you look at this film on a

727
00:53:23.039 --> 00:53:27.840
big screen in great detail, you can see musculature moving

728
00:53:28.400 --> 00:53:30.920
like that's not something you can do in a suit.

729
00:53:31.920 --> 00:53:37.920
The best ape makeup at that time was a year

730
00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:41.480
later in nineteen sixty eight's The Planet of the Apes,

731
00:53:43.239 --> 00:53:48.880
and it was not that good as the Patterson Gimblin film. Yes,

732
00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:54.280
you can see much literature. One of my one of

733
00:53:54.360 --> 00:53:58.280
the things that I I will say about the film

734
00:53:58.559 --> 00:54:01.320
is you know about it being real is the fact

735
00:54:01.320 --> 00:54:04.519
that in nineteen sixty seven, if you are going to

736
00:54:04.559 --> 00:54:08.880
be a hoaxer. Are you going to give it boobs? Right?

737
00:54:09.480 --> 00:54:11.599
You are not going to do that. You're not going

738
00:54:11.679 --> 00:54:13.199
to make it a female. It's going to be a

739
00:54:13.199 --> 00:54:17.000
male sasquatch. That's going to be easier to do, right.

740
00:54:17.599 --> 00:54:20.320
So to me, that's more telling than anything else.

741
00:54:23.039 --> 00:54:26.519
Well, and so before before you wrap up, I wanted

742
00:54:26.519 --> 00:54:29.880
to get your take on dog man because I've heard

743
00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:34.440
a theory recently that I've kind oft before I even

744
00:54:34.480 --> 00:54:39.440
heard it, was kind of thinking myself, is that dog

745
00:54:39.519 --> 00:54:46.679
man is on the same genetic line as bigfoot. They've

746
00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:49.119
just gone feral. What are your thoughts?

747
00:54:50.960 --> 00:54:56.320
Oh, I don't agree with that because dog men descriptions

748
00:54:56.960 --> 00:55:01.519
are are different. I mean, they're big, they're hairy, they're scary,

749
00:55:02.119 --> 00:55:07.119
they got they got they got teeth. Uh, But they're

750
00:55:07.159 --> 00:55:13.280
not physically structured like a bigfoot. They don't have I mean,

751
00:55:14.280 --> 00:55:18.320
some bigfoots have have an ape like muzzle, not like

752
00:55:18.400 --> 00:55:22.559
dogmen are described. Dog men have a wolf like muzzle.

753
00:55:23.400 --> 00:55:28.360
So I don't think if dog men exist. And in fact, okay,

754
00:55:28.440 --> 00:55:29.960
let me let me, let me, let me go go

755
00:55:30.079 --> 00:55:33.320
with this, I'm not saying any of these creatures exist.

756
00:55:33.480 --> 00:55:38.119
I'm not saying I know exactly what anything is. Anybody

757
00:55:38.119 --> 00:55:42.800
who says I know exactly what bigfoot is doesn't have

758
00:55:42.840 --> 00:55:50.199
a clue, all right, But dog men fascinate me only

759
00:55:50.360 --> 00:55:52.719
for the for the case. They're only for the reason

760
00:55:52.760 --> 00:55:57.760
that a friend of mine who I trust, encountered one.

761
00:55:59.840 --> 00:56:03.440
He saw a dog man. He was in his truck

762
00:56:03.480 --> 00:56:06.719
when he saw it, and the thing stood up in

763
00:56:06.760 --> 00:56:08.639
the middle of the road when he honked at it,

764
00:56:09.159 --> 00:56:12.079
turned around and looked him right in the eyes and

765
00:56:12.199 --> 00:56:17.880
walked off of the road into the forest. And if

766
00:56:17.920 --> 00:56:20.480
it wasn't for that, I would discount a lot of

767
00:56:20.519 --> 00:56:24.119
dog men encounters because it, to me, it just doesn't

768
00:56:24.119 --> 00:56:29.719
make sense. A big ape makes sense for some reason

769
00:56:29.800 --> 00:56:35.039
to me. But but a bipedal dog, I mean, that's

770
00:56:35.079 --> 00:56:37.280
that's that's a little bit too strange. But but but

771
00:56:37.360 --> 00:56:39.280
like I said, I mean there's got to be something

772
00:56:39.320 --> 00:56:47.920
to it. Linda Godfrey, who is sadly passed, Yeah, Linda

773
00:56:48.039 --> 00:56:51.199
was terrific. She you know, when she first talked with

774
00:56:51.199 --> 00:56:54.840
with you know, the the somebody from the sheriff's office,

775
00:56:55.039 --> 00:56:58.880
it might have even been been the sheriff about this dog,

776
00:56:58.960 --> 00:57:02.599
this this bear wolf encounter. He was like, we got

777
00:57:02.639 --> 00:57:05.079
a whole file on it. Do you want it? You

778
00:57:05.079 --> 00:57:07.599
know there aren't that people are not going to report

779
00:57:07.719 --> 00:57:12.639
seeing something like that unless they saw it, right, which

780
00:57:12.679 --> 00:57:15.119
which a lot of these things like the Lizardman of

781
00:57:15.119 --> 00:57:19.519
of of of South Carolina, that one. Oh, but he's

782
00:57:19.559 --> 00:57:21.920
going to report that unless it actually happened.

783
00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:29.039
All right, Well, we are getting close to the end,

784
00:57:29.239 --> 00:57:30.960
so I want to give the mic to you to

785
00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:33.320
tell everybody where they can find you find your work

786
00:57:33.320 --> 00:57:33.920
that Mike's all.

787
00:57:33.880 --> 00:57:38.360
Yours, all right? Yeah, My uh my website is Jason

788
00:57:38.400 --> 00:57:43.119
Offfitt uh dot com. Uh, my books are there. My

789
00:57:43.159 --> 00:57:48.679
books are also all at Barnes and Noble, Amazon dot com,

790
00:57:48.679 --> 00:57:52.360
books a million, any any place, any place that sells books.

791
00:57:53.880 --> 00:57:58.639
I also write novels which are fun to me. Uh.

792
00:57:58.679 --> 00:58:01.679
But and if anybody has any questions or comments, I'm

793
00:58:01.719 --> 00:58:07.719
on social media Facebook, Twitter, Fread's Blue Sky.

794
00:58:10.480 --> 00:58:12.960
On all of them too. Mastadon is apparently a new

795
00:58:13.000 --> 00:58:13.880
one I have never heard of.

796
00:58:13.880 --> 00:58:21.920
There's not gone on Mastadon. I have opened a a

797
00:58:21.960 --> 00:58:25.880
TikTok account, although I haven't done anything on it except

798
00:58:25.920 --> 00:58:28.480
for sample strange ice cream.

799
00:58:31.079 --> 00:58:34.960
Yeah, I mean, TikTok is basically a death scrolling for me,

800
00:58:35.119 --> 00:58:36.719
but we do have a TikTok as well.

801
00:58:37.039 --> 00:58:39.000
I didn't want to do it, but my publishers like

802
00:58:39.039 --> 00:58:42.039
you really should. Okay, maybe I will.

803
00:58:42.480 --> 00:58:45.400
Well but yeah, then the next step is actually making

804
00:58:45.440 --> 00:58:47.519
content to get out on there to you know, get

805
00:58:47.519 --> 00:58:49.679
the word out and stuff and that. I mean that's

806
00:58:50.119 --> 00:58:56.800
as difficult as doing Facebook and Instagram, so right, but.

807
00:58:56.440 --> 00:58:58.000
But anyway, that's where you can get a hold of me.

808
00:58:58.280 --> 00:59:02.440
Uh so yeah. Again, if anybody wants to ask a question,

809
00:59:02.599 --> 00:59:06.280
make a comment, or tell me a cryptid that I

810
00:59:06.400 --> 00:59:08.039
might be interested in, please do.

811
00:59:09.079 --> 00:59:12.320
Absolutely, Jason so much, Thank you so much for being

812
00:59:12.440 --> 00:59:15.519
on Pair Truth Reborn, and we will definitely have to

813
00:59:15.519 --> 00:59:19.559
get you on again when Chris Eric can be on

814
00:59:21.039 --> 00:59:23.679
so that he can talk cryptids with you as well.

815
00:59:23.719 --> 00:59:26.519
I'm sure you're not done writing books yet, so.

816
00:59:27.159 --> 00:59:29.280
I am definitely not. And justin thank you so much

817
00:59:29.320 --> 00:59:31.880
for having me on. This has been a lot of fun. Absolutely,

818
00:59:31.920 --> 00:59:33.039
and I love your ghost shirt.

819
00:59:33.519 --> 00:59:39.880
Thank you. I appreciate it all right, folks, I hope

820
00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:44.719
you enjoyed the interview with Jason Offitt. His book is

821
00:59:44.880 --> 00:59:47.920
Chasing North American Monsters. Make sure you check that out.

822
00:59:49.119 --> 00:59:52.559
We did have a poll for this episode, and it

823
00:59:52.599 --> 00:59:59.800
was a very interesting spread as to the answers that

824
00:59:59.840 --> 01:00:09.800
we got. So we had the question of do you

825
01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:15.719
believe encryptids like Bigfoot, Mothman for Lake monsters, and the

826
01:00:15.760 --> 01:00:20.880
answers were absolutely, some yes, just myths, not sure. We

827
01:00:20.960 --> 01:00:26.079
had one absolutely, We had two yeses or some yes,

828
01:00:26.159 --> 01:00:29.920
I should say that was me and Eric none that

829
01:00:30.039 --> 01:00:35.760
said just myths, one person that said not sure. And

830
01:00:35.800 --> 01:00:42.760
then our friends Steven Spears in our Facebook group put

831
01:00:43.360 --> 01:00:48.719
misinterpreted experiences which we talked about here. So get on

832
01:00:48.800 --> 01:00:52.639
the conversation. We do, like I said, we do have

833
01:00:52.800 --> 01:00:56.760
our official Facebook page. Now I'll be in the show

834
01:00:56.800 --> 01:01:03.039
notes for you guys, and yeah, check us out on YouTube, Spotify.

835
01:01:03.559 --> 01:01:07.320
Make sure you like sure subscribe. So until next week, folks,

836
01:01:07.360 --> 01:01:11.199
where you'll find us, same time, same channel. My name

837
01:01:11.280 --> 01:01:13.360
is Justin. Talk to you days later.