Sasquatch Territory: What Happened In Area A? w/Aleks Petakov

0:00 Coming up on Paratruth Reborn, we will talk to Alex Pettacow about his documentary Bigfoot Beyond the Beyond the Trail, The Return to Area A. Welcome. Well, well do Para Truth Truth.

0:40 How's it going, Paratruthers. Welcome to a brand new episode of Paratruth Reborn. My name is Justin and I'm Eric, And as I mentioned earlier, we are going to be talking to Alex Pettacov about his documentary Bigfoot Beyond the Trail The Return to Area a Al. Welcome to Paratruth be Born. How's it going guys, Thanks for having me on. It was going really really good to us. We all had the matching gray shirt thing going on. It was not planned. I swear we were all psychically linked for this attis it would appear that way. So, Alex, for the listeners who may be discovering your work for the first time, what led you into investigating Bigfoot and producing documentaries about it? Yeah, it's a good question, I guess, just always a kind of a curiosity for the unknown, you know. I got into kind of cryptosology stuff from a young age. It was interested in the yetti that led into Bigfoot and other mysterious topics as well, other creatures locked mass I was always interested in that, and then I've always been really big into the outdoors, hiking, backpacking all across North America at this point, but you know, especially when I was younger, mostly the Appalachian Mountains in the northeast up here. I live in New Hampshire. I grew up in the state, and you have a lot of beautiful mountains, and I kind of gain an appreciation for that. Did some naturalism training back in the day and survivalism, and that really kind of sparked my interest

2:12 further into just enjoying the outdoors and exploration and adventure. And then you know, kind of combining that with a passion for filmmaking and invest you're looking for bigfoot in these kind of wilded in these wooded wilderness areas. So that's kind of one thing led to another, and they're kind of like a trinity of factors, I suppose you could call it, you know, the love for outdoors, of filmmaking, and the search for the unknown. I think they kind of go hand in hand. So that's what kind of led me down the path that I guess I'm on right now as we sit here talking about it. Okay, we've actually had talked with small Town Monsters a couple of times. How did your partnership begin with them?

2:53 Yeah? I actually came in contact with Seth Breedlove who found in small Town Nscers almost ten years ago now. Believe I did a short documentary, which is very terrible because it's ten years old at this point and you know, it's come along with I'd like to say I did a documentary about the Locknest Monster and it was based off a trip I took to Locknast, Scotland, just a short twelve minute film, and I remember Seth actually had reached out to me and said, hey, I really liked your film. I'd love to show it at they were doing this Minerva Monster Day event in Ohio and he was like, I'd like to show it at our event and I was like, oh boy, someone wants to screen this thing. I guess he really liked it, and we kind of struck up a friendship after that, and then he approached me a year or two later after that asking if I'd be willing to do a series for small Town Monsters called on the Trail of champ which was a documentary series looking at the Lake Champlain mystery in the Northeast in Vermont and New York, which has this kind of America's lockness as it's called, with the Lake Champlain Monster. And yeah, became friends with Seth. From that point on, we started working collaborating every once in a while, and then you know, I was working on a bunch of his films. I would do crew stuff, travel around with him some of the on the Trail of Bigfoot type films, Momo, the Missouri Monster, just that sort of stuff. And then in twenty twenty one we started a kind of YouTube specific series called Bigfoot Beyond

4:23 the Trail or just Beyond the Trail, which was an open ended, just investigative documentary series following myself on some of my personal investigations into Sasquatch and related mysteries, just sort of running gun gorilla filmmaking style, very raw and just kind of getting out their boots on the ground sort of thing. And we've been doing that now since twenty twenty one. Can't believe it's already been basically five years at this point, but through that period, you know, been all across the United States and Canada, really all over North America in search of this mystery. So it's taken me from many, many states. I have two states left that I have not been to in the US, you know, in general. So that's it's been quite a journey so far. So that's kind of how I got involved with small Town Monsters. And I've done a few other series over the years of small Town Monsters too, but that's kind of primarily what I've worked on in the duration. Okay, now, I mean there's there's tons of documentaries out there, docuseries about Bigfoot. What makes the big Foot Beyond the Traill series different from Yeah, it's I think what makes it different is it's just it's very I don't want to use the word raw, because it's you know, it's obviously edited, it's not unedited. You know, it's just not ten hours of meat standing in the woods, Like, no one's gonna watch that, right. I think it's just if you appreciate just an honest investigation, no sensationalism. I

5:55 present it how it is, like whatever happens happens, we're not adding in any Oh my god, did you hear that? And then creepy music plays over it, so we can't hear anything, like none of that kind of stuff. I hate those type ofies. But yeah, that that drives me up well. And I understand why that's done because a lot of these you know, like network shows and they they're they're being edited by people who aren't really interested in these topics. They're just in their editors, right, and that's the fact and whatnot. Whereas I actually have like a genuine interest in the subject matter. It's not just a job for me. It's not just oh, I'm editing a bigfoot documentary and the next week I'll be doing a documentary about you know, storage wars or whatever. You know. It's not like you know that sort of thing. So yeah, just what sets it apart is just it's it's very boots on the ground. It's you know, I go to a location. For example, I just got back from Oklahoma and I'm doing a whole bunch of videos for for my Beyond the Trail series of you know, we go to an area I pick like a mountain range. I'm like, all right, I want to talk to local investigators, local witnesses.

6:58 We go to the ground, we we spend time in the woods, we go visit the local museums, we talk to people who are involved in the subject, try to get access to know specific cases, that sort of stuff. So yeah, i'd say it's just if you again, if you appreciate the kind of the nonsensationalized sort of stuff. I really strive to keep it absolutely authentic at all times, and I would never want to compromise you know, what that what that is, and what that entails. Yeah, sure, but I think and I think that's awesome because, like Justin said, that's the one thing that's so frustrating about the big network shows is they're like, oh, listen to what we just heard, but then they have music playing over it, and it's like, what did we hear?

7:41 You know? And then of course the one thing that always bothers me the most is, especially with the ghost documentors right go to the general investigations, is they want you to listen to EVP, but before allowing you to decipher what it is on your own, they put the word up there, and it's like your mind naturally makes that connection. It's like, well, you just feeding us information and we don't know if it's even accurate. So it's nice to have something that's raw that people can like feel as if they're they're doing the investigation too, and are witnessing it in a way in real time as you are. Yeah, I can understand the frustrations with that sort of approach because you're priming the audience, right. Another thing I really strive to do is just make sure to present information.

8:24 And I always say it, don't take my word for it, do your like, make your own conclusion. You don't have to agree with anything I say. You know, I try to keep my documentaries interesting and educational, so we focus a lot on and this is something people have actually told me that have watched for years now. We get a lot of emails and messages people saying, you know, why they like the particular series is you know, I talk about like a specific mountain range or a specific area we're going to, and I really try to talk about some of the factors at play. You know, what's the geology like there, what's the habitat likes other species. Focus on those interesting elements and explain what And this is something actually I get quite a few times from people that live over in the UK. We have a lot of people from the United Kingdom that watch, and I get messages from them all the time where they're like, I never had any idea that Florida had wilderness areas like this right, or oh my god, I didn't know their New Jersey had millions of acres of forest land and New York State has huge amounts of forests. Because we go to these places that you know, people hear about New York or Florida and they think, oh, New York's all city, it's all urban. Florida, it's just Miami and Orlando. They don't understand it, you know, especially if they're not familiar with it, that these areas have these kind of habitats. And that's something that's been really cool for people that just aren't familiar with some of these spots that kind of like I've had one person tell me they've learned more about the geography of the US through watching my series than they ever knew of before.

9:52 You know, somebody who's traveled in the US, which is really cool. Again someone else from the UK, but that's been really fun. Just kind of when we do get you know, alleged evidence, whether it's audio or anything like that, I always stress like I, especially if it's audio, I didn't see what made it right, so I cannot say one hundred percent what it is. And I always try to get people outside parties to examine my audio. I'll give an example now. I I was on a trip in Texas and I got some kind of weird audio, and one of my first things I do is I send that to people I trust. I'm like, hey, what do you think about this? You know what is? You know what could this be? Because I'm not just gonna put I could easily just take that audio and slap it on screen and be like, could it be a bigfoot? Right?

10:39 If it's if it's some other animal, I want to be able to determine that and talk about it. We've had hair samples in the past in some of my videos that we found and we send them in for like a microscopic analysis, and they come back as you know, we've gotten links before, We've gotten raccoon bear, that kind of stuff. So I always like to explain at the end you'll see us collect the mystery hair sample in the video, and then you know, I actually send that to somebody that does microscopic analysis and they come back to me with an answer, and then I actually can present like the screenshots from the microscope they have and say, hey, this actually turned out to be a links. You know, this is the importance of reaching out to people who have these specialized skills, whether they're in the scientific world or academic you know, that have these abilities that you might not. I mean, I'm not a scientist, right, I'm just a filmmaker and outdoor enthusiast. So I don't claim to be a scientist or anything like that. But I have no problem with reaching out to folks with those skill sets to try to get some of my evidence analyzed and looked at. And it would be so much easier to just say all this mystery stuff we get is, you know, it's very likely bigfoot, right, I don't think that's that's not the truth, though. I want to present people with the absolute accuracy of what I'm experiencing, what I'm finding out there, So right.

11:57 Yeah, why do you think, like for some those other shows that are on network TV, why do you think it is that they tend to lead people on into believing that what they're finding is truly bigfoot, even when they don't have significant evidence for it. Well, I think you know, those networks are not interested in the truth. They are interested in selling ad revenue, right or advertising space. That's kind of how they operate. You know, I know plenty of folks that have been involved in network television. You know, I studied film and communications, so I know people actually work in the industry too. And I also know people now that are paranormal cryptology researchers who do a lot of TV stuff, so they kind of first hand experience. So I hear from both perspectives, and it's it's just a job for them, right, Like a lot of these people, like a production company does a series on Bigfoot, the crew involved, you know, nine times out of ten, they don't actually care about the subject matter. As soon as hey, it's nine PM, our union hours dictate we can't work past this time, even though they could be in the woods and having activity going on right on the rare occasions, a giant crew with lights in the woods maybe having stuff happen. As soon as there are clock runs out for their union mandated time, I'm going to go back to the hotel.

13:10 Whereas you know, that's when you know, if it's something I'm experiencing I'm going to be documenting it. But anyway, back to the the networks, I just think they are the intentionally mislead people, most of them. Unfortunately, a lot of these programs are like that. I'm not trying to slight anyone personally or anything. I'm just saying, be careful what you believe. I mean, there's been you know, like those mockumentaries right about Mermaids and other stuff that have come out over the years that are totally like misleading. But Pete and it's almost like a kind of the Orson Wells thing from back in the day with the War of the World's Right and reading it and you know, there was a disclaimer at the end, very very quick one, but everyone's already freaking out thinking, oh my god, this is real. Then I think, you know, again, most of these most of these networks are not really interested in the truth. They're interested in, you know, selling, selling ad space.

14:00 That's kind of the motivating factor. So if they can keep people tuning in, yeah, and then obviously that model works. You know, there's plenty of successful television shows and that sort of thing, But now there's this independent media space where people we're kind of sick of that are able to do it themselves. And I think we had small town monsors have demonstrated that, you know, because we're all very interested in the subject matter. We're not just you know, it's an assignment, right, Like, we are actually interested and this is you know, I put a lot of effort in you know, personal blood, sweat and tears kind of thing into my series. So and then I always tell people, you know, make up your own mind. You don't have to believe me, you don't not to accept it, like do your own research. I would love to inspire people to get out there and do their own thing. And that's been really cool too, seeing over the years, I'll get people that will message me like it's an area six miles into the mountains of Utah and they'll send me a picture you remember this location from your video, like your video inspired me to come out here, and I'm like, oh my god, that's that's so cool. Right. Yeah.

14:59 You know, are people I'll say a lot of times, like I have buddies that they have like a local business that has some Bigfoot stuff, or they'll have a museum like Cliff Barrickman in Oregon. He's got the big the Bigfoot Museum. My buddy Robert App in Alaska has a Bigfoot Art Gallery, which is like a framing and matting business he does, but he's got like a Bigfoot art gallery section. He tells me almost weekly he's like, man, somebody came in and said they heard about this place from one of one of your videos, because we featured him quite a bit in there. And that's really cool too, that people get inspired to go support other you know, local and small businesses in that way based off of just like a common passion. So that that kind of it is, that part of it, I should say, is really rewarding and and really cool. So that's been I think that's a you know, not to get on a high horse or anything, but that's the difference kind of between like the indie stuff and what you maybe see on the on the TV, the really popular programs. For sure.

15:57 That's why we love small town ouncers to mention. It's in our home state of Ohio too. So I think it's great that you guys are doing this work. And I've loved the documentaries that I've seen so far from you guys, so I'm glad that you're continuing on, especially after you know, the harsh things of twenty twenty and everything leading up to today. So the radiations for you guys keeping it up, thank you. Yeah, it's been you know, it's been a strange, strange decades so far. But you know a lot of times too, I'll get people that will tell me, you know, watching when my videos come out or any of the small Town Monsers videos, because we have videos that come out on YouTube, and we also have films that we run through annual Kickstarter of year that come out on like different platforms as well, or Kickstarter backers get the films, they'll say, you know, these are like the highlights. This is kind of like my distraction from all the craziness and just you know, life stuff in general. So that's really cool too to know that people they kind of really live vicariously through some of the adventures and they enjoy it in that way too, in like a meaningful way and not just and like an arbitrary I'm just watching this in the background kind of thing.

17:09 Right, So what exactly is Area A and why has it become such a focal point for bigfoot research? Yeah? Area A is one of those places that's just I think about it almost daily, so I'll kind of give a little quick backstory. Area is a sort of code name given to a location up in Alaska on the Kenai Peninsula, which is this large peninsula in kind of South Alaska, south of Anchorage, and the kind of the populated area, it's about the size of the state of Maine, give or take the peninsula itself, and it has so many different habitats and interesting areas. They kind of call it like mini Mini Alaska or Alaska's playground.

17:55 A lot of people go there and kind of do all kinds of recreation outdoor stuff as very interesting habitats all across, like I said, but what most interesting is the coastal rainforest found along the mountains there in the coastal areas, and it goes hundreds thousands of miles I don't know. I mean, it's all these giant bays that jut in and there's just mountains that rise out of sea, and you have these temper rainforests that are akin to what you find in British Columbia, Washington State, and all the way to the Redwoods in northern California. It's part of that kind of Pacific coastal temper rainforest chain. So for many years, areas like that have conjured up stories of what they call the hairy Man up there. But with these sass clutch like beings mysterious occurrences all up and down the Keen Eye Peninsula. You've got the famous incident Port Chatham Port Lock, which is the very tip of the Keen Eye Peninsula. A lot of debate about what happened there, but that is obviously one of these kind of famous incidents. But Area A is just again it's a code name for one specific area. A friend of mine he had built a remote property out there, basically just had built a cabin to go hunt and fish at. And it's over an hour to get there by boat in a very remote area, so just getting there is difficult in itself. And he'd built a cabin out there and basically started having strange things happen from getting to the location after buying the initial property and then building a cabin. They had kind of the typical

19:26 stuff you hear with a lot of the sasquatch reports you had. They witnessed rocks being thrown at them. They would see rock like one of the stories was a horizontal or a rock flying out of the woods horizontally. They'd hear knocks, whistles, strange roaring type sounds, rocks kind of landing near them. And then subsequently, as they built this cabin, they'd bring other people out to help work on the cabin and everyone kind of experienced little things, and eventually the place was kind of named Area A. There was a group known as a new from North American Wood Ape Conservancy. They got involved. I believe they're the ones that named it Area A, but it kind of stuck. People thought, oh, Area Alaska, Area Ape. There was different kind of ideas of why, you know, why why why they should call it that, and that kind of just stuck. So I'm not the one that originated the name, but I've certainly continued to use it because it just sounds cool, you know, right if you love the good company. Now, like the North American Wood Ape guys, they have an area and in southeast Oklahoma called Area X, and that obviously has very kind of connotations to it, Area X, even though I think it was just because they had an X, Y and a Z for the research areas, and X happened to be the one that was the most productive. You know, it sounds like X files, but I was recently near there or two down in that area. But anyway, back to Area A, I've been now three times, and I've had some interesting things happen there, and I've just heard the stories from a variety of people that have gone over the years and friends of mine,

20:56 and you know, my my friend who's the property owner is had a lot of strange stuff happen. Okay, what a like of all the places around the US have been What made you decide that it was actually worth turning back to Area A for the documentary. Well, it was just the first trip out. We took a trip out there in twenty twenty two, and I had known the proper room for about a year. Until then, we'd communicated about some of the stuff that he had happened, and it just so happened, you know, able to wind up to go in twenty twenty two, that's when I ended up going. And we went out that first week and we had quite a few interesting things happen, and of course I thought, man, I want to come back out here. You know, this is a lot of times you go to these places and nothing happens right is very quiet, but out here our first week, we had a bunch of interesting things happen. Now I can't say any of it was definitively Sasquatch. It all kind of fits the purported behavior, if we want to call it that.

21:53 But you know, we had like an instance where we were up sitting around this fire pit that's up on this kind of like ledge area in the woods up from this cabin. And you know, it's about three four in the morning. It's in May, so it's that time of year where it's starting to get between extreme darkness and then extreme light. So it never really got fully dark. It would kind of be like this dusk, it would get dark there in the trees because you're in these really thick undergrowth with you know, all kinds of Devil's Club and different temperate rainforest plants there. And we're just sitting there making jokes, you know, sitting there for hours doing a fire and we start hearing these kind of these kind of wood knock sounds, and that kind of catches our attention, and then we start hearing what sounds like rocks being thrown into the water. But it would kind of hit debris along the way and then smack against the rock shore and then KerPlunk into the water.

22:51 So it wasn't like it was just a water splash, because that could be a seal or something else kind of having fun in the water. It was like hold. It was like a series of events. And this happened for a little bit, and there were these wood knocks interspersed, And the theory is that these creatures maybe do some kind of wood knocking type sound. Is it communicative thing? There's a lot of different theories. There's quite a few Class A sasquatch sightings where people either hear wood knocking or rock clacking before the sighting or after the sighting. During the sighting. There's a I've document at least like twenty six reports that involve that. You know, so where there's many encounters where people allege where they just hear wood knock kind of things. I've heard that too. But you know, unless you actually see it, you can't be one hundred percent certain what was producing it. So that's why I say, even what we encountered, I don't know what it was. But that was very interesting because you know, it's just you're just sitting there in the dark, and then all of a sudden, this just happens for a few minutes and it just dies down, and we're scanning with thermal units looking around. We don't see anything, but of course it's very tricky terrain. There's a bit of a hill above us, so we thought, okay, man, one of the chances that something was rolling down the hill, and maybe there's a rock roll down the hill. But the problem is that entire habitat is covered with this spongy layer of moss. You can literally lay in the moss.

24:12 I mean, I've done it. I've taken naps just without anything, just lay back in the moss and it kind of like absorbs your body weight. And we would and the only rocks you have are down by the shore, by the ocean, and we're kind of up a little bit, you know, maybe forty fifty feet from that shore, and then there's a ridge above us, and there's not any rocks or anything. You can't you have to really dig under the moss to even finding rocks. The only ones in large piles are down by the by the shore. So we try, Okay, let's take one of the fire pit rocks and try to like throw it or roll it down the hill and see we start. We did a couple of times there some experiments. We throw the rock and it just kind of rolls down silently and it just gets snabbed on anything, and there's no obvious sound.

24:55 The only thing we really got to match it was like trying to overhand throw it and get it to hit the the rock shore before it then smashed into the water and makes that kind of cerplunk sound. Now on overnight audio we had to happen on quite a few occasions, but that was a kind of an interesting incident of that first trip. And then the night after that we camped on the ridge where that happened, or we flopped maybe the sounds were coming from, because it sounded like it was a little to our right and that's kind of hugs the water, and then you've got this ridge. So he said, all right, let's camp on that ridge. And that night was like the only night it rained during that first week out there. We were getting a little bit of a like pitter patter of rain and then it would subside. It was it was not like torrentially, it was just a sprinkling and then it would stop. But that night a couple of us, there was three of us actually there. I waken a time with another guy and there was another guy right wells we were hearing it sounded like something moving around and swomping, and you hear you knock, and you hear that same kind of locked sound, and I was kind of trying to position myself to get my formal out to be able to peep over the seep there's anything going on, But the where where we had our can set up, it was like they's just moss kind of embankment right above me. So I couldn't the review of much.

26:09 And this went on for a bit, but there'd be also rain in the teams would be kind of drifting off. I have to see if nothing's happened full there when we hear another kind of the knock and the distance and then the rain starts and can't hear anything. And that happened, and then the next night after that we can't win that same lidge didn't hear anything about story. All we heard were sea lions hanging in the bay. There have a lot of sea lions out there, and they can make people work kind of crazy sound, so they will here one work a sploor Balloyd's and then five respond in the other bay, and like, you know that we hadn't heard that at all the night before that or any other nights, but freaking curtsia. Once you kind of feel like where it is, it makes sense, but no other mysterious sounds that second night. And and it's this you're looking hand frint pressed up against the slide of the metal fabin, an unusual place for it to be a look a little bit large, and it definitely had dermal ridges kind of climates and humans have sure that wasn't a moose or a ver multener. It was either a human or something human like a lot.

27:20 So we had somebody with on the police skills. You know, I'll be able to watch mample from that, and you know, all sent it off for pssing with a project called Legendique Science Foo And you're still awaiting any calm. This dissult on all that's been before years. And also I don't know the status on that, but now a lot kind of happened that first week, but we thought was interesting enough that I'll definitely want to return again. So I went back the next year after that, which is twenty twenty three with the impension of stain for two weeks. The in the wroll and prettymature. Nothing completely totally different, also rained most of the common you had very head and rained that entire trip. You know, we found some kind of interest open footprints and did some three scans of those with a you know, it was greedy apps and the phones really had not much happened in the regard of mysterious thing because if it goes to rain or not, but it just goes to show you can go to a location and it's not like every time we go somewhere there's something that happened. Two weeks like that was a long time out there and he barely heard anything. We pried our bats to exports into the areas and really get out there, but nothing really unusual to apport from that second stuff. And then my third trick of this plastunnel and went out for a week again.

28:49 First day we heard some strange kind of rock sound and then the rest of the trip was pretty quiet again and it rained a lot there where it's a rainforest in Alaska, till weather usually doesn't floperate, but you know, being in contact with the property owner. They can't get out there a year round as well. It's only with the spring of the fall for the winter months the water walk it's a milder and that part of the Alaskan coast, and it would be say inland where they get that really kind of deep cold. It stays a little bit more mild and less snow on these coastal areas. So but the weather, you know, in terms of waves, can be really rough, so it's very tough to get out there. But you know, just being in touch with the property owner every time he has something interesting happened, he would let me know, like, hey, we we heard another one of those mystery gunshots sounds, or you know, we we saw something kind of like duck down and run off really quick. Like there's been a couple of possible sightings of strange stuff there. But yeah, it's just kind of a whole whole host of stuff. I mean, that's kind of the summation I suppose of why we find it interesting out there. A lot of these stuff that's reported that's happened is kind of documented taking place elsewhere with alleged sasquatch kind of activity over the years, So it just seemed like, for whatever reason there was this, they weren't a fan of the cabin. I don't know.

30:14 I'm assuming you know, kind of when it was first built, there was a bunch of stuff that happened in subsequent years, But then it'll be one summer where very little happens, and then next summer it'll kind of start up again. There doesn't really seem to any rhyme or reason to kind of the pattern that goes on out there. I mean, some of the more recent stuff from last the past two summers were because he was building a couple more smaller cabins out there, and that seemed to reignite a little bit of the activity. I don't know if you know that has obviously some kind of correlation, which it might not theorize it does, but I can't be certain. Of course, that. Would be very interesting considering like when you think of paranormal investigations in paranormal or huntings in general, like how often we tend to come across people who've found paranormal activity ignite because of renovations.

31:06 Being done in a house sort of add ons and things like that. So the thought of like possibly you know, him building more cabins. Igniting more activity would be really intriguing in that sense, especially when there are people out there who think that Bigfoot isn't necessarily even a physical being anymore. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's hard to say, of course, right, there's different theories of well, what what could be going on? People think doesn't even exist, right, there's a lot of there's a lot of speculation. I mean, if we're going to approach it from kind of let's say hypothetically it is some sort of relic, hominid, kind of flesh and blood creature, maybe you're encroaching on its terrain, so it has to show some kind of aggressive display. Some of the first things they had happen out there were, you know, these rocks being thrown. You know, we interviewed one guy who was like a kind of like a contractor that the property owner brought out there, and you know, the idea was, oh, you come out with me for the weekend, help me work on the cabin. You get a fishing trip and a camping trip and like a beautiful Alaska wilderness trip out of it. Right, we wouldn't do that, you know, just do a little bit of work and one of the guys, I think he was an electrician.

32:17 He was doing some work and we actually interviewed him in the first Alaskan Coastal Sasquash documentary which came out in twenty twenty two. He talked about, you know, they're all sitting there kind of hanging out at the fire, and then like rocks just come kind of flying, like small pebble kind of things come flying and land near them, and they're like, I mean, where is this coming from? Kind of thing. They would find I'm going to see if I can get off my desk here without knocking everything over. They would find these strange netted rocks actually in their boat, so they would before they'd built a cabin, they would moor the boat out in the bay because of or not wanting to sleep, just intense exposed with brown bears, you know, very dangerous on the shore, so they would put their boat out in the bay. They would then come in on a like a dinghy little zodiac type thing raft, come out, do work clear the land, and then go back and spend the night in the cabin or not in the cabin and the boat. Excuse me.

33:13 There were a couple occasions where I guess they found where they were on the shore and they thought they heard the door of the boat slamming by itself, so they're like, oh, that's kind of strange. And upon returning to harbor later hosing off the boat, they would find one of these stones inside the boat a couple hundred yards out from shore, and they would find this in there, like who put that in there? And these are rocks that are actually found all over the place on the shore there. This is one that I dug out from. They're buried in the moss. What it is is these were used by fishermen back in the day. It's just a little stone in a plastic net, and you'll find piles of them all along the beach. I mean, they're actually they've been there for so long they're actually buried under the moss. We've had to dig some of them out even the summer. You know. We bring them long as souvenirs. I brought a whole bunch of them. I give them to friends as kind of like a Alaskan squash rock something as we kind of call them. It's sort of funny, but yeah, these were just because they didn't want to use leather metal stones were cheap. They're all over the place. Take one of those and then use them for their fishing nets to kind of weigh them down. At least that's what we think. And you'll find them all along coast of Alaska. And maybe there was an old community there as well. That's one of the ideas, you know, maybe just randomly fishermen pulling off and saying, yeah, this is where I'm going to build some of these rocks. And they left a pile there and it's now buried under the moss. And then they again, these are the kind of rocks that they used to find in their boat that they believe were actually thrown in there. And yeah, so that's why I have that

34:44 as kind of a souvenir. But yeah, again, just kind of some of the reported behavior, the hearing these knocks, these mystery gunshots, sounding noises, whistles, whoops, vocalizations. One of the strangest ones was this baby crying sound, which I've heard before with a with alleged bigfoot cases. I've heard it for other paranormal things too, but I don't really investigate a lot of that myself. So what's really interesting is there's been a couple occasions where this baby crying sound has been heard. One of the first ones was there was women on the president on the property, and I believe it was one of the first years, and the property owner kept a journal of strange events, and he made a note, you know, women had he brought out there, said hey, you know, we heard this baby crying sound and they had never really heard that before, and he made a note of it. And then I guess on another occasion, I think it was a year or two after that, women there and also that were brought you know, wives and friends that kind of thing, were blueberry picking independently and they both heard some kind of baby crying sound. Eventually kind of reported to each other and then told the property owner and he said, well, I have an audio recorder out there. You guys reported it.

35:54 We have it on audio, and they have this audio clip of this baby crying sound, which is very weird. I don't know what it is. I mean, I for all kinds of theories. Oh it's a fox, it's a porcupine. It's one of these, because animals can make strange noises, right that, you can't discount that. But of all the times they've been out there, it's mostly men because it's guys going fishing and you know, kind of getting away from from responsibilities in their lives, just sort of going out for the weekend having fun. And they've really never heard that kind of sound. It's only happened on the few occasions women have been taken out there. And the Alaska Natives, the Clinkets, they have folklore of what's called the Kushtaka or the land otter man. I mean that sounds kind of the imagery there sounds very weird, but it's described from what I understand what I've been told as a this hairy manlike creature that's seen swimming between islands and bays and that sort of thing. And if you know anything about coastal parts of Alaska and British Columbia, and I've heard this from folks in these areas, they you know, they'll be out in the middle of nowhere, going between the mainland and an island chain, and there's a lot of these islands all over the place, Southeast Alaska Peninsula, all these areas, British Columbia, and they'll come across Elk swimming between mountain lions, black bears, they'll come.

37:14 They'll be swimming from the mainland to these islands sometimes miles apart, really kind of surprising. And there's stories supposedly that this that sasquatches have been seen doing the same thing, swimming between islands and different areas. And so that's where I guess this lore of this kushtaka thing comes from the land otterman because it's a hairy manlike creature that seems swimming, but it also produces a sound of a baby crying to lure women in so so is the lore right, So, I don't know, kind of a very intriguing sort of precedent. You know. We try to disprove that by we had a female researcher with us on one of the trips, on the second trip out there, and again that was the trip where we don't really hear much at all, and we had her singing and all kinds of stuff, just to see like, hey, is there any anything this might conjure, you know, because four guys sitting in the woods with guns, you know what, that's probably gonna put off a very different vibe than you know, woman singing or doing something, you know, just a sound of voice, you pheromones, all kinds of stuff.

38:18 So we try and we never really experienced anything of note with that. But again, that baby crying sound has really only been heard on a couple occasions when when were there. I just think statistically it's a little weird. You would imagine if it's just some random animal that like, you'd at least hear it another occasion of all the times those guys go out there, But it's not the case. So that's probably one of the more intriguing and bizarre parts of of the whole area A kind of story. Now, I gotta say, of course, as I always say, you know, I don't we don't have a proof of what's doing this or whether it is SaaS question or now this is obviously all just kind of theorizing and you know, basing it off of previous profiles of behavior. But whatever's going on, there's something mysterious. I don't know what it is, or if it's some physical entity or something, but something unusual is happening. And what's really interesting is, you know, a lot of these really credible reports in my opinion, of sasquatch encounter, some of the ones that come to mind my top ten. None of these people really looking for it. It's just they happen to be in rural or wilderness areas, whether they were working as a park ranger or just camping, hiking, hunting that sort of thing, fishing, and they had an encounter there was they weren't actually seeking it. You know, there's been people who have claimed to have had encounters while looking for bigfoot, sure, but I'm talking about just the kind of the most most interesting eyewitnesses to me are the ones that don't that

39:48 We're just I don't know if it's the right place, right time, or whatever the case may be. And this is certainly the case of the area a you know, I know the property owner very well. He just wanted to build a cabin and have fun and you know, have a play to kind of spend time with friends and family, and this all this stuff started happening. Like he never wanted any of this stuff, and he really doesn't like a lot of attention from it as well. So he's been gracious enough over the years to allow us access to go out there and research and you know, do our filming and see what's going on. But you know, this is not something like he's he's trying to turn this into some kind of, you know, a thing. It's just it is what it is right right right now.

40:29 There's been huge debate over whether Bigfoot is biological or something more mysterious altogether. Where do you fall on that spectrum? You know, I never fully commit. I mean, I am definitely I would say more on the kind of relic hominid, which I guess would be sort of flesh and blood. I mean, I don't know, I think because there is allegedly, you know, there's all these alleged footprints and hair samples and rocks being thrown, that sort of stuff. That's like a physical man festation of some kind of phenomena. So that's what I lean towards. And if you look at there's a precedent for hominids existing, like we are an upright, somewhat hairy some of us more than others, a species of upright hominids, right like, that is a established fact given by us. Whereas you have other non bipedal primates chimps, gorillas, rank tanks, that sort of thing, A lot of the lesser primates too, So there's a precedent for that sort of thing. I don't know. A lot of people talk about some of the more paranormal aspects of alleged Bigfoot sightings.

41:35 I don't know. I don't really look into that a whole lot, because majority of the sightings, in my opinion, are pretty mundane, like people. A very common type of sighting is people saw across the road, like, oh, I saw something across the road. There's nothing inherently paranormal. I guess about that in terms of just what they're witnessing, like there's no other weird details. I think a lot of the paranormal details nowadays stick out because in a world where we're inundated with podcasts, tons of shows about these sorts of things, everyone's looking for the next crazy, big story. And if you've just got ten witnesses that just say, yeah, across the road or we saw it near our camp in itself, you know, that may not be a very interesting sighting as opposed to somebody claiming there was UFO was involved, and all this other kind of stuff that's unverifiable just sort of happening going on.

42:23 That makes for more compelling and interesting story. So I think that's why a lot of those stories get more prominence than maybe like the mundane stories that just kind of fit the data set. But I don't know. I can't say one hundred percent. I don't there's really no experts. I'm surely not an expert. I really just try to go off of my experiences and the people I've talked to and come to trust. And. I don't know, the debate will probably rage until you know there is some sort of physical specimen or there's some other way to substantiate it. I really don't know. I just again, I really try to stick to my experiences and my investigations. And you know, an area, there haven't really been any other strange things reported from what I understand. People haven't seen orbs or any other weird lights that sometimes gets associated with other areas that have a history of activity. And it's all been pretty standard rock rocks being thrown, and we heard some knocks, you know, we heard a tree crash, and then we looked up in that area and we possibly saw something duck, you know, and like that that sort of stuff. It's it's and that's true to what I've experienced out there too. It's it's very that is. I don't know if it seems physical or it just sounds that way. That's kind of my interpretation at least. Okay, but now.

43:40 We're in the stage of what we consider modern technology. Yeah, and despite that modern technology, we yet to see any definitive proof over years decades of searching for this elusive creature. Two questions, Sarah, I guess, First. Why do you think people still hold on to the belief that it does exist despite not having any definitive proofs? And also, do you think with modern technology we are actually getting closer to finding that definitive proof. Yeah, that's a good question, one that comes up a lot. And I mean the long and short of it is, I don't really know, but I can give my kind of theories about possibly why. I think overall there's still are you know, even in this day and age, there's all this technology we have, there's still so much wilderness and space out there in North America. I've been to quite a few of these places, and it's frightening how much territory there is. I mean, driving from into parts of Canada up to Alaska on the Alaska Highway, there's areas that you could just hike off a couple miles off the road and never be seen again with the amount of space that's out there. And I think that's one factory. The other factor is there really isn't that many people that are truly in a kind of scientific or very rigorous fashion looking for evidence of sasquatch. I mean, there's not very very many biologists or scientists. There's a handful of groups that approach it very seriously. There's a lot of weekend warriors and enthusiasts, so people that oh, we're going to go look for bigfoot in this national

45:11 forest this weekend, and they spend a couple of nights out there that sort of thing. So if you look at how much space there is and how many people are actually looking and examining these areas, it's it's very minuscule. And then among you know, if you judge how people are doing things amongst that, there's very few people doing it in a very kind of meticulous and scientific way like that we would need for data like, Okay, we observed this night we had a rock thron here, and they have full detailed notes of it. It's usually just like, oh, we heard we had something happen, and you know, there's really no paper trail or way to verify kind of or not necessarily paper trail, but like verification documentation sort of thing of what took place. So I don't think there's truly a lot of people. I think there's a lot of enthusiasts and a lot of people who go out there. And then of course you got to worry about confirmation by and not every twig snap you hear in the woods is a big foot sort of thing.

46:04 I think a lot of times it happens you got a big group of people together and are primed they want this activity to happen, so any sound they hear, oh my god. You know, you have to really strive and be very critical and skeptical of everything you're experiencing and try to explain it away before you jump to the conclusion that, oh it's it definitely had to be a sasquatch, right, like that should be the last thing. And then, as I mentioned earlier, with some of the more credible stories, it seems like a lot of those encounters are not necessarily people who are looking. They're just out in the woods, out in the wilderness, doing all sorts of things, like mundane sort of things. So I don't know if that has anything to do with it, just if that's whether that's coincidental. You know, if these things are as intelligent as they are, they probably know if people are going in the woods and banging on trees and making these loop sounds, they're probably going to figure out, Yeah, they might be mimicking us, you know, So I don't think we should go towards them. Whereas someone's out chainsawing a piece of forest that has been unpuched for decades on your turf and you might go check it out, like, hey, let me throw some rocks this guy, get them out of here. That's just me, you know, kind of making an assumption, but I would assume.

47:16 But you know, that kind of pattern has been reported over the years, and yeah, I don't know. I think the debate is going to rage until you know there's more evidence. There's there's a lot of alleged evidence, so footprints, hair samples, pieces of video. But a problem is a lot of that evidence is subjective. It's not proof, right, like you have evidence improof proving something. You can have evidence all kinds of things, but you know, even in like a legal trial, think about how much evidence they gather and how long it takes them to make the case to definitively prove hey, this guy did this. You know, they can have all sorts of great evidence, but you know, on on its individual merits, it may not be worth much, you know, as opposed to like the larger case. You know, I'm certainly not a legal scholar. That's just kind of my interpretation. But but yeah, I don't know. I mean, the bottom line is there is something going on. In my opinion, you know, I've experienced enough and talked to enough people that there is there's some mystery phenomena going on out there, and I don't know if we're any closer or any further. Certainly there's a lot of modern tech, but even now, it's so hard to get a really good picture of you know, wildlife that runs in front of your car. I've had giant moose run in front of me and by the time I had my phone out, it's already gone in the bush and it has you know, it's six feet wide with its antlers. It's like, where did they go? I mean, so, I don't know, it's a there. There's again, I don't think there's enough people seriously looking in a very meticulous fashion. I mean, you know, in a place like Alaska, there's basically nobody looking you know,

48:51 weakend warriors. But there's no there's not a scientific team in a place like Area A that's there six months out of the year doing rotations that have thermal camera everywhere, right, Like that is just not happening anywhere. And most of the stories are coming from people just randomly in these environments. And then then you've got the weekend Warrior kind of stuff all over the place, and I'm a lot of enthusiasts, but you know, we have to sift through some of that to kind of see if it's valid or not. So yeah, that doesn't really paint a really good picture because it's like there's really there's nobody really truly kind of engaged in this kind of surgeon of way that we would need. And it's difficult, like, you know, people people have their own lives, like you know, I wish I could spend a year on location in a place like that and just try to learn as much as I could, but that's so logistically tough to do, right, right, So I don't know. I'd like to say we are hopefully closer, But I don't know at this point. I'm just kind of, you know, speaking from my personal experiences, just happy to be out in some of these environments and see if there's anything viable or if anything happens sort of thing.

49:57 Yeah, And I remember when I was like speaking on just the elusivity of animals in general, and when I was about eight years old, I was riding my big wheel at the time through the metro parks my parents and here in Cleveland. Much of the metro parks line the Cayhaga Valley National Park, and I was ahead of them quite a bit, and I remember like looking off to the left and at the time, like all I saw was a glimpse and it looked like a giant be bear on its hind legs like rubbing up or scratch uplicates a tree, and like, I mean, the guys, I'm scared of that. So I turned around to feedback right, and maybe no more than two minutes between when I turned around, I went back to my parents and ended up right back where we were. That thing was completely gone.

50:40 There was nothing, no trace, no idea what it like, what it really was like. In my mind, it was a bear and like, thinking back now, I was like, what it could it have been Bigfoot? You know, could it been something else? But it's crazy to think of like how large many animals within the forest are and how quickly they do disappear. It's their superpower really, and so with big it's kind of it's very much the same way. It's like how he just pops up in many places seemingly and it just vanishes. And a lot of people, I think nowadays, are tracing that to like, oh, it must not be a physical being, it must be spiritual, it must be ethereal or something like that. But it's like, no, when you look at the history of just animals in general, and those that are wild animals, they are fully capable and fully tuned to disappear on when that's kind of like what they do, and it's how they start. Yeah, you know, so it's yeah, I agree, I think it's very possible. It's still a physical being, and the fact that we're not seeing it has nothing to do with, you know, the technology. It's just that animals and instincts tend to work better and more efficiently than where technology can, and it's it's just is how it is.

51:53 Well, yeah, I mean, it's like you mentioned with wildlife, it's incredible. You know, I've been in the woods and had no idea moose was very close to me until it started move. You know. I sat for a little bit and just listened and realized, oh my god, there's been a moose there the whole time. And we're talking about an animal that can be almost one thousand pounds. And you know, if it doesn't want to be stealthy, it doesn't want to be stealthy. I've had moose run past my tent in northern Maine at six in the morning and it's like a stampede running past your tent. And then other times you won't even hear it moving. I mean, it's incredible, right, I mean, here in northern New England, we've got god. I mean, I think the numbers are between fifty to seventy thousand moose. I know, the numbers kind of ebb and flow, but they're the most amount of moose anywhere in the United States outside of Alaska, which obviously has many. I mean they're everywhere.

52:42 You see them all over the place, even in suburban Anchorage. That's how close the wilds are to nature now to cities and civilization and places like Alaska. About it here. You know, I live in the woods and we have moose around here regularly, and I'm only ever, I've never even seen one of my property. I've gone it on trail camera a few times. That's it, Like, I've never seen one out here. I've seen plenty of moose in other areas and run into them over the years. But knowing that there's that number of moose around you and most of the time you go out you never see one at all, it's very intriguing, kind of like where are they there? There's somewhere out hunkered down, And let's say there's only twenty sasquatch and like one large area of northern Maine, that's nothing compared to the fact that there's thousands upon thousands of more moose and there's thirty thousand black bear. So biologically speaking, the habitat there is rich enough to support humongous, large mammals that weigh thousands of pounds and you know, consume many many calories daily and also are active year round. In the case of moose and deer, that sort of thing. Obviously, bear hibernate for most of the winter, but there is a precedent for large animals surviving on the iron. But again, to go back to the debate, I mean, I don't know what exactly these things are. What they are obviously people still wonder, oh, they probably don't even exist. I don't know what is going on, Like something he's going on,

54:12 people were having some encounters with something. Not every single person is lying. I've too many people that I trust that really I don't know why they would make up a story like this. And then the other interesting factor is a lot of the on my travels I've run into people who and you know, over the years of researching people who have had an encounter but they don't want to tell it publicly. They don't want to be a podcasts, they don't want any attention, but they have this story and a lot of times they have PTSD. I mean, I've got a friend who gets who claims to have had a sighting of a creature while driving and looked at it. And whenever we go out camping with him, he has like he's he's scared, he doesn't want to stay out at night. He gets these kind of very uneasy feelings like I don't want to say trauma. Yeah, I guess trauma would be some like a PTSD kind of thing. And it's like if there's something real causing that, I don't think it's all just kind of in his head.

55:05 And that's something that with other witnesses too that have had you know, scarier kind of encounters where they felt like their life was threatened. I've heard this from hunters people that I have interviewed over the years. One gentleman in particular who talked about, you know, he was an avid turkey hunter and he had kind of face to face one of these things and you know, he didn't want to hunt for years after that. He could not get himself to go back into the woods and that was like his number one thing that he liked to do. I've heard that story time and time again. So it's people like that that don't want any attention. And a lot of times, especially here in New England, some of the stories like in New Hampshire that I've taken over the years, like it's almost like pulling teeth to get the person to trust you and they finally let their guard down to tell you their story, but they're like, you're not going to put this out anywhere, Like, I don't want this, you know, my job is too important.

55:52 I don't want to be a crazy big foot person. I think that attitude is changing a little bit now because of the prevalence of a lot of shows in the podcast, and it's like, are culturally ubiquitous. But I don't know it's some of these people, man, Like I've talked to people who are very educated. We're talking PhDs, to former Secret Service members, all sorts of educated folks, to folks that are not educated but know the woods but like the back of their hand, every kind of spectrum law enforcement, military, all sorts of backgrounds that all have consistent reports and stories, and many of them either don't want to share publicly or you know, will only under very specific circumstances kind of share their story with you.

56:38 So it's perplexing when you kind of think about it. I don't think every single one of them is lying or misinterpreting or misidentifying. Like, yes, there may be a portion of that, certainly. You know, there's a lot of people that do make stories up and if it gets me on podcast or oh, I can make some money off this. But there's red flags. And then there's the guy that you know, he's leasing a hunting cabin in the woods, and all this stuff happened over the course of a decade and never would have known his story had he not told somebody who was interested in that kind of stuff. I don't right, you know, And I think it's like for those who are like seem to be deathly afraid, you know, like your friends who are too afraid to be outside.

57:22 They don't want to be dark. You know, even if they didn't see They put it this way, if they thought they saw something but they were unsure, they wouldn't be so afraid. But humans have a natural instinct, a prival instinct where it's like, even if you don't connect the dots, there's a familiarity and a fear that clicks in. And so even if you're unsure of what you saw, a fear is there because you know what you saw, right, even if you can't quite point it out. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's something to be said about the people that they claim to have had a sighting and they have some sort of traumatic response to being in the location where it happened, or being out after dark.

58:08 That sort of thing I mean, I've witnessed that firsthand, and I don't know, it's it's a little perplexing. I'm not I'm not a psychologist. I don't you know, a sociologist anything like that. I don't know how to diagnose that stuff professionally. But when you when you get to know somebody and you know they're they're all fun and jolly, and then when it gets dark, you know, they're like a nervous nelly, and it's like they're a different person at that point. Right, It's just kind of unusual. It's something that I kind of grapple with a lot trying to try to rationalize and and understand and any like what what's the motivation behind a story like that?

58:48 Right? And I'm some of the again, some of the people I'm thinking of just people that I've become friends with now, and I know, like they're not trying to make a million dollars on these stories. They're not trying to get on every podcast, TV show and all that kind of stuff. A lot of them that have become researchers now is because they had an experience and they have this kind of desire to want to know what it was they want to know more. I've got a friend of mine that he had this kind of weird tent encounter where he saw this strange hand and a brushing up against his tent up in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, and you know, he's thinking, oh my god, is this person messing with me? And then he heard this kind of guttural vocalization, weird vocal that went through his chest and vibrated into the like it just vibrated through the chest very loud, and it freaked him out and he didn't know what it was. He never thought bigfoot for years until he saw a documentary featuring a biologist named John Mainzinski talking about an encounter similar encounter he had in the tent where you know, something was kind of messing with his camp while he was up in a remote area in Wyoming in the mountains surveying sheep. I believe, as you know, as a biologist and you know, had this kind of serious of sasquatch encounters. And my friend saw that show years after his encounter, It's like, is that what I experienced? You know, because he did. And then you hear that a lot. Actually, you know, two of some of my top witnesses in my kind of book, my mental book of encounters, they talk about hearing a vocalization.

1:00:15 They feel the vocalization now whether or not that's because it's like immense power or some people talk about frequencies. You know, animals can produce these these infrasonic or low frequencies. A friend of mine head encounter with an alligator and I believe he's Texas or Louisiana. It was, like he said, I was twelve fifteen feet away from it and it did this low grumbling sound and I got this instant wave of fear that came over me. Intimidating predator. I don't know, you know why our bodies responding like that, but you hear that with these sasquatch encounters too. Again, my friend he saw that hand brushing up against his tent as he's in the tent with his with his young son and mother of the son at the time, and he's thinking fight or flight, like op, this is some guy gotta go mess with him, and then he hears this sound that kind of freaks him out. And based off of that encounter, that kind of led him into wanting to find out more. And he's like I want to see one of these things. You know, I don't know if that's what I encountered, but that's what he wants to He wants to find out more. And so that's really interesting the folks that get into the research or the investigation side of things because they had a defining encounter or an experience. Yeah, so there's certainly a lot to ponder, certainly a lot to ponder.

1:01:30 Yeah, Well, we could probably talk to you for the rest of the night, but it is time to let you go. So I wanted to give you a chance to tell everybody where they can find you find your work. The MIC's all yours absolutely, Yeah, So, I mean most of my work is found on small Town Monsters. So we are an independent production company. As I was talking about earlier. We do a lot of different documentaries, bigfoot, UFOs, cryptids, other sort of strange topics as well. Is called Beyond the Trail. You can find a lot of the stuff I've specifically talked about tonight linked on my website, Pettakov Media. It's p E T A k o Vmedia dot com.

1:02:10 You know, that's got links to all my social media and all the other kind of stuff. Too, but I also have links on my film and video page which has links to all the series and things that I mentioned over the course of tonight. So yeah, that's kind of the best place to find me in my work. And you know, if I could just end on the note saying, you know, people keep an open mind. We really don't have the answers. We don't know the truth. There's a lot of strange things out there, and I hope we'll get to the bottom of it. If not, then I mean, I'm just enjoying the journey as it goes along, and you know, getting experience some of these beautiful locations and hopefully other people will be inspired to do the same. Awesome, all right, Alex, thank you so much for being on Paratruth be Born sounds good. Thanks guys.

1:02:58 All Right, folks, a lot of great stuff coming up for you, so tune in every week until next week where you'll find this same time, same channel. My name is Justin and I'm Eric Pace.