This was in the West Point area of Virginia. His friend had this like
party house where they would drink beer and you know, they would you know,
play instruments. One night, he went out to go to the bathroom
just outside around you know, the back of this barn, and he said
he saw this large white form and then a smaller white form right next to
it. He was like kind of dumbfounded. He couldn't really make it out
what it was. But then when he went back in to talk to his
buddy, his friend was like, Oh, well, that's that's princess.
And evidently this guy and his family have been seeing this albino sasquatch on their
property in this swamp area for generations. My mind was just like blown at
this. I've tried several times to get this guy to kind of like talk
to me about it, and I don't. I don't. I don't think
they're gonna I don't think they're going to open up about it. I'd like
to welcome a very special guest to Bigfoot Crossroads, world renowned cryptid artist Jonathan
Dodd. Johnny Dodd, Welcome finally to Bigfoot Crossroads. Man, what's up,
dude? Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. This is this
is awesome, this long overdue. Oh for sure. For sure. If
you have listened to the podcast previously, you have seen Jonathan Dodd's artwork.
Jonathan is responsible for the big Foot Crossroads. I would I can't even call
it a logo because it's so much more than that. It's a badass graphic
is what it is. Uh Man, How I mean I kind of know,
you know obviously our talks and everything about the original concept and everything,
but like, how'd you end up going the direction you did with the logo?
Well, actually, I think it probably came a lot from the music
that you sent me, because when you initially hit me up, you're like,
I have this idea, you know, to branch out with, you
know, Bigfoot Crossroads, and I have you know, a song in mind.
I think when your buddies produced it and you sent it to me,
And as soon as soon as I heard it, I was like, you
know, transported to my grandmother's house in like the early nineties, watching Unsolved
Mysteries or you know, something like like one of those types of shows where
you're just like and I was like, okay, yep, I know exactly
what I need to do, So that was it was an inspired moment.
And yeah, that's that's kind of how I came up with it. I
mean, you nailed it, Needles, you nailed it. I think it's
a you know, I may be a little partial, but I think it's
one of the definitely better, if not the best Bigfoot podcast logo out there.
Too kind, too kind. Hey, I've had other podcasters tell me
that, so really, yeah, I thought that was pretty awesome. Yeah.
I won't say their names, but yeah, let's yeah, let's call
them all out right now, yeah, one by one. So originally I
found you because I run a Facebook page for the podcast where I post all
kinds of memes and artwork and articles and just anything Bigfoot related I can find.
Really, and I don't know exactly where it was. I originally ran
across your artwork, but you were doing uh like bigfoot art digital painting basically,
and I started posting your stuff a little while before I reached out to
you. Uh what got you started doing Bigfoot art? Bigfoot has just always
kind of been something in my life that I, like, you know,
have kind of latched onto. I don't I'm not even one hundred percent sure
why, But it's just something that's always fascinated me. And when the pandemic
hit and you know, we were all walked inside and everything, I picked
up an iPad one day, just on a whim, I think it was.
It was my mother's iPad. She just let me use it, she
handed it, she handed it over to me, and I just started,
you know, drawing on Procreate and for some reason, I would start out
these you know, painted land escapes and then by the end of it be
thinking about, you know, where could I hide a big foot in this?
You know, where could I put a big foot and make it,
you know, make it like a story almost. Yeah, So yeah,
I mean that that's kind of how it started out. And then from there
I kind of got more into you know, researching cryptids and stuff like that,
and you know, just started branching out and doing different you know,
monster monster art. Yeah, you know, that was one of the things
that caught my attention early. Was usually when it were somebody you know,
does an illustration of a bigfoot. It's just kind of a classic like witness
style sketch or whatever, or their version of Patty or their version version of
Harry from Harry and the Hendersons. But you were doing actual scenes where the
bigfoot was the main subject. But it was almost like you were doing,
like you said, stories like witness stories, you know, situations and stuff,
and you had like such cool concepts. I did try. I I
did kind of go through a phase of listening to bigfoot stories you just on
podcasts, you know, I would listen to you. I listened to like
Sasquatch Chronicles I think was one of them, and you know a couple other
Vic Kundiff's Station as well. I would. I would listen to all of
them. And I think, you know, just that repetition of you know,
hearing you know what happens during a big foot encounter kind of or what
can happen in a big foot encounter like really like spurred my imagination onto like
try to incorporate that into one scene. You definitely hit the mark with me
from some of the stories that I had heard, especially like I remember one
one image specifically is like flashing in my brain right now where you had done
like some bigfoot up on the roof of like a cabin or a house or
something. Yeah, And like I mean that's something like early on in my
big footing, like that's something that I heard people talking about, like hearing
something walking around on the roof, and I always thought how terrifying that would
be and stuff, and how crazy it used to think that these giants would
like climb up on somebody's roof, you know, and kind of spy on
him and mess around. And so whenever I saw your artwork depicting that,
I thought that was crazy. I'd never seen anybody do that before. Yeah,
I tried to find like little you know, weird you know, little
scenes, you know, from stories that I've heard and stuff like that,
and try to incorporate it into my art. Now, did you grow up
hearing like local folklore and stuff where you're at? So I grew up in
Fredericksburg, Virginia, just a little bit east of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and
there's you know, tons of you know, Civil War and Revolutionary War history
in that area. So it was mostly like ghost stuff. If you know,
like if we were you know, talking about spooky stuff, you know,
it would it would always be like a Civil War ghost or you know,
like the the ghost of George Washington, you know, you know,
something like that that would be, you know, like from that area.
There's even a there's even a story from Fredericksburg about there's a ghost that haunts
the Chatham Manor. In Chatham Manors sort of like this huge estate that is
on top of a hill in Fredericksburg. It was abandoned in the Civil War
and they actually used it as like a headquarters for a little while. But
as the story goes back in the Revolutionary days, George Washington's friend owned that
place, and there was this lady who tried to sneak out to meet with
her lover down by the rap Hannock River, and George Washington caught her and
told her she shouldn't be doing that, and evidently like apprehended the lover down
by the river. And it's said that she comes back every seven years to
look for her lover, oh and walks that same path down to the Rappahannock
River from Chatham Manor. So that was kind of like a spooky story that
we always kind of grew up with around Fredericksburg. Yeah, and I mean
that's that's probably that's one off the top of my head that I can think
of. But yeah, there's there's lots of like weird folklore that that kind
of happens, you know, around those like historic areas. I mean,
you're from an area that's like really old for this country, you know,
so this country. Yeah, definitely, did you have stories like did you
hear any stories about bigfoot and stuff? Like? Did you have cryptids out
there? Not really cryptids? And I honestly not even that much bigfoot stuff
goes on in Virginia. Well, I mean, I guess there's big foot
stuff that goes on in more like the western side of Virginia, But I
never really grew up with that kind of lore. Ye, that kind of
came afterwards. You know. I would as a kid, you know,
I would go to like the library or whatever, and you know I would
find, you know, the the weirdo books, you know, that corner
of the library where they always had you know, like the corner exactly.
Dude, we would have been in the same corner talking about lockness monster books.
Yea. But yeah, so that's kind of where my introduction to cryptids
and you know, monsters came about. Was, you know, going to
the local library and just camping out in the weirdo section. I mean,
I know you already kind of said you didn't really know, but I'm going
to push this anyway. What do you think it is about big Foot that
like captured your interest and just like held on for so long. I think
just the mystery of it, Like I mean, you think about you know,
like what you know some people say, you know, it's a it's
an ape of some sort. If it's an ape, why don't we have
one in a zoo? You know? Like I mean, there's there's just
like a we have every other type of you know, monkey and ape in
a zoo, So why wouldn't you know this be there? Like there's that
whole mystery around it that has just kind of like grabbed my imagination for a
really long time, you know. And plus it's really fun to draw.
But there's a lot of artists, you know, obviously I follow a lot
of artists, A big fan of art work. That sounds weird to say,
but I don't know, howlse to put it same same, but you
know there's artists that will draw Bigfoot from time to time, you know,
just because artists have huge imaginations and that's something cool to draw. Like you're
saying, but I mean you've like really kind of become part of like the
online crypti community and the bigfoot world and stuff. You've kind of taken it
a step further. Have you like gone on any actual investigations or outings with
it? Yeah, I actually have. I was I went out with Alexander
Pettakov and Eli Watson once. We were I mean, I worked for Small
Town Monsters every now and then doing you know, documentary illustrations, so that's
how I know those guys, and you know, we meet up at festivals
and stuff like that. And I heard that they were going to West Virginia
to do an investigation for Beyond the Trail and I head up alex and I
was like, Hey, would you mind if I came out? And he
was like, oh, dude, come out. So yeah, I mean
we we met up in West Virginia and I camped out with him for a
couple of nights, and we went out a couple of night investigations. You
know, nothing, nothing crazy happened or anything like that, but it was
it was definitely kind of like a moment where you know, like I felt
like I got my feet wet a little bit. Yeah, well that actually
that's a pun because we were soaking wet literally the entire time. It was
raining and it was crazy. It was why. Yeah, I mean we
I had I had galoshes, you know, luckily, but I mean,
yeah, we were wet the entire time. But yeah, it was a
it was a good time. I may have heard some knocks. I don't
know, not one hundred percent sure on that, but that was fun.
Actually, here's a funny story. We were on this road paralleling this river
and we were you know, we were pitch black, you went totally dark.
We had thermals and that's the only thing we could see with really,
and we heard this huge crash like right next to us, and me Alex
and Eli both just jump out of our boots literally and shine the lights up
there, and there's this deer just standing there looking at us, and we
like freaked out for a second. It was kind of funny. We all
kind of laughed about that. But yeah, so, I mean it was
I'm sure I'm sure you have stories like that too, where it's just like
your hearts, your heart's beating out of your chest and then you just realize
it's like a small animal just like chilling her looking at you. Oh,
dude, armadillos. I have cost so many armadillos in my life, especially
in the fall time whenever there's a lot of leaf litter, because an armadillo
will, like they primarily eat like grubs and bugs and stuff like that,
so they'll like shove their head underneath the leaf litter and they'll just plow forward
a little bit and stop, and then they'll forward again and stop. So
it sounds like footsteps coming towards you. And they're blind, they're practically blind.
They can't see hardly at all, and they'll walk right up to you,
you know, in the pitch black dark, and you're like, oh
my god, here it comes, here, it comes, here, it
comes. And we had this one guy he was actually, I think he
was taking a piss behind the tent and an armadillo came up, and you
know, it was funny at first because he was kind of freaked out,
you know, it sounded scary coming towards him, and then he finally saw
that it was just an armadillo or whatever, and he's kind of like,
you know, cussing it and stuff, and he kicked at it. He
just like kicked some leaves towards it. And it was pretty close to him.
It was just like a couple of feet away. And the other thing
about armadillos in this part of the country, you see a lot of armadillo's
dead on the road, and the reason for that is because whenever they get
scared, they jump straight up in the air. So whenever it comes down
the highway, they'll actually just like jump straight up and like hit the undercarriage
of the car or the bumper and killed themselves. It's crazy. Oh my
god. So this armadilla, whenever he kicked those leaves, it jumped straight
up in the air, but somehow did like a one eighty to where it
was like facing right towards him, and whenever it hit the ground, it
just hit the ground running and almost like like ran into him and like started
to climb up his boot and everything, and he started streaming like a little
kid. He literally streamed out for his mom and like stumbled around and took
off running almost fell down. We were cracking up. It was so funny.
Oh my god, do they like bite or anything like? Is there
any like no danger with an armadillo? I have no experience with no.
I think they carry leprosy. Actually which is kind Oh yeah, okay,
I think I've heard that too, But I mean I've had one come up
and like sniff my foot before, whenever I was a kid, and I
can tell you from a child's perspective, the scariest thing about them is they
have these huge long claws for digging in the ground. You know, they
like burrowed it in the ground. But I mean they look like they could
just like slash you up, you know, just tear you up if they
wanted to. I mean, they never would, but that's the big scary
part. But now they don't bite or anything like that. I don't think
they'd claw you. I'm gonna keep on telling myself that they wouldn't, just
to keep it safe. I mean, can you imagine being the first person
to see an armadillo and just trying to explain it to your friend and then
they're just like, no, that can't be Probably, yeah, I think
about that all the time. Actually, I think about like pretty much every
animal you can think of was encryptid at one point or another, you know,
yeah, definitely, And like all the different explorers and stuff all over
the world, you know, hitting like imagine like the first people that came
to North America, and they're just like going across North America discovering like new
animals and like seeing things for the first time. That'd be so weird.
It'd be weird but also really exciting and awesome. Yeah, yeah, for
sure. So are there any witness stories that kind of stand out to you
that you know you have, like a tier list or anything going on Bigfoot
related? Sure? Anything anything weird? Man, We can start with Bigfoot,
we can go into other things. I mean, have you talked to
any witnesses or her witness stories of other cryptids besides Bigfoot? Actually, I
don't think besides Bigfoot? I don't think I have. But you know,
when I go to these like crypti events, like to sell my artwork,
I mean, it's basically an open invitation for people to come up and just
you know, unload their weird stories on you. Right. And this is
not me complaining because I absolutely love it. And even this last cryptid event
I did Cryptid Bash in West Virginia, I had a lady come up to
me and tell me a really strange story where she was driving and she was
driving through I think it might have been the Allegheny National forest somewhere somewhere in
pa I think. And she was on this you know road at like midnight,
maybe even later than midnight, and she came around this curve and saw
a squirrel walking across the road, and then after the squirrel there was a
possum, and then after the possum there was a raccoon, and then after
the raccoon there were two sasquatch children she called them children whoa And they were
like walking, you know, on all fours, but very fast, like
across across the path or across the road. And then after the sasquatch there
was a deer. So she was like it was the weirdest thing she had
ever seen because it was you know, it was just like one after the
other in you know size order. Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean
that was like a really strange story that I heard that just kind of came
to my mind right now. But yeah, so these these events, like,
I mean, people come up to me and they just tell me all
kinds of things. That sounds like that Stephen King movie Dream Catcher. What
was that the name of it. Oh, yeah, I haven't seen that
in a long time. Like all the different animals are like running. Yeah,
like that's crazy, but yeah, it was. It was pretty wild.
That's a that's a wild one. I'm trying to think. Oh.
And then another one at that same event, This one lady came up to
my brother actually because he was doing he was like handling money and stuff for
me as I was kind of like schmooth and then talking to people, and
she came up to him and was like pointing at one of my paintings and
she was like, the one I saw looked exactly like that one. And
so she told him the story first, and then when I came back to
the table, he pulled me aside and was like, hey, talk to
this lady for a little bit. And so I, you know, talked
to her for a little bit, and she was telling me a story about
this sasquatch that looked exactly like the one in my painting, where she was
walking her dog down a very heavily you know, traffic path. This was
I think this took place in West Virginia, and a bigfoot was walking up
the path the opposite way, like towards her, and she said she kind
of stopped and watched it walk up and then stopped to kind of like make
sure her dog was still kind of like at her side, and then looked
up and it was gone. So and something about the painting that kind of
like caught her eye, she said, was the snow like it was a
snowy scene. And she was like, we were we were walking, you
know, doing like a winter hike on this this path, and that was
that kind of like jogged her memory. So I thought that was really cool.
As well. Have you done like witness sketches for people yet nothing like
close up. I did do one for a friend of mine actually, who
says he had an experience in back in high school. This was in the
West Point area of Virginia. And this this area, I'm not sure if
you're familiar with it at all, but it's like right on, you know,
it's it's out in almost the Chesapeake Bay almost, I think it's off
like the north the York River, and there's also the Pamunkey River. But
he just goes up the east coast of Virginia and he said that he was
at a friend's house and they were at you know, they were in a
band and they were partying and stuff, and his friend had this like party
house where they would you know, drink beer, and you know, they
would you know, play instruments, and they were, you know, they
would just party out there. And one night he went out to go to
the bathroom just outside around the back of this barn, and he said he
saw this large white form, a large white form, and then a smaller
white form right next to it, and he was like, you know,
kind of dumbfounded. He couldn't really make it out what it was. But
then when he went back in to talk to his buddy, his friend was
like, Oh, well, that's that's princess, Princess princess. Yeah,
And so he he had to he had to get the guy to elaborate.
And evidently this guy and his family have been seeing this albino sasquatch on their
property in this swamp area for generations. And I was like, my mind
was just like blown at this. And I've tried several times to get this
guy to kind of like talk to me about it, yeah, and I
don't, I don't. I don't think they're gonna I don't think they're gonna
open up about it. But that's one of those stories that just kind of
like has stuck with me and I've actually done some artwork around it, and
getting back to your question, he asked me to recreate that scene basically,
so he sent me a couple of pictures he sent me, and then he
sent me like a detailed description of like what the property kind of looked like,
and then I kind of took it from there. It wasn't, you
know, exactly like a you know, eyewitness drawing or anything like that,
but you know, it was kind of like the look and feel of,
you know, what it would be like to be in a field and see,
you know, these these two giant forms chilling there watching you go to
the bathroom. That would be insane. Man, I don't know which.
You know, that's a lot to unravel because right imagine like seeing it first
off, and like, you know, your mind's blown. You're freaking out,
and you go back in and tell them and they're like, oh,
yeah, that's Princess, right right. It's so weird. You weren't You
weren't going to mention Princess before I went out to take a piss. Yeah,
by the way, you might run into our pet albino sasquatch while you're
out there, but it's okay. That's nuts, man. So yeah,
I mean, I I may, I may reach out again just to see
if you know, I can glean any more information out of us. But
it seemed like that was kind of it, and it's this is all,
well, he saw it, but all the information is coming from another,
an outside source that I don't have access to, and he feels a little
you know, I wouldn't say intimidated, but you know, like weird about
talking about it. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know. I don't
know how I would get any more information on that, but it would be
cool. It'd be cool if I could, if I could get something else
out of there. I mean, yeah, it's cool that he told you
about it to begin with, though, I mean, right, yeah,
And the only reason he did was because I had been posting so much Bigfoot
artwork. Oh wow. He reached out to me and was like, hey,
can I tell you something? And I was like, yeah, of
course, And you know that's where it kind of like led off, and
yeah, of course my mind was blown. But you know, I've had
like similar stuff happen to me whenever people that I knew found out that I
was in the Bigfoot and that I took it seriously. A couple of different
people that have hit me up and you know, hey, can I tell
you something, but don't tell anybody, you know, that type situation.
Yeah, and it's always like the last people you had ever expect, right,
I think I don't know, like not just bigfoot, but like weird,
weird stuff. I think it happens to everybody, but you know,
it just kind of depends on your your radar, your your own radar,
and then like what you're willing to you know, put out there, well
not to come across offensive. Just I'm completely ignorant about this. But like,
is Virginia part of like the Appalachia area? Yes, okay, so
like the western more like the western side of Virginia is like right there on
like that whole strip of Appalachia. Yeah, what's the deal with that place,
man? Because that area has to have some of the weirdest folklore of
all and it really does. I've like seen people talking about stuff and it's
it's like beyond folklore. It's like, yeah, this stuff is real.
People see weird stuff and experience all the time. Have you have you ever
been out this way? You been out? I haven't, well, The
only way I can really explain it is you would have to be there,
Like I mean, it's it's so strange, like because you can step into
these woods in these mountains and you can just kind of like feel it.
I don't know, it's a it's a feeling. It's like a primal feeling,
like it's so old. And the Appalachian Mountains were, you know,
part of like the oldest mountain range in the world, and you know,
when all the continents and stuff were together, it was all part of like
the same mountain range. So like stuff you know that was in Europe could
have you know, had free range into what is modern day in North America.
You know, yeah, something it's like, uh, I don't know,
it's it's a it's a just very old and when you go there you
can just feel it. Do you think there's some kind of connection between the
paranormal cryptids and all that stuff and these areas that are really old and have
lots of history, especially whenever you get into terms of like geography like really
old places, because it seems like there's a lot of stories from there.
I think so also that area was like heavily settled by European immigrants. So
European immigrants are bringing over their lore, their monsters, you know, their
their fairy tales, and they're you know meshing them, you know, with
you know, Native American stuff, and you know, you know, they
they had their their beliefs over in their country and then they're coming over here,
and then you know, it kind of gets like melted together with like
Christianity and other religions, and I mean it just kind of like it's a
melting pot really, so I think that has a lot to do with it
as well. Do you guys any lake monsters out there? Yeah, actually
we do, and this is more like towards like the Maryland side of Virginia,
but the Chesapeake Bay is home to, or evidently home to Chess the
lake monster, which I guess is sort of like some sort of lake monster
up there. And honestly, I don't really know any any of the stories
around that. I just know that it's like a local cryptid of that area.
I mean, what do you think about lake monster stuff, because I
mean, we recently talked about block mess, you know, but lake monsters
and sea monsters in general are something that you know, if you follow human
history. People have been talking about them forever, and they're talked about all
over the place, and those kind of things always catch my attention. So
what do you think is going on with that? What do you think about
lock Mess and all that? So, I mean, there there's got to
be something in there. I mean, whether it's you know, as simple
as you know, a school of eels, or or if there's a you
know, some sort of relative of a Eplesius or who knows, you know,
it's a The water has always been like that, that area that we
don't go, you know, like I mean we it's it's still and it's
still just like a place of mystery. And I think, you know,
like in modern day times, you know, we're we're all talking about going
to space, but I mean there's still like so much underwater stuff that we
can't even touch. Yeah, I mean it's it's insane. Uh So I
think that, like I was talking about before, like that sense of mystery,
Like I think that has a lot to like it just takes hold of
your brain and I mean you just kind of like go you kind of go
crazy about it, honestly. So yeah, I mean I don't I don't
really know like, I don't know if it's like a real thing or if
it's something that we've kind of like created, you know, in our in
our psyche. You know, that's kind of like a collective consciousness kind of
thing, you know, where every uh, you know, every every you
know, part of civilization has their own you know, mystery around the water
or if or if there's something to it, you know, I don't know
they got those. There's somebody just posted pictures of quote unquote the Lockness Monster.
So who knows the Lockness monster butt picture? Yeah, Yeah, that's
crazy. They just did that giant search for Lockness where they had like all
those people meet up there and stuff, and yeah, I guess those pictures
were part of it or something. It is kind of crazy, though,
that we spend so much money and effort to explore space whenever where we haven't
even began to touch on in the ocean, right, It's so weird.
It's it boggles my mind actually, like because I feel like I feel like
there there are things in the water that we would would just like our brains
would explode, like we there there could be dinosaurs, you know, like
this sort of stuff. I mean, there could be something ancient, you
know, down there that you know, we just have no idea about.
I grew up. Our state has a lot of lakes, and I mean
it's not just Oklahoma, a lot of states have this myth, you know,
the story of like a diver was added dam and went down and saw
a gigantic catfish that looked like it was big enough to swallow Volkswagen Beetle.
It's like a common thing. Like I grew up hearing that story, and
then I like talk to other people that heard the same story from other places,
and I was like, oh, so it's a thing then. But
I mean, yeah, you know, I've person only seeing gigantic catfish being
pulled out of the lake before. Yeah, and those are just the ones
we're catching. So there could be something absolutely enormous just sitting at you know,
just a bottom feeder down in the depths of the ocean somewhere that hardly
ever moves, and we wouldn't know anything about it. Yeah, we're too
busy looking up. Oh man, that's a beautiful segue. Actually, yeah,
yeah, let's talk about that same thing. Let's talk about that.
Let's talk about first the White Monster of Sherman. Yes, you illustrated that
book by I guess the Moth Boys. Is that the nomenclature to use for
the it is a Mothboy's presentation, yep. And yeah, they they did
all the legwork really to research this. And as the story goes, you
know, they grew up in in and around the Chautauqua County area and Sherman
is, you know, the county over and there was this book, it's
by John Keel thing. It's called it Mysterious Monsters some kind of something like
that. I can't remember the exact title, but there was an excerpt in
there where you know, John Keel was adding in you know, correspondence he
got from people talking about monsters that they've seen, and there was one entry
from a kid in Sherman County and he was saying that he and his family
were seeing these giant albino ground sloths in western New York in the nineteen sixties
and yeah, just wild, wild stuff. And the Moth Boys were inspired
by this story because you know, it's their local legend basically that nobody that
nobody knows about. So they wanted to get the story out. They obviously
wanted to find the kid who who saw these creatures, and damn it,
they did it. It was it blew it blew my mind, dude,
if I could give them an award like, that's nuts, man, that's
nuts. One little part of a book written ages ago before they were ever
born, right, talking about some kid that don't they don't give the kid's
name or anything. And these guys tracked him down. They did, and
honestly, I don't even really know how they did it. Maybe I shouldn't
know how they did it, but they found him. His name is John
Goodwill. I think he's in his seventies right now. I met him once
at Mothman last year, at the Mathman Festival last year, and I've met
his brothers since, who have all seen the white monsters as well when kids.
But yeah, they they found him, they interviewed him, and you
know, John took them out to the spots in Sherman County where they they
saw the white monsters. There's this it's called the Rails to Trails and basically
it's an abandoned railroad section that they've taken the railroad tracks out and made walking
paths on. And that was like the primary, you know, centric area
where they would see the white monsters, you know, going up and down
that railroad path. And so they John took them out there. They took
photos and stuff, and then yeah, they compiled this book and they asked
me to do the illustrations for it. And I mean, I couldn't be
prouder of this. I mean, it's like a it's such a wild story
and it's just it was it's so cool. Yeah, it's crazy. I
mean, it's just it's it's a giant ground slow but it's a family of
them, right, And I mean, Okay, so whenever you say that
somebody saw a family of albino giant ground sloss in the nineteen sixties in this
small town, obviously, anybody who hears that is initially just gonna be like
bullshit. I know, there's no way those things aren't even fast and they're
huge. How would they ever hide? But then whenever you like read the
actual story where you know their interview with the guy and realize he wasn't the
only one that saw them, and nope, it was. I mean,
if they're lying, they've got me fooled. I mean it sounds true.
And I tell you, I tell you, I have met all of them,
and they're the most genuine awesome people. Like they have no reason,
you know, to say this stuff when I mean, it's not like they're
they're getting a ton of money or anything out of this. You know.
He was like a retired teacher, wasn't he. Yeah, yeah, he's
a biology teacher. So he said he went into biology partly because of this,
like he didn't know what he was looking at. So I feel like
that seed almost kind of like brought him to what he was going to do
as an adult, which is kind of cool. And you know how it
is in those small towns like that man, you don't want to be the
guy that lied and said he saw a giant white sloth, you know,
right right, they have no reason to lie about it. And I for
one, you know, and I know a lot of people do they believe
them. There's no reason for them to go out on a limb and say
something ridiculous, you know. Okay, so we're both on the same page
that this guy's telling the truth. Yeah, how how how are those grounds?
How where are they alien? What's going on? See? I don't
know, And I mean it's funny that you would say that aliens because we
we actually went out to the swamp and we experienced some UFO activity, which
is just this. I swear this, this place, Sherman, New York
is some kind of breeding ground for the weird. It's wild, man,
Do you want me to tell the story? Yeah, let's unpack it,
man. I mean, like, what were you doing there? Who were
you with? What was going on? Okay? So, as we said,
we put together this book, The White Monsters of Sherman, New York,
and we had this table. The Mothboys invited me up to Sherman,
New York because Sherman was having their two hundredth anniversary. They're by Centennial and
they were having this big parade and they had vendors and food and all kinds
of awesome stuff there. It was a really good event. But we had
a little table set up, you know, with our books, and the
Moth Boys printed up some White Monsters T shirts and stuff like that, and
really it was just an opportunity to get out with the local people and talk
to them and try to introduce them to this kind of like weird history of
their area that they may not know of that they most people had no clue
of. So that was A really cool part of it was, you know,
being in Sherman and talking to the Shermanites. I don't know if that's
what you've got, but because I mean, like I said before, you
go to these events and people just come up to you with their stories and
it was like, you know, everybody's got a weird story, and we
were able to hand them back a weirder story. And you know, it
was just kind of like up in the ante to see, you know,
what they would come back with. But yeah, so we were we were
there promoting the book and you know, shedding light on weird history. And
that night the Moth Boys were like wanting to show me their stomping grounds and
stuff like that, and so we went to you know, like their local
pizza joint, you know, their like their ice cream joint. They you
know, they showed me a great hospitality and stuff while I was up there,
and uh, we decided that night that we wanted to go do a
night investigation, uh in the swamp where the white monsters had been sighted back
in the nineteen sixties. And so we went out to the rails to trails
and you know, we were equipped with you know, headlamps, and flashlights
and machetes. Of course, sure, as one does when on a night
investigation in a swamp. So we were out there and you know, we
walked, you know, maybe a mile and a half to maybe even two
miles. I kind of lost count of it down this rails to trails and
it's just you know, it used to be a railroad track. So we
were just a straight shot through the woods through the swamp, and you know,
we we got you know, pretty far into a place where we were
like, you know, is this even really the rails to trails anymore?
Like should we turn around? Are we on someone's property? So we were
getting a little freaked out about that, so we decided to go back and
we got to this one area where it kind of opened up and you know,
you could see the swamp, you could see the mountain and the night
sky and Matt moth Boy, Matt calls attention to a star, or what
we thought was a star at first. He was like, man, look
at that. That's a weird one. And it was a very big looking
light in the sky, kind of an orangeish hue to it, and we
all kind of locked onto it, like I don't know, I mean we
we thought it was kind of weird because it was kind of hanging low,
like kind of sort of right above the mountaintop. And I say mountaintop,
it's more like a rolling hill mountain, you know. Yeah, but this
thing, you know, it's upstate, you know, western New York,
so I mean there's not like huge mountains or anything like that. But you
know, it was sitting sort of, you know, above the tree line
of the mountain, and it just looked really low for a star. So
we all kind of locked onto it, and we realized that it was moving
up very slowly. Like it was almost like you if you weren't looking right
at it or locked onto something next to it, you wouldn't be able to
tell it was moving at all. So that's what we did. We kind
of like locked onto a star next to it, and you could tell it
was moving very slowly up. And as we all kind of realized that it
was moving and sort of vocalizing to each other, you know, hey,
it's moving, it's moving, it started to move faster and it moved up
and up and up, and then totally blinked out. It just totally went
out, and we all were like kind of freaking out a little bit,
but in like a good way. Like we were all like very excited at
this point. And as it went out, we could tell behind it there
were blinking lights, and we were like, at first thought maybe it was
a plane, you know, and of course, you know, skeptical stuff
going through your brain. But then they started coming closer to us, and
we were like, okay, this is kind of strange. So there was
like, i think two blinking lights that were kind of coming towards us.
One was kind of going off to the left and one was coming right towards
us, and we just kind of waited for it, and it went right
over our heads and when we looked up, we all saw this. It
was a dark shape that was darker than the sky behind it, and it
was a perfect diamond shape with four lights underneath of it. It was making
absolutely no noise, and it flew right over our heads and it disappeared behind
the mountain behind us, and we all were just like, holy crap,
that is the weirdest thing we've ever seen. And so it didn't stop there
as soon as that went over our heads, and we were all kind of
like, you know, talking about it, and we were all really hyped
up. Matt saw again that same light over by the mountain. Again it
was a little bit lower in the sky, but it was still sitting very
low, like right on the mountain. And as soon as we all or
he called attention to it, and as soon as we all looked at it,
it went out again. It just blinked out right there, like this
is this is over? You know, you don't see anymore. So yeah,
I mean, we were in a couple other things. We saw a
couple other questionable lights in the sky at that that time, but that was
like the most significant part, and for me, the most significant was actually
seeing the diamond fly over my head. It was insane, like absolutely insane.
I mean, I'm no expert, but I believe that's what they call
a UFO, right, I mean, there's you know, nothing else you
can call it. I mean, damn, dude. Have you guys like
reported it or anything. I don't think that we have. I mean we
I think we've all talked about it on a podcast or two at this point.
Yeah, but uh no, we haven't. We haven't like reported it
officially to my knowledge, you know. I mean, as soon as I
heard about it on the interwebs. You know, I hit you up immediately,
Yeah you did, and asked you about it. That's crazy. One
of the aspects that you know, again is the most crazy about it is
you definitely feel that there was like an intelligent interaction whenever it blinked out that
last time. Well, honestly, I felt like there was an interaction the
entire time, Like I mean, from when we noticed it in the sky
above the mountain, and then as the rest of our group there were five
of us there that night, as the rest of us in our group all
kind of locked onto it. That's when it started. It was like,
oh, you recognize me, watch this kind of that was kind of that
energy starting out with. And then then it was the diamond, which got
us really hyped up. And then the the light at the end that went
out when we drew like drew attention to it. That that one was a
little bit creepier for some reason. And Matt, Mike and myself all kind
of reported afterwards that when that light went out at the end, we all
kind of got chills. Actually, I'm getting chills right now talking about it.
That was kind of a weird one, I felt like, and I
can't really explain why. I don't know. If it was just the the
feeling that you know, it was interacting with us on that level that gave
us chills. I don't know, I don't know what it was, but
yeah, that that just felt different. Maybe it was whenever you discovered that
you were missing like eight hours. No, no, no, we we
actually checked our watches just to you know, just to make sure, you
know, when when you run in these circles, you kind of have to
check all these boxes, right, But yeah, I mean it was.
It was wild. Have you gone down the UFO rabbit hole because of it?
No, more than normal. I've always been kind of interested in in
UFOs, I admit, not as not as much as like cryptids and you
know, bigfoot and stuff, but uh or ghosts for that matter. I
mean, it's definitely a crazy time for UFO stuff, it is it,
Yeah, it really is. And I think I will be you know,
getting you know, deeper down into that rabbit hole as you know, things
progress and hopefully I see more because that was I mean, that was a
wild, wild thing. Have you followed any of the disclosure stuff going on?
Yeah, I mean I watched the hearing and everything like that. And
I mean, while it's exciting and I think, you know, it kind
of opens the door for other people who may have felt, you know,
like they can't speak up. You know, it gives them a little bit
more confidence, you know. I think that's a good part of it.
But also it's kind of like I feel like the hearings and you know,
like the official kind of stuff is kind of like dumbing it down a little
bit, like so much so that it's almost like not fun anymore. I
don't know, I don't know, that's just me being you know, yeah,
it seems like a lot of that stuff is really just for the sake
of the government paperwork and stuff, yes, and not really accomplishing what anybody
wants to have accomplished. Yeah. So I mean that's that's kind of my
sense on it. Like I'm I'm all for, you know, giving the
power to people to you know, feel confident and coming forward and you know,
talking about their weird experiences and stuff like that. But when you know
it, the only reason you know, you're bringing this stuff to light is
you know, for national security or you know, you know that, I
don't know, it just kind of seems like it's you know, the government
being the government changing up of have you ever seen a ghost? I have
seen a ghost? Yeah, I then I think I've I've talked about this
a couple of times, but that was actually like probably one of the first
weird things that I've ever seen in my life. But I was on a
field trip to historic ken Moore in the ken Moore Plantation was a working plantation
in you know, like the seventeen hundreds in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and the
the guy that owned ken Moore his name is Fielding Lewis, and he married
George Washington's sister Mary. I was on a field trip there. We were,
you know, kind of being rambunctious kids, you know, like we
kind of run around this historical building and uh, we're supposed to be,
you know, paying attention to the the tour that was happening, and me
and a friend were kind of like you know, roaming around looking into the
rooms and stuff like that. And I can remember one of the rooms the
door was kind of like cracked and you could see through the back of like
where the hinges are the back of the door into the room. So I
was looking through that and I saw what looked like a person in the bed
in this you know, historical bed, and this like brownish white hair coming
down out of the bed. And I got a really weird feeling at that
point and decided to get the heck out of there. And to this day,
you know, I believe that was a ghost. Like I was,
I was witnessed to something going on in that room that was weird. I
mean, there's no shot that somebody who was laying down in that bed right
right, Yeah, that's crazy. I mean it sounds like it was something
that was like actually fully manifested it and it looked totally solid. Yeah,
which you know, I always kind of end this story with, you know,
maybe it was one of the tour guides on their fifteen minute break,
but you know, there's no Yeah, there's no reason. There's no reason
for that to have I mean, they they did, they don't do that
kind of stuff there, And I don't know it just I can remember.
I think when you see something like that and it sticks with you your entire
life, Like I can still see it in my brain. And I'm the
type of person, you know, I may not remember what I have for
breakfast in the morning, but this is burned into my brain and I think
that's significant. Yeah, in a lot of these situations, I think that's
a significant thing. There's a guy who, uh, another podcaster and again
I won't mention any names, but more recently they've talked more about it,
but they have a bigfoot podcast, and they started noticing some things happening around
their property. And they do live on some property where, you know,
it's not like they're in the middle of the city like me or anything.
But they were very skeptical and I think they still are skeptical, which is
great. You have to kind of be that, you know, to not
get carried away with it or anything. But they weren't willing to commit to
saying like, hey, I think I have bigfoot coming on my property,
you know. And they were really just kind of being overly skeptical about it,
which again I do understand having grown up in the bigfoot community. But
I was talking to somebody else about it, and I said, you know,
the thing is, if they didn't at least think it was bigfoot,
they wouldn't be talking about it. It wouldn't be going out too And I
think that our minds have a way of you know, like you're saying,
whenever you remember something your entire life and it's just ingrained in your mind,
that's a pretty good clue that it's real that you saw something and your mind
recognized it for something that isn't supposed to be there. Whether you did or
not, you may not be able to prove it at all, but you
always have that feeling. Yeah, yeah, I definitely identify with that,
Like the paranormal stuff goes some things like that. I mean, jeez,
my entire life, you know, that's kind of how I got, you
know, started in all of this, and I've experienced some things and it
just it blows my mind. Because with Bigfoot, I mean, you know,
like you're in the crypto community, you're a cryptid artist. I've seen
you do artwork of all different kinds of cryptids. I mean, you've got
crazy ones. You know, there's absolutely crazy ones. But Bigfoot's on a
whole different level because people routinely report seeing Bigfoot, where you don't have,
like next week, nobody's going to report seeing a hoodag. You know,
it's just not going to happen, right, But ghosts, everybody's seen a
ghost. Ghosts have been seen forever. They've been talked about forever, and
it just kind of blows my mind that people, I mean, the White
House is haunted, there are ghosts the White House, but yet people are
still skeptical about there being spirits and ghosts and stuff. It's just kind of
crazy to me. Yeah, that's a pretty wild Have you ever gone into
any detail on your experiences? Like, I don't know if I've ever heard
of And honestly, this isn't a weird flex or anything. There's just been
so many, Like I've probably shared a few here and there on like other
podcasts. I don't think I really touched on them with this one. But
yeah, I mean I was experiencing things as a as a small child.
Oh wow, that's terrifying. Yeah. Whenever I was born, there was
like five generations alive at once. Oh wow. I was raised by my
great grandparents, but for the first year and a half roughish, my great
great grandmother was alive and living in this house, and she actually passed away
in this house. I'm pretty sure that was like the first spirit activity that
I noticed. But there was like another ghost in this house that did some
pretty gnarly stuff before I was ever born. I had an uncle. You
know, my mom and like her brother and brothers and sister were This was
their grandparents' house. They were always over here and staying the night and stuff.
And one time, whenever they were over here staying the night, whenever
they were younger, my uncle was actually attacked. Oh wow. He was
like laying on the living room floor on a pallet, and uh he said
that he like rolled over. I think it was wintertime. We have like
a gas fireplace in the living room, and I think it was on at
the time, but he said that he couldn't get comfortable, and he like
rolled over towards the fire and he just like opened his eyes and he saw
a man's face in the back of the fireplace, and then it, you
know, scared the crap out of him. So he kind of rolled over
on his back where he couldn't see it anymore, and he felt somebody like
sit on his chest and like start choking him. Oh my goodness. And
I mean like he was like fighting. And my mom was asleep on the
couch and woke up hearing like the struggle and everything thing and saw him like
wrestling with somebody, but nobody was there, and then as soon as I
think she like you know, screamed or something, and it just like immediately
stopped, and he just sat up real fast, like gasping for air.
Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still live here.
I ended up actually inheriting the house. Uh and I still live here,
and sometimes weird stuff happens, but nothing crazy. Kind of gone through some
precautionary steps to make sure that nothing crazy happens, or at least hopefully.
Yeah, and do you have a Okay, Well, I'm just wondering like
what your what your thoughts are on and I know this this could go on
for hours and hours, but what your thoughts are and what that could be?
Like what do you think that's an intelligent, you know, spirit a
person that the spirit was a person, or do you think it was something
different? Yeah, that's a good question. But I do think that was
a person, which is kind of jacked up. You know that he was
like strangling a young boy. But uh so, my great grandparents were the
second owners of this house. And and I only know this information because of
the events that I experienced as a kid and doing research on my own trying
to understand what I was experiencing, you know, because I had asked my
grandparents, and my grandfather would just be like not talking about it, you
know. My grandma was like, oh, those are just guardian angels.
Don't worry about him, you know. If you get just come up,
they're sitting on your chest. Fol Like, what kind of angel is that?
But uh, I mean, like nothing crazy like that was happening to
me obviously, But uh so I started asking questions and found out that the
original owners of the house was a husband and wife. They were older.
I think they were visiting kids or on vacation or something like a state away.
Uh And while they were on this trip, they got into a car
accident and the husband died, and the wife came home and sold the house
eventually to my great grandparents. And I just kind of always felt like,
that's the jerk, you know, that that was the mean entity that was
here. Well, you know, from from his point of view, you
guys are in his house. Yeah, somebody's in his house. Who who's
just sleeping on the floor in my house? Yeah, you know, jump
on him? Yeah? Yeah, So I mean that's that's wild. Yeah,
that's probably that's probably one of the more intense ones I've ever heard,
Like, I don't know if I've ever heard of, you know, other
than like a TV show or a movie of a spirit actually attacking someone like
that. Yeah, I mean there's been like a few instances over the years,
some creepy stuff. I felt like a finger on my leg kind of
like running down towards my knee while I was laying in bed. Oh yeah,
that was one of the creepier ones. But yeah, but yeah,
some things have definitely happened in this house. And I mean I'm not the
only one that's saying this stuff, Like other people have been here and witness
stuff. My friend Bob from Bigfoot Club had his first visual sighting of a
ghost in this house. Oh yeah, and it was kind of crazy because
the one that he saw was like one of the more common occurrences that happens
in this house, which was probably like a residual thing. But I had
never told him that particular story or anything. I mean that that just,
I mean, that just adds credence to what's been going on. You know,
someone experiences it without knowing and then comes to you and you're like,
oh yeah, you know that's oh yeah, that's this, yeah, but
there's definitely something to it. So so do you think do you think all
ghosts are dead people or do you think there are different kinds? And I
think there's different kinds man. That's kind of like what I've been I've been
thinking about this a lot too, Like I don't know. I mean,
I feel like there's different types of ghosts and it's not all one thing,
and it could be could be a bunch of different things. So I don't
know. I've never understood, like why people always say that it's like,
you know, this is you know, my my grandmother over here, you
know, I mean, is it? I don't know. I mean I
think that happens a lot though, with a lot of things. Whenever you're
talking about the world of the unexplained. I mean, we don't know anything
about any of that stuff. I just know that people witness it and experience
things. I mean, I think the same thing could be going on with
Bigfoot. You know, just because you're out in the woods looking for Bigfoot
doesn't mean something crazy you experience is Bigfoot. It could be something else entirely,
we don't know, And if Bigfoot's out there, that was one of
my first thoughts, you know, after I encountered Bigfoot, you know,
which sounds crazy even now twenty plus years to say, but if Bigfoot's out
there, what else is out there? You know? Because Bigfoot's not supposed
to be here. That's crazy, right, you know. So yeah,
so one more topic before we get off here. I mentioned Robert Domingo's Bigfoot
Club and he had a question that he wanted me to ask you. Okay,
hey, Bob, yeah, you did his logo too, so great
job on that. I'm wearing the shirt. Actually that I realized I'm actually
wearing the Bigfoot Club shirt. It's an awesome shirt. It's one of my
favorite shirts. So so he wanted me to ask you about your thoughts as
an artist about AI art and how crazy viral it is. And it's something
that kind of pertains to this subject because there's a ton of AI art being
used by Bigfoot podcasts and just showing up on Bigfoot Facebook groups and Instagram accounts
and everywhere. So what are your thoughts as an artist? Well as an
artist, you know, I'm you know kind of like, you know,
just hire me to draw your big Foot. I feel like it is kind
of you know, taking some some jobs away from me and you know my
you know, my colleagues. So I mean, I I'm not a huge
fan of it. Also, I mean you can do some really insane stuff
with it, like it's very powerful, but also I don't think it's you
know, very ethical because of the softwares right now, are you know,
pulling from actual artists who have created stuff, you know, with their you
know, own two hands, right and you know just because you pull you
know, this from this artist and this from this artist and mash it up
together, you know that I don't know that that necessarily makes a piece of
art. You know, the human aspect has been taken away from it.
And you know, at the end of the day, I would like to
see AI be used for, you know, taking some of the pressures off
of like, you know, hard jobs. You know, like why why
do the robots get to sit around, you know, creating art and writing
and making poetry and we have to do that? You know that nine to
five jobs? Isn't that kind of weird? Right? Yeah? Why why
is that the first thing that they think of to replace? It seems like
as soon as AI was introduced to the public, it just instantly went to
the art realm and like chat GPT. You know, what would Donald Trump
say to an alien? You know, stuff like that, Instead of what's
a cure for cancer? You know, what's an unlimited energy source? Things
like that, people would rather make photos with it. It's weird the downside,
especially in the world of Bigfoot, and I'm sure it's going on in
other places. But I mean already you see AI being used to hoax photographs,
yes, and AI renderings being presented as real. How can that be
fought against? Can it be fought against? I mean surely it's only going
to get worse as AI progresses. Yeah, And I mean they were probably
thinking this, you know, when you know photographs were created or or movies.
You know, I can remember. I think it was a documentary that
I watched where they were when you know, sound was introduced into movies,
people thought that, you know, movies were going to be you know,
completely crap, you know, after that. Like so I think I think,
really, any you know, uh technology that kind of comes out,
I think people are going to fear it right off the bat. And I
think I think AI can be useful, you know, as like I was
saying, like with with some of these, you know, bigger problems and
like what you were saying, like you know, why why can't we you
know, use it to to cure diseases and stuff like that, you know,
as opposed to writing poetry or you know, creating paintings. Yeah,
all right, where can we find Jonathan Dodd's art work? You can find
me. Probably the best place to find me would be on Instagram. My
Instagram handle is Jonathan Dodd Underscore Draws, and I also have a website.
It's Jonathan doodddraws dot com. Do you got any big projects coming up that
we can look forward to in the cryptid community? Actually? Yeah, Me
and my brother are currently writing a graphic novel so hopefully you know, that'll
be out, you know, in the next year or two. So that's
kind of like one of my big projects that I have on my plate right
now. What's it about? Can you say? I would rather not talk
about it right now because it's just so it's so early. Fair enough,
fair enough? Yeah, sorry, sorry to be so cryptic. Well,
man, I appreciate you coming on. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Like you
said, it was long overdue. I'm glad it finally happened, and we
will have to do it again sometime. Yeah, man, anytime, this
is a blast. I really appreciate you having me on. I'm a huge
fan of the show. Really glad that you and I have become close over
the last couple of years. And yeah, let's do this again. Yeah,
for sure, man. And if you've encountered something like Bigfoot or something
else and explain, send me an email at Bigfoot Crossroads at gmail dot com.
Check out the website if you get a chance, Bigfoot Crossroads dot com.
And until next time, I remember there's something in the woods.