Speaker 1: At a book. If you'd like to be able to
listen to the show without ads and have full access
to bonus content, that's an option. To find out how,
please go to Dogmanencounters dot com forward Slash Podcast. Tonight's
guest is a Dogman researcher with quite a few interesting credentials.
Number one, he's written two Dogmas specific books, two interesting
books that I'm sure you're going to want to read.
In the description for tonight's show, of course, I'm going
to post links to those on Amazon for you. But
also not only that, he's a writer and producer for
the Small Town Monsters films that I'm sure you've most
likely seen on YouTube and in other places as well,
where they have three videos that are dedicated to Dogman.
From what I understand, well, I can't do this man
any justice, so without any further ado, let's bring him
in here now. Tonight's guest is Aaron DS. Aaron, Welcome to.
Speaker 2: The show, mister Kundiff. How are you? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Sir, I'm doing better than I deserve. How about yourself?
Speaker 2: About the same? About the same. That's a good description.
I like that.
Speaker 1: Well, it's great having you obviously really appreciate you being here. Aaron,
please do me a favor and give us a brief
bio in yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. My name is Aaron Deese. I'm a
San Antonio based author and researcher. I'm also a producer
and a writer for Small Town Monsters. And if folks
aren't familiar with STM, we're a documentary film company. We
just celebrated our tenth anniversary. We're celebrating it right now.
And we make films about dog Man, UFOs, Bigfoot, all
that fun stuff. And yeah, I have two books centric
to the dog Man phenomena that are out there and
done a little bit of traveling, done quite a bit
of interviewing, and put in a few miles researching this stuff.
So it's something I'm very passionate about. I'm excited to
excited to get into it with you.
Speaker 1: You must be passionate about it, all the work you've
put into it. Yeah, I can't imagine trying to do
all that work if you're.
Speaker 2: Not right something you're not interested in, Man, that'd be
a bummer.
Speaker 1: So yeah, sure would be. And you touched on this
just a moment ago, just like I did in the
opening words. You've mentioned how you wrote two dog me
on specific books. Please tell them, Please tell us about them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure. So the first was The Texas dog Man
Triangle that was released in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty three,
and that book is about exactly what it sounds like.
It's about dog man sidings in the state of Texas. Oh,
there's Heather Mosure. Heather Mosure is the editor at Small
Town Monsters Publishing and was the editor on these books
I'm telling you about. So that's exciting, good timing there.
But yeah, that the first book focused on dog man
sightings in Texas, and it seems that looking at a map,
there's a preponderance of sightings within a geographical area that
runs from Dallas Fort Worth down to San Antonio, over
to Houston and back again. And so that's where the
term the Texas dog Man Triangle came from. And then
the second book is called Hunting Grounds Dogmen of the
Lakes and that is about dog man phenomena in the
land between the Lakes, and that book was released last year.
So those are the two that are out there right now.
Speaker 1: Wow, you do stay busy, don't you?
Speaker 2: I get bored otherwise yeah.
Speaker 1: Gosh, I have to wonder when you have time to sleep.
Speaker 2: Oh, you don't. I have a two year old, so
sleeping is something I said goodbye to a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I'll bet you did. I'm sure that two
year old keeps you busy.
Speaker 2: Also he does yet he's my own little werewolf. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can only imagine you mostly focus on dog
mean happenings in Texas. There. It's easy to think, if
you just are now getting into the whole dog man thing,
to think that you might expect to have a dogman
encounter in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Ohio, New York, places
like that, Tennessee, Kentucky. But it seems like most people,
when they're just getting into this, they just brush right
over Texas. They don't think about Texas being a hotspot
for dog me and encounters. Have you noticed that or
is it just me?
Speaker 2: I have? Yeah, And I think it's gaining more traction.
I think in the last couple of years, people are
paying more attention to Texas with regard to this phenomenon.
And I don't mean oh because my book came out,
you know, I like to think that I helped. But
the dog community is vast, and they're not all reading
my books, you know what I mean. But I do
see more chatter. Hey, Al, thank you for that. I
appreciate that. It's very nice comment. But I do see
more chatter and a lot of the online communities and
Facebook groups I follow, because you know, I've mentioned this
to you before, Vic, I like to watch the conversation
and see what people are saying, and I do see
more conjecture over the state of Texas. And since my
book came out on the topic, I've been fortunate enough
to be contacted by several people who said, Hey, you know,
I've had sightings like this, or I've had sightings in
this area and I didn't realize this was a thing.
I didn't realize other people were seeing these things. So,
you know, it's I'm hopeful that more people kind of
will pay attention to Texas in this regard because there
are more sightings, there's more data, there are more reports,
and the more we have on record, the more we
stand to learn. So, you know, I think we're just
really getting started as far as like looking at Texas
as an area worthy of continued study.
Speaker 1: It should be because a lot of it counters happen there.
And with that in mind, why do you think so
many dog men are there? Apparently man?
Speaker 2: Then we get into what are these things? You know,
if you look at it purely from a biological standpoint,
the topography in Texas lends itself to most forms of wildlife,
not all of them, but most of them. We had
camels here at one time during the Civil War. That
was a thing. You can look that up. You know.
We have bears in some areas, we have foxes. We
have desert areas and all the animals that go along
with that. But then we also have swamp lands and forests.
So if these entities or creatures are in any way
a biological being, it's not too out of scope to
think they could find a place where they would be comfortable.
In the state of Texas. We also have vast, vast
stretches of unoccupied, unobserved land that maybe government land, maybe
ranch land, tons of ranches and farms out here, but
places where you don't necessarily have a ton of people,
where something could hide in relative privacy. So I think
just the way the state is, how spread out it is,
how many large areas there are, I think that lends
itself to sightings of any unidentified creature. Oh there's my
buddy's hell bent holler. Thank you, guys, appreciate you. So
I think that is a strong element to it as well.
But then once you get into some of the more
the stranger aspects of this phenomenon, and people say, well,
you know, these seem to be more than just animals,
are they something supernatural? Then you get into what is
it about Texas that lends itself to strange phenomena because
we've got everything out here. You know, We've got UFOs, ghosts,
buried treasure, pirate curses, we've got Bigfoot in spades. I
think I said Bigfoot already. We have some of the
most notorious UFO and alien contact ees sidings on record
come from Texas. So you could argue that the state
itself is just super strange.
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, there are a lot of strange
things that have happened there, But it's a big area,
it really is. As far as a split, does it
seem like more encounters happen in the eastern half of
the state toward the western that's.
Speaker 2: A good question. The dog Man Triangle itself is more
kind of central, eastern Central sort of bleeding over into
the western side, So I would say that's where the
most seem to be. But once you get further out west,
going past like Kerrville, you know, you start running into
just really small towns, tiny little towns, two hundred and
three hundred people, maybe a thousand people. You don't have
as many folks around to have sightings. So there certainly
is an element of that as you're getting closer to
these larger cities like San Antonio, Dallas, Houston. These are
some of the largest cities in the country, so of
course there are going to be more smaller towns around
them where the environment lends itself to strange creature sidings
if you like, but where there are people to have
those sidings. So you could argue that as you go
further out west, there just aren't as many people. But
again that's one of those things where we just need
more data, we need more information.
Speaker 1: You make some really good points there. Encounters do happen
where the people are. If there's not a person to
witness it, then yeah, there's no encounter. So that's a
really good point. It's obvious from the things that you've
shared that you focus on Texas mostly, but you've put
a pretty good amount of work into researching another place
called the Land Between the Lakes area and the dogman
activity that's been alleged to happen there. What more can
you tell us about what got you into researching in
the LBL.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So if you spend more than ten minutes researching
dog man phenomenon or real werewolf encounters, there are a
few things you're going to trip over almost immediately, and
one of them is the alleged Land between the Lakes incident,
or Land between the Lakes massacre as it's called. So
I had kind of an interest in that just as
a story because I love stories, you know, I think
most folks who are interested in this stuff too, And
it wasn't something I treated with a whole lot of seriousness.
And then around the end of twenty twenty three, I
was just kind of getting involved with small town monsters
at a more you know, active capacity, and it was
decided that, hey, we're going to look at Land between
the Lakes and we're going to do it is kind
of a unified way. We're going to explore it in
as many ways as possible. We're going to look at
the dog man stuff. We're going to look at the
big foot stuff, We're going to look at some of
the paranormal stuff. And I was already making notes for
another book, you know, still looking at the dog man phenomenon,
kind of building on some specific themes and ideas, just
stuff I had stumbled across while writing The Dogman Triangle,
but that I didn't get the chance to explore fully.
And then I start looking into the Land between the
Lakes and I realized these themes are consistent not just
in Texas, but also in the LBL. So it really
it happened as a result of this kind of unified
research push that we were doing as a team, which
was a super cool thing to be a part of.
But it also kind of happened organically because it was
also already on my short list, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can understand why it was. And it seems
to me like the LBL when it comes to dog men,
it's kind of like an onion. The more you start
removing layers, the more you find Is that accurate?
Speaker 2: That is an apt description?
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, so not only is adapt but it's also accurate.
Speaker 2: Apt and accurate. Yester like the le a on that
one AA plus plus.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I couldn't help myself there.
Speaker 2: No, that was good.
Speaker 1: Do you consider yourself to be a researcher?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, Yeah, that's the term I use most often.
I do produce podcasts, I'll call myself a podcaster, and
I do right books, so I can I can say
I'm an author, but I don't consider myself an investigator.
I don't get out there on a regular basis and
put boots on the ground like Jesse Joe over at
Helden Hollerde or Alex Petakov over at small Town Monsters.
You know, those guys are investigators. I don't consider myself
a cryptozoologist because there are people like you know, Ken
Gerhard and Lyle Blackburn who have the zoological credential to
call themselves cryptozoologists. So for me, I like to say
I'm a researcher because that's where everything I do starts.
It all starts with research.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, just being honest, that's always a good thing.
And just a moment ago, you mentioned the fact that
you put some research into the alleged murders that took
place at the LBL. What kind of research did you do?
To try to find out if they actually did happen
or not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we did everything we could to either confirm
or deny the details of that story. And by we,
I mean myself, Heather Moser, the rest of the STM crew,
Shannon Lagroux, who was on that film shoot with us.
There were sessions during that film shoot. We were in
the lbl for about five days that unfortunately we're not filmed,
but where we were all huddled around laptops and phones
and tablets looking into certain aspects of this story. Because
as we were spending time in the land between the lakes,
talking with locals, interviewing witnesses, we're getting other details and
other tidbits that are not a part of the Internet version,
if you like, you know. And despite all that, we
were not able to find anything that confirms or strongly
indicates that that event took place as it is purported.
So that's one answer. The other answer is that that
conclusion leads a lot of people to, Okay, well, this
is an Internet invention, this is a creepypasta. We can
trace the origins of this story to the two thousand
and seven film Hunt the dog Man. High Strangeness in Kentucky,
which was produced by Barton Nunneley, noted author, cryptozoologist, you know, producer,
very accomplished guy. And in that film he interviews a
woman named jan Thompson who tells this story, and so
for a lot of folks that's considered the origin point.
Mss Thompson's version, a written version of the story was
available on the Internet for a few years before mister
Nunneley produced the film about it. So a lot of
folks will read that original account and go, okay, this
is written in very flowery lanth whage. Clearly this was
just written as a creative writing project, and they sort
of write it off and move on. What's very interesting
for me is that there are people in the land
between the Lakes area, such as the town of Grand Rivers,
Buddy and I mine named Mike Smith, who is quoted
in the book and in the film, who heard this
story as early as nineteen eighty two. Mister Smith heard it,
I believe in nineteen eighty seven. Elijah Henderson of the
Cryptid Studies Institute is in contact with folks in Grand
Rivers who heard it in nineteen eighty two. Whether it's
eighty two eighty seven doesn't matter, because in either case,
we know that this predates Internet creepy pastas and Internet
urban legends. The Internet was in its very early forms
in the eighties, So if the first time people can
remember hearing this story is the early eighties, it doesn't
mean it's true, but it does mean that writing it
off is purely an Internet invention is something we can't
do because we know it's been around longer than that.
From there, I'm going, Okay, well, is there anything else
to the dog man phenomenon in the Land between the
Lake other than this one? Really hope high profile case
turns out there is. I'm sure I've already seen mister
Martin Groves mentioned in the chat once, great dude, good
friend of mine. He's had some very frightening encounters with
these creatures in the Land between the Lakes. And even
going beyond mister Groves, there are several independent named witnesses
who will tell you I have had encounters with what
I believe to be an upright canine in this area.
So I'll say this, and hopefully I don't upset anybody.
It is my opinion that the events of the should
I say that now vick or do we want to
say that sorry, Oh no, you're fine, go ahead, and okay,
I don't want to derail the trajectory. But it is
my opinion that the events of the LBL massacre as
they're purported online did not occur simply because we can't
find anything to corroborate that, including records of these people
where they're supposed to be from, you know, any way
you can think to research this. We've done that, other
people have done it long before I did. But because
we do have legitimate dog man encounters in this area,
I'm of the opinion that there is some event at
the root of this that led to this story. And
it could be something as mundane as a family was
camping in the land between the lakes and one of
them was bitten by a coyote or scratched by a dog,
you know, and that morse into excuse me, that morse
into Oh, they were attacked by a coyote, and then
they were attacked by a bear, and oh, actually it
was a werewolf. That comes along with these existing rumors
of upright canines in the area. And that's just my theory.
But this story also says a lot about the land
between the Lakes itself, because if you look at the
history of this area, you know it was a Native
American hunting ground before settlers came along in the seventeen hundreds,
many of them led by Daniel Boone, who happens to
be a distant relative of mine. True story, These folks
set up shop in the lbl. They were there for generations,
and then in the nineteen sixties, the United States government
came in said we're turning this into a nation recreation area.
You guys got to get out. So you have this
place where up to two thousand American families, according to
some accounts, were forcibly displaced, the vast majority of them
against their will. And then a few decades later or
two decades later, you have this story about an unstoppable
force coming in and destroying a family in this same area.
And I got to give credit to my friend Eli
Watson for this take, because I interviewed him for the
book and he presented this perspective, and I think it's
really really apt because it says something about a real
world event, something that happened to real people, and it's
set against the backdrop of this very strange place where
these strange encounters really do happen. So no, I don't
think I know it all. There's a lot I don't know. Sorry,
I'm just reading the chat here, so you know that's
my opinion on this case. But I'm more than happy
to be proven wrong. If someone can prove me wrong,
at least we've proven something, and I think that's awesome.
But that's where I land after reading up on this
for you know, two or so years.
Speaker 1: I know you've put a lot of research into it.
I don't know thlier. And do you think it's beyond
the government's capability to cover up two murders that actually
did happen there but put us where we are today
with a lack of evidence.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's beyond their capacity. I just think
it's unlikely. And the reason I think it's unlikely is
because for the events of the massacre to have taken place,
you're talking about purportedly dozens of witnesses, and I'm referencing
the original kind of you know, testimony version, the one
that most folks think of. You're talking about dozens of witnesses,
and at some point, once you have enough people involved,
someone is going to talk, and we don't have anybody
that has claimed to be a witness of this event.
Now it's entirely possible that those folks just said, you
know what, Now, I'm going to stick to my silence
and never go on record. But we can kind of
observe an analog in the UFO world where we do
have an ongoing trend with on the government side of
keeping this stuff under wraps, denying it, saying no, there's
nothing on record. But now we have whistleblowers coming forward
and saying, actually, we do have these things on record.
And that's been going on for a long time as well,
at least since the eighties. So I know you can't
make a one to one comparison between the dog Man
and UFO research communities. And I don't mean to paint
with such a broad brush, but I do feel that
we need a little bit more, you know what I mean.
And again, I'm not going to say this didn't happen.
There's no way it happened. We just haven't found that
smoking gun at least yet, could be out there, could
be out there, I see Jonathan Dodd in the chat.
Jonathan Dodd provided the cover art for Texas dog Man
Triangle and hunting Grounds, as well as the little profile
iconom using here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's amazing artwork. I was looking at that
before we got under weigh and I'm really impressed. He
does really good work.
Speaker 2: He's a legend man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can see why you say that. I
really can what we're just talking about. Bouncing back to that,
I think it's all too easy to underestimate the abilities
of the US government, their reach and their pull, their
ability to do things to pull certain things off that
seem almost impossible, and I wouldn't put it past them
when you consider the resources to bury two murders that
happened there. I'm not saying that that I believe one
hundred percent they happened, but there's a lot of evidence
out there that, in my opinion, is awfully hard to ignore.
I mean, there have been several people who I know
who have gone to the LBL, and various people have
taken them to the exact same place. People who didn't
know each other have taken them to the exact same
places where these murders supposedly happened. And there have been
other things too, corroborating evidence that gosh, it's just really
as part to dismiss I could be wrong. Maybe they
didn't happen, But as time has gone by over the years,
At first I just thought it was nonsense, But as
time has gone by, I don't know, I wouldn't be
surprised if they did happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm on the other side of the coin there,
I'm with you. And this is part of the challenge
in writing a book about this kind of thing, because
you want to weigh it from both sides, you know,
and my opinion on this will morph over time as well.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's a tough one because, like you said, if it
is all nonsense, why can't we just write it off?
Why are this many people convinced about it? Why does
the story have that kind of staying power? And that,
at least in part, is why I do believe there
is some event at the root of this. You know,
we may never know all the details, but I do
believe that there is a basis to this story in reality.
So I am definitely with you there. It's just like
you said, there's so many layers you peel back on
and you go, okay, what about this? Back on the
other side, round and round.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely, there are a lot of layers. Like
you said, well, from what I understand there, Aaron, you
have a relative who told you about a dogman encounter
they had before you tell us about that experience that
they shared with you. Is that what got you into
this whole dog man thing or was it something else? Yeah?
Speaker 2: It really is, It really is. I had started a
podcast with my wife called Hey Strangeness during the Pandemic.
You know, like I think a lot of us started
during the pandemic. You've been around quite a bit longer,
but you know, there's a whole legion of us who
came in during the pandemic. And I was looking for
a topic to do just for a general something strange
in Texas because that's where we live. And I'm having
a chat with this person who is a relative who
I've known for many, many years, who says, well, you know,
I saw something strange ones and they relate to me
what sounds like a roadside encounter, and I go, well,
you have you ever heard of this thing called dog
They're like, no, what are you talking about? So we
start talking about the Beast of Bray Road and the
Michigan dog Man, and you know, this person gets pale
in the face and they're like, that looks like what
I saw, you know, looking at the artistic renditions and
the eyewitness sketches. So then I do a little more
research and come to find out that there are other
reports within you know, one hundred miles of this random
sighting that this person didn't realize was significant at the time.
And that's where the term Texas dog Man Triangle came from,
because there were three that were kind of clustered in
this one area. But then of course it grows as
you realize there are more reports and stuff. But sorry,
the short answer to your question is yes, that was
kind of the lynchpin that really cinched this for me,
because it's I'm fascinated by this stuff even just looking
at it online, watching documentaries, listening to interviews. But once
you have that personal connection to someone, whether it's your
own experience or even somebody you know, that grounds it
a lot more in reality, and that's kind of what
set me on this whole journey. As it were.
Speaker 1: It's a slippery slope, isn't it It is? Yeah, yeah,
it definitely is. Well, please tell us about that encounter
that they had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they were driving. They were coming from Colorado
to Austin, actually on their way to visit me and
my wife, and they were down a long highway I
believe it is two eighty one, far far north outside
of Austin. And you know, I hate to use the
term atypical, but it was kind of what some of
us think of as an atypical roadside siding. They're coming
around a long bend. It's at night. They're in a
fairly isolated area, so you got trees on all sides,
very wooded space, and this person sees a large canine
form raised up on its rear legs, holding what appears
to be roadkill or something like that in its fore
paws or front legs how you know, claws however you'd
like to describe it. And as they're coming around the bend,
they had eyes on it for probably ten to fifteen seconds.
As they come around the bend and get a little closer,
it stands up on its rear legs, turns and starts
walking into the underbrush. This person is a veteran of
the conflict in Afghanistan, so they've been in dangerous situations
they know how to respond, how to observe, you know,
and how to report on what they've seen. They are
a business owner, they hold a real estate license in
two states, you know. And I say this stuff because
very often people call witness credibility into question. But for me,
even just this person, going beyond being a family member,
it's like you've got all these credentials as well, dude,
Like if you went loud with this story on the
Internet or something, it could destroy your reputation and ruin
your business. So the fact that it was being relayed
to me in private by someone I know. You know
that all the more that just made it all the
more impactful.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it did. I'm sure it did. It's one
thing when you get into this and you don't know
anyone that has added any experiences, But when you find
out that they have, when families had experiences or close
friends have, that really changes it. It really just pulls
out the realism and just does something to you. It
really does. This is something that you don't know about,
but I put this out there. I think what two
weeks ago, my copyright attorney he told me he contacted
me to let me know that a family member of
his has had a dog mean encounter. Then he went
on to tell me about the encounter, what happened and everything.
But yeah, that blew me away more people. And this
is something that I tell eyewitnesses all the time. I'll
tell them you probably know people more than one person
who's at an encounter with one of these things with
dog men, but you don't know it because they haven't
put it out there and told you or other people
about it. For obvious reasons too. But yeah, it's something else.
I wasn't expecting that to be told wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing with a lot of these encounters vic.
I think people see these things and they figure, oh,
that was just a weird dog. Well, maybe some of
them are weird dogs. But then when you take into
account dozens to hundreds of eyewitness sightings of weird dogs
walking on two legs, Ah, there's something else going on here.
Yeah that's my opinion.
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. You didn't directly address it, But what you
just said it brought another question to mind, And this
is a juicy one. Why do you think it is
if there are so many people who are encrypted connoisseurs.
I guess you could say who wholeheartedly believe in the
existence of sasquatch, even though they've never seen one, but
they poo poo the idea that there could possibly be
such a thing as a dog man out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love this question. I've got the biggest smile
on my face. I think there are a couple of
reasons for it. One, probably the most prominent one is
the association with pop culture, and that's inseparable. You know,
we're never going to get away from that. The fact
that people use the term where wolf as such a
common descriptor kind of speaks to that. You know, when
you have this image that's so deeply ingrained in pop
culture and has been for going on a century now,
that's natural for people to immediately hear dog man slash
were wolf and go, this is nonsense. We already have bigfoot,
we already have the Flatwoods monster. We don't need to
bring something else in. And I say that because that
was my perspective on it when I first encountered this
phenomenon before I read the works of Linda Godfrey, that
was my attitude, you know. Once I read a couple
of her books, I was like, Oh, okay, there's more
to this, but I think that's a big reason. What
a lot of folks don't account for is the fact
that human beings all over the world considered were wolve's
real to be an actuality for a very, very long time.
And when I say where wolf, I don't mean the
Hollywood transform under a full moon version. I mean some
iteration of the upright canine slash human chimeric motif that's
been around with us since ancient Mesopotamia, you know so,
And that's not my opinion, that's just a fact. I'm
sure a lot of folks listening are in the audience
have read Sabine baring Old's Book of were Wolves that
was published in eighteen fifty seven, and the stories in
that book are much much older. Thank you, Glenn, I
appreciate that. So people for a long time have considered
this to be a legitimate phenomenon. But then once the
movies came along and borrowed from a lot of these
old folk stories and these old tales, that's when it
became thought of as something that was purely of pop culture.
So there's that, and then on the other side, it's
difficult for a lot of people to stomach the idea
of any kind of undiscovered, upright six to eight foot
tall creature. And i'll quote Lyle Blackburn on this one.
You know, it's even harder to stomach the idea of
more than one. So when you get into okay, could
bigfoot be a thing? Yeah, sure, bigfoot could be a thing.
Apes are real. Oh but there's also were wolves, I
think it just kind of becomes too much. And I
don't mean to patronize or condescend, because again, this was
very much my perspective for quite a long time. But
when you take into account the historical record, the folkloric
precedent for people believing in these things, and then you
put that alongside these modern encounters, which you know, VICKI,
you're over five hundred and fifty episodes, as you know,
there are hundreds of them. For me, it's very difficult
to go, oh, well, people are just misidentifying Bigfoot, or oh,
this couldn't possibly be a thing. And then, just as
a side note, dogs can walk on two legs. They
don't do so in natural situations unless given a very
very good reason, but they do possess that ability.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, you raised some really good points
it's funnier and I didn't expect to necessarily blindside you
with that question, but oh no, I didn't think you'd
put as much thought into this as you obviously have.
You have put a lot of thought into this, sounds
like I.
Speaker 2: Do think about it quite a bit. Yeah, And part
of it's just, you know, following the discussion and seeing
how many people are very skeptical of the phenomenon, and
again understanding that skepticism. You know, the all my family
and friends know what I do for a living, but
ninety percent of them don't. Don't think real where worlds
are a thing. That's okay, that's fine. I'm more concerned about,
you know, hearing the stories of people that have actually
experienced this phenomenon and giving them a voice when I
have the opportunity to. But yeah, yeah, well that's good
that you do that.
Speaker 1: Obviously have an open mind, and as long as you
have an open mind, that's a good thing in my opinion.
After all, you can't put any tea in a tea
cup that's already full, so that that's good.
Speaker 2: I agree, Yes, sir.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. You have three case files that
you're prepared to share with us tonight. Please do that, now.
Speaker 2: I do, I would love to do that. So I
have two that are from San Antonio, pretty close to me,
and these are special to me because these folks came
to me after the release of The dog Man Triangle.
And then there's another from New Hampshire that I mean,
all three of these are you could say special. I
always appreciate it when people take the time to share
their stories. But and this one's interesting for a few
reasons as well. But we'll just start at the beginning.
I suppose I have one from two thousand and six,
two thousand and eight. The witness couldn't recall the exact year,
but this took place in north side San Antonio. And
this is the area that, if anyone's familiar with San
Antonio today, is considered Stone Oak, far north side. It's
considered a nicer side of town. It was fairly undeveloped
up until a couple of years ago. But what you
did have out there were a few very high end
housing communities, a few very high end apartment complexes, and
I'm talking apartments that are just whole houses that sit
on their own plot, you know, golf courses, a couple
places like that, So a lot of open space. And
just in case someone's not familiar with Texas, again, we
have a lot of woods here, we have a lot
of scrubland, a lot of plains and hills. Even these
big cities like San Antonio, the areas around them are
still very, very rural and very undeveloped. And that's what
this part of San Antonio was like as recently as
two thousand and eight. I actually worked at an office
not doing this stuff at the time in this area,
and I can tell you firsthand it was very, very undeveloped,
still very burgeoning. But this is another of those roadside sidings.
This witness was coming home sometime between six and eight pm,
a little bit after stun set, still had a little
bit of daylight, and as they were coming down what
would have been or what is now Evans Parkway, rounding
a bend, they see, you know, I'm gonna give a
pretty similar description this canine form crouched on its rear legs.
This witness didn't recall seeing it holding anything or manipulating
it in its front paws, but it did recall. They
did recall that the pause were off the ground and
it as she came around the corner, it stood up,
turned and began.
Speaker 1: To walk away.
Speaker 2: That one's not quite as dramatic, and that's one of
those cases where this person wasn't familiar with the dog
man phenomenon at the time, and then as time went
by they became interested in the paranormal stuff. They looked
back and went, oh, my gosh, I saw this thing.
So that's one that I'm fond of. But the next
two were a little more dramatic. So I'm going to
up the ante as we go. If that's okay with you,
by all means, please do excellent. So this next one
was from twenty nineteen, and this was shared with me
by a young man who I've met at a couple
of events. We've connected and stayed in touch online. At
time of recording, I believe they are still under the
age of eighteen, so I don't want to share too
much more about this person just for the sake of
protecting their privacy. But their sighting took place in twenty nineteen,
and this was in New Hampshire, and this is probably
the first report I've received personally from New Hampshire. But
this would have taken place near Rochester and Fort Smith,
right on the border of those two areas. And this
was between seven and eight am. They were on the
bus riding to school. They're still in high school at
the time, and they saw this form that they described
as again six to eight feet tall, standing by the
side of the road. And the area they saw it
in was kind of open, sort of planesy, lot of grass,
but there were sporadic trees sort of scattered around, and
this figure was standing by the tree with one arm
or paw resting on it, standing upright, just kind of
watching the cars go by, you know, sort of how
dogs do. They will sit and just watch cars go by.
It's very canine behavior. And I asked them to describe it,
you know, the way the witness gave the testimony. They
set kind of the stage and what they saw, and
then they went into the description, you know, which is
very helpful from a note taking standpoint, But they described
it as we often think of these sightings. The height
that I mentioned a moment ago, six to eight feet tall,
darkish brownish grayish, fur pointed ears, elongated snout, kind of
fitting that you know, anticipable dog man profile, if we
want to call it. That what's interesting to me about
this encounter is we hear a lot of these roadside sidings,
and one way that people will brush them off is, well,
you were driving, you were you only got to look
at it for a second or two. You know, you
had to pay attention to the vehicle, the lighting wasn't good,
and all of those are fair critiques, okay for sure. Personally,
I think once you've gotten to dozens or hundreds of reports,
those critiques don't hold up anymore. But that's another avenue entirely.
What's interesting about this roadside sighting is that this individual
was not operating the vehicle. They were riding in a bus,
so they were able to give their undivided attention to it.
In my mind, that narrows the possibility that they just
saw a dog or that they just saw a person
out of the corner of their eye and mistook it
for something else, because they got a prolonged look at
it in daylight. This was between seven and eight am,
and they did describe the sun as being not fully up,
but fully above the horizon, so I guess that's fully up.
So they had plane sight on it in daylight and
they weren't doing anything to take their attention away from it.
That's a very interesting one to me. Whether it was
described as being cool and cloudy, Yeah, that's everything. I
wrote down. Everything I've got on that one.
Speaker 1: Well, sounds like you take really thorough good reports.
Speaker 2: I try to. I try to think of the things
people are going to say when they're being skeptical, and
maybe that it's not a healthy way to live all
the time. You got to give yourself a break from that.
But I feel like if you can approach things with
a healthy bit of skepticism, you give more voice to
the witnesses testimony for one, but two, you you can
help to narrow down the possibilities as to what may
or may not be going on here.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But that's just that's just a thing I think.
Speaker 1: Well, it's always a good thing to have at least
some skepticism, so you don't just fall for anything. But
now that we're talking about it, it seems to me
like there are a lot of reasons that skeptics give
that are awfully weak trying to prove the supposed fact
that dog men can't exist. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: I agree with you unequivocally. One hundred percent. Yes, I
think that's correct, and again I think there is a
natural and understandable element to an extent. But then on
the other side of a coin, Vic, we're talking about sasquatch,
we're talking about ghosts, alternate dimensions, extra dimensionals, crypto terrestrials.
The spectrum of strangeness and paranormal covers so many things
that are so far outside the realm of what ninety
percent of people consider to be normal that it does
confound me that there is so much skepticism when it
gets to this, because, like we said, if you spend
a little bit of time just looking into the history,
this is not a new idea. This is not an
idea that originated with nineteen forty one's The Wolfman starring
Lon Cheney Junior. This is a very very old concept.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh definitely. And you wouldn't believe the messages I've
gotten that are taken me to task or trying to
take me to task for naming them quote unquote naming
them dog men. How can you do that? That's a
horrible name for them, Vic, Why I didn't name them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't come up with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not my baby. So it seems like these
people who poo pooh the existence of dog men, it
seems like the ones that shout the loudest are the
ones who have done the least amount of research. They
haven't looked into this phenomenon at all. They just brushed
it off without any research whatsoever.
Speaker 2: It seems like, yeah, yeah, I think I've encountered an
element of that. And you know, I try to separate
myself from I don't want to use the word political,
but you know what I mean, the political side of
this stuff as much as possible, because at the end
of the day, I'm not going to change anybody's mind,
and nobody's going to change my mind. But yeah, that
is a criticism that I see, and it bums me
out a little bit because I feel like people are
missing out. There is a rich backdrop of stories and
encounters and possibilities, you know, along this line of research,
and I think people are doing themselves an injustice when
they write it off too quickly.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I agree, I do. We One of the
reasons why I say that is when I see comments
like dog me can't exist. It's ridiculous that you say
that they're out there, because if they existed. If they
were extant, we'd have photos of them, we'd have videos
of them and other evidence. Well, we do have great
photos of them, we have amazing videos of them. Just
because you haven't seen that evidence, that doesn't mean that
these guys don't exist. It just means you haven't seen
this evidence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is some very compelling evidence on file. There
are things that don't fit inside the Bigfoot category that
also don't quite fit in the known animals category. And
people are always going to, you know, point out potential
problems with any piece of evidence, and that's fine, that's
totally fine, but it's it's kind of a numbers game.
You know, once we get to so many examples of
potential correlation, there has to be something else going on.
At least that's at least that's my opinion, is my opinion.
Speaker 1: Well, where there's smoke, there's fire in most cases. So yeah,
there's that's a good point there, It really is. I'm
going to ask a question for Quincy Barry. Quincy wants
to know, and as far as me answering this, the
answer is no, I didn't hear about it, But Quincy
wants to know. If you Aaron have either well, I'm
sorry they want to know Aaron or Vick. Have either
of you heard about the dogman encounter that happened in
Potato Creek State Park near South Bend, Indiana twenty ten.
I believe I'll live twenty minutes from there.
Speaker 2: I have not, Quincy, but you've piqued my interest. I'm
actually writing that down right now. I'm very interested in that.
I do have some friends in Indiana, so that is
of interest to me. I would love to know more
about that.
Speaker 1: Do you collect reports outside of Texas or only from
dog men? I witnesses inside?
Speaker 2: Asked as often as possible. You know, I'm very much
of the opinion that the phenomenon supersedes you know, Texas
or any one area. So and again, the more we know,
the more potential conclusions we can arrive at. So yeah,
I'm always interested to hear additional reports because one thing
that's interesting is that these patterns with these sightings very
often remain consistent as far as how these entities behave,
how the eyewitnesses respond to them. So yeah, always always.
Speaker 1: If that's the case, if you do collect reports from
all over, then if anyone listening has had an encounter
that they'd like to report to you. What's the best
way for them to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Aaron at Smalltownmonsters dot com is the easiest way
to reach me. That's my work email, so I'm in
there about twenty times a day. Any other social media stuff,
I may not see it for a week. But yeah,
Aaron at Smalltownmonsters dot com.
Speaker 1: Well that makes it really easy, and I should know
the answer to this next question. But I really don't.
Do you ever head out into the field in places
that seem to be hot spots for men in hopes
of actually having a sighting.
Speaker 2: I've done that a few times. Again, I don't do
that often enough to where I can call myself a
proper investigator. My friend Rod Nichols over at Bear County Bigfoot,
I saw him in the chat a little while ago,
hopefully he's still here. He has taken me out in
the field to look at some of his research areas
where he's been looking into potential sasquatch activity, and he's
actually uncovered some stuff out there, specifically very very large
canine footprints that point to potential strange canine activity in
that area as well. So I've gone out with him
on one occasion, one or two occasions. Rod can correct
me if I'm wrong, And then, of course I've gone
on a few trips with small town monsters and producing
these documentaries. But unfortunately I'm not able to get out
there as often as I would like to. There are
several trips that are planned and sketched out, but time
will tell.
Speaker 1: Well, like I said, as busy as you stay, it's
no wonder that you have a hard time getting into
the field. I don't know how you ever make it
out there in the first place, but obviously you do.
Speaker 2: Quite a bit of planning is required.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, you all get I can only imagine. You
told us just a bit ago that you don't believe
that the alleged Dogman murderers happened in the LBL. But
did you hear about the alleged murder that happened in
Kentucky where the little boy was taken out of his
house or I guess I'm sorry, taken out of his backyard,
drug up that mountain and he was found later on
by the authorities disembowed.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not familiar with that story. I'm not that
would have I mean, Kentucky of course is land between
the lakes, So do you know what the proximity would
have been like? Is it sorry, I'm going into interview
remode my bad.
Speaker 1: No, you're fine, You're fine. It's one of those things,
you know. This is what I do. I talk with
so many people. It's just so hard to keep the
details straight. That one time I could tell you where
this was reported as happening, and other details as well.
From what I remember, I think this little boy was
playing in the backyard on the swing set, and when
his mother went to call him in for lunch or whatever,
he was gone. So after a search, he was just missing.
After a search, the authorities found drag marks I think
where he had been drug out of the backyard and
up the mountain that was like right behind the property,
a pretty good distance where the authorities found him. He
was disembowed, and they later determined that he had been
killed by a knid. They didn't go any further than
that there was just some kind of a dog or
something that it killed him. But people who are closer
to what happened, they say that they think it was
a dog man. The evidence points towards it being a
dog man that killed him. I wasn't sure if you
had heard about anything to do with that or not.
I have it.
Speaker 2: I have it, not with that one specifically. I do
see how that Holler in the chat clarifying that the
name of the young man was Cory Godsey, that was
not County Kentucky. So I've been writing as we've been
chatting here. But it's one of those things you hope
it's not true, but at the same time, it does
seem to parallel a lot of these other stories. You know,
this is what I'll have to look into and you know,
see what I can dug up on it, because this
is very interesting. But yeah, that's not a case that
I'm familiar with currently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with all the work that hell Ben Holler is
done in that area, they would know, they really would.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Jesse and Joe are good friends. They are investigators. Those
guys are cryptozoologists, investigators. Yeah. Yeah, if they think there's
something to it, it's worth looking into. I'll say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem like they stay after it. They
really do. I've got another question for you from Chris
bass Bassett and Chris wants to know, Aaron, have you
heard about the northern main paper country pack.
Speaker 2: That is also not something I'm familiar with. I've heard
chatter about potential activity in Maine, but it is not
an area where I've spent a significant time researching, So
I do have to admit that I'm not familiar with
that one either.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are so many of these it's really hard
to keep up.
Speaker 2: It's tough, man. Yeah, I always feel bad when I
have to say I don't know. But you know, that's
one thing I love about these shows. I find out
a lot of interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's always something new. It seems like, well,
we try to keep it that way. Jay Skill, a
TD nine wants to know. Can I ask a question
now or should we wait?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Fire away. If you have any other questions you'd like
for me to ask Aaron here, then yeah, please post
them in all caps.
Speaker 2: We're happy to do that. Love questions.
Speaker 1: I would after all this research you've put into these guys, Aaron,
what do you think dogmen are?
Speaker 2: That's another thing I go back and forth on, man,
because we have so many encounters that you could say, Okay,
this sounds like an animal.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It appeared near a wooded area. It seemed to be
interested in livestock. It seemed to be territorial and hostile
towards domestic dogs. You know, we can cite a number
of cases where that seems to be the case. So
from that side of the coin, it makes sense that
these are animals and they could be. This is a
place where people will go. Now, wait a minute, and
my wife is a veterinary technician, so I've run this
idea by her many many times. And when you first say, okay,
just a regular animal, that's when we get into the hole. Well,
dogs aren't supposed to walk on two legs things, so
that doesn't make sense. There's a huge possibility, I believe,
So I was trying to figure out how to phrase that.
There's a huge possibility I think for these to be
some form of hybrid or mutant or crossbreaking, crossbread amalgamation
of different species that, for one reason or another has
adapted to bipedal locomotion. There is precedent for canines doing
things like this, cross breeding and producing bizarre, unexpected results.
We can cite the case of the Texas chupacabra aka
the Texas terror dog. If we want to be specific.
That creature is known to be a mix of domestic dog,
coyote and Mexican red wolf DNA. That's what that is.
But we've classified it as a cryptid because it exhibits
these bizarre behaviors and these ghastly appearances. I'm of the
opinion that at least in some of these cases, that's
what we're looking at with the dog man entity. We're
looking at canines that are some kind of a cross
of known species that for one reason or another, have
adapted to this behavior. Don't know why. That's a whole
nother question, but that's something that I think is valid.
But then again, turning it over, you know, you have
this other category of encounters. Based on what I've seen
and the people I've talked to, you can almost split
a line right down the middle into these sightings that
are very mundane, seem to be a normal animal, and
then you have these others that are very strange and
very bizarre. And these are typically the ones that leave
people the most rattled. When we're talking about negative eyewitness responses,
it seems to be these more for lack of a
better term, supernatural or paranormal in counters where people are
reporting things like mind speak, independently glowing eyes. They're very
specific when they say they were glowing and it wasn't eyeshine.
You know, you have this sense of hostility, this sense
of danger. Sometimes we get this thing of a strange
mist appearing that comes up in more than one report.
So those are not things that go along with normal animals.
That's just not, at least as far as we know,
there aren't any animals that can communicate telepathically whose eyes
glow independently and can appear in a shroud of mist.
So on that side of the coin, we almost have
to assume, Okay, if there is a supernatural spectrum, spiritual realm,
alternate dimensions, you know, whatever terminology you're comfortable with, if
that is a thing, and if these encounters are taking
place as the eyewitnesses are reporting them, and I believe
it's important to take these stories at face value, then
at least some element of this phenomenon is something strange, supernatural,
beyond reality, if we want to put it that way.
And we can always guess in one case, maybe this
person was hallucinating, Maybe this person was imagining things, Maybe
this person was in not the right state of mind.
We can always speculate over that stuff. But again, you
end up with a vast body of reports with these
very very strange elements. And it's true in both categories,
the mundane ones and the more bizarre ones. So it's
been my opinion for a while and still is. I
think there's more than one thing going on here. I
think if there's a supernatural spectrum, we can see other
examples of it emulating the real world. There are plenty
of so called supernatural monsters that resemble or look like
real animals, So I think it's the same thing here.
But I think there's more than one thing going on. Sorry,
that was kind of a long tie, Rade.
Speaker 1: No, just being thorough. I'm glad you are. That's a
good thing.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Do you almost cringe the way I do when you
hear people explain the way that dog mea phenomenon. Is
it just simply being a case of dog mean being
created in a government laboratory or government labs plural.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of those things. You know. You hear
conjecture about it, but I can't point you to any cases, dates, places,
eyewitnesses that make a compelling argument for that. It's just
something I see in comments online. Maybe one of those
people making those comments knows something that I don't. I'm
always open to that, but it's not something I give
a lot of credence to. I'll be honest, and there
are people who disagree with me. Again, I'm more than
happy to be proven wrong, but that's not an argument
I find terribly compelling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I said, I really like that open mind. Yeah,
that's always a good thing. Thank you. Oh you're welcome.
And just a bit ago, you mentioned glowing eyes. It
looks like Andre Sorez has a question that pertains to
that he wants to know. Many dog mey In reports
include high strangeness such as glowing eyes, telepathic communication, vanishing.
What's to take on this?
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing, And this glowing eye stuff is
something I've been interested in for a while because that
is a recurring motif, not just in dog man encounters,
but in paranormal activity across the map. And I'm using
the term paranormal kind of generally okay for strange stuff.
I know for certain people that word means certain things,
But just to be clarified, I clarify the terms glowing
eyes pop up all the time. You know that shows
up in many Bigfoot encounters. It shows up in other
strange caneine encounters like hellhounds or black dogs, the grim
black Shuck. That guy's got a ton of names. The
Flatwood's Monster was said to have glowing eyes, you know,
La La Choose a very prominent in Latin American folklore,
glowing red eyes. So that's something that very often comes
up when we're getting into the stranger stuff, and it
kind of to throw back to what I said a
moment ago, you know, it almost tells me that there
has to be a stranger, more supernatural element to at
least some of the He's encounters.
Speaker 1: They do so many things that you just can't explain
away by them being flesh and blood creatures that are
out there trying to scratch out a living in the woods.
You just can't do that. So I agree, there's got
to be something else. Now, there might be some that
are just normal flesh and blood creatures and all that
live out in the woods and don't have any special abilities,
but you can't explain away all of them as being
that way. There's just no way to do that.
Speaker 2: I agree. Yeah, Like there's no blanket explanation that suits
this phenomenon. You know, we can look at UFOs and say, well,
if it turns out there from other dimensions, that explains everything.
You know, we can look at Bigfoot and say, well,
if it turns out that they're just an undiscovered eight,
that explains most things. We don't have that luxury in
the dog Man world. Unfortunately, no, we don't, not at all.
Let's put up a question from Ja's skill. At eighty nine,
she asked if she film's okay to ask a question
earlier on. She wants to know to think Sasquatch and dogmen,
among other cryptids, conceive the light emitted from modern recording technologies.
Do you think we'd have better luck getting good footage
if we try recording on tape? I love this question.
This is so interesting because the first EVPs electronic voice phenomena,
you know, dipping into the ghost world. Here we're recorded
on magnetic cassette tapes. So I think this is such
a good question, and I think it's possible. I think
it's definitely possible. Modern technology operates differently, and anything electronic
gives off, you know, some kind of radiation, it's making
some kind of a noise, even if you and I
can't hear it. But I think that's something that is
definitely at least worth experimenting with, because if we're only
relying on modern technology, you know, we're kind of limiting
our avenues of research. This is actually something I tried once.
My wife and I stayed a night in the Manger
Hotel here in San Antonio, which is supposed to be
super haunted, and I'm not usually a ghost guy, but
we were there anyway, and we ran recordings in our
room all night just because on analog tape and on digital,
and we picked up a strange sound on the digital
that could have been anything, I don't know, but we
also picked it up on the analog and it sounded different.
It had like more definition, you could pick out individual
sounds a little differently. So if nothing else, I think
that's a great idea, just to get more data, more information.
Speaker 1: It just might be as simple as that to get
better results. You never know what little tweaks that you
could make could have a big impact on all this.
You really never do know. Yeah, let's ask one from Riddick.
Looks like Riddick has a question for you. He wants
to know, Aarin, do you believe that any of the
dog men reports, I'm sorry, any of the dog Men
are gps tracked by our government.
Speaker 2: You know, if they know they're out there, I would assume.
So I'm not a big proponent of the idea that
there's like a huge government conspiracy covering these things up.
Like we talked about earlier, that's totally possible. I think
the mechanisms exist for that to be a thing. But yeah,
I think that's kind of what it comes down to,
is whether or not they're interested. It could be a
thing where they know they're there and just don't care.
But if they're aware and if they have an interest
in them, I would assume. So, you know, somebody's got
to be studying these things, if there is any governmental
body that's where they exist. Yeah, for sure, great question.
They are all questions.
Speaker 1: They are some really good questions. Definitely, it looks like
bang Bang has a question for you. She wants to know, Aaron,
what about the many encounters where they feel evil? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question and a great username, bang Bang.
I love that. That's kind of where we get back
into these really bizarre, more strange ones. The third encounter
I had in my notes tonight comes from a witness
in San Antonio who witnessed one of these things in
the fifties and she got a very clear, daytime prolonged
look at it, and it did have the glowing red eyes,
and she said it struck her as being Her exact
words were something demonic. And I hesitate to use that
term because I feel like it's thrown around a lot,
you know, without necessarily defining what we mean when we
say it. But that's the terminology the witness used, coming
from a very strong Catholic background, you know, that was
her frame of reference for it. And it seems again
in cases where people walk away from these encounters with
a sense of danger or a sense of evil, they're
these more supernatural, the more bizarre ones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when it comes to a lot of aspects, when
it comes to dogmen, it's really hard to put your
thumb on a lot of things. It seems like if
you keep your eyes open, there's always something new. It's
hard to nail anything down as being Okay, it's got
to be this way, it's got to be.
Speaker 2: That way very much. Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Definitely seems that way Alex Midnight wants to know could
Dogmen possibly be an alien creature.
Speaker 2: I think that's a fun idea, and I'm open to it.
I'm not of that opinion, and I'll tell you why.
Once again proved me wrong. But the idea of extraterrestrial life,
you know, we would be talking about something that evolved
completely outside of our solar system, completely outside of planet
Earth and the laws of nature as we understand them.
So in my mind, the idea that an extraterrestrial would
resemble anything on Earth that closely is unlikely. However, we
do have tons of eyewitness testimony talking about aliens that
looked like lizard people or looked like insect people, which
are also found on planet Earth. So I'm not going
to say no, it's impossible. But it's another one of
those things where I hear chatter about it. I hear
people say I think they're extraterrestrial, but I don't have
any cases I can point to. You know, I would
love it if I had a couple cases that I
could say times and dates this witness reported an extraterrestrial
or UFO connection to dog Man, But I just I
haven't seen that yet.
Speaker 1: Well, like I said before. Then it is appreciated some
people would try to bluff their way through and claim
they had gotten reports like that.
Speaker 2: Nah, because then if you then I might have to
prove it. You never know.
Speaker 1: So that's a good point. It is the truth wants
to know. Aaron. Do you think there are both dog
men and wear wolves or is it just one?
Speaker 2: That's a good question. I personally use those terms interchangeably,
and the reason I do that is that one, the
etymological roots are very similar if you go back to
the original Germanic wearial wolf. Two, when eyewitnesses are describing
these things, they use both terms, and eyewitness consistency or sorry,
remaining consistent with eyewitness testimony is really important to me.
That being said, there are traditions in many indigenous belief
systems and many folkloric backgrounds that talk about the idea
of human animal transformations, not just wolves and dogs, but
animals across the spectrum. So that's one of those things
where I think there's more than one thing going on here.
I think there is a line between the potentially shape
shifting supernatural dog man and the potentially undiscovered species or
one off hybrid. So I do believe there is a
difference between those things. But you will You've probably heard
me throughout this conversation use those terms interchangeably, so.
Speaker 1: I get asked that too, and as far as I'm concerned,
I try not to mix the two. I mean, after all,
werewolf is supposed to be a person who has the
ability to shape shift into the form of a beast
like this, but a dog man looks the way they
do twenty four seven three sixty five. So yeah, I
see them as being totally separate. But just because I
see it that way or handle it that way, that
doesn't mean that you or anyone else are stuck to
that way of doing things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you, man, and I understand the distinction
and why people describe it that way, and I'm not
I'm not arguing against it. Yeah, because it's one of
those things we just don't know yet. You know, hopefully
one day we do know whether there's a difference in
what that difference is. But yeah, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1: In this crazy world. Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe
every dog man that's ever been reported was actually a werewolf,
that was a person who had she shifted in that form.
Speaker 2: Right, we just don't know yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean knowledge. The whole of knowledge begins
with the words I don't know, and when it comes
down to it, we don't know, So it really is
anyone else's yes. This next question is from Andrea Sorez,
and he wants to know have you come across evidence
or witness testimony suggesting official suppression of dogman reports.
Speaker 2: The only place I can point to personally where I've
run across that potential is the Land between the Lakes,
and that comes from speaking with mister Martin Groves, who's
a former police officer who served in that area for
many years and has had his own encounters with these things,
and also speaking with Jesse and Joe over at Hellbent Holler.
They've spent a significant amount of time, dozens of hours
in the Land between the Lakes, and they've run across
some pretty strange stuff. And I don't know if I
could call it suppression or if it seems to indicate
just a reticence to talk about it. You know, I've
said before, if you don't have an interest in bigfoot,
you don't have time for bigfoot or bigfoot people. And
I think the same rule applies, you know, with most cryptids,
the general world is not wanting all of us to
show up at their doorstep and say, I heard there's
dog man encounters here. So that's the only place where
I've seen that indicated. And to quote Martin, you know,
he states that there's an unspoken rule that you don't
talk about things coming out of the park, you know,
with regard to some of these stranger things. So if
that qualifies as suppression, then yes, but that's as far
as I can go with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you talked about being on the ground, boots in
the ground, talking with people around the LBL. It seems
to me, and I could be totally wrong about this,
but it seems to me like the people around the
LBL don't seem to like talking about the alleged murders
that have happened there or dog men possibly being there
in the park period. Is that how it is? Did
you get that vibe or is it just me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a general sentiment amongst the community there
that you know, it's not what they want to discuss.
And you could argue that, well, that's because they're part
of the cover up. I don't think that's the case.
I think what we're looking at is a lot of
real world things happened in this place. You know. We
can start with the displacement of those families and people
being moved out of there because they're descendants, many of
them still live in that area. They're still living people
who remember being kicked out of their homes. And so
when pop culture or the internet latches onto something, I
think we have a tendency to overlook the real world impact,
you know, and what really goes on in that place.
And I've actually seen articles online where they interview locals
that say, yeah, I'm tired of hearing about this story
because people just overlook the reality of this place, you know,
they forget what actually happened. So that definitely is is
a sentiment there. But by the same token, there are
people who are interested in it, who have spent time
researching it, who are willing to talk about it, and
I've been fortunate enough to meet a few of them,
So you know, both things are true.
Speaker 1: Well, like I said, I've said it several times, it's
always good to have an open mind and to not
just jump to a conclusion at first glance. It sounds
to me like you like to dig into things that
you are dealing with to try and make an informed
opinion about them.
Speaker 2: I try to. Yeah, I try to, and I'm probably
wrong most of the time, but hey, at least least
I learned some stuff along the way, you know.
Speaker 1: Well, that's always a good thing. I've got another juicy
one for you from Neil Decker. Neil wants to know
what about ancient texts mentioning the sign of Cephale. Do
you think they could have been around as long as
man or longer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I definitely think this phenomenon has been around
at least since the early recorded human writings, because we
have references to upright canine forms in the Babylonian Epic
of Creation the Anuma Eilish, wherein Tiamat, one of the
elder gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon, summoned Roudemu to fight
against Marduk. I didn't rehearse that at all. So no,
we do see this phenomena mentioned all throughout history, so
I definitely think it's been around as long as us.
It's one of our favorite storytelling motifs. As far as
the Sinuscephali specifically, that's one thing where again This is
just my opinion, happy to be proven wrong, but I
think that was a way that people who were not
aware of cultures outside their own were describing other cultures
when they encountered them. Because there's rumors that Christopher Columbus
encountered the Sinocephali and you know all that stuff, and
we know that Christopher Columbus wasn't the most enlightened guy
out there. So I think and just my opinion, it's
my opinion that when we're talking about these organized society
of dogmen, I think that was an interpretation by history,
written by the people who wrote history. But I could
be wrong. I could be very wrong, And I would
love to see some hard, you know, archaeological evidence that
points in a different direction. That would make me so happy.
Speaker 1: That whole Sign of Cephali thing, it sure makes you
wonder how much of that is true, how much of
it isn't. There's so many things about that that I
don't know. I read about this or that regarding the
Sign of Cephale, and there's a lot of it that
just doesn't seem that up. But yeah, that might just
be my opinion. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, same same the archaeological record. Historical record doesn't support
the idea of a society existing like that, you know,
during the accounts that are contemporary to what it's purported
to have existed. That's where I land on it. But
please prove me wrong, and I'm not being sarcastic. Someone
please prove me wrong.
Speaker 1: No, no, I agree. I mean, if they did exist,
there would be so many more people who would have
known about them and reported their existence. But yeah, that's what.
Speaker 2: It came into. I would have made it into a
couple more historical texts, I think. I think that would
have been a big deal.
Speaker 1: So oh, definitely. Yeah, that's why I have a problem
with it. It looks like the next one on deck
is from Jonathan Dodd, and John wants to know does
Eron have a specific case he'd like to investigate that
he hasn't had a chance to yet be on the ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not a specific case. But I would love to
get over to the Carolinas and link up again with
my friends Jesse and Joe because they have gotten dozens
of dog man reports, you know, from witnesses and local
stories that they run across in the area of Appalachia
around the Carolina's where they investigate, and in my mind
that's an untapped well of potentially enlightening information. But I'm
very far from the Carolinas and have not had a
chance to get over there.
Speaker 1: So well, there's only one of you. You can only
do so much, right, That's right. I've got none of
the juicy one for you. From ded truth. He wants
to know aran being the dog men or apex predators,
Why do you think they aren't the majority population? Why
don't they wipe out the beer in cougar populations? Hmm.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting question, and that I think points us
possibly towards the biological animal conclusion. This is going to
be very surface level, but I'm going to explain it
as best as I understand it. If you disrupt any
local animal population, whether it's predators or prey, that's going
to have long lasting and potentially catastrophic impacts. If these
entities are animals, and they're a part of their ecosystems
where they're seen, then they would know better to put
it simply, Maybe they benefit somehow from some kind of competition.
Maybe they benefit by having other large animals around that
allow them to con seal their presence. That's a theory
in the bigfoot world, maybe they hide behind other animals.
But my opinion would be if they're actual animals, they
just know better for some reason, they know where they
fit in their ecological niche.
Speaker 1: You know, they're awfully intelligent. Obviously they have a ridiculous
amount of intelligence. They're intelligence in some ways might supersede
our own. It's really hard to say for sure, but yeah,
I mean, I don't think they do anything by happenstance.
I think everything that they do has a reason behind it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these don't seem to be random activities what we
do here described. Yeah, I agree, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem to be the case. And I'm not
sure if you saw it or not, but it looks
like Quincy Berry just made a comment. Yeah you saw that, okay,
where they said the email deal link to the Potato
creaking Counter.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you, Quincy. I appreciate that. I will be
reviewing that post haste.
Speaker 1: Wanted to make sure you saw that. And the next
question is, and this is going to be the last
one I see. We're an hour and twelve and this
one is from Neo Decker and he wants to know
what about dog men being mentioned in ancient texts from
Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's kind of what I was saying
a second ago. I think if we're talking about like,
you know, oh, they were tribes or cities of dog people,
I think that was a way that I don't want
to sound like I'm being ugly, but I think that
was a way that people who are uninformed about the
world outside their own cultures would speak about other people
when they encountered things they didn't understand. You know, like
people kind of have a history throughout the human historical
record of referring to other societies as savages. I think
that's kind of what that is. Now. On the other
side of the coin, there are also all these mentions
in the ancient world of again upright canine forms and
chimeric beings that I think. I think there's something to
that because that sets the precedent again for people believed
in these things for thousands and thousands of years. But
when we're talking about Columbus and Marco Polo, you know,
they didn't view the world in the most enlightened way.
And I'm not trying to get into any any hot
button historical stuff. But you know, I think they just
didn't know how to talk about societies. They didn't understands.
That's how I want to say that. Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 1: Well, that's undeniable, that's a fact. There are so many
things about the world around them those people didn't know about. Yeah,
so I think they jumped to conclusions. And there was
a little bit of fill in the blank there going
on as well. So yeah, you can only take some
of the things that are put into writing that they
put out so seriously, a lot of things I'm sure
they had right, but I'm sure there was a lot
that they had wrong as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And a lot of historical stuff is written in allegory.
You know, a lot of stuff was written with parables
or hyperbole, So I think there's an element of that too.
But you know, great question, great question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a really good question. Well, before we
get out of here, Aaron, would you like to do
a selfless plug on any of the work that you've
done and do? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Sure, feel free please follow small Town Monsters on your
social media platform of choice. I also happen to be
our social media manager, so I update all those things.
It's a great way to keep an eye on what
we've got going on. You're welcome to email me Aaron
at Smalltownmonsters dot com. I always enjoy hearing from people
in the community, you know, whether you're just interested in
this stuff, whether you've had an encounter, you just want
to say hi, please don't be a stranger. And then
you can find me on Instagram at hey underscore strangeness
if you want to. It's not updated very often, but
that's my little personal web hideout. But beyond that, man,
thank you so much for having me. This is I
don't know if I said this earlier, but I have
referenced your show as a research point on more than
one occasion. There are episodes in the citations in my books.
So this is a huge honor. Man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: All the honor is all mine. I've got a question
for you before we go, another question, why didn't I
invite you on the show before? Now? I mean, this
has been so much fun, it's been a blast.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. I agree. You know, I think when
I was getting into this stuff, I didn't know anyone
that knew you. And I did make a couple attempts
to find you, but you're very good at, you know,
staying in the castle. Man, I love it. I wish
I was as secure online as you are, so I
gave up and then finally time went by and we
now have some mutual friends and I think maybe that
helped get us here. But no, this has been so great, dude,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Oh no, you're welcome, but the thanks really goes to you.
You didn't have to come on and do this. I
really do appreciate you doing this, and of course, thank
you so much for your time. And would you be
open to coming back down the road please anytime?
Speaker 2: My friend, who would be an honor. Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'd love that. That's music to my ears. So yeah, yeah,
thank you for your time. Well, if I can ever
help you down the road, darn please let me I
know I'd be glad to do that.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, my friend. I got a few things
I'd like to pick your brain on, so I think
that's a matter of when.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just let me know. That's all you have to do. Well,
Like I said, thanks again so much for your time.
I really do appreciate it, and I hope you have
a great night.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir you as well.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. We'll see well that's another one in
the books. Thanks again everyone so much for listening. You know,
I really appreciate it. And also, if you've had a
Dogman encounter of your own that you need help dealing with,
or maybe you'd want to come on the show and
share your experience or experiences with the listeners, all you
would need to do is to go to Dogmanencounters dot
com submit a report, and if you do that, then
I'll reach out to you to schedule a film consultation
and that way we can take it from there. But
having said that, thanks again so much for listening. I
really appreciate it, and have a great night. Alis