Speaker 1: They went down to Salt Fork State Park here in
Speaker 1: Ohio and tried to recreate it, and they couldn't come
Speaker 1: close to it. And these guys were PhDs. We literally
Speaker 1: grew up with this thing. I mean, I've got so
Speaker 1: many different stories. Some things happened back there, and then
Speaker 1: the city completely redid that whole area land the area
Speaker 1: that all this happened when I was growing up. Literally
Speaker 1: took them two years to put the concrete towpath down
Speaker 1: because things were happening. So a lot of my friends
Speaker 1: that were police officers, and even the chief and police
Speaker 1: at the time was telling me what was going on
Speaker 1: down there, asking me if I knew how to handle it,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, just ignore it. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: going to hurt you. It never did us. But I
Speaker 1: kind of looked at it and look back now, it's
Speaker 1: like it played with us, you know, like we were
Speaker 1: as entertainment.
Speaker 2: Let's just go ahead and get into it. Take us
Speaker 2: back to where it all started. How did this whole
Speaker 2: journey get started for you personally?
Speaker 1: Well, I have to say that I got into it
Speaker 1: by stories. This is before the whole in search of
Speaker 1: Leonard Niemway with the Big Pot in the Patty film.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously not before the Patty film, but before
Speaker 1: it aired and became national news and all that. Where
Speaker 1: I grew up, I spent every summer with my grandfather
Speaker 1: in this area that this happened. And he had about
Speaker 1: an acre and a half of a backyre, just a long,
Speaker 1: narrow strip that went, you know, a good three four
Speaker 1: hundred feet from his house to a back alley, and
Speaker 1: beyond that was a farmer's field. To the left of
Speaker 1: his house was nothing but wilderness and woods. Now, mind you,
Speaker 1: this is in the city limits. So when I say
Speaker 1: wilderness and woods, I don't mean deep forest. But you
Speaker 1: could definitely spend a week down there and not be
Speaker 1: seen by anybody. Yeah, but my parents, you know, my dad,
Speaker 1: my uncles would tell us, you know, hey, don't go
Speaker 1: down there after dark. They'd tell us stories that they had,
Speaker 1: you know, that they grew up with a grassman. And
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, yeah, okay, the grassman, you know whatever. And
Speaker 1: I mean some of their stories were pretty intense, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to believe it because I didn't think my
Speaker 1: dad my uncle would mess with us the way that
Speaker 1: you know, that way, sure, But the biggest thing that
Speaker 1: happened is me and my cousin. Like I said, we
Speaker 1: spent every summer over there, and my uncle was a
Speaker 1: Vietnam vet, so he showed us how to make lean
Speaker 1: two's and cover our tracks, and you know, when we're
Speaker 1: done camping down there, make it look like we weren't
Speaker 1: down there at all. You know. We learned all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and I loved it, and we went ahead and was
Speaker 1: doing this for probably three years from the age of ten,
Speaker 1: so I was thirteen. We spent every summer down there,
Speaker 1: a week at a time, down in these woods, just
Speaker 1: camping and fishing in the ear Canal and just being kids,
Speaker 1: you know. And one day me and my cousin were
Speaker 1: walking through a sand pit area and there was a
Speaker 1: footprint that at quick guests, I would say eighteen to
Speaker 1: nineteen inches long and at least six inches deep. Now
Speaker 1: it was soft ground, but me and my cousin, you'd
Speaker 1: leave your shoe print, you know what I mean, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a deep pot. Well, this was a barefoot
Speaker 1: and we seen one, and then we about five four
Speaker 1: or five feet further up we seemed like the heel
Speaker 1: of another inprint, but it was going up rock at
Speaker 1: that time, So just the heel was into the earth,
Speaker 1: and we went to get back, got my uncle and
Speaker 1: he came down there and looked at it and said,
Speaker 1: I don't want you guys coming down here tonight. So
Speaker 1: you know, we himed in the hall and you know, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, well they went to bed and me and
Speaker 1: my cousin are like, let's go catfishing. Now. It was
Speaker 1: about it was it was about a forty Now, we
Speaker 1: really weren't thinking about the footprint at that time. It
Speaker 1: was about a forty five minute walk from my grandfather's
Speaker 1: house down the path to the canal, and we're walking
Speaker 1: down there and just you know, bsing and kicking rocks,
Speaker 1: and about fifteen feet up in front of us, we
Speaker 1: heard a like a grunt, but a deep, full of bass,
Speaker 1: shake your bones style grunt. Now, mind you, we've been
Speaker 1: growing up back here, so we knew noises back here.
Speaker 1: Neither one of us ever heard that. We both stopped dead,
Speaker 1: didn't see anything, but just got this heavy, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're gonna die feeling well. We went back home and
Speaker 1: we told my uncle about it, and he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I told you not to go back down here. So
Speaker 1: he had called my father and the next night my
Speaker 1: dad came over after work. I'll never forget this. He
Speaker 1: brought my younger brother with him, and then another uncle
Speaker 1: showed up. So now there's three adults and three kids.
Speaker 1: I'm like twelve years old at the time, my cousin's thirteen,
Speaker 1: and my younger brother is nine. So we go back
Speaker 1: there and we're thinking, this is where they're going to
Speaker 1: try to scare us, you know what I mean, the
Speaker 1: whole Yeah, this is where you know, Dad's going to
Speaker 1: mess with us. So we go down there and we
Speaker 1: kind of split up a little bit. You go down
Speaker 1: about and maybe at half mile, and there's a fork
Speaker 1: in this service road down there. Now, if you go
Speaker 1: to the right of the fork, and twenty minutes you'll
Speaker 1: be on a main street. If you go to the
Speaker 1: left of the fork, you're walking the length of the canal.
Speaker 1: You'll go down to what we call the footbridge, and
Speaker 1: you know, just nothing but woods throughout. Okay, you got
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes before you get the canal. But during
Speaker 1: all that you're walking through woods and weeds and you know,
Speaker 1: So we kind of split up a little bit, and
Speaker 1: I end up with my uncle and my cousin ends
Speaker 1: up with my dad and we're not away from each
Speaker 1: other for more than maybe ten minutes, and my dad
Speaker 1: and cousins starts creamond bloody murder, and we, you know,
Speaker 1: go back and we find each other. We're in the weeds,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're saying we've seen something, we've seen something,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at my cousin and he's kind of
Speaker 1: got this grin on his face, so I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you didn't see nothing. This is all part of the well.
Speaker 1: The neighborhood dog went down there with us. Now we're
Speaker 1: on one side of the path and the past about
Speaker 1: I don't know, seven eightpeet wide. It's just a service road,
Speaker 1: and the dog's ruffing through the weeds on the other
Speaker 1: side of the path, directly across from us, and we
Speaker 1: hear this. This dog would yelp and bark, but always playful.
Speaker 1: We heard this little dog's just barking like it was
Speaker 1: going to tear something up. Then we heard a yelp,
Speaker 1: and then we heard this dog trotting through the weeds
Speaker 1: as fast as it can. It got about two steps
Speaker 1: out of the weeds on the road, and this big
Speaker 1: arm came out of the weeds and swung at this thing.
Speaker 1: It hit the hindquarters of the dog. The dog went
Speaker 1: like five feet in year, spun around, hit the ground,
Speaker 1: and booked. I mean, it was gone. So we're all
Speaker 1: sitting there like in amazement and shock. Well, this thing's
Speaker 1: in the direct path to get back to my grandfather's.
Speaker 1: It's on that side of the the service road. We're
Speaker 1: on the other. So we're sitting there for a little bit.
Speaker 1: We don't hear nothing. Well, we try to move through
Speaker 1: the weeds to stay hidden, and we get up to
Speaker 1: where about where the fork in the road's at, and
Speaker 1: my other uncle's missing us. We can't find us, so
Speaker 1: we're down to three adults or two adults and three kids.
Speaker 1: So my dad and my uncles say, look, stay right here,
Speaker 1: you see anything, you go straight down this road get
Speaker 1: to Grandpa's. So my cousin comes up with this idea
Speaker 1: that you know, how I can Africa or something animals surround,
Speaker 1: you know, getting a circle so they see all sides.
Speaker 1: So we do this in the fork of the road. Now,
Speaker 1: mind you, we're thirteen, twelve and nine, okay, you know.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, you know.
Speaker 1: We're thinking we're pretty intelligent, right, now like we got
Speaker 1: this thing planned out, you know, and the service road
Speaker 1: is a great, big white gravel maybe the size of
Speaker 1: a hardball, and you know for baseball. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: grabbed these rocks and we're thinking, you know, me and
Speaker 1: my cousin both play baseball. We're both on traveling league,
Speaker 1: so you know, we knew the game, we knew how
Speaker 1: to throw. We're thinking we got this. You know, this
Speaker 1: thing shows up, we just start plastering with rocks. Now
Speaker 1: this is all before the story of us knowing Bigfoot
Speaker 1: through rocks, you know. I mean, we're completely bigfoot dumb
Speaker 1: at this point, you know. Yeah, And this thing comes
Speaker 1: out from the side of the weeds that we were on,
Speaker 1: about ten feet down the paths from this fork in
Speaker 1: the road. So I mean, it's close, and it takes
Speaker 1: two steps, and it's in the middle of the in
Speaker 1: the middle of the service rode, and it just turns
Speaker 1: its shoulders and head and looks at us. Now we're like,
Speaker 1: each one of us kids are facing a direction down
Speaker 1: the path. This thing is looking me dead in the eyes.
Speaker 1: So me and my cousin are firing these rocks at
Speaker 1: this thing. And it had to be the most epic
Speaker 1: stupid maneuver I ever did. We could see these white
Speaker 1: rocks hitting this thing. It didn't make a grunt, it
Speaker 1: didn't make a an inclination. These things we're hitting it,
Speaker 1: but we see the rocks hitting it. So it takes
Speaker 1: two steps and now it's on the other side of
Speaker 1: the path, you know, the service road, and it's where
Speaker 1: we have to go. It hits that and there's a
Speaker 1: big old I don't know if it's an ochre of berth,
Speaker 1: but there was a big old tree right there, and
Speaker 1: it like stood up against the tree and then vanished.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying it disappeared, but it's almost like
Speaker 1: the tree and that thing became one in the dark,
Speaker 1: you know that you lost the silhouette of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we're screaming, and we just take off the other way,
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, in a few minutes, you
Speaker 1: hit a main road and that's where we ran. It
Speaker 1: was the opposite direction, you know, it was to a
Speaker 1: main road. We figured, you know, we'll get our dad's attentions.
Speaker 1: We're running, you know, and eventually my dad and my
Speaker 1: uncle come out. They can't find my uncle and they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna walk down the main road back and
Speaker 1: then make a few turns and get back to Grandpa's house.
Speaker 1: So that's what we did. We stayed out of the woods.
Speaker 1: We walked in the middle of a four lane road.
Speaker 1: You know, we ain't going nowhere.
Speaker 2: Near the woods.
Speaker 1: So we get back to my grandfather's house and they
Speaker 1: each grab a gun and they go down there and
Speaker 1: they start looking for my other uncles. Well we heard
Speaker 1: two gunshots. Now, remember I told you this is city limits.
Speaker 1: So gunshots go off, you're committing a crime. And we
Speaker 1: heard two gunshots go off. And we're sitting there waiting
Speaker 1: for our dads to come back. And my dad comes
Speaker 1: in with my uncle and his shirt is just shredded,
Speaker 1: the whole front of it. And I guess this thing
Speaker 1: wanted to get past my dad without killing my dad
Speaker 1: more or less, and just kind of took his hand
Speaker 1: and shoved him aside and booked, you know, pasted him. Now,
Speaker 1: my dad's test was red, his shirt was ripped, no,
Speaker 1: you know a little bit of like scratches. But I
Speaker 1: don't know if that was for my dad following or
Speaker 1: the actual thing pushing him. But but you know that
Speaker 1: that was the very first time that I realized they
Speaker 1: weren't bs and us there's something back here. And I
Speaker 1: stayed out of the woods for a whole six months,
Speaker 1: and then after time we're back in the woods again.
Speaker 1: But we literally grew up with knowing this thing was there.
Speaker 1: We'd get pelted with rocks, you know, little rocks, nothing big,
Speaker 1: you know, nothing that could hurt us. We'd go down
Speaker 1: there to the camp like we'd hear I don't want
Speaker 1: to say stick snapping. It sounded like trees breaking. But
Speaker 1: we never seen anything for a long time after that.
Speaker 1: But I mean that's sort of you know, excitement was
Speaker 1: scarier than I'll get out when it was going on,
Speaker 1: but after it was over, we kind of want to
Speaker 1: do it again. Yeah, And I guess that went on
Speaker 1: for like five years. I was twelve the first time
Speaker 1: I actually seen it, But we had, like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, we go down their caps and we get
Speaker 1: peedded with rocks. I never heard no whoops or howls
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but you get a feeling, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, like like you know you're being
Speaker 1: watched too. There's there used to be wild dogs down there.
Speaker 1: We found dead wild dogs, We found deer with their
Speaker 1: heads written backwards. Yeah, it just I thought everyone had,
Speaker 1: you know, knew this was there, and I would talk
Speaker 1: to people about it. And the thing is, now that
Speaker 1: whole area that was woods has been flooded on purpose
Speaker 1: by the Parking Recreation Department of the State of Ohio.
Speaker 2: So you think they did that to run these things
Speaker 2: out of there.
Speaker 1: I know they didn't. And they didn't run them out
Speaker 1: of there. That I don't. I almost I almost think
Speaker 1: this thing because it only happened from the months of
Speaker 1: June to mid September, and then we'd have nothing happening
Speaker 1: in the winter. Nothing would happen in the winter. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, I was telling you before we went
Speaker 1: on the air, they put a towpath in here. This
Speaker 1: is right along the Erik Canal, and they it's probably
Speaker 1: three city blocks long from the one road to the
Speaker 1: other roads that the towpath comes out on. Now, three
Speaker 1: quarters of that was in I call it the Grassland's home,
Speaker 1: you know, the wooded area that we grew up in.
Speaker 1: It took two years for that because when they had
Speaker 1: their equipment down there. You know, there's always a path
Speaker 1: there for a towpath, but they can't, you know, put
Speaker 1: pavement in there. They had a security company watching their
Speaker 1: equipment down there, you know, after hours and at night.
Speaker 1: A security company lasted three days and they quit. I
Speaker 1: mean the entire company said we're not coming back taking
Speaker 1: this account. So they had a couple off duty Acron
Speaker 1: police officers go back there and do it. And I
Speaker 1: guess the hydraulic lines of these big dozers and backos
Speaker 1: were being ripped apart. Wow, not cut, but being pulled apart.
Speaker 1: And the tracks have been looked like someone was trying
Speaker 1: to pull the tracks off these bulldozers. They wouldn't get
Speaker 1: pulled off, but they get messed up enough to wear
Speaker 1: hours to fix it, you know, that that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And at the time, I was real good friends with
Speaker 1: the chief of police for you know, Rakran, and he
Speaker 1: said that they're just going to open up the pumps
Speaker 1: or turn off the pumps that goes to Firestone and
Speaker 1: let that flood. And to this day it's still flooded.
Speaker 1: It took about six months for this whole thing to flood,
Speaker 1: and they keep it flooded because it's right. It's the
Speaker 1: pumps used to run the water from the canal into
Speaker 1: the firestone plant to help call the machines so that
Speaker 1: part of the canal would never freeze. But now that
Speaker 1: they've done that, when they run the pumps into the canal,
Speaker 1: the water alls start to receive because they run it
Speaker 1: in for a couple weeks at a time and then
Speaker 1: open the pumps back up to fill up, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole wooded area. But if you look it up,
Speaker 1: it's a blue herrings preserve for blue herrings to nest.
Speaker 2: So they've kind of secured it state level or federally.
Speaker 1: That part is federally on because the street that my
Speaker 1: grandfather lived on, they have put a cup businesses up
Speaker 1: and all that land is federally own. One of the
Speaker 1: guys that run a dump truck company has his shop
Speaker 1: back here, and he was telling me that he has
Speaker 1: to rent his parking lot from the federal government, you know,
Speaker 1: federal parks. Yeah, and if they have a camera, security
Speaker 1: camera that the park Service can have access to. The
Speaker 1: rent for his parking lots only one hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 1: So there's something going on back there.
Speaker 2: Clearly, and this is this isn't the first time I've
Speaker 2: heard about this type of situation occurring either. My old
Speaker 2: research area years ago whenever I was a boots on
Speaker 2: the ground researcher. Our main research area was inside of
Speaker 2: a national park here, and that park, they would go
Speaker 2: into very specific areas where there wasn't a lot of traffic,
Speaker 2: you know, not a lot of public traffic, but they
Speaker 2: were areas that we frequent in a lot because there
Speaker 2: was activity going on there, and they would shut them
Speaker 2: down for months on end to do these different projects
Speaker 2: or whatever. And they did all kinds of things. And
Speaker 2: one of the things that they did was shut down
Speaker 2: a huge trail system so they could go in and
Speaker 2: pave it, and it took them months and months and
Speaker 2: months to do. And another time they did like a
Speaker 2: controlled burn of the area and got rid of all
Speaker 2: the cedar trees in the area, which you know, was
Speaker 2: kind of a big deal where we were researching that.
Speaker 2: And they've just done projects like that all over the place,
Speaker 2: it seems. I was even looking at a map the
Speaker 2: other day right outside of town to a spot that
Speaker 2: I was talking to a colleague about that I had
Speaker 2: visited years and years ago, and I was looking at
Speaker 2: it on you know, Google Maps recently to see what
Speaker 2: it looked like now. And they've done the same thing there.
Speaker 2: They've gone in and closed it down and paved it
Speaker 2: and clear cut it and everything else, and it's just
Speaker 2: awfully coincidental that that happens.
Speaker 1: Well, well, okay, you actually were on the ground, you know,
Speaker 1: boots on the ground, researcher. Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of the Joe Ball camp site?
Speaker 1: I think it's in Missouri.
Speaker 2: It doesn't ring a bell, okay.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the other podcasts that I used to
Speaker 1: listen to and communicate it with, I can't think of
Speaker 1: the guy's name, but he wrote a book actually as
Speaker 1: a series of books out and I started listening to
Speaker 1: him and I kind of got had to chuckle to
Speaker 1: myself because of you know, I'm an Army ranger. Okay,
Speaker 1: I was in the Army. I was with the seventy
Speaker 1: fourth Ranger Regiment, and we did a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: at Fort Lewis back when it was a military base
Speaker 1: in Washington State. And they sat us down our third
Speaker 1: night there and told us now that this came from
Speaker 1: my CEO, and the sergeant major was right there. And
Speaker 1: my sergeant major had no sense of humor, so I
Speaker 1: can't see this being any type of joke. And he
Speaker 1: was telling us that bigfoot are in the area. If
Speaker 1: you see one, don't try to follow it, don't try
Speaker 1: to engage it, don't try to harass it. It will
Speaker 1: leave you alone. Well, I don't know if you know
Speaker 1: anything about the military as far as I mean, we
Speaker 1: have ranges that we shoot on, but when you're out
Speaker 1: doing exercises inside the States, you're not given live AMMO.
Speaker 1: If we fire live AMMO outside of a range area,
Speaker 1: it wakes a lot of people up in DC. I mean,
Speaker 1: it just there's no way you're going to get around it.
Speaker 1: They plot all told us they're here. Don't don't try
Speaker 1: to track them, don't try to engage them. And I mean,
Speaker 1: you're talking to special forses, you know, and you're you're
Speaker 1: a lot of the guys are like, yeah, right, Well
Speaker 1: I've got history when I was growing up with these things,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, I ain't engaging it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. There's there's you know. But anyway
Speaker 1: back to this Joe Ball campsite or campground. Army Corps
Speaker 1: engineers would shut it down every so often. But this
Speaker 1: guy wrote a book and I can't think of his name,
Speaker 1: but he's an ex police officer and he's now in
Speaker 1: the Bigfoot and dog Man and things like that. And
Speaker 1: he wrote this book called the lake View Monster or
Speaker 1: the lake View Man or something like that. It's based
Speaker 1: around uh, I don't know if you know her, like
Speaker 1: Doug Wee's a different form of Bigfoot, supposed to like
Speaker 1: a base eater, Okay, based around one of those. And
Speaker 1: it's killing these kids and people in this town. And
Speaker 1: it keeps going back to the Joe Ball campsite or campground. Well,
Speaker 1: the Joe Ball campground is real. I looked it up,
Speaker 1: and the Army Corps engineers has shut it down due
Speaker 1: to safety reasons, is all they would list it ass
Speaker 1: But this guy said he was out there doing the
Speaker 1: shoot for the book cover with his publicists. They were
Speaker 1: just taking pictures of the woods, not expecting to have
Speaker 1: anything happen. And on the interview I heard he said
Speaker 1: he had a dog man standing in the woods that
Speaker 1: he didn't even see until they looked at the picture.
Speaker 1: But he won't post that picture, so I don't know
Speaker 1: how credible it is. Right, But in the story, this
Speaker 1: w Sheriff is fighting this creature, you know, these creatures,
Speaker 1: and he US military comes in.
Speaker 2: To help him.
Speaker 1: And it branched down into whole other stories of the
Speaker 1: US military has a group with all the branches of
Speaker 1: the military that select people to come in and take
Speaker 1: out cryptids that have become a nuisance. And it kind
Speaker 1: of made everything click. You know, my time at Fort
Speaker 1: lewis growing up. This sort of thing happening, you know,
Speaker 1: with them flooding this area. And this is just my
Speaker 1: own opinion. I have nothing to base it on, but
Speaker 1: I don't think it's literally literally like the Pentagon and
Speaker 1: stuff keeping big put a secret. I think the organization
Speaker 1: that has the most to lose is the forestry.
Speaker 2: Industry because of the dollars.
Speaker 1: I mean, how much what do they harvest out of
Speaker 1: the national force. I know they to pay bukou buck
Speaker 1: to take lumber out of there. And if these things
Speaker 1: are proven and admitted to be real, you got to
Speaker 1: protect the habitat, so the forest, you know, the the
Speaker 1: lumber industry is going to take a hit and then
Speaker 1: turn the forest interest is going to take it a
Speaker 1: hit because they ain't gonna be paid for all that.
Speaker 1: I don't know how anybody can say that for sure,
Speaker 1: they're not real. I mean I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but like I said, I've had, you know, that experience,
Speaker 1: you know, actually seeing one, and what I've seen it
Speaker 1: was about seven and a half, was tall, but hunched
Speaker 1: over sort of, and its one arm was almost dragging
Speaker 1: the ground. But their hands are all the way down
Speaker 1: to their knees at least, you know. When that thing
Speaker 1: stood and looked at us, it just you could see
Speaker 1: the one hand swing, you know, and it just it
Speaker 1: had to be interest from the ground.
Speaker 2: And it never made any like sounds or anything like
Speaker 2: that whenever you're hitting it with the rocks.
Speaker 1: No, none at all. I mean, not even a you know,
Speaker 1: an inhale or a gas. But when it got to
Speaker 1: that tree, you know that we heard it then, but
Speaker 1: it was nothing like what me and my cousin heard
Speaker 1: and we were walking under go capfish and that scared me.
Speaker 1: And that was even before I seen this thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it scared me to death. And I think in Fort Lewis,
Speaker 1: when I was up there, if I would have heard that,
Speaker 1: then I've been begging to be discharged, you know. I
Speaker 1: mean I've spent time, you know, in Iraq, and it
Speaker 1: just yeah, hearing that, knowing what I have, you know,
Speaker 1: blanks at that. But the weapon that I had, I
Speaker 1: might as well be shooting a piece shooter at it.
Speaker 1: You know. I've talked to guys that say they have
Speaker 1: shot it but it didn't drop. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: would you have. One guy shot it here in Akron
Speaker 1: with a thirty got six for about sixty yards out,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I should have at least knocked it down.
Speaker 1: He goes, it's screamed and ran off, and he goes,
Speaker 1: I know I hit it, you know, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I've seen this guy's trophy wall. He knows how to shoot,
Speaker 1: you know. But when me and my wife had a
Speaker 1: chance to buy a house, I literally said I want
Speaker 1: to live by the canal. So I bought a house.
Speaker 1: I am literally five thousand feet from the canal. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, I still go down there, and you got
Speaker 1: to sneak in at night because you know it's a
Speaker 1: park now and you can't be in it after dusk.
Speaker 1: But I mean I go down there and I just
Speaker 1: I get the same feelings. Yeah, there's something back here.
Speaker 1: You know. Whether I'll see it again, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Now, we were talking earlier before we started recording. You know,
Speaker 2: you were on Monster Quest years ago talking about the
Speaker 2: Ohio grass Man YEP.
Speaker 1: Season three, episode three.
Speaker 2: How did that kind of all come about? And you know,
Speaker 2: I want to hear about the nests man, what were
Speaker 2: those like?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I've been more open with the whole big
Speaker 1: put subject. My dad had a lot more encounters than
Speaker 1: I did. Okay, And I don't feel right telling his
Speaker 1: encounters because anyone who listens says it's hearsay, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, because I wasn't there. But I believe
Speaker 1: it a wholeheartedly, you know, I mean, there's not a doubt.
Speaker 1: But back in nineteen ninety five we were listening. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you really used to listen to Coast
Speaker 1: to Coast with Art Belt.
Speaker 2: Oh, of course we used to.
Speaker 1: Listen to Artmel religiously. And they had a guy over here,
Speaker 1: a guy that was on the show that spent five
Speaker 1: weeks in the woods that kind of connect to where
Speaker 1: all my encounters happened. He spent five weeks back there
Speaker 1: and seen human but never nobody ever saw him. And
Speaker 1: you know, come to find out, he was next Green Beret.
Speaker 1: He was just going back or checking the food supply.
Speaker 1: Seeing him something that big could live back or without
Speaker 1: being seen and yeah, he did it. So we went
Speaker 1: and had reached out to this guy and wanted to
Speaker 1: tell him our story. Well, he put us in contact
Speaker 1: with a few researchers at Ohio State University, and there
Speaker 1: was Jody Cook was one of them, and then a
Speaker 1: couple other guys that I won't even say their names.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen ninety five they came up and we
Speaker 1: took them back there. Now that was before all this
Speaker 1: was flooded. You know, it was still woods. It was
Speaker 1: still like it was when I was growing up, you know,
Speaker 1: And we were telling our stories to the guys and
Speaker 1: showing them where certain things happened and where we used
Speaker 1: to camp. And there's those big metal towers that they
Speaker 1: run high tension wires along. Yeah, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: those back there. And we were walking that path, you know,
Speaker 1: the cut path that they make for all those and
Speaker 1: we were, you know, walking through all that and showing,
Speaker 1: you know, the guy's the story. Well, were walking to
Speaker 1: this edge of this weed line and right there's a
Speaker 1: nest and they're like, well, what is that And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I call it big puts ten And they're like, what
Speaker 1: I said, We see these all the time, and they're
Speaker 1: all they're all made like this, and they're all laid
Speaker 1: down inside with twigs that have been carried to them.
Speaker 1: They're not from trees that are around this, you know,
Speaker 1: they've been laid in there. And the nest was about
Speaker 1: fifteen foot long, about six and a half foot high,
Speaker 1: and it was almost like a dome, but it was
Speaker 1: completely covered all but a little hole about three foot
Speaker 1: in diameter. I mean you literally had to get down
Speaker 1: and crawl into it, but you couldn't see anything. Like
Speaker 1: you get in there, you can't see it. You know,
Speaker 1: you're completely him. And they're like, man, I would love
Speaker 1: to go inside that. And I'm like, there ain't no
Speaker 1: way I'm not going inside that. You know, that hole.
Speaker 1: You won't be able to see me in there if
Speaker 1: something's in there, you know. So they kind of made
Speaker 1: the hole bigger and they're like, yeah, there's nothing in there,
Speaker 1: you know they did. They had a fleer and they're
Speaker 1: signing a fleer in there, and there's like, we got
Speaker 1: no heat signature. You know, it's twelve degrees cooler in
Speaker 1: there that it is out here. And so I said, sorry,
Speaker 1: you make the hole big enough, and all three of
Speaker 1: you guys are standing right there, then I'll get in there.
Speaker 1: Well I got in there and they took a picture
Speaker 1: of me in there, and that is the picture that
Speaker 1: airs on the Ohiograssman episode.
Speaker 2: So what was it like inside of there?
Speaker 1: Everything was There's only five inches of padding on the
Speaker 1: on the floor, on the on the ground. I mean
Speaker 1: they there was sticks, there was leaves, there was I
Speaker 1: mean just it was like a bed literally, I mean
Speaker 1: five inches of padding. I mean you step in it,
Speaker 1: you sink.
Speaker 2: Wow, there was loss in there, but.
Speaker 1: You're in there now. I was scared of that hanging
Speaker 1: a bye. I got in there and the stench was
Speaker 1: on god, in there just it's almost like a wet dog,
Speaker 1: sulfur trash smell, you know, all in one. But it
Speaker 1: was rank in there. So I didn't stay there very long,
Speaker 1: but I can literally you lose contact with the outside
Speaker 1: when you're in there. It was so well built, and
Speaker 1: it just I mean I leaned on the side of
Speaker 1: it and nothing. It didn't fall over, it didn't my
Speaker 1: hand didn't go through it, you know. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it just it was a weird feeling being in there.
Speaker 2: How many of these things were there?
Speaker 1: We found two of them when we had those guys
Speaker 1: down there the spot. No, they were probably about a
Speaker 1: thousand yards apart, like in the edge of a clearing,
Speaker 1: like on the weed line with the edge of a clearing.
Speaker 1: And then the other one was on the another clearing,
Speaker 1: on the other side of the you know, like the
Speaker 1: other side of the cutpath for the towers. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: they were opposite sides of that cuppath. Like if they're
Speaker 1: in there looking, they're both looking at the cuppath. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if it would be like an amberge spot,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was kind of comical because they're like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it could be just like tumbleweed, know,
Speaker 1: tuble we'd mean, but like that not that big, not
Speaker 1: that hollow, no patting, you know. But Jody Cook called
Speaker 1: me and my dad about two and a half months
Speaker 1: later and said, look, don't talk to those guys anymore.
Speaker 1: They're they're running around with your story. You know. There
Speaker 1: was a write up, somebody wrote a book. One of
Speaker 1: the guys that did this with us wrote a book
Speaker 1: Bigfoot in Ohio, and basically word for word told me
Speaker 1: and my dad's story. They changed our names obviously because
Speaker 1: I would have sued him so quick and made their headspin.
Speaker 1: But then the Akron Beckon Journal picked it up and
Speaker 1: ran a story about it, and I ended up calling
Speaker 1: that reporter saying, look, this is not how it went.
Speaker 1: This is not this, this is not this. And she
Speaker 1: later on got involved with podcasting, and after I gave
Speaker 1: my story to another podcast, she came on the air
Speaker 1: a week later and said that I was full of crap,
Speaker 1: that that area was always flooded like that, that you know,
Speaker 1: it was more flooded than not flooded, that the pictures
Speaker 1: that I talk about monster quests are not taken there.
Speaker 1: That I'm like, okay, you know. So I contacted Jody
Speaker 1: Crook and asked him for the coordinates because he went
Speaker 1: back up there a couple of times, and he actually
Speaker 1: GPS to pin dropped the coordinates, and I sent it
Speaker 1: to her. I said, you say any more stuff like this,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna put this out. You're you're lying, You're
Speaker 1: trying to, you know, benefit your own career, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I had police chief involved. I had police
Speaker 1: officers involved because they were told don't go down there
Speaker 1: without three or four backup, you know, units with you
Speaker 1: and carry his heavy weapons you want to carry so
Speaker 1: they know there's something back there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this wasn't just an area where you and your
Speaker 2: family were claiming stuff was happening. Other people were experiencing
Speaker 2: it too in the same area.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, I mean there was a guy that
Speaker 1: used to drive an old German staff when I was little,
Speaker 1: and he used to drive down the you know, because
Speaker 1: the road after my grandfather's turned into a dirt road,
Speaker 1: and the only thing down at the other end of
Speaker 1: this dirt road was a junkyard. He would go down there,
Speaker 1: park and then drink. And we'd see him go down
Speaker 1: there at night and come back the next morning after
Speaker 1: he you know, woke up or sever it up, whichever
Speaker 1: the case may be. And there was a couple of
Speaker 1: times that we heard him hollering and hooping and his
Speaker 1: car be flying up the street and we're like, yep,
Speaker 1: grassman got him. But one night he come running up
Speaker 1: the street, left his car down there, and we never
Speaker 1: seen him again. We watched him run past my grandpa's house.
Speaker 1: I was probably nineteen at the time. Watched him run
Speaker 1: past my grandfather's house. Yeah, I was goes home on lead.
Speaker 1: It was not right around Christmas and he come running
Speaker 1: past my grandfather's house and he never run back out
Speaker 1: his car.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: A week later my grandfather said a toke and he
Speaker 1: came down and got it. But it goes back to
Speaker 1: we never had anything happen after middle of September, So
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's what scared him or but
Speaker 1: something spooked him out that you know, he took, probably
Speaker 1: that old German staff guard man and he just he
Speaker 1: something left it.
Speaker 2: I know there's no way to really know for sure,
Speaker 2: but do you think something happened specifically to cause them
Speaker 2: to decide to go in there and tear the place
Speaker 2: up and flood it out.
Speaker 1: Well, I think if they were going to open it
Speaker 1: up like they did, I mean it's it's a major
Speaker 1: walking path, and I really think that when they went
Speaker 1: down there. According to the people I've spoke with, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say their name, but a couple of
Speaker 1: our council were council members at the time, when's the mayor,
Speaker 1: then the police chief, they were having so much happen
Speaker 1: to the equipment down there that they stopped that part
Speaker 1: of the towpath skipped over and flooded that before the
Speaker 1: company'd come back in and just lay the payment down. Now,
Speaker 1: once that happened, it only took him two days to
Speaker 1: lay the payment down, but it took him two years
Speaker 1: to get those two days in. But I honestly, I
Speaker 1: honestly think the wrong person got scared down there, and
Speaker 1: that's when they kind of like, Okay, we got to
Speaker 1: figure something out. Because there's too many houses around. You
Speaker 1: can't go down on a hunt, and you can't apply
Speaker 1: a black helicopter in here and nobody see it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. You don't have that luxury, so
Speaker 1: you got to do something else. But I honestly believe that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean all that areas, there's mines all over the
Speaker 1: place around here, and there's a trustle down there that
Speaker 1: literally if you go on that trust so you could
Speaker 1: drive a Volkswagen bug in it and come up all
Speaker 1: the way out past Hakercant Airport about thirty five to
Speaker 1: forty miles. So there's tunnel systems, there's caves, there's mines.
Speaker 1: I think flooding it was the easiest way to deal
Speaker 1: with the situation. Yeah, I mean it sucks because it
Speaker 1: was beautiful back there. I mean there was weeping willows,
Speaker 1: there was a little pond in the center about in
Speaker 1: the center of the swooded area. I mean it was great.
Speaker 1: I mean that was my childhood and the documentary film
Speaker 1: with small Town Monsters. We went down there and filmed
Speaker 1: it on the towpath and we're telling the guy me
Speaker 1: and my dead both. You know, this is all woods.
Speaker 1: You couldn't see all this, you know now, it's just
Speaker 1: dead trees there, you know, haven't fallen over yet, you know.
Speaker 1: And there's no way you need a herring sanctuary. I'm sorry, no.
Speaker 2: No, I mean here in Oklahoma, those things are everywhere.
Speaker 1: Well they're everywhere here too, That's what I mean. Why
Speaker 1: do you need a sanctuary? So it's just it kind
Speaker 1: of makes me think that there's some shoddy stuff going on.
Speaker 2: You mentioned earlier, you know, hearing sticks breaking and getting
Speaker 2: little pebbles thrown at you and stuff. Whenever you're down there.
Speaker 2: What was going on whenever they're throwing stuff at you? Specifically,
Speaker 2: it was usually after midnight, and it only happened in
Speaker 2: certain areas.
Speaker 1: Like if we'd start getting pelder with rocks and we'd
Speaker 1: move five hundred feet down the canal, they wouldn't follow us.
Speaker 1: So I want to think that it was a kind warning,
Speaker 1: Hey you're too close to something, or you're messing up
Speaker 1: what we have going on, or you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It was I never other than that one time, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was twelve and actually seen it. Because I
Speaker 1: don't know who you are, but that's going to scare anybody.
Speaker 1: I don't care if you're a big research you're not
Speaker 1: what You're ten to twelve feet away from this thing.
Speaker 1: You can't help but be scared. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: a sickening feeling of my gut, you know when we
Speaker 1: heard that. Well, and you know, it's before I knew
Speaker 1: anything about that infrasound thing and things like that. But
Speaker 1: I almost think, if I think back, me and my
Speaker 1: cousin might have been hit with something like that. Now
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'm just spitballing here because we
Speaker 1: both felt sick to our stomach, dizzy. Now, I know
Speaker 1: fear can do that too, and I'm it was either
Speaker 1: fear we got hit with infrasound, But it was just
Speaker 1: a sickening feeling. The one time we were down at
Speaker 1: the footbridge, which literally is just a drain pipe, like
Speaker 1: a four foot diameter drain pipe and a grated walkway
Speaker 1: over it that goes well fifteen feet across the canal, okay.
Speaker 1: And we were down there standing on that and there's me,
Speaker 1: my dad, my uncle, and my cousin. Again we were
Speaker 1: in separable. We were standing down there. We heard something
Speaker 1: moving through the swampy area, the slashing, you know, and
Speaker 1: we're waiting for somebody to walk out, you know, like
Speaker 1: you know, we a homeless guy or you know something,
Speaker 1: because it's probably been six eight months before anything's happened,
Speaker 1: you know, we just kind of it's moved on, it's
Speaker 1: not here. And all of a sudden, we started hearing
Speaker 1: and I don't want to say sticks. I want to
Speaker 1: say these are at least saplings being snapped, because it
Speaker 1: would echo. It literally would sound like a shotgun going off,
Speaker 1: and we're like what, you know, we all instantly thought
Speaker 1: what it was, you know, without saying, you know, the
Speaker 1: grassman's back. But it felt completely different that time than
Speaker 1: any other, like this was a very strong warning get out,
Speaker 1: you know, like, okay, if there's a nest back there,
Speaker 1: that's a breeding nester, a nursery, we might have been
Speaker 1: too close, yeah, you know, and we took its warning
Speaker 1: after about ten of those things snapped and we were like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and leave. Let's just walk along
Speaker 1: the you know, the path which is now the towpath,
Speaker 1: but you know, it was just a four foot path
Speaker 1: along the canal the bank there. We just were just
Speaker 1: gonna walk along here. You know, we made noise the
Speaker 1: whole time we were going, and we were being paced out.
Speaker 1: Never seen it, but heard it. You know, it was
Speaker 1: walking probably ten foot in the woods right with us.
Speaker 1: Didn't grunt, didn't make any aggressive sounds, but you could
Speaker 1: hear it walking. It wasn't a hiding the fact that
Speaker 1: I'm walking you out.
Speaker 2: And how long did it pace you guys?
Speaker 1: All the way to the edge of the woods by
Speaker 1: my grandfather's house, I mean all the way out. And
Speaker 1: it never did that before, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: it would mess with us, we'd hear it, but usually
Speaker 1: once we made the turn, like we're heading back to
Speaker 1: my grandfather's street and you could see the street lights
Speaker 1: and stuff, we wouldn't hear anything. After that. This thing
Speaker 1: went all the way up until we crossed over a
Speaker 1: steel cable that blocked the road from the service road there,
Speaker 1: and it all the way up. I mean we crossed
Speaker 1: over that that wire that stretched across and it was
Speaker 1: probably seventy five yards to my grandfather's house. He was
Speaker 1: the first house on the street. And we heard that
Speaker 1: thing all the way up until we hit the driveway.
Speaker 1: Then we didn't hear it no more.
Speaker 2: Now do you think that was kind of like a
Speaker 2: boundary for them or do you think they'd come up
Speaker 2: around the houses and stuff?
Speaker 1: Oh? I knew they come up from the houses. There
Speaker 1: used to be apartment projects. There was my grandfather's house,
Speaker 1: another house, and then four apartment complexes right there, like
Speaker 1: four apartment buildings. Yeah, And we would see the thing
Speaker 1: and the farmers steal behind our grandfather's house. We would
Speaker 1: see it in the back, you know, by the woods,
Speaker 1: right along the apartment buildings. I mean, it didn't hide
Speaker 1: from us. It's almost like we're friends, you know, I
Speaker 1: know them, they know me. Now, not the type of
Speaker 1: friends are all going to go hang out with, But
Speaker 1: I mean I almost think that they were used to
Speaker 1: us because we spent so much time back there, and
Speaker 1: with what my uncle showed me and my cousins, we
Speaker 1: took care of where we were at. We didn't come
Speaker 1: back there in trash the place. We didn't, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, we respected the wood, and I almost
Speaker 1: think that that was okay. These guys are okay. Now
Speaker 1: we started wandering around, that's usually when crap would happen,
Speaker 1: you know, don't come this way, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and it make a few things. We'd turn around and
Speaker 1: leave us alone, you know. So I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to say it was friendly. I mean I've seen,
Speaker 1: like I said, there was junkyard dogs. There was wild
Speaker 1: dogs back there. Their heads were just like you grabbed
Speaker 1: the bottom of their jaw and pull their head all
Speaker 1: the way back to their back. We seen like twenty
Speaker 1: of those dogs throughout my time back there, just ripped apart.
Speaker 2: And this was out in the woods or.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the junkyard dog the back of the junkyard didn't
Speaker 1: have a fence, so they would come out into the woods.
Speaker 1: But they wouldn't mess with you until you got to there,
Speaker 1: you know, to the junk yard. Yeah, but they yeah,
Speaker 1: they were all over the place. Years later, I met
Speaker 1: a guy that used to work nights at the Junkyard
Speaker 1: as a night watchman, and he said he fired his
Speaker 1: three fifty seven and something out there there was making
Speaker 1: all kinds of noise and banging on metal, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I'm not going to tell you what
Speaker 1: it was because you're not going to believe me anyway.
Speaker 1: But you know, you're three fifty seven wouldn't have done nothing.
Speaker 2: So I know you don't want to retell your dad's stories.
Speaker 2: But with this being your grandfather's house, the events that
Speaker 2: happened to your dad and your uncle and everything, was
Speaker 2: this the same area.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, my dad moved into that house. He was
Speaker 1: born in fifty three. They moved in there in fifty six,
Speaker 1: so he spent his whole life. You know, my grandfather
Speaker 1: moved out there in ninety nine is when he moved
Speaker 1: out of his house. So all that time we were
Speaker 1: back there, you know. I mean, I'm fifty five now,
Speaker 1: and from nineteen, let's say I turned eight and seventy,
Speaker 1: So from seventy eight on, I would go camp back
Speaker 1: in those woods, you know, even by myself. Times were different,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean I would even go camp there
Speaker 1: by myself.
Speaker 2: So stuff was happening in this general area for years
Speaker 2: and years and years. Oh yes, oh yes, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: really interesting. It's kind of rare that you find places
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is, if you draw I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with Ohio, I mean, but you go
Speaker 1: from the Kyahaga Valley National Recreation Area, which is basically
Speaker 1: the whole top of Ohio bend patches, but the big area.
Speaker 1: If you draw a straight line from there to Salt
Speaker 1: Fork State Park, which is a big foot hotspot in Ohio,
Speaker 1: my little sections right, you've got to go right through.
Speaker 2: It, right in the middle.
Speaker 1: So I almost think that they're migrating and they just
Speaker 1: spent some time back there.
Speaker 2: You think that's like a travel corridor.
Speaker 1: I do, I really do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do have some friends up in Ohio that
Speaker 2: actively researched, and I can't talk about it too much,
Speaker 2: you know, out of respect for them giving away locations
Speaker 2: in area. Like you're saying, you know, Salt Fork has
Speaker 2: become a well known hotspot, a little too well known
Speaker 2: for a lot of people exactly. But there are a
Speaker 2: lot of areas that connect up to Salt Fork. That
Speaker 2: activity is happening, and they're finding all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like Hawking Hills here in Ohio is starting
Speaker 1: to have a lot of you know, yeah, activity, Ashland County,
Speaker 1: Ohio is having a lot of activity. The thing that
Speaker 1: amazes me about the whole Bigfoot community, you got so
Speaker 1: many people that if you don't believe they're part of it,
Speaker 1: then you're not a believer, right, And that's the wrong
Speaker 1: way to do any type of scientific research. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's come out and said it. It's already been known.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if you're affiliated with the
Speaker 1: BFRO or anything like that. But Matt Moneymaker at the
Speaker 1: school an accurate Okay, he graduated from the university here.
Speaker 1: He knows about my story. You know. He's like, you know,
Speaker 1: if there's any I don't know what they call it now,
Speaker 1: the WU or whatever, I don't want to hear leave
Speaker 1: that part out. Well, no, there's not really any WOO.
Speaker 1: But if there was, it's part of the story. It
Speaker 1: goes with it, you know, and I just I just
Speaker 1: want to He's got to be open to it. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not necessarily saying I believe you know, big pots
Speaker 1: an alien or can teleport or anything like that. But
Speaker 1: I'm not opposed to it either. You know, something happens
Speaker 1: to change my mind, and so be it.
Speaker 2: I've talked to a lot of people, and there's you know,
Speaker 2: a handful that I very much value and respect their
Speaker 2: opinions and theories on the subject. However, I have yet
Speaker 2: to meet anyone that I believe they know for sure
Speaker 2: one way or the other about any aspect of it.
Speaker 2: There's a few things we can tell you for sure,
Speaker 2: that they're out there, that they can walk up right,
Speaker 2: that they're covered in hair. You know, we know that
Speaker 2: much from eyewitness accounts and everything. But beyond that, I
Speaker 2: don't think anybody knows anything.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what I like. I said the
Speaker 1: one for visual I had the thing was massive. I
Speaker 1: mean it was. It's I hear people say four or
Speaker 1: five hundred pounds, man, I'm I'm even pushing more than that.
Speaker 1: I'm saying eight to nine hundred, maybe one thousand pounds
Speaker 1: as bulky as this thing is. I mean, now, I
Speaker 1: get it ways hard to guess, and you know, I
Speaker 1: was young, but just the sheer mass alone, and everybody
Speaker 1: knows muscle weighs more than fast, and the thing didn't
Speaker 1: look fat. It looked muscular, you know, and it just
Speaker 1: it left me at all. Now. I watched the film
Speaker 1: with Patty and I'm not saying real or not for
Speaker 1: that because I wasn't there. To me, it looks convincing
Speaker 1: as all get out. But I've also seen some other
Speaker 1: videos on the Internet that if AI wasn't around, I
Speaker 1: would say, yeah, they could be it. But now that
Speaker 1: AI is so relevant and popular with everybody, I almost
Speaker 1: look at every video on the Internet is most likely Aiah.
Speaker 2: Videos and photographs and things like that at this point
Speaker 2: are just for entertainment purposes only as far as I'm
Speaker 2: concerned exactly. I mean, that's just the unfortunate reality of it,
Speaker 2: unless I'm involved in taking the footage myself or it's
Speaker 2: you know, somebody I know personally.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. It also gets everyone's like, why is
Speaker 1: the picture always so blurry? Why is it always so
Speaker 1: out of focus? I can tell you firsthand. Okay, I
Speaker 1: mean I've been in firefights. Okay, your blood pressure goes up,
Speaker 1: you lose feeling in your fingertips. If you're trying to
Speaker 1: hold a camera still and every muscle in your body
Speaker 1: is contracting and shaking, every picture's going to be out
Speaker 1: of focus. It's gonna be blurry. It's gonna be even
Speaker 1: if you if that's what you're going out there to
Speaker 1: find when you see it, if you've never seen it before,
Speaker 1: you're not prepared. And I mean it's been years since
Speaker 1: I seen it, okay, But I am not gonna lie
Speaker 1: to you. If I see it again, I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: be just as scared as I was the first time
Speaker 1: I seen it. But it doesn't change the fact that
Speaker 1: I know what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2: Whenever you talk about the size and the mass of
Speaker 2: the one that you saw that you got a clearer
Speaker 2: view of. You mentioned earlier about it kind of blending
Speaker 2: into the tree and you lost it silhouette and couldn't
Speaker 2: see it anymore. Uh, something that large? How did you
Speaker 2: lose it silhouette against a tree?
Speaker 1: This wasn't a little tree, okay. I mean, granted it
Speaker 1: was bigger than the trunk with wives. I mean the
Speaker 1: shoulders had to be three and a half four foot across, right, okay.
Speaker 1: And when this thing went against the tree, it didn't
Speaker 1: just stop, okay. It kind of trying to think of
Speaker 1: the best way to explain it, picture yourself walking against
Speaker 1: its tree instead of going around it. You almost hug
Speaker 1: it to go around it. I didn't see it go
Speaker 1: past it.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, yeah, so it could have
Speaker 2: put itself, you know, the tree between you and itself,
Speaker 2: and you kind of used the tree as a blind spot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he is wider than the tree. Now, like
Speaker 1: I told you before, I'm Army ranger. It was a
Speaker 1: seventy fifth Ranger regiment. I know how to look at silhouettes.
Speaker 1: I learned this after this incident. You know. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I was twelve years old when this happened, right, But
Speaker 1: when I'm at Fort Lewis now, mind you, Like I said,
Speaker 1: I only have blanks and we're on a training op. Okay,
Speaker 1: five days on the woods. All you have is your
Speaker 1: ruck and your gear. I don't think I had a
Speaker 1: good night sleep during that, you know, whole time out
Speaker 1: there because I'm laying there and I look up and
Speaker 1: you see a tree, and then you like, blank in
Speaker 1: the trees doesn't look the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now I'm trained to look for silhouette, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It got to the point where I would
Speaker 1: keep my night vision on the whole time. They're like,
Speaker 1: you're going to burn batteries on. I'm like, I don't care.
Speaker 1: I can see. Oh you're not letting that story good
Speaker 1: to you? Just stop. Yes, I am. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. You don't understand, right, you know, It's just
Speaker 1: it's not that I was going to do anything if
Speaker 1: the thing if I got another look at it, but
Speaker 1: I still wanted to get a look at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to see what's going to kill me if
Speaker 1: that be the case. I don't believe that every big
Speaker 1: put out there could be a monstrous killer. I almost
Speaker 1: think that they're not like a human. There's good ones,
Speaker 1: there's bad ones. There's ones you just don't know about.
Speaker 1: And I kind of think it's the same with them.
Speaker 1: I mean, you get down in the southern parts of
Speaker 1: the country, and the big put down there seem a
Speaker 1: little bit more mischievous, I don't want to say violent,
Speaker 1: but more mischievous. You get to the Pacific Northwest, where
Speaker 1: there's not as many people, it has more room to roam.
Speaker 1: They're more shy and try to stay away from humans.
Speaker 1: And I think the ones in the eastern part Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: West Virginia look at humans as a little nuisance, not
Speaker 1: going to do anything to you. But yeah, you might
Speaker 1: be able to mess with them a little bit. Don't
Speaker 1: give them little bit, don't give them too much, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, where is your thoughts at at this point in
Speaker 2: life about what these things are?
Speaker 1: Again, just my thoughts, my opinions. I think they're flesh
Speaker 1: and bloods. I just think they're another form of animal.
Speaker 1: I mean, in between the Great Apes and US. If
Speaker 1: you'd have to put them on the you know, the
Speaker 1: evolution thing. I think they're in between like the Great
Speaker 1: Apes and US.
Speaker 2: Do you think they'll ever be proven to exist?
Speaker 1: I think so, I really do. I think so. I
Speaker 1: think it's going to get to the point where they
Speaker 1: can't deny it anymore. I mean, I believe there are
Speaker 1: scientists out there that have proof that they are being told.
Speaker 1: You don't or that, I mean, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be proven on the TV show. I
Speaker 1: mean I love watching Expedition Bigfoot, but that's strictly entertainment.
Speaker 1: They're not going to prove it on that because I mean,
Speaker 1: if they were to prove it, I mean, the last
Speaker 1: season was pretty cool how it ended with the footage,
Speaker 1: but TWOV shows over if you prove it, no point
Speaker 1: having a TV show. So I think that those shows
Speaker 1: like Finding Bigfoot and Expedition Bigfoot and the whole Josh
Speaker 1: Gates thing, I think it's strictly entertainment. I mean, Josh
Speaker 1: Gates got some pretty good proof of the Eddy and
Speaker 1: he got laughed at. But I mean I really think
Speaker 1: they're scientists out there that are already known. I'm not
Speaker 1: talking just about Jeff Meldrum and things like that. I
Speaker 1: mean actual biologists and zoologists. I think they know it's there,
Speaker 1: but they they out a reputation alone. I mean, the
Speaker 1: government can ruin anybody. And if you that that's your
Speaker 1: livelihood and you come out and say yeah it's real,
Speaker 1: your livelihood's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's no money in it for sure. No for
Speaker 2: people trying to prove it, especially in the scientific community.
Speaker 2: I mean that's something that's obviously talked about. You know
Speaker 2: a lot about how to get scientists on board and everything. Well, scientists,
Speaker 2: you know, that's their job. It's not just a hobby
Speaker 2: for them, and they get funding to research and do
Speaker 2: certain things. And if they're not getting funded to do that,
Speaker 2: that's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: So well, I'm going to turn it back on you.
Speaker 1: What's your thoughts on it. I mean, obviously you believe
Speaker 1: or no, I mean, but oh yeah, do you think
Speaker 1: it's going to be proven.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I'm kind of of the mindset
Speaker 2: that they already know. The powers that be whoever they are,
Speaker 2: already know these things are out there because I know
Speaker 2: they're out there. You know they're out there. If two
Speaker 2: guys like us can go out there and have an
Speaker 2: encounter and sightings and see these things and all these
Speaker 2: other people have, then of course they know they're out there.
Speaker 2: They've already studied them, they've already captured one. For whatever reason,
Speaker 2: they've decided we're not supposed to know about them. And
Speaker 2: so I just think that's the way it is. I
Speaker 2: think that's how it's always going to be.
Speaker 1: I hope you're wrong. You're probably not, but I hope
Speaker 1: you're wrong. I love for the day where you know,
Speaker 1: I'm watching the news and they break in and you know,
Speaker 1: breaking news Bigfoot has now proven to be exists. Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to keep on fighting the good fight.
Speaker 1: I got a long list of people I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: if that ever happened. See I told you yeah, because
Speaker 1: of my army buddy. See, I wasn't overreacted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Bob, I appreciate you coming on here and
Speaker 2: sharing your story and talking to me.
Speaker 1: Man Hey, it was a pleasure. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 2: And if you've had your own encounter with Bigfoot or
Speaker 2: something else you can explain and you like to share
Speaker 2: your story on the podcast, email me at Bigfoot Crossroads
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. Check out the website Bigfootcrossroads dot com.
Speaker 2: You can find links to social media, past episodes, merchandise,
Speaker 2: everything you need all in one place. And until next time,
Speaker 2: remember there's something in the woods.