February 19, 2025 • 19 mins
George Noory and cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard explore his research into mythical creatures like the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, the Chupacabra and Mothman, how many creatures may exist in the world, and why they are so difficult to find.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Ah, We've got a great couple hours coming up for
you with Ken Gearhardward. The recognized cryptozoologist author They Just
Spook as the Essential Guide to the Lockness Monster and
other aquatic cryptids, frequently appears on television programs. He has
traveled the world searching for evidence of mysterious creatures, including Bigfoot,
(00:27):
the Lockness Monster, the troop of Copra Mothman. In addition,
Ken has written a number of books on the subject
of unknown animals, and his research has been featured on
various television programs as well. And here he is back
on Coast to Coast Ken, Welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
How have you been leaving? George? Is always an absolute
honor to be here with you. I'm doing great.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You are one of the best crypto guys out there today.
How did you get involved in all this?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh? Man, It's just been a lifelong passion of mine.
You know, when I was a kid, I was really
fascinated with creatures, collected all kinds of creepy Crawley's snakes
and stuff, and I love monster movies. So when I
found out about Bigfoot, in the Lockness Monster. I was
about eight or nine years old and it just something
clicked and it's been a lifelong passion of mine. I
(01:17):
certainly never planned on making it a career. I've just
been very blessed and I've had a lot of amazing
opportunities to pursue this kind of research.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
There's something to be said about when we're kids, how
it affects us with these things. You know what. I
was the same with UFOs and I wanted to investigate
them and decided I'm going into broadcasting. I'm going to
find out what's going on with this stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
That's worked out pretty well for you. You've you've done
quite a nice job with it. So yeah, it's you know,
we're very blessed.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Now, tell us about this Lockness Monster expedition if it's
one of the biggest and fifty years and you were
part of it.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, it seems like just yesterday, but it was actually
about eighteen months ago. End of August twenty twenty three
went over with Scotland and there was an expedition organized
by a guy named Alan McKenna. He's got a group
called Exploration Lockedness and in conjunction with the Lockness Exhibition
(02:18):
centered there, which is a really cool museum. They put
out a call for volunteer researchers and much to their surprise,
they had hundreds of people responding from around the world.
And so for that last weekend in August, about two
hundred of US gathered there at Lockness and we did
the largest expedition, biggest expedition sincerely seventies as far as
(02:40):
man hours. We had people stationed all around the lock watching,
We had boats, we had hydrophones or micro underwater microphones
that were utilized, and I'm proud to say I was
the first researcher as far as I know that ever
flew a drone over Lockedness at night and that was
armed with thermal imaging camera, so we were looking for
(03:02):
heat signatures and so yeah, scuba divers, I mean, you
name it. We put out all the stops for a
weekend and the weather wasn't there great. No definitive evidence
was collected, I'm afraid to say, but there were some
interesting underwater sounds recorded and some possible observations of a
(03:23):
strange animal. In fact, we investigated us a sighting on
that Sunday morning by two of the observers and they
got a video of something. It was kind of in
the distance, but it looked like some humps sticking out
of the water and moving against the tide. So that
was all pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Ken the Locke is about what twenty three miles long.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Correct and about one point seven miles wide at the
widest part mile on average. So it's a very narrow
lake on the surface. Is it very very deep?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Is it very calm?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
No? Very turbulent? You have it. It's located in this
great geologic rift, and it's very close to the North Atlantic,
and so there's very narrow sort of it's sort of
like a narrow valley with very steep walls. So there's
a lot of wind and crazy currents and things. So
it's not very calm, you know, during the summer. It
(04:15):
can be more often when it's warmer, and that's actually
when you had the most observations of Nephi or the
Lockness Monster has been in those conditions where the water's
very flat and calm.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
In the sightings of NeSSI started in nineteen thirty three.
What happened? Can you go back? Can tell us?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, in nineteen thirty three they had built a new
road alongside the north shore of Locknest called A eighty two,
and it created all new visibility, great visibility of the
lock for people that had never been able to get
a good look at it before. You know, a lot
of the brush was cleared away and stuff. And there
was a couple John and Aldi Mackay. They owned a
(04:56):
hotel or an inn there in Drum to Drocket and
they were tering home from Inverness and suddenly all these
shouted out stopped the beast and you know, inferring that
there was kind of a prior knowledge of something beast
like in the loch right, So Aldie and John stopped
the car and they described seeing two well John didn't
(05:17):
actually see it. All these saw two whale like humps
about twenty feet in length, black and shiny, with water
rolling off of them, kind of moving around the water.
And so that was reported to the local newspaper in Inverness, Scotland,
and that was kind of the first mention of the
Lockness Monster. In May of nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Is it possible, ken that the Lockness Monster could be
a prehistoric plesiosaur.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
And it yets it is possible that is a seriod
that's been around a long time since the early nineteen thirties.
A pleice histor, of course, was a prehistoric reptile that
was aquatic, lived during the Mesozoic era. It was a
lineage that died out at the end to the Cretaceous,
and they were quite large. They had the small they
had the long neck and all that kind of thing.
(06:06):
The problem with that theory is that actually not a
lot of people see a head and neck. Those those
types of observations are very rare. Eighty five percent of
witnesses only described seeing a large hump or hump in
the surface of the water with no head and neck.
And also the water is very cold, of course, George,
So I mean you're talking about, you know, if feciosaurs
(06:27):
were reptiles, and there is a theory that they might
have been warm blooded, but we don't know. But if
they're cold blooded animals, they're not going to thrive in
that type of environment, right. Plus we'd also expect to
see them coming to the surface and breathing air. Reptiles
or air breathing animals they need oxygens. So so there's
some problems with that particular theory there. I think there
(06:48):
are other theories that have kind of displaced that one
a bit.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Could it be a large eel, that's what we're seeing
humps part of the yel.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, that's kind of the one of the press the
theories right now as we're talking. We know there are
a number of eels, conger eels already living in locked nests.
They average about two to five feet in length. But
there's a theory that there could be a monstrous eel
in there that's maybe fifteen to thirty feet in length,
and that would explain some of the sciety. So that's
not impossible. I guess that's one of the more popular
(07:20):
or pragmatic theories right now with researchers. I tend to
advocate a theory of more of a mammal type of animal,
maybe something ancient, like an ancient type of snake like whale,
which we did have, you know, ten millions of years ago.
And then some people think it might just be a
giant catfish. You know, you've got these big European catfish,
(07:44):
the Wells catfish, and they can be about seven feet
in length and way over three hundred and fifty pounds
I think, so they're a huge catfish. Now there's never
been one documented in locked nests, but that's another theory
out there.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well, it's not about two years. If we started at
nineteen thirty three, is it conceivable that whatever people are
seeing is the same object, the same creature. It's just
that it hasn't died.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Well, that that is possible. There are certain species that
get very old, you know, something like a sturgeon. You know,
that's another you know, lake sturgeon are very weird looking,
prehistoric kind of looking fish, and they can live about
a century, you know. But you could also be talking
about a small population, a small breeding population, which you know,
(08:34):
there would obviously be some genetic issues there with bottlenecks
and things if there weren't very many of them. But
or maybe something that comes in from the ocean, because
Lockness is connected to the North Atlantic by a series
of rivers and canals and things.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, it's Ken Garhart. His website is his name linked
up at coast tocoastam dot com. Tonight we're going to
be talking about Locknet, small Bigfoot, the tuop of Cabra,
mothman sightings, the Jersey Devil dog man. How many cryptos
are out there?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
So like a bunch of them, right, You know, you
have kind of the old guard or the traditional cryptids,
like the Lockness Monster, the yetty or vomitable snowman, and Bigfoot,
and then you have kind of this new generation with
the chupacabra and mothman and dog man and things like that.
(09:32):
So the field is a lot more vast and diverse
than people realized. It's more than just a handful of cryptids.
There literally are all kinds of unusual things that have
been reported around the world, from giant turtles and frogs
to giant snakes, thunderbirds, mystery cats, and all kinds of
(09:53):
weird creatures in different countries and far away lands. So
it's it's all very fascinating.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Ken If you want to see a giraffe, it's easier
to find if you want to see an elephant or
a tiger or any or zebra. Why are these other objects,
these other creatures so difficult to find.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, the only scientific explanation would be that they're very rare.
And you know how rare is a matter of speculation.
But for example, if we were talking about something like
Bigfoot or sasquatch here in the United States, North America.
You know, you would have to have a breeding population
of at least in the low thousands, because if you
(10:36):
get any you know, if there are any fewer than that,
then you start running into genetic bottlenecks and issues with
that kind of thing. So there has to be a
lot of genetic variation and diversity and a breeding population.
So and the lowest it could be would be in
the low thousands. That if you imagine a thousand bigfoots
or sasquatches spread across the entire continent of North America,
(10:57):
that makes them incredibly rare. You're like one hundred, one
hundred and fifty times more likely to see a bear
than a big foot or a sasquatch. So that's the
only explanation we can come up with Georgia is that
they live in very remote areas and they're just, you know,
very rare species at this point, perhaps endangered or critically endangered.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
We wants to go back to the lock for just
a second. Can regardless of whether it's a creature of
any kind that we've talked about, are you convinced people
are seeing something?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yes, I am, and I think the best evans, you know,
there's a there're about a thirteen hundred good eyewitness reports
that have been logged through the years that are very consistent.
Most people describe seeing a very large whaleke hump that
sticks out of the water, or sometimes multiple humps that
are you know, maybe twenty to forty feet in length,
(11:53):
smooth skin, usually a dark color, and you know, they're
very consistent reports. And then we have the sonar evidence.
That's another layer that a lot of people don't realize about.
Going back to nineteen fifty four, there have been numerous
sonar contacts with a large, unidentified animate object or objects
(12:15):
in locked nets, usually ranging from thirty to fifty feet
in length, and those have been analyzed by experts in
sonar at places like Simrad and low Ramps, and they've
determined that there's something down there they can't explain. They
don't think it's a school of fish or floating debris
or a massive plankton or anything like that. You know.
(12:37):
So these sonar contacts have been pretty consistent through the
years and they continue, and I think that's some of
the strongest evidence because those haven't been explained.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
If it were a whale, they would know that, would
they not.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Potentially Yeah, whales are obviously air breathing mammals, but some
species of whales, such as sperm whales, also beaked whales
or zefayads, can actually hold their breath for up to
four hours at a time. That's been documented. So whales
can basically take a breath from the surface and then
(13:11):
dive some whale species and then dive very deep and
hold their breath for hours. So but you're right, it
does seem less probable when you consider how many tourists
visit locked nests every year, especially millions of people to
send me un locked nests over the course of each year,
So you think at some point these these things would
(13:31):
be seen more often.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
There are more people going than there are objects. Side.
It is the locks salt water afresh.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
It's fresh water, and it's defined as being an oligotrophic lake,
which means that it's actually nutrient poor, so it is
fresh water. But the water there's a lot of sediment
in the water, stuff like peat that runs down these
steep cliff walls into the law, and the water's very
murky and there's not as a result, there's not much
(14:04):
sunlight that can penetrate the water, so you don't have
a lot of algae or plankton or the basic building block,
so it's a nutrient of poor lake. There's probably about
twenty tons of fish and salmon that come in occasionally,
so that creates some challenges too for different types of
animals proposed NEPSI type animals.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I was gonna say, can a salt water based creature
live in a lake?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yes, Actually there are some examples of that. You have
sharks that have swum into fresh water, primarily bull sharks
that have been documented in rivers the Mississippi River and
the Amazon River and stuff, and they go through a
process called OSMO regulation where they actually convert to their
(14:57):
whole body chemistry so that they can you know, adapt
from salt to fresh water. And then you have other
fish that are what do we call anadromus, and that
would be things like salmon and sturgeon and eels that
will move back and forth for spawning reasons from fresh
water to salt water. And then finally you have whales
(15:17):
and you know, seals and other types of aquatic mammals
that will occasionally travel into fresh water. So there are
some species that can make that transition.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Well, just did a program on Bigfoot, so we won't
concentrate too much on him tonight. They ken, but there
are many people who believe that it could be interdimensional
or connected to UFOs.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
What do you think, Yeah, that's that's one of the
most popular questions that I'm asked. People seem to really
be fascinated with that idea. I have not seen the
evidence for that personally. George and I've been researching the
bigfoot sasquatch phenomenon for forty years. I've worked in most
of the active most active areas around North America, worked
(15:58):
with most of the leading region searchers. There are some
weird stories that are connection to bigfoot sidings, for sure,
early seventies you had a lot of these big foot
UFO encounters in places like Pennsylvanian stuff. But you know,
I think there are I think the vast majority of sightings.
(16:19):
I think it's like there was a survey done in
like eighty five percent of the sidings are pretty nondescript.
So you can imagine someone's driving on there a remote
mountain road and suddenly something runs across the road on
two legs. That's the most common type of bigfoot report
or people see them in the woods, you know, drinking
water or hiding behind treaties. And interestingly, George, people have
(16:44):
reported seeing them digging through garbage dumpsters and things like that.
So why would they sentient being travel from another dimension
to dig through one of our garbage dumpsters? Of important question,
I think, And.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I don't think it's an individual in a suit, because
that person would probably get shot.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Oh sadly, I think that's happened. I mean, there was
certainly a gentleman I think you remember it was somewhere
up in Idaho or something that was dressed in a
big foot suit and trying to scare cars and he
got There was some tragedy involved there. So uh, And
here's an interesting bit of trivia for you, Georgie. If
you didn't know that, you know, they filmed a Return
(17:27):
of the Jedi, the Star Wars movie up in the
California Redwoods, and they actually had a guy in orange
Hunter's best type were of accompanying the Chewbacca character through
the woods at all times because they were worried that
Chewbacca might get shot by a hunter. A lot of
people don't know that story.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
But now, what is.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
The Chupacabra of course, is in Spanish means the goat sucker,
and in Latin American culture it is basically described as
being a vampire like creature that drinks the blood of
small farm animals like goats, rabbits, chickens and the like.
The main physical description, I should say, the primary physical
(18:14):
description that came out of Puerto Rico in the nineteen
nineties described a upright creature standing about three to five
feet tall, kangaroo shaped body, short fur, and then these
really big, weird like alien type of eyes, tear drop
shaped eyes, and a row of spikes going down the back.
(18:39):
And that's the image that kind of went viral in
the nineteen nineties when the Internet was getting started. Since
that time, people had described all types of cupacaudas that
I've heard of, winged chupacaudas, I've heard of. You know,
here in Texas where I live, we've got these weird
dog like animals that have been called chupacabras. They're just
kind of grotesque dogs and things. So it's kind of
(19:03):
a broad reaching term. But you know, most people think
of the Puerto Rican chuop of Capra as the original,
and I honestly, I just spoke recently to Jorge Martin,
who is the original researcher on the Puerto Rican chupacabra
cases in the nineteen nineties, and he says that phenomenon
(19:23):
is still ongoing in Puerto Rico and that he believes
it's connected to UFO phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Ah, We've got a great couple hours coming up for
you with Ken Gearhardward. The recognized cryptozoologist author They Just
Spook as the Essential Guide to the Lockness Monster and
other aquatic cryptids, frequently appears on television programs. He has
traveled the world searching for evidence of mysterious creatures, including Bigfoot,
(00:27):
the Lockness Monster, the troop of Copra Mothman. In addition,
Ken has written a number of books on the subject
of unknown animals, and his research has been featured on
various television programs as well. And here he is back
on Coast to Coast Ken, Welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
How have you been leaving? George? Is always an absolute
honor to be here with you. I'm doing great.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You are one of the best crypto guys out there today.
How did you get involved in all this?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh? Man, It's just been a lifelong passion of mine.
You know, when I was a kid, I was really
fascinated with creatures, collected all kinds of creepy Crawley's snakes
and stuff, and I love monster movies. So when I
found out about Bigfoot, in the Lockness Monster. I was
about eight or nine years old and it just something
clicked and it's been a lifelong passion of mine. I
(01:17):
certainly never planned on making it a career. I've just
been very blessed and I've had a lot of amazing
opportunities to pursue this kind of research.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
There's something to be said about when we're kids, how
it affects us with these things. You know what. I
was the same with UFOs and I wanted to investigate
them and decided I'm going into broadcasting. I'm going to
find out what's going on with this stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
That's worked out pretty well for you. You've you've done
quite a nice job with it. So yeah, it's you know,
we're very blessed.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Now, tell us about this Lockness Monster expedition if it's
one of the biggest and fifty years and you were
part of it.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, it seems like just yesterday, but it was actually
about eighteen months ago. End of August twenty twenty three
went over with Scotland and there was an expedition organized
by a guy named Alan McKenna. He's got a group
called Exploration Lockedness and in conjunction with the Lockness Exhibition
(02:18):
centered there, which is a really cool museum. They put
out a call for volunteer researchers and much to their surprise,
they had hundreds of people responding from around the world.
And so for that last weekend in August, about two
hundred of US gathered there at Lockness and we did
the largest expedition, biggest expedition sincerely seventies as far as
(02:40):
man hours. We had people stationed all around the lock watching,
We had boats, we had hydrophones or micro underwater microphones
that were utilized, and I'm proud to say I was
the first researcher as far as I know that ever
flew a drone over Lockedness at night and that was
armed with thermal imaging camera, so we were looking for
(03:02):
heat signatures and so yeah, scuba divers, I mean, you
name it. We put out all the stops for a
weekend and the weather wasn't there great. No definitive evidence
was collected, I'm afraid to say, but there were some
interesting underwater sounds recorded and some possible observations of a
(03:23):
strange animal. In fact, we investigated us a sighting on
that Sunday morning by two of the observers and they
got a video of something. It was kind of in
the distance, but it looked like some humps sticking out
of the water and moving against the tide. So that
was all pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Ken the Locke is about what twenty three miles long.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Correct and about one point seven miles wide at the
widest part mile on average. So it's a very narrow
lake on the surface. Is it very very deep?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Is it very calm?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
No? Very turbulent? You have it. It's located in this
great geologic rift, and it's very close to the North Atlantic,
and so there's very narrow sort of it's sort of
like a narrow valley with very steep walls. So there's
a lot of wind and crazy currents and things. So
it's not very calm, you know, during the summer. It
(04:15):
can be more often when it's warmer, and that's actually
when you had the most observations of Nephi or the
Lockness Monster has been in those conditions where the water's
very flat and calm.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
In the sightings of NeSSI started in nineteen thirty three.
What happened? Can you go back? Can tell us?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, in nineteen thirty three they had built a new
road alongside the north shore of Locknest called A eighty two,
and it created all new visibility, great visibility of the
lock for people that had never been able to get
a good look at it before. You know, a lot
of the brush was cleared away and stuff. And there
was a couple John and Aldi Mackay. They owned a
(04:56):
hotel or an inn there in Drum to Drocket and
they were tering home from Inverness and suddenly all these
shouted out stopped the beast and you know, inferring that
there was kind of a prior knowledge of something beast
like in the loch right, So Aldie and John stopped
the car and they described seeing two well John didn't
(05:17):
actually see it. All these saw two whale like humps
about twenty feet in length, black and shiny, with water
rolling off of them, kind of moving around the water.
And so that was reported to the local newspaper in Inverness, Scotland,
and that was kind of the first mention of the
Lockness Monster. In May of nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Is it possible, ken that the Lockness Monster could be
a prehistoric plesiosaur.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
And it yets it is possible that is a seriod
that's been around a long time since the early nineteen thirties.
A pleice histor, of course, was a prehistoric reptile that
was aquatic, lived during the Mesozoic era. It was a
lineage that died out at the end to the Cretaceous,
and they were quite large. They had the small they
had the long neck and all that kind of thing.
(06:06):
The problem with that theory is that actually not a
lot of people see a head and neck. Those those
types of observations are very rare. Eighty five percent of
witnesses only described seeing a large hump or hump in
the surface of the water with no head and neck.
And also the water is very cold, of course, George,
So I mean you're talking about, you know, if feciosaurs
(06:27):
were reptiles, and there is a theory that they might
have been warm blooded, but we don't know. But if
they're cold blooded animals, they're not going to thrive in
that type of environment, right. Plus we'd also expect to
see them coming to the surface and breathing air. Reptiles
or air breathing animals they need oxygens. So so there's
some problems with that particular theory there. I think there
(06:48):
are other theories that have kind of displaced that one
a bit.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Could it be a large eel, that's what we're seeing
humps part of the yel.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, that's kind of the one of the press the
theories right now as we're talking. We know there are
a number of eels, conger eels already living in locked nests.
They average about two to five feet in length. But
there's a theory that there could be a monstrous eel
in there that's maybe fifteen to thirty feet in length,
and that would explain some of the sciety. So that's
not impossible. I guess that's one of the more popular
(07:20):
or pragmatic theories right now with researchers. I tend to
advocate a theory of more of a mammal type of animal,
maybe something ancient, like an ancient type of snake like whale,
which we did have, you know, ten millions of years ago.
And then some people think it might just be a
giant catfish. You know, you've got these big European catfish,
(07:44):
the Wells catfish, and they can be about seven feet
in length and way over three hundred and fifty pounds
I think, so they're a huge catfish. Now there's never
been one documented in locked nests, but that's another theory
out there.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well, it's not about two years. If we started at
nineteen thirty three, is it conceivable that whatever people are
seeing is the same object, the same creature. It's just
that it hasn't died.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Well, that that is possible. There are certain species that
get very old, you know, something like a sturgeon. You know,
that's another you know, lake sturgeon are very weird looking,
prehistoric kind of looking fish, and they can live about
a century, you know. But you could also be talking
about a small population, a small breeding population, which you know,
(08:34):
there would obviously be some genetic issues there with bottlenecks
and things if there weren't very many of them. But
or maybe something that comes in from the ocean, because
Lockness is connected to the North Atlantic by a series
of rivers and canals and things.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, it's Ken Garhart. His website is his name linked
up at coast tocoastam dot com. Tonight we're going to
be talking about Locknet, small Bigfoot, the tuop of Cabra,
mothman sightings, the Jersey Devil dog man. How many cryptos
are out there?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
So like a bunch of them, right, You know, you
have kind of the old guard or the traditional cryptids,
like the Lockness Monster, the yetty or vomitable snowman, and Bigfoot,
and then you have kind of this new generation with
the chupacabra and mothman and dog man and things like that.
(09:32):
So the field is a lot more vast and diverse
than people realized. It's more than just a handful of cryptids.
There literally are all kinds of unusual things that have
been reported around the world, from giant turtles and frogs
to giant snakes, thunderbirds, mystery cats, and all kinds of
(09:53):
weird creatures in different countries and far away lands. So
it's it's all very fascinating.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Ken If you want to see a giraffe, it's easier
to find if you want to see an elephant or
a tiger or any or zebra. Why are these other objects,
these other creatures so difficult to find.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, the only scientific explanation would be that they're very rare.
And you know how rare is a matter of speculation.
But for example, if we were talking about something like
Bigfoot or sasquatch here in the United States, North America.
You know, you would have to have a breeding population
of at least in the low thousands, because if you
(10:36):
get any you know, if there are any fewer than that,
then you start running into genetic bottlenecks and issues with
that kind of thing. So there has to be a
lot of genetic variation and diversity and a breeding population.
So and the lowest it could be would be in
the low thousands. That if you imagine a thousand bigfoots
or sasquatches spread across the entire continent of North America,
(10:57):
that makes them incredibly rare. You're like one hundred, one
hundred and fifty times more likely to see a bear
than a big foot or a sasquatch. So that's the
only explanation we can come up with Georgia is that
they live in very remote areas and they're just, you know,
very rare species at this point, perhaps endangered or critically endangered.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
We wants to go back to the lock for just
a second. Can regardless of whether it's a creature of
any kind that we've talked about, are you convinced people
are seeing something?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yes, I am, and I think the best evans, you know,
there's a there're about a thirteen hundred good eyewitness reports
that have been logged through the years that are very consistent.
Most people describe seeing a very large whaleke hump that
sticks out of the water, or sometimes multiple humps that
are you know, maybe twenty to forty feet in length,
(11:53):
smooth skin, usually a dark color, and you know, they're
very consistent reports. And then we have the sonar evidence.
That's another layer that a lot of people don't realize about.
Going back to nineteen fifty four, there have been numerous
sonar contacts with a large, unidentified animate object or objects
(12:15):
in locked nets, usually ranging from thirty to fifty feet
in length, and those have been analyzed by experts in
sonar at places like Simrad and low Ramps, and they've
determined that there's something down there they can't explain. They
don't think it's a school of fish or floating debris
or a massive plankton or anything like that. You know.
(12:37):
So these sonar contacts have been pretty consistent through the
years and they continue, and I think that's some of
the strongest evidence because those haven't been explained.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
If it were a whale, they would know that, would
they not.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Potentially Yeah, whales are obviously air breathing mammals, but some
species of whales, such as sperm whales, also beaked whales
or zefayads, can actually hold their breath for up to
four hours at a time. That's been documented. So whales
can basically take a breath from the surface and then
(13:11):
dive some whale species and then dive very deep and
hold their breath for hours. So but you're right, it
does seem less probable when you consider how many tourists
visit locked nests every year, especially millions of people to
send me un locked nests over the course of each year,
So you think at some point these these things would
(13:31):
be seen more often.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
There are more people going than there are objects. Side.
It is the locks salt water afresh.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
It's fresh water, and it's defined as being an oligotrophic lake,
which means that it's actually nutrient poor, so it is
fresh water. But the water there's a lot of sediment
in the water, stuff like peat that runs down these
steep cliff walls into the law, and the water's very
murky and there's not as a result, there's not much
(14:04):
sunlight that can penetrate the water, so you don't have
a lot of algae or plankton or the basic building block,
so it's a nutrient of poor lake. There's probably about
twenty tons of fish and salmon that come in occasionally,
so that creates some challenges too for different types of
animals proposed NEPSI type animals.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I was gonna say, can a salt water based creature
live in a lake?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yes, Actually there are some examples of that. You have
sharks that have swum into fresh water, primarily bull sharks
that have been documented in rivers the Mississippi River and
the Amazon River and stuff, and they go through a
process called OSMO regulation where they actually convert to their
(14:57):
whole body chemistry so that they can you know, adapt
from salt to fresh water. And then you have other
fish that are what do we call anadromus, and that
would be things like salmon and sturgeon and eels that
will move back and forth for spawning reasons from fresh
water to salt water. And then finally you have whales
(15:17):
and you know, seals and other types of aquatic mammals
that will occasionally travel into fresh water. So there are
some species that can make that transition.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Well, just did a program on Bigfoot, so we won't
concentrate too much on him tonight. They ken, but there
are many people who believe that it could be interdimensional
or connected to UFOs.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
What do you think, Yeah, that's that's one of the
most popular questions that I'm asked. People seem to really
be fascinated with that idea. I have not seen the
evidence for that personally. George and I've been researching the
bigfoot sasquatch phenomenon for forty years. I've worked in most
of the active most active areas around North America, worked
(15:58):
with most of the leading region searchers. There are some
weird stories that are connection to bigfoot sidings, for sure,
early seventies you had a lot of these big foot
UFO encounters in places like Pennsylvanian stuff. But you know,
I think there are I think the vast majority of sightings.
(16:19):
I think it's like there was a survey done in
like eighty five percent of the sidings are pretty nondescript.
So you can imagine someone's driving on there a remote
mountain road and suddenly something runs across the road on
two legs. That's the most common type of bigfoot report
or people see them in the woods, you know, drinking
water or hiding behind treaties. And interestingly, George, people have
(16:44):
reported seeing them digging through garbage dumpsters and things like that.
So why would they sentient being travel from another dimension
to dig through one of our garbage dumpsters? Of important question,
I think, And.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I don't think it's an individual in a suit, because
that person would probably get shot.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Oh sadly, I think that's happened. I mean, there was
certainly a gentleman I think you remember it was somewhere
up in Idaho or something that was dressed in a
big foot suit and trying to scare cars and he
got There was some tragedy involved there. So uh, And
here's an interesting bit of trivia for you, Georgie. If
you didn't know that, you know, they filmed a Return
(17:27):
of the Jedi, the Star Wars movie up in the
California Redwoods, and they actually had a guy in orange
Hunter's best type were of accompanying the Chewbacca character through
the woods at all times because they were worried that
Chewbacca might get shot by a hunter. A lot of
people don't know that story.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
But now, what is.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
The Chupacabra of course, is in Spanish means the goat sucker,
and in Latin American culture it is basically described as
being a vampire like creature that drinks the blood of
small farm animals like goats, rabbits, chickens and the like.
The main physical description, I should say, the primary physical
(18:14):
description that came out of Puerto Rico in the nineteen
nineties described a upright creature standing about three to five
feet tall, kangaroo shaped body, short fur, and then these
really big, weird like alien type of eyes, tear drop
shaped eyes, and a row of spikes going down the back.
(18:39):
And that's the image that kind of went viral in
the nineteen nineties when the Internet was getting started. Since
that time, people had described all types of cupacaudas that
I've heard of, winged chupacaudas, I've heard of. You know,
here in Texas where I live, we've got these weird
dog like animals that have been called chupacabras. They're just
kind of grotesque dogs and things. So it's kind of
(19:03):
a broad reaching term. But you know, most people think
of the Puerto Rican chuop of Capra as the original,
and I honestly, I just spoke recently to Jorge Martin,
who is the original researcher on the Puerto Rican chupacabra
cases in the nineteen nineties, and he says that phenomenon
(19:23):
is still ongoing in Puerto Rico and that he believes
it's connected to UFO phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more
The Best of Coast to Coast AM News
Host
George Noory
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.