July 4, 2025 • 19 mins
George Noory and author Chris Lee discuss his love of creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster since childhood, the underlying messages in the Godzilla and King Kong movies, and why horror movie monsters like Frankenstein have such an impact on pop culture.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on
iHeartRadio and.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Author Chris Lee, his book is called The Night People,
has on a graduate degree in secondary education and a
master's in community counseling from the University of Alabama. His
love for horror movies and ex creatures developed at a
very young age. Chris, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hello George, this is a dream come true. I've been
listening to this show for so many years.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well looking forward to it. And what a great background
you have. How did you get into this?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Oh, well, I've always been interested in cryptozoology and bigfoot.
It goes back to when I was a small child.
When I was about seven years old. It was in
nineteen seventy seven. My parents and I went to a
small art show that was set up in the middle
of the local mall, and right in front of everything
(00:59):
was a painting of a lady that was sitting on
the ground at night in the forest. She was clutching
a small knife and it looked like she was trying
to protect some kind of small rabbit or a small
lamb or something and standing right there in the background
was a giant Bigfoot with big scary teeth.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, as a seven year old, that really got my attention.
And the picture didn't really make any sense to me
because I'd never seen any kind of depiction of Bigfoot before,
and I had to ask my dad what it was.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
My dad had run into a friend of his from work,
and this guy decided to mess with me a little
and he said, oh, you better watch out. Bigfoot's a
giant creature with big pointed teeth that roams around in
the forest of America. And you know, he told me
I needed to be really careful if I decided to
go on a height through the woods. Well, you know,
(01:58):
when you're seven years old, you believe every thing, and
I was kind of I'll admit I was kind of
a spirited child. And as I started getting scared, my
dad came to the rescue and he said, hold on,
there's no such thing as Bigfoot. You're okay, It's perfectly
safe to go in the woods. And you know, reminded me,
(02:18):
you're you're safe in the woods as long as you
stay near an adult. Okay, But we were about to
go on a father son camp out, and I guess
he was nervous. I was about to back out of it.
So once he said that, nothing else was really said
on the subject. So that was the end of our conversation.
(02:38):
But I started it stayed with me. I started thinking
about the possibility that something was out there, And of
course I was seeing the trailers on TV for the
movie Sasquatch, and of course I believed everything that I
saw on TV, because you know, I was seven or
eight years old, and so I remained fascinating with that
(03:00):
idea that there might be some kind of big, large,
hairy human like creature wandering around in the woods. Well,
about three years later, when I was in the fifth grade,
the class took a school took a little trip to
the school library one morning, and we did this once
a week. And we had a school library and who
(03:23):
was absolutely wonderful. Her name was missus Malone. She would
always read us a story and then we were allowed
to check out a book from the stacks and take
it home, and you know, we could keep it for
the week. So while my classmates were picking out books
about the Hardy Boys and Nancy drew Encyclopedia Brown, all
(03:43):
the cool stuff that kids read in the seventies. I
found this book about Bigfoot, and I got very excited
and I checked it out. You know, I had questions,
I wanted answers, and I especially wanted to know more
about Bigfoot before I went on any more cap outs.
Yeahs probvious reasons. Well, about fifteen or twenty minutes later,
(04:08):
when everyone in the class had chosen their book, we
run around. We went around the room, and we always
had an opportunity to show everyone the book that we'd
picked out. Well, it was my turn. I proudly held
up the book and you know, the whole room started
laughing their heads off. They thought it was crazy that
(04:28):
I would choose a book about such a ridiculous topic.
It was by Ian Thorne, and I later learned that
her pen name was Julian May. That was one of
her many pen names, and the title of the book
was simply Bigfoot. But George, I enjoyed that book. There
were several stories in there, and it all sounded very believable,
(04:53):
and they were all entertaining. I couldn't put it down,
and I believe that is when I started to become
a believer in Bigfoot and believed that something was out there.
Not long after that, I also found a book about
the Locknous Monster, and I found that book fascinating as well.
Most of the evidence in that book, now this is
(05:15):
the seventies, and most of the evidence in that book
centered around the surgeons photo, which has sadly been found
to be a fake. But again, you know, I enjoyed
the book, and the other stories in the book sounded believable,
and it was fascinating to me to think that a
modern dinosaur could still be out there. And then the
(05:39):
third incident that got my attention. I think it was
right around nineteen eighty that there were news reports that
there might be a large Bronosaurus type creature living in
the river basin of the Congo that was called the
Mochili Mobembe, and I saw two news reports on the
sighting when I was ten. Expected an announcement any day
(06:02):
that they had found the creature at last, But well,
unfortunately that still hasn't happened, but the legend persists.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Well, you really were into these creatures, weren't you.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I was. I was just fascinated by it, and I
think where it comes from. We want to believe that
there's still something out there to discover that we haven't
found everything.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Well, we will hopefully, hopefully.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
When did you realize that Bigfoot was not vicious?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Well, to me, I think, I think that the creatures
are intelligent enough to where they have different personalities, so
some might be a little meaner than others. But the
(07:01):
way I portrayed the animals for the creatures in my novel, basically,
they'll leave you alone if you leave them alone, you know.
And it was really reading those stories. They didn't sound
necessarily vicious towards people, but curious and definitely kind of wary.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You also got into Godzilla movies and King Kong. I did,
I did.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
I found those movies fascinating as well. Uh, the fascinating
the fascination with King Kong came from the interest in Bigfoot.
King Kong is similar to the Bigfoot legend. You have
an unknown ape living ape like creature living in a
remote place. And of course my introduction to King Kong
(07:56):
was the old movie by Marion Cooper when I was
about seven or eight years years old. Of course, the
Dino de la Reentis nineteen seventy six remake was out.
Mom didn't think I was quite ready to see that one,
but she was okay with me seeing the earlier one,
and I was allowed to see it on TV. And
(08:16):
I loved that movie from the beginning. It was the
first black and white movie that I ever liked, and
I thought the special effects were fantastic.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
But you know, George, I've always hated the ending where
Kong falls to his death. Honestly, I never thought that
Kong was the antagonist. I felt like the crew who
took him off the island were the bad guys. When
he was turned loose in New York, he naturally wreaked havoc.
(08:48):
But what did they expect, you know?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And Godzilla was Japanese, wasn't he.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
That's right, That's right with Godzilla. I think, like all
kids in the seven, the fascination came from an interest
in dinosaurs. I think most kids have a fascination with dinosaurs.
I was no different, and I became interested. And when
I came became interested in Godzilla, it was in the
(09:15):
later era when he was portrayed as protector and not
an antagonist trying to kill people. Yeah, the movies from
that era were kind of campy, but kids never care
about that. You know, they just love a good good
guy bad guy fight. And I also love the creature
(09:37):
feature television shows that Godzilla inspired, like Specter Man and
Space Giants. That was can't miss television when I was
a kid, because otherwise you'll be lost in the conversation
the next day at lunch.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And Godzilla was the Japanese way of saying nuclear radiation
and followed could affect us.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
That's right, that's right. I recently read the novella's Godzilla
and Godzilla Godzilla Raids again. I'm glad to see that
they've been finally translated into English for the first time
after so many years. I found them both an interesting read,
(10:20):
and it was interesting to read the author's note in
the beginning where he puts it all in perspective. Godzilla
Ism was originally a metaphor for nuclear destruction, and Kayama
makes that clear from the very beginning. It does put
the story in a different light. In that original story
(10:42):
of Godzilla, his whole existence is a consequence of nuclear
testing and nuclear radiation, and you have to keep in
mind this was not long after the bombings of Hiroshima Nagasaki,
and there was also the Lucky Dragon five incident, where
the Japanese fishing boat with twenty three crewmen aboard, were
(11:03):
contaminated by the nuclear fallout created by that Thermo nuclear
bomb test at the Bikinia Tall March of fifty four,
and I believe one of them later died.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You saw a lead night movie on Frankenstein and freaked
out as a kid, then new.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I sure did. It was Son of Frankenstein. Now how
that came about. Let's see, it was ten thirty on
a Saturday night. I was in the third grade, and
normally on Saturday nights, ten thirty was my bedtime. You know,
(11:43):
normally it was a little earlier on the school night,
but you know, I was allowed to stay up till
ten thirty. So at the end of the news broadcast,
I was fully expecting, you know, my dad to send
me off to bed. But then the local I believe
it was the local ABC affiliate, announced it was time
(12:04):
for their horror movie feature on Saturday Night. It was
like they didn't even want to try to compete with
NBC and Saturday Night Live. But anyway, but I didn't care.
I was excited and I just beg my dad, can
I see this movie?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Son?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Of Frankenstein and he said, okay, yeah, we'll watch it.
So I was very excited. I had read a book
about Frankenstein again by Ian Thorn at the library, and
I wanted to see a movie so bad. And of course,
in those days, we didn't have on demand television. It
existed with LaserDiscs and Beta Max, but most homes didn't
(12:42):
have that. We didn't, and so it was pretty exciting
to me to be watching TV and this Frankenstein movie
comes on. So we proceed to watch it. And when
you got to the part of the movie where Boris
Karloff is the months, he is walking up behind Basil Rathbohm,
(13:04):
who is doctor Frankenstein, I got scared. I was scared
out of my mind. I started screaming at the TV.
He's behind you, He's behind you. You better look. I
started crying. Well, my dad put a stop to that immediately.
He said, okay, hold on, it's just a movie. It
(13:27):
can't hurt you. If you don't calm down, I'm gonna
make you go to bed. Okay. So I wanted to
see the end of that movie. So I'm manned up
and I sat there watch the rest of the movie.
And I haven't been scared by a horror movie ever since.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
And you were influenced by the writer and radio host
Frank Edwards.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Absolutely, yeah. Frank Edwards was a pioneer broadcaster. He started
out back in nineteen twenty three. How that started. Our
local library here in Tuscaloosa has a used booksell and
one day I found I was in there looking for
(14:11):
the old ian Thorn monster books, but you never can't
find them, but I do find other things, And one
day I found a book called Stranger Than Science. It
had several brief but fascinating stories about strange occurrences that
could not be easily explained. And I don't believe the
word paranormal was used much during Frank Edward's time, but
(14:34):
he called his story Stranger than Science. And I enjoyed
the book so much that I decided to look into
who he was, since at the time I'd never heard
of him, but he had a radio show called Strangers
of All And what I liked about reading his stories
he wasn't afraid to delve into topics that couldn't be
(14:55):
easily explained. I think while other people in the news
media at the time would try to avoid stories like that.
He tackled subjects like the abominable Snowman, sea serpents, Bigfoot, ghosts,
people communicating from the great beyond. He was fearless in
what he was willing to investigate and report. And I
(15:17):
admired that he was on.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
The Tonight Show once with Johnny Carson, with Steve Lawrence
and Edie Gomery filling in for Johnny.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yes, he was a fascinating man. And if he had
a logical explanation for a phenomenon, then he would offer it.
For instance, he attributed the sea serpent sightings to the
giant oarfish. But more often than not he would give
you the evidence and let you draw your own conclusions.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So he died way too early too, didn't he?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
He did?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
He did. I think he passed away around sixty eight,
you know, right in the sixties.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Are Yeah, he was only fifty seven years old or
something like that.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah, I believe.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So what a great person for the mind, wasn't he?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
He was? And in regards to Bigfoot, he pointed out
that the Pacific Northwest would be a good place for
them to hide because of all the expansive forests, and
one of his stories called the search for the Harry Giants,
he recounted several instances of people having Bigfoot encounters, and
he ended that story by saying, there seems to be
(16:31):
little question that Bigfoot and his family are in there.
How to get him out, preferably alive? Is the next question?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Are you a believer that Bigfoot's real?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I'll say this.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I'm not an anthropologist or a biologist or any kind
of animal expert. I am working on a doctorate in education.
I do consider myself to be a social scientist in training,
So my interest in Bigfoot is examining the social aspect
and the numerous accounts that are out there. But you know,
(17:10):
when a researcher is examining the research that has been
completed on a topic, you shouldn't go into the project
with an agenda. In other words, you shouldn't examine only
the people who agree with you and ignore those who don't. So,
you know, when you take an objective look at Bigfoot,
you have to consider the arguments against. First, they say
(17:35):
there's no way there could only be one. That's logical,
there would have to be a breeding population, and there
would have to be plenty of evidence of that if
there was a North American ape. Second, they are supposedly
so big that they would be impossible to miss, and
that sounds plausible. And other theories are that's a mountain
man dressed in bear skin, or probably a diseased bear.
(17:59):
But you look at the other side of it, and
this is really where my belief that there is possibly
a strong possibility there's North American ape out there. We
have numerous accounts from the Native American populations going back
for centuries, and I am generally supportive of anecdotal or
(18:21):
qualitative evidence from numerous places, from numerous people over many years.
Plus there is the research done by highly educated researchers
like Grover Krantz and Jeff Meldrum who have collected and
analyzed numerous casts. So although I'm still considered a fringe science,
(18:45):
taking it all into account, I'm convinced the creatures do exist.
I think where there's this much smoke, there is fire.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Why can't we find one? Chris, Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Well, first, I believe they are primarily nocturnal, just only
coming out at night, whether they were always that way
or they became that way. Trying to avoid human beings.
I don't know, but I believe they're nocturnal, and I
(19:22):
think they generally hunt and gather at night. To me,
that would explain why they are rarely seen. Yes, you
sometimes see one during the day, but I believe they're
primarily night creatures, and I think they have figured out
that they need to stay away from us.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one am Eastern, and go to Coast to coastam dot
com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on
iHeartRadio and.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Author Chris Lee, his book is called The Night People,
has on a graduate degree in secondary education and a
master's in community counseling from the University of Alabama. His
love for horror movies and ex creatures developed at a
very young age. Chris, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hello George, this is a dream come true. I've been
listening to this show for so many years.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well looking forward to it. And what a great background
you have. How did you get into this?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Oh, well, I've always been interested in cryptozoology and bigfoot.
It goes back to when I was a small child.
When I was about seven years old. It was in
nineteen seventy seven. My parents and I went to a
small art show that was set up in the middle
of the local mall, and right in front of everything
(00:59):
was a painting of a lady that was sitting on
the ground at night in the forest. She was clutching
a small knife and it looked like she was trying
to protect some kind of small rabbit or a small
lamb or something and standing right there in the background
was a giant Bigfoot with big scary teeth.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, as a seven year old, that really got my attention.
And the picture didn't really make any sense to me
because I'd never seen any kind of depiction of Bigfoot before,
and I had to ask my dad what it was.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
My dad had run into a friend of his from work,
and this guy decided to mess with me a little
and he said, oh, you better watch out. Bigfoot's a
giant creature with big pointed teeth that roams around in
the forest of America. And you know, he told me
I needed to be really careful if I decided to
go on a height through the woods. Well, you know,
(01:58):
when you're seven years old, you believe every thing, and
I was kind of I'll admit I was kind of
a spirited child. And as I started getting scared, my
dad came to the rescue and he said, hold on,
there's no such thing as Bigfoot. You're okay, It's perfectly
safe to go in the woods. And you know, reminded me,
(02:18):
you're you're safe in the woods as long as you
stay near an adult. Okay, But we were about to
go on a father son camp out, and I guess
he was nervous. I was about to back out of it.
So once he said that, nothing else was really said
on the subject. So that was the end of our conversation.
(02:38):
But I started it stayed with me. I started thinking
about the possibility that something was out there, And of
course I was seeing the trailers on TV for the
movie Sasquatch, and of course I believed everything that I
saw on TV, because you know, I was seven or
eight years old, and so I remained fascinating with that
(03:00):
idea that there might be some kind of big, large,
hairy human like creature wandering around in the woods. Well,
about three years later, when I was in the fifth grade,
the class took a school took a little trip to
the school library one morning, and we did this once
a week. And we had a school library and who
(03:23):
was absolutely wonderful. Her name was missus Malone. She would
always read us a story and then we were allowed
to check out a book from the stacks and take
it home, and you know, we could keep it for
the week. So while my classmates were picking out books
about the Hardy Boys and Nancy drew Encyclopedia Brown, all
(03:43):
the cool stuff that kids read in the seventies. I
found this book about Bigfoot, and I got very excited
and I checked it out. You know, I had questions,
I wanted answers, and I especially wanted to know more
about Bigfoot before I went on any more cap outs.
Yeahs probvious reasons. Well, about fifteen or twenty minutes later,
(04:08):
when everyone in the class had chosen their book, we
run around. We went around the room, and we always
had an opportunity to show everyone the book that we'd
picked out. Well, it was my turn. I proudly held
up the book and you know, the whole room started
laughing their heads off. They thought it was crazy that
(04:28):
I would choose a book about such a ridiculous topic.
It was by Ian Thorne, and I later learned that
her pen name was Julian May. That was one of
her many pen names, and the title of the book
was simply Bigfoot. But George, I enjoyed that book. There
were several stories in there, and it all sounded very believable,
(04:53):
and they were all entertaining. I couldn't put it down,
and I believe that is when I started to become
a believer in Bigfoot and believed that something was out there.
Not long after that, I also found a book about
the Locknous Monster, and I found that book fascinating as well.
Most of the evidence in that book, now this is
(05:15):
the seventies, and most of the evidence in that book
centered around the surgeons photo, which has sadly been found
to be a fake. But again, you know, I enjoyed
the book, and the other stories in the book sounded believable,
and it was fascinating to me to think that a
modern dinosaur could still be out there. And then the
(05:39):
third incident that got my attention. I think it was
right around nineteen eighty that there were news reports that
there might be a large Bronosaurus type creature living in
the river basin of the Congo that was called the
Mochili Mobembe, and I saw two news reports on the
sighting when I was ten. Expected an announcement any day
(06:02):
that they had found the creature at last, But well,
unfortunately that still hasn't happened, but the legend persists.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Well, you really were into these creatures, weren't you.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I was. I was just fascinated by it, and I
think where it comes from. We want to believe that
there's still something out there to discover that we haven't
found everything.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Well, we will hopefully, hopefully.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
When did you realize that Bigfoot was not vicious?
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Well, to me, I think, I think that the creatures
are intelligent enough to where they have different personalities, so
some might be a little meaner than others. But the
(07:01):
way I portrayed the animals for the creatures in my novel, basically,
they'll leave you alone if you leave them alone, you know.
And it was really reading those stories. They didn't sound
necessarily vicious towards people, but curious and definitely kind of wary.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You also got into Godzilla movies and King Kong. I did,
I did.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
I found those movies fascinating as well. Uh, the fascinating
the fascination with King Kong came from the interest in Bigfoot.
King Kong is similar to the Bigfoot legend. You have
an unknown ape living ape like creature living in a
remote place. And of course my introduction to King Kong
(07:56):
was the old movie by Marion Cooper when I was
about seven or eight years years old. Of course, the
Dino de la Reentis nineteen seventy six remake was out.
Mom didn't think I was quite ready to see that one,
but she was okay with me seeing the earlier one,
and I was allowed to see it on TV. And
(08:16):
I loved that movie from the beginning. It was the
first black and white movie that I ever liked, and
I thought the special effects were fantastic.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
But you know, George, I've always hated the ending where
Kong falls to his death. Honestly, I never thought that
Kong was the antagonist. I felt like the crew who
took him off the island were the bad guys. When
he was turned loose in New York, he naturally wreaked havoc.
(08:48):
But what did they expect, you know?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And Godzilla was Japanese, wasn't he.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
That's right, That's right with Godzilla. I think, like all
kids in the seven, the fascination came from an interest
in dinosaurs. I think most kids have a fascination with dinosaurs.
I was no different, and I became interested. And when
I came became interested in Godzilla, it was in the
(09:15):
later era when he was portrayed as protector and not
an antagonist trying to kill people. Yeah, the movies from
that era were kind of campy, but kids never care
about that. You know, they just love a good good
guy bad guy fight. And I also love the creature
(09:37):
feature television shows that Godzilla inspired, like Specter Man and
Space Giants. That was can't miss television when I was
a kid, because otherwise you'll be lost in the conversation
the next day at lunch.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And Godzilla was the Japanese way of saying nuclear radiation
and followed could affect us.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
That's right, that's right. I recently read the novella's Godzilla
and Godzilla Godzilla Raids again. I'm glad to see that
they've been finally translated into English for the first time
after so many years. I found them both an interesting read,
(10:20):
and it was interesting to read the author's note in
the beginning where he puts it all in perspective. Godzilla
Ism was originally a metaphor for nuclear destruction, and Kayama
makes that clear from the very beginning. It does put
the story in a different light. In that original story
(10:42):
of Godzilla, his whole existence is a consequence of nuclear
testing and nuclear radiation, and you have to keep in
mind this was not long after the bombings of Hiroshima Nagasaki,
and there was also the Lucky Dragon five incident, where
the Japanese fishing boat with twenty three crewmen aboard, were
(11:03):
contaminated by the nuclear fallout created by that Thermo nuclear
bomb test at the Bikinia Tall March of fifty four,
and I believe one of them later died.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You saw a lead night movie on Frankenstein and freaked
out as a kid, then new.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I sure did. It was Son of Frankenstein. Now how
that came about. Let's see, it was ten thirty on
a Saturday night. I was in the third grade, and
normally on Saturday nights, ten thirty was my bedtime. You know,
(11:43):
normally it was a little earlier on the school night,
but you know, I was allowed to stay up till
ten thirty. So at the end of the news broadcast,
I was fully expecting, you know, my dad to send
me off to bed. But then the local I believe
it was the local ABC affiliate, announced it was time
(12:04):
for their horror movie feature on Saturday Night. It was
like they didn't even want to try to compete with
NBC and Saturday Night Live. But anyway, but I didn't care.
I was excited and I just beg my dad, can
I see this movie?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Son?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Of Frankenstein and he said, okay, yeah, we'll watch it.
So I was very excited. I had read a book
about Frankenstein again by Ian Thorn at the library, and
I wanted to see a movie so bad. And of course,
in those days, we didn't have on demand television. It
existed with LaserDiscs and Beta Max, but most homes didn't
(12:42):
have that. We didn't, and so it was pretty exciting
to me to be watching TV and this Frankenstein movie
comes on. So we proceed to watch it. And when
you got to the part of the movie where Boris
Karloff is the months, he is walking up behind Basil Rathbohm,
(13:04):
who is doctor Frankenstein, I got scared. I was scared
out of my mind. I started screaming at the TV.
He's behind you, He's behind you. You better look. I
started crying. Well, my dad put a stop to that immediately.
He said, okay, hold on, it's just a movie. It
(13:27):
can't hurt you. If you don't calm down, I'm gonna
make you go to bed. Okay. So I wanted to
see the end of that movie. So I'm manned up
and I sat there watch the rest of the movie.
And I haven't been scared by a horror movie ever since.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
And you were influenced by the writer and radio host
Frank Edwards.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Absolutely, yeah. Frank Edwards was a pioneer broadcaster. He started
out back in nineteen twenty three. How that started. Our
local library here in Tuscaloosa has a used booksell and
one day I found I was in there looking for
(14:11):
the old ian Thorn monster books, but you never can't
find them, but I do find other things, And one
day I found a book called Stranger Than Science. It
had several brief but fascinating stories about strange occurrences that
could not be easily explained. And I don't believe the
word paranormal was used much during Frank Edward's time, but
(14:34):
he called his story Stranger than Science. And I enjoyed
the book so much that I decided to look into
who he was, since at the time I'd never heard
of him, but he had a radio show called Strangers
of All And what I liked about reading his stories
he wasn't afraid to delve into topics that couldn't be
(14:55):
easily explained. I think while other people in the news
media at the time would try to avoid stories like that.
He tackled subjects like the abominable Snowman, sea serpents, Bigfoot, ghosts,
people communicating from the great beyond. He was fearless in
what he was willing to investigate and report. And I
(15:17):
admired that he was on.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
The Tonight Show once with Johnny Carson, with Steve Lawrence
and Edie Gomery filling in for Johnny.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yes, he was a fascinating man. And if he had
a logical explanation for a phenomenon, then he would offer it.
For instance, he attributed the sea serpent sightings to the
giant oarfish. But more often than not he would give
you the evidence and let you draw your own conclusions.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So he died way too early too, didn't he?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
He did?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
He did. I think he passed away around sixty eight,
you know, right in the sixties.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Are Yeah, he was only fifty seven years old or
something like that.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah, I believe.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
So what a great person for the mind, wasn't he?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
He was? And in regards to Bigfoot, he pointed out
that the Pacific Northwest would be a good place for
them to hide because of all the expansive forests, and
one of his stories called the search for the Harry Giants,
he recounted several instances of people having Bigfoot encounters, and
he ended that story by saying, there seems to be
(16:31):
little question that Bigfoot and his family are in there.
How to get him out, preferably alive? Is the next question?
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Are you a believer that Bigfoot's real?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I'll say this.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I'm not an anthropologist or a biologist or any kind
of animal expert. I am working on a doctorate in education.
I do consider myself to be a social scientist in training,
So my interest in Bigfoot is examining the social aspect
and the numerous accounts that are out there. But you know,
(17:10):
when a researcher is examining the research that has been
completed on a topic, you shouldn't go into the project
with an agenda. In other words, you shouldn't examine only
the people who agree with you and ignore those who don't. So,
you know, when you take an objective look at Bigfoot,
you have to consider the arguments against. First, they say
(17:35):
there's no way there could only be one. That's logical,
there would have to be a breeding population, and there
would have to be plenty of evidence of that if
there was a North American ape. Second, they are supposedly
so big that they would be impossible to miss, and
that sounds plausible. And other theories are that's a mountain
man dressed in bear skin, or probably a diseased bear.
(17:59):
But you look at the other side of it, and
this is really where my belief that there is possibly
a strong possibility there's North American ape out there. We
have numerous accounts from the Native American populations going back
for centuries, and I am generally supportive of anecdotal or
(18:21):
qualitative evidence from numerous places, from numerous people over many years.
Plus there is the research done by highly educated researchers
like Grover Krantz and Jeff Meldrum who have collected and
analyzed numerous casts. So although I'm still considered a fringe science,
(18:45):
taking it all into account, I'm convinced the creatures do exist.
I think where there's this much smoke, there is fire.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Why can't we find one? Chris, Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Well, first, I believe they are primarily nocturnal, just only
coming out at night, whether they were always that way
or they became that way. Trying to avoid human beings.
I don't know, but I believe they're nocturnal, and I
(19:22):
think they generally hunt and gather at night. To me,
that would explain why they are rarely seen. Yes, you
sometimes see one during the day, but I believe they're
primarily night creatures, and I think they have figured out
that they need to stay away from us.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
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