Ep:170 Bigfoot and Filipino Vampires

Justin McNeal, author of The Bigfoot Paradox (available now on Amazon) joins me to talk about his book, and his terrifying face to face encounter with a sasquatch while hunting in Arkansas. Justin also shares a horrifying story of when he was attacked by Filipino vampire type creatures known as the Aswang while visiting the Philippines.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was like in a creek bed, and I was.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
You know, dirty and scratched up and cut up and bruised.
I had kind of pressed myself back into the creek
bed against the bank in case it came over to me.
I was thinking, maybe, you know, the water and the
mud and everything might mask my scent and keep me
hidden from its view. I'm sure though, it could have
found me and got me if it wanted to. But

(00:24):
I just sat there, and you know, when the sun
was coming up, That's when I kind of cautiously and
slowly made my way back to my campsite and my
lean to to grab my rifle and pack up what
I could.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
This is Bigfoot Crossroads. My name is Matt, and joining
me is Justin McNeil, the author of The Bigfoot Paradox.
Everything is a lie and everything is true. Okay, man,
you got me on the title just like that. Welcome
to the show man. Hey, thank you Matt for having me.
It's an honor and privilege, so I appreciate it. The title, man, Uh,

(01:35):
how did you come up with the title. Let's just
start there.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, I mean, so the title is you know exactly
what it says. It's depending on your perspective, your experiences,
your degree of skepticism. You know, the same set of
facts can be truth or they can be lies. So
I'm kind of giving people kind of a warning and

(01:58):
an invitation. You know, I think it will alter some
people's perceptions of reality. Skeptics will like some of the
stuff I say, they will hate some of the stuff
I say.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
And the same thing for believers or knowers. They will
like some of it, they will hate other parts of it.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
And I wanted the book to be a little controversial.
I want people to think. I don't want to tell
them what to think. I want to just present, you know,
my field research, some of my interviews with.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
People, and you know, I don't put a lot of
my own.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Personal experiences in there, because again, I'm not trying to persuade.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Anyone with this book. I mean, people are going to
believe what they want to believe.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
But you know, I kind of wanted to set that
those ground rules and that framework right from the start.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, what's your own personal background in the subject. I mean,
there must be something most people don't just like, wake
up one day, I'm going to a book about bigfoot.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, so I had when I was younger, I had
a kind of a crazy uncle and he used to
always tell me all these stories. And he was a
veteran and you know, airborne guy and kind of an
adventure a.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Treasure hunter, you know, you name it.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
He did that, and so I would always listen to
his stories and be.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Respectful and everything. And then I was a.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Hunter and a fisherman growing up, you know, and we
were very poor. So we did it not because it
was necessarily fun, but we needed to supplement our table,
you know, for food, and so I had, you know,
a really kind of poor experience growing up. My dad

(03:51):
was also kind of a believer, but he never really
told me any personal stories. So I mean, I was
definitely interested. And then all these you know, shows started
coming out. I think Leonard Nimoy's Bigfoot Show came out
in this late seventies, and.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
I was just hooked.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
I started watching all that stuff, but I didn't really
have my own experience until two thousand and one, and
that's when I started my research.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
You know, in earnest, I'm kind of a.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Researcher by trade, and by training, I'm actually a double
which is kind of weird. So you know, I understand
about science and technology and.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
And things like that, but.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
I haven't run this Survivor Reviews YouTube channel. And so
I'm out in the woods and I enjoy primitive camping
and backpacking and hiking and hunting, and so, yeah, my
first real experience. And I was definitely a skeptic, super
sk optical, very familiar with all the wildlife and game,

(05:06):
at least in North America, and so you know, and
I'd always have a firearm or two and knife and
everything with me.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
And I wasn't ever really afraid in the woods.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
You know, I'd fallen asleep and deer blinds and tree stands,
you know, I've done all that stuff and.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Slept in the dirt.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
So my first real experience that was two thousand and one.
I had gone to Arkansas, the Washingtaw Washingtaw National Forests
there and I was a couple of days into a
solo boar hunt, which you know, I like to do.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
I don't like to have.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
I've taken other people hunting, and I've taken other people,
you know, in the woods with me, and they're always
noisy and more careless, and I like and I'll get
to more of that later.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
So I was by myself solo boar hunt and I
had seen a bore, but.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
The backstop for anything I would send down range at
the boar was this farmer's field, and so I didn't
take a shot.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
And I am, you know, deep deep in the.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Washington National Forest, and I kind of set up a
lean to using cordage and pine boughs and a tarp,
you know, just kind of enough to keep the dow
off me, bugs out in my face or if it rained.
I was doing primitive camping, so I didn't have a tent,

(06:46):
no backup, just me the wild in the forest. And
I had my sig P two two nine on my
hip and I had loaded that with forty It's a
forty Smiths and Western Copper solid copper lee high defense rounds.
And the reason why I carry a pistol when I'm

(07:07):
on boar hunts is I've never experienced this, but I've
you know, I've heard and seen videos. They're very aggressive
and if the rifle shot doesn't take them down, they
can charge and things like that. So I'm always ready
when I go boar hunting to scurry up a tree
and to you know, shoot at it with my side
arm if I have to, So I put in solid

(07:30):
copper defense rounds because they have good penetration against you know,
a bore that might have a tough hide and a
lot of fat. I wanted to get through that and penetrate.
And that's so that's thirteen rounds, twelve in the mag
and one in the pipe, and then in the shelter.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Right next to my little bedroll.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
I had a PTR ninety one, which is my three
oh eight Winchester rifle.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
So that's what I intended to shoot any bar with.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Is obviously the rifle, but if it got close or
snuck up on me or whatever surprised me, I would
have the pistol as well.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
And it's like one seven am.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
And I remember the time because I looked at my
watch when all this happened, and I was, you know,
half asleep, kind of dozing, and my campfire had burned down.
It was low, just kind of some embers. It's a
little little flame, but not much, and everything was real quiet.

(08:39):
I didn't really hear a lot of bug or insect noises.
And what kind of stirred me out of being half asleep.
I heard a kind of wet, low huff kind of
beyond the tree line, and I knew, you know, I
knew it wasn't a black bear.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
I knew it wasn't a war I knew it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Like a buck, a deer, and it seemed deliberate and
it was loud enough, you know. I set up, and
I put my boots on, and I grabbed my flashlight,
and I, you know, instinctively kind of reached on my

(09:22):
hip because again, I'm in the deep woods, right, I'm
not off I'm not on any trails or any camp site.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
I don't even know with primitive camping like that is legal.
I can't remember if.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
I had checked that, but anyway, so I stepped downside
of my tent and I remember the air was kind
of heavy, and it wasn't really any wind and no bugs.
I didn't hear any sounds, but kind of the back
of my neck started, you know, tingling. I started getting

(09:56):
the hair raising on the back of my neck. If
you've ever had some thing, you know, watching you, looking
at you, I mean I had this similar type of
experience when I was I was in the Philippines and
they were you know, feeding lions there at the zoo,
and and kind of that feeling when something's looking at

(10:18):
you and it's dangerous and it might have bad intentions
at you. It's it's looking hard at you. I started
feeling that, and then the the way I explain it,
it was like the brush just exploded.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
So this I'm just going to call it a creature.
It didn't ease its way out. It didn't creep out,
it didn't. It kind of tore out of the forest,
you know, like it was coiled up and waiting for
me to move. And I think, in hindsight, I think
it was kind of a bluff type charge, but.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
You know, I remember it was.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
It tore through there and the branches were cracking, and.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
It came right up to my camp. And it was huge.
I tell people it was probably eight feet tall if
it was an inch, and it was wide.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Shoulders, thick and large and muscled with arms you know
that hung almost to its knees, and its hair wasn't
necessarily smooth like a bear's, was kind of matted and
thick and wet in places and clumped with dirt and

(11:39):
I don't know what else.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
So you got a really good look at this thing.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Unfortunately, Yeah, I did, Yeah, And it's face, and you know,
before I go on with the story, I mean, I was.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
So just so your listeners know.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
You know, I'm six feet tall, barefoot, I'm two hundred
and seventy five pounds. I've studied martial arts my whole life.
I used to power lift, you know, so I'm not
a small guy. I'm not easily spooked. Excuse me.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
And I grew up, you know, in the woods and
out in the woods.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
I used to do survival camps when I was even
in my teenage years and with no one else, So
I mean, I kind of froze up for a split second.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
And I remember looking at its face.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
And again this is where people have asked me, were
its eyes red?

Speaker 1 (12:39):
And no, I didn't. I didn't notice that.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
But I just noticed that its face wasn't it wasn't
like an ape face, and it wasn't man.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
It was something something else, you know, and.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Had a flat, broad nose and a heavy brow that
kind of you know, had shadows over its e. And
I'm not I don't have a lot of light, but
I have enough and I'm close enough, and I just
I froze. I remember, my it was just it was

(13:13):
so bizarre and strange and scary.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
That.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, I froze and then my my body just reacted
and I dove into the brush, scrambling to kind of,
you know, get away from it, and I dropped flat
face in the dirt and belly down in the weeds,
and I just I just laid there and I and

(13:42):
I watched it for a short time.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
And how did it react to that.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
It didn't seem to react at all.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
It was more like it was looking at my camp site.
It was it had stepped in my camp a little
closer now to the fire pit, and it was like breathing,
I want to say, like a bull, like kind of
an angry bull. So I could see, you know, its
chest going in and out as it was breathing.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
And then it kind of sniffed the air, and it.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Was like it was searching or sensing.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
I don't know. I believe that it definitely knew I
was there.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
It knew I was there before I knew it was
there before it came out of the woods, because that's
when it turned its head and looked right at me
with its eyes.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
And again they weren't they weren't glowing red.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
I know a lot of witnesses have said that red
or yellow, they weren't glowing, and they weren't completely wild.
They were like, from what I could see, cold and
focused and intelligent.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
It was like it was thinking.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
And then it looked directly at me, and that's when
I ran. I ran, and you know, I'm thinking all
this time, I'm like, well, if that thing comes over
to me, it's clearly faster than me. If it comes
over to me, I'm gonna shoot it. But I don't

(15:25):
know if what I had in my pistol is going
to stop.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
It or just make it angry.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I mean, maybe it would die later, but I'm sure
I would die first, and I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
You know. There's no way I thought I could.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Scramble back to my little lean to and grab my rifle.
So my option was to run, And when it looked
at me, that's what I did.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
I ran with pure erupting fear. And then it.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
It screamed, But it wasn't really a scream.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
It wasn't aroar either, but it it was like a low, throaty, violent.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Sound that it made, and it kind of hit me
in the chest, like a brick of noise vibrated through
my body, and then later on in my research, when
I really started my research to try to figure out
what the hell these things were, I would learn about infrasounds.
So I don't know if that's what it was doing.

(16:32):
I suspect that's what it did, because I was absolutely
terrified and my blood ran cold, and I just kept running.
It was like terror upted from my core, you know,
like my fear had been bottled up and it just
exploded through every nerve in my body. And I've had

(16:53):
adrenaline rush as before. This was more than that. It
was like, I don't know if you've ever had a
real adrenaline surge and you're kind of shaky after it.
It was it was like that and more. I mean
definitely time slowed down. I was running and you know,

(17:15):
panting and getting hit by the brush and everything bleeding
and tripping. I just kept moving away from it, and
not because I thought it was chasing me, but I
knew if it wanted to chase me.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
It could have.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
I just I just had to escape from it. I
was extremely scared, you know where you're have you ever
had something like that happen where the adrenaline hits you,
and then even after it, you don't really remember everything
that that happened.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, yeah, it was like it was like that. And then.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
By this time, I don't know how really how far
I ran. I just kept running, or even if I
was going in a straight line, but I was like
in a creek bed, and I was you know, dirty
and scratched up and cut up and bruised, and I
had kind of pressed myself back into the creek bed
against the bank in case it came over to me.

(18:21):
I was thinking, maybe, you know, the water and the
mud and everything might mask my scent and keep me
hidden from its view. I'm sure though it could have
found me and got me if it wanted to.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
But I just sat there, and you know, when the
sun was.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Coming up, that's when I kind of cautiously and slowly
made my way back to my campsite and my lean
to to grab my rifle and pack up what I could.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
And everything was as it had been when you left.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, yeah, it didn't destroy anything, or I don't know.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
I don't know if it was telling me I was
too close.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
To where it lived, if it was just you know,
telling me that it was that was its property. I
don't know, but I packed up everything that I you know,
that I brought with me and that I I needed,
and I left and I but there was definitely a
smell there in my in the campsite. And it's hard

(19:30):
to describe, you know, I've been unfortunate enough to see
dead bodies and things like that before. And it was like.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Rotten, wet fur and stale urine. It was a.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
I know, some people describe it as like a sulfury smell,
but it was it was worse than that.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
And it was heavy in the air, clinging to the
trees and on my backpack.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
And yeah, it was still there, the smell. And I
never went back to those woods that area, and I won't,
I won't for sure.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
Whenever it first, he erupped it out of the woods
like that, and you saw it about how close was
it to you?

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Maybe twenty feet away, twenty five feet away?

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Man, close enough.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
That I knew, like I said, I had a pistol.
I had a rifle that was in my little lean too,
and I knew that it could kill me if it
wanted to.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
It could kill me for sure.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
How long had you been out there whenever that happened?

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Two days?

Speaker 3 (20:47):
And do you recall any possible signs of it being
around before that that you just overlooked.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
No, I mean I always see stuff in the woods,
you know that A lot of bigfoot hunters and cryptos
who I would just say, oh, look that's sign, and
oh look at these trees there been at this angle,
and you know, there's that stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
But I don't pay much attention to that.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
I mean, I've seen things fall in the woods and
wind uproot trees, and you know, I mean, I'm from Missouri.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
We have tornadoes all the time.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
I've seen all kinds of crazy things with trees and
rocks and everything. So no, not that, I not that
I remember. I didn't see anything like that. I didn't
feel anything. I saw animals and saw the one bore,
but that was it.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
Nothing to the extent of yourself.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
You know.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
I don't want to compare apples and oranges here. But
I was actually raised by my great grandparents, and my
great grandfather came from a large family in Arkansas that
was extremely poor. Both of my great grandparents were raised
extremely and my great grandfather especially was raised in a
family where they hunted and fished for food, you know,

(22:07):
providing for the family and he had like eight brothers
and sisters to provide for. Yeah, so those skills were
passed on to me at a very early age.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
And it's.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
A very different school of thought than what your typical
you know, hobby fishermen and hunters use today.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
But it is different, you know.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
I mean I tell people, I don't know if they
believe me because I'm college educated, I have a professional
job and and all that stuff, but you know, I
tell them there I have family members and even an aunt.
I mean she has chewed tobacco the whole time that
I have known her my whole life and gone bare.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Food and they make moonshine and you.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Know, so yeah, it's definitely different. I mean, I won't
personally kill an animal unless I am doing it to
defend myself or I'm going to eat it, right.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
I'm not one of those people that you know, just
goes down there for sport. And it is different, you know.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
I remember walking the train tracks when I was little
and going in parks and collecting cans and bottles. I
mean it's yeah, we were we were very poor. We
were we were fine. I mean I had a great childhood.
But yeah, it's different when you have to get meat, yeah,
versus you're just doing it as a hobby for sure.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
So, I mean I'm fairly confident, even though you know
we just started talking not too long ago, I'm fairly
confident with the way that you were brought up and everything,
if you had encountered something in the woods previous to
that night that wasn't supposed to be there, you would
have noticed it.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Right, Yeah, it's true, It's true.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
I mean I started hunting, I want to say six
or seven. I was hunting and camping and doing all that.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
My uncle and my dad. I mean, they both taught
me how to move and walk.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
You know, quietly in the in the woods, and how
to tell which way the wind is blowing so that
I can stay upwind of.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Game and all that.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
I'm very observant in the woods, and I have excellent
hearing too.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah I would. I would have noticed, for sure.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
I mean I can see game trails, and I know
how to identify, you know, prints from an animal. And
I've tracked deer after I've shot them not so cleanly
and had to track their their blood through the woods. Yeah,
I would have. Well, I tell you one thing I
would have been on higher alert than just you know,

(25:00):
starting to doze off and chilling out in my lean to.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, for the night, for sure.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
I Mean that initial huff that you heard, you know,
says a lot whenever you're talking about it's you know,
it's not a board, it's not a bear. Yeah, you're
hearing a sound that's not supposed to be there, that
you've never heard before, right, and isn't matching any of
the animals that are there. Yeah, I know what that's
like for sure.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
So that's I mean, that's why I said I set
up because again, you know, I mean I grew up
in Missouri. I mean I've been in a deer stand
before and had you know, five or six coyotes pass
under me, not even though I was there, you know,
and all that. And I've even had bucks walk up
on me and get spooked when I was turkey hunting

(25:51):
or something like that. So yeah, I mean that's that's
what kind of like snapped me out of it because
the sound didn't register in my head.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
You know, a long time ago, whenever I was doing
filled investigations with a group of people, one of them said,
my good friend Vicky, She said, you got to think
like a booger. They called them boogers in the South.
And yeah, this is a situation. Yeah, this is a
situation where I'm thinking about your scenario where you're out

(26:24):
there by yourself, primitive camping, hunting for boar, and this thing.
I mean, it's nighttime. We both know at this point
what they're capable of doing, and your first clue that
anything was there was that vocalization that it chose to make.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
So this is a very unique situation. This isn't a
road crossing or just you know, it happened by chance incident.
This is a very intentional I'm coming here. I'm letting
you know I'm here. I want to see you. I'm
going to get in your face.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah, that's a really unique encounter for sure.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
And you're not going to do anything about it. And
if you do, then you know I'll handle it, right Yeah, right, So.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
Did you tell anybody about this encounter afterwards?

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Didn't tell anybody for years and years and years, because
you know, I mean, I'm a skeptic, like you know,
like I said, I mean, I grew up, I was
building forts and you know, spending most of.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
My time in the woods.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
I'm gen X and kind of you know, the last
key type kid go out in the morning, go play
and don't come back, you know, until it's nighttime, or
I shout out the door that dinner's ready. And so yeah,
I mean I everybody before when they would tell me
this stuff, you know, I would be respectful, but inside

(28:02):
of my head, I would be thinking, come on, now,
you're just getting spooked.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
You know, you're scared of the dark. If you haven't
spent much time in the woods.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
You know, the woods can make strange noises, and it's
not familiar. It's not what civilized society is used to,
you know, and I was extremely scary.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
I'm still skeptic, and maybe it's.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
My science background, you know, but I always want to
I want to test things, I want to verify things.

Speaker 1 (28:34):
But I'm not skeptic anymore about that for sure.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
So was it this encounter that pushed you to write
this book?

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah, but I mean that was in two thousand and one.
I didn't write this book until this year. But it
drove me to try to rationalize and find out everything
I could about this creature and about other people was
encounters with it, you know.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
More is like a proving point in my mind, or
to see if I could.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Corroborate you know, what happened to me with other people
and really got my research going. And I've I've researched
it for years now.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
I mean it.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Just to give you a little bit more background. I mean,
that's so my professional job. I do one thing, but
I also research anything I'm passionate about, and I've I've
written a number of books and that's what I do.
So if I learn about something or become an expert
in something.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Not that I'm an expert in bigfoot. I want to
make that clear. I'm not whoa but the word. Yes
I am not. I am not.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
But you know, if I'm passionate about it, I I
enjoy writing, and so I research it and write it
and I think that, you know, so that drove me
really to research it and start to collect field notes
and start to interview people and go you know on
other tracks. Always more cautious and careful though since that time, about.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Where I stay and what I look for, you know.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
So I've been mark Twain National Forests as Missouri and
Shawnee National Forest, Wayne National Forests out in Ohio and
Cherokee you know. So I've been several places in the US,
and because of my job, I won't say the name,

(30:43):
but I work for a very large international logistics company
and transportation company, and so one of my things I
did with them is I would train people in software
and things like that. And I've been lucky enough to
be able to travel quite a bit with that. So
whenever I was near a place that had reported sightings

(31:07):
and things like that, I would, you know, I would
take a day or two. Often I would I would
either go look myself for interview people, and I would
just collect those field notes.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
When did you start doing that? When did you start,
you know, doing actual like research into the topic after
your encounter.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
I'd I'd say it was immediately after my first encounter.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, And I'd always, like I.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Said, been interested in those shows and watch the different
shows and documentaries and you know, all that other stuff.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
So it was definitely interesting to me.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
But I was always skeptical before and always trying to
figure out, is this, you know, is this paradolia?

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Is this.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Kind of our hidden you know, primitive years that we've
inherited from our ancestors. What are people seeing? What are
they experiencing because I hadn't seen her experience anything like that.
So it was pretty much immediately afterwards.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
I mean I was. I was definitely shaken up about it.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
I had told my co workers because my face was
scratched up a little bit.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
I had told them that I.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Had fallen off from four wheeler, you know, because I
didn't really want to talk about it. I didn't think
I didn't think people would believe me. I thought they
would think that I was, you know, a kookie bigfoot guy.
So but it was immediately after that.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
For sure, you fit into a very rare category. And
I say that from personal experience as a skeptic who
had an encounter, had a signing yourself, So you know
these things are out there. How do you take that,
combine that with skepticism because clearly not everybody that says

(33:06):
they've seen one has actually seen one. There are people
that lie, there are people that are mistaken. You know,
things happen. So how do you take that background and
your skepticism and approach that to eyewitnesses? Whenever you're talking
to people about their encounters, how do you handle that?

Speaker 2 (33:31):
I mean, I just approach them with a curious mindset,
and I'm respectful of them. I asked them, you know,
if they believe or if they've had any encounters or
personal experience.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
And one of the.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Things that I've been trained to do, because like I said,
I do training of people, I do facilitation, I do
coaching for large businesses, and so I've been trained to
read people's body language, to look at their eyes when
they're talking to me too, to pick up and be
perceptive of lying and things like that. I've attended classes

(34:10):
on that, and so I just kind of pay attention
to all those cues that they're given me, and you know,
try to build a little rapport with them and then
start asking them about it. And if they ask me
if I've had an experience, I say, you know, yes,
but I'd rather not talk about it, and I just

(34:32):
just like that. I just go on from there, but
always with that, you know, scrutiny of is this person
telling me the truth?

Speaker 1 (34:41):
And usually I can tell, you know, because I've.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Looked into their eyes and I've seen maybe a little
bit of the emotional baggage that they might have from it.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
I can pick up on those things. And so.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
That's that's really where I take it and I take
it from there to you know, ask them about it
if they'd be willing to talk to me about it,
about their experiences.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
Are there some stories that stand out in your mind
that people have told you.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, I mean I've I've heard stories before about you know,
people being harassed by one of these creatures, and obviously
all the rock throwing and.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Things like that.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
I don't I haven't met an eyewitness yet that had
a an encounter quite as close as mine. I've had
people tell me that, you know, they've seen them on
the banks of a river, They've walked up and they've
seen it, you know, doing something and they thought it
was a bear, and they've gotten closer and seen it
stand up. And then you know a lot of the

(35:54):
other reported things about it crossed the road in front
of me, or it I saw it in the tree line,
or it was too big to be a human, things
like that. Really nothing that stands out, but I will
tell you, I mean, even though I'm skeptical, I am

(36:14):
a Christian as well, right, and so there's there's an
element of a very strong element of faith in my background,
and I had experienced and this was in high school,
kind of a supernatural thing before. So I mean I
was I wasn't one hundred percent closed off.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
To this, but I was so skeptical because I had
never experienced anything like it myself, you know.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
I mean I was born in the show me state, right,
So that's our that's our motto.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
Show me.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
So did you approach your research solo or did you
join any groups? Do you work with people?

Speaker 1 (36:57):
No, I do it, so.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
I mean in the past, I had, you know, trying
to take friends and things like that, but it really
never worked out. I mean it, you know, people are noisy,
and they have their own comfort thresholds and their own fears,
and they disturb the environment. You know, We're trying to

(37:22):
study and and be quiet, be quiet in you know,
and I've seen evidence ruined by misplaced footprints before, and
so yeah, I like to do it alone because I
kind of have to.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
You know, I move quietly through the woods. I stop
and I listen.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
And most people, I mean they you know, they don't
want the bugs or oh there's too many gnats, there's mosquitoes.
I mean, it's just it's more of a pain than
it's worth. I mean, I definitely monitor and look at
Bigfoot Research online, you know, the b BFRO and and

(38:05):
things like that. I mean, I've been on their site
and looked at their stuff for.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
A long time.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
I'm a member of a lot of cryptid groups on Facebook,
and I listened to people's stories and I've you know,
reached out there to get in contact with them with
private messages, especially if.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I know I'm going to be around their area if
I can find that out. So like that, I haven't
formally joined any groups though. I mean, I want the
people that listen to this to know. I mean, I'm
not a bigfoot guy. I'm a researcher and a writer,

(38:45):
and I had a very bad bigfoot experience, which is.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Why I wrote the book.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
But I'm not you know, you're never going to see
me at a conference selling T shirts and mugs or.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Any thing like that.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
I mean, I don't look at I don't look at
this thing like a mascot, you know, I don't. I mean,
it's serious and I and I think it's potentially dangerous.
And I think that they're I think that they're intelligent enough.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
To be just like people.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
You know, you meet people in life that are kind
and nice and polite and you meet people.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
That are not so kind and nice and.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Polite, and so I mean, I maybe they have the
same breadth of characters in their groups, you know.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
So what types of topics do you cover in this book?

Speaker 2 (39:39):
I cover a little bit of everything. I tried to
cover every theory and add my own theory to it,
so I cover you know, is is Bigfoot a spirit?
Is it, you know, a creature of energy? Is it
multi dimensional? Is it related to the you fold phenomenon?

(40:01):
Because there's a high percentage of of eyewitness accounts out
there that you know, they're seen around the same time
that people see unidentified aerial phenomenon in UFOs. So I
really cover a lot in this book. Do they live

(40:21):
in caves?

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Do they? You know?

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Why haven't we found bigfoot skeletons and remains? And there's
an interesting story in the book about a man that
I had met on one of my travels that was
a shaman, and he actually gave me the impression that
his people knew about this creature, they had had interactions

(40:49):
with it in the past, and that they have to
eat constantly because of their size. And he gave me
the impression, the compression that Bigfoot will eat their dead.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
I don't know if that's.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
True, obviously, but I did document that in the book.
One thing I think is strange that I never see
and I never hear of other people doing. You have
all these bigfoot researchers, right, that are full time researchers,
or at least they they give that impression that they're

(41:28):
full time researchers.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
I mean, none of these people ever look up in
the trees, right. Don't you think that's odd?

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Yeah, there's several reports of them falling out of trees.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
So yeah, if it's a bipedal primeate, primates climb trees.
Humans are primeates, right, We climb, We can climb trees.
I don't know why they don't do that. That's one
of the things that puzzles me for sure.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
Well, I mean from the the track castings and stuff
like that. Obviously, we have doctor Jeff melderm at our
Disposal who has confirmed that in his own investigations of
tracks and castings and everything, that they do in fact
have some sort of mid tarsal or meta tarsal break

(42:18):
or whatever the correct vernacular is, but a hinged foot,
and that would be an adaptation for climbing trees. That's
that's where absolutely so at least at some point in time,
even though I get it they're huge, you know, eight

(42:39):
four feet wide, but at some point in time they
were tree dwellers, whether we like it or not. And
I mean, orangutans get pretty big and they climb trees.
They live in trees. So it's not you know, unheard
of or impossible. And you're right. I have actually had
someone on the show tell me about an encounter where
the thing was up in a tree. And there's a

(43:01):
few reports out there of like hikers and campers and
people experience them dropping out of trees all of a
sudden and you know, running off through the woods or whatever.
So the reports are out there, they're just not very common.
But yeah, I agree people should be looking in the
trees more, and they should also be looking down at

(43:21):
the ground more too, because we also have a lot
of situations where they like you know, go prone and
they flat on the ground and people usually just look
right over them.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
But yeah, and they spider crawl and yeah, yeah, yeah
for sure. So that's so I cover all those different
topics and even you know, there's and I think it's
a lesser known theory, you know that maybe these things
are somehow related to extraterrestrials. Again, I've never seen an

(43:57):
extraterrestrial I've never seen a a UFO and that or
that they're guardians, you know, from an advanced to previously
previous society, you know, advanced civilization. I mean I cover
all that. I also cover, which is not going to
be a is not going to be something that people like.

(44:22):
But I have a chapter that I say tree knocks
are bullshit. Wow, excuse my language, because if you think
about it, I mean, we're this is an intelligent creature, right,
I mean most everyone agrees on that it's intelligent. Why
would something that is, you know, better than the best
Native American ever at hiding and obscuring itself.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Why in the world would it.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Knock, especially when it's able to do vocalizations. Why would
it beat on trees with sticks and alert people to
its presence. There is no old primate that is known
on Earth that does that outside of an aggressive or
a bluff type of look at my power, look at

(45:13):
my strength type of movement. So silver backed guerrillas do
not do that. They may topple trees that may shake trees,
they do not take sticks and smack a tree. Chimpanzees
will use twigs to pull ants and termites on of
trees as a tool to eat them.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
But there is no primate.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
That has documented evidence anywhere on Earth that beats on
trees as communication, or as a signal or as anything.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Well, we kind of we talked a little, not about
tree knocks specifically, but the overall thought. And I'm not
trying to you know, gang up on anybody's thoughts or
opinions or things or anything. Sure, sure, no, And I'm
not trying to the bigfoot world. Yeah, of course, it
doesn't matter what you say. There's going to be people

(46:08):
that disagree, sure, that's for sure. But it's a matter
of fact that if you're out in the woods looking
for Bigfoot and you hear a tree dock, oh it
was a Bigfoot. If you're out there looking for ghosts,
it's a ghost. If you're out there looking for aliens,
it's an alien.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Correct.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
We get caught up in a lot of that. And
most of the stuff that is attributed directly to Bigfoot,
whether it be tree knocks, rock clacking, limb formations and structures,
all those things. There's no proof that Bigfoot's doing any
of it. We don't have any of that documented. It's
just oh, well, we're out here looking for bigfoot, and

(46:52):
so this looks like something that you know, could be
done by a bigfoot if it's here, So that makes
this trip successful. Yeah, this the Bigfoot made this, and
it's just kind of stuck over the years.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
Right, and that I mean, that's so that's what I
go into is, you know, hard evidence is hard evidence.
I mean, I saw with my own eyes one, so
I know. But yeah, tree knocks, you know, I think
there's vocalizations that I've heard the Sierra sounds for example.

(47:24):
I think that that's legitimate, absolutely because I heard similar
noises that night with my experience. But yeah, I mean
I want I want hard data. I've seen the foot
cast I've seen those in person.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
I've seen the footprints, so.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
I believe that, Yes, it definitely has feet, it definitely
crushes things. It has a lot of body mass and weight,
you know, so I can I can touch that, I
can experience that, and so yeah, I believe that.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
But yeah, some of this stuff is a little out there.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
With all the theories and you being a Christian. Yeah,
what are your thoughts on the theory that Bigfoot is
like Nephelin more demonic.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, so I've I've written a Christian book, and I
study the Bible.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
I mean, I don't believe that it's a Nephelim.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
Because I believe that number one majority of those died
out with the flood.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
There have been anecdotal reports.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
There was a recent report recent being last ten to
fifteen courses unit in Afghanistan. So, you know, I definitely
believe that those things existed at one point, but.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
I don't believe that now.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Whether this creature is completely definable from the scientific truth
that it you know, it's an involved gigantapithecus. I mean,
I've seen the artist depictions of gigantapithecus, and I've seen those.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
This was not. It was not that I can tell
you that it was not.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
So, whether it's like all flesh and blood, whether it
has cloaking abilities to stay hidden, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
I don't know. But the thing I.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Saw was very much real and horrifying. Yeah, So, I
honestly I don't know. And the book, you know, doesn't
have those answers. I don't think anyone has those answers.
We will not have those answers until we, you know,
figure out it's its biome, where does it live, where

(49:47):
does it thrive? If we look at it, we can
dissect it, we can draw blood from it. I even
go into that, we already have that the military, you know,
in the government, may be involved with some of this
because around Washington, I'm sure you know this, there were
reports during the Mount Saint Helen's eruption, there were reports

(50:10):
that some of these creatures were evacuated from the area
by military helicopters.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
I don't know if you've ever read that, so you know,
I mean, I don't know what it is. I definitely
don't know, but I know that I know that it's real.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
That's a question that gets asked a lot, So I'm
going to ask you that question. Why would the government
cover this up? Why would they want to keep it
a secret?

Speaker 1 (50:43):
I think for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
I think anything that the government can can try to
use for its own purposes to promote, you know, power structure,
increase its wealth and influence in the world world, do
genetic testing on this. I think there's a lot of reasons.

(51:08):
I think you know when I in nineteen when was
that nineteen ninety eight I worked for I worked for IBM,
and I my the campus that I was in charge
of as far as computer repair, networking, all that stuff,

(51:29):
the equipment stuff. They had a contract with McDonald Douglas
and I was on that campus. That's what I was
responsible for, all the buildings of McDonald Douglas in Saint Louis.
And I had a top secret security clearance and I
but I was, you know, the guy going around fixing
computers and things like that. And I will tell you

(51:52):
that there was a plane, a jet in the one
of the hangars there that now I understand as a
stealth fighter. I didn't understand that at the time. I
hadn't seen anything like that. I remember touching the wing
and it was very smooth. It was a black plane.

(52:16):
There were Air Force test pilots and things there. And
you know, we're talking about a facility that builds, you know,
jay dam rockets and all that stuff. A facility where
I would go in rooms with engineers and I would
actually be walking in a vault with four and five
foot thick steel doors. When I would walk in the room,

(52:41):
they would flip a little red light that would rotate
on the wall, and all the engineers, everybody in that
room there would be an arm guard with me. Everybody
in that room would clear everything off their desk, they'd
put it into their desk, lock their desk, and they
would wait and stand there while I took the computer apart,
placed whatever. And I even had a gun drawn on

(53:04):
me one time because we were supposed to return all
the they're called fru's Field replaceable units, were supposed to
return those IBM because they had the contract with McDonald douglas.
We swap out the hard drive. We returned the old
hard drive.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
The guard.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Pointed his gun at me and said, no, you're going
to leave that hard drive here. So I was like, yes, sir,
I will leave it here. And I you know, so,
I mean, I've what I'm what I'm getting at, and
I'm a little verbose.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
I apologize. Is I saw.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
That now that I recognize it as a stealth. But
the government, I believe, and my whole family is military
and law enforcement. I was the only civvy in the family.
I'm civilian. So what I believe is that these you know,
they're always looking for that edge, that edge, and superiority

(54:04):
that edge, and you know, we're going to beat out
our enemies, our competitors, and.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
So why wouldn't they Why wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
They study this thing and try to extract secrets from it.
If it can stay hidden, if it can move silently
in the woods, if it's faster than humans, if it's
stronger than humans, why wouldn't they.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
You know, if we look back at things like remote
viewing and the government studying that and trying to use
it and develop it, and psychic abilities and everything that
was kind of prompted by the Russians looking into it,
if I remember correctly, And we do know that for
a while at least the Russians were also trying to

(54:47):
develop super soldiers using primate hybrids and stuff. So it
all kind of makes sense that if the Russians were
doing that sort of thing, we would have been doing
that sort of thing too. And if we had access
to something like a sasquatch at our disposal, yeah, of

(55:08):
course they would try to use it and weaponize it
and see what they could make from it.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Definitely.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Yes, I've been waiting to ask you about this. I
don't know how to pronounce it is it the ass Wang.
It's the Aswang. I mean, come on, man, you gotta
tell me what's going on with that.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
So there's a personal experience of mind that I've I've
never told.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Anyone before this this book that I documented in the book.
It's in chapter seven. It's called Demons in the Jungle.
And so this was in twenty twenty two. Now, Matt,
I don't know if you've I don't know if you've
seen my book or anything. But I have pictures of
the aftermath of the attack. But let me just I'll

(56:00):
go into the story. Since I've told her a few times,
I'll tell it again. I mean, it's out there. If
people think I'm a looney tune, they can think.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
That I don't care me.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
So in twenty twenty two, I you know, I went
to the Philippines to meet my girlfriend and just his
background for your audience there, you know, I speak to Galog.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
My first wife was from the Philippines.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
My son is a Philippine citizen and a citizen of
the US.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
So I speak to Galog.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
And I had gone to the Philippines in twenty twenty
two with a couple goals. I wanted to meet my
new girlfriend, and I wanted to hunt the almamongo, which
is a cryptid there that is very comparable to our
bigfoot or our sasquatch. And they say that it's in

(56:58):
the mountains of Negro sucks dental.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
It's a large, hairy beast. In fact, I put a fact.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
Sheet in the book about you know what what this
creature's called in different cultures in different countries, and information
about it there. And so I thought, well, I'm going
to be in the Philippines for about seven eight weeks,
and so I'll just take a little side trip because

(57:27):
I knew that I was going to be going to
Elo Elo and Negro SEXI Dentel is fairly close by.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
My girlfriend at the time.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
You know, I had already met up with her and
met her family and been with her a couple of weeks,
and I said, you know, I'm just going to go
for one week.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
And she obviously thought I was crazy.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Yeah, I was gonna say, how did they like that?

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, she did not like that at all, and she
definitely did not want to go with me, you know,
but I shureder, I said.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
One week, I promise I'll come back. I won't be
gone longer than a week.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
And you know, at the time, little did I know,
but it would become one of the most dangerous things
that I've ever done.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
So I had done a little research.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I found a local Auti tribesman who was kind of
a guide, and he spoke enough English to act as my.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Guide, named Rinaldo, and he had told me that he
knew the forest.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
Well, and he knew where the Amamongo lived and that
they were basically they hung around and were in the
the shadows of Mount Cono on con La. It depends
on who you talk to. But which was like two
hours ride and then I checked into a hotel there

(58:59):
and met up with Rinaldo at a local bar called
Tippy's Bistro. And people can check this stuff. I mean,
I think Tippies may even have they may be on
the web right now. But you know, I told him
I would pay him three thousand pesos, which at the
time was about sixty US dollars, and we set off.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Into the jungle. He was going to guide me.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
So yeah, our first couple of days weren't were uneventful.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
You know, we would we would hear noises at night.
But again I'm not that.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Familiar with the jungles of the Philippines, and so I
didn't think much about it. It seemed to unsettle Rinaldo
a little bit. The fire and he would drink tendu
i and which is a local rum there. I would
drink a little bit, but I'm not really a drinker,

(59:58):
you know, and just that they and then go to sleep.
But on the morning of the third day, I woke
up and Ronaldo was gone, and all of my gear
was gone, and he had written a note. I don't
know if you have any Filipino listeners, but you know,

(01:00:21):
he said, patawad Hindiko, na kaya, Alam, nang magann La Lang, Nangutan,
kung ba nandito Nasila. So it basically meant, you know, sorry,
I can't take it anymore. The creatures of the forest
know why we're here. They're angry.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
I've left you. It's up to you now, yeah, exactly.
And you know, people all we can get into that.
But I have some theories about Ronaldo and that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
So so at that point, I'm up a creek proverbial creek,
down a paddle, right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
I don't have my stuff. I didn't bring my phone.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
I had left that in the hotel because I'm I
don't have signal or SIM card anyway in the Philippines,
and so and I didn't have any idea where thema
Mango was. So I'm like, okay, you know that's going
to have to wait. I need to get out of
here at this point. Sometimes there's there can be rebels,

(01:01:30):
and there can be you know, abusaf and Muslim extremist
folks that live in the jungle. So I was worried
about that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
I was worried about am I going to be able
to find my way out? Or am I gonna, you know,
die here? So I was completely alone in the heart
of the jungle.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Followed a stream on the mountain that it would it
would have her in the water, would lead in a village,
would mean safety.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
And so that's what I did.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
I started going through that, and I remember I hiked
for I don't know, nine or ten hours probably and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Question probably mid forties.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
He invited me into his shanty, which you know, when
this is the third world country, you know, I love
the Philippines, but it is what it is. So the
house or the hut was like bamboo and rusted metal.
But I was exhausted, and so I accepted his hospitality.

(01:02:32):
And inside of his hut it was him and his
wife and their gaunt child is probably no older than twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
And I say it was gone. I mean he was thin,
you know, super thin.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
And I sat down quietly on the floor and I
sipped on a small glass of tuba. There wasn't a
concern because again, I was hungry. I was thirsty. The
man had gone out back to bretty kitchen area. It
was just just a fire and a pot and everything,

(01:03:07):
so he had gone out there. And then I remember
I started to feel strange, you know, my my vision
started getting a little blurry, and I felt dizzy. And
that's when I figured out that I think they had
put something in my drink. And I tried, I tried

(01:03:30):
to stand up and to kind of shake off the dizziness,
and and the room started to spin.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
And that's that's when I noticed the child's eyes, the
kid's eyes, and they were they were red, they were
glowing red.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
And he was staring at me, you know, staring at
staring at me with like a hunger, like you know
a predator looks at it's it's prey. And he pulled
his you know, teeth back and made us or his

(01:04:10):
lips back and made a snarl, and he had jagged teeth.
And that's when I when I said, you know, what
the hell's happening? And I just knew I had to leave.
I wanted to get out of that hut, out of
that environment, and I knew I was in danger. I
knew that they had put something in the drink. And

(01:04:34):
when I started the head for the door, the the
kid growled.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
And he lunged at me, jumped on top of my back.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
Like like a wild animal, and his teeth, you know,
he was tearing at my face and my arms and
biting me and clawing at me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
Back.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
I grabbed him to try to throw him off, and
his teeth sink deep into my forearm. And again I've
got pictures of the aftermath in the book. But but
I did, you know, I think when he bit my arm,
because it hurt so badly that it kind of snapped
me out of whatever mental state I was in, whatever

(01:05:26):
kind of drugged up, doped up state I was in,
because I.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
Threw him, you know, off of me.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
I threw him against the the wall of the hut,
and he kind of you know, thuds and lay and
you know, laid on the floor, fell on the floor,
and my arm is bleeding down, my hand dripping blood,
and my eye because he had tried to claw out

(01:05:54):
my eye. I had deep puncture wounds and lacerations under.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
My eye, bleeding out of my face. And the mother
screamed and it was like a you know, you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
See those movies sometimes where somebody says something like with
a demonic sounding voice.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
It's not just a.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Normal human voice anymore. And she screamed basically for her husband,
and she said, I'm not gonna worry you with the
to dialogue again, but she said, Tayan, hurry, our food
is escaping.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Don't let him get away.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
And again her voice was like half beast, half human.
And you know, the kid started crawling towards me again,
this time on all fours. And I knew that I
was in a great deal of trouble at this point.

(01:07:01):
I knew that I would I would be dead if
I stayed there. And she had kind of blocked my
path to the door. When I say door, I mean
it wasn't a door as much as it was like
a blanket over the opening of their hut.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
But she blocked my path and I had come to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
A little bit because the pain of the bite on
my forearm, and I just I just kicked her as.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
Hard as I could, with everything I had in me.
I kicked her.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
I kicked her right under the chin, and she crumpled
to the floor. And that was when I saw that
the guy was coming to the back and he had
a machete in his hand. His eyes were glowing red
as well. The mother's eyes were glowing red.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
And I just ran.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
I ran out the door, and I ran until I
couldn't run anymore, and eventually I got to a barung
guy hall, which is I don't know if you know
much about the Philippines, but they have like locally elected
peacekeepers and people that you know, settle disputes and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
They have like a barung guy captain.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
They have little barung guys, yeah, and usually they're elected
or maybe an elder for that area that everybody trusts,
they trust, trust their judgment or whatever. And so I
saw a little barung guy hall and it still had
a light on inside, and I beat on the door

(01:08:39):
and kind of collapsed by the door, and this man
in his mid sixties told me he was the barun guy.
Captain helped me inside, and I remember basically said, and
you know, shaking his head, he said, you're very lucky, Joe.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
He repeated, You're lucky and was shaking his head.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
And then he'd called his a friend and he said,
my friend will drive you back to your hotel. And so,
you know, I'm riding back to my hotel and I'm
in shock, and I just keep replaying the events and
just kind of in a state of shock and trauma

(01:09:20):
over what had happened and how closely I came to.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Being killed. But yeah, when I got back.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
To the hotel, my arm and my face, my body
was had bites and lacerations, and I took photos back
into the hotel of the aftermath, you know, and it
it really, it was one of the most and I've

(01:09:50):
you know, I've been in fights and things. I mean,
it was the most violent type of encounter that I've
ever had in my life, and probably one of the
closest that I've come to in as far as dying.
So the next day I checked out of the hotel

(01:10:11):
and I left. I went back to Elo Elo. Oh,
I remember that the bite mark on my arm, it
took you know, a few weeks to heal, and people
ask me, well, why didn't you call the authorities and
why didn't you do this and that?

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
And I mean, I'm a foreigner, right yea one, I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
Yeah, I don't even know if the police would come there, right,
I don't I don't even know if they would come there.
If they did come there, would they try to get
money out of the Americano?

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
Would they? You know, I didn't have any rest of
the world.

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):
There are definitely places that don't work like it does here.
Even though we people you know, definitely have issues with
law enforcement and laws and government and how things are
in you really need to spend some time learning about
how life works in other countries, especially if you're traveling

(01:11:07):
as an American.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Oh yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
And so my main concern was just you know, getting
back to familiar territory, getting back to Elo Elo and
the safety and know that I had rented with my
girlfriend at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
So that's that's what I did. Now, you know, was
it a setup? Was there really?

Speaker 5 (01:11:31):
Was Renaldo really going to take me to see the
a'man ango or was he just you know, trying to
get a foreigner lost in the woods after he took
money and then steal his stuff from him.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
Maybe So is there anything you know, we would know
in the United States that is similar in comparison to
the Oschwong.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the mythology and
the folk or around the aswang, they're they're probably most
similar to our vampires. But you know, obviously they can
go out in the daylight. They're not supposed to be immortal.
Some people in the Philippines believe that they can shape shift.

(01:12:20):
They you know, they drink blood, but they also are
you know, cannibalistic. They some of the folklore, especially around
the mendon Now area, which is the northern most or,
which is an island in the Philippines, they they will

(01:12:41):
say that, you know, as wang will go up on
the roof and it will stick its tongue through the
window and latch on to pregnant women and their bellies
and drink the fluid from the woman's belly. So there's
a lot of things like that. And then even my

(01:13:02):
girlfriend was telling me at the time that they believed
that they even had aschwangs that lived in their town,
which is Antik, which is like an hour and a
half drive from Elo Elo.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
So they have Ashwang.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
Everybody knows they're Oschwangs, but they have you know, strict
instructions to not hurt anyone.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
If they hurt anyone, or someone with the barung gai
would go to Yeah. So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
There's a lot of different mythology, but I would say
the closest is probably the vampire.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
So which one was scarier for you?

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
I think the bigfoot was more scary.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
I think I was in more real danger though from
the Ashwang attack because it was deliberate.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
They were me down. I don't know if they were
going to chop me up and eat me. I don't know.
I don't know what they were going to do. But
I know that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
I was in more real danger that night. And I
don't know again if maybe what they gave me in
the tuba it wasn't it wasn't as as scary as
it was more dangerous, But the bigfoot thing was definitely
dangerous because you have to remember I was.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
You know, I was completely at peace. I was half asleep.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
When that happened, and it was something that I did
not that I never fathomed really existed.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
To see that, to see a legend.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
You know, like that appear in front of me, To
have that size and that that presence. You know, these
even though they attacked me, I mean they were you know,
they were shaped like people. They were smaller than me.
You know, it wasn't as imposing as as terrifying as

(01:15:02):
like now you're safe and you're in the forest and
everything is fine, and then all of a sudden, now
you've got something that you feel like could tear you
apart if it wanted to.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
It's an amazing story. Man, is Bigfoot subject that you're
going to approach again with future works? Or do you
got anything else on the horizon?

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
I am right now. I'm writing a book on to
Galog and.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
War I war I Whichari is the main language spoken
in Lity. It's the local language, which is an area
in the Philippines. So it's a just a language reference
guide to help people, you know, understand English to Galog

(01:15:48):
and Warai. And then after that, I've got another book
about a disease that I suffer from and I've suffered
for a long time with this idiopathic Hypersalma still going
to be personally investigating and looking and researching Bigfoot. Absolutely,
I will always do that. But am I going to

(01:16:08):
write another book about it?

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:16:11):
I definitely don't have anything right now in mind. The
Bigfoot Paradox. It's not your typical cryptid book. So, you know,
I try to be provocative. I try to make people think.
I try to make people evaluate these things, both from
a scientific perspective, eyewitness account, the folklore. I have all

(01:16:33):
that in the book, research on that. It's it's an
unsettling book, and it's it's supposed to be. I'm trying
to walk the line between fact and fiction and truth
and mythology. You know, I will tell you something that
always piqued my interest about Bigfoot is, how do you
have a creature?

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
If it is all legend ar all myth, how.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
Do you have a creature that transcends cultural boundaries, country boundrease, governments,
is depicted in cave diagrams from thousands of years ago?

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
How do you have that?

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
How do you have especially when it's alongside real and
known a animals, how do you have that? And it'd
be purely a legend. So I want people to read
the book obviously, but I want you to think.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
If you're looking for a book that is entertaining and
that challenges you and what you believe, and you know,
maybe keeps you up at night, this is.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
A good book for that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
And if you've had your own encounter with Bigfoot or
Oshwong or something else you can't explain, send me an
email a Bigfoot Crossroads at gmail dot com. Check out
the website Bigfootcrossroads dot com. You can find links to
social media, past episodes, merchandise, everything you need all in
one place. And until next time, remember there's something in
the woods.