Don Keating 25th Annual Bigfoot Conference uNcomfortable ep 196

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome back to the show, my friends. I am your host,
Derek Solodgi. If you've had an uncomfortable experience and you'd
like to have it shared here on the show, please
get a hold of me at contact dot uncomfortable at
gmail dot com. The world wants to hear your cryptid
and UFO experiences, so reach out to me and let's
get yours on the next episode of Uncomfortable. If you
haven't yet, make sure to like us on Facebook and

(00:40):
Instagram both at Uncomfortable podcast sixty five. Once you get
a chance to listen to an episode or two, please
please make an effort leave us a five star rating
and review wherever you can. That alone is the most
important thing that you can do to help get this
show out in front of others and with more people listening,
that means more great stories coming your way. If videos

(01:01):
more your thing, than make sure to subscribe to Uncomfortable
Podcasts on YouTube, where you can get the video version
of most shows. If that is where you choose to
listen to us, please make sure to click like and
subscribe and hit the notification bell so you are notified
of each in every new release. Take him in and
check out the Uncomfortable Link Tree. It's the single best
place that you can find anything and everything uncomfortable in

(01:22):
one spot. The link for that will be in the
show notes below. Tonight's guest is a longtime Ohio researcher
from the area of Newcomerstown. You got into the subject
back in nineteen eighty four after reading John Green claims
a nineteen eighty five daylight sighting south of Newcomerstown, kind

(01:45):
of in the Guernsey Coshocton area. He's the founder of
the Eastern Ohio Investigation Center EOBIIC and publisher of a
monthly Bigfoot report Since the early nineteen nineties, he's both
organizer and host of Ohio's long running Bigfoot Conference SEE,
widely credited with launching what later became the Ohio Bigfoot Conference.

(02:08):
He's appeared on History channels, Monster Quest the episode of
The Ohio grass Man. He ran the Sasquatch Triangle Internet
radio show, and has produced several Ohio focused documentaries, including
Sasquatch at Saltfort. If you are ready, let's get into it, so,

(02:44):
if you will, please give a warm, uncomfortable welcome to
mister Don Keating Don Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Hey, thank you very much, Eric, And that was a
most uncomfortable introduction.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
I appreciate that, sir.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Just a couple of real quick things. Not the correct year,
but I just wanted to clarify one or two things there.
The encounter that I had in September of nineteen eighty
five was actually a nighttime encounter, and it took place
at ten oh four pm in property or on a
property where no one was living at the time. Okay,

(03:19):
And I just want to make sure that that was
clarified because a big difference between if I had seen
it at day as compared to what would have happened
when I seen it at night.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, that in itself is proof that
the Internet lies.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
No way, because I just I just read on there
the climate change was over. It's gotta be true.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
I literally literally pulled that out of an article that
was written about you.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
So I'm not surprised. You know, nothing surprises me anymore.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Well, please feel free to correct me on anything else
if I have gotten it wrong, because we have not.
We have not had a tants to talk prior to
recording this episode.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Okay, I'll be happy to.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
So don let's let's put the cart before the horse,
as it were. The whole reason that I got in
touch with you was this is not to throw shade
at any anything, or any organization or any person. But

(04:29):
having done a lot of Bigfoot conferences, including two of
my own, you see the same speakers year in and
year out, and it wears on you. I mean, they're
great people, but you know how many times can you
see the same speaker? Nothing changes, Nothing, nothing dramatic has

(04:52):
happened in the world of Bigfoot, dumb that has garnered
any kind of different conversation. It's it's all kind of
a so anyway, uh, As I said not to throw
shade it at any one place, but I had to
take a I had to take a step back and

(05:14):
just kind of take a break from that part of
the scene. It's been a couple of years, uh, and
I decided, you know, I miss it. I want to
get back into it, but I want to do it
in a in a fashion that will allow me to
Rather than being somewhere to sell my merch, you know,

(05:37):
to to promote my shirts or my my my podcast,
I want to I want a place where people come
up to the booth and tell me about their experience.
If they want it recorded, I want to be able
to record it right then and there as they're talking
about it, and you know, stitch it all together and
put together an hour, three hours, whatever it may be,

(06:01):
of people's experiences and go from there. So when I
saw that you were entering back into the arena as
it were, it it did a couple of things. One,
my fiance is from kim Bolton, which is just a

(06:25):
couple of towns over from Newcomers Town. She actually worked
at Salt Fork for twenty plus years. She worked on
a lot of the banquets, was always a part of
When the Ohio Bigfoot Conference came in, she was a
big part of navigating that for the for the lodge.

(06:47):
She has since moved to Northern Indiana with me and
kind of for our story comes full circle. But when
I saw the ad for the Newcomerstown event, she worked
in Newcomerstown up until the time she moved to Northern Indiana,

(07:11):
so I was like, that would be really neat to
be able to go back there. She can spend time
with her family, I can do the conference. And so
that's how we got here.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Okay, cool, go ahead. I was just going to say
the event this year is the twenty fifth. It's the
twenty fifth one that I've hosted, and I don't know
that there will be one next year, but at this
time there isn't one in the planning stages. I don't

(07:43):
plan on having another one after this year. And I'll
get into more soon as to why, you know, I
decided to have another one this year, But this one
that we're having this year is going to be the
twenty fifth annual Bigfoot Conference.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
And did you take some time off?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
I took a lot of time off. Yeah, between the
year twenty thirteen, I believe it was. That was about
the last time, maybe twenty fourteen fifteen there. I think
the last conference that I hosted was in twenty fifteen
at soul Fork. And then I took I said, that's
a you know, the heck with it. I'm not doing
it anymore. Let somebody else do it. I don't need

(08:21):
the aggravation. I don't I'm not doing this for a
pat on the back or to make a million dollars
of God knows, there's not a million dollars to be
made doing a Bigfoot conference.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Well, brother, I feel you in that. As I said,
I did two conferences that I put together based on
the Dewey Lake Monster. It was called Bigfoot and Bruise.
Both years it was it was very very well received,
It was popular, We had great turnout. At the time,

(08:54):
I was single and both my kids had moved on
and were doing their their own, their own jobs. I
didn't have anybody except a couple of trusted people that
I could bounce ideas off of putting putting that together,

(09:15):
securing the speakers, getting the money, paying for flights, setting
up vendors, you know, the whole thing, right man. What
a lot of work, a lot of work and a
lot of stress. So brother, for for having done that
for that many years, kudos.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
To you, well, thank you. But yeah, I mean there
was the thing of you know, I wanted to continue
to do it year after year because I wanted to
continue to get different people in here. You mentioned earlier
about having possibly the same person over and over and
over and over again, speaking year after year after year.

(09:57):
One of my rules of thumb was do not have
the same person speak back to back years. I mean,
unless they've discovered the body, unless they have one in captivity,
unless they've been abducted by UFOs and now they have
the holy grail as to what the Sasquatch creature is.

(10:18):
And I mean, what is the purpose other than inviting
a friend back to speak again. What is the purpose
of having the same person two years or more in
a row to give a presentation at your conference, other
than maybe the maybe ten percent of the people that
will attend next year didn't see them this year, and

(10:40):
those ten percent are now happy because they said they
can say that they sell whoever at the Bigfoot Conference
this year. I just you know, when you're working on
a limited budget, it's just you've got to watch where
you put all your eggs and what basket, and you've
got to make sure you're going to be Look, I'll

(11:02):
give you a little bit of background history in about
thirty seconds or less. In a nutshell. March of nineteen
eighty nine, I held the first annual Bigfoot conference in
your Comerstown. We were going to have myself, Ron Schaffner,
and I honestly don't remember who the other ones were.
I think there was a fellow from West Virginia that

(11:23):
was invited. There was a fellow from Pennsylvania invited Will.
I wanted to get everybody from Ohio and every at
adjoining state together in one location, one evening and talk
about what the average size of footprints were for Ohio,
the average size of footprints for West Virginia, the average
size of footprints for Pennsylvania. The same way with what

(11:46):
is the most typical color that people are reporting, What
is the most typical characteristic the mannerisms, the activities of
the sad squash that people spotted. What is the most
typic cool activity that the sasquatch was doing in Ohio
and Pennsylvania and West Virginia and Kentucky and Indiana and
Michigan when it was spotted. That's why I wanted to

(12:10):
put together a conference. So at the last, within two weeks,
and when that conference was to be held in early
March of nineteen eighty nine, three of the four people
I had invited to speak had to cancel. You talked
about running around with your head spending like a possessed
baby doll. I had to like really think of now,

(12:33):
you know, who can I get? I mean, you know,
I'm stuck between a rock and hard place. So I
did get some people together. I got Betty parks from Eaton, Ohio.
Her and her husband Leon had done a considerable amount
of research not only in western and southwestern Ohio, but
also up in Michigan. I got John Rigoli, formerly at
Saint Claisaur, Ohio, who was at that point in time

(12:55):
what I considered a really great eye witness of a
creature that he had spotted less than on feet away
from his house in Belmont County. I got a fellow
by knew Art Crusoe of Youngstown, Ohio, who was a
paranormal researchers not only on Bigfoot, but on haunted houses,
crop circles and things of that sort. And of course myself,
but I didn't really consider myself a speaker. I was

(13:17):
just the organizers. Iish host of the event. And so
we got all those people together, we held them meant
the first annual conference. We held it at last in
probably three hours, and we had what I considered at
that point in time to be a spectacular turnout of
about sixty people. And we said after everybody had cleared

(13:40):
the room, and you know, the next day came along
and we had time to scratch our heads and wonder
what had just happened. You think this would be a
very productive event once again next year, you know, and
people said yes. So I held one in nineteen ninety
and I held one in nineteen ninety one ninety two,
and you get yeah, I did. Now. The first time

(14:01):
that we brought a person in from a long distance
was a lady by the name of Bonnie Stump, and
she lived in a town called Stuart's Draft, Virginia, and
she wrote a magazine once a month magazine type newsletter
on paranormal events happening all across North America. So I
decided to bring her in because I knew of her
because she subscribed to my newsletter at the time. The

(14:24):
following year, we decided to bring the first person in
from a long ways off and I mean more than
a few hundred miles, and we brought doctor Jeff Melderman.
So doctor Meldram can actually blame me for being the
person that got him started in big book proferences. I'm
pretty sure that. And you know, I've had him here
several times to speak, and he does stellar job every

(14:47):
time he comes back.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
I just had the pleasure of doing just about a
three hour episode with him about a month ago. Very
very nice, very I've met him in person a couple
of times. Had a very embarrassing story. I went down
to his his booth at Salt Fork maybe three years ago, uh,

(15:11):
to pick up a couple of casts that I wanted
for my collection, and uh, we got into a conversation
and one thing that led to another, and the next
thing I knew, I was I was walking away from
his table with the cast in my hand, and uh,
he literally had to stop me and say, hey, I
know we got kind of off on a tangent with

(15:33):
the talking, but you forgot to pay for pay for
the cast. And I was I was absolutely mortified that
he had to h to step in and remind me
that I had not paid.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
But oh yeah, there's there was always that possibility because
as many times as you meet up with people, when
you talk to him, you know, it's just you get
involved in conversation and you know, it just slips your mind.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, you know, Wed held that ninety seven conference with
Melbourne here and then I don't remember what month ninety
seven conference was in. I think it was still March.
A few months later, in May of ninety seven, I
spoke at the Sasquash Symposium event out there at Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada. Went back out the Pacific Northwest in

(16:22):
nineteen ninety eight just to visit some friends and look
at the territory more. Because you know, I'm a midwestern
guy in Ohio and I hadn't gotten outside of the
area within five hundred miles at home for very many
times at all, and so I had done that long
story short hosted. I hosted twenty four events. This one

(16:42):
coming up has gone to number twenty five. Believe it
or not. Marriages have come about as people throughout the
years of people meeting each other and getting together and
liking each other, and so they got married. Divorces have
probably come about too, but I don't want credit for those.
And there have been so many eyewitnesses that have come

(17:03):
forward and told their stories about their encounters at the conference.
I couldn't begin to tell you how many have attended
and talked about what they had seen, and the total
number of people that have attended since I held the
meeting held the conference was I don't know thousands, tons

(17:25):
of thousands of people. I don't know whatever, but I
will I will say one thing that I'm very proud
of and I'm still very proud of to today. And
that is I have never ever had to charge a
substantial amount of money for someone to walk through the
door to get into the conference. There is one year
that I asked for a donation of maybe ten or

(17:45):
fifteen dollars, had a hard time even getting people to
donate ten or fifteen bucks. And I have never charged
a dime for a person to walk through the door,
and this year will be no different. There will not
be an admission charge at this event on septemb for
twenty seventh. Now, if you want to put a donation
in the bucket, that's great. I deeply appreciate it, because

(18:05):
there are costs to associate with this, as you know.
But I have never asked for people to pay a
flat out admission fee to walk through the door and
hear a speaker. Give or freeze and take it. But anyway,
it's a little bit of a background on how the
conference began back in March of eighty nine.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
That in itself is impressive, especially in today's day and age.
So I guess I need to thank you ultimately, because
had you not started what turned into the Ohio Bigfoot Conference,
at one point I would not have gone to Salt Fork.

(18:51):
Thus ly, I would not have met the woman that
I have fallen in love with and recently got engaged to.
So thank you, and.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Just make the check out to don Keating, you know,
and we'll be happy. Just spell my last name correctly
because a lot of people spelled incorrectly. But yeah, you know,
it's that's funny you mentioned that because when I, when
I in the past had given public presentations or held
the conference or whatever. And somebody will probably ask me

(19:23):
this again in the least September. Uh, if they will
ask me the question, A simple question like, well, if
somebody wants to get involved in the investigations of the research,
what would you what would you suggest to them? And
I and I tell them this from the bottom of
my heart with a straight look on my face. The
answer would be a very simple don't get involved in it,

(19:44):
because it's going to cause you a lot more aggravation
and costs a lot more money than what you can
imagine in the long run. So just sit back in
the shadows on the sidelines, watch the watch the events
take place, and un old and you know, just do
it as a bystander.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
It is Uh, it's a wonderful topic to be involved with.
It is incredibly interesting. The people can be wonderful, the
communities can be divisive as all get out. Conferences seem

(20:32):
seem to me to be that happy medium where, no
matter what your attitude is, conferences seem to be a
place where everybody kind of comes together.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
You know, the the divisiveness of Facebook and the different groups,
and you know, the apors versus the non APIs and
and all the different stuff and the arguments and the
you know, the know it alls and if it's not
this way, it's the wrong way. That all seems to
kind of dissipate and go by the wayside at conferences.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
I had a conference at the building back in two
thousand and four that I'm going to be at again
this year that David Barbara Civic Center and the Grummerstown
and I kid you not. I was doing an interview
with a reporter out of a WSYX channel sixth and Columbus, Ohio,
and there was two guys that had attended the conference

(21:35):
that were dressed had to tow and silver aluminum foil
with some kind of strainer that served as a helmet
on top of their head with two aluminum antenni sticking
at the top of their helmets. And they were there

(21:56):
at the entire conference. So that's one of those odd
ball stories that you know, anybody is welcome to attend,
and everybody has an opinion and everybody has right their
their own theories as to what this thing could be

(22:17):
or whatever. I don't think they shot any b roal
footage of those guys for that news piece, thank god,
but they did get some b roal footage or someone
who was sitting in the audience sleeping. Oh, so I
was very appreciative of that. Yeah, you get you get
some interesting folks at the at the events, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
So ultimately, at some point early two thousands, mid to
two thousands, you you handed off the conference to Mark Deworth,
who now runs the Ohio Bigfoot Conference. Correct when when
you made that handoff? And in fact, I believe you

(23:04):
were at the speaker's dinner the last year that I
attended the Ohio Bigfoot Conference. You were in the h
you were with the the group of speakers that were
sitting at the different tables, and I never did get

(23:24):
an opportunity to talk to you there we had a
very quick meeting of the eyes and I said hi
and you said high and that was essentially it. But
so when you when you handed that off, was there
a were there traditions that you wanted to see uh preserved?

(23:50):
Were there were there? Was there any here? You take this?
But I want you to continue to X Y Z
or was it just was it just a handoff and
make your go of it?

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Mark and I didn't have a nearly in depth enough
of a conversation for it to be at the stage
today that I would have liked to have seen it.
I at that point in time, I wanted to just
unload it. I was going to close it down altogether. Period.

(24:31):
I didn't really care, you know, because again, if you're
doing this for a pat on the back, you might
as well forget it, because you're gonna break your own
arm several times patting your own self on the back.
Nobody's gonna do it. Nobody's gonna do it for you.
You'll be lucky if you get a dozen people walk
up to you at the end of the night and say, hey,
thanks for hosting this. I really appreciate it. I learned
something blah blah blah, it does not work that way period. Okay,

(24:57):
So I would like to see some things change with
the conference the way it is now. Obviously I do
not have full control of the conference. I don't have
any control of the conference at all. But that's why
I handed it over to Mark, because I didn't want

(25:18):
anything else to do with it. If it ever gets
to a point where I think the integrity of the
Ohio Bigfoot Conference, which was formerly known as the Annual
Bigfoot Conference, if it looks like it's about to go
down the toilet, he'll receive a phone call and we
will have a conversation. But until then, I'm just going

(25:39):
to let him do his thing. And you know, because
I have no say over it, I don't know how
much he respects or appreciates the fact that I hosted
it for all those years until I handed it over
to him. But that's okay. You know, I would say
one percent of the general public appreciate what I have

(26:01):
done in the past. But that's that's fine. Like I said,
you're not doing it for a pat on the back.
But yeah, so I think I answered your question fairly.
I don't. I don't. I don't really care unless it
looks like a train wreck for Ringling Brothers. I don't
really care. I don't really care what he does with it,
as long as he doesn't make it into a debacle. Yeah,

(26:23):
and then that's when, like I said, that's when he'll
get a private phone call from me and we'll have
a conversation. Because I am the one, after all, that
founded the thing back in nineteen eighty nine, and I
am the one who has hosted more conferences than anybody
in the United States. I got a little bit of
experience under my belt as to what too and what
not to do to make them, to make them successful,

(26:47):
and to and to withhold the integrity of the event.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
What have you noticed, you know, I mean, I'm sure
that you must keep an eye on that conference as
the years go by. What what change has there been,
if any, in the caliber of the witnesses or researchers

(27:12):
now that it's been you know, over two decades of
people coming in and talking.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Of the event itself period. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
like I said, back in the eighty nine and into
the ninety ninety one, et cetera, I held it to
try and I think up till the year about two
thousand and four thereabouts. I was hosting it to try

(27:43):
and hold a mixture of speakers, a mixture of speakers
that would be inclusive of eyewitnesses as well as researchers,
the people that have done the actual so called grunt
work in the field, but also the people who have
claimed to have seen the creature, no matter at what distance.

(28:04):
And you know, like I said, I was out of
it for a long time, and I'm still relatively out
of it. But I hadn't done anything. I hadn't even
attended the conference out of Salt Fork for quite some time.
The first conference that Mark hosted that I after I
handed it over to him was in twenty I believe
twenty twelve at the Pritfrid Laughlin Civic Center in Cambridge

(28:26):
because Saltfork Lodge wasn't available then afterwards, then the conference
moved back out to Salt Fork and it was available
a little history on how that conference started taking place
at Saltfork. There might be some people that don't know
the full story, but I'm going to give it to

(28:48):
you in a nutshell. In two thousand and four, I
hosted the conference in your comerce town at the David
Barber Civic Center, and within a couple of days after that,
I had a gentleman who worked at Saltfork contact me.
He said, we'd like to know if you'd be interested
in holding the conference out here, because we understand it
you're getting a pretty good crowd. Blah blah blah. I said, sure,

(29:09):
I'll come out and meet you, and you can show
me what your rooms look like, and you can show
me how many rooms you got and what kinds of
anemities that are available for the general public who attend
the conference, and so on. And they made a good
sales pitch. I said, Okay, we'll hold it out here
next year for the first time, and that was in
two thousand and five, and with the exception of twenty twelve,

(29:33):
it's been help us all work Lodge ever since then.
What I would like to see as far as the
event is concerned, is more people who have legitimately seen
this thing come forward and be given the stage for
however long that they need, up to a certain reasonable
amount of time to tell about what they've seen. Because

(29:56):
after all, that's one of the reasons I started holding
the conference was to get to come forward. I held
it at a monthly big Foot meeting in your comers
down from July of nineteen eighty five until I don't
know when it was over twenty years. And the reason
I held that was because up in Alyance, Ohio, there
was a meeting up there that started in the nineteen

(30:17):
seventies called the Track County UFO Study Group. Jim rast
Editor and Paul Rozick founded that event, and myself and
Tom Archer went up there one night to one of
their meetings, and on the way back, I'm thinking to myself,
these guys have a support group for people who claim

(30:40):
who claimed to have an alien abduction or who claimed
to have seen a UFO. Why isn't there one of
these types of groups for people who claim to have
seen a Bigfoot? And so that's what I did. I
wanted to hold a one time meeting in July eighty five,
hoping people would come forward, give us some new information

(31:03):
and give us some hot leads so we could maybe
get a better track on where this thing could be
the Bigfoot at that time. It turned out that it
was an overwhelming success with people coming through the door
and telling their stories. That's right and every which way,
but loose, and that's why we held them try state.

(31:25):
It started out as the Eastern Ohio big Foot Steady
Group and it went to the trisity of Bigfoot set
of group because they wanted to expand the name so
we could get more people from Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Because the name sounded Eastern Ohio big Foot Steady Groups.
Maybe they thought, well, people who have seen something in
Ohio and Pennsylvania or West Virginia, maybe they're not welcome
to tell their stories. Well, just to the opposite, they

(31:47):
were more than welcome to tell their stories. So that's
why we held that event.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
So if you if you had an opportunity to redesign
the modern Bigfoot conference from scratch, from ground up. Let's
let's say it's your event that's going to be this September,
or let's say it's the Ohio Bigfoot Conference. You would

(32:13):
like to see something more akin to a more structured
town hall where somebody was given the opportunity to talk
about their experience in front of a group of people,
rather than having to pay for the opportunity to go
into a closed room setting and watch a paid speaker
present the same thing they've presented for the last three

(32:37):
or four years.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
Well, that would be one one way of putting it. Yes,
when I held the conference, and like I said, I've
held it every year without charging an admission charge, then
I would just like to see that continue on. So
I mean, you've got a family of four people. Look
at the cost plus plus the accommodations, you know, staying
at the logs AND's all fork or somewhere else. If

(33:00):
it's full, you're talking several hundred dollars just for a weekend.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Aving absolutely, I just like I said, I.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Have, I have the thought process that I didn't start
it to make a ton of money. I started it
for the reason that I want to find an answer
to the fricking an the question does it or does
it not? Exist? In Ohio? And holding a conference charging
ninety five dollars or however many dollars you charge for

(33:29):
a VIP GIT ticket is not the way to find
the answer. The way to find the answer is to
get out there into the woods and look for the thing,
field the reports and do the research. If you really
got down to the grass tax of it, you want
to have another weekend where you can look for it.
Don't hold the conference at all, and a plan is simple.

(33:53):
You know, I'm I was born in Ohio, but I
take the attitude I'm from Missouri to show. You want
to prove something to me, Let's see your let's see
your evidence. If you want to prove something exists, get
your butt out there in the field on a regular basis,
and don't advertise days, weeks, or months in advance where
you're going to be. Get out in the field, do

(34:14):
your stuff, and try to find an answer to the
dang question does it or does it not exist? That's
what we did for years and years and years. We
went out to the field. We took our micro cassette
recorders with us. I preached every time you get out
of my car, you better have a tape recorder recording
because if you don't. And thirty seconds later we hear

(34:35):
a noise that sounds ungodly. I'm gonna ask you, did
you get it on tape? Oh? Well, I think I
forgot the batteries at home. Then go home, plain and simple.
You see something walking across the road fifty yards in
front of you, and I had my back to you,
and you tell me about it. How long did you
see it? Five seconds. Do you get a picture? H

(35:00):
forgot to buy the film for the camera? Really go home?
You know, I don't mean to sound shrewd about it,
but as Renee de Heimdon said, you're dealing with one
of the biggest anthropological and physiological events undiscovered animals of mankind.

(35:25):
And if you're not going to go out there to
look for the thing the way it should be looked for,
there's no reason for you to do it. He I
also like to paraphrase him on this, and I'm sure
he wouldn't mind me saying this, but he says, don't
go out into the forest looking for bigfoot behind every
pineapple tree, because you're going to see it behind every

(35:46):
pine apple tree. You don't go out into the field
looking for Bigfoot thinking, well, guess what, just because there
was a siding out there on road X Y Z
a month ago, we're going to see it again. No,
you're not, because five minutes after that witness seen that
creature cross road X, Y and Z, it's long gone. Folks,

(36:08):
you ain't gonna see it again unless you're extremely lucky.
And if you're that lucky, you better start playing the lawry.
You know, when I started doing this stuff Back in
nineteen eighty four, I was like, dang, how do how
does John Green? How does Grover Krantz? How does Peter Burn?
How does Renee to him? And do this? And at
that time they had only been into it for like

(36:29):
twenty or twenty five years. I say only because that
sounds like a small number for me now, but they
had been into it for twenty twenty five years. I'm thinking, like,
how do they do this without losing their sanity? You know?
And I've had the opportunity to stay at John Green's
house three days and two nights and look through all
of his index cards, all his plaster castings, all the

(36:51):
maps on his walls, and had every pinpoint location across
British Columbia and Alberta, Washington, Oregon, Northern idahom On Hannah pinpointed.
And they did it every year because they continued with
the hope that that report that they fielded would be
the inevitable answer to the question. I used to think that, well, no,

(37:14):
you don't have to go out and bag a sasquatch
to prove that the sasquatch exists. Maybe you do, maybe
you don't. I had the privilege of sitting beside doctor
Griver Krantz right beside him, two feet away from him.
We sit there and just talked at the symposium in
nineteen ninety seven while everybody else is inside listening to
somebody talk about UFO abductions. And I asked him. I said, no,

(37:39):
you know, I've asked you this question before, Griver, but
I'm gonna ask you again since I'm sitting here in
person with you. I'd like to hear the words come
straight out of your mouth, and I can see your
mouth moving. What would you require for the scientific proof
to say a sasquatch exists? And Griver told me, he said,
you need a substantial part of the body. If you

(38:00):
find a dead one land in the woods and you've
got the ability to take parts of if you don't
have the ability to take the entire body out, and
you can take the extremities, do that and then get
the heck out of there. And I said, what do
you mean the extremities? She said, two hands, two feet
in the head. And if you can do that and
you can stomach get in it, you better get out fast.

(38:20):
And I said, well, why is that? He said, because
where there's one. There is more than one. And if
you just dissected Uncle Joe, his Neph's not going to
be too happy.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
About it, could you imagine.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, And so that's what he told me. Dahn then
had a slightly different opinion. John Green had a slightly
different opinion. I had John Green at my regular meeting
of the Eastern High a big Foot study group in
January of nineteen seventy or nineteen eighty nine, and he
stood there and he talked for an hour and a

(38:53):
half to the audience. There was a decent audience turnout then,
of course it was in January, but it would have
been nice to have seen three or four hundred people
show up to hear what you had to say. Unfortunately,
he's gone now, you know. And the stories that he
told it the at that meeting, as well as the
stories that he told me at his house and all

(39:14):
this are what I would consider to be quote unquote priceless.
So I don't mean to go off on a tangent
on different aspects of it, but you know, I can
understand how those four guys got so roud when they
see a newbie go out into the field and they
think they have the answer and that their way is

(39:35):
going to be the way to prove a sasquatch exists. Well,
maybe it is, but you know, don't brag about it
and boast about it until it happens, because nothing is
a guaranteed thing. There aren't too guaranteed. Two guaranteed things
in life, you know what they are, death and taxes.
I don't look I don't look forward to either one

(39:56):
of them, you know, So as as a they handed,
or as a Peterburn would say onward.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Considering you've spent so much of your life in Ohio,
to you, what is what would be let's say, the
single best piece of Ohio evidence to date.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Well, first you would have to classify what evidence is.
If evidence is a footprint or a plaster cast of
a footprinter a series of footprints. As I hear the
theme song for Jeopardy in the background, Jeopardy, I'm sorry, Alex,

(40:52):
I'm gonna lose this one. Uh you know, well, you know,
I mean, we don't think there's that much in the
way of really earth shaking evidence from Ohio to begin with.
I believe the creature is here. If it wasn't at
one time it is, or if it isn't now it
was at one time. There have been some spectacular signings

(41:13):
that have been turned into me. I guess let's just say, okay,
let's say that some of these sidings are evidence. Whish
they're not. But you know that's the first part of
a trial.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
I wouldn't it is It would be considered anecdotal evidence, right.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Right, Okay, So let's say some of the best anecdotal
evidence would be this, the minerval Monster, the Rome, Ohio
episode of events that took place in nineteen eighty one,
maneuver that took place in nineteen seventy eight. I'm not
quite sure about MacArthur in southern Ohio because there was
some I want to tell you something. There was really

(41:48):
weird stuff that took place in MacArthur, and I believe
the year was nineteen seventy eight. There is some bizarre
stuff that took place down there. Myself, Tom Archer and
several friends of his went down there, and I don't
remember what the year was. It was in the mid
to late nineteen eighties to MacArthur, to the a Frame House.
It was so well known to the Experimental Forest. Let

(42:11):
me tell you something. The Experimental Forest is not for
the weak minded or for the for the week not minded.
But what's what's the word I'm looking at? It's not
for the person that gets scared easily.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
What can you can we can we expound on that?
Can you can you talk more about? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Sure, you walk through the experimental forest. There's not supposed
to be anybody in there, right, It's supposed to be
a single person in the experimental forest at all. We're
talking about Wayne National Forest here.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
For people that don't know what the experimental forest is?
Can you give just a little bit of background on it?

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Well, the way I understand it, and it'll be very
brief because I'm not up on too much of it.
But I believe if I understood it correctly, it was
in Wayne National Forest and the Mead Paper Company located
in Chili COOFE owned it. Okay, So we go in there,
go in there when there's plenty of daylight, we walk
this trail. I think one of the guys was armed,
but I wouldn't swear to it, but I'm happy that

(43:07):
they were because in the experimental forest, you know, supposedly
rabbits go in their normals sze and they come out
three or four times bigger than they're supposed to be.
But that being said, we walk around there is not
I kid you not. There's two really weird events that
took place in the experimental forest, and I was a firsthand,

(43:28):
number one eye witness to both of these, and they
still kind of make me a little nervous every time
I think about. The first thing that happened was we're
walking along and the valleys are really deep. I mean
you're dropping a couple three hundred feet to get down
to the creek down below where you're walking out on
the road. Right. This is in an area where there's
nobody that lives. There's no houses, there's no tents, there's

(43:51):
no nothing that's private property, so to speak. Suddenly you
see floating lights that have no rhyme or reason, no
connection to any person, and apparently no connection to any flashlight,
because we yelled down at him several times to let

(44:11):
them know that we were up where we were at,
and there wasn't a single response. Floating lights. I remember
them very vividly. They were bluish white and yellowish white
in color, and they didn't they weren't They didn't bounce
up and down like they would when a person would
typically walk through the woods or down the street or whatever.

(44:32):
They just floated like an or so to speak. Now,
when we got out of the area, thank god, and
it started going back, Tom says, hey, let's stop at
the A frame house. Okay, sure, So we stopped at
the A frame house, and of course it's an a
frame We walked up to it because there was a
bandon at this point in time. We looked in the

(44:52):
two doors, two sliding glass doors, and we can see
the moonlight they were shining on some stuff because there
were lights, ceiling lights let in the moonlight at night.
And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this
blueish white, for lack of better terms, light materializes out

(45:13):
of nowhere. It floats around inside the inside of the
A frame house, and then it just disappears. Really and
so you gotta stay to yourself, what in sam hill
am I doing investigating this kind of stuff? So you

(45:33):
don't there's no there's no logical answer for it. There
was nobody there, where did it come from? Where did
it go? And it didn't it wasn't self luminescent. I
shouldn't say that it wasn't one of these lights where
it would shine a beam down to the floor to
see where it's going. It was just a bluish white.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
There was illumination, but it wasn't anything direct.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah, it didn't shine on things to make it look
like there was a flashlight shine like the fireplace.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
You know. Don in one of my most in one
of the most early paranormal investigations that I had done.
It was it was just thrown together. It was something
that my kids grew up watching ghost hunters and ghost
adventures and stuff like that. And we had a very old,

(46:27):
very small cemetery that was not far from the house.
Summer night. It was beautiful night, it was dark. We
went out there about ten thirty. We got to the
gates and I told my excuse me, I told my
kids and a couple of their friends. I said, listen,

(46:49):
we're not here to screw around. We're not here to
be disrespectful. I said, let's just go in. Remember that
we are walking in an area that people are laid
to rest, and let's respect that. Let's just see if
we can experience anything. And we had a couple of

(47:14):
things happened throughout the night, but the most significant thing
at the at the we had made our way to
the back of the cemetery and then worked our way
back forward to buy where the car was, excuse me,
and near the end of it, my daughter had called
me back into this one corner of the cemetery and

(47:39):
there were two very large trees, and then when you
walk between those trees there were one or two, maybe
three monuments, and my daughter had said, dead, dead, Dad,
come back here. I think she was like fourteen or fifteen.
She says, it's really cold back here. And I'm thinking
to myself, you know, of course you've been watching ghost

(48:01):
adventures and all these things. You know, sure it's cold.
So I walked between those trees to go back to
where she was, and sure enough, as soon as I
walked between those trees, the temperature was considerably lower. Now,
as I said before, this was about ten thirty eleven,
maybe going on eleven o'clock, so it was dark. The

(48:22):
sun hadn't been beating down on the on that property
for hours, so walking from where I was to where
she was, that difference in temperature was pretty significant and
very noticeable. I had a camquarder in one hand that
was filming, and I had a Kodak digital camera in

(48:48):
my other hand, which I was taking pictures with, but
I had the the cam quarder was rolling and we
stood there in front of this monument that might have
been six feet tall. Reminded me of the Washington Monument,
you know, very very tall, narrow, with a kind of
a pyramid at the top of it, and it was

(49:08):
it was polished, it was I assume it was granite.
And as we were standing there, I wasn't looking at
the viewfinder in the camcorder, but it was pointed to it,
and luckily as this happened, I was pointed at that,
so I got it on film. And what we saw

(49:31):
was about about maybe a little bit smaller than the
size of a golf ball, which came out of absolute
thin air in front of us. It much like what
you just said it It had an illumination to it,
but it did not illuminate anything around it. It was

(49:53):
like a self illuminated but there was nothing about the
light source that was glowing on anything else. And it
came into our perception and it zipped around in a
you know, kind of like a figure eight, and then

(50:13):
just burned out. It just poof. It was gone, and
my daughter, who like I said, was fourteen, maybe maybe fifteen,
standing there beside me, going holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,
holy shit. Did you see that? And you know, I mean,

(50:34):
I love my daughter and I'm not stupid. I know
that she talks like that, but you know at that
point you're wanting to correct her and say, hey, don't
talk like that. But what we saw was that was
holy shit because there was a light source that came
out of nothing, out of nowhere. It wasn't a firefly,
it wasn't a bug, it wasn't a moth that got

(50:59):
you know, A light was shining on it and it
just flickered. This thing came out of nowhere on its own,
zipped around, and then poof was gone. And I ended
up taking that recording. I still cannot bring myself to
throw away the hard drive that it is on, but
I have not been able to access that hard drive

(51:20):
for about ten years now. I still have it. I
could take you into my house right now. I can
show you where that hard drive is, but I can't
access at that video. But I had at the time,
I had slowed the film down at twenty five fifty

(51:40):
and seventy five percent of the original speed, and even
at seventy five percent of the original speed, it was
maybe three and a half seconds worth of footage. It
was that fast where it came out of nowhere, turned
into a small ball of light, zipped around and then

(52:02):
poof was gone.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah, that's that's it sounds like you know what we're
seeing down there at the A frame. It just appeared
and kind of like moved around a little bit and
then it just disappeared.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
You know, as far as far as you're concerned, when
when you start getting into stories like what we just
talked about, where where does your head lie on the
idea of I don't mean necessarily whether or not you
think these things are paranormal, or if they are aliens,

(52:42):
or if they're traversing through portals or anything like that.
But you know, when you when you do start to
consider a sizable portion of of many encounters do seem
to include things that we would considered to be even

(53:03):
more odd, even more I guess paranormal is the best,
the best phrase, but I don't mean it in ghosty stuff.
It's just beyond our what our normal scope of understanding is.
Where do you where do you fallow?

Speaker 2 (53:20):
With that, well, you know, after rather being involved full
time or just behind the shadows, so to speak, for
for forty years plus. Uh, you know you have you
can't just ignore it, sweep it under the rug and
say it doesn't exist. That being said, I you know,

(53:45):
there's got to be something out there that is considered
the definitive proof as to whether or not Sasquatch exists. Now,
if that something is a flying saucer that hovers over Rome, Ohio,

(54:07):
that's the beam down to the cornfield, and a Bigfoot
creature comes out of the beam and walks through the cornfield,
then so be it. At least we have an answer.
But I've heard numerous stories. I had a lot of
people attend my Track County and or Try State big

(54:28):
footstead Of group in my Eastern Hot big Foot stead
Of group back in the day who were avid UFO believers.
I mean they were avid. And when I attended the
Track County Ufo stead a group and alliance, they were
more avid up there than what they were at my
Bigfoot meeting. And I'm not going I cannot look at

(54:49):
a person and say you're wrong. And I won't look
at a person and say you're wrong, because everybody has
a reason for their theory or for their belief, or
for the idea, or whatever the case may be. Be
it all the reportse that they've heard, all the investigations
they've done, or all of the experiences that they've had,

(55:09):
they have in their own mind a reason for why
they believe the way they do as to what the
definitive answer is to what this thing is, or where
it's from, or whatever the case may be. I will
never tell anybody that they're incorrect, because that's very disrespectful
for one thing, and I don't have all the answers.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Yeah, it's incredibly dismissive.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, so you can't. You can't tell them. It's like
Ron Schafner used to use a saying and they use
it at the Track County UFOs ditit ridicule without investigation
is the crown of ignorance upon the head of a fool.
So I mean, no matter how much you investigate. Although
I will say that I've heard of a few stories

(55:55):
from Pennsylvania where somebody was out in the forest. They
had a shotgun with them. They've seen a big in
the distance. They shot at it. There was a flash
light and little and behold the thing disappeared. Well, I'm
not an avid hunter. I don't even hunt. I don't
own a gun. But correct me if I'm wrong. But
when you shoot a shotgun, isn't there a little flash
of light that comes out of it?

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (56:16):
You know, So maybe the creature disappeared pretty quick, before
it got a chance to come rip your head off
for shooting at it, or before you got another shot
off at it. And you might have just thought that
the thing disappeared into a break flash of light because
you were so scared to death to begin with you
took a shot at it.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
Uh, So, you know, I could dismiss a couple of
reports like that saying that, you know, I don't think
they disappeared in a flash of light. They could have,
but I wasn't there, so I can't say definitively one
way or the other. But all I know is, for
as many years as this thing has been talked about
across North America around the world, there's got to be

(56:57):
something out there. Ay Hendon's said one time, and I'm
not going to paraphrase him because I'm not going to
use the profanity, but he said, there's got to be
something making them footprints. You can go back even before
nineteen fifty eight for the the Jerry Crue incident. You

(57:18):
know there's got to be something making those footprints. And
if you take John Green said, take every siding report
in my file, in my index files, and throw them
out as misidentification, as a hoax, as whatever you want

(57:39):
to say. Throw every one of them out, with the
exception of one. And if that one is a legitimate,
true to earth siding of what we call a sasquatch creature,
guess what we have a problem. Yeah, and that problem

(58:02):
is there's something out there, and I don't know of
anyone who has been able to throw every single siding out.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
You used the word misidentification, and that led me to
something that I wanted to get in two with you.
If you could take us back to September of eighty five,
what what exactly did you see on that night.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
While we were out there. We were using a recording
that Tom Marsher had with him. Uh, it was it
was a It was a dramatization of what people think
is a big foot sound. So we were playing it
time and time again. This is an area in far
northern burnas the County, four miles south of Newcombers, down
where there had been and it wasn't by me, but

(58:53):
there had been numerous countless citing the track discoveries animals
coming up missing right on this small area of land,
and we played the sound over and over again. There
were four of us, myself, Tom Archer, one of the
residents who had lived out there, in another researcher from
northeast Ohio. Myself and Tom were at the frontend of

(59:14):
his car in the driveway. The third researcher was up
at the I believe it was in the southeast corner
of an old dilapidated barn with the resident. So those
two guys were up there, and Tom and I were
at the front end of his car. And there are

(59:37):
golden rod weeds. Anybody that's familiar with them know they
grow four to five feet high at their fullest during
the fall, early fall, golden rod weeds that covered that
entire open field there to the north of the property,
or the north end of the property, between the barn
and the house. And something caught my attention that was

(59:58):
starting to come into that field of golden rod weeds.
And here's how here's a perfect example as to being
caught off guard. I had a thirty five millimeter shin
on camera hanging around my neck with the flash on.
Hanging around my neck with the flash on, this thing

(01:00:19):
walks towards me, and I yelled at it three or
four times. I think I said Mark, or something to
that fact. I said, Mark, Mark, I'm down here. And
it just kept walking like towards the chicken pin that
was out there, and it stopped a short distance a
short distance from the chicken pin, and then it walked

(01:00:39):
straight away from me towards the northeast, about twice as
fast as it had come towards the chickenpin. And it
was very light in color, and it was it was
a good bit taller than what those golden rod weeds were.
I would say that the waste of the thing was

(01:00:59):
as as a golden rod, and the golden rod was
between four and five feet high. And to prove the
fact that something had walked through that field, the next day,
myself and the northeast of higher researcher went back out
there and we found a very clear trail at the
exact location from where I seen it walk into the

(01:01:20):
field walk to the chicken pin and then walk away
twice as fast as it had come down into the
area of the chicken pen. And again. That was September
fifteenth of eighty five at ten oh four pm, give
or take a couple of minutes. And the reason I
mentioned the camera is I never even thought I forgot

(01:01:43):
about the camera hanging around my neck. If I had
been to my wits end, I or to my you know,
thinking logically, I would have picked it up and snapped
a picture in that area. Now, if it was something else,
it might have got a little aggravator or whatever because
of flash was just shot in this direction. It might
have been a different story. But that's that's you know,

(01:02:07):
that could have been a sasquatch. I don't know. I
know it was big enough, I know it was tall enough.
I know it was walking quite rapidly when it walked away.
Because there have been numerous sightings out there. There was
one night when the researcher from Northeast Ohio and won
of the residents, the same two guys that in fact

(01:02:28):
they were up at the corner of the barn that night.
They were sitting on the steps at the backside of
the house. Not my story theirs. They both verified it
together and individually. At one point in time, they were
looking out across an open field that had high wings

(01:02:50):
in it, three feet high or whatever, and at one
point in time they seen no less than six sets
of self luminescence red glowing eyes at different heights at
the same time. And my response to them is the

(01:03:15):
same response you're having right now. I had no idea
what to say about that. I couldn't look at them
and say, what kind of rocky tobacco were you guys smoking?
You know, But they were straight as an arrow because
they were drinking pop and they didn't do that kind
of thing. You know. So you've heard of lightning bugs,

(01:03:38):
you've heard of glow worms. Those are two creatures that
we know exist, tiny little things, and they're self luminescence.
Why can't a sasquatch have something in its makeup, its
eyes that, at some point in time or another, their
eyes let off a glow like a firefly does, or

(01:03:59):
like a a glow worm does. There's not a single
place on the face of the earth that is one
hundred percent dark at night, not a single place. No
matter where you go, you have to go subterranean. To
get to complete darkness, such as a cave, because there's

(01:04:20):
plenty of ambient light out there if your if your
eyes are adjusted well enough, even on a I mean,
if it's on a clear knight, you're going to get
ambient light. If it's not a cloudy nights, you're gonna
get even more ambient light because the cloud cover roll
keep the light from nearby towns from being shot up
out into space. So I guess my point is there

(01:04:41):
is light that is out there for creatures that have
the ability to make their eyes shine at night, or
their bodies or whatever, like the glowworm. And so I
used to think, well, now that's really bizarre. Well it's
not so bizarre because I can look at fireflies and
glow worms every year. They're not bizarre. You just got

(01:05:03):
in a word to look for him. They have a way
of doing that. Well. In the back of the eye,
there is what the call I believe it's called the
tape tum. It's a mirror in the back of every
person's eye. And that used to be why you always
got red eyeshine from Aunt Mary when you shot a
photo of he at Christmas time in her best looking sweater.

(01:05:24):
And she says, I got red eyes. Well, yeah, I know,
but sorry, I couldn't do anything about it because flash
reflected off the back of the mirror in the back
of the eye. So did I answer your question adequately
or did I go off on a tangent again?

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
H yeah, you might have gone on a tangent. But
I think it's all It's all good because I mean, ultimately,
we're here just to have a discussion about, you know,
the weirdness and what the hell these things are.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
You know, I've been doing this since nineteen eighty four.
I was interested in nineteen eighty. I wrote an article
for the Newcomers down New Was in October of eighty
about some incidents that were taking place at Lake is Left,
four miles southwest of where I live. And then I
got out of it. And then I read John Green's book.
I always blamed John for making me totally totally crazy,

(01:06:11):
and he said, you're welcome. But I I've got if
you've seen my basement and know how many videotapes are
in my basement or how many audio tapes are in
my basement photos, I've got all that stuff, and we

(01:06:37):
still don't have an answer to the question as to
whether or not it exists. You know about that one.
The next time you go to the library, you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Know you bring up you bring up that point, and
I don't know. Do I want to know what it is? Yes? Absolutely?
Do I want to know de finishtively if we have
been led astray and it's just been an absolute pile
of horse dung, or if there is something to it.

(01:07:11):
Do I necessarily need to know what it is? No,
but I do need to know if it exists or not,
because you know, in the in the job that I do,
my job is to talk to people who have had experiences.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Right, and not that I didn't mean to interrupt you,
But then that brings up an interesting question that I
opposed to you as being a as an as a
question or for the past forty plus years and witnesses,
and you're not necessarily a witness. But then I ask
you this question, and you've talked to all these people
on your show for the past few years, A real
quick answer, does it or does it not exist?

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
In your opinion?

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Absolutely? Okay, there are there are people who have had
experiences that are mundane and trivial and to most people
would probably seem like, yeah, so what. But to be

(01:08:20):
honest with you, is some of those experiences that the
people that I've talked to, some of those are the
more interesting to me because I think it's one of
the components of human nature is you know, I had
an experience hunting where something was walking behind me. I

(01:08:47):
could turn it into a classic I was being paste
out of the woods. At the time, I thought it
was the landowner because I had ventured onto property. It
was not mine not to hunt it. I had left
my weapon back at my tree stand on the property.
I did have right to hunt, but it was just

(01:09:10):
a very interesting piece of property. There was wetlands, there
was grass that was obviously bedded down in from the deer.
There was a significant area of white pines where the
turkeys would roost. It was just a very interesting piece
of property. As I was walking out of that property

(01:09:30):
back to where I had the right to hunt, I
started hearing something walk behind me. At first, for the
first couple of minutes, I thought it was a landowner.
I stopped. I clearly had my arms down at my
side to show that I didn't have any weapon. I
stood there. He never said anything, and so I started

(01:09:51):
to walk again. When I started to walk, it started
to walk halfway back to my hunting stand. Even though
Bigfoot was a part of my enthusiasm and my enjoyment
of all things weird and strange, what actually took over
was I thought that I had a very large buck

(01:10:16):
who decided to follow me back to my deer stand,
thinking that I might have deer estress on me from
a previous hunting trip, and it was smelling that on me, so,
you know, So the rest of that story wound up
being I thought that this was a By the time

(01:10:38):
I got back to where I could reach my shotgun,
this was the largest buck that southwestern Michigan had ever seen,
and I was going to be all over the newspapers
and whatever. You know, I've only been hunting a couple
of years and I got this world record white tail.
At the point where it let go of a volume

(01:11:02):
us very very loud grunt accompanied by a very large
exhale of breath kind of simultaneously. I mean, I can't really,

(01:11:27):
I couldn't repeat it, but it was it was. It
was a grunt and a and another noise, but then
there was the the sound of the actual exhale as
and then I heard thump thump, and I had reached
my gun, I had had it pulled up, and I

(01:11:48):
was getting Ultimately, I was getting ready to turn and
expected to see a large buck within twenty feet of
where I was standing. Well, I heard that volumeless exhale
and that room and I heard thump thump, and I
turned and there was nothing there. And I stepped back

(01:12:10):
onto the property that I didn't have rights to to
look in the direction that I heard it. I didn't
see any twigs moving, I didn't see any leaves falling
back down to the ground. I didn't see anything I
fully expected to see, you know, a white tail sticking
out of one side of a big tree, and the
nostrils and the nose of a deer sticking out of

(01:12:32):
the other side of the tree, completely clear, you know,
keeping me from taking a shot. Yeah, but there was nothing.
And kind of after I got my my sense is back,
you know, the beating of my heart and everything kind
of slowed down a little bit. I decided, you know,
there was only a couple of minutes left of hunting light,
so I decided to walk back to where my car

(01:12:55):
was parked and As I walked out of the the
woods and got into the field, I directly turned so
that the woodline was on the left of me and
started walking back to my car, which was about three
hundred yards maybe three hundred and fifty yards away. As

(01:13:18):
I was walking, I pulled my flashlight out off my
utility belt like Batman, and I shind it into the
woods because I continued to hear something walking in the
leaves along my left hand side. And my son, if

(01:13:41):
he listens to this, would attest he and I have
both have fetishes for the best flashlights. I always looking
for something smaller and brighter and more powerful. And we
love flashlights and we love multi tools. That's what we
spent a lot of our money. And you know, I

(01:14:02):
had this. I had this flashlight and it would light
up the night. And I two thirds of the way
back to my car, I heard this walking in the
leaves just inside maybe ten feet maybe fifteen feet inside
the tree line. I'm probably five yards outside of the

(01:14:26):
tree line. And I never saw a damn thing move.
I never saw a leaf get moved. I never saw
a twig on one of the low lying brush move.
But yet I heard the crunch crunch, crunch. Could I
discern between bipedal and quadrupedal? I would like to think

(01:14:50):
that I've spent enough time having a dog in my
life that I know the difference between something that walks
across the floor and sounds like it has four legs
versus two legs in the woods instead of a hardwood floor.
I don't know that you can really make that assessment.
All I know is I continued to hear it two
thirds of the way back to my car. Never saw

(01:15:11):
anything move, never saw a twig move, never saw any
sign of life. And at about the point that I
got near the back of the home that was the
property that I was hunting on, the motion sensor picked
me up and kicked on. Didn't shine directly at me,

(01:15:33):
It shined more at their backyard, but it picked up
my motion. It kicked on, and from that point to
the rest of the rest of my journey to my car,
I didn't hear another word or another sound. Was it bigfoot?
Have no idea? Probably not? Was it something I clearly

(01:15:54):
remember it? It was? It left quite an impact on me.
It wasn't until a couple of years later, maybe three
years afterwards, that I kind of started putting together two
and two with already having looked into how many people
I've had discussed the same type of stuff again, for

(01:16:17):
the most part, you know, I thought it was a
large deer that I just missed out on. But then
it kind of started getting weird and it kind of
started playing on my brain. So I don't know, you know,
what was that?

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
Right? Yeah, I've had an encounter or somewhere of that
way back in the late eighties, just south in Theircomers
down when we were going to the what they call
the Postboy Tunnel. It was an old railroad bed, and
I had someone who told me that they had also
had an encounter where something seemed like it was just

(01:16:54):
pacing them for a period of time. And it was
the same way with us, as there were four of
us out there, and we all four were very quiet
and listening to our surroundings, and it sounded like something
was pacing us as well. So who knows.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
It's it's a it's a bizarre it's a very interesting thing.
I love the I love the mystery of it. I
hope it is what I think it is. Yeah, And
I would without harm coming to it, would love to

(01:17:40):
I gotta be careful how I word this, because if
if it was brought to light publicly, then the searches
on even more so than it already is. And I
don't I think it deserves the respect of being left alone.

(01:18:00):
But I also think that as humanity deserves to know
what this is. So if we could achieve that in
encompassing both of those aspects, have the heart to at
least recognize that it's real and be able to stay

(01:18:24):
away from it and let it do its thing, that
that would be great. I don't think that it's possible, right,
but you know, and you know, you got.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
To remember that the silverback guerrilla as well as the
panda weren't scientifically accepted to exist until like the early
nineteen hundreds, and so you know, they had been around
for eons, but yet science didn't get off of its
soapbox until they had that evidence in their laboratory or

(01:18:58):
in the zoo, whatever it was required to be. And well, well,
I guess there is a little black and white bear
that stands up rat and and there is been this
big old gorilla that's got a silver back that could
clean my clock in three seconds flat if it wanted
to well.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
We have a here in northern Indiana, we have a
we have a dinosaur museum, which I did not expect
it to be much, you know, we we went there
on a kind of on a whim and and it
was it was a lot better than what I expected.
I mean, it wasn't like we went to Chicago and

(01:19:39):
you know, the Field Museum or anything like that, but
it was. It was. It was interesting, and they had
a lot of really good exhibits in there. But the
one that really got me was there was a an animation,
a very good computer animation of h a silverback gorilla

(01:20:04):
and the evolutionary transformation that would have taken place between
that gorilla and what we consider be modern man. And
you know, it kind of starts by stripping away the
fur and then you know, kind of peeling away the

(01:20:26):
muscle structure, and you get to the bone, and as
it gets to the skeletal system, then it starts transforming
into the various different versions of us leading up to
what would be present day man. And I pulled my
cell phone out and then after watching it three or
four times, I pulled my cell phone out and I

(01:20:47):
actually took a video of it, because.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
It in a sense, it makes it, you know, I
had the opportunity to stand next to Shaquille O'Neal in
person seven foot two. I'm five nine on a good day. Yeah,
that is a significant difference in not only height, but

(01:21:20):
in the prime. When he was in his prime, he
was a very muscular, very robust individual. Yeah, and just
the difference in size and at five nine, I've always
been a stocky guy. I was always in my mid

(01:21:41):
two hundred and twenty two hundred and twenty five pound
even when I was in the best shape of my life,
and I used to fight as a bouncer in a bar.
I was you know, I was a small dude. And
when you stand next to somebody that is that big,
and then you relate that to so many, so many

(01:22:05):
people who have had eyewitness experiences with these things calling
in in the neighborhood of seven to eight foot tall
and then the outliers that call in at you know,
nine foot plus. I don't know if you're familiar with
Robert Krider out of New Mexico, a researcher claims the

(01:22:28):
individual that he has in his area of research cress
well over ten foot and the exponential size increase from
somebody that's five nine to six nine and six nine

(01:22:50):
to seven nine. You know you're not talking, You're not
just talking an extra twenty or thirty pounds because they
have a foot more height. The weight exponentially increases because
of the size and the frame and man to be
able to stand there and witness something that would be

(01:23:13):
manlike at eight foot tall, you know, the description of
something at six to seven to eight hundred pounds. It
really puts it into perspective that it's not that far
out of reach, because I mean, any one of us
can go into Walmart and see somebody at three hundred

(01:23:34):
and fifty to four hundred pounds. They don't have that
they don't have that weight, but you know those they
don't have that height, but that weight is you know,
especially in America today, it's not that far out of
the realm of possibility.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
And don't forget you could always look up and I
had his name in my mind thirty seconds gall what
it was the world's tallest man. I think his fir
his name.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
Was Waldo, Yeah, world records.

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):
Yeah, yeah, seven foot eleven and three quarter inches tall. Yeah,
and he wasn't fat no, and you take a look
at the you take him, look at him besides a
quote unquote average sized person, and you're like, you know,
you hear a lot of reports for this thing is
eight foot tall, and it's three feet across the shoulder

(01:24:28):
or across the shoulders, across the chest, and it's pure
estimated several hundred pounds, seven eight hundred pounds, nine hundred pounds.
You know, the first question I would have is where
is it going to stay hidden?

Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
And what in the world does this thing eat? And
I know what the answer would be, but what what
is this thing to eat to sustain all that mass?
And I guess the answer would be whatever it wants.
But you know, as this is, there's there's a lot
more m questions and what there are answers. I'm afraid,

(01:25:05):
and I don't know how long it'll be until we
get the answer that we need or want. You know,
I really don't, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
I know we're coming up in about a half hour
and a half here, and I still have a couple
of things i'd like to ask if you, if you
have the time. The Sasquatch Triangle. You're noted for having
spent an inordinate amount of hours traversing the Sasquatch Triangle

(01:25:36):
researching that area. For for the listeners who wouldn't know,
can you can you kind of lay out where the
triangle is.

Speaker 2 (01:25:47):
Yeah, on a map and you take a look at
a map in eastern Ohio and you connect the dots
from Conesville to Newcomers Town to Salt Fork State Park,
and that geographical area is the Sasquash Triangle. We came
up with that turn back in nineteen eighty and wanted

(01:26:09):
to say nineteen eighty seven. It was in the spring
of eighty seven when I held a one week quote
unquote expedition. We weren't out there day and night because
we had jobs, but it was a commitment to go
out into the woods every day and evening and early
night to see if we could find her, hear anything,
or whatever. And the Sasquatsh Triangle area is contained in

(01:26:34):
parts of Coachhockton, Guernsey, and Tuscaross Counties. In Coshocton County,
you have two wildlife areas. One is known as the
Woodbury Wildlife Area that's in central and northern northwestern Coshocton
County and the other is known as the Columbus and
Southern Coolands, which is in far southern coachh Ackton into

(01:26:55):
northern Muskingham County. It hoges the Willis Creek area, will
Basin and that's the Sasquash Triangle. That's we we just did.
We found out, you know, in nineteen eighty seven that
phrase hasn't been hadn't had not been coined yet. And
we were talking to the reporters because the local paper

(01:27:15):
sent a reporter and a photographer with us every day
of that expedition, and they said, well, that's like a
triangular area. And I said, oh, let me look and
see what you're talking about. And I said, yeah, that's
that's like a triangular area. And so the first time
that that phrase was coined was in the local newspaper
and the headline read Stalking the Sasquatsh Triangle. And from

(01:27:37):
there it just took off like wildfire. And that's where
the Sasquash Triangle is. There were numerous track discoveries and
signings that had taken place in that geographical area, and
to my knowledge is still could be active today, but
there aren't that many people that are doing anything active
out there as far as investigations are concerned.

Speaker 1 (01:27:58):
So with with all the investigation that you guys did
in that area during that time, and and considering that
back at in that time, your your your goal was
the collection of of uh information related to people's experiences sightings,

(01:28:27):
you know, kind of data mining if you will. What
kind of behavioral patterns or seasonal rhythms did you find
that kind of have stood the test of time, actually
held up over decades.

Speaker 2 (01:28:45):
As far as this excuse me, as far as this
animal is concerned as being active, I think it's just
one of those things where the warmer it gets, the
more active it is, you know, and the quarter it gets,
the less active it is. Do I think they take
Interstate seventy seven down the South Carolina and then hop
on a whatever other interstate it is to go to

(01:29:08):
Florida for the winter. No, I think they semi hibernate.
They might find an area of heavy growth for pine
trees and stay under those areas. I discovered one thing,
and that's kind of surprising for some people to believe
of me, But I discovered something several years ago when

(01:29:29):
I was walking in the forest of Coshocton County, and
it was freaking freezing cold outside. One show had to
be well with those zeros, it's sunny day. But I
was crazy enough to go out there anyway, half a
foot or more of snow on the ground. We're walking along,
and I said, let's go into those pines up there
and see if we can find anything like better down areas.

(01:29:50):
All right, so you know how pine tree grows, you
know how the branches are, how they're configured. We get
under the pine tree, it's a sunny day. Notice is
like thirty degrees warmer under there. There's no wind, no
wind show. There's next to nothing in the way of
snow on the ground. Allah, If you're a wild animal

(01:30:11):
and you want to get out of the elements, wouldn't
you find common sense to get into an area that's
like this. Sure, maybe they hide in amongst the pines
or the heavy forest growth where the wind can't penetrate
the inside of that growth, or the snow doesn't accumulate
heavily underneath.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
Their natural wind breaks.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
Yeah, exactly, So that could be, you know, but I
think the most the most active times in this part
of the state are anywhere between March and November, and
then the rest and you have to have a couple
of different things for deciding to take place. You have
to have a big foot creature. You have to have
an eyewitness spot the big foot creature, and then you

(01:30:54):
have to have the eye witness contact a researcher. And
then that research sure has to be open enough to
disseminate that information and amongst other researchers so that the
general public and other researchers know that, hey, guess what
a siding just took place. We have to have all
that information come together so we can get an idea

(01:31:15):
as to when they may or may not be active.

Speaker 1 (01:31:19):
Is there one thing that you can pull from all
of the stories that you've heard, all of the people
that you've talked to have had experiences. Is there one
thing that still bothers you because it shouldn't exist if
sasquatch is not real.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
Yeah, I would probably have to side with Prance on
that one. The lack of a body or the lack
of bones. I know in Ohio we have what they
call it your mouse der mice. They are calcium feeders
and they'll scarf up a dead deer and no time
at all. But the deer is not as big as
a big foot. And you know there's coyotes in every

(01:32:16):
county in Ohio, eighty eight counties. There's an increasing population
of black bear, there's an increasing population of mountain lion.
So I would say that the biggest thing that's still

(01:32:37):
It doesn't make me lose sleep at night at night
unless I'm seriously thinking about why it hasn't been discovered.
But the one thing that really bothers me is the
fact that there's no hard evidence that you can poke.
There's no bones, there is no body, there's there's nothing

(01:32:58):
like that, you know. So the oceans cover seventy percent
of the Earth, and a very minute fraction of the
oceans have ever been explored, and an even smaller number
of the aquatic life has ever been discovered. But we're
talking about the oceans that go up to thirty five

(01:33:19):
thousand feet deep. This is land. These are pine trees.
People own a lot of property. However, there just may
be a siding or two, or I should say a
story or two that is out there that hasn't really

(01:33:43):
been widely circulated yet about you know, you've heard of
Hangar eighteen. Yes, maybe there's a hanger nineteen. Maybe the
government has a body of a sasquatch or more than one,
And did you ever stop to think to wonder. I

(01:34:04):
mean all the conferences that I've held, all of the
regular Bigfoot meetings that I've held, and all the people
that subscribe to my newsletter over the years. I'm not
saying this egotistically, but if I were crazy enough to
sit here at my desk and tell you, no, I

(01:34:28):
don't think anybody from the government ever attended one of
my meetings or conferences, I think I'd be wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:34:37):
I think you'd be correct in being wrong. Yeah, I
think that that would be a story for another day.

Speaker 2 (01:34:50):
Yeah. Well, you know, I'm in the I'm in the
process of writing another booklet of which I hope to
have available at the conference. Okay, And in the booklet,
I don't mention no late locations, I don't mention any
geographical names and nothing like that. But there's going to
be a story or two that I think people will

(01:35:12):
find very hard to believe. You know, we were talking
earlier about these really bizarre stories of you know, UFO
connections possibly or whatever, like the experimental for us and
the A frame and places of that and all that
kind of stuff. If you heard the twelve one hour

(01:35:35):
audio cassette tapes from Rome, Ohio when that event series
of events took place in the summer of nineteen eighty
one that I heard, I have to, sometimes, honest to God,
stand in the bathroom or in the hallway, look in
the mirror and say, if that stuff was true, why
are you still interested in it? Because if that's the case,

(01:35:58):
there is no answer to this mystery. There was stuff
happened up there, I kid you not that was recorded
on audio cassette tape as it happened, and interviews with
the family of things that happened, and if they were
telling to honest of God's truth and all that stuff

(01:36:18):
that happened was legitimate, I'll talk to you later because
there's there's no way of explaining that. There's no answer.
There's stuff that happened in rural Ohio that you cannot
explain logically if it was true. You know, there's I mean,

(01:36:41):
there's just so much stuff. It's like opening a can
of worms. There's so much crazy stuff out there. Let
me just think that bigger foots of physical flesh and
blood creature and go to bed at night with no.

Speaker 1 (01:36:54):
Well we'll, we'll, we'll go back to uh. I mentioned
to you that, you know, I had done some or
normal investigations. And the thing that the thing that kind
of always strikes me when we start talking about Bigfoot
and the the parallels or the possible connection between. Again,

(01:37:19):
I'm not saying that Bigfoot jumps in a portal so
it can get to get on a UFO and then
take off and go to its own planet. That's not
what I'm saying. But having spent time in haunted locations,
having spent time trying to investigate and trying to communicate
with things that apparently are willing to interact with you

(01:37:42):
from the ether. You know, so many people talk about
the sound of a wood knock in the woods related
to Bigfoot. Has anybody ever seen a bigfoot grab a
big log and smack it and smack it against a tree?
I don't believe a good question. I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:38:04):
I guarantee you, at least as far as I'm thinking
right now, the grand total number is zero, right because
if you did, you're going to do something anatomically in
your pants. You're not not admitting anybody to begin with.
And then second of all, you're not going to talk
to very many people about it, because who's going to
believe you without the evidence? But you know who start

(01:38:26):
You know who started the whole idea about wood on
wood in the forest?

Speaker 1 (01:38:30):
Who?

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
Me?

Speaker 1 (01:38:31):
Did you really?

Speaker 2 (01:38:33):
Back in December and thirtieth, nineteen eighty nine, me and
two other guys were in Cushocton County and we were
getting ready to walk out of the forest. There was
about six inches of snow on the ground. It was
a warm evening. There was a lot of fog, and uh,
we had found a blood trail where we think of
somebody had shot a deer or a deer had become
wounded or whatever. It was in amongst deer tracks, and

(01:38:55):
it went way back into the woods, and we followed
it for a while and then we realized it's getting
kind of dark. We got to get out of here.
We weren't trespassing, we just didn't have any lights or
any protection. So we start walking out. We get to
a point where about two hundred yards away from the
vehicles and off to our left hand side there is
a little valley and then it goes up a hill
crest at the hill and then on the backside of

(01:39:16):
the hill, there's an open area where there's a couple
of three old mining lakes, and all of a sudden,
out of nowhere, we hear what sounds like somebody taking
a baseball bat and banging it up against a tree.
And here's the question, who did it? We don't know.

(01:39:38):
Was it intelligent? We got a pretty good idea it
was very intelligent. Why do we think it was intelligent? Well,
let me put it this to you this way. There
were three of us that were walking that trail, walking
back to our car. We heard this one on wood
two or three separate times. Each of those separate times.
Would you care to guess how many times it hit

(01:39:59):
up against that tree?

Speaker 1 (01:40:00):
I can tell you exactly. I know what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:40:02):
It's three exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:40:04):
And and I'm going to tell you why I know that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
You did it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
Well, this, this is this is not something I expected
to go into with you. But we're we're here, and
let's do it. So my to finish my thought was
with hearing the wood knock. Many times in the course
of a paranormal investigation, in say, like a haunted location,

(01:40:32):
a haunted house, we will hear an audible knock. Sometimes
we'll hear a knock on a piece of wood, a
desk on the wall. Odd, then we'll then we'll have
we'll have light anomalies. Now, there's there's a difference between

(01:40:55):
taking a photograph with a flash in a haunted house
and it's dusty and it's old, and there's stuff floating
around in the air, and then your flash illuminates that dust,
and then people think they have an orb. There's a
difference between that and an orb like I described I
saw with my daughter, which came out of nowhere for

(01:41:19):
no good reason, was there and then was gone. So
these things seem to be components of paranormal investigations. They
very much translate into experiences that people have out in
the woods when apparently around the phenomenon of Bigfoot as well.

(01:41:43):
So it makes me start thinking, is that sound of
wood on wood in the woods? Is that actually what
you're hearing? Or are you hearing a component of them
coming into our ability to perceive them. They're either you
know it. It can be a trap. It can be

(01:42:10):
if for your mind, if you start going down that
rabbit hole, it can be It can lead to a
lot of things. And you know, I don't profess to
know anything I've I've done these things. I've had experiences
in a bunch of different areas, and I don't know
what the hell they are, but there are things that
seem to be similar and seem to translate very well

(01:42:34):
to other types of experiences with even extraterrestrial stuff. So
you know, I kind of lost my train of thought
of where I was going with this, but you know,
it makes me wonder, what is that noise? Now? The

(01:42:55):
reason I can go back and I can relate to
your experience with hearing three Knox Manistee National Forest the
summer that COVID was reared its ugly head. What's what's
the first holiday in the summer? Labor Day? No Memorial

(01:43:17):
Memorial Memorial Day. I went on. There are three of us.
We went on a three man, three day kayak trip
through the middle of the Manistee National Forest. And the
first night that we were there, uh, good buddy of

(01:43:37):
mine and then a guy that I did not know.
That other guy was somebody that my buddy knew and trusted.
So you know, we had we had paddled our kayaks
for the better part of the day. We found a
nice place to pull off, pull off the river and
we sat there. We heated up our our dinners in

(01:43:58):
a bag and we sat in and of a fire.
It was dark, it was late. It was probably in
the neighborhood of eleven thirty. We were all all three
of us, were sitting around the fire. During this time
that we were sitting around the fire, we had three owls,
which I actually recorded on my cell phone. I still

(01:44:20):
have the audio of it. It sounded odd. It sounded
like somebody trying to sound like an owl. It was
kind of more of a er, you know. And it
repeated in a series of three. The loudest one came

(01:44:41):
across the river from us. Then that was followed by
one that seemed a bit more distant behind us, sounded
like it was on the same side of the river
as us. And then another one would happen up ahead
of us, and it continued to go in that same pattern.
It was always the one across from us, than the

(01:45:02):
one behind us, than the one ahead of us. And
it did that multiple times, to the point where I
actually pulled out my phone and I recorded it. The
guy that I did not know well had a penchant
for drink, drinking beer, and he had brought plenty of
beer for him to drink. He drank a bunch of

(01:45:25):
beer while we were sitting around the fire. He got up,
went and got another one, took a leak, came back,
sat down, and apparently it hit him that he had
he had exceeded his limit and it was time for
him to go to bed. So he got up and
he excused himself and he went and he got into
his hammock to pass out. So at that point there

(01:45:49):
was two of us. From the point that there were
two of us in the silhouette of the fire, we
never heard another triple owl. Once there were two of us,
we heard two wood knocks. My buddy, who is pretty

(01:46:14):
much on the fence about this kind of stuff, he
looked over at me and he's like, did you hear that?
And I said I did, and he said was that
a And I kind of smiled at him, and he's like,
was that a fen wood knock? And I said nope,
that was two of them, and he's like, yeah, you're right.

(01:46:39):
And you know, maybe a minute later, maybe it might
have been a couple of minutes later, you hear two
more wood knocks, whack, whack, and then a couple of
minutes later you heard a couple more. Yeah, but it
was only two.

Speaker 2 (01:46:58):
As compared to three earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:46:59):
As compared to three owls repeating you know. So it
wasn't until we ended that trip and the rest of
that night once I got into my hammock, and it
was it was a night from hell. I had ordered
all my stuff off Amazon. The hammock was supposed to
but I didn't cover, but put socks on my hands.

(01:47:21):
And as I'm sleeping, you can hear the river flowing,
and I know that get insects that have just like
people who fly fish sizable sounded like it splashing and
splash mine playing with me was I was actually able to.
I literally had manu from their asses off because it

(01:47:44):
was just gonna be the names of the food that
I had turned into my stomach. And I realized I
didn't want to leave the area. Had heard there were
off and go dig a hole. It was or cause
night and from the fire, I was like from threes
and series of twos, that is that their way of

(01:48:06):
there's three mmm, I could be completed.

Speaker 2 (01:48:09):
It just absolutely sticks out in my mind about whatever
I mean or doesn't know me? And the one part
forefront of it that the Sasquat wild that's what I
remember today. That's that's not say.

Speaker 1 (01:48:26):
That, that's that's one thing that native oral tradition on
orally that is a in the in the same.

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
Right yep, in this area where the Delaware teen hundreds
be called Gecko the mucket about the Nate Woods to
keep peace with the per or bear back for the
food years ago, is what they were saying.

Speaker 1 (01:48:51):
At Uh, it's been a to me wind this up
with letting it in newcomer if.

Speaker 2 (01:48:58):
Daniel Bigfoot conference and some sorry John honored that iye
in area a great friend in his bio that I
put on Facebook recently, the man is just it's you
wouldn't believe what he's done in his lifetime. And I'm
sure there's much more to come. So John Horrigan from
the Boston area will be here. Then we have Seth

(01:49:19):
Breedlove from Northeast Ohio from from the Canton, Ohio area,
the creator of Town Monsters. He's going to be here
giving a presentation. And Uh. Then we've got one other person,
and that's Adam Davies, the explorer who has been on
numerous television shows in England and elsewhere to talk about

(01:49:43):
some of his most interesting experiences as well, free of charge,
no admission cost whatsoever, unless you want to give a donation,
which we will happily take to help cover the cost
of the room, accommodations, travel expenses, et cetera. Because no

(01:50:03):
matter what you think, these events are not free to
put on. They do cost somebody money. And that's what
you know, like with folks like that get vendors tables
or people that give donations or whatever. That's that all
goes towards different things that we're gonna gonna cover the

(01:50:24):
conference with. So it's gonna be it's got The doors
will open at ten am, the event will begin at
eleven am, and it'll run until approximately six. We're going
to have a number of vendors trucks outside food trucks,
so don't worry, there'll be plenty there to grab the
munch on and to drink iced tea, lemonade, whatever the

(01:50:44):
case may be. So you know, I'm hoping it's going
to be a fantastic event. I hoping everyone goes home
with a smile on their face and memories to survive
the rest their lifetimes, because you know, it's it's going

(01:51:06):
to be very interesting what goes on at the event,
and I will tell you that, and no one knows,
no one knows what this item is. But there will
be a special door prize for one person that will
be at the conference. And I won't tell what it is.
I won't tell how they're going to win it, nothing

(01:51:28):
like that. I'll just say that you will receive a
special door prize at the conference that will be years
to take home and hopefully cherished for days on end.
And then no, it's not a photo of me.

Speaker 1 (01:51:45):
In tandem to that announcement, I would like to announce
to our listeners of Uncomfortable that I will be at
this conference as well as a vendor, and the intention
is that I will be available to record live interviews
for the entire day. So if you are interested in

(01:52:09):
coming out and supporting this fine conference, excuse me, please
make sure you find your way over to the Uncomfortable
Podcast table, and if you have an experience or you
have a story that you would like to relate, I'll
be there to record your encounter or your story for

(01:52:33):
the entire day.

Speaker 4 (01:52:34):
So yep, we're looking forward to it, looking forward to
having all the vendors there, all these folks that are
coming out as vendors, they have a wide range of items.

Speaker 2 (01:52:45):
That are available for purchase. You know, make sure you
visit every just whatever you do, please make sure you
visit every vendor's table and bring plenty of resources with
you to buy all kinds of souvenirs, because, like I said,
this will be number twenty five and I don't really

(01:53:05):
have any intention of having another one. The last one
I had was ten years ago and we're having this one.
And I think the biggest reason that I have that
I decided to hold it was every conference that I
hear of that comes forward out there has a price
tag to it, and I want to do something for

(01:53:26):
the general public where they can attend and not have
to worry about paying to get into the door. Right,
So come on out and enjoy yourself. And if you
wear an alien outfit, there is a mental hospital just
twenty miles down the road, and I have connections, not

(01:53:48):
because I was there before, but because I know people.
So keep that in mind.

Speaker 1 (01:53:54):
Back to the idea on the vendors, as far as
everybody's showing up and by not charging for the event,
and and that you do free up the ability for
people who are coming and attending to spend that money
with the vendors.

Speaker 2 (01:54:11):
Yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 1 (01:54:15):
I personally will be bringing a new uncomfortable podcast T
shirt that has never seen the light of day. It's
got a completely new design, so make sure you keep
your eye out for that.

Speaker 2 (01:54:29):
Great sounds good, sounds very good.

Speaker 1 (01:54:33):
Don Keating, thank you so much for joining me today.
Your work has in no small way shaped the way
Bigfoot research there in Ohio has done gone. It's it's

(01:54:53):
been an honor to to get to dig into the
history and and get a little bit of the insights
behind that whole thing with you.

Speaker 2 (01:55:03):
I'm in my early sixties. I don't openly admit that
too much, although I don't feel like I'm nearly that
old because, believe it or not, physically speaking, eye bill
four nights a week, and I'm left handed, so that
helps a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:55:18):
Oh nice, I'm left handed as well, All.

Speaker 2 (01:55:21):
Right, cool, left on. Anybody that doesn't understand left handed
will not understand that comment. But you know what, what's
going to happen with all this material once I'm gone?
You know that's all that material I told you that's
in my basement. I haven't decided what's going to happen
with that yet, So as a as a closing comment,

(01:55:44):
thanking you very much, Eric for having me on your podcast.
I greatly appreciate it. I hope we have a lot
of people there. I think this seating capacity is around
three hundred and fifty give or take. So get there early,
bring plenty of cash to buy all kinds of souvenirs.
But what's gonna happen with all that stuff? I don't
know yet. The answer to the mystery could be in

(01:56:06):
my basement. Think about that one.

Speaker 1 (01:56:11):
And while you're thinking about that, think about this. Newcomers Town, Ohio,
September twenty seventh, the annual Bigfoot Conference, Don keating. You
don't want to miss it. They got John Hickenbottom from
Salt Fork. You've got Seth Breedloves from Small Town Monsters,

(01:56:33):
researcher John Horgan, and adventurer Adam Davies. It's gonna be
a great day. It's a great day for Bigfoot. Don
thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you,
and I'm gonna turn around and get this out probably

(01:56:54):
by the first part of next week, so maybe by
Tuesday of this week, so we can get get it
in the ears of people and let them know what's
happening and try to get people out there for it,
all right.

Speaker 2 (01:57:08):
Sounds like a winner.

Speaker 1 (01:57:09):
Appreciate it, all right, sir. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:57:12):
Hey, I'm looking forward to meet you. We've got a
lot of stuff talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:57:15):
Yes, we do as as well. I am. I'm excited
to get a chance to talk with you, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:57:21):
Sounds good.

Speaker 5 (01:57:22):
Have a good evening you too, Thank you, good night
mm hm bye

Speaker 2 (01:57:42):
H

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Don Keating 25th Annual Bigfoot Conference uNcomfortable ep 196

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

Don Keating 25th Annual Bigfoot Conference uNcomfortable ep 196

On Purpose with Jay Shetty