Cryptozoology: Myths, Legends, and Real Encounters

In this thrilling season finale of Wildly Curious (formerly For the Love of Nature), co-hosts Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole delve into the mysterious world of cryptozoology. From the legendary El Chupacabra to the elusive Bigfoot, they discuss some of the most famous cryptids and their origins. Along the way, they share fascinating insights into possible explanations, historical sightings, and personal encounters that keep the myths alive. Whether you’re a skeptic or a believer, this episode will leave you questioning what's out there. Plus, don’t miss their hilarious banter on aliens and some lesser-known cryptids that might surprise you.

Perfect for fans of cryptozoology, paranormal enthusiasts, and those curious about the strange and unexplained. Tune in to explore the creatures that might still be lurking in the shadows.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to For the Love of Nature, a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura.
And I'm Katy. And this is the season four finale. And, and I just saw the last episode, which I had no idea.
The last episode was our 50th episode. So this, this makes episode 51. Not too shabby.
Definitely. I mean, more than seven.
Yeah, I was gonna say, that's what we were worried about.
It's a lot more than seven.
The statistic is that most podcasts fail by episode seven. So we've hit, we've definitely cleared that milestone.
We're like old timers at this now.
I feel like it. Between this and the other podcasts that like I produce and help with, I'm just like, I got this. Like by now, with all, like.
If only we were wildly successful.
Listen, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. There's some exciting news that eventually, I'm sure I will share because this show will definitely be a part of it, the podcast, along with several others that I've been reaching out to.
So eventually we'll share that news for sure.
Tease you with it. But today, season finale.
Teaser and yeah, for season finale. So this is, this, I think this episode is one. Well, first of all, we're talking about cryptozoology.
Let's just put that out there. And I feel like this is one that we have talked about in roundabout ways several times.
Oh, absolutely, I know for a fact that we did just like an episode or two ago.
So.
We talked about our camping adventure in the woods.
Yes, yes. And I don't know. I'll share like, I focus on my two specifically on how they relate to me.
So we'll get into those, but prior to that, we have some nature news that we need to share. Let me pull it up.
What's the news?
That scientists are looking at the archerfish, which they have for hundreds of years, and they are quite-
And can shoot down the prey. And so they've never been able to, they've had an idea, a couple of different ideas on how it does this, but a new study they think has finally concluded, indefinitely, how it does this. So I did not know, one, that this fish was dubbed the anti-aircraft gunners of the aquatic world.
I feel like though that implies that their prey is bombing them.
Yeah, which is not. If anything, it's the total opposite. It's just like an innocent insect flying above the water, just shoots out of the air.
But the other really cool thing that I didn't know, is let me see here, is that they said whenever, way back when, there were visiting Englishmen and...
To where? The Amazon?
India.
India, okay.
And these Englishmen would be standing by the river, and they'd be smoking a cigarette, and they would shoot out the cigarette, like the end of it. That's how accurate it is.
Maybe they thought it was a firefly.
They thought it was an insect. Yeah, a glowing insect. That's so funny.
Yeah, so they'd be like, what the?
You'd be so confused, and you'd get so, people would go from zero to a hundred so quickly.
Just keep lighting that cigarette.
Yeah, especially back then.
Yeah.
And so many matches. Are you freaking kidding me?
They'd just try to pile beside them, and they're going, they're going like, you know, they've rolled this cigarette. They put work into this cigarette. And this stupid fish.
Which at first they wouldn't even know it was going on.
I have no idea.
Because you'd be like looking down, guarding it, kind of light it with your match, and then just, second it hits, gone. Dead. That's so good.
That is funny.
Trolling fish. Trolling fish.
Well, they had an idea. I guess part of their mouth, there was like this little tube that was made up of connective tissues and some bones.
They have a special spitting lip.
Well, it kind of looks like a blowpipe structure. That they formed their mouths using a combination of bones and soft tissues. They noted that because this was debated for almost 100 years as to whether the archer's precise water jet is caused by the blowpipe structure, which of course you would think if you saw that, you'd be like, nah, duh, that has to be it.
But there was debate over that, or whether it was caused by a pressure tank quote unquote structure in the mouths of fish. And so because it had these two different possibilities, they were like, I don't know which one it is. And to add to the confusion, there is another group of fish, which is a quote unquote sister fish, sister group of the archer fish that lives in the Pacific Ocean, called a beach salmon.
And they have that same exact blowpipe in their mouth. However, they don't use it to spit out water. They use it the same exact thing pretty much for chewing up the well-armored organisms they feed on such as shrimp and other crustaceans.
Yeah, so it's like they use it for a completely different purpose.
So in that case, then, okay, well, at least this is how it worked out in my head. So they had the structure, and then the archer fish, that structure predates their spitting, obviously. Then all of a sudden one of them just one day figures it out and just spits, happens to hit a bug flying by, and it was like, oh, hell yes.
Guys, guys, come over here.
I thought all of his friends just started spitting. All the mom fish were like, that is bad manners. Stop doing that.
I was going to say, I feel like this is like a kindergarten class right now. It takes one little kid to spit, and then they all start spitting.
I also, now they need to be, they're not archer fish, they're blowpipe fish.
Blowpipe fish. Let's rename it. Yeah, because they're not archers.
They're not like little bow and arrows. Yeah. I mean, I guess the water jet is, but still.
But I think blowpipe is a better image.
Oh, yeah. Way better image. So anyway, so they're still studying it just because they are kind of like, okay, now that we know what it is, let's dive a little bit deeper into really what this thing is.
Well, yeah, can you imagine? I mean, I bet it'd be a really cool fish to study because not only do they have this insane mouth that allows them to do this, but like, okay, imagine the refraction of water, right? You're seeing prey that is not in the position.
Correct.
Because if any of you out there have ever tried to like, not that I've ever spear fished, I have in a video game, and you have to pretend.
Figure it out.
Yeah, but like, yeah, like even at work, you know, like trying to feed the turtles.
Yeah.
I'm trying to feed with tongs.
And they're also trying to figure out, like if I don't have the tongs in the water, their accuracy is terrible because they are seeing it. So these little fish have like, computed, like where the target is and that.
So they're really good at math, too. Not only do they have an awesome blowpipe, but they're also really good at math.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm imagining them like with tiny little like Rambo headbands, like blowpipe, but that they're like geniuses, breaking all the stereotypes.
Oh, goodness. I want one.
I want to see one. I've never seen one in real life, just in videos.
I feel like I've seen one at a zoo before. I know. No, I know I've seen one at a zoo before.
So when Carl and I, my ex-husband and I were first dating, okay, secret talent of mine, I am shockingly good with a blowgun.
Okay, I thought you were going to say spitting, and I wasn't going to be surprised at all. But I'm also not surprised with a blowgun.
So I had a blowgun just growing up. Why? I don't know.
I got a gift card for Cabela's one year for Christmas. I went there, and I was like, this seems like a great purchase. So I bought one.
Super fixation, got it.
Got it. Got it. Blowgun onwards.
And so it came with the needles. I'm like, why did my parents let me get this? So it came with the needle ones, like the rounded ones.
I've seen them in a magazine that I bought. My brother used to get this magazine called Cheaper Than Dirt. Yes!
Anything.
Yes. So I got a blowgun practice, because again, hyperfixation, ADHD. And did I get good.
I thought you could get flies.
So when Carl and I first started dating, I told him, I was like, it was hanging in the basement, and I was like, hey, I'm actually really... He's like, what the heck is this? I was like, oh, it's my blowgun.
Actually, a great dating thing. What is that? My blowgun.
Oh, dangerous. Notice how to use a blowgun.
Score. So he's like, oh, whatever, like thinking it's a tour. I'm like, no, I'm actually really good with it.
So I grab it. I'm like, let's go. Go outside.
And we had those wood burrowing burrowing bees that would like because we lived in a log house. They would always attack our house all the time. You would whack them with a whiffle all back and then like kill them that way because they would attack the house constantly and drill those stupid holes.
So anyway, so we go outside. I have a blowgun and I put in one of the needle ends in it and I'm following like this would be. And listen, like I was good.
But sometimes with these things, like I have a lot of random talents. ADHD, thank you. Like I could play a didgeridoo.
Like I like just just bizarre things that most normal human beings are like, what the heck? Thank you ADHD. So grab the blowgun, throw the needle in there, watching this wood burrowing bee and right through the bee.
Carl, what were you thinking? You should never have married her.
That should have been the red flag. So immediately I try to like play it off as like, oh, told you I was good. And he's like, yeah, what the hell?
Like, holy crap.
And so I was like, yeah, told you I'm really good. And meanwhile, inside, I'm like, I just shot a bee.
I was so happy.
We're going to talk about cryptozoology, everybody. And for anybody who doesn't know, cryptozoology or cryptids, how we're going to refer to our subjects here, a cryptid is an animal that has been claimed to exist, but has never been proven to exist.
Okay, so like hard evidence proven. That's just right.
And it's still think people still believe in it. It's kind of like the difference between them and like mythological creatures. Like most people accept the fact that like unicorns don't exist.
I mean, most people do.
Right. No, exactly. Like there is not much like there's not much debate.
However, tons of people still claim to still see like the Yeti, you know, and things like that. So that's what's considered a cryptid. Almost like a local legend, essentially.
So we each chose two. One was mine was random and the other one was personal. So I'll start with my random that I actually learned a lot about.
And that is El Chupacabra.
I'm excited for this one, because I'm excited to learn, because I don't know a whole lot about.
I know. I didn't really either. I knew some, but not a ton.
So I kind of broke it down of what it is, where it comes from, and then the basis and like the what goes, why is it like that?
So why are you the way that you are?
But why are you going to die?
Which I know we've told that story on this podcast, the little kid with the bird, but why are you going to die?
So most of you have probably heard of El Chupacabra, or maybe there's not even just one, but there's probably people believe that it's a whole species, the Chupacabra. So what is it? It is a Latin American monster.
The name Chupar means to suck, and Cabra means goat, so AKA goat sucker. Not a threatening name.
Here comes the goat sucker.
There goes the goat sucker. Poor goats.
But what we think about, and what makes it a little scarier is it is a vampiric creature that drains the blood of animals. And you're like, okay, that's a little more extreme than a goat sucker. Like goat exsanguinator would be a better term.
Way scarier. So it has been blamed for attacks on livestock and pets that supposedly left the bodies uneaten and completely drained of blood.
Yeah.
I mean, which to be fair, I mean, the blood part is the part that most people can't stand, so I mean...
Yeah.
Continue.
So originally, this was reported to look a lot, which this is not what I've never heard it look like. Originally, it was reported to look like a reptilian kangaroo with huge red eyes.
Wait, a reptilian kangaroo?
A reptilian kangaroo with big red eyes. That's scary.
I'm having a hard time picturing this. Okay, continue. That's creepy.
Other characteristics that people described for this version have been that it is bipedal, meaning two-legged, like a kangaroo, very long limbs, spines down its back, smells bad, sometimes has a tail, sometimes doesn't, long claws, fangs, long snout, like a kangaroo. And so that was like the OG chupacabra.
And see, you know what I picture it as is those animals from Avatar, like the ones that are like crawling around on all fours?
So then as the years went on and sightings continued, the chupacabra then became basically a hairless canine. Essentially, like some kind of... Yes, a horribly like, yeah, almost like a hellhound kind of looking thing.
So the whole thing started for the first time, actually, I had no idea it was this new, but like el chupacabra wasn't a thing before 1995. What? Yeah.
I mean, I figured like at least the 70s or 80s, but 95? I am older than a chupacabra.
Right. It was in Puerto Rico. But as of today, it is also seen through the Americas up into the United States.
And actually, even Australians have reported chupacabras.
Interesting.
So where did this whole thing come from? Let me spin you a story. So some people believe that this could be a US government experiment gone wrong, and that it got loose.
Who let the mangy dogs out?
But apparently, there was tensions at the time.
Puerto Rico is one of our territories, but apparently, they weren't taking kindly to some of the things that we were doing at that time. So they were probably experimenting in the jungle, and maybe one of their experiments got loose. Others claim that it's an extraterrestrial, or part of a biological warfare, or perhaps even the embodiment of God's wrath.
And meanwhile, it's just probably some mangy dog trying to get a meal, and it's just, you are the embodiment of God's wrath.
It's like, jeez.
That's a lot of pressure on the young thing's shoulders. Poor little chupacabra. The reptilian kangaroo just comes and hops up and knocks on your door, and you're like, holy crap, you're the embodiment of God's wrath.
It's like, I just need a drink.
A green drink? But no specimens have ever been found that resemble the reptilian kangaroo. And people stopped reporting them after a very short amount of years.
Then it became the canine thing, and that's when it was sort of being like, I found one, here it is, and started sending in chupacabra bodies.
Sure, this was a big thing in Texas.
No, I know, yeah.
Ask around, I'm sure.
You know, people have chupacabra stories here.
Oh, I guarantee it. And so this one, I mean, of all a lot of the cryptids and stuff, I feel like the chupacabra, I can totally debunk because of the whole, canines with mange.
Yeah, canines with mange.
So mange is a skin disease that's caused by mites that results in hair loss. And we're talking hair loss all over the body, but in particular the face, which makes them look real creepy and huge eyes. Bad cases result in scabbing, thickened skin and an overall crusty look.
And typically that is caused by infection, which also gives them a bad odor. So this again, think about like the description scaly, reptilian scaly, no hair, canine looking, bad smell, all of this is ringing bells.
Minus the kangaroo.
Right, a bipedal, that part doesn't make sense, but maybe it's like also had injured paws.
I don't know. Now he's coming up for help.
Help, like with his poor paws.
That hurts. So animals, and so people, you know, okay, that's sure, that explains the appearance, but what about all the animals drained of blood? Well, animals may become very thin and lethargic, wouldn't you, if you were covered in scabs.
And they get really hungry, and that's because they can't actually get enough, they can't consume enough calories to provide both their nutrition and to fight the disease of the mites. So this may have caused Chupacabra attacks, and that makes a lot of sense that it was livestock, because if you are starving to death, you're going to go for easy prey, not wild animals. So whether or not you are a coyote, a fox, a dog, any of that canine family, they were attacking livestock probably because they were starving to death.
Yeah, and just hungry.
Just hungry. And the prey, I mean, these animals were examined. They were like the ones that have been like sent in.
Oh, the ones that are the drained ones, and they're not actually drained.
So no, they're not draining all the body. But it is not uncommon for canines to attack, kill things, and leave without eating them. That's like a dog thing.
You'd think if they were starving to death, they would eat it. But like, I mean, who knows what kind of mental state they're in either.
Yeah, true.
So any animal with mange could be thought to be a chupacabra. We're talking foxes, coyotes, raccoons, bears, squirrels, and even wombats. And that's what they're reporting in Australia.
Mange, wombats, aww.
Yeah, scary.
Poor wombats.
And let me tell you listeners, a bear with mange is one of the most disturbing things you will ever see. Absolutely looks like a monster.
It's terrifying.
If I was walking through the woods and saw a mange bear, I didn't know about it.
Shit my pants.
Yeah, I would have been like, it's a chupacabra. Or it's a person in a bear suit.
I either want it or I don't.
Google it now.
Google it now if you haven't. It's terrifying.
And it's become a really big thing in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Mangy bears.
Mangy bears.
And then one last nail in the coffin against the existence of chupacabra. Not that I don't want there to be cryptids. I want this to exist.
But the same year that this first was reported, 1995, was the same year that a movie called Species was released. And it was a movie with an alien hybrid that looks exactly like the original chupacabra description. It was partially filmed in Puerto Rico.
And it turns out that there was only one original eyewitness of the first time it was ever seen. And then all the other descriptions matched that first description. And the woman who saw the first ever chupacabra said...
Like the kangaroo mane? The kangaroo?
Said that the alien hybrid in the movie looked like a chupacabra. So she had obviously recently seen the movie. She was like, wow, they really got the chupacabra look down.
But like...
That's accurate.
Or was it the other way around?
Sorry, guys. El chupacabra, almost certainly a canine with mange. But good news is chupacabras exist.
That's what they are. And you too can see a chupacabra if you're ever unlucky enough to see an animal with mange. We have a lot of mangy foxes where I work, and they're pretty rough looking.
It's nasty. It is. But yeah, you don't have to worry about your pets being ensanguinated.
But you always have to be, you always have to worry about your pets being eaten by coyotes. So keep your pets indoors at night, people. Don't let your cats out.
Don't let your dogs out.
Hedge dogs, hedge your cats. Hedge pets. Alrighty, so the first cryptid that I'm going to talk about is one that I definitely grew up hearing about from being in Western Pennsylvania, and that is Bigfoot.
Both of mine, I am very excited to talk about because I have literally been hearing stories of both of them since I was an itty bitty kid. So let's first get some terms straight. Yeti, a bono snowman, are interchangeable.
Those two are the same. But they are a completely different species than Bigfoot and Sasquatch, which those two are interchangeable.
We'll call him out.
So anyway, there are a lot more names, though, than just these ones that are a little bit interchangeable. And there are actually 50.
Swamp Ape?
In Arkansas?
No, Rachel Pitzer. I'm pretty sure she skunk ate. That's what it was.
Oh, there's tons, even in the US, there's tons. So there's more than 50 different names. But all of the different names, and that's all over the world, but they all say appearances of a large hairy human ape like something or other that terrorizes those just everywhere.
There's even a Bigfoot map online which shows you all the different names for the various-haired creatures.
That's cool.
Yeah, for simplicity's sake, all I'm gonna focus on is one Bigfoot, because that's what I grew up hearing about. So, Bigfoot has been reported to be seen across the US, most notably in the Pacific Northwest. However, I'm gonna focus on some instances and sightings of Western Pennsylvania, because...
Appalachian subspecies.
Listen, that's where I'm from, and I like the lesser known stories of these, because everybody kind of... Oh yeah. If you have any interest in any of this, you've heard about the crossing over the river and how they debunk that picture and all that stuff.
So, Bigfoot. Let's go into a little bit more description here. It's typically between 6 to 9 feet tall.
Some have reported them being 12 feet tall, but most consistently, they say around 8 or 9 feet, at least a head shorter than a tall human. The ones that are like, oh, 12 feet. A lot of those have been debunked because they're like, listen, just too tall.
They're either black, brown, or reddish brown, long hair covering their entire body. Kind of like an orangutan Bigfoot, if it wasn't covered with short hair, but it has longer hair like an orang one. Footprints, which are often seen, measure about two feet in length.
And from the depth of the footprint, seen as mud, as well as a general description of Bigfoot's like the width of their shoulders and everything, they are estimated to be about 800 pounds. So, holy crap. Pretty, pretty big.
I mean, because like a big, a tall guy is like not necessarily that. Wow.
Couple hundred pounds, yeah. Yeah. Well, you figure nine feet tall, and they were like broad shoulder thicker.
Muscular.
Muscular. So, what is creepiest about these creatures is that although it's ape and human looking mix, it definitely, everybody says it walks more human-like than anything. So, it looks more like an ape, but it walks more like a human.
They're said to have broad shoulders, long arms, like awkwardly long arms, and no necks. And out of the... Just broad shoulders, long arms, no necks.
All that length went to their arms.
Yeah, forget... No neck.
Forget the neck.
Many have also said that when spotted at night, they have an eye shine, which... Yeah, which we all know...
That would freak me out.
Yeah, well, we know that like... So, animals, like nocturnal animals, their eyes give off that shine because they have that reflective layer of tissue behind their pupils called the tatum lucidum. And this layer essentially acts as a mirror, which helps them to see very, very well at night.
So if they do have that, then they're clearly a nocturnal animal.
Yeah, they would lean more towards... Yeah, like you said, like an animal. Because we know humans don't have this, which would be cool if humans had it, because that means we could see at night better.
But it also means we probably wouldn't be out in the day as much.
I mean, I know I would definitely never have sex with the lights off ever again.
If you had the eye shine?
Yeah, that would be creepy.
Oh, yeah.
I took a look in the mirror, and I was like, that would be terrifying.
Eye shine?
Yes, it would be really creepy. Unless you were in a cave dark, where there's no light.
Or the number of times like my son has, because parents know kids just appear in the hallways, in your door frame. Also add glowing eyes. Terrifying.
Anyway, others often associate Bigfoot sightings with a horrible smell, which people have described in a variety of ways from a skunk that has rolled in garbage, rotting eggs mixed in vomit, and the list continues to go on.
Dang, throwing some shade at those poor Bigfoots. You know, I bet that's how a lot of people would describe people before deodorant, too.
Yeah. Also associated with Bigfoots are numerous vocalizations, which range from screams, whistles, grunts, and moans to other ways of communicating, such as beating on a tree, bending objects, etc. So, now although some of the most notable Bigfoot cases, like I said, happened since the mid-1950s to now, there are petroglyphs done by Native Americans that date back to between 500 to 1,000 years ago that depict, like, this kind of...
I didn't know that.
Yeah, this kind of looking creature. Groups of people all across the US have depicted pictures of extraordinarily larger and beefier people than humans. In the late 1950s in Northern California, a large human-like footprint was found and cast with plaster that, you know, they molded it from, pulled it out, and it was about two feet long, and this is where the present name of Bigfoot started.
So before that, they always just called it something, or I guess were just silently creeped out by whatever the unknown was, and it wasn't until the 50s that we started to coin the name Bigfoot. All right, so that's a little history for you, and let's dive into some stories because that's honestly the best part of all this stuff. So, Western Pennsylvania is a hotbed for sightings for Bigfoot.
There are still very rural areas in the area and plenty of food. Food for Bigfoot?
Plenty of food!
Plenty of food for Bigfoot! Plenty of food for Bigfoot! All right, there are more than a thousand credible, quote-unquote, reports.
Holy cannoli!
Yeah, within PA, and a third of them, a third of the 1,000 all of Pennsylvania, are actually from my home county of Westmoreland County. And many of them are even from Dairy Township, where I grew up and went to school.
I mean, yeah, if you're gonna live somewhere, be in the thick of the woods.
Yeah, or they say, like, this area is very squashy.
All the caves.
Mm-hmm.
And that could explain the eye shine.
Yeah, a lot of them.
Cave creatures.
Cave creatures. There are actually tons of caves where I grew up. All right, so I'm gonna go, like, just rapid fire a group of reports that came in around 2002.
So I was in high school, late high school at this point. All right, this occurred in an area called Chestnut Ridge, which is on the ridge of the mountains. Like, I know where it is, but it's just it's just an area on the on the mountainside.
All right, the first in this string of sightings, and it was just like, and that seems to be where what these Bigfoot sightings happen. And that's kind of where a lot of the researchers lend their credibility to is that even before now, first of all, let me just say I come from a fairly small town. All right, people talk.
However, a lot of these stories will like happen where one person hasn't heard another one, but it'll be like in a string of sightings and then all of a sudden nothing for a while. And then like another string of sightings and then nothing for a while. So they seem to happen in rapid fire, which is what according to like the Bigfoot researchers are like, well, they could be coming out for food or like they have to get near people enough to, you know, have whatever and that's where they're sighted.
So in the first string of sightings was actually two sightings back to back in a remote part of Derry Township. The first by a teenage boy and the second was by his mother. So in the first instance, the boy heard crashing sounds in the woods and saw a big brown creature about eight feet tall.
A couple weeks later, then the boy's mother was driving and talking on her cell phone, which for the record don't drive distracted. When the creature reappeared, the woman claimed that the creature stepped, not jumped, but stepped over a barbed wire fence that was about three and a half feet tall off the ground without even breaking stride. And that's not the first time that like people have said that they've just like walked over a fence like that.
I would straight up crash my car.
No, I would too. I would too. I'd be done.
Be done with it.
The scariest thing I and I think I think it's because it's so human like.
Yes.
I would be so disturbed on such a level. Like, do I want there to be awesome things we haven't discovered yet? Absolutely.
Absolutely. But let's tone it down, nature. Tone it down.
I want it to like be something. I either want it to be a super scary non-human monster or like a really cuddly, beautiful, wonderful something. But not, but not, not big shape for a human.
Yeah, not big, not big. So Dairy Township has now been coined the hairy heart of Bigfoot, as this article that I was reading in BFRO's website. All right, so BFRO, the Bigfoot Research Organization, or what it's worth, that's what it's called.
But the hairy heart of Bigfoot sightings in 2002 and continued fairly regularly into 2003. Another incident then dated that following, so that was in April, I think it was, and so then August, a woman was in a heavily wooded area, walked out into her garden to pick lettuce for lunch. Sounds typical for my area.
Instead of innocently picking her lettuce, she was completely shocked to see what she described as a huge manlike creature with dark hair and long arms leaning against a tree only about eight feet away and looking curiously at her.
No, it's so scary.
It's so scary.
And that's a broad daylight because she's out picking lettuce for lunch.
Perfectly picture it. Just creeping on her. He's just creeping on her, leaning on a tree and just watching.
Is that some lettuce you're getting there?
Just watching her. Maybe he's asking. Maybe it's like the mangy dog.
He too is just hungry.
I'll try to think of it more positively.
Just, excuse me. And meanwhile, like, maybe it's like his voice is like it's such a decibel that humans can't hear. This whole time, he's just like, excuse me, ma'am, can I have any?
Meanwhile, all she sees is this thing staring at her. So she goes running off.
He's like, can I just, can I just have some lettuce, please, please?
Anyway, so it was just leaning against a tree. The creature's head, according to the witness, was scraping a branch that was later measured to be about eight feet off the ground. So when the local BFRO experts searched the area, they found some older footprints to be about 15 inches long that they found in the area.
Another Bigfoot's visit happened only a few miles away, like maybe like three months later, when three witnesses observed a tall beige-colored creature with long arms swinging and walking through a cornfield, which the BFRO does note that has never been a Bigfoot described as beige before. But I mean, it could be leucis- beige.
But it could be leucistic, you know what I mean?
Like a touch of-
Yeah, it's that poor blonde cousin.
Forget the bog sheep of the family.
It's the blonde-
What if it was just- maybe it was old.
Yeah, true, true. So take it for what it's worth, but shortly after this sighting, the same BFRO member received a call from a man who said he was on a dirt bike with his son on a rural area, pretty much in the same area, which was like the Westmoreland-Fayette County border, and he said a hairy man-like creature with arms hanging down to around his knees jumped out of the woods, stared at them about 75 feet away, and then just ran back out of sight. Just like jumped out, then just took off running.
I'd never be able to report my sighting because I would have had a heart attack. I'd never see Bigfoot. I'll just die.
In the same year, so 2003, several people called the BFRO reporting strange sounds, a whoosh, which is reported. Could you imagine calling somebody, I heard a whoosh.
What sound did you hear? A whoosh.
But these are reported in both Westmoreland, just north of Westmoreland County and nearby Indiana counties, but it was a little bit more than a whoosh. Several people, unknown to each other, called and said that they heard something that sounded like something big climbing up into the sky, like a large gust of wind. It was down, and then just like whoop, and just jumped up.
Now, again, whether or not they're...
This is where people are losing me.
This is, yeah, because never in any other accounts have they talked about, like, Bigfoot's climbing trees. Or can jump that high. Yes, they can walk over fences, whatever, but never have they said...
Well, and I can even see climbing a tree, but like, come on, like...
Like that quick? I mean, they're tall. They're tall, you know?
Right. So anyway, one man also claimed that he had the sensation of something big climbing overhead, moving fast. All he knew was that the sound was so intense that he ducked his head, but he didn't see anything.
But to kind of give a little teaser to my next one, Bigfoot sightings aren't the only thing seen in this area.
As they watched, a probe came down from the base of the object. The object hovered at treetop level, then climbed straight up, and was lost from sight. So that all happened, like, around the same time.
So, whether or not you believe in Bigfoot, I grew up in this area and know of several people who have claimed pretty much something fitting of this description. And the people that I know that say that they've seen it aren't the type of people to exaggerate, but are also the type of people who, like, are realistic enough...
Are ready to believe in...
Well, they're realistic enough to be like, I don't know what it was, but this is what I saw. Whatever it was, no clue. So are there big black bears in this area?
Absolutely. And black bears do range in color, too. They aren't always black against their name.
So bears typically stay in the mountains by where I grew up, but will run closer to people if they're hungry enough, and they will stand up to appear larger.
And walk on their hind feet.
And they will walk on their hind feet. Which could have been the lady picking the lettuce.
Just like a bear standing there. If you want to see a really good example of a bipedal bear, there was that bear. It's not alive anymore because someone shot it, but its name was Petals.
It was in the city.
It had its front paws injured. And it walked all around the neighborhood on its back feet.
And that was pretty creepy. No, they're not. They're not.
And that's what I was going to say next. The eight-foot mark is definitely taller than what a black bear tends to be standing. And so, I mean, who knows?
What is a black bear standing? Six?
Yeah, five or six, I think.
Because, yeah, on the shoulder, there can't be more than three or four.
Yeah.
Standing, maybe five or six, yeah.
Yeah. And I do want to make a note that the leading BFRO, like the leading BFRO reporter for the Westmoreland area, and he also studies my next topic, he, and that's where, like, most of these reports come from, everybody calls this guy, actually sold by parents their TV at Sears back in the late 90s, early 2000s. Everybody needs a day job, so.
Is there any other theories as to what people think it could be if it's not a bear?
I mean, I can see, like, people running around in a ghillie suit, I mean, like, you know, hunters?
I can see footprints being, like, old human footprints that have, like, Yeah, but bear foot?
I mean, listen, I grew up in the hills of Western Pennsylvania, but we're not West Virginia here, folks.
Bear footprints, which look like human footprints.
They can't, yeah. Bear footprints, yeah. They're not that big.
They're about half the size. At least half the size.
Right, like, it, like, spread out after the rain or something. So maybe that. And then the sounds, that could be coyotes, mountain lions, lots of human noises.
Anything. And the way that they describe it walking, because if a bear is walking, it is definitely not a smooth human gait. It's, yeah, it's still a, it's, it's still a mammal that is not meant to be, like, it's not normally walking on two legs.
Correct, yeah. But I mean, there are reports, though, I mean, and that's just where, like, where I'm from, from Moreland County, and like in Ligonier, the town, pretty close, not too far from where I grew up. I mean, that is, like, known, and Ligonier sits, like, back in the mountains and stuff, and so that is definitely a hotbed.
But I mean, that entire ridgeline of Appalachian Mountains, all the way to Northern Pennsylvania, where the Allegheny National Forest is, is just filled with sightings. Growing up in the woods, your mental game plays mines on you so bad, and then you grow up hearing...
Your mental game... Your mental game plays mines on you.
That's what you just said.
Your mental mind, your mind plays mine games.
Gosh dang it! My mouth...
Somebody's mind is playing mental games.
Sometimes my brain works too fast for my mouth. So anyway, when you grow up hearing all these stories and stuff like that, and I mean, I'll tell you what, the animals at night, whatever it is, I mean, your way out there...
An online scream would be just as scary.
A bobcat scream, yeah. Bobcat scream, yeah. So, I mean, there's a number of things that it could be, but I don't know.
I grew up with a lot of people, whether it's all just their mind playing tricks on them or whatnot, who knows, but...
Jury's still out for me. I'm still... I'm not like the chupacabra, no.
Maybe.
I mean, and there are stories of it all over the world, too, because even in Indonesia, it was something Pintek. And it looks similar to an orang, but different enough that people are like, no, it's definitely not an orang. In someplace like that, I could totally see, you know what I mean, like it hiding in the US.
I don't know.
You know how, well, you're gonna talk about your next guy, but you were just saying about the whole, like, seeing something green in a probe and blah, blah, blah. What if it's their pets? Like, what if?
The reason why people don't regularly see Bigfoot is because they let them go for like basically like to go on a walkabout.
They need to peace and let them out of the ship for a bit.
Yeah. It's their pets.
Hurry up, hurry up. Go, go, go, go, go, go.
They're like pushing it to be salty again. Like, dang it. Yeah, like that would explain it.
That's why they're not around all the time.
And that's why these sightings are all clumped together.
Oh, my gosh, if that's what they're, they're Wookiees.
They're Wookiees.
They do look like, I mean...
Steven Spielberg called it.
Anyway. All right, here's my second one. This one is a little bit closer to home for me.
So this is Chessy. Chessy. And Chessy, Chessy, is a sea monster of the Chesapeake Bay.
So a bay monster, not a sea monster, but everyone says sea monster. Because bay monster sounds less impressive, but still better than a lake monster. So the first sighting of Chessy, not that it was called that at the time, but something was seen in the Chesapeake Bay in 1846 by Captain Lawson, who saw something that he just said was unusual in the mouth of the Chesapeake.
Other sightings have been through the decades. A pilot in 1936 saw something strange. A respected marine biologist saw something in 1968.
Wait, a pilot saw something?
Like they were flying over?
A respected marine biologist, a fisherman in 1977 who got a photo, a retired CIA officer in 1978, women boating in 80, a whole bunch of people from 82 to 88. There were 78 reports from 82 to 88. A couple actually got footage in 1982.
You can see the footage online. He was trained in wildlife management, so he wasn't like a nature novice. Yeah.
And then the most recent sighting, so lots more, but most recent was 2014.
So very, very recent.
Yeah, yeah. And basically, in general, all of these sightings are fairly, they've got a lot of similarities. Usually, the creature is described as approximately 40 feet long.
Or the first time somebody was, the marine biologist described it as 40 feet long, five inches wide, seven to eight inches deep. So I'm assuming he meant like, you know, girth.
So what's the size of that compared to the Loch Ness monster? Do you know?
Oh, good question. I didn't look up how long he is.
I'll look it up. Go ahead, keep going.
Other people have described it as a 20-foot snake-like creature swimming with serpentine motion or a 30 to 35-foot, 10-inch diameter rounded head humps along the back. But always, always it is described as snake-like and swimming side to side or up and down. So it's a serpent is what they're saying.
Is what it is. What are they saying?
Did you find? Not like an accurate, because I mean, you know what I mean? Like there's no.
Yeah, yeah. I feel like Nessie has described a lot as like, you know, you see her as like the plesiosaur, like yes, yes, yes, big body.
This is not like everybody's long. Okay, everybody's saying that this is a snake, a huge snake.
A huge snake. So where? You guessed at the Chesapeake Bay.
So this body of water is where water from six states ends. Up fed by seven major rivers and numerous smaller ones and opens up into the Atlantic Ocean. The Chesapeake Bay is four thousand five hundred square miles of water.
So way bigger than the Loch Ness people. Yes, people claim Loch Ness. I mean, Loch Ness is way deeper.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Deeper than the Chesapeake Bay. Bay is much bigger.
Yeah.
The water is brackish, meaning it's partially salty due to the mixing of fresh and saltwater, and Chesapeake is typically seen between July and October.
Interesting. It's seasonal.
It's the big time of year. The video footage, you can look it up. It is verified.
It's true. It's an untampered video footage.
So at least whatever they saw, it was something.
Like something.
It was something.
So that was in 1982, and they sent it to like a whole bunch of scientists met. They sent it to the Smithsonian. So the Smithsonian's met about it, some other marine people, and they all watched it, and they all said, it's something that's alive.
And it's like they were like, it's not just a log floating.
Yeah, it's not a log floating.
It is alive, and it is something serpentine like. But we don't know what it is. They never have found out what it is.
Some people say, I mean, maybe it could be a large tropical snake that escaped from the Baltimore Harbor, like on a ship.
I mean, listen, we have the Everglades. You know what I mean? They're just excess cool.
Typically, they only survive in warm, fresh water.
Correct.
So it would be weird and probably wouldn't survive long in a brackish water.
But for a bit, I mean, for a bit.
Interestingly enough, most of the sightings in the 80s were right after a nuclear power plant was built in the area, which creates warm water all around the power plant. So it would have made that water much warmer.
Yeah, interesting.
The culture of the time. So cryptozoology became a super big topic in the 70s. That was like the explosion of cryptozoology.
So people got into it. So a lot of the sightings were kind of around that time. That was also the time where environmental awareness was being pushed.
And so Chessie actually was used as to like, we got to keep the bay clean for Chessie. For real. And then also 1975 was the year that Jaws came out, and a lot of people got really afraid of the water for a bit.
I mean, it makes sense. Finally, and this is what I think is most believable, could it have been an oarfish? Never heard of such a thing.
Looked it up. So an oarfish, typically oarfish are found at 600 feet deep, and the bay is only 175 feet deep. But when oarfish are sick and injured, they are known to beach themselves, and they have beached themselves before.
These are fish. These are the longest bony fish in the world. They're 36 feet long.
So that would be the same length as this reported sea monster. They have a long, flat, tapering body, very snake-like.
I never thought about an oarfish, but as soon as you say that, I'm like, ah, yes, definitely could be.
Yeah, if you look at the picture, you're like, okay, it's a sea fish. They lack anal and caudal fins, so they don't look like, they look like an eel. Yeah, not like a fish.
They look like an eel. And they're super rare, and very little is known about them because they're a deep sea fish. And actually, one was not even caught on film until 2001.
That's the first time anyone even filmed an oarfish in real life. Really?
Huh.
Yeah, because they're so rare to see. People have been seeing them more and more beaching themselves, and they actually think that they might indicate earthquake stuff going on.
Interesting.
But oarfish in general, most people credit them as the basis for most sea monsters out in the ocean, because again, they swim very serpentine.
It's either that or it's got to be the occasional really long freaky snake that's gotten into the bay. No native species of snake is more than eight feet long. You can watch the interview with the guy who got the video footage.
There were six witnesses who saw this together. And it was an animal that was coming up and down. It was pretty long.
The interview, it's good. So definitely people have seen something. And honestly, the best part of this is that nobody knows, I think.
Because probably, yeah, then there is. And is it one thing? I doubt it.
I bet it's multiple things of many different creatures. Probably Chessy hasn't been around for that long. But something's in the bay.
Something's in the bay. I mean, again, it's big enough. I mean, it's enough, like a span of an area, but interesting.
Yeah, because immediately, because whenever you said you were going to cover that topic, I immediately went, because I've heard of it, but I'd never looked up pictures or anything like that. And I was thinking like, I was thinking like, yeah, me too, because there's tons of reports of those.
And the same kind of thing with Bigfoot, like, oh, yeah, there are sea monsters all over the world, all over the world. And in basically every major lake, too. So they've got stories of one, but the bay at least has access to the ocean.
So I can see there be way more weird stuff.
Yeah, just coming up and yeah, dying, just beaching itself.
I want to find one. I was watching these videos of kids that found an orifice in California washed up, and there's, you know, like all these kids stretched out holding this orifice. I was like, so cool.
Yeah, that is pretty neat. Well, I mean, not the fact that it's dead, but, you know, an orifice. That was a good one.
So the next topic, if you haven't guessed it already, that I'm going to cover, is not typically considered cryptozoology. Kind of is, but really not.
But I'm going to talk about its own thing.
By definition, by definition, it could be, it could be it. But since it's my podcast and I can, I'm going to talk about it.
Guys, this was the only way that I could sell Katy on doing this topic.
It really was.
Can I do?
Can I do Bigfoot and aliens? That was the only way. So while there is, of course, skepticism around aliens, they aren't considered cryptids again, like I said, because they aren't quote unquote from the Earth, which is technically what a cryptid has to do.
But again, so they, I mean, they visit here. You know what I mean? So cryptid, you know, we don't know.
Maybe they used to be from the Earth. We don't know.
We don't know. Yeah, they were like, listen, there's these human things. We predicted they're going to screw this up.
They're really dumb.
We're going to leave. But for this one, I'm also going to focus on Western Pennsylvania because everyone's heard of Roswell or at least knows of it. So again, I want to focus on one, like, main event that happened pretty close, again, Westmoreland County, where I grew up.
All right, so aliens. First off, I think I did this in the nature news before, but I still feel like everybody freaking overlooked it and just didn't hear about it. But during the pandemic, okay, so 2001, in the middle of a relief bill, Trump, for whatever reason, required that the US government, mostly military CIA, release a report on what they know about UFOs.
I mean, I'm not going to say it's a bad plan. Listen, you're either going to give relief to the Americans, and you're going to be a horrible person if you don't pass this.
You know what I'm going to slide in there?
If aliens exist, you know what I mean?
Just slide it in there.
Also, it was during the pandemic, and so everyone was just like, During the pandemic.
So, what did the report conclude? That there are 100% UFOs that the military has recorded on camera that they know for a fact did not come from the US military and in no way, shape, or form could be aircrafts from another country. Again.
Draw your own conclusions.
Yeah, draw your own conclusions, but what in the freaking heck? No one is still talking about it, because again, it happened in the middle of the pandemic, and I think everyone was just so stressed out. Everyone's like, yeah, UFOs are a thing, or they just didn't even hear about it, because they're just like, meh, whatever.
Yeah. Completely on phase. We really need to circle back and touch on UFOs, folks.
Circle back to this, please.
Let's please circle back to this, can we? Thank you. All right, so history of aliens a little bit.
While, of course, highly debated, there have been pictures that-
History of aliens. Let me just go over a quick history of aliens. The entire-
We don't have enough time in this night.
The entire. Just a brief, just a brief.
But there have been pictures that seem to be showing aliens, again, of petroglyphs, dating back thousands of years. Here in the US, of course, the most infamous story that I mentioned earlier was Roswell Incident, which happened in 1947. Since then, thousands of UFO sightings were reported yearly across the world.
And even though I'm talking about UFOs that are like a ship, come on, like something has to be piloting it, so aliens, cryptids, come on folks. All righty. Some of these sightings, like the Bigfoot sightings, are not very credible.
Right.
Aliens.
For sure.
While others, I mean, crap, now that the US government is admitting that UFOs are a freaking thing, if you believe you saw a UFO, you may have. Yeah, like you probably did. And that's like the scariest shit about all of this is like, you think you saw something?
Okay, you think you saw a Bigfoot?
And we still kind of, you know, don't believe you.
You think you saw a UFO? You know what, folks?
You probably did. That's what's, that's what's terrifying. So this story that I want to cover, again, happened in Westmoreland County.
It was December 9th, 1965, around 5 p.m. A fireball was streaks across the sky above northeastern North America, and there are sightings as far as Indiana, New York, Virginia, Ontario, all which are reported in newspapers as somebody seeing something going through the sky. The falling object even started many fires throughout Ohio into Pennsylvania as the flaming debris falls from it.
And there was even a story in the Associated Press that reported on this as well, that all these little mini fires and whatnot were started from this. So while everyone agrees on everything that I just said, that there was something flying through the sky, a ton of people saw it, that is about the only thing that everyone agrees on. Everything moving forward, people don't agree on.
So this happened in Kexburg, Pennsylvania, and witnesses in Kexburg claimed that the object crashed into the woods by the nearby town. Today, many people believe this was in fact like an optical illusion of some sort. No clue what they thought this optical illusion could have been.
But their thing wasn't like it was a meteor. Like nobody was like, this is a meteor.
Some people said it was that, but a lot of people were like, no, it's just some like optical illusion of some sort.
That would have been their first thing. Mine would have been like, oh, something must have...
Oh, it's a meteor. Well, a lot of people say that, but they said that it was an optical illusion because there's no way that it could have landed in this spot, given the trajectory of where it was seen and everything. However, at the time, the US.
Army took any of the sightings in the mid-60s, so they took any of the sightings very seriously, and they did not hesitate to investigate this incident. The area was roped off, and citizens who came out into the woods to investigate the falling object were turned back by armed men. The Army reported that after an investigation of the woods around Kecksburg, nothing was found, which I feel like was always the story around UFO sightings back then.
Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing to see here. Just move along, and then like the men in black, they zap, you know, zap you with their little stick thing and erase your memories.
All right, so let's get into some firsthand accounts here. One gentleman, Bill Bulbush, claims he saw the object, right? Bill Bulbush claims he saw the object turn around in the sky, just like it was controlled before crashing into the woods.
Apparently insane, this man was interested in what he just saw, and he drove out to investigate and found an acorn-shaped object about the size of a small Volkswagen smoldering in the woods. It was glowing, cracked, and sparked, scaring Bulbush, who says he did not get too close to the object, and when he heard people coming, that's when he ran home.
Uh, yeah, I don't even know if I would have investigated in the first place.
Okay, so there's more here. James Romsky was another individual who saw this object. According to his account, he was part of a group of volunteer firefighters who responded to what they thought was going to be a plane crash.
So they were all reported to small plane crash. Instead, he said he found a metal acorn-shaped object buried in the ground and covered in hieroglyphics. And that, folks, is where I would have crap my pants and been like, I'm a volunteer.
Thank you. I am done.
I'm not sure what I would have been more afraid of. First fear, the thing itself and what's going to come out. Second fear, the insane things that this could be like, like contagions or aliens or whatever on it.
Third fear, the government is going to kill me because I've seen this now.
I've seen this. I've seen like, you know, hold on to that thought.
Hold on to that thought.
So, um, let's see here and this too. So you were saying about how you're afraid. And this for me, it's not like I would be afraid, but it's my same feelings that I have towards ghosts and people like summoning spirits and things.
Whether you believe it or not, there are just some things you shouldn't mess with. And an alien spacecraft for me is probably one of them. Just like, just don't, just don't mess with it.
Like people will go out ghost hunting and they're like, let's summon these ghosts. Nope. Just, just don't.
See, I'm all about, I want to go ghost hunting, but I would never try and summon something. That's crazy. Like go to someplace that haunted?
Yeah. Try and like call something?
Summon them?
No.
Purposely bring them out? No.
No, no, no.
Because people just stop, yeah. But this is the same, for me, this isn't the same thing. Like I would walk up to it, see it, and be like, out, I'm done, thank you guys.
So the same gentleman, Romsky, claims that he was then ordered, the volunteer firefighter, he was then ordered to leave by men in trench coats, and this is where we start to get to real X-file-y here. He later saw the military carrying the object away on a flatbed truck. Several additional witnesses saw this flatbed truck leaving too, and by that point it was all covered in a big tarp.
Another man came forward, Michael Rambosher, who was a security officer for the Air Force, claimed to have guarded the object which arrived on a flatbed truck, and he believed that was not from this world. So wherever this truck ended up, that's where this guy was, and he's like, yep, I guarded this thing. Which, I mean, like an Acorn with hieroglyphics on it, like, yeah, out of this world box is definitely checked.
One more, one of the most interesting stories that I would say that came from this was from an incident by the local news director of a radio station in Kexburg, John Murphy. Murphy headed out to the site very shortly after the crash happened before the military got there. He took photos of the objects, interviewed many of the witnesses on a tape recorder.
No, it's... pause. Stop.
Murphy was, of course, very excited about what he collected and went back to his radio station to put everything together for a special program that night or the next day on the show. Shortly before the broadcast was to go on the radio, the station was visited by a couple of men who were dressed in all black. Again, X-file-y.
I'm, like, trench coats, men in black, always a bad sign. So a co-worker who verified this story also said that the men confiscated Murphy's photos, tape recordings, and anything else that Murphy needed to put together the program on the incident. Of course, Murphy never aired anything, but he was said to be very mad and very vocal about, like, the whole situation, that he was pretty ticked off, that, like, people have a right...
Right? Because he could have had the breaking story.
And, too, like, for your whole life then, everyone would think you're just nuts.
Well, he didn't... Funny you should say, his whole life, because not too long after the incident, Murphy, while visiting California, was hit randomly by a driver who just sped off. And he, like, Murphy was just walking, hit him, took off.
What? Yeah, whether the hit and run was just... Yeah, crazy coincident or not, a lot of people speculate because he was so vocal that this was planned.
So, the incident, although surrounded in controversy, is celebrated annually in the town, but many investigators do still come to the area looking for proof of history's past. As we all know from our previous episodes, trees can take time to grow, and they take a long time to, like, self-heal. So many have claimed that if you go there, there are broken branches, and if you take a drone and look at footage shooting down, you can actually see, like, a clear path of newer brush than the surroundings in the same direction, in the exact same area that eyewitnesses say the report happened.
Well, you'd also think they'd be able to do soil samples, because unless they...
They have. They have. And the soil samples have really have said, like, nothing of significance.
Like, nothing big. But the story doesn't end here. Fast forward to 2002.
A New York-based investigative journalist, Leslie Keene, leads a charge against NASA, of all people, by filing a lawsuit working with the Coalition for Freedom of Information. Keene spearheading a Freedom of Information Act, a FOIA, an issue sponsored by the Sci-Fi channel, no less, was an effort to acquire government documents from the Keeksburg case. The following year, she ended up a plaintiff in a federal FOIA lawsuit against NASA in Washington, DC which, as an investigative journalist, listen, whatever job she had after that, like going above and beyond, she did it, because she literally took NASA to court.
So after previously promising, well, through all these court cases, you know, NASA ended up saying that they were going to go ahead and expedite the search for files related to the 1965 Kecksburg UFO crash. NASA completely stonewalled and later said, well, we have no idea where the files are.
I was going to say, what could that, I mean, you could just be like, I don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah, they basically just said that they couldn't find it. And that was their official statement was pretty much oopsies. So still to this day, we still don't know.
Those files weren't released in any of like the 2001, like the groupings of all those. And you can go on and find all those reports online, which doesn't really say anything. Like if you read through them, all the reports basically say like, yep, there's UFOs, it's not us, and there's absolutely no way it could be anybody else.
So they didn't want to say aliens. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They didn't want to say aliens. But the Kexberg one was not in there. In Roswell, a lot of people like know that they, you know, have said that was pretty much debunked nowadays.
But the Kexberg one, it's still out. I mean, an acorn covered in hieroglyphics. I don't know.
But it is. Yeah, it's very, it's oddly specific for like, I don't know. You know what I mean?
For like several different people. Yeah, it's very random, like an acorn shape whenever most people see like a flat disc. Yeah, a disc.
So that was Kexberg. Again, like I didn't grow up too far from this one. And that's just one of like many stories in the area.
Same thing as Bigfoot, though. I mean, people see stuff. They say they see stuff.
I mean, both of my parents at one point or another have said that they've seen things in the area. Both that they've been like way out in rural areas and they see something flying overhead, whether it's aircraft, whatever. But yeah, so that is UFOs and aliens that would have to be flying them.
Aliens. Aliens, man. So I do want to put a disclaimer.
The reason, though, why I wanted to do these two is because there is a lot of nostalgia here for these two with me. And my dad, who I've talked about before on the show, he passed away like seven and a half years ago. We grew up watching X-Files together.
That was our show. I probably started watching X-Files when it first came out, and I was way too young to be watching them.
But it definitely sparked my interest. I mean, I was already a kid that asked a lot of questions. And then to have a show that fueled, that it's okay to ask questions, I was like, heck yeah.
And the same thing with Bigfoot. My dad and I would watch all the Bigfoot hunting shows and stuff. And that one, we would laugh about it, because you know those shows, if you've ever watched them.
They're so dramatic. And you know they're not going to find anything, because news is going to get out. They're going to squeal ahead of time.
But my dad, right? But again, we grew up in the area, so it was always a spoof, a laugh between us. He used to go out, and again, we grew up in the woods, like seven acres, and we were pretty far from anything.
And we would watch, I'd be home from college or whatever, just be visiting home, and we'd watch a show and laugh and then go out on the back porch. And he would do a really loud, the Bigfoot call, and I'm like, oh my god. And then I'd start laughing.
So it really did become a joke between us. And then we always, even up until his death, we still like watching X-Files together. And I think it was the Christmas, I have it around here somewhere, but the Christmas right before he died, I got him a Bigfoot shirt, because it was such a joke between the two of us.
But man, we actually have pictures of him whenever he was getting his cancer treatments and stuff like that. He had that shirt on and stuff, because he thought it was just as funny. And if anybody knows me, humor is a Reese Masking and coping mechanism, through and through.
But it's also our love language. Humor is definitely my family's love language.
So yeah, Bigfoot and X-Files for me, it is a bit of nostalgia. I grew up around it, and I don't know. It was just always something between my dad and I, so I like talking about it.
But for me, I want there to be something more in this world.
Something else, yeah. Something else.
Yeah, totally. I regularly, because I'm weird like that, you know how you prepare scenarios in your head? I think about other weird scenarios.
Like Laura, what would you sacrifice if you could make there be real dragons in the world, or like magic? I would absolutely chop one of my arms off right now.
I mean, that was an agreement between my ex-husband and I whenever he joined the Air Force. I was like, I know you're going to probably have to keep things secret. Don't care.
If you find out for some strange reason that aliens exist, that's an agreement you have to tell me. Like, I don't care. I don't care anything else that you do.
Could care less. If you find out aliens exist, you need to tell me. And here we are, 2021.
That was why I got a divorce. No, I'm decent. The government came out and said that there were aliens.
I didn't need him anymore.
It's fine.
Get a divorce.
Well, or he kept it bottled up inside all of these years because he really didn't think he could tell you.
Yeah, right?
I'll be like, hey, you got a shout out multiple times in this episode.
Poor guy. So anyway, so cryptozoology, that was a fun one.
It's a fun top.
I mean, cryptozoology is fun because there are so many stories on these ones too.
Yeah.
All right, folks, well, we're going to take a bit of a break. At least four weeks.
We need a vacation.
Yeah, just mentally and life-wise and stuff. So make sure you check us out on Patreon. I'm going to be posting.
I posted some behind the scenes videos, and I'll put this one up too. And these videos are pretty much unedited, but I do overlay like pictures and things on them so you can kind of see what we're talking about. So go to Patreon and you support us, and you'll be able to see some extra content over there.
But until then, follow us on social media. We're most active on Twitter, I would say.
Yeah.
Yeah, most active on Twitter by far. So head over there and chat with us. And until then, we will talk to you next season.
Talk to you next season, everybody. Have a good one.