Bigfoot Encounters from Connecticut to North Carolina!

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0:43 Welcome to big for Society. If you have Bigfoot activity to report from the same areas discussed in this episode, please reach out to me directly after this episode, and if you'd like to be on the podcast to discuss a personal Bigfoot encounter, please reach out to me directly at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. Do you wish there was more big for Society to listen to you every week? Well there is now. If you become a supporting member over at Patreon, you get a special members only episode every single week on Wednesdays, and sometimes even more episodes head on over to Patreon dot com forward slash the Big for Society and now let's get on with the show. All right, Big for Society've got the privilege of talking to Tom Shean today. He's a bigfoot researcher originally from New England, but now he's based out of North Carolina, and Tom, I've been wanting to get you on the show for quite a while, but we're finally here and it's a pleasure to have you on tonight.

1:38 How's it going. It is going just great, Jeremiah, and thank you so much, and I am thrilled to be here with you. Absolutely. We were talking before we started recording that it is a special treat for me to be able to talk to someone who was originally from Massachusetts as myself and also a bigfoot researcher. There's not it's hard to get those guys on the show. So when you're able to get those guys on the show, it is a real treat. So we'll definitely have some fun things to talk about. But Tom, let's start at the beginning. What was it that got you into this crazy bigfoot world to begin with?

2:22 All right, Well, first of all, start up with my age. I was born in the mid sixties, so I'm like a og gen X, And so I grew up watching Star Trek reruns in the seventies and into sci fi UFOs, ghosts and all that weird paranormal stuff because it was just fascinating to me. He was like, Yeah, this is exciting. The real world is boring. This is exciting. In the seventies, we all remember, well, not at all, but I'm sure most of us remember. Leondard Nimoy had a program called In Search of and he covered like a lots monster UFOs and disappearances, and he also covered Bigfoot. And I remember watching that show, you know, Beyond Afternoon after school and I'd say, oh wow. And I saw Patty for the first time, the Patterson Gimmlin film, and I said, that is real. I saw that and I said, that is real. There's no way it's anything else but a real, actual Bigfoot. And so I grew up that way, you know, that kind of you know, thinking about what people call the paranormal or not outside of the realm of the usual.

3:40 And as I got older, it is okay, this is cool. That the Internet came along in the nineties, and by the two thousands there was a lot of stuff on the Internet about Bigfoot. It was one thing I as a kid, I'd go to library all the time and read what I could about Bigfoot and other things. But you know, once the Internet really exploded with information, it's like wow, It's like kid in the candy store. And in the early two thousands I was able to network with other people interested in Bigfoot and we formed a group called NESRA, and that's any SRA, the Northeast Sasquatch Researchers Association. And this is sometime around two thousand and four, two thousand and five SEA. I don't even remember the exact date, but I was really excited about this. There were five of us originally who founded it. We had a big meeting in Connecticut and we all got together and said, Okay, this is what we're going to be, this is what we're going to do. And then we started doing our own little expeditions. We'd go to places in New York, Vermont, they went to New Jersey. I didn't get to go out those, but I heard those were great. I think they did a virginuine list because we ended up eventually with members from all over the East Coast, up and down the East Coast and even towards the Midwest, and we are going to gang Busters for a while there. In fact, at one point we were approached by the History Channel and their show Monster Quest.

5:10 They wanted to come on an expedition with us to Whitehall because they were doing a special about the white Hall incidents that involved police officers. They actually had the original witnesses, police officers and the towns people who lived in the white Hall area who had these encounters. So while they were doing that, and by the way, in this episode is called Bigfoot in New York. Anyone can go on YouTube and you can see the complete episode. Just type in Bigfoot in New York. It should come up. That's about forty five minutes long or so. And it was a really great, really great experience. They intermingle our investigation, our lot, well not live but live for us, with the witnesses, the eyewitness accounts from the seventies when this originally happened. And yeah, it's a really good it's a really good episode. So anyway, now, before that though, right when we found anestra, I start, I was looking up Okay, Bigfoot, you know, the Pacific Northwest, the California, Canada, and no Bigfoot is everywhere. I found stories about something called the Winstead wild Man, and that Winstead is in northwestern Connecticut.

6:29 It's up in the mountainous areas they're called the Northwest Hills of Connecticut, which are if you look at a topographical map of the United States, especially the northeast, you go see the green Mountains of Vermont, very rugged, you know, the northern end of the Appalachian Mountains. Of course, when I'm down in North Carolina, I have to say the Appalachian Mountains. But they stand through western Massachusetts and down into Connecticut where they pretty much tapeer off in Connecticut. But that's all one big, long, continuous mountain range. And Winstead is near the southern end of these mountains. And the original story of the Winstead wild Man goes back to eighteen eighteen ninety five, I believe who the year was, And the story goes something like this, A a town councilman from Winstead was walking his dog, a bulldog, through blueberries anyway, some kind of berry patch, and he encountered a man. He called it a man was covered with hair with black hair. He had long hair along his shoulders and his whole body's covered hair, and he was very strong, and Brownie said he wouldn't an ordinary man would not stand a chance against him, and that his dog became very scared, ran between his legs, the on whimpering, and all classic bigfoot descriptions basically what it is. But

8:00 back then they called them a wild man. And he said it was about six feet tall, but you know that could be a juvenile. And this this started a little frenzy in that area. Oh it on, said wild man. Then more stories other people said yeah, I saw them too, and soon they started. The tale started getting a little blown out of proportion. But the original encounter, the original story, is the most important one and in my eyes and in many others, what he did he had an encounter with a big foot. Now we move along up to the seventies. In the seventy two, there's a story from the Hartford Current that some people saw a strange manlike creature across a pond or a crystal lake reservoir that's called so they walked upright and finally disappeared into the woods, eight feet tall, covered with hair, And it sounds like another Bigfoot to me. And two years later, in nineteen seventy four, the wild Man was seen again, this time by two couples who'd been parked at night. If I a rugg Brook reservoir described the police being terrified by seeing a six foot, three hundred pound creature. So that's kind of fat covered with dark colored hair in the moonlight, and fled the area immediately. So that just sounds like all Bigfoot activity to me. So looking into that, I said, wow, there is an area right near where I live in Springfield, Massachusetts that I can drive to and who knows, you

9:32 see what's out there? You know, sounds like a good place to do some investigating. So I'm new to this, I said, I will take a drive out there. So I jump in my car, take a drive out to I decided I'm going to a state forest in the Winston area called the American Legion State Forest. They have that, and right across the road is another one called the People's State Forest. This is very rugged forested terrain, I said. You know, as I got out there, I said, wow, I can see Bigfoot being here. So what I did was I drove down There's just one road an American Legion. It's called Legion Road. I drove my car all the way down to the very end of the road, which is good, you know, at least a mile and a half into the into the forest, and when you get to the end, there's actually a culvert that you have to cross, and sometimes it's washed out. I was able to drive down all the way to the end, and it's very swampy and marshy down there. So I parked my car, got out, and you know, I was just looking around, said oh, that this might be a good spot for our brand new group NESRA to come, you know, do a little exploring, a little research. So as I'm standing there outside of my car, I'm looking around and then I hear I would swear I heard some slight rustling in woods to my right. You know, I'm at

11:03 the end of the dead end road. I'm looking towards the end of the road, so the Russians is to my right. Oh and by the way, I don't have it now, but I will be going down there in a couple of days since I'm in I'm in Connecticut right now, I'm going to go back to the exact same area and I'm gonna take a video of the entire place put it up on my YouTube channel, so any listeners who want to see what are exactly I'm talking about can go see the video on my channel later on. So anyway, I'm looking around here the noise, there's something in there. So I started walking into the woods, and as I get in there, I don't see anything like moving, but I see impressions, very large impressions in the ground. And it is this ground you know where it's kind of like a peat moss I think it is.

11:54 It's like very spongy, it's got moss growing all over it. So you step on it and it's a little springy. But whatever this was, it like sunk into it and made some really big, deep impressions. Now, it wasn't an actual the classic big foot where okay, there's it looks like a humid foot and there's five toes. It was more like just the general shape because the nature of the medium that it was stepping in. But it was definitely big whatever it was, So I that's wow. And then I look, Okay, when you see one, the first thing is okay, I'm gonna look for like a trackway was there a step behind it? Is there a step you know, beyond it? And I looked in yeah, sure enough, it looked like there was a step here or step there, and they were pretty far apart. They're like five feet apart.

12:39 The actual impression I measured it was about fourteen inches long about six inches wide. So all right, so I'm following these which looked like, okay, this is the heel end and that it will be the toe end. I'm and I'm walking in that general direction. I hear more rustling in the woods ahead of me, and thinking, okay, this is like right there, there's something here, is right up there in front of me, but the growth of the force is taking up where I really couldn't see much more than maybe twenty to thirty feet in front of me. So whatever this was was beyond that where I really couldn't see anything, but I heard the rustling. So I decided to know what I want to do with a wood knock, and we all know what a wood knock is. But I didn't have anything with me.

13:26 I I didn't see anything near me I could use, so I did something else. I do what's I call it a hand pop And some of you might know what I'm talking about. But if you take your hands and you make them like a cup shape where you put the two together, and then you open your mouth like a big wide circle with your mouth and you clap your hands those cupped hands right in front of your mouth like that, that makes this really loud popping sound. I'll do it right now like like that. And if you're out in the middle of a forest where there's no sounds at all, that makes a very loud sound that carries. And I recently saw a video where someone said they saw they were witnessing a big foot. They said he brought his hands up to its mouth in front of its face and then made a wood knocking sound.

14:16 Now he could he wasn't close enough to see exactly what it did, but according to what he saw, as soon as he raised its hands to its mouth, the wood knocking sound happened. So just saying that, hey, maybe that's something they do, well, it's something that I did that day. I did it three times. I did it boo. I just stood there, silence, listened. Big for a society who will be right back after these messages.

15:00 Then in about five to ten seconds after I did that, I hear the loudest bang, bang bang on a tree just in the same direction in front of me that I was going where I heard the sound, the more rustling sound, and on the third bang, the distinct sound of you know you hear it on TV or in a movie if you haven't seen any real life or heard in real life of a tree falling over, you know that cracking of the wood with a big loud boom when it hit the ground. And I stood there like I was in shock. I said, what just happened?

15:44 Like freaking out the loud bangs, the tree fall and the crash on the ground. I said, okay, I stood there, Okay, what's gonna happen next? And after a couple of minutes, I said, okay, I'm I'm gonna start heading heading in that direction. So I did. I started finally going up that way. It was up. I had to go up a little slight ridge, headed back up to the road that I drove in on, and I found the tree that fell. It was actually a dead tree, but it was very big and thick. It was at least at least eighteen inches in diameter. I'm not sure what kind of tree it was. But it was dead and I said, oh wow, but you know what this is where it was knocked over. It was knocked over exactly a perpendicular across the road that I drove in, blocking my car in.

16:37 And I have heard other people say they will knock over trees and block your car in. I said, oh, but not before. I was like, this is new. I'm new. I'm totally green going out in the field looking around. And I didn't really have a camp. This is back cell phones where like what we have now. But I didn't think about taking pictures or anything. I did return the next day to make a plaster cast of the foot impressions. But anyway, at that point I've said, okay, now my cars blocked in. Now what did I do? And now I got this little four door four cylinders sitting out of the Ford Escort. I had a CBE antenna magnetic mount with this cable. I said, okay, well, I'm going to take the CB cable. I'm going to wrap it around this end of the tree here and tied it to the bottom of my car and hopefully I can drag this enough out of the way where I can drive around it. And I did. I was able to do that, so and I looked at the base of the tree. My first okay, did something, go up and stand at the base of the tree and do this, And sure enough I found another exact impression of the same ones I found earlier, fourteen inches long, six inches wide at the base of the tree. It was not as deep, but it was definitely there. So I got I got the tree out of the way, got in my car, and I was able to leave. Now.

18:04 I returned the next day. I said, oh, I'm going to go back and I'm going to make plaster casts of these. Rain was in the forecast too, some storms were moving in, so I got in there quickly as I could. I made one cast of the first really deep impression I found. I went. I tried to make a cast of the one at the base of the tree, but it was so shallow I really couldn't get a nice stick layer of the plaster in there, and that one just crumbled when I took it out because I actually was in a rush because the rain, the big thunderstorm was coming in. So anyway, yeah, I did get the one cast, and it was the very first time I ever made a cast, and one part of it actually broke off, but it was a very impressive looking fourteen inch by six inch put shape print. I said, no toes. Toes would have been awesome, but no, there were no toes, and so that was it. Now. Yet that was about two thousand and five ish, I'd have to say. So that is my experience with And here's the thing. I never saw a creature. I never saw what did that. I never saw what made the prince.

19:07 I never saw what made the bangs on the tree and knocked it over. I'm only assuming, based on the history of the area, what I was there for, and what happened, how it happened. All the circumstantial evidence in my mind says it was a bigfoot that did that. Oh yeah, I mean, especially finding the fourteen inch indentation by the tree. I mean that to me, that's like a done deal, right, I mean what else? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was the thought of my mind. Sa Okay, this tree is knocked over while was standing here.

19:48 Yet there's that same impression in the ground. Actually, So a few days later, some of the members of our new group NESRA we went back there and looked around. We actually did an overnight but nothing happened while we were there, but also in Connecticut, there are some other researchers that I've recently gotten back in contact with, living in a totally different part of Connecticut, but they have some interesting activity in their area on some private property, and the property owner has given them permission to just pretty much just park the overnight. And I've joined them a few times and we have heard some interesting sounds. And they have these zoom recorders with the microphones and the amplifiers, so you can really hear, you know, small sounds from a distance, really great equipment. And what we do we just park our vehicles and sit in the cars and hang the microphones out our windows and just sit there and listen. And it's amazing the sounds that you can hear at two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, when you're normally sleeping. It is a completely different world out there in this specific area. They said, at one time there's this big quartz boulder that they park next to, and one time they were parked there and this huge rock COM's flying in and it smashes on the other side of the boulder that the park next to, and pieces of the rock went flying and one of the times I got to either with them. We you know, you're sitting there, you falling asleep. You know, you're listening

21:20 to Okay, you hear some creak is sturbing, and you know, maybe the couple little rustles to leave here and there, but nothing but all of a sudden, maybe I think it was like two forty five in the morning. I'm I'm dozing off, but I got the headphones on listening and I hear bipedal footsteps are getting closer closer to the car. I wake up, my eyes wide open, my heart is poundering. I'm a bigfoot is walking right up to our cars. And we had two where radios to communicate with each other. So I get on the radio. I said, hey, those are bite people footsteps. And one of the people they get back to me. You think there's a bite people post steps, And that happened. The footsteps all of a sudden turn into a run and they go off into the distance. Well, okay, there, I guess that was a big foot coming up too. But now he's gone. But so that was also in Connecticut.

22:12 Yet there is there is so much activity in Connecticut Massachusetts. A lot of people don't talk about. In fact, I just heard your story with Ernie from Granville Reservoir, which that turns out that's not very far from the Winstead area, Oh yeah, which is also also another part of that same extension Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Yeah, I mean it easily could see the same bigfoot that are hanging out down where your area was, maybe being part of that whole Granville Cobble Mountain area. I mean, it's yeah, it's not that far behind. Did you did you ever check out that area as well? Or were you pretty much just down in Connecticut.

22:53 Well, I have never been particularly in the Granville area, since it's so close to the American Legion state for us. When I go up there this weekend to take my video for this story, I'm just gonna take a ride over to It's like twenty five minutes away from there, and you know, I looked it up, you know, being the researcher, and I looked it up and I know where it is, so yeah, I can park right here and walk right into the woods. I'm just gonna take a look around. Because Ernie's story was fascinating. Oh it really is. And the thing about it is that. There's so many other people that have been contacting me since that story came out, since you shared on the channel, and other people that have been like, yeah, I've also experienced stuff in that area. So right now trying to get other episodes set up of that same area. We'll see if they actually come to Fruition. But it's just it's wild to think that there is an area that is so close to Westfield that has some pretty intense bigfoot action going on. So it'll see. We'll see what comes of that for sure. But did you ever did you ever have any any bigfoot research happen in Massachusetts in any other areas.

24:14 Well? Not me specifically, but my friends that I was just talking about in another part of Connecticut. They moved to Connecticut a few years ago, but they used to live in western Massachusetts and they they have told me about some very interesting places. One in particular is up on the north end of Reservoir. Yep, there are some camp sites up there. There's campgrounds where you can go camping. They say, yeah, there is. There is a lot of activity up in the north end of Reservoir. It's a I know exactly who you're talking about. I talked to them like three or three or four years ago. I think it's a couple, right, Yes, it is. Yeah, they're they're great. It's been a long time, but yeah, they they have a very interesting story and I think maybe even they're involved with things around Mount Tom.

25:08 I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, Mount Tom. I wish I had known about that. I was still in Springfield at the time. I said, oh, well, but I heard all about that encounter. That's a pretty good one that the feature and his kid. Yeah, no, that's that's I don't think that was even one that got on the episode. But we had been talking for like an hour and a half before we actually started recording a few days before, and she told me that story and it was wild. It's just just a wild account. Hopefully someday maybe I'll maybe I'll have to talk to her again. But it's a it's a good one. And the thing is yeah, and the thing is Mount Tom is like right there next. First of all, Holy yok is a city, and then there's Chickapee in Springfield.

25:57 It's like right there. I think the greater Springfield population is close to half a million people, and they are big for right up there. On the mountain there right now where I am, I'm visiting. I'm in Connecticut now, visiting from North Carolina. And where I am, I'm very close to a place called the Devil's Hopyard down in southeast Connecticut, and there is stuff going on there too. I could drive there from where I am in five to ten minutes. And so you just look at a map. Anyone can do this. Look at a map, look at where there's a lot of wilderness, look at what there's trees, lots of the thick forest. And the thing is, you got to go out there at one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, just sit there and listen, and you will hear things like, oh, okay, that's not any animal that I'm aware of familiar with that sound, And you just might be hearing some big foot activity.

26:57 Because ninety percent of people who have a big foot encounter, it's gonna be something to hear. If they're lucky enough, we'll actually see a big foot. But the other ninety percent are going to hear a bigfoot. And then there's a few that smell a bigfoot. But you know, I want to go back to the Monster Quest episode Bigfoot in New York. Now, when you watch the show, there was nothing conclusive, no encounters happened. But near the end of one of our members, Kevin, he actually did have an encounter. There's a part in the show where I'm up there on the show that it's funny. I don't know why they did that, but they called me Tom Hollywood as we had to fill out forms before the show.

27:46 We had to fill out forms and they said, do you have like a nickname? I said, yeah, well my nickname is Hollywood. And that goes back because when we first formed NESRA, another Tom joined the group. So there are two times. Well okay, well we'll call you Hollywood so we don't get too confused when we're all talking. Okay, so that's Tom, and so I know that. Put that so on the show says Tom Holly was here. And then Kevin and Corey, two other members of the group, were stationed like the next station over from me and Dave. And as as they were sitting there to the night, Kevin kept getting hit by pine cones. Someone or something was throwing pine cones at him and he wanted he wanted his partner Corey to go up there because see what it is. He wouldn't do it. He said, well, I'm going to go back down to the camp. So Kevin starts walking back down towards the main camp and whatever was throwing the pine cones followed, and so he finally turns around his moonlight. It's a bright moonlit night, just like it is tonight, and he looked and he saw he said, it was like seven and a half heet tall bigfoot. He said it was. It was behind a tree and it stepped out from behind the tree and that's what he saw it. And you see him on the show talking and he's on camera and he's a little shaken up by the whole incident. But that happened, but we didn't we didn't actually tell the Monster Quest people.

29:13 Oh yeah, there's a big foot right here. There was a big foot and concert on that episode, but it was not shown on the cameras of Monster Quest. That's incredible anyway. Wow, how wild is that? Oh yeah, it just blows my mind. That is crazy, man. I'm such a fan of New England bigfoot. So I what a missed opportunity that wasn't into it when I was out there. But it is what it is. But have you ever heard of any This is just shot in the dark, But have you heard of any stuff? You know, like north central Massachusetts, Like you go up ninety one through through mass and you're going up to like Vermont, New Hampshire. Have you ever heard of anything up there in like that area where it's three states that come together.

30:04 Oh, you mean right around Northfield, mass and Keen, New Hampshire, Right, exactly. Yeah, I've heard that there's interesting things happen around the Menadnock area. Yes, I haven't specifically look at it. Actually, for a time there, I used to drive a race car at Nadnock speed Away. Oh really, any time, any time I spent it there, I was driving a race car. But yeah, but I've I've read about the Monadnock area is very interesting, is what I can put. Has been such a long time ago I read about. Can you tell us more about Menadnock? Big for a society who will be right back after these messages? I mean, well, I'm going to lose a ton of cred because I grew up in the area and I never went there. I've never hiked it, and it's like one of the most popular mountains in the world, right, But regarding Bigfoot, that area I believe is known for the Marlborough Monkey, which is a group of bigfoot sightings over in that area, and crash Course Cryptozoology YouTube channel has done a really good documentary on it. People want to check that out. But yeah, that area is known for some really interesting bigfoot sightings called the Marlborough Monkey throughout years. So shot in the dark though about So

31:38 Franklin County is the whole Northfield area and I'm like, man, there's got to be bigfoot stuff, but I just haven't found the person that knows because it's hard to get those guys. So if any listeners are like, oh yeah, I know Franklin County or like Winchester, New Hampshire, Braddleborough and I know bigfoot stuff, reach out please. I would love to talk to you about it, just because I grew up there, wild wild stuff. Who else? So, who else was involved with your group on that Monster Quest episode? Oh well, let's see, oh so long ago. Let's see, Dave was with me when we were doing the stakeout that night. Kevin and Corey were the ones getting the pink con stone at them. Let's see Big Daddy Chuck one of them. He helped to run the base camp.

32:32 There's in charge with the base camp. And Steve calls squatch detective. He was also am of that expedition. Yeah, and and Chris Chris was his last name from New York because we were we had members of the Adirondack Bigfoot Society I think it was. And uh, but Chris Chris is there, and yeah, we had we had a a lot of good people, a lot of good people on that expedition. So you started out in New England, but then at a point you transitioned down to North Carolina. How is it looking for Bigfoot down there as opposed to looking for Bigfoot in New England.

33:20 Well, here's the funny thing. A few years back, I don't know, I'd probably say maybe ten years ago or so, I kind of say I retired from the whole Bigfoot thing, I you know, moving on doing other things in my life. And it was interesting the times I had, so I didn't really give it much thought. And it was in twenty twenty we moved from Connecticut to North Carolina, mostly because of the whole medical issue that was going on during that time. And you say, I work getting out of Connecticut. This is crazy. Things will be better down in North Carolina, and they certainly were, certainly are. So we moved to the actually we moved to Asheville. We bought we bought a camper and we put it on a campsite. But we lived in an apartment in Asheville.

34:11 This was in twenty twenty and in twenty twenty one we moved out of that apartment. Well this is not Bigfoot related, but everyone knows what happened. A few weeks ago the big storm came in and the apartment we lived in in an Ashville that was underwater. It was two floors these buildings, first floor apartments and second floor apartments. So we had a first floor apartment. We went back there and we talked to a woman who lives in the second floor apartment. Said, oh, yeah, the water was a foot high in my second floor apartment. So anyway, we moved out of Asheville in twenty twenty one and moved to Maggie Valley. It's a little resort town at the entrance to the Smoky Mountains on the North Carolina side.

34:56 Beautiful little town, lots of RV's and camp and so we have a camper down there. But then we moved. We were renting out a house in mars Hill because it was cheaper than where we were renting in Maggie Valley. The camper at that time was more of like a backup place to go. So Mars Hill is on the border at Tennessee. Maybe we were like a mile and a half away from the Appalachian Trail, right on the from month the Tennessee North Carolina border. And this is what I would do. I found this app called the Sound Recorder that downloaded on my smartphone, my Android phone, and I was just stick my phone out the window.

35:38 And anyone can do this, especially if you live in a rural area, and you might might not want to do it because it kind of gets addicting. What you do is you download this app and it amplifies sounds like crazy, like wow, this is like as good as the Zooon recorder. And I'd stick it out there and I would hear what knocks. I would here howls, and I'm just lying in the comfort of my bed, I'm hearing this big food activity going on up in mars Hill, North Carolina. So then eventually we moved back. We finally moved into the camper full time in Maggie Valley. Now Here is something that happened just a couple months ago.

36:21 There was a meteor shower August twelve, and I think it was the Percied Media shower. But anyway, this meteor shower, I said, oh boy, the metia show. I'm going to go out at one thirty in the morning in Maggie Valley and look at the watch of meteors. So I step out with the camper, go outside, and I just saw some nice meteors. But I'm hearing a dog bark across. If you look at a map of Maggie Valley, the main drag is called Soco Road. I live in a camper on the north side of Soco Road. I hear dog barking across on the south side of Soco Road, and it's the mountains on that side of the valley're called the plot Balsam Mountains. And I'm listening. I said, there's another animal making sound and that's what a dog's barking.

37:05 And as I'm listening, I said, holy crap, that's a bigfoot and that's why did the dog is barkin so I jump in my van, I drive over closer to where the sun is coming from. I'm right near a Maggie Valley town hall now, and I just let my recorder run and recorded the sounds. And this is on my channel, my YouTube channel now Blue Edge Bigfoot. And there is a story about a creature or a man, depending on how you want to look at it. That's called the Boojum. In fact, in Waynesville, North Carolina, that's the next town over they have Boujim Brewery. And the legend of the Boojum goes something like this. Around nineteen hundred, guy bought the top of a mountain there right at the end of the plot Baalsams. He bought the property and he wanted to build a hotel, so he had to have a road cleared all the way to the top of the mountain, cleared the land, and built this big old honkin hotel up on top. It's called Eagle Nest Ridge. And you can look at that on the map and see where it was. So this is nineteen around nineteen hundred he built this. And after the hotel was built, people hear all kinds of weird howls and who and out in the forest around the hotel. So somehow the story came up, Oh, that's the Boojum. And

38:36 the Boojum was it was described as a seven foot tall man covered in hair. He was ugly, and they said he liked the spy on the women when they were taking baths, and the creeks and the streams around the area, and he liked to find rubies and other gemstones in the area and go hide and away in a cave. But to me, yes, okay, that's a big but I don't know about the part about rubies and gems and hiding them. But the big, tall, ugly hairy man maybe spying, maybe spying on women. Maybe not. Okay, that to me sounds like a bigfoot story, just like the wild Man story. So then the legend goes, but this one woman didn't really mind him spying on him, I mean, spying on her past. She has taken him back.

39:24 Her name was Annie. So the legend goes that whenever Boujiam would be out in the forest somewhere out in the mountains is Annie would start hooting for him. So they called her Hoot and Annie and she would hoot, And then the Boujiam would hoot her holler back, so the two of them would be communicating with each other. So when I when I heard this sound back in August, I said, oh wow, I'm hearing either the boujam or hoot and Annie that they've been talking about for the past two hundred let's see hundred and twenty years. One hundred and twenty years this has been going on. So I recorded it and it's on my on my channel Blue Ridge Bigfoot. I got one called who and Nanny and just just listen to it and tell me what you think. But that was I was recorded with my phone.

40:17 I just let it sit on top of my van. I sat there and after a while I said, you know, I didn't see if I can drive closer to it. So I started up my van. I drove around up into the neighborhood where it was coming from up the side of the mountain to see if I get closer. But I'm thinking I'm driving my van. I got my windows down. All I can hear is my van. Now I really can't hear anything. I didn't want to stop and park in front of someone's house. You know, people out there will come out with your shock and hey, what are you doing? So I drove back down and I got some recording and that's actually here's something else that happened four days later. This was a Sunday night, Monday morning when I made the recording. Four days later, it was Friday. One of my neighbors in the RV park we're we are her sister and another a resident of the park. We're walking their dogs in this little park right around the corner from us, right across Soko Road from where I was hearing the sounds. And at one side of the park there's a big hill in it's all forest. The name of the park something like roof something park. But anyway, I'll tell you what. If you want to look this up on the map, look up Maggie Valley Storage Solutions on a map on Google.

41:30 You'll see where that is. And then to the right of it, you'll see the little park and you'll see this hill that's covered with trees. It's very steep. At the bottom of the hill where the park is, right on the border between the park and the forest, there's a bunch of grapes, a bunch of grape vines strung up, but there's a little track people walk the dogs. So anyway, they were walking their dogs on this track, she said, something huge started growling at them from inside the woods right at the edge of the woods there. Their little dogs got scared. Then he got out of there, and so I swear to it was a bigfoot. She said she never heard anything growl that loud before in her life.

42:19 And putting putting the pieces together, you know, the sounds like bigfoot activity to me. It's wild, I mean. And the video you'd been talking about before, that's the one that you had sent over to me right. With the recordings. Yes, yes, I got one called who and Nannie where it does the Yahoo three times. I'm playing the same recording over three times because you know, it's one Yahoo, so you can hear it three times. We'll keep rewinding it. And then the other one is the longer one where it starts making all those noises, then the dog barks and then it growls at the top.

43:00 Yeah, yeah, it's pretty awesome. I'll definitely have it in the description or show notes, which is people know where to find that. Have you been so. We kind of mentioned about a few weeks ago there was the hurricane. Definitely need to address it. Haven't really addressed it on the show yet. Have you been down to that area since that's happened. Oh, we were there when it was happening. Oh you were okay, Wow. Yeah, I'll tell you I am. Another feel of interest to me is weather. Yeah, and when it Tucker was coming in. Even before that, this is what was going on.

43:41 We were getting rain for two days already before the hurricane even got there. And as the hurricane started coming up the coast of Florida, before it even made landfall, the upper outflow from the hurricane started interacting with this cold front that had moved in and was causing rain, which just piled more rain on top of it. When the hurricane finally hit, it just dumped that last foot of rain. There were places in the area that got over three feet of rain within those three days. And we were really lucky where we are in Maggie Valley because we were up near the top end of the valley where the creek, the main creek is called Jonathan Creek, flows downwards. So obviously the higher up you are the better off. But as you go down this were more and more flooding. The land in front of us. Our Harvey Park was flooding. Our camper was up like a couple feet higher, and then one camper at the end he ended up like in the middle of a pond.

44:39 His camp was surrounded. The water started pulling up underneath our camper. But it was at that point that, okay, the water started finally receding. It was getting really close to us. But we got lucky. Nothing happened to us. But there are so many people who were not lucky at all. And the news reports are saying, oh, they've identified two hundred and thirty five dead or whatever. No, I'll tell you right now. Thousands of people got them. They were just these massive mud and trees and boulders came rushing down these mountains. And there's this town called Chimney Rock by Lake Lore. There's a movie called Let's See Well, Dirty Dancing was filmed there. Last of the Mohicans was filmed there. Beautiful, beautiful spot.

45:28 Big for society. Who will be right back after these messages? We have been there in the past. They have places called wiped out then up in north of Asheville. Like I said, Asheville itself got hit hard. North of Asheville, up near Mars Hill, Spruce Pine, Burnsville. That area got hit hard. Is just is just you can't it's so terrible. Just mud. There is just this big mud and debris just came and it covered everything. Uh. They have these dogs are called cadaver dogs, and they go look see if they can sniff out of dead body and they'll signal, okay, there's one here. They'll plant the flag in the ground there and then move on to next plant another flag.

46:24 Bason was the other Burnsville or Spruce Pine. There was this big mud and debris field that the dogs found over one hundred spots where they planted flags. And that's just that one area. Now they're finding bodies and trees. And I told you about our apartment. The water got so higher our apartment in Nashville that the second floor apartments were flooding. Yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with what is the best way to Is there an organization that's better to try to donate to for efforts than others? I'm guessing. Well, they are very well known popular ones, right, I would not recommend right, I mean, the best results were just from the people down there just rolling up their sleeves and doing it themselves, but doing what they can where they where they could do it, how they could do it. You know, the other organizations are just bureaucracies, and you know they like to grandstand say, oh look at us, here we are, we're here to save the day. Well, you want to save the day, you start shoveling out and see if we can, you know, help put these people's lives back together.

47:42 Oh absolutely, yeah, I agree, one hundred percent. I'd say that the focus right now definitely needs to be on helping people people in that area try to get some normalcy of life back. It just it has to mean. It's going to take a long long time. It's going to affect everything, all parts of life for you. One of the main things you do in that area when you're down there is to research bigfoot. Have you already started to think of how this will affect how you go about trying to look for bigfoot down in these areas.

48:28 Well? Other than roads being cut off because you know, roads doesn't get flooded over, roads got washed away, roads bridges got washed away. And you know it's one thing, Yeah, a bridge gets washed away, you build a new bridge, But when entire road gets washed away, you have to engineer an entire new road if you can, to take its place, which is is totally different from replacing a bridge. So getting around is actually the toughest thing. Okay, Well, for example I forty, you know, I've driven back and forth on I forty between North Carolina and Tennessee quite a few dozen times and took it for granted. That's closed for over a year because the Pigeon River just washed out from underneath it. It rode it underneath it where the entire eastbound side of it collapsed into the river, and it was a narrow enough to gorge as it is now. They're gonna have to figure out how we're going to rebuild this, and it's going to be closed at least a year, and that has affected traffic immensely, you know, truck traffic because I twenty six is going to be closed for a few months. A couple of sections of I twenty six between actually in the Tennessee side Irwin, Tennessee, who was destroyed. That's going to take a few months to repair. So that's affected commerce and travel.

49:47 So Asheville, Ashville is like at this crossroads of I twenty six, and I forty from the east the Charlotte direction, it's open. From the south towards Spartan, South Carolina, that's open. But going west towards Tennessee, you're going north towards Tennessee. Those are both closed down. And it's just it's just one big disaster. It's gonna take so long. Some people will never get back to normal. They will never know normal life again. You know, where they've lived their entire lives, families, generations, they've lived there and owned that it's just gone. It's just all gone. It's a thing where that I think will be just trying to analyze it and understand it, that the real effects of it for just for years probably. And I mean I'm not even down there, you know, I'm in the Midwest, so I mean you can go on TikTok though, and you know, some people don't like the app and it's that's whatever, but it's like one of the places where you could actually see the video of what was going on, you know that and Twitter x whatever. But yeah, I think it'll also be a thing where we will be hearing stories of the event probably for years, you know, just as you know, people start to get internet back and have you Oh man, I am trying to figure

51:23 out how to So I'm just going to come out out. Have you heard of any accounts from that area that was affected by flooding in the hurricane, of any sightings or anything. Like that, sightings as a bigfoot sighting? Yeah, yeah, No, No I haven't, have you No, No, I haven't. And it's a thing where it's like it just gets brought up. I've been, I've been. Just it's a thing where it's been brought up in a lot of different platforms, and I think people are just entirely they're focused on if you're focused on that, I mean, your focus needs to be on helping the people right now, right But it just we keep seeing or I keep seeing this thing pop up where it's like, oh, what did anyone find a bigfoot floating down the river? And it's like, well, guys, that's a valid question, but like maybe we can The focus doesn't need to be on that right now. But I guess it is a valid question.

52:27 But I think maybe we'll hear about that in years to come, but probably not right now. So well, I'll put it this way, I personally have not heard anything about that. Well, I'll tell you what I have heard about. Something that happened a long time ago was Mount Saint Helen's And now when Mount Saint Helens er upted that they retrieved a lot of bodies. That is it's interesting you bring that up, because it's like, I feel that this scenario has the It could easily become the next Mount Saint Helen's Bigfoot campfire story for the next twenty thirty years.

53:16 You know. It just like keeps getting brought up and people are like, what about this, or like, oh, I totally saw this, or one of my buddies saw this as well. Yeah, Mount Saint Helens is still talked about to this day. And I mean it's been how many years it's been, what forty years it's been It's been. A while, yea, over forty years. Every every week I get emails in my in my inbox about hey, what about this or is this a thing? And like, well, I mean, well to shout out Steve Calls. We talked about Steve Calls earlier. His Show's Squads Detective actually did a really good investigative look into the possibilities of of if Mount Saint Helen's Bigfoot could actually be a thing, and it's definitely worth checking out if listeners haven't watched that on his YouTube channel yet. But yeah, I don't know. I think who knows what will come in the future, But right now, we need to help the people that are affected in that area, which would be the main area is effective, would be east of where you're located down there, right.

54:27 Yeah, And that's pretty much the result of the way the storm came up. Yeah, as the storm was coming up through Florida and Georgia, they kept showing its tracking to the northwest, going up through Georgia and into Tennessee. But I was watching and I say, it's not making that turn to the west. It's just coming straight up Georgia straight into South Carolina and eventually came straight over us and we got actually, we were lucky to get the eye in Maggie Valley. First of all, we're kind of protected being down in the valley. But that brought the bulk of the eastern edge of the storm and the rain up through Lake Lore Chimney Rock up through Asheville, up into Madison and Yancey Counties north of Ashville, and then it wrapped around into Irwin, Tennessee. In Greenville, Greenville, Tennessee, Green County, Tennessee, they lost a few bridges from the flooding.

55:23 And yeah, so it was the track of the storm made a huge difference. Oh, absolutely, it's just exact. They weren't expecting that. In Nashville, no one was expecting it, especially what happened. No one's ever seen anything like it before. Three feet of rain within seventy two hours. No one's ever seen anything like that. I'm looking at a map right now, and I'm realizing how well, I'm not sure how far the distance is, but you are that Maggie Valley area is actually to the west of it. Is that? And I know, I'm gonna sure the name not not a Dahala National Forest.

56:04 Not Natahala? Yeah? Yeah, is that anything Nantahala? Nantahala. Have you ever gone over there personally to check that out? Yeah? No, I did. I was traveling out there to buy something at a store. I said, you know, what is close enough where I'm going to go park here, I'm going to take a little hike into the woods, just so I could say I was there, And yeah, I was there. I was there for about half an hour. Looked around. Hey, this is nice night, and I got back in my car. Lift. But yeah, did Pisga Cherokee Forest, the whole Smoky In National Forest. That that's like our equivalent of the Pacific Northwest, if you want to put it that way.

56:44 Oh okay, because it all kind of goes together, right. Yeah, yeah, if you look look at that western tail end of North Carolina that we kind of like tapers down between Tennessee and Georgia, then you go into the Tennessee at speaking of the Tennessee side, I have also been in contact and have gone out a couple of times with Harley Owens. Oh great, great friend. Yeah, Harley is such a good guy. Yeah, and he is in Newport and Newport got flooded downtown Newpork also got flooded. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been out a couple of times with him, and some really interesting stuff going on in the areas that he brought me.

57:30 To put it that way, Yeah, we talked quite a bit, and this is just guys talking, you know, like not for the podcast or anything like. We'll talk quite a bit. And the stuff he gets himself into is absolutely intense in that area. So I don't know how much of that you were involved, but you I mean, that's just he gets into some wild stuff out there. Well, that one time we were up there together and we we went in different ways. Okay, I'm gonna go this way, you go that way, And once we got separated, he started getting stones thrown at him. For another happened a while when they wanted away from the be alone.

58:13 I guess, right, was that was that in the he has an area where it used to be Scott's. Was that the same location? I believe? So I believe that is the sun area. Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah, and I'm looking now. Because of the road closers, it's it's really hard for me to get out there from from the north. Yeah, I'd have to pretty much take the the scenic route through the Great Smokey National Forest to come out in Gatlinburg instead of you know, zipping over on the highway, which is really easy. Yeah. Yeah, I've taken that road and it's it's not fun. It's a lot of twists and turns, ups and downs and tell on your break.

59:00 So I put it that way, I bet absolutely. Oh. One thing I wanted to add Kevin from Extra in the Monster Quest episode. He has a YouTube and I told him I plug it. It's called Northeastern xped which I believe is short for expedition. So if you look up Northeastern exped E xp D, you'll find a lot of interesting videos on his channel. And he's still out there. Every every week he's doing something new. And now not only did he have his encounter on Monsterquest, he's also had visual encounters up in Vermont, and he told me that the one he saw in Vermont was humongous.

59:43 Is the way, but it is huge. Wow. Vermont is also another state I have not gotten a lot of people to talk about. So that's that's very interesting. But what is what's your your future goals with with your bigfoot research? Tom? Well, this is the interesting thing. Like I said, I was kind of retired, but once I moved to North Carolina and I said, there's there's like a lot of people stuff going on like right here, it kind of kind of sucked me back into it. I wasn't expecting to do it, but it did. I said, Okay, so I'm kind of easing myself back in. I think it's really nice when two months ago one comes right down and starts doing vocalizations for you. I didn't have to go anywhere, and let's see and then you know, meeting people like Harley and see George Lunsford and then in contacted him a couple of times. She lives in West Asheville. Yeah, so it's it's nice to meeting fellow researchers in this area, network with a couple of them now, So you know, I was just let's just see how things go now with what happened with the storm, it's going to be a while before things could get back to, you know where where they were just just a month ago, as far as they jump in the car and go here, And I just can't really do that now, So things are kind of like on hold or maybe toned down.

1:01:04 I should put it for the time being. But while I'm up here in Connecticut, I've got quite a few places to check out before we head back down to North Carolina. Absolutely, Tom, it has been just a real privilege to talk to you. Do you mind and thank you for being on the show. Do you mind taking a few minutes just to remind viewers again how they can best keep up to date with what you're doing, and is there a way that they can reach out to you if they have questions about these areas or reports to send to you. I I'll tell you what I am going to I'm going to make up a new email addresser right here on the fly, off the top of my head. I'm going to call it blue Ridge Bigfoot at mail dot com. Nice, and that's I Gmail dot com, not not any other just plain old mail m A I L dot com, Blue Ridge Bigfoot at mail dot com and go ahead email me there. I gotta hurry up and make it. Actually, I'm gonna check the see if it's available. I'm saying it's gonna be a I'm thinking I really doubt that there's a blue Ridge Bigfoot at mail dot com.

1:02:23 Yeah, you're probably okay, but you never know. Go ahead send an email to there. If the bounces or someone else answers said, oh who are you? I don't know who's do that. We'll go with a blue Ridge Bigfoot at mail dot com. In my YouTube channel see my videos blue Ridge Bigfoot. Check out Kevin's channel Northeastern Expaed and yeah, we got a we got a whole lot of bigfoot stuff going on here in New England. Fantastic Tom. Thank you again for coming on the show. We'll definitely keep an eye on what you're doing through your Bigfoot channel and we'll have to check in with you in the future. Yeah, that sounds good, Jeremia, and thank you for having me.

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