Cryptids, Lore and Pukwudgies with Nash Hoover from Chasing Legends (Bigfoot Society Classic)

0:00 Either you're listening to the big Foot Society podcast and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Every week I talk to individuals who have experienced sasquats in some way or another, so you won't want to miss an episode. Make sure you're subscribed on the platform that you're listening to, and share this episode where the friend does not cost a thing, and it helps the show continue to grow. If you'd like to hear Bigfoot Society episodes early an ad free, you can do so by becoming a Patreon supporter or a YouTube channel member. Links to those are in the show notes and Bigfoot Society. I've taken far too much of your time so far, so let's get on with the show. Morning. You're listening to an episode of Bigfoot Society recorded more than three years ago. Interviewing skills in audio quality have improved since then. Please don't judge the podcast on this one episode. We'll see you next week. Thanks for coming back to the Bigfoot Society pod cast. We have the privilege of Nash Hoover with us today. Good to see again. I met Nash at the Van Meter Visitor Festival and Van Meter Iowa, which is a great cryptid if you don't know what I'm talking about. You need to look it. Look it up.

1:18 I'm gonna go ahead and switch over to gallery of View. There we go. That's much better. But yeah, Nash has a very cool story. He does a lot of cool stuff. So I'm gonna go ahead and have you introduce yourself, Nash, if you don't mind, sure. My name is Nash Hoover. I am the host, executive producer, co creator of the Chasing Legends web series. The series follows myself and my team as we travel the globe and research investigate different cryptic legends. And we've been doing that for almost seven years now. Oh well, finally kind of starting to work on our proper first season and kind of going to be filming that over this over this year with the goal of releasing it early next year. Okay, so yeah, that's kind of me. What's going on in a nutshell?

2:17 So it's uh, I would assume it's definitely you and who else is involved with the Chasing Legends crew? Who is your your crew that usually wouldn't meet in the episodes. So the crew consists of my cousin michaela who has been with it since the beginning, okay, my director photography Sammy Vernet or another. We have a new camera operator, Brian Burninghouse. We have Jacksitsa who is our audio person. And then we recently teamed up with Alexander Petakov, who will be joining the show full time with us. So we're really excited to have him on board. He's a really great guy. Worked with us on our Buckwoogie episode at Massachusetts we filmed last month beginning March, okay, and yeah, we just all really connected well with them, and he wanted to keep doing it with us, and that's awesome. That's awesome. He's a gentleman from New Hampshire areas are correct or from New Hampshire. Okay, very cool. That's awesome. So he'll be actually, because you're head, you're located in the Midwest, right, uh, south central Minnesota. Okay, very cool. So that means he'll be hanging out in the Midwest for

3:47 a bit, I would imagine, or yeah, he yeah, we've plans to bring him out here eventually. Okay, very cool, Very cool. Yeah, that's kind of skipping a So I was looking at your Instagram the other day and you had mentioned that you had just been out in Massachusetts. I'm actually originally from western mass myself, and there's there's some weird stuff out there, definitely. Yeah, so I am a little curious to hear more about, like a, so, what part of mass were you in out there and stuff like that? Uh, specifically eastern UK. We were doing an episode on Puckwags, like I said, So we were in Freetown, Fall River State Forest, so that area obviously Boston, So pretty much just in that area specifically is where we were pucka muck swamp and all of that.

4:46 Okay, very cool And for the listeners at home that might not be familiar with it, can you kind of give a synopsis of what that cryptid is all about? So the the Puckwoogie is a Wampanog legend in their folklore. Uh, it's kind of it's kind of kind of connects the It kind of bridges the gap between both like ghost and physical cryptids. It h Puckwogi pretty much means like the like a small person that vanishes essentially, Okay, So it's kind of a trickster in the Wampanog folklore. It's been seen as being both good and evil more on like the bad side more in the modern day reports. In the Fall River Freetown State Forest, there is a lot of kind of strange deaths and suicides that they kind of associate really with the puckwogi, you know, the pukwage you know, pretty much kind of lurest people to their deaths and into the forest where they gonna meet their demise.

6:08 There's a an abandoned quarry and a cliff face it's called the Assanic Ledge in the middle of the in the of this forest, and that specifically has a lot of kind of strange uh, suicides and deaths associated with it, and just all around strange things. It's just that whole area is very very very strange and eerie. Okay, man, not to dwell. Well, it's it's in it's in your your episode, right, so let's go ahead. It reminds me of that Destination Truth. There was Destination Truth when they went to the forest in Japan. Oh yeah, yeah, probably not to that extent, I'm guessing, but no, because there's uh. There was like one story that he came across where like the because there's uh on the bottom of this cliff, there's there's like a pool of water and it's deep enough when you could swim in it, and I guess people like jump off of it and you know, into the water to swim. And I guess there was some There was a story of a guy that was up there with a group of his friends, and I guess the guy. I guess the guy showed no prior signs of being suicidal. I guess it was an all around happy guy and they were up there and he just jumped off and wow, you know, jumped off in a way where he hit the rocks instead of the water. And so yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that where

7:39 it's not necessarily you know, it's it's it's just almost for no reason. It's yeah, no, that's crazy, but that's not to you know, that's that's something else. So you mentioned that, So this scryptid is almost half physical have spiritual. How do you prepare what's in the Nash Hoover Chasing Legends bag when you go after something like this. I wouldn't know if I'm gonna go Ghost Adventures or I'm gonna go Indiana Jones on this or I'm gonna do a little both. You know, like, what are your thoughts? You kind of have to go both. I mean, I mean we we obviously don't do the typical you know, we don't. We didn't take it from like a typical ghost setting standpoint. We didn't take it from a typical ghost or a crypto hunting standpoint. You kind of have to. It's kind of one of those things you kind of have to make it up, do you go. You just kind of take the information that you're given and then you just kind of use your senses and you know, like what we do is we kind of look for like alternate explanations for things. So you know, we're out there looking for known animals that could that meet the descriptions that people are giving, or you know, other other instance, you know, other other things going on in the area that could be just attributed as a

9:09 puck wouldgie sighting. So that's kind of what we go in or go at these things with. But yeah, with the case of the puck widgie, it was really difficult for us to kind of I mean, we did our best. We didn't find anything, but we uh, yeah, it's one of those things where you kind of just have to take take it as you take, you know, take it as you get it. Pretty much and go with it. And if anything, you got to see a beautiful part of the US. I don't know if you've ever been out there before, but man, like New England is beautiful. Yeah, it was nice, and it was like the weather the first day we were out there was great and then that night there was like a crazy snowstorm. Oh wow. Okay, so like the so the second you know, so the second day we you know, we pretty much you know, we had snow to deal with.

10:03 But then by that afternoon, like six seven hours later, the snow was gone. Yeah. Yeah, so like we you know, we did two interviews. We did one right away in the morning and then one later on in the afternoon, and they were almost looked like they were filmed like days apart from each other. That's awesome. So you're actually interviewing people out there maybe that I have seen it or had able to get some interviews. It sounds like it's kind of cool. Yeah. We we interviewed two guys, John Horrigan and Paul Eno from out there. Both both folklore and historians from that area. So both of them are very very knowledgeable and pretty much everything that's going on out there, you know, both fuck wouldgie and you know just other things, you know, from the Bridgewater Triangle to all the all the cult and mobs stuff you know that goes on out there that these guys knew it all. And yeah, I bet, yeah, that's yeah, there's so much stuff. Yeah, there's some stuff out there. Ye know, I've looked into yours, so I've watched your stuff in the past.

11:13 It's on YouTube. Yeah, but you mentioned it's kind of a new format you're going into for releasing it, or you're still sticking with YouTube or what's your plans for for releasing this, Uh, this new adventure that we we have kicked around Amazon Prime for a long time, but as of right now, we are going to be primarily YouTube just because it's we love the platform. It's always it's the community is always great. You always get really good, really good positive feedback and honest feedback, and we just want to make it as available as we possibly can for everybody, and that you know, everyone has access to YouTube and it's free, so we're just gonna keep doing it that way. Very cool, very cool. Can you give us a actually before I want, can you explain the picture with you and Josh Gates. I saw it floating around somewhere. What's this behind There's gotta be a story around that, right. So he occasionally does like speaking events exactly, you know, just kind of he just you know, he does him.

12:26 And he was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Okay, five hours from me, and you know, I was like, screw it, I says, I've gotta you know, I says, even if I can't get them the VIP to meet him, I still want to go in the least, you know what, hear him speak, because he's you know, I've I've I've been a huge, huge fan of Gates for a long time. He's a huge inspiration of mine. One of the main inspirations you know, behind Chasing Legends is destination. And so yeah, so my my girlfriend and I drove out there and went and saw him and it was great. I recommend anybody that if you've ever given the chance to hear Josh Gates speak, please go because it's yeah, it's it's amazing because he doesn't hold back. He tells you, you know, he he's such a great storyteller and he allows the audience to to have input into and to weigh in on things, and it's it's it's amazing. Anyways, so we were walking out and we noticed a line of people kind of off in this weird corner of the event or the event area. So we just kind of walked over there, like didn't know what was going on. Well, that's the all these people were lining up outside of the door that he was supposed to come out of to leave, and so we're like, okay, whatever, like they're just gonna tell us all the you know, to leave, Like he's you know, obviously Gates is a busy guy. He's gonna want to get out. Well, the security guard came out and said that, you know, he will come out

13:58 and and shake your hand and take a picture and talk with each one of you individually, but it has to be quick. He has to get going. We'll be back with more Bigfoot Society after these words from our sponsors. So that's what he did. He came out. He you know, this was probably a line of at least twenty people, and he came out, He gave everybody probably two three minutes, shook their hand, took a picture, talk with them, and moved on to the next person. He did, and he did it, and he didn't he didn't rush himself. He didn't, you know. He genuinely enjoyed meeting each person individually. So that's how I got to meet him, And you know I didn't it wasn't you know. I have always wanted to meet Gates and I'm glad I did.

14:48 Uh. Hopefully next time I meet him, I can have more of a conversation with them. Okay, Yeah, that's that's the story of how I met them. Cool to have that behind the scenes about that picture. Yeah, I met him at the Des Moines Area Community College has a lecture series and he was there. I think, yeah, I've found out about that after the fact, like I had no, it's really good. That was awesome. He uh. He said, everyone that believes in the aliens, raise your hand, and the whole a few hundred people raise your hand. He's like, now everyone who believes in Bigfoot, raise your hand. And it was literally me and one other person so kind of singled out there.

15:28 But he was like, all right, whatever do you can you maybe give us any sneak peeks about like what is the what's the what maybe some plans you have in the future, like you're bringing on and looks like bringing on a new guy. Do you have any cryptids you want to take down in the future. Maybe keep that a little close to your chest, you know, But I have all, and I'm gonna get the exact number here, all right, what's I have a list of thirty five on It's always growing every time I kind of find something that I think is interesting. So far, I've checked off one, so I've got thirty four. I will be checking off three more this year. We will be going to Arizona in July.

16:26 We were going to Vermont in September and Louisiana in October, and then that will wrap. That will wrap our first season four episodes. I know it's not a lot, but it's a good little little taste of kind of what we can do and what we want to do and how we want to make the show look overall. And then from there we will obviously I've already started kind of mapping out of season two, but we'll kind of, uh, we'll kind of deal with that as it comes. But that will definitely be more more than four. That's cool, that's cool. I am man. You got me interested definitely with the Vermont thing. I grew up about twenty minutes away from Vermont. Yeah, some weird stuff in Vermont too, man. Yeah, I remember like talking to these old timers out there and they'd be like, yeah, there's these things called coy dogs and they're half coyotes and half dogs, and you like you shoot them and then they'll jump like ten feet even though you've already shot him. Like this is crazy stuff in the hills of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Vermont and all that. You know. It's just like so whatever you're going after out there, it should be a good time. So yeah, we're really excited for Yeah, we're excited for all of them, just because we you know, we we've spent the last seven or so years, you know, pretty much filming primarily in the Midwest, you know, Minnesota, Wisconsin, you know, so we're

17:57 you know, we you know we I mean, we've gone to Ireland a few years ago and did some stuff. But okay, yeah, you know, we're just we're happy that, you know, we we did the Massachusetts trip. That's one that we've been trying to do for a long time. And then now we you know, it's like everything is really coming together finally for us where we're actually able to start getting out of the Midwest and exploring some of these bigger topics that we've always wanted to do. So we yeah, we pretty much as a team have said that we will no longer do episodes that we can drive to. So like early days, we pretty much would do anything within like a six hour radius that we could drive to, and now we won't do anything that we can drive to. So we're really really trying to expand. Obviously, our first season will be all domestic within the US. Then our plans season two and on are going to be primarily the international wow and the occasional US case. But yeah, definitely, we definitely are trying to make this turn this into an international show and so we can really start exploring some of these well or you know, better known cases and sometimes not the so known cases around. I know, I've got a few on the list that I've kind of reached out to people on and they're

19:29 like, I've never heard of that, and I'm like, well, cool, let's figures, let's learn about it together. Then yeah, totally yea, yeah, yeah, you could find something an old newspaper and you know, no one's heard of it, and yeah, you're the person to bring it back. And that's that's pretty cool. Just had a question another question, so, and this shut this down if you need to, but are you so are you funding these trips by yourselves or you have like maybe a Patreon going on or how is the Uh yeah, that's that's kind of an interesting question, right, but yes, over the last up until now, everything is one hundred percent self funded by myself. These last the Massachusetts trip and this Arizona trip that we've booked. You know, we've got the whole team kind of chipping in on their end, which has been great. You know, the whole team. The whole team really wants to do this and they really want to go to these places. So you know, they've been more than happy to to you know throw in. Uh they're you know their portions of you know, the plane tickets and you know airbnbs and hotels and stuff. So that's really been great. That's really been helping make this possible.

20:48 We will be on May twenty sixth, we will be launching a Kickstarter to fund the remaining two and to kind of to fund the rest of the Arizona trip. You know, we bought the flights, but there's you know other stuff that we have to kind of put into it. So yeah, we will be launching a kickstarter to really make that way we can you know, we can put a lot more productive, a lot more money towards the production value. We personally are not making any money off of this. You know, we're doing this completely independently for free because we love it. Yes, we will be launching a kickstarter to produce the last two and the remaining or the what's left to pay for for the Arizona episode. That's renting equipment, all travel expenses, everything, and then you know, and everything that's going to come up on these trips because we're really we're really trying to go not too big, but big enough. We're really is a proper production.

22:00 We really want to give these these stories in these cases due diligence and really tell a great story and have it looked good and packaged well, and uh, you know we at the end of the day, Yeah, we're you know, we're you know, we're crypted. We're crypted as well, just we're crypted researchers. But at the same time, we're filmmakers and we want to put out the best thing that we can, So I think that's super smart and a good idea to allow your community to get involved, to really have some skin in the game. And that's I think that's gonna go great for you totally. Maybe was that breaking news or is that? Uh? We we We were originally we're going to do a kickstarter last month. We're going to launch it on the thirty first of March, but then with everything with the COVID nineteen, we're like, okay, not the right time, let's push it back. So we settled on May twenty sixth, which is also we are seventh anniversary of the show. And you know it's kind of too you know, you were kind of getting a celebration of that and the the the launch of the Future and yeah, and then you know, everything will be on YouTube for free for everybody. We will have a DVD option that will be you know, very reasonably priced, very good. So if you you know people that want to watch it, you know that don't want to watch it, and it's about a you know, small screen. I mean, you obviously you can get YouTube when you've done TVs, but some people might like that physical. I'm you know, I'm an old I'm an

23:33 old school person. Myself. I like having the physical So we definitely have ideas for a nice DVD package that will be you know, have some extras in it and that you're not going to get on online as well. So cool. Yeah, chasing legends next to small town monsters on my you know, oh you'll get one, I'll get you. Yeah, go cool. So yeah, so May twenty six is that and then yeah, like he said, we we've always tried to make We've always tried to get the community and it's involved as possible. We want this show to be made for them. We want them to have as much input. You know, if they don't like something, let us know. We'll, you know, we'll we want to try to make a tailward to everybody. And you know, that's kind of one of the reasons why we stepped away from trying to get this show on TV is because we knew we were going to lose that that fundamental part that we enjoy so much, which is the community and the Yeah, I just I like, it's like one of my favorite things to go into these places and beating the people that like your stuff and have the input, and we want to see it, want to see it grow and expand and so yeah, so that's uh, that's what's going on with us and super Cool super Cool believe it or not, Nash, it is actually we are close to the end. Would you mind if someone, let's say, has never heard of you before and they are watching this on YouTube or listening to

25:04 the podcast, let them know what's the best way to follow your adventures or you know, in essence, plug your stuff. So, so, our website is www dot Chasing legendscrew dot com. Okay, that's gonna have links to all of our social accounts Facebook, Instagram as well as our YouTube. All of our episodes that we currently have out are on our website as well, so that our website is kind of like our one stop shop for everything perfect. You know. That's going to have a little bit about the kind of you know, what started the show. You know, it's got a little bio of me and uh Kaitlyn Keeley, who is the co creator of the show. There's photos, there's a pretty much you can meet the crew, you know, virtually, see who everybody is, what their role is, have a few behind the scenes photos. I'm working on getting some more up there. We just completely read it the website, so I don't have everything up there that we had on our old site yet, but there are a few behind the scenes photos cool. Most of them are from our Double Spongeable episode and a few are from the Boston trip. We'll be updating that as we kind of shoot more stuff than awesome. And then that's find uh sorry, you can find me on Instagram at nash Hoover all one word and

26:38 then that My Instagram has a linked to our website as well, but fantas everything show wise is our website. Cool. Well, thank you for taking the time to chat with me tonight. It's been awesome. Remember May twenty six, Kickstarter. You're not gonna want to forget about that, guys. That's a really good opportunity to get involved with chasing Levens. So thank you again, and hopefully I'll maybe see at the Vanmeter Visitor Festival again. We'll be there. You got it all right? Well, thanks for listening. Yeah, thanks for listening to the Bigfoot Society podcast all and we will see you next week here. A Bigfoot Society art goal is to provide a platform for those that have encountered Bigfoot to share their encounter in a safe and respected environment, but we need to hear your story. If you've experienced something that you just can't explain, please send me an email at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. Then we can start the conversation. I know a lot of you have not shared your encounter at all. It's been twenty years and it's time that you get this off your chest and then you can get some well deserved for rest, because I know you haven't been sleeping. I understand what you're going through, and I appreciate every one of you listening