Dogman Secrets of The Land Between the Lakes with Aaron Deese

0:00 Either you're listening to the Big for Society podcast and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Every week I talk to individuals who have experienced Sasquatch 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 with a friend. Does not cost a thing, and it helps the show continue to grow. If you'd like to hear Bigfoot Society episodes early in ad free, you can do so by becoming a Patreon supporter or a YouTube channel member. Links to those are in the show notes in Bigfoot Society, I've taken far too much of your time so far, so let's get on with the show, all right, big Fort Society get the privilege of talking to an old friend today star Aaron D's content producer from Small Town Monsters, and of course you may know him as the author of The Texas dog Man Triangle. And I have the privilege of having one of the hardcover copies because I backed the kickstarter last year's and this is such a good book. I my goodness, when I read through this, I was so proud of you, my dude. It's such a good book. Oh thanks man. That means a lot to me.

1:14 Thank you. You played a big role in helping me to like navigate this space and get to where I'm doing what I am right now. Thank you much appreciated. It makes me so happy to see how far are you going? And not even to mention the amazing documentary counterpart with you and Shannon, and just to watch that, I was like, oh, my goodness, it's so good. I know. I know those guys. I know those guys. I know it. Aaron, You're an interesting interview because we mainly talk to people that have had bigfoot encounters on this podcast. But your primary focus, I would say, is in dog man correct. Yeah, yeah, I guess at this point I'm the dog man guy. I would say, you're really one of the top dog man guys. Oh man, thank you. I don't know if I can, if I can I aspire to that. I don't know if I can claim that mantle yet, because there are a lot of people that have been in this field doing this research for a long time, and a lot of what I've done has been built on referencing their research and talking with them. So I appreciate that very much.

2:14 But yeah, Yeah, there's more work to do. Are there any individuals that you look up to and, let's say, in the field of dog man Yeah, quite a few. Man the Texas, the Three Texas guys, Lyle Blackburn, Ken Gerhard Nick Redfern. They don't focus specifically on dog man stuff, but they did research on it years ago that kind of helped inspire me and that I jumped off of. And then people like Barton Nunneley who've been looking into this stuff for a very long time. Martin Groves, who I've had the opportunity to become acquainted with recently. Awesome, awesome guy. Your interviews with him actually were early reference material for me in the book I'm writing right now. So I'm a little factoid there. Yeah, gosh, I have a whole list of names, and I'm going to forget half of them. Linda Godfrey, of course, the work that she did before she sadly passed away, just we wouldn't be having this conversation without her straight up, Like, I'll say that for sure. There's a lot of Jody Cook North American dog Man Research Project a great yea have been doing this kind of work and documenting these reports and noticing for a long time that hey, this doesn't sound like it's just Sasquatch. It sounds like there's something else going on here. So yeah, a lot of people to think and look up to. For sure. Absolutely, the dog maned community, it's so intensely into it, and I really admire them for that. But let's say you're chatting with someone they don't really know everything you're into, and they hear you're the author of this book, the Texas dog Man Triangle, and they're like, I know what Texas is, but what's his dog man character? What's

3:46 your elevator pitch for? What dog man even is? I just boil it down to its most basic parts. Man, I start by saying, where wolves are real? And that's a fun little thing to throw in a conversation. I'll just explain. It deals with sightings of upright walking canines in the state of Texas that are akin to lockmess monster sidings or bigfoot sidings or chupacabra sidings. People seeing strange animals and they describe them as were wolves. And there's some disagreement in the community over whether or not the terms dog man and werewolf are interchangeable. I've heard and gotten some pushback on that. I respect any perspective on that, because none of us know for sure what this stuff is. But for me, the terms dogmen and werewolf are interchangeable, and I'm not going to speak for anybody else, but I know there are other people that feel that way as well. So that's essentially what we're talking about, dogs that walk on two legs. To be very simple about it, have you ever uncovered a story where the dog man is actually having a good day because they all seem like they're having a really, for some reason, a terrible day. Yeah, and no is the answer. And that's one of the themes that I like to explore in this research is that time and time again, these encounters, either these entities are described as very aggressive or seeming to be aggressive, they seem to be very malicious just in the way they behave or the witness, and or the witness is left feeling very unsettled by it, terrified. In some cases, we have people reporting symptoms that are akin to like post traumatic stress disorder. They don't sleep well, they

5:19 have nightmares, they don't want to go in the woods at night anymore. Sometimes they don't want to go in the woods at all, because that's where a lot of these sightings occur, and that seems to be again it's a recurring pattern. So no, they don't seem to ever be having a good day. The only historical reference I can think of, because that's another big part of what I like to incorporate, is the historical background of this stuff and potential precedent and like ancient literature for it, is the wolver which is a Scottish werewolf that was very good at fishing, helps lost people find their way home, leaves fish for like hungry people on their windowsill. That's the only example I can think of a benevolent dog man or werewolf like creature. But other than that guy, Nah, that's incredible. I've never heard of the wolver before. That's pretty cool. I'm gonna have to look that up because so that's primarily a lot of my heritage is Scottish. When you were writing The Texas dog Man Triangle, was there a account that you were most excited to be able to present in your book? Yeah, Yeah, there were a couple. The story that got me started on this stuff in the first place, like as a matter of personal interest, witness who goes by the name of Trent Fulton in the book, and he actually appears in the documentary in a phone call. It's an early scene in the movie where he tells his story and he had a roadside siding, which is pretty I prefer to it as an atypical dog man siding because it takes place by the road, it's a fleeting glance, it's involved in like holding roadkill or feasting on

6:51 roadkill. You that in different areas where we have concentration to these sidings seems to be something they like to do. This story came from somebody I knew personal who's who I'm related to. And you read stories online and you read stories and books and you're like, oh, it's really interesting that this person had this encounter and thought to report it. I wonder what they really saw. When it comes from somebody who was very credible and who has no reason to make this stuff up, who didn't even know dog man was a thing, that's when it really for me got me going. And then the story of James Witter, which is the Plum Creek Monster out of Lockhart, Texas. That was a case that there wasn't a whole lot of information available online. It was out there as like a folk tale, and you could see some old newspaper clip things if you dig enough. But James Wittter was one of the original witnesses of the Plum Creek Monster, which was described as being a more hyena like version of the dog if you like. Yeah, and he had repeated encounters with this thing, and he had stayed out of the public eye. He hadn't talked to cryptozoologists or writers or anybody because he didn't like the way the story had been handled initially, and so he really stepped away from it. And it ended up being one of the most compelling interviews I did, not just on that film shoot, but for that book.

8:05 To hear this gentleman who didn't have any motivation to try to cash in on this finally come forward and speak publicly and share all the details with us, that is something I'll always be grateful for. So those two in particular, there's a few I could go on, but those two always pop up in my head. First, Yeah, was there anything that was just too intense? And it's almost like I don't even know how to deal with this? Yes, and no, there are a couple encounters that when I first read about them or talked to the witness, I was like, no way, I can't put this in the book because nobody's going to want to read it at first. But I think that's just your gut reaction as a person that tries to remain skeptical when you encounter something that really subverts your expectations. And in every case where I had that initial response to something where I was like, this is crazy, I would find precedent for it. In other cases.

8:58 There's a gentleman I talked to out of Dallas who has been dealing with these things on his property. For last I talked to him was a few months ago, but going on a couple of years now, and he had a couple encounters where he had opened fire on them at close range, got a very good look at them, knows that he made contact and they got up and kept going. And when you first hear a story like that, you're like, it sounds like something out of a movie. There's no way this really happened. Not disbelieving the guy, I thought he was very credible. When I spoke to him, he struck me as very credible. And I still believe he is to this day caveat everything I say with that. But then you read the story about the Vider Werewolf, which took place back in the eighties, where the same thing happened. This thing was showing up on people's property, harassing their dogs, allegedly killed several of their dogs, tearing up window screens on the outside of the house. And the gentleman that lived there, Bobby Bussinger and his wife Becky Bussinger. Bobby goes outside and opens fire on this thing with a twelve gage from ten twenty yards away, maybe makes dead contact with it, and it keeps coming. And this was documented in newspaper papers well before the gentleman I spoke with in Dallas who goes by John Well before his story was out there in the public eye, and he's spoken on podcasts a couple of times. I believe he was at the dog Man Conference in Dallas recently. If I'm not mistaken, really cool dude.

10:13 I still keep in touch with him. Again, I do consider him to be very credible. But again, you first hear a story like that and you're like, this is crazy, But then there's other stories like that, So yes, and no, I guess is the answer gotcha? Here's a fun question. A while ago there was the Man Wolf Files, and I think there's a new season of that coming out. Maybe you'll have to visit Crash Course Cryptozoology to find that out, listeners. But there's a lot of videos that have been proven to be hoaxes for dog Man. Is there any evidence over the years a bigfoot? We have our Patterson Gimlin film, which a lot of people will say that's the best evidence, some people not, that's okay in the field. Are there any really good pieces of evidence that you hold too? I believe the answer is yes, other than an overwhelming and growing table of eyewitness testimony from independent witnesses who many of which have no interest in the subject matter whatsoever. Jesse and Joe Doyle over at Hellbent Holler captured a thermal image last year. Before I'm getting my dates mixed up because I'm excited to talk about this. That is extremely compelling and if you haven't seen it's been out in the public for a while. This isn't a spoiler, but if you go over to their YouTube channel, it's in their Werewolf Experiment series where you see a very striking thermal image of a tall bipedal creature with pointed ear what appears to be Okay, it's when we're looking at

11:43 thermal data and stuff like, it's always up for interpretations. That being said, what appears to be a very tall bipedal creature with elongated pointed ears. You can see what looks like an eye. And because they actually captured two images of it and image one to image too, there are some like variations where it appears at shifted positions or maybe turned its head a little bit. I had the opportunity to visit the sighting of that location very recently, and I won't say too much more than that, but I will say just as a researcher watching that YouTube video interviewing Jesse and Joe and talking about what they experienced that night and then visiting that location, I'm as convinced as I can be of anything that that's a solid piece of evidence. And what's cool about hell Ben Hollers, They're not going to tell you, yeah, we saw a dog man in the woods when you talk to them about it. And again, this is on their podcast, it's on their YouTube channels. This isn't news that I'm bringing into the world. But when you talk to them about this stuff, they're very pragmatic and they're very scientific in the way they break it all down, and it's all possibilities. This is what we think we saw, this is what we experienced, this is what this image capture looks like. But who knows just a way to summarize it. So that's one that really gets me. Yes, I agree with you and Jess and Joe, so probably some of the best researchers. I've spent hours talking with them outside of the podcast about stuff that will hopefully be revealed in the next few months eventually. The amount of time that they take talking to witnesses and

13:16 researching would blow people away. It's hours and hours outside of this is not content being produced, This is just they I would put them at the top of people that are seriously just want to figure out what is going on with the weirdness in this world, and they are researching at one hundred percent. Speaking of the weirdness of the world, what do you think is going on with this whole Miami Mall thing. I think it was just some people and it's the camera angle, and that's what it appears to be there's a lot of chatter in the conspiracy subwaying of the paranormal niche right now, and people saying that they were witnesses and that they saw and it was actually this.

13:56 And I've never one to discount an eyewitness testimony search werewolves for a living, for God's sake. But there's a lot of buzz around UFOs and UAPs right now, a lot of it. And one of the most valuable commodities our society trades in right now is viral content. I'm optimistically skeptical, but probably more skeptical about this one. There's a lot of weird stuff going. There's a whole jellyfish UFO thing that just came out from Jeremy Carbell that. Yeah, I had the same thought when I looked at I'm like, this is something that could be done with a drone. But also, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe someone took the top of a gilly suit off of themselves and figured out how to affix it to a drone. I don't know. It could be something that simple, or it could be a space squid. Charles Fork wrote about a giant jellyfish in the sky. So what do I know. Oh yeah, Crypti to the corn. That's what they're all about, is those those jellyfish in the sky. For sure. When you were researching your dog man encounters in the whole Texas dog Man Triangle, when you were doing that, did you come across other things, let's say, other cryptids, like maybe Bigfoot and stuff. You're like, I have this lead, but it doesn't really fit in the book, and I'm not sure quite what to do with this. Yes, all the time, dude, it happened today, Oh my gosh, because I am still working on hunting grounds, which is the land between the lakes. That, yes, it happened in Texas when I was working on the dog Man Triangle. Not so much with cryptids, but just with other strange tales and odd pieces of

15:31 Texas history. The US government brought camels to Texas at one point, right before the Civil War because they do well in the climate here, and the project was abandoned when the Civil War started up. That's just a weird piece of history I wouldn't have known about if I wasn't researching a dog band encounter in Kerville. We have a lot of like ghost armies out here, places where there were Civil War battles or clashes between European settlers at Native Americans, where there are said to be spectral armies that show up at certain times at the night. Just stuff I probably wouldn't have really looked into the way I did with the land between the Lakes. That's been a whole different animal. There's a lot of monsters out there that I encountered while researching dog man stuff in that area, and I'm like, man, I want to revisit this later on and dig more into this thing, into that thing in the documentary itself, and there's a scene I'm going to try to describe it the best I can. I believe it's in the Fort Worth area, or it's down in the southeast coast of Texas. You go out to this ranch and it's a gentleman and two ladies and they see is it some Yes, that was Fort sam Houston National Forest. What in the world just happened to my screen?

16:44 Did you see that some balloons went across the screen streamyard? This happened the other day. I was on a business call with Adam over at small town Monsters. A little name drop there and a thumbs up appeared on his screen like an emotion. That's assumed thing. It was. Thanks streaming ard for ruining my interview. Cool dudes, all right, that just totally wigged me out. Okay, so sorry. Down in the southeast coastal area of Texas, there was an interview interview you did with the documentary, and it felt like there was more to that story down there. That was sam Houston National Forest, which is yeah, like north east of Houston proper, because we hit all the points of the triangle in that documentary, like we went from Dallas to almost into San Antonio. We're in Canyon Lake, which is right on top of San Antonio all the way over to Houston. So yeah, that was in the last leg of the journey there. Fun fact, my car broke down after we finished those interviews and we were stranded there for an extra hour and a half while those very nice people you saw in the movie helped us fix my car. That's incredible. Fun fact. Yeah, I don't think any of that was recorded, but yeah, that Sam Houston National Forest is a very strange place. We heard stories about like ghostly singing orbs and ghost lights, chatter about UFO sidings. Bigfoot is huge down there.

18:04 Like it's on my present bucket list to try to get Alex and Eli down there and Seth. The more the better. Just get one of the guys who are doing these regular Bigfoot documentaries, try to get them into sam Houston National Forest, because we were there for a few hours one afternoon and we met with those those great folks that you saw in the documentary and just more than I could keep track of. Bigfoot is a daily thing that is just something that people know about out there. Dog Man is a daily thing that's just something people know about out there. They don't see them every single day, but everyone who lives in that area, it seems, knows that they exist. Yeah, I would love to spend more time down there. Houston's the one like major city in Texas where I've never actually lived, not the one, but of the Big Four, I haven't lived there, but I really want to spend some time down there speaking of Bigfoot. Would you ever consider doing a project where you're just focused on Bigfoot or you feel the lock into this dog Man? Yeah? Right now, I'm pretty locked in on the dog Man stuff. As I go and I'm finishing the present book, things are coming up that I'm like, I want to dig more into this, but there's not space for it here. So maybe a third book, maybe a series of podcasts. I don't know. I don't necessarily think there's an end in sight, but as far as everything I know right now, I could see how far i'd like to take that. So maybe after that with bigfoot stuff. Man, there's so many people already doing so much great work in the bigfoot world, like you, for example, Yeah,

19:34 I said it, you can decide if you want to edit it out, But I said, I don't have anything that I could contribute to that that would not be a rehash of what other people have already done. So, like I did a couple of bigfoot centric episodes for Hay Strangeness, and those were a lot of fun. Like we talked about Tom Slick, and we talked about hoaxes, and we talked about some Texas cases that I thought are I still think are going to represent it. But beyond that, I can't think of anything that I could bring to the table that, yeah, I got you people haven't already done. I'm just going to be making a list of references of podcasts and books that I think people should check out and there's nothing wrong with that. Speaking of a podcast, you have a very interesting podcast venture coming out through STM pretty soon. Correct, Yeah, yes I do. I'm very excited about it. Can you share anything about that or yeah? No, Yeah, I'm trying to think what I can say.

20:26 I would like what have what have we said on live streams and on social media, because I know all that's safe. But no, the show is called House of Monsters, and it's going to be different from anything that we have on the Small Town Monsters Broadcasting Network presently. Right now we're running The Lord hosted by Heather Mosure, which I produce. Fantastic show. Definitely check it out. If you like Bigfoot Society, I believe you will also enjoy the especially old school Bigfoot Society. Heather does a fantastic job of lining up guests and interviewing people, and she's somebody I draw a lot of inspiration from when I'm talking with witnesses and experts. It's about different stuff. That's a fantastic show. And then also our Wednesday Night they're currently on Wednesday Night live streams for Small Town Monsters, the after shows for our weekly YouTube releases.

21:11 Those are also podcasts, so We're running two interview centric kind of shows right now. This one is going to be more a little more produced. I'm getting to experiment with like sound effects and background music more and it's going to be more of an essay style presentation, like some of what I was doing for Hay Strangeness back in the day. So it's stuff I started experimenting with over there, but it's finding a home more on the STM network and I'm really excited about it. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun. I'm excited to hear it in the future. That'll be man, that'll be a good time. When you first told me about it, I was like, Oh, this sounds like a really good idea. What are your feelings, if any, about hyena sightings in North America current day? Yeah, this is a fun one. This is something that kind of goes along with dog bad research because how far into that do I want to go? Myino is an attribute that you hear often in these encounters. Not every time, and I couldn't give you a percentage, but like even recently talking to people in the Land between the Lakes, hyeno came up a couple of times, came up in Texas a lot. Linda Godfrey talked about it in some of her books, so it's definitely something that is out there. If you have enough money, you can buy any animal you want. I'm sure there are some limitations there. I don't know where you keep an elephant or an orca, but it's not a secret. Take for example, to hit documentary Tiger King, like, you can buy any animal you want. So I think,

22:41 at least in some cases, when you have these phantom animal sightings, hyenas that aren't where they're supposed to be, big cats that are in places there are supposed to be, I think what we're seeing are specimen z owned by private collectors who, of course we're not going to find public records that they own these things because they bought them on the DL. I do think there's some of that. If we're talking about hyena like dog man sightings, that's a whole nother dimension. But yeah, so that's the thing, right. I've mentioned it more than a few times before, but listeners, if you haven't heard Decrypted of the Corns Hyena episode, it's really good. You should listen to it. It's talking about how some of the dog Man sightings could be hyenas that are elusively in the woods also, And you know, I've talked to a gentleman named Ryan Trembley about he had a pretty much a hyena like dog man sighting out there in Arizona. So that leads me to ask, there are different ways that they don't all look the same, there are different kind of types of dog man. Then, yeah, I see this. I've seen this chart floating around online. I've seen different variations of it that are like the different the different types of dog man. I think you you shared it recently, Jeremi. I wish. Yeah. I use your channel to keep up with the stuff that's circulating because there's so many different places you can see it. It's good to have one spot where things are explained to me. But I do see this sometimes, and I get where it's coming from because you do have varying descriptions. They don't all look the same. I don't hear tales brought up very often. It either seems like

24:17 witnesses don't notice the tale, like it just doesn't pop into their field of view, or it's just not present. I've seen a couple where they're described as being like short bobcat style tales. I've only heard a couple where you hear of like a longer canine tale like you would see on maybe a German shepherd or a labrador or some kind. Most of the descriptions I see of these things, the term German shepherd comes up at some point wolf of German shepherd or both. The overbearing most prominent physical features seems to be an elongated snout and pointed ears. And then just off the top of my head, right behind that, you hear a lot about illuminated or glowing eyes. Not always, but even when you're hearing descriptions of them being hyena like, like maybe having a flatter snout broader jaws, you're still hearing these pointed ears.

25:03 So there are a few things that seem to be consistent in almost every case, but there are variations. Again, like the story I mentioned earlier that comes from somebody I know. He described it as looking like a razor's edge pit bull, which is a very thick, broad muscular type of pit bull breed, which again you hear other descriptions. I think a pit bull is on that chart that I mentioned a moment ago. Can you tell me anything about the Land between the Lakes adventure that you have, Yeah, I can. We shared some behind the scenes photos on the STM account and on our personal accounts, yes, But basically what happened, what had happened was I have literally done all day trying to figure out how to concisely explain this because it's got a lot of moving parts, and I didn't figure it out.

25:49 So I'm just going to go for it. But in November of twenty twenty three, myself, Shannon Lagroux, and the Small Town Monsters team went to the Land between the Lakes and we filmed the documentary dog Man Territory Werewolves in the Land between the Lakes while I was doing research and conducting interviews for Hunting Grounds Dogmen of the Lakes. So it's a similar, very similar situation to the dog Man Triangle and the Texas dog Man Triangle, where it's a book and a film companion that the information overlaps and they complement each other, and I'm able to go into more detail on some things in the book that there's just not time to fit into a documentary versus maybe, for example, there's stuff in the documentary where we actually visit some locations that there's just no way to illustrate without a visual medium. That's the overall synopsis, but it focuses primarily on dog man activity in the land between the Lakes, which most folks when you hear those terms, you're thinking of the notorious nineteen eighties massacre where some people were said to be killed. That's what we're talking about, essentially.

26:56 I was excited when you guys, when you and that there's going to be a book in a documentary about this area, because it comes up in reference in my podcast every once in a while, and I'm like, man, there needs to be a reference for this. Besides having to go to different YouTube videos. This is not I don't know, unless maybe I just don't know about the resource that's already in print, but I haven't really found a lot. It's confusing because when you start reading into this case, and I found that very early on in just making preliminary notes for this book, there's a lot of information out there, but a lot of it is the same, and a lot of it is regurgitating what other people have already said, tracing an origin point forward and getting past that just regurgitation of the same story over and over again. That's part of the challenge. Something that's brought up a lot is that that area is just weird. As I'll get out and it is creepy, and people disappear and areas are shut down for certain reasons because people get attacked visiting that area. Can you say, yeah, that's pretty solid or do you think some of that's blown out of proportion.

28:11 It's definitely a weird place, dude. I'll plan a flag on that any day of the week. I would compare it a lot to Sam Houston National Forest in that it's thousands and thousands of acres of government land that is protected or people live nearby, but people don't necessarily live in the thick of it. It's a very strange place. It has a very checkered and colorful history. It's like with regards to the Native Americans in the region, the European settlers in the region. Daniel Boone was there in the early days, helping people settle. I found out just this is just an aside, but I found out I may have had relatives in that area when it was being established. And I'm still like researching that and figuring out if that's something I can include in my notes, but it's a very interesting area moving into the modern day. You had the formation of the lab between the lakes where they damned the rivers and formed Lake Barkley and the Kentucky Lake. It's the largest inland peninsula in the United States. So even just historically, not even getting into the strange phenomena and stuff like that, it's a place that's like deeply saturated in history. In like people, there are over hundreds of cemeteries in the land between the lakes. Some of them are underwater, some of them are abandoned, not even touching on the dog Man sidings, which there are more than just the notorious massacre story. There are more, that's absolutely They've been talked to, some of them been talked about on your show. Yeah, like, there are definitely more. You have UFO sidings, some of which

29:42 there are some really notorious cases that are really hotly discussed in UFO and cryptozoology circles that are strikingly close to the land between the lakes, just proximity wise, very close by. That's not a secret. But there are a couple of cases that I did not realize were within thirty miles of the Land between the Lakes until I actually got out there. Yeah, for example, Kelly Hopkinsville thirty three miles or something like that from where we were sitting. Really it's right there, dude. Oh yeah, it's right there. And I knew that case was in Kentucky, but like maybe just coming from Texas where everything is so far apart from everything else, I didn't connect that was so close by. There are tons of haunting stories, tons of ghost stories all over the place down there. There are whole books just written about ghost stories in Kentucky, and you'll find multiples that are in the Land between the Lakes or right next door in one of its home counties. Deeply strange place.

30:38 Yeah, just at a glance, not even digging too deeply, just talking to a couple people. Deeply strange place. Oh, it's weird, man. Like even just the interview I had with Darryl Denton, he brought up some stuff that happen in that area. I was like, I don't even know what to think of that, dude. And this is it wasn't a it wasn't even a dog man thing, but it was just like, there's some weird stuff that goes on, like him and Martin Groves. Very cool dudes. Man. Yeah, I had the opportunity to talk with both of them recently. Both great guys. I could probably write a few more books just getting leads from them and spending an indeterminate number of hours chasing them down. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely, will you be able to put a solid yes or no on the dog Man massacre? What I did get to do is talk to many of the researchers who've been very actively investigating it over the last few years, including actually going into the Land between the Lakes doing hard cryptozoological research, talking to witnesses who are from the area or no people from the area. I have tracked it as far online as I'm confident anybody can. I have sought to seek out sources independent of the Internet, which I won't go into too much. But I've chased it as far as I think I can chase it with the information that's available and with the research I had time to do while I was in the Land between the Lakes.

32:08 So I'm hoping very much and I'm somewhat confident that I can hoping to provide as comprehensive an overview of that case as possible to allow people to make as educated an assumption of their own as they possibly can. And I have opinions on the nature of that case and what did or didn't happen. But it's one of those things that for me, it shifts every few days. I'll be of maybe more skeptical mindset one day, and then I go back and I work on that chapter a little bit. Right now, it's the longest chapter of the book. There's going to be a lot of stuff in there. But I'll go back and work on that chapter for a couple of days, and then I'm much more convinced. I'm much more on that mindset. I don't like to arrive on conclusions when I do this stuff, partially because I'm a coward, and partially because if total conclusions were possible, my job would be very different. It probably wouldn't be considered parent normal anymore. If we could arrive at hard, provable, scientific conclusion. I like to try as much as possible. I tried with the dog Man triangle, and it's a matter of opinion of I was successful or not, but I tried as much as possible to give the reader a feel for that mindset of just being open minded and skeptical while also optimistic as to the possibility. So I've tried to approach that case the same way, but there's a lot to it.

33:24 Same style of writing in the second book. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of be really similar. I like it this one. The thing that's different about this one that I'm really enjoying being able to do is it's a collection of different cases and reports and eyewitness interviews. It's a research essay style breakdown of some of the background information and the history of the area. I like going into I mentioned this earlier, but I like going into history and ancient literature and looking at ways in which what we're talking about now may have similarities to things that our ancestors were talking about. So there's some of that, some editorializing on my part. But then because I was taking notes for so much of this while we were on this trip, it's also got the reader gets to go on that trip. Like there are parts where I just write about what we were experiencing or where we were, and I don't want to give too much away, but it's also a travel log on my part in certain sections. That's been fun to write because if you're trying to paint a picture for somebody and put them in your mindset that's a very or how you felt when you were in the woods or something like that. For example.

34:30 That's very different from researching a dog Man encounter that took place in the eighties that maybe did or did not happen. Those are just two very different styles of writing. So it's been fun to explore that a little bit. And I don't think that's a spoiler because in the behind the scenes pictures that we posted while we were out there, I'm in the background taking notes and stuff. That's not a spoiler. But it is different in that way because when I wrote The dog Man Triangle, I was primarily writing about places I had already been a lot of other places I had lived or lived near, so there wasn't really an element of going and exploring those locations and visiting those areas because I had already done that. This was very different because I had never really spent time in Kentucky or Tennessee other than a few trips, definitely never spent time in the land between the Lakes. Rather than pretend I knew what I was talking about when I didn't, I figure. I'll just be honest about it. Nice. Yeah, I went here for the first time.

35:24 This is what I saw. Are we going to be able to get a hardcover copy of the second book? Because I really liked the hardcover that was revealed this week yesterday, I believe yes, as a Kickstarter reward. So we haven't announced the tears yet what all of the rewards will be. We do have some more really exciting announcements coming up really pretty much leading all the way up to this launch of the Kickstarter campaign. We have more stuff we're going to be announcing. But one of the Kickstarter rewards for the twenty twenty four campaign will be the hardcover of Hunting Grounds. Yes, yet, that was my favorite thing I got from the Kickstarter last year. Was Oh, thank to be honest, was I really liked getting that hardcover book. It's crazy to think that is already almost upon us. That's what next month, Yeah, February first, the live launch stream party will be launching at seven pm EST, which is the same time that the campaign itself goes live.

36:21 I believe if you follow the link in any of the Small Town Monsters social accounts, except for Instagram. Instagram doesn't let me share links, but any of the other small Town Monsters pages just in general, like, it doesn't format the links so you can click on it. It's a whole mess. But yeah, you can actually head over to the Kickstarter preview page and sign up to get an email as soon as it goes live, so you'll know the very minute that happens. And then the live stream is going to be a lot of fun. Man. We actually announced this morning our friend Lisa of Lisa's Pod, Lisa's Pinata's she's super cool. She has made some super neat custom stainless steel tumblers with small Town Monsters stuff on them. I think there's five or six of them, so we're gonna be getting those away during Mark Maski's Trivia Hour. You've been to those live streams Mark Maski brings, He brings those deep cut trivia questions. It really does. Oh yeah, yeah, but no, that's gonna be great. We love Q and A with the Small Town Monsters crew. We're gonna running film previews, we're gonna be making possibly making some new announcements. Seth talked about this on the live stream last week, so I shouldn't get in trouble for this, but there's more stuff happening in the background at Small Town Monsters. There always is, of course, and we may get to announce some other future projects during the Kickstarter live stream. So just gonna be a real fun time. Yeah, I'm super super excited listeners if you enjoy, even if it's only one project that STM comes out with, like maybe one YouTube series, really I love them all, but let's say pretend you only just love one YouTube series.

37:53 This is the way that you can help that content to keep coming down the line is to make sure that you keep that you are a part of this Kickstarter and you get great rewards and you help STM continue to make content that keeps the topic moving forward and also be introduced to a whole new generation. I think that it's not the realm of a reason to say that it's this generation's in search of or monster quest. STM is responsible for a lot of the newer generation coming out being introduced to things like Bigfoot Dog Band through all the content that you guys are putting on everywhere like YouTube, TikTok to be now, it's all over the place. So hats off to you guys.

38:45 Oh thanks man, Thank you. I was a fan long before I met and if you go back to the very first interview I did with you, I probably spent ten minutes talking about how great I think small Town Monsters is. Now to gets to actually be a part of that and say we instead of them. But when I'm talking about this, it's a rush, dude. So now, thank you. How has that experience been being able to be on the inside. I know that it was interesting for me. I used to be an a big time Apple fanboy, and then I worked for the company for about six years. How is that being able to be on the inside. I've made this analogy before, and I think it's still apt. The first time I got invited to go on a Small Town Monsters shoot, or really when I got invited, or I shouldn stay invited. That's a weird word to use in this context. But when I got offered the opportunity to write a book with Small Town Monsters Publishing, I felt like a Stormtrooper cosplayer who had been invited to the Skywalker ranch to sit down with Dave Filoni and George Lucas and Mark Hamill and Jon Favreau and Kathleen Kennedy and just talk about stuff that we could make for Star Wars. That was what I equated to. Then this year George Lucas called me back and was like, that was great. Do you want to work for us and do that stuff all the time? And I said, yes, that's the comparison I would make. But no, it's been awesome, dude. Anybody that's ever talked to Seth or Heather, anybody over at STM those they're great people. They're very authentic and it's a pleasure to work with everybody. It's great, dude, Like I think it's it's been fantastic. I'm doing stuff for my job

40:16 that I would be doing on my own time for free. I can't think of many more things than that to ask out of a gig. Absolutely, I'm I for one, am very excited for when The Land Between the Lake's book comes out because you had ask me some questions in prep for this book as well, and the questions that you asked me, I was like, I'd never really thought of that before, and I'm really interested to see where he takes that. Thank you for that. I'm curious to see where you take it. It's gonna be fun, man. Yeah, Like the same with dog Man Triangle. Shannon Lagroux, of course, was along for this one, so she brings a lot of insight to the table that I'm just not capable of, because sometimes you need an outside perspective on stuff. And it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be a fun exploration. That might be the wrong word to use. I hope that it will be a well informed and well researched exploration, but yeah, now it's gonna be fun. That's awesome, dude, Aaron. It has been such a pleasure chatting with you again. I'm looking forward to hopefully it sounds like you will be at Monster Fest too, I would imagine, so, oh yes, I will hope to see you there. But can you remind my listeners how they can keep up today best with what you are doing? Yeah? Absolutely so. I managed the small Town Monsters social media accounts and most of the stuff I do right now is post it over there once it's fit for public consumption. Definitely check that out. The Wednesday night STM live streams are over on the small

41:51 Town Monsters YouTube channel. We take audience questions. We try to do as much interaction as possible, so come hang out with us over there. My personal Instagram for this stuff is Hey, underscore Strangeness. It's chillin' right now. It's there, but it's not often. It's not updated as often as it used to be, but those are the places I hang out. Yeah. What if people have a dog man encounter or sighting and they would like to share it with you? What would be the best way to contact you? Ooh yeah, there are a couple. Probably the best way would be my personal Instagram. So, hey, underscore strangeness, shoot me a DM. If I don't get back to you right away, maybe just comment on something and be like I sent you a DA. You can contact us anybody at small Town Monsters through the small town Monster social media We do have an email address, contact us at smalltown monsters dot com just for any general questions.

42:42 I've had a couple of people reach out through that email address that had encounters that they wanted to share. You're welcome to do that as well. But yeah, small Town Monsters is on all the social media platforms, so whichever one you prefer to use, you're welcome to hit us up over there. Awesome, thanks again for coming on erin. Thank you man. It's been an honor here at Bigfoot Society. Our goal is to provide a platform for those that have encountered Bigfoot to share their encounter in a safe environment. But we need to hear your story. If you've experienced something that you just can explain, please send me an email at Bigfoot Soociety at gmail dot com. Then we can start the conversation. And 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