Surrounded in Area X!

0:00 Welcome to the Bigfoot Society. In this episode, I talked to Adam Dugan from Small Town Monsters, who shares about the Bigfoot encounter that he and Seth Breedlove had in the infamous area X of Oklahoma. If you've experienced something similar to what Adam has, or have more information regarding Bigfoot or other cryptids in the same area, please reach out to me immediately after this episode. Remember, your encounter could be the key to unlocking this mystery once and for all, so please don't hesitate to contact me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. All right, Bigfoot Society, We've got the privilege of talking to an individual that I've wanted to chat with for quite a long time now about some interesting things he's experienced in his past. Adam, how's it going today?

0:44 It is going well, dude. How are you? I'm doing great. Do you mind sharing a bit about yourself and then I'll let you get right into it. Yeah, that sounds good. Like I said, my name is Adam. I have run round in the woods with Seth Breedlove and Small Town Monsters for the past several years, and only recently did I actually move into a role at STM, so now the COO of STM, which sounds super important that it just means working really hard to everybody else. But before that, Seth and I became buddies. And if I'm sure your audience is familiar, but he's the man behind the Small Town Monsters film catalog, YouTube channel, all of that good stuff. And we met in a roundabout way.

1:29 We both were interested in Bigfoot, and we both liked the same bands. And if Facebook has very rarely done anything productive in my mind, but they did because that's how we connected. I acted in Momo the Missouri Monster, and then in the Jersey Devil movie, and then tagged along with Seth going to look for UFOs up and down the East Coast and several other little excursions. And then the one, probably the biggest one in my mind anyway, was I think we're going to talk about today, which was getting to go into Area X in Oklahoma with the North American Wood Ape Conservancy a couple of years ago. It was June sixteenth through the eighteenth, twenty eighteenth, which is wild that it was six years ago. It shows you how impactful it was because it feels like it was yesterday. I still remember all of the little details that you only remember when something is a big deal to you.

2:25 Seth called me randomly one day. We had hung out a little bit beforehand. We had talked a lot about Area X and the North American Wood Ape Conservancy, and the thing that really intrigued me about them was the fact that they had a similar outlook, or at least the most scientific perspective on Bigfoot that I had heard. I am all in for cryptids and fantastic stories and whatever, but there's a very there's a very I don't want to say, skeptical but very critical side, or maybe it's the other way around, not critical but skeptical of a lot of a lot of things because I'm a human being and some things are just hard to hard to believe. I guess it is the best way to put it. But an AWAC looked at Bigfoot, and I guess still looks at bigfoot as a flesh and blood creature.

3:14 They're studying it and researching the topic in an attempt to bring it into the scientific community, ultimately for conservation efforts, because if it is out there, then it is incredibly rare. Would be to say endangered would be an understatement, I would think, and in the scientific world you have to prove its existence with irrefutable evidence to then be able to get the backing and the support you need to get something on an endangered species list or something like that. So they're a bit controversial in that their goal is to get a type specimen, so it can't officially be documented in the scientific record. They've made it public. They don't want to shoot one. They would much rather find one in one of their research locations that had already passed away and then take it and have it. But if given the opportunity, they want to take a type specimen, I was very much in line with how they looked at the creature. So Seth called and said, I remember the conversation. He said, Hey, do you want to go to Area X? And I was like, wait, what, we can we can do that because I listened to the Bigfoot Show so with Brian Brown and with their entire their entire team with Daryl Collier, Alton Higgins listened to them talk about this place and would listen to their stories. Sitting around what sounded like a fire somewhere in the middle of Area X in my mind, surrounded by Bigfoot and talking about what

4:45 they had done that day and research projects that they had ongoing. So I had this thing in my head that was built up what this place would look like, you know, just jungle more or less and just in the middle of nowhere. And so to have the opportunity to act, to go see it and put a physical location and a picture into those stories that I heard was just a dream come true. So obviously I said, yes, I live in southeastern Tennessee and stuff is in Ohio. So he drove down swung through Nashville picked me up. The first time we'd ever done any like real staying like together in the same place for any extended period of time. We had hung out, but it was always, you know, meeting somewhere in the middle and we'd go eat and talk and whatever else. So our first encounter with each other was in a little car driving from Nashville to Oklahoma.

5:35 We drove all the way there and met Alton Higgins, who and I don't know how many of these individuals are still involved or not, and just by my record, who was involved at the time. So we met him, and immediately he took us to Essentially what they have is an outpost on the outside of Area X, which I had never heard of, so this was my first like insider base thing that I got to see. It's a little outposts on the outside where they would swap teams in and out. So they typically had their research kind of station off the beaten trail. To put it lightly, they had a on the beaten trail place where they would come out, sleep, shower, do whatever. Another team would go in and they'd swap back and forth. So we got to see that place and then the adventure began. We hopped in Alton's truck, so all of the guys there have trucks that are specifically built to get to this location because it's so varied.

6:31 It is everything that I imagined it would be and more. I know. I heard them describe it as like Jurassic Park, and that is exactly what it looks like. So it was I don't remember exactly how long I remember it was this solid. It had to have been ten fifteen miles maybe back into the Washata National Forest and not ten or fifteen city miles, literally rock crawling to get there. I have video that's playing right now. My god, just bouncing around in the back of Alton's truck with sat up front with a camera per usual, and the knee in the back just like a giddy school girl just being like I cannot believe this is about to happen.

7:14 So we drove. It took us probably I want to say, maybe forty five minutes to an hour or more to rock crawl all the way back in there, just like I said, ten miles or so to get back into the area. And so their research installation set up. So if you think of a military if you're familiar with what a fark is, like a forward operating base or a FOB. I'm sorry, not a fark, that's another term, but what you would expect that a lot of the guys were former military, and so they had scited up like that. They had built a cabin, a two floor cabin where they could sleep. They had a tower on top of the cabin that with trash bags over the windows so their infrared sites on everything and optics could see, but whatever was outside couldn't see.

7:59 In a tin what they called it the hooch, which was essentially like a carport more or less, but it's where their food was stored underneath anything electronic. They didn't need to get wet tables like briefing debriefing tables, things like that. Some other little portable cover where they could set gets very hot in Oklahoma in the summer, so we got introduced to everything there and then from that point kicked off. We were only going to be there two nights actually in at the inner area acts at that current base camp. We just tried to blend in almost like a journalists embedded in a bit of a war zone, like not to make light of war zones. So it was not anything like what we did, but in a sense that we had cameras and we were just there along for the ride. We got in Nank got a lay of the land essentially like the from the way it was at that point.

8:48 They would have different whether it was research projects that were ongoing or just daily activities that would happen every single day. So they might have a research project running. I know they had like fur traps at one point where they had had chips and they had these things embedded in trees, so if something tall enough would walk by, this little thing would get embedded in their fur and they would track it. They would also have these daily activities where it would be Yeah, Darryl Collier was former military and just like one of the best people if you ever have a chance to meet him, one of just the most genuine people you'll ever meet. Sweet guy. He would go out.

9:28 He would get in full military camo, full face paint, full camo with like his like his Gilly suit if you're familiar with those, so totally covered in what looked like leaves from the terrain itself where we were. And he would go out every day and I mean four hours talking, leaving at ten am and we wouldn't see him again until five or six like that evening. He'd come back in and he would essentially go out set up a spot where they had had activity and he would just bed down and he would be there listening, watching, smelling. He would go out and then he would come back and he would debrief the team when he came back about what had happened.

10:09 And he also was on walkie communications while he was out as well. And so it just so happened to the first day that we were there, and this is in the documentary that Steff filmed and edited and then put out afterwards. But Daryl went out and I don't know how. I don't remember how long it was that he was out, but all of a sudden we got walkee squawks coming back, saying, I see one. I'm looking right at it. Like it's got the dome shaped head. It's a lighter color. I can see its eyes, and it's swaying back and forth. It's like moving back and forth. And this is a well trained former military operator, like he knows how to look through this scope of a that the four or five times optic zoom of a scope. He knows what he's looking at.

10:54 And you could hear it in his voice, I'm looking at this thing. I'm looking at it right now. So that was day one. Seth and I were immediately convinced that we have hit the jackpot. We are here when Bigfoot is going to be proven real. It was wild, like I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it, because it was just like a dream come true, like all these things I had read right here, they seemed to be coming to a point at the place that I had hoped that they would come to a point at. And so anyway, he watched it for a while and I mentioned them wanting to get a type specimen. It's also speaking to their character. He was like, I couldn't get a good enough shot at it to try. I don't know that. Again, it sounds harsh to say, but a good hunter. I grew up in the South and we all hunt. You don't take a shot unless you know that you're going to be able to do what you need to do with that shot. You don't want to wound anything that's that is amateur hour stuff, So he wouldn't take the shot as big as an event, a life changing event as that could have been. He didn't take it, but it was enough for us to hear him describe it while he was looking at it, so obviously we were all very excited, thinking, man, this is this is obviously activity is here. We went on a hype just around the area and went through one location that, like I said, growing up in the South, what different animals smell, dog and even bear and things like that. We walked through a particular area there was no sense, no anything, and then got hit with this odor that smelled like wet dog, but something else that I just

12:30 wasn't familiar with, like almost almost like I don't know how to describe it, just a very foul odor, what you would expect, what you would think of big foto smell like. I mean, given the stories we had that happen fairly soon after we got there, they filled us in on the report, so they had had the recent activity that they had had, and there was I don't think I mentioned it. I think there was probably one, two, three, five or six of us there. The members of the NAWAC were saying in the research kind of cabin Seth and I wanted to. We want We felt like we needed to prove ourselves and we're just too dudes with cameras just walking around like its Disney World. So we set up our tent away from the which plays into the story later, away from the actual installation itself a little bit, probably only one hundred and fifty yards something like that if that, but far enough away that we felt like we were out so if something was to happen, we'd be in the middle of it when it started. We had several things happened that kind of the first couple of hours that we were there. We had some cool conversations with Bob and Kathy. Strain sat there and got to talk to them, and we went to bed that night, nothing really of note happening. Black widow spider dropping out of the zipper line of our tent, which I have a picture of, was terrifying. Let's see, I was an idiot, had food in the tent, and there was some animal rummaging around outside of the tent.

13:56 There'll call your I was not happy that I did that, so he let me you know, and then yeah. Then we got up the next day and had a pretty pretty quiet day. There were some wood knocks and some whoops that very like buy the book Bigfoot stuff, but nothing too much. And then the high point of the story. We went to bed that night knowing we were leaving early early ish the next day, and we'd had cool stuff happen enough that I had really shifted my thoughts on the subject as a whole, and from something I wanted to be real to something that I thought, given how this place looks and what I've heard the people I've talked to, probably is real. I had already shifted to there, even just with the things that had happened. But I want to say it's probably Seth and I were in the tent, out away from the research cabin, everybody was in bed, and he had a cot on one side of the tent.

14:52 I had a cot on the other side, and I think we were both in that weird state in between awake and asleep. We were just drifting off, and all of a sudden, there was a crack, like an explosion almost, that just echoed in those woods, just a power metal, tinny sounding bang, And because you're in those woods like that, it just echoes forever. But it was very close to us. And as soon as that happened my eyes opened. I'm sure Seth's eyes opened. There came this yeah, I'm getting cold, she was even thinking about it. There was this I don't even know how to describe it, whooping monkey. If you've been to like a gibbon exhibit at the zoo where they do the what but more than that laughter almost it almost sounded giddy when it did it. And I couldn't tell how many different things were making that noise. All I know was it was very close. It was very loud. It was clearly coming from a large animal. It's just that sound was startlingly loud, not only the bang, but then the whoops that came afterwards, and it almost sounded playful like. It almost sounded like laughter. And people have said since then, owls sound like that, And I'm very familiar with what an owl sounds like,

16:25 different types of owls. Darryl was talking to owls while we were there. He's the ultimate woods woodsman, woods person. He was. He would make owl noises and they would respond, and it wasn't it was not an owl because of the volume. And also if you just pull up monkey noises at the zoo or like a howler monkey whooping, that is exactly what it sounded like, but from something that lungs were not the size of a traditionally sized howler monkey or given or whatever we're familiar with. And I don't know, Seth remembers this and because it it all happened so quickly. But there was also some rustling, clattering like some other almost like movement in the brush up behind in the direction of the research cabin. So if we were, you know, if you look at like a compass, we were south of the cabin, and so then the cabin was obviously north of us, and then behind the cabin further was a hill that ran up into who knows where we had hiked up there but I couldn't tell you exactly where it went, but it sounded like the rustling and all of that was happening up on that end of it. And the clearest thing I remember is Seth half asleep sitting up and saying something like, oh, it's happening. We both at that moment. It has made me laugh so hard. We talked about it on the way back on the drive back to Nashville. That just that, just

17:56 all of these emotions at one time, like wow, what is that? And your brain immediately tries to recognize the sound, and you know, just going through your rolodex of animal sounds, would sounds or sounds, And I kept clicking back to monkey. I remember that, Like why am I trying to convince myself that I didn't just hear a monkey? Like I'm an adult, I've heard monkeys. I know what they sound like. That's what that sounded like, pure and simple, And I would try to you know, it flashes all right then in that moment and was bird no? Owl? No? Then you go into these weird things that you also know or shouldn't be there, jackal hyena like you start running through these things trying to match up noises, and I kept going back to going back to like a gibbon or a howl or monkey or something like that that just is the long extended whoops and then a cackle afterwards. Coyote was in Kyote clearly, and so we jumped up, but the guys in the cabin had already fallen asleep.

19:03 I think we were up significantly later than them. I remember members of the cabin that were in the cabin opening the door and coming out, and we were looking, we were talking to them on the walkie talking. They were all fumbling out of the cabin door in various states of awakeness because I think we were all just startled because it came out of nowhere. Everything settled down after that. We got up the next morning and tried to put the puzzle pieces together, and essentially what we came to the conclusion that something was up on the hill, which is somewhere that they typically would see these things, where they would come up from behind the hill, come down, observe them from up on top, and if they needed to get back whatever it is could get back up to the safety of the hill and over whatever beyond was beyond that hill and on top of the hooch that I mentioned earlier, the big ten kind of car port. There was a large rock that was up on top of that, up on top of the hooch, which then made sense that if something is up there, they're watching, we're asleep. There are rocks, all kinds of stuff on this hill that just climbs up for a good ways behind the cabin. It sounded to me something was up there watching. Everyone had settled down, SETH and I were finally going to sleep and drifting off no more movement. It picks up a rock and just does that thing that you see gorillas do. They throw stuff, poop or otherwise they throw stuff, and it hit that hoota made a loud noise and what

20:37 I interpreted as whooping and whatever sounded like I said, like giddiness, almost like oh, we did it. That was a cool noise we made. We were trying to throw something in that direction. Look what we did. And then the shuffling, rustling, all of that stuff scampering back up as they realized, oh that was a real loud noise. We're not hidden at this very moment, and we need to back We had that event happened along with the other events, along with being able to corroborate that with a finding something that would have made that noise, and then putting those pieces together. Whether or not that was the intention of whatever it was, I don't know, but to me anyway, it sounded like a giant, playful ape of some kind that had surprised itself with its with its accuracy with a rock, enjoyed the noise, and then realized, oh, we got to get out of here because we just gave ourselves away. And that was that was the turning point for sure for me in my journey anyway to actually believing that Bigfoot is a thing. Exactly what it is I still don't know. Unfortunately I didn't see it, but I feel like I was as close as anyone has been that I've heard with as much it was, I want to say, proof as much evidence to support the story given so around these situations and what we found afterwards, is anyone I've heard. I called my dad on the way back and I told him because it's a big deal. He got me into the Bigfoot subject, and that's been something we've connected over since I was

22:10 really little. It was just weird, strange things cryptid, paranormal whatever, and I called him and I was like, I think I just said they're real, like it's a real thing. So yeah, So that was That's my story. That's my big foot story. And I think I've looked at the subject different since that day, in a lot of different ways. No closer to an exact explanation of what bigfoot is. But I had one of those encounters that you hear about on podcasts and despite your best efforts, can't help but doubt a little bit when you hear them, because you just it wasn't you that had that experience personally, and then all of a sudden it was me. And here I am telling someone on a cool podcast about my story and thinking all the people probably sitting out there the same thoughts that I used to have about No, I don't know. It sounds like a cool story, but I wasn't there. So that's my big for an encounter.

23:00 Adam, that's an incredible account. I think that's actually referred to in Michael May's book as well value of the apes. It's shortly mentioned. I believe that you guys are okay, which is pretty cool cool. I did not know that. Yeah, I just check that out, that book out for sure. There's a lot of interesting things that you mentioned. One was how you're you're almost paradigm shifted and you got to the point you're like, Okay, I really believe in these creatures now for sure. When you heard that in the tent, and I've experienced this myself in Iowa, and I'll get into this in the future, but I know exactly what that's like to be in a tent and then to experience something like that. What emotions were going through your mind? Was it hard for you to get back to sleep.

23:51 Yeah, that's a good question, because it was really strange how you would think. You know, you listen to these podcasts and you hear people encounters and they say like, I was terrified. I was just absolutely terrified. I was all I wanted to do was turn and run, and I never want to go back in the woods and whatever. And I know that my my encounter is not nearly as traumatic as what I think some people have. I've heard some people talk about my past. The initial shock of I'm going to sleep and all of a sudden I'm awake with a loud noise was straight adrenaline number one and then number two. I in a very like childlike way.

24:33 There was almost this trying to think the best way to put it, because I've not really ever thought about it what the emotion would be, almost like a euphoric moment where it's, oh my gosh, there's more stuff out there than I realized, because I think you always want to Yeah, I've said this on in a lot of different places, talking to different people, both personally and professionally. Like, as human beings were very arrogant, we like to think that we know how everything works, we know what's up in the sky and what's under the water, we know what's in the woods, And all of a sudden, to have that paradigm change, just like in an instant and think, okay, all those things that I had bought into more or less as an arrogant human being myself, they just changed. Everything just flipped and it was adrenaline excitement, to say the least. And then it moved on to how now what do I do we unzip this tent and stick our heads straight out without without assessing the situation. Do we radio into the guys that are in the cabin and ask them what to do? Because We had gone over several different kind of like SOPs, some standard operating like procedures about what to do if but this was not covered. What to do if you're asleep and all of a sudden what seems like a bigfoot invades your

26:06 camp, throws a rock, starts chattering. What is We didn't have an SOP for that. So part of me also was like, Okay, don't make an idiot of yourself. These guys are all former military, just like the kind of people you'd want to be stuck in the woods with if you had to be stuck. So don't make an idiot of yourself. And what could be literally ten feet outside my tent right now? Could that be? Could bigfoot be right there? Could all the proof that everyone's been looking for since before the Patterson Gimlin film. Is it right there? So? I don't know even how to describe the emotion other than just pure excitement and whatever, the emotion of a complete shift in your even worldview, like well how you see things. I don't know what that emotion is, but that's what I was, That's what I was feeling anyway. It is the weirdest thing that it's fair hard to explain unless you've experienced yourself, if you could go back and live through that night again, what things would you do differently?

27:10 Yeah, I think what I didn't do at that time. I think Seth and I've even talked about this. From just a pure proof perspective, I wish that we had something running while we were sleeping that night that wasn't anything that had been reported, at least not regularly or recently. As far as that kind of activity, like you in the middle of the night and you're in the middle of the woods. We can't do a lot as far as what we came with, what was charged, what was ready Beyond some battery packs and stuff. We had finite resources, so we were trying to be a bit stingy with those. So if it wasn't something that we were actively trying to film, it wasn't an interview or just generic b roll walking around at ry X. We didn't have cameras going all the time or recorders going.

27:56 That would have been one thing. I think that obviously having recorder going so then I could myself selfishly could go back and listen to it whenever I wanted to, but also have that to share with people to get their feedback, but to also validate what we heard that would be something. And then I think, and it probably was, that discretion was the better part of valor there. We didn't go charging off into the woods chasing whatever this thing was. But I think there was hesitation. There's a lot of hesitation, at least on my part initially of what to do next and how best to cement that experience, because it already passed by the time we realized what had happened, and so I think there probably would have been some things immediately going and starting to poke around behind the cabin and get up on the hill a little bit. But it was almost shock, not in a negative way, but just something that was completely unexpected. And so there was you don't know what you do in those situations until you're in them, especially one like that where you don't really ever even plan on being in it. It's not what if you're in a fast food restaurant and somebody has a heart attack, you know what to do in that situation. It's unexpected, but there's precedent.

29:12 There was just no precedent in my mind for this, and so it was Yeah, So I think it long answer, short probably would have spared or would have would had then used some additional battery power, and knowing it was our last night to have something recorded, and it probably would have dug around a little bit more afterwards instead of just stood there for the next stood sat laid there whatever for the next hour with my jaw on the floor. I would love to go back and not necessarily chase the creature, but chase the event a little bit further, just to see what clues might be left behind, more so than what we saw, because obviously things were left behind a bit with what we found on the roof of the Hoots the next morning.

29:56 So probably those are the things that immediately come to mind. Did you find yourself having an internal struggle when it came to am I an observer or am I someone that's here affecting what's going on? Oh? For sure, Yeah, I think that. I think that there was already a bit of like almost imposter syndrome, a little bit being there because I hadn't contributed to any of the research, I hadn't done anything to put all of us in the situation that we were in to have that kind of experience. There was, But it was also something to the fact that it was known that changes in the team that were in Area X at a given time, new people introduced, people leaving, different voices, different morning routines for people getting up.

30:48 These guys would go in, Guys and girls would go in and stay for a week at a time, two weeks at a time. I believe one went and it might have been I don't remember who it was, but someone went in saved a month alone. So when changes would happen in these morning routines of different team members in and out, I mean those would change, it would cause whatever it is the creature's behavior to change. And so part of it also was interesting to me thinking that maybe seth in my presence there being a new presence and incited some of that activity a little bit, which was a kind of a cool thought to think that maybe we did have a part in this. But really what it felt like to me was something that an animal would do, to walk right up to the cliff's edge of interaction with something that it was curious about. So whether we influenced it or were just observers, I think it was a bit of both. I think we were influencing an animal to do what it would naturally do if it was curious about something that it didn't understand, or something it was out of the norm for it being there. So I think we observed a natural behavior, but we might have peaked the curiosity that was required to incite that behavior. Maybe what if Darryl had taken the shot and got the target while you guys were there. Is that something you've ever thought about? Oh? Yeah, we

32:20 not only we think about it, we were I keep using military terms because that's I'm a military aviation nerd, and I yeah, I'm a yeah, we won't even go into that, but so I keep thinking about that. But we were briefed on what would happen. There's disciplined in their approach to the entire subject, which is what attracted me. Like I said in the first place, the scientific method. Not liking what they were there to do necessarily, but knowing that ultimately like it for the betterment of whatever this species is. So we were the general consensus was that if there was a type specimen taken, that most likely it would be a member of a family group something like that observed young, old, bigger, smaller ones during their years there. That probably you would have repercussions from whatever of the other members of that kind of plan or family group, you would be at a target immediately.

33:15 And so before we went out the first time, we were told, if this happens and things get wild, Adam, you're here with this team. Seth, you're here with this team. You guys are in this truck. You guys are in this truck. This is a meeting point. If you get lost, you need to make sure at so and so is Adam's like watchdog. Essentially, if you make sure he doesn't, don't let him out of your sight. So your sets. Here's if we can only if we don't have time to get the entire specimen out. Here's prime piece of documentation that we can get. Here's secondary, here's tertiary. Here's our order of importance as far as triaging a situation. So we were even told like where to go, what to do, what to say, how quickly to get there. If that doesn't work, what's the next option, and who you should be with at all times. Yeah, we were told it was essentially going to be like a mass exodus to get back to that cabin that was established outside of the actual back towards civilization, where then there were things set up there to make sure that whatever was taken care of until whoever they needed to contact could be contacted and whatnot, And they didn't get those were not details that gave us as far as who was lined up and ready.

34:35 I believed that they had some professors and scientists from the University of Oklahoma, but they knew and whether they could say it publicly or not, believed in what they were doing and were willing to get there to make sure that the appropriate measures were taken, that whatever was taken was preserved well and was handled in a way that couldn't be discredited once it was actually brought to light. So yeah, they had a very infinitive protocol for what to do at that point. That's so interesting and all that is that has been talked before about before, since Adam isn't throwing anything into the open that shouldn't be. Listeners will have the link to Wide Open Research the episode with Darryl Collier, and he goes deep into what's called the Artemis protocol, which is what's being referred to there. What happens if they do get the type specimen, and then what are the next steps so that's an interesting listen. I would recommend people go there next after this. How was the ride back to Tennessee different than the ride Globa? It was we were sleep deprived, especially from the night before. We were still the belilderment a little bit. We just, like I said, you have this fundamental change and how you look at things, and we both I think, tried to play skeptic on one another. We both tried to more I think, present all the arguments that we expected to hear, because you're thinking, I want to tell everyone, how do I answer the questions when they start asking these questions, like how do almost coming

36:07 up with your arguments, your defense against arguments that you know are coming and criticism that you know is coming. There was a lot of that. I don't remember being tired at all. I remember sitting there and thinking, we are talking about this fundamental shift in this guy who's now become my best buddy. But at the time we didn't know each other super well, but we had just had this experience together relating to this subject that we had both just been in love with since we were little, and having those discussions lots of excitement, Like I said, lots of questions, answering each other's questions, trying to fill in gaps in the story that one of us maybe didn't remember as well because of being half asleep at the time and then waking up more fully and both paying attention to different things and trying to piece that puzzle together.

37:00 Know, like I said, I called my dad. He called his dad. I think that was the first time I'd ever heard his dad, And since since then, I've gotten to I've gotten to spend a lot a lot of time with his dad and his mom before she passed away. And just hearing his dad's excitement in response to Seth's excitement was so cool because it was it was like just a mirror of my dad and I And how like it said, there's a lot more to that whole moment than just I think we just heard Bigfoot. It was like I got something to share with my dad. And I've listened to podcasts since I was little, you know, read books and then eventually what radio programs or whatever, and too podcasting and talked about all these encounters, and we posed ire for and against arguments for these encounters and all of this stuff, and all of a sudden I was telling my dad mine and Seth was telling his dad his and there's something really special about that. But the ride back was just excited in a way that I don't think I've been excited because I just remember thinking, like, oh, I'm one of those people now, like I've been listening to these people talk about their bigfoot experiences on podcasts and read books about them and whatever.

38:12 Oh my gosh, like I'm one of them. It was not in a negative way at all, in a very positive way, like I almost like you got to Yeah, like you said, you had experiences like get to join a group of people you wanted to join for a long time, but really you never really expected to be in that cool club. So it was just a very excited rite back, lots of talking and recounting the story as we remembered it and putting puzzle pieces together. And not only that, but I think in the community there's definitely this like aura, this sense of awe when people hear about Area X or talk about Area X. There's just something about it. And have you ever thought, why do you think there's such a sense of awe about this one particular place in southeast Oklahoma as opposed to fill in the blank with random area in Tennessee which could have just as crazy things happening. Yeah, I think a lot of that can be attributed to I've always thought that Brian Brown, who had the Bigfoot show back in the day, I always thought he was such a good such a good storyteller.

39:22 He did such a good job of describing the location and making it seem real and alive even if you weren't there. Did a great job he and the guys on that podcast talking about the experiences they had and also making I think there was a separation with that place in some other places because of the group of people that were there and just the inherent credibility I always felt like they had just listening to them talk and explain their backgrounds, and I always had this thought that they're obviously smarter than I am. I can listen to them talk and tell that they they've got more going on upstairs than I do, and they're this bought into it. They're smart enough to run these research projects, to do these things. These are grown men that have had great careers, whether academic careers or military careers, all very skilled in their various kind of areas of expertise and there because they they believe that this is something work somewhere worth being and just wanting to see that place that people like that think is worth exploring. I think that was I think that was a big part of it, just because it was this mythical place and still is to me.

40:38 It hasn't lost in you that being there further reinforce that belief that there's something special about that area in and of itself. And I think even more than that having been there now the way it was described as Jurassic Park as just at a jungle in the middle of the United States, like that kind of thing, and then seeing it and mean like, oh, that's a very accurate description of this place. It was weird. There is something about it and I don't know what it is. And I think Seth would say the same thing, there's something about that place that feels different. Without going too deep into it. I've struggled with real bad anxiety my entire life and had some real down moments with that and removing I had no cell phone access I had because of how isolated this place was. Nobody knew me from anybody in there. It was all a group of people that were interested in the same subject, who could not communicate with the outside world, and really the only communication they had was with each other and interacting with whatever else is out there in that place. Something about that I remember being so I don't know, at peace is the right word. Almost like leaving it, you felt you could tell you were going And I still remember like that feeling of just noe, not a care in the world, because you are right there, like in that moment, and being truly like in the moment, which is very difficult to do, I think in just today's world, to just be

42:10 present where you are, with the people you're with, doing the thing that you're doing. And so I don't know if that answers the question, but only that I think that there's just something to that place in general, whether it's the stories or the isolation or a combination of both, but it's a it's just a special place that's hard to describe unless you've just buried yourself in those podcasts and the stories that come from there. And then on top of that, if you ever have had or have an opportunity to go into there, I think that's the only way that actually makes sense to understand how might it might be different than some other places that have as much or more activity, that don't have quite the same impact. I love that answer because it's absolutely true that whole situation has such a cast of characters. You can really get into the information that's available about it through different ways. Through Michael May's book, the NAWAC website has audio you can listen to. There's multiple podcasts over the years that have hours and hours of content. You can really get involved with the universe as it was, as it were. When it comes to Area X, it's pretty wild to think about is the books of STM involvement with Area X is that closed or could there perhaps be another chapter written in the future on it. I think that there. I think that there was actually talk of Seth and I'm making a return visit. I think initially we had thought it might have been this last summer going back out there,

43:43 and that the group is different now than when we were there. There have been some members for one reason or another, who have left the group and are pursuing the same subjects but in a different way or in a different area. New leadership, I think in the organization with the same overall goal as at least how I understand it. So I wouldn't I would not never say never. I know that if given the opportunity, Seth and I would hop in the car tomorrow and make the same truck. So I wouldn't say never, but I would say that if that was the first and last and only chapter of STM's journey into Area X, I would say it was a darn good chapter. And I can't imagine it being any better than what it than what it was sands, the no audio recording and whatever, and the questions that come along with that. But never say never. I know I would go back. I know Seth would, if given the opportunity to who knows?

44:39 Who knows? I know, and that's a tricky question to ask and to receive. But man, just throwing it out there, since you're CEO, Oh, if I can make it happen, it'd be cool, No, Dug, I'll send flowers to whoever they'll love them back in there. Give me the address. I'll send them Applebee's gift cards, whatever they want. After you went through that situation, Area X, and you said you're from Southeast Tennessee. Did this lead to you going out and doing any research on your own or any other similar situations going into bigfoot areas. Yeah, I think what it did was make me realize that Oklahoma is not a place that traditionally you associate with Bigfoot. If it wasn't for Area X, if it wasn't for what I know because of Area X and the history pretty story history that Oklahoma has in the world of Bigfoot, I wouldn't just thought off the top of my head. So what it caused me to do was to reassess what I considered to be like a feasible location for Bigfoot, which then caused me to reassess, like I said, Southeast Tennessee, where I'm right here, close to the Cherokee National Forest, there are Bigfoot stories that were over the years turned into paranormal stories surrounding the Chickamauga Battlefield, which was obviously more isolated than it used to be prior to the Battle of Chickamauga and the

46:09 Civil War and now it being a big tourist place to go. It was their stories there that involved something that people that soldiers were seeing and they attributed it to a ghost. But when you listen, when you read the stories, it's a Bigfoot story. There are other places close to very close to me that I would have normally said, well, we don't have Bigfoot here, whatever, it's Tennessee, we don't have you know, we don't have especially in these locations that I'm thinking that's not that's it just doesn't make sense or whatever. And then knowing that Bigfoot doesn't care Bigfoot is where Bigfoot is. It doesn't care about state lines or anything. It cares about finding a place for that point in time where it can stay as reclusive as it needs to be to survive and have enough food to do so, and then move on so wherever that might be. So I think it opened up my eyes to the idea that's possible, whereas before maybe I wouldn't have even entertained it.

47:07 And so yeah, since then, I have definitely gone into the woods more specifically with the intent on or not being closed off to the idea of having some sort of encounter, and also just gone into the woods more in general, because the woods all of a sudden had a different aura to it regardless of where it was, because of just the possibility of something being there. When your fundamental view on what's possible changes. But all of a sudden, like everywhere looks like like a place to explore with unknown, unknown findings just waiting for you once you get in there and digger around. So in a roundabout way, it made almost I think every trip going into the woods an opportunity to relive that moment in one way or another. I think, so, yeah, definitely. I've always been in the woods. I've always enjoyed being outside and doing outdoor things and hiking and climbing and that kind of stuff. But it takes on a different thing, especially when you have a kid. I remember when my little boy was younger. He's eleven now, but when he was younger, we'd go in the woods. We hear something fall and we both stop and look around, and I could tell what was going through his mind, even though he wouldn't say it out loud, and it just made me happy. All of a sudden, I had that sense of wonder that I was seeing. And at the time he was gosh, he was probably five or six when I'm thinking back, like we were both

48:40 in the same place at that moment, met the dad and him the kid, just like my dad and I did something moves in the woods, and all of a sudden. Your first thought isn't squirrel or raccoon, it's what if that? What if someone's watching us? What if there's what is right here? And so I've encouraged that since then him. So it's led to a lot of fun times in the woods for sure. Oh that's great. That is so cool that you're able to involve your kid like that's very important. I feel that we do that as parents. First, thank you so much for sharing what you experienced in Area X is fantastic. We had talked about Momo for a second, and I don't want to miss talking about that for a little bit. Do you have any funny behind the scenes stories about the whole Momo experience, because there's some interesting people there. Yeah, No, there were some cool stuffs. I was talking to Heather Moser the other day on her The Lord You Know podcast and she asked something about a story from a film or something like that, like a behind the scenes thing, and Momo had several of them. I think just because the nature of the way that Seth wanted to wanted to make that movie, it being part campy narrative part documentary, which is super interesting. To be able to blend those two. It lent itself to a lot of opportunities for just overacting or under acting, or acting in a way that you imagined someone would back at the

50:12 time that supposedly the series that was presented as Wild Blackburn series back in the seventies, how those actors would be. So there was interacting with Ken, who was in the big in the Momo costume. Interacting with him was funny because the costume was intentionally campy and not realistic, but very cool. There was We all stayed, at least just the crew and then a couple of the crew slash actors, myself and the kids who were in the movie all stayed in a similar location, if not in the house where we shot a lot of it. And I went in one day, I think it was I think it was to use the restroom maybe, but went into one of the bedrooms in the house, into the bathroom and opened the door and it was hot, and there was Ken half in the Bigfoot costume, and the smell was horrendous, just terrible. And that's not Ken. That's being in a momo costume for hours and hours in ninety degree heat. And just the juxtaposition of this guy who I believe he's a semi professional wrestler. So he's huge, standing there in half of a bigfoot costume, like looking just woefully at me, like I'm so hot, dude, I'm so hot, so hot. It was just a comical moment, just like a snapshot of that moment. Oh, this is what independent filmmaking looks like. This is not

51:45 Hollywood, but this is weird. Like we're working all within a budget and we're all in the same place and it's real hot, and we're the guy playing me, playing Edgar Dad who's having these momo encounters. Just happens to open the bedroom door because you need to go to the bathroom, and there's Momo half momo with a large semi professional wrestler in the costume looking like he's getting ready to pass out from dehydration and just looking like, dude, I get it. You know that kind of thing. It's just I'm all about those moments that are just like comical in a very twisted way. So that was in Ken's Ken is the Sweet Guy's. He was a lot of fun to be around. That kind of thing happened pretty regularly. There was a car in the movie. There was a Seth actually bought a vintage Volkswagen Beetle just for that movie, and I want to say he still has it in storage somewhere. It's such a cool car. But having to push that thing down to the area we needed it to be to film the scene and just trying to the tires spinning and mud. Obviously, a Volkswagen Beetle, unless you are not using it for its intended purpose, is not an off road vehicle. So it didn't like that too much, you know, getting that thing stuck and then pushed back out and you know, dealing with it, start raining and we'd all pile into the to the beetle to stay dry.

53:13 That kind of stuff that I don't know. It was very cool to be a fly on the wall, Like just said, I'm not acting in every scene, and so just to be able to watch just everybody scramble to make this independent film and everybody there really nobody's getting rich doing this, just doing it because just love the subject and want to make something cool for other people to watch too. So yeah, there were a lot of things like that. Yeah, those are great stories. Thank you for sharing a little bit behind the scenes. There's very cool stuff I've been a fan of STM for years, and there would I can almost one hundred percent say there would be no big faciety without the influence of STM, just because it had that much of an influence. That's really cool and also cool. I was involved with Andrew Peterson filming the interviews for Terrors and the Tear in the Skies, and he had me do the questions off camera for the interviews, and it was halfway during that interaction that I realized that I love interviewing people and that hey, I should just start a podcast to see what happens it. Literally it really helped me out. That's so cool. But I want to make sure that we let's take a few minutes. There's something special going on with STM right now. You've guys got you have the kickstarter going on right now, and I think it's a really important if you could share what's going on with that and what STM has coming up in the next year and all that good stuff. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I don't want to make this a big advertisement or anything, but it does tie in, like directly with

54:44 everything we were talking about. Every year Small Town Monsters does a kickstarter campaign essentially to help fund projects like Momo, like on the Trail of Bigfoot series, which the time that we spent in Area X was a part of that. There's a campaign every year. Essentially what we do is say here are the movies that we have. We go ahead and begin to produce some of the content, artwork, things like that, and then we have a big live stream and we have people who have joined us over the years and watched the company grow along with me, Like I'm still a fan of small Town Monsters. I'm still a fan of Seth Breed Love and the movies and whatever. So I was right there too several years ago and still am just watching, Oh what are they going to do this year? And give people an opportunity to help us fund these projects if it's something that they're enjoying and the subjects that I think are sometimes difficult to find new stuff on. We'll have a Kickstarter campaign where essentially people get on and we'll donate a certain amount of money to help us fund it, to fund these films and then return get all kinds of at the very least, get the movies when they come out, and then up to if somebody really wants to help out, can be an executive producer, a producer or an executive producer in the movie and have names and credits, get limited edition poster art from the movies that are coming out. Jeane Saint Jean has done these this crazy cool collection, so he

56:14 creates these statues that are literally it's art of these kind of creatures throughout the years that are featured in the Small Town Monsters movies, and they're exclusive to the STM movie. So you can purchase, you know, statues from him that are you know, just generic, really cool kind of cryptids, but then specific limited runs that are made for Small Town Monsters themselves. In return for helping us out with those things, you get some tiers, will get access to those and then have them just delivered straight to you. And then also maybe most importantly, just knowing that all of that goes to helping us make these movies that I think we've all enjoyed, regardless of your Small Town Monsters staff or somebody that's just discovered it, like movies that we all like and we all want to see more of. And so every year it's gotten bigger and grown, we've become more ambitious with what we'd like to do, and I think at this point we're doing things that we had always heard that ourselves and those interested in the subject wanted to see, but just wasn't out there. We've gotten to a point now where we can actually just start making those for everyone and selfishly for ourselves too. So that just started. That started that we had to kick off was on the second of February and we had a big party where we had some giveaways and things like that, and then the campaign itself actually runs through the end of February, so it runs I believe it's exactly thirty days. I think it ends on the second of

57:49 March, where you can still you can continue to donate, you don't have to attend to live stream essentially to benefit from all the different levels of rewards and tears. We have, like I said, limited run posters of all the movies, so this year we have we also have hoodies and t shirts that are done several different designs with the creatures from the movies by Jonathan Dodd did some really cool artwork for us. There. We have a statue of goat Man, which is one of the movies this year, which is a really obviously unique cryptid difficult to find content on goat Man unless you really know where to look. So we're going to change that. And then, like I said, obviously supporting the films and getting your name and the credits and copies of all of the movies physical and digital copies, things like that.

58:38 So that's what's going on right now. So this is the biggest month of US for the month for us of the entire year. This is really where we know what we're going to be able to produce and put out for people over the next year or too. Really, oh absolutely, And it's like the way I look at it is. Another thing I really like is I love when the Mandalorian was coming out from Disney Plus, and so I'm a subscriber of Disney Plus because I want Disney to come out with more Mandalorian. It's the same way if you like what Small Town Monsters has come out within the past, this is a way for you to make the stuff keep coming.

59:20 And also I mentioned how it's hard to find goat Man stuff right The thing I like about STM is that you're making content about things that might not be out there. For example, you're coming out with a documentary on the land between the Lakes dog Man, and part of the kickstarter is you're able to get the hardcover book from Aaron Deese about the dog Man LBL and that is just it's a very cool thing. It's really cool. I think that's another piece that I don't want to like gloss over. A lot of the content you find, as far as book wise, about these subjects is a bit older. Now there's a few newer ones, but a lot of it's a bit older, or you're looking at digit little copies of it, things like that. We are a fan of physical things. I think we're all just a bit nostalgic. So part of the kickstarter is, like you said, hardcover versions of Aaron's book about Land between the Lakes another big thing, just throwing it out there while I'm thinking about it. Maybe one of the biggest announcements I think that we made is small Town Monsters is going to have a television channel called Unexplained TV where we're going to get to just go wild and dig deep into a bunch of topics that we've not gotten to look at yet, or look further into some that we have dug into. And it's not directly associated with the Kickstarter. But the kickstarter definitely makes those projects possible to make sure that we have the resources to create new content to go on

1:00:51 those platforms. And this TV channel is going to be free to everyone, and it's going to be a place where you're going to get to say, oh, hey, Wednesday is where wolf winds day, Like we all love dog Man were Wolf stuff, Like Wednesdays at eight o'clock, the family sits down and we watch Unexplained TV because they've got a werewolf documentary on a dog Man documentary are It's going to be you know, made possible by the Kickstarter, And we're not saying hey, give us money and enjoy the stuff. We're saying, hey, help us make this stuff and let us give you some cool stuff in return, which I think is really cool. Like you said, if you like this kind of content and you want to consume it, like you like a TV show or a streaming service that creates a piece of content that you like, it's great if you can help support that creator and allow them to make more of those things that you like. Because we, contrary to what a lot of people think at Small Town Monsters has done a great job of positioning itself is like a kind of an innovator in this little, weird space that we all love so much. But we're still a small company and just trying to make stuff that we understand that people who are interested in these things like too, like us. So it's a huge it's a huge help. It really is like a community company. It's so important that we have the support to do what we to do what we need to do. I know that probably sounds like a sales pitch. It's really coming from the heart though. It's a labor of love for all of us, and like I said earlier, none of us are getting rich off of it.

1:02:17 We just want to make cool stuff that we want to watch ourselves. I also wanted to make sure, since we're talking about STM stuff, that we'd spend a few minutes talking about Monsterfest two, which you guys did chat a lot about during the kickoff that you guys had. If listeners don't know, Monsterfest two is coming up in beautiful Canton, Ohio. It's a way where you can listen to podcasts. Live speakers all be there doing a live podcast, big for society, and do you mind talking a few minutes about that Adam, No, absolutely not. Last year we had our inaugural monster Fest, again coming from what sounds like a selfish place of wanting to create like a call, one that had the speakers and the activities and the opportunities that we enjoy not only as people that are in this world, but also people who love this community itself. And there are a lot of good ones out there. But we tried to look at our audience and the people that have been supporting us, and what would they like to see. We're all big fans of podcasts, and we're all big fans of Bigfoot Society. Obviously, wouldn't it be cool to have to have the Bigfoot Society do a podcast live from an event from from somewhere and be able to attend that. Wouldn't it be cool to have the guys from Astonishing Legends do a live podcast.

1:03:39 Where do I get cool Bigfoot stuff? Like? Where do I can't? How do I go find a cool T shirt with Bigfoot on it that I can't is unique? Where do I learn to cast a Bigfoot track? What if I found one? Where do I learn to better charge my batteries so I can catch Bigfoot? Like howling at night when I'm in Oklahoma like all of these cool things, and beyond that a place where everywhere you can do that with other people who appreciate all of it as well. So we had this event last year that was a small town monsters event that we put on that I don't want to say surprisingly but did surprisingly well for the first year. The feedback was great, not only from people who were there as vendors and speakers, but people who just intended to see the family again more or less be able to be around like minded people. So it was such a big event, such a great success, especially for our first year. We immediately had people asking about next year. When is it next year, and we decided we need to do another one. Then that one was so good.

1:04:41 So this year it is, like you said, it's in in Canton, Ohio. So it is going to be June twenty eighth and twenty ninth. So on the twenty eighth there is a premiere film at the can Palace here and then the fi Owing Day as an all day event in downtown Canton where we'll have like I said, live podcasts, vendors with unique stuff that you're not going to see anywhere else, as far as Bigfoot and Mothman and dog Man and a lot of just guests in general. So you're going to be there, which I'm very excited about. We're going to have I believe low Blackburn is going to be there. Like I mentioned, the guys from Astonishing Legends are going to be doing a live podcast there. If you go to small Town Monsters Instagram page, you'll see we've dropped that the guests that are going to be there throughout the last couple of months. It is coming home for all of us that are dispersed throughout the country to come together and have a lot of fun over a couple of days and just talk about the stuff that we're interested in that maybe we don't get to talk about very often because, like I said, we're a unique little group, but a strong group nonetheless. So yeah, So that's that's June in Canton, and there's information on small Town Monsters Dot about that. Like I said, the Instagram page, you can see a lot about that there, along with guest lists and things like that. You can book rooms at our hotel in Canton, but there's a block of rooms that are reserved for us there and it actually

1:06:14 takes place there at the hotel's convention area center. I said, we're new casting clinics this year, along with a couple of other things. Will have food, food trucks. Yeah, so it's a good time. So this will be a year number two. Your number one was a great success, so this year we'll hopefully step that up even another level. It's a super exciting event, and you want to make sure in case stuff changes after this interview. If you got a small Town Monsters dot com and then there's a Monster Fest page that has all the current info. But the thing that I found was even to tag on even more what happened last year when I was there was the people I met that I thought I would never meet were incredible.

1:06:57 I met people like less Odell, Robert Morgan was there signing his books, and it was just it made for these incredible interactions that were just like such an incredible benefit to going to the actual fest itself. It's a really cool time. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a ton of fun. If nothing else, come hang out as a small Town Monsters booth and help me hand out T shirts. It was wild last year, but in the best way, as a ton of fun. Absolutely, it's a good time. Adam. I'm so thankful we were able to get you on to chat about what happened to you guys in Area X. Such a fun conversation today. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, dude, absolutely, I really appreciate it. Do you mind in the last few minutes taking a minute to remind listeners how they can keep up to date with what small Town Monsters is doing. Yeah, for sure. We are pretty much going to be on any social media platform that you want to jump on. I'd say that probably the biggest, most active one is going to be Instagram. Look for small Town Monsters on Instagram. We will be there. We do lots of little lives there along we just update some projects and things. Facebook is the same way. Small Town Monsters dot com is going to be the hub for everything, and we'll at least get you where you need to go if you're not sure where to go. And then specifically right now obviously the Kickstarter, if you go to kickstarter dot com and if you search for small Town Monsters, and then you'll soon be able to find us on a bunch of

1:08:30 different platforms with small Town Monsters unexplained TV pretty much wherever you want to go, and then my Instagram is the weird side of normal if you wanted to specifically, can go chase me down and ask questions stuff like that. Awesome, Thank you so much Adam for coming on. Thank you again. Just wanted to take a few minutes to say thank you to you all my listeners for listening to the podcast. Please take a minute to help out the show by subscribing on YouTube, making sure you hit the bell so you don't miss any notifications, and share the episode on YouTube with a friend. Also, if you're listening to us on a podcast, thank you so much, make sure that you're subscribed, share the show with a friend. Really, it's all about sharing the show wherever you can. If you've had a Bigfoot encounter related to the following or know someone who has, please reach out to me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com or pass on my email. Here's the list. Number one encounters from Franklin County, Texas. Number two encounters from the entire state of Iowa. Number three encounters from Oakridge, Oregon or the surrounding area. Number four any individuals that know about Bigfoot being flown off after the Mount Saint Helens eruption. Number five individuals that have had a bigfoot encounter well in the military. Number six those that have had a bigfoot encounter in the southern New Hampshire or north central Massachusetts area including Franklin County, Massachusetts.

1:10:00 Seven individuals that have had a bigfoot encounter in a Bible camp or boy Scout camp setting. Number eight individuals that have had bigfoot try to enter their house forcibly while they were living inside. Number nine individuals that have actively have a bigfoot living on their property. And lastly, any sightings that are in the Watchitaw National Forest Area of Oklahoma or Arkansas. A special thank you to all the Bigfoot Society, Patreon and YouTube channel members. It's your support that helps keep the show going and I extremely appreciate it. I'll see you back next time. Listeners. New shows on Mondays and Fridays. I'll see you then.