Seth Breedlove - Small Town Monster

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Astonishing Legends would like to thank BetterHelp, Squarespace, our contributors at patreon.com, and you, our listeners, for making tonight's show possible. Tonight, we're diving back into the realm of cryptids, unexplained phenomena, and the mysterious unknown. Our longtime friend, Seth Breedlove, the visionary founder of Small Town Monsters, joins us for an in-depth discussion of their upcoming projects for 2025. Seth's production company has been at the forefront of documenting America's most enigmatic legends for 10 years now, and this year promises to be their most ambitious one yet. They have four projects lined up. Dawn of the Dogman will tackle the longstanding legend of the Michigan Dogman, a creature first seen in 1887 whose existence has long been debated. We'll explore decades of sightings with Seth and talk about what will make Small Town Monsters' investigation and documentary on the Dogman unique. We'll also ask Seth about Small Town's other 2025 project, The Kinderhook Creature, a lesser-known but equally fascinating tale of a monstrous entity from New York's Hudson Valley. This cryptid may be more than just a misidentified bear with mange or another version of Bigfoot. In fact, more than a few investigators think it could be something from another dimension. Small Town Monsters also has the unique insight of an author whose family is from Kinderhook and has eyewitness accounts of it, Bruce Hallenbeck. As though that weren't enough, Small Town Monsters has two other projects planned for 2025, and we'll talk about those too. One is the Bennington Triangle, a notorious hot zone for unexplained disappearances that we've mentioned on the show many times, and the other, Siege of Abe Canyon, which will be about another favorite topic of ours, a chilling, violent Bigfoot attack on a group of prospectors in 1924. So join us as we pull back the curtain on these upcoming Small Town Monsters documentaries and explore the stories behind some of America's most enduring legends. We'll also talk with Seth about how ongoing success has allowed Small Town to go further than ever before with not only their investigations, but their investment in top-tier production that is unrivaled in a still-overlooked genre. Welcome back to Astonishing Legends. I'm Scott Felbrook, and this is Forrest Burgess. I'm not interested in trying to prove to people that the Mothman exists or that Bigfoot exists. We're just interested in letting the witnesses tell their story and making things come across in a clear way. Seth Breedlove, Astonishing Legends, episode 116, August 2018. Join us tonight for the return of director and founder of Small Town Monsters, Seth Breedlove, to talk about the ambitious legends his company is tackling in 2025. And we're back. That we are, folks. First things first. First, we apologize for not posting last week. It's like the third time in the history of the show we've had to cancel it, and that's because I had the flu. So what you're telling me is that's not the third time in history you've had the flu. No. It seems like a lot in the last month. It seems like you've been sick quite a bit. I have been sick, but I never, I didn't have to cancel a show because of it. That's right. And also, it's the first time I've had the flu in like 15 years. Because I get my shot every year. Yeah, yeah. My son's about to be 16. I've gotten my shot every year since my wife was first pregnant with him. Right. And we used to do it sporadically before that, but we got religious about it after he was born. And this is the first time I've caught it in spite of that. And it has to be going around here in North Carolina, I know, at least. And also in New York, because my friends in New York, a bunch of them have it. But I know my son got it here. I got it the very next day. We both went to get Tamiflu, and there's so many people with the flu here that you couldn't even get the Tamiflu. I had to go to like five pharmacies before I filmed the flu. Oh, yeah. No, it's raging wild in California as well. But would you please stop licking doorknobs to test the vaccine? I know. I know you trusted it. It's just one of those things. Yeah, somehow I just can't pass up a doorknob. I know. But we've muscled through so many setbacks and roadblocks and stumbles and hurdles. And it just happened that you were down for the count, and I felt so bad because you were feeling so lousy. But very glad you're feeling better and that we can kind of muscle through this one. Well, thank you. I'm glad to be back. And I'm feeling much better now. And even though this was originally a dark week for the main show, we decided just to post last week's show this week, which not like it was produced last week because it wasn't. We did it this week. We're always hand to mouth there. But that means there's a new show next week too. So there you have it. Well, before we press on with the rest of the housekeeping and the show, just a couple of quick things which were sparked by our conversation on Ambrose Bierce, the last two episodes here. One, I don't know if we mentioned this. It was in my notes, but I don't know if we actually said it because I don't go back and listen to the shows. Who has time for that? But I wonder, you know, we were talking so much about mysterious locations in the Grand Canyon. Well, I was watching a documentary on UFOs and phenomena like that, and it was mentioned in one of Clive Christopher's terrific documentaries. He's had several out on the UAP and UFO phenomenon here. I'm not sure what the title was. I think it could have been Aliens Uncovered, but he'd mentioned Kincaid's Cave. And I wondered like, wait, you know, that's around that time period there. That's right. Yeah. Which we ourselves covered a long time ago, like a second year, I think it was. Well, later it turns out, you know, we talked about Mulhatton, you know, the Joseph Mulhatton being a kooky weekly world news story kind of journalist back in the day then. And it's like, oh, it's probably fake. But it turns out G.E. Kincaid was a real guy along with the other professor, and they did have a connection to the Smithsonian. And I think that was proven or discovered after we had done the show. So it could be a real place. I think it is. And I think Ambrose possibly could have heard about it and decided like, well, if I'm going to disappear into some kind of weird portal, that's going to be it. Yeah, that could be. Hey, well, the either guys weren't that, they were no spring chickens when they made the climb up the cave wall in the Grand Canyon to get to the cave itself. So there you go. I just wondered about that. The second is, I believe I misspoke about the casualties at Pearl Harbor. And again, I can't remember. We're talking about wars and battles and how many people can be lost so quickly. And so just to clear that up, I think I may have confused that with the Normandy landings because I do watch a lot of World War II documentaries. But just so folks know, at the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941, there were a total of 2,403 total people killed, 1,178 military and civilians wounded. And so that's a staggering number. And at the Normandy landings, or what is known as D-Day by the military designation, there were over 10,000 casualties, 4,414 confirmed dead. And for the enemy combatants, the Germans losses, they calculate those as between 4,000 and 9,000 killed, wounded, missing, or captured. And so I think the number I heard was, it was about 6,000 people died in about two hours or two hours in. So you can imagine, well, that's what happens when you get efficiently mechanized armies against each other, the killing ratios go up. But that's, as you'll hear a lot about Civil War documentaries, it's really the first time where just the casualty numbers went so far up and so high. It was such carnage in such a short amount of time. And that's why these battles were so, like Shiloh, while they were so devastating to people not only who died in them, but also who lived through them, like Ambrose. All right, folks, that's a sobering thought indeed. Well, just a quick reminder, we're trying to grow our audience this year. So please find and subscribe and review Astonishing Legends wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure and tell your friends about us and all the other great shows at the Astonishing Legends Network, including the Midnight Library, Scared All the Time, and Richard Haddam's Paranormal Bookshelf, which is one of my favorites as well. So there's a flavor for everyone, and they're all very different. All righty then, let's dive into tonight's show. We'd like to welcome Seth Breedlove back to the show. This is actually his second appearance on the main show, but he's been on the Junk Drawer as well. And we've had a lot of people over the years on the show that we've met thanks to Seth, like Lyle Blackburn and Heather Moser and folks like that. So Seth, thank you for coming back, and thanks for joining us again. Thanks for having me. I texted you beforehand that this is the only show I've done or do where I get nervous. Why do you get nervous? That can only be us and our personalities are flawed somehow. I mean, I feel like I know you guys really well, especially in the field. I feel like I know you guys, and we're buds. But I was thinking about it as I was coming down to my office, and I think the problem is that I'm an Astonishing Legends fan, and it goes back to the earliest episodes. Like when we made Mothman at Point Pleasant, we were listening to your Mothman episodes while driving to shoot the movie. Oh, that's so great. And I think we might have done the same thing with something during the Bray shoot. Mark Matsky and I talk all the time about, we had this trip where we went out to Washington. We were there for a conference appearance, and then we were shooting on the trail of Bigfoot, the legend, and the trip was insane. I ended up getting vicious altitude sickness while I was out there, because Shane Corson marched me up a mountain and then down in like less than an hour. But we listened to your Jersey Devil shows while we were out there, and it's one of our favorite memories is driving along the Sound out on the Olympic Peninsula and listening to Astonishing Legends. Oh, that's great. We were driving around shooting B-roll and stuff. The thing is, we're fans of you, man. You're out there making so many films where I was looking at the website today, because I can't even keep track. I mean, do you know what you guys made? Like, how many films have you made since Small Town Monsters started? It's tough now because Eli's made a couple. Okay. So who is Eli? Tell our listeners who Eli is. Eli Watson. He's a filmmaker that works with Small Town Monsters. And then there's, we also have Alexander Petikov. Those are the two other like creator editors that work. I mean, everyone at STM is creative, but we're the guys that shoot and edit stuff. So Eli has been with us for a while, but he's made, actually I said two, he's made three now that I'm thinking of it. So three films, but I think it's over 30. Wow. If it's any consolation at all, you know, we're both huge fans of anything Small Town Monsters. And since the very first time we met you, we can talk about, I mean, the last time we had you on the show was 2018 and that was episode 116, Scott. But before that, we'd met Seth at the Kent Paranormal Weekend, again, where we met so many other people that would end up being very close and dear friends in this genre and community. And I thought like, God, what a great lineup of films that you had just starting out. And like, that's so cool. You got merch, you got people. And after watching a few, it's like, man, it would be so cool to be like in one of these films. And then one day I got the opportunity to be in the Bell Witch very generously offered to us. And it's like, oh, so cool. And I, you know, I was studying a lot and had to refresh my memory. It was a few years after, of course, we did our episode on it. And then we sit in the chair and I got so nervous and so flop sweaty and just like, couldn't remember anything. And you guys were so kind and patient. It's like, that's okay. Just take your time. And that was an awkward setup too. Cause we had you, if I remember it, you were sitting in like the entryway of a basement. It was, it was a rented house. That's what we keep for us. We keep for us in basements anyways. But I'm usually alone in the dark. Yeah. I'm convinced that was like a porn mansion we were renting to. It was up in the hills somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. It was not too far from Griffith Park and actually not too far from where I live, but. No, look at that. It's like you could have, you just five or 10 minutes from your place there. You know, like I said, I could just run home and like, just go, go hide. But no, it was, it was a really nice, you know, rented house there. And of course with a production, you use every corner of it that looks, you know, photogenic. And so I was kind of in the entryway, which kind of had a cool look and there was people on the stairs and, and, uh, uh, Shannon Legro was there. She, people were kind of throwing out some questions and everyone was just very kind and gentle. But like, I just, all the information just flew out of my head and like, the Ingrams, I got V Ingrams. And then. That story though, in particular is real tough. It's dead. It's historically complex. Yeah. It's real dense is a good word for it. And it's also like the bell, which I don't feel like it gets talked about very often anymore. It is one of those other, uh, things. And we could talk about how these ideas and topics come to you and you choose to put a lot of effort and money and production and time in choosing a title. But for that one, the sense I got was like, man, this is like a really great team, a team of friends and professionals and creative people. And everybody just works so well together. And so that was, uh, very comforting, but like for my own performance, yeah, I was just, it's like, I got my wish and then I, I just flop sweated it. It was just like, ah, and then we got through it and it was like, you're like, don't worry at all. You know, we, you got some great sound bites in there. And then having been on a history's greatest mysteries a few times, you realize like you don't have to tell the whole story, but with a collective body of people that they have on camera, the story comes out. And that's what I got to say with, after watching every one of your films, you really get to know the subject. You think it was covered very well. You found some interesting interviews and interspersed it with some, uh, you know, they're also entertaining. Then you'll, you'll never be bored with a small town monsters film. And you'll, you'll get to know what that topic is, which was the goal. Well, what stands out to me too, about that trip, aside from the fact that we got to eat at one of my favorite restaurants that night that we took you with us to, uh. Mess hall, right? Mess hall. Oh yes. Mess hall. Yeah. But we, we actually shot three different things while we were in LA. We were shooting on the trail of UFOs and then we were shooting Mothman Legacy, which Richard was in. Yeah. Rich had him showed up like right after me. He was there too, but of course that's his baby. So he gets in, you know, he'll identify himself, describe himself as a real ham bone anyway. So he just gets in the, in the chair and he's like solid gold fluid. And, uh, you know, he was able to kind of rattle that off, but you realize, I guess my point being is how much time and effort and care goes into making each one of these. It's not a similar to what Scott and I do, I think for research, but being on a mic versus being on camera or having that visual element to it is so much different. What you guys do is harder because I, and I say, no, well, I say that with all sincerity because I do, I do a podcast with Mark and Heather called Monsteropolis. And I'm infamous on the show for always coming in horrifically, like under prepared to the point with the show now where we're just picking like topics that relate back to the movies we're doing. Right. So I actually can speak on something because I can't like the differences we're, I mean, I love our movies. I'm very proud of our films, but they're kind of like at the end of the day, a CliffsNotes version. And they're nothing compared to like whatever, you know, whatever insanity you guys unleash on people with like a four hour episode. I mean, that's the stuff that, that takes a ton of work and that's, it's also not stuff I'm good at. Right. And I think people don't realize, you know, you have that luxury with a podcast and where it's audio and like, you know, it's not a network. We're not presenting this to be aired anywhere or go onto a DVD or any kind of streaming platform. We try to be concise, but deliver as much information as we want, you know, is what we're comfortable with and probably too much for a lot of people's tastes. But with a visual format, you got to tell the story also visually. And we're going to talk about how you choose. And Scott had a great note in here about art direction and what you choose to include visually in your storytelling and laying it out because you have to fill that void too. Whereas, thank goodness, no one's looking at Scott and I, you know, like it's so we have that luxury. It's a, it's a different thing, but the research is there, but you have to be much more economical about how you tell your story and what to include and what not to include. And also the visuals that go along with it. Yeah. Well, so you guys are 10 years old this year, right? It's the 10 year anniversary. Yes. Roughly. We started shooting Minerva in 2014. Okay. Right. But I mean, 2014 Small Town Monsters was not 2025 Small Town Monsters. Right. Right. Right. You know, back then it was literally myself. I say that and it's not to demean anyone else who was volunteering their time and effort back then. It's, it's just to say that like at the end of the day, when we were done out in the field, having fun with camcorders, I was the guy that went back and kind of like figured out where we were going next and how Minerva was going to come together and all that kind of stuff. Right. And so, yeah, it's a very different animal today than it was in, in 2014 when we started shooting Minerva. And I mean, really, we did not, in my wildest dreams, if you had told me in 10 years, I'd still be making movies. I wouldn't have believed it. I was working full-time medical billing. I did freelance reporting for the newspaper on the side. And I was just a dude and that, you know, I went home and played video games and, and that was like all I did. And then when we made, started making Minerva, it changed my life, but it changed me for the positive because I had always been kind of a drifter and a little bit lazy. Like I wouldn't even say a little bit, I'd say just a real lazy guy and making Minerva completely beat that out of me because I, I realized early on in the process of making it that this is what I love to do. And it's also the only thing I had ever found that I felt like I was actually decent at. And I was like, so I wanted whatever I got to do to make this happen. That's what I'm going to do. And so I had a full-time job and I would spend six hours of my full-time job working on STM stuff in my cubicle, you know, and then, and then I'd go home and work for another eight hours, you know, at home on, on something relating to STM. So it was the first thing I'd ever done that, that gave me purpose to that extent. How is the company different now from then? You know, by the way, we started in 2014 too. So like, we're like, it's wild. We've, we've, in a way we've grown up in the, you know, in different areas, but at the same time, like what is Small Town Monsters now? What does it look like as a company? It's a very small production company is what I guess you would say. I, I don't know. It's a, it's a collaboration agreement between a bunch of people. Right. You know, to get it, we're going to do all these different things and we're going to do it. I mean, right now YouTube is eating up. So our episodic side of things has eaten up so much of the company's time. Yeah. So what's going on there? What are you guys doing on YouTube? So we have, what is it right now? I think we have eight different ongoing series running on YouTube. Every episode's an hour. Oh my God. This sounds insane to say out loud because that split between three of us. Now we did have an editing company that was doing this. And then Tyler Hall was, was working up here until January. So, but all that work is split between, you know, just a handful of us. But I mean, we make it work. We create multiple series. Most of the YouTube stuff currently is Bigfoot related. And that's because we shoehorned ourselves in the algorithm into like some sort of Bigfoot only audience. And so we're, that's where we are right now, but it is expanding. It's tough too, because I say YouTube, but you know, like we inked deals today actually with like two different distributors to get a bunch of our episodic content out on other platforms. And a lot of that content is already coming out on other platforms. Like Tubi has a lot of our episodic stuff. And personally, I actually love editing that stuff. It takes me back to like the early days of STM because you're working on such a time crunch. Like I'm where I started editing an episode today that I shot last week. I will have it done by tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be like an hour and 10 minutes. To me, it's fun. Apparently I've recently discovered I'm the only one who finds it fun, but it's fun. Like to me, I enjoy the fact that I have to have this deadline in front of me that is that looming. And then it's like, how do I make this work? How do I still get the quality where it needs to be? Tell a really compelling story and do it in basically 48 hours, really 16. You know, if I'm working two eight hour days. Protein bars often feel like you're choosing between taste and nutrition. If it tastes good, you flip it over only to discover it's made with a whole paragraph of ingredients you've never heard of. Or artificial sweeteners are doing all the heavy lifting. It's basically dessert in disguise. You shouldn't have to choose between tasty and nutritious. And that's what makes Aloha stand out. Aloha protein bars nail the delicious and nutritious. They're USDA organic and made with ingredients that actually grow somewhere. It's their whole taste that grows philosophy. Plant-based ingredients grown in the ground, thoughtfully sourced, and built to keep you satisfied. Their peanut butter cup bar has 14 grams of protein, 10 grams of fiber, and only 5 grams of sugar. 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Just a quick question, talking about distribution and streaming platforms, is that, you know, on Samsung TV+, they have a channel called Alien Nation. And I think that's the one. And it's basically the Small Town Monsters channel. And it's like, it's a lot of your documentaries you can binge to your heart's content. And then how does something like that, how have you gone from, you know, a table at these festivals selling DVDs and trying to, you know, the next step, I think, would probably be, you know, oh, they're available on Amazon. You can go on our website. And now they're on Amazon. And then now you have these channels and platforms streaming your content. They're unique because they approached us and licensed a bunch of our stuff. So they're unique. And then we have our own channel that we've been, that we developed with another company who turned out to literally be a scam after we gave them tens of thousands of dollars. Oh, my God. So thankfully, that channel that they designed is being redesigned by another company who's also distributing a bunch of our stuff. So, I mean, the fact is we have over 200 hours worth of content. I'm not a fan of this word content. It's, I don't know how else to describe what we're doing right now. But there's over 200 hours of our stuff. It's like 230 hours right now. That would include all the movies, all the episodic stuff. At the end of the day, that side of things is a nightmare. I love sitting down here and editing. Trying to handle the business is what, that's what makes me crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And especially when you involve Hollywood and distributors and all that kind of stuff. Because we've been taken advantage of in the last two years, at least three times that I can think of. And to the tune of, at this point, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oh, my God. So we're figuring it out. I mean, that's part of the growing pains of something like what we're doing that no one warns you about. It's like when you, and the other problem is we don't have a blue, there's no blueprint for what we're doing. Not that I can think of. I don't know of another independent, paranormal, cryptid, whatever you want, you know, production house that solely focuses on these topics and then does it without investors outside of our Kickstarter backers and solely relies on kind of ourselves to get this stuff made. Right. I just am not aware of that anywhere else. We're not either. I mean, and that's one of the reasons we like having you on the show. It's very unique. And also, the genre needs you. A lot of people can't get access to media about this stuff. And you do it very well. And you treat it respectfully. And you dig down on things. And you take pride in your work. And it shows. And it's a field where, especially in terms of when you say content, folks are quick to try to produce content to make a quick buck. And they go and grab a bunch of stock footage and a bunch of false facts. And they slap this stuff together. It's misinformation. And it hurts the field for everybody. So that's why it's good to have you guys in the mix, frankly. I agree. And everything you just said is what STM was born out of. It was like, you know, 2014, if you guys think back to 2014, there's only three Bigfoot cryptid-related shows on TV that spring to my mind anyway. You had Mysteries and Monsters and Mysteries in America that Lyle was on sometimes. Yeah. You had Finding Bigfoot and there was Mountain Monsters. Right. There might be something else I'm forgetting. I'm sure there is. But, like, those are the big three. Right. Those are the ones that people at least knew. And none of those were really telling stories in a way that appealed to me. And so when we made Minerva, I was just trying to make something that would appeal to me. Yeah. Or people who weren't even into these subjects to begin with. Because Mountain Monsters and Finding Bigfoot especially were very much, like, dudes in the woods trying to find something. Very agenda-driven, too, as far as, like, you need to be a believer. Yeah. And that also doesn't appeal to me as something of a skeptic at times. Well, yeah. Let's talk about it. I think that's important for people to know. And one of the things that's fun about you, because we've talked about this in the past, what is your disposition? How do you come into the game on this? On each individual topic, I know this because I've talked to you about this in the past. Is it just about, okay, well, this has all these opportunities for me to get these really cool shots and make something really cool and art direction and rent a helicopter in Alaska and do stuff like that. But then, like, the next question is, are you going into it thinking that most of this stuff, well, I think this is probably misunderstood or misrepresented and I don't think it's real. And what kind of journey have you been on with respect to having produced so much of it now, both directly and indirectly? Like, have you had any kind of awakening with regard to these cryptids being maybe more than just folklore? I had a Bigfoot sighting in 2021, so that changed my view on Bigfoot entirely. Not that I was that far into the skeptic camp anymore, but that's one thing. But then I find that with each topic, I have a completely different view on it coming into it. You know, Mothman, I've changed over time. I've morphed my thoughts on it. I've morphed over time to the point where now I'm just, I'm convinced there were so many different phenomena. phenomena being witnessed around Point Pleasant and West Virginia at that time that we're never going to know, like, what people were actually seeing. And I think it was multiple different things. Dogman, man, when the Dogman topic came up, I was convinced that it's utter malarkey and that everyone that claims to see a Dogman is just frantically trying to gain some level of notoriety because that was the big topic for a little while there. Right. I've morphed on that over time as well to where I'm at now. Most of this is due to the fact that I interviewed a man named Martin Groves back in 2020, what was that, 22, when we made American Werewolves. He's a former law enforcement officer who claims to have encountered multiple Dogmen and multiple Bigfoots at the same time in the land between the lakes, which is just saying it out loud sounds insane. Martin, but Martin is the most believable, one of the most believable witnesses I've ever had the pleasure to interview. And I've spent enough time with him since, including at Monster Fest. He was at both Monster Fests. Oh, yeah. We might have met him now that you mention it. Big white beard. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great guy, but just a really wild story. And the more I looked into that one, the more I was like, I think there's something here and I don't think I want to be involved in it. I'm happy to make movies about it. But as far as like, that's the topic where I'm fairly convinced there's some sort of like supernatural, spiritual, occult angle to it that is pretty dark. Oh, okay. That's based on, I mean, at this point, I've probably interviewed 20, 25, 30 witnesses somewhere in that neighborhood. And there's a through line with all of those interviews that involves native burial mounds, people messing around with probably occult practices they might, maybe shouldn't be dabbling with. That's a common thread through all of that. And that is the subject where I found that maybe, you know, maybe I do find some credibility in supernatural occurrences, you know, within cryptids and the paranormal. That's the one. Yeah, that was an aha moment. Well, an oh wow moment. I think you were in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. And was it, I'm trying to think. It was the game warden official. And in the interview, while he's talking about that aspect of it, and just Satan is showing up from all over the world, from all walks of life. Oh, I remember him. He got that thousand yard stare. Well. And he just got quiet for a minute. He got quiet. And then a book literally flies off of his bookshelf on camera. It was worse than that. Like a black bird, a raven, whatever, flew headfirst into the window behind him. As he said, all I remember is he said, the devil or Satan. He said one of those two words. And when it happened, the bird just slams into the window behind him. Oh my God, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that one, that's definitely the one that started pushing me in that direction because of the occult angles that are connected with that story that no one seems to talk about. You know, like all the stuff that was going on. That was the, yeah, the game warden or the animal control officer, I think it was. He had investigated all these occult rituals that had been taking place where they were killing dogs and cats and things like that. That was definitely, that definitely would have was the one that kind of opened the door. But it's been like, it's been a progression from there to where I'm at today. Because, I mean, we went from that into Skinwalker, Howl of the Rougarou, which is a dogman kind of movie. And then we did the American Werewolves. American Werewolves is the one that really pushed me, I think. And then even more so with American Werewolves 2, which just came out last year and no one watched because the distributor botched it. All these elements at every turn that people don't realize, as everyone in the movie industry will tell you, it's a miracle anything gets made. There are so many roadblocks and obstacles to overcome from all of these different venues and angles that it's just very rare when something gets made. And then you see something that's not very good and you're like, how did that get made? Well, there's a force behind it. They just pushed it through somehow. And then thankfully some great things are made. That gentleman, by the way, I think his name was John Fredrickson, former Walworth County, Wisconsin animal control officer. And that was from your, the film that we interviewed you on for episode 116, The Bray Road Beast. And, you know, you can see that it puts a chill in you and then you can have a raven hit the window and a book fly off the shelf in front of your face. But I just want to quickly ask you, because you're talking about, we'll expound here a little bit on your, your sighting. But at the time, going back to when you interviewed me for the Bell Witch, of course, we went out for dinner and drinks. And I think we were back after that, we were back at the rental house where you guys were, were staying. And of course the conversation turned to like, okay, you know, as I have to ask everybody, what's your weird story? Has anything strange happened to you? And everybody went around the table and everybody had, you know, their own little version of something that, that happened. You know, Shannon LeGrow, who's also a good, great friend of ours of the Into the Fray podcast and her own show. And who's also hosted many of your Small Town Monsters productions. We, you know, was talking about her own thing when it happened with her family when she was younger. And I said, well, what about Seth? And I don't, you didn't answer. I don't know if you heard me, but I think it was one of your, your crew guys, your camera guy piped up and said, oh yeah, Seth had an experience. I mean, he'll tell you like, he doesn't believe in any of this kind of stuff, but you were out of location. I think maybe scouting some shots out in the woods and you were out by yourself. You were still on radio and they received a kind of a panicked, as they would describe it, call from you like, hey guys, you got to come find me. I got to get out of here. Oh, I know what you're talking about. This is very early on in STM too. And it's something that like, like I just forgot about it because we, we really don't have many weird incidents happen. And so they should stand out more when they do, but that one for some reason never does. Yeah. We were in the sulfur river bottoms down in Falk. Okay. Yeah. When we were making Boggy Creek monster. And first of all, you shouldn't really be walking off by yourself down there anyway. You know, there's alligators everywhere. One of our first experiences in Falk was Jason, one of our camera guys walking, stepping right over a copperhead without noticing it was right there. And, you know, I mean, we had spent days like actually like on river boats going around Boggy Creek with these guys, members of the Crabtree family who were drunk off moonshine and Jaeger. There were assault rifles in the boats. I mean, we're just like a wild experience. And so maybe that's why I forget about it, but I had walked away from the crew and it wasn't far as like a hundred yards, 200 yards, something like that. And I was at the bottom of a hill and they were up the hill. And I think what I was doing is I had taken my drone. I was going to fly the drone back up and get a shot of Lyle and a witness walking down the hill. I walked off by myself and I got down there. So there was a feeling, but the first thing that happened was I smelled something and it was an incredibly powerful, rotting flesh kind of smell. Like there's something dead and very likely it was just something dead in the woods. We had seen so many dead hogs over the last like two days that more than likely it was just that. But that's the first thing. And then I should mention that this is late in the evening. It's getting dark. It's probably like 70% of the light was gone. I'm down there. I smell the smell. And then I'm standing there and I was hit with like an overwhelming sense of dread or like someone, it wasn't just the, I've had that thing where it's like, oh, something's watching me or whatever. It wasn't that it was beyond that. And so I did, I jumped on the radio or I yelled, I don't even know if we have radios, but I remember that I, I freaked out. And I told someone, I think Jason and Brandon came down and had to come down with me to where I was at. Cause I had to be down there to fly the drone. And, um, that is, that is probably the first incident that ever happened to me on an STM shoot. I'm actually really glad you reminded me of that. I forgot all about it. Good job, Forrest. That's the thing. I don't remember what happened last week or earlier this day here, but I do remember people's stories. And that's kind of why Scott and I, I think chose to do this podcast. We love, uh, relaying people's stories and not many of our own, but when you, same thing as you said, it's like that kind of thing when you think back and it's like, oh yeah, nothing's really happened to me. Like, well, no, wait a second. There was that one weird thing that happened. Then when you start really analyzing it, it is maybe part of that, uh, paranormal apathy, we call it the, you don't really think about it. They should stand out more, but they don't. And, uh, so I tend to remember other people's stories much more. And, uh, and again, it was like, you guys must've seen something on location. It's like, yeah, there was that one time and something we also talk about a lot, the ineffable feeling that indescribable feeling that people don't understand unless you felt it yourself. I think a lot of people who are, uh, even skeptical, they're just kind of maybe trying to debunk it. Like, nah, you, you saw, yeah, you smelled a dead hog and maybe you saw, you know, something dark moving through the woods, but they didn't feel what you felt, which is down to the core of your soul. Yeah. There's a difference between something stinking and feeling like, and having fight or flight like feelings. I don't think it was just nerves or anything. Cause I wasn't nervous. I hadn't been nervous the whole shoot. I was totally, I mean, I was nervous the whole shoot. I was nervous about getting that movie done. I had a migraine headache every day on the Bucky Creek monster shoot. Cause I was in over my head, but did I ever tell you guys about the time that we were in the TNT? I was in the TNT igloo with my mom. No, I don't think so. Yeah. This is kind of a fun one. We were in like the scouting phase for Mothman of Point Pleasant. And we did not know if we can make a movie out of that. Mostly because I was a big fan of the, what is it? Behind the Red Eyes. Is that the one? Oh, yeah. There's, I mean, there's a lot of really good, especially early 2000s docs about the Mothman. Yeah. And I'm a fan of all of them. And we were in like the early phase of trying to figure out if we can make a movie. And so I went to Point Pleasant. It was just me, my mom, and my dad. And it was like a Wednesday or something. And we went down and we went to the Mothman Museum and we met Jeff and his daughter and his wife. And Jeff and I walked around the museum for a while. And that was where I first figured out we can make a movie out of this. Because Jeff told me, I have all these audio recordings with witnesses, original witnesses that have never been put out. Right. And he's like, and I was like, can I use them? He's like, sure. I was like, all right, I'm making a movie. So we had gone from the Mothman Museum to the TNT area. And we were in the TNT area. And we went in an igloo. And it was my mom and I. And those igloos, for anyone who doesn't know, they were like an ordinance shelter that they built during, I think, World War II. I don't know what the purpose was, to be honest. I think it was just to safely store what they were manufacturing. They're just a really big dome of thick concrete and steel. So that if there's an accident, it's contained. Yeah. And they're real disturbing, especially when it comes to the sound in them. They're extremely dark. But the sound wraps around you in a really weird way. So my mom and I are in one. And I've been playing pranks on her throughout the day, whispering and then pretending it wasn't me. She was taking a video. So she gets out her camera on whatever her Android phone was and goes to take a video of me. And she's filming. And all of a sudden, she goes, what was that? And I said, what was what? And she goes, this huge white something just flew up from the ground and up through the ceiling. And I said, are you recording? She's like, yeah. And so I was like, stop recording. She stops recording. She hands me the phone. I go to her photos. And there's no video. There's a single photo of this white blur on her photo. Like, it's just this white kind of blur in the photo. We never could figure out what happened. I mean, it more than likely would just be some sort of trick of the camera. You know, maybe it just malfunctioned or maybe, you know, it's my mom. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she wasn't videoing and she had her finger over flash or something. But I always thought that was such a fun story because it happened to my mom. And she was so excited that it happened. Well, when you're least expecting it. But that's certainly a location where you're expecting something to happen. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? To be honest, I don't even know what happened to her. She passed away in 2023. But I do, too, because I started telling that story. I'd like to see it, too. I might have asked my dad this week if he's still got that phone around. Protein bars often feel like you're choosing between taste and nutrition. If it tastes good, you flip it over only to discover it's made with a whole paragraph of ingredients you've never heard of. Or artificial sweeteners are doing all the heavy lifting. It's basically dessert in disguise. 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Marley's Spoon adapts to your life, from breakfast to dinner, and even those in-between snack moments. The subscription is simple and flexible, so it fits your schedule no matter how busy things get. Go to marleyspoon.com slash offer slash pod45 for 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's right, 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's marleyspoon.com slash offer slash P-O-D-4-5. Hi, this is Christopher G. Brown, and when I'm pretending I did not make that Joy Division and Teletubbies video, I'm listening to Astonishing Legends. Now let's get back to the show. A handful of our listeners, I'm sure, have been to the Point Pleasant Festival, the Mothman Festival, and if you're adventurous enough, have gone out to the TNT area, which is, it's not that hard to find, but you've got to ask people. And of course, there's that road turnoff, and you have to look for the guardrail at the end of the short road there that stops, and it's spray-painted, and you've got to hike down, and it's kind of unpleasant. There's a lot of bugs. We went in the middle of the day, and going inside, yeah, it's very, if you close the door, it's completely pitch black. The sound is very creepy. There's junk in there, so you get a weird feeling. Like, I tried the DR-60, our EVP recorder, and didn't get anything inside, and then you step out and got a lot of weird chatter. And so you're often surprised of, like, well, we should have got something inside. And then people would say, like, well, no, since you're outside, you're picking up radio signals now, and you wouldn't get them inside. But we got stuff in the middle of mammoth caves where there shouldn't be any kind of signals coming through. And so that, I think that throws that out the window. But the fact that the whole area is that there's something there, and it kind of observes, and it kind of toys with you. And I think once you get the camera, it's like, oh, you want to see something? Here you go. Back in 2017, right after the movie, Tommy had just been born. My son had just been born. He was two, three weeks old. I get a call from a Japanese television show, and they wanted me to be their Mothman expert. And this is 2017. I just had a child. I'm trying to make this movie. It was a tough time. And they were offering me something like $1,000 or whatever to do, like, four days in the woods with them. And I'm like, yes, like, absolutely, just put us up in a hotel. So my ex-wife and Tommy and I went to Point Pleasant, and I made this show. You know, they camped out in the TNT area over by the old waterworks and all that stuff. And we had some really hilariously weird, silly things happen because it turned out the TV crew was trying to kind of, like, pull one over, like, on us and their audience. Okay. Okay, gotcha. It was a really weird experience. But it culminated with this incident where they took us out on a night hike. And I wanted to march us way out to the other end of the TNT area because I'd never been around there. And they were kind of, like, letting me be their expert, even though I, you know, whatever. So Brandon Daylo was there with us, you know, who does all our music. And then there were a couple other STM guys that were there. Sure. And Brandon and I are kind of the paranormal geeks of STM, especially back then. You know, now Heather's probably more educated than us and Mark, obviously. But back then it was Brandon and I that were real into this stuff. And so we're out in the TNT area. It's night. It's, like, 1 a.m., something like that. And we're walking out to this area that goes into a forest. And then on both sides of this trail are these hills. And you're kind of, like, walking between, you know, between these two large hills. And the film crew from Japan really wanted to get us back to nearer to where the camp was. And that was because they had stuck a man in a bush. And he was going to scare us. Right. Or whatever. But Brandon and I were really enjoying exploring the TNT area at night. So we're like, nah, let's just keep going, you know. So we're way out there. It's, like, 1 or 2 a.m. And I get the idea to have everyone shut off their lights. We're going to stand here. We're not going to do anything, which is great television. I'm kind of getting rid of where the film crew is coming from. Yeah. But I'm like, shut off all the lights. We're just going to stand here. And so we shut off all the lights. And we're standing there. And all of a sudden, like, a rock came off of one of the hills and impacted right near Brandon. And it freaked him out. But him and I are, like, excited. We're just pumped that this is happening. And we're, like, whispering to each other about this. And while all this is happening, there's a dissension growing amongst the group. And most of the other people wanted to go back to the camp. And so I flat out refused. I said, I'm not going. So Brandon and I stayed where we were. And everyone else left. And so Brandon and I are out here on this path. And I'm like, kill your light. By now, everyone's gone. We stood there for probably, like, 15, 20 minutes. Everyone was gone. So Brandon and I kill our lights. And we're standing there. And it sounded, there was this noise. And it sounded as if something had jumped or just landed in the path directly. Just like you felt it in your feet. And we don't tell this story much because it's so silly, especially with the whole hoaxing thing going on, because it just sounds like we were hoaxed. But nonetheless, I think it's appropriate here. So there's this impact sound. And then we freaked out and turn our lights on. There's nothing in the path. And so we walk ahead a little ways. And then we kill the lights again. And as soon as we do, there's this murmuring, kind of like the Sierra sound chatter, you know, like the samurai chatter, kind of sounded like that. Deep words that weren't really words being said. And it sounded like it was in the path, like ahead of us. But I think we flipped the lights on. And again, there's nothing there. When you say lights, are you just talking about your phone lights? Just headlights. Headlights. Oh, yeah, we're in the headlamps, yeah. Oh, yeah, we're real Mothman hunters. So you got to wear those. I'm surprised we weren't in cowboy hats. But we eventually, just like that kind of thing happened a few times. And eventually, it just was like nothing's happening. Let's start back. And so we start back. And we get to this clearing. And there's this huge field, just massive field, bigger than a football field. And in the middle of it, dead center of this round kind of field is a huge tree. Then the field's surrounded by forest, the old buildings, whatever they were, that used to be there when the TNT area was still functioning. We had walked maybe like 60, 70 yards into this field. And we're right next to the tree. And a rock hit the tree from behind us, like came over from the direction we had just come and impacted with the tree. And first of all, I don't know anyone that could throw a rock that far. Yeah. Because, I mean, I said 60, 70 yards, maybe like Patrick Mahomes or somebody. But, I mean, it hit the tree. And we ended up hauling it back to the rest of the group, who were literally standing beside a bush where a man was in the bush going, whoa, shaking this bush. And neither Brandon or I cared the rest of the night. We were totally nonplussed by everything that happened because we had had this weird something experience in the woods. Now, we've always equated it to Bigfoot. But, you know, you're in the TNT area. Because a lot of people forget that there were Bigfoot sightings in the TNT area. Kiel mentioned them in the Mothman Prophecies. So that was our thing. It was like, maybe it's a Bigfoot thing. But who knows? I don't like to tell that story because it's so weird and there's so many. That's the thing is that people, you do feel silly about it, especially when you're retelling the story. But, again, you can't relay accurately or sufficiently, like, what it felt like to be there. People say, like, well, of course, you're going to feel something. You're going to see something. You're going to experience something because you were there trying to experience something. It's your imagination filling in the blanks. And then something natural happened and you just mistook that. But I think there's something, again, as being out on these locations and doing as much research in the field as you guys have, you start to become adept at knowing what the difference is. When it's like, you know, you talk to people who, like, I've spent my whole life in the woods. I know what these sounds are. This is my area. I go hunting here every season since I was a kid. And you come to know what to expect and what's out of the ordinary. And so how is that, though, different than – tell us about your Bigfoot sighting that changed your mind here and how you felt about that and what the circumstances were. What's funny is you saying that kind of reminds me that both of those incidents have a similarity in that on both occasions, while we were out there making a show about Mothman, there was zero anticipation that anything was going to happen. In fact, like even saying we were out there looking for something wouldn't be super accurate. The only thing we were real concerned about was not getting Lyme disease. There were so many ticks that when we would get back to the hotel, we would all go into one bathroom together and check each other for ticks because of how many – I mean, we were pulling 30, 40 ticks off of our clothes when we would get back to the hotel. And I would say it was a similar occurrence when I had my sighting. And the thing about my sighting that's weird is like – well, obviously, it's weird because it's a sighting of Bigfoot. So it happened in Minerva, and that alone is a red flag for any skeptic. Tell people who don't know where Minerva is. Yeah. Minerva is like a little town not far from where I grew up in Ohio. Okay. And it's renowned for having a series of Bigfoot sightings during the 1970s of this creature that was called the Minerva Monster. Most of the sightings occurred with one particular family, the Caton family, who – I mean, the short version is they were essentially feeding this thing. They were dumping scraps in a pit behind their house, and it would come to the pit every night and get food and go back up on the hill behind their house and disappear into the woods. This happened over the course of like a month during 1978, became a really internationally well-known story, and today is largely forgotten aside from the movie we made. But Heather lives in Minerva, and she had just moved there in – is it 21 or 22? I think it's 21. I think it said – yes. So, 2021. She moved there in 2021 onto like a 400 acres, something like that. It's kind of farm outside of Minerva. Oh, yeah. I remember her talking about this place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's super cool. But she hadn't been there long when weird stuff started. And, you know, at first it sounded like ghostly activity, mostly because she was doing ghost hunts and who knows what on the property. But there were instances where she was putting – she got into the gifting thing. So she was putting out, you know, like a crystal and toys and trinkets and stuff. She'd put them in this patch of woods on a stump or on the ground or whatever, and they would be taken and replaced by other things. And there was one instance in particular where this one crystal had been taken – a heavy crystal had been taken, a big crystal had been taken and replaced with some – I kept saying a squirrel skull, but she corrected me on this like a week ago. So I'm not even – it was an animal something, like a vertebrae or something that replaced it. So we were like, okay, this is cool. This is the place. We should do something here. Let's get Alexander and Eli to come here, and we'll do – Alex does this show for the Small Town Monsters channel called Bigfoot Beyond the Trail. Yes. And, you know, they've gone all over the country and taken part in Bigfoot search trips all over. And I was like, come to Ohio. They were on the back end of this two-week road trip where they had gone to like every state out west. They had been to Utah and Colorado and all these states, and they were exhausted. And I was like, I'm sure you'd love nothing more than to drive here from Colorado in a single day or two days or whatever it was without sleep, taking turns driving, and then stay in the woods in a tent on Heather's property. And that's what they did. So they came here and we filmed – And make trades on a tree stump. Yeah. Yeah. Which they had learned out west because they were living the pioneer lifestyle. Right. But they came in and they stayed for like three nights, and we had a great time. Nothing super crazy happened to them. There was one night – actually, it might have happened multiple nights. They heard bipedal footsteps in the forest where their tent was while they were asleep. Well, not asleep. They were getting woken up by these – and it sounded like it was running, whatever it was. And so this happened a few times. The only thing that happened to me out there was that Tommy, who was only three or four at the time, was staying with me in a hunting cabin on the property. And Tommy and I were asleep one night. It was like 2 a.m. You know how you hear this term power knock? Yeah. Like a wood knock. Yeah. That's just absurdly. That happened on what I think was the tree right outside the window of the cabin. Oh, wow. And it woke me up. It didn't wake Tommy up, thankfully. He's a very, very deep sleeper. But it woke me up, and I was ticked when I heard it because I assumed it was Alex or someone doing it. And I was like, I have a child in here trying to sleep. So I get up and go out on the porch, and there's no one out there. I call on the radio to find out where everyone is. Alex was up in a tree stand surrounded by a coyote, so he wasn't anywhere near us. And then the rest of the group was up in that woods where Heather put the crystals and stuff, which is pretty far as a walk. And it was also across a pond and up a hill and nowhere near us. And I kind of was like, okay, that's creepy. So there was enough happening that I was like, we should do something out here. And I think what we're going to do is basically like sort of a video podcast with a guest. Each show would have a guest, and I would interview them in the field, and then we would go do like a night investigation on the property. Yeah. And that was the original idea. And so the first episode I was going to shoot, and it was just going to be Heather and I hanging out and talking. I was just going to interview Heather and her husband, Corey, about the history of the property. And the first night wasn't even supposed to be a filming night. We had all the kids. So Tommy was there. Heather's kids were all there. We're all down at the hunting cabin. We had pizza. There was a fire going. The night we're on, and all the kids ended up going inside and getting in bed and watching their iPads. And so they're all in the hunting cabin, and Heather and myself and Corey are out by the fire. And we hear a knock from the top of the hill, that same forest where Eli and Alex had stayed. But the weird thing about it, and this happened multiple times over the next few months, the knock was on a very specific rubber drum. Rubber, plastic, whatever it is. There's this old drum that's like, not a drum, like a musical drum, but like an oil drum or whatever it was. It's one of those, it's like a big blue industrial. Yeah, the blue ones. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. You could tell that's what it was. Yeah. And we tested this out the next day, and that's definitely what it was. So something hit that full bore. It echoed to where we were. Do you know where that particular drum was? Yes. Okay. I know that because we had hit it ourselves earlier in the evening. The same exact one. The same exact one. Not just in a sample of one, but the one where you think it came from. No, I think there only is the one, and I had hit it earlier in the evening. So whatever seemed to be duplicating it. When that happened, the entire vibe of the night changed. Obviously, I got my camera out. But I walked away up the trail that leads to the hunting cabinet. Again, this is all 400 acres. There's patchy woods and field, but there's a lot of dense woods too. And so I walk up this trail into the woods. And as soon as I got in there, I could hear footfalls. And not just like one footfall, like multiple footfalls around me in multiple directions, as if things were coming toward me. And I remember saying to myself, and it might be in the episode, this can't be happening. There's no way this is happening. And there is the possibility it's deer. Right. But so I stand still, and it continues. And it continued until I got genuinely unsettled, and I yelled for Heather. And so it is funny, because in the episode, it's like, I mean, you can hear how creeped out or excited or whatever I was. I'm like, Heather? And so Heather comes up with me, and we're standing on this trail, and we start to hear other things. There's another knock. There's a rock got thrown that impacted within a couple feet of us. So all this continued for a while. And I'm talking like 20 minutes, 25 minutes. One of the creepiest things that happened during that event was that Corey had gone up on the porch of the hunting cabin. And it's not a big hunting cabin. It's a hunting cabin. There were two beds and a little sitting area, and that's it. There's no electricity. There's nothing in this thing. And so Corey goes up on the porch, and he's sitting there. And we're 100 yards down the trail. And he heard footfall. He heard bipedal footsteps approach the cabin, but not approaching him. It approached the window that looked into or out from the bedroom where all the kids were. And so whatever this thing was, approached that particular window, and Corey started screaming. He was trying to scare it off. And he started yelling while he ran down the porch to run back and scare off whatever it was. And there was nothing there, no more sounds. And other than that, the night kind of ended without a vent. But I was 100% by then that if these things are real, they're here. And so the goal was not necessarily to get out there and find Bigfoot. But the next day, what do you do? I never made a show that was about searching for Bigfoot because I don't consider myself a Bigfoot researcher. I'm a filmmaker who covers these subjects, and I'm an enthusiast at the most when it comes to the subject. And so I'm like, well, we'll go hang trail cams. So the next day, we're on an ATV, and we're going around the property hanging trail cams. It's 2 o'clock. It's perfectly sunny September day. And we're crossing the property in this thing, and there's a pipeline that cuts across her property. And I think that plays into why these things are, I think all the fracking, the pipelines, I think there's a reason these things are out there right now, or were out there right there. I don't actually think they're there right now. But we're crossing the pipeline, and I'm sitting up front talking to Corey. I glance up to my right to look up the pipeline, and up 50, 75 yards, probably 50 yards up this very steep hill, I see this dark brown, I say fur covered. To me, it looked like fur. But I talked to a researcher last week who thinks that could have been an optical thing because of the distance, and he said it more than likely was hair. To me, it looked like fur, like a dog, like dog fur or something. But it's running across this clearing as this hair-covered bipedal thing. And I saw it for, I think, less than one second. I think I had eyes on it for less than a second. And I took in the fact that as it was running, its arms were pumping like a sprinter, and I could see muscle ripple in the bicep. How far away was it from you? I think 50 to 75 yards. There's an easy way to figure this out so that I stopped saying, I think it was X, and that would just be to go to Heather's house and go walk. Right, go over where you were, yeah. I think this is exactly this far. Right. But as soon as I saw it, I yelled, Corey, stop. But I had already jumped. And we were doing about 20 miles an hour across the field. So I jumped out of the moving gator, hit the ground, which is on a slope, like headed down because it heads down toward a tree line. And then it goes, then there's a hill that the tree line follows. Thankfully, I didn't wipe out. I was in much better shape then. But- Were you in the seat or like back in the bed? Passenger. Courtney was in the back. Okay. And she was filming me. So all of my reaction and everything was on camera. Right. But I had leapt out and ran until I hit this wall of like six foot tall brush and thorns and all that kind of stuff. And so I couldn't go any further. And you could hear movement, you know, where I had seen this thing, you could hear movement up in the woods. And eventually we worked our way up into that woods, but we couldn't get all the way up there because we're in Ohio and the undergrowth in some places here is insane. So we never did make it up there that day. Two weeks later, that hill was brush hogged. They brush hog the property every like once a month, they clean everything out. So they were just brush hogging. Heather does. Not Heather personally, but it's taken care of by them. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. You know, keep in mind, Heather and Corey had just moved in there. So they didn't know this either. But when it was brush hogged, we were immediately, we became aware of the fact that there's this path that runs along the top of that hill that connects their property to a neighboring farm. And I only point this out because at the time, what I saw looked like a Bigfoot running on top of six foot tall brush, which made no sense. Because I was looking up this hill. Yeah. And to my eyes, it's just like a steep hill. You couldn't see the path. Right. But this thing was running on this path and I just didn't know it was there. And so that answered a question for me, you know, as to, am I going crazy? Right. Right. But there was this path that this thing was running on. Cool fact about that path too. The farm next door, the neighboring farm dumps all their dead cattle there. And there's like a hundred, and I'm not exaggerating. We have it on camera. There's probably like a hundred dead cow corpses right there. And some various stages of decomposure. But I've always thought that was very interesting. A few months later, we found a cow pelvis just sort of placed in a tree about two, three hundred yards from there on going over multiple hills through forests on the other side of the property. That was also kind of cool because there were no cows anywhere near there. There never had been cows near there because this property has been in Corey's family for quite a while, generations. So are you saying this hairy creature was running through on this trail through six foot tall, thick brambles and brush? That's what I thought. Yeah. Because that's what it looked like. But what I was seeing, I also couldn't figure out why I was seeing it at all because it was six foot tall. The brush was like five, six feet tall, but I could see its entire body running. No, what I'm saying, it's hard to describe, but it's a very steep hill. And then there's a path. So where the path goes along- Because of the angle, the path from your point of view appeared to be above the bushes. Yes, exactly. And I thought this thing was running on top of the brush. Like twinkle toes, okay. Yeah, I thought I was losing my mind. Well, the reason I ask is that there's often an element of that that doesn't make sense. I don't want to tell Shannon's story, but it was something about seeing a giant bipedal creature running through thick woods. And then you realize like, there's no way that something that large could run that fast through that thick of like just small trees, you know, two, three inches in diameter, keeping up with your ATVs. You know, so there's something unworldly about it. And then of course, it reminds me of Bob Gimlin saying like, he's tracking this thing. It stepped into water and there's half of a footprint on this large flat boulder. And then it goes, and then it just stops into thick brush. Like it didn't make a hole. It didn't, you know, there's no fur captured. It just disappeared. I just interviewed Mark DeWorth one or two weeks ago. And Mark runs the Ohio Bigfoot Conference, which is one of the bigger conferences in the country. And then he's also the, I think he's the BFRO head for Ohio. And Mark had a sighting down near Wells Creek near Coshocton, Ohio. And this is all real fresh because this is what I'm editing. But Mark had had a sighting. And when I was first getting into Bigfoot and I'm talking about 2011, something like 2010, my dad and I, and my mom went to a library presentation by Mark DeWorth and he told the story of his sighting. And so I got Mark to take me to the sighting location recently. And he was talking about, he obviously went through the sighting, you know, he saw this black creature that was kind of like stalking him or just checking him out. But he talked about when it turned and ran, how it just kind of like took off like a shot through the, through the forest. And anyone that knows Ohio, even in like April, which is when his sighting happened, there's thick stuff on the ground. But he said it was like just naturally moving through that at full speed. And there was like, it reminded me of, I don't know if you guys know Kathy Strain or her story. Kathy is the tribal relations manager for the Stanislaus National Forest. You guys should talk to her. She's amazing. Okay. Her and her husband, Bob are two of the greatest people I know. And she had a sighting in X, in area X of a Bigfoot with a juvenile. And I don't want to tell her story. First of all, cause I'm not as good at it. It's one of my favorite sighting stories just cause it's so interesting. But she described this thing, seeing her scooping up the little one, like a mom would, and taking off up this, almost like a sheer cliff as if it was attached to a bungee and someone had just pulled it back and let it go. And those two stories are so similar and they remind me so much of what I saw. Cause what I saw moved ungodly fast. I mean, ungodly fast and it wasn't, it wasn't huge. I don't think the thing I saw was more than six feet tall. I've been to the exact place where it ran now. I really don't think it was a big, you know, burly. It was not burly. It wasn't, it was kind of scrawny, but it was not a tall creature either. But yeah, that movement thing, that's one of the most unsettling aspects of Bigfoot specifically. Well, and again, it's a, it also reminds me, you're talking about something going straight up into, uh, seems, uh, illogical, but the guy's hella skiing or, or hella snowboarding in Canada. It was near Whistler where they see, and they get it on video, but it's a long ways away. And there's a large dark figure in the snow bowl. And it's like, they're watching. It's like, okay, maybe it's a hunter wearing all black, but that's weird. And why is it going straight to the side of this bowl to nothing where it becomes really sheer and where there's no snow, it just starts heading in that direction. It's like, well, that's not the way to get out of that place. And it didn't come from it. You know, it's not traversing anything. It just starts to walk. It looks like it's going to go straight up this curve of this, uh, you know, possibly volcanic bowl that's filled with snow. It's like, it didn't make any sense. And also it's moving much faster than something that large at that distance would appear to be moving. It's like, well, I think it's gotta be booking, but it looks like it's just kind of a loping slowly. So there's something, there's something about that. But when you put this all together though, did you get that feeling, those feelings come back that, uh, you had maybe at the folk monster, that, that sense of that, this is not right. This is not natural. Something's going on here. Yeah. Specifically the night that Heather and I were on the trail, it only happened one other time out there other than that night that her and I were on the trail. And that was when Mark Matske and I were on the same trail and Mark almost got a rock to the head. We think a rock passed within a couple of inches. He said he felt it go by his face. We had, we had a very similar incident happened. Him and I within, I'd say it was probably a month within a month of the incident with Heather and I, both those times I had a very intense feeling, but it wasn't dread necessarily or anything like that. Maybe it was just that, that Falk thing, I had never experienced anything like that. Yeah. You know? So maybe that's just how it hit me that time. I don't know, but I don't know that that specific like feeling of. Terror or anything has come over me anywhere else. I'm racking my brain for something, but I really don't. There was an incident in Sutton, West Virginia, when we were making on the trail of hauntings where something said my name over one of those. What is it? Like the. The spirit box or. Or the radio. It sounds like radio station. Yes. The SB seven or. Something said my name. Okay. And that creeped me out. Yeah. And I got a feeling of dread that time, but it was because something said my name. So you heard, it was clear. It was Seth where I came through on the, one of the voices. We were all about 80, 90% sure it was, it said my name. Right. Right. Seth. Raise your hand if you want your nails to look perfect all the time. Me too. I'm Sarah Gibson Tuttle from Olive and June. And this is exactly why we created the Manny System. We wanted to make it possible for everyone everywhere to give themselves a beautiful manicure at home. With our tools and our long lasting polish, each manicure with our Manny System comes out to just $2. That's right. $2. 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I think they're smart enough or intelligent or they've learned enough about humanity to know they don't want us to know they're there, really. You know, not to the extent that they kill somebody outright. I have come around on this issue and kind of believe that there are the odd. Yeah, the rogue. Missing people. Yeah, that they kill people. But yeah, I never got like a nefarious vibe out there or anything like that. Like we were being stalked or anything like that. And I mean, Tommy and I slept out there every weekend that September. We were out there constantly. I was out there multiple days every week. There was a one point where I stayed out there for like six or seven days in a row. Yeah. And we had tons of experiences. We have so many experiences that you kind of like some of it you forget, even though it was only a few years ago. So there was the creepiest thing that happened out there to me, the creepiest is it didn't even I wasn't even aware of it when it happened. We used to set audio recorders out at night when we go to bed just to, you know, there were very few vocalizations out there. And I think that's because there's it's farmland, but there's farmhouses. So, like, I don't think these things are going to be out there screaming all the time. So very few vocalizations, but wood knocks a plenty. So we would put the recorders out at night and there was one night where we were sleeping in the cabin and something you can hear something walk down the trail toward the hunting cabin, round the corner of the porch, walk up the steps of the porch on two feet, and then just hang out. You never hear it leave. That's going to be a no for me, dog. You're asleep in the cabin and that whatever it was is out there for a long time. Oh my God. And I listened to that. And I think I had Heather listen to that because Heather, I used to give her the audio recordings and be like, can you just go through this for a while and see if you can hear it? So you didn't even hear it until you reviewed the recordings. That's why it's creepy. What about the trail cams? Have you gotten anything on the trail cams on our land or like? Never. We never got anything. Yeah. No. And really that level of activity only lasted maybe six weeks, six, seven weeks. Once the leaf canopy started to fall, because like I said, this was September when we started shooting. Yeah. Once the leaf canopy started to fall, it really slowed down. And by February, it was pretty much dead, dead quiet. Right. So it's that point you've noticed when you were driving out to her property. There was a Bigfoot family on the side of the road with bindles with their thumbs out. Right. Because they're like, we got to go. We got to get out to the PNW. Yeah. No, we had other things happen. We saw white lights in the woods out there a couple of times. Yeah. Les O'Dell, who's a buddy of ours, he's a researcher from West Virginia and was staying with me out there once. And he thought he saw a red light in the top of a tree that was a very tall tree, like 70 feet up. Those instances happened. And then there was one where this was kind of a thing that happened a few times, but the loudest that ever got, there was one night where Tommy and I were asleep and I got woke up by the windows of the cabin vibrating. And there was just this like rumble and it ended up lasting from like 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock at night until like four or five in the morning. And it was a constant, loud, vibrating rumble. Now it did, it was extremely loud for maybe like 20 minutes. And then it kind of like got quieter over the course of the night that creeped me out. And I have that on film that was on camera. Cause I got, it woke me up. So I started filming as soon as I got up and I stopped, I mean, you can hear, I opened the door of the hunting cabin, stick the camera out. And I mean, the difference between the sound inside the cabin versus outside is, is night and day, a lot of people have been like, well, there's a power line that runs through the property. So it was wet. Well, it isn't that I've heard power lines when they're wet. It definitely wasn't that the thing I can compare it to would be like a train. Yeah. That's what I was going to ask. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't think there's a train that close. And I also, it would be the longest running train in history. Yeah. Unless it was just going back and forth because this was a constant noise that lasted through the night. Well, you got a lot of stuff. It's more than just like, I saw something once you've, there's a, you know, a lot of things have happened to you. I had, I had a fun experience with Cliff Berrick. Oh yeah. Not there specifically. He came and stayed with me out there. Yeah. But unfortunately when he stayed was end of April of 2022. And by then it was dead. So when Cliff gets there, this dude's Bigfoot haunted in like the, you know, Buff Creek and all these places. Yeah. He gets out to like farmland, Ohio, and he's looking around like this is habitat. And I'm like, I don't know, dude. But him and I went out to Leesville Lake with Heather one day. Leesville Lake is like the least populated lake in the state of Ohio. And it's within 20 minutes of Minerva. It's also where Heather grew up. So her parents still live there. They own a house there. So we parked where their house is and then walked into the woods and we walked maybe three minutes into the woods, got up on this rock outcropping. And as soon as we got up there, we recorded this extremely loud, weird howl that at first sounded like an ambulance, but then did some very odd things toward the tail end of it. And, um, during filming that movie, I, or that series, I probably experienced more than I've ever experienced on, you know, everything else we've ever done, ever done combined. And once again, Ohio. It's just, it's just Ohio. Uh, is there, uh, as you go along and, uh, uh, we're going to talk about, uh, some of your latest films in the, and the, uh, the oeuvre of your work, but do you think there's a progression of experiences and realizations and stuff as you, as you go? I think it's just that we do more. I honestly think we've done more stuff as time has gone on. And so we've spent more time out in the woods and in places where you could conceivably have an experience. So I just think it's that I think that the more time I've spent out and putting myself in the right situations where you might actually have something happen. That's my take on it. I say that, but then I think about the fact that I was in Alaska for 17 days. And if you're going to find Bigfoot anywhere, it should be Alaska, right? It's like, there's supposedly everywhere. And I had literally nothing happened the entirety of the time we were there. And I was staying in a primitive cabin. If I walked out the front door of my cabin in Healy, we were looking into Denali National Park. Right. At that cabin, it was just Courtney and I. So I don't know. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's the fact that we've just done more and I've been in, I've been in the right place at the right time. Because if you compare those early shoots, you're talking about Ohio, Whitehall, Falk, and those shoots are real abbreviated and we're entirely focused on making the movie. All this other stuff, the adventure style of SDM didn't come in until 20, was it 2017, 2018 with On the Trail of Champ. And then On the Trail of Bigfoot was my first take on that. And so that's the first time I put myself actually in those situations. And as soon as I did, I experienced something because I experienced the rock throw in Area X while I was filming On the Trail of Bigfoot, The Legend. So, you know, that's the first time I put myself in that kind of like, you're actually going to go document people doing the actual research, not just telling, you know, eyewitness stories or whatever. Well, do you think that there's a form of consciousness to the phenomena? Because as we've gone along in our journey here, and it's not been much out in the field, admittedly, but it's more of a journey of the mind and of consciousness here, or just awareness of this in that we've come to realize the term of that, that there is talk of a general phenomena or the phenomenon. Even James Fox's film, The Phenomenon, that it's not just one thing. They're all kind of connected. It's an experience. There's some reasoning behind it. There's some consciousness or there's, it's not just willy nilly that something kind of knows what you're about, knows what you're doing, kind of keeps track of you, plays around with you. You know, it's like the stuff at Skinwalker Ranch. There's always a step ahead. They're ripping things out at opportune moments when it knows you, you don't have a camera going, something happens. You know, there's something, there's a playfulness to that. Have you experienced any of that? Or like you said, it's just, well, we're just out, we're just outside more. And in these places where stuff happens, or do you think that there's something that's aware of you and what your team is doing? I said Bigfoot to the side. So like, I'm still very much in the unknown primate camp when it comes to Bigfoot for everything else or the bulk of the other stuff. Yeah. It's probably all connected. And I'm, and I mean, I put it all. Yeah. I think, I think I'm to that point. Dog man, UFOs. Those, uh, really, that's, that's a big step for you, especially the, the orbs, the mystery lights are interesting to me right now. Um, you know, we did, we published a book by Ron Murphy this past year about mystery lights, but I, I experienced mystery lights on the chestnut Ridge, uh, back in, in 2021 or 22. And so did my entire crew and multiple people, multiple researchers. There's Zach, our director of photography, who is the most skeptical non-believer in the group had two lights come up to him that he initially thought were the headlights of a car coming at him. The mystery lights are really interesting because I think there's two things going on there. I think there's a natural phenomenon that is probably like gaseous or something like the Marfa lights, the brown lights kind of thing. Yeah. But then I think there's these other lights that, you know, maybe they're mimicking those lights. I have no idea. Or controlling the natural, uh, phenomena. Sure. But that stuff I all kind of think is connected. How it's connected, I don't know. And I'm not smart enough to put it together. Um, I'm also not well-spoken enough to verbalize how I think it's connected. Neither us as well, but. Neither us talk good either. Yeah, it's a, me having, you know, sometimes I have a way with words, sometimes not have way as Steve Martin, Steve Martin famously said. Uh, yeah, but so as you progressed here, we're going to talk about, uh, your latest, uh, films here, the productions ramping up, you seem to have a unique connection to your audience as well that other production companies don't have. I think that's, uh, perhaps in this new age of social media and, uh, you know, things like Kickstarter and just simply posting everybody's, uh, all the donors names at the end of your films, uh, for a credit as a thank you and a little, a bonus. How has this evolved from like, like I said, just a regular production company, Scott and I have both worked at, you know, we're just, it's a crew of nice people. We're all friends, but we only get together for productions. This is, it's like, there's a small town monsters family and how has that come about and how does that influence your production and you going forward? We're just a small business. Like at the end of the day, we're a family business and I grew up in my parents owned family businesses. My, my mom owned a bookstore and my dad owned a craft store. And so growing up, I was only around independent business people because my parents owned those businesses. My grandparents owned businesses. And to me, it's the exact same thing. I mean, it's the exact same thing, even in the way we made money early on traveling to events and selling merch, my mom did bookshows and sold books. And we did that every weekend when I was a kid from March until November of every year doing bookshows. And so it's really similar in that way. And when it comes to the audience, well, obviously we wouldn't exist if there wasn't that audience or that community or whatever you want to call it, the group around STM, because they, they came out every year, starting with Minerva with the Kickstarter. We did a Kickstarter for Minerva and tried to raise 500 or 600, $600, $700, something like that, just so we could print DVDs. And we made 6,000 plus dollars on that first Kickstarter. Right. Right. And that only increased every year, you know, and the audience only grew every year, especially now that we're on YouTube guys, because the YouTube audience is the most negative group of people you're ever going to see anywhere. Right. And so it just gives you an even greater appreciation for the community that grew up around STM in the early days and still supports us today, because those people are like the exact opposite. Yeah. And there's, there's so much support from, from them, even as the company grows and probably gets a little unwieldy. Like I'm assuming there's a, most of the people have not seen everything we've done because there's so much to try to keep track of. Right. But they still support it, you know, like they have a stake in it. And I guess they do, because if we go away, there's no more STM. Yeah. Yeah. The appreciation for those people is through the roof, especially because last year our distributor filed for bankruptcy after not paying us for three months. And so when the Kickstarter rolled around last year, I can 100% say we would not exist today if that Kickstarter had failed. Yeah. Like we wouldn't, we wouldn't even be here. So it's, it's become more of a, it's become even more needed as time has gone on, which is funny because you would expect that as, as a company grows and expands that you would, you know, only ask more and more in your success. But that, that isn't always the case, I guess. Well, let's talk about that. So the Kickstarter, I mean, that's part of how you guys work now. Every year you do one to make your set number of projects for that year, right? That's basically the plan that you, you roll this out every year. You just started one. And, and it's so funny because initially when we, you know, we heard from Aaron and, and about you coming on the show, it was like, Hey, we want to, you know, this, the Kickstarter is rolling out. We want to talk about that. And in the time we were preparing for it, we noticed that you got fully funded in the first 48 hours. Yeah. That's amazing. You guys raised over $80,000 in 48 hours. Yeah. And this year was crazy because we were, we were 33% funded in the first 17 minutes or 18 minutes, 18 minutes, something like that. We sold out of all the full content executive producer levels in the first 10 minutes. And those are $3,500 per, like, each. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. So, yeah, that, yeah, we did. I'm sorry, guys. We, we roped you in, but I mean, the campaign's still going on. No, well, that's the thing. We're, no, we love having you on. It's great talking to you. You're a friend of ours. These stories are great, but like, you, now you're setting up the stretch goals, right? Like, what do you want to do if it keeps going? I just want people to know that as soon as you hit that goal, it's not like, oh, the film's all done. There you go. And you can stop. It's just everything extra above that goes into other production and other projects and for the people that work for you. Yeah. Yeah. It's worth saying that, like, so our movies cost, the budgets on our stuff is low. I don't know how you make four films for 80 grand, frankly. I don't know how you do that with all your people and the travel. For those four, I'll make those four under that. That's amazing. Those four will come in under 80. The 80 goes toward, so the cool thing about our campaigns, and we did this from the beginning, was that most, I back Kickstarters all the time myself. Yeah. And my favorite thing is when I feel like I'm getting to obviously help a creator, but also get like a really big value back. So that was like, so I saw today, like one of the levels has 16 rewards in return and we're not, we're talking DVDs and posters and t-shirts and all that stuff. So a big part of the campaign just goes to actually funding the production of the rewards. Right, right. Right, right, right. But there's going to be, there are stretch rewards. What did they add? They added a bumper sticker as like the first stretch goal or the first stretch reward. And then there's a stretch goal of like 90 and then we're going to go to, and then we're going to 100 and then I think 110, something like that. Right. So we have stretch rewards all planned out. But the biggest thing, like the biggest thing about the campaign that's changed is back in, we were talking about this during the Kickstarter live stream back in the day when we first started out, the campaign would end and you would get your movie on digital or DVD and then it would be out everywhere else two to three weeks later. Yeah. People received Lost Contact and Cryptid Goatman back in November and we still don't even have a release date for that. Right, right. So like we're to the point where if you get the movies through the campaign, you're guaranteeing you're going to see them well in advance and you're guaranteeing you'll actually see them. Because like we have had, you know, like I said, American Werewolves 2 came out on the trail of Bigfoot The Origin, which was an extremely personal movie to me. It was filmed between my mom's death and her funeral. I shot a movie in British Columbia. Yeah. In this like five day window between her death and her funeral. And the movie's kind of about me processing all that, that also has some Bigfoot stuff in it. But neither of those movies have been seen by like anyone. Right. And that's because the distributor botched it so bad. So Origin was supposed to be like our big, I mean, it is, but it was supposed to be like my big homage to John Green because we were going to Harrison Hot Springs. And, and then she had been battling cancer for two and a half, three years when she passed and she passed three days before we were supposed to leave for British Columbia. And I also had the flu, so I couldn't go see her in her final days. And I wasn't, I wasn't actually planning at that point on going to British Columbia. So Heather, Mark, and I had had phone calls and figured out this alternate plan where Mark was going to be the storyteller. What we ended up doing was combining that with me actually being there because after she passed, my dad called me and he was like, I'm going to schedule the funeral for a week away. So you go on your trip. And I was like, well, I'm still kind of sick. And then I woke up the next day and I felt great and I was like, I'm gone. So I had hopped on a plane in Pittsburgh and flew to British Columbia and shot this movie, you know, in this window. And anyway, no one's ever seen the movie. I mean, very few people have seen this movie. Right. So is this one of the distributors that, the one that went under or had problems? No, this is a different one that kind of brought us in after the fact. We've really had a lot. So it's, I mean, it's going to get out there or is it? It is out. It's not in limbo. It's not. It's out, but it is, it was buried. I would say they, they buried it pretty badly. They changed release dates after we had promoted it for a certain release date. It just, it just kind of died on the vine. Oh yeah. This is grace. And when I'm not being a deceptive demonic black eyed child, I'm listening to astonishing legends. Now let's get back to the show. So let's talk a little bit about what you guys have planned for 2025. All right. So I don't know if these are in the order that you're planning to produce them or you do simultaneous production, because at this point you're, you're directing some stuff, but not all of it. Is that correct? The only one I'm not directing is Ape Canyon. Okay. But I, you know, I was actively involved in the lead up to it. I was actively involved in the actual, you know, watching what was going on mostly because one of our crew members saw it into his own hand with a machete while they were out at Ape Canyon and he had to get medevaced out. Oh my God. So I was very up to date on what was going on during that shoot. And I've watched story cuts. So, so just quickly for an overview and for our listeners, what are the four projects that Small Town Monsters has planned for 2025 that this Kickstarter was about? The first one done editing, I don't know when it'll be out because I don't have a deal for it yet, but the first one done is Siege of Ape Canyon, which is a look at the infamous Ape Canyon event, uh, wherein a bunch of miners were besieged by angry Sasquatches. Yeah, Fred Beck, we've talked about that, I think, and Albert Ostman, Scott, didn't we? I think maybe we touched on that. That's right. Was it 1924? I'm trying to think of the year. It's in the twenties. Okay. Sometime in the twenties. Yeah, it was 24. Yeah, it was 1924. That was good. Wow. Yeah. Well, it's, it's one of the more famous ones, but simultaneously, maybe not one that a lot of people, uh, who aren't really into, uh, Pacific Northwest Sasquatch stories would know about, but it's because again, cause it happened in the twenties, but it was, um, well, a harrowing one also, I think what makes that stand out is the number of, uh, Sasquatch ganging up on supposedly these four miners in this log cabin with a heavy roof and, uh, with a ridge kind of surrounding them. And again, the, the other part that I love about this is the mundane explanation by those trying to debunk it saying like, well, it was, so what happened basically all night long, boulders are raining down. They, I think the story kicks off where there was a sighting earlier in the day and one of the miners thought he had shot. Shot it. Yeah. He shot a, a Sasquatch again, this then owing to the supernatural aspect of it or the, the super paranormal part of it, the non extant ape aspect is that they, this thing falls over a ridge or falls, uh, off a short cliff, they look for it and it's instantly gone. It's just vanished. So they shoot this thing. It falls over. They run up to it. Nowhere to be found that night though, they get a calling from a, uh, a whole troop of Sasquatch throwing boulders down heavy, massive two, 300 pound boulders down onto the cabin and terrified them all night. And they, they split, uh, at first light in the morning back into town. The ape Canyon story is one of my favorites and this was a bucket list movie for me, but it hit at a time where I was like, realistically, I should not be flying myself and a huge gaggle of SEM Ohio people out there. And so, and I'm talking, this happened very, this was a very abbreviated timetable from where I was supposed to be the one making the movie to I'm not the one making the movie. Eli is in the span of like a week. Also, it was going to create some logist, logistical nightmares because getting into ape Canyon is a, is a nightmare. Yeah. It's at least a day hike in to get to the area. And then you got to take this four hour, like sheer cliff walk down into the actual ape Canyon. And so, yeah, it became, it became, I should mention. So Alex did a journey to ape Canyon companion to the ape Canyon movie that will be coming out hopefully relatively soon. We got to try to time it out so it doesn't come out ahead of the movie because the actual ape Canyon has not been seen on camera. Like we're the first crew ever. No, it's the first people to really get in there and film it. Um, and that's cause Mark Marcel is the one that found it. Like he's, he's the one that turned it up. And this movie is very much a homage to Mark and all the work he's put into. He's like the primary researcher point person on ape Canyon. Oh yeah. Yeah. And he's going to be in the film. He's in the film. He is the main guy in the movie. It is his story to tell. Oh, that is so cool. Yeah. It's the first time you'll actually see ape Canyon on camera, but Alex did his companion piece and that and siege of ape Canyon should be out close together. You'll get to see, because the movie itself focuses much more on the original story and then sussing out what is fact, what might be fiction. And then there's some really intensely emotional moments that I was not expecting that brings in ancestors and descendants of the original miners. Oh, wow. And that sounds great. That's exciting. It is a really great movie. Eli, Eli made a good movie. We talked yesterday for a while about it on the phone, but it's for me as like an ape Canyon nerd, the whole thing is an answer to prayer because I love like Bigfoot Man or Beast. I love those old docs from the seventies and they all did like sections that recapped, you know, the ape Canyon event. Right. And so to actually see ape Canyon and I've been not far from there with Mark Marcel. In fact, that trip I told you about where Mark and I went out to the Olympic Peninsula, that trip, and we were listening to Jersey Devil, that trip started, literally started for us at Mount St. Helens. We, we beat the sunset with Mark Marcel to this spot near Mount St. Helens to interview him about the ape Canyon event for our, on the trail of Bigfoot, the legend movie. So it's amazing to actually get to see the terrain and, and that place on camera. But for me, what really stood out was like the personal aspects, the story of the descendants kind of learning about this, Marion Smith, who was one of the, the miners, his daughter didn't even know this happened. Wow. And she learns about it kind of, you know, she, she learns about it on camera. So, right. And, and she's solely there to talk about what a great guy her dad is. And I just, that part of it really took me by surprise. I was not expecting a movie called Siege of Cape Canyon to go in that kind of personal direction, but that's what it is. That's man. You guys do this too. And I'm sure you struggle with it as well, but there's a lot of like throwing around terms like historical preservation. Yes. Right. And people are like, ah, you guys are preserving these stories. Look, nine times out of 10, we're not right. Nine times out of 10, these stories will be told whether I make a movie about it or not. Right. But there are, sometimes there's, there's stories we tell that will not be told if we don't do it. Yeah. And we are in the right place at the right time to capture what needs captured so that that story is documented in the right way. And I would say this is one of those times I would say the Minerva was perfect. Beast of Whitehall was perfect in terms of preservation, not as movies. They're not. The other one is that lost contact. I really think those are important, like historical films that, that are preserving a story that might, because what's scary is, you know, with paranormal television, they'll blow anything out of proportion. And this stuff isn't told with the care it needs to be a lot of the time. For our listeners, by the way, speaking of that, why don't you tell our listeners what lost contact is? This was part of last year's project, but like, why don't you tell our listeners just the overview on Captain Mantel? Yeah. It's the story of Captain Thomas Mantel, who there's multiple versions of the story, but the most infamous one is, is that he was basically downed by a UFO. So yeah, what was it, 1948 after the war, he was in a P-51 Mustang on patrol. And the, again, there's a, we always, you always seem to cover, or at least you touch on, as you should, the supposed mundane explanation. Like I'm sure maybe you've, for Abe Canyon, the mundane explanation that being a troop of Boy Scouts and their tradition was to throw marble sized rocks into the canyon. The YMCA boys. Yeah. And it's like, okay, well, I'm sure you'll touch on how feasible that might've been. In this case though, people were saying like, well, he was chasing some lights or some object and climbed too high beyond the, the ceiling of his capable for his aircraft. And that caused him to stall. And then he, and he goes into a spin. He definitely did not die by getting shot down. Right. I can like, like that is, that is pretty much provable. What remains like the sticking point is what was he chasing? So the U S military came out and said he was chasing Venus, which is essentially like a slap in the face to a guy who was a, a medal of valor winner and, or recipient. And, you know, like one of the most decorated pilots during world war two, he flew at D-Day. Like the guy, the guy is unreal. His military record is incredible, but they, they said he was chasing Venus. And then the, the weather balloon thing came up, you know, and I'm, I don't know what camp I'm in yet. Maybe we'll talk about it later, but like we had, you know, we, we got to interview some really great, we interviewed Mantell's grandsons and we have the original transcripts from the tower that were being issued while they were, while his squadron was actually chasing the, the object. And we have, uh, we have some really great people talking about this. And the most important thing to me was that, you know, that no agenda thing like that. That's like my goal with these films is we, I don't want to have an agenda. I don't want to push people to believe it's aliens, regardless of what. Non-preconception for a documentary filmmaker. Like you're supposed to go in, not without having any ideas of your own that you're going to enforce while you're making it. Right. And so I think we gave a good voice to everyone on all sides with this. And, but the most important thing is I think we preserved the actual events of what happened that day, what we know happened without getting into the, well, he's saying that he saw people inside the craft. Cause that's the thing that came out when that sighting show hit. The fact is we, a lot of that stuff, we don't know. We don't have records of that stuff. There's no way to verify any of that. Right. So all of that is talked about in the film and I'm excited for people to see it because I, I think it's important people remember that guy, like Thomas Mattel. I really got attached to that man while I was making that movie. Yeah. And we know that feeling too, it's like you cover something and suddenly you're just, you get caught up in the person that said, we just did a thing on Ambrose beers. You know, the author, short story author who vanished at the end of his life. And after we finished that, I felt like I was like, all I wanted to do was go to a bar in Mexico and have a drink with him, you know, but for folks, again, if you're looking for this, you can find it on the small town monsters website. It's called lost contact UFOs after wartime. They can't find it yet. Oh, so I only got it because we backed your Kickstarter. Yeah. Okay. Folks, if you want to watch it, I'll stream it live and don't tell Seth. We'll sell tickets. Well, it's all right. So let's talk about the, uh, what do you think is next, uh, for this year, uh, after ape Canyon, maybe we're shooting Donna, the dog, man. That'll be what I shoot in. I think in March is what we're looking at that next month. Yes. Two weeks. You ready? Honestly, man, at this point that if, if Heather called me tomorrow and said, are you good to shoot the first week of March? I'd be like, yeah, we're, we're fine. Yeah. Let's go. We've done it. You've probably done so many like, uh, crash. Oh yeah. Gorilla shoots at this point. It's like, you can't pull anything off. Yeah. Donna, the dog man is a direct sequel to Bray road beast. Yes. In terms of like the style of it. I got Santino Vitale who did the special effects on the original movie back and him and I have been talking about how we're going to shoot it as well. Um, but I want it visually to be very similar to Bray road beast because I think it's a continuation of that story. And so I loved Linda. God. Yes. Yes. Absolutely loved her. And her and I had emailed about doing a movie about the Michigan dog man. Yes. And we talked about doing multiple movies. Yeah. And for folks that don't know, Linda has been on our show as well. She passed away. So, but if you, if you go back with us and look for a, an episode called monsters among us, uh, you'll, you'll hear her on our show. So yeah, we want it to be a celebration of Linda and also like a stylistic sequel to the Bray road beast, which we haven't done many, if any full blown stylistic sequels to movies we've made, but I really, I mean, American world was two, I think is the only one, but I, I really enjoyed making Bray road and editing it, especially cause it was like a different editing style from what I usually use. And so I kind of like flexing different muscles and I like challenging myself, you know, with an edit and especially when we're doing as much as we do, it's fun to try something completely different. And, um, that's the first we're going to make. And all I can, I can tell you that we already have multiple witnesses lined up. Actually, I just received an email from a Michigan dog man witness like yesterday. Oh my God. I thought you were going to say, I just got an email from the Michigan dog. From the Michigan dog. So he's going to be in the movie. He has notes. He sent you his dates. He's, he's, he's got notes about production. I had Heather get in touch with him. And I'm like, Oh, you can, this is the stipend. All right. So, uh, what else? So you got a kinder hook and you've also got what's, what's next. The kinder hook creature and, uh, from the beyond. And I only put those together because they're going to be shot the same week, which is in June. Kinder hook in Bennington triangle area of Vermont are relatively close to each other within a couple hours. So we're going to, we'll probably spend like three days in one place and three or four days and the other. So kinder hook is the sort of story I've been wanting to get back to for quite a while. Um, it is kind of a return to that Minerva monster beast of white hall, intimate, small scale, big foot sighting story. I don't know if you're picking up on a theme yet, but all the movies we're putting out this year, except for Abe Cannon, I guess, cause that's Eli doing his thing, but all the movies I'm doing are kind of like throwbacks to older movies. And I kind of purposefully was doing that cause it's our 10 year anniversary. So kinder hook is like my throwback to the Minerva white hall era. So, you know, it's about the town of kinder hook, New York, where, by the way, uh, one of my all time favorite stories was born, the legend of sleepy hollow. It's got a little bit of everything, but it's mostly about a family, the Hallenbeck family who encountered a, uh, Bigfoot like creature on their property late 1970s, late 1970s and into the eighties. They actually have a recording that was done on tape cassette tape in the eighties of like this weird cry that was recorded on their property kind of unsettling. I wouldn't call it like a baby crying. Yeah. Just this very odd sort of ongoing cry that, that you can actually hear it in our movie on the trail of Bigfoot, the journey, but it's a story I've wanted to cover forever. And like I said, it's got a little bit of everything cause there's more to it, to it than just a Bigfoot story. There's, uh, in the sixties, there were sightings of this creature called the blob. Um, which is. I saw some of that today was doing a little background on this and I was like, it looks like a schmoo. Nobody's going to remember what schmoo is, but like. No, I do. Yeah. It's this, it, it looks like a blob. Yeah. It's a good name for it. Yeah. Yeah. I found a picture of it like hiding behind a tree. It's like a blob hugging a tree. Like what is that related to the, to the. So no. Yeah. Supposedly not. Supposedly it's not related to the kinderhood creature because they're two very different looking creatures. Yeah. I can't remember if Bruce, Bruce might think they are related, but knowing Bruce, Bruce is into the weird. Right. So now just for, for our listeners, this is Bruce Hollenbeck. It's his family and you published his book, Small Town published his book, right? Yeah. On this. Yeah. And he's going to be part of the film. Yeah. Bruce, I've known for a while, but by the way, like Bruce, I don't know, Bruce writes books about like hammer horror and stuff. The dude's awesome. Right. If you look at Bruce Hollenbeck on Amazon, he's got all sorts of like really cool genre books about genre film. Right. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. He's super cool. But the story is that sort of like, like I said, it's like the small intimate kind of like Bigfoot case that I've been wanting to get back into for a long time. None of these are going to involve us like trooping around in the woods, trying to find Bigfoot. If people want to see that, go to our YouTube channel. Right. Right. There's also a mystery lights involved in that story and some UFO stuff as well. There's ghostly hauntings. And then, like I said, this is Kinderhook is where technically we're sleepy hollow. Yeah. Washington Irving said he took his story from there. Like some of the characters and stuff. Yeah. The actual story is super cool. He was staying with some former president. Yeah. Or some. Oh, yes. Martin Van Buren. Martin Van Buren. Yes, that's right. Yeah. While he was staying there, there was like a spindly schoolmaster who was staying in the same house. And supposedly that's who he based the character of Ichabod Crane on. Right. Or at least that's the popular telling of it. But I adore the legend of Sleepy Hollow. I've been to Sleepy Hollow. I went to the old Dutch church. One of my favorite creepy stories that has happened to me is in Sleepy Hollow. So Legend of Sleepy Hollow is actually in my bucket list movie. That's like why I have to make something about that. Yeah. Ichabod Crane supposedly based on a rural school teacher, Jesse Merwin. But what is your creepy story that happened there? It involves my son. It involves Tommy and he was only two at the time. And we were in Sleepy Hollow and we were at the old Dutch church and it was sundown. This was in winter. Or early spring, I mean. But anyway, we're there and the sun was already setting, even though it was only like six o'clock. And I was frantically trying to find Katrina Van Tassel's grave. I just wanted to see it. Right, right. And Tommy pulled away from his mom and took off running. And that kid was fast as the flash at the age of two. And so we're running after him. And he runs until he just comes to a dead stop and turns toward this grave. And I come running up. I go, buddy, what are you doing? And he goes, what's she doing there? And he says, what's she doing there? And so I look down and he's pointing at Katrina Van Tassel's grave. Wow. One of the odder or more unusual things. Wait, so he was two? Yeah, he was about two and a half. And what did he mean? Was he reading? I can't remember. I mean, my son's 16. I can't remember. No. Was he reading at that point? Oh, no, no. No, so he knew it was, but he knew it was a girl. He wasn't pointing directly at the grave is what's creepy about it. Okay, okay. He was kind of pointing near the grave. Yeah, he wasn't asking, what's this headstone doing here or this grave? You think he saw a figure there. I don't know, dude. I'm creeped out by the ghost stuff. I don't want anything to do with it. Oh, we found your Achilles ghost. You did. You definitely did. Wow. Yeah, that's one of the creepier things that's happened to me. So cryptids, no, not so much. Ghosts and spirits, that kind of thing. It really, really gets you. Don't give me that. Okay. You know, nothing happened to me there, but it sticks with me so much. One of the freakiest, scariest kind of, or somber, overwhelming places for me that I've ever been was a cemetery on Cape Cod. On the western side of Cape Cod, I have a friend with a house in Sandwich, West Sandwich, and there's a cemetery there. Naturally. Yeah. And there's a cemetery there that like 80% of it is children that died in the Spanish flu. Yeah, I hate that. You're just walking. It's just overwhelming, overwhelming, like, or yeah, just makes me think about that. But my family property down in Bryson City, there's a bunch of the kids passed away from the Spanish flu. Yeah. So it's, when you go there, that's kind of unsettling because those are relatives of mine. Oh, yeah. Ancestors. Yeah. Well, all right. So you got this project and then the Bennington Triangle, which for folks who don't know, there's been a lot of disappearances there. It's UFOs. It's got everything. It's a hot spot. It's UFOs, cryptids. Pterodactyls. Yeah. According to Paul Bartholomew, who lives in Whitehall, New York, and is sort of one of the Whitehall figureheads, he told me that there was a pterodactyl sighting. I see. I love the giant birds. Oh, so do I. Yeah. We did the Van Meter Monster, like, I guess it was last year, I think, or maybe just the year before. But love those stories. Just flying dinosaurs. Terror in the skies. Yeah. Yeah. Terror in the skies. Another great offering. But some of those, which seem to be, I guess you could put your finger on more. Is that why you're maybe not as scared? Again, your view on Bigfoot in that it's just some kind of ape that's just been out running in the woods. Or perhaps there's a few nests of pterodactyls here and there. Or is it something that is more tangible to you, why you're not as creeped out by them as you are ghosts, perhaps? You know, what's funny is growing up, my parents owned an old building in downtown Bolivar that was built in the very early 1800s and still stands today. And we all experienced stuff in that building. And I don't remember being creeped out. Like, we actually used to joke that there was something, there was an unsettling vibe in the basement. But whatever was down there we said was evil. And then whatever was in the upstairs in the attic was fine. But I don't know what it is about the ghost thing. The older I get, the more creeped out by it. Or maybe it's not even creeped out. It's just I don't want to engage with it. I think that might be it. But I think it's because it's almost, you're never going to understand it either. Yeah. I don't think we're ever going to understand that phenomenon in particular, even though I think they're all probably connected. So it might be that. I don't know. When you say you think it's all connected and you talk about that sort of big picture thing, do you, where are you on UFOs and aliens and all that crap? And do you think that that's part of it? This is, you know, a subject that we're getting a lot more buzz with. It's something's winding up here for some kind of a reveal that's going to let you down or freak you out. As a filmmaker and documentarian, where do you, yeah, where do you stand on that? How's your belief changed on that? Well, UFOs and UIPs, I'm like, I don't, can I just call them UFOs? I really don't like UIPs. When it comes to UFOs, like, I think there's a few different things going on there. I think there's our own military. I think there's foreign militaries that are, or foreign governments that are testing aircraft that we don't know about. I'm all on board with that. And then I think there's an actual phenomenon at play. I don't know what the origins of it are. I think it's probably not super friendly to us. And I think it ties into all the other stuff, you know, like the dog man. As weird as that, I know that sounds nuts, but like, that's where I'm at. Mystery lights, the UFOs, dog man. I think there's some sort of connecting factor between all those in particular. Right. And there was a wow moment. I'm trying to remember, was it on the trail of UFOs? I think you were looking to capture something on camera. The whole team says, we just got it. We were thinking about something or we looked for something in the sky. And they captured something that was phenomenal. That happened a couple of times. So we had an incident on the Chestnut Ridge. And then there was an incident in Sedona. Oh, there was another incident. We were with a lady that was doing, what was the Greer? The E-SETI, yeah. Or CE5, the CE5. Yeah, CE5. We were with her in New Hampshire. And she was doing the whole ritual thing. And something did pop into the sky over us. I mean, literally just appeared there. And that was pretty unsettling. I think that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. What was the name of that in that episode or that production? So folks might find it. That's on the trail of UFOs. Season one. Season one. It's on Tubi. And I think it might be on Amazon. It's on our YouTube as well. Okay. No, that's one where, like I said, where sometimes you ask for a performance and you get one. And then sometimes you go out there and you can spend weeks and get nothing. Yeah, but the scary thing about that ask for a performance thing, sometimes it follows you. Yeah. And that's the part where I'm like, I don't. Not into that. I'm not into it. We interviewed a guy who was involved in Invasion on Chestnut Ridge, Barry. I don't remember his last name, but he was an old school Bigfoot UFO researcher. And he investigated this stuff for years, looked into all of it, and eventually felt like it was following him. And he started to have missing time events. He started to have like abduction scenario stuff. And that's creepy. But then it got to the point where it started hitting his own family. Yeah. And he was raising his grandson, and his grandson started having physical ramifications of potential abduction scenarios. And he burned all of his research and walked away for good. The fact that I got him to be in the film was entirely because of Stan Gordon begging him to do it. You know, we have heard over the years a lot of stories about researchers from different branches of the paranormal who have come to that point as well, which is interesting. Just like a, I'm out, I'm done, I'm good kind of situation. Yeah. But I mean, he burned it. Yeah. And I don't, I don't know many people that literally, you know, burn their own, and he had files. I mean, Stan told me, I have files and files of stuff he just burned. Yeah. Maybe give them away or get it to somebody that could use it. But I wonder if Stan has a continuity plan there. Well, Stan's is a nightmare. His garage. Yeah. I can imagine. Is floor to ceiling. Yeah. Mark and Andy Matske had talked about wanting to do like a Stan Gordon file show. Stan's garage. That's the name right there. Stan's garage. Where they go through his files. Yeah. You know who else is like that is Don Keating from here in Ohio. He's a Bigfoot researcher, an old school Bigfoot researcher. And he's got 20 plus years of this. No, that's, I was talking to somebody the other day about George Knapp too. All these guys have so much stuff and it's like, what's going to happen to it? Like somebody needs to put a plan together. It's like, it's funny because I went, when I started out in post-production, I was a vault manager and it's never left me. It's like, what are we going to do with this media? You know, like these files, they have to be. Well, it's important because it's got to be preserved somehow. Yeah. It's disconcerting to me, but it would be a cost intensive thing. Even if you were to get a storage unit somewhere or something, it's like, ultimately it should be digitized and all of that kind of stuff. But that's also not the ultimate backup because, you know, whatever, EMP can destroy servers and whatever. But like, it's one of those things that does kind of keep me up at night. My favorite Knapp story is, I don't know Knapp beyond doing coast to coast a few times with him. And then when I was making on the trail of UFOs and night visitors, we would text back and forth, which texting with George Knapp is like one of the brag things. Oh yeah. A few humble brags I have. Backdoor brag. But my favorite thing was I had sent him an email or no, no. He called me. He called me when I was making night visitors because I asked him to be involved in it. And he's like, dude, I just don't think I'm going to add anything to this. So, but he's like, I want to share as much of the research I have on cattle mutilations from Colorado with you as I can. I'm like, great. And he's like, I'll start sending stuff in the email here shortly. And I'm like, okay. And then, you know, we talked for a couple of minutes, I get off the phone. I'm like, I'm never going to hear from him. Right. And then I start getting emails and it's, you know, it's email after email and he's sending me photos and articles and things like that. But the, he titled the subject line of the, of the, uh, I still have it. The subject line of his first email and it's still, you know, obviously it was all through the thread was mutilations. So it was like M O O O O and then, it's like, you know, that, that fits. That's better than Scott who would send a, you used to send like an important email or a chain of them and the subject line would just be, wow. It's like, okay. How do I search that later with the, for the content? I'm the same way though. I hate subject lines. Yeah. Half the time I don't even put anything in there. Well, Seth, we want to thank you for taking the time to come on the show. We're really excited about 2025 for small tail monsters. You guys are really doing a lot of amazing work and, uh, we're glad to call you a friend. Oh, I guess, uh, I know folks are going to ask about this. I was looking on the website. I didn't see anything about monster fest 2025. It's that's not on the books right now, or. I mean, the thing is we, we actually own something, the trademark or something on monster fest. So at some point we'd love to bring it back, but yeah, for 2025, it's off. We are looking at, you know, maybe doing a smaller scale event at like the Canton Palace theater or something like that. But yeah, there's something cries out for something to be done because that was such a, for those two years, it was such a great way for people who are interested in, in any of this to, to come together. And I know there's other cons there's another festivals, uh, Kelly Hopkinsville and, and, uh, you know, Kecksburg and everybody's got their own festivals. But I think for people, like I said, I always see, uh, in this entire genre, there's teams of people. I was, I, from the beginning, I told Scott, it felt like a little like cannonball run where everybody's we're at our own car. I don't know if we're in the ambulance with Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, Scott, but, uh, or the, or the Nissan, but, uh, you know, it's like you have the small town monster crew and our Venn diagrams overlap of being friends and people we know. And then, you know, then you'll have people like the, the hell year crew, Greg and Dana and, you know, Connor, Carl, Tyler, and those folks. And we kind of know them, but not as well. And there's these people that are making headway into research and covering all this stuff. And then there's the singular individuals that we all kind of borrow from like Stan Gordon, but we have, I think it's a community that needs something more, I don't know, cohesive to get together about and, and just kind of come together just to see each other and for people to hang out. And so that's what Monster Fest was for, for two years. And, and, uh, it was a great venue and, uh, you know, these things are really hard to keep going. They're really, I know from, uh, my years in event production, it's, it's something that's very hard and difficult to do and also to pay for and keep viable, but, uh, it would be great. Yeah. Not to put this, uh, the responsibility on you, but I'm just saying that it was, it was wonderful though. Yeah. I just heard people to, you know, I get, I get in our circles here at our overlapping diagrams that could come together and just hang out. That what you said is so spot on too, because like I, the number of people that came up to me at that event and they were like, this is what I've been wanting. Yeah. It's like this kind of event. And even people who go to, because there are some decent, like cryptic con events around the country, but there was something special about the vibe of monster fest where people just enjoyed hanging out and talking to each other. Everything was so positive. Yeah. I loved being able to do it and I want to be able to do it. I want to be able to do it here, you know, where we are. And that's the big thing. So until a venue that's like actually affordable turns up, that's going to be our big thing. Right. Well, keep us posted on that. You don't have to automatically invite us because you know, you don't want to have the same people every year, but no, that was really important to me to have you guys and Jim Harreld. It really was like that. That was like for me, cause you two and Jim were kind of there at the beginning. Yeah. And, and, and beyond that, I was a Jim Harreld fan. I used to listen to Jim and medical billing and still listen to him today. And, and the same with you guys. And so like my plan was to have you there every year. If I could convince you to do it year after year, that, that was the plan. So. Well, that, that's why I say we look back and all the people we had just met at whatever function we go to and they're turned up to lifelong friendships and some collaborations and, and just sharing of knowledge because again, this is not, this is not something that's yet mainstream. Perhaps if there's some big global news event that happens, people might start turning an eye to it to be more serious and like, Oh, now we're forced to pay attention to all this weirdo woo woo stuff. But until then it's like, yeah, we're, we're the group here. That's that shares that and find some fraternity and, and you know, the bonds you make with people, I think those, those last and hopefully we'll all be doing this in the, in old age and keeping an eye on the skies and out in the woods. I couldn't agree more. Cause some of the, some of the friendships I've made, first of all, I wouldn't have expected some of the friendships I've made and then to have some of the friendships I've made last, as long as they've had, you know, including you guys. I mean, we did that on the trail of Bigfoot, the ancients last year in North Carolina. And it's a movie that like sort of explores my dad's family, you know, in Bryson city. And then it obviously also talks about Bigfoot, but while we were there, you know, my dad was eight months removed from my mom's death, you know, and he kept getting real emotional on this trip. And part of it was being around us, like the STM folk. And then like Micah Hanks was there and Russ Jones was there and, and Matt Pruitt was there. And he like, he really enjoyed being around all these people that he didn't know, but everyone was so nice. We're all talking and communicating with each other and having fun. And it meant a lot to him in a weird way. And it gave me a greater appreciation for some of those friendships that I've had, you know, with some of those guys and, and, and the fact that those friendships have lasted as long as they have monster fest is good for things like that, for sure. I mean, I don't, I don't, I definitely don't devalue the, the positives of it. Well, thanks again for joining us on astonishing legends. We're expecting you back and we want to hear about everything weird that happens to you this year on the various shoots or any of your other crew. And, um, you know, hopefully nobody else gets injured and, uh, I promise not to make it six years. Uh, yeah. From now. Yeah. I can't believe that. Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. It's wild. But, uh, thanks again for coming on Seth. And, uh, we can't, we can't wait to watch all the projects you guys have coming out. Thanks guys. Thank you so much. That's going to wrap up episode 303 of astonishing legends. A very special thank you to our guest and friend, Seth Breedlove. Normally there would be a dark week coming up, but since I was sick last week, we'll be back with a new episode next week too. So keep an eye on your feeds. Look for new episodes of the dead letter office weekly on Tuesdays as well. Astonishing legends is edited by Sarah Voorhees-Wendell at VW sound. Our co-producer is Tess Feifel, who also leads our research efforts and manages our social media, and we're grateful for the hard work of our technical producer, Ed Vakola, behind the scenes. Special thanks to our announcer, John Bolin, for lending his voice to our shows. I'm Susie. Hi, I'm Christopher G. Brown. Hi, I'm Daniel Sharp. Hi, I'm Grace, and I give permission to astonishing legends to use my voice however they see fit. Galaxy wide in perpetuity. I understand this is with no recompensation. Our theme, which is available as a ringtone, was composed by Judson Crane at FounderMusic.com. All other music and sound design for the show is composed and created by Alan Caressia. Our logo was created by Tommy Beaver Design, and our animated graphics for social media and YouTube are done by Joshua Sloan at DeadStreetProductions.com. Many episodes have transcripts available. For ones that don't, you can request them by emailing transcripts at AstonishingLegends.com. Astonishing Legends would not be possible without you, our listeners. Visit our store at AstonishingLegends.com or interact with us and other listeners on Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, Discord, and YouTube. You can also visit us at Patreon.com slash AstonishingLegends, where patrons have access to commercial-free versions of both the main show and the Dead Letter office, as well as additional bonus content, including the Patreon-exclusive show, The Astonishing Junk Drawer. No part of this show may be reproduced anywhere without permission. Copyright Astonishing Legends Productions. Good night. Protein bars often feel like you're choosing between taste and nutrition. If it tastes good, you flip it over only to discover it's made with a whole paragraph of ingredients you've never heard of. Or artificial sweeteners are doing all the heavy lifting. It's basically dessert in disguise. You shouldn't have to choose between tasty and nutritious. And that's what makes Aloha stand out. Aloha protein bars nail the delicious and nutritious. They're USDA organic and made with ingredients that actually grow somewhere. It's their whole taste-that-grows philosophy. 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This is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. Success starts with your drive. And American Public University is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh, or pursuing a lifelong passion, our programs are designed for people who never stop. You bring the fire, APU will fuel the journey. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. Protein bars often feel like you're choosing between taste and nutrition. If it tastes good, you flip it over only to discover it's made with a whole paragraph of ingredients you've never heard of. Or artificial sweeteners are doing all the heavy lifting. It's basically dessert in disguise. You shouldn't have to choose between tasty and nutritious. And that's what makes Aloha stand out. Aloha protein bars nail the delicious and nutritious. They're USDA organic and made with ingredients that actually grow somewhere. 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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. Success starts with your drive, and American Public University is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh, or pursuing a lifelong passion, our programs are designed for people who never stop. You bring the fire, APU will fuel the journey. Learn more at apu.apus.edu. I'm U.S. Transportation Center. Secretary Sean Duffy. We all seem to be in a rush these days, from work to driving our kids around. But when you're behind the wheel, please, do not speed. A few minutes saved by going faster is never worth the risk. So follow the speed limit. Enjoy the drive. Maybe bring some snacks for the kids. And know that along the way, you're getting quality time with your family. Paid for by NHTSA. 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