transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:02] Hey there, thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 2:
[00:04] You're ready for another episode of My Bigfoot Sighting?

Speaker 3:
[00:08] All right then, let's do this.

Speaker 4:
[00:52] If you've had a Bigfoot Sighting and would like to be a guest, please go to mybigfootsighting.com and let me know.

Speaker 3:
[00:59] My Bigfoot Sighting all happened in Southern Ohio. My name is Wes Ruth, and I am an investigator with the BFRO, and I'm also a member of the Northern Kentucky Bigfoot Research Group, and that group is headed up by Tom Shea out of Kentucky. I began my Bigfooting journey actually in Kentucky. I growing up, I was an adamant disbeliever in Bigfoot or almost any cryptid. I had seen some shows on TV that I was really kind of curious about, one of them being the Jersey Devil, the Pug Wadji. I thought they were really interesting, but I didn't really believe in Bigfoot at all. I didn't see how it would be possible for a creature to be that large and exist in our modern world. You know, with all the cameras that we have, with all the people that traverse the woods, the squatters that live in the forest, there was just no way that a cryptid that large could exist on earth in this day and age. I didn't discount the fact that there could have been a Bigfoot at one point in time, but I thought the whole idea was ludicrous. I wasn't even skeptical. I was just hardcore adamant this thing cannot possibly exist. You couldn't have shown me any evidence and may have accepted it. And I believe that's part of where we are today with the scientific community. It seems like there is an unwillingness to accept an abundance of evidence, and it may be just the same lines of thinking that I was going through. I really don't know, but my father, who's Dusty Ruth, he leads the expeditions for the BFRO in Ohio. He had called me and asked me if I would go on an expedition with him in Kentucky with the KBRO. That group is headed up by Charlie Raymond. And I reluctantly agreed to go. I assumed, well, nothing's going to happen. I'm just going to go camping. And then that's going to be pretty much it. Maybe someone might hoax. I don't know. Try to give people a story to tell. I wasn't really sure what to expect. But leading up to the expedition, an attendee that's a regular, or I assume he still is, but he was a regular at those expeditions. His name is John Gregory. He had sent me a friend request. And he was very welcoming when I got there, greeted me with a smile. Everyone down there just seemed very, very friendly, very passionate about what they were doing. They really were adamant about their beliefs. And I got along with the people really well. I tried not to judge anyone based on their beliefs. I was honest about not believing. But I kind of took things in stride. And as the weekend progressed, I just began hearing and talks and lectures and hearing people talk. Some people even discussed topics like the forestry, how the government has began doing conservation efforts and what those efforts included. And I thought that it was a really nice presentation because it wasn't just Bigfoot facts. I was hearing more scientific arguments and about things that weren't cryptid. And it really resonated with me. And I thought that was a really nice relief. But there was a night that we went on night ops and we went to a location not all that far from base camp. And on this drive, the ground is, it's a very hilly area. But this road that we're on, the area around the road begins to get narrower and narrower until the road begins to enter in an area that is on a knoll. And surrounding the knoll is a very deep valley. And outside of that valley is a large hill. So the area we've sometimes referred to it as being like a fish bowl. Once we exited the vehicles, within two minutes, there was a knock to the north that was easily within 100 yards, maybe even within 50 yards of our location. And it wasn't two or three seconds after that knock to the north, that there was the sound. The best way I could describe it was a decent sized tree being pushed over. And when I heard the knock, and I had seen the people at the expedition, I saw what teams they were going with. I don't even think I've ever admitted this to anyone, but I was studying the other people, trying to memorize who was going with what group, what people were staying at base camp, so I could take stock of exactly where everyone was in this area. Because again, I didn't know if someone was gonna hoax and bring about an experience for people or what was going on. But I heard this knock and the sound of this knock. It's an issue that we sometimes bring up today, but it doesn't come up a lot. It is the home run knock. I know if you find a stick in the woods, you're going to be pretty hard-pressed to slam it against the tree and make a sound like that. It's really like a maple baseball bat hitting a ball in a professional setting, and it's existing somewhere around 50, 100 yards away from me. So it was really close and I didn't see how a person could make that sound, and I knew no one else was in that area. I had studied a topographic map, so I knew the terrain behind that area before we went, and it just wasn't logical that a person was back there. So we heard the knock and then the sound of what I would describe as a medium to large tree coming down, and then not too long after that, there is a single deer that comes into our vicinity, stays near us, which is atypical. I'm not saying that deer do not approach human beings, but it's pretty rare that they do that, especially if you're not offering food, you're not offering shelter. The tips of a deer's ears being bent down might be a sign of malnourishment and great distress. None of those things happened. We didn't have food. You know, the tips of the deer's ears weren't pointed down. But the deer, as it came close to us and it just stood there, it kept turning its head, looking to the hill that surrounded the knoll and would check different spots periodically. And it was acting frantic about being, what I would describe as being paranoid. And I didn't see a Bigfoot in Kentucky at this point in time. Actually, I haven't seen a Bigfoot in Kentucky. But it was just a very, very bizarre incidence. And from a perspective of the non-believer, I could no longer just look at this and say, well, it can't be a Bigfoot. There's no such thing. There was actually substance to it. And despite not seeing it, it opened my eyes to the possibility of there being a Bigfoot or being multiple Bigfoot in the woods. It was just a really interesting experience. And it was honestly kind of fantastic, even though I wasn't at this point, I wasn't a hardcore non-believer. I was in the realm of being skeptical. I just needed more proof. The next morning, we woke up, and I believe there were two people who had heard a Bigfoot near camp. When I sleep, I am dead to the world. Absolutely. You might have to shake me to wake me up. But one of those people I believe was was Ron. Ron Leatherman. He had pointed to an area in the woods. It was about 30 yards away from where his tent was set up, and they had heard sounds. They heard something come into camp. I didn't really know what to think about it because again, I didn't hear anything that night. I didn't see anything. So, they announced, Tom Shea was at the expedition, and they announced that he was going to lead a small team out into the woods to try to find some tracks. It didn't seem a lot of people were going to participate. I didn't know if they had something else that they wanted to do, or if they were going to take a nap, or what the circumstance was. But, my dad wanted to go. He thought this would be an incredible experience. So there was myself, my dad, Dusty Ruth, Ben Enrich Taylor, Steve was going, Jim Wilcox was going. So, Tom Shea led us out in the forest in a formation of a V. Tom Shea was a tracker. He was in the army, and he led us out looking for tracks. And I ended up being the first person to find an impression in the ground that Tom Shea after evaluating it and said, Yeah, this looks like a Bigfoot. The one side detail to this was that it wasn't a full impression of a foot. It was only about, I would say, a quarter of the foot at most. And my father had casting powder and asked me if I wanted to cast it. And I said, no. Today, I look back at it and realize if I had found it today, I would have cast it. But at the time, I just said, no, that's OK. I don't really want to cast it. But from that individual track, Tom was able to get a bearing and track where this Bigfoot had walked. And I ended up seeing the very next impression in the ground. I believe he found that one, the next one, and it was actually the full foot. And I thought, wow, this is incredible. And they found, I believe, maybe four more. I could be wrong about that. But after seeing all these tracks and seeing how they were individually different, it wasn't something you could have taken a mold and made. And so the whole experience really started opening my eyes to there quite possibly is such a thing as a Bigfoot. It would have been one thing if the tracks had been all the exact same size and the exact same shape, the toes in the same position. But every single impression in the ground was unique. And if someone would have been out in the woods making these tracks, I would have known. It was just an incredible weekend. Charlie Raymond was a really good host. And it was so awesome to meet all these people that, quite a few of them became really close friends of mine. And my father is still close friends with probably most of them that attended. It was just a really cool experience, really cool people, and a really cool place. We ended up coming back to his expeditions a few more times over the years. And I don't know how many outings my father had been on up to this point. But this was, I believe, late April of 2019. The next outing that I went to was two months later in June of 2019. And up until this point, my father had never seen a Bigfoot, and he had been out quite a few times looking for Bigfoot. He was a firm believer in Bigfoot. He watched all the shows. And when I say all the shows, I truly mean all the shows. And I used to laugh about it. I thought it was the most ridiculous thing. I mean, I'm so opposite. I don't even watch TV. That's how opposite I am. I don't believe in Bigfoot. I'm not going to watch the show. Are you seriously watching this, Dad? Well, we went on the expedition in Ohio that was hosted by the BFRO. So, this is two months later. And the very first night, my father is leading a team. And on this team, there are some other people that are BFRO. One of them is Lori. John Gregory came. Amazing guy. I got to hang out with him again. We had a few more people on the team. And we ended up going to a place that was a trailhead. This is in Southern Ohio. And all of my sightings are in Southern Ohio. It's not that Northern Ohio. You can't see Bigfoot up there because you can, absolutely. There have been some reports of sightings recently in Northern Ohio. I live in Southern Ohio, and it's just a fantastic place to have an experience. A really homely area. I love the hills. I love the forest down here. It's just home. So we're on a trailhead set up, but it's pretty deep in the forest. And if I remember correctly, you don't even have cell phone service in this area. I mean, we are in the sticks. So as soon as we pull into this area, we set up our chairs in a circle, all facing each other, so we can look over each other's backs and shoulders to make sure we can see what's going on around us. And I believe there are seven of us in this group. And we begin hearing very gentle footfalls in the forest. And one of the incredible things and frustrating is that some of the loudest sounds you'll hear in the forest that come from an animal are going to be the smallest, the squirrels, they're going to tear things up and chipmunks and really cause a racket. But it's just so amazing that something so large could be so quiet. Occasionally when a Bigfoot was walking, the footfall, the foot actually managed to land on a small stick and you'd hear a little snap and it could have been a large stick as well because of the possible foot padding. All that fat mass on the bottom of the foot dampening the sound of a 600 to a 1000 pound being could really dampen that sound. So it got our attention and at first, the footfalls were happening very slowly and sporadically seemed to come from one very general area. Definitely within 50 yards of us, but we really didn't see anything. There was a lot of vegetation, quite a few trees in the area. On one side of the trailhead, where all the sounds were coming from, the other side of the trail starts to go down and gets a little bit more steep and more steep as it goes down the hill. And on the other side of us, as soon as you clear the trailhead, the terrain, it's fairly flat, but you have to go up a hill, maybe five, ten feet. But then it gets gently rolling. But all these sounds were coming from down the hill. And then a few minutes later, out of nowhere, things begin getting thrown. At first, we begin to think that maybe there's debris falling out of the trees. It happens, but being June, isn't really the month that we expect a lot of debris falling. In the fall, definitely. I've heard so many walnuts and acorns coming down in the fall. It gets loud very quick. But being in June, we didn't really expect it. We thought it was natural because there were so few coming down at first. But then when we began to figure out that they're actually being thrown, that was a game changer for us. Well, more acorns get thrown, and one of these acorns managed to hit a kid that was on our team. His name is Wyatt. He was 14. He got absolutely pelted. I don't mean to laugh about it, but it was just the shock and surprise of him getting pelted. He hollered something out. I don't even remember. But it was funny. He didn't get seriously injured, but it was just the shock and surprise and how he handled it. It was just funny. Kind of funny. He didn't get freaked out, which is a really good thing. But after that, Wyatt brought his thermal with him. He had a FLIR, maybe a TK model, and he was scanning the area, and my father had his FLIR with him, and they were sort of sitting on opposite sides of the circle. So Wyatt was looking over my dad's back, and my dad was looking over Wyatt's back. A little while later, the footfalls began to get louder, and to me, it sounded like they weren't just occurring in one general area anymore. They were still happening where we first heard them, in the direction that the acorns were coming from, but they were also happening within maybe 75 yards of us in a different direction. So if one was happening, the majority of it was happening to the south. I began hearing footfalls happening off to the west. And then Wyatt exclaims while looking out of his thermal, I see a big foot. And my father doesn't, I don't know what he was thinking when he heard it, but you never know because some people have mistaken claims where they believe they see or hear something, but they're just mistaken about what it is. So my father just says, oh, really? Well, where is it? And my father is passing his thermal back and forth between him and I, so I can get a chance to look and kind of get a feel for the, for the monocular. And at this point in time, I have his monocular. So when my father asks Wyatt, where the Bigfoot is, Wyatt whispers to him, it's right behind you. And it really shocked my dad. That was kind of funny also. So at this point, Wyatt's the only one that's seen it. We don't know if that's exactly what he's seeing or not. But I decided to take a look and see if I can try to identify what Wyatt is looking at. And we are both, I believe, using white-hot settings. So I start scanning the area behind my father. And unfortunately, when you look through night vision and thermal monocular or any type of thermal camera, if you have a heat source or a large image in front of what you're trying to view, the background can get blurred out or get washed out because of the heat or the radiating light coming off of an object, you know, if you're using a night vision. But I end up looking around my father and I see a little bit of something on the side of tree, but I don't know what it is. It's sort of the same color of the tree in my mind. So I don't know what to think. The next thing I know is this white hot setting. If something is abnormally hot compared to its surroundings, it will be maybe like a pinkish or almost red. I see these dots that look like they're spaced about three inches apart in the area. And the seat signature was to the left of the tree. To the left of the tree, in that area, I see these two blazing hot little circles that are about three, maybe four inches apart. I can't tell. And then it's all of a sudden dawned on me. Wait a minute. If you view eyeballs through a thermal monocular, they're going to glow just like this is. I don't know if I stood up, but I know I was thinking about it because it just floored me because I'm thinking down this hill, there can't be a person down this hill. Something is standing there on two feet, peeking out behind a tree. And I know it's not human. And so, I am just absolutely blown away. And I just state to the group, I see it. I see what he's talking about. It's a Bigfoot. And I had asked my father if, so they asked me questions about how far away it is, how big it is. Of course, I have no idea. I've never seen this place in the light. I don't know the size of these trees. So I can't really answer many of the questions except the general area of where it is. So I asked my father if he wanted to look at it, and he did. Well, he tried to turn and couldn't see it. So I said, well, why don't you slowly stand up, come over to where I am, turn around, and I'll guide you to the area. So he did that and couldn't see it. Well, then I had to move his hand while he's holding the thermal to the area and then he saw it. And Wyatt, at the time, was recording with his with his flare. So we were able to obtain the footage from that the next morning. When we got back, well, more sounds were heard that night. And Wyatt was able to keep an eye on the Bigfoot. But while, when my father was done, he handed the thermal back to me, and I went back to where I was sitting. But Borey had kept reminding people to check the trees, check the area surrounding us because you don't always know what's going on on other sides of you. So you need to be aware of all of your surroundings, not just where you see a Bigfoot. So I began scanning in other areas and up the trail, about 75 to 100 yards away, I saw a different Bigfoot crossing the trail. And again, I saw the eyes glowing, and I could see that it was walking on two feet. And I was floored at how it moved. It was so bizarre because the feet were moving. Its head was pointed at me the whole time it was looking at me. But it was like its chest wasn't going up and down. If we were taking steps as humans, you might expect the shoulders to go up and down when we walk. But this thing wasn't doing that. And I could see the legs moving, but I couldn't see shoulders going up and down. So it really confused me. And I could hear more footfalls coming in from behind me. So the trail where I saw the Bigfoot crossing was to the west. Where I could hear footfalls happening to the north behind me and to the east. And in my mind, I'm thinking, well, there's several of them around us. And I can't see them, so I can't say that for certain. But to this day, I feel like it was possible that we saw two, and there were possibly two or three more that we didn't see around us. And that next day, we were interviewed by Mark DeWorth on what we saw and what occurred. And we went back to investigate the scene. And I believe that there were either four or five, maybe even six tracks that were cast at this occurrence. I know Kenny and Jack Brown found some tracks, and where everyone was going to the location where this, the majority of the people who saw the Bigfoot, they all, everybody doing the investigation went down there. I told Mary Ross to come with me, and we went up the trail, and I said there was a Bigfoot that was up here. So she ended up finding a track and casting it, and it was just incredible. So that was on Thursday night. Friday night, nothing happens for our group, except there was a large handprint found on the back of one of my father's jeeps. And we got a lot of photos of it. Then Saturday night, nothing happens at all. But it was a great experience. But Saturday, the meal was catered, and I was cooking with John Gregory all weekend for the expedition. And I was loading up on some of that food, and I had brought a lot of Pop Tarts. Supper comes around, we have a big catered meal, and I am stuffed. So I decide, well, I'm just going to take the food and leave it behind the gift. So we get ready to leave, and we go back to the same spot. But my father is telling me, I'll don't take that food with us. You know, you could attract more than you bargain for, which we actually did find out to be true. We came back a couple of weeks later, and a tree was torn up by a bear. And I took so many photos, I was impressed. So I'm glad I didn't take that food. But he convinced me to take a couple of tins of sardines and some foam balls from a presentation that my father gave about psychology, interviewing, and witnesses, their credibility. It was a really good presentation, but he handed out these foam balls. He had a lot of extra, so I took two of those with me. And I left the tin up there. I left the foam balls. Nothing happened, but we had a good time while we were up there. And that's what it's all about. You may not see or hear anything, but if you can have a good time with the people you're out, it's worth it. So I leave these items behind. We go back to camp. The next morning, everyone is saying their goodbyes. And one of the attendees comes up, and he knew that our team was up there at the same spot. And he asks about the area and it being all torn up. And I'm thinking, great, what did we do? And he went up there to gift also. But he had just done it before coming back to base camp. And when he told us the area was torn up, we decided to go up there and check it out. And we brought the evidence collecting pack with us. And Bo Bruns was pulling in, so we tell Bo to get in the car, let's go. So Bo comes with us, and Bo and I put on gloves, and we go up there, and something had torn one of the sardine tins open. Something had bit through the other sardine tin, and then the two foam balls, those had big chunks of them bitten out, chewed up, and the pieces spat back out. Both the balls were identical. So we collected all that, and then pieces of those ball, or pieces of one of the balls ended up being sent to a university for DNA testing. And then it subsequently ended up being transferred to North Carolina State University, where Darby Orca is doing a study. But it was just, it was incredible, because I had this experience in Kentucky. I heard a knock. I got to hear that the very first expedition was on. It sounded like a tree came down. I didn't see anything, but I saw some tracks. And then two months later, I got to actually see one. It was with a thermal, not with my own two eyes. Daylight, it wasn't that, but it was still incredible. It was absolutely amazing. I mean, I went from this thing cannot exist to, wow, these things are out there, man. It was just awesome. And so after experiencing that, I got a little bit heavy into casting. I was learning more about it. I was learning more how to do it. And it was, it was something that I could manage. My father had a lot of casting powder. And, you know, it was a cool way to collect evidence. And you're not going to have a sighting left and right, but you can still go out, keep your eyes peeled, you could find tracks. And it was just something I could really get a part of, that it didn't take a ton of money to do. There was some learning about it, but it was very manageable. And then my next experience was being at a private location in Southern Ohio again. It must have been only a few months later. We were out in a private area, and while there on the ridge line above us, we, my father and I were out and we were being paralleled. And we were kind of talking, maybe a regular volume conversation out in the forest. We're all alone out there, and there is a pause in the conversation, and we stop moving, and then we can hear up above us these steps, these footfalls occurring, and then they all of a sudden they stopped. And we both kind of noticed it, but we didn't say anything, so we continued on walking and talking, and then we could hear between our words. There were slight sounds up on the ridge. We never got to see anything, but it was just another really cool experience. And then when my father was a part of the Northern Kentucky Bigfoot Research Group with Tom Shea, and then I was invited to go and be a part of that group, we went down to Northern Kentucky to scout out a location. And while we were there, my father and I with Tom Shea, Tom wasn't going to be able to make it to the next outing, and he wanted to show my father this spot. So when the group was able to go, they would know exactly where it was. I got bored, just standing around. If we're in the woods, just standing around, looking around. While some conversations are going on isn't really my thing. I'd rather be doing something. I'm constantly on the move. So, they were having some conversation that was meaningful to them, and I just thought, well, if I'm in the forest, I might as well look around and take some photographs, see what I can see. And about 10 or 15 minutes later, I was absolutely floored because it is almost November. And to me, it looks like a little kid had been walking through the forest barefoot, and it had been pouring down rain recently.

Speaker 1:
[44:15] And I couldn't fathom.

Speaker 3:
[44:20] I mean, I know we're not in an urban area, but I can't imagine who would let their kid run around barefoot. So I took a photo, and I went back to where my father and Tom were standing talking. And I think they could tell by the look on my face that I had seen something. And Tom looked at me and said, what's going on? And I said, you wouldn't believe it, but there's been a little kid out here walking around the woods barefoot. And Tom said, what do you mean? So I showed him the photograph. And he said, you're kidding. And I said, no. So he said, well, that ain't a little kid. That's a juvenile Bigfoot. I was so shocked that he said that. And he said, well, where was it? So I walked over there and I think they drove back to the spot. And Tom got to looking at and studying the track. And he said, yeah, that is a juvenile Bigfoot. So then we had casting powder, but we didn't have water. So my father drove down the road to go get water. I don't know if he got it out of a creek or where he got it. But he comes back with water. So I start casting. And when I was casting, we're all just sitting in these lawn chairs waiting for the cast to set up. And we're using the hydro stone. So the process really heats up when it cures, but it's fairly cold. Well, it's not 30s, but it's pretty cool out. So it's going to take some time. So while we're sitting waiting on this, this track to set up, Tom looks over and said, well, there's another one. But this one was enormous. I had never seen a track this large. It was about, I want to say 21 inches of memory serves. And the ground was obliterated. This thing is literally four or five inches deep into the ground. I could not wrap my mind around what I was seeing. So we, we start casting that one. And I thought Tom was going to cast it. And he basically said, well, you need experience. He said, well, you can, if you want to cast, you can cast. You know, you get your experience in. I don't mind. So I, I cast it. And then we're waiting for that second one to set up and finish curing so we can remove it out of the ground. Tom looks over again.

Speaker 1:
[47:35] Well, there's another one.

Speaker 3:
[47:37] And to me, I had seen these holes in the ground. But I just thought someone drove back there. They started to get their tires stuck. And they end up throwing a bunch of debris out of the grass and just tore the area up. I didn't know what I was looking for. I'd only been bigfooting for, I don't know, seven, eight months. I'm not sure. But it's, it's, it's just unreal. And to this day, I occasionally dig those barge casts back out, just to, just to examine them. Just because at that point and in my Bigfooting period of my life, I, I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around around it, because there is one in Tom's area that has been named Goliath. And it's just, it still seems crazy to me that there is a being walking around in the woods, that is that massive. It's just awesome. It really is awesome. But one of the things that my father and I are into is LDRs, Long Duration Recorders. And this process involves taking parts and sometimes making your own. So you're going to set up a unit that you can put in the forest, where it is going to record audio for you. Your typical batteries are going to last you maybe a week on full strength. And you don't want to have to keep coming back out in the woods every week, grabbing your recorder and seeing what you got in the past seven days. You want to be able to set something out in the woods, come back a month later, maybe five, six weeks later, pick up your LDR, you can swap the batteries out, you can swap the SD card out, put new ones in and then take your batteries with you, plug in your SD card when you get home and see what audio you've got. And you can use a free software called Audacity and use a spectrogram where you can see what audio is being created out in the woods. You don't just have to listen to 8 to 10 hours a night, you can actually scan through it with your eyes and spot check your audio, see what's going on. So in our hobby, as of 2019, I believe that my father had one or two LDRs made for him. But once I got involved, he told me that I should start making them. So I think that we have made close to 21 LDRs for us. So far, we've had up to eight of them out at a time in the woods and various places, public land, private land, collecting a lot of audio over the years. And one spot in particular is where we have an incredible piece of evidence from. We went there to retrieve an LDR, and then take the batteries and SD card out of it, put new batteries in a new SD card in the LDR, and hang it back up in the woods. And that's fine. Well, at the time, we were using a GoPro that was attached to a helmet that at this point in time, I was wearing. Sometimes he would wear it, sometimes we'd mount it to our chest, but it got to be a lot easier and better for the video to have it on your head. Because if you're doing things with your hands, you could block the camera's view if it's attached to your chest. So just put it on a helmet, and I'm wearing it. I have to traverse this very steep hill to get down to the LDR, and then traverse the hill to come back up, change everything, and then bring it back down, then come back up. Well, on the trip down to place the LDR in the tree, I don't really know where my father is, but there are times when something is happening in the forest, and you need to get quiet, or you need to pay attention, and it can happen in a split second. Usually, he, my father, might say, hey, Wes, or might snap his fingers, but I'm more than 60 yards away from at this point, and I am trying not to fall while going down the hill, and the next thing I know is a rock whizzes past my head and hits the ground in front of me. So it comes from behind me, goes past my right ear, and then hits not only the ground, but it hits the ground that is within a foot of the tree that I hang the LDR in. So instantly, my mind does not go to Bigfoot. My mind goes to my father, thinking I need to get quiet. I'm making too much noise, or he wanted to get my attention, and I couldn't hear him, because I do have a little bit of a hearing problem on my left ear. So I thought, well, he wanted my attention. So I look up, try to find where he is, and I yell out, did you just throw a rock at me? And of course, he is far enough away that he can't hear a word I'm saying. So I keep my eyes on where the rock came from, and then realize it came from downhill. And somehow the rock was thrown, it arced and was coming down when it whizzed past my head. So it came from down far below me, and I knew my father wasn't down the hill. He was up on top of the hill. So then I get up there, I tell him about this experience, and I show him the video of it, and you can hear that rock whizzing past my head. But I fully believe they could hurt you in a drop of a dime. It wouldn't even be an issue. They could just do it, and then it would be a problem. But if they wanted to, I think they could have hurt me. But it was, I'm not gonna lie, at the time I was kind of peeved. I thought he threw a rock, and I didn't know why he would throw a rock, period. Plus, I don't know why he would, you know, get it so close to my head. But I was a little frustrated, and my line did not go to Bigfoot. It didn't go to Bigfoot until I realized the rock didn't come from on top of the hill, but it came from down the hill. So my next sighting was in September of 2021. It was at another BFRO expedition. It was also in Southern Ohio. Southern Ohio is a great place to see a Bigfoot. There are several states that have a lot of activity going on. I believe Pennsylvania is one of the big ones. Michigan is one of the big ones. Going out to the Pacific Northwest, you can see them. But it's just easy for us because we're in Southern Ohio. We know they're here. We know where they are. It's just incredible. So this expedition, I don't recall what night of the expedition it was, but the team leader was Laurie. Laurie had scouted out around this area and found a spot where we could set up for night ops. There were probably eight of us at this location this night. And while we were there, it had gotten dark. I had brought a small fire starter log. And she, I think, brought another fire starter log. I started one and it didn't do so well. And then she started another. And then within an hour of us being there, maybe 45 minutes, small rocks begin being thrown. We are on top of a ridge. And it was similar to the location in Kentucky, except the road end was a lot shorter. But everywhere around us, well, we're on a large hill. Everywhere around us decreases in elevation quickly. But rocks are being thrown up the hill from down below. And it seems like they are coming from different directions. At some points, we can hear rocks hitting, but we can't see the rocks hitting anything. We can't see where they bounce, but we can hear them hitting the ground, hitting other rocks. And then to our, I want to say, southeast, we hear footfalls, but they don't sound like Bigfoot. We hear these footfalls, and then we ended up seeing a deer. Again, it was a deer came up to us within 20 feet of us and just stayed there. This deer would not leave. Marsha Clark had a, at the time, she's an attendee. I don't believe that she was BFRO yet, but she had her thermal. And she was scanning. I believe I might have had night vision with me. I don't recall, but several members of the team had thermals. And eventually, we stood up and we began looking around the hill, and down at the bottom of the hill on the west side of the hill, at the bottom, Marcia claimed that she saw a bigfoot. It was standing amongst the trees, but it was not behind a tree. It was standing out and broad view was not trying to hide. So others of us in our group began scanning and saw what Marcia saw, and Marcia saw this bigfoot and was recording with her thermal. And we all got a really good look at this bigfoot, and I don't know what we did, but it is my opinion that we either because of the deer or something else we were doing, but it is my opinion that we upset this bigfoot. This bigfoot turns around, runs and storms all through the woods. And after that, we never encountered a bigfoot for the rest of the night. This bigfoot runs back towards base camp and we don't see it again. But this, oh, this was the last night of the expedition. I went out the next morning to pick up one of our LDRs at base camp. And I had seen it the day before, during the daylight. But now when I went to collect the LDR to take it home, it was gone, completely gone. And in its place, there was a marble on the ground. So I can't say that a Bigfoot decided to trade with us or what. I know others at the expedition found marbles on the ground in base camp. So I can't say what exactly that was about. But the whole thing was odd. And I do believe that we upset the Bigfoot. In May of 2023, we had been alerted, or my father had been alerted about a trackway in Southern Ohio. And the next day, we were able to go down and investigate the area. And over the next couple of days, I was able to go down independently. It takes a while to get down there. So I was traveling three hours and just to cast several tracks and come back and then do it again. And there has been a lot of outcry about the DNA studies and whether or not they were valid, what happened with those and what I can say through my process of being an investigator with the Northern Kentucky Bigfoot Research Group and being a part of the BFRO that as investigators and researchers, we need to do our part. We need to follow the scientific method. We need to collect evidence properly, store it properly, eliminate any potential part of contamination that could happen, and it's a process, it's frustrating, but we just need to remember the joy and the hobby, and just try to have a good time with it. If we have an experience that's great, you can come join us anytime at an expedition. You'll be lifelong friends with the people you meet. You'll learn a lot, you'll have a great time, and it's been really amazing to be a part of the Northern Kentucky Bigfoot Research Group and the BFRO. If nothing else, I can't imagine where my life would be if I hadn't had the opportunity to get out in the woods as often as I do now. So I've had a few experiences, and I've been able to share a couple with you. I had several more and was able to investigate further. And Southern Ohio, I can't say enough about it, and there's some other great places. And I appreciate you'd be willing to stick with me and hear some of my stories. So thank you.

Speaker 2:
[65:07] Well, that's it for tonight's show. If you've had a Bigfoot Sighting and would like to be a guest, please go to mybigfootsighting.com and let us know. Thanks for listening. Have a great night.