THC 102: Lyle Blackburn | Cryptozoology, Lizard Men, & Mysterious Monsters

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01:29 In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed a nation through a series of radio broadcast known as the Fireside Chats. His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times but we're far from 1930 and I deal with a different kind of fire For a new era of worldly frustration We offer a fresh conversation! Welcome back, Ironside Chatters. You know the drill... Smoke to the left of me, bottle to the right Here I am stuck in the middle with you From sunny San Diego, I'm Greg Carlwood and I have maintained a pretty lifelong interest in cryptozoology and cryptids which are terms for the elusive anomalous type of beings you hear about like Bigfoot Nessie The Mothman tons of others These types of beings have always been interesting to me In a real life monsters type way

02:25 Recently I've been leaning more towards the idea that they may be something more paranormal or multi-dimensional, but i have a hard time believing that the long history of strange sightings can all be reduced to mistaken identity Or attention seeking behavior and those explanations usually come from official sources anyway Which in today's world doesn't hold much credibility as we well know That said, the Money Bomb's going pretty well. We're at about $120 from about 10 donors out of the thousands listening so keep in mind that the Money Bomb keeps me working for you and allows me to give a nice chunk of change back to one of you guys This is the best system in podcasting I must say And I'm happy to hear Gramerica is on board I hope your notifying all the shows that you listen too To heed the call and start the program Let's undercut corporate sponsorship with empowerment of the people

03:15 I've also got a little app on the Hireside Chat's website sticking out from the right side where you can click it and leave a message to be played on the air, maybe strange sighting or bit of interesting news. Whatever you'd like but it would be nice to get some listener interaction outside just the Money Bomb updates So okay, it's about that time. Fill your glass park your ass and puff puff pass if you feel so inclined and let's dive into the weird world of cryptids with the master of mysterious beasts Lyle Blackburn Thanks for tuning in people All right, folks. Today we're going to get weird and examine some of the strange cases and creatures that round out the field of cryptozoology, the study of mysterious and unknown beings that have been cited over the years such as Sasquatch, Lizardman, Sea Serpents, Chupacabra, and a whole lot more. And today's guest is Lyle Blackburn, a leading cryptozoologist and lifelong enthusiast into these real life monsters. He's traveled deep into the backwoods in swamplands of America investigating sightings of one creature or another

04:17 He's also written extensively, many beastly blogs and articles as well. And two cryptid books the Beast of Boggy Creek The True Story of the Fouch Monster and also Lizard Man The True Story Of The Bishopville Monster Lyle my man welcome to the show Hey thanks so much for having me Yeah man it's a real pleasure There are So many stories of mysterious creatures and sightings that have happened over the years As a kid I was always really fascinated by them and i mean still am but I guess to get us started man, we could talk about your latest book on the Bishopville Lizard Man of all the cryptids. I think i'm more interested in stories that resemble lizard or serpent type beings other than say ape like creatures such as Sasquatch maybe because they're just more rare but give us a little history of the case what went down in Bishopville North Carolina?

05:08 Well yeah it's certainly one of those somewhat famous cryptozoology cases and it is certainly intriguing that involves something that people have dubbed the lizard man. You know there's a long history of Creatures like that you reported down to the ages but they are definitely more rare i mean you just know they're not like a deciding to bigfoot where you hear about something everyday so was an intriguing case from that point basically to summarize the bishop bill lizard man case. Around nineteen eighty eight in the summer,

05:44 People started reporting sightings of a creature living there in Bishopville is in South Carolina and the location was a place called skateboard swamp and it's just located kind of on the outskirts of Bishopville. Bishopville is very small town in Lee County and People began reporting seeing a creature that was around seven feet tall, it was humanoid. It walked upright on two legs some said they thought it had a tail some said you know they definitely did see a tail and it was you know said to have greenish or brown skin

06:25 The sheriff department down there that summer of eighty eight got a phone call from some residents who live near skateboard swamp in their they'd gotten up and come outside notice that their car had been basically. Vandalized or literally chewed up by an animal it appeared there was tracks and hair and looks like some kind of a scuffle went down which is really strange and the sheriff ended up going down there and looking into it, he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. But as they were investigating this some of the locals came up said well you know it could be The Lizard Man! And the Sheriff's like, the what? You know The Lizard man we've had some people around here that have seen a strange creature in the swamp and we call it The Lizard Man So that was first the Sheriffs office had heard about this and they were quit dubious of course but they said well something is going on her

07:18 You know if anybody has a sighting or information you have them come talk to us nobody's in trouble just come talk to us. Well it wasn't uh, a couple of days later before a father brought his 17 year old son into the sheriff's office and the boy's name was Christopher Davis and he had quite a story which basically he said that he had a flat tire out near Skateboard Swamp at about 2am And as he was just getting ready to put the tools away and take off he saw something coming at him in the moonlight. Was what you described is a red eyed green skin monster it had long claws and three fingered hands any basically scramble to get in his car drive offices thing jumped on top and attempted to get in the car,

08:15 And once they had seen the report come in the paper about the vandalized car, this guy Christopher Davis' father thought I better take my son down there and tell the sheriff because it may have something to do with what's going on. That is how it all got started and You don't when you read cryptos wall g books now you often get a summary of the story you know i mean it's something that lot of people know about when it comes to lizard man this was kinda one of the more famous cases because there was a lot. sensational details and of course an alleged attack on somebody. So basically what I did was look more closely into the case, went to Bishopville, interviewed the sheriff now retired and some people just kind of put together the whole entire story which has never really been told before

09:09 Yeah, it sounds pretty crazy. I mean this happened in...I think you said 88? Mm-hmm When was the last sighting of the lizard man? Well, you know there's been sightings in other places infrequently throughout but really the case just sort of blew up and disappeared very quickly. So the last sighting was around 1991 so it was something that you know with a short period time and something we call a flap in these type of investigations which suddenly

09:45 You know there may be the presence of some sort of animal or creature for several years and then it simply you know either moved on or disappeared died or whatever the case maybe so. It's not like this has continued long time so was very mysterious, Yeah, that seems to be in line with a lot of cryptid cases. They pop up like crazy for a short amount of time and then they go away but I guess outside this Christopher Davis account were there any other real detailed accounts or encounters with this lizard man that you found pretty compelling?

10:23 Yeah there were several and you know just to give a rough timeline when the sheriff investigated that chewed up car, that happened several weeks before Christopher Davis had his encounter. And as the police started to look around and try to ask people about this, a couple of guys came forward and said they had seen something down there even further back like a year or two prior. One guy said it was evening he was riding his bike up near skateboard swamp and there's just like artesian well where you can it just flows in need people go there

11:04 Get a drink or whatever he was standing there smoking cigarette any saw some sort of large creature standing on the other side of the road first thought it was a dead tree but then you realize to move in a car i was coming. And at that point it sort of backed off into the woods. Another local resident who had a sighting about a year before that said he was constructing a hog pen down near the swamp and saw a really strange creature darting between the trees during the day

11:42 And then following christopher davis is you know citing in the moving forward then you did have other people who saw it in that same time period. In fact air force colonel so i run across the road one night as he was returning home from a dinner and you know you would figure near force colonel wouldn't just be, Spouting the soft for no reason i mean he kept his name confidential but i am going down to bishopville i talk to this retired sheriff liston truesdale i was i had access all the police reports documents everything that i can look over and in a tremendous amount of newspaper. What is gonna got a ton of media coverage at the time so i kinda put the pieces together like that and so there was about ten or twelve,

12:32 What I thought were fairly credible sightings or incidents that went on at that point to suggest that you know there was something down there that people were seeing. Wow man, that is so crazy! I would love to see something like that but are these people describing it as more of an intelligent creature? Or more like a animal? Well i'm you know in christopher davis is case it seemed very animal like and you know that was always the pinnacle encounter because. You know we jumped on the car and it takes no display such aggressive tendencies me it was just wild,

13:15 A lot of the other people just saw it very briefly at ran across the road or you know between the trees are back to the tree line so. You know there wasn't enough witness data to really decide if the thing had much intelligence or not, which is another thing that kinda makes it intriguing cuz its always spookier when your talking about something that could have intelligence and of course if it walks up right it's You know humanoid you know you just your mind starts to wonder and now some of the later sightings in like ninety and ninety one they were kind a different because those people said, you got a good look at it or a creature in the headlights and they said it resembled something like a Sasquatch. They thought was brown and had hair on its body so

14:09 So you know which further kind of makes convolutes trying to figure out what it is but some of those were good sightings i had the witness reports that were written down literally the next day by a family of five people that saw very clearly at lunch did the car as they drove by so by all accounts its it's at least aggressive. But i can't say if it's intelligent so ironic that would be so aggressive and also so elusive kind of funny it's like a doesn't wanna be seen but if you see it is gonna try to kill you. Yeah yeah do strange me as all it just seems like for everything you start to try to compose hypothesis or theory there's some kind of a conflicting

14:59 Behavior which just makes it tough and you know i started to think maybe maybe there was no multiple animals that people saw in of course what once a location like that. You know they have a creature like this associated with it in the media gives it a name like the lizard man he doesn't matter you could be, no the best example of sasquatch walk right out into middle road your gonna be the wizard. You know what is now was one thing i was trying to sort out just what were these people seeing was it

15:36 You know scaly you know did it was a reptilian or no was it a big foot that. No was covered in algae are wet from the swamp you know me and a lot of ways you can go with it you don't have course there's always the, Stories that you know my cousin my cousin was a lizard man he dressed up in some elaborate costume is scared everybody and. You know things like that but those kind of things don't account for the entire phenomenon you can rule out that maybe one of those with a hoax or something i mean just no way to know but it's nothing that, when you start looking at all the pieces its nothing people could orchestrate like im going to set out to create this

16:18 Monster and you know it's not that much and fuck up people cars in the process right let's take a minute kind of far. Yeah i mean your criminal behavior jumping at cars is endangering your life and if it would have been a consistent costume if it was one costume, I think people would have had more consistent description of the true but descriptions were somewhat buried which led me to believe that he wasn't You know necessarily somebody with an elaborate costume that they would have used over and over and everybody woulda just said yeah it's definitely green in it you know whatever. So did they find any physical evidence at all, any tracks or anything from this creature? Yeah there were some tracks found one of the more famous trackways that was found was right around that time wasn't long after Christopher Davis had his encounter

17:18 The police were actually patrolling down there because a woman called and said she had been hearing some extremely strange animal noises coming from the swamp so the police were driving on the dirt roads down there looking around. And as they went kind of to a dead end turned around came back they can see in the headlights that was a string of tracks that came out of the trees and walked along the road for certain distance Which had been there before so who ever made them literally walked across the road as the cops were down at the other end of the you know the road and so.

17:59 Those those tracks and you know explain it. In more detail my book in a friend they've kind of been highlighted on several shows like destination truth mysteries at the museum did i segment on these tracks but to me they look rather hokey and, You know i don't believe that they were necessarily connected to the animal i think somebody in this case was having some shenanigans but you know the police certainly tried to look at all this stuff fairly seriously because. They weren't sure there was a so called monster connected to all this but we got people reporting no,

18:39 Aggressive behavior chris for david said it jumped on the car you got damaged vehicles. Yeah they wanted to figure out what was in if it would have been something even if it would have been a bear if they didn't look into and somebody heard everybody when is that why did you follow up so, they can add their hands tied but you know they cast these tracks and may still have you can still look at these plaster casts if you go down to bishopville today. But in my research I did find some other folks that had found tracks there, you know weren't famous or never got on the paper but they seemed a lot more credible and a lot more mysterious. And these tracks generally had three toes which was kind of something that always associated with these swampy monsters it seems. Yeah that's pretty wild so you said you interviewed the sheriff were you able to interview this Christopher Davis at all?

19:37 No and for a fortunately not because he's no longer alive he was actually shot and killed in his home in two thousand nine that's kinda interesting. Yeah there it is your some beers actually some chat sort of small chapter thing about book called curse the lizard man and as i researched looking for a lot of these witnesses are putting together story realized that several of them had died in very strange circumstances or violent ways and violent accidents. So it was kind of weird, so Christopher Davis of course being the most dramatic shot another one of the young men that had witnessed it was killed in a car accident 1999 things like that so another mysterious shroud upon the Bishop Bill Lizardman case

20:33 Yeah, that's pretty trippy. I mean it seems like a lot of time went by between their death and the actual sighting but maybe the men in black were trying to clean up the mess for some people who've seen some stuff they shouldn't have seen Well you know that's a unique men in black always come into play these things of course but unfortunately chris for davis. They did catch the two guys who shot him and he later, he was a he was you know just your average kid in high school when he when he had this encounter but i can't started realizing that his association with the lizard man may have been very detrimental to his mental health later because

21:18 You know he was got a lot of newspaper coverage a lot of interviews you was even interviewed to be on the oprah winfrey show it never happened i mean its nuts and i mean. CBS evening news came down there good morning america did live broadcast from the swamp that was huge coverage, And Christopher Davis was always being interviewed and then really forevermore he was just known as the guy who saw The Lizard Man. You can only imagine how much ribbing, mockery and teasing he got from then on so he kind of descended into some bad stuff, got into drugs and just didn't have

22:02 You know didn't turn out like his parents. His parents were good folks, you know worked at some reputable places in town and he just moved away and never really went quite right and then ended up getting murdered. Wow! Man yeah that sounds like a curse to me talk about one day your life's just normal the next day you see one little thing and you're thrown off your trajectory into some crazy mess you never planned to get into? Yeah... Man, it sounds so interesting. I know you've done a lot of writing in this field but for a book out of all the choices why this particular case? Well after I had written my previous book The Beast of Boggy Creek and that...

22:47 You know was quite successful and people liked it in so i thought okay i gotta you know what am i gonna do next time always kind of been drawn to the swamp monsters and things so. I went on what i call this one two around when around the south east going to various swap areas that had reports strange animals like honey island swamp oka finicky in georgia and i went to skateboard swamp in bishopville, And so i was thinking i was gonna do maybe more of a general book on swamp monsters or something like that but once i got to bishopville and started looking into the case i realized there was more to it than i ever realize you know more than reading the books in, no saw lot of inaccuracies that had been written then. You know god forbid people look on wikipedia whatever is this all wrong but i thought this case

23:44 Was very compelling because i did have the sheriff there to interview you i did have access to all the police files that they had taken his story is quite interesting you know just. Here you got this small town sheriff who was it just like christopher davis no suddenly drug into this whole lizard man thing, And so i thought that this just had a good story to it you know me while there's not a whole bunch of sightings and all that the world lot of connected incidents that were cool skateboard swamp itself. Interesting history and so i ended up thinking man this would be a great book you know one in like you are kind of love that lizard reptilian tie in those kinda monsters on the big fan of creature from the black lagoon

24:32 Yeah. Movies like that, I thought man this is like a real life creature from the Black Lagoon man it's... This is like you can't make this stuff up you know? Right that's wild! But yeah I mean it's definitely a fascinating case The one thing that's disappointing about this and really a lot of cryptid cases in general for me Is that anytime I hear about some interesting new cases That I haven't heard about before they're usually strings of sightings from the past I mean, are there any lesser known cryptids that are being seen today to a large degree? Dr. John Gray Yes, lesser known cryptids. Well, specifically in these cases of reptilian humanoids they're few and far between but they do pop up you know and in my book I have a chapter where I just kind of examine the past history some of these types of things

25:27 Yes that is like monster you had a few reports in the. British columbia near this lake where people would see no reptilian humanoid creature he have reports along the ohio river where woman was, which grabbed and buy something under the water and tried to try to pull her down on my gas so Yeah and something called the loveland frog which you know is free hokey but i mean nonetheless it's a famous cryptos will g case in this case it's almost like. A bipedal amphibian creature which is even weirder so you just get these little bits and pieces of these reptilian creatures popping up here and there what i would,

26:13 Consider a cryptos of logical realm i mean if you start looking at it include ufo or alien reports and. Obviously a lot of aliens take on that sort reptilian, you know facade so no but i try to keep this you know just gotta draw some boundaries here let's talk about bishop will stop by what we believe might be. Cryptids you now lesser known cryptid you know That are seen in the pop up again it's usually few and far between trying to think of stuff off my head famous cases like momo the missouri monster i'm from missouri so i've definitely heard that one before. Yeah but you know that was mostly in the seventies and you know its not like,

27:04 You know another rash of sightings happens it just sort of happened in the course if there's a bigfoot sighting anywhere near their or even in missouri. People start associated with momo you know so its not to say that momo isn't still roaming out there he just may not be in the right there near louisiana missouri, if thats not confusing. Where are we like louisiana which has a you know another history of swamp monsters in. Where the honey island swamp is near New Orleans now there's sightings of that creature that occur from time to time down there but you know they're not always printed in the paper and if your local look into these things she might know about him. But you don't always make it into the newspaper so you have to have your radar up and get a good connection with other researchers

28:04 For example if I wanted to find out recent sightings of the Honey Island Swamp Monster, you know. I may need to contact somebody who lives in the area. Right. I'm not going to find these necessarily on CNN. Although that would be way more interesting news program. I wish it was like that Oh yeah, well all they like to cover is the Bigfoot hoaxes whenever they do anything. So it's you know that they don't even get it right when they do. So I mean you brought up Missouri and its funny because you know how I used to look cryptids that were found in Missouri and probably the most interesting one I heard about was this creature known as the Ozark Howler which is described like a big black panther with horns that made like crazy howling noises. And that has stuck with me for a long time, i've been looking out for that one on the side of the highway are you familiar with that at all? Yes yeah Ozark Howler it's definitely got one of the coolest cryptid names I think

29:01 Yeah, and there's you know that's an interesting one. And you know there are others if you start looking around in other states I mean you'll see you know the wampus cat and some things like that they're almost these sort of black panthers but a little more monstrous so there are similar animals reported all over and certainly the ozark howler You know some of those kind Bridge between what i would call folklore and cryptos wall g but you know it doesn't. It does a rule out that somebody perhaps did see a black panther or something and maybe they thought it had horns but it doesn't mean that there's no real animal associated right then, is certainly could be you know in.

29:50 It's hard to say just how monstrous the thing is, but... It is. Are you under the impression that there is a paranormal or supernatural element of these? It seems like you're more inclined to think they're just rare unknown animals Well i mean i can start with that theory you know when i. You know i got started in bigfoot research and so forth and you know i kind of go in with the idea that it's it's an undocumented primate, what do you think the more you deal with these kinds of cryptids and is course if you start looking into cases like lizard men things

30:27 I don't know i try to keep an open mind you know i don't can say for sure if they have. Supernatural qualities are not there you know this really all fall under paranormal because it doesn't seem to be defined by what we know to be animal but, You know but you know do they shape shift to do that did you know materialize or disappear i can't say for sure but now im cool with anybody series on these because until we have an animal laying on a lab table. You know it's we cant really say who is right and wrong you know when i don't, you know don't pretended to no things that i just you know that i dont have any way of knowing

31:12 So until then i'm open minded about it and its possible that you know some of these creatures could be, do you have trades the weed don't understand yet who knows not mine explain why. We see them occasionally and we cannot catch one yeah i mean i definitely have no idea but a lot of times they these things are reported to have glowing red eyes and there so illusive in the avoid capture. So it makes me think there's something weird about him but, Also, the fact that we alluded to earlier is that they're usually just one creature or maybe very few creatures seen in one specific area for over the course of a couple of years and then they're gone. It's not like we uncover a family or carcasses or anything like that except

32:02 You know, not that we've covered a lot of Bigfoot carcasses but that's the one case where I do think it's pretty clear that there is some type of primate that has lived with humanity throughout the years and has avoided real contact. That case is pretty clear but all the other ones they're very out there and we have no much to go on other than people's word that they saw something Yeah you're exactly right in the further you get away from bigfoot the more sketchy evidence is and. You know yet just seems like a lone creature which unfortunately doesn't bode well because it almost now seems does seem or folklore no because, natural animals you typically at least sometimes see them in groups are families are your stuff baby howler cubs with the mama whatever

32:56 So yeah then it doesn't well but of course does in rule out the fact that if you were lucky enough to see one you know you didn't get to see the whole family because the sightings are rare. But you know i kind of a project approach all these things from two stand points you know is kinda from the crypt as well do logical angle where. I'm interested in determining whether there's some real animal behind you know these stories are sightings, And at the same time they're just cool spooky stories and i just in my books i just tell the story i can't obviously improve or disprove them are anything but. No matter what it is man it makes great stories and spooky and school and you know for people that, are into mysteries or monsters whatever its got an appeal on thats thats kinda where i try to approach it

33:54 Because i like the subject and hey if they turn out to be real and we can get one. Do examine even better yeah well let me ask you what are a couple of your favorite crypto zoology creatures or accounts that you've heard that we might not talk about yet Well my most favorite would be the monster the beast of boggy creek that i dedicated my first book to him then, that all stand really from me seeing a movie called the legend about sometimes back in the seventies and. It you know it's sort of made that creature very famous now you do have other

34:35 You know places where regional bigfoot type creatures are seen but this one was especially famous because of the legend about creek and then off took place in southwestern arkansas just across the border here from texas where i live. When i saw that as a kid i mean just seem it you know my fascination with this because the creature you know he was a bigfoot like creature but it was just seemed to spooky here its more aggressive it was hairy it was attacking people. You know so thats always been my favorite and when i got there,

35:12 No when i wrote the book on the subject you know i am finding out that so many people love them movie legend boggy creek also fascinated by it so i think thats one reason, how is successful with a book because other people love that story and i mean. I got some much more stuff that never been known before but so what's one of my favorites um let see what are some my other favorites I like you know i like the lake yeah no i think so. You know champ is a cool one and um,

35:48 For almost every body of water you can almost dig up a few tales of strange sightings. One in particular that i would call lesser known cryptid that I'm just fascinated with is one called Morag and it's sited in Scotland, in Lake Morar, in Lochmorarr. Now of course the Loch Ness creature is far more famous Most people don't realize that short distance away in log mara there are also a long history of sightings of very similar and strange creature. And i've always been fascinated with that because you know these are sort of things it, no these dont the last monster is gonna make the newspaper but nobody puts them or ag in their but the sightings are no less compelling and mysterious you know as well as nasty

36:42 So the more i guess definitely one of them when it's intriguing to me. I'm drawn to the mothman gas but you know. What man is just it's a cool concept now of course that who knows that almost bridges into, more of the paranormal than just some cryptozoological creature, but nonetheless great story cool cryptid. Let me ask you about on the subject of these late creatures One that I had heard about that. I thought was pretty interesting because I was actually there recently was a Loch Ness monster type creature in Lake Tahoe and When I got home, I looked this up And one thing that was interesting was apparently Jacques Cousteau at some point had a submarine expedition in Lake Tahoe and when they asked him what he saw He said the world is not ready for what's down there?

37:36 and nobody really knows what that meant. It could have meant that he saw this strange creature or some people have also suggested that the mob used to tie cement around, put people's feet in cement and throw them in Lake Tahoe and maybe the whole bottom is just littered with human bodies? Who knows what he saw but a lot of people have suggested that maybe he saw that Loch Ness monster creature there Yeah yeah that i like that story to the creature is known as tahoe tessie and. Everything's gotta relate to nancy somehow i want to see the taco tessie that's totally cool and yeah that's always been kind of a spooky thing that jacques rousseau. Had said that in a course if you look back into history of lake tahoe you will find it the native americans had tails some sort of creature living,

38:32 You know there in the lake so it wasn't just like it popped up and modern times it was a historical reference now. I don't know jacques is almost seems like to me if he had seen some unknown animal i don't see how you could have. Let that go you know yeah good point me, you know what i mean he would be all over the ass seems like his deal now and seeing it's in a bunch of bodies and were mobsters at buried or whatever else are thrown in there that he might just left alone right But yeah, that's definitely probably the most likely situation. Yeah I wouldn't want to turn that stone over and deal with the consequences if there were like 50 bodies down there but man another subject in the cryptid world that i really like is the idea of flying creatures. There are a lot of legends about the thunderbird which seems pretty interesting

39:32 You mentioned the Mothman, another type of winged creature. I've heard people talk about seeing what they describe as pterodactyl-like creatures are there any cases of like a flying creature that you think are really compelling? Yeah definitely um well you know one of my favorites along those lines is like you say the uh pterodactyl type creatures and there's one called Kongomato which has been Reportedly senior the congo basin in western africa and.

40:07 You know that has a kid who knows grew up i love dinosaurs and all that stuff and of course you know your under the impression they're all dead tell you come across these reports about creatures like conga motto. In which people say they see a tear dactyl like creature flying around in in the sightings of this go back to wanna say there early nineteen hundreds, But later a famous scientist in cryptos volg researcher name broi mackle who is the university of chicago biologist along with i have an t sanderson did expeditions into the jungles over there. Do you know specifically search for conga model and be no date, hold the natives and show them pictures may would point to the terry dactyls insane that's it that's it and how do they had

41:02 You know what sort of a brief citing themselves the creature so i think kong amato. Who is this forest area that's one of the first and foremost but there's also some cool things along those lines stateside you know there was a case the houston batman down here in texas people seeing some sort of strange flying humanoid creature and you know more along the lines I suppose of mothman as opposed to pterodactyls. And then in South Texas and places like that you do get these sort of thunderbird sightings, which people see impossibly large birds so those are definitely great

41:56 Crypto wall g cases you know and hard to research because they're often out in the middle of nowhere and these birds are obviously flying high in the sky it's not like you can ambush them on the ground or set up a camera trapper. Something like you could for bigfoot just yeah i think its winning the lotto if u see one of these you know Yeah, man those winged ones. Those get me anything that looks dinosaur like I think that's kind of what I have a more interest in the pterodactyl stuff the plesiosaur Loch Ness monster stuff even the lizard man. Uh, I don't know what it is but they're definitely when I think creepy monster That's kinda more the realm i'm looking at yeah there and there was you know In my lizard band book I kinda look a little bit at reports of what I refer to as more um

42:48 actual lizard or dinosaur like reptiles that were seen to walk on two legs as opposed to the humanoid reptilian creatures like the bishop lizard man you are kinda analyzed everything just to kind of make sense of it but there's been sightings out in places like colorado in which you know woman said she saw. What effectively sounded like a small dinosaur run up and jump over the car and claim to have seen. A nest where there was some eggs and things like that so unfortunately again it's just a story of me if you hadn't had any anger when you gotta grab one of those legs lady i'm telling you man is a million dollar egg billion dollar but

43:39 But yeah, totally cool. And it's you know to I don't know to even give a small percentage of hope that there is some living dinosaur You know is awesome? I mean you got the coelacanth and that is basically a living dinosaur so, you know It can happen Yeah, man, I've always loved this stuff. It's-I've always seeked an explanation though. I'm not really satisfied with the idea that they're Not that, that doesn't immediately become the first thing you should think of. You know it seems like the path of least resistance to think they're undiscovered animals but there's just too many of them. They seem to have these red glowing eyes which could just be people's fear or reflection and like we said there always only seems to be one of them for a short period time and I'm not much into magic but sometimes I wonder if this is uh... These are some type of things occultists are conjuring up without knowing

44:38 Especially in the case of Mothman, I've heard people talk about it like that. Oh yeah, yeah! I think when you start getting into flying humanoids and things that as far as dinosaurs we know at least they existed. True. They may not be here now but a creature like that did exist when you start talking about flying humanoids and getting into more of the moth man or Houston Batman or whatever now you definitely dealing with something that is previously unknown. At all and just the mechanics of a human being able to fly yeah, you know goes against scientific principles i mean you know let's look at icarus in whomever humans have decided to try to fly it doesn't work very well and so yeah I think you've got to have

45:29 Open it up to a lot more theories in these cases than just some sort of undiscovered animal. I mean unless you know people saw a bat an owl or something that they somehow thought had human form then we are dealing with something in those cases that's much more known and mysterious yeah Man, it is a broad and wide field and does get into some weird areas. But for the skeptics out there we got to be honest we don't have a lot of good pictures We don't have any bodies of these things that have really been conclusive So it makes it tough sometimes to prove these things exist but when you consider all the research You've done on unknown creatures

46:12 and these kind of cryptic things. Outside of the witness testimonies, are there any cases that have left some kind of physical evidence or maybe injured someone or something that you find really compelling and really credible cases? It's sketchy that you know the cases i mean and i've seen some big foot tracks that are found quite compelling in the case of the monster you know a guy had taken attract. In that area around two thousand four it was a five to track in i found this guy to be extremely credible extremely believable and,

46:58 He just had this track casting his house it took me a while to track it down because i heard rumors that this girl brought one to school and listen he was not trying to get fame or fortune or advertise the same. And you know so now at least to go with history i could look at you know hard, piece of evidence you know we can't say that it's certainly from a creature like the monster or southern sasquatch but at least it was better than just simply a story so i've seen things like this i'm seeing. A few locks of hair that have come from no people who seem to have fairly credible stories and in the air would end up being examined by very reputable science

47:48 Professionals and such can they ended up saying i don't know what it is not human its not artificial in the eye i cant match you to any of the known species of animals who would live in the area so you know i've seen those hair. Samples with my own eyes that help to i guess you feel the fire for me then maybe there's something behind these things on so You comes up occasionally but by and large you know you're talking about stories in an adult will evidence from people in the lot. That can be super intriguing incredible because of the backgrounds of the people who's telling this when i speak to him face to face,

48:36 Or you know several times over. That was gonna be my next question is in terms of just a juicy story that you really liked, that had uh You know maybe more detail than most other stories Is there a specific encounter with the cryptid that just sticks out in your mind that you really like story-wise? Yeah, there's there's several Man boy it's hard to pick this one have so many out let me just highlight one from the beast of boggy creek because i'm extremely familiar with this and have interviewed. To the individuals involved

49:15 Can you just give people background the legend of boggy creek movie came out nineteen seventy two and a lot of the content in the movie was based upon reports that it happened in the sixties and seventies now that reports go back further than that. And most people think i will happen in the seventies and that was yet however, I found that people have still been citing strange ape-like creature in the area up until today. So, i found a witness who said he had a strange encounter in 1981 And so by nineteen eighty one if you lived in the area you had heard of legend about you create a new what the fount monster was you know with something. Can you maybe didn't think about on a daily basis but it was certainly in the back your mind if you were in the woods and something happened so, you know you had a little bit of. No precedence for what's going on but this kid you know he wasn't

50:16 Yeah one that particularly believe in your didn't believe and he just you know we didn't know who you just was being a kid and she was down. One evening fishing on his pond and he had been down there for a little bit not much going on wasn't getting many bites and i heard some rustling through the leaves it was february. So that was a lot of leaf litter you can hear things moving around here in some kind of strange noises but he thought i think thats the neighbors bull because they were had to be able to run on this property over their nearby,

50:55 So it was starting to get dark and he thought man you know i'm just gonna whip around this other little nook in the pond, it was a little dog leg. I'll just kind of go over here and try for few more minutes if i don't get anything imma head back. So obviously he's on the pond, he is very quiet this way and i mean you can slowly road over there so it wouldn't disturb the fish and as she gets around to. The other side he suddenly hear something walking and he looks up any sees literally within about sixty feet from him

51:38 He just got glimpse of a creature walking in the thing was up right it was he said it was about his size and this kids tall is about six over six feet you said this thing with probably six and a half seven feet tall was covered brown hair. Walking fairly upright at long arms were sort of swinging and the thing did not see him, can because he had been quiet he was sitting there for a while news on the pond that they just simply Just was walking by and just didn't see him and so we caught the side view in the back. And of course he sees this and immediately thinking oh my god, this is the monster i can even believe it you know any song his own property as a fenced-in property have been to the place. This is not a place where other people walk its not open to the public there's no the neighbors are far enough away nobody should be walking out there

52:36 But he was quite certain it wasn't a person. I mean, it appeared ape-like so we'd walked up and walked up a little embankment and walk down and disappeared And you could hear it still walking and of course now he's just literally shaken So he paddles over to the edge? And he may get kind of fumbles out out of the boat gets on the edge and he continues to listen and suddenly this thing stopped walking Hmm, and keep in mind its evening The sun is dropping and He stand in there waiting to see what happens and then you heard this thing start running at that point just took off run into his house which is about half a mile away ran all the way up. You know to the house and uh,

53:22 He got there and was just extremely upset his father whom i have also interviewed is a very upstanding citizen in falcon he's no deacon in the church she has been a photographer their for years documenting the history of the area. I just had great guy was father came driving up and you said you know he sees terry kind of tears like terry what happened whats going on he said dad i think i saw the monster, You know, so his father Lloyd says what? And he tells him what happened. So they ended up... He said well let's go down there and see if we can find any evidence and Terry the witness didn't really like that idea but dad gave him the 357 and said man we gotta go look! So they went down there it was after dark and they were looking around and they could still smell sort of a skunky odor in the air

54:20 They never they didn't confining footprints it was leaf litter and all but basically this story was one that i research wasn't somebody who ran to the newspaper several locals knew about his sighting but, it was just something that happened in this kid. And that was it and so once i interviewed both the father in the sun i felt you know. Is close as i could to a hundred percent certain that this kid had seen something unexplainable he saw very close, when do what is off in the just creepy and fascinating all at same time yeah that is

55:03 Man, well we're getting kind of close to the end of the show. I wanted to ask you if I...I got a lot of free time so if today wanted to go on an excursion and hunt something down just to get a good picture that there's some smoking gun evidence where would you send me? If I consulted your expertise within the states is there certain spot where things are happening now? A hotspot for these types of creatures in 2014 I mean, there's definitely several hot spots. You could be more specific to your region depending on where you are. You could definitely locate some areas where there have been sightings of various creatures of all sorts. For example how about Southern California? Because i hear a lot about the swamps and Northern California. What would you send me out looking for

56:01 In this and the general southwest area general south west l lately a year not too long ago there was some sightings down there of these huge canine creatures that people thought were not. not coyotes, they weren't even really described as chupacabra but certainly chupacabras sightings of these sort of main four-legged animals have been seen more increasingly across the southwest. So if you were in that area you could find some areas where there have been sort of large dog sightings or chupacabra sighting

56:48 That would be something I would say out there. Yes, we'll see you know Lake Tahoe. I guess that'd be in the region and wouldn't it? Yeah kind of You know reasonably close. I mean, you know sometimes you're gonna have to travel but But you know people ask me that same kind of thing they'll email or some hey I live here Do you know any cryptids out here and it you know, I either do or it doesn't take me long to wait whip up a couple of examples so it's almost just wherever you are if you know implore the great tool google you could find some weird stuff going on your area even if, even if that's not encrypted me their strange lights there is all kinds weird phenomenon going on and people are into this sort of thing just do little research for your area and you can quickly come up with a.

57:43 perspective spot to go have yourself a little love adventure and who knows you know you may be one of those lucky ones that. You know, has an experience like this guy Terry Sutton I was talking about a minute ago. Uh you know you may get more than your bargain for it. Yeah hopefully he'll have to tell about it and you don't get cursed but... Exactly yeah look Especially in this age where everybody's got uh camera on them all the time. We're getting to that point where something's gotta happen. Yeah I mean technology is certainly catching up a bit too these cryptids so

58:20 Well man, it has been a great time talking to you. Do you have any plans for what your going after next? Any plans for your next big cryptid book? You know i've been kinda rolling over several ideas and doing some research on me actually ride a parts. Do to my buggy creek book that expands the focus on the southern more general southern areas for a black creatures you know enough just compiled so many reports in talk to witnesses about this and that i'm just, I'm trying to come up with the next book. My books have been fairly successful so, the pressure continues to where i really gotta get something good here to go forward and write a really good book because you know what just rehash the same old stuff on when it provides new an interesting perspectives or at least new reports in and personal experience so not totally sure where im going next but i can say that will be cool

59:25 Yeah, undoubtedly well Hey, it's been awesome. Do you want to give people your website also before we call it in? Yeah definitely You can find out more about my books and you know keep up with me I'm doing a lot of appearances. I'll be at the Ohio Bigfoot conference on April 26th and Several other places around the country doing book signings and speaking engagements And you can find out about all of that at my website which is Lyle blackburn comm ly le Blackburn calm Awesome. Well, I suppose it's time we declare this meeting of the Midnight Society closed. Lyle, it has been a blast! Thanks again man and take care of yourself. You bet thanks so much for having me enjoyed it. Alright take care

1:00:09 There you have it folks, a THC for the whole family. Thanks for listening! Please donate to The Money Bomb and check out my t-shirts at conspiratees.net Get active on our subreddit for sharing strange links and talking about not only THC shows but also who would make good future guests for other episodes And speaking of good future guests, next week I'll be talking to someone I've been trying to get in touch with for some time. He's a legend in the world of hip-hop and a dominant teacher. Some might even call him... A professor! I'm super excited for that one. Thanks everybody! Every day is a dream come true thanks to you You're the goddamn best Don't let them work you too hard, you've got dreams that need attention Alright, i'll see ya next week in the ongoing battle To win back our lives and get some understanding of this weird world In which we reside Your move Lizardman

1:01:14 But it's already there Wait till the midnight hour to come To touch me for the world I've done It just sits there and stares at me And it won't let you get any sleep Just lemme see I got a monster in bed Someone's underneath it The wind's knocking I'm just waiting on the sun to rise.

1:02:23 The wind's knocking at our window Kill it but it's already dead I used to wonder what it was that we'd Oh and now, it is plain to see The whole time the monster was me There's a monster in my closet Someone's under the wind's knock Now when I kill it but it's already

1:03:10 Only thing that'll bring me back to life is some good, good hay