Bigfoot Society - Educating about Bigfoot at Salt Fork State Park in Ohio | Naturalist Educator | John Hickenbottom

Episode Date: April 16, 2022

#124John Hickenbottom is a naturalist and outdoorsperson with a life-long interest in wildlife and the natural world. Born and raised in southeast Ohio, John has worked for a number of agencies as an educator and interpretive Naturalist and is currently the Naturalist at Salt Fork State Park. His interest in bigfoot was cultivated after years of listening to the stories park visitors had to tell about encounters and experiences they have had. While not a bigfoot researcher, perse, he considers himself a bigfoot educator. He lives on a farm with his wife three children in outside of Cambridge, Ohio.Join the Bigfoot Society Patreon to hear an extra 21 minute conversation with John from the Bigfoot Society After Show and get a sweet membership card, a special vinyl sticker and much, much more!https://www.patreon.com/thebigfootsocietyTune in every Saturday at 5 pm Central for new episodes of Bigfoot Society!https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Qq45W6iaTU8FE9kelxT7QIG: https://www.instagram.com/bigfootsociety/Website: https://bit.ly/3jvKIm7Donate: https://bit.ly/3C4hodMShop: https://etsy.me/3ptlubQiTunes: https://apple.co/3fmmhTCSpotify: https://spoti.fi/3vF1vIriHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/3CarDgDStitcher: https://bit.ly/3m75I4xFacebook: https://bit.ly/3b5XgMpFull links:Smart Passive Income PodcastWeekly interviews, strategy, and advice for building your online business the smart way.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show

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Thanks for coming back to Bigfoot Society, your weekly cryptozoology focused podcast where I talk to a different individual in the cryptozoology field, authors, researchers, artists, all sorts of people. If you're listening to this on iTunes, please go ahead, subscribe to this. podcast and rate us five stars as it helps us get more into the podcast stratosphere and get a better guests on the show also if you're on youtube do us a favorite like this video and subscribe to this channel doesn't cost a thing and it helps us get out there into the youtube stratosphere as well be sure to leave what your favorite part of the episode was in the comment welcome back to another episode of the bigfoot society podcast this week i have the privilege of talking with John Hickenbottom, naturalist from Salt Fork State Park.

This is an interesting conversation about what it's like to work and to educate in a place that is so heavily focused on Bigfoot. And the eye of the Bigfoot community is definitely on Salt Fork. John has such an interesting viewpoint being an educator, a naturalist, and we go through his journey from not really being into Bigfoot to maybe it turning into something else for him. You'll enjoy this chat I had with John, so sit back, relax as I talk with John Hickenbottom, naturalist at Salt Fork State Park in beautiful Wooded, Ohio. I've got a new friend with me, John Hickenbottom. How's it going? It's going great.

How about yourself? Oh, man, it's doing good. I'm ready to hang out in the weekend and have a great holiday weekend. And let's start out with doing a little background about yourself, John. Because some people may say, they may say, man, I've heard the name, but I'm not quite sure where, because you're in some articles. I think you've had maybe interview or two, but once people hear about your background,

they'll be like, oh, I get it. Okay, so let's see. John Hickenbottom is a naturalist and outdoors person with a lifelong interest in wildlife in the natural world. Born and raised in Southeast Ohio, John has worked for a number of agencies as an educator and interpretive naturalist and is currently the naturalist

at Salt Fork State Park in Ohio. His interest in Bigfoot was cultivated after years of listening to the stories. Park visitors had to tell him, had to tell about encounters and experiences they've had. While not a Bigfoot researcher per se, he considers himself a Bigfoot educator, which I think is very cool. He lives on a farm, awesome, with his wife and three children outside of Cambridge, Ohio. All right. Well, that, that, my friend, is cool stuff. and I want to start out right off the bat.

So what is when you have to explain that you're a naturalist, how are you explaining that? Yeah. So I usually get the, well, so working for a state park, a lot of people think that I'm a park ranger, which I'm not. I have no badge, no gun, no measurable authority. So as a naturalist, I'm kind of the public. interface with park visitors, if that makes sense. So I do all of the biological surveys and stuff,

but I also do all of the public education. So whether we're talking about like boating, canoeing, recreation, that sort of thing, or wildflower hikes. I've got a wildflower hike coming up next week. So things like that. And normally, so my background is in reptiles and amphibians. I'm a snake guy. that was my background originally. That's kind of why I got into this. Why I got into being a naturalist is to teach people about snakes. You know, it gave me an excuse to go out and catch and play, you know, play with snakes and stuff. Okay, cool, cool.

So I got into that. I went to college for natural resources. I went to college here in Ohio. And then I kind of worked all over the state, you know, wherever work took me. And I, you know, that's interpretive naturalist. So that's kind of a confusing term. An interpreter is, you know, normally we think of interpreting language. But the way an interpreter works, at least in this context, is we take complex ecological ideas or complex, you know, different concepts out and to do with the natural world.

And we break it down into sort of digestible pieces that the public can take home with. them after they're done visiting the park on vacation, you know, that sort of thing. So I didn't, I mean, I grew up here. I grew up about 12 miles from Salt Fork and hunted and fished in Salt Fork my whole life. So I kind of grew up with the whole grassman thing, especially right when it peaked, you know, I was in high school sort of when it was really gaining a lot of steam. But being local, it was, you know, I didn't really take it that serious. You know what I mean? We were, we were, it was kind of a joke, especially amongst the people that used the public land all the time. You know, if you hadn't seen something, you were, you were, you sort of didn't take it seriously. You know, you know, you're not I mean. You weren't cool. Yeah. No, yeah. Like, we didn't really, we didn't, you know, so when I, when I got to salt work, so I've kind of worked at solve work in two different, um, capacities. I, I, I'd started there in 2012 and, uh, work, two thousand thousand. And, uh, work,

2012, 2013, and then left for another park and then transferred back to Salfork in 2016. When I was there, the first time, I did two sort of, you know, it was just one summer and then the next summer I did two kind of one-off Bigfoot programs. And it really was, it really was just playing to a crowd. You know, I figured I'll slap Bigfoot on this. People will show up and I can talk about other stuff too. You're just pulling the seats. Right. Yeah, that was.

It was my plan. So I did these two one-off programs. And then I left. And actually the person that kind of was in between my two, you know, stents at Saltport, started a Bigfoot hike. She kind of farmed it out to other, she kind of farmed it out to the researchers that were in the area. So we sort of began hosting a Bigfoot hike. When I came back, I was like, oh, man, we could, you know, this is fine.

They can do their thing. Uh, here's one thing that I kind of run into with all of this stuff. Uh, I was really dismissive about the Bigfoot thing to begin with. Ah, so you don't believe her. No, no, no, no. Here's, I'm getting to that. Uh, this is one of those things where you're like, not allowed to change your opinion ever, you know, like that's sort of the thing where it's like, I, you know, sue me. I changed my opinion.

Like after, you know, um, I really, I was like, wait, and you have to look at it from my perspective, too. Like, I, uh, you know, I went to school. I'm passionate. passionate about all of the stuff that I know, you know. And I was at this beautiful park. I mean, Saltport's the biggest park in Ohio, the biggest state park in Ohio. So it was at this beautiful park with all these beautiful resources. And then like 80% of the time I was talking about Bigfoot.

You know what I mean? And I never got an outlet to share all the stuff. So it was really dismissive at first. And it is. I tell everybody when they point out, actually, I catch some stuff from some of the researchers around our area. where it's like, oh, you know, you used to hate us. And I'm like, I never hated you. I was just kind of dismissive.

You know, it was never a, I never, you know, I was just dismissive about it. And I changed my opinion. You know, like, I can change, you can change your mind, you know. So I was really dismissive about it at first. And then, because I was, I was looking at it and the categories of people that I was, I was dealing with. Okay. You know, you had like, you had people who were, for the most part, storytellers.

You know what I mean? There was one demographic, though. They were storytellers who maybe they led kind of a boring life and the Bigfoot things sort of spiced it up. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then you had people who maybe had a actual, like, psychotic episode and maybe the reality break there was not, you know, they were seeing some.

But the people that I was, that really started to sway me, where I became. became much less dismissive were the people who had no skin in the Bigfoot game. Yes. You know, that's what really started to sway me. When I say sway, I don't mean, you know, I became like a knower, you know, or a believer. And the whole thing, I'll kind of get to it, the whole, my, the whole concept of belief with this sort of thing. I usually don't use the term believer, you know, because, well, I'll get to it. But, you know, the people who had no skin in the Bigfoot game, the hunters and fishermen who, they saw something that altered their perception of reality.

You know what I mean? They knew what was out in the woods until a specific day. And then now, you know, they're not sure. You know, they're not sure. Like those were the people that interested me. And those stories kept coming up and coming up. Also, I started looking at it a little differently. You know, I have to, admit, I had kind of a snooty attitude about it, you know, to begin with, because it was like, oh, come on, you know. But then I started really thinking about it. I'm like, man, if you, I mean, I saw a bobcat probably in 2001. So I was like a kid. And everyone dismissed that I saw a bobcat, you know. Now, Bobcat's not like a mountain lion. It's a little cat. He's a little guy, yeah. Yeah, it's a little guy. But, you know, everyone dismissed that I saw this thing. Okay. And, well, now you fast forward to 2022, our county last year had had more recorded sightings of Bobcats than any other county.

Oh, really? Wow. So chances are they've been here for that long. I just lucked into seeing one, you know, and everybody, like, no one believe me, you know. So I started thinking of it like that. And I, one thing that kind of stuck with me was like, if you, if you asked me to come out to your property and say, you know, know, I don't know. I think I've got bear. I think there's badger out here, but I don't know. I'd look around and I'd say, wow, so you have the habitat for it. So I'm going to go for a walk and see what evidence I can find. You know, there's definitely habitat. There's a field over there that has rodents and there's plenty of woodlands and things like that. And we'll be right back. Hey, it's Pat Flynn here, host of the award-winning podcast, the Smart Passive Income

Podcast, which was created to help you learn how to become an entrepreneur. And in the simplest way, too, you know, entrepreneurship can be very difficult. I like to simplify things. And I interview people like Josh Hall and Shane and Jocelyn Sams and Maria Fela. Who are they? Well, they're people just like you, people who have taken action after listening to the show and have built a business that has changed their lives. And I'd love to share an episode with you that I think will inspire you.

you to get started too. Check out the link in the description or go to smart passive income.com slash one two to get inspired, get what you need to get started and change your life. You got this and thank you. You know, I might go into the woods and oh, wow, you know, they're bear prints. They're tracks. Now there's a little fur stuck to a tree, you know. So I might not lay eyes on a bear or on a badger or something, but I can go back and tell you like, yep, you got them.

You know, they're on your property. And that works, that works for basically everything but the big foot. Like when you're, when you're on like the snooty attitude side of it, it's like, well, you know, all of the evidence, you know, where's the body? That sort of thing. Well, it's like, you know, well, when you have people who are collecting all this different evidence, it's like, hmm, you know, there's got to be something, something to that, right? You know, you've got all this, like, and what I tell people at the park all the time is like, we have. have a really good, really good print. Maybe I'll send you a picture of it.

Oh, yeah. That I, I didn't collect it or anything. This was collected, I think, in 2011. Okay. But it's one of those things where people look at it, look at the replica that I have at the Nature Center and they'll say, is this real? And I'm like, well, so I can tell you, it's not fake. Or we didn't fake it.

I said, we didn't fake it. I said, so it's one of two options. It's either it is real or it is faked. and we don't know. You know what I mean? Like it's one of those things where I wasn't there, you know, and I can't like without a shadow of a doubt tell you like, no, no one absolutely. But it was collected.

Wow. I sort of trust the people who found it. So it's something. You know what I mean? Now that's not me saying like it's out there. That's what I'm. It's like a lot of this stuff, you know, and I've seen footprints, you know, I've seen the blob footprints that people will take plaster casts of.

And it's like. Exactly. Yeah. And you're like, I don't know. Yeah. And like, I don't know. Like, oh, it's interesting. I guess it kind of has a,

but really it could just sort of be where some snow melted in a weird way and sort of end into the ground. You know what I mean? Or bears do this interesting thing where their footprint of their front paw will be obscured by the footprint of their back paw. And it'll make this 14 or 15 inch bear print, you know. And we do have bears. They're not, it's not like the smokies or anything where they're hanging out downtown,

but we do have them around. You know, they're relatively, reclusive. So I've seen I've seen footprints like that. But then there are other ones where I'm like, well, it's either faked or it's not. That's like, you know, like I don't know how to explain it other than that. Now I mentioned that I don't really use the term believer because it's right. And not that I'm not to bash any of the paranormal stuff, you know what I mean. But like because I'm comfortable with the nuts and bolts, you know, flesh and blood, uh, animal, you know, relict hominoid sort of theory, you know what I mean, hypothesis. Oh yeah.

Stay tuned for more Bigfoot Society. We'll be right back after these messages. Because I deal with animals every day. You know what I mean? I deal with the natural world every day. All right, quick quiz for the hiring managers out there. What's worse? Being understaffed or being poorly staffed?

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So that's sort of in my wheelhouse. Like this thing eats, you know, sleeps, mates, needs to have shelter, needs to have food, that sort of thing, you know. So I'm kind of going with what I know. when it comes to this stuff. And the idea of, like, belief to me, the connotations are sort of, you know, you, like, science doesn't really function on belief. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't, science is no matter whether you believe or not, you know, and I think 2020 showed us that. It's like, you know what I mean? Like, you know, science is no matter if you believe or not, you know. So experiencing things, that's, you know, we have five senses. So you can experience.

a lot of things, you know, and be empirical about it. So I don't, I don't usually run into the belief thing. Like, I'm healthily, I'm, I'm like a healthy skeptic, uh, but I've lost so much of the cynical, uh, side of that, you know, so like now, so much of that, I've talked to so many people and this is sort of evolved into something that I, I really wasn't prepared for. I kind of dip my toes into it. That I've lost all, like I'm skeptical, but on the side of, you know, this is, there's something to this and I don't know what it is, you know, and I'd like to keep an open mind about it. Now, you know, getting in my like personal beliefs and stuff, I totally think it could happen, you know. Well, and that kind of depends on the day that you talk to me.

Like some days I wake up and I'm like, oh, 100% you could hide a mammoth out here. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because it's so thick and rugged and everything out here. I mean, just on our place, we've got 20 acres and just in our place. Like, there's so many places, you know, out here. And, you know, and then other days I wake up and I'm like, man, I just don't, I just don't know.

I don't know how I, you know, feel about it. But the way I've always looked at it, like in my capacity as naturalist and as an educate, you know, we're kind of the education arm of the ODNR. You know, that's kind of my job is as like the educational. educational arm. And there's lots of us all over the state. And we all use the resources that are around us. You know, I'm not going to do a program about a lighthouse because I don't have a lighthouse in my way. You know what I mean? Exactly. It wouldn't make sense. Yeah. Right, right. Right. So, you know, my beliefs aside, the reason why I say the educator thing is because, I mean, this is something that I would, you know, we can't, like I can't really in good conscience ignore it at the park.

You know what I mean? Like, I've got people telling me things all the time. You know, here, like, I heard this, you know, so it would be, you know, I would not be doing a good, it would be doing a disservice to the public if I didn't, you know, embrace this. And I'm treating it like I would treat anything else. You know what I mean? Anything else that I'm educating on, whether I'm doing a canoe program or a program about raccoons or you know what I mean. That's how I treat it. That's how I treat these things. So I don't, I spend so much more time out in the woods looking for salamanders and,

and things like that than I do looking for Bigfoot, you know? That's why I, and I hate to say that because like I really try to get out and do things. And our researchers around here are so great and so welcoming. And I go out with them whenever possible. But, you know, I spend so much more time out looking for, you know, snakes and salamanders. and stuff than I do. But that's why I always say I'm not really a researcher. I mean, I do a lot of, probably 90% of what I read now is Bigfoot stuff at this point because that's, that's kind of where I'm at, you know, this, this is kind of grown into something. So I'm trying to keep up on

everything. And I listen to, you know, your, your podcast and quite a few, quite a few other podcasts on the subject. So I, and it has changed my mind about what I personally think. think, you know, but embracing it as an, from an educational standpoint, is also really, really great. What I always tell people is like, you know, I can, my wildflower hike, I will be, it will be a good year if I get 40 people, you know, to show up for it. That'll be like a, you know, excellent year. 40 people to a wildflower hike. Night hikes are always popular. You know, I can go out and call owls and stuff. They're always really popular. But, you know, you. You know, in this job, if I do a moth program or even a salamander program, you know, I'm going to get salamander people. I'm going to get moth people.

Sure. You know. And you're kind of, it's kind of the lowest impact of education you can do because you're like literally preaching to the choir. You know, it's sort of like the lowest impact that I can have. But if we do a Bigfoot program at the park. Okay. The demographic is so diverse that there is no demographic. I mean, like it is literally everyone comes through.

Wow. Because of COVID and stuff, we didn't do any programming during 2020 at all, no public programming. So it was all virtual and I'll kind of touch on that here in a here in a bit because that's sort of what snowballed into all this stuff, the virtual side of things. but June 2021, the first Bigfoot hike we had, we had 300 people show up to it. No, that. Three. Yeah. I mean, I had to call our L.E guys like to do traffic, you know, because the parking lot of school.

I've never had to do that for, you know, a bug program. So that's that's not just bigfoot people. Of course, Bigfoot researchers and stuff show up, you know, and it's a great place to exchange ideas on the subject. know. Oh, yeah. But I also get, you know, I got the frat boys who were down here for a weekend and and then like families who are like, oh, there's a big foot thing. That's the show with the tall guy on it. We just let, you know, like they like they, yeah, right, you know, and they'll come to it. And then we get like people, the thing that fascinates me is people will come to it. and they'll say like we saw this and i've never told anybody about this but you guys are doing this

program and they'll share some story uh so it's really interesting but on the flip side of that uh the sort of non bigfoot side of it i can also shoehorn so much education on the natural world into something like that you know if we're looking at it like it is a flesh and blood animal then it has to conform to all the laws of like ecology and nature you know what i mean And so all of those principles apply to coyotes and owls and everything else, you know, the trail that we do these hikes on, generally it's pretty cool. It's a trail we find like glow in the dark fungus on, which is pretty cool, you know. But so it's kind of a two-sided thing. Now, I used to not be very involved in the big, like I said, I was kind of dismissive about it.

And I've totally changed my opinion on that on the whole. subject. And what sort of happened was a multiple, it was multiple things. So I got a couple of years working with the researchers under my belt, you know, I'd talked to these guys. I talked to people who, you know, I'd go home at night and I'm like, man, I just don't know, like, I don't know how to feel about this person's story. You know, this person told me this story and it just seems like if they saw an upright bear,

it wouldn't have like shaking them so bad you know you like so i got all these stories that i'd hear over the summer and then i'd work with the researchers so um we started doing uh well not having any programming during 2020 i think it was october 2020 uh i was asked to do like a webinar because everybody went virtual you know of course and uh so it was kind of part of our Halloween series. You know, I was asked to do a webinar on Bigfoot, uh, in the area. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'll totally do it. I got good resources. I'll talk to the researchers. Um, and, uh, and I'll put something, I'll put something together, uh, that'll, that'll, um, really, you know, hopefully help, like people enjoy it, you know, and I, uh, so I, um, I put together this,

I, I kind of, I wanted to take a telescopic approach. So start big and funnel down to like right in our backyard. You know what I mean? Like right here in the salt. So I sort of took like, oh, here's a, you know, here is some like big, you know, bipedal animals and folklore from all around the world, you know, kind of glazed over it. You know, tried to touch on stuff. Brought it down in North America, you know, talked about Patty.

I will say that the, the, everyone always asks how much kickback I get. like what sort of, you know, fallout being like the Bigfoot naturalist has. Like the most, the most kickback I've ever got from it has been, I was talking like really fast. You know, I was excited. I'm talking to the camera really fast by myself. I can't, I the platform that we used at the time, I couldn't like interact with anyone. We had someone else remotely interacting with the people on the chat. So I'm like, I'm like talking real fast.

And I mixed up Patterson and Gimlin. Oh, geez. And I said one was, you know what I mean? Yeah. Just an accident, just slipped up and, you know, mix them up. And that's the kickback. That's people still bring it up. All over.

People still bring it up. You know, yeah. But anyway, so I did that. Got it, you know, got it right down to salt fork, everything, you know. And, man, it was so popular, you know. It was so people loved it. And people started coming to me to, to talk about this stuff, you know.

So I did another series. I did like a four-part series, let that spring, you know, and that those were incredibly popular. And those, like, I researched them much more thoroughly as best I could. You know, there were little corrections here and there, but you always get, I mean, you know, you always get missed things. But I researched them much more thoroughly.

I mean, to the point where I told my wife at one point, I was like, man, I think if you turned out, the lights right now. The Patterson Gimlin film would would project out of my eyes onto the wall. You know, that was like that's, that's how it was, you know, and I'm kind of still there. And some interesting things happened. You know, I got in touch with a lot more researchers. We were talking a little bit before the show started. You know, I said I was my buddy Micah. This was an interesting thing. I got a public records request. First one, I've ever. ever had to deal with, you know, it's like a four-year request. Oh, really? But I got it and my,

I got kind of kicked down to me. And they're like, this is a bigfoot thing. Can you do what you want? You know, like, you're the guys, do what you do. And, uh, which is, which is kind of cool, you know, I'm like, I was like, oh, I'm like the X-Fives. Yeah, you are. Uh, you know, and I'm, I read through it. I'm like, all right. Well, I said, I've got any email that I have is mostly like, Hey, Bigfoot Hikes still on for, you know, May, whatever, you know, nothing like, nothing in depth. And then all my presentations that I'd done that spring. And then I read like, you know, the sign off. And it was like, oh, my guy, I'm like, I know that I know him.

I listen to his podcast. So I like, I like called him up, you know. And I got to know the those, those guys that do the, the guys that do the Sasquash tracks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Podcast. I got to know him or well. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, a couple of them are coming up.

up here that they're actually going to help me at the conference that's coming up. We've got the Ohio Big Fort conference is coming up on the 30th. So they're actually going to help me out with that. Help me staff the table and stuff. I got them set up as volunteers, you know. So yeah, and it's kind of fun because we we also talk about other stuff too, you know, what we talk about. But the, so I got to know them.

And I got to, I got to meet so many people in this. So many people who like myself maybe weren't 100%, you know, had to hand at an experience. And I'll kind of get to my experiences. I don't have anything that's like a smoking gun, you know. I was going to ask you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

People. And that's like the number one question that I get. I'm sure. Outside of like, where's the restroom at is, have you ever seen it? You know. But so, you know, I talked to so many people about it. And the, sorry, I got to lost my train of thought. there. But yeah, the, the, um, the, the, um, the, the, um, the, the, the number of things kind of,

it turned into something else. Like, this is sort of what I, this is sort of what I do now. And that's why I do the big foot educator thing. Because it's like if I were, you know, when I'm doing canoeing, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a watercraft educator. You know what I mean? When I'm doing, you know, uh, anything else. So this is a, the bigfoot educator is kind of where it's at, you know, um, and that, that, that, that's been really great. Um, There aren't as many, I don't know of any other communities that are quite as welcoming as like the Bigfoot community. I mean, infighting and stuff aside. Like, that's why I haven't really joined any like groups.

I prefer to just not bother with the infighting, you know. That's not what interests me. Like the politics of Bigfoot is not what interests me. You know what I mean? I'm more interested in the citizen science that's being done because there is a lot of really good citizen science. there is being, you know, people are doing like people like Matt Pruitt, you know, those guys are doing such good actual scientific, you know, and using the scientific method kind of properly, not using the scientific method to sort of, you know, there's like their confirmation bias or any sort of like to validate any opinions that they have about it. You know what I mean? Like they're actually using, you know, those guys like Shane Corson and the Olympic project.

Those guys are doing the science that they're at, like the science that they're doing is just great. You know. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot Society. We'll be right back after these messages. And I like that, you know, in this, like, I think it's starting to gain some traction as far as just if nothing else, people appreciating that they're doing science. And the cool thing about science is sometimes you're proven wrong. You know what I mean?

And it's part of learning. Yeah. That's part of it, you know. So if it comes out that they're, you know, this is all for for not. well, that's how science works, you know. Yeah. What I also always say is like, it would be earth shattering for a minute if, if, you know,

if you went on a hike tomorrow and discovered a big foot body and brought it to the Smithsonian, it would be earthshed. It would be here, though. Yeah. Yeah. It would be earth shattering for a minute. But, you know, three, three years, it would be another giraffe. If you think about a giraffe, a giraffe looks like something that a third grader designed.

You know what I mean? How much of an improbable animal is that, you know, it's got those, that long neck, the kind of goofy horns on its head, you know, it can bumbles around. It's a weird. It's a weird one. But every kindergartner, perfectly comfortable with the existence of a giraffe and doesn't care that much about it. You know what I mean? Like they might.

There might be somebody that the giraffe is their animal. But you know what I mean? They don't think giraffe every day. So, you know, three years, it would be another giraffe. It's so weird to think like. Yeah, but you're right. think about it. In a few years, the society would fine with it. Yeah. So, you know, I look at it like any other animal, you know, the I rebuild woodpecker. Yeah. I've seen, I've seen it vacillate from, I just,

there's an article out like just this week saying, yeah, maybe it's not extinct. All right, quick quiz for the hiring managers out there. What's worse? Being understaffed or being poorly staffed? Well, that's a trick question, because both are recipes for chaos. Either way, Just say to yourself, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. You'll get matched with candidates that meet the skills, certifications, and everything else you're looking for. Or go a different way and get no traction. Seriously, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. It really is a no-brainer.

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Skinny Pop, popular for a reason. I think two years ago, they came out and said, probably extinct, you know what I mean? So things like that happen, you know. So I, I don't know. So all of that, the citizen science and all of that, that kind of changed my opinion on. Now, as far as my experiences, everyone always asks, have I ever seen a Bigfoot? And I have not.

I have not. And part of the reason why I go out and look for salamanders and snakes and stuff instead of Bigfoot is because I always figure my chances are greater. They probably are. Yeah, you know what I mean? Seeing them if I'm not out actively looking for, you know what I mean? I mean, I always see way more deer when I'm not hunting. You know what I mean? All the time.

So I always think, you know, in the back of my mind, I'm like, I keep an ear out for, you know, a twig breaking somewhere. But I did have, and this was actually on, it was recorded for one of the webinars that I did. I had a tree knock now. Oh. And an unsolicited tree knock, okay? You know, not one that, yeah. I was actually in the middle of talking.

I was kind of rambling on about something. Because one of the webinars that I did, I wanted to do sort of a video, you know, a live feed, not really a live feed, but like a pre-recorded thing. So I went out and camped out, called some owls, set up some trail cameras, you know, and pre-recorded this thing. So I had my camera set up or had my iPad set up next to my campfire, you know, and I was talking about something. You know, you can see my camp in the background and stuff. And in the middle of me talking, you got that home run like, you know. Wow. And it sounded like it was, you know, 10, 15 yards into the woods.

And I like froze and sort of just stared off into the woods for a few, you know. and I heard nothing else. Everything went quiet. But I mean, it was that. And I was there. Like I could hear, you know, it was so clear that that pop, you know. And, and I couldn't like, I couldn't, it wasn't a woodpecker. It wasn't an acorn fall.

You know, this was in March. So it wasn't like a walnut falling out of a tree, you know. And I'm like, man, it's not even that cold. It wasn't ice popping, you know. Oh, God. And I'm like, I just don't know what that was. and I was so happy that I got it recorded, you know. Wow. And I showed it to researchers and I'm like, you know, this is what I got.

Now, smoking gun? No. You know what I mean? But I heard something. I heard actually before I did any of the webinars or anything like that kind of right when I was getting into right when I was getting into some of the Bigfoot stuff, more, you know, more involved and more active in the stuff. I did have a little bit of an experience with my wife. We were actually out squirrel hunting because we were so we were dating at the time. And, you know, this is Appalachia. So that's how you date, you know. Sounds awesome. Yeah, right.

So I took her out. And we heard this, this sort of growly howl that sort of echoed through the woods, you know. And this was in the wildlife area around Salt Fork. And she asked me, I was like, and she's like, what is that? I don't know, but we got to be quiet because we're, you know, we're hunting and stuff. You know, so we got into the car and she was like, YouTube and things on the way home, you know, is it coyote sound? What is it? And I said, hey, just for fun, I said, listen to the Ohio How.

And I said, Google, you know, YouTube, the Ohio Howl and just listen to that whatever the soundbite is. And she was like, oh, that sounds a lot like it. what, what, and I said, well, that's, that's like, you know, that's an alleged Bigfoot vocalization that was recorded here in Ohio. And I said it's, and it's been recorded other places. So now it's kind of generically called the Ohio, how, you know, and Ohio how, you know, and I like, you know, I told her. I said, I don't know, you know, is it? Is it like, what did we hear? Wasn't a coyote. I'm pretty good at animal noises, you know, and, and that one puzzled me. Uh, and, uh, and. And, and that one puzzled me. Uh, uh, Now, I've never had anything just pop out of the woods and, you know, scare me. I've never had anything weird. Everyone has those moments when there's, you know, everyone has those moments when there's like the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You know, so I've had plenty of those where I'm like, oh, man, I just don't, you know, I'm not feeling as, I'm not feeling good, you know. Yeah.

Just don't feel. I've had plenty of those, you know. But I think. think uh i think you uh it's like with anything you have to kind of be in the the right place at the right time you know or the wrong place i guess if you look at it you know that way uh if you don't want to find something like that yeah there's people that probably don't want to right out there but so so i get you know but as far as the stories at solfork uh go i get i get told so many different things through the summer and some of them are some of them are really fun like

uh some of them are you know second or or third hand even. It's my, you know, my grandma in West Virginia used to tell us, tell us the story from when she was a kid. And I always remembered it because, you know, they didn't call it big foot back then. But, you know, I talked to a gentleman not to, and he, this one I can talk about because he kind of gave me a permission to tell people about it, you know. Yeah, yeah.

That's great. And I don't have any, like, formal recording system as far as like. I was going to ask you, are you like right in town? I do. I write them down for my own purposes. And then actually, I have a map that you can put pins in. Oh, wow. And if you're willing to write it down, there's like, I've got a composition, composition notebook there. And people will occasionally write down their whole story, you know. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of fun. You know, it's, and it's definitely a draw. But again, like being a public thing, you got to take that with a grain of salt. Like who's, who's amazing? writing down, you know, BS and who's writing down something that they actually experienced. Yeah.

But you can kind of tell which ones, something, you know, which ones were made up, the elaborations of a bad liar. You know, like you can kind of tell which ones are made up. But I talked to a gentleman who had been walking around the park in the middle of winter. Okay. And he, they found the, this basically a trackway. and he didn't even really think about it. He started falling it along.

Then it clicked like, what in the heck am I looking at? You know, what in the heck are these? So he took pictures of them and pretty good pictures. You know, he had a pocket knife that he set down in the track. Nice. And, you know, for size, which is something people sometimes don't do. You know, I'll get a track that's in the mud. And I'm like, is this, you know, six inches long or, you know, 16 inches long?

Like, I, you know, I can't. But he took pictures of, the whole thing. And so it kind of stuck with him. And he came back to the same location just a little later in the year. I had a curiosity. And what they basically did was they had a digital appointment shoot. And without picking anything in particular, he was just sort of clicking it and like kind

of walking, you know, and got kind of a blob squatch, you know, in one of the pictures. Like there's definitely a vaguely humanoid shape. Oh, yeah. And it's like, I don't know, you know. But he, it affected him so much. He never thought about Bigfoot prior to this, you know. And it affected him so much. So his job, he's an artist by trade.

Okay. And he would restore, he would actually take, you know, like a blurry Civil War 10 type or Degero type. Yeah, yeah. We're like facial features maybe weren't well, you know, weren't very detailed. He would take those. And based on measurements that he'd do, he would make sort of a composite of what the person kind of look like. And he actually focused mostly, this is a really, you want to talk about like a niche market.

He would, he would actually use, he would sort of do dogs from Civil War photos. Okay. So any dogs that were, you know, he would do art around the. like he would draw this dog and and and uh that was what he did was kind of basically dog art but he was a phenomenal artist i mean uh yeah yeah i know but but phenomenal artist so it stuck with him so much that he uh he decided to go home and uh take a still from the patterson gimblin film okay and do the same thing that same process oh wow cool for that and gave me a print of the the face.

And I keep it above my desk. Like she kind of stares at me all day long. You know, I've got it framed. So, you know, that one stuck with me because I'm like, here's a guy who I think he's in his 60s. You know, here's a guy in his 60s who never thought about Bigfoot. And now, you know, here he is drawing, drawing Patty's face. And he just stopped in a couple of weeks ago and said hi to me and like,

you know, hung out for a few and told me. He's like, I'm working. He said, I didn't really like her nose. I looked at another still. And I think I'm going to redo the nose. So I'm doing another, you know. And I'm like, man, so this guy, it altered the way he looked at reality. You know, like, so that one, that one fascinated me.

I talked to another family. I won't get into like specifics because I got, but I talked to another family where the guy, you know, it was kind of hard for him to talk about. but he had he told he told his wife kind of prompted him to tell me the story of uh when he was young uh in southern ohio uh they lived in basically like a trailer and uh and he remembers very very vividly his mom gathering up the kids in the living room and saying like okay we're going to be quiet because that things outside no you know yeah and uh and i'm like oh man you know you know talk about Like gives you the creeps, you know. And he said he remembers hearing like, you know, something brush against the side of the trailer and stuff.

And he said, you know, and he's like, you're a kid. You don't really think about it. Like you might think your parents are losing it, you know. But you don't really think about it. And he's like, then I get older. And we start hearing about Bigfoot. And I'm like, man, that's the thing, you know, that they talked about. So those are two that really stuck.

And what got me was like they came in and started talking. to me and his wife's like you should tell him you should tell him and I'm like oh do you have it and that's usually how I you know how I greet people is like oh you know you got a did you have an experience did you see something you know and uh and I'll listen to their story and sometimes like sometimes that bite you in the butt like that's you know oh did you hear something and then it's like this convoluted like crazy you know story but then other times it's like this where it's like this you know really intimate and I almost felt wrong listening to it because I was like like, oh, man. This is like, you're like, you know, I don't know what I would have, you know,

to carry that around every day, you know, you're carrying that around. So that, that one really stuck with me that him talking about his mom, like gathering them up inside and saying, oh, that, you know, that things out there. It wasn't there's a big foot. There's a SAS. It's just that things out there. It's something. You go outside. It's the last thing you do. Yeah. And that like, you know, that one stuck with me. Now, we have, uh, pretty, we've got pretty memorable stories around the park that kind of get circulated all through. I mean, if you, if you watch any of the shows that have come to solve for it, you're pretty familiar with, you know, you'll, you'll very quickly find, you know, those stories. And some of them, you know, like I said, they've been hashed over so many times that I don't like, I don't go into them as much.

But the, yeah, the things that I, that I do get, I get people in offhanded things too. Oh yeah, we were out night fishing and somebody threw a rock at us. Oh, man. You're like, tell me more. Yeah, you know, like, but stuff like that where it's not necessarily, they don't start out with, you know, oh, it was, you know, 100% of Bigfoot. Now, I usually try to keep, I usually try to keep like my opinions about stuff out of it, you know, if I'm, if I'm, usually. And I usually try to like not, I don't, I, I, I just don't, it's not that I don't believe. You know, I talked a little bit about that belief.

It's, you know, I collect it all and kind of, I try to compartmentalize it under this one. This is my Bigfoot education box. You know what I mean? Stay tuned for more Bigfoot Society. We'll be right back after these messages. And this is what I keep all of this stuff in, you know, including all the stuff that I, like, I've experienced, you know. But, you know, whether I never, I never say, is it real? Because I'm like this, when it comes to something like this, it's such a personal thing that real is almost, it real is almost subjective.

You know what I mean? Like, what I always say is I'm like, is it real and that you can go to a museum or a nature center somewhere? and see a body, see bones. Is it real in that? Well, by that definition, if you're being strict about that definition, no. You know, if you're being strict about that definition, can you go someplace and see, like, that is the bones to a big foot? If you mean, is it real in that I can wear this shirt or put a bumper sticker on my car and go anywhere in the country and people will recognize it as Bigfoot? They'll know.

100%. You know what I mean? Like it is part of the part of our collective unconscious, you know. It's weird, man. Yeah, I know, but it's true. Yeah, you know, like car insurance, beef jerky. You know, you can go to our gift shop and buy a, you know what I mean? You've got an awesome gift shop.

Yeah. And basically every carryout for 30 miles from here too, you know. But the, yeah, you know, so is it real in that? Yeah, it's like part of our culture. And when we're talking, you know, there are things in our culture that we, we, we have an 1840s, a stone farmhouse, like on the park. We do programs around that. It's part of the local culture. You know what I mean?

Like it has to do with the local history. It has to do with the local land. It has to do with everything. You know, all of that stuff's tied together. Well, Bigfoot is tied right in there with it. It's part of our local culture. It's part of our, you know, really at this point, because of the internet and things, you know, it's, it's part of our global culture, you know.

For sure. But, you know, you start getting to like, you can't wear a Loveland frog shirt and go to, you know, go someplace and have a, like, it takes a special person to go, oh, yeah, love one of them, you know. That's true. I have myself of that, yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, the Lovelin frog is kind of one of our, like, my kids all have sort of their chosen cryptids and the Loveland frogs. Oh, that's their.

That's so cool. Yeah, that's one of their. Yeah, that's cool. Other daughters, the Fresno Nightcrawlers. Oh, that's a classic. Yeah. Yeah. So we get, but, you know, and then Bigfoot, of course, Leapest.

Oh, yeah. I kind of got the market cornered on Bigfoot, you know, in our household. But, yeah, so. All right, quick quiz for the hiring managers out there. What's worse, being understaffed or being poorly staffed? Well, that's a trick question, because both are recipes for chaos. Either way, just say to yourself, this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. You'll get matched with candidates that meet the skills, certification,

and everything else you're looking for. Or go a different way and get no traction. Seriously, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. It really is a no-brainer. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results.

When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. 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. Today, every dollar counts. Make yours go further with AARP. For just $15 for your first year with automatic renewal. An AARP membership delivers benefits and savings you can use right away. You can also access trusted resources and tools to help you stay healthy. Protect your money and plan ahead. And with a second free membership for someone in your household,

you'll receive AARP benefits for two. Go to aARP.org slash iHeart to join today. No matter the occasion, snack time should be easy. That's why Skinny Popcorn keeps it light, airy and endlessly delicious. Skinny Pop is made from just three simple ingredients, delivering an irresistible taste without being complicated. Skinny Pop simplicity allows you to freely enjoy as much popcorn as you want. Just open the bag and enjoy.

No overthinking, no tough choices. When it comes to snacking, Skinny Pop just makes sense. Deliciously popped, perfectly salted. Skinny Pop, popular for a reason. I mean, it gets weird. I get people that get really hung up on the whole, you know, you work, like they get hung up on my job. Like, how are they letting me talk about this?

and they don't really grasp. Really? They don't really, yeah, and they don't really grasp like what I'm doing, like the education side of it. You know what I mean? This isn't like I'm educating people about about this. You know what I mean? And that's not a thing like this, even just talking to you, like I'm promoting the park. I'm promoting our programs.

You know what I mean? And that's kind of how I approach all of this. And I approach it like I would approach any other thing. Now, the research. it's it's pretty hard to research this you know because there is you got to wade through so much and you have to kind of pick what camp you're in that's what one thing that kind of drives me nuts is I got to kind of pick what camp I'm in. Woo versus you know what I mean and I also but I also want to like I don't want to I'm not

disrespecting anybody that you know oh yeah totally like because the cool thing about science if we found out the portals open up and big hairy bipedal apes walk out of them yeah it would turn on a dime. And that science would, you know, I don't know what the chances of that happening are. You know what I mean? But it's, it is, that's kind of how science and stuff works, you know. So I, I know disrespect to that. And like I said, I try to, I try to stay out of the end. And stuff. Like I don't get involved in any of that if I can help it. it's it's counterproductive uh to any any goal that we might have um and ultimately my goal is not proving existence it's not you know anything it's it's i'm creating a dialogue with

a welcoming group of people you know uh like the bigfoot community is has just been excellent to me you know what i mean like they've been so welcoming and stuff so we create this this sort of public dialogue where everybody can be involved. It's an exercise in critical thinking, regardless of where you fall on it, you know. And I always tell people who completely dismiss it. Like if people show up to anything that I do and they're like, this is such nonsense, you know, this is such. And they just kind of want to be, you know, sort of a turd and a punch bowl about it.

Yeah, you know. Exactly. What I always say is I'm like, well, how about you listen and you tell me, Give me a well reasoned argument as to why. You know. And I'm like, because that's how critical thinking works. It's like you use, don't just come in and say this is, this is nonsense. Right.

You know, give me like use your critical thinking muscles, which you know, a lot of us, and I'm guilty of it too. Sometimes our critical thinking muscles get a little atrophied over time. You know what I mean? We fall into a groove. We get complacent and we, you know, we don't, we're not critical thinkers. we kind of do these knee-jerk reactions. We don't, you know. And I try to tell people as I'm like, regardless of what side you fall, let's try to present like a well-reasoned, you know, argument, using the scientific method, using what we know about the world.

And that's kind of my goal is I like being respectful to the Bigfoot community. You know, I love that they've sort of, they've been so welcoming to me, even because I was so dismissing. of it for so long. And, you know, again, I changed my opinion. Like, some people can't get over the fact that I changed my opinion, you know. But the, that's kind of one of these, that's sort of one of these things, you know. It's kind of why I'm doing this is this. Also, I think that, I think that dismissing all of this simply because it doesn't fit into,

you know, the broader, like scientific community's point of view. is also counterproductive. You know what I mean? So kind of removing some of that taboo. And I think that train's kind of left the station as far as getting the, like now, now you don't have as much, quite as much taboo as you would have, say, even in like the 90s, you know, if you were a bigfoot researcher on the weekends, you maybe didn't brag about it around the water cooler or work. You know what I mean? Now, now it's like a, it's a cool thing. It's a cool thing, you know.

And so I think that, like, the taboo side of it, you know, has kind of left the station. And I think we can thank technology for a lot of that, like people being more interconnected. So it is, I mean, it's just, there's just so much to unpack with this. Oh, for sure. And I'm still every day learning something new about it, you know. That's every day. Yeah. And it's, it is great.

And occasionally, I'll get. somebody will ask me a question or tell me something that just really throws me. And I'm like, man, I don't know. The last webinar that I did, I tried to, I wanted to do a, um, Sasquatch in indigenous cultures in North America. Oh, wow. And, you know, on its face, I'm like, I got this. I got this. And I talked to our cultural resources first.

And he gave me so many great resources, you know, uh, but the thing is, is any one of them you could write a thesis on. I know it. You know, and I look like the day of the webinar, I was like, okay, hi, folks. So this is the best I've got because I want to do every one of these justice, but we don't have 18 hours to do, you know what I mean? And I was like, because so much, there was so much, you know, and I was like, holy cow. And also, I'm not a linguist. I have, I'm really, you know, my, my Spanish is horrible.

I'm really bad with pronunciation when it comes to that, you know. So like saying, I'm like, okay, I'm going to say this very slowly to try to get this name, right? You know, but there's so much with that, like, so much to research and so much to do that I really wanted to try to do it justice. And I feel like, you know, I feel like I could keep revisiting that, just that particular subject for the rest of my career. you know, because there was so much to do with it. But yeah, I mean, it's a great thing. I wouldn't rather be doing anything else right now. There you go.

If you love what you do and you get. I do. You know, I never, yeah, right. And the way I look at it is one day I'm going to need replaced, you know. Now, I got into this field because, well, like Steve Irwin, you know. know, I got into this field. I grew up watching the crocodile owner, you know. Oh yeah. So I wanted, I wanted to be one of those guys. I wanted to go out and catch snakes and turtles and stuff. I wanted to educate, like, be passionate and share my, you know, share my passion with the world.

And that's why I got into the education side of this was because I'm, you know, if I convince someone to be, not convinced, if I inspire someone to become an naturalist. Yeah. Because of Bigfoot, so be it. You know what I mean? If they are passionate about it and they want to pursue this and they want to teach people about this, you know, if they want to become a naturalist or a conservationist or anything like that because of, you know, a Bigfoot hike they went on when they were 12,

that's a win. That's a win on all fronts. You know what I mean? They're, they're, I'm passing the torch onto somebody. that's going to, you know, keep all of the, like, so that, you know, that's why I do it, because that's what matters. That is, is like igniting that passion for the natural world. That's what, you know, matters. And, and, you know, Bigfoot's one of those, one of those things, you know, whether you, like, you know, I approach it as part of the natural world, you know, it's not

something we can go out and like, oh, yeah, it's Bigfoot season. I can go out and call it. You know what I mean? unless it's in Oklahoma, right? Unless it's okay. Right. You know, right. Oh, thank goodness. We've never done anything like that. That'd be all. Thank goodness. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I always forget about Oklahoma and then someone will bring it up and I'm like, oh, yeah. Like, what a nightmare. But yeah. So anything else? John, in the last few minutes. So I know you're got, you kind of keep under the radar, which is cool. So I usually ask, you know, guess like how do people follow you?

But I think I might want to ask how do people keep in touch with what's going on at Salt 4? Yeah. All the big things there. Right. It's not so much that I intentionally keep under the radar. I'm just really like a lot of times, you know, a lot of times I'm like, no one wants to see a picture of this. You know what I mean? Like no one wants to see what I'm eating, you know.

So I just don't, I never post anything. And my wife does a good job of posting all of our kids and stuff. So it's, you know, like. all my relatives get to see our kids on my wife's profile. So I never post anything. It's not so much like I'm, I just don't have much of a presence out of like laziness, you know?

Like that's, I think this, this shirt might actually be my first official Instagram post. Maybe I'll do, I'll do it. This will be like, I'll, I'll do it.

Yeah. All right. But the, because I, right now I have no posts. It looks like a bot, you know, like a bot account with a mustache you know um but the uh um yeah so to uh keep track of things that

are going on with the salt fork uh that's uh it's not just uh bigfoot stuff either like if you want to find out any really anything that's going on the best way is through salt forks facebook page okay that's salt work state park uh that's the you know like that not the lodge uh because we do have a lodge i mean you can follow the lodge to by all means. but Salfork State Park has its Facebook page. All that gets updated pretty regularly with all of my programs and stuff like that. Oh, excuse me. All of my program flyers and things get posted on there.

A lot of any, a lot of the links if I do a webinar or something, you know, all the Bigfoot stuff, a lot of those links get posted on there too. So that's also, I mean, you know, if you happen to find me on Instagram, feel free follow me and some people do like I'll get a message once in a while is this the john hickenbottom from salt for you know heck yes on my on my personal page so you're you know more than welcome to do that I'm not like I said I'm under the radar like unintentionally it's just right right right I'm like nobody wants to see this like um so uh so yeah um that's kind of the best way is our Facebook page I mean stuff gets posted on the official ODNR like calendar of events

and things too. Okay. But it's sometimes kind of hard to find because it's, we've got, Ohio is, uh, we've got this abundance of state parks. Like,

I don't know that folks that live here, um, grasp just how awesome our, our park system is. Like, uh, at least state park system. I mean,

and virtually every county has a great metro park system too, but our state park system is like one of the best in the country. You know, uh, we have, 75 state parks. And for state the size of Ohio, I mean, we've only got 88 counties. So, you know, we have 75 state parks.

And there, you can basically get any, any sort of diversity you want in Ohio, you know, as far as natural resources goes. So sometimes our calendar of events, you know, we have so many state parks. It's kind of hard to find. So selfworks Facebook page, going to be the best bet for, for, keeping track of that stuff. Fantastic. John, thank you so much for coming on tonight. It's been a pleasure chatting with you and finding out all about Salt Fork. And, man, have to have to catch up with you sometime in the future. We're going to, so thank you again so much for coming on. We're going to transition over to the after show. So if you're listening

to this on YouTube or podcast, this has already happened. But if you want to be in future after shows, where you can talk to the guest that you can go to patreon.com forward slash the Bigfoot Society, help support the podcast and also be involved with those cool after shows. But we're going to go ahead and do that,

but thanks again for coming on, John. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the Bigfoot Society podcast. Please take a few minutes to review the show on iTunes, five stars, as it does help us get into

the eyes and ears of more listeners on iTunes. That will help us just get bigger and bigger and get even better quality guests for future shows. Also, if you have any Bigfoot encounters or cryptid encounters, please send your stories and audio and photos whatever you've got over to Bigfoot Society at gmail.com. If you'd like to become more involved with Bigfoot Society

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which, as you've seen what guests we've had in the past, this could be a really big deal. There's also a private discord where you can get involved with talking to me one-on-one and the community there, and that's always a great time. You can find the Patreon at www. patreon.com forward slash the Bigfoot Society.

We're very thankful for all our support, that we have in so many different ways and appreciate all our listeners coming back week after week to listen to more cryptozoology-based interviews. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next time. The views and opinions expressed

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