Bigfoot Society - Filmmakers Recorded Strange Howls in Shawnee National Forest

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Strange howls answered their calls in the Illinois woods. Moments later, they heard snapping—and a thunderous crash.Documentary filmmaker Joe Tury and investigator Jason Dickerson join Jeremiah Byron to share what happened near an overgrown cemetery in the Garden of the Gods Wilderness, deep inside Shawnee National Forest. Their investigation brought repeated vocalizations, a possible trackway, and sounds they interpreted as trees falling in different directions.Hear the howl recording for yourself as they walk through the encounter, their reactions, and the questions that keep bringing them back.What answered them from the woods—and what happened after the howls?Resources:https://rrcmfilms.com/https://www.youtube.com/@redroomcreativemediaMentioned Garden of the Gods documentary: https://youtu.be/-YBUrKM-xNU?si=76F8rDjU1t7bE312Get the free Bigfoot hotspots report: https://bit.ly/bfsreport📖 Follow Jeremiah's cancer health updates here:https://www.caringbridge.org/site/569ef3d3-68be-11f1-8790-97fdfd2bbc64🗣️ Share Your StoryHad a Bigfoot encounter or strange experience?Send it to [e-mail] – your story might be featured on the show!🎥 Watch & Subscribe on YouTube🔴 Subscribe here → Bigfoot Society YouTube💬 Leave a comment & let us know your thoughts!📞 Leave a voicemail with your story → Speakpipe (Use multiple voicemails if needed)👥 Share this episode → Watch & Share🎧 More episodes → Podcast Playlist🌲 Recommended: New Jersey Bigfoot Encounters💥 Support the Show & Get Perks✅ Join the community on Supercast – Become a Member✅ Listen ad-free & early on YouTube – Join Here📱 Let’s ConnectInstagram: @bigfootsocietyTwitter: @bigfoot_societyTikTok: @bigfoot.society🧰 Tools & Partners I Use (Affiliate Links)These help support the show at no extra cost to you:Beam (Better Sleep): Try BeamWildgrain (Better Bread): Join HereSeed (Probiotics): Get SeedMedi-Share (Healthcare): Learn MoreLMNT (Electrolytes) Free Sample Pack with your first purchase! : Get LMNTOrganic and non-GMO groceries delivered for lesshttp://thrv.me/uarEhS🎙️ Podcasting Tools:Repurpose.io: Try ItDescript: Sign UpStreamyard: Start RecordingRiverside.fm: Try Riverside🎧 My Audio Interface: View on Amazon☕ Buy Me a Coffee – Support Here🛍️ Grab Some Merch – Shop on Etsy📬 Mailing Address:Bigfoot Society125 E 1st St. #233Earlham, IA 50072

You're listening to Bigfoot Society and I'm Jeremiah Byron. In this show, we go beyond the campfire stories to bring you first-hand encounters from people who say they've seen something impossible. From backwoods trails and remote mountain haulers to quiet farms and crowded highways, the stories come from everywhere, and each one leaves us with more questions than answers. These are the voices of the people who've lived it, so settle in because today you'll hear another account that just might change the way you see the woods forever. So stay with us. Please keep Jeremiah in your prayers as he continues his fight against cancer. For more updates about his medical journey, please go to the Caring Bridge link in the show notes. Thank you.

All right, Bigfoot Society. Welcome back to another show. We've got the privilege of talking to two gentlemen today. We've got Mr. Joseph Turrey from Red Room Films and Jason Dickerson, also from Red Room Films as well. Welcome to the show, guys. How are you doing? Awesome. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah. Thanks.

And you heard from, for the audio listeners we've got, I'll be referring to Joseph as Joe, who you first heard there in Jason is the second voice that you heard as well. But Joe, it's been a while since we talked. Let's do a little intro for people that are new. Do you mind spending a few minutes telling the listeners about what it is that you do with. Red Room films. Yeah, absolutely. So I consider myself an independent documentary filmmaker stationed out of Central Illinois. I've been doing that since like 2019. So I've been into videography for probably a little bit over a decade or more. And then so I had a, you know, I have this passion for videography and a passion for the world of the weird. And I kind of combined those which is awesome that's it's not my main job I have a real job and then the film side of it is a passion you know I have several documentaries out there that you can find on prime and such

probably my most popular one per se is called creature from big muddy which is a bigfoot story from Illinois that actually Lauren Coleman actually investigated back in the day back in the 70s So I like to document historical cases, mostly paranormal UFO, but my favorite is like the Bigfoot subject. And my most recent one is not a historical case. It's called the Pond Creek Monster with Bryce Edwards when Bryce was on your show not too long ago. And yeah, and then more recently within the last few years, been documented. documenting the boots on the ground research that we do. And most of that is like, you know, like Big Putt, although we do come across other things on occasion.

It is some incredible work that you've done over the years. I mean, we've got to hang out one year, I believe, at the Van Meter Visitor Festival. That was really cool. To meet you in person there, I'll try to have a few links in the show notes. guys if you've never watched the the big muddy monster documentary Joe did it's really good I mean they're all extremely well done

the one about Bryce's situation extremely well done but Jason first time for you on the show first time for us meeting do you mind spending a few minutes talking about what it is that you do and how you met Joe and got involved with all

Yeah, sure. So it was a few years ago. He was working on the Betsy Reed documentary. And at the time, I was part of a paranormal research group. And I just kind of focused more on ghost hunting to paranormal. And I had done that for probably at that point in time, 16 years. And as interesting as the ghosts and the paranormal subject is, there was some crypted stuff that kind of got me interested in the subject. And then Joe and I kind of hit it off. after that video and we kind of got to talking and it just kind of bloom from there. And now, you know, I help him as much as I can. And it's really been good and it's, it's fun. It really is. That's awesome. It's good to see that Joe's got a good team backing them up. Because you're in the Garden of the God's video that was put out. Is that right? Yeah.

Yep, exactly. I was like, oh, I know that face. Yeah. Speaking of the Garden of the Gods, my goodness, that video was wild guys. And I think it was, hadn't you, I think you had reached out to me and been like, what are some places we should go to something like that? Is that how it went down to? Yeah, because I know you have a network of, you know, people. So I was like and you're like you should reach out to Joe Jenkins and Jim Peters.

And I've worked with those guys before. And on a local case here, I had a good time with them, you know, good dudes. And I'm like, okay, so I did reach out to them. And they're like, yeah, let's do it, you know. So that's how we got a hold of that whole situation. And, you know, for people that don't know, Garden of the Gods is like probably the most visited site in Illinois as far as like Shawnee National Forest. And so Jason and I are both thinking, Garden of the Gods. Like, what are you talking about?

Like, there's a, it's not like a million people go there, but there's enough people that go there to where you're like, why would anything be there? But it's not Garden of the God's observation area. It's Garden of the God's Wilderness area, which is multiple thousands of acres. I think it's like six or seven. But it's really, that's just like a man-made border. You know, it's all forested down there. So, yeah, that's how we got into that situation. And I'm glad you did point me there.

Yeah, those guys are great and took us to an extremely interesting location. Let's put it that way. And I was so glad that I was able to actually point. point you guys there because the way you documented it was awesome and man did you guys get some some good evidence uh from there jason do you have any thoughts about uh what it was like to go into an area uh like the garden of the god's wilderness well like he said when when they first said that i was thinking just the area around the observation and i was like i just don't know how that seems like there's too much activity there but then when we went to the area like joe said it's a little

over 7,000 acres that make up that wilderness. And unlike some of the other places in the Shawnee, it is one big chunk. The main chunk of the Garden of God's wilderness is all one piece. So it is several hundred acres. And it just had the right, I guess, vibe, the area. I mean, I like waterways and stuff. It had waterways. And even though the River Trail runs through, there's just nobody back there.

There's very few houses. that border that area so it seemed like a prime spot once we kind of started research in the area it's a great video uh doc because for for multiple reasons but it's so cool when it's captured on audio or video when a person has a looking at it through my eyes i would consider that audio that you captured how did that affect you that seems like it would be a life-changing experience to capture an audio like that and not just be like, oh, it happened. You have to trust me, you know. Well, if you step back just a little bit, we did have, we did have an audio, really, really

good audio best we had up to that point in Peoria County. Remember when that you did the story about the trucker that's all the crossing? Well, so we went there to a known area and we were investigating. and we had this short Ohio how. It was a longer how, but it wasn't super long. And that was our first, that was probably our best evidence to date as far as vocalization. And I'm just like, man, we got to go back there, you know. And at that time, it was, I mean, we do a lot of stupid stuff because like we should have stayed there more and we didn't.

You know, we moved on to a different location anyway. So fast forward, we go to the Garden of the Gods. And let me tell you something, Jeremiah. You made a post like a week before we got there where you're like, tough things investigators do wrong. And like the top one was you don't have your audio running right when you get there. So guess what? We get there in the daytime to do like a little pre-investigation.

They took us to three different areas. and I didn't even want to go to this third area because the first area was good. The second area was great. And these guys were like, we got one more area to go to. And I'm like, why? Why?

Why do you know? So we go to the third area. We get to the location that we're going to do a little base camp. And I'm just doing B-roll. We don't have audio running. And I do a whoop. and I don't know within several minutes we hear the best callback I've ever heard in my life it was it's hard to describe it it was like a higher pitch but a really long and it had like two tones in

it and then I believe there was a follow-up to that and I'm freaking out because this is three o'clock in the afternoon like it's you don't hear kaias. And it didn't sound like a coyote, you know, it didn't sound like we I know what an owl sounds like it wasn't an owl like the vocalization was very long, right? Jason, like several seconds at least. Yeah. And so of course, there's more things that happen in the day, a lot more things. But then when we did the nighttime one, the nighttime one you actually see in our video like it happens. And I'm like, first of all, I'm blown away for two different things. One, hearing another vocalization.

And two, I had, I thought there's no way we're going to hear it again. We heard it several hours ago in the afternoon. So to hear it again, I'm double shocked. And then I think we heard four, four to six howls in succession at that time within like a one to two minute, period. So, I mean, we got it captured pretty well on audio. It is not a coyote. It is not an owl. And it sounds, I even sent it to a primatologist associate in mine.

And she didn't know what to think of it. Like she goes, this is super interesting. To me, it almost has like a little bit of gibbon sound in it, like a lung whistling, but how? how too, you know what I'm saying? Dude, I do know what you're saying because I'm going to be careful. The one time when I go to this area

in Iowa, when I've heard whoops back, man, I was sitting in the tent and it was 7 a.m. and I was like, so weird, there's gibbons here. And I was like, whoa, listen to yourself. There's no gibbons here. We're not by Black Park Zoo, guys. Right. Yeah, I totally get the whole Gibbon thing. It's awesome.

Do you mind if we play that audio that you captured and then I'll talk about it for all right so I'm going to go ahead play this and we'll just listen to it here the first part of that is me doing a whoop you'll hear an owl and then it's followed by the

weird vocalizations so when I first saw that I was like oh my goodness I was so happy for you what was in the moment what was your reaction to to experience that and I asked that question for both of you

If you watch the video, you can kind of hear me. I kind of cut it out, but I said, I think someone's bleeping with us right now. Like, is someone messing with me right now? And I mean, look on everybody else's face. They have this kind of the same look I did. I mean, in shock. And they're like, no, that's no, that's not a person. That's not a kind of, you know, it was just so eerie that I did not expect.

another response since we heard it in the daytime. I just didn't. So it was super shocking. We're out in the middle of nowhere hearing this crazy sound. And, you know, Joe Jenkins like, this is what you're here for. And I'm thinking, you know, yeah, I guess. No, he's absolutely right. And I laugh because I get put in those situations too. At this time, just real quick before we go to Jason. So you guys are not near. like a public campsite or anything. You're you're far away from stuff like that. There's a primitive site close to there. It was closed when that night it was closed for repairs or something. Perfect, perfect. And Jason, what were your thoughts? What was your response to when that

was all going down? Well, so talking about not knowing that it wasn't an hour of coyote, that's the most frustrating thing. We get comments all the time about, is it our coyote. We've been in the woods. I mean, I grew up hunting. I've been around coyotes all my life. I know the difference between a coyote and something that isn't a coyote. And I think maybe even in that audio,

Joe, correct me if I'm wrong, didn't some coyotes start, didn't they start yipping and howling after that we heard that? It was after that, but you can definitely tell the comparison. We recorded the coyotes as well. Those aren't coyotes. You can tell a distinct difference in the sound.

So, I mean, it made the hair stand up on my arms and I was excited. That's wild because I'm thinking back to when I had talked to the, they call himself the squatchers, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. And just the audio that was played in that episode is some of the wildest audio I've ever heard on this show. I mean, it is some weird, weird stuff. So I'm trying to put myself in your shoes because you probably like listen to that audio over and over and like, okay, this is what they've captured and we're going there. But then it's like, man, when it really happens to you, it's just like, ah, it's so cool.

It is so cool, man. Yeah. But so let's, I'll let you guys talk for a little bit. What are some, you know, during that same garden of the gods, what are some other cool things that you guys experienced? I know we have some pictures to show as, as well. well and I'll let you kind of go for it. Yeah, so I think it was after, yeah, it had to been after the howls because the house happened right when we got there.

And you can kind of see it in the video, the daytime footage, but like I have no audio. I had the audio cranked down on the camera because I just did an interview and we were using labs. So we didn't have audio running, but you could see me yelling at the guys, guys, guys. and they're kind of looking and Jason's like, are you kidding me type of thing? But after that, it's like,

so let me just describe the area. It's an old fire road. I don't know if it's a part of a logging road or not, but it's like an old fire road. Very compact gravel with soil. I mean, you can't see a lot of gravel in most of the spots. It's very rutted out.

You kind of go up this little. little hill and then there's like I don't think it's okay to mention there's like an overgrown cemetery back there which is really interesting as well but like old type of cemetery and then the road keeps going back and

winds for a few miles but so we're kind of just exploring that area I'm getting B-roll and Jason and Jim Peters are around the corner down the road a little bit and Joe Jenkins looks at me and goes I don't want to be that guy but this looks like a footprint and I go over to where he was looking and yeah it was like this really blotchy kind of thing and I'm like yeah I can

see that but what about this next to it like there was something even more defined like close to it and I'm like hey Jason um I think I got a footprint and he goes well you need to come see this you know we i put the tripod over the footprint i found and then we walked down the hill and you know jason's over there before i even go to see jason there's this tree it's about like this big around you know snapped it's like about a i don't know 15 20 foot tall tree snapped and it's splintered like it's not like rotted and broke it's a splintered tree on the side of the road and it's kind of like next to other trees. So like, you know, you try to think in your head,

what could break this tree? Well, it's not a piece of equipment because there's other trees blocking it. Other equipment being road service. I don't know what it would be. And there are still leaves on it, some kind of green, but, you know, I'm like, I think we have a tree break here. And I'm not a big tree break or, but, you know,

are known to do tree breaks, you know, as a sign of dominance. So I see this thing and I'm like, what the heck? And then Jason's like, we'll come over here and look at this. And so Jason, tell them what you saw. Yeah, I mean, that footprint stuck out really well. What we think are like the pad, the toe pad prints were just sticking out. Very defined. It was easy to see in the dark with a flashlight.

And is this one of the, I know you have, I know you have a few photos that you've sent of footprints. Yeah. Okay, so we'll go ahead and we'll go through. So, yeah, that was from the daytime. Yeah. And just looking at that, if you look at that right now, I can't point to it, obviously, but you see three things that look like toes. We don't think those are the toes.

We think there's impressions above that. I think those are like this, like the pads. kind of like in your foot. Because if you look above that, there's like on the right hand side, I believe that's a big toe. Gotcha. Right about, yeah.

And are all these from the same time frame or from different time frames? There might be one of them from the past two weeks ago. I think so there wasn't just one print. There was a series of impressions, like probably like four or five of them. I believe this is one of the other impressions. It's not as good as that one.

This is the one you're going to click on now. That is what we think is a juvenile print. That was right next to the trackway. That was like the most defined one of the juvenile we saw. I mean, so it rained, of course, the night before. and some of this is a little washed out. That's what we're seeing there. But we think now I'm not, I'm somewhat of a skeptic.

I'm saying this is potentially a juvenile print. I got you. I gotcha. Yeah. This is from that first print you showed, like Joe Jenkins used this scanner program to measure it. So yeah, it's like he's showing like seven, like I measured it with tape. Jason did and it's and it's pretty accurate. It was like almost eight inches across at the top.

And if you go farther up from where he's got that seven and three quarter, it's a little bit wider to where we think the toes would be. Like that 14 inch part, I think that's ending in the first quarter of the big toe. Like I think it would go up a little bit. to like maybe 15 inches, if that makes sense. So like 15 inches and probably closer to 8 inches wide at the top, and it's about 6 inches wide at the bottom.

And then we got one more here. So that one, that's a different measurement of the same one. That one, he's not, again, he's only going to the top of the pad. Right. So, yeah. What we're seeing as a pad. Yeah. And then, let's see, so I'm going to do that.

We also have, this is so cool that you're able to do this. And I wish more people would be equipped to do this. I think this scan is from a footprint Jim found on that road a couple of weeks ago. It's still a cool example. It's a 3D scan, and it's just a cool example of what you can do with an app called Scaniverse when it comes. Or it could be this one. I have to. Oh, yeah, it's this one.

It's the one Jason found, yeah. So that is, you're saying that's the one that Jason found right there? Yeah, so just to tell, Jason found that in the daytime. So like right after I did, I was looking at that, what looks like a tree break. So he went over, so it was like, there's a little area that had a dip in it and it had a little water around it from the rain. And so I think that's why we were able to get a trackway there because the rest of the road, like that first print I was talking about that I found, that place is so compact, like it barely left a scuff.

You know, like we, Jim and Joe cast that print, this one with the scan. And it's like, I don't even know if it's a half an inch cast. That's how. And I think it's like a quarter inch. Yeah, yeah. No thicker than that. So it's not a great cast, but to me and Jason, it's great because it's like the first one we, like, we're able to cast, I guess, you know. But, I mean, you could still see, like, I'm looking at the cast, and you can see kind of like the pad area and, like, toes.

It's not the greatest cast in the world. If anybody else looked at it, they would say, you know, whatever. It's more for our benefit, you know. And then they cast the juvenile print, too. and that one's kind of blobby. I just, they said it rained more, so more things filled in to it, but it's, you know,

both of them, to us, are very interesting, you know. Especially because it's a, especially because it's a trackway. It's not just one, everybody's always like, oh, you found one print. No, we found multiple prints, you know.

The strides are about 48 inches. So experiencing the different things you experience, experienced at Garden of the Gods. Did it change your mind on anything? You mentioned that you sometimes, or you go into things with a skeptical mind sometimes, Joe. Absolutely. I mean, you have to, right? And I've always been a hopeful skeptic in the, you know, I totally believe in the possibility of Bigfoot. Do I believe in the possibility of Bigfoot in Illinois? That's where we're out there trying to figure out.

You know, again, number five state as far as reported sightings. So, you know, like with anything, you want definitive proof. We're out there trying to get some definitive proof. So another thing on that nighttime vocalization, after we heard a series of those, within a minute or two of that after that, maybe within a minute. We heard to me, like at the time, I'm like, is someone out here with a shotgun? Like, we heard this huge blast. And the other guys are like, I'm pretty sure Jason was the person when he's like, no, that's a tree break.

And a tree getting pushed over. Like it sounded like a huge dead tree getting pushed over. And if you listen to it, it's got that multiple snap, snap, snap crash. It's not like a gun going off. And then I don't think we caught it on audio, but Jason heard another one from like it was almost like a response knockover, you know, from a different direction. So does it change me? Like I'm getting less and less skeptical and more on the side of believing there's something going on out there. Okay.

And Jason, you know, you have all this background with paranormal. research, have you found that that plays into this at all? Or did you kind of just leave that to the side? And then now you're fully focused on this as a Bigfoot guy. No, I think part of the paranormal side of that was being open-minded. I experienced enough things for people to tell me that ghosts don't exist, but I had enough evidence in the time that I did that, that I have to completely stay open-minded. And I, everyone always asked, me what my opinion is. Do I think it's an ape? Do I think it's paranormal? I don't know. It's all interesting. And I don't, I don't really, I can't tell you that I have a,

this is what I think it is, and this is how I go about researching it. I just research it. If you told me to take some paranormal equipment to go out and look for Bigfoot, I would do that. I wouldn't say, nope, that's not going to work. So, yeah, it's kind of the skills that I use there to investigate I use here and a lot of it overlaps. I don't know that it's the Bigfoot is paranormal or UFO related, but it helps me stay open-minded to any possibilities. People are seeing something. Not everybody's lying. So I just, I'm trying to figure out what it is. They're seeing. That's for sure. That would be absolutely impossible. So question for both of you guys. thinking of like all of the times that you've gone out and specifically Bigfoot related stuff.

What would you say, has there been a one time in particular where you're like, wow, what just happened was probably, I don't know if it's going to ever get better than that for a Bigfoot interaction or I don't know how we can beat that, you know. Well, we're kind of talking about it because we're talking about it. Okay. Yeah, we heard vocalizations, trees get pushed over, found footprints, possible tree break. I mean, the only thing we're missing is a visual. Let's see a visual. Yeah, for sure. We've actually found another footprint, what we think is a footprint on our very first investigation together. And that also in the Shawnee.

And it was more on like Garden of the Gods is kind of southeast. And a lot of times we go southwest. And we found an impression in a creek bed next to our campground. And we were like one of two people camping there that night. And the creek bed goes down like six feet. The night before, Jason and I heard what we think sounded like three whoops. You know, audio is very anomalous. But it sounded like whoops next morning.

checking the creek bed. There's a 12-inch print. Looks like a footprint there and other scuff marks for an impression. But I mean, I talked to Jason about that. It's like we've had a lot of weird stuff happen. And then after about a week or two, we just kind of blow it off like all nonchalant. Like, okay, well, on to the next, you know, because it's a weird situation. Don't forget that footprint.

we crawled up the edge of the bank a little bit, and it was right in line with our camper. Yeah. It's like whatever was in the creek was standing there, staring right at our campsite. And you walked that creek the evening before filming mural in that area and didn't see anything. So it happened that night.

And it was, what, high 20s? Yeah, I think it was like 25 degrees Fahrenheit that night. Yeah, we had water sitting out in a jug, and the top was frozen next morning. So there wasn't anybody walking barefoot in that creek. that at that time. Oh, that's a really creepy observation

or a creepy event where it's pretty much checking you guys out. Right. It does happen a lot. So after you put this out on the YouTube channel, did you get any contacts from people that were like, oh, yeah,

garden the gods, I've had this happen, check it out. I mean, not so much, but what's funny is Joe and Jim, led a group of investigators there a couple weeks ago okay and and we were there a couple weeks ago and so they're like hey why don't you guys go there Friday night and then we'll stay out of that area so we went Friday night and we did our e-bike thing so we we take our e-bikes it was me jason and our buddy cameraman russ who helps with filming and documenting and we go to the

I don't know how far the cemetery is down, Jason. What are you think it is? I'd say three quarters to a mile deep, probably. So that's from the trailhead. So we went down there. I had the new audio recorder going. I did a whoop. I fully expected a callback this time.

Guess what? We didn't get a callback. And then we investigated. And we investigated out there for a couple hours. It was a rain. It was a big storm was coming in. We're like, okay,

let's go. We don't want to get caught in the storm. On the way out, there's like this little hilly section on the logging road. It goes down to the trailhead. And I remember I was on camera. You know, I got a GoPro on.

And I'm like, man, I'm feeling kind of like something weird going on here. And we stopped. And I tell Jason that like, I'm getting a weird. vibe here and whatever that means dude you know like i just had a weird vibe i don't i couldn't explain it and it was on this hilly area and on the video you can kind of hear what sounds like a

percussion sound but that could be anything but anyway it's just interesting to know there's some percussion there and then we leave we get to the trailhead and this pertains to the next story but there was just these a bunch of bar diles like it sounded like 20 of them who knows how many there were, but they were just going off. And I got it on recording, and I'm just to, like, show people,

this is an owl, this isn't a big foot. But, like, they were just, like, chattering, like, nobody's business,

you know? The next night, these guys go out, Jason and Joe, take those other investigators, and they had multiple things happen to them. And I was just watching one of their videos, and they specifically mentioned that hill area,

like, they believed they were being, followed out they saw like i shine there they had like weird stuff happening there and then um i know jim found one but they found multiple tracks at the trailhead and which were fresh so they think they happened that night in my minds we were being followed out the night before so i i don't know how old the tracks are they think they're super fresh um but um so within within one to 24 hours, I guess those tracks were made at that trailhead coming out like it was falling something out of the woods. And they also mentioned the owls. They brought out the owls in the video

how like crazy it sounded how many of them there were. Like what do owls mean? I don't know. But it's just kind of interesting to note. And it's interesting to note that they had the experiences right at that place too. So like we're not the only people that are experiencing stuff in that research area. I think that's a huge observation for you to make is you'll start to, you're probably already realizing this, but you'll start to notice, oh, this one area, weird stuff happens. And I could probably talk to other people that researched this area throughout the years. If I could find them and hear similar things.

But Jason, what was that experience like for you? Joe just mentioned that you were experiencing some weird things out there? Yeah, so it's kind of neat. I mean, the few times we get to get together to go down there, you know, it's not like we get to go every weekend, so we make the best of our time out there. And so to compare that, let me just say when I was doing the paranormal, a full body apparition is what everybody wants to see. It took me nine years of investigating to actually finally record a full body apparition. So in the cryptid side of the research, I feel like we got lucky and got to experience what we want to experience fairly early in this investigation time frame that I'm doing now. We haven't been doing it very long. So I feel like a lot of people probably get a lot less and they spend a lot more time in the woods.

So I feel very fortunate that we've gotten activity and evidence that we have already. I wonder, you know, like people always, if you put anything out on YouTube, I know you are aware of this, Jeremiah, you get the, a lot of the comments you get are the greatest members of society, letting you know what you're doing incorrectly. So we get these comments all the time, you're doing it wrong, you need to go to a spot, turn off all the lights and sit. you're doing it wrong you need to walk through the woods and make some noise and let and bring out some interest with no lights you're doing it wrong you're supposed to walk through the woods talk with lights on uh no one's going nothing's going to happen if you whoop or treat not we do everything we don't what techniques work and what don't what doesn't work uh jason has an aztec death whistle that sounds like a woman shrieking in the woods i love that thing because you hear stories about

those type of sounds, right? I mean, whatever we're doing is working because we're getting potential responses, you know, not every time. You're not going to get something every time, but we get potential responses trying different techniques. In my opinion, the best technique is to try to make them curious as to what the heck's going on. You're not going to out ninja them in the woods. I don't care how good you think you are. I mean, you're just not, in my opinion.

So I think the best thing to do is to draw attention to yourself in one way or another and bring them in that way. Oh, 100%. I agree with that. And I think the Aztec Death Whistle is a really good example of that. I mean, I'm thinking of stuff over the years. I've heard of a BFRO expedition out in Washington State. There was a dude who was a bagpipes player.

Oh, yeah. And it brought them in, man, because, like, they'd never heard it, right? Yeah. And you sometimes hear people like, well, there's the whole shofar thing. That's effective. I've been in an expedition where that was used probably a little bit too effective, but you've got to be careful of that one. But, yeah, I think you guys are right on the money there.

So is Garden of the Gods that area a place where you're the plan to, continue keep going back to or maybe start what are your thoughts on that yeah you know we're definitely going back one more time in about two weeks two weeks i'm a little bit concerned of going too much like um i think i don't know if tricking is the right i think you can build up a curiosity initially, but eventually they're going to get wise to that and say, oh, that's that dude whooping again, or that's that dude and he's got a flashlight or something. One thing that may be in our favor, and this is pure speculation because who knows if we're even experiencing anything valid out there.

But the group that was after us a couple weeks ago also found what they think is a juvenile print. So we think if I was to speculate, there's a female with the juvenile and there's a male out there because Jason heard the trees getting pushed over from two different directions, you know, right after each other. So there's got to be two big ones out there if there's something really out there and the tree didn't just fall over on its own, in no wind, things like that. So maybe there's, you know, something to be said about a family out there. I don't think they stay in an area for like Illinois for very long.

I think they transition along waterways because there just isn't enough shelter that's totally remote that people wouldn't find at some point. So I think they got to be moving around if they're down there. Right. So right now I think there might be a male, a female, a juvenile in that area, and how long are they going to be there? I don't know. Well, the thing you got going for you is, I mean, it's not like it's right next tour, but you are down that corner where there's like the Ohio River. Yeah. Yeah, which is, that's huge for this stuff.

I mean, you go on the other side, and if you look on sighting maps like Bigfoot Societypodcast.com has a really good one. you can see there's lots of stuff on the other side of that river across from Illinois and then you keep going you got mammoth cave and all that crazy stuff and Missouri you got Missouri right there not too long you know far I mean if you look at a map like an overhead map of the area it's just one huge giant forest from state to state it's it's men that are saying here's the boundary so therefore you know Bigfoot does any animals doesn't care about a man-made boundary. If they can get across the river, which not to almost every year now in the Mississippi gets so low that you can walk across it, you know, in certain areas down in southern Illinois. So, yeah, I mean, I think there's a precedent for things traveling all over the river area down there. Yeah, absolutely. Are there any places that you guys are like, oh, this place in Illinois, it's still on the list. We still haven't gotten there. We need to get there. I mean, Shawnee is like 300,000 acres.

So there's plenty of us for us to do that. We want to get back up into Peoria County at some point. I know there's another place on the western border, more towards like Alton and that area. There's a lot of reports coming out of there. So there's plenty of rugged areas, believe it or not in Illinois to research. So I can't imagine we're going to people, that's another thing.

People are like, you're going to run into other researchers out there. And that's who you're whooping back to. Well, chances are that's not really happening either. I mean, it's just too vast of an area. I mean, like Jason was saying, we like to go to areas with waterways, food sources, remote locations. So there's plenty of those. There you go.

Curve, curvy, curved rivers or creeks, that's usually a big one. I don't believe we've been able to talk about, it was a while since we talked last, Joe. Yeah. I don't think we've even been able to have a conversation

about Bryce's property, have we? No. I think he was on by himself when he was. He was. Guys, that's such a wild thing. What was it like being able to experience some things down there? Are there any memories that stick out about that property? Jason, yeah, there's quite a few weird sounds and vocalizations we've experienced over multiple trips there.

A couple things. Well, one of the things that I think it happened on the same night is, we heard what I call a disembodied voice a couple times. So I don't like that stuff at all. We pulled up, of course, no audio running, and we distinctly hear like we're at a farmhouse. It's a farmhouse on the middle of the woods kind of type of thing. And there's like some trees not too far from the driveway.

And Jason and I and Bryce hear a distinct. it sounded like someone's saying who like not an owl it sounds like someone's saying who and we're like what the you know what was that and of course like i say we just i mean we kind of investigate it we don't see anything and we're just we just move on to the next thing and then not too long after that as we're doing our thing investigating in this field we hear laughter coming out of another section like maniacal after and we're like what is that and then go over there with flashlights don't see anything thermal don't see anything okay let's move on and then and this is in our video called a pond creek monster another high strangeness but jason tell them what you

captured jason so i'm looking at the sky because you know i'm interested in UFOs and moving lights And so I was using the night vision goggles. And I just started looking at three stars in the sky. And at first I thought it was Jits. I thought they were like doing dogfight maneuvers. The way they were, they were like interacting crisscrossing what I thought they were crisscrossing. And then they would blink out and then they would come back. And I thought, well, that's not Starlink.

Those aren't satellites because they just kept interacting with each other. And I just, I'm just infatuated with steroids. at that. And then I'm just like, well, okay. And I just quit recording it and then comes back later. And Joe, actually, when he put it the video together where I could see it on a TV, like a big screen, I'm like, he points out that it's a triangle shape. And on a big TV, the black area in the triangle is darker than the sky around it. And then you see it looks like this big triangle shape rotating. So the lights aren't disappearing. It's the light going around the backside of whatever that is in the air.

And so it looks like there's a light on each corner of a pyramid that's on its side, if that makes sense. Like it's longer, taller than the base is. So there's four lights and it's rotating. And when I saw that, like my jaw dropped. I'm like, this is impossible. And I'm asking these guys, is there like some type of weird farm equipment or oil tower? or cell tower out there and we've been out there since.

There's no tower or no towers. And yeah, it really freaked me out when I was editing that and I saw that on like a big screen. I'm like, this is on a structure. This is a structure. This isn't just random orbs floating around in the sky that, you know, we're, you know, like this, there is a structure here.

And so what do you do with that? I mean, it's like we're out there investigating Bigfoot stories and we see UFOs. And other people like, well, I didn't watch this video for UFOs. Well, we weren't out there for UFO. We weren't there to film them. You know, but we're going to film it if we see it. Yeah. And we found, we found potential trackway out there.

heard other crazy like percussive sounds, weird vocalizations. You know, not every vocalization that's weird is Bigfoot, but it's just worth noting that we do hear weird stuff out there. Yeah, and good on you guys for not cutting out of what you observe. Right? Because that's kind of like, well, talk about framing the narrative. to what you believe. Holy Michael.

Right. Yeah. So thankfully you guys aren't doing that like some others. My goodness. So would you say then from what you experienced firsthand that that a property is completely legitimate then? I mean, stuff is going on there. I think so. Like, I mean, we didn't.

again, didn't have any visuals of a creature out there. But there's enough weird stuff going on there that makes me think at least something's happening. I don't know what it is. Like, there's speculation. It's a window area, you know. It's a, that area in southern Illinois is known for a lot of UFO activity. And it always, it has been for at least 50 years that I'm aware of or more. and I mean

I've seen when we were out there before I've seen a possible orb I don't you know again hear percussive sounds out there you know what's up with the disembodied laughter

and voices like what do you like what is going on like is it just that area or is it just southern Illinois in general I don't know but you know, we're afforded the opportunity to go do private property. We're going to investigate it.

100%. Yeah, that's a huge privilege to be able to partner with Bryce in that and get that access. It's very cool. It's fun to talk to him for sure. There's a, so we'll talk about a hypothetical situation. I'm curious if you've ever thought about this to prepare for, probably the one day when it will happen if you keep doing this. Have you ever thought of what will we do if we are out there investigating, filming, and we have a visual?

Yeah. Is there something in place or is it just like, whoa, crazy town? How can you prepare? I don't really think you can. I mean, you want to think, we don't prepare when we're doing what we're doing now because we're, so when you come across something like a crazy vocalization, you do the best you can. But you know what happened was a couple of us out there talked over one of the vocals. You know, you get too hyper when we had our first vocalization that we couldn't explain what we do. we said are you hearing that kind of talking over it a little bit and then and then we didn't hear it again

for 10 minutes so we left we went to a different part to investigate so like it's hard to i almost want to say like i mean we've been doing it for a couple years we've heard stuff but like every time we've had something happen it still blows our mind like to at least me like i mean I'm just like, so it's hard to think straight sometimes. So what's going to happen if we get a visual? I mean, hopefully one of us is smart enough to push a button on the camera and record. Right. Yeah, 100%.

I think it's the same. Man, it's like you go out there and you have these adventures or investigations. And I learned so much. You know Jesse and Joe, I guess, and from, yeah. So I got to hang out with them at the Tennessee Crypto Camp Out. And the thing I, one of the things I learned the most from them is, man, when you're recording and someone, something happens, you just got to shut your mouth. Shut up. And it's like 100% accurate.

Like I find every time I go out, it's like, okay, get in the right mindset because I was told this. And then days later at, yeah, in the upper Cumberland Plateau, it's. area with Craig. Yeah. I totally didn't do it. And I was like talking over. I was like, come on,

dude, what are you doing? But you get so like jazzed up, you know, so you have to constantly remind yourself. It's crazy. Yeah. I mean,

I'm going to start bringing a card like with a list of things of to do and what not to do. I mean, you got to, you got to prepare as best as you can, I suppose. But I just, you know, so let me,

let me put it to you this way though would you go out in the woods and try to have an encounter with the bear like purposely have an encounter with the bear yeah that's probably not then why are we going out trying to personally have an encounter with bigfoot like do you do you think it's a friendly for i don't think it's a friendly forest creature i think it's in my belief and i could be totally wrong but my beliefs are just as accurate as everybody else at this point i think it's an animal and an animal going to do what it does to protect itself or it or its offspring or something like that so why are we going out there trying to have confrontation with one i think that and and this is this is a good conversation because we can be adults and not 100% agree on stuff and still talk um so i'd say

yeah is physical thing physical creature because uh their footprints we've both found footprints right Yeah. There are things that happen in these areas that I've experienced. I just talked about this the other day where it is not a normal thing that an animal will do. And it's hard to explain away. Like, why are the orb showing up in the same areas? Why, if you talk out loud to the woods, say, hey, can you make a noise? And there's a noise immediately.

That's happened to me. And so there's all these questions the further you get in. It's like, I don't know how to explain this, right? Why is there so much activity around cemeteries in the forest? Yeah, yeah. Because Jubilee, we were in Jubilee and Peoria. There's a cemetery there. There's a cemetery in Garden of the Gods we're investigating next to.

There's an area where closer to my home that I do been out to multiple times. There's a hidden cemetery in the woods there. And there's an eyewitness that told me, you know, he's had activities. in that cemetery area. So what's going on with that? Yeah, it's wild because I'm thinking real quick, I've talked to so many witnesses

where, man, it's just wild. This one guy in Indiana where it was in an area like that and then he had a sighting of one and it like backed, it went backwards into a tree, dissolved into the tree. And then like half a minute later,

I think it came back out, which it's one of the weirdest things ever. I just watched that one the other, just yesterday or the day before. Yep, I know exactly what you're talking about. Very, very strange. Have you guys experienced any orb activity when you've been going out in these areas yet? I've been wanting to so badly. I really have because I know.

I don't think so. So, again, I may have saw one out and Bryce's property, but it's kind of hard. to like really say okay I definitely saw an orb I saw something which for a brief moment that I thought maybe was an orb but like these guys that were investigating Garden of the Gods a couple weeks ago witnessed an orb on the trail like on that road as they were coming out like so that's one of the things as like getting into UFOs

and documenting that type of stuff I there's tons of stories about or down there in southern Illinois. So I want to experience that as well. How am I going to react to that? Oh, he knows another story. But yeah. It's weird as I'll get out.

I mean, because it comes up on the show a lot. And like I just talked to a lady, her name is Patty Volvo. She was staying in a place out in Oak Ridge, Oregon, actually this summer. And she gets chased by a board on a road on the property. You know, speaking of, oh, my gosh, Helbin Holler. So they, Jason actually come up with, so they wear like these lightning detectors that. Oh, yeah, it's really cool. Right.

Yeah. So with and their thought behind that is maybe it's sensing energies and in areas that where there's no lightning, right? Like if it's going off and there's no lightning and no, not a cloud in the sky, nothing charging the air, then maybe it's capturing something. So we started using that, you know, talking about I don't believe in paranormal Bigfoot,

but I wear one of those. Jason has warned it on our investigations. One night he had like 27 lightning strikes to go off. Whoa. You know, while we were investigating this one that was on Snake Road in last year in the fall. Well, it went off when we were over there on the Mississippi there along the fault line.

Oh, yeah. I shut it off because it just kept going off. And there was, I think the closest storm to us was what? In North Dakota, maybe that night or something, like a small sailway up there. The only storming, I just shut it off because it just kept going off. We couldn't record audio or anything. One weird thing I like to mention on that particular investigation, we kind of got a little bit of, we got kind of skunked on that night. like nothing, nothing out of the ordinary.

But one thing that was weird on that trip was when we got there, there was no animal wildlife in the campground, like none. Like no birds, no deer, no squirrels. I mean, you can't even see a squirrel or hear a blackbird or something. So there was nothing. And then a week later, there was a news report that during the time we were there, there was a series of earthquakes in the area because the new Madrid fault line goes through there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So going back to a couple weeks ago on that Friday night where Jason and I, it's kind of the same thing. Like it was dead out there. Well, there was an earthquake in the area like that night. Like it was reported. Like you're talking to earthquake, you're talking just like small tremors or whatever. Right. The other people that use that device, because I've been watching this a lot to get through chemo, so I've been just like, it's one of those things where like if you're in some pain, you'd like switch off. This will be great. Skinwalker, the show works really good. They also do that where they will have the lightning detector on them. In the early seasons, they were doing that to see if there were like energy, you know, things. So that's kind of cool. So how are you checking to see.

if what the closest lightning strike is after it shows up. I actually get on a web, I have several weather apps downloaded on my phone and I'll get on the radar and start looking for storms and see where there's any fronts or anything like that in the area. Okay, it's brilliant. You kind of get an idea. Okay, very, very, very cool. Guys, it has been a really fun conversation with both of you.

It's been great meeting you, Jason. Hopefully our paths will cross someday. out there. Are you guys going to conferences and festivals and doing stuff too? I mean, at the moment it's not really our thing. We're not trying to be famous.

I'm trying to build my YouTube channel, our YouTube channel Red Room Films, Legends and Monsters. But I mean, conferencing is almost like we're not selling stuff. I mean, I have DVDs. I don't have a bunch

of merchandise in stock. I'm not like trying to I don't have a problem with people doing that but that's at the moment that's really not our thing like I just it's a lot of work like there's you need a team of people to do it correctly in my in my mind or you're doing it full time Jason and I both have full time jobs and you know we do the best we can with videography and you know whatever else we're doing our post, but conferences, and we've been asked. Actually, I have just got asked the other day, me and Jason to go to something.

I haven't talked to you about it, Jason. But yeah, it's just like the main thing I've always done is Big Money Monster Festival because they play our movie there, you know, but I like going to conferences and seeing people like yourself and whoever else. I'm a fan of other people just like everybody else, is you know what I mean I'm a fan of the subject right right absolutely I like if I have a booth at like van meter or oh rich I'm doing it because I want to be able to talk to the people and

sometimes if you just go to these things and you're just there walking around yeah people don't even know you there you know yeah so you need like a central central base but um I have wild stuff. What are, what are some, are there any, uh, things that we can look for coming out soon on the YouTube channel? I encourage people to see our series. It's called Wood Devils. And, um, there's four episodes. We're filming the fifth one this October. That would be season one. Um, each one has a little bit of something in it. I think people would really like, number three. It's called Garden of the Gods, that's which we talked about. But there's something on everyone. I try to film it like it's not quite streaming service quality, but it's

better than your typical YouTube quality. Like I try to put good quality in it, good audio, at least, you know, and I want people to be immersed in the environment. So I do a lot of environmental V-roll type of thing. Give people an idea what it's like down there. So that's a really good series. I encourage people to at least give it to try to see if you like it. If you only want to watch one episode,

watch number three. But we're filming the season one finale this October. Yeah, so check that one on. That's on Red Room Films, Legends and Monsters, on YouTube. That's the name of the channel. That's awesome. And again, all the links for that guys will be in the show notes.

And I always try to put stuff in there so you guys can do more research if you want after listening or watching the show on YouTube. Are there any other links or things that you would want listeners to be aware of before we end our time chatting today? Yeah. So, yeah, we got a website. So it's, let me see. if I get this right. RRCM Films, which stands for Red Room Creative Media Films.

RRCM Films.com is our website where you can check out. We're still flushing it out. There's going to be like additional Bigfoot reports. But the newest thing we got, we have a publication. We're trying to do once a month. It's free.

There's a link to it on there. It's called the Red Room Files, where we have more behind the scenes, overviews, like our thoughts, on an investigation and like some behind the scenes, photos, like this first issue has a couple equipment pieces. You know, I like to share equipment and what we use it for and our thoughts on it. You can't really put it.

I don't want to put that in the documentary stuff because it kind of takes away from it. So it's kind of like extra. So you just sign up for it. I'm not going to spam you, I swear. I don't have time to do one issue a month, much less try to spam. you. So it's free, sign up for it. And that's at our website. Awesome. And Jason, anything from yourself? No, just back to talking about the conferences and stuff. If I've got a weekend off, I'd rather be in the woods than at a conference. I'd rather be investigating. And then I only have

the way my job works, I only have two weekends off a month. So I'm going to spend that in the woods if I can. I love to hear. Yeah, because there's, man, there's a lot of different events coming out down there in southern Illinois I've noticed there's Harrisburg just had a really big one that's a premier I mean it's every year so

in October so if anybody wants to check that I'll be sure to check out the Harrisburg Shawnee Festival they usually have some pretty decent speakers and there's one in Mount Vernon as well like pretty sure Ken Gerhard

and Lyle Blah Blackburn spoke at that one last year, I believe. So Chad Lewis was supposed to speak in Harrisburg this year. He had a cancel out of that one, but I'm sure he'll be back. There's some good stuff going down there. Good stuff. Well, guys, thank you so much for hanging out today. And we'll definitely be keeping up to date with your channel and seeing where you guys get to you next.

but we'll have to maybe have a chat in the future and see what you guys are up to them. Thanks for hanging out, guys. Right on. Peace out. Yep. Thank you. If you've had a Bigfoot encounter of your own, I would love to hear from you. You can send me an email with your encounter at Bigfoot Society at gmail.com.

I've come out with a free report about the top 10 Bigfoot hotspots. you can go over to bit.ly forward slash BFS report. I'm Jeremiah Byron. Thanks for listening to Bigfoot Society, and I'll see you in the woods.