Bigfoot Society - Strange Bigfoot in Eastern Tennessee with Matt Seeber

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Join us as we sit down with Matt Sieber, a seasoned Bigfoot researcher and author from Tennessee. Matt shares his personal journey into the world of Bigfoot, recounts fascinating encounters, and discusses the peculiar occurrences near the Y12 National Security Complex. He delves into the rich history of Bigfoot sightings in the Appalachian region, the impact of such experiences on witnesses, and the challenges of researching this elusive creature. A must-watch for anyone intrigued by cryptids and the mysteries of the wilderness.Resources:Bigfoot: Perspectives from the Foothills of Tennessee:https://amzn.to/414jIAM (Amazon Affiliate Link)https://www.easttennesseebigfoot.org🔴 Subscribe to our Youtube channel and leave a comment here: https://www.youtube.com/@BigfootSociety?sub_confirmation=1Share your Bigfoot encounter with me here: [e-mail] to call in and leave a voicemail of your encounters for the podcast - Check this out here - https://www.speakpipe.com/bigfootsociety(Use multiple voice mails if needed!)Share this video with a friend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5v75Od-X38Watch more episodes of the Bigfoot Society podcast here – https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3t1vwtsKh-MGeHs0XglFJE5LwUHpmJm_&feature=sharedRecommended Playlist – New Jersey Bigfoot Encounters - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3t1vwtsKh-Mk4032IyZtWgP6LVPU8uat✅ Help me help others share their Bigfoot Encounter by joining the community on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thebigfootsociety✅ Hear ad-free episodes early by joining the community on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Qq45W6iaTU8FE9kelxT7Q/joinLet’s connect:Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/bigfootsociety/Twitter – https://twitter.com/bigfoot_societyTiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@bigfoot.societyAffiliate links mean I earn a commission from qualifying purchases. This helps support my channel at no additional cost to you.My Audio Interface: https://amzn.to/3L1q8XYPut some pep in my step by buying me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bigfootsocietyPick up some merch here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/bigfootsociety/?etsrc=sdtSend mail here:Bigfoot Society125 E 1st St. #233Earlham, IA 50072Send business inquiries to: [e-mail]

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And now let's get on with the show. Our Bigfoot Society, you've got the privilege of talking to Mr. Matt Sieber from the great state of Tennessee. He is a Bigfoot researcher down there. He's also an author. He's written the book, Bigfoot Perspectives from the Footh Hills of Tennessee, which I recommend everyone pick up a copy of that. It's really a look at his life, but also some fun encounters along the way in the book. So, Matt, welcome to the program. How are you doing, sir? Hey, I'm doing good, Jeremiah. It's good to be here. Absolutely. Is there anything else that you would like? like listeners to know about you right off the bat before we get into it? Oh, I don't suppose. I've been doing this for many years. I've been doing it since 2005. My son had an encounter. You can read

about that in my book as well when he was 15 years old and I just, I got sucked into this stuff really by accident. I'm not had an experience per se. I've had some strange things happen to me, but for the most part, I'm not a witness, but I am. It changes yet. It changes you. It really does. You get involved with this stuff. You look down every rabbit hole that's out there and you become a conspiracy theorist and all this good stuff. So I'm all of that.

Oh, yeah. It can get wild. And especially if you're in a state like you where there is so much stuff going on all the time. And then that's just current day. And then if you get into the history, the Bigfoot history down there, oh my goodness. I would just go down every rabbit hole that I. I could if I live down there. My goodness, remind me, Matt, what region of the state are you primarily researching down there? I'm in the East Tennessee area, the Appalachians, Smoky Mountain

area, places like that. I am very accustomed to being around the mountains, what they would call them. Of course, the book says foothills, and that's what they tend to call that stuff around here. Of course, we're not as big as the Rockies. You've got the Smoky Mountain Range, and then you've got all the Appalachians from up and I think it starts somewhere up in. Maine or New York all the way down into Alabama. There's just a lot of cricks and crannies down in this area. Plus there's a lot of strange occurrences down here too. We've got the Y-12 National Security Complex operated by DOE in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which is probably less than 10 miles from where I live. And there are a lot of things going on in that place that people say are very

strange. That was the place in World War II where the uranium was enriched for the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan. Oh my goodness. I didn't know that. That's at the Oak Ridge facility? Or is that a different place? It is. Okay. I listen to, I don't listen to a lot of other podcasts, but I listen to a few. And I know that place comes up on Tony's podcast, a confessional. It just sounds like there's some really weird stuff going on in that area. You've got everything from Bigfoot. dogman, potential portals. Who knows what is happening in that area. It's pretty much like in many CERN, right? Yeah, yeah, that's what I've been hearing. I listen to Tony as well. And of course, Tony lives probably, he's moved here from Pennsylvania, I believe it was he said.

He's probably less than 40 miles from the Y-12 complex. Yeah, he's hearing things from people, and I'm hearing things from people, and I've heard stories for years about people saying things down there. Of course, when you talk about the portals, people have said things like, we don't know what's coming out and we don't know how to get them back in kind of things. They just say things that kind of leave you hanging. So, I've never seen anything any stranger than just the run-of-the-mill stuff around where I live and work. But, yeah, it's always a possibility there. So do you have people themselves coming to you and saying, hey, there's stuff coming out?

out of portals or is just stuff that you're hearing off of? No, it's just stuff I'm hearing. Gotcha, gotcha, got you. Just some things I've heard, especially from Tony. He's had some guests on there, talked about that stuff. But also, I've had people come to me directly about Bigfoot sightings out of that area. The tracks that I've found and taken pictures of, as far as the crow flies, less than a mile from their perimeter fence kind of things, there are a lot of sidings down in that area, a lot of store.

of where the officers who patrol the place have seen things. Of course, I can't name any names, but I've heard stories like that ever since I was a kid. Strange things over in that area because once something decides to live in a certain place and they know it's there and they can't really do anything about it, but they can keep people out. And you can get shot going across the gates over that place. So knowing the history of that area, because, you know, growing up in that area. These Bigfoot sightings, they go pretty far back, it sounds like.

Yeah, now, most, again, most of the people that talk to me, most of the people actually will come up to me and tell me their stories. So many of them are from 40 and 50 years ago and things like that. And of course, I wrote about an encounter that a great uncle had when he was very young, and I'm guessing that was in the 20s or 30s. I'm not real sure about that anymore. but yeah there's always been stories like this going around and of course Bigfoot was never really the name we you understand that happened that came about in the 50s people talked about them at mountain boogers and and holler haints and things like that don't go up into that part of the on that part of the ridge something will get you that kind of

stuff and that's always been a part of my life and of course my grandpa would always tell me when I would start to go squirrel hunting or something he'd say watch your back just watch your back. And he would always prefer that I not go alone. And of course, nothing ever really happened. I mean, I did have an experience of some quietness. It's a strange feeling, but I never actually encountered anything. But yeah, the stories are abundant around here if the people are willing to talk to you. That's one of the things about around here. A lot of people don't say anything because they'll get ridiculed. They'll be made fun of. So. Now, I had an individual reach out to me through email about probably half a year ago. She had a really interesting story. Her story was that

there was an area in East Tennessee where they had a lot of people moving in from out of state. And they got these new neighbors that had moved in from Las Vegas. And the new neighbors came over one night to their house and said, hey, by the way, do you guys have silverbacked gorillas out here? Wow. Yeah, and they were like, no, you guys probably saw one of the Bigfoot that are around our area, and they were like, oh, okay, we get how it is now. So, unfortunately, I wasn't able to. I handled that pretty well, didn't say. Yeah, but I haven't been able to talk to that individual.

Hopefully someday they'll reach back out. But what kind of descriptions are you getting in that area of how the Bigfoot look? the ones that have been more recent, they've been, people have actually taken a good hard look. I did. Again, I wrote about several of these in the book that I've written. My mother saw what she thought was a dead cedar tree standing on the side of the road.

The one my sister saw was very short. She imagined it close to around four feet tall and very skinny and mangy looking. And then I've heard other stories where there were seven and eight feet tall, brown, black. And personally, just around here close to where I live, most of them are brown and black, anywhere from six to eight feet tall, covered with hair. Some guys, one fella kind of described the back of the hair growing off the back of its own was like the front leg of a golden retriever or an Irish setter, how the hair flows down the center of their front arm or their front leg. And it just hung down about six inches off the back of their arm, but it was shorter up close and up top.

So it was, yeah, it's pretty much run of the meal here. I have heard of a story of one in particular in the state, not necessarily East Tennessee, but these are stories I've heard where there is a possible 15-footer in a state park in Middle Tennessee. Of course, I don't know if that's true or not, but that's a pretty big fella right there. I have heard the same stories, Matt, and I know that we probably aren't going to say the name of that park. No, we're not. Yeah, we'll let other people say the name on other shows.

But it's not going to be said on this one. But, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. And that place sounds insane. Yeah, it does really. Yeah, I've been there once. Beautiful place. Yeah, I've been there once. Beautiful place.

Just the stuff that goes comes out of that area. I would be nervous to go in that area. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. But that is what it is. So you are, you're a researcher. Now, do you do independent research or are you going out? Do you have a group or are you with national groups or?

No, it's just, it's mostly me nowadays. I have a few people that help me when I need them to. But again, here where I live and me personally, I'm not too well known. I'm not syndicated nationally, I don't think. But a lot of people don't know I'm here and a lot of stuff gets past me and gets to other folks such as yourself, which is fine. And no big deal. But I don't get very many reports. And I would say probably since 2005.

And when I first started this, I tried to do like the BFRO. I was doing the weather, time of year, time of day. What were the conditions? Were you near water? I was going through that whole shabank sitting down for an hour at a time, writing out the report. And every report I was writing started sounding the same. They were all during the daytime or they were all during the night time.

It just once the story got to be, it became mundane, actually, Jeremiah. That's what it became to me as far as I know that sounds crazy. but the stories just became mundane to me because most of them were where people were driving down the road at night and it would cross in front of them or it was standing on the side of the road. A vast majority of the sightings that have been given to me, reported to me, have been very close to civilizations. In some cases, behind people's houses and neighborhoods and things like that, I don't believe anybody has to go really far out into the wilderness to happen upon these things. they are they staying close they're as close to us they're probably uncomfortably close if we thought about it very hard because a lot of people see them and they're through their windows at nine on a country farm or something which may be a few miles out of town or out in the country all by

itself or maybe a mile or two between houses or something but that's still it's still pretty close to civilization there's just so many things about trying to keep up with all that I finally gave up on doing that and just started talking to people and just trying to start a conversation just to listen to what the stories are they have, trying to piece together ideas and opinions about why they do what they do, where they go, why they go there, what they eat, why would they be hanging around in a certain place at a certain time of the year? Do they migrate? Are they transient? Do they follow the wildlife? Just all those different questions start popping up in my head. And again, the sightings that have been reported to me that were very intense,

that's what they were. And the people's faces were as serious as they could be. There were tears in their eyes. They were adamant about what they'd seen. And there was no reason why I shouldn't believe what they had to say. And obviously, my mom doesn't, my mom would never have lied to me. So I know what she saw was what she saw. It's a whole different ballgame. I learned this when I went out to Oregon this summer. When you take a report from someone or hear their story when it's face to face in real life as opposed to over the phone, man. And I know you've experienced this yourself because just from how you're talking. But it's like there's some people that they get right back into the emotional state that they were in at that time.

And you want to ask them questions, but you're like, I don't want to keep them in this emotional state for too long. We got to get them back out of it. It's just the wildest thing I've ever experienced, to be honest. Yeah. I say things like, hey, you got to realize that you're one of the few people in the world that's actually encountered this. It's actually seen this. You could consider yourself fortunate to it at least you at least know now that they exist, and you can't be lied to about it anymore.

So, yeah, it doesn't comfort them very much because, again, most of the people I wish I'd never seen this. I wish this had never been a part of my life. I know people who, once they've seen it, they've retreated back into their homes. They don't go out much. It really wrecked them. And then there's other folks that, my gosh, they went so gung-ho like me. Again, it was a family member that saw what they saw when that got me involved. But I know one individual that he saw one and he's in the woods all the time.

He probably has seen more and knows more about the subject than I do. but he don't share anything he knows. He don't talk about it to anybody. Occasionally he'll give me a text or a message on Facebook, hey, what you heard lately? What's going on? I'm saying, not a thing. He said, I'm busy.

That's funny. He knows there's some things going on, but he's not sharing it. And that's fine, too. I mean, most people don't believe the stories anyway, and I stopped trying to convince people of their reality years ago. Yeah, and that's, I don't think it's our job. The way I look at it is it's not my job to convince anyone for sure,

but it is my job to try to help someone. Yes. Figure out what, you know, work through it and then get back and control of their lives again. Be able to get past it. Yeah. Yeah, which is hard when it sounds like both of us, we, neither of us have had an actual sighting. We've had probably, I would say, class B,

experiences. Yeah. Which can be crazy enough. Oh, yeah. The few things that happened to me, I think maybe the one

thing that happened to me where I had what they call Minespeak, I think that's what kept me in. I think that was the thing that convinced me that there's really

something going on and my family member just wasn't pulling a goof on me because that's what people do sometimes. But when that happened, yeah, I couldn't get away from it

after that. I just couldn't. And again, in the very beginning, you can ask some of my friends about this. I would go out in the woods and I'd do these things. I'd be looking around and all this stuff. And every twig that snapped, every twisted tree, every downed limb in the woods or anything like everything was Sasquatch. Everything. That's a big foot. That's Bigfoot sign. That's, I had no clue. I had no clue. And nearly 20 years later, I'm at a point now where I'm one of the, the most skeptical people around. I'll see all kinds of social media pictures of Sasquatch, Bigfoot, whatever, and I'll look at that. I'll say, nope, off the bat. I said, nope, I don't believe that one. There are only a few out there that I truly believe are legitimate.

But now, that's the whole other thing. But, yeah, as I've grown older and been in this along and heard so many stories, and, you know, my thought process has changed. I used to think, again, it was the undiscovered ape, the primate. that's all over the world that really nobody knows about. And I thought that's where I'm going to stick. And all this time later, I'm as far out in left field as pretty much anybody else as far as it goes. I don't know who or what they are, but it's not simple.

It's definitely not simple. I would guess that when you start having something happen like Minespeak, it totally changes the way you look at things. It's hasty. The only thing I can liken it to, I'm a person to. faith. And I believe that my God in heaven has spoken to my heart a few times about some things in my life to do something or to say something to someone or encourage somebody. If you want something done right, you do it yourself. That's why you change your own oil.

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and it was very unsettling. It was unnerving. But at the same time, I didn't feel threatened by it. I just felt just an overwhelming sense of, wow, whatever said that or whoever said that is getting into my mind and that was not very pleasant. And it just struck me and people have people on the more down the center or over in the right side of things that don't exist. That was your imagination. That was just something playing. And I can't say honestly that it wasn't my imagination because that was the very same summer. All this stuff was going on around my home. And I never dreamed in a million years that there was going to be a Bigfoot in Tennessee. I'm sure you've heard that before. Now specific South Northwest or down in South Florida or somewhere like that, but not East Tennessee.

I had no idea they were around here. You know, the things my grandpa told me, I never gave it much thought and all that kind of stuff. And then when all this stuff started happening, it was going through my mind all the time. So yeah, I can say, I guess I'm 99% sure that what I encountered was real, but there is that possibility. It was my mind, but I definitely haven't let go of that. And it was a life changer for me, just like this friend of mine.

who had that eye-sighting big thing walk across the road in front of his truck. He's a bigfoot hunter now. As far as I don't mean hunting with a gun, I'm against that all the way. But he's a researcher. He's an investigator. He goes out and he's always looking for these things. And he's educating himself with all the different ideas of what these things could be. And I think that's great.

But at the same time, I'd like to get with him a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. When people share with me if they've experienced mind speak, I found there can be two different ways. There can be sometimes the person does actually hear like a different type of voice in their head. And then sometimes there could be like almost intrusive thoughts, which is these are not thoughts that I would have ever. Something is off here. Do you, did you feel like you were towards either or side of those two? my mind-speaking counter experience was it was in my head.

There was a voice in my head, a voice I had never heard before. It was not my voice. It wasn't a nudge for my spirituality kind of thing. It was a voice that simply said, I am here. And as that voice spoke, with my eyes closed, I visualized, And again, it was just, it was sudden. It was like there was a smoky haze and there were two large black eyes looking me dead in the face. I didn't see a nose.

I didn't see a mouth. All I saw were the two eyes with a grayish smoke haze around them. And that kind of, that made me raise up in my bed, basically. And I thought, okay, what was that? And it only happened one time. And that's the only type of experience I've had. And I have heard that there are two different types of mind speak where you have a visual encounter along with a voice,

and then you just have the voice. And I've heard of a particular encounter from a young man who did not see what I saw in any kind of sense, but it was like something was being pushed into his mind that whatever that Sasquatch had seen, he was showing that to the person. And what he was showing to that person, to the young man, was what the Bigfoot watched him and his family do that day. So the Bigfoot was hiding somewhere and he was watching he and his family hike around or go to a playground or something.

Wherever they were or whatever they were doing, he was watching. The Bigfoot was watching them. And he was like playing that back to the young man in his head and then talking to him about stuff. And I thought, okay, that's really creepy. So I have no reason to doubt that, but my experience wasn't quite like that at all. And I'm really glad at it. That is extremely creepy. It is weird how sometimes with this it'll happen one time to a person or like multiple times for a few months. And then it'll just completely clear out.

And it just doesn't make any sense at all. It's very strange. Yeah, I'm still. trying to wrap my mind around it as well. Sometimes I hear you might go to a certain place, a certain area, and then that can kick things off. Maybe you have an interaction with one, or you're just even in an area that has a lot of activity. I think that can, that type of interaction can kick things off too, but I don't know if we'll ever know the answers to that, to be honest. But I want to ask you about East Tennessee Bigfoot.

And when you think of Bigfoot in that region, are there stories that you've heard from over the years, encounters, sightings that seem to get passed around all the campfires down there? Everyone always brings up the one certain account for down East Tennessee. Actually, I haven't. I haven't experienced that kind of thing. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of the stories that I get reported to me are very similar. It's not, I've never, I don't think I've ever had a report given to me that was incredible. You know what I mean? I guess maybe one or two, but it was still, it was not necessarily anything supernatural, but it was strange.

But at the same time, again, a lot of people don't talk to me about. stuff like this. But I think about it and I think about it. There's really not any specific campfire story that people share about these things around here. I can't really think of any campfire story anybody shares around here or at least shared with me at any point in time. There's always the old man with a hook and all that kind of stuff. Right, right. There you go.

There you go. Yeah, nothing about a big foot or anything like that. that and no we don't have anything like that at least not around where i'm at so living in the area of east tennessee and it sounds like around the area of the great smoky mountain national park and in that region do you have any thoughts about the whole missing four one one or people thinking that bigfoot might be related to disappearances that happen around that area of the park do you think that could actually be a thing It could be. I do, I have a look. We both, I'm sure you've read the story about the young boy who got taken by something back in the late 60s. And he never returned. And some witnesses saw what they thought was a dirty, underdressed man with something over his shoulder walking away. I really don't, I really don't know if that's something that is Bigfoot related or if it was she.

human-related. And nobody's ever found out. I believe what is, his last name was Martin. Dennis Martin. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. And I was thinking you were going to go in another direction. But yeah, I have an inkling that, yeah, that they may be involved in some of these missing people. How else, how does somebody just go missing just in the snap of a finger? How does that, even happened. And they have found children or the remains of children miles away from where they were lost across rivers miles away. And there's no way that child could have walked through that river. A two or three year old kid, that's not possible. And sometimes they find people with their clothes on backwards or their clothes are all removed, but they're folded next to their bodies.

And that's just, that's not normal. That's not, it's just not humanly possible, in my opinion. Unless, of course, somebody is doing that, and I won't take away from any of that. I personally think that humans are probably some of the worst people out there. I think that might be even more scary than Bigfoot to know that there's a group of organized humans out there that are doing everything that is. weird and reported to do with missing 411. That would be even more horrifying, I think. That's just me.

But do you have any thoughts as to why? It seems like there's just a whole bunch of weirdness that groups itself down in East Tennessee, but then you also have North Carolina, the western North Carolina. And do you have any thoughts about why it all seems to gather down there? I'm not put a whole lot of thought into it, but when you think about the history of this area, there were a lot of people from Ireland and Scotland and the poor areas of Great Britain that came over here, and they settled into these mountains, and they tried to meet out of living on these rocky hills. And I've heard people say that they brought their belief.

with them. And I'm one of those type of people that believes if there's a myth or if there is a legend that's out there about anything at all, there has to be some truth to it somewhere. And maybe these people brought these, for lack of a better term, spirits with them. And now these same spirits who roamed Ireland and Scotland about hundreds of years ago are now also here in the mountains of North Carolina and here in East Tennessee. Some of these things, they talk about things that steal babies and stuff like that. And there's always that kind of stuff going on. I remember when I was a very young child, there was an old lady in our family that she was near death.

And everybody believes that there was a bird had somehow got down into a chimney when the fire was low. and when they stoke the fire back up, the birds started flapping around and died. And the old lady just basically got out of the bed and just she was screaming that that was some kind of an omen. So that kind of belief system, even around Christianity, it was still intertwined with a lot of these people in the mountains. They have these superstitions and these ideas. And I can't take that away from them. I don't know what's real and what's not. But superstition was really big and still is.

It's part of who we are. It's part of what made us who we are. Have you found that area known for a heavy religious community, I would imagine, how have you found that churches down there, Christians, those that are, follow the Bible. How are they coming to terms with all of the weirdness that lives in that area? You've got your Bigfoot sightings, dog man, and even weirder stuff than that. They aren't. They don't talk about it.

They really don't have a clue. They don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about it. I've been in several churches over my life, and I've been in several classes where people teach, and they would bring up the idea of Bigfoot. Oh, there ain't no way. There ain't nothing like that. That wasn't on the art.

God didn't say that was in the Bible. and all this kind of stuff. And really, to me, just a slap in my face and a slap in God's face as far as I'm concerned, he didn't tell us there were raccoons out here either, but we got them. And so, yeah, I think there's a spiritually closed mind even today in most of the Christian churches,

especially here in Tennessee. They believe what they believe, and that's fine. I don't have any, I probably agree with most of everything they believe. But at the same time, they have closed their minds off to the things they can't explain. They simply can't. And I can't do that. I mean, I'm pretty set.

I don't think there's anybody that could show me anything that would change my belief about my religious convictions. But there's a lot of stuff out there that could change my mind on when and how it all took place. I went from a, here in the past few years, I've gone from a young creationist to a not-so-e-year-old. un-creationist, even though I am a creationist, a young earth or old earth. There's just too much out there that's ancient and that's been here for a very long time that talking about like things down in Peru, the way they built those walls down in Peru, the fact they melted marshmallows

and stuck them together. Those folks at that time couldn't do that kind of stuff. It's just not possible. So somebody else did it and you just don't know who. So that's the way I think about things. And of course, nobody wants to talk about that kind of stuff in any kind of religious setting. It's just maybe most people are just afraid of the idea that there's something out there in the dark that they don't know about that is bigger than them and faster than them and could wreak havoc on their lives if it chose to. So maybe that's it. I don't know. It could definitely very well be. I think maybe some of it could also be people have their thoughts about how life works and how everything's connected and they just have no time to sit down

and think and if something comes in and messes all that up then they don't even know who they are anymore. That's why so many people when they have these encounters are just so shaken by it. I'm not saying that if I saw Bigfoot tomorrow or in the morning as I drive to work that it's not going to freak me out, but it's not like I'm not expecting it because I already know that. exist. I didn't have to see it to know they exist. I've heard too much. I've read too much. Too many people have talked to me that I trust. There's no way it cannot be real. I have found tracks. I have found what looked like tree structures. I have heard tree knocks and I have heard whistling. It's just it's out there. They are out there. And that's another funny thing too,

Jeremiah. When I talk to somebody who really doesn't have a clue about these things, they'll say something like. They found Bigfoot over here today. What do you reckon he's doing? Something like that. They had this idea. There's only one Bigfoot. They saw him in California. How did he get to Idaho so fast? Yeah, exactly. I said, dude, we're talking about a species. We're talking about possibly tens of thousands at least of these things running around. And oh, surely not. Yeah, you need to look into this. Yeah. And sometimes they'll read into it and then they'll come back and talk to me later. but most of the time they just laugh at me.

And that's fine. I'm good with it. I've gotten so used to that. I don't even care. Do you feel, okay, there's a question I've been asking people recently, and just to see what the consensus is. Do you feel that over the last few years, there have been more people coming forward with sharing what they've experienced

related to Bigfoot? Overall, I believe so, yes, but not necessarily in my area. Again, people are very standoffish to me personally. But now when I can, I go to these festivals and some of these conferences here in the area, people say, they'll talk to me. They'll tell me their stories. If you want something done right, you do it yourself. That's why you change your own oil. You wouldn't trust your engine to just anybody.

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we could be people that could help them vent this out and maybe get along, get on with their lives, not so traumatized. I think that's what I've become to most of the people that talk to me. I'm just somebody that they can talk to to get it off their chest because most of the people I've never told. They say things like, I've only told two other people in my life what happened to me or I've never told anybody else because they made fun of me. I was afraid they would make fun of me and all this kind of stuff. And so I'm glad you let me hear what you had to say. And that made me feel good that they were able to trust me. And of course, and I'll be honest with you, Jeremiah, I've heard so many stories.

I've probably forgotten more than I've heard now because like, I say, I stopped writing them down years ago. Because a lot of times, most of the time, they're very similar in the way they hammer out around here. It's just, it's not something overly strange other than, well, they saw it walking across the road or they saw it standing behind the tree and all that good stuff. But I do. One thing I will say, I need to share this with you, is there is a question that I ask

people who talk to me about these things. I don't ask them what they believe necessarily. I just ask them whether or not they have any kind of psychic abilities or if they are spiritual people. And nine times out of ten, they say they are or someone in their family is. So there's always that possibility that there's something about people like those who have intuitions or some sort of ability to, like mediums and people like that. I believe that stuff is real.

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I know it exists. I have a member in my group. She is a former medium, and she has some of these abilities. She's actually helped sheriff's departments find people who went missing. And every time she goes in the woods, every time she goes in the woods, something approaches her, something either quick, Whistles, growls, tree knocks, and she's actually got photographs of things. How most big foot photos are, they're grainy and they're from a long distance.

Sure. But there are black forms standing behind trees. She actually has a photo. I have it on my phone. What looks like a dog man in the fork of a tree staring at her and her husband as they were walking down a hiking trail here in East Tennessee. So, yeah, I told her you can have that stuff. I don't want to know part of those things. I don't even want to, yeah, that's a whole other dog in the pile of there.

So, yeah, I don't, but that's very uneasy for me. But, yeah, there's a lot of people who, they just want to vent, and they don't really want to share the location. They don't trust me enough to say, come to my house and look around. And, of course, if it happened 10 years ago, why would I want to go look around anyway? If it was a one-time sighting, there's not going to be anything there. I've always had a little rule that I keep. If the siding is more than three days old, there's no point in me going checking it out.

Because if the weather's not right, or, now, of course, if they say, hey, I've got tracks, and I'll hit those, I'll go there for sure. But it's such a needle in a haystack. And people go out and they hunt for Bigfoot in the dark and they knock on trees and all this stuff. And I guess that's fine. But I don't think they're really having any success because I'm one of those kind of people that believe. If you're in the woods and Bigfoot's in the woods, Bigfoot knows you're in the woods long before you ever knew he was. And he's either playing games with you or he's long gone, one or the other.

Oh, absolutely. I'm quickly, I'm just going to say I am one of those people now where pretty much you're not going to get it done by knocking on trees. doing the yells, which are fun to do. That's fun to do. But I think there's more to it where if you just sit down somewhere and chill out and then just like you read a book or scroll on your phone, like that, there will probably be stuff happen because they're curious and they're going to come over. They'll know that you're there.

They'll find you. There's even people get out there in their black clothes and their camo and their gilly suits. And to me, that's just an insult to them. to the Bigfoot because like I say, they know we're there before we ever get there. And that's to the point of we know what's going on around their home usually. And I've heard somebody I think said this on Merkels. How would you feel if some random dude came walking through your house and started making himself at home, you're not going to be very happy about it.

And that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing. If we just happen upon one of their places where they kick back and relax or that's where they're raising their kids, or whatever, and we show up and we're looking around and we're banging on trees and we're hollering, yeah, they're going to run us off or worse. So, yeah, I don't do that. I've never really done that. I just, I think it's a waste of my time anyway.

Yeah. I'm not out there to have fun doing it. Exactly. I think a lot of it has to do with the intention of the person when they're going out to. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, if they're in it with a good heart, as opposed to they're going out and they just want to become famous or bag of big foot, that's going to come across somehow, I think. Yeah, I think there's a, I don't think. I know they can get into our heads.

And maybe they know what we're thinking. They know what we're packing. If they're, and if they don't want to have anything to do with us, they won't. But if they feel threatened, they're going to threaten back. But yeah, I think they know these things. They know our intentions by the way we act and how we present ourselves to them. It's funny that I say this, and I have said this before, I think I wrote it down. There's a respect that I think we need to have for them. Even though we don't really know who or what they are, they may be bad. They may be good.

I've heard stories where people have said they're just like people. there's good ones and bad ones. And that's probably more of the truth than anything. But we just need to respect them for who or what they are. Because personally, I think in the long run, they may be smarter than we are. You think of anything 10 foot tall that can hide on the planet for millennia. And science don't even have a clue. They refuse to accept it.

And there's got to be something to that unless science is lying to us, which could very well be the case. Oh, that could probably never happen, right? Yeah, we can trust Big Brother. Yeah, yeah, we'll see. Who knows what will happen in the next 20, 25 years, my goodness. I hope something cool does happen, you know, let the UFO people have their day,

and then it's time to release some Bigfoot stuff. Yeah, yeah. Who knows? Maybe it all happened at once. Maybe the UFOs will land and the Bigfoot will come out. Oh, that'd be cool. That would be cool. That's a guilty of them.

So one other question for you. If there's people listening to this and they're like, oh, man, yeah, East Tennessee, that would be cool. I'm just going to go down there and make a weekend trip and go Bigfoot and down there in East Tennessee. Is that possible or smart to do? Or how prepared do you need to be if you're going to go out into the woods of East Tennessee to look for Bigfoot? I guess no more prepared than if you were going to go on a high. hike or an overnight camping trip, something like that. I don't see any reason why it would be any different. I carry. I always carry anywhere I can legally carry. I carry. And it's not for Bigfoot. It's

for people. If somebody's trying to hurt me or my family, or if there's a lot of coyotes in Tennessee, they sometimes can come after you. There are wild boars out here, and they can put a good hurt on you and probably kill you. Yeah, I would definitely go with an intention to protect. protect myself and protective of a family. But other than that, I don't think it would be, I don't think it would be wise to do anything different than that other than just what I mentioned. And the whole concept of where would they go in Tennessee or in East Tennessee, just about any state park. You can mention there, there have been reports out of all of these state parks around here. And of course, I've had reports sent to me from Smokies. So yeah, I mean, they're around. And, You really don't have to go far. I mean, there's a frozen head state park in Morgan County. There's a Cherokee National Forest down the lower end of the Smoky Mountains that's in Tennessee. A lot of stuff going on there.

There's a, I think it's a Panther State Park up around Morristown, Tennessee that's had some activity. And then, of course, there are other ones out there too. Some of them more well-known than others where things are going. on. Again, a needle in a haystack. You just have to be at the right place at the right time. I don't, maybe it's random, maybe it's not, but I can't imagine most people, as many people that are out in the woods these days, most people aren't going to have any kind of encounter because they're just so few and far between. It's definitely something to think about. Yeah, I echo what you say, pretty much every state park

or forest in Tennessee has had something happen. It is pretty wild. That's an interesting concept, too. I've heard people talk about how that national parks and state parks and military bases and all these places that are run by the government at this point, people have said there was some sort of something happened in these places before they came national parks and state parks and military bases. And we had to cordon these places off to keep people out.

or to control people's movements within. The Smoky Mountain National Park, you can take pictures, but you can't take video and you can't fly drones. You can't take video? You can't take video without a permit from the people up there that run the place. What are they called? The Park Rangers, those guys in the U.S. Park Rangers service, yeah, you can't fly drones and you can't take video.

So that's, you definitely can't do the drones. And a good friend told me that you can't do video, only photographs. Video, let me take that back. Personal video with your camcorder or your cell phone, that's okay. But if you wanted to make a documentary or if you wanted to do something like that. Gotcha. In a professional manner, you can't. Okay.

You can do it. So I'm sorry I finally got off the base there. Oh, you're good. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Man, Matt, it has been fun chatting with you today, and it's crazy to say we're almost, we all spent going in an hour already, but did you have any closing and thoughts or if people want to reach out to you about East Tennessee, maybe they have something to share?

Is there a way that they can reach out to you as well? Yeah, I'm easily, I can be easily found on Facebook. That is my main area where I try to communicate what little I actually get to communicate to people that just type in East Tennessee Bigfoot on Facebook. There is a www.org. It is a website, but it's basically just a segue into the Facebook page. I don't keep it up. I don't keep it constantly in change. I leave it alone.

And then, of course, if you want to email me, it's East Tennessee Bigfoot at Yahoo.com. I'll converse with anybody. I can tell now at this point how crazy some of the stories are. But if I've heard the type of story before, I'm going to lean into it a little bit. But I've had some jokesures, and that's okay too. It's fun. A lot of younger people like to do that. But, yeah, it's all good.

If anybody wants to contact me, they're more than welcome to. Awesome. And what's the best way to get a hold of your book? Would it be getting it through Amazon? That would be the quickest way. Actually, either type in the name of the book, Bigfoot Perspectives from the Foothills of Tennessee, or just type in my name, Matt Sieber, S-E-B-E-R. And that's the only thing that's got my name on it on Amazon.

So it'll take you right to it. There you go. Yeah, I appreciate people taking to read. I tried to make the book something that everybody could enjoy and not really pushing any kind of ideas down their throat, just giving them some ideas, some options, some opinions, and some of the things that I've learned, some of the things that people have told me over the years

and how I've tried to put together these different scenarios and different ideas about who or what they are. And I had fun. It was fun. And, of course, it brought back some memories of my childhood as well. So, yeah, I hope people enjoy it. Yeah, it's an easy read and some good stories in there, and I definitely recommend people to check it out

I'll have the link to that in the show notes so people can go down there and check that out. But Matt is a pleasure chatting with you tonight. And thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you, Jeremiah. It was a pleasure to hear. Here at Bigfoot Society, our goal is to provide a platform for those that have encountered Bigfoot to share their encounter in a safe and respected environment. But we need to hear your story. If you've experienced something that you just can't explain, please send me an email at bigfoot society at gmail.com.

Then we can start the conversation. I know a lot of you have not shared your encounter at all. It's been 20 years and it's time that you get this off your chest and then you can get some well-deserved for rest because I know you haven't been sleeping. I understand what you're going through and I appreciate it. every one of you listening. You're listening to Bigfoot Society podcast hosted by our captain, Jeremiah Byron, where it's all Bigfoot all the time. Have you ever had the urge to do more, to be more?

Now you can by joining Bigfoot Society on the Patreon. Get ad-free episodes and even member-only episodes. Take part in movie night and even live video chats. Interact behind the scenes with Jeremiah and other Patreon. members like me, Slay it. The powerful podcast goes on and you may contribute a verse in our Patreon community. Carpadeeum, seize the day, Bigfooters, and make your lives extraordinary. These are all in Oregon, by the way.

Oak Ridge, Dexter, Fall Creek, Deschute National Forest Area, Coltis Lake, Spirit Lake, Sutterl Lake, McKinsey River area, Sweet Home Area, the area west of Crater Lake, East, of 230 West Diamond Lake Highway and north of 62 Crater Lake Highway. Please take a minute to help out the show by subscribing on YouTube, making sure you hit the bell so you don't miss any notifications, and share the episode on YouTube with a friend. Also, if you're listening to us on a podcast, thank you so much.

Make sure that you're subscribed. Share the show with a friend. Really, it's all about sharing the show wherever you. you can. If you've had a Bigfoot encounter related to the following or know someone who has, please reach out to me at Bigfoot Society at gmail.com or pass on my email. Here's the list. If you've had any encounters in Oregon, which I'm sure there's probably a few of you out there, please feel free to reach out immediately. You can use email at bigfoot society at gmail.com. A special thank you to all the Bigfoot Society Patreon and YouTube channel members. It's your support.

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