Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:944 The Confessions Of Tony Merkel

Episode Date: April 9, 2023

Tonight my guest is Tony Merkel from The Confessionals Podcast. Tony talks about his recent film that is soon to be released called The Shape of Shadows. Tony talks about a new film he is working on focused on Sasquatch and his experiences while here in the Pacific NW. Check out The Confessionals here: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/ The Shape of Shadows: They want you to believe the paranormal ends at the gates of a ranch in Utah. But what if it doesn't? Tony Merkel and his crew go on a road trip outside the boundaries of corporate TV to show you Skinwalkers and UFOs in a way you've never seen before. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc2FMfky2VU  

My grandfather, too, you would tell the same story. In that same area, there was a horse, like a horseman. So there definitely is that preacher out there. So they say these things can turn into wolves. They turn into different creatures, cougars, whatever. Right. Whatever's available. My name is Tony Merkel, host of the Confessionals podcast.

I've interviewed over 500 witnesses to the strange and unexplained. Last year, I assembled the team of like-minded guys to come with me on a quest. to document and even possibly experience some of these mysterious phenomena for ourselves. We started getting lights out here over the ridge. Here they come again. Here they come again. That gray container was right here. Correct.

Look left, what's left. Up there? They'll come from the west in the sky. So it's old news. It's old news, yeah. This kind of stuff is connected in some way. What if those guys, whoever was, that was a decoy? God created everything.

including these UFOs, including all those phenomena, God creates it all. It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind, and it either heard me or smelt me, and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up, and that shocked me. They don't make people that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything moves like that in my life. They were screaming at each other in gibberish.

It sounded like a language, and they were chuntering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forward. I know what a bear looks like, and there is no way on this planet. high soul of bass. What are you reporting? Jesus Christ, you better. Can't get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot nine.

I don't know. Do you see him now, sir? Yes, I'm looking right at him. This is James Bailey representing the Great Pacific Northwest, and you're listening to my favorite podcast, Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show plan for you. My good friend, Tony Merkel, will be on the show.

He has a podcast called The Confessionals. If you go to Theconfessionalspodcast.com, you can check it out. And whatever podcast player you're listening to for Sasquatch Chronicles, definitely go and check out Tony's show if you're not already a listener. There before the intro, you heard the Shape of Shadows trailer. And Tony did a screening out here in Battleground, Washington. It was really cool to meet some of the fans and members that came out to see it. us. We'll be talking about the film tonight. And his experience out here, he's working on a new project regarding a Bigfoot film that he's doing. And he was gracious enough to ask me if I'd

like to be involved. And I was more than happy to be involved in the project. But I know he spent a day or two out at the Browns. He was interviewing eyewitnesses over an organ that had sightings. And so I thought I'd, you know, ask Tony if you'd like to come on and kind of share his experiences for the week and talk about this new film, The Shape of Shadows. If you've had an encounter and you'd like to be on the show, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Tony to the show.

Tony, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, brother. Long time, no C. Yeah, it was good to have you out here, man. It was good to see you. And welcome to Washington. It's wet and it's cold. But I was glad to see you.

It seemed like it went by so quick. And I know, why don't we start with the shape of shadows? You know, I want to talk a little bit about the film because even at night, I didn't have time to ask you questions or anything that. I personally wanted to ask you. And, but we did this, well, we, you did this screening and were gracious enough to invite me along. We'll talk a little bit about the film, the screening that everyone saw that came out that night.

It went good. We did a whole advanced screening where we took a product that's probably about 90, 95% done and we wanted to test it on an audience. And so we thought it'd be a great. opportunity for us since we were going out to Washington to film anyways for the next film. We figured why not go and get a whole theater and fill it up with people to watch it. And so I think it went really well. I mean, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect.

But, you know, shoot, we got a 150 seat theater and it was jam-packed. I mean, at one point, I thought that you and I were sitting in somebody's seats and I was like, dang it, we're going to have to get up and my own at my own. At my own film, I got to get out of my own seat. But it went good and people enjoyed the film. There were some good suggestions on things to tweak that Ward is planning on utilizing those suggestions as much as possible. And I think people really enjoyed the footage we were able to capture in Utah.

So, yeah, all in all, I think The Shape of Shadows was a good experience putting it in front of other people. And I'm looking forward to releasing it to the world. sometime, I would say probably in the beginning of summertime is when it's going to be out for everybody to view. Yeah, the property is called Space Wolf Ranch, and it's out there in Utah, and they experience, you know, skin walkers, lights, creatures, a lot of weird stuff goes on on this property. And one of the first things in the film that really compelled me was looking at this conics, this big huge storage container on this guy's property. I'm not sure why he had a storage container. container on his property. But anyway, it's this huge storage container on this guy's property.

And overnight, it was moved. It was moved. And I missed part of it because I got up and asked the theater people turn on the air in there because it was getting really hot, at least for me. And when I came back, I kind of missed it. But I know it was picked up and it was moved and kind of put in a place where I guess a trailer used to be or something. But it happened overnight. And in order to move one of these connexes, I mean, you don't just push one, you need equipment to move it. And how this thing was moved overnight, it was weird. And I was curious, did you make any sort of connection with, because there used to be a motorhome there. And this connex, a storage unit was actually moved and put where that motorhome was.

Did you ever make a connection with that with the owner? So, I mean, a lot of the connection made is like way overrunner. my head. I'm just Mr. Podcaster, you know, like I'm not the science guy. And so, there have been people, though, making connections. And it seems like there's some kind of magnetic anomaly going on underneath the ground there. Now, how does that connect to the lightning bolt? I'm not exactly sure. But for the people listening, this, this storage container, it was probably, I'd say it's about 40 feet long. If you think about these shipping containers on docks at, you know, in L.A. in New York, these big shipping yards. That's what that is. And it's just

sitting there. It moves. But also before that was there, there was an RV there of some researchers, I think it was. And daytime, clear skies, a lightning bolt just shoots. And they estimates about, it was about 12 foot wide, a lightning bolt. And it just disintegrated the whole RV. There was still melted metal on the ground when we got there from that RV. And Christian brought some home with him. I was like, oh, bro, I don't know if I'm taking that with me. Let that where it's at, you know, but there's, there's been other things as well with this, because, I mean, where that is sitting, it's on a hill and the property's on a hill. And the first night there, my producer was out there with Christian. They arrived the day early.

and Joseph had really bad knee. He needed to get surgery. In fact, he did get surgery. I think it was last November. And Joseph's the producer. Right. Yeah. And so he's there the first night with Christian.

And just by being on the property for, let's just say, not even 24 hours, he could literally take off his knee brace. And the whole week, he didn't use his knee brace at all. It was my first time meeting him in person. So I didn't really understand how dramatic that was, you know, for him. But he did, when he got home, I'd say about two, three days after he got home back to Colorado, he had to start wearing his knee brace again. And he went through with having a surgery in November.

But I know when he left there, he's hoping that, hey, maybe I don't need the surgery now, you know. But he's, he went into it. You know, he's my producer. I mean, he's not a researcher. He's not a podcast. Or, well, he's starting a podcast. but nevertheless he's my producer. He's the guy in charge of arranging all the stuff.

He doesn't really have a deep opinion on, at least when we went out there, he didn't have a deep opinion on this stuff. He was just like, my job is to make sure this thing gets done in an appropriate manner. And so it was really interesting because I almost view him as like a bystander almost in the whole thing because he just, he wasn't there for the same reason we were there for. But nevertheless, he had that experience. So there was a, oh, His name is James Keenan.

I forget what his official title is, but he does a lot of testing on the property with the magnetic anomalies. And he has confirmed there are hot spots on the property that are stronger than others. And one of those spots is exactly where that shipping container was sitting and then moved. But like for the audience to understand, like this container literally was lifted up, rotated 90 degrees and dropped. probably I'd say about 15 feet away. And when this happened, it happened a week before we got out there, we actually, when I say we, I mean Joseph, Joseph called heavy machinery rental companies in the area asking if anybody had rented a crane or something like that.

And the answer was no. Also, there's only one entrance to the property. And that has to go by a really small, it's like a shableness. really and a caretaker lives in there he kind of takes care of the property and there's no way you're pulling in a big machine like that on there probably without him hearing it because it's not like you know a recording studio or it's soundproof so he himself has said no it's that he hasn't seen or heard anything and what's I'll wrap it up with this here what's final on this is that if

somebody was lifting this container with machinery. One, you would probably see marks in the ground of them coming in and out, digging, you know, it's a whole process. But you would lift it high enough to move it. Well, what we experienced with this is there were several rocks on the ground that this container was sitting on top of. And when you, when it lifted it up and moved, you actually see the scrape marks on the rocks where the container moves. So the container didn't lift 10 feet in the air, 15 feet in the air, it literally lifted maybe five, six inches, just enough to catch some rocks as it it was moving and rotating. And so if you're going to even try pranking somebody, you would probably

do it, you know, expeditiously. Let's try to scrape the rocks just to really kind of throw them a curveball. So it's a very interesting situation with that container for sure on the property. And it's unsolved, really. Yeah. And there's so many other things in the film. Like you guys captured these lights that would just pop up. They weren't planes. I mean, and they were different colors. You'd see red ones pop up. You would see like flying balls of light in the sky.

And, you know, when I was out in Vernal for Phnomicon, I probably talked to more people who had seen UFOs and who had seen Bigfoot. Almost seemed like everyone in Vernal had seen a UFO. That area has like a weird vibe to it. It's really hard to. put your finger on what it is, but that whole area just has a weird vibe to it. And I know when Joseph, when you guys all came over for dinner at my place, Joseph was telling me that, you know, he had to get knee surgery, it was bone on bone. You know, he had to wear this brace and he could barely

walk without this brace. But when he was on the property, he took the brace off and had no problem walking around, which is strange. What do you think is going on on that property? I mean, even the ritual circle that you guys found. So in the film for the audience, they find this weird ritual circle. It's got like a dead animal's head in the middle. And it looks like some weird satanic circle that on this guy's property. And I feel bad for the homeowner. I mean, I don't know what the Native American culture is, but I can tell you what West Girmish culture is.

I'd go out there with gasoline, dump it all over it, and I'd burn that thing. a lot of weird stuff. What do you think is going on out there after you've been there? So we went out there and we don't have access to Skinwalker Ranch. We actually even throughout the filling process tried our hardest not even to say the word Skinwalker because apparently there's like legal terms trying to, you know, they're trying to lock that down. And I don't know how you can. But we're just trying to play it safe because, you know, we're just starting out over here. We're not trying to get sued early on.

But I'll tell you, man, one thing that we're seeing more and more of is emphasis on science and with the paranormal. People want to use science to prove the paranormal. People want to use science to help aid them in their paranormal investigations. And I kind of, I mean, I do to a certain extent. I mean, even if you want to go down to it, I mean, a camera is science, right? But I kind of want to just exist in these environments and let the environment come to me, you know? And, you know, when we, when we hear people talk about these experiences with

whatever it is, a lot of times it catches them off guard because they weren't expecting it. They weren't out there asking for it. It just happened, right? And so going out there, we had that kind of mindset. And then, well, if you had that kind of mindset, who do you want to talk to out there? Do you want to, do you want to line up a bunch of researchers and scientists to talk to about, you know, the paranormal and why portals are opening up on this property? Probably not. It's probably not going to go very far. So what we did is we wanted to talk to people who did experience this stuff.

And so we spent time, especially with two emphasizing on two Native Americans, we wanted to get the Native American perspective because we went out there with a hunch that the whole Skinwalker Ranch, Sherman Ranch thing. I mean, it was known as Sherman Ranch first. that the Sherman's owned it back in the 90s. And they were the first white people to own the property. And there's a lot of people, Native Americans out there from when I understand, that debate whether that was even kosher,

because they're not supposed to own that land. That's Native American. It's on the reservation. And so back in the 90s, when all this bizarre stuff started happening on the Sherman Ranch, and they started reporting and talking about it, it kind of got a life of its own. But we went out there at the hunch that, you know,

this stuff is probably happening well before the Sherman's got there. And that's kind of where we were going with. And it turns out it's true. Paranormal doesn't know the property lines and say, oh, that's the end of the Sherman Ranch, guys. We got to turn around and go back. You know, hey, portal boy, come back over here. And it just shows to be true because Ryan Burns,

who bought Space Wolf Research, the property that butts up against Skinwalker Ranch. And that's where we were at, that Space Wolf Research. He bought it for that reason to document anomaly. and crazy stuff. And he's had, he's caught, you know, like he caught the lighting bolt on camera from CCTV, you know, what is it called? CCTV cam or something of that.

Yeah. I always forget that stuff. But anyways, he, he caught that and he's caught countless UFOs. He caught a being walking across his property. He's caught portals on his property opening up, what seemed to be portals. And he had a caretaker that was there before the current one. And the exit of that caretaker is interesting because, and this was the start of a rule that Ryan has, which is no guns on his property.

He didn't always have that rule. Ryan bought the property because he wants the activity. He wants to study it. So he doesn't want anything that is of the other, whether it's the skin walkers, portals, Bigfoot, dog, man, any of that. to feel threatened on his property. And one night there were, I think it was at least two upright walking dogs along the fence line of his property.

And they jumped the fence and came in on the property. And his caretaker, and I think his caretaker had a friend over, they saw it and they unloaded on it and nothing happened. And that night scared the caretaker away. and he had to find a new property manager. But that started the whole rule because Ryan doesn't want people shooting at this stuff because he wants it to be almost like a safe haven. And so that's kind of when we went out there.

That's kind of what our mindset was. We decided to, we didn't take guns with us out of respect for Ryan. And we did this gun free, which is typically not the MO and not really our comfort zone. And not that we're looking to, you know, we're not looking to shoot ourselves a big foot today, boys. We're more just more concerned about the, just the implications of being out in nature, you know. You just never know what you're going to run across. And, you know, I mean, I'm a Tennessean so you can figure out, you know, how often I leave my house without a handgun. So it's this, this is how we kind of practice our craft filming.

But yeah, so that's the property, Space Wolf Research, and that's kind of how we went about the whole thing. And I think we did accomplish what we went out there for. I think we went out there to get the native perspective. We were fortunate to find a lot of different evidences when it comes to the ritual circle, to the trackway that was transforming from human to what seemed to be hoarse and the lights in the sky. But all that stuff seemed to be confirmed by the natives when they either experienced it for themselves or we showed them the footage. They seem to see what we saw and said that, yeah, that's a lot of activity that has to do with Skinwalkers. Yeah, that trackway was something else in the film. For the audience, it looked like a man's footprints going up this embankment and slowly becomes a horse's trackway.

and out there in Utah, where you guys are at, I mean, it's very dense clay soil. There would have to be a ton of weight to actually, I mean, that trackway went down where it slowly became like a horse hoof. And all the trackways were, I was shocked how deep it was. And I know the owner has a different take on it. I'd be the complete opposite. I'd be like, get your guns. Let's get rid of this thing. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I'll tell you, what you're saying about the track. trackway and the weight, that's something to be really not glossed over, you know, because what we have to understand is that it what seems, I'm not saying it is, you know, but I'm just saying what it seemed to be is a human footprint or trackway transforming into what seemed to be horse. But from the human to the horse, it seems like the weight stayed the same, which was extremely heavy and deep impact into the ground, it just, there's, there's, there's, there's some really bizarre nature to that kind of stuff because you would, you would think that if somebody is a skinwalker, because the idea of skinwalker being, you know, a native or

somebody doing black magic, dark magic to transform their bodies, you would think that they wouldn't start out so gosh darn heavy. And it seems like that maybe not, not the case. And does that have anything to do with the magnetic anomalies in the area. I don't know. But there's a lot of question marks. A lot of question marks. And I'm just glad I was able to go out there and document. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, the film again is called The Shape of Shadows. And I hope everyone goes and checks it out. You watch the trailer underneath this episode. But I know when you were out here, we were doing more than just this film. You're working on your next film. And you had met with a over in Oregon that talked about seeing the Sasquatch kind of move into what we call the

spider position. What episode was that on the Confessionals? Oh, shoot, man. I think it was $299. It was $299 or $2.02 because we were talking about Ryan and he was on my show too. So it's one of those two. But I think it was $299 to spider crawl. I'm almost certain of it. And we had Joanna on that episode. And what was interesting about that, and it's so cool how over time, things just kind of tie together because I was interviewing her sister-in-law. And we do this interview. And then she tells me, my sister-in-law, my brother's wife has a big foot experience and I want her to tell you about. And she kind of just throws the phone at her and she says, like, hear, tell them, you know? And so Joanna wasn't comfortable talking about this. She was, she,

She didn't want to call it Bigfoot. She just said, I don't know what I saw. She proceeds to tell me on the episode and then in person when we came out that she was out looking for mushrooms. And this was at the base of Mount Hood, like the Mount Hood area. There was a lot of down trees. And so many that I got the picture, the mental image that there were no trees up. I don't know what the situation is, but where she was at tons of down trees.

they've gone out there a lot of times because there's tons of mushrooms out there and she arrives and what she thought was a man with like a hatchet or an axe just pounding away at the trees and she her first reaction was man like somebody found her good spot and they're taking all the mushrooms and you know it's it's it's like territorial kind of thing for her and then when she puts her hands up above her eyes so she could kind of see with the sunlight shining down whatever this was it seemed like and this is what she's she said to me when I was out there, as soon as she, like, focused in on it and started realizing that that's not really a man, it almost like it sensed that she was aware of it and that it was

aware of her. And it stopped and it turns and it looks at her. And then it proceeds to do something that's just incomprehensible. This thing, this is not a terrain that's flat. It's extremely. extremely sharp, a sharp incline. In fact, it's so sharp that we couldn't find a spot that would replicate it very well because we couldn't get to the actual spot because when we got out there, it started to snow and we were in an RV and we're like, well, we're running this thing. We better not total it the first day. So we went back down the mountain a little bit to an area that wasn't snowing. And we found a really steep hill to shoot her story in front of. And she's like, this isn't steep enough, but we'll do what we can. She said that,

when she turned, when it turned and looked at her, it starts to back up away from her. But it didn't back up away from her like you would think, like if you're picturing Patty and Patty sees you and then just starts walking backwards on two legs, not the case. She said this thing with its two legs and its arms started crawling up the mountainside backwards, like as if it didn't have any, what's it called when you have all that flexibility in your arms. I'm drawing a blank. It's not ambidextrous. It's double-jointed. Double-jointed. Thank you. It was like it was severely double-jointed. And it just never took its eyes off her and just walked backwards so smoothly, though. She said it wasn't struggling. It

wasn't the first time it's ever done this. She said it was like, she said it was like a spider crawl or an octopus arms moving. She said it was just so fluent and just it just trained the top up that hill like nothing. And never locking eyes with her. And it scared the hell out of her. She turned around and didn't go back that day. But since then stuff, I mean, she's really kind of come around to the idea that this could be a big foot. And it has a lot to do with your experience, Wes, because on that recording with her,

I had no idea what I was going to talk to her about. Like, all I knew is this lady has a Bigfoot encounter. And when she starts telling me this, and she's struggling, man, because she does not want to say it's Bigfoot. She's embarrassed almost by it because she's like, I don't know what this is. You're going to think I'm crazy. I was like, on the show, I told her, I was like, listen, I got a friend here named Wes, and he's got a podcast.

And like, I told her about your experience. And I actually played her clips from when you and I did it years ago for, like, I don't know my one year anniversary of the podcast, we had you on the show. I played the clip of telling her, showing her where you mentioned about the Spider Walk. And from that recording with her, she got much more confident in what she saw. Now she's really comfortable talking Bigfoot when it comes to her experience. And she's very familiar with your show now. She's like, once I played that for her, she started listening to your show and, you know, got enlightened. But it's one of those wild stories that doesn't seem natural, hard to even think up. But for me,

personally, it was very validating just because it was somebody that didn't know who I was, doesn't know who you are. And they're saying the same stinking thing that so many people are saying, including yourself, that back when you first said it, people were like, they don't do that. And it's like, well, apparently they do. Apparently they do. Yeah, I got so much crap for that when I talked about my encounter, all the experts and researchers in the Bigfoot community were like, oh, they don't move like that. And I was like, I don't know to tell you, man, but, you know, Joanna's what she's describing is very close to what I saw. I mean, I described it more like a spider. I know she said octopus, but I mean, it's a very strange movement. It's a very

fluid movement. They have no problem doing. And I think when you brought up it being double-jointed, that's kind of a great way to look at it. It's odd. It's strange. And I know we went up to where my encounter spot happened and you guys wanted to film it and everything. And when we got out of the RV, because we had to walk up this huge hill to get to the encounter spot because we couldn't drive the RV up there. There's no place to turn around. It started snowing. And I was like, great. And as we're walking up there, you know, I have cameras in my face and my nose is running and I'm like freezing my balls off as we're walking up this hill. And when I was walking up there, I remember looking down and seeing the shoe. And the shoe was brand new. It wasn't an old shoe

and it was tied like someone, like it had come off from someone running. And I remember going, hmm, that, that's strange. But we go up, we film the counter spot and I'm like, I can't wait to get the hell out of there. I'm like, okay, great, are we done? Let's go. And as we're leaving, we saw this, I know we'll talk more about it, but this weird situation down at the bottom of the hill where we parked the RV and where I saw that shoe. But I'm telling you, man, that whole area through there has a very, there's a feeling when you go into it. And the feeling you have during the day is completely different than the feeling you have at night when you're there. It's a strange place. Yeah. So the area is everything I saw

online come to life. You know, over the years doing what I do, you know, you're looking for show art, you're looking for pictures or things, and you're looking for a picture from the Pacific Northwest, and you see all these, and they're beautiful, right? Being there in person, it was like, holy crap. Like, it really is a different kind of forest than anything else in this country. I mean, I've been in the woods in Pennsylvania here in Tennessee, Smoky Mountains. It's just different. It hits a lot different. And it's a different kind of wild.

I mean, I live near the Smokies. Smokies are huge, deep, tons of forest and wild. And there's a plane crash in the smokies they can't get to. Like, it crashed and it's just overgrown and nobody can get to it. I plan on trying to get there one day. But it's like, I have that here. Going out there, it's just, it's magnified 10 times. And so that kind of took me away.

Now, getting to your encounter spot, I'll tell you, man, like, you weren't choking because you're driving on a road and you're getting out there and you see all the woods, the forest, the mountains, and the rivers, the waterfalls. And you're on paved road. And then all of a sudden, the road stops being paved. And we were supposed to film this back in February and you got dumped on in snow and you're like, we're not going to be able to make it up there. I'm like, come on.

You're probably exaggerating, bro. I know you don't like going up there, but canceling my trip for it. No, that's not the case. It's not paved road. It's not even maintained tons of potholes, which we could get into that because that's wild in itself because you guys had to fly down that thing. But, I mean, when you get up there, it's just so much more out there, further out there than you already were. I already were. And so I guess if I could sum up what I felt in the area during the

daytime, I would say haunting. It was very haunting. Just knowing that I know what crawls through those woods, not just Bigfoot, but the lights. It's haunting. You can see how these things can dwell in such an area undetected. It's very haunting. Yeah, I wasn't super comfortable being there. It's been years since I've been there. But when we're there, I was like, okay, we did all the filming and I was like, let's get the hell out of here. So I start marching down the hill and I turn around and everyone's like 200 feet behind me. I'm like, the hell are you guys doing?

Let's go. Let's get out of it. It's time to go. And as I was going down, I passed that shoe again. I think it hit me at that moment like, okay, this is kind of weird. I mean, what is a brand new shoe doing tied? it looks like someone was running and it came off. Why would they just leave a brand new shoe here?

But then I was like, okay, well, it's not of my business. So I get in the camper and you got in the camper. And right across from us, I wouldn't really call it a campsite because you don't pay to stay there or anything like that. But I guess you can consider it a campsite. There's this sprinter van, this work van, and this campsite. And, I mean, it was a brand new van. I mean, it was probably a 20-22.

maybe a 20-23 van and this campsite that looked like someone left in a hurry. So you and I were in the camper, and I think it was Joseph that went over there and started looking, and he found the other shoe, I think just on the edge of that campsite, didn't he? Yeah, yeah, there was another shoe. I think we even found the insul of a shoe. It was very weird. and it got much weirder as time went on because when we first saw the van, we're like, oh, that's weird, but the guy must be around somewhere.

So you're kind of like walking around this guy's campsite because, I mean, he backs in a sprinter van to this thing and it still had snow on it. So we knew that it hadn't been driven very long. And so we're just kind of like mosing around just to make sure everything's cool. And then we saw this bong sitting out in the middle of like the trees, like a very big, looks like, expensive bong and tons of weeds, containers of weed. And he had his poop bucket and his shovel and an axe. I mean, it was an active spot. And so we're like, oh, that's weird, you know, like, I guess he just wants to be left alone or, you know, in all honesty, part of me was like, man, this guy might be dangerous. There might be a reason why he's all the way out here.

The license place says South Dakota and on the side of it is a work van with a phone number. I'm thinking like this guy might have had a warrant out for his rest, got a notified that, hey, you're going to be pulled in for, you're going to be arrested. And so he decided just to leave in the work truck and just bail for Washington. You know, those are kind of things that were running through my head. Didn't think much past it, though. And we kind of left the area. And it wasn't until because we went back in night. You said, that place is creepy at night.

Yeah, I know. I know. Because we went back to your house and we shot the story and the interview again. at your place and it's going to be perfect for switching back and forth with the cinema, which by the way, your girlfriend can cook, man, very much. So we greatly appreciated the home cook meal. It was awesome. But I'll tell you, like we go back out there and I'll tell you this, sitting down with you,

this is the first time that I ever sat down with you face to face in person and you told me your story. Like we were out on the mountain distracted. I know Joseph was walking in the tree line looking for stuff. And I don't know whatever came with that, but we did find what looked like impossible footprint, but it's hard to tell. But it was the first time I sat down with you. And you and I've talked about your experience over the years. And it hit different, man.

It hit different. And then I'm sitting there thinking. am I really going to go out there tonight now? Like after I heard this story again, I was strongly, strongly considering just calling it, hey, you're a wimp and not going out there. Because I was like, I was nervous. And I told the guys, several times after we left your house,

I was very nervous about doing this. But you got to do it. You got to do it. We're out there. And so we go up there. and we parked the van at the same spot. And one of the first things we noticed is that car, that that sprinter van is still there. And we walked around the site.

Everything was still the same from during the daytime that day. And so we proceeded up the mountain to do what we were going to do. We figured, you know, maybe this guy, because there was some kind of construction down the mountain a little bit, maybe he's with them and, you know, whatever. So we go up that night and we do our investigative stuff. and quite honestly, because you told us, you said it kind of gets loud at night, you know, around 2 o'clock morning you start hearing sounds that you never heard before and all that. The first night up there, it was pretty quiet.

I wouldn't say it was a yawn fest, but it like it for, it really wasn't a whole lot. Last night, not so much. We can get to that. But we went back down the mountain. The Sprintervan was still there. So we're like, okay, mental note, this thing all day during the day. at night. The guy isn't here. Check. Got it. We went about our way and we decided to, well, we went to the Browns property the next night. And so we were gone for a few nights. And then we came back

our last night and the thing was still there. It hadn't been moved. Nothing's been touched at all. And now we're starting to think something might have happened to this guy because it's been days. Like we were there the first day. Okay, fine. He'll be back. It's been days and nothing's been touched. Nothing's been moved. We got these fresh pair of kicks away from the campsite.

And all I'm thinking is, and I think I even said this on camera several times, I had a hard time not going Bigfoot. You know, like one plus one equals two. And I don't know. I don't know if that's the case. but knowing what happened in that area to you. What was so eerie was we sat down with you in your studio and we were talking. I remember asking you if you thought you'd be here today

if you and Woody were hiking up there versus being in your car. And I believe you said, I don't think so. Well, now I'm up there and there's this sprinter van untouched, the campsite untouched. And all I'm thinking is, what if this guy was on the John right there and something came into his camp and was between him and his vehicle? And he had to go the opposite way of his vehicle because this thing was, and it got him. What if that happened? I don't know.

I mean, all of a sudden I got a missing 4-1-1 film and it's just like, it's just, it's a wild thing. There's been, we called it in, we called it in and let the authorities know that, you know, wipe off all the fingerprints first. Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. Joseph, we'll walk over to the camper and hand me stuff from the campsite and I'm like, let me wipe off my fingerprints off that.

Don't hand me any more things off this campsite. I want nothing to do with this. This isn't a West Grimmer problem. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we contaminated the. site real good because we're professional contaminators, you know, don't trust us. If we find a big footprint, you're going to see a step in it before we cast it. So I was even, my skin was crawling watching the film in the theater because that's exactly what I did on the film. I don't know if you

saw that, but I was like, I was trying to show one of the natives that the pathway. And I literally, you see me stepping in the footprints and people are like, oh my God, what is he doing? The fact is though, we weren't planning on casting any of those because they weren't castable, but we were in the middle casting some prints down below when I did that. So I don't know if that helps at all, though. Yeah, and I know as we were leaving that area, we did see logging crew leaving, but there was nothing about this campsite that made me think this guy was a logger. The van, I mean, and again, the campsite was weird.

It looked like someone had exited that campsite. very, very quickly. Here's what threw me off. One of his shoes was going up that hill, and the other one was over by his campsite. And I remember thinking, like, why would he run uphill? Yeah, yeah. And what we found is a pair of shoes in the driver's side of the vehicle as well. We shining a lights down, and there was a pair of shoes down there, too.

So we got shoes outside, sprayed around the area. we got a pair of shoes inside the van. How many shoes does this guy have? There's probably a good chance that we got somebody out there with no shoes on. I mean, he was in a work van, and I think it was some kind of concrete company or something. So, like, I mean, how many shoes are you going to work with? So I don't know, man. I don't know.

It seems like that might be a missing person case. And I hope that, you know, we find out, you know, whatever happens when they check it out. but knowing what happens in that area and what we heard and experienced our last night there, I, because like my experiences at the last night on the mountain there happened literally at that sprinter van. We, because we, when we got there, we turned the RV around at first and shine the lights on the campsite so we could look. And then we just backed it up a little bit and turned to the other way so that if it's something to happen, we could just, you know, shoot down the mountain and not worry about backing down.

So we were right there. I'm curious about what happened to you that night. You know, we haven't even talked about it. And this would have been the second night. So it would have been, what, Thursday night after the movie premiere, you guys headed back up there. And what happened when you guys went back up there? Well, we wrangled a Bigfoot, tied it up, threw it in the back, right? That's what everybody wants.

Put it in my garage. I promise you if I did that, the world already know about it because I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth and be like, guys, look what I got. No, so we go up there and to be honest with, I didn't think, I really didn't feel like we would have much activity because the first night we went up there, we didn't. It was raining and it's just what, like we were tired, you know, like I wasn't even really thinking a whole lot. At the end of these trips, I'm just ready to go home. I'm tired. Like, like, of all the guys, I'm the one that wants to go home the most all the time because I get homesick.

I got my wife, I'm the two kids, five years old, two year old. Like, I love them so much. And so like when I, when I, and I didn't know I did this until Joel brought it to my attention, he said, man, every time we do one of these things, within the first day or two, you're the first one that says you're homesick and you're always ready to go home. I'm like, man, I like my wife. I don't know what to tell you. but I just, I was tired, man.

Like, it was my last night there. I knew the next day I was flying back. I was ready to go. And we even briefly thought about maybe just, you know, it was a rainy day. Joel had to be back at the airport of 5 a.m. It was just like, man, maybe we just don't go out there. But we did because we've, you just got to do it, you know? We got to go and do it.

So we go up to the same spot. I told you guys we found the van still. That was obviously very nerve-wracking. it was raining hard. It was a lot of rain. And going out there with cameras and stuff, it's very difficult. So we devised a plan that was more of a hybrid plan because if anybody ever saw our first film Expedition Dogman, you see us literally walking through the Daniel Boone national forest the entire week. Like we were miles into the Daniel Boone.

But we didn't have the rain. And so Utah, we didn't have the rain. We were in the desert. This was the first time we had to deal with rain. And it proved to be difficult and we got to look into, you know, other options as far as how to protect cameras more. But what we did is we went to the Browns property a few nights before that. And the Browns, they have a way about it where instead of going out looking for Bigfoot,

they decide that, hey, it's best to exist in one place as humans doing human things and they'll come to you. They're curious. They'll come in and look. I'm like, all right, cool. I mean, that's probably the easiest big footing night I'll ever have. So let's do it, you know? And so it was a nice night. But I thought with us going up there and being so rainy, let's adopt that strategy, but not totally. Because if anybody knows my buddy Joel,

he is like he's there for this reason. He's there to be the guy that does the crazy stuff. He's like Bigfoot suicidal. Like he's ready. If it means he gets to die knowing they exist, he's willing to do that. And he might change. I know he might change his tune once he sees it. But that's kind of how he is. And so what we did is with all the rain and our concern with the equipment because, you know, some of those stuff is extremely expensive.

We decided to stick close to the RV so that if we had a duck in to get out of the rain, we could. But during lighter moments, we could get out there in film. But what we did do is we sent Joel off by himself. up to your encounter spot up the mountain alone. When he was going up the mountain, and we're all staying at the bottom, we're just like, bye, Joel.

You know, just, Godspeed, my friend. Like, it was nerve-wracking. It's rainy. And the thing that I'm thinking is, these things probably could come in pretty close tonight and we wouldn't even hear them because of the rain and the moisture on the ground.

Well, Joel's walking of the mountain. and when he finally came back to us, he said, didn't have much activity, but he did hear something paralleling him going up the mountain. And when Joe came back, we all went in the RV and we were talking and reviewing and, you know, game planning, all that stuff, you know, also known as eating Doritos and laughing. We were talking and Ward started getting in the habit of letting his camera audio run. I don't know how it works. It's a special camera, but I guess he doesn't always have to be filming to save battery. So he was running the audio and thankfully he was because we heard three knocks on the side of the RV. It seemed like it was the side of the RV, like three like,

knocks just like a like a tapping sound. And we all stopped and like did you hear that and we listened to the footage and yep, yep, we heard it. We and we recorded it too. We got it on audio. And so Joel's like, I want to go out there, man, I want to go out there. I'm like, all right, bro. Off you go. And so we go out there and he starts walking around. Actually, no, I believe actually, we kind of stayed inside and looked out the windows while Joel walked around.

And once he declared it was safe, we went out there. And we're filming. And we have night vision cameras. I have two night vision cameras I brought. And we're filming words using the night vision camera. And as he's filming, I'm looking at the screen. and I see an orb going across the road right at the RV towards us. Then it pops back in the frame and then goes back into the woods.

And when it did that, I had already called the attention to it. And so Ward saw going back in the woods and we got it on footage. Well, when we went back and looked at the film, we're all torn on what it is. Because to be honest with you, part of me says it might have been a bug. And other guys are like, no, that's an orb, man. And other guys are like, it's a ferry. I'm like, it might be a bug. But I also don't know, none of us do, you know, what kind of, you know, what the environment holds up there as far as bugs go when it's cold and raining and snowing.

I don't know. Yeah, there's not very many bugs up there. I know you're down in the south now, but especially this time of year when it's cold, it's raining, it's snowing. Not a lot of bugs flying around up there. And even in the summertime, I mean, when it's like 100 degrees in Portland or Vancouver, if you go up there, it's, you know, 15, 20 degrees cooler generally. And even then you don't really deal with a lot of bugs like you might think. But who knows?

Could have been a bug. I don't know. But I'll tell you what. If it's not a bug, then it looks like we might have ourselves some kind of other being or something. I don't know. But as interesting is it seemed to appear out of the woods come towards us. And then when it got towards the woods, it just disappeared. But it also might be an effect from the night vision camera, you know, the IR light.

So, you know, the jury's still out on it. We haven't reviewed the footage yet, but that did happen. But I'll tell you, there's, we start, throughout the entire evening, we started hearing these vocalizations. And they were faint. They were faint. You could tell they were at a distance. It sounded like, though, there were vocalizations coming up the mountain from the river. But then it sounded like there was also vocalizations from the top coming down.

And there were times that I don't even think I said this consciously or out loud at the time. And I wish I would have. But at times I almost felt like when I was listening to the shotgun mic that we had pointed down in the hill, it almost sounded like I could hear things going in and out of the river, like walking across the water. Like you hear the water, you get used to hearing the water sound and how it's rushing. And all of a sudden you hear something that makes it sound. different. But what is it? I don't know. But what I know I heard and what Joel heard with me in the moment, we were getting back in the RV, getting ready to probably wind down the night. It was probably I'd say about 3.30 in the morning and we had to start making our way back towards the airport for Joel.

Everybody else had just got on the RV. Joel is in front of me and all of a sudden we hear a deep grow that sounded like it was at least around the corner of the RV next to the RV. And I heard it and Joel heard it. We looked at each other. I said, did you hear that? He said, yeah. And I said, it sounded like a growl. And it sounded like, and what you talk about in your experience is that these growls

that you were hearing at one point eventually got to the point where it sounded like it was right there on your shoulder. That's what it sounded like. and like my skin started crawling and we could have just like slowly worked our way to the back of the RV and peered around the corner didn't see anything but I'll tell you what I couldn't wait to get back on that RV when I heard that thing because the only thing I was thinking was that's exactly what Wes said he experienced and then he started seeing them you know and so we kind of hung out in the RV for a while after we told them and used some a night of

vision binoculars and things like that looking out windows we never saw anything but that growl i am so glad that i heard it with joel and joel heard it too because it's one of those things where i know for a fact if i didn't experience it with somebody i would have always been saying to myself i don't know if i heard that maybe i i i bumped the rocks on the ground and made it sound like that but joel heard it too and it was a deep guttural growl and it sounded like it was right there behind us and it's scared the hell out of us. It was terrifying. And I didn't expect that, man. I really didn't expect. I didn't expect the entire night. The stuff that we had, you know, some people would say, oh, it's nothing, you know, who cares? You heard some vocalizations and you caught a butterfly on

camera, you know. But that growl, that growl, man, I'm never going to forget that. That goes right on the list of things, weird things I've experienced in the woods. And I haven't had many weird experiences. That's right there at the top, right there at the top. Yeah, and there's not a lot of things in that area that's going to growl at you the way you're describing it. And I get it, man. I mean, you wouldn't think a growl would terrify you, but it does. That growl happened on the road right across from that van. Like we could have threw a rock at the van and hit it.

I mean, it's right there. So that's what kind of like you drive down the mountain that night going and your trips over and you're thinking, man, I wonder whatever happened to that guy, you know? I wonder whatever happened to him. Yeah, I hope that guy's okay too. Like I said, when I first looked at it, I was like, and it looks like someone left in a hurry, and he sure left a lot of weed behind in containers,

just kind of, you know, throwing everywhere in his bong. And, I mean, it looked like he's scattered. And when I saw that shoe going up that hill, I was like, I don't know, man. Because this isn't a park. I mean, you're in the middle of first. freaking nowhere. And, you know, so I'd love to know if anything comes of that.

I hope he's okay. I hope he just, you know, maybe broke down and walked back into town. It's hard to say. I know in the film, I'd be really curious to see that light that you captured. And I know Woody and I had captured a light many years ago in that area after our encounter. And I kind of showed you guys where that's at. And it's all right in the same area. I was impressed with your team.

I can't wait to see the film. I know you're going to have Joanna from 299. Tony thinks it's episode 299. You're like me. I never remember what episode was what. And then my encounter, and then you went out and filmed the Brown. So all of that's going to be included. I can't wait to see it.

And I want to thank all of the members and fans who came out to watch the film with us on Thursday night. It was a lot of fun. We did kind of a question and answer afterwards. And I had a cop. I won't say who it is. He probably doesn't want his name on the air. But he gave me a Vancouver Police Department patch. And I was like, man, I got the perfect beanie to put this on,

watch me get arrested for impersonating an officer. But I thank you for giving that to me. And it was cool to talk to a lot of eyewitnesses afterwards. I had a guy come up to me. People had asked me during the whole thing, you know, where did the encounter happen? I said, you know, where Moulton Falls is, go past that, you know where sunset falls is, go past that. You kind of explained where it's at. And I had a guy come up to me after we were done.

And he goes, I know exactly where your encounter happened. And he proceeds to tell me what happened to him. There's an area up there. I was telling you guys, if you go around this corner on your left, the road's been cut out. But if you go up that hill, where I was showing you where they came down, I go, I think they come off the mountain right there. Well, this guy comes up to me, and he starts to go, if you go around this corner,

and he starts to tell me this exact area, I know exactly where he's talking about, but he was up there and he was run out of there. And he said it was something huge. You had red eyes, and he ended up getting the hell out of there. I mean, if he's listening, I would love to have him contact me as well. But it was fun to meet the fans and have questions. And one of the questions kind of surprised me. I forget who asked it.

I wish I could remember. They were like, is there any sort of competition between you guys? And I was like, no. And I think it kind of shocked them, you know, because in the Bigfoot community, everything's competition. You're going to cut the next guy's throat to get ahead or somewhere in their mind they think they were getting ahead. and I think they were shocked by the answer, which kind of surprised me. I mean, I was a little surprised by the question, but I think we surprised them with the answer of, no, we're friends.

There's no, like, I root for Tony's success. There's no competition here. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that actually, that idea comes up to me a lot. And I actually get excited when people bring that up to me because it's like, it's an opportunity for me to share another side of what this could be for, you know, content creators, YouTubers, podcasters, all that. It doesn't need to be a competition. It doesn't need to be cutthroat because you all thrive together. You know, a rising tide raises all ships, right? Well, like, first of all, whenever somebody

asked that stuff, I'm like, if it was a competition, Wes, I already won it. So I'm not even sweating it, you know? And so the pressure's off my back. But I'll tell you, you and me have been, for instance, beginning of my podcast and you have been generous to me and, you know, talked about me when it was applicable. And there's another podcaster out there that I've become friends with over the years, Sam Tripley from Tim Foil Hot Podcasts. And, you know, like he's got a huge show. He doesn't need to do people favors. He's friends, like literally friends with Joe Rogan. Like, he was on Rogan's podcast. And the guy had ever since I've got to know him, which I was a guest on a show, and then he brought me back several other times.

He's always just been extremely generous with advice. And basically, anytime you want to come on, just let me know kind of thing. Same with you. And I always use you and him as examples as to why I am the way I am with podcasting. Over the years, I've become friendly with podcasters, other, you know, people. And as long as you're a cool dude and you don't do anything to, you know, screw up the relationship, like, we're going to be cool and we're going to be chilling. And you can come on my show.

And I tell people when they come on my show, I'm like, promote yourself. You know, like when you come on, tell people where they can find you. And I always tell the guys, like, when you come on, hit a home run, like, kill it. Because if you kill it, you're going to give people a reason to actually come and check you out. And I just want to see people succeed, you know? And I got that example from you and him. So when that guy stood up and asked, you know, if it was a competition, like, I already knew what the answer was for you and me. You know, it's like, absolutely not.

I mean, it's a brotherhood, you know, it's not a competition. If I succeed, you're happy and you're and you benefit and vice versa because, you know, we're on each other's show so much that it's like, you know, if people are listening to my show for the first time and they're digging it and all of a sudden they start hearing about the Sasquatch Chronicles West Gurmur thing, they can go check you out. And it's a beautiful thing. So, yeah, no competition. I don't think.

Let me know if it changes, though. No, not at all. No drama here. No competition. This is drama-free. And I think people are shocked by that for some reason. It's too bad we live in a world where people are shocked where two guys doing the same thing. There's no competition and they're rooting for each other.

I guess it's maybe odd in this world. But even when I joke around about you on the air, I'll get people who are like, you're such a scumbag. You're such a jerk. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, you get we're friends, right? Like, Tony and I are really good friends. Like, I root for a success.

I'm just joking around. Go back to your safe place. Everything's going to be okay. There's no drama here. But it was really great to see you, Tony. And I really hope people go and check out your film, The Shape of Shadows. I hope they see the Bigfoot film that you guys just did. And I can't wait to see some of the things that you had captured.

And for the listeners out there, go to the confessionalspodcast.com. Check out Tony's his website. It's got a beautiful website, great podcast, great content up there. If you're listening to this on whatever podcast player you're listening to, go check out a show, The Confessionals, if you haven't yet. Tony, thanks so much for coming on, man. It was great seeing you. Well, thanks for having me, man.

It was great hanging out with you. And like I said to, I told you after I left and stuff, you and I need to make a habit of getting together once a year. Not for cameras, just to hang out. I miss you, man. Yeah, we definitely have to plan that. Thanks again, Tony. And that's it for tonight, everyone.

Remember, if you've had an encounter, shoot me an email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. If you get a chance to check out Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Until next time, everyone.