The Confessionals - 414: The Dogman House

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

In Episode 414: The Dogman House, we are joined by Dan from the Monster Investigators of America podcast. He shares his experiences in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, which are some of the thickest forests in the United States and home to the Jersey Devil. Some of his experiences left him terrified, while others left him laughing and shaking his head in relief. But there is one that stands out as the most unique and frightening experiences he has had in New Jersey. When Dan was a young boy, his friend told him he wanted to introduce Dan to another friend who lived in a house in the woods. Dan would soon find out that this was no ordinary friend, but rather a beast that lives in people's nightmares - and it was standing right in front of him.Join The Confessionals on "The Spirits Are Inn" tour when we visit the Shanley Hotel in New York on April 8-9, 2022 as we have a two-day and one-night haunted adventure! Contact Creed and Jen at Educated Wanderer to reserve your spot today!Email: [e-mail]: 973-513-9001Website: educatedwanderer.com Become a member for AD FREE listening and EXTRA shows: theconfessionalspodcast.com/join MAILING ADDRESS:STE 36188 Glocker Way,Pottstown, PA 19465 SPONSORSGET Surfshark: surfshark.deals/confessionals GET Cerebral: getcerebral.com/tony GET SIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionals GET Hello Fresh: hellofresh.com/confessionals16 Promo Code: "confessionals16" for 16 FREE MEALS!!! Get Emergency Food Supplies: www.preparewiththeconfessionals.com Get Beard Oil: bit.ly/2FbOhN5 CONNECT WITH US Website: www.theconfessionalspodcast.com Email: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/the-newsletter SOCIAL MEDIA Subscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaI TikTok: @theconfessionals Discord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7h Show Instagram: theconfessionalspodcast Tony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficial Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcas Twitter: @TConfessionals Tony's Twitter: @tony_merkel

Merkel Media's This was all circulating around the base that a giant had been killed but no one was supposed to talk about it I saw three long, boning fingers reach up underneath the door curl up to grab it and then disappear

When he came over to me Dude he slithered over to me And this giant comes out of the cave And they're all frozen And he starts running and firing at this giant. With a giant move, he's got a spear in one hand, and he's running really fast. It spears, Dan, holds him up like this. Somebody else, shoot him in the face, shoot him in the face. They basically decapitated. I feel something pulling at my leg. And I look over and there are two

small gray entities. And they're literally, I'm getting pulled off the bed. I reached my hand into this bush and I touch air. Couldn't breathe and it couldn't move. because I know I'm seeing a monster. Welcome to the show, everybody. You're listening to The Confessionals. I'm your host, Tony Merkel. Thanks for being here. If you have a crazy, wild experience,

you want to share with me on the show, go ahead and shoot me an email. My email address is The Confessionals at the Confessionalspodcast.com. That's The Confessionals at the Confessionalspodcast.com. Or go to the website, theconfessionalspodcast.com. Hit the contact section, and you can reach me that way as well. Either it works for me, just get a hold of me. If you want more shows on a weekly basis,

go to the Confessionalspodcast. hit the join button and become a member because every week on Thursdays we drop a member episode plus you get the Tuesday shows at free and you get access to the overtime segments of Tuesday shows which today is one of them so if you want to get all those perks as a member go to the confessionalspodcast.com hit the join button and become a member today also friends we are going on tour the confessionals is going on tour that's called the spirits are in tour that's going to be on April 8th through the 9th. I am taking a bus trip of listeners from the Philly area up to New York to the Shanley Hotel. It is a haunted hotel and we are going to be spending the entire night there.

We're going to stop at haunted locations on the way up, on the way down, breakfast, lunch, dinner, all included on the cost. If you want more information on this, you can go to the website. There is a special tab at the top called The Spirits Are In tour where you can get all the information you need and the contact information if you don't want to write it down right now because right now you can contact creed and gen at educated wanderer the email addresses travel group tours at aol.com the phone number is 973 513-9001 and you can go to the website educated wanderer.com so go ahead and check that out if you want to come on tour with me over 24 hours hanging out with me and other listeners of the confessionals heading to the Shanley hotel

to spend a night in this haunted location. And friends, also, lots of you guys listen to the show on a weekly basis, but at the same time, the listener base that we have, we see the numbers, does not match the Instagram following, which I've told you before, is the place that I hang out most on social media. So please go ahead and follow the confessionals on Instagram. I do a lot of live videos on there, posting, all that good stuff. So please go ahead and hang out with me on Instagram.

that's the Confessional's podcast on Instagram. Okay, today we got Dan coming on the show today. Dan is the host of the show, Monster Investigators of America, and he comes on the show today to talk about his encounters in the forest, and one of them stood out so much to me because it was a dogman encounter when he was a kid with his friend, and the environment that he found himself in with his friend in this dogman encounter was very strikingly eerily similar to the environment

and the situation that Lisa was in when she was a child from episode 59. That's why I played it as a reloaded episode yesterday. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation because we got a whole other second hour of overtime conversation with Dan. In the first hour, we cover the New Jersey encounters. And in the second hour for overtime, we cover the North Carolina encounters with Dan. This is a great conversational show. So I hope you guys enjoy it.

Let's get to it. All right, today we got Dan on the show. Dan, how are you doing, man? Dan the man. It's great, man. Doing great. How you doing, man? That's good.

So you're from Jersey. You moved to North Carolina at one point, and now you're in Texas, right? Yes. Yes. Good old Texas. Thankfully, it's nice and warm now. Yeah. Yeah, you guys had some issues down there.

So before we get going here, some people might recognize your voice, but let's introduce you properly. You are a podcaster as well. Tell people the name of your show, what you do on the show, and where they can find it. All right. So the name of the show is Monster Investigators of America. And what we do is we do live on the air interviews with our listeners. And just like you, sometimes we have somebody to give us an email and want to share their story.

Sometimes, unfortunately, I've had a lot that are too afraid to go live on the air. So I just read the email form and just listen to or look at the live comments, the feed coming in. Yeah, man. So you're doing that podcast and talking to people about their experiences. And you have some of your own experiences and stuff that we're going to be talking about today as well. But definitely people should go check that out. Monster Investigator of America, right? Yes, Monster Investigators of America.

Yes. Monster Investigators of America. Check it out. And Dan, let's just start off with home state of New Jersey. And before we get into your experiences within the Pine Barrens and other locations, if you got them here, because I know New Jersey's kind of crazy with just weird experiences. I know I shared on the show before, but I know I had one of my trucks breakdown at work, and I was being towed. And I'm into the cab with a tow truck driver and telling him what I do. and he's told me some stories about the pine barons. And it wasn't even like Bigfoot or Jersey Devil related or anything like that. It was like really creepy stuff, like giant shadows appearing out of nowhere that engulfed

light. And it's just like crazy stuff. But I want you to kind of share with people since you're a native of New Jersey and you do what you do, you're probably somebody who would have some information about the New Jersey devil. So inform people who are listening what the New Jersey devil is and some of the lore behind it. Yeah, definitely. So the New Jersey Devil, there's a lot of different myths about it. There's probably even more than the four that I know about with it being a 13 child and her cursing her 13 child over on Leeds Road. There is another one that has a little bit more ground to it that I kind of believe a little bit more than the rest of them, which is that the father of, the New Jersey devil. Rand, they did have a lot of kids. He had a run in with a witch and the

witch was looking for help. Unfortunately, he did not help the witch. He didn't give her any kind of time whatsoever. And for that, later on, she cursed the final child of him and his wife. The wife keeping the New Jersey devil for a long time, they kept them apparently in the basement of their house and their cellar area and finally grew up, got big, got strong, and escaped as it goes right up the chimney, broke everything on the way up and has been haunting the New Jersey Pine Barrens ever since. You know, with the stories of the New Jersey devil and stuff, and as somebody who grew up in Jersey, did you ever give weight to that whole legend and stuff. I mean, when you hear the origins, the origin stories of the Jersey Devil,

it seems very improbable, you know, but like they say, behind all these different legends and lures, there's a little bit of truth somewhere, at least mixed in. So do you think the Jersey devil is what it is made out to be this like monster like creature roaming the woods? Do you think it could have been at one point, it's gone now, it's an entity now? What are your conclusion since you're from that area? Since I used to, I read a lot of books. I mean, I started back when I was in third grade, I did a project. And the project I did end up being on New Jersey Devil.

And that's when I first learned about the whole 13 child story behind it. To me, that story is just less likely. I mean, as a parent myself now and as you are, I can never imagine saying, oh, I curse this child that's coming out, regardless because it's your child. So later on, when I did a little bit more investigating and looking into it, and I found that story about the witch and the father and made a little bit more sense to me and just knowing different types of backgrounds, like with the skin walkers and stuff like that, I would say it's definitely a possibility.

there's a lot of people. There's even a famous general, and unfortunately, it slips my mind that I had seen the Jersey Devil, apparently not just seen the Jersey Devil, but shot a cannon at the New Jersey Devil. Says he made impact, but a lot of times when you think you hit something, you don't. You missed and you want to believe you did, but you just don't. So it's been seen throughout the last 200 plus years. And I don't, now I believe it's more of an entity than anything else. Just as weird as New Jersey really is, I don't think it's an actual physical flesh and blood thing now.

I think it's more just an entity. That general, the people should be like, where's the body, bro? Where's the body? You know, like, that's what everybody says about Bigfoot these days. days. Where's the body? Why can't we get the body? You know, if you made contact to the cannon, where's the body, bra? You know, but yeah, I totally understand what you're saying. And, you know, when I think about the Jersey, because I'm not far from Jersey, I'm just on the other side of Philly, which Philly is right across the river from Pine Barrens, pretty much. You know,

I think about that and stuff. And I think, you know, maybe, you know, once upon a time, there was an interaction with a witch or something like that where she cursed the family. And it turns out that, you know, after that incident, one of the kids just turned into just this terrible terror of a person. And, you know, mom and dad said, that's because the witch cursed us. That's because the witch cursed us. And that kid, you know, maybe locally or even amongst the family, they hated him so much. They're like, you're such a devil. You know, you're the Jersey devil, the devil of Jersey. And then that kid goes out and just wreaks havoc on the community, robbing, stealing, stealing, killing people and stuff. And the lure begins to grow. And, you know, he's known as the Jersey devil.

and, you know, then there's some descriptive people along the way that are like, yeah, he, he was such a devil. I swear he had a tail on him, you know, and he flew away, you know, and all of a sudden it becomes this story, you know? But like, that's what I mean. Like, there's always this little bit of truth somewhere in these lores most of the time, unless you find the original writings of somewhere, it was actually a tale. It was just a story made up by an author a long time ago, and it just turned into what it is. But I don't know. I tend to lean in that direction sometimes with that story is that like we don't know maybe it was just somebody who was just a really bad person and and just locally known as that is the jersey devil right there you know and even back

back then uh with any kind of deformities now any kind of physical deformies back then a lot of the times people were looked at that they were evil that they have something they had a demon in them So even if it came out and it was deformed, then they kept it out of love. But as you said, it just got way too hard to handle. And he grew into a horrible person. That just a slight deformities that they had, probably people seen it. And I was like, oh, that's the devil. And just kept on growing with legend, like you said, with a tail, bat wings, hooves of a deer.

I mean, it's just way crazy things that come out. but there's people that said they've seen them so it's it's kind of like that chimera stuff and it like you just um it looks like when when you see pictures of the drawings and stuff it looks like something that uh is a mix of a lot of different creatures and i mean it looks i mean if i saw it i'd be absolutely terrified um do you recall how big they say that thing is i feel like i it if my memory serves correct it's not that big like maybe like five feet four feet something like that is that right I believe that the average size, like it definitely varies, I guess, depending on whoever is telling the story. But most of the time, the story is like right around 5 foot five area.

I've heard some people say seven foot. I can't see how well, I can't say that. That was I just almost. I still myself couldn't see a seven foot beast like that get away. But guess again. Yeah, guess again on that one. No, but I get it, man. And when I think about it, like, you know, being about five feet tall, I'm just like, man, I'll smack that thing.

I don't care. You know? Up until it's in front of you, then you're looking at the way. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, shoot, if I saw something like that that was two feet tall, I'd be freaked out of like, I'm out of here, you know, because all you're thinking about is it moving supersonic speed and like just swirling around you, chewing your flesh off as you run away, you know?

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. That's why I just, even something that, if it was a tiny little creature, I just, maybe if it was six inches, I might, you know, think about giving it a punt. But otherwise, anything bigger than that, I'd probably high-tail it out. So let's talk about some pine barren stories that you experienced. I know you have plenty of experiences that you've went through that, you know, maybe weren't really listed in the email as much. But let's start off into New Jersey Pine Barrens. And while you're telling that story, I'm going to get up and close my window. because I hear birds chirping. All right, no problem. Yeah, so I'm going to say this is back in 2008.

We went into a spot in the pine barrens by Wharton State Forest. And Warren State Forest, where we went is a very rural, rural area. There is, this is a campground where there's, this ain't glam camping. This is camping. Like, you bring a tent. That's what you got to sleep in. You don't have a shower. You don't have any of that stuff. You have the river that runs on the back end of it. And that's pretty much it. And the crazy thing is like this, when I'm, the story that I'm telling right now, it started off weird from the get-go. Like, there was nothing that was normal. about this. Me and the garage at the time, we roll in getting ready to set up. We found that the spot where we're going to camp. And you have the river on the back side as we go in on the left side. There's a brand new, beautiful tent set up with chairs that are in the outside,

had a canoe that was already out there. And not a person inside, no vehicles or anything, but that's fine. It was already, it was right around 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, clock in the afternoon. So figured they're probably out going hiking or something like that. Well, we start setting up the tent. She decides she asked if she could go out, run. But right beforehand, there's this old man in this old old school pickup truck that probably from like 1965 rolls in. And it kind of looked like the guy from, I don't know if you ever seen the movie wrong turn, but it kind of looked like one of the guys from the movie wrong turn. It's a big old beard

and he just keeps on getting in out of his truck. It goes in his truck, gets out truck, looks on the ground and is doing this probably going to say every 10 feet moving his truck and messing with the ground. And I'm like, what in the world is this guy doing? Like what? So I just continue to watch as I'm setting up, the girl I'm dating ends up leaving to go get some more, uh, food and some drinks for us as I finished setting everything up. This guy is going on for about 45 minutes doing this. And then finally leaves. So finally everything is all set up.

She comes back. We're cooked dinner, eating. And then as we're eating, we hear this, this noise that I grew up, I grew up in the Jersey woods. Like I would sleep outside the woods with just my pullover or my hoodie and be out in the woods. And that's it. No tent, no nothing. Plenty of times. So I know the animals that are out there.

And there was just this weird high pitch noise that I can only describe. It almost sounds like a baby cry. But with like an animal. animal instinct, like an animal noise attached to it. So it caught both for our attention because it happened. It sounded like it was right over across the river. So I'm looking, trying to see if there's anything else that's over there. Couldn't see anything.

Five minutes later, noise happens again, and then that's it. Start to eat dinner. Another hour later passes by. And then it's getting darker now. And we hear people walking. Now, there's nobody else was there besides us and whoever was supposed to be in that tent. Those people in that tent still have not showed back up. And then we're even hearing people walking.

It's dark enough where if you don't have a flashlight, you're not going to see where you're stepping. So you could easily trip, twist your ankle, get yourself messed up. but it sounds like it probably a group out save like, I don't know, four people walking and doing some kind of weird chant. Now, at this time, the Grong WIF is really starting to get freaked out. And I'm telling her, I'm like, listen, everything's okay. We're fine. Everything's going to be okay. I had two machetes on me because I just normally carried one machete with me and another as a backup.

But with this, the way this day was really going. I decide to have them both on me, so I look like Crocodile Dundee. Or Leonardo, the Ninja Turtle. Yes, one of the Ninja Turtles. So I'm telling everything is to be fine, and that was going on for about 15 minutes. And I was like, man, what is going on here? And then finally, that stops. So I get her to calm down and relax a little bit more.

and more time passes by. I'd probably say like another half hour, 45 minutes, and all of a sudden there's this light that's probably about 35, 30 yards away from us. Now it started off like it was five feet from the ground and then just go straight down maybe six inches away from the ground. And it continued to do this over and over again. And the light wasn't like a flashlight, like with a, flashlight, you see the beam.

This was like a light that kind of just radiated around it. So it really caught my attention. And something inside me like clicked that it didn't seem like something was right. So I had a big spotlight

that I brought with us and I picked it up and I shined it over there because I figured well maybe, or I was probably hoping maybe this is a person and they met a loss something. Could be our neighbors across the way. Let me shine a light, see if they're there and I'll see if I can help them out. Shine that spotlight on them. The light disappears and there's nobody there. Nobody at all.

Nothing around. And this light could cover a lot of territories. So I just went from right to left and looking, didn't find anything. Now the girl that I was with at the time, seen the same exact. thing and she was like what what was that that's there's nobody there and I'm like I was probably you know I don't know maybe like a gas or something I don't know so then put the light back down within five minutes that light is back up and doing the same exact thing and it was almost like it was trying to grab my attention because part of me wanted to walk towards it and investigate

And then another part of me, which was like a voice inside my head, I was saying, no, stay put. Just sit down and let whatever this is pass by. Because I did get up and I took a couple steps forward and the garage was like, what are you doing? I said, I want to go look to see what this is. If it's a person, maybe I need help or if it's something else, I just rather, I want to see. and then it was just like a voice that just said not just sit back down just let it let it go so I sat back down I put the light up again flashed in the area nothing um so for for that trip that was that was technically it at least with the creepy things uh that passed by we went to bed um five minutes

after we went to bed there's a noise in back for a 10 I knew what I knew what it was immediately uh because I I bought one of those little buckets so she could use to use the restroom. And it was a raccoon. Scared the daylights out of her. I knew what it was. So I walk out, check, it's the raccoon, has a piece of top of like the whole roll tall paper in his hand. Tries to get a little close to me. So I just like hit the ground trying to scare it.

It didn't scare. It got a little bit closer to me. And I like flipped the machete on its blunted side because I, I didn't want to hurt it. So I just tapped it with it and it took off. And it like, brand five feet turns around, shows me and has the tall paper and takes off. It's like, yeah, I got what I wanted anyway. It's like, sucker.

It was definitely something out of the movie. Okay, here's our first sponsor for today, which is Cerebral. I've been talking about Cerebral for a while. And you know what, friends, it's because anxiety and depression has literally doubled in the U.S. in the past couple years. And I think we know why that is, but there is need for Cerebral. solutions to these problems people are having. And that's why I like promoting services like Cerebo. In fact, I'll tell you this much, I am just getting over COVID. And there's something that I just

found out that people told me that is actually a thing. I didn't know it was a thing. But I was talking on my Instagram live to the audience about, you know, going through COVID and all that stuff. And I mentioned about how it seems like COVID took motivation out of my life. Like I felt depressed, sad, felt like I was going nowhere. It felt like I was looking at the show and thinking myself, why am I doing this? It's nothing. It's worthless. Nobody listens. Nobody cares. Like, just all this, like, self-doubt coming through my head. And I was like, I don't know where this is coming from. And people were telling me that I had COVID brain. And I said, what was that? And apparently, people who get COVID sometimes have this like COVID brain where it's just

everything in their life seems worthless. And that's what I was going through. And I was thinking, man, if I don't cut this soon, I'm going to actually contact cerebral myself and talk to somebody because I need to get out of this funk. Fortunately for me, it only lasted a few days and I was good to go. But there's a lot of things that people go through in life that they just need to talk to somebody. And cerebral is one of those places that you can go to talk to somebody because cerebral is an online mental health service that offers prescription medication, counseling,

and therapy for anxiety, depression, ADHD, insomnia, and more. Listen, friends, cerebral has a great service here because not only do they help you with therapy and counseling, they also do the prescription. medication service where you literally have your medications delivered right to your door. You skip the whole line at the CVS pharmacy or wherever you get your prescriptions. And cerebral is one-third of the cost. Literally way more affordable than your traditional therapy and you don't need health insurance if you don't have it to use cerebral.

So listen, friends, right now for my listeners of this program, you can receive 65% off your first month of medication management and care counseling at cerebral.com slash Tony. go to cerebral.com slash Tony for 65% off your first month. That's just a total of $30 to get started. Join Cerebral today on their mission to make quality mental health care accessible and affordable for all. So what do you think the whole light situation is? I mean, I know, obviously just by the name of your podcast, I mean, clearly you're into the whole monster and Bigfoot type thing. And people talk about the lights being associated with Bigfoot.

definitely think there's something to that, but I don't think that all lights people see is Bigfoot. What do you think that whole situation was? I mean, because I mean, you had that feeling on the inside. And the way you described it, it's, maybe it's just me picturing in my head, but it sounded like it was a small ball of light, I'm assuming that radiated light, or was it like a big sphere, like a beach ball? It was like a spear almost like, you know, like the regular, not the big beach balls that you get, but like if you go to Walmart and get the like that, like, that meat. medium-sized beach ball, probably about that size. And it just kept on going up and down the whole time.

And, like, no way, like, I try to cross things out of my mind as I go through stuff like this. Just to be like, all right, so maybe it's a person with a Leonard. Leonard could possibly project something more of that style. But then when I put my light on it, there would be a person attached to it. And it wouldn't just disappear. I put my light over there. There's nothing whatsoever. I think it definitely could have been one of the lights that everybody says that, well, not everybody, but people say that they see out there at the time.

I didn't, that's not what I thought it was because I've never heard of them. So I've never experienced that before myself beforehand. So when I finally looked at it and I looked into it, I was like, man, there's these people that are seeing these things, man. that it almost describes exactly what I seen. Even more so because the voice in my head wasn't my voice telling me to sit down. It was like a secondary voice was like, don't come over here, don't just leave it alone and let whatever that is bypass. And normally I don't listen to what other people tell me because I always try to go and find out for myself. but for whatever reason I decided that might be a good idea to listen to the voice.

So I'm going to sit down and relax. I thought you were going to say, normally I don't listen to the other voices that aren't me in my head. I was like, here we go. No, I'm messing with you. But no, I get it, man. I do get it. And you mentioned earlier in the story about how you and her,

heard, like, chatter. is that now you heard chatter and I know you know about the Sierra sounds is it something similar or is it completely different uh it was definitely different it was a chatter that I could not like the Sierra sounds were like I guess because they were louder because the chatter that I heard was almost like they were trying whatever it was was trying to talk softly as to almost not really bother us. But it wasn't

English or any of the language that I actually know. So like in Jersey, it's mainly English and Spanish and I know a decent amount of Spanish where I can recognize at the very least if that's what it is. But it wasn't either of those. And I was just like, man, what are they saying? I don't understand.

Like, I can't understand it. And the same thing with the girl I was with. And she was actually, she was Puerto Rican, so she knows, would definitely know if they were speaking Spanish. And I even asked her, I said, do you, can you recognize what, what that is? And she says, no, I don't, I've never heard of that before. And I mean, that's when she got really freaked out. And that's just when I came a little bit more of aware of, uh, everything going around what was going on around us just because I had her with me and I didn't

want to, if it was just me, I probably wouldn't care as much without having something else there with you that you obviously care about. You don't want to put them in any kind of jeopardy. So I stayed up a little extra long that night just to make sure everything was calmed down. But the chatter, I just couldn't recognize, even with the Sierra sounds that maybe if you you turn it down like a bit because they're more like yelling and turn it to where they're lowly talking. It might come close to it. But I think it was still different. It's interesting. Now, your neighbors that weren't there, did they ever return that you know of as far as like, you know, while during the night or the next day? No. We, we,

We were there until probably 5 o'clock the next day. She, of course, didn't want to do a repeat of what happened. So, you know, we were supposed to stay there a whole weekend. She didn't want to stay. Can't blame her because of what happened. But they never came back. And that was another reason why she wanted to leave. She goes, who leaves brand new stuff here?

Like at least a $400 kayak, brand new tent. That was probably close to $200 and just leaves. Yeah, people who want to leave in a hurry maybe do that stuff, you know? And I'm sure she was thinking that. You're thinking that. And, you know, even the old man with his truck that you saw earlier, what do you make of that? I mean, it was almost like he was looking for something back and forth by getting in and out of the truck, right? Yeah, it was weird because it was also, it was more closer to like there's the other tent side of things.

because we had the river to our back and the river was against their back so we're on the left side, they're on the right side, and it was just like he stayed on the right side, but he kept on also keeping an eye on what I was doing. Like every now and then he would look over, and it didn't seem like he was like being like a nosy person, like some people are just like, oh, what's going on over here?

This guy just kept on looking and then looking and like keeping on, me no matter what, even up until he left. So I walked over just to try to see if I could figure out what was going on, what he was looking for, maybe what he was putting down and couldn't find anything whatsoever. Interesting. Makes you wonder if he was looking for some kind of print or what, but given the environment that you had set up there with the guy and the neighbors and then what happened that night, it seems like maybe something was going on that was scaring people away. And it worked. I mean, it scared you guys away too, you know? So it wasn't just them. I mean, you guys clearly didn't feel comfortable to stay in another night and you got out and stuff.

Now, that happens. But you had another experience with a friend when you went camping where, I believe it sounded like you were in your early 20s or something that you were younger and you guys went out and you had an experience that night while you guys were camping. Why don't you talk about that? Yeah, me and my buddy, he was one of my partners in crime. He would be the guy that's sleeping outside with me and the other hoodie, like right next to me as we're sleeping out in the woods. So I was, I just hit 22. He just hit 21. And I got my, oddly enough, I had a red Honda accent G.L. one of the first vehicles I ever bought for myself.

So I drove, picked him up, I'm like, hey, man, let's just go camping. He goes, we're at us. Let's just pick a random spot. So then you said, all right. So we drove down 72 for a long time. And if you drive down 72 and it goes past actually where it breaks into, I think it's 571 maybe, you know a little bit further. We passed a, I remember past.

Wawa, five miles after that, there's like these trails and it's all forest. So we just made a left on a random trail and went about probably, I'd say around two, three miles in, made a right turn when I think a mile down and then just picked a random camps. We're like, all right, right here we'll camp. So we put up the tent, had everything all set up, no issues. And had a couple beers and we're just talking about our everyday life, how things have been since we graduated in high school and different stuff like that. So later on, and I caught, my friends are known to wake me up over noises that he hears.

because we slept out in like the like a bird sanctuary he woke me up at 2 o'clock in morning because he heard something which was a bird and I got highly aggravated at him him. Let's play the game of figuring out what's in a bird sanctuary.

Yeah, wake up, man. I'm like, what's going on? It was, what's that noise? I'm like, dude, come on, man. We're in a bird sanctuary. There's birds. all over the place. I'm like,

come on, don't make me up. We were freezing that night to begin with, so it was harder to fall asleep. And then, so that's what he's known to do. So,

of course, at this camping trip, what does he do? Around, I want to say it was like around 12, 1 o'clock, he does that same thing to me. I think it was closer at 12.

Shakes me, wakes me up, and he goes, Dan, Dan, then I hear it and I'm like I just look at them I don't let him finish I'm like dude seriously you don't hear and as soon as I say the word here something stepped right next to my face because we were right I was we're inside the tent but right outside the tent probably within six inches there's something that stepped right next to my face and I caught my full attention

and I looked at him and I'm like what he goes go go outside and check that out man go outside and look, look, I'm like, what? I'm like, just be quiet for a second. And I'm listening to this, whatever this is, walk around the tent. And it's walking around clearly, it's bipedal. You could tell it's bipedal because a deer or anything like that, you're going to hear click, click, click, click. Like right away, you'll hear the other footsteps approaching,

not just one, two, one, two. So this thing's just stepping around, walking around the tent and looked at where we had our campfire, mess with the campfire a little bit. So now my friend's really spazzing out. So I'm like, I just calm down. He's like, dude, can you go stick your head outside? I looked at him like, what?

You'll stick your head outside, see if it's friendly. You stick your head outside and see if it's friendly. I'm like, why would I do? that. And he's like, come on, please. He goes, this thing's not going away. So I grab the, I always have a knife or a machete on me. Mostly machetes when I go camping just to help break with firewood and whatnot. So I start to unzipped a tent. I have the machete in my hand because I'm like, well, whatever this is, you know, it could be, if it's a person, they shouldn't be walking around somebody's campsite and they're probably a little crazy especially if you're circling around

someone's campsite as soon as i start to zip i may be unzipped at six inches and this thing booked and you could hear it snap every thing that got in its path and it was in the pine barons is very thick so you have trees that are like you know anywhere from two inches thick to a eight, ten inches thick. And whatever this was, just broke everything in its path. And until finally, it was gone.

Didn't hear it anymore. It stopped running. And I looked, I just looked around real quick. I didn't go really anywhere. I stepped outside, stayed in front of the tent the entire time, took my flashlight, looked around, didn't see anything. back in the tent. I'm like, dude, I think whatever it was is gone. Let's just go back to

sleep. He's like, all right, man, I just, but I want to leave tomorrow then. I'm like, we'll leave tomorrow. That's fine. I'm not unhooking the tent up. I'm not staying in the car just in case it's, it is a person and whatnot, because that's what was in my, my mind at the time. I was thinking it was a person. And sure enough, he wakes me up another couple hours later. he had to use the restroom and he wanted me to walk him to watch his back and I was I reluctantly did after about five minutes of bickering with him asking him why but turned around let him do his thing and then went back to bed, woke up the next day and I had to look around and we seen some pretty big prints that we couldn't make any kind of

understanding of. And I wasn't even looking for a prince. He brought it to my attention because I was trying to see what he was breaking because you can hear just stuff snapping. And about five feet into the brush, you can see this tree probably six inches thick. Snap. No person's going to do that. I mean, unless you're sitting there maybe kicking it.

But running into it, I can't see anybody big enough to just cracks like something completely in half like it was nothing. So that's what got my attention. And my friends like, hey, what is this? And I looked down and it was a footprint. So we couldn't tell. Like there's footprint and there was also deer like deer tracks around because. it's all local to the deer and the pine barrens. But the thing that was out of place was the footprint.

How big was it? I would say 13 and a half inches. That's pretty good size. And probably maybe a time and a half, maybe two times wider than my foot. So probably four or five inches wide. It wasn't super big. But the thing that threw me off was just like the tree is getting snapped in half. And that kind of made me realize that I was number one with him hanging out with me.

It was just the wrong company to be out there even trying to, if I wanted this day, another night. Because he was scared out of his mind, especially when he's seen a footprint. I was showing him the trees that broke. The crazy thing is, though, because I filed the line, the line stopped probably about 25 yards and the destruction stopped. So it almost made me think that he ran 25 yards or whatever ran 25 yards and stopped and just like either walked the rest of the way or hung low to see what we were. were doing. Like if we were coming out to look around and just keep an eye and what was going on with our site. Okay, our last sponsor today is brought to you by Simply Safe. Love SimplySafe. Talked about them a long time. I use SimpliSafe and that's because they are affordable and effective.

I'm a big fan of their new outdoor cameras that I have plastered all over my house. I have one on every entry doorway of my house so I can see if anybody comes up to that door. and approaching. The way the camera it works is you can actually see a very wide angle on the camera so you get a great view. It's HD color. It switches on as soon as somebody approaches and starts recording immediately so you never miss it. Even if you don't catch it live, it will be on recording for you. And listen, you guys heard it a few weeks ago. I played the recording of when the police arrived at my house because my brother tripped the alarm. They responded extremely quickly. it was a great service to have, even though it wasn't an emergency, it did make me feel better.

And that's because Simply Safe is monitored 24-7 by professionals ready to dispatch police, firefighters, or EMTs to your home. It is a great service to have friends, and you are able to install it yourself. I did my entire house myself. I put all the sensors on the windows, the doorways, the cameras, everything I did myself. And I am not that great at figuring some of this stuff out. But I did do it all on my own. And if I can do it, you can do it too.

now, you can customize the perfect system for your home in just a few minutes at Simplysafe.com slash confessionals. Go today and claim your free indoor security camera plus 20% off interactive monitoring. Go to Simplysafe.com slash confessions. Get your free indoor camera, get your 20% discount, and get your family secure today. Yeah, and you mentioned about the Pine Barrens being thick and everything. And I just want to clarify for people listening that maybe are familiar with the pine barons with your description you said that they're thick and then you went and said that you know trees can be two inches to you know I think you said eight inches and people are going to think that that's not very thick tree we're talking

about density of the forest it's extremely extremely thick um I've never now I don't think I've ever really gone hiking or anything like that in the pine barons but I used to drive truck uh in south Jersey and you would drive right around them. And I'm telling you, man, I was astonished at how thick the pine barons were when I'm driving by. I mean, you can't see into them because it's just thick, I mean, trees just right next to each other everywhere. And so I wouldn't even want to, for pleasure purposes,

I wouldn't even want to hike into pine barons because it seems like a place where you would, it would take you forever to get anywhere because you have to walk in between all these freaking trees. Well, that's the thing. Like, it's, it is super. thick. And even with the hiking trails, if they're not taking care of or if they're not, you know, hiked on a regular basis, the nature will take it right back over very easily. I went back to that same campsite that I was originally talking about just last year and seen a

a giant difference. It was almost like nature completely took that area over. They stopped using that campsite for whatever reason. There's a lot of, I think it was AT&T signs all over the place. It didn't say private property or anything like that. But there was like a bunch of AT&T signs now all over to place. That's where they're going to be putting their 5G towers then. That's what it's all about, man.

The 5G towers. Yes, it is. It's crazy. And because I was looking into something completely different, a gentleman that went missing back in 2013. So I was trying to look into that because not too far away from it is where he disappeared, which didn't make a lot of sense either. Yeah, I can understand. I mean, after having an experience like that and then somebody going disappearing in that area, your curiosity would peak. and then going back and seeing anybody using the camping area, you're like, well, maybe whatever we experience was experienced by other people. And it's kind of scares people away. If you do it enough times, I mean, people are going to stop coming back. So I can't imagine that campsite was, you know,

heavily frequented, like, you know, I don't know, like a touristy place or anything like that. So you probably only have to scare off a dozen or so people before, you know, nobody really comes back anymore. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know the, uh, two or, two of the times I went there. I think the Boy Scouts were there because it was a reasonably decent-sized place. But most of the time, if I went there, there might have been maybe one or two other people out there.

I mean, I would mainly go during a week just because I know people aren't normally out there during a week. And it's more quiet. And I'd rather just, if I'm going out doing like an investigation or something like that, I'd rather go out and where it's quiet and look things up and check things out myself. Or if I just want to get away, you know, in camp or try to have a good time without anything creepy happening, go out during a week.

So both those stories you shared with us are in Jersey, right? Yes, they're both in the, both of my parents, probably within 15, 20 miles away from each other, I guess. Now, this next door I want to hear about, um, I, I stopped you from telling me because I was like, don't go any further. I just want to say it for the recording. But this happened in Jersey as well. And I'm not sure if it happened in the Pine Barrens or near the Pine Barrens,

but go ahead and go into it because just leading up to what you were sharing, I was like, ooh, this sounds creepy. I want to hear about it. Yes. Yes. All right. So it's still part of the Pine Barrens that happened in Brick, New Jersey. I was four or five years old when this happened.

My mother took me out to a friend's house. and her friend had two other kids. The one was, I know the one was my age and the other one was, I think maybe a year younger. So we just went out to play. Their backyard was pretty much the forest, the woods. So they had like a little place in the backyard and whatnot. And we were out there playing for a while. And then the one kid's like, oh,

do you want to, you know, do you want me like one of one of my friends? So, but I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, let's, let's go do that. And then he brings me down this trail. And as a kid, like I said, it seems like forever, but it must have been maybe, maybe a half mile in or so. And then right off this trail, there's like this little wooden broken down shack. and even at four or five years old, I knew something was not right because I used to watch the,

you know, Jason movies. At four or five years old? Well, my older, my older brothers and sisters used to force me to watch this stuff. Jeez.

So, like, I had a feeling that something just was not right. So he's like, all right, just got to be a little quiet. And I'm just, so we're going in.

and you see like these broken up toys around the shack and they look like they were chewed on like actual actual chewed on and he peeks in the window and he's like oh he's here he's here go go peek in and take a look I peek in and take a look and instantly

fear took my body. When I look through the window, it looked like what now everybody says is dog, dog man. No way. It scared the daylight's out of me. Like I remember

grabbing his little brother and trying to run. And we both stop and he's still there. And then finally, he ends up catching up with us, but we ran all the way in. And that, I was trying to say what happened with my mother. And, of course, as a four or five-year-old, you're not going to be taking a serious no matter what. But I said I never wanted to go back there whatsoever. It was one of the scariest things that I've ever seen.

I was expecting like a kid, of course, because when you're saying, oh, this is my friend and you're a little kid, that's what you're expecting. Even looking at as an adult now, maybe a little homeless kid or something that lives out there. But to peek in the window and then see something that you get told is fake and not real become very real and not that fake, like it was definitely the scariest experience of my life to see something like that. Man, I can't imagine. I can't imagine. How big are we talking about here? Do you remember roughly? I mean, everything to a little kid's huge, but if you can kind of like that. Everything's pretty big, but I'll probably say close to six foot. Was it standing up on two legs?

I was bent over It was on On two legs bent over doing something And I was like I seen it It peaked back I don't know if it's seen me or not But that's when I just

Took off And dragging his little brother Behind me And he stuck around though for a little bit right Yes, he stayed around for some reason. And that's like we stopped and we were calling him. And then finally he started to move. So ran again and made it to the yard.

I don't think his little brother ever seen this creature. Because he was terrified in tears and whatnot as like as well. Because you're seeing a monster that you get told. does not exist. No, there's no such thing as monsters. And when you see something like that, obviously, you're like, no, there really is some such thing as a monster that it was probably the scariest thing ever. Now, he said it was his friend.

He stuck back. Did he ever describe a relationship with him? Like, after that, you saw that, you're like, you hang out with that thing? I mean, did he ever go into any details? Because, I mean, you mentioned about there being toys. that were chewed on. Do you think he brought those toys or what? That's what it seems like because we, we probably only after where it stayed for another 15 minutes.

So we didn't have stayed up too much longer after it happened. But like the way that he was saying like he, he would say that he would all grab like old school he man doll. Grab that and gave it to him. But it was stuff that was all chewed up. Like it was getting gnawed on for like almost like a dog toy. And it was just like if he had a friendship with it, I just, or maybe as a kid, you know, I know some kids with ghosts or whatnot say, you know,

think it's a friend and grow up. But what, what's something. it looks like a werewolf, like out of your worst nightmare. I can't, I can't understand how a kid would be not afraid of that. No, I understand, but this is not the first time I've heard this before. I know on episode 59, it's like, you know, 10 million years ago now. The lady came on, her name was Lisa. And I think I called the show the other side of dogman. And she came on the show talking about when she was a little girl having a relationship with one of these creatures where it was like a friend to her. And I know this is going to sound crazy. I hope I remember it correctly.

I might, you know, sometimes I feel like you hear so many stories to start blending together. But if I remember correctly, she actually described laying down next to this thing. And so, and that was when she was a little girl. And so this isn't the first time I've heard of a child coming across a dogman-like creature and actually thinking it's friendly with them. And so I don't know. I mean, like we hear about in North Carolina, what was it, two years ago now, that kid went missing disappearing, or not disappearing. That sounds like he did it himself.

That kid disappeared for, what, two, three days. And when he came back, he said the bear took care of him. Well, we know bears aren't freaking going to take care of a kid and stuff, but maybe he came across a Sasquatch that did, you know, and that whole idea of a motherly instinct. And could a dog man have that kind of instinct with a child? What is dog man then at that point? Is it a physical creature? Is it a more paranormal creature?

You know, people say it's demonic. Like, there's so many questions now, you know, you know what I mean? There really is. I mean, even you hear, like you said, you hear stories about Sasquatch, especially female Sasquatches helping kids, sometimes even grown adults out when they're, you know, stuck out in the woods or I remember a story. I can't remember what show, but it was of somebody that was trying to escape. He got stuck in like the swamp and was digitally stuck in the muck, couldn't move.

And this female Sasquatch came, picked him up like it was nothing and brought him back to road. So even for that little boy, because I was right there in North Carolina when that happened, I was actually getting ready to help go out, look for him. And then on the news, you hear that there's a bear that took care of him for the last three, you know, three, four days. And it's, it really makes you question things. But with a dogman, even more so to me, because I never heard of a net.

counter of somebody not saying it was evil. I've never bumped into one besides that, you know, as a kid. So I was just automatically scared. So I couldn't sit there and think, oh, is this, does this give him like an evil presence or whatnot? No, it just scared the holy heck out of me. So I took off. But that little boy having a relationship with it. And now with what you said with that, that lady saying that she pretty much slept like,

next next to it makes you wonder really like is it flesh and blood um that's just crazy it is crazy man and it kind of just goes along with a lot of other theories that i have and stuff it's just kind of put i just put it in the books as just another crazy crazy thing to think about and um you know we know that saskatch uh has very physical attributes that people describe when they have encounters They described something that was very physical, it was very real, leaf sign that it was there, you know, it was impressions in the ground with its feet, things like that. And then we have people saying that they saw that and then it did this, which shouldn't be possible, you know?

And it just makes you wonder, is dog man in the same vein when it comes to those kind of things? And if it is, then do they come from the same place? Are they made up of the same type of mysterious origins and things like that? And, you know, people know my theory. I want to say it's a theory. I'm happy if I'm proven wrong on it because that's what we're doing here. We're just thinking out loud, trying to find what truth is.

And so if my theory of the idea of remnant of Nephilim-type origins is wrong, I'm fine with that. But it just kind of goes into that idea for me, at least. I agree with you. I think that because it's very much, to me, that was a very flesh and blood creature. That's scared of the holy heck at me. couldn't be more flesh and blood than when you're roughly five, six feet away from something and scares the daylights out of you. Like, I don't question it being flesh and blood or part of the Nethulm.

That was one of my theories, especially with Sasquatch. Just because of the things that other people have seen and they go into detail with it, I'm right there. That's what I believe. Yeah, man. Well, Dan, what's the name of your show again? Monster Investigators of America. Where can they find it? You can find us on Podbean or anywhere else in your podcast or, well, anywhere else you listen to your podcast from. But mainly Podbean, that's where we do all of our live shows from.

Awesome, man. Yeah, I like that you said Pod Bean and you didn't mention another company. that's big because I am currently boycotting them in my own little ways. But no, yeah, check them out, Podbean. And Podbean's actually a really fun app. I don't use Podbean like you do. But just as somebody to listen to podcast and stuff, I always recommend Podbean to Android users because obviously they don't have the other company.

And, like, it's a good, clean app. And you can comment and it's very functional. I like pod being a lot. So, Dan, thanks for coming on the show, man. Thanks for having me, man. It's definitely been a pleasure. Like I said, I'm a big fan of the show. I've listened for a while and look forward to more of the podcast.

Actually, Dan, do you want to do a second hour overtime with some of your North Carolina stories and other stuff? Yeah, we can do that. All right. So everybody, listen up. Listen up. This is just very random, spontaneous. I was wrapping it up. And I was like, wait a second.

I'm looking at, I literally, I'm looking down my paper and I have New Jersey circled and North Carolina circled. I'm like, wait a saying, we didn't even talk about North Carolina. So if you're good with it, let's do another hour over on the overtime segment, man. Yeah, we could definitely do that. I even have one more super spooky jersey story to share that happened right in the heart of the Pine Barrett. Well, that's the show, everybody. I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you did enjoy, please, please, please share the show with your friends.

I don't care where or how you share the show. Just share the show if you enjoyed it. That's the best thing you can do to help this show grow. And friends, remember, this is an overtime show now. Spontaneous, yes, but it is an overtime show now where we're going to cover the last of the New Jersey encounters and the North Carolina encounters with Dan. If you're interested in that, head on over to the overtime section on the website. If you're a member, you've got to become a member to get access to the overtime section.

So if you want to do that, go to the confessionalspodcast.com. Hit the join button and you'll get access to this overtime. on the website and or the castos app you'll have the option if you want to listen on the app as well but that's all available to members so go there now and until next week friends stay safe take care and remember the truth was such a free but first they'll piss you off bye all right welcome to overtime we got dan the man how you doing buddy i am doing fantastic today yeah thanks for uh joining me here again uh like i said on this show i mean i'm looking at it i'm like wait a we didn't even do north Carolina. So I'm thinking, let's do an overtime segment. If he's good with it, I'm glad you're

good with it. And we're going to jump into it, though. But before we get to North Carolina, let's do the last story from New Jersey and stuff. And then we'll go down south. Yes. So me and a friend of mine, we would go every other night out into like adventure, just see if we could find any like trails that are off the road and just drive down them. And, um, So one night we decided that we're going to go down my old stomping grounds in good old Waretown and take a trail off one of the main roads called Wells Mills. So we went down the road for a long time and we find this trail, I think we were four or five miles down it. Hit the trail. We go five miles down this trail.

and to the point where we actually can't go anymore because we're in a car. Normally we would take my truck, but in this day we had the car. So we had to turn around and do like a K-turn, turn around, point the other way, and we just stopped and we're talking and BS in a little bit. And then as we're talking, a flash of light across the sky caught our attention. So, yeah, I started looking. looking around trying to see if maybe, because, you know, people over there like to go out mud and all the time and enjoy themselves. So we're trying to see if maybe it came from a truck. No trucks,

no nothing. We just continue to look around and find nothing whatsoever, no lightning, any of that. So we continue just to talk and whatnot. And then I get this feeling inside that. like when somebody's looking at you and you know you get that feeling somebody's actually staring at you I get this feeling that somebody's staring at us and I was there with my friend was a female so I was trying not to scare so I was just like I got up and turned there she's like oh what are you doing I said I just want to look around to see if maybe I can see where that flash came from so right directly behind us behind her car, there is a image that is darker than anything that it was outside. Standing like a human behind her car.

And it was probably 1230 at night, so it was pitch dark in the pine barrens. You don't get a lot of a light anyway. And this thing just was darker than outside. My fantasy is always consisted of making it big. My soul was nothing more than a bargaining chip. Marketing is what they tell you to do and what you're willing to give. Larkin to the fullest extent.

I don't wait. I shoot first like hide on a roadian, and people don't understand me like reading anokian. Stretch thin, like pulling in accordion. My heart ain't primordium. All these historians telling us lies the genocide.

Everything is medicalized. Politicians selling the ride. A better middie die where the relevance lies. They're dressing alike. Reptilians. My resilience is brilliantly. Salient alien with no melanin. Yet he ain't hiding from mama