The Confessionals - 560: Smoky Mountain Monster Hunter

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

In Episode 560: Smoky Mountain Monster Hunter, we are joined by Brian Jeffery from Black Mass Paranormal. He is a local legend hunter as he was born and raised in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. He has heard all the stories growing up and has also had his share of close encounters with the beasts that roam these hills. He comes to the studio to talk about his paranormal investigations and cryptid-hunting adventures such as hunting for the dogman and catching a bigfoot on thermal. We talk about it all on this episode of The Confessionals. PRE-ORDER T-SHIRTS:https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/storeThe Confessionals Members App:Apple Store: https://apple.co/3UxhPrhGoogle Play: https://bit.ly/43mk8kZBecome a member for AD FREE listening and EXTRA shows: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinCome Meet Tony:1. Smoky Mountain Bigfoot ConferenceTickets: https://bit.ly/3l1wZHR2. LIVE SHOW in Gatlinburg, TN!Tickets: https://bit.ly/3IC4IkxWatch Expedition Dogman: https://bit.ly/3CE6Kg0Tony's Studio Equipment: linktr.ee/mystudiogearSPONSORSGET EMP Shield: empshield.com Coupon Code: "tony" for $50 off every item you purchase! Listen to this episode for more information! Link: bit.ly/3YaMD1NGET SIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionalsGET Hello Fresh: hellofresh.com/confessionals60 Promo Code: "confessionals50" for 50% off plus the first box ships for free!!!Get Emergency Food Supplies: www.preparewiththeconfessionals.comCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] to the Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/the-newsletterSOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIDiscord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcasTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkelAre you a military veteran struggling with thoughts of suicide?Contact Watchman Readiness Corps for REAL help. A veteran-run organization that is designed to help through hands-on survival training.Website: wrc.vetEmail: [e-mail]: [phone]Instagram: wrc_survivalFacebook: colbywrcvetOUTRO MUSICVanTesla - Jekyll IslandYouTube | Apple Music | Spotify

Hey, everybody, before we get into this week's episode, I want to let you know that we are doing pre-orders still. You see, I realized it was a holiday weekend and the printer was closed anyway, so why not leave the pre-orders open on the website? And that's what I did all weekend. And today is Tuesday, July 4th. After today, the printers open up and we are sending the pre-orders off. So if you haven't got your pre-order in yet and you thought you missed the boat on either the logo t-shirt, the Tennessee Big Fun Hunter t-shirt, or even the Beast of Bray Road t-shirt, you didn't quite miss the boat yet. So if you wanted one of the first, those t-shirts, or all three, the pre-orders are available still. Hit the link in the description

of this episode or just go to the Confessionalspodcast.com and hit the store section. And you can see all the t-shirts in there. You can get your pre-order still today. But tomorrow, Wednesday, July 5th, we are done pre-orders and shipping them off to the printers. Now let's get to this week's episode. Merkel. This was all circulating around the base that a giant had to kill, but no one was supposed to 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 up this giant. Well, the giant moves.

He's got a spear in one hand, and he's running really fast. And spears damage. holds them up like this. Somebody else. Shoot him in the face. Shoot him in the face. They basically decapitated. Got sparser, got sparser, got sparsing, when he got about 15 yards away.

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 I couldn't move because I know I'm seeing a monster. Yep. Welcome to the show, everybody. you're listening to The Confessionals podcast. 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 contact at the confessionalspodcast.com. That's contact at the confessionalspodcast.com. Or go to the website, the confessionalspodcast.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 website, the confessionalspodcast.com, hit the join button, become a member. There you can get access to the bone. bonus shows every Thursday, bonus show for members on the app and on the website. You also get access to ad-free listening to the Tuesday shows and overtime segments when they're available.

I haven't done one a while. I think I'm due for one. We'll have to look into that for you. But if you want to be a member, go ahead and check it out. The confessionalspodcast.com. Hit the join button, become a member today. And also, this episode is brought to you by EMPShield.com. If you want to protect your vehicle from a possible EMP attack lightning,

or anything of the like. Go to EMPShield.com, get the devices for your vehicles, and use coupon code Tony for $50 off every item you get off that website, EMPShield.com. All right. Today we got an in-studio guest. We got Brian. Can I say your last name? Yeah.

All right. Brian Jeffrey here in studio. Brian, how are you, man? Doing well. Doing well. A little bit under the weather. A little bit under the weather here. Cool.

But good. Yeah, man. So you are a local. guy here. And I forget, I feel like somebody shot me one of your videos on DM on Instagram, and I checked it out, which usually I just gloss over. I have no idea what made me hit it. But I just remember looking at your channel, I don't know what happened. I just figured out that you were local to me. I'm like, dude, this guy's local. And we went out to lunch, you, me and Jack, like, what, a couple months ago, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And got to got acquainted and

you are. Before we get too deep, tell the people who you are and where they can find you. Yeah. So like you said, my name's Brian. And I run the YouTube channel, Black Mask Paranormal. I mainly concentrate on YouTube. The best way to contact me, though, is through my Facebook page. That way you can send me a message and I usually respond to those pretty quickly. I also got Instagram. I'm trying to get in the TikTok thing, man. But, you know, I just. Don't do it. I know. It's a downhill.

Like, it's just, I don't know. Every time I get on there, it's like my life's just ticking away. You know. Yeah. But yeah, I'm from East Tennessee originally. And, you know, we live in such a great area. And there's so much here, you know, with the Appalachian history, that I really love to bring those aspects of our culture out to YouTube. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you say the name of the channel? Say it again. Black mass paranormal. Black mass paranormal. Is that because like you're doing black masses? No, absolutely not. So the name of my channel actually came from an experience that I had.

So I had lived in this old house in this area that was from the late 1800s. And as you get a mad or as you know and experiencing now, Tennessee is humid, like really humid. Yeah. Like a thousand percent humidity. So one day I had been sitting on my couch and this was in the middle of the summer. So super humid. And the house, you know, like I said, was from the 1800s. Well, the air conditioning system didn't work too well.

And I'm looking down the end of my hallway and I see what I think is a person. It's this black mass at the end of the hall. hallway. So I jump up. I'm bull rushing down to the end of the hallway because I think I'm about to throw hands with somebody. And all of a sudden, there's nothing there. And the hallway is so cold that I can see my breath. And from that point on, that's kind of when I decided I was going to start sharing my adventures into the paranormal. So, all right. So that that experience, was that the genesis of your interest in the paranormal? Well, I'd always been interested in the paranormal. My mother was really interested in the paranormal. And she was actually kind of into learning

about the good side of witchcraft. And, you know, growing up, I always thought it was kind of weird. You know, I took it kind of like a grain of salt, but I was always kind of fascinated with the idea of it. And then once I moved into this, this house, it was just like game on because I had so many different things happen in that house. We actually had to leave the house and move because of the paranormal activity. Yeah. So I'll just kind of go through the story of it. Yeah. Go ahead. So this house was. was built in the late 1800s. So it had started, once I see this black mass in the hallway, that's when my kind of radar goes up.

And I start thinking, you know, maybe that there is something going on in this house. And one day, I had been out at work and I came back home. and my wife had just made this, like, awesome meal. And I liked to eat. So I was all excited. And I'm like, all right, I'll set the table. So I go and I get the plates and I'm setting the table. And by the time I get down to the last one, I look over to my right and I see this plate.

And it's spinning in a circle. And as I'm kind of looking around the table, I'm noticing all of these plates spinning just. by themselves. And I like totally freak out. I don't know what to do. So I just take my hands and I slam them really hard down on the table. Okay. So that stopped everything.

And my wife at that point was kind of like, why did you just do that? And I didn't want to freak her out, you know, because this is our home. You know, this is where our kids are. So I'm just kind of like,

and I hadn't told her about the experience with the black mass at the end of the hallway at this point. So then after that, Stephanie starts being like, hey, you know, I keep hearing like this weird whispering sound or, you know, she'll talk about, you know, just odd things that are happening around and she doesn't, and I'm trying to dismiss it all, you know. Is Stephanie your wife? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So I'm trying to dismiss it all. So I'm not freaking her out. I'm not freaking the kid. kids out. And then one night we are laying in bed and the house has got, you know, one of those kind of rancher porches on it. And I hear footsteps walking up and down the porch. So at this point, I'm like, okay, there's somebody on my front porch. So, you know, I get my firearm. I walk around. I opened the door and I announced myself.

I said, you are trespassing. I have a weapon. You need to leave immediately. And I'm looking on the porch, but I'm not seeing anything. And it's like the porch is kind of perpendicular to this woodline. And I'm hearing at this point the footsteps on the wood, like in the wood line kind of pacing back and forth. So I say it louder. I'm like, I have a weapon.

You are trespassing. You need to announce yourself and get off of my property. That doesn't change. I'm still hearing the kind of footsteps. And at this point, it kind of changes direction. And I can start hearing the footsteps walking towards me. So I say it again and the footsteps getting faster. And I can hear the, and I'm like listening to the transition.

And that's what's so crazy is. because I can remember every little detail about this incident. So I'm hearing the transition from the woodline to the grass to the concrete. And as soon as I hear the concrete, like, I don't even know what I'm looking for, but I'm hearing this thing charging at me. And I raise my firearm and start shooting. Are you serious? Yeah.

Because I didn't know what to do, man. What am I going to do? Like, something. Shoot that air. Just shoot that air. Totally ridiculous. So, yeah, and it just, I feel like this kind of rush of wind at me. And I'm like, holy crap.

Like, Stephanie's freaking out, you know, because she's thinking, you know, I just got it in gun. You're killing people. Yeah. So I'm like, I'll walk back inside, you know, I mean, it's an area where like, I mean, really gunshots is not that big of a deal because it's out in the, you know, in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, yeah. So I'm like totally like breaking out at this point. Like I don't even know what to do. So several other things, kind of smaller things.

Oh, wait, no. Another big thing happened. I forget about that one. Okay. So the way the layout of the house is at the end of the hallway where I'd seen that black mask, that is where the bedrooms are. Okay, so there was a bedroom all the way to the far left. There's a bedroom to the far right.

And then there was another room right in front of that other bedroom. So my wife and I were in the back left bedroom and my kids were each on the bedrooms on the right. So at this point, my kids are really little. And earlier in the day, you remember Lincoln logs? Yeah. You know, those things. I still got them laying around my house, man. Yeah.

me and my son had been building little, like, you know, little Lincoln Lod town thing. And so we've got these little cabins basically scattered all over the floor. And I'm hearing one of the audible toys going off. So I'm thinking my son has gotten out of bed, is, you know, down at the end of the hallway or in the living room playing with, his toys. So I get up. Now, keep in mind, I walk past his bedroom to get to the living room. All right. So I walk into the living room and I'm like, hey, you know, you need to come to bed. You know, it's late. And all of a sudden, I hear these little footsteps and then the Lincoln logs go flying across the room, like hitting me in the feet. And I'm like, what the hell? So my son would have had to

run past me to get to his bedroom. So I turn on the light. The living room is completely empty. The Lincoln logs are scattered everywhere. And I'm like, what just happened? So I turn around and I walk into my son's room, turn on his light. He's dead asleep in his bed. I go to my daughter's room, turn on that light.

She's dead asleep. So I'm just out of my mind at that point. Like, I mean, it was such a crazy experience, you know, because I was so certain, I was so certain that it was my son that was in there playing with the linking logs, Lincoln logs. But it wasn't. I have no explanation for it. So at this point, my wife and I are both, for lack of better words, totally freaked out. You know, I mean, we don't really know what to do at this point. My experience with dealing with the paranormal is basically non-existent.

Like, I really have no idea what to do. And then that brings us up to Christmas Eve. Always Christmas Eve. Yeah. Yeah. Dude. Like, you know, the bells are ringing and the spookies are playing. Oh, man.

So my wife and I, you know, I'm a big Christmas guy. I love Christmas. I always have. It, you know, just puts me in a good mood. So Christmas Eve, and I, of course, always wait until, like, Christmas Eve to start wrapping presents, just because that's the way I am. So Stephanie and I are in the living room wrapping presents. And we start hearing this scratching sound. And at first I'm like, you know, maybe it's a mouse, you know, or something, you know, digging in the wall.

And I'm able to actually figure out exactly where the scratching sound is coming from. And it's coming from the wall that's behind me. And I walk up and I'm putting my ear to the wall and I can hear the scratching. And at this point, it has gotten so loud that I feel it sounds like something is about to climb through the freaking wall. Like, it is just digging into the dry wall, like, scraping down. And Stephanie is, I'll turn on a look at her and she's completely white. Because at this point, she realized it's not a mouse.

You know, there's something else going on. So, like, I'm trying to rationalize the situation. There's a crawl space underneath the house. I climb underneath the house. I go, you know, kind of army crawl down up and to where that was. And I'm shining a light and there's just like nothing but cobwebs that, you know, I see. Because if, and that's what makes it even scarier because if it was some sort of animal, the cobwebs would have been gone. Yeah.

So at that point, we're just kind of like, all right, it's time to go. So, yeah. So he moved out. So we moved, yeah. So, all right, you move out. Let me ask you this, because I don't know if I've ever, I'm sure I have, but did you tell the people that it was haunted when you moved out? Oh, no.

You're just like, good luck. I didn't say anything. Good luck. We were gone. Yeah, we were gone. Wow. Did you say anything to the real estate agent? So nobody knew?

Nope. He never heard anything back about the place? Nope. Man, I'll tell you, it wasn't paranormal, but we, when we moved down here, a, we, we moved down here. A week after we moved down here, my real estate agent in Pennsylvania called, and she asked for the information of the contractor who renovated my house seven years prior when we bought it. And it turns out a week after I moved, water started gushing through the roof when it rained. And I was like, if that happened a week sooner, they would have backed out.

Yeah. I was like, holy crap. So we got on the information. And hopefully, you know, he, you know, stood by. his warranty because he said it was a 10-year warranty on the roof. Yeah. And so hopefully he took care of it for him. Yeah.

I was like, wow. Yeah, but anyways, the idea was nobody, you know, reached back to me like, hey, when you lived here, did you ever notice, like, demons coming out of the ceiling? Nothing like that. No. Well, there was a, there was a, it was actually a rental house. So the owner, I would imagine he knew something about it. Because also, you know, after this stuff starts happening, I start looking around the house,

because I'm trying to put, I'm looking for like some raccoons or some sort of big nest or anything to be able to dismiss some of the things that are happening. Obviously, the bigger stuff, you know, it is what it is. And I go up into the attic, which he had kind of walled off. So I had to unscrew the entrance. You know, a lot of some of, a lot of the addicts have just that pop-up door. Yeah. Well, he had screwed that down and I'd unscrewed that. And that's suspicious.

Well, it gets worse. So I get a ladder and I'm climbing up in the attic. And when I get up in the attic space, I mean, it's a pretty small space. I look over and I see a wall. And I'm like, there shouldn't be a wall there. So I kind of crawl over there. that old kind of like ship lap like you know you see in the old movies where uh somebody like falls to the wall and they've got the weird spacing with the wood okay so it's it's kind of like

that so i'm i'm over there and i'm looking through and i'm seeing all of these like old mannequins like yeah and i can't and it's completely walled off so the only way i could get to that side of the house would be to cut through the freaking wall so at that point i'm just like all right, there's just some craziness going on in this place. And I'm just going to leave it at that. Yeah. But yeah, that's what really kind of sparked my interest in trying to show people what I experienced. Yeah.

And because they're in these paranormal adventures, okay, like getting to be able to see one of these shepherds. of these shadow figures. It's extremely rare. It's even rare to be able to capture it on camera. But they have this unique coloration to them that it's like it's almost black, but at the same time, it's like the blackest black you will ever see. It's like one of those colors that it's so hard to describe.

And so ever since then, I've been trying to find a way to be able to convey that to other people and show them that these things are actually out there. So what you're describing, I've heard countless times, right? And a lot of times people say in a dark room, it's blacker than the black in the room. Yeah. So the way I think of it is almost like, I try to think of the blackest I can think of. Like, you know, there was a lot of black in this room. Like these cameras are real deep black, but then it's like just something that's so much darker than that. And just it's hard to imagine. Yeah. And so for somebody who's seen this

stuff, I can imagine it's hard to convey that. But I've heard that a lot. Yeah. I've heard that a lot. Yeah. When so you had these, these, these experiences in the house kind of catapulted you into all this. Yeah. And you started doing paranormal investigations and stuff like that. Right. What was the response of your wife when you're like, hey, you know that scary stuff we had happening in the house? Yeah, I think we're going to start hunting that stuff. Yeah. So she is kind of one of those people that's interested in it for sure. Like if I, she gets so excited when I actually capture something on camera, you know,

and she's like really like supportive and like that is so cool, you know. But at the same time, she's like, we have a rule. She's like, you are not to bring anything into our home. She's like, the day that you do is the day that this stops. Oh. You know, so I got to be very careful about how I do things. And then if I do bring something home, I got to be quiet about it, you know. No, dear, I didn't come across any red demons out there.

I don't know what you're seeing. Yeah, because I actually have brought something home. before. Really? Yeah, man. It was the, um,

so I was investigating, uh, this house that used to be a candy factory. Okay. And they had, the couple had moved from New York and they were like, oh, this is,

you know, so cool. It's an old candy factory, you know, in East Tennessee. But so, um, you got to remember,

um, it is East Tennessee. Um, and it was a factory. So, um, There was some bad things that happened there. So I had been investigating this house for probably, I guess it was about a week at this point.

And I had made connection to what I had thought was a little boy. And we had come to find out that there had been a little boy that had lived in the house. that had been, I can't remember the details of it right offhand, but he had been killed somewhere on the property. And so it was a, while I was investigating, it was a very kind of personal experience. It was very, it wasn't like threatening or anything like that. Like it wasn't, I wasn't scared or intimidated by this situation. But I had gone home. and I had laid down to go to sleep. And I started, to this day, I feel like it was a dream,

but I don't know what it was. I was laying in bed and I look over and I see this little boy and he's wearing this blue kind of, or that wasn't blue, it was like a blue and yellow kind of like a blue and yellow kind of like flannel. shirt and I was looking at him and he was standing next to my bed and I remember staring at him and I and he was like trying he was talking to me but I couldn't hear what he was saying and I at that point I kind of got up and I sat up on the on the corner of my bed and I was like leaning over you know if somebody's trying to like whisper to you you like lean towards them and um he at

had taken, he raised his hand up and he took his finger and you put it in the center of my chest. Like, and then I woke up. Okay. So at that point, I'm like, that was a weird dream. You know, I go back to sleep. Don't really think anything of it. Get up the next morning and I go to the bathroom to take a shower. I take my shirt off and I'm looking at myself in the out in the mirror and there is a burned fingerprint in the center of my chest. Like, I can send you the picture of it. And it is, I mean, it's just make sure it's from the waist up. Oh, yeah. That's for my only fan. I'm just kidding. So it was, I mean, it was, it's the shape of a fingerprint. Like, it's a burn mark that stood, that stood, that

stayed there for like several days. And at that point, then I had started having some weird things happening around the house. And this is when I developed, it really kind of drove me to figure out how to handle this situation. Because yes, you're going out and you're paranormal investigating. That's awesome. It's fun. you know, but there needs to be a stopping point to that, you know, like we were saying beforehand, before the center you were talking about, you know, how we kind of never quit.

So I needed to find out how to deal with the situation to not allow these things to be in my house and not allow them to follow me around or to bother my family. And so I developed, I don't want to say, it's not a ritual, but it's this process now that I do every time I go on an investigation to kind of break apart to not allow these things to enter my home. So, yeah, the outside of my house, though, is, it's kind of scary. So, yeah. Yeah. So is it scary because, uh, things. things happen out there because it's like almost like their domain kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Before you go any further. All right. So I had, do you know who Scott Carpenter is? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was in here, I'd say three months ago or something. We recorded a show. And he was telling me about all the creatures that are in this area. Yeah. And he told me, when I told him where I live, he's like, oh yeah, you guys. got you got him out there. And I'm like, okay, you know, and it, you know, I figured I did. And it doesn't really, I don't think about it though, you know. Right. And so last night, I had a, a brass meeting of Merkel media. We had the, all the meeting of the minds. And before, that was at nine o'clock. And so usually around nine o'clock, my chickens are just starting to mosey in right now to the coop. And, I had lost a chicken last week, and I've been staking out my coop waiting to see what comes back in.

Because it must have happened right before they went in because that night I had gone out and there was a chicken that had got locked out because I got one of those automatic doors. And so I put her in. And then when I came out the evening the next day is when I saw the feathers everywhere, my wife said that she saw feathers earlier in the day. And she just didn't think of it. And I found the body in the corner and it was eaten up. but I think it was a possum. But so I've been staking out the chicken coop trying to see what's coming in. And last night, because I had this meeting, I couldn't be out there at that time.

So I was, I went down beforehand probably about 845. And I started up a fire to try to maybe deter anything while I wasn't watching. And I went over to the coop and all the birds were already in. And I was like, that's kind of, they usually got a good, 30, 45 minutes yet. Yeah. And I go in and I check the coop. Yep, they're all in there.

And as I started leaving out and get by the fire, I thought I heard footsteps in the woods. And I couldn't, I wasn't sure if it was bipedal. I wasn't really thinking that much of it because there's animals around, whatever. Like I, I always have a gun on me. I'm like, whatever.

It's fine. And then I heard what sounded like a pretty large, stick snap from the weight of something walking. And my head jerked up and I look in the woods. My eyes must have gotten real big. And I take the flashlight out there and I start shining in the woods and I see nothing. And I'm just like, okay. So the whole way back to my house, my chickens are a little further from the house and they should be. But I walk backwards the whole time. Yeah. But it got me thinking last night about how Scott Carpenter says they'll come into your property and he has, I forget what he said, well, all he does, but he has things that basically

puts up spiritual boundaries around his property that they come up to it, but they don't cross over it. So what's going on outside your house that you're talking about? Well, see, so that's the thing. And with doing this stuff, I'm a very technical person and I'm a very rational person. I know it doesn't really fit well with being a paranormal investigator, but I personally believe that, you know, our understanding of our existence on this planet is almost non-existent, even with the how advanced our technologies are, how, you know, amazing, the amazing things that humankind has been able to accomplish at this point, I don't think that we're even close.

So I think that there is a connection there between these and really the best way to describe it is different dimensions for us to be able to wrap our heads around. So with the paranormal

on the ghost kind of side of it, we'll get into the cryptid stuff a little bit later, but on the ghost side of it, I believe that we have the ability to set boundaries you know, whether it is that are, that could possibly, I, me personally, I believe that it's our faith in God that allows us to set these boundaries. But on either side of the spectrum, or maybe it's just our, you know, our physical existence that allows us to have this power, you know, to be able to set these boundaries and to prevent these boundaries.

and to prevent these things from entering kind of our personal space. Because, you know, and it's worked. Like I've been, and you sound like a crazy person doing it. No, man, you're in the right house for crazy. But, I mean, when you're, you know, if you have a ghost in your house or whatever it is, by setting those boundaries, by saying you are not. not allowed to enter past such and such area, you know, they tend to accept that and they will stay, you know, on those boundaries. And when this kind of first happening happened to me,

it was really bothering me because, you know, I was going on on these investigations and these things, you know, were following me that I felt like they were following me because, you know, things would move in my house. Like I would, you know, hear, you know, talking. You would hear footsteps. Like, you know, I mean, and I was capturing it on camera. So it wasn't just like I was crazy. Like, I mean, this stuff was actually happening.

You know, the light switches, turn it on and off, like recorded it on camera. Like, it wasn't like it was a debate on whether or not this was actually happening. So once I was able to set those boundaries, it really, It stopped inside of the house and I wasn't bothered anymore. Now, on the outside of my house, it's a little bit of a different experience. So when night Stephanie and I were sitting on our back porch and the kids weren't there. And we were just kind of having a little bit of a date night. And there was a, I had been working on the floors in my house.

So there is this tool, I can't think of the name of it, but it's, you use it to pull up hardwood floors. It's like a long black piece of steel. Pro bar. It was kind of like a crowbar, yeah. So Stephanie was sitting near the railing. This thing was sitting flat on a table and had been sitting on this table for, I have a hard time with putting tools away sometimes. tools that I don't use all the time, you know. Yeah.

It had been sitting on flat on this table for, you know, more than a week. And Stephanie's sitting there talking to me. And all of a sudden, we hear this woman's voice. And, like, we both hear it. And we're like, who is talking, you know? And then all of a sudden, this metal bar comes flying over Stephanie's shoulder and hits me in the leg. Yeah.

Like, at that point, Stephanie's like, you're dealing with this. I'm going back inside. So she goes back inside. So I'm sitting out there. There goes day night. I'm sitting out there, you know, with my digital recorder and my EMF detector. And I'm trying to figure out, you know, what, you know, who this person is, what's going on. And I was eventually able to kind of break it down to, uh, there was.

a woman that had been in a car accident in the 1950s that had left this tavern that used to be like right up the road from me. And, you know, she had died there. And basically she was just, and that's another side of it, is that when you start recognizing this stuff and trying to communicate it with these entities, individuals, you know, whatever it may be, they communicate back and they will kind of search you out. So, you know, there's, that's another important part of being in the paranormal and kind of looking at it. You'll see guys like Scott Carpenter that are actually able to go out and capture this amazing footage and have these amazing interactions. But it's a way that they, I don't know, maybe recognize. us that we are actually looking, you know, for them. And they, you know, will reach out and

show their existence. And you've experienced that yourself as far as the putting yourself in the situation and having things happen and things like that. I know you have. Before we started recording, I told you kind of what I had on my list of just kind of things to, you know, hit on topical but wise. But I kind of want to skip to, because I was going to say this for later, but I kind of want to skip since you brought that up to what happened to you last week. Oh, yeah. Because, I mean, I know you've shared with me before.

You've had a lot of interaction with things. But when we had lunch, you told me that you, you, I don't know if it's recent, but you started moving away from paranormal, per se, investigation, more to crypted out in the woods hunting monsters, which right up my alley. Yeah. And you were out, and I don't know if you go out looking for specific things or if you're just putting yourself in an environment. Because that's kind of like how I am. Like I'll go, when we do our films, like when we did, well, the Washington trip recently, we went out to a place that was known to have heavy Bigfoot activity that had a very dramatic Bigfoot encounter.

And we put ourselves in the environment and see what happened. Things happened. We didn't get eaten. But things happened, right? Is that how you approach it or do you go out there and you're like, okay, I'm going out there to look for Bigfoot? and that's all I'm going to find. No, that's pretty much how I approach it. I try to stay as open-minded as possible when I go out on these investigations.

So, you know, I will get a lead on a possible encounter or, you know, somebody had a crazy experience out in the woods. So I will kind of say what I feel like it is. If it is a big foot, if it is a dogman, if it is a feral, if it is a feral, person, you know, I will address that and say, this is what these individuals are reporting happening in this area. But then it tends to kind of sometimes go a different direction, you know, and I just roll with it, you know, and because we haven't established, you know, that there, the Bigfoot exists,

the dogman exists, the feral people exist. You know, we haven't. In the scientific world, you know, although what the, they recognize Bigfoot now is an endangered species. Where? Google it. I don't use Google. I use Duck.com. Okay.

Yeah. It's on there. Bigfoot's recognized. Yeah. So. I dig it. So, yeah, I just kind of, I roll with. it. You know, I, um, and that's the hard part of it, you know, because the people like to be able to say,

hey, this person goes out and he looks for Bigfoot and he finds Bigfoot, you know, I mean, but in the paranormal world, that's not how it works. Yeah. You know, you find footprints, you know, you find scat, you hear sounds, you see things move, uh, you know, you, you hear. You, you hear. You, you hear metal doors shut, you know, you experience all these different things. And then that's kind of how it works. Yeah. But, you know, I personally, I feel like there is a, there is a big foot, that there is a dog man. And, you know, a lot of these other, and there is a moth man, which I'm actually going to be doing a mothman investigation here locally. coming up.

Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Oh, man. I cannot wait for that. Yeah.

Before I go into what I was just going to say, you say, A Bigfoot, A Dog Man, you mean topically, right? You're not saying that there's only one. Right. Okay, I just wanted to clarify. I figured that's what you're saying,

but I wanted to clarify for the audience. Because if you were going to say, yeah, there's only one. I'm like, okay, sir, get out. Yeah. Get out. No. Definitely not. Okay, let's take a second and talk about our sponsor today, which is Hello Fresh.

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We use it all the time here at the Merkel household, and I really hope you guys are taking advantage of these deals. They've been offering our listeners for over two years now. Go to Hellofresh.com slash Confessionals 50 and use code Confessionals 50 for 50 for 50% off plus free shipping. That's hellofresh.com slash confessionals 50 and use code confessionals 50 for 50% off plus free shipping. Go get your Hello Fresh today. So I kind of teased it earlier here, but last week you had some activity. Yeah. Tell the people what happened. So I start getting, the night before I start getting all of these messages coming through my phone. People out in the

Teleco area are saying that they are seeing this large canine basically roaming around. But nobody has been able to capture a picture of this thing and that it's eating dogs, that it's like scaring the crap out of people. So, of course, I'm like, all right, I'm going. So, you know, I'd pack up my bags and I go. So this area is actually about three, it was 3.8 miles, but say three and a half miles from where last year I had gone on an investigation, which somebody had captured what looked to be a dog man on a game camera. So I go out to this area looking for the dog man. Okay.

So as I, at this point, I had been hiking for, you know, at least like an hour and a half out in the middle of the woods. I had kind of come across to where this old looks like some sort of service trail or something where the trail had widened significantly. And there wasn't any weeds or anything there. And as I'm walking at this point, I'm kind of like, well, I'm not seeing signs of anything. You know, I just kind of thought it was a bust. And I look down and I see these massive footprints. Really? Massive.

Last week. No, this was last year. Okay, okay. So I'm getting it. So you're saying that this was the experience from, that was 3.8 miles from the other. From the new one. Gotcha. Okay.

Yeah. So I'm looking down and I see these huge foot. footprints. And I'm like ecstatic at this point. And that's another thing, you know, I get a lot of hate on my channel because like I don't, but because I don't take the time to do all the measurements and stuff like that. But it's a huge print. Like I put my foot next to it and it's like bigger than mine. Like I don't know what else you want me to do. Yeah. It's exciting. Like shove and enjoy the process with me. Okay. Stop criticizing. And I'm totally alone, you know. Yeah. And I, okay, so after I find that print,

I'm like looking around and I'm totally flabbergasted and I see this big black mass moving through the woods. I mean, it sounds like a freaking dinosaur moving through the woods. So of course, I'm like, all right. And I actually, and the funny thing is I actually turn the camera to myself and I say, I think I'm about to get eaten by Bigfoot. And I was dead serious. Like I really thought like I was about to die. And there's the trailer for the video.

Yeah. So, okay, so at that point, I have established that there is a big foot in this area to the point where I am, I'm now able to take people out to this area and you'll find Bigfoot footprints. Like, no kidding. Like, I will take you out there. There will be Big Foot footprints out there. Is this the area we're going to today? We could. Yeah. Yeah. You want to. Maybe we'll do that. So we're planning on going out today. It's my, the day of this recording, it is my wedding anniversary, happy 16 years to my wife, Lindsay. So I do have dinner reservation. So we're trying to get out there and get something done before I have to get to dinner.

Yeah. So, okay. So back to the messages. So I get all of these messages. And I'm like, okay, I'm going out at this location. So this time, I had, in YouTube, can break you down in, like, in a way that nothing else on this planet can break you down. So I had been getting these comments about people saying that I wasn't actually alone on these investigations that I'm going on, that I have somebody else with me. And, you know, sometimes I do take people with me, you know, but I always make sure to be like, yeah, here's the person.

So at this point, I'm like, okay, I'm going to strap a full spectrum rear facing camera on my backpack. And that way, everybody's going to be able to see, you know, in front of me and behind me the entire time. So editing-wise, it drove me absolutely crazy because I've got this little box, you know, showing the rear-facing while I have the front-facing. and it just, it drives me nuts. Double your work. Yeah, it doubles my work. Yeah, because then you got to line up everything. Yeah.

So, I'm out here for, you know, a good, over an hour. I have hiked and hiked and hiked. And there is nobody else around me. There's nothing around me. I had taken my thermal camera on multiple occasions and, like, looked and tried to see if I could find anything because I did keep feeling like I was being followed. You know, there's that unique kind of feeling that you get sometimes when you feel like there's somebody like on you.

Well, I had gotten out of the trail and had worked my way back around to basically like the trail head. And I'm like, okay, so I'm pretty confident at that point that there is something else out in the woods. So I'm just going to kind of sit here for a minute. My flashlights had died. I mean, it hadn't completely died, but when flashlights go down, it gets like really dim. And I was still at least a half a mile away from my truck at this point. So I'm sitting there and I hear something in the woods. Now, in this area, there was the trailhead that I had come out of. And where I had captured this thing, it was extremely dense brush, like Blackberry

Briars. Like, I mean, it was like you couldn't just walk through that quietly and, you know, be right there. So I'm looking over and at first, I just see kind of like a head and shoulders what looks like to be kind of coming out of this really dense brush area. And I'm sitting there and I'm like looking at it and I'm trying to shine my light on it. I can't see it. But all I can see is this is just pitch black outline of this thing. And so I turn on my thermal camera and you can kind of, and the way that it comes into frame is, to me, is really fascinating. Because my thermal camera picks up to, I think, 2,000 feet.

So, I mean, it's a good distance. And, you know, I wasn't far from this thing. And it just all of a sudden kind of comes into frame. And I'm looking at this thing. And it's like at least eight foot tall. And it's just kind of pacing, like going like back and forth. Like, and I can't figure out what's going on. But I'm seeing it on my thermal camera.

You know, I can't, I can just barely see it with my eyes. But I can see it really well on my thermal camera. And then all of a sudden, this thing just kind of start. like walking towards me. And I'm like, yeah, nope, I'm out of here. So I turned and I was gone, you know. All right, so let me ask you. All right, so the thermal camera that you have,

yeah, you're seeing this happen on it. Yeah. Does it record video? Do you have this on video or is it just picture? Yeah, it's on video. You sent me the picture. You didn't send me there's a video. I thought it was just.

No, it's on video. Yeah. Yeah, I just released the video. Man, man, man. Man. Well, we're going to definitely add the links to your channel. that video in the description of this episode. Holy crap, dude.

So it starts walking towards you like it noticed you. Yeah, yeah. Yo. Yep. How far were you from your truck? Oh, I was a good, probably half mile from my truck. That's the longest half mile. Oh, dude, I felt like, yeah, yeah.

It was, I was in a total panic. Like, I didn't want to just take off running because, you know, that's one thing that you do not do. if you're dealing with a bear even. There's no bear in this area. So I don't think it was a bear. But you don't want to engage that attack mode in their brain. So, like, I was speedwalking, like, looking over my shoulder just like, oh, my God, this thing's about to be on top of me.

Yeah. No, I, that's terrifying. And you said that you think it was about eight feet tall? Yeah. Because just people listening right now, definitely go check out the video. Yeah. But what I saw, it was something standing on hind legs. It was bipedal.

And I mean, I can't tell in the picture how tall it is. Right. But if I didn't know you and somebody just said, hey, check this out. I'd be like, hey, cool, your uncle's in the picture. You know what I mean? Because that's what it looked like, right? Oh, yeah. That's what, yeah.

It looks like you would think it's a human being standing there. It's bulky. Yeah. But it's like, wow, man. Yeah. Wow. And it was just pacing back and forth. Yeah.

Yeah. It was weird. That's what they say big foot does, right? It just, it comes into, like, and it wasn't like it walked from the side of the frame. Like, I'm, I have the camera directly on this thing. And it just kind of comes in, it just, all of a sudden, the camera just lights up. Like, it's weird. So how far was it from you, you'd say?

I would say probably 30 yards. So 30 yard distance and it's coming towards you, the camera's lighting up. I mean, are you suggesting that it came in on you fast? Yeah, I would say it was moving towards me with the purpose. Yeah. I don't know if it was. It could have got you. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Definitely. Yeah, for sure. Yep. it goes back to what we were talking about with this the idea of there's certain almost like rules of engagement at times yeah it really seems like it's like uh we can scare the hell out of you yeah and we can pace you we can follow you yeah but god help you if you pull the gun and actually shoot at us because now all the the handcuffs are off and that's the thing and you know that's

uh one of the hard things to do when you're when you're running a youtube channel and you're trying to investigate these things. Like, when do you engage? You know, because people have this expectation that when they click on a Bigfoot video that, and I'm not saying this is applied to everybody, but those certain trolls that, you know, that come about. Unless you have like a sit-down podcast in 4K, you know, they are just not willing to even consider it. And that's what can be frustrating a lot of those times because even though I showed over an hour of footage of me front and back so you can see all around me at all times.

Like there is no reasonable explanation for me not to if there was, say, just a huge person out there that I did. How I could not have picked them up on one of those cameras at some point. Like, that's what is what's really baffling to me is, you know, this entire time. Like, I heard kind of something moving in the woods, but I never picked it up on camera until the very end when I was able to, you know, get the thermal on it. It's almost as if it allowed you to see it. Like if it's been almost avoiding you the whole time, in all of a sense, like, all right, let me pop out here, just pace back and forward. Like, oh, I'm a dumb idiot.

Yeah. Oh, oh, you got a thermal. And now it's time to scare a hell out of you. Yeah. You know, it's just, it's wild, man. Yeah. That's wild. Is that like, what, is that the wildest thing you've ever had happened to you out there?

I mean, that seems pretty wild. I've never, I've never gotten any monster on video. It's up there, man. I would say, I would say it is. I mean, it's pretty, it was pretty, other than when I had found the, the big footprint. And then that whatever that black mass was that was moving through the woods. Yeah. And then I got shot at one time.

You know, it's interesting. Well, that's typical around here, I'm sure. You venture too far into somebody's property by accident. Yeah. Bound to happen. And everybody's got pigs to make it disappear. Yeah, exactly. But it's interesting because you said that was down towards Teleco.

How far is that from here? From here? Time wise. Let me think here. I can look at it. All right. It's not that big of it. Probably like 30 minutes, I'd say.

Yeah, probably 30 minutes. Because I'm pretty sure, like, it's the greenback area. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's the area that Scott Carpenter goes to a lot, or at least used to, go to a lot. And he was telling me, it's more than three months ago now that I think about, because he told me that we needed to get out before the leaves started growing in because it's so hard to access. Yeah. and we didn't.

But he was telling me that this area, he's like, if you want to, you're going to get it out here. Yeah. And I'm just like, it's hard for me to imagine that it could be that almost on demand because, I mean, before I was a podcaster, I did go out looking for Big Fort on weekends. I'm driving truck during a week on weekends going in the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania, looking for monsters, right? Didn't get any action. Yeah.

I think the one time I had wood tapping or something, but it could have been a wood knocker. I don't know. Or what is it called? What's the bird that knocks on wood? Woodpecker. Woodpecker, there we go.

And the only other time that in Pennsylvania was me and Jack went to a old World War II prisoner war cave. I think I told you this over lunch. and we had gotten like a big foot hell at us. And yeah, and, and, oh, I'd never get over the fact that I had just turned my camera off and his camera, we didn't know, had a broken microphone. And so everybody's like, you're a lying.

I'm like, go ahead, Sam, a liar. It is what it is. Yeah. And that happens a lot. Like, that's what's crazy about this field is that it, and I don't know why it happens. The way it's able to happen like that. It's just, for instance, when John from Exploration Unknown and I went up to Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. Oh, that's the one you asked me to go on, right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they had opened up High Max for us. And, you know, we were trying to do a little bit more of the ghost kind of hunt because, you know, it's one of the most haunted prisons in America. and I had walked in, John had to go out to his car to get some more batteries. And I had gone into Highmax all by myself. And I was walking around High Max,

you know, filming and trying to investigate. And I walk outside and I'm getting ready to put in a dip so you can hear me digging in my pockets. And I had taken my camera and I'd set my camera down. But I didn't turn off recording. It was still recording. And out of the blue, we captured, or I captured this just scream that was so unbelievably loud that. So, Highmax is in the very back of the prison.

In the front of the building, it's an administration area that, you know, it's all solid concrete. And that's where there was, there was some other people there that night. And they were all sitting inside the administration building, the solid concrete, you know. And they hear this scream from inside of the administration building. And it happens twice. Wow. Yeah.

So I'm like, I set my, I had set my camera down. And it's really kind of funny when it happened. because it was so terrifying because it was happening as John was walking back up to Supermax to meet me and he had actually walked around the back of the building. And he didn't have any of his camera equipment set up or anything. He was literally trying to find me. He was like looking around trying to find me. And I'm out in front of the building.

And all of a sudden, I'm not sure if you know John, but he's huge. He's tall guy. I know of him. I never met him. Yeah. he you just hear him just ass and elbows just going brian but like tried to five b and all of a sudden this scream happens man and it is the most terrifying sound um it's probably the most terrifying sound that i've captured uh to date you know wow wow it was awesome i missed that yeah you missed

it oh my gosh you know what that's it yeah um I'm coming. What was it that you just said you were going to be going out to do not too much? What's your one? Mothman. Mothman. What's that about? So there is an area that is not too far from here. It's a national forest.

I'm not going to specifically say because I'm going out there. But I had been out there. This was about a year ago or so. John from Exploration and Josh. A little closer to Mike. Sorry. Sorry. And Josh from Southern Afterlife, we went out there to do a like ghost investigation because there's this old cemetery out there as well.

We had, John had been out there before and had recorded what sounds to be like wings. like really loud like wing like woof like sound um and my brother who uh is a fishing guide um has also seen uh some sort of other uh huge winged creature out there as well um so we had been camping overnight um at this point it was like uh about four o'clock in the morning um john and Josh were sleeping in their sleeping bags in their hammock. And I was sleeping in my truck. All of a sudden, I hear, like, what sounds to be like somebody took a bucket of water and just dumped it on my truck. And then my entire truck starts shaking, like something landed hard on my headache bar.

I'm not sure if you saw that one. Okay, so something landed on that thing and like shook my truck. Like it was so loud. And John and Josh are both in their hammocks with their sleeping bags over their head. And I just hear, I think it was John, just go, Brian, are you alive? It was so scary, man. But there has somebody else had sent me an encounter that they had up there not too long ago. Because it's a big hunting area as well.

He said that he was up in his tree stand and he had like a night, kind of like a night vision like scope, but it like didn't record. It was just, you know, for hunting. and he said that he was looking through the trees and what he described as like this giant bat that was sitting in this tree. And there's been multiple sightings of this giant winged creature up there. Now, a lot of people, there's actually been a lot of sidings of mothman in Chicago.

I'm not sure if you realize that. Yeah. But, you know, to me, I think it would be totally, totally reasonable for a mothman to be in, you know, this area here, you know. Everything else is. Yeah. I mean, we have, there's plenty of, you know, there's plenty of water. There's plenty of food. You know, our bore population is crazy, you know.

Is it really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Is it, like, open season on them? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. They came here originally from the Europeans. They brought them over as food. And then it was just the absolute perfect environment for the Russian board to, you know. I mean, an animal that eats everything has a lot to eat around here.

Yeah. I mean, like my pigs, I'm rotating them around the back of my property. And they're just eating up the areas that are too hard to get to their, with a lawmower and stuff for me. Yep. You know, property control right there. Yeah. But the rest of the, the, the borer population here is scary, man.

They wouldn't mess him up. Yeah. I had no idea. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to have to look into that more. Yeah. I've got a buddy that Spear hunts him.

What? Yeah. He's a nutball. Yeah. Wild mare. Yeah. He climbs up in trees. And.

Yeah. Right around here. Yeah. That's, wow. I had no idea. Yeah. We're not going to turn this into. to the meat eater podcast.

I'll talk to about it later, though. So that's really interesting. The moth man, and plus you got the Smokies here. I mean, it's like so vast. Yeah. I can't even fathom. I haven't ventured into the Smokies a whole lot since being here, partly because I have no idea where to even begin.

Right. And also, I don't know what the rules of engagement are here. In Pennsylvania, you're hard pressed to fight. anywhere, at least where I was, that that is not somebody's property that you can't, it's just like you can't go on because everybody owns everything there or, you know, so I got to venture into checking the smokies out, but something like that, Bigfoot, dogman, all that stuff can certainly exist here. Oh yeah. At ease. And clearly they do. Yeah. Let's wrap it up with feral people though.

All right. Because when you and I sat down to have lunch, you were saying how you were looking into doing a video where you were going to, I feel like you said something about North Carolina, but also that there could be feral people here or how did that whole work? So, okay, the understanding of the feral people. This is kind of like addressing my opinion on this. I actually haven't really done. So this might be a good opportunity to do that.

Because at this point, I've been researching it now pretty seriously for probably about two years. The feral people, I think is a... So I guess we can start from the beginning. So during the Civil War, there was a lot of... individuals that did not want to participate in the war at all, you know. So in order to avoid going to war, they would have to, you know, commit dissertion. So in order to do that, they are going to have to get themselves in an area where they won't be found. Okay.

Now, this also, in my opinion, I feel like it happened with the Native Americans. The Native Americans, obviously, they loved this land so much that they weren't willing to leave it. Now, throughout all of Appalachia and all of East Tennessee, we have a vast, vast amount of caves. We have cave systems that you can travel essentially across the entire city on. So there are plenty of areas where these individuals could hide. Now, there needs to be a distinction made between somebody who is running from the law and somebody who is actually feral. Now, in my opinion, the the feral people, the humans can revert back to our most primitive stage. Okay.

So our brains, our bodies are amazing, you know, our bodies have this unique ability to survive through, you know, all kinds of different situations, all kinds of different climates. When an individual separates themselves from society or from a group and goes and moves to one of these vast areas, like even in the smokies, they have the ability to revert back to those primitive ways. Now, whether or not they are able to come back out of that mindset, that survival instinct is, you know, we don't really know yet. But we have, there is, through American history, there has been, you know, tons of documented cases of people going not to just live off grid. I know the off-grid kind of living, I'm using air quotes and the off-grid living has kind of a different meaning to people nowadays. But there has been plenty of individuals that have gone out into the mountains and survived solely, you know, by themselves without any supplies, without modern technology. Yeah, without anything, you know. And if you look at, even throughout the world, we still have tribes today that are completely cut off from the rest of the world that, you know, that are still thriving.

So with the idea of feral people, in my opinion, there has been a sect, and it could have happened in different parts of Appalachian. They may all not be connected, you know. They have separated themselves from society and have reverted back to that primitive mindset of survival in which they are solely living off the land and they have no reason to connect with outside society. And when they do have that connection, their first instinct is to defend themselves. You know, I mean, if you think about any animal, I mean, we're all animals, but if you think about any animal in the wild, if you approach that animal, it's going to get defensive. It's going to defend itself and it's probably an attack.

Now, if somebody is with the advanced brain of a human, you know, most likely that attack is going to be a little bit more, it's going to be more vicious and more powerful. Now, and the reason why I got into studying feral people is because it's been a part of East Tennessee culture. It always has, you know, growing up, if you talk to anybody really from East Tennessee, they will tell you that, like, their grandparents told them, you know, don't be going out in the woods at night. You know, there's things out there. There's this acceptance in our East Tennessee society that there is something darker in the woods. Now, to me, the idea of feral people is really more tangible in proving than like Bigfoot or Dogman, you know. So, and, you know, I have been out on, on trails where I have found a humanoid bare feet, like, you know, 30 miles out in the middle of the woods, you know, where there shouldn't be anybody, you know. I've experienced, like, crazy things.

I've found like rudimentary traps, you know, ways of, you know, maybe trapping animals or I'm not necessarily saying that they're trying to trap people, but indications of a advanced animal, I don't really know the best way to say that, of critical thinking in order to capture some sort of a meal, you know. So with the feral people. And also, if you talk with a lot of the moonshiners, they will talk about it, you know, that they've had, you know, run-ins with these people that are just living completely off grid, you know. Now, the question is, are they embreeding? How is this being able to, you know, transfer from generation to generation?

And it's a good possibility that, you know, there is inbreeding going on. You know, if you look at the white, it was the soft white underbelly. Softway underbelly. Have you seen him? He did a special on this family in West Virginia. Yes. Yeah, where the cops took them out to the place and they were all living out there real remote. Yeah, I did see that.

Yeah. Yep. So, you know, we know that just by kind of looking at that family, you know, it's possible for this to happen and for these individuals to survive genetically. Now, you know, granted, they aren't in the best of shape, but at the same time, you know, they are still, you know, surviving. So for us as society, I think it's important that we recognize the possibility that there are people out there. You know, they could have for a variety of reasons. I mean, you have people that are running from the law, you know, that are facing a life in prison, you know, or possibly even death. why wouldn't they, you know, go out there?

And the way that our bodies are set up, we have the ability to adapt and to, you know, overcome, you know, different obstacles. And the question that a lot of people have is whether or not these people are, aggressive towards you know just the kind of lay person walking through the woods you know are they

an answer to a question you know are they an answer to why these people are going missing even you know there is tons of cases of people walking out in the woods and then just absolutely vanishing One of the cases that I'm currently working on, Michael Heron, it happened not too far from here.

That sounds familiar, that name. Yeah. In 2008, he went up to, he had like a condo in Marival, just like right at the road up here. And then he had this other property up in the Happy Valley area. and I think it was his son's house or it was a family house where but they had multiple family members living in this kind of one area. So Michael went up to the house. He had gotten on a full wheeler and was just kind of riding it around and totally vanished. The four wheeler was not wrecked.

It was left in high gear. and it looked like he had just turned the ignition off, but the key was still on. And there has been no evidence of what happened to him whatsoever. There was no blood found. The ATV wasn't wrecked. No sign of struggle. No sign of struggle.

Nothing. It was like he was on an ATV and then just disappeared. So, and a lot of people have, attributed his disappearance to the feral people because of the area that it is. It's near Abrams Creek, which I did a video on it so you can actually go and see what the area is like. I mean, it's backcountry, you know, I mean, it's pretty desolate back through there. And even when I went out there, I had hikes, you know, at this point, you know, several miles out to where I wouldn't imagine anybody would be. And I found bear footprints, not like bear as in the animal, but B-A-R-E-E-A-R.

Yeah. Like humanoid footprints and what looked like to be humanoid feces. So, you know, and the area is pretty, pretty desolate, you know, and when he disappeared, and if you kind of look at the trends of America, this was, you know, during the recession. So, you know, this was an area that was, for lack of a better word, where, you know, the lower class lives. You know, I mean, yes, there were some areas, there were some houses where the richer people had, but, you know, the majority of the individuals living out there, you know, weren't the multimillionaires, you know. So when such an economic crisis happens, you know, the poorer people feel that way before anybody else does, you know. So with that area, you know, there is a possibility, you know, that a lot of individuals, you know, lost everything.

I mean, my parents lost their house during that time, you know. So where do you go at that point other than maybe, you know, just going to survive off the land and just say screw society, you know? I mean, so it's a very unique. topic and it's a very taboo topic. You know, I get a lot of hate for speaking out on it. Strategious. Yeah, I know. I know it is. But it's a reality that I think that it's important for us to address, you know. I don't think that we need to sweep it under the rug or even be embarrassed by it, you know. Yeah, I think it's a topic that should be talked about because so there's so many people that in the Bigfoot world, they're like, oh, well, you know, this is how

they operate, they just, they see human beings and they just want to be left alone, they stay in the shadows and all that stuff. Well, take that same mentality with the pharaoh people, that literally might be what's going on where they, they see us as a threat. And it's like, don't get too close. Right. And if you do, maybe you don't go home. Yeah. And what Michael experienced that day, we don't know, but the fact that his four-wheeler was turned off, but in the on position, almost as if he saw somebody, turned the engine off so you can talk to them to see if they're okay, hey, buddy, okay, gets off his four-wheeler to investigate. Are you all right, sir? Gone. Gone. Yeah. Gone. No sign of struggle. Yeah. Yeah. That's wild.

Yeah. So this weekend, I'm heading up to the border of Tennessee, North Carolina, to work on a case where an individual was found that had a Kuru. Do you know what Kour is? Okay, so you get Kuru when you are eating other humans. Oh, yeah. So it's found, it was supposedly eradicated in Papua New Guinea, I think I want to say 2011. But I had somebody, one of my subscribers, reach out to me. whose son was a flight medic in the military.

And after he got out of the military, he was working at his local EMS area as a flight medic there. They had gotten a call-in of an individual that was laying on the side of the road that was covered in ticks and just looked like he had been living out. in the woods, you know, for years and that they also said that what they described, he described it on his chart as severe imbreeding and then later was able to, once again, him back to the hospital and they did testing on him to establish that he had a disease that you get from eating the there's a prion and the human brain um that can give you this disease so yeah so that was a feral person probably yeah i mean or maybe just a guy that just uh is a cannibal i don't know i don't know but uh that's interest you're going to that this

weekend to do that wow is that in the new port area uh no no okay no it's on the I'm actually going to be on the North Carolina side. Oh, okay. There's a lady that I had on the show. It was a member show, but she was from Newport, and her and her husband moved from, I think it was Virginia, to Newport seven years ago. They wanted to live there forever.

They loved it. And then Bigfoot chased them 10 hours north to Indiana. And she just messaged me. Her name's Carrie. She just messaged me on Facebook. I haven't answered yet, but apparently they're having things happening at their new house in Indiana. And that's why I'm like, if these things are taunting you, they'll follow you. And I think it's more than just, you know, I think there's a lot to the

topic. We're not going to get into it right now. But she said that she has a roof walker right now. And I think she said it's her daughter that's staying with them and her daughter's starting to hear it. And so it's getting very invasive. And I think she said that she laid eyes on it. And this was a dog man. And so she has, there might be some kind of attachment to her family that's bringing this on. So I got to get a hold of her and talk to her about it and see what's what. But her old property is in Newport. And she told me exactly where it was at. And she told me that, you know, you go up there and it's there.

And she has a neighbor that moved from New York that she said probably would talk to me. There's this other lady. She knows they've had conversations about it. this other lady knows, but she said she won't talk to me. She's the kind of lady that, like, she'll greet you at the border of her property with a gun. And, uh, and she's like, and I'm like, well, I don't think, I don't think I want it. And I asked her. I said, uh, why don't you, um, why don't you ask her if she'll talk to me? And she came back. She said, she won't talk to you. Yeah. She asked her and she said no. But apparently some of her immediate neighbors will talk.

Uh, and me, Scott Carpenter, we're talking about going up there. We just kind of fell through, like with a lot with me, because I'm so busy. busy. Getting out and doing this stuff is hard, but I want, I really desperately want to do it. And I'm in the middle of a transition period where I just hired Jack a couple months ago. And he's, he's finally getting at a point where he's producing, Jack, would be like, I would say 95% of the stuff is you're producing? I believe so. Yeah. At least that. I mean, the idea is to have him produce 100% take over that and allows me to do other creative things and maybe even getting out and doing investigations more because

I can't tell you any times I'd be like man I'd love to go but gotta produce my show you know it's like yeah yeah yeah yeah I totally understand so before we get out here tell people again where they can find you and all that stuff oh yeah you can find me on YouTube

black mass paranormal I've also got Facebook page black mass paranormal basically just type in black mass paranormal and you'll find me awesome yeah I found you on Instagram too You don't update there much, though. No, I know, I don't.

I need to. It's just one of those things, man. It's like... One man's show? Yeah, and I like being out in the field. You know, I don't... You're not a social media guy. You're an investigator.

Right. You need somebody to do your social media for you. I do you. What's Stephanie doing? Well, she's a teacher. Oh, okay. Yeah. She's got a handful.

Build the channel up enough. Yeah. Get her to quit. And she takes care of all that stuff. And you get to go do the fun. stuff. Yeah. Well, that's the plan. That's the plan. That's what I got my wife doing, man. Like, she's a CFO of Miracle Media. She does my emails. She does all the crap that I'm not good at, you know? Yeah, that's what I really need. Because, like, I don't know. When people comment and

stuff on my stuff or send me an email, like, if I don't respond or get back to them, like, I genuinely feel bad. Yeah. Like, I really do. But, like, I get so many of them, it's just like, I can't keep up. It's either like investigate or, you know, respond to comments or, you know. So it's. And why are people sending you emails and comments because you investigate? So that needs to be priority. Exactly.

So, you know. All right. People check them out. Black Masked paranormal YouTube channel. Man, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we were able to link up. And I think this is just going to be a fun relationship over the next couple of years for sure.

Hopefully many more than a couple of years. But people check them out. and if you enjoyed this show, please share it with your friends. I don't care where you share the show. I highly recommend you share via text message. Take the link and share it to the top five people you hate the most in your phone contacts list. Send it to them and just piss them off more. But share the show.

I don't care or how. I just share it. And until next Tuesday, stay safe, take care, and remember, the truth will set you free, but first they'll piss you off. Bye. An encryption just trying to ascend blending with parts it's hard to pretend swimming I'm not sure if what I put in thing Not sure if what I