The Confessionals - Something Is Happening in APPALACHIA... And It’s NOT Normal! | Slingshot Nation

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

What if the line between technology and the supernatural is thinner than we think?In this Slingshot Nation, we’re sitting down with The Supernatural Sleuth to explore chilling encounters, Appalachian mysteries, and the growing concern that modern tech, like VR and AI, may be opening doors we don’t fully understand. We’ll dive into real-life experiences, strange creatures, and unexplained phenomena as we try to uncover what might really be out there, and how close we are to understanding it.Please pray for Tony's wife, Lindsay, as she battles breast cancer. Your prayers make a difference!If you’re able, consider helping the Merkel family with medical expenses by donating to Lindsay’s GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/b8f76890Become a member for ad-free listening, extra shows, and exclusive access to our social media app: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinThe Confessionals Social Network App:Apple Store: https://apple.co/3UxhPrhGoogle Play: https://bit.ly/43mk8kZThe Big Picture Prophecy Conference: prophecyconference26.comTony's Recommended Reads: slingshotlibrary.comIf you want to learn about Jesus and what it means to be saved: Click HereMy NEW Website: tonymerkel.comThe Supernatural SleuthFacebook | Instagram | YouTube | TikTokMy New YouTube ChannelMerkel IRL: @merkelIRLMy First Sermon: Unseen BattlesBigfoot: The Journey To Belief: Stream HereThe Meadow Project: Stream HereMerkel Media Apparel: merkmerch.comSPONSORSSIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionalsGHOSTBED: GhostBed.com/tonyQUINCE: quince.com/tonyCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] ADDRESS:Merkel Media257 N. Calderwood St., #301Alcoa, TN 37701SOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theconfessionals/Discord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcasTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkelProduced by: @jack_theproducer

Oh boy! Is that a slingshot? Yeah, yeah. Slingshot season. Hey, let's run it. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Grace hit me like, boom, can't miss. God with me a whole squad going. Devil try to throw shade.

I grin because the light too bright. Welcome to Slingshot Nation Live. Thanks for being here, everybody. Derek, how you doing? Feeling great today. Jack? I'm good, man. Good.

So this morning, I had to run down and deal with some stuff in my house. And it was early. So on my way to the house, I decided to stop by Jack's house and bang on the door and make sure that he's awake. Is that why we're starting on time today? It's funny because I didn't see the tech. later, but he had text me. I don't know when, at what point he texted me, but he said he could hear my truck. And so he knew I was there. And I knock on the door. And I just see like this shirtless guy peeking through the window like all crazy at me goofing around. I was like, I guess he's

already awake. But I was going to just razz him a bit. But yeah, Jack's here wide awake. Hi. Good to go. And we have another in studio guest today. Brandon, how you doing, man? I'm great, man. Thanks for having me. I'm glad you're here. So this was one of those things. where, again, we work our schedule and we see things overlapping. And we're like, hmm, something's not fitting. And so we might need to do a pivot. And so here we are pivoting. And we have another guest in studio here for Slinghot Nation.

People don't get used to it, okay? Because you're going to be stuck with me, Derek and Jack, more often than not. But it's always kind of cool to throw curveballs and change the pace up. a little bit. And, you know, when the show started, it was just me and a guest communicating and talking. And then we started this live show where the three of us are hanging out. And I'll tell you, it is so much fun. It's just so much fun just hanging out with the guys behind the microphone. You're like, it feels like, you know, I guess I can say this and, and it's true. It feels like, having fun at work. And at times with the daily grind of everything, sometimes it's just not as

fun as it used to be. The bigger things get, the more complex it gets, and the less fun it becomes at times. And when we started doing this live show, it just made it feel fun. I felt like I'm doing something that's productive for work and I'm having fun. That's what it should be all about. Making money. Yeah. And having fun. It's good. So I hope people are enjoying this. Slingshot Nation Live. If you're not too bad, you're stuck with it for a while because I'm not done with it. So I was just telling you, Brandon, on the kind of person, if I don't like doing something, I'm not going to do it. And so when this first started, I was sitting behind the table where Jack's at doing it remotely all myself. And it was terrible. I was not having fun.

And I couldn't figure out why the video was like skipping and glitching. And I had fiber optic internet put in here and it still was doing that. And I was like, I was ready to just crumble it up and throw it away. We're done doing this. Because it's just, if I'm getting stressed out doing something that's supposed to be fun, why am I doing it? Right. So then we did a pivot and I love this. So again, welcome to Slingshot Nation Live. If you would like to help contribute to the show, become a member. Join the members community. We have well over, I don't even know how many hundreds. We have hundreds of members episodes waiting there for you that we've done for years now. They're archived. They're waiting for you. And you'll get access to that. And you'll get access to all the memberships moving forward.

All the member episodes, as long as we're doing member episodes, they will be there ready for you. So all you got to do is hit the join button, become a member and get access to that extra content and help support the show in a fun way. You know, it's like, you know, why not? I don't even know what's going on with the whole YouTube. thing. I was just going to say that because, like, I know on YouTube, um, they changed some things up. And Jack, you might be able to speak to it more how it all worked. Because like I, we, it was like a certain tier. And then all of a sudden, like YouTube made it more expensive. Oh, I see what you're saying. So what happened was, uh, Apple hadn't been part of that like agreement where they would have the join button on their platform. So like iOS users, Apple users.

on their iPhone wouldn't see that join button next to the subscribe button. And that was for a long time, they didn't do that. Then Apple did apply the join button for everyone who has memberships now. And so it's 30% extra that they make people pay because Apple takes a 30% time. Like literally they didn't ask me for that. I mean, like, you know, like, can you imagine running a business that says a coffee shop? And you have your business. running and you think things are going great. And all of a sudden, you come into the establishment you own. And all of a sudden, you have, I don't know, like your manager, no offense, Derek, but

say your manager, without asking you, decides to hike the prices up 30%. And your manager's just says, you're going to have to be okay with it. What? And so I saw people mentioning that or somebody, one of you guys brought up in an email, we got, I don't know what happened. I just, I became aware of it. And I was like, well, that's news to me. As much as it's news to everybody else is news to me too, you know?

It's not going in your pocket, right? So it's a remedy that you can subscribe. You can either, if you wanted to join, you can join on desktop and it would be the same price as what it usually would be on YouTube. So it's just the app. Yeah, it's just on the app on your phone. So if you went to desktop, it would be the same price. I love that you said that because I didn't, I didn't remember that.

So in order to remedy that, don't join my channel on your phone. Go on your computer. Go to our channel. Hit the join button and you'll have the approved Merkel Media costs. That's right. That's the way we dodge it and give it to Apple. You know? Says the guy that owns all Apple.

You know? Yeah. You see all this. That's hilarious. I've been on Apple since 2003. I don't know how to even use a Windows computer. It's just, that's not, I wouldn't even know where it began. So anyways, none of that nonsense.

I don't know. This is what happens. You got to rein me in, Derek. Like if I'm getting you out of hand, you just got to ring me in. You're doing great today. Okay, great. So, listen, I want to kind of get into some things with Brandon. You are, what's your handle?

The supernatural sleuth? Supernatural sleuth. Supernatural sleuth on Instagram. And so we're going to talk about supernatural, paranormal. You focus a lot on the Appalachia Mountains. and I found your Instagram because, well, I don't know how I found your Instagram, to be honest with you, but when I found your Instagram, I really liked what you were putting out. And I saw that you were a Christian on there too.

And I was like, oh, I think him and I might have a good conversation. And so I was really glad that you were willing to come down here. But before we get into what you do online and all that stuff, I want to talk to you about what got you into this stuff. Do you have any experiences out in the woods or whatever? Right. Because I know you said that you used to hunt or you still do hunt and fish. I want to hit on something that I saw a little bit ago. And anybody who tunes into this knows I am, I really enjoy talking about the advancements in technology.

The good, the bad, the ugly. You know, I tend to have a dystopian view on some of this stuff. Sure. But I also try to be rational as well, you know. I don't know how old you are. You don't need to tell me. But I remember back in the late 90s, you know, people would say,

oh, the internet's a fad thing. You know, it's not going to be around. Why would you ever think you can make money on the internet kind of thing, you know? And same thing with the cell phones, when they became prevalent. So when technology advances, there's always going to be pushed back

on certain things. It doesn't mean it's good, the technology, but it doesn't mean it's bad. It just means that I think that we need to know our own personal threshold of where we're willing to go with certain things and abide by that. We, when you take the cell phone, for instance, there are people who don't mind their children.

I'm not knocking it. It's your house. Listen, I believe the government should leave me alone. And I think that other people should leave me alone, leave their opinions out of my business out of their opinions, you know? But there are people who have no problem, you know, given their kids a cell phone to, to, I guess, take to school and stuff. My son knows kids around his age to have cell phones. And there's people like me who, you know, I'm in a little bit of a different situation because of the situation that I'm in with my public, you know, footprint. I can't just let my kids act normal, I suppose.

Like, there is a certain thing I have to guard them from. So there's these advancements in technology, and everybody has to gauge as to what their threshold is, is what they're willing to allow in their household for them personally, their family. But it's concerning when I see advancements in technology that will overlap what I do for a living, the supernatural. Because I believe that technology can be a gateway to other things. And when I say things, I don't mean like, oh, he started on, he started on, you know, video games and now he's, you know, addicted to whatever, you know, I'm talking like open gateways to entities. Sure. And things that we don't quite understand.

Ouija boards, it's like old technology to do that. But now we have all this new technology that basically does the same thing. Right. I saw on Instagram there was a video showing meta, I think it's called Quest. Yeah. It's like these, I think they're goggles that you put on. And it's virtual reality. And I don't think virtuality is bad.

Right. Okay. But what they're doing with this one thing made me a little concern. and I actually wouldn't mind your opinion on it. If Jack could play it and Derek, if you can make sure that he can see the video and make sure the volumes up on these headphones too, Jack. Yeah. Yeah, you want to see it right now? Yeah, I think we'll look at it now and then we'll discuss instead of me trying to describe it.

Okay, cool. Sounds good. So for audio people listening and not catching this on YouTube, basically, what was the headline that that read Jack for, for the Instagram? MetaQuest users can now play horror games in their own homes. Horror, not horror, horror. Horror.

That's been around. I just had to make sure because it sounded me like you said something. I wanted to clarify. But, yeah, so basically, from what I understand, virtual reality, you can play a horror game in your own home where it's overlaying the game, in your house.

And to me, that just feels like there's some kind of, at least indirect connection to another realm that when you're playing with this, the other side sees and might take advantage of the situation. And maybe I could go into so many different things with this, but they could start attacking you in your dreams where you believe that you're still playing the game. only the game in your dream is actually an attack happening to you for real. They could also start playing on your, what's the word I'm looking for, your sanity, where you're no longer wearing the goggles.

Maybe you took them off to take a breather and you start seeing things in your house. And you're like, wait, wait, wait, hold on. That's supposed to be just on there. And now you're wondering, are you going crazy? Are you actually seeing it? What's happening, right? And so that's what I mean. I feel like there's going to be a bag opened with this kind of stuff that will lead to other things.

Do you have any thoughts on that outside of what I just ran? No, I mean, I agree completely. And I think that that's very important because something I try to reiterate with my audience is that spirits aren't bound by space, time, and matter like we are. You know, I think demons or entities out there are kind of like flies on the wall. they watch. You know, what makes this person tick? You know, what, what's this person into? And if it's, you know, like you mentioned Ouija boards, you know, a hundred years ago,

that's what you had, you know, a piece of wood or whatever it may be. Now we've moved into the technology age and it's just a different kind of communication. So I think they sit and watch, they observe, they learn people and how to essentially attack, you know. Yeah, I agree. There's the, we always try to get you to watch the show evil. you know, from CBS. Just hold that thought because I have to clarify this

before I forget. Years ago when Evil first came out, I did an advertisement for that show. Oh, wow. Because back then I was like, you know, green and I was like, oh, somebody thinks I'm worth advertising on, you know? I had no idea what it was.

And I'm not saying I regret doing that. But I remember I watched it. If I remember correctly, this is the same show. I watched it the one time. I thought it was on Netflix. The first episode. You watched the first episode. So I couldn't make it through the first episode.

And it's because when I watch that stuff, I know it's real. This isn't fake to me. And I feel like my TV becomes a portal into my life. And so I couldn't make it past the entity that was standing, I think, behind the door in the bedroom and started coming towards the woman. I couldn't make it past that. Yeah. Go ahead.

But they get into technology a lot in the show. and one of them is where her girls have VR sets. And it's kind of the same idea where there's like monsters and interaction in their own house with these entities. And I was just thinking when you were talking is like how close are we to where the characters aren't just like ghosts?

But what if their entities actually showing them to draw pentagrams on the ground? Or interact or speak to them and summons them. Like what we're actually, they have a headset on and then they're engaging verbally speaking to these things to invite them into the house. Like that's just a step away.

And, you know, like, there's a certain level of trust we put into the developers of these games, right? But if we're learning anything from the Epstein files and what we have always, you know, suspect. Well, for me, we have a guest here, so I don't want to put words in your mouth. But for me, people would say, oh, that's conspiracy theory. Hollywood's not evil, things like that. The music industry is not evil. I have very much believed that there's dark, demonic things in these industries. Well, what we're seeing now is we were right.

You know, like these people are evil and satanic, and they worship ancient gods. And so with that knowledge, take that and overlay it over the video game development industry. We want to put faith and trust in the people developing the video games like we used to with movies and music. And we don't know who these people are. we don't know their intent. And if anything is a pattern, it's entertainment industry tends to gear towards very dark things

behind the scenes. And so who's to say they don't come out with a video game one day where they advertise it as something where it's unpredictable, you, you are, it's interactive and unpredictable.

And they call it technology, but in reality it's some kind of demonic influence that's why it's unpredictable because basically you're communicating with the demon and every interaction is going to be new and unique

because the demon's just guiding you through the experience. That's terrifying to think about. It is. And like, was it Five Nights of Freddy's? Like that whole genre, like my son was just playing Roblox and he's 14.

You know, I'm thinking Roblox is for like little kids. And it's actually like a horror mantra game he's playing with his older friend and these like entities come up and you have to like serve them burritos. But, you know, if you serve the wrong person or burrito, then it's like this evil thing grows in your restaurant

and then you die, basically. So it's like you have to serve the right people and you can use a camera to see if there's, in the camera they look just different. So they, as they appear, it's not actually as they are in the camera. When you go to look at the surveillance camera in the game, it actually shows with how they really look in the camera.

And so you have to like, it's just interesting. But like this is a kid, like, Roblox. I'm thinking like little kids, you know. And it's like that, that whole, genre and theme is just implementing itself deeper and deeper, I think, into the game culture. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's been kind of like that for a long time, and it's just going to get more realistic because video games have gotten very realistic. I remember when I was a kid, I mean, whenever 007 Golden Eye on Nintendo 64 was now. The classic. I love that game. And back then, those graphics were pretty good. Oh, yeah.

And the way the game is set up for any of the young whippersnappers out there listening and watching, I don't even know what an N64 is. It was a video game that, you know, you're basically James Bond and you're going around and killing Russians and all that stuff. And but it's like first person. So when you're watching the TV screen, your hands, all you see is the hands, you see the guns. And it back then, I don't know if anybody else had these experiences, but for me, it made me feel like I was in the game to the point that when I'm trying and I have these guys shoot me and stuff, I'm getting like in reality wigged out. My feet are getting cold, like ice cold. Like I'm like, but blood isn't circulating right because I'm just so, oh, you know, and I don't have to like, you know, warm my feet up, you know, like, give me a blanket. I'm killing things, you know. But it felt so real. And I, you know, I don't play. a ton of video games, but I can only imagine, you know, like putting on a VR headset that you can't, you can't tell what's real, what's not, you know? Oh, what's the, I actually have one. Yeah. What was it called? I thought you got the MetaQuest, but it might have been like the

PS5 one or whatever it was. No, it wasn't because maybe it was MetaQuest. I don't even know where it's at. I got it to mess around with it because what I was thinking was, which still might happen one which we're not there yet. I know exactly where you're going. I was thinking, how can I take my show and put it in virtual reality? So people feel like they're sitting at the table during a conversation. Like, they come into this virtual reality room and they're able to, like, basically pull up a seat at the table and be this like bug on the wall, fly on the wall. An interaction experience.

So I got it for that and I was messing around with it. And the reason why I remember that I That I have one is because I let my son Ben now At the time I think he was like four Maybe five I let him put it on And there was this one thing where You walk out of a building You go up in an elevator you walk out of a building onto a plank

Yeah I forgot that also Yeah Yeah I've got that yeah And in my infinite fatherly wisdom I decided to push him off the plank and I laugh, but I felt so terrible because I didn't think about it. I was just scooping around. He couldn't distinguish reality.

And the terror, the terror that came out of that kid as he dropped to his knees on the floor and he's following in virtual reality, I was like, well, I'm never doing that again. You just brought a new category of therapy in the future. Right. trauma. I mean, I felt so bad. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And that might be the last time I ever touched him, you know, because I was like, I'm grounded for life. Grounded yourself. Yeah, that was, that was bad move. That was bad move. But anyway, so technology is advancing. And it's going to become part of this process of the supernatural and gateways as we move forward in this. And it will

become, I believe, indistinguishable. Definitely. And it does make you wonder how many people will have issues where the goggles are off, they have an experience and they start doing this. Like, are they still on? And, you know, and sure enough, it's not. And they have to make a decision now. Do they believe that they're going crazy?

Or do they start believing the things that they thought weren't real or actually real? Yeah. You know? And both are not great options. Right. Those, the horror games, I've seen people where it's not even like as immersive as that. That, what we saw was extremely immersive.

Like, you're seeing your surroundings with these things placed in there. But I've seen people play horror games on the, on the goggles where it's like, it's a totally different setting. You're in a very fake environment. And you're still, like, they're still so scared that, like, they're dropping to their knees and, like, flipping the goggles off as quick as possible. because something like jump scares them. But that's how you know that even in a very fake environment as an adult, you are not able to distinguish that this is just a game. I'll tell you, I just remembered another story.

Story Tom and Tony. I remember when VR started coming out. I mean, I was in Pennsylvania. I think it was before I even bought my first house. And I think I was in a mall. And I put these VR headsets on. They were like, yeah, try these on and stuff. It was like a horror game or something.

It was like these zombies and stuff. It felt so real. I was terrified. I was terrified. I was like, this is fake, but I'm scared. Bad, you know? Yeah, because, like, think about how you feel when you see, like, a horror movie. You know it's a movie on a screen.

It's away from you. You're not even, like, like, invest. It's not on your eyeballs. Yeah. And you still get scared by whatever's on the screen. Like, there are jump scares that are in movies that scare people have to death. Let me ask you a question, Jack, because you're known for going to the movies alone. Oh, thank you.

You live alone. Thanks. Ladies, you single, single. Christian ladies, email, Derek, contact at merkle. Dot media. We're taking applications. So, uh, all the Christian ladies. I haven't done that in a while.

I need to make that part of the announcements every week on these live shows. No. I am not. I, dude, that's, I'm like, I'm not that much of a loser. No, I know, I know. I'm just playing around. But I bring this up because, um, Because you do have your own house.

You live alone. Ladies, I'm just saying. And you also, at least used to, I don't know if you still do, but used to really like watching horror movies. Is that something that you would do on your own? Oh, yeah. I mean, like, I don't watch horror movies nearly as much as I used to. But there's just something about the genre that piques my interest. I think most of the time it's like, because I don't feel scared by those.

by movies like that. Like I watch him at home alone at night. And I used to. Like I said, I haven't watched it in a while. But like, I don't know. There's just,

maybe it's like research. I don't know. I could say it's that. But, bro, you literally live in a house by yourself on a lake out in the middle of nowhere. Like,

if I were you, I would never watch a horror movie where you live. Like, I was just asking for trouble because something actually is going to happen because you're summoning stuff. The things, what's interesting is you say that, right? So it's like the things that actually freak me out

being home alone like that is when I watch stuff like his Instagram because, like Brandon's Instagram, because it's real experiences that people have had and more often than not, like, especially like the audio-based things, they freak me out the most because it's, I don't know,

it just blows my mind that people experience that. Yeah. So anyway. Well, I, um, I think we were going to, definitely play the one because the one video, I think is the Outback video. As soon as Jack hit play on it, he's over there going, but before we get into your Instagram, I want you to talk about the, what's the taxi? Waymu. Because I think that kind of, it's taking the technology that we're talking about and the automation behind it and the advancements that we're talking about and providing opportunity for nefarious things to happen.

naturally. What's going on with Waymo? So, well, the sentence, like, looking into Waymo because it's a Chinese company. They're bringing Chinese cars in. And it's like this whole thing of like espionage. And it's just like really deeply involved again in this almost like virtual reality sort of world where everything is connected to the internet. These cars are connected to the internet. And so they're just making this connection that China is constantly using these cars to spy in on America. And so these These self-driving cars have sensors all the way around it, in it, through it. And they can, like, they see people crossing the road.

There's videos you can, like, watch. And they'll show, like, people crossing the street in, like, a VR kind of way. And they're creating, like, a VR world for America for Chinese people, like, the Chinese essentially to, like, spy on us. Wow. So it's just kind of, like, kind of correlates, but it's just really crazy. And the sentence looking into, like, how deeply the Chinese espionage is involved in it because they're just concerned that it could be a security risk. especially with like the World Cup coming and they're going to try to have all these

taxis in all these major cities where these giant soccer games are going to be held this summer. Problems. Problems. Can you imagine though? Like, so I'm of the opinion that as we go forward in time from now,

I believe the supernatural is going to start manifesting itself way more and in ways that we haven't seen before, very tangible ways. I'm one of the crazy guys that thinks that one day, we might actually see monsters walking the streets and it becomes a thing where it's just like, oh, you see it coming, you go the other way. Get on the other side of the street.

But with what you just said, can you imagine demonic entities, nefarious entities, hijacking and taking over taxis? Like, you know what I'm saying? It's just, what are the limits? We don't know. No. And, I mean, that's the whole thing with AI, too, is like how much is AI going to start taking over these self-driving cars or they already are.

The demon machine. And how it gets implemented all together. It's going to be really wild. Yeah. It's going to be nuts, man. I'm definitely not looking forward to it. But same time, kind of am. You know what I'm seriously?

It's a weird situation I find myself in. But yeah, man, one thing is for sure, I don't feel comfortable with the self-driving cars. I see those cars where, you know, taxis that are picking people up and they're like, oh, there's no driver. I'm just like, Let me out.

Yeah. Let me out. Yeah. You know, I'll take my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, be a caveman at that point. Um, do you ever see the weird Tesla video where, like, they have those, like, sensors on it? And so they, they were, like, driving through a graveyard and actually, like, people are showing up through the sensors and stuff.

So I wonder if there'll be more anomalies in the future with all this, like, recording. Just, you know, an infrared and, like, whatever, like, ways they're recording it, that we're going to see more anomalies. anomalies come up for people like you to post really cool stuff? Well, you know, I think technology is great. You know, we all have benefited some way or another from, you know, science, medicine. But evil isn't going to leave that alone. If it's something that's going to benefit us, they're going to taint it in some way.

Like they're going to, you know, like VR or the sensors, they're not going to leave it alone. It can't just be a good thing. They'll take a good thing and try to ruin it. You and they, you know, I say this all the time. The devil doesn't chase you with horns in a pitchfork. You know, he comes at you was what, everything you thought you wanted. Yeah. You know, there would be a mass exodus from sin and everything else if the devil showed his true form or his true intentions.

So he does it in subtle ways through children's games. We do boards you can buy at Walmart and Amazon or VR headset. You can get it anywhere. Yeah. And you've mentioned children's games and also like children's shows. Like some of the things I've seen in the children's shows, I'm just thinking, man, like, I'm not going to name the shows because, like I said earlier, I do believe that people need to make their own decisions as far as they let their kids watch and everything. But there have been shows with things that I saw and I'm like, no, you guys aren't watching that no more. Yeah.

You know, and, you know, some of these shows are spin-offs from shows that I watched when I was a kid, but it's different producers, it's different animators, it's different people running behind the scenes. putting things in. And I remember the one time, uh, the one show, uh, they were singing like a Christmas caroly type song, but they changed the lyrics and it was all about the new moon and this, that and the other. And I was just like, nope, not doing that kids. Not doing that. And, um, the more I looked at that I saw so much more witchcraft in the characters that you just don't really, if you're just passing by, you're like, oh, yeah, that's a fine show for kids because that was fine for me when I was a kid. It's magic. Yeah. Yeah. That's how they always get it. Totally. Totally. And, you know, I tell the kids, you know, and I'm honest with my kids, you know, like I got an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old, and they're different than most kids.

But, you know, I can't, you got to walk a line of, you know, you don't want to scare the kid, but also at the same time, you don't want to lie to the kid. And being who I am, I really have a very short window where I can balance that not scaring. and not lying. Right. But there's been times that they come home and they're like, you know, so-and-so kids at school are watching this, that any other, why can't I? I'm like, because honestly, their parents don't understand some things that I understand. We know it's real.

Yeah. We know it's true. It's what their parents allow and that's fine. But for you, it's not. And when you're older, I'll explain in more detail to you, you know? and for the most part my son is very eagerly willing to follow rules

so that's great and he's also the example for his sister so I see as she's getting older she's just kind of it's an environment that's created at home and so she just follows his lead which is great so I'm not looking to bring a third kid into the equation I got a good too going on here we're just going to keep it that way

but let's get into your Instagram man the supernatural sleuth we'll put links into the description of this episode People have been clicking. You're on Instagram. I keep saying Instagram, but you started on TikTok, right?

Right. Yeah. How long ago did you start? So I started TikTok. This coming April, make three years. So I guess it would have been 23. And, yeah, I started on TikTok.

And slowly, actually, I would say, over the past year or so, I kind of started leaning into the other Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. And I still do. all of them, but those YouTube and Instagram, Facebook, kind of my main platforms now. Really? Yeah.

So you moved off of TikTok? Well, I'm still on TikTok, but it seems like my biggest follow is actually on Facebook. Is that right? Yeah. What do you got? Do you know? 9807,000. That's awesome, man.

Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. I've been blessed with it. And I think Instagram, 147, 48,000. That's great. But, yeah, I just started not really knowing where I was going. And it's, you led me to this chair today.

So I've been biased with it. That's amazing. That's amazing. I've noticed that Facebook, there's been changes on the back end. Sure. And it's allowing this kind of content to flourish more than it used to. Right. Because I know, I mean, maybe just like a year or two ago, we were probably around 20, 40,000 followers on Facebook.

And now I think we're like at 650 or something. It's awesome. There's been an explosion on that side. And so. on our end of things, we're trying to strategize different ways to take advantage of that audience on Facebook because clearly, I mean, outside of Facebook, my next biggest platform is YouTube with like over 300,000 subscribers. So that's about 300,000 people difference that that needs to be paid attention to, right? So it's not like, they're like, oh, I'll see you on face or I'll see you on YouTube or Instagram. It's like, no, that clearly there's an audience.

that's only on Facebook and we need to make sure we don't ignore them. So we're trying to figure out that and balance everything. But that's really cool to hear, man. It's almost a million. Dude, you're going to be past a million very soon. Yeah. I hope so. It's grown a lot over the past few months.

It's not even a matter of hope, man. Like, you're at almost a million, so it's guaranteed it's going to happen. Like the ball is rolling down the hill. As long as you keep shoveling snow in front, it's just getting bigger and bigger, you know? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Like, what's that, what's that sport in the Olympics curling? Yeah. Yeah. It's basically that's what you're doing only with a shovel.

You're just shoveling snow in front of that ball. Keep it rolling. Keep rolling. Exactly. That's really cool, man. So what got you going in this direction, though? So, I mean, you're from Kentucky. Before you got on social media to do this stuff, I'm assuming you were into these topics. Yeah, I've always, even since a young age, been into the paranormal ghost. and, you know, and done the ghost hunting and things like that. I always, you know, I watch all the ghost hunting shows on TV and YouTube and was fascinated and thought to myself, you know, I'd love to do that. But just never did really have that motivation to actually sit down, okay, I want to try it.

And I will actually credit my best friend, Mr. Zach Hall, who folks might know from the show Expedition Bigfoot. He was Russ Acorn's cameraman for, I think, the first three seasons. Okay. And he just, he came to my office one day. He's like, we're not leaving here today until you set up a TikTok. Wow. And I'm like, okay. We'll try it.

No, no. I thought TikTok was just kids dancing. Yeah. Which it is. Yeah. There's a lot of that. I knew nothing about TikTok. I don't like being on camera.

And so I was like, I try it. I have the type of person, like, it takes me a while to dive into something to commit to it. But once I do, like, I'm hyper-focused. on it. And, you know, I was pretty biased with it. It grew rather quickly and it just kind of segued into the other platforms and things. That's awesome, man. Like, I, uh, I find that really encouraging and I just want to take a second and just speak to the audience on that because we're living in a different time. Sure. You know, and for the most part, I think most people that listen to me, the majority of them remember a time where the internet wasn't what it is now.

And you have so much control in your future, your destiny. I don't want to say destiny. That's, you know, that's not me. But you have so much more control over where your life goes because of what we have available to us now. You don't need, when I was growing up as a kid and you and all of us, like the idea of becoming a famous person meant you had to have talent, which I have zero. and then you had to get discovered by an agent. And that agent had to think enough of you to shop you around. And then you get a commercial gig. And then from the commercial gig, you get this, that, and the other.

And all of a sudden, maybe one day, if you're famous enough, you get to call your own shots, you know, and things of that. And it's just not like that anymore. And if you have a vision, you have a dream, just start doing stuff like you did. And like I did. I mean, people sometimes will email, not sometimes. A lot of times people email and they'll ask something. And it's well meaning. Sure.

Because I used to do the same thing. People would ask me to do a phone call to teach them how to do things. And I'm like, I can't do that for everybody. You know? But my advice would be just do what I did and what you did, which is start. Figure it out. Guess what? No matter if I coach you or not, the very first thing you ever create, you're not going to like five years from now.

You're going to be like, oh, I've gotten so much better. You have to start somewhere. You just let's start doing stuff. But anybody can start creating stuff if you have a vision for it and let it go. And let the world decide. You might think it's awesome. And as long as you think it's awesome, that's all that matters. Sure.

Ultimately, if you're trying to grow something and it's not growing, chances are you're doing something wrong. And you've got to be self-analytical, be honest with yourself, and change some things up, you know? And at the end of day, if you've been doing this for, you know, as long as I have, almost 10 years, and you have two subscribers on YouTube, chances are you're not that good, you know? And that's okay if you're enjoying it, you know? But it's a matter of starting. And I, you hit that entrepreneurial bone to me just now. I just, I love seeing people create stuff and trying with all their heart and their mind behind. it and trying to push something that they,

they dreamt of, you know? And so it's cool hearing that, man, like, dude, you're bigger than me. You're bigger than me on Facebook, man. It's incredible. I've been very blessed. And you are exactly right. I mean, you've got to pick something you're passionate about because people can see it. You know, they, and be yourself, be authentic.

I say this all the time. If cornbread could talk, it would sound like me. You know, I can't get on social media and pretend like I don't have, like I said, from the head of a holler. And I sound like I am. And that's just me, you know. And it is what it is, you know. But most people actually, I get more comments about my accent than good stuff than the negative.

You know, be yourself, you know, pick something you don't get tired talking about. If I tried to talk about algebra, I would have zero followers. Right. But I believe in what I'm selling. You know, I don't do it. To me, it's more of a calling. Yeah. Then it is just a hobby or a way to make money.

I really believe in what I'm selling. That's amazing. And that's the thing. I mean, what you're saying is what I say all the time. Like, you cannot be making, like, the idea of content creation making stuff is the idea is that somebody consumes it. But at the same time, you can't make it for those people. Right.

Because theoretically, you have thousands of people. you definitely have nearly a million people just on one platform, all are individuals coming to you and they all have their wants and desires. And you can't fulfill over a million people individually on what they want out of you. So you just got to be yourself, you, me and anybody else listening, you have to be yourself and just create what you want to create and don't make it for anybody else but yourself and then put it out for the world and let it grow. I'm telling you, there are what, 9 billion people in the world,

give or take? I think so. So let's just say 9 billion people in the world. Mm-hmm. You, anybody listening right now, you have an interest

that I promise you, if you work hard enough, you can find 100,000 people that have the same interest in life with your petition. Like, if foot models can excel on only fans, sure.

Yeah. Like, you and your love for building stick figures out of toothpicks, there's 100,000 people who find it interesting. Just got to find them. Exactly. You know what I mean? And you got to get creative on how to find them because I'm sure they're not lining up. But out of 9 billion people, there's definitely 100,000 people who would enjoy tuning into your content where you're making stick figures out of toothpicks. Right.

It's crazy. But it's true. You just play the numbers game. It is. And so anyways, bring it back to the topic again. Derek's giving me the glare. Well, I was going to give you the well, actually, from Jack. But it's 8.2.

8.2? 8.2. Okay. So I was give or take a little off. But still, the rule applies. Yeah. No, it's so funny. So that's how you kind of got started into things and your interest and stuff.

Did you ever have an experience that was a memorable experience for you that kind of you leaned back on and say, yeah, I know this is real. No matter what I get coming across my desk, because you have an email, like you said, showed us today, you have like over 900 emails in your inbox right now that are waiting for you, right? Like, it's hard to keep up with. But you get that stuff coming through. Sure. And you're putting stuff online. Is there something that you had an experience where you look back and you're like, no matter what, anybody says, no matter what comes across the inbox, I know this stuff is real because of. Yeah. Well, my first paranormal experience, I can remember like it was yesterday when I was four years old. I think that's what united the spark. My grandma used to babysit me and my cousin. We, you know, I almost grew up in that house. I was there so much.

But I can remember like it was yesterday. We were out on the front porch playing probably about this time of day in the morning, early, beautiful sunny spring day. And there was a toy box. My grandma kept at the bottom of her steps that went at the upstairs, where she kept all her toys. And there was a, I remembered a ball that we were wanting to play with. And I knew it was in that box.

And I said, I'll go in the house and get it. No big deal. So I remember I walk in the house. go over to the stairs. I go down head first in the toy box, digging through, looking for this ball. And I can remember even at that age, like hair standing up on the back of my neck.

And I could instinctively, like I knew someone was looking at me, was watching me. I look up and directly above me on the next upper level, there was a man. He wasn't like what we think of goals, transparent.

He looked like a man. I compare him to the monopoly. man like a Victoria era suit clothing top hat glasses he just had his hands on the railing I thought you're going to do a monocle I was really excited oh but he did he had a short gray beard he was leaning over the rail looking at me didn't speak didn't move we just locked eyes and as I tell the story today I can feel the chills running down my looks and I never forgot that And at an early age, too, my family ran a funeral home. Oh, wow.

But I honestly, I can't say that I ever had any paranormal experiences in there, other than a recurring nightmare. But I think I was maybe 13 the next time I had a paranormal encounter. And so that sparked this curiosity, you know, ghost or real, which that's something I would wrestle with later in life. But what are ghosts, you know, that I would. wrestle with later on

the road. Still wrestling with it. I still wrestle with it. Yeah. You know, like,

um, I, I think we get caught up into this or that situation. Sure. And when you're talking about supernatural things, it's complex. It's beyond our comprehension many times. And so we're left just trying to do the best we can to understand what the stuff is.

Right. Um, that's why I always fall back to the foundation of, no matter what it is, people are experiencing something. You know, and that's the foundation to build off of because you're never going to get everybody to agree on what something is, you know, because I always use this example, but if you have a pastor and you have an atheist and you put them in the same room and they have a paranormal supernatural experience, they're going to come out walking, they're going to come out saying something completely different as far as what they experienced, you know. And so you have people who are part of different worldviews. And so that plays a lot into how they defy the different.

what they're experiencing. So you are four. Do you think that children tend to have a more ability? I don't know if that's the right word, but to me it seems like kids tend to experience things that we might lose the ability to see. Yeah, a thousand percent I do. And because I hear stories and have all my life,

even before I started social media about children who encounter things. And obviously I remember my encounter. You know, and there's a lot of theories as to why. You know, some people think it's because, you know, there's such a still, you know, I believe our spirits are eternal. You know, we're in children that young age are still closer to that side, I guess, maybe is the reason why they have the ability or maybe it's their innocence. You know, evil things will prey on the most vulnerable.

people, which children, you know. So, yeah, I do. I think children definitely can, not all, but some, same as adults. You know, I think some adults are more prone to experiencing this stuff. You know, it's interesting that you bring that up, the fact that children are closer to, meaning the birth, right? Their birth, right? And the idea of eternal, in Jeremiah, it says that the Lord speaking, and he says,

I knew you before you were in your mother's womb. And so it shows that there is, you know, Derek sitting across me, Derek himself, the being of Derek that God put into this meat suit that we're seeing. There's some kind of existence before he was even in his mother's womb that the Lord knew. Exactly. And that's where, you know, I'm not a theologian as far as like how Hebrew breaks down, things like that. So it makes me wonder, like, does he mean, I knew you as in, I knew you as in, I knew you you were an idea that I knew was going to happen before I put you in your mom's room?

Or was it that I actually knew you? You were here with me. And whenever I decided to, I put you in your mother's room. Those are things, again, talking about things that you wrestle with, right? Yeah. But to me, it's still beautiful to know that there is an infinite creator that thought enough to say that he knew us as individuals. one way or another before we even existed in this plane of existence. It just shows you how micro-focused he is on his creation and every aspect of it.

And so, yeah, anyways, I'm getting preachy. It was good. It was good. So, all right, that was your four years old, and then you said you were 13 when you had another experience. I want to hear that, and I want to preface it, though, with, because I know you go all over to place, which I love because that's kind of how I am with the history of this show, too. I mean, I've taught, my first four episodes was, the first episode was Pharmacy's Sasquatch. The second episode was an up-close encounter with the UFO. Okay.

The third one was my wife telling me her hatman experiences when she was a little girl. Okay. And the fourth one was a professor from college talking me about Nephlam. So, like, since the show's inception, I've been all over the place, you know? And so I say all that to, I want to hear about 13 years old, but because your content's all over, is there, do you, have you, and also coming from Kentucky, have you ever had any experiences that you know of with cryptids out in the woods or outside or anything? If not, no big deal. So I'm curious because especially Eastern Kentucky, and I know exactly where you're at, I'm not going to say it alive on there, but there's a lot of stuff in that area.

Oh, yeah, definitely. In fact, if you look over on the wall over here, top left corner, that poster, that's a documentary exhibition dogman I shot in Kentucky in the Daniel Boone. Oh, that's cool. Chasing the dog man. Right. You know, so I want to hear about 13, but I also want to hear if you have any other things that maybe happened outside in the woods of Kentucky.

You know, as far as cryptic goes, I've not, I can't say here and say I've seen or hadn't a encounter. I did have an encounter once. It was actually in Western Kentucky for probably close to 30 years. My family and I, every November would go to Western Kentucky where we'd deer hunt on a, we had some friends who owned some farms. So it was kind of like a many vacation for all of us. We would go down. And I actually, my cousin who goes, grown man. he's late 60s swears that he's seen Bigfoot

down there sitting in his tree stand middle of the day, beautiful sunny day, he said I watched a Bigfoot walk out of a pine thicket about 50 yards from me described what he looked like and just walked out of sight. Now fast forward to about the same

this would have been about the same time maybe the year before or after I was in what we called the swamp. It was just flat swamp. Same years it was dry, some years it's wet, but it's just level, thick, overgrown. And me and one of my friends had been out riding around on our four-wheelers, and we got to where my tree stand was. This was about one o'clock in the day. And I said, I believe I'm going to get up in my tree stand for a few minutes. And he drove off to go to his. So before I got up in my stand, I used to smoke, I said,

I'm going to smoke me a cigarette. I was sitting on my four-wheeler, and I lit up a cigarette and then probably 30 seconds later, directly in front of me what sounded to be maybe 30, 40 yards, I heard a noise that I can't describe, but only as guttural. Kind of like a moan or grown. Wasn't any animal I was familiar when I grew up in the mountains. I've heard pretty much what I thought all animals sound like, but so I'm trying to figure out what is this. Then I hear it to my right.

I'm looking to my rat and I hear it behind me. Then I hear it within 15, 20 seconds, I'm surrounded by this noise. It started out as like one, whatever it was. Now there's multiple all around me and I could not see anything. And they were moving. And it wasn't any kind of insect, bird that I'd ever heard. And I'm at this point sitting here thinking, I'm looking at my tree stand. Should I get up in my tree stand or should I leave?

and I'm not too proud to admit it because I'm getting out of here. I would have done the same thing. Yeah, I did. And come to find out later that evening when my friend came back to her camp, I was talking about. He said, I heard the same thing. Really? His tree stand was probably about 300 yards away from where mine was. He said I heard the exact same thing.

So I don't know what it was. That makes you wonder if he heard the same thing as in at the same time or if he had a separate incident. and things were out there that were aware you guys were there and was closing in. Do you believe that when you felt like you were being surrounded by the noise? Sure. Do you believe that it was individual entities or creatures making the noise, or do you think it was all one creating an illusion that was surrounding you? I remember at the time I thought it was multiple.

I just because initially it was in front of me. And to the right left, if it was one inch, it had to be spiritual, obviously, because, you know, not a flesh and blood creature could be around me at all the same time, you know. So I feel, I felt like it was multiple creatures. Whatever it was, there was more than one. When you heard the growling, some people describe when there's growling and you called it guttural that they could almost feel the growling. Yeah. Was that the case for you?

Yeah. I mean, it wasn't overly loud, not like a big foot, just screaming through the mountains, but it was loud enough. I felt like this thing, whatever it was, or things, wanted me to know it was there, and it wasn't happy I was there. I felt like I needed to leave. You know, I think we kind of are built with this sixth sense, whatever you want to call it, of when our mind don't know where our spirit does.

Like, something's not right. or gut feeling or if you want to call it, you know. And then having worked in law enforcement, you learn early that you have to trust your good. When something feels off, when something, you know it, even before anything happens. And I have that feeling. I have a friend, a lot of people know, you might have been familiar with this show, Sasquatch Chronicles. Yeah. So, Wes, have you ever heard about his experience?

I can't recall it, no. So what got him into the podcasting was him and his brother wanted to, talk to people about what they experienced to help understand, right? It just turned into this monster of a podcast. But their experience, they were up on the mountains in Washington one night, and they were already on a logging road, and they turned off onto another logging road that was much more overgrown. The logging road they were on, I've been on this road. The logging road they were on is not meant for high, a lot of travel, you know. But the one they turned off of, it was all overgrown.

And so it was snow up there. And they're sitting in the car arguing with each other because I think his brother wanted to continue going down this even smaller road. And Wes was like, no, man, we just need to back out of here. I don't want to get stuck up here. They started hearing growling. Or they first started hearing something coming into the car, or not into the car, but in on the car from the outside.

Like something was coming. They could hear walking. And they had guns in the back. So they grabbed some guns thinking that they might have, someone across somebody's grow-op. And as they were listening, they heard movement on all sides of the car

coming in. And so they're thinking people, you know? And something came up behind the car. I don't think he has a great gauge. I'm not trying to put words in his mouth, but just from my recollection of hearing him tell the story, I feel like he doesn't have much of a great gauge as to how far this thing was

from the back of the car. But he described this low, guttural growl that was so powerful that he could feel it vibrating in his body. Wow. And that's, I think, was when they started realizing something else was going on. And then they had this wild experience. Just these things came in on the car. And for about three hours, they were stuck on the mountain with these things, basically bluff

charging their car. Wow. And so he has that experience. And again, if I can draw your attention to the wall behind Jack, the Sasquatch poster is the documentary that I shot where I went out there and documented the journey. Right. Well, when I was there, this was not in the documentary because at the time, we only had one cameraman. And logistically, when you're shooting this kind of thing, one cameraman can only be one place at one time. And you're working with a limited budget.

So it's not like we all had our own rigs on and stuff like that. but Ward had already gotten on the RV. I drove an RV up that mountain to the spot. And you get to a point where you're like, okay, we can't go any further with the RV. So, but Ward had already got on the RV. It's nighttime. And I think it was our last night there.

And everybody's on the RV or getting on. And me and Joel are the last ones in line. And we had things coming in on the RV that night. We had tapping on the RV. We had weird moans. and noises. And we're getting ready to get it on the RV, and we hear this low, guttural growl that sounded like it was right behind the RV.

And so we both heard it, and we turn around, and we start walking to the back of the RV. And I'm fully expecting to peek my head around the RV and seeing a monster staring at me. And I peeked my head around the RV. You know what was there? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

I was like, gosh, darn it! But, no, actually, in the moment, like, you say things at the safety behind a microphone in the studio. But in the moment, I'm like, I hope there's nothing there. Oh, yeah. You know, but at the same time, there's this adventure seeker in you that just you want, you have to, you know? And I'd be lying if I said that as my kids have grown up, that it didn't change anything. But as I become more of a father, as they develop as human beings and they're, that I'm seeing their characters and stuff, the more I don't like leaving town, the more anxiety I get when I leave town. And it does affect how far I'm willing to go when I'm out in the woods at night.

Definitely. It just, it just does. and I'm grateful for that because I think I'm the kind of person that naturally when I get excited about something, sometimes I don't think about the repercussions and I have in the past done things that I later regretted because I felt like I stepped too far into a territory that God didn't want me to go. And in the moment you're not even thinking about it, you're just following the excitement. And so I'm grateful for my case. kids in that sense for sure.

And they both were severely sad to find out that I was leaving town today. But anyways, so that's interesting because the growling happens all over the country. I can tell you from what I've been able to document, Kentucky, I think I've had more dogman encounter things told to me from Kentucky than I have Bigfoot. And the Daniel Boone National Forest has monsters in them. I don't know how else to describe it. There is terror waiting for you in those woods. And I want to ask you, and I want to get into your Instagram as well,

but I want to ask you, you live in Appalachia. You've heard stories. You've taken in experiences. You've had your own experiences. What is it about Appalachia that you can fathom, as to why it is the way it is. You know, that's the question I get asked probably more than anything. Why is Apple Hatch is so haunted?

And the short answer is, I don't know. Which adds to the mystery. You know, Apple Hatch, I think, is the oldest mountain range. You know, fact trick me on that. In the world, I think. In the world, yeah. You know, maybe it's that, just the history that, you know, people have been here, Native Americans, whoever, for years, eons, you know.

I don't know. And that is what the spooky factor to me is I can't think of a logical explanation. You know, if we go to a house that's allegedly haunted where there was, you know, five people slaughtered there. Well, that kind of makes sense. You know, tragedy. I mean, sure, there's been tragedy in Appalachia, but there's a tragedy all over the world. Why is this one area, this one mountain range worse than the other? I don't know.

Yeah. But it is. And, you know, the thing I tell. people a lot about who's not from the area and never been because some people mess with them like you know I'm scared I was going to go on vacation there and now I'm scared I don't want to do that it ain't that way you know nine times out of 10 nothing happens if you go out hiking or camping maybe animals is what you need to watch for or snakes lots of those yeah but you know what I have noticed personally being in the

mountains for hours or days at a time is it isn't that that you always see something or for that fact to hear something, but the mountains, it's like they almost speak. Like it can be a beautiful sunny days, birds chirping, wildlife abundant, then silence.

And that is just terrifying. If you've ever experienced, because you know there's something predatory around you somewhere, be it an animal, a mountain lion or whatever. Or I think, like I said,

I go back to that sixth sense. I think we can, our bodies or our spirits know when there are things around us that's otherworldly. Yeah, I agree. What do you say, Pastor? No, I agree. I think that's cool. I think there is a lot of hidden history,

and I think that's what we're like slowly discovering more and more is the layers of history, even in these old Appalachian mountains. It's pretty crazy stuff. As you were talking, I realized I was falling into the confessionals mode, and I was like, I got two other guys here. I'm not even knowledge. It's all good. Yeah, no, it's just, I agree with you.

And there's so much mystery in these mountains that you would want to say are separate from other categories, but there's always a linkage. So they're not an active podcast anymore, as far as I know, but there was a podcast called Appalachia Intelligence. And Justin Kaiser was, I think, the main host. forgive me, I can't remember the other two hosts name, but they came down here and did an episode with me about a rock they found in Appalachia. And it had old inscriptions on, very old. If I remember correctly, it was either a language they didn't know, that nobody knows, can't figure out, or it might have been even Hebrew, which we've talked about a couple

times on the show briefly, but there's a place, there's a stone called the Back Creek Stone, right? Yeah. That they believe has ancient Hebrew inscribed on it. So it's like, well, how'd that get there? You know? But as far as I remember, Justin had investigated that heavily. And I think he said they found more, and it's almost like a complex showing an ancient civilization. And he keeps inviting me up there. And, you know, It's like, why wouldn't you go up? And it's like, I want to go up. It's just like, I can only be so many places at one time, you know?

But I was talking to Justin. I got to reach out to him again. Because I would like to maybe even bring him down again to give an update on that. But also maybe him and I can go up there too. He only lives about two and a half, three hours from here. Right. But these mountains, they have a lot of secrets. Definitely.

And things that people from the outside would say that's Disney. Right. And that's got to drive people mad that grew, grew up around here, born and raised, you grow up around here experiencing things and hearing the stories and your grandparents telling you things that you trust your grandparents. You know that you know your grandparents aren't lying to you. In a similar way where my grandfather told me stories about when he was preaching and there would be legs that would grow and people were sight restored.

Like, I know my grandfather's not lying to me. He's now passed and he told me this stuff, like doubled down on it on his deathbed. Right. And in a similar way, when it comes to these mountains and people who grew up and born and raised here, I've experienced a certain level of closed off nature until I've proven myself to somebody that they feel like they can trust. Most recently, I happened to a guy, I had to have the well pump replaced in my house. And the guy who owned the company, him and I were talking, and I don't tell people what I do. you know, just, you know, keep a surface level. But he had asked and just, I always keep a general, I have a stage as how I go about it.

I usually just start off with, oh, I work in media, you know, they ask more questions. I run a small media company. Oh, like what? You got a lot of questions, don't you? But we eventually got to the point where I told them what I do. And before we got there, I had brought up the fact that I was talking to Derek earlier that day. about the Epstein stuff. Sure.

Because that's like Normie territory now. Right. And he goes, oh, I'm so far down the rabbit hole. I was like, oh. And then when I told him what I do and stuff, he was like, okay.

And he starts talking and he texts me after he left. And he said, that evening he said, the whole ride home, he listened to my Martin Groves episode. Do you know about Martin Groves?

Yeah, I'm familiar. I don't know all the details, but I'm familiar with him. Yeah. So Martin Groves, he was a sheriff out in Middle Tennessee and had a radical dogman encounter in 93. And he came out here and told that story years ago. And that was the first episode he saw. But that episode made him comfortable with me. And I don't know what he has to say, but he's like, we need to talk. I got stories for you or something like that. I'm just like, I got stories for you or something like that. And I'm just like, okay. And so I've noticed that kind of attitude, though, with a lot of the people here. There's a level of closed-offness until, you know, they're comfortable with you.

Real quick. Apparently, they have restarted uploading some stuff with Appalachian Intelligence. Is that right? Yeah, just this past year at the end of the year, they have a few more. Talk to me about it. Oh, they just have... What's the most recent episode? Let's give them some shout-out time here.

It was with Travis Carpenter. Oh, okay. On December 17th. But still. That's awesome. Ryan is the host, I think, as well. Okay. I knew it was Ryan and Justin, and there was another guy.

I just can't remember. But that's awesome. That's really cool. Good guys, Appalachia Intelligence, look them up, hit subscribe, leave a five-star rating review. So, but, okay, cool. So let's get into some of it. Actually, start queuing up Instagram. I want to hear about 13.

years old, though. You had a second account. Something happened at 13. That kind of, I guess, doubled down nine years later. You're like, okay, something's going on. Yeah, it was, it was the winter day. It was January, February, I remember that. I remember it was, you know, it's strange, the small things you remember. It was cold, but I remember it being a beautiful sunny day. My mom and I were home alone. My dad and brother had gone somewhere. And it would have been again, you know, middle of the day. Sun's out. I go in my closet.

My bedroom, I had a huge walk-in closet where I kept all my toys, which I later didn't, they had an epiphany just a few months ago that my first two encounters happened when I was looking for toys. And I didn't think about that until a couple months ago. But so I'm in my closet looking for a toy again. My mom went outside to do something. And I had probably been in there,

like digging through those boxes, for the little green army men are big into those in there 15 20 minutes just throwing stuff out of nowhere i didn't have any kind of creepy feeling wasn't thinking about anything scary spooky in my left ear like it sounded it was literally like right here something said boo clear and like intentional and almost had a maniacal laughter it's it's weird to say that that, but it's like it was, if you were trying to scare someone, hey, you kind of laugh, you know, like boo, it was like that, but in my ear right here. And I immediately whipped my head around to look, hoping my brother or someone, no one.

I was like, well, maybe it was my mom, but she, I know she couldn't have physically gotten out of there that quickly. But I went through the house, room by room, looking. I get to the end of the house. she's still outside and my dad and brother's still gone and then that's when the chills really hit me is like okay now i know for sure that i didn't like make it up i wasn't thinking you know sometimes you can scare yourself you know that was very deliberate and intentional in my left ear and it terrified me when you think about the logistics of that that encounter um

like not at this table certainly uh but people who are skeptical on nature about such things, you have to think about even human nature. Somebody who says boo in your ear and is trying to play a prank on you wants the reward of the prank. Right. You know? And so at some point they laugh, they admit to it so that they can get a chuckle out of it. There's no reward if they say boo to scare you and leave you hanging with what was that, right?

especially when it's your mother or like a like a fit parents and things like that it's like the odds in my mind and maybe I've just been in this too long right the odds are that more unlikely that's a supernatural experience and not somebody playing a prank right well even the voice itself like I could tell it sounded like a male's voice and there were no other males there wasn't even one male or female in the house and like It just, I can still hear it today, you know, 30 years later. And that, that one, you know, I had the first encounter when I was four, which made me curious. That one kind of got the oils rolling.

And then it just progressed as I got older. Did you get involved in, like, how deep involved did you get in paranormal research? Well, when I started in law enforcement, really, is when I started actively going out. out doing investigations, you know. And that's where I had a deep conflict for a long time. Okay, ghosts, you know, if you watch a lot of your mainstream ghost hunting shows, ghosts are human spirits, people who've died, passed away. They're trapped here, caught between worlds.

But then, you know, even before I became a Christian, you know, the Bible says to be absent from the bodies to be present with the Lord. So I was conflicted. like, how can a human spirit be here? And the Bible says something different, which I know people interpret that differently. So that's where I became conflicted for several years. It's like, what's real? You know, kind of at that point, I need to understand what's going on there.

And then when I became a Christian finally, when I got saved, when I was in 2007, it was like it was clear. me. I remember my brother telling me a few years even prior to me being saved, he told me, he said, you know all ghosts are demons. I'm like, like, I had thought that. But I'm like, you know, I don't know. I've not, you know, I've been in a lot of haunted places. And I haven't really felt like I've been in the presence of a demon. But at the same time, I didn't want to believe that either. Because I believe there are certain lines you absolutely don't cross. Like when you're trying to communicate or. communicating any. And so I wrestled with that a long time before I, you know, finally making my, you know, what I believe,

sharing it with the world, you know, social media. Here's what I believe. You don't have to agree with me. Here's what I've experienced. Here's what the Bible says. Read it for yourself. Yeah. Then what do you get from it?

Yeah. Well, I mean, like what you said about the feeling, it didn't feel like a demon? that's very open-ended, right? So when you're trying to define things, and if you don't want to believe that something's a demon, you're already kind of in the position of you kind of believe in demons because you're trying to define what is and what isn't.

And so when you look at the scripture and it says that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light, it's like if Satan himself can masquerade as an angel light, what does that mean? Well, it means that you're probably in the presence of Satan feeling pretty comfortable. and deceived. Sure. And if he can do that, can other entities do it as well?

Now, I think that the supernatural realm is extremely complex. Right. And I think that there are territorial spirits. I think that there are ancient, like Psalm 82. I don't know if you dug into that and stuff, but are you familiar with a guy

named Michael Heiser? He's passed away now. The name sounds familiar. So his stuff online, dig into it. Okay. Because he was a highly respected a theologian.

I believe he knew about, I think it was like nine dead languages or something like that. Oh, wow. And he worked at a company called Logos Bible, which is like the Bible software. He was one of their in-house

theologians. He really did a good job while he was still alive on helping Christians understand the supernatural realm. And he blew the lid off of things that really rocked people, I think in a good way.

We needed to be rocked a little bit. The Western world with Christianity and the church needed to come to understanding that it's far more supernatural than you realize. But in Psalm 802, and right in the beginning, it says that God held judgment amongst the other gods. And in the Hebrew, it says Elohim and Elohim, meaning like Elohim is plural and singular in this case. And it still means God holding the God, Elohim, Jehovah, holding judgment amongst lesser Elohim. And what does that mean? you know and and so when you start looking into that kind of stuff you come to understand that there is a complexity here sure and and I think I personally probably am not comfortable saying that

everything that people are encountering is a demon right but if it's not a demon and it's displaying demonic tendencies I believe it could be something else that's equally not as good or worse right I mean Honestly, there are cases, and this is Tony's worldview. I don't know if you looked into the book of Enoch much, but the idea that the dead nephalum, their spirits are the demons that are proud of the earth. In some cases, I'd much rather deal with a spirit of a dead nephalum over, like, in Daniel 10, the prince of Persia. Sure. I don't want anything to do with a reigning principality on this planet.

Right. Like these things are powerful and they have territorial reign, which means that when you're in their territory, there are certain things that you don't have authority to do. Right. And unless God gives you the authority. Right. And it's just like the complexities, right? And so it's just like, holy cow. So I guess I've kind of when I, I still say demon and stuff, but in my mind, I think I mean more like demonic.

And demonic is a category of evil. Right. in nature. Sure. But it's like an umbrella term that underneath that umbrella, I think there's a hierarchy, there's complexity. And I think that even within the house of evil, these entities don't like each other at the same time.

They got big Elohim God, Jehovah, that they rebelled against, and they don't like him. But in that process, their pride built up. And they look at each other like, I'm better than you. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. So I just feel like it's not as black and white as what

traditionally the Western Church has shown. And as somebody who's never traveled the world, I only hear stories of what other countries are like. It's far more supernatural. People in good and bad. So there are people who are Christians who, in other countries, that they go into situations expecting God to show up and heal.

That's their first course of action. And they also are very aware that there is a demonic, demonic, realm that has things in it that seek our destruction. So whether you as a four-year-old and a 13-year-old was fetching toys encountered a demon, something demonic, a principal, I hope not a principality. For me, that's terrifying.

It's terrible. I don't want to do that. I don't want to tell. What are you going to say? Or a human spirit or like, yeah, we don't know. Like, you know, it's very complex. Yeah. I was really like off the whole human spirit thing.

And then, like, we were praying with singer. And the same thing, she was, like, actually praying against human spirits because she felt like they could bind themselves with oaths and stuff and still be trapped. And it just so it's just really complex. It lends to a very complex nature. Yeah. I'm rambling here. Let's get to your Instagram.

Okay. I feel like I'm talking too much. I'm sorry. I'm just in a chatty mood today. I'm in a good mood. You're good, dude. Jack, I want to start off with, because I want to go into three different videos on your Instagram that we pulled. Okay.

And just kind of show people your Instagram and your social media in general and how you do things, which I think is really cool because from what I've seen, you open up videos talking first. You're not just showing videos or pictures. You're like, here's what the sense of me. You make your own decision. Right. You know. So, Jack, if you could do the dog man one first, I think that would be fantastic. This photo is real.

We have serious problems. This is the clearest picture of a wearer wolf slash. dogman type creature that you may ever see. Werewolves or dogmen are things that we thought just lived in Hollywood on the big screens and in horror movies. But recently, people have claimed to have captured and seen these elusive creatures. The bigger question now is not, are they real, but what are they? I'm not saying they're Hollywood type creatures where you have to use a silver bullet,

but many believe these things originated in laboratories and then things went wrong. Check this out. Let me know in the comments. What do you think it is? And mind you, this picture is about 15 or 16 years old. So it ain't best quality, but the image is very clear. Have a great day. God bless.

That's really, first of all, I like in that first one, you said, if this photo is real. So, like, you're not telling people what to believe. You're just presenting things. Right. But you said it was about 15 years old? It was told to me that it was that old. Wow. You know, and that's something I try to tell my viewers' audiences.

I can't validate any of these unless it's just something that I personally, you know, sometimes I will share pictures or stories, you know, of my own. But, you know, people email me, you DM me, you know, here's a picture of this. This happened this day, whatever. Could be a complete lie. I have no idea. It could be AI. Could be lots of things.

But here it is, what, you know, what do you think it is? Yeah. I don't try to, I can't persuade anybody or would never try to convince someone that's a dog man. It could be. It could be a horse. I don't know. You know, I really don't. It's interesting.

A horse, of course. A horse. You know, it caught my attention. So things that catch my attention, I'm like, well, that's pretty neat, you know. I'll put it out here. I like that it's old because I think it makes it even more. in our day and age with AI, it makes it more validated to me. And it's just crazy.

It's crazy how much we come across and so much of it is so fake. We even have to go to like the pages and scroll through what they're posting and like, oh, a lot of what they post is AI. But, I mean, it must be really difficult to like decipher for itself. And that's why I don't like to, you know, say, yeah, definitively, this is what this is or that's what that is because I don't know. All I know is here's what they told me. Here's what I'm telling you. What do you say?

You know, what do you hear? And, you know, there is a lot of garbage out there. And I'm sure I have posted pictures. I'll actually tell this on myself. It's embarrassing, but I'll tell it. Someone sent me a video. You guys may have seen it went a little viral a year or so ago. It looked like a gnome.

It was like a security camera on someone's front porch running through their yard. I'm like, that looks like a gnome. running through the yard. I posted it. Got a lot of views and stuff. And a few days later, I started reading through the comments. And people's like, that's a skunk. I was like, that's a skunk.

And I go back and look at it. Oh, my God, that's a skunk. Clearly a skunk. It was its tail sticking up. But when someone, you know, it's the power of persuasion. Yes. I seen a gnome. Yeah.

Until someone's seen a skunk. It's clearly a skunk. Yeah. And I was like, I own that one. You know, I owned it. You know, it's like, yeah, it is. It's a gun. So, you know, I don't try to change people's minds, but I'll give my thoughts or opinions, which, for whatever that's worth.

But at the end of the day, you have to decide, you know. Yeah. The power of suggestion's real, you know. Yeah. There's that, that picture that came out with that black and blue dress. Oh, yeah. You know, and people literally see different things. Like, I don't know if it's a psychological thing, you know,

You know, you show a picture of an old woman and a lion or whatever. And it's like, what do you see? An old woman, the next person, a lion. It's like, how's that work? Right. Or one of my favorites is it's like a kid's toy or something. And it says something. And depending on what words you're thinking is what you actually hear.

And so it's just, it's amazing how the mind works. And I can see how you would feel, you know, duped or. or you said embarrassed, but, like, honestly, the fact that you're willing to be humble about it is the biggest thing. Right. You know, bro, I've messed up so many times, you know? And, and, uh, I've posted, I'm, I know back in the day when I actually ran my own social media, I know I posted things that probably, or it turned out to be fake, but in the

moment I thought it was real or at least worth considering, you know? Right. Even with my own show. I mean, am I going to sit here and say out of 850 some episodes that not one person never lied to me and pulled one over on me? No. No. But I can tell you one thing is when I'm done talking to somebody, if I feel like I spend

time with somebody that believed what they were telling me was to be true. And I'm somebody who doesn't believe that I'm going to define how crazy the supernatural is. That's kind of the qualifier. Sure. Like we're trying to discuss things that are super natural. And so we're not going to understand everything that people experience. Now that you're bigger, do you get a lot of like more original source material?

Are people sending you like photos or like direct things? Yeah, I still get a lot, you know, that's been pretty consistent. And I guess I get a lot more of it now, you know, emails and DMs. And I've had a lot of people message me and say, you know, I've been watching you for a long time. Now I feel like you're someone I can trust with my story. You know, you sing Motha and Inc or whatever. And I try to be. I don't try to, I mean, social media, I try to sound, I'm very mundane.

Even when I'm excited, I don't sound excited. But, you know, you try to capture the audience. You know, I want it to set a spooky vibe. I play the cheesy, creepy music, just to set the tone. But, you know, and I say in a lot of my videos also, even if this isn't real, I find it interesting because I believe it still could really happen. because I have heard so many stories of people encountering things just like this. But in this case, what do you think?

Yeah. Well, I think it's real. I just realized that I like the set of what we have with these three clips that I want to play with today. Because the first one was a picture. The second one is audio for the most part. And the third one is video. And so I want to do the second one with the outback and the audio. And I just want to, I just got to tell people,

I think I might have said the beginning, but this is the one where when Jack hit play on, he's over there going, huh. Let that be a warning to you. We should keep it on our phone. So when we go out in the woods, we'll just play that for Jack. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. No, I would.

We need him to still continue to come with us, so we don't want to deter that. If you could play that, Jack, that'd be awesome, man. Something absolutely terrifying in the Australian Outback, and I have it on camera. The guy who allegedly filmed this was out in the Australian Outback with a small crew doing some work. And they captured this on video. And that was the last night they spent there. Check this out.

Let me know what you think in the comments. If you've ever seen anything like this, I want to know about it. Oh, there's so many. Oh, man. For sure. Oh, my gosh. Okay. No, thank you.

So I didn't see that part of the video. I thought it was just audio. But that last part, they're like, Okay, that's enough of that. If I close the blind, it goes away, right? Wow. Wow.

So that almost sounded like a woman and a monster. Like it was morphing, like almost like a skin walker. It's not a lot of the lore, though, like the woman crying in the woods. And that, like, lures people to go help the woman. And then they're, like, go missing. Except this isn't the woods, Derek. This is the outback. Well, the outback is the wild of Australia.

I had so many people like the aboriginal. It's not that steakhouse. Jack's thinking they went to the steakhouse. No, no, we're not talking about food. Are you not having shrimp on the Barbie? Are you hungry? He's hungry. Don't mind.

No, I had the, like so many people from Australia, like the Aboriginal people who live there native to Australia, message me and tell me, like, if you want to, they were telling me like the, what they called that thing and they're, you know. What is it? I don't remember. I don't remember. It's something I couldn't pronounce anyway. You should start a podcast so you can start recording these conversations. Yeah, I have no idea.

But, like, they would email me or comment on the video. This is what this is, or I can tell you stories, you know, worse than that. You know, and then there's a possibility. It's fake. I honestly don't know. But, like, Jack, when I've seen it, that freaked me out. Oh, man. I'm going to share that, you know.

I mean, I don't. That doesn't give me any fake vibes. And that sounded just like what I heard. heard at my house here in Tennessee. Yeah. But I leave room for it to be supernatural still, but what happened was initially we were gearing up to edit the first documentary. And I had a friend here and he was pretty much living with me for like a month and a half. And we were taking my trash to the end of the drive, which I have this like long hill of a driveway. And we get to the end of the hill or out to the end of the driveway and we hear that like this

I was like what is that yeah and I'm listening because it is also wind I think it was raining I think that's what it was I couldn't hear real good and I was like this had a woman crying and um and we're listening for a while and we're like this is weird and then also we hear hello and I was like that's it I'm out And we went back down to the house and I go inside and I pull Lindsay out of the kids' room. She was putting them in bed and I start telling her. And actually right before I got Lindsay, we hear on my back deck thudding. Oh, wow.

And anybody who's familiar with my house knows that in order to get to the back deck, you're going to have to cut through other people's property. and climb the stairs and all that stuff. And there was something big, heavy thudding on the back deck. And I just looked at my friend. I'm looking at him. I'm like, what was that? You know?

And then I get Lindsay and we look outside. There's nothing else. So I'm thinking like there's something going on here. There's a witch or something. And a couple days later it goes by and there's this pastor that comes down the driveway. And he was just letting me know about the church. And I brought up what I heard. the night and he said, I think that might have been so-and-so. She has a cabin over here,

and it was being foreclosed, and she was really distraught, and I had to come pick her up. And so the humanistic side of me says, okay, that's what it was. But there is part of me that still has a hard time wrap my mind around. If the two incidences are related, how did she get from down where she was to my back deck that fast? Because it happened fast. And I'm just like, I don't know. Yeah. So I try not to think about it too much. Right.

It's so funny because you're always like, I want an experience. And you have like nothing but experiences, you know. I don't think about it, though. I guess, I don't know. I guess maybe it's just that I do have experiences with so much part of my life that I don't even think about it. It's just like whatever. You know, I don't know. You're right, though.

I do say that too much for having some many experiences. You do. Well, you know, I tend to overthink scenarios like that because my mind would be like, okay, so this lady was distraught, maybe it was her. Yeah. But then I always think, okay, well, you know, these deemans, like I said, her flies on the wall. And then for no other reason, then to just mess with you to make you question,

you know, then this pastor's going to come on. That's a great point. You know, just because I think as Christians in general, we're targets. You know, like if you and I open coffee shops, the side of each other, we're in competition. Yeah. And people who do what we do are, like I said, Christians, we're a threat.

We expose the darkness. So any kind of what might seem insignificant could be more. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's a coincidence. But my mind just always goes there. There's more going on to what we think about or realize. What did the Aborigines say that they were? Were they physical or spiritual?

It's some kind of spiritual thing. I can't remember exactly with the verbiage or what they called it exactly, but it was some kind of spiritual, like a woman, a lawyer-a-type thing or something to that. something like that. And so that video at the end that's like connected to the screaming. That's supposed to be. Yeah, that was supposed to be after the screaming. They had went back inside and then they sing that.

I think they may have referred to her as like a witch type. Clearly. Yeah. I wonder if like a lot of times when you hear those things, it's them trying to get you to engage with them anyway. Because like, you know, like the whole point of like paranormal investigation, a lot of times they ask questions and they'll be like, who are you? you, what are you? Can you make a noise? Can you move this thing? And like, they might be wanting

you to engage with them and give that open door, you know, because in the moment, if you're hearing that in the dark, it's like there's a little bit of fear regardless. And so like there's an open door then for you to be like, who's there? What are you? And like, once you do that, oh boy, here we go. Let's engage. Yeah. That's actually a good point. That's a really good point. My son recently had a dream. Did I tell this on the show already? to the dream with the fence and inviting I did? Okay, never mind. Well, you guys, never mind. I'll tell him.

So you're going to have to hear again. No, but I'll just say real quickly, he had a dream where I had the night, that night I had prayed a different type of prayer. I traditionally asked the Lord to guard our property boundaries with his angels. And I intentionally asked him to have the angels on the property in the house.

And my son had a dream. And I'm somebody who does not overlook dreams. I used to, but not anymore. Then my son had a dream where there were two, there's a bunch of kids, but two of them he was familiar with in the dream from his class. And they were standing on the other side of the property line, on the other side of a fence, a white fence that we don't have.

We have a barbed by our fence because there's cattle. They used to be cattle on the other side. And so I think there's a, symbolic nature with the white fence. But they were saying, help, help, help. And he was coming up from the chickens. And he said, what's wrong? And they said something about somebody dying or something,

and they were holding bones. And so my son being a kind child says, quick, come over here. I'll help you. And so they come over and they go up the steps to the back deck and they come into the house and he takes him in his bedroom. When he goes in his bedroom, he realizes it's starting to turn to a bad dream. And so he wakes himself up.

that night I had seen with my own eyes going from the back deck door in the direction of my son's bedroom, twice, like a black shadow almost very short. And then a little bit later I saw something very large and white, like a flash of whiteness. And what I believe happened is there was spiritual warfare spilling over into our realm. And I think it was a direct response to the prayer I prayed. and I think my son unknowingly, not as a child, doesn't know. I think in the dream, they came to him in his dream and he invited them back onto the property after they've been kicked off. And so there's a lot of that kind of stuff that, again, we're talking about complexities of the supernatural realm.

It gets deep. So anyways, let's get to the last video. This one is a rake. and and it's interesting. It's really interesting. I, the very first video I posted on, on YouTube that actually got traction

was a compilation video of a rate, of the rake that I did. And it was like, it hit like 20,000 views. And I was like, oh, I'll never have a video that goes that, it goes that big.

You know, like this is like, man, this is cool, but it'll never happen again. And now, like, every, every, I think every episode that we come out with on YouTube is probably more than that within the first week. So, praise the Lord for the blessing. So I'm from on high, you know. Go ahead. Have you ever wondered what lurks in the darkness in Appalachia at night?

Watch to the end, and I'll show you. This one's a special young settling because you can hear the people talking who's watching this thing on their security cameras. And they're freaking out. I think a lot of people would call this creature a rake. But I think the question is actually deeper than that. What is a rake? Some people believe it's something born from a creepypasta story. Agregor or Eagergore, a creature come to life by the combined human consciousness.

I don't know. I think at the end of the day, it's a demon. This isn't something you want wandering around your house, especially at night. You can see the Titanic. I'm hearing the Smoky Mountains right now. there are the smoke stacks. I want you guys to stay tuned because tomorrow, I may film some exclusive Smoky Mountain footage.

Watch this video and tell me, is this a rake, some other kind of Appalachian crypted, or just something evil? Where's the dog? Well, you better go now. What the fuck is that? I don't know. What was that in the background? I'm not sure.

It looked like there was something moving in the background from left to right as well. I didn't notice that. I know what you're talking about. But yeah, I mean, like on the surface level, I mean, that looks like my, my drunk uncle or something like that.

You know what I mean? But, I mean, that goes to, you know, what you said earlier, you're posting things that you find interesting. And what makes that,

I think that video interesting is the people that are filming, they, they're either lying or they're baffled by something that they're seeing. And the, the rake is something that is,

it is local to this area. Not this immediate, well, maybe, but the mountains. I had two separate, within the last year or two, I had two separate interviews that I did where they talked about their experiences with the rake in the mountains on the North Carolina side. And the reason why I wanted to do this whole rake video

is because I find the topic interesting and I want to know, like, what do you think about the rake? When I first heard about it, I was like, That's ridiculous. And now I'm like, no, it's probably real. It's probably real. Yeah, I mean, I'm the same way. I had never heard of her.

I could until a couple years ago. And I thought, what is that? And people started message me their stories and, you know, pictures similar to that or videos. And I kind of dug into it. I haven't done a lot of extensive research into it. But, you know, as I mentioned in the video, you're probably, I guess, familiar with that term, Agrigor, eager go. you know,

here's what my belief is kind of about the paranormal in general. And maybe this is too specific, but you guys remember the old scooby-doo cartoons where they catch the villain at the end, they pull a mask off or reveal another mask. It's just the same creature. Where's a different mask? You know, cause confusion, whatever.

Maybe it's not. Maybe if it's something physical, It's some kind of Bigfoot dogman type creature that we just don't know or understand. But I don't know. I mean, that's the thing. And I don't know that we'll ever truly know what these things are. Maybe we will. I'm like you to the believers, if Bigfoot walked through the door right now, we would be shocked, but not really.

Because I believe Bigfoot exists. Yeah. To me, the question, what is Bigfoot? What is a rake? You know, what is dog man? Yeah. You know, it's interesting that you bring this up because it's something that I've been really talking about a lot recently whenever I can, because I think it's a perspective we need to start adopting and at least consider adopting.

You know, when we try to define the supernatural, you know, demonic entities, ancient gods, all that stuff, we think the word that my friend Pastor Troy Brewer used to me, and I just loved it, was we think of them as wisps. just they're wispy, they're invisible, they can pop in and out, you can put your hand through them, and that all can be true. But the demonic realm is a very physical thing too. It's just how do they manifest? So, like, you had an experience, and I don't want to define your experience for you, but you did have an experience when you were four years old where it was a man and it was there.

It was physical, but it was paranormal. It was supernatural. And so we have to understand that, like, when it comes to the supernatural realm, the things and entities and beings that roam it, they have the ability to pop in and out and be wispy, but also manifest very physically. If you look at it biblically, you see so many times in the scriptures

where angels appear very physical. And I used to use the two with Lott. And as an example of how physical they were because they actually ate with him. And how the townsmen wanted to, the townspeople, I would assume actually, wanted to have sex with them. Right.

And I used to think, man, it's probably a very gay society, you know, the way, the way it's painting the picture, or in the scriptures. But the more I'm understanding things, the more I'm thinking, I think they wanted to do that because they were angels and they knew it, and they were already in the habit of procreating with angels.

Right. And it became a very strong sexual desire. And so anyways, I think that this entire conversation and the entities that we're discussing, I think that we can move our minds away from the idea that a ghost, a demon, their wisps, their poofs. And we say, yeah, they're whiffs, they're poofs, but they can poof to become physical. They can leave marks on people. They can create damage. And in that sense, they are something to be feared in the natural to a certain extent. I don't think that we're handicapped to combating them, obviously. But they're not what parents might say traditionally of, oh, they can't

hurt you. That's not true. That's not true. Just like I wouldn't say to my kids now, oh, it was just a dream. No, when my kids come to me with a dream, I say, oh, tell me more. Talk to me about it. You know, because maybe in the back of my mind, I listen to him like, oh, that was just a dream. Yeah. But I got to give it at least a little bit of a window to hear what they have to say. So before we wrap this up and stuff, tell people again where they can find you on the platforms and what your handle is. Sure. Yeah. You can find me as the supernatural sleuth over on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Awesome, man. Well, I highly encourage you to keep going with it. I know you're three years in. I've been doing it longer than you, but you have a much bigger platform than me on Facebook.

So I'm personally encouraged by it. Thank you. And I just want to encourage you to just continue doing it. And, you know, I believe three years from now, you'll probably be pushing two, three, four million on Facebook. And the more you push, the more people are going to come for the content. And while they're there, maybe they'll be exposed to Jesus too, which is always a goal. So I pray they do. Yeah.

I appreciate it, man. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Do you guys have anything to say before I cut it off? No, man. It was awesome. Thank you, man.

Thanks. Jack. I'm good. Forever. Hold your peace then. Guys, love you. Thanks for tuning in to another show, and we'll see you next week. See you. Thanks, shot season.

Grace hit me like, boom, can't miss. God with me, whole squad going, devil try to throw high green because the light too bright. Walking the spot like who that. Standing in the slang and the truth slap. Never in the way we moved dad. On my name for the hit like a du wreck. I'm stuck in the valley that view bad. Now I'm up in the hills with a food bag.

God took all my elves ran through that. Now the wind stack high like a new stack. Every step with the light that's a blueprint Whole pack getting bright cause he doing it He the king saw the crown got a new fidd and the cross here harder than a new clip We ain't here just a body's a movement Every giant in the way he'll move it If the world wanna hate we cool with it cause the love is strong

To the tree life Boom came in snow God with me whole squad I've been down in the dirt now I'm cleaned up Blood bought brand new never dreamed up Every thorn out of stone trying to team up Got 50,000 standing here feeling beamed up I remember them nice in the struggle

Feeling way down deep out of trouble But he showed up strong broke a muzzle Not a fake built bit like a double We ain't here for the frame of the flag We just point to the king, let him flash. Living water in the cup, no cap in the well, don't run dry, that's that facts. Now we run another path with a show step. Every loss is a setup for the best yet.

Every giant in my face is a test bet. Got swing once. Yeah, like, boom, boom, can't miss. No, get me like, boom, boom.