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Nov. 30, 2015 - Art Bell

02:22:44

Art Bell MITD - Ken Gerhard Flying Humanoids

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art bell ▲ ● ▼		From the desert of American Southwest, I bid you all good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be in the world's 25 time zones.
		Everyone covered like a blanket by this program, Midnight in the Desert.
		My name is Art Bell.
		The rules of our program is so simple.
		No bad language.
unidentified		And one call per show.
unidentified		Max.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's going to be an interesting night tonight.
		We're talking about flying cryptids.
		You don't know what that means?
		Stay tuned.
		We'll fill you in.
		Our president is at climate talks in France, trying to keep, along with the rest of the world, the world, from getting too hot to handle, which would mean three degrees Celsius.
		Can you imagine three degrees Celsius?
		We'd have water everywhere.
		I've got to tell you, what is going on in France, I hope, is mostly about what's going on in Syria.
		The situation in Syria is really scaring the hell out of me and should scare you too.
		And I hope that's what they're actually talking about.
		Even though climate warming is certainly important, having people to worry for is also important.
		And the Russians have now installed this incredible new missile battery.
		These missiles are capable of flying at Mach 5, hitting something at Mach 5.
		They are missiles that disperse other missiles, very, very high-tech, as good or probably better than what we have.
		Now, as you know, Turkey, a NATO member, has shot down a Russian jet.
		They are not going to apologize for it.
		And because of that, borders close, gas gets turned off to parts of Turkey, and all kinds of terrible things are happening between the Russians and the Turks.
		And that's bad enough.
		But I'm telling you, with the mix, it's the devil's mix in Syria.
		And what we have in Syria right now, in my opinion, is a soup that could end up cooking to a boil and becoming World War III.
		I know that's scary, but I'm going to tell you, I'm keeping my eye on it.
		And the fact that Turkey shot down a Russian plane, bad.
		Not yet World War III, right?
		But keep in mind, those of you who haven't been around for a long time, we have a treaty with Turkey.
		And if Turkey were to really begin mixing it up with the Russians, we have an obligation, a duty, a treaty-bound duty to come to Turkey's, come help them, right?
		So if it really gets bad, here's what you should watch for.
		If you hear of other warplanes getting shot down, if you hear of a U.S. jet getting shot down by the Russians, and they haven't put those things there for nothing.
		I mean, there are French planes flying and bombing, Russian planes flying and bombing, U.S. planes flying and bombing.
		There's bombing going all over the place, going on all over the place over there.
		So if you begin to see awful things happen, like a U.S. plane getting shot down, or a couple of U.S. planes, or a U.S. plane and a Russian plane getting into a fight, or Turkey shooting down more Russian planes, or an assault of some kind on Turkey, or perhaps somebody's asset at sea gets clobbered.
		If you see something like that begin to happen, take notice, because that would be the opening salvo of World War III.
		If that happened, I would pack my family up and be off to Southeast Asia as quickly as I could.
		Not that I think that would help much in the case of World War III.
		I'm supposing that nobody much cares about Southeast Asia.
		So all I might succeed in doing is having a slow, painful death due to radiation.
		But I'm trying to drive home to you how dangerous what's going on in Syria is right now to you.
		I understand this treaty, the NATO treaty.
		We have no choice.
		If Russia were to attack Turkey in some meaningful way, we would have no choice.
		And how quickly could that escalate?
		Well, the people that have studied the possibility of thermonuclear war think pretty quickly.
		So I'll leave it at that.
		Shoppers did a lot more on Cyber Monday than they did on, what is it, Black Friday?
		People are starting to stay home and do their buying on the keyboard.
		And I wonder what that's going to do to shopping centers, you know?
		I mean, it's just too easy.
		You can shop, you can click, you can compare, you can get the cheapest price, you can generally get free shipping, maybe no tax, who knows?
		It's quite a deal.
		Eventually, we're all going to just stay home.
		Now, I told you this story would make the bigger news, and it has.
		Fox News reports that astronomers in Australia have picked up an alien radio signal, notice how I emphasized alien, From space for the first time as it occurred.
		The signal or radio burst was discovered on May 15, 2014.
		It was just being reported by the monthly notice of the Royal Astronomical Society.
		The burst identified within 10 seconds of its occurrence, said Emily Petroff, a doctoral student from Melbourne's Swissburn University of Technology.
		The importance of the discovery was recognized very quickly, and we're all working very excitedly to contact other astronomers and telescopes around the world to look at the location of the burst.
		Now, to give you some idea of the strength of the burst, it released in a few milliseconds as much power as our sun does in 24 hours.
		The first one actually was discovered back in 2007, but always after the fact.
		Now they're hearing it real time.
		One of them was a double burst.
		So, could it be aliens?
		Yes.
		I wouldn't get really excited about it, according to Petrov, at this point, but they think it could also be coming from natural sources.
		So we have now had two things to get pretty excited about, more so than at any time that I've done broadcasting.
	And that goes back, as you know, a very, very long way.
	So between the megastructures, which, by the way, despite NASA's attempt at talking about a comet swarm, which is a possibility, still remain every bit as much a mystery as the day they were announced, as now do these radio signals.
	So we have now had two instances of possible alien contact, or I guess I should say, recognizing the fact that they are there in a month.
	And I went decades waiting for something like that.
	All right, coming up in a moment, Ken Gerhard is a widely recognized cryptozoologist.
	He's a field investigator for the Center for Foreign Zoology, a fellow of the Pangea Institute, and consultant for several anomalous research organizations.
	He has traveled the world searching for evidence of legendary beasts, including Bigfoot.
	I almost heard a cheer go up.
	The Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabra, Enigmatic Winged Creatures, and Werewolves.
	In addition to co-hosting the History Channel TV series Missing in Alaska, that's an interesting one.
	We will ask about that, Ken, has appeared in Monster Quest, featured in the History Channel special The Real Wolfman, as well as Legend Hunters, Unexplained Files, Paranatural, Weird, or What, Ancient Aliens, Monsters, and Mysteries in America, Ultimate Encounters, True Supernatural, and The Monster Project.
	Born on Friday the 13th of October, what a day.
	Ken has traveled to 26 different countries on six continents, as well as virtually all of the U.S. An avid adventurer, he has camped along the Amazon, explored the Galapagos, hiked the Australian outback, and has visited many ancient and mysterious sites from Machu Picchu to Stonehenge.
	Here, in just a moment, will come Ken, and he's going to talk about cryptids.
	Very, very interesting cryptids.
unidentified		So stay right where you are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How do you feel about monsters, huh?
		Tonight, we will bring you monsters galore.
		Take a seat, grab a cup of coffee, beverage of your choice, and get ready, because here it comes.
unidentified		You know, I need your night to reach midnight in the desert via Skype worldwide if on a computer.
		Please be sure to use a headphone mic and call MITD51.
		That's M-I-T-D51.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And here, as promised, Ken Gerhard.
		I guess that's right.
		Gerhard, is that Gerhard?
		Is that right, Ken?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Gerhard.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gerhard.
		Okay, good, good.
		Welcome to Meet Night in the Desert.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, thank you, Art.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		And please allow me to say that it's definitely an honor and a pleasure to be here speaking with you this evening.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Great to have you.
		So you're here to talk mainly, I guess, about cryptids, right?
		Flying cryptids for the most part.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's been kind of a focus of my research through the years.
		You know, the field of cryptozoology is vast and it's expanding and evolving.
		It's a movement that's been around for a while, and it encompasses a lot of really strange, bizarre, and unknown creatures.
		But I've found that the flying cryptids are often neglected by researchers and investigators, my colleagues.
		So I've, you know, kind of been on that particular trail for a number of years now.
		And I've got to tell you, I have accumulated a surprising number of accounts from very credible people who have seen flying creatures that are not recognized by science in a number of forms.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		When we advertised this, we said flying humans.
		Now, I guess is that a little misleading?
		because these things, is that misleading?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, here's the conundrum because a flying humanoid, and keep in mind that the field of cryptozoology was, it was a movement that was started by actual zoologists.
		So it's based on hard science, the fossil history, and so forth.
		So the notion of a flying humanoid, it doesn't really fit squarely in there.
		You know what I mean?
		But we do investigate these things as cryptid researchers because somebody has to.
		And as I mentioned, there are literally hundreds of documented sightings of these flying humanoid beings.
		And I imagine that those only are scratching the surface.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there you go.
		Flying humanoids.
		You just said it.
		So humanoid-like, not exactly totally humans, but humanoid-like, or partly human.
		And a good example would be, before the show, I had Ken look up, because I didn't want to spring it on him, Aswang, A-S-W-A-N-G.
		My wife, as you know, is a Filipina, and she is from the southern island of the Philippines where everybody, everybody believes in the Aswang.
		And if you guys out there in the audience go to Google and you put in Aswang, A-S-W-A-N-G, and then click on images on Google, you can kind of scroll down and you can see all these different photographs, as Ken did prior to the show.
		And an awful lot of them, to me, look like what we're talking about tonight.
		Now, when I tell you my wife believes in the Aswang, I'm not kidding.
		I mean, she is scared to death of this creature.
		And when you see it, you'll understand why.
		So, Ken, when you see the photographs that depict the Oswong, what do you make of it?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, the Oswong is actually, it reminds me of similar creatures that are reported in other diverse cultures around the world.
		For example, on the African island of Pemba, there's something known as the Papabawa, which is basically a vampire-like creature, not human, nobody really knows, but it flies in in the dark of night and attacks and kills and inviscerates.
		And people on that island are very terrified of the Papabawa to the extent that in the 1990s, there was actually a case of mass hysteria on that particular island.
		So, of course, in Mexico, very close to where I live, we have the Chupacabra.
		Of course, we'll take very, very seriously south of the border.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know what?
		I don't know where you are.
		You're not in Mexico, right?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		I'm in San Antonio, Texas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		San Antonio, close.
		Okay.
		I went to Basic in San Antonio, so I know exactly where you are.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
		So, you know, again, it's kind of the interesting thing about taking a global perspective and look at these flying humanoid creatures is there are many similarities in different cultures around the world.
		The fear is very real, as you indicated.
		The descriptions do vary, and, you know, that is the really interesting part.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, in the case of the Aswang, unfortunately, what it does is find young, newly pregnant women, and it takes the fetus from them.
		It's pretty horrible.
		Pretty horrible.
		And my wife believes that she heard one on her roof trying to get in, trying really, really hard to get in.
		And it is, I believe, unique to the Philippines.
		But as you mentioned, each culture seems to have their own, no matter where you go around the world.
		So there has to be a reason for it.
		Earlier, you used the word mythological.
		And to me, that implies not real.
		but somewhere at the beginning or the middle or the end of all these things that are cooked up around the world that we believe could be flying and could be killing, there is a germ of truth somewhere.
		Got to be.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, you hit the nail on the head there.
		It's really about perspective, isn't it?
		Because many of the remarkable animal discoveries of the past century started out as quote-unquote myths.
		The mountain gorilla, the giant squid, the Komodo dragon, the giant panda.
		I mean, all of these animals were considered mythological, except to the people, of course, that lived in those particular areas and were familiar with the animals.
		But to Western science, they were considered mythological.
		So cryptozoology is all about kind of bringing the shroud, the veil of mythology down and revealing that grain of truth behind each myth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Let's start with the big hundred-pound gorilla, so to speak, in the U.S. And that's Bigfoot.
		I mean, I can do show after show after show on Bigfoot.
		I talked to a lady in Texas who literally lives adjacent to and with a Bigfoot.
		That's big stuff here.
		And people absolutely believe it, and I see why.
		How does that fit into the cryptid because he doesn't fly, but otherwise, very cryptid-like, right?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, Bigfoot really represents cryptozoology art, as do his cousins around the world, the yeti or abominable snowman of the Himalayas, the Yeren of China, the Yaoi of Australia, essentially man-like forms, hominids, and evidently of a subhuman, you know, sort of an ancient subhuman type.
		So from a zoological standpoint, it makes perfect sense.
		Listen, Art, for thousands of years, there were several different forms, subspecies of humans that were living alongside each other.
		So why would the present be any different?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You say subhuman, subhuman.
		We're not really sure of that, are we?
		In other words, if Bigfoot is a real McCoy, We kind of, you know, I've had people on that have played Bigfoot talking to each other, and it sounded very intelligent.
		It sounded like a real language.
		And we say subhuman, but we don't really know enough to say subhuman.
		Maybe they're smarter than we are.
		Maybe dolphins are.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a fair point.
		I can't say.
		So perhaps, yeah, that wasn't the right vernacular.
		But my point being that there were things that looked very similar to Bigfoot in our fossil history, we know that lived for sure hundreds of thousands of years ago during the mid-Pleistocene epoch.
		So why could those beings not be around today?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, they absolutely could.
		The question is, and a big one always is, how do they stay...
		I would say.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		And that speaks to your point.
		That speaks to your point.
		They are, presumably, they are highly intelligent.
		They're not merely apes.
		All of the major great apes have been discovered as of 1902.
		So these are hominins, probably, you know, our closest, obviously our closest relatives on the planet.
		There have been indications of potential language, a basal language.
		There have been indications of sort of a rudimentary tool use in terms of, you know, stones and rocks.
		No indication that they use fire.
		But it's my personal belief that a lot of these could be adaptations that are basically that these beings have evolved to avoid contact with humans, that they deem us as their primary competition, and thus they've chosen to live in the most remote areas.
		They've chosen to live kind of a nocturnal lifestyle.
		They seem to move around a lot at night.
		And they are very skillful and adept at avoiding contact with us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think there is any question at all about Bigfoot being a reality?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		I'm convinced, Art, that Bigfoot is a reality.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think that's a good idea.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		The million-dollar question is, what is it?
		But there's a mountain of evidence, sir, a mountain of evidence.
		And most people that are sort of mildly interested probably aren't acquainted with all of the evidence.
		But if you immerse yourself in the subject matter and you combine thousands of documented eyewitnesses over the years, all of the legends, the global legends around the world that correspond, very consistent.
		And then you factor in the footprints that have been cast.
		And the Patterson film.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, by the way, how do you come down on the Patterson film?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		The first time I saw the Patterson film art, on an instinctive level, I thought that's got to be real.
		I mean, the movements are so fluid and natural.
		I've watched it, obviously, countless times throughout the course of my life.
		And it always comes back to the fact that we're talking about an era, 1967, when costume technology was not that advanced.
		And if you compare the movements and the size and the bulk of the figure in the Patterson film, the fluidity of this creature, you can actually see its muscles moving and flexing.
		The hairflow patterns are very natural.
		All of it works in concert together.
		And then if you go and look at any movie from that time period, like the Planet of the Apes movies, and you realize how primitive costume technology was in those days, I'm convinced the Patterson film is real.
		I guess it'll always be kind of inconclusive.
		No one's going to be able to prove it either way.
		They've never produced a suit.
		But then again, the creature got away.
		It did leave footprints.
		And so that kind of added to the evidence as well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ken, you know what really bothers me?
		If we were to get the equivalent of the Patterson film today and we got it digitally, nobody would believe it.
		And I say that because we live in a time of CGI that is so good that it can be made to be better than the real thing because they get all the exact angles they want.
		I saw the recent earthquake film.
		Did you see that?
		San Andreas?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no.
		That was the king of CGI.
		They destroyed California.
		And it was so real that, you know, you were sitting on the edge of your seat.
		I mean, that's how good CGI is.
		So if we got a modern equivalent to the Patterson film, I think that people would shoot holes in it because it's just so easy now to fake.
		Not then, but now.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, absolutely.
		And for that reason, I actually disregard a lot of the photographic evidence, or I should say I debunk a lot of the photographic evidence that I'm given these days because a lot of it has been manufactured.
		You know, it is very easy for someone with the skill and the software to devise something like that.
		But in 1967, that wasn't the case.
		And Patterson, people that knew Roger Patterson thought he was a stand, you know, he was a bit of a character, but he was a very simple man.
		And I honestly don't think that he had the resources and the mind to conceive of a hoax that brilliant.
		And furthermore, Art, there have been physical anthropologists that have studied that film, men much smarter than I am, and experts in biomechanics who've studied it, and have determined that the figure in the film is moving in a very non-human fashion.
		Its mode of locomotion, although it is bipedal, is very different from a human's.
		And it actually corresponds exactly with what you would have to have to propel a bipedal hominid that weighs several hundred pounds through those forests.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, we're coming up on a break, Ken, but I want you to think about something during the break.
		And I ask this of everybody who talks about Bigfoot and these kinds of creatures, Frankly, in general, and that is, if you were, I don't know, out in the forest somewhere and you saw a Bigfoot, there it is.
		You've got a high-powered rifle.
		You can actually settle for once and forever the fact that, you know, Bigfoot is real.
		You can be the king of cryptozoology forever.
		All you've got to do is squeeze that trigger and take it down.
		And the whole thing gets settled.
unidentified		Would you pull that trigger or walk away?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is Midnight in the Desert.
unidentified		Visions of someone like you in my life A love that's trunging
		out, holding me through the dark side Midnight in the Desert Doesn't scream calls.
		We trust you.
		But remember, the NSA, well, you know, to call the show, please dial 1-952-225-5278.
		That's 1-952-Call Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ken Gerhardt is here.
		He's a cryptozoologist.
		He talks about these things that we discuss so frequently here on the air.
		Right now, it's Bigfoot.
		Just before we get back to it, I want to read something from Dave.
		I won't give Dave's last name.
		Dave says, boy, it'd be stupid to claim treaty obligations or even think about them when Turkey is the aggressor.
		You'll soon see NATO dissolve over this, guaranteed, Art.
		Dave, you don't understand, buddy.
		NATO is a locked-in group, and NATO's not going to dissolve.
		And if a NATO country is attacked, Dave, we're at war.
		You need to understand that.
		We're at war.
		And you need to understand what that means.
		I really think an awful lot of today's generation doesn't have a clue.
		They don't have a clue about our treaty obligations, the ones that we're really stuck with and the ones that I guess we could let slide.
		It could happen.
		All right, Ken, welcome back again.
		And so I gave you the big question.
		There it is.
		You're out in the middle of the woods.
		You've got him in your sights.
		You've got a high-powered rifle.
		You can settle this question for all of humanity.
		You drop the Bigfoot.
		You bring him in, have him examined.
		You are the king, as well as the villain, of all of cryptozoology.
		What would you do?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, that is definitely a hot-button topic in the field of Bigfoot.
		Kill or no-kill is the debate that's been going on for years.
		You know, honestly, Art, I think several years ago when I was kind of getting started in the field, I would have absolutely pulled the trigger.
		And not for selfish reasons, not for money, not for fame, but because I really felt that the only way to protect Bigfoot was to prove conclusively 100% that it existed.
		And it has been estimated that there are probably at least several hundred, if not a couple of thousand individuals in North America alone.
		You would have to have that in order to maintain a viable breeding population.
		So if you shoot one, you're not necessarily shooting the last one.
		But, you know, where I'm sitting now, I think through the years that I've begun to view these beings, you know, as truly sentient.
		And I know that I've read many accounts of people that have actually had them in their sites, hunters and so forth, that have actually not been able to pull the trigger because they said that the things just looked so darn human.
		And, you know, could you live with yourself if you shot this thing and realized that essentially that is a human, a human form?
		So I would say right now in this place in time, no, I probably couldn't do it.
		But I'm hopeful that someone will eventually find remains.
		I mean, if these things are out there, they're dying of natural causes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, okay, that's a really good place to stop you and ask the big question.
		And that is, sure, if they are real in the same sense that we are, then there should be remains.
		And we haven't found those.
		So you've got to at least entertain the possibility that there is sort of paranormal in some way or another.
		And I'm sure you get that a lot.
		What do you think?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
		I do actually have been asked that question a lot, particularly in recent years.
		You know, I get the sense that we're kind of moving through sort of a rebirth of the spiritualist movement where people are very much embracing the paranormal and sort of cosmic, otherworldly aspects to our dimension and so forth.
		So, yeah, that is probably a strong argument why we haven't found a body, that they're simply stepping out into another dimension or through a doorway or a portal.
		There does seem to be a segment of Bigfoot sightings that have kind of really strange aspects where they've been shot at point-blank range and are impervious to bullets or where they're seen running and their tracks just disappear in the middle of nowhere.
		But coming from a traditional cryptozoology background, I still like to kind of hedge my bets and think that these are essentially pre-human forms, hominids from an earlier age that are essentially still around and they're highly intelligent.
		And who's to say that these things aren't capable of burying their own dead?
		Maybe that's one of the reasons we haven't found their remains.
		Very true.
		They've obviously evolved and adapted Behavior patterns to avoid being found by humans because they probably think that once they are found out, that'll essentially be the end of them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ken, have you actually interviewed somebody who has had a clear shot and taken it at what he thought was a Bigfoot?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I actually knew a gentleman or a group of gentlemen that were actively investigating and researching Bigfoot years ago.
		And according to them, they actually did take a shot and end up wounding one of the creatures.
		And, you know, it's kind of a grisly story.
		The thing got away, thank goodness.
		But, you know, I think maybe that was kind of a bit of an awakening for some of those gentlemen because I sensed after the fact that they realized what they had done.
		But perhaps they got caught up in the heat of the moment.
		You know, there have been accounts, this is interesting.
		You were talking about Asia earlier.
		There actually have been a handful of accounts from Asia of Bigfoot-type creatures being either captured or killed.
		Oh, yes.
		Oftentimes in a war scenario.
		I'm sure you've heard of the stories too, the rock apes of Vietnam and so forth.
		So there could potentially be remains out there somewhere in another part of the world.
		And boy, I sure wish we could get our hands on that evidence.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, so do I. Let's move on because really we were here to talk about flying cryptids and we have not yet touched on that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I guess a good place to begin would be Mothman, possibly.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
		Well, Mothman art is obviously one of the most enigmatic figures in the Annals of the Unexplained.
		I mean, the physical description is pretty wild.
		A gray man-like creature standing over six feet tall with immense wings attached to its body.
		Mothman really is the quintessential monster.
		I mean, it's almost like something that stepped right out of a science fiction movie.
		Most eyewitnesses have described it as possessing a low-slung head with two enormous eyes.
		And that's the most startling feature of the Mothman, these giant blood-red embers like automobile reflectors that seemingly have a hypnotic effect over humans.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I really, really, really can.
		I'm sorry.
		I don't like red eyes, Ken.
		Not even a little.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Wow, so this is kind of hitting a nerve, huh?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		These giant red eyes, are you envisioning that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I don't like that.
		I really, really...
		Red eyes, definitely one of them.
		When I was a kid, I always envisioned red eyes in my closet.
		I kept the door shut, the closet door shut all the time for that reason.
		Anyway, so Mothman is said to have red eyes, glowing red eyes.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Red eyes, and some people have claimed that when they were looking into these eyes, that they basically lost all control, fell into a hypnotic trance-like state.
		But the really frightening thing is that Mothman's behavior, there have been many accounts of Mothman chasing cars at speeds approaching 100 miles an hour.
		His sole purpose seems to be to absolutely terrify human beings.
		And, you know, obviously the story is that there were literally dozens, or according to researcher John Keel, hundreds of sightings of the Mothman beginning in November of 1966 with the Scarbury Mallet sighting.
		And then over the course of that next year, there were literally dozens or hundreds of sightings of this Mothman creature in and around the sleepy little town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If you have any specific stories you can tell about the appearance of Mothman, I'd love to hear them.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, the seminal sighting involved two young couples, Roger Linda Scarberry and Stephen Mary Mallet.
		They were cruising around outside Point Pleasant in an area known as the TNT area.
		And the reason it's called that art is back during World War II, they were using, there was actually a factory there that was manufacturing TNT for the war effort and other chemicals.
		It's a pretty wild place.
		It's actually, to this day, there's about 60 to 100 concrete igno-like structures where they stored the explosives and these hazardous chemicals.
		But by the 1960s, this was a hangout for the local teenagers.
		So they were basically just cruising through this area one night, November 15, 1966.
		And suddenly near an old abandoned building known as the power plant, they saw this figure.
		And the description was, you know, six and a half, seven feet tall, giant bat-like wings coming out of his shoulders and the giant red eyes.
		And of course, they saw this thing and they were utterly terrified.
		They took off back towards town, and to their horror and chagrin, the Mothman actually took off straight off the ground, and that's significant like a helicopter, and chased them all the way back to the town of Point Pleasant.
		It disappeared into town, and they were so terrified that they went to the local sheriff's office and burst in and filed a report.
		And the sheriff who was on duty, Deputy Dennis Hereford, was he actually knew the couple, the two young couples.
		Point Pleasant is a very small town, of course.
		Everyone knows everyone.
		And he knew them to be fairly upstanding and honest citizens and thought that they were basically scared witless.
		So they returned to the scene.
		They didn't see the Mothman, but they heard some strange noises.
		And that was it.
		That kind of started the whole movement.
		The next night, there were hundreds of people out at the TNT area looking for Mothman.
		And another woman named Marcella Bennett, who was visiting some friends nearby the TNT area, claimed that the Mothman actually rose up behind her car when she got out of her car, causing her to collapse in a trance-like state and fall on top of her infant child.
		So those are kind of the two seminal sightings of the Mothman that started the entire affair.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Would the description, do we see, let's see, is this Mothman?
		We've got a couple of drawings I know on the site.
		And God, they're ugly.
		If you go to artbell.com and click on my guest information, we've got a couple of things here.
		And I'm trying to figure out How such a creature, I mean, most everything we know that has wings takes gathering a little forward speed to get off the ground.
		They can't go straight up, or can they?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		No, you're absolutely right.
		You have certain laws of physics and inertia and momentum and so forth that all flying creatures born on this earth typically have some type of forward thrust or movement.
		And so again, many of the descriptions of Mothman was a very unnatural movement.
		This thing took off straight off the ground without flapping its wings, essentially didn't flap its wings while in flight.
		It was more of a glider and moved at just impossible speeds, you know, 100 miles an hour.
		So it definitely did not behave like anything that has evolved on this planet, anything that we can find in our fossil history.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Even Superman had to take quite a few steps and then a bound, I believe, to get going.
		I'm just kidding.
		But yeah, straight up, that's bothersome.
		And again, it seems to, you know, lead toward the paranormal more than not.
unidentified		That that's...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If I pause like that, Ken, that's a chance for you to jump in.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, absolutely.
		And again, as a cryptozoologist, I tend to look for the more pragmatic explanations.
		And for example, there's kind of an absurd theory out there that some cryptozoologists have put forward that what Mothman was, in fact, was some type of large owl that people mistook for something else and it created mass hysteria.
		Well, certainly I don't believe that based on all of the research that I've done.
		The only conclusions I can draw, Art, is that Mothman is some type of spectral entity or apparition.
		Whether you want to say or speculate that it is an extraterrestrial, whether it's an interdimensional being, a demonic, there are many different ways that people look at this phenomenon.
		But, you know, essentially it is not of this earth.
		It's not a flesh and blood creature in the way that we know it.
		You know, at least that's my opinion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then I guess that brings us to something known as the Owlman.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is that?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Owl Man is England's version of, essentially England's version of the Mothman.
		It's a very similar creature in terms of it's often seen in the same location.
		It has the, I hate to say it, Art, it's got the large glowing red eyes, once again.
		Wonderful.
		But the descriptions are somewhat different.
		Owl Man, which has been sighted primarily in the grounds and woods surrounding an old church in Cornwall, England, known as Mount Ann Church.
		It's right there on the coast.
		And interestingly, the church is said to be built on an ancient earthwork.
		But the Owl Man is described as essentially man-sized and winged, but with grizzled gray fur or feathers, pointy ears, a sneering, gaping black mouth, not a beak, and feet like pincers or crab claws.
		And what's interesting is that all of the encounters have been in the woods around this old church, and virtually all of the witnesses, and the sightings began in 1976, in the spring and summer of 1976, that all of the witnesses have been essentially teenage girls and one adolescent male.
		Now, my colleague John Downs in England has written a seminal book on the owl man, and what's interesting is that he believes that he's experienced a great deal of what we call psychic backlash while investing in this particular case.
		All kinds of unfortunate things that happened to him.
		And, you know, very reminiscent of the Mothman, where you have allegations of this curse, this death curse, that people that are involved in the Mothman have been harassed by the men in black or have met kind of mysterious and untimely ends.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
		Okay, so the implication of that would be that our own government at some level knows something about these things.
		And I can't imagine they wouldn't.
		I mean, if there are reliable reports of creatures that are able to fly, whether it's the American or British government, you would definitely think there would be an interest in finding out what they are.
		I mean, who knows?
		They could be weapons, right?
		Turned into weapons on the battlefield.
		So the U.S. government, British government, I would think, would have interest in them, hence the men in black.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		And John Keel, of course, who wrote the famous Mothman Prophecies book and kind of was there in the moment during the 1966, 67 flap, he certainly believed that there was government involvement, that his phones were being tapped, that he was being followed and harassed.
		He spoke to many of the Mothman eyewitnesses that came forward, claimed that they were harassed and threatened into silence.
		So there are that elements of the case as well.
		Now, don't you think it's interesting that the Mothman, most of the sightings of the Mothman were in this TNT area, essentially a place that represented the manufacture of explosives and hazardous chemicals and other things that were going to be used in a war effort as well?
		That's kind of a bizarre tie-in right there, I think.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
		I don't understand the tie-in necessarily, but yes, it's interesting.
		Of course it's interesting.
		Do you have any speculation about why?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, as I've researched a lot of these flying humanoid beings throughout history, I found that there is an underlying belief that these beings, whatever they are, are essentially harbingers or portents of tragic cataclysmic events.
		In the case of Mothman, you have the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge, which occurred in December of 1967, right around the time Mothman was being seen.
		And interestingly enough, the sightings of Mothman dramatically reduced after that.
		You have, in antiquity, you have Pazuzu.
		Pazuzu was a Sumerian, I'm sorry, an Assyrian winged humanoid type of figure that was often associated with famine and drought and all of these horrible events.
		And then, you know, going across the world to Scotland, you have something known as the Skree.
		The Skree is a flying humanoid type of creature, kind of a hideous witch, similar to the Oswang, I guess, in some ways, that is said to overfly battlefields before many people have been killed and things like that.
		So there's this underlying theme that these flying humanoids, whatever they are, are essentially omens.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hold it right there, Ken.
		We'll be right back.
		I'm Arthur.
unidentified		We'll be right back.
		We'll be right back.
		Midnight in the Desert, exclusively on the Dark Matter Digital Network with Art Bell.
		Invite you to call now, 1-952.
		Call Art.
		That's 1-952-225-5278.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ken Gerhard is here, and he's a cryptozoologist, mostly talking about the cryptids that fly.
		Perhaps a little misleading to say flying humans, but they are, in fact, partly human, actually.
		All right.
		So, Ken, you're back again.
		You said something that really caught my attention.
		You said they're frequently regarded as harbingers of something awful happening or that's happened or whatever, right?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		I found that in antiquity and different legends around the world, creatures that are depicted as being similar to the Mothman, and there are many examples, were greatly feared by those different local peoples because they represented a tragic event to come.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, Keith, if you're listening, I'm so sorry to ask this again, but there was a ton of photography done around the tragedy that was 9-11.
		Ken, I don't know if you've ever seen this photograph, but if you haven't, I'm going to fix it so you can see it.
		It was a photograph taken during the 9-11 tragedy, and it showed, God, I'm telling you, Ken, I can't get over it.
		I'll never get over it.
		It showed, and you had a building as a reference for his eyes, this giant prehistoric something or another, Ken, that was flying in the skies in New York while this was going on.
		And somebody caught it in a photograph.
		And if I can, somebody will send Keith, or Keith hasn't put it up, whatever, if we can get it up there, I'll get it up there, and you can take a look.
		You're not by any chance familiar with what I'm talking about, are you?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		I believe I've seen that photograph.
		Yeah, I'll have to see it again.
		Maybe it'll jog my memory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was going to ask, what is that thing?
unidentified		It looks prehistoric.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've certainly heard allegations, unsubstantiated allegations, that Mothman or a Mothman-type figure was seen before 9-11.
		The photograph, we're going to have to take a look at that.
		Is that up yet?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not yet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Keith moves quickly, but not that quickly, so I'll keep an eye out for it.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Okay, we'll take a look.
		That's interesting.
		I'd like to see that for sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, when you said Harvinger, I couldn't resist.
		I've wondered for a long time what that is.
		All right, so I know you've got specific stories you can tell us about things that have affected people that you really think, you know, are real, really happened, things that really happened, any cases, and we've got the time.
		So if you've got some good cases, lay them on us.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's some classic cases, Art, that are pretty creepy and honestly very frightening.
		For example, in 1956, in a place called Falls City, Nebraska, a gentleman, a farmer who used a pseudonym, John Hanks, when he actually reported the event, obviously didn't want to be exposed.
		But according to this gentleman, this farmer, he encountered a being while working out in his field one day, and this thing basically overflew him at a height of about 15 feet.
		And the description is pretty chilling.
		He said that this figure had a human-like form, would have been about nine feet tall.
		The wings were not actually organic wings.
		They were mechanical, sort of silver mechanical wings with a row of lights going down them, about 15 feet across.
		And this being, whatever it was, was operating these wings and flying with a control panel strapped to his chest.
		But the really chilling part was the description of the face.
		The face, he described the face as looking demonic with these blue, watery eyes and wrinkled, sort of leathery skin and a scowling frowl on its face.
		And as he watched this thing, it just sort of hovered over him ominously and then kind of took off.
		Another one that I'm quite fond of for similar reasons refers to the extraordinary bird woman of Da Nang, Vietnam.
		And apparently, according to a Marine by the name of Earl Morrison, he relayed this story to a UFO researcher named Don Worley.
		During the Vietnam War, he was stationed along with two other buddies and on top of, you know, sort of on watchtower type situation.
		And they saw a figure approaching in the distance.
		And at first they thought it was a very large bat, but they realized quickly that this thing was much larger than any bat they had ever seen before.
		And as this figure got closer and closer, they were able to make out that it was actually the form of a nude winged woman, completely black in color, seemed to be covered in kind of a black fur or hair-like substance and bat-like wings, and that she essentially she hovered like right over, flew right over their heads, peering down at them kind of ominously.
		And she seemed to be giving off kind of a green cast or a green glow.
		So that was kind of a very unnerving experience that these three gentlemen had.
		And what's really interesting, again, there is that, you know, we're talking about a battle type scenario.
		So these flying humanoids are often reported around military installations or over battlefields, things of that nature.
		But certainly not all the accounts are very old.
		I have a lot of modern accounts that I chronicle in my book, Encounters with Flying Humanoids.
		And in fact, I continue to receive accounts of these flying humanoid-type creatures.
		One of the most recent was a gentleman that lived out in West Texas.
		He caught in touch with me, and I interviewed this gentleman over the phone many times, and he comes off as extremely sincere and credible.
		And what he tells me is that he was out one night with his wife, kind of looking at the stars and an approaching storm system, and similar to the bird woman of Da Nang, they saw this figure approaching them.
		And when it got right over their heads, he said it was essentially a man-like creature with long flowing hair and giant black angelic wings.
		And he said this thing would have stood about 10 or 14 feet tall.
		It had very high cheekbones and a kind of a chisel to its face, facial features.
		And, you know, again, it soared right over their heads.
		So, you know, those are just some examples, but, you know, there are many, many more.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, again, I'm going to say this.
		It may not seem like it, but if you could somehow control these creatures during battle and you could make these things appear to your enemy, you know, listen, most of us feel that way.
		Frankly, if I saw something with glowing red eyes, you know, hovering in front of me, I'd probably toss down whatever I had and go in the other direction.
		And so they would be a big asset to anybody who could control them on a battlefield.
unidentified		No question about it, right?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, absolutely.
		And, you know, there's also been speculation that these things are extraterrestrial in nature.
		Could these be the familiars or the instruments of some higher intelligence, you know, probes, essentially?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, are there appearances associated with UFO sightings, that sort of thing?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely aren't.
		Well, they are.
		The time period when the Mothman was being sighted in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, there were UFO sightings, strange lights in the sky that were being reported to the local law enforcement agencies almost on a nightly basis.
		In fact, if you go back and look at the newspaper archives at that time, you've got literally as many reports of strange flying lights and UFO-type objects as the Mothman itself around that same time period and in that same area.
		Additionally, many of the flying humanoids that I've investigated in Mexico, and for some strange reason, Mexico seems to be ground zero for the flying humanoid phenomenon.
		Really, a lot of reports coming out of Mexico.
		And a lot of those have been logged by UFO investigators that are essentially videotaping these strange flying humanoid creatures in conjunction or in areas where they've also videotaped flying objects.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, since we're on that subject, are there any good videos or even fair videos of what we're talking about right now?
		Something that would be a fly encrypted.
		Has anybody caught it on camera or on video?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		You know, in terms of the flying humanoids, there are several videos that can be found online, and these were made by Mexican UFO researchers.
		And these are referred to as unidentified flying humanoids, UFHs.
		Now, the videotape quality is not that great.
		Essentially, what you're going to see in these videotapes are you're going to see a man-like figure.
		I mean, you can definitely make out two legs hanging down, two arms hanging down.
		But these are very different from the Mothman.
		They don't have any wings or any visible means of propulsion.
		But these figures, whatever they are, are essentially hovering around or flying around high up in the atmosphere.
		And they have been videotaped in many locations around Mexico going back to the year 2000.
		And again, in areas where UFOs have been reported as well.
		So I do cover these in the book because they do seem to be related in many ways to the Mothman-type figure, although they do not have wings or any visible way to fly.
		They're just merely up there very high in the air flying around.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Since you're in San Antonio, please comment for me on the chupacabra because when I was on the air, you know, a decade or two ago, the chupacabra thing was actually going on at the time.
		I saw some pretty awful pictures of what the chupacabra did and pictures that were represented to be a chupacabra.
		What do you know about that thing?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's one of the questions I get asked the most because there seem to be many different things going on here.
		The chupacabra is a case of composite identity where one particular word or name is being used as kind of a blanket to explain a lot of different weird things.
		But obviously the original chupacabra originated in Puerto Rico during the 1990s when there were a series of very grotesque livestock killings.
		And the name chupacabra, the literal translation is goat sucker.
		So it's a vampire-like creature.
		And of course the initial descriptions that came out of Puerto Rico and other Latin American countries describe this kind of a gargoyle-type creature, bipedal with a reptilian quality and giant eyes.
		But here in Texas over the past decade or so, there have been other animals that have been turning up that have been referred to as chupacabras.
		They always make it into the newspaper, onto the local news channel.
		Now, I've examined about a half dozen of these animals myself, the remains of these animals, and they are essentially they are grotesque-looking Canids or dog-like animals.
		They are completely hairless.
		They have kind of a rough hide-type covering, almost like an elephant.
		In many cases, they have abnormally large teeth, canine teeth or fangs, long claws, and so forth.
		And they're very grotesque and ugly-looking.
		And there have been allegations by some of the local ranchers and livestock owners that these dog-like animals are drinking the blood of their livestock.
		That has not been substantiated scientifically.
		But because there is a very strong Mexican-American influence here in Texas and other parts of the southern United States, you have that cultural influence essentially, that crossover aspect, where you have these strange-looking animals, predators that are showing up, and people are referring to them as chupacabras when they are, in fact, completely different from the creature or whatever it is that was reported from Puerto Rico beginning in the 1990s.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And now, whether it's a chupacabra or something with glowing red eyes, no thank you.
		Are there any reports?
		I have this feeling that if these things are perhaps demonic in nature, it seems like demonic things, ghosts, whatever, cannot actually harm, physically harm people.
		They can attempt to drive people into doing bad things, but they can't seem to actually manipulate in our physical universe.
		And I wonder if that is true of these flying cryptids as well.
		In other words, are there reports of people getting torn to bits by these things?
		Or generally, do we not get reports of physical attacks?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Ah, well, another great question.
		Actually, and I address this in my book as well.
		There are no documented accounts of anyone actually being physically attacked by a flying humanoid or Mothman-type creature, although there are many, many accounts of Mothman, Owlman, and other flying humanoid creatures chasing and terrorizing humans.
		So they do in fact seem to, for whatever reason, they want to terrify us.
		They want to frighten us.
		You know, I guess if you want to characterize that as demonic, then that's fair.
		This reminds me of an interesting citing, a case that occurred fairly recently in 2006, and this refers to the man-bat of Briggs Road, Wisconsin.
		I'd leave you a photo of this up on your website.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, wait.
		I want to know which one it is.
		The man-bat.
		Is that the first one or the second one?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		It's the first one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The first one.
		Ugly as sin.
		All right.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Yes.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		And that illustration, incidentally, is by Linda Godfrey, who I believe you had as a guest on your show.
		That's correct.
		That's her interpretation.
		But according to Linda, who was the initial investigator, these two gentlemen of Native American descent were driving home one evening in a place called Holman, Wisconsin, which is very close to La Crosse.
		And suddenly this creature that you see there dived out of the treetops and basically dive-bombed the pickup truck they were driving in.
		And they described it as having a human-like form with bat-like wings, a hideous face with long fangs, and kind of a pronounced rib cage and long claws.
		Well, this thing dive-bombed their pickup truck and took off.
		And shortly thereafter, they could hear this ringing noise, a very high-pitched ringing noise that actually forced them to pull over to the side of the road where they both became violently ill.
		Shortly thereafter, they got home and began to experience all kinds of strange things.
		Their dog, which was normally very affable and friendly, was hiding and cowering under the bed.
		They were hearing strange noises, banging noises around the outside of their house as if something, some type of unseen force was banging on their walls and harassing them.
		So this is just an example of kind of the attachment aspect of the flying humanoid phenomena.
		Not only are these flying humanoid creatures seemingly interested in terrifying and chasing and scaring the bejesus out of people, but oftentimes there is a residual attachment effect where people will actually experience all kinds of bad feelings and illness and kind of hibbie-jeebies after the event takes place.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In addition, you say that people who experience these things are frequently then either questioned or harassed by men in black?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, this is something that has been documented by, or was primarily documented by, again, John Keel, author of Mothman Prophecies.
		Now, no one was in the thick of it like Keel.
		He was actually there on the ground shortly after Mothman was first reported in Point Pleasant.
		He interviewed many of the eyewitnesses, and according to Keel, many of the eyewitnesses claimed that they were, in fact, visited by strange men in black-like figures.
		In fact, a woman named Mary Heyer, who was a local newspaper reporter there in Point Pleasant, claimed that a strange figure visited her at her office one time, and she said that he spoke in a strange, halting voice, almost as if English was a foreign language.
		Excuse me.
		And that he kind of had a fascination, a strange fascination for sort of the mundane objects that were laid across her desk.
		But the message was, in fact, very real that he did not want her to be reporting these Mothman accounts in the local newspaper and actually became kind of threatening in terms of his tone and demeanor and so forth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very MIB-like.
		Yeah, that's really curious.
		Very, very curious.
		And I can only, you know, if you sit down and try and imagine, well, why would our government or their agents be interested in this sort of thing?
		Again, I go back to the possibility of their use in terrorizing an enemy.
		That's all I can think of.
		Or, if you want to get even a little further down the road of strange conjecture, it could be that in some government lab somewhere they created these damn things.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, those are certainly two of the theories that have been suggested, you know, that Mothman is some type of diabolical military experiment, you know, that perhaps Mothman rose up out of the sort of the cosmic chemicals and some of those other, you know, kind of like a mutation that kind of rose up there in Point Pleasant, you know, but perhaps it was some type of intelligent design.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I also had a lady who called, I think we were in an open lines segment, or maybe it was, we were doing something on Bigfoot, and she said that something like a Bigfoot actually ran into her car.
		In other words, she was going down the highway, and this thing came from the side and happened to hit the side toward the rear of her car, and there was a fair amount of damage.
		Whatever it is, got away, but it actually just apparently wanted to run into her car.
		That's pretty weird, huh?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		That is pretty weird.
		I don't think I've heard of an account quite like that.
		I've heard of many people who claim that Bigfoot-type creatures have chased their vehicles similar to the Mothman or jumped out at them, you know, sort of as they were changing a flat tire on the side of the road on a dark and lonely road, that type of thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, isn't that always the way?
		You're on a dark, lonely road, your car's not running, and you've got a flying cryptid after you.
		God, that's scary.
		So why so much in Mexico, Ken?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think a couple of reasons, possibly.
		Mexico, of course, has, for those of your listeners that are familiar, and I'm sure many of them are familiar with the ancient alien aspect or tie-in to Mexico, you have all of these great civilizations that sprung up there,
		the Olmec and the Zapotec and the Aztec and the Maya, and civilizations that obviously had a very perplexing level of technology and mathematic and knowledge of astronomy and different things like that.
		So the inference, of course, is that there have been perhaps extraterrestrial landing spots, I guess you would say, in Mexico.
		Now, when I was investigating a flying humanoid type creature just outside of Monterey, Mexico, back in 2009, I was taken to a mysterious place known as La Huasteca, which is in the Sierra Madre Mountains just outside of Monterey.
		And there in a kind of a sacred spot are these ancient pictographs on the side of this rock wall that are thousands of years old.
		Nobody really knows how old they are.
		And they seem to depict strange circular objects flying around in the sky.
		So, you know, that's just yet another example of why, you know, Mexico seems to have been a UFO hotspot for probably thousands of years.
		And of course, in recent years, you have many, many sightings of UFOs down there as well.
		But there are many accounts of these flying humanoid creatures in and around Monterey, in and around Mexico City.
		And so Mexico, just for whatever reason, seems to be ground zero.
		And I wish I could explain it better than that, Art, but it's a pretty fascinating place.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, whether it's Bigfoot or these flying cryptids or it's UFOs and Mexico, I wish we could pin all this down and come to some kind of conclusion about it, but it seems always just out of reach, just out of being able to actually prove something.
		And yet it keeps coming back and tantalizing us with appearances, showing us things.
		UFOs, God knows, I've had my own sightings.
		I think most people have, and yet it just stays at arm's length from us in terms of actual proof.
		Just like Mothman.
		Just like Bigfoot.
		All of these things share.
		That's why I think people like myself tend to say it's got to be in the paranormal category.
		And for that matter, ufology, some of ufology may even be, because they disappear, they appear.
		If you've seen one, you can't unsee it.
		I mean, I've seen a UFO up close, too close, and I will never unsee that.
		That'll be planted in my brain forever.
		I know that other people who have not seen doubt and even make fun of the whole thing, but it's going on, Ken.
		There's no question about it.
		I have a feeling it's the same with these cryptids.
		People are probably, implying cryptids, they're probably even less likely to come out and admit to go to the police and make drawings or whatever.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, absolutely.
		And it's very frustrating as an investigator, Art, because coming from more of a scientific methodology or background, one of the things you look for is discernible patterns.
		And the flying humanoid phenomenon is so amorphous and ambiguous in nature.
		You have all of these different descriptions and different locations and mysterious motives.
		But the one thing I can say for sure is that many, many people have encountered or seen these creatures.
		I've interviewed many credible people with no reason to lie or make this up.
		These have been very traumatic, life-changing experiences.
		Going back to John Keel for a second, author of the Mothman Prophecies, I know I've mentioned him a few times here now, but he really does, you know, he really was kind of the father of this whole flying humanoid movement.
		And he had a belief, Keele did, that all the things that you mentioned, the UFOs, demonic activity and ghosts, even many of the cryptids, that those were all essentially manifestations of the same phenomenon.
		And he referred to it as the cosmic trickster.
		Sometimes he referred to it as the goblin universe.
		And essentially what Kiel felt was that there was what he called an ultraterrestrial intelligence, something well beyond our realm of understanding, that would essentially manifest in all of these different forms that we refer to as unexplained phenomenon for reasons that are probably far beyond our comprehension, but certainly something that has to be contemplated, you know, that there could be a force out there that is essentially toying with us in that manner.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Well, you mentioned that he was harassed by MIBs, right, Men in Black.
		And you too, I would think, I mean, writing about this and investigating it the way you are, frankly, Ken, I would think that you might have had an experience or two with people coming to see what you're all about.
		I mean, look what you're writing about.
		So anything happened to you?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Probably the strangest thing that's happened to the art was when I was actually traveling to Point Pleasant to film a television show, a documentary on the Mothman one time.
		I was sitting next to a gentleman on the airplane who looked like just kind of a young, clean-cut, all-American kind of guy.
		And he kind of struck up a conversation with me and began asking me where I was headed.
		And I said, Point Pleasant.
		And he essentially stated that that's where he was from and began asking me about the Mothman.
		And he seemed to just have a real kind of unusual interest in my motivation and why I was going to investigate the Mothman and made every attempt and effort to kind of debunk it in different ways.
		To kind of, I guess, take the wind out of my sails, so to speak, which I thought was really strange coming from this particular individual who, it was just very out of context.
		It wasn't really intimidating, but it was kind of a subversive way to, you know, distract me from my mission, so to speak.
unidentified		I felt very uncomfortable, I have to admit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, well, as I mentioned earlier, when you've seen something like this, whether it's a cryptid flying or not, and it seems not human or semi-human, and or you've seen something in our skies that doesn't belong there and is completely inexplicable by any physics that we understand, then you have to imagine one of two things.
		Either, you know, they really are here, and or they have shared something with our government.
		I mean, what I saw either was lighter than air, which I don't believe for a second, or was operating on some sort of anti-gravity system of some kind.
		Hold on.
		Hey, listen, everybody.
		Our public number, if you want to join in on this cryptid, flying cryptid conversation, our national number is now open at area code 952-225-5278.
		That's area code 952-CALLART.
		Or, of course, on Skype.
		Feel free to join us.
unidentified		This is a good one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And especially, I should say, if you have seen something like this, have you?
		Don't be afraid to pick up that phone.
		I'm Art Bell, and this is Midnight in the Desert.
unidentified		Midnight in the Desert I've got a snow move.
		Oh, my mind.
		I'm on the man with a stone.
		I'm on the level with the deep touch.
		This is Midnight in the Desert.
		To call the show.
		If you're East of Midnight, call 1-952-Call Art.
		If you're west of midnight, call 1-952-225-5278.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's kind of the mini talk.
		Let me give you the real thing.
		Again, our national number, if you'd like to join in the conversation, is area code 952-225-5278 or easier to remember, 952-CALLART.
		Then there are other ways.
		And I see no reason not to open these other lines.
		So if you're a first-time caller to the program, sure.
		Come on ahead.
		Area code 775-285-5800.
		That's 775-285-5800.
		And of course, we've got the Roswell connection, which is area code 575-208-7787.
		Are you writing this down?
		575, the area code 208-7787.
		Naturally on Skype as well.
		In North America, MITD51.
		Outside the country, it's MITD55.
		Now, countries, I should say.
		If you're not in North America, if you're, you know, out there somewhere, MITD55 is a free call from anywhere in the world.
		It will connect you with Ken.
		And he is a cryptozoologist.
		We don't get them on here frequently.
		So if you have a connection with something in your past or know something about flying anywhere in that area, please feel free to join us.
		And let's bring Ken back.
		Ken, you're back on the air again.
		I don't know if Keith has yet found that photograph.
		I really, really, really would like you to see it.
		He might not have even been listening for all I know sometimes.
		I think Keith sits there and sort of half listens to my show.
		So let's take a look-see real quick.
		I'm going to fish around for that picture.
		It's the darndest thing, but it had to do definitely with 9-11.
		And, you know, it was when you said Harbingers that it caught my attention.
		Well, I don't see it yet.
		Let me click on your stuff.
		And I've got a ton of calls for you here, Cand.
unidentified		Awesome.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it is awesome.
		We've got it.
		We've got it.
		It's not a zoom-in picture.
		Before we had a zoom-in picture, and you could see the size of this damn thing.
		If you look at your own, go down below your own pictures, the ones you provided or the drawings, just below that, you will actually see this creature.
		The zoomed-in one is just spectacular.
		But this is some kind of gigantic something, I'm telling you.
		Are you on my site?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Oh, wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Look at the size of that damn thing compared to, I mean, it's way over on the other side of the building, for goodness sake.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		That thing's huge.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's huge.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		You know what this all potentially reminds me of, Art.
		One thing that I've investigated besides the flying humanoid forms are the quote-unquote thunderbirds.
		And thunderbirds are cryptids.
		The name Thunderbird is derived from different Native American traditions of these enormous bird-like creatures, very different from the flying humanoids because they do appear to be either enormous birds with wing spans that are comparable to small airplanes, or some people have described them as actually looking very prehistoric, like the pterosaurs, the pterodactyls.
unidentified		I wish we had the zoomed-in picture of this reptiles.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If we have the zoomed-in picture, you would look at that and you would say, I promise you, prehistoric.
		And again, it was connected with 9-11.
		We've got a lot of people who want to talk to you.
		I don't want to take up a lot of time, but I did want to point that out when you said that they frequently are around wars and disasters and all that sort of thing.
		So very quickly, let's go first to Skype and say hi, Your Honor Ken.
unidentified		Good evening.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good evening.
unidentified		I'd just like to give a quick shout out to the people I'm listening to with over on Slash X. Slash X?
		Indeed.
		You'd rather, it's better you didn't.
		I have a comment and a question for your guest.
		Comment first in regards to why it seems to be a lot of flying creature sightings or a lot of these sort of crypto-zoological sightings in general in South America and Mexico is probably because you see, if you look at it anthropologically, a lot of these places were sort of, dare I say, paganistic Catholics.
		Like if you look over in the Philippines, they were colonized by the Spanish.
		And if you look in Mexico and Brazil, et cetera, et cetera, they were all colonized by Portuguese and Spaniards.
		And they were very lenient in their sort of conversion with the culture.
		And I think that's why we see a lot more of these sort of mythical creature sightings, because they sort of have that paganistic essence to their Catholicism.
		And I wanted to know what your guests thought about that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really good question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why would you promote something that it's better I don't know about?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Wow, that's a very fascinating take.
		And I guess I've kind of dealt with that quite a bit because I've done a lot of research down in Mexico.
		And the way I always explain it to people is that Mexico is a very traditional culture.
		And a lot of that, when you have traditional spirituality, a lot of times that does go hand in hand with sort of paganistic and almost superstitious belief systems.
		So it's just a matter of interpretation.
		So you're definitely onto something there from a cultural aspect.
		But you're working on the premise that people are essentially, I don't want to say creating or fabricating because I don't mean to insult you.
		But people are, from my experience and my research, these are real experiences.
		So if you're saying it's a matter of perception or perspective, then I accept that.
		But it certainly still does not explain the fact that many people are sighting and encountering these strange creatures.
		And there really is no scientific explanation for that.
unidentified		I just have one more quick question.
		It's also in relation to South American stuff.
		In the last couple of years, there have been a lot of sightings coming online about gnomes or goblins, some people would call them, but specifically like very small-sized humanoid individuals.
		And I'll take the answer to that off the air.
		But I was just wondering if you know anything about the space-a lot art.
		Have a good day.
		Oh, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		See, he just ran away.
		Anyway, small goblins and stuff and gnomes.
		You want to come in on that?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, gnome-like creatures.
		You know, we just, the TV series that I'm currently co-hosting called Missing in Alaska, we actually did an episode.
		There are these strange little gnome-like creatures that are greatly feared by many of the native Alaskan people, the Inuits and so forth.
		And they have a variety of different names.
		They're known as the Inksjihok or the Jinxiok, the Inukans.
		But essentially, they are characterized, it's very similar to the fairy lore of Europe.
		But they are literally terrified of these little goblin-like creatures that are said to be two to three feet tall.
		And they're borderline malevolent, kind of tricksters and mischievous, but on the same token, greatly feared by many of the Inuit people.
		So it's just, as with many things within the field of cryptozoology, it's just fascinating.
		You have all of these disparate worldwide traditions and cultures of little gnome-like creatures.
		And, you know, they're often portrayed as, you know, kind of sinister tricksters.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Nothing like the travel gnome.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		No, not at all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Completely different.
		Okay.
		First time call a line, you're on the air with Ken.
		Hi.
		Hello.
		First time caller line, this is your big chance.
		Going once, going twice, gone.
		Hi, Winterhaven, Florida.
		You are on the air.
unidentified		Hey, Art, how are you tonight?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very well, thank you.
unidentified		Hey, I just wanted to ask Ken what he thought about And people are, because some of these UFOs are actually seen to morph into different shapes, almost like placebo-like creatures.
unidentified		Yeah, I think it's a fair question, actually.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Things that live in our atmosphere, and perhaps at very high altitudes, so we don't even notice them.
		I mean, heck, if the jet is up at cruising altitude, you barely even notice it when it goes over.
		So how about it, Ken?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Scientifically viable, I would say.
		I know in recent years there have been a number of studies done with high-elevation balloons and things where they have actually detected life forms.
		There is life on the very fringe of our atmosphere in the upper stratosphere and so forth.
		Now, obviously, microscopic, everything that's been found has been kind of on a microscopic level.
		But nothing else, it illustrates the fact that life finds a way, and you can potentially have life forms in places where you wouldn't expect it.
		Now, in terms of the kind of living UFOs or organic UFOs, there have been a number of accounts recently that I'm aware of of these kind of manta ray-shaped creatures that are seen flying through the air.
		Very distinct and different from Mothman.
		These are not humanoids, but essentially they look like, you know, again, stingrays or manta rays that you would expect to see in the ocean, but people have reported seeing these things flying over the air in places like Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Florida, and so forth.
		And nobody knows exactly what these things are.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let me add something here.
		I'm a drone owner.
		I own a drone.
		Pretty good size.
		And let me tell you, my friend, by the time that thing gets 150, 200 feet into the air on a clear day, it's gone from sight.
		You wouldn't even know it's there.
		In fact, you can't even hear it.
		Sound's gone.
		It's gone.
		It's just gone.
		So there could be things in our atmosphere at certain altitudes, and we would never in a million years know it.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, absolutely.
		I'm there.
		And I'm hopeful that one of your callers will also talk about the vast and deep oceans of the world, because I think that's where you have the real hope for new discoveries of all kinds of fascinating and strange life forms.
		I mean, we know literally nothing.
		I think 5% of the Earth's deep oceans have been explored at this point.
		I agree.
		There could literally be anything down there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		One more quick thing that I want to touch on, because a number of people pre-interview asked me about this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're doing something on missing people in Alaska, right?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
		I'm co-hosting a show called Missing in Alaska.
		It's on the History Channel, and it's actually a two-pronged investigation.
		We are, in fact, investigating actual cases of missing persons.
		And Alaska, strangely enough, has a higher percentage of missing persons per capita.
		I believe it's like four out of every 1,000 people are reported missing in the state of Alaska.
		And while there are obvious reasons why that might take place, hypothermia, bear attacks, things of that nature, getting lost in the wilderness and so forth, for that particular show, we are exploring a lot of sort of unexplained phenomenon and legendary type creatures and things that could potentially have connections or affinities to some of these missing persons' cases as well.
		So we do an episode on Bigfoot, many reports of Bigfoot in Alaska, lots of UFO activity up there.
		There have been cases, I'm sure you're familiar with some of the cases of these missing aircraft up there.
		I mean, there have been airplanes that have vanished up in Alaska that, you know, they've mounted incredibly extensive searches and, you know, still have never found any sign or trace of these aircraft.
		Some of the military craft with 46 people on board.
		You know, that's just one example.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I worked for KENI in Anchorage for three years, so I know Alaska.
		Okay.
		Have a lot of friends still.
		Much better than I. Not much better, but pretty well.
		What I remember about Alaska, to be honest with you, is that when winter sets in, the cold, the real cold comes, and the snow comes, Alaska, Anchorage in particular, and I'm sure Fairbanks as well, turns into a gigantic party town.
		You've never seen anything like it in your life.
		So I can imagine that people who party it up really well and then wander off somewhere into 30 below zero can probably disappear quite readily.
		Let's go back to Skype and Paul.
		Hi, you're on the air with Ken.
		Hello, Art.
		How are you?
		I'm very well, thank you.
unidentified		Well, I wanted to ask you and Ken, actually I want to give you just a tiny bit of background.
		Here in Kentucky, we have a lot of folk legends.
		My father was born here in 1903.
		He grew up in The military.
		He was in the 82nd Mounted Cavalry.
		He was a weapons expert.
		He was home out of the military in 1927 due to cutbacks, was hunting up in a gorge around Mammoth Cave, Cobrun, close to where I'm at right now.
		And he saw a bird-like animal in the top of a snag.
		He said approximately 100 yards away.
		This guy was an expert shot, however, a .22-caliber weapon.
		And it terrified him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, so, again, he had a .22 with him?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that what you said?
unidentified		Yes, he was going squirrel hunting.
		And he only had a single-shot .22.
		He didn't have a powered rifle.
		And he told me this story from the time I was a kid on going out into the woods.
		I'd go out walking with me and with him.
		And it bothered him so bad if a hawk or an eagle circled overhead, it would trouble him.
		He said, you know, I really hate that because he thought this thing was going to carry him off.
		He felt like it had that kind of power.
		And he described it as having bat-like wings folded around it and approximately the height of a man.
		He had 20, 15 vision.
		The other thing I wanted to tell you is I was in Point Pleasant the very first of the year 1970 because they had another flare-up of the Mothman type sighting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They seem to come in groups, don't they?
unidentified		Yeah, yes, they do matter.
		But Ken, you know, with so many sightings like this, you must have some insight into are these transdimensional or are they some prehistoric carryover we just haven't cornered?
		It's a big earth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is.
		Ken, it's a fair question.
		I know you can't really answer it, but do you have any clues?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think when addressing the problem of flying cryptids, I think we're dealing with a lot of different things here, and I think that that kind of muddies the water, so to speak.
		In the case of the flying humanoids, things like Mothman, Owlman, and so forth, I think you would absolutely have to say that we're dealing with something supernatural or spectral in nature.
		You know, they don't resemble anything in the fossil history.
		They seem to vanish as quickly as they appear in sort of a supernatural fashion.
		But on the other hand, you have these, again, these thunderbird-type creatures, which is kind of what you're talking about there, this giant prehistoric bird-like creature that could very well be some type of surviving pterosaur or pterotorn or something from our prehistoric past.
		So I think there's a bit of a confusion there because people tend to lump all of the flying cryptids together and associate them when, in fact, we may be looking at something that is cryptozoologically viable in terms of a surviving prehistoric giant bird or flying reptile.
		And then you also have these reports of these spectral mothman-type flying humanoids.
		And, you know, I think people tend to lump all of that stuff together just because they're big, scary flying things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, do me a favor, Ken.
		It'll probably be after the program, but download or copy the picture on my site, right?
		The one I've got up there that I talked about.
		And use any program you've got and go in and amplify as far as you can go without it pixelating.
		You know, get as close as you can and boy this thing.
		I'm telling you, it looks so prehistoric.
		Stay right where you are.
		We're at a break.
		We'll be right back.
		It's a short break.
		This is Midnight in the Desert.
		And I am Arthur Bell.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Sip and then eat sup.
		Will you partake of that last offer cup?
		Or disappear into the butterstruct?
		When the man comes around.
		Midnight in the desert dozen screen calls.
		We trust you, but remember, the NSA fell.
		You know.
		To call the show, please dial 1-952-225-5278.
		That's 1-952-Call Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's funny.
		Um, that Splash X guy?
		He didn't have to hide himself.
		He's, uh, so now I know, he's a 4chan guy.
		You could have said that.
		Jeez, dude.
		We all know that those people at 4chan are hairy and cryptid-like and interested in this sort of topic.
		So next time, feel free to promo away.
		Problem with that.
		I let everybody promo their groups on here.
		Okay, back now to our guest.
		Ken, you're back on.
unidentified		Yes, you need to be back on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Uh-oh.
		Ken?
		Ken, Ken, Ken.
		Ken.
		Something has happened to our audio.
		I'm not sure what.
		Quick question for you.
		Is that a USB setup?
		Yes, correct.
		Yes, correct.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What I want you to do, Ken, is to unplug the USB from your computer from the USB connection right now.
		Unplug it.
		And then plug it back in.
		And we're going to see if that clears up what's going on.
		That sounds like a typical USB mess up.
		So are you back?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		I'm back.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Can you hear me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		See, it's like saying a prayer and it comes true.
		I hear you just fine.
		So yeah.
		If you're ready, here we go.
		Let's go to El Paso, Texas.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Hello, Lord.
		Hello, Ken.
		Hi.
		I wanted to share a quick story that I'm going to story on an experience I had with one of these creatures.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, by all means.
unidentified		This happened approximately seven years ago.
		I was in my backyard with a group of friends.
		And my friend noticed it first off in the distance in the sky, very far away towards it because we could barely see it.
		It appeared to be a human shape with something on its back, almost like a box-type thing.
		And it was just floating up in the air and tumbling in the air.
		And then we couldn't recall what it was.
		Okay.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Where did this take place?
unidentified		Here in El Paso, Texas.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Oh, wow.
		Okay, so you're a neighbor.
		Well, if you consider 600 miles neighborly, but you're just west of me there, a little hopskipping.
		You know, that's interesting.
		Texas does seem to have right after Mexico, and I guess I consider Texas a bit of an extension of Mexico in terms of geography, that we have a lot of weird flying things that are reported here in Texas as well.
unidentified		We're actually on the border with Mexico.
unidentified		Maybe that's why.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		El Paso is right on the border.
unidentified		And across the river.
		So you've seen it, huh?
		Yeah.
		I mean, it definitely wasn't a plane or anything like that.
		I mean, you can see a human-type shape.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		You should definitely go online and look up some of the videos of the, again, it's UFH, Unidentified Flying Humanoids.
		And there are some Mexican UFO researchers that have basically posted a lot of these videos of these strange.
		It sounds very similar to what you're describing, a man-like form kind of just hovering around up in the air.
unidentified		Wow.
unidentified		I'll look into it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Kohler.
		Thank you.
		Very interesting.
		You see, people have seen these things.
		This is not an area that I'm very familiar with.
		Ken, I mean, I've heard of all of these things, but I've never seen one.
		So I guess I'm sort of at a disadvantage.
		But man, it's really cool and very interesting, and obviously there's something to it.
		People have seen it.
		First time caller line, you are on the air with Ken.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, this is JD and Tulsa.
unidentified		I want to say hello on behalf of my fellow Midnight Riders.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Midnight Riders, okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I encourage people to promote even 4chan.
unidentified		My wife is from Peru, and she's told me about flange humanoids before.
		And like you said earlier, they have no wings.
		Have you heard anything about them?
		And I was also going to ask, what about shapeshifters?
		I'm a full-blood Native American, so we have a lot of beliefs like that.
		I didn't know if you've done any study on shapeshifters and possibly art.
		That would be a good guess.
		You know, maybe some tribal police because they are supposed to investigate those claims in a shapeshifter way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And where is your wife from again, please?
unidentified		Peru.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Peru?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And the question of shapeshifters, also very interesting, Ken?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, shapeshifters, very, very scary in terms of, you know, different interpretations of shape-shifting type creatures.
		The Oswang, you know, we kind of started off at the beginning of the show, bit of a shapeshifter.
		In Alaska, there is a creature known as the Kushtaka, the land otter man, greatly feared.
		We did an episode on that, and people were very, very terrified.
		The native people were very terrified of that.
		And then, of course, the Navajo traditions in the United States of the skinwalkers, essentially shape-shifting type beings.
		Now, in South America, I have a contact who has been sending me accounts and sightings of something known as the Lobazon.
		And the Lobazon is essentially a South American werewolf, a shapeshifter.
		And there are accounts of these creatures actually transforming, you know, from the shape of a human into a kind of a monstrous wolf-like type of creature.
		So, you know, again, just like with the gnomes, you have all of these global, disparate legends or myths of these shape-shifting creatures.
		And as you said at the top, Art, myths don't come from nothing.
		There is some grain or shred of truth behind all of these myths or legends.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Somebody asked me to repeat the name of the one in the Philippines.
		It's Aswan, ASWANG.
		And I would recommend you go to Google.
		If you want an experience, go to Google, put in A-S-W-A-N-G, go to pictures or images, and there are literally hundreds.
		It's pretty frightening stuff, and that is unique, as far as I know, to the Philippines.
		And boy, does my wife believe in that.
		I mean, you could get in a big fight trying to say they don't exist.
		Jason, you're on the air with Ken.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, Art.
unidentified		Hi, Ken.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Jason.
unidentified		First off, I want to say thank you for touching on the Otterman subject.
		I've been following that for a very long time.
		And you're the first people I've heard actually talk about it, so I like that a lot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The Otterman.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		My question was, you're aware of the genetic similarities that exist between...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can you get good and close to your mic?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know if you're breaking up or just a bad mic.
unidentified		Is that any better?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Way better, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Way better.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		Are you aware of the genetic similarities that Homo sapiens shares with, say, gorillas and other primates, correct?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Now, my question is, do you think as far as the Sasquatch, Yeti, or whatever you want to call it goes, there's evidence that we crossbred with Neanderthals and some of their DNA remains in our current structure?
unidentified		Do you think it would be possible for us to crossbreed with, say, a Sasquatch and perhaps some advanced, more powerful hybrid could come of it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You first, sir.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's wild speculation.
		this is basically all wild speculation, but we would have to know how genetically close humans and Sasquatches are.
		Now, if they are Neanderthals, which some people have theorized, or Denisovans, or some of these, you know, fairly recent sub-branches of Homo, the genus Homo, then yes, I guess theoretically it's possible.
		But if you're talking about something that comes from a lineage, say, hundreds of thousands of years ago, like Gigantopithecus or Homo erectus or something like that, then the chances are that there has been so much time has passed since we genetically split at that point that we would not be able to successfully hybridize.
unidentified		But don't you think that given the time that people have been claiming they see Sasquatch and stuff, they've basically been on the same speed of biological evolution that we have, so we can assume that we're at least close enough?
		I mean, I'm not saying that like with other species, like if we were to try to mate with Otterman, that would work.
		But with that, I get your point.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		You have the story of Stalin's ape men.
		Of course, there were these diabolical experiments that some of Stalin's scientists were trying to crossbreed humans and different great apes.
		Again, it's a question of, and I don't pretend to be an expert in genetics, but it's a question of the time period that we split.
		Case in point, dogs and wolves or dogs and coyotes can crossbreed fairly successfully because they only split about 15,000 years ago.
		That's just a drop of water in the bucket.
		But dogs and other caniforms like bears, for example, split about 15 million years ago.
		And so that divergence was so long ago and have become so genetically diverse and different that there's no way that those types of animals can interbreed.
		So, you know, again, it's a question of how long ago, whatever Sauce Watcher Bigfoot is, you know, how closely related are we to it?
		Is it more of like a Neanderthal type of creature, or are we talking about something that split off from the human lineage, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, that brings another question to mind.
		Caller, hold on one second.
		I'll bring you back.
		I know that they found hair.
		I know that they found other leavens from Bigfoot.
		Have they ever done a DNA analysis?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, there are controversial claims of DNA analysis that have been out there now for a few years.
		A geneticist from Texas claims that she's actually collected Sasquatch DNA from, I believe, three different sources and that she has mapped that DNA and that it indicates, similar to what this gentleman is inferring, I think, some type of hybrid between a human and some type of archaic hominid.
		But DNA is obviously it's a comparative science.
		So, you know, if you don't have a source type of a Sasquatch DNA, then you have no basis for comparison.
		So if someone produces DNA and says it's from a Sasquatch, there's no archetype that you can refer to.
		So it's, you know, it's a bit of a circular type of problem, I guess.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Anything else, Colin?
unidentified		No, that actually sheds a lot of light on my question.
		Thanks for listening, and praise Beth.
		Otter Overlords.
		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Take care.
		He said Otter Overlords, right?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		I'm not familiar, but the Otter Man reference, that was nice.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let's go, I don't know, back to the phone.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I'm not sure where, but you're on the air with Ken.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Yeah, hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		Hi, hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Am I on?
unidentified		Can you hear me?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I can hear you.
unidentified		Okay, my bad about that.
		Yeah, well, I have a question for Ken.
		I wanted to ask him, like, has any time during his research or his investigation, like, has he ever been threatened or harassed by, like, men in black or people of the government?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, not personally.
		We did have him describe a little bit earlier a kind of a strange encounter.
		Was it on an airplane, right, Ken?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I was subversively intimidated by a strange person on an airplane on the way to a Mothman investigation once.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		But no, I've never had anyone show up on my doorstep or follow me, at least not that I'm aware of.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, then let's keep moving.
		Jeff, you're on the air with Ken.
		Hi.
unidentified		Yeah, hey, Art.
		This fascinating show tonight.
		So I had an experience with one of these flying humanoids once, and it was a pretty shocking experience.
		I was standing outside by my pool, and I had a light on the inside, just enough light to basically see out there.
		And all of a sudden, just out of nowhere, this flying, sort of like a chupacabra thing flew down.
		I saw it as clear as day, really.
		And the crazy thing was, it had sort of red eyes.
		And it was staring right at me.
		And a friend of mine was out there, and he made a big yell as well.
		And now's where I have to debunk myself because I kid you not, if there wouldn't have been someone else out there, I'd be telling you, I'd put my hand on the Bible and say this thing had a wingspan of 10, 15 feet.
		In reality, what it was, it was a bat.
		And this bat flew right in front of my face about three feet out and just hovered there.
		But because of the perception and the light and everything, I would have sworn the thing was 10 feet tall.
		So, you know, I just wanted to share that for my story, I wish it was real, but it's a debunked thing that thank God he was out there.
		Nevertheless, it was still pretty scary.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've never seen a bat hover.
		Yeah, it was right in front of me.
		I get it.
		I heard what you said, but I've never heard of a bat hovering.
		We have bats out here.
		You know, every night at about sundown or somewhere near sundown, they start flying around.
		You know, they're looking for bugs.
		And I guarantee you, I've seen them make a lot of strange moves, but none of them ever included a hover.
		Do you know anything about that, Ken?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm curious, how big did the bat ultimately appear to be once it was right in front of your face?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right, he's not that big.
		But, you know, by perception, when it's that close, obviously it seems big.
		So he sort of debunked his own story by saying, no, look, it was virtually right in front of my face.
		But I've never seen a bat hover.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		No, I don't think so.
		Bats typically, they have a very fast, rapid movement of their wings.
		That's kind of the design that...
		But, you know, going back to the bat theory or suggestion, now you do have some pretty darn big bats over in the old...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
		I am so sorry, Jaffy, I'm answering the phone in a wrong way here.
		It's my fault.
		And I apologize.
		Okay, so you're back on the air now.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		All of the bats are microchiro, the suborder microchiroptera, which means they're typically all very, very tiny.
		Even the largest bat in the Americas, which I believe is the false vampire bat, is only less than a foot across in terms of wingspan.
		So I think that Mothman might be a giant bat doesn't really hold any water.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's Jaffe, I think, from somewhere outside the country?
unidentified		South Korea, once again, our second time I've managed to get through to you.
		So thank you for taking my call.
		It's very much appreciated.
		Sure.
		So, yeah, this is interesting because I actually was going to call in just with a quick little story, but one of your last callers brought up the whole issue of crossbreeding and Sasquatch in particular.
		And immediately a light went off in my head.
		And I realized, I remembered a story from when I was a kid.
		And you can actually find this online too.
		Ken, you might have heard of this yourself.
		British Columbia, back around the turn of the last century, that's the start of the 20th century, basically.
		This Catholic nun was taking, leading a number of schoolgirls through the bush, from, I guess it was their school to some other place off in the distance, maybe a day trip or what have you.
		And suddenly, apparently from just out of nowhere, out of the bush, there was this huge hairy beast appeared and jumped out, grabbed one of the little girls and ran off and disappeared, and she was gone.
		Lo and behold, what happened was the next year, I guess it was, or maybe it was a year or two, the girl showed up back again in a similar location, a basic area.
		And what did she have?
		She had a little baby with her.
		And it was apparently, according to the story, it was half ape, half human.
		So like I said, that wasn't the story.
		That wasn't what I was calling it originally.
		But we can just go for that with that for now if you like.
		There was another quick one I could add, but regarding acryptids and flying, what is it, angels?
		No, not angels.
		Acryptids?
		What happened is I had a girlfriend who, well, what are those beasts called?
		The ones with the large wings?
		The baby, do you know the name?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		They're flying humanoids?
unidentified		No, no, no, no.
		The really big ones.
		The Thunderbirds, the Thunderbirds.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Thunderbirds.
unidentified		I had a girlfriend, and she basically, she careened off the road.
		She was driving along in the van.
		She had a couple of her kids with her, and she just lost control on one of these roads in up central interior, British Columbia.
		She was going over a large embankment.
		It was like a cliff, really serious situation from out of nowhere.
		And this is the story she told me.
		This is her own personal experience.
		She's a pretty straight shooter, too.
		So these giant wings appeared from out of nowhere, just as she was going over this steep embankment/slash cliff with her kids.
		And these giant wings just covered the van from the front and stopped her right as she was heading off to face her doom.
		And things would not have worked out too well for her and her family, obviously.
		So have you ever heard anything like that along those lines with like a thunderbird slash angel slash God only knows what, appearing out of nowhere and saving people, not just being a malevolent sort of entity or force, but something that was helpful?
		Okay.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's actually one account in my book that refers to kind of a helpful flying humanoid, if you will, benevolent.
		There's a story from Ecuador years ago.
		It was documented by author Robert Traylons of these two young kids that were playing up on a mountainside in Ecuador and began to slip and fall off the mountain.
		And as they were kind of hanging on the edge of this cliff, according to them, this angel-like figure, this winged humanoid figure flew down from the sky and actually grasped, you know, sort of grasped them up from certain doom and rescued them.
		And when they got back to their village, that's the story they told, that they were rescued by this winged figure who subsequently became known as the Angel of Ecuador.
		So that's really the only account I can think of in my book.
		Just real quick, as far as the first story you mentioned about the girl getting kidnapped by a Sasquatch, there are different legends around the world.
		For example, in Central America, there's something known as the Sisamite, which is the Central American version of Sasquatch.
		And one of the beliefs that pertain to the Sisamite is that they will actually abduct young women in an Attempt to take them as brides.
		Not that dissimilar from the old legends of the mountain gorillas.
		Before the mountain gorilla was discovered and scientifically described, it was portrayed as this kind of a veritable King Kong, you know, this monster ape that would abduct young women and take them hostage.
		So it's interesting you have those different legends around the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, back to the phones.
		And I think up in Alaska.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		John?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you're on there, yes.
unidentified		Hey, Art.
unidentified		This is Ryan in Anchorage, Alaska.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Hey, Ryan.
unidentified		Hey, I've been trying to call you since 1995.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a lot of dialing.
unidentified		That's a lot of dialing.
		But I wanted to call in because I live in Alaska and I've heard about a lot of the critters that your guest has been talking about.
		And I've actually had an encounter with a shapeshifter up here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		With a shapeshifter?
		Ow.
		Okay.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Proceed.
unidentified		My dad and I were hunting in one area that we didn't like to frequent much because my dad had a bad experience back in the 70s that he didn't like to talk about.
		Short version, something hunted him.
		He never saw what it was, but it hunted him.
		But we were back in this area by the time I'd been born, it was about 13, 14, and we were back in there a ways.
		And we'd been hunting all day, so we stopped for a potty break.
		So my dad went behind one tree, and being a girl, I went for the bush.
		And I'm sitting there with a 30-30, and I saw my dad walk around in front of me and go up onto the ridge we were hunting on.
		So I'm like, oh, well, he's done.
		So I finished up and climbed up out of the bush and was up behind him.
		So we're hiking back in, and I'm following him.
		And my dad was one of those people, he always had to look behind him to see who was behind him, if he knew.
		Well, I'm following him, I'm following him, or I think I'm following him.
		And turning back and looking at me, and like about quarter mile, half mile of hiking behind him, I'm like, something just set off my spider senses, and I'm like, this isn't my dad.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		Yeah.
		I had hunted with the man since I was eight.
		So six years, seven years out in the woods with him.
		I knew my dad pretty well.
		And so I just stopped and I'm like, hey, turn around.
		And he didn't stop and turn around.
		Like, even if Ben screwing with me, he would turn around.
		Whatever this was didn't stop.
		It kept walking and it walked around a spruce tree in front of me and disappeared.
		And I'm standing there and I cocked the gun because I'm like, I'm walking behind this person.
		I can hear their footsteps.
		I can see the light hitting their body.
		And they just step around a tree and disappear.
		So I'm standing there and I've told this to my husband.
		I'm not a person that believes things unless I see them.
		I mean, I've been in the woods most of my life.
		I'm sitting there looking dead on at where this person disappeared.
		And something comes running at me.
		I can hear it, but I can't see it.
		But it's like predator.
		I can see the light being displaced by it.
		So it's running at me, and I opened fire, and that's how my dad found where I was at, because he heard the gunshot.
		So I opened fire, but I don't know if I hit it.
		I had been trained never to shoot at something unless you saw what you're shooting at.
		That's true.
		Gun safety 101.
		Nothing dropped, and it didn't seem like I hit anything, but my dad comes running up onto the ridge, and he's like, you know, we get into an argument because he thinks I'm just, you know, shooting bleep.
		And I'm like, I'm not just shooting things, you know, I was following you.
		So we finally hash it out.
		I'm like, no.
		You walked in front of me up onto the ridge.
		I followed you because you were done using the bathroom.
		I've been hiking behind you for 20 minutes now.
		And someone or something walked around that tree in front of us and disappeared.
		And then something ran at me that I couldn't see.
		Well, my dad's decision was, let's get the heck out of here.
		So we noped out of here.
		He noped out of here.
		But that's when he told me that a few years back in the 70s when he was in the Air Force, he'd been hunting in that area and it was getting close to dark.
		And he always walked around arms.
		He carried a 45-hand cannon and he had a rifle.
		He always carried the hand cannon in his hand because that'll stop a bear.
		He'd been hunting in this area and he kept hearing something behind him.
		So he thought it was a bear, circled back, circled back, never caught this bear.
		He's almost to his pickup truck and whatever it was was about 30 feet behind him.
		And this is a clear trail back then, so it hadn't grown up.
		He's looking around, he can't see it.
		So he pulled the 44 and right when it's about 10 feet from behind him, he turns around.
		There is nothing there.
		But the entire trip back to his truck, he said it felt like something was just standing on his neck.
		And he couldn't see it.
		And I haven't gone back to that.
		I even told my husband, I've been hunting since I was eight.
		I'm not scared of bears.
		I'm not scared of lynx.
		I ain't scared of coyotes.
		You cannot pay me to go hunt back in this area.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ken?
unidentified		Wow, yeah, very indicative of the stories of the Kushtaka.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		You know, the Kushtika is from southeast Alaska.
		The Klinget people talk about its ability or, you know, its desire to lure you out into the wilderness.
		And one of the ways that it does this is by assimilating or taking the form of someone that you know.
		So when you said that this thing looked like your father, but you could tell that it wasn't instinctively, and that it was attempting to lead you into the wilderness, that sounds pretty much like the stories that I heard about the Kushtaka.
		That's what they do.
		Pretty creepy stuff.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Pretty creepy indeed.
		And if it had been a Twilight Zone, it would have clearly been a monster.
		She would have opened fire, only she would have hit it.
		And then, of course, when it's on the ground, it would have morphed back into her father, and it would have been horrible.
		So, you know, that's like a shape-shifting story, I guess.
		I don't know what to tell you, young lady.
		That's one heck of a story.
unidentified		Well, it's real, and thanks for taking my call, Art.
unidentified		I've been listening to you for almost 20 years now, and I'm glad you're back.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, thank you very much, and take care.
		We've only got very short time here to the bottom of the hour.
		On Skype, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Hello, ma'am.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You are.
unidentified		Well, I just wanted to say, Art, it is an awesome show tonight.
		It's got me with goosebumps because I've actually seen these type of humanoid things.
		I'm coming from South Texas, and are humanoids or Latusas.
		I don't know if Ken's familiar with that.
		Absolutely.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Latusa wrote about it in the book.
		It is a shapeshifter, a shapeshifting witch.
		And, you know, essentially, she takes the form of this bird-like creature.
		Yeah, Latusa is very much tied up in the lore of the flying humanoids.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry to interrupt.
		Both of you, hold on.
		We're at a break.
		Call her.
		I'll hold you over.
		This is Midnight in the Desert.
		And yeah, this is kind of creepy stuff, isn't it?
		Especially if something can assume one shape, particularly one you're familiar with, while you're holding their gun.
		No thanks.
unidentified		No thanks.
		Thank you.
		This is Midnight in the Desert to call the show.
		If you're east of midnight, call 1-952-Call Art.
		If you're west of midnight, call 1-952-225-5278.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, all right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just before we go back to our caller, Ken, are you there?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I am.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, if you would again refer to my website, please.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You remember where you saw the picture of the bird?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That I was talking about?
		Now we've got a zoomed-in version just above it.
		So if you could return to that location and take a look at this zoomed-in version, I would appreciate that.
		This was not intended to be a picture of a bird, by the way.
		It was intended to be a picture of a building.
		They just happened to catch this bird, but my God.
		Let me know when you get there.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
		Yep.
		I'm looking at it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Doesn't that look a little prehistoric to you?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		It does.
		It looks enormous.
		I mean, when you look at the sheer distance, you know, obviously it's difficult sometimes to accurately gauge something in flight, but you have the scale or you have the perspective here of the buildings next to it, and you can tell how far down the street the photographer is from the object.
		So it looks pretty huge.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I would say pretty huge, pretty prehistoric.
		And you mentioned that they come around at dire times.
		Well, that was sure as heck a dire time.
		Caller, you're back on the air with Ken.
		Hi.
unidentified		Hello.
		Yeah, I was just asking Ken if you knew about the Lachusos because for some reason, South Texas is like saturated with like bird-like stories.
		Like, for instance, maybe like back in the 80s, there was that big bird story.
		And everyone and their mom had an incident with the big bird.
		I wasn't born around the time, but my folks would tell me that this thing was at least like 15 feet, you know, big and huge wingspan and stuff like that.
		And I was just wondering if Ken might have an explanation for that because, I mean, for some reason, one way or another, like, there's been so many sightings over here of lechusas and, you know, and all these other big, great giant birds.
		And I also had a question for Art.
		Are you familiar with the Mananangal from the Philippines?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I am not.
unidentified		Okay.
		Well, I think it's...
		I was just wondering if you guys maybe could, you know, tell me the difference between that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The Aswang is thoroughly enough for me.
		It's awful.
		But, you know, I'll ask her.
		She's listening, so I'll ask when I get home.
		In the meantime, Ken, if you have anything on that, chime in.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm afraid I don't have anything on that one.
		But my first book is actually about the big bird.
		It's called Big Bird, Modern Sightings of Flying Monsters, and it addresses the accounts of something known as the Big Bird, which was sighted starting in 1976.
		You were close, but it literally became worldwide news because there were so many sightings of this enormous flying creature.
		It was either a giant bird or a giant pterodactyl type of creature.
		And I still continue to get reports of the big bird.
		I've gotten some very recently from people around here in the San Antonio area.
		And as far as La Latusa, I have one quick, very quick chilling story.
		I spoke to a family.
		I interviewed a family from a traditional part of Mexico who told me that there was this giant, ugly bird that was terrorizing their village.
		And at one point, somebody actually went out and shot this thing and killed it.
		And when they got to the location where this thing had gone down to the ground, it had actually taken on the form of a woman who was suspected, a local woman who was suspected of being a witch.
		So that is one example of a Letusa story that you have this witch who is essentially shape-shifting into the form of this hideous bird.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
		That's kind of what the Aswang in the Philippines does.
		They're thought to be originally some sort of humans and some sort of witch or some sort of...
		Anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about, except as my wife has told me.
		First time caller line, you're on the air with Ken.
		Please go ahead.
unidentified		Yeah, Art.
		My name's Kelly.
		I'm from north central Washington state, and I got a story for you guys.
		Okay.
		I had a run-in.
		I've had a few encounters with some real Sasquatches, a whole family of them, as a matter of fact.
		Once my friend and I decided we were going to go plant ourselves smack dab in the middle of the Sasquatch country.
		So we went 45 miles to the end of the road, and then we hiked six miles up and in and around.
		And about 2,000 feet elevation gain, by the time we got there, it was totally dark.
		I shined my light ahead of him, and I saw these red eyes glowing right in front of him.
		So I grabbed him by his back.
		Stop, Don't go that way.
		And it was right on the edge of the clear cut, right where we almost got to where we were supposed to camp.
		So we went around the others' way a couple hundred yards.
		And when we got to where we were going to set up camp in the middle of this clear cut, because avalanche or snow sludge came through and wiped everything out.
		And right over there in that exact spot, right where I had just grabbed him, all of a sudden we heard a 300-pound like boulder just go crashing through the brush.
		And it was like a totally flat spot.
		And that's when it started.
		They pretty much left us alone all night, but the next morning we started hearing the rock knockers up around us, up on the cliff.
		And then we started hearing what sounded like 300-pound giant woodpeckers.
		And I figured it was them.
		They were making this noise with their throats, but really loud.
		And they were moving around a lot over in the woods, but we couldn't see anything.
		And then we heard him, the screaming howlers, the big daddy started coming up the valley, letting out this roar every minute for a half an hour straight.
		And he screamed for like 30 seconds.
		He sounded like the Westmoreland PA howler, if you've ever heard that.
		Yeah, we hiked out of there and he let us go.
		That was just one.
		And if anything, you should know, Ken and you should know about Lloyd Pye.
		He talks about how the Sasquatch are really the hominids and they are the missing link to us Homo sapiens.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's what he believes, yes.
unidentified		I believe, telling the truth, I really, I felt like a couple other encounters I had when I came close to Sasquatch, I never saw him.
		But one other time, I heard him speak to me and I just got the sense to leave him alone that they actually, I didn't even, I didn't have a light on me at the time.
		I just heard him speak and in the brush.
		And yeah, I said, don't take another step over there.
		You might fall off and go into the river and go bye-bye.
		And I heard him say back to me from about 10 feet away, bye-bye.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So echoing what you said, oh, that's weird.
		Okay, I appreciate the call, sir.
		Thank you very much.
		On Skype, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello, on Skype, George.
		Nope, guess not.
		Let's go back over here and go to the next one on the phone.
		You're on the air.
unidentified		Hi.
		Yes.
		Hello, Art.
		Hello, Kevin.
		Can you guys hear me okay?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yep, just fine.
unidentified		Yep.
		Hi.
		Okay.
		I had a terrifying encounter.
		It lasted about seven hours with something that I'm not really prepared to label.
		Okay.
		And I was hoping maybe he could tell me what he think it could be.
		I called one other time about this when you had Linda Godfrey on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
unidentified		Yeah, it was in Pennsylvania at a place called Otter Lake.
		And at the closest, it was about a foot and a half from where I was.
		And it had a very human kind of features to its face with elongated ears, very large human hands, very long, thin arms, like a white kind of wool or something like that all over it.
		And it had its legs almost appeared to be like what you would see in like a satanic goat god kind of thing, you know?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		And it had these very large yellow glowing eyes.
		And it had two things that were bird-like, none of which were wings.
		It was the way that it moved its head and the way it seemed to be very aware of its environment.
		And the other thing was the sound it made when it was deep in the woods.
		It was like a very loud, two-toned bird screech almost.
		So, I mean, I've just been baffled by it ever since.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Any comments?
unidentified		That is pretty remarkable.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, the first thing that kind of springs to mind is, you know, you said you're in Pennsylvania, and of course, they have the great legends and sightings of something known as the Jersey Devil, which is primarily reported down in southern New Jersey, but there are some crossover accounts from Pennsylvania.
		Now, did you say you said this creature also had wings?
		Did you say that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, unless I'm mistaken, this caller is coming from Trenton, New Jersey, right?
unidentified		Yeah, I used to live in Trenton, New Jersey.
		I still have a Trenton phone number.
		Okay.
		But one summer we were out camping at a place called Otter Lake, and that's when the event occurred.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, it sounds like a chimera, kind of a mixture of different animal characteristics, humanoid and some animalistic.
		You know, it could actually fit very well within the paradigm of flying humanoids because, as we've been discussing for the whole show, they take all shapes and forms.
		It's almost as if they're shapeshifters in some respect.
		But, you know, if nothing else, you get a reprieve here because the eyes are glowing yellow instead of red, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I was going to say that.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Not quite as scary.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is blowing me away, Ken, is that we are getting so many calls from people who have seen something like this.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, that's the way it happens.
		I think the vast majority of people that have had these experiences, obviously, for obvious reasons, are fearful of ridicule and having their credibility and character question.
		But when you create a climate or an environment where you can talk about these things in an open setting, then I think a lot of people have seen these things, whatever they are, or encountered these things and have never come forward.
		So this is awesome.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I appreciate it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Back in New Jersey, or not New Jersey, Pennsylvania, anything else?
unidentified		I just want to clarify that this one did not have wings.
		And the yellow eyes were no less scary than any kind of red eyes.
		They were huge.
		And if it stood, I'm 6'8, and if it stood up, it would probably be a little bit taller than I was.
		That's right.
		So it looks absolutely.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		It also reminds me of something known as the goat man.
		And the goat man is a strange creature that's been reported around North America.
		It's kind of got a kind of similar to the mythological Greek satyr, you know, kind of like a human form with the lower half of a goat and kind of a demonic aspect to it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, let's go here on the phone.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're on the air.
unidentified		Hey, how are you doing, gentlemen?
		Very well.
		Great show tonight.
		Definitely give me the creep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Me too, actually.
unidentified		I'm from West Virginia, a huge Mothman enthusiast, of course.
		I grew up about five miles away from where the Woody Derenberger injured cold event happened.
		So I've been interested in that for many years and have done a little bit of research on everything.
		And I actually go out to the old TNT site on a fairly regular basis and, you know, just kind of fiddle around there.
		I've never really seen anything out there.
		But in all of my research, after I, you know, I became interested in the moss man and everything, I came across an article, and I guess it was in France in the 1800s, that some French miners, I'm not sure what they were mining, had blown, I guess, part of a mountain out, and there was some type of flying reptile that was reported that it came out of there.
		I was wondering if Ken had ever came across that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So this was after they blew part of the mountain out, that's what flew out?
unidentified		Yes, sir, yeah.
		And it was recorded in an actual local newspaper.
		I think it was like something like 40 or 50 miners that seen this thing come out, and they said, you know, it was this huge flying reptile.
		And I guess it was, you know, similar to like a pterosaur.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		I'm familiar with the account, and I think John Keel documented in some of his books.
		You know, as strange as this sounds from someone that investigates monsters for a living, I am very skeptical about some of these old newspaper accounts from the old, you know, the late 1800s and early 1900s.
		I get the sense, having read a lot of these types of articles, that back in the day, they oftentimes would take some, shall we say, creative license with some of these stories in order to sell more newspapers.
		But not to totally rain on your parade, there's an even more famous account that's relative to the United States.
		In 1886 or 1890, according to an article in the Tombstone, Arizona Epitaph newspaper, there was a giant pterodactyl that was shot just outside of Tombstone in the Whetstone Mountains, and there was actually a photograph taken of this thing stretched out across a barn with several people standing in front of it.
		So it's known as the Thunderbird photo, and it's an elusive photograph that may or may not exist that could conclusively prove that these giant pterodactyl-type thunderbirds exist.
		But although many people have claimed to have seen this photograph, no one has been able to produce a copy of it in modern times.
unidentified		Wow.
		Nice.
		That's something I'll have to research.
		And then also, whenever the scholars started calling in about the hybrid creatures, I actually had a, it reminded me of a time when I was younger.
		I grew up in central West Virginia in the mountains, pretty rural area.
		I'm a hunter, fisherman, outdoors person for years.
		This has happened when I was younger, about five or six, as me, my mother, and my sister were driving home.
		We lived out in the middle of nowhere on a mountain, and we had two neighbors.
		And for the longest time, they'd been reported seeing something that looked like a fox or a raccoon hybrid.
		And they said, you know, it looked like the markings of a raccoon, but it stood pretty tall, almost taller than what a fox would stand.
		It had longer legs, had kind of like the bandit-looking markings on the face, but then it had a ring tail.
		And they said it, you know, it didn't look like a fox's tail.
		It's kind of bushy.
		They said this was a long, thin tail that had rings on it.
		And I was wondering if it was possible for foxes and raccoons to, I guess, mate, and you get a crossbreed of those two animals.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		No, that would not be possible.
		And again, just as I was saying earlier, although they are in the same family of caniforms, foxes and raccoons diverged millions of years ago, so they're not genetically close enough to mate.
		But you do have animals, raccoon-like animals, like coattis and red pandas and all kinds of, you know, the raccoon family is very diverse, and around the world you have different subspecies that look very different from the raccoons we know here in North America.
		So maybe it was an escaped animal or something like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ken, we're out of time.
		The show is ending.
		Nothing I can do about that.
		It has been fabulous to have you here.
		Is there anything you quickly want to promote?
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		You know, I just want people to check out Missing in Alaska on History Network or History 2H2 Network.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Missing in Alaska.
		We can probably do another show on that.
		Meanwhile, you're leaving the phone lines open.
		That's the way to do it, I guess.
		I mean, full.
		So, Ken, thank you very much, and we'll have you back.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		Sounds great, Art.
ken gerhard ▲ ● ▼		You have a great night.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take care, my friend.
		Sorry to those of you on the line.
		Apologize for that.
unidentified		I tried to get to everybody, but the cryptids wouldn't let it happen.

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