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Sept. 25, 2019 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes

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Edition 412 - Lyle Blackburn

This time Texan cryptozoologist Lyle Blackburn - and his investigations of strange creatures and the people who experience them...

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	Across the UK, across continental North America and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name certainly is Howard Hughes and this is The Unexplained.
	Well, well and truly into September now and staring down the barrel of October.
	And this year, as I have said before, so I won't bore you with the comment again, but just to say it's gone so quickly, hasn't it?
	Maybe as you get older, that is what occurs.
	I don't know.
	Thank you very much for all of your emails, by the way.
	If you have a specific request that needs a specific answer, then I will get back to you.
	Go to my website, theunexplained.tv, and you can send me a message from there.
	And the website, designed, created, and owned by Adam from Creative Hotspot in Liverpool, my webmaster for many, many years.
	Can't do it without him.
	If you'd like to make a donation for the show, you can do that too through the website, theunexplained.tv.
	Your donation's vital for what we do here, and you can read why on the website if you'd like to go there, theunexplained.tv.
	And if you have made a donation recently, thank you very, very much for doing that as we come to the end of this year.
	And like I say, there are reasons why that's even more important right now that I will share with you, but probably on another edition of this show.
	I want to do some shout-outs before we get to the guest on this edition.
	We're going to be talking cryptozoology this time with Lyle Blackburn in Dallas, Texas.
	He's got some good stories to share with you, so I know you're going to enjoy this one.
	I hope so anyway.
	Let me know after the show.
	Okay, let's do some shout-outs.
	First of all, to my friend Heather, long-term listener to The Unexplained in the Bahamas.
	Now, as you will know, if you've watched the news in the UK or US, the Bahamas, of course, very much recently in the grip of Hurricane Dorian that caused all manner of destruction and suffering there.
	My good thoughts and good wishes go to you, Heather, and everybody that you know and everybody in the Bahamas at this time, because even though the story will have faded from the news on a day-to-day basis, it's something that all of you are going to be living with for a very long time.
	So please know that you're in my thoughts.
	Stephen Hughes wanted to get me to do a show with Tim Goode, Timothy Goode, the author of Above Top Secret about UFOs and all that kind of stuff.
	We had Tim Goode both on the radio show and the podcast.
	If you go back through the archives of this show, you'll find him there.
	I'm not actually sure whether Tim, who's a lovely man based in London.
	I'm not actually sure whether Tim is doing interviews now.
	I would certainly like to catch up with him again.
	He's a terrific guy, and his book was an amazing book, too, and still is.
	Tracy in Sale, Manchester, nice to hear from you.
	Amy in Baltimore, thanks for getting in touch, Amy.
	Amanda in Devon, thank you for listening.
	Jason in Bedford, I hope all is okay with you now, Jason.
	Let me know.
	Scott in Bellingham, Washington State, likes the show, but thought that I was unfair to Bart Sebrell, the man who very firmly believes that we did not go to the moon on July, whatever the date was.
	I should know this specific date, but in July 1969, 50 years ago, he said, it's brutally obvious that your mind is made up on the subject.
	And Scott, I know that you're a fan of the show, and please know that that's not how I felt about that, but I felt I had to put the opposite point of view.
	And at that time on the air, and as you will hear that interview I've put on the podcast here, I had a lot of comments coming into me from people not only in the UK, but also in the US about this.
	And I was trying to balance it.
	I'm sorry you didn't think that I did.
	And I would be keen to do a longer interview with Bart Sobrell at some point, where maybe we'll have more time to let the conversation breathe than just, say, seven or ten minutes on the radio.
	Richard in Sheffield, thank you for your lunar photos, Richard.
	Fascinating stuff.
	Thank you.
	Shirley and Wayne, thank you very much.
	And Rebecca in Frankfurt, thank you for your email, Rebecca.
	And I do take on board the points that you make very much.
	Thank you for the guest suggestion, by the way.
	If you'd like to get in touch with me by email, you can do that, theunexplained.tv.
	And don't forget, these days, it doesn't get a lot of publicity.
	We've given it a very slow start, but there is an official Unexplained Facebook page.
	If you'd like to be part of that, then I'd love to have you along, as they say.
	Okay, please keep in touch.
	When you get in touch with me, tell me who you are, where you are, and how you use this show.
	I'd love to hear from you.
	Thank you.
	And thank you for some of the nice things you said that have sustained me recently through everything.
	All right, let's get to the guest on this edition, Lyle Blackburn in Dallas, Texas.
	We're going to be talking about cryptozoology, including the beast of Boggy Creek and various other cases that he's researched and written books about.
	Lyle Blackburn, thank you for coming on my show.
	You're welcome.
	Thanks for having me.
	Now, I have to say, for the very first time in all of the years that I've been doing this, Lyle, and I've been doing a podcast now for 13 years.
	I've been doing the show on radio off and on for 15 years.
	In all of these years, I've never picked a guest on the basis of his name.
	And I just saw your name in a list of people who do what you do, or things approximating to do what you do.
	And I just thought, an investigator of mysteries like this, the name Lyle Blackburn is the perfect name for it.
	I don't know whether anybody's ever said that, but Lyle Blackburn is like kind of up there with Indiana Jones, I would say.
	Hey, well, that's really a compliment.
	I mean, people have said, you know, your name's cool, but I don't know that they've ever chosen me for a radio show or television show based on the name.
	So this is cool.
	This is a first.
	Well, bear in mind that I'm speaking to you as Howard Hughes.
	So I cannot say anything at any time to anybody about names.
	Exactly.
	I mean, you know, how can I turn down a radio interview from Howard Hughes?
	I mean, I'm like, yeah.
	I know, I know.
	But there were times in my radio career, you know, and I'm telling my listener this as well as you, but there are times in my radio career when I thought of changing my name.
	In fact, one radio station even suggested that I did because people wouldn't believe that I really was Howard Hughes.
	And I thought about it, and I did have a radio name, Duncan Brown, for a while.
	But I really thought, you know, my name is Howard Hughes, and I'm proud of it.
	So, you know, that's it.
	I'll see how they react when I finally get to visit Texas, I think, because that was his home state, as you know.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Talk to me about you then.
	Your biography is very neat.
	The top line of it says, Lyle Blackburn is a native Texan known for his work in writing, music, and film.
	Second line is the author of several acclaimed books, including The Beast of Boggy Creek and Lizard Man.
	So I know there's a much bigger story than that.
	Just talk to me about you and your interest in these mysteries.
	Well, yeah, I mean, it's sort of been something that has been a lifelong interest in legends and lore, sightings of strange creatures, and it wasn't something that I pursued, you know, in a serious career path, if you will, as far as writing books.
	Early on, I spent many years as a musician, successful in that.
	And I'd always had a talent for writing.
	And in between things, I would write for music magazines.
	And I wrote for the horror magazine Roomorg, which is a popular newsstand magazine here.
	And, you know, in the process of that, I always wanted to write a book.
	And I had always followed, you know, cryptozoology and paranormal things.
	And I thought, you know, there was a movie made back in the 70s called The Legend of Boggy Creek, which was based in southern Arkansas, which is not far from where I live in Texas.
	And it was allegedly a Bigfoot-like creature that attacked people and so forth.
	And this movie had been very popular and was based on a true story.
	So I thought, you know, that would be really cool to look at that as an adult and to find out what was true, what was the basis for this true story.
	And it kind of started there.
	And I wrote my first book, The Beast of Boggy Creek, almost just because I wanted to know.
	And then that was picked up by Anomalous Books and published and received good attention and the sales were great.
	And all of a sudden, television shows started calling.
	They were covering the Bigfoot type subjects on a variety of shows.
	And suddenly I'm on TV.
	So I thought, well, hey, this is good.
	So I kind of just went with it and have since written four additional books and appeared on television shows and worked with documentary films that also cover these type topics.
	So it's just been super fun and an interesting way of life.
	No, you have a great CV, as we say here in the UK, resume, as you would say there in the US.
	I think the best way to do this is to start by giving an overview of the kind of research that you do.
	When you go into a subject, and we'll talk about the specific subjects for a specific book, how do you research them?
	Do you go to the places?
	Do you interview people at firsthand?
	Do you read books that have been written in the past?
	How do you do it?
	Well, all of those things, actually.
	And that was one of the things that I kind of established in the first book with The Beast of Boggy Creek, because that had all taken place about three and a half hours drive from where I live.
	So I was able to go to the town, interview people, you know, firsthand when possible.
	You know, this case occurred some time ago, although there's been sightings ever since.
	So anytime I could find an original witness who had seen, you know, this alleged creature or had some experience, I would interview them.
	You know, I would read all the material that had been written and, you know, go through the newspaper archives at the local libraries and try to assemble all the newspaper articles.
	You know, spoke to police officers.
	In the case of my second book, The Lizard Man, which was a reptilian-type creature seen in the state of South Carolina here in the southern U.S. law officials had been heavily involved.
	So, you know, always interviewing people.
	And I always thought it was, you know, my readers deserve to come along and for me to describe the area, you know, and I can't very well write a book if I haven't been to the place where people have reported seeing these strange creatures because that really gives you the perspective of, you know, is this possible?
	What is this environment here, whether it's a swamp or deep woods?
	And so I'm something of a investigative journalist as well as a outdoorsman and monster hunter, if you will, because I literally go into the woods and I, of course, would be open to seeing something myself.
	Have you ever, by the way, before we get into the specific books and the way that they unfolded, have you ever seen anything anomalous yourself?
	Well, I haven't seen any creature I would say is a cryptid.
	However, I've seen what I believe was a ghost.
	That was back when I was in high school.
	And I, you know, I was interested in the ghost topic as well.
	So it's almost like I answered that question real quick by a very solid ghostly sighting.
	And, you know, there's been things that have occurred in the woods, some really spooky, you know, experiences of some sort of an animal sort of following us and howling, this howl that could not be identified by either myself or my research partner that was with me, who's very experienced in the woods.
	So, you know, creepy things have happened, but we never could quite see into the shadows just what it was.
	It would just, you know, run off or what have you.
	And so that's the closest I've been to seeing a creature.
	I guess we have to contextualize this for people in the UK, because before we started recording, we had a little discussion about the relative size of Texas and the relative size of my country, which I think would fit into Texas a number of times.
	It's a vast area, but the United States is a vast, vast country and has places that are literally wild and not exactly unexplored, but certainly not explored very much and only explored by people who, well, should be properly equipped to do so.
	The tale that you tell of hearing howling and that sort of thing very much speaks to me of a tale that was revealed to me by David Paul Idis.
	I don't know if you know about Dave Paul Idis and his work.
	I guess you do.
	He's also been a Bigfoot investigator in his time and the author of the missing 411 books.
	But a bunch of people who go back to the same Spot, and they have done regularly for many, many years, that they experienced something of that kind in the 1970s.
	So, what we're saying, without going into that story, is that these things, although not regular, they are part of the American landscape.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, there's, there's, you know, I'm familiar with the 411 books and, you know, disappearances and odd occurrences and people seeing any number of strange anomalies in remote places.
	And I think that's what many skeptics don't quite realize.
	You know, the person sitting in the office cubicle next to you can easily dismiss some these sightings.
	And certainly not all of them are 100% the best or the most credible.
	But if you put yourself out in some of these remote areas, such as the swamps near Boggy Creek, you quickly realize that there is, you know, acre upon acre and miles of thick, uninhabitable areas where a small population of some fairly highly intelligent creature could absolutely exist and remain hidden.
	And it's only when you're kind of in the middle of that environment you realize, wait a minute, there is a lot of room here for something to survive.
	And we mix into this something that I'm hearing increasingly that I had never heard of before this year or certainly last year, the idea of a kind of paranormality being built into these things with reports of strange lights and phenomena that seem to that go hand in hand or poor in paw with these beasts.
	Yes, and I think there's some, you know, there's some reasons for that.
	And one is that just simply all along, there's always been sort of a coexistence of strange phenomenon.
	Occasionally, there are UFO sightings.
	And at the same time, people see ape-like creatures in the same vicinity.
	Now, whether they're connected or not remains for conjecture, but strange lights in the sky and all these sort of things.
	And there are areas that have multiple phenomenon going on, which begs the question, is it the area that is conducive to this?
	But I think also the longer we go in modern times without having really ultimately proved some of these things, like for example, Bigfoot, I think people begin to theorize more drastically.
	Perhaps they're more supernatural or they're coming from other dimensions.
	And that's simply just to try to explain how it is that there are credible sightings, yet we don't have a body.
	Yep, exactly.
	We don't have a body.
	Occasionally, the odd encampment or what is claimed to be an encampment may be found in the woods.
	But the biggest mystery of all is why these things seemingly disappear at times.
	And it would fit the narrative, wouldn't it, if you had some kind of extra-dimensionality or ET involvement connected with this?
	Then that would provide a very convenient explanation.
	I'm not saying whether it's true or not, as to why these things disappear, why they're so elusive.
	Oh, yeah, precisely.
	And I think some of that, you know, is natural in the progression of people trying to understand these mysteries.
	But also, I think some of it is not quite giving animals or creatures enough credit because they, animals can do amazing things.
	And perhaps one that has, you know, either the wherewithal to stay elusive or has some natural abilities to sort of blend in with the environment like many animals do.
	I mean, their hair color, their coats, everything is designed to be camouflage.
	And, you know, we don't quite give nature enough credit that something could be out there that's not necessarily supernatural, but that seemingly, you know, can blend and disappear into the woods very easily.
	While we talk, rather before we talk about these specific books and the specific cases, explain to me, if you can, why there seems to have been this year and maybe last year, very recently, an uptick in interest in cryptozoology.
	Here in the UK, the newspapers, never a week goes by without somebody reporting a Bigfoot or something weird in the woods.
	I think it's similar in the States.
	Why do you think this is suddenly so popular again?
	I don't know, but it's definitely, there is a trend in this, and I've seen it kind of grow in the last decade, especially, you know, part of that has been the TV shows.
	These, you know, network and cable television loves these topics because, you know, they're reality-based.
	They can get real witnesses saying they saw a monster in the woods, and that's appealing to television viewers.
	And I think that's brought attention to it.
	And also people see on TV that, okay, this person doesn't seem crazy and they've seen something and a little bit more open-mindedness and more interest in these type of phenomenon.
	So I think that television is partly responsible.
	But I think also, you know, we've come so far with technology and all this stuff that we're almost getting to the point where we want to believe there's still some mystery in the world.
	You know, we haven't conquered everything or solved everything, and we're not, you know, we're not on the grid so much that there's no unexplainable corners of the world.
	That's a very good point that I hadn't thought of.
	In a way, there's a psychological need that they fulfill.
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	All right.
	We have a phenomenon called big cats in the UK, big creatures that may be pumas, whatever they may be.
	We've had a rash of these in this last year, you know, since the beginning of this year.
	They've been in the southwest, they've been in Gloucestershire, they've recently been in Sheffield, in Worcester, the poet puma, as they call it.
	Do you have big cats there?
	Yeah, we have the same kind of phenomenon, usually called black panthers, which is a melanistic cougar or mountain lion, which is not known to science.
	I mean, you have melanistic jaguars and leopards and things.
	But So we have sightings of those and they're, you know, it's the same kind of debate as your big cats.
	Is it, you know, is it just a big domesticated cat or is it the perspective or the angle that makes it look big, you know, as in a wild cat versus a domestic cat?
	So, yeah, we certainly have that same mystery going on here as well.
	It is a strange one, and there just seems to have been such an uptick over here.
	All right, let's get into the books and the specific topics.
	And of course, the daddy of them all, quite literally, is the Boggy Creek monster, where it all started for you.
	I love the description on your website, something hairy.
	And in fact, I included the word scary and bipedal.
	It is all of those things.
	And apparently it was first spotted, was it in the 1940s, around a place called Fouqu.
	Is it Fouque or Falk in Arkansas?
	Fouque is the little town there.
	Okay.
	And, you know, this thing, as we say, goes back, what, 70, 80 years or so?
	Yeah, at least.
	And, you know, that was kind of the original.
	The 1940s is what the newspapers cited.
	But I ended up finding stories or witnesses that date it back even further.
	So it's one of those things that I like the case because it is like essentially a Bigfoot-like creature.
	You know, it's seven foot tall, man-like, walks on two legs, covered in hair.
	But it's got so much personality because of the location in southern Arkansas.
	It's a swampy area.
	It's a really small town.
	And the creature was aggressive in some cases, or that's what people reported.
	And the reason it's so famous and sort of a cornerstone of cryptozoology and Bigfoot lore is because of the movie, The Legend of Boggy Creek, that came out in the 70s.
	It was just a drive-in movie phenomenon.
	It made millions.
	It ran on TV.
	So a lot of people who kind of research Bigfoot now saw that as a kid.
	Apparently the movie grossed something like $20 million or more from what I hear.
	Oh, yeah, at least that.
	And it was very cheaply made.
	I mean, it was like, I mean, it's an Arkansas movie.
	This wasn't anything to do with Hollywood, you know, a first-time director.
	So it was as a movie, it was a phenomenon itself, not to mention the phenomenon of the sightings of the creature.
	So that's why I like that story.
	And, you know, it was sort of like horror movie history meets sightings of an unknown creature.
	And, you know, I had been one of those ones that saw it as a little kid.
	And I didn't realize the interest that it still held.
	You know, when the television, like Finding Bigfoot, which is a popular show on Animal Planet, they did a Boggy Creek episode and had me on it.
	And I started doing speaking at Bigfoot conferences.
	And then I really realized, man, people, there are so many fans of that movie and people wanting to know the real story.
	And so I just sort of chose the exact right topic to enter this field.
	So what is it about this particular creature that sets it apart from the scores of other creatures reported, you know, something weird in the woods across the United States?
	What is the allure of it?
	Well, I think in this case, it's got the reputation of being aggressive.
	And one of the most, you know, famous sensational reports was when it allegedly stalked this family who had rented a house there near Falk.
	And it stalked around on the porch and one night stuck its hairy hand through the open window.
	And ultimately, you know, they get a shotgun and confront this thing and they're shooting at it.
	And one of the young men that was involved in that kind of got spooked and he was heading up back to the house, going to go back inside.
	And whatever this thing was came around from the side of the house and attacked him.
	And he tussled with it and ended up jumping through the front of the door to get in the house.
	And at that point, they literally had to take him to the hospital where he was treated for injuries and shock.
	And that's kind of how it all got out in the newspapers.
	And this was 1971.
	So, you know, it was just something that was so, you know, contained so much to that story.
	And it was, there was an attack.
	And that sort of set the tone for people's, you know, profile of the creature, even though there's been literally hundreds of sightings, but many of those just simply, you know, it was seen running across the road.
	It's not always attacking people, but that's what set it apart.
	And the people who've sighted this thing, and in particular, the one person who had that unfortunate experience with it, they're all absolutely sure this is not a bear.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	Bear is usually the one thing it can rule out.
	I mean, it's very, this area, there's very few bears.
	I mean, they are out there, but they're typically, if there are, they're much smaller and they certainly don't, you know, aren't seen walking upright and they don't typically have the ape-like qualities that people report, you know.
	And if you kind of go back like in the 40s and 50s, the term Bigfoot or anything like that wasn't known to people, you know, at that time, especially living in Arkansas.
	And, you know, they would just describe it as either a gorilla or monkey-like.
	That's the best they could describe it.
	But these people definitely knew the difference between something like that and a bear.
	Well, you know, they lived in an area that was not, it's not an urbanized area or it's not a city.
	So, you know, they would, most of them would appreciate, I am sure that.
	I take that point.
	We haven't really given a description.
	What's the aggregated description of this thing?
	How big is it?
	You know, how hairy is it?
	How does it walk?
	That kind of thing.
	It's typically said to be on average about seven feet tall, give or take, and covered, you know, stands completely upright, walks upright.
	Its hair can be described as being dark, nearly black, or brownish or reddish.
	The hair length is, you know, kind of your Bigfoot type thing, although it's said to be more shaggy and the hair upon its head is a little bit longer.
	Some of the witness drawings show that it sort of has longer hair on top.
	It has longer arms.
	And one particular thing that's different, it's said to have three toes.
	Some of the tracks that have been found are man-like, like a Bigfoot track.
	But instead of the five toes, it's got three toes.
	Not always, it's not always the case, but some of the tracks that have been reported and track castings have been made, which also kind of sets it apart.
	I mean, anything with three toes that's man-like is just automatically monstrous, you know.
	Well, it certainly sounds it.
	Any other signs, though, apart from tracks?
	You know, people have found hair and, you know, report various vocalizations and howls and things like that.
	But, you know, the physical evidence is few and far between.
	There's been a few photos that I've seen here and there, but I wasn't convinced by those.
	So unfortunately, you know, a lot of it is anecdotal stories.
	And, you know, at best, when I can interview a witness first person myself, that gives me a sense of the credibility and the plausibility.
	And I have interviewed numerous first-hand witnesses.
	And, you know, I can tell you they saw something, something they couldn't explain.
	So there's something to it.
	I guess the most compelling ones are those who are perhaps in the police or the services of some kind, you know, an ambulance person or something like that.
	Have you had any sightings from people of that kind?
	Yes, there was back in the day in the 70s, there was one of the deputy police officers for the Miller County Sheriff's Office saw the creature himself as it sort of darted across the road, or he believed he did.
	And so, you know, that added credibility, especially at the time when there was sort of the whole surge of interest in that case.
	And, you know, just beyond that, you know, you have kind of a mix between just average folks that live there and other people have military backgrounds and, you know, doctors and things that, you know, are what we would consider upstanding people or observant people or intelligent,
	you know, not that just normal folks aren't, but just kind of gives you a cross-section of all the types of people, including hunters that have seen it.
	But it is, like all of these cases, very elusive.
	And people often say when they're trying to debunk these stories, they say, well, what happens to them when they die?
	Where do they go?
	And why don't they leave more signs of themselves?
	And those are questions that are always in these cases hard to answer, aren't they?
	Oh, yeah, that's the ultimate question.
	You know, where's the bones?
	Where's the body?
	That sort of thing.
	And, you know, that's sort of what's going to be required to ultimately prove it.
	Up until there, it's just, you know, trying to gather the stories and hope that somebody comes across some tangible evidence.
	Are there any paranormal type phenomena linked to this?
	You said there were howls and hollows and those sorts of things that have been heard, but any lights, anything that, you know, some people describe strange lights and a weird atmosphere or presence or the woods going silent or that kind of stuff?
	Not too much in the Boggy Creek case.
	You know, I only had one witness once say that they had seen what they believed might be a UFO, but it wasn't in conjunction or at the same time in which they saw the creature.
	And this was a case where six people had seen it at once, and I was quite confident of the witness.
	You know, there's other cases like my latest book, Momo, the Missouri Monster Case.
	There were a lot of strange lights seen, but in the Boggy Creek case, it's very much just, you know, simple people see a ape-like creature in the woods, and that was, you know, the whole of it.
	Is there any kind of research that you think needs to be done then?
	You know, is there a kind of research that perhaps hasn't been done on this and needs to be?
	You know, I think it's, you know, given that this is amateur science at best, this isn't, you know, large companies with all sorts of resources and money.
	Everything that's been done in terms of what people can do as personal research is pretty much being done, you know, interviewing people, going into the places, looking for tracks, setting up cameras, recording, audio recording equipment, all that is being done.
	And to the best of the abilities of a non-funded sort of group, that is satisfactory as far as that goes.
	In the Boggy Creek case, as an investigator, how convinced are you that there is something here that is beyond the norm and that isn't just kind of folklore or maybe people misidentifying something that we know about?
	I think there's something to it.
	You know, I mean, I don't certainly, if I've interviewed 100 people, I don't certainly believe that 100 people absolutely saw it.
	You can dismiss many of these as not that they're making it up, but it could be a mistaken identity, a hoax, a shadow.
	You know, they had it on their mind and they believe they saw that.
	But, you know, you take away all that.
	And even in this case, there's one which is my favorite sighting of an individual had when he was 14.
	He was fishing on the pond out back in his land there near Falk and saw this creature in a place where nobody would be pulling a hoax.
	He saw it clearly.
	He's an extremely credible individual.
	I know his family.
	I know him.
	I can't explain what he saw.
	He saw something, and it does not fit our rational definition of what's normally in the woods.
	So based on that, I don't know exactly what it is, but I can tell you there is something out there.
	And what kind of impact going forward did that have on him?
	Oh, considerable.
	I mean, he's, you know, it's something he cannot get out of his mind.
	And, you know, he himself sort of tries to make sense of it.
	And, you know, he didn't, he was kind of the best kind of witness.
	He wasn't out there running to the newspapers or shouting from the mountaintops.
	He was really reluctant to tell people.
	And, you know, there's a certain, even if it's in that culture of falc where people well know about the creature, if you say you saw it, you're going to get some ribbing and so forth.
	And but he kind of kept silent.
	And people would always say, you've got to interview Terry Sutton because they felt like, you know, he was credible and I got to know his family.
	And finally, he agreed to an interview.
	And I thought, well, this guy isn't in it for the money or the fame or the fortune.
	And that made it all the more credible to me.
	So having said that, because there is always the fear of ridicule, maybe less so in this day and age, but traditionally there has been, do you think that there are people there around that area in Falk who know but haven't told?
	Oh, absolutely.
	Yes.
	I mean, you know, and occasionally now that I'm so well known, if I show up there, people know and they're much more willing to tell me because they know I take it seriously.
	I'm not, you know, judging.
	I'm just, I just want to know.
	And there's people that have come forth as, you know, well, I never told anybody because I didn't want, and they'll tell me.
	And there could have been a sighting 30 years ago, you know, that they just kind of kept quiet or maybe told a few family members.
	So there's no doubt that there's still people there that have had encounters that still don't want to tell anybody.
	Do you ever get people who you work out are trying to hoax you?
	No, I've never had anybody like, you know, set up a hoax or do anything like that.
	I've interviewed people that said they've had a sighting and I don't, you know, I don't buy any of it.
	You know, I can rule that out pretty quick based on just how many interviews I've done and what they're trying to tell me.
	Yeah.
	So it's a little glad to experience and you can identify these things if and when they appear.
	Let's get to the Missouri monster then.
	This is similar but different similar but different because it has, as you hinted, it has other aspects to it.
	This is Missouri, July-ish 1972.
	So what's that 47 years ago?
	A beast lurking in the shadows and standing upright.
	Right.
	You know, kind of in the same time frame as the Boggy Creek case, and Missouri is much further north in the States.
	And this was located near the Mississippi River, which is a well-known landmark.
	And the same kind of thing, some kids were playing out their backyard one afternoon at the base of this place called Marzoff Hill.
	And they looked up to see this, you know, six or seven foot tall, hairy thing standing on two legs.
	And in this case, it had a large head, larger head, and it had hair that hung down completely over its face.
	And it appeared to be holding a dead dog.
	And they, of course, screamed and ran for the house.
	And her older sister looked out the window and she also saw it.
	And, you know, they got in the house and they called their parents.
	And the dad came out, you know, and started, you know, got the story and was looking around.
	He didn't see the creature by then, but, you know, they definitely saw something.
	And that got out in the newspapers.
	And that sort of sparked a, you know, a huge media frenzy of people coming forward saying they had seen the same thing lurking in the woods.
	And that also at the same time period, people were seeing strange colored lights in the sky on several occasions and were hearing strange noises.
	And the Missouri monster case had far more paranormal aspects to it.
	Although at the core, it's still basically this sort of a regional Bigfoot-like creature that numerous witnesses saw.
	Any strangely mutilated animals or anything like that in the area, which may give a sign that something abnormal is happening?
	Well, they did, you know, there were dogs that had disappeared, and those kids said that they believed it was holding a dead dog.
	So that was always, you know, pinned on the creature.
	Momo was said to have a penchant for, you know, eating or killing dogs, but that was all as far as animals that had gone missing or so forth.
	There's cows and things up there, but no slaughters like that.
	Interesting that, and tell me if I'm wrong about this, when you started researching this, you discovered that it wasn't just a phenomenon of the 1970s.
	In fact, there have been reports in that area going back a lot longer than that.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And in all of these cases, you always find that is once you sort of start digging around, you find that you sort of widen the scope, you know, as opposed to just the little bitty town where it may be seen at the time, where it got in the papers.
	You broaden that scope a little bit.
	I found that up and down the Mississippi River corridor there, there were sightings of ape-like creatures or what they used to call wild men back in the 1800s.
	And there was evidence that the 1970s wasn't the first time that this had happened.
	So that's always, it always adds, you know, credibility to the case that, you know, something could have been going on much longer.
	And then often find that there's witnesses that have seen things like that much more recently.
	And when you say much more recently, anything like that going on now?
	In the Momo case, there hasn't been any recent sightings very near where it was made famous.
	But if you go south in Missouri to what's called the Ozarks, which is on the border of Arkansas, where the Boggy Creek monster is, and Missouri, the Ozarks is a very rough and rugged, heavily forested area.
	There is absolutely sightings of Bigfoot-like creatures there today.
	So you could find something much more recent as far as that.
	And, you know, if these are large creatures of low populations that need to move around, and certainly they can't just stay in one area.
	And even bear or cougars and things, they move in very miles and miles up river corridors and things.
	So there could Be a wide area where these things are seen.
	Now, these sorts of phenomena, if not all, tall, upright standing, hefty, hairy, bipedal things.
	There is another case that you've looked into, the Lake Worth monster in Texas, not far from where you are.
	I say not far, Texas is a big place.
	But this is described as a half-man, half-goat creature that is furry and scaly.
	Now, I've never heard of this.
	It sounds weird to me.
	What do you know about this?
	Because as you know, a lot of people have tried to debunk that story.
	Yeah, and in terms of Texas, that is very close to me.
	It's like 30 minutes away from where I live.
	So that's a short drive in Texas, obviously.
	So is that Lake Worth as in Fort Worth?
	Yes.
	Right, so it is on your doorstep.
	Right.
	And that was one I wasn't aware of it as a kid because that came to prominence in 1969, in which people in the Lake Worth area, which at the time it was very, you know, undeveloped.
	It was sort of a, there was dirt roads around the lake.
	It was like a lover's lane hangout.
	People drove and parked there, but, you know, and fished and, you know, canoeed in the lake or what have you.
	But people, you know, there was some people parked out there one night and some sort of thing jumped on their car and literally tried to grab the woman.
	And they drove to a local cafe where they used a payphone to call the police and said, you know, this, you know, the description was whitish hair.
	They said it was hairy and scaly and some crazy description, which resulted in that half man, half, you know, half scaly goat man or whatever.
	But the subsequent sightings typically described it as almost being like a white-haired Bigfoot almost.
	It was, you know, something along those lines.
	But it was a popular case that was carried in the newspapers.
	And like any of these, you know, you always had people claiming, oh, that was me, me and my brother dressed up in a costume and this and that.
	And, you know, just another unsolved mystery, but certainly one that has become famous because a woman wrote a book about it that was actually published in 1969 called The Lake Worth Monster by Sally Ann Clark and kind of cemented that as one of the crypto zoology creatures.
	But today the lake is very developed and, you know, no sightings.
	And I don't think any possibility that any creature seen back then would be around today.
	So this is one of those stories that was around.
	A lot of people were very interested in it, got a lot of media coverage.
	But then, I won't say it went away, but it developed a life of its own.
	And then the story, as it had waxed, it waned, disappeared.
	Right.
	Usually the newspapers will latch on to it for a certain time period, maybe several weeks or a month.
	But if there's no resolve or nobody proves anything, then they just sort of move on.
	Or if some other bigger topic comes along to trumpet, then it kind of goes away.
	And then it's sort of left to writers of cryptozoology and investigators of the paranormal to sort of keep it alive from there on out.
	But do you think this one is more myth than anything else?
	I can tell you those people saw something.
	I mean, in one case, it was 40 people standing there on this, below this little ridge where they saw the creature.
	So it was a physical thing there.
	Now, whether it was a hoax or some unknown creature, ultimately, I can't say.
	But 40 people is a lot of people.
	It's not just two people in a car.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	This is one of those rare cases where a big group of people saw something.
	So I have no doubt there was something there.
	But it almost fits a little bit into the sort of the rural urban legends of goat men, which is kind of almost ubiquitous at any old bridge or lovers hangout in America.
	But, you know, I think there could be something to it.
	There's some pretty credible witnesses.
	Well, you know, I've told this story, I think, once, maybe twice on my radio show in the UK.
	But when I was a little boy of 11, my grandmother, I'm from Liverpool originally.
	North of Liverpool is a town called Southport, which is like a nice seaside town and it's got a fair, fun fair, that is open for a big part of the year.
	And the great thing for kids from Liverpool is they will get the train.
	You go half an hour north and you can go to the fun fair by the seaside.
	Now, my grandmother, when I was about 10 or 11, took me to the fair one beautiful summer's day along with thousands of other people.
	On the way back to the train, she said to me, don't look, don't look, don't look.
	And of course, if you're a child of 10 or 11, of course, you look.
	And on the walkway with us was a man who had, and I swear this is the case, he had the legs of like a goat and what appeared to be cloven feet, cloven hooves.
	I have never to this day seen anything like it.
	It wasn't a costume.
	I don't know what it was.
	But to this day, I am convinced of what I saw and I wasn't a fantasizing kid.
	Do you ever hear stories like that?
	I do.
	Yeah, there's been some cases like that, even some I've gotten personally.
	And then they're sort of few and far between, but scattered about.
	But no, just saying exactly what you're saying.
	There is definitely some weirdness or something to that because that's not the first time I've heard it.
	So I wonder, back in the 1970s on that warm, sunny day, I think it was August of that year, there were thousands of people and hundreds of them were on the same walkway with us.
	All of those people in Southport must have seen him.
	What an astonishing thing.
	And I'm convinced of what I saw.
	And my grandmother was keen that I didn't look.
	And of course, I was a kid.
	I did.
	And I'm glad I did because maybe one day I'll get an answer to what he might have been.
	I don't know.
	One other story that you've looked into is the lizard.
	I love this title.
	The Lizard Man, the true story of the Bishopsville Monster.
	This is in South Carolina.
	Talk to me about this.
	Well, this is one that had always interested me because I had read about it as part of some cryptozoology books.
	And the creature in this case is almost described as sort of a modern creature from the Black Lagoon.
	And it was seen near the small town of Bishopville in South Carolina near what's called Skatepoor Swamp.
	And people described it as standing seven feet tall.
	It was walked upright on two legs.
	It had sort of a reptilian look to it.
	It had greenish or brownish skin with scales.
	It had hands that had three long fingers on them.
	And the fingers ended in these long black nails.
	And there was an incident where a kid had had a flat tire out near Skateboard Swamp in the middle of the night on the way home from work.
	And as he finished changing the tire, something came at him in the moonlight.
	And first he thought it was a person, which would be scary enough.
	But then he realized it was some sort of a creature.
	And he jumped in his car and the thing tried to pull him out.
	And he managed to drive off.
	And there again, that ended up in the newspapers later.
	And the sheriff started looking into this case.
	So Hanga, can I just make sure I got this?
	The thing tried to pull him out, so it must have left some kind of sign of itself, mustn't it?
	Yeah, there was supposedly scratch marks on the paint of the car, and the driver's side mirror, the rear view driver's side mirror was broken.
	And that was, you know, according to the kid, that had resulted from the creature.
	And so that, you know, then that was looked at by the sheriff, Liston Truesdale, who was the sheriff at the time of Lee County there in South Carolina.
	And I went out there.
	That was my second book.
	I actually went to Bishopville.
	Again, I like to go there and I spent a lot of time with the sheriff who was then retired.
	I looked at all these police reports and he had had witnesses write down what they had seen, affidavits and photos.
	And, you know, I interviewed witnesses and I was like, man, this is just crazy.
	I mean, it literally just fascinated me, the swamp creature in, you know, modern day America.
	And so that, you know, that again became my, that was my second book and sort of, you know, followed me along as I and as myself and my research partner, Cindy Lee, investigated that case.
	And while, again, we couldn't prove anything, we did find that there was a lot to it, you know.
	And when you interview witnesses, of course, the more you do this, and I know this because I work as a journalist and my father was a policeman, so we're both kind of investigators in our own way.
	But you learn when you look into the eyes of people who are giving you accounts who's credible and who's not, don't you?
	Yeah, it definitely becomes a gut instinct.
	And while certainly you can't ultimately read every person, you know, perfectly, you can very much get a sense of the ones that are making stuff up or that just seem wacky versus the ones where you're like, this sounds really credible and I can't explain it sort of a thing.
	So in any case where I think they're nutty or making stuff up, I just, I don't include those in my book.
	Those are tossed, you know, so I only put the best, what I think is the most credible.
	Why do you think that in general, and not totally, not in totality, academics regard this as a kind of offbeat, weird branch of investigation and, you know, science doesn't really give much time to cryptozoology.
	Why do you think that is?
	Well, part of it, I mean, it's just the nature of that sort of stuff.
	I mean, you don't, nobody wants to touch it if they have some reputable career because people will laugh at them or it could cost them a job or, you know, they're not going to admit that they're interested in things like that.
	And I think also it's just become so pop culture.
	You know, Bigfoot is more, to most people, more of something that's in a movie or on a commercial or a board game or a lunchbox.
	It just kind of becomes a laughable thing that most serious scientists or quote unquote serious aren't going to invest time into, you know, for whatever reason.
	So I can understand why they're not all over that subject, but it shouldn't be missed out of hand just because it becomes popular in a way of pop culture.
	There's still something to it, I think.
	And what are your future research plans?
	Are you going back to cases that you covered before or are you looking at new stuff?
	Looking at new things.
	I've done a few of these books where they're very specific on one famous case.
	And I'm working on a book now that is more about the locations and whatever weird stuff has occurred in those locations, which kind of branches it out.
	I mean, it could include ghostly sightings or monster sightings or UFOs, whatever, which is kind of a different angle and fun to do just to look at areas that have a history of these spooky and weird encounters and reports.
	I suppose it will be interesting to see if there are any correlations between the sorts of places where cryptozoological phenomena appear.
	In other words, whether if you look, and it seems to me with the comparatively few interviews I've done on this subject over the years, but it seems to me that the sorts of places where these things appear are often, even if they're not geographically close, they're in many ways similar.
	Does that occur to you?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	You can start to see some correlation between certain areas and the amount of paranormal activity, if you will.
	Places like, certainly with Bigfoot encounters, as simple as rivers and swamps and places you almost think there would be heavy forests have a higher number of reports like that.
	You have the weirder stuff, you know, maybe centered around old cemeteries, sometimes around government installations and things.
	You'll find that there's a lot of reports of weird stuff.
	So there's definitely an underlying correlation between location and occurrences of weirdness.
	And of all the stories that you've looked into and of all the research that you've done, Lyle, is there any one story, one account, perhaps, from a witness that has either shocked you or amazed you?
	One in particular?
	Well, it's just such a variety of these type things.
	Let's see, shocked.
	I mean, I have one that's similar, and it's not even in any of my books, but what you described with kind of the goat man thing reminds me of this.
	I was speaking at an event in Fort Worth, as a matter of fact, about the Lake Worth monster.
	And a woman came up and said, I don't even know how to report this, but when I was a little bit younger, we lived in this area, and it was kind of near Fort Worth.
	And they were coming, driving home one night, her and her friend, and they saw this, what was just looked like a man at first.
	And she came up and he was kind of waving at them.
	And she, for whatever reason, they kind of half rolled down the window and talked to him.
	And as they began to look at him, he was dressed very oddly, very strange clothing, like green pants and a strange sort of shimmering sort of jacket.
	And they said his eyes were just not right.
	And he spoke to him, and they got this really spooky, chilly feeling as this thing talked to him.
	And I say thing, because by then she's like, she didn't think it was a human of any sort, though it seemed to be fleshy and, you know, in this world.
	But I don't know, it was just strange.
	And she said the weird part about it was, is they just had this really uneasy feeling and this thing just sort of disappeared off into the, you know, the woods as they drove off.
	And when they got home, they only lived a very short distance.
	They got home and all of a sudden the power in the house was going on and off and just really spooked her.
	And then, of course, with that going on, she thought back to what was that thing that we just talked to?
	I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was some weird, you know, some weird thing.
	And I always just thought, oh, that is creepy.
	And you might have mentioned it, and I might have missed it.
	When did this happen, did they say?
	This was back in 1980s.
	Okay, so we're not talking about a pickup truck in the 1950s on a dusty road.
	Right, right.
	It was fairly recent, you know, when the girl was younger, perhaps a teenager.
	And I mean, she wasn't all that old.
	But yeah, this has been back in the 1980s and sort of not in the necessarily, not necessarily the most remote place, but there's some outlying areas of Fort Worth that back then, of course, were still undeveloped.
	So yeah, just a spooky thing to see.
	And I thought, I kind of thought, man, what it was like, what we think of as the devil or Satan or who knows?
	It was just one of those that stands out because I don't have any other report like it.
	You know, it was not a ubiquitous Bigfoot report or a reptilian humanoid.
	It was like just very unique and very spooky.
	And we come back to that thing that you've witnessed so many times, I'm sure.
	It's the impact over decades and decades of something unresolved and unexplained like this has on the person who experiences it.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	That's one of the things that's very interesting is just how the person is affected by these, you know, and you can see that when you're interviewing them or they're telling you the story that it had an emotional impact and it's something that because they can't resolve or explain has almost plagued them all this time.
	And they're always usually happy that you're listening to the story because they want to tell somebody because that's kind of therapy for them and they want somebody to take it seriously.
	But it's clearly had an impact on them because otherwise they wouldn't have taken the trouble to seek you out at a conference.
	Right, right.
	And, you know, and I can tell you that in that case and many others, they're not making it up.
	Something happened and they're emotionally distraught.
	And it's like, wow, what was that?
	And as far as they were aware and as far as they told you, had they discussed this with anybody else across the 30-odd years?
	I mean, she had presumably told some people, but, you know, it was just sort of like whomever would listen and nobody had really documented it or investigated or looked into it necessarily, but it was just something that by then was just a story that she was willing to tell, you know.
	And we can only speculate, and I would love to hear from people who've maybe, and so would you, I'm sure, Lyle, who've had these experiences wherever in the United States or in this country or anywhere in the world have had them.
	You know, you can only guess at how many people may have had experiences like that.
	I mean, if I can be a 10 or 11-year-old kid and I can see something that appears to be some kind of hybrid or creature that is not human walking along, you know, away from a fun fair with me, and I swear that is absolutely true.
	And I've also experienced what I'm convinced is a ghost.
	That's just me.
	And I wasn't even looking for these things.
	So it indicates, doesn't it, that around the world there are so many people who have stories that have maybe stayed within the family and they've never told them.
	They're never shared.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah.
	There's who knows how many numbers of stories out there.
	Well, Lyle, I'm sure you're going to be looking for them.
	It's great to talk with you.
	I love your website, by the way.
	Your website is really good.
	Thank you.
	I made it myself.
	Okay, do you want to give the address so that people can go and get the proof of what I've just said?
	Right.
	So it's lileblackburn.com, L-Y-L-E Blackburn.com.
	And it's got links to Where you can get my books.
	I've got my own online store if you want autographed books or obviously available on Amazon, both paperback and e-book formats, and even hardbacks.
	So, yeah, just hit my site and check out what I've done.
	I mean, I've got to say that some of these books I think would make TV documentaries in themselves.
	Yes, in a way.
	And I have been involved in this film company called Small Town Monsters, who's made a number of documentary films that have followed my book research and or I have simply narrated or co-wrote some of their documentaries.
	So those are, you can see that.
	If you search Amazon, just search Lyle Blackburn, you can see my books will come up as well as the films, which many of those you can view on Amazon Prime if you like.
	And is this just United States research for you, or do you have any plans to broaden this out?
	You know, maybe to go up to Canada or down to Central or South America?
	I'd like to broaden it.
	I mean, thus far it's sort of been, I mean, there's almost so much here that it's hard to get it all.
	And I'm kind of a southern guy, and I like the southern aspect of the southern United States, which plays a large part in my, I don't know, vibe.
	But yeah, there's some cases around the world that interest me.
	And, you know, if I had the opportunity or the funding to do those, I would certainly jump at the chance.
	Well, I think you're a very lucky man living in Texas.
	I've always wanted to go and see that place.
	At the moment, there is a publicity campaign in the UK, and I think probably across Europe, featuring Linda Gray, who used to be in Dallas as Sue Ellen, promoting Dallas.
	She looks fabulous at the age of 78.
	And from what I see on those promotions, Dallas has changed a lot, and it's a place that I love to go and see.
	So I think you're lucky to live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Lyle.
	And I wish you luck with all of your research.
	I hope we talk again.
	Thank you very much.
	If you ever make it over, give me a holler.
	Thank you.
	We'll have a good Texan beer.
	Thank you very much, Lyle.
	Take care.
	Absolutely.
	The amazing Lyle Blackburn, tell me what you thought about him.
	Go to my website, theunexplained.tv.
	And you can, as they say on eBay, leave feedback there.
	You can let me know what you thought about it or give me some suggestions for future shows.
	More great guests in the pipeline, by the way, as we cruise our way to the end of 2019 now.
	So until next we meet, my name is Howard Hughes.
	This has been The Unexplained Online.
	And please, whatever you do, stay safe, stay calm, and above all, please stay in touch.
	Thank you very much.
	Take care.

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