Ep. 326 - Marc DeWerth Returns!

back in the late fifties early sixties. Yeah, yeah, so that to particular his challenge, his written challenge. It was donated to the museum by the Willow Creek Museum. So I got a scan of it and we printed that out and put it up in our entry way in the museum so people can come read about the stuff that John Green personally saw and was willing to give one hundred thousand dollars away if somebody could replicate footprints under the same conditions showing the same features. A hat written, No,

this one is typed. This was typed. It was official. It was definitely official. So then, of course, needless to say, nobody ever collected it. That's not to say hoaxes don't happen, of course, but nobody ever collected it.

pressure off. Then we did a pre moved plan party Saturday. Crew Tou was out of town, so I had some of the boys come or they were going to help help move. So we uh watched UFC and kicked out some steaks and had a good time.

night hike. Apparently Tom Powell's going to be out there, a lot of other bigfoot folks, Charlie I know, Charlie Raymond and Steve Coles are going to be out there, some various podcasters. It should be a really, really good time. And of course this is the third or fourth year of the event, and it's ridiculous. Every year it keeps growing and growing and growing. It's grown so much actually, they've had to move it to a new location, which is why it's gonna be at the Fairgrounds of Vinton

County Fairgrounds in MacArthur, Ohio this coming weekend. Come on out and say hi, Come on out and say whatever you want to me. If you're a pigeon, you can go at me and I'll do it right back at you. It's going to be a good time. Hopefully I'll see you out there. But speaking of Ohio, let's go ahead and talk to our guests today. Of course, we have a return visitor today. Are at the Lovely Intellent, Mark Dwerth from out in Ohio. He's the organizer of the

Ohio Bigfoot Conference and a bunch of other stuff. He's a regular speaker at local events and libraries near him. He's out in the woods all the time because of his living, of course, and what let's just jump right into it. Mark, how are you doing today?

there wasn't super warm weather in the spring. But then as summer rolled around in mid July, we started hitting in the nineties again, and you know, then not getting rain. And now we're like in what I would say the dog days this summer, where it seems like every evening there's a chance of a thunderstorm somewhere around and it might rain here, might rain there, And so of course it spikes the humidities and then you have a lot

of humidity in the air. No, everything's doing good. I mean, I can't be happier on this year.

different other wildlife that the state has to offer. So yeah, most definitely the heat the summer can play a big role in determining where they're going to be located at. And like last year when we had that big drought for about three weeks, I mean, if we did get any sighting reports, there were always by a big body of water.

reservoirs that are dammed up for whatever reason. I don't know if if it's because those river valleys underneath the reservoirs are pretty deep and you know, not a lot of people go into them because they're focused on the lake themselves, or what. Do you see that same sort of thing out in Ohio?

So yeah, most definitely. And plus I mean, and I don't know how it is up by by you guys, but I truly feel that the bigfoots in Ohio, they definitely follow those dry creek beds are the semi wet creek beds to and from food source.

things like that. And I happened to decide to go down below this property why some other investigators were still talking with the witnesses, because I noticed there was a small trailer on the property below this property that set up on this big knoll. And when I went and talked to the lady of the property and I just simply, you know, if she had seen any prowlers around in

the summer. And of course she said, oh, yeah, I saw that, sob and I told him to get off my property and I was going to shoot him with my gun. And I go, really, I go, what did he say? She goes, he just growled and walked away. And I said, well, what do you mean growl? She goes, yeah, he kind of just made like a growl sound, and he turned in when he left. He didn't leave my property toward the road. He went back into the woods.

But she had no clue. But anyways, I got permission to take a look around on her property, and lo and behold, we were back on this one section and there was snow on the ground because this was February, and there was an area maybe about twelve foot diameter of an area where there was deer here, hair spread everywhere, like in this strange circular pattern. And as we were looking around, it's like, well, where are the bones, where's

the body? We couldn't find anything. And then lo and behold, I see like a hoof sticking out under a like some briar bushes, and when I went to put my hand on the hoof to thinking I was just going to pull the hoof itself out, it was the whole deer. And I ended up pulling three deer from out underneath

this brier patch. They were all frozen solid. The only thing wrong with them where their backs were snapped, and it was almost like these things were they were being stored underneath these briers in the snow, and that whatever had eaten whatever I mean, I'm going to say this was a deer that was eating because it was it was obviously deer hair that they were obviously having a feeding at this location, and it was just right below the property that was having all these sightings in all

these vocalizations, so I assumed that that was a bigfoot doing that.

something had been eating. And so we presumed there was another deer that was taken and that they had eaten this one, and that maybe the critters came along and cleaned up the mess.

They spooked out what they said was a large hair cover creature. Obviously it was raining quite hard with lightning and thunder and they obviously they kind of walked up pretty close to it. It must have not heard them coming because of all the storming, and it spooked the thing. The thing crossed the trail and quickly went up a hill side up an embankment, out of site, very quickly.

But it scared them to the point where instead of continuing going straight, they went the mile back to where their car was parked because they didn't want to continue. And that happened. Oh, that was just about a month ago.

of the name of the lake. And I said, oh, really, tell me more. And you know, he sat down and we talked in he got me in contact with the people that actually had the sighting, and and yeah, because it's kind of funny because people do talk about it along that trail, but most people talk about it in a very jokingly fashion. I it's just you know, bs, there's nothing true about it. There were three witnesses on this that saw this thing, and you know, obviously it

was quite large in sizing. It had scared them out of there. And you know, people that hiked the Buckeye Trail, especially that section of the state, they're not I wouldn't call them wimpy hikers because it's pretty rugged out there.

of sasquatch from save property owners? And how do you get that how do you get that information without you know, like scaring the witnesses off.

these property owners. They'll say, hey, I noticed your your shirt and I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's cool. And he goes, oh they have museums like that. I'm like, oh yeah yeah. And I tell him about it and everything like that. And then then of course they get around to saying, hey do you do you really think these things are are legitimate? And I look at him, I said, well yeah, I said, I I pretty much

can guarantee you they exist. And he they look at me, they goes, well, just so you know, my brother who lives over you know, over in tim Buck too. Let's say he likes to come and hunt my property and and you know, and when I when he was up in his tree stand, you know, he comes, you know, comes back a couple hours later, he looks as white as a ghost. I said, what's going on? He said, And what's going on? What's wrong with you? He goes,

you ain't gonna believe what I saw. And he, you know, explains, you know, this huge eight nine foot tall bigfoot, you know, walking within twenty feet of his stand and even seeing them up in the stand like he knew he was there, and it scared the guy to death. And you know, and he said, I used to make fun of my brother about it all the time, not believing him because I never heard any stories. And he goes, after talking to me, he's going to take it more seriously. And

that's just one of them. That was over in Kashoktan County. Then I had one where over I believe it or not, in northwest Ohio, like up near Defiance, which is like in the flatlands of the state farmland where you know, a woman and her husband and I was on the land, said yeah, you know, two or three years ago, you know, we were coming up to this Blanchard River area over here, and there were five very discernible, five toed footprints when came up on the bank of the of the river.

And then it went back down into the river and she said there, Yeah, there are five tracks there, and you know they were probably you know, fifteen sixteen inches in size, and so yeah, I mean I do get I do get people commenting all the time, and so, you know, people are seeing things, they just don't want to talk about it or they don't know who to talk to about it.

leads to having should I say, highly diluted data. And because you know, and I'm sure you see it all the time, Cliff Bobo, you guys see this all the time where people want everything to be a bigot, and when they get the bigfoot pill in them, that's all they think that everything's legitimately a bigfoot and unfortunately, you know, I'm the one that has to tell them it isn't. And you know, obviously sometimes they're not happy, but it's to their benefit. But you know, I would have to

say it's in Ohio. People are a little bit more acceptable than they were, say twenty years ago. But there's still the skeptics, of course, and I hope there are because I think we need skeptics.

And I hate deluded data. I'd rather have a data set of fifteen great reports than a thousand reports where five are only good in the rest or garbage.

And of course that has to not only correlate with the number of sasquatches and people overlapping in their similar habitat, but also the number of bigfoot researchers willing to listen and record. I think that's probably still true even with the proliferation of the subject through you know, all the all the various places in the United States and North America, et cetera. But Ohio just has a ton of researchers

who are out there quite often. Do you think that that trend is continuing or you think other states are catching up or what do you think's going on there?

bigfoot people going out doing their own thing. They have their own social media presence, and they are obviously like promoting, promoting awareness and everything like that. So yeah, we continually have interest in this state. Some states don't have hardly any at all, and I'm not sure why.

less population. Then you go southeast to Ohio, which is your kind of your Appalachia foothills, which obviously heavily wooded, lots of reservoirs, lots of water, lots of deer, everything like that. And then you have southwest Ohio, it's going to be those big sprawling river valleys that feed the Ohio River that have lots of agriculture mixed with rolling

hills in heavy forest. And then of course you have northwest Ohios which is the old Black Swamp, which is oak and hickory savannahs which were like open plain growing trees with massive amounts of swampland and just soil so fertile that anything can grow in it. And so it's kind of a strange state. How you can go around the whole thing and get all four things. Well, then we got Lake Erie on the top, Ohio River on

the bottom. I mean, the one thing for sure with Ohio is why we have so many reports is we get a ton of rainfall. We have a ton of water. We have a ton of oak hickory type forests that produce masts on the forest floor to feed everything. Bigfoots like eating deer an other small game. If there's food on the floor for them to eat, there's still going to be around. The bigfoots are going to take advantage

of it. And then of course, you know, then of course you just have the unbelievable lack of natural predators. I mean, it's not like we have lots of cougars in the state. We might have a few in the southeast section. We don't have packs of wolves. Our biggest predator might be some packs of coyotes, and they're not going to be able to take down a healthy deer. They can take down the week and old ones, but

not like big feet can. So I think it's just that perfect combination of everything that gives the big fits the perfect type of habitat and being at the foothills of the city of the Allegheny's appalachis whatever you want to call it. Most of the food grows down on those lower levels as opposed up in the high higher altitude. So you just we just have a lot to offer. But Ohio, our deer population is insane and it's quite it's we have some monster bucks all throughout this state.

And and and like I say, just for the years and years of not having a lot of natural predators. I mean, the deer are huge here. I mean we have we have state and world records here.

world record. And if you just google it Ohio, like world record deer, you'll see and and I mean this hunting season, this or the last hunting season that happened, I'm always seeing I'm following people and they're taking sixteen eighteen twenty twenty two point bucks with huge wide racks on them, you know, dressing out the deer one hundred and eighty one hundred ninety two hundred, two hundred ten pounds,

big big deer. And you know, like I say, the big deer live long when they don't have a lot of predators to work, you know, to worry about.

be found in appropriate habitat. And I'm assuming that most of the reports in Ohio come from the eastern part of the states, the state rather and probably increasing a little bit to the south as well, when you get down to those particular areas, you know, the bordering West Virginia and all that sort of stuff down there. And there's probably only a few reports I'm guessing from the northwest corner, but as of now, about thirty or a little a little bit more than thirty percent of Ohio

is forested. A little pre research getting ready for the interview, I found that at some point because of deforestation, I think that it peaked in the nineteen forties. Only twelve percent of the state was forested at that time, like in the nineteen forties, at some point early nineteen forties. So now we've had sixty seventy eighty years of regrowth.

Can you see any reflection of that in the sighting reports, like perhaps in the eighteen hundreds that were more than the first half of the twentieth century it dropped off, or can you see any evidence of that in sighting reports or has it been pretty steady for all this time.

everything was gone. There was hardly anything. And it's weird because, as you know, the good thing with Ohio is there's a lot of people with a lot of money that lived here at one point of their lives that left endowments to preserve parks, preserve you know, forested lands, valleys, things like that, waterways. So over the years, and with some a broad scope objective to bring Ohio's forests back,

you know, say starting in the forties. By nineteen seventy five, all of a sudden, we were starting to get a lot more forest cover. And like Cliff you said that the forest covers twelve percent in nineteen forty, it was probably down to six or seven percent in like nineteen ten, nineteen fifteen, so it was almost totally gone. So when you take all that forest away, you take all the game away, you talk any predators away. If there were any bigfoots around, they would have to isolate themselves in

those small pockets, and even that might be risky. So I think we had a time period where there was hardly anything until about the late sixties early seventies. And it kind of kind of correlates with when deer started coming back into human eye. Like in the seventies, if you saw a couple of white tailed deer that was considered huge, like, oh my god, I saw it. Saw two deer. Now they come up to you and stalk you as you're walking your neighborhood. So there's so many

of them. So yes, the forest cover has been huge for bringing back bigfoot population numbers, citing report numbers, you know. And like one thing that I always thought was when I first met Don Keating in ninety five, ninety four, ninety five. I mean I talked to him on the phone before, but meeting them in person, and what really kind of shocked me was the fact that all the the majority of the bigfoot sightings in our state, you could literally correlate them to the number of deer taken

in deer season by the counties. So the most reports were coming where the most deer were taken. So the bigfoots like us wanting to hunt deer, were also hunting the deer too, And it was you know, obviously showing them the statistics that that's what they were doing. They were following water, shelter, food source, and that part of east central Ohio was the place to for sure that had the most of it at the time.

What kind of vegetables so to speak, resources are there from tree like nuts and fruits, like what kind of wild things are growing out there for sasquatches to take advantage of acorns galore?

course we have wild onions. You have all different types of wild vegetables that grow all throughout our our ecosystem here, including some very rare ones too. But of course we also have to throw in the agriculture. We have plenty of produce farms in this state. We have plenty soybean, corn, you know, wheat, et cetera. Is being grown all around all the time. So there's all this food source available

for everyone. And it's just you know, truly benefits something like a sasquatch because you know, if they can't catch it deer, they have other things to eat until they can catch it deer. And like I say, Ohio has a lot of deer, that's for sure.

around for quite a while. This course started before you got your your gloves on it. Don Keating was kind of the guy pushing that forward, and you've brought it into central focus for everybody by doing a great job over the years out there in Salt Fork State Park. Let's let's talk about the sheer number of conferences and their success and why that would be true.

nature subjects don't do, is attract kids and families. And when you can get the kids and families involved, or get the communities involved in it, because you know, you see a lot of the newer conferences they're hosted by like chamber of commerce or small cities, small townships where

they are they're the ones hosting it. And they just invite people out to have a good old time in an outdoor street festival, you know, with vendors and food trucks and just the local businesses where Bigfoots want to say the subject matter part of part of the event, and which attracts people to the subject and you know,

bigfoot is. In my opinion, I think you could do conferences in every state and I think they'd all do well as long as they're promoted well and you have a good lineup of speakers at least, you know, some keynotes and then some locals. A good mix is always good. And I just think it's just the sign of times that Bigfoot's become so popular that you know, people are taking advantage of it.

This year, they've moved the location. It's going to be a different situation, So we're going to see how well that success translates over to the new format. But that combination of kind of a private and public event sort of thing seems to work out really well. And now you've taken up the banner and are now helping to organize. Is it the first New York Bigfoot conference or what's going on with that?

it's like the Johnstown Gloverville Holiday Inn. It's at very nice meeting facility with lodging right there, and like I say, it's within like fifteen minutes of of you know, the foothills of the of the and Orantick Mountains where there's been a lot of historic Bigfoot sightings. And you know,

I think we have coming in. We have you Cliff coming in, we have doctor Jeff Meldroom, we have doctor estabund Sarmiento, we have Adam Davies coming in, we have Renee Holland coming in from Finding Bigfoot in and then of course I'm going to be the MC for the first year for her, and it's going to be a you know, a great event, you know, and we're trying

to keep it pretty scientific this year. We're trying to get to a lot of people to want to come and learn more about Bigfoot and more about you know, the scientific aspect of it, you know, as well of course of course about all the sightings that from the area, because there have been plenty of them, and you know, I would encourage you to go to the New York big Foot Conference on the Internet or on Facebook and check it out, and you know, and and to tend

it would be great for a first event, trying to get it off the ground, and you know, like I told Loretta, you know, it'll take a couple of years to build the event up to get it to where you're just going to sell out all the time. But the first year is always going to be a struggle, which I would think, And but it's going to be a great event nonetheless.

outdoor event. And even though we will have some outdoor vendors at the New York conference, you know, in October, but like I say, there's other than those that and and I know that there's one in New Jersey done by Cryptid Promotions, which is a good event. But other than that, there isn't a lot there, and you know, I thought, you know, like maybe we can get more people to come out of the woodwork and talk about their encounters out there. We're doing a town hall on

Friday night before the conference. It's free and open to the public, and we're looking for people from New York, Vermont, a those surrounding areas would come forth and tell about their encounters.

an educational type event. I mean, like I said, I'm i and I've known you guys for years, and I'm big on educating people on not that Bigfoot exists, that that there's a lot of data out there that will maybe sway you into the way to think, hey, maybe there is a possibility of these things being real, because I think that you shouldn't say they exist until you've seen one, or until you've had some kind of encounter that's changed your life and then you can go into

that wagon, and you know, so you try to educate them as much as you can.

take photos and just chat with everyone was amazing. Also when Lauren Coleman was there one year, Tom Page came and having Tom Pager and Bob was there that year too, and it was just such a And so we inducted Tom Page in the Ohio Bigfoot Hall of Fame and of course he was very you know, teary eyed over it and emotional because you know, he knew that he had a lot of contribution to the subject from the sixties and the seventies, but you know, now for him

to finally get recognition for it, I think him and his wife thought it was very special. And you know, and that's the thing I like. I like to see people happy, and you know, seeing the looks on people's faces, like, you know, I'd never forget this one time, you know me because I'm running around everywhere in that place while the event's going, and I walk into the front lobby area, just coming around the benin and I look over on

the chair and there's Bob Gimblin's there. And Bob had got in maybe two hours ear and it was Thursday night, I think, And as people were coming in, Bob would get up and say, Hey, are you folks here for the fro the Bigfoot Conference?

year you came. I remember the first year Bobo came, where an A came, Matt came. I mean, just just amazing to see the people respond to people they see they saw on TV. They respected, and you know what I think. I think twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, and even twenty seventeen were some pretty special years. And you know, those are things I'll never forget. I mean,

just just that. And of course the kids all watching kids come and now they're young adults, and some of them now have families of their own, and they're coming back. That's amazing.

research with in the state. And you know, he wrote multiple books about the grassman I guess are what you call the forest people, I think he called them. And you know, he's kind of a legend in the community. If you watch some of the old documentaries from the seventies, you will see Robert Morgan's in a lot of those. And so let's just say he's kind of part of the old Guard. And yet to this day, even though you know he's not in the greatest health, he's still around.

the event. And a lot of people didn't know anything about Tom Bage too many years later after Tom Slick died and things like that, and so and here lo and behold he lives in Youngstown, Ohio, which was like amazing and uh. And then he reached out to me before one of the conferences and asked if him and his wife could come down. I'm like, you guys, you guys got free seats, you got free dinner, you get if you need travel money, it's it's on me. And so they came down and they were the nicest, most

humble people. And you know, Tom passed away a few years back, but but it was an honor to know him, an honor to meet him, an hour to honor to hear his stories, like about slick about Patterson. You know he like the Patterson's book company. Tom Page, I think, is the one who funded the money to get the get his first book printed. And so you know, Page had a lot to do with a lot of things. And like I say, he was a very nice and humble man. And he didn't sit there and shoot off

his mouth saying Bigfoot's real. This is that you No, he was interested in the science aspect of the creature and wanting to prove that these things do exist.

roof all the speakers and the attendees. It's just an awesome weekend. So thanks so much for all the hard work that goes into that every year.

just kept sleeping right through it. I left the car running both times when I learned to look at the trees with the air conditioning on. And then we continued on and I finally get back up to like the Greater cleven every close to the airport, I'm like, you know, like, Bobo, are you hungry? Just let me sleep a little longer?

And then then of course it's like, are you hungry, and he finally said, okay, we'll go get something to eat. We went and had Mexican He barely ate like five bites. And then I take him to the airport. And then let's just say that when his flight was getting ready to leave, he gave me a call. He says, hey, thanks for everything. He says, Oh, when I was in the bathroom, I took a good number two. It was awesome. And that was it. But no, uh, it was it

was funny. I mean, just for the fact that I never saw someone sleep that long in a car.

Let's say, you know, the biggest problem with that bobo is that Salt Fork because everyone goes there to Bigfoot. That means everything is Bigfoot, and with all the hoaxed videos that come out of there, where people just have their brother dress in a suit and you know, they film from up on a ridge and say, look, see there's Bigfoot at Salt Pork. It's like, it's crazy, all these hoaxes that go on. So you have to really really filter it down to only the real good data

to even get anything legit. And not that there isn't legit things that happen, it's just the problem is when you have thousands of people looking for Bigfoot there, you get all this misidentification.

I'm convenient to the corner of West Virginia and the Ohio River Valley, and right then and there you have a confluence of everything meeting, and it is fricking squatchy as heck down there, that's for sure.

that wasn't that far far away from there. I'm really looking forward to this event and seeing how it grows and matures over the next decade or two. I mean, goodness knows how what kind of legs this conference is going to have. It could be around, could be one of the longest running ones ever for all you know. Because it's not too far from the city, right.

related items for people to win. And you know, but and of course you know, uh, it gives them you know, exclusive you know, seating to see all the lectures and everything like that, because like me, when I go to go to a Bigfoot event, I want to see all the lectures and which I never get to do it at my own events. So when I do go to them, that's what I do. I go see the speakers. I

want to I want to learn. And if if folks want to learn on the New York Bigfoot and all the Northeast you know Bigfoot settings, you know, this is gonna be a good step to start at. And I think you should give it a chance and see what it's like, because it's going to be great. I guarantee that, Oh I would one hundred percent agree. I mean, and of course we have doctor Meldrum, we have doctor Sarmiento speaking. I'm going to be there. Rene is kind of come

as well and talk to us about some stuff. And Adam Davies a lot of great speakers, great people, a great location. I think it's going to be a great event man. Yeah, oh yeah, it is. It will be. And like I say, we just got to get more people to say, hey, I want to come to this event. I mean, this is the time to get your tickets and get your rooms booked and things like that. And you know, like I say, people trust me, show up. You won't be disappointed.