You're listening to Bigfoot Society, and I'm Jeremiah Byron. In this show, we go beyond the campfire stories to bring you first hand encounters from people who say they've seen something impossible. From backwoods trails and remote mountain haulers to quiet farms and crowded highways. The stories come from everywhere, and each one leaves us with more questions than answers. These are the voices of the people who've lived it.
To settle in, because today you'll hear another account that just might change the way you see the woods forever. So stay with us, all right, big for Society. You've got the privilege of talking to mister Tom Shay today. Tom is a bigfoot researcher down there from the state
of Kentucky. He has been researching the subject for thirty eight years and currently has the largest collection of unique bigfoot casts east of the Mississippi River, all that have been casted by him specifically, and I do also know that his work has been validated by people such as Cliff Barrickman and the late doctor Jeff Meldrum. I've seen some of his collection in person, and they are incredible to see. If you ever get the chance to see
them in person, I would definitely recommend it. Tom, thank you so much for coming on the show today, sir. How are you?
Oh fine? And I'm honored to be.
Here, absolutely, sir. Whenever I talked to researchers on the show, I love to start out with what was it that first got you into the Bigfoot subject?
To begin with, I first got into it was my first sighting.
Oh okay, all right, so let's yeah, let's go right into it.
Nineteen eighty seven, I was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I had to leave time cured and I decided to come home and see my parents. Like a week here. I got here, I spend a couple of days. I had a next girlfriend called me up as I heard you in town. Can you come up and we'll go aad and do something to night and have some sun and if we go back, I said sure, I'll be
up for this afternoon, pick you up and stuff. I got cleaned up and everything, and it started up the US thirty six Highway thirty six and now that's along the Ohio River from Milton, Kentucky to Carleton, Kentucky and rock across the Rivers, Indiana, Madison, Indiana. Now, a lot of people need to understand that in nineteen eighty seven, this small community around here closed up at five thirty and there was nobody on the roads that time. So
it's a late in the afternoon. It's in October about like it is right now, and we're having some eighty eighty five degree weather. At that time, it was an unusually warm October. And so I'm driving my way all my way up to Carl the Kentucky and seen that girl, and I noticed this gentleman I thought was a gentleman up on the side of the road. It wasn't. I was kind of confused because this thing had a this person had a fur coat on, and I'm trying to figure out why this guy got a fur coat on
the age five degrees out. So when I get it closed, I slowed down and I'm looking out the passenger winda addy and I'm really not knowing understanding what I'm seeing. This is a large cherry person. After I passed and I sped up a little bit, turned around, come back, pulled off the side of the road, and actually got out of the car and followed it down into the field along the river. There after I crossed. And the reason I did that is because I had to understand
what I saw. I'm getting, I'm getting ground on it and stuff like that, and it turned around on me real quick and it snarled crowd and at that time Era I knew it was time to go back to the car. I went back to my parents' house, told me parents thought I'd been drinking that Mom and Dad I just left the house. I said, I ain't been gone maybe ten minutes. And so I went back to my room and there and I sat down and I'm
trying to figure the things out. And my dad comes in and says, you're going up there to see your girlfriend. I said, Dad, I ain't going nowhere. I said, I'm just a little too shook up right now. And I said, okay. Left it at that. My parents didn't believe in things like that, and I really didn't hear growing up. But after that I went back to the Fort Campbell and all that time I started digesting everything about the big Foot phenomenon, reaching out to other researchers and reading books
and trying to get anything I can. And one of the biggest things was at that trimary researchers would not share or want to talk or discuss anything to anybody else. It was also crypti secretive. Everybody was afraid of you just want to take their their line life away. When I started researching and I decided, you know what, I'm going to start everything I find out, I'm going to share with everybody, I don't care. And ever since then,
that's what I've been doing, is share information anything. Now. I don't know it all. I'm not an expert, but I am. I am a seasoned researcher. That's one of the biggest things that I have right here. I like to help other researchers get started.
Tom, That's great. What a way to start things off for you seeing what you saw that October by the Ohio River. My goodness, how tall? How tall was what you saw?
To be totally honest, I really couldn't be honest with you about it. I just knowed it was huge. Honestly, I had a lot of things going on in my mind it this time of trying to figure things out, and I just know it was huge. It was wider than I was. And I remember, I do remember because I'm telling this story and everything's coming back, and I can.
See the smells and everything for that day, I remember I was had to look up up.
At it in the face.
Gotcha. Listeners will know. Just in case someone's not following the map of citing encounters that I have on Big for Society podcast dot com, I want to point out that this area that you're talking about is just across the river from southern Indiana that has really come up on the show quite a bit. If you've heard the episode about Floyd Knobs Austin Bottoms, that's the area of Indiana, but across the river a little bit to the west of where Carrollton is. It looks like it's a little
bit further southwest. But tom after you had this encounter and then you start looking and researching into things. So was that the thing that pushed you over one hundred percent into Okay, now I'm going to start going out there all the time. Or were you still at the point where you're like, you know what, I'm not quite sure that I want to go out there and start looking all the time into this.
Yet at that time where I needed to know what I was, I looked at what I saw There was a blank spot there. I saw something that shouldn't be there, crawling up your tout with evolutions. Staff were not as humans here. There's nothing else on here. You just got your cow, your beer and stuff like that. There's not a type of humanoid creature around here. So from my own state of mind, I had to find out what I was, what I saw, what I had witnessed.
So you start going out on this really quest figure out what it is that you saw. You were talking to other people, you were reading books. But then did you also start to go into these areas to start to see if you could find this creature again?
Yes? Yeah, Well I was in the service when I had a lot of time, I could get some a week off and leave or something like that. I would hop a military flat and go out to worshy State, California, Oregon, Oklahoma, a couple of times, Arkansas. Get some stuff in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan. It's really good work up in Michigan around Grayland. This some stuff in Georgia, but it wasn't long term stuff. I was there like three or four days and got to feel the place.
That's interesting. Did you have any things that happened to you in that section of the Pacific Northwest, like your Washington, Oregon, northern California. Did anything happen to you when you would go out there, Well.
I had some things that happened, but I couldn't say for sure that it was bigfoot related because I didn't see it and I couldn't explain what happened. I heard sounds and stuff like that. Just because you hear something in the woods doesn't mean it's a big foot absolutely.
So you mentioned this Graylan, Michigan area. What was it that happened up there specifically?
I really don't want to talk about that right now, So I talk to the people I was with. Sure, I promised them I wouldn't say too much of about it, But I have been working up in that area. If there's a military inslation up there, a proving ground like Oka area, okay, up around that area there, so.
Yeah, we can definitely we'll put to the side, no problem at all. So, Tom, you're traveling around the US, it sounds like you're checking out the specific areas that you know are good. You're having things that might be considered encounters, but you're you're not having maybe visuals like out in the Pacific Northwest. Was there a time then where you finally broke through and you're like, oh, I was able to have another sighting or have something happened
within a shadow of a doubt. Okay, I'm here experiencing this creature again.
When I got out of the service, the traveling thing stopped. I focused my research locally. I went to the Sheriff's department, I went to the library. Actually, historians in your town, if you have a historical society, you can look up like here in my county. In nineteen sixty two, there was an outbreak of a big foot type creature that was terrorizing the county. They call it the thing or the Bedford beast. It looked in windows, It harassed people,
It took hogs that killed a calf, livestock. It got so bad that the sheriff formed a posse, a hunting posse, and the state police joined in. There was a hunting group out of Louisville TV station, so it hit the ap. This happened for about thirty days, and then after the big hunt, I had it cornered back here and we had what they call the Limestone Caves along the river bank here. One part of the hill I had up in the area, but they didn't find it. And right
after all that happened, it died down. And then periodically over the years more people had seen things have happened here, and it maybe want to maybe I just stay in my own little county here, so if we had all this stuff going on, maybe find out if there's anything else going on here in this county. I established myself here and a lot of people know who I am and what I do, and if they have that encounter,
they will contact me. Or if they know somebody who mentioned something about an odd thing happening, I said, why don't you go talk to that man, Tom Shay. He lives black Blah Black. And I get people here all the time talking to me. So I had a homeowner that thought he saw a bear and it was right next to my farm, right across the road from my farm, And can I go back in and look around with it? He goes there, go ahead. So I went back in and looked around, and I was righting beflour with him
and going along the access road. Now this was like in twenty fourteen, and I come across these fresh tracks that had crossed over this access road, and they were perfect man, like you said you saw on the ford, these were perfect prints. And I'm excited, and I'm sitting down there, and I'm a guy that likes to sit down and note everything about everything that's going on, because
you've got to do that. You got to note every surroundings, the vegetation, the temperatures, the airspeed, what type of terrain substrate. And I'll get about that here in a little bit. But anyway, I've got here and I'm checking these tracks out and I'm measuring, and i'm documenting, and I get ready to start casting, and I carry a handgun I always do out in the woods. Not because I'm afraid of a big pot of there like that. It's I've
actually walked up on homeless people in the woods. You just don't know what you're going to come up against the woods. To other people, that's the one thing. And most of you know that if you got something on your belt and everything you're trying to cast, it get in your way all the time. So I took it off and put it on a four wheeler and it's thirty thirty yards away for thirty feet thirty thirty speed and I'm down here on my knees and I'm getting ready to pour this casting material and I got a
whipp something. Oh lord, this thinks man's like some little sefty take. And I had to look up and this thing had still been in the area and had come back, and it was on the other side of my four wheeler looking at me. And I sat there and looked at it while it looked at me, and it appeared like it was hours, but it was only seconds. And I tried to figure out what am I going to do? Am I going to make a dash for my four
whether and get my handgun or just set here? And I decided I was just gonna sit there and watch it because I figured that there's no way I make it time. But like I said, it was just seconds, but it seemed like an eternity. They lost interest in me, sniffed the air, you know, looked up the air, sniffed, grunted,
and started off down the ridge. And I had a habit of just strimming phones in the field, and my wife got me a cell phone, a slip phone, cheapy, and at this time here I took the phone out and hit video and I'm actually walking behind it videotaping it and I'm not paying attention. Yeah, I mean, my focus is on it, but I'm after the phone up
and I'm recording. So after it went over the ridge and disappeared, I jumped on the foe where I left everything from a wood and went back to the to my home, went to the house and my wife knew I had. I was excited so scause you got something on your phone. Yeah, And I downloaded on the computer so I can watch it. And as soon as it came up, my wife says, that was the best share to ever bought. You. In the confusion, I had actually reversed the camera and was spending myself while I was
following it. Now I tell people this part, and it's funny. It wasn't funny then, but I had big alligator cares of my eyes. But I tell people this because in the heat of the moment, things happen. You don't think, and I wasn't thinking. Uh, you just tell people, Tell other researchers this because they can learn from my mistake. Maybe they'll get the photo or the video, they'll calm down a little bit. But there's been other occasions where me and my team have seen them, and we sit
there and watch them for a couple of minutes. And the next thing was nobody decided to take out a phone. Why because we're too immersed and we're looking at what we're seeing. That's that's it.
Wow, Tom, that's yeah. I cannot imagine going through that. How far away was it from you when you were filming it?
It was a little bit further away for me. It wasn't as as it was bottom four wheelers.
I got some distance, gotcha.
I would say about eighty feet maybe foot.
Yeah, that's still all right. How big were the tracks? It was leaving.
Eighteen and a half inches And these are the ones we called Goliath? Can we seeing the other times in that same areage? Actually on my farm, it's pond. There's a big footprint, two big footprints that we got it by the bank, and a big handprint. And what we think was it stopped there at the pond and squad it put one hand down and was drinking from the pond. And I chasted that one of the prints in one of the hands.
So how big a cross? Remind me? Because I know I've seen these, but it's been a few years. How big across is your hand cast of Cliath.
It's really huge, But you've got to understand something. There's a lot of exaggeration because of the silk that didn't put its hand down. It was the damage to weight and dispersed out, and it maybe it looked like it were a giant, but it really ain't. It really 't that big. The hand is really not that big. It's just the damage did when it's silk, and it was the weight, thespersal of the substrate and the way in my hand if you open, you're both hands up and
put your thumbs overlap each other. That's about how wide it is.
Okay, that makes sense.
Maybe twelve inches. I'm just off the top of my head. I'm saying that, but I'm not really sure because it's not in front of me. Yeah.
Absolutely look here with.
All my notations in it, and I could look it up, but I don't have it here looking right at the moment.
How tall is Goliath.
Nine and a half foot? And how we did that was I had a friend that was a researcher too, that worked with me. We went back after that that next day and I was down where I was casting at and he went over to where it was at, and we used a yardstick and lifted up a high and we got a vestment of nine and a half foot that way. Wow, it was standing and where I was there on my knees casting up print, and I could tell when I looked just alid, I could tell
where the head touched the branch behind it. And that's how I used it as a reference. So that's how we got the reference point on that.
Being able to just look at it for a short bit of time. But you just you said you looked at it and you're just taking it in. Do you remember any details from the face when you were able to just look at it?
Yes, I actually just sketched the face. It was more it wasn't a monkey like, it wasn't gorilla like. It was more manliked. They had a note supposed to a flat flat nose, not real flat and all. Actually, I'll tell you what I actually when I cat when I sketched it the picture right after I saw it, because I had it fresh in my mind and I sketched it. Cliff has it in his museum, the original hanging in the museum with the sketch of Goliath.
I actually I have seen that. I was just there out in July, so I know exactly what you're talking about.
That.
Yeah, that's awesome. What kind of head shape did it have?
From what you remember, it really didn't have that much of a comb, but it was a large head, large cheek, bones, had had a really nice brow. Have you seen these things like the pictures of n Neanderthals like that with a lot of hair. And the one thing about this when you hear about Glass is he's reddish and brawn and as everybody ever sees a picture of Patty with black short, really nice coat of hair, Goliath didn't have that. He had matted hair, had bris and the hair and
stuff like that. I could tell that it wasn't chepped up. It was likely something that would live in the woods.
What kind of let's say, what kind of muscular structure was glith? Is he a very muscular individual or sometimes you have big foot sightings and they're more lean and not entirely muscular.
He's pretty stout. He had a chest that would you put two men in it. Two big men showed their lives. It was wide shoulders, it was muscular, It wasn't it wasn't the superhero type stuff you look at, but you could tell it was it was muscular.
Did you notice anything about its hands or arms at all?
No, I mostly focused on the face. The one thing about growing up in a farm when you have chattle and stuff like that. Like wolves, when they get ready to charge you, they'll close their eyes, and the same way with scenes when they get ready to lunch, they blink, will get right before they do anything. So I was watching the eyes in the face, wonder of it was going to charge me or what.
So did it have any emotion in its face while you were watching it?
Not really?
No, No, And the eyes you mentioned you were looking at the eyes, were the eyes where they were all one color or did they have whites around the edges?
They were dark? There was I to be honest, they were dark. It looks soulless, but that could because of the shadow it was ave or whatever the lighting had.
So you mentioned that this individual has also been seen multiple times around the same area.
Yes, yes, I have multiple castings at different times of the life. And how we do that is is a cliff. Late doctor Milturn taught me this little trick is that the big toe you can always tell the big toe of each individual. The big toe what's on the story. Nobody has the same type toe structure. So the life has this arrowhead type toe big toe. So that's how we figure out that's Goliath. The minitarsal break has that same push off and stuff flexibility.
That's really interesting. Have the footprints changed in any ways over the years or have they been pretty consistent the way it looks.
They have changed. Of course, princes are going to change anyway. When you cast them. They're going to be up here bigger or smaller or narrower. It all depends on the substrate and how wet and how oh they are. Because in the winter time they freeze, they expand and then shrink. And because the freezing effect and then the summertime from drying out and getting wet don't do the same thing.
You don't have different things. But that's the way. You have to take notes and note everything in your footprint where you cast it. Then after you cast it, didn't you go over your cast and they're like that study it more in detail. Now we do have some juveniles that it's in the area, and I have one footprint of it about six seven years ago, and then another one.
I think it was four years after that they had extremely it got a little larger and stuff as they grow, the same individual because the toe structure was the same. And I believe I just got another one here just recently. I think it is the same individual. I haven't cleaned the cast up yet. I'm still letting it cheer and then I'll go from there.
Can you share a little bit about what the other interactions have been like with Goliath? Have they been similar to your interaction or have different things happened?
At one time it walked up on me. The other times people have seen it, and I think we actually saw it once more a couple of years ago in a creek bed. It was in standing in the creek. I got a video of that, but it's really hard to see because well we was and where it was. You can see it walk out and.
It was just a little too far away.
But other people have seen what they I think it's a liar being curious moving through. I think he's just one of the biggest males here in the county. And mostly all the time they ever see this big one is he's alone. He's not with a group or anything like that. He's always solitary.
That's a pattern I've heard before. Do you have any thoughts about why he is probably more a solitary individual than rather in a group, like a family group.
I believe he's one of them. He's an alpha male. My opinion is I believe the females are actually the ones that are more active or in the family groups, and I just think that the male wander. That's my opinion.
That's interesting. So active, Like how in let's say, like the lion species you have, the female lions are or the lionesses are more They'll be out getting the food, being more active that way.
Yeah, okay, I like you.
That's cool. That's cool. Over you say, thirty eight years, is this very long time to have things happen. Has there ever been an experience or an encounter where you did not really feel comfortable with what was going on and if you could have gotten out of there at the same minute, let's get out of here.
Another tough one. Yeah.
Yeah, there's just say that a lot of these people walk around and say, all my years, I've never heard of anybody hurt anybody or anything like that.
They're not violent, And there had been some violent tendencies that we have witnessed. I have witnessed. I was in Henry County, Kentucky. I gentleman called meet and I think I got these giant monkeys living on my place. And I said, really yeah, and I said, talk, come out and check it out. He goes, yeah, come on out. And I went out there and most people say giant monkeys. I have to go out and I have to check
the place out. After there's so been so many places I have gone that people I said, they've seen something and it was just a shadow paradolia. They're seeing things in the woods that ain't there. I never found no plants, I've never found no evidence and stuff like that. So I go out there and I check it out before I do a full expedition. So we're back here on his land. We're back in from the far way back in there, and so far there's a little bit of sign,
but I can't really be certain. And they were starting to get late, and I said, I said, I'll tell you what I said. I'll bring my team out this weekend and we'll come out on our way back. You start getting dark and uh, and we'll be honest with you. We were surrounded by something. We couldn't see them, but we had stuff beating the ground, screaming, beating their chest, throwing stuff at.
Us, and we would move one hundred yards to two hundred yards, and then all of a sudden, boots all start over again, more stuff throw those chest beating.
Screaming, pounding the ground. And the only thing I had was one of these little flashlights. I didn't have a day one erthing like that. And I couldn't You couldn't see them. There was far enough back into vegetation where they couldn't We couldn't see nothing. And this kept happening all the time. He was coming back to the house. We get back to the house, his house, and he looks at me and it all stops. There. We have a big there's a big security light there at the house,
and there it stops. Nothing's going on now. And he looks at me. Because we want me to do I said, go inside, lock your door, and don't come out until in the morning. And I came home, I got my car, came home h and my wife was still up and she goes, what do you say, I said, I quit. I said, I'm not going back out. Yeah, the first time in my life I have ever been so scared. That's something that I could not see or could not deal with. If I can see it and I know
what it is, I can deal with it. I'm pretty I might not survive. I can have a pretty good chance. I didn't know what I was dealing with. We had to basic chest beating. We had pounding on the screaming a three minute staff at us I mean it. And I did some little research after that. It was like chimpanzees at war when it something that invade their territory, and then that's suing what it was. And there was a three month period that I wouldn't go out I did.
I told my team, I said I quit. And it was John Gregory, m in chief Ofton and Dusty Ruth and actually the rest of my team that got me back out in the field. And I'll tell you what that first night in the field, I was so uncomfortable because of what had happened.
If that thing could expoot me, and to this day, I am not comfortable in being out in the woods by myself.
Since that happened. Now, if I have to, I will. I'm looking for tracks or but usually I take somebody with me.
Did you ever go back to that same spot after you started back up again?
I did, and got ready to go back into it and back out. And I'm not ashamed to tell you. Yeah, I mean that place bothered me. And I swear any other researcher go out and have something like that happen, I want to see how they react. Yeah, it brings up from me. It's a really rough right now talking about it, because it does. It does mess with you.
I appreciate you bringing that up. I know things like that are extremely hard to talk about. I not experience that myself, but I can only imagine that property owner had the property owner actually had visuals of anything on the property or was it a thing where it was unseen to that person as well.
No, he's all monkeys. He's all actually said, it's all our monkeys. That was the reason why I went out there, because he said the larger monkeys. But still, you go out there, the expectations is going to be nothing. When I go out on a site. When somebody sees something, my first thing is tell me your story and stuff like that. Okay, you can tell me your story, Okay, I want to listen to you and I'll take it. But in order for your story to have validation, I
have to have some type of evidence. So that's why I have to go out and see if I can find a book, I can find anything.
Yeah, that was actually I was going to ask you that. Next is do you have a checklist for a place to pass before you can launch an actual full expedition into it? And so is the checklist pretty much? You have to find some piece of evidence or are there other things as well?
We have to find some type of time, some type of evidence. If I don't find I've been I've been to some properties, step out and walk maybe thirty yards into the woods, and I turned around, told you guys, is that there's no sense. I said, it's gonna be a wasted weekend here. There's no you're telling me that there's a big foot here, and we would stick it out. We stayed the weekend and nothing happened, and the homeowner, the property owner be set in there with is I
don't know, they usually coming out about this time. And then there's other times we were set up on a property and the homeowner will be set there with propy owner around the fire and stuff like that and there would be this down hear that that's it, that's the big Foot, and it'd be a fox.
Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, I'd say that's definitely a good rule to follow. It puts you in the areas where you're going to have a much much higher chance of having something legitimate happen. You are definitely known for casting tracks. Usually when people are mentioning Tom Shay, they're either talking about Goliath or they're talking about the track that you've cast. Do you have any advice about how to cast a good track to people that might not be pretty good at it yet?
Yeah? The best advice I can give you is if you want to learn how to really cast and all types of substrates, wet snow, any practice, and it's gonna cost you some money, but practice. I go to Low's here or Minards, picked me up a twenty five pound bag of plaster. I go out here, kill me up a piece of a six ft by six foot place. Kill it up out there, and I go out and
now walk in it all one day. Wise dry go out there, and the next day go out there, put water it down, a little good money walk through so I can judge how much mix. I got to use the ratio of the water water for the substract, how wet it is and stuff. It takes time to learn this, but when you learn it, you when you're out in the field, you can actually look at the substrate and say, Okay, I don't need all this water here. I just have to use twenty percent of it, not all of it,
because how wet it is. Ask questions other researchers who actually tast. There's a good video on YouTube of a gentleman showing how to tast. It's a tracking video and they cast the prints and they show you how to tast, and he even tells you that sometimes it looks like pancake mixed when you mix, but there's other times that you're going to have to The mix is gonna have to be a little thicker or a little thinner, and you on the substrate, you know the type of trint
you get here. Recently, I've been practicing in casting in real thin fine footprints that you find. You get that powdery stuff sometimes and something we'll s it you. So I'm practicing with that right now. But yeah, that's it practice and practice.
I'd say that's great advice. And also I think this is with anything to be in the attitude where you never want to be in the attitude or say Okay, I made it. That's not a good place to be. You're constantly practicing, you're constantly improving in craft. It sounds like that's where you are, and I would recommend people to be in that mindset with whatever they are doing.
Is there a certain way that you a certain type of thing you do where you are attempting to have interactions with bigfoot that you find to be most successful. For example, some people are knocking on trees while some other people are let's just put a chair down and what's sitting in the area and see what happens.
We don't run around at night time. We don't beat on trees, we don't do what we don't do calls or nothing like that. Oh whoops. What we do is no, I call my my not an organization. We call a group because each individual in the group has a searching
skill that they dot, audio, video, stuff like that. So when we got in the field, we got We don't sleep in tents because if you're in a tent and you got activity going on, you're gonna have to get up, bumble with the zipper, try to get out and by the time you're out and get your gear, everything's done. It's gone. We put up canopies. We put a couple out on the edge of the camp. We got like sentinels out there. We're like siminels. They take turns at night.
Everybody else is at camp. We're talking. Try to entice these things. They find this cheerious and they will come up to the to the edge of the camp. And that's why we got these guys out here in these chairs zero gravity chairs. We sleep in zero gravity chairs all the time. All our equipment set right next to us, so if something happens, we can reach down, grab it and we're filming. We got the audio going. That's it.
Because you can trim down of a tent, you know you're gonna be on your hands and knees crawling out. You're gonna try to get We won't be able to see three hundred and sixty degrees. That's why we're under a champion, and these things will come up. We had one one time. I had a group out and my responsibility in the group is to keep everybody, make sure everybody's safe. Makeure everybody's got water doing okay medical wise, and like that. The guys I have out on the
edge of camp and they're throning stuff like that. If anything happens, they can call me. And I was up there checking everybody by the fire and stuff like that, just be yesing like after you do it a camp, Dusty, go back here. It's the tom You to come over here, Mick, and I can't otherwise. What's up, Dusty? And he goes, I got this thing, come up to see the signature. Came up and stood up, and this hasn't moved, but
once you take a look at it. So I grabbed my thermal and I'm soonering out there and I said, oh, yeah, I see it, and about that time it moves, so it's billy. It went down on all fours and it's belly crawled all the way up to us. And it gets to a certain point where the creek is and it's inside this creek up on by the bench and we're watching it. And we sat there and watched it while it watched us for two and a half hours. Now I have affidavits and everybody was there and watched it.
They rode up the thing and signed it. We all saw this and we all filmed it on our things. One of my guys wanted to go down and actually get close to it. Now I tell them, no, well there, this is what this is is we're going to watch. So for about two and a half hours, right, I watched us and we watched it, and we're taking notes at this time here in video and audio, and it disappears. And what happened was it's down into that creek bed
and we lost it in that creek bed. The next day we got up when a thermal you can't judge distance. We were surprised to find out that this thing was only like three car links from us. That's how close it was. Three carlinks. So yeah, we just set we don't do it. Calls, we don't do that. We do not do nothing in parts state parks and nothing or
natural forces. The simple fact is, I tell my crew, is they're contaminated because like Mammoth K, we've got researchers in Mammoth K at one end and the other end. I believe that you've got all these researchers in there, and you've got them over beeting on trees. We're making whooping calls and stuff like that, and you're picking this up. You don't know if it's an actual foot or all of these research people. So we do it on private property.
Nobody knows we go into this property, nobody knows where we're at, and most places we go at it's so we have to use side by sides to get back in there. And there's no electricity. It's all primitive. There's nothing. And if anybody is back there trying to screw with us at night when it's dark, they're not using apply then they got X ray vision they can see at night and for red visions.
Yeah, wow, Tom, that I was not expecting to hear that. That's zero gravity chairs, no tent. This super gutsy dude. So you have it. I'm guessing some kind of canopy over the chairs though, when you're sleeping in them. Yeah, okay, yeah, gotcha.
Always sometimes there's always two people on watch. Everybody else can get some rest and stuff. You got two people now, the way it is when everybody is relaxed and everything, but when things happen, everybody knows what to do, and mean it's everybody's on the ball. They're doing their job. You know, the fun and games is over with. Everybody's doing their job and it's all scientifically based. It's not hearsay.
If we get something, we have to have it on camera, we have to have it moving on camera like that, we have to have some type of physical evidence. The next day we go down, we look, we find the footprints or something like that. We document all that, we make castings. Okay, all this is done. It's all you can't say I saw this to somebody and not have the evidence. I can go out here and tell you all day long. I saw one up bro on the hill day. Did you go up and check the foot prints? No,
because I know they're there. I look at that there as okay, you're just telling me you saw something up there, but you didn't go up there to check and make sure it was something. I asked him, was like, we're you afraid to and no, I just know they're here. Okay, show me some evidence. I'm sorry. In the last thirty eight years, I've built with some really strange people, and I take everybody's citing seriously. Even though I find some
out lavishly stories. There was some really easy, wild stories, but I documented because you never know things down the road might happen again it's from somebody else. But here's one I heard. This witness was telling me that they saw this thing come out in a field, had a flying saucer come down, and this alien came out, and this people came out and they come up close to each other. They did a bun, a chest bunk, and a high five and walked off in the woods together.
Now, this was a witness telling me this, HM tell me you can figure out what you thought about that.
Story, gotcha, that's a pretty intense one that kind of reminds me more like southwest Pennsylvania stuff. To be honest, I do want to circle back to it at the end of our chat here because I think it could be really helpful for a lot of people. And it's that kind of figure out the stuff that's in your own area. And it reminds me of something that Lyle Blackburn told me during I interviewed him a few years because he pretty much, you need to make sure you're
the expert for the weird stuff in your area. And it really makes sense because there's a good chance no one else is going to take the time to do it. When you were starting to. You're at the point where people know to talk to Tom Shay for certain counties. If you see something that's like a bigfoot, go to Tomshay. Was it when you were first starting to do that. Were you going to police departments and being like, Hey, I'm Tom Shay, I'd research big fight. If you get
any anything, here's my card. Were you doing stuff like that or do you have any advice If a person is trying to become that person for their area in the country, what are things that they could do to get their name out there to the right people.
Yeah, to go to your police department, go to your local shriff department, talk to your emergency management. You're a judge execut like, we have good execs here. Talk to them, tell them what you do and stuff like that. And if you hear anybody has any old stories, haven't come to me. It's keep me in mind. It's just like the LBL. Now, when that story came out and stuff. I went down there and I was in the LBL for a little bit and I focused mostly on the story.
So I went to every place the newspapers. I went to shriff department, state police, everything, hospitals and nobody knew nothing about this massacre at LBL and I can't remember who it was, but it was I think it was a county official said all that was just made up for tourism to get people in here. And I didn't find anything, not even in the newspaper the area, or
the police apartment. The share a department looked at me like, can stay please to you're talking about you've got to actually go out and research this place, research the area and something like that comes up. You know, did dive into it really good. One of the best places to go is if you have a restaurant of you know, a country restaurant in your town or something like that. To everybody congregates in the morning, drink coffee and get
in there. And most of the older gentlemen do. That's when you want to go in there and you say to that drink coffee and look. Listen to the stories they're telling each other, strange chattel mutilations that happened and something broke into my corn crib. And listen to those stories. And then you get a chance invite yourself into that
story and talk to them. You know, excuse me, I will heard you say that, do you tell me what you're talking about, be polite and if they reject you being there and then back off, and that's how you want to do it.
I think that's great advice. When you're talking to like law enforcement departments and things like that, do you recommend talking to them face to face in person rather than over the phone, or do you have any thoughts about that?
So go to the office. Now, you might have to do that like several times, because the reception is whoever it is it's in charge after you will probably or who there was reading the desk will probably show you away. But you keep going back and finally you'll get some information. Gotcha look at you like you're crazy anyway.
Yeah, that's awesome. It makes sense to persistence and niceness is a is a great combination, I think.
So.
I think that's some good advice for you to give out. But Tom, this has been just I think a really good conversation. A lot of stuff that people can take away from this chat to either start into the Bigfoot
subject or to become better. I want to make sure that you have the time to share if there are ways that people can keep up to date with what you're doing, or if there's certain things that you want them to check out about your work that you've done, things like that, feel free to share those at this time.
Yeah, I just looked me up on the Facebook I run in order to detect a Bigfoot research group on Facebook. Anytime we ever do anything, we get any type of verified evidence, we'll post it. If you have questions, you can ask questions. A lot of knowledgeable people on that site that will give you an answer. And there's no bickering, no nothing, there's no fun making or nothing like that. It's all science based. We're not running a fairy tale thing.
We're running things that we have actual evidence that has been collected, a whole lot of experience people what is in this sight? Even my team people are most are really And the one thing I like about my team is they're not a yes ma'am, yes serve type of deal. It's all big Foot. If I say something, somebody will question me. That's what I want. I want to be questioned why do I believe this happened? And I'll explain so just because like I've told anybody else, I don't
know it all. I'm still wondering. But yeah, and you can look me up on Facebook two or if you got my get my email from there and stuff like that, and you can friend me ask me questions to help you out any way I can't anybody.
Tom. That's great. I will definitely have the link to that group down in the description for this episode so people can find that easily. But I appreciate you coming on today and thank you so much. Best of luck in the future with your future investigations, and I hope they are very fruitful for you. Thank you for coming on the show today, Tom, Thank you sir. Before we wrap this episode, I want to say something directly to
a very specific group of listeners. If you're in the military, any branch or forces, and if you've seen something that no one can explain, or if you're a National park ranger or forestry worker who's been told to stay quiet, or if you're a pilot who's seen something strange down on the ground, or if you're with the FBI a federal agency, or working intelligence and you stumbled upon something you're not
allowed to talk about. And if you're a firefighter, paramedic, or search and rescue responder who's heard screams or found tracks that didn't make sense. If you're in the logging industry, on a remote oil field or a trucker with government contracts and you've had something happen that you've never told a soul. And if you're a biologist, a wildlife specialist, or a field researcher under contract who has found evidence
you're not allowed to report. If you're a pastor, a missionary, or someone on a spiritual retreat and you saw something that shook your faith, or if you work in the shadows CIA, NSA or anything with clearance and you've seen what the public hasn't, then I want to talk to you, even if it's anonymous. You can reach me at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. The world needs to hear what you've been forced to carry alone. And you're not alone. You've got the story, We've got the mic. See you
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