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And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Norriy with you. Jason Offedback with Us has been a journalist since nineteen eighty seven, teachers journalism at Northwest Missouri State University. Prior to that, he was the managing editor for the Kansas City entertainment magazine called The X and a humor columnist for The Examiner Newspapers in Jackson County, Missouri. He's got a Master's of Arts degree in communication from Central Missouri
State University in Warrensburg. And Jason, welcome back to your latest book. I hear is called The Girl in the Corn That sounds scary, Well yeah.
It just won a won an award. It's the won the Benjamin Franklin Gold Award from the Independent Book Publishers Association and was one of the finalists for the Silver Falcon Falcon Award from the Killer Nashville Book Award. Content Good for you with it?
Is there a possible movie here?
You know what? I got the fingers crossed. But I've had some dealings with uh with folks out in Hollywood before and if there is this sort of thing takes a long time, and you.
Have another novel I'll called How to Build a Time Machine?
Right, Yeah.
I like humor and and I try to keep it out of my try to keep it out of my horror for obviously, but I really cut loose with How to Build a Time Machine. It's a it's a humorous sci fi and it got a lot of great reviews.
Good for you. How have you been lately, Jason Man, You.
Know, George, I've been. I've been great. I've did the weather's weather in northwest Missouri has finally started turning cold, so I'm happy it's coming this way.
I'm in Saint Louis right now, and uh, we're going to get it pretty soon.
Yeah, it's coming.
How did you get involved in paranormal writing?
Well, I had always wanted to write. It's one of those one of those dreams as a little kid that I told my parents I wanted to write books when I grew up, and they patted the top of my head and then sent me along to play. But I've been interested in monsters ever since the early seventies. I've always been avacious, voracious reader, even when I was pretty young.
And I'd look at the newspaper and back in nineteen seventy three there were stories in the Kansas City newspaper about Bigfoot sightings out in Louisiana, Missouri, and thinking, my gosh, there's monsters in my home state. Amazing. So that got me, Momo, got me fascinated in monsters.
And you've wrote a book four years ago called Chasing American Monsters. They're all over the place, aren't they, right, Yes, they are.
And what I tried to do with Chasing American Monsters is go state by state and show what monsters are in each state, because yes, whether legendary or real, they're all out there, out there everywhere.
What kind of monsters are we talking about here, Jayce, Well.
We're talking everything from of course, Bigfoot. It's Uh. It's the one monster that is in forty nine has been encountered in forty nine states. The only one it hasn't been in is Hawaii. I guess it doesn't like Uh doesn't like POI for some reason. I don't know, but it's it's been seen everywhere. I mean, everything from Bigfoot to extreme monsters like the like the hodag or or up in Wisconsin. Or the uh oh the show. It's not ringing a bell right now, Hold all for a
second and I'll get it. But it's it's a it's a monster that is uh that cries all the time. It looks like a giant wrinkled pig in it. Uh and and and it's just really depressed. So anything from stuff that can be real to the you know, legendary stories that are just kind of fun.
Is that the White Screamer.
No, no, the White Screamer is out of uh, out of Tennessee. It A man encountered it back in the
back in the eighteen hundred. He and his family kept hearing screaming from from outside the house, and eventually he got tired of it and got his gun one night and went looking for it, and he followed the screams throughout the forest, and eventually the screams led him back around to his house and what was actually screaming we're members of his family who were all slaughtered by by something that he saw running away that was that was a white beast.
Clearly people are seeing things, aren't they.
There are way too many sightings for them not to be, especially when it comes to something like Bigfoot. There are so many credible sightings. There is so much evidence out there that if this were a murder trial, somebody just from that evidence.
Could be put away.
A couple of nights ago, I was talking to Lawn Strickler about flying humanoids near Chicago and winged creatures. I mean, unbelievable. Did you ever come across any of those?
Well, I only came across one ring winged at your lawns. Great by the way, he has done some done some tremendous work through the years, and I followed his work through, uh, you know, through the winged wing creatures in Chicago, and it's fascinating. Uh. There was one win wing creature that I covered, and it wasn't necessarily the person I interviewed
didn't necessarily call it a creature. He called it a man. Uh. He and his family were walking home from from church in the small town of Camden, Missouri, and he saw he was about ten years old. He saw up in a tree a man standing there with wings and it saw him see see it, and he told his parents, I mean, look, there's a guy in the tree and the thing just sprang into the air and flew off.
They never did see it again, but there were a couple of people, he said, from his childhood who reported it in the area throughout the next couple of years.
What are some of the most unusual creatures is that you have investigated or come across.
Well, there are a lot of a lot of different different bizarre creatures. One of them is the demon Leaper from Louisville, Kentucky. It's it was spotted in the in the late eighteen hundreds. There was an article in the New York Times about it. It was a large bat like creature, you know, big leathery wing Allen's pointed ears, you know, pointed teeth and basically what what the description
was was a gargoyle. A gargoyle sitting on top of a building, and you know we see those in old architecture all the time, took off into the air and it was seen specifically, I had my window open. I'm sorry that was the cat. Was not encrypted.
Monster cat coming in to get you.
Exactly if the if the phone goes dead, that's it at the monster cat. But yeah, I think just the fact that we found a you know, people reported seeing a gargoyle flying through the air in Louisville, Kentucky. I think it is absolutely fascinating.
I mean, what else could they be looking at to make that kind of report.
I mean, I don't know that sort of thing. I mean, it could be could be mistaken. I mean I don't There aren't any extraordinarily large, you know bats in the United States, not like, uh, what's the one in Australia, the fox fox based bat. Those things are enormous. But what else? What else could it be? I mean the wings could be could be pterodactyl wings, which which those things have been seen in a number of places in the United States over the.
Over the years, prehistoric birds, So you think they could still be around.
You know, if any, if anything could be I think I think it could be the birds. There have been a lot of you know, a lot of discussion, if you know, from Central America and Mexico to the American southwest of you know of dinosaurs, of of birds especially there was back in nineteen seventy seven a group of teachers were driving through Texas, West Texas from they were coming home from a conference and they saw a pterodactyl in the sky. Now these were four not just teachers,
but science teachers. You think, for science teachers would know what a pterodactyl looked like, and so, yeah, I think they very well could. Something I think might be a little bit a little bit more realistic would be the thunderbirds from Native American Low.
Yeah.
The description of those are basically the description of a territory and a bird that lived back in the ice age. Those very well still could be around.
I think that's real. There's a historical story of the pious bird, which is a thunderbird in Alton, Illinois and on the cliffs of the banks of the Mississippi. There's a huge depiction of this bird that they talk about, and they talk about how some of the Native Americans fought it because it came back with its talons and tried to pick up Native Americans and fly off with them. It was incredible. Did you ever hear of that the pious a bird?
I I sure did, And I know exactly what painting you're talking about. I have seen it. It's it's fascinating because those type of birds have been seen not just in ancient times, but you know in the last one
hundred hundred and fifty years. There was a story I think it might have been out of Pennsylvania back in the early nineteen hundreds where a twelve year old child was picked up by a bird of large size and if it wasn't for the fact that his parents came out screaming and throw things at it, it would have whisked him away.
Truly remarkable. Jason often with us. We're talking about his works and Chasing American Monsters as a book he wrote four years ago. His website is linked up at Coast tocoastdam dot com. You got to tell me about this title, The Girl in the Corn That sounds like a horror book.
Well, yeah, it definitely is a horror book. I've you know, I've investigated. Uh, I've just done a lot of fun research, reading, reading for fun on all sorts, of all sorts of paranormal and mythological beings. And one that has always fascinated me is the little People the fame because these things
are all over the world. You know, when you think of fairies, you think of European lore, uh, and specifically you know Irish leprechauns, but you know elves and cobolds, trolls, the tom tarr from from Sweden, the Norse mythology had their little people uh all throughout Asia South America. That there there are lots of of of stories of magical
little people throughout throughout North America. Whenever a similar tale is told world world round, that has been before the time when supposedly our our cultures were talking to each other. There's got to be some truth to it, I think. And I was with my daughter when she was a little younger. She was watching the Disney Channel and and and uh, a faery movie was on, and I was like,
you know, fairies aren't like that. They're not like that Disney you know, they're They're not like the Disney faery at all. So that was the germ of the Girl in the Corn I wanted. Uh. I grew up on a farm, so I based it on a on a farm. But it's about a boy who sees a faery in in the corn uh in in the garden, and it terrorizes him his whole life.
I was first I was first introduced to leper cons with a Disney movie called Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
That was Sean Connery.
If I don't way back take it. Yes, it was a classic. And I went fascinated with the story of lepercauns and stuff. Got a little disappointed when they came out with a movie of that leper Kahn being evil.
Well a bit cheesy. Yes, I believe that was Jennifer Anniston's first first movie role. Yeah. Well, one of the things about the little people that really it made me happy when this when this was discovered was back in oh my gosh, the early two thousands or maybe the mid two thousands, in in the on the island of Flores the locals down down around Indonesia. The locals had talked about the ebu go goo uh. That was part
of their local folklore. It was the little people who would come and steal food and sometimes steal babies to eat from from the tribesmen. Oh and they had this this story and and of course Western Western science, you know, completely disregarded as his mythology, until the scientists found in a cave system that the locals told him is where
these ebu gogo were. They found up to three foot tall skeletons of fully grown humans and it turned out to be a new off or a different offshoot of humanity, and it was called homoflorensis and and they were dubbed the hobbits because they only grew to be about three or four foot tall. But that really confirmed what the locals had been talking about all that time.
Why do you think mainstream science, Jason really doesn't dive into these stories because they're truly remarkable stories.
They are a lot of mainstream science. And I have all the respect in the world for mainstream science, but a lot of it has to do with grant money. And if they start if they start investigating, you know, paranormal or just strange, there's no strange topics, they're not going to get that grant money. So so they don't don't they don't want to hurt their reputation. There's another example.
In nineteen ninety eight, there was a an ape that was discovered called the Billy eight b I l I in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a lot of a lot of crypto zoological sightings are there. But the locals said that it was a giant chimpanzee that that howled at the moon and you know, would kill
leopards and eat them. They walked up right, but they would make you know, make beds like gorillas, and you know, science considered that a fanciful tale until in nineteen ninety eight they discovered that these ill tribesmen were one hundred percent right. This thing existed. So yes, why don't we listened listened to the local folklore because those stories came about for a reason.
It's a little like some pilots who refuse to report UFO sightings that they see, right, But I mean.
I understand that it's it's it's either you know, talk about the UFO that they saw, or maybe.
Lose their job exactly. That's what it comes down to, right, What would you say is the most ludicrous monster story you've ever heard?
Oh? There are there, there are quite a few. I think the uh, the Bolt Rock Slider from Colorado is is pretty silly. This this goes back to the days of gold and silver mining back in the eighteen forties, and it supposedly was a whale, a land uh you know, a land based whale with a big hook on its tail, and it would put the hook on the top of a mountain and just lay there and wait for prey to walk beneath it, and then it would ununleashed hook and slide down and swallow up whoever was below it.
It was probably this. This was probably come up with by by miners who didn't, you know, wanted to scare away claim jumpers. But that that was pretty silly. But also if you think about it, if that was real, my god, how how terrifying would that be?
And there have been some terrifying stories too, haven't there?
Oh, there there have been. I really think there are definitely, And I didn't I didn't just write this for fun, although I had a lot of fun writing that book. There are a lot of creatures out there that are that are scary. There are dangerous creatures. The Lawton were Wolf in Lawton, Oklahoma. They there were a number of sightings from credible people of a were wolf over a
short period of time. And and you know, considering all the dog man sightings that we've had over the years, so you know, Michigan and the Beast of you know, Bray Road. That combined with the Lugaroo stories, which are werewolves in Louisiana, you know, again, it's one of those one of those tales that has got to have some truth behind it.
I think a group of people who are on a train in Colorado, we've got this on our coastacostam dot com website in the highlight reel Jason and they have a cell phone video of what looks like a Bigfoot out there in the hinterlands. And if it's a guy, he's out there by the mountains and things, all by himself, dressed up like Bigfoot, which is kind of crazy to do because someone's going to take a shot at you.
I know, all these all these people that come out, well, it's just a guy in a suit. I don't know who's crazy enough to dress in a Bigfoot suit. I had I had read When they were filming Return to the Jedi, they were using the Pacific Northwest, specifically Up and Up in Washington as the planet Moon indoor, and they had people guarding Peter Mayhew, who dressed as Chewbacca, because they were afraid some hunter was gonna shoot him for a big Foot.
That's crazy.
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