The Third Annual International Cryptozoology Conference

As many of you know, I was first inspired to take a more serious look at cryptozoology when I visited the International Cryptozoology Museum in 2013. So when I was asked to return to Portland, Maine and speak at the International Cryptozoology Conference (which happened to be across from the museum!) it felt like I had come full circle after five years of hard work.

We spent two days driving, stopping early each night so we could check out some of the other cool stuff New England has to offer (which mostly consisted of trying lobster in various forms). Saturday I woke up at the crack of dawn because I wanted to get there and set up as soon as possible. The vendors' area opened up at 6 AM and I was there waiting. I quickly set up and then began to wander around and converse with my fellow peddlers. I got to meet some really fantastic people including Stephen Bissette, Joeseph Citro, Andy McGrath, Katy Elizabeth, Hayley Eldridge and more. I also was able to catch up with old friends such as Aleksandar Petakov and Loren Coleman. Over the course of Saturday, I spent way too much money and had a great time. After the day was done, Aleks, Katy, Andy, myself, and a few others went out for dinner, which was even better.

I spoke on Sunday. There were a pretty good amount of people in the audience and I enjoyed talking about my cryptid predation research. I spent even more money and even sold out of my books!

The biggest highlight was when the International Cryptozoology Society gave me the Mark A. Hall Young Cryptozoologist Scholarship Award. I was completely blown away. I had no idea that I was going to be given the award, but I was honored.

Honestly, I think the event was one of the best conferences I've ever been to. I learned lots, met some of the best people in the field, made new friends, and was able to teach others about my research. I had a wonderful time.

Cryptid Con 2017

The first annual Cryptid Con was held this past Saturday and Sunday in Frankfort, Kentucky. The event featured some of the top names in cryptozoological research as well as many local brands relating to cryptids and monsters. I was lucky enough to be a speaker at this fantastic event. The Con ran similarly to many comic conventions: two different event tracks, each featuring lectures, Q&As, and panels from some of the top researchers and celebrities in cryptozoology. Other than myself, some speakers who were featured include Loren Coleman, Stan Gordon, Ronald Murphy, David Weatherly, Bruce Campbell, and Lyle Blackburn.
The first day was filled with screenings of excellent documentaries and lectures. After the first day concluded, there was an afterparty for the vendors, guests, and conference attendees. Interestingly enough, around 10:30 that night, the electricity for the whole area went down. That did not stop the party, but it did add a creepy atmosphere to it.
I got to speak on the second day. I discussed my research into Cryptid Livestock Predation and got quite a bit of positive response.

All in all, the event was a fun one to both attend and speak at. If I have the chance, I will definitely go back next year!

Kecksburg UFO Crash

52 years ago, on December 9, a bright fireball appeared over several states. The fireball eventually crashed outside of small Pennsylvanian town. The case remains open today and the origins hotly debated. While less well known than other UFO crashes, the Kecksburg event is popular in the area today and has caused the small town of Kecksburg to host an annual UFO themed festival every year.
The festival, run by the Kecksburg Volunteer Fire Department, is the perfect blend of small town festival and UFO conference. The event lasts all weekend and includes a parade on Saturday, a hot dog eating contest on Sunday, and a UFO conference on Sunday. I highly recommend attending, the event is a lot of fun and there are numerous interesting vendors (both paranormal/fortean researchers and local craft-makers).
The speakers at the conference are also great. Dr. Brian Parsons, Ronald L. Murphy Jr., and Stan Gordon are all speaking. I will also be giving a talk at the conference. Everything from cryptozoology to UFOs to other strange Pennsylvanian phenomena.
I will have a table where I will be selling CD copies of some of my best Crypto-Kid episodes. I will also be debuting a new map plotting out various regional names for Bigfoot-like creatures, dwarves, and canine cryptids throughout the USA. Finally, I will have several binders containing various examples of my research into several of my current projects.
I hope to see many new and familiar faces there.

You can find out more information about the Kecksburg Crash here.
You can learn about the festival here and here.

Because of my interest in newspaper accounts of the strange, I am including two newspaper articles from 1965 discussing the Kecksburg crash.

The Pittsburgh Press, December 10, 1965, pt. 1

The Pittsburgh Press, December 10, 1965, pt. 2

The Evening Standard, December 10, 1965, pt. 1

The Evening Standard, December 10, 1965, pt. 2

Pennsylvania Bigfoot Camping Adventure - An Intense Event... In Tents

As I expressed last week, I love conferences. This year I am attending upwards of 13 different events and those that are later this year have some fierce competition as to my favorite event of the year. I couldn't have had a better time at the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Camping Adventure.

When I arrived at Benner's Meadow Run Campgrounds Friday it was sprinkling slightly. I helped set up my tent and then headed down to the pavilion where the event was being held. I saw that the infamous Legend of Boggy Creek was showing (and I had never gotten to view the movie before) so I grabbed my chair and watched it with my father. I was quite entertained by the movie and can see why so many cryptozoologists find it so significant in their upbring as a researcher. After that, I crawled into my warm (and dry) sleeping bag and went to sleep.

Saturday arrived with the thunder of raindrops pounding on my tent's roof. Aw Crap, I thought to myself as I got dressed and looked at the time: 6 a.m. Double Crap, the event didn't start until 10:30. I had to wait four hours before I could really begin my Bigfoot adventure. So, I did what any good cryptozoologist would do with four hours of free time on his hands in the middle of a supposed Bigfoot-infested camp grounds: I sat in the car with the heat on and read books.

Finally 9:30 rolled around and I glanced outside and saw Stan Gordon arriving. I jumped out of the car (rain coming down in buckets) and helped Stan and his wife, Deb, set up their table and canopy, all while getting wet and muddy in the process. After that most of the other vendors had arrived and the talks were about to start so I braved the elements for the short walk down to the pavilion to check out everything.

The rest of the day was pretty standard: talks went on all day and for the most part I wandered around the vendors catching up with friends and making new acquaintances. I got to meet Steve Kulls (The Sasquatch Detective), Jay Bachochin (of the WPI Hunts the Truth), Kenny Biddle (from Geeks and Ghosts), the lovely hosts of One Bizarre Podcast, Lon Strickler (Phantoms and Monsters), and John Sabol (The Ghost Excavator). I also got to catch up with some good friends of mine: David Weatherly and Dave Spinks (Society of the Supernatural), Ronald Murphy (The Crypto-Guru), Brian D. Parsons (Paranormal News Insider), Stan Gordon, and of course the one and only Eric Altman.

Later that night there was an auction where I got a couple New England Legends DVDs, which is a program that Jeff Belanger does. I got to meet Jeff last week at the Kent Paranormal Weekend and he is an awesome guy. After that we ended up staying at a hotel because the relentless rain caused our tent to leak. I only stayed for half of Sunday's events because I needed to get home. It operated the same as Saturday's except with different speakers.

I have to give Eric an enormous thank you and shout out because without him this event wouldn't have happened. I had such a wonderful time, despite the unendting torrential downpour. Eric said that this year will be the last of the event's for a while. He needs a break from the unending stress that putting together such an event creates. I respect that and respect him for doing such an awesome job at this event. When the PA Bigfoot Camping Adventure returns, though, I am getting tickets immeditately. I honestly can't explain how great I thought this event was. Thank you, Eric, for putting together the event and I look forward to the next one whenever it happens!

Kent Paranormal Weekend

Conference season is a favorite of mine. I love going to events because I get to meet the researchers and authors I grew up watching on television and reading their books. I also get to hang out with some of the friends I have made like Ken Gerhard, Nick Redfern, Stan Gordon, and Ron Murphy. It is always a good time so needless to say I was excited as the first conference of the year was coming up.

I live just 15 minutes outside of Kent, Ohio. Kent is a college town, housing the fairly well-known Kent State University. Kent is also known in the paranormal circles for being a haunted hotspot. I was glancing through some of my ghost books before the event and when discussing haunted areas in Ohio, Kent took up a good portion of nearly every Ohio focused chapter.

The conference, simply called the Kent Paranormal Weekend, was held at the infamously haunted Kent Stage - a theater that supposedly boasts several ghosts. I was surprised to find out about it because before this year, I had never heard of the event, despite this being its third year.

Some of the speakers on this year's lineup included Nick Redfern (author of dozens of books about nearly every weird topic under the sun), Jeff Belanger (incredibly awesome ghost researcher that always has a smile on his face), Jim Harold (host of one of the best podcasts on the strange: The Paranormal Podcast), the Ohio Bigfoot Hunters (local group of like-minded individuals who are very nice), and the Haunted Housewives (two lovely ladies who spend their time ghost hunting and leading ghost walks).

I had a great time. I was wondering if I would go to many of the talks simply because I am slightly less interested in ghosts, which was the main topic of discussion, but I did attend quite a few of the talks and panel discussions and found them quite enjoyable.

I was also extremely excited to meet Jim Harold and Jeff Belanger for the first time. I love Jim's podcasts and have looked up to Jeff as a researcher for a long time. I wasn't disappointed. Jeff and Jim couldn't have been nicer. We talked quite a bit throughout the weekend about ghosts, cryptids, and pretty much anything weird and I feel like I came out of it with quite a bit of newfound knowledge.

I also have to give a shoutout to the people at the Kent Stage for hosting such a fantastic conference and running it so smoothly. I will definitely be attending next year and would recommend it to anyone else in the area!

Mothman Festival #15: A Riotous Good Time

As many of you should be aware, the 15th annual Mothman Festival was this past weekend. I attended and had a wonderful time at it. The fest was huge this year, estimations as to how many attended range from 9,000 to 11,000 people. Honestly, that is unparalleled anywhere else!
The lineup of speakers was also jam-packed with some of the biggest names in the field: Ken Gerhard, Nick Redfern, Loren Coleman, Stan Gordon, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, George Dudding, Joedy Cook, and Fred Saluga are just some of the many who spoke this weekend.
There was also numerous excellent vendors at which I spent way too much of my money at. I bagged much more loot than last year, I got a total of 13 new books (including Nick Redfern's Nessie and Women in Black and Ken Gerhard's A Menagerie of Mysterious Beasts), a couple t-shirts from Eerie Eric (the Bob Ross of Bigfoot!) and many assorted stickers for my laptop. Out of everything I purchased, the coolest thing that I now own is a second edition copy of Gray Barker's famous They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers which is actually autographed by Barker himself!

I had a blast catching up with Stan, Ken, Nick and everyone else. I also got a chance to meet some awesome people; Tyler Houck (who runs the excellent blog Tyler's Cryptozoo), Sean Forker (co-host of Arcane Radio) and Robert Robinson (who wrote the awesome book Legend Tripping). I also got to visit the TNT area and check out one of the famous 'Igloos'.

I had a great time and would recommend the festival to anyone who is interested in learning more about the Mothman or anything else that goes bump in the night.

Nick Redfern and I

Tyler and I hanging out

Podcast and Conference

As previously mentioned, I appeared on Spaced Out Radio the other night with Ron Murphy. I had a blast. Despite being a little nervous at the beginning, as the three hours went along, I got more comfortable and we got the chance to discuss many different topics that are near and dear to me. If you didn't get a chance to listen live, you can listen to the archived version here.

I am also going to be speaking at the East Coast ParaCon. Ron Murphy will be unable to speak at the event, so I will be taking his place. I hope to see some familiar faces in the audience. You can find the East Coast ParaCon's website here. This also means that I won't be at the Minerva Monster Festival as I have previously stated.

Update: Extreme Craziness Lately

It has been almost over a month since I last updated the blog; I apologize profusely for this. Life has hit me with an obscene amount of work so when I have a couple minutes free, I relax instead of blog. I am vowing to stop that, I am going to post something at least once a week, if not more.

So, what have I been doing other than ignoring the blog? Quite a bit.

• I have a significant portion of my book finished (at last count I have about 5 chapters in a somewhat state of completion)
• I gave my first (planned) public talk at a recent MENSA regional gathering two weeks ago and will hopefully be posting the entire recorded lecture for your viewing entertainment soon
• I wrote the forwards for two excellent books by two excellent researchers; On Ghosts: The Spirit World Though History by Ronald L. Murphy Jr. and The Ohio Monster Guidebook  by Tyler Houck. Tyler's book isn't out yet but you can purchase Ron's book here
• I am working on two different articles which I am currently attempting to get in to either FATE or Cryptid Culture Magazine
• I will appearing on Spaced Out Radio tonight (technically tomorrow) from 12 am to 3 am with Ron Murphy. After the episode airs I will be posting the link to the archives where you can listen to it after the fact. You can find out more about the episode here. You can also find Spaced Out Radio here
• I am also working on a book with Ron Murphy about the possible connection between the fairy world and cryptids. The working title is currently Beasts of the Faerie Realm. We are hoping to have this out by next Feburary 
• Finally, I am going to be a regular contributer to the upcoming YouTube series On the Track... which is the Centre for Fortean Zoology's weekly cryptid news show

While pleanty of great things have happened, there is also something that put a slight damper on everything. As many of you are aware, Ron Murphy was putting together a conference in Blairsville, Pennsylvania in October, at which I was scheduled to speak. Unfortunately, due to the town's apparent dislike of the idea of a paranormal conference and a problem with finding speakers at the last minute, the conference has been cancelled for the time being. Ron and I are working on putting a conference together around May/June 2017, as a replacement for the one in October. 

Finally, here are several stills from my talk:

Werewolf of Defiance

Defiance, Ohio, a sleepy little town, about 55 miles south of Toledo, had a series of unusual encounters in 1972 that will become whispered legend in the years after. Defiance is your average, small, Midwestern American town. Most of the people who live there make their living by working at one of the handful of factories around the area. Defiance is best known for its Fort Defiance, which has a colorful historical significance . So what happened in Defiance all those years ago? Possibly the oddest couple of Dogman encounters ever reported.

On July 25th, 1972, when two employees a local freight train company were working the graveyard shift, inspecting railcar braking systems. Ted Davis, one of the witnesses, during an interview with the Toledo Blade said, “I saw these two hairy feet. Then I looked up and he was standing there with a big stick over his shoulder. When I started to say something, he took off for the woods.” The creature was also described as having, “huge, hairy feet, fangs, and it ran side-to-side like a caveman in the movies.”

About a week after the first encounter, Davis claims to have seen the creature, at the same place as the first encounter, the rail yard. He said it looked at him from the edge of the woods, and the turned and left. That same night, a grocer reported an attack from a hairy, animal-headed creature wielding a two-by-four.

In a small town, nothing stays quiet for long. About a week after the initial events, the local newspaper caught wind of the unusual story. The headlines wrote “Horror Movie Now Playing on Fifth St.” and opened with the famous poem from The Wolf Man:

“Even a man who is pure of heart,

And says his prayers by night,

May become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms,

And the moon is clear and bright.”

The Crescent News, the local newspaper, and the Toledo Blade, ran a total of four articles about the incident. The longest of the articles focused on the local police force’s investigation into the incident. Headed by Donald Breckler, the police chief at the time, the police searched extensively for the “werewolf”. Although the general public thought that it to be a bored teenager’s prank, Chief Breckler considered the club-wielding, animal-faced assailant was a threat to the community. Eventually, after days of looking and no results, the search soon ended.

It is worth noting that Defiance, Ohio is no stranger to unusual phenomena. Within the past fifty years Defiance has seen hundreds of Unidentified Flying Objects, a Dracula lookalike running amuck, and numerous other tales of the weird.
Later this year, Ken Gerhard will be running a symposium about the Dogman and it is located in the town of Defiance. You can find more info here.

Here is one of the articles about the Defiance Werewolf

Future Projects

I have four projects I am currently working on, all four of which should be completed by the end of the year.

The first project is mostly done, there is just some revisions and adjustments left. The project is a regional listing and evaluation of various diminutive humanoids. Essentially it is a directory of dwarves. I will put the directory on the Kindle Store as an ebook sometime in the future.

The second project ties into the third one; I am writing a book about the history of fortean, paranormal, and occult within the last two centuries. I am hoping it will be out by September but I am unsure.

The third project ties into the second because it is a card game which focuses on important paranormal events. More about that to be announced.

I run the paranormal club at my school. We are currently in the works of planning a paranormal conference to raise funds and to generate some cases. Again, more about that to be announced.

If you have any questions about the projects, email me or comment.

Creature Weekend

I have gone to a lot of paranormal conventions and conferences; the Mothman Fest, Pittsburgh and Erie MUFON conferences, the Butler Paranormal Conference, and now Creature Weekend. Out of all of those, Creature Weekend has managed to take all of my favorite components of all the others and improve upon them. I had a blast!

The speakers were all extremely nice and great to hang out with. I already knew Ron Murphy and Ken Gerhard so we got to hang out more. I did get to meet Ron Morehead who is very laid-back and cool to talk with.

With my good friend, Ron Murphy

With the one, the only Ken Gerhard

With the infamous Ron Morehead

The Center for Cryptozoological Studies was also there, of which I am a proud member. Brian Seech and Terrie Seech are some of the nicest people you will ever meet.

I got to run the Center for Cryptozoological Studies' evidence table

At the evidence sharing event with Brian Seech

The Ohio Bigfoot Co-Op was there as well. They gave an interesting presentation about their research in Salt Fork State Park.

The esteemed Steven Blair and Mark Hudak of the Ohio Bigfoot Co-Op

I also got a chance to see the new Beast of Whitehall documentary from Small Town Monsters, which was great. I purchased the Minerva Monster documentary which I will be reviewing soon.

The Creature Weekend was an awesome event, one of my favorites. The atmosphere was super laid-back and everyone was awesome to hang out with. I loved every minute of it. I am definitely coming back next year.

Creature Weekend is soon!

I try to go to as many paranormal conferences as I can. I have gone to two MUFON conferences, the Mothman Festival, and the Butler Paranormal Conference. I love meeting all the different researchers and witnesses, having discussions, buying books, and attending talks on a wide range of topics within the weird. This weekend has an upcoming event which I have anxiously looked forward to since I had heard about it.
So what is the long awaited event? Creature Weekend.
Creature Weekend is a chance for lovers of cryptids and monsters to meet, talk, hang out, and learn lots about every creature you can think of.

This year has an awesome set of speakers;
Ron Murphy... Ron is a really good friend of mine, he is an expert on fairies and is a seasoned cryptid researcher. He has numerous crypto-focused books, all of which are highly, highly recommended.
Ken Gerhard... Ken is an awesome researcher who always brings something new to the table with each of his books. He is a great guy who is really cool to hang out with.
Ron Morehead... Ron is a seasoned Bigfoot researcher. He is best known for his astonishing recording of supposed Bigfoot vocalizations, known as the Sierra Sounds.

The Center for Cryptozoological Studies will also be there, Brian Seech is always fun to talk to.


Needless to say, this will be an awesome weekend.
I cannot wait. I will write a short post about the event when I get back.
You can find information on the event here.