Interview With Stan Gordon

Stan Gordon is a seasoned ufologist and cryptozoologist who has worked in the field since 1965. He has three books, The Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook, Really Mysterious Pennsylvania, and Astonishing Encounters: Pennsylvania’s Unknown Creatures. He is widely considered to be the foremost authority on paranormal phenomena in Pennsylvania as well as the Kecksburg UFO crash. I met Stan over Labor Day weekend where he agreed to this interview, and again at the recent Mothman Festival, which I will be posting a summary and review of as my next post.

1. What originally inspired you to research the paranormal? How long have you been doing this?

>I was a curious youngster who had an interest in science and electronics at an early age.  By coincidence my birthday is around Halloween. In 1959, on my 10th birthday, my parents gave me an AM radio as a gift. That evening as I tuned across the radio dial, some radio shows were discussing strange events such as ghosts and flying saucers. I listened to the discussions, and while intrigued I was also skeptical of some of what I was hearing. I wanted to learn more and began many trips to the Greensburg library to read what books they had on these topics. I continued my interest and research making scrap books from news stories that appeared on these subjects.  I was 16 years old in December of 1965, when a major UFO incident occurred in a rural community called Kecksburg, about 12 miles away from where I lived.

That night as the news was breaking from around the Pittsburgh area of the UFO incident, I began to take down notes. The next day as the story appeared in local newspapers, I began to call people in the area where the incident occurred to try to obtain more details. This year will mark 50 years of my investigation into the case.

That UFO incident still remains unsolved. I have been out in the field conducting first hand investigations in the UFO phenomena and many other areas of what would be described as paranormal. In the nearly 56 years that I have been conducting this research, I have still never seen a UFO or crossed paths with Bigfoot. The thousands of witnesses I have interviewed and the physical evidence that I have seen has convinced me, however, that there remain many mysteries in this world for which we have no answers.

2. Of all the cases you have investigated, what is, in your opinion, the most significant and why?

>This is a tough question to answer as there are multitudes of UFO and Cryptid cases that I have investigated that are significant.  The case that stands out was an incident that occurred during the major UFO-Bigfoot wave of 1973. It is very involved and well documented, so I am just giving you a brief summary.  On the evening of October 25, 1973, I received a call from a state trooper from the Uniontown barracks in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. He had returned from investigating a strange incident on a farm and felt that I should send a research team to that area immediately.

About 9 PM that evening, a number of local residents observed a barn sized red sphere hovering about 100 feet in sky and dropping towards the ground. Three people went up to the pasture to investigate. They were shocked to see about 250 feet away that the object was on the ground or hovering just above it. The object now looked to be a bright white dome shape about 100 feet or more in diameter. It illuminated the area and made a loud whining sound. About 75 feet away from the observers was a barbed wire fence. Along that fence were two huge hair covered creatures with very long arms walking in their direction.

As one man fired ammunition at the beasts with a 30.06 rifle, the object suddenly just vanished, and the creatures being hit with ammo just kept walking back towards the direction from which they came with no apparent effect. The state trooper who arrived within the hour to investigate, said the area where the object had been was glowing and the farm animals would not go near it. When my team arrived during the early morning hours to investigate, some strange events took place in that area. I explain the entire case in detail in my “Silent Invasion” book. It was the case that clearly indicated that the Bigfoot and UFO phenomena is much more complex than any of us were aware of.

3. Are your files and research  concentrated simply to Pennsylvania, or have they branched out further?

>While I am interested in similar cases from surrounding states and what takes place elsewhere, my focus has been to document what has been taking place in Pennsylvania. The Keystone state has a long history of mysterious happenings, and these strange encounters continue to take place each year. This year has been very active with UFO, cryptid and other anomalistic incidents.

4. Your second book, The Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook, focuses on a wave of sightings during the seventies where Bigfoot and UFO sightings seemed to be connected, do you have any theories as to what the connection might be based on the various encounters? Do you feel that all Bigfoot sightings are connected to UFOs?

>The “Silent Invasion” book details the many mysterious events that took place from 1973 into 1974 across Pennsylvania. I began investigating Bigfoot encounters in the late 1960s. I had always felt that the initial information we had indicated that these creatures seemed to be some type of unknown animal. During the wave of the early 1970s, residents were calling the police and my research team reporting many very strange events. Some patterns of the phenomena began to emerge from widespread locations.

Observers would report a UFO sighting in a certain area and within a short time, a Bigfoot encounter would take place there as well. Sometimes it would be the reverse, with a Bigfoot sighting taking place, then a UFO encounter would occur. Then there were cases where a UFO and Bigfoot were seen together at the same time and location.

Most UFO sightings historically reported have no association with a Bigfoot encounter. And most Bigfoot incidents aren’t associated with UFO activity. Such cases of Bigfoot with UFOs  have been reported not just from Pennsylvania, but from throughout the country and other parts of the world. As I have mentioned many times in my writings, I don’t have the answers if there is a direct connection between the two phenomena. The more you look into the UFO and cryptid fields, the more it is apparent that we are dealing with a very strange, and complex phenomena.

I am not suggesting that Bigfoot is an Alien life form and that it is an occupant of a spacecraft from another world. We don’t know for sure what UFOs really are. While many sightings are explainable, some remain unexplained. There are many theories for these objects including extraterrestrial spacecraft, time and interdimensional travelers, even unknown natural phenomena. I don’t have the answers, but I keep an open mind to all possibilities.

5. You seem to, in your books, focus on cryptozoology and ufology, what are your thoughts, if you have any, on some other paranormal subjects, such as ghosts, poltergeists, psychic abilities, fairies, or werewolves?

>During many years of research I had an interest in all types of anomalistic events including most of the topics you have mentioned.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I was involved with cases of alleged haunted houses and ghosts. I interviewed many people who claimed to have ESP experiences. I have looked into many types of strange creature and mysterious being encounters including claims of fairies and werewolves, and discussed in my new book, “Astonishing Encounters: Pennsylvania’s Unknown Creatures.”

6. Do you have any advice for anyone who may be starting within the subject of the unusual and unexplained?

>Don’t believe everything that you read and see on the internet. Keep an open mind when researching such cases, but be objective and look for sources that might explain what took place. Associate with trained research professionals such as scientists and engineers, and utilize their expertise when evaluating mysterious claims.

All three of Stan’s books are highly recommended. He can be found here. 

Werewolves

Werewolves, the man-wolf creatures of the night, said to terrorize townspeople and consume children and sheep. Werewolves are considered to be a strictly European notion, but most cultures around the world have some concept of people transforming into animals, in the Southern United States it’s the skinwalkers, in Japan, the kitsune, and in Mesoamerica, the nagual. Stories of these shapeshifting creatures are abundant, and many continue today.

The official term for shapeshifting into a wolf is lycanthropy. Many attribute legend of werewolves to people who had the mental disorder known as Clinical Lycanthropy, a form of psychosis in which one believes themselves to be a wolf or half-wolf.

Probably the best known tale of a werewolf are the stories of the Beast of Gevaudan. Gevaudan was the name for a mountainous region in the southern part of 18th century France. The Beast showed up in June of 1764 and terrorized the small town for three years. It killed women, children, livestock--anything it could. Eventually, nearly all of France had heard of the beast, and the king sent soldiers down to kill the creature. The soldiers succeeded in killing the beast and tried to bring it back to the king but because of decay and stench they buried it in an unknown location. Many speculate that the creature was just a hyena or an oversized wolf, but there are some who still call it a werewolf.
There is an abundance of modern werewolf sightings, not just in Europe, but in America as well. Researcher Linda S. Godfrey is the recognized expert on modern werewolf sightings and has a nearly complete list of modern American encounters. She has noticed, like many cryptids, there seems to be a correlation between sighting locations and the locations of both sacred sites and military bases. Godfrey speculated that this could be because the man-wolves are protection spirits from Native American mythology. Godfrey prefers to call these creatures Dogmen or Upright-Candids, because some encounters seem to attribute a more dog-like appearance to the creatures than wolf-like. Many researchers also feel that the dogmen are most supernatural than natural, due to the nature of many encounters. Nearly everyone agrees, though, that werewolves aren’t truly men transforming into wolves.

Sources

Real Wolfmen by Linda S. Godfrey

Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology by Michael Newton

Encyclopedia of Occultism by Lewis Spence

American Monsters by Linda S. Godfrey

Paranormal Terms to Know

Everyone knows the terms “UFO” or “sea serpent”, but some of the other terms I use you may not be so familiar with. Because of this, I have compiled a short list of some terms used often in the fields of paranormal.

• Flaps- patterns of time, connected to groups of unusual encounters or happenings. Described by Loren Coleman as “an attempt to understand a grouping of reports which cluster in time, and for monster accounts, usually in a specific local.” It is worth noting that nearly all encounters with cryptids (unknown animals) or UFOs come in clusters.
• Windows- specific places that seem to act as magnets for the unusual. Commonly attributed to cryptids, UFOs, or hauntings. Often window areas serve as locations for multiple types of unusual occurrences.
• High Strangeness- there are two definitions for this term, first, encounters or reports with unexplained phenomena that seems more unusual than most reports (example, there was once an encounter with a supposed extraterrestrial which apparently gave the witness “space pancakes”). The second definition are areas that seem more unusual than normal window areas, for example, the Bermuda Triangle.
• Zooforms- literally monsters. Zooforms are technically apparition creatures that resemble animals, but the phenomena seems to include most paranormal creatures, from werewolves to vampires to the bogey-man. It is an extremely vast and complicated phenomena.
• Name Game- patterns within names of witnesses of the paranormal or names of places where paranormal encounters. Some examples of names within the game are Fayette, Dover, Decatur, and Logan.
• Waves- similar to flaps, except waves are simply the clusters of sightings while flaps are the patterns within the clusters.

Sources

Mothman and Other Encounters by Loren Coleman

Mysterious America by Loren Coleman

PSIence by Marie D. Jones

Monsters! An A-Z of Zooform Phenomena by Neil Arnold

Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds, birds of enormous size from Native American legends, were said to cause thunder and lightning just by flapping their huge wings. Could birds of this size really exist? Some researchers believe that they aren’t just legend, and that they still occupy the skies of America. Sightings have occurred throughout the United States but the majority are clustered within the Midwest.

In legends, the birds were described to be big enough to blot out the sun, but in modern times the size is described as having a wingspan between fifteen and thirty-five feet. The creature is often described as a giant bird, black in color, occasionally with a white stripe around its neck. Although most encounters fall into the above description there are some reports that give the Thunderbird a more reptilian description, similar to a pterodactyl.

There are very few reports of a Thunderbird actually interacting with a person, most are only seen in the sky from a distance. There is one exception to this, dubbed the Lawndale Incident by researchers, the witnesses actually claim a bird of gigantic proportions actually picked up a ten-year-old child and carried him for a short distance. The encounter occurred on July 15, 1977, at a family home in Lawndale, Illinois. Marlon Lowe was playing outside his home, when two large birds flew above him. One of the birds flew down to Marlon and grabbed him in its talons and carried him for several feet before letting go and flying away. The birds seemed to be frightened of, ironically, by Mrs. Lowe’s horrified screams. The birds were described as being as large as ostriches but appeared more like condors. The most significant part of the encounter is that condors are not strong enough to lift a child into the air and fly even the few feet that it did.

Since most descriptions associate condors with the Thunderbird, the most likely candidate for the Thunderbird are the extinct Teratorns. There are two known types of Teratorns, the Teratornis merriami which had a wingspan of eleven feet and the Teratornis incredibilis which had a wingspan of twenty four feet. The other likely candidate for the Thunderbird is a relict species of pterosaur, an extinct group of flying reptiles. The pterosaur theory works mainly because of the handful of sightings of reptilian Thunderbirds as well as the newly discovery of feathers on pterosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles.

So could large unknown birds roam the skies of midwest United States? What do you guys think?

Sources

Mysterious America by Loren Coleman

Cryptozoology A to Z by Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark

The Encyclopedia of Monsters by Daniel Cohen

Monster Spotter’s Guide to North America by Scott Francis

Unexplained! by Jerome Clark

The Skookum Cast

Many Bigfoot enthusiasts and cryptozoologists, those who study animals not recognized by science, hail the Patterson-Gimlin film (a minute long film that shows what appears to be a large, human-like ape) as the best evidence we have for the existence of Bigfoot, but there has always been a huge amount of controversy with the film. There are even people claiming to be the person in a gorilla suit being filmed. Because of this issue, there are some who have pointed their fingers at a different piece of evidence as the most conclusive. It's known as the Skookum cast by researchers and it is thought to be made of an unknown humanoid’s buttocks, various sections of its legs and feet, knuckles, hand imprints, and an elbow.

The cast was found during a research expedition into Skookum Meadows in Washington state. The expedition was funded by the Bigfoot Research Organization (BFRO) and included a long list of specialists in various fields, a psychologist and pheromone expert, an expert tracker, a zoologist, a wilderness guide, a bait expert and a communications specialist, to name a few. The expedition began on September 16, 2000, and went until September 23. The group made “traps” in hopes of finding evidence of the creature, the traps were simply setting fruit inside a large section of mud in hopes they would attract a Bigfoot and get tracks, what they got was much better. On September 22 two of the group decided to check the traps for any prints, the first two were duds but the third and final trap had a strange set of prints that caught the eye of the researchers. It required 325 pounds of plaster cast to record the full cast.

The name “Skookum” is actually one of the many Native American words for Bigfoot like creatures. The word can be found used in the names of many places throughout Washington and Oregon. This, in fact, was the reason the BFRO chose the Skookum Meadows for the expedition.

Many scientists have tried to explain the print as nothing more than a deer laying in the mud but the cast does not appear even close to what deer body imprints look like. Anthropologist and primatologist, Jeffrey Meldrum examined the print and concluded that the print was almost definitely made by a humanoid of seven to eight feet in height. He points to the clear dermal ridges (dermal ridges are small creases in your hands and feet, such as your fingerprints) in the feet and hands, as well as the appearance of hair imprints throughout the body.

Sources

Bigfoot! by Loren Coleman

Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science by Jeff Meldrum

Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology by Michael Newton

Shadow People

Worldwide people report seeing shadowy figures, witnesses say they have an evil presence and seem to want to harm them. These figures are known as shadow people and have recently been terrorizing thousands around the world. Witnesses say the entities appear as silhouettes with no facial features or any features at all but seem to appear as male. They are described as “blacker than black” by most who’ve had the misfortune to have an encounter. The shadow people have also been reported to be wearing hats and coats on occasion. Although they are shadowy in appearance they do not appear transparent in most sightings.

Almost every encounter with one of the shadow people is accompanied with paralyzing fear which is inflicted upon the witness. Many times this fear is long lasting and stays with the person days, even months, after the encounter. Witnesses have been known to develop a fear of darkness and nighttime as well.

Shadow people are commonly reported to be seen in the witness’ bedroom, the witness wakes up suddenly and sees a silhouette standing over their bed, watching them, then the thing seemingly melts into nothingness, leaving the witness alone, and horrified. Shadow people have been reported in almost any type of setting, from museums to zoos to random hallways and outdoor gatherings.

The shadow people phenomena is significant in two ways, it is one of the most widespread paranormal phenomena and it is also one of the most interconnected paranormal phenomena. It has been linked to extraterrestrials, djinn, black eyed children, Native American spirits, ghosts, demons, and even multidimensional beings.

The shadow people phenomena is among one of the most puzzling and mysterious paranormal happenings in the world.

Sources

The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits by Rosemary Ellen Guiley

Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside by Brad Steiger

The Vengeful Djinn by Rosemary Ellen Guiley and Philip J. Imbrogno

UFO-Bigfoot Connection

There seems to be two different types of Bigfoot researcher. The first, and most common, is the researcher who feels that the creature is a physical animal. The second, widely considered to be among the “fringe”, are those who feel that Bigfoot is something less physical, something potentially spectral or alien. This post is about the second group. Those who feel this way are definitely the minority, often ridiculed or ignored. They are often dismissed along with the data they present.

Probably the best known researcher into this idea is Stan Gordon. I actually interviewed Stan earlier this year, the interview is here, on my blog. Stan has been researching the unusual and paranormal for over 50 years. One of the best pieces of evidence that supports Stan’s case is his documentation of the Bigfoot-UFO Pennsylvania Wave of 1973 and 1974.

The wave, like every mass of sightings, started slowly with some “normal” sightings, and the slowly build up into containing some of the most unusual encounters ever documented. You can find a complete documentation of the story in Stan’s book Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook. I won’t go over the entire story of the wave but I will briefly describe my favorite encounter.

The encounter took place on October 25, 1973 near Uniontown, PA. Around 9 at night, the witness and his wife saw a very large, red, glowing sphere in the sky, as they were driving home. When they reached their house, they found their family members watching the light. The witness decided to go to a neighbors to try and get a better look. He and two neighbors investigated further by heading to where the object had landed. The object was found in the middle of a field, now green and dome-shaped. As the three men are looking at the dome, two large, hairy ape-like figures are seen walking along the field’s fence. The beings then climb over the fence and start heading toward the dome. The witnesses start to fire with the guns they brought with them, but the creatures appeared unharmed. As soon and the gunfire began the dome disappears before their eyes. The beings began to walk away the other way. Later, the witnesses claimed they were sure that they hit the creatures with the gunfire.

The report above is only one of hundreds of related incidents. What do you guys think? Do you think that there might be a connection? Or is this all just a bunch of baloney? Tell me in the comments.

Sources

Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook by Stan Gordon

Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America by Loren Coleman

The Unidentified by Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman

Creatures of the Outer Edge by Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman

- See more at: http://paranormal-101.com/2015/11/19/the-ufo-bigfoot-connection/#sthash.1DQwH3yc.dpuf