Ep. 218: American Mythology

And I just turned around and I call ass out of there. I was done. I wasn't deal with them. The hypocrisy of the cult is one of the things that turned me away the quickest. When I turned my head lights on, it turned and looked at us. And one of the things I remember the most, where the eyes were going red. I see an orb of light. It is just circling these steps. Like it is waiting for me. And he begins to tell them that he saw UFO. They're basically like, what are you talking about. That's seven foot up on a tree, peeking around it, and that's where I saw the top of the muzzle, nose and the eyes as soon as I made eye contact with this thing. And don't like death. Welcome back to ted Foil tells it'sn I. We're enjoined by my guest Gianno. Thanks for coming on here and talking to me. Thanks for having me Brandon. This is great. I'm happy to be here. Would you like to let the audience know a little bit about yourself. Well, you know, my name is Giano Cromley. I am originally from Montana. I grew up there and I currently live in Chicago, where I'm an English professor, and I just had this new novel come out, American Mythology, which is kind of follows the story of two bigfoot hunters as they go on one of their last expeditions. So that's kind of what I'm I'm kind of working on right now. It's just come out. The part of being from Montana. I am jealous, because yes, you should be. I will just say you should be. Reviewed someone recently it's also from Montana, and I said the same thing. I'm jealous because I want to go to Montana. That's one of the states that I haven't been to that I would like to go and visit. So yeah, yeah, no, I mean Montana is just beautiful. You know. One of the things I say to my friends here in Chicago is that I will always have mountains in my blood, which just means whenever I go back, which is fairly regularly. In fact, I'll be heading back there tomorrow. I just can't wait to get back in the mountains, back into the forests, the nature. It's just it's really just unmatched. You're out of Chicago right now. Yeah, I live in Chicago now, but my folks are still in Billings, which is where I grew up, and I get back there probably. Now about four times a year. So yeah, I was just in Chicago for an event a little over a month ago. And oh we were just on the outskirts of Chicago last weekend searching for something that my wife had been wanting, some kind of a bag, and the closest place I could find was Cabello's up there. I think it's in is it Hammond? Yeah? What Hamond, Indiana is like right outside Chicago. That's what people don't realize is Indiana. I mean, it's just just in fact. Indiana from where I live on the South Side is like a five minute drive from here. Yeah. Yeah, about two hours to get up there to Chicago for me, so it's not terribly far. I'm just in north central Indiana. Yeah, okay, okay, great, great, Yeah, yeah, you know, I I love Chicago. It's great. But but I mean, Montana will definitely always be my home for sure. Yeah. I wouldn't want to claim Chicago if I had Montana. Yeah, yeah, exactly, It's That's that's the first point on my resume, for sure. So you wrote this novel about these explorers searching for Bigfoot. What led you to want to write something about that. Well, you know, first off, you know, I've had just a lifelong fascination with Bigfoot, and I mean that goes back to everyone of a certain age has kind of their gateway into bigfoot world, right Like, if you're about my age, it's the TV show In Search Of. If you're maybe a little bit younger than it could be Harry and the Henderson's or what was that Unsolved Mysteries? That's another one that got a lot of people hooked. I think younger generations now it might be Finding Bigfoot, but for me, it was In Search of, you know, the the Leonard Nimoy Show, and you know, just seeing that episode with that they had about Bigfoot just kind of lit my brain on fire. And so ever since then. You know, I I've just been fascinated by Bigfoot and just kind of would would kind of anytime something would come up that was Bigfoot related, I was just all I couldn't wait to devour it. But but honestly, I think what kind of changed it from you know, just maybe a casual interest to kind of a more pronounced fascination or more of kind of a fixation. I guess you might say was having. I had a bigfoot counter encounter in twenty fourteen in western Michigan. You know, it's it's interesting. I don't often think of bigfoot Michigan as Bigfoot country, although that was. You know, having grown up in Montana, I didn't know much about Michigan. But now that I'm here in Chicago and I've spent. Some time in Michigan, I can attest to the fact that it. Is a very un explored place, with vast stretches of forests and wilderness. The further north you go, it's even more so. I think, oh yeah, I mean, the Upper Peninsula is basically just completely pristine. I mean it, and I've been up there, so I know it is truly just completely unexplored essentially. But my encounter took place in an area called the Manisty National Forest, which is in western Michigan. And for those who aren't familiar with that particular spot, it's just it's a very if you've ever been in it, it just has as like kind of a very old, very dark feel to it. And it was so it was twenty fourteen and my wife and I had just we needed to get out of the city, so we did an Airbnb and the place that we rented was literally called Cabin in the Woods, and that's essentially what it was. And this cabin like kind of backed up against the Manistee National Forest. So we'd spent a week. There and we had been you know, hiking and exploring and you know, just doing all the things that you do when you're on vacation. And it was the last night we were there, and we were out in back of the cabin and we had a fire going in the fire pit, and it was my wife and I and we. Had our two dogs with us, and. You know, we were just chatting that it was getting late, the fire was getting dark or you know lower, and in the distance, we heard a pack of coyotes howling or yipping right, and which is you know, very common wherever you are in the country. So that you know, and I'm very attuned to that. I grew up in the backwoods of Montana, you know, kind camping in the back country in Montana, so to me, that was just a very normal occurrence. And then out of nowhere, this sound came out of the forest and it was the only way I can describe it was somewhere between a howl and a yell, right, so like animal and human And it was really just kind of a combination of both. And it started really low and it raised in pitch and volume for had to be a good ten seconds, right, And I've heard pretty much anything that you could possibly hear in the forest around here, and I'd never heard anything like. This, And it was it was. Really a strong sound, and it was enough to just kind of stop our conversation and then it and then it died out. And a few seconds later, from the other side of us, the same sound happened. Uh, but it was. A you know, different creature, but the same type of sound. Started low, rose and pitch and volume, and again it was the kind of thing that just felt like it was like, uh, you know, jangling your soul like it just it felt like it it penetrated to the core. Uh. And and the rest of the forest kind of seemed to get quiet. After the second one stopped, there was the sound of a coyote screeching in acute distress, just I mean a death screech, right, and and I mean it was unmistakable. And after that there were these low kind of guttural sounds that we heard now the other the the final part of this story, or the part that kind of really kind of pushed me over the edge in terms of, you know, thinking what this could possibly be is one of our dogs with us was a Great Pyrenees. He was a rescue from downstate Illinois, uh. And and he had been, you know, a working dog, and and Great Pyrenees, for those who don't know, are livestock guarding dogs. So their whole kind of affect is they are very chill dogs. They are calm to the you know, just beyond belief. And the whole point of that is that they go out to the into the into the mountains, into the fields with the sheep, and they stay calm because they don't want to disturb the sheep, and they basically sleep out there at night with the sheep. But they have a very finely attuned aggression threshold, like a sensation for danger, so they only alert when they know that danger is there. So after the coyotes, after the howls and the coyote screech and the guttural sounds, our great parentees went ballistic, started barking and snapping and lunging at the tree line. Fortunately, we had his leash on, so he wasn't able to kind of go into the trees. But I had never seen him react that way before or since, so this was a unique And we had taken him, you know, into Montange, you know, when we'd gone on our trips to visit home in Montana. We'd gone hiking, camping, all. That stuff in Montana, So he had been in those situations before, and I'd never seen him react that way. So that really. Kind of spoke to me of him being able to sense some kind of unique danger in that moment or a unique threat. After that all kind of happened and we were able to control him on the leash we brought. We we went inside to the cabin uh and kind of battened down the hatches, because that was pretty much at that point. We were both really terrified of of what we had just heard. And I'd like to say I was brave enough to go out and explore, but but honestly that was not the case. You know. But but that experience really kind of solidified to me the idea that there there's there are things out there that we don't that we don't understand, that we haven't you know, been able to verify or prove, but they're out there. Have you spoken to anyone that's within the Bigfoot communities like after this and like told them what happened and what did they tell you? You know, I hadn't really before this book came out, but I did. I did post. This like that, that kind of story on you know, back in the day it was Tumblr. Uh So I posted kind of just that what happened on Tumblr, and it was really interesting to me. And I'm not sure if this might be what you're getting at, Brandon, but I noticed a couple people in their comments made mention of the Michigan dog Man, and I had never heard of that before in my life, and and really I didn't know much about it until kind of, I would say, the last five years as I've been working on this book, you know, just I've just been doing a lot of research on Bigfoot in general, and then that's kind of allowed me to come across the stories of the dog Man, because you know, the Manestine National Force is kind of, by a lot of people considered to be ground zero for dog mans sightings. I wasn't necessarily leaning towards the dog Man just because Okay, that's when people think of Michigan, that is one of the first things that happens. But what I was going to say is what the noises and everything in the way they are acting from. I'm not a bigfoot expert or expert at anything. To be honest, I don't think there actually are experts. By the way, that's just yeah. I agree with you one hundred percent. Anyone who says they are is not right. But I do feel like there are people that are knowledgeable, and some of the actions and everything, to me, it's sound like they were communicating with each other. If that's two different like creatures making those noises and then the way your dog was acting, Yeah, it's almost like they were communicating with each other, but they also wanted you to know that they were there. Yeah, you know, it's it's really strange when you think about it. And if you want to think about like a prey activity, right like they you would certainly think they would be communicating if they're kind of doing some kind of group or at least pair hunting, But the volume of it would seem to imply they that they were doing something else beyond that, right, like that they wanted to let us know we were there. To what end. I'm not sure. Maybe the end was just wanting us to get to go inside and get out of there. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. And you know, this was you know, it wasn't the most even though it was cold, cabin in the woods, it wasn't completely isolated, but you know, we definitely didn't have neighbors too too close, so it felt like essentially also because it was kind of on either side of us, it felt like it was probably more like it directed toward us specifically. At least that was the impression that we got from it. It's hard to understand, like the questions that I'm about to say, but like even it's hard for me to explain it. But do you feel like these things were in sort of a threatening mode or not? Because I feel like if they were trying to threaten you, it could have been a lot more. Yeah. Oh yeah, No, I don't think that they were in a threatening mode toward us. Obviously that poor coyote probably feels otherwise. No, I think probably, you know, if I had to guess, it was a warning of soorts to us that you know, kind of this is going to happen, and and you know, we don't want you around for it, you know, but but also not like a direct threat, like we're about to come at you kind of thing, you see what I mean. So it's just kind of a like a warning, you know, kind of just an alert, I guess you would say, as opposed to an aggressive move on their part. Now, the next day, did you happen to try and go out and look for anything or did you just kind. Of honestly no, we you know, it's the forest around there is it's a lot of kind of uh, deciduous trees, there's a lot of kind of leaf litter. On the ground, and so you know it, it. Wasn't really a great spot that would be conducive to kind of footprints or trying. As far as I could tell, I should have probably gone out and investigated a little bit more. But I mean, I will be honest and say that even by the morning there was still some kind of residual fear lingering afterwards. Maybe I'm weird, but I would always be the curiosity type person. But I know, I know, and honestly I really regret that, you know, I've thought about it a lot afterwards. I'm like, why didn't I just go and look a little bit, you know, in in fairness the distance from where we were, you know, I would I would probably place it at anywhere between maybe and again this is purely a guestimate, between twenty five to fifty yards on either side of us for both of the howls. You know, which when you start to think about like. An un an untrailed forest, that is, you know, once you kind of take about ten steps out of the clearing, like you're kind of just engulfed by trees. So I do think it probably would have been pretty hard to find too much sign of anything, although I do I do regret probably not going out and checking to see if I can find something. If it's overgrown and everything else. And that's where I get hesitant, because I don't feel like it Snakes and bugs and all sorts of other. Yeah, and poison ivy too, like I'm just kind of and ticks and you know, it just kind of gets gnarlely in Michigan for sure. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I I can handle being chased by a bigfoot or a dog man or whatever. I guess I'm not worried about that. But if I get like a bug on me, it's just the little things apparently that get me. Yeah, yeah, I am. My cousin often makes fun of my my hyper sensitive reactions to when a bug lands on me, so I can appreciate that. So off topic, the kind of on topic. We were in Alabama a couple of years ago and we were playing mini golf and a ladybug landed on the I think it was the love that my daughter was using, and she was three at the time, and the blood curdling screen that she let out, all because of a ladybug. I was like, I don't even do that. Yeah, where does she get that from? Yeah, well that's no idea where she gets that from? Yeah, yeah, that's hilarious. Yeah yeah. You wrote this book and it is called American Mythology. You want to talk a little bit about it? Sure? You know, I I wanted to, Like I said, I knew I always wanted to write a novel about Bigfoot, and I didn't. I really wasn't sure how I wanted to approach it. I tried multiple times, you know, and I think a lot of people who are really into Bigfoot, you know, understand that you know a lot of the books that are out there. Obviously there's some great nonfiction books, right if you want to just learn about it, but if you want some escapism, if you want a story about Bigfoot, I think they often tend to fall into one of maybe three categories. One is kind of children's stuff, like kids stuff, you know, kind of. Like Harry and the Henderson's. And then there's kind of the like kind of horror genre where it's very kind of straight, kind of you know, blood curdling horror. And then the third genre is kind of goofy, kind of almost I would say, like mockery of the whole Bigfoot phenomenon, right, And none of those were really what I wanted to write about. What I wanted to do was write like kind of an honest to goodness like adventure story about Bigfoot, but with characters that were meaningful, that that the readers could really kind of sympathize with and get behind and root for. So I really, in some ways, I kind of, you know, I read a lot of kind of old school seventies novels that were these kind of adventure type stories, you know that kind of really just had like a propulsive plot with good characters, which I think are books that often aren't really written anymore, or at least you don't see them very much anymore. So I think of this as kind of a throwback a little bit to kind of good characters. I think, a really kind. Of propulsive story that's engaging and really kind of deals with the topic of bigfoot, like in an honest and and like really kind of thoughtful way. Right. It's not making fun of anybody that you know, in terms of their beliefs. It's dealing with it in. An honest way, and you know, so that was kind of really how I settled on this, on this book, and so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. How long did it take you to write it? That's a good question. I started the first draft of this in February twenty nineteen, and I finished the first draft in late twenty twenty one, So it took me almost two years to write the first draft. And then I it was about twice as long as it is now, and it was it was decent, but I knew it was it needed a lot of work, and so I applied for this fellowship with Stonybrook University. That kind of helps. It's a novel incubator, and over the next year I worked, really I did two kind of full revisions on it. I cut it down almost in half in size and changed the story fairly significantly. And then after that. I was able to get an agent who loved it but wanted to make some changes as well, so I made some more changes, and then I sold it to Doubleday in April twenty twenty three. So I've been wait twenty twenty three, no, twenty twenty four, and so I have been working on revisions. I mean, I started it in twenty nineteen, so it's been a six year process. It's changed a lot, but I think the DNA from that very first draft is still intact. I got a copy right here, and we talked off air that I have not had the chance to read it yet, but I have skimmed through and it's looking like it's almost three hundred pages. And I think that's what intimidates me, because there's a lot for me to read in my spare time when I'm not doing this or whatever else I have to do in life. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean I will warn you, though, Brandon, that if you do start it, you may not be able to put it down. There's only been a few books that I've ever done that. With, so I'm doing the challenge. If this is one of them, I'll give you one hundred percent props for it, because, okay, all right, good. I'm not an avid reader of books. So yeah, I've had certain ones here that I bought the I wanted to read, and I've read them. Yeah, but there's other ones that I also have that I've not had the opportunity to read, and they've been sitting here for two years now. I was like, sure, I don't know. Yeah, everyone's got that be to be read list, right, that's just kind of that stack of books, you know. It's it's really interesting, you know. I think most people who are really into Bigfoot, the books that they read are the nonfiction books, right, the you know, the ones that we all know, the meldrums and those that are kind of very fascinating and and very kind of scientific or else. They're very they have the eyewitness accounts. I don't think there are a lot of I can think of one, Max Brooks's novel Devolution, which is a Bigfoot kind of novel. It's very much in the horror genre. He's best known for writing World War Z. That was actually one of the books that I read all the way through. Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah, And so I you know, I think mine, well, mine isn't that kind of straight horror that his is. Mine has more of a like a creeping horror. But I think it's it's definitely that was one of the comps, the comparisons that that they had used in published when we were marketing it. You know, I think, what's interesting, And I mentioned this to someone else recently. I think there's a disconnect though, between what the publishing world, like, at least in the kind of New York publishing world, thinks people want and versus what people really want to read. You know. I so, you know, I had my agent went on submission with this novel, which means she sent it out to a ton of different editors in New York. And when you go through that process, it's highly nerve wracking and and obviously there are more, you know, failures than than acceptances, right or rejections than acceptances. And and my agent asked me, well, do you want to see the past notes? And the past notes are basically what the people who say no they don't want to buy it. What did they say about it? And I said, sure, tell me what they say. And a lot of them are pretty generic responses, but one of them really stood out to me, which the editor said, I don't think people who are. Into bigfoot, he said. I think this is really well written, he said, but I think people who are into Bigfoot won't really appreciate good writing. And I think people who appreciate good writing won't really appreciate the bigfoot stuff, which I found to be just wildly like patronizing to people who are into bigfoot and just kind of really miscalculating what people would be interested in reading. Fortunately, the editor who did end up buying the book was really into it. He actually he goes camping in the Pacific North Northwest every year, so he's kind of fully immersed in that culture and he's been great to work with. He really helped me make the book a better book. But it was just fascinating. I think that there's I think a lot of people don't understand or don't appreciate how much people who are into bigfoot would actually kind of appreciate a good story about it. Not to insult any of the bigfoot people out there, because I know there's a lot to listen. But I kind of understand I guess people's hesitations because like even with this show, like they don't want to hear me talking. They want to hear the guest and the experiences they had, and a lot of the community that I'm aware of, they want authenticity, they want the real encounters. They want to hear that stuff. So if you're bringing in something that's like one but it's not one hundred percent true, I can see where some of them would be turned off by just because that's not what they're wanting. But it doesn't mean what you've done is wrong or bad, Like it's probably really good. But that's why I'm given the opportunity to people to come on here and talk about things, because I myself was never comfortable talking with people, So why am I doing a podcast? You got to come outside of that. So for me, it's like, come outside that shell. Check out this book. I bet you'll like it. M Yeah, no, it is. It is really hard to kind of come out of that shell, right, to leave that comfort zone. For sure. Absolutely, it's definitely one of those things. Because I've had other people on here that have had books too, And for some reason I get heate messages from people, which anyone that does podcast we get those all the time. Someone else has something to complain about. But generally when you have people that aren't on here just talking for like an hour and a half about what happened to them, some listeners feel that they need to let me know that they didn't like it, but and not to insolve anyone again, but this is my podcast, so I do what I do. Yeah, like which is one of those things. So yeah, when it comes to bigfoot encryptids in general, everyone gets the same question from a lot of people like what are they? What do you think they could be, where they live? All this other stuff? But in your opinions, why are we not one hundred percent sure what bigfoot are? Yeah? Well, you know, I think it's interesting the uh. I think as during the course as we just noted, it took me a long time to write this book, and I think during the course of writing it, to me it was in many ways kind of a journey. Of belief as well. Like personally, I think probably when I first started out, I was kind of very much in. The flesh and blood. Category of believer, and I think I've moved more toward you know, what people would frequently disparagingly call the WU category. But I think that there's like kind of a big asterisk that kind of belongs on that because. I think that, you know, Arthur C. Clark, the very famous science fiction writer, has this rule that he would frequently cite, which is, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from right. And and you know, obviously that makes a lot of sense in the science fiction realm. If you know, a hundred years ago someone were to, you know, pull out an iPhone and show someone what it was, that they would think that they're a wizard or a you know, some kind of warlock or whatever. Right. But but I think if you look at it in terms of kind of we think that we know that everything, we understand all the science that there is to understand, but but honestly, we we barely understand even just a sliver of it. You know, I was watching this show the other day where they were looking for the remains of a body, and they brought in some cadaver dogs and and so I started kind of researching cadaver dogs or were just kind of you know, rabbit holing on that and someone I realized that I found out that cadaver dogs can actually like find the remains of bodies that have been buried for hundreds of years, if not longer, and that in fact, if a plant grows up, like if its roots grow through the body that's buried in the ground, they can actually smell smell the body in the plant itself, right, which you know, we can explain with the science we understand. But if you kind of just take a step back from that and look at it, you think that is practically magical. That seems just incomprehensibly amazing when you look at it at its face, that that this animal could could recognize something that's been buried hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And so I think it's not beyond the scope of possibility that that that bigfoot is a creature that has skills or capabilities that we just are not a able to understand. And so for us we might say, well, that's wu, that's magic, uh, but in fact it's just science that we don't we don't know yet, you know, and obviously you know history, you don't have to look very far back or you know, very hard to see, you know, to find history where we believed something was categorically accurate scientifically, and in fact we found out the complete opposite was true, or that there was just far more complexity to it than we realized. That happens all the time. So I don't think. It's too far fetched to believe that that Bigfoot has capabilities that we don't understand, and. That it helped that those abilities help it. To kind of elude us in in all the ways that it has, Right. That's kind of where I feel about it too. I don't know obviously what they are or if they're even real, because I've never seen one. Yeah, but I believe the people that have legitimately seen something. Yeah, but I don't know what that could be, and it doesn't make sense you start looking into it from a scientific standpoint. One of my best friends is a total flesh and blood person m h. But then you hear all these other stories about the strangeness that happens with Bigfoot, and then that leads you to more questions like and then where do they go? How do they appear? Why are there no bodies? Like there's so much out there that remains unknown that it makes you wonder if there is something more to them than what there is. And I don't want to say like interdimensionally gets tossed around, but like maybe there is some sort of a weird supernatural element to them. Sure, yeah, I mean a supernatural element that again, like we just don't understand how we don't understand how energy works, right, like how energy can imprint itself and react? Right? So again, yeah, I agree with you. That to us that all feels paranormal, right, ghosts feel paranormal. But maybe if we understood how consciousness actually worked, we would be like, oh, yeah, that's just a scientifically verified fact. We understand this now, right, you. Know it's. I think Bigfoot in many ways is kind of a measure of how comfortable we are embracing uncertainty, right. You know you talked about your friend who. Is absolutely certain it's a flesh and blood creature, right, And you'll obviously meet people who are absolutely certain that the opposite is true. And as you said, no one really knows. If anyone says that they know. Where's the proof? Yeah, I mean exactly, And and I think it's okay, And this is what I find really interesting. I mean i've, I've, I am. I don't consider myself necessarily a part of the Bigfoot community, but i've but I've researched it extensively, like i've, I've literally I've watched all the shows, all the documentaries, all the podcasts, all of it. I've read all the books. And it seems to me that, you know, everyone is super eager to kind of erase their uncertainty by saying, oh, this X is exactly correct and nothing else could possibly be correct right where. And I think that's a kind of a counterproductive way of approaching something that we as we all have to admit is unknown, is a mystery. Still, I think it's better to kind of approach it with a truly open mind and say, we don't know, let's see if we can find out. Hopefully we find the answers. You know, that is the one thing I wish we could all agree on, But there's a lot of people within the community that just can't agree on a whole lot of anything. I know. I know that's that is. I think that was a line in my book where one of the characters said, the one consistent quality of the Bigfoot community is that no one can ever agree with anyone. You know, it's the one consistency is disagreement about all manner of things. And the two main characters of my book they both they kind of represents the two main divides in that community. Uh, you know, Virgil is committed Apor subscribes to the relic dominant theory, and and Jute is. You know, far more in the Wu camp. So you know, I tried to kind of capture that in these two best friends who happen to also just disagree about this kind of fundamental concept. At the end of the day, all I know is I think there's something out there, and I think anyone listening can agree that there's probably something out there. But maybe someday we can figure out what it is. But until we can all put our egos and stuff aside and work together, I don't know how that's going to happen. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's you know, as you said earlier, there just are too many reports, too many eyewitness accounts, experiences, and we all know, you know, I'm sure a fair number are misidentifications, honest mistakes, right Bears Moose, I think they can both really be deceptive when you see them through the trees. Obviously some are hoaxes or pranks, although I think that's a smaller number than people often suspect. But you know, if one of them is true, if one of these eyewitnesses eyewitness cases is true, then it's time to rewrite the science books and the history books. And so I just don't think that all of them can be wrong. I don't think all of them fall into those other two categories. There have been people who are recently posting a bunch of mangy bear pictures to claim this is what people are seeing as dog man, and I can see where it could be misconstrued to be a dog man, like, especially at nighttime, But I don't see how someone cannot understand what a bear is and a canine like I get it, like visit like the shape I guess of the head, and the ears maybe like but usually bears are bulkier, so if you see something like that, you're not gonna think it's a dog. And this is strange, but people have claimed kangaroo for those types of things as like. That that can't There are wild kangaroos that are being mistaken as dog men. Yes, I've seen that here too, that people have been reporting that they think kangaroos have been what's actually being reported as dog man is like, I didn't know we had kangaroos running around here wildly. Yeah, well, well, Brandon, I think it might be even more unlikely that there are kangaroos than in Michigan than there are dogmens. So I mean, I guess pick your poison on that one. That's I've never heard that. That's and also it's fascinating but also very strange. Yes, you know, it's with what you said about bears. You know, they don't move like canines. They just have a different gait and a different, you know, way of moving. Like that's why I think sometimes people can mistake a bear for a big foot, because they have a more of a kind of a lumbering gait, you know, kind of a like a lumbering way they move, which is completely unlike the way a canine would move, like, utterly different. And I think just to the larger point of what you're saying, you know, where people want to say like, oh, you didn't see a dog man, you saw a kangaroo, which I just find hilarious. But you know, I think most people. Will try to explain away something they see with a normal creature. Right if you saw something weird in the forest, your instinct would be to say, okay, is that a bear? Is that a coyote? Is that a bobcat? A mountain lion? Maybe? Depending on where you are, I think maybe the last thing you would probably go to is a dog man, right Like, like, these are people who have likely exhausted all other explanations for what they saw, you know, before they settled on this idea. I'm excluding kangaroos because I don't think anyone in Michigan is thinking that maybe that was a kangaroo that they saw, because that seems ridiculous. But I love the idea that there's a crypto kangaroo somewhere around here, but I don't believe it. Well, I'm pretty sure it was Minnesota. I interviewed someone last year and they saw something that resembled what was to look like a smaller kangaroo, and I'm pretty sure that later on they said, this was a few years later, but there's an accident someone had ran over it. I thought was a wallaby. Oh, which is like like as someone's little pet or something that got out or something. Okay, so I could see. So that's different. Okay, So I thought you were saying someone's said they saw a dog man and then someone kind of posted a comment saying that was a kangaroo. No, but there's been people online claiming that a lot of these mistaken identities of dog man were kangaroos, and that like there's a lot of people that have been going that route apparently that they think. I was like, maybe in Australia. Yeah, certainly in Australia. Absolutely. I mean, unless there's like a kind of a a Minnesota kangaroo farm that we don't know about that's got like bad fencing. Yeah. So I have no idea, but I understand people's rationale of wanting to explain away the unexplainable. They have to find some sort of logical way, and me that doesn't sound very logical either, but that's what we do. Yeah. Well, I mean, so you know, I was talking about people's kind of comfort with with doubt, right, and and how that kind of plays into the you know, the the fract the factions in. The bigfoot world. But it also goes to this same people who are kind of rationalist materialists who think that any possibility that there are unknown things out there is just absurd, right, Like, that's just another way of dealing with doubt, of kind of kind of finding a box for where they can put it and then just putting it on a shelf and ignoring it, right, Like, that's just another way, but it's equally unproductive in my view. I just don't know how people get to this extent of completely not taking what people are saying. I'm not saying believe everybody, but at least give them the benefit of the doubt. Instead of wanting to hear what someone has to say, they instantly start shooting down what they're saying and oh, you didn't see that. And that's what annoys me with most people is yeah, yeah, the instant you didn't see what you saw? Well, how do you know? Were you there? Yeah? I find that completely patronized thing, and and and frankly very insulting that that people, uh could kind of just weigh in so casually with those, you know, with those kind of comments. I mean, I you know, I'm sure that's part of the you know, keyboard culture, right, Like, you know a lot of that is just people typing comments on on whatever venues they're on. But but I do I do think that that is I mean, it's you know, it's it's it's interesting. Like I've I've had a number of interviews, you know, for. This book, and uh, you know, it was interesting. I have to admit I was a little bit nervous to start kind of talking about it and talking about what I believed, because I didn't know what the reaction would be from you know, uh, from friends, from colleagues, you know, from. All of that. By and large, it's been really really. Very wonderful experience, and a lot of people have been really kind of affirming and and and kind of wanted to engage and talk about it and discuss it more so, it's actually been really kind of a liberating experience. But I had to admit I was a little bit nervous because of that. Exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, that's the society we live in. Mm hmm. Yeah. Well we've been going on for close to an hour, try and keep them around an hour. So before we wrap this up, I would like for you to let everyone know where you can find where they can find your book. Sure, yeah, well, you know I always tell people you know if you've got a local bookstore, I always, you know, want people to support local businesses. They should have it in stock right now. Since it was just released, they probably have it on their front table or front shelves. If not, they can get it for you real quick. Otherwise, if you don't got a bookstore near you, it's available on all the big retailers, Amazon, Barnes, and Noble. You know, I'm happy wherever you get it from, and I hope people really enjoy it. Awesome, Well, Giano has been a pleasure talking with you. Yeah, Brandon, thanks so much for having me on. This has been a real treat. I've enjoyed it a lot, not a problem, Thank you very much. Okay, great, take care. If you'd like to be a guest on Tenfoil Tels, remember to send an email to Tenfoil Tells Podcast at gmail dot com or go to tinfoiltales dot com and go to the contact section. Make sure to follow me around on all the social media's and just remember truth comes at a cost. Are you willing to pay the price? I heard a story late last night about something alert along a woodline friends Strange lots the sky. They claim it's. Nothing, But I know they lie. It sees your laughing to laugh in my face. But something about this makes me say, what if it's real? What if they knew? What if the answers are coming from you, spending stores, wasting mind time? Hearing Boy says, is it all in their minds? They can call me crazy, but I just want them through. What if it's true? What if it's really? What if it's true? What if the worlds not what we knew? Tim for tell, blend me a story that starts where the lodge is gets. What if it's real? If it's true, The answers are waiting, They're waiting for you. They see a dog man walking, or maybe a offman flies. I love the very giants hidden beneath the lies. They say, it's just stories, it's. All they believe, the fairy tale sport of things we can't perceive. That won't keep us blindly, They won't break our wheel. But I'm not buying it. I'm not swowing another pill. Forest fed poison. The lies were made to thee What if the truth could set us free? The alien Sugos traveling through time, secret space programs racing their minds. They call them crazy, but I just need some fruit. What if it's true? What if it's real? What if it's true? What if the worlds not? What we do? Tilly Oil tells bullieve. Me in a story that starts where the logic is, what if it's read? What if it's true? The ancers are waiting, They're weighed in for you. They lie, We all been dieing. The signs are there if you open your eyes. The aliens cricked its demon's ghost, the gul them two. What if it's me? Or what if it What if it's real? What if it's true? What if the world's not? What way to do? Ten Foil tells fully me a story that. Starts wear the Lodges. What if it's ral? What if it's true? The ancers are waiting, They're weighing for you. It's all in our heads, it's all in our binders. These voices can be silenced. The truth must rise. Ten for tell it's pulling me through. What if it's reason? What if it's true