The Occult Section

As a New Yorker, I often make fun of the Boston Red Sox. I mean, how could I not? They’re making the Mets look respectable these days. But I digress, and this post is not about offending Red Sox fans. If I wanted to do that, I could just talk about how Kevin Youklis is just the latest Sox player to trade up and go to the Yankees. But I digress again…No, in this post, I want to talk about Dustin Pedroia, and his interest in Bigfoot. Finally, a Red Sox player I can kinda like! I initially learned of his interest through Loren Coleman, who tweeted about Pedroia’s Sasquatch love. And today I came across this story, so I guess it’s getting more mainstream attention…

FORT MYERS ­— Today is a Red Sox off day. Some players will fish. Others play golf.

Dustin Pedroia has a hobby that falls a little outside the box — the search for Bigfoot.

You probably knew that if you follow Pedroia on Twitter (@15Lasershow), where a “Sasquatch Crossing” sign serves as his avatar. This spring, he walks around, a lot, in a light blue T-shirt with a Bigfoot drawing on it.

His next-door neighbor in the clubhouse, Will Middlebrooks, says Bigfoot is all Pedroia talks about, not only the TV show about the search but Bigfoot himself.

Middlebrooks is convinced that Pedroia believes in Bigfoot “120 percent.”

Pedroia is noncommittal. A little like Carl Everett was when it came to the subject of dinosaurs, he hasn’t seen foolproof evidence with his own eyes yet.

The search for Bigfoot, though, that matters.

Pedroia believes in the search for Bigfoot. Bigfeet, actually.

“There’s gotta be” more than one, he said yesterday. “I don’t know, I haven’t seen them. Keep looking for them.”

Pedroia does not miss episodes of Animal Planet’s “Finding Bigfoot.”

“It’s good, man, it’s good stuff,” he said.

Pedroia is up to date on all the claims, old and new, of the tall, lumbering creature known for its putrid stench, humongous footprints, ape-like noises and extremely reclusive habits. He said the Les Trout-Sasquatch YouTube videos are “pretty cool.” He is not into the Loch Ness monster, but Yeti (the Abominable Snowman, believed to be roaming the Himalayan Mountains) is “probably from the same family, probably from the same origin.”

The idea that all the Sasquatches must be breeding brings up the idea that there are baby Sasquatches sequestered in the woods somewhere.

“They call them juvenile Sasquatches,” Pedroia informs a newcomer to the search.

The conversation makes Pedroia a bit wary.

“It’s not a big deal, it’s normal stuff,” he said.

It’s not new, either. He heard about them growing up in central Sacramento.

“It’s Northern California, they’re everywhere, man. You see them at Wal-Mart,” he said.

So, he’s got a sense of humor about them. His wife, Kelli, is not on the same page about Bigfoot.

“She has no imagination,” he said. He agrees that there have been some Bigfoot hoaxes.

“For sure, we had one coming out of our bullpen until he got a haircut,” he said, referring to reliever Andrew Miller. He said he’d be willing to join the hunt one offseason, be on the TV show if it came around to that.

“I don’t know how many there are but the search continues,” Pedroia said. “Gotta find one. I’ll go look.”

He still would like to know more.

“There’s not much research on it,” he said. “We’ve got to find one first, then we’ll know.”

He keeps looking over at Middlebrooks. The third baseman finally can’t help himself.

“Where do they look? Everywhere?”’ he asks.

Pedroia acts annoyed.

“I don’t know, I’m not the founder of the show, I just watch it,” he said. “You’re not going to go in CVS and see one.”

Middlebrooks knows he has no shot at turning Pedroia into a skeptic.

So the search continues.

And when the searchers find him, or her, juvenile or not juvenile, Pedroia understands that’s not the end of the story.

“Then they’d go find more,” he said. “There’s more than one.”

It’s great to see more mainstream celebrities and scientists getting into Bigfoot and paranormal phenomena in general, and hopefully it opens the eyes and minds of more skeptics out there.

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Looking for stories to blog about here is not always as easy as it seems. Sure, there are plenty of stories out there. But unfortunately, most of them are about people photographing dust and claiming the orbs are ghosts, or blurry photos of alleged UFOs or Bigfoot, or some yokel from a paranormal group claiming they have irrefutable “proof” of a ghost on an EVP that only they seem to be able to hear, or news that there are more paranormal shows coming to SyFy or Animal Planet or the Travel Channel (because, you know, we need more bastardization and embarrassment of the field). Frankly, it all makes me want to run away from the paranormal field completely. Then I saw this press release, and it made me very happy. So happy that I almost forgot about wanting to punch people in the brain. In Search Of… was the show that got me interested in the paranormal in the first place, long before I could voraciously read anything and everything about the paranormal I could get my hands on. And now, the complete series is on DVD.

Leonard Nimoy and the paranormal…how could you go wrong?

From the Press Release:
Entering our galaxy for the first time in any home entertainment format is In Search Of… The Complete Series, available December 4th in a special DVD collector’s set from Visual Entertainment, Inc. (VEI).

Hosted by the iconic, Emmy Award-winning Leonard Nimoy (“Star Trek”), this popular documentary television series (1976-1982) traversed the globe with a team of researchers, scientists and highly skilled technicians to conduct in-depth investigations of a wide variety of mysteries and to explore the unexplained.

So popular it spawned six books, “In Search Of…” took a fresh look at such controversial and mystifying topics as the paranormal; witchcraft; notorious murders; infamous cults; conspiracy theories; missing persons, cities and ships; naturally occurring phenomena; scientific breakthroughs; age-old myths; the lore surrounding historical events and figures; and the downright peculiar!

From the rumored existence of Nazi plunder to the real-life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes to tracking the Loch Ness monster to reincarnation to UFO cover ups (and much more!), it’s an entertaining romp that no sci-fi fan, mystery enthusiast, scientific devotee or history buff will want to miss!

INCLUDES:
152 episodes on 21 discs (approx. 63+ hours).

BONUS:
Two Rod Serling-hosted specials, which aired prior to the start of the Nimoy-hosted series, and the re-launched 2002 series (eight hour-long episodes) hosted by Mitch Pileggi (“The X-Files”).

In Search Of… The Complete Series is presented in full screen (aspect ratio: 4×3) and stereo.

Here’s to hoping that Santa Claus reads The Occult Section…

Technorati Tags: alien, aliens, bigfoot, conspiracy theory, cover-up, cryptozoology, debunking, dvd, extraterrestrial, flying saucer, ghost, ghost hunters, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, haunted house, haunted houses, haunting, in search of, leonard nimoy, loch ness monster, loren coleman, media, News, paranormal, people, roswell, sasquatch, star trek, supernatural, tv show, ufo, ufos, yeti

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE‘BIGFOOT’ DNA SEQUENCED IN UPCOMING GENETICS STUDY

Five-Year Genome Study Yields Evidence of Homo sapiens/Unknown Hominin Hybrid Species in North America

Contact: Robin Lynne, media@dnadiagnostics.com, 231.622.5362

DALLAS, Nov. 24–A team of scientists can verify that their 5-year long DNA study, currently under peer-review, confirms the existence of a novel hominin hybrid species, commonly called “Bigfoot” or “Sasquatch,” living in North America. Researchers’ extensive DNA sequencing suggests that the legendary Sasquatch is a human relative that arose approximately 15,000 years ago as a hybrid cross of modern Homo sapiens with an unknown primate species.

The study was conducted by a team of experts in genetics, forensics, imaging and pathology, led by Dr. Melba S. Ketchum of Nacogdoches, TX. In response to recent interest in the study, Dr. Ketchum can confirm that her team has sequenced 3 complete Sasquatch nuclear genomes and determined the species is a human hybrid:

“Our study has sequenced 20 whole mitochondrial genomes and utilized next generation sequencing to obtain 3 whole nuclear genomes from purported Sasquatch samples. The genome sequencing shows that Sasquatch mtDNA is identical to modern Homo sapiens, but Sasquatch nuDNA is a novel, unknown hominin related to Homo sapiens and other primate species. Our data indicate that the North American Sasquatch is a hybrid species, the result of males of an unknown hominin species crossing with female Homo sapiens.

Hominins are members of the taxonomic grouping Hominini, which includes all members of the genus Homo. Genetic testing has already ruled out Homo neanderthalis and the Denisova hominin as contributors to Sasquatch mtDNA or nuDNA. “The male progenitor that contributed the unknown sequence to this hybrid is unique as its DNA is more distantly removed from humans than other recently discovered hominins like the Denisovan individual,” explains Ketchum.

“Sasquatch nuclear DNA is incredibly novel and not at all what we had expected. While it has human nuclear DNA within its genome, there are also distinctly non-human, non-archaic hominin, and non-ape sequences. We describe it as a mosaic of human and novel non-human sequence. Further study is needed and is ongoing to better characterize and understand Sasquatch nuclear DNA.”

Ketchum is a veterinarian whose professional experience includes 27 years of research in genetics, including forensics. Early in her career she also practiced veterinary medicine, and she has previously been published as a participant in mapping the equine genome. She began testing the DNA of purported Sasquatch hair samples 5 years ago.

Ketchum calls on public officials and law enforcement to immediately recognize the Sasquatch as an indigenous people:

“Genetically, the Sasquatch are a human hybrid with unambiguously modern human maternal ancestry. Government at all levels must recognize them as an indigenous people and immediately protect their human and Constitutional rights against those who would see in their physical and cultural differences a ‘license’ to hunt, trap, or kill them.”

Full details of the study will be presented in the near future when the study manuscript publishes.

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“We are serious, scientific, and all of our investigations are provided completely free of charge!”

So this is officially our 500^th post here at The Occult Section, and I thought I’d take a look back at some of the posts that have defined us over the past two years. Some of these posts have been extremely popular, getting us a huge number of hits and increasing our readership substantially. Others have been extremely controversial and sparked some pretty heated debates. Some posts have been read by some famous people in the paranormal community, which has surprised even us. And others are just typical silly stories we like to blog about because they make us chuckle. But they all, in some way or another, define what The Occult Section has evolved into, from its beginnings as a blog featuring paranormal book reviews to something a little more all-encompassing.

The Field Guide to North American Monsters

This review of W. Haden Blackman’s awesome book about all of the monsters of North America, including Bigfoot, Mothman, the Dover Demon, and lesser known monsters such as Goatman, the Deer woman, the Grinning Man, and the Nagumwasuck, was the first blog post we published, and I actually stole this from another site I used to run, called TheUnexplained.net. It was a precursor to The Occult Section, and was basically a blog before blogging became popular. That site covered news, movie reviews, TV shows, old documentaries, and book reviews. The book review section on that site was called, you guessed it, The Occult Section.

Cropsey: Staten Island’s Boogeyman?

The popularity of this post really surprised us, as the documentary “Cropsey” really has nothing to do with the paranormal. We blogged about it because it covered events that happened on Staten Island, where I lived at the time it was released, and the fact that it prominently featured Seaview and Willowbrook, places that are reputed to be haunted (and which we are very familiar with). The movie deals with suspected child killer Andre Rand and the children he is alleged to have murdered. The film was well-received, and our review of it, one of the first out there, is still one of our most popular posts ever.

Thoughts on Grant Wilson Leaving TAPS/”Ghost Hunters“

Far and away our most popular post of all time, with (as of this writing) well over 40,000 hits. And this post also has the most comments and interaction. Love it or hate it, the SyFy Channel’s Ghost Hunters is a powerful force in the paranormal community, and it’s apparent from this post that people love Grant. Jason Hawes, not so much. We don’t watch Ghost Hunters anymore, don’t like the show anymore, and have been very critical of it over the years. But even we admit that Grant seemed to be the most sincere and genuine person on that show.

The Grant Wilson Exposé!

This post about the many similarities between Grant Wilson and Shaggy from Scooby-Doo had initially slipped under most people’s radar. Until Grant Wilson himself stumbled upon it and Tweeted it to all of his followers. Of course tons of people then read it and again, the feedback was overwhelming, with people thinking it was hilarious, and a few angry at themselves for not noticing the resemblance sooner. Grant himself even seemed to think it was funny. It’s always good when we can poke fun at someone for not being a douche, or someone who can also laugh at themselves.

Harsh Truths the Paranormal Community Needs To Hear

This was quite possibly our most controversial post ever. And we’ve done some pretty controversial posts in our time. Intended to be a brutally honest yet somewhat tongue-in-cheek criticism of what’s happening in the paranormal community, this post caused a handful of people who read it to totally flip out, taking it way too personally and far too seriously, and they quickly took to the internet to whine and moan. Truth be told, most people who read this post had great feedback for us, admitting that they were guilty of some of the things we were criticizing (we even plead guilty to a few of them ourselves) and just laughed it off. But as is usually the case, the craziest people trend to be the loudest, and we caught wind of a bunch of these brave souls criticizing us behind our backs. Because we don’t think people should churn out terrible books, or do everything in their power to get on TV, or claim that dust orbs are ghosts. And again, we just laughed it off. We know, the truth often hurts.

Interview with Loren Coleman

After reviewing Monsters of New Jersey, I decided to e-mail author Loren Coleman to see if he would agree to be interviewed by me for The Occult Section. I did this fully expecting to never hear back from him. I mean, he is a well-known author, TV interviewee, and curator of the International Cryptozoology Museum, as well as a blogger in his own right with Cryptomundo. So imagine my surprise when he not only wrote me back almost right away, but also agreed to be interviewed by me. Loren was cordial, down-to-earth and an all-around great guy. Always a nice thing to encounter when you finally get to speak to someone you respect and were inspired by.

Teen Ghost Hunters Jump off Cliff Fleeing ‘Haunted’ Sanatorium

This story, about a group of teenage ghost hunters fleeing from police until they accidentally fell off of a cliff, was getting an inordinately large number of hits, and we weren’t sure why. To this day, it’s still one of our most popular posts. Then we looked a bit more closely at out stats, and realized that the search term “man jumping off a cliff” in Google images was getting us most of the traffic. Why people want photos of this is beyond us. We understand why we wanted them, but then we’re a bit odd.

Funny PhotoShopped pics

While no single blog post can show off all of the funny pictures we’ve created in PhotoShop to accompany our posts, I feel like I had to mention them, as they have become a trademark of our site. Sometimes we don’t have the time to do full PhotoShopped photos, so we just use funny captions, which has also become one of our signatures (and we’ve noticed it being copied more and more on paranormal blogs). But the PhotoShopped pics are what we are most proud of, so we’ll end with some of our favorites from the past few years. Enjoy, and thank you for being loyal readers!

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This really isn’t news to anyone who is interested in Bigfoot, but it’s good that this is being put out there again.

Jane Goodall: Bigfoot believer

Bigfoot hunters just got a new champion: chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall.

The Cambridge-educated Ph.D. — long considered one of the world’s leading chimpanzee experts — says that she is “fascinated” by the legendary beast.

“I’m not going to flat-out deny its existence,” she told the Huffington Post after a bout of laughter at a fundraiser in La Jolla, Calif. “I’m fascinated and would actually love them to exist.

“Of course, it’s strange that there has never been a single authentic hide or hair of the Bigfoot, but I’ve read all the accounts,” she said.

This isn’t the first time 78-year-old Goodall has publicly admitted to her belief in large, ape-like creatures such as the Yeti, Sasquatch or Bigfoot.

“I’m sure that they exist,” she told an NPR reporter in an interview several years ago.

At the time, she confirmed that she has always believed in the existence of these creatures.

“Well, I’m a romantic so I always wanted that,” she said.

The scientist and activist has spent her fair share of time with apes: in the early 1960s, her research in Africa showed that chimpanzees could use tools, were not vegetarian, and had distinct personalities. This challenged most scientific assumptions about chimps at the time.

Goodall was in La Jolla at a benefit for the Jane Goodall Institute, an organization aimed at caring for both humans and apes around the world.

Even though chimpanzees might appear frequently in movies and on TV all the time, Goodall said the animals are “very, very” endangered.

When she was working in Africa decades ago, Goodall said there were several million chimpanzees, but now there are only 300,000 spread out over 21 nations.

This reduction has come from habitat loss, logging, and hunting for bush meat.

If the fact that chimps are endangered seems surprising, it is because people have getting the wrong message about chimpanzees from Hollywood and other outlets for a long time, Goodall said.

To improve the lives of chimpanzees, the lives of the people who live near them need to be improved, she said.

On Oct. 9, Animal Planet will air a special about the life of the esteemed researcher called “Jane’s Journey.” The program will track Goodall’s life from her birth in England, to her research in Africa, and to her advocacy work across the globe.

I think for many people who don’t really follow cryptozoology, it’s easy to dismiss Bigfoot, believing all the witnesses to be drunken hillbillies. Stories like this just go to show that there are many well-respected and educated scientists out there who believe in the possibility of Bigfoot, like Loren Coleman, Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, and the late Grover Krantz.

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