The Owl Moon Lab: A Paranormal Experiment

1

IN THE BEGINNING

Before we begin, this is not a story for those seeking answers to questions they think they already know. This is a story about questions that ask harder questions. For me, it started in the forest and ends in the forest. It’s in the shadows of giant Doug Firs and Sword Fern-lined trails, a simple question was asked, What goes around the bend?

When I was a child in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, home to such things as berry fields, Ken Kesey’s estate and broken down Chevys, I recall certain midnight showing my father let me stay up and watch. It was the story of a witness who could not let go. I now know the movie to be Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The line Richard Dreyfuss’s character (Roy Neary) repeats is a mantra, THIS MEANS SOMETHING! that was the quote that carried me through my adolescence, into my teenage years and adulthood.

I was, and still am, set apart from others, based upon this question, What goes around the bend? Where accepted science left off, that, for me, is where the real adventure begins.

Without belaboring all the details of growing up as an only child with a single mother in the small broken town of Springfield, Oregon. I can tell you my years have been blessed. I have become a father to a young man who defines my role as proud Dad. I have loved and lost, but who hasn’t? I have set sail on the seven seas as Navy Corpsman and chosen every job available after, from driving a semi-truck, to shooting x-rays, to hospice in a haunted house; now that was an interesting four weeks. I’m what you call a vagabond, and moss don’t gather easily on the Johnson men. My father, who I only know the darker side of, is like this as well, a mover and gypsy.

So now you know enough for us to begin. You have your template of a personality somewhat, and the rest is up to the imagination.

Our story cannot begin without getting a couple of things out of the way. First, this is not just a Sasquatch story, it’s the true account of how Sasquatch led me deeper. By that I mean; in searching for a mere physical sighting, I came to know more about me and my fellow man. I came to know how small I was and how deep the infinite unknown is. Sasquatch is a foundation to build off, it sets typically a young man’s imagination afire with adventure in the wild and the hopes of being transformed. This is the true nature of Sasquatch. For me, this transformation happened over 15 years and brought me to a small property in Cottage Grove, Oregon. It was at this property The Owl Moon Lab came to be.

To tell the story completely, we must chronologically go through specific dates of my inquiry into the world of Sasquatch. I should tell you, upon initially looking into this subject I was in a liminal state between two worlds, growing from one relationship to another. To be totally transparent, I saw Sasquatch as a way to deal with depression. Well, I took to it like a drug and sought conventions, eyewitness testimony, and areas of recent sightings. However, my main focus was what I now call Sasquatch Contactees. These are witnesses who claim to have prolonged experiences with Sasquatch on or near their property. A detail, that will be hard for some to believe, but you ain’t heard nothing yet. So, with that...let us start four years after my son was born in the mill town of Thurston, Oregon. It’s in Thurston I began to not only question, This means something, but...this means something else.

Dec.2007

LIMINAL

I was recently divorced and shared dual custody of my only son. However, my ex-wife and I still communicated about activities to share with our child. One pastime came to stand out more than others, as we both still shared the joy of hiking. On a particularly cold December day, we both met up with my son in tow at a mutual neighborhood hiking spot. I hugged my boy and waved presumptively to my ex as she grabbed their packed lunch. The three of us doubled knotted our laces and began the hike above the suburban hillside. It was a locals hangout known not only for hiking and dog walking but truancy. My hometown high school was down at the bottom of the suburban hillside and the trails we were on would get the occasional 17-year-old flunky who would nest up in the crook up in a tree and load their bong. It was the perfect spot if ya wanted build a pallet board treehouse and flip through Smuthouse magazine. Although I never found myself with that rebellion, I understood the draw of being defiant and going off the radar.

As we walked up the path, the early morning air was crisp and wet. The ice melted slowly in the wet mud, and the clear blue morning sky only dropped the temperature. We hiked up through the southern shadow of the Thurston Cliffs. My son walked ahead and I followed behind with my ex. After about 15 minutes of our steady climb, we stopped near a bend in the trail where my son was pointing down at something. He piped, Dad, is that a Sasquatch track? I said, Well that sure would be awesome; ya think ya see something?

I walked up to where he stood and noticed what he was pointing at. It was a track that showed attributes of a bare-footed impression in the frozen trail. It showed five toes, a heel, and the exterior and interior of a single-footed size eleven. I explained that bears can leave a double step track, but this looked different. I then mentioned the good possibility of high schoolers that could be up here with us on winter break, and this would be the perfect place for hoax. Perhaps they were even now waiting for someone to record the whole moment for a quick laugh. I said, Well ya know son, it looks pretty good just the same. I think we should take a photo of it and stick a scale object in the frame. Sticking a small scale object such as a dollar bill, credit card or in my case a red hiking whistle, gives size to just how large the track is. So, quickly and with little thought, we took a quick smartphone photo. The one curious thing about the track was that it was deep for such a compacted area in the frozen ground, and it looked fairly fresh as it was heading into the blackberry bushes.

INITIAL TRACK

About three months later nothing much had become of the photo on my phone, but it fed a curiosity in me that I was sharing with my son. Divorce sucks. No matter how happy you are to be leaving your ex, the triage work that needs to be done with kids is painful. I never wanted to be a statistic with marriage, so maybe that’s part of the reason I was so quick to encourage my son’s new curiosity. I decided that the photo was good enough, that I could approach someone who knew better about these things. Luckily we had someone in mind, and he had more than a better idea about Sasquatch.

Ron Olson was a someone in the world of Sasquatch. He was at one time a well known Sasquatch researcher and movie producer who invested time and money into the phenomenon. He financed the 1970s classic movie, SASQUATCH: The Legend of Bigfoot, filmed near the Three Sisters Wilderness. Ron was more than just a curious filmmaker, he sought out the legend full time. He’s said to have been on friendly terms with Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin during his heyday and the movie he produced shares a common theme of trackers on horseback who come face to face with the mystery.

After a couple of informal phone calls to Olson, he suggested I speak to a river guide named Dan Rogers. Apparently, this guy had active Sasquatch research spots and might be willing to talk to me about his experiences. I was warned by Olson that the guy is a little bit out there. I took that with a grain of salt and thought, well...you would have to be a little out there, and it wasn’t a put down at all in my book.

2008

ROGERS WARNING

Dan Rogers was an interesting fella who was what I would call an anxious and reluctant witness. When we first met, we decided it best to meet at a public park and have a cup of coffee. I sat down eager to hear the details of what he saw. His details surrounding the events of each encounter were very specific but almost too incredible. He was describing seeing multiple Sasquatch over his many years of being an outdoorsman. He described coming as close as twenty feet away from one between him and his truck. His stories ranged from fantasy to possible delusion, perhaps symptomatic of a lonely man who needed wonder and meaning. I listened all the same but battled a growing contempt for him probably wasting my time. Then he said something that caught my attention. At the very end of our initial meeting, as I was walking back to my car, Rogers said, I’d tell ya the rest of the story, but it’s far too weird and you’d never believe me. I turned back to him and said, Let's meet up next weekend, I wanna know the rest of the story. There was something about him adding that final comment that told me I was being way too quick to judge from my initial interaction with a stranger. So, we met again, and Rogers told me the rest of his story, and he was very correct; it was far too weird. However, I believed him. Something told me he was obsessed with something strangely true, but impossible to believe in for the rational mind.

After a couple of months of emailing back and forth, we set a couple of dates to try for a campout, as the snow was melting from the Oregon Cascades. Rogers believed we would stand a good shot at getting into the backcountry before anyone else. So on a cold November 09’, we drove in his truck for an overnight up to a spot called Cougar Lake. The snow was still falling as we hit 2500ft. and Rogers decided that we were now in danger of getting stuck in the snow if we went any higher. We pulled over and grabbed the tailgate for the rest of the night. No fire, no noise, just the sound of wind and small bits of ice rain pecking down on the roof of the truck.

I broke the now shivering silence with a request for Rogers to tell me even more of the weirdness he had encountered. Although he wouldn’t tell me exactly where some of these encounters occurred, I assumed we must be close.

He described how Sasquatch can follow you home from hundreds of miles away. Rogers described how they can control animals around in the forest and use them as a distraction or decoy. He alluded to them reading your mind or talking to you telepathically. He said they can turn invisible and walk right up to you and blow in your face. These were all extraordinary claims without a shred of proof, but he told me all this without caring what I thought. He must have thought any guy who’s willing enough to drive out here and sleep in the snow with a guy he barely knows may be worth telling the rest of the story.

The last time Rogers and I spoke, he told me something that stayed with me and haunts me still to this day. He said, They can suck you into their world, and before you know it thirty years of chasing shadows will have replaced your own life with theirs.

2010

BIGFOOT & BEER

The hook was set after meeting Rogers and although his warning wandered around in the back of my head, I was set on meeting more witnesses and learning what they knew. They couldn’t all have stories like his. There had to be a wide variety of encounter types and I wanted to know them all. I felt behind the curve of the research and needed a place to learn and speak with witnesses more often. It would just so happen that after following up on a recent Sasquatch sighting area I would stop in at a place called Ike’s Pizza in Leaburg, Oregon. I walked in and saw a newspaper article from California that said, Local man sees Sasquatch. I asked a man who appeared to be the owner of the restaurant if he knew the fella who the article was talking about. He quickly said, You betcha I do, it’s my cook back there. I ended up staying for hours talking back and forth with the cook who had little else to do in the empty restaurant than relate his incredible Sasquatch encounter.

A couple of weeks later I went back to Ike’s and approached the owner with the concept of a live show called Bigfoot & Beer. The idea was simple, I would pack the house once a month with locals who wanted to hear a good Sasquatch encounter story, and in return, Ike’s would get a much needed dinner rush ordering large portions for a profit. They had nothing to lose by trying something different to bring in customers, so a deal was struck.

At first, the structure of witness testimony over dinner was done completely without structure. We mostly set up a witness to talk to twenty or so people while they ordered a pitcher of beer and a large pizza pie. However, word got out quickly and in a couple of months, the newspaper wrote an article that boosted our audience and customer count. Twenty, turned to forty, and word got out quick. Within a couple months we would get local and national media attention from our unique monthly meetings.

One of the first witnesses I remember relating his encounter story was a lawyer, and ex-

Deputy Sheriff Jeff Boiler. He only lived a couple of miles away from the restaurant and must have seen a flyer we had hanging out of the window. Boiler approached me in private, and it was obvious he was excited to relate the incredible story to someone who believed him. I listened intently and watched Boiler relive the whole experience. He said in the 1980s he was hiking in the Three Sisters Wilderness to visit a spot where his deceased friend's ashes were spread. He wanted to revisit the spot and pay homage on the anniversary of his passing. It was on the start of that solo hike he saw something red and hairy shift around on the bluff up right above him. As he approached what he assumed was the backside of an Elk, he said he was face to face with what he called a red haired caveman. Boiler described dropping his jaw and cocking his head to one side in disbelief. Surprisingly, the red-haired caveman copied Boiler’s exact head movement, and dropped its jaw, and cocked its head to one side. However, Boiler explained it did something with its eyes and body that made him think it wasn’t copying or mimicking him, it was mocking him. He went onto say this mocking so unnerved him he thought about grabbing the station-issued sidearm he had with him whilst off duty. He described how the caveman seemed read his mind and knew what