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[rain falling]
[thunder crashing]
[mysterious dramatic music]
[thunder crashing]
[haunting instrumental music]
- [Narrator] Fear is in the mind, they say,
but I strongly believe that the eyes manufacture
the fear that resides in the mind.
I have portrayed this in the movie "Mountain Devil,"
a film that was very difficult to bring to life.
A story about two hunters coming face-to-face
with something they had never seen before,
a creature that was suppose to be just a myth
was now pounding on the outside of their cabin door.
But the human strength lies in the ability
to think of a solution out of a crisis.
And there it was: Rifles.
- [Hunter] Shoot, Randy, Shoot!
[guns blasting]
- [Narrator] To bring down that Goliath, so they thought.
To bury it and try to forget what they just experienced.
But even in death,
the creature still haunted those terrified hunters.
"Mountain Devil" had become a very long journey
and I felt satisfied when it was time
to bring it to an audience
and then finally laying it to rest.
Searching for the truth about Frank Peterson
had become a emotional roller coaster for several years.
At the end,
I will always wonder if the truth was in
that eight millimeter film.
I felt I had said all I needed to say about
the Bigfoot phenomena in Pennsylvania.
Until now.
Several years ago,
I stumbled upon a book titled "The Creature,"
and I found myself asking the same questions
as I did while making "Mountain Devil."
But the question had become,
could I go to that place one more time?
It was this book that re-lit those memories.
So I wanted to understand the inspiration for the book,
"The Creature."
What propelled that art?
Was it fiction or non-fiction?
I believe the author has his side to the story,
just like I have a reason for mine.
I began to analyze the book from front to back,
looking for clues on each page.
And my first clue was the publishing company itself,
the Allegheny Press.
After a little searching online
I found the address but no phone number.
My best effort was to write a letter
and my efforts did pay off with a response.
[relaxing instrumental music]
[upbeat instrumental music]
[upbeat instrumental music continues]
- My name is John Tomikel
and I am 91 years old.
And I was at one time
the publisher of "The Creature."
We would go to conventions
and there is where I met the man Jan Klement.
And we were friends.
We were friendly but we were not friends.
At one convention
he asked me if I would consider
publishing a book that he wrote.
And
I said, "Well, what's it about?"
And he said,
"It's about my experiences with Bigfoot."
[mysterious instrumental music]
[relaxing instrumental music]
- [Jan] Sometimes the mind plays strange tricks upon us
and with the passage of time,
we find it difficult to separate truth from fantasy.
Time has passed, about two years to be exact,
and I feel that I'd better write down my story
before it passes into the gray area of unreality.
[relaxing instrumental music continues]
I have never seen such a creature in my life.
My first impression was that the creature was ape-like
or man-like, about seven feet tall
and covered with brown hair.
The creature seems very powerful with well-developed legs
and shoulder muscles.
I felt very fortunate to see such a creature.
It was no longer folklore to me.
[relaxing instrumental music continues]
- [Narrator] We needed to find out more about
the locations where this story "The Creature" took place
so we headed south to Dunbar, Pennsylvania,
to meet up
with some of the leading experts in the Bigfoot field
for some answers.
I started with Stan Gordon,
who has been researching the Bigfoot phenomena
near the Chestnut Ridge for many years.
- I've heard people tell me that
they're familiar with the book
and I've heard some people say
who they thought who possibly was involved,
but nobody really had any proof,
any really good information.
I remember many, many years ago
I tried to do some follow up on it
but really couldn't get anywhere.
And I was so busy investigating current reports,
I really couldn't donate a lot of time to the investigation.
But it's a very, very interesting story.
The question is,
is how much there is truthful
and how much may not be?
But it is a very interesting story
and I'll keep an open mind to all possibilities.
[relaxing instrumental music]
- [Narrator] Could we be on the trail of discovering
who the author truly was
and the possible location of where
this encounter took place?
- [Researcher] "The Creature," the book,
is possibly fiction or non-fiction?
I know I already asked these questions,
but I'm just kind of repeating them.
- I'd like to believe that it's true but...
And as far as percentage is concerned,
I would lean toward maybe 60/40 that it's true
and 40 that it isn't.
The way he described the creature,
it's pretty believable.
But like I also have said to many people that
some of the nuances
and the little characteristics of the creature,
it's really hard to believe
as far as
its behavior with Jan Klement.
As far as just staring at each other for periods of up to
an hour and half, two hours at a time,
just looking at each other and observing each other.
No real close interaction, of course, as he had written.
I believe it's possible. I really do.
- My name's Eric Altman.
I'm from North Huntington, Pennsylvania,
in the southwestern corner of the state.
And I did investigating sightings
and claims of a Bigfoot creature for going on
close to 22 years now.
The book and experiences that Jan wrote about
are very detailed.
He provides extremely detailed information about
the creature itself,
some of it's unusual behaviors and habits.
And he talks about having almost daily encounters
with the creature.
And at that time, back in the mid-1970s,
before the book was released, there was little information
that was released to the public.
Just the general encounters that Jan had in the book,
so it's very intriguing to read that kind of minute detail
that he writes about in the story.
There were some theories that were put out
by a few experienced Bigfoot researchers.
Loren Coleman proposed a theory,
I believe Loren proposed it was chemistry professor,
Dr. Paul Johnson at the University of Duquesne.
But upon questioning Paul,
myself and other people have asked him,
he said he absolutely was not the author of the book.
We know the author of the book claims that
he was an earth science professor
at a small university in the Pittsburgh region,
although we don't know who it is.
- [Narrator] Dr. Paul Johnson is a professor
at a local university in Pennsylvania.
For many years, people in the Bigfoot community thought that
Dr. Johnson had written the book "The Creature."
We attempted to reach out to him for an interview
but he denied.
He did send the following email
with his thoughts on the matter.
The following is his email:
Around 1995, a writer for the "Mountain Journal,"
who had previously interviewed me,
ran across the book, "The Creature" in a yard sale.
He photocopied the pages and mailed it to me.
I was told that the publisher knew the author's true name
and promised never to reveal it.
I read the book and decided it was fictional.
Apparently someone decided that
the author was a college science teacher
in Western Pennsylvania
and the author choose the pseudonym
because Roberto Clemente was his favorite ball player,
so he changed the letter C to a K
and dropped the letter E at the end.
For the next 20 years,
many researchers suspected that I was the author
because Roberto was my favorite ball player
and, of course, I teach at a university.
I always told them I was not the author.
Dr. Paul G. Johnson.
- One of the stipulations that
the man Klement wanted
was his identity not to be known
because even I was ridiculing him,
and so he was really upset about that.
And so
we had to have an author
and so I gave him the name Jan Klement
which was the name of one of my grandfathers.
[relaxing instrumental music]
- [Jan] For about a week thereafter
I set apples on the railing with no luck.
I would set out two apples at a time
and would not leave more than that overnight.
Why should the creature want my apples
when he could pick his own from any of the wild apple trees
that abound in the area?
The creature's appearance at my home escaped me.
Deep down I still hope to able to see it one more time.
After several weeks,
the creature appeared again for some apples.
He came from around the cabin
and was standing four feet from the porch.
I stood still for a moment,
then I made slight hand motions
for the creature to come to me.
I realized at once that it was not a human
and hand motions meant nothing,
so I retrieved an apple
and tossed it at the creature's feet.
He picked up the apples and began to chomp down on them.
I threw him another and another.
And on the third apple I spoke in low hushed tones,
increasing my volume to normal about the 10th apple.
The creature loaded most of these in his arms
and walked to the bushes at the end of the clearing
and disappeared.
- During the time it happened,
of course I was out there investigating with my teams
so many of the Bigfoot sightings here in Pennsylvania.
And it was being covered extensively
by the local news media.
It was on radio and TV.
Newspapers were giving it a lot of coverage.
There were a lot of details about some of my investigations
that were coming out at the time.
[somber instrumental music]
- I guess I'm not surprised in that
a pact had been made with the publisher with regard to
not letting out the factual information with regard to that.
Especially if you can...
The element of trust is probably as strong today
as it was yesteryear,
but there had to be
a good bond between the author and the publisher
in order to keep that story safe.
- If the author of the book is still living today,
there could be terms that could be acceptable
and agreed upon
where the author could still remain anonymous,
that the alleged burial site
would remain secret and confidential,
that even today, years later,
a forensic scientific investigation
could be done on the site.
And this author indicated that he was very concerned over
preserving the species of this unknown creature.
And if that was the case,
this would help to first strongly indicate
and strongly confirm that
there's some type of unknown species of creature out there
but may also help to protect this unknown species as well.
- We don't know exactly where the cabin that
he called The Diggins' was or where it burned down,
so we can't really validate that information
to say the book was a legitimate book.
However, it does provide a lot of details to it,
especially to the creature, his experiences with Kong.
He does describe a lot of the area
and where the book may have taken place
in the Dunbar Mountains, the Southern Chestnut Ridge
in Southwestern PA, Fayette County.
[somber instrumental music continues]
- [Loren] The book was brought to my attention
by other researchers and it was so detailed.
It was so realistic
in terms of
how I knew from my investigations
for over 50 years
how people really do approach contact.
And what was remarkable was done so matter-of-factly.
I knew a lot of researchers in Pennsylvania
back in the 60s and 70s
and thought maybe I could even figure out who it was,
the biology professor or at one point,
he called himself an earth science professor.
So it was nicely hidden in the story,
all of the clues to who this was.
And I asked various people,
some of whom I even knew as professors.
They all denied being that individual.
But it did seem like,
it definitely seemed like there was something to there.
It was a very privately published publication
and I felt that the person that published it
was perhaps the same person that was being the hero
or the narrator in the book.
So I certainly think that's a possibility.
[somber instrumental music continues]
[relaxing instrumental music]
- [Jan] The next evening he returned a little earlier
and took apples from my hand,
but would not really let me get near him.
As long as the railing was between us he was calm
and when I went to leave the porch,
he would walk away and watch me over his shoulder.
As you the viewer may ask, "Was I not frightened?"
I was terrified and excited at the same time.
I knew this creature could end my life very quickly
if it wanted to.
On one occasion, a young deer came up to the field.
The creature noticed it and quickly leaped to its feet
and was off like a flash of lighting.
[relaxing instrumental music continues]
[birds chirping]
[leaves rustling]
[mouth chomping]
[footsteps crunching]
His speed was fantastic and he ran the deer down
before it got more than a 100 feet away.
[footsteps crunching]
He picked it up in his powerful hands
and slammed it to the ground.
I assume, killing it instantly.
Instead of returning to me,
he put the deer under his arm
and stalked off through the brush.
I did not see him again for five days.
I worried that the creature
might want to try human flesh at first,
but after a while the thought did not bother me.
He ate none of his food in front of me
and perhaps he did not eat it at all.
I wondered if he had family
and perhaps he was feeding them that deer.
That day I decided to give him a name.
I gave him the name Kong.
[enchanting instrumental music]
- He asked for all kinds of guarantees.
That I wouldn't mention his name anywhere
and that as far as he was concerned he didn't exist.
So that was
one of the bargains that I made with him
and
so far I have stuck to that bargain.
[enchanting instrumental music continues]
- [Narrator] I reached out to Steve Kulls,
a Bigfoot Investigator located in Upstate New York.
Steve had done extensive research
into the book "The Creature," and the author.
I wanted to get his ideas on who the author could be
and if the story held any merit.
- Well, the first was to do was actually read the book.
And in my copy of the book
I highlighted a number of sections in it
that contained biographical data if you read the book.
So in this case, Jan Klement is,
well, the whole thing wrapped in one.
So I need to look at him as a person
to see, kind of build a profile.
So I was looking for a college professor
who taught earth science,
who got divorced shortly after the book got published,
who was in the military service in 1952
to '54 specifically.
No person named Jan Klement existed.
I mean, I've run it even through background services
and it was a no-go.
The funny thing is in conversation with some of the locals,
one of them being,
and I believe he's an entomologist in the area
who has a fascination with the Bigfoot mystery,
actually knew of a Klement's Point.
And this got me really excited because I'm thinking,
"Maybe the place does exist."
So I get on the Google Maps and look at the satellite shots
and one of the giveaways in the later editions was that
the cabin in the 80s had been burned down
but the footprint of the cabin still exists.
And this Klement's Point had this footprint of this cabin
with a pond which back in the 60s and 70s, early 70s,
overlooked cow pastures so it really fit.
[enchanting instrumental music continues]
[relaxing instrumental music]
- [Jan] My efforts at tracking Kong were always in vain
for he left no trails or tracks of any kind.
The forest area has many large rock formations and caves.
I often wondered if Kong stayed in one of the caves
in the area.
Unfortunately, no Kong today.
[relaxing instrumental music continues]
- Once again, attributed to the fact that
I'm sure he was a very knowledgeable educated man
in quite a few science fields.
And, of course, he had a base of friends.
He had the zoology professor,
anthropology people that he could confer with
in neighboring universities,
whether it be Waynesburg College,
whether it be California State College.
Back then they weren't universities.
So he was handed, I think,
a platter of good information
that he would be to write from in a very believable manner.
- Yeah, I've been doing this now going on 61 years.
I knew many of the main people involved in Bigfoot research
back in those days and I've learned of many others since,
and I've never heard it brought up
that anybody who was involved in investigations actively
may have been involved with the book.
I've heard rumors of people who
may have been involved with the book
that other people were following up
and trying to find out who this person might be.
But to be honest with you,
I was so busy investigating other reports
I really didn't have time to follow up on the book.
[relaxing instrumental music continues]
I would think that somebody who had their first encounter
as talked about in the book,
they would have gone through much more detail.
Also the behavior of the creature
that's described in the book.
So the author is talking about the fact that
this creature after a period of time
begins to make frequent, almost daily,
visits to the property,
that they're actually having meals together
and they get very close.
And that's something again of the
hundreds of Bigfoot cases I've worked on,
this is something that just doesn't come up.
- The author, he's using a pen name.
We don't know exactly where the cabin
that he called The Diggins' was or where it burned down,
so we can't really validate that information.
However, without any way to validate who he was
or where the actual cabin sat,
we can't follow up on those claims.
And to this day,
no one really knows if it is a non-fiction
or a fictional book.
- [Researcher] This road in particular is where
Jan Klement had taken Kong after Kong's death,
from the northern portion towards Chestnut Ridge
and Dunbar Township and Game Lands 51,
in a south direction onto Wind Gaps Road
and decided he was going to bury the creature.
He did so off to the side of the road
because it was very handy.
Unfortunately, also cumbersome in that
he was trying to handle the weight of the creature
by himself.
- I believe I was looking at a map,
I wanna say circa 1968,
1967, somewhere in there of that area.
And sure enough, there was a pull-off before the border
and there looked like there could be
some trails in that particular area.
The description in the book says that he could see the hill,
over the next hill was actually West Virginia.
So that could really only equate
for three different areas really that where he would be able
to see a hill on the other side of the border.
So it came down to like three different fingers almost
as this site came.
But getting out to that site is the last step, you know?
[soft mysterious music]
- [Narrator] It seemed as if
I had more questions than answers.
Who was this mystery writer?
And why would they hide after writing such a story?
My thoughts ran in several directions.
Was the story even true?
Or a complex hoax?
Or could there be the remains of a Bigfoot
in the foothills of Pennsylvania waiting to be discovered?
I headed north towards Indiana, Pennsylvania,
to meet up with another group of Bigfoot researchers
and hoped to find an answer to the mystery of the creature.
[soft mysterious music continues]
- I am the Director of the Fayette County
Pennsylvania Bigfoot Research Project
and also West Virginia Center for Unexplained Events.
- [Researcher] And your name is?
- Fred Saluga.
[camera snapping]
I believe he may have had some interaction with the Bigfoot
but I don't think that, I mean,
towards the end of the book where he chopped him up and that
I don't really believe that.
But again, with the apple, the apples and that.
And also, I recently went out
and was doing some research on the police chief
because he talked about the police chief had nine kids.
And I talked to a lady in a township up by Dunbar.
She said that the police chief up there
had anywhere between seven to nine kids.
So it's very possible that was the police chief,
but he's dead now.
- Yeah, we have talked to people about the book
and it seems like a lot of people don't believe in it.
There's always that but, you know?
What if there is some truth in this book?
- Did he write it to be so unbelievable
that people wouldn't believe it so they wouldn't pursue
the location that maybe it actually did happen?
[camera snapping]
Even though you say there wasn't many resources back then,
we did not have the internet
but there were many books written
back in the 60s and 70s on Bigfoot
and there were a lot of articles and magazines out.
So he did have that as resources as opposed to the internet.
- [Researcher] Do you really believe
this guy had that experience?
- Ah...
I would not say he completely didn't, all right?
I believe that there are people
that actually been talking to Bigfoot for the last 15 years.
I mean, down in West Virginia they were telling us that
they used to run the Bigfoot out of the barn
because he was eating the cow stuff.
I think Bigfoot was like a family member to a lot of people.
- Now the first time I read the book,
I just read it through as just reading a story.
The second time I was paying more attention to the details
and trying to figure things out.
But it says in the book that everything,
names have been changed, locations have been changed.
So could it have been somewhere else?
Could it have been actually in the area of Fayette County
and Dunbar, like it says in the book,
and he's just trying to throw people off?
Who knows?
It coulda happened in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania.
- It was very general what he said,
so it would be kinda like
looking for a needle in a haystack.
- [Terrie] Exactly.
- [Brian] Where exactly it was.
So that's why we never researched it ourself.
- [Loren] When you think about it, 1976 was so early.
That's why a lot of people never really discovered
the book, "The Creature," until the 80s
because it kinda got lost.
It was almost like this guy had this experience,
he wanted to self-publish it
and sort of get it off his chest,
and it wasn't really promoted.
It wasn't a book that was pushed a lot
or even shared with that many other people
so I found it
kind of engaging at some level for that reason
because it wasn't a book that was produced
to make a lot of money.
It seemed to be a very
personal mission of the one individual
who had an experience and wanted to publish it.
- Well, I'll tell you what.
No matter what, I'm gonna have a beer.
- That's right. Ya gotta chug down a couple more of these.
- Yeah, that's why I'm here.
- [Jan] I did wish to tell someone about Kong
but whom could I trust?
My choice was Joe,
a friend whom I occasionally beleaguered with confidences.
I asked Joe to meet me one afternoon after work.
We walked around drinking a few beers
and I tossed a few apples out into the yard
hoping Kong would come out.
I could tell Joe was just here to drink my beer
and make small talk.
He had no other interest.
I decided to keep my secret to myself.
One afternoon I thought
I would try to get Kong's picture as proof.
I was sitting on the porch
as he chomped down on a few apples.
I pulled out the camera slowly from my pocket
and Kong immediately got up and walked off.
This occurred on several occasions.
I could not understand Kong's fear of the metallic objects
and so I started to read voraciously on primate behavior.
One source by George Shaler
and his experiences with gorillas were similar to mine.
His books were published by
the University of Chicago Press in 1963 and 1974.
He states that
until the gorillas were thoroughly used to him,
he never looked them directly in the eye
nor did he point a pair of field glasses or camera at them
in case they might have interpreted the staring eye
or the eye of the camera as a threat.
There was no reason for Kong to be threatened around me,
so my attempts at taking pictures ended.
- Well, there's a lot of activity there right now
but it's not being reported again.
A lot of people don't wanna say nuthin' to anybody
because they think they're goofy.
So they don't really say anything.
We recently had sightings, people talking about sightings,
of a dog body and human heads.
And we got four of them from four different people,
so I mean, did they really see that?
I mean, again,
Bigfoot sightings around here all the time.
- Well, one of the-
We always heard that Paul Johnson was one of the gentleman
who actually wrote the book.
We know Paul pretty well.
We've known him for-
He's a member of our organization
and we've known him for probably about 15 years I think
and he assures us that it wasn't him.
- [Researcher] Do you think the book was a hoax?
- I think there was some possible truth to it.
But I mean, if you read the whole thing
you could look it as being true
and you could look at it as not being true,
whichever way you wanna look at it.
I mean...
- Possibly.
Also with this documentary coming out,
maybe if it gets into the hands of more people
you might get a breakthrough
and somebody might actually come up to you and say,
"I actually think I know who it was,"
and they may be able to direct you towards
where The Diggins' actually are,
so you could be actually helping find the truth out
by this documentary coming out.
[relaxing instrumental music]
- As do I think the author had a stable mental health?
And the answer is definitely yes.
Definitely yes.
He started out as a
high school teacher
and he ended up as a
part-time teacher in college
and then a full-time teacher.
And in my association with him,
he was perfectly normal and logical.
And
we never developed a really firm friendship,
but in our association the only time he got mad was
when I challenged
his authenticity.
- [Jan] It had been several months of Kong visiting me
and eating my apples.
I had grown use to him and welcomed every chance to see him.
He was probably my best friend and he didn't even know it.
In our many hours of just sitting and squatting
and looking at each other,
there seemed to be no purpose on his part.
He seemed to anticipate that I would devise something
or do something to give him something.
It does not seem strange to me
that we would sit and look at each other for hours.
The longest Kong and I stared at each other in one stretch
was roughly 2 1/2 hours.
During one of our staring sessions,
Kong did actually move toward me and touch my finger.
We touched for a brief moment
and he turned back to his squatting spot and ate his apples.
He was obviously shy of humans,
yet he had made contact with me and seemed to enjoy it.
Or at least he kept coming back for more.
[relaxing instrumental music continues]
- [Narrator] We traveled north to meet with
a group of Bigfoot researchers from Cryptovania,
Bigfoot researchers who are
on the cutting-edge of finding proof that Bigfoot exists.
We met with Tommy Cooper
and his team for a late night investigation
and to get their opinion
if the story of "The Creature" was possible.
- [Researcher] As far as the animal getting used to you,
becoming sort of like friends type thing?
- Personally, I would never tell anyone
not to do it or to do it.
Me personally, I don't think it's a good idea though.
I think there's a reason
we don't have a good relationship with these creatures.
And quite frankly, I think in a lot of ways
they're a lot smarter than we are.
And I don't think that's a relationship
that people should seek to get into.
I mean, it's something fun
and interesting and exhilarating to study.
But as far as buddying up with one or with a group,
I think it's a bad idea.
I think you're asking for trouble honestly.
- [Researcher] Kinda like the guy with the brown bear.
- Yeah the Grizzly Man, yeah.
- [Researcher] Grizzly bear.
- Yeah. That may or may not happen, I don't know.
But there's a reason that the stories of the Wild Men
persist all through history
but yet it's still something that's so rare
that most people question its existence.
- [Researcher] "The Creature,"
the book that we're really investigating,
would you say that that author
probably gave his story in that book?
- Yes.
- [Researcher] There was no internet, you know?
- Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
And you had the written word and books and magazines,
and that was really it.
And even then, stuff was
you had to fit your narrative to who was writing the check.
Unlike now,
if you wanted to put out a book in the 70s and 80s,
you really had to fill it with
what the editors wanted you to fill it with.
And nowadays, anybody can publish a book.
I can pick an idea out of the air and write a book about it
and have it published on Amazon within a month
with very low monetary investment.
And that's really freeing.
- This was based on...
"Mountain Devil 2," is based on
a book called "The Creature,"
and a lot of people that we talked to,
or some of the people we talked to, say, "That's ridiculous.
"There's a lot of fake stuff in there."
But, okay.
What's your thoughts on could a real story be wound into
something that was exaggerated a little bit to make a story?
You know?
- Well, I mean, sure 'cause you look at like a lot of stuff.
I mean, that's gonna be based on a little bit of truth,
but you also wanna try to sell a story too
so you gotta embellish a little bit
and make it sound it little bit bigger than what it was.
But I mean,
there's gotta be some type of kernel of truth to it too.
Unless you're just like a crazy imaginative person,
I mean, to come up with a story like that is just,
like off the bat, is just crazy.
[Nick laughing]
There's gotta be something to it.
He had to have had some type of experience
and whatever experience it was,
obviously it was pretty profound to him.
But yeah, whether or not it's as crazy as what it was,
I mean, there's still something.
- [Researcher] Are we in danger
when we go out there looking for what we're looking for?
- I think the danger is real.
Like so many people have said, they're a lot like people.
There's good ones, there's bad ones.
There might be mating seasons.
There might be food shortages.
What? Any number of things might factor into it.
But is there legit danger?
Yes, there is.
I can't say that it's always gonna be peace and love.
- With people coming out with these ideas
that are against the mainstream,
a lot of times you're hesitant
to come out with your sightings
and your ideas and your experiences.
And it really-
How can you have accurate data
if people are afraid to come forward?
And so, if you want accuracy
you've gotta accept all of the phenomenon.
You can't just restrict it to the ones that
if you only accept things that can be proven
right here, right now, you're gonna limit yourself,
you're gonna limit the data that you have for crunching.
- [Researcher] Would you have a relationship with Bigfoot
coming around?
- Well, I mean, the one guy that we did an interview with
and he came up for the weekend, Greg Yost,
I mean, he has a relationship built with them.
It was really kind of wild,
'cause he says that they follow him
and that gets into the whole interdimensional thing
which that might be it.
But when we were up on top of the hill
and we started getting this noise,
and he started talking to the one
and he was saying the name of the Bigfoot that he knew.
And as soon as he said that name, I mean it was crazy.
There was stuff getting tossed,
there was stuff running just right outside of our view.
But it was just crazy how as soon as he said, "Inky,"
that was the name of the Bigfoot.
As soon as he said that,
it was just like it just lit up with activity around us.
So that was pretty crazy.
So yeah, I think you can have a relationship with them.
I think you gotta be pretty open-minded
and just kinda open heart and just kinda go into it.
But yeah, it could also get bad I feel.
- [Loren] I think it's a ongoing mystery
and I really do think that's an unknown.
It's one of those mysteries in the Bigfoot field
that will keep being discussed because it's so compelling.
And seems as if, what if it was real?
What if it was an interaction between a professor
and a Bigfoot in the hills of Pennsylvania?
That would be a pretty remarkable event to document.
And let's hopefully get more and more on it.
Maybe some relative,
maybe some grandkid of the professor
will come forth someday and we'll be able to know more.
[relaxing instrumental music]
- [Jan] It had been a few days since I had seen Kong.
I was worried due to the hunting season being in effect.
Every time I heard a gun shot off in the distance,
I was worried it was Kong.
But another side of me hoped that
he was just resting deep in the forest.
My property was connected to Chestnut Ridge
by a wide band of forest.
Chestnut Ridge was about 16 miles away as a crow flies.
It is entirely forested from the West Virginia border,
almost to the northern border of Pennsylvania.
It contains Forbes State Forest and Laurel Caverns.
I'm hoping Kong lived in
some section of the unexplored caverns.
No Kong this evening.
Perhaps the hunters in the area are keeping him away.
I just hope that he is safe.
[somber instrumental music]
Hunting season had passed
and I had high hopes that Kong would return.
I got a beer out of the fridge
and walked out on the porch,
and there he was squatting down.
He seemed a bit off.
No signs that he had been shot by any hunters.
I pulled some apples out and tossed them his way
but he had no interest in them.
I could tell something was wrong with Kong.
[somber instrumental music continues]
Slowly I made my way toward him
and he slowly extended his hand.
I touched his extended hand and held it awhile.
He drew it closer to his body
and held my hand close to his chest.
He closed his eyes.
He was obviously ill.
I sat with Kong for a few hours before he got up
and walked off into the forest.
[somber instrumental music continues]
[relaxing instrumental music]
- I do believe that there would be some sort of burial
because in the few times I've heard the encounters of people
that said they actually shot one and dropped it,
or whatever they say,
another one swings in, grabs it and skedaddles with it.
So I think they do do something with the bodies.
But that being said,
how many times you seen a dead bear in the woods?
How many times have you seen a dead bobcat or a coyote?
Nature's pretty efficient.
Bones don't last long.
Soft tissue doesn't last long.
There's too many things out there looking for a meal
and especially around here.
I mean, in a matter of a few short days
everything's gonna be gone.
[relaxing instrumental music continues]
- I think as a rule if there was a systematic problem,
I think we would already know
because I think these things are around us
almost a lot of the time when we're in the woods.
So if there was a problem, if they were out to get us,
I think we would already know as a rule.
- And I also like to encourage people to come forward
and share their experiences without fear of ridicule.
Because if we only listen to the brave and the bold,
we're not gonna get all of the story.
And if you are looking for what exactly this is,
you have to explore all that phenomenon
and you have to explore the people that have
what you might call crazy experiences.
And you have to include that.
If you're just picking and choosing,
you're not doing any science.
You're not even really doing any crunching,
you're just building a narrative
is kinda how I look at it.
- [Researcher] Let's talk about gifting.
Good idea or bad idea?
- I mean, I wouldn't be doing it in my backyard.
If you're gonna gift it like my sister,
she was at this party spot they used to hang out
down by a crick or whatever.
Well, the one night they had an experience
where something came into where they were hanging out
and they all quit going there and hanging out.
Well, she started going there
just trying to figure out what it was
and she started leaving fruits and vegetables out there.
And then she started going there
and there was little round rocks and stuff
that was getting left on the log
in place of the fruits that she was leaving.
But yeah, I just told her, I was like,
"That's cool out there
"but don't be doing that by your house and everything
"'cause once you quit then
"I think you're pulling in some-
"You're gonna make them mad.
"You're gonna piss them off."
Because they get use to this relationship
or whatever that you're building with them,
and then you just cut ties
and stuff is just gonna get bad I feel.
[somber instrumental music]
- [Loren] He didn't kill it but he found it dead
and then he buried it,
and he felt that people could claim that
he had been involved in the demise of this creature.
So I don't know.
It's one of those cases where I'd have to say
I don't know at the end of the day.
But I thought the possibility was there
enough for me to wanna pursue it
and look at the various details of it.
And it was in an area that there had been a lot of tales,
folklore and sightings,
so it seemed realistic in that regard too.
- Yeah, well, as I told you I believe John Tomikel
was the actual writer of "The Creature."
You know in looking at some of the things.
He was in the army in 1952.
He was divorced shortly after
the first publication of "The Creature."
I think it was around 1975, '76 he got divorced.
And the funny this is,
is the way I determined that was from property records.
As a private investigator,
one of the things I do is,
all right, I don't need to talk to anybody.
Let's see if there is evidence
to back up the claim of the book.
And at looking at, okay,
we know John Tomikel was in the Korean War.
We know John Tomikel was an earth science teacher.
We know John Tomikel got divorced
shortly after the first publication of the book.
And then we look at Jan Klement.
Jan Klement was in the army in '52.
Jan Klement was an earth science teacher.
Jan Klement got divorced in the 70s.
And even more to the fact was
the copyright found at the Library of Congress
and the item number was actually,
it was A757910,
"The Creature."
[somber instrumental music]
- [Jan] Several days passed.
When I went out to look for Kong,
he was nowhere to be found.
No evidences indicated his presence
at any time since our last encounter.
Each evening I built a fire and had a cold beer.
That night in particular was colder than the others.
I decided to head inside for the night
when I noticed something laying off in the distance.
I shined my light on the object.
I was stunned to see Kong lying there.
Stood there in a frozen state for several minutes
before I tried to test his state.
He was dead and rigor mortis had set in.
What to do?
My first thought was that
I now had evidence of a species to measure
and to show to the public.
The horror of the public asking me questions
and invading my private life was too much for me.
It wasn't fair to Kong either.
My decision was to bury Kong
with the idea that I could dig him up
if I ever decided to do so and needed to do so.
[somber instrumental music continues]
It was almost impossible to get his body into my vehicle
but I was able to manage with a picnic table and a rope.
I grabbed some tools and a shovel
and headed toward Winds Gap in Chestnut Ridge.
It was a remote area.
I thought about the fact that
no dead creatures like him have ever been found.
Perhaps I got to him before the others of his kind
could gather him up.
I should have buried him on my property where he fell,
but at that time
I was not thinking as logically as I am now.
[somber orchestral music]
[door clicking]
[engine roaring]
[somber orchestral music continues]
[rain falling]
[ax cutting]
[rain falling]
I drove over the ridge through the gap and cut the motor,
drifting down the road to where I could stop
and do the burial.
I tried to drag Kong into the woods but he was too heavy.
There was only one thing I could do.
I took out the ax
and started cutting him into moveable pieces.
First, his head came off.
I moved to his arms and legs next.
I was crying uncontrollably the entire time.
With the rest of the energy I had left I dug a grave.
The pieces of Kong lay in disarray about me.
I stood there for a moment to catch my breath
when I noticed a car wheel.
The West Virginia, Pennsylvania border is strewn
with car parts from the mountain people
that live in these isolated areas.
I took the wheel with the idea that
if I ever wanted to find the grave site again,
all I had to do was bury the wheel with Kong
and use my metal detector to find it.
I covered him quickly and thought about Kong, my friend.
[somber orchestral music continues]
♪ Oh, oh, oh
♪ Oh, oh
♪ Oh, oh, oh
♪ Oh
♪ Oh, oh
♪ Oh, oh, oh
♪ Oh, oh
- [Jan] Weeks had passed slowly
and I reflected upon my association with Kong.
He was a creature of the deep forest, a quiet soul.
There are days when I just sit here
and hope that I see my friend one more time.
I listen really hard to the forest.
At times I trick myself to thinking
Kong was coming through the woods for one last apple.
Perhaps I just miss my friend.
[somber orchestral music continues]
- I really hate to tell you this story
but I'll do it.
Since I'm 91 years old,
I should set the record straight.
It was about three years after the book was published
and I had buried
the 500 copies,
and
I had written a couple of books myself on
scientific subjects.
Someone might get the impression since I write books,
novels, that I wrote
"The Creature."
I edited "The Creature," but I did not write it.
The story is the work of Jan Klement.
There was a picnic at a place called Mingo Creek
which is in Southwestern Pennsylvania,
and I was
the kind of the feature there
because I had prepared all these edible wild plants.
And there were other people involved there.
And Jan Klement showed up.
When we were
kind of by ourselves,
I started berating him about "The Creature"
and saying,
"You know it's unbelievable."
And he got quite mad at me.
And he said,
"Okay, I'll show you where he's buried."
And right away, my eyes, I said,
"This was gonna be it."
So we decided to take his truck
and I put my shovel in the back of it,
and he was gonna let me dig it up.
We got out
and we started walking through underbrush.
It was multi-floral rows
and it was very difficult to get through.
And this was three years after the fact.
So he said, "Why don't you go down the right
"and I'll go to the left
"and you look for a mound of dirt."
He said, "It shouldn't be hard to find."
So I'm scrabbling around and he's on the other side,
and all of a sudden he hollers, "Son of a bitch!"
And I raced over
through all kinds of underbrush
and there he was standing beside
a hole in the ground that was about the size of a bath tub.
And I looked at it
and it was full of golden rod and thistles,
but it was a good depression.
And then there was a mound of dirt on the other side of it.
And
I remember he said that he had buried
a car wheel or truck wheel with it.
So I scraped around and, sure enough,
there was a truck wheel there.
And
that was it and we rode back in silence.
And he was really upset.
And we got back to our vehicles.
He went his way and I went mine
and that was that.
[choir singing in foreign language]
- [Jan] To this day,
I will not discuss Kong with anyone personally.
And even if you, the viewer, should discover who I am,
I will refuse to discuss these events with you.
Just assume that this is fiction
and not worth legitimate time.
[choir singing in foreign language]
- [Narrator] Since the first edition of "The Creature"
was published, there have been many phone calls
concerning the identity of the author.
The publisher has pledged to keep the author anonymous.
The only other information that has been provided is that
the cabin and its property was sold years ago.
In 1986, the cabin was burned to the ground by arsonists.
The ruins of the cabin are still there,
as well as remnants of the pond.
The property is overgrown with weeds and brush.
Several very expensive houses have been built in the area
and the present owner has refused to sell to developers.
There continues to be sightings of creatures in the area
to this day.
[choir singing in foreign language]
- [Narrator] In 1976, a book titled "The Creature"
by Jan Klement was published.
A story about a man
and his interactions with a Bigfoot creature.
For many years the book was a mystery.
Could the book just be an elaborate hoax?
Or could the remains of a Bigfoot
be buried in the foothills of Pennsylvania?
[choir singing in foreign language]
[film reel clicking]
[relaxing guitar music]
♪ Do not stand at my grave and weep ♪
♪ I am not there, I do not sleep ♪
♪ I am a thousand winds that blow ♪
♪ I am the diamond glimpse on the snow ♪
♪ I am the sunlight or ripened grain ♪
♪ I am the gentle autumn rain
♪ When you waken in the morning hush ♪
♪ I am the swift uplifting rush ♪
♪ Of quiet birds in circle of flight ♪
♪ I am the soft stars that shine at night ♪
♪ Do not stand at my grave and cry ♪
♪ I am not there, I did not die ♪
[somber instrumental music]
[somber instrumental music continues]
[haunting instrumental music]
[haunting instrumental music continues]
[relaxing orchestral music]
[relaxing orchestral music continues]
♪ Oh, oh, oh
♪ Oh
♪ Oh, oh
♪ Oh, oh, oh
♪ Oh, oh
♪ Oh, oh, oh
[relaxing orchestral music continues]
[thunder crashing] [rain falling]
[thunder crashing]