The Paracast Newsletter
August 24, 2025
www.theparacast.com
Ghost and Bigfoot Author/Hunter Michael A. Kozlowski Reveals Amazing Unexplained Cases This Week on the Paracast.
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022 and later now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes for subscribers to The Paracast+ are now released 24 hours earlier. Flash! Now includes over 100 classic episodes, so take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode (August 17, 2025): Gene and cohost Tim Swartz introduce ghost/Bigfoot author and researcher Michael A. Kozlowski. He is author of Bigfoot Sightings: True Tales From Across America, available from all major booksellers including Amazon. His research into the world of the strange and the unknown over the years has focused mainly on ghost sightings and the ongoing Bigfoot mystery. After a careful study, he has come up with a fairly mundane conclusion of the latter, whether these strange creatures represent a paranormal phenomenon or whether they represent an Earth-based species of some sort. Michael lives in Detroit, Michigan with his fiancé, Christen, and a whole gaggle of animals. He is an auto engineer, a singer/songwriter, an avid golfer, a huge sports fan (especially of his hometown Lions), and loves traveling and exploring. In the literary field, he has written a range of books and stories in the horror fiction and paranormal investigation genres, including the first two books in his mystery/suspense/zombie apocalypse thriller mashup, Angel of Death and Fallen Angel, and Visible Ink Press’ American Ghost Stories. His website: www.mikekozlowski.com
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers by August 23: The main focus of this episode is the ongoing mystery or legend of Bigfoot and similar creatures around the world with ghost/Bigfoot author and researcher Michael A. Kozlowski. The author of Bigfoot Sightings: True Tales From Across America, Michael has carefully probed the ins and outs of the mystery, considering the mystical and the practical solutions. In speaking with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz, he suggests there may indeed be a lost or missing link hominid species that, by and large, lives within forests around the planet. He goes on to suggest how they remain largely secret, their possible making practices and whether actual Bigfoot DNA has been confirmed by scientists. And, no, he doesn’t think it’s about UFOs. Michael lives in Detroit, Michigan with his fiancé, Christen, and a whole gaggle of animals. He is an auto engineer, a singer/songwriter, an avid golfer, a huge sports fan (especially of his hometown Lions), and loves traveling and exploring. In the literary field, he has written a range of books and stories in the horror fiction and paranormal investigation genres, including the first two books in his mystery/suspense/zombie apocalypse thriller mashup, Angel of Death and Fallen Angel, and Visible Ink Press’ American Ghost Stories. His website: www.mikekozlowski.com
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums. And look for @theparacast on Bluesky Social, Facebook, Threads and X.
The Wild Men
By Tim R. Swartz
Sightings of giant, hairy creatures are both an ancient and global phenomenon. Many of these myths have prevailed for hundreds of years, being passed on from generation to generation as people swear to have seen evidence of the humanoids themselves. Going by many different names (Sasquatch, Yeti, Alma, etc.) their descriptions are eerily similar; hairy, big and human-looking. In fact, some hunters have reported to have had the chance to shoot one, but couldn’t because they feared they would be shooting a human.
Because of its chief characteristics, covered completely in hair and usually over 7-feet-tall, there is little chance that one of these creatures could be a modern human…however, their descriptions bring to mind representations of archaic humans based on fossil records.
Over the years, an effort has been made by researchers to find and catalog any biological specimens that could have come from a Sasquatch (barring getting a hold of a complete living or dead creature). Hair, tissue and fecal samples have been taken from areas where these creatures have been spotted, but often the samples were from familiar wildlife.
In 2012, the news was filled with the fantastic announcement from a Texas science team that claimed to have successfully sequenced genomes from Sasquatch biological samples.
The team, led by Dr. Melba Ketchum, a veterinarian, whose professional experience includes 27 years of research in genetics, including forensics, claimed to have sequenced three nuclear genomes from Sasquatch and found that the species split off from humans 15,000 years ago
"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."
“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 said that genetically, the Sasquatch is a human hybrid with unambiguously modern human maternal ancestry. Others are naturally more openly skeptical. Yale neurologist Dr. Steven Novella says the samples may be contaminated samples of normal, human DNA.
“The bottom line is this,” he writes on his blog. “Human DNA plus some anomalies or unknowns does not equal an impossible human-ape hybrid. It equals human DNA plus some anomalies.”
Human or Not
The legend of the wild man persists as a part of European and Asian folklore and culture. Surprisingly, these legends also continue in North and South America. In the 9th century, Irish folklore describes how a pagan king is driven mad when he attacks a Catholic bishop, eventually transforming into a beast who roams the woods. The Konungs Skuggsjá, an educational Norwegian text from the 13th century, describes a creature very similar to other descriptions of wild men. The text says the strange creature was like a human but with a great deal of coarse hair. It says the creature was captured in the woods in Ireland and that no one could tell if it understood human speech or not.
The wild man was depicted in artwork throughout the later medieval period across Europe. The images all show a human with a thick pelt of hair and the figure appears in embroidery, carvings, paintings, statues, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, and even on more obscure objects such as a bread mold.
Along with artwork, it is during the 14th century the term ‘woodwose’ came into use as a way of describing a legendary wild man figure. The word is the origin of the modern surname ‘Woodhouse,’ but its etymology is somewhat unclear – although ‘wood’ definitely refers to woods or forests, the suffix ‘wose’ has several potential meanings. The two most likely translations of wose are ‘being’ and ‘forlorn or abandoned person’.
For people in medieval Europe the descriptions of creatures like this, which had been exaggerated and passed on to people who had never seen them, must have been evidence that creatures like the woodwose really were roaming the forests, even if it was only in far off lands.
Later, immigrants brought these traditions with them as they settled in the new world and the accounts of these creatures were passed down over time. It should be pointed out that the tales of “wildmen,” especially in North America, aren’t necessarily about Bigfoot, but instead refer to actual humans that may be feral (wild) by birth or by choice.
Here are a few accounts of alleged encounters with wild people.
Folklore experts now refer to these eerie tales as “contemporary legends,” also known as “urban legends.” While authorities dismiss any stories about wild people, long-time residents of places like Appalachia say these tales have been around for generations.
So, is there hard evidence like videos and photos of feral people in the Smoky Mountains or elsewhere? No, but there are plenty of accounts from those who have heard, seen, or encountered these wild people. For whatever the reasons, birth or choice, these people have allegedly tossed aside the shackles of civilization to live as nature intended.
Tim R. Swartz is an Indiana native and Emmy-Award winning television producer/videographer, and is the author of a number of popular books including The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla, Gef the Talking Mongoose. His most recent books, along with author Sean Casteel, are Weird Time – Exploring the Mysteries of Time and Space, and Mimics — The Others Among Us.
As a photojournalist, Tim Swartz has traveled extensively and investigated paranormal phenomena and other unusual mysteries in such diverse locations as the Great Pyramid in Egypt to the Great Wall in China. He has worked with major television networks both national and international.
Tim has appeared on the documentary “The Myth of Tesla,” as well as The History Channels programs "Ancient Aliens", "Evidence", "Ancient Aliens: Declassified", "The UnXplained", and the History Channel Latin America series "Contacto Extraterrestre".
His articles have been published in magazines such as Mysteries, FATE, Strange, Atlantis Rising, UFO Universe, Flying Saucer Review, Renaissance, and Unsolved UFO Reports.
Tim is also the co-host of The Paracast with Gene Steinberg www.theparacast.com
His website is: www.weirdtimebook.com
Copyright 1999-2025 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!
August 24, 2025
www.theparacast.com
Ghost and Bigfoot Author/Hunter Michael A. Kozlowski Reveals Amazing Unexplained Cases This Week on the Paracast.
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022 and later now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes for subscribers to The Paracast+ are now released 24 hours earlier. Flash! Now includes over 100 classic episodes, so take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode (August 17, 2025): Gene and cohost Tim Swartz introduce ghost/Bigfoot author and researcher Michael A. Kozlowski. He is author of Bigfoot Sightings: True Tales From Across America, available from all major booksellers including Amazon. His research into the world of the strange and the unknown over the years has focused mainly on ghost sightings and the ongoing Bigfoot mystery. After a careful study, he has come up with a fairly mundane conclusion of the latter, whether these strange creatures represent a paranormal phenomenon or whether they represent an Earth-based species of some sort. Michael lives in Detroit, Michigan with his fiancé, Christen, and a whole gaggle of animals. He is an auto engineer, a singer/songwriter, an avid golfer, a huge sports fan (especially of his hometown Lions), and loves traveling and exploring. In the literary field, he has written a range of books and stories in the horror fiction and paranormal investigation genres, including the first two books in his mystery/suspense/zombie apocalypse thriller mashup, Angel of Death and Fallen Angel, and Visible Ink Press’ American Ghost Stories. His website: www.mikekozlowski.com
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers by August 23: The main focus of this episode is the ongoing mystery or legend of Bigfoot and similar creatures around the world with ghost/Bigfoot author and researcher Michael A. Kozlowski. The author of Bigfoot Sightings: True Tales From Across America, Michael has carefully probed the ins and outs of the mystery, considering the mystical and the practical solutions. In speaking with Gene and cohost Tim Swartz, he suggests there may indeed be a lost or missing link hominid species that, by and large, lives within forests around the planet. He goes on to suggest how they remain largely secret, their possible making practices and whether actual Bigfoot DNA has been confirmed by scientists. And, no, he doesn’t think it’s about UFOs. Michael lives in Detroit, Michigan with his fiancé, Christen, and a whole gaggle of animals. He is an auto engineer, a singer/songwriter, an avid golfer, a huge sports fan (especially of his hometown Lions), and loves traveling and exploring. In the literary field, he has written a range of books and stories in the horror fiction and paranormal investigation genres, including the first two books in his mystery/suspense/zombie apocalypse thriller mashup, Angel of Death and Fallen Angel, and Visible Ink Press’ American Ghost Stories. His website: www.mikekozlowski.com
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums. And look for @theparacast on Bluesky Social, Facebook, Threads and X.
The Wild Men
By Tim R. Swartz
Sightings of giant, hairy creatures are both an ancient and global phenomenon. Many of these myths have prevailed for hundreds of years, being passed on from generation to generation as people swear to have seen evidence of the humanoids themselves. Going by many different names (Sasquatch, Yeti, Alma, etc.) their descriptions are eerily similar; hairy, big and human-looking. In fact, some hunters have reported to have had the chance to shoot one, but couldn’t because they feared they would be shooting a human.
Because of its chief characteristics, covered completely in hair and usually over 7-feet-tall, there is little chance that one of these creatures could be a modern human…however, their descriptions bring to mind representations of archaic humans based on fossil records.
Over the years, an effort has been made by researchers to find and catalog any biological specimens that could have come from a Sasquatch (barring getting a hold of a complete living or dead creature). Hair, tissue and fecal samples have been taken from areas where these creatures have been spotted, but often the samples were from familiar wildlife.
In 2012, the news was filled with the fantastic announcement from a Texas science team that claimed to have successfully sequenced genomes from Sasquatch biological samples.
The team, led by Dr. Melba Ketchum, a veterinarian, whose professional experience includes 27 years of research in genetics, including forensics, claimed to have sequenced three nuclear genomes from Sasquatch and found that the species split off from humans 15,000 years ago
"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."
“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 said that genetically, the Sasquatch is a human hybrid with unambiguously modern human maternal ancestry. Others are naturally more openly skeptical. Yale neurologist Dr. Steven Novella says the samples may be contaminated samples of normal, human DNA.
“The bottom line is this,” he writes on his blog. “Human DNA plus some anomalies or unknowns does not equal an impossible human-ape hybrid. It equals human DNA plus some anomalies.”
Human or Not
The legend of the wild man persists as a part of European and Asian folklore and culture. Surprisingly, these legends also continue in North and South America. In the 9th century, Irish folklore describes how a pagan king is driven mad when he attacks a Catholic bishop, eventually transforming into a beast who roams the woods. The Konungs Skuggsjá, an educational Norwegian text from the 13th century, describes a creature very similar to other descriptions of wild men. The text says the strange creature was like a human but with a great deal of coarse hair. It says the creature was captured in the woods in Ireland and that no one could tell if it understood human speech or not.
The wild man was depicted in artwork throughout the later medieval period across Europe. The images all show a human with a thick pelt of hair and the figure appears in embroidery, carvings, paintings, statues, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, and even on more obscure objects such as a bread mold.
Along with artwork, it is during the 14th century the term ‘woodwose’ came into use as a way of describing a legendary wild man figure. The word is the origin of the modern surname ‘Woodhouse,’ but its etymology is somewhat unclear – although ‘wood’ definitely refers to woods or forests, the suffix ‘wose’ has several potential meanings. The two most likely translations of wose are ‘being’ and ‘forlorn or abandoned person’.
For people in medieval Europe the descriptions of creatures like this, which had been exaggerated and passed on to people who had never seen them, must have been evidence that creatures like the woodwose really were roaming the forests, even if it was only in far off lands.
Later, immigrants brought these traditions with them as they settled in the new world and the accounts of these creatures were passed down over time. It should be pointed out that the tales of “wildmen,” especially in North America, aren’t necessarily about Bigfoot, but instead refer to actual humans that may be feral (wild) by birth or by choice.
Here are a few accounts of alleged encounters with wild people.
Wild Girl Captured in Local Woods Liseaux Forest, Wisconsin, September 5, 1744
Shepherds recently found and captured a wild girl about sixteen or seventeen years old in this forest. She was taken to the hospital at Mauleon. She has not spoke, or gave any sign of recollecting the past. At some point, the girl let it be known that she had been left by some other little girls in the woods when she was about seven or eight, having been surprised by snow. The hospital people gave her grass and vegetables to eat, but she continued to droop, and in a very short time died of grief for the loss of her liberty.
Wild Child Fish Lake, Indiana, December 4, 1839
Strange as it may appear, it is currently reported and very generally believed that a wild child, or lad, is now running at large among the sand hills round and in the vicinity of Fish Lake. It is reported to be about four feet high, and covered with a light coat of chestnut-colored hair. It runs with great velocity, and when pursued, as has often been the case, it sets up the most frightful and hideous yells, and seems to make efforts at speaking. It has been seen during the summer months running along the lake shore, apparently in search of fish and frogs, and appears to be very fond of the water, for it will plunge into Fish Lake and swim with great velocity, all the time whining most piteously.
Source: Jerome Clark, 2005. Unnatural Phenomena. ABC-CLIO (publisher), from 14Adams Sentinel, Pennsylvania, December 30, 1839, reprinted from the Michigan City Gazette, Indiana, December 4, 1839
Folklore experts now refer to these eerie tales as “contemporary legends,” also known as “urban legends.” While authorities dismiss any stories about wild people, long-time residents of places like Appalachia say these tales have been around for generations.
So, is there hard evidence like videos and photos of feral people in the Smoky Mountains or elsewhere? No, but there are plenty of accounts from those who have heard, seen, or encountered these wild people. For whatever the reasons, birth or choice, these people have allegedly tossed aside the shackles of civilization to live as nature intended.
• • •
Tim R. Swartz is an Indiana native and Emmy-Award winning television producer/videographer, and is the author of a number of popular books including The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla, Gef the Talking Mongoose. His most recent books, along with author Sean Casteel, are Weird Time – Exploring the Mysteries of Time and Space, and Mimics — The Others Among Us.
As a photojournalist, Tim Swartz has traveled extensively and investigated paranormal phenomena and other unusual mysteries in such diverse locations as the Great Pyramid in Egypt to the Great Wall in China. He has worked with major television networks both national and international.
Tim has appeared on the documentary “The Myth of Tesla,” as well as The History Channels programs "Ancient Aliens", "Evidence", "Ancient Aliens: Declassified", "The UnXplained", and the History Channel Latin America series "Contacto Extraterrestre".
His articles have been published in magazines such as Mysteries, FATE, Strange, Atlantis Rising, UFO Universe, Flying Saucer Review, Renaissance, and Unsolved UFO Reports.
Tim is also the co-host of The Paracast with Gene Steinberg www.theparacast.com
His website is: www.weirdtimebook.com
Copyright 1999-2025 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!