Guest Speakers For 2022
Meet our speakers, some of the most experienced, engaging cryptozoology research experts and paranormal investigators.
We will share each addition as soon as they become official.
Check back to see the Speakers’ schedule!
Lyle Blackburn
Lyle Blackburn is a native Texan known for his work in writing, music, and film. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including “The Beast of Boggy Creek” and “Sinister Swamps,” whose subject matter reflects his life-long fascination with legends and sighting reports of unknown creatures and strange phenomena. Lyle is also the founder of the rock band, Ghoultown, and narrator/producer of documentary films including “The Mothman of Point Pleasant” and “Boggy Creek Monster.”
Lyle is a frequent guest on radio programs such as Coast To Coast AM, and has appeared on television shows including Monsters and Mysteries in America, Strange Evidence, Finding Bigfoot, and The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs.
When Lyle isn’t writing books, hunting monsters, or performing with his band, he can be found speaking at various cryptozoology conferences and horror conventions around the United States. Just look for the trademark black cowboy hat.
For more information, visit his website at: www.lyleblackburn.com
Daniel J. Benoit
As a child growing up exploring the outdoors and hunting with his father, Daniel became familiar with wildlife at an early age. He heard stories of Bigfoot but it wasn’t until he saw the Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin film in 2010 that a fire of curiosity sparked within him. It was then that he decided he would take what he knew about the outdoors and start his own research into the elusive creature.
Around that time, the subject of Bigfoot was becoming slightly less taboo and more open for discussion. And thanks to social media, Bigfoot communities started developing. It was there that Daniel soon began researching reported sightings and commonalities between them; tree structures and their possible meanings; different theories as to what bigfoot is; and footprints versus known wildlife tracks. He also began studying great apes and the similarities they share with Bigfoot such as long howls, whoops, tree knocks and tree-structure formations.
He went into the woods with heightened awareness and an open mind and it wasn’t long before he discovered large, bipedal humanoid tracks. At that very moment, what started as a fire of curiosity turned into a passion and the East Coast Bigfoot Researchers Organization (E.C.B.R.O.) was born.
Since then, Daniel has conducted fieldwork in several deep remote locations all along the east coast. And on one of those investigations in his home state of Virginia, he would have his first sighting: a family of Bigfoots. But Daniel states that he was a “knower” of Bigfoot’s existence prior to even seeing them based on all the other data that has been collected.
Daniel has spoken at several events along the east coast and has been featured in the Bigfoot documentary, “Elusive Legend – An E.C.B.R.O. Story”. He has also been the featured guest on numerous podcasts, and hosts a podcast called “ECBRO Bigfoot Radio”. He is also an author of Bigfoot research field guides and has his own YouTube Channel called “Bigfoot Zone (ECBRO)”.
He decided to start the ECBRO to not only develop a strong community of researchers but to also educate and bring awareness to everyone. Because everyone deserves to know the truth and learn what is out there.
For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/ecbroFounder/
Katy Elizabeth
Katy Elizabeth is the world’s leading authority on the Lake Champlain Monster. She has been studying the existence of Champ since a child. She has made her life-long dream a reality when she had her own sighting, and experiences, of this elusive creature on Lake Champlain. It prompted her to start her own group called “Champ Search”. The group's mission is to study, investigate, prove the existence of, and most importantly, protect the unique animals that inhabit New York and Vermont’s beautiful Lake Champlain.
Katy currently resides on the shores of Lake Champlain in Ferrisburgh, Vermont. In 2018, she was honored with an official world record as the only full-time Dedicated Woman Lake Monster Hunter in the world. Also in 2018, Katy approached the town of Port Henry NY, known as the "Home of Champ," with a written resolution to protect Champ. In April of 2018, this law was passed.
She has been featured on an extensive amount of radio and television programs across the globe including the History Channel's "In Search of Aliens" with Giorgio Tsoukalos, The Travel Channel (Expedition X with Josh Gates), Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, as well as NBC. She is author of the new book “Water Horse of Lake Champlain: The Search.”
Lija Fisher
Lija Fisher is an author who writes humorous adventure novels for kids. Her debut novel, The Cryptid Catcher, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The book received a starred review from Booklist and was a Junior Library Guild selection. Her follow-up novel, The Cryptid Keeper, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in juvenile literature and was written while Lija was a Writer in Residence with the Aspen Words/Catto Shaw Foundation. She holds a BFA in Performance Studies from the University of Colorado, Boulder and travels the country speaking at schools, libraries and Bigfoot conferences about cryptozoology, or the search (and discovery) of legendary animals! She works at The Sasquatch Outpost, Colorado's only Bigfoot museum.
For more information, visit LijaFisher.com
Zach Bales
Zach Bales has had an interest in the paranormal for as long as he can remember. Growing up in rural Kentucky in the foothills of Appalachia, Bales spent much of his youth fascinated by tales of ghosts, monsters, and “little green men." Indeed, his interest in the paranormal has taken him to the far corners of the North American continent and to twenty-one countries across the globe.
Over the years, Bales has come face to face with many of Earth’s most compelling mysteries—from the jungles of Latin America to the cradle of civilization in the Middle East, from the moors of England and Scotland to the Alaskan Frontier. Bales has documented many of these encounters in his four award-winning books—The Amateur’s Guide to Ghost Hunting, The Expert’s Guide to Ghost Hunting, The Bigfooter’s Atlas, and The UFO Chaser’s Atlas.
His fascination with folklore and storytelling led Bales to pursue a career in the study of English language and literature. After obtaining a BA from Eastern Kentucky University and an MA from the University of the Cumberlands, Bales sought a position in Secondary English Education, where he has spent the better part of two decades.
Bales is a regular on the convention and festival circuit, appearing alongside his wife, Melissa, at events throughout the United States. Bales has been featured on television and film as well as a number of nationally syndicated radio programs.
In 2021, Bales broke ground on Paranormal Roadtripper’s Nightmare Gallery in Somerset, Kentucky, which will feature his collection of curiosities—a menagerie of the unexplained, the unusual, and the otherworldly.