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Lair of the Beasts: The Stranger Side of Monster-Hunting

Weirdness at the Airport

By Nick Redfern March 20, 2010

Nick Redfern's Memoirs of the Monstrous and Strange Kind.
© N/A

“What’s the strangest thing that has even happened to you in the world of monster-hunting?” is a question I’m often asked. Well, there have been a lot of very odd moments, indeed. But the following has to be near the top of the list.

In the summer of 2007, I made a very quick visit to England to speak at the Weird Weekend gig that the Center for Fortean Zoology holds every year in the wilds of Devonshire. Luckily my return-flight to the United States was one without connections, and so I got my head down for about seven hours and woke up fully refreshed and revitalized just before the plane hit the runway at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Given the fact that I had only taken a back-pack with me for the three days that I was in England, I anticipated that negotiating Customs would be a breeze. How utterly wrong I was.

I arrived at Customs, where a stern-faced automaton asked me: “Where’s your luggage?”

“This is it,” I replied, good-naturedly. “I was only gone three days and didn’t see the point of hauling a big case when I could stuff everything into a small bag.”

The automaton eyed me suspiciously and took another look at my passport and Permanent Residency Card. He then pointed to the right of me and said in icy and ominous tones: “Sir, you will follow that line, where you will be met by another customs officer.”

“For Christ’s sake,” I moaned, “I deliberately took a small bag to avoid getting hassle, and now I’m getting hassle! All that’s in it is a couple of changes of clothes, half-a-dozen books, a tube of toothpaste and a roll-on deodorant!”

The man was not impressed at all: “Sir, there is an easy way to do this and there is a hard way to do it, too.” He carefully looked at his watch in an exaggerated fashion and added quietly: “For exactly the next sixty seconds, the easy option is still open to you.”

I shook my head, utterly exasperated, and made my way through another door, like the veritable cow to the equally veritable slaughter-house, to learn the nature of the dark fate that awaited me. On doing so, I was ushered into a further room, where I was told, by yet another curiously similar breed of unsmiling automaton, to place my bag on a table and very slowly and very carefully open it. Utterly unimpressed by my welcoming committee in the land of the so-called free, I did so.

“You traveled to England with nothing except a back-pack?” the man asked.

“Yeah, I just told your colleague that I was literally only gone for three days – and that included traveling time! I stuffed this bag with clothes and all I’d need, because for a total of just seventy-two hours I didn’t need anymore!”

“Lower your voice, sir. So, why were you in England for only three days?”

“I was speaking at a conference,” I said, through gritted teeth.

The man’s eyebrows rose significantly: “And what was the subject matter of the conference?”

“Bigfoot,” I replied, matter-of-factly.

“Bigfoot?” he echoed, with puzzlement.

“Bigfoot,” I repeated. I pulled out a copy of my Man-Monkey book from my bag and thrust it in front of his face.

“One moment, sir,” was his ominous, three-word response. This is it, I thought: I’m about to be whisked off to yet another room, and out will come the rubber-gloves and an interrogation courtesy of an unsmiling soul from the Department of Homeland Security or the FBI. Instead, something distinctly different, and very welcoming, happened.

Across the length of the room the man shouted to a colleague, who was busy rummaging through some other, poor soul’s case: “Hey, this guy writes books about Bigfoot!”

“Bigfoot?” his puzzled colleague replied.

In return, my interrogator bellowed: “You know: Sasquatch!”

“Alright!” came the genial and excited reply, and the man came galloping over, as did another inquisitive official. And, with my little bag returned to me amid a surprisingly fawning, but very welcome, apology for having been detained, I spent the next few minutes engaged in a deep chat about all things beast-like and hairy with a group of special-agents of the United States’ Government. Questions about Bigfoot footprints and plaster-casts, photos, witness accounts and more bombarded me; while I did my best to answer them, amid an atmosphere that was as unreal as it was surreal.

It was only when an old, blue-haired lady in the line behind me began to complain loudly that the aforementioned agents should be attending to her, instead of chatting about Bigfoot “with someone who isn’t even an American,” that the conversation came to an abrupt end. The trio thanked me for my time, promised to buy their own copies of Man-Monkey, and wished me well in my future expeditions and adventures.

On the way out, I caught sight of the original agent who had insisted I do it the easy way or the hard way. I waved genially in his direction and gave him the thumbs-up as I exited the airport. His face turned blood-red and he merely glared back, in the fashion that only airport officials and taser-wielding cops can. For me, it was just another strange day in the equally strange world of monster-hunting.

Nick Redfern is the author of many books, including the forthcoming Monsters of Texas; Final Events; and The NASA Cover-Ups.