Richard Brown, Sherry Shriner, and How to Identify Bigfoot Chewies
Cryptozoology in a Doomsday Cult
Cryptozoology in a Doomsday Cult
Researching my book, Dragged Into the Light: Truthers, Reptilians, Super Soldiers, and Death Inside an Online Cult, about internet conspiracy cult leader Sherry Shriner inured me to stories that most people think of as crazy. I mean, how else can you describe the belief that reptilian overlords have replaced many if not most of the political, religious, and Hollywood elite?
Reptilian overlords were the centerpiece (but not the weirdest part) of an interpretation of the Bible that supported most every conspiracy theory from Pizza-gate to the Illuminati. Sherry Shriner added all this as well as Old Testament monsters into her take on Christianity.
She preached that vampires, zombies, and even giants are real. I was used to stories of the banal-fantastical as Sherry spun tales about supernatural attacks on her and her friends with the enthusiasm any of us would use to recount a grocery trip.
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It was all in a day’s work for a person proclaiming to be God’s Mouthpiece on Earth.
One of the only pieces of information that truly fascinated me was the existence of “Bigfoot Chewies.”
From the moment I heard the phrase, I was determined to work it into the story, as clunky and pointless as a detour as it was. No matter how I tried, it really was too much to unpack in a story that was already a little rabbit-hole heavy.
Richard Brown and the Bigfoot Chewies
The story survived the first revision, and “Bigfoot Chewies” survived the better part of the second revision until a friend point-blank told me to explain why it was there or take it out.
“Killing your darlings,” often refers to paring unnecessary (often too-florid) words from your story. This was like that. The story didn’t do anything for the narrative except allow me to put the words “Bigfoot Chewies” into print. I cut it out in anticipation of telling it here.
Sherry Shriner was idling on Facebook one night, waiting for The Everything Full-Fledged Reality Show With Johnny Galvan to start, and she was getting antsy.
She complained about the show’s introduction to her Facebook followers, and she wasn’t just whining. The song was maybe six full minutes of garage metal music featuring a poppy-guitar riff. It was grating.
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Sherry had tuned in to hear Johnny Galvan interview Richard Brown one of her top acolytes. If we think of Sherry Shriner as the prophet, “Brother Rich” was among the high priests.
More than that, though, they were friends and Sherry wanted to throw her not-unimpressive promotional support behind Richard’s appearance. It didn’t hurt that Sherry Shriner, as Prophet of The Most High brought out Richard’s inner sycophant. I think she loved hearing him compliment her unprompted.
I imagine Johnny was over the moon about both the guest and the idea that the prophet might be listening. He sounded giddy to me in the interview and a little starstruck. Richard Brown was a big get for him, a genuine Orgone Warrior for The Most High Sherry Shriner. The show started and, over the course of two-or-so hours, Richard explained about the Alien Agenda and the Reptilian Conspiracy.
Listening nearly five years in the future, I was more scanning than paying attention. I’d been hoping for some insight into how the cult worked, but Richard was repeating stories I’d heard elsewhere.
He did share a few stories about visiting Sherry at her home, which interested me and must have titillated the listeners. Sherry Shriner was shrouded in mystery, just a faceless entity on the internet, but Brother Rich had been to her home. He had seen her in person, which was rare, and had fought aliens with her, which was even rarer.
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Richard described the Sherry Shriner homestead as existing in a dimensionless bubble containing myth and reality. Alien ships regularly crashed in the atmosphere above Sherry’s home and government agents spied from a safe distance, occasionally pummeling Sherry’s compound with energy rays in an attempt to kill her.
In addition to alien spies and government agents that lurked in the woods adjoining Sherry’s property, Richard said, there was evidence of Bigfoot Chewies.
He explained that Bigfoot Chewies lived in clans and erected shelters. According to Richard, the woods near Sherry’s house were thick with Bigfoot structures.
The more experience you have with the occult, the more attacks and encounters with Satan’s minions, the more important you must be as a member of God’s army.
A person knew they had come across a Bigfoot Chewie camp, Richard claimed, if they saw branches set up teepee-like in a place where no human being could have set them up. Even as I tried to make sense of this (how could one human being come across something in the woods where no human being could have put it?), I was drawn to the Chewie descriptor.
The “Chewie” part threw me for a minute until I realized he meant Chewbacca, the Wookie from Star Wars. I could see how someone could say that Bigfoot and Chewbacca looked alike. But if that’s the case, why say, Bigfoot Chewies when Bigfoot would do?
Obviously, because there’s more than one kind of Bigfoot. In the cryptozoological world, Bigfoot is a sub-order of primate, but among them are several kinds. You are welcome to Google this, but as far as I can tell, there’s the Yeti (essentially the polar bear version of Bigfoot), Bigfoots that look more like gorillas, Bigfoots that look more like bears, and Bigfoots that look mostly like Wookies. There are probably more, but since they’re made up it doesn’t matter.
What fascinated me about Bigfoot Chewies was the idea of a grown man hunting in the woods for them. This wasn’t some semi-ironic camping trip diversion, it was just a regular part of his life.
More Than Just paranoia
In his world, reptile overlords ran the government, black helicopters followed him everywhere, and Bigfoot Chewies lurked in the shadows, standing three tree-branches up against one another for shelter and waiting.
Precisely what he said they were waiting for escaped me, but my impression is that they are among the monsters committed to fighting on Lucifer’s side in the War of Armageddon.
In Sherry’s very Dungeons-and-Dragons world, supernatural creatures tended to be evil or at least menacing. Richard talked about how to stalk them, and how to tell where they were and what they were up to, but he didn’t mention anything about what to do with that information. I wonder if anyone ever asked him.
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Increasingly I like this approach for dealing with conspiracy folks. Accept the premise and ask to be taken to the conclusion. Although they’re full of information about monsters and evil cabals, with the exception of the vague fiat to “fight” the evil, there aren’t a lot of prescriptive behaviors.
Richard wasn’t even clear on whether people should try and trap the Bigfoot Chewies. Maybe he only cared about Bigfoots because they were part of the overall conspiracy world.
In that world, the more experience you have with the occult, the more attacks and encounters with Satan’s minions, the more important you must be as a member of God’s army.
Johnny hadn’t hunted Bigfoots outside of Sherry’s house, that’s why he was Rich’s inferior.
For Rich and Johnny, but really for most of the conspiracy embracers out there, it is a kind of anointing. The amount of supernatural in your life is a reflection of how much God trusts that you can handle all the weird and wonderful things he promised in the Book of Revelation.
The implication is that if you can’t handle the monsters now, you’ll probably go all to pieces on the front lines of the apocalypse.
So they’re vigilant, and they watch for the monsters and other signs, hoping God will reveal his plan to them and that they will have the fortitude to execute it.
It may look silly from the outside, but it is a deadly serious business. Religious extremists make up a significant segment of the increasingly vocal and violent conspiracy movement. I can’t make it plain enough that many believe they were selected by God to fight evil, and they are standing by waiting for the word.
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Tony Russo is a journalist and author of “Dragged Into the Light: Truthers, Reptilians, Super Soldiers, and Death Inside an Online Cult.” Subscribe to his Bagel Manifesto here.