Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
Speaker 1: is They call me Ben. We're joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Mission Controlled decond. Most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know a little bit of
Speaker 1: a personal story that you guys would enjoy to open
Speaker 1: up the show. Today, I was at our local bar
Speaker 1: named an Averse of Creativity, the local uh IF. I
Speaker 1: guess we give them a lot of business. And I
Speaker 1: realized about twenty five minutes into what began as a
Speaker 1: light conversation and became in a passion to be about
Speaker 1: Bigfoot and cryptozoology in general. It's like, Wow, yelling at
Speaker 1: someone about cryptozoology in a bar is just very on
Speaker 1: brand for me. It might be the most on brand
Speaker 1: thing I've done in the past month. How what level
Speaker 1: of yelling are we? Are we talking here? Just raised voices?
Speaker 1: What corporate America would call a healthy conversation, would you
Speaker 1: wouldn't elevate it to the level of a rant. There
Speaker 1: was no agro. Really, there were disagreements, but it was
Speaker 1: it was a respectful exchange of intellectual perspectives. To be
Speaker 1: fair that if you're in a bar, it's a little noisy,
Speaker 1: so a certain level of voice raising is already acceptable
Speaker 1: as like a baseline of communication. Yeah, but if the
Speaker 1: music comes down and you're like, but the sheer surface
Speaker 1: area of the forest, oh you were there, Yeah, it did.
Speaker 1: It did good to a thing where it got. It
Speaker 1: did get to a point when he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's go outside and we went outside to the front
Speaker 1: porch area and continue talking. Beautiful. But this this got
Speaker 1: me thinking that we have We've explored so many different
Speaker 1: types of cryptids. Uh, in the past. You know, we've
Speaker 1: explored bigfoot sasquatch, mothman, allegations of dinosaurs in parts of
Speaker 1: what was that Western Africa. Yeah, we've talked about some
Speaker 1: worms that were really creepy. I remember the Mongolian death worm.
Speaker 1: I love that. Where there's like the ones from Tremors,
Speaker 1: do you think they seem it's almost as if the
Speaker 1: ones from Tremors are based somehow on that idea. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're not as big as the worms from tremors, the
Speaker 1: Mongolian death worms. What about the sandworms from beetlejuice or
Speaker 1: or or from Doune. No, no, no, those those things
Speaker 1: would be If the sandworms from Dune would be the
Speaker 1: largest organisms to exist on Earth, if they were real,
Speaker 1: be cool. I would if there was a big if
Speaker 1: there was a bigger thing than a whale, I would
Speaker 1: hope it was not a worm. But you know, we'd
Speaker 1: all be in the spice business anyway. That's true. That's true,
Speaker 1: we would. But we've since we've discussed the concept of
Speaker 1: cryptozoology and earlier episodes, we don't need to go into
Speaker 1: all of it today. We can just give you the
Speaker 1: quick and dirty recap. So here are the facts. Cryptozoology.
Speaker 1: Something we very much enjoy on this show is the
Speaker 1: study of and search for animals that are a lot
Speaker 1: of times considered either extinct or legends. The the legendary
Speaker 1: mochlemembe that we've talked about before. It's technically the mission
Speaker 1: of a cryptozoologist, uh, to evaluate the possibility of the
Speaker 1: existence of something. Some animals existence and so a lot
Speaker 1: of times there's specialization that occurs here. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: I love that you point out the technically that's their mission,
Speaker 1: because one of the criticisms that crypto aso all just get,
Speaker 1: and there are many, is that they are setting out
Speaker 1: to prove something they already believe, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like you sat out with an agenda, like I know
Speaker 1: in my heart the the four tooth waffle snapper is
Speaker 1: real and irrelic population exists in the Alps or the
Speaker 1: Pyrenees or what have you, and I'm going to prove
Speaker 1: that I am correct, rather than prove the truth. A
Speaker 1: lot of that has to do with the popularity of
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna use one example here of something like squatching,
Speaker 1: like going out squatching to find a sasquatch um, which
Speaker 1: is you know it sounds silly, um, but it is.
Speaker 1: Is that what you call it? Really? You go out
Speaker 1: of squatching squatching squatch? Pretty sure they're Discovery Channel shows
Speaker 1: where people go squatching on the regular. So if you
Speaker 1: are a fan of the search for Bigfoot or sasquatch
Speaker 1: related creatures, let us know if that came organically from
Speaker 1: your community, or if a producer at you know, Discovery
Speaker 1: made it up. Who knows all I know is that
Speaker 1: that I think that concept of someone going out to
Speaker 1: prove the existence of something they already believe in maybe
Speaker 1: is tied into that. Yeah. Yeah, and the animals that
Speaker 1: they're looking for, the life forms have not been conclusively
Speaker 1: proven to exist, are called cryptids, So crypto zoologists cryptids.
Speaker 1: They're popular types of cryptids, the greatest hits we all,
Speaker 1: we all know them, we love them, like the Elvis
Speaker 1: of cryptids or the jay Z of Cryptid's the Who's
Speaker 1: another musician? Nas? The Nas of cryptids? Uh, Cisco, Cisco?
Speaker 1: Do you a different genre? He did? He? Oh, now
Speaker 1: he's canceled thet He's he's not quite famous enough to see.
Speaker 1: It's more of a big name. The Alexander Hamilton's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the Dr franken For of cryptids. Is that the
Speaker 1: right name from Rockey Horror Picture. Yeah, he's the Paul
Speaker 1: Decant of kryptids, Bigfoot, the Paul Simon. Even it would
Speaker 1: and that would also apply to things like the Lockness
Speaker 1: Monster in earlier days, the Jersey Devil, which would be
Speaker 1: more of a gar Funcle of cryptids. I would argue out,
Speaker 1: I would think there are different bands we're going to
Speaker 1: hit a lot of gar Funcle Cryptids today. In other words,
Speaker 1: the lesser Paul actually uh told us he created this
Speaker 1: file as B Team Cryptids. Yeah uh, And I wasn't joking.
Speaker 1: He's a he's a very serious man. It's it's reminiscent
Speaker 1: of our B Team Superpowers episode we did, right yeah,
Speaker 1: which was still so interesting, like the fact that magnetic
Speaker 1: people just had very frictive skin and they ended up
Speaker 1: on the B Team. And they ended up on the
Speaker 1: B Team, they were like the Great Lakes Avengers. For
Speaker 1: all you comic fans out there, we already talked about
Speaker 1: this on air, talked about that in the very episode.
Speaker 1: I believe Great Lakes Avengers. There's one guy's Doorman his power.
Speaker 1: I just have to bitch of this for anybody who
Speaker 1: hasn't heard this, because I'm still fascinated by it. Doorman
Speaker 1: has the amazing superpower, uh that allows him to when
Speaker 1: he's standing next to a wall, people can walk through
Speaker 1: him then and then through the wall. That's it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't he can't teleport, he can't you know, be intangible.
Speaker 1: He can just become a door. But he can become
Speaker 1: a door and then go on the other side, right
Speaker 1: so technically can go through walls. I don't know, he
Speaker 1: could open up, he could walk up to the wall,
Speaker 1: become a door and then exit on the other side.
Speaker 1: That's just walking through walls. I guess it's like a
Speaker 1: super convenience than a superpower. Is more of a super
Speaker 1: helper than he is a superhero. He's kind of a
Speaker 1: super furniture piece. Alright, superheroes aside. Yes, let's jump back
Speaker 1: to ye cryptozoology, right, okay, So here's the strange thing
Speaker 1: about cryptozoology. Although it is often called as pseudoscience, although uh,
Speaker 1: you know, most people in the academy capital a dismiss
Speaker 1: it as pure malarkey and poppy cock, or in a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the world of the layman see
Speaker 1: it as at the very least controversial entertaining, maybe more
Speaker 1: like reality TV junk food, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: rather than some serious pursuit. But the truth of the
Speaker 1: matter is, the ugly truth of the matter for people
Speaker 1: who hate cryptozoology, is that researchers have actually verified the
Speaker 1: existence or rediscovery, we should say, of multiple real animals
Speaker 1: that were once thought to be myths or legends or extinct,
Speaker 1: and we've got famous examples of those, like the sea
Speaker 1: kent Uh guerrillas were thought to be mythical for a
Speaker 1: long time. Yeah, just to jump in that ceili Anth
Speaker 1: was a fish that we thought for humanity, thought for
Speaker 1: centuries that this thing had been extinct, and then it
Speaker 1: just showed up again. And if nobody was looking then
Speaker 1: it maybe maybe it would have just come back and
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have known. Still, but thank goodness for the
Speaker 1: crypto zoologists. Yeah, and also we have to point out
Speaker 1: in both of those cases, Uh, this discovery comes about
Speaker 1: because Western Europeans finally saw these animals that the local
Speaker 1: people in the region had known about four years. The
Speaker 1: local community where the ceili canth was rediscovered said, first off,
Speaker 1: they were very unimpressed with the fish, and I think
Speaker 1: it was a big deal and their reaction was very
Speaker 1: much like a big whoop because those things taste like trash. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do with it? On an on
Speaker 1: an applicable level, who cares? Yeah? And uh, So we
Speaker 1: know that cryptozoology has successes, but it also has some
Speaker 1: baked in flaws, some things that make it very difficult
Speaker 1: for let's say a zoologists to take crypto zoologists seriously.
Speaker 1: And one of the biggest problems, uh, the most prevalent
Speaker 1: problems in the field of crypto zoology is the potential
Speaker 1: to misidentify some of these things. We see it time
Speaker 1: and time. Mechanic can happen super easily most people. For example,
Speaker 1: I haven't really seen a bear in the wild, let
Speaker 1: alone right up close. Uh. If you add to that
Speaker 1: the um, the adrenaline rush that comes with the initial
Speaker 1: sighting of of said creature, and you know, the fallibility
Speaker 1: of our memories as is imperfect human beings, despite what
Speaker 1: we like to tell ourselves, right, um. And of course additionally, um,
Speaker 1: you've got just hoaxes a plenty. Well, you know, and
Speaker 1: this is a really great point here. Let's just say
Speaker 1: we make an example out of it. The four of
Speaker 1: us in this room plus you you're we're all walking
Speaker 1: around in the woods. We've got all our gear to
Speaker 1: find our squatch. We know, we we don't believe it's
Speaker 1: out there, but we want to prove that it's out
Speaker 1: there or not. And we happened upon something on a
Speaker 1: ridge high above us. It seems to be brown, the
Speaker 1: color that oh sasquatch might be that color, And I
Speaker 1: can just see some it looks like fur up there
Speaker 1: moving around. Um, just this example that we've given here
Speaker 1: of of a bear. If we all observe this thing
Speaker 1: and we're unable to get up there to get our
Speaker 1: eyes on it, and it sounds like there's maybe a
Speaker 1: weird noise occurring up near this location? What what what?
Speaker 1: What? What What? What? What? What? Sort of those three stooges
Speaker 1: kind of sound? Oh my god, So what is that?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? What is happening up there? It maybe
Speaker 1: within us to at least a few of us would
Speaker 1: probably believe, perhaps you, that that was a sasquatch, even
Speaker 1: if we can't prove it was or not. But another
Speaker 1: percentage of us would say, oh, that's just a bear. Guys,
Speaker 1: we didn't see anything. Um. And that that, in I think,
Speaker 1: is what we're talking about here. Yeah, and there there's
Speaker 1: another weird twist. We're in a immensely fascinating time for cryptozoology.
Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen is the best time for crypto zoology since
Speaker 1: the past few centuries, really since back in the days
Speaker 1: when people were still exploring the edges of maps. And
Speaker 1: it leads us to a weird twist. So the human
Speaker 1: population is growing more importantly despite concentrating more and more
Speaker 1: in cities and urban areas, our civilization is reaching out
Speaker 1: to places it had never reached before. And when we
Speaker 1: combine this with our weird obsession with making surveillance technology,
Speaker 1: our species, weird obsession with making surveillance technology and monitoring
Speaker 1: everything through satellites, those two factors mean that we are
Speaker 1: more likely than ever before to discover previously unidentified or
Speaker 1: lost organisms. And you can find these kind of inspiring list. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's it's a sad irony because a lot of the
Speaker 1: reasons we're discovering these these other creatures is because we
Speaker 1: are in the process of their environment, obliterating them, creating
Speaker 1: some sort of um, some sort of analog of genocide, right,
Speaker 1: we are rendering them extinct. And this means, you know
Speaker 1: that we might as we go forward, we might still
Speaker 1: find stuff, you know what I mean, Like the colossal squid.
Speaker 1: That's another cryptid that was proven to exist. And when
Speaker 1: it comes to cryptids, it turns out there are way
Speaker 1: more than big Foot, way way more. And we'll get
Speaker 1: into specific examples after this word from our sponsor. Here's
Speaker 1: where it gets crazy. We found examples of you know,
Speaker 1: we we don't have every cryptid ever mentioned in this episode,
Speaker 1: but we found some examples of some obscure ones that
Speaker 1: seemed pretty interesting. So we're going to explore those and
Speaker 1: then maybe talk a little bit about whether or not
Speaker 1: they could be real pros and commons. Okay, so first off,
Speaker 1: we've got okay, we practice this pronunciation off faris, see
Speaker 1: if I can get it. The Incan yamba nailed it great,
Speaker 1: thanks man um. The Incan yamba as a legendary cryptod
Speaker 1: from Southern Africa that lives by waterfalls, uh and most
Speaker 1: commonly is seen at a place called how It Falls
Speaker 1: in South Africa, and it has a reputation for looking
Speaker 1: like a snake except for the head, which, of course,
Speaker 1: like you do, looks like a horse horse head that
Speaker 1: seems like a very non functioning creature when it uses
Speaker 1: weird horsehead to kind of drag itself along, you know,
Speaker 1: use it like a weird foot. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's aquatic, it makes a little more sense just
Speaker 1: because it would have to drag the head around. Do
Speaker 1: you think it's amphibious though? Is the question? Let's let's
Speaker 1: let's let's move forward here. So yeah, like you said,
Speaker 1: and the incon Yamba is aquatic uh and lives in
Speaker 1: lakes and near waterfalls, and to some, um, it's suspected
Speaker 1: of being a species of giant eel rather than a
Speaker 1: snake at all. And it's distinguished from similar creatures due
Speaker 1: to its odd size, which is over twenty feet long.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. Yeah, that's too much feet long with a
Speaker 1: giant horse looking head hanging out underneath a waterfall. First
Speaker 1: of all, no, thank you. Well, well you know you
Speaker 1: you hear a description of something like that, um, and
Speaker 1: it makes you wonder how many times, how many sightings
Speaker 1: have occurred to get that kind of um specific description
Speaker 1: of something you know, um, like the horse or horse
Speaker 1: shaped head is so specific to me? Well, now we've
Speaker 1: heard of the water horse, right. It's a film about
Speaker 1: a small NeSSI type creature. I just wonder if the
Speaker 1: name you know what I mean, Like we've got a
Speaker 1: sea horse, we've got which has like an elongated head
Speaker 1: you with a snout and things like that. I want
Speaker 1: to if it's based on that kind of maybe it
Speaker 1: doesn't actually have as looked like a horse per se
Speaker 1: doesn't have like fur and literally a transplanted horsehead looks
Speaker 1: more like, uh, you know, just have as more of
Speaker 1: an elongated shape horse like yeah. Yes. So, according to
Speaker 1: locals and people who believe in it, it's most active
Speaker 1: during the summer months of uh. This leads some people
Speaker 1: to believe that it is migratory or that it's been
Speaker 1: around so long in the local culture that they believe
Speaker 1: it as supernatural abilities causes seasonal storms to come. But
Speaker 1: if we look at what this actually could be, if
Speaker 1: this were a thing, then we could say, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a large species of freshwater eel, like the Angila mosambika
Speaker 1: or the Angila marmarata, both of those. This is the
Speaker 1: problem with these These are large. These would freak you
Speaker 1: out if you saw them in the wild, probably, but
Speaker 1: they grow to about six ft instead of twenty So
Speaker 1: is this giant version of an existing thing? Maybe the
Speaker 1: problem is that we usually see We know that fish
Speaker 1: and maritime animals can grow to unusual size, but we
Speaker 1: usually only see them reach that size when they're out
Speaker 1: in deep oceans. So would this lake be deep enough
Speaker 1: that something could grow to like more than three times
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to grow tom It seems unlikely, But
Speaker 1: there's something really fascinating in particular with this cryptod. It's
Speaker 1: that it was found and has been found in cave
Speaker 1: paintings from from native tribes. Is there are some tribes
Speaker 1: within the Quazulu Natal province that um that had these
Speaker 1: cave paintings of these things. Are allegedly of these things,
Speaker 1: and supposedly they had some kind of supernatural power perhaps
Speaker 1: like they could influence the weather maybe or would give
Speaker 1: good or generally bad tidings or would bring bad tidings.
Speaker 1: What what am I trying to say here? Yeah, it
Speaker 1: would it would be um, it would be bad for
Speaker 1: you to see one did generally it would be a
Speaker 1: bad omen, bad omen. Yeah. Um, whoe betide those who
Speaker 1: crossed the ika Yamba. Also, I have to I have
Speaker 1: to admit that I zoned out just for a second
Speaker 1: when you said a tribe called because I totally thought
Speaker 1: you were going to say a tribe called Questions. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I almost did, almost said that, um, But no,
Speaker 1: it's just it's that was actually several tribes within in
Speaker 1: a province. That makes sense too, because this is a
Speaker 1: very regionalized creature, right. Yes, there's a lot of these
Speaker 1: come to us from the African continent because for a
Speaker 1: long time. Uh, the members of the ivory Towers and
Speaker 1: the academies had no idea what the they had new
Speaker 1: very well polished idea of what the ecosystems or the
Speaker 1: biomas were like, and they would just hear crazy stories
Speaker 1: or rely on disreputable sources, or just legends, local legends
Speaker 1: or just legends because according to some people, especially if
Speaker 1: you're in the Congo area, you may run into gigantic
Speaker 1: creatures undiscovered on the land as well. And that brings
Speaker 1: us to something that I'm surely mispronouncing, the emmela in Toca.
Speaker 1: It's apparently around the size of an African bush elephant. Cheeze. Uh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's true. The Ammela antoca is around the size of
Speaker 1: an African bush elephant, which is an average of three
Speaker 1: point two meters tall, weighing around six tons or thirteen thousand,
Speaker 1: two undred and thirty pounds. It's brownish or gray in color,
Speaker 1: sort of a gradation, with a very heavy tail and
Speaker 1: body quite similar in shape and and look to that
Speaker 1: of a rhinoceros, including one long horn that comes out
Speaker 1: of its now. But here's the difference. It has four
Speaker 1: short stump like legs and it's described as having no
Speaker 1: frills or ridges around the neck, and the animal is
Speaker 1: alleged to be semi aquatic and feed on malumbo or
Speaker 1: other leafy plants. Um. The Emila and Tuca is claimed
Speaker 1: to utter a very specific vocalization, described as a variously
Speaker 1: as a snort, rumble, or growl. So what what the
Speaker 1: heck could this thing be? Is it just sort of
Speaker 1: like a weird pigmy kind of cousin of the rhinoceros?
Speaker 1: Like what are we talking to here? Right? And why
Speaker 1: is it? Is it a hippo with a horn because
Speaker 1: it's semi aquatic. I hope it's a dinosaur whatever I
Speaker 1: said it, I hope it's a large reptiles. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: something that was left over or maybe an in between
Speaker 1: somewhere along the evolutionary lines. Yeah, yeah, like that um
Speaker 1: that guy we mentioned that previous episode. Dr Roy mackel,
Speaker 1: one of the people who's searching for another similar did
Speaker 1: called the uh membembe rightbe. He was looking for reports
Speaker 1: of this creature and then he ran into reports of
Speaker 1: Emila and Toka. You'll hear folks say that maybe it's
Speaker 1: a relic population of a dinosaur, and maybe it's far
Speaker 1: enough out in the wild, that it's just too expensive
Speaker 1: to search for it, you know. But it's just it's
Speaker 1: the same thing we've been talking about before. Where there
Speaker 1: are reports that I believe it was in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: three when the West first I guess heard about this
Speaker 1: because there was a writer rolling through town, J. E. Hughes,
Speaker 1: and he wrote this thing called eighteen Years on Lake
Speaker 1: bun Woolo Wailu, and um, he was talking about within
Speaker 1: this book that apparently he was hanging out with some
Speaker 1: tribesmen or he had heard stories at least of some
Speaker 1: tribesmen who slaughtered something that kind of met this description,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe this thing is actually real. And
Speaker 1: then that then the guy you're talking about, um Roy
Speaker 1: P what's his name, Roy, That dude was saying, you know, also, hey,
Speaker 1: here's some eyewitness accounts going back to this thing, but
Speaker 1: we don't have any pictures of it. We don't have
Speaker 1: any you know, official pictures. We've got some bodies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's the problem with this one because it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be slightly larger than an elephant, and it's
Speaker 1: supposed to hunt elephants. Yeah, I mean, you would think
Speaker 1: you would think that someone would have discovered this or
Speaker 1: had a taxidermy version of it in the British Museum,
Speaker 1: you know, especially from the age of colonizers, right, do
Speaker 1: you think something would exist or even um just what
Speaker 1: maybe the horn they're talking about that one specific horn
Speaker 1: or the skull or something. You'd you'd have something somewhere
Speaker 1: in my opinion, but maybe not. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how this is going to work in the edit.
Speaker 1: And sorry about that poll. But we we took a
Speaker 1: we we took a really quick break and uh no,
Speaker 1: you you wouldn't got some water and it's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm now questioned fully and I stole a pumpkin.
Speaker 1: It's right, No, we have a pumpkin. It's kind of
Speaker 1: changed the vibe in the room, though, I know the better. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling more hocus focused. Did you did you talk
Speaker 1: about how this could be something of a of a
Speaker 1: combo between a triceratops and a striasaurus, a striaca saurus.
Speaker 1: I don't even know that one. No, no, uh, that's
Speaker 1: that's a good point, because we it behooves staff some specificity.
Speaker 1: You're right, I just got excited and said dinosaur. But
Speaker 1: saying dinosaur is like saying chair or cancer. It describes
Speaker 1: a rough concept of a thing, but there's so many differences.
Speaker 1: H No, With the Imili Polka, we also see the
Speaker 1: we we see descriptions of it. The date back pretty far,
Speaker 1: but not as far back as the descriptions of our
Speaker 1: earlier super eel, the Incan Yamba. So the Incan Yamba
Speaker 1: maybe an exaggerated story about something that was real. The
Speaker 1: militant in Toca is a little harder to explain. Was
Speaker 1: it somebody like in all the drawings that you see
Speaker 1: of it? It looks reptilian right, all the depictions. Of course,
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, there are no photographs. So going to your
Speaker 1: earlier point and well it it has a horn, it
Speaker 1: has you know, rough skin, it's stuck covered with fur feathers.
Speaker 1: So could they just be seeing a rhinoceros again in
Speaker 1: the wild, panicking and freaking out? Because I would. This
Speaker 1: is why I want to bring up, Yeah, when is
Speaker 1: the last time you guys saw with your eyes a rhinoceros?
Speaker 1: A number of years ago? About six I guess I
Speaker 1: must have seen one zood up somewhere, but I can't
Speaker 1: recall which which zoo like really really picture in your
Speaker 1: and the last time you saw rhinoceros, so that's six
Speaker 1: years ago. Was that a zoo too, I wasn't just
Speaker 1: like on the street. Yeah, those things are just odd.
Speaker 1: They don't feel real, especially if you live anywhere near
Speaker 1: a city, like anywhere, it doesn't matter where on Earth.
Speaker 1: If you live near a city, you probably aren't going
Speaker 1: to see a rhinoceros very often. True. Um, And if
Speaker 1: if you just really behold one walking around, it's an
Speaker 1: it's an odd experience. So I'm just saying, um, to
Speaker 1: your point, Ben, what you were trying to build off
Speaker 1: of what you were saying, to just behold one, um
Speaker 1: may throw you off, especially if it's far enough in
Speaker 1: the distance it looks even bigger than maybe it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just compared to the surrounding foliage or whatever it's near.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw one in the wild
Speaker 1: to like most of us, since the majority of human
Speaker 1: beings live in urban areas. Now that's true, that's a
Speaker 1: change that happened or in our lifetime. That means the
Speaker 1: majority of us will see, Uh, most of the wild
Speaker 1: animals will see are going to be in the animal
Speaker 1: jails that we call zoos, or at least in a
Speaker 1: protected reserve somewhere. Okay, yes, which is better than his.
Speaker 1: And that's not a deing on zoos and being a
Speaker 1: little bit unfair to them, because zoos do tremendous conservation work,
Speaker 1: and the Atlanta Zoo actually has, I think, is this
Speaker 1: huge force in the community. I think they do do
Speaker 1: good work as well, and they just expanded and they
Speaker 1: have a savannah section now, which is you know, Oh,
Speaker 1: I haven't been there. Yeah, I haven't either. It's down
Speaker 1: by my house, so I've been seeing the construction going
Speaker 1: on for quite a while, but I have not been
Speaker 1: since it's been opened up, so it'd be interesting to checkout.
Speaker 1: I know some people are super anti zoo, which I understand,
Speaker 1: but I also understand that many of these animals would
Speaker 1: not be able to survive in the wild, and that's
Speaker 1: why they bring them in and take good care of them.
Speaker 1: In zoos, I don't know. We've talked about the poaching
Speaker 1: problem that is severe rhinoceroses, and I mean take the
Speaker 1: example of tigers. There are I think more tigers living
Speaker 1: in captivity in Texas then there are in the wild
Speaker 1: across the planet. Uh, And that's that's uh, that's from
Speaker 1: a few years ago. Conservation efforts have up the tiger population.
Speaker 1: Actually get notifications about tigers on Twitter. Nice doesn't always
Speaker 1: just come up with some sports stuff, no I I uh,
Speaker 1: right now, I'm following something called Tiger Tuesday, which I
Speaker 1: didn't know as a thing, and it's where people just
Speaker 1: point just post pictures of tigers. Oh wait, some sports
Speaker 1: stuff creeps in. But I'm you know, I'm there for
Speaker 1: the animals that should get better hobbies, guys. But so
Speaker 1: we've been talking about large creatures in the African continent
Speaker 1: and again, as you can tell, the big question for
Speaker 1: us is how could something be this big and remain undiscovered.
Speaker 1: But let's go, let's go across the water. Let's let's
Speaker 1: explore the story of what of the cryptods. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: we haven't done a full episode on. And that is
Speaker 1: the thunderbird. Oh okay, the fabulous thunderbird. Yes, okay, so
Speaker 1: quick story to get us into this. Driving around with
Speaker 1: the wife and kid a couple of days ago and
Speaker 1: we're just pulling up to a stop side and my
Speaker 1: son looks out his window and just kind of says, uh,
Speaker 1: what's that? And it was too huge. I believe there
Speaker 1: were turkey vultures, so much larger birds than um any
Speaker 1: of us are used to seeing just in the wild
Speaker 1: at any time. I I couldn't say exactly how tall
Speaker 1: they were, maybe three ft tall something to that effect.
Speaker 1: Three ft is probably about about three feet tall. But
Speaker 1: as my son is remarking about them, they put their
Speaker 1: wings out and fly upwards. And seeing a bird of
Speaker 1: that size up close was intense. And I don't I
Speaker 1: mean no, you would have. You would have probably um
Speaker 1: pepeed myself or at least jumped out and tried to
Speaker 1: attack them just to get them away. No, I would
Speaker 1: have pepeed myself and then possibly gone into an irreversible comma.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, well, well we would have taken measures. I
Speaker 1: don't think you understand of fear I have towards large birds.
Speaker 1: Forget to forget about it. So here's the thing. Could
Speaker 1: you know, describe to us what it would be like
Speaker 1: to see a thunderbird. I'd rather not, but I would
Speaker 1: give on my best. I will give it my all.
Speaker 1: So the popular hot spots for seeing these very large
Speaker 1: bird like creatures would be in northern Canada and even Alaska. Ben,
Speaker 1: did you happen to catch any while you were vacationing there.
Speaker 1: And then in Alaska vacation, yeah, I saw a moose.
Speaker 1: Uh and that was enough for me because those those things,
Speaker 1: these are huge. There's a problem since we've got this
Speaker 1: pumpkin here. There's a problem in Alaska for people trying
Speaker 1: to celebrate Halloween because when they carve pumpkins and they
Speaker 1: set them out on their porch, depending on where they live,
Speaker 1: it's like candy to a moose can smell it and
Speaker 1: they just come to it, and you can't stop them.
Speaker 1: What you can do. But but yeah, I would I
Speaker 1: would have freaked out if I saw something larger than
Speaker 1: a moose, right absolutely, it would have been that. And
Speaker 1: then you could even see them down in Central America.
Speaker 1: But in Canada, um you actually there's there's like totem
Speaker 1: poles that are in the shape of thunderbird. Is a
Speaker 1: place called Thunderbird Park in Victoria, British Columbia, um where
Speaker 1: you can see some of these very things um and
Speaker 1: they are the stuff of legend um mythical creatures in fact,
Speaker 1: sort of eagle like birds that are known for having
Speaker 1: very powerful talents um and and very much present in
Speaker 1: Native American culture, various tribe in the American Midwest, and
Speaker 1: as we said in Canada, the Sioux Nation UH, the
Speaker 1: Brule Sioux Um from South Dakota UM on a reservation
Speaker 1: known as the Rosebud Reservation. UM has their own thunderbird
Speaker 1: legend called the wakan yon tonka Um also known as
Speaker 1: the Great Thunderbird. So, so if you're imagining these things,
Speaker 1: it's like a large feathered pterodon or pterodactyl, like huge
Speaker 1: and nol. I'm gonna show you a picture here, and
Speaker 1: I want you to describe this picture because I have
Speaker 1: a feeling if you came across this in real life,
Speaker 1: you'd have a reaction. Look at this picture right here.
Speaker 1: I've seen that it looks it looks like it looks
Speaker 1: like a giant corvette kind of which a friend to
Speaker 1: Ben's the world over um. Ben commands them and they
Speaker 1: sort of flocked to him and they bring him shiny
Speaker 1: things and it's it's a symbiotic relationship. But this thing
Speaker 1: twice as tall as that, twice as tall as this
Speaker 1: gentleman posing with this uh with this taxis are made cars.
Speaker 1: It's not real. It's not real. It's it's in imagination.
Speaker 1: It's an imagining of what a thunderbird how it's been described. Okay,
Speaker 1: well it's it's the wingspan would probably be in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood of I don't know, about twenty feet. That's that's correct.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, the thunderbird evolved from the word
Speaker 1: we use now has taken a meaning that evolved from
Speaker 1: the original mythology. It is present in a lot of
Speaker 1: ancient Native American mythology. You can find very old uh,
Speaker 1: sandstone carvings. You can find paintings and caves and so on,
Speaker 1: and that, you know, like the total poles you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: but now and in the recent in the recent past,
Speaker 1: the phrase thunderbird has been used to describe any large, flying,
Speaker 1: unidentified organism in the US for the quote unquote New World.
Speaker 1: So you'll hear people like, like, the common thing people
Speaker 1: say is like, well, it it flew, but reports didn't
Speaker 1: see it had feathers, so it's obviously a terra dactyl
Speaker 1: or you know, a relic population of something like you know,
Speaker 1: some creature like that, a flying reptile. But then you'll
Speaker 1: hear other people say, no, it's uh, it's it's essentially
Speaker 1: a massive eagle, it's big enough to take your children.
Speaker 1: And they also say, but those terrastaurs did have feathers, dude,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. So this animal is, or this cryptid, i
Speaker 1: should say, is almost too famous for our cryptids you've
Speaker 1: never heard of lists. Yeah, I think you just wanted
Speaker 1: to explore it a little more because growing up, if
Speaker 1: you were ever one of those kids who read those
Speaker 1: Time Life mystery boks, they all had names that were
Speaker 1: kind of similar, like Mysteries of the Unknown or Unexplored
Speaker 1: Unknown Mysteries baron normal, you know what I mean. They
Speaker 1: would always trot out stories about the thunderbird, usually the
Speaker 1: same one. There's a story about these guys who will
Speaker 1: save it when we if we ever do an episode
Speaker 1: just on the thunderbird. Is a story about these guys
Speaker 1: who shoot and capture one and have the body so
Speaker 1: Habeas corpus and all that. So they ate for a month.
Speaker 1: Well they take it back. But then as we hear,
Speaker 1: you know, and like a lot of those stories stories
Speaker 1: of giants from that time, stories about the c Techka
Speaker 1: and all these other things, for some reason the proof
Speaker 1: they had, the tangible proof disappeared, and you can see
Speaker 1: those reproduction photos. Right, that may may be out and
Speaker 1: out hoaxes, but we have to ask ourselves, if there
Speaker 1: was such a large creature now, especially with the popularity
Speaker 1: of aircraft, how on earth, how on earth have we
Speaker 1: not seen it? This one. I would say it's possible
Speaker 1: that it was. It was an ancestral memory of a
Speaker 1: very large creature. But then again, the big birds that
Speaker 1: we know about, at least in this continent, and from
Speaker 1: what I understand, the big birds we know about the
Speaker 1: we sea on this continent. As early humans were flightless, right,
Speaker 1: they weren't like the big bird for his estime stream, Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. But mean he I don't know, he's got
Speaker 1: a tempers aren't roll up. Yeah, he's got a dark,
Speaker 1: real monster. And while we're on this subject of terrifying things,
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Speaker 1: let's get back to the show. Alright, we're back. We're back.
Speaker 1: We're done with birds. We're going to explore something different.
Speaker 1: So if you something even worse, well that depends worse
Speaker 1: for me. Worse for me. What's what? Well, statistically worse
Speaker 1: for people. It is the story of the jibab fopy
Speaker 1: j apostrophe b A f O f I. The name
Speaker 1: translates to great spider. This is also in the Congo.
Speaker 1: It is exactly what it says on the tin, huge
Speaker 1: spider with allegedly a six foot wide legspan. Yeah, six
Speaker 1: ft and supposedly it's a fan of eating monkeys, birds, yes,
Speaker 1: and even small antelopes and humans. Obviously, of course that's
Speaker 1: to mention the besides their absurd bean as you would say,
Speaker 1: cartoonish size, their brown um and and said to be
Speaker 1: darker the older they get, which is interesting fact um
Speaker 1: or no it's not call it a fact, let's call
Speaker 1: it a detail. Um. And they have a large purple
Speaker 1: mark on their abdomens, so it sounds like a poison boy. Right,
Speaker 1: They've got like some sort of shape mark. Uh. And
Speaker 1: they're black. Um. That doesn't sound good right, Nature's way
Speaker 1: of saying, watch out back, t off. Uh. They're said
Speaker 1: to live in a similar um to the smaller trapdoor
Speaker 1: spider uh conditions um, where they burrow into the ground. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's terrifying. Can you imagine something that big that's
Speaker 1: burrowed into a hole. You're like, oh, what's the what's
Speaker 1: that whole? Yeah? It makes me. It makes me think
Speaker 1: of the scene in The Hobbit, you know with the
Speaker 1: giant spiders that the Sheilau and is that Hobbit or
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. It's the Hobbits the Hobbit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I remember it from the ranking not ranking bass,
Speaker 1: the his ranking bass, the animated one with the weird
Speaker 1: singing that great test you know. Yeah, that's there's a
Speaker 1: part where the spiders get Bilbo and crew. It is,
Speaker 1: it's both. It's definitely in the Hobbit. It's definitely in
Speaker 1: the animated version of the hobby That's what I'm talking about. Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: I remember, you know he's traveling with the with the
Speaker 1: with the dwarves and they get abducted by spiders and
Speaker 1: the spider wraps them all up and it's a whole thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember that he's got the little the little sword sting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, I'm thinking of the book. I'm thinking not
Speaker 1: in the book. Did they take some license with that
Speaker 1: scene in the book? In the book, Shelob the spider,
Speaker 1: the evil uh spider is in Lord of the Red.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely correct about that. And I don't think the
Speaker 1: spider in the animated Hobbit had a name. It was
Speaker 1: just creepy spiders. Um. But that's the one that made
Speaker 1: the most indelible mark on me when I was Maybe
Speaker 1: Tolkien had a thing for spiders, maybe he like they
Speaker 1: were scary to him, and that's why I put it in.
Speaker 1: He would have loved this jabab fophy. And also makes
Speaker 1: me think of George R. Martin and the the game
Speaker 1: Songs of Fire and Ice books talks about, you know,
Speaker 1: the the winter that lasted you know years or whatever,
Speaker 1: and the spiders the size of hounds is what they say, Well,
Speaker 1: we do have a possible explanation for this, and it's
Speaker 1: even it's just as creepy and it's worse yet. So
Speaker 1: here's the thing, though, reports of this have been taking
Speaker 1: place since the eighteenth century or since the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: and the Western Europeans found out about it in ninety
Speaker 1: eight because people from Europe started claiming they had seen
Speaker 1: these massive spiders, and given the politics of the time,
Speaker 1: essentially what happened is the other Europeans said, okay, alright, well,
Speaker 1: if someone who has the same color skin as us
Speaker 1: said something, maybe we should believe them, which is just
Speaker 1: the opposite of critical thinking, right. And because of these descriptions,
Speaker 1: and because they matched so well, they were consistent from
Speaker 1: different populations, they were burrowing trap spiders like you said. No.
Speaker 1: Because of this, people treated uh descriptions of these animals
Speaker 1: with a little more they give him a little more
Speaker 1: credibility than they would have ordinarily. But there has been
Speaker 1: one theory advanced about the jibbuf fofi that's as maybe
Speaker 1: they're the misidentification of another type of animal that has
Speaker 1: proven to exist, but it not in a way that
Speaker 1: makes it better. It's called a coconut crab. It sounds delightful.
Speaker 1: It sounds delicious, sounds like something you'd get like at
Speaker 1: a Hawaiian joint. Coconut crab, little pineapple dipping sauce on
Speaker 1: the side, bring it on the spot. Well, just for
Speaker 1: just for scale, guys, I'm gonna show you a picture
Speaker 1: of how big the coconut crab is. That is a
Speaker 1: full sized trash can. It's on a giant trash and
Speaker 1: it looks sort of like a creepy lobster. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: on land, just hanging out a lot of times you
Speaker 1: see them rolling with coconuts for real, rolling around with
Speaker 1: coconuts and they're huge. Yeah, they're the largest lands crab.
Speaker 1: They also they make an impression, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: they're terrestrial hermit crabs and oh I'm sorry, excuse me.
Speaker 1: Not just the largest land crab. They're the largest land
Speaker 1: living arthropod overall in the world, and we think that
Speaker 1: given the environment of our current age, they are at
Speaker 1: the upper limit for what an animal with an exoskeleton
Speaker 1: can grow to be. There as big as it gets
Speaker 1: unless the environment literally changes. It makes total sense. And
Speaker 1: this also gives us some arguments against the existence of
Speaker 1: this great spider, because spiders also have limits to how
Speaker 1: big they can grow due to what they could structurally
Speaker 1: support from where their bodies are. I won't stay designed
Speaker 1: from the way their bodies happened, uh and uh or
Speaker 1: the way their bodies evolved. Um. They also have a
Speaker 1: respiratory system that limits what they can what they can
Speaker 1: grow into. But did they exist in the past, yes,
Speaker 1: or you know, oh, perhaps perhaps you're talking about But
Speaker 1: the coconut crab exists. Yeah, that definitely, that's that's a
Speaker 1: real thing. It's a real thing. Yeah, Matt, are you
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with coconut crabs? I think I am. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think one coconut crab is fine. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: But if if coconut crab has maybe her whole family
Speaker 1: around a bunch, yeah, I don't think I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: You know, they they live probably over sixty years. Well,
Speaker 1: so you could get one and maybe bond with it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the same with most a lot of crustaceans right now.
Speaker 1: They have absurdly long lives, like the lob the Lobsters.
Speaker 1: I believe that's correct. I learned that from the film
Speaker 1: The Lobster because the Colin Carl's character Ferrell, he wanted
Speaker 1: to become a lobster because it lives a very long time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was That was such a mc sweeney's type of movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm big, heavy New Yorker type stuff. Right, I'm checking
Speaker 1: right now and see whether or not you can get
Speaker 1: a coconut crab as a pet. It looks like they're
Speaker 1: conservation status is undecided. The data is deficient, So let
Speaker 1: us know if you live in an area where coconut
Speaker 1: crab or around, or if you've seen one, whether you
Speaker 1: think it could be mistaken for a malicious spider. This
Speaker 1: is my favorite, just the name alone. Oh, we're removing on.
Speaker 1: I think we should. All right, let's do it. We
Speaker 1: don't have to. You wanna talk more about crabs? No, no,
Speaker 1: just take us there. Okay, I'm gonna take you all
Speaker 1: in the format. I'm gonna take you there with two
Speaker 1: or to my friends rhinoceros dolphin. Finally, boom, that's what
Speaker 1: I say. So we've been asking for this whole time.
Speaker 1: It's like a crypted whale with two dorsal fins and
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty off the coast of uh the Sandwich Islands,
Speaker 1: which is a thing um and New South Wales. Gen
Speaker 1: Rene Constant Qui, who was a zoologist and anatomist um
Speaker 1: in addition to his pal Joseph Paul Jama, who was
Speaker 1: a naturalist um, spotted what seemed to be never before
Speaker 1: seeing species of dolphins. And forgive me French folks, we
Speaker 1: don't have the benefit of casey pegram on the case
Speaker 1: with us today. But coi or quai koi? What do
Speaker 1: you think ben I would go? Quoi que you o
Speaker 1: y I would go because it's fun to say, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say. Jamma chose to call this this new underwater
Speaker 1: pal um the rhinoceros dolphins. It's an official name, being
Speaker 1: Delphine's Rhinoceros. There have been a total of nine rhinoceros
Speaker 1: dolphins cited swimming side by side um in in a
Speaker 1: pod in the Atlantic Ocean. That's the thing. Yes, So
Speaker 1: these are credible witnesses who saw multiple instances of what
Speaker 1: appears to be a different they're up to that point,
Speaker 1: undiscovered creature, and they were probably, like a lot of
Speaker 1: us listening now, filled with an immense sense of relief
Speaker 1: because you know, I think we can all agree the crappiest,
Speaker 1: most irritating, depressing thing about dolphins and rhinoceros is that
Speaker 1: they're not lumped together in one species yet. You know,
Speaker 1: you see a dolphin and you're just like, um, fifty there,
Speaker 1: but I cannot approve of this. I need I need
Speaker 1: that fifty of rhino. Oh yeah, well, and that's that's
Speaker 1: the whole thing with these um, these rhin rhinocerous dolphins,
Speaker 1: is that you know, you've got these experts viewing this
Speaker 1: this pod essentially right hanging out there. They're used to
Speaker 1: seeing perhaps whales, perhaps dolphins, perhaps killer whales, and they
Speaker 1: see these things and they noticed a couple of things
Speaker 1: are different. Right. It's not that it's not the same
Speaker 1: coloration as a lot of dolphins that they've observed in
Speaker 1: the past. These are I think they're white and black,
Speaker 1: like the white spots on a like a black body. Yea, um,
Speaker 1: similar to a killer whale, but or at least in
Speaker 1: the two colors. And they noticed that rather than a
Speaker 1: single dorsal fin like you'd see on any dolphin, uh,
Speaker 1: they had to right, Yeah, one curved fin near the
Speaker 1: head and one curved fin on the back. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's that second fin is placed a little further back
Speaker 1: then where a dolphins fin would normally be. And they
Speaker 1: also thought from what they could see that the pectoral
Speaker 1: fins were larger than average. And do we say it's
Speaker 1: nine ft long, No, we didn't. It's fine feet long,
Speaker 1: two fifty pounds. But although that's that's that's a big boy.
Speaker 1: That's a big ocean boy. And it's also an estimation
Speaker 1: from being on a ship sailing these but you know
Speaker 1: with not with a sample size of nine. Yes, and
Speaker 1: we're having experts. So this so this is, uh, this
Speaker 1: interesting case because if there are any undiscovered cryptids or
Speaker 1: large creatures as we have seen, everything we know tells
Speaker 1: us that they are going, they're most likely to be
Speaker 1: discovered in the ocean. And now so now we know
Speaker 1: that just because of that fact, that fact alone, this
Speaker 1: one has a little more likelihood of being a true
Speaker 1: case of of an unapprehended or undocumented, unproven cryptid that
Speaker 1: is a real animal. But we have to ask ourselves
Speaker 1: what can it be? We have to play, you know,
Speaker 1: in the stick in the mud police here. First, it
Speaker 1: could just be a group of dolphins that had a deformity,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. They were the dolphin version
Speaker 1: of an inbred hillbilly clan, which I know it sounds dismissive,
Speaker 1: but what we're saying is they could have just been
Speaker 1: a a group or a pod that over time had
Speaker 1: passed a mutation onto one another. Okay, okay, okay, Well
Speaker 1: there's a there's another idea here that possibly it was
Speaker 1: a different kind of whale that they saw that actually
Speaker 1: looks a little bit like a dolphin called the blains
Speaker 1: Ville's what is it, Blaine Blaineville's beaked whale b E
Speaker 1: A K E D whale. Doesn't that sound like some
Speaker 1: you have buy it a grocery store? Yeah, exactly, Blain Well,
Speaker 1: you can. You can look up pictures of these. It's
Speaker 1: a very different looking whale, and that dorsal fin is pushed.
Speaker 1: It looks like it's pushed way back towards the tail,
Speaker 1: and they've got horns to right. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: very different creature, and if you had never seen one before,
Speaker 1: and let's say eighteen twenty um, maybe you believe it's
Speaker 1: just a different looking creature. One other theory was proposed
Speaker 1: by marine biologist Richard Ellis. He said, what if the
Speaker 1: what was called the rhinoceros dolphin was just a normal
Speaker 1: dolphin that had a sucker fish or romora attached to
Speaker 1: its head. Again, the problem of observation. But either way,
Speaker 1: this feels like so they saw the two creatures like
Speaker 1: together in concert and thought it was a super creature. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like maybe they saw it from far enough away
Speaker 1: that they musstook the romora for being another fin. But
Speaker 1: there's a problem with that because they saw nine different Again,
Speaker 1: the thing here is they saw nine different instances of this. Uh,
Speaker 1: so this would mean this would mean we have to
Speaker 1: ask ourselves what is more likely. Is it more likely
Speaker 1: that nine separate romura matched up with nine separate dolphins
Speaker 1: and attached themselves to the same position on their body,
Speaker 1: or is it more likely that there is a you know,
Speaker 1: a different explanation that they were supposed to have these fins?
Speaker 1: Still that gives this is probably our strongest example of
Speaker 1: something that might actually be a real thing, unless, of course,
Speaker 1: you're into the idea of an enormous octopus. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: been a journey of discovery, as it not, gentleman. Um. Well, next,
Speaker 1: we're going to continue that into into the into the
Speaker 1: depths with the Carro come away. Uh. The native I
Speaker 1: Knew people of Japan have long believed that Volcano Bay,
Speaker 1: which is off the coast of Hokkaido, has a population
Speaker 1: of giant octopus is called a carro come away, and
Speaker 1: they have been sighted supposedly, purportedly rather um for for
Speaker 1: many many years. Yeah. Yeah. There was a British missionary's
Speaker 1: name was John Bachelor. He was working in the area
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds and he wrote down a
Speaker 1: sighting in a book he had called The I Knew
Speaker 1: and Their Folklore, And he said that a great sea
Speaker 1: monster with large staring eyes had attacked three local fishermen
Speaker 1: and their boat. So imagine those old woodcuts of a
Speaker 1: boat sailing and then a leviathan like creature wrapping its
Speaker 1: tentacles around the mass of the plane. It was like that.
Speaker 1: And he said the monster was round in shape and
Speaker 1: emitted a dark fluid and noxious odor. The three men
Speaker 1: fled in dismay, Not so much indeed for fear, they say,
Speaker 1: but on account of the dreadful smell, however that may
Speaker 1: have been. They were so scared that the next morning
Speaker 1: all three refused to get up and eat. They were
Speaker 1: lying in their beds, pale and trembling. So the Japanese
Speaker 1: story giant octopus, I feel like that could absolutely be true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's I mean, just now that we know the giant
Speaker 1: squids exist, I feel like the giant octopus is just waiting.
Speaker 1: It's just waiting to be found. It really wants to wait. Wait.
Speaker 1: There was a sighting recently, there was a there there
Speaker 1: there was some some reports about not too long ago,
Speaker 1: about some giants, giant squids at the very least, Yeah, squids,
Speaker 1: I think that's what we're talking about, the colossal squid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but an octopus would be a little bit different and uh,
Speaker 1: I think a little more exciting because they're so intelligent.
Speaker 1: Squids are are relatively intelligent, aren't they cephalopods as well
Speaker 1: or not? Yeah, but they're not like the octopus is
Speaker 1: the brain, the brains of their hist game of the
Speaker 1: tentacles sea dwellers exactly. What if they leaked up with
Speaker 1: rhinoceros dolphins, that'd be some stuff that'd be hot. The
Speaker 1: Hot mix tape, the Hot mixtape. Yeah, that's a good look. Uh.
Speaker 1: And now we're going to draw to a close because
Speaker 1: we've we've touched on some that will hopefully be new.
Speaker 1: I know that we've I know that I've definitely mispronounced
Speaker 1: some of these things because they don't speak some of
Speaker 1: these languages. But we hope this was enjoyable. Nonetheless, we
Speaker 1: want to throw it to you. How likely is it
Speaker 1: that any of these creatures we we just explored might exist?
Speaker 1: We can also you know, there's a whole list of
Speaker 1: cryptids we didn't name, chupacabra, mantis man, skunk ape, swamp ape,
Speaker 1: Giglioli's whale, which just sounds like fun. It's a giggle
Speaker 1: inducing that's for damn. So do you think any of
Speaker 1: these creatures could be real animals? More importantly, does your
Speaker 1: local community or region have a cryptod of its own?
Speaker 1: Is it something that people like use as a joke
Speaker 1: or is it something that they take seriously? Tell us
Speaker 1: about it. You can find us all over the internet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you live in Maryland tell us about the goat
Speaker 1: man allegedly and Prince George's county there is the goat man,
Speaker 1: and I want to know about it. Every time you
Speaker 1: hear goat man. For some reason, I have a parody
Speaker 1: song of Sound Garden spoon Man playing in my head.
Speaker 1: But it's just growing together with goah. So you can
Speaker 1: give us a call if you want to tell us
Speaker 1: about any of that stuff. We are one eight three
Speaker 1: three st d w y t K. That's st d
Speaker 1: w y t K. That was a good one because
Speaker 1: a lot of somebody wrote in not long ago saying
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand what you were saying. Um, that is
Speaker 1: the thing. It's just stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: Call the number, leave a message you might get on
Speaker 1: the air. We'll hear it. It'll be awesome. It's that easy.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to do any of that, just
Speaker 1: write us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy
Speaker 1: at i heeart radio dot com. M H. Stuff they
Speaker 1: Don't Want You to Know is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,