September 27, 2018 • 29 mins
Horror fans can tell you there's more than one type of vampire -- in fact, there are hundreds of vampire-like fiends in cultures around the world. In most cases these are dismissed as spooky stories for children or ancient myths, but when the CIA needed to oust a group of Communist rebels in the Philippines, they decided to make the myth of the Aswang a reality.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thanks for tuning in.
Do you remember how earlier in uh, in a previous episode,
we had said we would maybe do more ghost or
monster spooky stories leading into Halloween. Yes, yes, I do
remember that. Then we're a little early for Halloween. But
you know what, we're so chock full of monsters that
we're we just we just got them spelling out of
(00:45):
the sides. So we're gonna start early with a story
about something called the Aswang. Yes, you're right, You're you're right,
I think either way. Uh, you are correct. We were
talking about a very specific type of monster. And before
we get to it, let's introduce one of our favorite monsters,
ladies and gentlemen, Super producer Casey Pegram Casey, are you
(01:09):
okay that I referred to you as a monster? As
that love it Casey on the case. So, growing up,
were you into monsters? No? I mean, I'm I'm clearly
a monster myself because I'm meeting cheese. It's on this show.
Unastraptable in behavior, borish. Oh gosh, I hate myself now.
Of course I love monsters. Yeah, yeah, I was a
(01:30):
little frightened of them. I thought they lived under my
bed and in my closet. Um. Do you remember that
movie The Willies Barely a deep cut has young Sean
Aston in it, and it's sort of an are You
Afraid of the Dark style camp fire tail movie where
it's an anthology, And there was one in particular where
there was a really creepy, gangly kind of pumpkin head
(01:52):
looking monster with long, skinny fingers who menaced the children
at a middle school, and that stuck with me. Then, Yeah,
it's strange when you think of how profoundly some of
those things can impact us as children. I was addicted
to scary stories to tell in the dark. Covers alone
are like nightmare fuel, pure nightmare fuel, and the guy's
(02:14):
a legit folklorist. And one of the things I loved
about it was that it was it was different from
the usual fair of monstrosity that we see in the US.
I've also wondered, I don't know how much the games
done in this, but I've also wondered and marveled at
the sheer variety of goblins ghouls, which is a monsters
(02:37):
in other parts of the world, like just what we
would categorize as vampires, just that category alone contains hundreds
and hundreds of creatures that many people have never heard of,
but in their countries of origin, these creatures are taken very,
very seriously. And one of them is the ash Yeah,
the aswang is um sort of a pamp e on
(03:00):
of monsters, right. It's sort of like in Japanese culture
you've got the yokai, which are just kind of a
stand in for any kind of goblin or the magical
creature or whatever. And here's the thing. I wanted to
pose this to you before we get too much. We're
talking about our childhood um obsession and fear and um
you know PTSD associated with monsters. But as a thirty
(03:20):
five year old man uh and Ben, I'm not gonna
I'm not gonna spill your age, your ageless, but I
don't think monsters are real anymore. That is not something
that keeps me up at night. It's it's just normal
baseline anxiety that keeps me up at night. Now, that's
my monster. But in other countries that's not quite the case.
That's absolutely true. Hey, can I have some cheese? It's
(03:41):
do you have any thanks? Can you guys tell we're
recorded on a Friday afternoon. Thanks man. So, yeah, that's
absolutely true. These are taken seriously, and the ass one
is just one example. You will hear other names for
it too, like the tick tick or the clean clean
or the US long. But I think you're right. Our
(04:01):
fears tend to evolve with us, you know what I mean,
Our monsters grow up with us. That sounds way more
cryptic than I intended. And in the Philippines, where they
as well originates, they have often been taken very seriously
as like a legitimate, credible physical threat to you and
your loved ones. Yeah, it's one of those things where
(04:22):
you probably if you grew up in the Philippines, tasty
and got a good crunch, good trying to do it
off the mike goodbyte. Yeah, that's that's probably good etiquette.
But yeah, I mean, you know, if you grew up
in the Philippines, or you know somebody that grew up
in the Philippines, chances are you've met somebody that, whether
they themselves or someone they know or possibly their grandpa
or something, or you know, a loved one will have claimed,
(04:45):
uh with full belief, to have either encountered one of
these creatures possibly been attacked by one of them, or
even maybe know someone who met their untimely end at
the hands or claws or fangs or dripping intestines, dripping intestines. Yeah,
can we go through some of us of this? Yeah, okay. So,
as we mentioned, aswang is kind of an umbrella. It's
(05:07):
herb and in different regions of the Philippines you will
hear different descriptions of what an aswang actually is. And
despite its different variations, it is probably the most frightening
mythical creature in this type of folklore. So one thing
that's always kind of the common thread is that their
(05:29):
shape shifters, I can somehow change shape. The big differences
arrive when we ask what shapes they change into. So
we mentioned that they can have long clause, do we
mention the torso thing yet? You you alluded to it, Ben,
But but give us give us the quicken dirty. So
there's the appearance of a person. It's just a torso
(05:50):
arms in the head and they're flying. They levitate and
their intestines dripped down under them, just kind of dragging
like a like a train. And they eat unborn children
and toddlers. Usually they want to eat the livers and
the hearts. Yeah, and there's even one that I think
has some sort of specially adapted tongue that they can
(06:11):
use to suck out the fetus from a pregnant woman. Yeah,
like a like a very evil mosquito exactly. Yes. So
they're sometimes described as very very thin, they're always described
as kind of fast, and some of them make different noises, right,
(06:33):
that's going to be importantly Yeah, that's right. There's some
that look like pigs um who make obviously pig type noises,
snorting and you know, grinding their teeth, and and they're
also quite large. Then they're also like werewolf type oswang
that um are you know about, like you would think
some of them look more like a regular dog. Some
of them look like maybe like a hyena or a
(06:54):
jackal or something like that, or some kind of any
kind of like wild kind of rabid beast. But then
you have the scariest of all that there's a great
connection between this and the way we look at these
kind of creatures vampires. You've got the ones that look
mainly like you or I, but they are still out
for blood, livers and hearts, right, because they can shift
(07:17):
into a human form and then shift I guess into
their more monstrous forms, as legend would have it. As
legend would have it. Yes, very important, very important. They
also have these weird, these techniques that are so fascinating.
For instance, um, if you read on mythology dot net
just a quick overview of Aswong. There, it's apparently common
for Askewong to turn plants into doppel gangers of their
(07:41):
victims to hide evidence of their hunting from locals. That's
pretty cool, then, I mean, that's a pretty I mean
it's a dark power, but it's pretty neat power, right.
And so they do it in two ways. They might
make a doppel ganger of a corpse so it looks
like the person died without an Aswhong attack. Or they
might make a doppel gang er of a living person.
(08:01):
When they make one of a living person a living victim,
then the doppelganger goes to that person's home, they fall ill,
and they die. Why are we telling you all of this? Well,
we're telling you this because this story comes into play
in a very strange and ingenious way. Shortly after World
(08:22):
War Two, the Philippine Army is fighting an insurgency led
by communist rebels known as the hook ba llahap and
pardon my pronunciation, I am not a Tagalic speaker. Well,
you're not going to try the alternate pronunciation for when
they sort of shifted their their purposes. That one's even harder.
(08:45):
It's got like an energy pronounced that energy on its own.
M So this this army is having the age old
a series of problems that organized armies have when they
run into guerrilla forces. Right there, They're fighting an enemy
that is often invisible, able to blend in with the
(09:06):
local non fighting population, you know what I mean. And
they're like, how do we how do we combat this?
We need a method of our own. We need something
we could do that will um squash this rebellion, and
it may need to be an unconventional method because this
(09:26):
also just for the background here, Uh, these guys who
were also called Huck's h u K there fighting against
the status quo. Uh, the wealthy Filipinos who had collaborated
with Japanese invaders right because originally they um were part
of the team. Right during the during World War Two,
(09:48):
when the Philippines were leagued up with the US fighting
against the Japanese. UM this group was was fighting the
good fight, right, and then after the end of the
war they started, they kind of became installed as de
facto militia or military of the communist government, right right right,
because it's you can see how they feel very short
(10:08):
changed in this at this position because the collaborators with
the Japanese have grabbed a ton of land afterwards, and
they own a bunch of resources, and the inequality of
the country, which was already very extreme, is just going
to continue as though nothing has changed. So of course
they want a rebellion. Of course they want a different government.
(10:30):
And just to try my hand at butchering and pronunciation,
they did change the name after this Switchero happened to
Huckbo ng Bayan Leban SAHAPONS, known as the Anti Japanese Army.
That was pretty good, man, I thought that was pretty good.
But not only were they against the Japanese army, they
ultimately ended up becoming against the Filipino government because they
(10:53):
believe that the President Manuel Roxas was a sympathizer with
or or a collaborator. I guess with what the Japanese,
I'm gonna use about that, Yeah, that he was collaborating
with them to enrich himself. Uh and then also you know,
in his capitalism. So that's obviously not gonna fly with
(11:15):
these guys. But there's another another player enters the game, Yeah,
the big one, because lets we forget, the US is
involved and has an interest here and they want to
get those uh those huckbows literally running for the hill.
So inter Air Force Brigadier General Edward G I read
this originally, and I thought I said Landslide, which would
have been an awesome last name for a general, but
(11:35):
unfortunately it is Lansdale, Um. And he is a huge
proponent of a little something called psy ops. Ben bless
us with your military history, acumen. What psy ops? Thank
everybody knows psychological operations also known as psychological warfare. This
includes everything from propaganda given to soldiers over the radio
(11:57):
to things like post armies that we have mentioned before. Yeah,
like in Vietnam, Um, the US military used the sounds
recorded sounds of like wailing damned ancestors of the Vietcong,
and it it works. So I would say psy ops
a sort of the art of freaking out your enemy, right, Yeah,
(12:18):
I think that's a good way to describe its intimidation,
and Landsdale is very, very familiar with this. There's a
great book by an author named Max Boot called The
Road Not Taken Edward Landsdale in the American Tragedy in Vietnam,
which touches on some of Lansdale's activities. Lansdale is no
stranger to psy ops. He's a he's a huge fan
of psychological warfare, and he has he has chops, he
(12:41):
has some has some things on his resume that are
unethical but impressive. He orchestrates a campaign in Vietnam that
makes nearly a million refugees flee the country because he
hired a soothsayer to predict good fortune for South Vietnam
and bad luck for the North. Wow, so not firing
(13:04):
a shot, just getting into people's head. Yeah, you want
reminds me. There's an episode of Monty Python where it's
like the most dangerous joke in the world and they
use it against their enemies, and only every like major
commander can only hold like one word of the joke
at a time, because if they themselves read it in
one go they would be stricken mad or whatever. So
they hold it up for the enemy to see it.
You see it takes some kind of a minute to
(13:25):
recognize what it is, and then they all just laugh
themselves to death. Uh, you know, obviously kind of a
silly satirical version, but sort of describing this phenomenon that
we're talking about here using people's thoughts and attitudes and
preconceived ideas against them. Yes, and we have a quote,
uh from Landsdale himself. It's something called the Aswong Project
(13:47):
dot com SI war in the Philippines. Aswong and the
c I A. So this is before his Vietnam and stuff,
by the way, So Lansdale says, a combat SI war
squad was brought in to the Philippines. It planted stories
among town residents of an Asswhong living on the hills
where the hooks were based. So they spread these They
(14:10):
spread these rumors, and then two nights later, after giving
the stories time to sort of percolate up to the hucks,
the ambushers silently snatched the last man of a patrol
and they killed him. They punctured his neck with two
holes as if a vampire bit him, and they hung
(14:31):
his body up by the heels to exanguinate him, to
d drain him of all blood and then they took
the corpse and they dragged it back to the trail
where the guy would have disappeared, and he just plopped
his body out there. So what happened next, Well, they
like littered these corpses, you know, with all around the area.
(14:52):
And it did not go over well with the with
the invading forces right or the you know, attempting to
overthrow forces right right, the communist rebel groups. They returned,
they were trying to look for their comrade. And can
you imagine how frightening that is? Like, that's the thing.
It may sound silly for people to be frightened of
(15:14):
a mythological monster, right, but imagine you work with someone,
like think of all your coworkers. You work with someone,
You go out to a party with them, they disappear,
You come back the next day and you find them
with bite marks and no blood. That's frightening. I might
fall for that. I don't know, what do you think?
(15:34):
I mean? You know, tensions are already running high in
this true in the situation, just like guerrilla warfare. Um, yeah,
here's the here's the kicker. Though this was psy ops
on the surface, but psy ops typically doesn't involve war
crimes because you're not supposed to. You know, they're capturing
these people and then there basically torturing and murdering them. Yeah,
(15:58):
you know they're They're not like putting them in pow camps.
They are using them, using their flesh and blood as
some kind of crazy horror show to freak out their
their comrades. And that brings us to an interesting question
here because you know, it's this event is not something
that happened across the Philippines for you know, years and years.
(16:19):
It was this single operation. But they may not have
been actually scared of Naswong at all. They may have
just been scared of getting kidnapped and used as you know,
psychological torture for their compatriots. And a Huck squadron at
this time was about a hundred to three hundred soldiers,
and we don't know whether they were actually scared of
(16:42):
of a fictional creature or whether they were scared of
the very real and very ruthless as you mentioned c
I A right. Yeah, he had another trick that he
liked to use Lansdale called the Eye of God. And
this is much similar to the ghost tape kind of stuff.
We will hear about in Vietnam um where they basically
I don't know if they used a spooky voice over
(17:03):
the loudspeakers, but they were like calling out the names
of prominent huck you know, the commanders and threatening them
with certain death. And you know, I mean, can't you
picture of being kind of Scooby duod out like that?
Oh get to the best part though, oh yeah yeah.
So adding insult to injury, they would also um creep
into their camp and paint these spooky eyes on the
(17:26):
tent or wherever the people were sleeping the house, I
guess they had little huts. This is like they were
in their villages. I guess. For some reason, that seems
even creepier to me, to even creepier than hearing a
weird noise, waking up and finding this non consensual artwork,
you know what I mean. This didn't like you know,
(17:51):
clear the Huck's out overnight or anything. I mean it.
You know, it took about four years before Louis Taruk,
who had been the eater of of this organization for
quite some time, actually surrendered and accepted a prison sentence.
So you know, I mean, it's really interesting to read
about this stuff. And it's certainly a fascinating uh type
(18:13):
of warfare that often you mentioned earlier. Max Boot historian
says that this tactic was actually considered a war crime
because they were killing these Filipino soldiers um deliberately instead
of you know, capturing them um as enemy combatants. And
then of course they were mutilating their corpses too, so
(18:34):
not not a good look, but I guess effective. I
don't know what do you think then? Yeah, I mean,
definitely not a good look, but certainly effective. And the CIA,
so we clarify here, the CIA is telling the Filipinos
soldiers in the army to attack the communist rebels and
use these tactics, and they do work. I mean, by
(18:54):
the fifties, I think, as we mentioned, the huck certain
serious decline and Lansdale will go on to do more
of this sort of stuff, especially in Vietnam. As we
mentioned before, the type of techniques he applied were also
sometimes called black combat. He also did another another psyop
(19:18):
we should mention. He would have different messages broadcast. Know
you had mentioned earlier, the messages warning rebel leaders and
so on, but they would also fly planes very low
overhead and broadcast messages to make the rebels believe spies
were in their midst and they couldn't trust one another.
(19:40):
So eventually the rebels surrender, And there's no argument about it.
These tactics were very useful to Landsdale and to the
Army of the Philippines. The question that we have to
ask ourselves is at what price victory? You know what
(20:02):
I mean? It's not right to desecrate corpses. No, no,
it's definitely not And um, you know, I think our
boy Lansdale would go on to use slightly less brutal
techniques later in his career, but I guess this was
just kind of a different time. He's also for anybody
who wants a little bit of a lost treasure story.
(20:25):
He also shows up in the old legend of Yamashita's Gold,
which is this horde of treasure that was stolen by
the Japanese forces during World War two and hidden somewhere
in the Philippines, and the according to the story, it's
still there and you can go search for it yourself,
(20:47):
as many other treasure hunters have tried over the past
few decades. We should mention the existence of this treasure
is largely not taken seriously by a lot of experts,
but of course who doesn't want to find it. You
can read more about that by checking out work of
the author Sterling Sea Grave, who claims the gold was
secretly seized by the US government after the location was
(21:12):
discovered by interrogating and torturing uh yamashitas driver a major
Kojima Kashi. And then here's where Lansdale comes in. Apparently
he supervised the torture allegedly. Yeah, okay, he's a hardened mofo,
that's for sure. I mean, if he's hanging up dudes
by their toes and stabbing him in the side of
(21:33):
the neck and draining their blood and for the purposes
of spooking some enemy combatants, and then this guy could
probably do just about anything. How many um, I guess
folkloreic beliefs or mythological monsters. Do you think people honestly
believe in? Because I've heard in Iceland that people still
(21:54):
believe in uh fairies or nos trolls. Maybe, yeah, maybe trolls.
I don't know. Um, I don't know. Man, like I
I I want to believe You're very molder about that. Yeah,
I know. I'm just moldy, um and and and sad
and beaten down by life. Ben. But no, man, I
don't know who are we to say? Who are we
(22:15):
to say that's that's a good question, um, And you
know what that makes me think of? You know the
people who are to say, wow is awkward. Let's do
the listener mail, Let's do it well. Dominic Allen has
this to say, Hello, Jents, just listen to your episode
on the naming of California, and you asked us to
(22:36):
tell you if we ever have seen a griffin. I
have seen part of one, rather own part of one.
Maybe this ties in beautifully with today's episode two. We
just asked a question, what mythological creatures do you believe in?
Dominic says he owns one. I shouldn't dilly dally and
explain myself in there was a man called John mannvel
Or was there who wrote a book called The Travels
(22:57):
of Sir John mannvel Or did he? In this travel book,
he visits Asia and talks about the weird and wonderful
people and creatures that live there, one of them being
a griffin. This is also one of the more boring creatures.
He talks about He states that griffins are from a
country called Baccaria, and had talents so long as the
quote or quote so long, and so large, on great
upon his feet, as though they were horns of great oxen,
(23:20):
or of bugles, or of kind, so that men make
cups of them to drink of. So what I meant
was I have a drinking horn which is made from
the supposed claw of a griffin. I interjected with that
supposed at least that's what I tell people. I'm part
of a fourteenth century living history group in England and
it is a great conversation piece, as drinking horns weren't
(23:42):
as popular in that time, but a griffin claw is
a fascinating thing. The travels of Sir John Manville could
be a good podcast topic. I agree the people in
the book are pretty ridiculous. Thanks for the podcast, look
forward to more as they come. Always be ridiculous, not
going to be a problem, Dominic out now. We literally
are are contractually alligated a kid doing this, like we
(24:05):
get in trouble if we don't. But also that's so amazing.
This really inspires me to ask more questions on the show, Dominic.
Thank you for also bonus points if you can send
us a picture. Man, Oh yeah, we'd love that. And
I assume that you're not doing the fourteenth century living
history thing all the time, just because you did send
(24:26):
us an email. This arrived via email, not via uh
pigeon or parchment or a pigeon carry imparchment, But that's awesome.
I would love to see a picture of this drinking horn.
And I'm completely on board with the travels of Sir Mannville.
Our next listener mail is one that uh I, I
think both of us are really gonna dig. It is
(24:48):
from Darren T and it's titled hangus the Monkey. Hi,
says Darren. I listened from the start, but that's my
first time writing. I've just heard your recent podcast pasked
on the Heartletpool Monkey. I live in Thornaby on Tease,
ten miles up the road from Hartlepool, Heartlepool. He notes
his tea side, not time side, and he goes on
(25:11):
to say I was taught about this as a lesson
on propaganda and racism in primary school, showing how people
with nothing to go on but propaganda about how all
Frenchmen are short, wild and Harry can lead to this stuff.
Whether this is a true story or not, it works
as a great teaching tool, although I personally don't believe
(25:33):
it is true. I think it was just an excuse
for mocking nickname for people from the area. Here's the
part you like. Noal like Macum's, which are people from Sunderland,
and Smoggy's, which are people from Middlesbrough. But it's a
bit of fun. Thanks for the hours of entertainment, Darren. Ps.
You pronounced all the town side towns and cities correctly.
(25:54):
Thank you? Can Casey, can we get a Hallelujah clip o? Perfect?
So I gotta say, Darren, thank you for writing. I
am loving these very specific derogatory nicknames Mackam's, Smoggy's. Does
(26:14):
every town in England's have one of these? We don't
have anything like that for Atlanta. Guess I guess people
just say redneck, right, it's true. Well, maybe if you're listening,
you can suggest a cool mocking nickname for people from Atlanta.
I will say this about that episode. I do think
we kind of glossed over the fact that this was
an interesting teachable moment about racism and mothering and this
(26:36):
idea that this monkey supposedly was, you know, immediately identified
as being a Frenchman, and that was how Frenchmen were
depicted in these political cartoons of the time. So, you know,
I think there's a something to be said about that.
And I don't know if we mentioned this in the
episode either, but there is actually a play about the
Hartley Pool Monkey. I think we did, but it's if
(26:57):
we didn't describe it. It's so cool to look at
because it's this really amazing puppetry. I don't know if
you're familiar with the play war Horse, Um, that's got
this amazing like multi layered, uh puppetry sculpture kind of stuff,
and that's what the Harleypool Monkey play is about. And
it does kind of take a little liberty and talk
more about that, like the way we treat immigrants and
(27:18):
things like that, and so it's it's a there's a
kind of a twofold story there. And thank you again
to Dominic and Darren for writing in. Thank you, fellow
ridiculous historians for giving us a listen to day. While
we're thanking people, let's go ahead and thank our super producer,
Casey Pegram. Thanks also to our research associates, Eves Jeff's
Code who helped us out with this one. H and
(27:39):
also Christopher Haciotis, who continues to be a mensch and
we love him dearly and I think we might actually
have him on. We might have him on for an episode. Yeah,
he's he's coming back. It's over to Uh thanks to
Alex Williams who composed our theme, and UH thanks to
thanks to Jonathan Strickland ak the Quister for not showing
(27:59):
up on this episode. I have a feeling we haven't
seen the last of him. I hear that laugh in
the distance and I don't think it's Casey piping it
through the headphones. It haunts me a night man. Yes,
and speaking of haunting, we want to hear some of
your favorite ridiculous historical events involving the supernatural or allegations thereof.
(28:21):
You can tell us about these on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter,
and we particularly like to give a shout out to
our Ridiculous Historians Facebook page. It's one of the classiest
joints on the Internet. Yeah, and when one last little plug,
Ben and I recently appeared on a three part episode
of Behind the Bastards, which is a really really amazing show.
(28:42):
Out of our l a wing hosted by Robert Evans,
who is just a cracker jack writer and researcher, and
he was kind enough slash sadistic enough to have you
and I on for a four hour podcast marathon about
the infamous Alex Jones. Yeah, it's a it's a great listen.
Robert's a great guy. It is not for children. There
(29:02):
is strong language. If you want to hear me and
Ben eff and and Jeffen, that's the place to do
it and mature themes. But that was a good shout. Yeah,
and follow behind the bastards. If you like us, you're
gonna really dig that show. It's true and all three
parts of that trifecta are out. Now. It's a lot.
It's a real commitment. It's a road trip. But yeah,
that's that's it. Man. Let's uh, let's try to continue
(29:25):
our habit of uh not desecrating corpses to win wars. Yeah,
not digging up pope corpses to make points. I don't know.
All right, Well, Halloween, y'all, not even telloween all year?
Send us Jesus
Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thanks for tuning in.
Do you remember how earlier in uh, in a previous episode,
we had said we would maybe do more ghost or
monster spooky stories leading into Halloween. Yes, yes, I do
remember that. Then we're a little early for Halloween. But
you know what, we're so chock full of monsters that
we're we just we just got them spelling out of
(00:45):
the sides. So we're gonna start early with a story
about something called the Aswang. Yes, you're right, You're you're right,
I think either way. Uh, you are correct. We were
talking about a very specific type of monster. And before
we get to it, let's introduce one of our favorite monsters,
ladies and gentlemen, Super producer Casey Pegram Casey, are you
(01:09):
okay that I referred to you as a monster? As
that love it Casey on the case. So, growing up,
were you into monsters? No? I mean, I'm I'm clearly
a monster myself because I'm meeting cheese. It's on this show.
Unastraptable in behavior, borish. Oh gosh, I hate myself now.
Of course I love monsters. Yeah, yeah, I was a
(01:30):
little frightened of them. I thought they lived under my
bed and in my closet. Um. Do you remember that
movie The Willies Barely a deep cut has young Sean
Aston in it, and it's sort of an are You
Afraid of the Dark style camp fire tail movie where
it's an anthology, And there was one in particular where
there was a really creepy, gangly kind of pumpkin head
(01:52):
looking monster with long, skinny fingers who menaced the children
at a middle school, and that stuck with me. Then, Yeah,
it's strange when you think of how profoundly some of
those things can impact us as children. I was addicted
to scary stories to tell in the dark. Covers alone
are like nightmare fuel, pure nightmare fuel, and the guy's
(02:14):
a legit folklorist. And one of the things I loved
about it was that it was it was different from
the usual fair of monstrosity that we see in the US.
I've also wondered, I don't know how much the games
done in this, but I've also wondered and marveled at
the sheer variety of goblins ghouls, which is a monsters
(02:37):
in other parts of the world, like just what we
would categorize as vampires, just that category alone contains hundreds
and hundreds of creatures that many people have never heard of,
but in their countries of origin, these creatures are taken very,
very seriously. And one of them is the ash Yeah,
the aswang is um sort of a pamp e on
(03:00):
of monsters, right. It's sort of like in Japanese culture
you've got the yokai, which are just kind of a
stand in for any kind of goblin or the magical
creature or whatever. And here's the thing. I wanted to
pose this to you before we get too much. We're
talking about our childhood um obsession and fear and um
you know PTSD associated with monsters. But as a thirty
(03:20):
five year old man uh and Ben, I'm not gonna
I'm not gonna spill your age, your ageless, but I
don't think monsters are real anymore. That is not something
that keeps me up at night. It's it's just normal
baseline anxiety that keeps me up at night. Now, that's
my monster. But in other countries that's not quite the case.
That's absolutely true. Hey, can I have some cheese? It's
(03:41):
do you have any thanks? Can you guys tell we're
recorded on a Friday afternoon. Thanks man. So, yeah, that's
absolutely true. These are taken seriously, and the ass one
is just one example. You will hear other names for
it too, like the tick tick or the clean clean
or the US long. But I think you're right. Our
(04:01):
fears tend to evolve with us, you know what I mean,
Our monsters grow up with us. That sounds way more
cryptic than I intended. And in the Philippines, where they
as well originates, they have often been taken very seriously
as like a legitimate, credible physical threat to you and
your loved ones. Yeah, it's one of those things where
(04:22):
you probably if you grew up in the Philippines, tasty
and got a good crunch, good trying to do it
off the mike goodbyte. Yeah, that's that's probably good etiquette.
But yeah, I mean, you know, if you grew up
in the Philippines, or you know somebody that grew up
in the Philippines, chances are you've met somebody that, whether
they themselves or someone they know or possibly their grandpa
or something, or you know, a loved one will have claimed,
(04:45):
uh with full belief, to have either encountered one of
these creatures possibly been attacked by one of them, or
even maybe know someone who met their untimely end at
the hands or claws or fangs or dripping intestines, dripping intestines. Yeah,
can we go through some of us of this? Yeah, okay. So,
as we mentioned, aswang is kind of an umbrella. It's
(05:07):
herb and in different regions of the Philippines you will
hear different descriptions of what an aswang actually is. And
despite its different variations, it is probably the most frightening
mythical creature in this type of folklore. So one thing
that's always kind of the common thread is that their
(05:29):
shape shifters, I can somehow change shape. The big differences
arrive when we ask what shapes they change into. So
we mentioned that they can have long clause, do we
mention the torso thing yet? You you alluded to it, Ben,
But but give us give us the quicken dirty. So
there's the appearance of a person. It's just a torso
(05:50):
arms in the head and they're flying. They levitate and
their intestines dripped down under them, just kind of dragging
like a like a train. And they eat unborn children
and toddlers. Usually they want to eat the livers and
the hearts. Yeah, and there's even one that I think
has some sort of specially adapted tongue that they can
(06:11):
use to suck out the fetus from a pregnant woman. Yeah,
like a like a very evil mosquito exactly. Yes. So
they're sometimes described as very very thin, they're always described
as kind of fast, and some of them make different noises, right,
(06:33):
that's going to be importantly Yeah, that's right. There's some
that look like pigs um who make obviously pig type noises,
snorting and you know, grinding their teeth, and and they're
also quite large. Then they're also like werewolf type oswang
that um are you know about, like you would think
some of them look more like a regular dog. Some
of them look like maybe like a hyena or a
(06:54):
jackal or something like that, or some kind of any
kind of like wild kind of rabid beast. But then
you have the scariest of all that there's a great
connection between this and the way we look at these
kind of creatures vampires. You've got the ones that look
mainly like you or I, but they are still out
for blood, livers and hearts, right, because they can shift
(07:17):
into a human form and then shift I guess into
their more monstrous forms, as legend would have it. As
legend would have it. Yes, very important, very important. They
also have these weird, these techniques that are so fascinating.
For instance, um, if you read on mythology dot net
just a quick overview of Aswong. There, it's apparently common
for Askewong to turn plants into doppel gangers of their
(07:41):
victims to hide evidence of their hunting from locals. That's
pretty cool, then, I mean, that's a pretty I mean
it's a dark power, but it's pretty neat power, right.
And so they do it in two ways. They might
make a doppel ganger of a corpse so it looks
like the person died without an Aswhong attack. Or they
might make a doppel gang er of a living person.
(08:01):
When they make one of a living person a living victim,
then the doppelganger goes to that person's home, they fall ill,
and they die. Why are we telling you all of this? Well,
we're telling you this because this story comes into play
in a very strange and ingenious way. Shortly after World
(08:22):
War Two, the Philippine Army is fighting an insurgency led
by communist rebels known as the hook ba llahap and
pardon my pronunciation, I am not a Tagalic speaker. Well,
you're not going to try the alternate pronunciation for when
they sort of shifted their their purposes. That one's even harder.
(08:45):
It's got like an energy pronounced that energy on its own.
M So this this army is having the age old
a series of problems that organized armies have when they
run into guerrilla forces. Right there, They're fighting an enemy
that is often invisible, able to blend in with the
(09:06):
local non fighting population, you know what I mean. And
they're like, how do we how do we combat this?
We need a method of our own. We need something
we could do that will um squash this rebellion, and
it may need to be an unconventional method because this
(09:26):
also just for the background here, Uh, these guys who
were also called Huck's h u K there fighting against
the status quo. Uh, the wealthy Filipinos who had collaborated
with Japanese invaders right because originally they um were part
of the team. Right during the during World War Two,
(09:48):
when the Philippines were leagued up with the US fighting
against the Japanese. UM this group was was fighting the
good fight, right, and then after the end of the
war they started, they kind of became installed as de
facto militia or military of the communist government, right right right,
because it's you can see how they feel very short
(10:08):
changed in this at this position because the collaborators with
the Japanese have grabbed a ton of land afterwards, and
they own a bunch of resources, and the inequality of
the country, which was already very extreme, is just going
to continue as though nothing has changed. So of course
they want a rebellion. Of course they want a different government.
(10:30):
And just to try my hand at butchering and pronunciation,
they did change the name after this Switchero happened to
Huckbo ng Bayan Leban SAHAPONS, known as the Anti Japanese Army.
That was pretty good, man, I thought that was pretty good.
But not only were they against the Japanese army, they
ultimately ended up becoming against the Filipino government because they
(10:53):
believe that the President Manuel Roxas was a sympathizer with
or or a collaborator. I guess with what the Japanese,
I'm gonna use about that, Yeah, that he was collaborating
with them to enrich himself. Uh and then also you know,
in his capitalism. So that's obviously not gonna fly with
(11:15):
these guys. But there's another another player enters the game, Yeah,
the big one, because lets we forget, the US is
involved and has an interest here and they want to
get those uh those huckbows literally running for the hill.
So inter Air Force Brigadier General Edward G I read
this originally, and I thought I said Landslide, which would
have been an awesome last name for a general, but
(11:35):
unfortunately it is Lansdale, Um. And he is a huge
proponent of a little something called psy ops. Ben bless
us with your military history, acumen. What psy ops? Thank
everybody knows psychological operations also known as psychological warfare. This
includes everything from propaganda given to soldiers over the radio
(11:57):
to things like post armies that we have mentioned before. Yeah,
like in Vietnam, Um, the US military used the sounds
recorded sounds of like wailing damned ancestors of the Vietcong,
and it it works. So I would say psy ops
a sort of the art of freaking out your enemy, right, Yeah,
(12:18):
I think that's a good way to describe its intimidation,
and Landsdale is very, very familiar with this. There's a
great book by an author named Max Boot called The
Road Not Taken Edward Landsdale in the American Tragedy in Vietnam,
which touches on some of Lansdale's activities. Lansdale is no
stranger to psy ops. He's a he's a huge fan
of psychological warfare, and he has he has chops, he
(12:41):
has some has some things on his resume that are
unethical but impressive. He orchestrates a campaign in Vietnam that
makes nearly a million refugees flee the country because he
hired a soothsayer to predict good fortune for South Vietnam
and bad luck for the North. Wow, so not firing
(13:04):
a shot, just getting into people's head. Yeah, you want
reminds me. There's an episode of Monty Python where it's
like the most dangerous joke in the world and they
use it against their enemies, and only every like major
commander can only hold like one word of the joke
at a time, because if they themselves read it in
one go they would be stricken mad or whatever. So
they hold it up for the enemy to see it.
You see it takes some kind of a minute to
(13:25):
recognize what it is, and then they all just laugh
themselves to death. Uh, you know, obviously kind of a
silly satirical version, but sort of describing this phenomenon that
we're talking about here using people's thoughts and attitudes and
preconceived ideas against them. Yes, and we have a quote,
uh from Landsdale himself. It's something called the Aswong Project
(13:47):
dot com SI war in the Philippines. Aswong and the
c I A. So this is before his Vietnam and stuff,
by the way, So Lansdale says, a combat SI war
squad was brought in to the Philippines. It planted stories
among town residents of an Asswhong living on the hills
where the hooks were based. So they spread these They
(14:10):
spread these rumors, and then two nights later, after giving
the stories time to sort of percolate up to the hucks,
the ambushers silently snatched the last man of a patrol
and they killed him. They punctured his neck with two
holes as if a vampire bit him, and they hung
(14:31):
his body up by the heels to exanguinate him, to
d drain him of all blood and then they took
the corpse and they dragged it back to the trail
where the guy would have disappeared, and he just plopped
his body out there. So what happened next, Well, they
like littered these corpses, you know, with all around the area.
(14:52):
And it did not go over well with the with
the invading forces right or the you know, attempting to
overthrow forces right right, the communist rebel groups. They returned,
they were trying to look for their comrade. And can
you imagine how frightening that is? Like, that's the thing.
It may sound silly for people to be frightened of
(15:14):
a mythological monster, right, but imagine you work with someone,
like think of all your coworkers. You work with someone,
You go out to a party with them, they disappear,
You come back the next day and you find them
with bite marks and no blood. That's frightening. I might
fall for that. I don't know, what do you think?
(15:34):
I mean? You know, tensions are already running high in
this true in the situation, just like guerrilla warfare. Um, yeah,
here's the here's the kicker. Though this was psy ops
on the surface, but psy ops typically doesn't involve war
crimes because you're not supposed to. You know, they're capturing
these people and then there basically torturing and murdering them. Yeah,
(15:58):
you know they're They're not like putting them in pow camps.
They are using them, using their flesh and blood as
some kind of crazy horror show to freak out their
their comrades. And that brings us to an interesting question
here because you know, it's this event is not something
that happened across the Philippines for you know, years and years.
(16:19):
It was this single operation. But they may not have
been actually scared of Naswong at all. They may have
just been scared of getting kidnapped and used as you know,
psychological torture for their compatriots. And a Huck squadron at
this time was about a hundred to three hundred soldiers,
and we don't know whether they were actually scared of
(16:42):
of a fictional creature or whether they were scared of
the very real and very ruthless as you mentioned c
I A right. Yeah, he had another trick that he
liked to use Lansdale called the Eye of God. And
this is much similar to the ghost tape kind of stuff.
We will hear about in Vietnam um where they basically
I don't know if they used a spooky voice over
(17:03):
the loudspeakers, but they were like calling out the names
of prominent huck you know, the commanders and threatening them
with certain death. And you know, I mean, can't you
picture of being kind of Scooby duod out like that?
Oh get to the best part though, oh yeah yeah.
So adding insult to injury, they would also um creep
into their camp and paint these spooky eyes on the
(17:26):
tent or wherever the people were sleeping the house, I
guess they had little huts. This is like they were
in their villages. I guess. For some reason, that seems
even creepier to me, to even creepier than hearing a
weird noise, waking up and finding this non consensual artwork,
you know what I mean. This didn't like you know,
(17:51):
clear the Huck's out overnight or anything. I mean it.
You know, it took about four years before Louis Taruk,
who had been the eater of of this organization for
quite some time, actually surrendered and accepted a prison sentence.
So you know, I mean, it's really interesting to read
about this stuff. And it's certainly a fascinating uh type
(18:13):
of warfare that often you mentioned earlier. Max Boot historian
says that this tactic was actually considered a war crime
because they were killing these Filipino soldiers um deliberately instead
of you know, capturing them um as enemy combatants. And
then of course they were mutilating their corpses too, so
(18:34):
not not a good look, but I guess effective. I
don't know what do you think then? Yeah, I mean,
definitely not a good look, but certainly effective. And the CIA,
so we clarify here, the CIA is telling the Filipinos
soldiers in the army to attack the communist rebels and
use these tactics, and they do work. I mean, by
(18:54):
the fifties, I think, as we mentioned, the huck certain
serious decline and Lansdale will go on to do more
of this sort of stuff, especially in Vietnam. As we
mentioned before, the type of techniques he applied were also
sometimes called black combat. He also did another another psyop
(19:18):
we should mention. He would have different messages broadcast. Know
you had mentioned earlier, the messages warning rebel leaders and
so on, but they would also fly planes very low
overhead and broadcast messages to make the rebels believe spies
were in their midst and they couldn't trust one another.
(19:40):
So eventually the rebels surrender, And there's no argument about it.
These tactics were very useful to Landsdale and to the
Army of the Philippines. The question that we have to
ask ourselves is at what price victory? You know what
(20:02):
I mean? It's not right to desecrate corpses. No, no,
it's definitely not And um, you know, I think our
boy Lansdale would go on to use slightly less brutal
techniques later in his career, but I guess this was
just kind of a different time. He's also for anybody
who wants a little bit of a lost treasure story.
(20:25):
He also shows up in the old legend of Yamashita's Gold,
which is this horde of treasure that was stolen by
the Japanese forces during World War two and hidden somewhere
in the Philippines, and the according to the story, it's
still there and you can go search for it yourself,
(20:47):
as many other treasure hunters have tried over the past
few decades. We should mention the existence of this treasure
is largely not taken seriously by a lot of experts,
but of course who doesn't want to find it. You
can read more about that by checking out work of
the author Sterling Sea Grave, who claims the gold was
secretly seized by the US government after the location was
(21:12):
discovered by interrogating and torturing uh yamashitas driver a major
Kojima Kashi. And then here's where Lansdale comes in. Apparently
he supervised the torture allegedly. Yeah, okay, he's a hardened mofo,
that's for sure. I mean, if he's hanging up dudes
by their toes and stabbing him in the side of
(21:33):
the neck and draining their blood and for the purposes
of spooking some enemy combatants, and then this guy could
probably do just about anything. How many um, I guess
folkloreic beliefs or mythological monsters. Do you think people honestly
believe in? Because I've heard in Iceland that people still
(21:54):
believe in uh fairies or nos trolls. Maybe, yeah, maybe trolls.
I don't know. Um, I don't know. Man, like I
I I want to believe You're very molder about that. Yeah,
I know. I'm just moldy, um and and and sad
and beaten down by life. Ben. But no, man, I
don't know who are we to say? Who are we
(22:15):
to say that's that's a good question, um, And you
know what that makes me think of? You know the
people who are to say, wow is awkward. Let's do
the listener mail, Let's do it well. Dominic Allen has
this to say, Hello, Jents, just listen to your episode
on the naming of California, and you asked us to
(22:36):
tell you if we ever have seen a griffin. I
have seen part of one, rather own part of one.
Maybe this ties in beautifully with today's episode two. We
just asked a question, what mythological creatures do you believe in?
Dominic says he owns one. I shouldn't dilly dally and
explain myself in there was a man called John mannvel
Or was there who wrote a book called The Travels
(22:57):
of Sir John mannvel Or did he? In this travel book,
he visits Asia and talks about the weird and wonderful
people and creatures that live there, one of them being
a griffin. This is also one of the more boring creatures.
He talks about He states that griffins are from a
country called Baccaria, and had talents so long as the
quote or quote so long, and so large, on great
upon his feet, as though they were horns of great oxen,
(23:20):
or of bugles, or of kind, so that men make
cups of them to drink of. So what I meant
was I have a drinking horn which is made from
the supposed claw of a griffin. I interjected with that
supposed at least that's what I tell people. I'm part
of a fourteenth century living history group in England and
it is a great conversation piece, as drinking horns weren't
(23:42):
as popular in that time, but a griffin claw is
a fascinating thing. The travels of Sir John Manville could
be a good podcast topic. I agree the people in
the book are pretty ridiculous. Thanks for the podcast, look
forward to more as they come. Always be ridiculous, not
going to be a problem, Dominic out now. We literally
are are contractually alligated a kid doing this, like we
(24:05):
get in trouble if we don't. But also that's so amazing.
This really inspires me to ask more questions on the show, Dominic.
Thank you for also bonus points if you can send
us a picture. Man, Oh yeah, we'd love that. And
I assume that you're not doing the fourteenth century living
history thing all the time, just because you did send
(24:26):
us an email. This arrived via email, not via uh
pigeon or parchment or a pigeon carry imparchment, But that's awesome.
I would love to see a picture of this drinking horn.
And I'm completely on board with the travels of Sir Mannville.
Our next listener mail is one that uh I, I
think both of us are really gonna dig. It is
(24:48):
from Darren T and it's titled hangus the Monkey. Hi,
says Darren. I listened from the start, but that's my
first time writing. I've just heard your recent podcast pasked
on the Heartletpool Monkey. I live in Thornaby on Tease,
ten miles up the road from Hartlepool, Heartlepool. He notes
his tea side, not time side, and he goes on
(25:11):
to say I was taught about this as a lesson
on propaganda and racism in primary school, showing how people
with nothing to go on but propaganda about how all
Frenchmen are short, wild and Harry can lead to this stuff.
Whether this is a true story or not, it works
as a great teaching tool, although I personally don't believe
(25:33):
it is true. I think it was just an excuse
for mocking nickname for people from the area. Here's the
part you like. Noal like Macum's, which are people from Sunderland,
and Smoggy's, which are people from Middlesbrough. But it's a
bit of fun. Thanks for the hours of entertainment, Darren. Ps.
You pronounced all the town side towns and cities correctly.
(25:54):
Thank you? Can Casey, can we get a Hallelujah clip o? Perfect?
So I gotta say, Darren, thank you for writing. I
am loving these very specific derogatory nicknames Mackam's, Smoggy's. Does
(26:14):
every town in England's have one of these? We don't
have anything like that for Atlanta. Guess I guess people
just say redneck, right, it's true. Well, maybe if you're listening,
you can suggest a cool mocking nickname for people from Atlanta.
I will say this about that episode. I do think
we kind of glossed over the fact that this was
an interesting teachable moment about racism and mothering and this
(26:36):
idea that this monkey supposedly was, you know, immediately identified
as being a Frenchman, and that was how Frenchmen were
depicted in these political cartoons of the time. So, you know,
I think there's a something to be said about that.
And I don't know if we mentioned this in the
episode either, but there is actually a play about the
Hartley Pool Monkey. I think we did, but it's if
(26:57):
we didn't describe it. It's so cool to look at
because it's this really amazing puppetry. I don't know if
you're familiar with the play war Horse, Um, that's got
this amazing like multi layered, uh puppetry sculpture kind of stuff,
and that's what the Harleypool Monkey play is about. And
it does kind of take a little liberty and talk
more about that, like the way we treat immigrants and
(27:18):
things like that, and so it's it's a there's a
kind of a twofold story there. And thank you again
to Dominic and Darren for writing in. Thank you, fellow
ridiculous historians for giving us a listen to day. While
we're thanking people, let's go ahead and thank our super producer,
Casey Pegram. Thanks also to our research associates, Eves Jeff's
Code who helped us out with this one. H and
(27:39):
also Christopher Haciotis, who continues to be a mensch and
we love him dearly and I think we might actually
have him on. We might have him on for an episode. Yeah,
he's he's coming back. It's over to Uh thanks to
Alex Williams who composed our theme, and UH thanks to
thanks to Jonathan Strickland ak the Quister for not showing
(27:59):
up on this episode. I have a feeling we haven't
seen the last of him. I hear that laugh in
the distance and I don't think it's Casey piping it
through the headphones. It haunts me a night man. Yes,
and speaking of haunting, we want to hear some of
your favorite ridiculous historical events involving the supernatural or allegations thereof.
(28:21):
You can tell us about these on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter,
and we particularly like to give a shout out to
our Ridiculous Historians Facebook page. It's one of the classiest
joints on the Internet. Yeah, and when one last little plug,
Ben and I recently appeared on a three part episode
of Behind the Bastards, which is a really really amazing show.
(28:42):
Out of our l a wing hosted by Robert Evans,
who is just a cracker jack writer and researcher, and
he was kind enough slash sadistic enough to have you
and I on for a four hour podcast marathon about
the infamous Alex Jones. Yeah, it's a it's a great listen.
Robert's a great guy. It is not for children. There
(29:02):
is strong language. If you want to hear me and
Ben eff and and Jeffen, that's the place to do
it and mature themes. But that was a good shout. Yeah,
and follow behind the bastards. If you like us, you're
gonna really dig that show. It's true and all three
parts of that trifecta are out. Now. It's a lot.
It's a real commitment. It's a road trip. But yeah,
that's that's it. Man. Let's uh, let's try to continue
(29:25):
our habit of uh not desecrating corpses to win wars. Yeah,
not digging up pope corpses to make points. I don't know.
All right, Well, Halloween, y'all, not even telloween all year?
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