November 13, 2019 • 57 mins
Everyone's heard of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster -- but what about the hundreds of other cryptids rumored to exist around the world? Join the guys as they delve into the stories of cryptids you may have never heard of.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is They call me Ben. We're joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Controlled decond. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know a little bit of
a personal story that you guys would enjoy to open
up the show. Today, I was at our local bar
(00:47):
named an Averse of Creativity, the local uh IF. I
guess we give them a lot of business. And I
realized about twenty five minutes into what began as a
light conversation and became in a passion to be about
Bigfoot and cryptozoology in general. It's like, Wow, yelling at
someone about cryptozoology in a bar is just very on
(01:09):
brand for me. It might be the most on brand
thing I've done in the past month. How what level
of yelling are we? Are we talking here? Just raised voices?
What corporate America would call a healthy conversation, would you
wouldn't elevate it to the level of a rant. There
was no agro. Really, there were disagreements, but it was
it was a respectful exchange of intellectual perspectives. To be
(01:33):
fair that if you're in a bar, it's a little noisy,
so a certain level of voice raising is already acceptable
as like a baseline of communication. Yeah, but if the
music comes down and you're like, but the sheer surface
area of the forest, oh you were there, Yeah, it did.
It did good to a thing where it got. It
did get to a point when he said, you know what,
(01:53):
let's go outside and we went outside to the front
porch area and continue talking. Beautiful. But this this got
me thinking that we have We've explored so many different
types of cryptids. Uh, in the past. You know, we've
explored bigfoot sasquatch, mothman, allegations of dinosaurs in parts of
(02:15):
what was that Western Africa. Yeah, we've talked about some
worms that were really creepy. I remember the Mongolian death worm.
I love that. Where there's like the ones from Tremors,
do you think they seem it's almost as if the
ones from Tremors are based somehow on that idea. Uh,
they're not as big as the worms from tremors, the
(02:37):
Mongolian death worms. What about the sandworms from beetlejuice or
or or from Doune. No, no, no, those those things
would be If the sandworms from Dune would be the
largest organisms to exist on Earth, if they were real,
be cool. I would if there was a big if
there was a bigger thing than a whale, I would
(02:58):
hope it was not a worm. But you know, we'd
all be in the spice business anyway. That's true. That's true,
we would. But we've since we've discussed the concept of
cryptozoology and earlier episodes, we don't need to go into
all of it today. We can just give you the
quick and dirty recap. So here are the facts. Cryptozoology.
(03:20):
Something we very much enjoy on this show is the
study of and search for animals that are a lot
of times considered either extinct or legends. The the legendary
mochlemembe that we've talked about before. It's technically the mission
of a cryptozoologist, uh, to evaluate the possibility of the
(03:41):
existence of something. Some animals existence and so a lot
of times there's specialization that occurs here. Yeah, and that's
I love that you point out the technically that's their mission,
because one of the criticisms that crypto aso all just get,
and there are many, is that they are setting out
to prove something they already believe, you know what I mean,
(04:03):
Like you sat out with an agenda, like I know
in my heart the the four tooth waffle snapper is
real and irrelic population exists in the Alps or the
Pyrenees or what have you, and I'm going to prove
that I am correct, rather than prove the truth. A
lot of that has to do with the popularity of
(04:24):
I'm just gonna use one example here of something like squatching,
like going out squatching to find a sasquatch um, which
is you know it sounds silly, um, but it is.
Is that what you call it? Really? You go out
of squatching squatching squatch? Pretty sure they're Discovery Channel shows
where people go squatching on the regular. So if you
(04:46):
are a fan of the search for Bigfoot or sasquatch
related creatures, let us know if that came organically from
your community, or if a producer at you know, Discovery
made it up. Who knows all I know is that
that I think that concept of someone going out to
(05:07):
prove the existence of something they already believe in maybe
is tied into that. Yeah. Yeah, and the animals that
they're looking for, the life forms have not been conclusively
proven to exist, are called cryptids, So crypto zoologists cryptids.
They're popular types of cryptids, the greatest hits we all,
we all know them, we love them, like the Elvis
(05:29):
of cryptids or the jay Z of Cryptid's the Who's
another musician? Nas? The Nas of cryptids? Uh, Cisco, Cisco?
Do you a different genre? He did? He? Oh, now
he's canceled thet He's he's not quite famous enough to see.
(05:50):
It's more of a big name. The Alexander Hamilton's. Yeah,
he's the Dr franken For of cryptids. Is that the
right name from Rockey Horror Picture. Yeah, he's the Paul
Decant of kryptids, Bigfoot, the Paul Simon. Even it would
(06:13):
and that would also apply to things like the Lockness
Monster in earlier days, the Jersey Devil, which would be
more of a gar Funcle of cryptids. I would argue out,
I would think there are different bands we're going to
hit a lot of gar Funcle Cryptids today. In other words,
the lesser Paul actually uh told us he created this
file as B Team Cryptids. Yeah uh, And I wasn't joking.
(06:37):
He's a he's a very serious man. It's it's reminiscent
of our B Team Superpowers episode we did, right yeah,
which was still so interesting, like the fact that magnetic
people just had very frictive skin and they ended up
on the B Team. And they ended up on the
B Team, they were like the Great Lakes Avengers. For
all you comic fans out there, we already talked about
(06:59):
this on air, talked about that in the very episode.
I believe Great Lakes Avengers. There's one guy's Doorman his power.
I just have to bitch of this for anybody who
hasn't heard this, because I'm still fascinated by it. Doorman
has the amazing superpower, uh that allows him to when
(07:20):
he's standing next to a wall, people can walk through
him then and then through the wall. That's it. It
doesn't he can't teleport, he can't you know, be intangible.
He can just become a door. But he can become
a door and then go on the other side, right
so technically can go through walls. I don't know, he
(07:43):
could open up, he could walk up to the wall,
become a door and then exit on the other side.
That's just walking through walls. I guess it's like a
super convenience than a superpower. Is more of a super
helper than he is a superhero. He's kind of a
super furniture piece. Alright, superheroes aside. Yes, let's jump back
(08:04):
to ye cryptozoology, right, okay, So here's the strange thing
about cryptozoology. Although it is often called as pseudoscience, although uh,
you know, most people in the academy capital a dismiss
it as pure malarkey and poppy cock, or in a
lot of people in the world of the layman see
(08:28):
it as at the very least controversial entertaining, maybe more
like reality TV junk food, you know what I mean,
rather than some serious pursuit. But the truth of the
matter is, the ugly truth of the matter for people
who hate cryptozoology, is that researchers have actually verified the
existence or rediscovery, we should say, of multiple real animals
(08:51):
that were once thought to be myths or legends or extinct,
and we've got famous examples of those, like the sea
kent Uh guerrillas were thought to be mythical for a
long time. Yeah, just to jump in that ceili Anth
was a fish that we thought for humanity, thought for
centuries that this thing had been extinct, and then it
(09:12):
just showed up again. And if nobody was looking then
it maybe maybe it would have just come back and
we wouldn't have known. Still, but thank goodness for the
crypto zoologists. Yeah, and also we have to point out
in both of those cases, Uh, this discovery comes about
because Western Europeans finally saw these animals that the local
(09:36):
people in the region had known about four years. The
local community where the ceili canth was rediscovered said, first off,
they were very unimpressed with the fish, and I think
it was a big deal and their reaction was very
much like a big whoop because those things taste like trash. Yeah,
what are we gonna do with it? On an on
(09:58):
an applicable level, who cares? Yeah? And uh, So we
know that cryptozoology has successes, but it also has some
baked in flaws, some things that make it very difficult
for let's say a zoologists to take crypto zoologists seriously.
And one of the biggest problems, uh, the most prevalent
(10:18):
problems in the field of crypto zoology is the potential
to misidentify some of these things. We see it time
and time. Mechanic can happen super easily most people. For example,
I haven't really seen a bear in the wild, let
alone right up close. Uh. If you add to that
the um, the adrenaline rush that comes with the initial
sighting of of said creature, and you know, the fallibility
(10:42):
of our memories as is imperfect human beings, despite what
we like to tell ourselves, right, um. And of course additionally, um,
you've got just hoaxes a plenty. Well, you know, and
this is a really great point here. Let's just say
we make an example out of it. The four of
us in this room plus you you're we're all walking
around in the woods. We've got all our gear to
(11:03):
find our squatch. We know, we we don't believe it's
out there, but we want to prove that it's out
there or not. And we happened upon something on a
ridge high above us. It seems to be brown, the
color that oh sasquatch might be that color, And I
can just see some it looks like fur up there
moving around. Um, just this example that we've given here
of of a bear. If we all observe this thing
(11:26):
and we're unable to get up there to get our
eyes on it, and it sounds like there's maybe a
weird noise occurring up near this location? What what what?
What? What What? What? What? What? Sort of those three stooges
kind of sound? Oh my god, So what is that?
Oh my god? What is happening up there? It maybe
within us to at least a few of us would
probably believe, perhaps you, that that was a sasquatch, even
(11:49):
if we can't prove it was or not. But another
percentage of us would say, oh, that's just a bear. Guys,
we didn't see anything. Um. And that that, in I think,
is what we're talking about here. Yeah, and there there's
another weird twist. We're in a immensely fascinating time for cryptozoology.
Twenty nineteen is the best time for crypto zoology since
(12:13):
the past few centuries, really since back in the days
when people were still exploring the edges of maps. And
it leads us to a weird twist. So the human
population is growing more importantly despite concentrating more and more
in cities and urban areas, our civilization is reaching out
(12:34):
to places it had never reached before. And when we
combine this with our weird obsession with making surveillance technology,
our species, weird obsession with making surveillance technology and monitoring
everything through satellites, those two factors mean that we are
more likely than ever before to discover previously unidentified or
(12:58):
lost organisms. And you can find these kind of inspiring list. Uh.
It's it's a sad irony because a lot of the
reasons we're discovering these these other creatures is because we
are in the process of their environment, obliterating them, creating
some sort of um, some sort of analog of genocide, right,
(13:21):
we are rendering them extinct. And this means, you know
that we might as we go forward, we might still
find stuff, you know what I mean, Like the colossal squid.
That's another cryptid that was proven to exist. And when
it comes to cryptids, it turns out there are way
more than big Foot, way way more. And we'll get
(13:44):
into specific examples after this word from our sponsor. Here's
where it gets crazy. We found examples of you know,
we we don't have every cryptid ever mentioned in this episode,
but we found some examples of some obscure ones that
(14:05):
seemed pretty interesting. So we're going to explore those and
then maybe talk a little bit about whether or not
they could be real pros and commons. Okay, so first off,
we've got okay, we practice this pronunciation off faris, see
if I can get it. The Incan yamba nailed it great,
thanks man um. The Incan yamba as a legendary cryptod
from Southern Africa that lives by waterfalls, uh and most
(14:26):
commonly is seen at a place called how It Falls
in South Africa, and it has a reputation for looking
like a snake except for the head, which, of course,
like you do, looks like a horse horse head that
seems like a very non functioning creature when it uses
weird horsehead to kind of drag itself along, you know,
use it like a weird foot. I don't know, you know,
(14:49):
because it's aquatic, it makes a little more sense just
because it would have to drag the head around. Do
you think it's amphibious though? Is the question? Let's let's
let's let's move forward here. So yeah, like you said,
and the incon Yamba is aquatic uh and lives in
lakes and near waterfalls, and to some, um, it's suspected
of being a species of giant eel rather than a
(15:12):
snake at all. And it's distinguished from similar creatures due
to its odd size, which is over twenty feet long.
That's ridiculous. Yeah, that's too much feet long with a
giant horse looking head hanging out underneath a waterfall. First
of all, no, thank you. Well, well you know you
(15:34):
you hear a description of something like that, um, and
it makes you wonder how many times, how many sightings
have occurred to get that kind of um specific description
of something you know, um, like the horse or horse
shaped head is so specific to me? Well, now we've
heard of the water horse, right. It's a film about
(15:56):
a small NeSSI type creature. I just wonder if the
name you know what I mean, Like we've got a
sea horse, we've got which has like an elongated head
you with a snout and things like that. I want
to if it's based on that kind of maybe it
doesn't actually have as looked like a horse per se
doesn't have like fur and literally a transplanted horsehead looks
more like, uh, you know, just have as more of
(16:16):
an elongated shape horse like yeah. Yes. So, according to
locals and people who believe in it, it's most active
during the summer months of uh. This leads some people
to believe that it is migratory or that it's been
around so long in the local culture that they believe
(16:38):
it as supernatural abilities causes seasonal storms to come. But
if we look at what this actually could be, if
this were a thing, then we could say, maybe it's
a large species of freshwater eel, like the Angila mosambika
or the Angila marmarata, both of those. This is the
(17:00):
problem with these These are large. These would freak you
out if you saw them in the wild, probably, but
they grow to about six ft instead of twenty So
is this giant version of an existing thing? Maybe the
problem is that we usually see We know that fish
and maritime animals can grow to unusual size, but we
(17:23):
usually only see them reach that size when they're out
in deep oceans. So would this lake be deep enough
that something could grow to like more than three times
what it's supposed to grow tom It seems unlikely, But
there's something really fascinating in particular with this cryptod. It's
that it was found and has been found in cave
(17:45):
paintings from from native tribes. Is there are some tribes
within the Quazulu Natal province that um that had these
cave paintings of these things. Are allegedly of these things,
and supposedly they had some kind of supernatural power perhaps
like they could influence the weather maybe or would give
(18:06):
good or generally bad tidings or would bring bad tidings.
What what am I trying to say here? Yeah, it
would it would be um, it would be bad for
you to see one did generally it would be a
bad omen, bad omen. Yeah. Um, whoe betide those who
crossed the ika Yamba. Also, I have to I have
(18:26):
to admit that I zoned out just for a second
when you said a tribe called because I totally thought
you were going to say a tribe called Questions. Oh yeah,
I know, I almost did, almost said that, um, But no,
it's just it's that was actually several tribes within in
a province. That makes sense too, because this is a
very regionalized creature, right. Yes, there's a lot of these
(18:47):
come to us from the African continent because for a
long time. Uh, the members of the ivory Towers and
the academies had no idea what the they had new
very well polished idea of what the ecosystems or the
biomas were like, and they would just hear crazy stories
(19:08):
or rely on disreputable sources, or just legends, local legends
or just legends because according to some people, especially if
you're in the Congo area, you may run into gigantic
creatures undiscovered on the land as well. And that brings
us to something that I'm surely mispronouncing, the emmela in Toca.
(19:29):
It's apparently around the size of an African bush elephant. Cheeze. Uh, yeah, no,
it's true. The Ammela antoca is around the size of
an African bush elephant, which is an average of three
point two meters tall, weighing around six tons or thirteen thousand,
two undred and thirty pounds. It's brownish or gray in color,
sort of a gradation, with a very heavy tail and
(19:52):
body quite similar in shape and and look to that
of a rhinoceros, including one long horn that comes out
of its now. But here's the difference. It has four
short stump like legs and it's described as having no
frills or ridges around the neck, and the animal is
alleged to be semi aquatic and feed on malumbo or
other leafy plants. Um. The Emila and Tuca is claimed
(20:16):
to utter a very specific vocalization, described as a variously
as a snort, rumble, or growl. So what what the
heck could this thing be? Is it just sort of
like a weird pigmy kind of cousin of the rhinoceros?
Like what are we talking to here? Right? And why
is it? Is it a hippo with a horn because
(20:38):
it's semi aquatic. I hope it's a dinosaur whatever I
said it, I hope it's a large reptiles. Yeah, just
something that was left over or maybe an in between
somewhere along the evolutionary lines. Yeah, yeah, like that um
that guy we mentioned that previous episode. Dr Roy mackel,
one of the people who's searching for another similar did
(21:00):
called the uh membembe rightbe. He was looking for reports
of this creature and then he ran into reports of
Emila and Toka. You'll hear folks say that maybe it's
a relic population of a dinosaur, and maybe it's far
enough out in the wild, that it's just too expensive
(21:21):
to search for it, you know. But it's just it's
the same thing we've been talking about before. Where there
are reports that I believe it was in nineteen thirty
three when the West first I guess heard about this
because there was a writer rolling through town, J. E. Hughes,
and he wrote this thing called eighteen Years on Lake
bun Woolo Wailu, and um, he was talking about within
(21:45):
this book that apparently he was hanging out with some
tribesmen or he had heard stories at least of some
tribesmen who slaughtered something that kind of met this description,
and you know, maybe this thing is actually real. And
then that then the guy you're talking about, um Roy
P what's his name, Roy, That dude was saying, you know, also, hey,
(22:06):
here's some eyewitness accounts going back to this thing, but
we don't have any pictures of it. We don't have
any you know, official pictures. We've got some bodies. Yeah,
that's yeah, that's the problem with this one because it's
supposed to be slightly larger than an elephant, and it's
supposed to hunt elephants. Yeah, I mean, you would think
(22:29):
you would think that someone would have discovered this or
had a taxidermy version of it in the British Museum,
you know, especially from the age of colonizers, right, do
you think something would exist or even um just what
maybe the horn they're talking about that one specific horn
or the skull or something. You'd you'd have something somewhere
(22:49):
in my opinion, but maybe not. You know, I don't
know how this is going to work in the edit.
And sorry about that poll. But we we took a
we we took a really quick break and uh no,
you you wouldn't got some water and it's true. Yeah,
and I'm now questioned fully and I stole a pumpkin.
(23:09):
It's right, No, we have a pumpkin. It's kind of
changed the vibe in the room, though, I know the better. Yeah, yeah,
I'm feeling more hocus focused. Did you did you talk
about how this could be something of a of a
combo between a triceratops and a striasaurus, a striaca saurus.
I don't even know that one. No, no, uh, that's
(23:30):
that's a good point, because we it behooves staff some specificity.
You're right, I just got excited and said dinosaur. But
saying dinosaur is like saying chair or cancer. It describes
a rough concept of a thing, but there's so many differences.
H No, With the Imili Polka, we also see the
(23:55):
we we see descriptions of it. The date back pretty far,
but not as far back as the descriptions of our
earlier super eel, the Incan Yamba. So the Incan Yamba
maybe an exaggerated story about something that was real. The
militant in Toca is a little harder to explain. Was
(24:15):
it somebody like in all the drawings that you see
of it? It looks reptilian right, all the depictions. Of course,
spoiler alert, there are no photographs. So going to your
earlier point and well it it has a horn, it
has you know, rough skin, it's stuck covered with fur feathers.
So could they just be seeing a rhinoceros again in
(24:39):
the wild, panicking and freaking out? Because I would. This
is why I want to bring up, Yeah, when is
the last time you guys saw with your eyes a rhinoceros?
A number of years ago? About six I guess I
must have seen one zood up somewhere, but I can't
recall which which zoo like really really picture in your
(25:00):
and the last time you saw rhinoceros, so that's six
years ago. Was that a zoo too, I wasn't just
like on the street. Yeah, those things are just odd.
They don't feel real, especially if you live anywhere near
a city, like anywhere, it doesn't matter where on Earth.
If you live near a city, you probably aren't going
to see a rhinoceros very often. True. Um, And if
(25:23):
if you just really behold one walking around, it's an
it's an odd experience. So I'm just saying, um, to
your point, Ben, what you were trying to build off
of what you were saying, to just behold one, um
may throw you off, especially if it's far enough in
the distance it looks even bigger than maybe it is. Yeah,
(25:46):
just compared to the surrounding foliage or whatever it's near.
I don't know if you saw one in the wild
to like most of us, since the majority of human
beings live in urban areas. Now that's true, that's a
change that happened or in our lifetime. That means the
majority of us will see, Uh, most of the wild
animals will see are going to be in the animal
(26:08):
jails that we call zoos, or at least in a
protected reserve somewhere. Okay, yes, which is better than his.
And that's not a deing on zoos and being a
little bit unfair to them, because zoos do tremendous conservation work,
and the Atlanta Zoo actually has, I think, is this
huge force in the community. I think they do do
good work as well, and they just expanded and they
(26:30):
have a savannah section now, which is you know, Oh,
I haven't been there. Yeah, I haven't either. It's down
by my house, so I've been seeing the construction going
on for quite a while, but I have not been
since it's been opened up, so it'd be interesting to checkout.
I know some people are super anti zoo, which I understand,
but I also understand that many of these animals would
not be able to survive in the wild, and that's
(26:52):
why they bring them in and take good care of them.
In zoos, I don't know. We've talked about the poaching
problem that is severe rhinoceroses, and I mean take the
example of tigers. There are I think more tigers living
in captivity in Texas then there are in the wild
across the planet. Uh, And that's that's uh, that's from
(27:12):
a few years ago. Conservation efforts have up the tiger population.
Actually get notifications about tigers on Twitter. Nice doesn't always
just come up with some sports stuff, no I I uh,
right now, I'm following something called Tiger Tuesday, which I
didn't know as a thing, and it's where people just
point just post pictures of tigers. Oh wait, some sports
(27:35):
stuff creeps in. But I'm you know, I'm there for
the animals that should get better hobbies, guys. But so
we've been talking about large creatures in the African continent
and again, as you can tell, the big question for
us is how could something be this big and remain undiscovered.
But let's go, let's go across the water. Let's let's
(27:58):
explore the story of what of the cryptods. I'm surprised
we haven't done a full episode on. And that is
the thunderbird. Oh okay, the fabulous thunderbird. Yes, okay, so
quick story to get us into this. Driving around with
the wife and kid a couple of days ago and
we're just pulling up to a stop side and my
(28:18):
son looks out his window and just kind of says, uh,
what's that? And it was too huge. I believe there
were turkey vultures, so much larger birds than um any
of us are used to seeing just in the wild
at any time. I I couldn't say exactly how tall
(28:41):
they were, maybe three ft tall something to that effect.
Three ft is probably about about three feet tall. But
as my son is remarking about them, they put their
wings out and fly upwards. And seeing a bird of
that size up close was intense. And I don't I
(29:01):
mean no, you would have. You would have probably um
pepeed myself or at least jumped out and tried to
attack them just to get them away. No, I would
have pepeed myself and then possibly gone into an irreversible comma.
Oh oh, well, well we would have taken measures. I
don't think you understand of fear I have towards large birds.
(29:25):
Forget to forget about it. So here's the thing. Could
you know, describe to us what it would be like
to see a thunderbird. I'd rather not, but I would
give on my best. I will give it my all.
So the popular hot spots for seeing these very large
bird like creatures would be in northern Canada and even Alaska. Ben,
(29:48):
did you happen to catch any while you were vacationing there.
And then in Alaska vacation, yeah, I saw a moose.
Uh and that was enough for me because those those things,
these are huge. There's a problem since we've got this
pumpkin here. There's a problem in Alaska for people trying
to celebrate Halloween because when they carve pumpkins and they
(30:09):
set them out on their porch, depending on where they live,
it's like candy to a moose can smell it and
they just come to it, and you can't stop them.
What you can do. But but yeah, I would I
would have freaked out if I saw something larger than
a moose, right absolutely, it would have been that. And
then you could even see them down in Central America.
(30:31):
But in Canada, um you actually there's there's like totem
poles that are in the shape of thunderbird. Is a
place called Thunderbird Park in Victoria, British Columbia, um where
you can see some of these very things um and
they are the stuff of legend um mythical creatures in fact,
sort of eagle like birds that are known for having
(30:51):
very powerful talents um and and very much present in
Native American culture, various tribe in the American Midwest, and
as we said in Canada, the Sioux Nation UH, the
Brule Sioux Um from South Dakota UM on a reservation
known as the Rosebud Reservation. UM has their own thunderbird
(31:13):
legend called the wakan yon tonka Um also known as
the Great Thunderbird. So, so if you're imagining these things,
it's like a large feathered pterodon or pterodactyl, like huge
and nol. I'm gonna show you a picture here, and
I want you to describe this picture because I have
a feeling if you came across this in real life,
(31:35):
you'd have a reaction. Look at this picture right here.
I've seen that it looks it looks like it looks
like a giant corvette kind of which a friend to
Ben's the world over um. Ben commands them and they
sort of flocked to him and they bring him shiny
(31:56):
things and it's it's a symbiotic relationship. But this thing
twice as tall as that, twice as tall as this
gentleman posing with this uh with this taxis are made cars.
It's not real. It's not real. It's it's in imagination.
It's an imagining of what a thunderbird how it's been described. Okay,
well it's it's the wingspan would probably be in the
(32:18):
neighborhood of I don't know, about twenty feet. That's that's correct.
And the thing is, the thunderbird evolved from the word
we use now has taken a meaning that evolved from
the original mythology. It is present in a lot of
ancient Native American mythology. You can find very old uh,
(32:43):
sandstone carvings. You can find paintings and caves and so on,
and that, you know, like the total poles you mentioned earlier,
but now and in the recent in the recent past,
the phrase thunderbird has been used to describe any large, flying,
unidentified organism in the US for the quote unquote New World.
(33:06):
So you'll hear people like, like, the common thing people
say is like, well, it it flew, but reports didn't
see it had feathers, so it's obviously a terra dactyl
or you know, a relic population of something like you know,
some creature like that, a flying reptile. But then you'll
hear other people say, no, it's uh, it's it's essentially
(33:27):
a massive eagle, it's big enough to take your children.
And they also say, but those terrastaurs did have feathers, dude,
exactly exactly. So this animal is, or this cryptid, i
should say, is almost too famous for our cryptids you've
(33:48):
never heard of lists. Yeah, I think you just wanted
to explore it a little more because growing up, if
you were ever one of those kids who read those
Time Life mystery boks, they all had names that were
kind of similar, like Mysteries of the Unknown or Unexplored
Unknown Mysteries baron normal, you know what I mean. They
(34:10):
would always trot out stories about the thunderbird, usually the
same one. There's a story about these guys who will
save it when we if we ever do an episode
just on the thunderbird. Is a story about these guys
who shoot and capture one and have the body so
Habeas corpus and all that. So they ate for a month.
Well they take it back. But then as we hear,
(34:31):
you know, and like a lot of those stories stories
of giants from that time, stories about the c Techka
and all these other things, for some reason the proof
they had, the tangible proof disappeared, and you can see
those reproduction photos. Right, that may may be out and
out hoaxes, but we have to ask ourselves, if there
(34:54):
was such a large creature now, especially with the popularity
of aircraft, how on earth, how on earth have we
not seen it? This one. I would say it's possible
that it was. It was an ancestral memory of a
very large creature. But then again, the big birds that
(35:16):
we know about, at least in this continent, and from
what I understand, the big birds we know about the
we sea on this continent. As early humans were flightless, right,
they weren't like the big bird for his estime stream, Yeah,
pretty much. But mean he I don't know, he's got
a tempers aren't roll up. Yeah, he's got a dark,
(35:37):
real monster. And while we're on this subject of terrifying things,
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(37:49):
let's get back to the show. Alright, we're back. We're back.
We're done with birds. We're going to explore something different.
So if you something even worse, well that depends worse
for me. Worse for me. What's what? Well, statistically worse
for people. It is the story of the jibab fopy
j apostrophe b A f O f I. The name
(38:10):
translates to great spider. This is also in the Congo.
It is exactly what it says on the tin, huge
spider with allegedly a six foot wide legspan. Yeah, six
ft and supposedly it's a fan of eating monkeys, birds, yes,
(38:32):
and even small antelopes and humans. Obviously, of course that's
to mention the besides their absurd bean as you would say,
cartoonish size, their brown um and and said to be
darker the older they get, which is interesting fact um
or no it's not call it a fact, let's call
it a detail. Um. And they have a large purple
(38:54):
mark on their abdomens, so it sounds like a poison boy. Right,
They've got like some sort of shape mark. Uh. And
they're black. Um. That doesn't sound good right, Nature's way
of saying, watch out back, t off. Uh. They're said
to live in a similar um to the smaller trapdoor
(39:14):
spider uh conditions um, where they burrow into the ground. Right, Yeah,
but that's terrifying. Can you imagine something that big that's
burrowed into a hole. You're like, oh, what's the what's
that whole? Yeah? It makes me. It makes me think
of the scene in The Hobbit, you know with the
(39:35):
giant spiders that the Sheilau and is that Hobbit or
Lord of the Rings. It's the Hobbits the Hobbit. Yeah,
I mean I remember it from the ranking not ranking bass,
the his ranking bass, the animated one with the weird
singing that great test you know. Yeah, that's there's a
part where the spiders get Bilbo and crew. It is,
(39:58):
it's both. It's definitely in the Hobbit. It's definitely in
the animated version of the hobby That's what I'm talking about. Okay, okay, okay.
I remember, you know he's traveling with the with the
with the dwarves and they get abducted by spiders and
the spider wraps them all up and it's a whole thing. Yeah.
(40:18):
I remember that he's got the little the little sword sting. Yeah.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking of the book. I'm thinking not
in the book. Did they take some license with that
scene in the book? In the book, Shelob the spider,
the evil uh spider is in Lord of the Red.
You're absolutely correct about that. And I don't think the
(40:38):
spider in the animated Hobbit had a name. It was
just creepy spiders. Um. But that's the one that made
the most indelible mark on me when I was Maybe
Tolkien had a thing for spiders, maybe he like they
were scary to him, and that's why I put it in.
He would have loved this jabab fophy. And also makes
me think of George R. Martin and the the game
(41:00):
Songs of Fire and Ice books talks about, you know,
the the winter that lasted you know years or whatever,
and the spiders the size of hounds is what they say, Well,
we do have a possible explanation for this, and it's
even it's just as creepy and it's worse yet. So
here's the thing, though, reports of this have been taking
(41:21):
place since the eighteenth century or since the nineteenth century,
and the Western Europeans found out about it in ninety
eight because people from Europe started claiming they had seen
these massive spiders, and given the politics of the time,
(41:43):
essentially what happened is the other Europeans said, okay, alright, well,
if someone who has the same color skin as us
said something, maybe we should believe them, which is just
the opposite of critical thinking, right. And because of these descriptions,
and because they matched so well, they were consistent from
(42:03):
different populations, they were burrowing trap spiders like you said. No.
Because of this, people treated uh descriptions of these animals
with a little more they give him a little more
credibility than they would have ordinarily. But there has been
one theory advanced about the jibbuf fofi that's as maybe
(42:28):
they're the misidentification of another type of animal that has
proven to exist, but it not in a way that
makes it better. It's called a coconut crab. It sounds delightful.
It sounds delicious, sounds like something you'd get like at
a Hawaiian joint. Coconut crab, little pineapple dipping sauce on
(42:49):
the side, bring it on the spot. Well, just for
just for scale, guys, I'm gonna show you a picture
of how big the coconut crab is. That is a
full sized trash can. It's on a giant trash and
it looks sort of like a creepy lobster. Yeah, but
on land, just hanging out a lot of times you
see them rolling with coconuts for real, rolling around with
(43:09):
coconuts and they're huge. Yeah, they're the largest lands crab.
They also they make an impression, you know what I mean,
they're terrestrial hermit crabs and oh I'm sorry, excuse me.
Not just the largest land crab. They're the largest land
living arthropod overall in the world, and we think that
(43:32):
given the environment of our current age, they are at
the upper limit for what an animal with an exoskeleton
can grow to be. There as big as it gets
unless the environment literally changes. It makes total sense. And
this also gives us some arguments against the existence of
(43:54):
this great spider, because spiders also have limits to how
big they can grow due to what they could structurally
support from where their bodies are. I won't stay designed
from the way their bodies happened, uh and uh or
the way their bodies evolved. Um. They also have a
(44:16):
respiratory system that limits what they can what they can
grow into. But did they exist in the past, yes,
or you know, oh, perhaps perhaps you're talking about But
the coconut crab exists. Yeah, that definitely, that's that's a
real thing. It's a real thing. Yeah, Matt, are you
(44:38):
uncomfortable with coconut crabs? I think I am. And you know,
I think one coconut crab is fine. I'm okay with that.
But if if coconut crab has maybe her whole family
around a bunch, yeah, I don't think I'm okay with that.
You know, they they live probably over sixty years. Well,
(45:00):
so you could get one and maybe bond with it. Well,
that's the same with most a lot of crustaceans right now.
They have absurdly long lives, like the lob the Lobsters.
I believe that's correct. I learned that from the film
The Lobster because the Colin Carl's character Ferrell, he wanted
to become a lobster because it lives a very long time. Yeah,
(45:20):
that was That was such a mc sweeney's type of movie. Yeah,
I'm big, heavy New Yorker type stuff. Right, I'm checking
right now and see whether or not you can get
a coconut crab as a pet. It looks like they're
conservation status is undecided. The data is deficient, So let
us know if you live in an area where coconut
crab or around, or if you've seen one, whether you
(45:43):
think it could be mistaken for a malicious spider. This
is my favorite, just the name alone. Oh, we're removing on.
I think we should. All right, let's do it. We
don't have to. You wanna talk more about crabs? No, no,
just take us there. Okay, I'm gonna take you all
in the format. I'm gonna take you there with two
or to my friends rhinoceros dolphin. Finally, boom, that's what
(46:06):
I say. So we've been asking for this whole time.
It's like a crypted whale with two dorsal fins and
eighteen twenty off the coast of uh the Sandwich Islands,
which is a thing um and New South Wales. Gen
Rene Constant Qui, who was a zoologist and anatomist um
in addition to his pal Joseph Paul Jama, who was
(46:28):
a naturalist um, spotted what seemed to be never before
seeing species of dolphins. And forgive me French folks, we
don't have the benefit of casey pegram on the case
with us today. But coi or quai koi? What do
you think ben I would go? Quoi que you o
y I would go because it's fun to say, I'm
(46:54):
gonna say. Jamma chose to call this this new underwater
pal um the rhinoceros dolphins. It's an official name, being
Delphine's Rhinoceros. There have been a total of nine rhinoceros
dolphins cited swimming side by side um in in a
pod in the Atlantic Ocean. That's the thing. Yes, So
(47:16):
these are credible witnesses who saw multiple instances of what
appears to be a different they're up to that point,
undiscovered creature, and they were probably, like a lot of
us listening now, filled with an immense sense of relief
because you know, I think we can all agree the crappiest,
(47:37):
most irritating, depressing thing about dolphins and rhinoceros is that
they're not lumped together in one species yet. You know,
you see a dolphin and you're just like, um, fifty there,
but I cannot approve of this. I need I need
that fifty of rhino. Oh yeah, well, and that's that's
the whole thing with these um, these rhin rhinocerous dolphins,
(48:00):
is that you know, you've got these experts viewing this
this pod essentially right hanging out there. They're used to
seeing perhaps whales, perhaps dolphins, perhaps killer whales, and they
see these things and they noticed a couple of things
are different. Right. It's not that it's not the same
coloration as a lot of dolphins that they've observed in
the past. These are I think they're white and black,
(48:22):
like the white spots on a like a black body. Yea, um,
similar to a killer whale, but or at least in
the two colors. And they noticed that rather than a
single dorsal fin like you'd see on any dolphin, uh,
they had to right, Yeah, one curved fin near the
head and one curved fin on the back. Uh. And
(48:43):
it's that second fin is placed a little further back
then where a dolphins fin would normally be. And they
also thought from what they could see that the pectoral
fins were larger than average. And do we say it's
nine ft long, No, we didn't. It's fine feet long,
two fifty pounds. But although that's that's that's a big boy.
(49:05):
That's a big ocean boy. And it's also an estimation
from being on a ship sailing these but you know
with not with a sample size of nine. Yes, and
we're having experts. So this so this is, uh, this
interesting case because if there are any undiscovered cryptids or
(49:26):
large creatures as we have seen, everything we know tells
us that they are going, they're most likely to be
discovered in the ocean. And now so now we know
that just because of that fact, that fact alone, this
one has a little more likelihood of being a true
(49:47):
case of of an unapprehended or undocumented, unproven cryptid that
is a real animal. But we have to ask ourselves
what can it be? We have to play, you know,
in the stick in the mud police here. First, it
could just be a group of dolphins that had a deformity,
you know what I mean. They were the dolphin version
of an inbred hillbilly clan, which I know it sounds dismissive,
(50:12):
but what we're saying is they could have just been
a a group or a pod that over time had
passed a mutation onto one another. Okay, okay, okay, Well
there's a there's another idea here that possibly it was
a different kind of whale that they saw that actually
looks a little bit like a dolphin called the blains
(50:34):
Ville's what is it, Blaine Blaineville's beaked whale b E
A K E D whale. Doesn't that sound like some
you have buy it a grocery store? Yeah, exactly, Blain Well,
you can. You can look up pictures of these. It's
a very different looking whale, and that dorsal fin is pushed.
(50:55):
It looks like it's pushed way back towards the tail,
and they've got horns to right. Yeah, it's it's a
very different creature, and if you had never seen one before,
and let's say eighteen twenty um, maybe you believe it's
just a different looking creature. One other theory was proposed
(51:16):
by marine biologist Richard Ellis. He said, what if the
what was called the rhinoceros dolphin was just a normal
dolphin that had a sucker fish or romora attached to
its head. Again, the problem of observation. But either way,
this feels like so they saw the two creatures like
together in concert and thought it was a super creature. Yeah,
(51:37):
it's like maybe they saw it from far enough away
that they musstook the romora for being another fin. But
there's a problem with that because they saw nine different Again,
the thing here is they saw nine different instances of this. Uh,
so this would mean this would mean we have to
ask ourselves what is more likely. Is it more likely
(52:00):
that nine separate romura matched up with nine separate dolphins
and attached themselves to the same position on their body,
or is it more likely that there is a you know,
a different explanation that they were supposed to have these fins?
Still that gives this is probably our strongest example of
(52:22):
something that might actually be a real thing, unless, of course,
you're into the idea of an enormous octopus. Okay, it's
been a journey of discovery, as it not, gentleman. Um. Well, next,
we're going to continue that into into the into the
(52:42):
depths with the Carro come away. Uh. The native I
Knew people of Japan have long believed that Volcano Bay,
which is off the coast of Hokkaido, has a population
of giant octopus is called a carro come away, and
they have been sighted supposedly, purportedly rather um for for
(53:03):
many many years. Yeah. Yeah. There was a British missionary's
name was John Bachelor. He was working in the area
in the early nineteen hundreds and he wrote down a
sighting in a book he had called The I Knew
and Their Folklore, And he said that a great sea
monster with large staring eyes had attacked three local fishermen
(53:24):
and their boat. So imagine those old woodcuts of a
boat sailing and then a leviathan like creature wrapping its
tentacles around the mass of the plane. It was like that.
And he said the monster was round in shape and
emitted a dark fluid and noxious odor. The three men
fled in dismay, Not so much indeed for fear, they say,
(53:47):
but on account of the dreadful smell, however that may
have been. They were so scared that the next morning
all three refused to get up and eat. They were
lying in their beds, pale and trembling. So the Japanese
story giant octopus, I feel like that could absolutely be true. Yeah,
there's I mean, just now that we know the giant
(54:08):
squids exist, I feel like the giant octopus is just waiting.
It's just waiting to be found. It really wants to wait. Wait.
There was a sighting recently, there was a there there
there was some some reports about not too long ago,
about some giants, giant squids at the very least, Yeah, squids,
I think that's what we're talking about, the colossal squid. Yeah,
(54:28):
but an octopus would be a little bit different and uh,
I think a little more exciting because they're so intelligent.
Squids are are relatively intelligent, aren't they cephalopods as well
or not? Yeah, but they're not like the octopus is
the brain, the brains of their hist game of the
(54:49):
tentacles sea dwellers exactly. What if they leaked up with
rhinoceros dolphins, that'd be some stuff that'd be hot. The
Hot mix tape, the Hot mixtape. Yeah, that's a good look. Uh.
And now we're going to draw to a close because
we've we've touched on some that will hopefully be new.
I know that we've I know that I've definitely mispronounced
(55:11):
some of these things because they don't speak some of
these languages. But we hope this was enjoyable. Nonetheless, we
want to throw it to you. How likely is it
that any of these creatures we we just explored might exist?
We can also you know, there's a whole list of
cryptids we didn't name, chupacabra, mantis man, skunk ape, swamp ape,
(55:31):
Giglioli's whale, which just sounds like fun. It's a giggle
inducing that's for damn. So do you think any of
these creatures could be real animals? More importantly, does your
local community or region have a cryptod of its own?
Is it something that people like use as a joke
or is it something that they take seriously? Tell us
(55:53):
about it. You can find us all over the internet. Yeah,
do you live in Maryland tell us about the goat
man allegedly and Prince George's county there is the goat man,
and I want to know about it. Every time you
hear goat man. For some reason, I have a parody
song of Sound Garden spoon Man playing in my head.
But it's just growing together with goah. So you can
(56:19):
give us a call if you want to tell us
about any of that stuff. We are one eight three
three st d w y t K. That's st d
w y t K. That was a good one because
a lot of somebody wrote in not long ago saying
I couldn't understand what you were saying. Um, that is
the thing. It's just stuff they don't want you to know.
Call the number, leave a message you might get on
(56:39):
the air. We'll hear it. It'll be awesome. It's that easy.
If you don't want to do any of that, just
write us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy
at i heeart radio dot com. M H. Stuff they
(57:08):
Don't Want You to Know is a production of I
Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is They call me Ben. We're joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Controlled decond. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know a little bit of
a personal story that you guys would enjoy to open
up the show. Today, I was at our local bar
(00:47):
named an Averse of Creativity, the local uh IF. I
guess we give them a lot of business. And I
realized about twenty five minutes into what began as a
light conversation and became in a passion to be about
Bigfoot and cryptozoology in general. It's like, Wow, yelling at
someone about cryptozoology in a bar is just very on
(01:09):
brand for me. It might be the most on brand
thing I've done in the past month. How what level
of yelling are we? Are we talking here? Just raised voices?
What corporate America would call a healthy conversation, would you
wouldn't elevate it to the level of a rant. There
was no agro. Really, there were disagreements, but it was
it was a respectful exchange of intellectual perspectives. To be
(01:33):
fair that if you're in a bar, it's a little noisy,
so a certain level of voice raising is already acceptable
as like a baseline of communication. Yeah, but if the
music comes down and you're like, but the sheer surface
area of the forest, oh you were there, Yeah, it did.
It did good to a thing where it got. It
did get to a point when he said, you know what,
(01:53):
let's go outside and we went outside to the front
porch area and continue talking. Beautiful. But this this got
me thinking that we have We've explored so many different
types of cryptids. Uh, in the past. You know, we've
explored bigfoot sasquatch, mothman, allegations of dinosaurs in parts of
(02:15):
what was that Western Africa. Yeah, we've talked about some
worms that were really creepy. I remember the Mongolian death worm.
I love that. Where there's like the ones from Tremors,
do you think they seem it's almost as if the
ones from Tremors are based somehow on that idea. Uh,
they're not as big as the worms from tremors, the
(02:37):
Mongolian death worms. What about the sandworms from beetlejuice or
or or from Doune. No, no, no, those those things
would be If the sandworms from Dune would be the
largest organisms to exist on Earth, if they were real,
be cool. I would if there was a big if
there was a bigger thing than a whale, I would
(02:58):
hope it was not a worm. But you know, we'd
all be in the spice business anyway. That's true. That's true,
we would. But we've since we've discussed the concept of
cryptozoology and earlier episodes, we don't need to go into
all of it today. We can just give you the
quick and dirty recap. So here are the facts. Cryptozoology.
(03:20):
Something we very much enjoy on this show is the
study of and search for animals that are a lot
of times considered either extinct or legends. The the legendary
mochlemembe that we've talked about before. It's technically the mission
of a cryptozoologist, uh, to evaluate the possibility of the
(03:41):
existence of something. Some animals existence and so a lot
of times there's specialization that occurs here. Yeah, and that's
I love that you point out the technically that's their mission,
because one of the criticisms that crypto aso all just get,
and there are many, is that they are setting out
to prove something they already believe, you know what I mean,
(04:03):
Like you sat out with an agenda, like I know
in my heart the the four tooth waffle snapper is
real and irrelic population exists in the Alps or the
Pyrenees or what have you, and I'm going to prove
that I am correct, rather than prove the truth. A
lot of that has to do with the popularity of
(04:24):
I'm just gonna use one example here of something like squatching,
like going out squatching to find a sasquatch um, which
is you know it sounds silly, um, but it is.
Is that what you call it? Really? You go out
of squatching squatching squatch? Pretty sure they're Discovery Channel shows
where people go squatching on the regular. So if you
(04:46):
are a fan of the search for Bigfoot or sasquatch
related creatures, let us know if that came organically from
your community, or if a producer at you know, Discovery
made it up. Who knows all I know is that
that I think that concept of someone going out to
(05:07):
prove the existence of something they already believe in maybe
is tied into that. Yeah. Yeah, and the animals that
they're looking for, the life forms have not been conclusively
proven to exist, are called cryptids, So crypto zoologists cryptids.
They're popular types of cryptids, the greatest hits we all,
we all know them, we love them, like the Elvis
(05:29):
of cryptids or the jay Z of Cryptid's the Who's
another musician? Nas? The Nas of cryptids? Uh, Cisco, Cisco?
Do you a different genre? He did? He? Oh, now
he's canceled thet He's he's not quite famous enough to see.
(05:50):
It's more of a big name. The Alexander Hamilton's. Yeah,
he's the Dr franken For of cryptids. Is that the
right name from Rockey Horror Picture. Yeah, he's the Paul
Decant of kryptids, Bigfoot, the Paul Simon. Even it would
(06:13):
and that would also apply to things like the Lockness
Monster in earlier days, the Jersey Devil, which would be
more of a gar Funcle of cryptids. I would argue out,
I would think there are different bands we're going to
hit a lot of gar Funcle Cryptids today. In other words,
the lesser Paul actually uh told us he created this
file as B Team Cryptids. Yeah uh, And I wasn't joking.
(06:37):
He's a he's a very serious man. It's it's reminiscent
of our B Team Superpowers episode we did, right yeah,
which was still so interesting, like the fact that magnetic
people just had very frictive skin and they ended up
on the B Team. And they ended up on the
B Team, they were like the Great Lakes Avengers. For
all you comic fans out there, we already talked about
(06:59):
this on air, talked about that in the very episode.
I believe Great Lakes Avengers. There's one guy's Doorman his power.
I just have to bitch of this for anybody who
hasn't heard this, because I'm still fascinated by it. Doorman
has the amazing superpower, uh that allows him to when
(07:20):
he's standing next to a wall, people can walk through
him then and then through the wall. That's it. It
doesn't he can't teleport, he can't you know, be intangible.
He can just become a door. But he can become
a door and then go on the other side, right
so technically can go through walls. I don't know, he
(07:43):
could open up, he could walk up to the wall,
become a door and then exit on the other side.
That's just walking through walls. I guess it's like a
super convenience than a superpower. Is more of a super
helper than he is a superhero. He's kind of a
super furniture piece. Alright, superheroes aside. Yes, let's jump back
(08:04):
to ye cryptozoology, right, okay, So here's the strange thing
about cryptozoology. Although it is often called as pseudoscience, although uh,
you know, most people in the academy capital a dismiss
it as pure malarkey and poppy cock, or in a
lot of people in the world of the layman see
(08:28):
it as at the very least controversial entertaining, maybe more
like reality TV junk food, you know what I mean,
rather than some serious pursuit. But the truth of the
matter is, the ugly truth of the matter for people
who hate cryptozoology, is that researchers have actually verified the
existence or rediscovery, we should say, of multiple real animals
(08:51):
that were once thought to be myths or legends or extinct,
and we've got famous examples of those, like the sea
kent Uh guerrillas were thought to be mythical for a
long time. Yeah, just to jump in that ceili Anth
was a fish that we thought for humanity, thought for
centuries that this thing had been extinct, and then it
(09:12):
just showed up again. And if nobody was looking then
it maybe maybe it would have just come back and
we wouldn't have known. Still, but thank goodness for the
crypto zoologists. Yeah, and also we have to point out
in both of those cases, Uh, this discovery comes about
because Western Europeans finally saw these animals that the local
(09:36):
people in the region had known about four years. The
local community where the ceili canth was rediscovered said, first off,
they were very unimpressed with the fish, and I think
it was a big deal and their reaction was very
much like a big whoop because those things taste like trash. Yeah,
what are we gonna do with it? On an on
(09:58):
an applicable level, who cares? Yeah? And uh, So we
know that cryptozoology has successes, but it also has some
baked in flaws, some things that make it very difficult
for let's say a zoologists to take crypto zoologists seriously.
And one of the biggest problems, uh, the most prevalent
(10:18):
problems in the field of crypto zoology is the potential
to misidentify some of these things. We see it time
and time. Mechanic can happen super easily most people. For example,
I haven't really seen a bear in the wild, let
alone right up close. Uh. If you add to that
the um, the adrenaline rush that comes with the initial
sighting of of said creature, and you know, the fallibility
(10:42):
of our memories as is imperfect human beings, despite what
we like to tell ourselves, right, um. And of course additionally, um,
you've got just hoaxes a plenty. Well, you know, and
this is a really great point here. Let's just say
we make an example out of it. The four of
us in this room plus you you're we're all walking
around in the woods. We've got all our gear to
(11:03):
find our squatch. We know, we we don't believe it's
out there, but we want to prove that it's out
there or not. And we happened upon something on a
ridge high above us. It seems to be brown, the
color that oh sasquatch might be that color, And I
can just see some it looks like fur up there
moving around. Um, just this example that we've given here
of of a bear. If we all observe this thing
(11:26):
and we're unable to get up there to get our
eyes on it, and it sounds like there's maybe a
weird noise occurring up near this location? What what what?
What? What What? What? What? What? Sort of those three stooges
kind of sound? Oh my god, So what is that?
Oh my god? What is happening up there? It maybe
within us to at least a few of us would
probably believe, perhaps you, that that was a sasquatch, even
(11:49):
if we can't prove it was or not. But another
percentage of us would say, oh, that's just a bear. Guys,
we didn't see anything. Um. And that that, in I think,
is what we're talking about here. Yeah, and there there's
another weird twist. We're in a immensely fascinating time for cryptozoology.
Twenty nineteen is the best time for crypto zoology since
(12:13):
the past few centuries, really since back in the days
when people were still exploring the edges of maps. And
it leads us to a weird twist. So the human
population is growing more importantly despite concentrating more and more
in cities and urban areas, our civilization is reaching out
(12:34):
to places it had never reached before. And when we
combine this with our weird obsession with making surveillance technology,
our species, weird obsession with making surveillance technology and monitoring
everything through satellites, those two factors mean that we are
more likely than ever before to discover previously unidentified or
(12:58):
lost organisms. And you can find these kind of inspiring list. Uh.
It's it's a sad irony because a lot of the
reasons we're discovering these these other creatures is because we
are in the process of their environment, obliterating them, creating
some sort of um, some sort of analog of genocide, right,
(13:21):
we are rendering them extinct. And this means, you know
that we might as we go forward, we might still
find stuff, you know what I mean, Like the colossal squid.
That's another cryptid that was proven to exist. And when
it comes to cryptids, it turns out there are way
more than big Foot, way way more. And we'll get
(13:44):
into specific examples after this word from our sponsor. Here's
where it gets crazy. We found examples of you know,
we we don't have every cryptid ever mentioned in this episode,
but we found some examples of some obscure ones that
(14:05):
seemed pretty interesting. So we're going to explore those and
then maybe talk a little bit about whether or not
they could be real pros and commons. Okay, so first off,
we've got okay, we practice this pronunciation off faris, see
if I can get it. The Incan yamba nailed it great,
thanks man um. The Incan yamba as a legendary cryptod
from Southern Africa that lives by waterfalls, uh and most
(14:26):
commonly is seen at a place called how It Falls
in South Africa, and it has a reputation for looking
like a snake except for the head, which, of course,
like you do, looks like a horse horse head that
seems like a very non functioning creature when it uses
weird horsehead to kind of drag itself along, you know,
use it like a weird foot. I don't know, you know,
(14:49):
because it's aquatic, it makes a little more sense just
because it would have to drag the head around. Do
you think it's amphibious though? Is the question? Let's let's
let's let's move forward here. So yeah, like you said,
and the incon Yamba is aquatic uh and lives in
lakes and near waterfalls, and to some, um, it's suspected
of being a species of giant eel rather than a
(15:12):
snake at all. And it's distinguished from similar creatures due
to its odd size, which is over twenty feet long.
That's ridiculous. Yeah, that's too much feet long with a
giant horse looking head hanging out underneath a waterfall. First
of all, no, thank you. Well, well you know you
(15:34):
you hear a description of something like that, um, and
it makes you wonder how many times, how many sightings
have occurred to get that kind of um specific description
of something you know, um, like the horse or horse
shaped head is so specific to me? Well, now we've
heard of the water horse, right. It's a film about
(15:56):
a small NeSSI type creature. I just wonder if the
name you know what I mean, Like we've got a
sea horse, we've got which has like an elongated head
you with a snout and things like that. I want
to if it's based on that kind of maybe it
doesn't actually have as looked like a horse per se
doesn't have like fur and literally a transplanted horsehead looks
more like, uh, you know, just have as more of
(16:16):
an elongated shape horse like yeah. Yes. So, according to
locals and people who believe in it, it's most active
during the summer months of uh. This leads some people
to believe that it is migratory or that it's been
around so long in the local culture that they believe
(16:38):
it as supernatural abilities causes seasonal storms to come. But
if we look at what this actually could be, if
this were a thing, then we could say, maybe it's
a large species of freshwater eel, like the Angila mosambika
or the Angila marmarata, both of those. This is the
(17:00):
problem with these These are large. These would freak you
out if you saw them in the wild, probably, but
they grow to about six ft instead of twenty So
is this giant version of an existing thing? Maybe the
problem is that we usually see We know that fish
and maritime animals can grow to unusual size, but we
(17:23):
usually only see them reach that size when they're out
in deep oceans. So would this lake be deep enough
that something could grow to like more than three times
what it's supposed to grow tom It seems unlikely, But
there's something really fascinating in particular with this cryptod. It's
that it was found and has been found in cave
(17:45):
paintings from from native tribes. Is there are some tribes
within the Quazulu Natal province that um that had these
cave paintings of these things. Are allegedly of these things,
and supposedly they had some kind of supernatural power perhaps
like they could influence the weather maybe or would give
(18:06):
good or generally bad tidings or would bring bad tidings.
What what am I trying to say here? Yeah, it
would it would be um, it would be bad for
you to see one did generally it would be a
bad omen, bad omen. Yeah. Um, whoe betide those who
crossed the ika Yamba. Also, I have to I have
(18:26):
to admit that I zoned out just for a second
when you said a tribe called because I totally thought
you were going to say a tribe called Questions. Oh yeah,
I know, I almost did, almost said that, um, But no,
it's just it's that was actually several tribes within in
a province. That makes sense too, because this is a
very regionalized creature, right. Yes, there's a lot of these
(18:47):
come to us from the African continent because for a
long time. Uh, the members of the ivory Towers and
the academies had no idea what the they had new
very well polished idea of what the ecosystems or the
biomas were like, and they would just hear crazy stories
(19:08):
or rely on disreputable sources, or just legends, local legends
or just legends because according to some people, especially if
you're in the Congo area, you may run into gigantic
creatures undiscovered on the land as well. And that brings
us to something that I'm surely mispronouncing, the emmela in Toca.
(19:29):
It's apparently around the size of an African bush elephant. Cheeze. Uh, yeah, no,
it's true. The Ammela antoca is around the size of
an African bush elephant, which is an average of three
point two meters tall, weighing around six tons or thirteen thousand,
two undred and thirty pounds. It's brownish or gray in color,
sort of a gradation, with a very heavy tail and
(19:52):
body quite similar in shape and and look to that
of a rhinoceros, including one long horn that comes out
of its now. But here's the difference. It has four
short stump like legs and it's described as having no
frills or ridges around the neck, and the animal is
alleged to be semi aquatic and feed on malumbo or
other leafy plants. Um. The Emila and Tuca is claimed
(20:16):
to utter a very specific vocalization, described as a variously
as a snort, rumble, or growl. So what what the
heck could this thing be? Is it just sort of
like a weird pigmy kind of cousin of the rhinoceros?
Like what are we talking to here? Right? And why
is it? Is it a hippo with a horn because
(20:38):
it's semi aquatic. I hope it's a dinosaur whatever I
said it, I hope it's a large reptiles. Yeah, just
something that was left over or maybe an in between
somewhere along the evolutionary lines. Yeah, yeah, like that um
that guy we mentioned that previous episode. Dr Roy mackel,
one of the people who's searching for another similar did
(21:00):
called the uh membembe rightbe. He was looking for reports
of this creature and then he ran into reports of
Emila and Toka. You'll hear folks say that maybe it's
a relic population of a dinosaur, and maybe it's far
enough out in the wild, that it's just too expensive
(21:21):
to search for it, you know. But it's just it's
the same thing we've been talking about before. Where there
are reports that I believe it was in nineteen thirty
three when the West first I guess heard about this
because there was a writer rolling through town, J. E. Hughes,
and he wrote this thing called eighteen Years on Lake
bun Woolo Wailu, and um, he was talking about within
(21:45):
this book that apparently he was hanging out with some
tribesmen or he had heard stories at least of some
tribesmen who slaughtered something that kind of met this description,
and you know, maybe this thing is actually real. And
then that then the guy you're talking about, um Roy
P what's his name, Roy, That dude was saying, you know, also, hey,
(22:06):
here's some eyewitness accounts going back to this thing, but
we don't have any pictures of it. We don't have
any you know, official pictures. We've got some bodies. Yeah,
that's yeah, that's the problem with this one because it's
supposed to be slightly larger than an elephant, and it's
supposed to hunt elephants. Yeah, I mean, you would think
(22:29):
you would think that someone would have discovered this or
had a taxidermy version of it in the British Museum,
you know, especially from the age of colonizers, right, do
you think something would exist or even um just what
maybe the horn they're talking about that one specific horn
or the skull or something. You'd you'd have something somewhere
(22:49):
in my opinion, but maybe not. You know, I don't
know how this is going to work in the edit.
And sorry about that poll. But we we took a
we we took a really quick break and uh no,
you you wouldn't got some water and it's true. Yeah,
and I'm now questioned fully and I stole a pumpkin.
(23:09):
It's right, No, we have a pumpkin. It's kind of
changed the vibe in the room, though, I know the better. Yeah, yeah,
I'm feeling more hocus focused. Did you did you talk
about how this could be something of a of a
combo between a triceratops and a striasaurus, a striaca saurus.
I don't even know that one. No, no, uh, that's
(23:30):
that's a good point, because we it behooves staff some specificity.
You're right, I just got excited and said dinosaur. But
saying dinosaur is like saying chair or cancer. It describes
a rough concept of a thing, but there's so many differences.
H No, With the Imili Polka, we also see the
(23:55):
we we see descriptions of it. The date back pretty far,
but not as far back as the descriptions of our
earlier super eel, the Incan Yamba. So the Incan Yamba
maybe an exaggerated story about something that was real. The
militant in Toca is a little harder to explain. Was
(24:15):
it somebody like in all the drawings that you see
of it? It looks reptilian right, all the depictions. Of course,
spoiler alert, there are no photographs. So going to your
earlier point and well it it has a horn, it
has you know, rough skin, it's stuck covered with fur feathers.
So could they just be seeing a rhinoceros again in
(24:39):
the wild, panicking and freaking out? Because I would. This
is why I want to bring up, Yeah, when is
the last time you guys saw with your eyes a rhinoceros?
A number of years ago? About six I guess I
must have seen one zood up somewhere, but I can't
recall which which zoo like really really picture in your
(25:00):
and the last time you saw rhinoceros, so that's six
years ago. Was that a zoo too, I wasn't just
like on the street. Yeah, those things are just odd.
They don't feel real, especially if you live anywhere near
a city, like anywhere, it doesn't matter where on Earth.
If you live near a city, you probably aren't going
to see a rhinoceros very often. True. Um, And if
(25:23):
if you just really behold one walking around, it's an
it's an odd experience. So I'm just saying, um, to
your point, Ben, what you were trying to build off
of what you were saying, to just behold one, um
may throw you off, especially if it's far enough in
the distance it looks even bigger than maybe it is. Yeah,
(25:46):
just compared to the surrounding foliage or whatever it's near.
I don't know if you saw one in the wild
to like most of us, since the majority of human
beings live in urban areas. Now that's true, that's a
change that happened or in our lifetime. That means the
majority of us will see, Uh, most of the wild
animals will see are going to be in the animal
(26:08):
jails that we call zoos, or at least in a
protected reserve somewhere. Okay, yes, which is better than his.
And that's not a deing on zoos and being a
little bit unfair to them, because zoos do tremendous conservation work,
and the Atlanta Zoo actually has, I think, is this
huge force in the community. I think they do do
good work as well, and they just expanded and they
(26:30):
have a savannah section now, which is you know, Oh,
I haven't been there. Yeah, I haven't either. It's down
by my house, so I've been seeing the construction going
on for quite a while, but I have not been
since it's been opened up, so it'd be interesting to checkout.
I know some people are super anti zoo, which I understand,
but I also understand that many of these animals would
not be able to survive in the wild, and that's
(26:52):
why they bring them in and take good care of them.
In zoos, I don't know. We've talked about the poaching
problem that is severe rhinoceroses, and I mean take the
example of tigers. There are I think more tigers living
in captivity in Texas then there are in the wild
across the planet. Uh, And that's that's uh, that's from
(27:12):
a few years ago. Conservation efforts have up the tiger population.
Actually get notifications about tigers on Twitter. Nice doesn't always
just come up with some sports stuff, no I I uh,
right now, I'm following something called Tiger Tuesday, which I
didn't know as a thing, and it's where people just
point just post pictures of tigers. Oh wait, some sports
(27:35):
stuff creeps in. But I'm you know, I'm there for
the animals that should get better hobbies, guys. But so
we've been talking about large creatures in the African continent
and again, as you can tell, the big question for
us is how could something be this big and remain undiscovered.
But let's go, let's go across the water. Let's let's
(27:58):
explore the story of what of the cryptods. I'm surprised
we haven't done a full episode on. And that is
the thunderbird. Oh okay, the fabulous thunderbird. Yes, okay, so
quick story to get us into this. Driving around with
the wife and kid a couple of days ago and
we're just pulling up to a stop side and my
(28:18):
son looks out his window and just kind of says, uh,
what's that? And it was too huge. I believe there
were turkey vultures, so much larger birds than um any
of us are used to seeing just in the wild
at any time. I I couldn't say exactly how tall
(28:41):
they were, maybe three ft tall something to that effect.
Three ft is probably about about three feet tall. But
as my son is remarking about them, they put their
wings out and fly upwards. And seeing a bird of
that size up close was intense. And I don't I
(29:01):
mean no, you would have. You would have probably um
pepeed myself or at least jumped out and tried to
attack them just to get them away. No, I would
have pepeed myself and then possibly gone into an irreversible comma.
Oh oh, well, well we would have taken measures. I
don't think you understand of fear I have towards large birds.
(29:25):
Forget to forget about it. So here's the thing. Could
you know, describe to us what it would be like
to see a thunderbird. I'd rather not, but I would
give on my best. I will give it my all.
So the popular hot spots for seeing these very large
bird like creatures would be in northern Canada and even Alaska. Ben,
(29:48):
did you happen to catch any while you were vacationing there.
And then in Alaska vacation, yeah, I saw a moose.
Uh and that was enough for me because those those things,
these are huge. There's a problem since we've got this
pumpkin here. There's a problem in Alaska for people trying
to celebrate Halloween because when they carve pumpkins and they
(30:09):
set them out on their porch, depending on where they live,
it's like candy to a moose can smell it and
they just come to it, and you can't stop them.
What you can do. But but yeah, I would I
would have freaked out if I saw something larger than
a moose, right absolutely, it would have been that. And
then you could even see them down in Central America.
(30:31):
But in Canada, um you actually there's there's like totem
poles that are in the shape of thunderbird. Is a
place called Thunderbird Park in Victoria, British Columbia, um where
you can see some of these very things um and
they are the stuff of legend um mythical creatures in fact,
sort of eagle like birds that are known for having
(30:51):
very powerful talents um and and very much present in
Native American culture, various tribe in the American Midwest, and
as we said in Canada, the Sioux Nation UH, the
Brule Sioux Um from South Dakota UM on a reservation
known as the Rosebud Reservation. UM has their own thunderbird
(31:13):
legend called the wakan yon tonka Um also known as
the Great Thunderbird. So, so if you're imagining these things,
it's like a large feathered pterodon or pterodactyl, like huge
and nol. I'm gonna show you a picture here, and
I want you to describe this picture because I have
a feeling if you came across this in real life,
(31:35):
you'd have a reaction. Look at this picture right here.
I've seen that it looks it looks like it looks
like a giant corvette kind of which a friend to
Ben's the world over um. Ben commands them and they
sort of flocked to him and they bring him shiny
(31:56):
things and it's it's a symbiotic relationship. But this thing
twice as tall as that, twice as tall as this
gentleman posing with this uh with this taxis are made cars.
It's not real. It's not real. It's it's in imagination.
It's an imagining of what a thunderbird how it's been described. Okay,
well it's it's the wingspan would probably be in the
(32:18):
neighborhood of I don't know, about twenty feet. That's that's correct.
And the thing is, the thunderbird evolved from the word
we use now has taken a meaning that evolved from
the original mythology. It is present in a lot of
ancient Native American mythology. You can find very old uh,
(32:43):
sandstone carvings. You can find paintings and caves and so on,
and that, you know, like the total poles you mentioned earlier,
but now and in the recent in the recent past,
the phrase thunderbird has been used to describe any large, flying,
unidentified organism in the US for the quote unquote New World.
(33:06):
So you'll hear people like, like, the common thing people
say is like, well, it it flew, but reports didn't
see it had feathers, so it's obviously a terra dactyl
or you know, a relic population of something like you know,
some creature like that, a flying reptile. But then you'll
hear other people say, no, it's uh, it's it's essentially
(33:27):
a massive eagle, it's big enough to take your children.
And they also say, but those terrastaurs did have feathers, dude,
exactly exactly. So this animal is, or this cryptid, i
should say, is almost too famous for our cryptids you've
(33:48):
never heard of lists. Yeah, I think you just wanted
to explore it a little more because growing up, if
you were ever one of those kids who read those
Time Life mystery boks, they all had names that were
kind of similar, like Mysteries of the Unknown or Unexplored
Unknown Mysteries baron normal, you know what I mean. They
(34:10):
would always trot out stories about the thunderbird, usually the
same one. There's a story about these guys who will
save it when we if we ever do an episode
just on the thunderbird. Is a story about these guys
who shoot and capture one and have the body so
Habeas corpus and all that. So they ate for a month.
Well they take it back. But then as we hear,
(34:31):
you know, and like a lot of those stories stories
of giants from that time, stories about the c Techka
and all these other things, for some reason the proof
they had, the tangible proof disappeared, and you can see
those reproduction photos. Right, that may may be out and
out hoaxes, but we have to ask ourselves, if there
(34:54):
was such a large creature now, especially with the popularity
of aircraft, how on earth, how on earth have we
not seen it? This one. I would say it's possible
that it was. It was an ancestral memory of a
very large creature. But then again, the big birds that
(35:16):
we know about, at least in this continent, and from
what I understand, the big birds we know about the
we sea on this continent. As early humans were flightless, right,
they weren't like the big bird for his estime stream, Yeah,
pretty much. But mean he I don't know, he's got
a tempers aren't roll up. Yeah, he's got a dark,
(35:37):
real monster. And while we're on this subject of terrifying things,
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(37:49):
let's get back to the show. Alright, we're back. We're back.
We're done with birds. We're going to explore something different.
So if you something even worse, well that depends worse
for me. Worse for me. What's what? Well, statistically worse
for people. It is the story of the jibab fopy
j apostrophe b A f O f I. The name
(38:10):
translates to great spider. This is also in the Congo.
It is exactly what it says on the tin, huge
spider with allegedly a six foot wide legspan. Yeah, six
ft and supposedly it's a fan of eating monkeys, birds, yes,
(38:32):
and even small antelopes and humans. Obviously, of course that's
to mention the besides their absurd bean as you would say,
cartoonish size, their brown um and and said to be
darker the older they get, which is interesting fact um
or no it's not call it a fact, let's call
it a detail. Um. And they have a large purple
(38:54):
mark on their abdomens, so it sounds like a poison boy. Right,
They've got like some sort of shape mark. Uh. And
they're black. Um. That doesn't sound good right, Nature's way
of saying, watch out back, t off. Uh. They're said
to live in a similar um to the smaller trapdoor
(39:14):
spider uh conditions um, where they burrow into the ground. Right, Yeah,
but that's terrifying. Can you imagine something that big that's
burrowed into a hole. You're like, oh, what's the what's
that whole? Yeah? It makes me. It makes me think
of the scene in The Hobbit, you know with the
(39:35):
giant spiders that the Sheilau and is that Hobbit or
Lord of the Rings. It's the Hobbits the Hobbit. Yeah,
I mean I remember it from the ranking not ranking bass,
the his ranking bass, the animated one with the weird
singing that great test you know. Yeah, that's there's a
part where the spiders get Bilbo and crew. It is,
(39:58):
it's both. It's definitely in the Hobbit. It's definitely in
the animated version of the hobby That's what I'm talking about. Okay, okay, okay.
I remember, you know he's traveling with the with the
with the dwarves and they get abducted by spiders and
the spider wraps them all up and it's a whole thing. Yeah.
(40:18):
I remember that he's got the little the little sword sting. Yeah.
I'm thinking, I'm thinking of the book. I'm thinking not
in the book. Did they take some license with that
scene in the book? In the book, Shelob the spider,
the evil uh spider is in Lord of the Red.
You're absolutely correct about that. And I don't think the
(40:38):
spider in the animated Hobbit had a name. It was
just creepy spiders. Um. But that's the one that made
the most indelible mark on me when I was Maybe
Tolkien had a thing for spiders, maybe he like they
were scary to him, and that's why I put it in.
He would have loved this jabab fophy. And also makes
me think of George R. Martin and the the game
(41:00):
Songs of Fire and Ice books talks about, you know,
the the winter that lasted you know years or whatever,
and the spiders the size of hounds is what they say, Well,
we do have a possible explanation for this, and it's
even it's just as creepy and it's worse yet. So
here's the thing, though, reports of this have been taking
(41:21):
place since the eighteenth century or since the nineteenth century,
and the Western Europeans found out about it in ninety
eight because people from Europe started claiming they had seen
these massive spiders, and given the politics of the time,
(41:43):
essentially what happened is the other Europeans said, okay, alright, well,
if someone who has the same color skin as us
said something, maybe we should believe them, which is just
the opposite of critical thinking, right. And because of these descriptions,
and because they matched so well, they were consistent from
(42:03):
different populations, they were burrowing trap spiders like you said. No.
Because of this, people treated uh descriptions of these animals
with a little more they give him a little more
credibility than they would have ordinarily. But there has been
one theory advanced about the jibbuf fofi that's as maybe
(42:28):
they're the misidentification of another type of animal that has
proven to exist, but it not in a way that
makes it better. It's called a coconut crab. It sounds delightful.
It sounds delicious, sounds like something you'd get like at
a Hawaiian joint. Coconut crab, little pineapple dipping sauce on
(42:49):
the side, bring it on the spot. Well, just for
just for scale, guys, I'm gonna show you a picture
of how big the coconut crab is. That is a
full sized trash can. It's on a giant trash and
it looks sort of like a creepy lobster. Yeah, but
on land, just hanging out a lot of times you
see them rolling with coconuts for real, rolling around with
(43:09):
coconuts and they're huge. Yeah, they're the largest lands crab.
They also they make an impression, you know what I mean,
they're terrestrial hermit crabs and oh I'm sorry, excuse me.
Not just the largest land crab. They're the largest land
living arthropod overall in the world, and we think that
(43:32):
given the environment of our current age, they are at
the upper limit for what an animal with an exoskeleton
can grow to be. There as big as it gets
unless the environment literally changes. It makes total sense. And
this also gives us some arguments against the existence of
(43:54):
this great spider, because spiders also have limits to how
big they can grow due to what they could structurally
support from where their bodies are. I won't stay designed
from the way their bodies happened, uh and uh or
the way their bodies evolved. Um. They also have a
(44:16):
respiratory system that limits what they can what they can
grow into. But did they exist in the past, yes,
or you know, oh, perhaps perhaps you're talking about But
the coconut crab exists. Yeah, that definitely, that's that's a
real thing. It's a real thing. Yeah, Matt, are you
(44:38):
uncomfortable with coconut crabs? I think I am. And you know,
I think one coconut crab is fine. I'm okay with that.
But if if coconut crab has maybe her whole family
around a bunch, yeah, I don't think I'm okay with that.
You know, they they live probably over sixty years. Well,
(45:00):
so you could get one and maybe bond with it. Well,
that's the same with most a lot of crustaceans right now.
They have absurdly long lives, like the lob the Lobsters.
I believe that's correct. I learned that from the film
The Lobster because the Colin Carl's character Ferrell, he wanted
to become a lobster because it lives a very long time. Yeah,
(45:20):
that was That was such a mc sweeney's type of movie. Yeah,
I'm big, heavy New Yorker type stuff. Right, I'm checking
right now and see whether or not you can get
a coconut crab as a pet. It looks like they're
conservation status is undecided. The data is deficient, So let
us know if you live in an area where coconut
crab or around, or if you've seen one, whether you
(45:43):
think it could be mistaken for a malicious spider. This
is my favorite, just the name alone. Oh, we're removing on.
I think we should. All right, let's do it. We
don't have to. You wanna talk more about crabs? No, no,
just take us there. Okay, I'm gonna take you all
in the format. I'm gonna take you there with two
or to my friends rhinoceros dolphin. Finally, boom, that's what
(46:06):
I say. So we've been asking for this whole time.
It's like a crypted whale with two dorsal fins and
eighteen twenty off the coast of uh the Sandwich Islands,
which is a thing um and New South Wales. Gen
Rene Constant Qui, who was a zoologist and anatomist um
in addition to his pal Joseph Paul Jama, who was
(46:28):
a naturalist um, spotted what seemed to be never before
seeing species of dolphins. And forgive me French folks, we
don't have the benefit of casey pegram on the case
with us today. But coi or quai koi? What do
you think ben I would go? Quoi que you o
y I would go because it's fun to say, I'm
(46:54):
gonna say. Jamma chose to call this this new underwater
pal um the rhinoceros dolphins. It's an official name, being
Delphine's Rhinoceros. There have been a total of nine rhinoceros
dolphins cited swimming side by side um in in a
pod in the Atlantic Ocean. That's the thing. Yes, So
(47:16):
these are credible witnesses who saw multiple instances of what
appears to be a different they're up to that point,
undiscovered creature, and they were probably, like a lot of
us listening now, filled with an immense sense of relief
because you know, I think we can all agree the crappiest,
(47:37):
most irritating, depressing thing about dolphins and rhinoceros is that
they're not lumped together in one species yet. You know,
you see a dolphin and you're just like, um, fifty there,
but I cannot approve of this. I need I need
that fifty of rhino. Oh yeah, well, and that's that's
the whole thing with these um, these rhin rhinocerous dolphins,
(48:00):
is that you know, you've got these experts viewing this
this pod essentially right hanging out there. They're used to
seeing perhaps whales, perhaps dolphins, perhaps killer whales, and they
see these things and they noticed a couple of things
are different. Right. It's not that it's not the same
coloration as a lot of dolphins that they've observed in
the past. These are I think they're white and black,
(48:22):
like the white spots on a like a black body. Yea, um,
similar to a killer whale, but or at least in
the two colors. And they noticed that rather than a
single dorsal fin like you'd see on any dolphin, uh,
they had to right, Yeah, one curved fin near the
head and one curved fin on the back. Uh. And
(48:43):
it's that second fin is placed a little further back
then where a dolphins fin would normally be. And they
also thought from what they could see that the pectoral
fins were larger than average. And do we say it's
nine ft long, No, we didn't. It's fine feet long,
two fifty pounds. But although that's that's that's a big boy.
(49:05):
That's a big ocean boy. And it's also an estimation
from being on a ship sailing these but you know
with not with a sample size of nine. Yes, and
we're having experts. So this so this is, uh, this
interesting case because if there are any undiscovered cryptids or
(49:26):
large creatures as we have seen, everything we know tells
us that they are going, they're most likely to be
discovered in the ocean. And now so now we know
that just because of that fact, that fact alone, this
one has a little more likelihood of being a true
(49:47):
case of of an unapprehended or undocumented, unproven cryptid that
is a real animal. But we have to ask ourselves
what can it be? We have to play, you know,
in the stick in the mud police here. First, it
could just be a group of dolphins that had a deformity,
you know what I mean. They were the dolphin version
of an inbred hillbilly clan, which I know it sounds dismissive,
(50:12):
but what we're saying is they could have just been
a a group or a pod that over time had
passed a mutation onto one another. Okay, okay, okay, Well
there's a there's another idea here that possibly it was
a different kind of whale that they saw that actually
looks a little bit like a dolphin called the blains
(50:34):
Ville's what is it, Blaine Blaineville's beaked whale b E
A K E D whale. Doesn't that sound like some
you have buy it a grocery store? Yeah, exactly, Blain Well,
you can. You can look up pictures of these. It's
a very different looking whale, and that dorsal fin is pushed.
(50:55):
It looks like it's pushed way back towards the tail,
and they've got horns to right. Yeah, it's it's a
very different creature, and if you had never seen one before,
and let's say eighteen twenty um, maybe you believe it's
just a different looking creature. One other theory was proposed
(51:16):
by marine biologist Richard Ellis. He said, what if the
what was called the rhinoceros dolphin was just a normal
dolphin that had a sucker fish or romora attached to
its head. Again, the problem of observation. But either way,
this feels like so they saw the two creatures like
together in concert and thought it was a super creature. Yeah,
(51:37):
it's like maybe they saw it from far enough away
that they musstook the romora for being another fin. But
there's a problem with that because they saw nine different Again,
the thing here is they saw nine different instances of this. Uh,
so this would mean this would mean we have to
ask ourselves what is more likely. Is it more likely
(52:00):
that nine separate romura matched up with nine separate dolphins
and attached themselves to the same position on their body,
or is it more likely that there is a you know,
a different explanation that they were supposed to have these fins?
Still that gives this is probably our strongest example of
(52:22):
something that might actually be a real thing, unless, of course,
you're into the idea of an enormous octopus. Okay, it's
been a journey of discovery, as it not, gentleman. Um. Well, next,
we're going to continue that into into the into the
(52:42):
depths with the Carro come away. Uh. The native I
Knew people of Japan have long believed that Volcano Bay,
which is off the coast of Hokkaido, has a population
of giant octopus is called a carro come away, and
they have been sighted supposedly, purportedly rather um for for
(53:03):
many many years. Yeah. Yeah. There was a British missionary's
name was John Bachelor. He was working in the area
in the early nineteen hundreds and he wrote down a
sighting in a book he had called The I Knew
and Their Folklore, And he said that a great sea
monster with large staring eyes had attacked three local fishermen
(53:24):
and their boat. So imagine those old woodcuts of a
boat sailing and then a leviathan like creature wrapping its
tentacles around the mass of the plane. It was like that.
And he said the monster was round in shape and
emitted a dark fluid and noxious odor. The three men
fled in dismay, Not so much indeed for fear, they say,
(53:47):
but on account of the dreadful smell, however that may
have been. They were so scared that the next morning
all three refused to get up and eat. They were
lying in their beds, pale and trembling. So the Japanese
story giant octopus, I feel like that could absolutely be true. Yeah,
there's I mean, just now that we know the giant
(54:08):
squids exist, I feel like the giant octopus is just waiting.
It's just waiting to be found. It really wants to wait. Wait.
There was a sighting recently, there was a there there
there was some some reports about not too long ago,
about some giants, giant squids at the very least, Yeah, squids,
I think that's what we're talking about, the colossal squid. Yeah,
(54:28):
but an octopus would be a little bit different and uh,
I think a little more exciting because they're so intelligent.
Squids are are relatively intelligent, aren't they cephalopods as well
or not? Yeah, but they're not like the octopus is
the brain, the brains of their hist game of the
(54:49):
tentacles sea dwellers exactly. What if they leaked up with
rhinoceros dolphins, that'd be some stuff that'd be hot. The
Hot mix tape, the Hot mixtape. Yeah, that's a good look. Uh.
And now we're going to draw to a close because
we've we've touched on some that will hopefully be new.
I know that we've I know that I've definitely mispronounced
(55:11):
some of these things because they don't speak some of
these languages. But we hope this was enjoyable. Nonetheless, we
want to throw it to you. How likely is it
that any of these creatures we we just explored might exist?
We can also you know, there's a whole list of
cryptids we didn't name, chupacabra, mantis man, skunk ape, swamp ape,
(55:31):
Giglioli's whale, which just sounds like fun. It's a giggle
inducing that's for damn. So do you think any of
these creatures could be real animals? More importantly, does your
local community or region have a cryptod of its own?
Is it something that people like use as a joke
or is it something that they take seriously? Tell us
(55:53):
about it. You can find us all over the internet. Yeah,
do you live in Maryland tell us about the goat
man allegedly and Prince George's county there is the goat man,
and I want to know about it. Every time you
hear goat man. For some reason, I have a parody
song of Sound Garden spoon Man playing in my head.
But it's just growing together with goah. So you can
(56:19):
give us a call if you want to tell us
about any of that stuff. We are one eight three
three st d w y t K. That's st d
w y t K. That was a good one because
a lot of somebody wrote in not long ago saying
I couldn't understand what you were saying. Um, that is
the thing. It's just stuff they don't want you to know.
Call the number, leave a message you might get on
(56:39):
the air. We'll hear it. It'll be awesome. It's that easy.
If you don't want to do any of that, just
write us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy
at i heeart radio dot com. M H. Stuff they
(57:08):
Don't Want You to Know is a production of I
Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my
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