August 4, 2021 • 59 mins
In the folklore of Spain, Latin America, the Philippines and more, a duende is a supernatural creature known for its mischievous (and at times sinister) behavior. For outsiders this may seem to be little more than a regional variation on other legends of things like gnomes, sprites and so on -- but there's one big difference: in multiple parts of Latin America, people are convinced they've encountered an actual duende in the flesh.
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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 Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt. Our colleague nol is on an
adventure they called me Ben. We're joined as always with
our super producer Ball, Mission Controlled Decond. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. Today's episode is
something that Matt, I think you and I are both
(00:47):
pretty excited about because we're we're diving into something with
some folklore, some mythologies, some twists and unexpected turns, and
you and Mission Control and I are not alone in
this endeavor. You see. Today's episode comes to us courtesy
of Pedro. Pedro, I hope you're listening, because this episode
(01:09):
is for you man. Uh Pedro, you wrote in to
say the following, and I think, Matt, maybe we can
we can uh double dragon this a little and pass
off the email, so I want to hear it here
it goes. Pedro says, in part, I have always been
amazed at the folklore involving goblins or dwen Days in Spanish.
(01:30):
I know you guys have spoken a lot about UFOs,
mysterious deaths, magic and or powers. This needs to be
given a look at because down in Mexico and many
parts of Central and South America, there have been not
only tails, but alleged sightings of these mysterious creatures. And
I would really love if you guys could talk about
this on air. And Pedro says, I will attach to
(01:52):
videos in this email just so you guys can get
an idea of what I'm talking about. Videos in Spanish
happened in Sonora, Mexico, and in the video there's seems
to be a woman carrying what looks like to be
a dwen Day or goblin, and it left many people
in shock. The second is another sighting in Mexico. I
also linked in an article with some background information. You
(02:14):
can YouTube or search articles regarding the topic. Thanks so much,
love the show. Oh you, Ben just deleted my favorite
part of the email from Pedro. I'm gonna say the
same doc Pedro said, Ben is my spirit animal. That's
too kind. Pedro, thank you, thank you very much. Uh
you know that's that is a really nice compliment, so
(02:35):
much so that I did delete it in an active betrayal.
As you are reading the email, Matt, I want to
own up to that. I apologize. But this is this
is interesting because you know, over the years you and
I have well, I think we all we both loved
cryptids growing up, and over the years doing this show,
(02:56):
we've explored tons and tons of cryptids that a lot
of people aren't very well aware of. And I don't
know about you, Matt, but I was surprised to find
that while the concept of dwen day maybe unfamiliar to
a lot of us listening today, it Pedro is right.
It is incredibly common in Mexico, Central and South America,
(03:16):
as well as the Philippines. It's everywhere other parts of
the world. And what we're gonna find as we're going
through this episode, dwen days are just called other things
across the world. So it really is just everybody has
legends and sightings of this thing, whatever it is, this
(03:40):
group of smaller creatures that we're going to learn all
about today. Yeah. Yeah, we'll maybe even meet some of
the purported varieties of these creatures, like the trends, the tronats.
We'll see, we'll see where the journey takes us. Let's
figure out where this belief comes from, and maybe on
the way we can sow in a little bit of
(04:02):
common modern day knowledge about goblins or where they occur
in fiction, because there's still very much a thing. But
here are the facts. So one day technically translates to
kind of like elf, but if you hear it used nowadays,
or you hear it referred to in English, it's almost
always equated with the idea of a goblin and god.
(04:26):
And that's you know, Pedro is equating it with goblins
as well. Uh, Matt, I have to defer to a
little bit of your knowledge here because I believe that
for most people in the United States, goblins are associated
with a number of things in fiction, and we'll probably
get emails if we don't mention them all. But you know,
(04:46):
shout out to David Bowie, the goblin King in Labyrinths.
He's a very um unusual but not unprecedented variety of goblin. Um.
I think a lot of people think of Tolkien. Right.
We were talking to Little Bit with Paul Mission Control
deck ends over before we went on air about well
(05:06):
about the newest Hobbit films people, Yeah, some people love them.
Your mileage may vary. It is it is a trilogy. Well,
there there are. There's some weirdness with the Tolkien stuff
surrounding goblins because hobgoblin I believe correctly if I'm wrong here,
but hobgoblin in the Tolkien verse, at least within the Hobbit,
(05:30):
is used to refer to a large version of a goblin,
like a huge goblin. I think the Goblin King that's
featured in in the films, at least the three films
that came out more recently, the Goblin King is a hobgoblin.
Is this huge creature that is like a goblin, but
(05:50):
like ten times the size of any of the others.
That's a bit weird. I'm not I'm not gonna throw
too much shade on on those movies. But oh yeah, yeah,
they weren't my favorite. They weren't for everybody. Lord of
the Rings was amazing, I think, And to be fair,
nostalgia me has may have colored my experience with an
(06:12):
animated nine seven Hobbit from Ranking Bass, but I rewatched it.
I dig it. Yeah, I'll tell you what colored my
experience with the Peter Jackson Hobbit series. Uh, massive battles
with zero steaks, because nobody ever gets hurt. If you're
a protagonist in the Hobbit world, you're fine. Just jump
(06:36):
into that lava. You'll be fine. You'll get out because
amazing that nothing can happen to you. All those dwarves
made it down. Yeah, they fell down the largest ravine
I've ever seen in my life and featured in any movie,
and they were just like, oh, well, let's get to
the sunlight. I believe that's true, man. I believe that
Tolkien originally his working title for The Hobbit was The Ravine,
(07:00):
and it was it played a much larger role in
this story. Are you sure it wasn't the invinsa Hobbits?
Sorry that that plot armor. Okay, I know we're on
a tangent already in this, but it needs to be
said that one of the most important things about David
Bowie is that when he is around a series of goblins,
(07:23):
all of those other goblins get plus one plus one
and they gain mountain walk if you're you know, early on,
sometimes they gain haste depending on the goblin king. Yeah,
and you know what, that's a real difference between goblins
and dwen Day, at least the beliefs in them Goblins
in folklore, our thoughts rule pretty deep, right, you see
a lot of goblins once, uh, dwen day seem more solitary.
(07:48):
But well, we'll find out how these terms get a
little muddied. As we said, it translates to elf, but
it is commonly, you know, treated as synonymous with goblins.
Experts aren't sure exactly where the term goblin comes from,
but they have a couple of guesses, tracing it back
to the fourteenth century from the Norman French term gobolin
(08:10):
g O b E l i n and then tracing
that term back to the twelfth century with something called
gobblin us. Yeah, that's a you know, according to our research,
a medieval Latin term for a spirit that would haunt
a very specific region that I cannot pronounce every maybe
(08:31):
it's how you would say it every perhaps. Yeah. And
they note that it's mentioned in medieval Latin text back
in the eleven hundred specifically, and that few and that
it was probably used before then. The issue was that
few people who believed in folk magic also used medieval Latin,
(08:54):
and so over time goblin becomes this kind of catch
all term that described any number of supernatural creatures dwarves, imps, kobolds, gnomes, brownies,
of course, dwen day. It's kind of like saying car
at some point you're describing a lot of stuff and
h or like like jinn. Goblins in folklore d one
(09:17):
day can have diffree motivations. Some are helpful, some are
little stinkers, and some can be downright threatening. But you know,
whatever word we used to describe them, they do have
some commonalities in folklore. Oh yeah, they do. The biggest
thing you're going to find is that they are small.
They're small creatures, similar to a lot of the faye
(09:38):
that's described out in the you know, the aisles of
the UK and in areas out there. Um. Many times
they're mischievous. Not again, not always mean or mean spirited,
but they will get some revenge on you if you
do harm to them or if you you know, endanger
them or hurt one of their kin. At least, uh,
(10:00):
pretty common in there. Many times they are let's say,
like a dragon. Uh, they're very covetous. They they if
they find things and they gather things. It's they generally
want to keep it, and they want to especially if
it's worth anything at least to them. They'll hold onto
that stuff really hard. There are many stories here that
(10:22):
include helpful nature with with a lot of these, but
again it's got that like good and evil thing where
they'll help out sometimes, but if you do anything at
all to you know, anger them or cause harm to them,
it's that relationships over and you might be in trouble. Yeah, exactly.
And this is something that we see pretty commonly with
(10:45):
supernatural creatures. Uh, the idea of one day being elves
or goblins, being a kind of fay or fairy or
hidden folk, whatever you want to call them. Uh. Those
ideas typically are accompanied by specific sets of rules. Right
if you're playing D and D along with this episode
at home, their alignment would often be considered lawful evil.
(11:08):
A lot of um, at least fay characters are lawful
evil in that they have these rules that must be obeyed,
and you can see that in some of the traditional
stories about things that are goblin related. The weirdest part
is the vast majority of people in the modern age
(11:28):
don't believe in the existence of creatures like this. But
you may be surprised to learn that beliefs in something
some sort of supernatural at times visible community or entity
of sentient non humans persist in communities around the world.
And there are people who do take this quite seriously,
and there are other people who, you know, treat it
(11:50):
the way that the people point Pleasant treat moth Man.
You know what I mean. It's a fun story. It
gives us a sense of local community and culture. And
no one's mad at the tourist money. Yeah, you can't
be mad at that, and especially if I don't know,
you're in a lot of these places I'm thinking specifically
(12:12):
in the UK and other places that deal with Faye
outside of the Goblin realm, but where it encourages people
and like you said, tourism, but in like more uh
um natural areas like um, like a nature preserve or
something like that, where you're gonna get tourism in a
place I don't know. It's not gonna do anybody harm.
(12:35):
If you're out there checking out for Faye, you know,
just having a good time camping, unless you're you know,
starting fires. That's dangerous. Be careful with those. And as
you were telling me, Matt, you've found a couple of
specific people, and we'll talk about later who do just
that in in an obtrusive way. That's that's the way
to look for him. But while we're looking at things,
(12:56):
let's look at the dwe Days specifically, since that's what
pay Draws asked us about. It is described by a
number of names, depending on which part of the world
you're referring to, but like the Goblin overall, the dwen
Day have a couple of common factors. First, there's the
devious boogeyman role. Kids growing up in parts of Mexico
(13:17):
or Central America may have heard their parents or guardian
tell them, okay, behave go to bed. Don't if you
venture out into the forest, the dwen Days might get you.
In these stories, the dwen Day lives often in one
of two places, either out in the forest or between
(13:40):
the walls of homes, especially if there are children around.
Because here's the creepy part. Apparently, the dwen Day loves
eating children's toe nails. They're hygiene obsessed. If your toe
nails are unkempt, they're coming for you, and they're super
aggressive about it. They may even take an entire toe
by accident. That's not going to be on purpose. They
(14:01):
don't want, you know, the flesh, except kind of according
to some of some of the stories they do, because
there's some weird stuff going on there where they're versions
of this story that include this is this is parish.
You guys, like a mother that perhaps didn't want to
(14:23):
have a baby. Um again this is folklore, but a
mother didn't want to have a baby giving that child
up essentially to these creatures as a meal. Yeah, I
don't even like saying that. Yeah, it's like the idea
is that they've escalated in their taste and they've gone
from toenails to flesh. We should pause for a second
(14:45):
because there's a story here that Portuguese and Spanish speakers
are going to be familiar with, and we need to
differentiate between the two. So one day has a different
meaning nowadays, and as it as a couple of meanings,
one of them, yes, the idea of this supernatural entity
(15:06):
and or spirit and or um living organism. But secondly,
and this is pretty cool. The term has also been
used in flamenco music and other art forms to refer
to a vibe like your animal magnetism, the your your
personal rico swaft nous. It's a mystical or powerful force
(15:30):
given off by a performer to draw in the audience,
which I was not aware of. It's the ability to
attract people through your charm, like the Dosakis guy, or
like that Ben Bold guy or that Matt Frederick guy. Really,
let's you know, all all credit due to our one
and only Mission Control. That guy is living dwe day. Dude.
(15:53):
Sometimes we log into these zoom calls to make these
episodes and Paul Mission Control just shows up and you're like, whoa,
what is that sealing It must be that umust that
one day. So we have this toe chewing boogeyman, and
that's separate from this personal magnetism. But we have another
(16:15):
side of the dwen day. This kind of contrast is
pretty common in supernatural creatures because the dwen day, in
addition to stealing children or eating their toenails or taking
them into the forest, they've also been rumored to assist
people who are lost in the wild and help them
find their way back to civilization. I guess you start
out in the forest. If you want to get on
(16:36):
their good side, then yeah, and again don't disturb them directly.
But if you're in need, they might be there for you.
Might maybe if you happen to encounter them, you know. Yeah, well,
there are other stories of the you know, the versions
of dwen Day that live more in the walls, that
are home dwelling, that may actually help out with chore
(17:00):
when everybody goes to sleep and the house is quiet,
they may actually help out and do things for the family,
for the house, not necessarily for you, but maybe for you. Uh.
It's hard because many of these stories try to ascribe uh,
what the Dwendi wants, what the goblin wants, what the
(17:22):
creature wants, and by doing these things. Um, but who knows.
We haven't exactly how to Charlie Rose interview, maybe not him,
but an interview with one of these guys. Right, we're
still waiting for the fresh air Terry Gross where she
sits down with the dwen Day. I love that you're
mentioning the varieties that assist with household chores because etymo logically,
(17:47):
it's believed that dwen Day originated as a contraction of
a longer phrase dwen di casa or Duenno di casa,
which more or less means master of the house. So
maybe that's maybe that gives us a glimpse into the
evolution of the more helpful dwen Day. But again, they're
(18:09):
there are tons of dwen Day. It's we could just
list all of them because they have different traits. Some
can summon thunder and lightning. Some are known to pull
down people's clothes and pench him on the butt. It's uh,
I think the then some are very unpopular, like triscoes
(18:32):
are super hated. They're considered nuisances. Yeah, I would say,
at least in what I've found the vast majority of
videos online, and there are so many videos of supposed
dwen Day sightings, the vast majority are or they feature
(18:52):
humans in them that are displaying a lot of fear
or like terror. When a dwen Day appears or just
happens to show up in the middle of a video
that looks like it was shot on like the thing
that was created before the Potato camera, I'm not sure, um,
but yeah, there's a fear associated with seeing one in
(19:15):
the moment at least. Yeah. Yeah, And that's a huge
part of today's story. So we see that Spanish folklore
is one of the origin points for the belief and
dwin Day. There are tons of specific types in this
folkloric universe, and these stories reached across the world in
step with the expansion of the Spanish Empire late fifteenth
(19:37):
century to the early eighteen hundreds. But this is not
the entire explanation. We're gonna pause for a moment for
a word from our sponsors, and assuming we don't get
snatched by our toes, will return with more on dwen Day.
And we've returned, Let's think of folklore kind of like
(19:59):
a a mash up album, you know, or a mash
up video on YouTube. You see things that feel unlikely
coming together and making a surprisingly quiz of whole. As
we talked about in our earlier episode on Forgotten Religions,
folklore functions like religious syncretism, and so we can kind
(20:20):
of trace, or we can at least speculate on the
evolution of dwen Day in Central South America, in Mexico
and in the Philippines as well. Because people are all intelligent,
people are all trying to explain what's going on in
the world, and they come up with stories that have
a lot of common or beliefs that have a lot
in common. Therefore, it's highly likely that Native people heard
(20:45):
of the word d one day for the first time,
and they already had something similar in their own culture.
Turns out, across history, people love the idea of magic,
little humanlike things. Whether they're good or evil, we're both
at different times. So like, you can imagine, we can
imagine that, right that that sounds plausible. Oh yeah, and
(21:08):
I think it fully explains our love of action figures
and tiny dolls. Big dolls are spooky though, we can
agree on that. Oh yeah. But but if you've got
a little thing that you can play with, like, that's fun,
that's exciting. And if that thing was actually real and
animated and could move and had ideas and motivations, shoot,
(21:29):
that's a that's the greatest thing ever. Stay away from
our feet though, Yeah, So, I like the feet thing
is just so weird and specific. So credit to whomever
came up with that when they were trying to scare
their kid into sleeping. Anyhow, back to our example. So
let's say, Matt, let's say you have become part of
(21:50):
the Spanish Empire. You're reaching, uh, this land you've never
seen before for the first time, You're learning a little
bit of the local language, they're learning to bit of
your language Spanish. You talk to them about the idea
of dwen Day and then they go, by the way,
we're bracketing all the horrible things that the Spanish Empire did.
(22:13):
It did a ton of horrific uh stuff. They committed
a lot of atrocities. But in this scenario, Matt, you're
just a regular guy. You just work your job, you're
chilling with these other people. You say d one day
and then they say, oh you mean yeah, you mean
that forest spirit Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we got those,
(22:34):
we got those here. Oh really, that's that's amazing. Oh,
we shall have to set up traps everywhere. And they're like, oh, well,
what's your what's your dwe day like? And they say, well,
you know, our dwe Day lives in the forest, has
a weird thing about toes uh and will sometimes help
(22:56):
you if you are lost in the woods. And then
you know, our our Spanish speaker in this in this scenario,
Jonathan Strickland has ruined my pronunciation of that word. Our
Spanish speaker there also says well, you know where I
grew up, and at this point in time would probably
they'd probably say a specific town or region in Spain
(23:17):
and say where I grew up. Yeah, this is what
they do here. So you guys got off kind of easy.
And so with this in mind, it's also pretty likely
that indigenous cultures would have used these terms interchangeably dwe
day and then the other terms that they already had,
because they already had things like this in their culture.
(23:38):
So a common belief and something like hidden forest spirits
or forest guardians or similar examples would have over time
become closer and closer to something like the Spanish concept
of dwen day and also retain the attributes of the
creature in the pre existing belief system. So there we go.
(23:58):
But this is not to be a lecture on folklore.
Don't worry. I just had to get that part out
of the way because the one days are different for
very big reason, very very big reason. Yeah, I mean,
I don't know. I wonder how many people are out
there listening and thinking, Wow, these guys are taking uh,
twen days pretty seriously. It's uh, what is it? One? Right? Now?
(24:23):
They know that they're not real right, you're probably thinking
that some of you do. They also think minotaurs are
just running around Greece and that's like a like a
pest a pestilence of minotaurs whatever. The group name for
menatars is a stampede of minotaurs. Oh yeah, for sure
in the pegas I that just exists in the cliffs
(24:48):
for some guide Athens. Right now, God, like, please somewhat
help me get rid of these gorgon's. It's like a
made for TV commercial, you know. There. We can't let
them get into the Georgia Theater again. Oh you're talking
about the original events? Okay, never mind, yeah, yeah, yeah,
well well either you know what, either will work for
this commercial, Matt. We just need to have one person
(25:10):
like turned to stone and then someone turned break the
fourth wall and talk to the camera and be like,
there's got to be a better way, que Billy mays. Okay,
well we've solved that. But yeah, you're right, it's a
good question though. It is, yes, But the one major
difference here is what Pedro has mentioned in the email
(25:32):
that he sent to us. Unlike all these other creatures,
human beings in real life in the modern era with
digital technology believe they have encountered these creatures and captured
them and have evidence of it and have uploaded it
to social media sites like YouTube, and uh, a lot
(25:54):
of other people, a lot of other people believe that
some of these videos are real. Yeah, that's the thing.
There's no shortage of people who not only believe that
there is an actual creature as a dwen Day, but
they also believe they have seen it or someone they
know has seen it. So what if instead of being
(26:15):
a legend, the dwen Day is an actual creature a crypto.
Here's where it gets crazy. So d one Day sightings
generally follow the same format, or a lot of them do.
There's a small group of kids hanging out somewhere. They
might be playing soccer, they might just be kicking it
on the sidewalk. It's often gonna occur at night, and
(26:37):
then one of them see something moving in the shadows,
usually partially obscured, often obscured, yeah, and then boom uh,
enter the dwen Day, who pops out for just a
second or just seconds maybe, or maybe it's walking away,
but either way, the sighting is brief, and the dwen
(27:00):
Day usually leaves the scene immediately, and then the camera
shuts off right afterwards, and that's all you get and
there's no follow up. That's it. Yeah, And thanks to
the use of recording technology and thanks to the democratization
mobile video, you can see dozens, dozens, dozens of alleged
(27:22):
dwen Day sightings caught on film. Probably the most famous,
the one that got the most attention outside of Mexico,
Central and South America, was this thing called the Argentina gnome.
And you, you and I both watched this video. Oh yeah,
(27:43):
I watched so many times on YouTube. You you you
know this already. I'm sure everyone listening. But you can
reduce the timing of these videos down to like one
half of the regular speed, all the way down to
a quarter of the regular speed, and you can watch
like half frame by half frame record. You know. However, however,
(28:07):
whatever the frame rate was that was uploaded from these
terrible cameras people are using to record these things, and
you can watch it, and I did, and I have
over and over and over, and the side stepping Argentina
nome or shuffling, I guess. I mean, I wouldn't categorize
it as one of my favorites, but it's definitely there.
(28:29):
It's one of the best isolated creature versions of these
sightings where where you can actually see something. Even though
it's fully in shadow, you can see that there's a
full thing for longer than a second. Yeah, yeah, that's
that's a great way to say. It's very short. Forty
eight seconds. Um. You know I in matters like this, folks,
(28:52):
I typically defer to Matt's video expertise. Matt, you have
you know, you have a experience with this, and you
know how to spot things that would call the veracity
of a piece of video into question. So that's that's
one of my first things in my processes. I'll send
Mad a video and I'll be like, all right, before
(29:15):
I get weird with this, is this real? And? And
this is tough because it's easier and easier to fake
these as well. Anyway, I would say that one is
real in that there was actually something in that video.
You just have to decide was it a little person
that that group of people knew, was it a kid
(29:37):
dressed up in some costume um or was it an
actual creature of some sort. But here's the thing, the hat, Yeah,
and the hat is the hat is one of the
big sticking points where Family shows. I'm not going to
go into all my feelings about the hat aspect of
(30:01):
these sightings, but for a lot of people are unfamiliar
with this. Imagine a sinister version of the stereotypical gnome
with the red pointing hat, a little guy white beard,
like the evil universe version of that. That's something that
people often describe seeing, and it's important to know. In
(30:22):
the era of TikTok hoaxes and all this stuff, it's
important to note that not all the people reporting these
sightings are children or teens. There are a lot of
fringe researchers who seem convinced that this is a real thing.
What In particular, the late crypto zoologist Ivan Sanderson, himself
a very controversial figure, noted that one day sightings have
(30:46):
been reported by tons of folks in Central America, including
people you would consider highly educated in the field, like
the zoologist and author Alan Rabinowitz, who wrote about the
belief easy and beliefs in the dwe Day and his
own experience, citing what he described as a strange little
(31:07):
man about three ft tall, standing at the very edge
of the forest at night. That's pretty cool. I mean,
I'm interested in that. I didn't read that particular thing
from Alan Robinowitz, Ben, but that's something that I'm now
going to look deeper into just you know, even those
one person's account, the fact that it's a zoologist who
(31:30):
you know, felt it was compelling enough to write down
interests me. But that written down, as relayed to Sanderson,
so have been. There may have been some telephoning and
maybe a little we can't rule that out, but we
know we know that this guy Rubinowitz is not alone.
(31:51):
There are so many sightings enough for us to broadly
categorize two different types of descript ship. And these descriptions
are going to be important. Will return to them later
in the show. Yes, one of them is a rather
her suit human person, a man like creature that's about
(32:14):
four ft tall. There's a shriveled nature to to this
character that's often described road hard, put away, wet. You know,
there you go. Um. There are a couple things that
this person may wield. Often it's a stick of some
time of some kind. Sometimes an instrument like a stringed
(32:36):
instrument such as a guitar. Sometimes a weapon like a
ma chet day or a knife or you know, it
may look like a sword in this person's hand. Um.
And they're often in some kind of like animal skin
like a hide, something like that, rags um and almost
(32:57):
always in this this one category worry of sighting, there
is something on the head. There's a hat of some sort,
whether that's you know, related to the animal hide that
they were wearing, or just a pointy little thing, some
kind of headwear. Yeah, exactly. It's a very very important
fact you mentioned. It's not always a pointy hat. It's
(33:18):
always not always David the Gnome impersonator, right, But the
other explanation has some important differences. In the other description,
you will see a generally a three to four ft
tall creature, human esque looking thing with sloping shoulders, noticeably
(33:39):
long arms, brown hair, a flat yellowish face, and then
long hair down the back, uh and the neck. So
we're at an impass. The creatures characteristics as it's described
and the stories about it are clearly a blend of
different cultures, connecting right, European cultures, native cultures, and then
(34:05):
probably also lore from the continent of Africa. But again,
depending on who you asked, there have been sightings of
one day by credible witnesses. At the very least, we
know that forest park rangers and zoologists have seen things
in the wild that they cannot explain to their own
satisfaction despite their higher than average odds of being familiar
(34:29):
with most of the animals in the area. You know
what I mean. It's it's way different from just dropping
a rando in there and then saying, okay, describe these things, yeah,
for sure. But but no matter how credible those witnesses are,
Generally these sightings occur in the dark or in the shadows,
(34:51):
just as they do on all the YouTube videos you're
gonna find when you're searching for this later tonight. I
promise you it's gonna happen. It's just happens to all
of us. You have to you have to keep looking
because some of them are compelling as hell. Um, So
you know, it's difficult. It's difficult to know when you're
looking at a shadow and you're seeing something moving and
(35:11):
you're in nature, out in the wilderness, like what is
that thing? What was that? Why? Why does it smell
different in here right now? That's another thing, by the way,
didn't even mention. According to some stories, when they're twin day,
especially the house, the ones that live in a house,
when they've come by, there's an acrid, awful smell that
(35:33):
may be associated with them being around, similar to how
um many Jin encounters are described, where there's like a
sulfuric smell that that a residue of sorts that lead
has left behind. Um anyway, we we have to just
you take all of this into account, like could it
(35:53):
be just that people's minds are putting tricks on them
in the dark, even the people who know what they're
doing and know where they are in their surroundings, or
there is there some other explanation, and uh, we're gonna
look at that. After another word from our sponsors and
(36:14):
we've returned. Yes, we are going to explore some possible explanations.
One misidentification easy what you would call a low hanging
branch here. Misidentification is a lead cause for a ton
of alleged cryptic sightings, as we found in the case
of the Jersey Devil, whereas we found in the case
of Bigfoot. This identification has been common for centuries and centuries.
(36:37):
People get scared, their encounters are hurried and their brief
and when these people finally get to a calm, safe place,
their memories are jumbled and they've been heavily influenced by
the fear they experienced right, and you know, they might
even smell something later and then it triggers the memory,
which changes the memory, because your memories change every time
(37:00):
you remember them. True story, scary stuff, what and this
is weird? I was thinking about this man. So while
it might seem counterintuitive, misidentification is likely on the rise nowadays.
It's a very good era for misidentification, despite the fact
that there's such an abundance of surveillance and recording technology.
(37:24):
The truth is, the majority of human beings now live
in dense urban areas. The animal that you are most
likely to see in your day to day life every
single day, it's another human being. That's the animal you
will most commonly run into. And if you live in
a dense urban area, you're less likely to be familiar
(37:45):
with large wild animals. Have you ever seen a bear
in the wild? Have you ever seen a monkey? What
if you what if the you saw one and you
weren't expecting it, he'd freak out, he'd freak a little bit. Yeah, Well,
especially if that creature, that bear, or that monkey were
maybe let's say a cub or a baby monkey or
(38:06):
a young young monkey, that or a bear, because either
of them can and will stand on their hind legs
at times, and if they're younger, they may be very small.
And if you see a small creature like that, a
real animal in the shadows standing up on its hind
legs with arms, it would freak me out if I
(38:26):
didn't know what it was. Yeah, I've I've enjoyed that
description because putting myself in the place, you know, even
being able to identify animals in the wild when you're
not expecting it, it's it's a wallop so or even
like a raccoon or you know, I mean, there's so many. Yeah,
there's so many small creatures that have some of the
(38:48):
features of a human if they happen to get into
a certain posture, right, I I gotta say, man, I
love pretty much all animals. I'm glad they're here. Uh,
raccoons fascinate me, but they freaked me out a little
bit because there's something kind of uncanny valley about their hands,
(39:08):
you know what I mean. They just look sneaky, and
they're always like they look like they look covetous, you know,
like a goblin. Yes, maybe that's it. Maybe goblins the raccoons,
but they also have these amazing parkour abilities. I just yeah,
they're they're weird. Send your favorite raccoon stories. I'd love
to hear them, but I'm gonna read them during the
(39:30):
daytime just in case. And it's safe to say then
that at least in some sightings, people have accidentally misidentified
an animal that they would have eventually recognized if they
saw it in a more controlled environment like a zoo,
right and if they had had more time to observe
it instead of this hurried, often terrifying and short encounter.
(39:50):
But no matter what, misidentification cannot explain everything, primarily because
wild animals, for what we know, tend to not wear
a hat. From what we've seen from the data we
have gathered, hats haven't really gotten on the scene in
(40:11):
the animal kingdom yet. You know, yes, you're right, And
I just have to add one last thing that like
could help out here. Keep the camera rolling after you've
seen something like that, don't cut, like, just get all
the row footage. You can chase the thing with your camera,
zoom in, turn up the brightness, lower the contrast, do
(40:37):
everything you can in that moment if you ever encounter one,
and then upload the whole file. Don't edit it, and
then we'll see what happens and try just or higher.
Please for God's sake, I know I feel your pain, man.
This This leads us to the second thing. Why why
is what Matt sayings so important? Well, it's important because
(41:00):
if you find yourself in a situation like this and
you're trying to film, not taking those steps will set
you up to be accused of hoaxing. And that is
the second cobbon explanation. For a lot of cryptic sidings,
it's unfortunately frequent, and like cases of misidentification, hoaxes have
been on the rise for some time. It's easier now
(41:22):
than ever before to fake something. You can alter video,
you can distort, remove, insert things. You can also, like
you know, Matt, you can control angles, lighting setting, You
can do pretty much whatever you want to video, so
long as you have enough expertise and lead time. Like
that's I think that's why you're emphasizing that, uh huh,
(41:45):
how come this just happens and then they stop rolling?
To me? One of the questions that always pops up
is why would someone purposely create hoax? One day? Siding
well number one for attention, for laughs, for the walls
for trolling. If we look at the video from Argentina,
it was funny because this was, uh, this got a
(42:07):
lot of international attention when it was reported by the Sun,
which is kind of like the United Kingdom's weekly World News.
It's the closest they'll get to like bat boys stories.
And this is the gnome sighting from Argentina. Correct. Yeah,
it comes a side stepper. So so the teenager who
(42:31):
filmed this is interviewed in the Sun. His name is
Jose Alvarez, and he says, you know, me and my
pals are just hanging out on the sidewalk one am
and then we hear a noise and it sounds like
someone throwing stones, and Snopes is really snarky when they
report on this. You can find the Snopes right up
on this, and they say Alvarez, who had miraculously started
(42:53):
filming nothing in particular with his cell phone immediately beforehand,
was able to capture a few seconds earth of video
that of something that looks like just as you described Matt,
a tiny biped with a pointy hat doing the rambling man,
just a few steps sideways. And then he says, this
is very common, that exact scenario. Oh man, I just
(43:17):
happen to start filming. Hey, what are you guys doing? Nothing?
Just hanging out? Okay, cool, yeah, exactly. That was funny
your video, but the videos great. I hope that makes
it onto our YouTube channel. Who knows, you know, it's
it's above us. So Alvarez is saying, Okay, at first
(43:39):
we thought this was a dog, but we saw it
was gnome like and we began to get really afraid.
This is not a joke. We're still afraid to go out.
Everybody in the neighborhood is. One of my friends was
so scared after seeing that thing that we had to
take him to the hospital. And Snope's notes exactly what
you noted earlier, Matt, that this has a classic hoax
(44:01):
set up, a sudden appearance of something in the background
right after rolling. The person with the camera is able
to find and zoom in on the thing really quickly,
even though it's unexpected. The glimpse of whatever this thing
is is very, very brief. And then Snoops also points
out there were two different takes of the same scene
(44:23):
that make you know that calling the question the spontaneity
of it. So with that in mind, just from that
one example and the format that we see in these
other YouTube videos, it's highly likely. I would say it's
virtually certain that some video footage of these Dwenday sightings
are indeed purposeful hoaxes, which sounds like a downer, But
(44:43):
there's one more possible explanation. It is. I think it's
safe to say it's always our personal favorite. Yes, and
we're gonna talk about but really quickly, I want to
mention one more video, one more dwe Day video that
was very popular. I'm looking for it right now, very quickly.
It was shot by a mother who just happened to
be filming her small child in the kitchen doing nothing.
(45:06):
Kids are doing absolutely nothing. All of a sudden, the
kid's head moves away a little bit, and a tiny, tiny,
little it looks like a human, a regular sized human
that got shrunk down into a tiny little version that's
only a foot tall or let or smaller, just runs
across from where the baby's head moved and runs underneath
(45:29):
a I don't know, a shelf or something that's right
a cabinet. It's just another one of these videos that
follows those exact rules that Snopes pointed out. But in
this case you can clearly see the creature and it
looks like a tiny little goblin running. But again, it
looks like a full sized human in a costume or
something that's just been shrunk down through video editing. Honestly,
(45:53):
that's what it looks like. I can't sit here and
tell you a percent that it was hoaxed, but I
can tell you in nin that it was hoaxed. There
we go. It's more than fair. So with that, we've
done a lot of myth busting here. But with that
we want to go to our favorite of these categories,
(46:13):
which is cryptids. What if the Dwenday sightings can be
partially attributed to a real, not yet officially identified animal.
If so, what could it be? Based on the descriptions,
the most likely suspect would be a small primate, and
if it is indeed encrypted, it would be a small
primate currently unknown to science. The height makes sense, as
(46:35):
do the reports being her suit or Harry. The humanoid
body also makes sense. Non human primates have the same
number of arms and legs, and a tail could be
difficult to spot depending on the environment. And again there
are all the videos are in the dark But there's
a counterpoint here. Given the sheer number of readily available
video recording devices, why hasn't someone caught, clear undenied the
(47:00):
footage of these creatures. Why isn't there like dwen day
during the day? Uh? Is it because these are nocturnal creatures?
That's possible, um, But again, cameras are everywhere, And given
that humans have lived in the area for such a
long time, why hasn't anyone come forward with a body
or some sort of physical evidence. I propose we start
(47:21):
calling this the bigfoot dilemma, the little the little foot. Yes, yeah,
good note, good note, We're going with it the little
foot dilemma. So this means that if we're looking for
rational explanations, we can find several Hoaxes have to account
for some sightings, misidentification has to account for some others.
And while the idea of unrecognized animals is tremendously exciting,
(47:44):
there's just not enough evidence to support that idea in
this case yet. And furthermore, there's the odds are mounting
that if something like this existed and was an unknown animal,
it would already have been well known to locals, like
in the case of the sea a camp when people
thought they rediscovered this fish that have been extinct for
(48:05):
millions of years, and the locals said, oh, yeah, that's
a trash fish. Don't eat it, that's that is garbage fish.
Put it back. Yeah, it's really old that that's that
meat is no good anymore. The only problem here been
to my mind, when we're talking about misidentification, is that
we're talking about a large area or a large variety
(48:30):
of areas of the earth that are covered when we're
talking about dwen Day sightings, you know, in in very
different ecosystems and climates, and it makes me wonder if
you know, could there be a common denominator here or
is it just different species of animals in different parts
of the world. Yeah, because it's spread out over so
(48:50):
many regions, right, and they don't all have the same ecosystems,
they don't long to the same floor and fauna. For example,
Beliez is home to different species of non human primates,
spider monkeys, howl are monkeys, you know what I mean?
Cool monkeys? You want cool monkeys Beliez. It's it's not
a perfect explanation. Again, because of that hat. That hat
(49:14):
drove me crazy. Spider monkeys might just be really shy
about their hat wear, and maybe that's something that they're
developing that's heartbreaking. So like they were amping themselves up
and they were like, all right, this is gonna be
big for me. I'm gonna try out my new look
my hat. And then the first time they see somebody
that people are screaming and the spider monkeys like, yes, yes,
(49:40):
I think I think he's solved it. Matt. There's something
we have we had in our notes that helps support
this idea. If you look at the photo of a
spider monkey, now that has provided one. By the way, uh,
I didn't take the photo personally, but it's important to
know what they look like. Yeah, I'm just gonna if
(50:02):
you're playing along at home, folks, pull up a picture
of a spider monkey, and let's just read that second
description one more time. Three to four foot tall, with
heavy shoulders, long arms, brown hair, a flat yellowish face,
and long hair down the back and the neck. I
believe this is a juvenile spider monkey. But you see
(50:25):
where I'm going with this, man, Yeah, I can fully
see it. The image we're looking at is a juvenile
spider monkey, kind of in a grassy area where from
about the monkey's tummy and up you can see but
kind of it looks like, you know, kind of hidden
down in the grass. But the facial expression of a
(50:45):
primate like this, ah man, you could totally see how
if you saw that creature in the shadows in the dark,
didn't expect it to be there, he could freak you out.
And and you could see why you that sighting would
be considered a dwen day if if you didn't hear
(51:07):
the specific noises, you didn't capture them on video or
something or an audio. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the
dun day sighting for sure, just waiting to happen right right.
And then of course, if you realize that the majority
of wild animals are gonna be freaked out when they
run into you as a person, then that explains the
brevity of the encounter well, and also why they they
(51:31):
might hide, like if they are somewhat in plain sight
or nearby, they may be they may be hiding and
hoping that you go away, and if you encroach further
on their area, they might stand up and or you know,
get up and scurry away really quickly. Again very similar
to the sightings we've uh we've seen or heard about. Yeah.
(51:53):
And then, last, but not least, there is the distant
but not entirely dismissible possibility that there could be a
human being involved, as someone who perhaps has a medical
condition resulting in a smaller than average height. That's possible,
but there's no confirmation of this. And for our final
notes here, we have to say that local belief in
(52:15):
dwen Days varies widely. For many, it's like we said,
a mothman kind of vibe. It's sort of an in
joke about town. It's a piece of regional folklore people
find amusing and at times profitable, but it's not something
people take seriously. It's kids stuff, you know. But in
other regions sightings of creatures like dwen Day have apparently
(52:39):
been taken seriously enough to warrant some reports by police.
It was tough to confirm some of that, but it
does show that there there is a gamut here and
that's where the mystery stands. So thanks again Pedro for
the suggestion. We would love to hear cryptid stories from
your neck of the Global Woods. We've got some great ones,
(53:00):
and you know, Matt I was thinking I was looking
back through some of our correspondence from our fellow listeners,
and I just think maybe we can do listener mail
with a theme if people are interested in just hearing
ghost stories one week, or if people are interested in
just hearing cryptid stories. You know. Yeah, so let's put
on let's put a call out for one right now.
(53:22):
Do you have a crypted story, send it our way.
If you've already sent it to us before in the past,
that's fine, send it again, like if you've got a
very specific encounter story, or you know, call us, leave
a voicemail, send us a message through our email, or
find us on Twitter, whatever you want to do, get
it to us soon after hearing this, and we'll put
(53:42):
some stuff together. That's a great idea. Bit, Hey, let's hope.
Let's hope everybody digs it. I can't wait to see
I can't wait to read your stories, can't wait to
hear from you. Uh, and we think your fellow listeners
will enjoy it as well. Can Can I put a
I want to make too quick shout out just before
we end here, I went down a bunch of YouTube
(54:03):
rabbit holes. While I was going through everything, I forget
how much I love that site, slash service, slash whatever
Alphabet and Google have done there. Thank you over Lord's
but YouTube creators shout out to you, all of you
out there, if you're listening to this and you make
YouTube videos, but if you want to find just I
(54:25):
call it the most delightful channel I've found in a
long time. Like stumbled upon every once in a while
that happens, it's a It's a gentleman named Irwin Saunders
E R W I N s A U N D
E R S. He is out in the UK somewhere
in various places searching for pixies and and other fae creatures.
(54:47):
He's just my favorite character that I've found on YouTube
in a long time. Highly recommend and if you are
ever skeptical of videos online, we've shouted this person out
before a long time time ago. But one of my
seriously one of my all time favorite YouTube channels Captain Disillusion.
Check it out, find it incredible. Content goes through painstakingly
(55:13):
to show you what a hoax video looks like. In
one particular instance, why a video is fake or why
a video is well it's usually fake is because he's
Captain Disillusion Uh, some of the best effects on YouTube anyway,
shouting those out. Go down those rabbit holes and please
please please right to us and find us that I
(55:34):
didn't mean to take up so much time there. But
that's no, that's perfect. And I love shoutouts, man, I
think we both do. I want to give a shout out.
There's nothing to do with this episode. I want to
give a shout out to one of my favorite sketch
comedy groups I found on YouTube, and I hope you
do check them out. Tell him Benna Matt sent you.
They're called Chris and Jack. They are hilarious, top notch. Uh.
(55:57):
They made up their own holiday based on Jurassic Park. Uh. Yeah,
they've got some brilliant sketches. Uh, some of which are
related to the world of Conspiracies. I'll send you one after.
I'll send you one after after we wrap. Is it. Yes,
that's the holiday. They've been doing it for a while now.
But Chris Jack, if you're listening, great work, and let
(56:19):
us know if there's something that you think deserves a
shout out on the show. Like Ben said, we'd love
to hear from you. The final points here is that
the odds of cryptid sightings overall are going to increase
in your lifetime as humans continue to encroach further into
the Dwindoline Wilderness. Humanity has, is, and will continue discovering
(56:41):
new species, both on land and in the ocean, but
these discoveries are, sadly often a side effect of the
larger problem. The habitats of these creatures are being destroyed,
and the days of seeing animals in the wild may
themselves eventually become the stuff of legend. Pretty crazy when
you think about it, and by far more terrifying than
(57:01):
the idea of little people chewing on your toes, though
that is again very creepy. Yeah, let us do what
you think, folks. We'd love to hear from you. We
try to be easy to find online. Yes, you can
find us on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube at Conspiracy Stuff.
It's that easy. On Instagram we are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
And before we throw to our phone number, I'm just
(57:24):
gonna roll this out so long. Then, before we throw
to our phone number, I'm gonna read you the flavor
text of mons Goblin Raiders. It's a one one goblin
creature costs one mountain, one red manna to cast. And
here's the flavor text. The intricate dynamics of Goblin affairs
are often confused with anarchy. The chaos, however, is the
(57:47):
chaos of a thundercloud and direction will sporadically and violently appear,
and it mentions the leader Psholic Mons and his Raiders
are the thunderhead that leads in the storm. Anyway, if
you want to give us your critique of you know,
(58:07):
the alpha set Mons Goblin Raiders, you can reach us
at our phone number one H three three st d
w y t K, And when you reach that phone number,
you'll hear a brief message from us, and then you'll
have three minutes. Those three minutes are your own. Do
with them as you will. Uh. It would immensely help
us out if you give yourself a cool nickname and
(58:27):
let us know whether we have permission to use your
name and or voice on air. UH. Tell us what
is on your mind. And most importantly, if you have
a story, especially crypto encounter, that takes more than three minutes,
do not censor yourself, don't edit or allied your statements.
Feel free to tell us the entire thing in full.
We read every single email we get. You can send
(58:50):
them to our good old fashioned email address where we
are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com and don't
edit your video, just send the whole thing. Yeah. Stuff
(59:18):
they don't want you to know is a production of
I heart Radio. 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 Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt. Our colleague nol is on an
adventure they called me Ben. We're joined as always with
our super producer Ball, Mission Controlled Decond. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. Today's episode is
something that Matt, I think you and I are both
(00:47):
pretty excited about because we're we're diving into something with
some folklore, some mythologies, some twists and unexpected turns, and
you and Mission Control and I are not alone in
this endeavor. You see. Today's episode comes to us courtesy
of Pedro. Pedro, I hope you're listening, because this episode
(01:09):
is for you man. Uh Pedro, you wrote in to
say the following, and I think, Matt, maybe we can
we can uh double dragon this a little and pass
off the email, so I want to hear it here
it goes. Pedro says, in part, I have always been
amazed at the folklore involving goblins or dwen Days in Spanish.
(01:30):
I know you guys have spoken a lot about UFOs,
mysterious deaths, magic and or powers. This needs to be
given a look at because down in Mexico and many
parts of Central and South America, there have been not
only tails, but alleged sightings of these mysterious creatures. And
I would really love if you guys could talk about
this on air. And Pedro says, I will attach to
(01:52):
videos in this email just so you guys can get
an idea of what I'm talking about. Videos in Spanish
happened in Sonora, Mexico, and in the video there's seems
to be a woman carrying what looks like to be
a dwen Day or goblin, and it left many people
in shock. The second is another sighting in Mexico. I
also linked in an article with some background information. You
(02:14):
can YouTube or search articles regarding the topic. Thanks so much,
love the show. Oh you, Ben just deleted my favorite
part of the email from Pedro. I'm gonna say the
same doc Pedro said, Ben is my spirit animal. That's
too kind. Pedro, thank you, thank you very much. Uh
you know that's that is a really nice compliment, so
(02:35):
much so that I did delete it in an active betrayal.
As you are reading the email, Matt, I want to
own up to that. I apologize. But this is this
is interesting because you know, over the years you and
I have well, I think we all we both loved
cryptids growing up, and over the years doing this show,
(02:56):
we've explored tons and tons of cryptids that a lot
of people aren't very well aware of. And I don't
know about you, Matt, but I was surprised to find
that while the concept of dwen day maybe unfamiliar to
a lot of us listening today, it Pedro is right.
It is incredibly common in Mexico, Central and South America,
(03:16):
as well as the Philippines. It's everywhere other parts of
the world. And what we're gonna find as we're going
through this episode, dwen days are just called other things
across the world. So it really is just everybody has
legends and sightings of this thing, whatever it is, this
(03:40):
group of smaller creatures that we're going to learn all
about today. Yeah. Yeah, we'll maybe even meet some of
the purported varieties of these creatures, like the trends, the tronats.
We'll see, we'll see where the journey takes us. Let's
figure out where this belief comes from, and maybe on
the way we can sow in a little bit of
(04:02):
common modern day knowledge about goblins or where they occur
in fiction, because there's still very much a thing. But
here are the facts. So one day technically translates to
kind of like elf, but if you hear it used nowadays,
or you hear it referred to in English, it's almost
always equated with the idea of a goblin and god.
(04:26):
And that's you know, Pedro is equating it with goblins
as well. Uh, Matt, I have to defer to a
little bit of your knowledge here because I believe that
for most people in the United States, goblins are associated
with a number of things in fiction, and we'll probably
get emails if we don't mention them all. But you know,
(04:46):
shout out to David Bowie, the goblin King in Labyrinths.
He's a very um unusual but not unprecedented variety of goblin. Um.
I think a lot of people think of Tolkien. Right.
We were talking to Little Bit with Paul Mission Control
deck ends over before we went on air about well
(05:06):
about the newest Hobbit films people, Yeah, some people love them.
Your mileage may vary. It is it is a trilogy. Well,
there there are. There's some weirdness with the Tolkien stuff
surrounding goblins because hobgoblin I believe correctly if I'm wrong here,
but hobgoblin in the Tolkien verse, at least within the Hobbit,
(05:30):
is used to refer to a large version of a goblin,
like a huge goblin. I think the Goblin King that's
featured in in the films, at least the three films
that came out more recently, the Goblin King is a hobgoblin.
Is this huge creature that is like a goblin, but
(05:50):
like ten times the size of any of the others.
That's a bit weird. I'm not I'm not gonna throw
too much shade on on those movies. But oh yeah, yeah,
they weren't my favorite. They weren't for everybody. Lord of
the Rings was amazing, I think, And to be fair,
nostalgia me has may have colored my experience with an
(06:12):
animated nine seven Hobbit from Ranking Bass, but I rewatched it.
I dig it. Yeah, I'll tell you what colored my
experience with the Peter Jackson Hobbit series. Uh, massive battles
with zero steaks, because nobody ever gets hurt. If you're
a protagonist in the Hobbit world, you're fine. Just jump
(06:36):
into that lava. You'll be fine. You'll get out because
amazing that nothing can happen to you. All those dwarves
made it down. Yeah, they fell down the largest ravine
I've ever seen in my life and featured in any movie,
and they were just like, oh, well, let's get to
the sunlight. I believe that's true, man. I believe that
Tolkien originally his working title for The Hobbit was The Ravine,
(07:00):
and it was it played a much larger role in
this story. Are you sure it wasn't the invinsa Hobbits?
Sorry that that plot armor. Okay, I know we're on
a tangent already in this, but it needs to be
said that one of the most important things about David
Bowie is that when he is around a series of goblins,
(07:23):
all of those other goblins get plus one plus one
and they gain mountain walk if you're you know, early on,
sometimes they gain haste depending on the goblin king. Yeah,
and you know what, that's a real difference between goblins
and dwen Day, at least the beliefs in them Goblins
in folklore, our thoughts rule pretty deep, right, you see
a lot of goblins once, uh, dwen day seem more solitary.
(07:48):
But well, we'll find out how these terms get a
little muddied. As we said, it translates to elf, but
it is commonly, you know, treated as synonymous with goblins.
Experts aren't sure exactly where the term goblin comes from,
but they have a couple of guesses, tracing it back
to the fourteenth century from the Norman French term gobolin
(08:10):
g O b E l i n and then tracing
that term back to the twelfth century with something called
gobblin us. Yeah, that's a you know, according to our research,
a medieval Latin term for a spirit that would haunt
a very specific region that I cannot pronounce every maybe
(08:31):
it's how you would say it every perhaps. Yeah. And
they note that it's mentioned in medieval Latin text back
in the eleven hundred specifically, and that few and that
it was probably used before then. The issue was that
few people who believed in folk magic also used medieval Latin,
(08:54):
and so over time goblin becomes this kind of catch
all term that described any number of supernatural creatures dwarves, imps, kobolds, gnomes, brownies,
of course, dwen day. It's kind of like saying car
at some point you're describing a lot of stuff and
h or like like jinn. Goblins in folklore d one
(09:17):
day can have diffree motivations. Some are helpful, some are
little stinkers, and some can be downright threatening. But you know,
whatever word we used to describe them, they do have
some commonalities in folklore. Oh yeah, they do. The biggest
thing you're going to find is that they are small.
They're small creatures, similar to a lot of the faye
(09:38):
that's described out in the you know, the aisles of
the UK and in areas out there. Um. Many times
they're mischievous. Not again, not always mean or mean spirited,
but they will get some revenge on you if you
do harm to them or if you you know, endanger
them or hurt one of their kin. At least, uh,
(10:00):
pretty common in there. Many times they are let's say,
like a dragon. Uh, they're very covetous. They they if
they find things and they gather things. It's they generally
want to keep it, and they want to especially if
it's worth anything at least to them. They'll hold onto
that stuff really hard. There are many stories here that
(10:22):
include helpful nature with with a lot of these, but
again it's got that like good and evil thing where
they'll help out sometimes, but if you do anything at
all to you know, anger them or cause harm to them,
it's that relationships over and you might be in trouble. Yeah, exactly.
And this is something that we see pretty commonly with
(10:45):
supernatural creatures. Uh, the idea of one day being elves
or goblins, being a kind of fay or fairy or
hidden folk, whatever you want to call them. Uh. Those
ideas typically are accompanied by specific sets of rules. Right
if you're playing D and D along with this episode
at home, their alignment would often be considered lawful evil.
(11:08):
A lot of um, at least fay characters are lawful
evil in that they have these rules that must be obeyed,
and you can see that in some of the traditional
stories about things that are goblin related. The weirdest part
is the vast majority of people in the modern age
(11:28):
don't believe in the existence of creatures like this. But
you may be surprised to learn that beliefs in something
some sort of supernatural at times visible community or entity
of sentient non humans persist in communities around the world.
And there are people who do take this quite seriously,
and there are other people who, you know, treat it
(11:50):
the way that the people point Pleasant treat moth Man.
You know what I mean. It's a fun story. It
gives us a sense of local community and culture. And
no one's mad at the tourist money. Yeah, you can't
be mad at that, and especially if I don't know,
you're in a lot of these places I'm thinking specifically
(12:12):
in the UK and other places that deal with Faye
outside of the Goblin realm, but where it encourages people
and like you said, tourism, but in like more uh
um natural areas like um, like a nature preserve or
something like that, where you're gonna get tourism in a
place I don't know. It's not gonna do anybody harm.
(12:35):
If you're out there checking out for Faye, you know,
just having a good time camping, unless you're you know,
starting fires. That's dangerous. Be careful with those. And as
you were telling me, Matt, you've found a couple of
specific people, and we'll talk about later who do just
that in in an obtrusive way. That's that's the way
to look for him. But while we're looking at things,
(12:56):
let's look at the dwe Days specifically, since that's what
pay Draws asked us about. It is described by a
number of names, depending on which part of the world
you're referring to, but like the Goblin overall, the dwen
Day have a couple of common factors. First, there's the
devious boogeyman role. Kids growing up in parts of Mexico
(13:17):
or Central America may have heard their parents or guardian
tell them, okay, behave go to bed. Don't if you
venture out into the forest, the dwen Days might get you.
In these stories, the dwen Day lives often in one
of two places, either out in the forest or between
(13:40):
the walls of homes, especially if there are children around.
Because here's the creepy part. Apparently, the dwen Day loves
eating children's toe nails. They're hygiene obsessed. If your toe
nails are unkempt, they're coming for you, and they're super
aggressive about it. They may even take an entire toe
by accident. That's not going to be on purpose. They
(14:01):
don't want, you know, the flesh, except kind of according
to some of some of the stories they do, because
there's some weird stuff going on there where they're versions
of this story that include this is this is parish.
You guys, like a mother that perhaps didn't want to
(14:23):
have a baby. Um again this is folklore, but a
mother didn't want to have a baby giving that child
up essentially to these creatures as a meal. Yeah, I
don't even like saying that. Yeah, it's like the idea
is that they've escalated in their taste and they've gone
from toenails to flesh. We should pause for a second
(14:45):
because there's a story here that Portuguese and Spanish speakers
are going to be familiar with, and we need to
differentiate between the two. So one day has a different
meaning nowadays, and as it as a couple of meanings,
one of them, yes, the idea of this supernatural entity
(15:06):
and or spirit and or um living organism. But secondly,
and this is pretty cool. The term has also been
used in flamenco music and other art forms to refer
to a vibe like your animal magnetism, the your your
personal rico swaft nous. It's a mystical or powerful force
(15:30):
given off by a performer to draw in the audience,
which I was not aware of. It's the ability to
attract people through your charm, like the Dosakis guy, or
like that Ben Bold guy or that Matt Frederick guy. Really,
let's you know, all all credit due to our one
and only Mission Control. That guy is living dwe day. Dude.
(15:53):
Sometimes we log into these zoom calls to make these
episodes and Paul Mission Control just shows up and you're like, whoa,
what is that sealing It must be that umust that
one day. So we have this toe chewing boogeyman, and
that's separate from this personal magnetism. But we have another
(16:15):
side of the dwen day. This kind of contrast is
pretty common in supernatural creatures because the dwen day, in
addition to stealing children or eating their toenails or taking
them into the forest, they've also been rumored to assist
people who are lost in the wild and help them
find their way back to civilization. I guess you start
out in the forest. If you want to get on
(16:36):
their good side, then yeah, and again don't disturb them directly.
But if you're in need, they might be there for you.
Might maybe if you happen to encounter them, you know. Yeah, well,
there are other stories of the you know, the versions
of dwen Day that live more in the walls, that
are home dwelling, that may actually help out with chore
(17:00):
when everybody goes to sleep and the house is quiet,
they may actually help out and do things for the family,
for the house, not necessarily for you, but maybe for you. Uh.
It's hard because many of these stories try to ascribe uh,
what the Dwendi wants, what the goblin wants, what the
(17:22):
creature wants, and by doing these things. Um, but who knows.
We haven't exactly how to Charlie Rose interview, maybe not him,
but an interview with one of these guys. Right, we're
still waiting for the fresh air Terry Gross where she
sits down with the dwen Day. I love that you're
mentioning the varieties that assist with household chores because etymo logically,
(17:47):
it's believed that dwen Day originated as a contraction of
a longer phrase dwen di casa or Duenno di casa,
which more or less means master of the house. So
maybe that's maybe that gives us a glimpse into the
evolution of the more helpful dwen Day. But again, they're
(18:09):
there are tons of dwen Day. It's we could just
list all of them because they have different traits. Some
can summon thunder and lightning. Some are known to pull
down people's clothes and pench him on the butt. It's uh,
I think the then some are very unpopular, like triscoes
(18:32):
are super hated. They're considered nuisances. Yeah, I would say,
at least in what I've found the vast majority of
videos online, and there are so many videos of supposed
dwen Day sightings, the vast majority are or they feature
(18:52):
humans in them that are displaying a lot of fear
or like terror. When a dwen Day appears or just
happens to show up in the middle of a video
that looks like it was shot on like the thing
that was created before the Potato camera, I'm not sure, um,
but yeah, there's a fear associated with seeing one in
(19:15):
the moment at least. Yeah. Yeah, And that's a huge
part of today's story. So we see that Spanish folklore
is one of the origin points for the belief and
dwin Day. There are tons of specific types in this
folkloric universe, and these stories reached across the world in
step with the expansion of the Spanish Empire late fifteenth
(19:37):
century to the early eighteen hundreds. But this is not
the entire explanation. We're gonna pause for a moment for
a word from our sponsors, and assuming we don't get
snatched by our toes, will return with more on dwen Day.
And we've returned, Let's think of folklore kind of like
(19:59):
a a mash up album, you know, or a mash
up video on YouTube. You see things that feel unlikely
coming together and making a surprisingly quiz of whole. As
we talked about in our earlier episode on Forgotten Religions,
folklore functions like religious syncretism, and so we can kind
(20:20):
of trace, or we can at least speculate on the
evolution of dwen Day in Central South America, in Mexico
and in the Philippines as well. Because people are all intelligent,
people are all trying to explain what's going on in
the world, and they come up with stories that have
a lot of common or beliefs that have a lot
in common. Therefore, it's highly likely that Native people heard
(20:45):
of the word d one day for the first time,
and they already had something similar in their own culture.
Turns out, across history, people love the idea of magic,
little humanlike things. Whether they're good or evil, we're both
at different times. So like, you can imagine, we can
imagine that, right that that sounds plausible. Oh yeah, and
(21:08):
I think it fully explains our love of action figures
and tiny dolls. Big dolls are spooky though, we can
agree on that. Oh yeah. But but if you've got
a little thing that you can play with, like, that's fun,
that's exciting. And if that thing was actually real and
animated and could move and had ideas and motivations, shoot,
(21:29):
that's a that's the greatest thing ever. Stay away from
our feet though, Yeah, So, I like the feet thing
is just so weird and specific. So credit to whomever
came up with that when they were trying to scare
their kid into sleeping. Anyhow, back to our example. So
let's say, Matt, let's say you have become part of
(21:50):
the Spanish Empire. You're reaching, uh, this land you've never
seen before for the first time, You're learning a little
bit of the local language, they're learning to bit of
your language Spanish. You talk to them about the idea
of dwen Day and then they go, by the way,
we're bracketing all the horrible things that the Spanish Empire did.
(22:13):
It did a ton of horrific uh stuff. They committed
a lot of atrocities. But in this scenario, Matt, you're
just a regular guy. You just work your job, you're
chilling with these other people. You say d one day
and then they say, oh you mean yeah, you mean
that forest spirit Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we got those,
(22:34):
we got those here. Oh really, that's that's amazing. Oh,
we shall have to set up traps everywhere. And they're like, oh, well,
what's your what's your dwe day like? And they say, well,
you know, our dwe Day lives in the forest, has
a weird thing about toes uh and will sometimes help
(22:56):
you if you are lost in the woods. And then
you know, our our Spanish speaker in this in this scenario,
Jonathan Strickland has ruined my pronunciation of that word. Our
Spanish speaker there also says well, you know where I
grew up, and at this point in time would probably
they'd probably say a specific town or region in Spain
(23:17):
and say where I grew up. Yeah, this is what
they do here. So you guys got off kind of easy.
And so with this in mind, it's also pretty likely
that indigenous cultures would have used these terms interchangeably dwe
day and then the other terms that they already had,
because they already had things like this in their culture.
(23:38):
So a common belief and something like hidden forest spirits
or forest guardians or similar examples would have over time
become closer and closer to something like the Spanish concept
of dwen day and also retain the attributes of the
creature in the pre existing belief system. So there we go.
(23:58):
But this is not to be a lecture on folklore.
Don't worry. I just had to get that part out
of the way because the one days are different for
very big reason, very very big reason. Yeah, I mean,
I don't know. I wonder how many people are out
there listening and thinking, Wow, these guys are taking uh,
twen days pretty seriously. It's uh, what is it? One? Right? Now?
(24:23):
They know that they're not real right, you're probably thinking
that some of you do. They also think minotaurs are
just running around Greece and that's like a like a
pest a pestilence of minotaurs whatever. The group name for
menatars is a stampede of minotaurs. Oh yeah, for sure
in the pegas I that just exists in the cliffs
(24:48):
for some guide Athens. Right now, God, like, please somewhat
help me get rid of these gorgon's. It's like a
made for TV commercial, you know. There. We can't let
them get into the Georgia Theater again. Oh you're talking
about the original events? Okay, never mind, yeah, yeah, yeah,
well well either you know what, either will work for
this commercial, Matt. We just need to have one person
(25:10):
like turned to stone and then someone turned break the
fourth wall and talk to the camera and be like,
there's got to be a better way, que Billy mays. Okay,
well we've solved that. But yeah, you're right, it's a
good question though. It is, yes, But the one major
difference here is what Pedro has mentioned in the email
(25:32):
that he sent to us. Unlike all these other creatures,
human beings in real life in the modern era with
digital technology believe they have encountered these creatures and captured
them and have evidence of it and have uploaded it
to social media sites like YouTube, and uh, a lot
(25:54):
of other people, a lot of other people believe that
some of these videos are real. Yeah, that's the thing.
There's no shortage of people who not only believe that
there is an actual creature as a dwen Day, but
they also believe they have seen it or someone they
know has seen it. So what if instead of being
(26:15):
a legend, the dwen Day is an actual creature a crypto.
Here's where it gets crazy. So d one Day sightings
generally follow the same format, or a lot of them do.
There's a small group of kids hanging out somewhere. They
might be playing soccer, they might just be kicking it
on the sidewalk. It's often gonna occur at night, and
(26:37):
then one of them see something moving in the shadows,
usually partially obscured, often obscured, yeah, and then boom uh,
enter the dwen Day, who pops out for just a
second or just seconds maybe, or maybe it's walking away,
but either way, the sighting is brief, and the dwen
(27:00):
Day usually leaves the scene immediately, and then the camera
shuts off right afterwards, and that's all you get and
there's no follow up. That's it. Yeah, And thanks to
the use of recording technology and thanks to the democratization
mobile video, you can see dozens, dozens, dozens of alleged
(27:22):
dwen Day sightings caught on film. Probably the most famous,
the one that got the most attention outside of Mexico,
Central and South America, was this thing called the Argentina gnome.
And you, you and I both watched this video. Oh yeah,
(27:43):
I watched so many times on YouTube. You you you
know this already. I'm sure everyone listening. But you can
reduce the timing of these videos down to like one
half of the regular speed, all the way down to
a quarter of the regular speed, and you can watch
like half frame by half frame record. You know. However, however,
(28:07):
whatever the frame rate was that was uploaded from these
terrible cameras people are using to record these things, and
you can watch it, and I did, and I have
over and over and over, and the side stepping Argentina
nome or shuffling, I guess. I mean, I wouldn't categorize
it as one of my favorites, but it's definitely there.
(28:29):
It's one of the best isolated creature versions of these
sightings where where you can actually see something. Even though
it's fully in shadow, you can see that there's a
full thing for longer than a second. Yeah, yeah, that's
that's a great way to say. It's very short. Forty
eight seconds. Um. You know I in matters like this, folks,
(28:52):
I typically defer to Matt's video expertise. Matt, you have
you know, you have a experience with this, and you
know how to spot things that would call the veracity
of a piece of video into question. So that's that's
one of my first things in my processes. I'll send
Mad a video and I'll be like, all right, before
(29:15):
I get weird with this, is this real? And? And
this is tough because it's easier and easier to fake
these as well. Anyway, I would say that one is
real in that there was actually something in that video.
You just have to decide was it a little person
that that group of people knew, was it a kid
(29:37):
dressed up in some costume um or was it an
actual creature of some sort. But here's the thing, the hat, Yeah,
and the hat is the hat is one of the
big sticking points where Family shows. I'm not going to
go into all my feelings about the hat aspect of
(30:01):
these sightings, but for a lot of people are unfamiliar
with this. Imagine a sinister version of the stereotypical gnome
with the red pointing hat, a little guy white beard,
like the evil universe version of that. That's something that
people often describe seeing, and it's important to know. In
(30:22):
the era of TikTok hoaxes and all this stuff, it's
important to note that not all the people reporting these
sightings are children or teens. There are a lot of
fringe researchers who seem convinced that this is a real thing.
What In particular, the late crypto zoologist Ivan Sanderson, himself
a very controversial figure, noted that one day sightings have
(30:46):
been reported by tons of folks in Central America, including
people you would consider highly educated in the field, like
the zoologist and author Alan Rabinowitz, who wrote about the
belief easy and beliefs in the dwe Day and his
own experience, citing what he described as a strange little
(31:07):
man about three ft tall, standing at the very edge
of the forest at night. That's pretty cool. I mean,
I'm interested in that. I didn't read that particular thing
from Alan Robinowitz, Ben, but that's something that I'm now
going to look deeper into just you know, even those
one person's account, the fact that it's a zoologist who
(31:30):
you know, felt it was compelling enough to write down
interests me. But that written down, as relayed to Sanderson,
so have been. There may have been some telephoning and
maybe a little we can't rule that out, but we
know we know that this guy Rubinowitz is not alone.
(31:51):
There are so many sightings enough for us to broadly
categorize two different types of descript ship. And these descriptions
are going to be important. Will return to them later
in the show. Yes, one of them is a rather
her suit human person, a man like creature that's about
(32:14):
four ft tall. There's a shriveled nature to to this
character that's often described road hard, put away, wet. You know,
there you go. Um. There are a couple things that
this person may wield. Often it's a stick of some
time of some kind. Sometimes an instrument like a stringed
(32:36):
instrument such as a guitar. Sometimes a weapon like a
ma chet day or a knife or you know, it
may look like a sword in this person's hand. Um.
And they're often in some kind of like animal skin
like a hide, something like that, rags um and almost
(32:57):
always in this this one category worry of sighting, there
is something on the head. There's a hat of some sort,
whether that's you know, related to the animal hide that
they were wearing, or just a pointy little thing, some
kind of headwear. Yeah, exactly. It's a very very important
fact you mentioned. It's not always a pointy hat. It's
(33:18):
always not always David the Gnome impersonator, right, But the
other explanation has some important differences. In the other description,
you will see a generally a three to four ft
tall creature, human esque looking thing with sloping shoulders, noticeably
(33:39):
long arms, brown hair, a flat yellowish face, and then
long hair down the back, uh and the neck. So
we're at an impass. The creatures characteristics as it's described
and the stories about it are clearly a blend of
different cultures, connecting right, European cultures, native cultures, and then
(34:05):
probably also lore from the continent of Africa. But again,
depending on who you asked, there have been sightings of
one day by credible witnesses. At the very least, we
know that forest park rangers and zoologists have seen things
in the wild that they cannot explain to their own
satisfaction despite their higher than average odds of being familiar
(34:29):
with most of the animals in the area. You know
what I mean. It's it's way different from just dropping
a rando in there and then saying, okay, describe these things, yeah,
for sure. But but no matter how credible those witnesses are,
Generally these sightings occur in the dark or in the shadows,
(34:51):
just as they do on all the YouTube videos you're
gonna find when you're searching for this later tonight. I
promise you it's gonna happen. It's just happens to all
of us. You have to you have to keep looking
because some of them are compelling as hell. Um, So
you know, it's difficult. It's difficult to know when you're
looking at a shadow and you're seeing something moving and
(35:11):
you're in nature, out in the wilderness, like what is
that thing? What was that? Why? Why does it smell
different in here right now? That's another thing, by the way,
didn't even mention. According to some stories, when they're twin day,
especially the house, the ones that live in a house,
when they've come by, there's an acrid, awful smell that
(35:33):
may be associated with them being around, similar to how
um many Jin encounters are described, where there's like a
sulfuric smell that that a residue of sorts that lead
has left behind. Um anyway, we we have to just
you take all of this into account, like could it
(35:53):
be just that people's minds are putting tricks on them
in the dark, even the people who know what they're
doing and know where they are in their surroundings, or
there is there some other explanation, and uh, we're gonna
look at that. After another word from our sponsors and
(36:14):
we've returned. Yes, we are going to explore some possible explanations.
One misidentification easy what you would call a low hanging
branch here. Misidentification is a lead cause for a ton
of alleged cryptic sightings, as we found in the case
of the Jersey Devil, whereas we found in the case
of Bigfoot. This identification has been common for centuries and centuries.
(36:37):
People get scared, their encounters are hurried and their brief
and when these people finally get to a calm, safe place,
their memories are jumbled and they've been heavily influenced by
the fear they experienced right, and you know, they might
even smell something later and then it triggers the memory,
which changes the memory, because your memories change every time
(37:00):
you remember them. True story, scary stuff, what and this
is weird? I was thinking about this man. So while
it might seem counterintuitive, misidentification is likely on the rise nowadays.
It's a very good era for misidentification, despite the fact
that there's such an abundance of surveillance and recording technology.
(37:24):
The truth is, the majority of human beings now live
in dense urban areas. The animal that you are most
likely to see in your day to day life every
single day, it's another human being. That's the animal you
will most commonly run into. And if you live in
a dense urban area, you're less likely to be familiar
(37:45):
with large wild animals. Have you ever seen a bear
in the wild? Have you ever seen a monkey? What
if you what if the you saw one and you
weren't expecting it, he'd freak out, he'd freak a little bit. Yeah, Well,
especially if that creature, that bear, or that monkey were
maybe let's say a cub or a baby monkey or
(38:06):
a young young monkey, that or a bear, because either
of them can and will stand on their hind legs
at times, and if they're younger, they may be very small.
And if you see a small creature like that, a
real animal in the shadows standing up on its hind
legs with arms, it would freak me out if I
(38:26):
didn't know what it was. Yeah, I've I've enjoyed that
description because putting myself in the place, you know, even
being able to identify animals in the wild when you're
not expecting it, it's it's a wallop so or even
like a raccoon or you know, I mean, there's so many. Yeah,
there's so many small creatures that have some of the
(38:48):
features of a human if they happen to get into
a certain posture, right, I I gotta say, man, I
love pretty much all animals. I'm glad they're here. Uh,
raccoons fascinate me, but they freaked me out a little
bit because there's something kind of uncanny valley about their hands,
(39:08):
you know what I mean. They just look sneaky, and
they're always like they look like they look covetous, you know,
like a goblin. Yes, maybe that's it. Maybe goblins the raccoons,
but they also have these amazing parkour abilities. I just yeah,
they're they're weird. Send your favorite raccoon stories. I'd love
to hear them, but I'm gonna read them during the
(39:30):
daytime just in case. And it's safe to say then
that at least in some sightings, people have accidentally misidentified
an animal that they would have eventually recognized if they
saw it in a more controlled environment like a zoo,
right and if they had had more time to observe
it instead of this hurried, often terrifying and short encounter.
(39:50):
But no matter what, misidentification cannot explain everything, primarily because
wild animals, for what we know, tend to not wear
a hat. From what we've seen from the data we
have gathered, hats haven't really gotten on the scene in
(40:11):
the animal kingdom yet. You know, yes, you're right, And
I just have to add one last thing that like
could help out here. Keep the camera rolling after you've
seen something like that, don't cut, like, just get all
the row footage. You can chase the thing with your camera,
zoom in, turn up the brightness, lower the contrast, do
(40:37):
everything you can in that moment if you ever encounter one,
and then upload the whole file. Don't edit it, and
then we'll see what happens and try just or higher.
Please for God's sake, I know I feel your pain, man.
This This leads us to the second thing. Why why
is what Matt sayings so important? Well, it's important because
(41:00):
if you find yourself in a situation like this and
you're trying to film, not taking those steps will set
you up to be accused of hoaxing. And that is
the second cobbon explanation. For a lot of cryptic sidings,
it's unfortunately frequent, and like cases of misidentification, hoaxes have
been on the rise for some time. It's easier now
(41:22):
than ever before to fake something. You can alter video,
you can distort, remove, insert things. You can also, like
you know, Matt, you can control angles, lighting setting, You
can do pretty much whatever you want to video, so
long as you have enough expertise and lead time. Like
that's I think that's why you're emphasizing that, uh huh,
(41:45):
how come this just happens and then they stop rolling?
To me? One of the questions that always pops up
is why would someone purposely create hoax? One day? Siding
well number one for attention, for laughs, for the walls
for trolling. If we look at the video from Argentina,
it was funny because this was, uh, this got a
(42:07):
lot of international attention when it was reported by the Sun,
which is kind of like the United Kingdom's weekly World News.
It's the closest they'll get to like bat boys stories.
And this is the gnome sighting from Argentina. Correct. Yeah,
it comes a side stepper. So so the teenager who
(42:31):
filmed this is interviewed in the Sun. His name is
Jose Alvarez, and he says, you know, me and my
pals are just hanging out on the sidewalk one am
and then we hear a noise and it sounds like
someone throwing stones, and Snopes is really snarky when they
report on this. You can find the Snopes right up
on this, and they say Alvarez, who had miraculously started
(42:53):
filming nothing in particular with his cell phone immediately beforehand,
was able to capture a few seconds earth of video
that of something that looks like just as you described Matt,
a tiny biped with a pointy hat doing the rambling man,
just a few steps sideways. And then he says, this
is very common, that exact scenario. Oh man, I just
(43:17):
happen to start filming. Hey, what are you guys doing? Nothing?
Just hanging out? Okay, cool, yeah, exactly. That was funny
your video, but the videos great. I hope that makes
it onto our YouTube channel. Who knows, you know, it's
it's above us. So Alvarez is saying, Okay, at first
(43:39):
we thought this was a dog, but we saw it
was gnome like and we began to get really afraid.
This is not a joke. We're still afraid to go out.
Everybody in the neighborhood is. One of my friends was
so scared after seeing that thing that we had to
take him to the hospital. And Snope's notes exactly what
you noted earlier, Matt, that this has a classic hoax
(44:01):
set up, a sudden appearance of something in the background
right after rolling. The person with the camera is able
to find and zoom in on the thing really quickly,
even though it's unexpected. The glimpse of whatever this thing
is is very, very brief. And then Snoops also points
out there were two different takes of the same scene
(44:23):
that make you know that calling the question the spontaneity
of it. So with that in mind, just from that
one example and the format that we see in these
other YouTube videos, it's highly likely. I would say it's
virtually certain that some video footage of these Dwenday sightings
are indeed purposeful hoaxes, which sounds like a downer, But
(44:43):
there's one more possible explanation. It is. I think it's
safe to say it's always our personal favorite. Yes, and
we're gonna talk about but really quickly, I want to
mention one more video, one more dwe Day video that
was very popular. I'm looking for it right now, very quickly.
It was shot by a mother who just happened to
be filming her small child in the kitchen doing nothing.
(45:06):
Kids are doing absolutely nothing. All of a sudden, the
kid's head moves away a little bit, and a tiny, tiny,
little it looks like a human, a regular sized human
that got shrunk down into a tiny little version that's
only a foot tall or let or smaller, just runs
across from where the baby's head moved and runs underneath
(45:29):
a I don't know, a shelf or something that's right
a cabinet. It's just another one of these videos that
follows those exact rules that Snopes pointed out. But in
this case you can clearly see the creature and it
looks like a tiny little goblin running. But again, it
looks like a full sized human in a costume or
something that's just been shrunk down through video editing. Honestly,
(45:53):
that's what it looks like. I can't sit here and
tell you a percent that it was hoaxed, but I
can tell you in nin that it was hoaxed. There
we go. It's more than fair. So with that, we've
done a lot of myth busting here. But with that
we want to go to our favorite of these categories,
(46:13):
which is cryptids. What if the Dwenday sightings can be
partially attributed to a real, not yet officially identified animal.
If so, what could it be? Based on the descriptions,
the most likely suspect would be a small primate, and
if it is indeed encrypted, it would be a small
primate currently unknown to science. The height makes sense, as
(46:35):
do the reports being her suit or Harry. The humanoid
body also makes sense. Non human primates have the same
number of arms and legs, and a tail could be
difficult to spot depending on the environment. And again there
are all the videos are in the dark But there's
a counterpoint here. Given the sheer number of readily available
video recording devices, why hasn't someone caught, clear undenied the
(47:00):
footage of these creatures. Why isn't there like dwen day
during the day? Uh? Is it because these are nocturnal creatures?
That's possible, um, But again, cameras are everywhere, And given
that humans have lived in the area for such a
long time, why hasn't anyone come forward with a body
or some sort of physical evidence. I propose we start
(47:21):
calling this the bigfoot dilemma, the little the little foot. Yes, yeah,
good note, good note, We're going with it the little
foot dilemma. So this means that if we're looking for
rational explanations, we can find several Hoaxes have to account
for some sightings, misidentification has to account for some others.
And while the idea of unrecognized animals is tremendously exciting,
(47:44):
there's just not enough evidence to support that idea in
this case yet. And furthermore, there's the odds are mounting
that if something like this existed and was an unknown animal,
it would already have been well known to locals, like
in the case of the sea a camp when people
thought they rediscovered this fish that have been extinct for
(48:05):
millions of years, and the locals said, oh, yeah, that's
a trash fish. Don't eat it, that's that is garbage fish.
Put it back. Yeah, it's really old that that's that
meat is no good anymore. The only problem here been
to my mind, when we're talking about misidentification, is that
we're talking about a large area or a large variety
(48:30):
of areas of the earth that are covered when we're
talking about dwen Day sightings, you know, in in very
different ecosystems and climates, and it makes me wonder if
you know, could there be a common denominator here or
is it just different species of animals in different parts
of the world. Yeah, because it's spread out over so
(48:50):
many regions, right, and they don't all have the same ecosystems,
they don't long to the same floor and fauna. For example,
Beliez is home to different species of non human primates,
spider monkeys, howl are monkeys, you know what I mean?
Cool monkeys? You want cool monkeys Beliez. It's it's not
a perfect explanation. Again, because of that hat. That hat
(49:14):
drove me crazy. Spider monkeys might just be really shy
about their hat wear, and maybe that's something that they're
developing that's heartbreaking. So like they were amping themselves up
and they were like, all right, this is gonna be
big for me. I'm gonna try out my new look
my hat. And then the first time they see somebody
that people are screaming and the spider monkeys like, yes, yes,
(49:40):
I think I think he's solved it. Matt. There's something
we have we had in our notes that helps support
this idea. If you look at the photo of a
spider monkey, now that has provided one. By the way, uh,
I didn't take the photo personally, but it's important to
know what they look like. Yeah, I'm just gonna if
(50:02):
you're playing along at home, folks, pull up a picture
of a spider monkey, and let's just read that second
description one more time. Three to four foot tall, with
heavy shoulders, long arms, brown hair, a flat yellowish face,
and long hair down the back and the neck. I
believe this is a juvenile spider monkey. But you see
(50:25):
where I'm going with this, man, Yeah, I can fully
see it. The image we're looking at is a juvenile
spider monkey, kind of in a grassy area where from
about the monkey's tummy and up you can see but
kind of it looks like, you know, kind of hidden
down in the grass. But the facial expression of a
(50:45):
primate like this, ah man, you could totally see how
if you saw that creature in the shadows in the dark,
didn't expect it to be there, he could freak you out.
And and you could see why you that sighting would
be considered a dwen day if if you didn't hear
(51:07):
the specific noises, you didn't capture them on video or
something or an audio. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the
dun day sighting for sure, just waiting to happen right right.
And then of course, if you realize that the majority
of wild animals are gonna be freaked out when they
run into you as a person, then that explains the
brevity of the encounter well, and also why they they
(51:31):
might hide, like if they are somewhat in plain sight
or nearby, they may be they may be hiding and
hoping that you go away, and if you encroach further
on their area, they might stand up and or you know,
get up and scurry away really quickly. Again very similar
to the sightings we've uh we've seen or heard about. Yeah.
(51:53):
And then, last, but not least, there is the distant
but not entirely dismissible possibility that there could be a
human being involved, as someone who perhaps has a medical
condition resulting in a smaller than average height. That's possible,
but there's no confirmation of this. And for our final
notes here, we have to say that local belief in
(52:15):
dwen Days varies widely. For many, it's like we said,
a mothman kind of vibe. It's sort of an in
joke about town. It's a piece of regional folklore people
find amusing and at times profitable, but it's not something
people take seriously. It's kids stuff, you know. But in
other regions sightings of creatures like dwen Day have apparently
(52:39):
been taken seriously enough to warrant some reports by police.
It was tough to confirm some of that, but it
does show that there there is a gamut here and
that's where the mystery stands. So thanks again Pedro for
the suggestion. We would love to hear cryptid stories from
your neck of the Global Woods. We've got some great ones,
(53:00):
and you know, Matt I was thinking I was looking
back through some of our correspondence from our fellow listeners,
and I just think maybe we can do listener mail
with a theme if people are interested in just hearing
ghost stories one week, or if people are interested in
just hearing cryptid stories. You know. Yeah, so let's put
on let's put a call out for one right now.
(53:22):
Do you have a crypted story, send it our way.
If you've already sent it to us before in the past,
that's fine, send it again, like if you've got a
very specific encounter story, or you know, call us, leave
a voicemail, send us a message through our email, or
find us on Twitter, whatever you want to do, get
it to us soon after hearing this, and we'll put
(53:42):
some stuff together. That's a great idea. Bit, Hey, let's hope.
Let's hope everybody digs it. I can't wait to see
I can't wait to read your stories, can't wait to
hear from you. Uh, and we think your fellow listeners
will enjoy it as well. Can Can I put a
I want to make too quick shout out just before
we end here, I went down a bunch of YouTube
(54:03):
rabbit holes. While I was going through everything, I forget
how much I love that site, slash service, slash whatever
Alphabet and Google have done there. Thank you over Lord's
but YouTube creators shout out to you, all of you
out there, if you're listening to this and you make
YouTube videos, but if you want to find just I
(54:25):
call it the most delightful channel I've found in a
long time. Like stumbled upon every once in a while
that happens, it's a It's a gentleman named Irwin Saunders
E R W I N s A U N D
E R S. He is out in the UK somewhere
in various places searching for pixies and and other fae creatures.
(54:47):
He's just my favorite character that I've found on YouTube
in a long time. Highly recommend and if you are
ever skeptical of videos online, we've shouted this person out
before a long time time ago. But one of my
seriously one of my all time favorite YouTube channels Captain Disillusion.
Check it out, find it incredible. Content goes through painstakingly
(55:13):
to show you what a hoax video looks like. In
one particular instance, why a video is fake or why
a video is well it's usually fake is because he's
Captain Disillusion Uh, some of the best effects on YouTube anyway,
shouting those out. Go down those rabbit holes and please
please please right to us and find us that I
(55:34):
didn't mean to take up so much time there. But
that's no, that's perfect. And I love shoutouts, man, I
think we both do. I want to give a shout out.
There's nothing to do with this episode. I want to
give a shout out to one of my favorite sketch
comedy groups I found on YouTube, and I hope you
do check them out. Tell him Benna Matt sent you.
They're called Chris and Jack. They are hilarious, top notch. Uh.
(55:57):
They made up their own holiday based on Jurassic Park. Uh. Yeah,
they've got some brilliant sketches. Uh, some of which are
related to the world of Conspiracies. I'll send you one after.
I'll send you one after after we wrap. Is it. Yes,
that's the holiday. They've been doing it for a while now.
But Chris Jack, if you're listening, great work, and let
(56:19):
us know if there's something that you think deserves a
shout out on the show. Like Ben said, we'd love
to hear from you. The final points here is that
the odds of cryptid sightings overall are going to increase
in your lifetime as humans continue to encroach further into
the Dwindoline Wilderness. Humanity has, is, and will continue discovering
(56:41):
new species, both on land and in the ocean, but
these discoveries are, sadly often a side effect of the
larger problem. The habitats of these creatures are being destroyed,
and the days of seeing animals in the wild may
themselves eventually become the stuff of legend. Pretty crazy when
you think about it, and by far more terrifying than
(57:01):
the idea of little people chewing on your toes, though
that is again very creepy. Yeah, let us do what
you think, folks. We'd love to hear from you. We
try to be easy to find online. Yes, you can
find us on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube at Conspiracy Stuff.
It's that easy. On Instagram we are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
And before we throw to our phone number, I'm just
(57:24):
gonna roll this out so long. Then, before we throw
to our phone number, I'm gonna read you the flavor
text of mons Goblin Raiders. It's a one one goblin
creature costs one mountain, one red manna to cast. And
here's the flavor text. The intricate dynamics of Goblin affairs
are often confused with anarchy. The chaos, however, is the
(57:47):
chaos of a thundercloud and direction will sporadically and violently appear,
and it mentions the leader Psholic Mons and his Raiders
are the thunderhead that leads in the storm. Anyway, if
you want to give us your critique of you know,
(58:07):
the alpha set Mons Goblin Raiders, you can reach us
at our phone number one H three three st d
w y t K, And when you reach that phone number,
you'll hear a brief message from us, and then you'll
have three minutes. Those three minutes are your own. Do
with them as you will. Uh. It would immensely help
us out if you give yourself a cool nickname and
(58:27):
let us know whether we have permission to use your
name and or voice on air. UH. Tell us what
is on your mind. And most importantly, if you have
a story, especially crypto encounter, that takes more than three minutes,
do not censor yourself, don't edit or allied your statements.
Feel free to tell us the entire thing in full.
We read every single email we get. You can send
(58:50):
them to our good old fashioned email address where we
are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com and don't
edit your video, just send the whole thing. Yeah. Stuff
(59:18):
they don't want you to know is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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