Speaker 1: You know, there's a feeling you get, maybe when you're
alone in a new city or camping just a little
too far from the trail. It's not just nervousness. It's
this I don't know, this primal, vibrating instinct that just
says you are not the top of the food chain. Here.
We spend so much of our modern lives under fluorescent lights,
surrounded by data and concrete, and we convince ourselves we've
mapped every corner of reality we have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we like to think we have, but deep down.
Speaker 1: I think we actually crave the knowledge that we haven't.
Speaker 2: It's the paradox of safety, isn't it. The safer our
lives become the more we seek out that shadow side,
just to feel something potent. Every single culture, no matter
how isolated or how industrialized, keeps a catalog of things
that go bump in the night. We need them, we
absolutely do.
Speaker 1: And that is exactly why I'm so thrilled to welcome
you to another session of thrilling Threads.
Speaker 2: Glad to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, and today we're going to pull on
a thread that I think unravels the comfort of the
known world. We're going on a global tour but.
Speaker 2: Not the kind you find in a travel brochures.
Speaker 1: Definitely not. We're bypassing the tourist traps of cryptozoology today.
Speaker 2: Right, We're going off the beaten path. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Look, I love a good Bigfoot story as much as
the next person. The Luckness Monster is a classic, but
they're almost comforting at this point. They're familiar, they are
they're on lunchboxes, they're mascots. Today, I want to go darker.
I want to look at the urban legends in folklore
from Africa, Japan, the Czech Republic, Hawaii, and the Americas
that you probably haven't heard of.
Speaker 2: Ones that still have teeth exactly. And that's the key distinction.
I think when a legend gets too commercialized, it loses
its sociological power. But the stories we're discussing today, from
the swamps of Central Africa to the restrooms of South
African schools, these are active sociological tools. They aren't just
campfire stories, No, they're more. They are more warnings, survival mechanisms,
and in some cases, manifestations of societal trauma.
Speaker 1: It's a creature feature, but with a heavy dose of psychology.
The creativity involved in some of these monsters is baffling,
But what scares me is how specific they are to
their environments. Yes, so let's start this tour in the wild.
We're going to the American West, specifically Montana.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, usually when I think of Montana, I'm thinking, you know, yellerstone,
wide open plains, maybe a grizzly bear if.
Speaker 2: I'm unlucky, sure, big sky country.
Speaker 1: I am not thinking about deep sea horrors.
Speaker 2: Well you should be if you're anywhere near Flathead Lake.
It's the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi,
and it hosts a legend that is uniquely.
Speaker 1: Terrifying, the Flathead Lake Monster.
Speaker 2: That's the one.
Speaker 1: And we aren't talking about a glorified catfish here. The
descriptions of this thing are bizarrely specific.
Speaker 2: Saguarly are.
Speaker 1: We're talking about a creature that is serpentine massive. But
and here's the kicker, it has antlers.
Speaker 2: Antlers. That detail is what caught my attention immediately. It's
just so strange. And if you look at the history,
this isn't some modern fabrication. The Kutinye people, the indigenous
inhabitants of that region, have stories of a giant creature
in the lake that date back centuries.
Speaker 1: So it's old, very old.
Speaker 2: They speak of a great fish or a water spirit
that could be fatal to those acrossed it.
Speaker 1: But the crossover into modern record keeping is where it
gets vivid. I was looking at the reports from eighteen
eighty nine. There was a steamship, the US Grant, and
it was carrying passengers. Okay, imagine the scene. It's the
late nineteenth century. The water is glassy, maybe a little fog,
and suddenly the captain and all the passengers they see
a wake, but.
Speaker 2: Not a boat way right, something else is moving in
the water.
Speaker 1: The accounts describe a log like object but moving against
the current, and then the proximity reveals the horror. It's
described as approaching the vessel and then just diving.
Speaker 2: And that's not the only There are accounts of two, three,
sometimes four humps moving through the water at once.
Speaker 1: But the recurring detail in later sightings is always the antlers.
Speaker 2: Which just makes zero biological sense for a.
Speaker 1: Water animal, right, none the drag would be a nightmare.
Why would a water monster have antlers?
Speaker 2: This is where we have to look at it through
a cultural lens. Yeah, for the people living in that region,
both the Koton Eye and the later settlers. What's the
ultimate symbol of.
Speaker 1: The land, the elk or the deer, exactly, the kings.
Speaker 2: Of the forest. So by giving the water monster antlers,
the collective imagination is creating this hybrid. It's blending the
known danger of the land with the unknown tear of
the deep.
Speaker 1: It creates a sort of apex of everything.
Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. It's like the
environment itself is conspiring against you. The water isn't just water,
it is claimed the power of the forest too.
Speaker 1: You know. It's weird though the locals don't seem to
be terrified of it in a you know, let's evacuate
kind of way.
Speaker 2: No, it's quite the opposite.
Speaker 1: They love it. There's this strange civic pride. Yeah we
have a lake monster. What does your town have a gazebo?
Speaker 2: It's identity building. Yeah. I mean, when you live in
a rugged, vast landscape like Montana, nature is this dominant force.
So having a monster in the lake it validates the
wildness of the place. It validates the toughness of the
people who live there. It's a way of saying we
live on the edge of the unknown.
Speaker 1: And it bonds the community.
Speaker 2: It becomes a mascot of the wild.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's a mascot. But if we hop across
the ocean to Central Africa, the relationship with the wild changes.
It stops being a mascot and starts being a murderer. Yes,
we need to talk about the Congamato.
Speaker 2: Now we are entering the realm of what is technically
called cryptozoology, but the Conga motto stands out because of
how consistent the descriptions are with well with paleontology.
Speaker 1: So for those of us who skip dinosaur Week in
second grade, break it down. What are we looking at?
Speaker 2: We are looking at a pterosaur, a flying reptile from
the Lake Cretaceous period. Leathery wings, a beak full of teeth,
no feathers, a creature that should have been extinct for
sixty five million years.
Speaker 1: But in the swamps of Zambia, Angola and the Congo
people swear it's still there.
Speaker 2: And they don't describe it as a magical spirit. They
describe it as an animal, very aggressive animal.
Speaker 1: That's the distinction that chills me. The local reports and
these go back to explorers in the nineteen twenties. Like
Frank Mellon, they don't treat the congamatto as a ghost.
It's a biological azard.
Speaker 2: The name itself, Congamatto, roughly translates to breaker of boats.
Speaker 1: That is a terrifying name, breaker of boats.
Speaker 2: It implies a specific mechanical action. This creature dives from
the sky or maybe rises from the water to capsize canoes.
It attacks people who invade its territory.
Speaker 1: Just imagine you're navigating a swamp. It's hot, but the
insects are buzzing, visibility is low, You're worried about hippos,
maybe crocodiles, all the known dangers, and then suddenly a
leather winged dinosaur swoops down and just flips your canoe.
It feels like time travel gone wrong.
Speaker 2: There's a theory about cultural memory here that I find
completely fascinating.
Speaker 1: Walk me through that.
Speaker 2: Well, the skeptics will say it's just misidentified storks or
large bats. Okay, sure, But the cultural memory theories suggest
that oral traditions are so robust in these regions that
they have somehow preserved the memory of megafauna interaction from
thousands of years ago, or that the discovery of fossils
influenced the mythology so deeply that the creature became real
in the cultural narrative.
Speaker 1: And hear me out on this one. There's a dinosaur
in the swamp?
Speaker 2: Well or that that is the relic population theory. It's
unlikely scientifically, but the fact that the story persists with
such specific biological details, like the lack of feathers, it
makes you wonder.
Speaker 1: It makes nature feel actively malicious.
Speaker 2: It does. It turns the landscape into a place where
history hasn't finished.
Speaker 1: Yet, which is actually a perfect segue back to the US,
specifically the Great Basin region. Okay, we talked about a
monster that breaks boats, but what about a monster that
breaks your heart before where it kills you. I'm talking
about the water babies.
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, this is a legend that appears in various
Native American cultures, particularly the piutint Sha shown, and it is,
in my opinion, one of the most psychologically cruel legends
in existence.
Speaker 1: It's the sound that's what gets me. The legend says,
these spirits they inhabit deep, dangerous bodies of water, and
to lure victims, they mimic the sound of a crying baby.
Speaker 2: It's pure emotional manipulation. I am the spirit of dark
and lonely water. It prays on empathy.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about the evolutionary hardwiring there. If you
hear a baby crying, especially if you're a parent or
just a decent human being, you adrenaline spikes. You don't think,
you act. You run toward the sound to help, and
that is the trap.
Speaker 2: You run toward the river bank, toward the deep water,
searching for this distressed infant, and the closer you get,
the more likely you are to fall in or to
be pulled in.
Speaker 1: By the spiritiz and compassion. But why why create a
story where being a good person gets you killed?
Speaker 2: Because the water doesn't care if you're a good person.
This is a survival mechanism encoded in a narrative.
Speaker 1: So it's a warning.
Speaker 2: It's very practical warning. The Great Basin can be a
harsh environment. Waterways are treacherous, flash floods, undertoes, hidden depths.
How do you keep children away from the water? How
do you keep adults vigilant?
Speaker 1: You tell them that the water lies exactly.
Speaker 2: You teach them that the river is a trickster. If
you just said don't go near the river. It's deep.
A curious child might ignore you. But if you say
there is a hungry spirit there that sounds like a friend,
you instill a deep, visceral caution. It teaches you to
question your senses in a dangerous environment.
Speaker 1: It's harsh, but I guess dead kids don't learn lessons.
There's one born every minute who might be foolish enough
to follow the sound. So the story, sort of in
a dark way, calls the herd.
Speaker 2: And it's worth noting that some traditions involve leaving tributes
for the water babies, small offerings Oh really yeah, which
shows it's not just a monster to be destroyed, it's
a force to be appeased. It's about respect.
Speaker 1: Respect seems to be the currency of survival in a
lot of these stories. If you pay respect, you live.
If you don't, you die. For the common thread, which
brings us to a legend where respect is quite literally
the only thing that can save your neck, We're heading
to Hawaii.
Speaker 2: Ah the night Marchers. Ok. Just the name sets a mood,
The night Marchers. I've spoken to friends who grew up
in Hawaii, and the shift in their tone when this
topic comes up is palpable. This isn't a fun ghost story.
This is serious. It is deeply serious, and it's rooted
in the Kapu system, the ancient code of laws and
regulations in Hawaii. The night Marchers are the spirits of
ancient warriors and high ranking chiefs.
Speaker 1: So set the scene for us. It's night, You're maybe
near a sacred site or an old trail.
Speaker 2: What happens? Usually it starts with sound, the rhythmic beating
of pahu drums, the sound of a kansh blowing in
the distance.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's serie.
Speaker 2: And then the smell, a heavy scent of sulfur or
burning torches.
Speaker 1: And then you see them, rows of warriors floating a
few inches off the ground, carrying torches, weapons, chanting. They
aren't zombies stumbling around, no, not all. They are marching
with purpose. They are processing to a battle, or to
a sacred site, or guiding a chief to the afterlife.
Speaker 2: And here is the danger. To look upon a high chief,
even a dead one, was forbidden for commoners in ancient times.
It was punishable by death. Wow, that law that cop
who It transcends the grave. So if you look at
the night marchers, you are breaking the law, and the
penalty is death a deadly gaze.
Speaker 1: So unlike the water babies who try to trick you,
the night marchers are just enforcing the rules. But there
is a loophole. And I love this because it feels
so I don't know, purecratic. No, that's the wrong word.
Speaker 2: It feels ritualistic, Yes, ritualistic. If you find yourself in
the path of the march, you have one option. Must
strip off your clothes to show you are unarmed and
hiding nothing, and you must lie face down on the ground,
prostrate yourself. Don't look up, don't look up, don't make
a sound. You have to submit completely.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: Well, and if you were lucky, one of the marchers
might recognize you as a descendant of their line and
cry out no, which means mine. Oh wow, and they
claim you and you are spared.
Speaker 1: That is incredibly intense. It connects the living directly to
their genealogy. Yeah, you better hope your great great grandfather
likes you precisely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but think about the sociological function here. This legend
enforces a profound reverence for the past. It literally forces
the modern world to bow down to history. You cannot
develop a condo on a night march or trail without
inviting disaster. It keeps the history physical and present.
Speaker 1: It's a check on modernity. You might have iPhones, but
the chiefs are still.
Speaker 2: In charge, a powerful one.
Speaker 1: And we're going to pivot from the noble terror of
Hawaiian warriors to something much grubbier, much more invasive. We're
going to South Africa.
Speaker 2: The legend of Pinky Pinky, or in a broader sense,
the Tokolosha.
Speaker 1: This one makes my skin crawl. The night marchers are scary,
but they have a kind of dignity. The Tokolosha is
just wrong.
Speaker 2: It is pure nightmare fuel. The tokoloshi is typically described
as a dwarf like, hairy creature, sometimes with a hole
in its head, sometimes clutching a pebble that it swallows
to become invisible, and where does live under the bed,
in the ceiling, But specifically for the Pinky Pinky variant
in the school restaurants.
Speaker 1: The invasion of privacy is the central theme here, isn't
it absolutely? And it targets girls, young girls. It's a predator.
The stories say it grabs them, scratches them, or even
drinks their blood.
Speaker 2: This is where we have to put on our analyst
hats and really look at the why why does a
culture invent a toilet goblin that attacks girls?
Speaker 1: It feels like a very dark way of policing behavior.
Speaker 2: It is the source material suggests a strong link to
the policing of female sexuality in the anxie that surround puberty.
So if you create a monster that lurks in the bathroom,
the one place where bodies are dealt with privately, you
create a surveillance state in the child's mind.
Speaker 1: It's a warning rit don't plan in the bathroom, don't
explore your body, don't linger.
Speaker 2: Exactly, it frames the changes of puberty and the private
spaces of hygiene as inherently dangerous. But there's another layer
to it. In a society where discussing sexual assault or
abuse might be taboo, the tokolosha becomes a scapegoat.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: I mean if a child is hurt or traumatized or
acting out in some way, it is sometimes easier for
a conservative community to say the toklash did it? Then
to confront a human predator or a complex social issue.
Speaker 1: It displaces the blame onto a mythical creature. Yes, that
is heartbreaking. It's a monster that allows people to avoid
talking about the real monsters it is.
Speaker 2: It's a displacement of blame. It keeps the community cohesive
by externalizing the evil, but leaves the victims with a terrifying,
supernatural explanation for their trauma.
Speaker 1: It's easier to blame a goblin than an uncle. Yes, wow, Okay,
let's shift gears. We've been talking about ancient spirits and
traditional beliefs, but one of my favorite things about folklore
is that it doesn't die when paved roads show up.
Speaker 2: No, it just buys a car.
Speaker 1: It just buys a car. The evolution of the urban
legend is fascinating. We just pour old fears into new.
Speaker 2: Vessels, and the vessel in this case is a red sedan.
Speaker 1: We're going to Mexico for the legend of elcaro the
les Brojas, the Car of the Witches.
Speaker 2: This is a fantastic update of the classic siren archetype.
Speaker 1: So the setup is this. It's late. You're a lonely
guy walking down a dark street or you know, driving alone.
You see a flashy red car and inside beautiful women
but they aren't women. They're witches and they wave you over. Hey,
come ride with us. And because you are a guy
thinking with the wrong part of your brain, you get in.
Speaker 2: And that is the last mistake you make. The legend says.
The victims are found later, lifeless, often covered in strange
symbols or scarring.
Speaker 1: Sacrifice sacrificed. What strikes me is the car. Why are
red car?
Speaker 2: Well, think about what a car represents, especially in the
mid to late twentieth century, mobility, freedom, modernity, sex, appeal.
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate shiny object.
Speaker 2: It is so by placing the witches inside it. The
legend is saying, be careful of the allure of the
modern world. It looks sexy, it looks fast, but the
old evils are hiding inside it.
Speaker 1: It connects back to Lashuapa and the Dominican Republic, right,
the beautiful wild woman with her feet on backwards who
lures men into the forest.
Speaker 2: Precisely, Latchuafa lures you into the woods, the red car
lures you into the back seat. The venue change is
but the warning is the same.
Speaker 1: Beauty can be a trap and desire can lead to death.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: It's the juxtaposition that gets me. Witches feel like they
belong in a hut with a cauldron. Putting them in
a Honda Civic creates this untanny valley effect.
Speaker 2: It suggests that technology doesn't protect you. You can have
air conditioning and power steering and the devil can still
get you.
Speaker 1: Speaking of vehicles that should be safe, but aren't we
need to talk about the Czech Republic this one. Honestly,
this one is the scariest to me because it feels
like it could be on the news tonight.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 1: The black Ambulance.
Speaker 2: This legend strips away the supernatural entirely. There are no
ghosts here, no magic.
Speaker 1: The story emerged in the nineteen eighties and nineties. I
think a black ambulance, sometimes a darker gas or Volga
van in the older versions. It just cruises the streets.
Speaker 2: And it kidnaps people, but not to sacrifice them to Satan.
Speaker 1: No, it's purely capitalists. They are harvesting organs for the
black market, and that's.
Speaker 2: The black Ambulance legend. It's so chillingly plausible.
Speaker 1: Why does the stick so hard in Eastern Europe? Do
you think?
Speaker 2: Well, context is everything? Think about the timeline, the fall
of the Iron curtain, that transition from socialism to capitalism,
the uncertainty of the healthcare systems.
Speaker 1: Right, a lot of chaos, A lot of chaos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people suddenly felt vulnerable. The state, which used to
provide everything was crumbling or changing in ways they didn't understand.
Speaker 1: So the ambulance, the universal symbol of help is coming,
becomes the predator.
Speaker 2: That is the horror. It's the inversion of trust. You
are taught your whole life that if you are hurt,
you go to the ambulance. This story says the ambulance
is a thing that will hurt you. Wow. It reflects
a deep societal anxiety about corruption, about faceless institutions, and
the feeling that human bodies are just commodities to the powerful.
Speaker 1: It's total conspiracy theory, fodder, shadowy backers, unknown authorities. It
feels very X files.
Speaker 2: But relies on real fears. Human trafficking is real. Organ
trafficking is real. You can rationalize a way of flying
lizard and Zambia. You can say dinosaurs are extinct, but
you cannot rationalize away the black market. That fear is
grounded in reality.
Speaker 1: That's what makes it linger. You look at an ambulance
passing by, and for a blix second you think, is
that a legit one? It plants a seed of distrust
in the system.
Speaker 2: Itself, which is arguably more damaging than a ghost story.
A ghost story keeps you out of the woods. This
story keeps you away from society.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's move from the fear systems to the fear
of well eternal rejection. We're going to talk about the damned,
the things that don't belong anywhere.
Speaker 2: Deliminal creatures. Yeah, one's stuck in between.
Speaker 1: We're heading to Brazil. The legend of corporal Seko.
Speaker 2: Literally translated dried corpse.
Speaker 1: The backstory here is intense. We are talking about a
man who is so evil in life, cruel to his mother, violent,
just a truly bad seed that when he died, the
universe basically filed a restraining order against him.
Speaker 2: It's a total cosmological rejection. God didn't want him in heaven.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's standard for a bad guy, but.
Speaker 2: The devil didn't want him in hell either.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine being so toxic that Satan looks at
your resume and says, you know what, we're actually at
capacity right now? Try next door it's a.
Speaker 2: Profound statement on morality. It goes a step further. The
earth itself rejected him, It spewed him back out. He
couldn't decompose, so he's just.
Speaker 1: There, a drying, shriveled husk. Thes are a nasty skin
like tree bark, just clinging to bones, and he haunts
the roads, jumping on people, terrorizing the living, because he
has no or else to go.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of the Jianshi in China, the hopping vampires,
or even the European vampire myths. The undead are almost
always tragic figures in a way, they're denied the rest
of the grave.
Speaker 1: What's the lesson here? Is it just be nice to
your mom or is it deeper?
Speaker 2: I think it's a warning about the ultimate consequence of immorality.
Most religions promise some kind of destination, even if it's punishment.
Hell is a place you belong there. Corporal Seiko has
no place. He is cosmic litter. It suggests that true
evil isn't punished with fire, it's punished with meaninglessness. You
just rot forever, unwonted.
Speaker 1: Cosmic litter. That is a bleak image. But if we're
talking about no good options. We have to talk about Japan.
This is probably the most famous one on our list today,
but we have to cover it because the interaction is
so unique. Yes'sak goinga the slit mouthed woman.
Speaker 2: A classic Henrio, a vengeful spirit.
Speaker 1: This feels like a movie scene every time I hear it.
It's urban, it's foggy, you're walking home. You see a woman.
She's wearing a coat, long black hair, and she's covering
her mouth, usually with a surgical mask, which given recent years,
makes this even creepier.
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, And she approaches you and she asks a question,
Am I beautiful? Watasha kire?
Speaker 1: Now in my hand, I'm thinking, okay, be polite, flatter her.
You'll be fine. So you say yes, And.
Speaker 2: That's the first trap. If you say yes, she reaches
up and pulls down the mask, and she reveals that
her mouth has been slit from ear to ear, a gaping,
bloody maw of teeth.
Speaker 1: And then she asks how about now?
Speaker 2: And here's where the game theory just completely falls apart.
Speaker 1: Right, So if I scream and say no, m what happens?
Speaker 2: She kills you, usually with a large pair of scissors.
She's hiding.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I stick to my guns. I say, yes,
you are still beautiful.
Speaker 2: Then she respects your politeness, but she wants you to
be like her. She takes the scissors and cuts your
mouth from ear to ear. Now you are beautiful.
Speaker 1: Too, So I die or I get mutilated? What am
I just bold? I was on the track to you.
Speaker 2: Here's a spirit. She just reappears in front of you.
You cannot outrun her.
Speaker 1: Why why design a legend where there is literally no
wing move.
Speaker 2: I think it analyzes the futility of social pressure. Japan
is a culture that places a high value on social harmony,
on politeness, on saving face. Okay, this legend takes that impulse,
the impulse to be polite to a stranger, and turns
it into a death sentence.
Speaker 1: It's a trap of manners exactly.
Speaker 2: You are trying to be agreeable, but your agreeableness is
what destroys you. It's a manifestation of the anxiety that
you can do everything right socially and it can still
go horribly wrong.
Speaker 1: I did read somewhere that there is a way out,
like you can confuse her.
Speaker 2: There are variations. Yes, some kids say if you say
you look average or so, so it confuses her long
enough for you to run. Or if you throw hard
candies at her, it distracts her.
Speaker 1: Hard candies, Yeah.
Speaker 2: But those feel like playground add ons to give kids hope.
The core legend is about entrapment.
Speaker 1: Note to self, always carry hard candy just in case.
Speaker 2: All right, we've arrived at our final stop, and we
saved this for last because, oh, the tone needs to
shift here. We've talked about monster, spirits and witches, yes,
but this last one is about us. It's about the
corruption of the human soul. Yes, we are in the
American Southwest talking about the skinwalkers.
Speaker 1: This is a topic we need to treat with immense gravity.
In Navajo culture, the ye nod Lushi is not a
campfire story, is not a Halloween costume. For many people,
it is a present, active and terrifying reality.
Speaker 2: The sources emphasize that people are afraid to even speak
the word. It's that voldemorre vibe. Speaking the name invites
the attention of the entity, and we.
Speaker 1: Need to distinguish this immediately from the medicine man trope.
Traditional healers hatehi use their power for healing, for blessing
for balance. A skin walker is the antithesis of that.
It is a witch who has chosen to abuse that
power for evil. That's the key word chosen. This isn't
a curse you catch. This is a career path.
Speaker 2: It involves a voluntary, conscious choice to participate in unholy rituals.
Usually the legends say that to become a skinwalker, you
must commit a transgression that shatters your humanity, like killing
a close family member.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: You have to break the ultimate taboos to gain the power.
Speaker 1: And the power is shape shifting, taking the form of
an animal, a coyote, a wolf, a bear to travel
fast and wreak havoc.
Speaker 2: But it's not just about turning into a wolf. It's
about the intent. They spread sickness, they cause accidents, they
create fear. They are agents of chaos in a community
that values balance or hoso.
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate detrial. The flathead monster is an animal.
The tokelash is a goblin. The skin walker is your neighbor.
It's someone you might know who has secretly traded their
soul for power.
Speaker 2: That is the horror of the skinwalker. It proves that
we don't fear the unknown as much as we fear
the corruption of the known. We fear the idea that
a human being can look at love, family and community
and say no, I want power instead.
Speaker 1: Skin walkers prove we fear the corruption of the soul
that hits hard. It's not an external monster, it's an
internal failure.
Speaker 2: It suggests that the scariest thing on earth isn't a
dinosaur or a ghost, it's a human being who has
lost their humanity.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, let's take a breath. We have covered a
lot of ground today on thrilling threads.
Speaker 2: It's been quite the journey.
Speaker 1: We started with antlered whales in Montana. We dodged dinosaurs
in African swamps, got lured by crying water.
Speaker 2: Spirits, bowed down to Hawaiian ghost warriors.
Speaker 1: Checked under the bed for South African goblins, avoided red
cars and black ambulances, ran from slit mouthed women, and
stared into the void of the skin walker.
Speaker 2: When you lay it all out like that, the map
of human fear is pretty crowded.
Speaker 1: It really is. But looking back at all of them,
what's the connective tissue for you? What ties them all together?
Speaker 2: For me, it's the utility of the monster. We don't
just tell these stories to get a jump scare. We
tell them to make sense of a chaotic world. The
black ambula gives a face to the fear of a
corrupt system. Skin walkers give a face to the fear
of betrayal. Water babies give a face to the indifference
of nature.
Speaker 1: So we use monsters to draw boundaries. Don't go pass
this line, don't act this way, don't trust this person.
The monster is the boundary marker of human behavior.
Speaker 2: Exactly. If you remove the monster, you remove the warning sign,
and then you're just walking blind into the dark.
Speaker 1: So here is where we turn it over to you,
the listener. We discussed monsters that enforce rules, explain dangers,
or just terrify us. But here's my question for you,
and I want you to really think about this. Okay,
do you believe these legends are purely invention or do
they survive because there is a grain of truth hidden
in them that we are too afraid to admit.
Speaker 2: That is the question. Is the story protecting us from
a metaphor or from something real?
Speaker 1: And I want to know what is the local legend
in your hometown that everyone whispers about, but no one
dares to investigate. Every town has one. The house on
the hill, the bridge you don't cross.
Speaker 2: At night, the old man who never sleeps.
Speaker 1: Exactly we want to hear them. Leave a comment, send
us a message. Let's keep pulling on these threads together.
Thanks for joining us on thrilling threads.
Speaker 2: Stay safe out there and watch the shadows.