Speaker 1: You're listening to an air wave media podcast. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm Blake Smith
Speaker 1: and I'm Karen Stolsner.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 3: A giant, very creature part ape party mat in Luckness,
Speaker 3: a twenty four mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands
Speaker 3: of Scotland. It's a creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 2: Monstertal.
Speaker 1: It's been a long time since we've done an episode
Speaker 1: where we actually just set around and talk. This will
Speaker 1: be fun.
Speaker 2: I can't even recall the last one we did.
Speaker 1: It probably had something to do a monster months. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe I thought this would be fun to talk about
Speaker 1: some of the things I've been doing outside of podcasting
Speaker 1: for a little bit. I did dragon Con and Cryptoon
Speaker 1: back to back weekend, so thanks to my wife for
Speaker 1: letting me leave the house.
Speaker 2: It was great. Yeah, it'd be interesting to get a
Speaker 2: bit of a roundup of everything you've been doing. And
Speaker 2: I haven't been to dragon Con since two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: I think was the one and only time I went.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's well, and that's actually I think that's where
Speaker 1: we met, isn't it.
Speaker 2: And now I'm thinking it was two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: I think it was two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: I think we met there because that's where we I
Speaker 2: think you broached the topic of Monster Talk.
Speaker 1: Well, I definitely talked about podcasting. I think it took
Speaker 1: me almost a year to actually execute, to get it
Speaker 1: ass all together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we started in two thousand and nine, right, but.
Speaker 1: There was a fun year of planning and kind of
Speaker 1: thinking about it. So I keep thinking about it as
Speaker 1: being that we began in two thousand and eight, but
Speaker 1: I think our actual first recording was like, I want
Speaker 1: to say, July two thousand and nine, but that may
Speaker 1: not be right, but it was definitely Yeah, I think it.
Speaker 2: Could have been about June or July.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But anyway, So this year I went I did
Speaker 1: something a little different. So normally I hang out in
Speaker 1: the Skeptic track the whole time, but Derek Tatum, who
Speaker 1: runs the horror track, is a listener of the show,
Speaker 1: and it turns out a lot of the people in
Speaker 1: the horror track actually listened to the show. Is really cool.
Speaker 1: So I went and spent some time with the horror track,
Speaker 1: and we did a panel on the Hammer Frankenstein movies
Speaker 1: all of oh great. And then we also covered Suspiria,
Speaker 1: which had their fortieth anniversary and we went to see that.
Speaker 1: It actually came out to the theaters a week later, like
Speaker 1: a special remastered release, So Kathleen and I got to
Speaker 1: go see Suspiria in the theater, which is really cool.
Speaker 2: Cool. Yeah, and I think it's a lot of crossover
Speaker 2: between skeptic tracks, science tracks, and horror tracks. I've been
Speaker 2: going to horror Fest at Starfest in Denver for years now,
Speaker 2: and you know, a lot of people interested in the
Speaker 2: same things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Dragon Con is such an amazing convention. The
Speaker 1: numbers they release are about how many people actually attend
Speaker 1: are a little vague. Six yeah, but I think if
Speaker 1: you're actually realistic about it, it's probably more like eighty.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of yeah.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no. They the streets of Atlanta
Speaker 1: are just packed with nerds. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2: So is it still across those four hotels.
Speaker 1: Now it's across six So yeah, it's it's really spread
Speaker 1: out and it really covers most of downtown Atlanta. Uh
Speaker 1: So it's it's really fun. But they have a paranormal
Speaker 1: track as well, So I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: sort of hanging out in the paranormal track, and you know,
Speaker 1: hearing what's what well. I love it because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in these sort of paranormal topics, and
Speaker 1: while I'm a skeptic, I love hearing the latest stories
Speaker 1: and what people are, you know, what the general thinking
Speaker 1: is along these lines. So oh yeah, absolutely, I had
Speaker 1: a good time. I got to go to some big
Speaker 1: Foot talks, some ghost talks, and some physics talks in
Speaker 1: that track.
Speaker 2: And then I would think would have listeners who would
Speaker 2: attend them.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sure we do. I'm sure we do. And
Speaker 1: it's really fun. I mean, the paranormal track is not
Speaker 1: a particularly skeptical track. One of the on their big
Speaker 1: Foot panel Bill Brock, and he's on Destination America's Monsters Underground,
Speaker 1: and he has a YouTube channel and he's a good talker.
Speaker 1: He's fun to listen to. While I don't agree with
Speaker 1: everything he says, I did enjoy his talk. I chatted
Speaker 1: with him there, and then I chatted with him again
Speaker 1: at Crypticon briefly, but I'd love to talk to him more.
Speaker 1: He had some interesting things to say. One of the
Speaker 1: things he talked about was when it comes to bigfoot
Speaker 1: throwing rocks, he says he's seen bears throwing rocks, which
Speaker 1: I thought was a really interesting claim. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: that myself, but you know.
Speaker 2: No, I haven't heard of that before.
Speaker 1: Interesting, but it was interesting exactly. But what's funny is
Speaker 1: the skeptic on the panel that he was on was
Speaker 1: a guy went to college with Nam Kyle Cobb, and
Speaker 1: Kyle was really taking the really skeptical position on Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: But it was funny because Kyle on the track his
Speaker 1: descriptions demonologist, and so I kept wondering, you know, if
Speaker 1: I were Bill and I were trying to defend against Kyle,
Speaker 1: my first question would be, you know, hey, you're calling
Speaker 1: bigfoot bs, but your descriptions as demonologists?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think Joe Nickel, if you go to his website,
Speaker 2: he has about two hundred different names and titles that
Speaker 2: he goes by, and I think he refers to himself
Speaker 2: as a demonologist as well. I guess in the sense
Speaker 2: of being an expert about demon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a title. I don't really know how one
Speaker 1: gets fully qualified for it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think it's one one of those ones
Speaker 2: you give to yourself.
Speaker 1: I think so, yeah, from what is it Thunderwood University?
Speaker 2: Right, So why weren't you on any of these panels?
Speaker 1: Well, I so that's a great question. You're supposed to
Speaker 1: if you're going to be a guest. You have to
Speaker 1: submit a form to become a guest, and there's a
Speaker 1: deadline for that. Yeah, and I totally blew it off.
Speaker 1: And when I finally realized it was time to do it,
Speaker 1: I made time. I had missed the deadline, so I
Speaker 1: went with a regular membership and Derek from Derreck Haitum
Speaker 1: was nice enough to get me onto the horror track
Speaker 1: stuff as an add on, But next year I will
Speaker 1: make the effort to get on properly. I really did enjoy. Plus,
Speaker 1: I feel like I would be a good fit for
Speaker 1: the skeptic track, the paranormal track, and the horror tracks.
Speaker 1: These are all topics I'm interested in, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm competent to talk about these topics without too
Speaker 1: much chance of sticking my foot in my mouth.
Speaker 2: So you are, and you're a local as well.
Speaker 1: That's true. I am a local, genuine Southern boy, and
Speaker 1: that's the funny thing. Actually, when I was up so
Speaker 1: the other thing, I went to is cryptic. And while
Speaker 1: I was there, I after talking for a few minutes
Speaker 1: with people from Kentucky, my southern twain came out big
Speaker 1: time and right one of my friends asked me, what's
Speaker 1: going on with that, you know, like I'm adopting the
Speaker 1: Southern twang. Well, you know, as a linguist, this is
Speaker 1: actually something you're probably familiar with, which is the old
Speaker 1: concept of registers, right, So you have these social registers
Speaker 1: you speak in for different situations, like so there are
Speaker 1: always the presidents who go talk to a black church
Speaker 1: and then suddenly they're talking like a black pastor and
Speaker 1: everybody's like, oh, that's not that's this ingenuous, right, But
Speaker 1: there are legitimate reasons why people talk differently in different contexts,
Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't speak the same at a job interview
Speaker 1: as you would with your friends around a football game.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I think they're in linguistics would refer
Speaker 2: to them as formal or informal environments. In some countries, though,
Speaker 2: they'll actually have different languages or different dialects of a
Speaker 2: language that you'll speak exactly. You know. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: where it is. I think it could be in Norway,
Speaker 2: but they have book mal and Runna Mahle, and one
Speaker 2: is spoken in formal places like in banks and in schools,
Speaker 2: and the other is just used on a day to
Speaker 2: day basis. So I could be wrong with the country
Speaker 2: I've referred to, but yeah, and certainly I was in
Speaker 2: Australia throughout August, and I think it took all of
Speaker 2: about half an hour for me to be back home
Speaker 2: for me to really just start converging towards the Australian
Speaker 2: English accent. Again, it's a.
Speaker 1: Huge tangent, but I feel like when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: talking Southern made me feel ignorant, and now, as an adult,
Speaker 1: I realized that was probably just you know, me being
Speaker 1: hyper sensitive to the case those are stereotype, so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, but I did make it a deliberate attempt
Speaker 1: to try to learn to talk like to people on PBS.
Speaker 1: And so when I'm hanging out with my family, not
Speaker 1: my wife and kids, but my more extended family, I
Speaker 1: do tend to fall right back into my southern tropes
Speaker 1: and I feel very comfortable with that. I don't feel
Speaker 1: like I'm faking it. I feel like this way I'm
Speaker 1: talking right now is more of an affectation than the
Speaker 1: way I talk naturally with my family, So it's a
Speaker 1: little peculiar. I'm a little I'm a little at odds
Speaker 1: with my own self about the way that I approach
Speaker 1: these forms of speech.
Speaker 2: So well, again, I think it depends on who we're
Speaker 2: talking to. And you know, an example that's always used
Speaker 2: in linguistics is if you went into a pub in England,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't start using received pronunciation to sound like the Queen.
Speaker 2: You'd be using more of a Cockney accent to get
Speaker 2: along with other people in the pub. So you know,
Speaker 2: different ways of speaking, either different accents or being more
Speaker 2: formal in your language or less formal. It just depends
Speaker 2: on the environment that you're in.
Speaker 1: And this may seem like a rabbit hole of the sides,
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you that this is all. It all
Speaker 1: matters because it kind of points to the complexity of humans,
Speaker 1: like each of us is a very complex being. And
Speaker 1: that matters because I think what visiting the Skeptics Track
Speaker 1: and the paranormal Track and Cryptic con all reminded me
Speaker 1: of how we're perceived being so important and people don't
Speaker 1: get to know you over time, like you're you know
Speaker 1: you when we're doing this podcast, They're only getting one
Speaker 1: little facet of who we are. And we're really complicated people.
Speaker 1: We have really complicated lives and right, right, and I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I'm right. I don't feel like it'd
Speaker 1: be phony. But that's that's you know, it is a form.
Speaker 1: It is a It's definitely something we're doing on purpose,
Speaker 1: where we edit the show and take out some of
Speaker 1: the mistakes and we try to be as error free
Speaker 1: as possible. We try to speak clearly, you know.
Speaker 2: I don't being appropriate for the domain that we're in.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, but to admit that that I love monsters, uh,
Speaker 1: to me is just a fact of my life, right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, it really is. But it's such a big
Speaker 1: part of me. It's really one of those things that
Speaker 1: it spans across. You know, I love monsters more than
Speaker 1: I left puns. If I had to give up puns
Speaker 1: or monsters, puns are out the window.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Are you going to say your wife there, no.
Speaker 1: No, no, If I no, no, she gets to stay
Speaker 1: and she would probably be excited that I was getting
Speaker 1: rid of the pinnes. Let's be honest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after all these years.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so, I mean we've been married for seventeen years.
Speaker 1: So there's been dozens of puns, right, dozens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but listeners wouldn't like it if you dropped the puns. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, they're always talking about your puns.
Speaker 1: It's surprising we have as many listeners as we too.
Speaker 2: Maybe they're just one time listeners. Yeah, it sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Oh no, what have I gotten into?
Speaker 2: They get turned off?
Speaker 1: That's all right?
Speaker 2: So cryptocon, were you invited as a guest or did
Speaker 2: you submit an abstract to speak or how did how
Speaker 2: did your involvement start?
Speaker 1: So, Sharon Hill, a colleague of ours, sent me an
Speaker 1: email about this, and she and Jeb Card, who we've
Speaker 1: heard from the Archaeological Fantasies podcast, was on our show before,
Speaker 1: the two of them and I and I went up
Speaker 1: there to meet. But when she told me about it,
Speaker 1: I decided to actually reach out to them and see
Speaker 1: if they'd be willing to have me on as a guest.
Speaker 1: And they were great, they were delighted, and so they
Speaker 1: added me to the guest list and they gave me
Speaker 1: a slot to talk and it was fantastic and I'm
Speaker 1: really glad that I did it.
Speaker 2: So were you the only skeptical speaker there.
Speaker 1: To the well, you know, there's this thing that happens
Speaker 1: in cryptosology and in paranormal where people go up and
Speaker 1: say things like, you know, technically I'm a skeptic about
Speaker 1: this stuff, but you know, and so yeah, and they
Speaker 1: mean that to the best of their ability. But it's
Speaker 1: not really the same as people who would be involved
Speaker 1: with Skeptical Inquirer or Skeptic magazine.
Speaker 2: I guess practicing skeptics.
Speaker 1: Right, So practicing skepticism versus self identifying as a skeptic,
Speaker 1: it's it's somewhat different. Oh yeah, but it was really
Speaker 1: fun to get up there and I and let's be honest,
Speaker 1: I love monsters. I keep saying that, but it's true.
Speaker 1: And I was delighted to get a chance to hang
Speaker 1: out with these people who love cryptosoology as much as
Speaker 1: I do, who love monsters as much as I do.
Speaker 2: Well, how were you received then?
Speaker 1: Extremely well. So the first night, the three of us
Speaker 1: had sat down and I thought we were just going
Speaker 1: to sit in the bar and sort of like get
Speaker 1: a plan together. And we were barely I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not even sure if we had our first drink yet.
Speaker 1: When Cliff Barrickman showed up, which I think it might
Speaker 1: be pronounced Barrockman, but either way, Cliff came over and
Speaker 1: sat down with us. I really don't know how he
Speaker 1: decided that, but he did and it was really awesome.
Speaker 1: And so I'm hoping Cliff will actually come and talk
Speaker 1: to us on the show. But he was a delight
Speaker 1: to talk to and he knows so much about human
Speaker 1: history it was really surprising. I guess that, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll let him talk about that if he shows up
Speaker 1: to visit with us, like I'm hoping he will. We
Speaker 1: also got to meet Lauren Coleman, and I'm hoping he
Speaker 1: will talk to us as well.
Speaker 2: I saw the photos on Facebook.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was great. I mean, I mean, these are
Speaker 1: people I've talked to online before and I have reached
Speaker 1: out to before, but I don't really think they knew
Speaker 1: me well enough to commit to actually showing up here.
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping that we made a good impression. But
Speaker 1: Cliff definitely made a good impression. He really knows a
Speaker 1: lot about human origins that doesn't really come out or
Speaker 1: come across and finding big Foot in my opinion, and
Speaker 1: he had some really interesting things to say about the show,
Speaker 1: which I will not disclose because I haven't really I
Speaker 1: felt like we were talking off the record.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, on some insider Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I'm hoping that if he comes on, we can
Speaker 1: actually repeat those conversations and maybe dig a little deeper.
Speaker 1: It was really great. It was wonderful meeting Lauren. I've
Speaker 1: read his books. You know, he's been involved in cryptosology
Speaker 1: for many years. Oh yeah, and it was He was
Speaker 1: really fun to talk to as well. Again, I think
Speaker 1: it was kind of funny because we have a reputation
Speaker 1: as being very skeptical people. But I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: quite different from say, Joe nicol or Michael Schermer those guys,
Speaker 1: and don't I don't dislike those guys, but I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm probably more inclined to give I don't know
Speaker 1: how to put this a fair hearing to people. Don't.
Speaker 1: I don't come to really strong conclusions on stuff ahead
Speaker 1: of time, and I'm not saying they do necessarily, but
Speaker 1: especially not Joe. Joe's really good research, but I'm less
Speaker 1: inclined to have a definitive answer for a case. I'm
Speaker 1: more inclined to say, here's my best guess based on
Speaker 1: the evidence we have but I don't know, because a
Speaker 1: lot of these cases there's never going to be a
Speaker 1: definitive answer, you know.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of skeptics will
Speaker 2: draw conclusions and come up with I'll say that they've
Speaker 2: solved something, and really they're just kind of coming up
Speaker 2: with stock responses rather than going and doing it. Pens
Speaker 2: on investigation. I'm not referring to anyone in particular, but
Speaker 2: I think that you've got so many different character types
Speaker 2: within I think you and I are definitely more moderate.
Speaker 1: Yes, I would agree. I would agree we're very moderate,
Speaker 1: and I hope we're being as true to what a
Speaker 1: good skeptic should be as we can be. And there
Speaker 1: was a recurring theme in the people who have heard
Speaker 1: our show and talked to me, and it was thank
Speaker 1: you for not being an asshole, and I felt like,
Speaker 1: I felt like, honestly, we're not, and so I felt
Speaker 1: like that was really nice affirmation that we're taking a
Speaker 1: good approach here.
Speaker 2: So we've occasionally had that, had it said that we
Speaker 2: mock people or ridicule people or laugh the people. But
Speaker 2: I think maybe that might have even been years ago
Speaker 2: when we were still kind of finding our footing with
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 1: Maybe really good point.
Speaker 2: Maybe someone just listened to one episode and just heard
Speaker 2: something that they disagreed with and just took umbrage to it.
Speaker 2: And who knows, but I think fine, large we try
Speaker 2: to be fair.
Speaker 1: I would say one of the things that is a sorry,
Speaker 1: spider distrapped on my head, which I think I handled
Speaker 1: that very well.
Speaker 2: I think you did, you really kept it cool. Well,
Speaker 2: this is monster talk, so that was appropriate.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, so I try not to kill them. But I
Speaker 1: also don't like the building webs down here, so.
Speaker 2: Oh landing on your head during a.
Speaker 1: Or landing on sorry so so now lost my track.
Speaker 1: I can think of a spiders in my hair, but
Speaker 1: fortunately I have very little hair, so you know that's okay.
Speaker 1: So so this criticism of us uh being a holes,
Speaker 1: you know again, most people were saying we weren't, which
Speaker 1: was great. But the thing is when it comes to laughter,
Speaker 1: I laugh at everything. I am a jovial person and
Speaker 1: I really can't control that, and so it's really easy
Speaker 1: to hear someone talking and if you disagree with their perspective,
Speaker 1: to read a lot into why they're laughing.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh yeah, I think some of it can just
Speaker 2: be trying to instill camaraderie and just friendliness. And you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think we've ever done anything to be cruel
Speaker 2: or maine.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, nasty. Right, even when we were at
Speaker 1: our most contentious, I thought we were fair and even
Speaker 1: even tempered about the whole thing. I I there's very
Speaker 1: rare times when I get righteous about cryptozoology. It's like
Speaker 1: I have opinions about stuff, but I don't. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: It rarely triggers me into like a oh no, this
Speaker 1: must not stand kind of thing.
Speaker 2: No, no, I'd agree with you.
Speaker 1: So so I get. I get. I get concerned because
Speaker 1: I listened to so many paranormal podcasts and so many
Speaker 1: cryptosology podcasts, and I hear how skeptics are described, and
Speaker 1: I think, oh, no, you know, we have a real
Speaker 1: public image problem. And I hope we're doing good work
Speaker 1: to help clear that up. But it is a fairly
Speaker 1: serious issue, and I don't and those can be straw men.
Speaker 1: I mean they can be the bad skeptic would say this,
Speaker 1: and then they say something that a skeptic might say.
Speaker 1: But but oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the thinking of that kind of you know,
Speaker 2: prototypical skeptic on TV, the person who's brought in just
Speaker 2: to say no and yeah, and that's pretty much all
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 1: Let's be fair. Those people do exist. I've heard them,
Speaker 1: and there's some really bad and especially.
Speaker 2: The way that they're portrayed with editing. We've just come
Speaker 2: across as naysayers and cynics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the Senate thing, the Synate thing especially bugs me.
Speaker 1: But this is all going to come to bear on
Speaker 1: some upcoming episodes. I know we've corresponded a little bit
Speaker 1: on the side about it. But a podcast that I
Speaker 1: really enjoy is called Astonishing Legends. They recently did some
Speaker 1: coverage of the Kelly Hopkinsville Goblins, and I had been
Speaker 1: putting off that case for us to cover because it's
Speaker 1: such a complicated story. But some things happened that were
Speaker 1: covered in the part three of that episode that I
Speaker 1: feel like we need to respond to. But I also
Speaker 1: feel like we need to do coverage of that case
Speaker 1: as well prior to dealing with that. And I've been
Speaker 1: in correspondence with them and the signientists who were discussed
Speaker 1: in that episode, and I think really good things are
Speaker 1: coming out of it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think it'd be interesting to get some
Speaker 2: different perspectives on it right.
Speaker 1: I want to mention that because it is something I'm
Speaker 1: working on. I know some of our listeners have asked
Speaker 1: her we're going to be talking about it. We are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we get lots of requests nowadays.
Speaker 1: We do, and I love that. I know one of
Speaker 1: the next ones we're going to be doing is Lizard
Speaker 1: Man as well. One of our listeners has been so
Speaker 1: persistent and politely asking when are we covering the Lizard Man?
Speaker 1: So I talked, I talked to Cotton. So I thought
Speaker 1: to Lyle Blackburn while we were up there, and uh,
Speaker 1: he's pretty much done the definitive research on that case,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to have him back on and talk
Speaker 1: about his book.
Speaker 2: And oh yeah, thought he was fantastic.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he was great. And uh I think he
Speaker 1: was having a real hoot at this, at this cryptic
Speaker 1: kind of thing too.
Speaker 2: So it was a bit of a celebrity.
Speaker 1: No, for sure. Yeah. So, I mean, I have to
Speaker 1: say this was their first one. It was an interesting
Speaker 1: It was a small hotel, older hotel. It was very
Speaker 1: they were very nice. We had a couple of interesting incidents.
Speaker 1: The power went out on Saturday night and went out
Speaker 1: on Sunday morning, spirits. I think actually somebody drove into
Speaker 1: a transformer, but yeah, basically there could have been spirits involved, right.
Speaker 2: Of a different kind, right, Kentucky, Right.
Speaker 1: It was. There was a big party going out on
Speaker 1: the patio. Yeah, yeah, no, they had a lot of
Speaker 1: I think there's two different distilleries in the town. I was.
Speaker 1: The bourbon was flowing quite freely. It was.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It really was. And the people, the fans were great.
Speaker 1: I see the Monster fans there were actually, this is
Speaker 1: the most amazing thing to me. There were fans who
Speaker 1: came just to hear me talk from Monster Talk, and
Speaker 1: so we had real listeners who drove from as far
Speaker 1: away as Chicago. Really, yes, I was so humbled by
Speaker 1: that and I really appreciated it. So I was able
Speaker 1: to give them posters and sign them, and it was
Speaker 1: really nice to meet everybody. And I feel kind of
Speaker 1: dumb right now that I didn't catch everybody's name and
Speaker 1: mention them by his name right here. But it was
Speaker 1: fantastic because I knew that at least the third of
Speaker 1: the people that came to listen to my talk were
Speaker 1: actually fans of the show, and that was cool. It
Speaker 1: was really great, so hopefully I didn't stumble through my
Speaker 1: little talk too badly. I was trying to talk about
Speaker 1: science and monsters and some of the overlap between those
Speaker 1: topics and how we use science and monsters on our show,
Speaker 1: and monsters is the springboard to talk about science topics.
Speaker 1: There were a few people who I was getting a
Speaker 1: little stony face from some of the people in the audience,
Speaker 1: and that made me I've never had that before. I've
Speaker 1: never had like openly hostile people before. And nobody was
Speaker 1: mean or anything.
Speaker 2: But I did anyone leave during the talk.
Speaker 1: Or No, They were very polite. And I heard from
Speaker 1: other people that there were some people shaking their heads
Speaker 1: and saying, no, that's not right, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's hard.
Speaker 2: To tilt from people's expressions, and you know our skeptical
Speaker 2: opinions of body language. You know, they could have just
Speaker 2: been thinking about what you were saying or thinking about themselves.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, and I hope they'll give the show
Speaker 1: a listen. And you know, the whole thing here is
Speaker 1: the way we do our show. There's there's topics that
Speaker 1: we cover and you don't have to listen to every
Speaker 1: episode and I think they all stand alone very nicely.
Speaker 2: So, oh absolutely in our archives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I also I don't. We've done a few
Speaker 1: episodes where we can say definitively this is the answer, right,
Speaker 1: where we know it's a hoax for sure, or we
Speaker 1: were able to defend it prove this is the case.
Speaker 1: But most of the time there's a lot of ambiguity there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of question mark still.
Speaker 1: And our show has never really been so much about
Speaker 1: that's not right and that's not right. It's more about,
Speaker 1: you know, how does science deal with this? And what
Speaker 1: else can we think about? What if this were real?
Speaker 1: What would it be like? So I oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and looking at the folklore as well and just
Speaker 2: the history and all the aspects.
Speaker 1: One peculiar thing that kept coming up was the description
Speaker 1: when we're talking about this sort of pseudo skeptical views
Speaker 1: like people who they were doing these straw mean version
Speaker 1: of skeptics. Well, skeptics say this stuff never happens, and
Speaker 1: skeptics never have these weird occurrences, and if the skeptics
Speaker 1: would have one strange occurrence, they would totally change their
Speaker 1: belief system, right, which I thought was interesting because they
Speaker 1: obviously just need to read your book.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, we're going to move on to talking about
Speaker 2: my book, So.
Speaker 1: Talk about it.
Speaker 2: Would you believe it? Mysterious tales from people you'd least expect.
Speaker 2: So I released this going back earlier this year now,
Speaker 2: so it's been around for a little while, and I
Speaker 2: think we've talked about it on the show previously too,
Speaker 2: But I think this is an interesting intersection of for
Speaker 2: believers and for skeptics as well. So I've just found
Speaker 2: over the years, and I'm sure you've found this as well,
Speaker 2: that when you get interviewed on particularly on paranormal shows,
Speaker 2: that they'll always ask you have you ever had a
Speaker 2: paranormal experience or a strange experience yourself? And historically I'd
Speaker 2: just say, you know, no, I haven't and kind of
Speaker 2: shake it off. And so anyway, I got talking to
Speaker 2: my husband, Matthew about this, and he had a wealth
Speaker 2: of stories of bigfoot experiences and UFO sightings and ghost
Speaker 2: sightings and all kinds of stories. And I really thought
Speaker 2: about things, and I thought, I've been doing this for
Speaker 2: about twenty years now. I've been going and investigating all
Speaker 2: kinds of claims and phenomena, and yet I've never seen
Speaker 2: anything or experienced anything. And so I've got thinking about
Speaker 2: it more and I realized, you know, I have actually
Speaker 2: had some strange experiences, and I wouldn't personally call them paranormal.
Speaker 2: I guess you could call them paranormal like. So some
Speaker 2: weird experiences, things that have happened to me, and I've
Speaker 2: just sought natural, scientific explanations for them, whereas maybe other
Speaker 2: people would seek supernatural or resort to paranormal explanations insteads
Speaker 2: So I kind of drew the conclusion that paranormal experiences
Speaker 2: are really all in the interpretation. And so I started
Speaker 2: speaking with people such as your good self and other skeptics,
Speaker 2: and just found that most skeptical friends of mine have
Speaker 2: had a paranormal like experience of their own. So I thought,
Speaker 2: you know, I should just compile a set of these
Speaker 2: stories and take a look at them. And so I
Speaker 2: got a bunch of our friends to contribute to this book,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the contributors will be well known
Speaker 2: to our listeners, people like James Randy and Joe Nichol,
Speaker 2: Eugenie Scott, and then people we've had on the show
Speaker 2: like Ken Fetter and Brian Regal and Hailey Stevens and
Speaker 2: yourself too, So plenty of skeptics you've had these experiences.
Speaker 2: I think there is a stigma though among skeptics, and
Speaker 2: so a number of people that I approached about it
Speaker 2: didn't want to be involved. A few people wanted to
Speaker 2: be involved, but they just wanted to go anonymously, to
Speaker 2: contribute anonymously. But then I had one famous magician as
Speaker 2: well say to me that he's never had a paranormal
Speaker 2: luck experience because he's not credulous. But I think it's
Speaker 2: not so much a matter of being credulous, it's a
Speaker 2: matter of the interpretation of your experiences. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: I've got this very interesting collection of stories of UFO
Speaker 2: sightings and faith healing and seances and bigfoot encounters, alien
Speaker 2: encounters written by skeptics and scientists and magicians.
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating because that whole thing where people
Speaker 1: who believe in this stuff and see skeptics in their wall.
Speaker 1: If you just saw, you'd believe, or you know, are
Speaker 1: you never look You're sitting in your armchair and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: they don't know obviously, because I know I've went looking
Speaker 1: for ghosts. I've gone looking for ghosts. If mcathany ever
Speaker 1: listens to this show, she's gonna kill me. So for
Speaker 1: those who don't know, she's an editor, and so I'm
Speaker 1: constantly correcting myself. So I can barely leave a grocery
Speaker 1: list without the red ink coming out. So but anyway, uh,
Speaker 1: we do. There are many skeptics who go looking for Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: you know. And now I'm not being sarcastic there. I
Speaker 1: don't mean they go for a walk in the woods.
Speaker 1: I mean there's people who earnestly would like to see Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: They you know, and you don't even if you don't
Speaker 1: believe it's real, going out and taking a look is
Speaker 1: the right way to go if you're want to be
Speaker 1: genuine about it, right.
Speaker 2: So it's good fun. It's like legend tripping, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the same reason that you watch movies
Speaker 2: or documentaries about all these uh you know, these phenomena
Speaker 2: and you know, but I with the stories, they're not
Speaker 2: all explained in the book. Some of the contributors don't
Speaker 2: have explanations for what happened to them, and a good
Speaker 2: number of them also will come up with explanations, but
Speaker 2: they can't know for sure exactly what's going on. But
Speaker 2: I think it is a skeptical tenant really to be
Speaker 2: able to say I don't know what it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that it's inexplicable means at this point you can't expt.
Speaker 1: Fine, and it's it's interesting and it's human. It's very human. Uh.
Speaker 1: And for for people to think that all skeptics are
Speaker 1: just deep rationalists who deny the weird of the world,
Speaker 1: that's that's just such so far from the reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's more cynicism. And certainly there are a community.
Speaker 1: Right, and its just like there are people who believe everything,
Speaker 1: so you know, even when they are in conflict with
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 2: So well, yeah, I had an interesting review from one
Speaker 2: lady who is a believer and she called people like
Speaker 2: that hard boiled.
Speaker 1: Detectives. But yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it just does seem like these are human experiences.
Speaker 2: These are really common. And I have a nice afterward
Speaker 2: which is written by Jim Alkock. I don't think we've
Speaker 2: had him on the show before. We we should get
Speaker 2: him on. Here is at York University in Canada, And
Speaker 2: when I contacted him, I said, do you have a
Speaker 2: story that you can contribute to the book, And he said,
Speaker 2: you know, I haven't, which is just really strange because
Speaker 2: I've been teaching at university for decades and I teach
Speaker 2: my students that they will have these experiences that they're commons.
Speaker 2: So instead he ended up writing a really good afterward.
Speaker 1: Nice that's very nice. It's not a super expensive book,
Speaker 1: but it definitely addresses those claims that skeptics never have
Speaker 1: anything where it happened to them or the other one,
Speaker 1: which I think is funny, is that if they did,
Speaker 1: then that would be it for them, They would totally
Speaker 1: change their worldview.
Speaker 2: And oh, again, I think it's all in the interpretation.
Speaker 2: And so with some of the stories that I talk about,
Speaker 2: I just not necessarily on the spot, but over time
Speaker 2: came up with plausible to me explanations for what happened,
Speaker 2: and I just accepted those and forgot about them and
Speaker 2: didn't think of them as being paranormal, whereas with other people,
Speaker 2: you know, they I guess it can depend on socialization too,
Speaker 2: if they're raised to believe in ghosts, if they're spiritual
Speaker 2: or religious, and things happened to them and they see
Speaker 2: them as being signs or omens of some kind, and
Speaker 2: you know, kind of remembering the hits and forgetting the misses,
Speaker 2: I guess exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's that's been a problem for several hundred years,
Speaker 1: so I mean really longer than that. But that whole
Speaker 1: criticism that that people you know, remember the hits to
Speaker 1: forget the missus has been in the literature for a
Speaker 1: long long time.
Speaker 2: It has. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I was speaking of crypto kind I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention, so let me stop and say that we
Speaker 1: will put another link to would you believe it? I
Speaker 1: really I wish there was a way we could just
Speaker 1: sort of give that book to people who make that claim,
Speaker 1: because it really does address that completely and it's also
Speaker 1: interesting stuff. But thank you.
Speaker 2: It was really good fun to compile. In fact, I
Speaker 2: think it's my favorite book the I think of everything
Speaker 2: I've written anyway, I've enjoyed this the most, and there's
Speaker 2: some really fun stories in there. You know. Again, I
Speaker 2: think that's just another perception of skeptics that we kind
Speaker 2: of suck the fun out of everything.
Speaker 1: And well, you're putting in a shame and output, by
Speaker 1: the way, so you're you're accruing quite the little author's
Speaker 1: page on Amazon. So people should check that out. There's
Speaker 1: a link to that on your Bible on the monster page.
Speaker 2: Yes there is. Yes, So I'm trying the reason I
Speaker 2: get to see my family.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, no, no, so I I got to get
Speaker 1: more stuff actually executed. But I'm happy with the research
Speaker 1: I'm doing. I wish my book was further along, and
Speaker 1: I'm having all these real strong urges to work on
Speaker 1: some of my fictional ideas as well. But the impulse
Speaker 1: is there, the research is done. We just got to
Speaker 1: get it time. In the words of mer Laffity, we
Speaker 1: should be writing.
Speaker 2: So you're gonna have to find some time every day
Speaker 2: set aside.
Speaker 1: Now that's right. It takes disciplined just like everything else.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's okay. Well, you know what, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get into that because it's a rabbit hole
Speaker 1: of self criticism. But I wanted to mention, speaking of
Speaker 1: monsters a little bit more. At Cryptoon, one of the
Speaker 1: things that really blew me away was how excellent the
Speaker 1: dealer's room was. You know, I just come back from
Speaker 1: dragon Con, and dragon Con has a vast dealer's room
Speaker 1: and it's just full of pretty much anything you can imagine.
Speaker 1: But it spread all over the spectrum of what fans
Speaker 1: are into, and this cryptoicon really had a strong focus
Speaker 1: on gus what cryptids so yeah, and monsters in general. Right,
Speaker 1: So lots of cool items there, but some of them
Speaker 1: were so cool that I reached out to the vendors
Speaker 1: and asked them if maybe we could work on getting
Speaker 1: a Monster Talk discount. That would not be to get
Speaker 1: a kickback for me or anything like that. It's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really do want to keep the show
Speaker 1: advertising free, but I do think it would be fun
Speaker 1: to like, you know, be able to pick up some
Speaker 1: of the swag. One of the things that really amazed
Speaker 1: me was this guy had put together all these cryptid
Speaker 1: patches like you would put onto a jacket, and he
Speaker 1: had them for almost all the major cryptids you might
Speaker 1: think of, and like some of them were more like
Speaker 1: you know, Monstra Hunter patches, and they're just amazing. So
Speaker 1: I'm working on getting a discount code for his web
Speaker 1: store and he said he'd get back to me on that.
Speaker 1: So I'll put a link to that in on maybe
Speaker 1: I need to pick up maybe we should have a
Speaker 1: swag page or something like that. I'm not really quite sure,
Speaker 1: but it was really really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that'd be good. What kinds of things
Speaker 2: did they happen?
Speaker 1: His website is called monster Ologist dot com Monsters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's such a he's a really good graphic designers,
Speaker 1: very very nice. But they had the Kraken, the Mothman,
Speaker 1: a Roswell patch, Bigfoot, lots of Bigfoot options there, and uh, cheapocabra.
Speaker 1: One of the ones I think is really cool is
Speaker 1: the Cryptic Command patch. It looks like I should go
Speaker 1: on like an army jacket.
Speaker 2: I was thinking they like boy Scout.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, they are a little bit like that. They
Speaker 1: seem more a little bit more military. But he's got
Speaker 1: dog Man, the flat Woods Monster. Uh, just a lot
Speaker 1: of very cool patches. He's got some special three packs
Speaker 1: and this sort of thing. I've posted a picture of
Speaker 1: them on our on our Facebook group. But also again,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put some kind of we need to have
Speaker 1: a little link for this in this in the show notes,
Speaker 1: not not today. Maybe I'm probably gonna put some sort
Speaker 1: of like a link for for swag or something.
Speaker 2: But I think a lot of listeners will be interested.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize I had such a bag fetish until
Speaker 1: I saw these things, and then oh sorry, to be
Speaker 1: bad fetish, and I definitely have a bag fetish that's different.
Speaker 1: But but this was it really blew me away. Let
Speaker 1: me actually almost send you the link. Well I won't
Speaker 1: put this part in there.
Speaker 2: But sure, maybe you can have something in the as
Speaker 2: you said in the show notes, and.
Speaker 1: Maybe, yeah, I'll go and put but if you if you,
Speaker 1: if you're you're patient, we should get some kind of
Speaker 1: a discount code and maybe we could do something with that.
Speaker 1: But it Yeah, these are really really nice. The guy
Speaker 1: obviously really loves monsters and and is a nice artist.
Speaker 1: And we've got a lot of great artists in our
Speaker 1: in our listeners as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, oh we really do. Yeah, and it's such
Speaker 2: a great theme though for aunt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I just really like these. There's a simplicity
Speaker 1: of design. He really he's just really done good work.
Speaker 1: So the quality is nice. I'm actually going to have
Speaker 1: about three of them just to start out, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to have them embroidered on my man purse.
Speaker 2: So nice.
Speaker 1: Oh they are, They're great. So I sent you a
Speaker 1: link for that, but thank you. You're welcome. So I'll
Speaker 1: put that the show notes. I'll have to figure out
Speaker 1: to add that sort does it sound foolish?
Speaker 2: No, I know, I'm sure you can keep some of it.
Speaker 1: And then I thought I would go ahead and mention
Speaker 1: we are working on injecting some a new new sort
Speaker 1: of type of episode we're gonna call Monster Science Cinema,
Speaker 1: which I was inspired by Nil de grass Tyson, who
Speaker 1: is kind of famous. He's famous for a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but one of the things he likes to do is
Speaker 1: go watch a perfectly good movie and then complain about
Speaker 1: the science in it. And I don't want to be
Speaker 1: like that, but I do like the idea. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: me fine to tear a part of movie, but I
Speaker 1: think it's even more fun to say, well, this is
Speaker 1: what they were talking about, and that's fun, but here's
Speaker 1: what the real science would look like. And so I'm
Speaker 1: trying to.
Speaker 2: Get in belief.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So that's about all I want to
Speaker 1: say about that right now. But I am very excited
Speaker 1: about some of those episode ideas, and we're working on
Speaker 1: rounding up some of the experts to come and speak
Speaker 1: knowledgeable about Now.
Speaker 2: That's been a real flutter of correspondence over the past
Speaker 2: month or.
Speaker 1: So there has, so we may not get episodes out
Speaker 1: as quickly as we'd like, but we certainly are working
Speaker 1: strongly behind the scenes to try to make whatever we
Speaker 1: do get out of good quality. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's about all I really wanted to cover today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't know how long we'd want
Speaker 2: a chatty episode like this to be. I mean usually
Speaker 2: an hour for regular episode. I think that just for
Speaker 2: chatting this is probably long enough. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there anything else you want to talk about
Speaker 1: or promote?
Speaker 2: Well, I've written a couple of short stories too. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've been able to see them yet.
Speaker 1: I share the links, but I haven't been able to
Speaker 1: read them yet.
Speaker 2: No, I don't know if we can really insert this
Speaker 2: in anyway, because we're kind of already over that to.
Speaker 1: All of your writing in both the show notes and
Speaker 1: in the Obviously you've already got it on your bio
Speaker 1: page by linking to your author page on Amazon.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I've just in many ways, I'm kind
Speaker 2: of surprised that I am a skeptic. I think originally
Speaker 2: when I started out, I just was interested in the
Speaker 2: paranormal and always wanted to write horror, and so I
Speaker 2: thought there's no time like the present, and you know,
Speaker 2: I never have time anyway, so I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: cram this in. But I've just written a number of
Speaker 2: short stories and eventually I thought it'd be nice to
Speaker 2: be able to compile them into a book of short stories.
Speaker 2: And I grew up on Somerset Morn and Roll Dahl's
Speaker 2: short stories The Tales of the Unexpected and gid him
Speaker 2: O Poissance stories. I mean, some of those just have
Speaker 2: incredible twists. I love stories with a good twist at
Speaker 2: the end. And so yeah, I've written two stories, ones
Speaker 2: called Don't Leave Me and another is Unforeseen Circumstances, and
Speaker 2: so I've released those over the past couple of months.
Speaker 2: So that really the kind of stories that you can
Speaker 2: just read over a coffee so maybe take you about
Speaker 2: twenty minutes, no more. And yeah, they've both got unexpected
Speaker 2: twists at the end, and just having a lot of
Speaker 2: fun doing that. It's really just some brain candy. I guess.
Speaker 1: Hey, there's nothing wrong with horror, you as you know.
Speaker 1: Behind the scenes, I'm working on something related to horror
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: So well, speaking of which, yeah, yeah, that'll be fines
Speaker 2: in the fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because I just don't have enough free time
Speaker 1: wasted on this sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Life's just too short. So much we want to do.
Speaker 1: I wish I was immortal or didn't have to sleep
Speaker 1: or both.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we might be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well there's that. So I always think about sleeping.
Speaker 1: I like sleeping, but I feel like it's such a
Speaker 1: waste of time.
Speaker 2: And it's like, oh, just since the baby, I'm always
Speaker 2: tired nowadays. So I just kind of put up with
Speaker 2: it and sold her on.
Speaker 1: It's that's that's rough, but we're gonna let it. We'll
Speaker 1: end on the high note. Say so, we're gonna recommend
Speaker 1: everybody check out your fiction and your would you Believe
Speaker 1: It book, which is great. And uh, again, I thank
Speaker 1: you for everybody who came out to see me at
Speaker 1: dragon Con and at Cryptocon, and it was so great
Speaker 1: to meet listeners in real life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just thank you to everyone for the emails
Speaker 2: that we get. I mean, we get emails pretty much
Speaker 2: every day. It's from people just making suggestions and giving
Speaker 2: us feedback on the show, and it's just fantastic to
Speaker 2: hear from people.
Speaker 1: It really is. So again, we wouldn't do this show
Speaker 1: if we didn't have such wonderful listeners. I mean, we'd
Speaker 1: have done a few, but we would have given it
Speaker 1: up by even now. So it really is wonderful to
Speaker 1: meet you people in real life. And hopefully we're setting
Speaker 1: a good example for what skeptics can be, people who
Speaker 1: use critical thinking in science to evaluate the evidence but
Speaker 1: still love a good story and love being human and
Speaker 1: all the things that that implies.
Speaker 2: So yeah, again and hopefully inspiring people to do their
Speaker 2: own shows and write their own blogs and make their
Speaker 2: own monster patches and yeah, absolutely whatever whatever you want
Speaker 2: to do that's monster related, to just get out there
Speaker 2: and do it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. So oh, you know, I should say that
Speaker 1: there's a kid called the Crypti Kid.
Speaker 2: His name is.
Speaker 1: Crypto Kids Colin Schneider, and he gave a talk right
Speaker 1: before I did it a cryptocond and I don't know how.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm guessing he's like late and late teens,
Speaker 1: but he did really good research. I was really impressed.
Speaker 1: He was actually he's already doing like a race show
Speaker 1: and doing a lot of this research and he was
Speaker 1: going back to primary sources, and I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not I can't really speak to all
Speaker 1: of his research because I've only heard this one talk,
Speaker 1: but I was really impressed at the amount of work
Speaker 1: he was putting into this stuff. He was really doing
Speaker 1: rock solid research from everything I could see, so I
Speaker 1: told him, I said, that was very inspiring because while
Speaker 1: I was reading a lot at his age, I wasn't
Speaker 1: actually doing this kind of research until I was well
Speaker 1: into my thirties. And it's nice to get ahead of
Speaker 1: the curve there. So I hope he sticks with it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we should have him on the show sometime.
Speaker 1: I agree, you know, I'd like to learn a little
Speaker 1: bit more about what he's into. But I really did
Speaker 1: enjoy talking with him. So young blood, So yeah, very cool.
Speaker 2: It was always great to make the next generation, It
Speaker 2: really was.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I mentioned that. So he
Speaker 1: was a real joy to talk to. So cool anyway,
Speaker 1: So thanks to everybody who came out, and thanks for
Speaker 1: the people who put on Cryptocon, and thanks to Derek
Speaker 1: over at Dragon Con for having me on those panels.
Speaker 1: That was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: And they're going to do Cryptocon annual.
Speaker 1: It sure looks like it. That's what they're leaning towards.
Speaker 1: So right, yeah, I'm really hoping that next year I'll
Speaker 1: be able to attend again, it was just the same place,
Speaker 1: so you don't know, they're still looking at the venue
Speaker 1: and trying to figure that out.
Speaker 2: So Denver is a good place.
Speaker 1: Well, oh yeah, yeah, I don't know where they're based
Speaker 1: out of. I'm guessing it somewhere in Kentucky. But but
Speaker 1: you're right. I mean it's oh, you know, I should
Speaker 1: mention this as well. You know, I've go to a
Speaker 1: lot of conventions and this this convenient had two different
Speaker 1: T shirts and one of them was nice. It was
Speaker 1: the regular I guess, the default cryptic cun shirt that
Speaker 1: most of the people wearing. But their alternate shirt was astonishing.
Speaker 1: It was such a great cryptid shirt. It had let's see,
Speaker 1: had Mothman, had the Kelly Hopkinsville Goblin. I'm gonna forget something.
Speaker 1: It had Bigfoot.
Speaker 2: Did you get one of them?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's upstairs. I didn't bring it down here
Speaker 1: for the records.
Speaker 2: Were they just hand it out two guests or yes.
Speaker 1: In exchange for a twenty dollars donation?
Speaker 2: Fair enough?
Speaker 1: But they were really nice shirts. I'm really blown away.
Speaker 1: I think I should probably put that in the show notes.
Speaker 1: How cool these shirts were.
Speaker 2: You need to wear it and have a picture taken
Speaker 2: and to post it on the Monster Talk.
Speaker 1: Facebook exactly exactly. I like it. That's a really good point.
Speaker 1: I bought a stack of shirts, Karen. They were a
Speaker 1: lot of the monster shirts were only ten bucks apiece.
Speaker 1: That's half the price they were.
Speaker 2: Oh that's that's cheap.
Speaker 1: And they were, I mean, and they were. One of
Speaker 1: the vendors had horror shirts for some just absolutely fantastic
Speaker 1: monster movies. I got a new one for the thing.
Speaker 1: I got one. I'm actually wearing one right now for
Speaker 1: the luckness Horror, which I think was a hammer production,
Speaker 1: but it was one of the few Nessy movies that
Speaker 1: were ever made. And they had Dawn and the Dad
Speaker 1: and then all kinds of Sasquatch movies from the seventies. Now,
Speaker 1: it was great. I was in Monster Heaven, I'll be honest.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it sounds so yeah. I was just
Speaker 1: delighted to be able to represent science and skepticism and
Speaker 1: also enjoy the glory that is Monster World. So good stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh, I really hope to get to one of them
Speaker 2: in the future. It's like a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It really was, so yeah. I really appreciate it, and
Speaker 1: I was glad to be a part of it, so
Speaker 1: all right, let's call it a night monster. You've been
Speaker 1: listening to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Speaker 1: Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolesner. In this episode, you
Speaker 1: heard a chat with Blake Smith and Karen Stolesno about
Speaker 1: my recent visit to Cryptidcon twenty seventeen and to Dragon
Speaker 1: Con twenty seventeen. I hope you enjoyed it, and the
Speaker 1: circumstances allow we can meet you at some future event
Speaker 1: as well. Monster Talks an official podcast of Skeptic Magazine.
Speaker 1: The views expressed in this episode or mining Karen's that
Speaker 1: do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Skeptic Magazine or
Speaker 1: the Skeptic society. We're all different in how we approach
Speaker 1: the task of promoting skepticism and critical thinking, and we
Speaker 1: welcome well intentioned, constructive criticism and hope our colleagues do
Speaker 1: as well. Remember you can always reach us by email
Speaker 1: by contacting Blake at monster talk dot org or Karen
Speaker 1: at munster talk dot org. You can also check out
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Speaker 4: Hi, my name is Barry Carr, and I'm here with
Speaker 4: Tom Flinn and Jim Underdown talking about the upcoming Siicon
Speaker 4: conference this October in Las Vegas. So, Tom, Jim, what
Speaker 4: are you looking forward to coming out to Sikon.
Speaker 6: I cannot wait. I will be hosting the disco party
Speaker 6: on Saturday night, and it's is it a zombie disco party?
Speaker 4: If you want to addressed as a zombie, that's fine. That's
Speaker 4: what we're building it as a costume party, So come
Speaker 4: as you like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and we're actually gonna have cash prizes and dancing
Speaker 6: and drinks.
Speaker 5: Is it true that the grand prize will be a
Speaker 5: big bowl of brains?
Speaker 4: Well, leaving the brains and the zombies aside. This is
Speaker 4: a conference with some heavyweights in the skeptical community. For instance,
Speaker 4: we have Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Kraus, James Randy, Eugenie Scott.
Speaker 4: The list that actually goes on and on. We have
Speaker 4: almost forty speakers coming or more. We have workshops, of course,
Speaker 4: entertainment as we mentioned anything you particularly want to see.
Speaker 6: My dear friend Richard why Men will be here also
Speaker 6: from the UK, author of Corcology. I can't wait to
Speaker 6: see him.
Speaker 5: And don't forget Richard Saunders from Australia. It's going to
Speaker 5: be Richard's busting.
Speaker 1: Out all over. It's the richness of Richards, it absolutely is.
Speaker 6: I'll be gambling too at some point.
Speaker 4: No, No, skeptics do not gamble. Skeptics don't gamble. We know
Speaker 4: the odds, we.
Speaker 5: Don't do if my experience last year is any indications
Speaker 5: skeptics do not gamble, Skeptics win.
Speaker 6: I have a skeptics, Harry, I have a system that
Speaker 6: is guaranteed to win. I'm going to grab a stack
Speaker 6: of chips and run.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 5: Okay. The New Yorker writer Maria Kannakova is going to
Speaker 5: be receiving the Ballast Award for Critical Thinking for her
Speaker 5: most recent book.
Speaker 4: Right, The Confidence Game. Yeah, Maria, it was a speaker
Speaker 4: last year. She spoke about The Confidence Game last year.
Speaker 4: This year she's talking about her new book, which is
Speaker 4: about luck. So what better talking about luck?
Speaker 6: Shel vindicate me. The Skeptical Toolbox people will be there,
Speaker 6: Ray Hyman, Jim Elcock, Harriet Hall.
Speaker 4: And speaking of skeptics, groups that are come only had
Speaker 4: this Skeptics Guide to the Universe, the whole, the whole show,
Speaker 4: with the whole cruise coming this year, it seems a.
Speaker 6: Little skeptic heavy, don't you think that's?
Speaker 4: This is the skeptics heavyweight event of the year.
Speaker 1: It does not get better it doesn't make you.
Speaker 4: Better than so we hope to see you there. It's
Speaker 4: October twenty sixth to the twenty ninth at the ex
Speaker 4: Caliber Hotel. It's the one that looks like the Big Castle.
Speaker 4: You know you'll see it when you fly into the airport.
Speaker 4: You see the towers or punzels there.
Speaker 5: It's the one that looks like the Walt Disney Opium Dream.
Speaker 4: So come check us out in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: Monster Talk theme music is by Peach Stealing Monkeys. As always,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: Want to stay abreast of the latest from Skeptic Magazine
Speaker 3: and the Skeptic Society. Want cutting edge skeptical articles delivered
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Speaker 3: the free electronic newsletter of the Skeptic Society. Visits skeptic
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Speaker 1: Jeb Krt, who we've heard from on the Archaeology The
Speaker 1: Archie Fantasy, I'm telling you messing this up. The Archaeological
Speaker 1: Fantasies podcast was on our show before