Speaker 1: Monster House Presents.
Speaker 2: If you've been listening to Munster Talk for a while,
Speaker 2: you've heard a few things here and there about how
Speaker 2: I served in the Navy, and my web handle is
Speaker 2: usually doctor Atlantis, although I have to add that I'm
Speaker 2: not a doctor and I don't believe there was a
Speaker 2: literal Atlantis. And maybe you thought to yourself, what if
Speaker 2: there was a way that this guy could combine his
Speaker 2: experience with being on a ship, his fascination in the
Speaker 2: mysteries of Atlantis, and the Bermuda Triangle ooh, and his
Speaker 2: twenty fifth wedding anniversary all into one big cruise ship
Speaker 2: themed experience that you could come along with. Well, then
Speaker 2: you're in luck, because Monster Talk is combining forces with
Speaker 2: the popular skeptical podcast Skeptoid as we brave the Bermuda
Speaker 2: Triangle in twenty twenty five, I'll be one of the
Speaker 2: skeptic celebrities participating in this adventure in the warm waters
Speaker 2: off the coast of Florida. Will we find the Missing
Speaker 2: Flight nineteen? Will we find proof of Atlantis? Will Sea
Speaker 2: Musters pilot us through these mystery filled waters? No, but
Speaker 2: I promise you there will be science and history field
Speaker 2: discussions and plenty of punds if I have anything to
Speaker 2: do with it. Early bird pricing is still available, so
Speaker 2: come get some sun, visit beautiful places, roll your eyes
Speaker 2: at my terrible puns, and raise money to fund Skeptoid
Speaker 2: and Monster Talk shared mission of promoting skepticism and science
Speaker 2: while still enjoying a good mystery. Plus you'll get to
Speaker 2: meet my wife as we celebrate twenty five years of
Speaker 2: marriage together. So maybe there's not going to be any
Speaker 2: UFOs or time bor disease, but you know a thing
Speaker 2: like that. At least heince that miracles can happen, So
Speaker 2: sign up soon before the early bird prices go away.
Speaker 2: Check the show notes for a link, or go to
Speaker 2: skeptoid dot com and click events to find your way
Speaker 2: onto Braving the Bermuda Triangle Hiptoid Adventure. It's actually quite
Speaker 2: unlike anything we've ever seen before.
Speaker 3: A giant, hairy creature. Part eight, Part mast in Luckness,
Speaker 3: a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake in the
Speaker 3: Highlands of Scotland. It's a creature known as the Luckness
Speaker 3: Monster Monster Talk.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Speaker 2: Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolsner. When Karen asked me
Speaker 2: about covering the Hackamock Triangle, I wasn't certain what she
Speaker 2: was talking about, but when I figured out she was
Speaker 2: talking about what I've known as the Bridgewater Triangle, it
Speaker 2: all clicked. I'm actually surprised we haven't done more on
Speaker 2: this topic before, but I'm sharing a conversation we had
Speaker 2: with podcaster and friend of the show, Andy Driscoll, and
Speaker 2: this is his stumping ground, this is where he comes from.
Speaker 2: Check the show notes for a link to his show,
Speaker 2: The Old Colony Cast, which he does with another Monster
Speaker 2: Talk supporter who will presently remain nameless, but whose support
Speaker 2: we appreciate very much. Anyway, this recording is about the
Speaker 2: Bridgewater Triangle. It's an area of mystery that was defined
Speaker 2: geographically by Lauren Coleman in the nineteen eighties. But clearly
Speaker 2: Lauren was playing with the idea of the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 2: And this, of course reminded me of the cruise that
Speaker 2: I'll be taking the summer as part of the Skeptoid
Speaker 2: podcasts Braving the Bermuda Triangle adventure, which in turn reminded
Speaker 2: me the fact that the Bermuda Triangle had been very
Speaker 2: rationally and systematically debunked by a librarian working at Arizona
Speaker 2: State University's library back in nineteen seventy five. That was
Speaker 2: Larry Kusch, whose book The Bermuda Triangle Missed Resolved explained
Speaker 2: that there was no statistical significance to the many disappearances
Speaker 2: in that region compared to any other regions of the
Speaker 2: ocean with similar traffic volume. In other words, he made
Speaker 2: the overall concept of a remuter triangle disappear itself in
Speaker 2: a puff of statistical analysis. And I love that, But
Speaker 2: I'm sad to report that Larry passed away July twenty second,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. Now, he and I never spoke, but
Speaker 2: I did think of him often, and I appreciate the
Speaker 2: work that he put in. I put some links to
Speaker 2: Larry's obituary and his Wikipedia page in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Now the question remains whether the Bridge Water, or as
Speaker 2: our guest refers to it, the Hockamack Triangle, would also
Speaker 2: disappear if we applied similar statistical analysis. And I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's not apples to apples to look at a region
Speaker 2: with many reported monsters compared to other reported disappearances in
Speaker 2: shipping lanes. But something tells me that when you get
Speaker 2: down to it, any kind of window area or a
Speaker 2: mysterious triangle or whatever regular geometrical shape you want to
Speaker 2: apply to such a regionalization. At the heart of it,
Speaker 2: what you'll be looking at is how obsessively a researcher
Speaker 2: is willing to collect data on a place. But that's
Speaker 2: just a hypothesis anyway. This is an introductory episode to
Speaker 2: the concept, and we'll be lightly touching on several mysterious
Speaker 2: phenomena reported there, and I hope to dive in deeper
Speaker 2: on some of these this year. So thanks to Andy
Speaker 2: for coming to be our local tour guide. Once he's
Speaker 2: shown us the highlights, we'll dig deeper in future more instrutal. So,
Speaker 2: first of all, let me say I'm just going to
Speaker 2: do an intro here in the sense of welcome to
Speaker 2: the show, Andy Driscoll. But I don't think I mean
Speaker 2: if I told people that I know you through a
Speaker 2: neebriart and that we've talked before on podcasts, I think
Speaker 2: it would still be best if you introduced yourself and
Speaker 2: guided people to where you'd like them to find you.
Speaker 3: So I'm Andy Driscoll. I run a kneebri Art.
Speaker 4: It is a company based in Massachusetts and we run
Speaker 4: all sorts of events at Barsbery's and restaurants, and like
Speaker 4: seven or eight years ago we decided to get in
Speaker 4: a podcasting and we have three different shows, was in
Speaker 4: a fourth one launching in the spring, because I just
Speaker 4: over commit to things. And you can find an ebri
Speaker 4: Art pretty much anywhere you know you'd find podcasts where
Speaker 4: there there's some four hundred plus episodes and we've had
Speaker 4: a Monster Talk episode and a Karen stoles Now episode
Speaker 4: and yes, I mean and then.
Speaker 3: You can just find us on our website at need
Speaker 3: your art dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, very cool, and we'll put links to that stuff
Speaker 2: in the show notes. Now, we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 2: a topic that we're calling the Hackamock Triangle. It's also
Speaker 2: called the Bridgewater Triangle, and we'll actually be talking a
Speaker 2: little bit about the naming along the way.
Speaker 3: Cure.
Speaker 2: I just want to say, this is a big topic
Speaker 2: and we're just this is like the introductory episode because
Speaker 2: I think we're going to come back to this and
Speaker 2: dive in a little deeper in the future. So let's
Speaker 2: just sort of take a let's go, let's swamping.
Speaker 4: Sure, I have pretty much lived my entire life inside
Speaker 4: the Bridgewater Triangle and I didn't even really know about
Speaker 4: it until maybe twenty years ago, give or take.
Speaker 3: And it's a massive, massive subject.
Speaker 5: So, yeah, Andy, I was on your show, I think
Speaker 5: it was a couple of weeks ago now, and we
Speaker 5: got talking about the hock a Mock Triangle and I
Speaker 5: hadn't heard of it before, and you said you lived
Speaker 5: in the area, So if you could tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about I know, again, this is a huge topic,
Speaker 5: but give us an overview of where this is and
Speaker 5: sure what it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it is a two hundred roughly two hundred
Speaker 4: square mile you know, triangle that someone drew on the map,
Speaker 4: and it is located probably the top point is probably
Speaker 4: about Thirlready to forty minutes south of Boston, and its
Speaker 4: most southern point is probably that same distance, just above
Speaker 4: Cape Cod. It's effecially known as either the South Shore
Speaker 4: or South Coast of Massachusetts, depending on which side of
Speaker 4: Cape Cod you're on, and it's signified by three towns,
Speaker 4: and it's Abington, Freetown in Rehoboth that kind of makes
Speaker 4: up the the triangle. And I grew up in Whitman,
Speaker 4: which is one town over from Abington, and it is
Speaker 4: a hotbed of It is every possible crypto paranormal catch all.
Speaker 4: I mean everything from giants, snakes and birds to alien
Speaker 4: abductions and saint worshippers.
Speaker 3: A great place to grow up.
Speaker 2: So you said you first became a aware of I
Speaker 2: guess the lore even though you were living in it
Speaker 2: about twenty years ago. So how did how did you
Speaker 2: come to find out about.
Speaker 4: It in the most obscure way possible. I used to
Speaker 4: own a comic book shop and I had gotten a
Speaker 4: someone had traded in a set of trading cars. It
Speaker 4: was all like paranormal stuff, and I was just kind
Speaker 4: of like thumbing through the cars just you know, I
Speaker 4: love paranormal encryptids and whatnot.
Speaker 3: And I was curious to see what was in there.
Speaker 3: And then there was.
Speaker 4: A card that just said Bridgewater Triangle and I'm like, what,
Speaker 4: what what is it that?
Speaker 3: That's where I live?
Speaker 4: And I was literally in Bridgewater at the time, and
Speaker 4: so then it just kind of took me down. This
Speaker 4: is like early stages of the Internet, but took me
Speaker 4: down a rabbit hole and really interesting, and it kind
Speaker 4: of is fairly new as as far as triangles go.
Speaker 4: It is accredited to Lauren Coleman, who runs the Cryptozoology
Speaker 4: Museum in Portland, Maine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: He was living in Massachusetts in the mid to late
Speaker 4: seventies and noticed that the Bridgewaters form a triangle, which
Speaker 4: I think is kind of silly because pretty much any
Speaker 4: three points that aren't on a straight line are going
Speaker 4: to form some sort of tragle.
Speaker 2: It's true, It's true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not a you know, geometry person,
Speaker 4: but I think that's right. And in his book in
Speaker 4: eighty three Mysterious Amarica, he like coined the term the
Speaker 4: Bridgewater triangle because he just started searching in that area
Speaker 4: for paranormal stuff and just to credit it all to
Speaker 4: this triangle. And a lot of the people who buy
Speaker 4: into this believe it is because of the Kings, the
Speaker 4: King Phillip's War, which is considered the bloodiest war in
Speaker 4: American history per capita, which I think is a weird
Speaker 4: thing to put on a war, but it was between
Speaker 4: the colonizers and the indigenous tribes in this area, and
Speaker 4: it was really, really terrible.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to make a comment about the fact
Speaker 5: that you've lived there and hadn't heard of this Bridgewater
Speaker 5: triangle before. That's happened to me before as well. My
Speaker 5: mother's lived for decades in Queensland and Australia and she
Speaker 5: lived in a place called Butterham, and it was only
Speaker 5: maybe ten years ago I think that I found out
Speaker 5: about claims of a Butterham beast, so a local Tasmanian tiger.
Speaker 5: So I think it's interesting how you can just live
Speaker 5: in a place and there are all these claims that
Speaker 5: are kind of surrounding the place and people living there
Speaker 5: never heard of it before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's and it's one of the areas of
Speaker 4: the country that you know, has been around the longest.
Speaker 4: It's right up the road from Plymouth where the Pilgrims landed.
Speaker 4: And even when I was kind of doing some research
Speaker 4: for this, I found more claims that I had never
Speaker 4: heard in relation to like giant cats, And I'm like,
Speaker 4: I've heard giant dogs, but I've heard giant cats in
Speaker 4: relations to this, and yeah, so it is literally kind
Speaker 4: of this catch all, you know, giant cats, giant dogs, bigfoot, puck, wedgies, UFOs,
Speaker 4: lots of ghost stories, thunderbirds, spirit lights. I mean, just
Speaker 4: anything you can think of is kind of accredited to
Speaker 4: this area. And again, yeah, and and that's part of it.
Speaker 4: Is the legend is that when Metacomet.
Speaker 3: Who.
Speaker 4: The colonizers referred to kind of auditory wise as King Phillips,
Speaker 4: when he died in that war, it was said that
Speaker 4: he put a curse on the land, and that's why
Speaker 4: all this kind of bad juju exists around here.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, people might be very skeptical of this
Speaker 2: whole thing, but if you look at all the angles
Speaker 2: of the Bridgewater Triangle, you'll do a full one eighty.
Speaker 3: So that that is true. That is true. That's just mad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm wondering too, because I mean it's not terribly
Speaker 5: far away from Salem, so there stories of witches associated
Speaker 5: with the area as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're not too far away.
Speaker 4: There was a kind of witch in the Plymouth area
Speaker 4: called Mother Crew, and.
Speaker 3: I would have to I know we've talked.
Speaker 4: About her on one of our shows, and as much
Speaker 4: I hope this happens to you guys when you podcast,
Speaker 4: sometimes when you're done recording, that just kind of all
Speaker 4: filters out of your head.
Speaker 3: And i'd have to go back and review that.
Speaker 4: But I know, Mother Crew was kind of like a
Speaker 4: witch of the area, and you know, cursed people and
Speaker 4: kind of.
Speaker 3: That whole thing.
Speaker 5: I think there's that kind of bridge. Witches and things
Speaker 5: like that are very common in a lot of areas.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean we didn't have like the witch trials,
Speaker 4: but again, like that was not not far away at all.
Speaker 2: So yeah, So it's I get I've always been troubled
Speaker 2: by triangles, not not the geometrical shape, but the paranormal encapsulation.
Speaker 4: Is that I agree completely, Yeah, I mean I have
Speaker 4: my reason too well.
Speaker 2: I think it goes back to the Remuter triangle, where
Speaker 2: a statistician did the work to point out that, you know,
Speaker 2: it is a triangle. There's a lot of weird things,
Speaker 2: but not any more than anywhere else. If you just
Speaker 2: do a broad analysis of the trends and you know,
Speaker 2: mysterious disappearances or not mysterious disappearances, then it's no more
Speaker 2: statistically dangerous in any other place. But like every place
Speaker 2: that has people tends to attract folklore. So I and
Speaker 2: it's not to say that there's nothing weird going on,
Speaker 2: it's just to say that in collecting it all and
Speaker 2: then putting some lines around. It doesn't mean it's a
Speaker 2: special place. It's just a place that's got lines around it.
Speaker 2: But then you know, I mean, you know, states, and
Speaker 2: you know, but geographical borders are a human construct too,
Speaker 2: so I don't know, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I agree, And I have no problem
Speaker 4: saying I don't really think there's anything going on of
Speaker 4: the interest here, and I have some personal theories of
Speaker 4: things that I believe are in relation to this. But
Speaker 4: and yeah, it is so much that this particular guy
Speaker 4: I saw that three towns made a triangle and looked
Speaker 4: up a bunch of spooky stuff and marked it on
Speaker 4: the map, and then people just attribute everything in that
Speaker 4: area to it, even if.
Speaker 3: It's just outside the triangle, because.
Speaker 4: They're like, well it's close, so you get kind of
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Well, this is not the first time that Lauren has.
Speaker 3: Said it is just if you do that triangle anywhere.
Speaker 2: Is this not the first time Lauren has drawn together
Speaker 2: lots of connections between stuff that may not actually be related.
Speaker 2: He's really into synchro mysticism and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And also, I mean, you look at like the Dover demon.
Speaker 2: He likes to throw a catchy name on things, so
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's very good at that.
Speaker 4: One of the better known legends around here is the
Speaker 4: Red Headed Hitchhiker, and that's on a stretch of Route
Speaker 4: forty four in between se Conk and Rehobeth, and even
Speaker 4: you know, the investigators and whatnot have said that it
Speaker 4: started off as like a ghost sighting, and now any
Speaker 4: hitch hiker lore all gets contributed to the red Headed
Speaker 4: Hitchhiker as like added on, like oh yeah, and if
Speaker 4: you shut your lights off and keep your horn three
Speaker 4: times and turn you know, like any hitchhiker lore anywhere
Speaker 4: suddenly becomes the same here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the red Headed Hitchhiker though, that's that's interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's supposed to appear in your car. It
Speaker 4: started off I think the earliest ones were that he
Speaker 4: would show up in your car, that your radio station
Speaker 4: would change, and then as time went on, more and
Speaker 4: more got attributed to him that were just kind of
Speaker 4: like knock off of other hitchhiking ghost lore. And it's
Speaker 4: always one of those you know, my friend's cousin's uncle.
Speaker 3: This happened too. Yeah, oh yeah, the real direct.
Speaker 2: Classic folklore friend of a friend.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh so this is also called the red Headed Hitchhiker
Speaker 2: of Route forty four. Have you heard that before?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, so where's Route forty four? Sorry, I'm not local
Speaker 2: to Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: Like, so it goes right through the Bridgewater Triangle, No
Speaker 4: surprise there, okay, And it is a kind of like
Speaker 4: a minor highway, like it's two lanes, but sometimes it's
Speaker 4: you know, with traffic lights and no center island, and
Speaker 4: you can pretty much go from trying to think how
Speaker 4: far north it goes, but it can take you pretty
Speaker 4: much all the way down into Rhode Island. And so
Speaker 4: it's a long stretch and covers pretty much that's the
Speaker 4: whole entirety of the Bridgewater Triangle and a little bit
Speaker 4: beyond that. And then there's also old forty four because
Speaker 4: they added to it and improved it.
Speaker 3: So there's even I don't think there's.
Speaker 4: Any law in relation to that, other than when you
Speaker 4: get directions from some people they say forty four and
Speaker 4: they mean the other one.
Speaker 3: But that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 2: But it's too it's math in this episode.
Speaker 5: But so it seems like even though I hadn't heard
Speaker 5: of the place, and you only found out about it
Speaker 5: twenty years ago. It sounds like there is a lot
Speaker 5: of law surrounding the place and a lot of paranormalists
Speaker 5: know about the Bridgewater trying do you get a lot
Speaker 5: of visitors there and legend troopers people coming from all
Speaker 5: around the globe to check it out and test things out.
Speaker 4: I don't know how many people come from out of state.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there are some, but there's a lot of local.
Speaker 4: Ghost hunting haunted tours, and everyone's trying to, you know,
Speaker 4: search every old building they can find. There's several mystical
Speaker 4: rocks in the area. Is another thing that we have
Speaker 4: a lot of. There's Dighton Rock, There's Profile Rock. There's
Speaker 4: Anawon Rock, which is kind of like Anaon Rock. I
Speaker 4: think is the one that is probably the most ghostly
Speaker 4: and has the most legend around it. Dighton Rock is
Speaker 4: more mysterious carvings and no one knows what it is.
Speaker 4: And then Profile Rock is one of those just natural
Speaker 4: formations that look like someone's face and people attribute it
Speaker 4: to you know, part of metacomics, curse or or some
Speaker 4: other you know, mystical thing, and it's just a rock.
Speaker 3: That looks like a face.
Speaker 5: Could do you, But I took a bit more about
Speaker 5: those commings because I've seen a few photographs and I'm
Speaker 5: wondering what the story is in the claims behind those.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So it's called Dighton Rock and there's it's a sizeable rock.
Speaker 4: They've actually built like a kind of gazebo around it,
Speaker 4: and there's all sorts of carvings on it, and some
Speaker 4: look like faces, some look like maybe some sort of
Speaker 4: script of some kind, but it's essentially indecipherable. No one
Speaker 4: really knows who did it. No one knows where the
Speaker 4: carvings came from. No one knows what it says. And
Speaker 4: there's a few they're not even sure if and like
Speaker 4: if there if it is language or what language, what
Speaker 4: language it is. Some say it is, you know, wamp
Speaker 4: and O Egg, which is the indigenous tribe of the area.
Speaker 4: Some people think it's Portuguese, which I find very strange
Speaker 4: because I can't really understand.
Speaker 3: Why that would be. There's some speculation that it's like.
Speaker 4: Norse ruins, because the the Norse were known kind of
Speaker 4: cross the ocean and be in this area somewhat. And
Speaker 4: and then there's some people that kind of say, you know,
Speaker 4: it's like one on top of the other, and so
Speaker 4: it's it's completely unclear yeah, what it is or why
Speaker 4: it's there, but it's it's a really interesting You can
Speaker 4: find pictures of it all over of the carving, and
Speaker 4: it is just kind of in discard, you know, indecipable scribblings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are all very different things that you're.
Speaker 2: There's an extensive history of of of hoaxes and fake Norse,
Speaker 2: fake Celtic, all these sort of fake Hebrew like, just
Speaker 2: so many of these things. And I noticed that, uh,
Speaker 2: friend of the show Ken Fader uh included an entry.
Speaker 2: I don't have this to hand, but he included an
Speaker 2: entry in his book called the Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology,
Speaker 2: So he might he might be interesting to talk to
Speaker 2: you about that one. But I mean, that is it
Speaker 2: is fascinating how many let's call them Europeans I have
Speaker 2: decided to sort of extend the archaeological record through their
Speaker 2: own creativity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this everybody's got a theory about something.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Most of the time it's kind of just from yeah,
Speaker 3: just kind of nonsense.
Speaker 4: And I always say it's the come on, bro explanation
Speaker 4: where when you question them, they just want to like
Speaker 4: not have to explain their rationale. And the other the
Speaker 4: other rock that I find even more interesting is Anawan
Speaker 4: Rock and that's in Freetown State Forest, and it is
Speaker 4: kind of directly relates back to the original like lore
Speaker 4: of how the you know, the Bridgewater Triangle became like
Speaker 4: a hot bed or cursed or whatever you want to
Speaker 4: call it. So Annawan was kind of like one of
Speaker 4: Metacomet's uh lieutenants, and Metacomet had already been killed.
Speaker 3: They cut it, They drawn and quartered him and cut.
Speaker 4: His head off and put his head on a spike
Speaker 4: outside of the.
Speaker 3: Fort in Plymouth.
Speaker 4: And then they had tracked down Annawan and his war
Speaker 4: band to this area of ana Wan Rock and he
Speaker 4: surrendered to half. His name right here in front of me,
Speaker 4: Benjamin Church, and uh so his his people surrendered and
Speaker 4: he was killed beheaded. His head also went on a pike.
Speaker 3: And then the indigenous people that did surrender were.
Speaker 2: Separation of Church and Steak.
Speaker 3: And that rock.
Speaker 4: I mean, people people claim to see campfires here, war drums.
Speaker 4: People have said they've caught EVPs that were in native
Speaker 4: wamp and no Egg language, which I don't know how
Speaker 4: they know that, but that one. I know people personally
Speaker 4: have gone out ghost hunting there and you know, kind
Speaker 4: of done their little YouTube shows and whatnot, and they
Speaker 4: kind of always, you know, it's just like every other
Speaker 4: ghost hunting you know, there's some noise that you can't
Speaker 4: really hear that they freak out about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what was that?
Speaker 2: What was that was that? Yeah, we've said the word
Speaker 2: lores so many times. I guess I should mention that
Speaker 2: I first, I believe, heard about this topic through the
Speaker 2: podcast Lore back in maybe twenty fifteen. Oh sure, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And I remember this is so weird. I remember specifically
Speaker 2: I had just found. I guess it was twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: I'd found. I was on a business trip in Austin
Speaker 2: and I was just wandering around the streets of Austin
Speaker 2: late at night and listening to that. And that was
Speaker 2: a pretty creepy episode because they got into that whole thing,
Speaker 2: the story of Bill something what is his name? Uh?
Speaker 2: He the guy he was a welder who Bill Russo,
Speaker 2: who is walking out at night and here he sees
Speaker 2: something and it makes these strange words at him and
Speaker 2: guy walking his dog.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2: It's like the the e want e Wan it is
Speaker 2: like he ultimately decides that it's you know, we want you.
Speaker 2: It's it's super creat it's a very creepy story.
Speaker 4: It is so uh and he is from and some
Speaker 4: people say that was a puck wedgie.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, and which we should probably define.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so that was in Marshfield.
Speaker 4: So that is probably about thirty minutes where I am
Speaker 4: sitting right now, because there's no real good direct route there,
Speaker 4: but you would have to go down forty four to
Speaker 4: get over there. And that's so forty four really is
Speaker 4: kind of like you know that the almost like the
Speaker 4: spinal cord of the Bridgewater Triangle, like because it is
Speaker 4: just kind of right in the middle. And yeah, so
Speaker 4: it was basically this guy was out walking his dog
Speaker 4: and a creature stepped out of the woods and he
Speaker 4: said it was about three feet tall, kind of dark
Speaker 4: brown hair and like gray smooth skin, and it was
Speaker 4: speaking to him. You you got pretty much exactly how
Speaker 4: he phrased it, like E one two and I think
Speaker 4: the other one.
Speaker 3: Was like here, yeah, yeah, here, that's what I was like.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like come here, but it wasn't that.
Speaker 4: So some people think it's a Puckwodgie. Puck Wedgies are
Speaker 4: kind of like the you know, the local sports team
Speaker 4: of cryptids around here, even like, but it's also weird
Speaker 4: because it's such a strange cryptid that even like local
Speaker 4: people don't really know about puck wedges. It's not real
Speaker 4: common knowledge. They're kind of known as tricksters. Some say
Speaker 4: they're like more evil, and some say they're just kind
Speaker 4: of like pranksters. When I first heard about them, I
Speaker 4: was trying to look them up online and I couldn't
Speaker 4: even find, let alone photos. I couldn't even find artwork
Speaker 4: depictions of them. It's just it's a weird cryptid. There's
Speaker 4: not a lot of.
Speaker 3: Footage, you know.
Speaker 4: You know there's no classic bigfoot type photo of a
Speaker 4: puck wedgy right well, you know.
Speaker 2: It fits into that sort of I don't know. It
Speaker 2: almost feels like a special class of these things where
Speaker 2: it's a creature as I understand it, that is from
Speaker 2: indigenous lore, but Europeans have decided to turn it into
Speaker 2: a cryptid instead of folklore or spirit or whatever else
Speaker 2: it might be, So it's hybridized. I guess in a way. Culturally,
Speaker 2: What does that make sink syncretic. Yeah, yeah, well that too.
Speaker 2: But I was just thinking it's it's not always a
Speaker 2: one way street. These the stories, you know, they mix
Speaker 2: both ways, and you know, so which frustrates me because
Speaker 2: I know this is a kind of a complicated topic,
Speaker 2: but there's native lore around the creatures that have now
Speaker 2: become fully recognized as Bigfoot now and it's even changing
Speaker 2: the way the indigenous people speak about Like so it's
Speaker 2: they got their peanut, butter and chocolate all mixed up,
Speaker 2: is what I'm saying. This is like you can't unresis exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So they're they're the other local legend that is kind
Speaker 4: of integrated into all of the Bridgewater Triangle. So in
Speaker 4: the center of the Bridgewaters is the Hackamock Swamp and
Speaker 4: that's why it's called the hacka Mock Triangle sometimes and uh,
Speaker 4: the Wampao. I believe that there was a giant shape
Speaker 4: shifting snake that can control lightning called Michigashi.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm sure I'm not getting that pronunciation correct.
Speaker 4: And that's another thing that's attributed the Bridgewater Triangles giant snakes,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's it is a complete Bengo card
Speaker 4: of paranormal stuff.
Speaker 5: Oh, I'm wondering how Satanic rituals got mixed in with
Speaker 5: all of this. Is there a story to that.
Speaker 3: The nineteen eighties nineteen eighties panic, So the.
Speaker 4: Whole Satanic cult thing is really based out of the
Speaker 4: Satanic Panic.
Speaker 3: And the fact that there are parts of.
Speaker 4: The area that are are pretty secluded, like the Freetown
Speaker 4: State Forests one specifically, and you know, when people did
Speaker 4: shady things, they would go to places that were you
Speaker 4: didn't run into a lot of people.
Speaker 3: So there were there were.
Speaker 4: Murders there is there was a we had a serial
Speaker 4: killer in the area for.
Speaker 3: A while and they never determined who that was. But
Speaker 3: there was one specific.
Speaker 4: Kind of like the you know, the I don't hate
Speaker 4: the same celebrity. But the biggest case that was related
Speaker 4: to the Satanic cult was.
Speaker 3: Doreen Levec and this is like nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 4: She was found behind the bleachers at the Fall River
Speaker 4: High School And now Fall River to me is a
Speaker 4: little bit outside that triangle, but you know it's close enough, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how thick you make the lines, that's.
Speaker 4: Exactly right, right right, And she was bound and was
Speaker 4: a known prostitute and the two people that were arrested
Speaker 4: in connection with her murder were Robin Murphy and Carl Drew,
Speaker 4: and there were reports from other people that they partook
Speaker 4: in satanic rituals.
Speaker 3: With these two. There were certain.
Speaker 4: Like structures found in the Freetown State Forest that people
Speaker 4: had built, and the detectives at the time that they
Speaker 4: were satanic in nature, which is really interesting because it
Speaker 4: made me think back when I was looking into this
Speaker 4: and maybe think back to when I was a kid.
Speaker 4: We used to like build clubhouses in the woods all
Speaker 4: the time, and I was like a big metal head too,
Speaker 4: So it's like, was it really satanic or was it
Speaker 4: just some kids in you know, uh, messing around with
Speaker 4: dark imagery and like into iron Maid and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And so I really think it's there.
Speaker 4: Were a few murders with questionable people involved, and it
Speaker 4: was the nineteen eighties, so the the investigators just made
Speaker 4: of a satanic cult. One of them even claimed that
Speaker 4: he went undercover into one of their satanic rituals, but
Speaker 4: he said it was pretty much just like chanting and
Speaker 4: you know that sort of thing. We even had the
Speaker 4: cattle beat relations were like involved in this too.
Speaker 3: That was one of the last like.
Speaker 4: Animal related things they found in the nineteen eighties. I
Speaker 4: think it was like a dozen cows that were found
Speaker 4: dead just outside the Freetown State Forest, and of course
Speaker 4: they had no blood.
Speaker 5: Very common.
Speaker 2: It's a hodge podge of all sorts of things going
Speaker 2: on up there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like I said, that's I mean, there are big
Speaker 4: foot sightings, there are UFO sidings, and giant thunderbirds, and
Speaker 4: some of these things really have I mean, the thunderbird
Speaker 4: to me, I think is one of the easiest to
Speaker 4: kind of debunk and when you explain it, when I
Speaker 4: pitch my explanation for it, people who believe in it
Speaker 4: just kind of, you know, dismiss it out of hand.
Speaker 4: But we have a very large bird in this era
Speaker 4: called the blue heron, and it stands about I don't
Speaker 4: like the last time I saw when I was probably
Speaker 4: like three and a half feet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're pretty big.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, they're huge, and they just kind of like
Speaker 4: chill in the water and grab fish, like you know,
Speaker 4: they kind of that ambush type predator thing. And the
Speaker 4: last time I saw when someone's like, oh, there's a
Speaker 4: blue heron and I'm like where, and they pointed, like
Speaker 4: fifteen yards away from me, like I was almost on
Speaker 4: top of it. Yeah, and I was just like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, like I didn't see it. There they're just
Speaker 4: sit so still, and that I could just see someone
Speaker 4: out in the swamp that disturbs one that you didn't
Speaker 4: even see and it just flies up out of nowhere.
Speaker 3: And there right kind of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then your perception of how big they are
Speaker 2: all out of whack. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're gonna be scared and you're gonna be like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, they're like thirty feet bit, you know.
Speaker 3: And it's it's especially once you get the wingspan in there.
Speaker 4: It's I think that's just such an obvious source of
Speaker 4: that legend that I mean that I can't even really
Speaker 4: take with any grain of It's just it's just silly.
Speaker 2: Well, you know we I'm sure you you know the show.
Speaker 2: You know we are. So it's like we complain about
Speaker 2: how that ghosts are not a mystery ghost or an explanation.
Speaker 2: The mystery is what's causing the effects, right that you're
Speaker 2: calling it go so uh and here I think this
Speaker 2: bothers me even more when you attribute all these weird
Speaker 2: things to this geographical region. Is it a portal area,
Speaker 2: you know, is it it may be ultimately is it
Speaker 2: somebody writing it down? Because that but what what do
Speaker 2: you think? I mean, what do you think is going
Speaker 2: on here overall? Or is anything unusual going on there?
Speaker 3: I don't think anything unusual is going on at all.
Speaker 4: Like I am a fan of the show because I
Speaker 4: am very science minded person, and I just don't well,
Speaker 4: you know, the ghosting, the ghosts and the hauntings are
Speaker 4: you know, it's the same thing like every other haunting.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's anything unusual there. Like Dyton Rock.
Speaker 4: I mean that to me is an interesting part of
Speaker 4: it because yes, someone definitely carved something on that rock.
Speaker 4: What it is and who it is, that's really the
Speaker 4: interesting part of it. The UFOs I don't buy at all.
Speaker 4: And like I watched a there's a pretty solid documentary
Speaker 4: about the Bridgewater Triangle, but definitely from a believers standpoint. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And like some of the quotes from it were like, oh,
Speaker 4: these lights were moving. I mean they could have been
Speaker 4: planes or they could have been stars, but maybe not.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, And then there was another guy that said,
Speaker 4: you know, these lights were moving around and then they
Speaker 4: turned into a plane and flew away.
Speaker 3: Yes, or it was a plane yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which
Speaker 3: is a really interesting thing is.
Speaker 4: We have Logan Airport, is the Boston airport that everybody
Speaker 4: knows about.
Speaker 3: There's one in Rhode Island called T. F. Green Now.
Speaker 2: Is that also known as Wolverine Airport?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, or or or Airport acts. Yeah, but there's
Speaker 3: a lot of small airports around here. Yeah, there's one
Speaker 3: in Plymouth.
Speaker 4: And so in the seventies, like late seventies, mid to
Speaker 4: late seventies was like when most of the UFO sidings
Speaker 4: were happening. And during that time, there was a Naval
Speaker 4: Air Force base in Weymouth. I mean there's air traffic
Speaker 4: out of there all the time. And I remember specifically
Speaker 4: as an experience of mine, I was in high school.
Speaker 4: Me and a bunch of friends friends were out in
Speaker 4: the woods on a Saturday night, reading from our math
Speaker 4: books like all respectable teenagers do out in the woods,
Speaker 4: and we were kind of like laying on this Traine
Speaker 4: bridge just staring up at the sky and my friends
Speaker 4: like the stars are moving and after a few minutes
Speaker 4: there were just there were little lights everywhere just moving around,
Speaker 4: and it took us a wild piece together. But that weekend,
Speaker 4: there was a air show at the air Force base
Speaker 4: and we were literally under a holding pattern.
Speaker 3: For these planes that we're trying to land.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's constantly lights in the sky that are moving around.
Speaker 4: Then it's just like if you don't really know about
Speaker 4: those airports and whatnot, it's very easy to just mistake
Speaker 4: them for.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like the Gulf Breeze UFO flap in the
Speaker 2: eighties was like it's literally across the bay from the
Speaker 2: Pensacola Air Station. I mean, yeah, amazingly they saw weird
Speaker 2: lights in the sky every night. But it's happening right now,
Speaker 2: the New Jersey drone flap. It's absolutely ridiculous. Like everybody
Speaker 2: who studies this stuff, it's like, hey, this is not
Speaker 2: only is this a really common phenomena of a flap,
Speaker 2: but everything the media is doing feeds into it, like
Speaker 2: absolutely feeds into it. It's it's completely avoidable, and like
Speaker 2: literally none of these people who who frigging know better
Speaker 2: are incentivized in any way to calm the situation, Like
Speaker 2: none of them are. The politicians are getting calls, so
Speaker 2: they're going to feed into it. The media is getting clicks,
Speaker 2: so they're going to feed into it. It literally happened
Speaker 2: in England at the heath Row area, Like was that
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. I like, it's this is not new.
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's a Battle of Los Angeles. It's
Speaker 2: it's it's all these things over and over and over again.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I hate It's true.
Speaker 2: I hate it so much.
Speaker 4: And my friends, my friends know that I'm a hard course,
Speaker 4: so you know, the second I walk in, they're like,
Speaker 4: I want to talk to you about the drowns and
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, dear God, here we go, and and
Speaker 4: it's just leads to the most silly conversations where I'd
Speaker 4: be like you hear what you're saying, right, And I'm like, listen,
Speaker 4: I haven't had a lot of time to look into it.
Speaker 3: I've been really busy. It's the holidays. The only thing
Speaker 3: I have heard is that the FAA have loosened the
Speaker 3: restrictions about flying drones at night.
Speaker 4: And my buddy's like, oh, but you know, there's these
Speaker 4: plasmoids and I'm like what And he's like plasmoids and I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, or the f FAA just loosen the like why
Speaker 3: are you jumping to someone?
Speaker 2: Why do people think there's stealth drones from other countries,
Speaker 2: but they've got lights on them, Like like, why would
Speaker 2: you put lights on a stealth drone? That doesn't even
Speaker 2: make it? Like, oh my gosh. Anyway, people are foolish,
Speaker 2: and people are easily fool the drones going to see Yeah,
Speaker 2: a good point, right, they're disguised, they're disguised. But I
Speaker 2: just I find that all very I do. I wonder though,
Speaker 2: I mean, like I this is a sort of existential
Speaker 2: question for us as a show. Honestly, it's like we
Speaker 2: can help people and we can point out the you know, explanations,
Speaker 2: we can point out how to train yourself to think
Speaker 2: critically about this stuff, but we can stop people from
Speaker 2: still continuing to do these things and report these things
Speaker 2: and to like find the least likely explanation and glum
Speaker 2: onto it. And it's it's so frustrating. It's hard. I
Speaker 2: want better of us.
Speaker 5: All people need to have a falsifying experience really thing
Speaker 5: about some skepticism themselves.
Speaker 4: That's the thing about the Bridge Wide Triangle is like
Speaker 4: I honestly believe that people don't want to think about
Speaker 4: it rationally. They want it to be real and they
Speaker 4: want the drones. They want the spooky story or a
Speaker 4: conspiracy or you know, giant thun.
Speaker 3: Their birds or rabid deaf dogs or whatever.
Speaker 4: They want that story to be real instead of just
Speaker 4: being like, well, hang on, like I mean, how big
Speaker 4: was the giant death dog?
Speaker 3: You know? Are we just talking a bowl mastiff?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: And they just I honestly don't think they want it
Speaker 3: to be anything else.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, people want to believe. But I think we're gonna
Speaker 5: have to wrap things up here. And Andy, you're listener
Speaker 5: of the show, so you know where I'm going now.
Speaker 5: I want to wrap up with the final question because
Speaker 5: this is your first time on the show. What's your
Speaker 5: favorite monster?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 4: So I have been thinking about this since you guys
Speaker 4: invited me on the show, because I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: they're going to ask me the question, and so then
Speaker 4: I've really been thinking about it, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 4: I kind of what I base my whole company around
Speaker 4: is kind of you know, support local businesses, and you know,
Speaker 4: you know, local business and artists and musicians. So I
Speaker 4: gotta I gotta pick the local guy. You know, it's
Speaker 4: got to be a puckwadgie.
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: Oh, there we go kind of Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 4: kind of feel like they are true New Englanders where
Speaker 4: some people think they're just pranksters and other people think
Speaker 4: they're evil. There's a reason why we call ourselves massholes.
Speaker 4: And you know, I just feel like it's a New
Speaker 4: Englander through.
Speaker 1: And through, nice, good choice and you know.
Speaker 2: He wants you, kre Ker. I think it's a here here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, Andy, thanks so much for talking with us about this.
Speaker 2: We're gonna You've given us a lot to unpack. We're
Speaker 2: gonna we're gonna have to come back to some of
Speaker 2: these and dive a little deeper on them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh, thank you for having me. It was absolute pleasure. Monster.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
Speaker 2: I'm Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stolsner. You've been listening
Speaker 2: to a conversation with Andy Driscoll introducing the Hakamock or
Speaker 2: Bridgewater Triangle, a region of Massachusetts. Mystery. Is it especially
Speaker 2: mysterious or just the results of selection bias? Who can say, well, truthfully,
Speaker 2: probably us. But we'll be going deeper on that later.
Speaker 2: For now, we've put a pin in the map and
Speaker 2: we'll be digging in more in future episodes. Around the
Speaker 2: world people report monsters, but are they real? Join the
Speaker 2: Detective of the Impossible, Joe Nickel as he walks you
Speaker 2: through investigations to reveal often surprising natural explanations behind some
Speaker 2: of the most famous cryptids and legendary animals ever reported.
Speaker 2: Using scientific skepticism, meticulous fieldwork in historical deep dives, Joe
Speaker 2: Nichols seeks out hidden clues and real world candidates that
Speaker 2: sometimes reveal that even the most unlikely monster stories may
Speaker 2: have a basis in reality. The Science of Monsters is
Speaker 2: the first book from Monster House LLC, the publisher of
Speaker 2: science shows, Monster Talk and in research of The revised
Speaker 2: edition is now on sale and includes corrections and suggestions
Speaker 2: from you, our listeners and now readers. Sales of The
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Speaker 2: Revised Science of Monsters today at Amazon dot com, Available
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Speaker 1: This has been a Monster House presentation