Speaker 1: You're listening to an air Wave media podcast. The body
Speaker 1: of this creature walks ashore along the East River, So
Speaker 1: what exactly is it?
Speaker 2: The cannibalistic attack that led police to shoot.
Speaker 3: A man they say was gnawing at the face of
Speaker 3: someone else in the street.
Speaker 4: George believes that he has finally found proof of the
Speaker 4: infamous Blochness Monster with a photograph recently taken.
Speaker 1: While it's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen.
Speaker 3: Before, a giant, hairy creature.
Speaker 2: Part eight, Part Matt in Luckness, a twenty four a
Speaker 2: mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands of Scotland, in
Speaker 2: a creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 4: Mormstert.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Speaker 3: your host Blake Smith. Together with skeptical investigators doctor Karen
Speaker 3: Stoleso and Ben Radford, we help you find the facts
Speaker 3: behind creatures of legend and lore. This is our twenty
Speaker 3: twelve Monster Year in Review, and we welcome back Sharon
Speaker 3: Hill of the Doubtful News website. We're going to cover
Speaker 3: a lot of stories in the next hour or so
Speaker 3: and links to all of those or in the show notes,
Speaker 3: plus some that we didn't have time to dig in on,
Speaker 3: So be sure and check out those notes for all
Speaker 3: that fun stuff. Now let's get straight into the year
Speaker 3: in review with some mormstert. Okay, so we're bringing back
Speaker 3: Sharon Hill again. By the way, sharing your last visit
Speaker 3: with us was really popular.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well I told you?
Speaker 3: Why did you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Awesome?
Speaker 3: Is it because you were on it?
Speaker 1: Well? I would like to think so, but it was
Speaker 1: the last one before you took like an extended break.
Speaker 3: So you think that the listeners just started piling.
Speaker 1: Up, people kept checking back.
Speaker 3: I'll listen to the Sharon win again. See what happens.
Speaker 4: Maybe it'll get better.
Speaker 3: Anything will happen. Well, you know, did I miss anything?
Speaker 3: Was there any monster years in twenty third, twenty twelve,
Speaker 3: whatever year it.
Speaker 1: Was, it was a pretty good monster year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: Really it was a stinky ghost here, you're right, You're right.
Speaker 3: I mean with the ghost owners losing one of their
Speaker 3: key members.
Speaker 1: And there were there were really not that many great
Speaker 1: ghost stories, but there were. You know, I think it
Speaker 1: was definitely a good monster year. Good how you look at.
Speaker 4: It, it was a pretty thin year for ufologies. I
Speaker 4: recall I as soon to recall reading some story about
Speaker 4: how people were grousing that the UFO reports have been down.
Speaker 4: So maybe maybe this really was the year of the
Speaker 4: of cryptology.
Speaker 3: Maybe especially sea monsters. Those things come in waves.
Speaker 5: No, no, somebody muting. So is this year any bigger
Speaker 5: than last year? The same as pot stories?
Speaker 1: Well, I think definitely. The Bigfoot issue is huge this year.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about that. And that's propelled by the media.
Speaker 1: I've never seen so many Bigfoot stories.
Speaker 3: And when you say there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: No, I don't doubt that at all.
Speaker 3: You don't doubt that the big year right right? Right?
Speaker 1: Highly doubtful.
Speaker 3: That's fine.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've never seen so much speculation and interest
Speaker 1: in that, and it's I got really tired of it fast.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, I don't understand. Okay, I want to kind
Speaker 3: of go through the year chronologically, but but what is
Speaker 3: going on? It's like every week in this last month
Speaker 3: of the year or the last two months or so,
Speaker 3: there's been some new Bigfoot story and then they fade out,
Speaker 3: and then another big Foot story and it fades out.
Speaker 5: And why is this?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Is this just people?
Speaker 4: Is this?
Speaker 3: Uh? Is this internet link cooring? Is there? Is there
Speaker 3: really like none of these stories seem to be playing
Speaker 3: at all. The only one that really seems like a
Speaker 3: real story is the psych study of DNA. Everything else
Speaker 3: seems like I have a rumor, I have a rumor,
Speaker 3: you know, and then nothing happens.
Speaker 1: It does seem to be a lot of one upmanship
Speaker 1: trying to go on here to me, and I'm just
Speaker 1: an observer to these various researchers that are online. They
Speaker 1: like attention and they want to have something to grab
Speaker 1: the public's attention, and whether they make it up or not.
Speaker 1: So you have lots of bloggers who have ads all
Speaker 1: over their sites who want those hits. And that may
Speaker 1: be a real cynical way of looking at it, but
Speaker 1: I it's absolutely what's happening. The Bigfoot bloggers load their
Speaker 1: sites with links or with ads, and they want that attention,
Speaker 1: they want those hits, so they will actually just repeat
Speaker 1: the same stories over and over again in a different way.
Speaker 1: They will put rumors on their complete speculation, strange coincidences
Speaker 1: that they associate with big Foot. It's just it's it's
Speaker 1: been difficult to look at.
Speaker 3: The rumors bug me because they keep being unattributed or
Speaker 3: second and third hand that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: Well, Sharon, let me ask you this. I mean, do
Speaker 4: you do you given that there's all this all this
Speaker 4: you know, speculation and rumors and stuff going on, and
Speaker 4: as you've noticed, it's probably largely for the hits. Is
Speaker 4: is it just sort of the short sightedness in that
Speaker 4: the bigfoot community just doesn't care? I mean, does you know.
Speaker 4: One one way to look at is that is that
Speaker 4: they just just don't give it, and you know, they're
Speaker 4: just going for the short term. The other angle to
Speaker 4: look at is that, well, you know that all this
Speaker 4: just does nothing make the big potters look bad. And
Speaker 4: for as much as they complain about the skeptics making
Speaker 4: them look bad, uh, they do far more internal damage
Speaker 4: than we've ever done.
Speaker 1: But I'll look at it more optimistically. I think they're
Speaker 1: too involved in it. I think that they are so
Speaker 1: engrossed in this idea that it's out there for them
Speaker 1: to find. They are blind to any other possible interpretation.
Speaker 1: And I believe that Melba Ketchum thinks she has something important.
Speaker 1: And I believe that some of these big foot hunters
Speaker 1: think that they've had encounters, you know, and that the
Speaker 1: creatures out there there's one houling back at them in
Speaker 1: the woods and making noises back at them. They really
Speaker 1: believe that, I guess that's optimistic, but I don't think
Speaker 1: they're fooling I think they're just fooling themselves.
Speaker 4: Right, But if they really believe it, then would they
Speaker 4: have recognize that they're only harming their own credibility even
Speaker 4: assuming they completely believe it by doing the stuff. I mean,
Speaker 4: you would think that they would recognize, hey, you know,
Speaker 4: this is just making us look stupid because we're just
Speaker 4: recycling the rum or the minute and not looking the
Speaker 4: long term. I mean, even if they totally believe.
Speaker 3: Wall, if they were really concerned about credibility, would they'd
Speaker 3: be involved in bigfoot research? Because I know, even as
Speaker 3: a skeptical person who's interested in the topic, just even
Speaker 3: mentioning it gets you dismissed by a lot of people,
Speaker 3: no matter what your position on it is.
Speaker 5: It's like, I don't think they're that self effacing anyway.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Another thing is that they are not in any way
Speaker 3: a monolithic community. There is ragtag and diverse a group
Speaker 3: as any of the skeptical community is, I suppose, and
Speaker 3: oh boy do they Yeah, yeah, they are also self devouring.
Speaker 3: It may be that our nature is to form tribes
Speaker 3: and to fight other tribes. So it maybe the reason
Speaker 3: that bothers me so much is I don't want to
Speaker 3: be in a tribe. I mean, I kind of like
Speaker 3: the idea of being in a group. But you know,
Speaker 3: with well, you know what, I feel an affinity to
Speaker 3: bigfooters because I spent so much of my youth interested
Speaker 3: in believing in the topic, and so when I came
Speaker 3: to the conclusion that there wasn't sufficient evidence, I didn't
Speaker 3: stop being interested in the topic. I still find it
Speaker 3: very interesting, you know, I still go back to the
Speaker 3: old books. In fact, I think this year twenty twelve
Speaker 3: is the year I did the most nostalgic thing ever
Speaker 3: and got as many old nineteen seventies paranormal documentaries as
Speaker 3: I could track down and started going back through them
Speaker 3: just to see, you know, what's changed since the seventies.
Speaker 3: And the amazing thing to me was I did a
Speaker 3: lot of research in watching old ancient astronaut movies and
Speaker 3: it's exactly the same material as they're using in the
Speaker 3: modern documentaries, except it looks better than new ones. I mean,
Speaker 3: it is exactly the same, the same skulls, the same
Speaker 3: fake airplanes, the same little idols, the same sculpture's drawing sites.
Speaker 3: Everything's the same. And not much has changed Bigfoot either,
Speaker 3: except for this potential DNA research.
Speaker 1: No, And with all the technology we have and the
Speaker 1: more people are able to stay out in the woods
Speaker 1: or get farther in the woods, and we still have nothing.
Speaker 1: That's that's my major gripe.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we're just waiting for Jeff Meldrum's bloom
Speaker 3: research to be funded, right.
Speaker 4: Just blim yes, that's right.
Speaker 3: Okay, So let's talk about Bigfoot twenty twelve. So I
Speaker 3: look at sharing you put together this wonderful list. Can
Speaker 3: we put this in the show notes?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 1: Sure? I was going to do a blog post on it,
Speaker 1: but that's all right.
Speaker 3: Well okay, well I imagined your blog post would be
Speaker 3: like the illuminated version of this, right, that's fine. And
Speaker 3: when I say illuminated, I'm talking about you know, like
Speaker 3: the ancient manuscripts with pictures, not our illuminati masters who
Speaker 3: fund this podcast.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: I just want to clear that up. So I see
Speaker 3: the first thing you put on here was the catchup project, right,
Speaker 3: So that been that being because that is continuing since
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's got a long and sorted history. It's got
Speaker 1: people coming and going, it's got secrets, it's got intrigue,
Speaker 1: it's got it's got everything. It's so well shot, it.
Speaker 4: Does everything but evidence.
Speaker 1: So oddly enough, yeah, it's I spent weeks trying to
Speaker 1: figure out the chronology of all this, and the worst
Speaker 1: part was probably trying to, like we talked about, get
Speaker 1: sources for all these comments rumors here or are there
Speaker 1: about what was going on with the project, how the
Speaker 1: samples were produced, or who who was giving samples to
Speaker 1: her and what she was doing with them. That that's
Speaker 1: what it took so long to sort through all that.
Speaker 1: So you know, we're at this point now. I think that, Well,
Speaker 1: she did just do an interview on Coast to Coast AM.
Speaker 1: I thought was really fascinating because it was I was
Speaker 1: actually listening to her tell the story at that point,
Speaker 1: which was great because then I don't have to worry
Speaker 1: that it was rumor or speculation, and it was. It
Speaker 1: was really interesting because she admitted that things went terribly
Speaker 1: wrong for her and it did not go the way
Speaker 1: that she wanted to. Things went awry, and she she
Speaker 1: actually said she wouldn't do it again.
Speaker 4: Wrong in terms of what because not everybody heard the
Speaker 4: just the evidence or just the whole story or what
Speaker 4: went wrong.
Speaker 1: She did not expect the reaction that she got. She
Speaker 1: did not anticipate, so she says she didn't anticipate that
Speaker 1: the results would turn out the way they did, and
Speaker 1: then she she was very taken aback by the nastiness
Speaker 1: she received by No No, not only the people who
Speaker 1: didn't believe what she said, but also the people in
Speaker 1: the big book community that had been her supporters, and
Speaker 1: then felt I guess she felt like they turned on her.
Speaker 1: And I think she saw that there was a lot
Speaker 1: of backbiting going on. You know, they were trying this
Speaker 1: one upmanship type thing, Who's going to be the first
Speaker 1: one to get the big scoop on Bigfoot? And she
Speaker 1: really feels like she has something to show, and I
Speaker 1: none of us know what she has right now, and
Speaker 1: I don't know when.
Speaker 5: Well they turn on her in her mind.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure she really explained that. But one thing
Speaker 1: I found that was interesting is when she got into
Speaker 1: this Bigfoot sampling, she says that she didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about the community at all, which is probably true, and
Speaker 1: she ended up dealing with some people that weren't she
Speaker 1: calls weren't ethical. That's what she says. They weren't ethical.
Speaker 1: So I don't know the backstory of what they did
Speaker 1: to her. But there was some corporations that were founded.
Speaker 1: They were supposed to have business deals together and things
Speaker 1: fell through, and there was lawyers involved, and there's some animosity,
Speaker 1: so it I'm not sure we'll know what happens unless
Speaker 1: she writes some sort of book about it.
Speaker 5: So she's not naming names at all.
Speaker 1: She doesn't have to. I mean, if you look, you
Speaker 1: would find who those people are. Yeah, yeah, but she
Speaker 1: didn't name names on the last interview that she did.
Speaker 1: And then what I think also happened is the psych
Speaker 1: study was progressing. That started in the summer in early summer,
Speaker 1: and then that was supposed to end the end of
Speaker 1: this year, and then the paper should be coming out
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen. I think that there was this rush
Speaker 1: to come out with this DNA evidence again to scoop
Speaker 1: each other. They're nervous about getting it out first. At
Speaker 1: the same time, finding Bigfoot people were even getting into
Speaker 1: the DNA testing on their show, so there seemed to
Speaker 1: be this mad rush at the end of the year
Speaker 1: to be the first one to announce DNA results.
Speaker 4: Although, correct me if I'm wrong, But the Psych's Oxford
Speaker 4: DNA project is totally separate from anything the catchment is doing, right,
Speaker 4: I mean they're using two totally different databases and everything
Speaker 4: else like that. So yep, well, right, you're using.
Speaker 3: The same d database, but they're using different samples, right, so.
Speaker 1: There may even be split samples. I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, the other thing is Kenchen already had her samples,
Speaker 3: didn't she she didn't like put an open call out for.
Speaker 1: She did put an open call.
Speaker 3: She okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Cool, she got on Coast to Coast am. She says
Speaker 1: that they when she first appeared on that show, she
Speaker 1: put out in an open call and her and David
Speaker 1: Plaidi's were on that show, and then after that they
Speaker 1: did even a number of additional samples. HM.
Speaker 3: See Bigfoot listens to NPR. So sure there's the wrong
Speaker 3: audience and no, that's that's fascinating to me. I really
Speaker 3: am quite interested to see what comes out of the
Speaker 3: psych study.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that a couple of the other bigger
Speaker 1: stories sort of intertwined into that one. They all sort
Speaker 1: of started merging together. Uh, the Sierra Kills episode that
Speaker 1: was that probably the most dramatic story of the year.
Speaker 3: Where the least dramatic. Inde, I don't think.
Speaker 1: It's over yet. I think there's still stuff that's going
Speaker 1: to come out about that.
Speaker 4: Where can you give us a background on the right?
Speaker 1: Bear hunter and his buddy were on a back roads
Speaker 1: in California National Park and pretty remote area, and then,
Speaker 1: as they tell it, something was coming towards them on
Speaker 1: two legs, sort of like a grayish odd color, and
Speaker 1: Hunter number one shot it, and it jumped into the
Speaker 1: bush and they ran after it, and then they came
Speaker 1: across two smaller creatures, presumably child creatures of the same thing,
Speaker 1: and at one point they felt slightly threatened and they
Speaker 1: shot one of the small ones and the same hunter
Speaker 1: and it died in his arms, and he describes it
Speaker 1: as sort of a cross between a bear and a
Speaker 1: gorilla or something like that. He describes the face and
Speaker 1: the fur and everything, and then they high tailed it
Speaker 1: out of there. They came back, as they say, two
Speaker 1: weeks ago, this is two weeks later. This was disputed
Speaker 1: and couldn't find the body. There was snow on the
Speaker 1: ground and they found a piece of flesh with hair
Speaker 1: on it, and they took that and that became what's
Speaker 1: known as the Bigfoot steak, and that supposedly was put
Speaker 1: in to Ketchum study, but they also studied it tested
Speaker 1: it independently, and recently that result of the independent test
Speaker 1: came back that it was bear. Meanwhile, the Ketchum results
Speaker 1: suggests she has sort of suggested that she believed the
Speaker 1: story and that that sample was part of her bigfoot database.
Speaker 1: So that's not clear what happened at all. But now
Speaker 1: he's changing his story. He was afraid he's going to
Speaker 1: get into trouble because he may have shot a human
Speaker 1: or something close to a human, and it just got
Speaker 1: really nuts.
Speaker 4: A bigfoot human bear thing.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, but he didn't. He also come back and
Speaker 3: say that the results were something like twenty something percent
Speaker 3: bear and then seventy percent unknown.
Speaker 1: I thought that it had his DNA in it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the whole anytime, the story ever since we've talked,
Speaker 3: did our second interview with Todd des Hotel, that whole
Speaker 3: unknown thing seems really suspicious now whenever I hear it.
Speaker 3: It's unknown doesn't mean mystery creature. Apparently unknown means crap.
Speaker 1: And then I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: So you think something more is going to come of
Speaker 5: this story?
Speaker 1: He was saying, I don't think the truth has come
Speaker 1: out at all. I don't know what the truth is
Speaker 1: because it's so muddled at this point, we may never
Speaker 1: know what it is. I think we just have to
Speaker 1: wait to see what Ketchen's data says if we can
Speaker 1: read it, because it might be in Russian when it
Speaker 1: comes out. Which is another thread that's woven through this
Speaker 1: story is the Russian contingent that they study the yetti
Speaker 1: over there. They are very open to the idea that
Speaker 1: it's real that he lives in caves, that he's all
Speaker 1: over the villages, and they try to bring tourists over
Speaker 1: and it's a very different world over there. They love
Speaker 1: their yetti though, and apparently they said to Melba, yeah, sure, welcome,
Speaker 1: welcome to Russia. We'll we'll publish the paper over here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, why don't you tell us about that, because
Speaker 4: that's a good lead into the Russian claims about the
Speaker 4: yetti hare where earlier this year they said that they
Speaker 4: were I think proved positive or ninety nine percent or something,
Speaker 4: and that was the one where Jeff Meldrum was there,
Speaker 4: and it turned into this big fiasco. Can you can
Speaker 4: you recap that for us?
Speaker 1: That was a good story. I saw Jeff speak when
Speaker 1: he got back at a big foot convention and he
Speaker 1: gave the story that he went over to Russia. They
Speaker 1: invited him as as a premier scientist over there, and
Speaker 1: a couple of other bigfoot researchers from the US and
Speaker 1: a woman from Michigan who claims that they were living
Speaker 1: in her backyard and she gets woven into the Ketchum
Speaker 1: story later on, and I'll come back to that. But
Speaker 1: they all went over there to this this U conference
Speaker 1: and they were under the impressionnumbers is going to be
Speaker 1: some sort of scientific interest in it. It turns out
Speaker 1: there really wasn't. It was more like a media event.
Speaker 1: And they ended up going to a cave that was
Speaker 1: supposedly housed a yetti he lived there. And as soon
Speaker 1: as they walked in the cave, oh look hair, Oh
Speaker 1: look a footprint. Oh never mind, it's just one foot,
Speaker 1: you know. A couple of times it's a fun yeah,
Speaker 1: And a nest they found in the corner and this
Speaker 1: scientist igor Bertsev. Jeff described him as jumping in the
Speaker 1: nest and rolling around it and say, look, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a yetti nest. And you could see the way
Speaker 1: Jeff was talking about it, he was mortified that if
Speaker 1: this actually was a piece of evidence, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Big He was fury. He was furious at how this
Speaker 1: turned out. And he came back and I really don't
Speaker 1: think that he had any intention of believing anything that
Speaker 1: they said for that after that point he sounded really disgusted.
Speaker 1: That same woman that went over there with the continued
Speaker 1: American contingent that Jeff ran into while he was there,
Speaker 1: was the woman in Michigan who says that she was
Speaker 1: feeding the bigfoot in her backyard and they particularly liked
Speaker 1: blueberry bagels, and apparently one of these blueberry bagels may
Speaker 1: have had saliva on it, and that was part of
Speaker 1: sample taking put in the Ketchum study. Later on, Ketchum
Speaker 1: ended up hiring this woman, robin Lynpeffer, to be her spokesperson,
Speaker 1: and she just really didn't do a good job at it.
Speaker 1: She couldn't read the scientific paper, she couldn't talk in
Speaker 1: a way that was suitable for public relations. She was
Speaker 1: extremely biased and what she was talking about the forest
Speaker 1: people in her backyard, and so it was just it
Speaker 1: was weird.
Speaker 4: Was she in the pyrole of big Bagel?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. But when I first read that story,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, there's people, you know, coming into her backyard,
Speaker 1: her kids, friends, you know, eating the bagels.
Speaker 5: It's something else going on there, brought.
Speaker 4: To you by Einstein Brothers. Bagels, the favorite of Bigfoot everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's just all it's weird. It's all molded together, and
Speaker 1: you know, you have you have the finding Bigfoot people
Speaker 1: like not moneymaker uh saying that he doesn't trust catch
Speaker 1: him and this is all a bunch of hooey that's
Speaker 1: going on, and nobody's nobody's got the right answer but
Speaker 1: him my parently, Well.
Speaker 3: He is the final arbiter of Bigfoot fat and and
Speaker 3: Bobo is the human Bigfoot analog. So this all makes sense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, did you want to say Boba fete?
Speaker 3: But I almost said Boba fet is what I almost said.
Speaker 3: So what's his actual last name? Is it fee?
Speaker 4: I thought it was.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's not Boba fed I think it's
Speaker 3: fay here, right, I think it is fay, So I
Speaker 3: decided to just call them bobo instead. So I went
Speaker 3: boba like that, But no, I did not mean you
Speaker 3: did you did?
Speaker 4: Moving on, I would have edited out.
Speaker 3: It would all have been gone. Nobody had known. It
Speaker 3: would have been good. So I guess the big story
Speaker 3: then is that we're undoubtedly going to find the answer
Speaker 3: about Bigfoot because Spike TV is offering ten mid dollars
Speaker 3: bounty for whoever brings one in dead or live.
Speaker 1: Right, No, it doesn't work like that. What Spike TV
Speaker 1: had already picked some Bigfoot researchers and beforehand for this series,
Speaker 1: they had recruited some people. They're not just offering an
Speaker 1: open reward for ten million dollars, huh No. And there,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, they this is for a series.
Speaker 1: They had already interviewed some people to you know, for
Speaker 1: this unscripted I don't know, a series, reality type series.
Speaker 1: And they already had their people in line, and those
Speaker 1: those teams were supposed to compete to get this prize
Speaker 1: money for a definitive proof of Bigfoot, whatever that would be,
Speaker 1: and then they had they would have to make a
Speaker 1: judgment call about whether that evidence was good enough for
Speaker 1: ten million dollars. I can't see what evidence would be
Speaker 1: good enough for ten million dollars except for the actual
Speaker 1: body itself.
Speaker 3: Hey, yeah, that's what I would be looking for.
Speaker 5: What the good news with this is that we've got
Speaker 5: someone on our side who's working with them, Toddell. He's
Speaker 5: going to be their consultants. So hopefully he's going to
Speaker 5: keep them on the right track.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm confident he will.
Speaker 4: Unless they just steamroll them, because sometimes they do that.
Speaker 4: Don't doesn't matter how good your intentions are, doesn't matter
Speaker 4: how much science you try to inject, They just they'll
Speaker 4: edit you out.
Speaker 5: So we've got a voice there that's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I mean they might edit the crap out
Speaker 3: of his screen time, but I don't think they can
Speaker 3: mess with his DNA results, So yeah, maybe not so so.
Speaker 3: I I guess we've only got like a day left
Speaker 3: in the year, and by the time this comes out,
Speaker 3: that won't even be true. So likelihood that Bigfoot will
Speaker 3: be definitively proven in twenty twelve. No, what about twenty thirteen?
Speaker 3: How's it looking?
Speaker 1: Well? You know, I bet if we were sitting here
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, we would have said the same thing.
Speaker 1: You know that you know, but something could happen. That's cynical,
Speaker 1: I am, But so many people sat through twenty twelve
Speaker 1: thinking it's right around the corner. It's right around the corner,
Speaker 1: this is going to be the year and nothing happened
Speaker 1: or it was going to end. Yeah. I'm really looking
Speaker 1: forward to Psych's results as well. I want to see
Speaker 1: what they what they have to show for it.
Speaker 5: I really when are those results becoming available?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Early next year? Okay, And I hope. I'm actually hoping
Speaker 3: we can get him on the show once he's published,
Speaker 3: because apparently he's keeping this very close to pocket. It's
Speaker 3: the threat way, and he's not saying.
Speaker 1: And that's the way a scientist should work.
Speaker 3: Well, he's not going to do a press release about
Speaker 3: what he thinks might be happening. I don't understand.
Speaker 1: About leaking it on Facebook. No.
Speaker 4: Excellent, Well, Sharon, what what do you think is going
Speaker 4: to happen with the catching thing? I mean, as you said,
Speaker 4: you you know, it could be anything from nothing to
Speaker 4: results published in Russian. You've been following this whole story
Speaker 4: closer than most people have. What's what's your general sense
Speaker 4: of what will what will happen with it.
Speaker 1: My general sense is that I shall not predict a
Speaker 1: darn thing because I cannot imagine the next strange twist
Speaker 1: that things will take.
Speaker 3: I just can't I predict someone's going to come out
Speaker 3: with an outrageous story about Bigfoot but have no evidence
Speaker 3: to back it up. Every way, good, Yeah, but you
Speaker 3: did mention here the continued popularity of the TV show
Speaker 3: Finding Bigfoot. Unfortunately, how has science explain that?
Speaker 1: I have heard that half the audience watches it just
Speaker 1: for a.
Speaker 5: Good laugh, just like Ghost Hunters.
Speaker 3: You know, you say that, I've heard a lot of
Speaker 3: people laughing at the ghost owners. But I know people
Speaker 3: who think that show is scientific true, and I.
Speaker 5: Think, okay, ghost Adventures.
Speaker 3: Then done right?
Speaker 5: Yeah, no one thinks that's real.
Speaker 3: No, well, no, no, no, no, no, I wouldn't go that far.
Speaker 3: I don't think anyone thinks it's scientific, though. Did I
Speaker 3: tell you? My favorite joke is, uh, Joel McHale calls
Speaker 3: Zach Began Scooby Douche.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I heard that.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Matthew has been using that one for a while,
Speaker 5: So that's been that's been doing the rounds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good, it's rue.
Speaker 5: Scooby Douche.
Speaker 1: That's the first time I've heard it. That's hilarious.
Speaker 5: All Right, it's been a random while.
Speaker 3: I'll probably tip that out. You'll need to stop saying things.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to cut out. I am too lazy
Speaker 3: to edit. All right. So let's move on to what
Speaker 3: was probably one of the biggest stories of twenty twelve,
Speaker 3: bar none, which was the incredible mammoth video, the Siberian Mammoth.
Speaker 3: Actually we covered that on the show you did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was you not only covered it, but you
Speaker 1: uncovered it as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, we did a pretty good job on that.
Speaker 4: We did right on that one.
Speaker 3: I like that because it was fine because we were
Speaker 3: timely and and after doing a ridiculous amount of video work,
Speaker 3: I was able to precisely show the frames in which
Speaker 3: that was inserted, and we got on video experts to
Speaker 3: show that it was digitally inserted and it was not
Speaker 3: a bear with a fish in his mouth. That was
Speaker 3: a really fun case where so many skeptics went with
Speaker 3: Okham's razor and then drew I guess the wrong conclusions,
Speaker 3: which is really fun funny. I mean, not like haha skeptic.
Speaker 3: I'm a skeptic too. I'm just saying it's it's a
Speaker 3: it's a trap you can set for yourself and fall into.
Speaker 5: And now that is completely died down.
Speaker 1: But the strange thing is that if you go to
Speaker 1: the sun, the video is still there is and the
Speaker 1: story is still up unchanged.
Speaker 5: They'll do anything.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a fun story. And actually that came
Speaker 1: out the same time as the as another fun video did.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, Yeah, it's the same time that.
Speaker 3: We had a Monster talk listener. Give us some additional
Speaker 3: info on that.
Speaker 1: Right, the Icelandic worm?
Speaker 3: What's that? How do you pronounce the rule?
Speaker 1: I know you were gonna say that. I shouldn't have
Speaker 1: said anything.
Speaker 5: You've been practicing.
Speaker 1: Hang on, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta find the
Speaker 1: correct pronunciation is lagger flat ser.
Speaker 4: Murine, bless you yay.
Speaker 1: And I know I did that wrong because I can't
Speaker 1: do the Icelandic thing with the fl J. I've been told, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna sound stupid when you say it, but good enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 1: It's the lager flat worm.
Speaker 4: Oh I like that, Yeah, the lagger worm. So what's
Speaker 4: the recap on that one?
Speaker 1: Well, there's this glacial river in Iceland, and so it
Speaker 1: was it was very icy and it's flowing out of
Speaker 1: the glacier. And this was in February or maybe end
Speaker 1: of January when it was actually taken. And it really
Speaker 1: looks like something going through the water with a rather
Speaker 1: large snakelike head and then undulating behind it through the
Speaker 1: icy water. And immediately when you see snake in icy water,
Speaker 1: you know, things clash. That just doesn't work like that.
Speaker 1: Snakes don't go in icy water. They can't. So this thing,
Speaker 1: very snake like was was filmed and we had this
Speaker 1: cool video of something looking really weird through the water
Speaker 1: and looks like an ice worm. And there was a
Speaker 1: legend about the worm in the lake. So that's what
Speaker 1: the filmmaker attributed to that it was this ice worm.
Speaker 1: He had evidence of this ice worm and it really wasn't.
Speaker 3: Actually a small clarification of that, didn't he actually just
Speaker 3: submit the video in the news agency.
Speaker 1: Oh did they?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think they attributed it is there I have been.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, as I recalled, because I wrote something
Speaker 4: on that for Discovery News and as I recall, what
Speaker 4: had happened was that he had sent it in just
Speaker 4: sort of as this weird thing. And it wasn't clear
Speaker 4: whether he himself, I know that he himself didn't call
Speaker 4: it the ice worm, I even trying to pronounce it,
Speaker 4: but he just sent it in as something weird. And
Speaker 4: my recollection is that it was promptly mislabeled, either intentionally
Speaker 4: or accidentally, certainly for sensationalism, as as the as the
Speaker 4: Icelandic river monster. And then it then it went out
Speaker 4: from there.
Speaker 5: But there was a local legend about that creature or
Speaker 5: a creature like that.
Speaker 1: There was in the lake. Yeah, yes, and it was
Speaker 1: just it was a really cool video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it looked cool. It was definitely interesting. It
Speaker 3: just I think what one of our listeners pointed out
Speaker 3: was it's not actually making any movement, like uh, forward
Speaker 3: or backward movement, and it's actually stationary with the way
Speaker 3: the river's moving is what it seems like it's moving.
Speaker 3: It's stationary but writhing like the water is actually driving it.
Speaker 1: So and it and it turned out to be a
Speaker 1: net of some sort, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And the other thing is a lot of people attributed
Speaker 3: it to a hoax, and that's not necessarily a hoax.
Speaker 3: A guy saw something weird in the river. You know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean he hoaxed, that he just took the video.
Speaker 3: So I think a hoax is kind of like a lie.
Speaker 3: It implies intent, right, misidentification.
Speaker 4: So yeah, then I'm glad you. I was gonna say,
Speaker 4: I'm glad you brought to the blake because I think that
Speaker 4: that's that was one of the important sort of lessons
Speaker 4: that I took from from the Icelandic River Monster was
Speaker 4: exactly as you were just saying, is that it's you know,
Speaker 4: the the assumption oftentimes is immediately, oh, it's fake, but
Speaker 4: that doesn't really answer the question. I mean, it's fake
Speaker 4: in that it's not real, but there's definitely a valid
Speaker 4: question of intent to deceive. And certainly in that case,
Speaker 4: it's pretty clear that the guy that took the video
Speaker 4: didn't intend to deceive anybody. Uh and you know the
Speaker 4: people at the TV station again, did they were they
Speaker 4: intending to? I mean, who knows. It could be it
Speaker 4: was sent to some you know, some lackey producer who
Speaker 4: thought that's what it was, and it would have been
Speaker 4: a simple, you know, an honest mistake. But it's it's
Speaker 4: I think it's always important to look at you know,
Speaker 4: the attempt to deceive and not not be too quick
Speaker 4: to label something of hopes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that the recent Denver ufo slash insects
Speaker 3: flying video. I think that's a really good example where
Speaker 3: the media is getting a lot of attention and it's
Speaker 3: definitely not in their best business interest to acknowledge that
Speaker 3: there's a clear and obvious explanation besides UFOs are flying
Speaker 3: in and out of Denver.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they've been dragging that one out for a while.
Speaker 3: That's easy.
Speaker 5: The guy who submitted the film as well was a
Speaker 5: little bit cagy h and I think there's a bit more.
Speaker 3: To that story could be.
Speaker 4: Has he now been identified?
Speaker 5: No? No, still he hasn't come forward.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: Anonymous you can always sort of question that, though you
Speaker 3: do you really should? I mean, I'm sure there are
Speaker 3: really valid reasons why you'd want to remain anonymous, But
Speaker 3: like people who anonymously submit bigfoot videos and and yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's a that's a red flag.
Speaker 5: But you know, all of the UFOs have disappeared now,
Speaker 5: and they'll come back next spring, of.
Speaker 3: Course they will. There'll be new ones, though the old
Speaker 3: ones will be dead because their life cycles are just
Speaker 3: not anyway, So yeah, my favorite category of monster really
Speaker 3: is the real monsters that are washing up on the
Speaker 3: shores of rivers and beaches around the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The last time I was on I recall, Karen
Speaker 1: asked if there was any good carcasses, you know, that
Speaker 1: had washed up, but it was early in the year,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, we have to wait till the summer.
Speaker 1: Sure enough, in July. Well there was one earlier in
Speaker 1: California that washed up, and that was a great one
Speaker 1: because when that washed up, it looked so plastic and fake.
Speaker 1: I thought for sure it was a hoax. But you know,
Speaker 1: friend of Monster Talk Darren Nasche looked at it and said,
Speaker 1: it's an apossum, and sure enough it was. And that
Speaker 1: was that was given a fancy name, the San Diego Demonoid,
Speaker 1: and you know, so that got some some play in
Speaker 1: the media, but not as much as the East River Monster,
Speaker 1: which washed up in New York City off off the
Speaker 1: East River in the summer, and it was this bloating
Speaker 1: balls that yeah carcass, and it looked like if you'd
Speaker 1: poked it, it was going to explode. And I've heard people
Speaker 1: tell me don't ever do that, because they do explode.
Speaker 3: Too, and it's the worst smell you've ever experienced.
Speaker 1: This actually happens, so don't poke it with a stick.
Speaker 5: It happened.
Speaker 3: I wish you know. Of course, the real key is
Speaker 3: when you're going to take a picture of a monster
Speaker 3: that you find on the shore, always puts something that
Speaker 3: has a good frame size for reference. You throw a
Speaker 3: dollar down through a quick order down, but something next
Speaker 3: to us, you can tell how big it is.
Speaker 1: Right, And I also learned that you should always try
Speaker 1: to get the teeth and the feet. Those are also indicative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it seemed that the teeth especially are very unique
Speaker 1: to different families of animals, so if it becomes rather
Speaker 1: easy to pick them up. Because at that point the
Speaker 1: Easter monster, the woman who had taken the pictures did
Speaker 1: a couple angles, and but the pictures weren't quite so great.
Speaker 1: She couldn't really see too much inside the mouth. But
Speaker 1: she actually did come onto my website and talk to
Speaker 1: me a bit about it and said it was just
Speaker 1: a really weird thing she took pictures of and then
Speaker 1: it just went went all over the media something really
Speaker 1: bizarre and cool. But they were able to figure out
Speaker 1: it was a raccoon.
Speaker 3: That's fun, those darn raccoons.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 5: Nice to get a nanso.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course. I mean you have to kind of
Speaker 3: blame evolution a little bit. All these mammals when you
Speaker 3: get all their fur off, they look kind of alike.
Speaker 1: And unusual.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well that the rotting, you know, does make them
Speaker 3: look unusual. But I mean they got four legs ahead
Speaker 3: TLT you know. I mean, but it is if you're
Speaker 3: not trained and you don't know the size, they do
Speaker 3: look weird.
Speaker 5: But it like we're not used to saying things like that.
Speaker 3: So, but I mean misidentification. I think it counts for
Speaker 3: a lot of monster sightings because you see an unusual
Speaker 3: animal you don't know what it is. All the things
Speaker 3: we talk about on this show, it's like if you
Speaker 3: look at twenty twelve, you can just see all the
Speaker 3: key points, you know, pulled together here for you.
Speaker 1: Well, one last thing on the unidentified carcasses, I mean,
Speaker 1: darren Naishall also identified the Montalk Monster, which was also
Speaker 1: a raccoon. To this day, people still talk about the
Speaker 1: Montalk Monster. Do they talk about it being a raccoon.
Speaker 1: Not usually, They still talk about the legend of it
Speaker 1: being some sort of mutant animal that washed up from
Speaker 1: Plumb Island.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: It was mutants, genetics experiments, and exactly evil government goings on.
Speaker 3: So this was also the year of Mermaids. That's kind
Speaker 3: of weird. Yeah, it really was.
Speaker 1: They really got popular this year.
Speaker 3: They come back, not the little mermaid kind, the creepy,
Speaker 3: real pseudo documentary kind.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the ones that might bite your face off. They
Speaker 1: were kind of nasty too, and people got afraid of
Speaker 1: them because for some reason they thought that that was real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bust their hearts it actually, I think, you know
Speaker 3: a lot of the listeners to the show were kind
Speaker 3: of we're not a lot a few of the listeners
Speaker 3: of the show complained that we were so hard on
Speaker 3: that documentary not documentary, rephrase that right, Yeah, that show,
Speaker 3: the Animal Planet, Mermaids, the Body Found show. I just yeah,
Speaker 3: it would have been a great horror film, and it
Speaker 3: was maybe superior to a lot of the you know,
Speaker 3: squid octopus versus mecha shark kind of things that they
Speaker 3: have on the Sci Fi Channel. I may have just
Speaker 3: invented a new show.
Speaker 4: Someone just picked it up and renewed it.
Speaker 3: But what really it wasn't just the fact that it
Speaker 3: was a fake thing about mermaids. It was also the
Speaker 3: fact that they to sort of shore up the show's authenticity,
Speaker 3: they pulled from the aquatic ape theory excuse me hypothesis,
Speaker 3: which is a thoroughly discredited hypothesis, and then they gave
Speaker 3: it screen time. And for a lot of people, something
Speaker 3: being mentioned on a documentary is equal to it being
Speaker 3: a true fact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really they scienced it up a lot, and
Speaker 1: people don't know.
Speaker 3: Right, and all the actors on the show were pretending
Speaker 3: to be scientists. It was supposed to seem true.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: The format was you know, documentary, right, and and there
Speaker 3: again there was I liked the style of it. I
Speaker 3: just didn't like the you know, I feel a little
Speaker 3: bit and I feel I don't want to complain, how
Speaker 3: do you feel? It bugs me that they could have
Speaker 3: done something much better and that they gave strength to
Speaker 3: something that should die. Right, So the the aquatic gate hypothesis,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna whatever, it should go away because it's not real.
Speaker 3: And and the problem is that every crappy idea that
Speaker 3: anybody can get out of their mouth can live on
Speaker 3: the internet forever. And if you put something on a
Speaker 3: television show, it lives longer, you know, and maybe us
Speaker 3: talking about it's the worst thing we can do in.
Speaker 1: A way that backfire effect.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to move on. Let's get to a
Speaker 3: monsture that is real and is terrifying. Zombies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the zombie apocalypse. That was a buzzword in the
Speaker 1: summer or early part of the summer, where people got
Speaker 1: really scared that there actually were disturbed people running around
Speaker 1: eating other people. And I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: just the media picking up on the one story and
Speaker 1: then finding other stories that were similar, which is often
Speaker 1: what happens, or if there really was this strange grouping
Speaker 1: of the same type of stories altogether at once where
Speaker 1: you had these incidents where people were attacking other people
Speaker 1: in this way. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seemed to me like it was the first
Speaker 3: story happened, and then other reporters were like, Wow, that
Speaker 3: story has legs. Can we find any more stories like
Speaker 3: that where people are biting each other?
Speaker 4: Just fabricating epidemic? They do it all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this this whole the main story, the one
Speaker 3: that came out of Florida. It opened up with this
Speaker 3: allegation that a guy who was on some kind of
Speaker 3: drug called bath salts had gone out of his mind
Speaker 3: on this drug and was attacking another guy, and then
Speaker 3: they ultimately had to shoot him, but he had chewed
Speaker 3: the guy's face off. Right from the very get go.
Speaker 3: That story was odd, and not just the part about
Speaker 3: him eating another guy's face. The story as it was
Speaker 3: released was all about this bath Salts drug. It was
Speaker 3: a very odd story because I had never heard of
Speaker 3: bath salts before, and all of a sudden it became
Speaker 3: like this hot topic tied to this attack.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think a lot of people thought they
Speaker 5: were real both salts.
Speaker 3: Well, that's true. That's the other thing is because I mean,
Speaker 3: are we going to have pure one zombies attacking is
Speaker 3: I was really worried, but I was like, I took
Speaker 3: all my ind records out of the house just to
Speaker 3: be safe.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 4: So no.
Speaker 3: I just thought it was odd because it reminded me
Speaker 3: a lot of those stories from the seventies and eighties
Speaker 3: about PCP uh pausing crazy crimes, and it's like, does
Speaker 3: PCP really cause crazy crimes or is that like cop folklore? Right? Uh?
Speaker 4: You know, Well, one of the things that that tend
Speaker 4: to get lost in the in the whole hubbub was that,
Speaker 4: as it turned out, he hadn't used bad exactly. It
Speaker 4: was he was high on marijuana. I'm not bath salts.
Speaker 4: So you know, so people were just repeating and going
Speaker 4: on the story, Oh my god, you know our kids
Speaker 4: today having baths salts, and they're going to be you know,
Speaker 4: we're gonna have the zombie apocalypse. And then and then
Speaker 4: finally the toxicology tests come back a couple weeks later
Speaker 4: and they're like, uh no, there's there's nothing.
Speaker 3: To do this now. I just want to remember that
Speaker 3: well right, well, you know, right exactly, you have to
Speaker 3: do some follow up. So just for the record, I
Speaker 3: just want to say that, you know, this guy, the
Speaker 3: attacker and the victim, you know, they were both people.
Speaker 3: They were both humans, They had families, you know, and
Speaker 3: it's a tragedy. It's also the worst case of the
Speaker 3: munchies I've ever heard of.
Speaker 1: So then the Center for Disease Control had to come
Speaker 1: back and say, really, there aren't zombies.
Speaker 3: Oh and there aren't mermaids either.
Speaker 1: They had to Yeah, I know, I had to tell
Speaker 1: people that.
Speaker 3: This is the year the government makes just all calm.
Speaker 3: They should just have trucks driving around saying there's no
Speaker 3: need to panic, stay in your homes.
Speaker 1: And cover up.
Speaker 5: You know that.
Speaker 3: I I will throw out that from the fictional world.
Speaker 3: The season three of The Walking Dead has been almost
Speaker 3: like a heartfelt apology for season two. I feel great
Speaker 3: about it. So what else happened in twenty twelve? Oh,
Speaker 3: they were going to go to Africa using a Kickstarter
Speaker 3: to look for michaela mbmbe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a great story.
Speaker 3: How did that turn out?
Speaker 4: They found it? Right?
Speaker 1: I read about that, they turned around and came home.
Speaker 3: Oh did they make it all the way to Africa?
Speaker 1: I believe they did. And so this this group of kids,
Speaker 1: and I'm just I'm imagining the stereotype, these clean cut
Speaker 1: church going kids, you know, get to I get their idea.
Speaker 1: They're gonna go look for giant spiders and Molkelly Bavenbe
Speaker 1: and they're gonna come back. They're in a film it
Speaker 1: and they're gonna be famous. They're gonna make a documentary
Speaker 1: and everything is going to be really cool. And so hey,
Speaker 1: let's go on Kickstarter. And they got twenty nine thousand
Speaker 1: dollars well for their project, and which was over I
Speaker 1: think what they needed. Well, it turns out they get
Speaker 1: the small group of them get to the Congo. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the rest of us standing here saying don't go. It's
Speaker 1: stage is. Don't you know what goes on over there?
Speaker 1: It's not safe. They went, and they apparently got a
Speaker 1: pile of equipment, and they had to take food with them,
Speaker 1: they had to get guides and everything. By the time
Speaker 1: they got ready to go. From the story that I heard,
Speaker 1: because I did follow up on it, some of their
Speaker 1: equipment may have been stolen. They didn't have enough money
Speaker 1: in their budget to go for the three months that
Speaker 1: they wanted to. There were no scientists on the project,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how they were going to identify
Speaker 1: new species, and they weren't experienced in any of this
Speaker 1: really dangerous land and this dangerous adventure they were going on.
Speaker 1: And they turned around and came home the end, the
Speaker 1: website went down, and I don't know where the money went.
Speaker 1: I think according to Kickstarter rules, you're supposed to return it.
Speaker 3: Well, if they went to Africa, I mean, it's surely
Speaker 3: it's worth something.
Speaker 4: While I was gonna say that, I'm glad that you
Speaker 4: did a follow up on that, because it's you know,
Speaker 4: far too often in these cryptozoology cases, you know, the
Speaker 4: the initial headline makes the news and oh my god,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah, and you know, the rejoinder and the
Speaker 4: outcome is sort of lost in the lost in it
Speaker 4: either doesn't get reported period or gets lost in the shovel.
Speaker 4: So I was pleased to see that you did a
Speaker 4: follow up on doubtful News.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was just sitting around one day thinking, whatever
Speaker 1: happened to those kids?
Speaker 4: Are they dead? Are they membe?
Speaker 1: I was concerned. I was concerned that they would be
Speaker 1: dead or lost in the in the jungle, and so
Speaker 1: I tried to look some stuff up and found that
Speaker 1: revealing piece by the one person that was told, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't have a room for you. So he was
Speaker 1: sent back. And then it turns out that they all
Speaker 1: ended up, you know, failure didn't work out.
Speaker 3: They found machilamammbay, they disproved evolution, and now they're on
Speaker 3: the lecture circuit. Yeah. No, oh, I worry.
Speaker 1: I said, I actually worried about those kids.
Speaker 3: They no, I did know for real. Yeah that's a
Speaker 3: very dangerous, crazy thing to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't I don't really have anything constructed to say to
Speaker 3: them except I hope they learned something.
Speaker 1: I'm sure.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll just add that I looked into their their
Speaker 4: expedition and I wrote a little bit about it, and
Speaker 4: I'm looking at this and I'm like, you people don't
Speaker 4: have a clue what the hell you're doing. It was just,
Speaker 4: you know, they just you know. I was reading their
Speaker 4: their bios and it's it's it's like Sharon said, it's
Speaker 4: like a couple of kids were like, Hey, this will
Speaker 4: be cool, let's go do this. I'm like, have you
Speaker 4: do you know what? Do you speak the language? Do
Speaker 4: you do you know what language they speak in Congo?
Speaker 4: Have you been to Africa? Do you do you have
Speaker 4: a big enough net? What the hell are you doing?
Speaker 3: Have you have you rented and watched the movie Congo?
Speaker 4: Exactly?
Speaker 5: Raise that much money?
Speaker 1: Though? Well, it's sounded like a great idea. I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, people thought it was a great idea and
Speaker 1: they had the same delusions as they did. There was
Speaker 1: also rumored that they didn't get the permits they needed
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 3: But rides right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, to be fair, I mean, there there have
Speaker 4: been expeditions to to you know for Mochalla Membe. You know,
Speaker 4: Roy and Michael did a couple and things like that,
Speaker 4: And the difference is that is that you know, they
Speaker 4: were he was well funded, and they'd actually been in
Speaker 4: Africa before and they had at least some vague prayer
Speaker 4: of doing what they set out to accomplish and including
Speaker 4: having some actual expertise unlike this gang and planning.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah. For more about Mikaela by Vimbe, you
Speaker 3: can go back and listen to our interview with Don Prothee.
Speaker 3: That was great, it was it was Don Don does
Speaker 3: not hold back.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: So twenty twelve obviously a great for Nasi.
Speaker 4: No what.
Speaker 1: No. She didn't show up very often. Sightings were down,
Speaker 1: it seemed, and the people on the lock were getting
Speaker 1: a little worried. Gee, she's not showing up, and that's
Speaker 1: not good because when she does show up, then more
Speaker 1: people come to the lock and look for So this
Speaker 1: strange photo appeared in August Bye and it was done
Speaker 1: by George Edwards, who runs i think like a boating
Speaker 1: surface on the lake and the picture was very odd.
Speaker 1: She just looked at the picture. It didn't look like
Speaker 1: an animal, didn't look like it was moving or it
Speaker 1: didn't look like it was swimming correctly, and it was
Speaker 1: just sort of a hump coming out of the water
Speaker 1: and you could see her castle in the background and stuff.
Speaker 1: And about a week later or so, not that that
Speaker 1: many days later a picture surface of George Edwards actually
Speaker 1: pulling this hump, fiberglass hump on his vote and turned
Speaker 1: out that somebody, Steve Feltham, who works at the lock.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what he does, but his researcher
Speaker 1: there and he says, yeah, that's the fiberglass hump we
Speaker 1: built about ten years ago, and it was used in
Speaker 1: a documentary about the lock, and George Edwards knew about it.
Speaker 1: He had worked with it. He helped with the documentary.
Speaker 1: Funny this picture should show up. Meanwhile, Edwards had this
Speaker 1: story about authenticating the picture here in the US that
Speaker 1: he sent to military experts. I don't know why our
Speaker 1: military experts would be experts on lake monsters from Scotland,
Speaker 1: but he thought that that added credibility to the story.
Speaker 1: And the best part was like what he was once
Speaker 1: quoted in the newspaper about it. He says that mister
Speaker 1: Feltham was entitled to his opinion about you know what
Speaker 1: the picture represented, and said that people who make their
Speaker 1: livelihoods from the lock should be happy it's in the news.
Speaker 1: That line right there told me everything I needed to
Speaker 1: know that the Edwards was intent on getting some attention,
Speaker 1: and he succeeded. Hoax or not.
Speaker 4: Well, as I recalled, part of the story was that
Speaker 4: that the he had actually been selling postcards of that
Speaker 4: image like months earlier before before it even allegedly you know,
Speaker 4: came out. We're like, well, that's odd, you've had it
Speaker 4: for a while now. Curious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know how people think we won't figure
Speaker 1: that out eventually.
Speaker 5: I guess a lot don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. They don't look that far, you know.
Speaker 1: And and again maybe people didn't realize that that photo
Speaker 1: was actually they actually came up with an explanation for
Speaker 1: it because all they remember seeing was the picture in
Speaker 1: the daily Mail.
Speaker 4: Well, that actually leads to another issue, another thing that
Speaker 4: came up in the field of cryptosology and cryptosological organizations
Speaker 4: this year, which is that, if I'm not mistaken, doctor
Speaker 4: Carl Schucker issued the first actual new journal of cryptoology
Speaker 4: in years and years.
Speaker 3: Yes, I have a copy.
Speaker 4: Why don't you tell us about it, Blake.
Speaker 3: It is in a compact format, has a nice cover
Speaker 3: in the articles after a curse re look look wonderful.
Speaker 3: And I wish I could say I've read it. I
Speaker 3: have not had time because I just got it about
Speaker 3: a week ago, two weeks ago maybe, and but it's
Speaker 3: at the very top of my must read pile.
Speaker 4: Well i've read it, I mean I can. I was.
Speaker 4: I wasn't trying to put you on the spot, but.
Speaker 3: I have not read it. It's got a leopard on
Speaker 3: the front if I remember.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, the only reason I think it's it's
Speaker 4: it's worthy of note is again that you know Carl
Speaker 4: Schucker is a zoologist, and he is he is one
Speaker 4: of the eminent crypts as wellist certainly the science based
Speaker 4: ones in the world. And it's kind of refreshing to
Speaker 4: see a reasonably science based publication for that. So I
Speaker 4: certainly wish it the best of luck.
Speaker 3: And we have two previous Monster Talk guests are on
Speaker 3: the review board, if I remember correctly, Darren Nash and
Speaker 3: David Waldron.
Speaker 4: I believe that sounds right.
Speaker 1: So it's a king cheetah on the cover, isn't it not?
Speaker 1: A leopard.
Speaker 3: It's a spotted cat.
Speaker 4: I don't know, it's a feline. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: That was a king cheetah.
Speaker 3: Actually that I did read the intro and explain why
Speaker 3: the image was selected to represent the magazine. All right, Sharon,
Speaker 3: so tell me about these local terrors. What's this section about?
Speaker 1: Oh well, this is sort of the Hodgepodge section.
Speaker 3: Oh it's a Poe Prie of yes, okay.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 1: It's it's you know, your local neighborhood monsters. And over
Speaker 1: the year I collect these stories that came out of
Speaker 1: India or Africa or even in the US. There was
Speaker 1: a couple or one in Mexico where we had these
Speaker 1: strange creatures were said to have appeared and caused havoc.
Speaker 1: So we had a real creature, real monster. Was that
Speaker 1: a man eating leopard in Nepaul that actually killed fifteen
Speaker 1: people And I don't know how that turned out, but
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a real life monster, you know, hearkening
Speaker 1: back to the wolf tales of an animal actually finding
Speaker 1: it easier to kill and eat people don't find any
Speaker 1: other food. So that was that was kind of scary.
Speaker 1: And then we had a cheapcabrera incident in Mexico where
Speaker 1: the sheep deaths were blamed on this mystery monster. That
Speaker 1: story just did not pan out. I mean I saw
Speaker 1: the video and and do you remember that. I think
Speaker 1: you wrote on that too. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I wrote a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was Yeah, one animal was dead, pretty much, right.
Speaker 4: I mean they made it sound like, you know, like
Speaker 4: hundreds of sheep were found eviscerated in every drop of blood,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. And and they're like, oh, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: look there's one dead sheep. Probably have a heart attack. Yeah,
Speaker 4: nothing to see here, move on.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And and in the media they had a magic creature,
Speaker 1: black magic creature, scared for the village. Yeah, and as
Speaker 1: wan as Wang in the Philippines, I know it was
Speaker 1: some ghoul they call it. Uh, it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a vampire type creature. And they had to have the
Speaker 1: archbishop come in and says, look, it's it's not real.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, don't freak out people, It's just a story.
Speaker 1: And in Mumbai you had the same issue. People are
Speaker 1: scared of these creatures roaming in the night and they
Speaker 1: attribute it to these magical supernatural beings. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what it is if it's people going around actually
Speaker 1: robbing the houses or terrorizing the people on purpose or what.
Speaker 1: But it really scares the people in these villages, and
Speaker 1: they happen sometimes I guess to be superstitious enough to
Speaker 1: buy into this folklore story that there's something evil this
Speaker 1: way comes. But and then the goblins in Zimbabwe was
Speaker 1: the same thing goblins, And I'm not sure if their
Speaker 1: goblins are the same as what we think about as goblins,
Speaker 1: but sort of evil creatures that go into your houses
Speaker 1: and set fires and cause disease. And well, it was
Speaker 1: funny because the one story about the goblins in Zimbabwe,
Speaker 1: they were attributing these house fires to this goblin and
Speaker 1: this one family would be pelted with stones, dirt was
Speaker 1: thrown into their food as they were cooking it, and
Speaker 1: then fires would be lit in the houses and they
Speaker 1: were always happened around this one sixteen year old member
Speaker 1: of the family that he would walk into the house
Speaker 1: and then he would run out of the house saying,
Speaker 1: there's a fire. Well, pulta gust. It was very Poultergeist like. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so, but they do believe, not only do they
Speaker 1: believe in goblins in that area, I guess, but they
Speaker 1: also believe in mermaids. That caused some trouble in Zimbabwe
Speaker 1: as well. They were building a dam and the men said, oh,
Speaker 1: there's mermaids there. I'm not going near the water, and
Speaker 1: they had to have a beer ceremony to appease them.
Speaker 4: Yes, Oh, very important to try that one. I've done
Speaker 4: that myself.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting. I mean, Africa is a huge
Speaker 3: continent and it's got an amazing diversity of people and
Speaker 3: cultures and religions, but so many horrifying stories of superstition
Speaker 3: related death and tragedy comes out of that place. It's
Speaker 3: amazing to me. The witch the witchcraft, you know, people
Speaker 3: uh uh doing what do you like, sympathetic magic where
Speaker 3: they kill animals to get their power, people killing albino
Speaker 3: people their powers. Yeah, it's just uh uh, people killing
Speaker 3: homosexuals people. It's just it's it's just there's it's the
Speaker 3: whole continent gets a bad rap because of superstition, and
Speaker 3: it's not I mean, it's probably not really fair. I
Speaker 3: don't know how widespread those activities are, but it only
Speaker 3: takes one or two, uh you know, magic based killings
Speaker 3: to really ruin the whole you know, reputation of your continent.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of that is is centered around
Speaker 4: East Africa primarily, not really Saharan Africa. I mean interestingly,
Speaker 4: if you if you look at some of the stories
Speaker 4: that come out of you know, Molly or Libya or Chad, uh,
Speaker 4: they don't don't really have the sorts of beliefs and
Speaker 4: and you know, quite as strong witchcraft beliefs as you see.
Speaker 3: In Islamic instead of animistic though, right.
Speaker 4: Well, well that's part of it. Although well they but
Speaker 4: they have different I mean, what you find coming out
Speaker 4: of places like like Morocco and Libya are more genie
Speaker 4: based in Gin things like that, so you have you
Speaker 4: have more Koran based entities and monsters and spectors.
Speaker 3: They still have plenty of superstition, but I guess it's
Speaker 3: it's uh, it takes a different framework.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it definitely does.
Speaker 1: And another thing we saw was some of those people
Speaker 1: who left and came to like the UK, brought those
Speaker 1: superstitions with them and they ended up with these beliefs
Speaker 1: living in the UK and actually torturing children and you know.
Speaker 3: A torturing boy die it's children and killing a child. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the States too, yeah, exorcism deaths. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a number of those.
Speaker 5: But I want to know about the giant eyeball.
Speaker 1: That was my favorite story of the year.
Speaker 3: Let's put a lid on that one.
Speaker 4: No, oh, he meant eyeball lid.
Speaker 3: Oh fine.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of good jokes about that one.
Speaker 1: It was it was it was, you know, target for
Speaker 1: easy good jokes on that one. But yeah, the giant
Speaker 1: eyeball was like my favorite story again because you knew
Speaker 1: it would have an eventual answer, and the answer could
Speaker 1: be really cool, like Cthulhu or giant squid or some
Speaker 1: new animal that we didn't know about, but it ended
Speaker 1: up being.
Speaker 3: Oh so just give it a little framework because we're
Speaker 3: just started talking about a giant eyeball.
Speaker 5: Good enough.
Speaker 3: It washed up, okay, washed.
Speaker 1: Up on Pompino Beach, Florida, and I guess people walking
Speaker 1: along the beach, you know, eyed it up and picked
Speaker 1: it up and luckily gave it to the right people
Speaker 1: and they put it on ice and it was shipped
Speaker 1: away to be study. But actually, when the story first
Speaker 1: came out, one of the first stories that came out,
Speaker 1: it was suggested that it was not a squid eye
Speaker 1: that the way that they could look at it same
Speaker 1: like we talked about with the teeth and the feet.
Speaker 1: There are some distinguishing features of an eye that you
Speaker 1: could tell whether it probably came from a cephal pod
Speaker 1: or a fish or a mammal, And in this case,
Speaker 1: they were pretty sure it had come from a fish,
Speaker 1: a deep sea fish that needed very large eyes to
Speaker 1: see in dark water. So they speculated about what it was,
Speaker 1: and then they actually did send it away and they
Speaker 1: figured out that it was from a swordfish, that it
Speaker 1: had been cut out of the swordfish with a knife
Speaker 1: and probably discarded in the water, and so it floated
Speaker 1: onto the beach and was pretty quickly picked up because
Speaker 1: they normally would not have lasted very long.
Speaker 3: As monstrous things go. This is actually a really pretty eye.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's got that really beautiful bluish gray. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you think it's beautiful. Maybe I'm just weird,
Speaker 3: but I think at least cool it was.
Speaker 1: It was great visuals for that story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you think it was hal probably not big cats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people were seeing lions and tigers where they shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: These out of place animals that I can't pronounce. That
Speaker 1: town in Washington can you the tiger one is that
Speaker 1: how you pronounce it?
Speaker 3: That's how I pronounce it. But that's not right.
Speaker 1: Probably I don't know what it is. Yeah, yeah, something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure it's not that Well.
Speaker 1: Anyway, the way the story came out, it was like
Speaker 1: two independent witnesses saw a Bengal tiger walking down this
Speaker 1: rural road and it caused instead of panic, it caused
Speaker 1: everybody to come and start looking for So you had
Speaker 1: all these trucks, pick up trucks, people in the back
Speaker 1: of their trucks looking for this animal, and they never
Speaker 1: found a thing. So what did these two people see? Tigers?
Speaker 1: Pretty distinctive. So end of story, that's that nothing happened.
Speaker 1: Then in August we had a similar story come out
Speaker 1: in Essex in the UK, where they said these people
Speaker 1: said that they looked at their window and they saw
Speaker 1: this large cat in a field and it looked like
Speaker 1: a lion, and they told their neighbor, and their neighbors said,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I saw that too, it looks like a lion.
Speaker 1: And then it just it blew up into this media
Speaker 1: sensation and it turned out there was there was fake
Speaker 1: pictures being distributed by the Daily Mail there were actually
Speaker 1: zoologists that we're out looking for it. They said, no, really,
Speaker 1: we all our zoos have their accounted numbers of lions here.
Speaker 1: There's no escaping lion that we think is out there.
Speaker 1: It turned out to be somebody's cat.
Speaker 5: Yeah, do mystic I.
Speaker 3: Think when we have. In fact, ironically, when we were
Speaker 3: going to have Darren Nashan for this round up, and
Speaker 3: I'm really glad you could make a Sharon on so
Speaker 3: short notice. Darren is one of his favorite topics is
Speaker 3: these alien big cats. And you know, I think when
Speaker 3: he was here last time, he suggested that he was
Speaker 3: pretty sure that there was at least one alien species,
Speaker 3: not from another planet, but just the misplaced species that
Speaker 3: had taken up residents in the UK. But these big
Speaker 3: cat reports are all the time, and people are always
Speaker 3: seeing cats.
Speaker 1: I think their house cats grow really large.
Speaker 3: Well that's the other thing is people just don't understand
Speaker 3: how easy it is to misjudge the size of something.
Speaker 3: And if you see an all black cat and it's
Speaker 3: stalking an animal, if that cat looks a lot like
Speaker 3: a big cat, I mean, you know, unless you're trained
Speaker 3: to notice the ears look different and the tail looks different.
Speaker 3: I mean, in other ways, they do look very similar.
Speaker 3: Domesticated cats did come from more aggressive, larger, less domestic breeds,
Speaker 3: so they had the same kind of structure in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways to the untrained eye.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it could be if they're seeing them against
Speaker 1: some vegetation. The vegetation is not necessarily as big as
Speaker 1: it appears. So the cat was larger or.
Speaker 3: Right exactly, but it is easy to make that mistake,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: And there were a couple stories like that. There were
Speaker 1: other ones where the cat was in the garden and
Speaker 1: people got a little freaked out about it, took the
Speaker 1: picture and then later realized after they'd called the news
Speaker 1: that said there's a big cat in our yard. And
Speaker 1: then this happened to be I think in Washington State
Speaker 1: where there actually are mountain lions, and that's what they
Speaker 1: thought was in their yard. It turned out to be
Speaker 1: the neighbor's cat, but they were it was in their backyard,
Speaker 1: but yet they messed up on the size.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Another another thing is, as as Searon mentioned, there
Speaker 4: were there were several hoax photos that were going around,
Speaker 4: either of actual lions but taken you know, either in
Speaker 4: a zoo or in a game bark and that were
Speaker 4: you know, said to be in the in the countryside,
Speaker 4: or or just you know photoshop stuff. But you know,
Speaker 4: sometimes what you can do is if you if you
Speaker 4: take a photo something, especially with today's high resolution cameras
Speaker 4: and stuff, you can you know what they'll print is
Speaker 4: they'll print this cropped image of the cat that makes
Speaker 4: it look big in the frame. But if you if
Speaker 4: you see the whole frame, it's tiny. You know. So
Speaker 4: there of course they're zooming in to to to get
Speaker 4: the most detail, but you know, the lack of context
Speaker 4: makes it, as you point out, just impossible to know
Speaker 4: the size.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're running out of time, so let's quickly some
Speaker 3: of these last two topics you have out laid here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, the thylas scene video went around a little bit.
Speaker 1: That was It was actually a nice video. It was
Speaker 1: sort of nostalgic. You know, look this beautiful thyloscene. It's missing,
Speaker 1: we miss it. You know, it's gone, it's extinct and
Speaker 1: isn't that awful? But maybe this one's real? And it
Speaker 1: turned out it wasn't. It was it was a hoax.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was promoting the movie The
Speaker 1: Hunter that was going around at the time. I think
Speaker 1: it was about the Thiloscene Hunter, so that that could
Speaker 1: have been related to that. But yeah, this, this final
Speaker 1: story I thought was fantastic vampire in Serbia, not only
Speaker 1: a vampire. It was sort of like the ghost of
Speaker 1: a vampire. And he turned into a butterfly instead of
Speaker 1: a bat. It was just great. It was a great story.
Speaker 1: And then he had his own website and his own
Speaker 1: Twitter account and he was photo bombing things and it
Speaker 1: was it was.
Speaker 3: So did you get a sense? Okay, So in this place,
Speaker 3: if I remember correctly, this was the one where there
Speaker 3: was a local legend that this building had housed a
Speaker 3: vampire at one point.
Speaker 1: Correct this, this man named Sava Savonovich lived in this
Speaker 1: former water mill and people were always afraid to go
Speaker 1: to the mill because he would grab you and kill you.
Speaker 1: And one day the old mill building collapsed, and the
Speaker 1: rumor was that t Sava was now looking for a
Speaker 1: new home, so he was a threat to the nearby villages,
Speaker 1: and people started hearing things in the woods, footsteps, and
Speaker 1: there was actually I'm trying to think, because it's in
Speaker 1: the Balkans, they have very strong vampire legends there and.
Speaker 5: They originated, and yes it didn't they be that on pale.
Speaker 1: Story, And I'm not sure if they still believe it
Speaker 1: or they just enjoy it.
Speaker 3: That's what I was trying to figure out, and I couldn't.
Speaker 1: From what I was reading, it.
Speaker 3: Definitely had strong elements of folklore. If you were an adult,
Speaker 3: it would be the kind of thing you would tell
Speaker 3: your kids to scare them. So I just am curious, like,
Speaker 3: is this is this something that adults tell their children
Speaker 3: to scare them or is this something that people really
Speaker 3: take seriously. I'd heard stories they were giving out wooden crosses,
Speaker 3: but I didn't know if that was like, you know,
Speaker 3: is that just something they made up? Is that real?
Speaker 3: Or is it for you know, tourism.
Speaker 1: I got a I had a very strong feeling that
Speaker 1: this was tourism related.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I wonder if it's like the Papa Bawa Hayban.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I certainly could be right along those lines.
Speaker 1: That they that they did want to capitalize on this
Speaker 1: story and bring people into this poor village that didn't
Speaker 1: really have anything else going for it, but why not
Speaker 1: bring them in with a good story? And we see
Speaker 1: that all over the place. It's becoming more and more
Speaker 1: common invent a paranormal story if you have to or
Speaker 1: capitalize on one that already exists, and you build it
Speaker 1: and people will come.
Speaker 3: Well, that seems to be true.
Speaker 4: Let's see much like a brothel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's probably not fair that that you
Speaker 3: know that ghost hunters and monster hunters get all the
Speaker 3: great tourist trips we you know, I know they do
Speaker 3: like some skeptical cruises and stuff where they go to
Speaker 3: the premieer Triangle, but it seems like some monster hunting
Speaker 3: trips to Europe should be in order, and that they
Speaker 3: really ought to take some muster talk people, yeah along
Speaker 3: with them. That would be fun. So that's twenty twelve
Speaker 3: in a nutshell, Sharon. I just want to say that
Speaker 3: I've been really impressed with how you've taken this monster
Speaker 3: news and paranormal news and done such a great job
Speaker 3: of giving a skeptical voice to these stories. It's just
Speaker 3: been really nice.
Speaker 1: To thank you.
Speaker 5: Very needed, yeah.
Speaker 3: Very much needed. And your site looks great and I
Speaker 3: feel like I never get to beat you to a story,
Speaker 3: so that's.
Speaker 5: Amazing.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you've got some really great Google alerts and
Speaker 3: some really great readers who submit stuff to you.
Speaker 1: So often it's looking at the sites that nobody else
Speaker 1: looks at, because there are a lot of paranormal sites,
Speaker 1: and they will treat these stories as at face value,
Speaker 1: and it just raises all these red flags with people
Speaker 1: who just think a little bit about them. There's something
Speaker 1: else going on here, and that's what makes them fun
Speaker 1: to look at. What else is going on?
Speaker 3: Well, you're doing good work. You and Torkle both so high.
Speaker 1: Hi there, Yeah, we have a lot of fun with
Speaker 1: these stories.
Speaker 3: We would have had him on two, but then we'd
Speaker 3: ended up talking about wrestling the whole time, so that's
Speaker 3: no guest.
Speaker 1: Be sure.
Speaker 5: I will keep up the great work for twenty thirteen, absolutely.
Speaker 3: And we'll try to do better ourselves.
Speaker 5: Yeah, room improvement.
Speaker 3: Well. Happy new year from Monster Talk and Doubtful News.
Speaker 4: Yeah, happy new year, more monster.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to another episode of Monster Talk. You
Speaker 3: just heard a recap of Monster News from twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: Thankfully the world didn't end and we can look forward
Speaker 3: to another year of monsters and weirdness. Hopefully you'll come
Speaker 3: back and hear us talk about more. Twenty thirteen will
Speaker 3: have more zombies, more shape shifters, more magical mysteries to uncover.
Speaker 3: Thanks again to everyone who's contributed to our transcript program.
Speaker 3: Be sure to go to monster Talk dot org or
Speaker 3: Skeptic dot com to see the transcripts of previous shows.
Speaker 3: Got a favorite muster you want us to talk about,
Speaker 3: Send us an email or come talk to us on
Speaker 3: the Monster Talk Facebook group. They're a lively bunch and
Speaker 3: hardly bite at all. This show is produced with the
Speaker 3: amazing support of the good folks at Skeptic Magazine. I
Speaker 3: want to give a special thanks to William Bull, the
Speaker 3: tireless webmaster who helps us get each show ready. Every
Speaker 3: time that we managed to squeeze went out. He's an
Speaker 3: unsung hero, but some talented folk singer will probably fix
Speaker 3: that someday. The opinions expressed on this show, while totally awesome,
Speaker 3: are not necessarily the opinions of the Skeptic Society or
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Speaker 3: Skeptic Today. Monster Talk theme music's by Pete Stealing Monkeys
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Speaker 3: in twenty thirteen.
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Speaker 1: I have a subduction theory of memory. Yeah, that our memories.
Speaker 3: Buy your memory some wine and maybe play some jazz.
Speaker 1: Subduct out