Speaker 1: Hello friends, Steve Starkton, back here with you. Do another
Speaker 1: cryptid deep dive, this time the Fresno Nightcrawler.
Speaker 2: Join me. Let's walk and see now.
Speaker 1: In the hierarchy of American monsters, there's usually a biological logic,
Speaker 1: say Bigfoot is an ape man, the mothman is a birdman,
Speaker 1: the lizard man is well, the lizard man. Their predators
Speaker 1: built a flesh bone, sometimes fur. But then there is
Speaker 1: the Fresno Nightcrawler. Of all the entities cataloged in the
Speaker 1: Annals of Cryptozoology, none are as baffling, as absurd, or
Speaker 1: as quietly unsettling as the night Crawlers. They defy any
Speaker 1: biological categorization. They do not look like animals. They do
Speaker 1: not look like aliens. They look, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better description, like a pair of pajama pants that have
Speaker 1: decided to go for a walk in the night. Yet,
Speaker 1: despite their almost comical appearance, the footage of them triggers
Speaker 1: a deep visceral wrongness in the viewer. They're the absolute
Speaker 1: zenith of the Uncanny Valley, not because they look human,
Speaker 1: but because they move with a fluidity that no puppet
Speaker 1: or pair of pants should possess. Now US look at
Speaker 1: the origin, starting with the Rosales footage in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven. The legend began quietly. In November two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, a man named Jose Risales in Fresno, California,
Speaker 1: heard his dogs barking furiously at night. Living in a
Speaker 1: suburban neighborhood. He assumed it was a prowler or maybe
Speaker 1: even a story animal. He checked his home security camera
Speaker 1: footage the next morning. What he saw became one of
Speaker 1: the most debated pieces of paranormal evidence in history. The grainy,
Speaker 1: black and white footage shows a suburban front lawn. From
Speaker 1: the left side of the screen, a small, pale figure
Speaker 1: walks into frame. It's roughly four feet tall, but it
Speaker 1: has no arms. It has no torso it appears to
Speaker 1: be mostly legs, with a small indistinct head or maybe
Speaker 1: simply a connection point at the top. It moves with
Speaker 1: a strange gliding stride. The knees bend, but the movement
Speaker 1: is incredibly smooth, almost like it's floating underwater. Then a second,
Speaker 1: larger figure appears. This one is taller, perhaps five or
Speaker 1: six feet. It moves with the same fluid, impossible gait.
Speaker 1: They cross the lawn and disappear out of frame. Rosales
Speaker 1: was baffled. He showed the footage to the local news,
Speaker 1: and it eventually made its way to the classic paranormal
Speaker 1: TV show Factor Faith Paranormal Files. Then let's take a
Speaker 1: look at the Yosemite sequel in twenty eleven. Now, most
Speaker 1: viral cryptid videos are won and done. They appear, get
Speaker 1: believed or debunked and vanished. The night Crawler persisted, though,
Speaker 1: because the second video surfaced four years later, roughly sixty
Speaker 1: miles away. In March twenty eleven, security officials at Yosemite
Speaker 1: National Park were reviewing trail camera footage meant to track
Speaker 1: vandals or bears. Instead, they captured two familiar white figures.
Speaker 1: The setting was different, a wooded slope rather than a lawn,
Speaker 1: but the anatomy was identical. Two white bipeds, mostly legs,
Speaker 1: moving through the trees. The Yosemite footage is clearer than
Speaker 1: the Fresno clip, showing the fabric like quality of their
Speaker 1: skin or clothing or whatever it is. This second sighting
Speaker 1: cemented the night Crawler status. It wasn't just a suburban glitch.
Speaker 1: It was some sort of species. It had a range.
Speaker 1: This brings forth an anatomy of an impossibility. Why is
Speaker 1: the Nightcrawler so uncanny? It comes down to the complete
Speaker 1: lack of functional biology. First, there's the missing torso. Every
Speaker 1: vertebrant on Earth follows a basic body plant head torso limbs.
Speaker 1: The torso houses the by organs such as heart, long, stomach,
Speaker 1: But the night Crawler has no torso. It's all limb.
Speaker 1: This raises disturbing questions. Where does it eat, how does
Speaker 1: it breathe? How does it go to the bathroom. It
Speaker 1: looks like a fragment of a creature, a lower half
Speaker 1: that has been severed but continues to walk. Secondly, there's
Speaker 1: the gate the inverse kinematics. In animation and robotics, inverse
Speaker 1: kinematics refers to how joints move to place a foot.
Speaker 2: On the ground.
Speaker 1: The night Crawler's walk is often described as unnatural. It
Speaker 1: doesn't bob up and down like a human. It places
Speaker 1: one foot directly in front of the other, like a
Speaker 1: tightrope style of walking. The stride length is disportionately long
Speaker 1: for its height, and the knees seem to possess a
Speaker 1: loose quality, snapping back and forth with a pendulum motion
Speaker 1: that suggests they aren't powered by muscles, but by some
Speaker 1: other Then there's the sheet texture.
Speaker 2: Thirdly, in both.
Speaker 1: Videos, the entities appear white and billowy. They don't look
Speaker 1: like skin or fur, they look like fabric. This taps
Speaker 1: into the ancient ghost archetype, the sheet wearing ghost, but
Speaker 1: subverts it. It's not a floating sheet, it's a walking sheet.
Speaker 1: It suggests mimicry, an organism trying to look like laundry,
Speaker 1: or maybe laundry that's been possessed. Now, theories abound. Are
Speaker 1: they puppets, aliens or ancestors. The Internet has spent the
Speaker 1: last fifteen years trying to explain the night Crawlers. The
Speaker 1: theories range from the cynical to the spiritual. First, let's
Speaker 1: look at the puppet theory, which would be a hoax.
Speaker 1: The most prominent skeptical explanation is that the night Crawlers
Speaker 1: are simple puppets. The method a wire is strung between
Speaker 1: two trees or poles. A pair of white pants or
Speaker 1: fabric tubes is waiting at the bottom, and a stirring
Speaker 1: pulls them along the wire. The evidence would the gliding
Speaker 1: motion because it fits the physics of a marionette. The
Speaker 1: lack of our movement supports the idea that they're just
Speaker 1: hanging cubes. Now the counter argument, recreating the exact fluid
Speaker 1: stride is difficult. The TV show I mentioned Factor Faked
Speaker 1: attempted to recreate the video using pumpets and even children
Speaker 1: in costumes, but struggled to match the weird, effortless smoothness
Speaker 1: of the original Rosales footage. Second theory the alien probe.
Speaker 1: Given their lack of biological features such as no eyes,
Speaker 1: no mouth, or no hands, some eupologists theorize they are
Speaker 1: not organisms but biological drones. They are planetary explorers sent
Speaker 1: to walk around, maybe collect soil data through their feet,
Speaker 1: and report back. This explains why they don't interact, eat,
Speaker 1: or attack. They're just walking cameras in effect. Thirdly, the
Speaker 1: Native American connection, which has been contested. A popular Internet
Speaker 1: myth claims that the yokal Yo cuts or autotribes have
Speaker 1: ancient legends of standing stick people or totem poles that
Speaker 1: look exactly like the Nightcrawlers, but in reality, this connection
Speaker 1: is largely considered a modern fabrication. The often cited totem
Speaker 1: poles that look like nightcrawlers are actually wood carvings created
Speaker 1: by a modern artist rather than being ancient artifacts. While
Speaker 1: indigenous folklore is rich with strange beings, the specific walking
Speaker 1: pants archetype appears to be a modern invention projected onto
Speaker 1: Native history to give it validity. Now, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the cultural phenomenon from scary to cute. An interesting evolution
Speaker 1: has happened to the Nightcrawler. Unlike the skin walker, which
Speaker 1: remains terrifying, for the Mothman, which is ominous, the nightcrawler
Speaker 1: has been embraced by the Internet as well cute because
Speaker 1: they have no mouse to scream with or no class
Speaker 1: to slash with, and they just waddle around. They have
Speaker 1: become the little guys of the crypted world. For example,
Speaker 1: in the Etsy and art worlds, you can buy Nightcrawler plushies,
Speaker 1: enamel pins, and t shirts. They're often depicted as shy,
Speaker 1: misunderstood beings just out for a stroll. Then there's the
Speaker 1: sympathy factor. Their awkward walk makes them relatable. They look
Speaker 1: like a toddler trying to walk in their dad's trousers.
Speaker 1: The terror has transmuted into affection. We don't want to
Speaker 1: shoot the night Crawler, we want to neit it a
Speaker 1: sweater for it's non existent torso. Now, as far as
Speaker 1: a psychological analysis goes, this is a minimalist monster. Despite
Speaker 1: their acute reputation in pop culture, the original footage remains
Speaker 1: deeply unsettling to watch alone at night. This is due
Speaker 1: mainly to minimalism. Now, good horror often relies on too
Speaker 1: many features, too many teeth, too many eyes, too much slime.
Speaker 1: But the night Crawler is a horror vias attraction. It's
Speaker 1: a human with a humananity removed. It's a body with
Speaker 1: no vital organs, its movement with the intent removed. It
Speaker 1: represents the fear of the glitch. In the digital age.
Speaker 1: We're used to seeing video game characters glitch textures, fail
Speaker 1: to load, models losing their torsos. Seeing a Nightcrawler in
Speaker 1: the real world looks like reality itself is rendering incorrectly.
Speaker 1: It suggests that the universe is a simulation and the
Speaker 1: code for humanoid just failed to compile properly in Fresno
Speaker 1: or Yosemite. In conclusion, they are pants that walk. Basically,
Speaker 1: the Fresno Nightcrawler is the perfect cryptid for the twenty
Speaker 1: first century. It was born on a security camera. It
Speaker 1: lives on the Internet. It is debuncable yet stubborn. It
Speaker 1: challenges us to decide just what we're looking at. Is
Speaker 1: it a hoax perpetrated by our board suburban night with
Speaker 1: some fishing line, pajama bottoms and a lot of talent.
Speaker 1: Or is it a visitor from a mention where evolution
Speaker 1: took a strange, leg heavy turn, as it were. If
Speaker 1: you ever find yourself in the Central Valley of California
Speaker 1: walking past the manicured lawn at two o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning and you see a pair of pants walking towards you,
Speaker 1: don't worry. They probably won't hurt you. They have no
Speaker 1: arms to grab you with. But just try to stop
Speaker 1: your brain from screaming when you realize there is no
Speaker 1: waistline where the waistline should be. Well, friends, there you
Speaker 1: have it. As always, I have looked forward to your
Speaker 1: thoughts on this one. I'm Steve Stockton and me and
Speaker 1: my pants. We'll see you a little further on down
Speaker 1: the trail. Tell your animals I said, hi, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Hello friends, Steve Stalkton here with you. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: another cryptid deep dive. This time we're looking at the
Speaker 1: mirrored men. The synchronized stalkers. Join me, let's take a
Speaker 1: walk and see now in the ever evolving landscape of
Speaker 1: high strangeness, the monsters of the nineteenth century, the hairy
Speaker 1: wild men, and the lake serpents, are slowly being replaced
Speaker 1: by entities that reflect the anxieties.
Speaker 2: Of the digital age.
Speaker 1: Enter the mirrored Men, also known as the Three Men
Speaker 1: or the synchronized Men. This phenomenon is distinctly twenty first
Speaker 1: century horror. They are not spirits of the forest, nor
Speaker 1: are they radioactive mutants. They're pud to be glitches in
Speaker 1: the code of reality itself. Witnesses describe seeing three men
Speaker 1: who look identical, best identical, and move with a mechanical,
Speaker 1: horrifying synchronization. They are the uncanny Valley of individuality. They
Speaker 1: terrify us because they suggest that human beings can be
Speaker 1: mass produced from that the person standing across the street
Speaker 1: might not be a person at all, but a duplicate
Speaker 1: file and a simulation that it's running out of memory now.
Speaker 1: The origin was a podcast phenomenon. Unlike the Jersey Devil,
Speaker 1: which came about in the seventeen hundreds, or even the
Speaker 1: Mothman in nineteen sixty six, The mirrored men are a
Speaker 1: baby in the world of cryptozoology. The phenomenon was largely
Speaker 1: categorized and named by Derrick Hayes, host of the popular
Speaker 1: podcast Monsters among Us. Around twenty eighteen, Hayes began receiving
Speaker 1: calls from listeners that followed the bizarrely specific pattern. Callers,
Speaker 1: often from completely different parts of the country, were describing
Speaker 1: the same impossible event, seeing three men standing in a
Speaker 1: triangle formation moving in perfect unison. Now this wasn't a
Speaker 1: case of mass hysteria propagated by movie. These were isolated
Speaker 1: witnesses describing it specific, distinct anomaly that had no prior
Speaker 1: name in folklore. The consistency of the reports, the number three,
Speaker 1: the synchronization, the lack of verbal contact suggest to the genuine,
Speaker 1: albeit baffling phenomenon. Now let's take a look at the
Speaker 1: anatomy of the glitch. So what makes the mirrored men
Speaker 1: so disturbing. It's not that they look monstrous. In fact,
Speaker 1: their terrifying nature lies in how boring they look until
Speaker 1: they move. First, there's the NPC aesthetic. Witnesses almost always
Speaker 1: describe the men as looking generic. They're often dressed in
Speaker 1: business casual attire, which slacks and button up shirts, gray suits,
Speaker 1: or even workmen's clothes. They're described as having average faces,
Speaker 1: no scars, no glowing eyes, no fangs. They look like
Speaker 1: NPCs or non player characters in a video game, background
Speaker 1: extras designed to fill space, not to be interacted with.
Speaker 1: Then there's the triangle formation. This is the signature of
Speaker 1: the phenomenon. The men are almost always standing in a
Speaker 1: perfect triangle or even a straight line. They do not
Speaker 1: cluster naturally like a group of friends would. They stand
Speaker 1: equal distant from one another, like chess pieces placed on
Speaker 1: a board. Then there's the synchronization, or the mirror. The
Speaker 1: horror begins when they start to move. If one man
Speaker 1: raises his left hand, the other two raise their left
Speaker 1: hands at the exact same millisecond. If one man takes
Speaker 1: a step, they all step. If they turn to look
Speaker 1: at the witness, the head snap happens simultaneously. Now, this
Speaker 1: is not the synchronization of a well rehearsed dance team
Speaker 1: or a military marching bed. Witnesses describe it as mechanical
Speaker 1: in appearance. It lacks the micro variations of human muscle.
Speaker 1: It looks like a single signal is being sent to
Speaker 1: three different bodies instantly. It looks like a lag or
Speaker 1: a duplicate air in a video game. The typical encounter,
Speaker 1: usually ha happens either at a parking lot or at
Speaker 1: a pier. Strangely enough, while sightings have occurred in woods
Speaker 1: and fields, the mirrored men seem to prefer liminal, transient
Speaker 1: spaces parking lots, roadsides, and peers. There's the retail encounter.
Speaker 1: A typical report of this nature involves a witness sitting
Speaker 1: in their car in a grocery store parking lot late
Speaker 1: at night. They noticed three men standing under a streetlight.
Speaker 1: The men aren't talking, They're just standing. The witness looks
Speaker 1: down to check their phone. When they look up, the
Speaker 1: men are five feet or so closer. The witness freezes.
Speaker 1: The men then turn in perfect unison and begin to
Speaker 1: walk toward the car. Their footsteps hit the pavement as
Speaker 1: a single sound click click, click, panics that's in. The
Speaker 1: witness drives away. Looking in their rear view mirror, they
Speaker 1: see the men stop instantly turning to watch the car leave,
Speaker 1: their heads rotating like owls.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: There was one known as the Santa Monica peer incident.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most chilling accounts and popularized on
Speaker 1: Monsters among us. It involves a witness under the Santa
Speaker 1: Monica peer. They saw three men walking in the sand.
Speaker 1: The men were lifting their legs unnaturally high. Now, this
Speaker 1: high step gate was often seen in the Smiling Man legends.
Speaker 1: Every time they took a step, they did it together
Speaker 1: in synchronization. The witness felled a wave of nausea and wrongness,
Speaker 1: the biological alarm bell that rings when we see something
Speaker 1: that defies physics. The witness fled before the men could
Speaker 1: reach the stairs. Now us look at some theories. Who
Speaker 1: are they? The mirrored men phenomena is a Rushark test
Speaker 1: for modern paranoia. Depending on your worldview, they are either
Speaker 1: government agents, aliens, or some sort of software error that's
Speaker 1: causing a glitch in the matrix, which is the first theory,
Speaker 1: the simulation theory. This is the most popular modern explanation.
Speaker 1: If we do, indeed live in a simulation has proposed
Speaker 1: by the simulation hypothesis, then the mirrored men are a
Speaker 1: rendering error. The system needed to populate a scene with people,
Speaker 1: so it copied and pasted, in effect, the same model
Speaker 1: three times. The synchronization as a result of the models
Speaker 1: sharing the same AI script. This explains their generic appearance
Speaker 1: and lack of interaction. They are essentially background assets that
Speaker 1: glitched into the foreground. Then theory number two is the
Speaker 1: Bluebeam and psyops theory. Now, some conspiracy theorists believe the
Speaker 1: mired men or holographic projections or even military psyops the
Speaker 1: unnatural movement is due to the frame rate of the hologram.
Speaker 2: The purpose is to.
Speaker 1: Test public reaction to anomalous events, or even to test
Speaker 1: advanced projection technology, such as Project Bluebeam, which is allegedly
Speaker 1: meant to fake an alien invasion or religious event at
Speaker 1: some point. The third theory the men in black or
Speaker 1: MiB rebranded. There's a strong overlap between the mirrored men
Speaker 1: and the classic Men in Black. MIBs also often travel
Speaker 1: In theories, MIBs move stiffly and act robotically, and MIB's
Speaker 1: dress and identical clothing. However, MIBs usually have a purpose.
Speaker 1: They intimidate UFO witnesses. Mirrod men don't seem to care
Speaker 1: about UFOs. They just stand there. They're like the MIBs,
Speaker 1: but without a mission, or perhaps MIBs who simply malfunctioned.
Speaker 1: The fourth theory the ultra terrestrial mind hive theory. John Keel,
Speaker 1: author of the Mothman Prophecies, deorizes that many entities are ultraterrestrials,
Speaker 1: beings that can manipulate matter and take any form they choose.
Speaker 1: If an entity is a hive mind, which is one
Speaker 1: consciousness controlling multiple bodies, it would struggle to make those
Speaker 1: bodies act independently. Imagine trying to play a video game
Speaker 1: with three controllers plugged in, all mapped to the same joystick.
Speaker 1: If you push four, all three characters move forward. The
Speaker 1: mirrored men might be a single entity piloting three meat
Speaker 1: suits if you will simultaneously. Now there's also an auditory clue,
Speaker 1: the mechanical click. A recurring detail in these encounters is sound,
Speaker 1: or sometimes the lack of it. Now there's the odds factor.
Speaker 1: Like in the Gliverer Man. Sightings are often preceded by
Speaker 1: sudden silence, and then there's the click. Some witnesses report
Speaker 1: a strange mechanical clicking sound accompanying the movement of the men.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a camera shutter or maybe a clock ticking.
Speaker 1: This reinforces the machine or automaton theory. Now, as far
Speaker 1: as a psychological analysis. It's the horror of conformity. Why
Speaker 1: it does synchronization scare us because humans value agency. We
Speaker 1: believe we are individuals with free will. We move at
Speaker 1: our own pace. To see three people moving in perfect
Speaker 1: unison destroys the illusion of individuality. It suggests loss of self. Now.
Speaker 1: One fear is the automaton fear. Froud discussed the uncanny
Speaker 1: largely in relation to dolls and wax figures, things that
Speaker 1: look human but are automatic. The mirrored men that would
Speaker 1: be the ultimate automatons. They represent the fear that we
Speaker 1: are just biological machines that can be programmed. And then
Speaker 1: there's the fear of conspiracy. The three men archetype is
Speaker 1: historically tied to conspiracy, the tribunal, the triumvirate. Three is
Speaker 1: a powerful number, a single WEIRDO is an anomaly, two
Speaker 1: is a coincidence, Three is a pattern. Three implies an organization.
Speaker 1: It implies that they're organized and you are alone. And
Speaker 1: then there's the doppel ganger multiplied. Seeing a double of
Speaker 1: yourself would be scary the doppelganger theory, but seeing multiples
Speaker 1: of a stranger is scary because it suggests that nature
Speaker 1: has run out of ideas. It makes the world feel small, fake,
Speaker 1: and claustrophobic. In conclusion, the loading hair the Mirrored Men
Speaker 1: are arguably the most terrifying crypt of the modern era
Speaker 1: because they questioned the nature of reality itself. Like Bigfoot
Speaker 1: makes us question if we've explored the whole world. Ghost
Speaker 1: sightings make us question what happens after death, the Mirrored
Speaker 1: Men make us question if the world as we see
Speaker 1: it is even real. So if you're walking through a
Speaker 1: parking lot tonight and you see three men standing with
Speaker 1: a corner looking away from you, watch their shoulders, wait
Speaker 1: for one of them to shift his weight. If they
Speaker 1: all shift at the exact same time, don't make eye contact,
Speaker 1: Just turn and walk away, Get in your car and
Speaker 1: drive away, and hope that the simulation doesn't decide to
Speaker 1: delete the witness. Well, friends, I look forward to your
Speaker 1: comments on this one. I'm Steve Stockton. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to your animals, I said, Hi, stay safe out there.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: In the lexicon of American urban legends, most monsters are
Speaker 1: creatures of shadowing myth. There are ancient spirits or genetic accidents.
Speaker 1: But in Fairfax County, Virginia, just outside the sprawling beltway
Speaker 1: of Washington, d C. This monster is terrifyingly mundane and
Speaker 1: undeniably ridiculous. He is the bunny Man. At first, the
Speaker 1: name sounds like a joke. It evokes images of the
Speaker 1: Easter Bunny or a mascot at the theme park. But
Speaker 1: the legend of the bunny Man is not a comedy.
Speaker 1: It's a slasher film brought to life. It's the story
Speaker 1: of a grown man wearing a dirty, tattered rabbit costume,
Speaker 1: building a forestry hatchet, and attacking cars on the only
Speaker 1: back roads. Now, the Bundyman occupies a specific, jagged corner
Speaker 1: of the uncanny valley. The corruptive mascot, he represents the
Speaker 1: horror of the costume, the fear that the smiling, innotant
Speaker 1: face of a childhood character is actually a mask hiding
Speaker 1: of violent, deranged predator. Now, first, let's take a look
Speaker 1: at the location, the Colchester Overpass. Every urban legend needs
Speaker 1: a stage, and the bunny Man stage is iconic. It's
Speaker 1: the Colchester Overpass, often simply called Bunnyman Bridge, located near Clifton, Virginia.
Speaker 1: It's a one lane concrete tunnel that runs under the
Speaker 1: railroad tracks. It's unlit, it's narrow, and the acoustics are strange.
Speaker 1: Sound amplifies and distorts within the tunnel. To drive through
Speaker 1: it at night is to enter a choke point where
Speaker 1: there's no esc to the left or right. While the
Speaker 1: legend has spread globally, locals know that the bridge is
Speaker 1: the heart of the darkness. It's a liminal space, a
Speaker 1: threshold between the safety of the suburbs and the dark,
Speaker 1: tangled woods of the past. Now let's take a look
Speaker 1: at the true events, go all the way back to
Speaker 1: Halloween of nineteen seventy. Now, unlike the Skinwalker or the
Speaker 1: Wind to Go, which drift in the midst of ancient folklore,
Speaker 1: the bunny Man has a definitive start date. He appeared
Speaker 1: in October nineteen seventy. These were not ghost stories, These
Speaker 1: were police reports. The first incident the Hatchet October nineteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy. It was shortly after midnight and US Air
Speaker 1: Force Academy cadet Robert Bennett and his fiancee were driving
Speaker 1: home from a football game. They parked their car on
Speaker 1: Guinea Road in Burke, Virginia to talk. The engine was running,
Speaker 1: the head.
Speaker 2: Lights were on.
Speaker 1: Suddenly, though, something moved in the rearview mirror. A figure
Speaker 1: emerged from the brush and ran toward the back of
Speaker 1: the car. Before Bennett could react, the passenger window shattered.
Speaker 1: Bennett floored the gas peeling out onto the road, and
Speaker 1: as they sped away, his fiance screamed that a man
Speaker 1: in a white suit with long bunny ears had smashed
Speaker 1: the window. When they later inspected the car, they found
Speaker 1: said hatchet on the floorboard. The man in the bunny
Speaker 1: suit had thrown it through the glass. Bennett described the
Speaker 1: attackers wearing a white suit with bunny ears, but noted
Speaker 1: that he couldn't see a face, only the hood. The
Speaker 1: second incident happened on October twenty ninth, nineteen seventy, ten
Speaker 1: days later after the Bennett experience. Paul Phillips, the security
Speaker 1: guard for construction site also on Guinea Road, was on patrol.
Speaker 1: He spoted a man standing on the porch of an
Speaker 1: unfinished house. The man was wearing a gray, black and
Speaker 1: white bunny costume. He was chopping at a porch post
Speaker 1: with a long handled ax. Phillips approached the man. The
Speaker 1: bunny man stopped chopping and turned. He spoke, clearly, you
Speaker 1: are trespassing. If you come any closer, I'll chop off
Speaker 1: your head.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Some reports quot him as saying, all you people trespass
Speaker 1: around here. If you don't get out of here, I'm
Speaker 1: going to bust you.
Speaker 2: On the head.
Speaker 1: But regardless, now, Phillips are treated and called the police.
Speaker 1: When the Fairfax County Police arrived, the man was gone.
Speaker 1: They searched the woods but found nothing. These two incidents
Speaker 1: caused a panic in Fairfax County. Understandably, the police took
Speaker 1: it seriously, investigating over fifty leads. They were looking for
Speaker 1: a man, likely a local with a grudge against the
Speaker 1: new construction developments encroaching on the woods, who was using
Speaker 1: the costume to terrify interloafers.
Speaker 2: He was never caught.
Speaker 1: Now let's look at the evolution from man to myth
Speaker 1: over the decades. The reality of a disgruntled local in
Speaker 1: a suit marphed into a gothic horror story. Now this
Speaker 1: is known as fake lore, the process by which community
Speaker 1: events of backstory to explain a frightening reality. The popular legend,
Speaker 1: which is historically false but narratively compelling, goes like this.
Speaker 1: It's known as the Asylum bus crash, the story goes
Speaker 1: that in nineteen oh four, an asylum in Clifton was
Speaker 1: being shut down. As the bus transported the krimly insane
Speaker 1: inmates to a new facility, it crashed near the railroad tracks.
Speaker 1: Most of the inmates were recaptured, but to escape Marcus
Speaker 1: Wester and Douglas Griffin. Police searched the woods for weeks.
Speaker 1: They began finding the carcasses of rabbits, hundreds of them,
Speaker 1: some skin half eaten, hanging from the trees. Eventually they
Speaker 1: found the body of Marcus Wester under the Colchester Overpass.
Speaker 1: In his hand he clutched a makeshift axe made of
Speaker 1: stone out a sharp stick. Now Douglas Griffin was never found.
Speaker 1: The legend says he donned the skins of rabbits to
Speaker 1: survive the winter, eventually sawing a suit of rabbit for
Speaker 1: thus becoming the.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: There's also a Halloween ritual. This legend dictates that on
Speaker 1: Halloween night, the bunny Man returns to the bridge. Teenage
Speaker 1: folklore warrants that if you walk through the tunnel at midnight,
Speaker 1: the bunny Man will grab you, disemvalue with his axe,
Speaker 1: and drop you from the bridge entrance, just as he
Speaker 1: does the rabbits. This narrative transformed a vandal in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy into an immortal, spectral serial killer with a tragic backstory.
Speaker 1: Now let's look at the psychological analysis the horror of
Speaker 1: the mascot. Why is a man in a bunny suit scary?
Speaker 1: Other than the obvious? A rabbit is a prey animal.
Speaker 1: It represents vulnerability, fertility, and softness. To see a rabbit
Speaker 1: holding an axe, though, that's a perversion of archetypes. Now
Speaker 1: there's the frozen expression. A mascot mask has a frozen expression,
Speaker 1: usually a wide, vacant smile or goofy grin. When a
Speaker 1: human face ailes, the eyes crinkle, the expression is alive,
Speaker 1: but a smiling mask it's dead. So if the bunny
Speaker 1: man is swinging axe as your windshield, the mask is
Speaker 1: still smiling. This disconnect between the visual data, the happiness
Speaker 1: and the play and the action homicide causes a cognitive
Speaker 1: crash in the victim. It's the same horror found in
Speaker 1: clowns such as Penny Wise or dolls such as Chucky.
Speaker 1: Then there's the concealment of intent. When you look at
Speaker 1: a human face, you scan from micro expressions to determine intent.
Speaker 1: Is he angry? Is he scared? Often this is done
Speaker 1: on a subliminal level, but the mask, the mask denies
Speaker 1: you this data. You cannot bargain with the bunny Man
Speaker 1: because you can't read him. You're fighting a blank stare.
Speaker 1: And then there's the dirt on the fur. Witnesses in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy specifically mentioned the suit was dirty or tattered.
Speaker 1: A pristine bunny suit is funny. A filthy bunny suit
Speaker 1: is therefore terrifying. The dirt in play that the suit
Speaker 1: is not a costume for a party, it's a lifestyle.
Speaker 1: It suggests that he lives in the woods, sleeps in
Speaker 1: the dirt, and perhaps wears the suit for warmth or
Speaker 1: even identity. It suggests madness. Now there's the Donnie Darko parallel.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to discuss the Bunnyman without noting the visual
Speaker 1: similarity to Frank from the film Donnie Darko. While the
Speaker 1: film is not directly based on the Virginia legend, it
Speaker 1: taps into the same vein of infantry the giant monstrous
Speaker 1: rabbit as a harbinger of doom. The Moneyman legend creates
Speaker 1: a Frank in the real world. It suggests that the
Speaker 1: rabbit is not a fluffy pet but a chaotic trickster
Speaker 1: spirit similar to the Puka in Celtic mythology, that is
Speaker 1: turned violent. And then there's the legend trip. Today, the
Speaker 1: Colchester overpasses a pilgrimage site if you will, for legend trippers.
Speaker 1: Every Halloween, police have to set up checkpoints to keep
Speaker 1: hundreds of teenagers and adults away from the bridge. The
Speaker 1: ritual if you get there is simple. One drive to
Speaker 1: the bridge. Two turn off your car lights. Three weight Now.
Speaker 1: Participants report seeing flashes of white in the woods. They
Speaker 1: hear scratching on the roof of their car. They even
Speaker 1: find deceeased rabbits on the road, likely roadkilled, but they're
Speaker 1: interpreted as a warning. This ritual keeps the legend alive.
Speaker 1: The bunny Man lives because we go looking for him.
Speaker 1: He is the guardian of the bridge, the troll who
Speaker 1: demands a toll of fear. In conclusion, what is the
Speaker 1: shadow in the headlights? The true identity of the Bunny
Speaker 1: Man of nineteen seventy remains a mystery. Was he a
Speaker 1: homeowner I angree about property values? Was he a prankster
Speaker 1: who simply let the joke go too far? Or was
Speaker 1: he truly mentally unstable? He vanished after that Halloween season,
Speaker 1: never to be seen again, but in the minds of
Speaker 1: Virginia residents he's still out there. He's become the spirit
Speaker 1: of the Beltway wilderness. So if you find yourself driving
Speaker 1: down Guinea Road or Colchester Road late at night and
Speaker 1: you see a flash of white fur and your high beams,
Speaker 1: don't stop.
Speaker 2: Don't assume it's a prank.
Speaker 1: Because the scariest thing about the bunny Man, isn't it
Speaker 1: he wears a costume. It's that underneath the mask there's
Speaker 1: a man who thinks that wearing it makes sense, and
Speaker 1: he has an axe to prove it. As always, I
Speaker 1: look forward to your thoughts on this one. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Stockton. I'll see you a little further on
Speaker 1: down the trail to your animals, including bunnies. I said hi,
Speaker 1: hello friends, Steve, stalking back here with you again for
Speaker 1: another strange CRYPTI deep dive.
Speaker 2: This time it's the Vegetable Man. Now.
Speaker 1: West Virginia is the undisputed capital of ies strangeness in
Speaker 1: the United States. It gave us the Mothman, the flat Woods,
Speaker 1: monster and the sheep squatch, but veried in the archives
Speaker 1: of Appalache and folklore is a creature that is perhaps
Speaker 1: the most biologically baffling of them all. It's known as
Speaker 1: the vegetable Man. Reported in July of nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 1: near Roosville, this entity defies the standard categorization of animal
Speaker 1: or alien. It appeared to be a humanoid composed entirely
Speaker 1: of plant matter, stalks, vines, and leaves. Yet it possessed
Speaker 1: a high intelligence, the power of telepathy, and most frightening
Speaker 1: of all, a thirst for human blood. The vegetable Man
Speaker 1: represents the uncanny valley of flora. Now we're accustomed to
Speaker 1: plants being passive. We eat them, they do not eat us.
Speaker 1: This creature, however, subverts the food chain. It's the realization
Speaker 1: of the primal fear that the forest is not just alive,
Speaker 1: but that it's hungry, and it can take a shape
Speaker 1: that mocks our own. The encounter in July of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight. Now the legend rests almost entirely on the
Speaker 1: testimony of one man, Jennings Frederick. Frederick was a quiet,
Speaker 1: unassuming man who worked for a glass company. He was
Speaker 1: also an avid out doorsman. On a hot day in
Speaker 1: July eighteen sixty eight, he went bow hunting in the
Speaker 1: woods near Regual, West Virginia. He was waiting in a
Speaker 1: blind watching for game when he heard a strange sound.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the snap of a twig or the rustled leaves. Rather,
Speaker 1: he described it as a high pitched chattering, similar to
Speaker 1: a record being played at the wrong speed. He looked
Speaker 1: up and saw a figure standing near him. Now Frederick
Speaker 1: described the instity as standing roughly seven feet tall. It
Speaker 1: was humanoid in shape, two arms, two legs ahead, but
Speaker 1: the texture was all wrong. The body appeared to be
Speaker 1: made of green plant stalks or vines woven together. It
Speaker 1: was slender, he says, but looked incredibly strong. Its arms
Speaker 1: were long and spiny, instead of hands with fingers. The
Speaker 1: limbs ended in three long, sharp points, described as looking
Speaker 1: like thorns or needles, roughly seven inches long. And the
Speaker 1: head it had, but the face was obscure. Its ears
Speaker 1: were large and pointed, sticking out like leaves. Its eyes
Speaker 1: were large, slanted, and yellow with what he called a
Speaker 1: hypnotic quality. But what happened next elevates the story from
Speaker 1: a simple monster sighting to a case of high strangeness abduction.
Speaker 1: Frederick says he was paralyzed. He claimed that as he
Speaker 1: looked into the creature's eyes, he felt a strange sensation
Speaker 1: wash over him, rendering him unable to lift his bow
Speaker 1: or run. The creature didn't attack with a roar. Instead,
Speaker 1: it communicated. Frederick heard a voice inside his head. It
Speaker 1: was the same high pitched chattering he heard earlier, but
Speaker 1: now his brain was somehow translating it into English. You
Speaker 1: need not fear me, the voice said, I wish you
Speaker 1: no harm. Now, this is a classic trope of alien
Speaker 1: Debussian literature, the benevolent lie. The entity calms the victim
Speaker 1: to ensure compliance. While telling Frederick that he was safe,
Speaker 1: reacher stepped forward. It raised one of its thorned hands
Speaker 1: and pressed the needles against Frederick's neck or hand, who
Speaker 1: counts very slightly. These thorns pierced his skin effortlessly. Now
Speaker 1: Frederick watched in horror as the creature began to drain
Speaker 1: his blood. He described a feeling of intense weakness and dizziness,
Speaker 1: as if his life force were being siphoned out, which
Speaker 1: it was. The creature's eyes pulsed or changed color some
Speaker 1: accounts say red as it fed upon Frederick's blood. After
Speaker 1: a few moments, the creature pulled away. It looked at
Speaker 1: him one last time. The chattering sound returned, and then
Speaker 1: it bounded away into the thick brush with incredible speed,
Speaker 1: blending perfectly into the greenery. Frederick was left of shivering,
Speaker 1: weak mess, terrified on the forest floor. He eventually stumbled home,
Speaker 1: but it took him years to tell the story publicly
Speaker 1: because he feared ridicule. Now let's look at this from
Speaker 1: a biological analysis Zeno Fluora hypothesis. If we treat the
Speaker 1: vegetable man as a biological entity, then what is it. Now,
Speaker 1: there's the convergent evolution theory. Nature often reuses successful designs,
Speaker 1: perhaps say on another planet or in a divergent timeline,
Speaker 1: plant life evolved mobility and intelligence. Then there's photosynthesis versus hemophagi.
Speaker 1: Plants typically get energy from the sun. However, carnivorous plants
Speaker 1: such as venus fly traps and picture plants do exist
Speaker 1: on Earth. They eat insects to supplement nitrogen in poor soil.
Speaker 1: And then there's just pure bloodthirst. If a mobile plant existed,
Speaker 1: it would require seemingly massive amounts of energy more than
Speaker 1: mere sunlight could provive. Blood, especially mammalian blood, is a
Speaker 1: nutrient dense energy source. The vegetable man might be a
Speaker 1: hyper carnivorous plant as evolved to hunt mammals for their
Speaker 1: iron and protein. And I'd also like to look at
Speaker 1: the thorns the feeding mechanism. Now, these needles on the
Speaker 1: hands are perfectly evolved tools. Unlike claws which are used
Speaker 1: for tearing, these needles were used for piercing and extraction.
Speaker 1: They almost function like a mosquito. This suggests a species
Speaker 1: that prefers to feed on living prey without killing it,
Speaker 1: a parasite rather than a predator.
Speaker 2: And then we look at the.
Speaker 1: Camouflage, this stalk like body, that's the ultimate camouflage in
Speaker 1: a forest. A creature made of green vines is invisible
Speaker 1: until it moves. This allignance with the stick Indian or
Speaker 1: glimmer man archetypes predators that used the environment as a cloak.
Speaker 1: And let's take a look at the thin veil that
Speaker 1: exists there in West Virginia. Why do these things happen
Speaker 1: in West Virginia. The vegetable man appeared just one year
Speaker 1: after the collapse of the Silver Bridge, which was the
Speaker 1: climax of the Mothman events, and in the same state
Speaker 1: as the Flatwood's Monster and the Grafton Monster. Research like
Speaker 1: my friend John Keel the Mothman prophecies, theorized that West
Speaker 1: Virginia is a window area, as he called it, a
Speaker 1: place where the magnetic or energetic boundaries between realities are weak.
Speaker 1: Now we can look at these there's, like I said,
Speaker 1: the flat Woods Monster in nineteen fifty two, a mechanical
Speaker 1: robotic entity, the Mothman in nineteen sixty six, which is
Speaker 1: an avian slash angelic entity, and then in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight the vegetable Man, a botanical entity. It almost seems
Speaker 1: as if the window area there in West Virginia is
Speaker 1: cycling through different biological kingdoms, if you will, spitting out
Speaker 1: the apex predators of each domain to test the local population. Now,
Speaker 1: in a psychological standpoint, this is an example of the
Speaker 1: green man, John Robb. Now the vegetable man taps into
Speaker 1: the ancient archetype of the green man, a pagan symbol
Speaker 1: of rebirth and the cycle of nature, often depicted as
Speaker 1: a face made of leaves. Usually, the green man is
Speaker 1: a neutral or benevolent symbol of life, whereas the vegetable
Speaker 1: man is the shadow of this archetype. It represents nature
Speaker 1: fighting back. It also represents the fear that we are
Speaker 1: not the top of the food chain. Even the grass
Speaker 1: kuad eatis if it got smart enough. Think about that.
Speaker 1: And then there's also the fear of infection. The interaction,
Speaker 1: the piercing the skin and mixing fluids triggers a deep
Speaker 1: fear of contamination. It's an invasive act, unlike being bitten
Speaker 1: by a wolf, which is an external injury. Being drained
Speaker 1: by a needle is a medical slash, internal violation. It
Speaker 1: mirrors the fears of the era. Now, remember nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight was the height of biological warfare, anxiety, and medical
Speaker 1: experimentation rumors. Now, some skeptics claim this was merely a
Speaker 1: gilly suit. That's the most logical explanation. That Frederick had
Speaker 1: encountered a human, a soldier or hunter wearing a gilly suit,
Speaker 1: which is camouflage made of strips of burr lap foliage,
Speaker 1: looks exactly like a man made of stalks. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: needles were a weapon or a tool held by the person.
Speaker 1: The blood blending, though that's a little harder to explain.
Speaker 1: Could it have been a delusional episode triggered by dehydration
Speaker 1: or even heatstroke, or maybe even a screen memory masking
Speaker 1: an assault or an accident. A person in a suit
Speaker 1: speaking through a radio or a mask might sound high
Speaker 1: pitched or distorted, so that would explain the voice. However,
Speaker 1: why would a soldier in a Gillie suit drain a
Speaker 1: hunter's blood and then run away? The narrative lacks a
Speaker 1: logical human motive, pushing it back once again into the
Speaker 1: realm of the irrational. In conclusion, the vegetable Man was
Speaker 1: never seen again, at least not reported with such clarity,
Speaker 1: but the legend lingers in the backwoods of Reevesville. It
Speaker 1: serves as a reminder that the woods are truly alien.
Speaker 1: When we walk into the forest, we're surrounded by millions
Speaker 1: of living things, trees, ferns, vines, moss, spores. We assume
Speaker 1: that they are asleep. We assume that they are no
Speaker 1: more than furniture. The vegetable Man, however, challenges that assumption.
Speaker 1: It asks the terrifying question, what if the greenery is
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to stand still long enough to
Speaker 1: take a sip of our blood? Now, if you're ever
Speaker 1: bow hunting in West Virginia, and the crickets stop chirping,
Speaker 1: and you hear a sound like a record playing too fast.
Speaker 1: Look at the vines next to you. Make sure they're
Speaker 1: rooted to the ground, because if the vines start to
Speaker 1: reach for your hand, and maybe you hear a voice
Speaker 1: in your head telling you not to be afraid, drop
Speaker 1: everything and run. Well, friends, what do you think of
Speaker 1: the vegetable Man. I look forward to your comments on
Speaker 1: this one. As for me, I'll see you a little
Speaker 1: further down the trail. I'm Steve Stockton. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Tell your animals, I said, Hi, Steve Stalkton, here with
Speaker 1: you or another deep dive into the the world of
Speaker 1: the strange. This time we're taking a look at the
Speaker 1: glimmer Man, the invisible Predator.
Speaker 2: Join me, let's walk and see.
Speaker 1: Now in the taxonomy of fear, there are monsters we
Speaker 1: can see, be it the hulking shape of Bigfoot, the
Speaker 1: glowing eyes of the moth man. And then there are
Speaker 1: monsters that exist only as a distortion. They are known
Speaker 1: as the glimmer man or the glimmer man, sometimes called
Speaker 1: the shimmer, transparent people, or predators. After the nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: seven film. These entities represent the ultimate evolution of the
Speaker 1: Uncanny Valley.
Speaker 2: They do not.
Speaker 1: Trigger our fear response because they look like a wrong human.
Speaker 1: They trigger it because they look like nothing at all,
Speaker 1: yet our brains insist they're there. They are the visual
Speaker 1: equivalent of a phantom limb, a hole in the scenery
Speaker 1: that moves with intelligent intent. The defining characteristic of the
Speaker 1: glimmer man is its lack of substance. Rarely describe a
Speaker 1: physical body. Instead, they describe a localized distortion.
Speaker 2: In the air.
Speaker 1: The heat haze, for example, this is the most common description.
Speaker 1: It parallels the effect of heat rising off hot asphalt
Speaker 1: in the summer. It's a ripple in the visual field. However,
Speaker 1: unlike heat haze, which is amorphous and stationary, this ripple
Speaker 1: is roughly humanoid in shape, head, shoulders, limbs, and moves
Speaker 1: laterally across the landscape. There's also the saran wrap effect.
Speaker 1: Other witnesses described it as looking like a figure wrapped
Speaker 1: in layers of clear plastic or saran wrap. It reflects
Speaker 1: light slightly differently than the surrounding environment. If the creature
Speaker 1: stands in front of a tree, you can see the
Speaker 1: bark through it, but the bark looks warped, magnified, or
Speaker 1: slightly out of focus. Then there's the cubest mirror effect.
Speaker 1: In some accounts, the entity acts like a flawed mirror.
Speaker 1: It camouflages itself by projecting the image of what's behind it,
Speaker 1: but the refresh rate, as it were, it's slightly off.
Speaker 1: As it moves, the background drags or pixelates, creating a
Speaker 1: glitch in the matrix of the forest. Now it's impossible
Speaker 1: to discuss the glimmer Man without dressing the elephant in
Speaker 1: the room. The nineteen eighty seven sci fi horror film Predator.
Speaker 1: In the film, the alien Hunter used the cloaking device
Speaker 1: that renders it nearly invisible, appearing only as a translucent
Speaker 1: distortion in the jungle canopy. Skeptics argued that the glimmer
Speaker 1: man phenomenon is a classic example of cultural contamination. However,
Speaker 1: pre nineteen eighty seven, reports of invisible spirits did exist
Speaker 1: stick Indians Gin, but they were rarely described as technological camouflage.
Speaker 1: Then post nineteen eighty seven, the descriptions of forest entities
Speaker 1: shifted almost overnight to match the visual language of the film. However,
Speaker 1: believers in folklore Alike argued that the film merely gave
Speaker 1: witnesses of vocabulary to describe something that is always existed.
Speaker 1: Just as flying saucers became the term for arrow anomalies.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen forties, predator style cloak became the shorthand
Speaker 1: for a very old, very specific type of spirit encounter.
Speaker 1: Now let's look at the anatomy of an encounter. A
Speaker 1: glimmer Man encounter is distinct from other cryptid sightings because
Speaker 1: it's defined by sensory subtraction, the silence or the OS factor.
Speaker 1: Almost every report begins with absolute silence. The ambient noise
Speaker 1: of the forest, birds, insects, wind abruptly cuts out, almost
Speaker 1: like flipping a switch. This is known in high Estrangens
Speaker 1: circles as the OS factor. It suggests that the enemy
Speaker 1: emits a frequency or presence that terrifies very nature into stillness.
Speaker 1: Then there's the eye spy. The witness is usually hiking
Speaker 1: or hunting. They feel an intense, prickling sensation of being watched.
Speaker 1: They scan the tree line and at first they see nothing.
Speaker 1: Then they notice a blur in the branches. They might
Speaker 1: rub their eyes, thinking it's a floater or a migraine aura.
Speaker 1: But the blur begins to move. It leaps from one
Speaker 1: branch to another with impossible agility. It creates a sound
Speaker 1: when it lands, sometimes a heavy thud or even the
Speaker 1: cracking of a branch, proving that despite being invisible, it
Speaker 1: has mass. Then there's the absence of attack. Terrifyingly, glimmer
Speaker 1: men rarely attack, they observe. Witnesses often describe the entity
Speaker 1: standing within ten or twenty feet perfectly still, just watching.
Speaker 1: The horror comes from the power imbalance. It could kill
Speaker 1: me and I wouldn't even see the blow coming, you think,
Speaker 1: but it chooses not to. This mooeuristic behavior aligns with
Speaker 1: the dark Watchers or the Grinning Man entities, those who
Speaker 1: seem to feed on fear or curiosity rather than flesh.
Speaker 1: So what is the glimmer man? The theories range from
Speaker 1: the nuts and bolts to the metaphysical. First, there's military technology.
Speaker 1: The most grounded theory suggests that the glimmer Man is
Speaker 1: not a monster, but a human soldier testing advanced active
Speaker 1: camouflage meta materials. We know that DARPA and military contractor
Speaker 1: has been developing invisibility cloaks using meta materials that have
Speaker 1: been light around an object as far as the testing grounds.
Speaker 1: Many sightings do occur in national parks or deep wilderness,
Speaker 1: which could serve as testing grounds for classified tech. And
Speaker 1: then there's the flaw of the tech itself. This explains
Speaker 1: the glitchy nature the camouflage. It isn't magic, it's a
Speaker 1: prototype that isn't quite perfect. Yet another theory the interdimensional tourist.
Speaker 1: This theory posits that the entity isn't invisible in the
Speaker 1: traditional sense, but is vibrating at a frequency just outside
Speaker 1: our visual spectrum. This would mean that it exists in
Speaker 1: a dimension layered over hours. Occasionally the membrane between the
Speaker 1: world's thins or the entity exerts energy to cross over.
Speaker 1: The shimmer therefore, is the visual result of two realities
Speaker 1: interacting like oil on water. This explains why they can
Speaker 1: move through dense brush without making noise sometimes or pass
Speaker 1: through solid objects. And then another theory, the modern stick Indian.
Speaker 1: Now in the Pacific Northwest, Indigenous elders often chuckle at
Speaker 1: the term glimmer Man. To them, this is simply the
Speaker 1: stick Indians or te ish Ta behaving normally. Stick Indians
Speaker 1: are spirits. They're not flesh and blood. They've always been
Speaker 1: able to turn invisible, and the glimmer is just a
Speaker 1: modern mind trying to rationalize a spirit manifestation using the
Speaker 1: language of sci Fi. Then there's the terror of the
Speaker 1: unknown silhouette. Why is the glimmer man scarier than a werewolf,
Speaker 1: for example, because a werewolf has a face, a werewolf
Speaker 1: has claws. You can identify the threat, you can run,
Speaker 1: or you can aim a gun at it. But you
Speaker 1: can't fight a glimmer man because you can't define it.
Speaker 1: It represents the unknown unknown. Is it naked? Is it armored?
Speaker 1: Is it holding a weapon? Is it smiling? Now? The
Speaker 1: human brain relies on pattern recognition for survival. We scan
Speaker 1: for eyes, for teeth, or body language. The glimmer man, however,
Speaker 1: denies us all of this. It's a blank slate onto
Speaker 1: which we project our deepest paranoia. Now there is the
Speaker 1: tree climber variant, which is a particularly disturbing subset of
Speaker 1: Glimmerman sightings, which involves arboreal movement. Witnesses describe seeing the
Speaker 1: shimmer high up in the canpy, leaping twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: feet between trees. Now, the physics of this movement suggests
Speaker 1: immense strength If it is a human in a suit,
Speaker 1: they're performing Olympic level gymnastics in deep brush. Now, if
Speaker 1: it's a spirit, it suggests that nowhere it's safe, not
Speaker 1: even the verticality of the forest. In conclusion, we're left
Speaker 1: with the void in the leaves. The legend of the
Speaker 1: glimmer man is growing. With the advent of four K
Speaker 1: cameras and smartphones, more people are capturing strange distortions in
Speaker 1: their footage, Pixels that don't move right, backgrounds that smear.
Speaker 1: Skeptics call it compression artifacts. Believers look at it as proof.
Speaker 1: But for the hunter alone in a tree stand waiting
Speaker 1: for a deer as the sun goes down, the.
Speaker 2: Debate doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: All that matters is the feeling that the air to
Speaker 1: his left has suddenly become heavy. All that matters is
Speaker 1: the ripple in the leaves that moves against the wind.
Speaker 1: The glimmer Man is the ultimate reminder that vision is
Speaker 1: not reality.
Speaker 2: Just because you.
Speaker 1: Don't see it doesn't mean it isn't staring right at you.
Speaker 1: I look forward to your comments on this one. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Stockton. Thanks for listening tear your animals. I said, HI,
Speaker 1: be safe out there,