CRYPTIDS MARK TWO

Copyright 2020 Shane Rogers Entertainment

Midnight Facts for Insomniacs

Podcast Transcript

(Note: transcript consists of episode outline)

So for this episode we’re going to take listener suggestions to heart, and organize these episodes regionally. So for this episode we’ll finish up our exploration of North American cryptids (we’re including ).

The Dover Demon Not quite as well known as the Jersey devil, but far more alliterative. It’s 1977, in Dover Massachusetts...not Dover , btw. Which would have been great. Even more alliterative: the Dover Delaware Demon. And also not the British “cliffs of.” I had always assumed the dover demon was from one of the more famous Dovers, but no. It’s from Dover Massachusetts—which I’m not convinced actually exists; it might be the cryptid of cities, umored in myth and legend but no one has ever acquired conclusive evidence of its existence— and was first sighted at 10:32 pm on April 21st, 1977. This cryptid is unique in that the entire mythology is based on eyewitness accounts provided by three teenagers. I don’t understand how this actually became a legend based on such flimsy evidence. I’m flabbergasted. Three teenagers told you they saw a ? I wouldn’t believe three teenagers if they told me they saw fish in the ocean. I’d be like, I’ve always believed in ocean fish, but now I have my doubts. I’m gonna need some corroborating evidence. I’m not saying teenagers can’t be trustworthy, I’m saying they shouldn’t be. You should lie your ass off as a teenager, that’s when you can get away with it. Those are your prime bullshitting years. As a grown man with bills and an HMO plan, I can’t pull pranks. What am I going to just not pay my PG&E bill and be like, “suckers!” But seriously, if I, as a grown man, claimed that I saw a monster, they would stick me in a room with no sharp objects. Savor these years, teenagers. Having zero credibility is super liberating. So the first witness was 17- year-old William Bartlett, who saw the creature while he was driving, and I already hate him because he was a 17-year-old with his own car. But apparently it was slinking along next to a brick wall, he described the demon as having large, glowing eyes and “tendril- like fingers.” He drew a sketch of it, it’s pretty much a stick-figure alien. It’s on all fours like a lizard, kind of like a gecko with an oval alien face. Supposedly it has orange-colored skin, a large bulbous watermelon-shaped head, a super skinny stick- like body—because that’s what he could draw—and it switches from all fours to walking upright. This kid was not an artist, or else he wasn’t even trying. It’s the kind of picture you would put on your refrigerator if your five-year-old drew it, but if you found it in your 17- year-old son‘s sketchbook, you’d be embarrassed. On his behalf, and also because this kid has your genes. You would refuse to buy him any more art supplies. Bartlett had two other 17-year-old passengers in his car, neither of them confirmed the sighting. When William Bartlett got home, he told his dad about the monster, and yet again I’m jealous of this little bastard because he apparently has the type of parents who believe raving bullshit. If they’re gonna believe in a monster, you might as well just be honest and tell them you were smoking weed, they are clearly very permissive and gullible. That same night, 15-year-old John Baxter was walking home from his girlfriend’s house when he claimed to have encountered a similar critter, and he produced an equally shitty sketch. The next night yet another teen, 15-year-old Abby Brabham (why do they all have last names that start with B— Brabham, Bartlett, and Baxter, this is very suspicious) reported another sighting, and also produced a—say it with me— terrible sketch. Somehow these three notepad- doodles made it into the Boston Globe newspaper, I don’t know. Must’ve been a slow news day. The official police statement indicated that law enforcement believed it was most likely a hoax. Because yeah. Brilliant detective work. People who DO give these witnesses the benefit of the doubt and believe that they actually saw some thing rather than that they were pulling a hoax, those people have speculated that the creature might have been a baby moose, while others have pointed out that Moose don’t live in fucking Massachusetts. Others have speculated that it could’ve been a small pet monkey that escaped its owner. I feel like we are really laboring to avoid using the word liars and hoax.

The Let’s discuss the most terrifying cryptid of all. The vicious, dreaded, pessimistic, self-pitying Squonk. The squonk is a wrinkled, warty, and extremely depressed creature of nonspecific origin native to the hemlock forests of Pennsylvania. Artistic depictions of the Squonk sort of resemble a warty Shar-Pei. It’s like a sad, wrinkled potato. Sad in a very literal sense. The first description of the squonk comes from a 1920 book by William T Cox, Fearsome creatures of the lumberwoods. I feel like “fearsome” might’ve been sarcastic. “The squonk is of a very retiring disposition, generally traveling about at twilight and dusk. Because of its misfitting skin, which is covered with warts and moles, it is always unhappy...Hunters who are good at tracking are able to follow a squonk by its tear- stained trail, for the animal weeps constantly. When cornered and escape seems impossible, or when surprised and frightened, it may even dissolve itself in tears.” I mentioned its vague taxonomy, but it does have a species name. Lacrimacorpus dissolvens. Latin for “crying body dissolve.” Hey, scientists get bored too. In fact, there are certain substances in nature that are stable until they are “captured,“ or isolated, in which case they immediately dissolve. Scientists refer to them as “chemical Squonks.” Like I said, working in a sterile lab environment isn’t exactly thrilling, you take your joy where you can find it.

Squonks supposedly have webbed toes, but only on their left feet. Which is another reason to be depressed, that’s super unwieldy. He would swim in like a corkscrew motion. So the Squonk is the Eeyore of cryptids. Or like a woodland snuffleupagus. He’s a tragic figure, really.

The November 16, 1966, Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The Point Pleasant Register published a story titled "Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something." End quote. That was printed in an actual newspaper, verbatim. Complete with ellipses: bird dot-dot-dot creature dot- dot-dot something. The story went 1960s viral, which means it was reprinted in other newspapers, it became a National phenomenon. The initial sightings had occurred the day before. In November 15, two separate couples reported—“separate couples” sounds weird...two unconnected couples, who didn’t know each other...separately reported seeing a man-shaped flying creature with a ten-foot wingspan and glowing red eyes hovering above their cars. “6-to-7 feet tall with red eyes and no head, as if the eyes were in the breast area, and with huge wings.” They also supposedly reported that their sense of time was skewed during the encounter, and some of the subsequent witnesses reported dry, gritty, red eyes which would be consistent with exposure to ultraviolet rays. At the time they were in the “TNT area,” of point Pleasant, so-named because it had been the site of a world war 2 munitions factory. Romantic. And if you’re NOT looking for trouble, maybe don’t hang out near the abandoned explosives factory. A hovering monster was kind of the best case scenario. I love how places with names like “point pleasant” are always giant misnomers. “I grew up in Paradise Gardens, over by the toxic waste dump.” How boring is this town that two couples were hanging out by the old munitions factory. This is their version of makeout point? Pennsylvania doesn’t have a hill? Sightings continued over the next few days—actually the next few years. Notably there were some sightings by firefighters and contractors...credible sources...immediately following the newspaper article. The obvious culprit was a large bird...one species that was proposed was the sandhill crane, a giant almost-human-sized bird with a seven foot wingspan and red circles around its eyes. It’s like a skinny, flying tweaker. Or maybe you have to be a tweaker to believe that a red-eyed bird is a humanoid monster. Especially since the crane’s migratory pattern doesn’t intersect with Point Pleasant. Sheriff George Johnson had a different bird theory: he believed that the mothman was a giant Heron that he referred to as a “shitepoke.” So it was either a flying red-eyed monster or a crane or a shitepoke. Author Loren Coleman, said there is a history of similar in the Ohio River Valley. The local Native American tribes had legends of Thunderbirds--large “bird- man” figures that were always harbingers of woe. And the Thunderbird is sort of a corrupted, various versions of Thunderbird sightings have been reported, but I didn’t include it because I think it’s more of a legend and religious myth than a cryptid In December 1967 a local bridge called the Silver Bridge collapsed, crushed by the excess weight of rush-hour traffic, and of course this must have been the fault of a flying mothman. And not, as it was later determined, they fact that the bridge was carrying far more weight than it had been designed to support, and had been hanging in there with a severely damaged eyebar. Which I’m told is a thing that matters The legend grew, because nonsense. And peddlers of nonsense. A UFO conspiracist named John Keel was in the area researching a playboy article about Aliens, and began investigating the mothman phenomenon. “Investigation” might be a charitable term. He started collecting crazy stories from crazy people, and reporting them as credible. During his “investigation” he received prank calls—I mean, prophecies— over the phone, and became convinced that aliens and UFOs and “ultradimension beings” were involved. Which was super convenient for his UFO article. Btw, why do people use the word “Ultra“ out of context? “The most possible dimensions!” Keel’s supposedly true 1975 novel “The mothman prophecies,” was a success, and inspired a Richard Gere film almost thirty years later, keeping the mothman in the zeitgeist. I watch the movie last night, it’s trash. Utter garbage.

Since we’re already in West Virginia... Braxton County, 1952. On September 12, a bright object streaked across the sky. What could it be? Shhh. Aliens! A young boy named Tommy Hyer and his friends —brothers Fred and Edward May (and now that I read their names out loud, that’s Fred and Ed. Sounds like a Nickelodeon show—they watched the object appear to crash down on the property of G Bailey Fisher, a local farmer. I love all of these names. G Bailey fisher, thats either a CIA agent or a politician from the south who opposes race mixing. No sir, I don’t like it. I’m G Bailey Fisher, and I approve this message. So the boys run back to the farm owned by the family of the Brothers May, and tell their story to their mom, Kathleen. The four of them tracked down a national guardsmen named Eugene Lemon, and they formed s posse along with two other local kids, Neil Nunley and Ronnie Shaver. Because if you’re going to hunt down a monster, you want to bring at least five children along. They all headed to the fisher farm, where Lemon’s flashlight briefly revealed a "man-like figure with a round, red face surrounded by a pointed, hood-like shape.” Kathleen May claimed that the monster had "small, claw-like hands,” and "a head that resembled the Ace of Spades.” The monster glided toward them, and lemon dropped the flashlight in a panic. The group fled, but not before they detected a nauseating “pungent mist” that left them sickened. Monster fart. Police searched the area but “saw, heard and smelled nothing.” Even a monster fart will dissipate eventually. An investigation by news reporters the following day revealed “skid marks” and a gummy substance. The so-called Flatwoods Monster became a phenomenon nationwide, and fueled a UFO panic. So it turns out that on the night of September 12th, a meteor was observed across parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and . As for the creature, skeptics have observed that the description of the creature was consistent with the “silhouette, flight pattern, and call of a startled barn owl.” A stinky barn owl. A barn owl with gastrointestinal issues. A local man named Max Lockard had driven around the site in an old, oily truck with shedding tires, but “paranormal investigators concluded that the tracks, oily residue, and bits of a rubbery substance must have been left by the creature and not the truck.” Totally. The nausea was either due to radiation emitted by a UFO...or indigestion due to stress and fear. You decide. The town has turned the legend into a tourist attraction. The town sign reads, Welcome to Flatwoods / Home of the Green Monster.

I’ve gotta admit, I included this one because of the name. The Ogopogo. I don’t care how scary a monster looks...names matter. “This is the bloodthirsty monster ‘Kevin’.” It can’t be some cutesy name. “Beware the cuddlefluff.” Just, no. So the ogopogo is Canada’s Nessie. Lake is located in , and similar to Loch Ness it’s frigid, it was formed by melting glaciers and occasionally freezes during the winter. Many people believe that the legend is based on of the First Nations, which are the indigenous people of Canada who are located below the Arctic Circle. Above the Arctic Circle are the Inuit, below them you have the First Nations. They referred to the creature as Nataika, roughly translated to “water demon,” and they believed that the creature lived in caves under Rattlesnake Island, and demanded sacrifice in order to allow safe crossing. They would often sacrifice a small animal to Nataika before entering or crossing the lake. Though the creature was a lake spirit it was capable of physical damage; its primary weapon was its tail, which it could use to whip the water into a fury, it was kind of like a storm Demon. There’s one legend about a visiting chief named Timbasket, who refused to make the required sacrifice, he scoffed at the existence of the monster, and when he boarded a boat with his family, Nataika whipped the water into a frothy whirlpool with his tail, and the chief and his family were sucked to the bottom of the lake. At some point the idea of a malevolent lake spirit was supplanted by the image of a physical monster, serpent- like in appearance, often depicted as three humps protruding above the waterline, with a dragonish head. The name “Ogopogo” is believed to have come from a song, and I’ll play some of it for you now. In case you didn’t catch the lyrics, “His mother was a pollywog, his father was a whale, I’m going to put a little bit of salt on his tail, I want to find the ogopogo.” Rude. Also, his mother was a pollywog, and his father was whale...that’s anatomically challenging. Maybe if his mother was a whale, and the father kind of swam up there, but otherwise... Fun fact: “ogopogo” is a palindrome, it is spelled the same backwards and forwards. Midnight fact. Some notable sightings: In 1872, Canadian author Susan Alison claimed to have seen the creature. A century later, in 1968, a man named Art Folden captured grainy video footage of what he described as something “large and lifelike in the water.” A subsequent investigation in 2005 concluded that the size of the creature in the was most likely a trick of perspective, and that the animal depicted was probably a beaver. When a local tourism agency offered a reward for sightings of the creature in 1980, green peace raised alarms, stipulating that the animal must be unharmed. Ogopogo was subsequently added to the endangered species list. I feel like adding a water demon to the endangered species list is not a great strategy. Making a mockery of animal conservation is probably counterproductive to their stated goals. I’m a big fan of green peace’s mission, but their methods leave something to be desired. There have been a few other supposed videos of the creature, most of which have been explained as most likely being otters. People are ridiculous. However, otter occasionally swim in a line, and in the right lighting, with the right alcohol involved, you might mistake a parade of floating otters for an undulating serpent. But some videos can’t be dismissed as otters. A more recent video in 2011 was described by Discovery News thusly: “The video quality is poor and the camera is shaky, but a closer look at the 30- second video reveals that, instead of one long object, there are actually two shorter ones, and they seem to be floating next to each other at slightly different angles. There are no humps, nor head, nor form; only two long, darkish, more or less straight forms that appear to be a few dozen feet long. In short, they look a lot like floating logs, which would not be surprising since has tens of thousands of logs harvested by the timber industry floating just under the lake's surface."

The Wendigo...the slimmest of cryptids. He’s very trim. The wendigo is supposedly native to the chilly northern regions of the and Central Canada, often found around Minnesota and the American the Great Lakes. The legend originated with Native Americans. There are a ton of different origin stories and details that vary from region to region, but often the Wendigo is associated with cannibalism. In some versions of the myth a Wendigo is created every time a human consumes another human. That’s what you get for being a filthy cannibal. Did you enjoy that leg? Enjoy this Wendigo, bitch. Usually the Wendigo exists to punish some type of aberrant human behavior...it’s a morality tale and a scare-tactic to keep people from doing bad things. Like eating each other. Most of the depictions of the Wendigo look like a tall-ass super emaciated and skinny, bloodthirsty humanoid . They’re associated with starvation and desperation, they’re actually kind of sad. Similar to the Squonk, there is a scientific phenomenon associated with the wendigo, in this case a psychological condition called Wendigo psychosis in which people become obsessed with the idea of cannibalism, fixating on the idea of eating people and constantly terrified of becoming a cannibal. Here are some descriptions: “It was a large creature, as tall as a tree, with a lipless mouth and jagged teeth. Its breath was a strange hiss, its footprints full of blood, and it ate any man, woman or child who ventured into its territory. And those were the lucky ones. Sometimes, the Wendigo chose to possess a person instead, and then the luckless individual became a Wendigo himself, down those he had once loved and feasting upon their flesh.”

“The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tautly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody. Its body was unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, giving off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption. — Basil Johnston, Ojibwe teacher and scholar, Ontario, Canada.

This one is more tragic than scary, he’s just super hungry. If you live in the Great Lakes region, leave out some kibble for your local wendigo. Honestly, if any cryptid should be added to the endangered species list, this is the guy.

https://www.google.com/ amp/s/www.ign.com/articles/ 2001/12/06/the-real-story- of-the-mothman- prophecies%3famp=1

http:// www.chasingthefrog.com/ reelfaces/ mothmanprophecies.php https:// www.legendsofamerica.com/ mn-wendigo/

https://cryptidz.fandom.com/ wiki/Dover_Demon