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 Canada). The Dover Demon Not quite as well known as the Jersey devil, but far more alliterative. It’s 1977, in Dover Massachusetts...not Dover Delaware, 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 monster? 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 Squonk 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 mothman 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 lore 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.