Speaker 1: My welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And Rob correct me if I'm wrong, But I think
Speaker 1: this is finally the year that you've gotten full blown
Speaker 1: into Rocky Ericson. Is that right? Uh? Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess so, yeah, I got. I listened to him a
Speaker 1: little in the past, and in this year I got
Speaker 1: even more into him. Yeah. Okay, So Rocky has long
Speaker 1: been one of my favorite rock and roll vampires, and
Speaker 1: one of the things I love about Rocky Ericson Monster
Speaker 1: songs is how much they're about the weather. Um. So
Speaker 1: you may remember the line from his great, his great
Speaker 1: anthem The Night of the Vampire, if it's raining and
Speaker 1: you're running, don't slip in mud, because if you do,
Speaker 1: you'll slip in blood. I mean, that's is logic, and
Speaker 1: there's a really infectious glee to that kind of logic.
Speaker 1: But also I enjoyed the weather, weather represented in songs
Speaker 1: like the Wind and More, which I know compares sort
Speaker 1: of the the voice of Lucifer to to the storm
Speaker 1: winds that are battering through the house. Yeah. Absolutely, And
Speaker 1: and if anyone out there is not sure who we're
Speaker 1: talking about, um, you should look up Rocky Ericson, uh,
Speaker 1: who also was the other group garage Psychan from the
Speaker 1: late sixties early seventies based in I think Austin, definitely
Speaker 1: out of Texas. Uh, fantastic psychedelic rock. But then Rocky
Speaker 1: Ericson had had a long solo career after that of
Speaker 1: all different kinds of music, you know. He he um
Speaker 1: so some of the stuff he released, uh he he
Speaker 1: had a lot of troubles with mental health and at
Speaker 1: some points he was in psychiatric institutions. But even in
Speaker 1: those periods would sort of make these little demos of
Speaker 1: UH songs recorded it sounds like just on a tape
Speaker 1: recorder that are very simi bowl but but strangely beautiful.
Speaker 1: And then at other times you would make full blown
Speaker 1: UH monster rock and roll albums. There's one called Evil
Speaker 1: One that's just fantastic, that's got a kind of credence
Speaker 1: clearwater revival style rock production, but all the songs are
Speaker 1: about demons and ghosts and and fifties atomic age monster movies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty hard stuff too, Like it's like it's
Speaker 1: it's it's got a hard rock vibe that I think
Speaker 1: might surprise some people. So it's I think it was
Speaker 1: produced by somebody from Credence of Memories, So I think
Speaker 1: so yeah, but but but but harder than Credence, uh
Speaker 1: in my opinion. Well, all that is preamble to the
Speaker 1: fact that today we wanted to talk about the intersection
Speaker 1: of ghosts and weather. Yeah, and I have to stress
Speaker 1: that we absolutely won't be able to cover everything here
Speaker 1: because there are just too many storm monsters and storm
Speaker 1: deities out there, storm related ghosts and other creatures. But
Speaker 1: we're gonna be covering various examples that seem related to
Speaker 1: some of the core ideas that we were kicking around
Speaker 1: for this episode. And uh and and really the the
Speaker 1: central idea has to do with a recent trip you
Speaker 1: went on. Oh yeah, so I was recently in coastal
Speaker 1: South Carolina. Rob, Have you been to coastal South Carolina?
Speaker 1: I assume probably, oh yeah, yeah. And and of course
Speaker 1: South Carolina placed with a lot of ghosts, tons of
Speaker 1: ghosts everywhere you go there, Like you can find a
Speaker 1: little local visitor center that's got a local uh self
Speaker 1: published ghost author who's collected all the lore and they've
Speaker 1: got it in a in a book that the font
Speaker 1: of the book is usually Times New Roman. Uh, but
Speaker 1: it's but it will have lots of great, you know,
Speaker 1: local ghost stories in it. And so there's one that
Speaker 1: I was reading about from a particular place on the
Speaker 1: South Carolina coast, a little island called Paul's Island. And
Speaker 1: so to explain this, on refer to an article that
Speaker 1: was published by Myrtle Beach Online. So it's a local
Speaker 1: news article from the Myrtle Beach area that's also coastal
Speaker 1: South Carolina by a writer named Tyler Fleming. The article
Speaker 1: says it was last updated in September nineteen. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if that's when it was originally published, but it's
Speaker 1: this local news article trying to track down the origins
Speaker 1: of a bit of ghost lore from this area of
Speaker 1: the South Carolina coastline. And specifically, this is the story
Speaker 1: of a being called the Gray Man. You know, I'd
Speaker 1: say it's used a lot, but I'm still a sucker
Speaker 1: for for that formulation of a creature name just the
Speaker 1: blank man, especially if whatever the word in the middle
Speaker 1: is is a single syllable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like the
Speaker 1: Green Man. The tall Man. Yeah. So, according to the legend,
Speaker 1: this is a spirit that wanders around on the shore
Speaker 1: on and around this small island called Paul's Island, South Carolina. Uh,
Speaker 1: usually appearing just before the landfall of terrible storms as
Speaker 1: a translucent gray figure stalking the beaches and boardwalks in
Speaker 1: a long cloak. Sometimes he's literally described as dressed like
Speaker 1: a pirate. Uh. And one one funny I think, a
Speaker 1: little little justified accusation of his identity is that he
Speaker 1: is black Beard. He is Uh. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you're supposed to say his last name Edward Teach or
Speaker 1: Teach or Thatch, however it is yeah, yeah, with the
Speaker 1: with the burning brands and his beard. This gets into
Speaker 1: an interesting area that I like about about ghosts of
Speaker 1: this nature because uh, and this is all thoroughly non scientific,
Speaker 1: of course, but we have this idea that you know,
Speaker 1: that something bad happens, and the ghost is like a
Speaker 1: lingering after effect of that thing. Um. And then certainly
Speaker 1: there's also this idea that a ghost, say black Beard's
Speaker 1: ghost or just this mysterious gray man, would have potentially
Speaker 1: insider information about what's going to happen. Maybe you know,
Speaker 1: they died at sea, and therefore they know the sea
Speaker 1: a little better and they can they can warn us
Speaker 1: about things. But then there's also an idea of the
Speaker 1: of of hauntings as being uh, you know, things that
Speaker 1: work in both directions and time, that they can be
Speaker 1: harbingers of of the terrible events. Um, you know, perhaps
Speaker 1: they're even attached to events that have yet to come. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that is exactly the case with the Gray Man.
Speaker 1: So contrary to what you might assume about this spectral figure,
Speaker 1: you know, crunching along through the sand, in the in
Speaker 1: the in the storms and the wind, local legend usually
Speaker 1: describes the Gray Man as a benign or even a
Speaker 1: helpful spirit, and the purpose of his hauntings is to
Speaker 1: serve as a warning to people who live nearby that
Speaker 1: the coming storm is going to be especially destructive. So
Speaker 1: as a few examples of this, uh, this belief among locals,
Speaker 1: I was looking at article in Southern Living by Megan
Speaker 1: over Deep about this ghost legend, and it describes how
Speaker 1: there were locals in in South Carolina who claimed sightings
Speaker 1: of the Gray Man just before Hurricane Hazel and nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four and Hurricane Hugo in nineteen eighty nine. But
Speaker 1: as a more recent example, also this This article embedded
Speaker 1: tweets like people tweeting grainy photos of alleged gray Man
Speaker 1: sightings ahead of Hurricane Florence in eighteen. So Rob, I've
Speaker 1: embedded one for you to look at here. Listeners, you
Speaker 1: can go look up this article in Southern Living if
Speaker 1: you want to find these tweets. But this one embeds
Speaker 1: a photo that is allegedly taken at a boardwalk that
Speaker 1: goes over the beach on Pouli's Island, and there is
Speaker 1: I don't know, so it's it's a very grainy photograph.
Speaker 1: It's got a lot of what looks like digital artifacts
Speaker 1: and pixelation in it, and then there's this big sort
Speaker 1: of pale gray smudge in the middle of it that looks,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, maybe like it could be some kind of
Speaker 1: vertical object on the boardwalk. But some people apparently looked
Speaker 1: at that and said, hey, it's the gray Man. Well,
Speaker 1: I have to point out that the tweet that is
Speaker 1: shared in this article, uh the twee eater does have
Speaker 1: a blue check mark, So this is verified. This is
Speaker 1: this is verified. It proof of the afterlife confirmed as usual?
Speaker 1: Why does sidings of the paranormal so strongly favor low
Speaker 1: fidelity documentation. I think, I'm not positive, but this looks
Speaker 1: like it's from some kind of like uh uh, stationary
Speaker 1: live camera that sort of documents, you know, foot traffic
Speaker 1: on the beach. I think that you can tune into
Speaker 1: and see what's going on there. I'm not positive that's
Speaker 1: what it is, but I know there is stuff like
Speaker 1: that around there, and so that that's what it looks
Speaker 1: like to me, But it could be something else anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very grainy, it's got all you know, it's got
Speaker 1: the pixelated artifacts in it, and I just want some
Speaker 1: high definition gray Man, but I can't get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, I think that gets down to just
Speaker 1: the fact that sightings occur when things are obscured and
Speaker 1: uncertain They emerge out of uncertainty and uh and and
Speaker 1: and and depleted visual efficiency. I think that'll come back,
Speaker 1: say or with something I want to get into in
Speaker 1: a minute. So to quote from this article by Tyler
Speaker 1: Fleming here quote. Not only does he warn people, but
Speaker 1: he's also known to protect their property from a storm.
Speaker 1: A woman in nineteen fifty four claimed to see the
Speaker 1: gray Man ahead of the infamous Hurricane Hazel hitting the area.
Speaker 1: She said, not only was her house spared from the devastation,
Speaker 1: the beach towels she left on her balcony were still
Speaker 1: hanging up. So the ghost is like, oh, Madam, I
Speaker 1: I I those those beach towels are just too beautiful.
Speaker 1: I can't stand to see them swept into the store.
Speaker 1: I'll protect your house, But what about all the people
Speaker 1: who died? I mean, shouldn't the ghost and prioritize the
Speaker 1: people instead of the beach towels. I've seen people to
Speaker 1: these beach towels. My god, they're beautiful. So this article
Speaker 1: in Myrtle Beach Online goes on to list some of
Speaker 1: the local speculation about the alleged origin of this ghost.
Speaker 1: It does not mention black Beard that one might be
Speaker 1: a kind of spurious allegation. Uh well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think all of these are probably just made up later legends.
Speaker 1: But but trying to track down at least what are
Speaker 1: the earliest of the legends. Um. So, the source that
Speaker 1: the article sites on these is the Georgetown Museum. Georgetown
Speaker 1: is a city near Apoli's Island. Um, and so they've
Speaker 1: got I guess a museum that has some stuff about
Speaker 1: this local legend, and one story, this this appears to
Speaker 1: be the dominant one, is about a man who perished
Speaker 1: in the South Carolina low country in eighteen twenty two.
Speaker 1: And the tale goes that this young man had been
Speaker 1: traveling abroad for two years, and in September of eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty two, he decided he wanted to come home so
Speaker 1: he could see his fiancee uh back in South Carolina
Speaker 1: and they could set a date for their wedding. And
Speaker 1: he was apparently in such a hurry to get back
Speaker 1: and see her face again that he took a short
Speaker 1: cut through the marsh and he ended up stuck in quicksand,
Speaker 1: which spelled his doom and then his fiance she's grieving
Speaker 1: over the fact that, I guess, I don't know if
Speaker 1: she found out that he died or if he just
Speaker 1: never showed up, but she's grieving for some reason. And
Speaker 1: she goes out walking along the shore and she's treading
Speaker 1: through the sand, and while strolling alone on the beach,
Speaker 1: she sees a dark silhouette. It's a it's the figure
Speaker 1: of a man, and she realizes that it's the soul
Speaker 1: of her would be husband, who died in in the marsh,
Speaker 1: and she's so troubled by this vision and others like it,
Speaker 1: that she has later that that her family decides to
Speaker 1: relocate inland. They move away from that house, and the
Speaker 1: very next day after they leave, a hurricane sweeps through,
Speaker 1: leaving a path of destruction that would have killed them
Speaker 1: had they not left. And it's apparently this legend that
Speaker 1: that could give rise to this this common belief that
Speaker 1: the ghost appears to people to warn them of storms.
Speaker 1: And as a quick side note, I wanted to mention
Speaker 1: I love that the story involves quicksand, which of course
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite plot devices, but that does
Speaker 1: have an environmental reality to it. You might not want
Speaker 1: to call it quicksand, but the South Carolina low country,
Speaker 1: especially the marshes, it's sort of like the mouth of
Speaker 1: the what they could usually call the creeks, you know,
Speaker 1: the little uh the tributary of water that eventually drained
Speaker 1: out into the ocean. Um. These areas will form this
Speaker 1: build up of fine sediment that is known as pluff
Speaker 1: mud and uh So I was reading at least one
Speaker 1: article from the I think it was the Hilton Head
Speaker 1: area that was all about the story of a lady
Speaker 1: who goes out walking in the marsh for some reason
Speaker 1: and she ends up stuck in the pluff mud and
Speaker 1: she's there until like into the evening and they have
Speaker 1: to send rescuers and to dig her out. Because you
Speaker 1: can very easily get stuck in this stuff. You can
Speaker 1: sink into it. It's a there are a lot of
Speaker 1: myths about quicksand and uh and and things like it
Speaker 1: that you would like sink down under your head and drown.
Speaker 1: That's usually not a very common thing to happen, if
Speaker 1: it happens at all. Really, I think the risk of
Speaker 1: of quicksand and even pluff mud is just that you
Speaker 1: would get stuck in it and have trouble getting yourself out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've certainly been in. I don't know if it constitutes
Speaker 1: plus mud or or if it's just you know, very
Speaker 1: wet sand, but I've been in. I've noticed some coastal
Speaker 1: situations where you have a real, real bootsucker or sandal
Speaker 1: sucker of of a situation, you know, where the sand
Speaker 1: is just the right consistency that if you you step
Speaker 1: into it you might be pulling a bare foot back out. Yes,
Speaker 1: And it's it's almost it's wonderful that it creates this um,
Speaker 1: this almost untouchable terrain, because there are a lot of
Speaker 1: areas around in the low country where you can, like
Speaker 1: if there there will be a nature preserve and you
Speaker 1: can take a board walk out over the marsh, and
Speaker 1: if you look down on it, you see all kinds
Speaker 1: of life. You know, things are happening down in the
Speaker 1: pluff mud. There may be these big colonies of oysters,
Speaker 1: and you can see fiddler crabs popping up out of
Speaker 1: holes and running around, and all the birds hunting them.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's the kind of place where you wouldn't
Speaker 1: really want to go down and venture yourself, at least
Speaker 1: not without some special equipment maybe like weight displacement boots
Speaker 1: or something. Now, apparently there's some alternatives for the origin
Speaker 1: of the gray man legend um uh. To quote again
Speaker 1: from that the Myrtle Beach Online article quote uh. Other
Speaker 1: theories tell a different story. One still has a man
Speaker 1: returning from c but this time his fiance decided to
Speaker 1: marry his best friend instead, he throws himself into the
Speaker 1: wacam All. This is the Wakemall River, which is a
Speaker 1: nearby river, and then later his fiance and friend do
Speaker 1: the same. Other stories say he was an unknown sailor
Speaker 1: who washed up on shore and died shortly after. Some
Speaker 1: believe he is the original owner of Paully's Island, George Pauley,
Speaker 1: who lived there in the early seventeen hundreds than now.
Speaker 1: Of course, this would be far from the only legendary
Speaker 1: supernatural being associate aided with weather phenomena. You know, they're
Speaker 1: there are tons of ghosts and monsters and creatures and
Speaker 1: gods that may not serve exactly this purpose, saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: a storm's coming, but they're in one way or another
Speaker 1: associated specifically with storms or other transient weather phenomena. And so,
Speaker 1: while poking around on the subject, I came across what
Speaker 1: I thought was an interesting and kind of funny article.
Speaker 1: So this was on. This was a weather news article
Speaker 1: by Michael Cune on accu weather dot com with the
Speaker 1: headline quote ghost hunter colon thunderstorms cause an increase in
Speaker 1: paranormal activity. Well, I mean, certainly, if you've watched enough
Speaker 1: horror films and ghost movies, you know that this is
Speaker 1: the case. You've gotta have a thunderstorm going in the background, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a classic of horror fiction. Right,
Speaker 1: so you could argue about the the order of causality there,
Speaker 1: but uh, yeah, you know, you got the classic what's
Speaker 1: the bulward Lytton line? It was a dark and stormy
Speaker 1: night and then the idea that it seems that stormy
Speaker 1: conditions have long inspired Gothic modes of thought. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there's the classic story of Uh, how did
Speaker 1: Mary Wilston craft Shelley come up with the idea for Frankenstein.
Speaker 1: It was during that summer when when she and Byron
Speaker 1: and the whole crew were sort of like stuck inside
Speaker 1: due to this this dark and stormy summer sort of
Speaker 1: it was the year without a summer, which uh, in
Speaker 1: a weird twist of fate, I think was likely due
Speaker 1: to volcanic activity on the other side of the world. Um,
Speaker 1: that that was the summer where she worked out the
Speaker 1: ideas for the story that would become Frankenstein, sort of
Speaker 1: a foundational text of modern horror. And so it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard for me to believe that the dark and
Speaker 1: stormy summer didn't in a way play a role in
Speaker 1: the formation of that story in her mind. But um,
Speaker 1: but anyway, so so this article about the paranormal activity
Speaker 1: in the thunderstorm. So the article consults a paranormal enthusiast
Speaker 1: named Mark Keys, who at the time of this article
Speaker 1: at least was director of the Pennsylvania Paranormal Associated san.
Speaker 1: I looked him up and it seems like he's featured
Speaker 1: on somein some ghost hunter type TV shows. The one
Speaker 1: that was I forget the name is called like Paranormal
Speaker 1: nine one one or something, And based on his quotes,
Speaker 1: I think I think this guy seems to uh take
Speaker 1: a sort of ghost realist position, at least like he
Speaker 1: he uh he cites, for example, the advice of a
Speaker 1: of a spirit medium as if he believes this is
Speaker 1: likely to contain information. And so do you think there
Speaker 1: are skeptical ghost hunters who you call them they show
Speaker 1: up at their door and you're like, hey, I think
Speaker 1: I've got a hunting and their first thing as well,
Speaker 1: look first of all, ghost well there and there could
Speaker 1: be there could be open minded but skeptical ghost hunters.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, Like I I feel like
Speaker 1: that's the attitude I would try to take. I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, I I probably I think most ghost sightings
Speaker 1: are probably all of them are not really a spectral
Speaker 1: beings from another play, and they're probably something about the
Speaker 1: perception of the person experiencing, but you don't know for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, at least look and see you try to
Speaker 1: find something out. I mean, it would be beneficial to
Speaker 1: have more people in that in that mode where like
Speaker 1: they're an expert you consult and they're like, Okay, there
Speaker 1: are no said there's there're no ghosts, but here a
Speaker 1: list of things that that could contribute to this this
Speaker 1: very real and potentially frightening experience that you have. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are some people like that, but I guess
Speaker 1: I would assume this may not be fair. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I would assume if you've got like TV shows,
Speaker 1: you're you're probably at least at least for the cameras,
Speaker 1: leaning into embracing the sort of ghost realist position. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nobody's watching. I guess you could watch it. I could.
Speaker 1: I guess I could imagine a ghost Hunter show with
Speaker 1: this kind of a thing like we're here to bust
Speaker 1: the ghosts, but not only the ghosts themselves, with the
Speaker 1: idea of ghosts that that could be fine. Kind of
Speaker 1: a pen and teller um, you know, kind of approach
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, yeah, sure, right, I don't know, it
Speaker 1: could be done well, Like I feel like like most things,
Speaker 1: you know, it could be done well if it was
Speaker 1: done well. But coming back to this article, the thing
Speaker 1: it really got a hook in my brain about it,
Speaker 1: and that I thought was really interesting was that the
Speaker 1: article made an attempt to posit a physical mechanism by
Speaker 1: which thunderstorms allow ghosts to appear. And I think basically
Speaker 1: the implication is that ghosts need to get charged up
Speaker 1: by lightning. It's not said explicitly, but this does appear
Speaker 1: to be the implication given by the guy sided in
Speaker 1: this article. So to quote from the article, some believe
Speaker 1: that apparitions or spirits need some source of energy to
Speaker 1: manifest their presence into the physical plane in order to
Speaker 1: communicate with the living. This could include drawing energy from
Speaker 1: electrical circuits and even batteries. And then this is quoting
Speaker 1: from keys. If a spirit is trying to manifest, that is,
Speaker 1: become physically visible, it will pull energy out of the
Speaker 1: environment to do that. This could include heat, as cold
Speaker 1: spots are commonly reported, as well as in areas where
Speaker 1: haunting has been report worded. It seems to be shortly
Speaker 1: after a lightning storm that they do notice an increase,
Speaker 1: he said. And then then this is the part where
Speaker 1: Keys claims that his psychic medium will back up the
Speaker 1: fact that after a thunderstorm there is quote a lot
Speaker 1: more activity. Um. Now, you know, as as I think, uh,
Speaker 1: we'll be clear if you've listened to us for a
Speaker 1: while or even from our earlier discussion, I would say
Speaker 1: we generally take a you know, broadly open minded, but
Speaker 1: specifically skeptical position on the physical reality of paranormal reports
Speaker 1: like this. So so while we're not going to embrace
Speaker 1: the ghost realist position, I would be potentially open to
Speaker 1: the claim from the the experience of a paranormal investigator
Speaker 1: who says that thunderstorms are correlated with increased reports of
Speaker 1: ghost sightings, poulter geist hauntings, and so forth. So I
Speaker 1: think that could well be true, and that could well
Speaker 1: be informed by experience, because there would be nothing supernatural
Speaker 1: in that. You just have to say, well, yeah, people
Speaker 1: do say they get haunted more often after there's been
Speaker 1: a storm or around the time of a storm. Um,
Speaker 1: But I would tend to think that if this is true,
Speaker 1: the mechanism would more likely be the thunderstorm somehow causes
Speaker 1: the perception of ghosts and wandering spirits rather than literally
Speaker 1: conjuring them. Yeah, I mean we have to remember that
Speaker 1: what is what does lightning do? But but very briefly
Speaker 1: illuminates the darkened world, um and just a flash and
Speaker 1: gives us a chance to sort of fill in in
Speaker 1: the gaps there with whatever you might you know, expect
Speaker 1: to be there in the storm. That's a really good point,
Speaker 1: and it's further informed by some of the stuff that's
Speaker 1: quoted in this article is like, what are the most
Speaker 1: common things people report as evidence of hauntings in their homes?
Speaker 1: According to this paranormal investigator. He says that, Okay, so
Speaker 1: first of all, you've got I think, you know, visual
Speaker 1: evidence such as people witnessing shadows and spectral human forms,
Speaker 1: which I mean seems like the darkened sky, and then
Speaker 1: like briefly illuminated flash is of lightning. That seems like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's sort of perfect conditions to create illusory perceptions of
Speaker 1: strangely shaped shadows and things like that. But then another
Speaker 1: thing that it identifies, and this is something that I
Speaker 1: think from my reading, is is a very common source
Speaker 1: of paranormal reports what what I would call appliance phenomena.
Speaker 1: Um So, the the article says, quote reports of lights
Speaker 1: flickering and electronic equipment turning on and off on its
Speaker 1: own even when unplugged is common. Other people report more
Speaker 1: physical activities such as doors opening or closing, lights or
Speaker 1: TVs turning off by themselves. Believe it or not, we've
Speaker 1: had a lot of reports of stereos radios turning themselves
Speaker 1: on when they're not even plugged in, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to judge just from generalizations like this, but
Speaker 1: it's funny to me, how much like everything that was
Speaker 1: just listed, except for the unplugged part uh is stuff
Speaker 1: that would be pretty much perfectly explained by the the
Speaker 1: physical effects of a storm. So like doors opening and
Speaker 1: closing by themselves. Of course, during a storm, you have
Speaker 1: wind and pressure differentials that can blow a door one
Speaker 1: way or the other. And then the appliance phenomena that's
Speaker 1: the the anomalous activation or deactivation of electrical appliances, which
Speaker 1: I know from personal experience and probably most of you
Speaker 1: do as well, that this can happen due to storms
Speaker 1: affecting the power grid and the power lines. Leading to
Speaker 1: your house and Rob, I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 1: had this happen in your house, but sometimes, like power
Speaker 1: supply issues during a storm don't affect the entire house
Speaker 1: at once, you know, so like you can have um uh,
Speaker 1: you can have like a power outage where just everything
Speaker 1: goes out. We usually recognize what that is, but we
Speaker 1: we occasionally have stuff happen where, you know, like some
Speaker 1: parts of the household kind of flash on and off
Speaker 1: and other things won't. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Now I think
Speaker 1: that would not explain issues where people are claiming that
Speaker 1: appliances that are not plugged in start turning on and stuff,
Speaker 1: like a lot of the reports emphasize these x or
Speaker 1: levels of implausibility. You know, the stereo wasn't even plugged
Speaker 1: in and it started playing Whalen and uh. I have
Speaker 1: no way of knowing this, but part of me just
Speaker 1: kind of suspects that the appliance was unplugged claim In particular,
Speaker 1: it seems like a like a just a very likely
Speaker 1: exaggeration place to go, like maybe you witness some apparently
Speaker 1: anomalous activation or deactivation of an appliance, an electrical appliance,
Speaker 1: and it feels really notable when you first notice it,
Speaker 1: but then thinking back on it, uh, oh yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: things do just turn on and off. This kind of
Speaker 1: needs some extra beef. And it's like, well, we're we
Speaker 1: even sure it was plugged in. It might not have
Speaker 1: even been plugged in. Yeah, I mean, we have so
Speaker 1: many things plugged in these days. It's sometimes it's hard
Speaker 1: to keep count of what's what's plugged in, what's unplugged.
Speaker 1: And you got to unplug one thing and you actually
Speaker 1: unplugged the other. So plenty of room for misunderstanding and
Speaker 1: altered memory there. Yeah. But so the other main fork
Speaker 1: of the storm causation here on on the hauntings, I
Speaker 1: would think would tend to be um the effects of
Speaker 1: storms on human psychology as storms or even atmospheric conditions
Speaker 1: before or after storms. Yeah, I mean this makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: You know, ghosts are often associated with darkness. Lightning again
Speaker 1: momentarily illuminates the dark and even if it's not nighttime. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you have a storm roll in, what does
Speaker 1: it do? It brings a certain level of darkness and
Speaker 1: shadow with it, throwing the rain, uh, some booming thunder,
Speaker 1: and you have just a creepy environment, not just creepy.
Speaker 1: But I'm thinking about the informational and sensory effects of storms.
Speaker 1: Coming back to that grainy photo we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: I would argue that stormy weather reduces the sensory resolution
Speaker 1: of your environment. Um, So there's darkening due to cloud cover.
Speaker 1: They're less light, means less visual information or certainly less
Speaker 1: certainty in your visual information. And then once you get
Speaker 1: mist and rain, visibility is further reduce boost and wind
Speaker 1: and thunder and rain also reduce the auditory clarity of
Speaker 1: your environment. So imagine, you know, turning up the volume
Speaker 1: on a staticky radio channel. It's harder to discern the
Speaker 1: true signals sound signals around you, and it's easier to
Speaker 1: mistakenly perceive a signal within the noise. And I think
Speaker 1: this would fit with what I said earlier about ghosts
Speaker 1: so often appearing these days on low resolution film, video
Speaker 1: and audio recordings. Yeah, if I'm not sure what I see,
Speaker 1: if I'm not sure what is recorded in one form
Speaker 1: or another, then that creates an opportunity to lean into
Speaker 1: some sort of supernatural understanding of what it might be. Now,
Speaker 1: I was trying to think about other things here where
Speaker 1: um could could there be other sensations people get maybe
Speaker 1: when a storm is approaching that puts them in an
Speaker 1: alternative an alternative state of mind, or has some detectable
Speaker 1: effect on humans that could lead to paranormal experience. Is um.
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced on this one, but there there are
Speaker 1: at least some questions I would like to pose um.
Speaker 1: And so, for example, one of the things I was
Speaker 1: thinking about was barometric pressure. So we all live under
Speaker 1: atmospheric pressure. At sea level. Under normal conditions, you walk
Speaker 1: around with about fourteen points seven pounds per square inch
Speaker 1: of atmosphere pressing down on and around you. But we
Speaker 1: don't normally perceive the weight of the atmosphere because we're
Speaker 1: equalized to it. Uh And in fact, if a significant
Speaker 1: amount of that weight were to be removed, we could
Speaker 1: probably notice it, Like if you go high up enough,
Speaker 1: if you go to a high altitude, you can feel
Speaker 1: a difference in the reduced air pressure, obviously, because you
Speaker 1: know the higher up you go, the less atmosphere there
Speaker 1: is two is above you to press down. But air
Speaker 1: pressure at any surface altitude is variable. So at sea level,
Speaker 1: changes in the weather, changes of the heating of the
Speaker 1: Earth's surface can cause imbalances in barometric pressure. So as
Speaker 1: you have a region of the Earth's surface that gets hot,
Speaker 1: that hot air rises, you can almost imagine it being
Speaker 1: sucked up into the upper atmosphere by a giant vacuum.
Speaker 1: This forms a vacuum below it. It forms a low
Speaker 1: pressure system. And when you have a low pressure region,
Speaker 1: pressure is falling. That means air from the surrounding regions
Speaker 1: of the Earth's surface will flow into that area of
Speaker 1: falling pressure to compensate, and we perceive this flow of
Speaker 1: air as wind. This is what wind is uh. And
Speaker 1: then the rising warm air in a low pressure system
Speaker 1: also carries with it water vapor content, which condenses into
Speaker 1: clouds and eventually has to fall back down as rain.
Speaker 1: So falling barometric pressure is generally taken as a sign
Speaker 1: that storms are coming. If your barometric pressure is going
Speaker 1: down and your wind speed is increasing, you can be
Speaker 1: pretty sure there is a storm headed your way. So
Speaker 1: that's generally factual. But I guess what I was wondering
Speaker 1: about was, well, okay, so do signs like that? Does
Speaker 1: low or falling barometric pressure have any effect on humans?
Speaker 1: That could lead to sort of different states of mind
Speaker 1: or behavior. This one seems uncertain to me. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure psychological studies have tracked all kinds of effects of
Speaker 1: WHETHER on mood, cognition, and behavior. And it seems to
Speaker 1: me that while there have been a few studies finding
Speaker 1: some effects of barometric pressure, if those effects are sound,
Speaker 1: they appear to be a lot more subtle than the
Speaker 1: stronger effects of factors like temperature. But to cite just
Speaker 1: a couple at least of the reported effects. For for
Speaker 1: one example, I was looking at a study called a
Speaker 1: Warm Heart and a Clear Head, The Contingent Effects of
Speaker 1: WHETHER on mood and cognition. This was published in Psychological
Speaker 1: Science in two thousand five. This was a study of
Speaker 1: whether as a as a function generally of seasonal changes,
Speaker 1: and and looking somewhat into questions about seasonal effective disorder.
Speaker 1: But the authors here right in their abstract quote in
Speaker 1: two correlational studies and an experiment manipulating participants time outdoors
Speaker 1: pleasant weather, this would mean higher temperature or higher barometric
Speaker 1: pressure was related to higher mood, better memory, and broadened
Speaker 1: cognitive style during the spring, as time spent outside increased,
Speaker 1: the same relationships between mood and weather we're not observed
Speaker 1: during other times of year though, and indeed hotter weather
Speaker 1: was associated with lower mood in the summer. Uh though
Speaker 1: of course, obviously you know you can have hot weather
Speaker 1: in the summer that is associated with low pressure regions
Speaker 1: that lead up to to a storm. And to further
Speaker 1: elucidate their findings that there right in their results section
Speaker 1: that quote as in some of the previous research, and
Speaker 1: they site Clark and Watson in nine and Watson in
Speaker 1: two thousand, neither temperature nor barometric pressure was directly related
Speaker 1: to mood valants. However, the interactions of time spin outside
Speaker 1: with temperature and with barometric pressure were both significantly related
Speaker 1: to mood valence in the expected direction. As time spin
Speaker 1: outside increase, the temperature, mood and pressure mood relationships became
Speaker 1: more positive. So basically, if you have participants, if you
Speaker 1: tell them they need to spend more than thirty minutes outside,
Speaker 1: higher temperatures and higher pressure are associated with better moods
Speaker 1: and outcomes, um and uh and, but if you have
Speaker 1: people spend less than thirty minutes outside, then the relationship
Speaker 1: is actually reversed. So like good weather outside and having
Speaker 1: to stay indoors apparently has has a negative effect on
Speaker 1: mood and cognition in this finding, right, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: most of us can relate to that. You know, if
Speaker 1: you if it's a nice day outside, but it's a
Speaker 1: day where you only get to experience that whilst moving
Speaker 1: from one indoor environment to another, Yeah, that's kind of
Speaker 1: a bummer. But if you get to be outside the
Speaker 1: whole day or a large portion of the data, that's great.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, so while this did look at barometric pressure
Speaker 1: as one of the things informing the the weather states,
Speaker 1: it was looking at this combination of temperature and barometric pressure,
Speaker 1: what they were really looking at was like, what are
Speaker 1: the effects of good good at you know, so like
Speaker 1: high pressure, high temperature. Is there anything that directly tests
Speaker 1: for no? No, no, what is it? What is it
Speaker 1: about low pressure specifically you know that state when you
Speaker 1: would expect a storm to be heading your way. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are some other findings that seem potentially more directly
Speaker 1: informative on this question, but I also feel somewhat cautious
Speaker 1: about them that they don't feel uh, super conclusive. So,
Speaker 1: for example, one study I came across was published in
Speaker 1: the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in two thousand three by
Speaker 1: Thomas shorey at all. And it looked at documented emergency
Speaker 1: psychiatric visits to a city psychiatric emergency room in the
Speaker 1: r nineteen in a midsized city, and they also looked
Speaker 1: at city police department data and suicide data, and what
Speaker 1: they found was, quote, the data suggests that total numbers
Speaker 1: of acts of violence and emerging and see psychiatry visits
Speaker 1: are significantly associated with low barometric pressure. But then they
Speaker 1: found that psychiatric inpatient admissions and suicides were not associated
Speaker 1: with any of the weather variables they investigated. So that's
Speaker 1: one of those things that's okay that that's a a
Speaker 1: bird's eye level observation of something that happened in one
Speaker 1: city that might mirror it further investigation. But I don't
Speaker 1: think we could say anything conclusive just based on that.
Speaker 1: Um So I would be skeptical about drawing too many
Speaker 1: conclusions from from ideas about the relationship between barometric pressure
Speaker 1: specifically and psychology. But the conditions that precede a storm,
Speaker 1: both the obvious and cognitively recognized conditions like clouds, darkening skies,
Speaker 1: and thunder, and then perhaps some subconsciously perceived conditions like
Speaker 1: dropping barometric pressure or increasing winds I think it could
Speaker 1: possibly give rise to a different state of mind when
Speaker 1: a storm is approaching, certainly the cognitively recognized ones. So
Speaker 1: I think these are all excellent ideas to keep in
Speaker 1: mind as we proceed through the rest of the episode,
Speaker 1: where I thought we might just look at some various
Speaker 1: ghosts and monsters and sometimes divine or partially divine figures
Speaker 1: from around the world that have something to do with
Speaker 1: with weather or in or at least in one in
Speaker 1: one case, has nothing to do with weather, but gets
Speaker 1: into the idea of a ghost harpinger. So, um, first
Speaker 1: of all, we'll go ahead and get the one out
Speaker 1: of the way that doesn't really seem to have anything
Speaker 1: to do with weather. Um. Well, actually, I guess I
Speaker 1: have a couple of them here, and the first one
Speaker 1: here is is Hernie the Hunter. Have you heard of
Speaker 1: this particular ghost and not until you introduced him to me?
Speaker 1: So this is apparently a ghostly phosphorescent mounted hunter said
Speaker 1: to ride through the woods surrounding Windsor Castle in the UK.
Speaker 1: He's covered in furs and his head as a secured
Speaker 1: by the skull and antlers of a great stack. And
Speaker 1: when I when I heard about this, I had to,
Speaker 1: of course look it up in in Carol Rose's encyclopedic
Speaker 1: volumes on monsters and fairies and whatnot, and she makes
Speaker 1: a possible connection here between this legend and older Celtic
Speaker 1: beliefs in a particular horned fertility god whose name was
Speaker 1: Sir nunus Um. That's c e r in you in
Speaker 1: an Os. That's at least one modern spelling of it.
Speaker 1: But this UH, this particular apparition was referenced by Shakespeare,
Speaker 1: and UH in the twentieth century at least has come
Speaker 1: to be seen as a harbinger of disaster, not of storms,
Speaker 1: but of economic and political disaster, which I found interesting.
Speaker 1: So sightings of the Hunter here have been attributed to
Speaker 1: the nine economic Depression, the nineteen thirty six abdication crisis,
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty nine Declaration of War, and the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two death of George the sixth. Another version I've
Speaker 1: read is that her name a Hunter always appears when
Speaker 1: a monarch is close to death. Well, this raises a
Speaker 1: question for me about a distinction we could make about
Speaker 1: harbinger deities, or maybe not deities. I don't know if
Speaker 1: if her name here is a is a God or
Speaker 1: just a creature being of some kind, whatever you would
Speaker 1: call it, the these harbinger beings, you could say that, okay,
Speaker 1: if they appear right before a disaster of some kind,
Speaker 1: whether that's a hurricane or or an economic depression or
Speaker 1: the death of a monarch, are they appearing in a
Speaker 1: benign spirit saying like, Hey, I have divine fore knowledge
Speaker 1: because I'm of the other plane. I'm not of this world,
Speaker 1: so I'm not bound by time, and I'm just giving
Speaker 1: you a warning, like I'm here to let you know
Speaker 1: so you can prepare. Or are they on the sort
Speaker 1: of uh, disastrous causation side is like, you know, are
Speaker 1: they an ill omen is seeing them in some way
Speaker 1: part of the causative structure of the disaster that comes?
Speaker 1: Or do they even directly bring it about by appearing? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can see various interpretations I guess of what exactly
Speaker 1: is going on? Um, And and we'll we'll keep discussing this.
Speaker 1: But uh, another little tale that I read this was
Speaker 1: in Rose's book, referring to work by folklore's Ruth Tongue. Um.
Speaker 1: It's a story. The Tongue rights of this tale that
Speaker 1: was circulating about three British youths who were decked out
Speaker 1: in the teddy boy style of the nineteen sixties. You
Speaker 1: can look that up if if you need a visual
Speaker 1: of what that would look like. Uh, they were, they were,
Speaker 1: you know, up to I don't know if they were
Speaker 1: up to no good, but they were. They were out.
Speaker 1: They were hanging out in the woods and what do
Speaker 1: they find? A horn? And um, I believe the story
Speaker 1: goes that they were thinking, oh, well, there must have
Speaker 1: been some sort of a film shoot going on here,
Speaker 1: and they left a prop. Uh, we've got this horn,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and blow it. So they blow the horn,
Speaker 1: and then sure enough, the unseen spirit begins to pursue
Speaker 1: them through the woods and you know, getting closer and closer,
Speaker 1: and finally an arrow seems to fly and slays one
Speaker 1: of them dead. But there's not a single physical wound.
Speaker 1: It seems to have been some sort of a ghost era.
Speaker 1: Uh So that's that's a that's a fun little tale
Speaker 1: as well. And of course this all relates back to
Speaker 1: other traditions of the wild hunt myth of some sort
Speaker 1: of of a ghostly being or beings sometimes in the
Speaker 1: company of of of hell hounds that goes out on
Speaker 1: strange hunts in the night and you don't want to
Speaker 1: run a foul of them. Something is incongruous between that
Speaker 1: and the teddy boy thing. I'm hung up on the
Speaker 1: teddy boy detail. Is this a commentary on the teddy
Speaker 1: boy fashion trend or I think it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: on the youth of the day. So it's like whatever
Speaker 1: the youth. You can imagine various youth fashion trends in
Speaker 1: Britain and uh and then being reflected in versions of
Speaker 1: this story. It makes it seem very cinematic. I can
Speaker 1: imagine the cinematic version is so if her name has
Speaker 1: a stag skull on top of his head and you
Speaker 1: look up teddy boy hairstyles, I mean you could see
Speaker 1: some certain basic shape and contour similarities where their pompadours
Speaker 1: look kind of like stag skulls. Yeah, yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: without horns. But now as far as is ghostly harbingers go,
Speaker 1: I know some of you are probably thinking of this, Um,
Speaker 1: this is more in the realm of cryptids and and
Speaker 1: ufo ology. But um, there's the the alleged supernatural harbinger
Speaker 1: of the Silver Bridge collapse of nineteen sixty seven, there's
Speaker 1: the bridge that spanned the Ohio River. Uh. The Mothman. Uh.
Speaker 1: They've been books and movies about this, but the connection,
Speaker 1: the original connection between the collapse and sightings of the Mothman,
Speaker 1: I'm to understand, are largely due to the writings of
Speaker 1: UFO ologist John Keel. I think this story is the
Speaker 1: inspiration behind the plot of that Richard Gear movie, The
Speaker 1: Mothman Prophecies, isn't it It is? Yeah, I've never seen it,
Speaker 1: but I am familiar with you know what, So we
Speaker 1: watched it a few years back. We'd like to revisit, uh,
Speaker 1: not just classic horror films, but you know, Rachel and
Speaker 1: I sometimes watch like Fallen by the Wayside, horror films
Speaker 1: that nobody really talks about anymore. And so this one
Speaker 1: was what did this come out in the early two
Speaker 1: thousands or something? Um, I think that sometime around then
Speaker 1: has Richard Gear and it's about this whole situation, and
Speaker 1: you know what, I gotta say it It's not perfect,
Speaker 1: but there it's got some good ghostly atmosphere and it
Speaker 1: was actually pretty spooky, A pretty solid thumbs up. Now,
Speaker 1: there are some other Harbinger spirits of note, there's the Chira,
Speaker 1: which is a harbinger spirit, and the folklore of whales,
Speaker 1: it's a bandshe like being that whales and groans as
Speaker 1: she passes through the city streets at night, warning of
Speaker 1: impending disaster, including epidemics, which of course is interesting. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, speaking of there's the Bansheet of Irish legend
Speaker 1: that whales under the window of a family member to
Speaker 1: portend that family member's death. I guess this comes back
Speaker 1: to the question I brought up a minute ago, because
Speaker 1: I think I've read about this in the context of
Speaker 1: the band sheet before, where it's not really clear to
Speaker 1: me whether the belief is that the band she knows
Speaker 1: the death is going to happen and is sort of
Speaker 1: informing the family of such by their behavior, or whether
Speaker 1: or not it's intentional on the bench's part the banshees
Speaker 1: letting them know, or the banshee's presence is somehow causing
Speaker 1: the death. Yeah, yeah, so unanswerable questions about the strange
Speaker 1: doings of of weird creatures, and I guess that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that makes them weird in other world
Speaker 1: is you don't know what their role in the whole
Speaker 1: scenario is, uh, you know, what are you doing here?
Speaker 1: Are you're feeding off of the the of the misery
Speaker 1: of the bereavement, or are you here as an agent
Speaker 1: of death? What exactly is going on? Are you trying
Speaker 1: to warn us or is it something to be on
Speaker 1: any of these interpretations, They're here on ghost business. That's
Speaker 1: all you know. Right now, Let's get back into just
Speaker 1: ideas of storms and rain and water and cataclysmic weather.
Speaker 1: So plenty of cultures have major flood storm and cataclysm myths,
Speaker 1: and and China is no exception. Uh. There's a course,
Speaker 1: the story of You the Great who overcomes the day
Speaker 1: lose with drainage channels and earthwork. Uh. There's also the
Speaker 1: Chinese flood myth concerning the water god U Gong gong Uh,
Speaker 1: sometimes relegated as one of the four perils. So this
Speaker 1: is a vast serpent with a human head red hair,
Speaker 1: and gong Gong is said to have caused a great
Speaker 1: flood by bumping into Mount Buzio, which caused the sky
Speaker 1: pillar to collapse, resulting in his cosmic disorder. You end
Speaker 1: up having to have the goddess nuah uh step in
Speaker 1: repair the sky pillar in order to bring order back
Speaker 1: out of chaos. And sometimes this myth and the myth
Speaker 1: of You the Great are are linked together. And then
Speaker 1: there's the myth of Hogi, the the Archer. You may
Speaker 1: remember him from his key row in the myth of
Speaker 1: the Surplus Sons or his part in the lunar myth
Speaker 1: of Changa and the Potion of Immortality. But to refresh
Speaker 1: during the time of the Ten Sons, Emperor Gal calls
Speaker 1: upon Ye to shoot the nine Surplus Sons out of
Speaker 1: the sky, and he does so, saving the earth from
Speaker 1: fiery desolation. But the time of the Ten Sons is
Speaker 1: also a period of great disruption, and many unnatural beings
Speaker 1: roam free to commit great offenses against the gods, and
Speaker 1: so Emperor Yo charges Ye with the destruction of these
Speaker 1: monsters as well. He has to hunt them down and
Speaker 1: slay them in order to protect the people. So is
Speaker 1: this after the sun shoots down the nine Surplus Sons
Speaker 1: and then goes after he has to clean up afterwards
Speaker 1: with the monsters, right, yeah, yeah, Because the cosmic disorder,
Speaker 1: it kind of is You've left with the idea that
Speaker 1: it kind of unleashed these beings, or it created an
Speaker 1: atmosphere in which they could thrive, and now they need
Speaker 1: to be put back and check rounded up the loose ponies. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: According to the translator's John Major at All in two
Speaker 1: thousand tens the Huai non Z, a Guide to the
Speaker 1: Theory and Practice of Government in early Han China, these monsters,
Speaker 1: these monsters that that Ye has to has to hunt down. Um.
Speaker 1: They pop up in various warring states and Han works
Speaker 1: and seem to represent destructive forces of nature. One of
Speaker 1: these monsters you'll learn about next week on the Monster
Speaker 1: Factor or Wednesday Shorty episode UH. And that one I
Speaker 1: think you can also make. There's also a strong evidence
Speaker 1: to support the idea that it represents some sort of
Speaker 1: natural disaster as well. But there's one uh in particular
Speaker 1: that's very connected to the idea of storms, and that
Speaker 1: is the wind bird daufing. So this literally means a
Speaker 1: strong wind. Sometimes I see it translated as typhoon. It's
Speaker 1: a giant, ferocious bird of prey that brings with its
Speaker 1: strong winds whipped up by its mighty wings, so everywhere
Speaker 1: it goes it brings destructive winds with it. So of
Speaker 1: course Ye has to has to hunt it down, and
Speaker 1: he uses the interestingly enough, he basically just uses the
Speaker 1: techniques that one would use in hunting birds, especially during
Speaker 1: this time period. He attaches a chord to his arrow
Speaker 1: and shoots the mighty bird out of the sky. He
Speaker 1: holds the cord firmly so that he can, you know,
Speaker 1: keep track of it and kind of bring it down,
Speaker 1: and then he follows that chord to the site where
Speaker 1: he has grounded the mighty Uh daffing, and then he
Speaker 1: cuts its head off with his sword Wow. In other tales,
Speaker 1: Ye also exacts revenge on the damaging river god he Bow,
Speaker 1: who he blinded in one eye, and then he also
Speaker 1: hunts down or seeks a vengeance on the wind god
Speaker 1: thing Bow, who he shot in the knee. So you
Speaker 1: might be a win god on a chariot pulled by dragons,
Speaker 1: or a or a god who actually takes on the
Speaker 1: form of a dragon. But that doesn't mean Ye doesn't
Speaker 1: have a receipt for you if you caused a bunch
Speaker 1: of storm damage. So this raises a thought for me.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about, um, what are the different influences that
Speaker 1: determine sort of what level the embodiment of the storms
Speaker 1: Uh represents within the pantheon or maybe not even the pantheon,
Speaker 1: the sort of the supernatural theater of a mythological belief system,
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking about these cases where you can have
Speaker 1: a specific monster or creature. In this case, it is
Speaker 1: a ferocious monster being that represents a kind of disorder.
Speaker 1: It is that it is a pony that has gotten
Speaker 1: loose from a from a unharmonious phase of the universe,
Speaker 1: and it has to be slain and set right. So
Speaker 1: this is the embodiment of storms in this one type
Speaker 1: of mythology. But you have plenty of other mythologies where
Speaker 1: storms are not only part of the natural divine order,
Speaker 1: but they are particularly the power of the like most
Speaker 1: powerful god or the king of the gods. Think of,
Speaker 1: you know, the storm associations with with Zeus or Jupiter,
Speaker 1: or the storm associations with the some of the chief
Speaker 1: gods of the ancient Near Eastern pantheons. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting to think about this, yeah, because you can
Speaker 1: the huge difference between the storm that is caused by
Speaker 1: the high god or a particularly powerful deity, one that
Speaker 1: is worshiped, and a storm caused by various monsters that
Speaker 1: are rampaging. Uh, you know, things that represent cosmic disalignment,
Speaker 1: um and uh, and you know you can have ramifications
Speaker 1: based on how you view that. But uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting to think about, even in our modern times, what
Speaker 1: do we do with hurricanes and tropical storms. You know,
Speaker 1: we name them, and of course they're they're very good
Speaker 1: reasons to name a storm, to give it a human name.
Speaker 1: It it helps, uh in communicating things about that storm
Speaker 1: and tracking them and making sure that people were prepared
Speaker 1: for this particular storm and not approaching it like you know,
Speaker 1: the last storm. You know, each each hurricane that makes
Speaker 1: landfall is coming in a difference in different intensities, and
Speaker 1: it's an infect a different area, uh, in a different way.
Speaker 1: It does seem interesting that I could be wrong about this,
Speaker 1: but my gut feeling is that people have an easier
Speaker 1: time knowing which hurricane you're talking about when they have
Speaker 1: names attached to them then they would if you were
Speaker 1: just referencing it by like a year or something. You know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the storm of ninety seven or something. But if you
Speaker 1: if you give it a human name, yeah, you're you're
Speaker 1: anthropomorphizing it a little bit. Just you know, there's no
Speaker 1: way around it. Uh, but people are going to remember it,
Speaker 1: people are going to know it's coming. It seems to
Speaker 1: me that like when you say Andrew, that conjures up
Speaker 1: like specific imagery that you recall from being associated with
Speaker 1: that name, versus like if you were just to say
Speaker 1: the year number. I don't know, maybe it would be
Speaker 1: different if we were referred to it by years, but
Speaker 1: that's my feeling on it now to move elsewhere in
Speaker 1: the world. Another one that I ran across the Blue
Speaker 1: Men of Niche. Uh So. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: mur folk myths and legends out there that involve the
Speaker 1: creatures having some degree of control over or knowledge of
Speaker 1: weather in storms, and they're ultimately just too numerous to
Speaker 1: go through. There's a lot of similarities between them, but
Speaker 1: this one stood out to me. Them people were said
Speaker 1: this particular variety of murder people anyway, were said to
Speaker 1: haunt the Minch passage of the Alter Hebrides off of Scotland.
Speaker 1: Uh This body of water is known in Gaelic as
Speaker 1: uh thruth Na fear Gorma, the channel of the blue Men.
Speaker 1: Uh So, this is also interesting considered they were talking
Speaker 1: about gray men and here we are with blue men.
Speaker 1: So they were said to look like normal humans, except
Speaker 1: with entirely blue skin and gray beards. And it's a
Speaker 1: treacherous passage of water, apparently, And so the legend was
Speaker 1: that the blue men would rise up from their deep
Speaker 1: caves and they would summon fierce storms against trespassing human
Speaker 1: ships and wreck them. But wise captains knew that the
Speaker 1: blue men loved rhyming contests, so they could earn the
Speaker 1: ship's safety across the passage if they just had some
Speaker 1: great rhymes up their sleeves. Now, Carol Roseen in her
Speaker 1: book She she shares that the myth is thought to
Speaker 1: be based on Moorish slaves marooned by Vikings in the
Speaker 1: area during the ninth century. And the idea here is that, uh,
Speaker 1: that these these individuals would have worn long blue robes
Speaker 1: and gray blue veils. Huh. And incidentally, the Tuareg people
Speaker 1: of Saharan Africa, uh, apparently do wear these fashions like
Speaker 1: these are the traditional fashions of the Tuareg people. Now
Speaker 1: do you know if that's more of a kind of
Speaker 1: legendary explanation or is that thought by any modern scholars
Speaker 1: to have any likely explanatory power in the origin of
Speaker 1: the myth. Well, I was looking into it a bit,
Speaker 1: and apparently Scottish Folklore's Donald A. McKenzie, who lived eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy three through nineteen thirty six, it was kind of
Speaker 1: the the individual who really popularized this hypothesis. And today
Speaker 1: I think there's some individuals who think that the true
Speaker 1: origin might just be accounts of the tire people, although
Speaker 1: the Saharan Africa that traveled um you know, some sort
Speaker 1: of you know, communication of this idea, maybe that you
Speaker 1: have some sort of amr fault tradition and you combine
Speaker 1: that with with uh, you know, some sort of knowledge
Speaker 1: of of tireg people and what they wore, or if
Speaker 1: not the tire people, then perhaps um predecessors to them
Speaker 1: that had similar fashions and similar uh you know, dies
Speaker 1: and use. But another suggested explanation is that this belief
Speaker 1: in the blue people the blue men, that it refers
Speaker 1: in some fashion to tattooed pits. Uh. These would have
Speaker 1: been uh uh you know, people who were known for
Speaker 1: their tattoos uh. And the Latin origin of picks is
Speaker 1: painted people. I seem to recall this from the Roman period,
Speaker 1: at least some author talking about the idea that there
Speaker 1: would be people in um. I don't know what they
Speaker 1: called it at the time. It was at Caledonia, you know,
Speaker 1: the area that is now Scotland, you know, north of England,
Speaker 1: so you would have had Roman Britain, and then at
Speaker 1: a certain point that you have Hadrian's Wall, and then
Speaker 1: there are tribes that live north of that that they
Speaker 1: regarded as very barbaric, and I think they there's some
Speaker 1: reference there to these people being painted in blue, or
Speaker 1: their warriors being painted in blue. Yeah, so ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't we don't know exactly what the blue men
Speaker 1: of Minch is referring to, or what indeed which what
Speaker 1: influences or what combination of influences led to this tradition,
Speaker 1: but it was said they can control the weather, so
Speaker 1: it's certainly worth mentioning here. Now another one, I have
Speaker 1: to get into the realm of Yokai here for a
Speaker 1: bit um And. And I'm especially excited to talk about
Speaker 1: this because I recently picked up a fun little book
Speaker 1: to read with my son titled Yokai Attacked the Japanese
Speaker 1: Monster Survival Guide UM. This is by Yoda and Alt
Speaker 1: and illustrated by by Tatsuya Marino, and it's a fun
Speaker 1: little book with that that has some wonderful illustrations but
Speaker 1: also some great information in it. It's well sighted and
Speaker 1: very informative and very fun for young readers. Uh So
Speaker 1: uh I was looking through that, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I know there's some yokai that relate to the weather
Speaker 1: or to the water, so there's got to be something
Speaker 1: good in here. Lay it on me. Well, there's one
Speaker 1: by the name of Umi Bozoo. Uh. They're known as
Speaker 1: the sea monks Japanese yokai, said to resemble great black
Speaker 1: bull b like beings with glowing eyes emerging from the water. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the black may or may not be fur if
Speaker 1: you could touch it, depending on the the account. Also
Speaker 1: depending on the account, they might be vengeful ghosts of
Speaker 1: the sea uh. And in this they have much in
Speaker 1: common with some Chinese ghost traditions uh the boat spirits
Speaker 1: or fun jura, which you'll find illustrations off as well.
Speaker 1: But in anyway, the the Umi Bozo are said to
Speaker 1: rise from the surface of the ocean even during the day.
Speaker 1: Even so, even if they're there's there's nothing going on,
Speaker 1: you know, with darkness and storm but they bring with
Speaker 1: them atmospheric disturbances and storms. Um. And of course this
Speaker 1: means that ultimately what they're trying to do, of course,
Speaker 1: is they want to bring down vessels. They want to
Speaker 1: cause your ship to sink, drag it to the bottom
Speaker 1: of the ocean. And the smaller ones you might be
Speaker 1: able to drive away, but the larger ones are just
Speaker 1: too powerful. Okay. So this would be more in line
Speaker 1: with the type of creature like the wind bird from
Speaker 1: from Chinese legend that literally brings the storm and weather
Speaker 1: disturbances by its own like it directly causes them. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would seem to be the case. Um. And these
Speaker 1: are these are fun ideas to get into as well, because,
Speaker 1: first of all, the idea of any kind of enormous
Speaker 1: being certainly um, you know this, this black creature emerging
Speaker 1: from the water. Uh, it instantly makes us think of whales.
Speaker 1: And indeed there may be some connection there between between
Speaker 1: these legendary creatures and whale sightings. And also there's a
Speaker 1: possibility that there's some sort of atmosphereic ghost lighting involved
Speaker 1: as well, which is, you know, something worth remembering anytime
Speaker 1: you're dealing with ghosts of the ocean. But one of
Speaker 1: the interesting takes I was reading about the phono uri
Speaker 1: that the Chinese version of this the boat spirits UH,
Speaker 1: is that they were sometimes attributed with ladling water into
Speaker 1: ships and causing them to sink, or or just by
Speaker 1: their very presence causing compasses not to work. But they
Speaker 1: were also said to simply hold ships in place, and
Speaker 1: some have theorized that this might occur due to dead water.
Speaker 1: So this is a nautical phenomenon which UH you see
Speaker 1: take at least a couple of different forms. UH. For instance,
Speaker 1: you see it in in far northern Um environments. You
Speaker 1: see this situation where slow moving vessels can become stuck
Speaker 1: due to a thin layer of fresh water spreading over
Speaker 1: the sea from melting ice UM. But then also you
Speaker 1: see the situation with internal waves due to shallow brackish
Speaker 1: water and the upper layer of the water column, making
Speaker 1: it where a ship will feel stuck in the water
Speaker 1: as if something is holding it there. So it's been
Speaker 1: hypothesized that this could be a possible one of the
Speaker 1: possible reasons for this kind of myth, like something is
Speaker 1: holding the ship in place, what is it? It must
Speaker 1: be some sort of ghostly presence. Oh yeah, I think
Speaker 1: this makespain recalled. It might have been in our episodes
Speaker 1: about the sarcassum seaweed that we uh discussed other other
Speaker 1: supernatural ideas about the dull drums and ways that your
Speaker 1: ship can become stuck in water without a propelling wind. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the course that's interesting too, right, because because the
Speaker 1: the idea of a terrible storm can be devastating to
Speaker 1: the ship at sea, but also uh in a complete
Speaker 1: absence of weather can be equally disturbing. Yeah. Now here's
Speaker 1: another creature that came up when I was looking around,
Speaker 1: and that's uh Um the Alps an interesting lake monster
Speaker 1: at this time from the folklore of Switzerland centered on
Speaker 1: the lake um uh Sellsburg see near Lucerne. Uh sightings
Speaker 1: are recorded from fifteen eighty four through ninety six. Kind
Speaker 1: of a bulky, multi limbed dragon creature that may suddenly
Speaker 1: surface alongside boats and scare people. Also may rage sheep
Speaker 1: herds at night and leave disturbingly mutilated bodies in its wake. Um.
Speaker 1: But their appearance in the water was said to foretell
Speaker 1: a powerful storm. Um. And so I had to look
Speaker 1: this lake up. I wasn't familiar with it. Uh It's
Speaker 1: also known as Seeley and it covers forty four acres
Speaker 1: and reaches depths of thirty seven ms or feet. Now,
Speaker 1: in Irish mythology you also have the Fomorians. Um these
Speaker 1: were said to be the original occupants of Ireland who
Speaker 1: were defeated by the invading fur Bags and then transformed
Speaker 1: into grotesque monsters or giants. And then of course the
Speaker 1: to off the to then and come along and they
Speaker 1: invade and they defeat the defeat the fur Bags, and
Speaker 1: so the Fomorians are sometimes attributed with power over weather,
Speaker 1: over storms, as well as given the power to blight crops.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we we We talked about for more ins
Speaker 1: in the context of Kuhlan or Kukullen. Yeah. Now, another
Speaker 1: interesting monster that is that is definitely tied to the wind,
Speaker 1: at least in its origins are the harpies. And I
Speaker 1: think harpies are interesting because I think a lot of
Speaker 1: modern monster fans probably think of of maybe two or
Speaker 1: three different things when you imagine the harpy. First of all,
Speaker 1: they're Ray Harry Howson's Harpies from Jason and the Argonauts.
Speaker 1: Do you remember these, oh yeah, these terrible blue women
Speaker 1: with the with the large blue bat wings. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: have bat like wings in uh in Jason and the Argonauts,
Speaker 1: but they're they're pretty creepy, very gargoyle esque. Um. Outside
Speaker 1: of this tradition, they're they're pretty weak enemies and dungeons
Speaker 1: and dragons, uh, not very impressive, but there's some cool
Speaker 1: frustrations of them. And then of course there's the harpy
Speaker 1: in the Last Unicorn, which is a terrifying and powerful
Speaker 1: creature that is is pretty much the direct opposite of
Speaker 1: everything they are in Dungeons and Dragons and so in.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, generally, in our interpretation of the harpies,
Speaker 1: we think of grotesque hybrids of vultures and women, sometimes
Speaker 1: with other influences thrown in. I've seen accounts where they
Speaker 1: say that they have bare ears wait and in wait,
Speaker 1: bare ears, bare ears like the ears of a bear.
Speaker 1: I can't even picture bare ears. What a bare ears
Speaker 1: look like? I don't. I mean, That's why I'm I
Speaker 1: think we we often just just whittle it down to
Speaker 1: just uh, you know, old woman plus uh vulture, you know,
Speaker 1: because you throw in these other influences. Yet what does
Speaker 1: it even mean? Okay? I just look worn times barriers
Speaker 1: they're little nubs, I mean like barriers. Do not seem
Speaker 1: like especially notable kinds of animal ears. Yeah, well maybe
Speaker 1: an admant more during the time when when this was
Speaker 1: a tribute, it to their, to their their, these these monsters.
Speaker 1: That's such a funny choice. I love it. Now. In
Speaker 1: Greek and Roman myth the number of the harpies it
Speaker 1: it varies. There may be as few as one or
Speaker 1: as many as five. And in origin they are linked
Speaker 1: to traditions of wind spirits, and we see that in
Speaker 1: the various names that have been attributed to them. So
Speaker 1: in the Theogeny Hesiod rights quote and Thomas wedded Electra,
Speaker 1: the daughter of deep flowing ocean, and she bare him
Speaker 1: swift iris and the long haired harpies a l o
Speaker 1: storm swift and nosepates swift flyer, who on their swift
Speaker 1: wings keep pace with the blasts of the winds and
Speaker 1: the birds for quick as time they dart along by
Speaker 1: the way dungeons and dragons. Gives harpies a laughable forty
Speaker 1: foot flying speed. Come on, that does not sound as
Speaker 1: fast as time? What is it? Okay? So I don't
Speaker 1: know flying speeds usually what is oh? I think I've
Speaker 1: got a think my character, who's kind of a whimp,
Speaker 1: has a thirty foot walking speed. Is that right? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: thirty foot walking walking is like a general humanoid walking speed.
Speaker 1: So the harpy can fly just a little further than
Speaker 1: a human being can walk. Uh in Dungeons and Dragons,
Speaker 1: which is clearly this is a creature that needs a
Speaker 1: needs a reboot. In the Monster Manual, now a Homer
Speaker 1: also wrote of harpies, particularly the harpy podar j which
Speaker 1: means a swift foot, and this is said to be
Speaker 1: the mother of Balius and xanthus the speeds of Achilles,
Speaker 1: And in a more general sense, the harpy is a
Speaker 1: human bird hybrid of course, and we see a lot
Speaker 1: of these and global myth cycles, and it's often pointed
Speaker 1: out that this sort of particular hybrid between humans and
Speaker 1: creatures of the air, it often has some sort of
Speaker 1: connection between earth and sky, between the world of mortals
Speaker 1: and the abode of the gods. Uh. The harpy also
Speaker 1: specifically is often brought up as an example of the
Speaker 1: monstrous feminine in in myth making, so an imagined creature
Speaker 1: used to convey negative attitudes about females. And female bodies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think of it as a kind of standard genre
Speaker 1: of misogynist comment to to compare a woman that you
Speaker 1: don't like to a harpy. Yeah, but it seems that
Speaker 1: in their original form, in their origins, they were more
Speaker 1: like minor wind gods or or wind demons, perhaps more
Speaker 1: in keeping with the furies who might descend on a
Speaker 1: mortal at the behest of a god. By the way,
Speaker 1: an interesting wrinkle on all of this I think we've
Speaker 1: discussed before is that the sirens who we often think
Speaker 1: of now, and this is represented in our you think
Speaker 1: of mermaids, or you think of you know, beautiful veiled
Speaker 1: women emerging from the surf, but they were originally bird
Speaker 1: female hybrids as well, and so ancient depictions of what
Speaker 1: we might think of his harpies in the modern sense,
Speaker 1: uh might have been sirens, or in some cases, UH
Speaker 1: just were something else, some other kind of bird human hybrid.
Speaker 1: For instance, there's tomb, the tomb of Xanthus uh, and
Speaker 1: there's a carving from it, various carvings from it, I
Speaker 1: think that you can find in the British Museum, and
Speaker 1: it's it's been referred to for a long time as
Speaker 1: the harpy too. I mean, you see this winged female figure.
Speaker 1: Though it's it's it's far from certain that these were sirens,
Speaker 1: but they were probably not harpies either. Uh So I
Speaker 1: think it's still an open question exactly what this particular
Speaker 1: being is supposed to be, you know, bringing this back
Speaker 1: to the special potency of weather mythology and weather monsters
Speaker 1: when it comes to sailing and ocean going. Uh. This
Speaker 1: reminds me of a few years ago. I had a
Speaker 1: conversation with the author chet VanDuzer about his his books
Speaker 1: about the history of depictions of monsters on maps and
Speaker 1: um and one of the surprising things about that is
Speaker 1: if you had to guess, okay, what are the most
Speaker 1: common types of sea monsters you would imagine depicted on
Speaker 1: a map. Uh, you would probably guess what's some kind
Speaker 1: of like ocean drag and type thing, or maybe the
Speaker 1: the kraken or like a snake like sea monster. No,
Speaker 1: by far, the most common type of monster, at least
Speaker 1: depicted throughout the Western history of maps, is the siren.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna have one type of monster on there,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a siren. And and do you
Speaker 1: remember if it was the the more mur folk style
Speaker 1: siren or the winged siren. I'm cautious to answer that
Speaker 1: because I'm not positive, but I seem to recall representations
Speaker 1: both ways. Um, though, I guess the winged version would
Speaker 1: probably be closer to this association with weather events, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would, I would think so. Yeah, they and certainly
Speaker 1: the the the curious nature of winds and winds at sea.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's where a lot of this comes
Speaker 1: back to, like how how do we today and how
Speaker 1: have people throughout history thought about weather patterns, particularly destructive
Speaker 1: weather that seemed out of the normal. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that are unique and dangerous? How do we think about those?
Speaker 1: Are those the work of strange creatures that we can't
Speaker 1: quite understand? Are they cosmic anomalies? Might there be some
Speaker 1: sort of magical being that would warn us if these
Speaker 1: are occurring? Is there some hero that could protect us
Speaker 1: from them, because they could slay these monsters and return
Speaker 1: the world to to some sort of normality. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating to think about. I wonder about something else,
Speaker 1: coming back to gray Man type sightings of you know,
Speaker 1: the being that would warn you about about a coming storm.
Speaker 1: I wonder to what extent legends like that could also
Speaker 1: sort of be going the other way in terms of
Speaker 1: our internal mental causation, meaning like how much of it
Speaker 1: is based in People have some kind of experience, you know,
Speaker 1: they see what they think is a is a spectral
Speaker 1: figure or spirit of something or something, and they want
Speaker 1: it to mean something. They don't want to just be
Speaker 1: I saw something weird and there's no reason for it,
Speaker 1: so they try to connect it to something significant. It's
Speaker 1: trying to tell me X. This means why when we
Speaker 1: have unusual experiences, I think it's very natural for us
Speaker 1: to try to say no, no, no, that was not
Speaker 1: just an unusual experience. It was an indication of something.
Speaker 1: It was somehow informative, It meant something, And it seems
Speaker 1: like possibly the single easiest place you could go to
Speaker 1: there is connecting it to external environmental events like the weather. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is one reason there's so
Speaker 1: much weather lore where people can say, oh, you can
Speaker 1: tell the storm's coming when I don't know when a
Speaker 1: cow sits down at night or something like. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a million sayings like that, and it's because weather
Speaker 1: is constantly changing, so there's just like constant opportunities for
Speaker 1: you to observe one thing and then something happens with
Speaker 1: the weather and you make a connection there, yea. And
Speaker 1: our mind is constantly looking for those connections. We want
Speaker 1: to make those connections, and often with weather, the stakes
Speaker 1: are are enormous, particularly when we're talking about highly destructive
Speaker 1: weather patterns. So of course we're looking for some sort
Speaker 1: of connection between the things we see in the world
Speaker 1: and what's going on in the weather. And that includes, uh,
Speaker 1: things we don't completely see, you know, or we we
Speaker 1: we miss see, or we misinterpret or hallucinations and so forth,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I think that uh. One I guess
Speaker 1: one place I was going with that is that perhaps
Speaker 1: that selective sort of meaning seeking whenever you have a
Speaker 1: strange experience could lead to a form of selective reporting
Speaker 1: that informs So, you know, somebody thinks they see something
Speaker 1: weird in a photo, or thinks they see something weird
Speaker 1: on the beach, and then nothing happens the next day.
Speaker 1: Well maybe I don't know who they really tell about that.
Speaker 1: But if the next day the hurricane hits and you
Speaker 1: think you've discovered some kind of uh, informative correlation there,
Speaker 1: you might be much more likely to tell everybody this story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and if it's not, if not the weather, then
Speaker 1: perhaps there's something else that occurs. You know, you see
Speaker 1: something strange and then the next day a monarch dies
Speaker 1: or yeah, storm occurs or a family member grows sick.
Speaker 1: Then you can make that connection. You'd be like, ah,
Speaker 1: this is what that was about. It didn't happen for
Speaker 1: no reason. It was a warning. It was a communication.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's funny because if you broughten it that
Speaker 1: much to just like basically any significant event. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's always something in the news, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: something happens every day. Yeah, I mean, stuff happens. It
Speaker 1: seems to happen for no reason. And if that, if
Speaker 1: that's the case, you know you have nothing. But if
Speaker 1: you have ghosts, well then you have everything. Right. Very nice,
Speaker 1: very nice to bring it back to Rocky Well, you know,
Speaker 1: they say the moon to the left is a part
Speaker 1: of my thoughts, and a part of my thoughts is
Speaker 1: a part of me is me? Uh so, so maybe
Speaker 1: before our fans get too long, we should cut this
Speaker 1: episode off, all right, But of course we're going to
Speaker 1: be discussing losss of ghostly and monstrous things for the
Speaker 1: rest of this month, and it probably a little bit beyond.
Speaker 1: We're We're We're We're well into the season now, so
Speaker 1: stay tuned. It should be fun. In the meantime if
Speaker 1: you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your mind her core episodes. On Tuesday and Thursday,
Speaker 1: we have an artifact or a monster fact on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Monday is a listener mail. Friday is Weird How Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's our time to just unwind and discuss a weird film,
Speaker 1: and of course we have some very spooky films to
Speaker 1: discuss this month as well. And then on the weekend
Speaker 1: we do a vault episode, which is of course a
Speaker 1: rerun from the previous year. I just want to give
Speaker 1: a teaser that this week's episode of Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: I think is without a doubt, can be our longest
Speaker 1: most epic episode of all time, and uh may may
Speaker 1: remain that way, because I don't know if it can
Speaker 1: be outdone. I wonder if it's longer than the movie itself.
Speaker 1: I think after that happen at least once. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll tune in to find out what that is huge,
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our wonderful audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact that Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.