WEBVTT - Creepypasta 4: More SCP, Polybius and Grifter 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.319 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.119 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger, 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:21.400 and we are back for the fourth Creepy Pasta episode 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.720 that we've done together. That's a lot of creepy pastas 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:26.840 it is. I wasn't sure we were gonna we're gonna 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.120 be able to actually squeeze out a fourth one, and 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.640 yet behold, here it is. And honestly, people have asked 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:35.559 for this. A lot of people have written in and 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:37.760 said how much they like the Creepy Pasta episodes that 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.400 we've done. Now I'm trying to recall this because I've 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:42.920 done this is my third Halloween on the show. We've 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.600 done one for each Halloween. But I think we did 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.400 one off season maybe as well. I think so. I 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.519 think the first one was off season and then we 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.040 came back or maybe the second one something like that. Yeah, 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.600 so we have If you're unfamiliar with Creepy pastas, we 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:57.760 will set this all up for you. But this is 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.560 uh And by the way, it being the warth doesn't 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:01.960 mean that you have to go back and listen to 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.200 the other three either. Like they're not at all connected. Uh, 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.520 this is just like a fun kind of halloween ish 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:09.240 thing that we've been doing on the show for a 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.119 while now. Yeah, and it's a it's actually rounding out 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.520 our our Halloween, our month of our month plus of 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.720 Halloween content because this is airing the Thursday following Halloween 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:21.800 two thousand seventeen. So if you're sitting there at home 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.160 and you're going, I don't know what a creepy pasta is, 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:27.520 this is very weird if you keep saying that word. Okay, 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.240 here's the real brief. Visit to it again. Uh. Creepy 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.560 pastas are these viral copy and paste texts that are 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.200 in the form of horror stories. They evolved from the 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.080 term copy pasta, which was essentially when people would copy 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.360 and paste like like made up letters or fiction to 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:48.600 each other and send them around in chain emails, right. 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.520 Or Another example of just pure copy pops so that 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:55.240 I've encountered is is on these various question and answer 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.800 websites where someone will say, like this is specific example, 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:01.040 someone's like, oh, I have to get a prostate exam 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.600 tomorrow at the doctor's office. What's going to happen? Should 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.320 I be concerned, and then somebody drops some ultimately like 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.800 hollacious or scandalous story about what happened to them. And 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.080 then if you take that that copy and you search 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:15.520 for it, you see, oh, this exists in various places. 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.239 This is just like a grab bag bit of text 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:22.160 that somebody will distribute as needed to freak people out. Exactly. 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:23.720 That's kind of the fun of it is that they 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.640 take the shape of urban legends. They appear like things 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.040 that have actually happened. Right, This is sort of fake 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:33.040 news before fake news, right, people saying this happened to 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.600 me on the Internet and everybody going wait what and 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.280 kind of like circling around back and realizing that it's 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:41.919 just like for fun. It's like, it's like fake news 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.720 that became self aware, because because now you'll have websites 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.080 where where creepy pasta is curated and even composed and 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.560 shared exclusively with the creepypasta community. Yeah, exactly. And so 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.280 the whole idea here is that they're mimicking these first 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.920 person accounts, and the ones that were usually gravitating towards 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.120 are the ones that appear to be scientific ones. Right. 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:05.640 We've usually covered ones in the past that claimed to 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.919 be uh scientific laboratory conditions or something like that. Yeah, 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:15.160 or ones that at least actually have get their roots into, 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.960 you know, cognition or human behavior or I don't know, 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.720 go a little deeper than just a pure jump scare 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.480 and right. Yeah. In fact, you know, I only just 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.560 now remember this. There's a TV show on sci Fi 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.560 that is taking creepy pastas and adapting them into like 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.760 season length television shows. I think they're like five or 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.080 six episodes. I haven't seen it yet. But in fact, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.720 actually last year you and I were interviewed by Playboy 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:44.040 magazine because they were looking for somebody who knew sort 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:46.800 of how to talk about creepy pastas beyond like the 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.560 websites that they're on. And that was fun too, so 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.160 we we had an opportunity to talk about sort of 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.840 just like the mechanics of the creepy pasta. Right now, 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.120 a lot of the pasta, the creepy pasta out there 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.040 is going to be authorless, but you see that changing 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.880 more and more with the you know, actual authors contributing 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:08.440 their pieces. And then likewise they range and greatly in length. 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.360 I tend to like the short ones, and they also 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.360 range from things that are just kind of like, hey, 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.000 this thing happened, can you believe it? Or sort of 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:21.000 Wikipedia style entries to things that are more clearly attempts 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.960 at a at at at a narrative structure. So the 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.279 most popular one that those of you out there have 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.080 probably heard of before and you might not even realize, oh, 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.320 that's a creepy pasta is slender Man. And we talked 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.640 a lot about slender Man in the previous episodes, so 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:36.000 I'm not going to do a lot of deep dive 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:40.000 onto that here. But really, the genre of creepy pasta 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.039 seems to have hit its peak somewhere around two thousand 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.520 and ten. It's still chucking along. People are still doing them, 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:47.320 making them. In fact, like when I went to go 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:49.680 research for this episode, I was shocked at how many 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.040 more there still were, you know, but I think like 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.960 the height of it being covered in other media has 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.240 maybe passed. Yeah. Plus, I I wonder how it's changing 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.880 to a with the rise of fake news and you know, 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.680 intentionally misleading um bits of content that are out there, 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.320 as well as things that are maybe not quite tied 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.000 to an effort to distort the truth, but are just 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:15.520 tied to get clicks I'm thinking of those. Yeah, they 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.039 will generally be like a series of four or more, 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.359 depending how crappy the website is. Um little thumbnails at 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:22.960 the bottom of the page, and they generally have like 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.279 a picture of like something kind of mysteriously fleshy, and 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.919 and then some sort of you know, clickbait headline. I think, actually, 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.599 it's it's fair to point out that sometimes in the 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:35.400 history of stuff to blow your mind, you may have 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:37.880 seen such a thing at the bottom of our website. 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.200 That's beyond our control, right, but those ads are sort 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.279 of placed there by like powers beyond our own. I 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.640 wonder if there's a potential for a new genre. I 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.040 guess you could call it creep Uh let's see, it's 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.320 it's clickbaits will be creepy bait. I don't know, creepy 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.960 BAITA like that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You create an entire 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:02.080 business around churning out creepy baits with like weird little 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.320 thumbnails that would sit on the bottom of sites, and 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:06.960 people click on them and think they're reading a story 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.000 that's like you won't believe these five celebrities who aren't 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.800 allowed in Hollywood anymore. And then but like it's actually 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.360 a horror story that is a great idea for a business. 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.400 Let's start that, all right. So in this episode we 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.080 have we have each gone out into the wilds of 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.160 creepy pasta and once more brought back a couple of 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.640 topics to tackle tease apart and try and find some 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.400 stuff to blow your own content about. You retrieve too, 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.480 from the wilds I retrieved to. Now you probably want 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:39.159 to touch on the source for your two creepy pastas. Yeah, 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:43.640 so our last creepy pasta Creepy Pasta three. If you're 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:45.960 keeping track, these are like horror movies. The way that 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.880 we're calculating them was all about something called SCP, which 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.920 was brought to our attention by several listeners. The SCP 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:59.040 foundation is this collection of scientific creepy pastas that's out there, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.720 and the idea is it's as if there's this warehouse 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.680 of oddities that are collected and contained somewhere, kind of 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:08.080 like that TV show warehouse. Their teen um and the 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:11.200 guidelines are basically that the articles should have an interesting idea, 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.040 reasonable containment procedures for the creepy pasta, and a clear 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.720 description with each entry. They operate on a rating system 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:22.600 so the community actually up votes and down votes based 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.640 on what their favorite ones are. And both of my 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:29.840 suggestions today come from a listener named Austin who suggested 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.720 a bunch of s cps for us right after Creepy 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:34.760 pasta three, and they have a bunch. It's it's a 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.400 very fun website to just browse through and click on 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:42.360 things and see just how how absurd and or legitimately 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.920 creepy each entry is because there's a lot of humor 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.200 on that website. Whichever very much. Yeah, yeah, and uh 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.080 it is You're not wrong, there's like thousands. Now. That 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:52.680 was the thing that kind of overwhelmed me is I 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:54.080 was like, how am I gonna do this? But luckily 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.080 Austin pointed out two great ones that I'm gonna work 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.320 with today. So my first is called s E P 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.720 nine six two. That's its designation, but we can call 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.160 it the Tower of Babel for our purpose. And you 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.680 have to stress how Babel is spelled here. Yeah b 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:14.840 A B B L E. Now, uh, I'm gonna just 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:16.760 summarize this because I think it would take too much 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.240 time to read the whole thing. But I recommend, like, 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.920 if you're into this idea, just go to Google and 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.480 type in SCP nine six two and the whole thing 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.440 will pull up. Um. But the gist of the Tower 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.240 of Babel in this creepy pasta is that there's this 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.680 large steel tower that has been found by human beings 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.840 and it produces these animal human hybrid servitors that are 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.520 under its control. They basically come out of the bottom 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.680 of this thing and they go within a like a 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:49.840 short radius of the tower to recover local resources, and 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.480 it's implied that these resources are brought back to the 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.280 tower to help rebuild the tower itself, to do some 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.719 kind of crazy experiments inside of it, and possibly to 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.880 create these servitors as well. Uh. They're described as being 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:09.559 sort of like likened thrope cyborgs, like they're half animal 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.400 half human, but they've got cybernetic implants kind of and 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.960 they're they also outside of the mining and like gathering materials, 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.160 they also hunt animals, so they'll kill animals and bring 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.040 back their bodies to the tower, but they will not 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:28.199 harm human beings. Is made very clear that that human 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:32.680 beings are in some way uh revered by this tower, 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.520 which may be sentient or there may be something inside 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.719 the tower that's sentient. That's sending all this stuff out. Now, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.120 what do they do with the animals they bring back, Well, 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.319 it's unclear. They maybe make more servitors out of them, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.360 and that's something I'm going to cover and looking at 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:51.199 the science here. But also, the tower will occasionally release 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:55.160 these balloons, and the balloons will have high quality writings 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.959 attached to them, and the writings sometimes go a little crazy, 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.560 like sometimes they're they're like little short stories, sometimes their poems, 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:07.720 sometimes their rants. And the rants seem to be the 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.560 ones that like give us a glimpse at the actual 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.720 personality of the Tower, and it seems to worship humanity 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.520 and it refers to humanity as the great Ones over 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.120 and over again. Wow, in your description of all of this, 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.720 I am picturing it as an as a Monty Python 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:27.280 animation by Terry Gilliam. I feel like that's probably the 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.160 purest expression that would be great. Actually, yeah, you know what, 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.120 it makes me think of Brazil a little bit. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.880 So the thing that makes the balloons tied into all 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.840 this resource collection is that the balloons are made out 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.160 of the skin of animals that are recovered. So it's 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.720 very strange. Um, now I want to look at two 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:49.960 things that came out of this for me. The first 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.200 is animal human hybrids, which is a favorite topic of 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.120 ours on the show. We've talked about it before on 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:58.840 our X Files episode that Joe and I did two 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.000 X Files episodes where we we got into hybrids and chimeras. 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.360 This was two years ago maybe. And then Robert, you 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.120 and I did an episode all about the myth of 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.640 the human z the human Chimpanze hybrid. Yeah, well the 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.880 myth and then the the actual history there and that. 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.840 That was a fun episode and if I remember correctly, 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.079 Joe Rogan's favorite episode. Rogan was thrilled about that episode. Yeah. 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.120 Uh so, if you haven't heard that, go back and 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:25.760 listen to it. That's a fun one. That's it's one 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.199 of my favorites. Actually. Uh Now, I want to start 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:33.320 actually by reading a quote to you. Okay, and I'm 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.480 gonna I'm not going to tell the audience who this 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.480 quote is from before I go ahead and say it. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.120 So here we go. A hopeful society has institutions of 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:46.240 science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:51.120 that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight, I 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:55.319 ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.360 abuses of medical research, human cloning in all its forms, 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:05.960 creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human animal hybrids, 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.760 and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.080 a gift from our creator, and that gift should never 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:18.960 be discarded, devalued, or put up for sale. So who 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.000 do you think that was? I am getting I'm gonna 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.440 go make a wild guess and say that that was 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:29.559 Senator Joe squirrel Man because he doesn't want his genetic 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:33.120 data to be sold. It was actually former President George W. 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:36.640 Bush from his State of the Union in two thousand six. 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.200 And as some of our listeners know, I have my 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:44.360 master's degree in presidential rhetoric, and I was watching the 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.120 State of the Union at the time. I love watching 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.319 State of the Unions there. It's kind of a weird, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.720 like they're my super Bowl basically, And uh, I was 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.520 watching it and I went, wait a minute, Like I 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:55.480 did like a double take, and I was like, did 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.880 he say human animal hybrids? Like? Has he gone so 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.640 far off the deep end that he thinks like werewolves 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:04.800 are a thing? You know? I was really like where 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:07.680 did this come from? You know? And it turns out 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:10.120 that this was actually an issue at the time, like 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:14.400 in scientific experimentation that was kind of rearing its head up, 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.840 and so I think Bush like from his ethical standpoint, 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.920 was trying to tackle it. But actually this is when 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.239 I became aware that experiments to create human animal chimeras 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.040 are ineligible for public funding here in the United States. 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.600 So you you cannot the government will not help pay 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:35.880 for anything that's even semi related to that. Yeah, And now, 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.880 of course it's it's it's worth driving home that that 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.040 the the actual experiments that are not being funded in 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.920 these cases are not experiments to create humans these or 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.800 to create some sort of mutant pig person that will 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.240 you know, labor in the minds. Uh, they're far more 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:56.320 realistic and applicable UM areas here. Like one of the 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:58.240 ones that instantly comes to mind, and I believe we've 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.200 discussed this one in the past on the show is 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.280 what if you could use a pig to grow human 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:08.280 organs within it for organ transplants to humans or any 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:10.200 other kind of like tissue or organ and growth. If 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.520 you could grow it in an animal or on an animal, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.120 that would make the whole process easier, right. Yes, in fact, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.079 that is exactly what I'm going to talk about here 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:22.760 today because I imagined one of the Towers servitors as 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.000 being pig like, because in the description of the Creepy Pasta, 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.760 it's specifically said that the way that they're sculpted is 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:32.000 to try to make them look more human even though 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.360 they have animal hybrid features, and it said that like 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:36.920 if it has a snout, which I immediately thought of 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.160 a pig, that the snout would be like cut off. 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.480 So it's very strange, but so I immediately went to pig, 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.160 and not for any old reason, but pig. Human hybrids 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:48.240 are a thing that have been being worked on for 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.000 a while, and in fact this year since our Human 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.880 Z episode, actually there's been some further research on this. 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.160 So um just a reminder, I mentioned the Human Z 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.200 episode earlier. Specifically, what we talked about there were something 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.200 that we're called the Red Frankenstein experiments, and the guy 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.200 to look up there is Ilia Ivanovich. Ivanov. He was 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.480 the one who was trying to create a human chimpanzee hybrid. 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.040 We go all into it in that episode, but if 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:15.920 you want to go and look up on your own 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.280 you know, check out his name. I'll make sure I 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.720 linked to that episode on the landing page for this one, 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:26.160 as well as all previous Creepy Pasta episodes. Yes, so okay. Obviously, 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.160 outside of George W. Bush's State of the Union speech 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.080 in two thousand and six, there is a lot of 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:36.720 fear and paranoia around the possibility of animal human hybrid right. 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.120 It just kind of squeaks people out whenever they even 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.120 think of the idea. It makes it upsets people, which 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:43.920 is probably why it's kind of a common trope and 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:50.440 horror now in developmental biologists. Stuart Newman was at the 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.200 New York Medical College in Valhalla, and this is together 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.560 with Jeremy Rifkin, who's the president of the Foundation of 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.960 Economic Trends in d C. And they submitted a path 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.680 and for the chimera of a human Z. And they 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:08.480 made this from embryonic cells of humans and chimpanzees. Uh So, 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.520 Stewart he vowed to secure the patent so he could 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.360 prevent others from ever making a human Z and exploiting it. 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.680 This is how much it freaks people out, Like they 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.120 they actually tried to patent this so they could make 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.760 sure that no one else could ever try to make 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.480 something like this. Uh, and so he was actually denied 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.280 this in two thousand four by the Patent and Trademark Office. 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.560 Why well, it gets back to something that George W. 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.480 Bush was talking about in that speech. It's important to 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:39.520 remember the U S Patent and Trademark Office actually rejects 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:45.200 claims of hybrid patents because they would too closely resemble humans. 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.320 And you can't patent humanity. You can sell what you 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.200 can exploit it, but but just no patent, right. Yeah, 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:54.400 well it always cracks me up, like when um companies 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:59.640 refer to like human collateral or like human human resources, 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.160 like they're talking about human beings as if they're objects, right, 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.240 or like like pens that they order from Staples or something. Yeah, 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:10.040 if if any word or phrase sounds like it should 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:12.680 come from a pig mutant and a giant power, it's 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.120 human resources along with all those other wonderful words like 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:20.359 head count reduction and so yeah, exactly right, like the 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:24.840 basically like the the sanitization of like companies doing quote 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:29.040 bad things to people. Right. So, actually hybridization is quite 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.880 common in nature, right. We've all heard of zebra variations 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.960 like zebras mixed with any other Equis genus species like 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.199 zoonkies or Hebrews or donkras right. Like, that was a 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.760 huge thing after Napoleon Dynamite, where everybody thought how cute 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.200 it was to combine different names of animals. But that's 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.600 a real thing, uh. In fact, this is when two 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.800 equine species mate, but because they're compatible enough to breathe, 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.920 they can actually mate, but unfortunately their offspring are usually sterile. 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:00.879 So this is when we get mules instance. Yeah, and 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.440 in the worst cases, for instance, prince to mind African 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.280 and Asian elephants, there have been cases where they have 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.879 bread and captivity and the results are if they do 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:16.800 produce offspring is generally quite frail and sickly and doesn't Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:18.400 that seems to be the case with some of these 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.600 as well. We also see big cat hybrids that are common. 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:26.359 So you've got tigons, liggers, jag lion, jaggue, pars, the 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.520 all the combinations right in rare cases. Actually, tigons are 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:35.680 different from other hybrid progeny. They can actually produce babies. Uh. 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.959 And there is a small industry that goes around breeding 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:45.040 domestic cats with wild relatives to produce like weird exotic hybrids. Right, So, like, 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:47.639 I've never seen one of these before, but I'm guessing like, 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.560 if you're super rich, you're like, I want to breed 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:54.320 my tortoise shell cat with a lynx or something, and 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:58.440 you get you get like this bizarre cat for your house. 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.240 I mean, yeah, my world is just when you run 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.000 out of cat, then the cat person, you know, the 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.320 cat lady in your social circle. Oh yes, oh yeah, 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.520 they just seem to show up on my doorstep. That's 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.240 how it works for me. Uh Also, bottle knows dolphins 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.480 and false killer whales can breed. These are called hole 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:22.520 fens holfens uh as, and so that's another hybrid that 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.040 we can note here. Almost all of these are infertile. Subsequently, 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.719 the whole thing, they're doomed to an evolutionary dead end. 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.760 They just they can't continue breeding. There's even some speculation 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.880 that human beings once crossbred with neanderthals, so that's worth 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:42.320 remembering as well. So, okay, Robert mentioned the pig hybrid 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.879 and the idea of using them for organ transplantation. This 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.880 first came about in two thousand three when Chinese scientists 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.679 at the Shanghai Second Medical University fused human cells with 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.960 rabbit eggs and this was reportedly the first human animal chimera. 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:00.640 Then in two thousand four, researchers is that the Mayo 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:04.760 Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing in their bodies. 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.119 And this is the stuff that kind of led to 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.119 that George W. Bush section in the State of the Union. Right, 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:13.840 these research uh moments popping up, but also stem cell 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.960 research becoming like a lot bigger and more public. Yeah, 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.040 I mean it is weird to imagine that, right, to 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.399 think of this pig that has been engineered to have 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.200 human blood in it for the purposes of blood donation, 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.359 and and you know, the the ramifications are not necessarily 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:33.840 attractive there. I mean, if you're if you're against say 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.040 the eating of animals, the raising of pigs for food, 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:39.840 then you know, how are you supposed to feel about 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.879 rearing pigs just so you can drain their blood and 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.360 sell it. Yeah, it's a for me, it's an ethical 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.040 thing around along the lines of we were just talking 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.200 about in our Optography episode about the experiment where they're 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.840 running album solution through a dog's eyeball while it was 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.960 still alive to see if optography was real, right, Like, 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.840 that is a setting to me. But I'm also a vegetarian, 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:05.399 and that's kind of part of it, just my ethical standpoint, 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.200 right Whereas I can totally understand why some people would 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.480 be like and in fact, I've got data here to 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:14.120 talk about this. Every day, twenty two people die because 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.520 they can't get the organ they need, right, So I 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:20.040 can completely understand the concept of saying, well, it's actually 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:22.640 worth it to us to grow these pigs with human 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.160 organs inside of them so that we can harvest those 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.880 organs and save some of those twenty two people every day. Yeah, Ultimately, 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:30.720 you can look at it as the choice, right, Okay, 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:32.919 either we're gonna go ahead with with pigs that have 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.320 human blood and human organs, or you guys get more 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:41.360 organized and more committed to attending blood drives and donating 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:44.000 your body when you die and having everything set up 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.120 so that that we don't have to rely on the hybrids. Yeah. 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:49.440 Do you remember that movie The Island that came out 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.040 a couple of years ago. Oh, Yeah, this was basically 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:54.480