WEBVTT - Invasion of the Globsters, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.680 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.319 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.239 we're back for Globsters Part two, The Revenge That's Right. 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:26.960 The last episode was a fun introduction to the world 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:34.120 of globsters, grotesque, love crafty and amorphous monstrosities that wash 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:38.239 upon our shores and perplex onlookers. Now, last time we 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:42.800 tended to focus on globsters that are of a sort 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.920 of maybe you could call like the standard class globster, 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.600 which is something that is sort of off white, gray 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.400 or pale pink and color. Huge blob like in shape, 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:57.880 maybe multi ton no apparent skeleton or bones, no apparent eyes, 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:01.600 no apparent head covered in will find hairs or stringy 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:06.920 fibrous substances, kind of a rubbery texture, your classic beach blob. Yeah, 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.800 And as we discussed and explored in that episode, it's 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.839 almost always a safe bet to go with the explanation 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:15.920 that it's a big old piece of rotting whale blubber. 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:18.360 In fact, if someone if you're out in the world, 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:20.520 you know, in the next over the next few months, 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.039 and someone says, hey, did you see this headline about 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.800 this strange creature that washed up you. You can just 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.640 go ahead and say, oh, yeah, that's probably whale blubber, 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:30.760 and you have a very good chance of being correct. 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.080 You can you can really feel like a Sherlock Holmes 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.720 in this scenario. Yeah, you'll be right most of the time. 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:40.440 But we should acknowledge that there is also another, well, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.480 I don't know if it'd be one class, you could say, 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.920 a whole range of other classes of globsters, which are 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:51.640 you know, some form of mysterious dead organic matter that 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.800 washes up on a beach and defies initial classification and 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.560 people don't automatically know exactly what kind of animal it is. 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.000 That it might be a new species or some kind 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.880 of sea monster or sea serpent. And that's what we're 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.880 going to talk about today, the globsters that are not 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:12.160 just whale blubber or some type of whale tissue. Right. 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.600 One of the key examples that you come up with 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:21.000 our our globsters that are interpreted as being a plesiosaur. Yes, 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.679 this is one of the biggest classes of other globsters 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.359 out there. The plesiosaur form the kind of like long 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:33.640 neck reptile with weird little paddle fins, the lockness monster. Yeah, 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:34.959 but the thing is, you can you can just go 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:36.919 ahead and forget about the lockness monster for a second, 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:41.800 because the lockness monster does not exist, never existed, but 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:46.200 the plesiosaur did. And it's uh, you know, it's it is. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:48.720 It is an amazing thing, like we should wake up 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:53.000 every day in amazement that giant marine reptiles once ruled 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.800 our seas. Yeah. Well, a point of clarification. Sometimes plesiosaurs, 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.400 they get lumped in with dinosaurs. Weren't dinosaurs more than 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:07.359 pterosaurs were dinosaurs. Plesiosaurs were seed dwelling reptiles, right, Yes, though, 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.600 I have to I have to admit I myself will 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:13.360 sometimes mistakenly refer to a tarrasaur as a dinosaur, and 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.400 my six year old son will correct me. They're not 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.720 actually dinosaurs, Dad, they're tarrasaurs. Good on him, he's flexing 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.760 those pedantic muscles early. Yes, I mean, that's just good 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.400 training for adulthood, nobody. The kind of person everybody loves 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:27.960 most is the person who corrects them about what kind 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.680 of animal something is. Yes, well, you know you have 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:32.880 to work on that too, that's that's the story of 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:37.440 of of raising a child, right. Um, the difficult part 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:39.800 is yet convincing them that there is a time and 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.040 a place to correct people on this and this sort 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.520 of thing. And in granted some adults never learned that lesson. 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.600 But anyway, to come back to Tanessy, it is important 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.760 to acknowledge Nessy because NeSSI is a great example of 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:57.920 how we have this well worn cryptid trope uh to 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.280 turn to when we find a strange creature that in 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:06.640 some way resembles a prehistoric marine lizard. And so it 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.680 is a great form to turn to because for starters, 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.080 nothing alive today really looks like a plesiosur in the 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.760 same way that nothing to the live today really looks 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.960 like say a sauropod or any number of prehistoric animal forms. 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.120 I mean nothing, I mean nothing outside of you know, 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.080 a chicken looks like a t rex, but you know, 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.239 certainly not at that scale. But but at the same time, 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:33.680 these forms are famous and and if certain animals decay 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:37.400 in just the right way, underlying you know, bones or 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:42.039 ligaments may create the illusion of a long neck and 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:46.880 a small head emerging from a bulky Torso So what 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:51.320 happens is. On several different occasions, basking sharks have been 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:56.840 misidentified as plesiosaurs. This due to their prominent snouts or noses, 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.640 which is the namesteak, the namesake of their genus uh 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.719 set O rhinus ketos, which is marine monster in Greek 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.880 plus rhinos meaning nose, and with it so with the 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:11.919 underlying basking mouth rotted away because these are big, you know, 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:15.920 filter feeders. Uh, it looks like the remnants look like 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.240 a small head on a long neck. One of the 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.839 most prominent examples of this that you still see everywhere. 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.880 You go to any cryptozoological website and they will have 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:30.640 this picture is this This this thing that was pulled 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.320 up by a Japanese fishing trawler, the zoo Maru in 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.640 ninety seven. Again, this picture still makes a round sometimes 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:40.720 as part of a creepy pasta. I've even I've seen 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.520 it used in that way, and it is an unsettling image. 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.680 It looks like there is this long necked, small headed 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:51.000 creature with like two or at least two probably like 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:56.680 four limbs trailing off of it. Some sort of underlying structure, uh, 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.000 you know, it could be a skeleton, so it's easy 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:01.719 to look at that and think, oh, my goodness, that 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.880 is that's that's nesty, that's that's e Plesius are right, 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.920 but it's not right. Uh. You know. One of the 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.240 books we're looking at for this was Abominable Science Origins 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.680 of the YETI, uh Nessy and More by Daniel Lockston 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.960 and Donald R. Prothero, and it provides an excellent illustration 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.760 of how this sort of thing would occur, exactly like 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.360 how the flesh would rot away to create this false 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.800 impression of e Plesiosaur. It's on page to fourteen in 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:35.120 a Kindle edition. Yeah, there's actually ah, there's a great guy. 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.400 It's a reversal of the shrink rapping thing you know 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.880 that we know we talked about when we did the 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.000 episode with Katie Golden of Creature Feature. You know this 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.600 idea that sometimes when paleo artists are trying to figure 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.800 out how to draw what a dinosaur looks like, they 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:54.960 essentially just like wrap the skin as tightly around the 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.359 bones as possible, and so we end up with a 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:01.279 dinosaur or any kind of extinct animal that looks like 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:06.279 a very like slim, very slim, slender interpretation of what 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:07.960 the bones were kind of like the bones have been 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.960 shrink wrapped by the skin, but in fact many animals 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.040 are They've got all kinds of tissues that are not 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.720 fossilized don't show up in the bones. So maybe we 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.640 should be imagining dinosaurs as as plumper, fat or more 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:23.280 more fluffy creatures. And uh, this is like the opposite 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.360 of that procedure where we pull up the bones and 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:27.440 then you're we're actually maybe it's the same thing. You're 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.920 imagining a shrink wrapped version of what these cartilaginous remains 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.760 are from the basking shark. And if you were to 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.600 do the shrink wrapped version of the cartilaginous remains, they 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.440 look what would look kind of like a plesiosaur exactly, 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.600 you know, when when alive. The head of a basking 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:47.600 shark is something like five feet across, but it's skeleton 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.440 is made of cartilage, and those huge jaws that it 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:52.720 have they quickly wrought away and it leaves behind what 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:54.560 looks like a small skull at the end of a 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:59.880 long spine. Another example of this this exact same situation 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.920 occurred in eighteen o eight with the strong say beast, 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.119 this is a this is a classic globster. Yeah, washed 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:09.640 ashore on the island of Stronsay in the Orkney Islands, 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:15.280 Scottish anatomist John Barclay thought that it was surely the 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.720 remains of a sea serpent, and it caused quite a 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.680 stir at the time, especially in the media. Though anonymoust 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.400 to Sir Everard Home, who was a belief based in 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.680 London at the at the time, he dismissed it. I'm 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.480 almost immediately saying that's a decaying basking shark. Uh. And 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:32.960 others backed him up on this, But so there were 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.120 other people who jumped to Barclay's defense, saying that this 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.240 was clearly the remains of a long necked beast with 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.920 three pairs of paws or wings, along with hair like 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:47.040 bristles down its back. Now, one place I have frequently 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.680 seen claims of people trying to validate the existence of 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:55.120 plesiosaur remains found coming out of the ocean is among 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:00.520 Young Earth creationists. Well, I guess they sometimes seem keen 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.559 on the idea that there are still dinosaurs out there, 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.640 or there are still animals that we now know to 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:10.680 be ancient extinct animals. Uh, you know they're because they've 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.800 compressed the timeline of Earth history to a tiny fraction 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.120 of what it really is. I think they're motivated to 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.640 think that things that we think have been extinct for 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.400 millions of years are actually still somewhere in a jungle 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.160 or somewhere in the deep ocean. If your agenda is 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:29.280 to take geological time and fit it within the time 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.080 frame of human language, then that's probably solid step to make. 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:36.559 But but the thing is, even people without that agenda 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.240 in mind, I mean, they still can fall into this 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.839 uh under this way of the plesiosaur interpretation. I mean 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:44.520 that there were a couple, at least a couple of 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.679 scientists in Japan who supported the plis are the pleas 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:53.760 sr interpretation of that that Zeromorrow case from seven uh, 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:57.559 which is kind of baffling, But but I guess who 0:09:57.600 --> 0:09:59.600 wouldn't want to believe It comes back to the whole, 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.959 you know, situation of finding either a dead sasquatch or 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.599 a dead chimpanzee in your backyard. One of them is 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.640 far more likely, but one is amazing. Well, I you know, 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:14.000 I'm a plesiosaur molder like I would love to believe 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.280 that that would be wonderful if we discovered that some 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.480 kind of branch of plesiosaurs had survived into the modern 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.200 age at this point. You know, it seems kind of unlikely, 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.040 but you know, the ocean is big. Who knows. It's 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.680 just that these cases are not actually good evidence of that. 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:34.280 So I still maintain that there's far less excuse for 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.280 going with the plesiosaur explanation today or even in nineteen 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.480 seventy seven. But as Lockston and Prothero pointed out in 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:46.000 their book Abominable, Abominable Science, we should realize a few 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.640 things about about the early nineteenth century when considering these 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.640 earlier examples, like the strong state beast, they write, quote, 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.440 by nineteenth century standards, the ink was hardly dry on 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:00.960 newspaper reports of the sea serpent siding around Gloucester in 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:06.000 eighteen seventeen, when ichthyosaurs were shown to be reptiles in 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:10.680 eighteen twenty one. The first nearly complete plesiosaur skeleton was 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.480 described in eighteen twenty four in a presentation before the 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:18.360 Geological Society of London at the same meeting that announced 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:24.960 the first dinosaur genus name, Megalosaurus. Almost immediately naturalists made 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:29.120 the connection to sea serpents. So you've still got contemporary 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:33.600 reports of sea serpent sightings. People are just discovering remains 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.520 of these ancient you know, gigantic reptiles. And so, you know, 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.200 why not put two and two together. Maybe these these 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.040 remains were discovering are the sea serpents that people claim 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:45.760 to see out on the waters. Yeah, And you had 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:50.480 people like the likes of geologist Robert Bakewell stating that 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.800 he was inclined to believe that something like ichosaurs were 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.440 likely alive today. He stated this in the eighteen thirty 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:00.679 three textbook Introduction to Geology. Well, I mean, it's not 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.520 without precedent that an ancient marine species thought to have 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.440 been extinct for for millions of years or so is 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.360 actually discovered to still be alive today. That one of 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.960 the most commonly sided examples is the lobe finned fish 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.280 the seila can't. Yes, But because one has been found 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.960 to exist does not suggest that necessarily another world be found, right, 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.679 But all prehistoric marine life forms are on the table, right. Uh. 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:29.080 And to to put this time period in context, you know, 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.440 the the early nineteenth century. To put it in context 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.240 of a past episode of stuff to blow your mind, 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:38.640 the bathosphere would not descend for another century like so 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.880 that's where we were too in our understanding of the 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.040 ocean and what kind of animals live there. I think 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.800 these were the This might even been before. I forget 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.280 when this happened, but they we were talking about in 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.920 the Bathisphere episode, how people tried to figure out what 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.880 was deep in the ocean before we had, you know, 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:56.920 anything that could go down there. And there were the 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.560 days of the drag lines where you just drag a 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.840 bucket along under you know, behind a ship and see 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:04.960 if you could pull anything up in it. It seems 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:08.360 remarkably crude technology. Now, yeah, just a death bucket to 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:10.800 pull things up and see what kind of flesh you 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.360 managed to snare and if it exploded by the time 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.040 it got to the surface. Right, all right, well, I 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.000 guess we should take a quick break and when we 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:23.280 come back we will discuss some more non whale globsters 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:28.080 from the Globster Hall of Fame. Thank you, thank you. Alright, 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:31.120 we're back now. One thing I wondered about is how 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.240 long have people been reporting globsters, Like how far back 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.640 does the does the Sun article about the beach blob go? 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:41.200 That's true, because if it, certainly this would seem like 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.600 the kind of thing that would have occurred throughout human history. 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.080 Of course it would I mean nothing like nothing that 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.040 we know have changed suddenly in the seventeenth century to 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:53.360 make this stuff start happening. So, uh, let's take a 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.880 look at old Plenty of the Elder. This is kind 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.120 of a late appearance, for Plenty usually shows up earlier 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.120 in an episode. That's true. Yeah, well he's making of 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:04.360 fashionable appearances. Okay. So Plenty of the Elder in his 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.480 Natural History is in a section talking about nereads, which 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.280 are the sea nymphs or the ocean fairies or mermaids, 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.160 and he writes about how the governor of Gaul once 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.920 wrote a letter to Caesar Augustus reporting that a number 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.800 of dead nereads had washed up on shore in his 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:27.280 territory and that their quote mournful song moreover, when dying 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.440 has been heard a long way off by the coast dwellers. Uh. 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.840 Later he writes, during the rule of Tiberius, in an 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.560 island off the coast of the province of Leone, the 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.400 receding ocean tide left more than three hundred monsters at 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.120 the same time of marvelous variety and size, and an 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.120 equal number on the coast of the Saints and among 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.640 the rest elephants and rams, with only a white streak 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:56.400 to resemble horns, and also many neriads. And then later 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:00.240 he writes about a couple of other monsters cast cast shore. 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:04.040 One story quote, the skeleton of the monster twitch Andromeda, 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:08.000 and the story was exposed, was brought by Marcus Scaurus 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.960 from the town of Jaffa in Judea and shown at 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.040 Rome among the rest of the marvels during his his 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.080 uh edile ship. It was forty ft long, the height 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.320 of the ribs exceeding the elephants of India, and the 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.960 spine being one foot and six inches thick. Well, this 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.560 all sounds exactly like what we've been talking about, like 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:33.400 people finding strange bodies, strange flesh upon the shores and 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.920 turning to mythological explanations or it just I mean, really 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.840 it almost almost of the you know, uh, it's it's 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.720 almost unfair to say mythology in these cases because in 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:46.880 some of these cases we're talking about just sort of 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:51.800 unexpected understanding of the more mysterious corners of the world. Well, yeah, 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.640 I mean this was a time for which mythology I 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.560 think was in some ways kind of blended with history. 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.320 Might not always be clear to these people which of 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.280 these myths were true and to what extent or were 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.160 they based on actual historical events. So if you've got 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.840 a story of your your classic heroes like Perseus or whatever, 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.040 and there's a sea monster in them, I don't know, 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.640 maybe that story happened, and maybe the c monster is 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.080 real and this. Oh and you know what, I found 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.960 some really big bones or a big, old, confusing pile 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.080 of flesh on the beach. I bet it was that 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.160 sea monster, right, And then of course we have to 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:27.600 we have to recognize that if these things are occurring 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:32.000 throughout history, we have possibly the reverse situation occurring where 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:34.960 you have just a story about a sea monster and 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.160 then you find these weird remains and you're like, well, 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.640 this must be the form, and then that informs the myth. Yeah. Now, 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.760 we just we've discussed creatures like this on the show 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:50.120 in the past, especially Triton's and neriads, mermaids and whatnot. Uh, 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.840 And you know, I believe we discussed the link between 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.360 mermaid myths and the sightings of real life marine mammals 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:01.400 and even occasionally sightings of cephalopods. But I wonder too 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:05.399 if actual human remains ever factored into these observations as well. 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:10.080 Oh so, like like kind of bloated dead human corpses 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:12.280 washing up on the beach and people and say, ah, 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.680 these are the dead sea nymphs. Yeah, I mean we've 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.600 we have looked. At example, I looked around for specific 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.160 discussion of this, and I couldn't find anything. And maybe 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.200 it's out there though, and I just didn't happen upon it. 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:28.080 But you know, in discussing the Kappa in Japanese folklore, 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:30.600 we talked about how they are aspects of that myth. 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:36.960 They're based upon misinterpretations of of of bloated bodies, the 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:41.719 bodies of drowning victims. So it doesn't seem that remote 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:47.360 a possibility that one could misinterpret the human remains found 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.800 on a shore, you know, the remains of some fishing vessel, 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.840 or even a vessel in a time of war, provided 0:17:53.880 --> 0:18:01.960 that the the decay was substantial enough or unique enough. Yeah. 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.000 I feel like we're developing an interesting parallel to like 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.040 Adrian Mayer's geomethology, where the idea that maybe ancient people's 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:13.720 discovered dinosaur fossils or other kinds of fossilized bone remains 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.000 and developed the ideas of mythical beasts from them. Here, 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.400 I guess we're talking more like bio mythology, like recently 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.640 dead creatures and corpses found or blobs found could give 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:27.720 you ideas of the types of mythical monsters and creatures 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.199 that inhabit the hidden part of the world, you know, 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:33.920 and looking around it more like recent examples of supposed 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:37.840 cryptozoological creatures. I did find at least one example where 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:42.320 it's this weird bipedal looking creature. It appears hairless and 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:46.920 has this kind of quasi human appearance to it, and 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:52.639 the likely explanation is that it was a sloth. Whoa yeah, 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:56.000 So so you know, you could have a situation where 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.280 somehow this animal is wound up in the water, it's dead, 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.560 it's lost its hair, and it is no longer quite 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.680 recognizable as what it was and now occupies this kind 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.679 of strange in between space. Well, it makes me think 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.040 about the New Jersey Beach monster. I think you've probably 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.680 seen pictures of this, which is what do they ultimately 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:17.400 decided it likely was like a raccoon. Yes, they did 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:20.640 run across this one Yeah, it's just this hairless, gross 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.800 looking little demon mammal without you know, it's smooth all 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.600 over dead on a beach in New Jersey, and people 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.200 now think, oh, it's probably just a raccoon. But regardless 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:34.679 of what you know, they may have made of human 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:39.560 remains on the beach, they were inevitably encountering chunks of blubber. 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.800 They were encountering things like basking sharks, perhaps the remnants 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:48.119 of marine mammals such as manatees or doo gongs. So 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.679 there's plenty of stuff there to to lend itself to 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.359 monstrous interpretations. Yes, I'm so sorry. I've got to clarify. 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.320 I said New Jersey it was the Montauk Monster. I 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.600 was wrong. It was the New York beach mont talk. 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.200 Oh yes, yes, sorry about that. New Jersey sea monster 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.960 is an entirely different scenario. By the way, myriads and 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:13.680 Triton's uh play an important part in Transgenesis, the sci 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:19.680 fi podcast that is publishing January thirty one, two thousand nineteen. 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:22.000 I hope everyone that listens to the show will check 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:23.919 it out. You can find out more about it at 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:28.520 Transgenesis dot show. That's right, check it out. Now, Robert, 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.840 are you ready to talk about a sea monster or 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.800 wonderful beast? Do I get to choose between the two? 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:35.720 Are they one and the same? They are one and 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:37.600 the same, But you will get to choose which one 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:40.320 you think it is? All right, let's do it, okay, now, 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:44.680 I so I came across evidence of a seventeenth century 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:49.159 lobster washed ashore in Ireland, and this is a glorious 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:51.679 thing it was. I'm going to make the case that 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:54.920 this was pretty clearly a giant squid of the genus 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:59.879 arctotis uh. It was written up in a pamphlet published 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.560 in London in sixty four, and the pamphlet is usually 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:06.199 known by its opening line, which is a true and 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.960 perfect account of the miraculous sea monster or wonderful fish. 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:14.920 The pamphlet continues, lately taken in Ireland, bigger than an ox, 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:19.440 yet without legs, bones, fins or scales, with two heads, 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.560 and ten horns of ten or eleven foot long, on 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:26.200 eight of which horns there grew knobs about the bigness 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.640 of a cloak, button in shape like crowns or coronets, 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.359 to the number of a hundred on each horn, which 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.600 we're all too open and had rows of teeth within them. 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.040 That does sound a lot like a giant squid. I 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:40.760 think we're getting there. So. The pamphlet tells the story 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:44.120 about a man named James Steward who was riding by 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.080 the seaside in the west of Ireland, and quote, as 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.920 the tide was coming in, perceived at a distance something 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:54.400 of a strange bigness to make towards the shore. At 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:57.360 first he apprehended it might be some horse that might 0:21:57.359 --> 0:21:59.840 have been caught away with the violence of the tide, 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.720 and having recovered himself, was now swimming to land. But 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:07.560 approaching nearer on a closer view, he was infinitely surprised 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.520 and amazed, not so much at the bigness, which yet 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:12.960 he found to exceed that of a horse, which he 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:15.520 first took it for in the body, as at the 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:19.720 uncouth shape, and a number of strange horns of great length, 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:23.480 which rendered it not a little terrible to behold, insomuch 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.119 that he durst not go near it, lest it should 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.199 destroy both him and his horse. So we got the 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.800 dramatic set up. Steward goes off and gets help from 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.159 a couple who live nearby, and they use ropes to 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:37.800 drag it up on the beach. This they could do, 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:40.280 though the account says that when they tried to touch 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:44.960 the horns quote, they found there on shells like coronets 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:48.080 with teeth within them, which got hold of their hands 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:50.879 and fingers, so that they were glad to let them go. 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:54.760 So they come back the next day with a bigger company, 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:57.880 and by then the beast was dead. And after that 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:00.840 they gave a further description, saying that the body was 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.520 smooth and without scales or bones, and that it had 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:08.320 two heads and two eyes, quote, of an oval form 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.600 and of extraordinary bigness. Now, I think this has pretty 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.600 much got to be a giant squid, especially when talking 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:17.359 when they talk about the size of the eyes, because 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:22.479 the eyes of a giant squid are extremely remarkable or organs. 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:26.200