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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe

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Speaker 1: McCormick and Robert. Today we're going to begin with a

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Speaker 1: Florida man story. Good. Nothing like a Florida man who

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Speaker 1: discovers an ancient beast of unstoppable power. All right, So

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Speaker 1: the story begins in the mild late autumn on a

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Speaker 1: Florida beach. It was novemb and there were two boys

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Speaker 1: who went out for a bicycle ride along the beach

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Speaker 1: on Anastasia Island, which is a barrier island on the

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Speaker 1: Atlantic coast of Florida. I believe I've been to Anastasia Island,

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Speaker 1: So yeah, how was it? Um? I seemed to recall

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Speaker 1: it being fine. If I am in fact remembering correctly,

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Speaker 1: If I've been there, it was great. Did you sense

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Speaker 1: any apocalyptic power lurking below the waves? Um? Probably, But

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Speaker 1: that's just generally how I encounter the ocean. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: apocalyptic power is inside you. If you're not thinking about

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Speaker 1: the apocalyptic powers of the ocean when you stare at

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Speaker 1: the ocean, you're just not looking at it, right, I

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Speaker 1: mean it's it's the ocean, right, yeah, yeah, well that

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Speaker 1: will be a theme of today's episode, I believe. So

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Speaker 1: tell me if this matches your experience. I think, generally,

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Speaker 1: based on I was looking at photos, the beaches on

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Speaker 1: Anna Stage Island looked like that kind of low, flat,

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Speaker 1: wide beaches with white sands, not very rocky, not very steep,

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Speaker 1: you know, just kind of like that the beach plane

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Speaker 1: and uh so, While the two boys were out bicycling

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Speaker 1: along the shore about twelve miles south of the city

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Speaker 1: of St. Augustine, they came across something tremendous and sickening.

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Speaker 1: It was a giant monster blob, like some kind of

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Speaker 1: enormous partially deflated balloon of organic matter, stranded on the

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Speaker 1: beach and half sunken into the sand under its own weight. Now,

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Speaker 1: at the longest to mention, this blob was over twenty feet.

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Speaker 1: It looked sort of pear shaped, like a pear shaped

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Speaker 1: monster deep into decomposition. One end, which many witnesses took

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Speaker 1: to be the head, was bulbous and solid and engorged,

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Speaker 1: while the other end terminated in this asymmetrical base containing

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Speaker 1: a number of mutilated rubbery stumps trailing off in some

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Speaker 1: kind of frayed fibrous tissue, and the frayed stumps were

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Speaker 1: described by some observers as tentacles or arms. Very nice,

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Speaker 1: far more lovecraft Ian than most of my beach vacations. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's nothing more disappointing than like digging around in the

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Speaker 1: sand of the beach and thinking you have discovered at

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Speaker 1: like some kind of monstrous shell, but you pull it

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Speaker 1: up and it's actually just like an old shampoo bottle. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So the boys went back to town to tell about

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Speaker 1: their discovery. They conveyed the news about the blob monster

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Speaker 1: on the beach to a local physician and amateur naturalist

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Speaker 1: named Dr DeWitt Webb, who was president of the St.

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Speaker 1: Augustine Scientific Society, and pretty much immediately Dr Webb came

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Speaker 1: on scene to have to investigate, and eventually more precise

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Speaker 1: dimensions were drawn up. So the mass was twenty one

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Speaker 1: ft long, seven ft wide, about four and a half

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Speaker 1: feet tall when it was dug out of the pit

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Speaker 1: it had sunken into, and it was estimated to way

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Speaker 1: about seven tons. And despite its blobby appearance, I have

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Speaker 1: read anecdotes, I'm not quite as sure if these are true.

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Speaker 1: But anecdotes from the scene that people reportedly tried hacking

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Speaker 1: at the remains with an axe, and we're unable to

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Speaker 1: make a dent in it this way. So while it

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Speaker 1: looks very blobby, it was supposedly very tough, and this

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Speaker 1: giant mass in the sand, with its blob head and

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Speaker 1: mutilated arms stumps, came to be known as the st

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Speaker 1: Augustine Monster. Now, of course, the first order of business

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Speaker 1: was to move the dead monster, so DeWitt arranged a

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Speaker 1: team of horses and men with ropes to dig the

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Speaker 1: mass up out of the sand and drag it up

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Speaker 1: the shore to hire ground away from the reach of

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Speaker 1: high tide. And then, once it was safe from being

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Speaker 1: dragged back up to see, DeWitt set about contacting the experts,

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Speaker 1: because you see, DeWitt had a theory. This was the

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Speaker 1: decomposed head of a gigantic octopus, never before cataloged by science.

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Speaker 1: For centuries, mariners had sometimes recounted stories of octopuses so

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Speaker 1: big they appeared more like land masses or groups of

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Speaker 1: islands than fish, so huge they could wrap their tentacles

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Speaker 1: around the hulls of ships and crack them like a

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Speaker 1: melon and drag them down into the deep, and this

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Speaker 1: giant killer octopus of legend was known by lots of

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Speaker 1: names like the Sea Devil, the Sea mischief I like

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Speaker 1: that one, or most famously as one of the forms

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Speaker 1: imagined for the mythical beast of Norse lore called the Kraken.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, And of course there also have been gigantic

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Speaker 1: and semi gigantic octopuses in Japanese of folklore and myth uh.

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Speaker 1: I know there's a there's an there's an important one

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Speaker 1: in y uh folklore as well. I think it's there's

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Speaker 1: a giant tentacled creature of some kind in like I knew,

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Speaker 1: or I guess that's the Japanese folklore. I don't know

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Speaker 1: why the movies put it in Greek myth because I've

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Speaker 1: never heard of it in Greek myth and like saying something,

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Speaker 1: it's become just immersed in there, just kind of stuck

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Speaker 1: in Greek mythology things. So I guess Clash of the Titans, right, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the idea of a giant octopus

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Speaker 1: that can wreck ships is just so cool you can't,

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Speaker 1: you know, you can't resist putting it into whatever kind

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Speaker 1: of mythology you're talking about. In fact, did you know

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Speaker 1: that the giant octopus was one of the signatories of

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Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence? That's how all those signatures, right,

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Speaker 1: You need a lot of arms. Um. So. There have

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Speaker 1: been many different and mutually incompatible descriptions of the Kraken,

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Speaker 1: but one of the most famous comes from Erica pantaped

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Speaker 1: On the Bishop of Bergen in his Natural History of

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Speaker 1: Norway in the seventeen fifties, who writes that it is

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Speaker 1: quote the largest sea monster in the world around, flat

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Speaker 1: and full of arms or branches. And uh, I believe

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Speaker 1: Robert and I were talking about the us before we

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Speaker 1: came on. Apparently this poem, I'm sorry to find out,

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Speaker 1: has already been featured on the podcast sometime in years past.

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Speaker 1: But Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a fantastic poem called the Kraken,

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Speaker 1: which was published in eighteen thirty and it's so good

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Speaker 1: it would be a shame not to read for you again.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, let's do it. Below the thunders of the

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Speaker 1: upper deep, far far beneath in the abysmal sea, his

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Speaker 1: ancient dreamless, uninvaded sleep the crack and sleep is faintest

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Speaker 1: sunlights flee about his shadowy sides above him swell huge

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Speaker 1: sponges of millennial growth and height, and far away into

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Speaker 1: the sickly light from many a wondrous grot and secret cell,

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Speaker 1: unnumbered and enormous POLOPI winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

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Speaker 1: They're happy. Lane for ages and will lie battening upon

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Speaker 1: huge seaworms in his sleep until the latter fire shall

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Speaker 1: heat the deep. Then, once by man and angels to

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Speaker 1: be seen in roaring, he shall rise and on the

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Speaker 1: surface die. I love the idea here that when it

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Speaker 1: comes up into the light, it dies, like as soon

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Speaker 1: as it enters our world, it is immediately and automatically destroyed.

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Speaker 1: And I think we should keep that in mind as

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Speaker 1: a metaphor for the subject of today's episode. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean when we've discussed creatures of the deep in the past,

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Speaker 1: I mean that. I mean that is part of the scenario, right,

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Speaker 1: Things that survive and the lightless high pressure depths. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you drag them up, they're not going to necessarily retain

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Speaker 1: anything like their original form, right. And I think you

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Speaker 1: could also say the same happens to the imagination or

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Speaker 1: the myths of sea monsters. Once you grab them and

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Speaker 1: get ahold of them to take a look. Because while

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Speaker 1: I think we will make a case later in the

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Speaker 1: episode than in the qualified sense, sea monsters really do exist. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they often don't match exactly what people tell tales of exactly.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, to come back to the St. Augustine Monster,

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Speaker 1: what if these legends of a monstrous octopus had been

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Speaker 1: based on a real giant octopus that had never before

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Speaker 1: been confirmed to exist, but had been seen by the

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Speaker 1: Norse mariners of old one might have felt justified wondering

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Speaker 1: if maybe this seven ton blob with its hacked up

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Speaker 1: arms stumps on a Florida beach was the rotten head

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Speaker 1: of a beast that had once been like the kraken

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Speaker 1: when it was alive and so. One of the people

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Speaker 1: that DeWitt contacted about the St. Augustine Monster was the

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Speaker 1: Yale University zoologist Addison Emery Veryl, and initially based on

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Speaker 1: photos and a few descriptions, Veryl was convinced by the

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Speaker 1: idea that this was some new and previously unknown species

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Speaker 1: of humongous octopus monster. Verill even suggested a scientific name,

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Speaker 1: Octopus giguentius, was a good name. It's to the point

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Speaker 1: it could have been more creative actually, like octopus kracknus,

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Speaker 1: octopus ridiculous, octopus blob oculus. So based on the initial

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Speaker 1: photos and descriptions that Arrol received, and by comparing the

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Speaker 1: analogy of you know, the size of known octopuses veryl

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Speaker 1: wrote at the time quote when living it must have

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Speaker 1: had enormous arms, each one a hundred feet or more

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Speaker 1: in length, each as thick as the mast of a

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Speaker 1: large vessel, and armed with hundreds of saucer shaped suckers,

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Speaker 1: the largest of which would have been at least a

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Speaker 1: foot in diameter. And of course that description instantly brings

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Speaker 1: to mind some of these classic woodcut illustrations of of

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Speaker 1: an enormous octopus wrapping its arms around the masts of ships. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and these match like the old sailor's legends from say

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Speaker 1: Norway or from Greenland, where they'd say, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you go out and in the ocean at the wrong

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Speaker 1: time of year, a kracking can come up and drag

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Speaker 1: your ship down. Now there's an older episode of stuff

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Speaker 1: to bloatery Mine. I want to mention um where we

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Speaker 1: talked about sea monsters particularly and how they relate to maps.

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Speaker 1: We talked at length on that episode about a book

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Speaker 1: by chet van Duzer, and one of the things that

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Speaker 1: he pointed out in that book is that there was

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Speaker 1: very often like a political advantage in pointing out the

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Speaker 1: potential for sea monsters in certain areas, like, oh, you

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Speaker 1: don't want to go you don't want to go on

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Speaker 1: this trade route. Uh, you might get attacked by an octopus. Also,

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Speaker 1: that's our trade route, and we would prefer to have

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Speaker 1: you know, full command of it. A genius way to

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Speaker 1: establish fishing rights. Yeah, it's just one of the other

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Speaker 1: things here is that monsters do serve various purposes. We

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Speaker 1: often discussed it on this show that you know that

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Speaker 1: monsters are a way to explain something, to perhaps explain

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Speaker 1: something you have found washed up on a beach, or

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Speaker 1: to explain something that is less tangible some some fear

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Speaker 1: in the mind. But also they can serve political purposes

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Speaker 1: as well. Absolutely, Now, this is a pretty amazing thing

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Speaker 1: to conclude. Right in eight you've got real physical evidence

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Speaker 1: of a giant octopus from Seafarer's legends. But unfortunately it

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Speaker 1: was not to be because once veryl got more dated

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Speaker 1: to work with, he quickly went back on the idea

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Speaker 1: that this was a giant octopus or an octopus of

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Speaker 1: any kind. He wrote an article in The American Naturalist

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seven, which is the year after the monster

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Speaker 1: was discovered, including a lot of interesting observations about the mass.

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Speaker 1: For instance, even three months after its initial discovery, the

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Speaker 1: monster had not shown noticeable advance of decomposition. Instead, Veryl

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Speaker 1: said that it had resisted decay and stayed pretty much

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Speaker 1: as it was when it was first found. That's kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting. Veryl also said that he had initially been

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Speaker 1: misled by incorrect descriptions of the mass, including a report

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Speaker 1: from a Mr. Wilson that a thirty six foot long

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Speaker 1: arm had been found attached to the part of the monster,

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Speaker 1: to one part of the monster, and buried alongside it,

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Speaker 1: and this turned out to be untrue. But the real

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Speaker 1: death of the huge octopus hypothesis was when Veryl received

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Speaker 1: some samples of the tissue from de Witt. And according

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Speaker 1: to Varyl, even a quick glance at these sections of

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Speaker 1: the blob would tell you they were not octopus tissue.

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Speaker 1: And I'll just read a section of his description some

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Speaker 1: abridgements quote. They are white and so tough that it

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Speaker 1: is hard to cut them, even with a razor, and

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Speaker 1: yet they are somewhat flexible and elastic. The fibers are

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Speaker 1: much interlaced in all directions and are of all sizes

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Speaker 1: up to the size of course twine and small cords. Naturally,

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Speaker 1: most of the interior parts had decomposed long before it

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Speaker 1: was open, so that we lack details on the interior structure. Externally,

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Speaker 1: there is but little trace of cuticle. The surface is

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Speaker 1: close grained and somewhat rough, with occasional gray patches of

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Speaker 1: what maybe remnants of the outer skin, much altered by decay.

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Speaker 1: The thick masses contain a slight amount of oil and

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Speaker 1: smell like rancid whale oil, but they sink quickly in

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Speaker 1: water owing to their great density, and later he says

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Speaker 1: it's toughness and elasticity remind one of the properties of

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Speaker 1: thick vulcanized rubber um. And here we're getting closer to

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Speaker 1: the truth, right, So veryl concluded, based on his experience

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Speaker 1: with marine animal tissues, it was the integument, meaning the

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Speaker 1: tough outer skin from the head of a dead sperm whale,

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Speaker 1: though possibly a sick or unusually shaped one. But this

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Speaker 1: amazing monster, this astonishing evidence of the Great King Octopus

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Speaker 1: battened upon huge sea worms until the latter fire heated

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Speaker 1: the deep. You know, he turned out to be nothing

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Speaker 1: but a multi ton blob of dead, partially decomposed skin

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Speaker 1: and bits of other tissue from a sperm whale. And

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Speaker 1: it's crazy how that can be a disappointing answer, you know,

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Speaker 1: to say, actually, it's not the flesh of of an

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Speaker 1: undersea giant. It's the flesh of an even larger undersea giant,

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Speaker 1: just one that we're more familiar with exactly. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the sperm whale is a sea monster. I mean there

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Speaker 1: there is clearly reason to believe that some sea monster

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Speaker 1: legends are based on observations of actual animals. And they're

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Speaker 1: not monsters. They're animals we know about that are amazing, gigantic, fascinating, strange,

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Speaker 1: terrifying creatures in their own right. And the sperm whale

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Speaker 1: is absolutely one of the creatures that still retain many

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Speaker 1: of their mysteries. Uh So, you know, it's not even

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Speaker 1: like we have a full understanding of these creatures. And

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Speaker 1: you know, consume at a zoo or something or an aquarium. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the great whales are are enigmas in many respects.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they are they are, they're they're beautiful, holly,

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Speaker 1: blameless creatures, but they're not giant octopuses. Yeah. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you can blame them for anything, you can blame

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Speaker 1: them once dead for inspiring a lot of back and

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Speaker 1: forth about new types of giant octopuses or monsters discovered.

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Speaker 1: Because despite a highly reputable zoologist solving the mystery of

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Speaker 1: the St. Augustine Monster within a year of its discovery, right,

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Speaker 1: this was eighteen. This is with within less than a

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Speaker 1: year of the thing being found. That despite this, the

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Speaker 1: giant octopus theory persisted for a long time, I mean

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Speaker 1: a really long time, and not just in the halls

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Speaker 1: of cryptid mania, but in respectable mainstream publications. It still

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Speaker 1: gets brought up when when people talk about blobs washed

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Speaker 1: ashore in recent years, the idea that maybe this was

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Speaker 1: a giant octopus in St. Augustine and they figured out

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Speaker 1: what it actually was like a less than a year later.

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Speaker 1: So this is gonna be the subject of this episode

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Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and the following a

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Speaker 1: two part look at globsters. Now we'll define globster more

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Speaker 1: rigorously as we go on in this episode, but you

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Speaker 1: might be able to guess already what it is. Basically,

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Speaker 1: it is a blob of life washed ashore on a

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Speaker 1: beach that gives rise to many questions and speculation. Mysterious

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Speaker 1: rancid goo. But yeah, you might be wondering, how could

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Speaker 1: there be two episodes worth of stuff to talk about?

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Speaker 1: It has wonderful connections to see monster legends, to to

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Speaker 1: to really interesting science. Uh this is this turned out

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Speaker 1: to be a very rich topic. No pun intended about

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Speaker 1: the richness of whale blubber. Yeah, it has legs, even

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Speaker 1: if you know globsters themselves don't really have ages anymore,

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Speaker 1: or if they the only limbs they have are the

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Speaker 1: hacked up freight arms, and that those are good enough. Alright, well,

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Speaker 1: I think we should take a quick break and when

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Speaker 1: we come back we will go go a little bit

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Speaker 1: further into discussing what is a globster? Thank, thank Alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. So this is the sort of thing we

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Speaker 1: see pop up here and there, you know, anywhere the

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Speaker 1: natural world touches human civilization, and quite often inexpert biological

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Speaker 1: assessments occur of what remains. And then I love, I

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Speaker 1: love a good goo. Yeah. I mean in many cases too,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be looking at situations where it is an

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Speaker 1: expert who is who is passing judgment on the globster

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Speaker 1: or the strange jelly that's washed up. But they might

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Speaker 1: not be an expert in say marine biology. Uh, they

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Speaker 1: might be an expert in another area. So it's not

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Speaker 1: just you know, local buffoons marching drunkenly up and down

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Speaker 1: the coast and encountering strange remains. Well. Remember from the

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Speaker 1: story that we started with with the St. August steam monster,

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Speaker 1: Addison Emery Veril himself, this noted zoologist. He at first

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Speaker 1: thought it was a giant octopus of shipwrecking size. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It was only once he had the samples in front

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Speaker 1: of him and better photographs to look at and stuff

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Speaker 1: that he had, that he realized like, oh no, I

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Speaker 1: I've made a big mistake. So a couple of other

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Speaker 1: examples of similar scenarios that that I want to discuss here.

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Speaker 1: First of all, the idea of star jelly. I've talked

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Speaker 1: about this on the show before. It's one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite examples, and not just because it's so closely mirrors

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Speaker 1: the opening of the classic films. You know, the blob

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Speaker 1: from in the remake, and eight in which a hobo

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Speaker 1: pokest a meteorite and an owze inside of it, climbs

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Speaker 1: up the stick or down the stick and consumes his hand.

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Speaker 1: In these cases, that was star jelly. What you have

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Speaker 1: is an amateur sees a shooting star in the sky

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Speaker 1: and then attempts to find it to find the resulting meteorite.

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Speaker 1: And so they go kicking around the woods, paying attention

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Speaker 1: to stuff that they normally wouldn't deal with, or an

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Speaker 1: encounter and certainly wouldn't analyze. And finally they happened across

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Speaker 1: some glob of fun guy or decaying organic material, and

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Speaker 1: they become convinced that this is what fell to earth.

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Speaker 1: This is the star jelly. I wonder, what's the funniest

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Speaker 1: substance ever ever believed to be star jelly? Like, was

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Speaker 1: there ever, just like a pile of bare vomit that

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Speaker 1: became star jelly? Or candy, you know, like some sort

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Speaker 1: of gummy candy, perhaps like a bag of marshmallows left

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Speaker 1: out in the rain, yeah, or a cake left out

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Speaker 1: in the rain. Who knows. Um. Now. Another example that

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Speaker 1: comes to mind sewer blobs such as the Cameron Village

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Speaker 1: sewer blob in Raleigh, North Carolina. Lovely you might remember

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Speaker 1: this one joke. This one was something of a YouTube

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Speaker 1: celebrity back in two thousand nine, uh well before the start.

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Speaker 1: I remember, I remember like blogging for How Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: at the time, and I think I think Marshall Brain

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Speaker 1: did some some blog posts about about this particular sewer blob.

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Speaker 1: Because what happened is you had this gross footage emerge

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Speaker 1: of a pulsating blob in the sewers, and the footage

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Speaker 1: score just a lot of blob and unknown organism headlines.

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Speaker 1: But it all turned out to be a colony of

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Speaker 1: tube effects worms a k a. Sledge worms or sewer worms.

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Speaker 1: And they're just a tube five segmented worm species that

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Speaker 1: naturally reside in lakes and rivers gobbling up bacteria. But

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Speaker 1: they can survive on very little oxygen and have a

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Speaker 1: knack for thriving in heavily polluted areas full of organic material. Wonderful.

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Speaker 1: So a sewer is totally their jam. So what brought

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Speaker 1: them to Raleigh? Do we know? Uh, not particularly Raleigh.

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Speaker 1: It's just the sewer system there, you know there that

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Speaker 1: they just have a knack for thriving inside of the

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Speaker 1: artificial um parameters of a human sewage system, and then

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Speaker 1: they just end up in these big pulsating masses. So

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Speaker 1: there could be sewer worm blobs all over the place.

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Speaker 1: There just happened to be one that went viral in

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know,

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Speaker 1: what's the alchemy for becoming a tube SuperStar's a lot

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Speaker 1: of it's just luck. This was this was the glob

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Speaker 1: that was destined for for superstardom. This is the blobby pie. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Sadly there was a few years before Pizza Rat, so

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Speaker 1: the sewer blob and Pizza Rat did not get to

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Speaker 1: like team up in a buddy cop film. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I still hold out hope for the future. But coming

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Speaker 1: back to the the oceanic variety of mysterious blobs, the

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Speaker 1: crazy thing is you still see these headlines all the time. Heck,

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Speaker 1: just this month in nineteen uh, the Sun Fabulous bastion

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Speaker 1: of journalistic integrity. Uh, they gave us this headline. Mystery

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Speaker 1: sea creature dubbed Donald Trump's hair hairpiece leaves experts stumped

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Speaker 1: after a yellow blob is spotted off Australia. Okay, who

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Speaker 1: dubbed it that the author of this article or that

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Speaker 1: comes to us from the sun. Weirdly, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: admit that's a good headline. Yeah, weirdly enough. Fox News

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Speaker 1: ran an article in the simber of listing some of

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Speaker 1: the more noteworthy globsters to wash up on shores just

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Speaker 1: in I mean, there's always a blob here there that'll

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Speaker 1: that'll get somebody's attention and there will be an article

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Speaker 1: about it, who knows, in the Daily Mail, maybe saying

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Speaker 1: it's an alien. Yeah, I mean, it's always gonna make

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Speaker 1: a headline, right because you get to say, mysterious blob, globster,

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Speaker 1: what have you? Has washed upon the shore? You want

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Speaker 1: to see that picture and then you you're intrigued by

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Speaker 1: the mystery. And the selected entries are in that Fox

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Speaker 1: newspiece for an example, it's a good sampling of the

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Speaker 1: sort of strange blobs that are often reported unidentified whole

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Speaker 1: or partial sea jellies or jellyfish, slabs of decaying whale

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Speaker 1: and weird fish remains, and sometimes it is actually the

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Speaker 1: remains of a cephalopotter seems to be including the odd

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Speaker 1: remains of a giant squid. For instance, there was a

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Speaker 1: noteworthy giant squid that washed up in August of eighteen

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Speaker 1: on the coast of New Zealand, like undeniably, uh, just

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Speaker 1: a whole giant squid. And you see pick the pictures

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Speaker 1: of the two gentlemen who found it, like laying next

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Speaker 1: to it and posing with it. Wait, do you know

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Speaker 1: if it was giant squid or colossal squid? Oh? Is

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Speaker 1: our friend Archie Furey Artois. I think just because I

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Speaker 1: think of the colossal squid as being the one in

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Speaker 1: the Southern Ocean, But I guess they're giant squid down

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Speaker 1: there too. Now, the term globster itself emerges in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty two with from a similar part of the world,

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Speaker 1: with the Tasmanian globster. This is a twenty ft in

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Speaker 1: unidentified carcass that washed up washed ashore in western Tasmania.

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Speaker 1: And this is this is a quote from that particular story.

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Speaker 1: Scottish biologist and writer Ivan T. Sanderson coined this term

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Speaker 1: globster uh in covering the story, and it beat out

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Speaker 1: Sea Santa, which was the term used by another journalist

401
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Speaker 1: covering the story as being like the the term that

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Speaker 1: would remain part of the crypto zoological lexicon see Santo.

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Speaker 1: Where does that come? We'll see it. It's it doesn't

404
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Speaker 1: make sense to me. Jiggles a bowl full of jelly.

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Speaker 1: I guess just a bad headline. Globsters clearly the way

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Speaker 1: to go now. Sanderson was also a sci fi rider.

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Speaker 1: He wrote about nature, travel, and the paranormal. He's most

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Speaker 1: remembered today as being something of a cryptozoologist, but uh

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Speaker 1: the the article he wrote included this description. It was

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Speaker 1: initially covered with fine hair. There were five or six

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Speaker 1: gill like hairless slits on each side of the four parts.

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Speaker 1: There were four large hanging lobes in the front and

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Speaker 1: between the center pair with a smooth, gullet like orifice.

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Speaker 1: The margin of the hind part had cushioned like protuberances,

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Speaker 1: and each of these carried a single row of spines,

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Speaker 1: sharp and hard, about as thick as a pencil and

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Speaker 1: quill like. It had a resilient flesh which appeared to

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Speaker 1: be composed of numerous tendon like threads welded together in

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Speaker 1: a fatty substance. So that sounds a lot like the

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Speaker 1: St Augustine monster in many respects, very much kind of

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Speaker 1: kind of fatty, kind of fibrous blob like with like

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Speaker 1: hairs are weird little frayed fibery bits that that are

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Speaker 1: hard to identify. Yeah, it would um, it would not

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Speaker 1: be surprising to discover that this had come from almost anything, right,

425
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 1: you know, like you when you see an object like this,

426
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:17,920
Speaker 1: it's it's just not obvious that this is clearly one

427
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 1: thing or another. And to be fair, I mean again,

428
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 1: think about the mysteries of the seat. Under the curtain

429
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:25,879
Speaker 1: of the deep. There there lie great, uh you know,

430
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: great things probably still to be discovered, and so that

431
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: this is one of the things that I think sometimes

432
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 1: people do it sort of annoys me. Is like mocking

433
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 1: ancient people's for believing in sea monsters, because it is

434
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: true that many ancient encyclopedists and beast hearists and seagoers

435
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 1: described creatures which probably never existed. But I would positive

436
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 1: that the belief in sea monsters, generally, especially in the

437
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 1: ancient world and even up until you know, recent centuries,

438
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 1: was a completely reasonable and valid thing to believe. And

439
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:03,400
Speaker 1: in any cases, sea monsters did exist. We just now

440
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,200
Speaker 1: have more accurate descriptions of them, and we call them

441
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:09,399
Speaker 1: by different names. The sperm whale, the blue whale, the

442
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:13,639
Speaker 1: giant squid, the sunfish, the lion's main jellyfish. So like

443
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 1: an ancient sailor from Phoenicia or somewhere tells you there's

444
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: a monster of the deep with tin arms taller than

445
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: the height of seven men, with eyes bigger than your head,

446
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: he would essentially be telling the truth about a giant squid.

447
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:29,880
Speaker 1: Though now we have more accurate ways of documenting these

448
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 1: creatures when we encounter them, and we've we've certainly narrowed

449
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:35,679
Speaker 1: the list of giant sea creatures that we think are

450
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 1: likely to actually exist. But some sea monsters do exist.

451
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 1: They're just animals, and the ocean is full of amazing, rare, huge, terrifying,

452
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: fascinating creatures, and sometimes even before modern marine zoology and

453
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:53,640
Speaker 1: documentaries like Blue Planet, people would come across them somehow.

454
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 1: And one of the ways that people have long been

455
00:25:56,080 --> 00:26:00,400
Speaker 1: encountering sea monsters like this is in the form much

456
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:04,400
Speaker 1: like the St. Augustine monster, washed ashore or pulled up

457
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: on a line or in a net, dead decomposing, suggesting

458
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 1: an original form and a sort of once or twice

459
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: removed fashion, you know, like melted, alienated blob like yeah,

460
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:21,399
Speaker 1: and ultimately like partially exploded, Yeah, by by virtue of

461
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 1: being pulled out of the depths. Yeah, not to mention well,

462
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 1: I mean you mentioned exploded exploding whales or a whole

463
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 1: other thing that we can talk about sometime. Yeah. I

464
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 1: think it's very useful though, to think about how sea

465
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 1: monsters were discussed in olden days. Um For instance, St.

466
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,639
Speaker 1: Augustine wrote that a monster is ultimately part of God's

467
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:42,399
Speaker 1: plan and uh an adornment of the universe that can

468
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,159
Speaker 1: also teach us about the dangers of sin. But again

469
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: a part of God's plan, a part of the natural world.

470
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 1: So these were not, you know, described as being demons

471
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: per se. They were just uh, creatures that we did

472
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: not know much about, and we're noteworthy for some of

473
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: the are uh there their attributes. Thirteenth century theologian Thomas

474
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: of Contemporary devoted one book entirely to see monsters and

475
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: another to fish of the sea. And the dividing line

476
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:15,880
Speaker 1: between the two rarity and size, that is what determined

477
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: to see monster. Is it extremely rare and or is

478
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: it particularly enormous? I mean, those would also be things

479
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 1: that would tend to describe top predators. They are not

480
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:27,199
Speaker 1: nearly as many of them and they tend to be bigger.

481
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: Chet banduser who referenced earlier he wrote, he brought this

482
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: up in the excellent Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps,

483
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: and in that book he chose to define sea monsters

484
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 1: as quote aquatic creatures thought astonishing and exotic and classical

485
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:45,479
Speaker 1: medieval or Renaissance times, and that that covers a lot

486
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: of ground, considering, you know, how little was known about

487
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:51,399
Speaker 1: the ocean depths in those times and the creatures that

488
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: live there. And uh, you know, we if we've covered

489
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: on the show before, it's always we're stressing how much

490
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 1: remains for us to understand today, even if we can

491
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: safely rule out the number of true giants that remain. Yeah,

492
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 1: so I would say that when the sea gives up

493
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,359
Speaker 1: some kind of mysterious mass, I think it is okay

494
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 1: to have the impulse to to be amazed by it.

495
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 1: Didn't wonder what it is. I mean, it's it's not

496
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,640
Speaker 1: unreasonable to say this could be evidence of something very

497
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: weird and interesting. But you also shouldn't jump to the

498
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 1: conclusion that now you've discovered a gigantic oxpus, that's the thing,

499
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 1: and this is one of the crucial errors that you

500
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: see over and over again, right, is what is this

501
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:31,480
Speaker 1: more likely to be? Is it more likely to be

502
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: a creature that there has never been hard evidence for

503
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: that we do not know to actually exist, or is

504
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: this perhaps the remains or part of the remains of

505
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: something that we do know to exist. Now one of those,

506
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,959
Speaker 1: one of those possibilities is certainly more exciting than the others.

507
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: Who doesn't want to be the first person to discover

508
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: proof of some amazing beast. I mean, if you find

509
00:28:55,920 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 1: some sort of rotting um primate in your backyard, I

510
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: know I want it to be Bigfoot, as opposed to

511
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 1: just somebody's you know, pet chimpanzee that escaped and that

512
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: its tragic end in my backyard. But one of those

513
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: is far more likely to be the case than the other. Well,

514
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: one of them you're going to be far more likely

515
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: to sell for a big score of money than the other. Yeah,

516
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, honestly, I don't know what a dead

517
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: champion chimpanzee goes for on the the like local black market,

518
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: but probably not as much as Bigfoot. In a cooler

519
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: I wonder what is the largest the highest price a

520
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 1: supposed Bigfoot in a frozen block of ice has ever

521
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: sold for I don't know, probably a pretty penny. So

522
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: I think we should try to define globsters a little

523
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: bit more um to to get a get a more

524
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: rigorous idea of what we're talking about to fit into

525
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: this category. So a lot of somewhat different looking things

526
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: have been classified as globsters. What do all of them

527
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: have in common? I'll positive list of some universal criteria.

528
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: This is This is my universal globster checklist. Number one

529
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: comes from the sea, Number two appears to be organic

530
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 1: in nature, Number three but does not currently appear to

531
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 1: be alive, and number four defies initial classification. So it's

532
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: definitely a globster when the c gives up some dead organism,

533
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: and it's at least initially hard to tell what kind

534
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: of organism it is. But beyond that, there are some

535
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: other major features common to many, but not all, things

536
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: called globsters. One is that usually the object is large,

537
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: like multi ton. Usually it looks really gross or unusual

538
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: and makes people think they've discovered a new species or

539
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: a monster, or an abnormally large specimen of a known species,

540
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 1: like a gigantic octopus. Occasionally, bright colors come up, especially

541
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: if the specimen is uh something that is related to

542
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: a c jelly, but certainly not in these cases where

543
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: it is ultimately part of a whale. Yeah, I'd say

544
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: the most common physical description is big old blob, horrible odor,

545
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:02,719
Speaker 1: off white gray or pale pink color, uh, blob like shape,

546
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 1: no apparent skeleton or bones, no apparent eyes, no apparent head,

547
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 1: covered in fine hairs or stringy substances, in a kind

548
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: of rubbery texture. Did I just see you shiver, Robert? Yeah?

549
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: I did. Um, It's just it's something. It's just that description, right,

550
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: It's just so loathsome to imagine. I'm surprised. I usually

551
00:31:22,840 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: think of you as a person who has a quite

552
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: strong constitution with regards to to gross and nicky things.

553
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, the CEA will offer up some some

554
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: things to challenge us, that's for sure. So let's talk

555
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: about some other examples of globsters, because because there are

556
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 1: many and we are not going to be able to

557
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: cover them all today. I mean to do it to

558
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 1: to mention a point already made just Ineen. You had

559
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: multiple examples of globsters popping up washing ashore for humans

560
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: to find. So let's see. Let's let's let's go through them.

561
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 1: Here we've talked about the Tasmanian globster here uh O

562
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 1: g lobster from nineteen sixty. There's also the Bermuda blob

563
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: from nineteen which was described as two and a half

564
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: to three three ft thick, very wide and fibrous, with

565
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: five arms or legs, rather like a disfigured star. It

566
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: had no bones, cartilage, visible openings, or odor. This one

567
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: was probably the remains of a whale carcass, by the way.

568
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: Another one is the Hebrides Islands globster from nineteen nine,

569
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 1: and there's a description of this one that's included in

570
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: a paper that came back to several times in researching

571
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: this um, how to Tell a Sea Monster Molecular Discrimination

572
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: of Large Marine Animals of the North Atlantic, published in

573
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: the Biological Bulls Bulletin in two thousand and two by

574
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: car at All quote. It had what appeared to be

575
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: a head at one end, a curved back, and seemed

576
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: to be covered with eating away flesh or even a

577
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: furry skin, and was twelve ft long. And it had

578
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: all these shapes like ms along its back. Now there

579
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 1: was a nantucket blob that was supposedly it was like

580
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: a big blubbl blubberry looking thing. Uh, there was what

581
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: us a Newfoundland blob. Yeah, this was in uh St.

582
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 1: Bernard's Fortune Bay. And I used to live in Newfoundland,

583
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 1: so I'm pretty sure I've been to this, uh this area.

584
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 1: I never saw anything like this, but but Newfoundland you

585
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 1: do see all sorts of interesting things wash up on

586
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: the shore. Uh described as an enormous rotting whitish mass

587
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: five point six meters long and five ms wide, no head,

588
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: no tail, all bleached tissue, rough, fringed with material that

589
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 1: looked like hair, but was actually quote a braided tissue

590
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: mixed with seaweed and sand, seven or eight lobes or slits.

591
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: And this is from that car at All paper. The

592
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: state of that the decay here made identification impossible, but

593
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 1: morphology ruled out a giant squid and suggested either the

594
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: remains of a basking shark or any of several whale

595
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 1: species found in the surrounding Newfoundland waters. Uh car at

596
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 1: All rule that, based on genetic sequences that they were

597
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: able to um you know, to to determine from the

598
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: from the sample of the remains, it is without doubt,

599
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: the remains of a sperm whale. Yeah, familiar story by

600
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 1: this point. Now. In two thousand three, a twelve meter wide,

601
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: thirteen ton specimen of glorious blobbinus washed up on the

602
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: coast of Chile at a place called Los Mouaremos Beach,

603
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: and according to a BBC News article on the specimen

604
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: from July of two thousand three, researchers in Santiago thought

605
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: that at first it might be some new species of

606
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: giant octopus or squid. James Mead, a zoologist at the

607
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Institution in Washington, disagreed, telling the BBC quote, I

608
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: don't have enough data to say it's an octopus or

609
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: it's a whale, but I would hazard a bet that

610
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: when it gets firmly identified, it'll be a whale. And

611
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 1: I've got a photo of it here. It looks what

612
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 1: does it look like, Robert, I mean, it looks like

613
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: a giant eldric of a creature. Certainly you don't look

614
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:04,719
Speaker 1: at it and think, oh, that's part of a whale. No,

615
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,279
Speaker 1: it looks kind of it could be a cathulu head.

616
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: It's sort of got things that look like arms or

617
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 1: tentacles and that comes through based on the photos, because

618
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: in the BBC article, another whale expert disagrees with me,

619
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: saying that based on the photos it doesn't look like

620
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: whale tissue. It lacks a distinctive collagen matrix. Uh. And

621
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 1: then after that the article goes full cracking quote European zoologists,

622
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: and the author does not say who, it just says

623
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: European zoologists said it closely resembled descriptions of a bizarre

624
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 1: specimen found in Florida in eighteen six that was named

625
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: Octopus giganteus, which has confounded experts ever since. Seems odd

626
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 1: to me that the BBC is still floating no pun intended,

627
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: and the gigantic octopus explanation in two thousand three. Yeah,

628
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 1: especially when you look at all these cases, the ones

629
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: we've we've looked at in some of the stuff we're

630
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: about to discuss in a bit here, it seems like

631
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: the whale explanation is generally the safe bet. Yeah. I mean,

632
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: because remember Veril, the expert at the time positively identified.

633
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 1: He said, look, I've seen what these samples are like.

634
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: This is conclusively sperm whale tissue that was back in

635
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:20,600
Speaker 1: eight and over a hundred years later, like a hundred

636
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:22,880
Speaker 1: and six years later, we're still like, I think maybe

637
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:25,359
Speaker 1: this was a giant octopus that was on the beach

638
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: in Florida. But you know what, we can do the

639
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: lab work. That's a wonderful, glorious capability we have. Now

640
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: you mentioned the lab results with a couple of these

641
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,399
Speaker 1: other blobs. So what was the Chilean blob that people

642
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 1: are saying is maybe a new giant octopus. Well, there

643
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 1: was a paper published in the Biological Bulletin in two

644
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 1: thousand four by Pierce Massy, Curtis Smith, Olivaria, and mal

645
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:55,439
Speaker 1: gel And this was called Microscopic, Biochemical and Molecular Characteristics

646
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: of the Chilean Blob and a comparison with the remains

647
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 1: of other sea monsters colon nothing but whales. So you

648
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 1: can guess where this one's going. They used electron microscopy

649
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: to reveal that the Chilean blob was quote largely composed

650
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:13,280
Speaker 1: of an a cellular fibrous network reminiscent of the college

651
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: and fiber net network in whale blubber. They also use

652
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 1: DNA analysis to determine that the blob was a one

653
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: match for the DNA of sperm whales quote. These results

654
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:27,760
Speaker 1: unequivocally demonstrate that the chill An blob is the almost

655
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:31,760
Speaker 1: completely decomposed remains of the blubber layer of a sperm whale,

656
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 1: and in fact, the authors point out that, despite lingering

657
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: cryptozoological interest, every single one of the globsters we mentioned

658
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: in the list a minute ago, I think all of them,

659
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:42,720
Speaker 1: if not all of them, most of them are mentioned

660
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 1: in this list. Uh, and the st Augustine monster that

661
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 1: we started by talking about, have also been shown by

662
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:52,800
Speaker 1: modern sample analysis to have been the decomposed remains of whales,

663
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: usually sperm whales, but definitely whales. So far it's all whales. Alright. Well,

664
00:37:57,640 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 1: on that note, let's take a quick break, and when

665
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to talk about whale flesh.

666
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: We're gonna discuss why and how whale flesh ends up

667
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:13,399
Speaker 1: masquerading as strange, unexplained creatures from the deep. Thank thank

668
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: thank Alright, we're back. So we've got all these stories

669
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,879
Speaker 1: of a blob, a globster, a big mass of some

670
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 1: kind washing up on a beach somewhere, getting pulled up

671
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: by a trawler, appearing somewhere from the depths, looking like

672
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: a a cathoulu head or a giant octopus, a crack in,

673
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: some kind of squid creature, and and always so far

674
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,439
Speaker 1: turning out to be part of a dead whale. Yeah,

675
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:40,760
Speaker 1: Because here's the deal. If you're looking for a sea monster,

676
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,760
Speaker 1: whales are it kinda And likewise, if a giant hunk

677
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: of something formally living washes up on the shore, you

678
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: have to at least consider that it stems from some

679
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 1: of the largest denizens of the sea. And indeed, that

680
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 1: classification of animals that includes not only the largest animals

681
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: alive today with the largest animals that have ever lived.

682
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: The larger adult whales, as we've discussed in the show before,

683
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:07,919
Speaker 1: are largely untouchable in the natural world. Modern whales. Yeah,

684
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: they have to contend with human ships, pollution, and they've

685
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: had to survive the horrors of the whaling industry in

686
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 1: the past. Uh. And in some cases they do have

687
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 1: to contend with the orca, the wolves of the sea.

688
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 1: Pods of orc as will sometimes try to prey on

689
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,440
Speaker 1: sperm whales. And then, of course the younger whales are

690
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:27,320
Speaker 1: even more vulnerable in some cases. But for the vast

691
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: majority of of their marine peers, the whales are just

692
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 1: God's beyond their touch, at least until they die. That's

693
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:39,439
Speaker 1: when whale fall occurs, when the whale has has has

694
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 1: has finally given up the ghost and it sinks and

695
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 1: it serves as an immense bounty, a pop up ecosystem

696
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:49,800
Speaker 1: of nutrients in an ocean desert, sustaining everything from sharks

697
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 1: to far more specialized whale googles like the bone os

698
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: decks that we've discussed in the show before. It's the

699
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: rotten Thanksgiving of the ocean, it is. And then, of course,

700
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,280
Speaker 1: you know, certainly there are cases where whales are beached.

701
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 1: We have an entire episode of stuff to blow your

702
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 1: mind from the past about this topic, on this topic

703
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: about how this occurs and or their cadavers will wash ashore. Uh,

704
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:13,719
Speaker 1: you know, more or less whole. I think we've been

705
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 1: a recognizable form right like there. If you've ever watched

706
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: any of the David Attenborough Nature specials, you've seen some

707
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 1: of these either dealing with the whale fall with a

708
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 1: whale corpse on the bottom of the sea and looking

709
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 1: at all the things that tear into it, or like

710
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: bears munching on a whale that's washed up. Um Wow.

711
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:34,839
Speaker 1: You know, it's just it is a bounty of resources.

712
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:37,439
Speaker 1: It's like this thing that was untouchable for so long

713
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: and grows to such an enormous size is suddenly um

714
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:44,919
Speaker 1: up for grabs. It's like the you know, the the

715
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: the emperor has died and now the gates are undefended

716
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: and everyone can just storm in and have as much

717
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 1: gold as they want. And but then, of course we

718
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 1: do have cases where we just get a big old

719
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 1: hunk of blubber, just a big old hunk of blubber

720
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,840
Speaker 1: washing up on the shore, and then people wonder what

721
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 1: this might be. So to to really put that together, though,

722
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: to to to understand like what's going on here, we

723
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: have to talk about what blubber is and what it

724
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: is not. Blubber is, essentially, and I really want to

725
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,839
Speaker 1: tag essentially here, a thick layer of fat. But it's

726
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,840
Speaker 1: thicker than any fat layer you'll find elsewhere in the

727
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 1: animal kingdom. It covers the entire body of animals such

728
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:27,360
Speaker 1: as seals, whales, and walruses, except for their fins, flippers,

729
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:32,879
Speaker 1: and flukes. It has three key roles energy storage, insulation,

730
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: and buoyancy. That last one is key, of course, to

731
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 1: our discussions here, so not or hewn from the sinking Leviathan,

732
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: it may float free. And as far as thickness goes,

733
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 1: because some of these these globsters, they do look very thick.

734
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 1: The thickest blubber is found on the right whales who

735
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 1: live in chilly Arctic and Antarctic waters, and it's more

736
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: than a foot thick. However, the chemical properties of the

737
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: blubber actually determine all three properties of the blubber. Again,

738
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: the ergy storages, the insulation, the buoyancy, rather than just

739
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:06,399
Speaker 1: pure thickness. So yeah, it's important to to to think

740
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: about that as being just part of the entire animals

741
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: outer layer. And that's how you can get some of

742
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 1: these large pieces. You know, it's like a big flayed

743
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: hunk of blubber. It's not like just a uh you know,

744
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,840
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily just a single isolated part of the anatomy.

745
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 1: And not only is this blubber thicker than the fat

746
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,720
Speaker 1: of land animals, it also contains a lot more blood

747
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: vessels and many marine bi i biologists actually consider it

748
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:34,839
Speaker 1: more of a unique connective tissue unto itself. Well, it's

749
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: got that collagen matrix that that we've seen the experts

750
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 1: talking about exactly. So, yeah, there are principles there. There,

751
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 1: there aspects to the blubber that make it rather unique.

752
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: And these attributes are one of the reasons that will

753
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:48,480
Speaker 1: end up washing the shore. But it's also one of

754
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:50,520
Speaker 1: the reasons that we may look at it and we

755
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:55,280
Speaker 1: don't associated with, say, you know, the fat on a

756
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:58,319
Speaker 1: butchered cow or pig or what have you. However, this

757
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 1: does make me wonder I during the days like the

758
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: the you know, the the peak of the whaling industry,

759
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 1: would you be far less likely to encounter a globster

760
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:16,879
Speaker 1: sighting just because more people would have familiarity with the

761
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: anatomy of whales, or perhaps they were because there are

762
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:23,520
Speaker 1: fewer of them to to wash to wash up on

763
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: the shore. I don't know. That's a good point, Like

764
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,840
Speaker 1: people would be familiar with whaling all around and or

765
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 1: maybe not everywhere, but you couldn't look at that and say, yeah,

766
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: that that's that's the gold of the sea right there. Yeah,

767
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: Or indeed, would a would a a whaler or former

768
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 1: whaler be less likely to make the globster mistake? Would

769
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:43,439
Speaker 1: they be in a position to say, oh, well, that's

770
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: clearly a big old hunk of blubber. I've seen blubber before.

771
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: But then again, familiarity with the living or you know,

772
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 1: recently butchered animal is not necessarily the same as being

773
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: familiar with uh. It's it's more decayed appearance. That's true.

774
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,640
Speaker 1: There is an estrangement of warm that comes about after

775
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 1: the creature has died, and who knows how far that

776
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,839
Speaker 1: estrangement goes now. I think one of the takeaways from

777
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 1: today's episode is that it seems like the majority of

778
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:15,839
Speaker 1: these globsters, these big blobs that wash ashore and are

779
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 1: hard to identify our parts of whale bodies, right, But

780
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: there is a whole other category of globsters that do

781
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:29,719
Speaker 1: not fit this and either could not be identified as

782
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:34,280
Speaker 1: conclusively as whale tissue or are very likely something else.

783
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: And that is what we're going to focus on in

784
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: the next episode. In the meantime, while you're waiting for

785
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: Globsters Part two or Invasion of the Globsters, whatever we

786
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 1: end up calling the episodes, UH, you can check out

787
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:48,640
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's our mothership.

788
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:50,720
Speaker 1: That's where we'll find all the episodes of the show.

789
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 1: Going back to the very beginning. You'll find links out

790
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 1: to our very social media accounts. You'll find a lovely

791
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: little tab to go check out our merchandise store. We

792
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,279
Speaker 1: can get a stick or assure to throw pillow, um

793
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:05,360
Speaker 1: you name it with our logo on it, or something

794
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,239
Speaker 1: related to a past episode, such as, uh that that

795
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: that cool design, The squirrels are not what they seem,

796
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 1: uh that sort of thing. It's a cool way to

797
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: support the show. But if you want to support our

798
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Speaker 1: show without spending a dime, just rate and review us

799
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:21,759
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800
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:25,839
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe to our new show, Invention. That's right,

801
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Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Tory Harrison. If you'd like to get

805
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806
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:47,560
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807
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:50,239
Speaker 1: just to say hi, you can always email us at

808
00:45:50,320 --> 00:46:03,680
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809
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