WEBVTT - Invasion of the Globsters, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.320 Works dot Com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:16.800 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.959 McCormick and Robert. Today we're going to begin with a 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.799 Florida man story. Good. Nothing like a Florida man who 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:28.520 discovers an ancient beast of unstoppable power. All right, So 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.680 the story begins in the mild late autumn on a 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:37.159 Florida beach. It was novemb and there were two boys 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:39.920 who went out for a bicycle ride along the beach 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.000 on Anastasia Island, which is a barrier island on the 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.400 Atlantic coast of Florida. I believe I've been to Anastasia Island, 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:51.000 So yeah, how was it? Um? I seemed to recall 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:53.240 it being fine. If I am in fact remembering correctly, 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:55.480 If I've been there, it was great. Did you sense 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.560 any apocalyptic power lurking below the waves? Um? Probably, But 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.240 that's just generally how I encounter the ocean. Yeah, the 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.360 apocalyptic power is inside you. If you're not thinking about 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:08.360 the apocalyptic powers of the ocean when you stare at 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.440 the ocean, you're just not looking at it, right, I 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:15.440 mean it's it's the ocean, right, yeah, yeah, well that 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.039 will be a theme of today's episode, I believe. So 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:20.360 tell me if this matches your experience. I think, generally, 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.600 based on I was looking at photos, the beaches on 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.560 Anna Stage Island looked like that kind of low, flat, 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:30.040 wide beaches with white sands, not very rocky, not very steep, 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.960 you know, just kind of like that the beach plane 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.960 and uh so, While the two boys were out bicycling 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.600 along the shore about twelve miles south of the city 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:45.240 of St. Augustine, they came across something tremendous and sickening. 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.680 It was a giant monster blob, like some kind of 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:55.000 enormous partially deflated balloon of organic matter, stranded on the 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:59.280 beach and half sunken into the sand under its own weight. Now, 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.840 at the longest to mention, this blob was over twenty feet. 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:06.160 It looked sort of pear shaped, like a pear shaped 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:11.480 monster deep into decomposition. One end, which many witnesses took 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.359 to be the head, was bulbous and solid and engorged, 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:20.239 while the other end terminated in this asymmetrical base containing 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:24.640 a number of mutilated rubbery stumps trailing off in some 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.639 kind of frayed fibrous tissue, and the frayed stumps were 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:33.520 described by some observers as tentacles or arms. Very nice, 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:37.480 far more lovecraft Ian than most of my beach vacations. Yeah, 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.240 there's nothing more disappointing than like digging around in the 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.200 sand of the beach and thinking you have discovered at 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.520 like some kind of monstrous shell, but you pull it 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:49.320 up and it's actually just like an old shampoo bottle. Uh. 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:51.400 So the boys went back to town to tell about 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.040 their discovery. They conveyed the news about the blob monster 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.320 on the beach to a local physician and amateur naturalist 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:01.080 named Dr DeWitt Webb, who was president of the St. 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.880 Augustine Scientific Society, and pretty much immediately Dr Webb came 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.959 on scene to have to investigate, and eventually more precise 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.679 dimensions were drawn up. So the mass was twenty one 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.160 ft long, seven ft wide, about four and a half 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:17.119 feet tall when it was dug out of the pit 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.200 it had sunken into, and it was estimated to way 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.000 about seven tons. And despite its blobby appearance, I have 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.680 read anecdotes, I'm not quite as sure if these are true. 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:30.520 But anecdotes from the scene that people reportedly tried hacking 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.080 at the remains with an axe, and we're unable to 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.520 make a dent in it this way. So while it 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.640 looks very blobby, it was supposedly very tough, and this 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.200 giant mass in the sand, with its blob head and 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.480 mutilated arms stumps, came to be known as the st 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.120 Augustine Monster. Now, of course, the first order of business 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:51.800 was to move the dead monster, so DeWitt arranged a 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:53.840 team of horses and men with ropes to dig the 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.240 mass up out of the sand and drag it up 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.000 the shore to hire ground away from the reach of 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.560 high tide. And then, once it was safe from being 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.400 dragged back up to see, DeWitt set about contacting the experts, 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.960 because you see, DeWitt had a theory. This was the 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:14.840 decomposed head of a gigantic octopus, never before cataloged by science. 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:20.440 For centuries, mariners had sometimes recounted stories of octopuses so 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.000 big they appeared more like land masses or groups of 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.920 islands than fish, so huge they could wrap their tentacles 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.279 around the hulls of ships and crack them like a 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.160 melon and drag them down into the deep, and this 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.040 giant killer octopus of legend was known by lots of 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.359 names like the Sea Devil, the Sea mischief I like 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.640 that one, or most famously as one of the forms 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.520 imagined for the mythical beast of Norse lore called the Kraken. 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.320 Oh yes, And of course there also have been gigantic 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:56.040 and semi gigantic octopuses in Japanese of folklore and myth uh. 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.200 I know there's a there's an there's an important one 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:03.040 in y uh folklore as well. I think it's there's 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.000 a giant tentacled creature of some kind in like I knew, 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.640 or I guess that's the Japanese folklore. I don't know 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.440 why the movies put it in Greek myth because I've 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.000 never heard of it in Greek myth and like saying something, 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.800 it's become just immersed in there, just kind of stuck 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.800 in Greek mythology things. So I guess Clash of the Titans, right, right, 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:21.960 I mean, I guess the idea of a giant octopus 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.320 that can wreck ships is just so cool you can't, 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:27.960 you know, you can't resist putting it into whatever kind 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.360 of mythology you're talking about. In fact, did you know 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:32.719 that the giant octopus was one of the signatories of 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.560 the Declaration of Independence? That's how all those signatures, right, 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.359 You need a lot of arms. Um. So. There have 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:42.480 been many different and mutually incompatible descriptions of the Kraken, 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.720 but one of the most famous comes from Erica pantaped 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.320 On the Bishop of Bergen in his Natural History of 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.280 Norway in the seventeen fifties, who writes that it is 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:54.520 quote the largest sea monster in the world around, flat 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:58.799 and full of arms or branches. And uh, I believe 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:00.479 Robert and I were talking about the us before we 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.400 came on. Apparently this poem, I'm sorry to find out, 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.559 has already been featured on the podcast sometime in years past. 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.920 But Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a fantastic poem called the Kraken, 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.560 which was published in eighteen thirty and it's so good 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.520 it would be a shame not to read for you again. 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:17.920 Oh yeah, let's do it. Below the thunders of the 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:22.000 upper deep, far far beneath in the abysmal sea, his 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:27.120 ancient dreamless, uninvaded sleep the crack and sleep is faintest 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.800 sunlights flee about his shadowy sides above him swell huge 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.839 sponges of millennial growth and height, and far away into 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:39.680 the sickly light from many a wondrous grot and secret cell, 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:45.560 unnumbered and enormous POLOPI winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.640 They're happy. Lane for ages and will lie battening upon 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:55.080 huge seaworms in his sleep until the latter fire shall 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.280 heat the deep. Then, once by man and angels to 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.440 be seen in roaring, he shall rise and on the 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.279 surface die. I love the idea here that when it 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:06.840 comes up into the light, it dies, like as soon 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.080 as it enters our world, it is immediately and automatically destroyed. 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:12.800 And I think we should keep that in mind as 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.800 a metaphor for the subject of today's episode. Yeah, I 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.920 mean when we've discussed creatures of the deep in the past, 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.760 I mean that. I mean that is part of the scenario, right, 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.160 Things that survive and the lightless high pressure depths. Uh, 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.000 you drag them up, they're not going to necessarily retain 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.080 anything like their original form, right. And I think you 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.440 could also say the same happens to the imagination or 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.440 the myths of sea monsters. Once you grab them and 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.240 get ahold of them to take a look. Because while 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:43.520 I think we will make a case later in the 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.720 episode than in the qualified sense, sea monsters really do exist. Uh, 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:52.320 they often don't match exactly what people tell tales of exactly. 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:54.720 But anyway, to come back to the St. Augustine Monster, 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.840 what if these legends of a monstrous octopus had been 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.880 based on a real giant octopus that had never before 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.080 been confirmed to exist, but had been seen by the 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.960 Norse mariners of old one might have felt justified wondering 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.480 if maybe this seven ton blob with its hacked up 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.800 arms stumps on a Florida beach was the rotten head 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.520 of a beast that had once been like the kraken 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.200 when it was alive and so. One of the people 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.880 that DeWitt contacted about the St. Augustine Monster was the 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:31.080 Yale University zoologist Addison Emery Veryl, and initially based on 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.120 photos and a few descriptions, Veryl was convinced by the 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.840 idea that this was some new and previously unknown species 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:42.280 of humongous octopus monster. Verill even suggested a scientific name, 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:47.000 Octopus giguentius, was a good name. It's to the point 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.000 it could have been more creative actually, like octopus kracknus, 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:58.600 octopus ridiculous, octopus blob oculus. So based on the initial 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.720 photos and descriptions that Arrol received, and by comparing the 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.439 analogy of you know, the size of known octopuses veryl 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.360 wrote at the time quote when living it must have 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.160 had enormous arms, each one a hundred feet or more 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.839 in length, each as thick as the mast of a 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:19.079 large vessel, and armed with hundreds of saucer shaped suckers, 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.600 the largest of which would have been at least a 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.080 foot in diameter. And of course that description instantly brings 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.040 to mind some of these classic woodcut illustrations of of 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:33.400 an enormous octopus wrapping its arms around the masts of ships. Yeah, 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.400 and these match like the old sailor's legends from say 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.040 Norway or from Greenland, where they'd say, you know, if 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:40.559 you go out and in the ocean at the wrong 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:43.880 time of year, a kracking can come up and drag 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.840 your ship down. Now there's an older episode of stuff 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.240 to bloatery Mine. I want to mention um where we 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:54.280 talked about sea monsters particularly and how they relate to maps. 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.560 We talked at length on that episode about a book 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.319 by chet van Duzer, and one of the things that 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:02.200 he pointed out in that book is that there was 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.600 very often like a political advantage in pointing out the 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.120 potential for sea monsters in certain areas, like, oh, you 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:11.360 don't want to go you don't want to go on 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.520 this trade route. Uh, you might get attacked by an octopus. Also, 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:16.880 that's our trade route, and we would prefer to have 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:19.520 you know, full command of it. A genius way to 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.480 establish fishing rights. Yeah, it's just one of the other 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.040 things here is that monsters do serve various purposes. We 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.320 often discussed it on this show that you know that 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.560 monsters are a way to explain something, to perhaps explain 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:33.520 something you have found washed up on a beach, or 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.200 to explain something that is less tangible some some fear 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:41.720 in the mind. But also they can serve political purposes 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.319 as well. Absolutely, Now, this is a pretty amazing thing 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:49.560 to conclude. Right in eight you've got real physical evidence 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:53.880 of a giant octopus from Seafarer's legends. But unfortunately it 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.439 was not to be because once veryl got more dated 0:10:57.480 --> 0:10:59.720 to work with, he quickly went back on the idea 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:02.120 that this was a giant octopus or an octopus of 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.160 any kind. He wrote an article in The American Naturalist 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:07.960 in eighteen seven, which is the year after the monster 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.480 was discovered, including a lot of interesting observations about the mass. 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.840 For instance, even three months after its initial discovery, the 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:19.439 monster had not shown noticeable advance of decomposition. Instead, Veryl 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.160 said that it had resisted decay and stayed pretty much 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.360 as it was when it was first found. That's kind 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.679 of interesting. Veryl also said that he had initially been 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:32.120 misled by incorrect descriptions of the mass, including a report 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.280 from a Mr. Wilson that a thirty six foot long 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.120 arm had been found attached to the part of the monster, 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:40.880 to one part of the monster, and buried alongside it, 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.959 and this turned out to be untrue. But the real 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.640 death of the huge octopus hypothesis was when Veryl received 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.280 some samples of the tissue from de Witt. And according 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.040 to Varyl, even a quick glance at these sections of 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:56.720 the blob would tell you they were not octopus tissue. 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.160 And I'll just read a section of his description some 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.680 abridgements quote. They are white and so tough that it 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.240 is hard to cut them, even with a razor, and 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.440 yet they are somewhat flexible and elastic. The fibers are 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.880 much interlaced in all directions and are of all sizes 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:17.560 up to the size of course twine and small cords. Naturally, 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.760 most of the interior parts had decomposed long before it 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:25.199 was open, so that we lack details on the interior structure. Externally, 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.320 there is but little trace of cuticle. The surface is 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:32.240 close grained and somewhat rough, with occasional gray patches of 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.400 what maybe remnants of the outer skin, much altered by decay. 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.680 The thick masses contain a slight amount of oil and 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.400 smell like rancid whale oil, but they sink quickly in 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.480 water owing to their great density, and later he says 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.200 it's toughness and elasticity remind one of the properties of 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.160 thick vulcanized rubber um. And here we're getting closer to 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.160 the truth, right, So veryl concluded, based on his experience 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.800 with marine animal tissues, it was the integument, meaning the 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.600 tough outer skin from the head of a dead sperm whale, 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.760 though possibly a sick or unusually shaped one. But this 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.679 amazing monster, this astonishing evidence of the Great King Octopus 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.800 battened upon huge sea worms until the latter fire heated 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.440 the deep. You know, he turned out to be nothing 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.760 but a multi ton blob of dead, partially decomposed skin 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.600 and bits of other tissue from a sperm whale. And 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:30.200 it's crazy how that can be a disappointing answer, you know, 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.720 to say, actually, it's not the flesh of of an 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:38.600 undersea giant. It's the flesh of an even larger undersea giant, 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.839 just one that we're more familiar with exactly. I mean, 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.560 the sperm whale is a sea monster. I mean there 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.720 there is clearly reason to believe that some sea monster 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.000 legends are based on observations of actual animals. And they're 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:55.599 not monsters. They're animals we know about that are amazing, gigantic, fascinating, strange, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.760 terrifying creatures in their own right. And the sperm whale 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.400 is absolutely one of the creatures that still retain many 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.280 of their mysteries. Uh So, you know, it's not even 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.800 like we have a full understanding of these creatures. And 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.679 you know, consume at a zoo or something or an aquarium. Uh, 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:15.600 you know, the great whales are are enigmas in many respects. 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:19.000 I mean, they are they are, they're they're beautiful, holly, 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:24.720 blameless creatures, but they're not giant octopuses. Yeah. Well, I mean, 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:26.760 if you can blame them for anything, you can blame 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.680 them once dead for inspiring a lot of back and 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:33.320 forth about new types of giant octopuses or monsters discovered. 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.560 Because despite a highly reputable zoologist solving the mystery of 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.160 the St. Augustine Monster within a year of its discovery, right, 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.520 this was eighteen. This is with within less than a 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.600 year of the thing being found. That despite this, the 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:50.560 giant octopus theory persisted for a long time, I mean 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.760 a really long time, and not just in the halls 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.960 of cryptid mania, but in respectable mainstream publications. It still 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.320 gets brought up when when people talk about blobs washed 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.360 ashore in recent years, the idea that maybe this was 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:07.200 a giant octopus in St. Augustine and they figured out 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.160 what it actually was like a less than a year later. 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.640 So this is gonna be the subject of this episode 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:15.720 of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and the following a 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:21.600 two part look at globsters. Now we'll define globster more 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.480 rigorously as we go on in this episode, but you 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:26.800 might be able to guess already what it is. Basically, 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.800 it is a blob of life washed ashore on a 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:34.600 beach that gives rise to many questions and speculation. Mysterious 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:40.360 rancid goo. But yeah, you might be wondering, how could 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:42.640 there be two episodes worth of stuff to talk about? 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.760 It has wonderful connections to see monster legends, to to 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.880 to really interesting science. Uh this is this turned out 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:52.800 to be a very rich topic. No pun intended about 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.400 the richness of whale blubber. Yeah, it has legs, even 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:59.280 if you know globsters themselves don't really have ages anymore, 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:02.960 or if they the only limbs they have are the 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.480 hacked up freight arms, and that those are good enough. Alright, well, 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:07.920 I think we should take a quick break and when 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.400 we come back we will go go a little bit 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:16.160 further into discussing what is a globster? Thank, thank Alright, 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:17.560 we're back. So this is the sort of thing we 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.560 see pop up here and there, you know, anywhere the 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:26.400 natural world touches human civilization, and quite often inexpert biological 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.920 assessments occur of what remains. And then I love, I 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.400 love a good goo. Yeah. I mean in many cases too, 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.640 we're gonna be looking at situations where it is an 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:39.800 expert who is who is passing judgment on the globster 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.200 or the strange jelly that's washed up. But they might 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:46.640 not be an expert in say marine biology. Uh, they 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:49.280 might be an expert in another area. So it's not 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:54.680 just you know, local buffoons marching drunkenly up and down 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:58.240 the coast and encountering strange remains. Well. Remember from the 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:00.600 story that we started with with the St. August steam monster, 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.840 Addison Emery Veril himself, this noted zoologist. He at first 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.680 thought it was a giant octopus of shipwrecking size. Uh. 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:10.920 It was only once he had the samples in front 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:13.359 of him and better photographs to look at and stuff 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:15.680 that he had, that he realized like, oh no, I 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.640 I've made a big mistake. So a couple of other 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.520 examples of similar scenarios that that I want to discuss here. 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.240 First of all, the idea of star jelly. I've talked 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:27.639 about this on the show before. It's one of my 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.639 favorite examples, and not just because it's so closely mirrors 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.800 the opening of the classic films. You know, the blob 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.760 from in the remake, and eight in which a hobo 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.000 pokest a meteorite and an owze inside of it, climbs 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:43.399 up the stick or down the stick and consumes his hand. 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.479 In these cases, that was star jelly. What you have 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.800 is an amateur sees a shooting star in the sky 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.280 and then attempts to find it to find the resulting meteorite. 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.880 And so they go kicking around the woods, paying attention 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.119 to stuff that they normally wouldn't deal with, or an 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.560 encounter and certainly wouldn't analyze. And finally they happened across 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.560 some glob of fun guy or decaying organic material, and 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.639 they become convinced that this is what fell to earth. 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:13.480 This is the star jelly. I wonder, what's the funniest 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.159 substance ever ever believed to be star jelly? Like, was 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.080 there ever, just like a pile of bare vomit that 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.960 became star jelly? Or candy, you know, like some sort 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.920 of gummy candy, perhaps like a bag of marshmallows left 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.200 out in the rain, yeah, or a cake left out 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.720 in the rain. Who knows. Um. Now. Another example that 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.159 comes to mind sewer blobs such as the Cameron Village 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:39.159 sewer blob in Raleigh, North Carolina. Lovely you might remember 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.119 this one joke. This one was something of a YouTube 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.760 celebrity back in two thousand nine, uh well before the start. 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:50.359 I remember, I remember like blogging for How Stuff Works 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.000 at the time, and I think I think Marshall Brain 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.680 did some some blog posts about about this particular sewer blob. 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.600 Because what happened is you had this gross footage emerge 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.280 of a pulsating blob in the sewers, and the footage 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.000 score just a lot of blob and unknown organism headlines. 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.359 But it all turned out to be a colony of 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.360 tube effects worms a k a. Sledge worms or sewer worms. 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.040 And they're just a tube five segmented worm species that 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.480 naturally reside in lakes and rivers gobbling up bacteria. But 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.080 they can survive on very little oxygen and have a 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:29.920 knack for thriving in heavily polluted areas full of organic material. Wonderful. 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.000 So a sewer is totally their jam. So what brought 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:36.679 them to Raleigh? Do we know? Uh, not particularly Raleigh. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.720 It's just the sewer system there, you know there that 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.040 they just have a knack for thriving inside of the 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:47.840 artificial um parameters of a human sewage system, and then 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.040 they just end up in these big pulsating masses. So 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:54.160 there could be sewer worm blobs all over the place. 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.280 There just happened to be one that went viral in 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:58.080 two thousand nine. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.840 what's the alchemy for becoming a tube SuperStar's a lot 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.480 of it's just luck. This was this was the glob 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:09.400 that was destined for for superstardom. This is the blobby pie. Yeah. 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:11.879 Sadly there was a few years before Pizza Rat, so 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:14.679 the sewer blob and Pizza Rat did not get to 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.159 like team up in a buddy cop film. But you know, 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:20.600 I still hold out hope for the future. But coming 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:24.600 back to the the oceanic variety of mysterious blobs, the 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:29.040 crazy thing is you still see these headlines all the time. Heck, 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:35.400 just this month in nineteen uh, the Sun Fabulous bastion 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:39.040 of journalistic integrity. Uh, they gave us this headline. Mystery 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:43.360 sea creature dubbed Donald Trump's hair hairpiece leaves experts stumped 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:47.400 after a yellow blob is spotted off Australia. Okay, who 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:50.480 dubbed it that the author of this article or that 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.840 comes to us from the sun. Weirdly, I mean, I 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:59.080 admit that's a good headline. Yeah, weirdly enough. Fox News 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.439 ran an article in the simber of listing some of 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.880 the more noteworthy globsters to wash up on shores just 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.639 in I mean, there's always a blob here there that'll 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.040 that'll get somebody's attention and there will be an article 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:14.120 about it, who knows, in the Daily Mail, maybe saying 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:16.359 it's an alien. Yeah, I mean, it's always gonna make 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.920 a headline, right because you get to say, mysterious blob, globster, 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.159 what have you? Has washed upon the shore? You want 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.719 to see that picture and then you you're intrigued by 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:29.600 the mystery. And the selected entries are in that Fox 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:31.439 newspiece for an example, it's a good sampling of the 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.720 sort of strange blobs that are often reported unidentified whole 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:39.200 or partial sea jellies or jellyfish, slabs of decaying whale 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.879 and weird fish remains, and sometimes it is actually the 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.879 remains of a cephalopotter seems to be including the odd 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.320 remains of a giant squid. For instance, there was a 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:53.560 noteworthy giant squid that washed up in August of eighteen 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:57.000 on the coast of New Zealand, like undeniably, uh, just 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.359 a whole giant squid. And you see pick the pictures 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.200 of the two gentlemen who found it, like laying next 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:05.240 to it and posing with it. Wait, do you know 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.600 if it was giant squid or colossal squid? Oh? Is 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:12.399 our friend Archie Furey Artois. I think just because I 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:14.240 think of the colossal squid as being the one in 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:16.200 the Southern Ocean, But I guess they're giant squid down 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:21.160 there too. Now, the term globster itself emerges in nineteen 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:23.960 sixty two with from a similar part of the world, 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.600 with the Tasmanian globster. This is a twenty ft in 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:33.600 unidentified carcass that washed up washed ashore in western Tasmania. 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.479 And this is this is a quote from that particular story. 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:41.800 Scottish biologist and writer Ivan T. Sanderson coined this term 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:45.320 globster uh in covering the story, and it beat out 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.520 Sea Santa, which was the term used by another journalist 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:51.840