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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, welcome to step to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. So, Robert, Yes,

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Speaker 1: I want you to put yourself in a scenario. Okay,

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Speaker 1: all right, you're doing it. You are a peasant in

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Speaker 1: medieval England. All right, it's a place to start. But

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Speaker 1: I'm with you. Yeah, it's so. I know it's rough,

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Speaker 1: but you're a peasant in medieval England, in in sort

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Speaker 1: of the thin land. Okay. So there's some marshes all

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Speaker 1: around you, and this is a time and place where

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Speaker 1: for your life the world is sort of alive with

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Speaker 1: magical beings. So who knows if there's a ferry or

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Speaker 1: a goblin hiding under a rock or in a bush

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Speaker 1: over by the side of the road. Who knows. There

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Speaker 1: are lots of things out there that you just don't understand.

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Speaker 1: It's a world lit only by fire. It's a demon

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Speaker 1: haunted world. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a perfect way

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Speaker 1: of putting it. Um. So you're out one night returning

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Speaker 1: home from church, and dusk is coming on, and as

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Speaker 1: you're walking your way through the path that winds along

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Speaker 1: the marshlands at night, and the crickets are chirping and

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Speaker 1: you hear the frogs. You suddenly see something kind of

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Speaker 1: strange off off to your left, sort of in the right,

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Speaker 1: at the edge of your field of vision. You see

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Speaker 1: a bluish looking flame that's just hovering over the ground

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Speaker 1: that that's sort of beyond where you can see exactly

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Speaker 1: where it is. It's it's among some trees and some

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Speaker 1: some marsh grasses. Now what do you do? Do you

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Speaker 1: just continue on your path or do you walk over

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Speaker 1: to see what it is? Who? What can I do? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Let me do a perception check. Okay, Ah, well, I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm seeing a basically a ghostly blue flame that's just

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Speaker 1: hovering in the air. I'm thinking I'm gonna want to

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Speaker 1: avoid anything to do with that, because if it's some

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Speaker 1: sort of supernatural entity at night, Uh, it's probably up

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Speaker 1: to no good. It's I'm probably better off to stick

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Speaker 1: into the course and going straight home. Well, you're fantastic

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Speaker 1: at resisting temptation. Congratulations, you're incurious, proud of it, and

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Speaker 1: you're gonna live a live to a ripe old age

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Speaker 1: in the solid knowledge that you just didn't check things out. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, because I've probably heard enough stories like how

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Speaker 1: does every weird horror story begin, every strange folklore against

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Speaker 1: with that guy getting off the beaten path, moving out

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Speaker 1: of the path and going into the wilderness and maybe

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Speaker 1: following some sort of strange flame. Well, okay, let me

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Speaker 1: try you again. Then let's say that we do the

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Speaker 1: same scenario, but you've already gotten lost. You're on your

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Speaker 1: way home from church, dusk is coming on, You've lost

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Speaker 1: the path and suddenly you are lost in the marsh

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Speaker 1: lands and you you can't find your way back to

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Speaker 1: the path. But up ahead you do see a light. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you see a flame bobbing that's just above the horizon

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Speaker 1: ahead of you, and you're not quite sure what it is.

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Speaker 1: Now do you go toward the light or not? Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm lost, So that light might very well be somebody's

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Speaker 1: camp buire. That might be there's a sign of humans

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Speaker 1: out here, so I should Yeah, maybe I should head

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Speaker 1: that way because either that either they're in the clear

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Speaker 1: or maybe they can help me get out right. It

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Speaker 1: could be a traveler's lantern could lead you back to

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Speaker 1: the path and get you on your way home and

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Speaker 1: out of this muck. So let's say you follow it

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Speaker 1: for a while, but you can't ever seem to catch

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Speaker 1: up with it, and you just keep going farther and

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Speaker 1: farther along in the marsh, but it's always just out

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Speaker 1: of where you can reach it or get a good

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Speaker 1: look at exactly what it is. Do you keep following? Well,

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Speaker 1: the more I follow, the more I'm probably gonna feel

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Speaker 1: like I'm being manipulated. And this led on a winding

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Speaker 1: goat trail to nowhere. So uh, which, granted, and maybe

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Speaker 1: that's a perfect metaphor for life, but I'm probably gonna

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Speaker 1: get a little frustrated. Yeah, but what other choice do

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Speaker 1: you have right now? You're lost in the marsh, and

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Speaker 1: you better keep following. Yeah, I can't go back. It's

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Speaker 1: just as much trouble to go back as it is

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Speaker 1: to push forward. And maybe if I hurry a little bit,

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Speaker 1: I can actually catch that durn thing. Okay, So let's

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Speaker 1: say you're trying to catch it. Unfortunately, you keep coming

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Speaker 1: up on it, thinking you're just about to get to it,

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Speaker 1: but it goes away and eventually you don't see it

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Speaker 1: anymore at all, and you're there alone in the dark,

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Speaker 1: stuck in some quicksand quicks in the marsh and what

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Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Well, you're gonna stay still, struggle,

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Speaker 1: You struggle, that's how you get out of quicksand. No,

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Speaker 1: it's not, it's not at all. Do we have an

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Speaker 1: episode on quicksand? I don't think we do yet, but

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Speaker 1: it's a fascinating topic. Yeah, maybe we should explore that sometime. Well,

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Speaker 1: if you ever find yourself trapped in quicksand, whether you're

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Speaker 1: in a marsh and you have been led there by

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Speaker 1: a ghost light or not, don't struggle. Oh that's why

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Speaker 1: I have these sperrets in my backpack. They're gonna help

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Speaker 1: me out. That'll just work you deeper into the into

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Speaker 1: the muck. No, that's not what you want to do.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, I've been describing a scenario that might sound

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Speaker 1: kind of outlandish to your people at home, but I

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Speaker 1: think this type of story was very common two people

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Speaker 1: of say Europe in the Middle Ages, or actually it's

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Speaker 1: too folklore all over the world in one form or another,

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Speaker 1: that there will be stories that bear similarities to this,

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Speaker 1: That there's a glowing entity or some kind of flame

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Speaker 1: that looks like a lantern or like a blue luminescence

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Speaker 1: that's just hovering out of your vision and if you

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Speaker 1: if you try to get to it, you can never

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Speaker 1: quite catch it. Yeah, what is this thing? It is

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Speaker 1: the will of the wisp, that's right, and it goes

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Speaker 1: by a number of names as well discussed, but it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's that that false fire, right, that ignus fatus

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Speaker 1: right and in fatuous fatuous, that's what I think. It's.

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Speaker 1: It's ignie so fire yeah, and then f a t

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Speaker 1: u u s that makes me think fatuous, like you're

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Speaker 1: being fatuous, being foolish. Yes, so this is uh, it's

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Speaker 1: it's the swamp light, the marshlight, the fairy light. It's

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Speaker 1: this ghostly luminescence that appears typically in marshlands and swamp lands,

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Speaker 1: by ways, fins, marshes, the lonely roads, the places that

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Speaker 1: maybe you wouldn't want to be stuck at night, you'll

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Speaker 1: see this strange glowing entity. Um, what is it? Is

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Speaker 1: it a mischievous spirit? Yeah? Oftentimes it is. It's seen

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Speaker 1: as this either a mischievous spirit or sometimes an outright

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Speaker 1: demotic demonic entity that ends up leading humans astray. If

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Speaker 1: you try and follow it, you can't quite catch it.

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Speaker 1: And eventually you're gonna wind up in the quicksand just

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Speaker 1: loft in the wilderness over a cliff, falling off a cliff,

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Speaker 1: walking straight into hell who knows what, but it's leading

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Speaker 1: you off the path. Like I'm you made a great comparison.

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Speaker 1: It's like a bad GPS system. Yeah, do you remember

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Speaker 1: that in there an episode of the Office, the g

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Speaker 1: P s tells them to drive the car across the lake.

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Speaker 1: Its scenario. Because also sometimes you see motifs where it's

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Speaker 1: the it's the light that's representing like fairy gold or something.

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Speaker 1: So who I follow it, I'll get some riches like

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Speaker 1: and you can't reach it because it's like the other

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Speaker 1: end of the rainbow, right. Yeah, And this lower comes

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Speaker 1: from all across time, all over the world. It's very common.

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Speaker 1: One common feature of the ghost light or the glowing

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Speaker 1: ento the will the whisp lower is that the lights

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Speaker 1: tend to recede as you approach them. You can never

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Speaker 1: quite get to them or get ahold of them, and

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Speaker 1: they draw the traveler farther and farther off course as

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Speaker 1: they go. Another common feature is the color, and this

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Speaker 1: is interesting, so sometimes people just report various types of light,

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Speaker 1: but it's very often described as blue or bluish green.

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Speaker 1: And in the words of one scientist to study the phenomenon,

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Speaker 1: Alan A. Mills, who were going to quote later in

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Speaker 1: the episode, he called it quote an ephemeral bluish loo

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Speaker 1: minas exhalation associated with Marshy places. That's his Will of

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Speaker 1: the Whisp definition. So it's it's instantly identifiable as as

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Speaker 1: something that's it's it's not a torch, it's not a lantern.

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Speaker 1: It's something else, something perhaps magical. Yeah. And so we

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Speaker 1: have various names for this phenomenon. I'm not gonna run

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Speaker 1: through all of them, but just some of them. For instance,

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Speaker 1: in the English traditions, you have Dicko Tuesday, Um, Kinky Puck.

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Speaker 1: Hinky Puck, by the way, is a key punk punk. Yes,

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Speaker 1: hinky punk is a sprite with only one leg and

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Speaker 1: it carries a candle to miss Lee travelers. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know about the names like corpse, candle, l fire hob, lantern, hobby, lantern,

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Speaker 1: fire drake, jack O lantern. Uh. So we're seeing a

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Speaker 1: convergence here with like Will of the Wisp, Jacko lantern. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Maybe Dicko Tuesday is something else, but anyway, anyway, that

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Speaker 1: the idea here is that this first part is actually

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Speaker 1: a name. It's like Jack or Will. These are characters

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Speaker 1: who have emerged in the lore of people trying to

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Speaker 1: explain what happens when they see these ghost lights in

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Speaker 1: the marshes. But it's a character who carries some kind

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Speaker 1: of light or torch with them. The whisp idea of

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Speaker 1: being like a wisp of sticks, that would be a torch, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's the idea that there seems to be

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Speaker 1: a consciousness behind it, a will behind it. It seems

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Speaker 1: to be an entity of some sort. One that comes

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Speaker 1: up a lot is Will the Smith. Not Will Smith,

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Speaker 1: our beloved national treasure, but but rather the soul of

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Speaker 1: a debauched human who has given, who has given a

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Speaker 1: second chance at life in order to redeem his soul.

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Speaker 1: Only he's screwed up again and so now he can't

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Speaker 1: get into heaven or hell, so he has to wander

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Speaker 1: the earth, and Satan gave him a glowing coal to

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Speaker 1: warm him, stuff which he uses to lure other victims

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Speaker 1: to his dinner, to their doom because he's just a

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Speaker 1: horrible individual. So he's walking around with some hell fire

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Speaker 1: in Marsh's trying to get revenge on humanity, right. And

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Speaker 1: you see a number of different variations on will the Smith,

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Speaker 1: where it's some sort of immortal wanderer, some sort of

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Speaker 1: a spirit uh entity that can't get into heaven or hell. Um.

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Speaker 1: You also have in Scotland the Spunkies. In Ireland you

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Speaker 1: have fox Fire or William with the little Flame, which

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Speaker 1: is essentially will the Smith. In Germany you have blood.

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Speaker 1: You have the Dickie potent weight hold on blood just blld.

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Speaker 1: And then there is of course uh ear lickt uh

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Speaker 1: and this is uh the ear lit is actually as

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Speaker 1: as the willow the whisp in today is the subject

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Speaker 1: of an Arnold Bockland painting as well as the cloth

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Speaker 1: Shool's album. So there you go. Um. And you see

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Speaker 1: a lot of accounts of this phenomenon from from Germany

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Speaker 1: for sure. Uh. In France there's a sandyand Tad, which

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Speaker 1: in the folklore of Brittany is a type of elf,

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Speaker 1: and they dance together at night with candles on their fingertips,

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Speaker 1: each spinning independently, and any mortal who happens upon them

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Speaker 1: becomes disoriented and confused. So it's kind of like the

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Speaker 1: the the the example in the Hobbit right where they

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Speaker 1: see some fire in the woods and they follow it

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Speaker 1: out there and it's elves having their their mischief there

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Speaker 1: in the woods, and it's just disorienting. Yeah, like they're

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Speaker 1: they're I imagine there's some elfin debauchery going on. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Tolkien doesn't get into it as much,

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Speaker 1: but you know, they get up to some weird stuff. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In Finland you have Likiko, which means the flaming one.

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Speaker 1: And this is interesting because in this you have the

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Speaker 1: transformed soul of a child that's buried in the forest

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Speaker 1: and now wanders with a flame at night, but also

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Speaker 1: serves as a guardian of wild animals and plants that

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Speaker 1: are in the woods. So it's kind of almost like

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Speaker 1: a swamp thing vibe going on here, where it's the

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Speaker 1: spirit guardian of the environment. Um. You see a version.

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Speaker 1: You see versions in Native American traditions. You see the

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Speaker 1: one I ran across from the Penobscate to Native American

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Speaker 1: tribe in the name for this issue date, there's also

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Speaker 1: the Kanza perry uh. And this is something that exists

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Speaker 1: in the folklore of the Cheermis and Mari people. That's

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Speaker 1: a Finno, you grick ethnic group. You see. You also

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Speaker 1: see it in the Amazon Basin in the form of betata. Oh,

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Speaker 1: and this one's a really good one. This is in uh,

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Speaker 1: South America, in Chile, the creature known as Alecanto, and

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Speaker 1: this is a night spirit in the shape of a

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Speaker 1: glowing metallic bird. Yeah. It lives in the mountains and

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Speaker 1: it's said to feast upon gold and silver veins. So

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Speaker 1: if you glimpse its light at night and you're you know,

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Speaker 1: you're kind of a greedy individual, you might want to

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Speaker 1: follow it and find that rich mining deposit. But Alecanto

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Speaker 1: uh is hip to your your scheme here, and we'll

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Speaker 1: probably lure you over the edge of a cliff instead. Oh,

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Speaker 1: this fits the same stuff you would encounter in Europe

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Speaker 1: about sometimes the will of the whisp being the guardian

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Speaker 1: of a treasure. Yeah, not just luring you off the path,

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Speaker 1: but like standing guard over where the gold is hidden. Exactly.

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Speaker 1: And I and I wondered to what extent it's just

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Speaker 1: a continuation of European beliefs in the New World there,

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Speaker 1: I imagine that's very much the case. But there are

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Speaker 1: also plenty of ghost lights in in Asian folklore. In

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Speaker 1: Bengal traditions, you have Layah, which is the name given

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Speaker 1: to unexplained strange um Marshall wood lights there. Okay, and

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Speaker 1: then of course, uh, outside of folk folklore and folk tales,

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Speaker 1: we have versions and are more recent media as well. Right, Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean I would call dungeons and dragons perfectly acceptable folklore. Yes,

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Speaker 1: And you know, for a lot of people, this may

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Speaker 1: be one's first encounter with with will of the whisp

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Speaker 1: or will whisps as they're called there. Uh. In case

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Speaker 1: your dungeon and dragons fan or have any a familiarity,

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Speaker 1: their their alignment is chaotic evil. So they are bad news.

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Speaker 1: They're not just a little mischievous. They're awful. If they

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Speaker 1: were just a little mischievous, what would they be chaotic neutral? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think they would be more I would I would

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Speaker 1: say more chaotic neutral if that were the case. But

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Speaker 1: they are just completely like evil, mischieous, mischievous. Uh. They

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Speaker 1: have a challenge rating of two, so they're not too bad.

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Speaker 1: But get this, they have a dexterity stat of twenty eight. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That's like like generally eighteen is an exceedingly high level

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Speaker 1: for a normal humanoid, so they have crazy dexterity to

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Speaker 1: give them a plus nine and all dexterity sex and

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Speaker 1: according to the most recent Monster manual UH, their quote

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Speaker 1: the souls of evil beings that perished in anguish or

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Speaker 1: misery as they wanted it, forsaken lands, permeated with magical powers,

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Speaker 1: and they use the the usual lure people to their

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Speaker 1: doom act in the game, plus, they can shock victims

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Speaker 1: for two D eight damage, they can drain life, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes in the Dungeon and Dragons the world, they align

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Speaker 1: themselves with hags or black dragons or evil cultists in

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Speaker 1: order to quote drink the agony of slaughter. So so

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Speaker 1: they're pretty cool. I kind of want to buff one

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Speaker 1: out in UH in my game. Now, well, that's great,

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Speaker 1: and that does mirror some of the folkloric tradition, like

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Speaker 1: the idea that they might be an unrighteous spirit that's

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Speaker 1: left wandering the world. So they might be, you know,

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Speaker 1: a person who's just rendered spiritually unclean, maybe by having

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Speaker 1: died unbaptized in Christian tradition or something, or or maybe

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Speaker 1: there are you know, a sinful person who can't get

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Speaker 1: into heaven or hell. Like we talked to Uh, like

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Speaker 1: we talked about with Will the Smith and the titular

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Speaker 1: will intil the Whisp. But the will of the Whisp

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Speaker 1: also shows up in in plenty of later literature. You know,

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Speaker 1: in some classic English poetry, you'll get references to the

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Speaker 1: Will of the Whisp, like in the Rhyme of the

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Speaker 1: Ancient Mariner by Coleridge. Uh. There is there is a

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Speaker 1: scene that describes ghost lights out on the sea that

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Speaker 1: says about about in real and route the death fires

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Speaker 1: danced at night the water like a witch's oils burnt

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Speaker 1: green and blue and white. Yeah, I like that. There's

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Speaker 1: Will the Wisp in Paradise Lost too, and John Milton's

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Speaker 1: Paradise Lost. There is the scene where the snake in

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Speaker 1: the Garden of Eden is it is attempting to tempt Eve.

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Speaker 1: Attempting to tempt is trying to get Eve to come

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Speaker 1: and eat of the fruit, you know, the forbidden fruit.

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Speaker 1: And it compares the snake's temptation of Eve to a

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Speaker 1: will of the Wisp in the sense that both would

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Speaker 1: be leading someone astray. This is in book nine, starting

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Speaker 1: around line and so it compares the snake too, as

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Speaker 1: when a wandering fire compact of unctuous vapor with the

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Speaker 1: night condenses and the cold environs round kindled through agitation

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Speaker 1: to a flame, which oft they say, some evil spirit attends,

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Speaker 1: hovering and blazing with delusive light, misleads the amazed night

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Speaker 1: wanderer from his way to bogs and myers, and off

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Speaker 1: through pond or pool. They're swallowed up and lost from

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Speaker 1: sucker far. Now this is this is interesting and I

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Speaker 1: think potentially telling for later on In that um Milton

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Speaker 1: is describing a supernatural entity by comparing it to willow

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Speaker 1: the wisp, So keep that in mind and talking about

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Speaker 1: will of the whisp as a natural phenomenon, right, I

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Speaker 1: mean he's describing a thing from a magical story in

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Speaker 1: terms of the will of the whisp, meaning that the

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Speaker 1: will of the Wisp must have been a thing that

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Speaker 1: people were so intimately familiar with it could be used

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Speaker 1: as a reference point. Yes, yeah, And I would think

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Speaker 1: for modern people, you'd you'd be more likely to go

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Speaker 1: the other way, like you'd compare the will of the

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Speaker 1: Whisp to something in the Bible that people might be

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Speaker 1: more familiar with. But he goes the other way around, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: as if to say, this is the thing that the

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Speaker 1: average reader will have a familiarity with and then can

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Speaker 1: therefore use as a reference point for this mythic thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but of course it's not just the stuff of fairy

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Speaker 1: tales and an ancient literature and fiction imagical storytelling. There

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Speaker 1: are many like sober secular accounts of the ignis fatuous

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Speaker 1: or the will of the Wisp throughout world literature, including

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Speaker 1: scientific literature. For example, Isaac Newton mentions the will of

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Speaker 1: the Whisp as if it were a commonplace occurrence in

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Speaker 1: his third Book of Optics. He says, the ignis fatuous

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Speaker 1: is a vapor shining without heat, and is there not

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Speaker 1: the same difference between this vapor and flame as between

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Speaker 1: rotten wood shining without heat and burning coals of fire?

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Speaker 1: Which is interesting because their Newton is attempting to distinguish

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Speaker 1: actual physical characteristics of the Igney's fatuous, like it's not

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Speaker 1: like flame because it lacks heat. So yeah, you'd get

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Speaker 1: pretty often people making sort of secular material physical observations

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Speaker 1: of these things, as if it's just a phenomenon that

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Speaker 1: they were trying to catalog and understand. So very often

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Speaker 1: you'd hear about this this sort of hovering blue flame

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Speaker 1: near the ground, but some accounts differ that there are

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Speaker 1: other types of appearances that people also categorized as will

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Speaker 1: of the Wisp. One comes from a first hand account

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Speaker 1: by the English folklorist Jabez Allies. I wonder if I'm

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Speaker 1: saying that name right, But he had a treatise called

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Speaker 1: Igny's Fatuous or Will of the Wisp and the Fairies,

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Speaker 1: from eighteen forty six, and I'm just going to read

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Speaker 1: a piece of this. In this story, he gives about

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Speaker 1: how he witnessed the will of the wisp one night.

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Speaker 1: He says, sometimes it was only like a flash in

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Speaker 1: the pan on the ground. At other times it rose

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Speaker 1: up several feet and fell to the earth and became extinguished.

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Speaker 1: And many times it proceeded horizontally from fifty to one

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Speaker 1: hundred yards in an undulating motion, like the flight of

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Speaker 1: the green woodpecker, and about his rapid And once or

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Speaker 1: twice it proceeded with considerable rapidity in a straight line

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Speaker 1: upon or close to the ground. The light of this

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Speaker 1: ignis fatuous, or rather of these ignace fatu i or

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Speaker 1: fatui was very clear and strong, much bluer than that

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Speaker 1: of a candle, and very like that of an electric spark,

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Speaker 1: and some of them look larger and as bright as

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Speaker 1: the star. Serious of course, they look dim when seen

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Speaker 1: in ground fogs, but there was not any fog on

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Speaker 1: the night in question. There was, however, a muddy closeness

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Speaker 1: of the atmosphere and at the same time a considerable

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Speaker 1: breeze from the southwest. These will of the wisps, which

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Speaker 1: shot horizontally invariably proceeded before the wind towards the northeast.

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Speaker 1: That's interesting because it's a very scientifically minded, um and

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Speaker 1: practical response to viewing this. Yeah, he's describing it in

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Speaker 1: terms of electricity, describing the color and sort of the position,

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Speaker 1: and the motion and speed of motion, and then explaining

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Speaker 1: that it follows the pattern of the wind. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: I but I do love the fact that he's he's

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Speaker 1: really standing back and taking a serious, calm approach to it.

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Speaker 1: Because one of the accounts that I was looking at

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Speaker 1: an earlier account from traveling German lawyer Hintsner Paul Hertzner,

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Speaker 1: who wrote about his travels in England and Uh. He

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Speaker 1: wrote the following about a journey from Canterbury to Dover.

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Speaker 1: He said, quote, there were a great many jack o

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Speaker 1: lanterns so that we were quite seized with horror and amazement. Um.

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Speaker 1: And of course if you're seized with horror and amazement,

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Speaker 1: you get into that whole realm of like what am

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Speaker 1: I perceiving? How is my mind perceiving it? And then

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Speaker 1: how am I recalling that memory and altering it? I mean,

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Speaker 1: the you know, part and partial to any paranormal experience

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Speaker 1: where the experience is valid, but they're varying mental factors

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Speaker 1: that are going to play into your interpretation of the event,

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Speaker 1: particularly if Englishmen have been telling you tales of the

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Speaker 1: strange lights in the in the in the swamp lands

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Speaker 1: and what they represent. Yeah, And of course everybody's got

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Speaker 1: an interpretive framework that they bring to to seeing things

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00:22:01,119 --> 00:22:03,760
Speaker 1: like this, Like I'm sure that our German traveler friend

387
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:07,080
Speaker 1: brought a magical interpretive lens to it, saying there's a

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Speaker 1: spirit out here it wishes us harm. It might be

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Speaker 1: that dungeons and dragons chaotic evil spirit. I need to

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00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:18,880
Speaker 1: stay away. Uh. Jabez Allies brought a more secular approach

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Speaker 1: to it, he said at the end of his recollection

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Speaker 1: of the different events that he witnessed, he says, from

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Speaker 1: all the circumstances, stated it appears probable that these meteors

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Speaker 1: rise in exhalations of electric and perhaps other matter out

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Speaker 1: of the earth, particularly in or near the winter season,

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00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:38,919
Speaker 1: and that they generally occur a day or two after

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Speaker 1: a considerable rain and on change from a cold to

398
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:46,199
Speaker 1: a warmer atmosphere. Now, whether all that is true, we

399
00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:48,280
Speaker 1: don't know. It might not be the case that you're

400
00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:50,680
Speaker 1: more likely to see it under those circumstances. But it's

401
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 1: interesting that he's trying to narrow down the physical causes

402
00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:58,680
Speaker 1: that that would create this, and he of course tries

403
00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:01,520
Speaker 1: to blame it on electricity, which would make sense if

404
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 1: you're writing in the eighteen thirties or eighteen forties, when

405
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:07,119
Speaker 1: you know electricity is a very interesting thing. Yeah, and

406
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:11,400
Speaker 1: it's certainly that the difference between magic and electricity there's

407
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,879
Speaker 1: a lot of crossover and an understanding of it. Electricity

408
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:18,360
Speaker 1: is very much this uh, this this lofty uh partially

409
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: understood concept. Yeah. And then there was another thing that

410
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:25,440
Speaker 1: I looked at. There was an article on ignis fatuous

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Speaker 1: from the Scientific Monthly in nineteen nineteen, and it just

412
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Speaker 1: made some observations. For example, the flames of the ignis

413
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 1: fatuous used to appear very consistently in some locations, So

414
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: there are places where you could just expect to see them,

415
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:42,680
Speaker 1: and if you went there, you you would probably see them,

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Speaker 1: and that they gave off neither heat nor odor, and

417
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Speaker 1: that they don't set fire to the things around them.

418
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: Of course, granted you're talking about marsh lance and swamp

419
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:55,080
Speaker 1: plants in many situations here, so yeah, but I mean

420
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:57,479
Speaker 1: there should be lots of dead grass and stuff like that.

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00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:00,439
Speaker 1: I mean, it would seem like if you're with a

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Speaker 1: hot flame, you would expect it to set fire to something.

423
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: So that's going to throw a wrench in a lot

424
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:09,239
Speaker 1: of the explanations that people have given for this. So

425
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 1: the main point of giving all these stories about what

426
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:16,400
Speaker 1: people saw is that it's not just made up. I mean,

427
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,679
Speaker 1: clearly a lot of the explanation of what causes the

428
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,680
Speaker 1: will of the whisp is is magical thinking and and

429
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,160
Speaker 1: very fairy stories and things like that. But the phenomenon itself,

430
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: I think we can be pretty confident is real. It

431
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: was actually referring to a thing people witnessed firsthand. Because

432
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: why would there be so many stories from so many

433
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:40,640
Speaker 1: different places, especially from varied commentators too. It's not just

434
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: the religious or the folklore like, it's also scientifically minded

435
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 1: individuals who are just talking about the lights in the

436
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:51,919
Speaker 1: woods that simply occur, and that everyone says, if everybody

437
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 1: knows what you're talking about. And of course we'll get

438
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: into this later, but one of the disconnects is that

439
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 1: we don't see lights in the woods and strange lights

440
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: in the marsh all the time like we apparently used to.

441
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:05,919
Speaker 1: So it's harder for us a to put ourselves in

442
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 1: that world in that mindset and alsways, we'll discuss harder

443
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: to go out and try and study something that doesn't

444
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:14,920
Speaker 1: seem to be occurring anymore, or at least occurring with

445
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 1: the same frequency. All right, on that note, we're gonna

446
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back, we

447
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:23,440
Speaker 1: will look at some of the possible scientific explanations for

448
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: this phenomena. All right, we're back discussing Willow the whisp,

449
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 1: jack a lantern, will the smith, Uh, pinky punk, whatever

450
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: you wanna call that strange glow in the marsh lands,

451
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: in the woods, in the swamp. Pinky punk is a

452
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: really great personal insult that I've never heard used before. Yeah,

453
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 1: I might have to adopt it. When I have my

454
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: son in the car, because you normally always call people uh,

455
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: dumble doors or or use the word duck. Uh here there,

456
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: But that's pretty good. But maybe hinky punk. We should

457
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: make a list of the great insults that we come

458
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,640
Speaker 1: up with from our research on these podcasts, because when

459
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,400
Speaker 1: I was doing an episode a couple of years ago,

460
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 1: forward thinking, we came across the term aggregated diamond nano

461
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: rods in a material science context. But man, what a

462
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,880
Speaker 1: great thing to call a person a nano rod. I've

463
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: I've kept it with me ever since. And now hinky

464
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: punk goes on the list as well. Look at that

465
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: person driving like a complete hinky punk nano rod. Okay,

466
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 1: but now we need to bring it back to talk

467
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 1: about what on Earth could be the actual scientific material

468
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: cause of all these phenomenon that people have called will

469
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: of the wisp. And there are a couple of things

470
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: that make this part of the discussion difficult. One of

471
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: the problems is that, unfortunately, most research into will of

472
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: the whisp has been coming up with physical explanations that

473
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: try to match historical descript options, because the will of

474
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: the whisp has never, to my knowledge, been captured sampled, measured,

475
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:11,120
Speaker 1: really or even satisfactorily recorded on film in any useful way.

476
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 1: I think there's some claims that some people sort of

477
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: got a photograph of one, but not in any way

478
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 1: that's useful for like a spectral analysis or anything like that.

479
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 1: So we've been just trying to figure out ways to

480
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 1: match people's descriptions of what they saw. And most of

481
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 1: these description descriptions come from more than a hundred years ago.

482
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: So already you're having a problem here because there's nothing

483
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 1: direct you can compare your examples too. You just have

484
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: to experiment and say, well, does this look like what

485
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: people were talking about back then? Uh. Then there's another

486
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: problem in scientific explanations of the will of the whisp,

487
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: which is that it's possible that similar but different phenomena

488
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 1: have sometimes been grouped together under the category of will

489
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 1: of the whisp. So there could be lots of different

490
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: types of ghost lights and various luminescent events that occurred

491
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: in the marshes or in the wilderness in the past,

492
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: and that people assumed, well, they're pretty similar, they're they're

493
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: all the same thing, and that they weren't actually all

494
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 1: the same thing. Yeah, I mean, especially if if the

495
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,639
Speaker 1: phenomenon that's occurring as a product of the environment, it

496
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 1: seems entirely likely you would have a different phenomenon occurring,

497
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: say in the mountains of Chile, as opposed to the

498
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 1: swamplands um you know of of Italy yea uh. And

499
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: another aspect, and this is my read on it too,

500
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: is that so many of these explanations are taking meticulous

501
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: care with chemical or physical properties that maybe in play,

502
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: without taking into account, of course, the mental aspects of it,

503
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:50,959
Speaker 1: the psychological aspects and again some of the problems with

504
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: memory and perception that I mentioned earlier. So you're which

505
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 1: is part of it. You know, you're you're just looking

506
00:28:56,720 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 1: at a possible physical chemical uh, reaction and it's going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

507
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: So it's not like like we're saying, it's not a photograph.

508
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: I mean, there's it's not objectively recorded. Even by people

509
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: who are trying to bring a scientific or skeptical mindset

510
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: to these things, they're they're still sort of interpreting with

511
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: a cultural script like you're saying, or a framework that

512
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: they're working from. They know this is a phenomenon people

513
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: have observed before. It usually is described to look like X,

514
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: so they're already bringing that to the table when they're

515
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: seeing it. All right, Well, let's let's roll through some

516
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: of them. Let's start with electricity. We mentioned electricity earlier, Yeah,

517
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: that was in in Jabez Allies account. He suggested, quote

518
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: these meteors rise in exhalations electric h of electric matter

519
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: out of the earth. And some people have tried to

520
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: offer the hypothesis of like ball, lightning, or other aberrant

521
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: electrical phenomena to explain what's going on when you see

522
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: lights in the marsh Alessandro Volta, according to one source,

523
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,719
Speaker 1: apparently thought that the these fatuous could be explained by

524
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: way of interaction between electrical currents and what he called

525
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: inflammable air, which I think is referring to methane, which

526
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: we will definitely get to in a minute here. But

527
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: this I think has been rejected by modern people who

528
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 1: have looked into the phenomenon. Alan A. Mills, who wrote

529
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 1: a couple of papers on this on the subject of

530
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: Will of the Whisp, didn't think that the electrical explanations

531
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: really fit what people were describing when they saw Will

532
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: of the Wisp and saw and explained what they saw.

533
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 1: It just doesn't sound like the same kind of thing.

534
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 1: Right now, as far as the next idea, bioluminescence goes,

535
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: there's an interesting ideas here, some more plausible than others. Right. So, bioluminescence,

536
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: of course is the natural illumination of animals or of

537
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: of life forms, and not necessarily just animals. It could

538
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: be microbial life So fireflies or bioluminescence, they can light

539
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: up in the dark, and I can definitely see that.

540
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: There may have been some cases in the past where

541
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: people saw fireflies and then they had a pre existing

542
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: cultural script of ignis fatuous and they say I saw it,

543
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: I saw the light in the marsh when they were

544
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: really seeing fireflies. That's possible, but it doesn't seem like

545
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 1: fireflies can explain all of these instances because they don't

546
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: really closely enough match what people are usually describing um.

547
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: And it just seems like that could maybe explain some instances,

548
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: but probably not most. Yeah. Also, if you're used to

549
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: seeing the fireflies, you know, it seems like they would

550
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 1: maybe make more sense if you were traveler to an

551
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 1: area where I've never seen a firefly before, and then

552
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: there are these random pinpoints of light in the wilderness

553
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: or potentially in the Asian model, because in in parts

554
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: of the Asia you see fireflies that particularly Thailand, that

555
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: that light up in unison in a way that we

556
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: don't see so much in the United States. Yeah. Um,

557
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: there's also fungus, right, yes, there are in particular type

558
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 1: of fungus that keeps up popping up in these uh

559
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: these theories is our malaria. This is a parasitic kind

560
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: of fun guy. That's also known as honey fungus. Oh,

561
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: that's a cuter name. It sounds delicious, a little tangy

562
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: and sweet. Um, So this could be responsible for some

563
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,840
Speaker 1: of these apparitions. Some species of our malaria are bioluminescent,

564
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 1: and you know, growing in just the right place and

565
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: perceived and just the right atmosphere could be seen as

566
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 1: a will of the whist. Now, one of the people

567
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: writing on this subject that we read, Jan's Elassa Witz

568
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: commented that sometimes, though probably not in most cases, but

569
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: in some rare occasions, people might have even been talking

570
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: about owls. Yeah, because on one hand, you know owl

571
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 1: nocturnal flyer, very silent, very quiet, kind of ghostly. Just

572
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: to perceive an owl even in the daytime, it's it's

573
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: it's there's something slightly supernatural about it, So you can

574
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: especially if the moonlight is catching gray or white plumage

575
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 1: just right, or if the owl has trapped in the

576
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: feathers in its wings, some rotting wood or a bioluminous

577
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: at fungus, like if it's been rolling in the fungus

578
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: and the fungus glows and then the owl swoops around

579
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: in the dark. This may possibly explain some instances of

580
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: what people are seeing, but it seems similar to other

581
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: things we've been talking about so far, the fireflies and

582
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: things like that. It might explain some cases that people

583
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: map onto the existing cultural script of the Igney's fatuous,

584
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: but it just doesn't sound very much like what people

585
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 1: are usually describing. Yeah, it doesn't seem like a good excuse,

586
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: universal excuse for what's going on, and it just doesn't

587
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: seem really all that common now. And another version of

588
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 1: this is, of course that they could just you could

589
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: just be perceiving a reflected light from another source. Yeah.

590
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: One great example of this is I was recently in

591
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 1: in Big Ben National Park in Texas, and near that

592
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: we went through the town of Marfa, Texas, which is

593
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: famous for the Marfa ghost lights. Have you ever heard

594
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: of these? Are these railroad related or they just are

595
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: they not? That I know is there are a lot

596
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 1: of traditions, I think, even around my own hometown in Tennessee,

597
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: tales of ghostly lights out on the railroad tracks that

598
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 1: are kind of a will of the Whist type of scenario,

599
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 1: but I think are generally related to uh, reflected lights

600
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:24,359
Speaker 1: from other sources. Yeah, well, so the Marfa ghost lights

601
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: are probably not the same phenomenon as well of the

602
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,320
Speaker 1: Whist because it's not Marti area, it's you know, desert,

603
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 1: and they they seem to be a different kind of thing.

604
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 1: They're not really what people are describing there either, but

605
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: they are a type of ghost light that from what

606
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 1: I've read, a common skeptical response to this is people

607
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 1: are just seeing reflected car headlights from like their cars

608
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 1: driving far out in the desert and they get reflected

609
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: by the atmosphere in a certain way or somehow end

610
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 1: up reflecting their light to people near the town of Marfa,

611
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: and they're like, Wow, that's an amazing light I just

612
00:34:57,000 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: saw in the desert. What could what could explain it?

613
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 1: Or it's can't fires? You know, I know, we're both

614
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 1: familiar with the Chattanooga, Tennessee area. Oh yeah, I grew

615
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: up there. Well, I've I've definitely driven through Chattanooga on

616
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: like really dark nights before, and I'll see of what

617
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,720
Speaker 1: essentially car lights that are driving up on the hills

618
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: and the mountains. But it's dark. It's so dark that

619
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: for a split second, I see there's some sort of

620
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,840
Speaker 1: strange light. It must be a UFO or something. And

621
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 1: then I realized, oh wait, that's that's a there's a

622
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: mountain right there. How disappointed just the mountain people. Yeah,

623
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: so in our age, that is just so just full

624
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 1: of ubiquitous artificial lighting screwing up our perception of nighttime. Uh,

625
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 1: there's plenty of room for will of the whisps to

626
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 1: emerge that way. Yeah. So electrical phenomenon, biolumin essence, or

627
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 1: reflected lights, like we said, all of these may account

628
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 1: for some small subset of of these historical sightings, but

629
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: they don't really seem to fit the bill in terms

630
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: of what people usually describe when they talk abut the

631
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: ignis fatuous. So what's something that's closer to the traditional

632
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: description and really seems to match. And here we get

633
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 1: to the main event, which is marsh gas, good old,

634
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: good old marsh gas, good old swamp gas. Unfortunately, as

635
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,839
Speaker 1: we'll see, this is not without problems of its own.

636
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,839
Speaker 1: But finally we're getting into the territory that that could

637
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:27,879
Speaker 1: really be a viable explanation. So, Robert, what happens when

638
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: a body of a dead animal or a bunch of

639
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 1: dead plant matter lies down to its final repose in

640
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: a marsh or swamp. Oh, that's that's going to break down,

641
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: and it may sink to the breakdown of organic matter.

642
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 1: This is just part of the swamp marshland ecosystem, right,

643
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,319
Speaker 1: And so the decomposition of dead organic matter often happens

644
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: underwater or under damp soil in these types of environments,

645
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: and the swamp, in the marsh, in the bog and

646
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 1: what we would call an anaeroba environment. So that's without

647
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 1: access to air. Now, things can decompose with access to

648
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 1: air too. You lay something on the ground in the forest,

649
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: it'll have a chance for all this air to get

650
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: at it. And that's a different kind of decomposition than

651
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 1: anaerobic decomposition that happens without air. Decomposition that happens without

652
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 1: air tends to produce gaseous byproducts, including methane and carbon dioxide.

653
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 1: Methane is flammable, and if you get any of your

654
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: home power from natural gas, this is a somewhat similar mixture.

655
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 1: It's composed primarily of methane. That's what's burning with that

656
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: nice blue flame. So many sources treat the matter of

657
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,919
Speaker 1: the scientifically known you know, skeptical latitude cause of Will

658
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 1: of the Whisp as pretty much completely settled. It's spontaneous

659
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 1: combustion of methane in marsh gas. Just one example is

660
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 1: one we looked up together the Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase

661
00:37:56,840 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 1: and Fable. The entry on ignis fatuous. It says, quote

662
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 1: the will the Wisp or Friar's lantern a flamelike phosphorescence

663
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 1: flitting over marshy ground due to the spontaneous combustion of

664
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: gases from decaying vegetable matter and deluding people who attempt

665
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 1: to follow it. Hence any delusive aim or object or

666
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:19,799
Speaker 1: some utopian scheme that is utterly impracticable. It's kind of

667
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 1: a kind of a political stance from Brewers there. But anyway,

668
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: but it sounds possible, right, Yeah, it's but it also

669
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 1: the way it's the way it presents it is. This

670
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 1: is not just one hypothesis that has been offered, but

671
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: it acts as if this is a settled matter. Yeah,

672
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 1: it's the spontaneous combustion of marsh gas. Another example would

673
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: be one scientific paper I found that said the following quote,

674
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 1: the once widespread sightings of will of the wisp also

675
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:51,359
Speaker 1: known as ignice fatuous on northern European peat lands, were

676
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: probably the result of methane abiliations ignited by lanterns or

677
00:38:55,560 --> 00:39:00,760
Speaker 1: other ignition sources formerly used for nighttime illumination. So again

678
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,479
Speaker 1: they treated as pretty much settled. It's marsh gas being

679
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: set on fire, and that's what the will of the

680
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: whisp is. But I don't know, that seems kind of

681
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:10,920
Speaker 1: weird to me. I mean, wouldn't people have noticed it

682
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: had to be set on fire with sparks or lanterns? Yeah,

683
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 1: you think the stories would revolve more around some individual

684
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:19,960
Speaker 1: wandering out with it with his or her lantern and

685
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: in poof a willow whisp you know, suddenly pops into

686
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: being right next to you, as opposed to seeing one

687
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 1: in the distance. Right, And so the story I think

688
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 1: is not nearly as settled as many of these older

689
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: sources would seem to indicate because of this big question,

690
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:37,959
Speaker 1: what is the source of ignition? Is it really fair

691
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:39,879
Speaker 1: to assume that the people who saw these things were

692
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 1: constantly inadvertently setting fire to methane bubbles around them without

693
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 1: realizing they were doing so. Maybe, Again, it's kind of

694
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: like some of the other things. Maybe in some weird cases,

695
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:51,919
Speaker 1: but it kind of seems like a stretch to say

696
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: this is the primary phenomenon being described. So here we

697
00:39:55,719 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 1: get to some chemistry where the answer could possible lie,

698
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:03,840
Speaker 1: because what you're starting to look for is what could

699
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: be a chemical spark in the natural environment that could

700
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: naturally ignite methane gases escaping from a marsh a marsh land. Yeah,

701
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: but the only thing that comes to mind off hand

702
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 1: top pose front. Let's see, you have lightning strikes, you

703
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:24,879
Speaker 1: have spontaneous combustion, which is a possibility with anaerobic situations

704
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:28,399
Speaker 1: such as say a hay bale yah, but like if

705
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: the heat builds up in it, it gets really hot. Yeah.

706
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:32,919
Speaker 1: Aside from that, the only thing that comes to mind

707
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 1: is like a wolf that that that that somebody's tied

708
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 1: fire to its tail or, if you know, something of

709
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 1: that matter. But yeah, otherwise, maybe put some flints to

710
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 1: its teeth, so every time it chomps, it strikes sparks,

711
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:48,920
Speaker 1: a rock falling off a cliff and just happening to

712
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 1: somehow spark on the way down. A guy traveling from

713
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 1: the future and the time machine with a flamethrower, yes,

714
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:58,239
Speaker 1: or just a cigarette. He's just he's just traveling through time,

715
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: stops for a smoke in a medieval and then continues.

716
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 1: But and then, oh the butterfly effect. Now the future

717
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:07,720
Speaker 1: we all have frog frog tongues. So in other words,

718
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:11,359
Speaker 1: it sounds a little sketchy, right, I mean, yeah, we

719
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,399
Speaker 1: need we need a better ignition system than that. Yeah.

720
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: And so the ignition system that has long been proposed

721
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,240
Speaker 1: by people trying to explain the will of the whisp

722
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: has been phosphorus compounds. So instead of being lit up

723
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: by a lantern, marsh gas leaking from the ground could

724
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 1: be ignited in the presence of oxygen if there were

725
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: phosphorus compounds in play, for example phosphene or pH three.

726
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 1: You could also call that hydrogen phosphied or die phosphine

727
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: P two H four. So phosphine is a highly toxic

728
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: gas In fact, I saw this mentioned online and I

729
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 1: went back and revisited it. You know, if you go

730
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: back to the beginning of Breaking Bad, right right at

731
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 1: the start, there's a scene where Walter White uses a

732
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,439
Speaker 1: chemical reaction producing phosphine gas to poise in a couple

733
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: of gangsters. Okay, now, yeah, now that you mentioned it,

734
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 1: I do though. I've actually read chemists looking at that

735
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 1: and saying the chemistry of that seems a little bit wrong,

736
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: but but it is true that phosphine is highly toxic. Well,

737
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: it was a similar theme though that we're seeing here.

738
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:18,320
Speaker 1: People sort of shuffle the explanations off to the realm

739
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: of chemistry, and for most people that's sufficient. Okay, it's

740
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: a matter of chemistry. I don't really understand all the

741
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: ins and outs of chemistry, but it seems like a

742
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,800
Speaker 1: realm where everything is possible. Everything in the world hinges

743
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: on chemistry. So well enough, but then when the chemists

744
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 1: start breaking it apart, these problems emerged. Yeah, and so

745
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:41,359
Speaker 1: phosphine is extremely extremely flammable. It can totally catch on

746
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: fire at a moment's notice. And then this other compound,

747
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:48,840
Speaker 1: the die phosphine P two H four is a liquid

748
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 1: that will ignite just spontaneously combust when it's exposed to

749
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:56,839
Speaker 1: the air. So you get this stuff out of its

750
00:42:56,880 --> 00:43:00,319
Speaker 1: anaerobic environment up to the surface where air comes into

751
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: contact with it, and it just erupts with fire and

752
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 1: this ignites the phosphine or the methane itself. Phosphine igniting

753
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:10,400
Speaker 1: ignites the methane and then boom, you've got fire in

754
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 1: the gas escaping from the marsh. It's been utilized in

755
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:16,919
Speaker 1: weapons before, um, kind of hillacious weapons that we tend

756
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:18,959
Speaker 1: to shy away from. Oh really, I didn't know. Because

757
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 1: it burns in the air. That's gross. Oh I guess

758
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:28,840
Speaker 1: like phosphorus based incendiary weapons. That's horrible. But anyway, the

759
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 1: idea is that the dead, decaying organic matter down under

760
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 1: the marsh releases these gases. It releases phosphine, diphosphene, methane,

761
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: and the reaction with the air causes ignition. The methane

762
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 1: catches on fire. Is this plausible, Well, I think the

763
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:53,360
Speaker 1: answer is sort of, but maybe not entirely, And so

764
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 1: it's It is apparently true that some microbial life forms

765
00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 1: can produce these types of phosphorus compounds through the process

766
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 1: of decomposition, going to work on on bones and other

767
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 1: organic materials that might be buried down in the swamp.

768
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 1: They can release the phosphorus compounds that we've talked about,

769
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 1: But other sources have contested the idea of straight up

770
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: combustion of methane and other gases, including the phosphine match

771
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 1: or the phosphorus based ignition systems, And there are a

772
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 1: few things to consider. One of them is that methane,

773
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:30,359
Speaker 1: if ignited by fire, will burn with a what one

774
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 1: of the people we read described as a brief, hot,

775
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 1: bright flame, which really goes opposite to how people usually

776
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:39,919
Speaker 1: describe the will of the whisp, but that's more often

777
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: described as having a cool blue luminessence that does not

778
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 1: seem to produce any heat or much heat at least

779
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: depending on the source. Yeah. If the situation is not

780
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: that Will the Smith lit a fart in the night,

781
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 1: is that Will the Smith has some sort of ghostly

782
00:44:55,880 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 1: illumination that is seems to be pretty constant though moving. Yeah.

783
00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: Another thing is that people have found that the ignition

784
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 1: of phosphine gas mixed with methane results in acrid smoke.

785
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,919
Speaker 1: This is not a common feature of will of the Whisp, descriptions, right, Yeah,

786
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 1: because that would be a whole other thing. Right. You

787
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,279
Speaker 1: can imagine the tails would revolve around, oh, there was

788
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,240
Speaker 1: a campfire in the woods of mist, and there's clearly

789
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:21,760
Speaker 1: fairies or elves that hadn't know it's there's no mention

790
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 1: of the smoke. Other questions would be that why is

791
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 1: the willow wisp often reported to run away when you

792
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 1: approach it or then follow you when you don't. The

793
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:32,640
Speaker 1: best explanations that I ran across had to do with

794
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: just complex fluid dynamics of the situation, disturbing the mixture

795
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: of gases in the air as you approach, and you

796
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:42,240
Speaker 1: just kind of make it waffed away by their movements,

797
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: like trying to catch up a stray bit of cat

798
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: hair floating in the in the room you know you

799
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:50,840
Speaker 1: never can get. Yeah, And I think that's a perhaps

800
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 1: good explanation. But then there's another big one that I

801
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 1: think is kind of important. If this is ordinary hot combustion,

802
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,799
Speaker 1: just like hot flames, like the fire, we normally know,

803
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: why doesn't the flame spread, like why doesn't it catch

804
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 1: fire to surrounding dead grass and vegetation. Well, my response

805
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:09,880
Speaker 1: to that would be, in many cases this is a

806
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: bog or a marsh land. And when's the last time

807
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:14,839
Speaker 1: you heard about a bog burning down? Right? I mean,

808
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:17,440
Speaker 1: I think it's still possible for the for the dead

809
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: plant matter that's above you know, whatever kind of damp

810
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 1: soil or is there what's poking out above the ground.

811
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: That seems like that could catch fire. But potentially yeah,

812
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:29,759
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, but just the damp environment tends to

813
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: make me give less credence to that. But but I agree,

814
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:35,799
Speaker 1: it seems like there would still be the potential for

815
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:38,399
Speaker 1: something to catch on fire. Yeah. So there's actually a

816
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:42,479
Speaker 1: geologist named Alan A. Mills who who wrote a couple

817
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: of papers on the subject of the ignis fatuous or

818
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: the will of the wisp, and explained that he based

819
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 1: on some analysis he did and some experiments he conducted,

820
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:57,759
Speaker 1: he didn't think that the marsh gas explanation cut it.

821
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: It just didn't really work, he claimed. He tried it.

822
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: He didn't experiment with putting a bunch of stuff into

823
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 1: a container of damp garden soil, peat and rotten compost,

824
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,719
Speaker 1: and he tried to incubate it in the dark. He

825
00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: did get methane marsh gas out of it, but it

826
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 1: did not spontaneously combust And then he also he tried

827
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 1: adding phosphine phosphine generating compounds, and that apparently this produced

828
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 1: a great stink, but it did not It did not

829
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:32,319
Speaker 1: create a spontaneous luminescence. So he could produce march gas,

830
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:34,560
Speaker 1: but he couldn't find a natural way to get it

831
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 1: ignited like that. And whatever the cause of the ignition,

832
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: it seems like the traditional sightings of the ignis fatuous

833
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:48,279
Speaker 1: really must not have featured hot flames. Now you're probably wondering, Okay,

834
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:50,760
Speaker 1: what's the opposite of hot flames? What would the DLB

835
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 1: with cold points? What cold flames? Um? Cold flames are

836
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 1: produced by ether or carbon disulfide, when he did just

837
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: below the ignition point, so they're not exactly cold, but

838
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: they're not as hot as flames usually are. So you

839
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 1: heat certain substances up to the point where they're almost

840
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:11,399
Speaker 1: about to catch on fire, but they don't, and they

841
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,799
Speaker 1: produce this, uh, this sort of halo. Yeah, I've seen

842
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:20,319
Speaker 1: it described as that luminescent precombustion halo um. Again, right,

843
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 1: when the various compounds are heated, it just below the

844
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: ignition points. So and again this perhaps this would be

845
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 1: due to a natural um This would be a natural

846
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:31,799
Speaker 1: product of the decay in the swamp. Yeah. So this

847
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,360
Speaker 1: is a possibility that a few people have explored in

848
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 1: some experiments. And then there is also a parallel possibility.

849
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 1: In fact, the cold flames might even be an example

850
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 1: of this. But the broader concept is chemo luminescence, which

851
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 1: would mean glowing or light created by a chemical reaction.

852
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 1: So it's not exactly fire, but it is chemicals reacting

853
00:48:55,520 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: in a way that produces light. For example, the oxidation

854
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: of those phosphorus compounds we were talking about creating a

855
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 1: chemo luminescent glow. This seems likely too. It's kind of

856
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 1: the bioluminescent model, except without the without the direct involvement

857
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 1: of an organism. Yeah, and so Alan A. Mills. This

858
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: one researcher described how he put together an experiment where

859
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:26,120
Speaker 1: he created a glow just by exposing different gases to

860
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 1: each other. So he says that he found experimentally quote

861
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: that the entrainment of crude phosphene into natural gas at

862
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:38,240
Speaker 1: low concentrations insufficient to cause ignition did result in a cool,

863
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 1: glowing cloud visible in the dark. However, its color was

864
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 1: green like the glow associated with aerial oxidation of yellow

865
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 1: phosphorus rather than blue. So he's saying that just by

866
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: mixing together the phosphorus compounds and the natural gas in

867
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 1: the dark in the right concentrations, he got it to glow,

868
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:01,919
Speaker 1: even though it didn't catch five air. Okay, but it does.

869
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:04,839
Speaker 1: It does seem to lend cred into the possibility that

870
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 1: a different type of chemical reaction could be taking place.

871
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:10,239
Speaker 1: We just maybe don't know all the ingredients that are

872
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:13,360
Speaker 1: they're involved. Yeah, yeah. And then there was also another

873
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: experiment I read about that was done by some Italian

874
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 1: researchers more recently, I think it was just seven or

875
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 1: eight years ago. So they just had a container of

876
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 1: phosphine gas phosphene vapor that they fed with a stream

877
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:29,360
Speaker 1: of air and nitrogen and when they did that, just

878
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: righte a like they described, a faint, pale greenish light

879
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:36,919
Speaker 1: could be seen in the dark. And I think, as

880
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 1: far as most scientists who have looked into this are concerned,

881
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 1: the chemo lumin essence is probably the most viable answer

882
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:48,120
Speaker 1: to the question today, though it still doesn't seem to

883
00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 1: fit perfectly. Though maybe we should just never expect anything

884
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:57,799
Speaker 1: to fit perfectly, especially given the the uncertain shape that

885
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: has been presented by these these very historical accounts, right. Yeah,

886
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 1: because ultimately we're being held back here by the lack

887
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 1: of observation of this phenomenon today. And that's another really

888
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: interesting aspect of the Will of the Whisp. Claimed sightings

889
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 1: of will of the Whisp, for some reason, have drastically

890
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: dropped off in the past century or so, almost to

891
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:20,520
Speaker 1: the point of some people saying that the Will of

892
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 1: the Whisp, whatever it was, is now extinct or or

893
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 1: endangered in near extinction. And I think it's really interesting

894
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 1: to imagine what could be the cause of this, because,

895
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 1: as we've talked about, it's widespread enough that we think

896
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:36,319
Speaker 1: it is referring to a real thing. It's not just

897
00:51:36,360 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 1: people imagining it. But what could the thing have been

898
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 1: if people generally don't see it anymore? And I do

899
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 1: want to point out that, you know what, we're not

900
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: saying that they've completely vanished, but clearly they used to.

901
00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:52,160
Speaker 1: They used to be more prevalent than they are today. Um.

902
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 1: I know, for instance, I was looking around and the U. S.

903
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: Air Forces Project, a blue book that came out in

904
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:01,799
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties um had to do with the UFOs

905
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 1: and possible explanations for UFOs. One major explanation presented by

906
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 1: Jay Alan Heineck, and that was that, particularly in the

907
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 1: rural Michigan area, swamp lights might be the reason for

908
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: that people were claiming to see UFOs. But then again,

909
00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 1: UFO sidings are also down today compared to what they

910
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: were in the in the previous century, so I don't know.

911
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: Maybe that also plays into this gradual disappearance of the

912
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:34,640
Speaker 1: swamp lights. That's interesting because you see UFO sightings suddenly

913
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 1: come into the picture in the twentieth century, right at

914
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:41,320
Speaker 1: the time when these the Will of the Wisp sightings

915
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:45,680
Speaker 1: seem to largely disappear. Yet they're probably not the same

916
00:52:45,719 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 1: thing because they I mean, they're described in vastly different ways. Yeah,

917
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little overlap.

918
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:55,640
Speaker 1: And again we're falling into the potential trap of trying

919
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:59,759
Speaker 1: to explain a whole host of different phenomena with one explanation. Yeah.

920
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: I think that's the most important thing to keep in

921
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 1: mind is again, like we said, the will the Whisp

922
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: might not be just one thing. It might be a

923
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:10,919
Speaker 1: sort of center of the road script that a lot

924
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:14,839
Speaker 1: of different phenomena are mapped onto. One of the big

925
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: things to discuss here, though, in terms of why the

926
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:20,400
Speaker 1: willow wisp phenomenon would have faded away, is just to

927
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: first of all, look at where it's occurring. Most of

928
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 1: these accounts have to do with wetlands, marshlands boss and

929
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 1: what has happened to our marshlands in uh in the

930
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,480
Speaker 1: last cuple over the last couple of centuries. Right, If

931
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:34,319
Speaker 1: a lot of this folklore is coming out of the

932
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 1: marshes of Europe, the marshes of Europe have largely been

933
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 1: transformed into places where agriculture happens or in the cities,

934
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 1: or they've been drained, they've been bliced up. They are

935
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:48,920
Speaker 1: no longer the ecosystem that they once were. Yeah. So

936
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 1: if you think of if you think of of the

937
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 1: willowist phenomenon as being a phenomenon that naturally occurs though

938
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: as something of a rarity in a large wetland in

939
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 1: VI and then it's reduced to a small wetland environment

940
00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:06,000
Speaker 1: a few centuries later, it seems like you would haven't

941
00:54:06,440 --> 00:54:10,840
Speaker 1: even rarer occurrences that whatever is causing it be it

942
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:13,960
Speaker 1: an organism, be at a particular chemical build up, the

943
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 1: potential for that to to happen is going to be

944
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:20,320
Speaker 1: far less because we've essentially terraformed our our planet. We've

945
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:24,479
Speaker 1: we've we've more than doubled the nitrogen cycle. We've we've

946
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:28,319
Speaker 1: we've we've decided to pick and choose what organisms are

947
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:31,200
Speaker 1: going to flourish, which ones we're going to do our

948
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 1: best to eradicate without even knowing that we're doing it

949
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,399
Speaker 1: right at the time. Yeah, And and marshlands and wet lands,

950
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:38,760
Speaker 1: I mean that is there. They've been a real rallying

951
00:54:39,080 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 1: point of in recent history of us trying to say, ho,

952
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: slow down, these are actually important ecosystems, and we don't

953
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:50,319
Speaker 1: just need to, you know, push them out to the

954
00:54:50,400 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: edge of existence. So we've lost a number of species

955
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:58,000
Speaker 1: already that have made their home in wetlands. Is it

956
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 1: possible that we've also exterminated or nearly exterminated something that

957
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:06,680
Speaker 1: produces the willowest phenomenon? Yeah, I mean we may have

958
00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: just been watching too many times the documentary Man Versus Nature,

959
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:17,319
Speaker 1: The Road to Victory, But yeah, it's essentially along the

960
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 1: same lines as something that people have brought up with

961
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:24,160
Speaker 1: the idea of terraforming Mars. We think that Mars probably

962
00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 1: doesn't have any life forms on it today. Probably it

963
00:55:28,120 --> 00:55:32,000
Speaker 1: may have had some in the past, but whether it

964
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:36,120
Speaker 1: currently has any strange microbial life surviving anywhere, or ever

965
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: had it in the past. What if by terraforming Mars

966
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,800
Speaker 1: in the future, by turning it into a suitable earthlike environment,

967
00:55:42,840 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 1: we destroy whatever pockets of existing life or evidence of

968
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 1: past life we're already there. Yeah, that's one of the

969
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: big arguments against terraforming and uh and indeed it's it's

970
00:55:55,200 --> 00:55:57,959
Speaker 1: one that we have already encountered with a certain degree

971
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:00,160
Speaker 1: here on this planet. And I think the under line

972
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:03,400
Speaker 1: concept here is one that several scientists we referred to

973
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 1: have alluded to, which is that the the will of

974
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:12,880
Speaker 1: the whisp phenomenon may have a sort of species based origin,

975
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:17,040
Speaker 1: like that there might be a particular kind of microbial

976
00:56:17,160 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 1: life form or microbial life ecosystem that produces it. There

977
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 1: are tiny creatures in the ground that are responsible for

978
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:28,160
Speaker 1: the will of the whisps people used to see. Yeah,

979
00:56:28,560 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: one of the articles out there floating around is from

980
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 1: Howell G. M. Edwards titled Will of the Whisp, an

981
00:56:35,160 --> 00:56:39,160
Speaker 1: ancient mystery with extreme aphile origins question mark and uh yeah.

982
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:42,160
Speaker 1: This basically the basic concept here seems to be that

983
00:56:42,160 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: that either the biolumin essence or the biologically discharged gas

984
00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:49,640
Speaker 1: resulting it may be resulting from an extreme file organism

985
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 1: that previously carved out of fragile niche lifestyle and swamps

986
00:56:54,480 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 1: and marches marches, but has since snuffed it due to

987
00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:01,640
Speaker 1: its delicate positioning in the eCos system. So again it

988
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:03,719
Speaker 1: comes down to the fact that this is it's something

989
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:07,239
Speaker 1: out there and maybe it's in its place in the

990
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:11,480
Speaker 1: world is fragile, and then when we start eradicating and

991
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:15,360
Speaker 1: cutting down this environment, it all that goes away. It

992
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:19,000
Speaker 1: makes me wonder what kinds of strange phenomena other than

993
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:21,440
Speaker 1: the will of the whisp could go extinct in the future.

994
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:24,280
Speaker 1: What are the things people see today that we might

995
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:28,520
Speaker 1: class as paranormal that maybe will mostly disappear in the future,

996
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 1: and we might not know why because we might not

997
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:33,080
Speaker 1: know what caused it to begin with. What if we

998
00:57:33,240 --> 00:57:35,600
Speaker 1: enter a future, can you imagine a world where people

999
00:57:35,680 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: don't see UFOs anymore? Well, we kind of, we kind

1000
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:41,320
Speaker 1: of live in it already. I mean, I feel like

1001
00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:44,960
Speaker 1: looking at these cases we presented here, you could say that,

1002
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:47,560
Speaker 1: all right, take the UFO. There are varying reasons why

1003
00:57:47,560 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 1: one might see a UFO. Uh. Some of them involve

1004
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:54,080
Speaker 1: sleep paralysis, some of them involve mental illness, some of

1005
00:57:54,080 --> 00:57:58,360
Speaker 1: them involve um a, sleep deprivation, etcetera. You can make

1006
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 1: a long list of them. And and if if a

1007
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:06,920
Speaker 1: certain type of swamp gas phenomenon is on that list

1008
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: and that becomes eradicated due to environmental change, then yeah,

1009
00:58:11,720 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 1: that changes how it is perceived. It becomes less than

1010
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:19,640
Speaker 1: an object of nature and more of a mental uh existence,

1011
00:58:19,720 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 1: more of a mental animal as opposed to a chemical one. Yeah. Yeah,

1012
00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:25,760
Speaker 1: And that is interesting because the will of the whisp

1013
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:29,520
Speaker 1: seems to have largely gone away, but the phenomenon of

1014
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:33,760
Speaker 1: seeing lights has not. I mean, we people still see lights. Yeah,

1015
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:35,840
Speaker 1: We've always seen them, and we're going to continue to

1016
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:38,480
Speaker 1: see strange lights that we can't explain, but try to

1017
00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:41,440
Speaker 1: Our brain ends up trying to explain them in the

1018
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: form of hallucination, and then it also in the form

1019
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,479
Speaker 1: of various cultural scripts to apply to it in retrospect. Okay,

1020
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:49,080
Speaker 1: but Robert, I want to bring you back to the

1021
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:52,360
Speaker 1: place we started. Yes, I want to change everything and

1022
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:56,000
Speaker 1: say you're not a medieval peasant. You are not out

1023
00:58:56,040 --> 00:59:00,439
Speaker 1: on the fens of medieval England. You are yourself and

1024
00:59:00,520 --> 00:59:03,400
Speaker 1: you are currently out, let's say, hiking in a US

1025
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:06,440
Speaker 1: national park. If you ever, do you have a favorite

1026
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: national park? Well, you know what, Let's say, let's say

1027
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:11,560
Speaker 1: state park. Let's go with with ok Finoki in here

1028
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:13,760
Speaker 1: in Georgia, because it's a swamp, and it's a swamp

1029
00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: where people have claim to have seen marsh lights in

1030
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: the past. Perfect. Okay, So you're you're out walking in

1031
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 1: the okay, Finoki. You realize you've you've hiked too far

1032
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 1: in the late afternoon, and suddenly dusk is coming on.

1033
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 1: You need to head back in the other direction to

1034
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:30,480
Speaker 1: get back to the visitor center in your car. But

1035
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:33,560
Speaker 1: on the way, you see some blue lights that are

1036
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:37,440
Speaker 1: just out of just beyond range, out off the path.

1037
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 1: Would you go and investigate? Really, knowing what I know now, yeah,

1038
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:46,919
Speaker 1: I would probably not, but I feel like I would

1039
00:59:46,920 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 1: stop and watch and and hopefully I would watch this

1040
00:59:49,840 --> 00:59:54,520
Speaker 1: phenomenon with the presence of mind that what I'm observing

1041
00:59:54,920 --> 00:59:58,240
Speaker 1: is a rarity. Whatever is causing it has become scarce

1042
00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:00,720
Speaker 1: in the world, be it and a organism that is

1043
01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:04,920
Speaker 1: dying out, a chemical scenario under the soil that is

1044
01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:08,440
Speaker 1: less prevalent, or you know, fairies that are leaving the world,

1045
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:12,040
Speaker 1: or a certain damned individual who somehow weasel his way

1046
01:00:12,080 --> 01:00:14,080
Speaker 1: back into hell. Man, I feel like I have the

1047
01:00:14,200 --> 01:00:16,680
Speaker 1: I must have the horrible curiosity i'd have to go

1048
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:19,880
Speaker 1: to you're gonna die? Well, no, I'm not. No, That's

1049
01:00:19,880 --> 01:00:21,800
Speaker 1: exactly why I brought it to the modern day. So

1050
01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:24,040
Speaker 1: you don't think that there's a hankkeey punk out there

1051
01:00:24,040 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 1: who's gonna lead you off a cliff or into into

1052
01:00:26,400 --> 01:00:29,120
Speaker 1: Quicksand do you think this is probably some kind of

1053
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 1: natural occurrence. It's something that maybe gas, maybe something you

1054
01:00:33,040 --> 01:00:35,560
Speaker 1: can touch. Maybe you could be the person who has

1055
01:00:35,600 --> 01:00:38,680
Speaker 1: the insight onto into what is causing this because you

1056
01:00:38,720 --> 01:00:40,680
Speaker 1: can finally get close and get a good look and

1057
01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:42,960
Speaker 1: catch some in a jar. Yeah, but this is but

1058
01:00:43,040 --> 01:00:45,800
Speaker 1: as we've discussed, this is not happening in the city.

1059
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:48,840
Speaker 1: This is happening in the wild and humans and despite

1060
01:00:48,880 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 1: despite all of our GPS technology, we can still die

1061
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:54,440
Speaker 1: in the wilderness, and we can we can, we can

1062
01:00:54,440 --> 01:00:57,840
Speaker 1: do so fairly easily. They're still alligators in the okafin Oky,

1063
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:00,640
Speaker 1: there's still bears in other national parks, and there's still

1064
01:01:00,680 --> 01:01:03,400
Speaker 1: things to fall off of, and you know, have to

1065
01:01:03,440 --> 01:01:05,000
Speaker 1: cut your own leg off and that sort of thing.

1066
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:08,560
Speaker 1: And that's what the willow Wisp wants to happen. But

1067
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:11,560
Speaker 1: sometimes you gotta walk through some alligator infested waters to

1068
01:01:11,560 --> 01:01:16,240
Speaker 1: achieve your terrible purpose, the terrible purpose, terrible purpose, as

1069
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:19,439
Speaker 1: palm wad Deep might say, Yeah, yeah, he'd probably walk

1070
01:01:19,480 --> 01:01:23,080
Speaker 1: out and see what they were doing. All right, Well,

1071
01:01:23,080 --> 01:01:27,360
Speaker 1: there you have it, Willow the wisp, uh, hinky punk,

1072
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call this particular scenario, marsh lights,

1073
01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: self light, fairy fire. What was the answer in the end?

1074
01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:37,040
Speaker 1: I guess it was the best one was chemo lumin essence,

1075
01:01:37,080 --> 01:01:39,480
Speaker 1: but we still don't really know for sure. Yeah. I

1076
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:42,480
Speaker 1: think the lassa what's kept describing it as a quote

1077
01:01:42,560 --> 01:01:44,960
Speaker 1: chemical animal, and I really like that idea that it's

1078
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:48,560
Speaker 1: it's not it'sself an organism, but it's kind of a

1079
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:55,160
Speaker 1: chemical manifestation linked to organisms, certainly linked to organisms, either

1080
01:01:55,840 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 1: by some unknown extreme of file microbe in the in

1081
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 1: the soil or just the breakdown of other organic organisms unknown.

1082
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:08,040
Speaker 1: It's almost like a shadow organism in that sense. But yeah,

1083
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 1: it seems like those are the best explanations out there,

1084
01:02:11,760 --> 01:02:15,600
Speaker 1: all right. Yeah, so hey, we'd of course, we'd love

1085
01:02:15,640 --> 01:02:18,280
Speaker 1: to hear from anybody out there who has seen anything

1086
01:02:18,360 --> 01:02:20,720
Speaker 1: like this. If you are one of the rare individuals

1087
01:02:20,760 --> 01:02:24,800
Speaker 1: who has glimpsed ferry fire in this modern age, we

1088
01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:26,919
Speaker 1: want to know about it. You can get in touch

1089
01:02:26,960 --> 01:02:28,480
Speaker 1: with us a number of ways. First of all, always

1090
01:02:28,520 --> 01:02:29,840
Speaker 1: get a head on over to stuff to Blow your

1091
01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:33,240
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. That's our mothership. That's we'll find blog post,

1092
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:37,840
Speaker 1: toppin list, galleries, uh links out to social media accounts, etcetera.

1093
01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:40,360
Speaker 1: It's all there, and you can find us on social

1094
01:02:40,400 --> 01:02:43,560
Speaker 1: media on Facebook, on Twitter. We're blow the Mind on.

1095
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:45,200
Speaker 1: Both of those were Stuff to Blow your Mind on

1096
01:02:45,280 --> 01:02:47,480
Speaker 1: Tumbler and Joe how can they get in touch with

1097
01:02:47,560 --> 01:02:49,520
Speaker 1: your field fashion went ah. Well, if you'd like to

1098
01:02:49,520 --> 01:02:51,720
Speaker 1: write to us on email and let us know about

1099
01:02:51,840 --> 01:02:54,960
Speaker 1: your experience with Will of the Whisp, ignis Fatuous or

1100
01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 1: any other types of ghost lights, you can email us

1101
01:02:58,120 --> 01:03:04,760
Speaker 1: at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com.

1102
01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:07,280
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

1103
01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:14,400
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com.