WEBVTT - Season 08 Episode 26: All Eyes on Me 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:08.280 In April two thousand and four, a photograph of monsters 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:13.080 began to circulate online, first through email, then across early 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:18.960 social platforms. Unlike the blurred, half obscured images typically offered 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:22.840 as evidence a weird phenomena, this photo was crisp and 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:28.280 clear and seemingly irrefutable, and what it showed looked too 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:33.080 awful to be real. Two things, in fact, two things 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:38.640 sharing sixteen hairy segmented legs twisted round each other in 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:43.280 skin crawling entwinement, being held aloft by two US soldiers 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:48.080 stationed and Bagdad. In two thousand and four, a pair 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:53.159 of monstrous, pale spiders, each seemingly large enough to dwarf 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.040 the hand holding them. They seemed to resemble the terrifying 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.040 face hugger of the Alien movies more than any normal iraknet. 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.280 They were said to be camel spiders fabled a rachnids 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.559 of the Middle Eastern desert, tales of which spread among 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.959 military personnel in the area during both the First and 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:16.320 second invasion of Iraq. The email was said to originate 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:20.600 from American soldiers stationed in Baghdad, and was sent, according 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.240 to the writer, to give you a better idea of 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.720 what our troops are dealing with. As the image continued 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:32.280 to scurry across the internet, wilder claims soon attached themselves 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:36.520 to the unnerving looking creature. They were capable of huge 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.000 vertical leaps. It was set high enough for them to 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.360 reach the underside of the dromedary camel for which they 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.720 were named. Once attached to the belly of the camel, 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.160 they would bite deep into it and lay eggs under 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.440 the skin. According to online comments, they could run it 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.160 up to twenty five miles per hour, and most unnervingly, 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.800 they were said to make an all screaming sound as 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:07.280 they did. Accounts rolled in of spiders actively chasing down 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:12.480 human victims and injecting them with anastetizing venom. When they 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.400 incapacitate their prey. The story is set. They don't just 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.240 suck out your juices, they also feed on your flesh. 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.800 The viral camel spider photo was a horror story borne 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.799 from an arachnophobe's worse nightmares, but thankfully, in this instance 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:35.320 at least, there is cause for reassurance. Camel spiders are 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.200 real and native to Iraq. The pair and the photograph 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:43.200 are also genuine, but they've been unnaturally inflated through a 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:48.320 trick of camera perspective. In truth, the biggest specimens don't 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:52.960 exceed a five inch legspan. Neither do they run particularly fast, 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.600 nor do they scream, and any minor trace of venom 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.600 they possess is no use to them, as their teeth 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.240 are far too short to break skin. They lay their 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.600 eggs in the soil, not in any living creature, let 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.880 alone something as hard to reach as a camel. As 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:14.160 their ability to jump great heights is also entirely fictitious. 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:19.080 In short, the viral photograph is an illusion, and the 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.600 claims that accrue to it are nothing but urban legend. 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.320 Even if the camel spiders were as large as they 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.200 look in the photo, they would still be smaller than 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.799 known arachnids like the goliath bird eater or the giant huntsman. 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.080 An arachnophobe, it seems, can traveled to Iraq without too 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:43.840 much cause for concern. But over the decades many stories 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.360 have trickled in from other corners of the globe, places 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:51.760 both far to some but unnervingly near to others, of 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:56.160 truly horrifying things with far too many legs for comfort. 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:01.920 You're listening to unexplained, and I am Richard McLean Smith. 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.800 Back in nineteen forty two, during the Second World War, 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:17.520 deep in the Owen Stanley Mountains of southeastern Papa, New Guinea, 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:21.800 an Australian soldier steps into the bush to answer a 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:25.280 call of nature. The soldier is one of the many 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:30.240 thousands of Australian and Japanese forces fighting along the Kokoda Trail, 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.240 a single file track that runs for sixty miles through 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:38.760 the mountains. The air is chokingly thick and baking hot 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:44.920 gnats buzz all about. Armed with a small shovel, the 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:48.880 soldier steps into the thick undergrowth in search of a quiet, 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:53.800 secluded spot. Having finished relieving himself, he realized with the 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.160 jolt that he was crouched close to a vast patch 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:01.919 of some kind of weblike substance. It was soft like 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:06.200 cotton and blanketed everywhere from the ground up to about 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:10.360 six feet of the surrounding tree trunks. With the mixture 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.000 of curiosity and nerves, the soldier tracked the extent of 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.760 the netting, which spread ten to fifteen feet either side 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:21.600 of his position, turning to face the dense center of it. 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:25.320 With marrow freezing horror, he saw the thing that had 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:29.640 created it. Less than two feet from his face hung 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.800 an enormous spider. The body alone was the size of 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.920 a small dog. It was pitch black and covered in oily, 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:43.080 iridescent hairs. Its legs were not long like a tarantulasah, 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:48.239 but short and stubby. Mesmerized, and more than a little 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.560 stunned with fear, the man stared at the spider for 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.680 a few moments before backing slowly away and running back 0:05:55.720 --> 0:06:06.520 to camp. This story was first revealed to the world 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:09.960 in two thousand and one by Debbie and Peter Hines, 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:15.080 a wife and husband team of cryptoseologists. The soldier in 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.600 question was the father of one of Debbie's childhood friends, 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.640 who had terrified them with the story when they were young. 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.839 The Hines offer no verifying evidence or even names or 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.200 exact locations. Perhaps it would be easy to dismiss the 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:36.040 account outright as another tall tale born of war, But 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.480 then came the intriguing phone call made to a late 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:43.880 night radio station just a few years later. It was 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.200 back on August sixth, two thousand and five, that a 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.920 young man named Craig called into the radio show Coast 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.640 to Coast FM, where he proceeded to recount his own 0:06:54.680 --> 0:07:00.680 grandfather's wartime encounter with a massive spider, also in Papa 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:05.880 New Guinea. Craig's grandfather was stationed in the capital city, 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:08.520 Port Moresby, when he is said to have gone on 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:13.280 a trek into the nearby rainforest. There, he apparently came 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.920 across another vast web, in the center of which was 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.040 a spider with a leg span of at least three 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:24.240 to four feet that would make the creature at least 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.920 four times the size of the largest known spider on 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:33.640 the planet. Unlike the species apparently spotted near the Cacoda Trail, 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.600 this one was smooth rather than hairy, and glimmered as 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:43.080 striking emerald green in the dappled sunlight. Craig's grandfather was 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.880 said to have been so frightened by the spider that 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.080 he quickly drew his machete and hacked it to death. 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.840 The Pacific island of Papa New Guinea remains one of 0:07:59.880 --> 0:08:04.360 the world's least explored land masses. Its highlands are cloaked 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.360 in dense rainforest with little or no access for vehicles. 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:13.160 The remoteness and pristine conditions of the country's forests have 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:18.560 preserved an amazing degree of biodiversity and unique ecosystems. If 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.200 there was the possibility of a gigantic species of arachnet 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.800 living unrecognized somewhere on Earth, there are few habitats more 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:31.320 congenial than Papa New Guinea. Maybe the only place more 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.480 likely is the Congo Basin, a vast swathe of true, 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:40.880 unexplored wilderness of rivers and rainforest and hidden lakes the 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:45.800 size of small countries. It's long been romanticized as the 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.360 last lost world on Earth and the home for unknown 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:53.760 species or those thought long extinct, such as the apparent 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:58.720 relict Saurupont, Maclay and Bembe, as featured in Season eight, 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:04.520 episode ten, Not All Who Wander. In nineteen thirty eight, 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:09.400 married explorers Marguerite and Reginald Lloyd were driving in the 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:13.400 interior of the Congo Basin. They had settled in what 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.720 was then Rhodesia as part of the European expansion into Africa, 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.480 and had come to the Congo to explore its mysteries. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:27.319 Their ramshackle Ford truck rattled down the pock marked jungle track, 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.720 hemmed in on both sides by a thick wall of 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:36.680 dark jungle green. Suddenly, Reginald slammed on the brakes. A 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:42.400 dozen feet ahead, something was emerging from the forest. For 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:47.160 a few seconds, the couple watched charmed, assuming that they 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.000 were privileged to the rare sight of a large jungle 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:55.280 cat or perhaps a monkey, walking on all fours. Only 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:59.080 as their eyes took in the weird, acute angles of 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:04.080 the creature's men limbs did they recoil in horror. It 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.360 was a huge spider with a leg span easily exceeding 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:13.760 four feet. Reginald twisted in his seat frantically trying to 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.720 reach his camera, but by the time he turned back, 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:21.920 the spider had vanished. In the weblike way that these 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:26.240 stories strink together through the years, The Lloyd's daughter, Margaret, 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.400 would later tell the story to William Gibbons, a cryptozoologist 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:37.080 with particular interest in unknown African megafauna. In the nineteen nineties, 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:41.600 William Gibbons traveled to the Congo and Cameroon in search 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:45.280 of Mackelay and Bembey. While meeting with members of the 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.760 Bakar tribe, he mentioned the Lloyd sighting of the spider 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:55.160 sixty years earlier. Apparently, the Bakar responded affirmatively, without surprise 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.800 or amusement. Oh yes, they told Gibbons the large spider 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.240 did certainly exist. In their language, it was known as 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:16.240 Cuba fufi, or the great spider. The Cuba fufi had 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:20.560 apparently once been a common and well known threat, similar 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:25.480 in shape to a tarantula, only much much larger. It 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:29.160 had a large, hairy body covered in dense brown fur, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:34.160 with a noticeable purple cast to its abdomen. The leg 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.400 span was truly fearsome, upwards of five feet in total, 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:43.880 large enough to overpower and drag away antelope, birds, and 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.680 sadly also children that are said to be its prey. 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:53.280 According to the Bakar community, the Cuba fufi typically make 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.520 their den in the hollows beneath trees, camouflaging the entrance 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.320 with roots and leaves. They then say an intricate network 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.040 of webs to slow down passing prey and alert the 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.040 spider to the presence of a meal. Once summoned, the 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:13.720 Tuba fufi launches itself from its nest like a trapdoor spider. 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.679 The Bakhar told Gibbons that the spider had once been 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:22.200 common to the area, but deforestation and encroaching farmland had 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:27.680 driven them further into the forest's interior. Nonetheless, sightings have 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:32.000 apparently continued across the years, with anecdotes and accounts of 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:36.200 spiders venturing out to drag stray dogs, and, if the 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:41.079 stories are to be believed, even people screaming into the jungle. 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:46.280 The deep forests of Central Africa and Papa New Guinea 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.760 have long been filled with monsters. In the Western imagination, 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:54.120 it seems half logical that if a giant, unknown arachnid 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.480 did exist, that's where it would be. The same cannot 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:03.520 be said for the modern urbanized United States, however. Nonetheless, 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:07.880 one of the most intriguing encounters with an oversized spider 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.080 is said to have taken place in the small city 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:16.480 of Leesville, Louisiana, in nineteen forty eight. It was a 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.800 cool evening when forty eight year old William Sladen accompanied 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.960 his wife Pearl, and their three children to church. The 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:30.160 youngest of the children was Richard, only six years old. Together, 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:34.479 they walked north along Highway one seventy one, chattering amiably 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.560 until they reached a dip in the road. Suddenly, William 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.480 Sladen stood ramrod still and held out his hands to 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:47.080 stop his family proceeding any further. The children obeyed, and 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:50.920 young Richard watched the road ahead for whatever threat had 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:55.600 so clearly spoot his grandfather. He heard a rustling in 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.960 the overgrown ditch at the side of the highway. Then 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:03.760 he looked on with disbelief and dawning horror as something 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:08.360 terrifying emerged from it. As Richard described it to his 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.679 son Todd fifty years later, it was a huge spider, 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:17.000 the size of a washed up, hairy and black. As 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:21.280 it crossed the road, the Sladen family watched in utter silence. 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:26.400 No one said a word. The spider crossed the asphalt 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:31.440 in a stately, unhurried fashion, eventually disappearing into the brush 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:35.560 on the western side of the highway. The family didn't 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:38.960 daret a cross where the spider had been. They simply 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:50.080 turned around and went home. Richard says that only once 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.720 did he and his brothers ask their grandfather what it 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.120 was they had seen. William's blunt response was that it 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:00.400 was simply a very large spider. This apparent, straight and 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.640 terrifying episode was never discussed again, but Richard would tell 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.520 his own son that he suspected the old man knew 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.560 more than he was letting on. I always had the 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.960 impression that Grandpa was familiar with it. He said that 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.160 he had seen one before. He was a man who'd 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.920 lived deep in the woods, building makeshift towns to facilitate 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.520 the logging industry. Maybe he saw things in those woods 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.440 he didn't talk about to us kids, another piece of 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.480 rural folklore. Perhaps the memory of a child inflating a 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:39.000 roaming tarantula into a gargantuan monster. Maybe. But in twenty nineteen, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:43.960 nearly seventy years after Richard's experience, a sergeant stationed at 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:49.000 Louisiana's Fort Polk gave a series of strange first hand reports. 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.840 The soldier going by the handle, Sergeant S wrote a 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:59.200 prominent cryptozoologist, Carl Schucker, detailing encounters he and his colleagues 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:03.000 had had with an especially enormous species of spider at 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.560 the base, which is situated only eight miles from the 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:12.080 Leesville town limits. Sergeant S's first apparent sighting was in 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:14.760 two thousand and five, when he was part of d 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.440 Company in the one hundred and first Airborne Division based 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.800 at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. In the early spring, he 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:27.040 traveled to Fort Polk for complex field training. In the 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:31.000 early evening. The sergeant was walking with another soldier, whom 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.800 he refers to as Sergeant Becky. They were making their 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:38.080 way from the company dorms to the motorple, a short 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.160 journey that took them on a dirt road cutting through 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:45.840 a thickly wooded area. It was approaching dark, and both 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:51.000 held flashlights to illuminate the shadowy path. Sergeant Becky was 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.800 walking ten feet ahead when she suddenly screamed and tripped, 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.480 falling to the road. When Sergeant s ran up to 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.400 help her, he caught sight of something in its torchlight, 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:05.480 a large hairy shape on the edge of the tree line, 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.399 no more than four feet from the prone Becky. It 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.520 was a mottled color, he said, with white and gray 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.560 bristles and raised ridges and bumps running down the sides 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.880 of its head and abdomen. The creature's head was roughly 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:25.159 three feet from the ground and covered in eyes. It 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:29.639 raised a pair of spinly prying appendages. Then, as the 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.200 two soldiers looked on it splayed its other legs as 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:38.920 if preparing to pounce forward. Sergeantes could see visible fangs 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:43.440 surrounded by a three to four inch mouth In a panic, 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.400 he set two with the butt of his carbine rifle, 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.600 swinging wildly at the thing's head while kicking and screaming 0:17:50.840 --> 0:18:04.040 at the top of his lungs. Sergeant S claimed that 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:08.280 he later reported details to Karlshuka about the spider's eyes, 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.159 how his flashlight illuminated the eye tube like shining a 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:16.440 light into a bottle filled with clear jelly. The spider 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.600 backed away several feet, at which point the sergeant reversed 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.840 its weapon and fired a round of bullets directly at 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:27.720 its face. The creature is then said to have responded 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.560 with a foul smelling liquid from somewhere close to its mouth. 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.320 It fanned out like a liquid shot from a nozzle 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.280 and instantly turned to mist, which settled on both Sergeant 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:44.680 S and Becky's clothing. Under onslaught, the huge spider finally 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.919 beat a clumsy retreat into the bush, crashing into the 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:52.000 trees as it stumbled away. After only a few feet, 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:56.800 it was rendered invisible among the shadows and leaves. As 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.000 Sergeant S pulled the still screaming Becky to her feet, 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.320 his foot landed on a ropelike filament which stuck to 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.919 his boot strongly enough that he had to cut it 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:11.720 away with a knife. After reporting the incident, the sergeant 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.560 claims that he was accompanied back to the area for 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.600 an inspection, during which they found more of the sticky 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:24.840 weblike substance surrounding a half a meter hole the pit as. 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.560 The sergeant described it at a sort of circular thatched 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:33.240 cover hinged with some kind of glue. He described it 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.960 as a construction of small sticks and leaves arranged in 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:42.720 a symmetrical radial pattern. It was an interesting and specific detail, 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.560 considering that the car tribe similar descriptions of trapped or 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:52.639 like constructions apparently created by the tube fufi. A strong 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:56.520 skunk like scent persisted in the air and remained in 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:01.240 the soldier's clothing for days. A member of senior leadership 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.479 recognized the scent on them and ordered his men to 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:09.680 find bottles of ammonia and simple green degreasa. He ordered 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.679 Sergeant s and Becky to wash their hands and faces immediately, 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.960 and warned them to wash both themselves and their uniforms 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.960 several more times. If you don't get the smell out, 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:26.280 They were told, she'll come after you. The senior officer 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.680 did not elaborate further. It was a few nights later 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.840 when Sergeant S and a few of his fellow troops 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.120 were awoken by the sound of something traversing the corrugated 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:42.240 roof of their sleeping quarters. It sounded at first like 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:47.080 brain drops, though with a strange hesitant rhythm. When it 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:51.240 abruptly stopped above them, the men, including a very nervous 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:55.800 Sergeant S, went outside to have a look. One of 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:58.240 the men was boosted up to the roof to check 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:08.960 it out, but he found nothing elsewhere in the barracks. 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.920 On the same night as the strange sounds on the roof, 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.240 another soldier was said to have been woken by the 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:19.000 sound of something tapping at the window. He looked up 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:21.240 to see what he first took to be an old, 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:25.400 bearded man wearing large goggles, peering in at the sleeping 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:30.520 men from the doorway. The soldier hurriedly rushed outside to investigate, 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.880 only to watch the strange figure crawl away, rapidly, scale 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:40.120 a ten foot fence, and disappear into the woods. Two 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.000 years later, in the spring of two thousand and seven, 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.840 Sergeant S was back at Fort Polk for another pre 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:51.960 deployment exercise. Late one afternoon, the sergeant set out for 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.399 a run on the nearby Alligator Lake Loop in the 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:59.359 company of two other soldiers. As they jogged down the 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.840 wide dirt road that circled the water, one of the 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:07.119 group began to suffer from heat exhaustion. They stopped and 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.800 settled her in the shade while Sergeantes ran to fetch 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:15.240 a medic on the return journey. As the sergeant led 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.959 the medic toward his colleague, the medic stepped in something 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.600 sticky on the ground. He pulled off his shoe to 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:26.440 find a strange fibrous material clinging to the bottom of 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:30.240 it and stretching across the path. Had there not been 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:32.639 so much of it, he would have said it was 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:37.719 some kind of spider's web. Sergeantes broke off to relieve 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:42.440 himself in the bushes. He suddenly became aware of movement 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:45.000 in the leaves on the other side of the trail. 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:49.480 Staring out toward a trembling leaf, he was certain he 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:53.560 could see something dark peeking out at the foliage. The 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:57.760 medic saw it too. The sergeant later described it as 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:02.160 being covered in bristles, with two pebble like eyes, each 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:06.639 three to four inches in circumference. Surrounded by smaller orbs. 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.440 He believed he saw its fangs too. As soon as 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:14.399 the sergeant moved, it was said to have scurried away 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.359 into the bush, and the men didn't hang around to 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:22.280 find out more. Later in the week, the sergeant was 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:26.240 back out on a late night exercise. It took place 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:28.680 on the edge of the training ground, where a mock 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:32.800 village had been built to allow troops to practice urban combat. 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:37.280 That night, the sergeant was positioned in the top story 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:40.800 window of a makeshift wooden house when he spotted a 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:45.159 friend passing on the street below smoking a cigarette. The 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:48.280 sergeant yelled for him to stop, then stepped onto the 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:51.760 roof and jumped down to join him. He lit one 0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:55.520 up for himself, enjoying the brief moment of respite under 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.520 the stars. As the pair began to talk, the friend 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:02.840 so he went very quiet as he looked over the 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:08.919 sergeant's shoulder. Sergeantes, following his friend's gates, looked up to 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:12.840 see a familiar shape walking across the roof of the house. 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:17.720 According to s its legs were easily six feet apart, 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:21.960 with a torso roughly one foot thick and two feet long. 0:24:22.920 --> 0:24:26.280 The sergeant threw rocks at the roof until the spider 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:30.639 skitted away and once more disappeared into the gloom of 0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:41.560 the woods beyond. The supposed encounter in the training village 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:45.880 was Sergeant S's last apparent encounter with giant spiders at 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:50.440 Fort Polk, Louisiana. He did, however, follow up his story 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:55.359 with some observations. First, he proposed that the creatures he 0:24:55.440 --> 0:24:58.159 saw on his second trip to Fort Polk may have 0:24:58.240 --> 0:25:02.600 been female, as to understanding the female spiders tend to 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:07.199 be larger and more aggressive. Second, he wondered if the 0:25:07.240 --> 0:25:10.520 spiders hunted by scent and if it had been actively 0:25:10.640 --> 0:25:13.399 seeking him in the makeshift building on the edge of 0:25:13.440 --> 0:25:17.520 the training ground, having identified him from its urine near 0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:22.000 Alligator Lake. And lastly, he pointed out that he was 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:25.119 not alone in his awareness of the spiders, and that 0:25:25.280 --> 0:25:29.800 local troops often made jokes about their existence and warned 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:35.000 new recruits never to venture into the woods alone. He 0:25:35.080 --> 0:25:38.399 also pointed out that when he apparently reported each of 0:25:38.440 --> 0:25:42.359 his encounters up the chain of command, the leadership professed 0:25:42.560 --> 0:25:46.000 not to believe his story and accused him repeatedly of 0:25:46.080 --> 0:25:51.520 misidentifying a dog with severe mange. He was allegedly warned 0:25:51.640 --> 0:25:54.320 that his career would suffer were he to pursue the 0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:58.800 issue any further. To the best of his knowledge, he writes, 0:25:59.200 --> 0:26:02.280 no official or port was ever put on the record. 0:26:04.400 --> 0:26:08.199 There is something so universally arresting about the concept of 0:26:08.240 --> 0:26:11.200 a giant spider that it has wriggled its way into 0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:16.560 both ancient myth and contemporary entertainment across the globe. From 0:26:16.600 --> 0:26:20.520 a Nancy Trickster of West African folk tales and the 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:26.160 Jaragumo spider demon of Japanese law to Tolkien's Hideous Shelop 0:26:26.640 --> 0:26:31.880 and Aragoic from the Harry Potter universe, giant spiders clearly 0:26:32.000 --> 0:26:37.600 pull at some fundamental aspect of the human imagination. Accepted 0:26:37.680 --> 0:26:42.960 science asserts that the real thing is impossible. However, due 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:47.199 to the particular construction of a spider's respiratory system, there 0:26:47.240 --> 0:26:50.160 are thought to be firm limits on how large they 0:26:50.160 --> 0:26:54.480 can really grow. Spiders do not breathe through their mouths 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:58.520 like other animals. Instead, they get their oxygen through their 0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:02.080 skin in what is non as an open respiratory system. 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:08.159 Through a network of tubes called trakia, oxygen is transferred 0:27:08.200 --> 0:27:12.679 to their tissue. It's a process of slow diffusion throughout 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:16.560 the body, which rapidly becomes less efficient as the spider 0:27:16.640 --> 0:27:21.080 increases in size. This then should put to bed any 0:27:21.119 --> 0:27:25.560 notion of the three, four or five foot specimens said 0:27:25.600 --> 0:27:28.400 to have been glimpsed as they scamper across the back 0:27:28.480 --> 0:27:35.199 roads of the world, and yet apparent sightings persist. In 0:27:35.280 --> 0:27:39.560 twenty thirteen, a video was uploaded to YouTube from a 0:27:39.640 --> 0:27:44.240 trail cam in Mozambique. It claims to be footage of 0:27:44.320 --> 0:27:48.560 a Cuba fufi or the East African equivalent, appearing to 0:27:48.640 --> 0:27:54.080 approach a watering hole. The short film is grainy and unclear, 0:27:54.520 --> 0:27:57.720 but there is definite movement across the right hand side 0:27:57.760 --> 0:28:01.399 of the screen. When the film is enhanced and the 0:28:01.480 --> 0:28:05.760 contrast inverted, it does appear to show something at least 0:28:05.800 --> 0:28:08.520 the size of a large dog, but with a far 0:28:08.640 --> 0:28:13.440 greater number of spinly legs, skittering briskly across the ground. 0:28:14.680 --> 0:28:19.199 It's there one moment, then gone the next, and like 0:28:19.320 --> 0:28:23.600 any encounter with large spiders glimpsed from the corner of 0:28:23.680 --> 0:28:27.439 the eye, it's hard not to wonder exactly where it 0:28:27.560 --> 0:28:38.520 might be right now. This episode was written by Neil 0:28:38.600 --> 0:28:44.120 McRobert and produced by me Richard McLean Smith. Neil is 0:28:44.160 --> 0:28:47.680 the creator and host of his own brilliant podcast called 0:28:47.760 --> 0:28:51.440 Talking Scared, in which he discusses the craft of horror, 0:28:51.440 --> 0:28:55.480 writing with everyone from Ta Nanerieve Do to the God 0:28:55.520 --> 0:28:59.920 of Horror himself, Stephen King. I can't recommend it highly enough. 0:29:01.240 --> 0:29:05.520 Unexplained as an AV Club Productions podcast created by Richard 0:29:05.560 --> 0:29:09.680 McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, 0:29:10.120 --> 0:29:14.960 are also produced by me Richard mccleinsmith. Unexplained. The book 0:29:15.000 --> 0:29:18.960 and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can 0:29:19.000 --> 0:29:23.560 purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores. 0:29:24.280 --> 0:29:27.320