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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick. And oh boy, I'm

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Speaker 3: excited because it's Anomalous historical photograph Day on Stuff to

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Speaker 3: Blow Your Mind. Today, we are going to be talking

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Speaker 3: about a moderately famous underwater image that has been classified

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Speaker 3: by some as an anomaly. Now, I think it's debatable

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Speaker 3: whether the word anomaly could or should still be applied

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Speaker 3: to it, because I guess normally anomaly is defined as

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Speaker 3: something that is different from what is normal or expected,

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Speaker 3: or at least appears to be different from what is

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Speaker 3: normal or expected. I don't know if you can still

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Speaker 3: apply that to a photo that you pretty much have

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Speaker 3: conclusively identified and soared into the mundane category now, but

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Speaker 3: still looks weird. Maybe we can adjudicate that later in

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Speaker 3: the episode. But anyway, one thing that is interesting about

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Speaker 3: anomalist photographs in our culture is that the anomaly kind

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Speaker 3: of has a secondary definition beyond just something that is

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Speaker 3: or appears to be different from what is normal or expected,

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Speaker 3: and that secondary definition is proof of aliens confirmed.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, this is a this is a topic we've

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Speaker 2: we've touched on a little bit before. I mean, things

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Speaker 2: have come up, like, you know, supposed ancient etchings or

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Speaker 2: carvings of dinosaurs. I remember we did at least in

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Speaker 2: that one episode on that in the past. And then

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Speaker 2: you can also apply this to things like photographs of bigfoot,

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Speaker 2: photographs of strange lights in the sky, and so forth.

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Speaker 2: And granted, especially in those two categories, you often get

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Speaker 2: into situations where there is often a strong case to

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Speaker 2: be made for intentional fiery on top of all the

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Speaker 2: other things that can be going on with a photograph,

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Speaker 2: you know, actual photographic anomalies, atmospheric anomalies, and so forth.

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Speaker 2: Today's episode deals with an image that is not a

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Speaker 2: work of fakery. It is an actual image that was

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Speaker 2: gathered through scientific exploration. But without proper expertise, you can

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Speaker 2: easily see well basically anything you want out of it.

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Speaker 2: You know. The thing about an anomaly like this quote

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Speaker 2: unquote is that, yeah, whatever your preconceived notions happen to be,

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Speaker 2: you can easily attach them to this thing, especially if

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Speaker 2: you don't have that expertise and you don't have that

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Speaker 2: sort of I don't know, general open mindedness about what

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Speaker 2: it might be right.

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Speaker 3: This is one of many cases where if you don't

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Speaker 3: have the requisite contextual knowledge, something that is initially just

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Speaker 3: a weird looking photograph can take on all kinds of significance,

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Speaker 3: and in fact, there has been a historical mythology built

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Speaker 3: around this one weird photo we're going to talk about today.

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Speaker 3: But I think before we get into the photo we're

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Speaker 3: talking about in today's episode, since this is going to

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Speaker 3: touch on the idea of proof of aliens confirmed and

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Speaker 3: UFO lore and all that, I feel like it's fair

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Speaker 3: to sort of just announce where we're coming from. We've

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Speaker 3: talked about this somewhat on the show before, and we've

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Speaker 3: actually gotten some recent listener mail where people were asking

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Speaker 3: us to address the recent news about so called UFO disclosures,

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Speaker 3: So to do that at the top, Rob, I don't

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Speaker 3: want to speak for you, but I think we're probably

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Speaker 3: on roughly the same page here. You can correct me

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Speaker 3: if I'm wrong. Despite the recent flurry of excitement, and

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Speaker 3: if you haven't kept up with it, the short version

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Speaker 3: is there was recently whistleblower testimony in front of a

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Speaker 3: House Oversight subcommittee in the US Congress from a man

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Speaker 3: who claims that people have told him that the US

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Speaker 3: government knows aliens exist and we are in possession of

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Speaker 3: crash spacecraft and alien bodies, etc. There is no hard

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Speaker 3: evidence publicly available. He's saying people told him this. So

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Speaker 3: despite the excited media coverage about this, my personal position

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Speaker 3: remains basically unchanged. And I would characterize that as regarding

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Speaker 3: the topic of alien contact or alien visitation of Earth

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Speaker 3: with curiosity and open mindedness, but strong skepticism.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I do want to drive on. It's

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Speaker 2: perfectly all right to be excited by all of this.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the idea that somebody's testifying about this in

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Speaker 2: front of the House Oversight Subcommittee is pretty exciting, and

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Speaker 2: he's saying some pretty exciting things, and you can't help

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Speaker 2: but ask, well, if true, what does that mean? And

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Speaker 2: raises a lot of questions. But yeah, I think there

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Speaker 2: are some legitimate questions to be raised before you really

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Speaker 2: take all that to the bank. And plus, as we've

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Speaker 2: talked about on the show before, the idea of alien life,

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Speaker 2: it's a complex question, you know. The deeper you go,

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Speaker 2: there's obviously a big difference between saying yes, I think

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Speaker 2: there is something else alive in the universe and saying yes,

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Speaker 2: I think there are other life forms. They're technologically advanced,

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Speaker 2: they have spaceships, and they have visited us. And oh,

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Speaker 2: some of our secreted advanced technology today is based on

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Speaker 2: things that we were able to pilfer from their crashes.

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Speaker 2: So like, is their life? Is there intelligent life? To

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Speaker 2: paraphrase Arthur C. Clark, Any answer to any such question

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Speaker 2: I think is equally mind blowing.

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Speaker 3: Right, that's right, And I think it's very good to

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Speaker 3: disentangle those two questions. One the question of whether aliens

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Speaker 3: exist at all somewhere out there. On that question, I

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Speaker 3: think we just don't have enough information to decide. So there,

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Speaker 3: I don't even really lean one way or another on

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Speaker 3: that as of today. I think it's just totally open question,

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Speaker 3: not enough information to judge.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there you could basically say well, there is,

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Speaker 2: there isn't. And to get more directly to the Arthur C.

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Speaker 2: Clark quote about this, like either answer is just absolutely

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Speaker 2: stunning to say that we are completely alone in the universe,

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Speaker 2: that we are the anomaly our planet of life, or

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Speaker 2: to say oh, yeah, there is somewhere out there, there

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Speaker 2: is a planet of life. And it may be just

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Speaker 2: so far from us. It's so far from us that

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Speaker 2: also questions of when become complex to think about. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: it could be out there and we will simply never

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Speaker 2: know about it, and it will never know about us,

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Speaker 2: you know. I mean, it's all this is just mind

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Speaker 2: blowing to contemplate.

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Speaker 3: But while I think alien existence overall is a totally

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Speaker 3: open question, visitation is a question where I guess my

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Speaker 3: standards are a little bit different, and I do start

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Speaker 3: to have a lean on that question. I will say

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Speaker 3: I'm not one of those people who thinks it's like

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Speaker 3: gross or shameful to even investigate the idea of of

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Speaker 3: alien contact on Earth, like I sometimes see skeptical scientists

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Speaker 3: like getting angry about like Avi Lo coming out in

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Speaker 3: the news and saying, Oh, I'm combing the seafloor looking

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Speaker 3: for metal spheres to run tests on them, and I

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Speaker 3: think maybe they're aliens. I understand their frustration with him

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Speaker 3: sort of maybe jumping the gun on the conclusion and

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Speaker 3: over hyping results to say I think there are aliens.

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Speaker 3: But I mean, I think it's fine to investigate if

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Speaker 3: that interests you, as long as you are objective about

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Speaker 3: what you find and you don't misrepresent or overhype in

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Speaker 3: conclusive results to the media, which I think is a

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Speaker 3: legitimate thing to get kind of annoyed about. And that

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Speaker 3: is the main thing that I think a lot of

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Speaker 3: skeptics find annoying about that sort of project.

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Speaker 2: It is kind of interesting that if a scientist is

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Speaker 2: talking about putting like shrimp on a treadmill or something

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Speaker 2: to that effect or of that sort of nature, there's

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Speaker 2: always the follow up question, oh, have you said if

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Speaker 2: you have you solved the problem of cancer yet? Have

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Speaker 2: you have you? I guess you've You've You've tackled all

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Speaker 2: of these other big scientific problems. But generally I don't

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Speaker 2: hear that criticism leveled at UFO scientists and so forth.

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Speaker 2: They're not like, well, wait, why are you not not

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Speaker 2: curing cancer? Why are you looking for UFOs? I don't know.

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Speaker 2: You can interpret that how you wish.

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Speaker 3: Well, that is interesting, I mean, I guess I would say, uh, scientifically,

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Speaker 3: and looking for evidence of alien visitation of Earth is

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Speaker 3: like a kind of a high risk, high reward strategy.

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Speaker 3: It's sort of a gambit. It's like you, I mean, here,

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Speaker 3: I'm speaking with you know, my personal opinion I'd say,

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Speaker 3: you are very very likely wasting your time, but on

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Speaker 3: the off chance you're not, you will make the most

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Speaker 3: important discovery in human history.

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Speaker 2: True. Yeah, So it's a it's a big gamble. It's

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Speaker 2: it's like, you know it's the Latto, right, you know

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Speaker 2: that the odds are just astronomical, but the prize is enormous.

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Speaker 2: So you go ahead and you your ticket, you scratch

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Speaker 2: it off.

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Speaker 3: But anyway, but coming back to the question of evidence

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Speaker 3: for alien visitation, I would be you know, I'm not

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Speaker 3: like somebody who doesn't want to find out about this.

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Speaker 3: I would be extremely interested and excited if there were

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Speaker 3: any good reason to believe aliens ever came to Earth.

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Speaker 3: But I have been interested in this topic and never

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Speaker 3: seen evidence that was even close to convincing. And furthermore,

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Speaker 3: what I have seen is like a pattern of behavior,

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Speaker 3: a pattern of behavior from alien contact advocates of presenting

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Speaker 3: bad evidence as good or promising that there is good

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Speaker 3: evidence somewhere else, maybe being hidden from you, maybe soon

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Speaker 3: to be revealed, and you'd be really convinced if you

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Speaker 3: saw that, but for some reason you can't. And so

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Speaker 3: that pattern of behavior, I would say, has conditioned me

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Speaker 3: like it puts my guard up about any explosive claims

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Speaker 3: on this subject, even if they're being listened to by Congress.

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Speaker 3: So you know, at this point, I'm still I would say,

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Speaker 3: I am still waiting for good evidence, and I reserve

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Speaker 3: judgment until good evidence actually shows up. That you know,

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Speaker 3: like that people can look.

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Speaker 2: At I like how you're always up for the possibility.

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Speaker 2: For me, if I'm being honest, there's some weeks where

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Speaker 2: I'm like, this is not a good week, y'all. If

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Speaker 2: we are going to discover that the alien visitations have

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Speaker 2: been occurring and there's like definite proof that, I just

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Speaker 2: would prefer that it happened like maybe next month, because

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Speaker 2: I've got a lot going on right now.

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Speaker 3: Well that's a good point, i'd say. Also, yeah, there

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Speaker 3: are some weeks I'm more ready to meet the grays

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Speaker 3: than other ones.

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Speaker 2: Now, one thing I want to stress is, you know

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Speaker 2: we're talking about here is the sort of questing for

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Speaker 2: objective evidence and how often there is a lack of

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Speaker 2: objective evidence here. And I do want to stress something

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Speaker 2: that we've touched on before regarding subjective experiences. Subjective paranormal

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Speaker 2: experiences are certainly real to those who experience them, and

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Speaker 2: they can clearly be life changing in a number of ways.

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Speaker 2: So you know, you or people you know may have

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Speaker 2: had these experiences. You may have seen something you couldn't

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Speaker 2: completely explain. And as humans, we've always had such experiences,

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Speaker 2: and we can apply skepticism and scientific logic to why

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Speaker 2: these experiences occurred. You know, in short, supernatural or the

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Speaker 2: other worldly explanations are rarely necessary, but we still have

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Speaker 2: to acknowledge the impact of the experience.

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Speaker 3: Right, And this is a thing that I think makes

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Speaker 3: the UFO subjects kind of difficult because a lot of

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Speaker 3: people who are very devoted to belief in UFOs have

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Speaker 3: in some sense had like an experience of their own

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Speaker 3: or they think, you know, they're like personally connected to

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Speaker 3: this subject. And so it's very important to stress that, like,

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Speaker 3: while you've got to keep your skeptical standards of evidence

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Speaker 3: up when you're actually saying have aliens really been here?

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Speaker 3: You know, you want to have a high standard of evidence,

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Speaker 3: but at the same time be sensitive to people and say,

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Speaker 3: like us looking for that standard of evidence is not

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Speaker 3: a personal critique of you as a person have had

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Speaker 3: an experience. You know, it is very common for people

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Speaker 3: to have strange experiences that they don't know how to explain.

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Speaker 3: And it's even if maybe aliens are not the best

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Speaker 3: actual explanation according to the evidence we have, it's not

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Speaker 3: unreasonable that some people would, I don't know, seek an

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Speaker 3: explanation of that sort when they've had a very powerful,

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Speaker 3: unexplainable experience.

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Speaker 2: Right, something you can't explain happens. You look for answers.

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Speaker 2: You also look for patterns in the world around you.

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Speaker 2: But as you look for answers, you also encounter pre

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Speaker 2: existing scripts to try and make sense of what that was.

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Speaker 2: And if it's lights in the sky, well, there are

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Speaker 2: a few ready made scripts that are probably the easiest

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Speaker 2: to absorb, that have like social support, some of them

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Speaker 2: are religious, some of them do relate to things like space,

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Speaker 2: aliens and so forth, and so it makes sense that

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Speaker 2: you would latch onto those to make sense of what

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Speaker 2: happened to you. And yeah, then you go out into

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Speaker 2: the world, you look for patterns, you look for supporting information.

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Speaker 3: Now here's where we're going to start moving back toward

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Speaker 3: our anomalist photo of the day, or supposedly anomalous photo

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Speaker 3: of the day. There is a counter to everything we've

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Speaker 3: been saying so far, which is sometimes people will say, well, okay,

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Speaker 3: maybe you're not impressed with everything you've seen so far,

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Speaker 3: but what about this photo of a triangular arrangement of lights,

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Speaker 3: or this video of a white object moving across the sky,

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Speaker 3: or this object on the seafloor that looks like a

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Speaker 3: piece of alien radar equipment, etc. There are a lot

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Speaker 3: of pieces of media out there, a lot of photo

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Speaker 3: and video and sometimes sound recording and stuff where people

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Speaker 3: can say this looks weird or this sounds weird. I

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Speaker 3: can't think of anything that I know of on Earth

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Speaker 3: that would produce an image like this, So shouldn't all

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Speaker 3: of that stuff count as evidence of aliens? And this

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Speaker 3: brings me to a concept that I've been thinking about

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Speaker 3: recently that is really just based on an offhand phrase

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Speaker 3: I heard when I honestly, I don't remember exactly which

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Speaker 3: interview this came from, but I was listening to a

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Speaker 3: series of interviews with a science writer and skeptical UFO

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Speaker 3: researcher named Mick West. West He's written articles for skeptical

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Speaker 3: publications about all kinds of subjects, written about Kim Trail's

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Speaker 3: and things like that, but also about UFOs of late,

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Speaker 3: and has done analysis of popular UFO or UAP videos

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Speaker 3: to try to figure out if you can actually identify

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Speaker 3: what is it we're looking at in this video, where's

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Speaker 3: some kind of weird object appears to move across the sky,

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Speaker 3: and in many cases he is able to identify, in

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Speaker 3: some cases he's not. And so I apologize if I'm

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Speaker 3: not using West's exact preferred terminology here, but this is

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Speaker 3: just what I heard him say offhand in one moment,

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Speaker 3: and it was the idea of something called the low

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Speaker 3: information zone. I think maybe another way to think about

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Speaker 3: the same idea would be to call it the zone

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Speaker 3: of low resolution, with low resolution referm ring in the

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Speaker 3: specific sense to photographs and other attempts at imaging that

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Speaker 3: produce a blurry or fuzzy or indistinct product, but also

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Speaker 3: to think about low resolution in a broader sense, where

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Speaker 3: it would refer to records or pieces of media, or accounts,

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Speaker 3: any type of evidence that contain lower than desirable ratios

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Speaker 3: of identifying detail and are generally lacking in context and clarity.

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Speaker 3: I think this concept is really useful when talking about

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Speaker 3: UFOs or UAPs, where it seems to me West's sort

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Speaker 3: of generalization is that all of the pieces of evidence

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Speaker 3: for aliens or other non human intelligence making contact on

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Speaker 3: Earth that remain somewhat interesting or still seem kind of

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Speaker 3: unsolved or viable tend to exist in this zone of

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Speaker 3: low information or low resolution, where there's a lot of vagueness,

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Speaker 3: lack of verifiable detail, or lack of context. Essentially, there's

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Speaker 3: not enough information in them that a reasonable observer can

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Speaker 3: be confident that they understand what they're looking at. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 3: when there is evidence in the sort of high information zone,

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Speaker 3: say when there's like really good video that's in focus

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Speaker 3: and has proper foreground background for scale, and has a

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Speaker 3: lot of information in it, it seems like it's specifically

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Speaker 3: those cases that are more likely to turn out to

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Speaker 3: have provable, clear, identifiable, mundane explanations. These turn out to

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Speaker 3: be plastic bags or balloons or airplanes or stars or

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Speaker 3: well known digital artifacts produced by cameras and other types

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Speaker 3: of sensors.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is also where intentional fakery tends to come

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Speaker 2: out as well.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and I thought this was interesting because I

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Speaker 3: do not at all want to represent myself as a

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Speaker 3: UFO expert. I'm not in any way, but It just

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Speaker 3: sort of squares with my experience as a generalist researching

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Speaker 3: extremely variegated, supposedly anomalous phenomena throughout history. You know, we've

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Speaker 3: covered a lot of subjects like this on the show

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Speaker 3: at some point, especially with things that have been claimed

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Speaker 3: as proof of aliens or proof of the supernatural or

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Speaker 3: whatever it seems. It's very often in the cases where

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Speaker 3: information quality is high that you're most likely to nail

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Speaker 3: down an alternative explanation to figure out, ah, here's what's

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Speaker 3: going on. It does have an explanation, the explanation is

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Speaker 3: mundane or within the range of known causes and so forth.

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Speaker 3: And it's in cases where the information quality is very low,

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Speaker 3: where details are vague or uncheckable, where crucial context is missing,

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Speaker 3: and so forth, that you end up having to shrug

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Speaker 3: your shoulders and say, I don't know what we're looking at.

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Speaker 3: I don't know what this is, don't know what the

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Speaker 3: explanation is. And in that case, if a UFO enthusiast

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Speaker 3: is so inclined, they could say, ah, you don't know

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Speaker 3: what it is. Therefore proof of aliens confirmed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this reminds me too of you know, you can

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Speaker 2: also look at various signals that have been it seemed

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Speaker 2: to be observed, you know, coming from elsewhere in the cosmos,

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Speaker 2: sounds that have been recorded coming from the deep ocean,

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Speaker 2: things where you know, there's some there are some, definitely

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Speaker 2: some strong hypotheses regarding these various anomalies. But at the

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Speaker 2: end of the day, can you one hundred percent say

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Speaker 2: what it is? Well, not necessarily, and therefore the window

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Speaker 2: is left cracked at least a little bit, maybe maybe

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Speaker 2: cracked a lot, a lot further open, depending on your

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Speaker 2: willingness to interpret it a certain way. But it remains

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Speaker 2: open somewhat to some of these more far fetched explanations.

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Speaker 2: And then you can go the extra mile and say, oh, well,

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Speaker 2: prove to me that the bloop is not the sound

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Speaker 2: of mighty Cuthulea rising in the deep.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, elder gods, disprove or except so, I guess the

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Speaker 3: question from a reasoning standpoint is if you accept and

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Speaker 3: I think most people will probably recognize this at some level.

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Speaker 3: You be kind of familiar with this, even beyond like

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Speaker 3: UFOs and stuff. This is just kind of true in life.

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Speaker 3: If you accept this pattern is generally true, that evidence

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Speaker 3: one could hold up as viable in terms of proving

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Speaker 3: something weird. A weird explanation tends to exist in the

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Speaker 3: low information zone, whereas evidence in the high information zone

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Speaker 3: is very likely to end up pointing to a mundane explanation.

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Speaker 3: Should this pattern itself influence how you think about evidence

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Speaker 3: of alien life, I would say personally, I don't think

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Speaker 3: it should bias at all your starting assumptions about whether

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Speaker 3: aliens exist, because, as we said again early on, that's

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Speaker 3: that's just like not really within our search space for

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Speaker 3: evidence at least so far, so open question there. But

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Speaker 3: think it probably should increase your resistance to putting apparently

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Speaker 3: anomalous but low information observations into the could be alien's basket,

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Speaker 3: because you know this pattern exists. There's lots of stuff

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Speaker 3: like this. There are many analogies. But usually the higher

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Speaker 3: you are able to turn up the resolution on what

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Speaker 3: you're looking at, the more information you can add, the

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Speaker 3: more context you can get, the more the sharper you

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Speaker 3: can make the contours of the image itself. The less

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Speaker 3: likely it is that aliens are going to seem like

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Speaker 3: a good explanation, and the more likely you are to

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Speaker 3: be like, oh, that's a plastic bag, or like oh,

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Speaker 3: that's a recognizable animal. And I think maybe that'll bring

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Speaker 3: us to the case today, a case of an underwater

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Speaker 3: photograph that has been dubbed the Eltannin antenna, or maybe

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Speaker 3: if we don't think it's an antenna in the end,

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Speaker 3: should we call it like the eltannan object.

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Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, that's fair. I have wondered that everyone keeps

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Speaker 2: calling it the l ten and antenna. Why not just

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Speaker 2: call it the Eltenna. It seems like that like the

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Speaker 2: natural direction to go in. But but yeah, the the

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Speaker 2: this is going to be a good one to discuss

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Speaker 2: because it is a thing that an image that that

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Speaker 2: was completely embraced by ufologists and and sort of paranormal

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Speaker 2: interpretations and continues to be held up in many circles

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Speaker 2: as being this kind of icon of the paranormal, in

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Speaker 2: proof of something. You know what that's something is depending

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Speaker 2: on you know, your exact case that you're making for

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Speaker 2: like the secret nature of reality. And yet at the

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Speaker 2: same time we know exactly what it is. I mean,

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Speaker 2: experts who know their way around deep sea organisms and

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Speaker 2: and the sorts of things you'd expect to find in

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Speaker 2: the deep ocean do not seem to have had any

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Speaker 2: They don't seem like they've had any doubts about this

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Speaker 2: for a number of decades. In fact, it's not that

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Speaker 2: long after the image was taken that we have a

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Speaker 2: pretty solid and convincing answer that everyone seems to be

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Speaker 2: satisfied with outside of the paranormal investigation world.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I would say, to be as fair as possible

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Speaker 3: to the people who want a paranormal or alien explanation,

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Speaker 3: you can't know for sure what it is because, like

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Speaker 3: you can't go back and check it, Like this was

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Speaker 3: a sort of transient phenomenon somewhere in the bottom of

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Speaker 3: the ocean, so we can't go back to the exact

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Speaker 3: spot and say, oh, is it still there and check it.

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Speaker 3: But I'd say ninety nine point nine percent sure we

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Speaker 3: know what it was. There's something else that would explain

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Speaker 3: this photo and would be found naturally in the place

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Speaker 3: where it was taken.

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Speaker 2: All right, let's roll out the story here. And the story,

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Speaker 2: I have to say, does start off with a number

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Speaker 2: of elements that already sound kind of supernatural, because the

396
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Speaker 2: story concerns the us NSL Tennant, an ice breaking cargo

397
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Speaker 2: vessel named after a star in the Draco constellation, and

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Speaker 2: I believe the name L ten And derives from the

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Speaker 2: Arabic for the great serpent. That's all just too good

400
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Speaker 2: off to a good stard. Yes, yeah, so it already

401
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Speaker 2: leans into some supernatural ideas here, right, But basically, back

402
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Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty four it was working as an oceanographic

403
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Speaker 2: research vessel in the Antarctic Ocean, which it did for

404
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Speaker 2: more than a decade. The research crew used it to

405
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Speaker 2: gather a great deal of data and it was used

406
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Speaker 2: to discover the hypothetical L ten And Impact Crater in

407
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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one via sediment cores collected earlier. That's something

408
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Speaker 2: to keep in mind with a lot of this, like

409
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Speaker 2: the data is gathered and then the data has to

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Speaker 2: be analyzed. It's not necessarily being analyzed on the ship.

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Speaker 2: It's bringing this back home and sometimes it's years later

412
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Speaker 2: that some particular find is made. Anyway, the L ten

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Speaker 2: And Impact crater, this was in the South Pacific and

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Speaker 2: it would have occurred somewhere in the neighborhood of two

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Speaker 2: and a half million years ago.

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Speaker 3: The impact that caused it would have been two and

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Speaker 3: a half million years ago.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the not the al Tannin which then goes

419
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Speaker 2: back in time in a twilight zone scenario. The ship

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Speaker 2: was also used in part to discover Hollister Ridge, a

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Speaker 2: group of seamounts in nineteen sixty five, and the ship's

422
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Speaker 2: work also provided plenty of evidence to support the continental

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Speaker 2: drift theory. And I believe actual specimens of many marine

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Speaker 2: organisms were also collected. So to be clear, this is

425
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Speaker 2: a hard working, serious science vessel.

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Speaker 3: YEP gave us a lot of useful knowledge about the

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Speaker 3: seafloor and the Antarctic oceans.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. On August twenty ninth, nineteen sixty four, the crew

429
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Speaker 2: took sample cores and photographed the seabed west of Cape Horn,

430
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Speaker 2: and it took a strange photo. Like it is strange.

431
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Speaker 2: I mean, I look at it and I have to

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Speaker 2: admit this is weird looking. It's a photo of something

433
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Speaker 2: at a depth of about three nine hundred and four

434
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 2: meters or twelve eight hundred and eight feet. This is

435
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 2: the image of the so called El Tannin and ten.

436
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 2: Now I'll probably throw this image up on our various

437
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:07,440
Speaker 2: accounts where listeners discuss episodes, but in general, you can

438
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 2: look up il Tan and Antenna on Wikipedia and you'll

439
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 2: see this kind of vertical image of the eltan and antenna.

440
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 2: But there's also this is like apparently a zoom in

441
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:22,920
Speaker 2: a crop of a wider image, and this one is

442
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 2: less reproduced. But for instance, I've found it initially on

443
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 2: a Twitter post by science writer Tyler Greenfield from June

444
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty three, so you will see it posted

445
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 2: in various places. And this is this image in particular,

446
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:41,919
Speaker 2: I believe it's from a book that I'm going to

447
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 2: reference here in just a bit.

448
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,639
Speaker 3: If you've never seen it or are not able to

449
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,439
Speaker 3: look it up right now, it looks like a pole

450
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:53,440
Speaker 3: jutting up from the seafloor straight up, and then it

451
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 3: has radial poles that extend out from the central pole

452
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 3: at ninety degree angles. So it does look very strange

453
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:05,679
Speaker 3: for something you would see on the seafloor.

454
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of like the image itself is kind

455
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 2: of haunting because it's all, you know, black and white.

456
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:12,200
Speaker 2: It kind of looks like a reverse negative image of

457
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 2: a popcorn ceiling, only upside down. This is the sea

458
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:20,200
Speaker 2: floor with this strange multi armed antenna like structure or

459
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:23,199
Speaker 2: perhaps weather vane like or kind of like a surrealist

460
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 2: street sign has those big gum knobs on the end

461
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 2: that you know, kind of reminds you of like a

462
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 2: jacks that you know, yeah, you're throwing and yeah, I mean,

463
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 2: if you if you want to see an antenna, you know,

464
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 2: you might say, well, this, this looks like an antenna,

465
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:43,040
Speaker 2: not necessarily an antenna I've seen before. But I guess

466
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 2: you could make that case, because on the other hand,

467
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 2: I don't think this really looks like human technology. But

468
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:50,800
Speaker 2: at the same time, there do appear to be right

469
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 2: angles in the positioning of the arms relative to its

470
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 2: trunk or its spine, and so you can see why

471
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,160
Speaker 2: this image might elicit mystery in many viewers.

472
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 3: Now, it's interesting that the comparison to technology goes back

473
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 3: to the very first published article about this. This actually

474
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:12,199
Speaker 3: is so. I could not find the text of the

475
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 3: original article in full, but I found it reproduced in

476
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,640
Speaker 3: a very good article from the Fourteen Times by Peter

477
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 3: Brooksmith from May two thousand and four called the Eltannan Enigma.

478
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,400
Speaker 3: This is a very good skeptical article that pretty much

479
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 3: lays out the whole history of the case and tells

480
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 3: about the various interpretations, as well as gives the almost

481
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:38,359
Speaker 3: certain correct mundane explanation of what this is. But in

482
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 3: this article Brooksmith finds and reproduces the original article from

483
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 3: the New Zealand Herald from December nineteen sixty four called

484
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 3: puzzle Picture from Seabed, which was published apparently right after

485
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 3: the Eltannan came into Auckland and was I guess processing

486
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:01,920
Speaker 3: or analyzing some of its research materials, and so it's

487
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 3: docked here in New Zealand, and we get this New

488
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 3: Zealand News article which says, among other things, quote the photograph,

489
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 3: which to a layman shows something like a complex radio

490
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 3: aerial jutting out of the mud bottom, was taken on

491
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 3: August twenty nine by a submarine camera. The camera is

492
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:21,919
Speaker 3: housed in a metal cylinder, pulled along by a cable

493
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 3: from the ship. It bounces along the seabed, taking pictures

494
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,919
Speaker 3: at regular intervals. Doctor Thomas Hopkins, senior marine biologist on

495
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 3: board who specializes in plankton studies, says the object could

496
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 3: hardly be a plant. Quote At that depth there is

497
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 3: no light, so photosynthesis could not take place and plants

498
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 3: could not live. If it is some strange choral formation,

499
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 3: then no one on board has ever heard about it before.

500
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 3: Doctor Hopkins, a graduate of the University of Southern California

501
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 3: said the ship's photographer had been thoroughly questioned on how

502
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 3: he had developed the photograph. However, everyone was certain the

503
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 3: picture was not faked. I wouldn't like to say that

504
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 3: the thing is man made, because this brings up the

505
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 3: problem of how one would get it there, he says,

506
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 3: But it's fairly symmetrical, and the offshoots are all ninety

507
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 3: degrees apart. This is why it has been argued over

508
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 3: for so long. And then the article goes on to

509
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 3: say the object is probably about sixty centimeters high or

510
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 3: about two feet high. The photograph is being sent for

511
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 3: analysis to some I think some labs or the University

512
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 3: of Southern California, and that's about the end of it.

513
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 3: But ooh, it's funny that while nowhere in the article

514
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 3: is it actually suggested in seriousness that this object is

515
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 3: alien or anything like that. I think they accidentally laid

516
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,080
Speaker 3: the groundwork for that kind of mythology to evolve, because

517
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 3: there is kind of offhanded suggestion of ruling out mundane

518
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 3: explanations like couldn't be a plant because you know, no

519
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 3: light gets down there, so that almost sounds too you know,

520
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 3: a very a very enthusiastic pro UFO type reader was

521
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 3: saying like, oh, well, then it couldn't be organic at all.

522
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 3: And then you say, well, it couldn't be human made,

523
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 3: because you know, how would you get it down to

524
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 3: the bottom of the ocean. And somebody could say that

525
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 3: that's right. Couldn't be human, couldn't be couldn't be a plant,

526
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 3: so it couldn't be organic. So, I mean, what's left?

527
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 2: So just to refresh, the image has been taken, it's

528
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 2: hit the mainstream presses, and yes, at this point it

529
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 2: is picked up by the ufology and sort of fringe

530
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 2: segment of the population. And you know, it seems I

531
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 2: don't know if this was the case with you, Joe,

532
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 2: It seems like there might be a lot of this

533
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 2: sort of material, especially from like the mid to late sixties,

534
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 2: that perhaps just hasn't survived, that isn't isn't archive, that

535
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 2: hasn't been recorded, or that has where the information has

536
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 2: been reprinted and reused. Maybe the attribution system involved there

537
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,680
Speaker 2: isn't as rigorous as you would find and like scientific

538
00:30:57,720 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 2: reporting and so forth.

539
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I was wondering about how many things

540
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 3: there are like this photo that just like nobody ever

541
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 3: noticed and attached any mythology to you know, like they

542
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 3: just like never became a nucleation point for lore. But

543
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 3: there are just like a weird photo out there that

544
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 3: was taken maybe published in a newspaper article and then

545
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 3: forgotten like it, you know. So this originally was just

546
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 3: published in a New Zealand Herald article. I don't know

547
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 3: how many people read that, but the right people saw

548
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 3: it and found out about it, and that led to

549
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 3: a whole burgeoning mythology and to its inclusion and books

550
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 3: and articles about UFOs and the paranormal and so forth.

551
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it seems to sort of maybe make the

552
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 2: rounds a little bit, but it definitely gets picked up

553
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 2: in what, at least in my research, was the earliest

554
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 2: book reference that I could actually like pull up on

555
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 2: my end, the earliest book reference to the Altannan antenna,

556
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 2: and this is this would stem from I believe nineteen

557
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 2: sixty eight. The book is Harmonic thirty three by Bruce Kathy,

558
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 2: a New Zealand airline pilot who went on to write

559
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 2: seven books about UFOs, as well as a supposed world

560
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 2: energy grid, the powers flying saucers and permits the detonation

561
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 2: of atomic explosions, but only at particular juncture points and

562
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 2: at specific times.

563
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 3: Kathy's work is explored extensively in this article in the

564
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 3: fourteen Times from two thousand and four by Brooksmith, and

565
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 3: it is what's the right word, I guess just complex.

566
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 3: There is a lot of maps and annotation and reading

567
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 3: deeply into systems of geographical coordinates and making plots a

568
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 3: sort of a pattern seeking run amock.

569
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, what I gather is that Bruce Kathy, he was

570
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 2: an intelligent, determined man who, having had a paranormal encounter

571
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 2: of his own, attempted to find some meaning and pattern

572
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 2: in alleged sightings around the world. You know, creating maps,

573
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 2: drawing these lines, working out different coordinates, and you know,

574
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 2: working with descriptions of things that seem like antenna's, either

575
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 2: antennas that are described on UFOs or in this case,

576
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 2: an image of something that can be interpreted as an antenna.

577
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 2: The problem, of course, is that the whole enterprise is

578
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 2: constructed with narrow focus and a preconceived conclusion, you know,

579
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 2: based in part in sighting subjective experiences and also the

580
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 2: sort of low res information. So anyway, the first edition

581
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 2: of this book comes out, I believe in nineteen sixty eight,

582
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 2: but then the nineteen seventy two or nineteen seventy three

583
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 2: reprint of the book actually features that photograph of the

584
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 2: altana and antenna on the cover, you know, with some

585
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 2: added you know, jazzy title design and like a blue tint,

586
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 2: and it is very eye catching, and I think it's

587
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 2: important that eye catching aspect of this cover in this illustration.

588
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 2: I think it's important because you have to imagine that

589
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 2: this book, you know, certainly it's going to connect with

590
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 2: various individuals that are interested in the paranormal and UFOs

591
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 2: and so forth, but also it's just going to be

592
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 2: on the shelf or you know, in the layout perhaps

593
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 2: in a magazine with other books of this nature. And

594
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 2: in a sense you can imagine how it becomes solidified

595
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 2: as a symbol, you know, as one of these sort

596
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 2: of articles of faith in the paranormal, alongside things like

597
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 2: famous UFO sightings or illustrations, images of stone hinge and

598
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 2: so forth. Ah.

599
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 3: So it's not just one instrumental piece of evidence that

600
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 3: helps prove your theory about UFOs and alien contact and everything,

601
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 3: but it takes on a meaning. It has a kind

602
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 3: of significance where it might emotionally feel like if this

603
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 3: particular piece of evidence were explained as something actually mundane,

604
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 3: it would kind of be an insult to the whole project.

605
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, But also I think, just I don't know, part

606
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 2: of this is me going back to like being in

607
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 2: you know, being in stores, whether they're like they're you know,

608
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 2: movies or or albums. You know, even if it's not

609
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 2: an album that you've listened to or a book you've

610
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,359
Speaker 2: read or a movie you've seen, like that poster art

611
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 2: being displayed among all the others, that album cover being

612
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 2: displayed among all the others, there's kind of this codifying

613
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:29,399
Speaker 2: effect I feel. Yeah, But at any rate, Yeah, it's

614
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 2: no accident though that the altan and antenna is on

615
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 2: the cover there, because it does seem kind of like

616
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 2: key to his main ideas here. In particular, in the book,

617
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 2: he describes the altan and antenna and briefly explains why

618
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:45,919
Speaker 2: he thinks humans couldn't have made it, and doesn't even

619
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 2: mention the possibility of organic origin even to dispute it,

620
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:52,240
Speaker 2: Like it doesn't even say anything like, well, some people

621
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 2: think this might be an organism, but it's not or

622
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 2: it doesn't look like an organism, there's none of that.

623
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 2: He describes it as a quote bit of iron mongery

624
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 2: unquote that no humans could have possibly placed.

625
00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 3: Okay, so as he presents, it's just axiomatic. This is

626
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 3: made of metal, and it's some piece of technology. And

627
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 3: the question is could it be human or must it

628
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 3: be other than human? And here's the argument why it

629
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 3: could not be human?

630
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 2: Right He In the book, he writes the following quote,

631
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:22,880
Speaker 2: it would be interesting to know what the Americans have

632
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 2: made of that picture and whether any attempt has been

633
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 2: made to salvage the strange object they photographed by accident.

634
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 2: In view of my earlier sighting in the Capara Harbor,

635
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 2: I was willing to accept that the aerial had been

636
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 2: placed there by an unidentified submarine object or USO. Can

637
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 2: you offer a better explanation.

638
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 3: Some of the writers who prefer an alien explanation specifically

639
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 3: cite the claim that, well, it was too far down

640
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 3: on the bottom of the ocean for a human made submarine,

641
00:36:57,200 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 3: any human made submarine at that time to have posited it.

642
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:04,279
Speaker 3: Submarines couldn't go that deep. And I don't want to

643
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 3: I'm not mocking here or anything but I mean, I

644
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,720
Speaker 3: do kind of think could you not think of another

645
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 3: way that, like a piece of metal could made by humans,

646
00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 3: could have gotten to the bottom of the ocean other

647
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 3: than being deposited by a deep sea submersible.

648
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like there's a rather obvious way to

649
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 2: get something down.

650
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 3: There, right, Otherwise you'd have to say the same thing

651
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 3: about like metal drums and barrels and stuff that end

652
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 3: up at the bottom of the ocean. I mean, there's gravity,

653
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 3: things can fall to the bottom. I guess there is

654
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 3: some reasoning militating against this that says, well, but it's

655
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 3: standing upright though, I guess you could explain that just

656
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,319
Speaker 3: by like it being weighted a certain way.

657
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay. For Kathy, his argument seems to be, well, okay,

658
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 2: you could probably get some sort of submersible down there,

659
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 2: but you wouldn't be able to do this kind of work.

660
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 2: So still I agree. It seems like it doesn't seem

661
00:37:56,719 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 2: like that logic would necessarily rule it out. But anyway,

662
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:02,759
Speaker 2: Elsewhere in the book, he frequently comes back to the

663
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,800
Speaker 2: alten and antenna as being part of this elaborate global

664
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 2: energy grid, and he also connects the knobs or its

665
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:13,360
Speaker 2: apparent knobs, two objects described on the bottoms of UFOs.

666
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 2: So if you were encountering images of this artifact, this object,

667
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 2: or this antenna in this book or in books inspired

668
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,879
Speaker 2: by it, or in the same sort of realm, could

669
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 2: you might well think, well, this is truly a mystery,

670
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 2: and we've got to go back there and find it someday,

671
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 2: or maybe we won't find it because someone else has

672
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 2: already come and and harvested it, et cetera. So you

673
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 2: can imagine how this kind of takes up and takes

674
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 2: up of this energy and becomes this again, this kind

675
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 2: of like icon within the realm of like paranormal UFO investigation.

676
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 3: But as we have teased now multiple times, there's really

677
00:38:57,600 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 3: not much of a question anymore what it actually is.

678
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 3: And this is the result of marine biologists weighing.

679
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 2: In that's right. And that's one of the key things

680
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,320
Speaker 2: about this one is that if you're looking at individuals

681
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:15,840
Speaker 2: that actually have the expertise regarding things that might appear

682
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:18,879
Speaker 2: on the ocean floor in this part of the world, yeah,

683
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 2: there seems to be no mystery, and there hasn't been

684
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 2: any mystery for decades and decades. In particular, I mentioned earlier,

685
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 2: how there's this the horizontal version of the image, and

686
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 2: then there's this wider version of the image that hasn't

687
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:37,800
Speaker 2: been cropped. This appears in a nineteen seventy one book

688
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 2: titled The Face of the Deep. This was published by

689
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 2: Oxford University Press and was authored by he's In, Bruce C.

690
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 2: Heasen and Charles D. Hollister. This book was not a

691
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 2: UFOology work, but rather set out to present quote, a

692
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:56,240
Speaker 2: selection of the best photographs of the deep sea floor

693
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 2: for you to look at and contemplate, which maybe wasn't

694
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 2: taking far enough, because you know, Bruce Cathy and others

695
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,359
Speaker 2: were certainly contemplating it, but they were going off in an

696
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 2: entirely different direction. In the book they note that about it.

697
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,240
Speaker 2: One third of the photographs in the book were obtained

698
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 2: quote over the past few years in Antarctic waters by

699
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 2: the National Science Foundation's research ship El Tatin.

700
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 3: All right, so what do they say about the photo

701
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 3: in question?

702
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 2: All right, Well, the caption for the photo and alone says,

703
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 2: note antenna like sponge clattaresa in the lower photograph.

704
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 3: All right, So not only are they noting this is

705
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 3: an animal, it is a sponge they specify a genus

706
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 3: name which was at the time Clatterisa. Now, as a

707
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,839
Speaker 3: kind of confusing note, it seems to me that the

708
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,319
Speaker 3: same animal they're talking about, this type of sponge, was

709
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 3: at the time taxonomized in the genus Clatterresa, so it

710
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 3: was known as Clatterresa concretions. But now the same species

711
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 3: is sorted into a different genus and known as Chondrocladia concretions.

712
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:04,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this sort of thing's fairly common.

713
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, things get differently taxonomized when they get further studied.

714
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 2: Now Elsewhere in the book The Face of the Deep,

715
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,280
Speaker 2: the authors go into a little more detail. They're right. Quote.

716
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 2: While the bath sponges are limited to the warmest shallow

717
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,600
Speaker 2: waters of the continental shelf, a few of their bizarre

718
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 2: relatives are rather commonly found in the deep sea. Clatteriza,

719
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 2: a particularly dramatic one which sometimes resembles a space age

720
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 2: microwave antenna, was not uncommon in the early dredge halls

721
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 2: of Challenger and Blake. Alexander Agassi observed that quote they

722
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:45,760
Speaker 2: are sponges with a long stem ending in ramifying roots

723
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 2: sunk deeply in the mud. The stem has nodes with

724
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 2: four to six clublike appendages they evidently cover like Bush's

725
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,760
Speaker 2: extensive tracts of the bottom. Now, a couple of notes

726
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 2: here about what they're referring to. Alexander Agassi lived eighteen

727
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 2: thirty five through nineteen ten, and he was a noted

728
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:08,359
Speaker 2: Swiss American scientist and inventor. He was also a rather

729
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 2: infamous supporter of scientific racism, but his contributions in non

730
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 2: human biology and geology of the time seem pretty sound.

731
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 3: And the Challenger there would be referring to the Challenger expedition,

732
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:21,879
Speaker 3: which we've talked about on the show before. I think

733
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,839
Speaker 3: maybe we talked about it in the context of like

734
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:26,880
Speaker 3: maybe William Beebe or something.

735
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so, some deep sea exploration dredging up

736
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:33,720
Speaker 2: life forms and so forth from the bottom.

737
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 3: Right, But this would have been in the nineteenth century,

738
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:38,720
Speaker 3: so like a long time ago. But they're in nineteenth

739
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 3: century ships like running sort of devices along the seafloor

740
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:45,479
Speaker 3: to try to pull things up and see what's down there.

741
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. So at this point, this particular species had been

742
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 2: known about for decades. This was not like, oh, this

743
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 2: is some unknown creature. No, they when people wh knew

744
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 2: what they were talking about looked at it, they were

745
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 2: able to match it up with some actual organisms in

746
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 2: the record book.

747
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:06,919
Speaker 3: Right, Well, people who knew about deep sea sponges would

748
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 3: know what they were looking at. Yeah, But to the

749
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:11,280
Speaker 3: average person, it just looks like a really weird shape

750
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:13,760
Speaker 3: that could well be in antenna. Like you wouldn't expect

751
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 3: any just regular person off the street to recognize this

752
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 3: species of sponge.

753
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, this is specialized information to be it to

754
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 2: be clear. Now, in the book, they note that the

755
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 2: photo in question, in a zoomed in horizontal version, is

756
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 2: of quote a bizarre antenna like abysal sponge which quote

757
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 2: stands erect towering over the manganese nodules in the bellings

758
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 2: Housen basin South Pacific. There were apparently sixteen different images

759
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:42,799
Speaker 2: from this location. And again remember we were talking about

760
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 2: how those images were taken. They were kind of like

761
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:49,919
Speaker 2: fired off automatically by this large capsule being pulled at

762
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:53,959
Speaker 2: depth behind the ship. But of those sixteen images, only

763
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 2: one image captured this sponge.

764
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 3: Now, it's mentioned that the sponge is often found in

765
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:03,399
Speaker 3: sort of little forests on the seafloor, where there would

766
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 3: be others of the same type surrounding it. In this case,

767
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:09,239
Speaker 3: it was standing alone, and I wonder how it would

768
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:12,280
Speaker 3: have been received differently if there were other similarly shaped

769
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 3: objects all around it.

770
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting question because on one hand, you

771
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 2: can imagine exactly the same thing occurring. But you could

772
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 2: also make an argument that, yes, by standing alone and

773
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 2: standing out on the seafloor scape around it made it

774
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 2: more iconic, made it more mysterious seeming. But the authors

775
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 2: here note that while the Challenger and Blake expeditions dredged

776
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:37,920
Speaker 2: in an area with considerably more of these, yeah, this

777
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 2: one does seem to have stood alone. Hagacy drew the

778
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:46,800
Speaker 2: sponge in illustrations with drooping or arching limbs curved in

779
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:50,120
Speaker 2: either case, while this image shows the organism erect with

780
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:54,240
Speaker 2: horizontally positioned appendages. They also note that quote, the tops

781
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 2: of the appendages show up so brightly in the photographs

782
00:44:57,080 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 2: to suggest they are either of an extremely light color

783
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 2: or that they phosphores. So I think that's that's a

784
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:08,320
Speaker 2: good point. We'll probably come back to that. But also

785
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:11,399
Speaker 2: this whole idea of well, Agasi drew it one way

786
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 2: and it looks a different way. I mean that that

787
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 2: pretty much matches up with a lot of what we've

788
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,839
Speaker 2: talked about regarding deep sea organisms. If you dredge them

789
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,319
Speaker 2: up for the deep or pull them up even in

790
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 2: I mean even in like a cage or something, there's

791
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 2: a lot that can happen on its way to the surface.

792
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 2: You're taking it out of one environment and bring it

793
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 2: into a drastically different one. All sorts of things can

794
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 2: occur to you know, decompression, explosions and so forth. So

795
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 2: it's not that crazy to imagine that, well, it looked

796
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 2: different once they had dredged it up from the bottom

797
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 2: as opposed to how it is positioned in its natural habitat.

798
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah, changes in pressure, changes in temperature, and possibly

799
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:54,320
Speaker 3: damage caused just by whatever device you're using to remove

800
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 3: it from its habitat and drag it up.

801
00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 2: Right. So, we're at an interesting point here with this one,

802
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 2: because on one hand, the paranormal the UFO explanation for

803
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 2: this is weird and strange and tantalizing. But then the

804
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 2: natural world explanation is equally, if not more, amazing and

805
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 2: strange and tantalizing. But of course you have to certainly

806
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 2: in decades past, you had to have specialized information or

807
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 2: access to scientific data to be able to really get

808
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:42,880
Speaker 2: an understanding of the natural world explanation for this object,

809
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:47,440
Speaker 2: and perhaps in some circles, the paranormal explanation is going

810
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 2: to be a little easier to get your hands on.

811
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 3: I think that's right. And it's also important to emphasize

812
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:56,360
Speaker 3: how easy it is to look at some things in

813
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 3: nature and just say, well, that looks really weird. I've

814
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:02,400
Speaker 3: never seen anything like that in nature, so it must

815
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 3: not be natural, and so I think it is time

816
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 3: to take a short diversion just to talk about sponges

817
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,879
Speaker 3: and sponges that look like machines or sponges that look

818
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 3: like aliens.

819
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 2: Yeah.

820
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 3: So again, the identification of the Altannan object as a

821
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:23,919
Speaker 3: specimen of Chondrocladia concrescens or concretions seems pretty much rock

822
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 3: solid to me. Like that, that's almost got to be

823
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:28,879
Speaker 3: what it was. But I thought it would be worth

824
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:31,800
Speaker 3: it to look at some other sponges as well, especially

825
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 3: carnivorous sponges of which this species is an example. Concrescens

826
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 3: as a carnivorous sponge. So rob, let's look at a

827
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 3: photo of a different but closely related species of sponge.

828
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 3: I've got one for you to look at. Here for

829
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 3: you people at home, I will describe it. So this

830
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 3: is a species from the same genus, both from Chondrocladia.

831
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 3: This one is Chondrocladia lira, or the lyre sponge, or

832
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:59,839
Speaker 3: more commonly, I think the harp sponge. Now, I dare

833
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:04,720
Speaker 3: say that in some photos this animal looks even more

834
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:09,160
Speaker 3: like technology than its cousin. Looks even more like technology

835
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:10,200
Speaker 3: than concrescence.

836
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this one is a really weird looking organism.

837
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 2: Like I instantly think about the various illustrations of supposed

838
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 2: alien life in one season the art of Wayne Barlow,

839
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 2: you know that, and then fantastic illustrator of monsters and aliens,

840
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 2: but also paleontology as well. He also did some wonderful

841
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 2: dinosaur illustrations. But some of his stuff looks this wild

842
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:39,319
Speaker 2: and believable, but you know, not something of this world.

843
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 3: Can you imagine the hype you could churn up around

844
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:47,400
Speaker 3: a good, grainy or blurry, low resolution photo of this

845
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 3: creature if it had not yet been identified. It looks

846
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,919
Speaker 3: like a device that one of James Bond's enemies would

847
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 3: use to generate a deadly field of rays.

848
00:48:57,400 --> 00:48:59,399
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, so.

849
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:01,319
Speaker 3: I'll try to if you're not able to look it

850
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 3: up again. It's called the harp sponge or chondrocladia era.

851
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:07,239
Speaker 3: But I'll try to describe it as plainly as I can.

852
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:11,120
Speaker 3: So it is a creature made up of multiple intersecting

853
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:16,240
Speaker 3: horizontal veins that run parallel to the seafloor. So imagine

854
00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:20,120
Speaker 3: a pattern of intersecting sort of bars or branches that

855
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 3: run along the bottom of the ocean. You can think

856
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,800
Speaker 3: of these as kind of base bars. And they could

857
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 3: just be a couple of veins running basically in a

858
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 3: line symmetrically at the base, or there might be many

859
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:35,879
Speaker 3: of these veins intersecting. In the photo we're looking at,

860
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:39,800
Speaker 3: there are five intersecting veins arranged in a star pattern.

861
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 3: This base structure is anchored to the sediment at the

862
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:46,759
Speaker 3: bottom with a root like structure called a rhizoid, and

863
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:50,920
Speaker 3: then jutting straight up at ninety degree angles from the

864
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 3: base veins are the branches. And these are arranged like

865
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 3: the bars of a wrought iron fence. It looks like

866
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:02,840
Speaker 3: a metal fence standing straight up, evenly spaced and parallel

867
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 3: to each other, so they look like a fence or

868
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 3: an array of antenna parts or some other electronic device,

869
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 3: And on some of these animals, the branches gradually increase

870
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 3: in height as they get closer to the middle of

871
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:18,760
Speaker 3: the star. So out at the end of the veins

872
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 3: the branches are very short, and then they slope gently

873
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 3: up in smooth slope toward the middle, so that the

874
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 3: fence posts or the antenna bars form a pyramid shape

875
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:34,080
Speaker 3: with these these smooth sloping edges going up to the middle.

876
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:37,239
Speaker 3: What on earth would you make of a blurry photograph

877
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:38,040
Speaker 3: of this thing?

878
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I would see it would clearly feel like

879
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:44,920
Speaker 2: nothing of this earth, some sort of a strange radar

880
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 2: array or something, or some an array placed on the

881
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 2: bottom of the ocean by who knows what.

882
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:52,399
Speaker 3: Oh and then also they're on the top of these

883
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 3: little posts. They are bulbs. Apparently those are sperm sacks.

884
00:50:57,040 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 3: But the species was first described in the literature in

885
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:05,239
Speaker 3: a paper from twenty twelve published in the Journal Invertebrate Biology.

886
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:07,799
Speaker 3: So twenty twelve, there have been a photo of this thing.

887
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:10,759
Speaker 3: Grany photo from decades ago. You wouldn't even have any

888
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 3: knowledge to compare it to. So to cite the paper,

889
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:19,280
Speaker 3: it was by Welton L. Lee, Henry M. Riiswig, William C. Austen,

890
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 3: and Lonnie Lunstein. It was called an extraordinary new carnivorous

891
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 3: sponge Chondrocladia lira in the new subgenus Symmetrocladia from off

892
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:32,960
Speaker 3: of northern California, USA. A few notes from the paper

893
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:36,240
Speaker 3: here They say it was observed quote from Northeast Pacific

894
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 3: sites at the Escanaba Ridge and Monterey Canyon at depths

895
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 3: of three three one six to three three nine nine meters,

896
00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 3: and the scientists described the structure like this. They say, quote.

897
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 3: The basic structure termed a vein is harp or liar

898
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:56,240
Speaker 3: shaped from one to six veins extend by radial growth

899
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:59,400
Speaker 3: from the organism's center. The orientation among the veins is

900
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:05,440
Speaker 3: approximate equiangular, such that together they display pinta, radiate, tetra, radiate,

901
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 3: tri radiate, or biradiate symmetries. Each vein is formed by

902
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:15,280
Speaker 3: a horizontal stolon supporting a series of upright equidistantly spaced branches,

903
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:18,800
Speaker 3: each of which terminates at its apex in a swollen ball.

904
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 3: In all observed specimens except the paratype, so the veins.

905
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 3: They can be oriented as a sort of two sided

906
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:29,280
Speaker 3: comb or with three arms or four or five, always

907
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 3: roughly radially symmetrical. Now, the big question I think worth

908
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:36,880
Speaker 3: asking is why would it be shaped like this? Like,

909
00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 3: why does it look that way? Why would evolution make

910
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 3: a weird looking animal that could be a sort of

911
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 3: technomorph structure. Well, a passage from this paper illuminates that.

912
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:50,359
Speaker 3: It says, quote, a linear row of filaments project from

913
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:53,840
Speaker 3: the sides front and back of each branch, and also

914
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:58,719
Speaker 3: from the tops of each stolon. Enclosed Crustacean prey on

915
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 3: branches and stolones provide direct evidence of carnivory. The structure

916
00:53:04,280 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 3: of the veins maximize the surface area for passive suspension feeding.

917
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:13,440
Speaker 3: So this sponge is a predator. It is a carnivore

918
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:18,759
Speaker 3: feeding by catching small animal prey in the filaments that

919
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 3: extend between these branches, between the posts of the wrought

920
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 3: iron fence, the little catch hooks that spread out between

921
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,640
Speaker 3: the bars, And if you zoom in close enough on

922
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:31,400
Speaker 3: any of the pictures, you can see the little filaments,

923
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:34,560
Speaker 3: these little hair like hooks. And of course the scientists

924
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 3: say that they found tiny, half digested remnants of crustaceans

925
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 3: of animals caught in those branches. I was reading a

926
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:49,480
Speaker 3: press release about this research from the Monterey Bay Aquarium

927
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:53,319
Speaker 3: Research Institute, which was involved in the discovery, and the

928
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 3: release was written by Dana Lecano, and they write quote

929
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 3: clinging with root like rhizoids to the soft sediment, the

930
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 3: harp sponge captures tiny animals that are swept into its

931
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 3: branches by deep sea currents. Typically, sponges feed by straining

932
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:12,319
Speaker 3: bacteria and bits of organic material from the seawater they

933
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 3: filter through their bodies. However, carnivorous harp sponges snare their prey,

934
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:22,840
Speaker 3: tiny crustaceans with barbed hooks that cover the sponges branching limbs.

935
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:25,760
Speaker 3: Once the harp sponge has the prey in its clutches,

936
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:29,719
Speaker 3: it envelops the animal in a thin membrane, then slowly

937
00:54:29,800 --> 00:54:32,759
Speaker 3: begins to digest it. So when you look at it

938
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 3: with this in mind, the design makes perfect sense. It

939
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 3: looks like some kind of antenna array or a fence

940
00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 3: or something else. Because it's trying to maximize surface area

941
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 3: for catching things swimming or flowing through the water. It

942
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:49,360
Speaker 3: wants to spread out sort of a net across the

943
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:52,800
Speaker 3: sea currents and to catch prey. But also the authors

944
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 3: say the animal's surface area is sort of spread out

945
00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 3: maximized like that for spermatophor capture, so it helps the

946
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:04,640
Speaker 3: sponge reproduce. And then I was reading, so what are

947
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 3: the branches on the original elt Hannan organism for you know,

948
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:11,759
Speaker 3: the branches coming off of the so called antenna that

949
00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 3: is identified as Chondrocladia concrescens. Those are also for feeding.

950
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:19,720
Speaker 3: They also have filaments coming off of them that catch

951
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:22,920
Speaker 3: prey and help cover it in a membrane and digest it.

952
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:26,359
Speaker 2: So really, in a way, you could compare them to

953
00:55:26,440 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 2: an antenna because they are they're spread out to collect,

954
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 2: but instead of collecting you know, waves or transmissions or information,

955
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 2: they're collecting prey. They're collecting these tiny crustaceans.

956
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:40,919
Speaker 3: Oh, I guess in a weird way, they also could

957
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:45,200
Speaker 3: be like a transmitting antenna because they are releasing sperm

958
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:48,520
Speaker 3: from the sperm sacks at the top and then collecting

959
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:51,360
Speaker 3: it along the for reproduction purposes.

960
00:55:51,480 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now I did want to mention just a couple

961
00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 2: of other sponges to sort of drive home the weirdness

962
00:55:55,719 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 2: of all of this. Another sponge worth mentioning. Here is

963
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:06,240
Speaker 2: at Vena magnifica. That's Latin apparently for magnificent alien, named

964
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:10,279
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty after explorations in the Pacific by the

965
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:15,600
Speaker 2: NAA ship Okinos Explorer. This is a quote from an

966
00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:19,760
Speaker 2: NAA article about this quote. Among the different sponges within

967
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:23,400
Speaker 2: this alien like community was one that could not be missed.

968
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,800
Speaker 2: Rising high on a stalk. This sponge had a body

969
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 2: with two large holes, oddly reminiscent of the large eyes

970
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:33,880
Speaker 2: of the alien from the beloved movie ET the Extraterrestrial.

971
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 2: I included comparison images here for you, Joe, in case

972
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 2: you don't remember what ET looks like and you want

973
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 2: to know what the ET sponge looks like.

974
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:44,680
Speaker 3: Here, it's uncanny. I mean, I think it's they're copying

975
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 3: Steven Spielberg. This is just it is ET's head.

976
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:52,799
Speaker 2: It's maybe less, it's not one to one, but you

977
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:54,840
Speaker 2: can see it. Yeah, I mean to be clear, this

978
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 2: one doesn't look like a machine. This one doesn't look

979
00:56:56,719 --> 00:56:59,000
Speaker 2: like an antenna, and it only I guess a little

980
00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:01,879
Speaker 2: bit looks like he's head. But still, you know, we're

981
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:05,080
Speaker 2: dealing with organisms that, by their very nature feel entirely

982
00:57:05,120 --> 00:57:07,279
Speaker 2: alien to us, and in this case they just went

983
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:10,320
Speaker 2: ahead and named it after an alien. Now, I also

984
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:13,319
Speaker 2: suppose I need to mention SpongeBob square Pants and all

985
00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:17,280
Speaker 2: of those. The cartoon character is, if you're not familiar

986
00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 2: with him, a sentient talking sponge, and his shape and

987
00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:25,040
Speaker 2: coloration are clearly based on the common artificial bright yellow

988
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 2: cleaning sponge, so not you know, upper depth depth sponges

989
00:57:30,600 --> 00:57:32,720
Speaker 2: that are harvested and used for sponges, but of course

990
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 2: the artificial kind that are manufactured to you know, to

991
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:39,320
Speaker 2: help us clean our dishes and so forth. And that's

992
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 2: always been kind of the clear joke here with SpongeBob

993
00:57:41,560 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 2: square Pants. But interestingly enough, in twenty twenty one, you

994
00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 2: know AA's North Atlantic Stepping Stones expedition happened to snap

995
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:53,560
Speaker 2: a high quality photograph a mile beneath the waves of

996
00:57:53,680 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 2: a not a perfect square, but a very square like

997
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:03,439
Speaker 2: bright yellow sponge, and beside it there's a c star

998
00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:07,520
Speaker 2: that it doesn't look exactly like Spungebob Squarepants's friend Patrick,

999
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:10,600
Speaker 2: but enough like Patrick to where people were like, behold,

1000
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 2: we have found him, what are the odds? Yeah, it

1001
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:18,680
Speaker 2: also should be pointed out that it doesn't have pants on,

1002
00:58:19,120 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 2: but it is square. The color seems right, it's pretty

1003
00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 2: eye catching. It is a yellow glass sponge of the

1004
00:58:25,520 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 2: genus Hertwigia. I'm going to read. This is from a

1005
00:58:28,720 --> 00:58:31,600
Speaker 2: National Museum of Natural History article from twenty twenty one

1006
00:58:31,640 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 2: by Chris ma Quote. The yellow Hertwigia sponge is what's

1007
00:58:36,040 --> 00:58:39,600
Speaker 2: known as a hexat tittlid or glass sponge that is

1008
00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 2: composed of biologically secreted silica or glass. Its bright yellow

1009
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 2: color is unusual for deep sea animals, which are often

1010
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:51,480
Speaker 2: white or orange. Many sponges have strong chemical defenses, which

1011
00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:56,720
Speaker 2: have made them very intriguing to pharmaceutical and other biochemical industries.

1012
00:58:57,240 --> 00:59:00,600
Speaker 2: Also of note from this article is that the c

1013
00:59:00,800 --> 00:59:05,520
Speaker 2: star here that is sometimes referred to as Patrick, this

1014
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:09,920
Speaker 2: is a possibly new species of a Crown's raster and

1015
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:13,760
Speaker 2: it is likely about to attempt to eat the sponge.

1016
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:16,720
Speaker 2: So if this is SpongeBob SquarePants, Yeah, Patrick is about

1017
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:17,680
Speaker 2: to eat SpongeBob.

1018
00:59:18,440 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 3: That would be a good plot twist. Yes, I don't

1019
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:23,960
Speaker 3: know how horrifying that is. I'm not a SpongeBob watcher.

1020
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 2: I don't know. SpongeBob is pretty weird, so I don't

1021
00:59:26,320 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 2: think it's necessarily out of character. There may be an

1022
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:32,040
Speaker 2: episode where Patrick tries to eat SpongeBob. I mean, this

1023
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 2: is the show that gave us stuff like a handsome

1024
00:59:34,360 --> 00:59:35,520
Speaker 2: squid word and so forth.

1025
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 3: Okay, so sponges are very weird and can look very

1026
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 3: weird in multiple ways. They can look like known cartoon characters,

1027
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:45,560
Speaker 3: they can look like known alien characters, they can look

1028
00:59:45,680 --> 00:59:50,360
Speaker 3: like weird suggestive, unknown technology. They're all over the map.

1029
00:59:50,680 --> 00:59:53,200
Speaker 3: But I want to add another fact onto this, which is,

1030
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:55,959
Speaker 3: anytime you see an object in the ocean and you're

1031
00:59:56,080 --> 00:59:59,720
Speaker 3: tempted to say, this looks weird, and it doesn't look

1032
00:59:59,800 --> 01:00:04,360
Speaker 3: like any known organism, so it can't be biological. Keep

1033
01:00:04,400 --> 01:00:07,800
Speaker 3: in mind another fact. There are organisms in the ocean

1034
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:12,400
Speaker 3: that have never been photographed, never been described, documented, or classified.

1035
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:15,400
Speaker 3: There are lots of creatures we don't know about yet.

1036
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:18,880
Speaker 3: And you might think, yeah, well, but I mean we've

1037
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:21,479
Speaker 3: probably found most of them, right, I mean, how many

1038
01:00:21,560 --> 01:00:24,840
Speaker 3: could there be out there that nobody's ever seen before? Well?

1039
01:00:24,960 --> 01:00:27,600
Speaker 3: I dug up a paper from twenty eleven that was

1040
01:00:27,680 --> 01:00:30,680
Speaker 3: just trying to estimate and it wasn't commenting on aliens

1041
01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:33,320
Speaker 3: or anything. It was just trying to answer a basic question,

1042
01:00:33,720 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 3: which was how many yet unidentified species are there out

1043
01:00:38,920 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 3: there in the world that we have not documented yet.

1044
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:45,560
Speaker 3: So the paper was called how Many Species Are There

1045
01:00:45,560 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 3: on Earth and in the Ocean in plus Biology in

1046
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:53,800
Speaker 3: twenty eleven by Camillo Mora at all and from the

1047
01:00:53,840 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 3: author's summary, they say, quote, here we document that the

1048
01:00:56,960 --> 01:01:02,200
Speaker 3: taxonomic classification of subspecies into higher taxonomic groups from genera

1049
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:06,480
Speaker 3: to phyla follows a consistent pattern from which the total

1050
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:10,920
Speaker 3: number of species in any taxonomic group can be predicted.

1051
01:01:11,320 --> 01:01:13,600
Speaker 3: So does that make sense? They're like, we don't have

1052
01:01:13,640 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 3: a way to count the species that haven't been found yet,

1053
01:01:17,080 --> 01:01:18,960
Speaker 3: but you can come up with a pretty good estimate

1054
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 3: of how many are out there because we know from

1055
01:01:22,040 --> 01:01:23,960
Speaker 3: like the tree of the sort of the bush of

1056
01:01:24,040 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 3: life in a way how phyla breakdown, you can form

1057
01:01:27,280 --> 01:01:30,880
Speaker 3: reasonable estimates of how many organisms are in each group,

1058
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:33,680
Speaker 3: and so just what we know about the higher parts

1059
01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:36,200
Speaker 3: of the branches, you can guess how many are out

1060
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:40,880
Speaker 3: there that haven't been documented yet. And their estimate is quote.

1061
01:01:40,960 --> 01:01:43,440
Speaker 3: Assessment of this pattern for all kingdoms of life on

1062
01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 3: Earth predicts about eight point seven million plus or minus

1063
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:51,640
Speaker 3: an error of one point three million species globally, of

1064
01:01:51,680 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 3: which about two point two million plus or minus an

1065
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 3: era of zero point eighteen million are marine. Our results

1066
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:01,960
Speaker 3: suggests that some eighty six percent of species on Earth

1067
01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:05,800
Speaker 3: and ninety one percent in the ocean still await description.

1068
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:09,200
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so there is room for just about everything

1069
01:02:09,200 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 2: down there. We may find handsome.

1070
01:02:10,560 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 3: Squids, maybe ninety one percent. That is still a lot

1071
01:02:16,000 --> 01:02:18,880
Speaker 3: of room to see something bizarre in the ocean that

1072
01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:22,680
Speaker 3: matches the appearance of nothing known to marine biology, and

1073
01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:25,000
Speaker 3: then have it turn out to be another sponge or

1074
01:02:25,160 --> 01:02:29,480
Speaker 3: just turned out to be another Nigerian or another weird crustacean.

1075
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:34,720
Speaker 3: Remember again that Chondracladia Lira, the harp sponge, the one

1076
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:38,160
Speaker 3: that looks, in our opinion, even more like technology than

1077
01:02:38,240 --> 01:02:42,160
Speaker 3: the Altanan object was first described in the scientific literature

1078
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:45,000
Speaker 3: in the last decade or so. The first articles were

1079
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:46,080
Speaker 3: from like twenty twelve.

1080
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point. I also couldn't help but

1081
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:51,880
Speaker 2: think about the giant squid and all of this, because

1082
01:02:52,400 --> 01:02:56,920
Speaker 2: giant squid, based on an expert analysis, they seem to

1083
01:02:56,920 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 2: be abundant enough in the sea that sperm whales eat

1084
01:02:59,840 --> 01:03:03,480
Speaker 2: them by the millions. Perhaps even hundreds of millions each year,

1085
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:07,040
Speaker 2: and yet we don't know their true numbers. We didn't

1086
01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:10,440
Speaker 2: have any footage of a living giant squid until the

1087
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:13,960
Speaker 2: twenty first century, and mostly new of them from their

1088
01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:17,120
Speaker 2: remains or the scars on the outside or the inside

1089
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:20,400
Speaker 2: of sperm whales. You know, it's a highly novel organism.

1090
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:23,160
Speaker 2: In this case, it's a pretty big organism, but it's

1091
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 2: an elusive one that lives in an extreme environment. And

1092
01:03:27,160 --> 01:03:29,960
Speaker 2: ultimately it illustrates how little we know, even if we

1093
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:30,520
Speaker 2: think we know.

1094
01:03:31,560 --> 01:03:34,240
Speaker 3: That is a really excellent point. But so I want

1095
01:03:34,240 --> 01:03:39,480
Speaker 3: to come back to thinking about information in allegedly anomalous

1096
01:03:39,480 --> 01:03:41,880
Speaker 3: photographs or videos or other things that are used as

1097
01:03:41,920 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 3: evidence for alien intelligence or alien technology or other paranormal phenomena.

1098
01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:53,320
Speaker 3: It seems to me that the photograph of the Eltannan

1099
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:58,040
Speaker 3: object could inspire the belief that it was an antenna

1100
01:03:58,680 --> 01:04:01,840
Speaker 3: or was a piece of alien technology because of certain

1101
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:07,040
Speaker 3: low information conditions. So it's a fairly low resolution photographs,

1102
01:04:07,080 --> 01:04:09,920
Speaker 3: kind of grainy black and white photograph, or actually, in

1103
01:04:09,960 --> 01:04:12,480
Speaker 3: the ways it's reproduced, it's black and white. I don't

1104
01:04:12,520 --> 01:04:15,080
Speaker 3: know what it was in the original. I don't know

1105
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:17,720
Speaker 3: if I've ever seen. I've never seen like a color

1106
01:04:17,800 --> 01:04:18,640
Speaker 3: original of it.

1107
01:04:19,040 --> 01:04:20,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've just seen the black and white.

1108
01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 3: But so in various ways, it's low resolution, and it

1109
01:04:25,640 --> 01:04:30,520
Speaker 3: was being shared among people who didn't have important informational context,

1110
01:04:30,640 --> 01:04:34,000
Speaker 3: like knowledge of what types of deep sea sponges there

1111
01:04:34,000 --> 01:04:37,280
Speaker 3: were and what they look like. So it's in this

1112
01:04:37,480 --> 01:04:42,040
Speaker 3: low information environment, with lack of important context and lack

1113
01:04:42,080 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 3: of resolution in the photo, that it seems viable. This

1114
01:04:45,400 --> 01:04:47,720
Speaker 3: could be an alien antenna. But like if you had

1115
01:04:47,720 --> 01:04:51,040
Speaker 3: gotten a really sharp photograph of this original thing, even

1116
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:53,320
Speaker 3: if you didn't have deep sea knowledge, you'd probably be

1117
01:04:53,400 --> 01:04:55,280
Speaker 3: able to look at it and say, ah, just like

1118
01:04:55,360 --> 01:04:58,680
Speaker 3: the textures on it, this does look more like something organic.

1119
01:04:58,760 --> 01:05:01,520
Speaker 3: This is some kind of organistm And likewise, if the

1120
01:05:01,520 --> 01:05:04,080
Speaker 3: people originally looking at it had had knowledge of deep

1121
01:05:04,120 --> 01:05:07,280
Speaker 3: sea sponges that already existed at the time the photo

1122
01:05:07,400 --> 01:05:10,520
Speaker 3: was taken, they would have been able to say, oh, yeah,

1123
01:05:10,560 --> 01:05:14,080
Speaker 3: this is one of those sponges. So low information or

1124
01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:18,920
Speaker 3: low resolution is really it creates a friendly environment for

1125
01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:24,760
Speaker 3: paranormal explanations and mythologies to arise around a piece of

1126
01:05:24,800 --> 01:05:27,720
Speaker 3: media or piece of evidence. And Rob, I wonder what

1127
01:05:27,760 --> 01:05:29,800
Speaker 3: you think about this, I kind of wonder if this

1128
01:05:29,960 --> 01:05:36,560
Speaker 3: is why underwater photos in particular are so popular in

1129
01:05:36,680 --> 01:05:40,320
Speaker 3: this sort of media domain, in the you know, fringe

1130
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:46,120
Speaker 3: and alternative conspiracy theory domain. There are so many videos

1131
01:05:46,120 --> 01:05:49,320
Speaker 3: that are like, you know, mysterious objects underwater that are

1132
01:05:49,400 --> 01:05:52,320
Speaker 3: based on like a sonar image or a kind of

1133
01:05:52,440 --> 01:05:56,360
Speaker 3: murky photograph taken underwater where you can't really tell exactly

1134
01:05:56,360 --> 01:05:59,280
Speaker 3: what you're looking at, but it looks weird, and so

1135
01:05:59,800 --> 01:06:04,040
Speaker 3: it just like invites you to start applying strange stories

1136
01:06:04,080 --> 01:06:04,440
Speaker 3: to it.

1137
01:06:05,080 --> 01:06:07,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have, and also just trying to interpret

1138
01:06:07,520 --> 01:06:10,680
Speaker 2: what you're seeing based on things you have seen before.

1139
01:06:11,240 --> 01:06:14,800
Speaker 2: And in some cases your mind is going to turn

1140
01:06:14,920 --> 01:06:18,720
Speaker 2: to technology or architecture, and those are going to be

1141
01:06:18,760 --> 01:06:20,840
Speaker 2: the forms that you use to try and make sense

1142
01:06:20,880 --> 01:06:23,920
Speaker 2: of this, this this new confusing information.

1143
01:06:24,480 --> 01:06:26,360
Speaker 3: The one thing I do want to call out. In fact,

1144
01:06:26,480 --> 01:06:28,880
Speaker 3: I found this to be true with the altanna and antenna,

1145
01:06:29,240 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 3: and true with a bunch of these other underwater things.

1146
01:06:31,280 --> 01:06:34,440
Speaker 3: There will be like the original image that inspired the

1147
01:06:34,840 --> 01:06:38,120
Speaker 3: all the speculation, and then there will be modified, doctored,

1148
01:06:38,240 --> 01:06:41,640
Speaker 3: or fully faked versions of that image where people have

1149
01:06:42,200 --> 01:06:45,240
Speaker 3: added in new information to make it look more like

1150
01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:48,200
Speaker 3: whatever they're saying it is. So they're like versions of

1151
01:06:48,240 --> 01:06:50,800
Speaker 3: the eltanna and antenna that are not the original image

1152
01:06:50,880 --> 01:06:53,120
Speaker 3: that somebody made to look like an antenna.

1153
01:06:53,720 --> 01:06:58,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're enhancing on their own. And you see

1154
01:06:58,880 --> 01:07:02,120
Speaker 2: that with yeah, with this this photo, but also other

1155
01:07:02,160 --> 01:07:05,320
Speaker 2: photographs as well, And honestly, it can become a little

1156
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:09,840
Speaker 2: confusing in our modern you know, Google image search world,

1157
01:07:10,240 --> 01:07:13,240
Speaker 2: because you'll look up something like this and you'll you'll

1158
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:16,960
Speaker 2: find hopefully you'll still find those original images. Generally, the

1159
01:07:17,000 --> 01:07:19,000
Speaker 2: original image is going to be what's grounded on any

1160
01:07:19,040 --> 01:07:25,440
Speaker 2: Wikipedia article, but on other wikis then it's kind of

1161
01:07:25,520 --> 01:07:28,280
Speaker 2: up in the air. You may find that original image

1162
01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:33,120
Speaker 2: right next to these enhanced images and artist interpretations of

1163
01:07:33,120 --> 01:07:35,880
Speaker 2: what it might look like if it were an antenna

1164
01:07:36,120 --> 01:07:39,040
Speaker 2: built by aliens, if this other thing was a spaceship,

1165
01:07:39,040 --> 01:07:42,000
Speaker 2: if this other thing was the work of ancient aliens.

1166
01:07:42,400 --> 01:07:45,240
Speaker 2: And yeah, it can be kind of it can be

1167
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:46,080
Speaker 2: kind of confusing.

1168
01:07:46,120 --> 01:07:49,800
Speaker 3: I think, you know, there are some other interesting underwater

1169
01:07:49,880 --> 01:07:55,880
Speaker 3: anomaly images that have actually pretty pretty good scientific tie

1170
01:07:55,920 --> 01:07:57,720
Speaker 3: ins that we can maybe even come back to you

1171
01:07:57,800 --> 01:07:58,760
Speaker 3: next week if you wanted.

1172
01:07:59,320 --> 01:08:02,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, could be that could be fun. There's also There

1173
01:08:02,800 --> 01:08:06,640
Speaker 2: are also a couple of examples from ancient Egypt that

1174
01:08:07,000 --> 01:08:12,760
Speaker 2: are often misinterpreted that have fascinating, you know, actual stories

1175
01:08:13,240 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 2: without having to drag ancient technology and ancient aliens into

1176
01:08:16,520 --> 01:08:17,080
Speaker 2: the scenario.

1177
01:08:17,439 --> 01:08:21,320
Speaker 3: Perhaps we will return to this subject in the near future, all.

1178
01:08:21,320 --> 01:08:22,840
Speaker 2: Right, but for now we're going to go ahead and

1179
01:08:22,840 --> 01:08:26,200
Speaker 2: close out, and we'll just remind you, Hey, if you

1180
01:08:26,200 --> 01:08:27,760
Speaker 2: want to listen to other core episodes of Stuff to

1181
01:08:27,760 --> 01:08:29,920
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind, you'll find them on Tuesdays and Thursdays

1182
01:08:30,120 --> 01:08:32,760
Speaker 2: and the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We

1183
01:08:32,800 --> 01:08:35,360
Speaker 2: have listener mail on Monday, short form Artifact or Monster

1184
01:08:35,439 --> 01:08:38,040
Speaker 2: Fact on Wednesday, and on Fridays we set aside most

1185
01:08:38,720 --> 01:08:40,840
Speaker 2: serious concerns to talk about a weird film on Weird

1186
01:08:40,880 --> 01:08:43,840
Speaker 2: House Cinema. Also a reminder, if you're listening to us

1187
01:08:43,880 --> 01:08:46,679
Speaker 2: in the UK and you want to listen on Apple

1188
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:50,320
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1189
01:08:50,439 --> 01:08:52,680
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1190
01:08:52,720 --> 01:08:54,880
Speaker 2: to be important to make sure you're following that.

1191
01:08:55,439 --> 01:08:58,880
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If

1192
01:08:58,880 --> 01:09:00,400
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with

1193
01:09:00,479 --> 01:09:03,040
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other to suggest a

1194
01:09:03,080 --> 01:09:05,080
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello. You

1195
01:09:05,120 --> 01:09:07,800
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1196
01:09:07,840 --> 01:09:16,280
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1197
01:09:16,320 --> 01:09:19,280
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1198
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:23,200
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1199
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