Ep 24 king tut’s show notes

Sources

historytoday.com/archive/months-past/tutankhamuns-curse

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8878314/Curse-of-Tutankhamun-may-have-been-work-of-Satanist-killer.html

https://www.jstor.org/stable/593799?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://daily.jstor.org/was-it-really-a-mummys-curse/

https://www.nytimes.com/1923/04/06/archives/carnarvons-death-spreads-theories-about-vengeance-in-egypt-england.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptomania

https://books.google.com/books?id=y80XHUoOunwC&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=I+have+succumbed+to+a+curse+which+forces+me+to+disappear&source=bl&ots=8bfgSaLugz&sig=f6jaSZ3vdAlBB8sbPtiBUrgvpeI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu8-7mk7zYAhVHGt8KHX4FAUsQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=I%20have%20succumbed%20to%20a%20curse%20which%20forces%20me%20to%20disappear&f=false

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyBtMxZgQs&ab_channel=MatthewGates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Kings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert,_5th_Earl_of_Carnarvon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_of_the_tomb_of_Tutankhamun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Carter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_pharaohs

1. Intro
2. It’s 1922 literally over 100 years ago so it’s tough to call this modern, but it is 1900s. And god damn if I aint hangin on to the 1990s being modern. 
3. Today we are talking about cracking open the real OGs tomb, king tutankhamun.
   1. I was also thinking about how weird english is, come and comb versus tome and tomb. I get why none of this makes sense if you’re being held hostage by the duolingo owl.
4. More importantly, we’re talking about the curse that came with it, and if we have time some some general ancient egyptian creepiness, I could do a multipart series on that so we’ll focus on tut today and maybe dip into the other stuff on another episode
5. What’s a mummy’s favorite music genre? Rap
   1. I have a baseline assumption that everyone had a weird phase where they wanted to be an egyptologist. So I think for a lot of you this stuff is gonna sound pretty familiar. But we’re all about the inclusion here so I want to give a quick overview of what was going on as far as western interest in egypt went at the time. 
   2. So 3000 years ago ancient egypt was in full swing, you got aliens showing up to help with the pyramids, you have dynasties of pharaohs, you got plagues of locusts, you got cat worshipping, finally something we can emphasize with 
   3. At some point later on, egypt kinda wanes down and gets absorbed into the roman empire
   4. Eventually holy roman empire
   5. Eventually crusades, and we’ve got a lot to talk about when it comes to crusades, the knights templar, hidden treasures, conspiracies, the free masons and all sorts of assassins creed bullshit. So that’ll be another episode. I hope someone is keeping track of when I say that. 
   6. Anyway knights templar came back with a ton of treasure from the fallen ancient egypt so tomb raiding had been in vogue for some time leading up to 1922. 
   7. At the turn of the 19th century, so 1798 to 1801 our favorite manlet, napoleon had something of a crusade of his own in egypt to “protect french trade interests, and establish scientific enterprise in the region. And the paintings for this are fucking awesome, I haven’t dug too deep into the french ottoman conflict in egypt, in fact I didn’t know it was a thing until 2 days ago, but the image of a bunch  of poofy-hatted french gunners facing down a horde of clones of the scimitar guy from raiders of the lost ark while there’s a fucking pirate ship being attacked by nile crocodiles. All in the shadow of the great pyramid, looks too radical to be true but, that’s apparently what happened. 
      1. This is definitely gonna be one of those episodes that spawns 10 other episodes on spurious details, which I love. 
   8. At any rate, his campaign might have been an overall failure but his scientists did discover the rosetta stone which spawned the whole field of egyptology. The rosetta stone allowed us to compare what we knew about ancient greek with egyptian hieroglyphs and finally gave us the means to translate those glyphs.
   9. I think the american obsession with mummies is worth covering in it’s own nite bite episode, maybe I’ll do that next week. It also feels like too much to cover here and the more sensational aspects don’t really have a place in this episode. Suffice to say, from 1800 to the 1920s and certainly beyond, a ton of americans were interested in the exotic and fantastical elements of ancient egyptian society, mummies, cat worship, pyramids, a unified artistic aesthetic, a pantheon of animal headed gods, and so much more it’s so cool! 
      1. Rich people had mummies in their living rooms as a conversation piece, people were grinding them up to make a certain kind of paint, I’m pretty sure people were grinding mummies up and eating them to make them cum harder too. 
         1. Man, humanity as a species is far to susceptible to the X is a powerful aphrodisiac meme. 
         2. More on all that next time 
   10. So leading up to the 1920s interest in egyptology had been building to a fever pitch, and in the 1880s archeologists started excavating the valley of the kings, where all the pharaohs’ tombs were. By the 1910s everyone thought all of them had been found. But the hero of this story howard Carter, correctly guessed that there was a missing tomb, the tomb of king tut. Tootan kamoon? Tuten kamen? I don’t know, I’ve heard both. 
   11. A piece of mummy bandage with his name on it was found in another tomb, suggesting that
       1. He was mummified 
       2. He had a tomb
       3. It hadn’t been found.
   12. Because of this egyptomania sweeping the west, archeologists often relied on bored, rich westerners to finance their expeditions 
   13. Enter the first victim of king tut’s curse. 
6. George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, or lord carnarvon 
   1. Dude was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and his jobs were basically sitting around in manors and castles and the like. He was interested in egyptology as a hobby though which led to him financing Howard Carter’s various expeditions to find the tomb
   2. He has a gnarly car accident in 1903 and his doctors tell him to go to drier warmer air to avoid the consumption during the english winters, because his immune system was shit. so he started wintering in egypt where he financed digs for artifacts, not unlike me trying to get my friends to do a scars of mirrodin draft in holy fuck 2010?
   3. through his connections he gets the OK to dig around in the valley of the kings and he finances carter’s expeditions in 1914. Some of you students of history may know why his excavations had to be put on pause in mid 1914. Little thing called the great war. Honestly not even gonna touch that, google world war one, bit of a scrap that one. 
   4. Anyway the digs resumed in 1917, and continued until 1921. In 1921 he’s like howie my good chap, you haven’t found shit, you get one more shot then we’re calling it.
   5. And so he got 1 more season, and in early november of that last season, him and his crew discovered a carved stone step beneath the sands because thor water boy tripped over it. Where’s the water boy’s credit? I guess he did get an adam sandler movie…
   6. Over the next few days and weeks they excavated the entrance to the tomb of tutankhamun 
7. Phew now we can get into the story, context is important. Right?
8. So carter and his crew dig u the site and are overjoyed to find a door, still sealed with it’s original rope, meaning nobody has busted the thing open yet, and what does it say on the door, but the tomb of Tutankhamun
9. He’s like oh shit I need to tell my boy lord carnarvon, so he dips out and  head to luxor to send a telegram to him to get his ass down there from england. 
   1. During the time he’s doing that, his crew are probably chilling out lighting cigars and that’s when the bad omen rears it’s slithering head.
   2. THis dude arthur calendar hears a scream from carters tent and finds some real looney tunes shit going on. A Cobra has eaten Carter’s pet canary. 
   3. Of course the cobra was the symbol of the pharaohs, well for a while anyway, there was also birds and scorpions and other symbols for a while, but cobras re the big one
   4. So a cobra, the symbol of the kings in the valley of the kings at Carters pet hours after they discover the tomb. Weird right?
10. Carter really doesn’t pay the omen much heed mostly because as he’s brushing away the sand all he can see are the big fucking dollar signs going across his eyes, actually I guess they would be pound signs? The squiggly L thing? Not nearly as compelling
    1. Next he carves out a little hole in the wall and goes full nic cage in national treasure and sticks his arm through with a torch to see if it’s booby trapped or whatever
       1. I bet you he screamed and was like sike
    2. He digs into the wall and I’ll just quote from his journal:
       1. “With trembling hands I made a tiny breach in the upper left-hand corner. Darkness and blank space, as far as an iron testing-rod could reach, showed that whatever lay beyond was empty, and not filled like the passage we had just cleared. Candle tests were applied as a precaution against possible foul gases, and then, widening the hole a little, I inserted the candle and peered in, Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn and Callender standing anxiously beside me to hear the verdict. At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold – everywhere the glint of gold.”
       2. This was the motherlode, and lady evelyn was carnarvon's daughter, not to mention her mother was a rothschild. Hmm interesting but unimportant, unless the rothschilds are controlling banks with ancient egyptian magicks but we’ll put a pin in that
       3. And so they cut the rope and entered the tomb, met with chariots, idols, canopic jars, where organs were stored, and all manner of other treasure, scrolls, fine clothes and more
       4. It’s kind of fun what happens next because this is just the ante chamber, in the interest of cataloging history, they can’t move forward to te burial room until this place is cleaned out
       5. A process that took 3 months
       6. They actually used other tombs that had already been cleared in the valley as their lab it’s pretty funny. Like rameses’ tomb was just their cafeteria, Seti’s tomb was their darkroom and staging area so on and so forth
       7. The burial room was still sealed.
    3. February 16th 1923 they finally crack that sucker open, Carnarvon is there from england
       1. The tomb sews forth a putrid, hot, 3000 year old blast of air and there in the middle of the chamber is the sarcophagus.
       2. And the thing with the sarcophagus, like a tootsie pop, it takes a lot of licks to get to the corpse filling. There’s three layers of ornate coffins within coffins before even gettin to tut’s mummy
    4. Overnight they become superstars, and if you thought egyptomania was in high gear before you better believe the whole world was going nuts over this discovery. And then the pharaohs curse begins reaping the lives of those that disturbed his slumber.
       1. Tut was 17 when he died, have you tried waking up a 17 year old? Good fucking luck, especially when they’ve been sleeping for 3 hours, let alone 3000 years. 
11. The curse
    1. Carnarvon gets bit by a mosquito on his cheek in March, less than a month after cracking the tomb open. Where are the mosquitos coming from? Where are the pools for them to breed? I didn’t even know there were mosquitos there, then again wait nevermind WNV.
    2. The wound doesn’t heal like a normal bite, it becomes infected and turns into a gnarly welt on his face.
       1. There’s a couple of really cool things about this, not for him but for podcasters one hundred years later. 
       2. Number 1, an inscription on a tomb in the valley of the kings, not tut’s but regardless, “Death comes on swift wings for those who enter the tomb of a pharaoh. What has wings. A Mosquito. Boom prophecy fulfilled, catch you all next week.
       3. Number 2. Later on when the actually opened the sarcophagus and did an autopsy on the king himself, they found he had a fucking infected mosquito bite sore on his mummified cheek as well? COINCIDENCe? 
       4. Shaving didn’t help, that’s why I let my beard grow, because slicing the infected bite allowed the infection to spread to his blood. 
       5. Within a month he was dead from the bite, and ensuing infection, and the pneumonia it caused.
          1. None of this is verifiable, but:
             1. All the lights in cairo or his house went out when he died depending on the source 
             2. His dog back home in england howled in agony and then exploded into bats, not really but it keeled over and died after howling. 
       6. THe curse claims its first victim, unless you count the canary I guess
12. Then it continues. And take fully into account, the press is going absolutely hog wild with this story so a lot of it is embellished.
    1. I think the times got exclusive rights to the story as it were, as far as speaking to participants but other papers weren’t gonna miss their shot at the biggest post WW1 human interest story around so some of this might be made up or just a take it and run scenario 
13. George Jay gould- Railroad man, not directly involved, visited the tomb. also got pneumonia and died in may 1923
14. Arthur cruttendon mace: opened the tomb, died of pneumonia in 1928  years after carnarvon
    1. Mold everywhere a compelling case for pneumonia, but later tested to find it was not hazardous.
15. PRINCE ALI Kamel fahmy bey, shot by his wifey in 1923. He had vivisted the tomb, he was tangentially related according to some sources, maybe political schemes and squabbles over the artifacts I don’t know, there’s a lot of fucking dead people okay. 
16. Hugh evelyn-white, visited the tomb, not directly involved. archeologist with a sense of impending doom. Hanged himself in 1924 after writing in blood that "I have succumbed to a curse which forces me to disappear."
17. Aaron ember: present at the opening, john hopkins professor of egyptology in baltimore
    1. Had a dinner party, showed off treasures from the tomb
    2. House caught fire, slowly at first
    3. Wife convinced him to save his manuscript of the book he was working on while she rescued their son. As they went into the fire the blaze kicked into high gear, instead of the slow burn they had seen before.
    4. His wife and son perish, so does the maid.
    5. He makes it to the roof holding the pages of his book and passes out and falls down, he is rescued but succumbs to his burns the next day 
    6. The name of his manuscript, the egyptian book of the dead.
    7. Also Dr. Ember the egyptologist that perished in a FIRE is a fucking awesome comic book villain. When he comes back with mummy powers.
18. Richard bethell- Carter’s secretary and number 2 in the tomb, 1929 died of smothering in locked from the inside hotel room. This is obviously a case of the mummy turning into a horde of scarabs and flying through the window, reforming into the CGI  mummy and choking him out personally. 
    1. His maid also said they had a couple of small fires where they kept the treasures from the tomb
19. Lord westbury Richard bethells father cast himself from the seventh story window like he’s the protagonist from H.P. Lovecraft’s Dagon. He also had artifacts from the tomb
20. These connections are getting thinner now, Lets talk about audrey herbert, he was carnarvon’s half brother. Born with eye disease slowly eating away at his vision, and eventually came completely blind. A dentist thought maybe his rotten teeth were causing it, and so they pulled every one of his teeth and he was still blind. Seems like less of a curse and more of a shitty dentist. September 1923, he died of sepsis from getting all his teeth pulled. Sounds like a fucking awful way to go. He also just got back from egypt. Hmm. why fucking bother if you can’t see anyway?
21. Then we have Bruce Ingham. He died many years later but he had his fair share of misfortune from the tomb. He was Carter’s friend and was given a mummy hand with a bracelet that literally said “Cursed be he who moves my body.” He used it as a paperweight. Very tasteful. Anyway his house immediately burned down. When he rebuilt it, it was immediately destroyed by a flood. He got rid of the hand just in case. 
22. Sir Archibald Douglas Reid- died of a mysterious disease in 1926. He X-rayed tut and died three days later. Don't x ray the mummies. Don’t turn the mummies into a parlor decoration or a paperweight, don’t try to have sex with the mummies, don’t grind up the mummies to eat, don’t grind them up for paint like renaissance painters did, the flowchart for what to do with a mummy is pretty simple. Find mummy what would you like to do with the mummy?
    1. Option A. Leave the mummy alone, maybe respectfully observe it. 
       1. Proceed with caution
    2. Option B. anything else. 
       1. Do not proceed, you may already be doomed. insert 25c to try again.
23. George bendite- 1926 died a three stooges death falling down the stairs after visiting the tomb.
    1. Examining it for the lourve
24.  There’s one author that suggests non other than the great beast aleister crowley actually was the curse and the whole thing was a fucking scooby doo setup, where he murdered people involved with the tomb, because his thelemic religion, philosophy? Was steeped in ancient egyptian lore and cracking open the tomb was a heretical act to him that needed to be punished. I don’t really buy that personally
    1.  I might pick that up and report back, seems like a wild ride but personally I think crowley was too busy getting dicked down by his students and eating human dookie to plan a bunch of murders.
25. Noticeably absent from this list is carter himself who died in 1934 at the age of 64, due to a seemingly unrelated lymphoma. He called the curse theory tommyrot and codswallop. Which is one of my favorite words. 
26. So a ton of people died indirectly, but most of the people who were actually there didn’t die for years, which from a numbers perspective, 8 of the 58 people present when the coffin was opened died in the next ten years, that  isn’t a very compelling curse. But from the sensationalism of the actual deaths,  yeah something is going on there, mysterious fires, invisible stalkers, analogous wounds, brendan fraser, the works.
27. I think ultimately, everyone can decide if the curse is real or not for themselves:
    1. Even if it is some mold based pneumonia, sealed up for eons, that’s kind of a curse in its own right, even if it isn’t strictly magic. And that does indeed happen in these sealed chambers
    2. You can be a skeptic about stuff like this but in the end the wild stories speak for themselves, the dude being immolated after showing off his ill gotten treasures looking for the book of the dead? Carnarvon Having the exact same wound as tut, the written curses everwhere?
    3. At some point I think if enough people believed in the things they would manifest in one way or another, you can tell the dude that killed himself and wrote a message in his own blood “Umm actually the curse is psychosomatic, you’re just imagining it” but in the end it was certainly real for him. 
    4. Our perceptions shape reality, and in a time where this was the biggest news story the world over in the recovery period of WW1, there’s a lot of weird fucking psychic energy floating around, focused on this very story at the time. Mummy tulpas, 3000 years of intentionality, millions dead, I’m just saying it’s quite a mix.
    5. There’s so much more to get into in this time period it’s impossible to cover it all in one episode. 
       1. In short the takeaway is not to desecrate ancient burial grounds, if you can avoid it. At least wear a gas mask or something so you aren’t sucking up mummy dust. 
    6. There’s a couple of other cool mummy tidbits I Couldn’t get to this week so I’ll carry it over to next week, and the we’ll come at it with something totally new after that. Thanks for listening, as always, I’d say sweet dreams but we all know it’s only gonna be nightmares now
    7. Gnight

Episode 23

A eulogy for ‘22

Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ1PDsNRfTk&ab_channel=RealWild

Mountain lion info

https://web.archive.org/web/20101121100620/http://cougarnet.org/cougarfacts.html

https://a-z-animals.com/animals/mountain-lion/

https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Mammals/Mountain-Lion

Map:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/santamonicamtns/33781179435/in/album-72157670897770258/

News beats (Some paywalls) Don’t pay them.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/10/us/los-angeles-p-22-mountain-lion-mauls-zoo-koala-bear-killarney

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-famed-p22-mountain-lion-found-under-los-feliz-home-owner-says-20150413-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-11-21/big-cat-kills-chihuahua-in-hollywood-hills

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/hollywood-cat-p-22-mountain-lion-los-angeles/672285/?fbclid=IwAR2vsgJwcSLPweYgQaSI5_A1RZHi6RqXLez4udvoFnb171BJzwECwz1-3os

https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-12-16/essential-california-p-22-mountain-lion-legacy-essential-california?fbclid=IwAR36K8iqSX0lra7OOap05QXPDTIYwC_eNj4WuFslkFlK0r8QLLDmQc1wqNs

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/p-22-la-celebrity-mountain-lion-photographer-1234649904/?fbclid=IwAR23yJRWiWIvjxvpO_7X8xcSXgCN56vFRQwQgfx0OydCpK0DX56jJgLtmTk

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/a-cougar-ready-for-his-closeup

Wiki links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cougar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-22

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_405_(California)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_Annenberg_Wildlife_Crossing

How to help

https://annenberg.org/initiatives/wallis-annenberg-wildlife-crossing/

https://www.facebook.com/p22mountainlionofhollywood/

https://savelacougars.org/

https://friendsofgriffithpark.org/p-22/

More videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eufGfQulp0U&ab_channel=KCETSoCalConnected

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWFFvFmzkVA&ab_channel=ABC7\

Attributions

https://freesound.org/people/shelbyshark/sounds/513332/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm2x6CVIXiE&ab_channel=YangBan-Ho

Steve winter for photos

1. As for what we’ve got today though, it’s something a little different, it isn’t really horror so much, unless you’re a chihuahua, in which case be very afraid. But it’s a story that’s been bouncing around in my head for the last month or so. I think there’s a lot of metaphor and coincidence when it comes to a sendoff for 2022 and more topically P-22.
2. Towards the end of the episode I want to give some quick thoughts on the state of the show and the state of my life going into 2023, but if you’re just tuning in because you found me from some arcane algorithm, or if you googled how to bag cougars, (Which you’ll find I won’t be much help with) I’m sure you want to jump right into the action. So with a quick belated Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year, and without further ado let’s pounce right into today’s topic.
   1. P-22 was a mountain lion that lived in the heart of Los Angeles in a small territory consisting of Griffith Park, and later on the surrounding city. For those of you that don’t know LA well or at all, Griffith Park is home to that big ass observatory in Grand theft auto five, and the iconic HOLLYWOOD Sign. He became a celebrity in the city of celebrity and like many celebrities in hollywood, sometimes he did great good for his species, and other times he swallowed koalas right out of their pen. Looking at you gary busey. His life brought awareness to wildlife and kickstarted a project to help wildlife in the LA area. He was eventually brought down by the people of LA, not unlike the rest of the country, but his relationship with them proved fatal just about a month ago
3. P-22 began his life in the Santa Monica mountain range, as many mountain lions do. 
   1. I think big cats are cool as hell, peep episode one if you want to hear an amazing tiger story, and keep an eye out for future cat episodes down the lion. 
   2. The Tsavo man eating lions, vengeful russian tigers, weird british ghost panthers, the great zoo suicide of 2011, depends on whatever mood I’m feline
   3. But I think it’s spectacular we have them in America, mountain lions and I think there are even jaguars or panthers in Florida now. 
4. Life and times of P-22
   1. Before we talk about the tragedy at the end of the story I think it’s best we do a record scratch//freezeframe yup that’s me I guess you’re wondering how I got here situation so let's jump back in time, to somewhere between 2009 and 2012 on the 101 or 405 highways near los angeles
   2. The Interstate 405 alone is 8 lanes across both ways. That’s a big fucking highway and if any if the drivers in LA are as bad or worse than the ones in LA, which is an assumption I have no problem making, it’s a dangerous proposition to cross. I rarely want to cross more than a two lane road in small towns unless I’m playing fucking frogger. 
   3. Now imagine you’re a 2 or 3 year old mountain lion or puma, or catamount, or mountain screamer or cougar or red tiger or any of the myriad of names we call felis concolor. You’re entering adolescence and leaving the protective care of your mother to stake out a territory of your own. Unfortunately the santa monica mountain range doesn’t have a whole lot of extra real estate so you need to venture westward towards human civilization, if you stayed around here the dominant male cat would kill you sooner or later 
   4. This was P-22s predicament. When the going gets tough, the tough get going and he had to make the choice between certain death at the paws of the dominant male or 90 percent death crossing over 10 lanes of traffic on some of america’s busiest highways. He somehow dashed across the 101 AND the 405, where many animals and cougars meet their doom and made his way into griffith park.
   5. Griffith park like I mentioned earlier, home of the hollywood sign and surrounded by human civilization. It was an area of about 9 square miles. Mountain lions usually claim an area of 280 square miles. So an insane choice for the cat but what is he supposed to do? go  back across a dozen lanes of busy traffic or just swang at his new pad where no mountain lion has been for probably hundreds of years. It was free real estate, and cats don’t know exact statistics on how bg their homes should be, because they can’t read biology textbooks. So P-22 made his home there in the park, peacefully eating mule deer, coyotes, and escaped chihuahuas. 
   6. Fast forward to february of 2012 and Humanity got its first glimpse of the soon to be famous cat. He was caught on a wildlife trailcam looking for bobcats and coyotes and the guy is like that’s a lion’s ass! 
   7. Immediately the national park service wanted to tranq him and fit him with a radio collar. It was a big deal. No lions got this close to humanity. 
   8. Jeff sikich with the national parks service set up traps and eventually captured him in march 
   9. They tagged him with a radio collar and dubbed him P-22, the name that would go on to be quite possibly the most famous puma ever, and simply standing for P as in puma and 22 because he was the twenty second puma captured and collared in the study.
5. So it began, his observed life in griffith park
   1. He showed up in a variety of newspapers over time, la times ect
   2. People were excited to see him on hikes or later on as the tech became more mainstream, ring cams or other CCTV footage in the hollywood hills, because he would occasionally prowl through those suburbs. As time went by, he was more frequently spotted in civilized areas outside of the park
      1. You can see all kinds of footage of this. Prowling under stairs, running across the street, just walking down a sidewalk casually. It’s really awesome.
      2.  They’re the fourth largest Cat species worldwide if we don’t count sightings of relic smilodon. behind, I'm guessing, Tigers, lions, and jaguars. Cheetahs would be next, just guessing. If I’m wrong @ me on twitter or instagram or facebook or whatever. 
      3. They clock in at 117-220 pounds generally and hit up to 8 feet long snout to tail tip. Way smaller than a tiger, if you want to know more tiger stats feast your ears on episode one. 
      4. Still way bigger than a dog or a cat or anything else that’ll be wandering the streets of LA
   3. Published in late 2013 was a national geographic story with the now iconic image of P-22 crossing the ridge at night with the Hollywood sign off in the background. 
      1. The cameraman set up motion detector cameras for 15 months in the park and finally got some great shots. 
      2. Most of the other great shots couldn’t be collected because people kept stealing the cameras. 
   4. Following the Nat Geo stories, I’ll link all this in the show notes, and I’ll actually do that this time.
      1. More and more people became interested in the life and times of P-22.
         1. There’s something remarkably human and relatable about him. 
         2. One documentary put it well where it describes him, alone on a friday, stuck because of traffic, and unable to find a mate. We’ve all been there. 
         3. He never ended up finding a mate just because the odds of a cougar making it out there across those highways to his territory were astronomical. 
         4. He would stroll the city, like I mentioned, but the city took him on as a part of their own local culture. There are several murals, tons of facebook groups, hiking teams, fan clubs, you name it! 
   5. People would see him on hikes, in their security cams or just roaming around. Some wanted him gone but the general vibe I get is that people were really proud of the big cat, as a neighbor, and as a symbol of the coexistence of nature and humanity 
      1. As we over-expand and turn this place into a coruscant style hellhole we need to do what we can to keep giant predators living side by side with us. 
6. In 2014 we came across I think the first time I ever saw P-22, and that’s when he was acting erratically according to his collar 
   1. Authorities trapped him again and found he was suffering from disease, parasites and the dreaded mange. He looked bad, in short. 
   2. That’s another Iconic image, P-22 looks like the worst hangover of your life, scraggly unkempt hair, droopy eyes, dried mucus, and a general malaise marked his appearance 
   3. The national park service tranqed him, cleaned him up and loaded him up on antibiotics and when he was captured again six months later he was in peak physical shape, this is where the meme comes in. They show the before and after picture of his treatment and in the after, he looks alert and regal.
7.  People were happy with his recovery and it was at this time a few other mountain lions were killed on the dangerous highways and where P-22 really found his greater purpose, or rather where we found it for him. 
   1. He was already a symbol of urban wildlife and essentially became an ambassador in spirit for the wallis annenberg wildlife crossing, a proposed wildlife bridge over the 405, that would be the largest of it’s kind in the world. 
   2. It would be essential a highway overpass/underpass but instead of a road, it would be forested and maintained to keep the feel of the landscape, providing a safe way for all sorts of animals to cross the exceedingly deadly 405.
   3. I love this they have em in europe, and other places that care about animals
   4. I’m pretty sure that as of now the crossing has broken ground and the construction has begun
   5. I’ll throw a link to that in the show notes 
   6. I think this is really awesome and really important, and 22s lasting legacy but I don’t think it makes great show material necessarily so I’m not gonna go on too much about it, but I’m sure there are some crowdfunding options or cougar rehab organizations, if you want to lend them a hand somehow.
      1. Make sure it’s the right kind of cougar though
8. But as his final glorious legacy, it’s up to you to say if the end justifies the means and this is where the means get mean
   1. After recovering from mange and everything, The cat coasted for a while on his celebrity status. 
      1. It seems most locals had at least heard of him but the sources I was looking at were obviously p-22 centric so I can’t really asses what the actual feel was in LA
         1. Let me know
      2. People were content to catch a glimpse of the legendary critter on hikes or through local news reports and were overall happy to have him
         1. The articles didn’t touch on this too much but I’m sure there was a subset of people indifferent or straight up “shoot that varmint” before he kills a kid or something and I can see both sides but also I generally prefer cats to people anyway so if somebody’s gotta be lunch to keep the big cats around well
   2. But like every true crime documentary, there’s the part where everything is going fine, UNTIL IT WASN’T cue the music sting and the inverted image of P-22 
      1. His range was perilously small compared to other mountain lions his age and size, and he was no doubt lonely and restless. After all in the wild he would have likely mated by now. 
      2. Additionally one of the main problems that he and many other animals in the entire ecosystem out there is rodenticide poisoning.
         1. People try to get rid of rats and pests
         2. Rats and pests eat the poison but take a long time to die
         3. It all stays bioavailable when they’re preyed on or even just in the soil
         4. It trickles up the food chain to the point that like 90 percent of the rescued wildlife in the areas is poisoned by it one way or another.
         5. They’re all disoriented and internally bleeding 
         6. It sucks just keep your place clean and put your trash away and you won’t have the problem
      3. So lonely, restless, and not thinking clearly, P-22 begins to roam further outside griffith park, showing up more and more frequently over the next few years, sometimes LION on peoples porch in broad daylight, I’m sure dogs and cats probably went missing 
      4. But in 2016 it all came to a head.
         1. It was a weird year for zoos, peace be upon harambe’s name
            1. On second thought it was a weird year for everyone
      5. Killarney the koala, a robust 18 pound brave female koala, aged 14, so no spring chicken was doing her nightly walk about her enclosure, she was reportedly the only one brave enough to walk on the ground at night and paid with her life for it.
      6. On March 2nd of 2016 P-22 was spotted on security footage prowling outside the LA Zoo on the outskirts of Griffith park. 
      7. The next morning Killarney was missing. Clumps of fur were discovered in her enclosure but none of the other koalas were gone. 
      8. Later though, her remains were found chewed up 350 yards away. GPS data couldn’t conclusively point at P-22 because there was a 2 hour gap in his GPS Tracking that night.  
      9. THE PERFECT CRIME
      10. Anyway killarney, kill for short was mauled to death and the zoo was very sad, but they also said IF, big “Big if true” as to whether he killed her. It could be a bobcat, or SKC, spontaneous koala combustion
      11. Don’t kill ‘22 he’s just acting within his nature
   3. Over that same time period and later up until his untimely death, ‘22 increased his erratic behavior
      1. He showed up throughout the surrounding city and suburbs
      2. Got under peoples porches
      3. Attacked dogs 
      4. Ate a chihuahua
      5. Ate another chihuahua
      6. Attacked another chihuahua
   4. He hung on, appearing sporadically in sightings until December of 2022
      1. He was captured after a report in a los feliz owners backyard on december 12th,where he would get a medical evaluation while tranquilized and have his gps collar battery changed, as usual.
      2. He was found to have huge trauma to his abdominal organs, and GPS data matched up with a reported collision with a vehicle and a mountain lion earlier that week. 
      3. Not only the trauma damage, but long term health problems like heart disease and kidney failure were plaguing P-22 at his evaluation.
   5. IT was with heavy heart the decision was made 
      1. At 9am on December 17th, 2022, the king of LA’s reign came to an end.
      2. P-22 was euthanized, too beat up to be safely returned to the wild, see episode #1 if you want to know what an injured big cat can do to a human population
      3. Now he reigns in cat heaven, with an all you can eat chihuahua buffet, maybe he’ll finally meet a mate, maybe it’s the champawat tigress, does that biology or spirituality work out on any level? 
         1. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter, it’s all a hologram anyway. 
      4. This episode is actually coming out just in time, because P-22’s celebration of life is going to be livestreamed this Saturday, February 4th, I’ll have a link to that in the notes if you want to see it. I’ll probably tweet that out too. 
   6. And so the king of california is gone, but far from forgotten. His story serves as a reminder of the need to live in peace with urban wildlife. And saving big cats in general. 
      1. I’m proud to bring this story into 2023 and I have a lot of awesome stuff planned for this year. We’re doing youtube,we’re doing sponsors? Any takers? We’re hitting 3 thousand downloads, we’re inspiring people to make their own art, we’re educating the masses on big cats, big foots, big conspiracies, big legends, big history and so much more. 
   7. I want to thank you guys for listening this far, and if you don’t care about the sappy stuff, you know it’s only gonna be nightmares from now on
      1. But if you do, thanks for listening to this show, whether this is your first episode or you’ve binged the whole catalog, you’re the reason I do this.
      2. The support has been unreal since launch and it’s really a dream come true. 
      3. I want to bust my ass this year and maybe get to a point where this can pay maybe a bill each month, and maybe a few years from now pay all of them. 
      4. I’m happy to have you along, 2022 had some of the best and worst days of my entire life, I married my best friend with the support of all the people I care about, started this very podcast finally, and had he trip of a lifetime on my honeymoon, At the same time we battled all kinds of tragedy both close to home and abroad.
      5. I Cannot wait for the next 11 months ( I really did slack a bit there huh) for spooky bullshit here at nightmare now, more getting together with friends and family, more adventure and more of all the stuff that makes life awesome
      6. So thank you, the listener, one more time.
   8. And let's take a moment to learn from P-22 and take that into the new year.
      1. You may not be in the perfect habitat, without all the freedom to roam that you think you need, but even where you are you find your people, and you can make a difference. Whether it’s crushing your chihuahua enemy analog, or blazing a brilliant new path forward for others like you 
      2. On the flipside, don’t be afraid to take that leap, cross your 10 lanes of 405, to find the place where you belong. 
      3. And lastly remember you may not fully know the impact you have on others. ‘22 didn’t know he was admired by thousands across LA, The US and the world, he just did what he was gonna do no matter what. 
   9. Carry that shit with you this year and it’ll be great
      1. Goodnight to you, goodnight to 2022 and goodnight of course sweet prince, P-22
      2. I’d say Sweet dreams, but you all know it’s only gonna be nightmares now!

Notes 12/20

notes 12/9

Mad science, genetic manipulation, and BEES!? 

1.  It all began in 1922 with the birth of bright eyed baby boy Warwick Estevam Kerr, I guess it actually began 120 million years ago when bees first evolved, but 120 million years is a lot of history to cover in a single episode so we’ll skip ahead to Warwick
   1. The Son of scottish immigrants to the US and then to Brazil, he led a life mired in science
      1. He was an agricultural engineer
      2. Eventually got his doctorate
      3. Worked at universities, becoming a professor, a department head and even a dean, A research director and more.
      4. Interestingly he studied at columbia with a theodosius dobzhansky, famed geneticist, and also the great grandson of fyodor dostoyevsky, small world I guess. No relevance to the story 
      5. Most importantly of all the things warwick kerr did outside of those contributions to society were his dabbling in mad science, and his constant experimentation and research of Beeeees 
   2. In short he dreamed of creating the worlds most powerful bee, and he succeeded.
      1. In the americas, meaning north south and central we were using european honeybees to produce honey. Obviously europe is not a tropical climate like much of south america, so in his home country of brazil kerr tried to interbreed a species of bee that could do better at producing honey in such a climate. 
      2. There were african bees from Tanganyika, a UK colonial territory in what is now modern day Tanzania; it existed from 1916 to 61. This was the east african lowland honeybee.
         1.  Adept at producing honey in a hotter climate. Way more than the europeans
         2. More aggressive than european bees, sending out attacks with 3-4 times as much of the attack force of european bees. And they pursue threats further away
         3. They swarm more
            1. This means they move to a new hive quicker while eurobeeans would rather wait it out.
         4. They evolve with much less focus on keeping a hive warm so they have energy to spare in their behavior
            1. Not to say the african bees don’t have their own problems which might be more horrific
               1. The cape bee female impersonates the african bee queen and just moves into the hive, if you’ve got the bee species confused now that there’s three don’t worry it gets more complicated and the bees themselves are confused
               2. Especially when the cape bee infiltrator queen can lay eggs parthenogenetically, meaning she don’t need no man and produces live viable eggs asexually. These eggs hatch into clones of herself that can also make clones of themselves until the fake bees take over the hive and collapse it. 
      3. Back to Kerr in 1957. He imported these african lowland bees to interbreed with his italian bees, that, although they don’t make as much honey when it’s hot
         1. He figured that the two bees combined over a few generations could combine their strengths and you would get a kickass warm weather honeybee that could make honey better than a european bee, and one that picked up the more laid back less aggressive temperament from the european bee. 
         2. That’s when it all went wrong.  Kerr was using queen excluders on his 29 combined beehives, a screen door cuck room so they couldn’t breed with the local european bees. 
            1. In late october of 1957 a beekeeper that was covering for him or visiting the facility or something, as far as I can tell his or her name is lost to history. Saw the bees struggling to move around the screen.
            2. took the screen off all of the hives. My understanding is that it was a screen per hive but maybe it was around the facility,
               1. Don’t you think after the third one they would realize maybe these are SUPPOSED to be like that? NOT 25 more queens later? Maybe they got out and just immediately killed him in thousands of furious stings, I really can’t find much on this guy.  
                  1. I’ve got a completely unfounded conspiracy theory that I’ll get into later.
               2. So he lets these genetically manipulated superbees out into the wilds of brazil. Of course they immediately get out of the beehives and start breeding with the native populations allo over the place and start rapidly expanding north and south. 
         3. The entire amazon basin had been consumed by 1970. The cross bred bees, called africanized honeybees, and unofficially, the killer bee! were ruthlessly efficient at replacing the native populations and once pandoras box was open there was no closing it again. A
         4. They reached central america in 82 leaving a swath of beestuction in their fluffy black and yellow wake. 
         5. By 85 the killer bee had taken southern mexico and had been spotted in an oil pipe shipment in california
         6. In 1990 the first permanent colony of killer bees was discovered in texas. 
         7. Over the next several years the bees continued their inexorable tide northward, overbreeding, killing and replacing the native european bees. 
         8. Skip ahead to the 2010s, there’s human deaths and attacks in
            1. UTAH
            2. GEORGIA
            3. TENNESSEE
            4. COLORADO
            5. AS FAR NORTH AS MARYLAND
            6. WE CAN’T HOLD THEM FOREVER
               1. Climate change
2. So what makes them killer bees anyway?
   1. Aggression. Bee apologists and a “Scientists” will be like it’s more of an acute defensiveness. 
      1. African bees, have to compete with scorpions, ants, termites and the ever popular honey badger, known for it’s uncaring callousness in the face of a single beesting. 
   2. Because of this heritage the africanized bee demonstrates this lethal “Defensiveness” in a number of ways. Deep breath
      1. They have more guard bees. 
      2. They have a wider guard/alarm radius (1600 feet) from which just walking by can disturb them, loud noises, vibrations, funny looks, ects will all set them off. They are more easily provoked
      3. They will pursue threats to the hive greater distances (¼ mile) that’s a longer distance for a half an inch bee than it is for a person, keep that in mind. 
         1. They're fucking relentless. You think you can jump into a pond like on winnie the pooh, and sure that works for the friendly neighborhood european bee, but these will buzz around the surface of the water waiting for you to come up for air in order to sting your stupid fac for existing within a quarter mile radius of their hive.
      4. They send the pain. Again and again 
         1. Their sting isn’t inherently more venomous than a european bee, or more painful or anything. It’s estimated that 500-1100 stings is lethal but depending on the location of the sting 100 could do the trick. 
         2. But they send many times as many attack bees as the natural counterparts, both proportionately and far overall number because:
   3. They group in far larger numbers than the native hives. 
      1. They sting 10 times as much as the europeans, in greater numbers, in a wider radius, and more easily provoked, what’s not to like? 
   4. They also live in the ground
      1. Because why not
   5. Most importantly they kill. About 2 people per year. And well over 1000 overall. 
      1. Those stats don’t add up at all. 
         1. 65 years, 2 people is 130. 
         2. 870 people were killed in the great bee war of 89?
      2. They also kill animals, pets, horses, wild animals, cows, nothing is sacred to them. 
3. Kerr was labeled a madman by the brazilian government and the world but it seems like everyone kind of got over it 
   1. He did get into several science hall of fame type things and died a respected figure in beekeeping history at the ripe old age of 96 in 2018 at his home in sao paulo brazil. 
4. That just leaves one question? Who was the mysterious beekeeper that let them all out that fateful october in 1957? 
   1. Who indeed. A little over a decade before B Day in october of 57 was a little something called ww2. 
   2. Nazi party members, Collaborators, SS officers and more assholes were desperately trying to escape the third reich collapsing out from underneath them. 
   3. Where could they go? If only there was a part of the world that already harbored an unusually large number of german expats and had for some time now. 
      1. That somewhere was south america, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and brazil, all over the place, there were germans and fascist sympathizers in the governments of these places, especially argentina, but I’ll cover this phenomena of South American Nazis, Hilter Clones, Jewish Nazi bounty hunters and lost treasure in another episode, probably series, that shit is insane. 
      2. Was that an innocent but dim-witted ordinary beekeeper? Or was it a young adult clone of hitler himself, or less fantastically some other nazi scientist jackass? 
      3. Could be, who knows? 
      4. Probably not though, but the timeline works out and it just seems like a hellboy plot or something. NAZI SCIENTIST SPLINTER GROUP RELEASES DEMON BEES TO ATTACK AMERICA FOR REVENGE. Once again, we have our movie premise. 
5. That’s all I got for tonight folks, thanks for listening, check out the site at nightmarenow.com to get in touch! We’ve got some awesome suggestions and a special shoutout to everyone that had my little show in your spotify wrapped. I love to see it!

The enfield horror

1. I've got a real treat for you this week one of my favorite cryptids.
   1. This was 1973 which as we get deeper in our episodes over time you might notice that number a lot because in my anecdotal research over the last few years that seems to be the one where a good chunk of the weirdness in the united states happens. 
      1. I’m talking bigfoots,
      2. So many Fucking UFOS
      3. Aliens
      4. Other random one off cryptids 
      5. Different high strangeness,
         1. MIBS
         2. Timeslips
         3. Other crazy stuff 
      6. The early 1970s midwest is gonna be in the paranormal history books down the line and I don’t think a lot of people are necessarily connecting all those dots.
2. Lastly I wanna give a quick plug to curious cryptids
   1. It’s from curious cryptids that I actually drew inspiration for today’s show, and in particular today’s nightmare. The ENFIELD HORROR
   2. I always thought this was a cool creature when I read about it as a kid in ripleys believe it or not or some other adjacent publication but this book reminded me of the weird creature that terrorized enfield illinois in the spring of ‘73 so without further ado lets leap right into it.
3. First sighting (Chronologically) 
   1. Greg Garret a young lad of 10 years was happily catching fireflies in his backyard when it began that fateful night, april 25th 1973
      1. Greg was attacked by the creature as it leapt out of the woods, and tore his tennis shoes to shreds 
      2. It ripped his shoes apart, I couldn’t find anything about whether Greg's feet were okay but since there’s no mention of it I assume the horror literally just tore up the shoes. And left his dogs intact. 
      3. He described the creature with gray slimy skin, short claws on two small arms and here’s the real kicker. 3 clawed legs. I want to know how he was tearing up shoes on three legs, did he plan one leg and go to town ith the other two or pull like  reinforced excavator move with two legs in the dirt and tear it up with the other one. How many animals do you know with three legs, naturally that is, I’m not talking about lucky the jack russel terrier
      4. He ran back into his house where his parents though nothing of the incident, they probably smacked him around for destroying his shoes though, I have no evidence to support that other than baseless assumptions about early seventies illinois. 
   2. This sighting wasn’t actually the first one reported though. That honor belonged to the mcdaniel family about an hour later. 
      1. Jil 12 and her older brother henry junior mcdaniel 15 were home alone while their father henry mcdaniel was working late. This was right up the road from the garret's place so that’s a little bit of corroboration. 
      2. 10 pm
      3. He gets inside finds his kids going nuts telling him there’s a monster trying to get in. first it scraped the door then tried to rip their AC out of the wall. 
      4. He’s pissed because his kids are still up and then goes and checks and the AC is actually awry
      5. The kids are going ape saying that it’s been trying to get in for a half hour up to and including the last five minutes when he pulled up and came inside. 
      6. He opens up the door and standing in the porchlight is the enfield horror.
         1. 3 legs
         2. Short body
         3. Two little arms coming from the breast area 
         4. 4 ½ feet tall
         5. Grey in color
         6. Big pink eyes the size of flashlights 
      7. He’s like fuck what the heck is that, slams the door shut as it’s coming towards the house and grabs his 22 pistol that’s just chilling next to the door. I love this country.
      8. Mcdaniel opens the door again to find the creature perched just beyond his porch stoop
      9. He shoots 5 times. The first time connecting because the creature let out a hiss like a wildcat and recoiled back
      10. The next 4 shots all seemed to miss because after the first the creature took off, covering the 50 feet to the treeline in just 3 leaps. That’s like 17 feet each jump.
      11. He didn’t see it again, and called the police, who showed up around midnight, this is another important detail. That gives it credence. If he’s just making shit up and haphazardly blasting bullets into the neighborhood it’s probably best to not call the police. 
      12. Together they find strange tracks, like a dogs with 6 pads instead of five and with an abnormal pattern, could be related to the thing having 3 legs. 
      13. There were also scratches on the siding of the house.
4. The Next day the police asked around the neighborhood and found greg garret, which is where we get his report from earlier.
5. This is where we get the first newspaper article in the mt vernon register describing mcdaniels sighting and report from the night before. 
   1. Things are exciting in town, as you would expect from a monster sighting 
6. Days passed as the town was still abuzz with excitement 
   1. Nothing happens until may 6th 10 days later
7. When the local radio station gets a call from Henry mcdaniel himself, to report seeing the creature once more
   1. Mcdaniel hears dogs howling near his home and does what every red blooded american does at a mildly distressing sound, grabs his gun. He grabs his gun and goes to investigate,
   2. This time the creature was quote languidly sauntering down the railroad tracks like it was fucking stand by me. Mcdaniel reportedly said it didn’t appear to be in any hurry, and I like that a lot. Just vibing and thriving, not caring that it’s on the wrong planet or reality. 
   3. The creature isn’t a threat so mcdaniel lets it just walk off into the sunse and calls into the radio station 
8. This is where things start to both heat up and cool off in the story. 
   1. After this second sighting the town goes wild and more importantly reporters and other people with an investigative bent start pouring into the town and what has since become a tired horror movie cliche comes true in real life. 
   2. The sheriff roy poshard jr shows up and threatens to arrest mcdaniel if he deosn’t stop causing hysteria. Presumably because it’s gonna ruin the turnout for their mule days festival.
   3. It’s that same next day that the DJ from the radio station shows up on the scene to capture footage and record interviews ect. He was rick rainbow. Hey folks it’s double R Ricky rainbow reporting round the clock from kokomo indiana with the morning corn, anyway here’s the REO Speedwagon.
   4. He and his cameraman set up (Why) they have a microphone going before they’re set to film
      1. They see an ape man and follow it and manage to catch no footage but audio of it’s cry
         1. A mix of a woman screaming in fear and the laughter of a baby, this audio doesn’t exist anywhere insofar as I can tell. 
      2. He later interviews mcdaniels who swears the veracity of his claims
   5. One thing I love about stuff with exact dates is finding the soundtracks via the top 40 hits of that week. Honestly the radio must’ve been jammin
      1. Tie a yellow ribbon on the old oak treE
      2. But then bangers like:
         1. Drift away 
         2. Stuck in the middle with you
         3. Frankenstein
         4. Walk on the wild side 
         5. And debuting that week no song other than THE MONSTER MASH By bobby boris pricket
            1. Need I say more?
9. Cut to a few days later 
   1. Roy Poshard jr and his deputy have to drive quickly over to the neighboring woods on account of gunshots and screaming
   2. What do they find but a monster hunting party of five 58 beers deep brandishing knives, shotguns, pistols and several brain cells
   3. They said they had just seen the creature and had almost blown it back to mars which honestly seems like a great time, not safe, but maybe a drunk airsoft monster hunt or somthing. 
   4. What they saw was a rustling in the bushes and just laid into the bush like it was sonny’s car in the fucking godfather. Sorry if that’s a spoiler but that movie came out a year before the enfield horror did so it wouldn’t have even been a spoiler back then. Despite lighting up the rustling bush the creature hissed and took off into the woods, but I think we can mostly discount this sighting at the bush on account of the drink
   5. They were charged with hunting violations
   6. Running off into the night was the last time the creature was ever seen.
10. Also of note Famed cryptozoologist, loren coleman happened to be in town when he was just starting out tracking down fortean mysteries like this guy. He doesn't do much in this particular story but shows up takes the tape and footage from rick rainbow and just leaves without elaborating further
    1. Next time I visit the cryptid museum in portland I’ll demand we release the enfield monster scream 10 minute version taylors version
11. Later on Greg Garret recanted his story of having his shoes ripped up, seemingly under his mothers duress, which fair.
12. So what  happened?
    1. There’s a lot that quote unquote experts and skeptics might have you believe so lets go down the list. You have your usual suspects
       1. Mass hysteria
          1. Always a go to cop out
       2. Mistaken identity for a raccoon or dog
          1. My man was rational and sober according to the news article and the cops,
          2. He called the cops not through 911
          3. Not known for being a prankster
          4. Wasn’t panicked until after the sighting
       3. Now we have the most likely explanation 
          1. A FUCKING KANGAROO
             1. Think about it small clawed hands
             2. Three legs, the tail 
             3. Weird footprints 
             4. Unfamiliar creature 
             5. Could be captive, which is why it wanted to get into buildings and wasn’t afraid of humans
             6. Leaping 17 feet in a single bound
             7. Boom case closed right? See you guys next week
             8. Sure maybe, and that’s where a lot of people leave it, some moron had an exotic animal and it got loose, this happens all the time right?
          2. Wrong
             1. Not in australia
             2. I don’t care how exotic, or how rare who doesn’t know what a kangaroo is
             3. Giant red eyes
             4. Slimy gray skin
                1. Okay maybe it’s diseased
13. But the real smoking gun that blows this out of the water in my opinion comes from really digging into th newspaper articles
    1. Henry mcdaniel served in the army, confirmed, there’s an obituary, military record the works
    2. Where was he stationed before he became an antique dealer single father?
       1. AUSTRALIA
       2. Where he said they basically had roos as pets on the base 
       3. If there was anybody in the whole midwest that would know a kangaroo from a racoon or alien or whatever anomalous aberration this thing was it was gonna be henry mcdaniel
    3. He got a good look at the thing, again sober and sound of mind according to all reports. He put a bullet in it at close range, for those of you who haven’t fired a pistol before, it’s not all john wick hawkeye stuff you need a pretty good bead on something to get a good shot and unless you’re lucky or very skilled you gotta be fairly close range.
14. But where does that leave us? 
    1. I don’t think it’s a kangaroo although that is a good theory and covers a lot of bases, it’s mutually exclusive with too much of the evidence. 
15. It really is a monster, never seen since. But possibly seen before, 30 years earlier in the 1940s a devil monkey creature was spotted harassing people in the woods just 40 miles north of enfield, could it be related? Who knows
16. The area has also seen it’s fair share of UFO sightings, but as far as I can tell, nothing that really fits the timeframe.
17. Then there’s the release of monster mash, what did boris prickett know, is this one of those whole town got dosed with LSD scenarios? I don’t know
18. As far as people hoaxing it for money, I don’t think that’s the case because nobody got anything out of it, mcdaniel was probably harassed the rest of his life by bigfoot nerds and got two local radio interviews. 
19. It is just one of those weird cases where something happens for a little bit, gets everyone riled up and then stops
    1. I think this is some sort of dimensional anomaly far from home Personally
    2. Someday I hop someone makes a movie about the events of illinois spring 1973 because it really has all th great elements of a creature feature.
       1. Small town drama
       2. Cops shutting it down
       3. Drunk monster hunting posses
       4. Multiple escalating sightings
       5. A unique beast
       6. People in fear
       7. People in denial
    3. If I can fund it someday I will

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/thesouthern/name/henry-mcdaniel-obituary?id=25073460

https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Enfield_Horror

https://www.gelcubicle.com/store/p/curious-cryptids-soft-cover-book

https://www.newspapers.com/image/30409597/?clipping_id=7318965&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjMwNDA5NTk3LCJpYXQiOjE2Njg1NjkzMTQsImV4cCI6MTY2ODY1NTcxNH0.yhpSLG_82xPsA2Gbdpwr2pkIis1CcAgtQ0SBSU3VvLk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_kangaroo

http://tylerscryptozoo.blogspot.com/2016/01/devil-monkeys-escapees-or-something-else.html

https://medium.com/@chrisdarkes/strangers-in-the-night-156983eb0d7d

https://top40weekly.com/1973/05/05/us-top-40-singles-week-ending-5th-may-1973/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJU2cz9ytPQ&ab_channel=Movieclips

Penguin Book of the Undead

Peter Jackson's  Dead Alive

I was half wrong about potatoes

1. Spirits of malice
   1. 1009-1018 AD
   2. Brandenburg Germany formerly Wasleman 
   3. Events
      1. Priest shows up, a bunch of people chillin in the cemetery, dying to get in
      2. Priest doesn’t recognize anyone, strange for 1010s because it wasn’t exactly a melting pot
      3. When he gets inside he sees some lady that recently died, she is telling him all his stuff is taken care of but he’ll be dead soon. 
      4. Dignitaries and guards also saw ghosts holding candles and praying
      5. They vanished when the observers got close though
   4. Later
      1. Bishop here was made aware of the scenario and was like you need to stay there and cleanse the place. 
      2. He sleeps there and ghosts toss him out on his cot
      3. Bishop says do it again or no balls
      4. This time at midnight the ghosts lifted up his bed and dropped him on the altar and immolated him, he was covered in holy water and gear but they didn’t care.
      5. They burned his body “until only fine ashes remained.”
      6. “As the day is conceded to the living, so the night is the dominion of the dead.
2. The Blackened hearts of Stapenhill
   1. Sometime between 1118 and 1150 somewhere in Anglo Norman England
   2. Abbot Geoffrey of burton writing about saint Modwenna
   3.  What happened
      1. 2 shmucks defending the monks at the monastery decided that wasn’t good enough
      2. Monks steal their crops to get them to come back 
      3. They flip out with the count and attack the granaries
      4. Then the count sends knights to destroy the monastery’s crops.
      5. Monks+ abbot knew they’re trying to get them to fight back and get killed
      6. Instead chill in the church and moan at saint Modwenna’s bones.
      7. Insane battle scene where 10 holy knights fought off sixty of the counts men when they didn’t get the don’t fight memo in a ridiculous slapstick battle. w/ power of god.
      8. The two flunkies that started this whole thing just died immediately
      9. They’re buried that night but seen the next dusk carrying their own coffins around/ bears, dogs, or other animals
      10. They brought ghost plague and they were so ugly everyone died (minus 3)
      11. The count says screw that and repents 
      12. The other three including Drogo ( the money man) didn’t die but fell ill
      13. With the monks they dug up the rapscallions and found their face linens covered  BLOOD 
          1. Creepy pasta is not new See above where (this definitely happened bro trust me)
      14. Time to rebury them
          1. Cut off the heads
          2. Stick them between the legs/aka up the a**
          3. Rip out the heart like Mola ram
          4. Cook it until it pops and a bunch of crows fly out
      15. No more ghosts, no more sickness
      16. They all left for the next town over and abandoned the city.
3. THE EVIL WELSHMAN
   1. 1140-1208
   2. Wales
   3. Walter map wrote this in “on the trifles” a satire of oral sources and historical narratives
   4. What happened
      1. Trust me bro
      2.  Will Laudun was a knight
      3. Some evil Welshman died and rose up 4 days later, this apparently doesn’t warrant explanation, nor does it merit more than a cursory glance, it wasn’t just Jesus, you could be a welsh prick and just show up
      4. So they kill him again in one sentence, chop off his head with a shovel and hose him down with holy water, I need to get hosed down with holy water after that googling. But that didn’t cut it. A phantom showed up, but without a zombie
      5. The phantom challenges William by calling his name 3 times and will follows the demon back to it’s tomb
      6. Are we demon’s bloody Marys?
      7. Will cuts off the ghost demons head, and it falls back into the grave
      8. Everyone that was sick heals, “We know for certain the outcome of this case, but we do not know the cause.”
4. Rampaging revenants
   1. 1130-1200
   2. William of Newburgh collected tales for the history of English affairs
   3. “Numerous examples from our own time are at hand and testimonies of the fact are abundant” -on corpses walking the earth. Trust me bro my cousin hunter saw it it’s totally real. 
   4. Buckingham county
   5. What happened:
      1. Big fat guy dies, next night he shows up in his wife’s bedroom and almost crushes her under his prodigious girth, 2 nights in a row.
      2. 3rd night he shows back up but she's having a slumby with some townsfolk and they tell him to get the heck out and he leaves
      3. Same happened with the guys brothers but they also warded him off.
      4. Next the whole town is on watch while this left for dead 2 boomer waddles around trying to squash people eventually in broad daylight. 
      5. Invisible to some people but they could still hear and presumably smell him
      6. The townsfolk talk to the local priest, he sends it up the chain and the bishop is like f**k, another one? We get these all the time, all over England. Ya gotta burn him
      7. The priest thinks that’s icky so writes him a nice letter of absolution, opens the grave and puts it on him and reburies the tomb. This ends the rampage
   6. What else happens?
      1. In a different part of England, because this was so common an occurrence: A wicked wealthy man had died, and like the rest of them, he casually got up and literally I quote from the historical text: “Pranced hither and thither, accompanied by loudly barking dogs” 
      2. He terrified his neighbors and went back to his tomb at the crack of dawn
      3. The townsfolk describing this are my favorite characters in the whole podcast, except maybe Robert Liston, time me gentleman still makes me chuckle
      4. I picture Monty python commoners delivering the hither and thither lines and “We fear we may be beaten black and blue by this undead monster” and what I think is hilarious besides the obvious of that is theirs no description of the man or his howling hellhounds
      5. 10 of the bravest village people, dug up the guys corpse, ripped him limb from limb and burned the pieces 
      6. Next evil spirits made everyone sick. Definitely not from ripping apart a week old corpse. 
   7. WHAT NEXT?
      1. Another dies, this time a priest that hunts with dogs 
      2. Starts haunting the church with a quote “Great groaning and hideous murmuring” 
      3. Monks don’t care because they kick ass for the lord 
      4. He haunts his old mistress, she tells the monks to do something
      5. 4 monks stake out the tomb and it’s all quiet. When 3 are asleep he crawls from the grave
      6. Monk freezes and gets his courage back, buries a battle axe in him and the monster fled away, though not as quickly as it had came, you know on account of the battle axe.
      7. The tomb eats it, they dig it up he’s covered in gore
      8. What next, I’ll give you three guesses they rip him up and burn him
      9. “I have told this story in plain language, exactly as I  heard it myself from devout men”
   8. WHAT NEXT
      1. Happened at castle anatis
      2. An evil wealthy man Becomes lord of the castle
      3. He increased his vices instead of trying to go clean whatever that means, he got a wife 
      4. Heard rumors she was a hoor, servant helps him sneak into his own bedroom, sees her getting railed  by the neighbors Teenager. 
      5. He faints the teen takes off, she’s like honey what a terrible dream you had.
      6. Fainting back then basically meant you died the next day so the priest that told William this story showed up to give him his last rites and he says wait till tomorrow then croaks without them.
         1. There's cool shit about medieval times like sword fighting and feastsOf course, get this, he wakes up dead. Dogs show up and start screamin
      7. Everyone feared being beaten black and blue
      8. The dead man cause another plague
      9. Many people died many left
      10. Two brothers, whose father had died of corpse breath, decided to take action into their own hands while everyone else was doing palm Sunday
      11. They uncovered the corpse “Swollen to an enormous size, its face bloodied and bloated beyond measure
      12. They stabbed it with the shovel unleashing a never ending torrent of blood
      13. They take it out rip it apart, cook the heart and roast the body
      14. All the disease and stuff stopped
      15. “Now that I have explained these events let us return to the course of history”
      16. That’s just in a history book more or less. Crazy
5. In conclusion
   1. I wonder if there's anything to this
   2. Some of the articles refer to this never happening before or since
   3. It’s so funny how stuff says the same and all the horror tropes are thousands of years old
   4. Why don't these stories pop up today? Are they fake or was this really everyday life back then?

In this episode we catch up on what the whaler's are doing, how they plan to overcome hunger, thirst, madness, the elements and a the great whales that dog them themselves. Detailed notes and sources to come tomorrow 9/2/22

Whaleship Essex part 2

1. Intro
   1. Recap from last week on dragon ball Z/ quick mention that this is a 2?, 3? Parter
      1. One of the most famous maritime disasters that inspired moby dick
      2. Whaling was a lucrative business that kept the industrial revolution lubed up and bright
      3. 1819 the Essex took off from nantucket , mass, the whaling capital of the world, mostly with new crew. 
      4. Right from the get go faced hardship, almost knocked over, extra whaleboats destroyed.
      5. A dearth of whales and an unsuccessful hunt, followed by a few successful ones.
      6. A mysterious captain tells them of the promised land, the offshore ground when they stop in south america, and the location is thousands of miles into the deep pacific.  
      7. They take a detour to cause an apocalypse on the galapagos islands
      8. When they reach the offshore ground they are attacked by hellbent whale, for unknown reasons and the Essex begins to sink. 
   2. That’s where we left it so lets get into it
2. Before the sinking
   1. Collecting supplies
      1. They spent two days tied up to the essex while the tides ripped it apart
      2. Searching for more supplies by day and cursing the world for their predicament at night. 
      3. By the second day the essex was in pieces, and sharp ones too, watches had to be set to avoid punctures in the boat
      4. All around them the yellowy whale oil floated and stank and coated everything, a cruel irony, what they had come for, and that the essex was like a whale, on it’s side expunging the oil
   2. Deciding on a plan
      1. On the third day they had drifted some fifty miles away from south america during a stormy night
      2. Things were not gonna get better next to the boat, so a council was called.
      3. Pollard, chase and joy gathered on one boat and talked options
         1. Head west, but cannibals so the mates overruled that 
         2. Head back the way they came past the galapagos, but that’s against the wind, and the current
         3. Head northwest to hawaii, but storms and nightmarchers keep them away there
         4.  Head south for other smaller islands and eventually the west coast of south america. 
         5. Before deciding on option #4
         6. They would have been fine going southwest probably. Psychologists say this shit is not good in a disaster until things get really fucking dire to improve morale. People NEED to be told what to do. Fishy mate, cuck captain
   3. Inventory and crew
      1. Food for around 60 days, Consisting of:
         1. Hardtack
            1. They rationed 6 oz of it day about a ¼ of the calorica needs of a 5’8” 145 lb dude 
         2. Tortises were 4500 calories per man if they were slaughtered.
            1. THEY WERE JUST CHILLING MOST OF THE RIDE, LAST OF THEIR SPECIES.
         3. Tobacco, the a whaler would normally go through 70 fucking lbs of tobacco on a trip, so most of them got nicky sick withdrawal. 
         4. Crew overall was 9 nantucketers, 5 coofs, six blacks
      2. Each boat had 200 lbs hardtack, 65 gals, h2o 2 tortoises, chase and joy got a pistol, pollard took a musket. 
      3. Pollard’s boat
         1. Crew
         2. 5/7 nantucketer,  2 coofs
         3. Owen Coffin, barzalli ray, charles ramsdell
      4. Chase’s Boat
         1. Crew
         2. 2 nantucketers, 2 cape cod coofs, 2 blacks
      5. Joy’s Boat
         1. Another cruel irony to be on the joy boat
         2. Crew
         3. Himself, 1 coof, 4 blacks,
   4. Setting up the whaleboats
      1. Sails with sewing needles
      2. Building up the sides to keep water out, critical, without it they would sink later.
      3. Keeping the food dry-ish
   5. Nightfall? 
      1. Met with despair compared to the hope of the day
3. Shipping out
   1. Despite their efforts the food became soaked with seawater, causing every bite of salty bread to dehydrate them further.
   2. Heading for south america was dependant on their own efforts rather than the chance of a whaleboat. 
   3. Dead reckoning, the only way anyone could track where they were or at least estimate, was through dead reckoning, tracking speed and direction via compass and tossing a line of a certain length and recording how long it took to get to the end of the rope to track speed.
4. Whaleboat repair
   1. Chase’s boat went up, and pollards pulled up along side in order to to nail shit in place.
   2. Morale suffered despite repairs 
5. Killer whale pollard,
   1. An orca attacked and took a bite out of the boat like scruff mcgruff taking a bite out of crime. They had to poke it 
   2. ‘“It seemed as if fate was wholly relentless, in pursuing us with such a cruel complication of disasters”
   3. Cruel irony of being hunted by whales
6. salt 
   1. Kidneys gotta work overtime
   2. The boats gotta be bailed constantly, again if they weren’t reinforced it was ogre.
7. Day eight they kill a tortise on the uss Chase.
   1. 4500 cals, like earlier, about a thanksgiving dinner for you  fat fucking yanks out there.
   2. Renewed morale, didn’t save any
8. Day 12 
   1. Pistol shot brought everyone together’
   2. Beating away the crew of the other boats they all thought 
9. Day 17 
   1. There was a brutal gale but everyone managed to stay together
   2. Lightning struck all around them, everyone layed down, 
   3. Morning came after the storm and still all 3 boats were within range
10. December 9th (day 19)
    1. They could have hit tahiti in a week, but decide to press on with the original plan. 
    2. Then they lost contact with pollard but regained it the next day with a gunshot.
    3. Chase the primary architect of the narrative, slpt with a gun on the chest and if people talked shit he’d divy it up evenly, nobody did.if they did he’s shoot the mf that went after his bread.
11. On Dec 14 (Day 24)
    1. Rations cut in half, 3 oz per day for each member
    2. They started to drink their piss
    3. Tongue during hypothermia
       1. Dries out
       2. Blood comes out of the eyes because of course it does.
       3. You feel like death is upon you 
    4. One of them looked over the boat and found barnacles
       1. A KING FEAST.
       2. Too weak to pull folks back
          1. Had to get yoinked up
       3. They tried to row on the 15rh, but even with 2x rations they were fucked
12. Dec 19th (day 29)
    1. Land sighted, by will wright “ land HO and all the whalboats head for shore.
    2. They shot into the air with no response
    3. Chase speared a fish, the consumed immediately
    4. They found a trickle of spring water
    5. The most restful sleep they had had since the wreck
    6. Great feast upon exploration’s return from pollard birds, eggs, crabs ect.
    7. 8 skeletons 1 a child, dead from a previous shipwreck, all from dehydration
    8. Water spring from the island
    9. 400 miles southwest was pitcairn island
    10. By christmas eve the birds began to flee
13. Dec 26th  (36)
    1. It was time to go, food was extinguished. 
    2. 35 days since the wreck and a week on Henderson island.
    3. 3000 miles from chile
    4. Tom chappel, Seth weeks, Will wright, all coofs, and seeing joy was toast they decided to stay
    5. Pollard promised them rescue if he survived
    6. They cried when everyone left
    7. Death “Stared them in the face” but when fading away from the island they had a bellyful of water and food, renewed resources and renewed hope.