January 16, 2024 • 64 mins
Over the years, the guys have explored stories of cryptids across the planet, but in all their podcast journeys they somehow never made it to Australia -- at least, that is, until today. Tune in as they investigate the tales of Australian cryptids with a special guest appearance by Savor cohost and frequent globetrotter Anney Reese, who for a time lived with an indigenous community on the continent.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good evening, fellow conspiracy realist. We're going to set off
today's classic episode with a shout out to longtime friend
of the show Cranketthas, who wrote to us just recently
and said, hey, you suggested. I suggested an episode a
while ago on Australian cryptids. Thanks for doing it. Found
(00:20):
it interesting, learned some things I didn't know and guess what,
Cranken House, we learned a lot of stuff we didn't
know either, and we did it with the help of
our good friend Annie Reecee from stuff moumb never told
you and savor, so let's do it. From UFOs to
psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events.
(00:41):
You can turn back now or learn this stuff they
don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is no.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
They call me Ben. We were joined with our super
producer Paul Decktt. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Pardon that momentary pause. I was thinking to myself, should
we open by saying good day? But that's that's kind
of lowbrow for us.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
You weren't taken aback by my odd introduction of myself.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I was not no, really, I'd like to know more
about what the new me.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah. Yeah, it's just a little more robotic. Okay, I've
been assimilated by the borg.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Oh I knew it. I could tell you have all
this machinery kind of protruding from your cranium.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, and the big red one eye. Ben, you did
a masterful thing just then. You didn't open by saying
good day, but you also kind of did.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I know. It's like when you add just saying at
the end of a sentence.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
It's like having your good day and eating it too.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
There we go, well done. This micro circuitry is doing wonders.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You really fun to say, Yeah, firing on all microcylinders.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Right, So we are going We're going to travel a
bit today. We're going outside of the States. A lot
of you have written to us and said, well, I
appreciate all the stuff you guys do on the show,
but you spend a lot of time in the US.
We're looking at the US sides of things. And earlier,
(02:25):
when we were talking off air, Matt, you and Noel
were telling me a little bit about some of the
here's where it gets crazy. A male that you found
right in posts. And one of the things that that
guys were very excited about was the concept of cryptids,
but not just all the cryptids we've covered so far
(02:46):
in the past. Cryptids down on that. Oh yeah, cryptids
of Australia. Right.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, we had someone named Leif Allen creed right into
us and talk to us specifically about drop bears. You
wanted us to cover that in a couple other things,
what the bunyip and the yowie. Yeah, a lot lots
of things like that.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Interesting conflation too, as we'll find out. So, yes, we
are diving into the strange and fascinating world of cryptids.
When we started this show years and years and years
and years ago, Matt, Nolan and I all started diving
into these bizarre, unusual things. And the weird thing is
that more often than not we would find a grain
(03:27):
of truth in these stories. And cryptozoology candidly is one
of those fields that I had always personally thought would
be mainly smoke and mirrors, you know, like a misidentified bear,
because most people nowadays haven't seen a bear in real life.
Soon you know, it's a scary thing.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Or folklore conflated with some animal that's similar enough to
scare you at the night, like in nighttime.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, or like some kind of misinterpretation of a fossil.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, good call, good call. Right, that's why we used
to think dragons were for so long. Wait what or
were we wrong? You know?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Sure? Hope? So, man, I need to believe in something.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I wish the Jurassic Park, I just every rebook they do.
I wish they would try feathers on the dinosaurs.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
That'd be cool, you know, you know what, I have
a pitch, go for it, Dragon Park, Dragon Park. How
has that not happened yet? They probably what happened all
the dragon movies, that's true, dragon Heart.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
They were slumbering just for a little bit post Lord
of the Rings, dragon Heart. But they'll be back. They'll
be back in the after the seat last season of
Game of Thrones ends, people will have a dragon deficit.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
That's where we get our dragon fixes on Game of Thrones.
They on the they run the Dragon show.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, but I'm not talking about cgi dragons. We got
to get some real dragons, get them in sag, get
them really working, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it in the case
of cryptozoology, though, you know, we we are outlining several
of the common things misidentification of fossils, misinterpretation of actual animals,
or you know, out and out hoaxes. Since we've been
doing this show, at least three times, some group of
(05:07):
people once in Georgia have claimed to find the corpse
of sasquatch or Bigfoot. Yeah, and those folks had not
misidentified a corpse. They were out and out con artists.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, some of you maybe just misidentified the suit that
they made.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
There we go. Yeah, And frankly, we've delved into some
questions here that don't have clear, definitive answers. Sure, many
of those photos of the Lockness Monster are genuine, clear hoaxes.
But then there are things that are real cryptids, like
the Silicas, which is a tremendously disgusting looking, ugly, ugliest
(05:46):
sin fish that was thought to be extinct for millions
of years. It turns out that we just weren't looking
in the right places. But that's where we get to
the tough part about cryptids. Because most stories of cryptids,
these unidentified or unacknowledged animals, come from remote and dangerous
areas and traveling to those parts of the world can
(06:08):
be enormously expensive.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And or dangerous.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And yeah, certainly like the deserts of Mongolia where the
Mongolian blood worm is supposed to be hiding, that's millions
of dollars easily just to get a decent team of
people there.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Don't do it well if you got the money, right,
Musk do it yes.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Or Buffett if he's going to turn a new leaf
in his elder statesman age. So the institutions or governments
that could support these sorts of explorations, they often aren't
going to waste millions of dollars on what they see
as a wild goose chase. And we should mention here
that wild geese are not cryptids. I don't know why.
(06:52):
That's it feels.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Very important mention what constitutes a wild goose?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I know, right? Is it? Is it just not in
a zoo? Or is it acting out?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Because I used to work in an office where these
geese would just just fly in and post up outside
the door, and as you all know, don't much care
for birds. Yeah, so I didn't leave the building when
that happened, but it was a pretty regular occurrence. Were
those wild geese.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, I mean geese do migrate yea. So okay, yeah,
there's probably was there a pond nearby it was that's why. Yeah,
it wasn't for you. It was for the pond, so
they weren't out for you all.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And I imagine, without going too far into the figures speech,
it's the idea of chasing an animal that doesn't want
to be caught. Yeah. But in all of our previous episodes,
let's see, we did. We even did the math, the
cryptid math on how big a range an animal a
certain size would need depending on stet We did that
(07:52):
for local amembe.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And specifically on a big foot type creature.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yes, yeah, like wat danhopithecus or something. Yeah. But in
all of our episodes, we have never explored Australia, and
that is why today we are taking your suggestion and
looking into one of the most interesting continents on this planet. Confession,
(08:20):
you don't hear the facts, But confession, we use the
CIA World fact Book for some of the stats about Australia.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
You trader.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It's when he says we he says Ben Bolan, because
Ben Boland does all the research.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I okay, it's not. It's not it's not Nolan Matt's fault, Paul's.
I'm the one who use the CIA World fact Book.
But it has good information.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It really does.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So Australia as continents go. It looks huge on the map,
but we all know how they're like Mercader projections versus
a globe versus other sorts of and it messes with
the size.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
You know what's funny, our buddy Chuck from Stuff you
should know. They just got back from a tour of
the Outback for you know, their mega successful podcast, and
he mentioned that they took a flight from Sydney to
Perth and then it was the equivalent of taking a
flight from like New York to Los Angeles. It was
like a six hour flight. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, because
I'm so bad at geography, I was like, I had
no idea.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Josh, Josh and Chuck did just return from an Australia
tour and they've got some interesting stories about it. Josh
was catching me up on some stuff. You know who
else went to Australia, Scott Benjamin Oh and he was
going to take a road trip and he was also
startled by the size of the continent. You know, this
happens a lot to our European friends when they traveled
(09:44):
to the US. Have you ever met somebody from Europe
is hanging out and you say, oh, what are you
going to do while you're here for a week, And
they're like, oh, I'm you know, well, I'm in Atlanta.
I figured I would just drive on over to la Yeah,
check out Hollywood, and then just drive back to the
airport before Thursday. No, no, it's not happening. It's like
just trying to describe Texas makes us sound like lunatics.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Oh yeah, And just to give anyone who doesn't really
know what Australia looks like or you can't imagine in
your head, Perth is in the south western side of
the continent, and then Sydney is in kind of the
southeastern corner. Not really Melbourne is probably closer to what
that would.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Be, but you can kind of stay correct.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, but you can you can see how a flight
you could compare that to a flight.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
From New York to la Ah, there we go, that's
the comparison. Yeah, it's seven million, six hundred and eighty
two thousand, three hundred square kilometers in land mass, and
most of it is a desert. The place we call
the Outback, not to be confused with a surprisingly popular
steakhouse chain here in the US. Yes, which if you
(10:55):
are Australian and you're listening, we want to know your opinion.
So bad about Outback Steakhouse, Crocodile Dundee, what else fosters
the beer Steve Irwin of course, Steve Rkele, Steve Rkle
as well. Yeah, I think I would be interested to
know how what was that? That was Family Matters right, Yes,
(11:17):
I would be interested to know if Family Matters made
it to us.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Oh, I'm sure they had a huge We even have
listeners in Australia. Shirley Family Matters did.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That's a very good way to put in perspective.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, And just so you have an understanding of these deserts,
if you're looking at like at the top of Australia,
it is really everywhere. Everything from the Strisblecky Desert, which
sounds very odd when I say that st r z
b l e c k I Desert, to the Great
Sandy Desert, to the Little Sandy Desert, to the Gibson
Desert and the Great Victoria desert and the Tanami desert.
(11:50):
It they're everywhere and they're huge.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Right, Yeah, they're the majority of the continent. Now, that's
not to say that the whole thing is a desert,
which I think is a common mistake. A lot of
Americans make the southeast and southwest corners that you had
mentioned earlier, Matt have temperate climates, yes, you know what
I mean. And the northern area and part of the
eastern side of the continent are in what again might
(12:14):
surprise a lot of us in the US, actually tropical
and subtropical climates. Australia has a rainforest. I know, Aussie listeners,
I know that we probably sound kind of like nincompoops here,
but I don't think a lot of Americans know that.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
No. I think we've been corrected before. And it's it's
ausy ausy.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
In terms of human population of Azzi's, the first Azzi's
may have arrived on the continent as far back as
sixty five thousand years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
That's a long time.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Are we going to talk about it? It's a history
as a prison colony at all, because that's always fascinated me. Yeah,
this is I mean, this is before it was a prison.
But yeah, yeah, no, no, I know, yeah, I don't know.
Maybe that's two in the weeds. We should probably get
to the cryptids. That's what the game here for.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Right, Yeah, So continue with the facts. This ancient migration
sixty five thousand years ago makes the ancestors of Aboriginal
Australians the first human beings ever to migrate out of
what's called the Afro Asia sphere. That's according to a
historian you've all, Noah Harari, who wrote who writes excellent
(13:20):
books Homodeus Sapiens, Nole's Roommate, and I go back and
forth for hours about this stuff. But as of July
twenty seventeen, Australia was the fifty sixth most populous country,
the population of twenty three million, two hundred and thirty
two thousand, four hundred and thirteen people, many of whom,
(13:40):
to your point, nol Yes, were descended from prisoners. Because
for a time Australia was treated as a dumping ground
for undesirables.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
The whole continent.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
They started a prison colony, but they weren't bothering to
protect the native people.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
So then it just kind of the folks that were
there just spread and put down their roots, Like you
do have a lot of room to put down roots there.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, Well, but here's the thing. There are only certain
little kind of spaces, they're really fairly small spaces within
this huge continent where you can put down roots at
least safely.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
In other words, habitable areas, right.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Areas, Yeah, where you're going to have enough enough other
humans to have a large enough civilization to you know,
have enough commerce and things like that.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
So, so in those places that we talked about, what
is it, eighty percent or eighty six eighty six percent
of the humans live in these largely populated areas.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And the rest is what just the bush.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
The rest is wilderness. Even it's the bush, right yeah,
out back. But then also you know the forest, the jungles. Yeah,
the crowded places are very crowded. But then like the
largest city is Sydney and the population there is only
four point seventy nine two million.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Wait a minute, I see what you're getting at, Ben
and discussing cryptids. Our whole thing has always been but
how come like there's not just an infinite amount of
space for these things to hide? Right, But in Australia
there kind of is.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
We got lots of it.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, yeah, and not infinite, but there's a lot a.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Lot because in addition to that, it's not just geographically isolated,
it's what we would call ecologically isolated. That makes it
unique amongst all the other human occupied continents. And sorry,
listeners in Antarctica were not counting you for this part. Yeah,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, but just from the fact that it is an
isolated continent into itself, there's no land connecting it to
anything else. If anything gets to Australia, that's not by
a ship or a plane, at least as since those
technologies have been available. It's been by flying there or
swimming there and that's it.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah, or floating there. Yeah, and then just some through
some miraculous event not dying. That's what happened to the
ancestors of a lot of Australian animals.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
But in nor since the land bridge was there at
a certain.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Time, or since it broke off of the super continent. So,
according to professors like Rick Shine, Australia has a unique
fauna because it was isolated from the rest of the
world for very long periods, Like you said, Matt, surrounded
by the ocean, for millions of years, and he calls
it a life raft of sorts more than the continent.
So these plants and animals were very different ecological pressures
(16:33):
of all in different ways. So if we imagine ourselves
as the very first people to go into Australia, the
stuff we see is insane giant wombats who have no
fear of humans because they have never seen us. Yeah,
they don't know that we can make spears and they
don't care.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I don't want that, I know.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Chuck cuddled with a tiny cute Koala baby.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
He made a joke today when we record Mini Crush
that they present you one as soon as you get
off the plane, And I asked if you had to
return it when you get on a plane back home.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Oh well, I hope it was a nice Koala bear,
because this is this is what an upset Kuala bear
sounds like.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Sh Matt, I can't believe you played that.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
There's just so adorable.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
That did not sound adorable. That sounded horrific.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
It's disturbing. It reminds me of a more sinister version
of that moment in Dumb and Dumber where they say yeah,
where they say what's the most annoyance. So okay, I
thought you were going to do the bit where you
continue to interrupt this with it. Thank you for not
doing that.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
That was the guy to get on on the fine.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yah, well we appreciate you still listening, Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Both of you.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, it's it's strange though, because there's a really good question.
Could a koala bear have evolved anywhere else? The answer
is probably no, or it's much less likely that it would.
And the isolation historically of Australia carries over to the
modern day. That's why it's home to so many animals.
They're found nowhere else in the world. Kuala bears, kangaroos, dingoes, wombats, coals,
(18:14):
Tasmanian devils, which in person are way less cool than
their name would imply. Yeah, and so on. Yeah, so
we have several things here that add up to create
a unique situation, a perfect storm of cryptozoology. It's, as
we said, sparsely populated, enormous stretch of desert, as you mentioned,
(18:37):
and home to unique animals found nowhere else in the world.
Could it be possible that there are even stranger animals
in the Australian outback?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yes, it could definitely be possible. Is it true though,
and what will we find? We'll talk about it right
after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Here's where it gets crazy. It's true. Australia is home
to a ton of alleged cryptids, maybe even more than
the US on balance. When these often fall into a
few types of categories. They might be urban legends, right, sure,
things that came about in modern folklore. You can make
(19:24):
a pretty interesting argument that maybe slender Man itself is
a form of a cryptid, absolutely humanoid but not human. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You're also going to find some that are basically the
Australian version of a cryptid that exists pretty much every
elt everywhere else in the world, like a certain type
of sasquatch.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah. Yeah. And then there are unique versions of cryptids
creatures that are solely believed to exist or have existed
in Australia and possibly some nearby islands like Tasmania, New
Zealand and so on. There's a very important aspect of
Australian culture that influences the idea of cryptid here, and
that is the fascinating I would call it cognitive technology
(20:05):
known as the dream time.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, see this is the part that I couldn't quite
wrap my head around. And we talked about this on
the Here's Where It's a crazy episode, So I am
looking forward to this discussion.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah. Well, none of us have participated in the culture, right,
we have to be clear about that for sure. But
our colleague Annie Reese has oh holy smokes, oh was
that a digrado?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
I don't know?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
And then a puff of smoke Annie Reese has has
appeared before a very aye.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, we're spoiling the lead here. There was a portal
that just opened up.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
That's how I always get to work. I guess you
guys have never noticed. No, no, we way to travel.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
We spend a lot of time bunkered up in the
studio here. But we appreciate you joining us for a
little bit, because, first off, that portal thing's very cool.
As people know or may or may not know, the
five of us counting Paul, have worked together closely for
a number of years, and you are somewhat of a
(21:10):
legend in our office. Not just for hosting Savior, not
just for hosting stuff Mom never told you, but for
going on adventures in different areas of the world, some
very remote places.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Yes, I do like to travel. And thank you for
saying that. Thank you for having me. You all are
legends as well.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Oh shaw, go ahead and just go ahead.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Now I knew that was all you wanted. That's what
I suspected. Yeah, I from what I understand, I certainly hope.
So you guys are talking about Australia today.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yes, yeah, that's true. Specifically, a concept that we've run
into in this episode is the idea of something called
the dream time. Yes.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Yes, I spent about four months in what Air, which
is in the northern called the Top End Northern Territory.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
It's really hard to get to.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
You have to take a plane because it's usually flooded,
and if if it's the dry season, you can drive
out there. But it's really rough. It's like three miles
per hour rough. They don't get any visitors, so it's
pretty remote, is what I'm trying to say. Yes, and
I was there specifically to try to save their language,
(22:27):
save their language, to document one of their languages, because
a lot of the dialects of Murunpaza or other Aboriginal
dialects are dying out very very quickly.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
And part of that was.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Learning about the dream time and the dreaming. And one
of the big things I tried to do when I
was there was just listen, just listen to people when
they when they spoke. And one of the first pieces
of advice someone gave me was to just sit in
a place for a long time and someone will come
(23:00):
up to you and tell you, tell you their stories,
because they are a society that depends a lot on
oral tradition and passing things down orally. So I did
get to learn about the dreaming. It's it's the pretty
much their creation story. And it all started where they
have these ancestors wait wait wait wait, wait, way way
(23:24):
back that sleep underground, but they came above ground and
pretty much created everything, the everywhere and every when, as
they say, and it's not a flat timeline, it's like
a cycle. Everyone in the Aboriginal society can recall the dreaming,
the dream time. They can remember this, and they go
(23:48):
through these these reenactments, these rituals that are very repetitive
to to sort of put yourself in the in the
state of mind where you can remember.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
It and all capture it almost right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
And to pass it, to pass it along. And so
I got to see. I got to see some of these.
It is really powerful chanting and dancing did redoo and
they draw shapes in the sand, they paint on their
faces and their bodies, and it's really cool because in
Australia you can see the Milky Way, especially out there
(24:21):
because there's nothing out there. There's nothing, so you can
see that kind of milky whiteness in the sky and
then all these shooting stars go across. And it did
feel I felt something like that I hadn't felt before.
And that probably sounds really cliche and cheesy, but it
is true.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Imagine I can totally imagine.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
That so much in a different version of time, almost right.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Yeah, you just you feel as though you were a
part of something. Honestly, it really felt powerful. And I
was really fortunate because they were open and happy to share.
They wanted to and I appreciated that they were. They
opened up to me in that way.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, and you said, do it there for four months?
How what level of interaction did you get in terms
of the communities, like group rituals.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
I got a lot, mostly because I was like, I
took that advice and I sat in the spot and
people would come up to me, and they really did
want to include me in those things, I think because
I suppose if they had encountered foreigners before, they had
(25:42):
been much more like you're doing things this way. And
I just wanted to learn, and they did honorarily accept
me into their tribe. They gave me a spirit name,
a spirit animal, which was starfish means lost treasures.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
It's cooler than that.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
It was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I think that's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, it was nice.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
And they they made me this did redoo, which is
great for audio because no one.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Can see it.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Annie gestures to her right handpaigned, didude, that's quite colorful.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That's the thing that was making so much noise when
she portaled in.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
That's yeah, the only way to open the portal through
circular breathing. Oh yeah, I wanted to bring it because
it illustrates just their art, which I assume you'll probably
talk about, but this is x ray art. It shows
their insides, the insides of animals and humans, and also
how they tell stories. When they tell stories, the journey
(26:42):
is the most important part, so they always show the stop.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
So this is my journey. I flew there. This is
the town, the village, this is.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
I then went on land to Sydney, AH and this is.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
This means journey's end. It's like a cool circle thing.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
That's beautiful. Would you be okay with us posting some
photos of the digit do uh and some of the
other stuff you brought on our Facebook page?
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, that would be more helpful than me.
Kind of vaguely no.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I think it's great, watch rewind and watch along any
You have also brought a boomerang.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I have bought a boomerang. This was more just for fun.
They are kind of dangerous. I always assumed they were
just silly, to be honest, but they're used for hunting,
and they are seen as weapons and you can't have
them on planes and you carry on wally, Yeah, yeah,
how would you use.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
A We did have our training today about like office awareness.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I was just wondering if I could disarm someone. We didn't.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
We didn't get taught how to disarm someone.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
That's going to come back to.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Come back.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Well, Annie, thank you so much for taking the time
to explain the dream time. It's a fascinating concept and
it's something that I think the three of us heard
about but hadn't done much investigation into beforehand, so hopefully
we can talk you into coming back in the future
(28:15):
as a guest on a full episode More Adventures. What
do you think, guys?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Please?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I love it all right, Well, we're I guess we're
gonna sit here and watch you did you do?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Okay through a portal. I'm ready. Let's see.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
It's weird because there's a door in the studio. I
mean whatever.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Oh, it's definitely cooler than a door. That's true.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
That's goes here, it goes fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, and you can catch any right now. On Savor.
It's a podcast about food and why we like the
things we like. It's got a lot of science and
history to it. It's super cool.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
She's also on Stuff Mom Never Told You, Yes, so.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Do check it out. A friend of the show. We're
also we're also big fans of food, stuff, Stuff Mom
Never Told You, and Anni Reese in general. So let's
let's look at some of the cryptids that occur in
Australia and we can we can stop along the way
if we want to see what types of cryptids these
(29:18):
are where categories will fall in. By far the most famous,
the breakout single the real banger off of the Cryptozoology
Mixtape of Australia is something called the bun yip.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
The bun yip, it is a strange looking thing. If
you've ever seen a picture of it online, I would
encourage you to search for images of it. It's funky.
It's kind of like a snake, kind of like a plant,
kind of like an aquatic creature.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
When I just read the descriptions in the text years ago,
my first question was, is this a platypus?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (29:59):
You just are you describing a platypus? Because it sounds
like they just threw all the leftover stuff in there,
you know. Yeah, but it's interesting you bring up the
the idea of the appearance, right. The only really consistent
stuff about the bunya, which is mentioned in dream Time
is that it is a creature that lives in or
(30:20):
near bodies of water like creeks, pools, swamps, and it's
so ubiquitous that there are nine regional variations of this
that are presented and described differently in different traditions and
different threads of folklore. And at this point there's no
real consensus about what this thing looks like. We it
(30:43):
has some common characteristics.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yes, indeed there are, and these include things like tusks flippers.
Always want a flipper only it's sort of like a
either either you get feet or you get a flipper.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, wait, you really want to classics?
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Oh that's true. I guess I'm thinking of like a fin.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
It could be cool.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Well, no, what does a mermaid have? Is that a
flipper or a fin?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Oh? Now that is a question for the ages.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
That really that's just the tail, Okay, all right, Ben,
also speaking of which a horse like tail, and of
course you know, possibly a mermaid like tail. And then
there's also this belief that they come out at night
to feast on animals and of course young children, you know,
because they're savory and delicious, weakest in the herd. And women.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah and here, well we'll get into it a little later.
Let's keep going on with it. But I have some
ideas about this creature with regards to storytelling and safeguarding
of the the young. But let's let's keep going.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
So. They also have a characteristic noise that they're notorious
for making when they approach. I just found it described
as a loud bellow.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah yeah, and it can be heard from miles away
from very very far away. You'll always know the bunyip yell.
When you hear it for the first time, you're like, oh,
that was a bun yup ah.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
The yell of the bunyip.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, it's well, I mean, I like that. That's a
good catchphrase for a T shirt. That really is ye.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Oh, I like it as one string ah, the yell
of the bunyip.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Okay, tea public, here's looking at you. Hopefully hopefully you're listening.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You guys, look at it.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
You t But I think we have to fill out
a form or something, all right.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Or no, you're right, we have to fill out a form.
We have to ask nicely. But let us know if
you think that's a good idea for a T shirt.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
But that's it sounds like the Sasquatch yells and some
of the communications that we've heard about where you it's
tough to nail down exactly what it sounds like, but
if you hear it, you'll know that that's what it is.
Some some recordings have been made over the years of
supposed Sasquatch sounds, and I wonder I haven't dug too
(32:55):
deep into the bunyip yell or the shriek or whatever
you might call it. But I haven't found a good
recording of something like that says that's what it is.
That I would at least say, hey, let's play that
right now.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. And even with
even with very well established or well known cryptids such
as Bigfoot or Sasquatch's still it's such an audio rorshack test,
you know what I mean. Yeah, I really will hear
things that they want to hear, unfortunately, you know. But
(33:32):
that's the thing with the Bunyip. It's supposed to be
a very distinctive characteristic fellow. We have not found a
definitive recording of that. We did find the earliest published
reference to the bunyap or one of them, which was
a pamphlet published in eighteen twelve by a guy named
James Ives, and he refers to it as a black
seal like creature that has a terrifying voice. I have chills, chills, nol,
(34:01):
I have chills. It's probably like that, but like a
lot more sinister. So it's kind of a sinister it's
like an arch er. Maybe that's that's too Scooby dewish.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
That is a little Scooby doish.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
It has to be lower like a like a like
more of a death metal seal.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah, like a death like
the sealized corpse. Pain on.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
That's that that would that would spook me.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
We've solved it, folks. You heard it here first, the
bun yip. So this this black seal like creature, right,
that's that's one of the that's one of the descriptions.
Other accounts, also in the eighteen hundreds, called it a
dog like amphibious animal, or a calf size, shaggy haired
or maine quadruped, sometimes seen on land, but mostly amphibious.
(34:48):
So what what does that mean? You know, Originally in
the Aboriginal dream time, which you know, early anthropologists created
this word to describe that world. You but we'll go
with it. In the dream time, bunyips were very nasty creatures.
They were punishing spirits. They were like forces of righteous
(35:11):
punishment that you did not want to run into. But
now they're pretty toned down.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, you can find them in commercials now they're like
kids commercials, like as in, look at this thing, it's
a bunyip. It's fine, it's silly, it's uh it's gonna
bring your cereal to you. I honestly don't know if
it's been used in this series, but yeah, to.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Be fair, bunyip it sounds a lot like bunny to me,
so it makes me think of something cute and malleable.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
It doesn't feel like a scary word to me either.
But there's a long list of suppose ex sightings of
these creatures, and some of the most recent ones were
during the midst of the depression, during the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Hmmm, I wonder what correlation there is there. I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, I wonder why as well. It was the nineteen thirties,
the economic depression that racked to the world did drive
a lot of people to pursue alternative viewpoints I mean
economic and cultural and spiritual that they ordinarily wouldn't have done.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, and probably alternative like living places to live and
trying to save money and live off the land in
different ways. So maybe there's something there.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Well, what about I mean, if they were something, would
they be a relic population of an animal that we
thought went extinct before? There's that possibility.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
What is this thing called the die protodon dip protodon?
The dep Protodon. Oh, yes, the old dep Protodon. This
is a fascinating looking creature. It's this I don't know.
It looks kind of like a bear. But if you
mixed like the head of a hippo or something in
(36:59):
with it or kind of melded that into the creature
walks on all fours and it's a marsupial and it's
pretty dang huge.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, And some Aboriginal tribes have identified bones of this creature,
fossils of it as Bunyant bones, so that might be
the grain of truth there.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, and you know what, this to protodonne went extinct
roughly forty six thousand years ago, so after humans had
crossed over into Australia, right, so they would have coexisted
with this thing for thousands of years. Maybe it's the
name that was given at the time to these things.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So then is it then a relic from oral history perhaps, right,
some kind of memory carried over. You could say the
same thing about another candidate for the Bunyap tale, which
is the poller Chests, which means ancient leaper or damn sir.
And this thing when extinct eleven thousand years ago, so
(38:05):
it has even more of an overlap. Oh yeah, with
human settlements and occupation. It looks crazy. It's like a
tape air looking creature about the size of a horse.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, that's like again, if you're going if you look
at the deprotodon, it's going to stand over six and
a half feet tall generally, so taller than you. And
that's walking on all fours. And I mean it would
be it would be pretty pretty creepy. And I bet
it could make a bellow that you would hear for
a long way away, as well as what.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Was the other one, Oh, the parloa chestis.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, I bet, I bet both of those could make
a sound that you would notice.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
So here's the question, then, is this real? Is there
a grain of truth to it? The thing is, there's
a solid core of reasonably good and atomically consistent accounts
of the bunyip, despite those regional variations. The most common
one is a dark furd dog headed quote seal dog.
Oh so a is it a seal that swam out
(39:10):
of place and somehow got to a river or a swamp,
a swamp or something.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Or maybe a small population of them that started living
and existing in a different environment than they normally would
over the course of you know, a couple thousand.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Years, right, Maybe they found a place that didn't have
some of the natural privations they had evolved to combat,
so maybe the living was easy. I don't know. It's
just like keep going back to the bellow like Nola,
like you did with the seal sounds. That seems like
that would be loud enough, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Yeah, I mean it's a bark. Yeah, they're inherently they carry, right.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
So that's that's our case on the bund yep. Let
us know if you listen to your opinion of it.
Do you think it's just folklore? Do you think it's
an animal that went extinct at some time, but maybe
not as long ago as we think. Do you want
to do a lighter cryptid well.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yes, but first I want to talk about what we
were discussing at the very top of talking about the
bun Yips, that idea that they will hunt usually, or
at least in the stories that are told about them,
they'll hunt children, they'll hunt women to keep you away
from bodies of water or you know, they exist in
bodies of water. And my thought is perhaps it's an
(40:29):
oral tradition to try and safeguard the young of a
community and perhaps safeguard them from not only bodies of water,
which can be very dangerous, and there can be animals
close to water or in water that or you know,
would would probably be carnivorous or could be carnivorous and
attack a small child. So a boogeyman, Yeah, a boogeyman
(40:52):
story to safeguard I don't know that. In my mind,
that makes a whole lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
I could see that. I could see that.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
And also kind of the extrapolation from this is using
that the dream time, the oral tradition of the dream time,
because a lot of in many cases, stories from the
dream time are used as kind of an allegory to
teach a lesson or to have something that you need
to learn. So there's like one place that you could
(41:20):
go to or one set of stories you could tell
that would give a person living in your community everything
they would need to know to survive. There a lot
of just that's part of folklore and that's part of
history learning those things. Just got to put that out
there absolutely.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
I mean, would you say, coming back to the boogeyman thing,
would you say that the next animal on our list
is also.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
A boogie ban the drop bear.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
The drop bear.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Drop bears, noel, what you know about them?
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Well, it's a delicious gummy treat with a marshmallow tummy.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Oh how much thc per per miligram?
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Isn't there?
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Okay, m m.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
It takes you right to the dream dime, all right, No,
but seriously, it's like a terrifying carnivorous marsupial that drops
down upon you from the trees. At least legend would
have it.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yes, yes, it's got giant fangs, right.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, it's got giant jagged fangs, claws, I'm sure, claws,
and it uses these fangs and claws to rip chunks
of flesh from the neck, head and back of unsuspecting tourists.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Yeah, because like if it comes down on you and
and it hits you on the back, it probably immediately
jaws right down on the back of your neck, right.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Right, gets an artery or vein, depending on the side
of the neck, maybe paralyzes you. That's a drop bear, folks. Luckily,
it's taken about as seriously as the idea of a jackalope, which,
if you if you're not familiar with jacoalope, Google it.
It's this weird American in joke.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Isn't it just really a taxid army joke?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, I feel like it's it's a taxidermy joke is
very American. I feel like nobody really believed in the jackalope,
but maybe maybe they did.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Just so anyone who doesn't know. It's it's a jack
rabbit or a larger rabbit and or a hare and
it's got antlers, right, that's the whole point of it.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
It's as yeah, there you go, jackalope. So it's it's
been according to folklore that belief has been around since
colonial days, but the belief in the drop bear is
a little bit more recent. We don't know exactly when
it occurred, but it's it's like an in joke for Australians.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, it's fun. You tell a taurus, hey, watch out
for drop bass. Yeah right, all right, Well but again,
and there's a there's this delightful commercial that you can
find on YouTube right now. It's for this company called
Bundaberg or Bundy Rum and Cola. That's a whole thing.
It's at least one of their products and features this
drop bear where there's a group of these camping blokes,
(44:03):
I'm gonna call them blokes. In this instance, they're accompanied
by a polar bear who's just hanging out by the
trunk of their car the boot or whatever you call
it there, and they're The whole point is they're trying
to convince this separate group of shila's in this case,
see what we're doing here, ladies. Yeah, they're trying to
convince the ladies to join them and camp with them,
because they're like, oh, you guys are camping over there,
(44:24):
we're camping over here, we should get together. Well, the
polar bear understands what's happening here, So the polar bear
sneakily climbs up to this tree that's hanging over the
ladies tent right right, And then the lads they go
to the shila's and they're like, hey, you gotta be
careful for them drop bears. We got drop bears around here,
and they're like, drop bears? What are those? And then
the polar bear drops down onto the tent and they scream,
(44:47):
and then they all camp together and they drink I
guess Branderburg.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
The bear doesn't like dismember them, and then drinks rumbing coke.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
No, No, the bear falls on the tent and then
gives them a nice little like wink, And like.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Why does the bear want to help out these blokes?
I don't understand the motivation there.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
He is certainly in with that group, so he's either.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Gang.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yeah, his motivation is to maintain that group of friends.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
So he's an anthropomorphic pervy bear.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
He's a polar bear, and he's also on the Bundenberg Rum.
He's like part of their logo.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Okay, he's like their two can sam.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Oh I get it, or he's like their coke polar bear.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Well, it's a little skeezy. It is, it is, but hey.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
I don't know. It's like hijinks. He wasn't aiding a crime, right, Well, well,
we've only seen a snippet of this bear's life.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yeah, and we we only know how the night started.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
That is also true. And while we're overthinking animal commercials,
you guys know about panda cheese, right, I'm sure when
ad nauseum panda cheese?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
What the hell is that?
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Oh? Okay, so we're gonna have to hang out for
a second after we record, and we'll post this on
Here is where it gets crazy when this episode comes out.
There's an Egyptian cheese company named Pandaka and they put
out a number of years ago a series of advertisements
about this evil panda that would appear if you turned
(46:16):
down panda cheese, it would appear and ruin your life.
What in increasingly dark and sinister ways.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Okay, there's a YouTube video called top seven Panda Cheese Commercials.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
We don't have time to do it now, but oh he's.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Doing a slow clap in this one.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
But they're worth it worth He's a creature pure evil.
So I would take the Bundy rum guy over this one.
But you know what we should also take at this
point a break.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah, you just need to set them up and I
knock him down.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
There you go, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
So we talked about the Bundy if we explored the
drop Bear just for fun. Now it's time to dive
into the story of what I would call the most
likely to be real cryptid okay here in this case,
and that is the Thylocene or Tasmanian tiger, one of
(47:15):
the most fascinating alleged cryptids in the region.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Also known as the Tasmanian Tiger, This creature technically went
extinct in Tasmanian in the nineteen thirties with the last
thyla scene, which was a male named Benjamin. Oh, it's
like it's like your name.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
They have a weird they have a weird story about Benjamin.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Well, let's get to it. So Benjamin died on a
zoo in nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
And for years and years after there was this controversy
because they didn't know the gender of the animal. So
there were some people who went back an obsessively watched
video this one short clip of the animal walking frame
by frame by frame, enhancing the crap out of it
until they could see one test stickle.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
So a lot of science went into that. Okay, wouldn't
you just couldn't they have just said, oh, its name
is Benjamin. I don't know, one.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Would think obviously, so Benjamin.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
So last one dies in nineteen thirty six. As you're saying, right.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
It's a fascinating looking creature, it really is.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Yeah, and over the it's true and over the years
there have been numerous residents of Tasmania who claimed to
see encounter even this carnivorous marsupial. So it's a lot
like the drop bear in that respect. So the Tasmanian
tiger can grow to six feet long if you count
the tail, and folks like Andrew Orchard who have investigated
(48:41):
this cryptid claim to have seen the creature multiple times.
And often people hunt these much with the same dedication
that we attached to bigfoot hunters here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
So maybe we could interview a devil hunter also. That
sounds really cool.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, the devil hunter. Well, it looks it's a fascinating
looking animal. It looks kind of like the head of
a canine almost in a way, but then its tail
is very rodent or marsupial like, but again it's large.
And then its body has the stripes of gosh, I
don't even know, almost some African animals that you can
(49:22):
find just to have the stripes of this kind, not
tiger stripes, but they're very they're lines, they're not like
some kind of jagged shape or any kind of they're
not even really swooping or anything.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
And they start on the upper back, yeah, and then
they expand as they go down towards the haunches. Yeah,
it's a very very strange placement. It looks like somebody
customized the creature in a video game of some sort,
for sure. So it was common in Australia for some
time as well, but it went extinct in Australia first
(50:00):
and then later extinct in Tasmania, at least officially. And
as you pointed out, there are a ton of people
in Tasmania who are certain they have seen this thing.
And the Australia Rare faun Or Research Association has almost
four thousand reports of Tasmanian tigers in Australia since nineteen thirty.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Six, observations or sightings of some sort.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Right, And if you look at the silhouette or the
profile of the thing, it looks different enough from a
dog or dingo, even because that tail sticks straight out
like a kangaroo tail.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Absolutely, if you saw it at night, I can see
how you would mix this up with a few things,
with the exception of the tail, if you're like seeing
it with a flashlight night or headlights or something.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah, you know. The most popular, I guess misidentified animal
we have here in Atlanta now is a coyote.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
If you have seen an yet, I have, actually yeah,
me too, and some foxes. I got them mixed up initially.
Really yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I saw in a neighborhood outside of Atlanta a few
years back, I saw a lost dog poster and someone's like,
have you lost your dog? I've been seeing this one around.
I haven't caught him. He's kind of shy. It's totally
a coyote. Whoa Yeah, kilts and cats. But but look,
(51:29):
people who think that the Tasmanian Tigers survives think that
it survives most likely in a remote part of Tasmania,
you know, the island off of Australia, or in a
very remote part of the Australia, not quite the outback
the bush. Like you said, no, I'm Glerine.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Don't let the game boy machinehead.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Did you know he played the one of the bad
guys in Constantine.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yes he did, and he was fantastic in it is
very else he's.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
There are the Australian British.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
The British didn't take the trip.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
It would have been a good a good transition, not
a transition, at least a better non seculator.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Well uh, speaking of fantastic segues sequators even yeah, sequitors
and segues which is another name of a different podcasts
will probably do one day. What about large cats? This
is when it gets me. Every place that we have
ever investigated in terms of cryptozoology, they always have at
(52:43):
least a few large cats. Like every state in the
US has its own alleged cryptid large cat. Even states
that have mountain lions say they have a large cryptid cat.
But it's different.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Yeah, it's different from a mountain lion. However, mountain lions
are terrifying. If you've ever seen one in the wild
or maybe on your property, beware, that's a mountain lion.
It will take your dog and or maybe you.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Yeah, they're not they didn't come to play with you, Nope.
But it feels like the reports of large cats in
Australia have a little bit more credibility.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
Yeah, there's one, I guess. The most famous sighting is
the Gippsland phantom cat. It's been spotted all over the place,
repeatedly in the Grampians. Grampians, I don't know how to
say that correctly. Australians, I'm sorry, but since the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (53:37):
Are Grampians like geriatric champions.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yes, just like that. It's a region or a little
an area and experts and skeptics believe these are maybe
perhaps the feral descendants of just you know, plain old
house cats, but maybe a little bigger, maybe a little
more feral.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah. So this National Park is huge, six hundred and
forty six square miles, and it's a nature reserve, so
it's ticking a lot of the boxes for us. It's
not heavily populated, and it's remote.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
There you go, maybe it's a different species that we
just haven't cataloged.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yet, and where it's located plays a role in its
credibility too, because there's this long standing theory or somewhat
of an urban I don't want to call it a myth,
but there's a tail.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Okay, there's a story.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
At least it says when US soldiers were stationed in
Victoria World War two, they had a pair of pumas
that were mascots, and after the war, when they were
going back home to the States, they released these cats
into the wild. Pumas pumas.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
You say, which is it's just a cougar. Cool a cougar. Yeah,
but it looks I mean, it's just a large it's
a large cat.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
It's another way for mountain lying.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Two to three feet in height, so maybe not as
intimidating as a gigantic wombat, but it is carnivorous. It
can run fifty miles per hour, and if you piss
it off, it will it will attack you. Right, most
animals in the wild, It's pretty much true everywhere, if
(55:23):
they have the option to avoid a human versus confronting them,
the majority of animals would rather avoid a human being, right.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah, the majority of human beings would rather avoid human beings.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
It's true, that's true. In Victoria, however, these reports of
large unidentified cats were taken very seriously, so much so
that the state government investigated the sightings and in twenty
twelve they released a report that said there was no
evidence to back these concerns. Don't ask us how much
it costs to do this investigation, which became another sticking
(55:59):
point for the local government. But the stories continued, and
they continue today. In twenty eighteen, and there was there
was at least one case where somebody caught an unidentified cat.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
Yeah. This was a fellow by the name of Kurt Engel.
He shot a that said unidentified cat which had a
twenty six inch tail. Wowsers, it's huge. Yeah, and tests
on the cat showed that it was at least partially
a common domestic cat.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Yeah. So they had a mitochondrial DNA test, which means
they can only trace the matrilineal side, yeah, and the
other side of it. So the official conclusion was, like
you said, it's partially a regular common.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Cat, yeah, but the other parts are just monster.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
Doesn't twenty six inches seem cartoonishly long for a tale.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
It really does. Why would you ever need that from
an evolutionary perspective unless you're like hanging from it or
or I don't know, getting objects out of the water
with it.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
Seems like it'd be a liability.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
Maybe you can go fishing with it.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
Maybe I bet you could deep sea fishing.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Well, Unfortunately we don't know because he discarded the body.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Oh great, it was dumb, thanks Kurt Engele.
Speaker 1 (57:18):
One point six meters long, although he says two meters.
You can see a picture of the cat hanging up
where he caught it. But destroying the body really hurt
his credibility, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (57:30):
Jeez.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
But then there's other there are other video clips you
can find, and there's a wealth of stuff out there.
The problem is that people were skeptical about this stuff.
We'll say it's inconclusive. There are also rumors that there
are large, essentially comodo dragons wandering the outback.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
We didn't dig too deep by that. That's just one
of those where I think I could also that.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, you think there'd be
more than just a few sightings if there was a
large enough population of them out there. But who knows,
maybe they're that isolated. Well, but the best one, my
favorite one.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Yeah, yeah, what is it anything.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
Walking around on two legs up in this piece?
Speaker 1 (58:18):
I'm so glad you asked, Matt. Yes, there are not one,
but at least two types of Bigfoot esque creatures in
the world of Australian cryptozoology. The first is the Mohow
of New Zealand. According to reports, they're about the size
of a normal person, normal guy, but they have an
eight like face, long shaggy hair, and really long fingers
(58:39):
with sharp fingernails or claws.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Uh. I don't like that. It was with you until
you got to the long.
Speaker 1 (58:45):
And started acting it out. Yeah, you crossed the table
towards you. They're thought to be responsible for two deaths
in eighteen eighty two, a prospector and a woman who
was found nearby. She'd been abducted from her home. Someone
had broken her neck. The prospector have been partially eaten. Ooh, no,
one knows what happened.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Yeah did they Well? Yeah, just makes you wonder if
they found, you know, any long scratches or strange creepy acting.
I know, and I'm not liking me doing it even.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
And then there's the Yawi, which probably has one of
the more fun names all our cryptids.
Speaker 2 (59:24):
Oh yeah, I mean this is this is your bigfoot.
This is your Australian bigfoot. Essentially, it lives deep within
the wilderness. It avoids contact with humans. You might be
able to hear a yaowie if you know, if you're
walking around the woods, you're maybe you're camping or something.
You're just exploring or hiking, or you're on the like
at the outskirts of the woods.
Speaker 3 (59:45):
Yeah, sorry, yowey Yawi Zali. Isn't that a nu's Wowie's Awi?
It's a Pavement album.
Speaker 4 (59:53):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (59:54):
But here's the thing, Noll. There might be some confusion
here because within the oral storytelling over the years and
within the Aboriginal communities. The term yowi is also a
regional term for the bun yip creature.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Oh so there's some conflation and confusion there exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
So maybe it's one and the same, or at least
originally was, and then it just became its own separate
set of stories.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Yeah. Well, if I have become persuaded in this episode
about one thing and one thing only, it's the Pavement
should do an album that is entirely about the Yawi
and it's called Yawi Zaui.
Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Well, first we got to get him back together.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Okay, Well, look, everything's it's a journey of a thousand
miles starts with a single step. So members of Pavement,
for remembers of Pavement, if you're listening right to us,
do this for us.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Please.
Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Do you know a member of Pavement will send them
this podcast, make them listen to the entire thing.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Against their will, don't send them just the.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
End, and then hopefully they'll they'll hear this.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Well it does. You know. We do have to wrap
up today, but we've explored, at least on a cursory level,
some of the most popular and strangest cryptids in Australia.
But there's much more to this story because Australia has
its own rich history of these sightings, and although many
of them share tropes and themes with stories in other
(01:01:18):
areas of the world, these are very different. Found one
big twist to the entire cryptid story here, and it's
that of all the cryptids in Australia, at least the
ones we encounter while working on the show, large cats
and the Tasmanian tiger are the most likely to be
(01:01:39):
quote unquote real right, rather than purposeful hoaxes or being misidentified.
But the big twist is we might find Tasmanian tigers
sooner than we think, and we might not do it
by searching the remote reaches of Australia and Tasmania. In
the past few years, scientists have successfully drafted the DNA
(01:02:00):
sequence of the thylacine. This means that in the future
we not all of us listening maybe, but our species
may be able to create our own hybrids. Just like
the work on the wooly mammoth, we may be able
to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from the grave.
Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Ah the Phylocene park will be born. We'll get the
blood from ancient mosquitoes trapped in amber and the great outback.
Oh wait what, I don't even know what you'd find
in the outback where you would get DNA like that.
Maybe maybe it will be huge Australian mosquitoes unbeknownst to
(01:02:37):
man before this time. And we'll take that DNA.
Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
And we'll book the whomever. The Jeff Goldbloom of Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Doctor Ian Malcolm will be there and he will say,
this is chaos.
Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
And it's chaos that we want you to be a
part of. So let us know what you thought about
this episode. And hey, if you're in Australia, let us know.
Let us know if any of these cryptos are taken
seriously on the ground.
Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Where you live.
Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
You know, have you ever used drop bears to get
a group of blokes or Sheila's to hang out with you?
Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Is it all just sort of a dad joke? You
know what I mean? Drop Bears we'd like to hear
from you. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
We're all over the place. If you want to see
those panda commercials, then get thee to our community page.
Here's where it gets.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Crazy, Panda cheese. Everybody, We are going on tour. Remember
that we got to tell you this every time we're
going on tour.
Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
We have been instructed.
Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
No, we haven't been instructed. We feel compelled to do so.
You have to know this because we need you to
come and see us. Yeah, we need you to be there.
Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
We want to see you. Yes, please, we need you
more than you need us.
Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Can we hang out please?
Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Oh? Speaking of shout out to Michael Shelby. If you're listening, Michael,
I kept my word said, I give him a shout out.
Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
Oh, one of the Shelby brothers. Huh. Anybody anybody get that?
Anybody watching Peaky Blinders? Okay? Never run all right?
Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Thomas Shelby hit me up if you're listening to this. Okay. So,
and that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
One of the best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three std WYTK. If
you don't want to do that, you can send us
(01:04:27):
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Good evening, fellow conspiracy realist. We're going to set off
today's classic episode with a shout out to longtime friend
of the show Cranketthas, who wrote to us just recently
and said, hey, you suggested. I suggested an episode a
while ago on Australian cryptids. Thanks for doing it. Found
(00:20):
it interesting, learned some things I didn't know and guess what,
Cranken House, we learned a lot of stuff we didn't
know either, and we did it with the help of
our good friend Annie Reecee from stuff moumb never told
you and savor, so let's do it. From UFOs to
psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events.
(00:41):
You can turn back now or learn this stuff they
don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is no.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
They call me Ben. We were joined with our super
producer Paul Decktt. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Pardon that momentary pause. I was thinking to myself, should
we open by saying good day? But that's that's kind
of lowbrow for us.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
You weren't taken aback by my odd introduction of myself.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I was not no, really, I'd like to know more
about what the new me.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah. Yeah, it's just a little more robotic. Okay, I've
been assimilated by the borg.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Oh I knew it. I could tell you have all
this machinery kind of protruding from your cranium.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, and the big red one eye. Ben, you did
a masterful thing just then. You didn't open by saying
good day, but you also kind of did.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I know. It's like when you add just saying at
the end of a sentence.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
It's like having your good day and eating it too.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
There we go, well done. This micro circuitry is doing wonders.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
You really fun to say, Yeah, firing on all microcylinders.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Right, So we are going We're going to travel a
bit today. We're going outside of the States. A lot
of you have written to us and said, well, I
appreciate all the stuff you guys do on the show,
but you spend a lot of time in the US.
We're looking at the US sides of things. And earlier,
(02:25):
when we were talking off air, Matt, you and Noel
were telling me a little bit about some of the
here's where it gets crazy. A male that you found
right in posts. And one of the things that that
guys were very excited about was the concept of cryptids,
but not just all the cryptids we've covered so far
(02:46):
in the past. Cryptids down on that. Oh yeah, cryptids
of Australia. Right.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, we had someone named Leif Allen creed right into
us and talk to us specifically about drop bears. You
wanted us to cover that in a couple other things,
what the bunyip and the yowie. Yeah, a lot lots
of things like that.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Interesting conflation too, as we'll find out. So, yes, we
are diving into the strange and fascinating world of cryptids.
When we started this show years and years and years
and years ago, Matt, Nolan and I all started diving
into these bizarre, unusual things. And the weird thing is
that more often than not we would find a grain
(03:27):
of truth in these stories. And cryptozoology candidly is one
of those fields that I had always personally thought would
be mainly smoke and mirrors, you know, like a misidentified bear,
because most people nowadays haven't seen a bear in real life.
Soon you know, it's a scary thing.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Or folklore conflated with some animal that's similar enough to
scare you at the night, like in nighttime.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, or like some kind of misinterpretation of a fossil.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, good call, good call. Right, that's why we used
to think dragons were for so long. Wait what or
were we wrong? You know?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Sure? Hope? So, man, I need to believe in something.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I wish the Jurassic Park, I just every rebook they do.
I wish they would try feathers on the dinosaurs.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
That'd be cool, you know, you know what, I have
a pitch, go for it, Dragon Park, Dragon Park. How
has that not happened yet? They probably what happened all
the dragon movies, that's true, dragon Heart.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
They were slumbering just for a little bit post Lord
of the Rings, dragon Heart. But they'll be back. They'll
be back in the after the seat last season of
Game of Thrones ends, people will have a dragon deficit.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
That's where we get our dragon fixes on Game of Thrones.
They on the they run the Dragon show.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, but I'm not talking about cgi dragons. We got
to get some real dragons, get them in sag, get
them really working, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it in the case
of cryptozoology, though, you know, we we are outlining several
of the common things misidentification of fossils, misinterpretation of actual animals,
or you know, out and out hoaxes. Since we've been
doing this show, at least three times, some group of
(05:07):
people once in Georgia have claimed to find the corpse
of sasquatch or Bigfoot. Yeah, and those folks had not
misidentified a corpse. They were out and out con artists.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, some of you maybe just misidentified the suit that
they made.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
There we go. Yeah, And frankly, we've delved into some
questions here that don't have clear, definitive answers. Sure, many
of those photos of the Lockness Monster are genuine, clear hoaxes.
But then there are things that are real cryptids, like
the Silicas, which is a tremendously disgusting looking, ugly, ugliest
(05:46):
sin fish that was thought to be extinct for millions
of years. It turns out that we just weren't looking
in the right places. But that's where we get to
the tough part about cryptids. Because most stories of cryptids,
these unidentified or unacknowledged animals, come from remote and dangerous
areas and traveling to those parts of the world can
(06:08):
be enormously expensive.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And or dangerous.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And yeah, certainly like the deserts of Mongolia where the
Mongolian blood worm is supposed to be hiding, that's millions
of dollars easily just to get a decent team of
people there.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Don't do it well if you got the money, right,
Musk do it yes.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Or Buffett if he's going to turn a new leaf
in his elder statesman age. So the institutions or governments
that could support these sorts of explorations, they often aren't
going to waste millions of dollars on what they see
as a wild goose chase. And we should mention here
that wild geese are not cryptids. I don't know why.
(06:52):
That's it feels.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Very important mention what constitutes a wild goose?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I know, right? Is it? Is it just not in
a zoo? Or is it acting out?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Because I used to work in an office where these
geese would just just fly in and post up outside
the door, and as you all know, don't much care
for birds. Yeah, so I didn't leave the building when
that happened, but it was a pretty regular occurrence. Were
those wild geese.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, I mean geese do migrate yea. So okay, yeah,
there's probably was there a pond nearby it was that's why. Yeah,
it wasn't for you. It was for the pond, so
they weren't out for you all.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And I imagine, without going too far into the figures speech,
it's the idea of chasing an animal that doesn't want
to be caught. Yeah. But in all of our previous episodes,
let's see, we did. We even did the math, the
cryptid math on how big a range an animal a
certain size would need depending on stet We did that
(07:52):
for local amembe.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
And specifically on a big foot type creature.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yes, yeah, like wat danhopithecus or something. Yeah. But in
all of our episodes, we have never explored Australia, and
that is why today we are taking your suggestion and
looking into one of the most interesting continents on this planet. Confession,
(08:20):
you don't hear the facts, But confession, we use the
CIA World fact Book for some of the stats about Australia.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
You trader.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It's when he says we he says Ben Bolan, because
Ben Boland does all the research.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I okay, it's not. It's not it's not Nolan Matt's fault, Paul's.
I'm the one who use the CIA World fact Book.
But it has good information.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It really does.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So Australia as continents go. It looks huge on the map,
but we all know how they're like Mercader projections versus
a globe versus other sorts of and it messes with
the size.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
You know what's funny, our buddy Chuck from Stuff you
should know. They just got back from a tour of
the Outback for you know, their mega successful podcast, and
he mentioned that they took a flight from Sydney to
Perth and then it was the equivalent of taking a
flight from like New York to Los Angeles. It was
like a six hour flight. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, because
I'm so bad at geography, I was like, I had
no idea.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Josh, Josh and Chuck did just return from an Australia
tour and they've got some interesting stories about it. Josh
was catching me up on some stuff. You know who
else went to Australia, Scott Benjamin Oh and he was
going to take a road trip and he was also
startled by the size of the continent. You know, this
happens a lot to our European friends when they traveled
(09:44):
to the US. Have you ever met somebody from Europe
is hanging out and you say, oh, what are you
going to do while you're here for a week, And
they're like, oh, I'm you know, well, I'm in Atlanta.
I figured I would just drive on over to la Yeah,
check out Hollywood, and then just drive back to the
airport before Thursday. No, no, it's not happening. It's like
just trying to describe Texas makes us sound like lunatics.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Oh yeah, And just to give anyone who doesn't really
know what Australia looks like or you can't imagine in
your head, Perth is in the south western side of
the continent, and then Sydney is in kind of the
southeastern corner. Not really Melbourne is probably closer to what
that would.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Be, but you can kind of stay correct.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, but you can you can see how a flight
you could compare that to a flight.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
From New York to la Ah, there we go, that's
the comparison. Yeah, it's seven million, six hundred and eighty
two thousand, three hundred square kilometers in land mass, and
most of it is a desert. The place we call
the Outback, not to be confused with a surprisingly popular
steakhouse chain here in the US. Yes, which if you
(10:55):
are Australian and you're listening, we want to know your opinion.
So bad about Outback Steakhouse, Crocodile Dundee, what else fosters
the beer Steve Irwin of course, Steve Rkele, Steve Rkle
as well. Yeah, I think I would be interested to
know how what was that? That was Family Matters right, Yes,
(11:17):
I would be interested to know if Family Matters made
it to us.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Oh, I'm sure they had a huge We even have
listeners in Australia. Shirley Family Matters did.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That's a very good way to put in perspective.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, And just so you have an understanding of these deserts,
if you're looking at like at the top of Australia,
it is really everywhere. Everything from the Strisblecky Desert, which
sounds very odd when I say that st r z
b l e c k I Desert, to the Great
Sandy Desert, to the Little Sandy Desert, to the Gibson
Desert and the Great Victoria desert and the Tanami desert.
(11:50):
It they're everywhere and they're huge.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Right, Yeah, they're the majority of the continent. Now, that's
not to say that the whole thing is a desert,
which I think is a common mistake. A lot of
Americans make the southeast and southwest corners that you had
mentioned earlier, Matt have temperate climates, yes, you know what
I mean. And the northern area and part of the
eastern side of the continent are in what again might
(12:14):
surprise a lot of us in the US, actually tropical
and subtropical climates. Australia has a rainforest. I know, Aussie listeners,
I know that we probably sound kind of like nincompoops here,
but I don't think a lot of Americans know that.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
No. I think we've been corrected before. And it's it's
ausy ausy.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
In terms of human population of Azzi's, the first Azzi's
may have arrived on the continent as far back as
sixty five thousand years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
That's a long time.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Are we going to talk about it? It's a history
as a prison colony at all, because that's always fascinated me. Yeah,
this is I mean, this is before it was a prison.
But yeah, yeah, no, no, I know, yeah, I don't know.
Maybe that's two in the weeds. We should probably get
to the cryptids. That's what the game here for.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Right, Yeah, So continue with the facts. This ancient migration
sixty five thousand years ago makes the ancestors of Aboriginal
Australians the first human beings ever to migrate out of
what's called the Afro Asia sphere. That's according to a
historian you've all, Noah Harari, who wrote who writes excellent
(13:20):
books Homodeus Sapiens, Nole's Roommate, and I go back and
forth for hours about this stuff. But as of July
twenty seventeen, Australia was the fifty sixth most populous country,
the population of twenty three million, two hundred and thirty
two thousand, four hundred and thirteen people, many of whom,
(13:40):
to your point, nol Yes, were descended from prisoners. Because
for a time Australia was treated as a dumping ground
for undesirables.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
The whole continent.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
They started a prison colony, but they weren't bothering to
protect the native people.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
So then it just kind of the folks that were
there just spread and put down their roots, Like you
do have a lot of room to put down roots there.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, Well, but here's the thing. There are only certain
little kind of spaces, they're really fairly small spaces within
this huge continent where you can put down roots at
least safely.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
In other words, habitable areas, right.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Areas, Yeah, where you're going to have enough enough other
humans to have a large enough civilization to you know,
have enough commerce and things like that.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
So, so in those places that we talked about, what
is it, eighty percent or eighty six eighty six percent
of the humans live in these largely populated areas.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
And the rest is what just the bush.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
The rest is wilderness. Even it's the bush, right yeah,
out back. But then also you know the forest, the jungles. Yeah,
the crowded places are very crowded. But then like the
largest city is Sydney and the population there is only
four point seventy nine two million.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Wait a minute, I see what you're getting at, Ben
and discussing cryptids. Our whole thing has always been but
how come like there's not just an infinite amount of
space for these things to hide? Right, But in Australia
there kind of is.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
We got lots of it.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, yeah, and not infinite, but there's a lot a.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Lot because in addition to that, it's not just geographically isolated,
it's what we would call ecologically isolated. That makes it
unique amongst all the other human occupied continents. And sorry,
listeners in Antarctica were not counting you for this part. Yeah,
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yeah, but just from the fact that it is an
isolated continent into itself, there's no land connecting it to
anything else. If anything gets to Australia, that's not by
a ship or a plane, at least as since those
technologies have been available. It's been by flying there or
swimming there and that's it.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yeah, or floating there. Yeah, and then just some through
some miraculous event not dying. That's what happened to the
ancestors of a lot of Australian animals.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
But in nor since the land bridge was there at
a certain.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Time, or since it broke off of the super continent. So,
according to professors like Rick Shine, Australia has a unique
fauna because it was isolated from the rest of the
world for very long periods, Like you said, Matt, surrounded
by the ocean, for millions of years, and he calls
it a life raft of sorts more than the continent.
So these plants and animals were very different ecological pressures
(16:33):
of all in different ways. So if we imagine ourselves
as the very first people to go into Australia, the
stuff we see is insane giant wombats who have no
fear of humans because they have never seen us. Yeah,
they don't know that we can make spears and they
don't care.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I don't want that, I know.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Chuck cuddled with a tiny cute Koala baby.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
He made a joke today when we record Mini Crush
that they present you one as soon as you get
off the plane, And I asked if you had to
return it when you get on a plane back home.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Oh well, I hope it was a nice Koala bear,
because this is this is what an upset Kuala bear
sounds like.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Sh Matt, I can't believe you played that.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
There's just so adorable.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
That did not sound adorable. That sounded horrific.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
It's disturbing. It reminds me of a more sinister version
of that moment in Dumb and Dumber where they say yeah,
where they say what's the most annoyance. So okay, I
thought you were going to do the bit where you
continue to interrupt this with it. Thank you for not
doing that.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
That was the guy to get on on the fine.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yah, well we appreciate you still listening, Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Both of you.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, it's it's strange though, because there's a really good question.
Could a koala bear have evolved anywhere else? The answer
is probably no, or it's much less likely that it would.
And the isolation historically of Australia carries over to the
modern day. That's why it's home to so many animals.
They're found nowhere else in the world. Kuala bears, kangaroos, dingoes, wombats, coals,
(18:14):
Tasmanian devils, which in person are way less cool than
their name would imply. Yeah, and so on. Yeah, so
we have several things here that add up to create
a unique situation, a perfect storm of cryptozoology. It's, as
we said, sparsely populated, enormous stretch of desert, as you mentioned,
(18:37):
and home to unique animals found nowhere else in the world.
Could it be possible that there are even stranger animals
in the Australian outback?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yes, it could definitely be possible. Is it true though,
and what will we find? We'll talk about it right
after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Here's where it gets crazy. It's true. Australia is home
to a ton of alleged cryptids, maybe even more than
the US on balance. When these often fall into a
few types of categories. They might be urban legends, right, sure,
things that came about in modern folklore. You can make
(19:24):
a pretty interesting argument that maybe slender Man itself is
a form of a cryptid, absolutely humanoid but not human. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You're also going to find some that are basically the
Australian version of a cryptid that exists pretty much every
elt everywhere else in the world, like a certain type
of sasquatch.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah. Yeah. And then there are unique versions of cryptids
creatures that are solely believed to exist or have existed
in Australia and possibly some nearby islands like Tasmania, New
Zealand and so on. There's a very important aspect of
Australian culture that influences the idea of cryptid here, and
that is the fascinating I would call it cognitive technology
(20:05):
known as the dream time.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, see this is the part that I couldn't quite
wrap my head around. And we talked about this on
the Here's Where It's a crazy episode, So I am
looking forward to this discussion.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah. Well, none of us have participated in the culture, right,
we have to be clear about that for sure. But
our colleague Annie Reese has oh holy smokes, oh was
that a digrado?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
I don't know?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
And then a puff of smoke Annie Reese has has
appeared before a very aye.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, we're spoiling the lead here. There was a portal
that just opened up.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
That's how I always get to work. I guess you
guys have never noticed. No, no, we way to travel.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
We spend a lot of time bunkered up in the
studio here. But we appreciate you joining us for a
little bit, because, first off, that portal thing's very cool.
As people know or may or may not know, the
five of us counting Paul, have worked together closely for
a number of years, and you are somewhat of a
(21:10):
legend in our office. Not just for hosting Savior, not
just for hosting stuff Mom never told you, but for
going on adventures in different areas of the world, some
very remote places.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Yes, I do like to travel. And thank you for
saying that. Thank you for having me. You all are
legends as well.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Oh shaw, go ahead and just go ahead.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Now I knew that was all you wanted. That's what
I suspected. Yeah, I from what I understand, I certainly hope.
So you guys are talking about Australia today.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yes, yeah, that's true. Specifically, a concept that we've run
into in this episode is the idea of something called
the dream time. Yes.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Yes, I spent about four months in what Air, which
is in the northern called the Top End Northern Territory.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
It's really hard to get to.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
You have to take a plane because it's usually flooded,
and if if it's the dry season, you can drive
out there. But it's really rough. It's like three miles
per hour rough. They don't get any visitors, so it's
pretty remote, is what I'm trying to say. Yes, and
I was there specifically to try to save their language,
(22:27):
save their language, to document one of their languages, because
a lot of the dialects of Murunpaza or other Aboriginal
dialects are dying out very very quickly.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
And part of that was.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Learning about the dream time and the dreaming. And one
of the big things I tried to do when I
was there was just listen, just listen to people when
they when they spoke. And one of the first pieces
of advice someone gave me was to just sit in
a place for a long time and someone will come
(23:00):
up to you and tell you, tell you their stories,
because they are a society that depends a lot on
oral tradition and passing things down orally. So I did
get to learn about the dreaming. It's it's the pretty
much their creation story. And it all started where they
have these ancestors wait wait wait wait, wait, way way
(23:24):
back that sleep underground, but they came above ground and
pretty much created everything, the everywhere and every when, as
they say, and it's not a flat timeline, it's like
a cycle. Everyone in the Aboriginal society can recall the dreaming,
the dream time. They can remember this, and they go
(23:48):
through these these reenactments, these rituals that are very repetitive
to to sort of put yourself in the in the
state of mind where you can remember.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
It and all capture it almost right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
And to pass it, to pass it along. And so
I got to see. I got to see some of these.
It is really powerful chanting and dancing did redoo and
they draw shapes in the sand, they paint on their
faces and their bodies, and it's really cool because in
Australia you can see the Milky Way, especially out there
(24:21):
because there's nothing out there. There's nothing, so you can
see that kind of milky whiteness in the sky and
then all these shooting stars go across. And it did
feel I felt something like that I hadn't felt before.
And that probably sounds really cliche and cheesy, but it
is true.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Imagine I can totally imagine.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
That so much in a different version of time, almost right.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Yeah, you just you feel as though you were a
part of something. Honestly, it really felt powerful. And I
was really fortunate because they were open and happy to share.
They wanted to and I appreciated that they were. They
opened up to me in that way.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, and you said, do it there for four months?
How what level of interaction did you get in terms
of the communities, like group rituals.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
I got a lot, mostly because I was like, I
took that advice and I sat in the spot and
people would come up to me, and they really did
want to include me in those things, I think because
I suppose if they had encountered foreigners before, they had
(25:42):
been much more like you're doing things this way. And
I just wanted to learn, and they did honorarily accept
me into their tribe. They gave me a spirit name,
a spirit animal, which was starfish means lost treasures.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
It's cooler than that.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
It was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I think that's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, it was nice.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
And they they made me this did redoo, which is
great for audio because no one.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
Can see it.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Annie gestures to her right handpaigned, didude, that's quite colorful.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That's the thing that was making so much noise when
she portaled in.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
That's yeah, the only way to open the portal through
circular breathing. Oh yeah, I wanted to bring it because
it illustrates just their art, which I assume you'll probably
talk about, but this is x ray art. It shows
their insides, the insides of animals and humans, and also
how they tell stories. When they tell stories, the journey
(26:42):
is the most important part, so they always show the stop.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
So this is my journey. I flew there. This is
the town, the village, this is.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
I then went on land to Sydney, AH and this is.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
This means journey's end. It's like a cool circle thing.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
That's beautiful. Would you be okay with us posting some
photos of the digit do uh and some of the
other stuff you brought on our Facebook page?
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, that would be more helpful than me.
Kind of vaguely no.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I think it's great, watch rewind and watch along any
You have also brought a boomerang.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I have bought a boomerang. This was more just for fun.
They are kind of dangerous. I always assumed they were
just silly, to be honest, but they're used for hunting,
and they are seen as weapons and you can't have
them on planes and you carry on wally, Yeah, yeah,
how would you use.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
A We did have our training today about like office awareness.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
I was just wondering if I could disarm someone. We didn't.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
We didn't get taught how to disarm someone.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
That's going to come back to.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Come back.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Well, Annie, thank you so much for taking the time
to explain the dream time. It's a fascinating concept and
it's something that I think the three of us heard
about but hadn't done much investigation into beforehand, so hopefully
we can talk you into coming back in the future
(28:15):
as a guest on a full episode More Adventures. What
do you think, guys?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Please?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I love it all right, Well, we're I guess we're
gonna sit here and watch you did you do?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Okay through a portal. I'm ready. Let's see.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
It's weird because there's a door in the studio. I
mean whatever.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Oh, it's definitely cooler than a door. That's true.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
That's goes here, it goes fascinating stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, and you can catch any right now. On Savor.
It's a podcast about food and why we like the
things we like. It's got a lot of science and
history to it. It's super cool.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
She's also on Stuff Mom Never Told You, Yes, so.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Do check it out. A friend of the show. We're
also we're also big fans of food, stuff, Stuff Mom
Never Told You, and Anni Reese in general. So let's
let's look at some of the cryptids that occur in
Australia and we can we can stop along the way
if we want to see what types of cryptids these
(29:18):
are where categories will fall in. By far the most famous,
the breakout single the real banger off of the Cryptozoology
Mixtape of Australia is something called the bun yip.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
The bun yip, it is a strange looking thing. If
you've ever seen a picture of it online, I would
encourage you to search for images of it. It's funky.
It's kind of like a snake, kind of like a plant,
kind of like an aquatic creature.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
When I just read the descriptions in the text years ago,
my first question was, is this a platypus?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (29:59):
You just are you describing a platypus? Because it sounds
like they just threw all the leftover stuff in there,
you know. Yeah, but it's interesting you bring up the
the idea of the appearance, right. The only really consistent
stuff about the bunya, which is mentioned in dream Time
is that it is a creature that lives in or
(30:20):
near bodies of water like creeks, pools, swamps, and it's
so ubiquitous that there are nine regional variations of this
that are presented and described differently in different traditions and
different threads of folklore. And at this point there's no
real consensus about what this thing looks like. We it
(30:43):
has some common characteristics.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yes, indeed there are, and these include things like tusks flippers.
Always want a flipper only it's sort of like a
either either you get feet or you get a flipper.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, wait, you really want to classics?
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Oh that's true. I guess I'm thinking of like a fin.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
It could be cool.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Well, no, what does a mermaid have? Is that a
flipper or a fin?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Oh? Now that is a question for the ages.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
That really that's just the tail, Okay, all right, Ben,
also speaking of which a horse like tail, and of
course you know, possibly a mermaid like tail. And then
there's also this belief that they come out at night
to feast on animals and of course young children, you know,
because they're savory and delicious, weakest in the herd. And women.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Yeah and here, well we'll get into it a little later.
Let's keep going on with it. But I have some
ideas about this creature with regards to storytelling and safeguarding
of the the young. But let's let's keep going.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
So. They also have a characteristic noise that they're notorious
for making when they approach. I just found it described
as a loud bellow.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah yeah, and it can be heard from miles away
from very very far away. You'll always know the bunyip yell.
When you hear it for the first time, you're like, oh,
that was a bun yup ah.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
The yell of the bunyip.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, it's well, I mean, I like that. That's a
good catchphrase for a T shirt. That really is ye.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Oh, I like it as one string ah, the yell
of the bunyip.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Okay, tea public, here's looking at you. Hopefully hopefully you're listening.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You guys, look at it.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
You t But I think we have to fill out
a form or something, all right.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Or no, you're right, we have to fill out a form.
We have to ask nicely. But let us know if
you think that's a good idea for a T shirt.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
But that's it sounds like the Sasquatch yells and some
of the communications that we've heard about where you it's
tough to nail down exactly what it sounds like, but
if you hear it, you'll know that that's what it is.
Some some recordings have been made over the years of
supposed Sasquatch sounds, and I wonder I haven't dug too
(32:55):
deep into the bunyip yell or the shriek or whatever
you might call it. But I haven't found a good
recording of something like that says that's what it is.
That I would at least say, hey, let's play that
right now.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. And even with
even with very well established or well known cryptids such
as Bigfoot or Sasquatch's still it's such an audio rorshack test,
you know what I mean. Yeah, I really will hear
things that they want to hear, unfortunately, you know. But
(33:32):
that's the thing with the Bunyip. It's supposed to be
a very distinctive characteristic fellow. We have not found a
definitive recording of that. We did find the earliest published
reference to the bunyap or one of them, which was
a pamphlet published in eighteen twelve by a guy named
James Ives, and he refers to it as a black
seal like creature that has a terrifying voice. I have chills, chills, nol,
(34:01):
I have chills. It's probably like that, but like a
lot more sinister. So it's kind of a sinister it's
like an arch er. Maybe that's that's too Scooby dewish.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
That is a little Scooby doish.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
It has to be lower like a like a like
more of a death metal seal.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah, like a death like
the sealized corpse. Pain on.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
That's that that would that would spook me.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
We've solved it, folks. You heard it here first, the
bun yip. So this this black seal like creature, right,
that's that's one of the that's one of the descriptions.
Other accounts, also in the eighteen hundreds, called it a
dog like amphibious animal, or a calf size, shaggy haired
or maine quadruped, sometimes seen on land, but mostly amphibious.
(34:48):
So what what does that mean? You know, Originally in
the Aboriginal dream time, which you know, early anthropologists created
this word to describe that world. You but we'll go
with it. In the dream time, bunyips were very nasty creatures.
They were punishing spirits. They were like forces of righteous
(35:11):
punishment that you did not want to run into. But
now they're pretty toned down.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, you can find them in commercials now they're like
kids commercials, like as in, look at this thing, it's
a bunyip. It's fine, it's silly, it's uh it's gonna
bring your cereal to you. I honestly don't know if
it's been used in this series, but yeah, to.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Be fair, bunyip it sounds a lot like bunny to me,
so it makes me think of something cute and malleable.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
It doesn't feel like a scary word to me either.
But there's a long list of suppose ex sightings of
these creatures, and some of the most recent ones were
during the midst of the depression, during the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Hmmm, I wonder what correlation there is there. I wonder why.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, I wonder why as well. It was the nineteen thirties,
the economic depression that racked to the world did drive
a lot of people to pursue alternative viewpoints I mean
economic and cultural and spiritual that they ordinarily wouldn't have done.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, and probably alternative like living places to live and
trying to save money and live off the land in
different ways. So maybe there's something there.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Well, what about I mean, if they were something, would
they be a relic population of an animal that we
thought went extinct before? There's that possibility.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
What is this thing called the die protodon dip protodon?
The dep Protodon. Oh, yes, the old dep Protodon. This
is a fascinating looking creature. It's this I don't know.
It looks kind of like a bear. But if you
mixed like the head of a hippo or something in
(36:59):
with it or kind of melded that into the creature
walks on all fours and it's a marsupial and it's
pretty dang huge.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, And some Aboriginal tribes have identified bones of this creature,
fossils of it as Bunyant bones, so that might be
the grain of truth there.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, and you know what, this to protodonne went extinct
roughly forty six thousand years ago, so after humans had
crossed over into Australia, right, so they would have coexisted
with this thing for thousands of years. Maybe it's the
name that was given at the time to these things.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
So then is it then a relic from oral history perhaps, right,
some kind of memory carried over. You could say the
same thing about another candidate for the Bunyap tale, which
is the poller Chests, which means ancient leaper or damn sir.
And this thing when extinct eleven thousand years ago, so
(38:05):
it has even more of an overlap. Oh yeah, with
human settlements and occupation. It looks crazy. It's like a
tape air looking creature about the size of a horse.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, that's like again, if you're going if you look
at the deprotodon, it's going to stand over six and
a half feet tall generally, so taller than you. And
that's walking on all fours. And I mean it would
be it would be pretty pretty creepy. And I bet
it could make a bellow that you would hear for
a long way away, as well as what.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Was the other one, Oh, the parloa chestis.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, I bet, I bet both of those could make
a sound that you would notice.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
So here's the question, then, is this real? Is there
a grain of truth to it? The thing is, there's
a solid core of reasonably good and atomically consistent accounts
of the bunyip, despite those regional variations. The most common
one is a dark furd dog headed quote seal dog.
Oh so a is it a seal that swam out
(39:10):
of place and somehow got to a river or a swamp,
a swamp or something.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Or maybe a small population of them that started living
and existing in a different environment than they normally would
over the course of you know, a couple thousand.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Years, right, Maybe they found a place that didn't have
some of the natural privations they had evolved to combat,
so maybe the living was easy. I don't know. It's
just like keep going back to the bellow like Nola,
like you did with the seal sounds. That seems like
that would be loud enough, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Yeah, I mean it's a bark. Yeah, they're inherently they carry, right.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
So that's that's our case on the bund yep. Let
us know if you listen to your opinion of it.
Do you think it's just folklore? Do you think it's
an animal that went extinct at some time, but maybe
not as long ago as we think. Do you want
to do a lighter cryptid well.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yes, but first I want to talk about what we
were discussing at the very top of talking about the
bun Yips, that idea that they will hunt usually, or
at least in the stories that are told about them,
they'll hunt children, they'll hunt women to keep you away
from bodies of water or you know, they exist in
bodies of water. And my thought is perhaps it's an
(40:29):
oral tradition to try and safeguard the young of a
community and perhaps safeguard them from not only bodies of water,
which can be very dangerous, and there can be animals
close to water or in water that or you know,
would would probably be carnivorous or could be carnivorous and
attack a small child. So a boogeyman, Yeah, a boogeyman
(40:52):
story to safeguard I don't know that. In my mind,
that makes a whole lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
I could see that. I could see that.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
And also kind of the extrapolation from this is using
that the dream time, the oral tradition of the dream time,
because a lot of in many cases, stories from the
dream time are used as kind of an allegory to
teach a lesson or to have something that you need
to learn. So there's like one place that you could
(41:20):
go to or one set of stories you could tell
that would give a person living in your community everything
they would need to know to survive. There a lot
of just that's part of folklore and that's part of
history learning those things. Just got to put that out
there absolutely.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
I mean, would you say, coming back to the boogeyman thing,
would you say that the next animal on our list
is also.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
A boogie ban the drop bear.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
The drop bear.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Drop bears, noel, what you know about them?
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Well, it's a delicious gummy treat with a marshmallow tummy.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Oh how much thc per per miligram?
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Isn't there?
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Okay, m m.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
It takes you right to the dream dime, all right, No,
but seriously, it's like a terrifying carnivorous marsupial that drops
down upon you from the trees. At least legend would
have it.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yes, yes, it's got giant fangs, right.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, it's got giant jagged fangs, claws, I'm sure, claws,
and it uses these fangs and claws to rip chunks
of flesh from the neck, head and back of unsuspecting tourists.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Yeah, because like if it comes down on you and
and it hits you on the back, it probably immediately
jaws right down on the back of your neck, right.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Right, gets an artery or vein, depending on the side
of the neck, maybe paralyzes you. That's a drop bear, folks. Luckily,
it's taken about as seriously as the idea of a jackalope, which,
if you if you're not familiar with jacoalope, Google it.
It's this weird American in joke.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Isn't it just really a taxid army joke?
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, I feel like it's it's a taxidermy joke is
very American. I feel like nobody really believed in the jackalope,
but maybe maybe they did.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Just so anyone who doesn't know. It's it's a jack
rabbit or a larger rabbit and or a hare and
it's got antlers, right, that's the whole point of it.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
It's as yeah, there you go, jackalope. So it's it's
been according to folklore that belief has been around since
colonial days, but the belief in the drop bear is
a little bit more recent. We don't know exactly when
it occurred, but it's it's like an in joke for Australians.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, it's fun. You tell a taurus, hey, watch out
for drop bass. Yeah right, all right, Well but again,
and there's a there's this delightful commercial that you can
find on YouTube right now. It's for this company called
Bundaberg or Bundy Rum and Cola. That's a whole thing.
It's at least one of their products and features this
drop bear where there's a group of these camping blokes,
(44:03):
I'm gonna call them blokes. In this instance, they're accompanied
by a polar bear who's just hanging out by the
trunk of their car the boot or whatever you call
it there, and they're The whole point is they're trying
to convince this separate group of shila's in this case,
see what we're doing here, ladies. Yeah, they're trying to
convince the ladies to join them and camp with them,
because they're like, oh, you guys are camping over there,
(44:24):
we're camping over here, we should get together. Well, the
polar bear understands what's happening here, So the polar bear
sneakily climbs up to this tree that's hanging over the
ladies tent right right, And then the lads they go
to the shila's and they're like, hey, you gotta be
careful for them drop bears. We got drop bears around here,
and they're like, drop bears? What are those? And then
the polar bear drops down onto the tent and they scream,
(44:47):
and then they all camp together and they drink I
guess Branderburg.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
The bear doesn't like dismember them, and then drinks rumbing coke.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
No, No, the bear falls on the tent and then
gives them a nice little like wink, And like.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Why does the bear want to help out these blokes?
I don't understand the motivation there.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
He is certainly in with that group, so he's either.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Gang.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yeah, his motivation is to maintain that group of friends.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
So he's an anthropomorphic pervy bear.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
He's a polar bear, and he's also on the Bundenberg Rum.
He's like part of their logo.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Okay, he's like their two can sam.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Oh I get it, or he's like their coke polar bear.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Well, it's a little skeezy. It is, it is, but hey.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
I don't know. It's like hijinks. He wasn't aiding a crime, right, Well, well,
we've only seen a snippet of this bear's life.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yeah, and we we only know how the night started.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
That is also true. And while we're overthinking animal commercials,
you guys know about panda cheese, right, I'm sure when
ad nauseum panda cheese?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
What the hell is that?
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Oh? Okay, so we're gonna have to hang out for
a second after we record, and we'll post this on
Here is where it gets crazy when this episode comes out.
There's an Egyptian cheese company named Pandaka and they put
out a number of years ago a series of advertisements
about this evil panda that would appear if you turned
(46:16):
down panda cheese, it would appear and ruin your life.
What in increasingly dark and sinister ways.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Okay, there's a YouTube video called top seven Panda Cheese Commercials.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
We don't have time to do it now, but oh he's.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Doing a slow clap in this one.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
But they're worth it worth He's a creature pure evil.
So I would take the Bundy rum guy over this one.
But you know what we should also take at this
point a break.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah, you just need to set them up and I
knock him down.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
There you go, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
So we talked about the Bundy if we explored the
drop Bear just for fun. Now it's time to dive
into the story of what I would call the most
likely to be real cryptid okay here in this case,
and that is the Thylocene or Tasmanian tiger, one of
(47:15):
the most fascinating alleged cryptids in the region.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Also known as the Tasmanian Tiger, This creature technically went
extinct in Tasmanian in the nineteen thirties with the last
thyla scene, which was a male named Benjamin. Oh, it's
like it's like your name.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
They have a weird they have a weird story about Benjamin.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
Well, let's get to it. So Benjamin died on a
zoo in nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
And for years and years after there was this controversy
because they didn't know the gender of the animal. So
there were some people who went back an obsessively watched
video this one short clip of the animal walking frame
by frame by frame, enhancing the crap out of it
until they could see one test stickle.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
So a lot of science went into that. Okay, wouldn't
you just couldn't they have just said, oh, its name
is Benjamin. I don't know, one.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Would think obviously, so Benjamin.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
So last one dies in nineteen thirty six. As you're saying, right.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
It's a fascinating looking creature, it really is.
Speaker 3 (48:20):
Yeah, and over the it's true and over the years
there have been numerous residents of Tasmania who claimed to
see encounter even this carnivorous marsupial. So it's a lot
like the drop bear in that respect. So the Tasmanian
tiger can grow to six feet long if you count
the tail, and folks like Andrew Orchard who have investigated
(48:41):
this cryptid claim to have seen the creature multiple times.
And often people hunt these much with the same dedication
that we attached to bigfoot hunters here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
So maybe we could interview a devil hunter also. That
sounds really cool.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, the devil hunter. Well, it looks it's a fascinating
looking animal. It looks kind of like the head of
a canine almost in a way, but then its tail
is very rodent or marsupial like, but again it's large.
And then its body has the stripes of gosh, I
don't even know, almost some African animals that you can
(49:22):
find just to have the stripes of this kind, not
tiger stripes, but they're very they're lines, they're not like
some kind of jagged shape or any kind of they're
not even really swooping or anything.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
And they start on the upper back, yeah, and then
they expand as they go down towards the haunches. Yeah,
it's a very very strange placement. It looks like somebody
customized the creature in a video game of some sort,
for sure. So it was common in Australia for some
time as well, but it went extinct in Australia first
(50:00):
and then later extinct in Tasmania, at least officially. And
as you pointed out, there are a ton of people
in Tasmania who are certain they have seen this thing.
And the Australia Rare faun Or Research Association has almost
four thousand reports of Tasmanian tigers in Australia since nineteen thirty.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Six, observations or sightings of some sort.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Right, And if you look at the silhouette or the
profile of the thing, it looks different enough from a
dog or dingo, even because that tail sticks straight out
like a kangaroo tail.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Absolutely, if you saw it at night, I can see
how you would mix this up with a few things,
with the exception of the tail, if you're like seeing
it with a flashlight night or headlights or something.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah, you know. The most popular, I guess misidentified animal
we have here in Atlanta now is a coyote.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
If you have seen an yet, I have, actually yeah,
me too, and some foxes. I got them mixed up initially.
Really yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I saw in a neighborhood outside of Atlanta a few
years back, I saw a lost dog poster and someone's like,
have you lost your dog? I've been seeing this one around.
I haven't caught him. He's kind of shy. It's totally
a coyote. Whoa Yeah, kilts and cats. But but look,
(51:29):
people who think that the Tasmanian Tigers survives think that
it survives most likely in a remote part of Tasmania,
you know, the island off of Australia, or in a
very remote part of the Australia, not quite the outback
the bush. Like you said, no, I'm Glerine.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
Don't let the game boy machinehead.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
Did you know he played the one of the bad
guys in Constantine.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yes he did, and he was fantastic in it is
very else he's.
Speaker 3 (52:09):
There are the Australian British.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
The British didn't take the trip.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
It would have been a good a good transition, not
a transition, at least a better non seculator.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Well uh, speaking of fantastic segues sequators even yeah, sequitors
and segues which is another name of a different podcasts
will probably do one day. What about large cats? This
is when it gets me. Every place that we have
ever investigated in terms of cryptozoology, they always have at
(52:43):
least a few large cats. Like every state in the
US has its own alleged cryptid large cat. Even states
that have mountain lions say they have a large cryptid cat.
But it's different.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Yeah, it's different from a mountain lion. However, mountain lions
are terrifying. If you've ever seen one in the wild
or maybe on your property, beware, that's a mountain lion.
It will take your dog and or maybe you.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Yeah, they're not they didn't come to play with you, Nope.
But it feels like the reports of large cats in
Australia have a little bit more credibility.
Speaker 2 (53:21):
Yeah, there's one, I guess. The most famous sighting is
the Gippsland phantom cat. It's been spotted all over the place,
repeatedly in the Grampians. Grampians, I don't know how to
say that correctly. Australians, I'm sorry, but since the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 3 (53:37):
Are Grampians like geriatric champions.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yes, just like that. It's a region or a little
an area and experts and skeptics believe these are maybe
perhaps the feral descendants of just you know, plain old
house cats, but maybe a little bigger, maybe a little
more feral.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah. So this National Park is huge, six hundred and
forty six square miles, and it's a nature reserve, so
it's ticking a lot of the boxes for us. It's
not heavily populated, and it's remote.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
There you go, maybe it's a different species that we
just haven't cataloged.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yet, and where it's located plays a role in its
credibility too, because there's this long standing theory or somewhat
of an urban I don't want to call it a myth,
but there's a tail.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Okay, there's a story.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
At least it says when US soldiers were stationed in
Victoria World War two, they had a pair of pumas
that were mascots, and after the war, when they were
going back home to the States, they released these cats
into the wild. Pumas pumas.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
You say, which is it's just a cougar. Cool a cougar. Yeah,
but it looks I mean, it's just a large it's
a large cat.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
It's another way for mountain lying.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Two to three feet in height, so maybe not as
intimidating as a gigantic wombat, but it is carnivorous. It
can run fifty miles per hour, and if you piss
it off, it will it will attack you. Right, most
animals in the wild, It's pretty much true everywhere, if
(55:23):
they have the option to avoid a human versus confronting them,
the majority of animals would rather avoid a human being, right.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah, the majority of human beings would rather avoid human beings.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
It's true, that's true. In Victoria, however, these reports of
large unidentified cats were taken very seriously, so much so
that the state government investigated the sightings and in twenty
twelve they released a report that said there was no
evidence to back these concerns. Don't ask us how much
it costs to do this investigation, which became another sticking
(55:59):
point for the local government. But the stories continued, and
they continue today. In twenty eighteen, and there was there
was at least one case where somebody caught an unidentified cat.
Speaker 3 (56:12):
Yeah. This was a fellow by the name of Kurt Engel.
He shot a that said unidentified cat which had a
twenty six inch tail. Wowsers, it's huge. Yeah, and tests
on the cat showed that it was at least partially
a common domestic cat.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Yeah. So they had a mitochondrial DNA test, which means
they can only trace the matrilineal side, yeah, and the
other side of it. So the official conclusion was, like
you said, it's partially a regular common.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Cat, yeah, but the other parts are just monster.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
Doesn't twenty six inches seem cartoonishly long for a tale.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
It really does. Why would you ever need that from
an evolutionary perspective unless you're like hanging from it or
or I don't know, getting objects out of the water
with it.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
Seems like it'd be a liability.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
Maybe you can go fishing with it.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
Maybe I bet you could deep sea fishing.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Well, Unfortunately we don't know because he discarded the body.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Oh great, it was dumb, thanks Kurt Engele.
Speaker 1 (57:18):
One point six meters long, although he says two meters.
You can see a picture of the cat hanging up
where he caught it. But destroying the body really hurt
his credibility, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (57:30):
Jeez.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
But then there's other there are other video clips you
can find, and there's a wealth of stuff out there.
The problem is that people were skeptical about this stuff.
We'll say it's inconclusive. There are also rumors that there
are large, essentially comodo dragons wandering the outback.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
We didn't dig too deep by that. That's just one
of those where I think I could also that.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, you think there'd be
more than just a few sightings if there was a
large enough population of them out there. But who knows,
maybe they're that isolated. Well, but the best one, my
favorite one.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
Yeah, yeah, what is it anything.
Speaker 2 (58:14):
Walking around on two legs up in this piece?
Speaker 1 (58:18):
I'm so glad you asked, Matt. Yes, there are not one,
but at least two types of Bigfoot esque creatures in
the world of Australian cryptozoology. The first is the Mohow
of New Zealand. According to reports, they're about the size
of a normal person, normal guy, but they have an
eight like face, long shaggy hair, and really long fingers
(58:39):
with sharp fingernails or claws.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Uh. I don't like that. It was with you until
you got to the long.
Speaker 1 (58:45):
And started acting it out. Yeah, you crossed the table
towards you. They're thought to be responsible for two deaths
in eighteen eighty two, a prospector and a woman who
was found nearby. She'd been abducted from her home. Someone
had broken her neck. The prospector have been partially eaten. Ooh, no,
one knows what happened.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
Yeah did they Well? Yeah, just makes you wonder if
they found, you know, any long scratches or strange creepy acting.
I know, and I'm not liking me doing it even.
Speaker 1 (59:19):
And then there's the Yawi, which probably has one of
the more fun names all our cryptids.
Speaker 2 (59:24):
Oh yeah, I mean this is this is your bigfoot.
This is your Australian bigfoot. Essentially, it lives deep within
the wilderness. It avoids contact with humans. You might be
able to hear a yaowie if you know, if you're
walking around the woods, you're maybe you're camping or something.
You're just exploring or hiking, or you're on the like
at the outskirts of the woods.
Speaker 3 (59:45):
Yeah, sorry, yowey Yawi Zali. Isn't that a nu's Wowie's Awi?
It's a Pavement album.
Speaker 4 (59:53):
Ah.
Speaker 2 (59:54):
But here's the thing, Noll. There might be some confusion
here because within the oral storytelling over the years and
within the Aboriginal communities. The term yowi is also a
regional term for the bun yip creature.
Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Oh so there's some conflation and confusion there exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
So maybe it's one and the same, or at least
originally was, and then it just became its own separate
set of stories.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Yeah. Well, if I have become persuaded in this episode
about one thing and one thing only, it's the Pavement
should do an album that is entirely about the Yawi
and it's called Yawi Zaui.
Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
Well, first we got to get him back together.
Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Okay, Well, look, everything's it's a journey of a thousand
miles starts with a single step. So members of Pavement,
for remembers of Pavement, if you're listening right to us,
do this for us.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Please.
Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Do you know a member of Pavement will send them
this podcast, make them listen to the entire thing.
Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Against their will, don't send them just the.
Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
End, and then hopefully they'll they'll hear this.
Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Well it does. You know. We do have to wrap
up today, but we've explored, at least on a cursory level,
some of the most popular and strangest cryptids in Australia.
But there's much more to this story because Australia has
its own rich history of these sightings, and although many
of them share tropes and themes with stories in other
(01:01:18):
areas of the world, these are very different. Found one
big twist to the entire cryptid story here, and it's
that of all the cryptids in Australia, at least the
ones we encounter while working on the show, large cats
and the Tasmanian tiger are the most likely to be
(01:01:39):
quote unquote real right, rather than purposeful hoaxes or being misidentified.
But the big twist is we might find Tasmanian tigers
sooner than we think, and we might not do it
by searching the remote reaches of Australia and Tasmania. In
the past few years, scientists have successfully drafted the DNA
(01:02:00):
sequence of the thylacine. This means that in the future
we not all of us listening maybe, but our species
may be able to create our own hybrids. Just like
the work on the wooly mammoth, we may be able
to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from the grave.
Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Ah the Phylocene park will be born. We'll get the
blood from ancient mosquitoes trapped in amber and the great outback.
Oh wait what, I don't even know what you'd find
in the outback where you would get DNA like that.
Maybe maybe it will be huge Australian mosquitoes unbeknownst to
(01:02:37):
man before this time. And we'll take that DNA.
Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
And we'll book the whomever. The Jeff Goldbloom of Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Doctor Ian Malcolm will be there and he will say,
this is chaos.
Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
And it's chaos that we want you to be a
part of. So let us know what you thought about
this episode. And hey, if you're in Australia, let us know.
Let us know if any of these cryptos are taken
seriously on the ground.
Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Where you live.
Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
You know, have you ever used drop bears to get
a group of blokes or Sheila's to hang out with you?
Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Is it all just sort of a dad joke? You
know what I mean? Drop Bears we'd like to hear
from you. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
We're all over the place. If you want to see
those panda commercials, then get thee to our community page.
Here's where it gets.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Crazy, Panda cheese. Everybody, We are going on tour. Remember
that we got to tell you this every time we're
going on tour.
Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
We have been instructed.
Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
No, we haven't been instructed. We feel compelled to do so.
You have to know this because we need you to
come and see us. Yeah, we need you to be there.
Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
We want to see you. Yes, please, we need you
more than you need us.
Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Can we hang out please?
Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Oh? Speaking of shout out to Michael Shelby. If you're listening, Michael,
I kept my word said, I give him a shout out.
Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
Oh, one of the Shelby brothers. Huh. Anybody anybody get that?
Anybody watching Peaky Blinders? Okay? Never run all right?
Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
Thomas Shelby hit me up if you're listening to this. Okay. So,
and that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
One of the best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three std WYTK. If
you don't want to do that, you can send us
(01:04:27):
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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