June 4, 2025 • 62 mins
We've all heard of Bigfoot, the Swamp Ape and so on. Western science largely dismisses the existence of these cryptids. Yet: Did you know there's another associated cryptid in China? Unlike Bigfoot, or the closely-associated Yeti, the Yeren became a subject of intense scientific scrutiny out in the hinterlands of interior China. In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore China's multimillion dollar endeavor to prove the existence of their own Bigfoot.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noman.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call be Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here that makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. And fellow Cryptid fans,
friends and neighbors, we have something special for you this evening.
(00:48):
I think we're all excited about this. I hope that's
the case. We all love a Cryptid episode, right, Can we.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Talk about in the past? We had too, because this
seems like a question that would obviously come up Cryptid
like fighting games or sort of Pokemon style or Magic
the Gathering style card games. I feel like one came up.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
There are characters that occur in there, there are I
feel like that You're right, there has to be one,
because we know there are a couple of deity fighting games.
We talked about that previously, and we know there are
crypto zoological characters that occur in like Magic, the Gathering,
and so on.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
There's a game on Steam called Beasts of Mystery. Have
you ever wondered what it would be like to see
Mothman fight the flat Woods Monster? Well now you can
find out in Beasts of Mystery, the cryptid fighting game
with hand drawn animation and approachable gameplay inspired by the
greatest fighting games of past and present.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
What a time to be alive? What a time? May
twenty third, twenty twenty five. As we record this, we're
going to talk about one cryptid that may not be
a Beast of Mystery and may not be familiar to
a lot of us in the West. Our exploration takes
us far far from our home base of the Atlanta
metro area to the rugged, mountainous and forbidding interior of
(02:07):
the Hubei Province in China. Also in the research here,
I don't know about you, guys. I learned a new word.
We've got a local sparkling water company here called Montane.
Did you guys know Montane's an actual word. I thought
it was like a car name, like you made up
something that sounded like a real thing.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I guess it just sounds like a sort of like
a crooner from the fifties. You know, Johnny Montane.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Sounds like Fontaine to me. That's just something I'm familiar with. Yeah,
our buddy bre mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, yeah, that would be Debri right.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Yeah, and our buddy pre the famous runner, right, wasn't
that Prefontaine?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Oh? Okay, comes and Montane. Just for any etymology, nerds
is a word that, weirdly, I don't think we had
encountered before. I didn't know was a real word. It
means of growing in were inhabiting mountain areas. Nice, that
makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that's what you know. Really,
it's my fault for not having a good vocabulary. That
(03:09):
was like this Sparkling Water company just made up a
BS word.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Anyway, Man, I got to call you back for being
self deprecating. There to a fault. You have the best
vocabulary at anybody that I know.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, if you have a bad vocabulary, But I don't
know what I am, I'm speaking dumb ass, not at all.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Can I really quickly just say this beast of mystery game?
Not to harp on it too. It looks like it
was created an MS paint, so that that alone is
worth the price of admission.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Do check it out. It looks ridiculous. Oh, and Triforce
points out there are a couple of Japanese role playing
games with Yo Kai. I am in dude, Yo Kai
are amazing.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Well, the guy we're talking about today is a little
bit Yo Kai esque, though it's not from Japan, it
is from China, but it has that mythical quality, right.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah. For thousands and thousands of years,
local rural populations in Hubay have have been or whubey
have been convinced they share the land with something not
quite ape, not quite human, you quite skunk, not quite skunk,
not quite swamp, not quite abominable. Uh yeah, it's a
(04:19):
huge thing. We've all heard of bigfoot, We've heard of
the abominable snowman. But what about the yarn And by
the way, what the heck is yarn fever? Uh yeah,
We're gonna pause for a second check in with our
medical experts to make sure we're still inoculated. Here are
(04:43):
the facts when we talk about bigfoot. And we've run
into this so often over the years. We continually see
this strange, near ubiquitous, ancient myth about something that inevitably
translates to either wild men or hairy men.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
And one of my favorite Bigfoot superpowers I guess that
he would be able to use in a fighting game
is this idea that he can teleport and that he
can sort of fold time and space. And maybe that
accounts for some of the proliferation of these types of creatures,
you know, globally speaking.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Interesting and that's something our our, our good friend David
Bikera remarked about briefly when we interviewed him. How long
ago was that lo those many years ago?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
And what is it called, guys Operation Bigfoot their expedition expedition,
But it very much is that, and I know we
harp on it every time, but like it has the
quality level to build the quality of like a really
rat Disney Universal Studios type exhibit. It is pretty badass.
If you find yourself in the North Georgia Mountains, do
give it a check.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Ry day of it. Yeah, yeah, cherry log near LJ
and make a day of it. Because it's also right
up the road from a place where you can rent
a tank, which our accounting department did not allow us
to do. Deny, Yes, I'm not going to let go
of that.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, yes, And just to the point of the number
of hairy man wild man stories that exist even within
the US and the different varieties of it. We had
another person we ended up speaking to that makes this
thing called map in black. You can check it out.
All of us have a copy now at this point
and it shows well, it's not for me, it's from
(06:28):
a listener.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, but you got us the maps. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, he sent us the maps. But the concept here
is that there are spread across just the United States.
I think, I want to say, around five or six
varieties of this specific form of cryptid just here in
the US, and then you look globally, it just there's
(06:53):
so many more.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, proliferates. That's a great point too. I remember seeing
that map and thinking, you know, this is somewhat similar
to regional variations of squirrels right or where, you know,
And if it's a natural organism that makes sense living
in the same place over vast swalls of time. It's
weird because everything we find when we look into historical
(07:19):
strangeness is that no matter how different a given culture
may be or when that culture occurs, they share surprising commonalities,
Like every single human civilization throughout history has at one
point managed to predict the passage of the seasons, and
they have all attempted to explain the movements of the
(07:40):
heavens in relation to the Earth. But the other really
strange thing is this weird myth that continues in the
modern day. Like you said, Matt, we call it bigfoot.
Regional variations here would be swamp ape, skunk ape, the
Irali from native culture and so on. You can find
ancient petroglyph depicting hairy people and then the entire lore
(08:05):
about them, and this dates back, you know, thousands of years.
You also to that point again, you hear legends about
this and other parts of the world, often remote mountainous
wildernesses right or stretches of forest cover. Russia had a lot,
or the Soviet Union, I should say, had a lot
(08:25):
of research into this, as did pre communist Russia. And
then you'll hear about the Yeti, the snowman, and of
course in China the Yarin. But they're all again, they're
all variations on the same idea that Homo sapien shares
earth with some reclusive, enigmatic, oddly intelligent species of something
(08:47):
that looks a little like a human, a little bit
like an ape. And I think, or I would posit
guys that in some of our previous explorations, we found
a really good answer for some of these common legends,
not just bigfoot stuff, but things like trolls or orcs
or goblins or hobbits, and they were kind of kissing
(09:09):
cousins to the humans.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Yeah, and this extends into the modern day, this legacy
of ancient hominids and remains in the form of trace
amounts of DNA that's found in some modern humans. Unfortunately,
not those actual facts hobbits that you mentioned ben Homofluoresciensis,
though we don't. I don't think there are like, you know,
(09:31):
tolkien Esque hobbits. You know, they have their own little
hobbit holes and don't like their china to be yeah,
don't like their their plates to be chipped and crabs yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We haven't found the Bilbo Baggins yet,
but I love the point you're making there. In all
the so called hobbits of Southeast Asia, along with the
Denisovans you mentioned the poor Neanderthal. Further current science theorizes
humanity may discover yet more evidence of these ancient home
sapient hominid interactions and maybe even hidden somewhere in human
(10:05):
DNA remnant lines of other hominid groups. We don't know.
That's the pickle of it. And if you're a scientist,
that's either very exciting or very frustrating. If you're a
team of hapless podcasters, that's amazing, because that's an episode
(10:25):
if we find one for sure. So with all this
in mind, folks, we have proven that things close to
human existed at the same time as modern Homo sapiens,
and we also have solid proof through as you said,
old DNA evidence that these groups interacted. So there's this
compelling argument that at least some of these bigfoot myths
(10:48):
could be based on oral history about genuine encounters with
these things not quite Homo sapien. I don't know what
do you guys think.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Oh, just a quick shout out to you yourself, mister
Ben Bollen. You gifted both Matt Frederick and myself a
lovely graphic novel version of the book Sapiens. Credible illustrated volume.
I think it's part one of this book, but it
is absolutely fantastic. I haven't made my way all the
way through it yet, but it talks a lot about
these Dennis Ovins and some of these early hominives and
(11:18):
beautifully illustrates what that world might have looked like.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Oh man, you've all Noah Harari, what a guy.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah, what a cool project to translate to visuals.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
In that way. Agreed. Agreed, man, Ah that guys. I
love the way he writes. So, as any fan of
the History Channel can assure you, there is no shortage
of attempts to document Bigfoot or even to capture a
living specimen. We don't want to sound hyperbolic, but to date,
(11:50):
as far as modern science is concerned, all of these
attempts have failed, every single one. Even the expeditions that
found you know, the purported yetty scalp. Later testing proved
I think it was from like a mountain goat or
something of that nature. Yeah. Still it's important, you know,
(12:10):
we have to remember that even when science fails to
find the thing it's looking for, it has at least
provide a value by establishing that thing does not exist.
But what if we're looking at the wrong place. What
if the real Bigfoot is not in the Pacific Northwest,
but instead, what if it's half a world away, deep
into the interior of China. Unlike Western science's overall dismissal
(12:33):
of Bigfoot, China seriously scientifically investigated this creature's existence and
it became a social phenomenon. It became like a good
version of a moral panic hit the zeitgeist.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, that is kind of like that concept that we
talked about with Yeah, correct, Yeah, the opposite of paranoia,
which is pro noia. The I guess it is inherently misinformed.
The other people are trying to help you. I don't
know if that in misinformed aspect is key to it,
but man, I love the idea of a positive moral panic.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, a moral euphoria, a moral panic.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
We're doing a good job with this panic morally.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So let's get into it. Now. Here's where it gets crazy.
This is the story of the Yarin. It's a weird word.
In translation, you would spell it y e r e n.
People are going to throw, you know, little diacritics at
different points or little accent marks, but it roughly translates
(13:35):
to savage or wild man and Mandarin, so it'd be
like Jillian or Cantonese sweat Gin suasion. We should go
ahead I think and say, or at least I have
to say, we are not native Mandarin speakers. We don't
speak the dialects that we are going to be approaching
in part of this. So please bear with us. And
(13:57):
if we're what about this guys, if we're not sure
about our pronunciation, maybe we just spell the word yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
And I will also defer to Ben because you have
done some studies of the language. All I've done is
seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Which is you know they make you watch that when
you study Chinese.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Well, if I'm not mistaken, I do remember that being
the first time that was like identified as this is
like a dialect, a particular dialect of Mandarin that was
used in that film, at least in my experience. But
I'm also joking. Ben, you really do have kind of
expertise and studied time on this stuff. So but we
will do our level best.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
As always, it's too kain noel, and got to be honest,
as anybody who studied Chinese knows, they really string you
along with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. They make you watch
it early and they strongly imply that you'll learn how
to run and jump from tree tops.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Secretly though, guys, they used wires.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
That's the word on the street, and that's why I
got a B plus instead of any movie though.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
In that fricking soundtrack with Yo Yo ma, oh my god,
excellent stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
It's amazing, you know. It's this thing. The Erin is
often referred to as sort of the Chinese version of
the Tibetan. YETI kind of like how the skunk Ape
or swamp ape might be referred to as the insert
region x here version of the Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It's interesting that it's that just Okay, So I don't
know much about this as well, but I do know
that it is we're basically talking about a forested area.
Is it an area? Do we know if it is
covered in snow? Often? It seems just from its latitude
that it maybe isn't covered in snow.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Right exactly. It's a much more hospitable region to wildlife
than say Everest or the upper reaches of the Himalayas.
It's the shinong Jia Forestry District. I messed up to
tone there. If you had to pick a spot for
the Chinese Bigfoot, this would be peak real estate. Okay,
(15:56):
it's free real estate. It's like about the more than
one thousand, two hundred square miles of mountainous forest right
just approaching the timber line. Right, it's which makes it
technically montane. There we go, and it's the elevation is
(16:16):
pretty high, about six thousand, five hundred to six nine
hundred feet up. Okay, yeah, so it's like it's a
pretty dope spot if you're looking for a creature like this.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Well, it does make sense. Then why the YETI would
be the comparison there because of it must get highly
cold there at times, simply because of the elevation, which
is why you may see it as more of a
snow creature than a you know, the way we'd imagine
a big foot, which is very much just a forest boy,
you know, just in the tree line, in the trees,
(16:51):
not with the you know, the even the coloring of
the fur, if there is fur.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Also reminds me of
the various I can't remember the specific cards in magic
the gathering, but the various troll uh specializations. Right, aren't
there different kinds of trolls? I might be thinking of something.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
You've got your bridge trolls, you got your your your
your your mal trolls. Yeah, what are the ones with
the funny hair and the jewels in their belly?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Buttons?
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Troll dolls, that's the one.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
You got, your doll?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Trolls is a smurf A kind of troll.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
A smurf is more akin to a smaller for spirit,
maybe like a brownie and gnome.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Do you know what they call the smurfs in Germany?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
What do they call the smurfs in Germany? And I
like that that's not true. Why does everything sound so
aggressive in that language? I'm so prejudiced? All right, sorry,
but uh, this this area, Yeah, I'm thinking in terms of,
you know again, regional variations like with squirrels or whatever,
geographic variations. I'm thinking it would make sense, to your point, Matt,
(17:58):
for a very similar kind of animal to adapt to
different environmental pressures. And this forest we're talking about is
one of the most biodiverse areas in the nation. It's
home to tons of rare species with pretty great names.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Correct per our Pals over at Onesco in their Delightful
World Heritage sites. The area in question here is already
home to tons of actual facts. To quote Lauren Vogel,
bum identifiable species like the Chinese giant salamander, the golden
or Sichuan snubnosed monkey.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
I don't like him.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
He's two snubnosed, so snobby. What's up with that? Why's
he got his nose turned up like?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
And also there's the clouded leopard.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Not what makes it clouded? Is it just something about
its pattern?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
No, it's it's just it's sketchy and it has a
bad memory.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Got it the cloud We've also got the much less
remarkable common leopard, which I don't know why that even
made the list, to be.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Honest, guys, it's crazy because they're I don't know, to
the point about slightly different regions. It's not Neither of
these are the same as the snow leopard, right, So
it feels like there's a gradiation or gradation there from
common to cloud it to snow. I don't know anyway.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
It's also just something to note there there are dangerous
species in these forests, right that you should be aware
of if you're going to be trekking out there looking
for stuff. And also there are things like the Chinese
giant salamander that don't seem real. It doesn't seem like
a salamander should get that large if you've seen pictures
of it. I remember watching a video way back in
(19:44):
the day of one of the largest salamanders ever, you know,
in captivity or was caught, and these things are huge.
It looks like the size of a dog. But it
is a salamander.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
So it's not just a clever name.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
No, no, no. They are actually giant and harrison to
the vast majority of salamanders. And they're kind of cool man.
I'll be honest. They're no Asian black bear, because those
guys are hanging out in this area as well. It's
just important for us to establish the biodiversity here. It's
another point to the argument for the real estate right,
especially in a country that is rapidly industrialized over such
(20:20):
a short span of time. You know, often in the West,
when you see pictures of China, you see pictures of
these crazy factories, right, these huge works of human beings.
Or you see a picture of a panda in the
middle of nowhere that is just doing its best to
figure out how to eat bamboo.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Oh yeah, we're going to look in a little lonely.
I'm not gonna lie. He's a panda, friend.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Oh yes, and pop hube Providence into your maps Google like, yeah,
but yeah, pop pop it into your maps app and
just look at the spaces between the civilization talking about
that the way the expansion is occurring, right, and you
can really see exactly what Benn is saying. There are
(21:07):
still extremely remote areas here where there's just humans are
not there.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
M yeah, even in even in such a populous country.
You know, the population of China is huge, but it's
quite unevenly distributed, so such that you know, you think
most Americans live in cities or urban areas, You're absolutely right,
but that is exacerbated in China so much so that
the current government has some hard laws about who can
(21:38):
move where and when and why you have to get
a license to do so.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
And do you know what's in the eastern side of
Hubay Province.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
What's in the eastern side of Hubei Province?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Wuhan?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I got you all in Czech yea famous Muhan clan.
And I still true, I still am so flummoxed by
I rememberer when uh when wu Ha came out, not Wuhan.
And when Wuha came out, I was texting with some
fellow hip hop heads, and this was I. I had
(22:11):
not searched the lyrics myself, and I thought when he
was saying I thought he was saying stuff like I've
got that eggnog shit that makes you sweat your neck.
Who haw, I've got you all in check. And I
thought it was c Z E C H.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
And I'm certain this has come up before, I remembering.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Not to tell the same story twice. But you know,
I hated. I hated for it that myth to be
busted because I love the idea that New York slang
was just that extreme and wild, and it still is
very colorful and wild, it sure is. And what on
earth is a flip mode squad? I've never fully.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Wrapped my head around that you haven't flipped No, well never, No,
I am loyal. I would slip them. So that's drop
a dime on no one.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
So the reason we're pretty especially that this economy, but
the reason we're we're already we're bringing up the idea
of busting the myth is because in our conversations with
some of our friends who have searched for Bigfoot or
other cryptids, you get the feeling at times that maybe
they don't want to find the thing. Maybe it's more
(23:17):
about the journey, and so maybe I should have never
checked on those buster rhyme lyrics and kept the mystery alive.
But even without the hunt for a creature called a
cryptid like the yarin, this area has been a hotbed
for scientific inquiry. From eighteen eighty four to eighteen eighty
nine alone, scientists found five hundred news more than five
(23:42):
hundred new species of plant. It was kind of like
that older movie with Sean Connery in the Amazon Medicine Man.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Where dude, that was not a good movie.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
It was not a good movie. The previce was that
he is like, he's the guy who is an outsider,
but he knows the jungle. He discovers these new species
and he's like fighting big Pharma or something like that.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And I believe the love interest is Elaine Brocco, doctor
Melfi from the Sopranos.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
And of course you know Goodfellows as well.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Ah. So we know that people have been searching this area.
They've found strange animals already, they've found things that were
not known to exist in the larger scientific record, and
as we record today, there are perhaps there are certainly
more plants and perhaps even animals that are still out
there waiting to be discovered. Before we continue, we've got
(24:38):
to point out that we're getting a lot of this
information on the erin from one of the best academic
Western sources out there. It's a book called The People's
Peaking Man, Popular Science and Human Identity in twentieth century China,
written by Sigrid Schmolzer. And this was probably name I
know right. This was published in two thousand and eight.
(25:00):
So as the world of this kind of literature goes,
and as world of cryptozoology goes, it's kind of recent.
You know, it's not a breathless yellow journalism headline.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Oh yeah, But we've also found a bunch of sources
from the late nineties up into pretty recently twenty twenty
four where there are active discussions of the search for
this specific cryptid through all of that time span.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yes, very much so. And so deep do these searches
go that it would be impossible for us to name
every single expedition in this episode alone, but we'll we'll
take you through several of the possibilities here as we
get to the search. As a matter of fact, maybe
now that we've done some intros for our sources, we
(25:52):
pause for a word from our sponsors and then dive in.
All right, Mountain, Mama, take me home, countrys Country. The
cat returns, and so we returned to Cigared Schmalzer, who
(26:15):
traces the Chinese search for the Gharran from the days
of ancient folklore to the discovery of something called the
Peking Man. And we've all heard about the peking Man,
which was for a long time considered a legend until
it was discovered or hard evidence like fossils were discovered
(26:36):
in the nineteen twenties. It's kind of homo erectus, correct.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
The peking Man was a prominent symbol of bringing science
to the people. That's kind of cool as a post
revolutionary bit of kind of positive communist propaganda, wouldn't you say.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, Because we know that during the Communist Revolution, the
new government was seeking to reframe popular narratives. Right, this
is the people's move This is a world wherein the
history of humankind is a history of progress through labor,
through secular learning. This is not a result of divine intervention,
(27:18):
ghost spirits, or the supernatural.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
That's interesting, So sort of an imposed enlightenment and a
mandated step away from the religious towards the secular.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yeah, and I like imposed enlightenment. That's a that's a
really great term for this because we see, you know,
even now in Chinese authorities have a bad reaction to
films with ghosts in them, things like that.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
You know, Ben, I was thinking about this when looking
through your research dot com before we went on the air,
and it occurred to me that a lot of American
films when they get Chinese releases, they have to be
recut almost entirely to remove mentions of the supernatural.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, which we discussed in our previous episode.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I thought, yeah, doesn't isn't that a sort of aligned
with that shift?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
One hundred percent, dude, one hundred percent. And so as
this government is seeking to undermine religion to move people
away from previous superstitions, they also want to champion socialism
and advanced science. So if you go to chapter seven
of Schmalzer's work in specific, you get this fascinating anecdote
(28:32):
that tells us how this phase of urine fervor urine fever,
I should say, and scientific investigation begins to say, you're
in fever. It's yeah, yeah, funny. Yeah. Well, if you
like terrible puns, you're in luck. Yeah. Well, let's let's
(28:52):
share the story, guys, like, how how did this go
from a thing of legend and folklore to a rush
of scientific investigation.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Well, so let's begin with just the peaking man at least,
reconstructions of some of the shards of the peaking man's
skull and pieces of the peaking man's skull were thought
to be Homo rectus, so a version of human before
we the version of us. And there are a couple
(29:26):
of professors there in nineteen fifty six that are checking
it out. It's the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Natural
History Museum. They're looking at this reconstruction of the peaking
Man's skull, and one of them made a little statement.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, it's professors Mao Guangyan and Wang Ziatlin. And Mao
is looking at this stuff. These guys are both att
at professors, as you said, And he hears his colleague
Wang say this, Yonren, I've seen it before. Ed. Mao says, basically,
what is wrong with you? Are your nerves all right?
(30:05):
Do you have a fever? Bro? Peeking mad is a
human ancestor from five hundred thousand years ago. How could
you have seen one living with your own eyes?
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Oh yeah, he's already talking about the fever. The Wang
goes on to explain that back in nineteen forty, while
on safari or on an expedition for the Yellow River
Water Control Committee, he and others in his group came
across this sort of half ape, half human, chimera hybrid
kind of creature who had been shot dead by indigenous
folks or folks local to that area. So let's keep
(30:38):
in mind that these aren't just too you know, crotchety, old,
get off my lawn type dudes shooting the breeze, you know,
at the local coffee shop, t shop, you know, passing
around tall tales, spinning yarns. No, these are experts in
their fields, vetted professors, and their conversation at the museum
(30:59):
launched and other like minded colleagues into you guessed it
that you're in full blown You're in fever.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yellow River. You're in fever. Come on, guys, what's going
on here?
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Think about it. Picture us as Charlie Day by the
red string board and think about it.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
But it does make sense, right, Okay, So if one
of these Vetta professors says, hey, I've seen this thing before.
Oh yeah, no, I have this specific instance where I
saw something very much like this dead like a version
of it. Now, it would make you, as a professor,
want to go check that out, because my god, guys,
if there are versions of humanity that still exist somewhere,
(31:42):
deep in a cave system, deep in a forest system,
somewhere that's hidden, a population that is specifically attempting to
hide from all of the stuff outside of their world,
then we it would be awesome to find it. Right,
You're at least as a professor, you're going to get
some grants off of that.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Sorry, don't mean to make it about money, but yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Mean it is. It's about money. It's about the things
beyond money, like prestige and legacy. Right, And this is
I think this is a fantastic point because it also
incorporates some incredibly important social context. Now had probably heard
stories like this fourth or fifth hand from rural populations,
(32:26):
but even at the time when all people were supposed
to be equal under the Party, there was a ton
of prejudice from urban elites against rural people. The phrase
translates to stuff like country bumpkin. You know. So they
had all these stereotypes about people who lived outside of
the cities. This doesn't have that stereotype apply. It's a
(32:50):
respected colleague, right, Well, we've both been to school, etc.
We have quote unquote seeing the world or read about it.
And because of this we see the origins of yarn fever.
Now it doesn't take off right away. It's a bit artsy,
like if you've ever met an academic in Williamsburg or Brooklyn,
you know it's a bit rarefied air. The nineteen fifties
(33:15):
nineteen sixties, you see these relatively comparatively small scale research
efforts on yerin documenting historical records, maybe sending a few expeditions.
And these occur thanks to the work of Mao in particular,
again not Mao Zedong different now, and then there are
(33:36):
other Chinese scientists who kind of wu tang in on this,
namely folks from what's called the Institute of Vertebrae, Palaeotology
and paleo Anthropology or IVPPP. See not gonna let you
down right PPT. For about two decades after that museum conversation,
(33:58):
the idea that we could leverage science to learn more
about this. It was restricted to some rural communities and
intellectuals who were at that time frankly considered eccentric, and
maw was a one a man army. For a minute,
he was looking at possible relations between the YearIn stories
(34:18):
and legends of the Yetti. He was looking at fossil
records of apes and hominids. He was doing some bone
comparison modern humans. And the further he went, even starting
so skeptically, the further he went, the more convinced he
was that he was on to something.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
So in the closing years of the cultural revolution in China,
which was kind of a big deal and not quite
as cool as it sounds, guys, Right, doesn't it sound
like a positive thing, like a really positive sea change,
But it was very much an iron fisted grasp over culture,
and that was the revolution in question, right, Ben.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Yes, sir, that's right.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
No.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
The idea is that we can get rid of all
the beliefs of the past.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
We need to embrace cleaners.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, clean clean house will remake the foundations of the house.
It's very A lot of people died, right, and a
lot and there you know, the idea of human rights
is something that gets thrown out the window.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Oh there's just so many good little things about communism.
No one's just figured out how to do it well.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I mean, yeah, socialism maybe more so.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
But yeah, it's crazy how it starts off with good
intentions and inevitably becomes a totalitarian dictatorship wherein anybody who
is different is squashed.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
And what makes the YearIn is such an electric, galvanizing
subject of interest in research. It happens because of the
social context in which this exploration occurs. It goes down
to really three major factors. I don't know if we
want to walk through these briefly, but I think they
(35:58):
tell us about the story.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
So at this point, some of these extreme, very aggressive
political campaigns that sort of typified the beginning of the
cultural revolution, we're starting to die down. So people were
starting to be a little less afraid of the consequences
of associating themselves with things that were identified as superstitious.
This started to be perhaps a little bit of a
(36:20):
sense of maybe things were going to improve, perhaps or
that I don't know, people were a little less terrified
of stepping out and owning these you know, past beliefs.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, kind of like pilots and military aviation professionals reporting
strange stuff in the sky. Once one person is coming
out and talking about it and not getting punished, other
people feel less hesitant to.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Do specially especially now that we even have government acknowledgment
of some of those things to some degree. It feels
like it does open the.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Floodgates, and then so people are less hesitant to talk
about this. That's right. Second, a lot of Western writing
is newly available where scientists in China we can't wait
to read and translate this stuff. We have received a
directive right to push forward with science. And while we're
(37:13):
reading this stuff, we find loads of reports from our neighbors,
to the North Russia Soviet Union on their version of
this kind of cryptid We see a lot of stuff
about Yeti and Bigfoot, because that stuff was already in
those other cultural zeitgeist. It was already getting written about
a lot. So people are therefore more likely to read
(37:36):
about things related to this. And then what do we
do when we read about something happening somewhere else, We
immediately try to connect it to something closer to home.
And that's what occurred.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
We talked about it in a couple of our primary
Bigfoot episodes about signings in the US were occurring back
in the eighteen hundreds, right with logging camps, Like way
back in the day, people were seeing stuff stuff, Harry,
wild guys out there in the forest as the forests
are being chopped down. And you can only imagine that
(38:09):
if those stories had been around for so long. Yeah,
you're it's exactly right, Ben. You want to find the
ones that are out near you if there are these things.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Right, yeah, exactly, especially when you see those The reports
grow more vague the further back we go in history.
But now you start, you're one of these Chinese scientists, researchers,
you start reading about indigenous people's stories right in the Americas,
in North America, on that continent specifically, and then you
(38:38):
start saying, hang on a tick I remember. Because you're
unreasonably British, You're like, hey, got a tick I remember? These? Uh,
these stories kind of beat for beat, go with the
stories we ignored from all those country bumpkins, all those peasants.
What if they were onto something They can't figure it out,
(38:58):
But me a learned man, well, tally ho, they said,
in right, and so now because like the point you made,
it's easier to publish things without being arrested, right, without
being a target of a political campaign. Now people are
(39:20):
able to publish more easily, and there is a proliferation
therefore of popular science and science fiction. And the Errant
is the perfect subject for this. It touches evolution, it
touches the identity of the wild and the urban, It
touches what it means to be a modern human and
the importance of science. So these three factors can buy
(39:41):
and they make a feedback loop, an ouroboros of interest
and reading and publishing that begins to consume itself and grow,
which is not how consuming oneself works. We're going to
leave that analogy. It's been a weird week for all
of us. We'll pause for word from our sponsors, and
then we'll get to the hunt, because there are some
(40:02):
human characters in this story just as important as the
Yarin itself.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
And we've returned. Let's get to the actual physical attempt
to find a urin, and we are jumping to a
gentleman named Li Jian. This is an historian. He's working
as the vice secretary of a propaganda department in this
area that we talked about, Shenungia.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Oh and think about it. Propaganda, just gonna point that out.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, right, Propaganda, which it's information that seeks to sway
somebody to whoever's writing it or whoever's controlling the writings
way of thinking. So propaganda guy vice secretary in the
same area where this Shenania forest is. He began collecting
all kinds of reports from people who had been out
(40:57):
in the forested area who had said, hey, hey, I
saw something that I can't explain. I believe it's one
of these urine things. We think local villagers here, locals
that have been seeing this four years, going all the
way back to nineteen forty five. He this person Lee
gained the nickname the Minister of Urine.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Y Yeah, yeah, king himself sorry y e ri e yes.
And so in nineteen seventy six, the stuff he's collected,
it gets the attention of a guy. He's a professor
of evolutionary theory in East China Normal University. His name
(41:42):
is Liu min Shuang, and he goes on to become
the most prolific writer about yurin in China, and again
he's a professor, so he gets a nickname as well,
the Professor of Urine. I do think, if we're going
with the pea puns, Minister of Urine is probably a
better name. Professor of Urine feels weird, even though we
(42:05):
know urologists or a real thing. Anyway, Other scientists, including
those from the IVPP, jump on board, and Schmalzer says
there are teams of scientists and technicians, local officials and
rural people who have had eyewitness accounts. They start tracking
the yeh in earnest. They get dozens of reports, they
(42:26):
find footprints, even a few alleged hair samples, and by
nineteen seventy seven, scientists are publishing articles about this in
popular science magazines, but also they're publishing serious scientific research.
These are where you see magazines like Scientific Experiment and
(42:46):
an outfit called Fossils, which is the publication of IVPP,
And then general interest magazines and newspapers start carrying stories
about the investigation referencing this other stuff. This is a
huge win because unlike other Western papers, the Chinese experts
aren't really debunking the erin. They're taking a different approach,
(43:09):
and intellectuals experts stem. Experts in other fields are hopping
into the game, and there are government officials, there are
professional writers who are working on this. If you want
to be a cool party member or party official, why
not make a little peace of the erin for your
local paper and they'll be like, oh, deputy vice subprime
(43:32):
assistant to the subprime deputy actual, he gets it. I
wish I could vote, I'd vote for him.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, And just reminder, the IVPP as the Institute of
Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
So let's go into some of the inclusions of this
kind of lore, I guess is the appropriate term here,
into popular culture and into literature. So since it was
the social trend as much as it was a scientific trend,
there's not much of a surprise that year and fever
started to expand beyond nonfiction and into the world of
(44:09):
literary fiction. Plays were written, novels, poems. There's lines between
genres was being crossed just as much as the line
between science and kind of zeitgeisty pop culture was being crossed. Maybe,
if not crossed, then certainly blurred.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
It feels a little bit like the propaganda thing is working.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Exactly and you have to wonder too about motivation. We
have not spoken with these scientists directly, by the way,
many of them have passed away, but the science does continue,
imperfect as it may be, there are legitimate, good faith inquiries.
In nineteen eighty one, the newly minted Chinese Anthropological Society
(44:52):
has their first get together, right, and in that get
together they endorse the establishment of the Chinese Yarin Investigative
Research Association. This is a level of official approval that
simply had not existed in the Western world for things
like Bigfoot or in the United States in particular. And
(45:15):
this association grows to have hundreds and hundreds of members,
and the majority of these members are legit scientists, and
the goal to find the Yarin still exists in step
with the goal to push science over fantasy. So they're
saying the Yarin is an organism, a living thing, right
(45:36):
that eats, sleeps, and shits and reproduces. It is not
MP's obviously, and is not a legend, a ghost or
a spirit. So this means that Yarin fever also becomes
socially powerful for people. They can challenge these once sacracainct
(45:56):
cognitive institutions like the hard belief in God. They can
also kind of ask themselves what the yerin tells them
about themselves. It's a really rapidly industrializing nation. It's in
a deep I don't want to call it an identity crisis,
but it's in an interrogation of its own national identity.
(46:18):
So now the Urin is representing an opportunity to ask
questions about the line between man and animal science, superstition.
People are reading about the Yurin and they're saying, what
does it mean for me to be a human today?
So it hits the zeitgeist perfectly. It's a bullseye, you know.
And then we have to get to the We have
(46:40):
to say it. I don't love to say it because
I think we're having a fun time with this exploration.
But did they ever actually find one? No?
Speaker 4 (46:49):
Do they ever?
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Not that we know of, Not that we know of.
I love a world where maybe they did find a yarin.
It was far more intelligent than they assumed, and it
gave him some like rousing al Pacino ted Lasso's speech,
and they said, okay, we'll keep your secret. But as
far as we know, that didn't happen either. The theories
(47:11):
are increasingly scientifically based the idea that it could maybe
have been descended from Gigantopithecus. Maw believed that was documented
in old Imperial era writing. He definitely didn't think it
was supernatural stuff. We know that people became increasingly, i
(47:33):
would say, first more secular and the more skeptical as
time went on. There's the idea. I thought we'd love
this one. In nineteen seventy nine, a scholar named Seang
Yu Cheng started advancing this idea that's already familiar to
Western cryptozoology, and he basically said, look, the people who
are giving us all these eyewitness reports, they're not experts,
(47:58):
you know what I mean, they're not themselves bylogists or
botanist or what have you. They may have seen something
and then they mistook it for an extraordinary creature because
of the circumstances. I feel like that's a little dismissive, because,
as we know, when you grow up and spend your
entire life in a specific area of the world, a
(48:20):
specific you know, a stretch of woods, you get to
know those woods pretty well, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Yeah, but it reminds me of I'm going to bring
it back to Department of Truth one more time.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
It reminds me of this concept of once you believe
hard enough in something or what Once enough people believe
in something, it kind of becomes more true. And I'm
not saying that it creates a yurine out there, but
now that the popular culture has swelled to a point
where it feels as though it could be a thing
(48:55):
out there lurking in the woods, you are probably more
likely to mistake something that's far out in the distance
or a certain sound that you're not familiar with it,
even if you are familiar with the woods as like
possibly this other thing right right.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
It's the pattern you're primed to accept at that point.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
I feel like that's a strong thing in all cultures
when there is a tale of something like this that
might be lurking out there.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
One hundred percent, I'll see you on that. And add
another factor that should be considered, which is that imagine
you're growing up in a non wealthy, rural part of China.
The urban and intellectual elites have historically just talks so
much spack about you and been rude and dismissive, and
now all of a sudden you have the opportunity to
(49:46):
be an expert on a thing the errand therefore becomes
a possible means of income. Right, I'm a guide now
in an expedition, and perhaps more importantly than the money, now,
people who did not respect me are listening to me.
So if I have therefore a yearn story, then I
have raised to some degree my social status. That's that's
(50:10):
just a sad part of human dynamics. Right. We also know,
all right, this guy we mentioned, Shang, he said, yeah,
I said, untrained observers might be mistaken, and he pointed
to one of our favorite examples. It's just how Western
science eventually proved mermaids were probably just marine mammals cited
(50:31):
by extremely horny, desperately lonely sailors to the point about
primed to see a pattern. You know what I mean.
I mean, you think a man, it is ugly man,
but spend eight months at sea and then check back in.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Or don't just don't.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
You could always write us, You could write us.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
I think mandates have a certain kind of uncanny beauty
to them personally.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
Yeah, we're coming from, you know, a very anthrocentric aspect.
You know, they probably think we're ugly as sin, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, or then we're way too hairy and you're.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Way too hairy weird for yourself. I'm just hairy enough.
So these later scholars will also we're talking about this
a little bit off air. Later scholars, especially Western ones,
like writing in twenty twenty one. In more recent years,
they'll often posit that the myth of the rain is
based on early encounters in Central and western China with
(51:30):
more Semitic or European people who would tend to have
more facial hair, would definitely speak unknown languages and maybe
a real shock to see him in the woods. But
then the question becomes, why were they naked?
Speaker 2 (51:47):
That's the way to be.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
It is the natural state.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Yeah, not kidding. Boys, if you saw me just out
naked in the woods in my natural state before I
found manscaped, would not know what to think.
Speaker 4 (52:02):
An ad not an ad.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
So uh, yeah, we're actually not working with manscape. We're
now working with yarinescapes. There we go, which is which,
how far do we want to go into this? No,
because it's the opposite of manscape. It's a thing you
rub on and it just like creates strips of hair
where you rub it so that you can cover yourself
(52:28):
in hair, which is you, guys, listen to this episode
years in the in the future, it's going to be
pressing it. You're welcome erinescaped fifteen percent off.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
If you can come up with that, whoever you are
listening to that, and you just had a light bulb
go off, you would make billions of dollars.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah, we're not saying fifteen percent off when you order.
We're saying, if you come up with it, fifteen percent
for us. Yeah, expliration, you can pay us in big
foot hair. The So anyway, we know this social content
of China. It helps create this craze, but it also
complicates it because China is attempting to explain things through
(53:10):
a very localized perspective. We mentioned embracing the concept of evolution,
but I don't know if every Western knows this. There's
a popular belief in China that is sometimes accepted as
hard science that modern humans did not originate on the
African continent, that instead they originated in China and then
(53:33):
spread from there. So the erin was used to justify
that by some authors.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
We'll see that's very interesting, and there's something I wanted
to bring up here. I think there's a good place
to do it. Recently, Popular Mechanics wrote a story about footprints,
a very specific set of footprints from a tetrapod. So
that's just a four legged creature that theoretically where they
found it. When they found it within the fossil record,
(54:00):
it pushes back the development of a type of humanity, right,
not necessarily Homo erectus or Homo sapien, but way far back.
It pushes forward the development of tetrapods by forty million
years potentially, which means we really could have some of
(54:21):
our stuff way way wrong. I mean only because what
we know is what we've found of us far and
maybe we just haven't found those things, including all of
these missing links, right, including all of the time scales
and timelines that are mysterious to us.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yeah, and I think that's a salient point. That's why
it's also interesting to go back and revisit these episodes.
As more investigation continues, we're continually learning, by we, I
mean modern society human and not. We're continually learning that
the timeline is a little bit longer than people thought
(55:04):
it was. And that's why lost civilizations are also another
fascinating exploit. We still don't know what caused the Bronze
Age collapse. We have no idea. Somewhere along the line,
things just screwed up, and we still don't know so
many things about what, when, and where breakthroughs and evolution occurred.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Oh yeah, and by the way, that forty million years
thing makes me think about the I can't remember the
name of the theory. The theory that there was potentially
another advanced civilization.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
That was hilary and hypothesis siluriing that.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Was potentially not based in ape human intelligence and advancement,
but in maybe reptilian advancement or something other.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
And that is spot on with that, folks. We do
have an episode on that wall. We went through a
phase with that one. I remember it and the research.
The researchers there phrase that as a thought experiment. They
make such a compelling argument for that conspiracy. We also
know that the Erin fever has largely faded, but it's
(56:10):
still got a significant mark on society. The IVPP their
magazine Fossils. A little while back they decided to stop
publishing papers about the Erin because none of the expeditions
produced any solid proof. But then after that they did
a poll in their magazine, and the poll had some
(56:31):
surprising results. These are all Chinese nationals who get pulled.
Thirty two percent of the people in the poll say
they don't believe the Erin ever existed. We got something
wrong in the folklore. Twenty three percent say I think
it was around at some point, and like so many
other animals, it went extinct. And then seventeen percent, almost
(56:54):
twenty percent of the people that they asked, they said, yeah,
I don't know, man, it might be like I've never
been to that forest. I've never seen a giant salamander,
but I have Google, you know, I could. I could
see it, Like, it's not impossible. And so all of
this means that the Yarin is still kind of retreated
(57:17):
to the position of fringe science, similar to that of
the Western Bigfoot. But the weirdest thing is, as we
record Friday, May twenty third, the search continues today. What
do we think, guys, do we want to give an
absolute yes no on Yerin? Do we want to pull ourselves?
(57:38):
I'm gonna say maybe no.
Speaker 4 (57:39):
I think it's might be a no for me, Doug,
maybe a no for no.
Speaker 3 (57:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
I'm jumping over to China Daily real quick reading a
little article here about nature observers and how the job
postings in twenty twenty four in July lists that one
of the things you need to be a nature observer
is to have the capability of outrunning urine. So I mean, hey,
(58:08):
come on, I.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Mean, no matter how you want to punt it, it's
always good. It's always a good idea outrun. Now, don't
let the urine run on you less it is. Is
it matt from your sense when you're reading that, Is
that meant to be like fun satirical or does it
feel like okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
I'm being fun and satirical about it. I think I
think if you destroy like you, if you go to
the absolute position of this is hogwashing, dumb, and we
shouldn't think about it. I think that it defeats the
point of it, which is just like it's a way
to get people out in the woods.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
Yeah, and that's important.
Speaker 2 (58:49):
Humans plus woods equals probably a cooler civilization just because
and when you hang out in nature like that, you
see things a little differently.
Speaker 3 (58:58):
I think it has hard physicological effects on the human
as well, like beneficial effects. I would say, all we
need to caveat that with is humans hanging out in
the woods without destroying the woods. A that's cool, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Yeah, only you can prevent forest fires and urine attacks.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
Yes, yeah, so go camping. That's one of our takeaways.
Speaker 4 (59:22):
In order for urineto attack, doesn't it always kind of
require a slight downhill slope. That's the only way that
it can, you know, advance.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
It depends on the pressure of the system, I think.
Speaker 3 (59:31):
And you're talking about city urine.
Speaker 4 (59:33):
That's right, you're talking about country urine.
Speaker 3 (59:35):
Yeah, okay, we brought the prejudice back. Yeah, it's a
good question. This is the last note we always like
to end on with cryptid episodes. Humanity, as you hear
this is reaching one of the most profound periods in history.
As humans continue to encroach into wild areas, and as
surveillance technology has more and more sophisticated breakthroughs year over year,
(01:00:00):
civilization is now more than ever, thank you, Fox News,
likely to find undiscovered animals, and there's a ticking clock
on this. There's a time window because those animals, those
same organisms are now more than likely going extinct and compare.
We're in the middle of what is called the sixth
(01:00:20):
Great Mass Extinction, so we want to hear from you, folks.
Tell us about the Erran, tell us if you've seen
a bigfoot or some hominid cryptid, and tell us what
if any creatures you think may be discovered in the
coming decades. We're gonna call it evening. We're off to
octivigate and do our bigfoot hoots that thing. Remember that
(01:00:46):
while we're practicing our bigfoot accent. We'd love to hear
from you. You can give us a good old fashioned email.
You can call us on the phone. You can find
us on the lines.
Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
It's right. You can find us in the handle Conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group here's
where it gets crazy. On x FKA, Twitter, and on
YouTube where we have tons of video content for your
perusing enjoyment. On Instagram and TikTok. On the other hand,
we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. We need you to call in. We're
running low on voicemails. You gotta call in. Do you
have a thought? Call in? It's one eight three three
std WYTK call that number, leave a voicemail. You got
three minutes, give yourself a cool nickname, and say whatever
you'd like do. Let us know within the message if
(01:01:34):
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say, they can fit in
three minutes. Or you want to type something out send
I don't know pictures, links, anything, Why not instead send
us an email.
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware. Yeah, it's unafraid. Sometimes the
void writes back. As a matter of fact, we'll be
following up with some correspondents for several of you just
after these next recordings. So join us out here in
the dark, and please, please please tell us your favorite
(01:02:06):
CRYPTI tell us the stories. We love them. They make
our evenings. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
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.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noman.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call be Bed. We're joined as always with our
super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here that makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. And fellow Cryptid fans,
friends and neighbors, we have something special for you this evening.
(00:48):
I think we're all excited about this. I hope that's
the case. We all love a Cryptid episode, right, Can we.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Talk about in the past? We had too, because this
seems like a question that would obviously come up Cryptid
like fighting games or sort of Pokemon style or Magic
the Gathering style card games. I feel like one came up.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
There are characters that occur in there, there are I
feel like that You're right, there has to be one,
because we know there are a couple of deity fighting games.
We talked about that previously, and we know there are
crypto zoological characters that occur in like Magic, the Gathering,
and so on.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
There's a game on Steam called Beasts of Mystery. Have
you ever wondered what it would be like to see
Mothman fight the flat Woods Monster? Well now you can
find out in Beasts of Mystery, the cryptid fighting game
with hand drawn animation and approachable gameplay inspired by the
greatest fighting games of past and present.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
What a time to be alive? What a time? May
twenty third, twenty twenty five. As we record this, we're
going to talk about one cryptid that may not be
a Beast of Mystery and may not be familiar to
a lot of us in the West. Our exploration takes
us far far from our home base of the Atlanta
metro area to the rugged, mountainous and forbidding interior of
(02:07):
the Hubei Province in China. Also in the research here,
I don't know about you, guys. I learned a new word.
We've got a local sparkling water company here called Montane.
Did you guys know Montane's an actual word. I thought
it was like a car name, like you made up
something that sounded like a real thing.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I guess it just sounds like a sort of like
a crooner from the fifties. You know, Johnny Montane.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Sounds like Fontaine to me. That's just something I'm familiar with. Yeah,
our buddy bre mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, yeah, that would be Debri right.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Yeah, and our buddy pre the famous runner, right, wasn't
that Prefontaine?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Oh? Okay, comes and Montane. Just for any etymology, nerds
is a word that, weirdly, I don't think we had
encountered before. I didn't know was a real word. It
means of growing in were inhabiting mountain areas. Nice, that
makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that's what you know. Really,
it's my fault for not having a good vocabulary. That
(03:09):
was like this Sparkling Water company just made up a
BS word.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Anyway, Man, I got to call you back for being
self deprecating. There to a fault. You have the best
vocabulary at anybody that I know.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, if you have a bad vocabulary, But I don't
know what I am, I'm speaking dumb ass, not at all.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Can I really quickly just say this beast of mystery game?
Not to harp on it too. It looks like it
was created an MS paint, so that that alone is
worth the price of admission.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Do check it out. It looks ridiculous. Oh, and Triforce
points out there are a couple of Japanese role playing
games with Yo Kai. I am in dude, Yo Kai
are amazing.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Well, the guy we're talking about today is a little
bit Yo Kai esque, though it's not from Japan, it
is from China, but it has that mythical quality, right.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah. For thousands and thousands of years,
local rural populations in Hubay have have been or whubey
have been convinced they share the land with something not
quite ape, not quite human, you quite skunk, not quite skunk,
not quite swamp, not quite abominable. Uh yeah, it's a
(04:19):
huge thing. We've all heard of bigfoot, We've heard of
the abominable snowman. But what about the yarn And by
the way, what the heck is yarn fever? Uh yeah,
We're gonna pause for a second check in with our
medical experts to make sure we're still inoculated. Here are
(04:43):
the facts when we talk about bigfoot. And we've run
into this so often over the years. We continually see
this strange, near ubiquitous, ancient myth about something that inevitably
translates to either wild men or hairy men.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
And one of my favorite Bigfoot superpowers I guess that
he would be able to use in a fighting game
is this idea that he can teleport and that he
can sort of fold time and space. And maybe that
accounts for some of the proliferation of these types of creatures,
you know, globally speaking.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Interesting and that's something our our, our good friend David
Bikera remarked about briefly when we interviewed him. How long
ago was that lo those many years ago?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
And what is it called, guys Operation Bigfoot their expedition expedition,
But it very much is that, and I know we
harp on it every time, but like it has the
quality level to build the quality of like a really
rat Disney Universal Studios type exhibit. It is pretty badass.
If you find yourself in the North Georgia Mountains, do
give it a check.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Ry day of it. Yeah, yeah, cherry log near LJ
and make a day of it. Because it's also right
up the road from a place where you can rent
a tank, which our accounting department did not allow us
to do. Deny, Yes, I'm not going to let go
of that.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah, yes, And just to the point of the number
of hairy man wild man stories that exist even within
the US and the different varieties of it. We had
another person we ended up speaking to that makes this
thing called map in black. You can check it out.
All of us have a copy now at this point
and it shows well, it's not for me, it's from
(06:28):
a listener.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, but you got us the maps. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, he sent us the maps. But the concept here
is that there are spread across just the United States.
I think, I want to say, around five or six
varieties of this specific form of cryptid just here in
the US, and then you look globally, it just there's
(06:53):
so many more.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, proliferates. That's a great point too. I remember seeing
that map and thinking, you know, this is somewhat similar
to regional variations of squirrels right or where, you know,
And if it's a natural organism that makes sense living
in the same place over vast swalls of time. It's
weird because everything we find when we look into historical
(07:19):
strangeness is that no matter how different a given culture
may be or when that culture occurs, they share surprising commonalities,
Like every single human civilization throughout history has at one
point managed to predict the passage of the seasons, and
they have all attempted to explain the movements of the
(07:40):
heavens in relation to the Earth. But the other really
strange thing is this weird myth that continues in the
modern day. Like you said, Matt, we call it bigfoot.
Regional variations here would be swamp ape, skunk ape, the
Irali from native culture and so on. You can find
ancient petroglyph depicting hairy people and then the entire lore
(08:05):
about them, and this dates back, you know, thousands of years.
You also to that point again, you hear legends about
this and other parts of the world, often remote mountainous
wildernesses right or stretches of forest cover. Russia had a lot,
or the Soviet Union, I should say, had a lot
(08:25):
of research into this, as did pre communist Russia. And
then you'll hear about the Yeti, the snowman, and of
course in China the Yarin. But they're all again, they're
all variations on the same idea that Homo sapien shares
earth with some reclusive, enigmatic, oddly intelligent species of something
(08:47):
that looks a little like a human, a little bit
like an ape. And I think, or I would posit
guys that in some of our previous explorations, we found
a really good answer for some of these common legends,
not just bigfoot stuff, but things like trolls or orcs
or goblins or hobbits, and they were kind of kissing
(09:09):
cousins to the humans.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Yeah, and this extends into the modern day, this legacy
of ancient hominids and remains in the form of trace
amounts of DNA that's found in some modern humans. Unfortunately,
not those actual facts hobbits that you mentioned ben Homofluoresciensis,
though we don't. I don't think there are like, you know,
(09:31):
tolkien Esque hobbits. You know, they have their own little
hobbit holes and don't like their china to be yeah,
don't like their their plates to be chipped and crabs yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We haven't found the Bilbo Baggins yet,
but I love the point you're making there. In all
the so called hobbits of Southeast Asia, along with the
Denisovans you mentioned the poor Neanderthal. Further current science theorizes
humanity may discover yet more evidence of these ancient home
sapient hominid interactions and maybe even hidden somewhere in human
(10:05):
DNA remnant lines of other hominid groups. We don't know.
That's the pickle of it. And if you're a scientist,
that's either very exciting or very frustrating. If you're a
team of hapless podcasters, that's amazing, because that's an episode
(10:25):
if we find one for sure. So with all this
in mind, folks, we have proven that things close to
human existed at the same time as modern Homo sapiens,
and we also have solid proof through as you said,
old DNA evidence that these groups interacted. So there's this
compelling argument that at least some of these bigfoot myths
(10:48):
could be based on oral history about genuine encounters with
these things not quite Homo sapien. I don't know what
do you guys think.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Oh, just a quick shout out to you yourself, mister
Ben Bollen. You gifted both Matt Frederick and myself a
lovely graphic novel version of the book Sapiens. Credible illustrated volume.
I think it's part one of this book, but it
is absolutely fantastic. I haven't made my way all the
way through it yet, but it talks a lot about
these Dennis Ovins and some of these early hominives and
(11:18):
beautifully illustrates what that world might have looked like.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Oh man, you've all Noah Harari, what a guy.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah, what a cool project to translate to visuals.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
In that way. Agreed. Agreed, man, Ah that guys. I
love the way he writes. So, as any fan of
the History Channel can assure you, there is no shortage
of attempts to document Bigfoot or even to capture a
living specimen. We don't want to sound hyperbolic, but to date,
(11:50):
as far as modern science is concerned, all of these
attempts have failed, every single one. Even the expeditions that
found you know, the purported yetty scalp. Later testing proved
I think it was from like a mountain goat or
something of that nature. Yeah. Still it's important, you know,
(12:10):
we have to remember that even when science fails to
find the thing it's looking for, it has at least
provide a value by establishing that thing does not exist.
But what if we're looking at the wrong place. What
if the real Bigfoot is not in the Pacific Northwest,
but instead, what if it's half a world away, deep
into the interior of China. Unlike Western science's overall dismissal
(12:33):
of Bigfoot, China seriously scientifically investigated this creature's existence and
it became a social phenomenon. It became like a good
version of a moral panic hit the zeitgeist.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, that is kind of like that concept that we
talked about with Yeah, correct, Yeah, the opposite of paranoia,
which is pro noia. The I guess it is inherently misinformed.
The other people are trying to help you. I don't
know if that in misinformed aspect is key to it,
but man, I love the idea of a positive moral panic.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, a moral euphoria, a moral panic.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
We're doing a good job with this panic morally.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So let's get into it. Now. Here's where it gets crazy.
This is the story of the Yarin. It's a weird word.
In translation, you would spell it y e r e n.
People are going to throw, you know, little diacritics at
different points or little accent marks, but it roughly translates
(13:35):
to savage or wild man and Mandarin, so it'd be
like Jillian or Cantonese sweat Gin suasion. We should go
ahead I think and say, or at least I have
to say, we are not native Mandarin speakers. We don't
speak the dialects that we are going to be approaching
in part of this. So please bear with us. And
(13:57):
if we're what about this guys, if we're not sure
about our pronunciation, maybe we just spell the word yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
And I will also defer to Ben because you have
done some studies of the language. All I've done is
seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
Which is you know they make you watch that when
you study Chinese.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Well, if I'm not mistaken, I do remember that being
the first time that was like identified as this is
like a dialect, a particular dialect of Mandarin that was
used in that film, at least in my experience. But
I'm also joking. Ben, you really do have kind of
expertise and studied time on this stuff. So but we
will do our level best.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
As always, it's too kain noel, and got to be honest,
as anybody who studied Chinese knows, they really string you
along with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. They make you watch
it early and they strongly imply that you'll learn how
to run and jump from tree tops.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Secretly though, guys, they used wires.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
That's the word on the street, and that's why I
got a B plus instead of any movie though.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
In that fricking soundtrack with Yo Yo ma, oh my god,
excellent stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
It's amazing, you know. It's this thing. The Erin is
often referred to as sort of the Chinese version of
the Tibetan. YETI kind of like how the skunk Ape
or swamp ape might be referred to as the insert
region x here version of the Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It's interesting that it's that just Okay, So I don't
know much about this as well, but I do know
that it is we're basically talking about a forested area.
Is it an area? Do we know if it is
covered in snow? Often? It seems just from its latitude
that it maybe isn't covered in snow.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Right exactly. It's a much more hospitable region to wildlife
than say Everest or the upper reaches of the Himalayas.
It's the shinong Jia Forestry District. I messed up to
tone there. If you had to pick a spot for
the Chinese Bigfoot, this would be peak real estate. Okay,
(15:56):
it's free real estate. It's like about the more than
one thousand, two hundred square miles of mountainous forest right
just approaching the timber line. Right, it's which makes it
technically montane. There we go, and it's the elevation is
(16:16):
pretty high, about six thousand, five hundred to six nine
hundred feet up. Okay, yeah, so it's like it's a
pretty dope spot if you're looking for a creature like this.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Well, it does make sense. Then why the YETI would
be the comparison there because of it must get highly
cold there at times, simply because of the elevation, which
is why you may see it as more of a
snow creature than a you know, the way we'd imagine
a big foot, which is very much just a forest boy,
you know, just in the tree line, in the trees,
(16:51):
not with the you know, the even the coloring of
the fur, if there is fur.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Also reminds me of
the various I can't remember the specific cards in magic
the gathering, but the various troll uh specializations. Right, aren't
there different kinds of trolls? I might be thinking of something.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
You've got your bridge trolls, you got your your your
your your mal trolls. Yeah, what are the ones with
the funny hair and the jewels in their belly?
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Buttons?
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Troll dolls, that's the one.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
You got, your doll?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Trolls is a smurf A kind of troll.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
A smurf is more akin to a smaller for spirit,
maybe like a brownie and gnome.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Do you know what they call the smurfs in Germany?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
What do they call the smurfs in Germany? And I
like that that's not true. Why does everything sound so
aggressive in that language? I'm so prejudiced? All right, sorry,
but uh, this this area, Yeah, I'm thinking in terms of,
you know again, regional variations like with squirrels or whatever,
geographic variations. I'm thinking it would make sense, to your point, Matt,
(17:58):
for a very similar kind of animal to adapt to
different environmental pressures. And this forest we're talking about is
one of the most biodiverse areas in the nation. It's
home to tons of rare species with pretty great names.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Correct per our Pals over at Onesco in their Delightful
World Heritage sites. The area in question here is already
home to tons of actual facts. To quote Lauren Vogel,
bum identifiable species like the Chinese giant salamander, the golden
or Sichuan snubnosed monkey.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
I don't like him.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
He's two snubnosed, so snobby. What's up with that? Why's
he got his nose turned up like?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
And also there's the clouded leopard.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Not what makes it clouded? Is it just something about
its pattern?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
No, it's it's just it's sketchy and it has a
bad memory.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Got it the cloud We've also got the much less
remarkable common leopard, which I don't know why that even
made the list, to be.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Honest, guys, it's crazy because they're I don't know, to
the point about slightly different regions. It's not Neither of
these are the same as the snow leopard, right, So
it feels like there's a gradiation or gradation there from
common to cloud it to snow. I don't know anyway.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
It's also just something to note there there are dangerous
species in these forests, right that you should be aware
of if you're going to be trekking out there looking
for stuff. And also there are things like the Chinese
giant salamander that don't seem real. It doesn't seem like
a salamander should get that large if you've seen pictures
of it. I remember watching a video way back in
(19:44):
the day of one of the largest salamanders ever, you know,
in captivity or was caught, and these things are huge.
It looks like the size of a dog. But it
is a salamander.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
So it's not just a clever name.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
No, no, no. They are actually giant and harrison to
the vast majority of salamanders. And they're kind of cool man.
I'll be honest. They're no Asian black bear, because those
guys are hanging out in this area as well. It's
just important for us to establish the biodiversity here. It's
another point to the argument for the real estate right,
especially in a country that is rapidly industrialized over such
(20:20):
a short span of time. You know, often in the West,
when you see pictures of China, you see pictures of
these crazy factories, right, these huge works of human beings.
Or you see a picture of a panda in the
middle of nowhere that is just doing its best to
figure out how to eat bamboo.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Oh yeah, we're going to look in a little lonely.
I'm not gonna lie. He's a panda, friend.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Oh yes, and pop hube Providence into your maps Google like, yeah,
but yeah, pop pop it into your maps app and
just look at the spaces between the civilization talking about
that the way the expansion is occurring, right, and you
can really see exactly what Benn is saying. There are
(21:07):
still extremely remote areas here where there's just humans are
not there.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
M yeah, even in even in such a populous country.
You know, the population of China is huge, but it's
quite unevenly distributed, so such that you know, you think
most Americans live in cities or urban areas, You're absolutely right,
but that is exacerbated in China so much so that
the current government has some hard laws about who can
(21:38):
move where and when and why you have to get
a license to do so.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
And do you know what's in the eastern side of
Hubay Province.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
What's in the eastern side of Hubei Province?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Wuhan?
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I got you all in Czech yea famous Muhan clan.
And I still true, I still am so flummoxed by
I rememberer when uh when wu Ha came out, not Wuhan.
And when Wuha came out, I was texting with some
fellow hip hop heads, and this was I. I had
(22:11):
not searched the lyrics myself, and I thought when he
was saying I thought he was saying stuff like I've
got that eggnog shit that makes you sweat your neck.
Who haw, I've got you all in check. And I
thought it was c Z E C H.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
And I'm certain this has come up before, I remembering.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Not to tell the same story twice. But you know,
I hated. I hated for it that myth to be
busted because I love the idea that New York slang
was just that extreme and wild, and it still is
very colorful and wild, it sure is. And what on
earth is a flip mode squad? I've never fully.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Wrapped my head around that you haven't flipped No, well never, No,
I am loyal. I would slip them. So that's drop
a dime on no one.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
So the reason we're pretty especially that this economy, but
the reason we're we're already we're bringing up the idea
of busting the myth is because in our conversations with
some of our friends who have searched for Bigfoot or
other cryptids, you get the feeling at times that maybe
they don't want to find the thing. Maybe it's more
(23:17):
about the journey, and so maybe I should have never
checked on those buster rhyme lyrics and kept the mystery alive.
But even without the hunt for a creature called a
cryptid like the yarin, this area has been a hotbed
for scientific inquiry. From eighteen eighty four to eighteen eighty
nine alone, scientists found five hundred news more than five
(23:42):
hundred new species of plant. It was kind of like
that older movie with Sean Connery in the Amazon Medicine Man.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Where dude, that was not a good movie.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
It was not a good movie. The previce was that
he is like, he's the guy who is an outsider,
but he knows the jungle. He discovers these new species
and he's like fighting big Pharma or something like that.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And I believe the love interest is Elaine Brocco, doctor
Melfi from the Sopranos.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
And of course you know Goodfellows as well.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Ah. So we know that people have been searching this area.
They've found strange animals already, they've found things that were
not known to exist in the larger scientific record, and
as we record today, there are perhaps there are certainly
more plants and perhaps even animals that are still out
there waiting to be discovered. Before we continue, we've got
(24:38):
to point out that we're getting a lot of this
information on the erin from one of the best academic
Western sources out there. It's a book called The People's
Peaking Man, Popular Science and Human Identity in twentieth century China,
written by Sigrid Schmolzer. And this was probably name I
know right. This was published in two thousand and eight.
(25:00):
So as the world of this kind of literature goes,
and as world of cryptozoology goes, it's kind of recent.
You know, it's not a breathless yellow journalism headline.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Oh yeah, But we've also found a bunch of sources
from the late nineties up into pretty recently twenty twenty
four where there are active discussions of the search for
this specific cryptid through all of that time span.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yes, very much so. And so deep do these searches
go that it would be impossible for us to name
every single expedition in this episode alone, but we'll we'll
take you through several of the possibilities here as we
get to the search. As a matter of fact, maybe
now that we've done some intros for our sources, we
(25:52):
pause for a word from our sponsors and then dive in.
All right, Mountain, Mama, take me home, countrys Country. The
cat returns, and so we returned to Cigared Schmalzer, who
(26:15):
traces the Chinese search for the Gharran from the days
of ancient folklore to the discovery of something called the
Peking Man. And we've all heard about the peking Man,
which was for a long time considered a legend until
it was discovered or hard evidence like fossils were discovered
(26:36):
in the nineteen twenties. It's kind of homo erectus, correct.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
The peking Man was a prominent symbol of bringing science
to the people. That's kind of cool as a post
revolutionary bit of kind of positive communist propaganda, wouldn't you say.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, Because we know that during the Communist Revolution, the
new government was seeking to reframe popular narratives. Right, this
is the people's move This is a world wherein the
history of humankind is a history of progress through labor,
through secular learning. This is not a result of divine intervention,
(27:18):
ghost spirits, or the supernatural.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
That's interesting, So sort of an imposed enlightenment and a
mandated step away from the religious towards the secular.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yeah, and I like imposed enlightenment. That's a that's a
really great term for this because we see, you know,
even now in Chinese authorities have a bad reaction to
films with ghosts in them, things like that.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
You know, Ben, I was thinking about this when looking
through your research dot com before we went on the air,
and it occurred to me that a lot of American
films when they get Chinese releases, they have to be
recut almost entirely to remove mentions of the supernatural.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, which we discussed in our previous episode.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
I thought, yeah, doesn't isn't that a sort of aligned
with that shift?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
One hundred percent, dude, one hundred percent. And so as
this government is seeking to undermine religion to move people
away from previous superstitions, they also want to champion socialism
and advanced science. So if you go to chapter seven
of Schmalzer's work in specific, you get this fascinating anecdote
(28:32):
that tells us how this phase of urine fervor urine fever,
I should say, and scientific investigation begins to say, you're
in fever. It's yeah, yeah, funny. Yeah. Well, if you
like terrible puns, you're in luck. Yeah. Well, let's let's
(28:52):
share the story, guys, like, how how did this go
from a thing of legend and folklore to a rush
of scientific investigation.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Well, so let's begin with just the peaking man at least,
reconstructions of some of the shards of the peaking man's
skull and pieces of the peaking man's skull were thought
to be Homo rectus, so a version of human before
we the version of us. And there are a couple
(29:26):
of professors there in nineteen fifty six that are checking
it out. It's the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Natural
History Museum. They're looking at this reconstruction of the peaking
Man's skull, and one of them made a little statement.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, it's professors Mao Guangyan and Wang Ziatlin. And Mao
is looking at this stuff. These guys are both att
at professors, as you said, And he hears his colleague
Wang say this, Yonren, I've seen it before. Ed. Mao says, basically,
what is wrong with you? Are your nerves all right?
(30:05):
Do you have a fever? Bro? Peeking mad is a
human ancestor from five hundred thousand years ago. How could
you have seen one living with your own eyes?
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Oh yeah, he's already talking about the fever. The Wang
goes on to explain that back in nineteen forty, while
on safari or on an expedition for the Yellow River
Water Control Committee, he and others in his group came
across this sort of half ape, half human, chimera hybrid
kind of creature who had been shot dead by indigenous
folks or folks local to that area. So let's keep
(30:38):
in mind that these aren't just too you know, crotchety, old,
get off my lawn type dudes shooting the breeze, you know,
at the local coffee shop, t shop, you know, passing
around tall tales, spinning yarns. No, these are experts in
their fields, vetted professors, and their conversation at the museum
(30:59):
launched and other like minded colleagues into you guessed it
that you're in full blown You're in fever.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yellow River. You're in fever. Come on, guys, what's going
on here?
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Think about it. Picture us as Charlie Day by the
red string board and think about it.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
But it does make sense, right, Okay, So if one
of these Vetta professors says, hey, I've seen this thing before.
Oh yeah, no, I have this specific instance where I
saw something very much like this dead like a version
of it. Now, it would make you, as a professor,
want to go check that out, because my god, guys,
if there are versions of humanity that still exist somewhere,
(31:42):
deep in a cave system, deep in a forest system,
somewhere that's hidden, a population that is specifically attempting to
hide from all of the stuff outside of their world,
then we it would be awesome to find it. Right,
You're at least as a professor, you're going to get
some grants off of that.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Sorry, don't mean to make it about money, but yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Mean it is. It's about money. It's about the things
beyond money, like prestige and legacy. Right, And this is
I think this is a fantastic point because it also
incorporates some incredibly important social context. Now had probably heard
stories like this fourth or fifth hand from rural populations,
(32:26):
but even at the time when all people were supposed
to be equal under the Party, there was a ton
of prejudice from urban elites against rural people. The phrase
translates to stuff like country bumpkin. You know. So they
had all these stereotypes about people who lived outside of
the cities. This doesn't have that stereotype apply. It's a
(32:50):
respected colleague, right, Well, we've both been to school, etc.
We have quote unquote seeing the world or read about it.
And because of this we see the origins of yarn fever.
Now it doesn't take off right away. It's a bit artsy,
like if you've ever met an academic in Williamsburg or Brooklyn,
you know it's a bit rarefied air. The nineteen fifties
(33:15):
nineteen sixties, you see these relatively comparatively small scale research
efforts on yerin documenting historical records, maybe sending a few expeditions.
And these occur thanks to the work of Mao in particular,
again not Mao Zedong different now, and then there are
(33:36):
other Chinese scientists who kind of wu tang in on this,
namely folks from what's called the Institute of Vertebrae, Palaeotology
and paleo Anthropology or IVPPP. See not gonna let you
down right PPT. For about two decades after that museum conversation,
(33:58):
the idea that we could leverage science to learn more
about this. It was restricted to some rural communities and
intellectuals who were at that time frankly considered eccentric, and
maw was a one a man army. For a minute,
he was looking at possible relations between the YearIn stories
(34:18):
and legends of the Yetti. He was looking at fossil
records of apes and hominids. He was doing some bone
comparison modern humans. And the further he went, even starting
so skeptically, the further he went, the more convinced he
was that he was on to something.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
So in the closing years of the cultural revolution in China,
which was kind of a big deal and not quite
as cool as it sounds, guys, Right, doesn't it sound
like a positive thing, like a really positive sea change,
But it was very much an iron fisted grasp over culture,
and that was the revolution in question, right, Ben.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Yes, sir, that's right.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
No.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
The idea is that we can get rid of all
the beliefs of the past.
Speaker 4 (35:03):
We need to embrace cleaners.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, clean clean house will remake the foundations of the house.
It's very A lot of people died, right, and a
lot and there you know, the idea of human rights
is something that gets thrown out the window.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Oh there's just so many good little things about communism.
No one's just figured out how to do it well.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
I mean, yeah, socialism maybe more so.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
But yeah, it's crazy how it starts off with good
intentions and inevitably becomes a totalitarian dictatorship wherein anybody who
is different is squashed.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
And what makes the YearIn is such an electric, galvanizing
subject of interest in research. It happens because of the
social context in which this exploration occurs. It goes down
to really three major factors. I don't know if we
want to walk through these briefly, but I think they
(35:58):
tell us about the story.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
So at this point, some of these extreme, very aggressive
political campaigns that sort of typified the beginning of the
cultural revolution, we're starting to die down. So people were
starting to be a little less afraid of the consequences
of associating themselves with things that were identified as superstitious.
This started to be perhaps a little bit of a
(36:20):
sense of maybe things were going to improve, perhaps or
that I don't know, people were a little less terrified
of stepping out and owning these you know, past beliefs.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, kind of like pilots and military aviation professionals reporting
strange stuff in the sky. Once one person is coming
out and talking about it and not getting punished, other
people feel less hesitant to.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Do specially especially now that we even have government acknowledgment
of some of those things to some degree. It feels
like it does open the.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Floodgates, and then so people are less hesitant to talk
about this. That's right. Second, a lot of Western writing
is newly available where scientists in China we can't wait
to read and translate this stuff. We have received a
directive right to push forward with science. And while we're
(37:13):
reading this stuff, we find loads of reports from our neighbors,
to the North Russia Soviet Union on their version of
this kind of cryptid We see a lot of stuff
about Yeti and Bigfoot, because that stuff was already in
those other cultural zeitgeist. It was already getting written about
a lot. So people are therefore more likely to read
(37:36):
about things related to this. And then what do we
do when we read about something happening somewhere else, We
immediately try to connect it to something closer to home.
And that's what occurred.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
We talked about it in a couple of our primary
Bigfoot episodes about signings in the US were occurring back
in the eighteen hundreds, right with logging camps, Like way
back in the day, people were seeing stuff stuff, Harry,
wild guys out there in the forest as the forests
are being chopped down. And you can only imagine that
(38:09):
if those stories had been around for so long. Yeah,
you're it's exactly right, Ben. You want to find the
ones that are out near you if there are these things.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Right, yeah, exactly, especially when you see those The reports
grow more vague the further back we go in history.
But now you start, you're one of these Chinese scientists, researchers,
you start reading about indigenous people's stories right in the Americas,
in North America, on that continent specifically, and then you
(38:38):
start saying, hang on a tick I remember. Because you're
unreasonably British, You're like, hey, got a tick I remember? These? Uh,
these stories kind of beat for beat, go with the
stories we ignored from all those country bumpkins, all those peasants.
What if they were onto something They can't figure it out,
(38:58):
But me a learned man, well, tally ho, they said,
in right, and so now because like the point you made,
it's easier to publish things without being arrested, right, without
being a target of a political campaign. Now people are
(39:20):
able to publish more easily, and there is a proliferation
therefore of popular science and science fiction. And the Errant
is the perfect subject for this. It touches evolution, it
touches the identity of the wild and the urban, It
touches what it means to be a modern human and
the importance of science. So these three factors can buy
(39:41):
and they make a feedback loop, an ouroboros of interest
and reading and publishing that begins to consume itself and grow,
which is not how consuming oneself works. We're going to
leave that analogy. It's been a weird week for all
of us. We'll pause for word from our sponsors, and
then we'll get to the hunt, because there are some
(40:02):
human characters in this story just as important as the
Yarin itself.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
And we've returned. Let's get to the actual physical attempt
to find a urin, and we are jumping to a
gentleman named Li Jian. This is an historian. He's working
as the vice secretary of a propaganda department in this
area that we talked about, Shenungia.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Oh and think about it. Propaganda, just gonna point that out.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, right, Propaganda, which it's information that seeks to sway
somebody to whoever's writing it or whoever's controlling the writings
way of thinking. So propaganda guy vice secretary in the
same area where this Shenania forest is. He began collecting
all kinds of reports from people who had been out
(40:57):
in the forested area who had said, hey, hey, I
saw something that I can't explain. I believe it's one
of these urine things. We think local villagers here, locals
that have been seeing this four years, going all the
way back to nineteen forty five. He this person Lee
gained the nickname the Minister of Urine.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Y Yeah, yeah, king himself sorry y e ri e yes.
And so in nineteen seventy six, the stuff he's collected,
it gets the attention of a guy. He's a professor
of evolutionary theory in East China Normal University. His name
(41:42):
is Liu min Shuang, and he goes on to become
the most prolific writer about yurin in China, and again
he's a professor, so he gets a nickname as well,
the Professor of Urine. I do think, if we're going
with the pea puns, Minister of Urine is probably a
better name. Professor of Urine feels weird, even though we
(42:05):
know urologists or a real thing. Anyway, Other scientists, including
those from the IVPP, jump on board, and Schmalzer says
there are teams of scientists and technicians, local officials and
rural people who have had eyewitness accounts. They start tracking
the yeh in earnest. They get dozens of reports, they
(42:26):
find footprints, even a few alleged hair samples, and by
nineteen seventy seven, scientists are publishing articles about this in
popular science magazines, but also they're publishing serious scientific research.
These are where you see magazines like Scientific Experiment and
(42:46):
an outfit called Fossils, which is the publication of IVPP,
And then general interest magazines and newspapers start carrying stories
about the investigation referencing this other stuff. This is a
huge win because unlike other Western papers, the Chinese experts
aren't really debunking the erin. They're taking a different approach,
(43:09):
and intellectuals experts stem. Experts in other fields are hopping
into the game, and there are government officials, there are
professional writers who are working on this. If you want
to be a cool party member or party official, why
not make a little peace of the erin for your
local paper and they'll be like, oh, deputy vice subprime
(43:32):
assistant to the subprime deputy actual, he gets it. I
wish I could vote, I'd vote for him.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, And just reminder, the IVPP as the Institute of
Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
So let's go into some of the inclusions of this
kind of lore, I guess is the appropriate term here,
into popular culture and into literature. So since it was
the social trend as much as it was a scientific trend,
there's not much of a surprise that year and fever
started to expand beyond nonfiction and into the world of
(44:09):
literary fiction. Plays were written, novels, poems. There's lines between
genres was being crossed just as much as the line
between science and kind of zeitgeisty pop culture was being crossed. Maybe,
if not crossed, then certainly blurred.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
It feels a little bit like the propaganda thing is working.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Exactly and you have to wonder too about motivation. We
have not spoken with these scientists directly, by the way,
many of them have passed away, but the science does continue,
imperfect as it may be, there are legitimate, good faith inquiries.
In nineteen eighty one, the newly minted Chinese Anthropological Society
(44:52):
has their first get together, right, and in that get
together they endorse the establishment of the Chinese Yarin Investigative
Research Association. This is a level of official approval that
simply had not existed in the Western world for things
like Bigfoot or in the United States in particular. And
(45:15):
this association grows to have hundreds and hundreds of members,
and the majority of these members are legit scientists, and
the goal to find the Yarin still exists in step
with the goal to push science over fantasy. So they're
saying the Yarin is an organism, a living thing, right
(45:36):
that eats, sleeps, and shits and reproduces. It is not
MP's obviously, and is not a legend, a ghost or
a spirit. So this means that Yarin fever also becomes
socially powerful for people. They can challenge these once sacracainct
(45:56):
cognitive institutions like the hard belief in God. They can
also kind of ask themselves what the yerin tells them
about themselves. It's a really rapidly industrializing nation. It's in
a deep I don't want to call it an identity crisis,
but it's in an interrogation of its own national identity.
(46:18):
So now the Urin is representing an opportunity to ask
questions about the line between man and animal science, superstition.
People are reading about the Yurin and they're saying, what
does it mean for me to be a human today?
So it hits the zeitgeist perfectly. It's a bullseye, you know.
And then we have to get to the We have
(46:40):
to say it. I don't love to say it because
I think we're having a fun time with this exploration.
But did they ever actually find one? No?
Speaker 4 (46:49):
Do they ever?
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Not that we know of, Not that we know of.
I love a world where maybe they did find a yarin.
It was far more intelligent than they assumed, and it
gave him some like rousing al Pacino ted Lasso's speech,
and they said, okay, we'll keep your secret. But as
far as we know, that didn't happen either. The theories
(47:11):
are increasingly scientifically based the idea that it could maybe
have been descended from Gigantopithecus. Maw believed that was documented
in old Imperial era writing. He definitely didn't think it
was supernatural stuff. We know that people became increasingly, i
(47:33):
would say, first more secular and the more skeptical as
time went on. There's the idea. I thought we'd love
this one. In nineteen seventy nine, a scholar named Seang
Yu Cheng started advancing this idea that's already familiar to
Western cryptozoology, and he basically said, look, the people who
are giving us all these eyewitness reports, they're not experts,
(47:58):
you know what I mean, they're not themselves bylogists or
botanist or what have you. They may have seen something
and then they mistook it for an extraordinary creature because
of the circumstances. I feel like that's a little dismissive, because,
as we know, when you grow up and spend your
entire life in a specific area of the world, a
(48:20):
specific you know, a stretch of woods, you get to
know those woods pretty well, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
Yeah, but it reminds me of I'm going to bring
it back to Department of Truth one more time.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
It reminds me of this concept of once you believe
hard enough in something or what Once enough people believe
in something, it kind of becomes more true. And I'm
not saying that it creates a yurine out there, but
now that the popular culture has swelled to a point
where it feels as though it could be a thing
(48:55):
out there lurking in the woods, you are probably more
likely to mistake something that's far out in the distance
or a certain sound that you're not familiar with it,
even if you are familiar with the woods as like
possibly this other thing right right.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
It's the pattern you're primed to accept at that point.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
I feel like that's a strong thing in all cultures
when there is a tale of something like this that
might be lurking out there.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
One hundred percent, I'll see you on that. And add
another factor that should be considered, which is that imagine
you're growing up in a non wealthy, rural part of China.
The urban and intellectual elites have historically just talks so
much spack about you and been rude and dismissive, and
now all of a sudden you have the opportunity to
(49:46):
be an expert on a thing the errand therefore becomes
a possible means of income. Right, I'm a guide now
in an expedition, and perhaps more importantly than the money, now,
people who did not respect me are listening to me.
So if I have therefore a yearn story, then I
have raised to some degree my social status. That's that's
(50:10):
just a sad part of human dynamics. Right. We also know,
all right, this guy we mentioned, Shang, he said, yeah,
I said, untrained observers might be mistaken, and he pointed
to one of our favorite examples. It's just how Western
science eventually proved mermaids were probably just marine mammals cited
(50:31):
by extremely horny, desperately lonely sailors to the point about
primed to see a pattern. You know what I mean.
I mean, you think a man, it is ugly man,
but spend eight months at sea and then check back in.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Or don't just don't.
Speaker 3 (50:47):
You could always write us, You could write us.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
I think mandates have a certain kind of uncanny beauty
to them personally.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
Yeah, we're coming from, you know, a very anthrocentric aspect.
You know, they probably think we're ugly as sin, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, or then we're way too hairy and you're.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Way too hairy weird for yourself. I'm just hairy enough.
So these later scholars will also we're talking about this
a little bit off air. Later scholars, especially Western ones,
like writing in twenty twenty one. In more recent years,
they'll often posit that the myth of the rain is
based on early encounters in Central and western China with
(51:30):
more Semitic or European people who would tend to have
more facial hair, would definitely speak unknown languages and maybe
a real shock to see him in the woods. But
then the question becomes, why were they naked?
Speaker 2 (51:47):
That's the way to be.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
It is the natural state.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Yeah, not kidding. Boys, if you saw me just out
naked in the woods in my natural state before I
found manscaped, would not know what to think.
Speaker 4 (52:02):
An ad not an ad.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
So uh, yeah, we're actually not working with manscape. We're
now working with yarinescapes. There we go, which is which,
how far do we want to go into this? No,
because it's the opposite of manscape. It's a thing you
rub on and it just like creates strips of hair
where you rub it so that you can cover yourself
(52:28):
in hair, which is you, guys, listen to this episode
years in the in the future, it's going to be
pressing it. You're welcome erinescaped fifteen percent off.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
If you can come up with that, whoever you are
listening to that, and you just had a light bulb
go off, you would make billions of dollars.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah, we're not saying fifteen percent off when you order.
We're saying, if you come up with it, fifteen percent
for us. Yeah, expliration, you can pay us in big
foot hair. The So anyway, we know this social content
of China. It helps create this craze, but it also
complicates it because China is attempting to explain things through
(53:10):
a very localized perspective. We mentioned embracing the concept of evolution,
but I don't know if every Western knows this. There's
a popular belief in China that is sometimes accepted as
hard science that modern humans did not originate on the
African continent, that instead they originated in China and then
(53:33):
spread from there. So the erin was used to justify
that by some authors.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
We'll see that's very interesting, and there's something I wanted
to bring up here. I think there's a good place
to do it. Recently, Popular Mechanics wrote a story about footprints,
a very specific set of footprints from a tetrapod. So
that's just a four legged creature that theoretically where they
found it. When they found it within the fossil record,
(54:00):
it pushes back the development of a type of humanity, right,
not necessarily Homo erectus or Homo sapien, but way far back.
It pushes forward the development of tetrapods by forty million
years potentially, which means we really could have some of
(54:21):
our stuff way way wrong. I mean only because what
we know is what we've found of us far and
maybe we just haven't found those things, including all of
these missing links, right, including all of the time scales
and timelines that are mysterious to us.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yeah, and I think that's a salient point. That's why
it's also interesting to go back and revisit these episodes.
As more investigation continues, we're continually learning, by we, I
mean modern society human and not. We're continually learning that
the timeline is a little bit longer than people thought
(55:04):
it was. And that's why lost civilizations are also another
fascinating exploit. We still don't know what caused the Bronze
Age collapse. We have no idea. Somewhere along the line,
things just screwed up, and we still don't know so
many things about what, when, and where breakthroughs and evolution occurred.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Oh yeah, and by the way, that forty million years
thing makes me think about the I can't remember the
name of the theory. The theory that there was potentially
another advanced civilization.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
That was hilary and hypothesis siluriing that.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Was potentially not based in ape human intelligence and advancement,
but in maybe reptilian advancement or something other.
Speaker 3 (55:49):
And that is spot on with that, folks. We do
have an episode on that wall. We went through a
phase with that one. I remember it and the research.
The researchers there phrase that as a thought experiment. They
make such a compelling argument for that conspiracy. We also
know that the Erin fever has largely faded, but it's
(56:10):
still got a significant mark on society. The IVPP their
magazine Fossils. A little while back they decided to stop
publishing papers about the Erin because none of the expeditions
produced any solid proof. But then after that they did
a poll in their magazine, and the poll had some
(56:31):
surprising results. These are all Chinese nationals who get pulled.
Thirty two percent of the people in the poll say
they don't believe the Erin ever existed. We got something
wrong in the folklore. Twenty three percent say I think
it was around at some point, and like so many
other animals, it went extinct. And then seventeen percent, almost
(56:54):
twenty percent of the people that they asked, they said, yeah,
I don't know, man, it might be like I've never
been to that forest. I've never seen a giant salamander,
but I have Google, you know, I could. I could
see it, Like, it's not impossible. And so all of
this means that the Yarin is still kind of retreated
(57:17):
to the position of fringe science, similar to that of
the Western Bigfoot. But the weirdest thing is, as we
record Friday, May twenty third, the search continues today. What
do we think, guys, do we want to give an
absolute yes no on Yerin? Do we want to pull ourselves?
(57:38):
I'm gonna say maybe no.
Speaker 4 (57:39):
I think it's might be a no for me, Doug,
maybe a no for no.
Speaker 3 (57:43):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
I'm jumping over to China Daily real quick reading a
little article here about nature observers and how the job
postings in twenty twenty four in July lists that one
of the things you need to be a nature observer
is to have the capability of outrunning urine. So I mean, hey,
(58:08):
come on, I.
Speaker 3 (58:09):
Mean, no matter how you want to punt it, it's
always good. It's always a good idea outrun. Now, don't
let the urine run on you less it is. Is
it matt from your sense when you're reading that, Is
that meant to be like fun satirical or does it
feel like okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
I'm being fun and satirical about it. I think I
think if you destroy like you, if you go to
the absolute position of this is hogwashing, dumb, and we
shouldn't think about it. I think that it defeats the
point of it, which is just like it's a way
to get people out in the woods.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
Yeah, and that's important.
Speaker 2 (58:49):
Humans plus woods equals probably a cooler civilization just because
and when you hang out in nature like that, you
see things a little differently.
Speaker 3 (58:58):
I think it has hard physicological effects on the human
as well, like beneficial effects. I would say, all we
need to caveat that with is humans hanging out in
the woods without destroying the woods. A that's cool, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Yeah, only you can prevent forest fires and urine attacks.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
Yes, yeah, so go camping. That's one of our takeaways.
Speaker 4 (59:22):
In order for urineto attack, doesn't it always kind of
require a slight downhill slope. That's the only way that
it can, you know, advance.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
It depends on the pressure of the system, I think.
Speaker 3 (59:31):
And you're talking about city urine.
Speaker 4 (59:33):
That's right, you're talking about country urine.
Speaker 3 (59:35):
Yeah, okay, we brought the prejudice back. Yeah, it's a
good question. This is the last note we always like
to end on with cryptid episodes. Humanity, as you hear
this is reaching one of the most profound periods in history.
As humans continue to encroach into wild areas, and as
surveillance technology has more and more sophisticated breakthroughs year over year,
(01:00:00):
civilization is now more than ever, thank you, Fox News,
likely to find undiscovered animals, and there's a ticking clock
on this. There's a time window because those animals, those
same organisms are now more than likely going extinct and compare.
We're in the middle of what is called the sixth
(01:00:20):
Great Mass Extinction, so we want to hear from you, folks.
Tell us about the Erran, tell us if you've seen
a bigfoot or some hominid cryptid, and tell us what
if any creatures you think may be discovered in the
coming decades. We're gonna call it evening. We're off to
octivigate and do our bigfoot hoots that thing. Remember that
(01:00:46):
while we're practicing our bigfoot accent. We'd love to hear
from you. You can give us a good old fashioned email.
You can call us on the phone. You can find
us on the lines.
Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
It's right. You can find us in the handle Conspiracy Stuff,
where we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group here's
where it gets crazy. On x FKA, Twitter, and on
YouTube where we have tons of video content for your
perusing enjoyment. On Instagram and TikTok. On the other hand,
we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. We need you to call in. We're
running low on voicemails. You gotta call in. Do you
have a thought? Call in? It's one eight three three
std WYTK call that number, leave a voicemail. You got
three minutes, give yourself a cool nickname, and say whatever
you'd like do. Let us know within the message if
(01:01:34):
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say, they can fit in
three minutes. Or you want to type something out send
I don't know pictures, links, anything, Why not instead send
us an email.
Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware. Yeah, it's unafraid. Sometimes the
void writes back. As a matter of fact, we'll be
following up with some correspondents for several of you just
after these next recordings. So join us out here in
the dark, and please, please please tell us your favorite
(01:02:06):
CRYPTI tell us the stories. We love them. They make
our evenings. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
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
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.