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PringleCreamEgg posted:Is ‘In Search of..’ not streaming anywhere? I’m not against ordering a box set if that’s the only way to see it, if not. Archive dot org has it. On mobile now or I'd link straight to it.
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# ? Nov 4, 2021 03:33 |
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# ? Apr 29, 2024 16:33 |
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remusclaw posted:Blake Smith of Monstertalk, which is a great Cryptid pod, and Jeb Card, archaeologist, do a side project pod called In Research Of, which is an episode by episode review and discuss show about in Search of. Its really good and I recommend it. I'm looking forward to checking this out, thanks. Totally agree on Monstertalk being a great podcast, though I can't binge it like I can with some podcasts because no matter how much I agree that none of these monsters are real it does get a little tiring after a while to hear about how it's all nonsense. Sometimes I like a little credulity mixed in.
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# ? Nov 4, 2021 04:42 |
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I need to hop back in on Monstertalk. I do agree that it is tiring sometimes, like i want a skeptic paranormal podcast but not a Skeptic paranormal podcast. Also blake isn't the best host. they're both likable though. its a shame all the early episodes have to have a piece of poo poo.
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# ? Nov 4, 2021 06:25 |
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Of all the skeptic pods I feel like Monstertalk is the least lovely reddit atheist. They seem like decent people aside from the one rear end in a top hat who got dropped after the early episodes. I occasionally listen to more credulous pods but every time I hear the old standards (why would they lie?) , I can't help but groan a little, the flaws of the format stick out once you become aware of them. Monster Talk has been pretty decent about believers, pointing out that often they had experiences even if they weren't always right about what the experience was. I think Monstertalk is pretty much where I am on the subject of magic and monsters and whatnot, I don't really believe its out there, but its loving cool, and would be cool if it was. remusclaw has a new favorite as of 19:45 on Nov 4, 2021 |
# ? Nov 4, 2021 16:46 |
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I'm gutted I missed Black Shuck AND Bunyip talk. Britain's really lacking in cryptids, I think. I'm not that fussed about piskies, and Devil Dogs like Black Shuck just don't do it for me. I remember visiting the (one of the?) Nessie museums in Scotland about 20 years ago. Even then the mood was 'we know it's not real, but please buy something from the gift shop'. As a previous poster said, I 100% believe the credible big cat sightings are just escaped/released big cats. gently caress, even my beloved Borth Animalarium had a lynx get out: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45654859 I wish we had a nonsense creature like our inter-dimensional friend Bigfoot
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# ? Nov 5, 2021 00:07 |
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just do your own moth man like chicago did for a bit, the world needs more mothmen, and less bigfeet e: spring heel jack was actually a mothman... much more realistic Snooze Cruise has a new favorite as of 00:13 on Nov 5, 2021 |
# ? Nov 5, 2021 00:11 |
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I think cryptids thrive in North America because (outside of the native peoples) it's a young culture without established folklore. Cryptids are nothing more than modern folklore, but with an air of veracity due to recency. Britain is rich with folkloric creatures, but they're just more easily dismissed with time. The Lambton Worm is no different from the Loch Ness Monster, other than the fact that ol' Nessie is so much more recent.
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# ? Nov 5, 2021 00:17 |
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# ? Nov 5, 2021 01:24 |
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It’s the 300th anniversary of the first Bigfoot sighting near Natchez, MS. So we’re having a three day excuse to get drunker than normal. “It was a journal entry by French explorer Pierre François-Xavier de Charlevoix, written in Natchez on Dec. 25, 1721. The explorer wrote that on his first night at the settlement, there had been “a great alarm about nine o’clock in the evening.” When he asked the reason for it, he was told about “a beast of an unknown species, of an extraordinary bulk, and whose cry did not in the least resemble that of any known animal.” Whatever it was, no one could say they had seen it but “formed a judgment of its size entirely from its strength: it had already carried off some sheep and calves, and worried some cows.” The explorer tried to convince others that it could have been a wolf, but he could not persuade them. They believed it was “some monstrous beast.” When it was heard again, everyone “ran out armed with what he could find, but it was to no purpose.”
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# ? Nov 5, 2021 01:34 |
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Here's a short BBC doco about Black Shuck with old 1960s archival film of a guy who claimed to be a witness, it's all rather quaint https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgAHKbUci6Y feedmyleg posted:I think cryptids thrive in North America because (outside of the native peoples) it's a young culture without established folklore. Cryptids are nothing more than modern folklore, but with an air of veracity due to recency. Britain is rich with folkloric creatures, but they're just more easily dismissed with time. The Lambton Worm is no different from the Loch Ness Monster, other than the fact that ol' Nessie is so much more recent. Yeah there'd been rumours of some sort of monster in the loch for 100s of years but what really set off the modern Loch Ness Monster craze was the 1934 "Surgeon's Photo", there'd never been direct 'evidence' of a mythical creature like that before, the best they really had were marks or scratches allegedly left by them. The Black Shuck video I just posted shows a church which has burn marks on the door which legend says were caused by a giant black devil dog which just isn't in the same league as photos. Snowglobe of Doom has a new favorite as of 03:13 on Nov 5, 2021 |
# ? Nov 5, 2021 03:10 |
feedmyleg posted:I think cryptids thrive in North America because (outside of the native peoples) it's a young culture without established folklore. Cryptids are nothing more than modern folklore, but with an air of veracity due to recency. Britain is rich with folkloric creatures, but they're just more easily dismissed with time. The Lambton Worm is no different from the Loch Ness Monster, other than the fact that ol' Nessie is so much more recent. I think it's that and also most of the UK - and England especially - is just so populated and domesticated that there aren't the kind of wilds you get in the US. We're a pretty small island all told, and other than a few (admittedly spooky!) moors, the Highlands, and parts of Wales we just don't have the space for creepy cryptid encounters
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# ? Nov 5, 2021 12:45 |
aww, no love for gef?
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# ? Nov 5, 2021 13:28 |
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I don't know why, but Gef scared the poo poo out of me when I was a kid. Wasn't he never actually 'seen', just a voice and like...poltergeist-esque activity?
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# ? Nov 6, 2021 23:04 |
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big dyke energy posted:I don't know why, but Gef scared the poo poo out of me when I was a kid. Wasn't he never actually 'seen', just a voice and like...poltergeist-esque activity? Yeah it was pretty clearly just a weird hoax/prank by the family's young daughter but the media of the day were more than happy to print stories about it and a whole bunch of paranormal investigators and psychical researchers and scientists got dragged into it, and 90 years later people are still talking about it. One of the spooky paranormal books I had when I was a kid had a creepy illustration of Gef
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 01:03 |
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From what I remember Gef ‘let himself’ be seen only a couple of times. And yeah, the US is extremely fertile ground for cryptids because of its size. There’s still so much wild untouched space everywhere, and places for things to hide and live in. I feel like it being a new country, there’s feelings of unknown things being around from before it existed. The current day American has no inkling of everything that walked the land before settling began, and there’s a healthy fear there. The_Doctor has a new favorite as of 02:37 on Nov 7, 2021 |
# ? Nov 7, 2021 02:35 |
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Ambitious Spider posted:aww, no love for gef? Only because I didn't know he existed till just now! From this point on I shall give Gef the love he deserves. The_Doctor posted:From what I remember Gef ‘let himself’ be seen only a couple of times. As an American who's done night time deliveries out to trailers and farm houses in places with very few electric lights I can confirm that on those long drives down dusty roads it's so easy to believe that there are monsters lurking in the dark just out of sight. Nothing stimulates the imagination more than traveling alone in the dark through unfamiliar territory.
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 09:09 |
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i assume Gef is pronounced like "Jeff"
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 09:39 |
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alf_pogs posted:i assume Gef is pronounced like "Jeff" I can confirm it is pronounced "Jeff" which I only just learned earlier today after calling him hard-g Gef for the last three decades
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 10:42 |
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:Only because I didn't know he existed till just now! From this point on I shall give Gef the love he deserves. Oh yeah, I’ve driven a lot across the States, and outside of the cities, when night falls, it gets dark. It’s incredibly easy to believe things are watching you pass by. There’s just so much of it too. Even in smaller cities and towns, there’s dark parts. Creatures on the periphery is some ‘stay close to the campfire’ cavemen vine.
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 11:51 |
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:I can confirm it is pronounced "Jeff" which I only just learned earlier today after calling him hard-g Gef for the last three decades Well, learned something new today. The_Doctor posted:Oh yeah, I’ve driven a lot across the States, and outside of the cities, when night falls, it gets dark. It’s incredibly easy to believe things are watching you pass by. There’s just so much of it too. Even in smaller cities and towns, there’s dark parts. Creatures on the periphery is some ‘stay close to the campfire’ cavemen vine. Having grown up and been around cities and suburbs dark, first time out in the boonies it was surprising just how dark it gets. I call it Country Dark.
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 15:46 |
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How! posted:It’s the 300th anniversary of the first Bigfoot sighting near Natchez, MS. So we’re having a three day excuse to get drunker than normal. That's pretty neat. My guess is that it was a panther. Their historic range included Mississippi.
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 20:06 |
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God this picture just captures that "lonely road at 1 AM in the middle of nowhere" vibe so well. M_Sinistrari posted:Having grown up and been around cities and suburbs dark, first time out in the boonies it was surprising just how dark it gets. I call it Country Dark. Country Dark is great term and I hope you don't mind if I start using it.
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 20:54 |
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:God this picture just captures that "lonely road at 1 AM in the middle of nowhere" vibe so well. I’ve taken similar photos, but I found that one online. You’ll pass that light, and you won’t see another one for at least 5 minutes. Some tiny outside light on a farm outbuilding, all alone in the night.
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 21:57 |
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:Yeah it was pretty clearly just a weird hoax/prank by the family's young daughter but the media of the day were more than happy to print stories about it and a whole bunch of paranormal investigators and psychical researchers and scientists got dragged into it, and 90 years later people are still talking about it. Gef is such a weird story that looms so large in the the Fortean canon, then you find out that it was only seen a few times, in unconvincing circumstances, that it's so obviously a prank ... and yet investigators are still reporting on it.
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 23:42 |
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How! posted:It’s the 300th anniversary of the first Bigfoot sighting near Natchez, MS. So we’re having a three day excuse to get drunker than normal. I managed to miss this. That's super interesting, somehow in all my reading I've never run across this as an important early account.
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# ? Nov 7, 2021 23:56 |
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nonathlon posted:Gef is such a weird story that looms so large in the the Fortean canon, then you find out that it was only seen a few times, in unconvincing circumstances, that it's so obviously a prank ... and yet investigators are still reporting on it. Believers really, really believe in this stuff so when they investigate their first thought isn't "Maybe one of the kids are faking it". It's all "we have documented new evidence of the Paranormal" and "why would anyone lie about this". Combine that with journalism before (let's be kind and say) the 1960s being a combination of almost every day was a slow news day and basically every newspaper in existence being the embodiment of yellow journalism and you have the perfect mix to immortalize a talking weasel.
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# ? Nov 8, 2021 00:02 |
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I complained about this in a previous iteration of the thread, but a few years ago I read a book compiling the investigations and deductions for a ton of paranormal reports by one of the classic investigators (maybe John Keel? I can't find the book). I kept getting aggravated because pretty much every report went down the same path of (a) mistrusting scientists he interviewed because they were either under government control or out for their own ends, and (b) putting implicit trust in all the regular folks he interviewed, constantly falling back on the "Well John Q Public has nothing to gain from lying, therefore this testimony must be believed" mindset. It was such a frustrating read in that way, but it gave huge insight into the mindset of classic paranormal researchers last century.
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# ? Nov 8, 2021 01:11 |
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So, I started listening to the In Research Of... podcast that was recommended earlier in the thread and there was a point made in the very first episode about tone that I think explains why I still have affection for old shows on these kinds of subjects but I can't stomach newer shows like Monster Quest or Ancient Aliens, let alone all the reality shows about guys in flannel running around the woods or poking around abandoned attics and finding nothing. They point out that from the very first episode, the tone of In Search Of... is positive, hopeful, and pro-science, while the tone of more modern stuff is negative, conspiratorial, and anti-science. Where In Search Of... might approach the subject of ancient visitors from another planet as (paraphrasing) "scientists don't currently understand these phenomena, but one day perhaps they will find more evidence to indicate that we've been visited by someone from somewhere else," Ancient Aliens would approach the same ideas with "mainstream science doesn't admit that the pyramids were built using UFO technology, but ancient aliens researchers have found the proof that the scientists are trying to keep hidden from you." One thing that really stuck with me that one of the podcast hosts said is that it's easy to imagine someone watching In Search Of... as a kid and being inspired to pursue a career in actual science, but it's much harder to imagine that happening with Ancient Aliens or Ghost Hunters or whatever. And I think that's why, even though the ideas presented are just as out there as the modern stuff, and the factual errors are just as obvious (even down to pronunciation, the pronunciation of Zimbabwe in the first In Search Of... special with Rod Serling is something special, though to be fair at the time it was the name of a rather obscure African archaeological site rather than a country), and the racist and eurocentric undertones of some of these theories are if anything more pronounced, it's still easier to overlook all of that and be entertained by the old stuff than the new stuff.
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# ? Nov 8, 2021 01:24 |
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:
Please, go ahead. I have yet to find a better way to describe that degree of darkness.
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# ? Nov 8, 2021 04:49 |
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There's always Advanced Darkness.
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# ? Nov 8, 2021 06:10 |
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stereobreadsticks posted:They point out that from the very first episode, the tone of In Search Of... is positive, hopeful, and pro-science, while the tone of more modern stuff is negative, conspiratorial, and anti-science. Where In Search Of... might approach the subject of ancient visitors from another planet as (paraphrasing) "scientists don't currently understand these phenomena, but one day perhaps they will find more evidence to indicate that we've been visited by someone from somewhere else," Ancient Aliens would approach the same ideas with "mainstream science doesn't admit that the pyramids were built using UFO technology, but ancient aliens researchers have found the proof that the scientists are trying to keep hidden from you." One thing that really stuck with me that one of the podcast hosts said is that it's easy to imagine someone watching In Search Of... as a kid and being inspired to pursue a career in actual science, but it's much harder to imagine that happening with Ancient Aliens or Ghost Hunters or whatever. Cryptozoology pretty much got painted into an anti-science corner over the decades as video technology became much more widespread yet the 'evidence' was just as lovely as ever, and smartphone tech has pretty much been the final nail in the coffin. Back in the 1970s there was a real optimistic feeling that the evidence was just about to be found any day now and big exciting discoveries were going to happen real soon but jump ahead 50 years and suddenly everyone is walking around with a high def video camera in their pocket 24/7 and yet we still don't have convincing evidence of bigfoot or mothman or Nessie or anything and the obvious conclusion is getting harder and harder to ignore. People who are susceptible/open to conspiracy theories are pretty much the only widespread audience for this kind of stuff now and the TV stations realised their products would be received better if they pandered to those beliefs.
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# ? Nov 8, 2021 06:27 |
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eDNA is also the death knell for most cryptids. As I understand it it's pretty widely used in sampling what species are present in an area nowadays, and an unexpected primate or archosaur would certainly get you a much better grant if you found it. Granted if you're looking for a specific endangered frog or something a bigfoot probably wouldn't turn up, but I have to imagine there's enough general samplings done that something would turn up somewhere.
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# ? Nov 8, 2021 06:43 |
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Captain Hygiene posted:I kept getting aggravated because pretty much every report went down the same path of (a) mistrusting scientists he interviewed because they were either under government control or out for their own ends, and (b) putting implicit trust in all the regular folks he interviewed, constantly falling back on the "Well John Q Public has nothing to gain from lying, therefore this testimony must be believed" mindset. It's a striking observation. I recollect the case where strange footprints appeared on a Florida beach, running for miles, and one of the arguements was that no one would have forged them, why would they? And it turned out that was exactly what had happened, some nobody did them for a lark. Likewise the early crop circles which were done by two friends regularly after their drunken pub sessions. Regular folk lie for all sorts of reasons.
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# ? Nov 8, 2021 09:52 |
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Thanks for turning me onto In Reasearch Of..., that is totally my jam. I just listened to the first one, but holy poo poo, the casual racism of ancient aliens is on point, also how did Rod Sterling not know how to pronouce Zimbabwe? It was interesting because the whole "Mesoamerican gods were always shown to be white people!" being a Colonial myth is almost never mentioned in other stuff I've seen about the subject. But as others have mentioned, back then there was an attempt to try to legitimize this kind of stuff though science, that it was more "we need to add this to the scientific knowlage base" rather than today's "no a hotel clerk who was in prison has cracked a giant conspiracy that every single scientist on earth has been involved with!". Thing is, conspiracy theories and anything related to that kind of thinking are impossible to disprove these days, because anyone who believes in them thinks anything that disproves or contradicts their beliefs is actually proof that the conspiracy is real because it was clearly manufactured by THOSE who want to keep everyone in the dark from the TRUTH.
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# ? Nov 9, 2021 22:04 |
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nonathlon posted:It's a striking observation. I recollect the case where strange footprints appeared on a Florida beach, running for miles, and one of the arguements was that no one would have forged them, why would they? And it turned out that was exactly what had happened, some nobody did them for a lark. Likewise the early crop circles which were done by two friends regularly after their drunken pub sessions. Regular folk lie for all sorts of reasons. Reminds me of Grover Krantz yakking on about foot anatomy to Patterson, Patterson being bored to death, and Krantz concluding that Roger was simply too stupid to have faked a bigfoot!
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# ? Nov 9, 2021 22:15 |
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Look, they're big! What more do you want?!
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# ? Nov 9, 2021 22:19 |
Knormal posted:eDNA is also the death knell for most cryptids. As I understand it it's pretty widely used in sampling what species are present in an area nowadays, and an unexpected primate or archosaur would certainly get you a much better grant if you found it. Granted if you're looking for a specific endangered frog or something a bigfoot probably wouldn't turn up, but I have to imagine there's enough general samplings done that something would turn up somewhere. as if the Mothman is comprised of something so primitive as DNA.
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# ? Nov 9, 2021 22:31 |
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uber_stoat posted:as if the Mothman is comprised of something so primitive as DNA. mothman is borne of the intersection of car travel at night with headlights, the human mind, and barn owls being creepy af. it needs no base "dna." e: as scientific understanding of avian intelligence increases, it becomes clear that the gap in intelligence between these and ourselves may be much, much smaller than previously believed. Primate levels of neurons in the forebrain, with in some respects a higher efficiency than our own (okay in crows but still): Hodgepodge has a new favorite as of 23:13 on Nov 9, 2021 |
# ? Nov 9, 2021 23:09 |
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I loved how in the Small Town Monsters mothman documentary all of their animated reenactments just used a big barn owl.
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# ? Nov 9, 2021 23:24 |
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# ? Apr 29, 2024 16:33 |
big dyke energy posted:I don't know why, but Gef scared the poo poo out of me when I was a kid. Wasn't he never actually 'seen', just a voice and like...poltergeist-esque activity? Same here! And I have no idea either--in the pantheon of cryptids like Mothman and the Dover Demon, you'd think that a talking invisible mongoose would be pretty comical, and yet I found it really unnerving as a child. I'm actually trying to remember which old book I borrowed from the library that talked about Gef, but the only thing I'm finding is "Out of this World: Mysteries of Mind, Space, and Time" (1989) and I'm not entirely sure that's the one I'm thinking of. alf_pogs posted:i assume Gef is pronounced like "Jeff" I thought it was Gef like "gif".
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# ? Nov 10, 2021 00:35 |