The Cryptid Factor - 34: #034 The NYC Prison Issue

Episode Date: March 20, 2018

This episode sees Rhys reveal a secret team of news gathering fans, and it reveals Buttons in a prison in New York! If that wasn't enough, all manner of weirdness covered off as well - including beautiful camels, sauna frequenting Neanderthals, deer eating snakes, penguin stashing, a top 10 cryptid hunting list and a public service announcement. To be fair, it's and exhausting 40 minutes - but worth it! (hopefully...)

The Cryptid Factor, with Rhys Darby and Dan Schreiber. Hello! We are back! Hi, my name is Rhys Darby. I'm used to presenting... I'm used to coming up first, I guess. But it's not just me. I don't know why. Any of us could have said hello first, but I jumped in. It's kind of like if there was a battle and we're all sort of preparing by the doors of the... I guess of the... Well, do I go aircraft or tank here? I guess APC, Armoured Personnel Carrier, M113. And the doors just opened and then you hear from the front, get out! And I guess I'm the first one out. But following close behind me with their packs and their guns, we have Dan Schreiber. Hello! Yeah, second out. Second out. Well done.

And is Buttons actually coming out? No, I'm in the control centre. I'm sort of monitoring it. I'm actually a drone pilot somewhere in a different country, actually at the controls of a drone, watching you guys up from that party. Oh, so I was under the understanding that we were all going into battle together, but you're back at some safe base, flying a drone. A drone with your face on it. Oh, okay. Well, good. Actually, we're all very remote in reality. As usual, three different continents. I'm coming from Los Angeles, Dan, you're in London. Yeah. And where are you Buttons? I'm now in my new home of New York City. What? I've made it. I've made it out of New Zealand. Oh, my goodness. I'm going to hang on. I'm going to bang my thing. That means you've

moved locations. Yay! The move location is gone. There we go. So you get three of those. New York! Yeah. I'll show you out the window very quickly without, like, look at this. Okay. Oh, yeah. We've got visual confirmation. Oh, yeah. It's very heavy on the reflection on that window, so I can mainly see you. What's, what are we looking at weather wise in London, Dan? Isn't it been snowing? Yeah, it's been chaotically snowing, but like chaos for London is nothing for everywhere else in terms of snow, but it's nice now. It's, it's back to chilled weather. We're in shirts again, as opposed to big jackets. Really? Wow. Yeah, it's still cold, but it's, no, it's good. It's good. So the white's gone? The white's gone. Yeah. Oh, wow. Well, I think that's

the, that's the weather update. Now we move into the heart and soul of the show. Shall we kick in? Shall we kick in? Weekly World Weird News. It's crazy. Freaky. Watch out. Hey, guys, now that we're into the Weekly World Weird News, I have to reveal that I now have a researcher. Okay. So, oh, wow. I have a, I have a staff now. You've got a staff? You have a staff? What? That's not fair. Do we get a staff? No, you can, well, it's up to you, but I mean, I've got people that are willing to get involved, fans and what have you. So if you, to the, listen, I'm talking. You're using the fans. You're using the fans too, I think. No, I've got, maybe I've got some individual fans who, who aren't even sure what you guys are doing. But however, they're still,

they're sending me articles about weird stuff. So they probably, they might know. But just as a note to the public, anyone listening, if you want to be a researcher, that's Rhys, Ercher, of course, you can feel free to email any weird Weekly World Weird News to the Facebook site. Attention, Rhys, put that on there. And the other two guys won't pick up on it. This is soliciting. You can't solicit our fan base for your own good. You can't, that means you're going to get better news than us. And we can't have that. Well, then, okay, well, if that's why, if there's anybody out there who is lonely and needs a little bit of attention. Oh, this is getting weird. What are you offering? Well, we're canvassing people,

you know, it's like, you need research. I've got plenty of research. I'm just a little bit lonely. Oh, okay. Are you after like, massages and things? Are you? You can't ask for that. You have to pertain to the show. Oh, okay. But if anybody would like to give a weird message. And you've got to come up with a cool name. I've got the researchers. So, that's the thing. Yeah, if you don't have a pun or something that follows on from your name, it's not going to work. People aren't interested. So let's have a think about it. Don't jump into something now you're going to regret with getting free massages buttons. Just try and

I'm looking for some people who are buttoned down. Oh, okay. So you're looking for some buttoned downers. So you're like pinned down. So you want people like who are under heavy fire in war-torn countries to try and help you. They're trying to escape. They're trying to escape these war-torn zones. They've got crumbling, you know, buildings falling on them from the gunfire and you want them to help you out with the show. I got to take all the help I can get. They need help. But he's reaching out to anyone that desperately needs help. If you could just stop moaning and help me. Stop being so selfish and think about my needs for once. Dan, what about a name for you? You need some people. Yeah, I can't think of one. I need some Shredeers. Shredeers people.

Oh, Shredeers. That's quite good. That's quite good. How about Danmich control? Oh, that's not so good. Danmich, Danmich control. All right, I think we should move on from this. So some of these articles are a little dated because my researchers and I have been working together for the past month or so. What you're saying is your researcher isn't very good. They were really to go, but we didn't do podcasts for like, I don't know, five weeks or something. So anyway, 12 camels were disqualified from the Saudi beauty contest. Do you know about this? There's a beauty contest they hold for camels in Saudi Arabia. And it's during the camel festival that's put on by King Abdulaziz. And it happens every year. And part of the competition is they

bring their camels out and they are judged on their beauty, you know. And so they're looking for pouts, they're looking for nice lips, that kind of thing. That's fantastic. Yeah, they've got to have lovely ears, big noses are popular. And here's the thing, guys, it's got to quite a competitive point now that people are starting to cheat and people are using Botox and giving injections into the lips of camels. No, this is what's happening. And some are being caught out. So they've looked at some of these camels that have come through, you know, through the curtains and gone, oh, look at that beauty. And got the real fish pout, you know, and amazing eyelashes and what, and there's been a couple of questions, hey, is that natural? And then, you know, one thing's

led to another bit of investigation. And sure enough, some people have against competition rules use Botox to make their camels look prettier. So, and there's no wonder why, because listen to the how much the prize money is, how much you think you'd win if you for your gorgeous camel 100,000 pounds, I'd say 50,000 pounds. Okay, well, Dan's closer, it's 3.7 million. That's amazing. So this year, a dozen camels were banned. So there's 12 of them. And there was even a vet was caught performing plastic surgery on them backstage. Last minute Botox. Just before they go through. And they do Botox on the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips, the both lips there. That is terrible. What is going on? There's 30,000 camels that compete in these,

in this festival. So there's racing and stuff as well. But it's the beauty one that, you know, people go for. And I mean, it's, it's, it's not right, is it? We're having a good laugh. But I mean, it's, isn't it what animal? What's the word I'm looking for? cruelty? I mean, yeah, well, yeah, I mean, that's the obvious word. But I was thinking of something else. Answer them for porcation. Answer it. What are you, what sort of science word are you delving into? You're saying they're trying to humanize the camels. Oh, is that what Buttons is trying to say? Yeah, that big word. It sounds something like answer for morphopictation. Look, just because you've been playing words with friends lately and doing very well, doesn't mean you have to get

your phone out now and start looking at some of your early attempts for a triple word score. You have to admit, I'm dumb on so many different levels, but words with friends. Yeah. If there's a competition there for them. Yeah. Well, if they, if they, you know, if Saudi Arabia brings that on board, um, you know, you could be in the running there for your 3.7 mil. It'd be great when you find out halfway through the comp, you didn't need to do any of that Botox thing. I was going to say, once the judges take one look at Buttons, they'll say, hang on, you've Botox those lips, big boy. What's going on? Okay. Well, moving swiftly on from my face and my massive lips. Um, Dan, what have you?

I'm only jealous. I'm just jealous of my thin lips. I'm jealous. All right. I've got a, I've got two options here. Shall I give you both options and you guys pick one? Yeah. That's, that's a fun, that's a fun new bit. Okay. So, uh, option one, NASA has found a secret stash of 1.5 million penguins. Oh, yes. A secret stash. Somebody's been stashed in the way for a snowy day. Yeah. This is basically a story that through satellite photos, they've managed to locate 1.5 million penguins. They didn't know existed before, uh, in the Antarctic and they found it

through, uh, penguin poo. They just saw lots of penguin poo and they're like, what is that? And they followed the trail and it led. Oh, really? Yeah. And it led to 1.5 million penguins. Penguins that they thought were on the decline. They didn't realize, uh, they thought, oh, they're not mating as much. We don't think that they're producing as many penguins. So the population's going down and suddenly hidden away on this place called Danger Islands in the Antarctic. 1.5 million of them just hang it out. That's also a great, great story for, for cryptozoology because I would have thought one place on earth that would be very difficult to hide would be in the great white mass that is Antarctica. Yeah. And yet here's an animal, uh,

that has managed to, yeah, remove itself from, from our eyes and one, what'd you say, 1.2 million of them? 1.5. Oh, man. Yeah. All on one little island part? Yeah, they're all hanging out. Okay. Yeah. To some wonder in the Danger Islands. That's fantastic. What on earth are NASA doing? Yeah. Hunting for penguins? Have they got other stuff? Like, obviously now that Elon Musk has taken over the space race, they're kind of going, well, what should we, what should we look at? You say that, but I think there's a, there's a deeper, there's a deeper thing here. They are in Antarctica because they're looking for lost remnants of alien life. Yeah. They really are. I mean, they've been in the deserts. I mean, I don't know whether I've been watching too many of these videos that keep

flashing up on Facebook, but, um, you know, their hidden agenda is that I think they actually believe in the ancient astronaut theory, and they are now connecting the dots. And one of the places they'll be connecting those dots with would be Antarctica because we believe there's, there's such hidden history there underneath, underneath all that ice. Yeah. But it's, it's life on ice. So it's, it's fresh life, which, uh, that's the exciting thing. If you find a woolly mammoth, for example, encased in ice, it's not going to be disintegrated because it's perfectly preserved. And so, right, if you find something like alien life, the bacteria might still be living the, you could, you can, um, what's, what's the term when you, Austin powers yourself? Uh, cryogenics. Yeah,

cryogenic. Yeah. I immediately got it though, when he said that. Guys, I've, I've Austin powered myself. I, I'm not sure what you're saying, but in conjunction with ice. Oh yes. Got it. Got it. Oh yeah. Isn't that and carbonite? Yeah. Yeah. Same thing. Same thing. I don't know. He was turned into a concrete wall and Austin was a block of ice. I imagine, imagine those cryogenics companies that are selling their services to be able to freeze people who have got a terminal illness and they have a hope that they can come back to life. And in their marketing paraphernalia, it's like, Austin powers yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what they could do is they could ask you sort of what you're into when you're about to sign up, you know, and you're sort of dilly-dallying

about with your decision. They say, you into sort of a Star Wars thing or you more of an Austin palsy guy. And you could sort of reveal, I quite like, you know, Star Wars. Like, oh, okay. Well, how about cryogenically carbonating yourself, eh? Like Han Solo. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd do that. Yeah, or? When the movie industry doesn't work out, there is a role for you as a sales rep in a cryogenics. Also, I'm very good at like, fake freezing myself. I've always been quite good at that game where you just suddenly go to freeze. And I thought in the future, if there's an enemy combatant coming towards me and he's got a freeze gun or something, and he's going to try and cryogenically freeze me, I could, if he shot at me and he just missed, I could pretend he got me.

And go into a frozen position. Oh, I got him and he'll head off. And I could probably stay in that position for a good four or five hours. Yeah. Until I'm and then make my escape. Probably shouldn't have given that away where that's one of my little, little trick moves. I'd love to have seen Reese entering a talent competition back in New Zealand in high school. So what's your trick for us today? God, this has taken five hours. Okay, well, I want you to shoot me with this freeze gun. And you watch what happens. Was this a real freeze gun? Yeah, yeah, just make out like it is. Okay. Oh, wow. And then they'll just look at me and oh, that's amazing. And then I'm just there for like five hours. And they have to, even when they pick me up to move me, I'll

be in that still and that stiff position. So actually, I could actually got a lot of work as a dead body in movies. That's probably another, imagine if that's just my career from now on. What happened to him? He's doing well. His money does dead body work now. He's one of the best. He revealed it during his podcast and he keeps getting the calls. It's good money, you know. How's the competition? Oh, it's pretty stuff. He's there all day. I tried to do the banging thing again, but I got tea in my mug. You got tea in your mug? Yeah, my mug. I mustn't have had any. Isn't that where the tea is supposed to be? Well, there mustn't have been any tea in it

earlier when I did the banging. So tea is just somehow. No, I've got a teapot here. So I must have poured more in. It's either that or it's another fan who's there just refilling your teapot for you whilst you do the podcast. Oh, one of my researchers. Thanks, Janet. I wouldn't put it past you. I would not put it past you. Beryl, sit down, Beryl. Well, my weekly World Weird News is Burmese python snake devours entire deer and furrow. I heard about this. Yep. This is amazing. It's incredible, isn't it? Let me just play some audio for you because this I find really quite fascinating. And we do believe that it is the largest python to prey ratio yet documented.

So as you can see, the python was 14.3 kilograms, 31.5 pounds. The white-tailed deer was larger in mass, 15.9 kilos and 35 pounds. That's 111 percent of the python's mass. I mean, you just, you kind of have to see it to believe it. And there it is in the imagery. These are the photos that speak a thousand words. So the thing here with this image, there is half a deer coming out of half a python, effectively. And the deer is folded up so that its front legs are sort of tucked up underneath this torso. And this is it regurgitating the deer. So the deer was previously entirely inside the python. Oh, really? Well, it decided it didn't want to eat it. He decided it was too much. Probably a bit too much. As big as its stomach, as it were. Did the python die?

Yeah, they actually, I think, I believe they killed the python. And really the crypto part of this story is that Burmese pythons are not native to Florida. They think that the reason why they do exist in Florida is the old classic released pet. So no different to the theories behind the large cats in the north of England. This, the python population, they were first spotted in about 1988. But they weren't believed to have an actual full on breeding population until the 2000. So this is only 20 years into having these snakes being released. And now they're in Florida in a big way. And they believe that there are so many of them now that they are actually having a really bad impact on the ecosystem. You've got to wonder, does the snake look at the deer and go,

oh, this, this will probably be some sort of record of this one. Yeah. I mean, you hear about this all the time, you know, these snakes devouring things that are way too big for them to think that he would be able to break that down within his insides. It's so weird. And then sort of get to a point and go, oh, no, actually, that's, yeah, I'm going to have to, going to have to vomit that one out, I think, now that I've, now that I've had the entirety of it in there. Because I mean, how, how many months would that take to break down within his stomachs? It takes so long, right? Yeah. Also, if you look at the photo and everyone who's listening should Google the photo, his, he doesn't have a face anymore. It's just no a wide open straight

line that has got an animal coming out of it. And you've got to wonder, like, if we were in, like a steakhouse eating a big burger or something, there would be a point when your face is going completely vertical. And then your mouth, you go, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop. I thought I was hungry, but I had all those sides. I wonder if anyone's got to the point of where they've eaten so much that the final thing is just like that half a burger just in their face. And they've, and they've got lock jaw. And they can't get it any, any more in. It's half sticking out. The night's gone on a bit. Everyone else around the table's gone, look, dude, we're all, we're all heading off now. And, and this guy's a half burger in his mouth. He just sort of nods and goes,

and they just like, they give it another half hour. He's not devouring any more of it. He's completely, he's almost done the Derby freeze. And, and they're just, and they all just go. And then he's just sort of, he gets up and just sort of wanders off with the, with the face, with the burger. See you, Mike. See you. What happened to Jeff? I don't know. I don't think he could finish it, but we left him in the end. That's the problem with not having hands with these snakes. They can't like, right, actually, I'm going to take that bit out. Yeah. They, once the, the, measure not having the arms, I mean, you're there, once you've gone for it, that's it. You can't, you can't get it out. Use your stomach muscles and your, whatever you've got down their throat

there to sort of reverse the action, but that must take hours. That's the thing. Yeah. You'd be reversing out of your meal, which is a really weird thing. Jeff's, Jeff's one of the best reverse eaters I've seen actually. So he'll take in a lot of stuff he doesn't need, but it's what you could come out. That's absolutely fantastic. So as a reverse eater, he's your guy. How many things are you reverse-eating today, Jeff? Oh yeah. Well, I had two breakfasts, of course, and that lunch, I had, you know, I had four pizzas, so I only needed half of one of those. So a lot of that came out over the afternoon. It was a big process. And by dinner time, of course, I thought, oh, I'll just turn it back around and come back in again. So I took a couple of those back in,

and which I didn't need, of course, two pizzas, too much for dinner, already had half a piece of a lunch. So those came out again through the evening. It was quite the reverse affair. Oh, okay. Reverse eating. I read a thing ages ago that Komodo dragons eat things that are massive as well, which they can't quite fit. And in order to get it down, because like with a snake, you've got to digest quickly because the stuff can go rotten inside you and then make you really ill. And what they do to make the eating process faster is if they've got the giant thing in their mouth, they run face first into a tree to slam it in down. Oh, wow. Really? They slam it into themselves harder by just going, guh, guh, and they knock over the trees. That is insane. Wow,

really? Yeah, it's crazy. People should try that, like when they go to fast food tours, you know, you get that kind of like, they should have like a big kind of wall for people to run into, just to get the food down your ass. You're digesting knocking wall. Come over here, Jeff. You're not going to get through all that. We've got half an hour left here, mate, so just run into this wall here. There you go. Now, you've got a bit of room for dessert if you're lucky. You've got 10 minutes left. Attention, all personnel, it's time for this week's cryptid. This is a story I like. A man in eastern Finland says he saw two hairy Neanderthal looking humanoids. Oh, yeah. So this is in a place, there's a lot of pronunciation that's going to go a bit sour

right now. It's in a place called Rautabara, and it's a guy called Isaki Mieto, and he says, I live in a relatively secluded area with the nearest neighbour living kilometres away. He's 48 years old. He holds a PhD in aerosol physics. Now, wow, I don't know if that means spray can physics specifically. Maybe he's a tagger and like tags the side of trains. That's a fancy name for a street kid. That's a fancy title. Or like someone who works at Link's deodorant. Possibly. I'm an aerosol physicist. Oh, wow. What sort of things do you do? Oh, well, you know, we deal with pungent smells for teenagers. All right, I'll go out with you then. No, I'm not asking you on a date.

Oh, I'm sorry. I've misunderstood. I've just signed up for a Shridee's. Oh, that's that's that's down the corridor. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've got to the wrong office. That's all right. I have this all the time. Oh, how rude. So back to Mieto, Mr. Mr. Finland. So he says he was firing up a stove in his sauna, because saunas are massive in Finland. Wow. So he was he was just doing his sauna up and he went back inside to the house to have a snack. When he was in there, he checked through the window to see if the smoke was still coming from the sauna chimney to to get ready to head in himself.

And he noticed two vaguely humanoid figures exiting the sauna. Leaving the doorjar and stalking into the woods. These are his words. So what he thinks he saw is two Neanderthal like humans who had a quick sauna and busted them on the way out. Is that right? Yeah. And so as he says, you know, he lives kilometers away from anyone, this town is it has a population of 1,700. Now he describes a guy as having or the guys or the visitors could be female as having brownish coarse hair all around. They were walking in hunched position postures. I think if you were living in a town with 1,700 people, you might all go. What's the name of that hunched hairy all over dude who I keep seeing and his

yeah. And it's right. It might be a thing that you would know. So these are obviously two strangers to him who who had a quick sauna. Wow. Yeah. And maybe they've been doing it for a long time. Maybe they do it every time he hops out and they sort of kind of go, yeah, no, he's gone. He's gone. Now's our chance. Now's our chance of freezing out there in the finished woods. And then they just run in, have a little bit of a, you know, bit of a relax, bit of a chill out, then scoot it. Yeah. Well, that's actually interesting. And it's worth noting that if that's if that's something that these creatures like to do, then possibly that's a way of reeling them in. We take it now to the Pacific Northwest in America. They don't have the same sauna culture in America. But if a prehistoric

human of some sort are interested in hot rooms, then perhaps we should start setting up saunas all through the Sierra Forest. Yeah, sauna traps. That would be amazing. Yeah, sauna traps. Because the steam, you know, it's it's an intriguing, you know, I think if I was out there in the middle of nowhere and I and I saw something like that, the steam and that would attract me to see what it is. And there's actually you hear stories of Sasquatches coming up to cabins and things because of the fire because of the smoke that they see. And there's just that interest of any animal that wants to know what's happening with smoke because it always they can smell it and they worry about it. So I wonder if they have the same effect would have on them for steam. Yeah, you know.

And it's an interesting one because Neanderthals as we are learning more and more each year were incredibly intelligent in some cases probably pioneered things that we as homo sapiens took on from them through art and and music and and fire and burials and all that sort of highly intelligent. You know, to say that they're completely extinct, I know that they they probably must be but you could argue that they were so intelligent when they were on the point of eradication that some humans went look, we're going to have to sneak away a bunch of you to keep you alive. We're going to have we'll we'll bring the most human looking of you out into the public and remember a lot of them cross mated. There was a lot of cross going on. It's possible. It's possible that

some exist and these guys happen to live in a sort of a local area and they they stupidly went for a sauna. But also it's that thing where that you know, the humans that there was cross breeding and as the homo sapiens started to take over and the numbers dwindled on Neanderthal, they would have gone into the forest. They would have, you know, hidden away. They, they, you know, like any animal does when when humans, homo sapiens sort of encroach on their society or their their territory, they they head they head for a smaller smaller area and hide. And I think that's that's what's happened. I've got to say buttons, those sirens, whoo, you know, I'm in the middle of a thought and suddenly I can hear your police or your ambulances.

I mean, it's a bit, it's a bit full on, isn't it? New York, have you made the right decision moving there? I did have to get a very cheap office. Are you next to the fire station? You're literally in a prison cell. Are you in jail buttons? I can see from the brickwork, it looks like it. This is your one phone call. Is this your one phone call? You're doing a podcast. The only way I could get to America was to actually come here illegally and get arrested. Yeah. But I'm in America. I'm in America. And you've got accommodation. Yeah, accommodation food. They feed me very well here. And with your one phone call, you've said, look, can I bring a microphone and my laptop in there? All right, you've only got, well,

how long you got an hour? No talking about bollocks. He's going to be, you're going to be like a super respected guy. They'll be like, hey, this guy's one phone call had a theme tune. It was amazing. This guy's badass. He's taken this real serious. I'm going to be respected within the prison here for the guy with all the knowledge. People be like, no, don't hurt him, mate. He's our source of information about the cryptid world. We're not going to shank him. That's my plan. It's so likely that, and just as, just as a, from an observational point of view, if you do need to escape, just from looking at your scene there, you could shimmy up that pole that's behind you. You've got some sort of pole there. You could make your way up that pole and see if there's a

latch or something at the top and might be a secret doorway in the roof into the air. What do they call it? The air conditioning unit. What is that? I'll go try that now. Is that you shimmy up a pole? So do rubbing up against it. Hey, if you can also tap on it and you can do Morse code to some of your other inmates, that's what we do. Oh, yeah. Let them know, you know, what, that you've got a knife or if you've got some smokes or something. I think they're going to look. Who's that? It's me, the new guy. I've got, I've got, I've got some smokes. I don't smoke. Okay, put them in the pole. Put them in the, how do I put them in the pole? Just put them in the pole and push them down. Stop banging it, cut, we're just doing nothing.

Imagine if you're in prison and you're trying to communicate to everybody using Morse code by tapping on the pipes, everybody's listening to your conversation, it'll be like. Yeah, the whole day's like this. What's that, what's that, mate? Hey, shut up. Are those your smokes? Hello? I'm looking, I'm looking for the, uh, the Schwo, the schwo. The schwo? The schwo, the schwo ideas. No, it's down there. It's the fourth cell down. You're in there too, Dan. You've been put away.

Lights out! I just remembered there was a real story back in, it was like the 1980s of a guy who was in prison and he was sentenced to life and he was, you know, contemplating suicide, ready to go. And next door in the cell, someone started doing that, tapping and stuff. And they worked out a Morse code between them and the prisoner next door had a novel. It was Anna Karenina and he Morse coded the entire novel to him through the wall. Yeah, to keep him alive. Wow, that's cool.

Imagine though, if you're tapping it through the cell and the person next door who you thought was listening to the book had actually gone to sleep and someone had tapped him away. Next morning you wake up and they're like, hey, so did you like that third chapter? That was interesting. You'd have to be like, oh, yep, nah, I love that. Yeah, that was really good, eh? Yeah, what are your feelings towards the ending there when, you know, you got to the cliff and he had to make those two decisions. Oh, yeah, no, I was happy with how it went.

But I didn't get to that point. What? I didn't quite get to that point. No, I know, but you were going there. No. No, I tapped out that I wasn't going to read that book. Oh, yeah, I know. I know, but yeah.

You're tapping, it must have been you're tapping. I must have heard you're tapping. I thought you were tapping a different book. Oh, you guys, stop arguing over who's reading the Morse code books or not. I should light it out. I should light it out. Stop podcasting in there, you butt in the sky. All right, well, is that it for this week? Or we got any eyewitness accounts?

Well, no, the only bit of news that I had was that there is, there's a reward been posted for finding Bigfoot Nessie, Chupacabra's and what have you. They're a bit of a PR stunt from a gaming company, but it's worthwhile mentioning that the cryptozoologists out there, if you do find either one of these 10 animals, these cryptid animals, then you're up for a 70,000 US dollar, or a 50,000 pound prize, which is kind of laughable, really,

because they'll have them on those competitions in the past, where people put up a million dollar prize. But this one here, there's a game that has come out by Capcom, and it's called Monster Hunter World. Unfortunately, I got excited and thought that it was a cryptozoology game, which would be amazing, but no, it's not. It's more mythical than cryptozoology, but as a PR stunt, they've listed the top 10 cryptids

that they say they will pay a million dollars. They've listed them from 1 to 10. Number one is obviously Bigfoot, and then any Scottish lake monster is number two. Mongolian Death Worm is number three. A Mermaid is number four. An Earth Hound is number five, which I had to look up, because I'd never really...

It just sounds like any Hound from Earth. That's right, what they could do, is they'd look up and say, it sounds like any Hound from Earth. That's right, what they could be the easiest one to find. But it's a Scottish cryptid. From quite some time ago, 1800s through to the 1900s,

there was this sort of weird animal, which actually looks like a really angry... It looks like a badger. Badger. Yeah, it looks like a really angry badger. It looks more like a bomb badger. Do they live underground, or are they above ground? They're rodent like burrera, inhabits graveyards burrowing into graves to feed on corpses.

Oh, dear, that sounds devilish. It resembles a big rat, enlarged in scissors, upturned snout, long dog-like head, digging pores like a mole with short bushy tail. Okay, well, I haven't heard of that one. We'll add that to the list, guys. Yeah, that's a very cool one. What else is on there?

Okay, so then after the Earth Hound, Yeti is number six, number seven, flying snakes of Namibia is number eight. This is one that I hadn't heard of before, but the artist's rendition of it is amazing. It is like a snake with massive long wings that go down the length of the entire body of the snake. Wow.

And it's said to have a wingspan of about 30 foot, and it's supposed to make a really loud roaring sound. And it also apparently smells like tar. It's an odd fact. He says fact. Fact. All right, well, did you get through your list there, Buttons? No, two more.

Quick as you can, eh? The Yaoi was number nine, which is Australian Bigfoot, obviously. And number 10, the Cornish Owlman. Oh, I love that one. Yeah. Oh, that's a quite interesting list. All right, well, look, to round things up,

I'll also do a bit of news here that's come from the Crypto Mundo site, which is a friend of ours, Craig Woolheater's site. And we've got a little announcement here. Team Squatch, which is quite a cool name. So I think it's the Squatch fans that are in Massachusetts, I'm guessing. They're presenting a two-night lecture series

with Bigfoot researcher Cliff Barakman and guests on March 30th to March 31st. Door prizes and giveaways during the event. Now, no day of the event tickets will be sold for the buffet dinner. You must buy those tickets pre-sale so we know how many meals will be needed, okay? So that's just a little mention there.

If you choose to eat on your own, listen, if you choose to eat on your own and not do the buffet dinner, there are multiple restaurants along the RT-9 corridor. So that's just an announcement. Team Squatch, which is an announcement. And actually, the Squatch, which I've never heard of before, they were established in 1893.

That's how long these guys have been going on. What? The Squatch, it's amazing. No. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. 1893?

Yeah. That's what it just says. Unless that's just a mock-up of the Massachusetts. It's more likely that Massachusetts was established in 1893, won't it? Anyway, it's on the logo there, so... That's awesome. Let's go with it.

Yeah. All right. So as I say, lots more research done. Can't wait till next week because, yeah, stories are flowing in, and I want to sort of give them a bit of... Give them a bit of space. Give...

I don't know how to say them. Yeah. We better start doing this show weekly just so you can catch up all your research. Exactly. And make sure to send those three ideas in. She still can't find where you're located, mate. Excuse me.

If anybody wants to button me down, then feel free to reach out. That's so wrong. All right. Well, that's it. That's it for this week. All right. Catch you later.

Night out. Bye. Bye. That's it. The Quitted Factor with Rhys Darby and David Fadriar. Thank you.