The Cryptid Factor - 52: #052 The Halloween Issue

Episode Date: October 31, 2020

Welcome to the Cryptid Factors first ever Halloween Special! And given how it all went, it may well just be the last! Rhys, Dan and Buttons bring you a *true* spooky story each, which includes a Vampire, a W*ndigo and Poltergeist. We dare you to see if you can get through the utter scariness of it all (let alone the total messiness)! Also a bonus treat of some NZ based cryptid news and we revisit our old mate Mr Boon to hear one of his wonderful Cryptid ditties! Enjoy! *TRIGGER WARNING* In this episode we discuss the mythological evil spirit of the Algonquian First Nations people. After the episode was recorded we have learnt that it can be insensitive to either write the full name of the creature or to mention its name, as it is believed that doing so can conjure the spirit. For this reason we have muted the word in the episode and altered the name in the episode description.

The Cryptid Factor, with Rhys Darby and Dan Shriver. Well, rip my arms off and replace them with intricate pulley devices which can then be used to hoist up food to the second floor orphanage. We're back! And it's Halloween! Was this supposed to be a dress-up party? What's going on? You guys tell me! We have to mention this. It is the Halloween special and for those that are listening, Dan has taken it to the next level by dressing up. Describe what you've got on there Dan. I've got a really cool skeleton suit on with a sort of head mask that leaves my face open so I've painted my face into a skeleton head. It's not come out as great as I would have wanted it to. It looks a bit depressing and scary in the wrong way. You look like Marilyn Manson's ugly twin sister that was not allowed to join the band because she's a nerd and works in the library.

But she tried really hard. She tried the hardest to join that band. Have you ever been to a party that you thought was a dress-up party and you got there and it wasn't but it's too late? That's Dan Shriver folks. Buttons and I just in our usual gear. Let me show what I was meant to look like then for anyone who's on Patreon. This is what I was meant to look like. Now that is truly frightening. So you've blackened your eyes have you? I have but I've got really deep set eyes so my wife had to get my scar out and really dig in deep like it was like an autopsy. Wow and then you've just put your glasses on so you can barely see any of the work that was done. And I failed to shave. I see that so you're one of the world's only hairy skeletons but I've got to say it's still quite freaky. You still look where I'm standing.

It's petrifying. I had to just before we started the podcast I had to go up into the room that my three-year-old son is sleeping in to try and find my headphones. And I had to use my torch and he woke up and he looked at me and I was like it's daddy. Don't worry it is daddy. He was just staring at me. I'm either going to shit my pants or scream the house down right now but then he just fell back asleep. I think he was like, oh it's dad. He's such a dick. Let's go into what I want to, how I want to construct this evening. And that is instead of weekly WorldWide news what we're going to be doing is we're going to be each of us telling a spooky perhaps based on fact if we can story instead of a news item. How do you feel about that? Excited.

Love it. Good. Well it's happening anyway. I don't care how you feel. I didn't know if you were asking the listeners. Like when Ken shows. Do you like that? Should we do that? If we have time at the end we'll also do some cryptic ones. We'll crush into that once these horror stories fail. And also I've got a funny idea and you can start thinking about this now but I want you to come up with your own spooky character. And these characters will be used at the end of the show. Are you talking to Dan and I now or are you talking to the audience like a children's show host?

Because all you listeners out there come up with your own spooky character. Come up with your own character and let us know on Facebook what you came up with. And I'll personally message each of you and tell you what I thought of your character. Whether it was good, where you went wrong, where you went right. No you too. Okay. Now it's just on the fly come up with a character. Now I've already come up with mine. Bearing in mind I thought of this a couple of days ago.

So I'm going to do the sting now for the Halloween special spooky stories. Here we go. Have a good time. What a great sting. I want it to be Halloween more often now. So we can play that sting. I tell you what we'll do it every year. every year. Oh, good idea. Okay, now, who wants to go first?

Hey, how about because we're not doing weekly World Weird News, let's still apply the headlines aspect to Halloween stories, okay? Why don't we just go through and just quickly tell each other what our Halloween special subject is. Okay, I'll go first. The story I'm going to be telling tonight is a story I found online titled The Tale of Dean and Bettinas Haunted Tibetan Hotel. That sounds good. Yeah. Let's just say the same thing. I'm going to line it up so it sounds stereo and pan it left and right. Like a Beatles song. Okay, I'll go next. So mine comes from the wonderful Sasquatch Chronicles, and it is in fact an attack report

by a Wingo. And so we don't often discuss Wigos, but this one is quite horrific. Wingo is evil and scary as hell. Yeah, so I think, you know, now is the time to shock people. What do you have buttons? So my one is one of my favorite, I guess, sort of Halloween ghost and ghouls and legends is a vampire. And people, I mean, it depends how far you push the term cryptozoology, but a lot of people include werewolves, Dracula and vampire witches and all of those kind of folklore category into cryptozoology as well, fairy folk and goblins and demons, because they are effectively animals that are not proven by science. So vampires, if we're to include those, because they're fictional, the fictional. That's right. No, no, but please do carry

on. Do carry on. My point is, is that a lot of those creatures that have made their way into folklore and into popular stories actually are based on eyewitness accounts and reports and actual experiences back in the early days, and they have popularized themselves into pop culture. So Dracula is one of my favorites around that because that those were those stories originally were born from some original sightings. Can I just stop you there? We're doing we're doing headlines, aren't we? What's the headline? Yeah, sorry. Sorry. We're doing deconstructing of the initial theories based on the story that comes with the headline. I was making a, I was just setting the scene on my scene set up. That's what I do. Sorry. So my one is the vampire

of Croglin. Croglin? Croglin, the vampire of Croglin. After all that. Oh, God, what a no one needed so much preamble. But hey, let me tell you about the story behind my headline. Now mythical creatures from years ago that people believed were based on fact due to tale past from generation to generation. What's the fucking title? The vampire of Quagglin. What is that? It's a real thing. It's a place. It is based at Croglin is a lovely little town in Northern England. And it is like it's it's got a church. It's got a history of vampire attacks. Well, one anyway. And but the point is a history of one vampire attack. Well, technically to but to the same person. So but the point is the church that is the centre

to the story is currently for sale. You can buy a vampire church and I was going to make at the end of my story, if you didn't take the Mickey out of it too much, I was going to suggest three of us go together and buy a church. Wow, I love vampire church. Oh, okay. Well, how far away is it because Dan could go and have a look? Yeah, I could go check it out. It's in Cumbria. I've just seen. Yeah. Is that far away from you? I'll give you an update. I'll check out the map. Okay. Tell us your story. Okay. Okay. So first of all, start some spooky music just to get into the spooky Yeah, feel that feel that. Yeah. Okay, so to set the scene. Six hours, 27. We should be done with the story by the time. There's no way. Guys, you put me straight out of it with the time.

Here we go. Okay, setting the scene. Here we go. So it's the 1880s in Cumbria in England. And the story has been written by Augustus here and it's called the story of my life. Sorry, you've gone all quiet tonight. I was whispering. That's spooky. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay. Yep. Right. That's that's how you get spooky. It's actually quite nice. It's a good tone for you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. So there's a guy called Augustus here. And between 1875 and 1876, he wrote a book about a basically called story of my life. And it was a biography written by him and published. And in there, he recounts the story about a house that had been rented out to two brothers and a sister,

a family of three, Amelia, Edward and Michael Craneswell. So they had moved into this little village and into this house, which was right on the edge of a property that had a church and a graveyard on it. Anyway, it was one hot summer's night and Amelia, the sister, was trying to sleep. And she heard some rustling outside in the in the yard. And she looked out and she could see two sort of glowing eyes in the line of trees just between them and the church in the graveyard. And so she sort of like noticed them and thought maybe it was some sort of animal with the, you know, a glow of the moon on the on the eyes. So she went back to sleep and then she heard some rustling more directly outside her window. Quite quickly, she got up and looked outside

and saw the face that she she recounted as being like a withered and, you know, old face right at the window with these long pointy fingers and a very gray and sullen face at the wingless. And this creature started scratching at the window. She was so petrified, she couldn't scream or yell out and she ran to the door to go out. And in that time, and like almost in a flash, this vampire had scratched out the lead lining of the window. And one of the pains of the window had come out and it had come inside and was right up next to her. So much like the vampire stories of today of them being able to disappear and reappear somewhere incredibly fast or move at the, you know, the faster than the speed of sight. This thing just came right in and it bent her neck back

and it took a decent bite out of her neck. And it was at this point that she screamed, her brothers burst into the door. And at that point, this creature flew out the window and I have one question. I believe, as far as I know, with my work with vampires, that they have to be given permission to come into the house. I think that's witches, isn't it? No, that's vampires. Vampires can't come into your house unless you let them in. You've got to say you're welcome in, yeah. Well, they were only renting this house and so therefore maybe the vampire owned the house and it was coming into its own house. Ah, nice. Yes. Automatically went to a scene of the person going, you can't come in here, I haven't invited you. And the vampire going, no, I've heard you're only

renting. It's not even your place. You're only renting. Yeah, but it's not yours. Yeah, actually it is. I own, I own this place. I like Israel Buttons. I really enjoy, I think you possibly coined a new phrase in the telling of the story because I don't think I've ever heard anyone say faster than the speed of sight before. I know, I know faster than the speed of light is a thing, but faster than the speed of sight. Well, when you think about it, right, it's faster, it's like, doesn't have to be the speed of light, just has to be faster than you being able to see. I think it's fantastic. Which isn't necessary. I think we get it out there, yeah. Thanks. Anyway, back to my story. Yeah, speed of story telling could do a bit of work.

I'm trying my hardest, guys. No, it's gonna go good with an edit. I feel the pressure, I feel the pressure. Anyway, so there's blood gushing from her neck and she's been bitten and the thing is flowing out the window and through the field. Basically, the wounds so bad, they tend to it and they fight for her life that night and they keep her alive. But they decide to go for the rest of the year away from that place, to Switzerland, to the country air and to, to recoup because she was that badly injured. The next summer when they came back, they came back to the place and and Amelia had thought it was just a man from an asylum that had escaped or something like that. There was certainly she wasn't thinking that there was anything paranormal

about it. Anyway, the next year they come in there and again one night she wakes up and this thing is come back to the window. She screams straight away at this time and her brothers who are fearful that this same thing will happen again at this time are armed and have both have guns ready. They break through the door. The thing is there again. It hasn't bitten her again yet. One of the brothers shot it and shot it in the leg as it was fleeing. The story goes that the next morning they went around the town and told the town that this thing was back. Obviously the town was fearful from the the previous episode of Amelia being attacked and you know they had never found the culprit. So they go hunting for it. They end up at the church

looking around this church which is the one for sale and there's a crypt underneath and they go into the crypt and in the crypt there's a bunch of coffins. One of the coffins is intact. All the others though are all smashed open and there's parts of bodies of these decayed corpses that are from these coffins strewn all over the ground. There's only one coffin that is intact though and it's literally slightly a jar. They go and pull it back and there is this creature effectively a corpse and it has a bullet wound in its leg but it's the middle of the day and they take this thing and they burn it. But the point is is that Bram Stoker who wrote Dracula used this story as one of the founding stories to create the creature Dracula and vampires in general.

So you know the sucking of the blood and the the moving faster than the speed of sight all of these kind of you know things. The only one thing that that didn't think was the permission of wanting to come in the window. Which most likely came in later as a you know as a as an added fictional piece for the writing. Somewhere along the line. Some of the listeners will know when the permission and the having no reflection in the mirror. Those kind of things were added. The sunlight burning them that was added in the movie. Yeah. It wasn't even in the books. Was it. I think possibly the the idea of the invitation is Chinese vampires. I think because there's Chinese vampires have a few of those things. For example if you're being pursued by a Chinese

vampire throw rice on the ground because they need to count and they constantly count and until they've counted all of the. No. Yeah. Interesting. And that church is for sale now. Yeah. There are people that have said they want to buy it to turn it into an Airbnb so that you can go stay on the ground. My friend Jerome showed it to me and he he and I were sort of made a couple of inquiries. How much is it going for. Have they said something like only 60,000 pounds. Wow. Wow. That's that's not a lot for it. No. Probably because it's got a horrific haunted aspect to it. But guys this is but this is another opportunity for us to make money out of this podcast. I think if we start buying properties that have had spooky stuff happen in them and

cryptid occurrences like I'm thinking we buy a plot of land next to Skinwalker Ranch. We buy this church. We buy a little bit of forestry where Bigfoot has been sited and then you can Airbnb your way around the cryptid factor. Right. You basically go and stay in all of these spooky places and you have a register in there where you write down you know like a guest registry and you write down and say you know how was your stay. Oh great. Thank you. And then there's an extra column. What did you see. Yeah. Well see here you go. I saw a shadowy figure lurking in the trees or sweet if a not not enough milk in the fridge. Terrible weather. No internet. Well it's just an idea. It's just a concept. Yeah. I think it's amazing. I think that we're

heading to that. You know we're getting big now. We're on the charts. You know we've got Patreon I think we're probably a year away from starting up our huge international hotel market. Yeah. We're very close. Cryptid cabins. Look cryptid cabins. Yeah. Brilliant. So quick get the domain now before somebody takes it. Someone has already taken it. Oh damn it. Yeah. Well you know how quick these fans are. I tell you. Anyway that is my scary story. Great story. With my story. I bring this back to the cryptid realm. After all that's what we're about. So this story does involve a huge hairy hominid. It's from the Sasquatch Chronicles. This one in particular shook me to the very bone. What is the very bone you might ask. The first bone that is created

when you are created. Well it is of course in my case the funny bone. I thought it was going to be the wishbone. Well no that's a chicken. Anyway the year was 1894. Oh hang on. First of all before we start this what kind of sound effects and music do you want. I think I want sort of an old boat creaking in a moonlit lake. Very specific. Yeah. So this is a we go attack report. The report details told by Trapper Howard B. Leblanc a 54 year old trapper and hunting guide from Kenora Ontario. Now it's about a guide by the name of Little Jack. The guide Little Jack was a guide of some reputation in the region whom was known for putting hunters onto large moose and was he was a much sought after guide.

So it's 1894. So we're going back a bit. I like that. I like going back. The exact location was a lake but the name has been withheld. So you've got a father and son here from Chicago Illinois and the family name is the Sears and they're on a hunting trip for moose. So the hunters and guide paddled the main trunk of the Matawa River along the Ontario Quebec border taking a branch creek north into Quebec. On this two day trip many moose were seen but the Sears were looking for a true trophy and pressed Little Jack the guide to take them deeper into the wild region. With hesitation Little Jack agreed to take them to a lake he knew of but explained to them that they would stay only in that area during daylight hours and would and would be departing

by midday as he had fears of some large beast that was reputed to frequent the area. The Sears took as superstition and largely discounted Little Jack's warnings. On arriving at the lake Little Jack laid down the ground rules for the day's hunt. He instructed the Sears to stay on the south side of the lake and placed the father in a thicket overlooking a clearing that was bordered by the lake. The son was to canoe along the lake to the east and set up his hunting blind along a marsh area. Both men promised they would not cross the lake which was not wide at that point and the guide would go between the two men frequently so they set themselves up here in positions for hunting. Little Jack was nervous of course and spent a great deal of time that morning being sure his

charges were staying in their assigned hunting spots. At about noon Little Jack told Mr Sears senior to begin to get ready to leave promising to bring them back early the next morning. Then began to turn to leave but Mr Sears senior then pointed out to the lake Little Jack turned to see young Mr Sears paddling across the lake already very close to the other side. Little Jack began to run yelling and waving trying to get young Mr Sears to turn around but the young man either did not hear him or chose to ignore him it was at this time Mr Sears senior notices a large shape moving in the tree line along the shore of the opposite side of the lake thinking it was a moose he called out to Little Jack whom at this point was about to land his canoe. Little Jack was frantic

and turned to tell Mr Sears senior to remain silent. Getting into the canoe Little Jack began to paddle as quickly as possible but by this time young Mr Sears was already landing and pulling his canoe up onto the opposite shoreline Little Jack again tried to call young Mr Sears but the young man ignored his calls and walked into the woods. In the time it took for Little Jack to cross the lake he heard the reports of young Mr Sears rifle as several shots were fired following by a silence for a moment. As Little Jack was about to land his canoe young Mr Sears came running out of the tree line and if being pursued Little Jack had no time to land his canoe but raised his own rifle firing a shot whatever might be chasing young Mr Sears

a large upright hair covered beast emerged from the tree line and after running running running after young Mr Sears in a few short steps the beast was upon young Mr Sears and the beast reportedly decapitated the young man by grabbing him by the upper torso from behind and then with its other hand simply twisting the young man's head off yeah Little Jack emptied his gun at the beast but the beast did not fall instead it carried the body of young Mr Sears back into the woods dragging the body by a leg and carrying the young man's head in his other hand Little Jack having no more ammunition returned to Mr Sears senior it is reported that Mr Sears

senior insisted on going after the beast having witnessed the entire event from his vantage point on the opposing side of the lake but Little Jack refused and almost had to drag the distraught father away from the area when having reached their camp at Matawa River Little Jack insisted they pack and paddle to the nearest settlement which they reached by the following morning it was reported to a local constable whom led a search party that included both Little Jack and Mr Sears senior and several loggers and woodsmen to the lake where they searched for several days finding only young Mr Sears's broken rifle and a short trail of blood at the actual area of death of young Mr Sears it is reported that the searchers all heard beastly screams and

howls on those nights when the search would be suspended due to the coming of darkness and eventually they all gave up in fear as each night the screams and howls seemed to be closer and closer to their camp and that's the tale what a sad scary tale terrific isn't it wow and it's very rare that you would you know hear a story of such a hairy hominid coming out into the open chasing openly chasing and it's the it's the scariest version of what you don't want to happen with bigfoot and then just simply grabbing the the the man and ripping his head off very easily just ripping it off like like it's uh um i don't know something that's easy to rip off like a bandaid

the bottle cap or a bandaid i mean that's a bit too easy but maybe the bottle cap of a bottle with the twist you know those you think you need a a note pinup it turns out it's a twist oh yeah and you're off it comes and then but then also uh dragging the body away and the head so there is some uh theories that the we go if these things exist they actually keep heads as trophies which is horrific wow that's terrifying the challenge with that is i've always told my kids that going into the woods they're always scared of bigfoot and i'm like don't worry bigfoot doesn't eat people he runs away from you yeah now my kids are all going to be terrified of a window and for good reason yeah you don't hear much of it this one although did fit the the description of a sasquatch

you know um the we go really is more of a more of a spiritual um horrific monster from from another another place another time why does it get me my head's gone again god damn it dragged away i took it all where'd you go the musical i wanted it all what i need a big catch i need a big one a trophy for my wall i don't know how much i need oh i'm dead why is he dead why is he dead what happened cause he did it wrong he did no end to go he did no end to go he didn't know when to go but now he's dead he didn't know when to go he didn't know when to go he didn't know when was dead

Toppings for an article, I've written in the night, I've been troked about the beast, and what a what a fright! Oh, my article, how much do you want? Toppings I said, Toppings I said, Toppings I said, my dad! I have the article, I'm reading it with my eyes, now I can see... Ah! His head's gone! His head's gone, Mr. Naples! No!

To be continued. Oh, my God! I really want to go and see that musical! I want that just to keep going! Just keep going! You know what? I'm going to wait to see that show until it comes out on Ice. I want to go see it on Ice. Yes! Definitely on Ice! That's amazing. Wow, that was incredible!

So many little plot twists as well, the guy buying the newspaper turned out to be the dad, like... I know! For a Toppings! For a Toppings! Who's Mr. Naples? That's what everyone's asking. That's what Part 2 is going to reveal, I hope. Oh, my God, that's amazing! You go, Dan. Yeah, okay. So, this story is, and maybe buttons for my story,

can we get some sort of crackling fire, as if we're out in a campfire? Yes, we just want some nice atmospheric, lovely, yes. Okay, there you go. So, picture yourself, we're all out there, we're telling a ghost story by the fire. We've all got our marshmallows. This is the tale of Dean and Bettina's haunted Tibetan hotel, or Nightmare of the Room's division manager. That was his role.

That title is as worse as the Croglin Vampire Chit. Well, we know Shriver's not good on titles. He's got a proven track record. Come on, before you lose, listeners. This story takes place in 1993 in Lhasa, Tibet. Dean and Bettina arrive there, and they have just begun with the job of being the Room's division manager at the only international hotel in Lhasa.

This is a huge structure that sticks out, unlike anything else on the landscape there. Now, one of the first things that they're told is that a number of people have died there from altitude-related symptoms in the hotel itself. So, get ready for spookiness in the hotel is what they're told. So, during the winter months, occupancy is particularly low. If you can picture the shining where Jack Nicholson is stuck in that empty hotel, it's much like that. This is a 450-room hotel.

There's barely anyone there, except for one other group of people who were with Save the Children from the UK who were overdoing some charity. Dean and Bettina are in their room on the second floor, and they hear some thumping noises from above, like a child is jumping off the bed onto the floor. It's late at night, they think, this is too late. She says, Dean, can you go up and tell them to be quiet? This is too much.

So, Dean goes upstairs, he gets to the third floor, and he starts knocking on the door that they know is directly above them, and he's not getting any answer from it, and he's knocking and knocking and knocking, and suddenly Bettina comes up next to him. She says, what is taking you so long? How have you not told them? And he said, well, I can't hear anything up here,

and I'm knocking and no one's responding. And she said, but I've been downstairs, and I've heard the thumping the entire time that you've been up here. What do you mean that it's not happening? So, they got quite scared about that, and they immediately went back down, and they went into bed and were a bit petrified. Next morning at breakfast,

they're talking to the people from Save the Children, and they said, did you hear anything? And they said, no, I mean, we didn't really hear anything at all. All we heard was a child crying on our floor, which is the third floor, and it was running up and down the corridor, but it was a bit early in the night, and it was fine. Dean, who is the room's division manager,

says, there are no children staying in the hotel tonight, or it had been in the last week or so. So, how were you hearing that? So, suddenly they're all thinking, hang on, what is going on? This is a bit freaky. Then they find out from the general manager who has his office on the third floor,

and his secretary sits out there that she got a call while they're having breakfast, and it was a lady calling her from within the hotel crying and asking for where her baby was, and then hangs up. And she says, so she says to Dean,

do we have a couple, they're looking for their baby, and he says, there's no couple staying here who have a baby. So, they're all freaking out. They don't know what's going on. They have to just get used to it. They realize we're living in a haunted hotel. However, it's okay, because at the moment,

it seems completely harmless. It seems as if we're going to be just hearing these things. There's no physical attacks going on. So, time passes. Then in 1994, Dean invites his family to come and stay at the hotel. They arrive into a very empty hotel. It's his brother and his brother's family,

so the kids and his wife. They go to sleep, and Dean doesn't tell them about the haunting, because he doesn't want to scare the children. They all go to sleep on the first night. They come down in the morning, and the mother says, oh, so annoying having all the trees sort of hitting the window. I assume it was trees, because the entire night,

I had knocking on the window. I just had this noise on my window just rattling away. And Dean said, have you looked out the window, because I don't want to scare you, but there were no trees outside the window. So she said, what is that? And he said, okay, listen,

I've got something to tell you, but I'll tell it to you later, because the kids are here. So later at night, the kids go up to the bedroom, and they're watching movies, and they're sitting, playing, having fun, and Dean starts telling the story of the haunted hotel. And as he's telling the story, suddenly there's screaming as the kids come running into the hall,

and they bring Dean and the family up. And what happens is that in the room, a little girl who was nine years old was sitting at a table, and the brothers and their friends were fighting on the bed, when suddenly they all paused out of nowhere, turned and looked at the little girl, who was staring intently at a glass of water on the table. And out of nowhere, no one touching anything,

the glass levitated off the table, hung in the air, and shattered a huge shattering sound. And what Dean walked into was tiny little shards of glass, and for the whole top section of the glass, and at the bottom, completely distorted, only the way that you could manage to make glass go if you were using a deep heat to sort of re-melt it into a different position.

And that's when he had to come clean with the kids, that you're staying in a haunted hotel, and they all got out of there because it was so petrifying. Now, obviously this is a tale that sounds like it's completely made up. The only thing that I'll add is I think it's probably a true tale, because the girl who levitated the glass off that table was my sister, and I was the boy on the bed who saw the glass lift up,

and shatter, and Dean is my uncle. No! This is a true story that I was a part of in Tibet in 1994. No! You're kidding me! Yes, absolutely true. What a twist, Dan! You saw, you have been in a haunting of a poltergeist. Yes, yeah. That's not a ghost story, that's a poltergeist story.

And we've talked about it for years and years, saying, you know, who was this lady? Was she an old lady? Who was haunting this hotel? Was she a young mum looking for a kid? Was she a grandmother? Was she anything? And I was talking to my uncle about it just the other day, and I suddenly did something that I have no idea why I tried it out. I tried to make an anagram of their names,

Dean and Bettina, just to see what would come up. And this is what I saw. Dean and Bettina equals dead Tibetan nan. Come on! Oh my God. No! Yeah, so maybe that's what it was all along. Freaky deaky.

The fact that it's real and you were part of it? Wow, there you've brought the house down. Well done. That is amazing. A poltergeist story where like a phone physically rings and on the end of it is a voice. Where you have things like knocking on a window continuously all night when you have a glass levitate and shatter. Like, you're the very first person I have ever met

or talked to that has had a real-life poltergeist story. But it was a weird place. A lot of spooky things happened. And I was there when Kurt Cobain died. And I remember just before this incident happened with the ghost or the poltergeist, a lady who was staying with us stole some sacred rocks that were left by some Tibetan monks. And my dad said bad things will happen off the back of this. And this incident happened and she had to go and return the rocks.

Are you saying that those stolen rocks have got something to do with Kurt Cobain's death? I leave it to the listeners. To decide, what do you think listeners? I can't believe that for all this time, all these years, we've been saying cryptid factored do not do ghosts. And one of us has like the most insane ghostly experience. Well, I tell you what, we've got that up our sleeve now.

So when we hit the big time and we do all the US chat shows, if ghosts comes up, we just put Dan in the room. We just go, oh, let's close the book on that with this one story. Exactly. OK, Colbert, let's get some fire noise going. Here we go. Awesome. OK.

Oh, that was very good. What a great Halloween special. Very good. Yeah, immediately adapted into a musical. I love it. Let's do some cryptid bars and get the hell out of here. Attention, all personnel. It's time for this week's cryptid.

So we have yet another very credible big cat sighting in New Zealand. No way. Yes. Woohoo. Yes. Very exciting. I'm onto this as well, yeah. And it's just this year, isn't it?

The sightings are really coming in thick and fast. Yeah, totally is. And the interesting thing with this story, that actually my sister sent to me, because I now get all of my family members to do my research for me. So that's working really well. That's become the button down. Was Tim busy this week?

Tim was busy, so Alicia came to the front. He's been doing a national tour with his newfound fame. He's doing some local libraries where he gets to do a tour. And he does a four minute 33 with silent musical. Of course. So this story is the Canterbury Big Cat, and it's now being spotted in a place called Hamner Springs. Yes.

Is this the one that you heard about, Rhys? This is the very place I was in earlier this year. No. In Hamner Springs. With my family. Wow. Well, in this place called Hamner Springs, there was a guy called Mark Orr,

who was mountain biking through that area. And he came up to a log and they were lifting their mountain bikes over this fallen tree when they looked further up in the trail. And that's when they saw this giant cat is about 50 meters ahead of them. And they said that this cat turned around and looked at them and then quietly just took off deeper into the forest. Mark said it looked very strong. It was quite stocky.

He said it just had an aura about it. He said when it looked back at them, they could hardly see its face because it was so jet black. He was convinced the animal was definitely not a dog. He said he's never seen a cat this big. He said it was about knee height. He said after spotting the animal, the pair decided to quickly turn back and report the sighting,

but also they were terrified that they might be attacked by some sort of big cat. So that's exciting, right? Very much so. I was going to say this is exciting because we believe it's the same cat from the Canterbury sightings, which means that it has moved. It is not really staying in one area if there is indeed only one. But of course there could be more than one,

but it's good to be able to track and I'm sure someone is. And if they're not, we should be with small pins on a map as to where this thing is moving to by each sighting because it's looking for food. That's pretty much what they do. Like you say, there could be more than one. This article from the New Zealand Herald actually says that one of the suggested reasons for this cat living in this area

was an older gentleman came forward after a sighting a little while ago and actually said he was working at the port in Littleton, which is right near Christchurch during World War One. He said in 1915 a ship from America was being unloaded. On board the ship was a cargo of animals bound for Australia. One of the cages was accidentally broken open and allowing its occupant a pregnant female puma to escape. There was last scene running towards the Port Hills in Canterbury.

Apparently officials made little attempt to catch the cat and it seems there was likely there was no search conducted obviously because they're busy fighting World War One in midst of war footing and so they didn't search for it. But if it was a pregnant puma and it had a litter of males and females, although there'd be obviously a lot of inbreeding, it would explain why they can keep themselves going. Yeah, I think what Rhys was saying earlier about

getting on to sort of tracking and mapping all these spots because who knows when you guys are going to be able to leave New Zealand next. Might as well pick up the gauntlet and get crypto hunting. Absolutely and while we're on air here and as we all know we never have time to do anything, if any of the listeners particularly the New Zealand ones want to start mapping where this thing is moving to, that would be brilliant and we could put that up and keep tabs on this thing.

So there we have it, New Zealand's ABC on the move. Do you have anything, Dan? Yeah, I was going to mention, have we ever spoken about the wild crypto moose of New Zealand? Oh yes, we have brought this up a few times in the past, but not for a while. Well, there's no great new sighting. 2018 was the last big sighting, but certainly in my tenure on this show,

I don't think we've spoken about it, maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems to be that there is a colony of moose that seems to be walking in the wilderness of New Zealand that has been spotted numerous times but was supposedly extinct from 1952. And it was introduced back in the early 1900s and it was a species that was shot to death quite quickly by 1952. Since then, they've been finding remote cameras have been getting blurry images. 1995, they found a blurry image of this moose.

Hair samples taken from an area of New Zealand called Fiordland found to be of moose origin confirming, this was in 2001, the sort of modern day presence of moose. Dozen more hair samples were sent to a Canadian university in 2005, also confirmed to be moose. In 2011, there was a prize that started going, which was $100,000 as a reward to find this moose. No one, despite the amazing amount of money that that is, has found it.

And then in 2018, new signs of chewed branches and snapped branches out of reach of deer and occasional footprints have all been spotted. Yet for some reason, no one is able to find the moose of New Zealand, which is extraordinary, huge bounty on it. So, yeah, this was an article in stuff.co.nz that happened the other day and it's sort of, I just saw as we were talking about the lockdown opportunities to find cryptids. This is a great example of an animal we know exists

and there is so much evidence they're there, yet no one has found it. It's extraordinary. But it sounds like we've spoken about it a bunch before. No. Can you remember the name of the moose man? No, I can't. Ken Tustin. Ken Tustin, the moose man.

He's a very firm believer in the Fiordland moose and 40 years he has been researching and looking for these mysterious moose. Now, he's written a book. There's also, and I've just looked online here, there's a DVD available, it's a book by the New Zealand's Fiordland Moose, a mysterious history. And so, for this particular man, Ken, it's almost a personal odyssey for him to prove

that there are still moose in this country. And, yeah, so I believe we may have had him on the show once before, quite a few years back. Oh, did you? You had moose man on? On the radio show, yeah. We did, yeah. Wow. To coin a Halloween term.

Now... Ooh! So, yeah, and of course, I'll just put this point in as a, which I often bring up with moose, and you can ask any Canadian, moose are extremely hard to see in the first place. They, despite being huge animals, really are almost mystic in their qualities of movement.

They don't move much. You can see them in a field, you won't even notice them. Yeah, it's the way they move. They're not like cows or horses that will, you know, move rapidly due to whatever effect is affecting them. But most themselves are not only do they move very subtly, they are very quiet.

That sounds like they're ninjas, but they're so massive. How can you be that big and ninja-like with huge antlers that are almost calling to say, look at me, like, that's phenomenal. Have you seen how big they grow? Like, they can grow so ginormous. Look at this, this little video I saw a while ago of a moose walking down the road is just phenomenal.

Look at this. What? This is a moose. No, that's not. You're kidding. Look at this. Look how big they grow. Look at it next to an SUV.

Oh, my. They are... No, come on. That's not real. Yeah. They are gigantic. That is the size of... It's got the height of a giraffe just without the neck.

Like, that is... The size of an elephant, at least. I know. That's an elephant. You're right. That's elephant size, yeah. Even more worrying and mysterious that these things, that we can't find them,

that we were supposedly, we have a herd or two down in Fjordland in New Zealand and nobody's ever seen them. That's right. But the other thing is that it's well documented that a local businessman down in the Fjordland area actually imported a herd of moose for the purpose of releasing them

and having basically a moose hunting expedition. Right. They released them and nobody ever saw them ever again. They're that good at camouflage that they open the gates and they were immediately... There's nothing in there. Yeah.

There's also something to be said. If you're opening up a zoo, don't put moose in an enclosure because you'll get, honestly, no matter how small or big the enclosure is, you'll get a lot of complaints from kids and adults alike. There's nothing in there.

This is worse than the lizard enclosure where you spend seven minutes looking for something attached to a small piece of plant. There's not a moose in there. That's what zoos should do with the enclosure that's currently empty, that's nothing in there because they're waiting for an animal to fill it

to say this is a moose. Well, they could. Yeah. I would love to open up a fun zoo which has no animals at all because, you know, let's face it, some people are against zoos in that way. Yeah.

And you'll have an enclosure with the Fjordland moose and there's nothing in there. There's just trees. Yeah. A cryptid zoo. A cryptid zoo, exactly. Now we're getting somewhere. Yes.

Oh, my God, we've come up with so many money-making machines. Yes. Oh, yes. Cryptid cabins and now the cryptid zoo. All you need to do is you would just need to have in the enclosures sort of lots of broken branches or like poos on top of a termite mound. That's the yaoi enclosure.

Yeah. And then there's also a sort of a pair of binoculars attached to a pole that you can look through to see if you can find things and they're fixed in such a way that when you do see something, it's blurry. And so you see this figure in the distance but you can't make it out.

But listen, I've got a fun idea that we could do here to end the show and that is if we bring back one of our old classics, a special guest from years ago, Mike Boone, who has a song about the Fjordland moose. Oh, good idea. Oh, really? So what a great way to end this episode on a...

You know, we've had an exciting, spooky, mini-leveled... No, no into that sentence. But here we go with a wonderful finisher. Take it away, Mike Boone. One day out hiking Fjordland track to my liking

got stormy went missing to my tour guide I wasn't listening it was foolish of me to get lost out all night in the cold and the frost fell asleep

on the ground but I woke up when I heard a sound then I saw a moose it was like a caboose except it wasn't puse that's a shade of red or a caboose when I saw the moose

I thought, how do you reproduce when you're such a recluse and I see no lady moose I was lost for days and days my mood going gray how to get back to civilization without helicopter levitation then I thought of the moose

could I put him to use or would that be of use to ride back on a moose I should ask the moose how could he refuse perhaps he's got an excuse or he's just a lazy moose now I'm back

with my wife thanking the moose for saving my life what could I have done I don't know maybe written out on a giant mower thank god for moose that they were let loose

by colonial abuse thank god for moose everybody thank god for moose thank god for moose that they were let loose that they were let loose by colonial abuse thank god for moose

moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose moose

Mike Boone very cool cool well that's it folks thanks pretty much for I was going to ask I know we're about to wrap up we were meant to come up with characters at the top of the show

we never revealed this is a hell of a tease to get to the theme tune at the end did not reveal and I've done so much thinking work for those that are on tender hooks for the characters to finally be revealed

we are about to do it now now my spooky character was Count Eulich Esquire Starz What? Who's he? What's he doing? Eulich it sounds like an ice cream brand

and he doesn't use he doesn't use his little name Esquire so now he's simply known as Count Eulich E-starz Count Eulich E-starz yes and you better count your lucky stars when you hire the guy

because he is the world's greatest monster hunter oh very nice wow and he talks like this hello yes I am Count you look

E-starz monster hunter that's good okay so what are your characters oh okay well I despite bringing it up for us to say I haven't actually thought of one but I will be Slender Dan SLENDER DAN

a new internet monster who just tells you facts outside your window I must say your weight loss program has gone a touch too far looking at you there Slender Dan but very act

I can't come up with any my brains just come up I've got one for you based on what we're seeing visually and this is also for the lucky Patreon accounters your space face space face

not only because physically your face is floating in space but also because just in general photos when you do appear your face takes up the most space space space is that what I've got to go as for Halloween

tonight what are you dressed as space face but the fun you can have with that you can have an astro helmet with your microphone sticking out do you know what I could just make

a much bigger version of my own head so I look like one of those bobble toys and I've just got a massive head of myself on my own shoulders that's right paint a few stars on your forehead there's space face so ladies and gentlemen boys and girls

this is space face Scaladan the Slender Man and Count You Look E-Stars Captain of All Time Signing off

Happy Halloween Happy Halloween Yay Chopin's Chopin's sweet paper syrup Thanks for watching