The Cryptid Factor - 71: #071 The Belated Christmas Issue
Episode Date: January 13, 2022Due to Buttons being busy having a southern hemisphere summer holiday, this Christmas special clearly is well ​late (which he apologies for profusely) but it's worth the wait - not least due to the ...amazing ____________*1 as well as the ____________*2! In here you'll find news on time travelers from Mars, theoretically Anthrax ridden conspiracy theorists and auto-replicating Pacman-esque xenobots made from frog cells... in a dish non the less! Also; some new Bigfoot footage from Georgia along with some old footage from a cowboy, alien bases below the ice, an expletive ridden speed sighting and a Jelly fish with ​30ft ​mouth-arms... or is it arse-hands... you decide!
Transcript
Discussion (0)
The Cryptid Factor with Rhys Darby and Dan Schreiber.
Ho ho ho, and off we go.
We three guys who you all know.
It's the end of the year, and we're still here.
The bear is of the weird.
You're havin' a three-way, a vibus recap.
Back door, side door, premiere, it's still the same.
There's nothing in the frame but you.
That's gonna be my new Christmas Carol highlight every year.
It's not Christmas until that Carol gets played.
Wow, that's amazing.
I just wrote that then.
You should do more of that.
Three-way.
That's all I can see.
It's just a three-way.
Wow.
And did you have a tune in mind?
Was that on the fly?
I had a couple of tunes I knew could fit in there.
Change it up halfway through.
Do you know what?
That could be the Cryptid Factor's first NFT.
Oh.
Okay.
Wow.
What's an NFT again?
An NFT.
This is Dan.
Work into a 21st century.
It's a non-fungible token.
And it means that's something you can't funge.
And you can sell it on the internet for lots of money
because it's a way to prove that that is the only version of it
or the very first version of something digital.
Okay.
Wow, there's NFTs explained for you folks
just in case you didn't need it.
Wow.
I don't think we're gonna start the show with that.
Merry Christmas.
That's the biggest gift you could be given.
Oh my God.
Merry Christmas, Dan.
I'd heard the term and I kind of understood
but I didn't fully get it.
What is funger word?
Fung.
It does sound fun.
I think it's a new internet word.
It's like fund but funge.
It is a word, right?
Yeah, it sounds it.
It is.
Hang on.
Have I got that wrong?
Is it fun, fudgeable?
Non-fudgeable?
Because fudgeable, like, you fudge something.
Oh, I fudged that.
Or is it fungible?
I think they might have created a new word.
I think it is.
Because it's like a mixture of funding and fudging.
Fudging.
I think so.
But I don't know.
I'm not an NFT guy.
There's nothing there.
I'm not an internet guy.
Oh, my God.
We haven't talked for a couple of weeks and this is the...
We're starting talking about funding the fudge.
Do you know about the metaverse, Dan?
I have.
It had its first groping scandal today.
Oh, really?
What?
The metaverse.
Yeah.
I didn't read into it yet but, yeah, some accusation made.
Some online groping.
Within the metaverse.
See, that's it.
It's all gone downhill.
That was meant to be a safe place for people and that's obviously...
It's backfired.
Straight away.
Shut it down.
Well, I'm not going there now.
I'm not going to the metaverse.
Especially not dressed like this.
Tell us how you dress.
I have a silk kimono on and a Santa hat and my funky glasses with the blue lenses.
And Dan, what does he look like?
What does he look like?
Oh, God.
I don't know.
Like, to me, a sort of creepy uncle who's...
Merry Christmas, kids.
Is your mother home?
Well, I do think it would be a cool look to have Reese sitting in malls.
Oh, yes.
When you look Santa.
Yeah.
I think that's quite fun.
It'd be awesome to have that option when you walk into an LA mall and, you know, you
go, who do you want to be your Santa?
And there's a lineup of Santas there.
Well, there'd be a screen, wouldn't there?
There'd be a screen and you just tap which one you want.
And then if it was me, I'd get an indication on my phone or something, a bit of a vibrate
and then I'd have to go through and to the section.
Hello.
I'm looking for a Leon Kirkbeck.
Has chosen me.
A Leon Kirkbeck.
Oh, God, it's you.
I want to tell you what I want for Christmas.
I want to know what an NFT is, please.
Is that possible?
I'm sick of hearing your NFT stuff, mate.
Wow.
I can't believe it's Christmas time, guys.
It's like, this is so exciting.
Like literally here in New Zealand, it is tomorrow.
I get all the Christmas presents tomorrow.
Oh, really?
Because you're on the 24th, are you?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
God, you've just managed to squeeze this in.
I know, I know.
This is the unofficial Christmas episode, by the way,
and I say unofficial because I'm the only one
that obviously dressed up thinking to myself,
well, it is pretty much Christmas.
Surely the other guys, oh, hang on,
Dan now has a crown on his head.
Yeah, we three kings.
Oh, good, good.
Oh, yeah.
And I wore my, because it's summertime here in New Zealand
and I wore my summertime Christmas bucket hat.
OK, good.
OK.
But if you take the word Christmas out of that,
it's just a bucket hat, isn't it?
You made it a Christmas bucket hat
by just adding the word Christmas.
Wow, I never wear bucket hats, so it's a special occasion.
I'm wearing my Christmas headphones, guys.
See?
I mean, they're just normal silver headphones,
but they're Christmas ones
because I've just added the word Christmas.
It's a bit Victorian sort of
urchin button to his hat.
Maybe it's a Christmas carol, like tiny two.
Oh, yes.
I'm just trying to help out here, buttons.
Thank you, thank you so much, Dan.
But also, a bucket hat's supposed to look this awkward,
or is it just, is my head not in the right shape for it?
I think it feels like, to me, it's too small for your head.
Or is my head too big for the hat?
Yeah, both.
It looks like a lady's bonnet.
I can't make it look cool.
Anyway, a lot of this will be edited out,
so let's move on to everyone's favourite final section.
It's...
Favourite final section.
Oh, is that what I said, favourite final section of the year?
Yeah, is that the section we're going into?
We're going into the final section,
so we are going to have to come back after that
and do the other section.
That's the sections of the buys,
so if we just quickly cover off the buys now.
Oh, Merry Christmas, everyone.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Hopefully we'll see you next year at some point.
We're aiming for January.
We're definitely going to hit you in Feb.
Okay, now, now back to another section.
Okay, good, that was a good save.
Well done, buttons.
So now, let's do the first section that we always do.
But when I say final, it's the final one of the year
for this particular section.
And of course it is.
Weekly World Weird News.
Crazy, freaky, watch out.
Now, I don't know about you guys,
but I found there was quite a lot of weird news
in the last couple of weeks.
Both animal-related and just general weirdness.
So let's go through what we've got
and see what we get out of it.
Shall we kick off with some headlines?
Because I've got to say,
my headline, I think, is probably the best one
in the entire year for me.
Wow. Wow.
What a big call.
Not necessarily, just because it's
just so many weird words thrown together.
Okay.
Yeah, you go first.
Here we go.
Living robots made from frog cells
can replicate themselves
in a dish.
Brilliant.
Living robots, frog cells,
replicate dish.
Great.
Words that I never ever thought
would have been in a headline all together.
I have to say, I'm surprised
dish was an exciting word
that you included
in that shorter summary.
Yeah.
Living robots and dish
finally in a sentence together.
It's such a great word, dish.
It is a good word.
It's very simple, but there's no two ways about it.
We know what a dish is.
There's, you know, apart from
satellite dish and the dish
that you would put other things in.
It's still the same kind of shape.
That's big news. That's big news for the year.
What do you got, Dan?
I have a group of people
get sick at a conspiracy theory
conference.
However, instead of assuming
that it is COVID, they think
they've been poisoned by anthrax
and created a conspiracy theory
within their own conspiracy theory conference.
Wow.
That's amazing.
Dan, you've just been sick the last few days.
Yes.
Have you been going to conspiracy theory conferences?
Is this something you love to share?
I would love to share.
I think that would be so interesting.
This was in Dallas, I believe.
So, no, I wasn't there.
I was in the local
South London conspiracy theory
halls, which are much less
glamorous.
Yeah, no, conspiracy theory erupts
at conspiracy theory conference.
I think is a pretty good, exciting
headline there.
To be fair, that is better than
living robots,
frog cells and dish.
Well, what do you serve up anthrax
in? A dish.
A dish!
You could have added dish into
your headline there and made it
slightly better.
So, missed opportunity there.
Derb's what you got?
Well, I've got a classic Derb's one.
Time Traveler from
3812 claims she
has photos from Mars.
Oh, guys,
I finally think I have the best
news story with frog
cells and replicate and
living robots and both
your stories sound freaking amazing.
Time travel
in conspiracy theory.
No, yours is nice too.
That's the trouble. When you go first,
there's a lot of pressure, obviously,
on the other two of us
to up our game.
So, we go through our quick list and go,
oh, what's going to compete with that?
I've just had to make something up
in order to compete with that.
Oh, man.
Well, go into that because you know
how much I love time travel.
Derb's what you kick off.
This is very new. I found this in the
Ladd Bible. Basically,
a woman who claims to be a time traveler
believes she has been to Mars
in the year 3812.
Having taken a photo
of what she says is the red planet
in the future.
The 37-year-old, known only
as Mary, spoke about
her supposed travels in the
3000s in a video
saying Mars had become
very frightening.
In the clip, which is on YouTube
and we can have a look at this clip in a second,
we see her holding a photo
that apparently shows
buildings on Mars
along with the spaceships that Mary
and her companions had arrived in.
Now, she explained,
so, I appeared on Mars.
It looked like a desert
with many buildings. I immediately
took a photo.
You can see the spaceships
on which we came and you can see
the buildings.
I'm going to pause it there just in case
she says all this in the video, because it would be great
having it from her own voice.
So, let's have a look at this now.
So, I appeared on Mars.
It looked like a desert
where many buildings
I immediately take a photo
which I will show
right now.
What?
That's not her voice though, is it?
That's a voice in the room.
Look, this is the photo
I had taken in Mars.
Here, you can see
the spaceships
on which we came.
You also can see
buildings.
Wait.
That's the photo?
Mars were very interesting
and... What is going on?
very frightening.
We wore
special clothes
and started to have a walk.
People found
life in the
Mars.
Reptiles who didn't need
oxygen to leave.
Makes no sense.
We went to Mars where people
found it
expensive metals.
I should also notice
that metals
are not like metals of our planet.
I thought
people worked at that
Mars, but only
robots worked.
Some of them had intelligence
and some
were only for hard work.
Well, that's like just normal life, isn't it?
Like, some people
have intelligence
and others just work, just like me.
Wow, what do we...
It wasn't worth listening to her then.
The problem is
she's clearly been overdubbed
because we're seeing the picture
of it as clearly a woman
sitting down outside
in some kind of external
building structure type thing.
Really weird place to film someone.
So strange.
But blurred out her entire face.
But also, the blur is
either they've overblurred
or she has a massive head.
Because that blur.
Yeah, there's too much blur.
No need for that.
Also, her voice
is clearly not her voice
because, as you could tell,
that was an overdub of somebody
in a studio or in a room.
But then she just sort of
whips out this photo
from behind her.
When she was showing a photo,
it wasn't shown it on a laptop
or a Android camera.
She's got the snappy snaps.
Snappy snaps.
Do you mind now?
Just careful with this one
because this is actually a photo
from a thousand years in the future.
So just, yeah.
What sort of border would I like?
Can I have a white border
with a black frame?
Don't worry about the anti-glare.
So it says here,
there's obviously been a lot of complaints
and a lot of people not
believing this.
Someone has claimed
the photo may have been a concept photo
from NASA, writing,
first she never took that photo on Mars.
She took that photo from the internet.
It's a NASA concept photo
for the colonization of Mars.
And a third person says,
so you time travel.
You see amazing things
and you have a camera
and you only take one photo.
Someone else has put
I would love
to time travel 22 minutes
into the past to stop myself
from watching this video.
So
the photo
we should describe it for the listener
is a bit, it looks
very futuristic.
It looks like the pods that you saw
if you saw the movie The Martian
sort of to the left
where the sort of camp would be
for where the base would have been set in.
There's buildings in the background.
It sort of gets a bit more door
in the back, you know,
giant, spiky
towers.
But it's clearly just
a photoshopped
thing that she's printed out.
I mean, my big question is
why put this out?
Why is this
so unbelievable?
Is it because
they're waiting for someone like me
in a silk dresser gown and a Santa hat
and blue funky glasses
to
push this
out into the ethos
as legit?
Yes! Mission achieved!
Yes!
Very tiny thing,
don't want to distract from the main story,
but I'm interested in her fingernails here.
She's gone
on one hand
three light blue and one entirely
glittery silver.
And then if you look to the other hand,
it's three and a half blue
What's going on there?
That's not credible at all.
I'm sorry, that's not credible.
You know
I just looked up the very
first claim of
somebody being a time traveler
is all the way back in the mid
1800s.
When somebody first
claimed to have traveled to the future.
Yeah, so it's obviously
been happening for a long time, but of course
unless you've got an old polaroid
picture from Mars, which just happens to
be the same picture as what
NASA is using
for their promotional clip, which you could argue
is maybe that NASA has actually
made the exact
thing that they predicted they would make
and they've made it and she's taken a photo
of what NASA made, so you could argue that.
But
it's like, how do you prove that you have time
traveled? How do you, when you come back and say
guys, holy
shit, I just went to the future.
Why did you see all the stuff that everybody
expects is going to happen?
Can't prove it. Even with a photo
or bringing something back
people are still going to be skeptical
because, you know, what
we can do with technology these days
is
and then you put your own
word in there.
You know what I mean?
That's one of my new things
and I can't think of a word.
I'm just going to let other people put
a word in.
So why was LabBible
reporting on this?
How did this story get out there?
I know. Well, it's, look,
I've been on LabBible a few times
because they do have interesting stuff.
Yeah, absolutely. It's just a website
and I think it really is
it's sort of clickbait
headline, isn't it really? Because
everyone, I always like clicking on the
time travel people
who claim or have some sort
of very, very loose evidence
and it's never really
believable, but it's always worth
clicking on just to have
a laugh really, you know, and this one
is definitely, I feel
personally sort of bottom of the barrel
really.
Didn't read it before I
chatted to you guys about it, obviously.
I really like
and I think that's the way to go.
Also, I think we almost
brushed over there the fact that you've introduced
a new little thing into the cryptid factor
of where you just leave a vacant
pause for people to put their own descriptive
word into. I actually
really love that. I think you just
need to put like a little asterisk
and what number it is and then people
can write to us and what word they filled
in to that space. So they
throughout the podcast you go,
at asterisk number one,
I used the word hippopotamus.
Good. Well, that one I
just did earlier then that is asterisk
number one. Okay, so
when the fans come through, I want to
see what they've put in there
in that place. There may be
more depending on how my brain works
this show.
More importantly,
doesn't work.
The brain doesn't work.
Insects.
Hey buttons, who was
the 1800
time traveler? Yeah, it's actually
a branch. It's called the
the Mobili Jordan incident
or the ghost of
Petit Trinon or
Versailles. It refers to claims
of time travel and hauntings
made by Charlotte
and Mobili
and Eleanor Jordan and
they published a book entitled
An Adventure and they basically
their book describes a visit
they made to Petit
Trinon and
where they claim they saw ghosts
including Marie Antoinette and
others and their
story caused a sensation
and was
subject to much ridicule just like
just like Reese's
story. It's not my story.
No, no, no,
no, no. Glad Bibles.
It sounds like a ghost story that you've just told us
as opposed to a time travel. Oh, sorry
it was time travel and hauntings.
So a little bit about it.
Well, every ghost
story really
is a time travel story. I think that's
exactly
exactly.
There is but there is so many
fascinating like
Wikipedia is full
of them. There's like and there's all those
classic photos, you know, that people
bring up of somebody who looks
totally out of place
in a scene and there's
this one, the 1941 bridge
opening. There's a photograph
of a guy and
authenticity has been proven.
It's not like it's been photoshopped or anything like that.
And amongst a whole bunch of people
wearing hats
very much like mine of the
day, there's a dude standing there
with sunglasses on, a t-shirt
and a hoodie. Yeah, but I would argue
that whoever this guy
was, was the Reese Darby
of his day because if Reese goes out
right now, dressed as he is
and someone takes his snap.
Yeah, it's so
true. He had just
finished a podcast
The Christmas Special and he had dressed up
as somebody like of the
future and there he is.
This is the guy, they call him
the time traveling hipster. Yeah, I've seen this photo.
I love this. Yeah, he's
wearing sunglasses on that
quite cool little sort of
petite sunglasses with the little
sun shields on the sides
of them that sort of make them
sort of wrap around. Nobody
else is wearing sunglasses. Everybody
else is wearing top hats
and what have you. He isn't
and he's wearing what is clearly
a t-shirt with like a
feels, looks like a screen printed
letter M. Yeah, it looks like
he's, it looks like he's wearing
a Superman outfit underneath there.
That looks like a super and
it looks like he's just got the logo wrong.
Like he's, he's putting man instead of
super. The S, he's put the M
but it does look like it. It looks like
he's about to rip it off in a
in a Superman sense. But
why a bridge opening? Why did a time
traveler go back like this, like you've
said in the past Dan, that there's
theories that the Titanic sunk
because so many time travelers all turned
up to see the sinking which caused the sinking
which creates this eternal loop
of what did have sunk if time travelers
didn't go. And then
he's turned up to go and
he's turned up to a bridge opening.
British Columbia. We need to look at what was
happening that day. Is that bridge
something significant may have happened
with that bridge you see?
Or maybe it's about to, maybe it is
yet to. Or maybe he needed
to cross the bridge to get to the significant
event but he stupidly didn't look
up that it was the day they opened the bridge
and it was going to be packed with people. So he's caught
up in traffic on the way.
Alright let's do another story. Yeah
Dan, your turn.
Okay yeah so my story got this from Vice
this week. A group of conspiracy
theorists got sick at a conspiracy
theory conference and I convinced there's
a conspiracy theory that made
the mill. So
this is, it was a conference that was held in
Dallas. It's called the Reawaken America
tour. Very big.
You know Eric Trump came and did a talk
there, Roger Stone. These sort of
big names on the right.
And basically
a bunch of people there
suddenly it was about a dozen people started
getting a cough
you know, getting a bit ill
all the symptoms of COVID-19
but they're convinced
that it's not COVID-19. So
what they said is that they believed
that they were poisoned with anthrax
and they think
obviously someone did that on purpose.
Wanted to stop them from getting their messages
apart. So there was a
guy who was called Joe
Altman and
he has a conservative daily podcast
and in a recording
he's coughing, he's sneezing on camera
and he said there's a
99% chance it's anthrax
99%
99% chance it's anthrax
even though it's very high
that's quite high
and even according to the article
no one had tested positive for anthrax
poisoning and none
of the other 3,500 people
claimed to have any side effects
or any effects of all of anthrax
he still thinks that that's what it was
but he says that
he didn't get as sick as he could have got
because he happened to already be taking
an antibiotic
which he was taking as a result of impaling
his leg on an arrow
in an incident in his brother's garage
a few weeks previous
I want to know
that's the story
screw the anthrax
how did he injure himself with an arrow
in his brother's garage
wow
and why was he taking antibiotics
what was on the arrow that gave him an infection
yeah well it must have been rusty or something
yeah it must have been a
gangrene situation
so he claims that he had anthrax
off as a result of this
there was another person who had more severe
symptoms he was called
Jovan Pulitzer
and Pulitzer is an inventor
he invented a barcode scanner
which has been listed on a big list
as one of the 50 worst inventions
ever
so he was
another guy involved in the situation
here do you know what
that's actually a conspiracy that's why he was at
the conspiracy theory conference
his invention is actually supposed to be
one of the 50 best
inventions of all time his barcode scanner
well barcode scanner sounds fantastic
doesn't it yeah well we use barcode
scanners every day in retail so how
does that exactly does his one
not work or maybe it was already invented
and then he turned up with his one
maybe that's why yeah that's a bad invention
we've got that we've already
got that I'm afraid it's great but we have
we have got it so we're gonna have to put that on the
bad list no but they stole it from
him there's a that's another conspiracy
to see all these layers of conspiracies
they stole his idea of a bar scanner
and then released it and then he came out
said no it's my barcode scanner and they're
like no it's not
conspiracy see it's easy
to be a conspiracy theorist you just
disagree with everybody yeah it's easy
it's fun it's very popular
how do you
the thing is all I know of anthrax
is that it kills
like it's how do you have
a little bit of anthrax poisoning I
thought it just kills you I thought you had just
sniff it and then you like nerve damage and
like how do they all
have a little bit of anthrax poisoning
yeah exactly
I think that's where the
the idea falls
a bit flat
that's where Dan's news article
falls down we've had two failures
here so now let's set it up
for buttons as big
piece of news that can't
go wrong we've done you a great
favor here by having a couple of shit ones
oh thank you
thank you guys it's so good that we made up
on the spot what can I give you one last
detail about Pulitzer the barcode man
that I've just read
Pulitzer claims we've written 300
books on history his books
include how to cut off your arm
and eat your dog
plus other recipes to survive
what
oh my god
I've
are you kidding me can I order this
I'm writing this in right now
we've got to get it to Pulitzer
this is his one line biography
on wikipedia Pulitzer says
he began in marketing age nine selling
rabbit meat to restaurants
he is divorced
that's it
that's in the personal life
section of his wikipedia
do you know what
I reckon we should start
an award ceremony called the other
Pulitzer prize
you know if you win the Pulitzer prize
it's either you've done something great
that there's a big conspiracy
around it or you've written a book with
the weirdest title ever
and you can win this each year
let's see the encrypted factor
the other Pulitzer prize
yes one of the 50 worst prizes
you could ever win
we've already got a Pulitzer prize
it's on good reads it's got
three out of five there's only two
votes for it but it's a three out of
five rating
it's amazing
okay I'm in I'm all in for the Pulitzer prize
okay can I just read the little
the thing for it the cover
the colour
that's so funny because
the title again is how to cut off your arm
and eat your dog plus
other recipes for survival
the artwork on the cover
is a picture of a gorgeous looking
dog a doberman or something
and in its mouth
is a bloodied cut off hand
the dog is eating the hand so
they've kind of screwed up there because how to
eat your dog it's actually how the
dog eats you is effectively
what they're showing with the picture
well no when it came down to the
the pitch for the drawing
the guy would have said look
okay so you want the dog in there
yep because you've got to eat the dog and also
you want your arm cut off how about
just to save room on the space
we put the arm inside the dog's mouth
I mean it's not going to work out for what I'm talking about
yeah but artistically it's going to look
good and it's going to fit in the space
that's all I'm offering you but that's not
it doesn't work out with the book but the
idea looks listen mate I'm going to be honest
with you I've already drawn it
and it's coming to you
shortly and you know you're
out of time here so
I think that's what's happened
so on Goodreads it says
could you cut off your own arm
so you could live
would you eat your own beloved dog
if your survival or the survival
of your family depended on it
the human condition is to learn
only in tough times
what?
but who wants to learn when the chips are down
and their very life depends
on their decisions so they're basically
saying learn now before
the tough times kick in I don't know
that I want to learn this stuff until the tough
times kick in I just I want to learn
whether I can do that at the point I have to
do it that's the only time you'll have to do it
you don't need to learn to do it now
and then and you know when the tough times
do kick in you know there's a
disaster or something and you suddenly you've gone
oh I've got to eat the dog and I wish
I'd prepared for that I wish I'd read
a book that told me that I'm going to have to eat the dog
I know I've got to eat the bloody dog okay
it's a mental shift that you have to
make when there's nothing else you
can do that's why he's only got three stars
exactly as soon as he's got
two ratings I can't believe two people
have bought it and read it he's better
off in that book teaching people how to do
Morse code at least that's something that you can
prepare yourself for in a disaster
if you know Morse code it's not something
you can suddenly switch on
when the disaster happens unlike
eating a dog or
soaring your arm off like that movie
shit I soared my arm off
look at this this is Amazon page
amazon.co.uk
here are his books that you can get
so the patent the patented
works of J. Hunt and Pulitzer
and it's patent number
8,712,835
so specifically that
patent number which is
methods and apparatus
for linking a web browser link to a
promotional offer
that's the book
it's 134 pages long
how much is it
it's £6.81
I'm buying it right now
I'm buying it right now
that's amazing
you're the first sale he's ever had
this is the same guy that's putting out these
articles on
the red bible knowing that I'm going to click on them
he's like how do we get down
to click on something I know
wow
he sold in the mid-2000s
bottled rain water under the brand
pure rain pure rain oh that's great
yeah
he claims to have filed over 100 patents
to be the most prolific inventor
since Thomas Edison
I'm in love with this man
I guarantee you he's doing NFTs
on the metaverse oh shit
I'm bored with that now
tell us about these dishes
well I really hope I can
save the weekly world
news this week
I'm feeling a little bit anxious
about this this is from
newscientists.com
the title once again
living robots made from frog cells
can replicate themselves
in a dish
swarms of tiny living robots
can self-replicate in a dish
by pushing loose cells together
the xenobots
made from frog cells
are the first multi-cellular
organisms found to reproduce
in this way
so these xenobots that were first created
only as recently as last year
and so they're only just figuring out
how to use these little
xenobot things which are obviously
microscopic
how are they different to nanobots
I want to know
these ones are cooler
because they've got an X in their name
but it sounds like it's a Z
are they even smaller
or are they just like
more capable
these are really tricky questions
sorry man
I didn't mean to interrupt
but just a fan here was a couple of questions
so xenobots are named after
African clawed frogs
which are xenopus labvis
some Latin
they're synthetic life forms
that are designed by computers
to perform some desired function
and built by combining
together different biological tissues
so it sounds like they have an organic nature to them
this is why
they were able to replicate
living things
this is a really interesting final sentence here
whether xenobots are robots, organisms
or something else entirely
remains a subject of debate
amongst scientists
how interesting is that?
I reckon I know what they are
here we go guys
get the trumpets out
I'm going to show you a picture
of what one of these xenobots do
I'll finish
because what they've effectively done
is they've created these little cells
they come together
and they start
creating other
cells so they start
replicating themselves which is of course
the theme for so many
science fiction movies where they create these
tiny little things and they put them inside
people and then they become a fish
human or whatever the movie might be
this is what they're working towards
and so what's happening is that
these little cells
actually go around
and they push all of these
all of the
insert word of your choice here
that's asterisk 2
oh man
you can actually probably do insert
paragraph
of your choice
I don't think I'm winning
this news article
I think it's the opposite I think it's edit out
paragraph of your choice
here
oh my god
well okay
so what they've done
is that they've made these things
basically push around the organisms
to a point where they start making more
of them and start replicating
and so they've started
messing around with
what they're calling the parent
cells and helping them
to generate the child
cell which doesn't sound like that's how
sounds actually kind of
terrifying there's not much love involved
but there's certainly a lot of rubbing
by the looks of it a lot of pushing
a lot of pushing they actually
they actually say here though
that this the
amazing thing is is that
it's the first time
multi cellular organisms
have been found to self-replicate
in a way that doesn't involve
growth on the organism's
own body
so how do they
what are they doing wow this is the thing
the quote from the scientist
who's been running this says
this work shows there was
a previously unknown way
that life could self-replicate
that they previously didn't know about
that's huge
so much there's
a wife just running
through in the background
out of the shower
wow
there's
I'm doing a podcast in our bedroom
and she's running so you don't
end up self-replicating with her
quick we're going to push
themselves into a corner
this is God the
night's going to get a real treat this
week I tell you what it's worth
the subscription
if you haven't already things are
really heating up here in the video
world of the cryptid night
you certainly wouldn't
want to pay to get the news
articles this week because even my
most exciting news article of all year
I can't even figure it out
myself as soon as you said the
headline I thought none of us are going
to be able to work out the science of
this actually
oh god it's too
I shouldn't go to new scientists to get my
news I knew
I saw the link and I knew I shouldn't
have clicked on it you need like a child lock
thing on it like
kids can't click on certain sites
I gotta show the reason why
it caught my attention so if you see
here the screen there's a big red blob
yep with a little cut in it it's like
Pac-Man exactly it's Pac-Man
eating a little green thing
yeah eating a ghost
well he's a little
dot anyway oh yeah the dots
course yeah yeah I just
found that basically science
looks like a Pac-Man game
it was a terrible news
article I'm so sorry so that
that was your big finale just showing us that
Pac-Man picture
what I was just
I was so excited
I mean it is amazing news and most people out there
know about this news it was it was quite
a big deal a few weeks back you know
and it is freaky and it
takes us further into the
field of the future and you know
the haunting prospect of
what we can expect
and most people
worry that yeah robots are gonna
start making other robots basically
but it's just not that simple
so not only was this your big story
of the year after having
tried really hard to tell us about it
Reese is now saying what everyone's
heard about this weeks ago
and guess what I had a follow-up
news story to link
into it because talking about
the you know the threat of
AI and all that and these robots that are
self-replicating themselves yeah my
follow-up little supplementary news
story is human brain
cells in a dish
learn to play Pong faster
than an AI
oh wow
so we got Pac-Man and Pong
I was trying to get to that news story
through another news story and I should
have just gone straight to this news story
I think if you try and explain this one
we're gonna come up against the same problem again
do you get this on a science website again
you know you're not allowed on that
well that's interesting that you're
basically saying that the human cells
can
are better than the
the AI cells that playing Pong
so we're still number one
as long as we're in a dish
the dish is the
key part here because it says
there are many teams around the world
have been studying networks of neurons
and dishes often growing them
into brain-like
organoids but this is the first time
that many brains have been found
to perform goal-directed tasks
so there you go
unfortunately I can't
read any more of the news article
without paying to get
unlimited web access
you run out of your
run out of story so that's
unfortunately that's all I've got for you
on that article
I wouldn't have understood
what it was being talked about anyway
hey listen I've paid the extra
can I speak to the manager please
I can't understand the story but
I've actually paid the yeah
there was a bit at the bottom there asking me to pay
which I did but I can't
I want my money back because the story
for me is
well you can insert a word here
but I certainly can't
mmm asterisk 3
yeah the manager's away
or what do you want to do because I'm not
I'm not happy with the story I don't understand it
I'm not now I'm subscribed to the damn thing
I'm gonna click on it again next week
and have the same bullshit thrown at me
okay well look
we're rocketing towards the end
of the show now but let's do some cryptid
news and finish off the year
insert segment
to sting
okay
are people doing that themselves or do I actually do that
is that a new thing
is that a new thing
asterisk number 4
sting insert your own sting there
okay
no
okay
attention all personnel
it's time for this week's cryptid
help me
so who wants to read the headline of the month
well I've got a good one here
yeah
um
well actually I might have to
edit the headline to make it better
hahaha
you can't do that
giant jellyfish found with
mouth arms
mouth arms
hang on is that the real one
or is that you edited it
yes
that's not fair
I'm gonna redo my news article
if I can redo it
my writing is so good it could actually be
the actual
headline yeah it's true it's very true
mouth arms
that's amazing
yeah okay
observed deep in the ocean
this is from I got this from
Nerdist
basically research
is from the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute
or MBARI
that's the audio signature
MBARI
MBARI
observed an ultra rare
giant phantom jellyfish
the giant phantom jelly which is on display
in this video that I'm gonna
show you in a second here
is simply stunning
now I've added that word simply
it actually says quite
even though it couldn't actually
stun you
as it's 30 foot long mouth
arms are just there to
trap prey rather than sting them
it's got 30 foot
long mouth arms
okay you guys ready to see this
yeah
yeah
30 foot mouth arms
yeah
he just replied to a text right now
I'm just looking at it myself
I'm just gonna play
I'm just gonna play it from this thing
oh my goodness
wow
that is beautiful
yeah that's stunning look at the material
that looks like the fabric on my
sofa it's like a really nice
fabric
what is it glowing on the inside
can you see is it it's like a red glow
it's amazing so it looks yeah it looks
like the the main body looks
like buttons his hat to an extent it's
a sort of
kind of dust
it's gorgeous it's gorgeous
and then and then you've got
these wow look at those arms
the mouth arms just look like
ribbons out there like the olympic thing
yeah like the olympic ones
yeah that looked amazing
so if you want to check this out
you can check it out on Nerdist or this on the
YouTube channel
the MBRI
Mabari
I've
posted it on the on the YouTube channel
the research
institute notes
researchers were exploring the ocean
off the coast of Monterey Bay
California
a remote operated submarine
when they eyed the creature
the submarine came across the
aquatic alien at about
3200 feet below sea level
that's very very deep wow
how do they get mouth arms
they're just clickbait
yeah that's because they're not eating with
the arms are they they're just grabbing it
and putting it in their mouth well unless they do
unless they eat through the top of their mouth
and it travels down like a slide
you know travels through
they could be hollow arms
so like really long necks
straws
big straws
you could be straw hands
is that a mouth arms
let's call them straw hands
I mean I'm no scientist
listen the giant phantom jelly uses its
mouth arms to entrap
prey and subsequently reel
them up to its mouth
well that's not mouth arms
they are so
are you creating the mouth arms
that's what our arms do
our arms aren't attached to our mouth
they're attached to their mouth
well here's the clincher
these mouth arms which come out of the mouth
grab the prey and then they
roll the prey right up to the mouth
now they suspect
that the prey would probably die of fear
before it even got to the mouth because of the
journey of when it's heading towards
looking at that thing
that it's heading towards
the big clincher is that
in more than ways than one
is that the mouth is also its anus
oh my god
why aren't they calling them ass hands then
at least they've got it all right
imagine that you're using your arms
to bring the food and get something
it goes actually I've got some
I've got a little perturbed
I need taking out as well do you mind taking this out
it's like
things go in and out of the same thing
yeah what a design
they're very rare
explorers have spotted these jellies
before only 110 times
in the last 100 years
wow
their sparse record of observation is
especially strange considering the jellies near
worldwide distribution
they got worldwide distribution
wow that's good
they got a worldwide distribution deal
so did your latest DVD
didn't it Rhys
you and ass hands have got something in common
well I do talk a lot of shit
but I don't think
other than that there's no relation
you talk a lot of shit and then your hands
kind of like deliver it out
to the world
look here's another
final clincher on the article
all these clinches
so
despite the worldwide distribution
of these strange creatures
it really makes us wonder
where are these things hiding all the time
and are we sure
they aren't just preparing for an invasion
what
what lead them to think
that they're going to invade us
it does I have to say
I'd say it does look very alien.
It does.
Actually, it does look slightly War of the Worlds,
doesn't it?
It's got the, yeah.
That is cool.
It is your hat, Buttons, that is your hat.
I like War of the Worlds too, don't I?
Look, let's put those side by side.
Look, go closer so we can just see your head.
Oh, like our hands too.
Look.
Ah.
There you go.
He just flushed the toilet.
There you go.
Oh, is that a muffin, is it?
Oh.
Well, I think we've just lost a few more Patreons.
Wow.
What a new story.
That's, that really, that brought it back to life.
Thank you.
We see that it was great.
That was really good.
What else have we got?
Well, I'm just quite surprised.
I thought the very first article in our crypto buzzer
would have been the new Bigfoot footage
has experts admitting that it could be real.
Yeah, of course.
I've got that here too.
I was hoping one of you would bring that up.
Oh, well, I'm a few wee.
That's lucky I did.
So this is the classic footage that we all know,
the Gimlin footage.
And they've done some new analysis on it, I believe.
Is the story?
No.
No, that's a separate article.
Well, you've got another story.
That's great that you've got that as well.
But no, there's new brand new footage of a Bigfoot
and experts have looked at it.
That's really good.
Yeah.
And they sort of saying, well, actually,
hang on, this one, we're struggling with this one
to prove it to be a fake.
It's a clip of a large ape-like creature
filmed through the treeline in Georgia.
And the footage is, once again, it's shaky
and a little bit out of focus.
I call crypto footage should be.
But it has a lot of people kind of going,
well, this one could be the real one.
One person wrote, best footage I've seen.
In a while, I understand the shakiness.
I would have been pooing in my pants.
Wow, that thing was huge.
That wasn't one of the experts, I don't think.
That thinks it could be real.
In fact, it doesn't say here who the experts were
that think it's real.
So I think maybe that was just clickbait as well.
But let me just share the video with you
so that you can see it for the first time, Dan.
Yeah, please do.
So what we're seeing here is obviously shaky footage
looking through, but there is a dark figure.
It stands up.
It's sort of like got the classic sort of no shoulders,
huge form.
Played again.
Did the creature hit off there?
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, it looked like it.
So it's like it's down on a sort of a ridge line,
and it's like it walks up or stands up.
It's so huge.
Yeah, and turns around.
It literally turns around and then darts off.
Oh, yeah.
What I really love about this one
is that it really does look like a gorilla,
a lowland gorilla, speaking from experience
of seeing the mountain gorillas in Rwanda.
With that shape when it's crouched down like that
and when it slowly gets up, the rounded shoulders
and how it goes into the head where there's no neck.
It's just the head and then sort of, you know,
goes into the shoulders and that kind of shape.
And just the sheer bulk of the size of that creature
just really resonates with me.
So I think it's really believable.
Well, check that out if you guys,
if you fans and listeners want to get that footage,
we'll put it up on the site as well.
Facebook or the Metaverse.
It will be a drawn NFT.
That's the only difference, but a bit on it.
That probably would be worth a lot of money.
Imagine the Patterson-Gimlin NFT.
Yeah.
I'd buy that, I'd buy that one.
Well, speaking of the Patterson-Gimlin footage,
that is another one that came up recently
as Dan was chatting about briefly there before.
It's been put on another show on the History Channel
called The Proof Is Out There.
And it's season two and it's the Sasquatch episode.
I checked it out the other day.
It's only just come out in the last few weeks
and they reanalyze the footage.
And they've done it with very, very modern technology
and overlapped it like hundreds of times
with each moment to get a much crisper definition
on the footage.
And then they've put it brought in experts
and it's now even more likely that it's not a hoax.
Wow.
So it's really strengthened the case for it being real,
which it's still yet to be disproved that it isn't real.
So that's worth looking at as well.
Yeah, where do we find that?
Can you show us that now?
No.
It's...
I already just told you at the start.
It's on a show on the History Channel
called The Proof Is Out There.
Season two is the Sasquatch Revealed episode.
I like the new buttons doesn't listen segment.
It's basically happening each week now.
Insert listening here.
Asterix 525.
I was just, I didn't,
I clearly didn't hear the bit where that was.
I knew, I just didn't know that what...
I just didn't know it wasn't available on YouTube already.
Like people normally rip that stuff off and put it straight up.
It may well be.
It may well be.
Absolutely.
And you know, it's just the same footage.
Is it?
Well, true.
It just looks a bit clearer.
Oh, thank you, thank you.
You look at it and you go,
oh, I've already seen this.
Yeah, that's not the...
This is from the 60s.
No, but there's not the point of re-evaluated it
using digital technology to prove yet again
that it's still real.
Yeah, but I've already seen it.
Yeah, I know, but look, forget it.
You'll copy of it?
No.
Tell us about the time you met Gimlin.
Bob Gimlin.
Yeah, it was a few years ago.
I went to AlienCon and he was there.
And I was just obviously there to meet some of the ufologists
and things and it was in a big...
It was like a conference, obviously.
And in one of the large rooms, you walk in around,
people everywhere, way before the pandemic,
signing things, having a chat about things.
And in the corner, there was Bob Gimlin.
And he had his own store.
Wrong con.
Can somebody point me to the big fun area?
I can point you to the alien abduction, but no.
Well, no, these things are linked.
Crypto, zoology and aliens and everything.
So there he is.
And I got to meet him and get a photo with him.
And then he...
And I bought the famous print of the moment where Paddy,
as they call the famous Sat Squatch,
it was a female one, obviously, and it turned around
and it's got that amazing movement.
And so that frame of that film was blown up
and he sold it and signed it for me.
And so, yeah, that was a cool moment
because he's not going to be around forever.
And I think he's in his 80s now.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, easily, yeah.
That's awesome.
And what was he like?
Is he like...
Yeah, cowboy.
Big hat on.
He had his belt buckle, his jeans.
Hey, I'm going to meet you.
You know, that kind of southern charm.
I don't know.
I just don't know that the word to describe somebody
who's taken incredible footage that nobody believes
or at least people find hard to believe,
the best word to describe him is a cowboy.
It's not like, yeah, he's like a lawyer.
He's like...
He's like, total cowboy.
Total freaking cowboy.
Honestly, he was trying to sell me a packet
of bootleg cigarettes.
He was like, honestly, no, but no, no.
He saw me coming.
He saw me coming.
You know, a mile away.
And anyway, it was a big moment for me.
Very cool.
Love to meet you guys.
You guys are just jealous.
You're just real.
I'm totally jealous.
Yes, we are.
Have you got any encrypted news, Dan?
Well, nothing.
I mean, there was a sighting in...
Where was it?
Central Illinois.
That happened the other day.
But to be honest, it's just a very quick sighting
with a very quick description.
It's nowhere near as interesting
as the last two stories that have just come up,
which I think are just awesome.
It was a guy, he said basically he was...
So the creature, he spotted outside the small town
of Chandlerville, which is northwest of Springfield.
And he said it was fast, athletic, massive.
It covered two lanes of road in two quick strides.
It had incredibly long limbs.
It was covered in shiny black hair.
And it was almost gone before he could even register it.
So he sort of, he obviously got a glimpse
of something running across the road.
And he thought to myself, he said,
I said to myself out loud,
expletive, bigfoot.
And the article, which they've put in the headline
as well, have put in brackets the word expletive,
which is quite unusual,
because you would usually have a couple of asterisks
inside your word, usually, wouldn't you?
In this case, it's just expletive, wow.
Well, the other thing that a lot of people are doing
these days is just leaving it blank
and putting an asterisk and a little number next to it.
So maybe the newspapers could pick up on that.
And people fill it in themselves.
They get it given a Sharpie each time they buy a newspaper.
And they get to fill in the expletive, you know,
that's the new way kids are doing it.
Insert expletive here.
What's happened to Dan?
Dan, are you frozen?
He has frozen, hasn't he?
Yeah.
Dan, actually speaking of frozen,
I think we should end on this.
This came through from the sun, alien radio,
mysterious sounds heard underneath frozen lake,
sparks, bizarre, alien-based conspiracy theory.
Wow.
Yeah, this is the 6th of December.
Science may have a more mundane explanation for it,
but I'm going to skip past that
and let's see what else it says.
We don't want mundane, we don't do mundane.
Recordings taken from Steamboat Springs in Colorado
were recorded by an employee of the Colorado Parks
and Wildlife Service on December 4th.
And then the staff member posted them on Twitter,
which has subsequently been shared to UFO sightings daily,
where they have been described as strange Star Wars sounds.
Analyzing the audio, Truthseeker Scott C. Warring said,
white sphere UFOs have been recorded
and eyewitnesses by thousands of residents of Colorado
over the last few years.
The signals point to there being an alien base
deep below the lake,
which amplifies the sound below due to it being frozen.
It acts as an amplifier.
What?
That is incredible.
Isn't that the most incredible thing
you've ever heard, Buttons?
It is incredible.
Wow.
And we're going to end on that this week, folks.
Wait.
Oh, hi, Dan.
Hi, Dan.
You missed something really incredible.
Wow.
Wow.
Oh, what?
I guess when you listen to the podcast,
you'll be able to check it out, man.
I thought we were done.
That's why I went.
We already said bye at the beginning of the show.
That's a very good point.
We did, we went into the final thing first.
I just didn't know how we would end the show,
so I thought if I just cut it out, we'll just say bye.
Oh, yeah, brilliant.
Brilliant.
Now, you were right, and we can still do that.
I just wanted to end on a bit of a high,
as opposed to a mundane, big foot crossing the road story
with no visuals.
An everyday classic old speed sighting.
Speed sighting, yeah.
Well, this story sounds great.
Yeah, they think it's an alien base.
Alien bases are never small.
Most are three to six kilometers deep,
and cover an area of about five kilometers,
and even have their own weather system with chances of rain.
This is 100% proof of an alien base
below this lake in Colorado.
100%.
I don't know where these quotes are coming from.
What?
I love it when they say that's how they usually are.
No, all the ones that we have documented
have been six kilometers deep, about five kilometers big.
No, you can't say usually they are.
It's like you've got no proof.
It's all speculation, but they go on to say,
a loud enough speaker placed in a dugout,
one meter deep ice hole at the center of the lake
would be sufficient to send them back a sonic signal.
What do you send them back?
What are you going to send them?
A sonic signal.
That's exactly what the next bit is.
It says, but what would you say?
What do they sound like?
Have they got recordings of the sound?
Surely if they've heard it, they've got recordings of it.
Exactly.
We need to find this recording and we'll go out on this.
OK, so let me just find it.
I'll have to Google it.
OK, I found it.
Oh, here we go.
It says here, make it to the five second mark
to hear incredible sounds of the ice in this Colorado lake.
How boring is the first four seconds?
Oh, my goodness.
If there's a treat for you, if you
endure the first five seconds, there's a treat for you
because it's actually what you were playing the video for.
But try and get through those first five seconds.
In this day and age, five seconds is like five years.
People have such a low attention span.
You've got to say, hey, look, I'm going to play you something.
But honestly, you've got to at least get to five seconds
before you give up.
You promise me?
No, I don't, mate.
You know, I've got a few things on today.
I've got to do an NFT in a minute.
Now, here we go.
We've already said goodbye, so this is how we're going to finish.
Here it goes.
All right, OK.
OK.
They're not wrong.
That first five seconds is Duh-oh.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
I'll see you next year.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Merry Christmas.
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do