This Paranormal Life - #260 The Mythical Labyrinth of the Minotaur

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

This week, we investigate an ancient Greek legend that tells the story of a half-man-half-bull, CURSED to wander a giant hidden maze, killing all those who enter. This mythical creature is known as the Minotaur and was a popular part of Greek mythology... but could there be some truth behind the story? What if the rumours of this creature were based on a real cryptid?Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeSupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to bonus episodes!Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We all know about crop circles, but why are there no crop squares? If Bigfoot really does exist, is he registered to vote? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal tale and come to a conclusion as to whether or not it is truly paranormal. I am your host for this week, Rory Powers, but I am also joined by the one and only Kit Greer-Molvena. Howdy, glad to be here. Kit, are you excited about today's episode?

Of course, I'm goddamn excited to investigate another paranormal tale. Rory, we've said it before on other podcasts, it's been a litany of no's in recent times. It has. So we've really got to change it, man. I'm excited. Once again, we are back in the Warner Studios, which as people who have spent years and years of their life

podcasting in dungeons, bedrooms.ards the bbc once but that was because we broke in that wasn't for formal invitation all of those you mentioned are pretty much breaking in everything other than my bedroom was breaking in yeah graveyard broken and i know what you're thinking why would you ever not be allowed in a graveyard the answer is when there's an ongoing funeral and you try and set up a podcast. They're not that keen for you to talk about ghosts and goblins. So unbelievably, our friends at Warner Music Group have allowed us to come in and use their podcast studio.

After breaking in so many times, they finally said, just use it. You've injured so many of our security guards. It's cheaper for us to just let you do it, yeah. We can't send anyone home anymore with hot coffee thrown in their eyes. Just use the studio. And once again,

because we were so used to hearing no all the time, we threw the coffee at them anyway, blinding them, but then things were rectified and we're in the studio. It's great. So if we're sounding a little bit more crisp than usual, you know why.

And if we're sounding worse, don't bring it up. Or you're going to get coffee in your eyes. I don't even drink coffee. I just keep a cup on me at all times just in case. Literally packing heat. That's enough messing around at the start of the podcast. Let's dive into today's story. We begin in Crete, the largest of the Greek islands. But this isn't going to be some tropical holiday. We're journeying back to the year 2000 BC. Whoa! A real throwback episode this week.

Hell yeah, to the time of ancient Greece. Today's case may originate in legend and myth, but there could be some truth to these stories of old. But first, let's start with the legend. Our story begins 4,000 years ago when Crete was ruled by a king named Minos. It hadn't been an easy ride to the throne and he'd fought bitterly with his siblings over the right to rule. We both grew up with brothers and sisters, so we know all about sibling rivalry. Things can get pretty heated. I'm gonna guess that Minos used one thing to get to the top. Being mean.

And he had to fend off his siblings. Kindos and caringos. Oh, right. I was trying to get what you're doing here. I think, to be fair, I think he was known as quite a nice leader. Powerful leader. Sure. A little short-tempered sometimes.

Minos was sure that it was his destiny to become king so as you did at the time he prayed to poseidon the god of the sea yeah jesus hadn't been invented yet there was different gods there was only in aquaman and the green goblin it's pretty much the cast of the marvel universe yeah i guess like hey if they're not listening to you on land maybe get the sea people involved to back you up yeah i wonder what it was like to uh grow up and live in a world with multiple gods i mean i imagine picking a god back in the day was a bit like how you pick like what football team you support it's like maybe a little bit of like where you're from and maybe who your parents supported uh but

otherwise just who you like the vibe of that's a good point yeah that even if you were one religion you had like a lot of different gods that you would want to talk to and ask for things like hey i'm going on a boat ride so yo poseidon can you just make sure things are chill for me uh and he's like absolutely not You didn't support us last season whatsoever. Fair weather fan. Unbelievable. Glory hunter. Whereas nowadays, you've got to change religion if you want to worship different gods,

which I think is wrong. I think there should be some sort of Marvel Avengers-style team-up, you know? Because they haven't really... When it comes to sacred texts they're not really inventing any new ones these days they're all in the past so i think they need to do like a the bible civil war where it's like jesus buddha you know all the all the big players coming together i think there was multiple wars between the religions for a long time

they just called it actual war i'm talking about the more working together team up yes exactly exactly that's what we need that's why we're starting a new religion right here in the commune we'll be taking the worst aspects of every world religion and putting them in one place we're taking every religion's hell and putting that in one book anyway back to the story minos was sure that it was his destiny to become king so as i said he prayed to poseidon the god of the sea poseidon you magnificent seaman my stupid family don't believe that i am the rightful heir to the throne i ask of, show them that they are idiots. According to the legends, probably written by Minos, Poseidon obliged, and he was gifted a powerful snow-white bull.

Oh, I was going to ask what was the message here. You know, if you're asking Poseidon for something, are you waiting for him to rise out of the sea and say i got you bro or is it like a crab crawls out of the ocean and pinches your foot and you're like it's truly a sign right yeah because when you look at um uh for example uh the lady of the lake gifts a sword to king arthur right to prove that he's the rightful heir so if you're praying to poseidon and you're like hey dude give me a trident or a at least a sea crown made of barnacles and seaweed and then you know the the clouds part and the oh the tide goes out and you're like here we go here we go i'm gonna get laser vision or at least like a crab army. And then a bull made of sea foam comes out of the ocean. And you're like, all right. I can't show them that.

I mean, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with this, but thank you, I guess. Sure. Do I feed it? Does he eat? Yeah, it's a little confusing, but I guess you've been given a magical gift by a god. That's a pretty good indication that you you've been given a magical gift by a god that's a pretty

good indication that you're more special than your siblings yeah i think this speaks to pretty much how all kind of royalty were selected over the years supposedly kings and queens were supposed to be of like divine lineage that kings and queens were literally either descended or handpicked by the gods that was how you got to be king or queen. Hilariously, it was often the king or the queen that declared they were chosen by the gods. And that's why it really became gospel. Similar to Minos, who I think is the author of this story. But anyway, the magnificent gift from the heavens

was enough to prove to his siblings that he should be the king. The initial idea was that he was supposed to slaughter the beast siblings that he should be the king. The initial idea was that he was supposed to slaughter the beast as a sacrifice to the gods. But the animal was so damn beautiful that Minos decided, I'm actually going to hold on to it. And he slaughtered a normal bull instead. That sounds very sensible. I mean, I don't think you're going to get away with that. If they gave you the bull to kill to appease the gods, you become king, win everyone over,

and it's time to be like, Poseidon's like, all right, have you got that bull, by the way? And you're like, he's right here. Okay, well, the bull I gave you was 30 feet tall and glowing like the morning sun, and he had a halo. Really? No, he's just dusty. Here, I'll just dust him off.

He doesn't even really... Yeah, look, good as new. All right, well, when you touched him, some of the white came off of his body. I see bits of brown underneath, so I don't think that... You should get your eyes checked, Poseidon. Man, this is exactly the way you gave him to me. I swear, I haven't put a mark on this puppy.

Minos, that's a donkey. Whoa, shut up. Shut up. I can see it now. That is a donkey. You've given me back a donkey.

No, look, you're, you're, you're, listen, you're mistaken. You chose me.

All right. I'm king now. He super soakers him. Oh, get him donkey. The donkey flees into the mountains. Damn it. Donkey turns, kicks Minos into the sea.

Understandably, Poseidon was pissed off. This wasn't the deal at all. And this is where the story goes south. Poseidon was like, oh, you love the bull so much? The beautiful bull that I gifted you? Guess who else loves the bull now? Your wife, Zap! Whoa! much the beautiful bull that i gifted you guess who else loves the bull now your wife zap whoa using his godly ocean powers he made minos's wife fall in love with the white bull wow and this is a family podcast so i'm not going to get into the details of what happened sure we can just gloss over it but basically they sucked big

you must know we can't broadcast that i did a joke with our researcher amy that because i i knew about this legend i thought it'd be interesting to research and uh when she sent back some of the research i was like huh i didn't realize bestiality was such a large part of this story. I mean, we could have guessed really, if we thought about it. I didn't know that a woman having sex with a bull was the reason behind the man with the bull's head. Uh, pretty crazy stuff. Pretty crazy twist. Is it so wrong to, to assume that wasn't part of the story? Like I, I, I really not knowing anything about this going in i really thought poseidon was just gonna turn minos into a half man half bull surely that's

one step easier no no no poseidon f***ed minos who then had a three-way with a donkey why is the donkey coming to this minos's wife was doing a pretty good job at keeping their love a secret. Right up until the point where she gave birth to a half-man, half-bull. I would love to be privy to the conversations all up to this point in the Minos household. Where Minos is like, hey babe, Poseidon said the most f***ed up thing today. They're still talking? They still hang out after work? Dude, Poseidon, you're not going to believe what he said. He said that he was going to... This is so...

It sounds insane even saying it out loud. That he was going to make you fall in love with the bull. And she's like, what? What? That's nuts. He's like, right. That would never happen. Never.

Oh my God, never. She goes to the next room, starts texting the bull. He's onto us. He knows about our love. We'll run away tomorrow. This is where Minos is really trapped because then his wife could be like, but you slaughtered the bull, right?

Didn't you say you slaughtered the bull as a tribute? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, of course I did. How could I fall in love with a bull that's been slaughtered? There's a lot going on in this story, understandably. This is some real reality TV show shit. Believe it or not, that is the bizarre origin story behind the mythological beast known as the Minotaur.

Wow. This is really cool. I did not know anything about this legend. Neither did I. Hopefully a lot of our listeners know what a minotaur is because we've been talking about it for a while. Because even though it's quite a bizarre origin story, it's quite a popular creature

in the fantasy genre and pop culture. Unlike a centaur, which is the body of a horse with a man kind of at the top of it, the minotaur is basically just a whole ass dude with a bull's head and a tail. Sometimes they're depicted with bull legs and more parts of a bull body, but in the original artwork and depictions, and by that I mean ancient pots and statues, it's mostly just a buff dude

with an animal head. Anime fans, think of Inosuke from Demon Slayer. I like that you had to translate that for the anime fans as if they don't speak English or understand anything to do with history. That'll make a lot of sense to them, trust me. So what happened to the Minotaur in the legend? Well, people in the olden days are famously not very tolerant of people who are different from them. So when you're half bull,

half Arnold Schwarzenegger, people aren't going to take kindly to you just existing. Right. Again, this is before the modern age of Deadmau5, The Masked Singer. Yeah, sure. And any other famous person on television with not a human head. Back in those days, it was basically just two groups of people with sticks and spears. And one of them hated the other one because they worshipped Bleebo and the other people worshipped Weebo. That was a fight that would go on for generations. Until a historian a thousand years later discovered that someone just misspelled

Bleebo one day. There was no such thing as weebo. Right. And the only thing that would ever stop a conflict like that from continuing is when a dude with a bull's head shows up. And he's different enough from everyone to be a target of hate. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Like, especially back then in that context, they all believed in the gods. And they would know that if you had a bull's head for your head, you had done fucked up somewhere along the line and pissed off the gods.

Yeah, that doesn't just happen by accident. And sure, it didn't help that the Minotaur was incredibly angry all the time and he was ripping people apart limb from limb. He might have even been eating them. I'm not entirely sure. He was a kind of dysfunctional celebrity, like crashing his Lamborghini. Yeah, TMZ is just like, you are not going to believe what the Minotaur was up to this weekend. He was seen in Beverly Hills

on a bender ripping men limb from limb. Of course, when the king found out about the Minotaur, he was furious and also a little worried that the creature would eventually come and kill him. So he decided to imprison the beast in a stone maze from which it could never escape. So the king ordered top-notch architects to erect an enormous convoluted labyrinth in which to imprison the beast. It was so complex that even the architect himself almost got trapped inside.

Whoa. And that is where the Minotaur resides. Or at least resided. If you had a problematic stepson in 2022, you wouldn't need to construct an unsolvable maze. You would just simply need to create a kind of frat house situation with an unlimited supply of drugs and alcohol and the playstation 5 and he ain't ever coming out of there yeah your stepson that's a labyrinth to him he'll be there for eternity

till his resting day this seems like a strange solution uh to fix problem. It's very grand, isn't it? Performative, I would say. It is. Lesser kings than him would have simply shackled him to a wall. Yeah. He's technically alive, but he ain't going anywhere. I'd like to think there was probably a council of people and they were like, oh, we could build a labyrinth,

a thousand acres wide, a thousand thousand acres deep trap the beast inside for for all eternity and the next dude's like uh we could hit him with a rock really hard from the back of the head and um if it doesn't kill him it'll slow him down it's like all right both are good options but which will sound more dope in the history books? Why don't we do option two and tell everyone we did option one? Why don't we hit him over the head with a rock, push him in a hole, and we'll tell everyone we built the labyrinth? Things got weird in the story, and for very complicated reasons, there started to basically be a f***ed up Hunger Games type situation, where every year seven men and seven women were selected at random

and forced into the maze as tributes. Well, hold on. I'm starting to think this maze was less about trapping the Minotaur and more about whatever this is. Right. It's like the king's like, well, I guess now that we have the maze with the beast in it, we should put people in the maze. I should in it, we should put people in the maze. I should round up my enemies and put them in the maze.

It's not a coincidence that you have a beast maze, and it's just worked out that now you can put people in the maze. There's a reason why I said there's complicated reasons behind this. These legends are so, it's like Game of Thrones. Someone's son was killed by someone's uncle in another land so then this was a tribute to war to appease the athens of another island very complicated uh it's worth reading up about if you're interested in the legend but for the sake of what we're investigating today we do not have time to to cover all of the the narratives involved in this story. All you need to know is

peasants were shoved into this labyrinth with no armor or no weapons. I don't even think it was to see if they could beat the Minotaur. I think it was just, you're going to die. You'll probably just die in the maze before you find the f***ing dude. To be honest, to shorten the suffering, you should probably run headfirst at the Minotaur and end your life on your own terms. Just peasants, just casually walking up. Oh, hey, Minotaur, just do it. Just twist my f***ing neck.

I ain't getting out of here. You heard the architect couldn't figure it out either. Yeah, there's no way. Yeah, you're like, after wanting for like three days, you bump into another guy it's like who are you oh i built this yeah i don't know what's going on this is insane have you guys met the minotaur he's in here somewhere the architect's like you know what's up i actually built this shit i was literally putting the last brick in the wall and then realized i should have done it from the outside. I literally, yeah, I literally bricked myself in.

It's so casual on the inside of the maze. The minotaur turns the corner. Yo, you guys know how to get out of here? No, dude, we literally just got here. Damn it. This is crazy. I like to think if you're a peasant that's brought in as tribute, you know, there's like horns going and guards like shoving you into this and then they seal it up with a big rock.

You turn the first corner and it's like six dudes just sitting down playing cards. What's up, man? Yeah, welcome to the labyrinth. You get to own the maze too? Yeah. Nice. It's cool. We're playing go fish.

You want in next round? Sweet. I love that I made a reference to Minos being named because he was so mean and you defended him and said he was known as being a kind king across the nation. I think you should retract that statement. I think I said powerful. I think I said powerful. And sure, a little short-tempered sometimes. No, it's not to meticulously spend years crafting a labyrinth to put your enemies in. That's not like a crime of passion.

He's like a family guy. Loves his community. If you upset him, he'll push you into the lair of the beast. But that doesn't add up because he put his own family in the maze. Well, he's quick to snap, alright? And if you so much as address

him wrong... It's not quick. It's not quick. It's not quick. This is incredibly long pattern of behavior. Sure, your wife sucks and f***s and bangs a bull. You're going to be a little hot headed about it. I love that idea of like, he's so quick to anger. He spent 40 years building a labyrinth in which to execute his enemies. No, he's petty.

He's very petty and mean. By the time the maze was done, he was like, all right, bring in the prisoners. He's like, they died. They all died many years ago. They're children then. All right, your highness, this is f***ed. This crazy ritual was only stopped when Theseus,

the young prince of Athens, volunteered to go into the maze. What? When the giant stone door was sealed behind him, he cautiously entered the labyrinth. Usually a tribute was sent in without any weapons or armor, but because he was the prince of Athens, he'd managed to sneak a sword past the guards. Sure, bribed them. After what felt like wandering for hours, he heard something echoing in the distance. The growls of a beast. In front of him was the legendary Minotaur. Theseus crept up behind the beast as it slept, raising his sword high in the air.

But before he could stab it in the heart, its eyes burst open! The two became locked in a fierce man-on-half-man combat. They wrestled and struggled, each trying to kill the other with all their might. Then, in a brief opening, Theseus swung his sword, slashing the beast's throat.

Whoa! With one final roar, the Minotaur was slain. As I said, even that is a very stripped back version of the origin of the Minotaur. I cannot stress much less. They played a lot of f***ing cards. The

Prince of Athens went in, they played cards for about three months before he tried to kill him in his sleep. Mostly because he beat him at cards. You wouldn't believe how complicated the full story is. Theseus, on the way to the maze, fell in love with Minos' daughter, who gave him thread

so he could find his way out of the labyrinth. Well, I'm glad you said that because that's a very important part of the story. There's so much going on here, and it is interesting, and it's worth reading up on if you want to learn more about the origins of the minotaur and just greek legend now obviously as we know a lot

of this story is legend and myth but like our episodes on dragons fairies leprechauns we're not just here to retell the tales of old we're here to find out if there's any truth to them of course could a creature like the mythical minotaur have existed at some point in the past? Depends on how sexy that white bull is. I feel like I should show you a picture of a Minotaur. Because I haven't done that yet. Yeah, let's refresh my memory. I have, from having played Legend of Zeldaelda ocarina of time i have experienced

the maze of the minotaur uh firsthand and it was terrifying yeah playing that as a kid i didn't really understand what was going on but that's a very cool example of some media very contemporary media that references this legend in ocarina of Time. There's a huge maze hidden in a forest, literally called the Lost Woods, where an actual Minotaur is like paroling the tunnels. There's more than one I seem to remember. Yeah, we won't get into that. We're looking at Google Images.

He's typed in Minotaur. And yeah, it is actually different to how I remember it. I think personally, I think of it as more bull than man. Whereas as you point out, some of these minotaurs have dad bods. They have a lot of human to them. Yeah. I mean, you're just looking at some of the artist's interpretations on Google Images. If you look at the actual artwork that was on pottery around these sites,

in some of the illustrations, there's so little bull to the Minotaur that it literally looks like someone's just wearing an animal head on a total human's body. Oh yeah, yeah, I see what you mean. They're like just wrestling with a dude wearing a boar's head, basically. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be trapped in a dark alley or a maze with him. I mean, in some of these pictures, he looks so much like just a human that I assume during the fight, if you listened, you probably could have heard, I'm not the minotaur! I'm a human! It's a mask! They make me fight people!

Shut it, you beast! I found a way out. I'll share it with you. Oh! I stole a grape from the king. He threw me in this fucking maze. That's what they don't tell you. As soon as you go into the maze and slay the Minotaur,

you ain't getting out. You're getting a bull's head put on top of you. Now you're the Minotaur. Right. It's like the Minotaur. Right. It's like the f***ing Santa Claus. If you kill the Minotaur, you have to become him. Look, let's address the elephant slash bull in the room. Evidence. It may surprise you to know, Kit, that I have evidence to argue that this legendary monster was not just a legend at all.

There is no way. There's no way. I will eat my hat. Now, of course, the story appears in a huge amount of ancient texts that are widely regarded as fiction. Like a lot of these old stories, they're very dramatized, and they include Greek gods and magic powers. But what if the story itself was built on top of real events, or possibly a real paranormal cryptid? During an archaeological dig in the town of Knossos in the 1900s,

British explorer Arthur Evans uncovered a warren of interconnecting tunnels and chambers beneath a disused stone quarry. The site was directly below Minos' palace and had over 1,000 rooms spanning 200 acres. What the hell? Isn't that insane? That's such a huge number, it's hard to comprehend what that would look like in real life. That's astonishing. When you think of uncovering a site in the ground,

you think of a couple alleyways, some crumbling walls, 1,000 rooms. That's in, should I say it? It's like a fucking labyrinth, dude. This is interesting. This is like,

if you check the notes, if you check the original myth, did anyone say it wasn't underground? Yeah. Could this be the labyrinth that's just been buried in the sands of time? I mean, this is a very common theme where because of the way that terrain of the earth moves over time, if you're talking about a civilization that existed in, what did I say,

2000 BC, there's just going to be layers and layers of earth on top of what was the ground back then. But things became even more suspicious the further they excavated at the site. Evans began to discover artifacts nearby, pottery and other artwork, depicting bulls. But it wasn't until 1979 that a discovery was made that gave the Minotaur myth a little more credence. The skeletons of four young bodies were found in the old labyrinth. What's more, the bones showed evidence of have being eaten by some

sort of animal. Okay. I feel like we could really plow through to whatever the... A leopard, a tiger, a bobcat? I think we all know. Or the mythical beast! Okay. Known as the Minotaur? I've never heard this voice before.

What voice? So I. Maybe they looked around and there was some hoof prints too. All I'm going to say is that not long after this, three sets of skeletal remains were found estimated to have belonged to 18 year old men. One was in such bad condition it looked like it had been torn limb from limb. Wow.

And in his stomach. By the mighty arms of a mythical beast. Do I have to spell it? There's no way that's what the post-mortem said. It did. That it looked like he'd been torn limb from limb by a mythical beast specifically. A mythical beast, it did.

That was the diagnosis. And in his stomach, a single grape. Perfectly preserved. What you have evidence of, to be clear, is... I feel like I presented that in a very silly way, and that kind of undermined some of the gravitas on what is a very real piece of evidence here. Sure. mind some of the gravitas on what is a very real piece of evidence here sure that they found skeletal remains in the labyrinth that looked like they'd either been eaten by animals or battered to pieces sure pretty which is convincing stuff absolutely amazing but does it actually

indicate the existence of a half man half bull hybrid it's true you, look, if this was the maze of the Minotaur, sure, you would find some bodies that had been very badly beaten or killed. But it's also important to understand that I believe this time in this civilization, the Minoan civilization, and some of its predecessors, we were at a point where they were still doing human sacrifices. That's just how primitive things still were, despite being so evolved already. So to find a body that's been beaten or one that's been torn up or slashed, that maybe wasn't as uncommon back then. Sure.

That could just be like a street corner. Yeah, sure. It's like the Aztecs. There's human sacrifices on every street corner. But, sure. It's like the Aztecs. There's human sacrifices on every street corner. But I get it. If you're not sold yet on the underground ancient maze filled with battered skeletons, there's another potential site for the Labyrinth of the Minotaur. There is a huge cave complex nearby that stretches two and a half miles into the earth. Big into caves, these guys. Yeah. Which I always, these guys. Yeah.

Which I always think is worrying. What were you hiding from the outside world? Spooky stuff, right? And I will say some of it is natural cave system. Sure. But there is a huge amount of man-made interlocking tunnels and chambers. Which is by itself already an interesting location to consider to be the secret labyrinth of the Minotaur. already an interesting location to consider to be the secret labyrinth of the Minotaur.

But if it was, there's a chance that any proof or evidence would have been taken from those caves. When the Nazis raided it in World War II. What? Holy, this just cranked up a couple notches. Didn't see that one coming, did you? I really didn't. didn't see that one coming did you really didn't that's right these complex caves were used by the nazis to help store its weapons and munitions in world war ii oh that's what they were saying i know you'd love to get your hands in a minotaur adolf oh yeah you want to be riding that son of a bitch into battle they even went as far as to build generators to pump oxygen into the tunnels. Wow, very interesting. Which seems a little suspicious to me. Is that really the best place

to store your weapons and ammo if its default situation is that there isn't enough oxygen for you to breathe in it? Sure. Finally, towards the end of the war, the Nazis had to flee the island, leaving behind a lot of their munitions and gear. But to stop the enemies from looting their equipment, they bombed the tunnels, causing many of them to collapse. But this is where we have to ask the big question, kid. Were they really hiding equipment in the tunnels? Or were these Nazi bastards searching for the labyrinth of ancient treasures and the remains of the Minotaur?

I don't know, man. I kind of got... Were they kids? I kind of got in the Indiana Jones movie when they were trying to find the Holy Grail or whatever because it would actually instill some power. I don't really know what the Nazis taking precious time and resources from their war campaign to go find the body of the Minotaur just for the scientists to go, huh, it really is true.

Right. Yeah. You're not, I don't know, unless you grind up its bones and snort them. Unless you're going to try and reanimate it like they're trying to do with woolly mammoths or Jurassic Park style with dinosaurs. Exactly. Unless they were trying to create minotaurs, I can't imagine. There's less of an explanation for them to be hunting there. I know there's like all those legends about Hitler being obsessed with the occult and all of this weird stuff. But at least a lot of those stories, as you said, serve a bit of a purpose because it's usually to try and get some sort of magical amulet or dagger or spear. It's just the bones of an animal that shouldn't have existed. And I don't really know why you would be going to such extreme lengths to try and retrieve it.

But still a very interesting and strange crossover of world history. Yeah. Some of the theories are that inside of the cave or the labyrinth, there would also be treasures that had been undiscovered because people hadn't actually found the maze yet. So there would just be like an untouched section of Minoan history buried in the earth. Maybe they thought there would be some ancient treasures there that they could loot. Or maybe they did just use it as a place to store their ammunition and weapons. that they could loot. Or maybe they did just use it as a place to store their ammunition and weapons. Yeah, it doesn't really indicate a lot of respect

or appreciation of ancient history if they detonated the tunnels the moment they had to retreat from that position. Yeah. This part of the story is especially interesting to talk about because whether or not they were really there hunting for ancient treasure, they were really there.

Even when they fled, people would go into the tunnels and you could find the leftover munitions and equipment that they had left behind. It was so treacherous that I think a number of people were killed trying to retrieve stuff that the government then had to bar off the entrances to the caves so no one could go inside then i think somebody maybe blew that up to get into the caves uh and to this day you can actually still go visit there are two entrances one large one and one small one and i want to give a shout out to a website that I found called VentureThePlanet.com where the author actually documented his journey to the island

to try and find the entrances to these caves and go inside them. And he basically did it. Check this out. Okay, Roy's hand me his phone with these images on it. The first image is labeled Small Labyrinth Cave Entrance. I'm going to say it right now. That ain't a small labyrinth. Yeah, I don't know if it's like a rapper thing,

like when you call a big guy small or a small guy big. It's huge. This is enormous. I was really expecting a human height entrance circular entrance like a mining hole yeah uh it is very far from that my friend if you think the small hole's big wait till you see the big hole because this one is about probably around seven or eight meters tall it's incredibly incredibly big and at least the same wide. The big hole is a f***ing pin-sized gap you have to liquefy your body to squeeze in through. Okay, well, fair play.

There is another entrance. Granted, this might have been since the caves were demolished somewhat, where one of the entrances this guy's showing is just kind of terrifyingly human-sized entrance. Imagine getting into a water slide made of rock. It's pretty crazy stuff. But then once they're inside, again, the caves seem pretty massive. And, oh, wow. And then, yeah, just absolutely enormous piles of disregarded World War II munitions.

This is so creepy. Isn't it? And then the final pictures are him going to the beach, which looks gorgeous. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty crazy that even just as a guest to the island, I mean, I think they advise against it. And as tourists, you're really not supposed to do it. But it seems like if you can find these tunnels at your own risk, you can explore them.

Despite talking about these two sites and how convincing that they are, but it seems like if you can find these tunnels at your own risk, you can explore them. Despite talking about these two sites and how convincing that they are, the Minotaur's Labyrinth is basically one of the most legendary places in Greek mythology, so people assumed that it was just an invention of ancient storytellers. But it's important to note that even though the maze is often treated like a fictional story from Greek fantasy, Note that even though the maze is often treated like a fictional story from Greek fantasy, in the late 19th century, archaeological discoveries confirmed the existence of many other legendary places that at one point may have been considered fictional. For example, the city of Troy and Mycenae were both at one point believed to just be fictional locations from legends until they were actually discovered in the form of ruins.

Before we go any further into other mythological locations that happen to be real, the evidence for the half-man, half-bull, sir. Sorry, what? I feel like you promised us some evidence to the existence of the Minotaur. Just before we get any further into the- Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. Existence of other, granted, very interesting classical Greek locations. Very interesting.

Like the city of Troy. Fantastic. One's thought to be completely fictional, like that of the maze of the Minotaur. Just- And if that thing's real, then I guess- Is that so crazy to think the Minotaur's... I just hope we don't get too off base, because I feel that we were really circling the topic

with the discovery of the labyrinth. Pretty mind-blowing stuff. Circling it, but like a maze. Hard to find that middle point, you know? Yeah, of the paranormal bit, which would be the half man, half bull. Bones, sure. Right.

Or the creature itself still alive to this day. But as we said, even in the legend, it was slain by Theseus. So what we'd be looking for would just be a bull's head

and a human's body. That would be great. That would be great. That would be great. I would like that. So as I said, the city of Troy and Mycenae were also once to believe to be fictional and they turned out to be real so is it so is it so nuts that's crazy actually now i think about it that actually of course the layer of the

layer of the script the layer of the minotaur could could be real too yeah well yeah it could be but the actual the minotaur itself though i don't know why you're upset because it's like oh we found the we found the layer of the minotaur right it's like oh well and where's the minotaur uh i don't know dude it's a labyrinth right i can't find them i don't know how to get get through the son of a bitch right so i don't understand why you think i would have the bones of this creature on hand oh not on hand but just if this happened four thousand years ago just i would i would have hoped maybe that someone might have found physical evidence of it in the last four thousand years you don't think the nazis took that shit home with them so it's not about being lost in the labyrinth do you think the nazis took that shit home with them so it's not about being lost in the labyrinth do you think the nazis took it now i think they brought string with them and i think they found their way

out pretty successful i'm not sure they did because you showed me the photos they left a lot of shit behind i don't know if they left the anti-tank missiles and crates of pure gold and kept the bones. You just saw those explorers going through that tube and they're like, wow, we found the ancient remains of the Minotaur's body. He was a Nazi, right? It's like, no, that is a German World War II soldier. He was a commanding officer of a battalion. That's so f uh yeah look this is where we're gonna be like a bull butting our heads against today is the fact that even

though there is possible evidence to suggest that the labyrinth existed uh there is really no evidence that we have found of the creature ever existing. And I think this is the discussion that we're going to have today is, are we finding the labyrinth from these stories, or are we hearing these stories and legends because of this thing that existed in the ground? Yeah, that's super interesting because when you think about this, the definition of this labyrinth is almost no one goes in and zero people come out.

So there are no surviving reports of people who've been in the labyrinth and seen the Minotaur. So it's pure speculation for anyone on the outside as to what's in there. There may have been a bull. There may have been nothing at all. And still the legend of the Minotaur could have percolated out through society and history.

And to explain this, these kind of the labyrinth that was discovered, a lot of historians believe that by the time people were kind of constructing the legend of the Minotaur, that by the time people were kind of constructing the legend of the minotaur those were the people that had discovered the ruins not the actual labyrinth so when they were telling the story they were like oh this used to be an old maze where the king who was also a god trapped a mythical beast got you okay so they were kind of like creating stories around the ruins. Yeah, it's very like when you're looking on this grand a scale,

it's very hard to imagine that maybe the entire civilization that created the maze crumbled and disappeared before the next one found it and came up with the myth

about the Minotaur. Right. You look at the timeline and you're like, oh, the first reports of the Minotaur were only 300 years after King Minos' reign.

It's like, that's a very long time. An extremely long time, in fact. They didn't have books back then. They just carved shit on rocks and then beat each other over the head with the rocks. So some of the words got jumbled up. I like to think of this as like, you know, when we were growing up in Northern Ireland

in Port Stewart, we used to love to go down and skateboard at a place called The Pool. Sure. And The Pool was basically on the promenade. It was an emptied out, basically swimming pool that was disused for 10 of 12 months of the year. And we would go down there and skate and hang out, have a great time. Then they filled it with concrete, paved over the whole thing, completely destroyed it. But if we talked to children in Northern Ireland now who skateboard, we'd be like, did you know that we used to skate down there at this incredible place, the pool?

Everyone was friends and it was sunny every day. Ice cream and kickflips the best skate park in all of northern ireland and i did a 900 there and the kids sometimes ask for evidence and i say it got filled in with concrete guys didn't i tell you there is no evidence of the 900 buried uh and then you know we die one day those kids grow up and they tell their kids did you know that buried in underneath the porch jerk concrete is an ancient skate park it was skated by our elders you know this is how these things happen these legends get blown out of proportion maybe the people who found the ruins had heard legends about what they were and pass those on to people who then built them

up even further and much like these collapsed world war ii tunnels i think i left a bb gun in the pool when it got filled in which we will discover one day in an archaeological dig that kind of takes us to the end of today's episode. I know these ones are a little bit strange because we're investigating a creature that is widely understood to only exist in myth and in legend. But I think these stories are interesting because at the very least you can find out where these stories came from. 100%. What was the origin behind them and if there is any ounces of truth to them. And while we may not have come up with any evidence of the Minotaur really existing, you know, there are some historians that theorize that even the locations talked about in the story could have existed at some point.

Absolutely. I mean, our listeners will know I love talking about these myths. I love talking about these myths. They tap into, you know, what Jung called the collective unconscious, these archetypes that we are arguably built and born with. No matter where you're born on planet Earth, somewhere in that little noggin is the seed of the idea of a half man, half beast.

And that has just been born out through different cultures all around the world. It's real in some ways because it lives inside us all but we just don't have physical evidence of such a thing ever running about crete i want that to be the very cheesy takeaway from the episode where does the minotaur live inside of us all there's a minotaur trapped in a maze on some level we've all looked at a bull and thought, well, all right. Okay, no, no, no. That's not what I was trying to do.

You know, a little bit. Nope. Is there something a little bit horny about it? No. What I was trying to say is like- Pardon the pun. Sexy? That's not a pun.

The first bit was a pun. What I was trying to say is like metaphorically there's all like there's a misunderstood creature I think inside of all of us that feels like it's trapped in a maze the one that feels like it can't come out and say what it really wants in life which is sure but be careful what you say in life

though let the minotaur out but don't say whatever you're going to say alright no no no look guys this is the the end of the episode it's time to come down on a yes or no as to whether or not we believe that the minotaur ever really did exist kit take it away wonderful story that somehow at 30 years of age i did not know the whole tale of and a really exciting, inspiring journey you took us on, Rory. Well researched, as always. Thank you.

Thank you. I never would have guessed that the labyrinth itself actually may have existed. That's very wicked and something I want to look into if I ever get to that part of the world. Of course, with this part of my life, we do have to glibly sum up whether it's real or not. I don't think that we have the evidence

to say that the half man half beast minotaur actually existed on earth yeah i think researching this story it would be one thing if the legend was just about the minotaur and normal people encountering this beast in some form like a lot of our cryptid stories but the fact that even its origin story is dripping in so much uh fantastical myth and lore it's it's hard to take any of it seriously i mean its mother was a queen cursed by the god of the sea even the guy who killed him theseus is like a Herculean legend who slayed gods. You know, it's so magical. It's very hard to consider that any part of it is real,

even though, as we said, there's a good chance that it probably was built out of some parts of reality. But the Minotaur itself, no. I do not believe that that creature ever truly existed. I really regret the top of the episode saying, it's been a long line of double no's. I really think today we're going to turn it around. And then you launched into a Greek myth.

We should have known it was probably not heading in the direction of a yes. But every no gets us closer to that yes. And if you join us next week for another episode of the podcast, you might just get it. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. It is an honor to have you here with us, supporting the show. And I hope that you've been really enjoying the cases we've investigated recently. They've been an absolute blast. I love researching ones like this.

They're just so much fun and you actually learn a lot in the process. Guys, do you know what else is a f***ing maze? The iTunes charts. We got in at some point and we don't know how to move up. I did the 2022 version of stealing a grape, which was having the dumbass idea

to start a podcast. And now I'm stuck wandering forever. But instead of one Minotaur, there are thousands of them, all fighting for control of this mace. And we want to be the ones at the top. If you get the chance, please give us a review on your podcast app of choice, whether that is Spotify, whether that is the Apple Podcasts app, a review goes a long way to helping us out and really helps support the show.

Wow. For free. Needy much. Helps like build a community, makes us look good, helps us in the rankings. And as I said, why don't you be a real peasant

and just suffer in the maze like the rest of us? All right. Why are you trying to like get out, man? Really? It'll take, like, 30 seconds. You don't even really have to write anything if you don't want to. You can just hit five stars, and it helps us out

enormously, makes the podcast hopefully more successful, and makes us look better in the eyes of the public, so. I don't, I disagree. I think it makes us look needy in the eyes of the public. Hey, guys, I'm going to give you the call to action here. Bad start, and it already feels like you don't know what you're going to say.

Help us or don't. I don't know why you're so adamant. How about that? How about that? Help us or don't was already what I was proposing, by the way. This isn't something new. They were already going to help us or not. Yeah, but you were heavy.

You were clearly really trying to pull in the heartstrings. What I'm trying to say is, look, I f***ing i get it we're doing a bit about good cop bad cop i get it i get it i get it like i get it it's like it's it's not cool it's not cool to to help a podcast why would you want to do that yeah why would you want to show your support for the show that you listen to um i get it so don't well don't no no you're taking it too far or do yes all right well no it's so close to nailing it but then it's so sharply in the wrong direction uh somewhere in between the two of our requests is the truth yes and it's never been easier than it is right now to give us a review online so please do if you get the chance. I think it actually just became possible

in the last like few months to review podcasts on Spotify. And we know there's a shit ton of you guys listening on Spotify. So yeah, that would go a long way if you would throw us a review. Whoa, pathetic much? All right.

Begging on your hands and knees. Oh, please give me a little review. That's not what I sound like. All right, listen up, f***ers. Okay. You're gonna need to drop us five stars or get the out of here. Yes, dude.

Nice. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the podcast. We love having you guys here with us. And of course we will be back next week with a brand new paranormal tale.