This Paranormal Life - #418 Are UNICORNS Real? - Unicorn Bones Found in Germany

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Ever since the times of Ancient Greece, humanity has been captivated by Unicorns. Mythical creatures with healing magical properties. But if they are just religious symbols of purity as we are lead to believe in modern times, why are there so many written eyewitness accounts through history? And why are there Unicorn BONES buried deep in the German countryside? It’s time for Kit and Rory to investigate and discover whether Unicorns are real or not!PATREON PRE-SALE TICKETShttps://www.patreon.com/posts/128752766/2025 TOUR TICKETSwww.thisparanormallife.comFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunitySupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeIntro music by www.purple-planet.comEdited by Philip ShackladyResearch by Ewen Friers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do other animals have multiple lives or is it just cats? What came first? The ghost chicken or the ghost egg? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Welcome, welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy podcast where every Tuesday we get to the bottom of a different paranormal tale deciding by the end of that episode whether we think it's really paranormal or not. You are being joined by the two greatest paranormal investigators in the known universe. My name is Kit Greer Mulvenna. This guy sitting across from me is Mr Rory Pars. How are you doing today Rory? Let me tell you, two fancy looking gentlemen as well because we are both in suits right now, suited and

booted, because we were actually going to an event tonight, right after we record this podcast. Sorry, are we? Yeah, why are you wearing a suit? Sorry, because maybe because I take the paranormal f***ing seriously. Well, if you took it seriously, you wouldn't be wearing a suit, you'd be wearing like tactical gear and you'd have like an EMF reader and like ghost hunting equipment. The paranormal is serious business. That's what I heard this week. That's why I'm wearing a suit. tactical gear and you'd have like an EMF reader and like ghost hunting equipment. You wouldn't show up.

The paranormal is serious business. That's what I heard this week. That's why I'm wearing a suit. Why are, sorry. What are we doing? We're nominated for an award tonight, so. That's nice. I'm gonna take off the suit

because the paranormal is serious to me. Not some little award. What are you gonna wear tonight then? You know, that they give to somebody one year and then they... And then how can an award be that important if they change who they give it to every year? I think because it's like new people are nominated every year. I should read that. I'm taking off the suit.

I'm going to wear board shorts and a thong. Please don't because I already don't think we're going to win the award. So that definitely will imply to them we're not taking you seriously. Are there celebrities gonna be there? I think probably, yeah, a couple. Are there gonna be celebrities there? Sorry, I got so excited by the idea of celebrities being there. Celebrities are be there they will?

Sorry, I went Yoda a little bit, I got so excited. This is crazy. Is there gonna be a celebrity there? Real shit? Alcohol? Alcohol, will there be? I'll keep on the suit. I think it's a smart move.

You should probably keep on the suit. There probably will be some celebrities. I think there's going to be some alcohol too. Oh, and just before we jump into today's investigation, Rory, we have an unbelievably exciting announcement right here on the podcast. It is an exclusive. We are going back on tour.

Whoa! Oh, shit. It is our biggest ever world tour. We are announcing the first bit of it, which is to the United States and Canada. It is our biggest one yet. This is, I think, more than twice the size of our last US tour. Holy shit!

That is right. And we're finally making it up to Toronto to perform our first ever show. We are going to be in the United States from the 7th of August to the 24th of August this year. We're going to be in Summerville. Oh, right outside Boston. Brooklyn.

Philadelphia. Atlanta. Me going back to my roots. Hometown. We're going to Dallas. Chicago, Toronto, Denver, the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Oh my god. This is unbelievably exciting. We've taken, it's been two years, crazily, since our last tour.

We had a blast last time. We hope you guys did too. They were incredibly successful shows. We are so excited to get back, to see you guys. Bring a live podcast to the United States. If you are listening from the UK and Ireland, do not worry, dates are to be announced very soon, but we wanted to kick off with the ones

that are furthest away. And now we can share with you that as always, our patrons over on patreon.com get first dibs on tour tickets they always find out first the patreon presale for our 2025 tour is now live tuesday the moment of recording yeah and then the general sale for the tour will start on thursday morning uh you can get all the links over at thisparanormallife.com but if you want to be absolutely certain that you grab a ticket before everybody else, head over to Patreon. There's a ton of other amazing rewards over there as you guys well know but one of those is to get first dibs

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That's right. That is the place to get bonus episodes ad free content and much much more all while you support the show patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life check it out The year is 1984 and we're in the office of one of the United States most famous circus companies, the Ringling Bros Circus. Creators of the famous and inventively named World's Greatest Show. The Ringling? The Ringling Bros.

Nice. I really thought the show would just be called the Ringling Bros Circus, but no, it's called The World's Greatest Show. And the directors are about to take a meeting. Okay, who's this guy you got coming in, Bill? Uh, he's called Oberon Zell. Oh my god, Bill, what kind of name is that? Trust me, his agent assures me this guy is something special for us. And what kind of act is this Mr. Overall, anyway?

It's Oberon. His name is Oberonzel Ravenheart, sir. And he's... well, he's a transpersonal psychologist, metaphysian, nationalist, cryptozoologist, shaman, and ordained priest of the Earth Gaia, and most notably, a wizard sir for God's sake Bill trust me let's hear him out anyway it's his companion we're interested in was his companion an owl is he really a wizard okay I will say for the record if you're kind of applying for any job and your CV lists a bunch of different qualifications

and then right at the end, you also disclose that you're a wizard. You could probably just turn that into a one pager. Just say that you're a wizard. It's kind of like whenever you reach that point in your life where you're applying for jobs and you're like, I'm kind of old enough now and I'm applying for big enough jobs.

I don't need to mention that I was like a waiter at this restaurant when I was like 14 years old. You know, that's not necessarily relevant information. The latter thing trumps all the other things. Yeah. Exactly. So if you're a wizard, I don't think you need to point out that you are also like into Scrabble and stuff in your free time.

And you know how to use, if you're a wizard, you don't have to put in the notes. You know how to use Microsoft Office. That doesn't matter. You could take all that stuff out at the beginning about like being like a team player. You know spells. It's fine.

It don't matter, dick, whether you're a team player or not. Oh, am I a team player? With a swish of my wand, I can make a team appear. Do what I say and then banish them from living again. It's like if you become a doctor, that's enough of a thing. They put that at the start of your name. They actually put it before your name. Yes.

They're like, the fact you're Rory is honestly not that important anymore. You're Dr. Rory. Exactly. Wizard Rory. It would come first. Ideally. Yeah. Do I work well under pressure?

I can cast spells on myself so I can deadlift boulders. Yeah, I'm pretty good under pressure. Then they're like, all right, wow, so why do you need this job? I got fired for sexual harassment. Oh my God. I don't respect women. There's no spell for that, apparently. I need this job because I'm broke and my family are starving.

And I weirdly can cast a lot of spells, but I can't make food. I can't make food appear. The only thing I can't make appear is food on the plates of my family. So I really do need this job. That's right. Oberon had a companion. Christ almighty, I don't have time for this horse shit. Not horse shit, Mr. Ringling. Unicorn shit.

Come in. The door opens and a middle-aged man with long hair and a beard walks in. He's clad in ornate jewelry, rings, and wears long flowing robes. It's Oberon Zell. I guess that, yeah. Sure, just making sure the audience is, it's an auditory medium guys. This insane looking man comes in the door and goes,

Oberon's in the lobby sir. I was like, who are you? I'm the coffee guy, I started today. It is Oberon and behind him comes his wife, morning glory. Together, they were known by many as the wizard and the witch. Zell is holding a small lead that disappears behind them and they can hear hooves approaching.

Oh my God. Gentlemen, I present to you Lancelot the Unicorn. Hold on. I thought this was supposed to be a unicorn. It's, it's, it's incredible. Mr. Oblong, you have yourself a deal. Consider Lancelot hired Bill sign him up four years minimum Oberon Zell just bagged himself the deal of a lifetime Lancelot would go on tour with the world's greatest show across America dazzling circus audiences around the country let's see if he can dazzle Rory to, Rory, take a look at this beast. Oh, wow.

Is this, this is a unicorn? This is a unicorn. Right. Okay. Well, I think I had misconceptions of what unicorns looked like in particular, the size. Sounds like a U problem. A U, well, it sounds like a unicorn problem. Uh, unicorns. Accurate.

Uh, right guys? We all know them. Yes, let's talk about them. Let's get into it. That is what today's investigation is all about. And Rory is looking at one. I'm looking at something all right. I'm looking at something.

Now a unicorn, I was led to believe. The difference between a unicorn and a horse is almost imperceivable in terms of stature, size, shape. A lot of similarities. One in particular, big old horn. It's confusing for me to make coot noises. It's an auditory medium again. Big old horn.

Big old horn right at the top, like a narwhal kind of poking out of the head. This is a baby goat. This is even small for a goat. Sorry, this is a even smaller for a goat. A full size goat. Sorry, it's not a goat at all. It is at least the size of a full size goat. It looks like somebody shrunk a pony, an even smaller horse down to a smaller size.

There are horses that are genetically that small. Okay, so- Let's focus on the horn. Let's dial in on the horn. Well, that's the one thing it does have going for it. It, this mother has a rhinoceros. This thing's a damn tripod. All right.

Sorry. Not even a five pod. It's unbelievable. It is enormous. Packing heat. Poking out of this, this poor little guy's head. It almost looks like in the first picture he was younger and the horns like less pronounced. And then the second one, he's like a full goat and that thing is, that looks, talk about morning glory am I right

guys this thing is a full on rager. Yeah, if you wake up with that thing in your pajamas call a doctor. But yeah if this is what a unicorn looks like I have been misled by popular media. Um, it is a bit of a mystery. Also, we get finally a good look at Oberon's. You can tell he stores the spells in his head. The sheer size of that man's forehead. The wizard looks like Charles Manson. He looks a lot like Charles Manson.

I'm a little bit afraid to say no. I would probably also agree to pay for the goat. He looks a ton like Charles Manson. He's also wearing Link's water temple tunic. And there is morning glory too. She looks kind of a bit more normal. Can I ask you a question really quick? Yeah, go ahead.

The ponies from My Little Pony. I'm under the impression that they possess magical capabilities. Are they unicorns or are they just magical ponies? That's a good question. Do any of them have horns? Because some of them have wings. Well, yeah, some of those mother-fucking fly and shit.

I think one's called like butter cup or something. Should I Google it real quick? Sparkle hoof and shit like that. Yeah, yeah. Are the My Little Pony's unicorns? Apparently, yes. Some of the My Little Pony characters are unicorns. This is like apes and monkeys. It's like not all My Little Ponies are unicorns,

but all unicorns are My Little Ponies as well. Apparently there are three main types of ponies. Earth ponies, Pegasus ponies with wings. And unicorns. There you go. An example of a unicorn includes Twilight Sparkle. You know, I will give it to them mythologically, a Pegasus is another type of mythical horse that is not a unicorn. So fair play. Yeah, this is actually more detail and lore than I thought in the universe. This is neither.

This is a goat. This is a baby goat. Well, with a completely unique horn, just like that of a unicorn. Now, animal experts have claimed that it's possible Lancelot was not really a unicorn, but instead, sure, a goat created through a series of questionable animal husbandry practices that have been

bred to have one freakish horn in the center of its head. But that's not the point. Lancelot was just the latest episode in this centuries long series of humanity's fascination with goats. I mean unicorns. Unicorns! Cut that Phil, cut that! Absolutely cut it. R it, absolutely cut it.

Rory, let's rewind. How much do you know about unicorns? That is a very interesting question, Kit. I would say my knowledge is quite limited, but I do believe that they are one of these creatures that when researched, you would be surprised how deep the lore for it goes. Yeah. Presumably back to even Greek and biblical times where they may not have been referred to as unicorns,

but you will find mention of creatures with very similar descriptions that have just simply different names. Yeah. Which is very cool. That's one of the coolest things about history and cryptids is a lot of these guys have been around for a long time. They just had different names.

Yeah. It's kind of the standard life cycle of a cryptid. You kind of have the ancient beginnings with a name that no one recognizes. Then you have the kind of semi modern conception, which is when maybe the popular name comes to fruition. Then you have the point where it's turned into like a major league baseball franchise. Yeah. The Pittsburgh Unicorns. The My Little Ponies. Yeah. Exactly.

And that's kind of the final boss of what happens to a cryptid. Yeah, just look at vampires, you know? Originating in ancient Greece, known as the Vrykola Kas, amongst many other old ancient forms, escalating all the way up to the popular Twilight series, where one of them has sex with a high schooler, and no one bats an eye.

Yeah, that's just how okay we are with it. They could do stuff that no one should do. They really shouldn't. And I know that's the whole point, is that they're kind of like sinners and evil and cursed and stuff, but that's too far. That's not on. I believe you've seen Sinners.

I have, yeah, no spoilers for Sinners. I've not seen it, but- It's fresh out. I gather there's some s***. I said no spoilers for Sinners because they won't, people won't know that that's even a part of it. That's all right. We're gonna have to just beep that whole sentence.

I apologize for him. Okay. And actually, can you beep earlier when I said that Twinkle Starlight was a unicorn? Because some people that might be revealed later in the series. Right. So I just want to make sure that we're not like spoiling the My Little Pony franchise for anyone there. Do the My Little Pony people hate furries? They've kind of tarnished it,'t they I think so they've turned like I've what was a really innocent sweet thing for children into like a perverted sex thing Which is so unfair because the last thing you would tails are butt plugs. Let's just say that absolutely not

No, no, no, no, no, no, think that's not true. I think that's true. I think that's true. They wear suits. It's a suit, the tail's attached to the suit. I don't think there's a butt place. What's under the suit, am I right, guys? What's under that suit? No, hey, I'm not shaming them.

I'm just saying like, that's a copyrighted thing. Yeah, well, that's as much as I know about unicorns. Well, that's what you get for not letting us talk about sinners. I tried to keep us on the rails and now we're off the rails. Everyone should watch it, it's really good. That's a spoiler. Unicorns are basically the final boss of cryptids. The kind of unholy grail, if you will.

And like you've alluded to, Roy, the origins of the unicorn can be traced literally millennia back through history to as early as 2000 BC in the Indus Valley of South Asia. What? Whilst the traditions and depictions have absolutely changed over the years, the main features of the unicorn include a singular spiraling horn in the animal's forehead. Spiraling. Usually white hair and sometimes a goat style beard.

I don't wanna keep talking about goats, but I'm just saying, are goats cryptids? I've seen the way they can walk vertically up mountains like a bug, so maybe. That's true. Now anatomically, yes yes unicorns probably most closely resemble Horses, but have been depicted as similar to bulls goats and deer mm-hmm But this gotta stop saying goats, but this I know what you're doing

I'm trying to kind of Darren Brown it through the whole Convince you that goats are yeah, but then you're like well. What do you think Rory are goats real am I wait? What have we been but then you're like, well, what do you think Rory, are goats real? I'm like, wait, what have we been talking about? You're like, at the end of every goat episode, we goat like to come down. I'm like tripping out here. This isn't just some kind of boilerplate cryptid, however. This is not an animal not yet discovered by science. This is supposed to be fully paranormal. The creature is said to possess magical powers.

Here we go. Everything from being able to heal sickness to making poisonous water drinkable with a mere touch of its own. Whoa. And yes, in some cases, unicorns are winged and able to fly. Holy shit. Yeah, just to give you an idea, there's, there, this is like

the earliest possible thing from like as early as maybe 2600 BC, a kind of stone seal. Whoa, okay, so this is, yeah, ancient kind of carvings into what almost looks like a slab of marble, and yeah, we've got a little horse thing. That looks like his dick is out, which is a little weird. But yeah, a interesting curved horn on the head of this creature, which I don't think you could mistake as anything but essentially a unicorn horn.

Interesting stuff, interesting stuff. Crucially, the unicorn didn't just appear in Greek myth, but rather in Greek natural history. The physician and historian, Stesius, I don't know how to say that. I think you nailed it. Describe Stesius. Sorry, I was just sneezing. The theologian Mark talked about it.

Stesius. God bless you, thank you. He described unicorns living in India in his fifth century BC book, Indica, presumably the sequel to Sativa. I will say, is it helping my case that all the stories of unicorns come from the literal region where weed was invented? Hmm.

Not really. I looked it up and the weed strain indica comes from Kush Mountain. In Asia, so. I think I went to that place when we were in Venice Beach. I think I was a dispensary. On the seafront. I swung by Kush Mountain. Kush Mountain. Kush Mountain is what I call it whenever I eat three edibles and make a pillow fort in

my living room and watch Netflix. I invite my friends over to Kush Mountain. I don't like to think that unicorns aren't real because of this. I just like to think they're 420 friendly. Oh shit. Is the unicorn horn an ancient symbol for a joint? Oh yeah, it's got healing properties, all right. It can turn poison water drinkable and grass smokable.

Setizias's writings described the creature's white coloring and twisting central horn, saying it was specifically 28 inches long. He even went as far as explaining how unicorn meat was bitter and inedible. Ooh that's a red flag. He killed one? Maybe it was roadkill, I don't know. And it wasn't just one stoned philosopher who wrote about this thing. The Roman author Pliny the Elder mentioned several one-horned beasts in his writings. One creature he described as, quote, a very fierce animal called the monoceros. Why? The monoceros, like a rhinoceros, mono, like one horn. Yeah. But don't

rhinoceros only have? You're like a scholar for getting that honestly Don't they only have one horn anyway? Or do they have like a few little horns to be fair a rhino sometimes has a couple doesn't it? Yeah, like it goes up its head so they go the monoceros Something about that is so funny and not just that but another sixth century Greek traveler called Cosmos Indicopolis tees. No way he's not a stoner. Cosmos Indiko? Jesus Christ.

Roey, you listen to this description and you tell me to my face this is not a unicorn he's describing. He described a beast while travelling in modern day Ethiopia. He wrote, They speak of him as a terrible beast and quite invincible, and that all its strength lies in its horn when it finds itself pursued by hunters. And at the point of being caught,

he throws himself off a precipice, turns on a somersault so that the horn sustains all the shock of the fall, and then he runs off unhurt. Oh, Wow. What the hell? I thought you were going to say he kills himself. What? Why?

If his back's up against the wall, he would rather jump off a cliff horn first, and it goes up through his brain. My God. I was like, Jesus Christ! That is Jesus Christ. What? Yeah. Yeah, you took it to an even weirder place.

Granted, you could not have predicted where it did go. While a lot of people were talking about these things in early history, it all kicked off during the medieval period, flashing forward to maybe like 1500 or 1300 or something like that. Because as new translations of the Bible were being made people were trying to decipher the Bible's cryptic Wordings and they believed that the Bible was making reference to unicorns Unicorns that have been described by early scholars like Pliny and Stesius and those guys so unicorns Arteezyus and those guys so unicorns

Exploded onto the art scene like a hot indie band they were depicted in art all around the Christian societies of Europe Wow And that's why today we have so many dope paintings that depict Unicorns do we yes we do There's two two paintings. I can show you. Okay. To kick things off. That's two more than I thought I was gonna get today. Um, yeah. Holy shit, okay. That is, again, this isn't being mistaken for anything else. It is a horse.

But this horn is enormous. And it is... I forgot that the unicorn horn is, like, swirly. Yeah. It's really... I actually find it kind of gross. Yeah. Okay. And then another painting here of a unicorn in captivity, but not a lot of roaming ground. It's really caged in there pretty well.

But again- They're powerful. Didn't you hear that? They must be caged and their meat is bitter. Yeah, that is one hell of a horn. The horn is almost the length of the unicorn going outward. It is enormous. I will say, they say the meat was bitter. They also hadn't really discovered deep frying shit yet.

Or ranch dressing. True. So, you know, if they had the technology of today, I'd say they could make it taste pretty good. Yeah. I've, uh, I've sampled some pretty forbidden meats in my time. Let's just say that. Watch where we're going with this.

So, you know, I get it. Sometimes it's not always nice on the first bite, but you gotta find the right sauce to accompany it and it can turn everything around. In our hometown, there are Christmas markets. There was a stall that for some reason they're just like, hey, we can get you all kinds of meat. Right. Well, yeah, that's it. It's questionable. I think at one point it was like a novelty that they had all this weird meat. And

now that I'm an adult, I'm like, are you allowed to have this meat? Yeah, let's be more specific. Okay. So it's a continental Christmas market, the likes of which you see all over Europe. So lots of like German traders, which is really fun. Glühwein. Yeah. Toffee. I don't remember. Other shit, they start selling you stuff that you normally don't give a fuck about, but

for some reason, because it's Christmas, you're willing to pay 10 times over the odds to get it off a guy called Klaus. I'll pay $25 for a bratwurst. Yeah. Because it's Christmas time for some reason. But then for some reason, there's some guys that definitely aren't German. Nope. I think they're like Australian. Yeah. Because they're selling kangaroo burgers. Like spider burgers. Crocodile burgers. I had a crocodile burger. It's all Australian. I

had an ostrich burger, yeah. It's all like Australian, African, nothing to do with Germany whatsoever. Stuff that I definitely do regret, I think in the cold light of day, I feel a little sad about eating it. Horse, hot dog. Yeah, I'm like, this is bad. It's like, ooh, you guys are selling hot dogs?

No, we're selling hot dogs. We threw a dog in an oven. It's a dog and a stick. It's a dog and a stick, and you kind of eat it like a corn on the cob. Yeah, I don't feel good about it in hindsight. But again, some of that meat was actually pretty bad. One of the funnier sightings of a unicorn, I think comes from a similar time period,

from a very famous person, someone we might normally trust, Marco Polo. Oh. Who wrote, quote, they are scarcely smaller than elephants. They have the hair of a buffalo and feet like an elephant's. They have a single large black horn in the middle of the forehead.

Okay, we're getting back closer to the thing. But their head is like a wild boar. They spend their time wallowing in mud and slime. They are... Slime? They are very ugly brutes to look at unicorns and are not at all such as we describe. Doesn't sound at all like he saw a unicorn.

He saw something else, dude. He saw a baby hippo. I think he saw a rhino. Yeah. They're similar to an elephant, roll around in mud all day and have a horn. That's a rhino. Good god. I'm starting to think this guy doesn't know point A from point B.

What is slime? What is... No scientist has ever referred to anything as slime. They live in slime. They live in slime? Yeah, slime is... Everyone knows slime is an invention of 90s game shows. Not nature. Rory, I'm starting to think there's too many unanswered questions in our search for the real unicorn. Because fair enough, being a skeptic, you automatically go to like, look, this thing just has to be mythological

it's all the references are too old all the paintings the biblical references but then why is there so many sightings why are so many people writing down yes saw five the other day yeah saw five they did a backflip is it possible that unicorns did exist but are now extinct yeah that is an option if they had magical capabilities people could either try and control them or kill them to stop people from getting those abilities or maybe killing them allows you to possess the magical abilities. We know that they weren't hunted for food because the meat is bitter which is most of the reason why a lot of animals have gone extinct. So it's an option. It's a possibility, yeah.

We are going to get to the bottom of it once and for all Rory, because the question of whether they're extinct or not does raise one very obvious point. That means there's got to be bones. There's got to be evidence. Very good point. Somewhere. And Rory, I might just have some bones to show you. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad

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Instacart, groceries that over deliver. It's 1668 and there was a knock at the door of a very different office to our office from the beginning of today's episode. The office of a well-known German naturalist Otto von Gehrig. A man had come to see him with something he'd found in a quarry, something he couldn't quite explain. Otto lifted out his glasses and a magnifying glass to study the remains. His mind raced. He recognized what he was looking at. He had seen it depicted in the Bible to the diaries of Leonardo da Vinci, but he thought it was only legend. So we reached for a pile of paper and began drawing, trying to piece together the beast that had left these remains behind on the earth, potentially hundreds or thousands of years earlier.

He wrote in his diary, As a skeleton was broken and taken out in pieces due to the ignorance and carelessness of the excavators, but the horn, along with the head and some ribs, spine and bones, were brought to the local abyss. Rory, thankfully, in the 1990s, a team of taxidermists studied Gehrig's drawings and writings and made a reconstructed skeleton, which is still exhibited in Germany to this day. Behold, the Magdeburg Unicorn! Oh Jesus!

What the hell is this? Oh, this is horrible! They've just mashed like four different creatures together. No! Yes they have! It's the Magdeburg unicorn. Why does it only have two legs? It's evidence. Why is it bipedal?

Unicorns have four legs, famously so. We don't know that, we don't know that. In every drawing, in every form. Well, this is the first time we found the bones. This is, there's no way to- It's telling us something very different, my friend, about what unicorns are. Nothing looks like this.

This looks like when I was a kid and I used to draw humans when their arms and legs just came straight out of the head. Yep. There was no body. Good reference. That thing? Its meat would be bitter. Yes, its soul is bitter. This isn't a magical creature. This is five normal creatures glued together.

What the f***? It's somehow five creatures glued together and also half a creature. Yeah, they clearly couldn't find the rest of it. They were like, it's fine, just make it with whatever we found. This just doesn't, can't exist. This just can't exist. Okay, so to be clear, let's be descriptive. This is a tail attached directly to a head

with two massive legs coming out of the head. Enormous legs. It's, yeah. Coming, yeah, out of the head. It is like a three-year-old drew a dinosaur. Why is this in a museum? Why, this shouldn't be in a museum. And it is.

This is so sad and scary. If I saw this as a child, I would scream. This isn't educational. It's so dumb. It's so dumb. It's impossibly dumb. Oh, it's so funny. And yet the horn.

I don't know where the horn came from. The horn came from somewhere. I mean, fair enough. Maybe the head and the horn are from a dinosaur. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where the horn came from. The horn came from somewhere. I mean, fair enough. Maybe the head and the horn are from a dinosaur. I don't know. I don't really know dinosaurs very well. Yeah, I actually have no idea either. I don't know, guys.

This would be on my pay grade. I do know that I need a unicorn. That's what I do. It looks like when you're building like a Lego set and you realize you're missing a couple bricks That have clearly rolled under the carpet or something. You're like, it's just it's fine. Make it do it's like dad We're missing the legs. It's fine attached the hooves to the neck We'll make it work. It's fine and you end up with this monstrosity Right. Yeah, you're trying to build like a World War one spitfire. You've only got one wing. It's fine

It just it's that's what they only got one wing. It's fine. It just flies around in a circle. It's grand. All right. There's not a ton of evidence for the unicorn. Oh, I understand that. Yeah. Yeah, I got that pretty clear.

I thought I would just come clean and kind of just say that. Honestly, the old paintings were pretty good. That was the best we've got so far. OK. That was pretty cool. I like that a lot. That was pretty cool. I like that a lot. I'll take that.

You know, I'm a sucker for some Greek mythology as well. So you know, you're appealing to my soft spot. So whenever I tell you there's a guy called Ctesius, Ctesius actually pretty much did totally believe in the unicorn. You could actually say that Greek mythology is kind of my Achilles heel. I'm only putting up with that because you believe in the unicorn kind of because of the Greek stuff. So I'm just not going to say anything, but, um, that's cool. I told, I said that on the podcast, didn't I? That my mom, whenever I was a child,

got me like a book of Greek mythology. And it was kind of like, it was kind of turned into like cartoon strips, but it was for a kid way older than me. And I was deeply disturbed by all the myths because they're pretty like violent and stuff. It's people getting like stabbed, head chopped off. I was deeply disturbed by what I was saying. I only found out recently about, you know, the origins of the word narcissist coming from

an actual individual in Greek mythology called like Narcissus or something like that. Sure. I was like obsessed with his own reflection. I was like, that's very cool. A lot of these kinds of words have these ancient origins. I thought that was quite interesting. Yeah. Except I always get confused between there's three I get confused by. Okay. The guy who pushed the ball drop the hill. Sisyphus I believe. The guy who flew too close to the sun. Syphilis I believe. And the one who bonked his mum.

Oh yeah, don't do this to me. Exactly. The one who, well Icarus is the one that flew too close to the sun. True. Yeah, syphilis is a... Why is the one who flew too close to the sun. True. Yeah. Syphilis is a... Why is that one who bumped his mom? This is why I always try to... Odeus? Opius?

Opius Rex? Is that a dinosaur or a guy? No, it's not right. Odysseus? No, it's not Odysseus. What the f... What's his name? Yeah, I know it's annoying.

But I always try to... Because it's that complex where you kill your dad and bang your mom, right? Oh yeah. Oedipus. Oedipus! Okay, Oedipus. Oedipus, yeah. Yeah, yeah, the wrong puss.

Yeah, that's how you got Sympilus! Yeah! But- oh! Oh shit! And that's why they pay us the big bucks! F*** me. Jesus Christ. Because I try to talk about, I'm like, when I'm doing something. Anyway, are unicorns real? What is this podcast?

This is ironically what podcasts would have been like in 6000 BC in ancient Greece. So, are these beasts that live in slime and have three horns real? Guys? That is, that would be such a good idea for a parody podcast. Is a podcast in Ancient Greece. And it'd be like a brocast hosted by Sisyphus, who's just like, every day you need to wake up and start pushing that boulder.

People in your life are gonna tell you that that boulder will never reach the top, but you just gotta keep pushing. You gotta keep going for it. Every Greek gentleman by the age of 30 should have pushed the boulder to the top of the hill at least a hundred times. And if your friend circle has not done that a hundred times, you need to get a new friend circle.

Yeah. You know, you've got the TMZ style kind of TikTok drama kind. Yeah. Narcissus was actually seen leaving a hot LA bar the other night, uh, with his arm around himself, uh, pretty crazy. Is he dating himself? Subscribe to find out more. Yeah.

Yeah. Spotted outside Dionysius nightclub. Uh, a lot of potential there for history nerds. It's dangerous. If you try to make an intelligent point by referencing a piece of Greek history and then you say the wrong one. You're like, yeah, this is like the tragedy of Miletopolis. And people are like, the guy who died jacking off,

I don't know, I don't know, I don't study history. God damn it, why did they all do such weird stuff? Yes, this reminds me of the legend of Mr. Mistoffelees. It's like, wasn't he one of the cats in the musical Cats? Oh shit. Rory, we are beating around the bush here. There is not a ton of physical evidence for the existence of the unicorn. I will say, also getting increasingly hard to

research this topic due to a multitude of new meanings online, generally referring to something extremely rare, such as a startup with a billion dollar valuation. To a lot of people, that's what a unicorn means in 2025. Such is the effect of the unicorn on our collective imagination. Humanity has kind of taken the idea and run with it. It's kind of as if our subconscious doesn't really care whether it's real or not. It still looms large in our culture. Yeah, well, they actually just released a movie

about a unicorn called Death of a Unicorn. I believe Paul Rudd is in it. I can't believe I'm, yeah, that's crazy. I missed that, all right. Does it have anything to do with unicorns? This actually could, we get the unicorn is, I believe someone hits a unicorn with their car. Oh, okay.

Yeah, this could have actually been a sponsored episode. That would have been pretty clever. We should have reached out. Well, it's fine, buddy. It's okay. We can... This suit was really expensive. It was really...

I can't afford this suit. And now you're telling me there's money on the table? I also think... Because you said that it's known as a unicorn company. Yeah. A lot of also young people might know it as the famous sex position known as the unicorn. Okay, let's move on. Which I did have to Google, but yeah, I don't know what that is.

What? Yeah, just catching up on this. Lying down on their side, similar to the spooning position. Woman raises her top leg, bends it slightly. This is smart. Don't say this on the podcast. You can grab ahold of her knee. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,

this is a family show. It really is a family show. I don't wanna, no. No? You don't wanna see that? No. Oh, that's the UK? Stop Googling it. Stop Googling it. What are you doing?

You're on camera right now. This is like, this is like when someone in Congress gets caught looking at porn in Washington, DC. It's like, why were they that comfortable on camera? This is weird. It shouldn't be that comfortable. They're like eating a Mars bar watching porn on their phone. Dude, you're at work.

What are you doing? Phil's like, that's 90% of the time Rory's in the studio. Dude's just picking his nose on a live stream. So weird. But is it really possible that maybe the most famous mythical creature of all time has zero basis in reality whatsoever. Why are there so many written accounts? Is it a case of mistaken identity?

So many loose ends, Rory, from the ancient explorers and philosophers who mentioned this thing through to what the unicorn came to represent in Christianity, vulnerability, the untamable, scarcity, purity, through to these simply astonishing bones found in Germany. No. Lots of loose threads. I hate to throw it to you, but where's your head at today? Quite ironically, what we don't have in today's case is a point. A point to it all.

And I do love the mentions of the origins of this creature, that perhaps, even if it wasn't mythological, it could have been something that existed a long time ago. I cannot stress how disappointed I am that the creature was first spotted on Cush Mountain. That really did put a dampener on today's case, in terms of the reliability of the evidence and the witness testimonies but

Hey, I will give it to you You know if you had told me that we were gonna do an episode on unicorns I would have assumed it was 12 minutes long and Came with zero evidence as a side But today we had some pretty good written testimonies We had some illustrations, some pictures, some bones that I don't want to talk about, but we did have bones.

This was a more compelling case than I thought it was gonna be. I think that's as generous as any of us can possibly be about today's episode. But look, this sometimes happens on this Paranormal Life. I think it's fun that we've taken this long to get to the concept of a unicorn. Sometimes episodes fly under the radar like this. I think we've seen it with say, dragons or other paranormal cases where...

They're definitely flying under the radar. Dragons. It is paranormal. It is a cryptid. It's part of that world, but it's almost like a super object. It's like talking about countries. Switzerland and China are technically the same thing. Countries. But we kind of need a new, different, bigger word for what China is, which is a super power. It's like so much bigger, more impactful. It's it looms larger in the world, just in the same way that we've got,

you know, the squonk, which is a paranormal cryptid. Sure. And then you've got unicorns, one of the most mysterious and ancient and kind of larger than life things that looms in the human psyche through thousands of years. Okay, maybe they're kind of the same thing, but they're, that's why we, it's why it's taken this long to get to. It's almost like larger than life. You don't even think about it. It's just part of the backdrop of humanity. Yeah. And they have definitely dropped off the grid in terms of like,

not a ton of modern sightings. Yeah, not a ton of modern sightings. They're not talked about like other cryptids are, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, even though, you know, it's about the same amount of evidence to prove all those guys exist. So yeah, it is a strange one.

It's kind of like when we talk about, yeah, as you said, a good example would be like leprechauns, stuff that feels like more folklore and legend. Yeah. And then we get to do these episodes trying to figure out whether or not there's any truth to those legends. If you haven't heard the Leprechaun episode, go on back and check it out because sure. If you haven't heard the Leprechaun episode, I assume that's why you're still here listening now. It is worth it. Because Kit brought the bones.

He brought the bones to that episode. There was tiny bones. Yeah. So you should be banned from bones. You should be allowed to bring bones to an episode ever again. You're like, has any bone, has any time a bone has been brought to an episode, has that episode ever turned out to be a yes? I don't think so.

It's only ever done damage. It's only ever been a no. A f***ing Hail Mary at the buzzer. By the way, here's some bones. And it's like, great, this is the worst part of the episode you said this is a little leprechaun's bones and here's his hat and his stick well oh yeah they put the clothes next to the bones and what I was gonna say was the investigations are somewhat similar in a sense because you know lots of mythology

a little bit of bones but we'll meet the leprechaun episode. Sure, I'm going to bring a little bit of bones to the case. The bones are little after all. What was the really made that episode sing was that compared to the unicorn case, there was one modern news report of a leprechaun panic in a neighborhood in America. Haven't had a unicorn panic in a long time America. Having had a unicorn panic in a long time. Yeah. Having had a unicorn sighting in a long time. And it was just, it's worth going back and seeing because it's towards the end of the episode and dozens of people take to the streets in this town or this neighborhood and they're like trying to hunt the leprechaun down.

And it's some of the best viewing on YouTube you can possibly do. It is really great. I also would recommend the dragon episode. Kit kind of shot all over it at the time. There were no bones. I think I did bring eggs. But I think I showed you pictures of dragon eggs that people believed would eventually, if I guess sat on for long enough, would hatch. But another great episode talking about, very similar,

the origins of dragons. Are they mythological creatures or did they, I believe at one point I claimed they started the great Chicago fires in America. Just pick any fire. Just pick any fire. It was a good episode. It was a good episode.

I believe there was a character called Weelag. That's right. And he was in the heart of it all. That was also the episode where the Zoom broke halfway through and we had to re-record it twice. So you know not to preface or predict what's about to happen on this episode but have any of those mythological tales been yeses? Uh no.

Don't think so. The unicorn no. Dragons, I probably was a yes but I think you were a no. So I was definitely not a double yes. Banshees, no. Also no. With that in mind, in the case of the unicorns, we have to come down to a conclusion

at the end of the episode, whether we think it's real or not. Roy, what are you thinking today? Are unicorns real and paranormal? I like this case. This is an essential one that I think we needed to tackle at some point I believe we have had this one emailed in before probably over the years a number of times

It's a good shot. Yeah, I need to look that up Is it worth googling right now and giving a shout out to everyone that yeah, you can do that while I say my conclusion You don't have long by the way I think this was an important one for this Paranormal Life, because now and again, we just have to... We have to tick off the classics. Sure, we ticked off a lot of the classics quite early on. Bigfoot, Loch Ness, Monster, boom.

Um, unicorns, they were bound to come up. As I said to Kit, I think he did actually a better job today than I thought he was going to. Didn't know we were gonna get bones. The bones didn't help. The bones made things worse. I wish I hadn't seen the bones, but there were bones. And that's more than I thought he was gonna have for me today. Okay, you can stop vamping now. Okay. I think. Special thank you to... What, you're doing shout-outs? Are you doing...

No, I'm thanking them for sending in the suggestion. Oh, you did the special, like you did the Patreon voice. But I assume what you're saying is a thank you for this suggestion. To probably a rat. That's just their email. Oh, right. Name. Julia Wenger. Julia Wenger. Thank you, Julia. Long time listener. Shout out, Julia.

Some of these are probably going back years, I bet. Oh, yeah. Long time listener. Shout out, Julia. Some of these are probably going back years, I bet. Oh, yeah. 2000 BC. 2022 BC, actually, with both of those. And then slightly more recently from Casey Carboni. Casey Carboni? Friend of the show. Wow, I'm glad we could cover this.

Actually, not tons. Not tons of requests. That's kind of, you know, that's not many. Ah, yeah, that's actually not many at all. But I bet there's loads more who've left lovely comments online, asking for this episode. No one asked for this episode, is what I'm trying to say.

We haven't, we said it's a no. It's a no. It's a double no this week. Yeah, I forgot to kind of just say it. Not tons of evidence, but that's okay. A fascinating dive through history to one of Rory's favorite places, ancient Greece, as well as Kush Mountain, a place to hopefully do a TPL road trip before long.

Oh yeah, you bet we will because guess what? We're coming up to episode 420, baby. In fact, I think this is episode like 418 or something, I think we're like two weeks away. And I also think that episode is coming out while we are in a place where it's legal to smoke weed. The moon. Kush Mountain.

But yeah, I don't think it probably is legal at Kush Mountain, actually. Oh, shit. What jurisdiction that's in. Yeah, you would assume. You'd hope, but maybe you're wrong. So I did pitch to Kit, should we just get unbelievably high and host an episode of the podcast, but he didn't seem into it. I can't handle weed. I can't do it.

We both take four gummies and look at pictures of bones. That's gonna be the whole episode. We're gonna... They're gonna create a new Greek name for the parable of the two boys who smoked so much they died. That'll be like, did you ever hear the tale of Kittapus and Rorias and Kittapus? I hate it. I hate it so much.

They smoked so much weed they died. It's like, what was the moral to that story? It's not really a parable. It's just a fact. Thank you for tuning into this this episode of This Paranormal Life. Hopefully you got something out of that. F*** knows. God knows.

It was pretty fun. Do go back and listen if you can't get enough. Check out the Leprechaun episode, the Dragon episode, episodes like that. But if you simply can't get enough This Paranormal Life, even going back and listening to those mythological episodes, you know where to go. Patreon.com. This is the place where for the last, at least seven years, we've been uploading monthly,

weekly, monthly, yearly content all the time. All of the time. Terribly worded. To Patreon. So confusing. Where for as little as five US dollars a month, pending your local currency, you can get access to everything. That's the great thing about Patreon.

If you signed up in the beginning, we're so kind to support us. Huge mistake. You, you got everything as it happened. You fool. You got everything as it happened and you supported us. What did you get? One episode? Oh, thanks for joining. Thank you so much for joining. Here's your one episode. Don't talk it down. But the people, if you're the type of person who likes to binge a show on Netflix. Oh yeah. Well, I hope you like episodes because there's about 1600 on Patreon

right now. There's a lot. Sign up, check it out. You can binge everything if you want. Yeah. I should say, I've mentioned this recently, Apple is taxing people on the app store. So not that this affects everyone, but if you check us out in the Patreon app, Apple is inflating those prices. It's very annoying, but you could simply get around it just by going to patreon.com and simply by going to the website, you will be securing our original pricing for as little as $5, get access to everything. So that's the place to be. Patreon And simply by going to the website, you will be securing our original pricing for as little as $5 to get access to everything. So that's the place to be,

patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life to get all that juicy bonus content. It's also a cool place that we like to give shout outs to some of our listeners from. If you're on the shout out tier, you can get a shout out right here on the podcast. Let's do some. Very true.

Let's do it. So a special thank you to Joey Ace05. Joey Ace sounds like the name of a fighter pilot. Joey Ace. Joey Ace in the sky. You know, just capable of doing any maneuver. Barrel rolls. That roll where you go on your side.

Mostly rolls. Mostly the rolls. Yeah, of course course because he ain't supposed to be flying the jets he turned up on base day one is the janitor and then changed his name to Johnny Johnny ace the janitor outfit is weirdly similar to a fighter pilot outfit the overall yeah yeah they should like do that why do they do that they were like oh are you the janitor overalls. Yeah, so he was like. They shouldn't do that, why do they do that? They were like, oh, are you the janitor? Well, what's your name? And he was like, oh, well, my name's Johnny Ace. And they're like, Johnny Ace? Are you not one of the pilots?

It's Joey Ace. Joey Ace. He didn't say it right to begin with. I know, like, you simply put a bucket on your head, like the janitor bucket on your head. Looks like a helmet. Looks like a helmet, so. A mop with some googly eyes kind of looks like a copilot

so Joey hey land the plane. We need it back He can't he is no idea how No, I did just press the ejector button. There was water in the bucket. He put it on his head and he blinded himself He can't steer thanks also to Brian Casarez Brian Casarez you sound like you're from Greek mythology. Yeah. That could be a cool one.

Like a guy who, I don't know, like smoked so much weed he died. It could be like Rory Kitt and this guy. Ben Casarez. Casarez. Yes. Yeah, the three amigos who you thought each one would be smarter than the last but they didn't they weren't Yeah, one of us hit the joint of doom died The next person was like I bet they just couldn't handle their shit. I bet I'll be the one to

Heal over Brian Casters is like Rory Kit. We're bitch made. There's no I I can handle Rory kit were bitch made. There's no I I can handle The illegal weed of doom that the dealer sure said that if you smoke this prepare to die Yeah, some kind of moral or parable about thinking you're tougher than your friends. Yeah humility You need a little humility and saying maybe I I'm not strong enough and you would have lived I do love seeing classic like videos online on YouTube and stuff of people hitting dab rigs. What's a dab rig? Not that old, am I? I think it's a way of smoking... I sound so old. I think it's a way of smoking weed where it's like if they somehow cooked down or boiled the weed THC down to a resin, so it's kind of like a super

concentrated oil and then you put it in this kind of vaporizer and then resin. So it's kind of like a super concentrated oil. And then you put it in this kind of like vaporizer and then you and hit. So it's basically like you're doing like a hundred bong hits at once. That sounds horrible. People hit these things. They like take one inhale and then they just clear a table and just are literally knocked out cold for like two days. It is hilarious to watch. To watch horrible. It is crazy So we'd technology has moved on a lot. I did as a kid. I smoked weed from an apple

That was about the craziest thing we did. I did see someone tweet that the other day They were like why did Millennials have to smoke weed from apples and coke cans? Yeah coke cans bottles Gen Z gets just like a vape pen from Blade Runner. Yeah, that's not fair. That really isn't fair. Shout out Brian. Hope you can handle your stuff better than we believe you can. Thanks also today to Rachel Schult. Rachel Schult probably stopped turning up with bones. I know that sometimes when you're investigating the paranormal, that can be the ace of spades. Sometimes, we've seen that, we've seen that.

We've seen it before, not on this podcast, but I'm sure in other investigations. But sometimes we're just talking about other things. We're like, hey, did you see the game on the weekends? It's like, oh yeah, that was crazy. And Rachel's like, yeah, yeah, you know what else is pretty crazy? Check this out.

And she just kind of throws a pile of bones in the middle of the friend group. And it's like. We're trying to watch the World Cup, but she's like, yeah, that's a human femur. Yeah, that's a tibula. Right, yeah. And we're like, I think that's illegal.

I think that is straight up illegal. That is human remains. Where did you get it, Rachel? Yeah, whenever we're like, I think that's illegal. I think that is straight up illegal. That is human remains. Where did you get it, Rachel? Yeah, whenever we said tonight we wanted whatever you brought to be boneless, we thought you were bringing wings. And you still brought bones, Rachel, even though we wanted boneless. So I would say, Rachel, this is just a timing place for the bones. And that is the time night the place graveyard

That's where they stay there. Yeah, stay there. You know the way they say you can sleep when you're dead Yeah, you can be into bones when you're dead. You'll be surrounded by bones for all eternity Oh, you're gonna have all the bones you want. You'll practically be bones. That's what I say to my dog True bone like buddy enjoy not bones while you're alive simple as that Guys, thank you so much for your support on patreon We couldn't do it without you patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life for all that content We are gonna be back on Tuesday with a brand new paranormal case can't remember what number this is 420 is coming up or 1818, I think. God knows. God knows what we have planned.

We're gonna get high. Oh, we're gonna be back on Friday. Let's get high tonight. No. Let's go to the awards. No. What if we win? What are we gonna say?

We'll say, thanks for the award. Here's a couple bones. And we throw some bones into the audience. Hell no. You're high now. That's a high thought. We're going to be back on Friday with the after party on Patreon, behind the scenes of TPL.

Check that out. Otherwise, we'll see you back on Tuesday with a brand new Paranormal Tale.