This Paranormal Life - Insane Video Evidence Of Icelands Sea Monster The Lagarfljot Worm

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

As we hurtle through the festive season it’s getting cold, but here at This Paranormal Life instead of conserving our energy and our heat, Kit and Rory are heading north into the icy fjords and lakes of Iceland to hunt down a terrifying ancient paranormal creature known as the Lagarfljót Worm. At first the stories may sound like yet another slice of Iceland’s rich tradition of folklore and myth but then why do we have video evidence of the beast’s existence? Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our Secret Society Facebook Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get access to weekly bonus episodes! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Official TPL Merch!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thisparanormallife.com/store⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Intro music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.purple-planet.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Edited by Philip Shacklady Research by Ewen Friers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Does quantum physics predicts time travel? If heavy metal is the devil's music, what's God's music? And why is it dubstep? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy podcast. We're in every Tuesday. You were joined by me, Kit Grimmolvenna.

This guy's sitting across me, Mr. Rory Pars. Every Tuesday, we get into a different paranormal tale, deciding by the end of the episode whether we think in our professional estimation, that case, claim, beast, piece of lore is truly paranormal or not. How are you doing today, Rory? I think you'll find that the Lord's music is Christian rock. I just, see, that's evil to me. It's just, there's something severancy, something sinister about it. I don't trust it. Really? You don't like it? Also, I will never trust again, Rory, because I don't know if you've ever heard of the Christian metalcore band as I lay dying. Made a lot of good Christian music back in the day.

Singer got arrested for hiring a hitman to kill his wife. Ooh, that's not good. So, I won't trust again. That's why I think, let's look at dobstap producers. Yeah. Those guys, on the face of it, don't know God at all. They're taking drugs, partying all day long, making songs about who knows what. Yeah, when that lead singer was praying to the Lord, which Lord?

For sure, clarify which Lord he's praying to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because a lot of those lyrics could be a little ambiguous, like, I'm down on my knees. I'm praying to thee. Which direction? Playing up or praying down? Yeah.

We need to know these things. I like the idea of him getting handcuffed, hands behind his back being like, the Ten Commandments doesn't say shit. It says you can't kill somebody. It doesn't say anything about hiring someone else to kill somebody. Okay. Of course, we're not going to mess around.

We are going to get into a great paranormal case. Alongside the two crackers that host this podcast, we have Christmas crackers on the table. Is it wrong for us to pop a cracker right now? I think that's fine. I think the people want to know what's inside. Could you have purchased a smaller cracker, by the way? This is the smallest thing.

This is worse than the time I ordered us goblets off the internet. It turned out to me. They were like thimbles. Basically shot glasses, yeah. Okay, let's do it. I haven't seen a skinnier cracker since editor Phil showed up. Oh, it didn't even pop! They just fell apart!

I think they're just ornamental. What the fuck? Yeah. Those don't, those don't pop. No, there's stuff in here. There's budget cuts over here at R&K Media headquarters. We couldn't even afford the real crackers. Oh my goodness.

I have my cracker joke. Patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life is where you can find all the bonus episodes, everything you need. Link is in the description. What's the joke, Rory? What's a snowman's favorite game? I spy with my little eye. That was f*** abysmal.

Ice spy? With my little eye? It's usually a pun, yeah. Because his eyes are rocks? No, it's nothing to do with the little eyes, actually. Well, he does have little eyes. They could have just said ice spot. Yeah, ice spy.

Or I spice. Nope, never mind. Start the episode. Let's go. Let's hit it. If you are living in the northern hemisphere, things are starting to cool down. Ooh, it's getting icy out there. And instead of staying warm over here at TPL headquarters, conserving our energy and our strength through the cold long winter, drinking hot cocoa. Oh, I love a hot cocoa.

F*** that! We're heading north into the eye of the storm, the belly of the bastard. Yeah, well, I'll definitely want the hot cocoa then. Sounds like I've never needed the hot cocoa more. And in a precedented but rare occurrence for this paranormal life, we're headed to Iceland. Whoa, very cool. We don't spend a lot of time in Iceland. Roy, we've talked about it enough over the years to know that this is a place rich with folklore, mythology and claims of the paranormal, with trolls, elves, dragons, and along with long winters

and geothermal activity, it can be a pretty scary place. And I'm not saying that today's case is going to be difficult, but the only thing that's more terrifying than the volcano itself was trying to pronounce its name. Roy, do you want to give it a go real quick? Sure. If anyone, if anyone ever hears Rory make that noise, call 999. He's having a hard time. I think I just summoned something from the dark world.

That's how Rory talks after Rory's dozen of Guinnesses, aka 15 Guinness on a night out. And maybe it's time for me to give a pronunciation a shot, because today on this paranormal life, Rory, we are investigating Lager Fjotsmuri. All right, well that definitely sounds like it's from Iceland. Phil, cue the damn lightning. It's 1983 and a team of contractors are working at a lake in the remote eastern region of the island. They are telecommunications engineers and have come to the area to install telephone cables across the lake bed. As they carry out preliminary depth measurements, something strange occurs. Bjorn!

Yes, boss. Hold it there! Don't you see that? It's just a bump on the lake bed. Yes, but can't you see? It's moving. The two men looked closely at their monitor, where what they would later describe as a large shifting mass

could be clearly seen moving around in the depths. What is it? I think I know. It's... It's... Forget it. Let's get the hell out of here. A few weeks later, with no concrete explanation,

the team returned to lay the cable itself. After ours, dropping the specially designed communication cables to the lake bottom, the men were ready to test the signal. There was a problem. There appeared to be some kind of interruption in connection. No signal could be detected. The men were mystified. So wait, they showed up to do this job,

saw what I assume is some sort of ancient beast below the water. Whoa! Hey, no one's got out of our ancient beast just yet. And their solution was, we'll just come back in like a week. Hopefully he's gone. That sounds way too much. We're in the middle of the icy tundra. We can't burn it down and move on.

Let's just come back in like a week. Yeah. Maybe they're thinking was, let's go back. Tell the guys, guys, we've done practically everything. Oh, yeah, but we just hit a snag. But yeah, you guys just go finish it all for us. We did, we did honestly like 90, 98% of the work, man. But you just got to just give it the spit and polish and we're all good to go.

Yeah, you guys, you guys go ahead and finish it off. We just hit a snag. A snag? The legendary beast known through our home tales? No, no. Shit, is that what it's called? No, you know, we were just doing the early tests and there was a little bit of a kerfuffle. A kerfuffle?

They haven't been seen since the sixth century. Jesus Christ, I thought we killed the last one years ago. Carfuffle! Close the game. Men in the town just start taking their own lives. No, Jesus Christ! Families start sell a taping cash to their children, run into the woods, children. Survive. We're not long for this world.

The men were mystified about what was happening because these cables have been reinforced and specially engineered to avoid bending or tangling. What could be the problem? There was only one thing for it. The cable had to be retrieved from the lake bed, uninspected. Right in the location where the sonar had picked up that strange shape during the preliminary soundings, they got their answer. They pulled the cable from the water.

Well, what was left of it? As Mr. Benedictson described, this cable that was specially engineered so it wouldn't kink was wound in several places and badly torn and damaged in 22 different places. I believe we dragged the cable directly over the belly of the beast. Yikes! Unless it was through its mouth. Oh my God. The beast!

What was he talking about? Mr. Benedictson clearly knew something. Ah, I've said too much. I mean, I can relate to this because my religious upbringing meant that I was designed also not to kink. But that didn't work out either. So I can really relate to this underwriting. water cable. Rory's version of this

is his ancestors looking down from heaven, Moulin style, being like, so is our descendant married yet? No, something's gone wrong. He's got into feet. Oh,

God. He's, what age is he? He's been jerking into feet for the last 16 years. Why is he downloading a VPN?

Oh, no. Why does he delay? He was the one foretold to birth, the chosen one. Yeah, well, I wish you would tell him that. because he doesn't seem to be in any rush whatsoever. Right now he's birthing chosen once three times a day alone.

I don't want to alarm anyone. He's looking up furry tales on Amazon. Oh, Jesus. Can you imagine dying and going to the afterlife and your ancestors pretending like they didn't know you? Getting literally ghosted by your ancestors? Yeah, because you just know that they are old school and they wouldn't look too kindly on the actions of us,

modern men in 2025. Sure. You're like, oh my God. It's my, it's my, it's my, I've seen the photos. It's my great, great grandfather, Francis, Francis. Like, no, I saw you dancing a little too hard of that Charlie X, the X, X, concert. I can't be seen next to you, bud. Yeah.

I can't be seen next to you, kid. And the value that they would put on a human life would be sort of like, how many men have you slayed? How many villages did you conquer? You know, old, old ancestors were going back to. So I don't think they would be interested in how many Instagram followers I have. That one time a social video blew up that was really cool. podcast performing pretty well on Spotify, things like that they probably wouldn't care that much about. Right, you're a great, great grandmother who kind of fought tooth and nail for women's rights

and suffrage. She's like, so did you continue the lineage of political activism, Rory? It's like, no for sure, though. Yeah. Oh, bro, you have no idea how many change.org petitions I've signed. Yeah, yeah. Super important to me, bro. Rory, we're getting sidetracked as usual. Of course, Mr. Benedictson. knew what they were dealing with. It was, of course, the Lagerfiot. The Lager float. The Lager float. A couple more time. You want to try it again? Lager. Hold on. This sounds delicious. No. There's no time to be talking about drinking beer, Rory. Today we're dealing with... Lager float. What he said. Lagerfjot. Well, the Lager float sounds like ice cream and a beer.

Yeah, it sounds delicious. It sounds actually like a weird, the thing you kind of would get at a Christmas market. The Germans would be like, oh, yeah, try the log or float. There's no rules anymore. There's a market near us to the office where they're selling Mold Guinness. Yeah, well, that's a hate crime. Crazy. Against Irish people, I think, right there.

So we'll not get into that. But people must have tried that. Ice cream and beer. Oh, never fear. The Mold Guinness. Weed before beer, always fear. ice cream and beer delicious

that's right we're dealing with but beer before ice cream you're in for a nice team nice time cut that go to the next one go to the next one

oh that was sorry that was a cracker joke I just popped another cracker you didn't hear it because they don't make a noise but yeah that wasn't me that was the cracker can we do another one to see if it makes a noise

yeah sure why not here you go pop that cracker this is so sad This is so depressing. It's like they cut off Rudolph's nose. This is Starmer's Britain. All right? Starmer's Britain.

We bought those in the post office. How bad is this recession we can't afford gunpowder anymore? Like we're pilgrims or something. Don't tell China. Don't tell China that the NATO nations of the West can't even afford gunpowder to put in their crackers. Hey! Got that one. All right, okay.

I was about to go crazy. I was about to, you got to have a sniff. That smells amazing. Oh, yeah. How a hunk on that. What? You don't smell the crackers after you pop them? What?

Am I the only one that does that? No, bro. No, I think. Editor Phil is laughing in the corner. He's never seen a grown man sniff a cracker. Horrible. No, it doesn't smell unbelievable. It doesn't smell good.

You guys are the weird ones. Shout out to the crack. Y'all don't smell a cracker out to you. No. What have you ever see? I think traditionally it's like, let me see what toy have. We're always like, f. No, shout out to the cracker sniffers in the audience out there.

Don't tell out. You're real ones. Don't be ashamed of that. Wow. It smells good. It smells like party poppers. You smell those afterwards? You don't smell those afterwards.

You guys are insane. That's the best part. God, damn it. All right. That's right. Today we're talking about the Lager float worm. Iceland's wildest cryptid. The Lager float worm.

I just wasn't expecting that kind of finisher. Did I mention it was a worm? No, at no point. Did you mention it was a worm? Well, I'm telling you not how it's a worm. Also known as Iceland's, this is what's written on, wildest cryptid. the larger float worm this is like saying

today we're investigating the soul snatching beetle you can't that needs to be a part of the whole name you can't just do a pause and then introduce the worm if this

if the word for soul snatcher was Icelandic there would be a pause okay okay can you say it better the larger float worm the larger float worm thanks for doing the pause as well

Well, now while Bjorn. Now while Bjorn... Your voice is going weird after... It's the fucking gunpowder. Why'd you get me into a hail that, bro? While Bjorn was from a different generation, less familiar with the old folk tales of the land, Mr. Benedictson had grown up with these stories

and had dreaded going to work at log or float ever since the company took this job on. Whilst tales of a monstrous worm or serpent living in the lake had been around for centuries, it was an account from the 1960s when Benedictson was a boy that had captured his imagination. Whoa, okay.

As described in an article by Sven Birkir Bjornsen of the Rikievic grapevine, there are numerous sightings recorded, many of them in the 20th century, and mostly by people who are generally proven to be reliable and sober. In 1963, Sigur Blondol,

head of the National Forest Service, witnessed a long streak that moved along the water, rising and falling above the water level. As a man of science, he has never been able to fully explain what he saw. Ah, okay, because in my head, that we were in a place so isolated and so cold

that this creature perhaps was moving below ice. But you're saying most of this lake is just a cold lake with a creature that can... That's right. swim around. Okay. It's liquid. Got it. We're still liquid. Got it. Okay. Unlike TPL. We are liquid.

Yeah, we need this episode to pay off, guys. Those crackers were the last 12 quid in the TPL checking. Guys, what exactly is the LagerFloat worm? According to Cryptid Wiki, the LagerFloat worm or the Iceland worm monster is a giant worm-like creature that lives in the Icelandic lake of Lager Float. This worm has many humps as it swims through the murky water, often looking serpentine. It has also been reported, coiled up, or even slithering up trees. Oh, no, it's amphibious?

Yes. Yikes, that's not good. Glad you remembered that word. I couldn't. The article continues, its first reported sighting was in 1345, and its most recent sighting was 2012, which either means these creatures have an extremely long lifespan of 700-plus years. Or there's a small population living in the lake. Up to you, which of those is more likely? Feels like referring to this thing as a worm is a bit of a disservice.

It's a, it's a snake monster. It sounds enormous. Yeah. Which I'm starting to feel okay about because an ex wants to describe my penis as being worm-like. And now I'm looking back and thinking she was saying that shit was a monster. That was a beast. Yeah. So, actually, huh.

Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty cool actually. A worm. I'm sure definitely that's what she really meant was that it was so large that it resembled the Icelandic cryptid known as the Larga Float worm. Was she from Iceland?

She wasn't Icelandic, no, that's what I was going to say. I don't know if that makes a difference, or she might have known the lore. She's from Bristol. I don't think she knows the lore. Calling this thing a worm is only very disturbing to me because, you know, we've investigated a lot cryptids like this on the podcast before. Lake monsters, such as Loch Ness monster, Yogo Pogo, the monster of Lake Koschkanong. The list goes on. Don't laugh at that one. That was mine.

Just because you had to offer him cigarettes to make him go away, that didn't mean that he wasn't real. But usually they take the shape of like some kind of fish thing. They have like flippers or... Well, hold on now. Fish? Well, no, you know what I'm saying. Like they have... Seas serpent. Yes, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. an eel like thing. What class of beast is a, I know it's not like a Pokemon normal type, ghost type, but what class of beast is a worm? Loch Ness monster. Oh, right. Yeah. I guess it's like sometimes depicted as a dinosaur, other times. I mean, there are eels. Yeah. That are large. Yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, I know

what you're saying. But for this thing to be described as a worm, thinking about what a giant worm would look like is genuinely quite horrifying. Because worms do not have eyes. They don't have mouths. They're just kind of long tubes. Lousy with hearts though for some reason. Remember that. No. Why do you know this? Because that's like some of the only information I still have from being a small child is like I wasn't going, let me just clear the air. I wasn't going out of my way to intentionally kill worms. But every night and again you step on a worm. All right? And you end up cutting in half with your little size three kickers shoes. Yeah. And isn't that the whole thing? The worms then go on to live separate worm existences.

I think that's, I think that's true. Because you can do that with bait fishing. You can cut your bait up and then use that worm and then there's another worm on the other side. How does that work? Do the two halves of the worm share the same memories? An earthworm has five hearts. Wow. There you go. Because they love five, times as deeply as humans. But it's all for dirt. They just love dirt five times as much as the normal human. That's why they never got past worm form,

was they had to put so much evolutionary Darwinian energy into fucking loving dirt. God was like, why aren't the worms evolving? It's like, I don't know. Maybe they're not strong enough. It's like, okay, we'll give them another heart. And the worms are like, now I really love dirt. It's like, oh, okay, he's, it's not progressive.

expressing him at all. So to truly kill a worm in video game style, you have to destroy each of its five hearts? I like that logic. Or just stand on it, I guess. Crush all five, one go. I definitely managed to do that with my size threes. I'm actually glad you've jumped on this point of what this thing looked like, because like many, water-based cryptids, an actual physical description is sometimes in short supply, given that they are mostly under the murky waters. but we do have some artist's interpretations from various sightings over the years. Take a look at and see what we think we're dealing with here, Rory. Okay.

Image number one. Show me the beast. Oh, okay. So this one is, I would just describe it as snake. This is kind of like a sea snake. A very large kind of water snake. And sea snakes do exist. Yep.

Image number two. Whoa. Entering real mythical beast levels of a creature. this thing is enormous. This thing has a mouth. This is more a sea serpent. It has kind of that Mohawk flailed back. Very cool and very scary.

It's kind of giving blue eyes white dragon, Yu-Gi-o style. And then onto something a little weirder. Whoa. Tapping in more to the worm lower. Well, this isn't a worm. This is a straight-up slug. Yeah.

Slug body with the two little slug antennas. This guy's kind of cute. So right, first of all, you're sniffing crackers. Now you're saying slugs are cute. Did you fucking pop a molly before this? What's cute about it? They're just sad little guys. There's also a scale comparing the slug to a human,

in which it's 15 times the size. Yeah, but they don't even, slugs don't even eat humans. Yeah, because they're not big enough. This one's very much big enough. I don't think that's the only reason they don't do it. You know what's crazy? At the end of this crazy ride, worms and slugs do eat humans.

Yeah, that's kind of true actually. They're going to eat all of us. Worm food, as they say. They won't be eating me, though, because I have already chosen how I'm going to die. I'm going to swallow a bunch of gunpowder and put myself in a medieval torture rack. So I become a human Christmas cracker. You pull me apart, and I explode in the middle. And that's how we get the jokes inside.

The jokes that were too hot for TV. They'll finally pop out of Rory and the torture rack. That's so dark. You might have gathered from these collection of images. The size of this creature is drawn into question. This is kind of typical for a seafaring cryptid. We all know the classic jokes about fishermen exaggerating the size of their catch. Yeah.

And I'm not referring to me and my ex again. Yeah. That they would be like, you know, they catch. something out in the season and they get back to tell the homies at the pub and they're like, they start suddenly they have a couple Guinness and their hands are getting wider and wider apart. It was actually this size. So some estimations place the size of the beasts at as much as 200 feet long. Sometimes if I have too much Guinness, my worm can't get bigger. That wasn't a cracker too. I did not write that. That was very crass. It was looking at me in the eye

and he said it, and then he picked up the piece of paper when he saw, when he heard the silence in the room. And this room isn't just me, by the way. Phil's back there. I regret saying that. Cut that from the podcast. You shouldn't say something that disgusting when there's this much tinsel in a room.

It should be illegal. It's like, all right, drunk uncle at the Christmas party. It's giving. This is, wait till the kids go to f***ed, all right? Sometimes when I drink too much Ginnis, my worm can't get bigger. Don't repeat it! That's awesome.

Like many cryptic cases, the further back in history you go, the more insane the accounts become. For probably a variety of reasons, was the beast more powerful 700 years ago? Maybe. Also, do old stories have a lot more time to become exaggerated over time? Sure.

But in the Skalholz annul of 1345, it describes, a thing in the lake with humps out of the water distanced hundreds of fathoms apart. And this thing would appear again and again in texts, accounts and descriptions of Iceland throughout the 16th and 17th century. On one map of Iceland from 1585, there is a fascinating inscription made by the famous cartographer Abraham Ortelius. It reads, In this lake appears a large serpent which poses a menace to the inhabitants. and appears when some memorable event is imminent.

Love that for a couple of reasons. We've got not only ratifying all the evidence we've had up to now, all the sightings and stuff, hundreds of years later as people talking about it, people who aren't even from Iceland, but who are documenting the area, maybe for one of the first times, in a map that being like, right, heads up.

Need to know information before you get here. Watch out for the big water beast. Yeah, and did you say as well that as far as the legend goes, this creature shows up kind of before important events? Well, this is the first time we're hearing about it, but yes, that was alleged in 1585. Which is a thing with cryptids, whether it's Mothman appearing before natural disasters or the banshee, crying out appearing when a loved one is going to die. This is a common thing in the world of the paranormal, which is a creature showing up to be kind of a premonition before a bad thing,

whether it warns you or it's just kind of an omen or something like that. And it makes perfect sense, right? You know, does it, Kit? The fact that... The Icelandic worm showing up before misfortune. It can see the future. Yeah, it can see the future. But we're talking about a paranormal entity.

So maybe what I should say is why not? Yeah. It's already a paranormal beast. Why can't it predict the future? I like that. I do really like in this cross-section. of the map by Ortelius in 1585. They have a little map of part of Iceland here.

I'll just draw your attention to the polar bear struggling to get on the ice here. Oh, that's cute. Clearly about to die. I miss when he's like, instead of helping the beast, he's like, just stay still for a second while I draw this real quick. I miss when maps just contained a lot more creative liberties. Yeah.

Where it was like, oh yeah, when I was walking in the desert, I saw a snake around this area. I'm just going to draw a big snake there. Or like, do you remember that castle we saw? Like two miles down? Yeah, that thing was sick. It's just drawing on the map. Yeah.

You know, people can know where the big castle is. You know? That kind of fantasy style map is very cool. Yeah, maps are a lot less sexy in 2025. Google just sent around a van to start taking photographs of everyone and everything. Yeah. uploading it to the internet. And if you complain, they'll blur out your face.

Yeah. Kind of disappointing. It's a little bit literal, a little bit unromantic. But thankfully, the sightings that anecdotes didn't stop in the 1500s, as we well know. For example, in the 90s, a group of students in Iceland, along with their teacher, claimed to have had a sighting near their school, located not far from the banks of the Larga Float River, which feeds into LagerFloat Lake. Oh, okay.

I forgot the way that sentence was written. but it does make sense. They weren't near the lake, but they were near the river connected to the lake. This was also reported in the Rikievic Grapevine. Iceland's a small place. I don't know if we've gathered that, but Rikievic has a population, the whole country is a population the size of Belfast or something. So it makes sense.

We're leaning on one newspaper here. In 1998, a group of students and a teacher in Hatlormstadur School located along the river, witnessed a similar mysterious station. long snake-like streak in the river. The siding lasted for over 10 minutes, according to most accounts. The monster resembles other known lake monsters,

such as the Ogopogo in Canada. Whoa, okay, that's crazy. Pretty cool that back in 98, kind of pre-internet, referencing the Ogopogo. Yes, famously, I think the only ever bonus episode of the podcast, Patreon bonus episode,

that we ever gave a double yes. Yeah. Which is, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, which we've mentioned many times before. We don't do it. We don't do conclusions on a bonus episode, but we were like, now we insist. We had to conclude on the Ouro Pogo.

Oh, but we must. Kit just showed me a video of it. I can't distress this enough. We talked for like an hour about whether or not this thing was real, and then right before the end of the podcast, Kit said, oh, by the way, here it is. and hit play and show me a video of the Lake Beast.

And I was just like, well, what am I supposed to say to that? It's obviously real. A couple of worms got a little bigger in the studio that day. All right. That one is on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. I was teeing you up earlier to check it out. Links in the description, but you can go see the Ogopogo episode if you want to check it out. Support the show.

That's a little Christmas present you can give to myself and Kit so that we can afford some real crackers that actually pop. this studio. Of course it's very hard to explain where a mythical cryptid like this came from. Thankfully we do have an origin story for this beast, a folk tale that might give us a clue. It said that Phil played the old-timey music please. A long time ago, a young girl was given a golden ring by her mother and when she asked what she should do with it, her mother told her to put it in a wooden chest with a worm. The theory was that as the worm grew, so too would the girls riches. More worm, more gold. That's not how to grow a worm, put it in a box with metal.

They love dark. No. They love dark. After a few days, the girl checked on her fortunes and the scheme had worked. In fact, it worked better than she expected. The worm had exploded into a 200-meter-long ancient beast. Not really. It had an incredible growth spurt and it was almost bursting from the box. Now, despite seeing some decent growth in her fortunes, she was shocked by the worm's size, and she threw the chest into the nearby lake. The box sank to the bottom, but the worm continued to grow and grow,

and the rest is history. Got it. Right. So this is nonsense. That's what that is. I wasn't clear if this was something that actually happened, or if this was... I think this potentially is actually a weirdly scientific... story, actually, because all we're dealing with, if true, is a...

Magic worm? No. A genetic freak. Another thing my ex called me. A genetic freak, which is a worm that just never stopped growing. Humans get that. You can't say that's not true. Humans get what?

Gigantism. Sure, to a certain point, none of us become... I think they just die then. The size of SUVs. You know, we just kind of get to a certain... You've seen, Yao Ming. But talk about... a worm, how many times multiplied a worm would have to become to get reached the size of a monster

like that? That's a lot. What if it was just quite a big worm? We have seen this in sea serpent tails before, you know, where scientists will be like, you know the way all those sailors painted like giant squids eating like entire naval ships? Yeah. It was like, it was the size of a lifeboat as biggest. An octopus just washed up on the deck. They've never seen one before. Yeah. Hey, I don't want to get too into it.

But I just think it's interesting that there was no, put it this way, there was no witch's curse. There was no, you know, infinity stone floated to the bottom of Yelager float lake. And then mutants came out of it, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Instead, it was just a worm that kept on growing. Sure. And I, sure. and I don't want to like

I understand Let's do another cracker Let's do another cracker I understand I want to distract the audience from the lack of evidence in this case Hey

Frike's working God damn it Stop sniffing that You little pervert You little f*** See the way he just went for that Like it was second nature That's like sniffing a seat

After someone gets up off of That's what that is Yeah it is It is The smell of gunpowder Sorry I have the blood of a warrior Pumping through my veins That the smell of gunpowder

gets me a boner All right I want to apologize for that. Listen. You can't be wearing a jumper that cozy and claim to have the blood of a warrior. But for the U.S.

I understand that this story about the worm and the box in the golden ring, this is maybe more an origin story based in local folklore and legend rather than an actual explanation as to how this thing was created, a worm that never stopped growing.

I always enjoy hearing that side of things. How do the locals frame this and understand it in their world? Can you at least show it on your face that you enjoyed listening to the story? Because you seem annoyed by it, almost universally. He's trying. The video watchers will know, Roy's, yeah. Oh, God, please stop it.

It's horrible. I'm trying to smile. It's like you're being tortured on the medieval torture rack. I just don't think that gets us any closer to understanding what this thing is or deciding that we actually think it's real, you know? Time for evidence. Okay. Until 2012, that little story was pretty much how the Lager Float Worm was thought of. Quaint folklore, with a few dubious sightings sprinkled on there for good measure.

No proof, no evidence. But that was about to change. A video surfaced that would propel this crypted to new levels of fame throughout Iceland and across the world. Let's go. One morning in February 2012, Jesus Christ, Hjortur Kjerov, very sorry, A local farmer was making his morning coffee when he spotted something strange from the kitchen window. His house looked directly on to one of the rivers that feeds Larger Float Lake. A strange shape was moving around in the fast flowing water.

It appeared to swim through the icy water independently. He had no idea what it was, so he reached for his phone and here's what he filmed. Whoa! Rory Witness the Beast! Oh, Kit pulled his trousers down again. What is that? All right, this is... What is it? Sweet Jesus Christ, it's real.

This is the Ogopogo all over again, folks. I want him to zoom out so I can actually see the size of this thing. Shapes of reference. Yeah. There you go. I zoomed out enough for you? Oh, I can't believe he's doing it again. I can't believe kids doing it again.

Where do you find these videos? Darknet, mostly. I trade weed for them. I really, really need you right now, before we go any further to explain. At the end of every episode, I know, I'm sorry, go. I need you to tell me how that's not real. Like that this person was a notorious jokester. that the footage was examined and that that actually...

It was an enormous snake beast swimming through a stream. The images were picked up by RUV, Iceland's national broadcaster, and eventually by news outlets across the world, which is where we're watching it on YouTube, on CBS News. So this bad boy, only 100,000 views. The world needs to know about this. Maybe we're going to blow this story up.

Within days, the video has been viewed millions of times online in various places. Responding to claims that he had hoaxed the footage somehow, he was adamant. He said he didn't know exactly what he filmed, but nothing had been staged. Okay. RUV ran a follow-up article saying that Horta completely denies hoaxing this and says it completely over and over again. And in reference to the sheer mechanics of puppeteering or the skills required to Photoshop,

a credible hoax, the article continued saying, quote, Hjorda turns 67 tomorrow He's never been outside the country and says he knows nothing about computers They had to kind of throw him under the bus just then To be like, look Guys, if you met Hjotter You would know this is not a hoax

He's just like, we just think you might be doing it for the clout What the f is clout? He lives Is that some type of wool I haven't harvested yet? Hjotr has one pair of hand-knitted sword His mother gave him when he was three. And he's worn them every day.

He lives beside an Icelandic lake, hundreds of miles from civilization. Okay? He wasn't doing it for the IG followers. To show us this tape, he sledded to town by wolf. He doesn't want attention. The name Hjotr and Clout doesn't really go together. I don't think he's a clout chaser. Klaus, maybe.

but he's like, yeah, I heard of this clout, a new type of coal that burns twice as long, yeah? It's like, no, man. Here's some money for the video, dude. Just be well. I mean, to be fair, he does have a video phone. Yeah, so he's somewhat technologically advanced. Hey, this is a good thing about the little poison box we'll have on our pockets. It's now reached rural Iceland and we're getting awesome paranormal evidence like this.

There we go. The Ricciovic grapevine stepping in yet again. Gave an interview with a biologist and Largerfloat expert, Helgi Hallgremsen. Halgroomson had some interesting points to offer, saying there are some similarities between Lake Largerfloat and Loch Ness. Both lakes are long and narrow, about equal in size, and both are very turbid, so visibility is very limited. Insinuating these conditions would be a perfect hiding place for an undiscovered creature. I feel like the ecosystems of these creatures are so fundamentally different, it seems redundant to put them side by side. Why so?

Because aside from the fact that they're both just lake monsters, that really does seem like the only similarity between them. You know, they're saying like, oh, the Loch Ness monsters also, you know, lives in a place like, and it's like, well, that's not even on this island. It's a whole, it sounds like a whole other different thing. Yeah. Like I understand that maybe they're saying conditions. of the lake are similar, but I don't think if both of these things exist, they don't know about each other. There's no connection. Yeah, I mean, maybe the historical accounts of the Larger float, worm. Still haven't nailed that pronunciation yet. Or the timing of the sentence. The early

accounts of the beast were more similar to the Loch Ness monster. They described these humps coming out of the water. I suppose, yeah. But maybe later ones, not so much, where it looked like a slug. Holgrimson goes on saying there are sightings that cannot fully be explained by reason. My opinion is that these are paranormal activities. Much like people who claim to see ghosts, elves and hidden people, this is why some sightings can't be explained and why only some people can see the worm. I like it. As a scientist, I have at least not been able to fully explain this. Didn't expect that from the scientist. Yeah, that's a really good point. But I would say, but I would say,

that this is actually typical of our limited time we've spent in Iceland, is that Iceland may be similar to Ireland, but Ireland is more in the past. Icelanders seem to be very open to the existence of the paranormal. I mean, I think

we covered it on the podcast before, and I heard it again recently. I think isn't it like if you go to build a bunch of houses, you technically have to do like a ferry report with the government? I don't know. That might be an urban legend. Where you have to be like, You have to like, you'd be like, yeah, we looked and there's no elves who live here.

Because they take that shit seriously. Today, though, I don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe parts of Ireland, they take it very seriously. Was I high? You're like, all I know is when I bought my house, I paid a guy $200 grand to do a ferry report. You're telling me he wasn't a legitimate businessman. Because he also charged an extra $100 grand to get rid of the fairies that live there.

With a gun that shot dreams. He said that was the only way to get rid of them in every bullet. cost five grand. I would need to research this more, which is always how I start it when I'm wrong. I would need to research this a little more. But the Icelandic road and coastal administration has developed a standard response

for handling questions about elf concerns as they often have to delay projects or move large elf rocks or elf habitats in order to do construction. Listen, I don't agree with Elon Musk's whole doge thing gutting the government, But when you have a department for elf concerns, I think there's maybe a little fat that could be trimmed from the organization. I do think so.

Maybe. Some jobs could be replaced by AI. Sure. Rory, Rory, Rory. In a world with fewer and fewer hidden places that a cryptid could lie undetected, what do we think about what's lying in Lake Larga float? Is there a missing link? Some sort of ancient sea serpent species. Was that it?

That was a real question? No, I'm not done. Oh, right. I'm doing another Icelandic halls. There's a lot of words. All right, we're done. What do you think? Go on then.

What do you think? All right, last cracker. This is the last one for luck. Okay. Come on. Here we go. Here we go. Hey, we got behind you now, man.

Absolutely. I think I was going limp wrist before. Let me see if maybe this joke can tee up the conclusions. I'm not reading that. That's terrible. Have you ever read a joke so bad it made you sad? We need to, yeah, totally. I'm not reading that. What we need to do for next week is we need to get, like, let's find the most dope crackers we get, the most expensive ones on the market.

Oh, you like pop it. I want caviar. An iPhone comes out. Yeah. iPhone. or higher. That's actually pretty cool. Is that an invention people have made yet?

Rich people Christmas crackers? 100%. It's like you crack it open and invidious stocks and shares burst out of it. Oh, goodie. Bonds in the US treasury. How lovely.

Oh, okay. Here's a joke from the cracker. Go on then. How do you scare a snowman? Go on. With a hairdriar. Very good. Very good.

Because you melt? You're going to melt them? Yeah. All right. So, at the end. of every episode of this paranormal life we have to decide whether our case is truly paranormal or not rory in the case of the lag of float worm what are you saying today um this is a little one is a little tricky for me um because uh

despite always wanting to i've also never been to iceland before um my knowledge of that place is actually quite limited um so even talking about the the wilderness these lakes it's uh quite hard for me to picture it in my mind without just throwing up stereotypes of what I think this place would look like. In my mind, the entire lake was frozen. That probably isn't the reality of most of the parts of this country. Wasn't that what they say? Iceland is green. Greenland is ice.

I think so. And I'm sure there is a lot of truth to that. I think Iceland is also very cold, to be fair. Of course. But I do like parts of today's story where I get to learn a little bit more about the history of this thing in the folklore. I don't like what this is going. The backstory. We never actually, we just kind of watched that video and then didn't really talk about it anymore.

We can watch it again if you want. Is there really nothing more to talk about with that? That's just, that is what it is. You saw the worm. I hate when you show me worm videos. I hate it so much. I don't want to get off topic, but will we watch the Ogopogo video again? after a long time.

You can almost compare. No, I don't want to see it again. No, really? I don't. I don't. Right now, I'm in one of those court cases where you know the person is guilty and definitely did it.

But for some reason, you're like, but we can't, like, we all know we did it, but like we haven't ticked all the boxes or there's some reason why we can't say guilty. Me showing you the video is the defendant being like, but look, I have proof that I was in a different country at the time and you're like you mother fuck you definitely did it though yeah yeah so i don't really care what the evidence says yeah i'm gonna that's why we aren't called onto a jury i'm gonna throw it to you

kit i want to know what you think about this case before i conclude let me see that video again let me let me let me let me see that show me the worm read some comments too maybe the comments are like this is fake look at look at the corner of the video at three minutes 25 This is bad when we have to like phone a friend. One comment says, that is definitely moving in a forward motion of a living organism, not great grammar, but I think we know what they're getting at.

Another, there are no snakes or other reptiles in Iceland. This is very convincing. Others say, wow, look at that. Someone filmed trash in water. Another saying, it's just a chain of segmented ice being pushed along by the currents. Since it's not a solid block,

It gives the impression of being a moving creature, but it's just ice and water flow, lull. Okay, let me see it again then with that not. I didn't understand that was a thing that could happen. An ice chain? I will say, so from afar, it looks great, and it looks like a crocodile. Yeah.

That looks like ice. That, yeah, because look, it's like blocky at the top. But it is, why is it moving like that? Is it just current, though? I'm not, you're going first, brother. Kate hasn't said a word in 20 seconds he's got his eyes locked

on this footage it's such a Roershack test you just look at it and it's just utterly subjective it really is utterly utterly subjective um oh I'm torn I think it's a no I think it's a no

from me I think it's a no it's annoying I think it's a no I think that is ice. I well, hey, I welcome the smoke on this one. I invite the community to let us know what you think. When I watch that, I see that it is crocodile like the way it sits just above the water and that looks compelling. But as you watch it, the bits that are in the water and the bits that are

out of the water never change. It's not as if the water is lapping over the top of an animal that's moving. It's like, whatever this is is sitting on top of the water. That is my assessment of what's happening. That is why I think this is one lone piece of evidence. You take that away, we've got nothing. We've got no photos, no pictures, no videos. I'd definitely say if you want to come to your own conclusion, you've got to find this footage and look at it.

Because I'm giving it a yes. I'm giving it a yes. Holy moly. Usually the only thing that stops me from giving cryptic cases a yes, is being able to say at the end of every episode. But what we're missing is that crucial bit of footage. I'll give it to you. And Kit just handed it to me on a plate.

Is it 100% convincing? Maybe not. But we do have something here. We have footage. You just got to check this out, guys. It's pretty wild. Hey, I'm happy with that outcome. I think that's pretty interesting.

Very, very rarely. Almost never in this paranormal life do we have the host shoot the episode down. And the other person, give it a yes. Woo! We're getting festive over here

over at this paranormal life. Something in the dynamic has to be fundamentally wrong for it to reach that conclusion. Rory sniffed a lot of crackers in the lead up to that conclusion.

I will just say that. I don't know what's in those things. They are cheap. They are from God knows where. Hey, very exciting. Thank you, Rory, for giving us that yes. Community, you've got to let us know.

This isn't a Shog Harbor situation. This isn't a war of attrition between me and Rory. It's cool. We've always got different opinions on it. Let us know. If you're watching on YouTube

watching on Spotify, drop it in a comment. You could comment. Let us know what you think. If you're watching the video, you'll get to see the evidence for yourself. Drop a scoop of haggendaz in some Stella Artois, call that a Larger float. Okay, that's what we're going to go investigate right after this recording. Oh yeah. Thanks for tuning into this one, guys. Hope you've enjoyed that Icelandic investigation. Hope you're feeling cozy. You got that hot cocoa I mentioned at the top of the episode. We have the after party. We're going to be back on Friday on patreon.com with the after party. We're going to be back with a very special piece of bonus content on Patreon, which is our annual Q&A bumper Q&A episode.

Oh yeah. Well, your boys get a little tipsy. They get a little tipsy and they answer some questions from the community. That's going to be a blast. A couple worms in the club getting tipsy. Do you want to pop the last cracker to celebrate the end of this episode? Do you want to do it with Phil and see which one. Give Phil a chance to see.

There you go, Phil. You can tell us a joke. Hey! Okay, well, he lost. And the final joke for today's episode is, did Rudolph go to school? No, he was elf taught. Right.

Patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. Kill my elf. If the jokes get any worse. We're going to be back next week with a brand new paranormal tale. We're going to be back on Friday on the after party over on patreon.com. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week. Bye.