Timesuck with Dan Cummins - Short Suck 64: The Skunk Ape

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Today we journey deep into the swamps of Florida to investigate the legend of the Skunk Ape, Bigfoot’s smaller, stinkier, swamp-dwelling cousin. From centuries-old sightings and bizarre eyewitness encounters to cryptid hunter Dave Shealy’s controversial "evidence," we’ll dig into the history, folklore, and possible explanations behind one of America’s strangest regional monsters. Is something really hairy and stinky (but not human) hiding in the Everglades? For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badmagicproductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to another edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cumminton today. I'll be sharing the story of the skunk ape, whatever you think of Florida, especially South Florida. One thing you can't say is that it is not biodiverse. The muggy sawgrass marshes, mangrove forests, and cypress swamps, where a lot of us humans have decided strongly against living, are home to one of North America's most eclectic ecosystems. Everglades National Park, for example, home to more than 360,000.

different bird species alone. Plus white-tailed deer, Florida Panthers, manatees, large Argentinian reptiles called tagus, frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, alligators,

crocodiles, other lizards, crustaceans, and maybe at least one more creature. The skunk ape. Have you ever heard of it? It wouldn't be that surprising if you hadn't. The skunk cape is not like the other animals

I just mentioned. It's not when there's been studied for years by scientists and zoologists or protected by conservationists or conclusively captured on camera and officially cataloged, the skunk cape is not even officially recognized as well-existing. It's a cryptid, a creature that seems from its description to be something akin to Bigfoot's smaller, wetland-based, stinkier cousin.

And like with Bigfoot sightings, many people claim to have seen this supposedly roughly six-foot-tall creature. They claim to have heard its sloshing footsteps in Florida's waterlogged marshes or to have seen its eerily almost human face in the trees, or perhaps its most distinctive trait, to have smelled its nauseating scent, a sulfurous waft of rotten eggs, decayed plant matter, and pond scum. So what is this creature?

Where did it come from? And why do so many South Floridians insist in the face of no concrete proof of its existence that the skunk ape is, oh, so very real? Words and ideas can change the world. I hated her, but I wanted to love my mother. I have a tree. I'll plead not guilty right now. Your only chance is to leave with us. It's a given that every culture has stories and legends of creatures who are not proven to be real.

Many of us know these creatures as cryptids. The word cryptid comes from the term from the study of these creatures, cryptozoology, which means a study of hidden animals. As a field, cryptozoology originated from the works of Bernard Hoyleman's, a French Belgian zoologist, and I Ivan T. Sanderson, a Scottish zoologist. In 1955, Hoyleman's published on the track of unknown animals, a landmark work that would pave the way for dozens of similar texts, all of them about creatures that may or may not be real. And thus, cryptozoology was born. He coined the word cryptozoology, meaning again the science of hidden animals. Today, cryptozoology has the wrap of being junk science, but for Hoyleman's, Cryptozoology wasn't about sitting up in a tree blind, way out in the woods or the swamp dressed in camo holding the shotgun full of slugs for protection covered in mud

to mask your scent so that some big foot or you know skunk ape or swamp ape could walk you know right underneath you and you could get them on camera or even bag and tagged that some bitch if you get aggressive it was intended to mark the beginning of a legitimate new form of science one that did not label mysterious creatures as monsters or beasts but sought to find document and understand them and hollivan's had some evidence to prove his point that not all over the the world's big beasts had already been found. He started his best-known book by refuting a guy named Georges Gouvier, a paleontologist who had claimed in the early 19th century that science had already discovered all of Earth's

large land mammals. Hoyleman systematically disproved this by listing major highly visible animals discovered well after Cuvier's claim, including the giant panda, the Okapi, the Komodo dragon, and the Selenkent. Did you know that the giant panda, which is the classic black and white panda, was not known to the Western world until 1869? No one fighting in the Civil War. Outside of maybe 50 to 100 Chinese natives, knew that those things existed. The Komodo Dragon, not documented by Western science until 2010.

And it wasn't until 1912 that an official scientific description would be published about the big Indonesian lizard that can weigh up to 330 pounds and measure up to 10 feet long from head to tail. man i used to be fascinated with comodo dragons as a kid uh the ocopi the uh the they only live in a small part of the jungle of the democratic republic of the congo this creature not officially introduced to western science until nineteen o one the closest living relative to the giraffe uh which is this beast stands about five feet tall at the shoulder and weighs up to almost eight hundred pounds pretty big mammal uh finally the first living celicanth uh was not discovered until december 23rd nineteen thirty right before World War II, off the coast of South Africa. Until then, the global scientific community thought that this massive fish that grows up to six and a half feet long and weighs up to 200 pounds had gone extinct about 66 million years ago. We have a ton of fossils of this thing from around that time. It's been around a while. Random trivia. Apparently these things are never going to go extinct now due to overfishing because they are fucking disgusting to eat.

No one wants to eat them, not even other fucking fish. Their flesh has large amounts of oil, wax ester, which is kind of like beeswax, various acidic compounds, and give it a, quote, distinctly unpleasant flavor. Making it difficult to digest for not just humans, but even ocean predators, and eating it will likely give you powerful diarrhea. And we are still discovering new species today. Dozens of new mammals, for instance, have been discovered since the start of the 21st century, although they are generally smaller, less extraordinary cases than a swamp ape or a skunk ape would be. The first new carnivore discovered in the Americas in 35 years, announced in August of 2013 is the Olinguito. Living in Colombia and Ecuador, way up in the treetops at elevations of 4,900 to 9,800 feet. It's a little two-poundish, pretty fucking adorable member of the raccoon family that it's mostly fruit, but also some bugs and nectar.

Due to its sweet diet, it poops out what looks like little blueberries. Seriously, these things are stupid cute. It's like Pixar made a real animal or something. They look like a cross between a little teddy bear and a house cat. The small, a boreal or tree-dwelling animal had alluded to the scientific community for all of modern history, often confused for its close cousin, the Olingo. That the Olinguito was overlooked as all the more remarkable because thousands of the animals live in the cloud forest of Columbia. Dozens of their skulls and furs have been preserved in museum collections,

and one individual Olinguito actually now believed to have lived in the Smithsonian's National Zoo for a few years back in the 1960s. It was hiding in plain sight all this time. Mistaken for another animal. And now back to Hoyleman's. In his book, he also pointed out that Western science had a major blind spot. And that blind spot was colonialism. When they traveled to distant lands, European soldiers and officials were not there to learn. They were there for money, power, and land. It was incredibly easy for them to ignore indigenous testimonies, drawings, and myths around mysterious creatures by simply branding the locals as superstitious. and backwards, which also justified European's colonial rule.

Indeed, when the platypus, very real, very real, but also super fucking weird-looking egg-laying mammal from eastern Australia, things look like a cross between a duck and a beaver whose males also have venomous spurs on each hind foot truly look like a made-up animal. When it was first sent to Europe, scientists rejected it as something that somebody had stitched together to play a practical joke on them with. Finally, Hoyleman's pointed out that the earth still contain vast, unexplored environments, including deep ocean trenches, dense tropical rainforest, and high mountain ranges capable of supporting large and undetected species. Hovelmans used the remainder of his book to apply his methodology to specific geographic regions,

analyzing the physical evidence like tracks, hair, or bones, along with local accounts for various creatures. Among these were the Patagonian Giant Sloth, the Giant Anaconda, those two from South America, the Patagonian giant sloth grew to around 10 feet long, weighed up to 4,500 pounds, and it's only thought to have gone extinct around 10,000 years ago. So they lived alongside humans for sure. The giant Anaconda is still alive, growing up to around 25 feet long. There's been reports of these things over 30 feet long, but not officially documented,

and weighed up to around 550 pounds. Another fascinating real creature, Hoyleman's wrote about, was the Siberian mammoth. These things were still around as recently as 4,000 years ago, and they stood up to 11 feet tall of the shoulder and weight up to six tons. And humans for sure hunted those bad boys. Hoyleman also wrote about the Nandy Bear, a creature for which there is no scientific evidence of its existence.

According to African folklore, it lives in East Africa, in and around Kenya. Description to the Nandy Bear are of a ferocious, powerfully built ape-like carnivore with high-front shoulders over four feet tall, powerful sloping back, big broad back, said to be fierce, nocturnal. It stands on its hind legs and can kill animals as big as humans. It's East Africa's Bigfoot, essentially. Just a little bit more aggressive than Sasquatch lore. Alleged sightings have occurred for centuries at least and continue to this present day. Hoyleman's thought they might be real, just like he also wrote about the real possibility of swamp dwelling dragons living in Africa. Hoevenman seemed to have a particular

for one kind of cryptid above all others, and that is the hairy hominid kind. One section of his book, The Man-Faced Animals of Southeast Asia, discussed Sri Lanka's Netaewo, an alleged race of small hairy bipedal hominids, mini-squatches, stand at about three feet tall with sharp claws,

they walk upright, live in caves or trees, make bird-like chirping sounds instead of normal human speech. Many of them, according to the lore, lived in Sri Lanka's southeastern jungles before being wiped out or mostly, but maybe not entirely wiped out, in the 18th century.

Hoyleman also wrote of the Orang Pendeck of Sumatra. O'Rong Pendeck is Indonesian for short person described as being between three and five feet tall. Some think it's some previously unclassified species of ape or orangutanang. Others think it's a fucking hobbit-like relative of humans. Sightings have been reported for well over a century,

at least in the first of the first of the first. remote mountain rainforests of Sumatra. And Hovelmans really love the sensationalized story of the Yeti, arguing against the term abominable snowman in favor of a real shy species of specialized giant ape, potentially related to the extinct gigantapithecus that lived in southern China from about two million to 215,000 years ago. And that thing known as the largest primate ever to exist, stood nearly 10 feet tall, weighed between 440 and 660 pounds would fucking dominate in the NBA.

Hoyleman's obsessed most of all with these human... That would be fucking amazing, actually. I'll change the game if a new center was 10 feet tall and almost 700 pounds. You know, if they were fast enough to get up and down the court, pretty unstoppable. Hoyleman's obsessed most of all with these humanoid cryptids, and far from alone in this obsession. If Cryptozoology has a mascot, it is not a lake monster, like Nessie or some giant snake, it's the wild, hairy hominid, most often called, at least here in the America's Bigfoot. Today, Bigfoot is at the center of contemporary cryptozoology

in a comprehensive November 2025 U-Gov poll measuring beliefs in the unknown, 28% of the just over 1,100 adult American surveyed stated that Bigfoot definitely or probably exists. To put that in perspective, Bigfoot beat out the Yeti at 23%. The Locknest Monster at 22% and the chupacabra at 16%. To be fair, Bigfoot, not at the top of the list of what the survey considered strange beliefs. Extraterrestrial scored much higher at 56%. But, you know, they're categorized as alien life that could live anywhere and are

mostly completely unknown and unexplored, you know, universe rather than traditional earthbound cryptids. They got a lot less room to hide. Google Trends data, meanwhile, revealed that Bigfoot consistently receives the highest search volume of any cryptid in the U.S. they started measuring in 2004 every year. And Bigfoot takes centers to age within the Cryptozoology world.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, BFRO, has cataloged over 5,400 unique geolocated sidings across North America. No other animal-based cryptid has a dedicated, highly active database of this scale. Real quick before moving on, I checked out BFRO.net, maybe BFRO. the Bigfield Field Researchers Organization website

Because how could I not? And they have a link for ongoing reports of Bigfoot sidings. I love how official they feel. Reminds me the X-Files. One of my favorite shows of all time still. The most recent one as I record this came from last month, July of 2026. And the link reads July 2026, Colorado, Hinsdale County. Class A daylight siding by motorists along Highway 149, 10 miles southeast of Lake City.

And then location details. Investigator M.M. Notes. And that's Matthew Moneymaker, one of their investigators. GPS for where the Bigfoot was seen. Give GPS coordinates and then the date. Location notes from the witness. For footprint one and footprint two gives, you know, exact fucking GPS coordinates, which are always fucking weird to read because they're minutes, seconds, bullshit. But like, footprint one is 37 degrees, 15. 59 minutes, 12.75 seconds north. And 107 degrees, 12 minutes, 57.53 seconds west. And it says nearest town, Lake City, nearest road, highway 149.

Then it writes observed, and then has the testimony of the witness. Hello, I am Lori Bowling. And what I saw was plain as day. Trust me, when I say I'm not a Bigfoot believer, but after what I saw, I sure as hell am now. It wasn't a shadow, not a glimpse. I was looking out the window, looking for deer, moose, etc. When out stepped from the edge of the woods, a bigfoot.

I watched as he turned to the right and started to walk uphill along the edge of the woods. Its gate was a glide. The color was a dark blackish brown. The head was kind of molded into the shoulders. The arms were long and very hairy. I would bet it stood seven to nine feet tall based on the size of the small spruce trees. I have never been stumped for words, but this was a numbing experience. I couldn't get the words out to tell Bill to stop the truck and tell him what I saw.

I saw this critter take four to five big gliding steps before it left my view due to the road curve. I want to tell everyone, but I think they will think I am nuts. I saw what I saw, and now that's all I think about. Kind of spooky and exciting all at once. Then after that, they have a longer statement from the husband. I won't share all of it with you. He goes into a lot of kind of redundant detail, but he just says, you know, Lori and I, Bill are both in our early six.

Excuse me, I've been married for nearly 39 years. I've learned over the years that you can only trust your senses and your friends. Lori's my best friend. We have no secrets. Like a lot of people, we are suspect of some of the claims people make, but are very open-minded to things we may not understand. We have never even thought about Bigfoot-type creatures really existing and we're skeptical about sightings. I have no doubt that Lori saw what she saw. I have never seen her react like she did.

Amazed, speechless, excited, and yet in her eyes, she seemed to. a bit frightened. And then he talks about like where they live. They've been residents in this area for about a dozen years. Family's been coming to the area since 1950s. They've fished, hunted, you know, been around all over this part of the woods, never seen a bigfoot, never known anyone who said they have seen a bigfoot. They're with their dogs, you know, driving around, just checking things out,

going about 25 miles an hour. They approached the top of slumgoalian past right after a passing to a mild thunderstorm. And then as they began descending the pass in their truck and fifth wheel RV, about an eighth of a mile from the CR 50 turnoff, Lori was, you know, looking out the window down the slope for wildlife. And suddenly she turned, he says, Turn to me and tried to speak, but nothing came out. I thought she'd seen elk or moose, but she finally said,

I just saw Bigfoot. Stop the truck. That's a fucking awesome life moment. He says they, you know, drove down the hill a little further. He tried to look. He couldn't see down the slope, so they turned around. He keeps looking, they don't see anything. They end up driving home, dropping off the RV,

and then coming back to search for tracks. And then they do find one footprint that day, and then another footprint the next day. And then the report just kind of goes back in the report mode, says other witnesses, no. Other stories, I have not heard of any incidents in the area and never knew anyone who did. And this is Matthew Moneymaker writing this.

Time and conditions, 3.41 p.m. Overcast and storms in the area. Environment siding occurred on Highway 140. about a quarter mile from the top of Slumboleon Pass again near the CR50 turnoff. And then just kind of talks about sight conditions. It says there has been a lot of beetle kill spruce. It has been clear cut about 200 feet either side of the road. Creatures on the north side of the road downhill about 200 feet at the edge of the woods.

And then after all of that, there is a link to a YouTube video, which is this Matthew Moneymaker recording a statement. from this couple from this Bill and Lori. I'll just play a little bit. So it's quite long, but I'll play a little bit. All right, I'm Bill Bowling, and this is my wife, Lori. Hi. We were coming down Slamgollium Pass, just around the corner up there is the top, 11,500 feet.

We're coming down this road right here, about 25 miles an hour. And then Lori sees what she thinks is a big foot. In fact, she knows it was a Bigfoot. I know it was a Bigfoot. She fucking knows, Bill. You motherfucker, do not doubt her now on camera. Lori knows. But I do love how seriously this group takes these sightings.

Like, they really, like, you know, have a, like, you know, documentation template and go into a lot of detail. If Bigfoot is ever conclusively discovered, I do hope this group is part of that discovery. Feels like they've earned it. They deserve it. So why are these giant hairy hominids? So, well, popular. Before tossing out a guess as to that answer, time for today's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign out to be a spacer on Patreon, get the catalog ad free, get these episodes early and more.

Thanks for listening to those ads, and now why are these giant hairy hominids so popular? There's a lot of speculation. It's because they remind us of us. Unlike a sea serpent or some giant sloth, a hairy hominid forces us to look at a mirror. They represent the boundary line of what it means to be human. They're us, but also not us, you know, untamed, a possible link to our evolutionary past. Meanwhile, from a purely scientific standpoint, excuse me, Harry hominids feel tantalizingly plausible. We know from the fossil record that Homo sapiens did not always walk the Earth alone. We shared the planet with Neanderthals, Denise, oh, who, Denise Savins, that word is a tricky one for me to say.

and the island dwelling homo florexienis florecienis ences oh Jesus Christ homo florencieses commonly called the hobbit or flores man that's fucking way easier to say

Latin not my favorite until historically recent times about 50,000 years ago these things were around when you look up renderings of what homo fuck my life homo florexienis Florescianus. If I was giving presentations, I would have it down on this motherfucker all the time.

But I'll never talk about them again. They look like a missing link between apes and humans. It's pretty fascinating. And in Asia, the previously mentioned, gigantopithecus, a massive 10-foot-tall ape, even co-existed with early humans a couple hundred thousand years ago. But there's another reason that Bigfoot-like creatures take up so much of the cryptic landscape. And it's the one that's the most important to our topic today. The hairy hominid is rarely a generic global creature.

It's very localized. Almost every region on Earth has its own specific version of this beast tailored to its unique landscape, history, and identity. Right. The Pacific Northwest, we have the OG Bigfoot or Sasquatch. The gentle, elusive giant wandering ancient misty pine forests acting as a symbol maybe of the rugged, untamed American West. The Himalayas, they have the Yeti, rugged survivor who is adapted to brutal high-outes. altitude snowfields. Australia has the Yowie, a more aggressive territorial creature,

born from Aboriginal legends and the environment of the harsh sun-baked outback. And there are so many other variations. Today we're looking at the poster child for America's regional variations. Deep in the swamps of Florida roams Bigfoot's smaller, lesser-known American cousin, the skunk ape. While Bigfoot is described as a towering eight-to-10-foot giant suited for cold, mountainous pine forest, that type of build doesn't really make any sense in Florida. hot muddy wetlands. So the skunk ape is smaller. It has obviously evolved to be smaller,

standing somewhere around six or seven feet tall, weighing in and around 300 pounds or so, with the build more like an orangutang or a chimpanzee that a lumbering bipedal ape-like giant. While Bigfoot is known for a heavy ground-pounding stride, witnesses describe the skunk cape is mostly skipping or shimmy. It'll skip for a while, usually while it whistles. And then if it gets scared, you know, things is being watched. It'll do this like a little hunched over shimmy. That almost kind of becomes more of a scurry, really. No.

It's described as having an incredibly fast gliding walk. It's also allegedly been witnessed moving through chest high water and thick sawgrass with its arms swinging in a paddling motion, like it's swimming through the marsh. But as you might have already guessed, what the skunk ape is mostly known for is its distinctive smell.

Like its other traits, this eye watering. Garbage and skunk stench is a direct product of its environment. The skunk cave supposedly sleeps in alligator nests and mud holes covered in decomposing swamp muck, stagnant water, and sulfur-rich gas. Did you know that alligators have nests, by the way? I did not. An alligator nest is a large mound built by a female alligator using mud, sticks, leaves, and rotting plant matter. She will lay 30 to 50 eggs inside of it and the decaying vegetation creates natural heat to incubate them. The mother stays nearby to guard the nest until the babies hatch.

So where did this creature come from? Well, according to one source, legend tripping by Robert C. Robinson. The legend of the skunk cape actually originated in Arkansas in the 1800s. In 1818, in Arkansas newspaper reported that a, quote, man-sized monkey stole food from some fishermen who were camped on the banks of a river. Imagine if you were the person, the real person who stole that food. You've been living out of the woods alone for years, maybe, didn't realize how fucking filthy, you know, hairy you'd become, how far you really let yourself go until you read that. Now you're just like,

oh, son of a bitch. God, that's me they're talking about. Man-sized monkey, God damn. Guess I got to get me a bathtub, some scissors or some shit.

A few years later, when settlers came to Florida, started seeing strange primate-like creatures prowling the swamps. It was now called not a monkey, but an ape. Other sources say the creature has been around for a lot longer than 200 years.

According to these sources, the indigenous seminate, criminals referred to it as Esty Jeppjaki, a name that translates to Tall Man or Hairy Giant. The first sighting where a witness went on record by name was in 1823 when a midshipman named David Porter reported, quote, I can see it was larger than a bear, and yet clearly not a man,

but not unlike a large ape. When the shot fired off, the creature seemed to duck before turning and disappearing into the trees, and then in the moments it followed a powerful odor washed over or gathering as if a great skunk had sprayed us with a It's disapproval. And again, what if you ended up reading that? And you knew that you were the person they were talking about. Oh, God, cool, guys.

Oh, you almost shoot me for no goddamn reason. Then you say I look more like an ape than a human being. And I fucking stink like a skunk to boo. Yeah, you scared of shit out of me. I shit myself, okay? I'm not proud to admit I shit myself and I ran away. And then I get fucking embarrassed publicly about this. Cool.

Gets to go drown myself in a river now. A second major recorded sighting in Florida occurred during the brutal winter of 1883 and 1884 at O'Cheesey Pond, this vast Cyprus swamp covering nearly nine square miles in southeastern Jackson County. A big swamp that unfortunately, as of this recording, is mostly dried up. I hope to get some more rain.

For the early settlers living near the towns of Grand Ridge and Sneeds, this swamp was both a vital hub and an impenetrable maze of towering trees and dark water. Some place dangerous, but also necessary, for them to venture into, they wanted to fish hunt and provide some sustenance for themselves. And it was here the locals reportedly began spotting a strange human-like creature, roaming the shoreline, effortlessly swimming through the flooded Cypress groves,

not fucking caring about gaiters. As the sightings multiplied, a group of local residents, many of them rugged Confederate veterans decided they had had enough. They got to go find this, some bitch. It was time to capture the creature once and for all. Go on, get them! Come on, shoot! Back and take that, something! Yeah, yeah!

In August of 1884, they launched a massive expedition into the swamp to capture what they were calling the wild man. And they succeeded. Kind of, their capture only deep in the mystery. Although the search party thought they had caught a human, a naked, heavily-haired, covered, emaciated man who must have escaped from an asylum. No asylum they contacted, reported missing any patients.

The last known account of this incident said that the wild man, or cryptid, have been sent to Tallahassee, Florida, then back to Chattahoochee, after scientists could not identify it or him. and then the rest of the story is lost to history. And again, what if that was you? Oh, come on! I got fucking lost in a swamp, okay?

For a couple years. Lost my clothes? Just needed a help in hand. Oh, but no, I get hunted instead. I get mocked. Now I'll probably have a complex the rest of my life over how hairy I am. By the 20th century, Florida sidians would get more frequent and more specifically skunk ape-like. In 1942, a man was driving down the road near the town of Branden

when a large ape-like figure supposedly jumped out in front of the vehicle, then hopped over to the running board, then held onto the side of the fucking truck for at least a half mile before dropping into the woods. I got it. Dude, if I could pick any single siding I've ever mentioned, like encrypted siding so far, to be for sure real, I think I might pick this one. I just love the idea of a squatch, jumping onto the running board of a truck, and then just hanging on there, like a half mile or more.

just like some weird ass dukes of hazard fucking music playing in the background oh shit hey squatch oh god damn man look at your window ho hoo whee oh look at that squash hang on oh coming up on a corner now buddy oh you better hang on tight squatch come on that'd be a great day it'd be a fucking amazing day

five years later nearby Lakeland a four year old boy claimed he saw a large hairy creature standing behind an orange tree watching him Boy ran inside to tell his mom what had happened. By the time they got back, the creature disappeared. Huh, this one's a little suss. Sounds like they got some kind of pito-squatch down there.

Now, these stories are fun and interesting, but are they credible? Well, the following info makes some of them a bit harder to believe. Did you know the Florida is home to many, many, many wild monkey populations? In the 1940s, a roadside zoo and research center, Dania Chimpanzee farm located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was busy importing primates from across the world. And at some point, a group of West African vervet monkeys slipped out of the cages, vanished into the mangroves, established a colony. By the 1990s, biologists would count about three dozen monkeys living around this airport.

By 2015, entire families were still Roman neighborhoods and power lines, all of them descendants of those 1948 escapees, and occasionally swinging down to steal food from backyards. Meanwhile, there are several other confirmed self-sustaining monkey populations in the state, including one in Naples and a larger group in Silver Springs that descended from a couple of Rhesus imported monkeys imported and released by a tour operator in the 1930s basically any enclosure in Florida whether that be for a zoo or a research facility

or some exotic animal collector doesn't often stay enclosed for long hurricanes storms human you know negligence can let these monkeys out real quick and once the monkeys escape well thanks to Florida's hot humid climate dense jungle-like swamps, abundant food sources, these populations can thrive on their own and be very hard to track down and capture.

So could some of these early skunk ape sidings have nothing more than escaped monkeys? Well, yeah, it's possible. It's possible monkeys and other primates have been escaping captivity since long before the 1940s. Or some sidings have been monkeys and others have been skunk apes. In 1957, a pair of hunters

claimed a skunk ape invaded their camp, and now the term skunk ape was officially born. In 1963, a family near their rural home had a terrifying encounter when an ape-like creature allegedly approached their window at night and stared at them. Now, was that a skunk ape? Or was that another encounter with that damn pito-squatch? One of the most well-known supposed skunk-ape encounters occurred in 1970 when two Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies, Marvin Lewis and Ernie Milner,

reported being stalked through a grove by something distinctly ape-like. I believe I talked about them on a scared-to-death one time. After following a trail of large footprints, they shot at the creature. They later found hair snagged on a barbed wire fence. Most likely this incident and the, quote, evidence they got really helped spread the term skunk ape far and wide. And then there's Dave Shealy. No one has done more to spread skunk ape lore than this fella. And I'll tell you a bit more about him right after today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks.

Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Now let's meet skunk ape hunter Dave Shealy. He is known today by some at least as a definitive expert on skunk apes. I mean, as much of an expert as one can be when your area of expertise might be completely imaginary. And yes, I did say skunk apes, plural, because for them to survive the swamp for decades, there must be a family, right, of skunk apes or something right? Maybe they're immortal. Maybe there's a family and they're immortal.

Not sure, but Dave thinks there are many of them. Dave Shealy's family first settled in the Everglades back in 1891, setting up their home on the island of Chalkaloxky, when there were just five of their families living down there and what is now a little town of less than 400 people, due west of Miami along the Gulf Coast. His father would grow up there, become the area's first fire chief, a job that often sent him far into the swamps on hot, humid nights.

I don't know why I said first. I misread that in my notes. He became the area's fire chief. Maybe the first one, maybe the second or third. I don't know. At some point, the family moved to the town of Ocopi, a couple miles north and inland, which you got at its start in the early 1920s when farmers started to trickle in from northern Florida. A now unincorporated community of a few hundred people. Ochopi currently has the smallest post office in the entire U.S. 61 square feet of post office shed.

Ochopi, also the current home of the Skunk Ape Research Center, Quirky Roadside Attraction and Campground, located at 40, 9.000. 904. Tam Miami Trail East ran by Dave Healy, but I'm good ahead of myself. One of the first farms in the area was started by Edgar S. Gant, who initially purchased 250 acres from James Jowden to grow tomatoes and was incredibly successful. Wikipedia seemed to think these two people were actually the same person combining their names to make James Gantt, but the town's National Park Service webpage says they were different people, so I'm going to go with that. The success encouraged the Gant Company to purchase an additional 3,000, acres for a packing house, general store, living quarters, and gas station. By the 1940s, the company

employed nearly a thousand people, and a close-knit community of farm workers and swamp pioneers was born. According to local lore, when a visitor to the general store asked what the settlement was called, the owner turned to a seminal man, trading in the store, asked him what the word for farm was, and the man replied, Ochopi, meaning field or farm, and that name stuck. Life in O'Chapi was not easy living about an hour and a half away from Miami and connected by rural roads that could often be flooded or damaged by trees meant that things were often precarious. This was illustrated in 1953 when a fire destroyed O'Coppy's general store, which then housed the local post office. Desperate for a temporary mailroom, the postmaster cleared out a tiny seven by eight foot wooden shed, roughly seven by eight foot,

that had previously been used to store either tomato crate manufacturing tools or old irrigation pipes. and the temporary post office was never replaced. Still has not been replaced. And still functioned as an active mail facility, a place that again officially is the smallest post office in the United States. Life in OCHOPI was about to get harder after the old post office got ruined. By the mid-20th century, the fragile ecosystem of South Florida was under siege. The federal government was looking for ways to protect it.

When Everglades National Park was established, the South in 1947, the federal government originally intended to include land around Ochopi, land known as, the big Cypress swamp. However, because the land was already heavily carved up by private landowners, hunters, timber companies, and oil drillers, the land around O'Choppy was excluded. But then the federal government would have to rethink that decision. In 1968, the Dade County Port Authority began constructing what was intended to be the world's largest airport at the time, the Miami Jetport, a slap in the middle of the Big Cypress Swamp. Conservationists quickly realized this would be a

death sentence for part of South Florida's ecosystems. The concrete footprint of the jet port would choke the natural southward flow of fresh water from the Big Cyprus swamp into the Everglades and the Gulf of Mexico. To try and fight this plan, local conservationists and national environmental groups joined forces with local hunters, swamp buggy enthusiasts, private landowners and members of the Seminole and Mikasuki tribes. Together, they successfully pressure the Nixon administration to halt the jet port construction in 1970 after only one runway was completed. But then the question became, to do with a swamp now. Conservationists wanted to turn Big Cyprus into a traditional national park,

just like the Everglades. However, local hunters, oil drillers, indigenous tribes vehemently opposed this knowing that national park status would ban hunting off-road vehicle use private camps and traditional land use. And so a compromise would take the shape of a preserve, the U.S. first national preserve, actually, established on October 11th, 1974 by President Gerald Ford. Under this designation, the 729,000-acre watershed was permanently protected from heavy commercial development in airports, though the legislation explicitly allowed the people who had established their homes and businesses there before to keep living their lives, how they had lived them for decades, if not centuries. And this is where Dave's father was raised in his family, smack in the middle of the buggy, semi-developed wilderness.

Wilderness that might have been hiding something. Sometime in the early 1970s, Dave's dad supposedly encountered some mysterious tracks. looked almost human, but bigger, and was four toes instead of five. So what could have left them? Evidently, these mysterious tracks were not enough motivation for Dave's dad to keep his kids from wandering out into the swamps. Because in 1974, when Dave was 10, he went out deer hunting with his older brother, Jack, and as Dave was walking through the swamp, his brother suddenly reportedly saw something. But Dave was not tall enough to see it, too.

So Jack picked him up, put him on his shoulders, and the two looked across the glade. About 100 yards from where they stood was a man, or something similar. to a man. He was supposedly covered head to toe and hair. As they tried to get a good look at him, or it, the sky opened up, rain started to pour down. The creature then scurried off into the cypress hummocks that framed the

Martian disappeared. And Dave was stunned. What in the hell was that creature, he wondered? And how had it just disappeared? Was it some kind of hallucination? Some kind of escape monkey or ape? A few years later, David realized that others knew about the skunk ape as well. Apparently so many people were

searching for it that the legend had just made its way in the state politics. In 1978, Florida representative Hugh Knuckles went so far as to introduce a bill making it a misdemeanor of the first degree for, quote, any person taking, possessing, harming, or molesting any anthropoid or humanoid animal, which is native to Florida, popularly known as the skunk ape. Wow, illegal to molest them now. Interesting. This act of legislation was literally debated on the floor of the Florida House of Representatives in Tallahassee, and one representative went on record as saying, quote, of course the problem is that this beast, if in fact it exists, is in danger of over publication by the press and people searching for it.

And I'm afraid it will go the way of the ivory woodpecker if we don't do something to protect it. Got help fucking people not kill it or molest it. Despite a lot of popular support for protection of a species that might not be real, the bill did not pass. Meanwhile, but it got a lot of press out for the skunk cape. Meanwhile, the decades passed and Dave grew up, still interested in the skunk cape. At some point, he decided to get serious about finding it. so we started bait in the area with lima beans. Thinking that the omnivorous, supposedly omnivorous ape,

would love the fiber and protein-rich legumes. Okay, that's a weird one. Would love to know how he specifically arrived at lima beans for some squash bait. That random bit of info led me to Googling, do any monkeys or apes love lima beans? And the internet's response cracked me up. Quote, no specific records or studies show that monkeys or apes have a particular fondness for lima beans.

while captive primates in zoos and sanctuaries may eat various legumes like green beans, black beans, or lentils as part of a balanced diet lima beans are not known as a favored or standout treat for them. Well, thank you, Internet. What does Dave Shealy know that you don't? Though he never saw the ape, Dave repeatedly found the beans missing, along with tracks leading into the marsh. Makes me wonder if Dave had like a brother or cousin

or somebody who just fucking loved lima beans and didn't want to make him. Oh, you're getting close, Dave. Oh, you're getting real close. close, brother. Oh, man, you got to keep putting out them lima beans, man. Don't give up on them them lime beans. Maybe put a little, maybe put a little salt and pepper on the next batch, you know? Maybe put a little, I may put a little lorry seasoning salt on them. Try that. Try that. Try sitting them with that salt. Put them in a covered bowl, right, so the bugs don't get on them. Put them in a covered bowl on top of a cup or two of rice, you know, a freshly boiled rice.

Lay a clean fork. Maybe lay a clean fork on a napkin next to that bowl. Do that around dinner time? Oh, buddy. That's going to track that squash. Sure. Around the time, Dave was using lima bean bait for his squatch fishing. Just two miles away from Dave's house, a pair of local residents, Jan Brock, a real estate agent, and Vince Dorr, chief of the O'Chopi Fire Control District, separately, allegedly spotted a large hairy bipede minutes apart while driving to the preserve one morning in July of 1997. At 7.45 a.m. local time, excuse me, Jan saw the creature cross on the road in front of her, describing it as a six and a half to seven feet tall. shaggy biped, or bipedal, bipedal creature. Adding credence to her claim, just 15 minutes later, Vince Dore claimed to have encountered the same creature

crossing the road, two miles to the west, and he managed to snap a photograph before the skunk ape vanished into the palm meadows. I've seen the photo, and if it's not a skunk ape, and I don't think it is, it's a dude wearing an ape costume or some similar costume. Later that year, passengers on a tour bus traveling to the preserve, claimed they two-spotted the skunk ape. All this was music to Dave Shealy's ears. They vowed that he would spend the next six months now looking for it.

He wouldn't do anything but look. He set up a few tree stands on his 30-acre property, spent the next year, actually. He extended his timeline. Sitting those tree stands, looking, trekking across the Everglades, trying to catch the creature's trail. And then finally on September 8th, 1998, he said he heard something unusual. He was hiking when the sound of splashing water drew him deeper into the swamp. At first he thought the source of the splashing was another person. But then he allegedly sought the illusion.

the elusive skunkie. As it walked by, seemingly unaware of being observed, he shot several photos, watched and disappear into the nearby tree hummock. Later he returned, made a concrete cast of its distinctive four-toed footprint. But that wasn't enough. Dave wanted, like so many cryptosologists do,

to get video of this creature. Two years later, July 8th, 2000, Dave Shealy, excuse me, would do just that in typical cryptid fashion. I fell out the back of my chair there. That's why I made that weird noise. Typical cryptid fashion, reminiscent of the infamous Patterson Gimlin footage,

of Bigfoot, Dave's 2000 video of the skunk cape, it's grainy, camera work unsteady of best. A lot of fucking bobbing around. Nevertheless, his video appears to capture the skunk cape in all of its glory as it waits through a sea of sawgrass under a pearly white sky, or it definitely

captures a dude poorly imitating to gorilla in a costume. In Shilie's mind, even if the video was shaky, it gave conclusive proof because of swamp where he had seen the creature walking was covered in over a foot of water and mud, making the entities estimated speed his estimation of approximately 22 miles per hour impossible for a human to achieve

well if you watch the video looks like it's moving at about two miles an hour uh not 22 i don't know how the fuck he estimated that because it definitely does not look like it's cooking around there uh i gotta be honest it's a bad video it's a very very it's like a it's like a poor man's version of the patterson gimland video to me and that video is fucking terrible to me but you know some people think it's real there's been a lot of debate online for decades now about this video

just four years ago on Reddit one commenter said or wrote I mean it definitely takes the marsh like a champion but its stature to me looks human it's hard to tell height in the video so that's not definitive pretty skinny for a big foot however it does have that forward lean when walking

like a lot of them are said to have I'll play devil's advocates and say could be a tall dude in a bug jacket walking along a footpath maybe though. Another person agreed with him saying that was literally my first thought. Even going through the area the day before with the weed whacker and just clearing weeds,

laying boards like you said, I can't get over how cartoonishly fake it looks, especially towards the end. You can almost see the suit was too big for the person and you can see where it is sagged in the armpits as he tries to mimic the classic walk. However, some pointed out that building a footpath, having somebody don a suit,

walking through snake alligator and spider-infested waters would be something that very few human beings would be up for. All you folks saying this is fake, how many of you have ever actually tromped through a real swamp? Do you have any idea how nasty and dangerous they are? There's a real good reason why no one lives there, and very few people ever choose to hunt there. I had a crazy uncle who did.

He took me out a couple of times. Trust me, only crazy people and their victims spend any time in a swamp. This guy's got some fucking swamp PTSD. If you were going to go through the expanse or expense in trouble of buying such an elaborate costume, than getting it drenched in swamp mud, braving the gaiters and snakes and spiders,

lots of spiders all over everything out there and more, all for a few minutes of not very good footage from a bad angle and distance, then you would know everyone that you would know everyone would ridicule anyway. Why would you do that? That's the thing that makes the least sense. Ah, people do weird shit.

I don't know. On the last point, why do it? Some would think that Dave Shealy himself gave the answer when shortly after the release of the footage, he applied for a grant. from the Collier County Tourism Development Council to fund his research. Some would say that it was very convenient

that he released his skunk ape footage shortly before this grant was due to be decided. Indeed, in that interview with Counter Magazine, Shealy would even admit to frequently walk into the swamp barefoot, meaning he easily could have been the one in the skunk ape footage. He told the interviewer in 2021, I'll go out tonight, probably, about five miles in the pitch dark, just me and my headlamp.

No shoes, in the water up to my nudge, knees. I've been nibbled out by sharks, bitten by snakes, air-evacked to get anti-venom twice. It's just what I do. Uh, what? I don't know. I'm going to fucking call bullshit on some of this fucking sharks. What kind of swamp sharks you're talking about? Walking out in the fucking marsh. Just a bunch of sharks out there? Okay. You're getting air-vacked twice and well, fucking maybe stop doing it. In any case, with a skunk cape now mired in one man's controversial actions. And there are a lot of people who think this guy's full of shit. It seemed like the creature's fate, at least in the popular imagination, was decided.

Thanks also to more and more people being equipped with cameras and other technology, and many of them not reporting having seen or captured footage of a skunk cape, seemed like the creature was nothing more than one man's obsession. But then something would happen to change that perception for many. On December 22nd, 2000, the Sarasota Sheriff's Department received a strange letter along with a series of photographs. The photos purportedly showed an animal that it repeatedly climbed onto the back deck of a photographer's house, and the letter itself speculated it was an escaped.

orangutan. In close, please find some pictures I took. My husband thinks it is an orangutan. Is someone missing an orangutan? Why haven't people been told that the animal this size is loose? Please look out for the situation. I don't want my backyard to turn into someone else's circus. It did a fact appear to be an orangutang in the photos. Even some cryptozoologists agree. Lauren Coleman, author and cryptozoology enthusiasts, analyzed the creature's anatomy, agreed with the orangutan hypothesis, as did Canadian wildlife specialist, or excuse me, Wildlife Service biologist Tony Shoahmer. Some skunk ape enthusiasts, however, thought that their day had finally come.

But then the letter in the photograph was undeniable proof that the skunk ape was real, or at least real to somebody other than Dave Shealy. And one line in the letter seemed to point to this. It said it had an awful smell that lasted well after it left my yard. More skunk ape sidings would follow after that, right? and this is all before Dave Shealy's, you know, most recent sighting. In August of 2004, Jennifer Ward, a 30-year-old school teacher, was driving back home from a friend's house on a rural road near the edge of Green Swamp

with her daughters asleep in the back seat. And then something on the side of the road caught her attention. At first she thought it was an animal, either asleep or dead in the ditch that, you know, ran along the road. Then she realized it was alive and crouched over like it was foraging or digging around. She slowed down, crept toward it. Moments later, it stood up to its full height. she said it was six to seven feet tall, and she said she saw the shaggy two-inch-long fur covering his body, white rings around its eyes and lips, or excuse me, its lips were the texture of a dog's pawpats.

When it saw me, the animal looked just as surprised as I was, Jennifer would later say. I didn't stop because I was scared. It was almost dark, but I could see it, and I did get a good look at it. After going public with her experience, she would add that several neighbors had told her that they had seen her, heard something strange in the swamps near their houses, but none of them were willing to speak publicly about their experiences. Seven years after, Jenny's siding, Jennifer siding, Dave Shealy would have another supposed encounter.

This was earlier than the one I went over. August of 2011, he was picking palmettoberries in the swamp where he was startled by an unforgettable and very familiar odor, he said. Right away, I could smell it, kind of like a wet dog and a skunk mixed together. The skunk cape emerged from behind a palm fron, spotted shilly, and bolted, leaving no evidence, he said. Two years later, there would be another siding, another fiting, another fink. video. March 2013 Sarasota native Mike Faulkner and his son were driving past a field next to a lake in

Maiaqa River State Park when they spotted a massive hairy bipedal figure roaming near the water. Falconer immediately pulled his truck over. He and his son took off on foot running toward the figure while Falciner recorded it. While he managed to capture a large dark silhouette on camera, the footage doesn't show much else. Still, he uploaded it to YouTube and then the footage immediately made its way to the cryptid community and some members reached out to Mike. Within a week, Mike said he had five Bigfoot hunters from all over the country staying at his house. That'd be an interesting houseguests. Mike caught the bug too for years.

He returned to the spot where he saw the skunk ape every day looking for fresh evidence, but not finding any that I am aware of. Over all these years, the skunk ape's home has certainly changed. Because Ochopi sat right in the heart of that newly designated boundary around the preserve, the federal government gradually bought out much of the private land in the area to consolidate big Cypress swamp. Over the decades, the bustling farming community shrank to just a few residents. and small businesses, including Dave's,

aka the Skunk Ape Headquarters. Like many Florida gift shops, the Skunk Ape headquarters boasts both giant pythons and taxidermied alligator heads, but also has a large section devoted to all of Dave's alleged evidence, complete with supposedly real casts of footprints,

Dave's grainy photos, and research field guides. Today, the shop is operated by Jack Shealy, Dave's son. Both Sheelys conduct studies, investigate reports on sidings, and bring awareness to the elusive or non-existent creature. This makes the relationship with the authorities

who run the preserve strained. People report seeing this mythical creature from time to time, said Bob de Gras, a public affairs officer with the preserve. But there has never been a substantiated siding of the skunk cape that was verified by National Park Service wildlife staff. There's two who have questions.

If the skunk cape or a family of skunk capes has been living in the Florida wilderness for over a century, how come nobody's ever found one of their skeletons, any of their remains, or a dwelling? some bit of, well, indisputable evidence. Shealy and his son maintain that any lack of evidence can be blamed on Florida's unique climate. Things decompose very quickly in the swamp.

And they say the preserve and the Everglades together make up the largest protected land east of the Mississippi, most of it rarely visited, which is true. So is it so impossible to believe that a hairy hominid, the obsession that goes back to the very first cryptozoologist, could be hiding in these Florida swamps? Shealy, of course, thinks it's not. I know what I've seen, he said. For someone who hasn't come here and put in the time to say otherwise doesn't really matter to me. Well, if you have seen a swamp ape, you might want to reach out to Dave. Let him know. Or you can reach out to another group of Florida Squatch Hunters, the Mid-Florida Bigfoot research group.

They have a website, mid-florida, bigfoot.com with a submission form presiding, just like the one that BFRO, beefro. That net has. The most recent one on this This mid-flora Bigfoot.com site Just came in from last summer. Just came in last summer. And let's check it out.

7.11.25. Approximately 1 a.m. Local time. Season, summer. Location. This is actually not taking place in Florida. It took a place in Washington. Klahoyah.

Campground in the Olympic Peninsula. Staten County. Clallum County, Washington, nearest town, Saffa, Washington. Nearest Road slash Highway, U.S. 101. Weather conditions, cold, clear night. Anything else odd? Very quiet, peaceful evening. Witnesses, Marie Dumont and Bob Schmeltz.

Local stores? No. Details of encounter. On July 10 and 11th, 2025, Bob and Marie arrived and set up their camp for two nights at the Klajahua campground in the Soulduck River area of the Olympic Peninsula. They were very tired from tent camping and researching and researching oil week. Oh, researching all week, excuse me, in Oregon, as well as it's kind of hard to read some of these words. As feeling the effect of the three-hour time change, so they went to sleep early both nights before dusk.

All their equipment batteries were dead from long, excuse me, from doing research all week. and there were no stores near bottom. The first night in the Olympic Peninsula was unbelievably quiet, a type of silence that they had never experienced before in their lives, no vehicles, no insect or animal sounds, no leaves falling, no wind, absolutely nothing, just complete another silence. Later they learned that this area is also known as the quietest place in the U.S. Their second and last night of the vacation in the Olympic Peninsula was a totally different experience.

Around 1 a.m., Marie was awakened by Sasson, Squatch vocalization off the distance. She laid there in her sleeping bag and continued to listen to five short, deep howl vocalizations before she woke up Bob and told him to listen. For about 40 minutes, Marie and Bob continued to listen to Sasquatch vocalizations, coming from different areas and directions from both northeast and northwest sides of Highway 101. They heard all types of vocalizations, howls, hoots, whoops, and an amazing long, cooing sound, all of which had different individual vocal tones, as if the Sasquatches were communicated in trying to locate one another. The Sasquatch vocalizations were usually heard every one to five minutes. Marie heard at least 10 to 12 of them, and Bob said he heard four.

Marie can hear a lot better than Bob. The vocalization stopped abruptly at 205 a.m. When a bunch of logging trucks went screaming down the 101. Marie happened to check her phone to see what time it was when the trucks drove by. Unfortunately, they were not able to capture it on audio, but it was an experience they will never forget for the rest of their lives. That's, huh. That's interesting sighting. It's not really exciting. I don't think I've ever heard of that before looking into this episode.

Just somebody claiming that they definitely heard some squashes. Didn't see anything. Didn't find any tracks. No smells even. But that fucking whooping? The howling? The cooing? Oh, that's got squatch written all over it.

I didn't realize people A lot of people out there Definitely think they know exactly What a fucking squatch sounds like All right All right Marie Sure Also you can

You can reach out if you have a squash side If you've heard Or seen a swamp ape or a skunk ape Or a similar Bigfoot type entity You could reach out to Time suck resident cryptozoologists And former University of Montana student Go Gris

David Hatcher Childress From the History Channel's Ancient Aliens and More Oh, I think he's, I think he's come right in. Bigfoot, Yeti, and Sasquatch are apparently largely the same creature. Also, you have skunk apes and swamp apes down in the south, Mississippi and Florida, Georgia, and Yetis in the Himalayas and in Tibet and Mongolia. It's a popular belief there. In Mongolia, they're called Almas, Sasquatch.

It's a term used for hundreds of years by indigenous peoples. in Canada. Well, thank you very much, David. I appreciate you stop by and share other information. Yeah, no problem. Just let me know however I can help. Let's see you guys later. I appreciate the Mongolian bonus info, David gave us.

So, is any of the shit real? I mean, probably not. I mean, if any of these things are real, I mean, where are the bones? Where are those squatch bones? Squatch bones? Where are the squatch bones? Or the big foot bones?

The skunkake bones. All these ape creatures. wandering around and not one skeleton found is a little bit sus. You know, a few cryptozoologists do theorize that the creatures may hide or bury their dead very carefully. Minimizing the chance of discovery, maybe the bones, maybe they have special bones that rapidly decompose, maybe they're interdimensional travelers. And when they die, their bodies return to their home dimension.

I don't fucking know. Humans can and do rationalize beliefs in all sorts of shit, no matter how nonsensical. That said, I hope they are against all odds somehow real. I mean, what a fun day for humanity that would be. I truly hope that the next time you are out camping, or out drive her through some South Florida swamp, I hope a fucking skunk ape jumps on the side of your truck, does not let go for at least a half mile,

just fucking hanging on there for its dear life. Oh, shit, oh, God damn! Oh, that's a big o' wait. That's a squaw! That's a skunk ape! Oh, shit! Hit the gas! Harder! Oh, he's still hanging! He's still hanging on it!

God damn. I mean, that would be an incredible day. I want that for you. And I want you to share it with us. It'll change your life, right? You see that? You're never going to be the same. That shit can happen.

Well, I guess just anything can't. And that's it. There's no, there's no relending to that. There's no conclusive. Well, and that was the last time we're ever going to see Skunkap. Or that's when they found out it was a hoax. That was just the siding just kind of, you know, pour on in and we'll continue to. and it was just weird, and I hope you enjoyed that ride.

That's it for this edition of Time Suck Short Sucks. Changing it up this week. If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic catalog. Even though there's not a lot of other Squatch stories, we are light on Squatch, but maybe you can find something else you like. Beef your episodes at Time Sucks Monday at noon Pacific time. New episodes is now long-running paranormal podcast,

scared to death, Tuesdays at midnight. Two episodes of Nightmare Fuel, fictional horror, thrown into the mix each month. so far. Thank you to Sophie Evans for her initial research on this one and just proposing just a funky topic just to again, you know, spice things up, get a little weird for a week, having done one of these kind of episodes in a while. Thanks to Logan Keith polishing up the sound of today's episode. Please go to bad magic productions.com for all your bad magic needs and have yourself a great week.