Wild Times: Wildlife Education - Forrest Galante Warns California Beaches Are Getting Too Dangerous To Swim

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

This week we discuss why there are more and more shark attacks happening around the world, how Japan is using drones to mitigate their bear problem, and why a rare species of mushroom causes you to see little people. Enjoy! (TWT 196)Nic Nac: Go to http://nicnac.com/wildtimes and use code WILDTIMES for 20% off, or use the store locator to find Nic Nacs near you.Mushroom Article: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260121-the-mysterious-mushroom-that-makes-you-see-tiny-peopleGet More Wild Times Podcast Episodes:https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wildtimespod/subscribehttps://www.patreon.com/wildtimespodMore Wild Times:Instagram: http://instagram.com/wildtimespodTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wildtimespodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/wildtimespod/X: https://x.com/wildtimespodDiscord: https://discord.gg/ytzKBbC9DbWebsite: https://wildtimes.club/Merch: https://thewildtimespodcast.com/merchBattle Royale Card Game: https://wildtimes.club/brOur Favorite Products:https://www.amazon.com/shop/thewildtimespodcastMusic/Jingles by: www.soundcloud.com/mimmkeyThis video may contain paid promotion.#ad #sponsored #forrestgalante #extinctoralive #podcast

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Wild times, here we go. It's a beautiful day in the city, isn't it? Great to be back. It's cool outside again. It got warm and then it got cool again. It's blustery. I love it. Dude, I mean, it's something, so I've got this faux fur blanket.

Okay. It's real heavy. I mean, the same probably weighs like 25. Really? It's so heavy pounds. Is it the known, like, heavy blanket thing? Remember that was a trend for a weighted blanket? It's not a weighted blanket.

blank, but it's unbelievably heavy. And I've got it on top of my comforter and like, you know, my bedroom, I'm talking like 59 degrees. Oh, wow. That's chilly. Yeah. That's like sleeping in a fucking tent outside. You may as well. Yeah, it's great.

But dude, it's getting up, like, kids will start waking up and shit. Yeah. I'm just like, nah. Yeah. I physically can't. It's too heavy to move. It's too heavy and it's too cold. And like, You know, this is going to be a nightmare.

Yeah, it's my trigger for wanting to drink alcohol is when I get up in the morning. Yep. Wait, just to be clear, you're saying your trigger for wanting to drink alcohol is waking up in the morning? Yeah. For the most part. I like this to be a lot better if I could just take a shot to warm me up. There's a 12-step program that you need to enroll in. I don't believe in God.

All right. Fair enough. No, that's fair. Yeah. What's going on with you, man? Oh, wait. I think I can do the introductions in shit. Oh, yeah, sure.

We do that like 40% of the time now. There might be one new user, my pool guy. Okay, for the one new guy who's listening, Peter's pool guy. Yeah, which is a true story. Peter started talking about his bicycle and then told him we got it on a podcast and now he listens. We got one more user. Yeah. Just saying listener.

What's his name? I don't know. Wow. You should probably learn that. Pool guy. Does he know my name? Unknown. Welcome to the Wild Times podcast.

I'm your host, Forrest Galante. We talk about comedy. We talk about animals. we do, just all kinds of shenanigans. We don't talk about comedy. That's true. We do comedy. Not very well.

We don't do comedy either. We don't do comedy either. We get a couple yucks in here and there. There we go. I'm your host. I'm the broologist. Sitting beside me is Patrick. He is the producer.

And then the guy who's pool you clean over there. I got a pool colored shirt on. He's got a swing pool colored shirt. He's got a swing pool colored shirt. Is Peter. You probably know his name, even though he doesn't know yours. No. No.

No, I don't. But you did have a question for Forrest, and I thought it was going somewhere good. No, it wasn't at all. Kyle, press the button. Yeah, there we go. What's in the news? We got some good stories today. I'm excited.

Thank you, M.K. What's in the news, fellas? Well, Peter... Can I talk about this? Before we start here. Okay. I want to start with a video. Okay. Peter put this in the group thread over the weekend.

I, it's really sad that it's gotten to this point where I just don't know, like, if it's AI, if it's not, you know, whatever. I can't tell anything anymore. So pull up this video. Oh, my God, it's cute, though. No, put the music back on. Yeah, bro. The cute music's important. So we're looking at a zoo and I see a rhinoceros.

You do. Very large rhinoceros. Who's having a lot of fun. Is he? Is he? Is that what he's doing? Oh, yeah. What is the other?

Is that like an impala, baby Impala? It's a muntjack. A munt jack. A baby one. A munt jack. A munt jack. Kyle, type in munt jack for the Google search, so we know what we're talking about. Okay, so finish it off.

I forgot about munch jack. Who are listening? What are they doing? Well, it appears that they're playing. Well, one of two things. Either the munt jack and the rhino are having the most fun they've ever had. Or the little 18-pound munt jack is bullying the 1,000-pound rhinoceros. What's going on here for?

So what's going on here is the muntjac is annoyed by the rhinoceros. The munchack is actually exhibiting aggressive behavior. He's saying stay away. This is my territory, which is funny that they do this, but they do do this. They're quite an aggressive little deer. The balls on that little fine. It's bonkers. To be that cute and that means.

The rhino is fucking 4,000 times the size of it. At least. It's crazy. It's got the shield. Like looking at the body armor on the fucking rhino. the horn. It's like how could any animal that has any inclination of self-preservation

do this? Well, it's the size of the dog in the fight, not the fight in the dog here. So what's the rhino doing? The rhino is loving every second of it. So while the muntjac is taking this quite seriously, the rhino thinks it's hysterical and that Indian

Greater Onehorn rhino is hopping and jumping and wagging its tail and taunting the little muntjac to continue to attack it. And so the muntjac is So the Muntjac puts his head down and head butts the rhino's horn, and the rhino just thinks it's tremendous. And he's just rage baiting him all up and down. It's one of the most wholesome videos I think I've ever seen now that I understand what's happening. I mean, it honestly would be perfect if it had a little bit of like happy, cheery score.

It's it's very much so the equivalent of me when I was trying to play professional rugby. and I was the Muntjac and the big Samoan dudes were the rhinos. And I was like, I'm going to fuck him up. I'm going to kick his ass. And then they'd be like, come on, white boy, come on over here. They were like, look how cute he is. It's exactly what was going on. Yeah.

I love that. Where was that? Does it say? I think it's Warsaw. In Warsaw. Oh, okay. Poland. Poland's got a lot of Munt Jack and rhinos apparently.

Yeah, clearly. Is that a thing or rhinos known to be playful? They're super playful. There's a dude, my Instagram, especially lately, has been insane. But there's a lot of videos of these rhinos like playing in the mud and tossing stuff around. And yeah, there's especially the Indian Greater One Horde Rino, the one you were just seeing there. They're really, really playful. These are not those.

These are African rhinos. But still, yeah, no, they're really playful in captivity. Yeah, I'm a little bit annoyed. I was trying to find the video. I thought I sent it. It is perfect to play off that video. Kyle, look for the video of, uh, And Pat just sent this to me.

It was, it's a video where, uh, there is a big cat of some type attached by mouth to a hippopotamus's ass while it's tail. Just look that up. Oh, I know what the video is. Is this real? No, it's AI. Oh, motherfucker. I have it. In fact, my friend sent it to me the other day.

And I was like, you're such boomers. I was so fucking mad about this. Look out. That's AI now. You're not talking about this one. No, no. The poop. one. Yeah, the poop one. Yeah, I got it right here.

You want me to send it to you? Send it over. I was looking for it. It's so bad. But it's really good AI. Is it not? I don't see any extra fingers or toes. Is it the cat eating a rhino's poop? No. It's the one you sent me where on Instagram where the fucking rhino just

does the helicopter poop onto the fucking big cat. Lion. It's a lion. I just sent it to you, Kyle. Here we go. We got to see it though. It's really fucking impressive, this AI. Look at this. It's so good. Yeah, they get Oh, it's so fucking funny. Look at the reaction of the fucking cat.

It's so clearly AI, though. It's supposed to be a leopard, and it's actually a jaguar, which makes it worse. See, but how do you know it's AI, Pat? Because the jump made no sense. It would never react like that. The lion doesn't, or the hippo doesn't have any blood on it, even though it just had a cat attached to its ass. Tail. There's no way the hippo would just stay there.

Also, nothing can poop like that. Like, don't get me wrong, hippos do a nice poop swirl. That's like... Yeah, you're right. That's like a fire hydrant. It's so funny, though, man. I love whoever fucking made this, even though I hate the AI videos.

Dude, I think that we're... I think we're going to see people... I'm surprised... Here's how I'm going to start this conversation topic. I wish slash am surprised that there isn't an option on Instagram to say, don't feed me AI. I'm actually surprised because I think that my, I mean, Kyle, correct me if I'm wrong, you're younger.

I know Tommy was mentioning something about this. I'm so fatigued by seeing AI videos. Yeah. And the anger that I get by being tricked, even with that video for the first one second or half a second, where I'm like, oh, cool. And then you're like, it's all fake. Yeah. There is no good quality amount of AI that can take away from that annoying feeling of being tricked by it. Well, not only that, but not actually being able to potentially enjoy things that are real. Right. Exactly. Right. Yeah.

It's like we never asked for this other thing because I was like, there's, there was never a shortage of interesting video being taken in the world. That's right. Very true. With five billion people a day having phones in their pockets. Yeah. There was no shortage. So I didn't feel like I needed an option to make even crazier shit.

Because if something's not real, it's of zero value to me. 100%, dude. And the fact that... If you go to any one of my Instagram posts, there is at least one comment saying it's AI. And of course, none of them are. But, you know, it's me holding an orangutan or seeing an elephant or working with a snake.

And there is 100% of the time, there's one person going, this is AI. Right, yeah. And it's just because, you know, people don't think these things are real anymore, which is absolutely fucked when you're talking... It's one thing when I'm showing off with a snake just to be a show off.

It's another thing when I'm, like, trying to communicate something important like a rescued baby orangutan and somebody's going, this is AI, so we shouldn't care about it. I mean, you got to look at it though. Like there's always assholes in the comments no matter what. But I will say, like, even you sent me that hippopotamus video. And I was like, holy shit. No pun intended.

I was like, that's fucking awesome. And it took me a good, like a good two minutes and I watched it again, like still like, holy shit, like looking at it because I wanted to see it again. and then, only then, was I like, oh, fucking AI. And then I was actually really mad. I was like, and I sent a message back to you. I know you don't even look at it, but I was like, AI question. And I was just like, don't send me this shit.

I'm surprised that none of these social media platforms have put that, that option on. I think it might be coming. It's still so new and so fresh. I think it's coming. YouTube's starting to implement something where they're not going to be monetizing any AI content at all, as a deterrent. Yeah. Oh, interesting.

So if you put out an AI short or long form video, there's going to be no monetization on it. I think there's some stipulations with it, but it's like moving in that direction. Definitely. Yeah, just unoriginal fucking where you basically take like a, you go chat chit, make me a script, video, make the visuals,

throw it together. Like, fuck, like I hope they get rid of all that shit. Okay, so I agree with you on that. I put out a video, Kyle, remember this? Maybe, I don't know, six months ago. And it was a storytelling video of, I think, animal attacks or something like, oh, no, it was extinct animals, like terrifying extinct animals. And there's, of course, no photos of these creatures because they don't exist. Yeah.

So instead, we used AI to make these animals. Huge mistake. I mean, there was so much bad. People were like, don't you have, fuck this AI slop, blah, blah, blah, blah. So obviously never did that again. But it, yeah, it's that one right there. It was this video. and it's like, I don't know, like this would be a useful tool, you know, like that.

These are all AI renderings, right? Yeah, yeah. So that would be a, wow, my hair looks insane. That would be, that would be a useful tool for telling these stories that otherwise I can't tell. Yeah. But then at the same time, like people, you know, that was, I remember that. That was a terror bird talking about how they can run as fast as a greyhound. Yeah.

That doesn't exist. You know, there's no such thing as an artist rendition of a terror bird racing a greyhound. Yeah. So it's like these things would be. be useful, but then AI, I don't know. It's like a weird, do you know what I'm saying? I do. What is the place where this is okay? Well, I do think that there's, get this off. It just makes me angry now. There's, there's, there's, there's nuance to it. And the, and the worst thing that the internet is good with is nuance. So it's like, you're not going to get any real,

like the feedback that you're getting in the comments, you're getting just all the people that hate AI and they're not thinking about the value that might come from something that is actually a person, a real person there, like helping you learn something and visually see something. That's different than just like having AI create a script and like make up a story and like just make shit up, you know? And I do think that that like that wouldn't make me as mad as like the shit cheetah thing. because I was just like, I'm fooled. God damn it.

But that's clearly AI. Like, you know. Her ref. Yeah. There's some news I want to share. Thank you. Peter, I've got some awful news. Oh my God, what happened?

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Instead of a lip pouch or, you know, hopefully by now you're not vaping still. It's a mint that come in delicious flavors, three and six milligrams. Like a little lozange, I guess it's called. And I think it's my new preferred delivery system, to be honest. Bro, it is so nice not having to, my wife thinks I'm doing mints, first of all. I'm just sucking on mince when really, because she gets mad about the nicotine. If you need to hide your nicotine from your wife, just go to next.com. Yeah.

But dude, not only that, perfect milligram it, three and six is what I do. They have so many great flavors, do. This blood orange is delicious and just way less chemicals than a regular pouch made right here in the UF, the UFA. Made in the UFO. But yeah, it is. I always kind of wonder with the lip pouches, um, what the chemical. are. I like that there's only six ingredients. They're right on the back. Essential oils are what they use for the flavors. If you want to check it out, get your knickknacks at knickknack.com slash wild times. Use code wild times for 20% off or use the store locator to find knickknacks near you. Nicknack, crush your vice. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. So you remember we maybe two months ago, month and a half ago, pre-hybernation season, we talked about the bear attacks. Japan.

Oh yeah, we've even followed us. We've talked about it two different times. It's been a... It's the story that keeps on given. It really is. Yeah, so Black Bears, just to bring people up to speed, in Ishinoki City in Miyagi Prefecture in Japan, there is a historic instance of Black Bears attacking people. Basically, the city has become practically abandoned.

It's down to 10 or so percentage of population. Just overtly attacking people, like with no... Right, but there's a reason. And I'll explain it. dozens and dozens and dozens of bear attacks. People have left the city, so there's a much smaller population of people. That has led to an increased population of black bears that are hungry. And all of a sudden, there are dozens of attacks.

So the Japanese government has been called in to mitigate the attacks, so on and so forth, all these things. What do they do first? They were calling to bring the army in to come and just start slaughtering the bears. Exactly. They didn't do that. They came out and they started putting up electrical fencing, I believe, or something. I don't know about the electric fencing. They urge people to stay indoors.

They brought the army to attack the bears. They wanted to increase hunting pressure on the bears because historically the bears have been hunted and now with nobody in the town there, there's no hunting pressure on the bears, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, what are they doing now? This is what's so cool. So Japan has used drones to fight against these bears.

So Japan added a projectile to the drones except they're using bear spray or bear mace to hose down the bears from drones. Oh, this is great. It's pretty rad. It's not, they're not killing them. They actually put some thought into this. Let's see a little demo.

Okay, so there's the canister of bear mace. It's a very small drone. It is. Yeah. Sticks in his bear spray. Pops it in there. This looks like this guy just made it in his garage. 100%.

Oh, wow. This is so Japanese. Kyle, go back, go back, go back. Pause on that for a second. He's wearing green cowboy booze. Is it the guy you hired? It's the same guy. I want you guys to know when I told the bear suit.

guy story, that's what it looked like when the guy showed up. He's 100% wearing green cowboy. It's beautiful. Underneath bear costume. Incredible. All right. Let's keep going. So Japanese.

Yeah. So the drone is flying over. They're demonstrating how this would work with the guy in the bear suit. And they spray him. Okay. Just hosing them down. This is, I love that they're doing this. This is so unnecessary.

It's amazing. There's no world in which this won't be used for pornography. The second I saw this guy on all four is getting sprayed down by that high pressure, whatever coming out of that. I was like, this is going to be Japanese porn in no time. Okay. So, but I really like this. Oh, good. Another ankle.

Yeah. I really like this, though, because when they first, this broke and they were talking about just going and slaughtering all these bears, they were calling for the military, the Japanese military to come in there and just like start mowing them down. I was like, God, that sucks. Like, there's got to be a better way. I don't think they were ever really talking about that. Were they? Yes. Yes, they were calling for that.

The people in the city were. Got it. But we were all, we were talking about different ways that they might mitigate it. And I don't, Kyle, do you remember? Did we,

we talked about drones, maybe with sound or something, I feel like. There was another instance where farmers were using drones with ACDC music for it to scare away wolves. That's right. That's right. But they also tried like a bunch of noise stuff to get the bears to,

to cause off. military assistance, AI systems that could predict bear encounters, which obviously horrifically failed. And now this trial phase on the drones, which is seen as a promising long-term tool. And it says here, as Japan faces fewer hunters and aging population and increasingly unpredictable wildlife behavior. It's kind of interesting because Japan is like, it's a bit of an Easter Island case study, right?

Easter Island being the island in the Pacific where people went and colonized the island, they cut down all the trees and their population imploded. Japan is like a bigger scale of that. So like Japan was, you know, incredibly cutting edge, very, very on the front of everything. Their population boomed. Then they got so modern, and this is happening in Scandinavia now and a bunch of other places that they sort of stopped reproducing. And that is, by the way, it's like, sounds weird or racist or culturally insignificant

or significant or saying, but this does happen. When a culture gets to a certain point of, civilization, like a certain point of advancement, they stop reproducing. It's very strange. It's been seen this several times. And you think it's just because everybody's so goddamn tired with all the fucking... Like, I'm not even joking. Like, because it's like, now you're just, you have... You never have a moment's peace with the technology expanding. It just gets so fast. Like, you have your phone. There's notifications. Everything. You're just tired. You don't want to deal with kids.

I think it might be that. I think it's almost that technology... When society becomes advanced, to a certain point, technology makes us so dependent on instant gratification, and there is nothing less instant gratification than having kids. Well, people aren't even... People aren't having sex in Japan. That's the other... They are not having sex? That's correct.

At all? Yeah, like the percentage... Yeah, read about it. Japan virgins. The percentage of people over 30 that are virgins is like the highest it's ever been. Is that because they're spending all day on technology? Yes. Flacking off.

Yeah. You got the porn bear going on there. 42% of unmarried men and 44% of unmarried women. Yeah. Ages 13 to 34. I mean, that's half the population. That's shocking. Yeah.

Yeah. That is shocking. So they're, you know, they're having this, this crisis. Uh, why are almost, see, there you go. Why are almost half of Japan's millennials virgins? So yeah, it has to do with, uh, the relationship, their main most important relationship is with their phone. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. It's good. It's good. I'm glad we're driving ourselves to completely collapse. Yeah, me too. Listen, dude. I mean, come on. What do you think's going to come of this, right?

Like, I mean, not a whole lot. Well, I mean, all of our podcast. Very nice. Talking about it. No. What do you think is going to come of this? Yeah, I know.

I heard you the first time. No, I was just saying like, you know, like, is it, is it necessarily a bad thing? I mean, we got a billion people. Like, if some of us don't want to. I mean, if you're taking like the super meta, like the Earth has too many humans thing, sure. I think like to be like an entire society of people. stopped having intercourse because of cell phones

is like a bit much. So what should be done, do you think? Well, I think what's going to happen is... Why is that just a picture of a cock? Yeah, I saw that. Big crotch shot there. It was just a guy, a big chicken? I think what's going to happen is the whole world

is going to get like this, and then our population is going to reduce and restabilize. So, you know, for the last 100 years of human history, we've just been exploding. I think a lot longer than that, but yeah. Sure, but I think, especially in the last 100, 200 years, it's been like exponential growth. Yeah. People are having tons of kids.

Those kids are all surviving to adulthood. They're having tons of kids. I think this is almost like, it's a really weird way to look at it, but it's almost like mother nature, God, earth, space, whatever's way of fighting back and being like, all right, well, look, we can't continue this growth rate of any creature. but especially human beings that take so much from the earth. So whether we've done it to ourselves intentionally or unintentionally, by doing this, I think what you're going to end up seeing is, you know, what's popular?

The world's at like 10 billion now, is that right? 8.272. Well, wow, there's a live counter. Look at that. I would bet that it's going to like spike up to like nine or 10 and then drop back down and level off at like six or seven or something like. I'm just making all these numbers up. But I think that's what we're going to see.

And it's actually really interesting because, you see this in a predator prey cycle. Like there's a thing called the predator prey algorithm or cycle where predator spike, prey dips, prey dips, prey dips, predators die off and then prey spikes. And then, you know what I mean? So you have this oscillating thing.

But it's like just our phones are our predators. Yeah, exactly. The predators are the predator. Exactly right. Yeah. Corporation. Look at that by country. I mean, you basically have two countries

making up like 40% of the world's population. Yeah. India and China. Where's Japan on that? Oh, dude. Not even there. 12. Oh, no, it's there. There you go. 12. 12 million. But yes, you got India at almost 1.5 billion. China at 1.4 billion. And then the next highest is U.S. with 340 million.

Wow. Now, what is the population of the U.S. doing? Is it still growing? That I don't know. Can you look that up, Kyle? Very slowly, definitely. No, but that's the growth rate, right? Yeah. yearly population growth rate,

United States population. Now, I wonder how much of that is like immigration versus birth. True. You know, like, like I wonder if you take, if you take immigration out of the equation, is the U.S.

population growing or shrinking based on birth? I definitely know more people now in our generation that will never have kids than in my parents' generation. 100 for sure. And the younger generation too. Like they are...

Even more so. Yeah, exactly. So listen to this. The median... age in the U.S. In 1980 was 29. It's almost 39 now. Wow.

That's crazy. That's interesting. Yeah, so we're getting older. Yeah, I mean, dude, that that just basically essentially... And look at the fertility. There you go. There's the fertility rate. What is that... What does the fertility rate mean? Like, how virile we are, what our testosterone is? I'm not sure,

but it's going down. It is how many... How many kids per person? Per person. Yeah. So like in 1990, it was over two. Yeah, man. We were feral back then. If I could come back then.

I would have been popping off so many kids. Well, I don't know where we're going with this. Yeah, what were we talking about bears and maize or something? I don't even know what we got here. Japan. Wait, how do we get from Japan's bear spraying bears? Kyle, have you been listening? I couldn't tell you fucking in second.

I could tune out a while ago. Jesus Christ. That means the listeners have tuned out. All right, let's talk about a next new story. I don't think so. Was that bad? No. Because there's a chance I fell asleep and was kind of lucid dreaming.

Do the next story? Do you need a magic mind? Oh, good idea. I'm going to have one for sure. Okay. You already drank yours, you son of a bee. I'm going caffeine free. I've had three cups of coffee today.

I'm going full. I'm going double caffeine. You on max? I'm going max, baby. 120 milligrams. Let's go. Wow. Okay.

So this is a headline that makes me laugh, but it also sounds like an onion article. Okay, let's liven it up here. I have not read the article. Have any of you guys read this? I've only read the headline 10 seconds ago, and I'm already trying to, like, restrain my file. I was just saying, this is not an article.

It's a Reddit post. Okay. If you'll make that distinction. I love this headline. Okay. Say more. I have, it says, go back to the doc. Let him read it verbatim because it's funny.

Dad lied for 24 years about loving manatees. To spare his young son's feeling. All right. Click, click the post and let's see why did he lie. So his obviously spare his feelings, yes. So his six-year-old, can you zoom in? I'm sorry. Yeah.

You need glasses. It says 24 years ago, my six-year-old son got me a birthday present. It was a mug with a picture of a manatee on it. He got upset when I wasn't sufficiently thrilled with his gift. I assured him that I loved it saying that manatees were my favorite animals. Since then, manatee-themed items have been my default gift from him. Manatee shirts, manatee calendars, manatee Beerstines, and so much more. 24 years of manatee items.

My confession is that manatees are not my favorite animal. Never have been. Now my deception has reached at Zenith. Next year, I'm turning 55 and he's turning 30. For Christmas, my son booked a trip for the two of us to go to Florida to see manatees. My son is so excited for the trip and is telling everyone in our family about it. Dude, the sun now knows. Is there follow up to this after this?

No, that's about it. Okay. I'm hoping it's real because, like, how would you not? There's no way that's not real. It's deaf real. You can't just make that up. But now he knows, right? Now the son knows.

Well, he didn't think it would go. He didn't think, okay, here's what happened. Well, I don't know, because he posted it on Reddit. No, I'm saying it's so viral now. Let me tell you what happened. Let me paint you a picture. Pain it for me. Okay.

Illustrate. 24 years ago, this dad lied to his young son to say manatees are his favorite animal. The same way I tell... We heard that part. Yeah. Okay, just can you shut the fuck up? Get the paintbrush out, baby. I'm trying.

Come on. The same way I lie to my son telling him that platypus are my favorite animal. Because they're his favorite animal. Yeah. Yeah. Now, 24 years later, the son at 30 years old, who makes $60,000 a year, has booked a $12,000 trip to Florida to celebrate his father and his shared passion. Yeah.

And out of frustration, the dad has gone to Reddit confess. never assuming that this would blow up and become viral to admit to something because he can't tell his wife, he can't tell his other child. He's got no one to talk to. He can't even talk about it at work because if it gets back to his son, his son's going to be devastated. So instead he's gone to random internet strangers who would never in any way, shape, or form get out to his son. But because of the sincerity of his confession, it's gone fully viral. And his son undeniably knows at this point. That's what I'm saying, though. Like, how is there not a follow-up to this?

Like, the son and the dad now did you just start colluding and turn this into a multimillion-dollar business. They're in therapy currently. I was going to say the son might have gone into hiding. No, the son has got to come out and be like, just like play it up. The New York Post picked, go. I need to see what the New York Post. Every fucking news media picked this up. Yeah.

Oh, get out of here. Dads everywhere. The best resolution to the story. Actually, let's play a game. Should we play a game? Yes. Sure. Okay.

All right. Kyle, jump on the mic here. The New York Post did reach out to the Redditor for comment. Let's just see if there's any more. I do want to play a game, though. Wait. No, nothing good. Nothing good here.

Yeah, but hang on. I think they might have gone on the trip. Okay, we got pictures. There they are. There's dad and son on the trip. The father not picture had vowed to maintain the facility. No, that's in those. It's just some bullshit.

shit. All right. Confession. All right. I just thought maybe there was something new. Kyle, all right, we're playing a game here. Shut up. Before you know, before you know, I got to make a call to the Brosner's. Please, if you I threw something at you, I just missed me.

If you have the follow-up, please post the comments. I will be checking. I really want to know what happens with this. Okay, Kyle, are you ready to play the game? Let's do something else. No, shut up. I'm ready. Here's the game. Okay, Kyle, you are Discovery ID, which is a

true crime style television network. And the three of us all happen to be the sons of the manatee father. Okay. Okay. We're all auditioning for the part of son in this, in this true, true crime telling. Okay. Kyle, you're the producer at Discovery ID. Wait, so son killed father?

No. What? Have you been here? Have you ever seen ID investigation? I also thought you were going to say son killed father. It's a true crime network. Okay. Well, then I didn't set the son.

very well. Investigation discovery. Okay. Kyle is the producer of a network that is going to retell the story that has been picked up and gone viral on Reddit. All three of us are each auditioning

for the role of Sun. However, there is no ad, there is no read for table read for this. You have to present how you've now found out this news. How are you responding to this? Okay. And Kyle is going to pick the best one

to play the Sun and you're going to earn a million dollars. I think this would be better on the life. channel. Okay, I don't know. I don't know. Investigative discovery is where people get murdered. Okay, sorry, this is Lifetime.

My bad. Well, so when I found out... You're now a woman executive from Lifetime channel. Shut up. I'm my turn to go. Here we go. All right. Action, Peter. When I found out, man, when I first saw that article come across my Reddit feed,

I'm an avid Reddit user. And, you know, I saw the post started... I saw it before it was even mainstream news. and I was in my head I was like, it couldn't be. You know, because you're, like, I knew that it's good acting. It, it, it, it, it,

just shut the fuck up. Why is that saying? I'm serious. I thought it was good acting. I thought you were going to start crying. It was really good. You hear a story and it, and it parallels your life so closely that you, you, you almost know that it is,

but you just don't believe it. So I didn't believe it. when I first saw it. But when I went to dad and I showed him the post, he broke down and told me right away. And it was at that moment that I took my phone, stepped on his head and killed him, and now I'm in jail. With your phone?

No, I stepped on his head and swathes his skull. Why did you say I took my phone then? Well, I smashed him in the face to get at first. Oh, okay. He stepped on his head and killed him. him. Wow. I'm in jail.

Okay. And that's why. Keep in mind, this is for lifetime now. Not the true crime channel anymore. All right. That's what I got. Okay. All right.

I fucking got him the gifts. It wasn't something I was doing for me. He didn't. He thinks like he's such an egotistical prick that he thinks that he was doing this for me. You said you liked manatees. And thus. We all got humanity stuff. I booked to Forrest Point.

I spent 20% of my annual income to book us a nice trip to go see humanities for you. And now he's telling everyone, he's trying to embarrass me in front of America, fucking prick. I haven't talked to him in three months. Okay. That's my take.

I like it. Here's the truth, Dad. I was devastated. when this came out. When I realized that was your Reddit handle and that you admitted to this, that this thing that I thought we had bonded over for 24 years,

that the whole family, you know, I bought you a manatee couch. Yeah, the couch is shaped like a manate. In the living room of our house. Okay, that was from all of us,

not just me. That was from mom too. Expensive. But here's the truth, Dad. I also fucking hate manatees. I've always hated manatees since day one. I was six years old.

I was trying to get out of some trouble. I just wanted cam. The whole thing's been a lie. I thought we were bonding over something. Let's go fuck some chicks. Yeah. Something like that. They're just so.

Manatee's are boring. What angle you go on? Which one are you taking? I think I'm going to go with Patrick's angle because there's it sounds like there's revenge coming from that one. Oh yeah. Well, he killed the guy. Yeah, well, I gave too much away.

Oh, okay. Yeah, there's nowhere left to go. Yeah. Oh, that's why he's the producer. So makes sense. The manatee lie makes perfect sense because my mom. I don't know if it was a lie or if she liked it. But my mom, when I was a kid, the whole time I was a kid, every Christmas, you just get my mom something cow theme.

A cow ornament, a cow statue, just a cow mug. Yeah. Right. And I don't actually have no idea if she has any interest in cows or ever did. I have very similar experience, too. My grandmother, roosters, a bunch of rooster themed things and my aunt butterflies. They probably both hate those things. Exactly.

Both of those items. But it's also like, like, it's just funny that we do this for adults. And it's like, it's like asking an adult what their favorite color is. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, what's your favorite animal, dad?

It's not even a. Heyna. Okay. I guess I'll get hyena shit forever now. Oh, my God. Whenever I get asked what gift I want, I'm just like, I've never, I've never thought about it. Just give me money and that's okay. Like, money is great.

Like, I'll figure out what to do with it. Don't worry about it. My entire childhood I gave my parents, my mom, candles. Nobody likes candles. Well, we love candles. I like having one pine scented cake. Right, but could you imagine if for every Christmas and birthday for 14-ish years, you got another candle that you'd never lit?

I never once saw my mom light a candle. You just kept giving them. Right, so that's at minimum 28 candles that I purchased her while we were growing up. Six to $700 with your allowance money. And she'd be like, oh, thank you so. Oh, this one smells so good. And I'm like, I did a good job. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's your fucking cake-scented candle. Did you see? Cake. Did you see the, I didn't, it's not on the show doc, but that they shut down a bunch of beaches in Australia. From the shark attacks of? There was like, apparently a decent amount of shark attacks all happened.

I think there was four in a week or something like that. Okay. Bro. Yeah, they shut down like 25 beaches. It's all bull sharks, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, really? Like a whole area where all the bull sharks are smashing people. Four shark attacks were recorded within a 48-hour period.

Damn. Three of them occurring along a 15-kilometer stretch of Australian coast. 12-year-old died. Were they bull sharks? Let's see what it says. Where did it say it was? Eastern Australia? Sydney.

Yeah. Could have been white sharks then. Well, dude, also... This is talking about bullsharks. Oh, yeah, there you go, bull sharks. Shark encounters hit record high in California also. Yeah, but look, that's why. So going back to Australia for a minute.

What did it say? There was a big rainfall. Yeah. Rainfall created perfect conditions for bull sharks, blah, blah, blah, which makes sense, right? Because bull sharks, as we know, they like brackish water. There was a ton of rain. Then the estuaries and river miles would have flooded. That sends the bull sharks into those places.

People always swim in those places, not thinking about sharks. So not related to the California record thing. So it's totally different things. What's the California thing? Oh, I sent Kyle the link. but so shark encounters hit record high in California there's just been record latched on surfer board broken and latest attack this was back on the 14th

or in January 14th there's just been all these shark encounters and we talked about this the last two podcasts they've been increasing rapidly out here on the west coast with white sharks so you know they said that the well what do you think I mean, why do you think they are expanding? And then I'll finish reading this. Then I can tell you what really happened.

Well, they don't know. I think we've hit this, too. Yeah, there's more and more sharks. You know, they've stopped killing seals for oil and fur. They've stopped killing otters. Sharks have bounced back. Gill nets have pretty much gone away. Shark populations are higher.

More and more people are living on the coast, going to the ocean every day. Yeah. Like, it's just all the things that lead to more encounters. Dude, I got to say, though, the bull sharks in Sydney, like, just kind of like, I feel like bull sharks are, they're bad guys. They're sneaky little buggers for sure. Yeah. Elaborate. Well, like, the California thing, it's like there are tons of white sharks around all these, like, very popular swimming and surfing areas, but there still hasn't really been any, like, deadly attacks.

A few, but anyways, yeah. Okay, there have been several deadly attacks. Well, yeah, that's what I just said. And I didn't want to, like, call you out to make you sound stupid, but yeah. Because, yeah, because I don't think there's been any fatal attacks. In California? Or where?

Broken board. There's California shark attack. Latching onto a surfboard is not the same as a deadly attack. There was one fatal attack in Monterey Bay. Three incidents. Oh, right. That was the woman who was part of the swim club. Anyways, I was trying to fucking build you up.

Now tell me, why are the bull smart sharks? Just the bull sharks, man. You know, I'm not the expert, but just. watching them and like, you know, the times that we've filmed with a lot of bull sharks, like, they're just, they just seem really aggressive. They're just scary. They're incredibly powerful, even though they're small. Like they're intelligently trying to, like, capture and eat humans or whatever.

No, not like that. They're just, they just seem really aggressive to me. They're very aggressive. They're the highest testosterone of any shark in the world. And they're just, they're very sneaky. They like to be in very low visibility water. They can move into rivers without ever knowing that they're there. They're incredibly efficient predators.

Like if they want to kill something, they go in and kill it very quickly. Yeah. They're just, yeah, they're amazing sharks. When you're in conditions like this at fucking Tiger Beach or Plyadal Carmen, it's great. You can see them coming a mile away. They don't try and do anything. But when you're swimming in a cloudy river, they're on you. They know what they're doing.

Kyle, I just sent you some videos. My buddy sent me from yesterday. I texted it to you. Sorry, I don't know. Can you get us a little prelude to it? Uh, just my buddy took these photos yesterday. Oh my God. In Santa Barbara. That's an incredible fucking picture. He was in the water, scuba diving. Just is that a great white? That's a great white. Yeah. How old is that guy? He looks like he's been weathered quite a bit. It's a big shark. It's a

16 foot shark or so. And he's scuba diving. That one's tag. See the tag on the side of it? How is he not freaking out? Why? He's a state biologist. He spends a lot of time in waters where there's a lot of them. But does he understand from like the behavior or like what is he like why does he know it's not going to attack so this buddy of mine um he works in an area that is restricted access nobody can go there and there's a ton of white sharks there that congregate there every single day okay and he works in a two-man team so he's the state biologist and then his friend uh is the guard so basically he'll be down on the rocks doing counts of muscles and abalone's and surveys and then he has a buddy who's, well, he's hunched over doing stuff staring on the reef.

His buddy's standing there with a pulse beer and every time a white shark comes by, he pokes it. And they do this all day long. But, you know, but they'll go a month or two without seeing a shark. And then yesterday he told me I had eight sharks there. They just rock up like that. Well, so I mean, like if you're out on the coast of, you know, out on the west coast here, like the white sharks are definitely out a lot and in force these days. It's getting increasing here.

and it's just going to end up being somewhere like, you know, if you go to Melbourne, Australia, there's areas you just don't swim or surf. Period. Like, it's not even a thing. It's just like, no, no, no, don't go to that point. Like, there's too many white sharks there. And South Africa used to be the same.

It's like, you know, you don't go fucking paddle a surfboard around Seal Island, the place where all the white sharks breach. You just don't do it. It doesn't matter if there's a huge storm in perfect waves. Like, don't do it. You know what I mean? Right. California is not like that.

Like, up and down the coast, it's like, oh, you can surf anywhere, you can swim anywhere. and you can, but what's going to ultimately happen over the next five to ten years is it's going to be like, oh, you just don't surf carp reef, which is where this aerial photo was taken. You know, you just don't swim at fucking point conception. Like you just don't do it, you know, because that's where there's this concentration of white sharks. And that's all it's going to be. It's going to be like a learning situation where at some point we just go, no, no, you just don't

go in the water there. Yeah. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. That's super interesting, though. So what would be the timeline for that? Like three more years, five more years? We're on the precipice of it right now. Okay.

Like right now, I have buddies, in fact, literally right the second as we sit here, a buddy of mine is going scuba diving at a white shark hotspot that I would say nobody should go in the water anymore. It's funny because we're texting about this morning. But what's going to end up happening is we're going to end up having a string of fatal shark attacks. And then they're going to be like, okay. we need to start having... It's not like a law, just like in Australia. It's like if you want to paddle out

at a certain point by Melbourne, go for it. But if you talk to anybody, they're going to be like, if you do that, you will die. Yeah, and there'll be signs and everything. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. And that's what's going to end up happening here, I think, is there's just going to be these hot spots

where we know the sharks congregate, like Padara Beach and Santa Barbara, carp reef, Point Conception, Santa Rosa Island, like these various spots where there are just so many white sharks that is just like, there's no law against it, but the likelihood of surviving it is lower than, than, you know, like, you're more likely to get bitten than not get bitten if you go swim there.

So, like, what, what is a guy like you do? You just stay away from there then, smartly? Or do you, like, go, like, you know what I'm asking? A guy like me does it within reason. And so what I mean by that is, if I want to go and film white sharks, like the reason my buddy Andrew texted me those photos, is I will absolutely go and film them. But I'm not a swimmer. I'm not going to hop in the water and splash around or take a shortboard, surfboard, and surf that break. I'm going to go down on scuba on a clear day with a guy who has a pole spear, you know, to poke them away with a shark shield on my leg, which is an electro-transmitting thing that keeps sharks away. You know what I mean? Like I'm going to do it in a way. There's one spot, and I won't say the name of it, that I have shot dozens of really nice big white sea bass in Santa Barbara.

And, you know, here in California, as a spear fisherman, white sea bass is the gold standard, right? no better fish to shoot a big white sea bass. I'll never spear a fish there again, guaranteed. Oh, wow. Because when you're, that spot is now overrun with big white sharks. Because they want those fucking big white sea bass, right? Yeah, it's a spot that pelagic animals congregate

because it's this certain pinnacle that stands out from anything. So whether you're a white sea bass or a yellow tail or a great white shark, it's a spot to stop and rest, right? And the white sharks know that. Ten years ago, there were, I'm not saying none, but you never saw a white shark. there. Now, I would say 50% of the time I go there, I see one from the boat. How did they, is that because, like, they, they were juveniles there and now they've, all the factors we

mentioned, like their populations increased, they've got more comfortable, we see them more, there's more people, there's more food sources, everything else. I will never spearfish at that spot ever again. Because spearfishing, you are going as quietly as you can. You're free diving on the outside of the kelp bed, where the big fish hang out. You know, you're basically doing everything in your power to act like a seal. Like that's literally all you're doing. Yeah. That's what spearfishing is.

I will never spearfish at that spot again, which sucks because I know that in the spring I can go there on certain conditions and shoot a 60 pound white sea bass that'll feed my family for six months. Yeah. It's not worth it. I won't go there anymore. So it just depends to answer your question. Yeah.

You mentioned like, you know, there'll be signs and stuff. Remember when we went to that like Queens bath, that area in Kauai where people were jumping off the rocks? Yes. Have you seen those baths where it's basically like they have them all over where you jump off a rock. The tide goes down. So that's like a 20 foot jump. Giant tide pools. The tide pool comes up. So I, but there there's like a sign that says like the amount of people that have died. Yep. And it was it's like over like 200. It was like it's some insane amount from them jumping off this. Jumping into this thing. I bet if you look up the sign it'll it'll it'll be able to pull that up too. They keep a count of how many people have died just in this one bath. And you go and. And you go. And. And. And. And there's still a shitload of people doing it. Yeah, that's the sign right there.

Yep. No, that's just as danger. There's one that tells you. No, I think it says it down. No, it's the other one. Is it that one? But that's because so many people have jumped in bad conditions. Yeah.

Because what happens is people go on YouTube or Instagram or whatever, and they're like, oh, cool, Queens Bath. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a hundred videos of a hundred people jumping there. Yeah. And, you know, I'm from fucking Kansas City. and I'm like, I want to go do that. That means I have no knowledge of tides, of wind, of currents.

I'm probably not a very good swimmer. I don't understand the surge or the swell. I'm in Hawaii for three days, and one of the things I want to do is something I've seen on Instagram. So what do I do? I ignore all rationale and logic and go jump in the queen's back. And then I die. And that's how it happens.

It's not the locals that go there every Saturday and know what they're doing. And they're like, yeah, you jump from this rock into this spot. and you only do it on a low tide and blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. Yeah. But yeah, I just, I don't know why I went down a wormhole on YouTube of just people jumping into tide pools and just getting absolutely like it is fucking crazy. Like, it can look like it's doing one thing.

Go to Kook Slams, Kyle. And then someone will jump in and they just get brutalized. Oh, brutal. Right into the rocks or whatever. Or just like swept out and you're like, oh, they're like a quarter mile out now. Just scroll down until you see a tide pool one. So scary. There's so many good ones.

Even that one. What's the, have you guys, do you guys follow this page? No. Cooke slams on Instagram. It's just, yeah.

So there you go. There's a guy sticking his head over like a blowhole in a tide pole. In a tide pool. But dude, there's so many. He looks really mad. Oh yeah. He was pissed.

There's so many good tide pool ones where people think they can swim in a tide pool or they have some idea. Of course, now I'm saying it we can't find any. But yeah, it's absolutely insane what people try and do. Can I, Could I play a little?

Oh, go ahead. No, finish. It was going to be an aside. Oh, well, I was just going to be a little game. I think this Instagram looks fun. This would be a fun bonus pod. Oh, dude, it's great. We can absolutely do that.

Dude, I see water slides. Oh, Kyle, just click anyone. Click a water slide for me. That was a big one. This is going to end very poorly. Right into the camera, guarantee. Oh, no, into someone's head. Oh, back of the head.

Oh, my God. Brutle. Kid taken out. The kids shouldn't have just been standing there. No, there's a rope for a reason. Oh my God. There's a great page, by the way. If you're not following kook slams, I am strongly recommended.

Why is it called kook? Because they're all kooks. There's being kooks. Because they're just being kooks. Yeah, bra. All right, I want to play a little game. This never happens. Okay.

I'm going to do it for you guys. I want you to roll play a little bit for me. And you guys are both doctors. Okay. Sure. And I'm going to present to you with a series of symptoms. Okay. Really just one symptom.

But when I come in, I want you to try and just guess what it could be that happened to me. And do we work together as a team? Sure, whatever. You can go one at a time. You can guess it doesn't matter. Okay. So you guys will both hear what I have to say. Okay.

So hang on. Should we knock? I want to see if you're ready for us to come in? Sure. Okay. You are a patient app. I like this. Okay.

Come in. Diabetes. Tarrat syndrome. Why would you think that? I saw you. What about you? I think you have turrets. All right.

That's funny. I don't want to play this game anymore. Come on. Of course I will. All right. Come in. Hi. I'm Dr. Patrick.

Hey, Doc. Dr. Forrest. How are you? Yeah. What's going on? Well, can you describe to us your symptoms? Yeah.

Describe us what you're going on with you. Yeah. Just. Oh my God. This is going to sound so weird. Oh, there's another one. There's these little, these little people. They're like, I don't even know.

About the size of like a foot. They're like a foot tall. Okay. And they're just running around everywhere. Like they're on the wall right there. And then like whenever I look at them, they go away. One just climbed under the door. Clearly an advanced form of psychosis of some kind.

He's probably on drugs. No. No. So, again, how tall are they about this tall? They're like 12, I don't know, maybe like the size of this big, I don't know. 15 inch. I was at a, I mean, you know, have you taken any drugs as of late? No.

No, I've never used drugs in my life. I just came from a restaurant in Yunnan, capital of China. Oh, thank you. That's actually helpful. So you literally just went to the restaurant and then came back here. Turned right around and came back. No, I finished my meal and then I was out having a couple of drinks and then just I started seeing all these little people running everywhere. Even in here, they're everywhere.

So you did have some alcohol. I did. Yeah, a lot of alcohol? No, not too much. What kind of alcohol were you consuming? I had a beer. How's your stomach being? Are you feeling queasy, ill?

Have you been throwing up? No, I feel fine. I feel great. Any kind of fever. Running around everywhere. Right. And you're not hallucinating outside of the small people? I've never have, but these are not hallucinations.

These are real little people. And only, I guess to Dr. Forrest's point, are you only seeing small people? Are you seeing other small things? Nothing else. This is all I am seeing. Okay. This is nothing else.

They're everywhere. He ate something. It must have been. Do you have any kind of history of seeing these people before this experience? This has never happened before. Do you remember what you ate at the restaurant? I think I had like a mushroom risotto. Oh.

Ah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Maybe a glass of a lot of. went all the way to China to get a mushroom risotto. You can just get that here. Well, it's a very special mushroom risotto made with a mushroom that's only available here and there in Unan.

Unon. Right. All right. So, yeah, you've ingested. Phil Siouxon. Phil Saigon and some... Decided to have a risotto. Possibly some poison as well.

Ah, the L. Asiotica. You're right. That's right. The chef did warn me that I might see little people if I ate this month. Oh. So wait. Okay. Well, if the chef warned you,

that probably would have been helpful information to lead with. Yeah, you should have told us right off. I know. I forgot. That slipped my mind. That'll be $9,000. Thanks for coming in. But so legitimately,

in China, every year, every year, the hospitals start filling up in this part of, of China with patients who are seeing little people running around. It's always the same hallucination.

Always. There's no, nothing different. about it. It's always little weird people running around. Look at what he just Google. Holy shit. What do you type in? Kyle, go back to your Google search.

Kyle wrote, China mushroom dinner little people. I love it. And he got it. Straight away. First thing on BBC, by the way. Yeah, it's a huge thing. Landmawa

Asiotica mushroom. Oh, it's a bleat. Look at that. Yeah. So it's a, it's a, Belites are a very common type of edible mushroom. That's a belit.

the big cap and the thick stem. It looks like a porcini. Well, that's the thing. This is very common in food there. Like, it's not like it's a rare. They eat it all the time when it's in season. Only recently described by science, the mysterious mushrooms are found in different parts. I guarantee we have these in California. But they give people the same exact visions. That's the thing. It's always the same exact vision. Kyle, look up a limona as a Zadica, which is what it is, and see if we have them in California.

I bet you we do. It looks like a manzanita believe. Yeah. So, every. year to the doctor, these people come in and they're seeing little people running around. What does it say there, Kyle? That says they see elf-sized people climbing under doors, standing on their plates, etc. Yeah. That's insane. So there's a warning that goes in.

And it's really only if you undercook the mushroom. So if it's cooked properly, you don't see it. So the chefs will warn you like, hey, but still the people come running like flowing into the hospital every year talking about this exact same hallucination, which is the fascinating thing to me, right? like normal mushrooms, the kind that give you hallucinations, you see whatever your brain tells you to see. This is incredible. So at a mushroom hot pot restaurant there, the server set a timer for 15 minutes and warned us, don't eat it until the timer goes off or you might see little people. Yeah. Dude, like, I'm not like a hallucinogenic drugs guy.

I would absolutely try this mushroom soup to see little people. It's only 50% like there's only, how long does it last? Do you know? No, no idea. Just I only read it and I was like, this is fascinating. The thing I think Patrick, you know, Patrick just said that fascinates me the most is that they don't know what, they don't know what the hallucinogen is. There is so much of this in the mushroom world, by the way. Yeah. Like this one's making headlines and rightfully so because you're seeing little people.

Yeah. But it, there is so many other effects. Like if you look, there's a, there's a great book called All That the Rain, is it the right book? It might be all that the rain promises and more, which is a mushroom book. I think it's that one. This is one of a dozen plus examples of mushrooms that do things like this to your body. That science cannot explain why or how. That's right.

Yeah, they understand that there's some kind of toxic property, some kind of hallucinogen, but they don't understand why it does specific things. And the symptoms are blanketed across people. Which is unbelievable if you think about it. That's what fascinated me about this also was that they, took this mushroom. Like this has been, it's a fucking mushroom. Like, it's not like you don't have access to it. They dissect it. They've put it in all sorts of chemicals. They've tried to extract what they think it is that causes this. Right. They don't know. They literally have a term

for the hallucination. It's called a Lilliputian hallucination. So in the 1960s, Gordon Wasson and Roger Hame, which are American botanists or whatever, they went on a quest to Papua New Guinea searching for a mushroom that a team of missionaries who visited 30 years prior had said caused the locals to go literally insane, a condition that actually got coined mushroom madness that still exists today. That's fascinating. Well, yeah, and so, like, unbeknown, like, so they didn't, they didn't realize that the mushroom caused, that is what was causing these hospital visits for many, many years.

Right. Yeah. So this is just, I think this is why it's in the news. It's, I don't know if it's exactly like very current, but it's pretty recent that they figured out that this is what's happening. Well, the interesting. So just the, what you just talked about when they went to Papua New Guinea,

they found the mushroom and they sent it to the Swedish chemist, Swiss chemist, Albert Hoffman, who discovered LSD. And he tested it and he's like, I can't find any molecules that would, I would identify as hallucinogenic here. I don't know what it is. You know what's really?

interesting. Super fucking interesting. Do either of you guys know who the author Sabine Coogler is? No. Really, really, Kyle, maybe you can find the name of her book. But basically, she was the daughter of missionaries in Western Papua and she grew up with a cannibal tribe, like full on raised by cannibals. She's a fascinating, fascinating lady. This is her. I've met with her several times on Zoom and spoken with her. Jungle Child. That's Child of the Jungle. That's her book. and she's really, really interesting. But one of the things that Sabine has said,

unequivocally, is that there are little people in Papua New Guinea, like undescribed as science, you know, 18 inch tall little people that come out of the forest. 18 inch? Well, I don't know, something like that. Maybe like two or three feet, whatever, yeah. But my point is, I'd never heard of this mushroom madness and the fact that it makes you see small people. And Sabine's experiences are not that she is. seen them, but that she's lived with these tribes. And the tribes go, yeah, yeah, they just,

they come out of the woods and they're around and then they disappear. And there's all these stories about mating with them and all kinds of stuff. But that's neither here nor there. I'm wondering just now, because I have been very fascinated by Sabine being raised by cannibals and Papua New Guinea. I love her story. Love her book. Everything. It's incredible. But I'm just wondering, especially in remote villages and places like Papua New Guinea around Africa, parts of Asia, they don't know the tribal people, the difference between fiction reality in some senses. You know, a lore can be a legend that is based in fact.

Same as, you know, Mocolembe, the dinosaur in the Congo that people talk about, right? The Congolese people go, they talk about it like it's fact, but it's probably a legend that's been passed down for 20 generations. I'm wondering if Sabine's experiences with tribal people who say, undeniably, there are these small people are tied to these people going out and finding these mushrooms at a certain time of year, eating a handful of mushrooms, just as they would. eat a crocodile or a deer or anything. It's just part of the diet for that

week. 18 hours later, they all happen to see the little people and then the little people disappear and they never see them again. Yeah. I mean, of course. I mean, it's wild though. The BBC article's great. I wonder if we could, could we put a link to it, Kyle? Yeah, we should. It's really fascinating. But yeah.

It says pretty much everyone has the same reaction where you see at least 10 at a time. They're climbing all around. They're You're trying to get dressed and they're climbing in your pants. Dude, I think this is the same thing that I've heard about in Popua. It's so crazy. But, I mean, like, it's so interesting.

But they can't, sorry, they can't identify the compound that's causing this in your brain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What if they just came out and they were like, hey, we've solved it. It's officially, it just unlocks you to be able to see into this other dimension where everyone's 18 inches tall. Yeah. for like five hours.

And they're all around. It's not a big deal. They are, we now know we're constantly surrounded by the 18-inchers. But I'm telling you, I was, so I this post came across,

came across my birchwood tight desk. But no, so it came across my desk because it was in one of the fucking bird desk. Birchwood. Oh,

okay. It came across my birchwood desk because it was in the high strangeness, high strangeness subreddit. And of course, like, I'm in the comments.

And everybody's like, Like, you know, in that subreddit, they're like, oh, yeah, like this is definitely opening just a portal to exactly what Pat just said. Like, this is a real thing. They're always there. This just allows us to see it. Makes sense. It's crazy. Makes sense.

But I mean, what the fuck are mushrooms, bro? They came from space. They're more alien than octopus, if you ask me. This is true. So this, before you sign out, this guy, whatever Domnauer, who's studying these shrooms somewhere in the University of Utah, he has yet to try it himself. But he said that the current test suggests that whatever is causing this reaction is unrelated to any known psychedelic compound. It's amazing. Yeah.

Not cybecilin. Nothing related to acid. And by the way, the shrewm, your trip, not five, six hours. Three days, dog. Ooh, those little people for three days? I would not eat that risotto for three days. For an hour to see little people, you can count. me in for days.

I couldn't sleep. They said it gets way worse at night when you close your eyes. Of course it does. There's way more of them. That sounds so awful. Well, on that note, go to bed, Bresdeners. Hey, we do four extra podcasts every month. If you want to subscribe, you can do it on Spotify

or Patreon. Go to Wild Times. Dot Club forward slash info or to Apple's, Patreon, Spotify, all those places. Yeah. If you're still listening and you've ever tried Al-Aziatic please let us know your experience. Yeah, we'd like to have your guest. I would put you on the podcast to hear about it.

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