WEBVTT
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So say thrills. This is Thursday Thrills, a quick weekly
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ride into the creepy stories, haunted places, weird obsessions, and
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eerie little corners of the world worth talking about. I'm
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Enrique Kuto, and tonight, keep your eyes on the tree line,
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because we're talking about cryptids with regional identity. The monsters
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that don't just haunt a place, but somehow become part
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of the place. The ones that end up on stickers, murals,
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welcome signs, museum windows, t shirts, festival banners, roadside attractions,
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and of course gift shop magnets. The ones where people
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may not fully believe in the creature, but they absolutely
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believe in what the creature does for the town. That's
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my favorite part, because a cryptid isn't always just a monster.
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Sometimes it's a local accent. Sometimes it's a tourism campaign
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or a warning sign, or maybe it's the shadow version
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of a place, the part you don't get in the
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glossy travel brochure. So tonight's simple question is how does
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a monster become a hometown legend? And for this ride,
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we're leaning into the names with biggest infamy on the planet,
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bigfoot NeSSI chupacabra, mothman, the Jersey devil. These are not
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deep cut creatures hiding in the back of the cryptid yearbook.
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These are heavy hitters, the ones people already know enough
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to be curious about, but maybe not enough to understand
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why they stick. So imagine a dark drive through a
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very strange map. The headlights are on, the road is empty,
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and every few miles another town has a monster waiting
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on the welcome sign. Let's start with the biggest footprint
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in the room, Bigfoot, the Yetti or sasquatch. Bigfoot is
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probably the most famous American cryptid because Bigfoot feels like
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the simplest possible monster concept and also one of the
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hardest to kill. A huge, hairy, human shaped thing in
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the woods. That's it. No glowing magic or complicated curses,
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no ancient book that summons it to come for you.
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Just a shape between the trees that is too big
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to be a man and too manlike to be an animal.
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And I think the reason Bigfoot works so well as
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a regional identity is this Bigfoot makes the Pacific Northwest
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feel even more like the Pacific Northwest. The tall forests,
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the wet air, the fog, the mountains, the old logging roads,
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the feeling that if something wanted to stay hidden, it could.
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I mean, those forests are larger than life in many ways,
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and this doesn't hurt that reputation. You can be skeptical
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all day long, and I'd recommend it. You can say
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there should be bones, DNA, a body, better, less blurry
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video or even just a clear photo, something more than
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stories and footprints and very shaky footage, and that is
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very fair. But emotionally, Bigfoot belongs in those woods. And
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that may not prove that Bigfoot exists, but it explains
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why the legend survives, because the place makes room for
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the creature. That is the secret of regional cryptids. The
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good ones don't feel pasted onto the landscape. They feel
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like they've grown out of it. Bigfoot is not just
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a monster in the forest. Bigfoot is the forest itself,
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pushing back. He is the sound outside the tent. He
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is the branch cracking that makes the whole campsite go quiet.
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He's the idea that the wilderness is not empty just
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because you can't see what is watching you. And then,
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of course the place adopts him. There are Bigfoot museums,
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Bigfoot festivals, Bigfoot roadside statues, Bigfoot themed everything. In certain towns,
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Bigfoot becomes less like a threat and more like a
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local celebrity who refuses to do any interviews. Now, let's
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take a hard turn from the four to black Water,
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because across the Atlantic Ocean, the loch Ness Monster might
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be the most famous lake monster in the world. NeSSI
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is different from Bigfoot because NeSSI doesn't feel like something
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that could step onto the road in front of you
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and scream. NeSSI is quiet. NeSSI is a shape, a ripple,
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a hump, a long neck in bad weather, a dark
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form that appears just long enough for someone to say,
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did you see that? And then the water goes flat again,
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And that is perfect for lockness. The Scottish Highlands already
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feel like a place built for mystery. Old stone, cold rain,
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low clouds, castle ruins, water that looks deep enough to
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keep secrets forever. So when people talk about the loch
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Ness Monster, they're not just talking about a creature. They're
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talking about the atmosphere around the creature. NeSSI isn't scary
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in the same way mothman might be. NeSSI isn't violent
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in the same way Chupacabra is violent. NeSSI is not
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physically immediate like Bigfoot. NeSSI is pure romantic weirdness, and
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that is powerful. Some cryptids make a place feel dangerous,
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but NeSSI makes a place feel enchanted. It was the
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first cryptid I was ever aware of as a young boy,
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when I saw a very cheesy movie trailer for a
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film called The Lock. Ness horror. Don't seek it out
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unless you like really cheesy movies. That is why NeSSI
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can be cute on a postcard and still spooky in
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the right story. If you're standing by the lock on
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a gray day and the wind dies and the water
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starts doing something strange, suddenly the cartoon souvenir version disappears.
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Suddenly it's just you and a lake with too much
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depth and too much history. Now, let's bring the headlights
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lower down the road, somewhere hotter, drier, and meaner. Because
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the two but Cabra is not a cozy cryptid. It
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doesn't feel like a mascot. It feels like a panic.
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The name literally means goat sucker, and that tells you
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almost everything you need to know about the fear baked
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into the legend. This is a creature tied to livestock deaths,
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drained animals, rumors spreading from farm to farm, and that
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awful feeling that something is killing in a way people
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can't explain. The chupacabra legend is actually pretty modern, usually
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traced to Puerto Rico in the nineteen nineties, and from
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there it spreads outward through Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean,
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and of course the American Southwest. And what's fascinating is
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that there nature seems to change as it travels. In
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some early versions, especially the Puerto Rican ones, it feels
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almost alien, reptilian, spine, strange, something from a nightmare or
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a tabloid or maybe a late night radio call. But
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in parts of Texas and the Southwest, the chupacabra often
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becomes more doglike, hairless, gaunt, mangy, a thing seen on
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the edge of a road or caught on a trail camera,
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looking sick and just close enough to a real animal
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to make the whole thing more unsettling. And that is
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important because regional identity does not always preserve a monster,
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not exactly. Sometimes it mutates Island panic becomes desert roadkill, horror,
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a blood drinking creature becomes a symbol of farms, heat fences, scrubland,
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and borderland, rumors, the feeling that the night has teeth
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and they cut a strangely round hole. Now, before we
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keep driving, let's pull over for just a second, because
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things are about to get very, very creepy. So if
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you like these quick trips into the creepy corners of folklore,
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make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast app to
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the Weekly Spooky Feed. Every Thursday, we have a show
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just like this one for you to enjoy. And if
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you know someone who loves Bigfoot, Mothman, chupacabra, haunted roads,
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or weird local legends, send this episode their way. The
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best monsters, of course, travel by word of mouth. Now
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we need to talk about the Red Eyes Mothman, Point Pleasant,
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West Virginia. This is where regional identity gets darker because
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Mothman is not just a fun local monster. Mothman is
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tied to dread, to tragedy, to that awful feeling that
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something was wrong before anyone knew just how wrong it
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could get. The most famous reports begin in nineteen sixty
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six around Point Pleasant, especially near the old TNT area,
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a former World War II munition site. That setting alone
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is already doing half the work. An old military area,
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dark roads, concrete bunkers, teenagers and young couples driving where
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maybe they shouldn't be. And then something with wings man
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shaped with red eyes. That image is so powerful you
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almost don't need anything else. But the legend becomes heavier
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because in December of nineteen sixty seven, the Silver Bridge collapsed,
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killing forty six people. Over time, the Mothman became linked
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in the public imagination of that disaster, not as some
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kind of proven cause or even as fact, but as folklore.
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Some people framed him as an omen a warning, a harbinger.
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And this is where we want to be a little careful,
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because when folklore attaches itself to real tragedy, the story
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needs a little respect given to it. It's easy to
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make Mothman cute right now because of the statue and
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the festival and the museum, all the merchandise, and honestly,
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that is part of why the legend is so enduring.
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Point pleasant found a way to live with the story,
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to shape it, to invite people in. But underneath the
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fun version there is real grief, and that That is
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part of why Mothman can stand the test of time.
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He's not just spooky, he's heavy. Mothman is what happens
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when a place takes fear, disaster, and mystery and compresses
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them into one silhouette, two wings, two red eyes, a
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dark road, a bridge, a question that never quite closes.
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Point Pleasant is not just using Mothman. Point Pleasant is
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haunted by him, entertained by him, protected by him, marketed
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by him, and maybe in some strange way, comforted by him.
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That is pretty complicated when you think about it, but
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that is how regional identity tends to work. Now, let's
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head east into the pine barrens of New Jersey. The
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Jersey Devil is one of those monsters that feels like
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it came out of the woods already screaming, or at
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least speaking in tongues. Hoofs, wings, a horse like head,
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a tail, horns and claws, a body that never settles
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into one clean description. And I love that, because a
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monster that is too consistent starts to feel designed. A
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monster that keeps changing feels alive. The famous origin story
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is Mother Leads and the Thirteenth Child. Depending on the version,
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she curses the baby or wishes it were a devil
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or something terrible enters the room and the child transforms
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into a winged nightmare that flies up the chimney and
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disappears into the pines. It really is a perfect campfire
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origin because it's half fairy tale, half warning, and half
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local gossip. Yes that is three halves. That's folklore for you.
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It always gets extra halves. But the reason the Jersey
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Devil works isn't just the creature. It's the pine barrens.
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New Jersey has a loud public identity, highways, diners, shore
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towns and boardwalks, suburb after suburb after suburb, and of
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course the Turnpike, the joke everyone makes about exits, But
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the pine barrens are the shadow identity. Miles of trees,
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sandy roads, strange, quiet places that feel older and more
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isolated than people might expect from New Jersey. I lived
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in northern New Jersey for a while, and one time,
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before GPS was something I thought I needed to own,
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I got lost driving around in the pine barrens. And
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I'll tell you right now, while I wasn't stalked by
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a creature or hunted down by pineyes, as they're called.
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It was very creepy because it got so dark and
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so in the middle of nowhere, and I started following
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a road, just assuming I would go until there was
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a turn, and the road after twenty miles just dead ended. Yeah,
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there's something about literal barrens of pine trees that just
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I don't know, creeps me out. The Jersey Devil gives
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that shadow identity. A body says, this state is not
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only what you think it is. There are still dark
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roads here, there are still old stories here. There are
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still places where the trees close in and the modern
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world feels like it took a wrong turn ten miles back.
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So maybe that's the real reason cryptids become regional icons.
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They remind us that every landscape has a mood we
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can't fully control. Forests make forest monsters, Lakes make lake monsters,
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Mountains make mountain monsters. Deserts make things that appear in
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headlights and vanish before sunrise. Small Towns make mascots out
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of whatever scares them. Because if you can put the
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monster on a T shirt, maybe that monster belongs to you. Now,
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that is the real magic. A cryptid starts as a
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thing people fear, then it becomes a story people share.
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Then it becomes a symbol people recognize, and after that
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it becomes local pride. And eventually the creature isn't just
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hiding in the woods anymore. It's on the menu at
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the diner. It's a mural painted downtown. It's the name
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of the festival. It's the reason a family pulls off
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the highway, the weird little thing the town can say
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that no other town can say quite the same way.
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This is ours, and that is why regional cryptids have
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staying power. Not because they're proven, but because they're claimed.
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People take the unknown, the frightening, the ridiculous, tragic, impossible,
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and they give it an address. Bigfoot gets the forest,
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NeSSI gets the lock, Chupacabra gets the blood warm dark
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beyond the fence line, Mothman gets Point Pleasant, and the
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Jersey Devil gets the pines. Every one of them gives
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something back, a reason to wonder, a reason to visit,
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a reason to keep the headlights on just a little
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longer when the road cuts through the trees. So the
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next time you see a weird statue in a small town,
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or a mural of something with wings, or a gift
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shops selling plush versions of a creature that supposedly terrified
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people about fifty years ago. Don't be so fast to laugh.
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That town may know exactly what it's doing. It's taken
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fear and made it local. It's taken mystery and made
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it memorable. Taken the thing in the dark and said
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you live here now, so drive safe, keep your headlights on.
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And if your hometown has a monster, be nice to
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it because it may be your friend right now, but
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who knows what the night may bring. Come back tomorrow
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for more fear. Until then, lock your doors as if