Monthly Spooky | Creepy Carnival Animatronics, Hooga Hooga, Haunted Houses & UFOs

An underground tomb discovered raises more mysteries, a brand new cryptid just dropped, a giraffe is found in Texas, and an animatronic that laughs all the way to your gray Get comfortable, turn off the lights. It's monthly spooky, Well, my spookies, it is indeed. That time of the month is monthly spooky. I'm, of course your host Henrique Couto. Wow, I almost say my own last name wrong. Kotao, kotao, kowtow Kuoto hurt them all kids, read them all too. And I'm here with my good buddy and co host Michelle. Michelle, how are you? I don't know, I don't know.

I don't know. You still don't know. Yeah, I don't know if I should be happy or not happy or sad or. You don't know what what does this entail? I'm curious you don't know if you should be happy or not? Yeah? Like, did something happen that should make you happy? No? Yes, that's the thing. I don't know. Well, but okay, so we could we could try and get through this. Okay. So I had an inspection yesterday, right, and then this morning I woke up and went, huh, did I turn off the stove at the inspection.

Oh god, And. I couldn't remember happening. I remember turning it on, of course, yeah, and I remember like doing other things. So then I was like, if I had the code for the door, I could just go there and check. But I don't have the code, so the only way to so the only things to do are to just hope that the health doesn't burn down, even though it's it's vacant, so who knows when someone's gonna come and check the stove, or I have to ask the realtor and I have to tell her what happened.

So I ended up having to ask the realtor for the code and going there and finding out the stove was off. Of course it was, So it's been a day. It's one of those things where you do it so often, turn on and off a stove or whatever, you just kind of skip remembering. I would have assumed I had turned it off, just because unless I had a history of leaving stoves on. Do you have a history of leaving stoves on shell. No, But it happened one time where I actually left the stove on and went back and turned off the stove.

Oh at an inspection. Yes, oh god, okay, yeah, yeah, okay, now we're I'm with you. That was I'm glad it turned out you didn't do that. Yeah, me too. Yikes, yeah, yikes on bikes. I got distracted during that one because I was talking to someone and then I was like working on the report and I was like, I don't think I turned it stoveall, Like, I literally don't remember it happening at all. So I just had to drive forty minutes back then turn off the stove. And you did that this morning before the show. Oh no, this one, it's only was only ten minutes away.

Oh okay, okay, so I did that this. Morning before the show when I was supposed to be writing the report. So oh well, yeah of course. And now the nice wheel turn knows that I'm have problems with it. But you have anxieties. Yeah, but you know there is a thing though. Think about it this way though, you'd be like, ah, this home inspector has anxiety because you know, she wanted to make sure she didn't cause a house to burn down. Versus all they have anxiety so they like don't show up to work. I mean, your anxieties are productive at least you were like ensuring no grievous bodily harm and death.

Yeah, you're like maybe, Oh, I mean I think that's better, though, you know you I have been writing that report. If you had a car that drove itself, you could have written the report on your way out there. I was so nervous because before I decided I was gonna call, I just didn't get anything done. So no, I get that. No, I do get that. Well, I'm picking on you because I'm in the process of buying a car and the car does so many things for you with technology, and they just enrage you so much.

I know. I don't understand. So I'm it looks like I'm getting a brand new Toyota Prius, which will be replacing my two thousand and nine Toyota Prius, which, by the way, I realized cell that when I sold my first car, when I traded in my first car, it was a year younger than this my Prius is. Now, wow, I had the Prius for two years longer than I had the Volkswagen Beetle, which is just kind of like time really kind of blows your mind. I was telling my mom that I was like, I just realized that the Prius is seventeen years old, and Mom was like, oh my gosh.

If I'd realized it was that all, I would have been pressuring you to get a new car sooner. I guess I took good care of it, you know, because it didn't look quite so old. But yeah, I need a car, and I wanted the one that could park itself, which is like so cool to me, and Michelle's very upset by this concept. I just want people to be able to park cars. That's it. What if I can, but I don't want to. Why don't you want to? Because I like, sometimes I'm tired of this crap.

It's not that it takes like a minute, it's not hard. I mean, when it comes to parallel parking, there's a fifty to fifty shot. I'll just look for something else that isn't so that I don't have to parallel park into. Well, I don't know, maybe you should just do it more. Well, I live in Ohio, so that i'd have to try to parallel park. More uh huh. Yeah, or you could set up like cones in a parking lot and you could just practice. Yeah. Well, I also I think you might remember this. I have a belief in omens when it comes to cars, and by Volkswagen Beetle, which was a great car.

It ran great. I had it from age eighteen until thirty. I think it was eighteen to thirty or twenty nine, anyway, it doesn't matter. But when I was driving that thing, I loved that car. It was mechanically running great. I went to meet a friend up in Fairborne, Ohio, which does have a lot of street parking. It's like a small town that's kind of like got that vibe. And I remember I went to I was going to a restaurant and I pulled up to a spot there was no traffic, so I felt very comfortable, saying like, ah, I'm going to parallel park, like you know, cause if I have to start over, nobody cares.

There's nobody around. And I nailed it in one go, just pulled up, backed in forward and I was done. And two weeks later the car couldn't be driven anymore. I had to get rid of it. So now I believe that if I master a car, that means it will die immediately. That is just that is just the law of the jungle. So but I was looking at other things that the car does that will upset you. Did you know that? Now? Apparently now I was driving a seventeen year old car. So getting a car that's technically a twenty twenty seven is going to be like getting into a spaceship.

It's going to be completely a different world. It has adaptive cruise controls. You know what that is? Of course I know what that is. I just found out, like this year, you didn't. Know what adaptive cruise control was. No, why would you know? Of you what? Because I have. It's not like I only know what's happening with my car. I know what's happening with other people's cars, like my parents car. Oh see my mom's driving Alex that's like a twenty thirteen. So you know because she actually when I was getting through this and I was talking to her about stuff, she was like really that?

And then I like showed her and she was like, oh, I guess I haven't shopped for a car in a while. I was like, yeah, there's a lot out there. It's nuts. It uses lidar to slow you down and speed you up separate from other cars, So you just turn it on on the highway and until you need to get off the highway, You're golden. It also has lane assists, so as long as your hands are on the steering wheel, you don't have to keep the car in the lane. It does it for you. Yeah.

Yeah, then and this is the part that flew my mind though, because this is newer though. Now, if you press the turn signal up or down, it changes lanes for you by detecting the cars around first. Boo, sound like that one. I knew you'd get mad. I knew you'd get mad. Why would that happen? I don't know, but boy howdy, I can't wait because I get on the I get on the highway a lot, and when I'm on the highway it's usually for you know, five or six hours. So I am very excited to be able to fully dedicate myself to singing along to the radio.

No, you have to keep your foot on the gas. No. Well, we've talked about I don't use my normal cruise control because my first car it didn't work, so I got the habit. This is going to break that habit, though, I'm going to break that habit of always using the pedal. I'm probably never gonna have a car with adaptive cruise control because I'm just gonna always have it's just gonna get worse and worse and older and older cars, you know, but if I did, I wouldn't use it. So you're going to be like waiting to hear about like somebody finding a warehouse with like a bunch of new of a new old stock, like twenty ten cars.

Oh my god, three of them. Yeah, exactly. Well, very there you go. That's what I've been up to is just getting the car. Now I'm waiting because the car I want is on a barge coming from Japan. Yay Japan. Yeah, yeah, and boats. Yeah. In fact, I was telling somebody, I said like, now I'm just waiting on the barge with my car on it. And I was like, hey, my car is kind of like Dracula. It's going to arrive on a boat and it's mysterious and red. Dracula's kind of red. I don't know, blood, No, no, he's not.

Thanks for calling me out on that. Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to talk about spooky news stories, including a major update to a story we talked about last month. Oh yeah, and it's good news. Oh depending right after, right after this break. I also want to mention shell before we jump into the news of the spooky variety, that our topic this week is one that I've actually been curious about for a while. It's the story of Laughing sal It's many people call it the world's most uncanny dummy, like it's a creepy animatronic dummy.

And I've seen it at multiple fairs and carnivals in my life and in fairs and carnivals and movies. So we're gonna dive into the reality of the Laughing sala as. I believe I never knew what it was called. Yeah, laughing sal. So that'll be our topic here in a little bit. But first it's time for the spooky news. The spooky news. So we're heading first to Huffington Post for a follow up from last month. From last month's spooky news, and this is the headline reading, Gracie the Giraffe finally found in Texas after two weeks on the lamb.

Oh ironically, she was found like the day after we did our show. Oh wow. Yeah, So, for those who don't know, Gracie the Giraffe went missing in Texas and we found it kind of funny. How do you lose a diraffe in Texas? But also we want Gracie to be you know, survive and be safe. So this is from huffingtonPost dot com. Gracie, the giraffe, who went missing for about two weeks in Texas after wandering off a remote private ranch, was finally found Friday, and the open Range appeared to have agreed with her. The giraffe was spotted about four miles south of her enclosure during an aerial search in the Texas Hill County Country Sorry, according to the real county sheriff.

Oh yeah, it's real county, the real county, Yeah, Sheriff Nathan Johnson. He said Gracie's owner, Vic Jones, contacted a veterinarian and began putting together a team to bring the giraffe back safely to the ranch. Quote, she's in good shape and said she's standing there swishing her tail. Aw. That means they're happy, right. I have no idea. I don't know if it's like a dog or like a cat. Yeah. Gracie, who is about three years old and weighs at least twelve hundred pounds, was found within a half mile of a pond and creek and had plenty of vegetation defeat on, said Jones, adding that she appeared to have been in that area for about a week.

Getting the ten foot tall giraffe home to the Cedar Hollow Ranch about one hundred miles west of San Antonio was taking some work. So it was one hundred miles away from the ranch. I thought they said it was four miles away. I bet it was one hundred miles west of Oh so. Yeah, you're right south of her enclosure. I think the ranch is just one hundred miles. Yeah, that kind of confused. Am I got crazy? Right? That's confusing? Maybe fair enough? Yeah, it does say the Cedar Haller Ranch about one hundred miles west of santon Oh No, it's referencing San Antonio.

Yeah, okay, gee, Why that makes me think that they're transporting it one hundred miles when they say it's going to take some work. Yeah, Yeah, I'm just dumb. I have no reading comprehension. Veterinarians needed time to sedate Gracie and put a hood over her eyes, Joan said. From there, Gracie will be moved with an open moved with an open pasture trailer to a taller, enclosed trailer made for giraffes for the trip back to the ranch. They can't just walk her there, I. Mean, I guess not. I mean now, First of all, I love that they put a hood on her.

It's like they don't want her to know the way to get there, like it's still a secret, like in an old like Batman movie or something. But also I love that they got an enclosed trailer made for giraffes. Where do you rent that from? I wonder? I guess there's probably just one company that specializes in that. Gotta be gotta be, yeah, gotta be, yeah, just one. Ever since Toys r us closed, their mascot was a giraffe. Part parts of the remote area cannot be reached by car, which prompted the search by helicopter. While Real County's twenty seven hundred residents were urged to keep an eye out for her, Gracie was found on private property where no one lives.

Joan said, that's good. Yeah. I just imagine if you were like a landowner and it was a I could see if it was just about any other common animal, but just a giraffe stand there. I'd probably just call somebody. I wouldn't shoot it. I'd be like, U huh, I don't think that's supposed to be here, Like, I don't think it came here to cause trouble. I think it's just this is unusual. Yeah, and it's real tall. I don't like that part quote. We didn't bother her, Joanes said of the sighting, she's got water. She looked in really good shape.

The Texas Ill Country has one of the largest concentrations of exotic captured captive animals in the US. Johnson said this week he had reports of missing wildebeast's, water, buffalo, zebras, and monkeys, though never a giraffe previously. Wow, they need to keep their animals inside. This isn't inside. If they're cold, you're If you're cold, they're cold. Let them inside the wild exactly. The area has a mild climate and rugged terrain, and plenty of vegetation for Gracie to eat. In Africa, giraffes thrive best in dry and semi dry savannahs and grasslands. Jones believes that Gracie, who arrived at the ranch in May, didn't mean to leave She had been wandering up to a rocky area to feed on trees growing out of the rock, and it always come back to the ranch's giraffe enclosure until that fateful day.

I mean, it sounds like she meant to leave. She's just like, oh, I'll just go over here and eat more food, and then she. Likes she's to go on a lark, you know, have an adventure Gracy's day out. Joan said Gracey wandered into the rocky area fed and came down on the wrong side of the gate. At that point, he said it was easier for her to keep walking in the same direction than to try and go back right, because, yeah, Chill is calling this cope. She is saying this is all cope. It is. It really is.

Yeah, It's like, oh, I'd have to walk back up there. I guess I'll just go I'll just I'll just go on an adventure instead. Dern Dern durn Dern. The area wasn't fenced because giraffes had not been going there until Gracey did, and and building a fence requires jackhammering through rock to put up the posts, but Jones said he plans to have a fence put up now, and Gracie will stay in the ranch's giraffe enclosure until it's ready. It's like, right now, part of my neighbor's fence is down because a tree hit it. Yeah, and they have a dog and I don't know what kind of dog it is, but it growls at me and barks at me when I mowed the lawn.

Yeah, and they like let it out because there was like a little section that was kind of had like a like a wire fence sort of. But I guess it's not there anymore, because she was just on the other side of the down tree, barking and growling at me because she hadn't figured out that she could step over the tree trunk yet. So it's like that eventually they figure it out. Though dog no dog sounds like a good judge of character. I mean, to be fair. She also barked and growls at my neighbor, So I don't think it's me.

I think it's just people. We'll see. I'm not saying that dogs don't bark and growl at me. I'm just saying this one doesn't seem like it just specifically me. Okay, the other ones, Okay, I mean now, let's see, like you're coping really hard. But I mean, yeah, despite Gracie's size, she wouldn't have harmed a person who encountered her off the ranch. Joan said, quote, if you move toward her, she's taking off. She's cautious. That's good. I want to her. We all do. But we at Monthly Spooky want to say we're so happy Gracy is safe and sound.

So that's a good a good ending to the story from last month. Yeah, but when we come back, we're going to some news in my own well not my literal backyard, but very close by me, uh where we talk about an unexpected guest in a residence bedroom right after this. So tell this story comes from w h io dot com, which is my local news. Oh yeah, although it's it's the stories from a little south of here, but it's still local. The headline reads, area deputies help wrangle snake inside residents bedroom. Better be a good snake.

What's a good snake to you? I mean, I I wasn't really sure when I said that what I. Meant, so that's why I challenged it. Either a good snake is a snake that you really need to take out of a bedroom because it's dangerous, or a good snake is a nice snake that I just want to hear about. I'm not sure what's a nice snake? I mean, does it doesn't matter what type of snake it is. When that doesn't hurt you and then you touch it and it's soft like those kinds. Okay, that was the thing that you just that was the thing that you said.

Butler County Sheriff's Deputies respond responded after a homeowner found a snake in their bedroom. According to a social media post, When when deputies arrived, the quote suspect had gone into hiding under the bed. After a little patience, teamwork ended some impressive detective work, Deputy Britney Koch safely captured the snake and relocated it to the backwoods. What kind of snake? It's not safe? It was softer anything so far? I'm sorry. Quote. I've always said, no two days are the same around here. One call, you're chasing a fugitive, the next you're chasing a snake under somebody's bed.

Around Butler County, our deputies don't just catch bad guys. We catch anything that slithers, crawls, moves, bas or Bucks Sheriff Richard K. Jones said, this guy sounds all right. Yeah, I guess quote whether it's runaway goats, wandering cows, snake in the bedroom, or wanted criminals, no job is too big or too small for your Butler County Sheriff's deputies. Is that it? Then it says the suspect was released without bond into the woods. So we don't even know what kind of snake it was. No, damn, sorry man, It's okay. I guess were you excited to just imagine touching this little I just want squishy snake.

I just wanted to know what kind of snake it was? That was it? Were you hoping for a certain type like one? Yeah? I was hoping for our kind that like it would be ridiculous to call someone about like a really small Yeah, yeah, you know, like the small ones. Like a corn snake or something. I mean, that's not the one I'm thinking of. But I can't remember what it's called. But I found it and I was touching it and it was like, oh no, and then it went away. Awesome. It was very soft. Yeah, this is this is the most bizarre.

I don't even know how to I don't even know how to I just don't know how to process or where to put this information, you. Know, like, I don't know why this is so weird. But it is weird. Yeah, I know. Yeah, okay, okay, I just want to make sure from the same page. I'm sorry, that's strange. Do you like? What? What? Okay? So, if you're out in about yeah, and you see a snake, do you is your instinct to see if you can touch it? Apparently it's it's looking that way. Yes, yeah, what would you do with your Oh?

Sorry? What? No? No, please, I don't remember. Oh. I was just gonna ask if you ever found a snake in your home. No, but I found them in my shed and in my grass, and that's it. And did you touch them? Yes? Okay, fair enough, Well not all of them, but were some of them dangerous? No, they were very small and they were not dangerous snakes. But you looked at them like you're not soft. I don't want to touch you. Well, no, you don't understand, I'll explain I clearly do. Please do So. I had not touched a snake before until a few years ago.

Right, I didn't have any friends with snakes or anything. So there was one sunning itself on my driveway, I think, and I was like wow, So I touched it and I was like, it's the softest thing ever. So I got really excited. That's it. That's it. That's the story. I touched snakes because my dad had a snake. He had a big python, because of course he did, because he was a biker. He also had a monitor lizard. Yep. He'd feed them chunks of raw meat. That's nice, because. He said, you gotta feed well, well, no, he's fed the the snake got mice.

It was his alligator that got raw meat. Because he said that if you feed an alligator something alive, it makes them aggressive, like, it makes them meaner. So he would always give them chunks of stuff because some people feed them like goldfish or whatever. And he was like, nah, I don't give him anything alive because it makes them aggressive. Yeah, you don't want to give him any sort of you know, cherry snacks. I mean, yeah, fruit stripe, gum, I mean the the the alligator will be mad because the flavor goes away so fast, super super mean.

Yeah, oh that thing, give it, Give it a couple of fruit roll ups. Those sound nice. Were you a fruit roll up kid? I like, yeah, I was more Fruit by the Foot kid that was made. Yeah. I like the texture on Fruit by the Foot a little more as all. Okay, like fruit roll ups tasted good, but they did kind of taste like the plastic they came in, I mean like a texture wise. Yeah. Yeah, so that that turned me off just a little bit. I could see that. But yeah, there's actually I watched a YouTube documentary about fruit roll ups and it was actually really fascinating.

I guess when they originally made them, they were literally just made out of like pounded strawberry pulp, Like they were actually pretty healthy. They were just like, it's just they had to make them shelf stable. Yeah, so over time they became a sugary stack. But originally it was like just flattened fruit. It's just that it would go badretty quickly, so you'd buy it and eat it right away. Oh yeah. Yeah. The things you learn on Monthly spooky. But the thing we're all going to learn when we get back is how Lansing, Michigan now has its very own cryptid Oh yeah, we're going to find out all the juicy details right after this.

We're back, and we're heading up to Michigan, Lansing to be specific, have you been to Lansing, Michigan. I really like Lansing, Michigan. I've never been, but I've always wanted to check it out. You should go. I mean, I can't tell you anything cool to do there. The only thing I did was I went to Chipotle. Oh, and I ate food out of my car and I had a really bad cold. Oh right, I went to a CBS and I bought cold medicine. Oh. But also I played a really good show with a cold. So oh that's impressive.

I couldn't really sing, so. But you said it was a good show. It was a great show somehow. And yeah, shout out to the person who got me tea. So oh I remember that. Yeah, I remember you talking about that because you were like, oh they brought they got me tea. I was sick. Yeah they're sweet. So where is Lancing? Like it's it's it's not a shrug she shrugged. Okay, fine, Uh well this is from Lancing citypolse dot com and the headline is Lancing's very own cryptid revealed. Yeah. I think that's exciting. Yeah, I mean, I don't have a cryptid so.

You never will with that attitude. Hopefully, if you do, it's a snake, like a really big snake that's soft. Waldemar Camp counselors spill the baked beans about the hooga hooga, yeah, in the golden July sunshine, with the smell of wildflowers filling the air and every blade of grass in sharp focus. Lancing's one hundred and eighty acre Waldemor Nature Center doesn't feel like a place with a deep, dark secret, but it has one. Oh ooh. The clueless adult hikers, joggers, birders, and nature lovers who blithely trip along the Woldemer's five miles of wooded trails have no idea what lurks under their keynes and marrels.

Somebody wrote this hard, like really broke this with purpose. But the secret is well known to thousands of young campers, many of whom have gone on to become camp count and pass the secret on to the next generation. They don't volunteer the information unless they're asked, but when you ask them, their eyes flash with a far away purple light. Okay, they will tell you about tell you that Waldemar is home to the hooga hooga mysterious hairy, secretive beings akin to Bigfoot. That tunnel in unknown numbers under the nature center's meadows, forests, streams, and wetlands. Wow.

Tunnels take a lot of effort to dig too. Yeah, hooga hoogas are only found at Waldemar, nowhere else in the world. Wow. Just to be clear, Waldemar is a proper nonprofit nature center rooted in level headed science. The staff doesn't even like it when you call it a park. The counselors and naturalists are always ready to teach about the life cycles of painted turtles, great blue herons, maple beach forests, native meadows, very soft snakes, and so on. Okay, I did that one. Well, thank you, I guess, but. It really lights them up to be the proud stewards of Lancing's very own cryptid as localized as the Lockness Monster, and as much an emblem of the city as the state capital or the Oldsmobile.

Oh, I didn't know that was from. There, Well Michigan, you know that was like the auto works originally originated there. And hooga hoogas not uh, and hugahoga is not the only secret at Waldemar. The nature Center itself is one of Lancing's best kept secrets, a gorgeous swath of spacious meadows and rolling woodland that helps thousands of kids a year experience the joys of outdoor life and unravel the mysteries of nature. It's just that some of those mysteries are more mysterious than others. Mysterious mystery kids, Wow, Who's ready? The theme of last week's camp Discovery at Waldemar Under the Surface, was particularly appropriate.

On the sunny, hot morning of July fourteenth, about eighty kids gathered near the converted barns on the nature Center's lush grounds to prepare for another day of the week long camp. About nine hundred kids attend day camp at Waldemar during the eleven weeks it's offered each summer. Waldemar executive director Kevin Warnett put the combined number of students served by the field trips from regional schools, educational programs and summer camps at five to six thousand a year. It's a lot of kids. Yeah, yeah, that's a bunch of kids. I guess. I don't really think did you ever go to day camp or anything like that.

I'm not. I mean, maybe like a little I can't really remember. So okay, you don't remember much of your childhood. No, I just blocked it all out. Good for you. Must be nice, Must be nice. The day, campers poked under logs, turned over rocks, and took sample dips from the woodland pond, hunting for hidden organisms. Even before they set off into the woods, a few kids were bent to the ground watching a mole burrow into the grass near the barn. He's still down there, but let's not bother him. A counselor said it was all fun and educational, but there was something much more charismatic and elusive under the surface.

At Woldemar, counselor Colum Shutler took a break from minding the kids to share the secret quote. They like bigfoot covered in fur. It was a legend. They looked like bigfoot covered in fur. It was a legend. Even before I started camping here. We never see them because they can get from one spot to another by underground tunnels. Shutler began camping at Waldemoor fifteen years ago at the age of five. See he can remember that, yeah, just saying. Yeah, So he didn't block out his fine fair enough. There's a lot of doubtful and apocryphal hooga booga lore, but some things are pretty much agreed upon.

They are seven to nine feet tall, and they have brown black hair all over. Why are you your head? Because no one has ever seen one? Apparently no one alive. Okay, but the dead people are I mean, are the ghosts coming back and going like, okay, guys, so this is what it looked like. It's called the ouiji board. Oh sure, okay, they're they're using weedi boards to ask about. The things, or I guess evp. They could just be like, you know, like they hold up the thing and then they put it through all the things that he goes brown and black hair and they're like, whoa, it's real.

Quote this, I love this. This is so perfect for like camping. Quote. You can repel them with grape jelly, which actually burns them on contact. Longtime camp counselor Patrick Reichl said, you can also do a huga hooga war dance a sign of aggression. Fortunately for us, it looks like the children. It looks a lot like the chicken dance, so it's easy to teach. Reichl first attended camp at Waldemar at age five and just never left. Quote he became a junior counselor in his teens and a senior counselor at eighteen. He's twenty seven now. Quote. In certain lighting conditions, the fur changes color.

Reichel said. One of the colors you can perceive is purple. We've seen shades closer to orange. It varies from huga houga to hooga hooga. Another councilor reported that they flat out dyed their fur purple this summer. They're very fashionable and also, like I thought, no one had seen these, so I'm really confused. They are said to be fond of pad thaie and cheese sandwiches. Hmmm same, I mean big sand yeah. Quote. Allegedly, if a hooga hooga consumes a large amount of pad tie, it will undergo mitosis and divide into two hooga Hoogas Richel said, I only heard this once.

It could be true, it could just be a story, or it could even be a hooga hooga pulling a joke on us a joke. Does that mean they can communicate with humans as a hooga meister or liaison to the creatures? Raikel helped to set the terms of an agreement that made Huga Hooga Island, a small bit of land in the Grand River off limits to humans. He thinks they picked up English from e dropping on counselors or campers. That makes sense. I like that they made a little island dedicated to the Hooga Hooga. The island has the only known entrance to a Hooga Hooga tunnel.

He said, we didn't want to disrupt their comings and goings. Wow, so we learned a lot about the Hooga Hooga we did. Doesn't like grape jelly, loves pad tie and cheese sandwiches and cheese sandwiches. I mean, I love grape jelly, pad tie and cheese sandwiches. Man. I can really, I can really feel that I've been on a fast now that I'm talking about cheese sandwiches and pad tie. But that's Lancing's very own cryptid and I love that because the best part about ghost stories and Bigfoot and stuff like that is that kind of fun element, that element when you're a kid and it's whispered on the school bus or at a camp fire or at a sleepover or whatever, or your older sibling terrorizes you with it.

It's a it's kind of a joy to me, Like so, I love that they're kind of sharing this kind of fun stuff with those kids who are already out there learning about nature. It makes me happy. It makes me smile. Yeah, yeah, But you know what doesn't make me smile? I don't know. Japan, which is where we're heading for our next story right after this quick quick break. All right, Celle, you ready to head to Yapine? Sure? Is that how you say it? No? How do you say it? You mean Japan? Yeah? In Japanese? Andon, Yeah.

Oh, I feel like I knew that the moment you said it, you definitely did well. I chose to forget it made me happier. This headline is from the Times of India or India Times or when it's Times of India dot India Times dot com. H okay, well, okay, but the headline is would you spend a night in a haunted house for eighty eight thousand yen inside Japan's bizarre real estate job proving homes are ghost free? Oh man, have you heard about this? No? I want to do that. That's my new job, damn it. And that's not that much money.

It's four hundred and eighty eight US dollars. Yes, yeah, it's not that much money. But it's for one day, that's true, I think. And it's at night too, so you could even do something else and then go do that at night maybe. I guess. Well, let's let's find out before you before you go go getting your work permit. That would be so cool. Okay, sorry, I wonder what the snakes are like in Japan. Do you think they're soft? Yes, I think they're soft. Japan's unusual ghost investigation job is attracting attention as specialists are being hired to spend an entire night inside so called haunted houses to prove they are free of paranormal activity.

Oh, I mean, you know, I guess that's a real concern. It is. It is. The service costs eighty eight thousand yen per property and is helping owners sell or rent homes that have been abandoned because of their tragic past. So many homes have a tragic Oh it's Japan, never mind. And also like yeah, but also like in Japan, like what I think, like once you've like had a home and then goes like vacant, like no one wants it anymore, Like they don't want it. Yeah, like that scene and toy story, I don't want you anymore and they drop him.

Yeah like that. The business has emerged as thousands of Jico Buchan. That's what it says. J I ko b u k k e. N okay yeah close knopoly. Or stigmatized properties across Japan remain vacant, with many people refusing to buy or rent them because someone died under distressing circumstances. This shell that should be your next comic. It could be. It could be this like intro introvert girl who loves soft snakes who moves to Japan to UH to investigate Jico buchan for money because she's not good at UH because she tried to like be an English instructor but was really bad at it and felt bad that she was teaching people English poorly.

Yeah, that could be really funny. Actually, she could encounter all kinds of fun ghosts and watch people and people could eat like anime characters, So it's really goofy. Yeah, okay, okay, you're like, I'm kind of sold now, sure, if I'm honest, I don't know. I think that would honestly, I think you would be really funny. But anyway, what are Japan's jico buchan or stigmatized properties? Exactly? There are properties where a suicide, murder, fatal fire, or what Japan calls a quote lonely death, which is when an elderly person dies alone and remains undiscovered. Oh, places where those things have occurred.

This is exactly what I said. Oh right, Japan, Oh right, Japan. I was referring to this stuff immediately. Do you ever watch The Forest, the film about the Japanese suicide forest. No, I don't think I have. It was an okay horror movie, but there is a Japanese suicide forest, which is something. Yeah, I mean it's. Not just for suicide. It's a place that a lot of people kill themselves. It's very popular for suicide. Yes, but it's not just for suicide. Oh, it's just to the top, throw there and walk around in kill you. Well okay, but see that's see though, that's misleading the statistics though, because people who go there to kill themselves go and walk around as well.

So like most people just go there to walk around, Like twice as many people walk around as kill themselves like ah, but the people kill themselves walk around too. Yeah, okay, I see what you're playing. I see you. You're like the Pew Research Fellows. One such two story house in Yokohama has reportedly remained empty for at least five years. Although the structure can be renovated into a comfortable home, its history has made it nearly impossible to attract buyers to According to Kasuoshi Kodama, sorry, had ads started playing in my ears while I was trying to pronounce Japanese at the same time.

That was very challenging. Kazutoshi Kodama, president of property management company Kachimodi Kachimode. Many Japanese people associate death with impurity and bad luck. Quote death equates to impurity and misfortune, Kodama told DW, explaining that many people avoid even visiting such homes, let alone buying or renting them. While they won't even visit them Wow. To help property owners overcome these fears, Kaci Mode offers what is called a ghost investigation. Investigators stay inside the property from ten pm until six am. That's not even that long, using video cameras, audio recorders, thermography equipment, electromagnetic wave detectors and sensors that monitor room temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and noise levels.

This is basically just being a home inspector. Dude, Hey, it's more like being a ghost honor. But in a home inspecte kind of way. Yeah. Yeah. The objective is to verify that the house has been fully refurbished after the incident and to determine whether there is any evidence of ghosts, poltergeist activity, or other unexplained phenomena. After the overnight inspection, which costs eighty eight thousand and yen, the company provides a detailed report that real estate agents can share with potential buyers and tenants as evidence there are no lingering bad spirits. That sounds like a home inspector to me.

It kind of does. But now I'm thinking, like, this is a lot of work, and I'll just keep home inspecting because at least I don't have to do it overnight. That's true, but it's ten am to ten pm to six am, so like you're gonna sleep a good chunk of that? Am I really going to? Or do? I have so much work to do because I got to like make sure there's no ghosts in this room, in that room and deck, all the temperatures, maybe I can't sleep, Maybe I have to stay awake the whole time to make sure.

What if when I'm sleeping the ghosts come out and they don't wake me up and they're just hanging out. I think it's probably much more automated than you'd think. I don't know, and then you've got to write a report. That's true. Kodama also works with the university professor who specialized specializes in monitoring supernatural phenomena, which makes the service one of its kind in Japan. Kodama admitted that the equipment has occasionally recorded unusual incidents, including video cameras unexpectedly stopping and microphone's malfunctioning. However, he said that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the supposed paranormal activity cannot be reproduced and is dismissed.

It as dismissed as an isolated occurrence. Yeah, so that's I mean, yeah, that's what they want you to think. No matter what happens, they just say it's not haunted. I mean, I mean, it probably isn't good for anyone if they say it's haunted. But then again, like if somebody new moves in or buys it or whatever and it is haunted. Can you like sue them? Can I would? Yeah, I would sue the hell out of them. Well, I mean, maybe there's like a thing on it that says like this is just a snapshot of when we were there, and there's you can't prove it for sure, and the most you can claim is what the inspection costs.

He added that there are a small number of properties where unexplained events reportedly continue over extended periods, making them especially difficult to rent or sell. Japanese law requires estate agents to disclose the history of stigmatized properties to prospective buyers and tenants. Dedicated websites even list the locations of such homes and explain why they earn their label. As a result, landlords are often forced to slash rents by around thirty percent in major cities, while in smaller towns rents can fall by fifty percent. Wow. Some homes remain vacant for five hundred days, and Kodama said he knows of one property that stayed empty for more than one thousand days despite repeated attempts to find tenants.

Wow. The issue is becoming more significant as Japan's vacant homes continue to rise. A government survey conducted in late twenty twenty four found that the country had nine million empty homes, representing thirteen point eight percent of all residential properties. While population decline, inheritance disputes, and aging communities contribute to the problem, cultural beliefs surrounding death also play a major role. I mean, yeah, they're they're in trouble. That's not great. Yeah, that is not great. There's places around here that have lots of vacant houses. I don't know. I don't think it's because no one wants to live there.

I think it's just that, I mean, unless it's geographically like I don't it's not close to work. But it's not like I don't want to live there because of the cursed Bent Neck ghost thing. Maybe that's just why people say they don't want to live there. But they're probably like other things, like they're trying to be polite. It's like the house is like falling down. They're like there's a there's ghosts. I'm sure some WoT want it, but there's ghosts. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't the faucet, no, yeah, no, it wasn't that fawcet. Well, when we take a break, we're going to uh, we're gonna get ourselves nice and cozy and tuck away in a little drawer.

You'll see what I mean right after this. So, Chell, Yes, have you ever opened a drawer in your home or never? Not? Once? No? Damn lucky. I guess. Have you ever opened a drawer at your house or your mom's house or whatever and found something and been like, Holy crap, I totally forgot about that? Sure? Can you think of an example? No? Was it like an item from your childhood or like a something you were saving for some reason? How about life? Just a T shirt that I did No, I still had? Sure? Yeah that works.

Yeah. What if instead of that you found an incredibly rare. Fossil that I had for my childhood? Maybe? Well, I mean it would be older than your childhood, so that's not impossible. Okay, that would be fine. This Huffington Post article really caught my attention because the headline is rare dinosaur fossil from Antarctica found tucked away in a drawer. The priceless Titanosaur fossil was discovered in nineteen eighty five. During an expedition to Antarctica, but was tucked away for decades, only being found recently. Okay. The bone comes from the tail of a long necked plant eating dinosaur called Titanosaur.

Scientists haven't yet identified the species it belongs to. It was discovered in nineteen eighty five during an expedition to Antarctica's James Ross Island and collected by geologist Mike Thompson working with the British antarct Survey. Thompson was mapping the area's rock layers and collected marine reptile fossils to help with future dating efforts. He recorded the find as a large reptile. Decades later, paleontologist Mark Evans spotted the bone in the British Antarctic Surveys collections and wondered whether it might be a dinosaur. He and other researchers analyzed the shape of the bone and compared it to other complete dinosaur remains, confirming their discovery.

The findings were published on Monday in the journal of Acta pale Paleontological Telgica Polonica. I did fine, I will say, like, how dumb would you feel? Like? Oh? Just nobody ever thought to look in that drawer. I don't know, it's just over there on that side of the room, Like the light lighting's not good there. It's just that's not where we really spend our time. You know. It's not in the drawer marked really rare lost Antarctic fossils, So we just didn't notice it, do I The sock drawer, the sock drawer, Yeah, just said socks, and then under it said and other stuff.

And I didn't even think what other stuff could be. I thought it was underwear, yeah, or just different kinds of socks, or like those socks that are kind of slippers, slipper socks. Didn't know, Yeah, what a gaff. But also like it was logged as a reptile, as a large reptile bone in Antarctica. Wouldn't you think somebody would go, hey, maybe that's a dinosaur, because that's like much more likely than a large reptile. No, because dinosaurs are really old. So yeah, so it's Antarctica. They I guess you're like a guess how old? How old would you say Antarctica is?

I don't know, like like really old, yeah, at least as old as me, if not. Well played dinosaur fossils are rare to find in Antarctica because of the unforgiving ice caps. But millions of years ago, when this dinosaur lived, the region was populated by lush forests, a quote rather different and much more hospitable place than we think of today, said study co author Paul Barrett with the Natural History Museum in London. Don't worry, Chell, it would still have like the the like three months of just nighttime. Okay, okay, as long as it could be like warm but also nighttime.

That's fine. I like how when we talk about Antarctica, you're like, I only want to go during the time when they're positive. People will go insane. Yeah, please, please please. At about twenty three feet or seven meters long, the dinosaur was small for its group and may have been young when it died. Oh no, well, now I'm sad. Shows over the dinosaur wash. Sorry. Scientists don't know how the creature met its end, but they think its body floated away from the coast and sank to the seafloor, becoming fossilized in marine rock. Technology has come a long way since the dinosaur tailbone was first found, allowing researchers to peer inside the bones and gain even more detail information about ancient creatures.

Thompson died in twenty twenty before the fossil was identified as belonging to a dinosaur. Well, at least didn't have to feel dumb. Yeah that's true. Is walk into his nursing home. Hey, idiot, guess what this was? A dinosaur? People were like looking for So anyway you suck. It'd be like were you? Who are you? God? You got it here? What do you want from me? Take the silverware? I go quote. If he were still with us, he would be delighted to know what this was. Evans, a study co author, said, No, I feel like I feel like I'm right.

I think he'd be delighted. But sure, okay, yeah, I like my answer more. But but okay, I mean sometimes you just have a bone in a drawer and then someone's like, hey, is a dinosaur bone, and you're like, really, that's awesome. So I don't know, you're like, say what, homie, no, cap Yeah, those things. So before we take a break and look into a shocking mystery. I think I've asked you this before, but when you were growing up, did anybody ever talk about the Jersey devil. No, you were talking about cryptid. I had a feeling it was.

The answer was no, because it sounds like nobody you hung out with cared about cool scary stuff. I mean pretty much. And also, yes, my family was not from New Jersey. No, but you lived in South Jersey for a long time. No, I lived in central New Jersey. I I think this is because I lived in No. No, no, no, no, I'm not saying you just live No. I think because I only lived in North Jersey, I see that as South Jersey. Okay, well you're not trying to pull something on you, but I'm like, oh man, you know, that was a formative time in my life.

I think I I think I have that little like unintentional like you know, like a grandma who's a little racist and doesn't know it. Like I totally think I have like the smallest bit of like, well that ain't that ain't North Jersey, that's South Jersey. Like because I lived in North Jersey and it doesn't take a lot to pick up on the attitude towards South Jersey. Did Central Jersey have an attitude like whoa, whoa, We're not South Jersey? Yeah? Because no, one believes that central New Jersey's there, and it's like it's in the middle. It's right in the middle, Like, what do you mean, it's not real?

So yeah, I mean, well, but in defense, I won't say you grew up in South Jersey, but you did grow up much closer to the pine barrens than most people. Yeah, but most of the people that I grew up near were in New Jersey. Like of people, they had moved from New. York for the most part, or checks out. From like other countries. Like they it wasn't like they were like Piney's in my town or something. Man, if I had grown up in in in that part of your almost at South Jersey, if I had grown up in that part of Jersey, I would I would have been like hungry for Jersey Devil stories, like immediately.

Yeah, you have to know about it first. Though, Oh I would know because I knew about the Jersey Devil when I was a teenager. I know because I watched the History Channel and stuff. They're just that cool. Yeah, cool, Yeah, that's what all the kids in school said, Why beat me up, You're so cool? Punch punch punch, Because they. Were they were ashamed of how cool you were, and they felt him back, they felt, you know, jealous. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Hey loser, Let's see if the lock this monster helps this bleeding stop. Punch punch.

But that was my Yeah, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we get back, we're going to talk about a shocking mystery revealed after this, we're back and now we're heading to the New York Post. Oh. The headline reads, shocking mystery revealed in centuries old royal tombs at Queen's monastery. Okay, yeah, means like the place queens. Ah. No, oh, I also thought it meant queens when researchers, I'm sorry, when researchers in Barcelona recently opened centuries old royal tombs, they uncovered a startling mystery. Several contained the wrong people. Yeah, I could see that. You feel like that's a normal thing.

Yeah, basically, yeah, how does that happen? Maybe they get stolen and somebody else put someone in there, or they get lost. I don't know how that happens. Like, hey, open thing. Fair enough. The exhumations took place at the royal Monastery of Santa Maria de pa Brades in pedrel pedrobis pedbas. Never seen that word in my entire life. In Barcelona, Spain, a nearly seven hundred year old Gothic monastery founded by Queen Elessenda Montegra. So that's the queen okay, sorry, the wife of King James the second of Aragon. Alessinda founded the monastery in thirteen twenty six, and to mark its seven hundredth anniverse researchers wrapped up a multidisciplinary investigation into its medieval tombs.

I like this multidisciplinary. I guess, like what like archaeologists and oh yeah, multiple disciplines. That makes more sense. Yeah. First I thought, I was like, Hey, we're gonna have to beat you guys up for doing a bad job, and. Then we're gonna give you a really good talking to, yeah, to take away your phone. Yeah yeah yeah. Local officials have now shared the first results of a three year excavation and research project, which provided several unexpected discoveries. They found that many of the remains did not belong to the people assigned to the tombs. Quote. One of the project's most significant findings is that the opening of several tombs showed that identities historically assigned to them do not necessarily correspond with the remains found inside.

The release noted, which was translated from Catalan. Of course it was in the tube of Catalan. In the tomb of Artaro de Fosses, researchers found no male individual. Instead, they discovered the remains of five people to adult women and three children. The sheer number of skeletons found was surprising, said WHOA, I've never seen that name. It's Enrique E nri c instead of Enrico andriterested that would be a form of my name. Yeah. Enrique Puga, communications officer for the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Pederables. Puga told Fox News Digital that researchers were not expecting to find the remains of twenty five people in eight tombs, and were even more surprised to find over two hundred archaeological samples, including funerary offerings and preserved plants.

Quote. The openings have shown reopenings and subsequent alterations, which means that we do not always find the person identified with the tomb. So actually, your your insight was actually pretty pretty dead on their cell. Yay, I guess does it feel good? I mean, no, not really, but no, yeah, ya, anyway, I guess. I mean celebrate every victory, That's what I say. You're like, no quote. This is the case of the tomb of Francesca's Sapporteria second Absess of the Monastery, where a abbess, not absess, abbess of the monetary monastery, where at least nine individuals of late chronologies have been found, some with edge weapon wounds, as well as a female trunk mummified with fetal remains at the Puga.

You. Yeah, the abbess is not there in any of the identified remains. Ooh, so she's missing. There was a lot of bones stealing for a while there too, if you were like a big deal, especially if you were a saint. If you were a saint, people were stealing your bones. It was really weird because then people would come to wherever the bones were to pray to them. So you'd be like, yeah, we get all your tourism dollars. Yeah, it's weird imagining tourism dollars before like cars and stuff like and trains, like the idea like their tourists they walked, you know, eighty miles to be here and like slept in huts along the way when people were kind like.

It's very different world. He said. It was quote reassuring to find that the wooden box preserving the queen's Queen's tomb dated to the medieval period and remained in excellent condition. Researchers found that Queen Elissanda Alessenda was buried in simple, modest clothing despite being a queen, and that her remains showed health conditions commonly associated with old age. Good fight, You want to know what the conditions associated with old age are? No, I want to know what the conditions the health conditions that they found specifically. Oh, I don't know if they're going to tell you. Fine. Thanks to archaeopotanical analysis, wow I Knael that we have been able to identify several different funerary rites with plants associated with body preparations, such as rosemary, and also floral offerings with a symbolic component.

He added, the subsequent reopening of the of some tombs gives us a lot of information about the funerary culture inside some tombs, some wrapped in bundles. We have found many objects from the daily life of the period. Additional DNA testing is planned through twenty twenty seven. So far, researchers have recovered about six percent of Queen Elessenda's genome, allowing them to make preliminary estimates about some of her pigmentation traits. I like, I mean, yeah, I guess you are. You want to know how olive skinned she was. We're skinned depending on where you're from. Where I'm from, this is skinned.

Poga added that all the research was done with the approval of the monastery's community of nuns. That's important, I guess. But they took a vow of silence, so that's pretty easy to guess. Oh yeah, they're just like, don't say anything if you think this is okay. Yeah, and they're like shaking their heads now and they're like, oh, okay, so it's fine. Then if anything we're doing you don't like, just speak up and will stop immediately. Yeah, And they just and then just knock over a vase like it's just like being needless to However, Queen Alisanda's final will Will Shall Always Be Honored, which stipulates that all remain studied must be returned to the monastery to be interred in the same location where they originally were buried, said Puga.

Overall, Puga says the results have provided quote significant insights regarding the fourteenth century. Once all the samples have been analyzed, this information on the burials of a female power center will enable an understanding of medieval Catalan society. He said, yeah, I mean, do you feel like your understanding of medieval Catalan society is lacking? You need something we need. That's heartbreaking, isn't it. I mean not really, but but it is always good to know. Well played, harsh but fair. I was only going to be a little mean to the Catalans being that I'm Galician. Oh so, I mean pretty much Galasian.

That's nice. I even have the eyes. That's the weirdest part. When I first looked up Galasians, they have a specific shade of hazel. And when I found that, I was like, wait, like my weird shade of hazel that I literally only my grandpa and my dad are the only two people I've ever seen have that shade of hazel. And then I looked and it was like, yeah, that shade of hazel, and I was like, holy crap, that's really weird because I mean, people who say they have hazel eyes, I'm like, they don't look anything like my eyes, You're not gonna be able to see it.

I can't because you're the classes. Sorry, pal, Maybe later i'll let you look, but uh, we're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, divers are excavating a lake when they stumble upon something a bit eerie. Right after this, we're heading to popular Mechanics dot com. Oh wow, Yeah, you've always been saying why don't we do more popular mechanics? Right, Yeah, And honestly, it's starting to like it's been getting kind of frustrating how often you bring it up. I'm sorry, I just need to make sure that one day we'll do one. And apparently we're going to, So maybe I'll lay off and only say it like ten times today instead of I don't remember how many I'm doing Now.

I'll believe it when I see it. Divers excavated a lake and stumbled upon a haunting ancient face. You're like, oh, that's not that interesting. I thought it was gonna be interesting. Yeah. Wood usually doesn't get one thousand years to survive, but in the right anaerobic and anaerobic anaerobic wetland or underwater conditions, water can lock away a piece of the past, long after almost everything around it has rotted. That's why the wooden face from Poland's Lake Ladnika is such a strange little survivor. In twenty twenty five, scientists from Nikolaus Copernicus University Center for Underwater Archaeology and the Museum of the First Piosts in Ladnik found the carved face submerged in Lake Lenika.

The face was carved into an oak structural timber known as a hook beam, specifically beam number three point fifty three, from a section of the stronghold rampart that had collapsed into the lake. Wow. Oh good, I was afraid it was number three fifty two. Yeah, that would have been bad. That's my favorite of them, and I don't want anything bad to happen. The preserved timber is one point three to four meters long. The face sits about fifty centimeters from the end of the hook and on the outer narrower side of the trepezoidal branch section. The carving itself measures about twelve centimeters tall and nine centimeters wide.

Small, no idea what size that is at all? Love, I'm so glad. Shell was the one who said the American exceptionalism thing this time, and not not me. I mean I can barely use the measurements we use and understand what that means. I don't know how big any of these things is. It sounds small to me. It's twelve centimeters tall. I think centimeters are small ones, but I'm I'm not sure how small they are. I think they're smaller than inches. Yes, they are four point seven inches. It's twelve centimeters. Oh, okay, so it's like it's like two thumbs plus a little bit more.

Yeah. Probably, Okay, see there you go. You get it? Yeah, good job, pal, Yeah did it. No, that's pretty small with modeled eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, brows, and a triangular or bearded chin. Experts estimate that the tree from which the face and beam were carved fell in the year nine and sixty seven, which one that would be a d oh. I mean, it's not as cool as no PC. But still. That's a long time, meaning the carving has existed for over a millennia. Wow, it's a long time. But you know. This was around the same time that the founder of the Polish state Miesco number one Mjesco one was baptized and Poland shifted into a state of Christian assimilation.

Oh yeah, they thought that was bad, and then it was like, just wait till the Communists get here. Uh. This isn't the first face of its kind to be discovered. Similar depictions have been found in other Slavic cities, including Wolan, Novgorod, the Novgorod the Great, and Staraya Lodoga Lodoga. Oh I said that right. According to experts, consistencies between these finds suggest that the beam found at Lehnika reflects a local artistic and spiritual tradition rather than Scandinavian or Ruth's influence. In short, the recent discovery is just one piece in the larger puzzle of medieval Slavic life.

Okay, how often your day do you feel you're upset by lacking pieces of the puzzle of medieval Slavic life? I mean at least once or every other day. I guess that's tough to live with. Yeah, and I don't really feel like I'm ever going to get everything I need about medieval Slavic life. So but you got to hold to your hope. I guess it's not worth it ouch. Quote, this discovery not only evokes admiration for the craftsmanship from over a thousand years ago, but also opens a fascinating discussion about the spiritual life of early medieval Slavs.

Andre Andrev Pedn't It's py dyn I, director of the Center for Underwater Archaeology at NCU, said in the press release. The beam appears to have belonged to the settlement's defensive rampart, but what the what was the face doing there? The paper's author argue that it was probably associated with the deity or hero meditating between people and the spiritual world. Mediating sorry, mediating between people in the spiritual world. That fit the wider symbolic reading, but it doesn't name the face, prove a cult or settle whether the carving was meant to guard the rampart, mark power, or do something else entirely.

See this is when I like, I feel like we're trying too hard. It's like maybe someone like just really wanted to carve faces that could be a nice face. They were like, look this face I carved. Would it be so funny if in a millennia somebody's like, what is this and it's like, haha, it's my uncle. You're so stupid. Other evidence supports the idea of being part of the spiritual practices of medieval Slavic society. The researchers also discovered horse jaws and bones around the ramparts, which may have come from ritual offerings or protective sacrifices. Popik said from NCU said the team also found similar bones underneath houses.

The artifact has become has already become one of Poland's best known archaeological finds from twenty twenty five. In January of twenty twenty six, the beam with the face was named Unique Artifact of twenty twenty five in the Archaeological Sensations poll organized by Archaeologia Zoya. Yeah, I know, I read that every day. The Broader Lake Lednika project also won recognition for popularized research and Puppek's image of the face when the best archaeological photo, which is believe it or not in this article they did not include that photo. I was wondering, Yeah, that's foue. Yeah wow, yeah, good job everybody.

The wood face is a priceless monument and a rare example of an item combining utility and symbolic function. A post from the Museum of the First Pists in Leednica. Read The discovery from Lake Lednika is not only impressive, but also opens new questions about the life, culture, and spirituality of the inhabitants of these lands from over a thousand years ago. So I guess there is some hope, Cell, even if you don't want to hold on to any of it anymore. Okay, Well, I mean it's nice to know for the other people who want to hold on.

Who haven't lost their sense of faith in this whole thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's just been too long for me. I get it. Man. Well, when we come back, we're going to talk about UAPs, which are not UAPs, they're UFOs. I'm standing on. The hill phenomenons. Unidentified flying object. It's way better u AP. Right after this, we're heading to defence scoop dot com. Oh, which is another site. I know You've always told me, why don't you ever use defense scoop dot com? Yeah, but I don't like say it every day. No, you just brought it up here and there usually, like like at that funeral when I was really sad and you were like, hey, it's all right, Why don't we ever use defense scoop dot com on the on the show, and I was like, oh no, no, it was it was a good it was a good day.

I guess I was. Trying to take your mind off it. Jeez. Oh oh okay, that makes sense. Then you like ate almost all of the shrimp at the little the little table it was. There, they're they're there for people to eat, Like, what do you want? I just didn't think that they meant for one person to eat all of it. No one else was having them. Well, yeah, they were all visiting and paying their respects. I said something. I mean, I said, I'm not sure who you are. Oh I'm here, but I'm. Sorry, and also defencescoop dot com would probably be a good source for some stuff.

Yeah, some news stories. Geez. Yeah. Do ever tell you about the Christmas at Rachel's family? Her dad came to us when we were walking in and said, hey, I accidentally ordered like way more shrimp cocktail than I thought. I never tell you that story. He literally just he just tells us like he ordered like pounds instead of ounces or something ridiculous. So there was literally just bags and bags and bags of shrimp. So he said, please eat as much as you want. I ate three full plates of shrimp and I didn't even eat all of them.

I mean there was so much left. I was just like the best day of my life was the day I was told, please eat as much shrimp as you possibly can. I was just say, aha, I'm going for the high score. Anyway. The headline reads Pentagon investigating mysterious UAP event reported by the Navy near Virginia's coast, oh okay, And then after that it says, but it's a UFO because nobody cares what a UAP is, because it's stupid and it sounds stupid. Experts in the Pentagon's All Domain A nominally Resolution Office are investigating a report that the US Navy from the US Navy involving roughly one hundred mysterious airborne objects and watercraft that were recorded operating off the coast of Virginia.

Okay, so. Drones, I would hope. I guess AAR's fiscal Year twenty twenty five Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena released this week, briefly disclosing that modern military accounts of UAPs swarming near a US installation were a lot a lack of timely and actionable censor data continues to constrain AAR's ability to resolve cases, officials wrote in the fourteen page review launched under the Biden administration in twenty twenty two to fulfill a mandate in that year's National Defense Authorization Act. AAR is charged with detecting mysterious objects reported across the air, land, sea, and space domains that could threaten national security or endanger military operations, and resolving the intent and origin of those recorded UAPs.

Congress made the directive to establish the office partly in response to mounting concerns that some UAP could be high tech drones or other next generation military platforms produced by US adversaries. So, once again, Shell is probably right, this must be nice. That's not. The Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year twenty twenty three required the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense to jointly submit unclassified reports summarizing all UAP incidents and intelligence assessments for Congress for the Congress annually for four years thereafter. All UAP related events added into AAR's caseload between June second, twenty four and May thirtieth twenty twenty five, and incidents occurring within any past reporting period that were not recorded in previous reports are included in the latest congressionally mandated analysis.

This is very dry. Yeah, yeah, this is why I wanted you to go from this. News site, you son of a bitch. It's just perfect this way. Over the course of that year, AAR received three hundred and nineteen UAP reports in total, two hundred and eighty four featuring UAP related events from the reporting period and twenty occurring between twenty ten and twenty twenty four. AAR resolved one hundred and fourteen of the three hundred nineteen UAP reports, each attributable to various prosaic objects such as balloons, birds, satellites, aircraft, uas, and a single instance of each, a single instance each of a rocket launch and a manned jetpack.

Wow, that guy's so cool. Yeah. They confirmed that the office's case holdings contained one eight hundred and seventy reports as of May thirtieth, twenty twenty five. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah. Notably, two cases in the current period quote described electronic or avionic interference as attributable to UAP and proximity to an operational aircraft. According to officials, the office is not yet determined whether or to what extent those reported effects were due to UAP. Among other new initiatives in the pipeline, ar officials revealed that the office is currently developing a formalized process for handling UAP derived materials by an appropriate line organization quote such, should such materials ever come into the government's possession.

That was dry, very dry. It was interesting though. That's a lot of reports. Yeah, that is a lot of reports. I'm surprised that they don't call a ro just arrows. I didn't call it arrow for whatever reason, it probably is called arrow. I mean, who knows, really. Who could ever know? How would we ever find out? The Shadow knows that. Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to cover our last little spooky news story because I am mad about us covering Catalan, So I'm gonna I'm using this story to get my revenge, and it'll make you happy, Chelle, No, at least a little bit.

Right after this cell, no, you are no, you're saying no, you are going to be so happy. We are heading back to Popular Mechanics dot Com oh really for real? Yay. Yeah, and we're also heading to Galicia. Oh okay, oh we're not. Everybody can laugh at me. It's not in Galicia. It's Galatian. I'm sorry. I read the headline. I read the subheadline and it said Galician Castle. I thought it was Galician Castle, which because my people are from Galicia. Oh well, we're gonna et it anyway. Okay, Archie, I can't believe that. That's so funny, and so said, I was so excited.

We can pretend that it's Galicia and you could just fill that in. It's gonna be hard because it's actually in Ukraine. Oh, archaeologists. Of the headline is archaeologists found a mysterious secret chamber beneath a twelfth century castle. It's kind of cool. You don't like secret compartments. I mean I think they're I think they're pretty cool. I think I'm just annoyed because I don't ever find any. Oh that makes sense. Yeah, that's frustrating. Yeah see I found a couple, but I'm not gonna lie like it wasn't. I was just like, hell, yeah, I found a couple.

I was like, whoa dude, Like this is pretty neat. Yeah, I actually found one in a house I was inspecting that was cool. What Yeah, there was a there was a in the dining room. There was a like a big like shelving unit that was built into the wall, like you know, because it was built in like the nineteen twenties or nineteen tens or something, really nice shelving unit. And I'm like looking around and I'm like, wait, how do you get to the attic? And it was like you had to like open the shelving unit.

It was like seated in the wall and it was actually a big door. Oh that's so cool. Yeah, I wish I had a house big enough to put like a secret door. I don't you. Could totally take one of your rooms and make them like just put all like you know. Yeah, people will be like why does your house have so few rooms when it's so big on the outside. They probably wouldn't notice, honestly, Like because when I go into a space, I'm confused, So. That's I think that's a you thing, like what's happening? But like you know, when I go into a new house, like I don't expect there to be something where there isn't, So they can get away with it well.

Two bedroom houses are also not super common out here. Uh For three hundred years, one vaulted space inde Ukraine's historic Galatian castle sat cut off from the rest of the ruin. When archaeologists finally discovered the room in twenty twenty five, the first clues point toward something military suit darkened walls, a ventilation shaft, and a chamber's study sturdy enough to have belonged to a defensive or weapons related part of the castle. The castle, prominent in the twelfth through seventeenth centuries in the western Ukraine city of Hulsch or Hilik. Hylik is probably that sounds more Ukrainian has long been an attraction.

When archaeologists from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine noticed a ventilation shaft among a tower's ruins, it led to an unknown room that hasn't been used for three hundred years. Most likely, it had been cut off from the rest of the castle since the Turkish Polish War of sixteen seventy six, when bombardment buried or blocked parts of the structure. The shaft itself it was too narrow to use an entrance Vladimir Olinik, director General of the Ancient Gaelic Gallic Gallic National Reserve, told Heritage Daily that crews had to remove over five two hundred cubic feet of soil and rubble by hand to access the room.

Wow, that's a lot. Yeah. Also, America needs to start having more spooky news, because, like I'm struggling with some of these foreign names that I don't understand. Just putting that out there. Olinik said that the manual labor was key to ensuring artifacts were not damaged and the integrity of the structure wasn't compromised while accessing the chamber. Once inside, archaeologists found evidence that suggested the room was likely a casemate, a fortified space for storing and testing weapons. The walls carried dark soot stains, and the ventilation shaft could have helped pull smoke out of the space. A casemate a fortified chamber used for weapon storage or firing positions, remained one possible explanation, but Ukrainian reports said the same kind of space could have served as a vault, arsenal prison, treasury archive, or court linked storage area.

Wow. I mean, I think we should go even further than that maybe that was where they kept the you know, the server room, you know, for the for the castle. You know, like you go to the big corporate buildings, they have the server room. Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe it was the server room. I mean that sounds good. And maybe the servers went on fire, which is why there's all that soot down there. Yeah. See, because they were cooling them back in the day. Yeah, they were still figuring it out. They didn't have germ theory or water cooling theory.

Yeah. By twenty twenty five, one sealed chamber widened to a large entrance tower. Excavation archaeologists were still working around the entrance gate and looking for additional underground spaces near the chamber. First identified in twenty twenty three. Archaeologist Yuri Lokomus Lukomski said the tower may contain six vaults in all, three on a lower level, and three deeper spaces suggested by ventilation chambers. The Galatian Castle, sometimes known as Starasta Castle, was originally a wooden fortress from twelfth century and was built along the Dnesty River Dnesta River in the fourteenth century, Kasimir the Kazimir third the Great I was gonna say the third because it's been the Great.

Kasimir Iie the Great led major renovations, after which the castle was used as a residence. In the early seventeenth century, architect Francisco Krazini designed a remodel, but not even a century later, the Turks armed siege. Turk's army sieged the castle with cannons during the Turkish Polish War. Experts believe that bombing of the castle buried the ventilation shaft covering the recently rediscovered room and all the servers got it, and all the servers were bloed, which would be awful to have, like network connectivity issues. Yeah yeah. The team also located a small gap in the chambers walls that could lead to further exploration, with a legend circulating throughout the city that the castle site features secret underground passages.

One such story tells of how a love struck teenager or love struck daughter of a high ranking official escaped with her chosen man, all thanks to her maid bribing castle guards. Any little clue about the existence of such tunnels would add a fresh level of intrigue to the site. Hm it still would have been nicer if this was Galicia. But whatever. Sorry, always a bride'smaid, never a bride. Yeah, well I tried, and at least I brought you another popular mechanics. Yeah, I had to check because I only knew a little bit. Galicia in Spain and Galicia in Eastern Europe, spanning modern day western Ukraine and southern Poland, share a name by pure coincidence, with entirely different origins and locations.

I'm sorry. Also, they're being a little harsh part of Galicias in Portugal, that's where my family's from. Yes, Galicia and Portugal bastards. Although it is funny. I heard that a lot of Galicians they just consider themselves Galician. So one day somebody would come and be like, you know, you're gonna have to pay Portuguese taxes. They'd be like, I'm in Portugal. Like that was like how it would go. Anyway, we're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna talk about one of the most uncanny animatronic dolls to ever proliferate the Carny and beyond in the United States.

Right after this, during the break, I introduced Shell to a laughing sal which is a creepy kind of animatronic doll that was popular in carnivals for a very long time. It looks like a kind of big woman and she laughs hysterically when you pay, and it is a lot of people have described it as a horrific and nightmare inducing. I would have to agree that is pretty creepy. I mean, it's creepy. I definitely wouldn't go so far to say horrific or nightmare inducing. You know, until you're in a room with one in the dark, you know, I mean, I guess, you know, Like, I don't know.

Is it soft like a snake? I'll never forget. Well, today we're our topic for this month is from Atlas Obscura. They have a little story about Laughing Sal. The headline is, or the name of the article is the story of Laughing Sal, the world's most uncanny animatronic doll, six feet tall and pure nightmare. She was once one of America's most popular fun house amusements. Yeah, you're like, I don't believe you. Yeah. I mean, my question, and I'm sure we'll go into it, is are people scared of her? Did they just really like that? You laugh?

Like? What was going on? I think laughing. That's the problem is that it laughs and laughter can you know, very quickly be threatening. Plus, you know, the older the salal gets, the more it becomes like, oh god, it's laughing, and like the recording is of a dead person laughing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you know? That used to be a thing people used to say about why they hate sitcoms. They would say those are dead people laughing, because those are recordings from like the forties that they're still using for the laugh tracks. They used to claim that dead people laughing.

Red Skelton, I believe he uh A lot of the laugh track you heard in early sitcoms was from a Red Skelton performance because there was a large portion of his show that was recorded for a record where he does panamime. So there's all these laughs, but you don't hear anything else. Okay, so a lot. That's what I heard. That could be completely inaccurate, but I heard that. I don't think that's true. Oh fine, but I could be wrong, you don't think. I mean, I'm not saying that the only thing they use. I'm just saying that that was one of the earliest laugh tracks they used was from a Red Skelton performance.

Okay, I'm sure that they, you know, upgraded it later on. I mean, I think a lot of I mean, and there were a lot of live studio audience laughing. Yeah, so yeah, but sometimes they would have to augment it or fake it, or they'd have to reshoot something, and they would just fake it. But even if they were sorry, even if they were dead people laughing. A lot of the people in sitcoms are dead too. Well, this was a thing people were saying in the seventies. Okay, they're just so there weren't as many dead people on TV then, I guess, yeah, I guess.

So you'll know her by the trail of sobbing children. Follow the line of confused faces, and you'll find the six foot tall, freckled, curly haired, gap tooth animatronic monstrosity that's beautifully written right there as an antique that's still in use. There's something both dated and timeless about her. Or outsides are paper mache, her insides are carefully set springs and gears, and she moves with the confidence of an alien spry, a spy testing their human body into sguise. I love this article at Less Obscura if you if you never read them, they're great for stuff like this, for folklore and haunted roads and stuff, and they're always really really well written.

Cool and laughs in a pitch that conjures visions of demons or the final thing you see before you die. She is laughing. Sal a horror show designed to brighten your day. So many things that are meant to be cute and funny become creepy somehow. Yeah, yeah, I mean clowns. That's fascinating to me. I don't find clowns particularly scary unless you make them scary, like you make them like bloody or something. I don't generally find clowns creepy at all, And I think it's fascinating that some people just find clowns so creepy. I don't like them. You don't like clowns?

No, what's the matter. Don't you think we're fucking funny from a movie? Yeah, but I don't. So is it all clowns? M What about mimes? I think mimes are really interesting, actually really yeah? Like snakes, yes, like snakes? No? Please please? No, I don't know. I just think that like actually, like if you're good at like pantomiming, and stuff. I think that's really cool because I'm not that. It's a hard skill. Michelle is trying to put herself in a box. Actually I'm not bad at it. But I did go to clowning school. Yeah you did, and I was training to be a mime.

Oh there you go. Well, later on I decided I wanted to be a talking mime. Okay, I think I've told you that story. Yeah you have. That's why I left. It turns out the main instructor was a mime. I didn't know that because they don't do the class and their get up. I guess I just like I thought it was funny because I was kind of crapping on how silly miming is, because when you talk as a mime, you're going like, whoa. I guess I'm stuck in a box. Now, what's happening? Okay, I'm fine. I'm gonna climb this ladder.

I don't feel like I'm going anywhere. I'm gonna walk this dog. Go all the dogs walking me. And that's what I did. And he did not laugh once. And that's when I was like, maybe I should just maybe I should just quit. I'm not that good. I wasn't. I was also really bad at physical humor. They put me in remedial physical comedy. Geez, I was really bad anyway. Oh, I kind of can't believe that. Actually, really, Yeah, you think I'm good at physical comedy. I mean, I don't know, but I just kind of figured you would be.

Oh, that's the lasest thing anyone's ever said to me, because that's like a scar that probably will never never fade. It's okay, I believe in you. Thank you. I messed up. I should have been a clown, all right. While you may have never laid eyes on a laughing sal personally, she permeated our pop culture in ways that few other dolls have. sALS appeared in The Princess Diaries, the classic noir Woman on the Run, and Fritz Lang's thriller m her or M just m It looked like M dot her m her Manic laughter is hidden deep within the background of neutral milk hotel hotels.

In the Aeroplane over the Sea, You you a neutral milk hotel person. No, but I I know of that. Yeah, me too, I'm not. I don't. I don't have any negative opinion I've heard. I think I've heard a song or two and liked it fine. And she's made appearances in nearly any episode of television set at an amusement park, the arena she originally was designed to haunt. There's a laughing soal in the carnival scene in Dark Man, and that's the first time I noticed it. Oh, okay, it's very creepy. There was a time when, Oh, here we go.

There was a time when the US was blanketed an army in an army of sALS constructed by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company. Wow, based in Germantown, Pennsylvania. That's close enough. No, that's probably they're probably that's probably Philly because there's a there's a this neighborhood called Germantown. So okay, they don't have a Butterstreet Monster, but you know, yeah, a manufacturer that specialized in building amusement park rides and attractions. Since nineteen oh four, this mostly meant wooden roller coasters. According to the PTC, eighty two of them are still in operation today. That's good. That's impressive. Yeah, carousels, ski ball machines, and crazy Daisy rides, those teacups that twirl.

But in the nineteen thirties, the PTC got into paper mache. Wow, yeah, ooh, look at this. It all comes around. They subcontracted the work to Canton, Ohio's Old King Coal Company. I've heard of Old King Coal Company. Canton is like three and a half hours away from me, but it's my state, dammit. Who first used their thrifty construction techniques to more exotically decorate the rides before constructing standalone figures. Early contracts included one with RCA to mass produced replicas of Nipper the Sweet Pooch attentively listening to a phonograph, and to department stores around the country to build laughing animatronic Santa clauses displayed during Christmas.

So that's where it was. You got nervous over that. You don't like the laughing animatronic Sanna ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ry Christmas, ho ho ho. It just looks down at you, not you. Yeah, you know you can tell uh lolsy anti semitic animatronic Santa. Yeah. One day someone had the clever idea. The latter may be more valuable if not relegated to seasonal employment. As Bill Luca, creator director of the Dark Carnival Ride fan site. Laugh in the Dark. That's totally they got that from it. Are You Afraid of the Dark episode?

That makes me think it'spelled the laff. Laugh in the Dark described it. I love that episode. It's the most fun you'll have in the park when you're laughing in the dark. I love that. Oh, I want to watch Are You Afraid of the Dark. Yeah, we should watch that. I'll bring my I have, I have all the DVD sets. I should bring it next time I visit. Okay, we'll go down memory lane. We'll watch that in some Pete and Pete Yeah. Yeah. Described in his History of sal the Santa modification involved quote substitut touting a woman's head and legs, making some anatomical enhancements, and dressing the figure in a frumpy dress, jacket and hat.

I guess that would that would do it. We're going to take a quick break and we come back. We'll talk more about how creepy laughing sal is and uh and oh these photos are creepy. Right after this, before we talk more about laughing sal Shell. How often did you did you go how often did you go to like like a carnival or anything like that. Did you ever go to the boardwalk or anything. Yeah, I've gone to boardwalks. Yeah yeah, because you're from not South Jersey. Yeah, there's other boardwalks that aren't and I feel like a lot of the board boardwalks are in North Jersey.

Actually yeah, well. It depends because eventually you hit like where New York City is over there. Yeah it's all weird. Yeah yeah, but uh but yeah, I mean I went to boardwalks, so we didn't go to like carnivals. There really weren't as as you say. They probably weren't that many because you have things like boardwalks and stuff nearby. Did you have like a favorite ride or game or food from them? No? Like, I really didn't like them that much. Why. I just don't really like rides or games or food. You like food. I do like some, but like I know, I like, I don't have a lot of memories of those things, and I like don't.

I didn't. It was never like yay, this is really fine. It was like, well, I guess we're doing this thing because everybody wants to do it. That's actually very similar to me. I didn't like rides, I like games, Okay, I mean they're fine, like whack them. Like when anything. And then if you do win stuff, you don't really like the thing you. Won, you know, and you gotta carry it all day. Yeah, I'm so glad that you're the wetter blanket than even me. Somehow, some way, Well back to laughing South. This new thing had two moves.

Her torso shifted back and forth with a belly laugh, causing her spring loaded head to bounce in awkward nods. Another gear moved her arms up and down, as if telling everyone around her to calm down. She also had speakers positioned at the base, which played her laugh on repeat. It originally came from a stack of seventy eight rpm records that needed to be changed periodically by a technician before tape recordings automated that job. That's funny, No wonder she was laughing. It all added up to an early precursor of Uncali Valley robotics, humanoid replicas that caused passerby to stare at this weird contraption and wonder if someone was inside staring back.

You ever see the zo tars, like the big the full size animatrocs that you put the money in and they do your fortune. Not in real life now. Oh I saw one not long ago. Gosh, where was I? I can't remember where it was, but there was like an actual one sitting there. It was really cool. Since Sal's debut, the reaction to her spastic movements and ear piercing giggle had been that perfect mix of intrigue and cringe that gets us to buy a ticket to a thriller only to watch half of it through shielding fingers.

This is a really good article. In other words, the funhouse aesthetic. That's fair. I always wanted to go into a funhouse when I was a kid, but we never went to like the carnival. We only went to like, you know, we go to like the county fairs maybe. And we had like a little amusement park nearby and a huge amusement park nearby, because King's Island is one of the bigger amusement parks in America and it's not far from me. And we had a little one called Americana, which we to go to a lot in school and stuff because it was pretty cheap and it was very close and they had like tilt to whirls and stuff.

It was all right. It had two roller coasters. Okay, So when the PTC began selling and installing their new funhouses into amusement parks, it was only natural that sal came along for the ride. That's so good. No unsure how many sALS were made. Some reports say two hundred and fifty, others pushed that number to five hundred. But then comes the question of what one considers original in the official tally, because two hundred fifty sounds low to me. I don't know, But then again, there could only be so many festivals and carnivals and stuff. Yeah, they went for about three hundred and sixty dollars a pop back in nineteen forties dollars, and it actually says what that is in today's dollars, except that this articles are ten years old.

So let's find out what that is in today's money. Oh god, what. It always it upsets you? Huh yeah, yeah, me too. I was that would be oh, three hundred and sixty dollars in what year was this? Nineteen forty? That would be eight thousand, six hundred and seventeen dollars in today's money, or or ten years ago six thousand, two hundred. Yeah, inflation, man, I was watching I was watching Office Space last night and they're talking about how they're going to like steal a couple hundred thousand dollars and never have to work again. And I was like, oh, my gosh, inflation.

That's so crazy shit, man, Yeah, yeah it is. Buying a car was awkward, not because I couldn't afford it, but because I realized how high car payment normal car payments were. Like I was like, I feel like I'm kind of indulging, and it was like, actually, your car payment is less than the average new car payment and only slightly higher than the average used car payment, and I was like, that's insane. Yeah. Yeah. I watched a video like they're like a they just audit like random people, Like they'll walk down the street and ask you a financial question, and they were asking people, what do you eat?

What's your car payment? Yeah? They were insanely high. Yeah, Like, I don't understand having a nine hundred dollars car payment unless you need like a pickup truck for work or something. I don't understand having like almost one thousand dollars car payment. That's insane. I felt bad because I'm gonna have like a five hundred dollars car payment. I was like, Oh my god, I'm a Kennedy. Now this is what happens. I'm gonna crash the car into a lake too soon. Okay, back to the Sal at hand. Wow, that really went off a bit there. That's all my fault.

Sal was so popular. In fact, the PTC commissioned mail counterparts called Laughing I've seen a laughing Sam. That's what I've seen more than sALS. It's funny though, because Sally. I guess Sal like Sally, because I think Sal I took a guy's name, as well as offshoot characters like laughing farmer, giggling Gerdy and ooh Blackie the sideshow barker. Ugh, you probably want to leave that one alone. But Sal was the most popular. Most had multiple versions on hand in case one broke down. Unfortunately, there's no complete list or map of the sALS left. No one knows how many lie buried in the depths of long forgotten warehouses, waiting to send shivers down the eventual discoverer's spine, although Wikipedia does collect a number of examples.

You know what makes me happy? I'm about to turn forty. Right in September I turned forty. Yeah, what makes me happy is I just had a thought of like, I wonder where one is, and I was like, I know three people I could call that would know exactly if not own one, you'd know exactly where they are. That made me realize I've been living my life correctly. That in my rolodex. I was texting with a guy today that I almost guarantee would know how I could buy one if not owns one, in one of his warehouses.

Wow, that made me happy. That makes that makes me feel like I haven't wasted forty years. Yeah. To have those kinds of people you can just reach out to makes me makes me proud. One particular sal hotspot is the Bay Area Playland at the Beach, a seaside amusement park that was located at the westernmost end of San Francisco, down the coast of Sutro's Bath and Cliffhouse. Has been long been a destination for sal lovers. The area was an unofficial settlement for transience in the late eighteen hundreds until the first amusement ride, which was a roller coaster, had been installed in eighteen eighty four.

Other rides and attractions soon followed, and in nineteen twenty six, George Whitney became the general manager of the complex, now given the name and order. When Funhouse is opened in the thirties, so came the sALS, where they rocked and laughed and terrorized until the land was sold to a Navy List condominium developer in nineteen seventy one. Wow, I am shocked how much information there is about sal like here. The most visited sal in the Bay, though, is located near the entrance of Mussey Mechanique, the famed collection of vintage penny arcade machines and moving dioramas, at the edge of Fisherman's Wharf.

That would be the best place for it, because it's you know, machines. Yeah, but I've been to there, but not you have place. I've been to Fisherman's Wharf. Oh, you probably saw one and just blocked it out like your entire childhood. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's the kind of thing to do that. Dan Zelinski, the museum's director, recalls getting Sal about two decades ago for a price tag of near three thousand dollars. The seller called me a quote. The seller called me to come over to his house and look at it. Housed it, and it's in his stairwell under a blanket.

I said, looks great and went back with a check. But then he decided not to sell it. Oh well, don't worry. This story has a happy ending. Years later, the seller passed away and his family put it up for sorry. I saw that ahead that couldn't resist, and Zelensky pounced. Both for practical purposes, it's multi lingual. It's something that everyone around the world can relate to, and his own personal nostalgia. As a kid, Zelensky often visited Sal outside the funhouse at Playland and now Sal's back where he belongs, greeting new visitors who either chortle with delight or pant with terror, mostly the latter.

I love this so much. I love it's multi lingual. It's like, you don't have to speak English to be terrified of this goddamn thing. Yeah, I have to admit, like I've often thought, like, man, if I ever just end up having dough to just like stick into things, I would own stuff like that. I would have a like a warehouse or a really big house, and I would just have that stuff. I'd be like, you want to go to the Chamber of horrors. That's what I call my basement because it's got all the creepy stuff that nobody else really wants that badly.

Mm hmm. So and believe I've seen how quickly you can become that person. I have a friend who has one of the biggest serial killer collections in the world. Wow, he just collects serial killers. Yeah, he puts some, he gets some of the net. That's the trick is using a net. Oh okay, yeah, a net Benning music Works. Really uh No, he has a lot. He has uh the he has the largest collection of John Wayne Gacy. That's his big one. He has all of the gay sy stuff, including a part of his body. But we'll talk about that off the show because it's it's I don't I know he would want me to say his name, but he bought it legally from a from a doctor.

Well that's nice. Yeah. Quote, kids are scared to death of that thing, the Lindsay says a certain glee in his voice. Their parents bring them in because they grew up going to playland, and so they started up and their kids hide. They're like, mom, are you sure this is supposed to be fun? That? That's really fun? I love the carnival. I kind of that's one of the reasons I love going to haunts because it kind of brings the like a bit of that old school carnival mentality back because a lot of haunted houses they'll have like the trucks parked out that make like the elephant ears and the chili cheese fries and stuff and the candied apples, which, by the way, if you go to a haunt, I didn't get any last year, and I was like so depressed because they closed the donut chopped down.

The rule of haunts is you're supposed to get at least one cider donut, okay, because that's like the taste of the haunt. Okay, that isn't just like cigarette butts and sweat. Now that everybody's been properly educated on laughing South, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, Cell is going to regale you with one of the most terrifying stories we've ever heard in the history of our lives. That includes the people listening. No, it's the most terrifying story probably in the history of Earth. It's not even terrifying at all, fairly. Terrifying horrifying, deeply and guttterly right after this, All right, we're wrapping up this month.

This July two thousand and twenty six monthly spooky, and unfortunately, unlike the month before, there was not a lot of horror in the theater. I saw one horror film in the theater last month, wow, And it was the New Evil Dead Evil Dead Burn, And I gotta say I did like it. It was wild, insane, obscenely violent and disgusting, which is pretty much what you get from those movies. Like what they promise you, they broke like every taboo on purpose to like really upset you. They they fearlessly kill animals and children and everything in between.

And in fact, the dog that gets killed in it like keeps coming back as like a like a possessed thing. So you get to see the dog get killed like three times. Oh wow, just for anybody who's mad. And I understand that people don't love the idea of like an animal dying in a movie or whatever. I get it, because we all love our animals and stuff like that. Do you get bothered when you see, like in a movie where they like kill a cat or something. I mean, I don't like I don't love it.

I mean it doesn't like I'm not like up in arms about it. Yeah. Yeah, it always blows my mind because people say, like, I don't like that movie they killed a dog in it. I'm like, I'm pretty sure they pretended to kill a dog in it. That's always my go to. It is like I'm pretty sure they didn't really do it. But there was a movie that showed a few years back on Joe Bob Briggs and people were super mad because the cat dies in it. Not for real, I mean, you know, like in the movie, cat dies in it.

And I had said to somebody, I was like, try to try to take solace in knowing it was a low budget movie, so they didn't have a lot of takes, so they probably only killed three or four cats to get that shot. You know, they didn't hurt any cats. Yeah, the goodness. But but yeah, so a lot of people were mad about the dog getting killed, the child death, which was like really not turning away, it was like unflinching, and I was kind of shocked. The movie still had an our rating. Wow, but it was fun.

If you liked Evil Dead Rise, it's in a similar space to that but it They did a lot of new stuff. They did a lot of interesting stuff with family dynamics, and I loved that burn and fire was like the theme of everything that happened, the consumption of flame. Okay, so I thought it was cool. I enjoyed it. I do recommend going and checking it out. Mm hm that's uh. But that's my horror film for the month. Cell Scare the Bejesus out of us with the best scariest Reddit entry ever. So this was hard because I intended to like sit here this morning and like do things, but I had to go to the house and make sure the.

Stove was off right. So what I have is, so there's from glitching the matrix. What I just said, Uh oh oh yeah. So like there's this person and they have, like like nine years ago or something, their son had like a favorite glass. They love this McDonald's glass that they have. I had a McDonald's glass. Yeah, me too. I don't think I loved it, but we had some Okay, So they and it's it was like their special glass. They always used it and then they dropped it and it got like a big crack in it, and they and so the kid got like really really upset, and the parent was like, you know, it was like trying to calm the down and was like, you know, we have an one identical to that, like they have two of them, so so the poster I don't know, I don't know.

They like wrapped up the glass and threw it away and stuff, and then like a week later, the kid was like, hey, the glass is fixed. Everything's better, and so they were like, okay, I guess they you know, the kid just found the identical one. So they were like, yay, that's so nice. And then they went to look and the identical one was there still there. So it's like it duplicated or something. So then like just like a week ago or something, they come downstairs or wherever, or they get home and on the counter is that glass with the same crack in it.

And they're just like what And so they go and they check and you know, there's there's still two glasses, and so they like message their kid who is older now, and it's like, you know, did you use this glass? Did you break this glass? And the kid is like no, and also like that's the same crack from what it broke like when I was nine, and so they don't know what happened. If I'm gonna have to s broke, I'm gonna have to say that they probably had more of those than they realized because it's a it's a I'm being such a a butt, but like, because that's like an impulse purchase buying McDonald's glasses and stuff, I think that they just thought they bought two and they bought three, or thought they bought two and they bought four.

I mean. The only thing that that you know makes me think maybe not is because they have moved since then. Okay, so you'd think that you'd know when you're moving how many McDonald McDonald's classes you had, But. You'd also think when you're moving that you might not just pay attention because you're just like, oh God, moving sucks. I got to wrap everything in freaking newspaper and do this crap or or worse yet, somebody else does it that doesn't care. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's possible, but like, what about when you're taking it out and you're pulling everything in the cabinet.

Don't you notice? Then? Maybe so once again you're like, oh my god, I'm so tired from moving out of my old house, and I'm so sad because my mortgage is a mortgage and like everything's bad, but I have a place to live, so hooray. I don't know, I mean, that's the only thought I have that that could explain it. Or I mean, when he was a kid, he was a little klepto, and he stole it from like a friend's house because they probably all had McDonald's glasses. That's possible, And I mean, also it's it's possible that you know, I mean basically everybody that she like, whoever, the people who live in the house.

The poster asked like, did you use this class? Did you drop this class? And everyone was like no, but maybe somebody did, so maybe it's just not a big deal at all. You know, it's only because there's like I when I was growing up, we had four flintstone like collectible mugs that were like they looked like coffee mugs, but they had like a bone, you know, like a cartoon bone shape on the handle, and they were clear, they were glass, and we had like I think we had four of them, and a couple broke over time, and you know, like they just kind of yeah, we had those and those were from either McDonald's or Burger King.

And then I had a couple of McDonald's Christmas Time glasses that were my favorites. But one of them did break, I think, and I don't know what happened to the rest of them. So I just remember, like there was a lot of that stuff around, a lot of collectible and commemorative cups and mugs and glasses. Yeah. I mean, I think it like just depends on the person too, because like we used to, like we had a couple of McDonald's glasses. I think we had like two or three, but like I would have own if we had duplicate of them, you know, because I know where they are in the like in the cabinet and stuff.

There was you know, we take the glasses and you take all the glasses and there's no more glasses. I like, this is the part of your childhood you did, remember, Yeah, yeah, yeah, the one thing you're lettingeek through. Yeah, just the glasses and like when you like wash them and stuff. So I'm just saying, like I can't imagine, I can I understand, And that's a really logical explanation. But I also if this were something that happened in my house, Like, I would be weird because I like, No, I do. Think it's weird. No, I do think it's weird.

I'm only coming to that conclusion from a total like separation to be like, uh, you probably just had more of those than you realized. Yeah, yeah, but I mean it would creep me out for sure if I was, if I was dealing with that, I would be very weirded out. Yeah, well you lucked out. That was the scariest thing anyone's ever heard in the world. Wow, so you nail it, just barely by the skinnier teeth. Okay, So, thank you guys so much for joining us on this edition of Monthly Spooky. We really do appreciate it.

If you want to send us an email, do so at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you about spooky news, stories, comments, questions, anything like that, especially about Michelle and snakes. That's the new topic djor and we would love to hear from you. We'll be back on the last Monday of next month. Chelle, what are you going to defend yourself? No, I'm not going to defend myself. Go on, go ahead, No, I'm not that's no, it's okay. What were you going to say? No, I'm not going to say anything.

Go on, no, come on. Okay, I touched a Deckay's brown snake. That's the kind of snake. She ain't beaten the allegations, kids, But we'll be back on the next next time, on the last Monday in August, and we'll even celebrate my birthday a little bit since it's in the beginning of September. So until next time, stay safe out there, my spookies, and as always, as is appropriate, Michelle has the final word. I don't know, like this is too many words already