Monthly Spooky | The Pied Piper of Hamelin Mystery: 77 Headless Skeletons & Gracie the Missing Giraffe

The evil Truth of the Pied Piper, seventy seven headless skeletons found in a mass gray ghost children haunting a city in Argentina, And how on earth do you lose a giraffe in Texas? Get comfortable, turn off the life. It's Monthly Spooky. Welcome back, my spookies. It is indeed you want to say it? Cell No, it's okay. Oh that time of the month. It's time for Monthly Spooky. And of course I'm your host, Henrique Couto here with my good buddy and co host Michelle. Michelle, how are you? What was that? I don't know, I'm not like good or something.

Is this because of the mosaic? Because you cut yourself making a I. Cut myself like four times making the mosaic. It's not that big of a deal one day or just in or total in making it total in this part of the mosaic. But one day I cut myself twice. But but to be fair, once it was on the mosaic, and then I had a bandit down my hand, so I was like kind of clumsy, and then I cut my other finger on the same hand trying to lock my basement door. I got it like jammed in the.

Dead bolt, so okay, and. I spilled water that had you know, uh were out in it all over myself instead of the sink, just like down my body because it was really heavy and the sink is high up and I just mixed. Okay, that's see. That makes more sense than if it like when you first described it. I imagine like a cup, like a small like drinking cup worth and you just went wah, it just hit you instead of the sink somehow. No, it makes a lot more sense when it's a big bucket. Yeah, okay, yeah, wow, no wonder.

You were just nodding politely when I was like, oh my morning, McDonald's messed up my order and then I was running late for this, and you're just like, I've been through hell. Those are the good things that happened. Okay, what are the bad things? I don't know. Gigs that are teeth removed people just one of them and one fell out magically and we don't know how they're just gone. They were like there used to be five teeth and now there's four. We don't know which one because they're so messed up. Things so so so gigs had one tooth removed, but another one came out.

On its own, but not not then, just some point, just in the last point couple of years. Yeah, that happens. Well, it's not supposed to. Well, I mean, I wouldn't say it's supposed to, but it does. I mean, that is just a thing that happens. You get older and you know, animals, people, we lose teeth just. Just all of a sudden, and the little tiny ones that are all messed up at the. Bottom, especially the little tiny ones. Oh, just saying when I had dogs, those were the teeth that got removed the most, for those little tiny ones at the bottom.

M hm. And I mean they know we only had to remove a few, but like, yeah, those would be the ones that have to come out. Well, normally she uses she loses the big ones. I'm glad she's not losing any more big ones. Well she did. Well, there's one more big one that she's eventually gonna lose. So okay, fine, geez. So it's been rough. I mean, how's gigs that feel about it? Though? I'm sure she didn't enjoy it. You don't know that, did you? Ask? No? Because I didn't want to upset her. Anymore, because sometimes I ask and then she goes on for like five hours.

So no, not, okay, not again? Okay, Is there are there any more grievances you need to air about the last few days or week or whatever span of time this has all occurred. I had two really bad inspections and then also Banana Fish is getting taken off Amazon Prime, so there you go. Oh my gosh, well, I mean the home inspections that that was pretty lame. I'm assuming you're talking about the ones I, uh, they've talked to me about while banana Fish is leaving Prime. In ten days? In ten days, do they have any idea where it's going to go?

I don't. I just know it's leaving Prime, and so do the reddit people. So you know, I haven't really looked into it more than that. Well, if the reddit people said it, then it has to be true. Well considering, I was like, I don't know if this is true. So then I checked on Prime and it was true. Oh, they have a little ticker things. In ten days. Yeah. Oh you're afraid it's gonna go away forever? I mean, don't you don't have any copies? There's well, there's not an official uh subtitled or subtitled copy that was released.

Oh really? Yeah? So, I mean the only way for me to get it would either to be either get it in Japanese, which I may already have, or to pirate it, which I may already have but probably not. So Okay, Well, I feel bad for you. Thanks. This was this, This happened just last night, so I'm still a little upset. I'm sorry. I could tell you can just go on. Stop to talk about. Talk amongst yourselves, so much talk amongst yourselves. None of this is important. Well, I mean, it's monthly spooky. We're just you know, we're catching up with everybody before we talk about like ghost children and giant cockroaches or whatever I have lined up.

I don't remember if it was a giant cockroacher or a person selling cockroaches. I hope it's a giant cockroach me. Too, But now I think it's probably a person selling cockroaches. I want to guess that's okay. I mean I don't think it is, though I think it. I think the guy got arrested. Oh man, why we'll have to This is a great tease. We'll find out later because it's in the list of stories recovering this month. For me, see, I'm I'm not all stressed out because, unlike you, I've been dunking myself in frigid water every day.

Sure I have. I believe you. Okay, I think it's upsetting. Well, I mean that is kind of the point, is is it like gives you a little shock? Yeah, it's okay. I was in the ice tub the other day and Rachel was passing by to go into the house, and I told her to put her hand in for a second. She didn't. She was like, oh my god, it's so cold. I was like, it's not even that cold. It's forty five degrees. That's cold. I mean, I'm not saying it's not cold, it's just it's not that cold.

I mean it is when you dunk your whole body in it, But for just your hand, it's fine. Everybody's wimpy, I don't think so. I'm sorry. You know, cold showers just weren't getting it done anymore. I had to go, I had to go even further. So. But boy, when you come out of that thing, you feel, you feel positive, you feel happy and happy. Go luck. You had ready to take on your day I tell you that much. Okay, what you think you would just cry? Yeah? Yeah, but that's good too because that releases cord, is all right maybe, I mean, all right, fine, I'm just saying I like it, I know, and.

I'm happy for you. I guess. The other interesting thing that's been going on is my TikTok is like it's not like exploding obscenely, but it's growing at a really fast rate. I'm gaining about seventy or eighty followers a day. Wow. Yeah, like I have doubled the followers. I doubled my followers in like two and a half weeks. It's really odd. And what I did was I do these little tiktoks about folklore and you know, stuff I'm into obviously, and I did a couple about Dayton, Ohio, like folklore and legends and urban legends and stuff, and it's just feeding that to people that are in the Dayton area.

The algorithm is feeding it and people are following like crazy. So I've been doing only Dayton stuff, which turns out there's quite a bit, and people just keep commenting like, oh, but what about this road or what about this bridge? So then I'm like, oh, I'll go follow up on all of them. Then. Yeah. So it's been pretty cool other than the fact that it is TikTok and I've never enjoyed being on TikTok particularly and uh, but my favorite thing is I'll say, like in a video, I'll say, like, in a town outside of Dayton, Ohio, there's a road that's haunted, you know or whatever, and and people literally common go, it's not in Dayton, it's in Carlisle.

And I'm like, yeah, that's outside of Dayton, Ohio. And then and then uh, or I said, like on a road near Dayton, Ohio, and so we said, it's not near Dayton. And then somebody before I even comment, somebody's like, uh, it's twenty minutes from me, and I live in that place, and I go, when I go to date, it takes twenty minutes. And somebody's like, it's really closer to Middletown. What geez and Middletown. Yeah. Yeah. But it's also funny because like Middletown is a town halfway between Dayton and Cincinnati. So people aren't going to generally relate middle town.

They're going to relate the major cities, right, So if you say someplace is near Dayton, Ohio. That's suggesting it's closer to Dayton than it is to Cincinnati or Columbus. That's really all you're saying is that it's the largest major city in Ohio to it. But it's been funny that that is like the thing people are constantly saying, like, that's not where it is, that's not where it is. And then one of my favorites was I talked about some haunted road. I think it was Foigny Road, and some guy was like, uh, I live in that town and I've never heard of it and I don't even know where that is, so like is this real?

Like does this even exist? And I had to comment. I was like, dude, I'm not trying to be rude, but like I googled it and found where the road was immediately like you yeah, look like what do you needing to tell you? Like which McDonald's you turn left at to get to it? Like, I don't know what you want from me? Pal. Yeah. So but at least the mean people have eased up. There were some mean people, but my favorite is people think I'm ai, which I guess I'll take as flattering because my picture quality is very high and my audio quality is very high.

And I think that's exactly why I think it's AI is because I use like a really high end microphone and I EQ my voice really well, so it sounds like a voiceover. I think that alone throws them. So but when people say, like, dude, I know this is AI, stop and then I come and go, you know too much, and then like a gift with like a robot on it or something. But anyway, so that's been an adventure. If anybody listening to this discovered the podcast through TikTok, wonderful, because that's my only goal is to funnel TikTokers to check out the podcast.

It is funny too because people will comment and be like, I could listen to your voice all night to fall asleep, and I'm like, well, don't listen here where it's sixty seconds. Ye go to weekly Spooky for the love of God, for the love of all that's holy and none holy. Probably, but I have been shocked at the sheer amount of folklore in and around this area. I was not prepared for it to be that much. Yeah, like in Germantown, Ohio, which is not far away at all unless you ask these people. They're like, it's nowhere in your dayton.

My mom grew up in Germantown. It's fifteen minutes away from me. But uh, they have the Butter Street Monster. WHOA what a name? Like is the street called Butter Street or is it really Buttery Street? Or I wish it was a Buttery Street. Now the street's called Butter Street. But apparently there were a bunch of people in the sixties and seventies who claimed they saw like a sasquatch looking creature on Butter Street. But then some people commented and said that in the nineties when they were growing up, their grandma used to tell them stories about the Butter Street Monster and they thought it was a giant snake.

Oh. I just love how that happens, though, like how the folks were. And then some people be like, I've lived in Germantown for forty five years and I've never heard of this, And I'm like, that's what's so fascinating. I wish they'd stop acting like that means it doesn't exist. I mean the worst perst too. The videos aren't like, hey, this really happened, they're hey, people talk about this and then somebody says bullshit, and I have to go no, Like, look at the comments. People are literally saying like, oh yeah, we used to, you know, on sleepovers, we would sneak out to butter Street and like look around, and you know, it's like it's funny how that works.

But on that note, we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to talk all about some spooky news. We're back, and Chell, I suppose it is time for the spooky news, the spooky news. So I have a question for you, Michelle, Yes, how many headless skeletons is too many? Like, if you discovered headless skeletons, how many would be the amount that you would be like, oh shit. I think five? Five? Yeah, because I think anything lower than five. I could only figure out a reason that it would make sense that there'd be a bunch of headless skeletons.

Okay, no, that sound unfortunately, this one is gonna be a lot for you. Then, like six from people dot com, archaeologists found a seven thousand year old mass grave filled with seventy seven headless skeletons and they still don't know why. Well, I assume they buried the heads somewhere else. I mean that would be I hope so, because otherwise, what are you doing with the I don't want to know what you're doing with them heads. Maybe maybe they just didn't have heads, Maybe they just had some kind of congenital defect where they have heads? Is that a thing?

Maybe I feel like it very necessary? Maybe existence, Maybe we're just wrong. Okay, I mean, maybe maybe we need to reconsider our prejudices. Okay, now I can respect that. Good. Good. Archaeologists studying a seven thousand year old settlement in present day Slovakia expected to learn more about how some of Europe's earliest farming communities lived. Instead, they uncovered a mystery they're still trying to explain. Buried in a ditch near the settlement, where the remains of seventy eight people, but all but all but one were missing their heads. There was one person with a head. What did that one person do with all the other people's heads?

I like how you're like, that's what brings the most. I kind of agree with you. That's what brings the most. Question is, okay, well, we've established a pattern of seventy seven headless corpses. Why is there one with a head? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, like was the person doing it? Just they get lazy, They're like, I'm tired of this. I just want to go home. Yeah. Oh, we don't need to take this guy's heat off. Is that worth it? The discovery, detailed in a recent study published in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, was made at Vrabel, one of the largest known Neolithic settlements in Central Europe.

Researchers say the unusual burial site offers a rare glimpse into how some early farming communities may have viewed death and the human body. At first glance, the scene appears to suggest violence. I mean, I mean, is there such thing as like a non violent decapitation. I mean, if if you were dalking, like you're like duh, yeah, I mean come. On, no, I don't know. I don't know if you can, if you can consider violence if it was post mortem, like if they're just. I see, yeah, I feel like it still feels like a violent act, just because like it's not like cutting off ahead of something you can do as easily as like, you know, enjoying a Twizzler's pull and peel.

I like Twizzler's pool and peel. Are you down with the pool and peel? I like them, but also I don't think they have as good like teeth, mouthfeel as like a regular Twizzler. Oh, they're definitely different. They're not that they don't scratch the same itch. They're They're two different candies without a doubt. I do enjoy braiding the pull in peel if you don't braid them and then. Eat them, Yeah, yeah, that's the best way to do it. The bodies were found piled together in different positions with no obvious order, but after examining the remains, researchers concluded the evidence does not clearly point to a massacre.

Instead, marks on the neck bones suggest the skulls were carefully removed like a Twizzler's pulling po No, uh, carefully removed after death using sharp tools. The research, I mean, they'd have to be sharp. I would guess if. It's going to be careful, Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean if they were already skeletons, I guess you could use like blunt instruments. But like I'm guessing these were corpses when they would beheaded, would like skin and things with skin and such. Yeah. Yeah. The Researchers also found that many of the skeletons remained largely intact, including fragile joints that likely would not have survived if the bodies had been left exposed for long periods.

Uh oh, the plot's about to thicken. Shell. Really, only one individual, a child, was found with a skull still attached. Okay, I'm sticking to my theory. This child did it and then yeah, took off their heads. Like one of those super genius children from like the Twilight Zone or something. Yeah. Yeah, the cornfields. Yeah, where the missing heads went remains one of the site's biggest mysteries. I mean, that's not that hard. Just call around and be like, you know, hey, Yuri, did you find seventy seven heads? And they're like, oh, yeah, down the road like eighty four miles we filled seventy seven heads.

It's like, ah, I think I figured it out. There you go. Archaeologists recovered only a handful of skull fragments from the ditch, leading some researchers to wonder whether the skulls were taken elsewhere as part of a ritual practice. Well, it sure sounds ritualistic if they did it. Seventy seven times. Maybe. I mean, I mean, do you feel like it's not like a lark when you do something seventy seven times? Unless that's eating a grain of rice. You could do that on a lark. If it's seventy seven times it Yes, there's a lot of rice and rice.

I stand by that sentence one thousand percent. There's a lot of rice and rice. Well, you don't think it sounds ritualistic. No, I do. I can't imagine it's anything other than kind of the way they buried Pea probably at the time. Yeah, But then the one child with their head on, that's the part that that throws me. Maybe yeah, maybe they didn't bury kids with their heads off. Maybe it was the only kid that would That would seem right, although I don't know if they've They didn't say that it was the only child child there.

They just said it was a child with the skull still attached. Yeah, yeah. Quote. Because of the spectacular nature of sorry, the way just saying spectacular feels funny, and that of the mass disposition itself, the level of complexity with respect to the treatment of human bodies and the dispositional practices at the site is easily overlooked. The studies. Authors wrote that complexity is part of what makes the discovery so significant. The researchers noted that evidence from the roble Robel could shed could help shed light on broader questions about quote, ritual violence, social relations, and cosmology among some of Europe's earliest farming societies.

I mean, I suppose so it might reveal some stuff you don't want to share it with everybody. But we were just really into heads. Yeah, yeah, it's really into it. Yeah, everybody was. It was the eighties, the four eighties. BC scientists are now conducting additional analyzes, including DNA testing and isotope studies, to learn more about the individuals buried at the site and whether they were related to one another. For now, the authors believe the discovery raises as many questions as it answers. Quote the evidence from Brabel adds important information for the larger picture of late LBK communities in Europe, They wrote, suggesting the site may ultimately change what archaeologists understand about life and death in the Neolithic world.

Yay, I mean, I'm assuming that they'll at least vaguely related, only because how deep can a gene pool be when you know, in the Neolithic, I don't know. I mean, it's not like you know, people are traveling alone very far. I don't know. I feel like there wouldn't be an immense amount of genetic variants. I mean, I guess, but we really don't know. But it would be helpful to know if like these were all people from the same like closer family, and like it was some kind of a family ritual like burial ritual thing. M yeah, but the single child still having a head is the weird the weirdest part.

I don't know. I'm thinking now, maybe he was the last one, like maybe they all died of an illness and he was the only one left to perform the ritual head removing ceremonies and then he died, and then something that filled it in. Because he didn't have the ability to build like a guillotine that he could like, you know, pull it himself. He didn't really think that far ahead. Well, now you're just insulting his intelligence. That's pretty good, okay, if you say so. I mean, they didn't even say what age the kid was, and they didn't even say if he was Jewish.

If he was Jewish, then if he's fourteen, he's a. Man, that's true. I thought he was probably younger than that though. That's probably so because I felt like if he was fourteen, they might have said an adolescent. Mmm. Okay yeah, and I really the big thing is I would have liked to know where there are other children in there? M hm you know? Or was that the only child and the only one with a head? Yeah? But speaking of dead children, jeez, what a great, great transition. When we get back, we're going to be talking about some ghost kids.

Right after this. We are back and Chell, we're heading to our old buddies at Mirror dot co dot uk, where when I was skimming the the weird news section of Mirror dot co dot uk, it turned out this was like the only news story they'd published recently that wasn't very very clearly an ad wow like it was, and it may still be, by the way. I guess good for them. I hope they're getting money from these things. One of them was like literally a story of celebrity had told about seeing a ghost once, but but it really just kept talking about the movie she was in that was not even a hope, like a movie about ghosts.

Wow. Yeah, so I was like, I'm gonna move on. But for Mirror dot co dot UK, the headline reads ghost kids haunt city center shop and leave tiny footprints every night. Wow, they are footprints. They don't look that tiny though, what I mean? I mean maybe I'm crazy though maybe I'm wrong on that one, like see you see them? Yeah, but I mean I can't really compare without something for scale, you. Know, yeah, exactly. And also why are they like black like that? Yeah? That I don't know either. I mean staff at a city center electricals shop.

British people man electricals shop. I'm guessing it means electronics maybe say they're being hounded by eerie goings on that quote make your skin crawl, including barefoot, child size footprints and handprints mysteriously appearing on freshly mopped floors. What Celle, I saw you think? You almost say something twice? What's on your mind? Well, I was just thinking if the floors are just mopped and they're not dry, it's much easier to leave like footprints and like mud prints and stuff because it just gets all wet on the bottom of your foot and then it's going on the floor.

I don't know, true I mean, I mean, it's mostly just frustrated. It's like I just cleaned that and now ghosts are walking on it. Maybe you should stop cleaning the floors. Then, that doesn't sound like a good solution. I think that's perfect. Why do you like dirt floors, like dirty floors so much then, because why are you in the pocket of big dirty floor. Because they pay me? I don't know, I. Mean, fair, I can't, I can't argue with that. Workers at the appliance store, located in the heart of Mendoza, Argentina told the Mendoza Posts that the activity has ramped up in recent weeks and they now feel it is impossible to ignore.

I assumed it was going to be in the UK because almost all their stories are in the UK. But yeah, Argentina, all right. According to the team, the spooky streak began as a series of odd explainable moments, strange noises out back, the odd scuff mark where none should be, But then came clear prints that looked like the wet impressions of little feet and tiny hands dotted around the shop floor come morning, despite the place being scrubbed spotless at. Clothes, I mean, yeah, somebody's getting in there. Huh. I mean like a little child. Yeah, like a little child.

You think like little kids are just like sneaking into this place and like running around. They're like squatting in there. That's where they sleep overnight. Well they're not squatting, they're walking. That's why they footprints. Hey yeah, well you can spot. Well maybe you can miss strong hips and knees over here. Let's see, uh quote, we thought, let's document it. We took photos, We checked the cameras to see what was happening, one salesperson said. Another added quote, it gives you a weird feeling like there's something else here. Crucially, the stor's alarms reportedly never trigger triggered. The closed circuit television showed quote no one, no one, no one in, and no one passing.

Yet the marks kept turning up by opening time they would set off an alarm. You'd think, what if, like. Because they did they like clean them up, Like I'm wondering if maybe there's something on the surface that is like hoily or like a crayon or something so that when you like mop it, it's just like the water, you know, doesn't stick on it, and you get these points that come through. But there's well, if the photo we saw is accurate, then that's not what it looks like though. It looks like dirt. But is that a real photo or do they just make one?

It suggests it's a real photo. Okay, yeah, I mean it doesn't have an attribution, so I have no idea how mirror dot co dot uk. Let's see what really rattled the staff was the shape and size of the impressions. Quote. When we close, we clean, we wash the floor, a worker told Mendoza Post. When we arrive in the morning, there are footprints, like barefoot children's feet in different parts of the store. Do you think that one day they just didn't clean the floor and the boss caught him and they're like, no, no, we cleaned the floors.

And this just keeps showing up. Its ghosts, totally ghost don't fire me. You always clean the floor at night. Alongside those were small palm prints, sometimes lined up in a way that suggested someone or something had been moving low to the ground, like crawling. Were there like knee prints too? They don't have to be knee prints. You can crawl like un just your feet in your hands. That's advanced crawling technique. Fine. Quote, it's like they've been crawling through the shop. Another employee remarked the pattern they claim has turned into a strange routine. The evening clean banishes all marks, the morning reveals fresh ones in new spots.

Quote. It leaves you with a strange sensation, said a warehouse worker. At first, we thought the noises were bleeding in from nearby businesses. Now we don't know. Ooh. In the back, where boxes of blenders and TVs sit stacked high, the team reports bumps, shuffles, and the odd clatter even when just one person is working alone. Quote, there are sounds, movement and movement. One said, we thought it could be from neighboring shops, but now we're not sure. With curiosity morphing into concern, the crew dug into the site's history and claimed they uncovered an eerie echo of the past.

Oh now we're talking. Yeah, Before it was an appliance showroom, the corner of Calais Espanna and General Pause were once an area of modest, low houses and bustling tenements. According to the staff's research, nearby ran the railway, and the neighborhood teamed with immigrant families seeking a start. In the past, the place would have had children scurrying about from dusk till dawn. That has the shop whork shops workers wondering whether yesterday's footsteps might somehow be in printing on today. Yeah. I mean, you know, if they had found like that a school bus full of kids had blown up or something, maybe, but the fact that they were like, whoa, this was like a neighborhood before it was a building.

It's like, okay, oh. Places were yeah sort of yeah, I don't give or take. Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess it. I wish I had like more pictures that I could look at because I'm wondering if it's something that just wouldn't trigger cameras, maybe because it's too small. It's like a raccoon and they're getting confused. Well, but I mean, yeah, I guess if the images didn't look like human feet, I. Don't know, or they like kind of like human. Feet, it could just be a little kid like little kids running around and go off in there.

Yeah, I mean that's probably what. I don't know how they'd not set off the alarm, but there's got to be a way. Yeah, I wonder if like there's like a the alarm is like like if there's like a it's like picking it up at a certain level, and kids are like too low, so it's not catching it on cameras and stuff like that. I don't know. Man, Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to talk about an Australian farmer that discovers something else green in his grocery store salad bag that he wasn't quite expecting.

Right after this, and we are back with a little bit more spooky news for you. This one's from Huffington Post and chill you don't buy well, it says salad bag you don't buy bag salads. But I think that that is just that means rough greens because they call like anything that's lettuce salad in the UK and Australia. Okay, I mean yeah, So have you. Ever found anything in like a bag of lettuce you weren't expecting? I don't normally get bags of lettuce? What do you just get ahead of lettuce? I don't really get lettuce. Have you ever bought any greens?

Yes, of course I've had you know that, like I have that there's bugs in the broccoli, but you've never seen any bugs in I've. Never seen a bug in broccoli, and I. Don't understand what that means, because there's lots of bugs in broccoli like all the time. I've never seen that at all, and once a warm oh god, ugh, more than I've legitimately never seen that. I mean, I totally believe that you've never seen it. I just don't quite understand. But like you don't understand that my car insurance goes down every year instead of up.

Yeah, I know, I know your car insurance is magic. I get it. I mean it's not going down as aggressively as it used to. If that helped makes you feel any. Better, doesn't make me feel any better. No, okay, okay, I'm sorry you have such a big problem with Ohio exceptionalism. All right. So the headline reads Ozzie Farmer discovers live frog in grocery store salad bag man. That would be a fun thing to find. And it's one of those cute little green frogs too, like the light green like. It looks very much like the like the greens in the bag ah Melbourne, Australia, When Australian farmer Rice Smoker announced he that's a hell of a name.

A Re Smoker, that's a hell of a name. Re Smoker announced he found a live frog in a bag of lettuce. His housemates didn't believe him. So Smoker had been preparing a steak in salad dinner on Saturday for the three people who share his house and s Prince in Western Australia State, when he spotted the frog among the leaves inside the sealed plastic bag he bought from a supermarket. House housemate Laura Jones said on Tuesday, quote, He's like, oh, bro, there's a frog in the lettuce. And we're like, no, you're taking the mick like that's not real.

You're taking the mick like that's not real, Jones told AP. Taking the mic is a slang term for attempting to fool someone. Thank you, Ap Smoker. Reese Smoker, what a name? Gosh? I want to be a private detective named Reese Smoker. Yeah. Smoker brought the bag into the lounge room to show Jones and her partner Billy Lapine. Obviously there's a little frog hiding out and yeah, we all had a little laugh about it, Jones said, Lapine said they named the frog Greg before releasing it at a pond near the house. That's notice, I don't know that that frog wants to live in that pond.

I mean I probably would have gone on the internet and figured out what kind of frog it was and then decided what I needed to do with it because it could be an invasive species. Oh, then you would have just stomped on it. No, then I would have. I would have talked to it before releasing it and been like, listen, you can't be invasive, and then I. Would have let it go, like do you understand rabbit? Good? Oh? Oh my gosh. Uh, let's see quote. We thought we'd give him a wee send off tune as we played crazy Frog for him, Lapline told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Crazy Frog is a Swedish CGI animated character and eurodance musician. Thank you, because I didn't know, ap. No one did. Smoker and his partner Lily Ashby had bought the lettuce at a Woolworth's market in Esperance. Uh the same day Greg was discovered. Man, I forget that Woolworth's is still like a big thing in some other places. Yeah, we don't have. I don't think we have any Woolworts. I think they're all gone. Yeah. Five years ago, a shopper confronted a three meter long, non venomous diamond python on a shelf of a Woolworf's market in Sydney. Also in twenty twenty one, a shopper discovered a venomous, pale headed snake wrapped in plastic with lettuce and in all the Sydney supermarkets.

Wow. I feel like this is just like like this should be sponsored by like Ohio and it just says like, don't go anywhere. Just stay home in Ohio. Just stay home. Yeah, you're fine, it's fun. You like where you are. Don't go to Australia, that's for sure. Woolworths said the frog in the salad was an isolated incident. I mean it'd be impressive, but they're like, oh, we put frogs in every salad. Yeah, and there had been no other similar case is reported. Quote. Our teams are investigating this with our suppliers as a priority. A Woolsworth.

A Woolworth's statement said Woolworth's apologized to the household and provided a replacement bag. Of lettuce just what you want more frogs? Yeah, you just want more frogs in your lettuce, which sounds like a really old old timey saying, mm. Yeah, you just end up with more frogs in your lettuce. Yeah what what you know the old saying, yeah, more frogs in your lettuce. That's that's. Yeah. Yeah, if you go to the doctor, he's just gonna say more frogs in your lettuce. Yeah, exactly. It's like when you get that thing that you wanted, but then there's something in that you didn't expect, and then you go to get the thing again and there's still more things that you didn't want in it.

You just broke me. I'm sorry, you end up with more frogs in your lettuce. That's we're making that as saying everybody. The trick to making things of saying is always attribute it to a family member, like like like like my my great uncle always used to say, just more frogs in your lettuce. Yeah, that's how you get it to you get it to stick. We're gonna we're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to uh head to uh a plane flight that UH had to take a U turn over a strange bit of a technical issue.

I can't. I'm still thinking about more frogs in your lettuce, all right, right after this shell? Yeah, you don't fly a ton, right, I don't fly a ton either. No, I don't fly a ton. Do you have an airline you prefer though, No. It's been so long that they all merged and closed down and who knows what's going on. You know, I'm bummed because I loved flying Jet Blue, but I don't have a Jet Blue in my area. I think the nearest Jet Blue is Indianapolis, so it's two hours almost two hours away. That's a drive to Indianapolis.

I don't hate idiot trip, yeah, but it's extra a big bummer because my old my old boss, Mike, he has he told me that if I ever want to fly Jet Blue, just ask because he accrued such an obscene amount of Jet Blue miles. He said that he could never use them if he used them for the rest of his life. Wow. But I was like, damn it, because like when I lived in Jersey, we would fly out of Jet Blue at jfk M and because they had a Jet Blue terminal, and Philly has a Jet Blue terminal.

But I think I believe the closest one to me is Indianapolis, which extra stinks because if it could have been Cincinnati, that's only like forty five minutes. Yeah, you can kind of like you could get a buddy to do that for you, you know, like you could find somebody two hours each way. That's that's pretty far. That's a bit. Yeah. So but anyway, this is from NPR, your favorite Oh no, no pulse required radio. The headline is United Airlines flight to Spain pulls U turn apparently over Bluetooth device name. Oh no. Yeah. So we've all heard the jokes right about like naming your naming your Wi Fi like you know, FBI surveillance fan three and stuff.

Haha, so funny or ones that just say, like, you know, stop trying to steal my Internet ned or whatever, you know, like. You just. I'm guessing if somebody had a funny had added a funny name to a Bluetooth device or a Bluetooth advice just had an odd out of context name. Nice and that is it's a bomb. It just says it's a bomb. Yeah, that's Oh, I'm curious. I don't know exactly what it said. So let's see let's dig in. A United Airlines flight Hey from New York, New Jersey to Palma de Morocco, Spain, pulled a U turn late Saturday over what appears to have been a suspiciously named Bluetooth device on board.

Flight tracking data shows that the flight, which should have landed in Spain after a nearly eight hour flight, instead returned to Newark after four hours and twenty four minutes in the air. That sucks. United Airlines told nprvia email that the flight turned around to quote address a potential security concern. Multiple posts on social media from self identified passengers indicate that the problem was a Bluetooth device on board the plane. Several of the those passengers posted photos or video of them on board the flight or in the airport with time stamps that match the flight's actual schedule.

So you think it was bomb related? Yeah? Yeah, So I'm gonna say, hmm, maybe it was. Maybe it comes off as like terrorism related, but I won't count bomb as terrorism related, So. Okay, so just some other terrorism. I'm just trying to guess. So I hope it's not anything stupid. Maybe now I'm worried it's going to be stupid. I should have went with stupid. I should have made my bet on stupid. Damn it. You can change it. I don't want to change it. Now. I made my bed, and now I have to turn my flight around in it.

Some passengers knew little more than the flight attendants had as knew little more than the flight attendants had asked passengers to turn off their Bluetooth devices. One post referenced in flight and nownouncements with quote lots of comments like this little joke is ruining it for everyone. I think it's gonna be stupid, and now I'm starting to think it's gonna be stupid. Audio from air traffic control sheds a little more light on the situation. One voice on the recording asked what had happened with the flight, which had recently landed back at Newark and remained on the tarmac.

Wait. Air traffic control was like, they must have meant, like, why did we I'm assuming that they were told the plane was coming back and they like set them up to land and then went so why did you have to do that? Because it'd be really word They're like, hey, what are you guys doing here? It's like it's like your air traffic control. How did you land without talking to us? What I'll tell you about it after this? Okay, yeah, there's a quote. There's a security detail out there. Someone had a Bluetooth speaker and they named it a four letter word.

Another voice responded, so they have to inspect the whole aircraft, including the cargo area, and passengers have to evacuate. That's crazy, The first voice replied, four letter word in this case doesn't oh okay, okay doesn't appear to refer to a curse word, but rather a different four letter word that triggered airline security procedures. Oh okay. I got scared for a second that they were mad about like a swear word. Yeah yeah, yeah. Quote. There is an active Bluetooth network labeled bomb. Okay, tell on, tell on this one, one self identified passenger wrote on TikTok she shared a video of herself drinking sangria geotag to Paul Ma de Morocca after the flight finally arrived.

Another reddit's post of someone who claimed to be the spouse of a passenger similarly reported that the word in question was bomb and that the device was a teenager speaker. I could kind of see naming a speaker bomb or a speaker being called bomb, you know, because it's loud or whatever. The flight eventually reboarded and landed in Palma de Morocco, Morocco, Mayoco. I'm having trouble with myoko at three forty seven pm local time on Sunday, about nine and a half hours late. So do you think that the kid named it that or that that was what it was named?

I think the kid named it that. Yeah, yeah, but like I don't know if it was if they named it that like before and then didn't think about it, or if they thought they were being funny. I just found a portable speaker named bomb from t tech. Okay, maybe it was just and it looks. Like a bomb, but like a cartoon bomb. Yeah, maybe it was just called that. Look look yeah, yeah, there you go. It looks like a little like a cartoon bomb. You know, it's like black circule circle. I'm wondering if that's what the kid had it's squite.

I guess it would be. It could be possible that there would be a bomb that would be like triggered with bluetooth like to you know, explode, and that's why they got freaked out. Mm hmm yeah, and they just they were like, ah, we don't have to change the name. It's easier this way, so we know which one it is. I mean, I think the bigger faux pas is that you even had your bluetooth speaker powered on on a flight. What are you gonna use it for? You? You need to keep your shit to yourself. You are not sharing this unless you're playing this podcast.

You could play this over a Bluetooth speaker on an airplane. I'm giving you permission, but not legal permission, just moral permission. But but that's that's tough. I don't know. Do you think that that was a a not the not a wise move the the bluetooth speaker, But do you think it was a wise move to turn the plane around because there was a Bluetooth thingy that said bomb? I think you basically just gotta just in cases. But I'm sure all the passengers except for that one kid pissed the fuck off of that kid. Oh god, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, see I would have if it were me, I would have been like, please just take us to my ORCA.

I don't want to die in New Jersey. I don't know how many times. I have to say it over and over. Don't let me die in New Jersey. I'm not going to die today, not in New Jersey, but damn. Yeah. I was really worried that it was gonna be something stupid. When it said four letter word, I was like, oh gosh, don't tell me they like did it because of a swear word? Now bomb, yep, that's four letter word. Yeah, so before we take a break, you were going to say something. Yeah, a couple of months ago, I don't know, did you hear about the plane that like it's landing gear, like came down on the highway near Newark and like hit a truck.

I think I did hear about that. Yeah, I don't know. I just didn't know what you heard about. Oh, Newark Airport. I only had to fly out of you once and it was that was enough. It's scary, though, because if you take the turnpike right there, the planes look so low and we're always afraid that one of them is going to hit us. And then it hit one really did hit a truck. Yeah, I'm glad I don't live so close to write Patterson Air Force Base that I feel like the planes are dangerously close. Although there are times because there are always like military transports like all the time over me where you'll see one and be like, is that a really really really big one or is it really low?

Yeah? And the best part is you never get to find out. Yeah. I mean, actually that is the best part because that means they didn't, like, you know, crash or something. Yeah, yeah, hooray. Although apparently there's an app you can pull up to like find out what airplanes are flying over you. But I'm not an air force nerd or an air airplane nerd, so I don't do that. Yeah, my sister is one of her ex boyfriends used to do that. I mean he he was becoming a pilot, so I think that was okay. But yeah, and she was like too successful for me.

I need, I need, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta become like a dirt farmer. So I don't know why I said dirt farmer really exactly. Well, we're gonna take a quick break and uh and uh, give you guys a chance to charge your bomb portable bluetooth speaker. I kind of want to buy one now. Yeah, just don't take it on a plane with. It on I mean, why would I want a portable speaker on an airplane anyway, But we're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, we're gonna talk about a an escaped wild animal in Texas that apparently no one can find.

No, sadly, I think that's New York. Well, good job, you keep teasing it though. That's good. It's gonna keep people around. Yeah, listen to these ads, all right, shell, I have a question for you, really, yes, So if you like, if if a zoo animal escaped you're shaking your head already, Yeah, it's like, no, if a zoo animal escaped, what zoo animal do you think would be the hardest to find, like like as far as like uh in Texas. Like some sort of exotic gecko. Okay, because they're small and they can kind of blend in and they're used to the heat.

Sure, yeah, okay, And what do you imagine would be the hardest to find? I thought that's what we were doing. Okay, fine, I'll just I'll just jump. In the hardest to find or. Sorry, the hardest to lose? Sorry, Oh, like a like a like a giraffe. Maybe nan Chel's been on a winning street today Huffington Post escaped giraffe named Gracie on the loose in Texas and no one can find her? Why not? That was my when I saw this headline. That was my response to how can you not find it? A giraffe named Gracie is missing in Texas and the search for her has become a tall order.

Gracie, who was about three years old, has been missing for nearly two weeks after escaping her enclosure at the Cedar Hollow Ranch in the Texas Hill count Country, said Vic Jones, who owns the remote property about one hundred miles west of San Antonio. He said Wednesday that Gracie had wandered into a part of the private Leonned preserve that other giraffes previously avoided. Ooh, do you think it was like haunted or something like? The girafts were like, we don't want to. Mess with that, I assume, So why else would they not want to go somewhere? What do you think scares giraffes?

Do you think like they see visions of like giraffes but with regular necks, and it just like chills them to the bone. They're like, never mind, don't want to be over there. That would probably do it. Honestly, that would be terrifying. I feel like it would scare me to see a giraffe with a regular length of neck. Yeah. Do you You had that apartment in West Philly mm hm that had the window in the in the bathroom that was like really really really high up. Yeah. And I remember the first time I ever took a shower there, I looked up and I just imagined that giraffes had popping and it's so it just seemed bizarrely high up.

I thought it was perfectly high up. Oh. I mean I actually really liked that apartment, but good apartment. Yeah, but it just it just seemed funny how tall the ceiling was, and then that there was a window all the way up there. And it makes sense though, because it let the you know, the uh I was gonna say vapor, which is correct, the steam. It would let the steam out and stuff. But I just remember, I always imagine, like, hello, just a giraffe. But it is it is weird that they can't find the giraffe. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of weird.

They're pretty big. Yeah. Jones said he has sent up helicopters to look for Gracie. A few sightings have trickled in and a five thousand dollars reward is on the table. I feel like you should raise that reward to save face, because the longer you're the guy who can't find a giraffe in Texas, the worse it looks for you. Yeah. I appreciate that this is from a preserve and not like a zoo or something like that. It's a place where they're supposed to be healthy and happy, but still lost. The giraffe, I don't know, have all the all the like animals.

Just I feel like giraffe and elephant, you're not gonna lose those. Yeah, yeah, you think so, but I guess not. Maybe it's hiding in a forest somewhere with lots of trees so they can't find it. Yeah, until it eats. It eats its way through enough that you can spot it, you know, like, hey, there it is. Man. You gotta put an air tag on your giraffes collar, you know, you gotta. But the giraffe, which stands roughly the height of a tree, hasn't turned up. Quote. She wound up going up and feeding in an area on the hillside and the rocky ledges that none of the other drafts giraffes had ever gone on before, Joan said, And when she came down off of there, she came down on the wrong side of the gate.

Ah, poor giraffe or the giraffe was like, I'm gonna get my music career started. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to do what my parents did and just eat eat leaves off of branches. I would to be like my cousin he worked at Toys r US. The ranch is in rural Real County where it's roughly I don't know if I believe that the county is real now, because it's called Real County. I don't and it's spelled real r e L. Wow. Yeah, I don't believe it either. Yeah, where it's roughly two thousand, seven hundred residents were put on alert to be on the lookout for a missing giraffe.

I if I got that alert, I'd be like what, Yeah, yeah, Granton, I live in the suburbs, so that's extra weird. But like I guess, if you live in a town that small, everybody who knows about the guy who keeps. Giraffes mm hmm yeah. Yeah, so it's like, oh no, when of the drafts got out again. The worst thing would have been if the diraff had escaped on April first. So they put out the alert like be on the lookout for an escaped giraffe, and they'd be like right, okay, and then they would just be like in their front yard watching a giraffe like break their car, like stepping on it, and be like whatever you say, you just go back inside.

Yeah. Jones said the search area is extremely remote and the likelihood of Gracie encountering any humans is low. Quote, people are not in danger of her because she's not around people. Joan said, She's out in very, very rough, heavily wooded lands. Are giraffes usually dangerous to people? I didn't think so, but maybe they are really big and there things are dangerous to people in general. Are giraffes dangerous to people? Girafts are not naturally aggressive or predatory to humans, but they are incredibly large wild animals that can cause serious or fatal harm if they feel threatened.

Is that an AI summary? Yeah, So what it means is they eat us. Yeah, it actually means The Texas Hill Country has one of the largest concentrations of exotic captive animals in the county country. Real County Sheriff Nathan Johnson said the mild climate and rugged terrain seems to serve as a good stand and for most of the animal's native environments. He rattled off the list of animals that have gone missing over the years, especially after floods, but said this was his first giraffe. Yeah. I feel like you'd remember, you know. Yeah. Quote, I've had willed to beasts, I've had water buffalo, I've had monkeys, I've had zebras, all go missing.

Johnson said, sometimes we recover them and sometimes we don't. Geese, while the middle of Texas is not a giraffe's native environment, Jones said Gracie should be able to find plenty of leaves and other vegetation to eat. He said other animals were not likely to bother her. I think that's very fair. Just a warthog sees that. It's like, never mind, I'm going to go over here now. Yeah. Joanes said he had initially had helicopters searching an area of seventy seven five hundred acres with no luck. A few days later, there was a report that Gracie was spotted to the south, but by the time they could search the area, Jones said, she was already gone.

Quote, we're all always two three days late for where the information is coming from, so that makes it tough, Joan said. Get faster information, I don't understand. Yeah, and a faster helicopter. Yeah, it takes two to three days to get everything mobilized. What's going on, guys? Oh, by the way, the real county sheriff has a handlebar mustache, so rock on, sir, yay, he looks like an old timey sheriff. Wow, a little bit, I mean, not like comically, but well, I hope Gracie the giraffe has found well me too. This article is only a day old of when we're reading it, so it's like this just happened.

Animal stuff. Man, there's always something weird happening with animals. Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that they should let her be outside in grace and not take her back. But you know, I think that everybody's just in denial of the fact that she's obviously heading to Austin, like everybody else seems to be. Everyone's moving to Austin. Yeah, we're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, I'm going to talk about a brand new sourdough bread recipe, oh right after this. So apparently it's possible Chell already heard about this new sourdough bread. Did did?

Did? Did you hear about this? I think so? But maybe how many? How many news articles are you getting about sourdough bread in your in your day to day? Like a lot of them? Yeah? And I want I want in your algorithm. Yeah, that's just what I get. Sourdough bread rests. Well. This is from the Guardian. The headline is and this is one that definitely gave me pause. Scientists make sourdough bread using yeast found in a five thousand year old mummy. Yeah was this what you heard about? I think so? Yeah, Yeah you think so?

It could have been Yeah, it could have been anything. There's a lot of mummies. I don't know. Scientists have baked a sour dough loaf of bread using yeast strains harvested from a five thousand year old mummy and now planned to see if they can use them to brew beer too. That's where I I mean, where would you head with it? You know? I mean, like, I don't really like beer, so probably not there, but yeah, totally go for it, guys. Sure, if ever there was a true manifestation of doctor Malcolm from Jurassic Park, everybody was so busy wondering if they could they never stopped to wonder if they should exactly kind of what's going on here?

Yeah? Now, but the real question is would you eat the sour dough bread? Would you have a bite? Sure? Okay, yeah, it's just yeast. Little butter or like on it? Or what are you thinking? Well? I mean definitely some butter on it. Butter or margarine. I mean I prefer butter if possible, but margarine. Maybe since this is really special, maybe I could have some like jam on it too, on the butter. Yeah, like jam made from like like ancient monster. I mean maybe not an ancient monster, but some sort of ancient creature. Definitely. Okay, okay, all right, see you're adventurous.

Yeah. The yeast came from Atzi the Iceman, a famous corpse remarkably preserved by being frozen in alpine ice near the Italy Austria border until he was discovered in nineteen ninety one. I don't know why I mean, he's been there for thousands of years, five thousand years. But the idea that they discovered him in nineteen ninety one and just now made bread from the youth makes makes it weirder to me. I'm like, I'm like, oh man, it's old. Yeah, it's really old, but it feels old. Yeah, Like that's weird, guys. It's a little strange. Yeah, that's the only part of this that's strange.

Asi has been the subject of intense study since he was found, and has shed much light on prehistoric European people and their way of life. Oh I'm I'm really curious why this happened at all and why it was anybody's idea. I don't know. So scientists have been recently studying the micro organisms preserved in and on Azi's remains or Utsi's sorry, Utzi's there's an umlat utzis. One unexpected result of that work was the researchers extracted yeast and then used it to make sour dough bread. Unexpected result like did they accidentally make sourdough bread? Like what they were?

Just like we have all this flour and all the ingredients for sourdo bit bread, just sitting here, and then all of a sudden, the yeast just got it and they were like, oh no, and then they like mixed it up trying to get the yeast down. Then they're like, wait, is this gonna be bread? Now? Well, we may as well see what happens. Put it in the oven. Yeah, we're all losing our grants. Yeah. Are you a sour dough bread person? I like sourdough b read. Yeah. What's your favorite bread? I have a favorite bread.

Really? Yeah, you said that so sadly, like you're not allowed to have one. Yeah, I don't know. The guy told me no, yeah, the bread guy. Yeah, yeah, cord order something. Quote. Eventually we obtained a completely normal dough that rose within twenty four hours, basically just like with ordinary yeast. We made some really good dough with it. Why you made it weird? Microbiologist Mohammad Sarhan, who had said that in a statement on the website Iraq Research, where he works for the Institute for Mummy Studies. They were probably really pleased that you made bread, So you were trying so hard to like eventually come up with the bread recipe.

That word yeah, quote, I've never baked bread before and it showed so the result definitely had room for improvement. But as I said there, these were our very first experiments. Sarhan added, now homemade beer could also be on the menu, because why wouldn't it be. I guess quote, we want to pursue this further and involve specialized research teams from the food sector in the process. Bread is currently one of the obvious applications we're considering. Another is beer. We've already discussed this with experts from the German brewer Vayan Stefan. He said, Okay, what I don't understand is what is the Like, is there a reason that this should be done?

I don't think so. Like, it's not like we don't have yeast. It's not like we're ever gonna like run out of yeast and like, so I don't really understand why, except that they could do it. And I wish I could just get paid to just make bread out of yeast from old things. I mean, I guess that the idea is like that it might help them understand what yeast was like a long time ago. I guess I'm just saying. I mean, like, couldn't you just look at the yeast and study it and see how it compares to the yeast that you know in the present, and then that would be good.

Yeah. Yeah, But then I guess, you know, chuckleheads like us wouldn't be talking about it. That's true. The harvested yeast are harvested yeasts only live in cold conditions, so are believed to have entered Outsi's body at some point after he died. Genetic analysis suggested they entered his body relatively soon after death, So this is interesting. Ootsi has long been the focus of fascination. His body preserves the oldest tattoos ever discovered, with a total of sixty one markings. Cool. There is also huge interest in how he died high up in the mountains in an icy wilderness about five three hundred years ago, because he appears to have been shot in the back by an arrow in what is often described as one of the world's oldest cold case murders.

Wow, hot cold case. He was frozen. Yeah. The fact that they're like, we now, can we make beer? We're talking to the I guess the excitement I think I'm trying to like put myself in this. I think the excitement comes from just the idea that it's actually yeast from five thousand years ago. So just the fact that it can do things yeast does is very exciting. I mean, that's what I'm guessing. The point is, I guess. So, I mean, the thing is it's only yeast from five thousand years ago for like a little while, and then it's not anymore because probably gets more yeast than things and it dies and it has little babies.

I don't know how yeast works. I'm not hugely familiar with yeast myself, but I just think it's faster. Like, we're really excited. We talked to a brewery about making beer from it. I'm like, cool, yeah, thanks, sure, guys, Yeah, yeah, you're gonna talk about. This in like a couple hundred years and be like people are really weird then. And the dead body. Yeah, I mean bread whatever. I'm glad we're all ai now anyway. Yeah, we don't do stuff like that. Ah, the Singularity. We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about photos that reveal strange sea creatures right after this.

All right, So we're heading now deep under the ocean, and I don't feel like I have a lot of knowledge of your feelings on deep sea life. Shell it's usually very cute. That's that's what I got. You don't think they get kind of weird when you get really deep in the ocean. They're so cute though, and they have like lots of teeth and. They but that's just the more to smile at you, exactly. And the day can't see because it's so dark, so they glow. And stuff, and the or they just don't have eyes because they're like why bother.

Exactly or something. And they're just super cool. And they can live with lots and lots of pressure, which is pretty cool. I mean, so can I. But nobody's ever going, wow, you live under so much pressure? Fine, wow, you live under so much pressure. Thank you. Of course I recognize you. I know what's happening. Oh you're too nice. Well this is from vox dot com and the headline is photos reveal strange sea creatures that scientists had never seen before. Yeah, they're down. And scientists say they found more than one thoy one hundred new marine species over the last year, emphasizing how unexplored the ocean really is.

Yeah, have you heard about uh? I think it's Peter Teel, the billionaire investor. He's going like super all in on. I heard this somewhere, as I haven't fact checked it or anything, that he's like going all in on data center is being built in the ocean. I did not hear that. No, that's I heard that. It could have been a rumor or it could be real. It sounds like something that you know they would try. But that way they can use the natural like cooling of the ocean and blah blah blah blah blah. I don't know if that's gonna work.

But well, I mean, I mean it's it's just a thought because they're already like workers in the ocean and they build stuff in the ocean already, So it's not like it's impossible as long as you can get you know, good data infrastructure and you've got those underground. I mean, you've got those underwater cables with all the Internet and so I guess you can just kind. Of yeah, so it definitely seems, you know, more reachable than putting them in space at least anytime soon. Yes, that's true. So yeah, but the ocean is is a vast and strange place.

Shelle I'm gonna show you my screen so you can see some of these creatures. You probably think that's cute fish. I want to see more of him, like a like a front view of him. Well I don't. I don't think that that's an option. Well, then I don't know for sure if he's cute. Wow, I think he's cute. I had a feeling you might. Ah. So uh. It lives in a glass castle deep under the sea. It's not a character from The Little Mermaid, but a very real, very mysterious marine worm known as a dal husiela yabuki.

The worm resides inside a glass sea sponge, a simple marine animal that forms a glass like skeleton in the cold, dark waters off the coast of Japan. And it's just one of a massive trove of marine animal species that scientists say they recently discovered. What do you think is that cute or not cute? It's kind of cute. It kind of looks like a little bit like like a like a centipede or something. Yeah, little things coming out of it. Yeah, red and stuff. And it's sort of Japanese, which makes you happy. Yeah. This week, the Ocean Census, a project that is set out to accelerate the discovery of sea life, announced that it had found one twenty one previously unknown ocean species since last April.

That marks a massive jump in and the number of newly discovered marine species in a single year, according to Oliver Steed's, director of the Ocean Census, a joint mission of the UK based nonprofit Nectin in Japan's largest philanthropic organization, the Nipon Foundation. Some of the other newly found creatures include fish, rays, sponges, and soft corals. Though it may seem that Earth is already largely explored, the vast majority of animal species on Earth, perhaps as many as ninety percent of them remain undiscovered. Ninety percent sounds a little high, but I could be it could I could go either way.

It could be true. I think I think it's true. There's just but there's a lot of water. That's true. I mean the ocean, especially the deeper you get, it's just impossible to see it all. I mean, eventually, yeah, maybe quote this is really a planetary blind spot, said Steve's who also who's also the founder and chief executive of Nectin. The Ocean Census, which launched three years ago, is trying to close the gap in the marine realm by exploring remote ocean regions with the help of high tech submersibles and taxonomists, and to that end, this large batch of species is an important step forward with one large caveat.

While the search for life beyond what was it? What? Oh? What's the large Well. Now I'm not going to tell you. Oh damn. Yeah. Patience is a virtue, while the search for life beyond Earth has been a magnetic, a magnet for public attention. Missions like the Ocean Census reveal that there is a lot we still don't know about life on our home planet, much of which looks pretty darn alien. Ooh yeah, Chell's looking at the small ribbon worm. Most critters that the expeditions revealed are pretty small, like this striking ribbon worm shell. You would agree, you'd call that ribbon worm striking, right.

I think it's pretty striking. I can't tell what's going on with his. Head, yeah, or which one is its head? I think the one with the thing is its head. Yeah, but it might not be. You don't know. Yeah, it's true. Found in the waters near timor Leste in Southeast Asia. The worm's bright colors may be a signal to predators that it produces defensive toxins. According to a press release announcing the new findings, such toxins may be useful in drug development. Scientists have previously investigated chemicals produced by similar worms to treat cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

Hmm. I want to mention, by the way, this is why I always say, like, I can appreciate people who want who like believe in nature as like, you know, being like a naturropath. They're like, oh, but the solution everything is in nature, okay. But nature wants us to be dead. Nature wants us to be dead so badly that they'll give you an ailment and be like, well, if you can find this one worm at the bottom of the ocean on the other side of the planet, you can be cured. Yeah, yeah, just saying, you know.

Remarkably, the discovery effort also uncovered larger animals, which have likely managed to evade detection because they live at such great depths and in less explored regions. The most charismatic among them is perhaps the new species of ghost shark that scientists found off the coast of Australia. Though distantly related to sharks and rays, ghost sharks are not actually sharks at all, but chimeras or chimeras, how you wanna say, A deep sea chimeras a deep sea fish with a skeleton made of cartilage instead of bone. So this is the one you were looking at that you weren't sure if it was cute because you need to see it head on.

Now that I'm looking at it again, I love it. Oh do you love it? Because now you know what's a ghost shark? No? I love its eye for some reason. I think it's really cute. Okay. In the same region, scientists also found unknown species of ray. Would you call that a cute ray? Yeah? I think it's pretty good. I mean I've seen Raisa look kind. Of like that before, and an unfamiliar example of what's known as a cat shark. They're bottom dwellers with slender bodies, and some of them apparently have a feline appearance. The writer notes, I'm not seeing it in this particular fish, which was found deep underwater in.

Australia, good because I also don't see it. Yeah, I don't really see it looking like a feline much either. No other than it appears disinterested in having its photo taken. Mmmm, it is on. It looks like it's dead. Maybe where is it? It's dead? Yeah, that's why it's disinterested, if. You say so. Always defending them. But we're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, we'll look at some more deep sea creatures and have Michelle rate them as cute or not cute right after this. All right, Michelle, you ready to rate some more deep sea creatures as cute or not cute?

Sure? All right? Uh, as I mentioned, we're on vox dot com. Then there are animals that don't look like animals at all, like this unfamiliar sea sponge found in the South Atlantic, not far from Antarctica, belonging to a group of animals known as the ping pong ball sponges. I guess I see the resemblance. I guess Ooh. This animal is carnivorous and uses those balls, which are covered in tiny velcrow like hooks, to entrap unsuspecting prey drifting by, such as small crustaceans. That's me. It looks like a like a bunch of little balloons stuck to a thing.

I guess I still think it looks like grapes. Okay, but is it cute? That's what's most important. I like crapes, so yes. So yes, okay. Also in the South Atlantic, scientist you don't like that. No, I like it a lot. Oh my gosh, it's just this. She just likes all of it. Man, And I'm gonna try and show you this. Let's see. What's happening. Just mind your own business. I'm confused. It's fine, you're fine. Nothing's happening. Oops. I messed everything up. Why did I? I decided to do this. Okay, it's fine, it's fine. I broke it.

You can just say it. I ruined it. It's okay. Oh. Also in the South Atlantic, scientists found an unknown variety of sea pen, a kind of soft coral, more than twenty six hundred feet below surface. Like you're like, wow, it's really cool. It looks kind of like a feather, like a like a duster, but upside down. Yeah, it's it's kind of salmon colored, although that might be inappropriate to say, you know, since the sea creature. Yeah, oh, this is interesting. It's not one individual animal, but a colony of thousands of genetically identical polyps. Soft bodied creatures with tentacles.

Oh like it as much now, Oh. Because it's a bunch of them. Yeah. Does that bother you that it's a bunch of little things? Yeah, a little man. I get that. Yeah, I get that. It's okay. I guess it's okay. Pow. We'll get through it. We'll get through it together. But let's see. The announcement from Ocean Census says that scientists quote discovered more than eleven hundred new species in a single year. But those words must be taken with a grain of salt. Yeah, uh oh, fact check. Yeah. Proving that a species is new to science is difficult.

It typically requires that taxonomists comb through existing museum collections and academic literature to demonstrate that, based on anatomical, genetic, or other traits, what they have has not been documented before. I would have thought you could. Just google it, yeah, or like look it up online in the big resource center where you have all the animals in the ocean. I would hope that most of the stuff has been captured, and it's not like every time you have to go to all these museums all over the world, like every time. Maybe that's how they stay open, though, that's fair.

They can then submit their evidence for peer review in publication, the typical process through which a species is formally described and officially named, thus becoming a new species. Many of the discoveries announced by the Ocean Census, however, have not yet gone through that level of due diligence and have not been formally described. According to Greg Raus, a marine taxonomist at the Script's Institute of Oceanography, that means it's not clear that all of those species are in fact new to science. Okay, I like this to think this article is just like, now, slow your role. This isn't that cool.

This might not be this might be not great, this might not. Even be worth reporting on it all. Yeah, as I'm writing this up. Yeah, as the Ocean Census points out in its announcement, the time between collecting a species and formally describing it as new takes about thirteen years on average. It's not new anymore. I feel like I feel like that's a really long time. I feel like you gotta speed that process up. Yeah. Geez, that means some ant Oh my gosh, they literally said what I was about to joke. That means some animals could go extinct before they're even described in scientific literature.

Wow. Quote, But that thirteen years is there for a reason, said Rause, who isn't involved in the Ocean Census project. Formally describing and naming a species not only confirms that it's new, but also makes the species easier to study and conserve, such as through laws that protect named endangered species. I mean a lot of these aren't in much danger that far underwater. I don't feel like people are going to be going after them. I mean, although I mean Michelle Mike, she wants to pet them all. They're not gonna let me pet them, but you. That doesn't mean you can't try, I guess.

And she's getting really bummed out now, is it because they'll never let you pet them? I mean that? And they're not new species? Probably, And it's going to take thirteen years every time you find a new. To find out that your excitement was pointless and you're just the uneducated swine exactly. Yeah, checks out quote. The formal description process carries out the actual work to confirm novelty and provides the passport for that new species, said Tommy Horton, a research scientist the UK's National Oceanography Center. Without this, the formally recognized name the species effectively does not exist for science and therefore also for policy.

Karen Osborne, a taxonomist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, similarly expressed skepticism about the announcement. Discovery alone is not enough, said Osborne, who's not directly involved in the Ocean census. Quote, I don't feel like saying, oh, look, we discovered something new. Should be given the status of something being described until you've actually done the work to show that it's something unique, Osborne said. But she said it's a step in the right direction. Chel's been making all kinds of like you're given like a kind of snooty like, oh yeah. It's just like it's like, oh, I don't think this is important.

Thanks guys, thanks for telling me about all this stuff that's not important. I really appreciate it. I I mean, yeah, if there's one thing that the Ocean Census' findings are helping reveal with absolute certainty, it's that so much of the planet's biodiversity remains a mystery that is exciting and hopeful. I mean maybe unless we've already discovered it. Unless they're all yeah, we just we just like dig into the actual eleven hundred and there's just like a like a dog, and like a squirrel and then like a goldfish, and we're like, what is this? What all of this is?

Yeah, they're like, oh no, sorry, we actually already disproved that album was found before. Yeah. Sorry, yeah, sorry, sorry, but the ghost sharks in there. You're like, oh, man, quote, I would love for people to know how much we don't know about how much is out there, Osborne said, we've barely scratched the surface on understanding our world. Well, considering you know, it's thirteen years each. I mean you're talking about like millennia to confirm all of these species. So maybe that's why it's taken so long. It seems like we don't even understand not our world, but what we understand.

We don't even know what we know. You'd think they could catalog it to make this easier. Yeah, So that's what my job is now. I have to catalog all of the species. Okay, Shell, is that your way of saying you got to leave the show right now? That is my way of saying, to get with bye forever. Buy for a minimum of thirteen years well, we're going to take a break and when we come back, if Shell hasn't actually run off to investigate animal species, we're going to finally talk about the cocktri cockroach thing. Yeah.

I made everybody wait, but hopefully it's worth the wait. I don't guarantee anything right after this. All right, Shell, we're back with the Huffington Post. The headline is cockroach kingpin caught with one hundred thousand illegal insects in record bug bust. Oh. I think I understand. I hope so. I mean that was all English, but wouldn't you know what We're back in Australia. Oh, I don't really understand as much anymore. Well, I mean, it's not poison mushrooms, but it'll have to do in Wellington, New Oh, it's sorry, Wellington News. Wait. Oh, the AP's coming from New Zealand.

It is in Australia. More than one hundred thousand live cockroaches. More than one hundred thousand live cockroake cockroaches illegal to keep in Australia were confiscated from a single breeder in the country's largest ever seizure of exotic invertebrates, officials said on Friday, Apparently there is quite a black market for cockroaches. I assume they're like the big ones, like the hissing cockroaches, not like cockroaches, which. Means the literal. Next line, the hall of Madagascar hissing cockroaches and Dubia cockroaches worth two hundred thousand Australian dollars. Okay, so there's money to be made in this. Yeah. Was seized in May from a commercial breeder in the city of Bathurst and New South Wales State, according to Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water.

Okay, so. Wait, so I mean if they have a cash value, does that mean you can buy them? Well, maybe the cash value is on the black market, but that's. Like can you even claim that then? Like, I mean, I guess you can. They do that with drugs, but yeah, they do with drugs all the time. Yeah, I guess you're right. The Madagascar hissing species is one of the biggest cockroaches, measuring two to three inches in length. It's pretty big for cockroach. I guess. I mean, well, you lived in Philly, so I guess the cockroaches were like impressive.

I thought so, and I lived in Florida's and I know what the cockroaches look like there too. You. Photos released by the department showed a shiny brown invertebrate larger than a person's finger. It's much bigger than the country's common Australian cockroach, which measures between point nine and one point four inches. Oh they're small, yeah, which is surprising because Australia is always like the most terrifying of everything, like everything wants to kill you in Australia. I mean, I mean, I'm not making that up. I mean to be to be fair. I find small cockroaches much scarier than large cockroaches, so it's still kind of scary to me.

You know, the movie creep Show, they had a whole thing with cockroaches, like this crazy cockroach segment in the movie Creep Show, and they filmed it at a I think it was a university is where they built the sets, and they absolutely couldn't keep the cockroaches they had bred under control, and supposedly, to this day, like they find cock like that specific breed of cockroach that wasn't like normal to that area, they still find them in the school. God, that's terrible. I mean, unless they're the Madagascar hissing cockroaches and it's fine. I don't know if they were those.

They were definitely like an unusual, more cinematic looking cockroaches. Okay, that's fine, I don't care. Cockroaches flourish in Australia due to its subtropical climates, and the country is home to hundreds of species. Wow. Bathurst snake catcher Stephanie Lesser told the Australian Broadcasting Core that the larger exotic species were like being sold as a cost effective reptile food because their large sizement, fewer insects were needed. Officials urged pet owners to seek out crickets or woodroaches to feed their lizards instead. They haven't. I guess they haven't mentioned that they're dangerous to here, but they're going to because I was gonna say, like, I mean, why wouldn't you want bigger cockroaches?

Yeah, I guess they're an invasive species. Or potentially invasive. Both Madagascar hissing and Dubia cockroaches are illegal to import into Australia. They can't be kept legally, bread or sold, no matter how they were obtained, The Department said in a statement. Australia has strict biosecurity controls at its borders to protect its agriculture and horticulture sectors and native wildlife from pest infestations. Those smuggling in undeclared or illegal animal, insect or plant material can be fined thousands of dollars. Yeah. Do you think they saw that episode of The Simpsons? Where was it the rabbit or what was it or the frog that Bart like brought some animal there and it just it took over the entire continent, like in a week.

I don't know. Okay, fine, you need to know the Simpsons. You're you're a millennial. No you need to know. No, No, I'm trying to help you. No, No, it's over. I'm done. Okay, just go back to talking about in you Yasha or whatever you were into when you were a kid. I was, Oh, I make you mad? No, but I like didn't watch any Yasha id. Oh God, that's worse. You read it. That's way worse. That's so much worse. Sorry. Exotic cockroaches quote have not been subject to an environmental risk assessment and they could spread disease or harm native wildlife.

The statement said officials warned of prosecutions against those caught with invertebrates. So that's weird that they haven't, Like they don't even know that they would be bad for the environment. They just don't want them. Yeah, I mean I get that, But like, also, what I'm failing to understand is, why wouldn't this person who's like breeding all these cockroaches, why not just breed the woodroaches that they said that you could. Feed the Probably because it's inefficient. Some people just want to do the better way and the government and it gets in their way. I guess I get it.

But the cockroaches are pretty I think, pretty prolific, so would I would think it would work out for them? Man? Maybe? Oh well, this is the part that makes this article really weird. The last line. A spokesperson said charges were not laid against the Bathurst breeder, So the guy wasn't charged, okay for having like one hundred thousand illegal cockroaches. Wow, the cockroaches were seized and would be euthanized the department, Oh, one. Hundred thousand just gone yep, just because we don't know if it would be okay to bring it in the country or not. Why don't they just send them back to Madagascar.

I feel like that's well, I don't know how many. I don't know how much one hundred thousand cockroaches Madagascar cockroaches. How much space that takes up? I don't think very much. Probably not much. Yeah, I mean you could just look into it. But I guess they're trying to protect big cockroach in Australia. Yeah, you know, they're like, why not breed our Australian cockroaches. It's like, well, because these get bigger, so they're better for lizards to eat. Uh huh No, no, no, just puts all the other cockroach companies out of business if you do that. Yeah, our local cockroaches, our mom and pop cockroach shops.

You can't be doing that. Yeah. Well, we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna dive into a haunted house for sale, because Michelle loves her some houses. Right after this? All right, sochell. This article is actually from real litter dot com. Oh wow, and the headline is Haunted Civil War era Octagon mansion hits the market in Virginia for less than three hundred thousand dollars after being left vacant for the first time in years. I hoped it was less three hundred. In this market. That's low, though. I mean, depending on where it is in Virginia.

Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine that there's many places in Virginia where a place I mean, I guess, what's the square footage? Is what I need to know. Yeah, you know, like maybe it's maybe it's not very big. Oh no, it's nine eight hundred and two square feet. Okay, that's a really good price. Oh nope, this is Nope, that's a different thing. God, it's always trying to get us to read new stuff. Yeah, they're showing other listings at the bottom. Who would have thought real ortor dot COM's goal would be to sell you a house.

Yeah, but it's a cute looking house, isn't it? Uh huh. Located in Withville, Virginia, the historic abode, which is known as the Octagon Mansion, was built in eighteen seventy and has been the subject of multiple paranormal investigations in more recent years, many of which were documented on its Facebook page. That's nice, I guess. I mean it's a way to keep people interested. I suppose. Okay, it's six bedrooms, two and a half baths, five thousand square feet. Okay, that's a very reasonable price for five thousand square feet. Yeah. I was say, my house is is like, you know, about a thousand square feet, and now they're saying it's almost worth two hundred thousand dollars, which is insane to me.

Yeah, so. I feel like two ninety five, and you're seeing these pictures, like the interior looks pretty nice. There's pink wall, which is hard. It's hard to tell because a lot of times, even if you see nice interior pictures, they're just like not showing you like the big hole in the ceiling. Yeah, oh drop ceilings in there in the hallways a little well, but I get it though, because it's like a very business like what do you call it, Like a very business like gazebo or landing or whatever you call it. I guess like it looked more like you were going into a place to buy something to me.

However, from twenty nineteen it was also home to the Octagon Mansion History Museum, a project started by curator John Cushman after he purchased the dwelling that same year, after it had sat vacant for close to a decade. However, in March of twenty twenty five, the museum, which operated regular Dinner with a Ghost events, was shuttered for good. No, the dwelling is now seeking a new steward with enough gumption to take on a property with such an eerie yet rich history. And that's you, Michelle Ray. I mean I've lived there. Yeah, I don't care. I don't care.

Octagon homes rose to popularity during the eighteen fifties and eighteen sixties, when designers began creating the eight sided abodes out of the belief that they would offer additional space for less money. I don't know that that's how octagons actually work, but I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. I really don't. However, the oh Wait in eighteen forty eight book The Octagon House, A Home for All by Orson Fowler, was even dedicated to espousing the benefits of living in a dwelling that had twice as many sides as traditional homes. I love that that's their thing.

They're like, we can have more sides. Yeah, that'll make everything easier. Oh, does your house have four walls? What are you a grandpa? This ain't your Granddaddy's house. This has doubled the walls for double the badass. I don't know how they market it is twice as many sides. However, the fad was short lived, and within a few decades the Octagon House had fallen out of favor, and many of these properties built during the height of their popularity were later demolished. Oh no, see now, Chell's like I have. To help them exactly geez. Today, just a few remain across the country, many of which can be found on the East Coast.

Hey, the Octagon Mansion serves as one of the more carefully preserved examples. In addition to its impressive heritage, the six bedroom property, which has crept its way to the top of the Week's Most Popular Homes list, has undergone a substantial remodel in the recent years that saw it's five thousand square foot interior outfitted with a commercial kitchen, updated bathrooms, and upgraded electrical systems. Oh yay man, having upgraded, upgraded kitchen, bathrooms, and electrical systems. And it's only three hundred it's under three hundred grand. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty nice. Yeah it is. And still many original details remain, including the original hardwood floors, custom built ins, and intricate millwork.

The property is located in a B two zoning, so it could be used to generate rental income as an event a venue, a bed and breakfast, or a mixed use space. Multiple entrances uniquely position the one of a kind property for a variety of uses. Yeah, and it's haunted. Maybe maybe I'm doubting it's haunted. But what do you think about the concept. I mean, you're a home inspector. I like to mention that in case people don't know, what do you think about octagon house instead of a square house? I mean, it's probably just really annoying, honestly.

I mean, like the kind of it's got to be less annoying than like a circle, like a dome or something house because. Because there's no corners. Yeah, at least you have like walls and sides and things. But I can't imagine it would be more you know when a fishion of a design, you know, because I just feel like it would be really difficult to have the rooms make sense. You gotta fit a bed against a wall and stuff like that. I mean it is. I do think it's a little a little unusual. That being said, I would totally live in a house that was octagon shaped.

Sounds fine, I believe that, Yeah, I don't. I don't see how it could actually be other than having more walls because of the corners, like having more corners, but you're not having any right angle corners. And I don't think corners are particularly useful usually. Wow, that's a little hateful. I mean they're a little useful, but most of the time the things are going on not in the corners, right, Okay, fine, maybe maybe corners are great. Corners are pretty dope, man. Whatever, Well, maybe you'll luck out and you'll get to inspect one. Maybe, I don't think.

Maybe probably not. No, well, there, I wanted at least have a little real estate for you, you know. Of course. Well, when we get back, we're going to talk about our subject or topic of the month, which is a pied piper mystery, because I've always found the concept of the pied piper really interesting and there's a lot of dark, weird stuff involving it too, So we're gonna get educated on the pied piper mystery right after this. All right, we're back, and Cell has agreed. We were talking about this during the break, has agreed to recount us with her favorite telling of the Pied Piper.

So, Michelle, no, you got it. I don't even know. There was like this person and then like he had like a thing pipe flute maybe yeah, sure, and then like you get all the kids and that's at the end. Wow. Uh you know. And I thought my bedtime stories were a bit efficient having a single mom, but wow, that was a go to bed door slam. Yeah. Well, the Pied Piper. I mean, like we've all heard versions of it on in movies, TV shows or from family members. But basically the idea, this piper comes along and he can play a pipe or a flute or whatever, and he can make like I think it was rodents.

It was like pests. He can make pests all follow him into the woods, and that was like the thing he could do. And people were so happy about him getting rid of the pests. But then I guess they refuse to pay him, hence the phrase you have to pay the piper mm hm. And because they didn't pay him, he did the same thing but took the children into the woods instead, which is pretty dark. Yeah, yeah, that's what you get. Yeah, I gotta pay people when they you enter a business contract with. Them, even a verbal one that counts.

Yeah, it does count. Yeah. Well this is from folklore Thursday dot com, written by a guy named al Ridenoir who has a podcast called Bone and Sickle, which I actually really like. It's a folklore podcast, huh. But he wrote this article and it's in titled a Pied Piper Mystery, and it kind of digs into the history and the concepts of the pied piper. And I've always liked this story. I don't know why. I think it's the simplicity, the idea that he could play the pipes and make like snakes or rats leave, and then he can play the pipes and just take all the children.

That's really scary. And supposedly based on a true story of some sort of some sort of some sort. Well that's folklore, though it's based on a story of some sort. Like the old lady who lived in a shoe. Well, there was an old lady and she lived in a house and if you squinted really hard, it might kind of look like shoe. I don't know that's the story, but that's where it came from, you know, folklore man. Eh. While the Pied Piper of Hamlin is undeniably a fairy tale, it's uniquely grounded in real world specifics.

The date for one, and this is one of the reasons I chose this the date of June twenty six, which is the Friday before this airs. So June. That's the date in twelve eighty four when the town lost a significant portion of its population, a matter treated as fact in the first written allusion to the incidents, The initial thirteen eighty four entry in Hamlin's town chronicle says, quote, it is one hundred years since our children left. Hmmm, what are you thinking? Thinking that I accidentally killed the little matt that was flying around my face? How'd you do that?

I just wanted him to go away, so I squeezed him and then he's drrible. Yeah. I didn't know you were that kind of person. I'm sorry. Well, geez, hopefully you never learn how to play a pipe. Yeah. Presumably the incident was so well known that it required no further explanation. It would have been familiar for what oh I said, Wow, how dare you? Yeah? It would have been famil from oral tradition and had already been represented in a window installed in Hamlin's Market Church in thirteen hundred, though the window was destroyed in sixteen sixty. A painting from fifteen ninety two reproducing the window confirms some of the earliest elements of this story, showing a piper and children heading toward what appeared to be a cleft in a mountain.

Oh, I do like how it's like when you're dealing with European history, there's a lot of those crazy jumps where it's like, anyway, let's jump to thirteen eighty four, Let's jump to twelve eighty four. You know, like, let's jump back. But then you know mentioning. A window was installed with a representation in thirteen hundred, but it got destroyed in sixteen sixty, but somebody painted it in fifteen ninety two. It's just I mean, that's a long period of time, like three hundred and sixty years that that window was up, So I guess somebody was like, that's cool, I'm gonna recreate it.

We know a few more details were fixed to the story by the sixteenth century, as they are painted on a gable of a building of that era that came to be known as the Piper's house. I think it's very strange that there's all these cryptic references in this little town. Yea, that are like really old references. Yeah. Yeah. It gives the number of children as one hundred and thirty. That's a lot of children. I think that is a lot of kids. Yeah, the loss occurred through a piper. It says one dressed in pied or multi colored clothing.

So I'm pied. Yeah, ah, I feel so cool. Now cool, I guess I always wonder what pied piper meant. Now I get it. Yeah, me too, I didn't know. Yeah, well, and it makes sense he's dressed in all these colorful clothes and entertained children. He led them off to quote cavalry near the hills. The allusion to Calvary, the site of Christ's crucifixion, has been taken as an allusion to a sort of fate or martyrdom. That's really creepy. Actually, Yeah, so it says the piper took one hundred and thirty kids to Calvary near the hills, and Calvary was the site of the crucifixion.

Yeah, that's that's actually really like I'm actually like disturbed. Yeah, because that's so cryptic. But yeah, yeah, yeah, but also. Like I get it now, and I get that they would get it then. Yeah. Some time after this inscription was created, the final element of the story appears, the plague of rats. Oh okay, I understand maybe, well, I. Mean, because Pied Piper was you know, got all the rats to leave town. In the story, at least a nutshell refresher on the story as it was finally consolidated. Hamlin is overrun with rats. A mysterious piper shows up, offering a fix for the right price.

The mayor agrees. The stranger plays his pipe to draw up the rats and steer them into the Wesser River to drown. The mayor renegs on payment, and the stranger leaves, only to return on June twenty sixth to lead the town's youth away into a cave in a mountain. So they but I mean, I get it. He renegged because like the rats were already drowned. So what is he gonna do undrowned the rats? Yeah, exactly, he's a bad person. For drowning the rats. No for for renegging eyes, I agree, promise, Yeah, I mean, I mean I like rats, but at this period of time, they were pretty bad news.

I wouldn't want the rats drowned, but I'm just gonna let that be in this case because I. Don't know fair enough, while we know the rats are merely an element of the storyteller's craft, because rats actually can swim quite well, that's a really good point. Although I guess he could have been like they could have been hypnotized to where they're just like walking into the water and just not doing anything. I guess that doesn't sound realistic. You're right, that's the one you poked, the one hole in this whole thing. The sober entry in the town chronicle and stained glass commemoration of the event only sixteen years after the fact, as well as the specificity of the gable inscription, all argue for a real world tragedy that calls for explanation.

So what answers have been proposed, Well, we'll get to that right after this quick break. So make sure you pay your piper, and by that I mean support a sponsor or something. I don't I like you anyway, right after this, so let's look at what answers have been suggested on the Pied Piper mystery. In Hamelin Hamelin, I think it's how I say it. One theory has to do with the plague. That was kind of what I was thinking with the rats here, the piper is simply a symbolic representation of the grim Reaper in reference to the plague.

Death was frequently represented as a musician in the dance macabre trope. Okay, I mean that's true. Yeah. Also, I mean if you meet magicians or magicians musicians, I could see them being Death. But the Black Death did not arrive in Europe until thirteen forty seven, which was fifty years after the incident. That surprises me. I really thought this was about the Black Plague. Yeah, yeah, thought it made sense. It's also been suggested that Hamlin's youth left to take part in the Children's Crusade, an effort to retake the Holy Lands not by warfare but by evangelizing presence of children.

However, the Children's Crusade was supposed to have happened in twelve twelve, not twelve eighty four. How or whether the Crusade happened at all is also subject to debate. Yeah, we are getting real far back. Yeah, Like I like that. It's not just like it could have been this thing, but also we don't know if that thing even happened. Yeah, yeah, and if it did, it probably happened in this time. But again we don't even know. Yeah this, yeah, because it still blows back. I really thought this was about the Black Plague, because there's so many folk tales and fairy tales and nursery rhymes that are all related to the Black Plague, which obviously, I mean, it affected a lot of people, so people would make art about it, Yeah, exactly.

I mean I would assume at least some of it might have been retroactively put on it, you know, later on, like when they were reinterpreting it. A more attractive theory relates to the relates the loss to the medieval dancing plague or dancing mania, a form of mass hysteria during which groups ranging from dozens to thousands were seized by an uncontrollable desire to dance or leap about wildly for days, weeks, or even months at a time, usually to the point of exhaustion and sometimes death. You seemed very knowing when you heard that. You heard of that before.

Yeah, yeah, you've heard of dance mania. I've heard of that yeah that yeah. Yeah, really, what do you know about it? I don't know, just like that it hap that like happened, and that it was probably mass hysteria. Okay, see, I lived through whole comania, but I made it, you know. Yeah, I know that was rough though for you it wasn't easy. This theory at least fits into the appropriate chronological window as the dancing mania afflicted mainland Europe, beginning in the eleventh century and lasting in some places into the early seventeenth, and it keeps the piper as a literal musician leading a sort of dancing procession out of the city.

Okay, I could see that. I guess you don't think that that holds water. No, I mean I guess I just did. Sure, Sure, I don't know. I feel like, but then what happened to these kids? They just they just danced, danced into the woods and never came back. Yeah, I mean that could be. I guess. I mean, you really seem to hate that theory. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I think you do know. Fine, Those overtaken by dancing mania were often said to travel while dancing. The Hamlin's story seems not so different from what happened in twelve fifty seven in the German town of Erfert, a couple of hours to the south.

There, it's reported that one thousand children left the town furiously dancing, leaping, and singing, traveling fifteen miles to the town of arnstackt Arnstadt. Most of them, however, did return. You would think, so, I don't. Know, I don't I mean, when I have dance Mania, it sounds like a video game that you like, like that was It sounds like a when your your town is too poor to have a dance Dance Revolution at the arcades, they have a dance Mania instead, and you're like, uh, it's it's just as good. And you're like, it isn't that. I'll play it anyway, yell.

Were you a DDR person a dance Dance Revolution person? No? No, no, I was not mean neither. Adherence to this theory suggests that, since the mania proved contagious, Hamlin might have hired a piper to lead the dancers beyond the city walls to prevent city wide infection. Okay, sure, I'm not gonna lie. I'm so fascinated by dancing mania. I just wrote it down to study it for terrifying and true, I really want to know more about dancing madia. That's bizarre to me. Uh, and the idea's contagious and like, I, I, what is this? That's yeah, but that's why I mean.

I want to know more about mass hysteria as well, just having trouble. Like, I understand that those are things, but I don't understand them. Okay, you know, yeah, perhaps it was conceived as some temporary measure, but some unexpected evil befell the children once they were removed. But the dancing mania itself is so little understood that it hardly feels like a rational answer to our question. One of the most widely accepted theories posits a mass emigration. This explanation understands the so called children of Hamelin metaphorically as those who belong to Hamlin. I think that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, I think so too, And that is a usage more common in Germany. It suggests that a generation of youths, young men, or young families left en Mass to seek their fortunes in more promising lands, namely Baltic regions to the northeast. The former Pomerania and East Prussia, Moravia or Morovia, sorry now Czech Republic or Transylvania, Romania. Oh so now I think we're getting to Dracula find. Yeah, yeah, the vampires, got it, got it. All of these areas were settled by German migrants during the period in question. The Grimm's version, which itself is supposed to have been synthesized from eleven earlier sources, explicitly mentions the last saying quote.

Some say that the children were led into a cave and that they came out again in Transylvania. There you go. Okay, okay. In the emigration scenario, our piper would have been the figure historically known as a lacatur a latinate coinage meaning relocators. These individuals were employed by nobility to recruit military, agricultural, agriculture and trade workers needing to colonize underpopulated or hostile areas under their rule. Okay, so now we're getting into government. Yeah now, but it's like sounding like, oh okay, it just went on to it a different place. Yeay, everything's fine. Yeah. Maybe the locator would have arrived as a stranger, perhaps in a foreign uniform, or brightly dressed to attract attention, and may have announced his presence in the town with musical fanfare.

The pipe playing of the folk tale could have thus been a sort of song and dance, likely to take in younger, gullible folk eager to enjoy the promised riches of these eastern lands. This last theory seems the most reasonable, but ascribing the piper's dress and music making to the locator, while interesting, maybe overburdening the theory a bit. Maybe. I mean, it doesn't sound like whatever it was. It sounds like if a locator came to their town, he was not a good dude like he sounds like he was kind of a charlatan who convinced them to go to convince everybody to leave their home, and clearly the home grieved it for a very long time.

Yeah. Yeah, the story is a folk tale after all, and the motif of enchanted music used to seduce mortals into another realm is a staple of fairy stories throughout Europe. It is like the element of the rats quite likely a bit of embroidery by storytellers steeped in lush lore. Yeah, I think that sounds pretty accurate. Yeah. That is interesting though. That so instead of a piper coming and stealing the kids, it was like basically a powerful representative of some lordship coming and being like, hey, you kids, want to go somewhere where it's like way cooler than here, Come with me.

Look, I have funny pants. In the early years of the story's evolution, the seductive music could also be most psychologically compelling. The most psychologically compelling element of the story healing wounds in a community that suffered this loss. Regardless of the cause of the tragedy through plague, children's crusade, dancing mania, or undane recruitment efforts, Ascribing this tragedy to an irresistible supernatural agency might relieve the sense of guilt of those remaining behind. Yeah, and for modern audiences, the magic piping does, after all, make for an engaging tale, one that's lived to mark it's seven hundred and thirty fifth anniversary at the time of this writing.

Wow. Yeah, to me, it sounds more like it's almost like, yeah, like I was saying, like it's grieving them all leaving. Yeah, that makes sense. So geez. Yeah, I never thought about like I always I always just assume because of the Rats. The Pied Piper was about the Black Death. I didn't have no idea about this. Yeah, I didn't really think about it at all. Honestly, Sorry, you don't think about folklore at all because where you grew up, nobody ever told any fun stories or anything. They nobody saw ghosts or heard about ghosts or anything.

Sure, I mean we didn't. We didn't. We weren't all folk glory like you are. But we saw definitely saw ghosts and stuff. Just where'd you see ghosts in my house? Okay? But what about big feet? No? See, I was from city people, when't tim? Oh, so now you're calling me a yokeel? Wow? Is everybody hearing this? Just a little geez? Well, we're gonna take a quick break and wrap up this month's episode of Monthly Spooky with some horror films I saw in the theater and Michelle bringing us what she has described to me as the most terrifying Reddit entry ever known to man.

They can't hear you shaking your head, so they don't know that I'm setting you up for failure. But we'll get to all that right after this. We're back wrapping up this month's Monthly spooky, and I wanted to talk about horror movies I saw in the theater, but there actually weren't a lot this go which I guess makes sense because last time there were like six in the theater. It was a lot of horror movies to see all at once in the movie theater. But this go around we had one actual horror movie, one sort of horror movie, and one parody of horror movies.

The parody, of course, was Scary Movie, which I didn't love it, but it was amusing. It's literally just for millennials who remember how much they loved Scary Movie, and it makes but the movie even makes fun of that because the whole point is that it's a reboot of Scary Movie. Like so it's self aware that it's a reboot, and it does all the stuff that the horror boots do and makes fun of it, okay, which I did appreciate. They did a lot of cool stuff like that. They also one thing that really amused me is they kept they keep establishing like young characters that are supposed to replace the originals, and then the originals are just like, I don't like any of you, Like you guys are annoying.

So it had some funny stuff, but I will say that it mostly went after Scream five. I think it was Scream five, Like it took Scream five's entire structure and redid it and really pointed out how not very good Scream five is. Oh wow, because when I heard people complaining about it, I was like, most of your complaints are actually problems Scream five had with like the way it introduced and killed characters and stuff. It just didn't work super well. But it was fine. If you love scary movie, you should go see it because you'll get a laugh out of it, and you'll and you'll you'll like, hah, I remember that was funny before my back really hurts.

I have a mortgage. Is there low sodium options at dinner tonight? You know that kind of thing? But uh, but I did. I had fun with it. I was not a huge scary movie fan as a kid, but I liked it fine. I thought it was funny. As far as straight up horror movie. I saw Passenger, which was a film about haunted roads, basically about the idea that there are ghosts that just live on roads in general, and like if you're on quiet roads, at night, like you never stop like ever, because you can welcome this spirit.

It had some really cool stuff, like it used hobo markings. Oh yeah, that's a major part of it is that there are hobo markings because they realized that this thing, this symbol left on cars. It looks like three claws scratching, but it's actually the symbol for not a safe place from hobos. It had all these cool things like they're meeting with like caravanners and people who live on the road, and somebody even says, like you stopped, and they're like, yeah, it's like you never stop on a quiet road at night ever, you just don't. And I just love the idea that like all these like vagabonds know this stuff, like they're like, no, there's spirits.

And I also thought it was really cool because it's just a perfect little supernatural horror movie. I mean, it's just fun and creepy. But one of my favorite elements was when they're fighting off the monster at one point. The thing that gets it to like break away from them is the there's a Oh that's the other thing about the movie. There's a husband and wife or a boyfriend and girlfriend and they're doing van life. Like they're living in a van and traveling and everything, and I realized, this is the first horror movie I'm aware of that has van life in it, and I couldn't believe there hadn't been one yet.

Yeah. Wow. So they're like living in the van and driving around. But he's Catholic and he has a Saint Christopher, the patron Saint of travelers, and it like burns the demon away, and then as we kind of learn what is going on, it basically turns out it's like the evil Antie sat Christopher. Oh, Like, it's like the opposite. It's the demon of travelers versus the patron Saint. It was just kind of cool and fun and very like exorcisty in that way. So I had fun with it. And then I saw the Death of Robin Hood, which is not really a horror movie, but it was really really good.

No one is really seeing it, and that's fine. It kind of came out not a lot of fanfare, but I loved it. I thought it was super good. That director his name is escaping me right now, but he did the movie Pig, which I loved, and he did Quiet Place Day One, which I also loved. He has a superpower of making a pretty good movie. And then the last twenty minutes, your jaw is just on the floor. It's so good. Because I was watching, I was like, yeah, this is pretty good. And then in the last twenty minutes, I was like, this is one of the best movies I've seen this year.

Holy crap. Like it's when the cards are down and characters are reaching whatever the end of their arcs are, he just pulls every stop out and makes it so emotional and powerful and good. Cool. So anyway, so those are the films I saw in the theater. Chell, tell us about the scariest Reddit post you've ever encountered in your life. No, so, okay, then tell us a different one. Okay, good, So I had I was having some trouble because I'm not it's not a good month. But anyway, So there's this person and they basically her family, her her mom, and her grandma just we're gonna move to a new house.

And one of the reasons that they bought the house is because it had like a big finished basement. So the poster was like, I'm gonna live live in the basement, Like there's a separate living area in a bedroom and then the mom and the grandma. The the grandma is has like the master and the mom has just one of the other bedrooms, the three bedrooms. There's three bedrooms upstairs. Cool, everything's good, whatever, Yeah, I guess go on. They they go, oh, I think her and her mom. I don't think her grandma came. They like, go on a trip somewhere, come back.

The basement is gone. And they're both like, why is there no basement? Oh? Wait, no, no, no, no. Her mom is like, there's never been a basement. But she's like, but I lived in the basement. But her grandma's like, I'm pretty sure there was a basement. And and the grandma doesn't live in the master bedroom anymore. The poster does and she's like, I don't and like all her posters are up and stuff, so like it's her bedroom. But she's like, but there was always a basement, and I don't understand. And they called, like the realtor, and the realtor's like, no, there's no basement in that house.

So she's like, what's going on. That's that's what happens. Yeah, that one. That one's tough. I mean to make an argument about what what he got. Well, then two days later she posted she edited it and she said, we had a gas leak. So well, if that's true, they had a gas Like if not, none of that was real. Sounds like a classic gas leak I mean scenario. I mean, yeah, it's now people were talking about like a couple of years ago where there was someone who was like, there was a closet, but the closet is gone, it's not a closet anymore, and there's always this closet here and I can't find the closet anymore.

And then they posted like two days later like I have a brain tumor so like yeah, so they were comparing it to that one. So if you think things have changed a lot, you might have something seriously wrong with you. Yeah. Well, I mean because we've all had like moments where memories are vaguely like mildly wrong and then we just kind of correct it. We'll just kind of be like, oh, I thought this was like you know, I thought we had I thought this place had a two gargarage, Like no, obviously it didn't. Like you've lived here, like you know, there's no two gargarage.

Just for some reason your brain flipped, you know, like crossed a wire and for a second you just thought of a different garage for some reason, you know, because brains are complicated. Yeah, but we usually just go, oh, yeah, that was just a whoops, no, like we were done. But if you were like suffering from a brain tumor, or you were being poisoned by a gas leak, it can be harder to differentiate those things. It can be harder to correct. You know, you're just going to keep kind of spiraling off. I guess. Yeah. That is My favorite Reddit trope is the whole like, uh have do you have a carbon monoxide detector?

I've always found that funny but also incredibly useful. Yeah it is because it's it's really happened where people have lived in a house and thought that something was really really fucked up happening, and it turned out they were just being exposed to carbon monoxide. So yeah, I mean, I'll be that way when I'm really stressed out, but it'll be like about like no, I'll well, I'll just think something for sure was there and then I have to realie I like nope, or like you know, like I'll wake up in the morning, and I'll be like, oh, yeah, obviously, why was I looking for tob larone?

I never bought a toblarone. Why would there be to blarone in the house? You know, Like I mean, they're little things that don't like drive you crazy. They're just like little moments where you're like I thought I did, Yeah, well whatever, back to my life. Maybe I just live too stressed out. You did acknowledge I live under pressure, which I appreciate. I know you don't need a carbon monoxide detector because you don't have any gas in your house at all? Uh, I mean no, that's not your Yeah, your furnace. And yeah, oh natural gas. Check your carbon and I have a carbon monoxide detector, is it okay?

Has it been there for more than ten years? Not for ten years? No, it's been there for two and a half. Do you change the batteries every. Year it's plugged in? Do you change the batteries and the plug in thing? Uh? Now, I'm gonna check because you're making me nervous. Sorry. See. Then I'll be like, but I my carbonoxide detector doesn't have batteries. Then I'm gonna look at it and it'll take batteries, and I'll be like, what not, I guess it's not working because I didn't remember it. Hasn't been on in years because it was about the batteries.

Well, thank you Chell for taking us through another creepy brain tumory reddit experience. Yeah, and I want to thank you guys all for joining us for another edition of Monthly Spooky. I really do appreciate it. If you enjoy what we're doing here, make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast app, and while you're at it, leave us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really does make a big difference and help other spookies like yourself discover the program. If you want to email us, you can do so at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com.

We would love to hear from you, and of course, if you want to support us in a very direct way, go to Weeklyspooky dot com, slash join and sign up for our Patreon For as little as one dollar a month, you get two bonus shows every month and over five years of creepypasta readings and audiobooks to enjoy. That's at Weeklyspooky dot com slash join, So my friends until next month on the last Monday, we're gonna take off and hide until then, I guess, or at least tell, I'm stuck in front of a microphone every day, but Cell, I'm giving you the last word, specifically about deep sea creatures.

Cute,