The Minotaur with Houston Pierce

The Minotaur with Houston Pierce

[https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/The-Minotaur-s-300x375.jpg] THE MINOTAUR In this episode of the Mondo Freako podcast, host Bob LeMent interviews movie reviewer and podcaster Houston Pierce, whose own show, A Thousand Crazy Questions, is currently on hiatus until the fall. The episode kicks off with a seven-question trivia quiz on the Minotaur from Greek mythology. To both of their surprises, Houston achieves a perfect score, correctly identifying details such as the Minotaur’s parents, its given name Asterion, Daedalus as the designer of the labyrinth, and the tragic mistake Theseus made with his ship’s sails upon returning to Athens. Following the quiz, the conversation shifts into a deeper discussion about the nature of Greek mythology, exploring whether ancient citizens viewed these tales as literal history and religion rather than fiction. Bob and Houston analyze the deeply flawed, human-like pettiness of the Greek gods, comparing their dramatic behavior to modern reality television. They also touch upon pop culture adaptations, contrasting the 1997 television movie The Odyssey and Ray Harryhausen’s classic 1981 Clash of the Titans with modern cinematic remakes. The episode wraps up with a humorous theory about the gods potentially being ancient aliens, alongside a playful critique of the structural plot holes in the classic Minotaur myth. 1000 Crazy Questions [https://www.1000crazyquestions.com/] ItsHoustonPierce [https://www.instagram.com/itshoustonpierce/] ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- Labyrinth of the Minotaur Game (Click Graphic to Start) [https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/minotaur-graphic-1024x559.jpg]https://www.staticradio.com/games/minotaur.html ---------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT (AI TRANSCRIPTION) Hey Houston, how clean is your desk? as a 13-year-old boy’s internet history. Uh-oh. Watch out. Everybody welcome to Mondo Free. Hondo Rico. That’s right. Thank you. Tonight I’ve got with me Mr. Houston Pierce with a thousand crazy questions. Hello? How are you doing tonight? I’m sorry. I didn’t hear me over the music, probably. Oh, I can hear you a little bit. I’m doing good. It’s just a little faint, but I’m doing good. Oh, okay. I can bump it up a little bit there. What do you think? It’s a little faint. I can hear you just a little bit. Oh, that’s weird. I wonder what the deal is there. I’m like my regular levels here. I’ll turn up my stuff. All right. It’s probably my stuff. I don’t know. Oh, okay. I’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. So welcome to Mondo Frico. I got Houston with me here. I can throw the name up there just for the heck of it. There you go. And Houston’s got a show called A Thousand Crazy Questions. What number are you up to now, Houston? I think… How many do I have? I think I was about to pass up 100 episodes, but I don’t. I forgot. Right now, my podcast is hibernating and sleeping. I’m probably going to wake it up this fall. So probably when Halloween season. You have to get up to that thousand. Turn it back on and have new guests. More questions. Oh, a thousand. I don’t know. The questions. I don’t know. I don’t know. I haven’t even tried to calculate that. I was thinking of episodes. That’s fine. Either way, you got to get to a thousand on something. Don’t you think? Yeah. Yeah. It’s just, you know, a thousand is just there to be like, you know, like a lot. I think I’ve said this before on, I think I was a guest on someone’s podcast, but I mentioned how the number of thousand actually came from. Remember that show, A Thousand Ways to Die? Uh-huh. Is it? Matt? No, not Matt TV. What was that one? Spike? I think it was Spike. Oh, on Spike. Yeah, I think you’re right. On the old Spike TV. And I saw that as like a kid. I was like, a thousand seems like such a big word. And I decided the word big number. And I just kind of like the way it sounded. A thousand ways to die. So I took it by the way. Oh, a thousand questions. There you go. And part of those could be ways to die as well. a lot of them actually are ways to die so yeah exactly well uh we’ll be watching for when you come back uh from hiatus yeah you’re working on some other stuff in the meantime, but definitely. Okay. You don’t want to talk about that, the other stuff no i i should thank you for watching that uh i have a different channel uh it’s houston pierce that’s literally the name. It’s like i t s Houston Pierce on IG, on Instagram. I post my humble two cents on movies and movie reviews, some movie essays. I also, if you look up Houston Pierce on YouTube, it’s the same handle. Houston, I think, underscore Pierce is the only difference for YouTube and Instagram. But Houston Pierce, that’s the name I’m going, that’s my name, so that’s where it is. On TikTok, on YouTube, and on IG. It’s Houston Pierce. What’s the last movie you saw? What did you talk about? The last movie I talked about was Passengers, but the last movie I saw just last night was He-Man, and I haven’t got a chance to review it yet. He-Man and Skeletor. Ah, Houston, we’re here. He-Man is in the way. That’s a pretty good Skeletor. Thank you very much, Houston. If you want me to do that for you, I’m just joking. If you want me to put that into your review somewhere, I’ll be happy to do that. I’m just joking with you. You did. This is a better skeletal voice than what I have. It sounds a little different. Everybody should check it out. Check it out. Well, do you want to – I’ll give you the choice here, Houston. Now, we talked briefly via some notes earlier. And I’ll give you the choice. Do you want to do the quiz first, or do you want to hear what tonight’s thing is? I think every time I’ve been on, I’ve asked for the quiz first. So I’m not going to stop doing that. Okay, here we go. Quiz. Quiz. Quiz. Quiz. Tell me if you can see that. You might not be able to read it, but can you see it? I can see it. I can see it. I don’t know how to make that bigger, honestly. But yeah, it’s kind of small there, isn’t it? But that’s okay. Let’s see. Can we do that? No, it doesn’t help at all, does it? Actually, the second part was a bit better. A little bit better. I’m going to read them out to you, so don’t worry about it too much. Okay. All right, here we go. The quiz is on the Minotaur. Okay. Have you ever heard of the Minotaur? Yeah, I’ve heard it. Minotaur, Minotaur. I don’t know which one’s right. Well, here in the Midwest, we say Minotaur. Minotaur. It could be Minotaur. But yeah, and the Minotaur is… Greek mythology. The Minotaur is the horse man, I think. No, is that a centaur? No, the Minotaur is that bull. The Minotaur is the bull man. There you go. Who were the parents of the Minotaur? Was it A, King Minos and Queen Pasipha? B, Poseidon and Amphitrite? C, Zeus and Hera, or D, King Aegis and Medea? And I have a hint if you want it. This is the hardest quiz I’ve had yet so far, Bob. But I like it. I’m here for it. There’s a hint. If you want a hint, I’ll click on the hint. I don’t know. Keep your… No. Keep your hints to yourself. Your pitiful hints. Um… I think, I know, okay, I’m pretty sure the mentor is cursed. So he probably has regular, probably had regular parents. So it’s either King Marcos and Queen something or King Ergos and Medea. I would go with A, King Marcos and Queen Palpatine. I’ll go with that one. King Minos and Queen Pasipha. He’s royalty, right? Here we go. You’re right! That’s right. The Minotaur was born to Queen Pasipha of Crete in a magnificent white bowl. Minos was Pasipha’s husband, making him the Minotaur’s stepfather, kind of. She was kind of cheating on him with a bowl, apparently. I don’t think that was how that conversation went. What do you mean you’re pregnant? Well, I mean, did you see the competition? I mean, I don’t know. No, that’s gross. Forget I said that. Let’s move on to number two. You got one right. That’s fantastic here. Cool. What was the Minotaur’s real name? He’s not just the Minotaur, folks. He’s got his own name, his given name. Was it A, Asterion, B, Theron, C, Labyrinthus, or D, Kronos? I have a hint if you’d like it. I think this is either A or B because elaborate this means that that couldn’t be it. That’s just not right. Kronos, I know. It’s not Kronos. A or B. Is he a cool guy? Is it Theon? Theron? Or is it Asteron? I’ll go with B because… No. I won’t subject to the hit. So you want to go with B? Uh… I’m going to pick A. A. All right. Here we go. Yes. Yes. Asterion. The Minotaur’s given name was Asterion or Asterius, meaning starry one. The term Minotaur itself is a combination of Minos and Tauros, the bull, essentially meaning bull of Minos. There you go. Learn something new every day, right? Or also, you know, my wife slept with a white bull. That’s also what it means. Yeah. Yeah. That’s Minos Toros Blanco anyway. Next question. Question three. You got two. You’re doing fantastic here. Who designed the labyrinth to contain the Minotaur? Was it a… Hesiphotus, which I’ve said that I like sneezed. Hesiphotus? Daedalus? Icarus? Or Prometheus? All the theses in here. All these theses. The thing is, too, these are all good actual things. They are. I don’t know who A is. I know who Daedalus and Icarus are. And I know who Prometheus is. I think this may be… Again, this is either A or B. Oh, no. Okay. I have a hint. No hints. I refuse. This has to be. This has to be. Oh, man. Did Daedalus make the thing? He was an inventor. Did he make the labyrinth? Or is it A? You could have picked A every single time, right? That goes against the rules. Yeah, it goes against multiple choice. Yeah. There’s rules for that, isn’t there? There’s like a worldwide Congress for multiple choice questions. Yeah. You can’t pick A every time. That’d be insane. I want to pick A, but just because of the rules of multiple choice, I want to say it’s B. Let me go with B. I’ll go with Daedalus. I know he’s an actual inventor. Daedalus. Yes. Let’s see. It’s right. Oh. There’s my sound. Daedalus, the legendary Athenian craftsman living in Crete, created and built the labyrinth at the request of King Minos because he was kind of pissed off. It was an elaborate maze from which escape was considered impossible. Wow. Yeah, why did he put the minotaur there? Why didn’t he just put his wife in there? Christ, why would you do this? I mean, the minotaur is innocent. He’s an innocent baby bull. Come on. Yeah, I agree yeah uh that wife of his, boy. I mean, who knows? They probably had she had giraffe children. For all we know. Number four. Why did Athens send tributes of young men and women to Crete? A, as a sign of political alliance. B, as punishment for killing Minos’ son, Andragius. C, to worship Poseidon together. Or D, to trade for Cretan silver and gold. Oof. I have a hint. Okay. Okay. I guess… I’m feeling smart right now because I got three in a row. You got three in a row is number four. I don’t want to mess this high up, so I’m going to say hint to keep myself afloat here. I’ll take the hint. Oh, he’s taking the hint. Oh, he shunned the hint for three questions now. Not too good for the hint. Now I’ll take the hint. All right. The tribute was a form of punishment imposed after a military defeat. Hmm. That means it’s either A or B. Again, A or B. This is breaking the rules of multiple choice. There’s going to be a tribunal because of this. Man, I guess it’s B because it fits the story. Want to go with B? Or maybe it’s A because A, A, B, A makes more sense than A, A, B, B. He’s looking for patterns. What are you, Claude? Come on. What are your patterns in this thing here? I’ll go first choice, best choice. Let’s go with B. All right, B. Oh, he’s correct. Oh, my God. This is scaring me. Athens was forced to send periodic tributes of seven young men and seven young women to Crete as punishment for the death of Androgius, son of King Minos, who wasn’t, you know, a bastard son from a white bull, who was killed in Athens. These youths were fed to the Minotaur. Yikes. Wow. This Greek stuff is harsh. Yeah. All right, let’s go to number five before I make more jokes about Minos’ wife. Number five. What crucial item did Andrade… Oh, gosh. Andrade give Theseus to help him navigate the labyrinth? Was it A, a magical sword, B, a ball of thread… C, a lantern filled with starlight, or D, an enchanted map? Well, D makes too much sense. That’s too much logic. You have a hint, too, by the way. You took the hint last time. Yeah. I think I can get this one without, I think. All right. The map is too straightforward. They’re never that straightforward. The lantern, maybe. A sword, maybe. Thread, maybe. Star light. I feel like this is thread. You think it’s a thread? Yeah, no hint. I’m just going to say thread. I can be wrong, but here we go. Look at this. He’s going on a limb here. That’s right. Look at that. Five for five. This guy’s on fire tonight. This is scaring me, Bob. A ride in the knee gave Theseus a ball of thread, often called the clue of a ride in the knee. He tied one end at the entrance of the labyrinth and unspooled it as he went in, allowing him to retrace his path after killing the Minotaur. This is the origin of the word clue. Huh? Ah, because it’s the clue of Aridani. There you go. Wow. Learned all kinds of stuff tonight. This is the most educational show I’ve ever done in my life. Number six. What was… You got education. You got drama. It’s like Love Island. This wife, Minos’ wife, is screwing random animals. What was the tragic mistake Theseus made on his return voyage to Athens? Was it A, he forgot to bring a Rodney aboard? B, he sailed the wrong route home? Or B, he sailed the wrong route home? C, he forgot to change his ship’s black sails to white? Or D, he boasted to Poseidon and caused a storm? What was that tragic mistake that Theseus made on his return voyage to Athens? You’re doing great. I’m going to go with the hint again. His father was watching from a cliff for a specific signal. Does that help at all? I don’t know. I guess it has to be the ship sails. Oh, the sails. Yeah, I was not going to pick that one, too. Because of the hint, I’m picking this one. Wow, because you’re doing the ABAB, you’re doing the ABBA thing. Yeah, this breaks those rules, the patterns, but it makes sense for this. Let’s see if it’s C. He forgot to change his ship’s sails to white. It’s right. This is amazing. You’re doing great. I can’t believe this either. I can’t. It’s unbelievable. All right. Theseus had promised his father, Aegeus, that if he survived, he would sail home with white sails instead of black. He forgot to make the change. Duh. Aegeus, seeing the black sails, believed his son was dead and threw himself into the sea, which thereafter was called the Aegean Sea. Man, his dad was really, you know, my son’s dead. I’m going to throw myself in the sea. Just think of his wife had, you know, shagged a white bull. God. Yeah. Number seven. In some versions of the myth, how many times did Athens send tributes to Crete before Theseus intervened? So was it A, once? B, twice? C, three times a lady, or D, seven times? How many times did Athens send tributes to Crete before Theseus intervened? I got a hint as well. This is a tough one. These number ones are tough, right? Yeah, this could be any number. This is the toughest one, even though it’s the simplest question. The reason Athens was sending tributes to Crete was because it was a punishment. Right. And so-and-so will kill so-and-so’s son. Seven men and, yeah, seven brides and seven brothers. Yeah. Is it seven? You want to go with seven? How many times? Or take the hint. I already took two hints. Is it shameful? No, that’s why I have it. This is the hardest question yet. You’re right. Okay. Okay. Hold on. I’m going to pick. Three. Because it just, this is Greek mythology. I feel like three just seems like the good number. It’s a magic number. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Three magic number, no hint. All right, here we go. Oh, we got it. Seven for seven. I see the results. Are you messing with me? No, I’m not 100%. A perfect score. He got them all right. King Minos and Queen Pasipha are the Minotaur’s parents. Asterion was the Minotaur’s real name. Daedalus made the labyrinth as punishment for killing Minos. They had to send seven young men and women to Crete. Bala Thread was what Theseus took to navigate the labyrinth and kill the Minotaur. And Theseus made a tragic mistake by not changing his ship’s sails to white, which his dad overreacted and threw himself in the sea. And then finally, three times is how many times. So that would be 21 people that Athens had to pay tribute to Crete. Amazing. I learned something. I learned something. Yeah, you should. Maybe you should be on a real game show. For Christ’s sake, that was fantastic. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know too much about the Minotaur. I think I knew maybe two out of seven. And when I say knew, I mean I had an inkling of an idea. Everything else was, yeah. Everything else was total guess. Well, maybe you should look into your lineage. Maybe you’re Greek by default somewhere. Quiz. Quiz. Quiz. All right. So now you want to hear about the Minotaur? I’ve got a little thing here. Let me see if I can… I thought I had some music here for this, but maybe I don’t. I thought I had music for this. Well, I don’t think I have it. So anyway, let me read this out loud to you. In Greek mythology, the Minotaur is one of the most enduring and terrifying monsters, a creature born of divine punishment and taboo. The beast possessed the body of a man and the head of a bull, a monstrous hybrid resulting from a curse placed upon Queen Pasipha of Crete by the sea god Poseidon. Devastated and ashamed by the creature’s existence, King Minos sought a way to hide the monster while keeping the kingdom safe. He commissioned the legendary inventor Daedalus to construct the labyrinth, a massive, impossibly complex maze beneath the palace of Knossos, designed so that anyone who entered would become hopelessly lost, trapped forever with the beast. The Minotaur’s reign of terror was sustained by a cruel tribute demanded by King Minos. Following a military victory over Athens, Minos forced the city to send seven Athean youths and seven maiden virgins into the labyrinth every nine years to be devoured by the creature. The horrific cycle continued until the Athean hero, Theseus, volunteered to be part of the tribute, intending to slay the beast. With the help of King Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, that’s a tough name, who had fallen in love with him, Theseus was given a sword and a ball of red thread to track his path through the maze. Theseus successfully navigated the dark quarters, slaughtered the Minotaur in a brutal battle, and used the thread to guide the surviving Atheans back to freedom, finally ending the The Mythic Monsters Terror. Now, in the story, I just realized every nine years were the tributes. So it would be, if it did it three times, then that’s three times nine. That’s how many years that this took place. Huh? Sorry, what is it? Three times every nine years. Right. So they did it three times for the tribute, but they only did the tribute every nine years. Yeah. And so that means it went on for what? Twenty six years. Twenty seven years. You’re right. Yeah. I mean, well, yeah, but you probably feel like it’d be like the Olympics or something, but like way more spread out with like, oh, that’s happening this year. Like, you know, it’s it’s almost a decade of waiting for that. Yeah. Yeah. That’s wild. It reminds me of the Hunger Games a lot, honestly. Oh, you think they stole from the Minotaur? I think they stole from the story. Hey, we beat you in war, and now your kids have to come here and fight to the death in this maze? Yeah, well, they’ve been killed by the Minotaur, which I actually have a surprise for you tonight. Let’s listen to this, and then I’ll show you the surprise. This is Jonathan. And this is Heaven from the OpaGhost podcast. And you’re listening to Mondo Freako. Mondo Freako! So I have a surprise tonight. Let me see if I can show you what it is. We are going to… You might not be able to see this too well, again. But we have a little game here called Enter the Labyrinth. And… We have to avoid the Minotaur. Cool. Oh, my gosh. That was one of the guards. He got me. There’s the Minotaur. I went past him. Okay, so he doesn’t chase you. Well, he’s not going to chase me yet, no. I’m trying to get up here and get the sword. There we go. Now I can go back and kill the Minotaur. Oh, okay. A game made just for this particular Oh, podcasts in particular show. There we go. Oh, how are the guards not hurting you? Well, they are hurting me, but apparently I’m invincible. I didn’t say it was a good game, Houston. I just said it was a game. That is true. Okay, so that’s how you get out. Is it? Oh, I can’t get out. I’m lost in the maze. If only I had some damn thread. Yeah. I would be winning. Did no one think to put thread on the ground or like some breadcrumbs? Yeah. He just hit me. Do you have to go back? Oh, I have to go back. Oh. He just keeps coming. He just keeps coming. Oh, I got to get. Oh, he killed me. Oh. Oh, man. Anyway, I’ll put this in the show notes. So if you want to play, you can play it online. It’s a game. I made it just for this show. It’s not a good game, but it’s a game nonetheless. High production value, I think. Considering that I did that just a few hours ago, it shows. That Minotaur looked intimidating. I was good. It was good graphics. So what attracted you? So we had corresponded and you said you wanted to do something on Greek mythology. What was your thought on that? You didn’t tell me what to do. You told me like in the vein, I guess in the area of. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know. It was just kind of a, you know, a hankering. I don’t know. Some Greek mythology is very interesting to me. You know, there’s like, just like a bunch of other mythologies, but the Greek one is, I think the first one, one of the first ones I heard about growing up and it’s gets, it’s, it’s, it’s unique in how much, The gods suck. I don’t think… I mean, every mythology has its quirks, but the Greek one is so… The gods are practically people with how vain and selfish they are. It’s very interesting to me. It’s just how… Do you think that the gods were real people? I never thought… In the same sense… That they actually existed. Maybe I should say that right. Do you think there really were Greek gods? I mean, I don’t, but I also don’t know. I think there are people out there who truly do believe in Greek mythology, I think. But the funny thing about Greek mythology is that we’re calling it mythology because if someone did write these things, it’s like stories. So I don’t know. If there’s a big sect out there that’s like, yeah, no, Poseidon is real. No, really. Really. the sign is actually real. I haven’t met that person, really. We call it Greek mythology. I don’t know that the Greeks called it Greek mythology. Let’s ask the Googs what they think. I’m going to say, did the Greeks call the gods Greek mythology? Or something else. My guess is they probably just called it religion. Here you go. Here’s what Monsieur Google has to say. The ancient Greeks definitely didn’t call it Greek mythology. To them, it wasn’t a collection of fictional stories or folklore. It was their actual religion, history, and literal truth of how the world worked. While they didn’t have a single all-encompassing word that perfectly matches our modern concepts of religion, they used a few different terms to describe their relationship with the divine. Taithia, which translates literally to divine things or matters concerning the gods, this is the closest phrase that they had to describing the realm of religious belief and ritual practice. Esbia, That means piety or proper reverence. It wasn’t about holding a specific creed, but rather about doing your duty to the gods, the state, and your family through correct actions, sacrifices, and rituals. Muthos, the word we get myth from, originally just meant a spoken word, a story, or an account. Over time, philosophers like Plato started using it to distinguish traditional unproven stories from logos, logical truth, or reasoned argument. But a regular Greek citizen wouldn’t look at a statue of Zeus and think of it as a character from a mythos. They saw him as a living power. To the Greeks, the stories of Zeus, Apollo, and the Minotaur were woven into their everyday reality, civic laws, and historical ancestry. They simply viewed it as the history of the world and the way of the gods. What do you think about them apples? Those are interesting apples. Those are interesting apples, yeah. Because I can’t imagine a religious person myself. I don’t like saying religious person because religion is a very sticky word. But I’ll say it because it’s simple. It simplifies life. You can say spiritual person. That’s not quite as sticky. That comes with its own connotations. Okay, sorry. Trying to help. No, I appreciate it, but this crystal will take away all the bad energy. That’s a whole different can of worms. Can you share that crystal? Spiritual is the umbrella term. But sure, because I’m a religious person, I could understand that looking at that worldview, but also it’s fascinating because The Greek gods suck so much. Like, there’s just so… You know, like… There’s just so… Like… How do you… Okay, it’s a… I’m trying to put my thoughts into words. So, hang with me. I’m hanging. It’s like, your god, like Zeus, right? He is a dick to all of his… siblings right and in like uh like his brother Hades, they were okay with, because Hades like helped him kill their dad and put him in a Tartarus. But then he’s like, Hey Hades, you take care of the this you get the janitor job of shuffling souls around. Right. Like, and you’re stuck down there and we like, you can come out to Olympus, but mostly go down to Hades. Like, because we don’t want you up here. Like you, we just, we just don’t like you, even though he didn’t do anything. like maybe i’m wrong but to my knowledge, Hades didn’t really do anything to deserve such a bad position you know and and like how they all bump heads with each other they’re so i don’t i don’t get how you can look at those guys and go, yeah, that’s cool. Or like, yeah, I respect them because they they really don’t respect people at all and like and yeah in like i This is coming from someone who’s like, well, God, Old Testament God, from the Christian point of view, is also pretty hardcore. But you can argue that you can talk to that God. There are people he talks to. There’s the spiritual side of it, prayer and all that. And there’s Jesus. There’s the whole redemption angle and everything like that. But for Greek gods, it’s just… Oh, yeah, we don’t care about you. We’ll sleep with your wives and curse the children. You know, there’s not a… There’s no… It’s like a soap opera, these people. Yeah. It’s like Love Island or something, where they’re all double-crossing each other, Survivor, what have you. It’s interesting. It’s the first Love Island. Yeah, exactly. The interesting thing is that we… we go to this well, because you mentioned the Hunger Games so often to get the stories again, right? So we remake these stories again and again in the modern era based off of what the Greeks had written. And so, I mean, whoever came up with this stuff, I mean, they thought it was real. You know, if it really happened… You know, whoever came up with this stuff was, you know, genius because it stuck around for all this time. So, you know, and it is almost base human interaction. Yeah. And we haven’t really got any better. There’s nothing new under the sun. I don’t know who said that, but I know it’s a thing. Actually, you know, I forgot about this, but the reason I did want to talk about it, too, is because the movie Odysseus is coming out pretty soon. Oh, yeah. And I have to see that. I’m trying to read the book because I actually have a copy of the Iliad and then another copy of the Odyssey. I’m trying to get through the Odyssey. I made some headway, but it’s very, very, it’s a little tough. It’s a dense book, isn’t it? It’s not too dense, but it’s kind of just, it’s a little tough to get. It’s very wordy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, hopefully, hopefully the movie won’t be so wordy. Yeah. Oh, and before i forget, I was watching, I was trying to read the book and then i found they actually made an odysseus movie, um, like a tube, like made for television movie that i saw maybe two months ago at this point. And I saw it on like your smart tv recommends stuff to you. And I said, Oh, they made an odysseus movie. This will help me not read the book. Cause I could just watch the movie, this old, this old movie, know the story and then watch the new one. So it came out in like the 1990s, but it looks like it was made back in the sixties. Cause like the production design is really poor. And there’s some people you would know in it too. Like there’s like Christopher Lee is in there. Vanessa Williams. This one woman, she’s, she’s, Was this the one with Armand DeSante? I think so. Greta Saatchi, Isabella Rossellini? Maybe. I’m looking it up here. Eric Roberts, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Lee, Vanessa Williams. Yep, yep, yep. It’s this one. It’s that one. Yeah. I saw it. I watched this back in the day. This is from 1997. Yeah, yeah. I wonder where it first aired at. Let me see. It looks like it might have been a sci-fi channel thing. Let me look and see if I can find anything on it here. Yeah. I found it on the smart TV, so I don’t know what app it was on, but yeah. Oh, it was… So the production companies were American Zoetrope, which is Francis Ford Coppola’s company, and Hallmark Entertainment, which is the Hallmark channel. That’s right. And a beta film, which I don’t know who owns that, but it was filmed on the Isle of Malta back in 1997. And it looks like it was an international production. So UK, United States, Italy, Germany, and Turkey were all involved in it. So it probably was one of these things that showed over in Europe as well a lot. Yeah. There you go. It’s got a 7.0 out of 10 on the IMDb rating, believe it or not. Sure. It’s pretty generous. The people in this were, at the time, were big-name people. True, true. You didn’t like it. You’re saying you didn’t like it. No, it’s not that simple. I have a whole channel where I pick apart movies. I love movies. i don’t, I love them and i hate them, but this one, it’s not, this was just, uh, I think a certain type of person would have really loved this movie. Like if you have, if you really love overacting and oh yeah and like practical effects and dramatic, very dramatic storytelling, then you’d think it was fine. But the modern audience would definitely not like, like this i can kind of appreciate it because i like old epics. But this movie, it doesn’t hold up too well. Now, have you seen Clash of the Titans? Yes, I have. Which one? The old one or the new one? The older one or the newer one? The 1980 version or the 2010 version, I think it was. Unfortunately, I’ve seen both. The older one is better. For sure. Oh, thanks. Hey, that’s great. I love the old Clash of the Titans. I remember it fondly. I went to the movies when I was a kid to see that. Yeah. Yeah. Harry Hamlin. Yeah. And Burgess Meredith. I can’t remember who was in the new one. I think it was… Oh, it was Worthington. It was the guy in Avatar. Yes. Yes. Although they did make… It was 2010, Clash of the Titans. They did make a couple of those movies. You know, they made the Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson were all in it as well. Mads Mikkelsen, who I really love, Mads Mikkelsen. But anyway, they made a couple of these movies in the 2010s. I think there was Clash of the Titans and then there was another one. I can’t remember the name of it now. I don’t remember. I know they made a second, but I didn’t see it. It was Perseus. Sam Worthington as Perseus. What was the name of that? It was like something with the, not the Clash of the Titans, but something else. Let me see if I can find it real quick. Wrath of the Titans. That was it. Wrath of the Titans. 2012 Wrath of the Titans. So I think they were supposed to make another one, but I don’t think that one ever came about. But I was, I mean, those, those, The 2010 ones I don’t think were as good as the old 1980 one, but still, you know, better than nothing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, no. I think the old ones are way better. I think the new ones… I don’t think the new ones brought anything to the table. I mean, yes, you can remake them, and there’s something cool to remaking them with updated special effects, but if you’re just going to just… do such a bad job. I don’t know. It’s like, why? Yeah. Why? Like do it and at least put some effort into it. Well, you know, the clash of the times was kind of the last hurrah for a guy named Ray Harryhausen. If you’re familiar with him at all, he did all the stop motion effects. Oh, yeah. That was his last big movie, but he had done, you know, since like the forties, I think he had done all kinds of movies that had monsters and, and, And he did Jason and the Argonauts and the Sinbad movies were all Harryhausen movies back in the 60s. And it was kind of his heyday. And then Clash of the Titans was kind of his last big movie. His name is featured in Monsters, Inc. because they go to a restaurant called Harryhausen’s. When you said Harryhausen’s, that’s where my mind immediately went. And I said, he can’t be talking about Harryhausen, so it’s a reservation there. But because. Yeah, that’s exactly it. He’s he’s a extremely well-regarded special effects guy from back in the day. And I mean, he did he did some great, great things, you know, in the older movies. Right. So, yeah. But let’s get back to our Greek, our Greek topic here. So the Greeks thought this was real. We consider it mythology, which mythology would just be storytelling. Because we just heard from the ancient scrolls there that the word myth gets pulled from Greek, meaning telling a story. And so, yeah. I mean, do you really think that… I’m looping it right back to my original question, which do you think the gods… were really there for the Greeks. Or at least they’ve seen them as gods, perhaps. Maybe they’re just like kings, but they called them gods. I don’t know. That’s the rough part, Bob, because if someone did see them as gods, I don’t… I mean, well, they must have. Like, I could only see there being animosity. I don’t know how you can love a god that would be like… could turn into a bird, have sex with your wife, and then if they looked upon the gods of reverence, it was more likely fear. Those gods are very much fear-based. If you’re worshipping those gods, it’s based out of straight-up fear. The story of Odysseus is actually about… I guess this is on topic because it’s still Greek stuff, but In Odysseus, a lot of his trials and his hardships were based off of Poseidon just hating his guts. The rest of the gods liked him. He was the nicest guy. He was clever. He was smart and whatever. He was the goat for all intents and purposes. Everyone liked him. But because he didn’t give Poseidon enough credit for Poseidon helping him out one time, Poseidon decided to make his return home a living hell. And And by all means, Odysseus, if any other man on Earth, whatever, deserved some slack, some credit, it was him. And Poseidon was just so… I think he was beating him with waves. And Odysseus was yelling to the skies, to the sea and the winds, like, what is your problem? Why don’t you just kill me? And Poseidon answered back to the waves and was like, I don’t mean to kill you. And besides, I know this is like, what? And then science, like, you have to learn that. What do you say? Something was so harsh. He’s like, he said, man is nothing without gods. And like, just kept beating it with waves. I’m like, whoa, that’s very good. Well, here’s another weird aside for you, because this is Mondo Frico. What if they were aliens with special powers? The gods? Zeus has thunderbolt, which could be some type of weapon. Poseidon could manipulate the water. Maybe that’s another weapon of some kind. What if they were just invading aliens that took over Greece? It was pretty nice there. The weather’s nice. You’re by the beach? I mean… I guess so. What if that happened? That’s a lot of effort on Alien. I mean, I can… Sure. Maybe they crashed and they just… I still got my lightning bolt gun. I still got my wave gun. Okay, well, we’ll just do this. Who’s the… Who’s the alien who picked to be the god of wine? Who is that alien? Who’s Dilophus or whatever his name is? He was the chef on the boat. I’ll just stick with what I know. I can make this. They like it. I’m the god of this. No problem, right? Now that you mention it, I guess we have to assign them So like Zeus, sure. Like lightning bolt, probably the leader alien. And then, yeah, the Hades is like, like definitely Hades, Poseidon, Zeus are leader aliens. They’re like the, the, the leadership team. Right. Yeah. And like, I get Ares is like a war general alien. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know where Aphrodite comes in. She just wanted to sleep with all the people, I guess. Well, she was, you know, she was the diversion, right? So if you’re gonna have people in war, they have to have a diversion. So there you go. Love Aphrodite. Yeah, I mean, you know, they had in in World War Two, they had the Japanese women who were comfort women. And that was their job during the war. Okay, this is World War Two. I’m, I’m just this a fact. And that is not unheard of in a lot of different parts of the world during that time period. Same thing. The Germans had, I think, I don’t know what they called them, but the Germans had the same thing. French had the same thing. It was all happening. Just war concubines? Yeah, basically. Basically were, you know, hookers of the war. I did not know this, but you know, this isn’t actually, yeah, that makes sense. So there’s where Aphrodite comes in, right? I mean, that’s, it’s, you know, it still happens to this day, I mean, you know was Cupid was Cupid Greek mythology, or is he something he might be Roman, I think. I think he’s Greek. I’m willing to bet he’s Greek. You want me to look it up? Yeah, I would, but I think I’m making too much noise. Click clacking. Also, my thing isn’t up to look stuff up. Cupid. Is Cupid Roman or Greek? Cupid is Roman. Dang it. But he is the Roman adaptation of the Greek god named Eros. Hmm. That’s where you get erotic, right? Eros. So there you go. Really? Oh, with the E? Eros? Eros, yeah. Never heard of Eros. Cupid really did his job. He took Cupid and stole all of his thunder. Cupid’s been pushed out into the front, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah. Eros has got, you know, they’re like, what can we put on the candy? Well, let’s not put Eros. That sounds disgusting. Cupid’s much better. So, you know, he’s got the bow and the whole cute little kind of cherub kind of look to him. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? It’d be the difference between putting like a porn star on your candy or putting a cartoon character. Depending on the candy, it might smell well to different audiences. I’m sure that, yeah. But let’s go back to this Greek gods as aliens thing. I keep pushing it. I keep moving it out. Yeah. I know it’s not going to be in the new Christopher Nolan movie, but we have to have our own take on these things. No, I mean, I think it’s possible. I mean, if there are aliens, which a lot of people are saying there are these days and they’re not quacks, maybe this was just the alien du jour of the day. And of course, every show you’ve ever seen, the aliens take over and they basically play God, right? So if aliens came down in ancient Greece, that would be the storyline. They would take over and they would be treated as kings or gods, I would say. I see what you’re saying. I’ll raise you one or I’ll take you a step back one. So I think if aliens are real, which they very well could be, and they were here back then, I think it was more of the thing where, like, alien parts the sky. And, like, they go, oh, Zeus, part of the clouds. That sort of deal. There’s this one story that I got to get off track. But, like, I think, like, the European settlers in America would, like… They were trying to get something from this Native American tribe. And they’re like, hey, give us this thing or we’re going to block out the sky for like an hour. And like, well, we’ll make the land go dark. And the Americans are like, yeah, you can’t do that. You know, and like, OK, well, you watch. We’re going to do it. Then they went back to their camp and they knew the eclipse was coming because they had studied astrology or whatever. And then, you know, the eclipse came like the following day. You know, the Native Americans went, oh, my God, you know, and then they came back. And then the settlers were like, give us our thing. And like, yeah, okay. Yeah, don’t black the sky out again, please. It’s kind of like knowledge is power thing. Right. But isn’t it like kind of a cosmic anomaly would happen and then they may just assign it to, you know, the gods. I mean, you could say that about pretty much every religion. But, yeah, if you would put aliens behind the backing of the cosmic knowledge. the cosmic, what’s the word, anomaly, then yeah it would fit, yeah. Now, for all we know, Zeus was a guy who had the first pair of socks and shag carpet, and he would rub his feet, and he’d just shock you with his static electricity i really do you think the greek gods are based off of people like like like when they were telling the stories, who didn’t think were stories, but do you think the first guy to talk about zeus was just looking at his grandpa being like, No doubt. Well, it may not have been his grandpa, but I mean, I think there’s no doubt in my mind that these were real people who did terrible things. And they got pulled into stories because every writer draws from their background, draws from their experiences, and it makes it up a little bit. But there’s… there’s always a root of truth in almost, in almost everything that’s written because we’re just not that bright. And so we just take what we have around us and we, we do that. So Zeus would, you know, maybe it was an uncle who was just a real bastard. And then they wrote these stories about, you know, Zeus being a jerk and, and, you know, but I think, yeah, I think it was all drawn. I am actually not, and I know this is going to sound crazy, but I’m not, that far off from saying there, I joke about the alien part, but who knows? I mean, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all true. I’m not saying that they were gods per se in the same way that we think of things as being God, but they may have had something that set them apart and they were treated, uh, you know, with reverence that, that, made them like gods in that time period. Cause I always, when we talk about, um, ancient civilizations and so forth, I’m like, those people were no more idiots than the people today. The difference is we have so much more base knowledge that we all get to learn. Um, as we’re, you know, going to school and reading and, and, you know, opening up, you know, uh, yourself to experiences and knowing people and whatnot. than those people did because their world was a smaller world and they didn’t have all the, the knowledge they didn’t have books. They didn’t have media. They didn’t have all of the same things that we have. And so their brains were the same. It’s just, they didn’t fill them the same way. And so therefore, you know, it’s like you can’t, um, you know, if i have an inloader and you’ve got a shovel i’m gonna win on moving, you know, material. It’s the John Henry story, right? If you know John Henry, love that story. Steel driving man. So, you know what I’m saying? So we have, we have the end loaders and they had the shovel. And so it’s not that they were so such idiots that they’ve just made things up because they’re all kooky. I think it’s just, that was something real and they experienced it. It’s just, they didn’t know that there was going to be an eclipse. They didn’t know all these things. And they couldn’t know them because there was no one, there was no way to know. Yeah. I agree. That was a really deep thought. But I want to say though two years to go back making bull jokes? We can go back to talking about the bull and the wife and how I was going to say to the John Henry story, though, John Devery did beat that machine. He did, but he died. Yeah, but he beat the machine. And in a way, Greek mythology and a bunch of other stories, mythic stories do get to a. A really fundamental truth of about humans that, you know, the more the more a sloppy put out there, maybe we lose. The more something is recycled, the less you, you know, the core thing that you had. The Greeks had something special because we’re still using that sauce today. We’re going to remake the Odyssey. I’m going to watch the Odyssey in like a month. So in the John Henry metaphor you used, they did do something. Myth holds a lot of weight. And truth. I love the John Henry story. But let’s link back here to wrap up on the Minotaur and the crazy wackiness that happened there that you got 100% on your quiz tonight. The Minotaur reel? Minotaur reel? No, that one’s just completely silly. I don’t think… Everyone knows that you can just bust through the walls of a maze if you really want to get out. And if the Minotaur was as strong as he’s supposed to be, why didn’t he just break the walls? Oh, true. That’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense about the Minotaur story, by the way. Not a woman and a bull breeding. I’ll buy it. And not the fact that they were somehow able to contain this guy while Daedalus was building the labyrinth. I buy it. Not the fact that I took one guy out of a group of what? seven 14 7 18 24 14-ish people to finally kill him. Or the fact that no one cut the thread that was going around a big, no, all that stuff, all that makes sense. It’s the fact that the mentor didn’t escape earlier that i throw a flag on the play and I, yeah, a little, a few greek myths, plot holes there. Well, Houston, everybody go check out a thousand crazy questions. There is his Instagram, and this is his other project where he’s going to review the Odyssey here soon. Right now it’s June 4th. It comes out, I think, in a week or two weeks. I think it is. Is it a week? I think it may be two weeks. It’s coming out on the 12th, I think, which is a little more than a week, I guess. Yeah. We’re going to be reviewing movies whenever they come out, passengers. Hey, man. I reviewed The Back Rooms not too recently. I do recommend it, by the way, The Back Rooms, if you know about that game slash project. Houston Pierce accounts are for movies. A Thousand Greatest Questions is my podcast. Completely different. We talk to different guests. We’re asked a bunch of different would-you-rather-based or hypothetical-based scenario questions to different guests of a week. That series will be coming back, like I said, this fall, just on a hibernation period for now. But Yeah, go check out either accounts. And it’s a little bit the big backlog of crazy questions. All right, Houston, thank you very much. And everybody watch out for Zeus. He’s got a really big, you know, lightning bolt he’s going to get you with. Bungo Rico!

The Devil’s Lake Monster with The Old Man

[https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/The-Devils-Lake-Monster-MF-s-300x375.jpg] THE DEVIL’S LAKE MONSTER Bob and “The Old Man” explore the legend of Oregon’s Devil’s Lake Monster, a unique “hairy octopus” creature. After a competitive trivia segment, the conversation shifts to personal paranormal experiences, including high-speed aerial orbs and eerie encounters with shadow people. The duo delves into a philosophical discussion on faith, imagination, and the supernatural. They conclude that modern technology often distracts from the mysteries of the universe, sharing stories of ghostly cigarette smoke and childhood sightings to emphasize that the world is far more mysterious than it appears. The Old Man Podcast [https://www.theoldmanspodcast.com/] ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- [https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/The-Devils-Lake-Monster-infographic-1024x559.jpg]https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/The-Devils-Lake-Monster-infographic.jpg ---------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT (AI TRANSCRIPTION) How come they call you the old man? Because look at me. I’m the old man. Oh, my gosh. Mondo Freako. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Mondo Freako. And I’m so glad that we have an elder with us tonight, the old man. I’m so glad to be here with you, Bob. Or should I call you Mondo? Mondo, right. Yeah, exactly. Call me Mondo. Mondo. But it’s better than Freako, I think. Yeah. And it’s fitting because it’s Cinco de Mayo week. Well, there you go. See, look at that. We’re fitting right in. Yeah. We’re fitting right in. You know, real quick, you asked about, you know, me being called the old man. When I was doing the podcast with my son, he calls me up and says, hey, I need a co-host. I can’t keep a co-host. They come and they leave. And I’m without a co-host. Will you co-host with me? For a couple of shows. I go, sure. And he goes, all right. He goes, so I go, but I don’t want you to call me. I want you to call me. He goes, what do you want me to call you? I go, well, I don’t want you to call me dad and I don’t want you to call me Jim. I want you to call me the old man. Call me the old man. And I was golfing at the time and I see my golf buddies call me the fat man. Oh, well, yeah. And I mean, that’s for you. That’s all good too. You know? And so he says, really the old man, you want me to call you the old man? I go, yeah. He goes, all right. So he introduced his show as dread, not dread, not nine to eight with big rich and the old man. And it’s been the old man ever since. Yeah. Well, it’s better than if they called you a ball washer. I’ve been called that too. Uh, and then, and then, uh, um, Within a year, the girl I had as a co-host at the time, she just started calling me Tom. I go, why are you calling me Tom? She goes, the old man, T-O-M, Tom. So then that’s how Tom came about. Gotcha. People were too lazy to say the old man. Well, you got to abbreviate everything. Yeah, everything’s an abbreviation. That’s the nature of living in the United States. Everything has to be abbreviated, right? So we’re not the United States of America or USA, right? Acronyms, man. I tell you, I hate them because I never know what they’re talking about. You’re not versed, you know. Also, it keeps out the riffraff. Oh. I even have a book of acronyms. If someone writes something, I got to look it up and see if it’s in the book. And now the book’s outdated. I don’t have the acronyms. Is it a handwritten book? Is that the idea? No, this is a regular. Oh, it’s a real book. Oh, okay. Oh, hey, he’s prepared. Let’s see. Is that a first edition? Holy schmoly. The great big book of acronyms. Oh, there you go. Texting dictionary of acronyms go figure yeah i mean that looks like a good stocking suffer i mean, it is loaded. It is. Look at that well omg so they can find you at the old man podcast.com. I want to get this out of, you know, get this. plug right in here. So then that way we don’t, we can just go on and move on to the the other stuff. Yeah. That’s our web. That’s uh that’s my web page the old man.com that’s my that’s beyond x or Twitter. You can find yeah whatever you want to call it. And there i am on Facebook. Yeah. Just, uh, and you can listen on all podcast platforms, all, but all, but, um, I’ll bet Spotify. I’m not on Spotify. No, no. Well, let me change that. Hold on a second. I, I, I got mad at Spotify and said, screw you. Ain’t going to use you. Well, there you go. They kept, they kept, they kept kicking all. Yeah. Except Spotify. Yeah. But you can hear me on Spotify because I’m the co-host of Savage Unfiltered with Michael Jordan. Oh, there you go. Okay. Well, now I got to change that again. Change it back. Yeah, Jesus. Except for Spotify Savage Unfiltered. So I’ve got a question for you, old man. So here on Mondo Freako, we talk about weird things. And I always give everybody a quiz. Now, the question is, I always give the guest a choice. Do you want to take the quiz before I tell you what the question is? tell you more about the weird thing, or do you want to wait and hear about the weird thing, and then we’ll take the quiz? Give me the quiz, man. Let’s go. Hey, that’s what I like to hear. Yeah, quiz. Quiz. That’s a sport right there. That is a man after my own heart. Can you see that? I’m going to read it out to you so you don’t have to be able to read it, but… Small for me but it’s well yeah well get the cheaters out. I got them on that’s all right. I’ll read it out to you uh so i’m we’re going to talk tonight i’ll tell you what we’re going to talk about. It’s called the devil’s lake Monster. The Devil’s Lake Monster. Ah, and the quiz is about that. So, I got seven questions, and uh hopefully you know, we’ll see how you do. Yeah, this doesn’t even help. My eyes are that bad. Okay, go ahead. I’m ready. Here we go. Which indigenous people’s oral traditions are the only source of the Devil Lake monster legend? Is it A, the Chinook and Klatsop peoples, B, the Silets and Tillamook peoples, C, the Kowakawak and the Haida peoples, or two guys named Silets and Tillamook who had a bad fishing trip? Hmm. If you want, I have a hint. If you want a hint, I’ll give you one. Okay, go ahead. All right, you want the hint? Yeah. Think about the coastal peoples of the Oregon-Washington region who relied heavily on the sea. No. The catsup people. The A. A? The Chinook and the clatsup people. Let’s see. Oh. Oh. Oh. It was the slits and the Tillamook people was the correct answer. Oh, the Tillamook. That’s where the legend is rooted. Okay. That’s all right. Out of the gate. It’s okay. I know. The Tillamook’s right. It’s good cheese. It is great. All right. Let’s go to number. Let’s leave that behind us. You still got six more to go. You can still win this. You can still get better than 50%. All right. Where exactly is Devil’s Lake? The monster’s supposed home located. Okay. Is it near Lincoln City, Oregon? Near Salem, Oregon? Somewhere very cold, dark, and tentacle adjacent? Or near Portland, Oregon? I got a hint if you want it. Yeah, give me the hint. It’s a coastal Oregon town known for its outlet stores and proximity to the ocean. Lincoln City. Oh, near Lincoln City. I was very confident. There you go. Yeah, baby. There you got that one. I was gonna say that without the end i was gonna say that without oh well there you see you already knew it. But that’s okay. The hint’s there if you want to use it, so. Okay. Now you’re one and one. Here we go. Number three. What is the most distinctive physical description that sets the devil’s lake monster apart from typical lake monsters? Is it A, an oversized freshwater shark with a forked tail? B, a massive mini-armed beast like a giant octopus, sometimes covered in coarse dark hair. C, a very large and very grumpy catfish with a serious personal space issue. Or D, a giant serpent with glowing red eyes. I have a hint if you’d like it. I’m going to go with D. I’m going with D. You’re going with D? D. No one with a hint. Okay. Oh. Oh. That was a good guess, but it is a hairy octopus. Oh, that would have been my second guess. But the red eyes, the red glowing eyes. Oh, you like the red eye, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, that’s all right. Any kind of devil monster is going to have red glowing eyes. Well, you tried the devil aspect of things. You’re right. Here we go. Let’s go to number four. According to early legends, what was the monster’s primary aggressive behavior? Toward people on the lake. Was it a, it would beach itself and block fishing trails on shore. It would steal fish a B it would steal fish from nets left out overnight. See, it would rise from the depths to capsize canoes and drag people under or D it left terrifying one-star reviews of local fishing spots. All right. Let me go with the hint. Let me go with the hint. All right. The creature wasn’t shy and, It came up to meet visitors in a very unwelcoming way. I’ll say tipping canoes over. Tipping canoes over. Let’s see. That would be a C. It would rise from the depths to capsize canoes and drag people under. All right. Look at that. There you go. I made a little bit bigger for you. Hopefully, let’s see if you can see that better. Oh, dang it. No, I still can’t see it. You still can’t see it? Okay. No. Bob, I’m old, remember? I’m the old man. That looks pretty good right there. Yeah, okay. Well, there you go. We’ll go with that. Now, if I can get… There we go. Let’s go to the next. So you got two and two. You’re doing pretty good, actually. 50%. Number five. When did sightings of the Devil’s Lake monster reportedly peak in more modern accounts? Was it A, the mid-20th century, B, B, every Halloween right after the candy runs out. C, the late 19th century. Or D, the early 20th century. Have a hint if you’d like. Yeah, give me the hint. Think of an era following the Victorian age, a time of rapid industrialization and growing public interest in the strange. 19th century. 19th century? Oh! You were very confident there. Oh, man. Modern times peak in the early 20th century. Following the Victorian age. Well, yeah, I guess so. Oh, man. That was a trick question. Trick question. Well, it’s a devil. It’s a devil lake monster. It’s not like a saint lake monster. Yeah. I think the devil’s got a hold of you with this test, Bob. All right. Here we go. The next one. Number six. So you’re negative right now. I got three wrong, two right. You got to get this one and the next one. All right. You’re really pushing us right to the edge here. Number six. What real animals have some researchers suggested may have influenced the devil’s lake monster legend? A. Large sea turtles or misidentified gray whales. B. B, oversized sturgeon or the occasional wayward giant squid? C, Gary, an unusually large pet goldfish someone flushed in 1903? Or D, oversized eels or escaped zoo animals? And I have a hint. It’s okay to take the hint. Give me a hint. All right. One is a large freshwater estuarian fish. The other is a deep sea cephalopod rarely seen near shore. B. All right. And there you go. Going with the sturgeon and the squid. Yeah. Which I think was a movie. You’re right. Yeah, baby. All right. Researchers suggest the legend may have shaped by sightings of oversized sturgeon or even the occasional wayward giant squid making a coastal appearance. There you go. All right. All right, I think we’re tied up now, three and three, right? I’m a game seven type of guy. Oh, no, it’s right. So now you got to get this one. This is it. You’re definitely game seven. What dual role does the Devil’s Lake Monster Legends serve for the local community today? Is it A, a cultural ghost story and a point of local pride? B, a cautionary tale and an active scientific research subject? C, a reason to avoid swimming and a very convincing excuse to cancel boat trips. Or D, a touristy gimmick in a children’s bedtime story. I have a hint. Let me see. Let me see the question again. What dual role does the Devil’s Lake Monster Legend serve… serve for the local community today see usually the the question gives you a hint to what the answer is yeah a little context so without without going with the hint oh he’s stepping on the edge today i’m gonna say it is a cultural ghost story and a point of local pride let’s see what let’s reveal Oh, he got it. He pulled it through. Boom, boom, boom. Game seven, it was. That’s right. Quiz. Oh, wow. Four out of seven. Correct. That’s fantastic. You did great. All right, buddy. Yeah. So let’s pause and hear a message, and then we’re going to come right back, and I’ll tell you the Devil’s Lake monster story. Nice. I’ve never heard it before. This is Jonathan. And this is Heaven from the OpaGhost podcast. And you’re listening to Mondo Freako. What in the bloody hell is Mondo Freako? And why would I listen to it? I don’t know. That’s a good question. So the Devil’s Lake Monster. Here’s a little short couple paragraphs here. Let’s see if I got this. Yes. The Devil’s Lake Monster, rooted in the oral traditions of the Silets and the Tillamook peoples, is a formidable aquatic entity said to inhabit the deep, cold waters of Devil’s Lake near Lincoln City, Oregon. While often grouped with other lake serpents, the descriptions of this creature are quite uniquely unsettling. It is frequently depicted as a massive, many-armed beast resembling a giant octopus, sometimes covered in a coat of coarse, dark hair. Early legends warn of its aggressive nature, claiming the beast would rise from the depths to capsize the canoes of unsuspecting fishermen, dragging both vessels and passengers into the murky abyss. In more modern accounts, the monster has evolved into a staple of the Pacific Northwest folklore, with sightings peaking in the early 20th century. Witnesses have described seeing massive humps breaking the surface or long serpentine tentacles lashing out of the water. Some research suggests the legend may have been influenced by sightings of oversized sturgeon or even the occasional wayward giant squid, but the local hairy octopus description remains a distinct and peculiar hallmark of the region. Today, the legend persists as both a cultural ghost story and a point of pride for the local community, serving as a reminder of the mysteries hidden beneath the Oregon’s coastal waters. Wow, what do you think of that? I’m really curious. Why did you pick something in the Pacific Northwest? Because I live in The state of Washington? I did, yes. I picked something up close to your neighborhood. In my area. Thanks. That’s good. That’s good programming right there, people. Good programming. And I thought, this one sounds interesting. It’s got a weird story. It’s not like anything that you’ve ever heard of, right? How many other sea monsters or giant squids? It made me remember when I was a little kid. Okay. growing up in arizona and i remember i lived we lived in tucson i remember going to phoenix and going to be with my grandparents and then going on fishing trips to them to some lake there was some lake they went to right in uh in arizona someplace and there was just desert in there there’s nothing in there No, there’s forest and lakes you’d be really okay yeah And so there was always a story at this lake that there was a monster in the lake that would come out of the water at night and come up on the shore. And so that’s why you didn’t go out running around. Once it was time to go to bed, you got in your tent or you got in your trailer and you just didn’t leave because you didn’t want to get caught by that monster. And I remember them telling us that story. It was the Arizona… What do they call those? Sea monkey monster. Maybe old sea monkeys. But you know, it’s those kinds of stories like Loch Ness Monster in Scotland. Those deep water monster stories scare the shit out of me. I don’t know. There’s just something about them. Well, one, I don’t like the water. I mean, I can swim. To prolong my drowning. That’s about as good as I can quit. You’re not a pro swimmer, you’re saying? No, I’m not. I’m not a pro swimmer. But when I get out there, it’s like, give him a minute. He can survive for a little bit before we go out there. He’s all right. What about floating? You float well? Oh, yeah. That’s the first thing I learned as a kid was how to float. My grandpa in Utah taught me how to float. And so, but these… Unknown, and movies are the same way, like the movies with the monsters in the water. Right, yeah, old monster movies. I mean, nothing’s scarier. Like, Jaws scared the bejesus out of me when I saw that movie. And I read the book before I saw the movie, and the book’s scarier. And so, you know, the idea of being on a lake, you don’t know what’s below you. Exactly. And then all of a sudden, something coming up and grabbing you? Oh, no, man. No, I don’t want nothing to be on a… I don’t want to be there. No. This one I thought was so interesting because Champ in Lake Champlain out east in Vermont is just like Nessie. It’s like a plesiosaur. And then there’s the Ogopogo up in Canada is a plesiosaur. So this is a lake monster that is a squid that Some people say it’s a hairy squid, which to me was just like, okay, that’s even scarier. Yeah. Because would you want to have a hairy squid grabbing you? I mean, it would be like a vagina with tentacles. Yeah. And then when he gets out of the water, his hair is all messed up. He’s got to get it out of his eyes. He’s using his tentacles. That’s right. And then he gets mad. Yeah. Yeah. But it was one of the weirdest, as I was kind of doing a little research, it was one of the weirder things in that area. I mean, obviously, Washington, Pacific Northwest, Bigfoot, right? Everybody talks about Bigfoot. Yeah. But I thought we got to have something different and weird. And this is one of the weirder different ones that is in the area. And so I thought this has got to be a good one. Yeah, I had never heard that. That’s a good story. I’ve never heard that. And Bigfoot, as far as I’m concerned, up here in the Pacific Northwest, like the state of Washington, it’s run its course. We’ve heard so many stories. It’s like, hey, I saw Bigfoot. Yeah, yeah, right. Okay, whatever. He has been. Yeah. Yeah, sure you did. So what do you think the likelihood of there actually being a Devil’s Lake monster is? Zero. Zero. Not something that looks like a hairy squid. No, I don’t think so. Now, could it be a big sturgeon? Sturgeon get huge. Sturgeon get big. And it could be a sturgeon. And if I’m not mistaken, a sturgeon is fat. fresh water but i think it’s the fresh water yeah yeah but i think it does go out, it does go out in the salt water a little bit. Not a lot i mean it’ll it’ll go between the two yes kind of like salmon salmon salmon is all right yeah and i think they come to fresh water to spawn, but they live in salt water yeah i think sturgeon are close to being the same thing, but i have seen some Man, Bob, I’ve seen some huge sturgeon. I mean, on the columbia river At the Bonneville Dam, in that area on the Columbia River, just east of Portland, they have a big fish aquarium type thing there. They had sturgeon in there. Oh, yeah. They had a sturgeon in there that was like 18, 19, 20 feet long. Oh, my Lord. Yes. And it was an old sturgeon. And they took care of it. And, you know, the public loved it. They’d go out there and see this thing. And, you know, they had it for a long time. But some teenagers broke in there and killed it what yeah how they how did they kill it? Did they, like, stick a pike in it or something? What did they do? I have no idea that was long that’s weird or they just tap on the glass all night long until he just freaked out? Well, it was in a it was in a tank so that i mean it had an open top. Oh, okay. You can stand there at the guard railing. They spit on him until he couldn’t take it anymore. You’re so degraded. Everybody was so mad that they killed that sturgeon. That’s horrible. Maybe it could be a group of coordinated sturgeons. that act like tentacles whenever you’re in the water and they kind of grab ahold of you from different spots. Teenager. There’s still, there’s a bunch of lecherous sturgeons grabbing teenagers. Let me go back and say, you know, you asked me, you know, what do I think? Is there something possibly, I think there’s something that could be, you know, big, like a big fish and something like that. It’s just like, Bigfoot, you know, I can, I cannot confirm or deny a Bigfoot. I’ve never seen it. I’ve, you know, I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t know. Is there, is it, I don’t know. I don’t know. I I’ve never seen one. I don’t know. And you know, there’s other things, you know, running around. I, I don’t know. So like Nessie, is there really something in Loch Ness monster in the net Loch Ness? People say there is. I don’t know. I can, I can either confirm or deny it, you know, until I actually see it myself. Yeah, well, that’s the hard part, right? There could be something out there floating around, you know. I like to think that this particular story, I would agree with you. I’d probably say that there’s a very, very slim chance this is actually real. Not just because it sounds so outrageous, but if you take it a step further and you kind of analyze a little bit, you’re like, is there any other octopus-looking thing, creature in the world that has fur? And I don’t think there is, right? I think the fur thing is just someone’s imagination. Yeah, it throws it all off. Yeah, I don’t think it has. Maybe it’s molting or something. Yeah, I don’t know. But, you know, there are whales in that area. Yeah. I mean, all along the coast, there’s the big whale watching. Oh, yeah. And there’s orcas out there. I mean, they’ve got some big fish and mammals. That’s true. Out there in the water. So it could be. They’re not hairy, though. They’re not furry octopi. Are they full of, like if it’s a whale or something like that, or maybe a real old sturgeon? Is it full of barnacles? Barnacles that have seaweed, that had seaweed attached to it at one time? I don’t know. It sounds very Scooby-Doo when you say that. It was a seaweed-covered sturgeon. Well, look, I’m thinking about the creature from the Black Lagoon. Right, exactly. Oh, that’s great. And now that stuff down there, you know. I think typically a lot of these cryptid things that the ones that tie closer to something that’s really like we talk about Bigfoot, one that ties a little bit closer to something that existed. Right. So there’s monkeys, there’s, you know, apes and whatnot. Right. Not a huge stretch to go to Bigfoot, right? In the Nessie, there was plesiosaurs. We know they existed and everything. Not a huge stretch to say, well, maybe there’s a small plesiosaur population alive somewhere. You never know. But yeah, whenever you kind of mix and match things a little bit with the hairy octopus, it puts it over a little over there. Although tomorrow the news could say, Devils like monster is real. I don’t know. And so we would be all, we’d all be going, Oh, well, there you go. Yeah, that’s right. Oh my goodness. Who knows what people’s imagination does, you know, especially back if you start talking about back in the indigenous people’s days, you know, back when it’s just a lot of peyote. you know yeah yeah yeah they weren’t all sweet and innocent people you know it’s the devil’s herb monster. Oh my goodness. That’s it. It could have been all kinds of stuff out there but so have you ever seen anything yourself, like you’ve been out you see something you’re like, that’s not right. What is that? Have you ever had any experiences like that? When I was driving home in Prescott, Valley, Arizona, Prescott, from prescott valley into prescott uh through an area uh we called um i don’t know what it was called the devil’s butthole devil’s butthole it was right around ran around granite mountain in that area. I swear, when i was driving, I just, you know, I kind of looked down and then i looked up and i saw something going across the road. And it looked big. It looked big, and it looked kind of lumbersome walking across the road. And it went across the road, hit a ditch, and up and vanished into the woods. And I’m going, was that Bigfoot? I have no idea. I don’t know. Could it have been a bear? Or it was on two legs, you think? It was too upright to be a bear. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I don’t know. And then it was, are my eyes, did my eyes just play a trick on me? I don’t know. Interesting. And then one time when I was living in Chino Valley, I got home from work. It was night. I get home from work. I get out of my car. I open up the trunk to get something out of my trunk. And something catches my eye above me. And I look up and I see this orb jetting across the sky. And then vanishing into the clouds. I mean, this thing was moving too. And I’m going, that was no jet. That wasn’t no airplane. Do you remember what year that was? Just out of curiosity? It had to be mid-70s. Oh, okay. Wow. That’s a while ago then. Yeah. And both those things were mid-70s. How big of an orb would you say it was? Like, if you just had to guess. It had to, in perspective, it was bigger than an Apache helicopter. Okay, so something sizable then. It was not small. Yeah, it was pretty sizable. Was it flying about like where a helicopter would fly? Is that the idea? No, I think it was. It’s hard to tell how high up it was. But it was below the clouds. Right. Below the clouds because it was given off a glow and it was reflecting in the clouds as it’s going. Yeah. And then it just went into the clouds and disappeared. And then disappeared. That as well. You’re going to, this is now, theirs was in the 70s. I saw an orb in 2005. And I actually recorded a show with Miles about this and he said I was crazy. It was in the afternoon. It was like 4 o’clock in the afternoon. And I was outside with my kids when they were little. I was swinging them on a swing set, and I was pointing out airplanes to my son as they were going over. And I look up, and I’m going to say, hey, look, here’s an airplane, buddy. And it was a sphere flying through the sky at approximately the height of planes. And it went from the… uh, Southeast to the Northwest within 20 seconds. Yeah. Like horizon to horizon. Right. Just zipped right across this, uh, over my house. And, and I, I could not believe it. I was, it was, I was dumbstruck because I couldn’t do anything. This is pre a good cell phone camera. I didn’t have a camera on me. Yeah. And it just goes in and, was gone. And to this day, I still can’t explain it. It wasn’t a, we were looking at planes and it wasn’t a plane and it was it was a i saw the front of it. I saw the back of it. It was a ball. It was a sphere. And I saw it go in and out of the clouds. Yeah. I’m like you i mean it was it was an what i saw was an object, you know? And first thing i thought was i just saw a UFO. an unidentified flying object. I don’t know what that was. That wasn’t an airplane. It wasn’t no helicopter. It was something flying in the air, and it was quick. Yeah, very fast. Mine, I would guess, if I had to guess, it was about four times the size of a 747 nose cone. So if you think about the size of a 747, take that times four, and that’s I was assuming because I was watching it from the ground, and we were watching planes, and it looked four times larger than a plane. Wow. How weird. I know. But I think it’s fascinating that you had a similar experience because I have not talked to many people who have seen orbs. People will say, I saw lights, I saw this, I saw that. And people don’t usually say they’ve seen orbs and things. Even for me in 2005, I had a hard time finding, because I went on the internet, right? I went right to the internet. And I looked stuff up, and I couldn’t find a lot of orb talk in 2005. So I imagine in 1970, there was, I mean, there’s no way to look it up easily, but there’s nothing. You didn’t tell me about it. Hey, but I do have- I told Miles right away, as soon as we could record it, I’m like, He’s like, you’re high. Yeah. I do have one more example. Now, this isn’t a UFO. I think this is spiritual or ghostly or something in that realm. Wow, we’re getting everything. We’re getting all quadrants tonight. I’ve got game cameras in my backyard. Okay. Because we like to get at night what’s going on. We like seeing the raccoons and the possums and the rabbits. And all this and that and the birds flying around during the day and the squirrels. Well, I always pull them out after about a week or two. And then I sit here and I go through them, you know. And I got it set up so it shoots a 10-second video. 10-second video. So it catches motion. It runs 10 seconds of video. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a motion detector. So once it picks up a motion, it’ll record for 10 seconds. Yeah. All right. So I’m looking at the videos. It’s at night. I’m looking at the night ones now. And it’s like you’re looking at it through an infrared camera. Right, yeah. Night vision. I’m looking at it. And out of the right-hand corner, this orb comes into vision. And it had to be, I would say, about the size of a little bit bigger than a golf ball. Mm-hmm. mean what it looked like, but it came out and it was, it was like, let me do this, this arm because it’s coming, it come out like this and it’s kind of jet jetting around. Oh, bopping around and it and it you know, just kind of moving in and out of the area, you know, and i’m going, what the hell is that? Because I’ve seen bugs right bugs i i’ve got i’ve got footage of bugs flying around and you know and i’ve seen i know what a bug looks like on an infrared camera. This was not a bug and it was like a solid, uh, luminescent ball kind of shit. Yes. yes and and then it just uh and then it just went it moved around and it just went poof and disappeared. Really? And I still, to this day, I have that footage. Oh, gosh. Because I saved it. I showed Grammy. I go, hey, check this out. And she goes, what is that? I go, I have no idea. I don’t know. I have no idea what that is. Maybe somebody’s visiting us in our yard. But I’ve never seen it again. I’ve never seen anything like it again. That’s wild. I’d love to see that if you feel like sharing it at some point. I’d love to see it. Oh, yeah. I’ll send it to you. Send it to me. That’s cool. I think it’s an MP3 file, if I’m not sure. I’ll email it to you so you can look at it and tell me what you think. Yeah, I’ll take a look at it. This is great. So you’re hitting every corner of the Mondo Freako world here. We got cryptids, we got paranormal, we got UFOs. You know, I believe that stuff, Bob. And I mean, the reason I believe it is because no one’s been able to disprove any of it. True. It happens too often, right? You know, well, do you believe this? Well, I don’t. I do. I don’t not believe it. You know, I mean, you know, it’s like people say, do you believe in ghosts? Well, I, I’ve never, I don’t have a reason not to believe in ghosts. Right. You believe in aliens. Well, I think the probability with as, with as vast as this universe is the mathematical probability is that there are other life forms out there. So yes, I do. Yeah. You know, And me and my next door neighbor, whose name is Bob, we talk about this stuff all the time. And he says, he goes, so we were talking, he goes, so do you think aliens have been here? I go, yeah, I’m sure they’ve been here, but they don’t come anymore. He goes, why don’t you think they come anymore? I go, because we are the trailer park of the universe. They don’t go to the… Don’t go to the blue planet. They will eat you. They will catch you and eat you. Those people eat everything alive. And he’s laughing. He goes, yeah, I believe that they bypass us too. And he goes, because they look down at us and they go, there is no form of intelligent life on that rock. No intelligent life on this rock. He goes, there’s just a bunch of worms. He goes, we’re worms. They consider us worms. They’ll come down and catch them for bait for when they’re shocked. But, no, I mean, and, you know, I have no reason to doubt. I have no reason to doubt this stuff. Yeah. I’m with you. I’m like, until… Just because you haven’t had the experience doesn’t mean that no one’s had the experience. And if somebody’s had the experience, then there’s a possibility, I suppose. Yeah. That, you know, you can’t discount, you know, everybody else just because you haven’t done it. That’s right. So, you know, it’s… I think… At this point, I still think anything’s possible. The hubris of the humans is so great that we think we know everything, when in reality, we really don’t know very much at all. We know very little. Yeah, and this is just examples of things we don’t know, and people like to, you know, like to put it down. Oh, you know, that’s nothing. Oh, you just saw a lightning bug. Oh, you just saw a jet. Oh, you just saw… Well, the thing with that is I’ve seen lightning bugs. That wasn’t a lightning bug. I’ve seen jets. That wasn’t a jet. And another thing too, Bob, is I’m a Christian. I believe there’s a God. I believe Jesus was the Son of God and all this and that. And so people say, so you believe in heaven and earth? I go, yeah. They go, well, how could you? I go, how can you not? You can’t prove to me one way or the other. Well, I don’t believe in heaven. Well, why? Because nobody said it exists. Nobody said it didn’t exist. Right. Exactly. My concept of eternity is I think that there’s a verse in the Bible somewhere that says all things will be made known when we go into eternity. And I believe that because our brains are too small to handle the stuff that’s going on. And I think that once this life expires and we walk through that threshold into eternity, our eyes will be open to all kinds of things that we can handle then in a spiritual form that we can’t handle now in our physical form. In the physical form. That’s interesting. I think that’s what’s going to happen. And to be honest with you, I’m looking forward to it. I really am. You are an old man, so you’re closer than most. i’m looking forward to that day of walking through that door of eternity. They go, well, how do you know that even exists? Well, see, you gotta, it’s faith. You gotta believe that it exists it’s it’s on faith nobody you know, they go, well, nobody’s ever gone and come back. I go, one man claims to have oh way more than uh well jesus yeah and he sat around and talked to 500 people at one time and then left. And they saw him ascend so i go you know, um, And that’s another topic. But one thing about that that I always say is when Jesus died and they buried him in the tomb and they got the guards there guarding him, you know, the body. And then the morning comes, the doors move, the body’s gone. So did everybody, did the Romans and did the political leaders, did they just go, oh, well? i say, no. Think about it. They put on the biggest massive manhunt known to mankind because they wanted to find that body. They needed to find that body because of the followers he had, because of the, you know, all the teachings and everything. They needed to find that body so they could prove that he he was dead. But they never found the body. Because if they had found the body of jesus Christ, it would have been known historically. There would be a thing saying it. Yeah, they would have put it out there. And there are books out there where people have written about that. It would have been a bigger tour than King Tut. Yes. Exactly. But no, I believe in that stuff, Bob. To me, it just makes life more exciting. I mean, I believe there was a time where us, we as humans, we were more in tune with with spiritual stuff than we are. We’re not in tune to spiritual stuff nowadays at all. But I think we were more in tune with spiritual and, and, and, you know, spiritual stuff and, uh, uh, eternal stuff. I mean, we, I believe the stories where people say they saw their ancestors and all this and that. I believe that because there was a time when they were in tune to that kind of stuff. We’re not, we’re all technology has taken us and made us. actually made us very simple people. We don’t believe in this stuff that’s supernatural. We don’t believe in the supernatural stuff anymore and I think it’s out there. Yeah. The interesting thing is, does it matter? I mean, does it matter to everyone else? So if you, whatever you believe in your last moments of your life, if you firmly believe in them and then you slip away believing them, then it is eternity. You believe. Yeah. It doesn’t matter what happens on the other side. You are basically that last moment is your eternity, whether we know what happens or not, or anybody else knows what happens. It doesn’t matter if anybody knows. Doesn’t matter. No. Exactly. You have to just, you know, I think one of the things that people don’t realize is, you know, you have to live the life the way you want to all the way until the end. Because if you don’t, then when you end, you’re going to end on kind of a sour note, right? If you’re not following your heart and doing what you want. I totally agree with you, Bob. And you know, Bob, I think… Philosophical corner here. Yes, but that’s what makes life fun. If we would get back into being more spiritual beings, life would take a turn for the better, I’m sure of it. Because… You know, we don’t use our imagination near enough as we do. I mean, and we need to use our imagination. Imagination is the root of creation. I mean, not creation, but creating. Imagination is the root of creating. You know, and what did Albert Einstein say? Imagination is the root of knowledge. You know, because without our imagination, we can’t wonder how things are. You can’t find it. Exactly. We don’t do that anymore. When was the last time anybody walked outside on a nice starry full night, looked up and went, wow, what’s beyond what I can see? What’s out there? What is way out there? We need to get back into that. People come and say, hey, you know what? I believe in ghosts. I saw a ghost the other day. I go, what? awesome you know you believe me? Oh, yeah. Why wouldn’t i believe you you know i you know why wouldn’t i believe you? You know? Exactly. But if you never go about this thing about ghost Bob, have you ever been sitting, you know, watching, maybe watching TV, a movie or something, or reading, and you see something move out of your peripheral oh my God. It happens to me constantly. I see that all the time. I’m constantly looking, you know? And I’m, I’m thinking that there’s a part of me that’s in tune to things spiritual, and I think I’m really seeing some stuff. I always say that, well, actually, one of the worst things for me, I travel around a bit, and I traveled more in the past than I do now because of the way things have changed, but I go to hotels all the time, and I have cats, obviously, and And I would always see cats in the hotels out of the corner of my eye. I’d be like, Oh, is there a cat over there? I always think, I always think just because I always see them at home perhaps, but it happens too much. And then, you know, you see other things and I used to this, now you’re going to get, we’re going to get weird here. I used to, there’s a, um, a phenomenon called shadow people and, uh, shadow people are just outlines of people. And, um, I have a whole, we can get in a whole deep dive, but there have been times where I’ll see shadow people in the corner of my eye when I’m, a lot of times when I’m not home, though, when I’m elsewhere. So it’s not like, because whenever you talk about these kinds of, everybody wants to explain away everything. Oh, you got floaters in your eye. Oh, you need to go get your vision checked. Oh, you need, you know, it’s not consistently happening everywhere. You know, it depends on where I’m at. In some places, it happens more. In some places, it happens less. And so a weird thing was an old house of ours had a mailbox that was down a road, right? So your mailbox is not right by your house. We live out in the country. And you had to go down the road to get the mailbox. Right. And I swear to God. Every time I walk out to get the mail, there was all these shadow people around them because it was a mailbox for a bunch of people, right? So it was more than one, like three or four mailboxes for people. Always I would see things when I went out to get the mail, but never at the house. And it would just be like something that would blip out of the corner of your eye and you’d turn and you’d catch the glimpse of something. And it looked like a person. It was like a shadow that just kind of went. Yeah. And so I’m like, God damn, this mailbox has just got things all over it. I don’t know what’s going on out here. But, yeah, that was one of those things, and I’ve had it happen more than just there. But, yeah, you’re right. I think another thing is I think people aren’t in tune with themselves very much. So a lot of folks are so preoccupied with the world around them and the – The things that aren’t important, I’ll put it that way. I agree. Right? It’s all those distractions. Whereas if you’re kind of, you know, this sounds real hippy-dippy here, but you’re real zen and you’re kind of just focused on yourself and everything’s good with the world and you’re feeling good and everything, then I think you open yourself up more to these things. And they then enter, you know, then you can kind of perceive them a little bit better. Whereas if you’re so tied up in your phone and you know what you’re doing and you got to do this and you got to do that, you’re not going to, you’re blinded by your own kind of selfish nature. And it’s just like the wonder you’re talking about walking out and look at the stars. You have to open yourself up to the world. And when you do, things will reveal themselves to you. Exactly. And to people that are listening to this show, If you’ve got people that you’re like that, you see things and this and that. And if somebody comes up to you and says, well, I don’t believe you. Fine. Don’t believe me. Prove me wrong. You can’t prove them one way or the other. I mean, unless you see something, you can say, oh, well, I saw something. I know what you’re talking about. But if you’ve never seen it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You know, you can’t prove, you cannot prove it. I mean, you know, you can’t say, well, that doesn’t exist. How do you know? Right. You know, it’s just like looking up into the sky and seeing this, seeing the sky and seeing the universe. You know, if you just look straight up and you see this and you tell them how, try to explain to them how big the universe, you know, we’re just a little tiny speck in a, in a, in a gal, in a solar system, in a galaxy and, in a universe, and it’s like, well, I don’t believe that. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter the way it is. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it, you know and uh yeah i i just uh this stuff is exciting to me. It really is. A real quick story. Do you have time for a quick story? Oh, yeah, go right in my grandson, when he was a little boy, like five, four or five years old, him and his dad are sitting there. His dad’s watching the nba playoffs and the young man and the young young man. Yeah, and he’s sitting there and he’s playing in toys and all that. And he stands up. He stands up. His dad’s on a sofa. He stands up here and he’s looking up at this corner of the living room. And the tv’s over here and he’s looking up there. He’s just there looking and and and eric and eric looks and goes, what the hell? And then dominic turns around and goes, hey dad look Look. And he’s pointing up into the corner of the roof. Like if I was pointing up into that. Look. Look. And he goes, what do you see, Dominic? He goes, look. Look. And it’s like, I go, well, what did you do, Eric? He goes, I picked him up and ran the hell out of the house. I go, was there anything there? He goes, not that I saw. He saw. But he saw something. And I wanted to get the hell out of there. You couldn’t take Dominic and say he didn’t see anything. He was very confident that he saw something. I think he did. I think because babies and kids are in tune to spiritual stuff more than adults. They’re open to the world. You talk to a little kid when a little kid says, hey, who are you talking to? My friend. What’s your friend’s name? Fred. Where is he? He’s right here. Okay. Hi, Fred. Play nice, Fred. That’s what I used to do with my kids. I would talk to their imaginary friend and just tell their imaginary friend, he’s in my house and he better be good. When my dad passed away, my sister had his ashes. at the, at her house in Santa Fe. And she calls me up and she says, you know, strangest thing when dad passed away, you know, I’ve got his ashes and I, you know, he kind of buried him out, you know, spread him among the plants and whatever. And she goes, but now my house smells like cigarette smoke all the time. I go, you’re kidding. And she goes, no, I go, well, is, you know, anybody coming in your house smoking? She goes, no, nobody comes in my house and nobody smokes. I go, but you smell cigarette smoke. She goes, yes. I go, well, what do you do? What’d you do about it? She goes, well, I, I finally got fed up and I stood up in the middle of the house and I went, look, Francis, if you want to be here, you can be here all you want, but I don’t want no more cigarette smoke. No smoking inside. Yeah. Basically that’s what she said. I guess. And what happened? She goes, I’ve never smelt it again. That’s wild. That’s a wild story right there, baby. And on that note, let’s roll ourselves out of here, shall we, old man? Thank you for being the guest tonight. Remember, everybody, go to the Old Man’s Podcast and listen to him and Grammy and, you know, have some fun, right? I would love to come back anytime you want me, man. Yes, of course. We’ll have you come back here soon, all right? Yeah, send me an invite, man. I’m here. I’m here for you, buddy. All right, you hold tight for just a minute, and I’m going to play us out of here. Mondo Freako. Mondo. Mondo Freako. Mondo Freako. Mondo Freako. Mondo Freako.

Lady in Red with Todd Van Allen and Darcy Fiander – Oshopod.com

[https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Lady-in-Red-s-300x375.jpg] LADY IN RED During a lively episode of the podcast Mondo Freako, the host welcomes Canadian guests Todd and Darcy for a deep dive into the paranormal, centered around a trivia quiz about Toronto’s historic Fairmont Royal York Hotel. The discussion highlights the legend of the “Lady in Red,” a residual haunting on the eighth floor known for her crimson evening gown, the scent of old-fashioned perfume, and her habit of walking into non-existent elevators. While the guests jokingly stumble through the quiz, the conversation shifts into personal spectral encounters, including Todd’s eerie story of seeing a “ghostly groom” while his wife saw a “ghostly bride” at the Fairmont Banff Springs. OSHOPOD.com [https://Poduty.com] ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- [https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Lady-in-Red-Infographic-1024x559.jpg]https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Lady-in-Red-Infographic.jpg ---------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT (AI TRANSCRIPTION) So I hear ghosts are warmer-blooded in Canada. Is that true, guys? Well, they certainly are not reptilian. No, we don’t have cold-blooded ghosts. Oh, really? They’re red-blooded Canadian ghosts up here. Darcy, do you agree with that assessment? Yeah, okay. Okay. Great riff. Great riff. Mondo Rico. Hey everybody and welcome to Mondo Rico. Today we’ve got a couple of Canadians with us today. How are you guys doing? Fantastico. And just because I said you’re Canadian, you can identify as other than, I mean, maybe, is there differences in being in Canada? Or you can say, no, I’m an Albertan. Oh, okay. Well, yeah. There’s that now. Yes. Okay. That has connotations that we’d rather not hop into at this point. Okay. It’s a little early in the show for that. A Torontonian? Is that the word? Yes. And an Ottawa? Ottawa? An Ottoman? Yeah. An Ottoman. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You guys don’t identify? I’m an East Coaster originally. Yes. Okay. I’m from Nova Scotia. So you’re like Anna Green’s Gables or what? Not quite. That would be Prince Edward Island. But Nova Scotia, which means New Scottsdale, Arizona. A Scotian? Yes. Yes. See, it’s funny because Darcy is a Torontonian who identifies as an East Coaster, and I am an Ottawa who identifies as a Torontonian. Oh, well… You guys need to have graphics or something whenever you come on to introduce all this. We’re going to have arrows going all across the great white wall. It’s nothing but strings and post-it notes and pictures of East Coast Donair and wings from the Wheat Sheaf. Wheat Sheaf wings. Well, this show is about the mysteries of the world. And I have a mystery, but every time we do a quiz and I give the person who’s participating, the people in this case who are participating, the opportunity to either take the quiz cold about our topic today or get the information and then take the quiz. Depends how daring you are here. Yeah, send me in cold coach. What it’s about here, I can tell you what it’s about. Don’t even care. Bring it. Oh, you just want to go right to the quiz. Hop right in. I’m not looking up nothing. There we go. Let’s do it. Quiz. Quiz. All right. Here you go. I just realized something. If I screw up, if I just screwed myself out of a prize, is… No, yeah, there’s no prize. You guys might not be able to see this totally because it’s probably really small, but this is our quiz here. I’m going to read all the questions and the answers, so don’t worry about it if it’s small on your screen. You’re perfectly fine. All right? Yes. All right, here we go. First question. In which Canadian city is the Fairmont Royal York Hotel located? Is it… A, Ottawa… B, Bikini Bottom, C, Montreal, or D, Toronto. And I do have a hint if you guys want that. Darcy, do you want to take this one? No, no, go ahead. Are you sure? Bikini bottom, obviously. Bikini bottom! For the win. Oh, no! Oh, my goodness. While residents there might see many ghosts of sunken ships, the Fairmont Royal York is strictly a dry land-based establishment in Toronto. Did you know that the Fairmont Royal York is a historic landmark and a prominent fixture of the Toronto skyline? For sure. It’s tucked in. It’s right across the street from Via Rail, from the Union Station in Toronto. In fact… You’ve been? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in fact, the Fairmont chains, like the Fairmont hotels in Canada, until they moved… the railway stations, they were always across the street from a railway station. People would get off and then go immediately into the hotel. Fairmont Railways. That was their tagline. Fairmont Railways. Alright, next question. Number two. There’s seven questions altogether. They’re supposed to get more difficult as we go along. Who knows, though. What is the most distinctive feature of this spirit’s appearance? According to witnesses at the Fairmont, right? Okay. In Toronto. Okay. A tattered maid’s uniform, a vibrant red evening gown, a shadowy featureless cloak. Right. Or a bright red clown nose. I have a hint if you want it. Yeah, let’s have a hint. Oh, let’s do the hint. Yeah. Her name tells you exactly what color she is wearing. Oh, so it’s obviously a bright red clown nose. Um, No, I am going to say a vibrant red evening gown. Darcy, are you in on that? That’s the sound of money that we’re winning. Darcy, we’re going to get so rich off of this. Much like just about every major chain establishment, you earn points. Which can be spent on our next visit. Right. Or possibly, unless we change our game. Right. So the vibrant red evening guy, you’re right, the spirit is named after her striking crimson dress, often described as a formal gown from a past era. Okay. All right. You’re doing great. You got one for one. One for one. What more could you want? Well, I’m going to say we actually got two, because we’re screwing around on the first one. Technically, if you’re going to hold us to it, then yes. Much like school, when you screw around, you lose. Okay. All right. All right, next question, number three. On which specific floor of the hotel is the lady in red most frequently sighted? Oh, that’s her name. Okay. The rooftop? Mm-hmm. The 13th floor? Right. The basement near the laundry? Mm-hmm. Or the eighth floor? I also have a hint if you’d like. I think we got to take hints. You want a hint? Take that hint, yeah. Yeah, yeah, hint, please. Oh, don’t say, okay, thank you. It is an even-numbered floor in the single digits. It is 13. I just used my math degree. Woo-hoo! No, it’s the eighth. It’s the eighth. We’re screwing around here. We’re not screwing around here. Eighth floor? Yeah. All right! There we go. That’s right. The eighth floor is the most cited location for sightings of the lady walking the hallway. That’s amazing. I think my wife has to stay there next week and I’m going to make sure she’s on the eighth floor. Yeah. I’m going to call her at the end of the hallway. Cause that’s where she probably disappears. I’m guessing. Yeah. All right. Which of the following sensory details is often reported by guests who believe they have just missed an encounter with her. Okay. The smell of wet dog, the smell of burnt toast. Okay. That’s a stroke, right? Okay. The faint sense of old fashioned perfume, which is, male of sulfur, which is what? Okay, well, we’ll see. That’s there all the time. Yeah. That is, that is in the fairmont royal York. Yeah. That is just omnipresent, so it’s something needs to cut through that um also known as petticoat central yes yes darcy i i feel like a hint is necessary. Do you, are you feeling oh is there a hint a hint there’s always a hint oh great yeah that’s always a hint All right. Think of a subtle fragrance a woman in an evening gown might wear. Yeah, sulfur, just like farts. The scent of old-fashioned perfume. So I guess she walks around all over the place, right? Did I see you and agree? You concur? Yeah, I can see. Are you sure? I knew you were looking at wet dog. Are you sure? Okay. All right, I guess we’re going to see. You haven’t even got to her ghost dog rover. Right, exactly. All right. Pickles, no. The faint scent of old passion perfume. Oh, my gosh, look at this. Wow, wow, wow, wow. I’m saying at this point, you’ve got like 0.3 cents. Okay, all right. Just like coupons, you can turn them in for cash. Still better than PC points at this point. All right, you’re doing good. Three for one. Great. One more. You’re over the top. It’s seven questions. You get more than 50%. I think you’re good to go. Here we go. Question number five. What unusual behavior is the Lady in Red often observed doing before she disappears? Okay. A, ordering a pizza from the front desk. B, aggressively checking her non-existent smartphone. C, arguing with an invisible person. Right. Or D, stepping into an elevator somewhere. that is not there. Okay. So I, I have to, I have to tell you something. Um, the last time i was at the, uh, royal uh, York, um, we, uh, we had just got back from a friend of ours wedding. And when i got back, I have done all of those things. So stepped into a non-existent elevator yeah it was painful My wife told me it was our clothes closet, but whatever. Okay, sure. All right. Too bad you weren’t on the eighth floor. I know. She might be collecting insurance money. Darcy, what do you think? You want the hint? Of course we want the hint. Darcy’s place is safe. I’m guessing Darcy’s school record is not very marked up, where Todd’s possibly is In a Filofax. Oh, yeah. Yes. They converted it to microfiche. Yes. Yeah. It involves a common method of hotel transportation. Well, then for sure it’s pizza, right? Like that’s, of course it is. No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to sully our record. Darcy, it sounds like elevator to me. How about you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, stepping onto the elevator that’s not even there. Oh, my gosh. Look at that. She thought it was a closet. That’s right. A common report describes her walking into the elevator bank area and stepping into a space where no car is present. You’re over the top on the seven. You’re four out of seven. So we got two more just for fun. Let’s see what happens. Let’s do this. Number six, what temperature change is frequently reported by those who claim to have walked through her? Is it A, an intense sweltering heat? B, a static shock that ruins your hairdo? C, a sudden localized chill? Or D, a comfortable 72 degrees with low humidity? Well, we use Celsius up here. We do. So that would be like… yeah 20c something like that yeah yeah yeah a a d like okay so 72 celsius no uh 72 uh fahrenheit oh 72 yeah but if that was 72 Celsius, that would be 140 for 174. yeah it would be quite hot uh i will take the hint, but i’m pretty sure it’s a localized chill from from the paranormal things. It’s a sensation. Yeah, there you go. Commonly referred to as a cold spot. Yes. Yeah. Sudden localized chill when you walk through a ghost. You guys are thinking C? Mm-hmm. Definitely. Oh, my gosh. You’re on roll. So far, it’s all the cliches. Yes. Well, witnesses often report cold spots of a sudden drop in temperature. Things are cliches for a reason, Darcy. That’s right. That’s right. They’re accurate. She’s nearby. And importantly, she reports in Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Okay. All right. Last question. You got five. I only got one wrong, which, of course, you’re saying is because you were being goofy around. Exactly. The host has zero sense of humor. Okay. All right. The Lady in Red is often considered a residual haunting. What does this mean in paranormal terms? Oh, dear. Okay. She is an intelligent spirit who tries to steal your Wi-Fi password. So far the winner. B, she is just a very dedicated hotel guest who refused to check out. C, she is recording of a past event replaying. Or D, she’s a poltergeist that moves objects. And we have a hint, if you’d like. Yeah. I think we want the hint, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got it. Yeah. Think of a loop of film playing back on a wall. Right. Which, I mean, at this point, no one knows what film is. Picture a DVD skipping. No, okay, that’s even worse. It’s an Instagram reel. Yeah, exactly. It’s an Instagram reel playing on a wall. That’s right. Uh, I guess it’s see a recording of a past event darcy you’re gonna are you agreeing with this? I agree with that yeah here we go. Oh my gosh. Look at that. Oh, if you would have got all seven, I would have given you $700,000. Oh, my God. Oh, damn it. Well, I will tell you this. It’s not the first time and certainly won’t be the last time that my behavior has screwed me out of money. You get a Trump card. Oh, no. No, thank you. No, no. Non lo voglio. No, no, no. Well, let’s finish up with our quiz music and we’ll hear a little message. All right. Quiz. Quiz. Quiz. This is Jonathan. And this is Heaven from the Opa Ghost podcast. And you’re listening to Mondo Frico. Toodles. Mondo Rico. That’s amazing. There you go, Mondo Rico. Now, do you guys want to hear the story of the Lady in Red from the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto? I absolutely would. And Darcy, I don’t know if you have… Is that what you’re trying to say? No, no, no, no, no. I actually have a Fairmont Hotel ghost story as well. Oh, well, this is going to be fantastic. I had no idea. It’s all random, folks. I know you don’t believe it, but it’s all random. Well, let me tell you the story real quick of the lady, and then we’re going to get to that ghost story. How’s that? Okay, definitely. Here we go. Let’s see here. Here we go. Here we go. The Fairmont Royal York in Toronto is home to one of Canada’s most enduring ghost stories, The Legend of the Lady in Red. According to local lore, she is frequently sighted on the eighth floor where she is set to manifest as a woman dressed in a vibrant crimson evening gown. Witnesses often report seeing her glide silently down the hallways before vanishing into the walls or stepping into an elevator that isn’t there. Some accounts suggest that she was a guest who met a tragic end at the hotel during her early years, though her specific identity remains a mystery, adding a layer of eerie elegance to the historic landmark. The presence of the Lady in Red is often accompanied by strange, unexplained phenomena that keep staff and guests at edge. People have reported sudden localized drops in temperature and the faint scent of old-fashioned perfume lingering in the corridors where she was last seen. While the Fairmont Royal York is known for its grand architecture and high-profile guests like Todd, not Darcy, it is these spectral tales that give the hotel its haunted reputation. Whether she is a lonely spirit or residual echo of the hotel’s jazz-age glamour, the Lady in Red remains a central figure in Toronto’s urban mythology. I did that wrong. There we go. That’s good. I see. Now I need to go stay on the eighth floor. Yeah. Yeah. No, but you did, you did a little tease there that you have a, now was it at the one in Toronto? It was not, it was not, uh, this was at the franchise, these ghosts out to all their hotels. Well, Oh, hello. There we go. Yeah. Hello. This is Nacho. Nacho as in Nacho Darcy. Nacho! Here we are. Oh, what a cute ask nacho if if he’s seen a ghost. Have you seen any ghost Nacho? He totally sees ghosts okay yeah i think there’s yeah there’s a there’s a picture hanging in the living room and he always thinks there’s like it’s the door to narnia or something. He’s always trying to get behind it see what i thought you’re gonna say he’s a sketch artist as well Darcy’s fridge is just covered with feline doodle art, you know, just magnets. You have to buy these special tiny crayons. Now, before I spill my story, Darcy, have you ever seen a ghost? Have you ever seen a ghost? I mean, that’s at the hotel. Or just in general. It could have been at the Red Roof. I know you’ve seen three ghosts, but none of them were at a Fairmont Franchise Hotel. This is not the time or place. It’s a sponsor. No, I’ve never seen a ghost. You’ve never seen a ghost? Really? No. How interesting. Bob, you ever seen one? No, I’ve never seen a ghost. So I’m the only one, and I saw mine at a Fairmont, and then you come to us with a Canadian story about the lady in red at the Fairmont Hotel in Toronto. A total guess. A total guess on my part. See, now that is paranormal activity. There you go. That is just like this. So here’s my story. My wife and I were on vacation, and we stayed at the Banff Springs Fairmont. really in Banff and Banff. I’ve always wanted to go to Banff. Is it really nice? It is gorgeous. It is absolutely gorgeous. Um, and so we, we go, uh, we, we check in and everything’s great. And I, uh, the first thing I do much to the chagrin of my wife is, uh, as soon as I get the wifi password, uh, I open up my internet browser on my phone and I type in the name of the hotel we’re staying in. I hit the space bar and then I put the word haunted and then I hit return. and uh and then as soon as the results come back, I go, hey, honey. And she goes, oh, no, you didn’t. And I go, oh, yes, I did. And she goes, no. And I went, oh, yeah, this place is crawling with them. And she’s like, did not need to know that. Did not even so we asked around and sure enough, like they have like a wing dedicated to the paranormal activity that they that they get there. And, um, Chief among the sightings is a glowing orb that shows up in one of the banquet rooms in the ballrooms. And so you can sometimes see this orb kind of floating around. That we did not see. What happened instead happened in the middle of the night in our room. My wife woke up in the middle of the night and at the foot of our bed, was a woman could not see her face through the veil in a wedding dress. Okay. And she was just standing there and my wife was now in sleep paralysis, so she couldn’t move. So the ghost is right there and she can’t move. So she’s trying to wake me up and just going, Todd, Todd, and true to my form, I’m dead asleep nothing’s gonna nothing’s gonna wake me up. Not even the undead will allow me to rise from this and so uh she uh she of course, when we wake up in the morning, she gives me complete hell for not being for for first of all, doing nothing. Right. But, you know, to to her credit, I was not helpful in this situation at all. I was not able to help her. And I said, so what what does the ghost look like? And she told me it was like a bride with a veil on. She couldn’t see her face because it was dark. It was definitely a wedding gown. And I went, huh, that’s interesting. And she says, why? Because I woke up later on or before this. I don’t know when the timing was that I woke up because this all happened, again, while I was sleeping. No idea what was going on. So at some point in the evening, while my wife was still asleep, I woke up and I looked at the foot of the bed and I saw, again, dark-faced, like can’t see the face, can’t make it out, but a gentleman in a full tuxedo and top hat. And I just looked at him and my reaction was, because I’m still sleepy and tired from the travel, whatever. I literally went, Hey, and then I rolled over and went to sleep. Sorry. Occupado. Yeah. I just let, Hey, and then that was it. And when I was like, and you did not wake up, I was like, you know what? It, it didn’t occur to me that it could have been real. So I didn’t even think of it. Right. But now given that she saw the bride, I saw the groom. So, yeah, so that was, we saw a couple, a living couple saw a dead couple. Really? Yes. Had you just renewed your vows or anything? No, nothing. Nothing. She was probably going to leave me that day. Yeah, I was going to say, was there divorce papers? You know, the death of a marriage. Divorce papers in the suitcase. Yeah, that’s it. Here, you know, always find a romantic place to drop form 8A on someone. Yeah. But chances of me finding a new mate here in Van are higher than if I was back home. Well, certainly among the non-living. Well, that’s cool. That’s a cool story. We actually saw a ghost. And Darcy, have you had anything happen that would be considered paranormal, perhaps? I do have a couple of hotel stories, but I’ll let Darcy go if he can… If Jim and Nacho can muster up a sketch, we’ll… I say it was not it was close to Banff. I was in Lake Louise. Okay. And I got altitude sickness. Oh, okay. Which is much as much like seeing a ghost. Really? Yeah. What was altitude sickness like? And how high up is that anyway? I know Lake Louise is fairly high up, but how high? It’s not super high, but… I guess I grew up near the ocean. You grew up at zero feet above sea level. Yeah. How many feet above sea level are we? Five? Five feet. So yeah, headaches and a rash was what I had. Wow. A rash? A rash, yeah. I guess it’s a thing, yeah. Okay. I had no idea. Yeah, I didn’t feel better until I was Yeah, I guess on the plane leaving, which is even higher than where you were before. Right. I just I needed to get in a pressurized cabin. Yes. Do you normally reside in an iron lung? I have one that I’m only like 30 feet off the ground here, but I do have something that equalizes it down to sea level. Oh, really? Okay. That’s interesting. It’s called a bodega. Anyway. Darcy lives in a bathysphere of some sort. That’s interesting. No, I’ve been over 10,000 feet a couple of times, and I’m certainly no one of great physical prowess, and I’ve never had problems. So I don’t know where you have to be at to get Altitude sickness. But so far, I haven’t caught it. Right. You need to get high, man. I mean, geographically, man. Yeah. Well, I was in the Rocky Mountain, kind of the divide of the Rocky Mountains. Right. And I was on the volcano in Hawaii. Oh, okay. And that’s even higher, I think, than the Rocky Mountains, believe it or not. But interesting. Now, back to the ghost things. Yes. Well, I had… Two weird hotel ghost experiences that I could bring to you. But they weren’t seeing a ghost like yours. Yours, Todd, was way more interesting than what I’m going to say. Okay. Because I didn’t see anything. Okay. I’ll go with the mundane one first. Sure. So I have to travel for my work. And as a frequent traveler, I never get rid of my room until I absolutely have to. Mm-hmm. And I’m always the guy that’s like, can I get late checkout? Can I get late checkout? Absolutely. No, you’re not that guy. You are a normal guy. I’m just saying. And so I was in this hotel. I had gathered everything up. I put everything in my suitcase. I had my suitcase on. You know, you get two beds a lot of times. So the bed I did not sleep in, I put my suitcase on, all packed up, ready to go. And I put… I had a bag with some nice shoes. Actually, it had my not nice shoes in it right now because I was wearing my nice shoes. And I had it up on the bed at the end of it. Right. Like where they put the fake quilt. I don’t know if you guys have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where it’s like. Who are you fooling with this thin strip of fabric that is barely sewn together to make it look like a quilt? We’ve got too much to make another set of drapes. That’s right. Put it on the bed. Put it on the bed. That’s fine. So it’s on there, you know, secure, safe. Gravity is holding it in place. It’s not going anywhere. I go, I do, you know, work things. I come up, I have to check out my shoes. My suitcase is still on the bed. My shoes are out of the bag on the floor in a Kimbo. Okay. As it were, no one’s been in my room. No other signs of like the maid didn’t come in and go, oh, I’m going to throw this guy’s goddamn shoes on the floor. Right. Nothing like that. Now, I would have thought nothing of that had the other part of the story not happened, which is the night before. Uh, I’m laying down, go to sleep. I happen to be on, uh, the room. It’s kind of at the end of the, uh, the end of the hallway near another hallway. Okay. So I’m on the corner. So there’s a hallway that runs behind the room. And then there’s a hallway that I get to my door for my room. Right. Trying to go to sleep. It’s, you know, relatively late, I guess, 1130, something like that central time. And none of the matters, but, uh, I’m laying there, and it’s as if someone leans over me and lets out a large belch right in my ear. Okay. I mean, full on. Right. Yep. I wake up. I’m looking around. There’s no one in the room. Right. What ghost belches in your ear? That is Slimer from Ghostbusters. That is Slimer from Ghostbusters with a shoe fetish. Yeah. Right. So then I just chalked it up for somebody being in the hallway, but it obviously, I mean, it obviously was not in the hallway. It was literally like if whenever you’re younger and your brother, your older brother holds you down and burps in your face, exactly what it was. Okay. So I, I, I, You know, I had to play, you know, I’m like, how can I sleep here if I keep thinking about this? Oh, it was just somebody in the hallway. Right. Go to sleep, wake up next morning. Now my shoes everywhere. Yeah. That is a common thing with the ghost, the moving of things. Oh, I thought you meant the belching. Oh, the belching, that’s new. And I’m not unconvinced you didn’t just wake yourself up after chilly night. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me. I’ll be honest. There have been a couple of moments where I go, we may have a ghost where I’m looking for something plainly and I have exhausted everything and I’ve looked like I have looked on the bed. I have been over every place in this bed where I could have dropped something. I go back to my office, go downstairs, and I come back and the keys are dead center of the bed. It’s like I literally looked here and they’re not here now. They are now. So there’s something like that. In my house. In your house? So if we have a ghost, he doesn’t come out often. Right? Is he wearing a groomsman attire? Zero sign of any spiritual clothing at all. Not a naked guy either, just not even seeing him. No tobacco or anything? No, nothing. I don’t get a cold spot when I walk through. Nothing. But that’s common. There’s records of… The comedy store in Los Angeles is haunted. And there are… I don’t think she died there, did she? Doesn’t matter. It’s been a long time there. Well, certainly Pauly Shore’s career is dead. The… it used to be an Italian restaurant that was run by the mob. And so people would come in the front door and then out the back door in a lot of cases. And so in some cases, yeah, like they would dispatch of people at this restaurant. And so because horrible things happen, it is, you know, the psychic energy disperses and goes into it. And so there were stories of like Rob Riggle, who’s like an ex Marine, but a comedian. Yeah. Uh, he was hanging out one night in the doorway to the basement. They have like the, one of those corrugated, um, gates. And, uh, out of nowhere, it started banging from the inside, like just rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle. And Rob Riggle, you know, uh, military veteran, Rob Riggle, uh, like he was just like he was just like he was just like shat himself and left like he was just shat himself and left like he was just shat himself and left like he was just gone gone gone it was like no f this place and there it was like no f this place and there it was like no f this place and there was one time where like they had to go was one time where like they had to go was one time where like they had to go get something in the basement for or get something in the basement for or get something in the basement for or something right and no one wanted to go and something right and no one wanted to go and something right and no one wanted to go and said okay so let’s all go together so said okay so let’s all go together so said okay so let’s all go together so i’ll go where’s rob riggle and i’ll go where’s rob riggle and i’ll go where’s rob riggle and i think rob i think rob was in this in think rob i think rob was in this in think rob i And they see in the corner a dark figure in the shadows, cannot make him out, but definitely a humanoid figure, right, who then runs at them. Meanwhile, one of the guys that’s down in the basement starts screaming that his hands are burning because this is apparently where they would put people’s hands on stoves. to get them to talk and, you know, get money out of money yeah so he felt that experience. So at this point, between running guy and screaming guy the the party goes, enough! And up the stairs they run. And a piece of cardboard drops on top of them. And the piece of cardboard reads, I think, the name. It’s either the name of of the the ghost downstairs or the name of one of the people in the party. Oh, really? And just kind of scrawled on there. Who’s that? Okay, so when I woke up this morning, I had a package of butter tarts that were on the kitchen table. They were on the floor when I woke up this morning. Oh, is that right? You got a cat. Oh, yeah, right. I have a cat. Never mind. Never mind. Yeah, yeah. And a very clumsy wife, I’d add, too. That’s it. There’s something inside joke on that one, I think. She is not clumsy in the least. She’s one of the most dexterous people that I know. Well, that’s good. So I’m getting this feeling that obviously Todd is all in on the ghost theory. Absolutely. And Darcy is not. Not a believer. So what would it take Darcy for you to believe? Just a ghost showing up with, I’m real. He would have to sit down with me for a while and show me how this is happening. Right, yeah. I’d still be like, yeah, no. I’m just way too high right now, that’s all. Sure, but there’s all kinds of things about the universe and the physical space out there that we could not understand and now do. Like, we used to think that everything revolved around the Earth, and it’s the opposite, right? It is. Oh, Bob, I really hate to break this to you. How does it go around when we’re flat? This is going to blow your mind. How come we don’t just fly off into space? We’re on a turtle. We’re on a flying turtle. So there’s all these things that we couldn’t explain, and now we do. And I think there is something to… Psychic energy being released like something that we don’t see in the same way that there’s like parallel universes or something Sure, there’s like something gets jammed something screws up and something so so egregious something like that just tears the fabric that This one particular image or this one particular thing is kind of trapped in this moment in time Which which makes sense for like the the recurring ghost? yeah, there was a there’s a story of a This woman, she’s a ghost expert in the U.S., and she told a story about this woman who knew that her place was haunted by this elderly gentleman who passed away in this apartment ages ago, and he never caused her any undue harm. He wasn’t creepy with her, but because he’s been dead for quite a while and bored, he would screw around with her. So, like, she’d be looking for a brush, and it wasn’t anywhere, and then suddenly the brush would show up here. Or like, you know, she would go to the makeup cabinet and her makeup’s all like all over the place. And so she’d say, ha, ha, ha, Leonard. But then one day, and she could always like feel him, like feel him around and just like, oh, okay, Leonard’s here, whatever. And she went to work one day. And Leonard had been dead for several, several, several years. And she could feel his presence in the car. So she could feel Leonard in the car with her. he was a car ghost. And a car ghost now and so and so it’s not like ghost the tv show where they have to stick to the property. So he was yeah he was mobile so he was he was like the guy with the arrow through his neck yeah and uh and so she she said to Leonard, let’s call him leonard it’s like um i know you want to join me today. I know you want to come out, but this world is not the same one that you left. Not for ghosts and and i don’t think you would be very comfortable out here. I think you should go back to the apartment. And then she felt him go away. Really? Yeah. That’s a weird one. That’s a good one. I like, I am all about this all right here’s the only weird thing i got. Okay, so. Okay. You mentioned like dimensions and stuff like that when i was a kid. yeah and I was a kid, I walked like there’s paths through the woods all around my house, right? So I would cross the main main road they’re only highway. Cross the road into a path in the woods. I walked and i walked and i walked and i walked and i walked. And then i came out of the woods on the other side of the road where i had gone in. I kind of looped around like a side scroller and come out the other side. Exactly. A Pac-Man situation. For the longest time, I had convinced myself that I had traveled to a different dimension. Everything’s exactly the same, but I had somehow… That was Edward Island. Mom’s got tentacles now, but that’s cool. That’s cool, though. That’s an interesting story because… I’ve never had anything like that happen. And I think that that would be, Well, I mean, you’re a kid, right? Yeah, chances are I dreamt the whole thing. But still, for years and years, I would explain things like, oh, this is why this happened to me. This is why I’m so unlucky. This is not my real universe. If you would have walked the other way, that was the lucky door, and you walked the unlucky path. I feel like even later on, I actually tried to recreate the trip, and I just got lost. Just to try to get back to where you started. i was waiting for darcy to go. I was walking through the woods and i was convinced that nelson mandela died in prison. I was convinced of it. The Mandela effect. The Mandela effect. We have it because darcy walks through the woods but but that that kind of goes back to my point where you think like like the the berenstein bears i always do them as the berenstein bears yes right that’s how i thought they were. And apparently I’ve been wrong this entire time. That’s not unusual. No, that’s just par for my course, really. No, that’s wild. Yeah, exactly. But I think I’m somewhere in between on the topic because I actually don’t think that they’re necessarily ghosts. Yeah. It could be anything. That’s what we call them. But I think it is a phenomenon that we haven’t Figured out we haven’t figured out what it is. Yeah, probably because here’s the other thing. The reason that you are able to discover these things that kind of change our world scientifically is that you throw research at it and you Find some form of instrumentation that you can correct to gather data on the thing that you’re studying. Mm-hmm, right Yeah, yeah, they they made a sextant they the sundial they like all these things sort of like, oh, this all kind of helps put the picture together and I don’t know, and this is why I’m not a scientist nor a ghostologist. Is that a thing? You just made it up. I just made it up. I’m not a ghostologist. I don’t know sort of like where do you even begin trying to calibrate the paranormal, right? Exactly. So look at the lady in red, right? When are these sightings occurring? What is the period of the visits? What is the… Blood alcohol level, yes. Exactly, yes. You’re right. How many cannabinoids are in that candy bar you bought? Right, exactly, exactly. Yeah, it could be. No, you’re right. I think that part of the big problem with the paranormal is measuring things because people measure things on scales that aren’t real and so then it can be, oh, well, this is a very scary place, so it’s a hundred rad something right you know and and they just kind of make it up as they go along, where, yeah, you need to have somebody who sits there and then just writes down okay ghost came through yeah at 10 30 ghost came through at 7 30. you know. And this is the scoville units of scary. Yeah, exactly. That’s what we need to find, the Scoble units of scary. This is your Carolina Reaper of paranormal activity right here. But again, what are the things, when these things happen, when they occur? Is there a time of day? Is there a temperature? Is there a season? Is it whatever it is? Is it moisture content? Is it too humid? Like what is it? i i still go back to like this this time continuum thing where there’s like the there’s a skip, there’s a scratch in the dvd that makes it repeat itself right so so what what triggers that you know right darcy well it’s all assuming that this is all real and it’s not oh we’re in a computer simulation. Right. These aren’t just like, yeah, these aren’t just weird pixelations. These are Someone watch the Matrix. Someone watch the Matrix. Possibly while high. Possibly while high. You mean to tell me we could all be in a computer somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. We’re all just, this is just one giant game of Grand Theft Auto with a pimply faced 13 year old. Yeah. Who’s really boring and he’s not out screwing hookers and driving cars into things. He’s having us talk. Right. we are all inside the snow globe. Yes, we’re all inside the snow globe of an autistic child saying elsewhere yeah exactly well here let’s uh let’s hear from one more person here, and then uh we’re gonna wrap this up. All right. Maybe. This is ryan frank from the baggage Podcast, and you’re listening to mondo frico mondo frico mondo frico mondo frico all right guys do you want to i i meant to ask you at the beginning. You want to talk about your show, the Oshkosh Pod? Yes. Oshkosh Bagosh. We’re one of the few audio and televisual podcasts out there that tackle children’s clothing. And it’s about time that two middle-aged gentlemen really fucking opened up the door on this one. Nothing creepy at all about this. I’m sorry. Oh, show pod. Oh, show pod. Oh yeah. It’s right there. Look at that. It’s right there. Yeah. Oh, sorry. It’s going to be right here. Yeah. Right there. Exactly. Yeah. So Darcy, you want to take this one? Nope. You got it. So Darcy is my, as he’s the producer of my podcast, we’ve been actually podcasting since 2007. Yeah. Is that right? 2007. Oh my God. That’ll be 20 years. We will have been podcasting next year. Seems like enough time to figure out how to stop. Right? We haven’t. Too much forward momentum on this. It’s like, if we stop, then what happens? Then what do we do? Keep treading water. Okay, I’ll keep treading water. What happens if you stop? You don’t want to know what happens when you stop. Okay, alright. So for 23 seasons, we did Comedy Above the Pub, and we did that in person. uh, we did it as part of a live show, uh, at a, uh, at a, a pub in Toronto and it was above a pub. And that was the name of my comedy show that we did then, uh, comedy about the pub. And so we just branded the show with it. And so we will get comedians, typically comedians on, and then they would do a set that night, you know, at the comedy show after we’re done talking, talking with them on the podcast. And, uh, we just kept going. We did 23 seasons of it. And, um, because we’re doing it over Zoom, because we live in different cities and uh trust me, I don’t want anyone in this house so i uh uh we said, okay so let’s rebrand. And we were uh trying to figure out sort of like, you know, what what the show was and what we kind of wanted it to be if we’re going to change after 23 seasons and um we had dylan brody on. one of the last guests of Comedy of the Pub. And after we stopped recording on the Zoom, we just started telling each other street jokes. And we’re like, well, this is what comics do. green rooms like in between shows or like when you know the headliners on it’s like okay I’ve seen this guy’s act six times I’m gonna go hang in the car on the road is like, you know, when you’re driving to the gig and after everyone bombs, you know, you’re just like, okay, well, let’s, let’s, let’s forget that nonsense. Hey, here’s what? And so. Darcy and I just kind of looked at each other and went, this is the show. This is what it is. So we have a conversation, just like we did with our previous show. But now we close it with the most uncomfortable thing for any of our guests, which is them coming up with a favorite street joke. And so we actually have, when they don’t have a street joke at the ready, we had a guest on who wrote a book of street jokes called Mom’s Dad Jokes. And Vic Bell is her name. And she just compiled this great tome. So we’ll sometimes use those. Darcy has a, do you have that with you, Darcy? Do you have the jazz book? So he actually has a jazz book that has jazz jokes in it called Jazz Anecdotes. And then we had Bryn Potty, who is a comedian and author who now makes his home in, it’s not Scotia, isn’t it? Yeah, he lives in where the Blue Nose is. Liverpool. Nope, nope, the other one. Nope, nope. Lunenberg. Thank you, Lunenberg. Thunder Bay. Lunenberg, Lunenberg. The Thunder Bay’s in Ontario. I won’t have this, Bob. Jeez. So he actually grabbed his joke out of this book and he sent it to us so that we now use it from the time. It’s called Son of a Meech, The Best of Brian Mulroney Jokes. Edited by Mark Breslin, who is the founder of Yuck Yucks. So never missing a branding moment. opportunity. And who was Brian Mulroney? Brian Mulroney was, according to this, Canada’s worst prime minister. The best jokes about our worst prime minister. I would say to date. I mean, we had a dip in progress for a while, but that ship seems to be righted a little bit, so we’re back on course. Yeah. So yeah, we’ve got those. And by the way, so this was published in, just so you know, this was published in, let me see if I can find a date, 1991. So all of this is just hot off the presses. Fresh. Fresh meat. Brian Mulrooney was using a fax machine one day. What? There’s so many things in that sentence I don’t understand. What’s a day? So yeah, so that’s the show. We have, typically they’re comedians, but we have actors, we have musicians. And they come on. Magicians, yep. We have, yeah, we’ve had a whole ton of folks and then they come on and they tell a street joke. Are you on Bob twice? Yes, that’s right. Yeah. There you go. That shows you the caliber of guests they have on the show. You know you’re one of our favorites, right? That’s why we keep asking you to come back, Bob, because we like having you. We enjoy the pleasure of your company. Oh, yeah. That’s fantastic. I appreciate that. We found each other on that weird Tinder for podcasters website. Yeah. No, the funny thing is, kind of an aside story here, I contacted you. Well, it was still called Comedy Over the Pub or whatever. But you were changing and you put me off. You’re like, wait a minute. We’re changing things up. Hold on a minute here, buddy. Come back to me in about a couple of months because we’re trying to figure stuff out. I couldn’t be on Comedy Under the Pub. right over the club because uh adjacent to the pub because you were you were in turmoil at that point. Yes, we were. Darcy didn’t have his space organized enough yeah the churn of 23 seasons has weighed upon us, and so we were you know, we’ve got letterhead to change, you know, we’ve got yeah domains the business cards yes that’s right. Exactly. Can we use the same phone number? No, burn it. What about the fax machine? Who am I? Brian Mulroney? No. Oddly enough, a weird thing. I was looking there at Darson. He’s like kind of Willy Wonka. He’s got like half of a calendar and a part of an air conditioner. Yep. And he’s cut. He’s cut off at the torso. It’s kind of like Willy Wonka’s office there. Yeah. Anyway. Well, thanks, Guy. I appreciate you guys coming and being on the show. And I really, I had no idea that you would have stayed at the hotel or going to stay at this particular hotel, Fairmont Royal, York. I don’t know what that part’s for. And you stayed at another part of the chain and saw a ghost. And I’m hoping, I hope for your sake, you do get to go to the eighth floor and you do get to see the Lady in Red. I am going to beeline it there. I’ll tell you that much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Darcy, I, you know, I hope you can Pac-Man your way back into your original universe and everything’s right with the world. And there’s no podcasting. And there’s no podcasting. Possibly no Todd Van Allen. That would be paradise for him. Or maybe Todd is just like a used car salesman that gives you free cars or something. Maybe something like that. But thanks, guys, for being on Mondo Frico. We appreciate it. And if you do see Lady in Red, you’ve got to let me know and we’ll talk about that. Oh, I will. Trust me, that will be a Facebook post that never ends. All right, guys. Hold on just a second. And I’m going to play out some music here. Fungo Frico!

Travis Walton Story with Jeff from Poduty

[https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Travis-Walton-Story-s-300x375.jpg] TRAVIS WALTON STORY This episode of Mondo Freako features a lively discussion between the host and guest Jeff Revilla, the founder of the Poduty theater and network in Tarentum, Pennsylvania. The conversation blends local cultural anecdotes, such as the unique Primanti Brothers sandwiches of Pittsburgh and UFO lore like the Kecksburg “acorn,” with a promotion of Jeff’s versatile physical and virtual production space. Jeff explains that his turnkey theater is designed for podcasters and content creators to produce shows with live or virtual audiences easily. The second half of the program pivots to a deep dive into the 1975 Travis Walton UFO abduction case. After Jeff wins a trivia quiz about the incident, the two explore the enduring mystery, discussing the initial suspicion that Walton’s coworkers had murdered him, their commitment to their story through polygraph tests, and the skeptical view that it was an elaborate hoax to escape logging contract penalties. They conclude by reflecting on the cultural impact of the story and the allure of maintaining such a wild, lifelong narrative, regardless of whether it is true. Poduty.com [https://Poduty.com] ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- [https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Travis-Walton-Infographic-1024x558.jpg]https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Travis-Walton-Infographic.jpg ---------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT (AI TRANSCRIPTION) So, Jeff, did you Poduty today? I did it twice, actually. Good for you. Welcome everybody to Mondo Freako. I’m glad you could do it. Yeah, you got to keep it going. We’re going to talk today to Jeff Revilla, or I like to say Jeff Revilla. The San Francisco treat. From Fiduti, and he is going to be our guest, and he’d like to know what we’re going to I’m not going to believe it, but I’m ready to hear it. Okay. We’re going to talk about the Travis Walton abduction case. Interesting. Are you a fan of UFOs or UAPs or any of that business or any of the U’s? I do. I’m a big fan of all the U’s. Western PA has some great history. We have a place called Kecksburg, which is a UFO. I have been there. Yeah, so you know, Western PA, we got Bigfoot and UFOs. Yes, the wood booger. Yeah. I have been to Kecksburg, and behind the volunteer fire department is the ship that supposedly crashed in the woods. They have it. The acorn, right? The acorn, that’s right. I pulled in there and took pictures of the acorn at one point in time, yeah. I love Kecksburg. I wish you’d have done Kecksburg. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, what do you know? What do you know? You would have thought that maybe I would, I would be on to you and I would have studied that. And that’s what I’m, I’m waiting for the show to be about. Well, Travis Walton was from, uh, uh, I think it’s Scottsdale, Arizona. So other end of the world, really. I know nothing about Scottsdale compared to the Kecksburg. So, uh, typically, well, first of all, let’s get the, let’s get the, the, uh, plugs in here because we have to, and I, uh, and i wish that i would have had this ready, but I, I just realized i don’t well you’re contractually obligated. Yeah. I want to, I want to talk about paduti.com right so this is a jeff’s got a program or it’s more than a program. It’s a whole network. Well, it’s a theater space, a physical space. Oh, right. That’s right. It’s a, it’s, it’s, Brick and mortar and virtual. Yeah, we do it all. We’re a one-stop shop. You could actually take an Uber, come out into the theater, do your show, call your Uber while you’re still on stage, get out of there, and I’ll sell you the money that I owe you for doing the performance. So it’s an easy turnkey way to produce a podcast, and you can do a live audience or a virtual audience. Or both. Do them all. Yeah, do them all. That’s our tagline. Do them all. Do them all. Okay. Well, that’s an interesting tagline. I will say that. And I believe it’s at Padooty on most of the socials, I’m guessing. Yeah, or if I screwed it up, it could be Padooty Live or Padooty Pods. But mostly, if you do, I’m the only Padooty in the world. Oh, there you go. And so what would, like if somebody wanted to do it. So you are in Tarritum. Correct. Which is not too far from Pittsburgh. Get ready to do your drafts. I think the NFL draft is here, and they’ve taken over the entire city. Really? Yeah. Is that because of that show, The Pit? Yeah. That’s right. It’s got McConaughey and Noah Wiley. They’re drafting football players. Are they really? Oh, wow. That’s interesting. So if somebody wanted to utilize the space or… I know you do a show called Padooty in the News, which I was on. How would they get a hold of you? Yeah, Padooty.com, P-O-D-U-T-Y.com. It’s a lot of fun, handshake deals. You either like working with me or you don’t. And if you don’t, we don’t do it again. But if you do, we’ll do some more gigs together. That’s funny. You don’t like it, you don’t. You go in between. Yeah, you’re going to like it. is there a Pittsburgh accent? Would you, do you have a Pittsburgh type type accent I don’t know if I do I people say I do like, I, if you can’t hear it, then I don’t know if it is, but like, you know, you go downtown there and that like, it sounds weird when I try to do it you go downtown there and that yeah it’s because I would think that, so like I live in St. Louis and so there’s two, major cities in Missouri, St. Louis and Kansas City. And we sound exactly the same. But over there, you have Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are two major cities, right? And they’re on either end of the state, kind of like here. But you guys have different accents, don’t you? Yeah, different accents, different sandwiches. It’s a big cultural divide. Oh, yeah. I’ve been to Philadelphia. I had a Philly cheesesteak at Pat’s. You were a Pat’s guy, not a Geno’s guy. Well, no, I had both, but I can remember Pat’s. Yeah. Geno’s, underwhelming. Because they’re across the corner from each other. We went and we had both, but I think my son, who was very much into this, he likes Pat’s, and so Pat’s was the winner. Um, but I think we had both and I know we had both, but, uh, yeah. So what’s the equivalent out in Pittsburgh? I mean, like you eat a bar of steel. What’s the deal. We grew up on just iron shovels of iron. You probably see it. If you ever watched Monday night football or any kind of sports show, they always show this one sandwich from Pittsburgh. It’s called a Permanente sandwich. It’s the one that has the meats, the cheese, the, The coleslaw, the French fries, the tomatoes, and two thick slices of like one-inch Italian bread. It’s called a Primanti sandwich. It’s about five inches tall, and it weighs probably five pounds as well. It’s a perfect cube. How do you spell that? P-R-I-M-A-N-T-I-S. Primanti Bros. Ah. Manti Bros. Okay. I’ve heard this, but I don’t remember. Let’s see if… The next time you’re in Kecksburg, I’ll buy you a Permanis. Well, here, I’m going to… Let me see if I can get this over here. Technology. And let’s see if I can throw it up on the screen here. You see? Throw it up. There we go. Does that look like it? That’s a Permanis sandwich. That’s it. Oh, look at that. Romantic sandwich. That’s a lot. When you said French fries, I couldn’t remember until you said French fries. Yeah, the French fries. And the coleslaw isn’t like some coleslaws are like a creamy dressing. This is like a really fine angel hair shredded cabbage tossed with like an oil or more like with a vinegar, a little bit of salt, pepper, and sugar. Apparently, J.D. Vance got sick on one of these. That’s why he keeps showing up in my pictures. I don’t know what the hell that’s for. I think they got sick of him and they threw him out. Yeah, maybe. He looks a little oozy in that one picture. They wouldn’t serve him, I’m pretty sure. They declined service. They declined. So, well, that’s good. I’m glad to know because I was in Kecksburg area. We actually were on the edge of Pittsburgh. We did not go into Pittsburgh proper when I was visiting. Oddly enough, I went there specifically to go to Kecksburg. Not a lot of places stay in Kecksburg. Okay. Once you got the photo, you were pretty much done with the town. Pretty much, yeah. I don’t think it was a place to get lunch, as I recall. That’s it. They didn’t have a sandwich for me. I guess I could have hit up the fire department, but they weren’t having the fish fry or anything. Yeah, chili cook-off. Yeah, chili or anything. It was just like, oh, we’re here. And then we ended up having to go into the edge of – outskirts, I guess, the suburbs of Pittsburgh to stay and so forth. Yeah. Well, um, Oh, there’s some Padootie up there. That’s good. Anything else you want to promote before we move on to the next part? No, I, you know, I’m afraid to promote anything else. I don’t know how much I want to be attached to, depending on what I say in the next half hour, but, uh, just remember Padootie.com and we’ll catch up later. Yeah, there you go. Well, thanks. Everybody should go check it out. It’s fantastic. And, and if you’re happened to be in the Pittsburgh, uh, in the Terratum area, you should go to the theater. Check it out. We do monthly meetups to meet other podcasters, other content creators. We do a magic show or a comedy show or maybe just hang out. I don’t know. We talked briefly earlier. A lot of times what I do is I will tell you the story of the Travis Walton abduction, but I also do a quiz, and I give the guest a choice. Do they want to try to do the quiz first or hear the story first? Because some people are really into these things, and they already know, or they just want to see how they do. What say you, Jeff? Well, my instinct is you’ve been a guest on another show I produce as a trivia show, so I’m a trivia host, which means I know everything, so I should be able to do this quiz beforehand and ace it. That’s my prediction. I know everything. Okay. I know it all. Well, then let’s head on over to the quiz, shall we? Let’s go. Quiz. Quiz. Quiz. I like how I keep saying quiz. Don’t you like that? You keep talking toward the music. I’m like, well, is he talking to me? Yeah, as if I’m singing that. All right. So I’ve got seven questions here. They start out easy. They get harder as they go along. Best out of seven bragging rights. All about the Travis Walton UFO abduction. Number one. Are you ready, sir? I’m ready. In what year did the alleged incident involving Travis Walton occur? A. The year Disco finally died of exhaustion. B. 1975. C. 1985. Or D. 1999. Or D. And I will give you a hint if you’d like. Oh, yeah. I’ll take a hint on this one. I have an idea. Think about the era often associated with the classic sighting culture of the late 20th century. The classic sighting culture of the late 20th century. Ooh. Probably not 1999, just so you know. That is the, you know, that’s the… That’s about as late as you can get in the 20th century. And I do like, Disco only really had a one-year run, so that’s probably pretty specific. Right. Let’s go with, we’ll go with 85. He was hanging out with, there’s a missing person in Western Pennsylvania, Sherry Mahan. So maybe they were together. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. All right. Let’s see. 1985. Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s only one number off. Yeah. Yeah. One letter. Yeah. The date is a decade too late for the reported encounter was 1975. The event famously took place on November 5th, 1975. All right. Well, that was, you know, you didn’t. Dates are always tough. Yeah. Let’s go to number two. What was the primary occupation of Travis Walton at the time of the incident? A, forestry worker. B, stunt double for a tree. C, professional Bigfoot hunter. Or D, a full-time glitter manufacturer. Oh, man. I’m going to go with A on this one. Forestry worker. Not even going to take the hint. He’s jumping right in there. Well, let’s hear the hint. I mean, is the hint optional? Oh, yeah. It’s up to you. I don’t give the hint unless you want the hint. Let’s take the hint. Let’s see. Consider the environment where the event reportedly took place, which you are not so positive on. Oh, yeah. Maybe it was Los Angeles. Yeah, glitter in 75 was pretty big in LA. Yeah, exactly. Maybe he worked for the village people. We don’t know. Well, he gave away Arizona, so to me that’s going to roll out Bigfoot. I don’t think Bigfoot’s going to stay in a desert. So I’m going to stick with my answer. I’m going to stay with A, forestry work. Forestry worker. Yes. Oh, yes. That’s right. Walton was working with a logging crew in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest. So good. You’re one and one. Come back here. Fantastic. Number three. How many days was Travis Walton missing following the encounter? Was it A, five days, B, 12 days, C, two days, or D, long enough to miss his favorite TV show? now depending on the day of the week that the tv show happened, any one of those, this could be like an a and a d situation. This could be a two answer so let’s see the hint though let’s all right recall the duration mentioned as the period leading up to his reappearance. That doesn’t help you at all. No, that’d be like you previously told me already and yeah but well well i didn’t read the thing, because it would tell you in that oh it’s true okay let’s go with uh See, I do think D probably missed his show. But let’s see. You don’t like me picking that one. No, no, I’m just going up and down here. That’s all. Let’s go the distance. We’ll go 12 days, which would also be D, too. B, 12 days. Let’s see what happens. Reveal it. Oh! Oh! Overestimated the length of time he was actually reported missing. Five days. Walton reappeared on the side of a highway five days after the incident. That’s a long time, though. If the TV shows on a Tuesday disappeared on a Wednesday, he’s home by Monday. He’s not going to miss the show at all. That’s true. Maybe he wasn’t gone long enough. Two and one. That’s okay. You’re still in the game. Let’s go on to the next question. We didn’t say what happens if I lose out. Oh, no. You don’t get to brag about it. You’re kicked off. The show ends. The show ends. That’s right. I pull a lever. And so number four, which film is famously based on the accounts of Travis Walton’s case? Is it A, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, B, Aliens in My Backyard, C, Fire in the Sky, or D, The Tree Chopper’s Unfortunate Vacation? Oh, man. Those longer ones always get me. The TCUV, they call it. That’s how the kids… That’s right, the TCUV, exactly. I think they made a cartoon out of it as well. In the TCUV universe, Travis Walton has appeared. Let’s go with… I got a hint if you want it. Oh, let’s go. I will take the hint. Let’s take the hint. The title refers to the intense aerial light witnessed by the crew. See, I already rolled out A. I didn’t think, because that movie’s about Reesey Pieces. Phone home, E.T., phone home. So I’ll go with C, Fire in the Sky. Fire in the Sky goes with C. All right! Wait, where’s my sound effect? There we go. Cha-ching! That’s right, Fire in the Sky, the 1993 movie, dramatized the abduction narrative, specifically the scenes aboard the craft. I think also Val Kilmer plays Jim Morrison. That’s right. No, it was light my fire in the sky. Light my fire in the sky. That’s right. Come on, baby. Light my fire in the sky. All right. We’ll go to the next question. Number five. What is the primary argument used by skeptics to explain the incident as a hoax? Some people don’t believe Travis. Okay. A, they simply got lost on the way to lunch. B, financial incentives regarding the logging contract. C, to hide a secret society membership, or D, they were hiding from an angry squirrel. Ooh. Those are four solid answers. I’m going to take the hint on this one. All right. Think about the pressures a vlogging crew might face under professional deadlines. Ooh. I mean, if you’re under pressure, you might get lost for lunch. Go have a liquid lunch. That’s right. That’s right. That could be a problem. Sap? They had a bunch of sap is what you mean? They just They just got stuck. They tried to pump gas into the nozzle. Wow, this is very sticky. We can’t go anywhere. Let’s go with B. B? All right, let’s see what happens. That is correct. Critics argue the story was fabricated to avoid penalties for falling, for failing to meet contract deadlines. I said falling because it’s about trees. Tree falling. Tree falling, exactly. All right, you’re ahead three to two. You got two more questions to go. Will it last long? You could blow it still, or you could make it. All right. Here we go. Number six. How did investigators primarily attempt to verify the truthfulness of the crew’s testimony? A, checking their logs for aliens in the notes. Logs as in, you know, written logs, not the logs that they were cutting. B, by asking nicely for the truth. C, consulting a magic eight ball. Or D, by conducting polygraph tests. I think I have an answer on this one, but the hint will push me over the top. All right. Consider the common, albeit controversial, method used to test if someone is lying. Well, I mean, I go to the eight ball all the time. Yeah, and that tells you. It’ll tell you if you’re lying. It says, hmm. And there’s that TikTok trend about be nice. So, you know, asking nicely is an effective tool as well. Let’s go with D, conducting polygraph tests. All right. That’s right. You’re doing it. Got four to two. It looks like you’re going to win this one. The crew’s testimony was subjected to multiple polygraph examinations during the investigation. All right. You’ve won this. It’s four to two. You can’t lose, even if you get this next one wrong. But let’s just ask it just for fun. All right. Number seven. Why did Travis Walton later suggest the beans took him aboard the craft? Was it A, to update his software, B, to provide medical aid or resuscitation, C, to study his fashion sense, or D, they needed help with their taxes? Let’s go to that blue one. Now, these aren’t as solid answers as the last question. I’ve got a hint if you want it. Let’s go for it. Let’s do the hint. Consider if the intent was malicious or restorative. I mean, I don’t know how he dressed. Like a logger, I’m guessing. Lumberjack. That’s right. Those burlap pants. Burlap pants. How about let’s go with to provide medical aid or resuscitation. Oh, there you go. B is correct. That’s right. Walton has speculated that they may have been attempting to heal or resuscitate him after a previous incident. injury well thank you, Jeff. You’ve won. Quiz. Quiz. Quiz. Quiz. Good job, Jeff. And we’re gonna, let’s listen to, uh, let’s listen to this real quick. Mondo frico This is ryan frank from the baggage Podcast. And you’re listening to mondo frico Yeah, I’m Ryan for the baggage count because I talk whenever it happens. You’re all-knowing, all-seeing. Everybody. Well, hey, congratulations on winning the quiz. Those things are not that easy to win because there’s a lot of curveballs in there and also just a lot of nonsense. Yeah, great quiz. I enjoyed it. You got to go through all the nonsense to get these things. So let me tell you about Travis Walton. I’ll give you the lowdown. The gist. Here we go. I want to read this too. Let’s see if I had some music for this. Let’s see. No, I don’t. Okay. I used to have some music, and then it kept giving me copyright strikes, so I stopped using it, even though it was not something that should be copyright struck, if that makes sense. Sure. I could hum Amazing Grace or something if you want. If you want to, but I don’t think that would really be fitting. I don’t. Okay. All right, so let me tell you about Travis Walton’s incident. So the Travis Walton incident is one of the most famous and debated accounts of alien abduction in modern history. On November 5th, 1975, in the Apache Sick Graves National Forest near Heber, Arizona, 22-year-old forestry worker Travis Walton and his six-man logging crew reported encountering a bright saucer-shaped object hovering near the ground. According to the crew, when Walton approached the craft, he was struck by a powerful beam of light that rendered him unconscious, prompting the terrified crew to flee the scene. When they returned shortly after to search for him, Walton had vanished, leading to a massive search effort and suspicion that his co-workers had murdered him. Five days later, Walton reappeared on the side of the highway, disoriented and malnourished, claiming he had been taken aboard an extraterrestrial craft, examined by a non-human being, and eventually returned. While Walton and his crew members had consistently maintained their story over the decades, often pointing to their success in various polygraph tests, skeptics, including the late UFO investigator Philip J. Glass, have argued that the event was an elaborate hoax orchestrated to avoid financial penalties for failing to meet a logging contract deadline. The case, which served as an inspiration for the 1993 film Fire in the Sky, remains a polarizing fixture in UFO lore, representing a stark divide between those who accept the testimony as a genuine encounter and those who view it as a manufactured narrative. Now, having heard all that, and you’re all brushed up on the Travis Walton, what’s your thoughts? Now I know it’s five days, so he could have been home definitely in time for the TV show. That’s true. That’s true. He wasn’t going to miss Maude. Back in 75 or Chico and the man. Yeah. Matlock was, you know, it’s just a crazy story. You know, you talk about, you know, there is some thing happening with some sort of negotiation that we learned about. So, you know, if they’re trying to defer conversations or, or, you know, make the logging company wait until they can have that final discussion disappearing for a while, isn’t, isn’t a bad, a bad excuse. And then you rise again on the fifth day. Just like Easter. That’s right, yeah. Got some Jesus overtones going on there, doesn’t it? Yeah. Five days and all. It’s interesting. So would you say that you are on the side that Travis maybe is telling us a fib? I don’t know. You know, 1975, there’s some crazy things were still happening. You’re coming out of the 60s with, you know, wild psychedelics and, you know, other other drugs and you already hinted at disco was a thing. So, you know, you combine psychedelics with the disco balls. You know, Travis could have had a five-day bender and, you know, just called it aliens. Out in the national Forest. Yeah. I think we found some ayahuasca or some shrooms. I don’t know. Yeah. Oh, interesting. See, now the To me, and now I’m going to take, you know, point counterpoint here. This, to me, is one of the most believable abduction cases. So he wasn’t abducted alone. He wasn’t just like wandering out in the forest. There was five other people who witnessed him get struck by a light and go up into a ship. And they’ve all maintained this. And they all passed polygraphs. Because at one… Originally… on the five days when Travis was gone, they were all being investigated for murdering him. Yeah. That’s a lot of pressure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you see a ship in the woods hovering and you’re like, Travis is like, Hey, hold my beer. I’m going to go check this thing out. And then he just disappears. You’re like, Oh, murder. Yeah. So, yeah, and I think there was a point if you delve, I mean, we had a pretty cursory glance into the story, but if you delve deeper into the story, they were really worried that they were going to get penned with murdering him, his crewmates, because there was such an investigation going on with all of the local authorities, and they were starting to, you know, bump it up the chain a little bit, right? And so there was, you know, these people were really quite scared that this was going to become, they were going to be wrapped up in this. If he didn’t show up at some point in time, then they were going, they were going to go to jail. And, um, I guess to the credit of his workmates, which I find this, this is to me is just as interesting as the abduction itself is not one of the five broke and said, yeah, you know, Jeff did it, which could have easily happened. whenever you’re kind of under that kind of scrutiny that eventually, whether it’s true or not, somebody breaks and they just point the finger at whoever they don’t like the most. And so I think that it’s kind of an interesting psychological test that happened back then where they all kind of stuck to their guns and went through the process and, and, you know, they’re all being watched and investigated heavily and, And then the guy just shows up out of nowhere in a different town, nowhere near where he disappeared. And the moral of the story is he kind of awoken in the woods and made his way to this town and used a pay phone to, I think, call somebody to collect, which nobody knows what any of that means right now as I just said that. There used to be pay phones where you’d have to pay to call somebody. And if you didn’t have any money, you’d have to call what was called collect where the other person had to pay. Can you imagine? Yeah. You’d have to, you’d have to hurry up. So the operator would pick up and say, you’d say, I’d like to make a click call. And they’re like, what’s your name? And Travis is like, I’ve been abducted by aliens and I need to get picked up. And that’s right. You have to make your name, whatever you needed. So the, Right. Because the person you were calling collect was just going to hang up on you anyway. Right. Exactly. Because then they hung up on you. They didn’t have to accept the charges. And you imagine if five of them or four of the five had, you know, ganged up and pinned it on me or like, you know, one person. Imagine how awkward Monday morning would have been when they’re all there and Travis shows up. You guys pin murder on me. That’s right. We all said it was Jeff. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to go to Burger King on that day for lunch. And we did. And he took us over to rallies. I don’t know why in your area, if you got those, but, uh, and, and so then we just, we ratted him out. So he was a murderer. I do think, you know, stories from, from 50 years ago where, you know, he was beamed up and then taken to another town far away. It seems less believable now that we have GPS and we have cell phones that tell us exactly where we’re at. You would think alien technology could get you back to the point where they picked you up at, that you don’t need to get – they know where you’re at. They can pinpoint your location. That’s a good question because I think the other thing, if you read about alien abductees, is a lot of times people will say after they’ve been abducted, whenever they get replaced, their clothes are on wrong. and they’re like, assume that the aliens have no idea how clothes work. They just know that, you know, it’s kind of like they don’t pay attention when they get you. And then they just kind of throw things back on you randomly because they knew they were on you, but no one took the time to, you know, map it out, uh, how they were on you. So your shirt’s backwards or your underwear is on the outside of your pants. Sock puppets. Yeah, whatever. And then they send you back down. So that’s interesting. But, But Travis Walton, to this day, he does talks. And to this day, he still talks about his story and says that this really happened. Oh, you got to take him at his word until you can figure out otherwise. That’s a long time. That’s a long time to be going along with a logging scam. Like going to the moon, right? The same thing. They put that story on for 70 years. the Artemis? You don’t think the artemis went to the moon, job It was all in a hollywood studio everybody yeah that’s a whole other that’s a whole other show that’s a whole other show so what if it was you and you got abducted and you were in put yourself in travis’s shoes what do you what do you what do you do Would you try to convince people? Would you say, ah, I’m just joking, just joshing you? Or how would you handle a situation like that? Yeah, I mean, I’d definitely try to party with the aliens and see if I could push some buttons on the ships and stuff. But when I came back down, I would keep that story going. It’s definitely even if nobody believes you or thinks you’re crazy, you can talk all about that at every party you go to for the rest of your life. You got yourself a story and people can decide on their own if they believe you or not. But If he believes it, he knows what happened, and he’s going to continue telling that story, not suppress it, then good for him. Live your best self. Well, hey, look at that. So you would do that then. You basically would cash this in for free drinks. Oh, yeah, for the rest of my life. You never have to buy a drink again. I didn’t even think about that. That’s another bonus. I’d be like, hey, aren’t you Jeff that got abducted out in the woods? And you’re like, hey, buy me a beer. I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll tell you all about it. And then they try to pin murder on me. Can you believe that? That’s right. They try to say, I murdered myself. Yeah. How does that work? Yeah, Travis did it, see? You’re going to have free, what was it, Parmesan, no, Primati Brothers sandwiches for life. That’s right. I always say, get the pastrami. It’s the best one. I’ll bring that picture back up here if I can. Guess the flavor of sandwich. Yeah, there we go. Let me fill that back up there. Ignore the J.D. Vance business, but just look at the sandwich. That’s the pastrami I can tell by the dark edges on the slice. Oh yeah, there you go. Look at that. Primanti, there is a small theater in Tarraton that needs some sponsorship. That’s right. I think that you could you know, pretty much get it for a song. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I think even with inflation, I think they’re still only around like eight bucks. Yeah. See, you might be able to, maybe you can head sell sandwiches out of there too. So, so Jeff, hang on for just a second. We’re going to hear from a couple of people and then we’ll wrap it up here. All right. Is it Travis? What in the bloody hell is Mondo Frico? And why would I listen to it? Hi, I’m Robert from State of the Unknown Podcast. You’re listening to Mondo Freako. Mondo Freako. There you go. A lot of Mondo Freako talk there. It’s the talk of the town. Talk of the town. Talk of Kecksburg, they say. The acorn, that’s right. So everybody, check out Padooty. Padooty in the news. If you’re in the area, you know, utilize the space. It’s there for the taking. Well, not the taking, but the renting. You can try you could you could rent you could rent it and you could do, uh, um, you know, um, role-playing games with your friends across the country. Hey, that can work. I’ll reposition have you thought about that. No, I’d love to do it. You give me an idea, I can make it happen. Let’s figure it out. I know there’s a place. I live in a little town. I don’t live in St. Louis proper. I live outside of it, but the little place in town is basically just like a role-playing place. They sell games, and you can go there and play. We have a place in the town next door. The town next door is the birthplace of aluminum. It’s where Alcoa was founded, and they have a It’s called the feisty goblin. And they do like these tournaments on the weekend with like 80 to a hundred people that all buy like these special packs to play a certain version of a certain game. And they’re crushing it. They’ve built, they’ve built a really nice business. So I’ll take some of that spillover. Yeah, there you go. So, I mean, find out, you know, they hate magic, the gathering or something, then you become the magic, the gathering place. So that’s right. I don’t know which one they hate. You’ll have to figure that one out. Like I’ll do like choose your own adventure. There you go. There you go. And by the way, and you see those seats behind Jeff, one of them, or maybe more than one underneath coupon for a sandwich, free sandwich. You got to find, you got to be there. You got to be there. You got to sit to play. Well, Jeff, thank you very much for doing this tonight. I hope you had some fun. I did. And everybody check out for duty. And Padootie in the news. And, you know, make sure you Padootie at least once a day for your health. It’s the best one. Four out of five dentists recommend having a Padootie.

Beast of Bray Road with Dan

[https://www.staticradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Beast-of-Bray-Roads-300x375.png] BEAST OF BRAY ROAD In this episode of the Mondo Freako podcast, host Bob welcomes Dan, the recently retired host of the Happy Moment Podcast, to discuss the legend of the Beast of Bray Road. The conversation begins with a lighthearted catch-up on Dan’s recent trip to a Red Wings game before diving into the history of the Wisconsin cryptid, which gained national fame in the 1990s through the work of journalist Linda Godfrey. Dan successfully completes a five-question interactive quiz about the creature—earning himself a promised thin-crust pizza lunch in St. Louis—and reveals that his interest was sparked by a 2005 horror film. A Happy Moment [https://www.youtube.com/@ahappymomentpodcast] ---------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT (AI TRANSCRIPTION) So, Dan, have you had any happy moments lately? I have had some happy moments lately. As a matter of fact, a couple months ago, I was in Detroit to see a Red Wings game. So I’d say that was definitely a happy moment. Did you catch the octopus? Unfortunately, no. I was very tempted to run on your rank and try and grab it. I was sitting too far back. Sitting too far back. Welcome to Mondo Frico. How’s everybody doing tonight? I’m here with Dan, formerly of the Happy Moment Podcast. It’s going great tonight. How are you? Can I say formally of the Happy Moment podcast? Sure. Okay. I didn’t want to bring you down or anything. Oh, no. I’m retired now. You can say it. Oh, okay. Happily retired from a Happy Moment podcast. But you can always go and go and check it out. So the Happy Moment podcast, and here’s the YouTube for it. And then also you can hit him up on Instagram if you want to. And it’s available on all podcast platforms. I think I was on there for at least one, right? Maybe two. I can’t remember now. There’s two happy moments, perhaps. Oh, yeah. Always a happy moment when Bob’s on the show. Well, that’s very nice of you, Dan. You’re such a nice person. But Dan and I are going to talk tonight about… The Beast of Bray Road. Now, I’m going to give you a choice point here, Dan. So I’m assuming you know a little bit about the Beast of Bray Road because we talked previously in emails and you’re like, hey, I think I’d like to talk about that. And I said, OK, sure. But I can give you so we do a quiz. I can give you the quiz first or I can give you the quiz after I read a little bit of information about the Beast of Bray Road. Which would you rather do? Why don’t you go ahead and do a little bit of information first? Okay. All right. He’s going for the information. Information first, and then we’ll do the quiz. How’s that? Perfect. So the Beast of Bray Road is a legendary cryptid reported primarily in the rural areas near Elkhorn, Wisconsin, particularly along the quiet stretch of Bray Road. While sightings date back decades, the phenomenon gained national attention in the late 1980s and early 1990s through the investigative work of journalist Linda Godfrey. Witnesses consistently describe a massive, muscular creature standing between six and seven feet tall, covered in thick gray or black fur, and possessing a face that resembles a wolf or a large dog. Unlike a typical canine, however, the entity is frequently observed. Observed. walking upright on his hind legs or kneeling to eat, often displaying a chillingly humanoid physique and glowing yellowish-orange eyes. Unlike the classic folklore of a werewolf, which involves a human transformation under a full moon, the Beast of Bray Road is often categorized as a skunkowarkin-type creature or a relic prehistoric animal. Theories regarding its origin range from a misidentified large wolf to a bear, to more fringe explanations involving interdimensional portals or occult activity within the nearby Kettle Moraine State Forest. Despite numerous reports and local scares, no physical evidence such as a carcass or DNA sample has ever been recovered to prove its existence. Nevertheless, the legend persists as a staple of American Midwest folklore, cementing the beast’s reputation as one of the most terrifying and enduring mysteries of the Wisconsin countryside. Now, you probably knew a little bit about this, didn’t you, Dan? A little bit, yeah. But I actually first heard about The Beast of Bray Road through the movie that was released back in 2005. Oh, I had no idea. It was a movie? The Beast of Bray Road movie? Yeah, yeah. You should check it out. Oh, my God. I will. I didn’t even realize this. That’s interesting. I read some articles. Yeah, I’m not sure if it’s streaming anywhere or not, but it’s a good movie. It’s pretty scary, actually. All right. I have to look this up now while we’re talking. This is something new. I didn’t realize there was a beast. I mean, I’m sure that there’s something on it, like a documentary, but I don’t know. Yeah, no, this is a fiction movie. A Beast of Bray Road. 2005. Is that the one you’re talking about? And it’s most definitely a horror movie. Werewolf sightings in Walworth County, Wisconsin, lead a sheriff to investigate a series of deaths caused by a creature with human and wolf DNA. Oh, it’s on Tubi. Oh, sweet. So you can stay on Tubi. That’s a freebie, right? Yeah. Wow. See, I didn’t even know this existed. So I knew about the Beast of Grey Road for quite some time, but I didn’t realize that there was a movie. I’m surprised I told you about it. Yeah. This will be my weekend watch now. I’m going to have to watch this one. So what drew you to be interested in that? The movie itself or was there other connections? Well, the movie itself was interesting, but I’ve also heard a little bit about it through another podcast called You can say what it was. What’s the podcast? On Wednesdays, we talk weird. Okay, but what’s the podcast? That’s the podcast on Wednesdays, we talk weird. I know, I’m I’m joking, yeah. On Wednesdays We Talk Weird, hosted by Ashley Hilt. Oh, great. And so were you part of the show or were we just listening? Just listening. Oh, okay. I wasn’t sure. Because you are – well, I don’t – that’s a good question now. So I read the little blurb there that I, you know, from my research, but I guess Wisconsin – Did folks up north consider themselves all part of the Midwest as well? In Wisconsin and Michigan and everything? Yeah, that’s all considered the Midwest region. Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota. Yeah, I never really thought about that. Because I’m from St. Louis, and so I always think of the Midwest as just around here. And then whenever you go further north, I just thought it was further north. I didn’t think about it being the Midwest still. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess it’s all part of the Midwest then. But then if you get down to Arkansas, though, that’s not the Midwest anymore. No, to us, that’s the South. That’s the South, right. Pretty much about an hour or hour and a half past St. Louis, it’s the South. Okay. You don’t even have to get out of Missouri. I mean, and everybody’s voices, everybody’s accent changes. uh, quite drastically as you get down there. And, uh, yeah. And so then you’re in the South, you know, my, my giveaway for knowing you’re in the South is if anybody asks you if you want sweet tea, because in St. Louis, people don’t ask you that question. But as soon as you get past Cape Girardeau, that’s what do you want to drink? You want some sweet tea? It’s like, no, no, I don’t want any sweet tea. No, you know, you, you, Yeah, that’s not really used in the midwest either. No, exactly. Exactly. So, uh, you were in michigan somewhere and, uh, and so the beast of bray road maybe did you hear about it as a kid or no? No, no, I, I didn’t hear about it until i i saw the movie. Until you saw the movie? So not until after 2005 then at least. Yeah. So not until i was an adult. Yeah. See, because I remember it, um, Well, you’re younger than I am, but I remember in the 90s because that’s when I think a lot of the articles were written from the journalist that I mentioned, which I blanked on her name already. Linda Godfrey was in the, I think sometime in the mid to late 90s. And there was a lot of activity and a lot of articles written about the beast back then. But before we get into what we think the beast is, would you like to take the quiz? Let’s go for it. Quiz. Quiz. Quiz. Here we go. There, you should be able to kind of see the screen. It’s probably too small, but I will read out the questions for you. Don’t worry. Okay. All right. Here’s the first question. We got five questions, right? So we want you to get at least three of them right to win. But if you don’t, it’s okay. It’s not like you’re going to get a prize or anything. I’m sorry. Well, if you happen to be in St. Louis, I will take you out to lunch. But only if you answer, if only if you win the quiz. Okay. I will do my best. I’ll get you, I’ll get you some thin crust pizza. No, no pineapple. What are you? Come on, Dan. Come on. Did you know pineapple pizza was invented in Canada? No, I did not. Yeah. Apparently it was, you know, some kind of PSYOP. The, um, Number one, in which U.S. state have the majority of sightings of the Beast of Bray Road occurred? I will give you the four choices. If you would like a hint, I will give it to you. A, Wisconsin. B, the state of utter denial. C, Michigan. D, Ohio. And remember, I can give you a hint if you want one. I will say A, Wisconsin. Wisconsin. Wisconsin. We got it right. I hit the wrong button again. Sorry about that, Dan. I’ll get it right here. It was right. The legend is centered in Elkhorn and Walworth County within the Midwestern state of Wisconsin. Very good. You got one right. On to number two. Who was the journalist credited with bringing the beast to national attention in the early 90s? Not late 90s. Early 90s. Linda Godfrey, Geraldo Rivera, the local dry cleaner making a fortune on fright-induced laundry or Art Bell? I’m going to say a Linda Godfrey. Linda Godfrey is right. She was a local reporter who turned eyewitness counts into a foundational piece of modern cryptozoology. You’re doing great. I think you’re going to win this, Dan. I think so, too. I’m glad you’re so good about it. Yeah, you should feel good. Which of these peculiar behaviors have been frequently reported by witnesses of the creature? A, aggressive literate judgment of your library books. B, kneeling to eat roadkill while holding it in its paws. C, dancing to 1980s synth pop in the forest. Or D, teleporting into the back seats of parked cars. I’m going to say B, kneeling to eat roadkill. Oh, you’re right again. You’re going to sweep this. That’s right. Witnesses describe the creature using its front limbs with a humanoid dexterity that regular wolves don’t have. All right. So you’ve already won. You’re already three for five. So you’re already a winner. But let’s just go through these last two questions. Okay. You’ve already won that Emo’s Lunch Special, which is a eight-inch thin crust, one topping pizza, a salad, and a drink. Okay. Am I going for the breakfast now? Don’t want to make it down to St. Louis. All right. The name Shunka Orokin is often used to describe this type of cryptid. What does it actually translate to? A, carries off dogs. B, shadow that bites. C, my dog is definitely not on a leash anymore. Or D, spirit of the tall grass. Shunka Moroccan. This one’s making me think. I got a hint if you want it. Is there a penalty for taking the hint? Nope, no penalty. I’ll take the hint. The name highlights the creature’s habit of stealing pets or livestock from camps. How about A, carries off dogs? Carry off dogs is right. The name comes from the Loewe language and describes a wolf-like animal that preys on domestic canines. Wow, you’re sweeping. You’re sweeping. Last one here. What was the witness Mark Shackelman doing in 1936 when he saw the creature at St. Coletta’s? A, working as a night watchman at a local convent. B, aggressively regretting his career choices. C, testing a prototype werewolf-proof fence. Or D, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door in a storm. I have a hint. I’ll take the hint. Taking the hint. He was patrolling the grounds of a Catholic institution. I’m going to have to go with A. There you go. That’s right. He’s working as a night watchman at the economy. Shackleman was on duty when he saw the creature twice, once appearing to pray or talk in a strange language. Wow, that’s a weird one. Look at that. Five for five, 100%. Got nothing wrong. That’s Dan having his happy moment here on Mondo Freako. Man, was there ever any doubt? That’s true. Was there ever any doubt? Let’s hear a word from someone, and then we’ll come right back. Mondo Freako. Mondo Freako. Mondo Frico. Actually, that was six words. And here we got one more thing. Hi, I’m Robert from State of the Unknown Podcast. You’re listening to Mondo Frico. Hi, Robert. Thanks for doing that for us. So, Dan, you obviously know a little bit about the Beast of Bray Road. And you saw this movie, which I’m going to have to watch over the weekend now. Because folks don’t know, but dan and i watched um oh golly i’m gonna i thought i was gonna have it right there on my tongue. What was the stop motion movie we watched and we talked about? It was called the prime evils prime evils. Oh, thank you i i just lost it. I was thinking about it. And then whenever i started talking, I lost it to prime evils. So, uh, I’ll have to watch this one now too. Your recommendation was to watch Primevals, and we ended up talking about it on Happy Moment. So, what’s your take on this beast? What do you think it is? I mean, more than one person has seen this. It is not everywhere. It only seems to be in this one area. So, what’s your thoughts? Well, given the Wisconsin’s close proximity to Michigan, I almost wonder if it could be like a dogman type creature. It’s kind of popular around here. That’s true. The Michigan dogman is a whole other thing, right? So this creature could have easily migrated from Bray Road over into Michigan. Yeah. So like everybody always has this debate about Bigfoot. Maybe not so much now, but it used to be that they would say, you know, there can’t be just one Bigfoot. Right. Um, so do you think that there’s like a whole, uh, bunch of dog men and then this one just happens to be on Bray road a lot. And so therefore that’s how he got called that or. Yeah, that’s, that’s a good question. I guess I never really considered that. Um, I don’t know. That’s tough. I’m kind of leaning towards no. I don’t think there’s a whole colony out there. You don’t think there’s a whole breeding population of dog people? I mean, there could be, but just because they’re not as prevalent as Bigfoot. Right. Um, there’s just less of them. Yeah, it could be. Or they’re more shy or something. I don’t know. Yeah. I, I don’t know. I guess there’s, there probably, there probably are multiples out there. Um, but at the same time, I think it’s also been a while since there’s been any kind of sighting too. That’s a good question. I should, I should ask, I should ask the, uh, the crystal ball here. When was the last sighting? Right. Yeah. Yeah. me do that while we I’ll just do for Beast of Bray Road since we’re talking specifically about that yeah We have all knowledge at our fingertips here, so we might as well utilize it, right? Oh, go ahead. What? I was just going to say, do you want me to tell you what it was in the movie or would that be a spoiler? Not yet, but we can talk about the spoiler. So the Golden Age was in the late 1980s, early 1990s. The most notable recent report of a large upright walking hair covered canine in Walworth County was in 2018 and 2020. These sightings occurred in nearby areas of Spring Prairie and Lyons, suggesting that if the beast is still out there, it might be expanding its territory beyond the 17-mile stretch of Bray Road. Since the 2020 report, there haven’t been any widely publicized or credible new sightings. So 2020, I mean, that’s six years ago. Yeah. That’s fairly recent. That’s recent. I mean, yeah, at least it’s in this decade, right? Yeah. And like if the first sighting was what, like 1936? Right. Yeah, at least, yeah, that’s the one that’s been noted. Yeah. So chances are there’s probably at least a family out there. Could be. Let me see what the first sighting of the Beast of Bray Road was. typing skills need to get better. I’m trying to type. So the first sighting of the beast of railroad uh was that one that we, we talked about in 1936 the the nunnery uh watchman so that’s the first documented sighting was 1936. So 1936 to 2020. So, I mean, that’s, you know, we’re getting that, what, 86 years. So my guess is that it’s not, um, It’s not the same one. Probably not. It’s probably the same. Average life expectancy of an old dog is 18 to 20 years. So how old do you think wolves get? Probably about the same, I’d imagine. You think so? You don’t think it’s less? Wolf, I’d say like 12 to 15 years. 12 to 15? Let’s see what it says. In the wild… Average lifespan of a gray wolf, uh, six and eight years in the wild and 12 to 15 years in captivity. Oh, wow. Wow. That’s kind of bleak. Now the weird thing is, uh, I didn’t see the beast of Bray road, but in my yard, my wife saw a wolf. I did not get to see it. Um, But there was a wolf in my backyard. I live kind of in a rural area. So there was a wolf in my backyard, according to my wife. And I have seen a wolf running, ran across the road in front of me while I was driving through the country. And so I know that there are wolves in our area, but I’ve never had anything like what they’re talking about with any kind of human characteristics. And wolves are big. They’re kind of scary looking when you catch them. They’re bigger than your average dog typically. Yeah. What do you think you would do if you saw one in your yard? Not a wolf, but a wolf with human-like qualities. Like the Dog Man Bray Road thing? Yeah. I think that would be pretty freaky. I don’t know what I would do. I’d probably do what I always do, which is freeze and then get out of there. Because that seems to be my MO. I’m like, I don’t want to be any part of this. I don’t know. I think that would be really quite scary. Now, the question becomes, do I think that it is real and can happen? And I think it could. I think this could actually be You know, there’s some cryptids that are so outlandish that they’re just not real. Right? It’s folklore. It’s stories. It’s, you know, things like that. Much like Bigfoot, Sasquatch, or whatever, I think that those are something. And I think maybe this has, because of the, like, Michigan Dogman, and there are dogmen in other parts of the country. Let’s see. How many, where all have sightings of Dog Man been in the USA? We’ll see what it says. Yeah, I’ve never actually looked at a map to see where sightings were. So it looks like in the Midwest and Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, there have been sightings in Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri. Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. And there have been urban sightings of dogmen in Chicago, Cincinnati, and even in new york city in the for in the perimeters of central Park. So, everywhere. Yeah, that’s a pretty wide range. That is a pretty wide range who knows maybe uh My AI is hallucinating, which is another weird thing that happens. But yeah, I mean, you’ve heard of them in many different places. And so I would think that it certainly has more potential than other things. I’m trying to think of a cryptid that is kind of one of those ones that just is not as likely. Um, well, I’ll tell you the, the, I did a thing recently on the Jersey devil. Um, and the Jersey devil is pretty wild looking creature. And so far, I think there’s only, only the Jersey devil has only been seen in New Jersey. Oh, it’s not been seen in other places. And so that one, and it’s like a horse head with bat wings and, you know, it’s kind of an amalgam or there’s a thing called a snelly gaster, um, it’s kind of an amalgam, uh, animal cryptid. And I think those kinds of things are a little more typical of, you know, let’s make up a story to scare the kids to keep them out of harm’s way, you know, keep them out of the woods and what have you. Sure. Um, what’s that trying to think of what, what it’s called. Um, there’s one, it’s like, uh, like a giant, um, fish that slides down a hill or something. Oh, right. Yeah. The, the slide rock bolter. Yeah. That one is, it’s like a whale that, um, is in Colorado that slides down the hill and then up the other hill slide rock bolter. Yeah. That one’s just too crazy. Right. Yeah. But I, I think the Bray road, the beast of Bray road or the dog men has the potential to, to be, to actually be real. Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think that, well, do you think that they’re, um, uh, do you think that they’re, you know, like alien or do you think that they’re an animal? Um, I think probably animal. Yeah, I think so too. Even though it has human tendencies, I think it may be just some kind of weird offshoot that, um, has not ran its course yet. Yeah, I think that’s most plausible based on everything I’ve heard about it. There’s not as many sightings as Bigfoot, but there’s certainly a lot of sightings apparently. And it seems to fit kind of a… If you think back to… they don’t mention this, but if you think back into the Egyptian times when they had all these different hieroglyphs that portrayed, you know, uh, Anubis was a dog man. Yeah. Right. Uh, and he was the ruler of the underworld to the Egyptians, I believe. And then they had the bird, you know, the bird head people and the other people. So, I mean, I mean, everybody just writes it off as fantasy, right? They’re just making this stuff up. Um, but, uh, I’m, I always err on the side that those people were in that time period. We’re just as smart as we are. It’s just, they didn’t have the things that they didn’t get the, the step up that we have because of technology and so forth. And so it wasn’t as if they’re all a bunch of idiots that were living back then and just like, well, I saw a bird man head or something, you know, uh, They, you know, I think they’re just as intelligent for their time period. They just didn’t have the exposure to the breadth of information that we have. It’s just like anybody. It amazes me because people will talk like that. But then the reality is if you have a topic area that you don’t know much about and somebody tells you about it, then all of a sudden the whole world can open up for you and you can understand it. Whereas before you had no clue. Right. Um, and, and so it’s not because you’re not intelligent. It’s just because that information was never available. Yeah. Yeah. You, I feel like back then, back like in the, the days of ancient Egypt, I feel like, um, I don’t know. I think those might be, are more likely to be more alien than like, Of this planet. That opens up the dog man, though. Maybe he’s just coming back. That’s true. And Bigfoot as well. Could be. If only we had a time machine. Well, then there’d be no mystery to the world, would there? You just go, it’d be like, it’s like having Google where we just type things in and get an answer. We go, okay, let’s go. Come on, Dan, let’s go take a look. You know? That’ll be social media of the future is people zipping in and out of time, shooting little, you know, holographic things to bring back to their time. Look, there was dinosaurs. I was there. You know? Yeah, great. That’s all we need is a bunch of influencers going back in time and messing up the timeline. That’s right. That’s what’s going to happen. I got a real actual Bitcoin. Well, actually, you can buy a real Bitcoin, but it’s not worth a Bitcoin. But anyway. But no, it’s very interesting. Now, would you be up to go like stake out Bray Road and hope you see him? Like by myself? Well, I mean, you can have somebody. I don’t know. Yeah, by myself, no. Maybe with a decent sized group of people. Well, you couldn’t have too many. If you get more than like three people, they’re too noisy. Any group that’s more than three people is just chaos. Don’t you think? That’s true. But what if it’s like, uh, like a group of ninjas or something? They’re stealthy. Well, yeah, I suppose if they were highly trained people, then you would have, you’d have something there. But I think regular, regular people get to be too, you know, where is the slim gyms? And then they start talking and then drink, you know, and it gets to be chaos and everything happening there. I mean, I, I would do it with a group of like, you know, three or four people if they were people that I could trust to not wander off alone in the middle of the night. Well, you never know. Now, the interesting thing is there’s a guy, a farmer who lives on Bray Road who’s actually got pictures of the beast of Bray Road. Oh. Let me see if I can find those. he’s been there for a while. And he, I think he i saw him on something. Um, and he did not, uh, believe it. And then, you know, something happened. Now there’s so many fake pictures i gotta find the one for that really of that guy because there’s everybody, you know, AI. Now everybody makes their own thing. I know i seen him. He was on a show. and recently showed them Yeah. I can’t remember what it was it might have been on the history, uh, uh, discovery channel. Oh, there’s just so much kerfluff out here that you can’t, uh, you can’t find them now unfortunately uh He was a really blurry one. So was it like a bad encounter? Did it come after him? Oh, I got a beast here. I don’t know if you hear dogs barking. No, it wasn’t. He set up a game cam and he was able to capture some images in the distance because he owns the farm on Bray Road. And so he, uh, was able to capture, uh, some stuff. I can’t find any though. There’s just too much AI generated garbage now when you search for it. Um, and maybe he doesn’t put his up because, uh, he wants to sell them or something. Well, maybe. Yeah. But, um, but here we can put up, uh, here, I’ll share this picture. This may prompt something from you. There’s one right there, because that’s from the movie. It’s kind of like a machine gun. Goodness. There’s a blurry one from the movie there. So what happened? Who’s the beast in the movie? Well, so in the movie, and this is kind of a spoiler, but… In the movie, it’s kind of depicted as more of a werewolf-type creature. So it’s a human, and then it turns into this creature at night. I don’t know what the movie is based off of, but if they’re basing the movie off of like some real encounter or something, then I’m more likely to believe that the creature maybe isn’t necessarily part of, like, a colony. Because you think of a werewolf, you think, like, you know, just like an isolated creature, kind of. Right. So maybe since, like, 1936, it’s been passing its curse down, you know. Oh, gotcha. It’s more of a werewolf. People at a time, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I don’t know. It’s hard to say for sure. One of the stories that I heard about it was, I think this was in like the, oh, maybe the 80s or early 90s about a woman that was driving down the road. And I think she hit one and she didn’t know what it was, obviously. And she stopped her car. And this creature, it got up and it charged after the car. And, like, she tries to get out of there and it’s running after her. And I think there were actually, like, claw marks on her car from where it latched on. Oh, yeah. I don’t know. Just when I heard that story, that was kind of chilling. That would freak you out a little bit. Yeah. I mean, like, because what else would do that? Not any like normal animal. Yeah. Maybe. Well, a big dog might do that. I don’t know. Maybe not. That’s true. So I don’t think we’ve come to any conclusions tonight on the beast of Bray road. I, I would lean, I would lean towards it’s some type of animal, maybe over the other more fantastical things. Sure. Um, So are you there too, or where are you at? With your thoughts. Yeah. Um, I don’t know. I mean, it’s, this is kind of a tough one because like, I feel like there’s multiple possibilities here just because they, you know, it happened to be spotted like in Wisconsin by Bray road. So that’s what it’s known as now, but you know, it could be dog, man could be some kind of big foot. yeah it’s just hard to say for sure I think, I think it probably is something real. What exactly? I don’t know. There you go. I guess we’re not going to crack this nut tonight, but some interesting discussion on it. And also Dan won the quiz. So yes, I’ll be coming for that pizza. There you go. There’s your quiz. One more second. We’ll be back in just a minute to wrap up. But hold on. This is Jonathan. And this is Heaven from the OpaGhost podcast. And you’re listening to Mondo Freako. Toodles. Toodles. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening and watching. And thank you, Dan. And if you want to check out the Happy Moment podcast, you certainly can. It’s still available. It’s out in the world still. the YouTube page for it. Or you can go and find it on Instagram and it’s available on all podcast platforms. So Dan, whenever you go out tonight, you know, watch out. There could be a dog man or the beast of Maple Street or wherever you live hanging around. Well, I’m not going outside, so I’m going to keep my doors locked. pull the shades down. And if I hear any scratching at the door, I’m just going to ignore it. There you go. Ignore that scratching. So hang on a second, Dan, I’m gonna play some music out and we’ll see you all next time.