Hi everyone I'm Emily and I'm Vince and this is the lighthouse lowdown.
In my defense I haven't done this in a very long time.
Yeah I was just staring at the go button I was just staring at it like just hit the button make the sound.
You should have done it.
Do it.
Why didn't you?
I want you to do it hit me.
Oh my gosh.
We were just playing fortunate sun for everyone who wants to tune in and feel the vibes.
We're not playing it right now but you could.
It's a good song to either go to war or start your podcast.
Who's going to war?
Is this from a movie?
Oh so many movies.
Really?
Basically every Vietnam film where they're on a helicopter.
Fortunate song.
Weird.
Fortunate song.
Anyways.
Well we're not going to war.
Yeah.
We're educating.
Yes.
What are we educating ourselves about today?
Well I'm doing another international lighthouse.
I really want to go back to the American ones but I keep getting sucked away.
There's a lot of them.
Big world.
So this one well first of all I want to apologize I don't have a history buoy.
Vince knows.
Scoff.
Vince knows the drama that went down because I.
Why don't you?
Be.
For the listeners.
Because I researched and researched and researched this topic that I thought was going to relate
to lighthouses.
And there was physics involved and wavelengths and all kinds of stuff.
Optics.
And then I realized that the topic was irrelevant because there are standards in place where
you don't just pick the color of a lighthouse lens based on what is the most efficient.
You pick it based on some other factors that I will cover in a subsequent history buoy.
So you're saying you were researching what color a lighthouse is based on science.
Like why would they pick certain colors?
Yeah.
Like why do we only see green and red?
It's like oh well I was going to.
Which technically I did prove why we picked those colors you know at the beginning of
time.
But you know it's no longer it's not really relevant.
Well like airplanes they use green and red lights right as well like marker lights.
Yeah.
As well as ships.
Almost everybody does.
To mark what port and starboard.
Starboard.
Yeah because I'm going to do it I'm going to cover it.
I just wasn't ready today because I was so.
A lot of science.
I mean people I researched for hours.
Hours.
And I was going deep into physics equations and like you know.
Derivations.
Like luminous what is it luminous intensity equations and how like it accounts for like
the curvature of the earth and how the human eye like the average human eye perceives color.
Yeah.
It's all taken into consideration into this one equation.
So it was just like a nesting doll of equations all in one equation.
So I was following all these branches down and that's when I started to question myself.
Lots of parentheses within.
Yeah where it's like a variable.
And then it's like this variable is the equation for lumens.
And I'm like what the heck is this.
So I clicked on it and it's like this whole other thing with a bunch of other variables
that are all actually equations.
I'm like OK I'm out of here.
So anyway that's what happened.
I don't have a history of buoy because I put so much energy into failure that I just have
to move on or it'll consume me.
I remember seeing a joke.
We'll get to it.
It'll be OK.
I remember seeing a joke when I was in school.
I was in engineering school.
My brother sent me I think it was like a meme or something and it was talking about someone
looking at a long equation like working really hard.
They're reading it.
It's like a short video I guess.
And they go ah there and they put their finger down.
It goes a number.
Everything else was X Y Z Constance subtext a number a number some constant.
Oh yeah that was me.
Reaching diligently for my fans.
Speaking of fans the lighthouse today comes from a listener.
All right.
Everyone get excited.
It wasn't actually my fault that we have an international one coming.
The fact that the next one after this is also international is absolutely my fault.
And I'll tell you why traveling.
Yeah well we just haven't done.
We just haven't done a U.S. lighthouse or any subject for like since like 24 wasn't
NASA like 24.
That's too far in a while.
Do we look at the Web site.
So first thing of Web site I just wanted to see.
We've got our LinkedIn.
I want to thank everybody.
We have two hundred and thirty two followers.
I'm like whoops which is it's not that many but it's a lot from zero.
Yeah.
And it's coming up on how many Instagram followers we have.
So I'm going to look at pod page dot com.
No no no.
It's new.
That's what I was trying to say.
Wait what's our new website.
We have upgraded our Web site and now it's just the lighthouse lowdown dot com.
Now you guys don't have to follow our link tree because everything you need is on our
Web site.
That's where I'm going to start posting pictures.
I'll still update the Instagram but I'll post pictures and all of our references and resources
will also be listed on the Web site under a tab that says resources.
We also show up at least on my phone if you search the lighthouse lowdown on Google.
No way.
So I did purchase our domain through Google so I would expect that they would give us
a little bit of.
Sorry to interrupt you.
I was surprised Alcatraz was episode 26.
OK.
I was in the US and then Lansword's Führer, Nomazaki, the lighthouse way those are all
foreign.
Lighthouse cocktail hour here in the US.
Technically foreign.
The cocktail hour.
Yeah.
We talked about our trips.
Yeah.
We did talk about St. Augustine in Florida a little bit.
OK.
Anyways so we are a traveling lighthouse podcast.
Yeah.
You know what.
We are already a lighthouse podcast that talks about American lighthouses.
But we're going to get back to we're going to get back to those.
We're the most explicit lighthouse podcast on the Internet.
I thought that was hilarious.
We got a lot of good feedback from our our last episode that we posted the lighthouse
cocktail.
I think people like to hear us goofing off.
We won't make a habit of doing that because this is a lighthouse podcast.
But every once in a while we'll throw in something fun and goofy.
A little now and then we'll try to take you along for a ride.
Yeah.
Try and keep it less crass.
Shake up your Monday.
So here we go.
Here we go.
The lighthouse we're covering today is called Snake Island Lighthouse.
I don't like snakes.
I know.
That's why I said you would love this episode.
This is also very fitting because this week Indiana Jones comes out.
Oh hey.
The source.
That's where everybody figured out that they were scared of snakes.
Yeah.
So is this where Snake Island in English is called Snake Island.
Well Snake Island is what it's known as.
The actual island is called.
A.
The.
He had the.
Came Mada.
Grande.
Crand.
Yeah.
That's all I got from the game.
I got.
Grande.
It's outside Brazil.
OK.
That makes sense.
But it goes by snake.
It's 90 kilometers.
OK.
It's some distance off the coast of Brazil.
It is wild.
The amount of different sources because the story of this island is like.
It's newsworthy.
And so.
Oh my gosh.
Lots of.
Articles have been written about it.
And you know how some articles are based on zero fact at all.
Yeah.
So.
There tends to be lots and lots of conflicting information.
OK.
And I tried to measure it off of you know Google Maps like OK what's the distance.
But it just gives you that little notch on the bottom that kind of describes a distance
and it's like an inch is five kilometers.
Well I can't pull the inch off and measure it across my screen.
OK.
So we were in Alaska recently.
I was on a motorcycle ride.
It was awesome.
I was with my dad and my brother both of which are very smart people.
My dad.
We.
So we cross into Canada immediately.
The speed limit changes from miles per hour to KPI kilometers per hour.
And I'm an idiot.
So I'm like well.
I was speeding in the US.
I'm probably going to be speeding in Canada.
I don't know.
You know we're talking.
We have these radios in our helmets so we can talk to each other while we're driving.
And my dad says.
So to do the conversion from kilometers to miles whether it's distance or in speed doesn't
matter is the per hour.
You take the kilometers per hour.
Someone do this example.
Let's say it's 90.
You take it divided by two.
So that's 45.
And then plus zero to 90 in tens there's nine.
So zero 10 20 30 40 up to nine.
So 45 plus nine is 54.
So 90 kilometers is how many miles.
Converted it to meters because I'm an idiot.
Fifty five point nine.
Wow.
Pretty dang close.
Thanks dad.
Yeah it's a good.
So I took that information.
I continue to speed.
Shame on you.
Yeah I was going 60 miles an hour.
So you were saying I'm sorry to interrupt you.
It's 90 kilometers.
So roughly the one I selected I guarantee it's less than that.
But oh OK.
I just picked one of the five different articles that covered the same subject but gave wildly
different information.
And there's not much to go on like there's not.
So then they write crazy stuff in the articles.
I've linked them all so you can read them and some of them are pretty dramatic.
Anyway there is another island called Snake Island and it's part of Ukraine.
It has a lighthouse which is also called Snake Island Lighthouse.
OK.
Nobody look it up because that's what I'm covering in our next episode.
Oh two snake hounds in a row.
Yeah because there's a crazy backstory.
So this crazy backstory I mean like gods like Greek gods.
I know.
Oh my god.
So.
Thanks.
OK.
So snake out this is going to be Snake Island parentheses of Brazil.
Yes.
And then Snake Island parentheses Ukraine.
And they both are crazy.
Yes.
OK.
This one I would say is crazier.
Well no I can't say anything.
You guys can you guys can send us say send.
Send me some messages.
Can send us a voicemail on our website which I thought was crazy or you can send us an
email both all from our website.
You can do anything on there.
It's amazing what happens when you just pay a little bit of money.
Crazy.
But you can tell us in about a month or I guess three weeks which one you think is a
crazier Snake Island.
There you go.
But so I'm going to go in this island is a total of one hundred nine acres and it ranges
from bare rock to rainforest.
No it's got like a large range of 100 acres temperatures and types of climate.
What are you looking at.
I'm going to look up acres to hectares.
Why.
Because that's there.
I think the 40 point five hectares.
So a hundred acres from rock to rainforest.
I'm sorry interrupt.
You can guess why it's known as Snake Island.
Snakes are not supposed to be on islands.
I know there's a fun story as to why there are snakes and not just some snakes.
Hundreds of thousands of snakes.
How are these snakes thriving.
They're eating each other.
Well sometimes they resort to cannibal birds.
Birds migratory birds.
But anyway there's estimated and I've seen lots of ranges.
I think people like a sensational story.
So they'll say there's 400,000 snakes.
Oh my gosh.
But then I also saw that a official count was done in like 2015 or something and there
was four thousand.
But I want to believe a scale of a hundred.
A hundred multiplied exaggerated by like a lot.
Well to be fair if you sent me to an island said Vince Vince can you go count the snakes.
I'd be like yeah there was 12.
Yeah I'm not doing that.
One two three four.
OK.
I see one.
I'm going to say there is four thousand.
Multiply that.
One.
But in the case of 400,000 we're talking about one snake per meter.
So you'd never be more than three feet away from a snake.
You know there is I'm going to misquote something I'm sure.
Kodiak Island in Alaska.
Kodiak Bears.
I'm pretty sure there's one bear per square mile.
And I think that's the most dense.
Square mile.
Yes.
That is a lot for bears.
Those are big.
So yeah one snake per meter.
That's a lot of snakes.
That's insane.
You know what's worse is that these aren't just any snakes.
It's not just a lot of snakes.
It's not just a lot of like rat snakes or something.
These are hundreds of thousands of golden lancehead vipers.
They're all the same breed.
Because back in the ice age.
Wait in the ice age.
Yeah.
When all when there was not expect this.
When there was a the ocean rise the sea level rose by a lot.
Remember we were watching.
UFOs were here.
We were watching.
What was it called?
Oh some.
Ancient Apocalypse.
We never watched the final episode.
We sure did not.
Isn't that bizarre?
We binged that seat.
That whole thing.
We made fun of the guy the whole time.
We didn't make fun of the guy.
He made.
Archaeologists.
Archaeologists believe.
I'm like stop ragging.
If you don't know what we're talking about go to Netflix.
Watch any episode.
Except for the last one because we haven't seen it.
Of Ancient Apocalypse with Graham Hancock.
I think that's his name.
Oh really?
I think.
I don't know.
Maybe I just made that up.
It's very specific.
He just.
I was really captured at first.
Yes.
But then he keeps doing these like b-roll shots of him like looking off into the distance
all dramatic.
Yeah.
He's just a guy.
There's nothing wrong with him.
You know if I was on there I'd be made fun of more than he would.
But still it's just like very dramatic.
And then his voice comes over.
It's like archaeologists suggest about these mountains are here due to tectonic plate movement.
Like it's ridiculous.
I think.
And it's like oh yeah well he keeps saying like archaeologists are so stuck in their
ways.
You know like he would be ragging on archaeologists the entire time.
Which you're generalizing like crazy.
Because I guarantee this guy had bad experiences with some archaeologists somewhere being like
you're dumb.
Like why would you ever believe that.
We have fact.
So now he's like all archaeologists are idiots.
Yes.
So we got we started to get fed up with the all of that.
So I'm sorry.
Eyebrows for like.
So the ocean the ocean levels rose.
Yes.
And it cut off this island from the rest of the mainland.
So there were some snakes that we still have today.
So pregnant golden ones.
Oh my gosh.
And that is that pit viper as in the sunglasses.
What.
There's a sunglass brand.
Pit viper.
Pit fibers is a type of snake.
I did not know that was a thing.
There are like you know some species or whatever.
Red yellow green blue.
I'll show you a picture.
But this species of pit viper because there's no way for a snake to swim across you know
to the mainland it is the only place you find the snake.
Oh that's cool.
It is like their ecosystem and their entire food chain.
Everything is just one 100 acre island.
Let me show you a picture.
It's very small.
Is this like a national protected area for Brazil.
Do you know.
You're not allowed to go here mainly because you would die.
So here's the island.
It's not very big.
I know.
And it kind of looks like a snake.
I hate snakes but I think it'd be really cool to go.
OK.
And then here's the probably protecting the snakes because people would go and make boots
out of them or something.
The snake.
Yeah.
People would definitely make boots out of that.
They are pretty beautiful snake.
They're very like.
Brownish yellow.
Yeah.
And normally pit fibers look really angry like they look like they're you know they
have like a furrowed brow all the time.
But these kind of look they look a little bit less like that.
Oh I don't know.
They still.
Still snakes.
They're alive.
No offense.
They grow to an average of just under three feet.
Sometimes up to four feet long.
And their venom melts your flesh because here's what it is.
Because they got cut off their normal food source is no longer available.
They don't.
There's no like or at least not a lot of rats or ground animals.
So then their only option was to catch birds.
And so normal pit fibers what they do is they bite you and then they let go and they track
you as you die.
Yeah.
And really disturbing.
They can't do that with birds because birds will just fly away.
And so they had to one they now bite and hang on instead of letting go.
And they their venom is five times as potent as their pit fiber cousin.
That is crazy.
It's like over time the only ones that survived were the ones that had stronger venom because
the birds would die like very quickly.
Not enough time to fly off the island.
So then get to eat.
So these are so cool.
Well I'm thinking of a children's book now that you said all this venom.
Yeah.
There's a children's book my mom.
My mom would read me that was a green snake.
And I'm pretty sure it was a viper and they like hung across branches and like a really
cool fashion.
I don't know.
I don't know about a wall.
And I it was a children's book so I didn't like you know there's no death.
But like the snakes.
So the vipers these vipers they hang and like attack birds from limbs.
Is that how they do it.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
So they've grown longer tails than their cousins for like gripping and stuff.
All kinds of different advancements that are just from having to catch birds.
Also I think you're thinking about an emerald tree boa.
Oh it's a Verde.
The books.
It's a what.
Verde.
The RDI.
It's a Verde.
Well I think it's the color green in a different language.
Verde.
Well I'm telling you this book right here Verde.
Oh yeah.
Is the name of the snake.
I'm pretty sure.
I think you showed me this book.
I'm looking to it more.
It was a very fond memory that you struck there.
Oh.
So glad I could do that for you.
Oh scary snakes.
Scary snakes.
I think that's on the book.
Emerald tree boa.
Yep.
They're scary when they're not drawn by children's artists.
Boas are not scary.
Boas just try to choke you to death.
They have weird mouths all right.
He's trying to show me pictures if he's going to prove his point.
I like snakes.
I think an emerald tree boa would be a cool snake to own.
It's probably also legal.
You could make it happy.
Like big terrarium.
Yeah.
Put birds in there.
Leave it alone.
I always tell Vince I used to go to Petorama and let snakes curl up under my hair and sleep.
Nope.
Dad had two snakes.
That was a no for me.
So you're talking about they're yellow.
You're telling me about the breed.
They develop.
Very potent venom.
Yeah.
So they hold the birds.
If you get bit, you die within an hour.
It melts your flesh, causes internal bleeding and considering you're over 50 miles.
You can't get back.
No.
So anytime there are people that go on the island once per year because there's a lighthouse
and it's always accompanied with a medical team and researchers.
Anti-venom.
If you got bit, you wouldn't make it back.
Unless they could treat you there, which is the whole point of this team.
They would at least be able to give you like anti-venom.
Oh my God.
That's a nightmare.
But think about it.
So I read an article of I'm going to talk about it.
This lady, I think she's with vice.
I don't think I made a note.
But lots of people have come like reporters have come to do articles on this island and
only some of them get to actually go along.
But they always just go with the Brazilian Navy and the researchers because researchers
go there every year too to count the snakes and take samples.
Got to track them because they sacrifice one researcher each time they go.
Oh my gosh.
But she was talking about how like they have to climb because this is not like a inhabited
island.
It's totally no sidewalks.
Right.
No ladders, no nothing.
So they're climbing rocks and she's just like, they're just constantly having to think everywhere
you put your hand there could be a snow.
Oh no.
I know.
And they want to attack you for no reason.
But if you grab them like they're going to get you.
So this island.
Oh, well, hang on.
Think of it from the snakes perspective.
Every year giant demons.
Yeah, they come and they take some of us and they take our venom.
We're like aliens to them.
Exactly.
I know their own little they're on their own little earth.
And then we just come in.
So what's the lighthouse story?
Why is that there?
Hang on.
I'm not done.
I'm sorry.
The best part about this is the island.
The lighthouse has just a brutally small amount of information on it.
But the island is so cool that I figured.
And there's some lore.
So oh, speaking of lore, the venom, you know how I said, you know, they evolved over time.
And lore says that the snakes were placed there by pirates to hide buried treasure.
And that's going to come into play later in my notes.
So their venom is actually very useful in medicine, which is why researchers go there
so often to milk them is what it's called.
Have you seen videos?
Yeah, it's scary.
They like they have them bite like a jar.
And they go so fast, too.
It's like in there wiggling around and it's just like shooting out of their face.
Very scary.
It's terrifying anyone that wants to see something that's just like so unnatural and in a snake's
face completely morphs whenever it opens its mouth.
It's just like there's gums everywhere and they like unhinged their jaw.
Yeah.
And then it's like their jaw can open like, you know, jaws are split down the middle.
It's like alien.
Yeah.
They just come apart.
It's like all their bones just like come open.
Yeah.
So specifically, this like golden lancehead vipers were used to develop captopril, which
is a widely used blood pressure medicine, mostly known under the name of Capitan.
I'm lucky to not know about that medicine.
So considering that they're only found in this one spot on earth, they're have such
a small footprint of their ecosystem.
And it's all very delicate because, you know, it's like if you reduce the amount of birds,
then you just reduce the amount of snakes.
There's no coming back, like no other second options or whatever.
They're considered critically endangered.
So they're like right on the edge, even though there are so many on the island, because the
footprint is so small.
It's like the, what is it called?
The requirements to be critically endangered are like their ecosystem footprint has to
be less than like 100 kilometers or something.
OK.
Or like there needs to be this many and or there needs to be, you know, like some, there's
just some requirements.
So like one of them being that home is so small is that, yeah, they're just they're
automatically on like critically endangered.
But on top of that, locals want to use the land to grow bananas because bananas are profitable
out there.
I don't know.
I mean, it must be because you're going to go 50 miles off.
Yeah.
To a snake island to sell bananas or to grow bananas.
And they're hanging in the trees.
Yeah.
So they're trying to burn it down.
So a couple of times they'd firebomb it.
Yeah, there's a couple of times when they tried to burn it down, which reduces the amount
of vegetation and trees.
So less birds stop there on their way when they're migrating.
So less birds, less snakes.
So there's been a large decrease in snakes over there.
Well, if anything happens to that island, even like a hurricane, I don't know anything
about that area.
But yeah, that's it.
Right.
Other than the ones in captivity.
I know.
Well, there's only one.
Oh, really?
Mm hmm.
I don't believe that.
I know.
Really?
You can go see one snake.
It's still in Brazil, just off the coast.
It's like the only but I don't really know what they do with it.
But illegal wildlife trade targets these snakes often.
And researchers will be approached by people offering to buy one for up to $30,000.
If they take it when they're there.
What do you mean?
If the researchers could get access to the island to steal a snake.
Yeah, or like they bring some snakes back with them for like research.
Oh, I see.
I. Yeah, one of them does probably don't survive.
But you know, they could easily just be like, here's a snake.
But I don't think you'd want to unleash that on the world.
I don't know.
I mean, it's just slightly different than its ancestors.
But I mean, look at what's happened in the Everglades.
I know very little about that situation.
But I guess people release.
Are they boa constrictors?
And they're from Africa originally.
I can't like Burmese pythons.
I don't know some giant snake.
It's not from the United States.
It's not native to North America.
Recavic.
Well, they not they've released them because they get too big for their encounter or enclosures
that they have encounters.
Yeah.
And then they release them.
But without any enclosure limitations, that breed of snake or maybe several breeds are
like they could be 20 plus feet long.
And they're that's out of control.
Like I heard recently it was on a podcast.
So take that for what you will.
But like I heard 90 percent of the mammals in the Everglades are gone.
Oh, no.
Like all the deer, all the land animals.
It's just like 90 percent.
Now, yeah.
Well, because of snakes and snakes eat crocodiles.
No.
Mm hmm.
And well, I think it's alligators actually in the Everglades.
But snakes eat alligators.
Get rid of them.
I think there's there's open.
And so one thing that you can do to control animals and wildlife is to hunt them.
Yeah.
Destroy them.
Well, there's hunting events that they like.
They send out hundreds of boats and it's like a competition, like a fishing competition,
but for snakes and they still they're not at all close to managing that problem.
So when when I say, oh, this should just, you know, take a couple and put them in zoos
or release them, these special snakes from Brazil.
Yeah.
Unintended consequences.
You know, that's funny.
I forgot what I was going to say.
I'm sorry.
You're talking about how sometimes I get a say about what you were saying.
But I can't remember what it was.
I talked so long at the moment came and she got bored and then thought of something else.
No.
What am I going to have for breakfast tomorrow?
I can't.
I can't have breakfast.
They don't know that.
I'm having surgery tomorrow.
I remember that time when I broke my foot like a year ago.
Yeah.
I'm still disabled.
So surgery tomorrow.
It's all patched up.
I'm going to be on my butt again for a long time.
It's going to be good.
On that note, we'll move into the lighthouse, which there is like two bullet points of information.
I kind of want to know more about the snakes.
I know.
I wish I had more.
But you guys can go to our website to check out all of our resources.
I will be linking lots of articles about this island.
And also please do send us lighthouses to cover because this one is from a listener
and it's super awesome and I would have never seen it if someone hadn't said something.
So it's built in 1909.
It's very boxy.
I think it's concrete.
It's like gray.
There's no seams of like rock.
It's not really pretty or anything.
It's a lot for just for utility.
Utilitarian.
Yeah.
It's definitely not for show or anything mainly because there's nobody here.
Yeah.
The snakes don't care.
It has a neat little like stone balcony on top, I want to say.
But there's so few pictures of it that I can only guess about what exactly it looks like.
It could just be a trick of the photo or something.
It looks like a cool balcony, but you go up and it's just like a fence or something.
You know, it's a very few pictures like Google Earth to have pictures of the island.
Google Earth.
Yeah.
Never used Google Earth.
Well, we can look into it.
It's pretty neat.
I've used Google Earth in my Geology 101 class, but I haven't used it to look at anything
in particular.
You know what I'm saying?
I know what you're saying.
Picking up what I'm putting down.
They're protecting the snakes.
So it was only manned for a little over a decade before it was automated.
So it was like early 1920s.
Yeah.
That they automated it.
And how this came to happen is down to local legend.
So let me give you the wild stories of what happened to make this an automated lighthouse
aside from the fact that no people should be living on this island.
Because it's snake island.
Yeah, because it's snakey, snakety, snakey.
Most logical explanation is that they moved, keepers just moved off the island because
they didn't want to be around snakes and it's far away from the mainland.
So you just automate the lighthouse.
The next theory is that a keeper asked for a rescue team and because he had been bit
by a snake, which by the way, he'd be a goner when he got there or when the team got there,
he was nowhere to be found.
And one by one, the members of the research team ventured into the forest to find this
keeper guy, which they should have just been like, that's too bad.
He's a goner.
Let's head out.
But eventually they also come to snake bites and there was no one left.
So they automated it.
I was just going to say, I was just going to say this sounds like the plot to a scary
movie.
Like a boat wrecks on an unknown shore.
The lighthouse wasn't working and there were snakes.
One by one, the team.
You find out there's like a giant one.
There's like a King boa, 17 feet long.
They're like trying to get the lighthouse to function so they can send out a message
and then there's another ship of the ship crashes and then they're stranded.
They don't know what to do and they got to survive.
Start crawling onto the ship.
They have to eat snakes because there's no other food on the island.
So they eat some of the snakes.
Then the mama snake finds out and then it becomes obvious.
It's not sneaky anymore.
Comes out and hunts them down one at a time.
The ground rumbles.
I feel like this could be a film.
It wouldn't be good.
It'd be one of those tacky, like fun films that you watch and you're like, yeah, like
an afternoon, you're stuck in a hotel room.
What's on TV?
Yeah.
Super snake yellow.
Like one of the really early on, like, what is it?
King Kong?
Yes.
Yeah.
King Kong.
Very good.
I always think Donkey Kong.
I was going to reference Skoll Island earlier.
We talked about sacrificing one of the researchers each time they visited.
So we've had a couple of almost references.
Yeah.
We're really circling around today.
The last theory, which is the most gory and this one was written everywhere because people
love a sensational story.
They're like, you want to go to a place where people, the last inhabitants were murdered
by snakes.
Oh my gosh.
Is that the theory?
It's that the keeper accidentally left a window open and he was staying there with his wife
and three children and the snakes crawled in through the window while they were sleeping
and killed all of them and bit them all.
And they were running and snakes were biting at them and they were found in their like
emergency like rowboats filled with blood because they liquefied.
Yeah.
Well, you know, if you want to keep people away from somewhere, you tell stories like
that.
Yeah, true.
So that was...
It was probably just a giant marijuana crop on this island.
It's probably a giant like cocaine plant and they're like, oh yeah, snakes.
So many.
You'll die right away.
They pay the researchers every time they show up like, here are some snakes.
Say that they're really, really scary.
All right.
That's so funny.
Anyway, so that is the end of any information on the lighthouse is that it was built in
1909.
You know what it looks like.
And the last keepers were killed by snakes.
Nowadays humans only set foot on this island once a year for, like I mentioned, the Brazilian
Navy and the research team.
They do maintenance on the lighthouse, you know, just the usual check in the bulb, sweeping
up, sweeping, rearranging furniture, redecorating, move snake, move snake, all the Amazon purchases
they got unpackaged.
Yeah.
Access to the island is strictly prohibited.
So you need special.
Well first of all, you need to be escorted by the Navy to go there.
You can't just, I mean, I'm sure people try.
That's why they've tried to burn down the island.
Yeah.
Kayak.
Exactly.
But if you want to go there officially, like if you're a reporter or something and you want
to write crazy article and just like everybody else, you need special permission.
Very prohibited, very sacred, mainly because people will die if they just go there.
There's another story about a guy, you know, a fisherman shows up on the island and dies
immediately.
It's like people just, yeah.
I mean that could have happened.
It's possible.
It's just like, I mean, I don't know anything, but I believe it.
If you had an environment that's isolated like an island and you dominate it with one
breed of animal, like it's going to be covering as much as possible all of the land or all
of that space.
Yeah.
So it's like every environment that they could be and they will be basically.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
So the, how long ago was this isolation?
Like we're talking hundreds of thousands?
11,000 years ago.
10,000.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Whatever the cataclysm was.
It's a long time, but, and they're all yellow.
There hasn't been any adaptations other than their hunting adaptations.
Yeah.
It's another problem with these snakes is that inbreeding has just naturally happened
because there's nowhere else to go.
Yeah.
A phenomena, especially for these snakes is that they are born as both, they're like a
chimera I think it's called.
They're born as both sexes.
And so they're obviously sterile.
And so then they just die out.
They're single generation.
Yeah.
But I thought that was interesting.
That was like a random, very specific inbreeding effect.
Yeah.
Is that these snakes suffer from the most.
Not an advantage, clearly.
No.
They're born on genes.
Yeah.
So vice and like 60 minutes.
Oh yeah.
Did vice, you said vice cover did.
Yeah.
That was actually the video that was sent to me by a listener was the vice coverage.
I think it's, I think it might be like 40 something minutes, but, and I didn't watch
it actually.
Oh.
I know.
I read vice's article on it, which I'm assuming is.
Like, I don't want to read vice.
Yeah.
I feel bad, but you know, vice research goes.
Vice had some in my, this is all my opinion, some really interesting stories and really
good coverage back in the day.
And then recently what I've seen from vice has been much less impressive and much more
political.
And I wonder if like what I click on is more like how to keep your hair healthy.
And so then that's all I get.
Ten tips for summer.
Yeah.
From vice is like stuff like that, but I'm sure they have some like, you know, scientific.
Some hard hitters.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah.
Oh, this is interesting.
There's a show called treasure quest.
This is what I was talking about earlier.
Treasure quest snake Island follows treasure hunters as they tried to find legendary Incan
treasure called the treasure of the Trinity.
And I couldn't find out it said it was like reality TV and there was like some big, like
I don't know what it's called, some controversy because the director had quit or, or maybe
not the director, but somebody up or up or, you know, in the team quit and said that most
of it was scripted.
So I'm assuming that it was like, it was actually following these people as they were trying
to find this Incan treasure, but I didn't go too deep into it because it's a lighthouse
podcast.
Yeah.
We got the night, the lighthouse part nailed down.
Yeah.
But apparently in the show they suspected like there was some historical evidence that
pointed towards this treasure of the Trinity being on snake Island.
And so I didn't, I couldn't really find out if they actually went to the Island or if
they just, it was all hypothetical, you know, like if they're like, if we did go there,
then it would be, you know, well, so that relates to your buried treasure.
Or we talked about, I know that's what I'm talking about.
Of course we should watch the show and find out it was like 2014 or something.
So yeah, I'd watch it.
It was probably silly, but yeah, it's probably silly.
I think a lot of shows are scripted.
I don't believe most shows I see now.
I'm sure there's some nudging, even like, what did I watch?
There were some, they show some behind the scenes stuff in, oh, it's a cold, married
at first sight, I think.
And they tell them what questions to ask their, their partner.
And I don't believe that show at all.
That's entirely scripted in my personal opinion.
I think some of the conversation is scripted, but I think that their struggle to form a
relationship is real.
It's too relatable.
Yeah.
What?
You take that back right now.
Well, not for us.
Okay.
That's what I thought.
We have our own podcast.
So this has been quite the flipping of scripts and themes from last time we had our lighthouse
cocktail hour number one.
What?
Oh yeah.
Oh no.
That's technically one, two and three, but you know, we did not record a screen today.
So what can listeners look for on our Instagram and on YouTube?
What images are they going to look for?
What will they see?
I'll just post pictures of the lighthouse.
Maybe one of the island and what the snakes look like.
So you can also see that they're pretty, but deadly.
Sounds good.
You too, probably whatever you make of it.
I'll probably put Verde on there for fun.
Okay.
Yeah, you should.
Yeah.
And then put it next to the picture of the Emerald tree boa.
And yeah, that's the end of this episode.
Very good.
Yeah.
I, I, I, not a lot of lighthouse stuff going on, but I had to get back into the groove.
It's been our first Brazil lighthouse, right?
Oh yeah.
I think you're right.
You need to make a little map.
We're going around the world.
We should make a little map.
The lighthouses on it.
That should be like the cover of our, uh, oh, what a great idea.
How cute we're going to do it.
We'll put a pin on it every time we cover a lighthouse pin.
You can like, we'll have to, we'll work on this.
Awesome.
Thanks for joining us everybody.
Yes.
And we mentioned it a couple of times, but our website is the lighthouse lowdown.com
and I still have to develop it, but right now you can go there to figure out where you
can listen to our podcasts.
And there are links to all of those.
And then you can see sources and pictures and you can also leave us messages where you
can suggest lighthouses we should cover.
Please send us suggestions.
It's so much fun whenever we get to research a lighthouse that somebody else sent to us
because it's like very purposeful.
Like I'm going to deliver this lighthouse to this person.
Very good.
Fun to be a part of it.
And make sure to follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our website.
There's a place you can subscribe and get emails and whatnot.
We hope you enjoyed this episode.
We hope to see you next time on the lighthouse lowdown.
I'll get the hang of this.
See you next time.