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Oh hi!
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Hey Boneheads, I'm Sophie Schwartz.
And I'm Caitlin Hart.
And we're the hosts of Anything Bones, the podcast where we talk about bones and bone-related
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So, what are bone-related topics?
Thank you for asking, Caitlin.
This can be anything from mausoleums to murderers, famous skeletons to cadaver dogs, bone churches,
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And sometimes we have guests stop by and tell us their favorite bony tales.
Check out Anything Bones on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, or wherever your little
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We release new episodes every Saturday.
Bone voyage!
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Cryptic Cocktail Party, a show
where we have a few drinks, share a few laughs, and take a dive into the unknown.
I'm your host Dave and I'm joined once again by Nicola Seinsman.
What's going on, champion?
Oh, you know, living the dream, currently drinking in the basement of a listener of
the show, Jack Swimer.
Jack, thank you for letting me use your basement as I record this.
Now just so the listeners know, you know Jack.
You didn't just show up to some random listener's house.
No, I kind of beat down the door and was like, hey, this is Nick from, you know, the sometimes
co-hosts of Cryptic Cocktail Party.
I need to use your basement and crash your daughter's first birthday party.
Yeah, it was an emergency.
We had to get this done.
Yeah, a couple hundred miles away from Philadelphia.
I mean, whatever.
All right, man.
Well, you look good.
I'm glad you're out there celebrating.
I got, I know, my brain feels like it's going to explode.
Well, we're doing something different today.
Yeah, because your brain feels like it's going to explode.
Why don't I, why don't I take the reins on this one?
Yeah, I like it when you take the reins.
That wasn't meant to sound sexual.
Well, we're, we're going to actually hop into a time travel in DeLorean today because we're
going all the way back to 1986.
So kind of around when, you know, you were born.
Yeah, that's, that's, I was 87.
So, so I just ride my wheelhouse.
I'm pretty sure I was probably, you know.
You were actually probably the, you know, the being that's in subject, you know, it's
going to be talked about today.
So to, we're back in 1986.
We're in Houston, Texas, right?
Now when you think of Texas, right?
All right.
When I think of Texas, what do you think of?
Alex Jones, the Alamo, Foxy, I don't know.
Armadillo's.
Are they in, are they in Texas?
Cacti.
Yeah, those are, I'm pretty sure those are in Texas.
Sam Houston.
Okay.
That was a guy, right?
Yeah.
Davy Crockett.
I don't know if he was from Texas, but I'm pretty sure he died in Texas.
Yeah.
Pretty sure he died at the Alamo.
All right.
This bit's going on too long.
It was too long there.
So when you think of Texas, I mean, the first things I think of are, you know, the, the
scene from Pee Wee Herman, when they talk about everything's bigger is in Texas and
the line Houston, we have a problem, which takes place, you know, is actually at the
Johnson space center, which is where this story will be taking place.
Okay.
Right.
So this, this entire story takes place for maybe five minutes.
The encounter is not even five minutes.
How's this a whole episode?
Oh, it is a whole episode.
Don't you worry.
God damn.
All right.
So Johnson space, uh, Johnson space center is obviously run by America's governing body
of space exploration, NASA space.
It's actually where we get space, space exploration.
And that's where we get the term Houston.
We have a problem.
And in a undisclosed day in 1986, Houston did have a very big problem as there was a
literal gargoyle patrolling and sitting on top of the Houston.
Would you like to know about Frank Shaw's gargoyle?
Oh my God, dude.
I want to know everything about this gargoyle.
Oh my God.
I was not expecting that.
So when I asked you the other day whether or not you wanted aliens or cryptids, I already
knew what we were doing.
I just wanted to know what you, what you wanted to do because this story has both.
Okay.
All right.
Is it, so is it a cryptid?
Is it both in one?
Like is the, is the gargoyle an alien?
We'll get to that.
Okay.
It's a little, it's a little fuzzy, but we'll get to it.
I'll try it.
I'll try not to interrupt so much.
I'm going to have so many questions.
Oh, good.
Oh, it's, it's fantastic.
Um, the main in County or the main person who, you know, experienced this was a archivist
named Frank Shaw.
Frank had worked, you know, was one of those guys that would frequently work, you know,
burn them in that oil was there working on whatever undisclosed NASA projects that were
going on in 1986.
Probably some, probably some cold war stuff.
Who knows?
Uh, and one night he gets out a little bit later than normal, uh, and as he was leaving
the building, he immediately realized and felt that someone was watching him.
Right.
And he looked around and he sees no one in the parking lot, not a soul, you know, it's
besides the streetlights is really nothing going on.
And as he's looking around, he starts to get this, the notion that he should probably,
I don't know, look up on, you know, just, just take a, take a peek into this guy's.
So he looks up and on top of one of the buildings on the center or in the, in the lot, there
was a tall humanoid figure jet black, like just jet black humanoid figure.
Yeah.
Uh, and Sean immediately was just frozen in fear.
Right.
Yeah.
There's, there's, there's nothing worse than getting, having the feeling that someone is
watching you.
And then I feel like it's even fucking more terrifying when you realize it's a giant black
humanoid figure standing on top of a building.
Like I would be paralyzed with fear too.
There's no way I would just, oh yeah, that's normal.
All right.
So Sean described.
Okay.
Bye.
Okay.
Bye.
I'm just hanging out.
Don't worry about me.
Yeah.
So Sean described it as a, about seven to eight feet tall, you know, as most of these cryptids
or one-off cryptids are too big, uh, jet black.
And he referred to it as almost having like a cape, right?
But the cape instead of being fabric was almost like wrinkly flesh, right?
So just kind of imagine like, yeah.
It gets so much worse.
Oh God.
So Sean now frozen in fear, uh, is it's not an ideal.
Oh, it gets so much weirder.
Uh, Sean now frozen in fear.
It gets the feeling that, you know, this gargoyle as he called it was getting off on the fact
that he, you know, the gargoyle knew that Frank was terrified.
Getting off is the wrong term, but you know, he was enjoying the fact that Frank was terrified.
Well, it's kind of like shadow people are like, I like the hat man.
Like they don't, they don't get off on your fear, but it kind of like feeds them almost
like a, they, yeah, they revel in it.
Like a psychic, like they're getting hyped up.
Like it gets them like pumps.
Right.
Yeah.
Which is fucking terrifying.
Well, my, um, yeah, I mean, it might not terrifying to them, but terrifying to us.
Uh, so multiple people have kind of related this or described this almost to be like Jeepers
Creepers.
Oh, it's like super wrinkly, you know, that type of thing.
And then it's not ideal.
It's not ideal in the slightest.
It didn't, it didn't.
Um, director, like a fucking, like, uh, I think he's like a pedo.
Yeah.
He's not a good guy.
I did.
Yeah.
That's what I thought.
All right.
Sorry.
I continue.
Um, so Shaw sits there for about, you know, a minute just being terrified.
And then he is instantly like breaks as he describes, described it as a stupor, how he
had time to rip a few beers and get hammered is beyond me, but he referred to it as a stupor.
Um, because the creature started to move.
It was making like a cracking noise, almost like you would hear with concrete, like breaking
and stuff like that to reveal two giant leathery bat wings, just like protrude out of the skin
cape.
I hate, cause there's nothing more visceral, like when you're watching like a horror movie
or like something like that, where like someone's turning into a werewolf and all you hear is
like bones and flesh cracking.
I fucking hate it.
I mean, I love it, but I fuck like if I, if that ever happened to me in real life, I'd
probably just end it.
I think, like, oh yeah, you can die from literal fear, right?
I feel like that's something like my heart would explode.
I think if it was either of us in this situation, we would both pretty much die.
It would break my mind.
I'd be broken.
Yeah.
I would crack just in half.
Just physically just snap it.
Just physically just snap in half and then pull the old switch.
My body breaks in half.
And then the sound of your flesh and bones cracking would just make it worse.
You just fold into yourself so hard.
You become so dense.
You just turn into like a black hole.
Like the density of a dying sun just turns into you.
Everything dies around you.
The gargoyle does around you.
So Frank then beeline from the building that he was in into his car.
And as he was doing that, he fumbled his keys literally in front of his car.
So this is a traditional form.
Exactly.
And he looked back only once to notice that the creature was, you know, blasting off like
flap in its wings, powerful wind, you know, we're being around it.
You can hear the wind and the gusts.
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
So he finally rips his car door open, dives into the car.
Yeah, just dives into his car, drives back, you know, how he didn't get a speeding ticket
is beyond me because, you know, Texas drove back to where?
Home.
How do you just go home after that?
I have no idea.
But he beeline to his house.
I guess.
I guess home is like safe.
Like it's like, it's like when you play to hide and seek or like tag, you look at base,
like, right.
Yeah, like that's it's home base.
Yeah.
Nothing to get in here.
You're just going to turn your head, turn the lights off.
Yeah, you're safe.
Right.
I still have that mentality to this day.
Oh yeah, you and me both.
You and me both.
I like I if anything ever happens, I know where I'm going in my house to feel the most
safe.
It's great.
It's called the plan of action.
Yeah.
Is it the smartest?
Probably not.
Will I still get murdered?
Probably yes.
Oh, 100 percent.
So he gets home.
He goes inside.
His family immediately knows that something happened.
He's there like, yeah, he probably looks like fucking hell.
Like he saw death.
Yeah.
So he gathers himself as much as he could and he tells his family what he sees.
He tells his wife and his young daughter Desiree, who will come into the story later on.
Oh no, Desiree.
Oh, Desiree.
Oh no.
She's fine, right?
She's she's fine.
Yeah, no one no one dies.
No one dies.
Just years of therapy.
No human dies.
We'll get to that in a minute.
No.
Oh, yeah.
You're going to might want to take a swig of a beer in about a couple of minutes.
So he tells he tells his family what he saw.
Now, her Desiree has described her father as a pretty straight shooter.
She says something, you know, for the most part, it's pretty spot on.
So they immediately believe him.
Right.
But because he does work for NASA and he's an archivist, they know they probably they
know Jim.
Hey, you might not want to work about this because they're going to think you're crazy
and your credibility is going to be shot to shit.
But I mean, it's also it's NASA in the 80s.
They don't they don't have cameras kicking around.
You would think so.
You yeah.
Like especially like a highly classified classified, but I'm sure a lot of stuff there is like
it's probably very well fortified.
You can't just wander on to like, oh, exactly.
It's technically it'd be, you know, it's government property.
Yeah.
You can't you can't walk around.
Yes.
You tell me.
So I feel like he should tell someone, I guess, if they don't have any way to like, like,
he would sound crazy because this is this is insane.
Right.
All right.
Right.
It's like peak peak 80s, you know, Cronenberg's on the movies, you know, you know, all that
stuff.
It's a panic panic.
It's exactly there's a lot going on.
Too much for little Frank Shaw's brain to comprehend.
Now after a couple of weeks of, you know, sleepless nights and just a couple of weeks,
a couple of weeks, so it's on a couple of weeks.
He doesn't tell anybody.
So he saw this and then just like kept going back to work and like just.
Oh, yeah.
Vibing for a couple of weeks without saying a word to anyone like a week or two, maybe
not like three or four, but like maybe one or two.
That's still too long.
And we'll get to, you know, why time is a little, you know, hazy.
I'm like in between events in a minute.
So he finally realized it comes to a sense as well.
This is a, you know, it's government property.
There's a lot of sensitive projects going on here.
I should probably tell somebody.
Yeah.
So he goes to his immediate supervisor.
I don't know if I would go, I don't know if I would go immediate supervisor.
I'd go to the mail room first and kind of like test the waters, do what they think.
And then if they think I'm insane, be like, I don't.
Well, luckily enough, his immediate supervisor and him were, you know, they were friends.
They'd been there for quite a long time after his story is done.
You know, Frank is immediately thinking, well, here I go.
I'm being going to be thrown into a padded room.
My career as a NASA archivist is over.
To his shock, his supervisor, you know, it was like, you know, you're really not the
first person to tell us that.
Oh no.
Right.
I need you to go into detail with me on what happened.
So Frank, you know, kind of breaks everything down, breaks, you know, goes back in an extreme
detail of everything he can remember.
And his supervisor to, you know, to try and console him, tells him that a secret file
was actually opened.
Not too far in the past because two of the sweet baby German shepherds that were guard
dogs on base were brutally murdered and stuck dry like the Chupacabra.
No, similar to the Chupacabra murders.
Wait, hold on.
First of all, were two German shepherds all of NASA's security plan?
For that specific building, they had them like roaming that area.
But still, I still feel that's like a little, little.
They need to have at least six.
A little lackluster.
Or just some people with guns or.
Well, to from all accounts, you know, there was never any specific attacks on purpose
or on people.
Right.
So Frank instantly is like, OK, well, I'm not crazy.
Perfect.
However, his story makes it up all the way up to top of the line.
Yeah.
Like people in D.C., you know, NASA, D.C. is like, absolutely not.
We have to put a squash to this.
So they send out two eight supposed to supposed NASA, NASA, NASA agents to, you know, interview
everybody and anybody that has seen it.
I've seen the gargoyle.
Right.
And it's not like a good interview.
It's you know, it's like an interrogation.
Basically, they pretty much sent the men in black on them.
Hell yeah.
That's what I like to hear.
Exactly.
Fucking love the men in black.
I know they're terrifying and I'm pretty sure they're not human.
But still exactly.
Which is funny that you say that because the again, supposed agents want to go visit the
Shaw family.
OK.
Right.
And they questioned Frank, his wife and his young daughter, Desiree.
And afterwards, and this went on for a few hours, they pulled Frank aside and essentially
told Frank that if he wanted to keep his family safe, he is never to talk about this again.
Now, that's true.
Men in black fashion.
Exactly.
I love how they treat this like the same way that do you.
Did you hear anything about that?
Hasbro sending the Pinkerton's to some dude who received the wrong magic, the gathering
set.
Yeah.
OK.
For some reason, my head, I'm just like, this reminds me so much of that for some reason.
This is so off topic.
But anyways, continue.
So Frank terrified being that he is a government employee and he works, you know, he's not
like he's just a drone at NASA.
He's an architect.
He works in the archives.
So he knows, you know, pretty much all of I'm assuming, you know, he knows a lot of
the you know, the black water stuff has a lot of its privilige on her information that
most people wouldn't have their hands in and out.
He probably knows a little bit more than the average average desk jockey there.
Exactly.
So Frank doesn't say a word of this when people ask him about it.
He apparently would like turn it away.
Wouldn't say, well, yeah, dude, you just had two fucking aliens threaten his family and
his life like I would be quiet, too.
But at the same time, also, I probably wouldn't.
I can't stop talking about shit that I probably shouldn't talk about all the time.
It's got me in trouble more than once.
Well, yeah.
And it's also like mid to late 80s.
There's a lot of shit going on with like, you know, just the government as a whole.
Everyone's going fucking crazy.
Terrorism is on the rise.
You know, like he doesn't want to be charged with treason.
Fair.
Right.
So he doesn't say anything.
Right.
Or 18 years.
Not a word doesn't say anything.
But his daughter was like, no, fuck this.
I'm not like not letting this go.
This is a great story.
Like my dad clearly saw something.
Yeah.
So she's going to be like in her 20s at this point, right?
Yeah.
So 1986.
And we whip out the old with the old calculator here.
Do you know how old was she in 1986?
Well, it was 2004 when she gave the interview.
Yeah.
Who did she give the interview to?
Was it George Norrie?
Please tell me it was fucking George Norrie.
No, I think it was Nick Redford.
Oh, it's not forever.
Not at school.
Yeah.
We all know how you feel about Nick Redford.
I don't mind.
I don't mind Nick Redford.
It's fucking the other guy.
Nick Pope or whatever his name is.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I fucking hate that guy.
And that's that's pretty much all we know about, you know, the gargoyle.
Right.
It's from the daughter's retelling of the story.
Right.
It's from the daughter's retelling the story.
Now it's unclear whether or not Frank Shaw is dead.
I would love to know everyone else's encounter.
Right.
I mean, there's a whole file.
Right.
So it's not like it's one or two people.
Right.
And the fact that two dogs were killed.
Like, yeah, there's a lot a lot to be said about this.
Right.
Now, my immediate first thought was this isn't the first time that we've seen, like, cryptids
around bases or alien activity and like UFO activity around bases.
I mean, the renders from forest with UFOs.
Yeah.
You know, the whole theory.
I never heard of a fucking fleshy winged gargoyle.
Yeah, dude.
Like, what is that?
It has Mothman vibes a little bit.
It has Mothman vibes.
It has Owlman of Cornwall vibes.
There's a lot of like things that I wish we had more details on, but it is a very cool,
like one off cryptid because of the fact that like, you know, it's not like it's just, you
know, like Sam the Sanddown Clan.
It's not like two kids.
It's a NASA archivist.
Yeah.
I mean, like it's this guy's got some credibility.
He says it's no explains why he didn't why he didn't say anything for 18 years after,
you know, Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith and the less jiggy kind or jiggy with it kind
came to come visit him.
But it's a cool story.
I think that it's, you know, I don't know.
Actually, Dave, I would like to know what you think about it.
Give me your thoughts.
Questions.
All right.
So, all right.
I don't even know where to begin.
It's all bad.
So it was it was just a very short sighting.
But it has all the best elements.
It has weird fleshy creatures.
It's got men in black, which I love.
It's got threatening small children.
Also big fan.
Now, does Texas have those flying fox bats?
Is that like a thing?
Could have been like, is there any animal that it could be?
Was it a harpy eagle or something like that?
Well, I know that like Texas isn't a huge bat country to begin with.
Yeah.
If you go to like Austin, like you'll literally see, you know, uncertain bridges, you'll legitimately
see like just hundreds of bats just swarm around you like that scene of Dark Knight
where Christian Bale goes to the cave.
You know, I don't know.
I don't know what to think, man.
It's weird.
It's weird as fuck.
Yeah, it's it's bizarre.
I don't I don't I don't know what I would do.
I would I would cry.
It's super bizarre.
I mean, the fact that like it takes place in like a very well known NASA base is huge.
Yeah.
And I did look it up.
Metazoo does have a Frank Shaw, Frank Shaw gargoyle card.
Do they really?
I kind of want it.
Yeah, that's great.
That's fucking hilarious.
It is great.
I never heard.
I had never heard of this before.
Yeah, I like I've been trying to do as much research as I can.
I really wish there was like more, you know, to go off of, but it's just such a short and
obscure story.
Maybe we can maybe we'll try and do some more research and see if we can do like a follow
up episode, because I feel like this is just the beginning.
I feel like like the story is just like a taste of something bigger.
You know what I mean?
Like there has to be more to this story out there.
There's no way that it's just this dude saw something and then 18 years later, his daughter
told the story.
You know what I mean?
There's there's a whole span in between or also even further back considering that they
had a file of other people who saw his story.
He can't be the only one.
That's what I'm saying.
I mean, I wonder if like with all of this kind of segue, you know, single UFO alien
stuff in here.
I mean, I wonder with all the disclosure that we've been getting with, you know, UFOs and
things like that, like, will we ever get, you know?
Well, I don't know if they would ever disclose things that happened.
Like on government property, I feel like that'd be too like, you know, I mean, like all like
all those sightings of UFOs that are that were like fucking with like the nuclear consoles
and stuff like that.
Like, I don't think the government should have told us that it was like people who worked
there.
Like, I don't think the government like, oh, yeah, this one time, a bunch of UFOs.
Yeah, like that.
So I feel like they wouldn't tell us about something that happened directly on a base.
But I mean, they'll definitely release footage of like something going in and out of the
water near a ship.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I mean, I think that it's like I'm sorry, it was Nick Redford, not Redford.
Redford in 2006 is when she gave the interview.
Isn't Nick Redford an actor?
Am I thinking of someone else?
Yeah.
I was thinking I get the good views.
Nick Redford.
Well, as long as it wasn't fucking Nick Pope, then I don't give a fuck.
Well, yeah.
I mean, I think you're right.
My what makes it even more like curious to me is the fact that no one else is like, yeah,
here's my story.
Nick Redford and like, enjoy.
Maybe they were all scared.
I mean, the fact that two of them did come to the base from like, hey, you can't talk
about this or we'll kill you and your wife.
Yeah.
But I mean, people have been in black, do that shit all the time.
People still talk about it.
And then as far as I know, they're not dead.
Maybe.
If if she told the story of her father, you would think that someone would have seen that
and been like, oh, well, I have my own story.
If she's talking about it and she hasn't gotten brutally murdered by two six foot tall extraterrestrials,
maybe I'm safe to talk about it.
I mean, yeah.
I mean, I think the fact that like, you know, her dad didn't talk about it kind of put the,
you know, the fear of God into her.
Right.
It also doesn't say like how old Desiree was when she gave the interview.
She could have been like old as dirt.
There's no way unless she was like already like 40 in the 80s.
Right.
Or she could have been 20 in the 80s.
Yeah, that's so nice.
She's like 50.
That's not old as dirt.
60.
I mean, and the men in black, what would it do to kill a 50 year old woman?
Probably has parts of the story wrong.
Maybe.
I don't know.
I mean, I think that my thing is this is like the fact that it does nail pretty much everything.
Right.
It has like the fact that there were apparent multiple sightings of it.
Animal immunizations, men in black, a government cover up.
Yeah.
I think this is I think this should be a to be continued and then to be continued.
We won't do a full episode if we can't find a but we'll definitely give an update if we
could find more information because this is a good story.
I do like it.
I do like it a lot.
I was not expecting a disgusting flesh gargoyle, but I'm happy that it happens.
It is soon as I heard that I paused the podcast and I was listening about it, like it's just
cheaper creepers.
Like it just sounds like cheaper creepers and I wonder if the guy that like, you know,
wrote that movie and like came up with the moral correction.
The guy that came up with the creature design didn't know about this because it sounds just
like how creepers wings come out of his body.
So such a fucking gross.
I hate the sound of squelching flesh.
He almost referred.
He referred to that's like dried paper cracking.
Oh, it's worse.
I don't know why, but that's so much worse.
It's so much worse.
But yeah, Dave, that's the that is the Frank Shaw gargoyle.
Gargoyle.
Oh yeah.
Not a fan, but I'm like, but I'm a big fan, but I'm not a fan.
Love the story.
Hate the creature kind of thing going on.
It's like love the game.
Hate the players.
Very much like that.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Well, thanks so much for sharing the story.
I'll look into I'll try and do some digging on it too.
We'll both try and continue in our investigation into the phrase.
For sure.
Well, what do we got?
We got a we got Skunk Squonker Belusa coming out.
Squonker Blue is coming up in August.
That's going to be a ton of fun.
We got you follow us on Instagram at Cryptic Cocktail.
Follow us on Twitter at Cryptic Cocktail.
Not Twitter.
It's Jesus Christ. Follow us on Instagram.
Tick.Tock.
And if you want to donate to the show, there is a link in the episode description.
But besides that, I don't got anything else to plug.
What about you, Nick?
You still kicking around doing dad cast?
You got new episodes coming out of that or what?
Yeah, we've got some new episodes coming out.
Mike and I recorded one the other night.
We're trying to figure it out.
I'm taking the show in a new direction, but we're we're working away.
And yeah, that's pretty much it.
Hell yeah
All right. Well, thank you so much everyone and with that Nick say goodbye. I'll say goodbye. Bye
Goodbye