Find other great podcasts like this one at podmoth.network
Are you tired of this reality?
Us too.
How about once a week you take a break and visit a different reality.
In Jack Billings Presents Haunted Apartment Complex
We bring you a comedy podcast full of ghosts, werewolves, gentle vampires, and Frankenstein monstrosities made of 72 people stitched together.
And somehow, that's not even the strange stuff.
A proud member of the Podmoth Network. Every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Immerse yourself in a unique reading experience this summer with Myths and Malt Productions.
Where captivating stories blend cryptozoology and craft beer. Discover some thrilling books that combine mysterious creatures and local brews.
Each book features a beer checklist, selfie locations, curated music, and with every purchase comes with a 15% donation to a non-profit organization.
So prepare yourself for a journey filled with wonder and excitement with such titles like
The Chupacabra and The Bat Raster, a cryptozoology craft beer adventure, and for all you New England folks, a champ and a bit of sunshine both being award winning books.
Get your copies today at mythsandmalt.com.
And because you're listening to Cryptid Cocktail Party, I have a very strong feeling that
A. You love a cold brew ski in the hot summer sun, and
B. You're super interested in cryptids.
Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Cryptid Cocktail Party, a show where we have a few drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive into the unknown.
I'm your host Dave and I am joined once again by my good friend, John Bunting. How you doing buddy?
Hello world. Dave, how are you? Terrific on this Sunday afternoon.
Yeah, I'm doing great. Just found out that tomorrow morning my commute to work is going to be a fucking nightmare.
Yeah, probably for the next, I don't know, year, depending on how fast PennDOT is.
It's going to be, so for those of you who don't know, we live in and near the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area and
a part of our I-95 corridor just collapsed, like five exits from my house.
So yeah, you were the first person to tell me because you texted me when I was just waking up and I was like, what the fuck?
And then I go on the news to see flames.
I didn't realize what time it was when I texted you and then after I texted you, it was like, oh, it's like 8 a.m.
Oh, it's okay. I don't even know if this man's going to be awake.
I woke up like a half hour before that. Oh, well that's good. I'm glad I didn't disturb you.
But yeah, Jonathan, you're looking good, sounding good. You're sounding like you're talking through a gaming headset, which is what I love.
Yep, that's exactly what it is. That's all I have.
Now, Jonathan, when you were on last, we talked about the Loveland Frog Band.
We did. And I know you're not really a big of a cryptids guy, but are you like, what are you doing over there?
You're getting my I am trying to there. My floor is wet.
Why is your floor wet? I don't know.
All right. You want to take a minute? No, we're good.
All right. But yeah, no, you you're not like a big like cryptids guy, but are you an aliens guy?
More and more I'm getting into aliens just because of that guy that is saying that he has all the secrets and he's a whistleblower.
So now I'm very interested. So you so you became more interested when like the disclosure started happening.
I need something real. I mean, because everybody who talks about it is like that dude from the History Channel.
Aliens. Oh, George O.A. Succulas, the best fucking man in the world.
Well, I need somebody more legitimate than that guy because it's not really working.
I love him. I saw him talk at UNH years ago and it's just as you expected it would be.
Then we are. So fun fact about me, I'm the kind of person that when I go to bed, I have to have like light and noise, if that makes sense.
Like I always have something or something like that.
So normally when we go to bed, we would watch Naruto because there's a billion episodes of it and my wife just wants to get through it and half of its filler episodes.
So we'll throw it on when it's filler episodes and just fall asleep through all of them.
But now that she started a new job, she has to wake up earlier.
So she's not like watching it till she falls asleep.
So I started watching ancient aliens and now I'm caught up all like 18 seasons of it.
And dude, I love that show. I don't subscribe to any of it.
I think it's all bullshit. It's basically just like whitewashing history and being like, sure, it's pretty shitty because humans back then had the same brains we do now.
They just didn't have the information that we have now.
So to say they couldn't do it is kind of bullshit.
But God damn it, if Georgia A.
Suclus isn't a saint amongst men and I love him so much, I would give my left nut to be able to sit down and talk with them.
Now, what were you going to say? You had a face.
Nothing. Nothing.
I mean, yes, probably talking to the guy would be amazing because he doesn't he doesn't just do ancient aliens, though.
He also has another show where he like goes around and does like other mysteries.
I mean, yeah, it always does lead back to aliens.
But for the most part, he's not like he does like he's trying to find like Atlantis and like Lumiere, which is basically Atlantis.
And then I've never heard of that.
Yeah, I guess I guess I'm not up on my lower.
I think it's it's like Atlantis, but I think like it's something to do with like Nazis like they like it was like the air like the Aryan race started in the it's a whole thing.
Anyways, John, we're not talking about that. So you're an alien. Let's get into this. This here's ready for a really good segue.
I'm ready. How much do you know about Zimbabwe?
I know that aren't they the country that has a trillion dollar bill? Yes, they are. Yes.
That's as much as I know. Do you want to know some million trillion dollars to get a banana?
Do you do you want to know some more fun facts about Zimbabwe?
I do. OK, well, Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of Africa.
It's not it's not South Africa. For some reason in my head, I thought Zimbabwe is part of South Africa.
It's just in the southern part of Africa. OK, has 16 official languages, making it the country with the most official languages in the world, with English being the main language used for like education in the judicial system.
It's home to five UNESCO World Heritage Sites, one of them being Victoria Falls, the world's largest waterfall.
It has multiple currencies, so they don't just have one trillion dollar bill. They have many currencies.
And it's all worthless. And it's illegal to be gay there.
The the ex president Mugabe, I think I'm pronouncing that right. He blamed the LGBTQ community for all of Zimbabwe's problems, stating that homosexuality is an un-African and immoral culture brought by European colonists and is only practiced by just a few whites.
There's also a bunch of human rights violations under his reign and he ended up residing after a coup in 2017.
And then his vice president took over. But as far as I can tell, he's no better than him.
Where it sounds like we're halfway there in this country. Yeah.
But yeah, I didn't invite you on to talk about foreign politics and their horrible.
We talk. Are we talking about gay aliens? No, I like to think that aliens are kind of like Paul from the movie Paul.
You know, they're just kind of like, yes, sex is sex, love is love. It doesn't matter who it is. Yeah, that's true.
That's what I want to think. There might be a memory of that old show, Pat. Remember, it's Pat.
Oh, that was it wasn't like an SNL skit. Yeah. And then they made it a show.
They didn't make it. Didn't they make a movie at SNL for a while was making they were trying to make after Wayne's World blew up, they were trying to make everything into a movie or a show.
And not a lot of them landed. But no, I want to talk to you about a private elementary school in a small survey.
God damn it. A small suburb of Zimbabwe's capital.
Harare. I don't. I should look up how to pronounce it.
Probably it's called it. It just sounds so terrible right now. Yep. This country that I can't name in these towns that I can't name. Yeah, I sound like one of the European colonists called Roa.
Now Roa isn't exactly a town, at least at the time of the incident occurred. It's about 14 miles south of the capital.
And according to Wikipedia, the people described it as a little more than a crossroads in an agricultural region.
So nice. So it's the it's the it's where you want to be towards the destination.
It's full of nightlife. I bet if they had a website, it would say it was full of nightlife and culture.
Yeah, the nightlife being taking a spotlight and spotting for lions or I don't know.
Now, this region is no stranger to UFO sightings or lights in the sky leading up to the sighting at the aerial school. There have been a ton of alleged UFO sightings and some would even say that it caused Zimbabwe and a lot of South Southern Africa to be in what they call like UFO mania like a craze.
Two days prior, there had been reports of a fireball streaking through the sky with many people who saw it calling into a local radio station describing what they saw, which probably didn't like ease people's minds like quelled our fear of like alien evasions.
There are some other things like a trucker reported aliens on the side of the road.
But none of the but none of this is important, John. I wrote all this to pad the runtime because that story is not very long.
So let's just get into it.
All right. Now I want you to close your eyes and listeners as well. I want you to get into this the mindset of where we are.
The date, Friday, September 16 1994. I'll make love to you by boys to men is top of the charts and Forrest Gump is number one at the box office baby.
Oh, man, times are good. At least in the United States.
But 8000 miles away at around 10am in Roa, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe at the aerial school, which is a very expensive private school where most of the attendees are from wealthy white families, more than likely benefiting from apartheid laws.
Yay colonialism.
I was on a normal day learning about math, science, probably not learning about apartheid and all the fucked up shit that was going on in the area when it was time for the students to have their morning recess.
Do you remember recess?
Oh, it's the best time.
Jungle gyms.
Love it.
Jungle gyms, pogs, fucking slammer.
I used to, I used for like Christmas and my birthday, I'd always ask for a sleeve of tennis balls. Oh, hell yeah. Just to play wall ball. Just like hit a kid in the ass.
There was always that one wall at your school that was the designated wall ball wall and if anyone tried to sit there or do anything during recess or lunch break, fuck out of here, dude.
You're gonna get hit with a tennis ball or multiple. Yeah, and that's on you. That's not on us. Yeah, you know the rules.
You know, the art designated wall was the one on the side of the auditorium.
Yeah, I think right next right next to the jungle gym. Ours was the back wall of the gym.
Okay, I think I'm glad that, you know, we grew up States apart and you know the shared.
Sometimes throwing a tennis ball against a brick wall is, you know, that's universal. It really is.
As the kids were filing outside for recess.
I think the school had just over like 200 students, I don't know if all of them were outside for recess or just like a few grades but either way, the teachers and faculty stayed behind to have a morning meeting, and we're just going to leave the kids outside unsupervised.
That's cool. For like a minute. They were going to join him when they were done, but now a group of children were playing by one of the school buildings, when something in the distance caught their attention.
Some of the kids reported seeing a bright glimmering silver disc with four smaller ones trailing behind it.
I don't know how true the four smaller ones thing is I read it in a couple different things but I also tried to watch a couple documentaries about this, and they were so mind numbingly fucking boring that I gave up half way through.
Yeah, obviously who the fuck is there's not like a feature film documentary about this.
You never know. Yeah, they've made documentaries about worse.
But it was they saw silver disc with four smaller ones trailing behind Atlanta hillside just outside the schoolyard. So a group of children ran down to get a closer look at what the fuck they just saw when they saw the craft sitting in the field, and they saw figures come out of the
craft. They described them as being about three feet tall with tight black suits on long black hair and eyes that were lower down on their cheeks and quote the size of rugby balls with a mouth being only a slit and no noticeable ears or nose.
I'm pretty sure they just saw Glenn dancing.
But
now obviously this freak some of the kids out. Understandably, some students believe the creatures to be, and I'm going to butcher another African word I'm so sorry.
They believe the creatures to be Zwick wombo, which are.
Oh, that's I know what that is, which are spirits of humans come back through magic or talk a low she, which are evil goblins of folklore.
Well, other kids weren't so cynical and weren't scared at all. They're actually kind of stoked. I mean, who wouldn't be fucking stoked to see aliens and alien crafts in the 90s.
Yeah, just hanging out. That's like the best time to see them for some reason in my head. I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, because I don't know. They probably this day and age.
I had a joke, but I lost it. Had Independence Day been out at this point yet? Independence Day I think came out in 96.
Damn, I want to say 96. Well, it's a shame.
All in all, 62 children witnessed the encounter, but some of them got more than just the sighting, which we will cover later.
Now, mind you, this also took place within a span of like 15 minutes.
Once the encounter happened, all those who witnessed it ran back in to tell their teachers and school officials why it happened. And of course, they were like, no, yeah, I'm sure you all just met aliens in a matter of minutes.
Half that time being when you left the school and then came back in. So they completely wrote them off.
And so the kids just continued their day like normal, like they didn't just see aliens land in the back of their school.
But when they went home, they obviously told their parents who contacted the school to find out what's happening. I mean, they're spending all their ill-gotten diamond money for their tuition.
I don't know if this is true. I'm just I'm shitting on these people, but I'm just going to assume that all of them benefited from apartheid and they're all shitheads.
Well, word got out about this and soon others wanted to find out as well, obviously. So a few days short days later, UFO expert Cynthia Hind made her way down to the school as she was already investigating the UFO sightings in the light in the sky from just a few days prior and started interviewing the kids and asked them to sketch what they saw.
All of them drew nearly identical crafts and creatures, which is where we got the initial descriptions of the aliens. She found the children to be very credible and believe that since they lived in such a rural area, they wouldn't have access to many media depictions of UFOs or aliens like movies or comic books or TV shows.
You look like you're going to say something, but I'm going to wait. Hold, hold the thoughts.
Don't twiddle your thumbs. Just hold the thoughts.
Things get a little weird from here.
She then called in john Mac, who was a Pulitzer Prize winner and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard to help her out with the investigations.
He to also had a chance to sit down and interview the kids.
What they told him is that the aliens had actually spoken to them.
But john, you may be asking.
How did the aliens speak to them if they only had little little baby slip mouse? There's no way that they could talk with those Mitch McConnell lips.
Well, it's just dog jowls.
Well, I'm glad you asked that in your head because they talked to them telepathically john.
I was going to say telepathically.
Were you?
There's only there's only one path.
It's the only option anyways.
Yeah, no, thankfully, the messages weren't something like super fucked up.
Like, like, it wasn't like we're here to kill all of you and your family and take you with slaves.
Like it was like it was a little more more of a warning about what we should be doing as a species to protect life on Earth.
The students who heard this message were told that something was going to happen and that pollution pollution mustn't be.
It's very broken.
And one girl who read the message told told Mac that quote, I think that they want people to know that we're making harm on this world and we shouldn't and we mustn't get to technologils.
Techno techno techno logs.
Technological.
No, it was T E C H N O L O G E D.
It was written everywhere.
I'm going to say techno logged because I think that sounds way funnier.
When you spelled it, all I heard was that death punk song.
That's how you say it.
OK.
Now, other children stated that he was told that the world would end because we're not taking care of the planet.
So I guess it is kind of grim.
Some of the kids heard pretty fucked up stuff, but it seems like it's kind of just like telling children to save the Earth.
But also, I feel like you're telling the wrong kids.
It's up to you five children right here.
I think they're telling the wrong kids.
It's Zimbabwe recess.
Because I think, again, these children, their parents probably profited off of fracking and mining.
And what are they going to do?
They're going to fucking.
I am really.
Daddy, the Mitch McConnell alien told me that you need to stop frack.
I know again, I don't know if that's what they're if they're off the cliff, you go.
But I am going to keep asserting that they probably are shitty people.
Now, obviously, this made big news.
The BBC was actually there within a matter of days and did a bunch of stories about it.
I'm assuming because they're British and we're probably already in South Africa because.
You know, that old gag, you know, the reason why.
The other news agencies were there as well.
So pretty much everyone in the whole world had heard the stories.
But, John, do you think it actually happened?
Absolutely not.
Well, I'm not one to say.
And I guess technically you weren't there.
Yeah, I can't remember where I was where you were where you were on Friday, September 16th, 1994.
When you said it the first time, I was trying to think about that.
I was nine. Yeah, I don't know.
I was doing something. So clearly, you were in Nintendo.
You were clearly in elementary school in Zimbabwe. Yes.
Oh, God.
Guinness is so thick.
Terrible. I see you struggling with that with that glass over there.
There are certain drinks you shouldn't drink as someone who uses their voice.
Milk being one Guinness being two.
And then there's not really many outside of that.
So heads up, if you're ever going to start a podcast, don't drink milk.
Don't drink Guinness because it makes you sound like a frog.
But yeah, I'm not one to say you're not one to say you weren't fucking there, John.
I'd like I'd like to believe it did.
You didn't you didn't know me then. You don't know where I was.
Maybe I was in Zimbabwe. Maybe I am the aliens.
Oh, shit. You didn't think about that, did you?
No, I didn't cover all angles of this. That's on me.
Well, I'm a bad researcher. I should have hit you up first.
I've been like, hey, John, where were you?
Hey, John, are you these Zimbabwe aliens?
You caught me. That's why I don't come on this podcast a lot,
because I've been getting scared. You're going to come to that conclusion.
But you're also not three feet tall. You don't wear black suits.
You also have rugby sized eyeballs. I don't know what a rugby ball size is.
Yeah, when I heard it's like they just described the aliens in South Park.
That's all they did. That's fair. Kind of. Yeah.
1994. No, South Park wasn't on yet. Those two years.
South Park stole it from them.
If they ever did an episode like Zimbabwe did it.
Yeah. Did it? No. That joke landed flat.
All right. But if you look at the South Park aliens, those are rugby sized eyes.
That's what they mean. Yeah, but that doesn't help me understand.
You know, it's we're good. I don't. I'll look it up after.
Is it the size of a football? I just need to know. Yes.
I need a general size. That's too big for a head. Just a bigger football.
That's too big for a head. That's what I'm saying.
And then a slit mouth. I mean.
OK, well, let's move on, John.
I'm thinking about it too much.
But I'd like to I'd like to think that it did.
But there I like to think that it happened.
But there are some flaws with how Hind and Mack went about their investigations.
Shocking. Let me guess all of them.
For one, they interviewed the kids in groups of two and sometimes up to six at a time,
which made it a lot easier for them to pretty much yes and each other and keep their stories somewhat consistent.
And as for her claims that the children wouldn't have access to TV or movies depicting UFOs or aliens.
Well, remember, these are rich kids from a well off family.
You're telling me that they didn't have access to like that shit like and they're only 14 miles from like the major metropolis area,
which is the capital. And I'm assuming they definitely went to like movies, went out with their family.
They were just like stuck in this whole crossroads of a town.
And there's already like a UFO mania going on in the area.
So I'm assuming they probably heard about it.
Right. Or am I insane?
I mean, maybe I'm I have an apt input job.
Look, man. So I have my mouse pad.
It's also a globe. So I'm looking at Zimbabwe on there.
Maybe maybe neighboring Botswana was having a problem.
They were interested like a UFO problem. Yeah.
I don't think so. I'll look into it.
But I think these kids are just chasing clout. What is rich in Zimbabwe?
I have no idea. It sounds expensive.
You know, whatever it is. So these aliens came down.
They telepathically said to these children that you need to stop polluting.
These children did nothing about it.
Like they didn't become the Power Rangers or anything like as far as I know,
none of them went on to like volunteer at Greenpeace or like anything like that.
Nothing. No rings.
I think I'm pretty sure at this point, they're probably our age by now.
Oh, yeah. And none of them.
Where are they? That's what I'm saying.
This age of the Internet.
If there's whistleblowers all over the place, why are these people not whistleblowing?
Dude, if I fucking met an alien when I was in fifth grade or whatever
and it told me to stop polluting, that would be my whole life from then on out.
Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?
You got to think that like if I'm a kid and an alien meets me and says stop polluting,
I am paranoid for the rest of my life.
Any form of waste, I'm like losing it.
Oh, yeah, dude. Like I would like my carbon footprint would be fucking zero.
Like a gum wrapper hitting the sidewalk.
And I'm like, where is he? He's going to kill me.
But now what if I told you that the environmental part of this might not be exactly what it seems?
Oh, now I'm hooked.
All right. Well, according to all that's interesting dot com.
That's a legitimate website.
Mac was a well was well was well known to be a huge environmental activist.
And it was only until after his interviews with the kids that they started talking about the anti-pollution message,
which is weird since Hinde interviewed them first and none of that was mentioned before she called him in.
Yes. Yeah. Right.
Little sketch. It's for a good cause, though, if that's true.
I mean, if you're going to abuse your power, I guess abuse it for good. Right.
Yeah. I mean, I mean, there's there's no negative message in that.
It's this. That's it's a guy in perspective.
But I mean, if he did taint his UFO investigation, I feel like that also puts like a lot of bad raps on like UFO investigators.
You know, I mean, like you're what you're doing is trying to be helpful and good, but you're also like fucking up
the rest of UFO ufology, however you want to pronounce it.
You know what I mean? Like, yes, I've I've thought about that myself, Dave.
And I don't know the choice that the choice is pretty big where it's like if if that if I had the opportunity to get a message out.
Yeah. To a lot of people very quickly and something like that happened.
I might I might you would you would you would use impressionable children who just claim to have seen a UFO to get your message out there.
I mean, if enough eyes get on it, right. This tick tock era.
Fair enough, I guess. I don't know.
So you really got to do. Yeah.
I don't know. I think the story's cool. I would like to believe it happened.
The only reason why is because I would have loved to have that happen to me as a kid.
So I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to say it's true just for that reason alone.
But John, what I'm going to say it's true because you are so you are so enthusiastic about it and you want it to be true so bad that you're making me change my mind.
Is that all right? I like that. I'm glad I could convince you with this hodgepodge of stories that really amounts to nothing.
So I'm easily convincing.
The story is not that exciting. I just think it's cool.
You know what I mean? Like no one no one got killed. There's no shooting. There's no murder.
And that was just aliens being like, hey, throw that cup away. Yeah.
That's all it was. How about a styrofoam? Huh?
How about how about paper bags instead of plastic?
Yeah. You know, just little things, little changes can help with your carbon footprint.
But yeah, that's the story of the aerial school phenomenon.
What did you think, John?
I was very interested. Yeah, very interested.
And I'm even more interested now because now I want to see if like what was the actual what was the actual message?
Like if this guy is changing it for environmental stuff, what did those kids really say?
Yeah, I don't know. There was never like all the all the things that I saw and all the things that I read.
They all had those same quotes. Like there wasn't like one cohesive message.
Not everyone got the same message, I think. I think we have to take a trip to Zimbabwe.
It's like I was reading up on it. It doesn't sound great. It's not like the best.
Yeah. Just bring a life vest.
And then we'll just go over the waterfall. Yeah.
Bring a life vest, some tuxedo pants and AK-47. Then you're good.
That's probably bad. That's probably bad. I'm sure we could just pick up all those things while we're there.
Yeah. Yeah. They're probably offered to you when you get off the plane.
It's like in Hawaii when they put a lay on the side. They give you a life vest as armor and an AK-47.
I'm fucking into it, dude. All right, John. Together with rubber bands.
That's the episode. I want to thank you all for listening. I want to thank John for being the guest again today.
Thanks for inviting me again, Dave. Yeah, it was a good time. I hope you had fun.
I did. I'm happy to hear that. Let's see. I always have fun when I'm with you, Dave.
Oh, John, you make me feel warm. That could just be the Guinness. It's also hot as fuck in here.
All right. Follow us on Instagram at Cryptid Cocktail. Follow us on Twitter at Cryptid Cocktail.
I never post there. Follow us on TikTok at Cryptid Cocktail Party. We're having a blast over there.
The dumbest shit. I just posted my in memoriam to Ted Kaczynski, RIP angel.
And if you want to support the show, there is a link in the episode description as well as yet.
Show description. You can click that. You can donate whatever you want.
Referring one night at a time doesn't matter. And with that, that's that's it. Say bye, John.
See you later, everybody. I hope to be on here again, Dave. It's always a pleasure. Yeah, anytime, bud.
Thank you.