Well, welcome to the cryptid cocktail party.
This is a show where we have a few drinks, share a few laughs, and take a dive into the
unknown.
I am not your host Dave.
He had an apportionment commitment come up, so I'm going to fill his very big shoes and
surprisingly comfortable underwear.
My name is Sarge and diving down the rabbit hole with me today is my neighbor Maynard,
my partner in crime and dare I say, my muse.
Say hello to the people, you rare and glorious bastard.
What's going on?
I figured today would be a good day to, you know, crack a nice one of these bad boys.
Is that an arrogance?
It is.
Cheers, my good man.
You got it for me.
It's very good.
Love this IPA.
What's been, so what's up Maynard?
For those of you who don't know, Maynard is actually my next door neighbor and my best
friend.
We do a lot of things together.
Yeah, we had dodged some rain the other night, had some good fire while, you know, in some
marshmallows and things like that and some beers.
Our kids, our kids play together and then I throw things over the fence from time to
time.
Yeah, yeah.
And your dog looks over at my cats and you know.
Yeah, my dog definitely wants to eat your cats.
That's for sure.
And summer is, you know, when everybody's out in the yard and all that stuff.
So there's a lot of shared experiences just between grilling.
Well, that's normally because you're out there grilling and then I just hear you shout,
Hey Sarge!
Yeah, pretty much.
I mean, how can I not?
I mean, I'm a good neighbor.
I got a reputation to live up to.
Yeah, well, of course.
And I like that one of our neighbors refers to us as Sarge and Maynard.
That's actually.
Yes, that's great.
He threw me off the first time.
Yeah, me too, because I'm like, what did he say?
And then I was like, oh shit, he knows our secret identities.
I guess we're also telling people that those aren't our real names.
Yeah, yeah, but that's okay.
That's all right.
Well, I don't think anyone thought my name was Sarge.
I don't think anyone thought I was born with that one.
My parents have a weird sense of humor.
All right, so we're going to talk a little bit about a very fun topic.
It's not going to be anything crazy.
Hang on a second.
The bird is still chirping.
Normally I quiet her.
Hold on.
All right, back in the game.
All right, so today's episode is going to be a fun one.
It has been a favorite story of mine ever since I was a little kid, but I didn't really
know the whole thing.
And so I did a deep dive because Dave handed over the reins to me.
So after I'd broken his house, tried on his clothes, stole a pair of his underwear, sat
down and wrote the script.
It did not fit.
Did not fit.
He is significantly smaller than I am.
I am a fat man.
Okay, so here we go.
Maynard, how familiar are you with former president Jimmy Carter?
I mean, I know he's a former president.
He's probably one of the most generous people ever, like building houses for people literally.
I mean, I know he's still barely alive, right?
Well, no, no, I know what you mean.
I'll touch on that in a sec.
A lot has happened this year.
I'm like, I had to check.
I know.
We just lost Richard Simmons, Sharon Doherty and Dr. Roof.
Shannon.
That's what I said.
Oh, sorry.
No, no, Shannon Doherty.
Or maybe I did say Sharon.
I don't think I did, but I could have.
I could have.
Audience, settle that in the comments later.
So you're absolutely right.
Jimmy Carter was America's 39th president and currently America's oldest living former
president not only today, but in all of American history.
So he was outlived every other American president, both physically and throughout history as
well.
Nobody's ever lived as long as he has.
So before his presidency, he was in the Navy.
He was a state senator in Georgia and the governor of Georgia.
And while much can be said of his former of former president Carter's time in the Oval
Office, good and bad, you know, depending on who's talking, his post presidential career
showed him to be an accomplished statesman, a tireless philanthropist.
But this is not a political podcast.
We are going to discuss his establishment of the Department of Energy or the Department
of Education.
We're here to discuss his policy.
We're not.
I'm sorry.
We're not here to discuss this policy of arming Pakistani Mujahideen after the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan made him a boy.
We're here to discuss Jimmy Carter, cryptid witness.
Say what?
Yeah.
All right.
Allow me to set the scene.
Every American president has a favorite vacation spot.
President Clinton and Obama enjoyed the picturesque shores of Martha's Vineyard.
President George Bush, Sr. spent his time in Kennebunkport, Maine, and his son spent
time at his ranch in Texas.
But President Jimmy Carter, his vacation spot, was located in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
You with me so far?
Mm hmm.
OK.
So thus, in April of 1979, a weary President Carter had taken a well-deserved break on
his idyllic family farm.
On Thursday, the 19th of April, the son warmed his tired body as he drifted in his flat bottom
fishing boat.
The surface of the pond was relatively still in the light.
Spring breeze, save for the lazy ripples radiating from a baited hook patiently cast into its
serene depths.
In this tranquil scene, President Carter likely sat pondering the complexities of American
politics.
The problems of the world and the weight of being the most powerful man in it.
He was facing increasingly hostile press, the spread of Soviet aggression, rising inflation,
and a looming energy crisis as the day wore on, the president stared at the calm waters,
allowing himself a brief moment of serenity before returning to the maelstrom of increasingly
chaotic reality.
There are many sounds that can be associated with the natural world.
The birds singing, the whine of a mosquito passes the ear, the lap of water as it meets
the shore.
It's easy to miss these sounds and moments of reflection, but some sounds, no matter
how quiet, can break through the silence and bring us back to our senses.
Such was the case on that tranquil pond on the afternoon of April 19th, 1979.
The sound of the water surface being broken drew the President Carter out of his quiet
reflection.
Perhaps, he thought, it was a fish betraying its location, or a turtle seeking safety in
the murky depths.
There are any number of things that would cause little more than a glance before we
return to our contemplation, but this was not the case.
On that day instead, President Carter witnessed the malevolent splash of a waterborne demon.
What?
Oh yeah.
This shit's about to get real, bro.
Waterborne demon?
Alright, listen man, I wrote this, so I took a little bit of artistic license, but I think
you get the gist of what I'm saying.
Alright?
Okay.
Confused by the impossible thing he was seeing, President Carter twisted his body to face
the oncoming threat.
The creature rose above the wake, its ears pinned back in steely determination.
Bearing its teeth, the creature moved with surprising grace and speed, its eyes flashed
with the cold intensity of a determined predator stalking its prey.
From the depths of its infernal soul, a guttural hiss issued forth, piercing the human Georgia
air.
Stunned for a moment, President Carter's mind raced.
What the hell was he seeing?
How is it possible that this creature could be bearing down on him with such passionate
tenacity?
Quickly, President Carter returned to his senses.
Every human bears the capacity to defend themselves under the right circumstances.
From the days when humans were little more than small mammals evading the cunning brutality
of larger beasts, when cornered, humankind can fight if needed.
Calling back in the primal ferocity honed through generations of surviving the vast
array of threats nature has cultivated, President Carter reached for the nearest weapon.
Adrenaline surged through his veins as his calloused hands gripped the smooth wooden
shaft of the ore.
While not a perfect weapon in the traditional sense, many men have done far more with far
less.
The creature bore down in the water, its resolve undeterred by the brave former sailor.
Carter braced himself and wielded the makeshift cudgel as his primitive ancestors had done
before him.
The distance between the President and his would-be challenger closed quickly, but it
felt like ages.
You see, soldiers have referred to moments like these throughout history.
Mere moments in time feel like eternity as minds prepare for trial by combat.
Senses are heightened.
Every color is brightened.
Every sound is amplified.
Every smell is overwhelming.
And the skin shivers as nerves twitch with anticipation.
The creature reached striking distance with an alarming agility, but the President was
ready.
He brought the ore down mightily, its force multiplied by the sheer will to survive.
The rising torrent buried the creature beneath the waves.
The President's chest heaved, his lungs greedily drew in air, his muscles tightened, his blood
coursed through his veins like a swollen river.
The creature retreated.
Its body trembled as it desperately tried to escape the threat posed by a man with nothing
left to lose.
Weeks later, President Carter, back on a chair at the White House, while surrounded by security,
he was constantly reminded of what transpired on that fateful spring afternoon.
He quietly sipped from his glass of fresh lemonade, which somehow tasted a little sweeter
now that he had almost tasted death.
At first, no one believed President Carter.
His closest aides whispered amongst themselves about the improbability of a man facing such
a threat in the modern age.
This was the tale of the bygone era.
Men rarely met a creature capable of dispatching them in the late 20th century.
However, all the rumors would be silenced by the contents of the envelope sitting on
President Carter's lap.
In it were high resolution photos captured by the White House photographer.
The initial images were unclear, so the President demanded all resources necessary be allocated
for the amplification of the footage.
The President rested his glass on the table and slid out one of the photos.
There he was in all his glory, the paddle held high, ready to drop on the ghastly form
of the killer swamp rabbit of Sumter County.
The killer swamp rabbit?
So this is clearly a little bit of satire.
So there is a very famous photo of Jimmy Carter standing on his flat bottom boat.
I did do research and find out what the weather was in Georgia because I wanted to create
a rich storytelling environment.
So I hope I was able to accomplish that.
I hope I kept you with rapt attention.
Oh, definitely.
There literally was a swamp rabbit in its swim at Carter's boat.
And it wasn't a big deal.
Like he didn't make a big deal out of it.
He just splashed the water with the oar to get the rabbit to jog on because the rabbit
was behaving strangely.
It was kind of gnashing its teeth and stuff like that.
So apparently the rabbit swam to shore.
But for some reason, the White House photographer took a picture.
And for some even worse reason, I don't know why Carter needed this, but he asked for the
photo because no one believed him.
Now, the problem was the media got a hold of this story and begged him to release the
photos.
Yeah.
Right.
The media.
Wow.
The media ruined something again.
And he's like, no, you know, you don't need you don't need it.
It's not a big deal.
Now, I'm not saying that this is what killed Carter's presidency, but it did become a massive,
massive joke in the media that he was assaulted by a killer rabbit.
Now to tell you how far this crazy mythology went, when I was a boy, my father told me
this story, but in the story that he told me, he said Carter basically said he was chased
by like a man sized rabbit while he was fishing in a pond.
Well, that's what it sounded like in your story.
Right.
Because that's how everybody made it sound is that Jimmy Carter is crazy and thought
he was being chased by a man sized rabbit.
But when you see the picture, I don't know if you found it.
I can try and bring it up.
I just looked it up.
It's hilarious, right?
Because it's just a little rabbit.
But they made such a big deal out of it.
Rabbits get swim.
Yeah.
And if you Google the story, there's like tons of stories about it, sensationalizing
it in some ways.
And most of them were skewering him.
But just a cursory glance and you're like, oh, wow, that really did happen.
He was chased by a rabbit.
But even Carter himself was like, no, it's just trying to get out of the water.
I just didn't want it in my boat because I didn't know if it had rabies or something.
Yeah.
Like anything a normal human being would do in that scenario.
Yeah.
But then to add insult to injury, Ronald Reagan shortly thereafter, after he became president,
released the photo.
So now it's even crazier because people already had it in their minds that that Jimmy Carter
was being attacked by a rabbit.
And now they see the photo of him swinging the oar at this little tiny rabbit that was
probably, you know, just trying to get out of the water.
And it's just it's the worst.
But it's absolutely being railroaded.
But for the longest time, I thought I thought that Jimmy Carter really believed he was being
attacked by a man size rabbit.
That's insane.
Can you imagine how that would have rolled out with the Internet?
Oh, God, it would have been a disaster.
It would have been an absolute.
Imagine the memes like, oh, they would have been.
It'd be horrible.
Now we're not done with President Carter.
Oh, no, my friend, there is more to go.
You see, President Carter wasn't just our first cryptid witness.
He is also the first president to admit that he saw aliens.
Well, I shouldn't say aliens.
I should say UFO.
So I'm bringing it up right now.
Something you know what it was.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So in 1969, two years before he became the governor of Georgia, Carter was prepared preparing
to give a speech at the Lions Club.
And a little after seven, one of the guests called his attention to a bright white object
about as bright as the moon.
And it was about 30 degrees above the horizon to the west where they were standing.
This is from the Wikipedia page.
I didn't think it warranted being put in a script.
It would have taken a long time to just write this when I could just say it.
So it moved toward the direction but stopped beyond a stand of pine trees some distance
from them.
The object then changed color first to blue, then to red, then back to white before appearing
to recede into the distance.
Carter felt that the object was self illuminated and not solid in nature.
I don't really know what that means.
I don't know if he thought it was like a like a phosphorescent cloud.
Right.
Carter's report indicated that it was witnessed by about 10 or 12 people and it was in view
for 10 to 12 minutes.
Now in 1973, he says there are about 20 of us standing outside of a little restaurant.
I believe a high school lunchroom.
So that's not a restaurant, but okay.
And a kind of green light appeared in the western sky.
It was right after sundown.
It got brighter and brighter and then it eventually disappeared.
It didn't have any solid substance to it.
It was just a very peculiar looking light.
None of us could understand what it was.
And then in 2005, he said all of a sudden one of the men looked up and said, look over
in the west.
And there was a bright light in the sky.
We all saw it.
And then the light got closer and closer to us.
And then it stopped.
I don't know how far away, but it stopped beyond the pine trees.
All of a sudden it changed color to blue and then changed to red and back to white.
And we were all trying to figure out what in the world it could be.
And then it receded into the distance.
So they say that in 1976, there was an investigation into this, which seems kind of crazy to me.
Like they even bothered to look into it.
And then, this is really bad for Jimmy Carter.
Most people present at the meeting did not recall the event, or did not recall it being
anything important.
So it's really embarrassing.
Oh no.
According to Fred Hart, the only guest contacted who remembered seeing the object, he said
it seemed like there was like, this is so bad, seems like there was a little like blue
light or something on the other or other in the sky that night.
Like some kind of weather balloon they send out or something.
It's been pretty far back in my mind.
Wow.
Yeah.
Sorry, Jimmy.
Yeah, it's really embarrassing.
Really, really embarrassing.
But when you think about what the guy said, he's like, oh, it might have been like a,
I don't know, weather balloon or something.
That makes me think like, like who got involved there?
Is the men in black a part of that or am I just crazy?
Am I crazy?
I'm probably crazy.
Yes.
As soon as weather balloon starts getting thrown in, you're like, all right, someone's
trying to cast them down.
Yeah, right.
Like, did somebody pay them off to not talk?
I mean, I can't imagine that's the case.
I'm sure it was just like a weird thing and they all just forgot about it.
But it's weird that Carter remembered it so vividly and everyone else was like, nah, Jim's
just weird.
It's like magic.
Don't worry about it.
And of course, the rabbit situation doesn't help, right?
No.
Jimmy Carter had some problems.
He had some problems in his presidency as well, because we're not going to talk about
the political side of things, but he did do an interview with Playboy and he famously
said that he had lust in his heart in Playboy.
Wow.
Problematic.
Jimmy.
Yeah.
He also had a crazy brother who just kept doing dumb shit.
I don't know if you've ever heard of Billy Beer.
Who's his brother?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Billy Beer.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah, totally.
So for those of you who don't know, I thought I'd talk about it for a second.
This would be a little fun history lesson.
Billy Beer is a brand of beer first made in the United States in July 1977 by the Fall
City Brewing Company.
It was promoted by Billy Carter, whose older brother, Jimmy Carter, was then president
of the United States in October 1979.
Fall City announced that it was closing after less than a year.
The beer lasted less than a year.
That's pretty bad.
I saw a can of that at an antique store in New Hampshire one time.
I was like, what is Billy Beer?
Oh, you did?
I was.
Oh, I would really want one of those.
Apparently on the can, it would say brewed expressly for and with the personal approval
of one of America's all time great beer drinkers, Billy Carter.
Had this beer brewed up just for me.
I think it's the best I've ever tasted and I've tasted a lot.
I think you like it, too.
Probably not the best thing that the brother of a president could say.
Yeah, I've got pound beers all the time.
Made my own.
You're going to love it.
Yeah, that's rough.
What a rough situation.
So yes, that's President Carter's situation.
I feel bad for him.
That's pretty savage.
When you think of all the things that he's accomplished in his post presidential career,
it feels so bad for him.
Yeah.
And then I hope that the more stuff that he's done afterwards is what he goes down as being
for.
Yeah, I mean, I think that will be.
I mean, he did do some great things as president and then he had some scandals like every president
does.
I think ultimately, he'll be remembered for all the great stuff he did.
But yeah, that's my story, President Carter and the killer rabbit, the were rabbit, I
almost want to say.
And as someone who really genuinely didn't know the rabbit story, I'm like, okay, where
are you going with this?
Because I don't really think this is like this.
Is this Hawkins, Indiana?
Was this Stranger Things?
Was a Demogorgon jumping out onto the boat?
I know.
It's such a weird story.
And it's so weird that the press made such a big deal out of it.
Like imagine the president was just out in a boat and a rabbit swam by and he like kind
of pushed it away with an oar like nobody would care.
Well, yeah, the press was just so different back.
Yeah, they were looking for a reason to lambaste the guy.
Yeah, because like inflation was getting kind of bad.
Now they just make up stuff.
Yeah.
So they either make up stuff or they take like a nothing burger story and report on
it for months.
Or just release half a quote so they can talk about it out of context.
Yeah, exactly.
All right.
Well, that's all I got.
Maynard, do you have anything you want to promote?
Maybe a social media?
You can find me on Twitter and Instagram and threads.
Yeah.
TikTok at Maynard rules.
All one word, no underscores or anything.
Maynard is spelled with an E, by the way.
And rules is spelled with a Z.
May and a nerd.
No, just an S.
Oh, yeah.
So Maynard rules.
And then of course, you'll find me at SajahDestroyer.
There's a link on the Cryptid Cocktail Party Instagram where you can find all my stuff,
all Dave's stuff.
And if you haven't already, go to Sajah Supernormal, pick up a copy of my coloring book, 999.
Yes.
Can't go wrong.
It's 50 pages of joy.
Got mine over here.
You did a great job coloring yourself, by the way.
Yeah, like, you know, I try.
Yeah, it looks so good.
Get in the camera.
Yeah.
Get some nice, nice colored pencils.
10, 10 to 15 minutes of just unadulterated, leave me alone, I'm coloring time.
That's why I did it.
That's exactly why I did it.
You just need that time to just kind of chill and come.
Not think about anything else.
It is.
All right.
Well, thank you all for listening.
You guys, I love you very much.
Be easy.
Go easy on President Jimmy Carter.
And I love you.