1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:23,000 From the unexplained to the mundane, join us on our journey to the French. 2 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:40,000 Hello and welcome to Journey to the French, where Halloween is not a single day of the year, but a four day activity on Fridays leading up. 3 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:48,000 We are your, I don't know, Halloweeny hosts. That sounds about right. I don't know, we're recording in September. It's not quite the spirits yet. 4 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:51,000 I'm in the spirit, I have to say. 5 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,000 There we go. Okay. But she is not doing the intro. 6 00:00:54,000 --> 00:01:05,000 We are your host Taylor and Chelsea here today, bringing you into the Halloween festivities, spirits and mood that encapsulates this entire month. 7 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:13,000 We've done a lot of episodes in the past around Halloween. We have a playlist actually that we'll be adding to for just our Halloween episodes and Halloween music. 8 00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:19,000 And this is going to be a lot in the spirit of like once a year, we seem to do kind of a folklore creature feature. 9 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:29,000 Or this week, we are going to be looking at the bogeyman or the bogeyman from Times Immemorial of English lore to Scare and Frighten the Children. 10 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:33,000 We're going to go through the history of it, how it takes shape around the world. 11 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:40,000 And we're going to finish off with some sort of sightings that I think can fall into this category of bogeyman. 12 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,000 I love sighting. Okay, I'm sighting. 13 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,000 Yeah. And without much more, let's just get into this. 14 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:54,000 Chelsea, when you hear the term bogeyman, and sorry, I'm just going to have to put this here. We're millennials, so we have to put our millennial creds in here. 15 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:56,000 This is the Simpsons quote. 16 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:57,000 Mom! 17 00:01:57,000 --> 00:01:58,000 Lisa! What's up? 18 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:02,000 I know it's absurd, but I dreamed the bogeyman was after me and he's- 19 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:06,000 Bogeyman! You nailed the window shut! I'll get the gun! 20 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:12,000 Art, I don't want to alarm you, but there may be a bogeyman or bogeyman in the house. 21 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:16,000 When you hear the term bogeyman, what does that make you think? 22 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:20,000 You know, I've been thinking about this because I knew this is what you're doing. 23 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:25,000 And bogeyman, I don't know what I think of with the bogeyman. It's just like- 24 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:29,000 It's amorphous, correct? It doesn't have necessarily a shape associated with it. 25 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:30,000 It's not a thing. 26 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:31,000 It's more a term than anything else. 27 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:36,000 Yeah, bogeyman, it's not like a guy. It's not like a cryptid. It's just like- 28 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:37,000 Amorphous. 29 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:39,000 Yeah, yeah, exactly. 30 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,000 Yeah, it's a catch-all scary thing. 31 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:44,000 Okay, good. I wasn't wrong in thinking that. 32 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:50,000 Oh, yeah, that's more or less what it is. And it falls into actually like a category of folklore that I'm going to get into. 33 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:57,000 But let's look at the actual history of it. I always said bogeyman, and when you actually see it written down as B-O-G-E-Y-M-A-N. 34 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,000 So it's like bogeyman, but I always said bogeyman. 35 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:06,000 Well, there's actually like culturally within English, you'll see it referred to as bogeyman, bogeyman, or bogeyman. 36 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:07,000 Like, just kind of- 37 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:08,000 Oh. 38 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:10,000 That's where you're from. There's more to it than that, too. 39 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:21,000 But the word actually comes from Middle English. It's bogey, or bogey, B-U-G-G-E, or B-O-G-G-E, which means for Middle English, frightening specter. 40 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:26,000 There's also in Welsh the term B-W-G, which means goblin. 41 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:36,000 So bogeyman. I've also heard it described as the bogeyman, because the person who would basically come around during the Black Plague and pick up corpses would be the bogeyman. 42 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:37,000 Okay. 43 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:41,000 But that was more anecdotal than actually etymologically correct in my mind. 44 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:51,000 The term itself originates at the latest, the 15th century, and there's definitely stories that are older, but they're oral stories, so we don't really know how far back they go. 45 00:03:51,000 --> 00:04:04,000 The reason they use bogey or bogey, because it means terror or like scarecrows, and it's also for people who play D&D, the term bugbear shares the exact same root of bogey being the terrible bear is basically where it comes from. 46 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:08,000 They are originally also meaning an imaginary demon in the form of a bear that eats small children. 47 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:09,000 Oh, okay. 48 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:13,000 Bear actually has a very different root than we fully understand. 49 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:16,000 Yeah, I was just thinking like, bear that looks like a human. 50 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:20,000 So the descriptions that you'll get on a lot of these are very greatly. 51 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:25,000 So descriptions of the bogeyman vary across cultures, yet there are often commonalities between them. 52 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:28,000 These may include having claws or talons or sharp teeth. 53 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:30,000 The nature of the creature also varies from culture to culture. 54 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:35,000 Some are described as having certain animal features such as horns, hooves, and bug-like appearances. 55 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:40,000 Personality traits of bogeymen most easily divide the species into three categories. 56 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:45,000 The kind that punish misbehaving children, the kind that is more prone to violence, and the kind that protects the innocent. 57 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:50,000 They all operate in the same way in that they all exist to teach young children lessons, 58 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:56,000 and the large majority of bogeymen just function to frighten children with potential punishment, not actually to inflict much damage. 59 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:03,000 The more vicious bogeymen are said to steal the children at night and even eat them or to commit some other violence. 60 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:08,000 And the last category is those who protect people and only punish those guilty regardless of age. 61 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:13,000 There's a lot more like protecting people than I would have thought would be in there. 62 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:19,000 This is because this is a category of folklore out there that's not meant to just encapsulate bogeymen. 63 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:22,000 It's meant to like be a catch-all for a certain thing. 64 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:27,000 And this is more or less, I have kind of characteristics of this group that I'm just about at, but we'll get too soon. 65 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,000 And this myth has worldwide prevalence. 66 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:34,000 Like pretty much every culture has something that is bogeyman-like. 67 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:36,000 Okay, I can see it. 68 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:42,000 It's difficult to find the original source of the legends because of this, because it clearly has to go back pretty darn far. 69 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:46,000 Bogeymen were first referenced as hobgoblins in the 16th century, 70 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:52,000 and many believe that they were made to torment humans while some only played simple pranks and others were more foul in nature. 71 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:58,000 So when I was looking at this, there's basically five characteristics of things that fall into a bogeyman archetype. 72 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:04,000 So first, and this is my favorite, all of these seem to come out of more or less lazy parenting tactics. 73 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:09,000 At some point, the kid just asks why too much, so you just have to come up with something that scares them. 74 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:12,000 Why? Because the bogeyman, that's why. 75 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:13,000 Yeah. 76 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:18,000 And the biggest part is these monsters are meant to influence a child's behavior. 77 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:22,000 One common theme among the different versions of the bogeyman is the emphasis on child behavior. 78 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:31,000 The bogeyman is often used as a cautionary figure to encourage children to behave or obey their parents and avoid misbehaving or being disobedient. 79 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:36,000 I find it super interesting because they're going to fall into like, hatch-all creatures that are just like, don't misbehave at all. 80 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:42,000 And then there's some that are super specific about things that they want you to do or not, which we'll get into. 81 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:43,000 Okay. 82 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:45,000 The second commonality, fear and frightening appearance. 83 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:48,000 The bogeyman is typically depicted as frightening and menacing figure, 84 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:53,000 so they all seem to have certain frightening characteristics about them that are meant to invoke fear in children 85 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:56,000 and serve as deterrents for engaging in undesirable behavior. 86 00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:02,000 Not necessarily implicit or stated about them though, because like we said, bogeymen, you don't really know what they look like, 87 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:04,000 but you do know that you're supposed to be scared of them. 88 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:07,000 So then your mind like, makes up like, what's the scare of you? 89 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:09,000 Generally, they'll be a nighttime threat. 90 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:13,000 This is a common theme in association with this, as many versions of bogeymen are said to come out at night, 91 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:17,000 lurking in the shadows to target children whom misbehave or disobey their parents. 92 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:20,000 Fourth characteristic that it shares, it's parental authority. 93 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:25,000 The bogeyman's stories often reinforce the authority of parents or older figures in the child's life. 94 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:28,000 Parents invoke the bogeyman as a means to control and discipline their children, 95 00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:33,000 emphasizing the consequences of misbehavior and the importance of listening to parental instruction. 96 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:36,000 And fifth, these things usually have a cultural significance. 97 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:41,000 The bogeyman reflects the cultural values, beliefs, and fears of a particular society or community. 98 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:46,000 The specific characteristics, appearance, and actions of the bogeyman can be influenced by cultural traditions, 99 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,000 historical events, and local folklore. 100 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:55,000 These common themes highlight the universal need for parents and societies to instill discipline, obedience, and caution to children. 101 00:07:55,000 --> 00:08:00,000 And again, it's so parents can be a little lazier with explanations for things. 102 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:05,000 You have to tie your shoes, because if you don't, the bogeyman will get you when you're trying to run away and trip. 103 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:08,000 Got a lovely, easy parent. 104 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:12,000 Yeah, it serves as a tool to convey these messages and shape children's behavior. 105 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:19,000 Despite the variations in appearance and folklore, the underlying purpose of the bogeyman remains consistent across different cultures. 106 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:27,000 And there are some, especially from Western culture, that fall into kind of bigger groups, like the bogeyman, but like more distinct for their region. 107 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:34,000 First one is the sac man, which is a variant in Latin America, common in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, and Brazil, 108 00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:36,000 as well as both Portugal and Spain. 109 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:45,000 He very easily referred to as el hombre del costo, or el hombre de la bolsa, el hombre del saco, or in Portuguese, o homem do saco. 110 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:47,000 All of them meaning the sac man or the bag man. 111 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:48,000 Yep. 112 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:53,000 There is el coco, and it's a monster common to many Spanish-seeking countries. 113 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:57,000 The cucafera monster is equivalent to certain parts of Catalonia. 114 00:08:57,000 --> 00:08:58,000 What, when is this? 115 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:03,000 Cucafera, or el coco, which I really hope they don't make a movie, like a scary movie called El Coco, 116 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:08,000 in the future, because man, is Paramount going to get that confused with their movie Coco. 117 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:17,000 In Spain, parents will sing lullabies or tell rhymes to children, warning them that if they do not sleep, el coco will come to get them. 118 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:22,000 And the rhyme originates in the 17th century and has evolved over the years, but still retains the original meaning. 119 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:28,000 Coconuts received that name because the hairy brown face created by the coconut shell. 120 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:32,000 Shells three indentations reminded the Portuguese sailor of el coco. 121 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:38,000 Latin America also has el coco, although its folklore is usually quite different, commonly mixed with native beliefs, 122 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:42,000 and because of cultural context, sometimes more related to the bogeyman of the United States. 123 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:51,000 However, the term el coco is also used in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries such as Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Venezuela. 124 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:59,000 Although there is more usually called el coco as in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Uruguay, Padema, and Argentina. 125 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:07,000 Among Mexican Americans, el cookie, I think, I can't quite pronounce that, is portrayed as an evil monster that hides under children's bed at night 126 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:13,000 in key depths or eats the children that do not obey his or her parents or go to sleep when it's time to do so. 127 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:17,000 However, the Spanish American bogeyman does not resemble the shapeless or hairy monster of Spain. 128 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:27,000 Social Sciences Professor Manuel Medrano, this popular legend describes el cookie as a small humanoid with glowing red eyes that hides in closets or under the bed. 129 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:29,000 God, they took that a little far. 130 00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:38,000 There is also a cuka in Brazilian folklore, a similar character called cuka is depicted as a female humanoid alligator or an old lady with a sack. 131 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:45,000 There is a famous lullaby parent sing to their children that the cuka will come to get them and make a soup or soap out of them if they do not sleep. 132 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:48,000 Which you know, puts kids right to sleep. 133 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:49,000 Yeah, oh yeah. 134 00:10:49,000 --> 00:11:00,000 There is the babau, which is central and eastern Mediterranean areas, children who misbehave are threatened with a creature called the babau or baobao or baby or boo boo, something along those lines. 135 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:07,000 In Italy, the babau is also called la umoniro or black man, which kind of gives me hints of black Peter there. 136 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:08,000 Yep. 137 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:14,000 And in Italy, he is portrayed as a tall man wearing a heavy black coat with black hood or hat, which hides his face. 138 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:18,000 Sometimes parents will knock loudly under the table, pretending that someone is knocking at the door and say something. 139 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:20,000 Like here comes the black man. 140 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:24,000 He must know that there's a child here who doesn't want to drink his soup. 141 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:25,000 Oh no. 142 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:28,000 It is also featured in widespread nursery rhymes in Italy. 143 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:31,000 One of them in English called lullaby lullaby. 144 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:33,000 Oh, who do I give this child to? 145 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,000 I will give him to the boogeyman who's going to keep him for a whole year. 146 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:43,000 Luomo Niro is not supposed to eat or harm children, but instead takes them away to a mysterious and frightening place. 147 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:45,000 And then returns them after a year. 148 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:48,000 Yes, because you know that's just good parenting right there. 149 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:49,000 Of course. 150 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:59,000 There's the butzmann in German folklore, which there's dozens of versions of this, because you know like German has so many of its little subcultures there and different sub-German languages. 151 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:00,000 Yeah. 152 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:04,000 They generally have the various appearance of a no man animal monster, ghost or devil. 153 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:07,000 They're sometimes said to appear at very specific places. 154 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:09,000 These figures are called many different names. 155 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:14,000 They fall under the category of butzmann, which can be gnome-like or other demonic or ghostly appearance. 156 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:19,000 Other examples include the boo-man and the der schwarzmann, the black man. 157 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:27,000 A lot of them are black men, an inhuman creature who chides in the dark corners under the bed or in the closet and it carries away children. 158 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,000 The figure is part of the children's game, who is afraid of the boogeyman. 159 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:32,000 Okay. 160 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:37,000 Do you think that the blackness is a part of maybe like shadow people? 161 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:43,000 I think it has to more so, Jude, just because like one of the major characteristics of all of these is it's night. 162 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:46,000 So you know, something's scarier at night when it's dark. 163 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:47,000 Yeah. 164 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:48,000 Okay. 165 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:49,000 These things are all over the world. 166 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:51,000 I just wanted to grab a few from around. 167 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:54,000 Some of them get into more specific details and some are just- 168 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:55,000 More specific. 169 00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:57,000 I feel like those were specific. 170 00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:03,000 And it's so weird that like you said at the beginning, ours is so general for like just the spooky thing. 171 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:06,000 These ones are really specific. 172 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:07,000 Yeah. 173 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:12,000 And like even more specific here, like the Inuit culture has a shapeshifter called the Igerac, 174 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:15,000 which is said to kidnap children, hide them away and abandon them. 175 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:20,000 If the children can convince the Igerac to let them go, they can use a nook-shook to find their way home. 176 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:26,000 And when they in Inuit mythology, there is also the Calipeluit, which I'm probably not pronouncing correctly. 177 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:28,000 We've talked about the Calipeluit. 178 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:29,000 Yes. 179 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,000 And this one has a very specific purpose. 180 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:35,000 It's a human-like creature with long fingernails, green skin and long hair that live in the sea. 181 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:38,000 They carry babies and children away in their parkas. 182 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:42,000 If children disobey their parents and wander off alone close to water, 183 00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:46,000 the Calipeluit adopt the children and bring them to live with them underwater. 184 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:52,000 You'll find a lot of them are just water-based because people don't want children playing around water unattended. 185 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:53,000 Yeah. 186 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:57,000 So it's the same idea of like, how else do we convince children not to go them? 187 00:13:57,000 --> 00:13:58,000 They are not rational. 188 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:01,000 We must be equally as irrational. 189 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,000 Yes, apparently just the potentiality of drowning just is lost on children, 190 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:07,000 but water-based monsters are not. 191 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:08,000 Yes. 192 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:12,000 For their mortality is not fully understood at that point. 193 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:14,000 We must terrify them instead. 194 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:19,000 The most specific one I could find actually comes from French Canada, so Quebec. 195 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:22,000 It is called Bonhomme Sept Heures. 196 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:27,000 I probably said that horribly, but in English it means the seven o'clock man. 197 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:32,000 Children are cautioned to go to bed by 7 p.m. or else the seven o'clock man will take them. 198 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:37,000 Is that bedtime in French Canada? 199 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:38,000 I guess. 200 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:46,000 One man that we've seen before technically falls in this category as a bogeyman is Spring-Heeled Jack in parts of English. 201 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:47,000 Really? 202 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:51,000 I guess everyone would be a bogeyman though that we've covered, including Bill Moore. 203 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:53,000 Bill Moore may in fact be a bogeyman. 204 00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:55,000 I don't know who that was. 205 00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:56,000 Yes. 206 00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:00,000 That was just a generic joke with two generic names attached. 207 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:07,000 There's also another one in Britain called Jenny Green Teeth who will drag you into ponds and bogs. 208 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:08,000 Jenny Green Teeth. 209 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:11,000 That sounds like something a bully would say. 210 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:20,000 In Haiti there is the Mets-Minoui, the master of midnight, and it is depicted as a skinny, extremely tall man who walks around late at night and eats those on the street. 211 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:23,000 The story is told to children to deter them from going out late. 212 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:30,000 I believe this one showed up in a Christmas episode and I actually do think that technically Krampus would fall into this category too. 213 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:31,000 Yeah, it all would. 214 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:32,000 It all would fall under. 215 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:40,000 But in Iceland, Grylla, a female troll who is said to take and eat misbehaving children on Christmas Eve, is more or less their bogeyman. 216 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:47,000 Despite supposedly having been dead for some time, she is also the mother of the Yule lads that we've talked about in an episode. 217 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:48,000 That's weird. 218 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:49,000 Okay. 219 00:15:49,000 --> 00:16:02,000 In Indonesia, there is the Wewe Gombele and it is a benevolent ghost which takes away children mistreated by their parents and she keeps the children in her nest atop a palm tree and takes care of the children until the parents decide to amend their ways. 220 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:05,000 If they truly want their children back, Wewe Gombele will return them. 221 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:10,000 That's a nice one and it seems to completely contradict why the bogeyman exists. 222 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:14,000 But bogeyman will get you and then the bogeyman comes and rescues the kids. 223 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:18,000 They're like, you stop talking about the bogeyman and then I'll give your kids back. 224 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:25,000 In Iraq, there is the Salua, a half witch, half demon ghoul that is used by parents to scare naughty children. 225 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:32,000 And she is briefly mentioned in the original 1001 Nights and is known in some other Persian Gulf countries as well. 226 00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:34,000 In Sicily, there is the Marabeka. 227 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:43,000 It is a malevolent water monster from mythology that is said to reside in the wells and reservoirs and to come up and drag children that play too close to the water. 228 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:51,000 In Nepal, there is a popular bogeyman like figure called the Haugujie and among the noir people the Gurumapa. 229 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:55,000 And it is a mythical ape-like creature who is said to enjoy devouring children. 230 00:16:55,000 --> 00:17:02,000 An incetral catmandu at Itzimbahal in front of the Badrukali Temple is a plaque associated with the Gurumapa. 231 00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:10,000 Something that's come up before in Russia is the Baba Yaga, which is basically a catch-all witch who acts as a deterrent. 232 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:21,000 In Saudi Arabia, there is the Abu Shalalah and it is a bogeyman-like creature said by parents to come to eat children who are disobedient by not going to sleep on time or not completing their homework. 233 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:22,000 What was the name of that again? 234 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,000 It is really hard to say Abu Shalalah. 235 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:27,000 They use that one Abu Shalalah. 236 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:29,000 This one's pretty terrifying. 237 00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:33,000 In Serbia, they have the Bok and it is an animal-like mythic creature in Serbian folklore. 238 00:17:33,000 --> 00:17:42,000 Bok is described as hiding in dark places, holes or abandoned houses waiting to grab, carry away and devour its victims and it can be scared away by light and noise. 239 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:52,000 In South Africa, the Tokoloshe is a dwarfish creature, Shtoza and Zulu mythology said to be summoned by Sangomas, a traditional healer of the region. 240 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:55,000 It wanders around causing mischief and frightening children. 241 00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:04,000 It is also described to have a small muscular hairy witch familiar with an unusually large penis which visits women in their dreams and sexually assaults them. 242 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:19,000 In South Korea, there is the Netbeg grandfather and it is an old imaginary man employed by adults to frighten children into obedience and it is said that he kidnapped spoiled misbehaving children to take them away to the mountains where they will never be seen again. 243 00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:29,000 In Switzerland, they have the Bulma or Bugh and it has an important role in springtime traditions and the figure is a symbol of winter and death in the annual Seshah Slaten. 244 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:32,000 I probably absolutely butchered that ceremony in Zurich. 245 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:37,000 A figure of the Bugh is Burt so that's one of those like burning festivals that they have. 246 00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:40,000 In Syria, I love this one, the Bogeyman. 247 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:45,000 Parents warned at bedtime to go to sleep or King Richard the Lionheart will get them. 248 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:51,000 This is an image of an English King Richard the first. This is due to things that he did during the third crusade. 249 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:53,000 Yeah, I would assume so. 250 00:18:53,000 --> 00:19:01,000 And the last one I have on this category is in Vietnam, the Ong Bhabi is a creature often used by adults to scare children if they disobey. 251 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:05,000 It is described as having nine straps and twelve eyes. 252 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:06,000 Straps? 253 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,000 Yeah, that really confused me. 254 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:19,000 I might have to look more into that one at some point, but yeah, it's something that is prevalent like all over the world with different categories and different ways of describing and keeping children in check. 255 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:22,000 And so more specific than we get here. 256 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:30,000 Yeah, but we can't have a Halloween episode where we're talking about a folklore like creature without getting into sightings. 257 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:36,000 And although we don't quite have a great or agreed upon description of what the Bogeyman looks like, 258 00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:42,000 this creature in my mind is more or less what people could accept as a Bogeyman. 259 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:45,000 If you like if I saw the Bogeyman, I would know it. 260 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:46,000 You would just know. 261 00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:47,000 That was the Bogeyman. 262 00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:53,000 This cryptid or sighted creature is called the Crawler. It also generally goes by the name the Rake. 263 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:54,000 Okay. 264 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:55,000 Chelsea, have you heard of either of these? 265 00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:56,000 I've heard of crawlers. 266 00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:02,000 Okay, so there is an entire subreddit devoted just to this creature. It's called Crawler Sightings. 267 00:20:02,000 --> 00:20:09,000 It has a brief description of what people say it looks like. It has pale skin, long legs, and a tall, thin body. 268 00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,000 And they're generally around eight feet tall when standing. 269 00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:13,000 Okay. 270 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:20,000 There are stories of this throughout America and has inspired many cultural phenomenon such as Wendigo's, the Rake and Slenderman. 271 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:22,000 Yes, that's what I'm thinking of. It sounds like Slenderman. 272 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:29,000 So we're just going to go through a few sightings of this and let's suspend our disbelief for some time and just hear some of these stories. 273 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:32,000 This was posted because Reddit doesn't tell you the specific day. 274 00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:38,000 This was posted at the beginning of September 2023 by a user by the name of MoopiCats. 275 00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:39,000 Title. 276 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:41,000 What could be at the trailer park my mom manages? 277 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:44,000 So my mom is a property manager of a local trailer park. 278 00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:49,000 The maintenance man and his assistant were doing a scope of the park at around 1.30 a.m. 279 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:52,000 when they saw a strange thing on the roof of a trailer. 280 00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:56,000 Originally, they thought it was a mountain line until it stood up on two legs. 281 00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:03,000 The creature was paper white, his arms hung below his knees, and it was able to jump from trailer top to trailer top. 282 00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:08,000 But the weirdest thing it was doing was calling the names of the tenants inside of the trailers. 283 00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:12,000 They continued following it until it jumped over a tall fence and was off in the night. 284 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:21,000 My mom would have thought that they were just messing with her if it wasn't for the fact that four tenants called my mom the next morning to report something jumping on their roof. 285 00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:27,000 I've considered it being the rake or a flesh pedestrian, but there are problems with it being either one of those. Please help. 286 00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:29,000 And if it helps, this is in Montana. 287 00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:32,000 So the rake is the same thing as a crawler? 288 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:33,000 More or less. 289 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:34,000 Okay. 290 00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:43,000 There are some different descriptions because I've also heard the Fresno monster described as a rake, which would be a significantly different creature than what we're talking about here. 291 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:44,000 Yeah, it would be. 292 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:45,000 Next post. 293 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:49,000 It was posted in likely early August by a user deleted at this point. 294 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:52,000 And the post is called was told to post this year. 295 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:54,000 Wife and I just saw a tall weight creature. 296 00:21:54,000 --> 00:22:01,000 We worked in Honowalt, Tennessee, and we're coming home from work driving up a road called Natchez Trace. 297 00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:03,000 A few hours ago, 1.30ish a.m. 298 00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:06,000 Whatever it was, it was tall and fast as hell. 299 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,000 I've never seen anything move as fast. 300 00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:15,000 It jumped completely over the road and the weirdest part was it stopped and we could see it looking at us from the tree line. 301 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,000 It had almost human looking eyes, but bigger. 302 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:21,000 It was standing and we could see its eyes, but it was definitely trying to stay out of sight. 303 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:25,000 It didn't really look like what I could imagine a big foot would look like. 304 00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:29,000 Maybe more slender, but it moved too quickly to get an accurate description, of course. 305 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:31,000 Seems to be how it goes with strange sightings. 306 00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:37,000 It's extra strange because when I was a kid, my grandparents and I witnessed a white creature messing with our chicken coop. 307 00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:39,000 It was also tall and fast. 308 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,000 Now we're sitting at home freaked the fuck out. 309 00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:43,000 Anybody ever seen anything like that? 310 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,000 Ugh, that gives me the creeps. 311 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:54,000 Next posted, this will be near January by user nail picker suenite, name of the post creeper sighting in Arca-Saw's Wachita's. 312 00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:59,000 Last summer, my boyfriend and I were camping in the Wachita Forest off the Winona scenic route. 313 00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:06,000 We drove through a gorgeous spillway to a creek site where we had set out our camp and were laying in the hammock for the night. 314 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,000 Next thing I know, our dog is growling. 315 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:12,000 The deep growl I've never heard her make so it caught my attention. 316 00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:16,000 I look in the direction that she's growling in and I see this weird humanoid. 317 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:20,000 It's a figure just casually walking in the woods around 10 to 20 feet away from us. 318 00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:27,000 It's light gray, maybe white color, 7-ish feet tall, very skinny and had an abnormally large head. 319 00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,000 Our dog barks and catches its attention. 320 00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:33,000 It stops for a good 20 seconds and looks at us, then carries on its way. 321 00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:36,000 Needless to say, we immediately packed everything up. 322 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:40,000 We haven't taken anything recreational that night, though I sort of wish we had now. 323 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:49,000 I don't know what I saw, but it scared the shit out of me and I'm so curious if we were the only ones to have ever seen this anything like that out there. 324 00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:58,000 I always love Reddit because they go and post it there without like maybe scrolling a little bit through all the other comments and people seeing things exactly like this. 325 00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:05,000 Yeah, there's two things that you'll always get is people who are very like not aware of everything else going on in the subreddit. 326 00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:10,000 And then people with just like very credible things to write with the worst usernames. 327 00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:12,000 Oh yeah, okay, these are really creepy. 328 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:18,000 Yeah, next one here from the beginning of August, posted by Lavender Latte Oatmeal. 329 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:22,000 This is titled A Call From My Sister. This one is super creepy. 330 00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:23,000 Oh no. 331 00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:26,000 My older sister is a through hiker and goes backpacking often. 332 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,000 We grew up in Appalachia in a very remote area. 333 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:35,000 Growing up poor, we spent a lot of time camping and now that we're older, she lives closer to home and regularly goes camping with my parents. 334 00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:40,000 We've had our fair share of barren wildcat encounters, but nothing like this has ever happened before. 335 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:43,000 Today, I called out of work with a stomach bug. 336 00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:47,000 I woke up from a nap and my sister texted me asking if she could give me a call. 337 00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:51,000 I lived about five hours away, so I immediately said yes, fearing it was an emergency. 338 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:56,000 When I answered, I could hear her footsteps very fast and her hurried breath in the phone. 339 00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:01,000 She said that she was in a ridge taking photos of a cave system she found near a large rock formation. 340 00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:05,000 When she made it to a clearing, she heard a man call her name. 341 00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:08,000 It echoed through the woods. It was then that she reached out to me. 342 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,000 While I was talking to her, I could hear my dad's voice in the background. 343 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:19,000 She said that she was still an hour from her camp and when she said she was alone, I felt the iciest feeling down my neck. 344 00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,000 I asked her what the man's voice sounded like. 345 00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:26,000 She paused and said it sounded like several voices at the same time, but the loudest sounded like dad. 346 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:31,000 I stayed with her on the phone all the while hearing something that was trying to sound like my dad. 347 00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:37,000 He's a lifetime smoker and very tall, so he has a low booming voice that I have always found comforting up until now. 348 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:42,000 When she got to the campsite, I told her that I was hearing it the entire time and thought he was there with her. 349 00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:47,000 She laughed and thought I was trying to tease her, but once she believed me, we were both rightfully spooked after that. 350 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:53,000 My dad is very much alive and well. I posted this to another subreddit and was told to go here. 351 00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,000 How she can protect herself while she's alone in her tent tonight. 352 00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,000 I told her to sleep in her car. It's the end of that one. 353 00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:03,000 That's super creepy and she didn't actually have a sighting? 354 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:07,000 No, but that makes it even more boogie man like, does it not? 355 00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:14,000 Yes, but that is something that we covered associated with Bigfoot. 356 00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:15,000 Paranormal Bigfoot, yeah. 357 00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:20,000 Next one here, posted by Hatori Hanzo-Steel at the beginning of September. 358 00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,000 Titled, looked like a person. 359 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:30,000 Hello all, upon discovering the sub, I am reminded of an encounter I had in April of this year at John Bryant State Park in Yellow Springs, Ohio, at the South Gorge Bridge. 360 00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,000 It's a relatively new addition to the park. 361 00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,000 One day in April, my boyfriend and I were walking down this trail towards the bridge. 362 00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:40,000 About halfway down, I see a woman, white woman Bob Cut. 363 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:46,000 She was wearing a yellow sweater and a black vest. She was crawling out of the water and up towards the bridge. 364 00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:52,000 She full was on all fours and came up and out and crossed the bridge. 365 00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,000 She was not wet. 366 00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,000 That's easy. 367 00:26:56,000 --> 00:27:01,000 By the time we got to the bridge, she had already crossed and down the trail. 368 00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:05,000 She turned and saw us and I waved, but her face was completely expressionless. 369 00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:12,000 Once we had crossed the bridge, we got further and further down the trail until I realized that we hadn't run into her at all. 370 00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:14,000 She was not that far ahead of us. 371 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,000 We should have seen her or passed her. 372 00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:17,000 She was just gone. 373 00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:23,000 Upon realizing this, the hair on my body stood on end and the entire sound of the park went completely silent. 374 00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:25,000 I stopped my boyfriend and pointed out the silence. 375 00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:26,000 The wind stopped. 376 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:27,000 The bugs stopped. 377 00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:30,000 Hell, the sound of the water fucking stopped. 378 00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:31,000 They need to get the fuck out. 379 00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:35,000 This is a trail and park I have piked multiple times in the last three years. 380 00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,000 I've spent an entire day at this park hiking the entire thing. I've never had an encounter like this. 381 00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,000 We turned around and left. 382 00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:47,000 Once we got back to the bridge, the sounds gradually returned, but I have never ever in my life had an experience quite like that. 383 00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,000 I post this here because I am uncertain of what I saw. 384 00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:54,000 The woman was skinny and short and with the history of the region, I just assumed it to be a ghost. 385 00:27:54,000 --> 00:28:00,000 But the silence of the woods and the fact that I saw her crawl out of the water makes me wonder, maybe this is what I saw. 386 00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,000 It looked like a person, even though I could tell she was not. 387 00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,000 She seemed to be retreating back into the woods. 388 00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:06,000 Just spooked me. 389 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:10,000 I have several other stories pertaining to strange things happening in the woods in central Ohio, 390 00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:14,000 but I have never seen a creature quite fit the description of a crawler. 391 00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,000 That gave me goosebumps. That's so creepy. 392 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:19,000 I feel like I wouldn't wave. 393 00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:23,000 I feel like I wouldn't wave if I saw that happen. 394 00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:27,000 Well, and especially, she's like, I thought it was just a ghost, so I waved at her. 395 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:34,000 Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine seeing anything. I mean, I don't even wave at people in the woods. 396 00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:40,000 Next up here, posted by Frisco Soa nine months ago, so that would make it the beginning of 2023. 397 00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:43,000 What did we see last night? It's the name of the post. 398 00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:45,000 My girlfriend and I are renting a cabin in West Virginia. 399 00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:49,000 On Thursday, a nasty ice storm came through and knocked out the power. 400 00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,000 It has been out ever since. 401 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,000 The whole county is dark and will be for a while. 402 00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:59,000 The animals are acting bold. Last night, my girlfriend and I walked out to the end of the long driveway to get something out of the car. 403 00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,000 Her dog started staring at the edge of the field and went towards it. 404 00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,000 He is young, so he gets distracted and does sometimes wander. 405 00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:10,000 He doesn't run away, but you will look up and see him behind the house or something. 406 00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,000 Anyways, my girlfriend runs to him and starts to bring him back. 407 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:16,000 When I spot something at the edge of the field, it's what the dog was looking at. 408 00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,000 I see it run across the road and into the field. 409 00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,000 It was very low to the ground and pale in color. 410 00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,000 It's too fast and dark to make out what it is. 411 00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:25,000 I assume it's a coyote. 412 00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,000 So I call out to her, hey, there's something over there. Get back here. 413 00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:31,000 And she walks back to me by the car. 414 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,000 From there, we hold the light and shine it over the direction. 415 00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:35,000 I see its eyes looking at us. 416 00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,000 Then I see more sets of eyes, probably about seven in total. 417 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,000 They are shifting up and below the hill in the field, 418 00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:42,000 adding and peeking out to see us. 419 00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,000 At this point, we still think it's coyotes. 420 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,000 So I keep the light on them while she gets what she needs from the car. 421 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:52,000 The thing is, I kept my light and my eyes on them the whole time and they seem to stand up suddenly. 422 00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,000 Their eyes shine would rise up as if they stood up on their back legs. 423 00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:00,000 Their eyes went from one to two feet off the ground to easily five to six feet. 424 00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:04,000 I did not mention this to her and I just said coyotes, let's go inside. 425 00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,000 Throughout the night, we would have to go outside to put gas in the generator as the power was still off. 426 00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,000 She held the flashlight and I filled up the generator. 427 00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:13,000 She is shining the light around, keeping an eye out for anything, 428 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,000 as well as keeping the dog with us. 429 00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,000 She spots two sets of eyes about a hundred yards away at the bottom of the hill. 430 00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:20,000 The house sits on. 431 00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:21,000 She said something's down there. 432 00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:25,000 I say, coyotes are deer and she says, whatever it is, it just doubled in size. 433 00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:30,000 And sure enough, I look and these things are rising up and back down like the ones earlier. 434 00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:31,000 We have coyotes here. 435 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:36,000 Everything about the event screams coyotes to me, but I cannot fathom how they stood up like that. 436 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:41,000 I saw it across the road and although I did not get a good look at it, it was not a deer. 437 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:43,000 It was fast and low to the ground. 438 00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,000 It did not bound and jump like the deer do. 439 00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:51,000 I've been thinking about this all day like it had to be a coyote, but then how did it get so tall? 440 00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:52,000 It was eye shine, right? 441 00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:56,000 It appears to be eye shine because they didn't really describe any of the shape to it. 442 00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,000 Okay, I guess it would be eye shine, which is fucking creepy. 443 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,000 I can't imagine seeing that. 444 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,000 And the last one I have for us today, Chelsea, you're going to like the name of this one. 445 00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:11,000 It's posted 11 months ago, so it seems like October of 2022 by outrageous Silver 622. 446 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,000 Mimic experience possible crawler in the Canadian Rockies. 447 00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:19,000 Last year I moved out west to Alberta to take a government job in the Rocky Mountains, working for a national park. 448 00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:24,000 My job involves working hands on in the park and in some ways is similar to being a bylaw officer. 449 00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:28,000 The reason that this is relevant is because I spend a lot of time with my boots quite literally on the ground, 450 00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,000 getting paid to drive back and forth over the continental divide. 451 00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,000 I know the park and its surroundings like the back of my hand at this point. 452 00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:40,000 I am highly aware of the animals that the plants that live here and I am comfortable in the back country maybe more than I ever have been 453 00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:45,000 and I know what kind of things one can expect to encounter at least for us and where. 454 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,000 It was a beautiful sunny day in about mid June this year. 455 00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:51,000 Spring had finally begun and the weather was starting to get nice. 456 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,000 It was about 15 degrees Celsius, 60 Fahrenheit. 457 00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,000 And I had an unexpected day off of work. 458 00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:02,000 My girlfriend had a half day and so I got the bright idea of picking her up from work and taking her to an area called the Spray Valley. 459 00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:08,000 I wasn't really up for a big hike that day, but I read online that there was some viewpoint along Highway 742 460 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:13,000 that offered an amazing view of Mount Assiniboine, the most prominent mountain in that part of the Rockies. 461 00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:17,000 And so I thought it might be a good place to drive to and check out for something to do. 462 00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:24,000 The easiest way to get to the valley, if you're already in the mountains, is to take 742 from the town of Canmore following it over White Men's Gap. 463 00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,000 And pass that traverses the saddle between two large peaks. 464 00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:33,000 As soon as we get up to the elevation it was pretty apparent that the spring had sprung to a way lesser extent up there. 465 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,000 There was still some lingering snow on the slopes, though the road was clear. 466 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:43,000 We were shocked to see mountain goats licking the salt from the trail in front of us, which is totally unheard of at such low elevations, 467 00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:47,000 as they're typically high up in the subalpine and alpine areas where there are no roads. 468 00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:53,000 Late snowmelt will do this as there's just no way for them to be in their usual habitat when it's inundated with snowpack. 469 00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,000 This becomes important later. 470 00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,000 Calling 742 a highway is pretty damn generous. 471 00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:02,000 It's really just a gravel two-lane road snaking deep into the backcountry. 472 00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:10,000 The whole area around the spray valley has a reputation for being less tourist-family-friendly and can be somewhat dangerous to reach depending on the weather up the pass. 473 00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:15,000 It's way more remote than most car-accessible areas adjacent, and often have harsher conditions. 474 00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:24,000 As a result, it sees way fewer people than any of the nearby parks, and that day was no exception, especially given the winter that was hanging on to some extent at altitude. 475 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:31,000 When we noticed as we got further away and further away from the comparatively busy section of the pass, we weren't really seeing anybody at all. 476 00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:39,000 We drove for an hour and change, and soon we went from passing a couple of cars every 15 or so minutes to literally being the only ones on the road. 477 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:44,000 The parking lots in the roadside day use areas were completely empty when we arrived at the viewpoint. 478 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:48,000 I threw it in park at the edge of the road, and we got out of the truck. 479 00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:51,000 What struck me most was just how quiet things were. 480 00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:55,000 Aside from the sound of birds and our own voices, we were well and truly alone. 481 00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:00,000 The valley was long and wide, with the mountains at a reasonable distance from the highway in both directions. 482 00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,000 There wasn't much opportunity for an echo. 483 00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:07,000 We had a long shot of visibility in each direction down the highway, and there were clearly nobody around. 484 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:18,000 Moreover, all the cars we had passed on the way had kicked up a lot of dirt from the gravel on the dry valley floor, which can be quite arid due to the rain shadow of the peaks around. 485 00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,000 There wasn't a speck of it to be seen. 486 00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:25,000 No dust clouds, no sound, no approaching cars, and when I say we were alone, I mean that every sense confirmed this fact. 487 00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:32,000 I had downloaded the area on Google Maps before we lost cell signal, and so I opened it up to check what was nearby. 488 00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:41,000 There were a couple of alpine trailheads in either direction, probably unusable with the snow sticking around, and a closed seasonal helipad about 2 kilometers across a canyon. 489 00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,000 No wonder the lack of crowds. 490 00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:47,000 We spent 10 to 15 minutes admiring the view and took some pictures. 491 00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:53,000 Walked over to a pond at the edge of the road and sat there for a bit while my girlfriend or Herbalist admired some of the plans, 492 00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:58,000 noting how much smaller and earlier they were in the growing season than the plants that are part of the Rockies. 493 00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:03,000 Before long, we noticed across the pond about 100 feet from the highway there was a small outbuilding. 494 00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:08,000 Even though the spray valley has much less infrastructure than other areas due to the low volume of visitors, 495 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:13,000 it still does have some facilities like bathrooms and trailheads, and so we assumed that's what it was. 496 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:18,000 Curious about what trailhead it was, we walked back to the truck and cruised back towards the parking lot. 497 00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,000 We had just seen a minute or so before we had parked. 498 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:29,000 I pulled in, and once again, this lot was empty. No cars, no dust, not even any obviously disturbed gravel from 4x4 tires or anything like that. 499 00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:36,000 I remember this clearly because I was kind of reveling in how alone we were, since I'm used to wrangling tourists and giving out citations. 500 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,000 I got to the truck and suddenly I was hit with a familiar sense of unease. 501 00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:41,000 Other outdoorsmen will know what I mean. 502 00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:45,000 I've spoken to hunters, wardens, guides, and other people who get it too. 503 00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:49,000 What I mean is that usually I just know when there's a bear around. 504 00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:55,000 I don't think it's anything supernatural, my guess is that I can smell some or something and don't realise it consciously. 505 00:35:55,000 --> 00:36:01,000 I had this sense of visualist wash over me, and so I reached into the center console and grabbed my bear spray and attached it to my belt. 506 00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:02,000 I stopped for a minute. 507 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:06,000 My girlfriend's close by while I listened to see if I could hear anything. 508 00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:07,000 I couldn't. 509 00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:08,000 So we approached the beginning of the trail. 510 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:16,000 It was a long, even, clear cut, grassy area and it reminded me more of the type of double track trails you'd see in the flatlands than a mountain trailhead. 511 00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:23,000 It was so wide that the park had actually placed a couple of granite slabs in front of it to keep people from taking motor vehicles down it. 512 00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:29,000 We read the map on the sign and we both took a few pictures of our surroundings standing on the slabs. 513 00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:34,000 And suddenly we heard a sharp crack about 20-25 feet away from us, in the forest to our right. 514 00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:43,000 The forest was thick, dense, mossy, and surprisingly damp for a valley that was dry enough for dust clouds to hang in the air for minutes after a vehicle passed by. 515 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:47,000 There was just about zero visibility between the first few trees. 516 00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:57,000 The crack itself immediately concerned me because it sounded to me like the type of crack you'd get from breaking in half one of the first pieces of wood you'd put on a fresh campfire. 517 00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:00,000 Bigger than kindling, a decent sized branch from the sound. 518 00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:05,000 And so whatever made the noises needed to have some weight to have broken something that large. 519 00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:09,000 I immediately put myself between my girlfriend and the forest and we called out to see if anybody was there. 520 00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:12,000 I heard nothing and so assumed it was an animal. 521 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:17,000 I started yelling the typical stuff we're taught to yell when a bear is around in the backcountry. 522 00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:21,000 As you're intentionally socialized with the rubber bullets to run when confronted. 523 00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:23,000 I clapped five times in quick succession. 524 00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:29,000 About seven seconds passed and something in the forest 20-25 feet away clapped back twice. 525 00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:30,000 No! 526 00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:33,000 Slowly and deliberately at me. 527 00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:36,000 It's not even mimicking. It's like sarcastic. 528 00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:44,000 Yeah, I have large thick palms. I measured them as I was writing this all down to get an idea of how big my hands actually are. 529 00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:45,000 Spread wide. 530 00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:55,000 If I were about to clap they're eight by five inches and they have a distinctive sound because of the size of whatever it was that clapped at sounded extremely similar. 531 00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,000 So something at least my size was physically clapping at us. 532 00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:02,000 Or something was able to mimic the sound I made perfectly. 533 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:10,000 I mentioned before that due to the width of the valley there wasn't really any room for the type of echo you might get in a narrow gully or up on the pass. 534 00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:17,000 Also, echoes have that natural shimmering reverb that decays over time as the sound waves bounce back at you. 535 00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,000 What we heard certainly did not. It was real clapping in real time. 536 00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:28,000 It took about two seconds flat for me to go from standing next to the sign to half dragging half carrying my girl from back to the truck. 537 00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:35,000 We paused with our backs against the vehicle straining to see into the woods and from across the parking lot trying to hear what we could hear. 538 00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:41,000 I don't remember what I yelled but I yelled something to let whatever was standing over there that it wasn't welcome. 539 00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:43,000 And we got into the truck and I peeled out. 540 00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:49,000 My girlfriend was very upset. I was pretty shaken myself and I wasn't really keen on being in the back country anymore. 541 00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:57,000 The whole drive back towards the pass we felt off as if we were being watched and even though it was a warm sunny day the atmosphere was hostile and weird. 542 00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:03,000 We stopped at a picnic area by the spray lakes further up the valley to see if we could make it a pallet cleanser. 543 00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,000 But I just couldn't relax and was quite on edge the whole time. 544 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:14,000 We still talk about it frequently and everybody I've spoken to with serious back country experiences equally puzzled by what I experienced. 545 00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:21,000 A few of the friends I have interested in the paranormal have noted the crawler-like creatures and Sasquatches are both known to mimic people. 546 00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:28,000 There's no sign of another human being within 25 plus kilometers in any given direction from where we were at that day and possibly further. 547 00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:36,000 No noise, no dust, no cars, no bikes, no voices, no footsteps, no reason for anybody to be there so early in the season with the snow still on the slopes. 548 00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:43,000 I can't help but think whatever we disturbed was trying to communicate with us but I'm very glad we didn't stick around to find out what it wanted. 549 00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,000 Curious or malevolent as it may have been. 550 00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,000 And that's where I'm going to leave this episode off. 551 00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:50,000 That was in the crawler group? 552 00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:56,000 Yeah, there's definitely some interchange because these are not scientific things. 553 00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:58,000 There's definitely interlude between different groups. 554 00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:03,000 You see some of them mimicking from Sasquatch sightings and a few other things as well. 555 00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:07,000 But I just thought those were really good stories that have Boogie Man work because in them. 556 00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:16,000 Especially because some of them have no sighting to go with them which makes it creepier because your imagination can run wild with it. 557 00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:23,000 And that's how we see the Boogie Man but those gave me the creeps and that's all a part of a good Halloween episode. 558 00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,000 And with that, I have been Taylor here with Chelsea. 559 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:28,000 We are Journey to the Fringe. 560 00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:30,000 Thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week. 561 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:31,000 Hey. 562 00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:35,000 Thank you for listening to Journey to the Fringe. 563 00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:44,000 If you have liked what you have listened to, please like, share, subscribe or follow depending on what venue you are listening to us through. 564 00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:50,000 Also, please if possible, leave a 5-star review as that really helps us in the algorithms. 565 00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:55,000 Should you wish to interact with us, please check us out on your social media of choice. 566 00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,000 I bet you we are there. 567 00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:08,000 And if you really want to communicate with us and give us ideas for new episodes or tell us that we're wrong and terrible, either way, please send us an email at Journeytothefringe at gmail.com. 568 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:15,000 For now, I'll see you in the next episode.