Find other great podcasts like this one at podmoth.network Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of cryptid cocktail party I am your host Dave and oh shit This is a show where we have a few drinks share a few laughs and take a dive into the unknown I did it again. This is the second week in a row that I forgot how to do my own Today I'm joined by good friend AJ Westcott I don't know if you want me to say your last name if not, I'll bleep it out
But anyways, how you doing bud? I'm doing good man. That's fine. You can leave my name in there. Okay, nobody knows me It's fine. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I know you that's all that really matters That's true. And now tens of people will know who you are as well. Oh Good a whole tens of people Well, I'm glad you could join me today we had a little bit of technical difficulties the past hour trying to
Get going but hey, we made it. Yeah, we made here we are. Yeah, that's all that matters Who would have thought? Look at us AJ well, mm-hmm. Let me ask you one question Yes, are you a cryptist guy? Hell yeah, man. Are you? Yeah, I mean you are drinking Basquatch. I I am drinking Basquatch. You are which is a cryptid that I cannot get enough of and by that I mean, it's fucking batshit insane and wild and I don't think it's real. I don't think it's real either
I think they just made it up, but I love it. It's pretty good. What are you drinking? I'm drinking a I'm drinking a shandy linen kugel. Oh One of them and ages dude, it's nice out fucking sons out guns out whether today, baby Well, I went so I went to the beer store because I found out that Blue Moon made a horchata beer Oh, yeah. Oh, I have had that that's right I was really excited because I went to this place called standard deviant in San Francisco
And they had a horchata beer on tap. It was like a it was like a nitro brew So it was like that Guinness II like the bubbles down type thing. Love nitro beer Yeah, but they they couldn't figure out a way to can it so I couldn't bring any home Okay, so I found out that Blue Moon makes a like makes a horchata beer And then I went to the beer store today and I was like, you know
Do you sell this and they're like never even heard of it? I was like fine, whatever So I got these shandies and I go to the register which is the shandies are a violently different beer than a nitro brood, but I Get the rest of you's like, yeah, so I was doing some research and it looks like they did do it But they discontinued it in 2018. So I don't know how I like oh I don't know. I was very I had it. I got it in a I got a sample pack like years ago the horchata Blue Moon
Was it good? I can't imagine it was bad It was all right back to you to remember. I I really don't remember it. I don't I I Wouldn't take it out of bed. It was all right I'll take that. All right, AJ. Let's get let's get diving into this episode Okay, what are you hoping to get out of this? Like what like what like what kind of cryptid do you were you hoping to hear about today? I I don't know. I mean you I
Have no idea you teased a while ago that you were gonna do the sleaze stack looking one. Oh But that was a while ago when we first talking about me being on the show so I don't know. I mean, I'm just looking for just a fun time. It's day drinking time I get to do that. Yeah, you you kick the whole family out just to do this the whole family
Alright, well AJ I'm gonna take on a journey today. We're not just gonna go in America We're gonna go abroad as well at some point But first let's start out in the Ozarks You familiar? Oh, yeah, but I mean with the show. All right, so The Ozarks also known as the Ozark Mountains Ozark Highlands or the Ozark Plateau It's it's a massive stretch of land that occupies parts of Missouri Arkansas
Oklahoma and according to Wikipedia the extreme southeast corner of Kansas. I don't know. Oh It's home to some of the most beautiful places in the world Oh, it's home to some of the most beautiful scenery in all of the United States It's got hiking trails the Mark Twain National Forest the Ozark Trail It's had warships named after the region and like you said it has a TV show
Starring the dude from Arrested Development and that one chick from a German car art show that I can't remember the name of Yeah, it's a whole thing. It's also It's also got a massive cave network trails and also fun fact I learned this the mountains in the Ozarks were not formed by tectonic shifting but from erosion I don't know how it's it's not yeah So it's not when to stop from when like two plates come together or when they like go it's it was made that way
He said you said Ozark Plateau. So was it just a giant piece of flat earth that just then Turned into a mountain dude. I don't know. I'm not a geologist I'm just I'm just just letting you know what I learned while researching this but Whatever we're not here to discuss that today. I want to tell you about the beast known as the Ozark Howler So The Ozark Howler goes by many names Like the Ozark Black Howler the nightshade bear the devil cat the whistling campus and my personal favorite
My personal favorite the hoo-hoo the hoo-hoo. Oh man So this thing is described as being about the size of a bear Having gray or black fur stocky legs like a corgi and Like a thick body and I'm talking like thick with two seas just absolute dumb thick It's got glowing red eyes and and very prominent horns now I've seen a few depictions of it some have them curled like a ram's horn
Some of them are like bulls horns. Some are just horns that are facing backwards But I like the ram horn one the best I think that suits it, okay You have no opinion on the horns? No problem intrigued by the backward horns They're just like they're slow backward. Yeah, like they curve over the head. Mm-hmm. Okay. No, all right I
Don't know. I feel like I need to see it. No, I'll send you a picture. Whoo-hoo. Whoo-hoo. Whoo-hoo now it's howl is described as a combination of a hyenas laugh a Wolf's howl and an Elks bugle Haunting It's it's I mean All those mixed together doesn't sound like a good time But even I saw I was looking up the sounds of this beforehand just to see what they yeah None of those sounds are pleasant to begin with
They're all terrifying an elk is terrifying. Oh, yeah, dude. Now imagine all those mashed together into one sound I don't want to do that if I was hiking in the Ozarks and I heard First of all, if I heard ever heard any of those individually I would cry But to hear like that as one sound I did fuck I did fuck around and try and So I went into adobe audition and I just put all those sounds on top of one another Yeah, and they it was just a mash of noise but
Because I didn't do any sort of layering I was just like let's see what they all sound like on top of one another and It was not good
It probably sounds just like that. It's just not a good time. It's all bad Now sightings of the creature date back to around the 1950s, but one story dates back even further Going to the 1800s where legend has it American folk hero Daniel Boone Wrote a letter to his sister-in-law saying he encountered an unknown black horn creature with a terrible howl while on a hunting trip in what is now known as Cuba, Missouri and Like any good frontiersman he shot at it, of course Yeah
I don't know if he killed it or if like he like whatever but he said he said he did wound it. So It's whatever it's even been mentioned in books dating back to uh the 1930s and 40s like tales of the osar howler and osar superstitions Even author Laura Ingalls Wilder best known for her autobiography autobiography. Oh my god autobiographical series little house series
Like little house on the prairies. She wrote those books. Yeah Uh mentions in a story in her 1932 book little house in the big woods About how her grandfather encountered a large black cat black cat type creature Uh, it said that this thing chased him down on horseback through the woods He was on horseback not the not the stocky ass Not the howler Uh Chasing down on horseback through the woods was jumping from tree branch to tree branch and then finally jumping down in front of him
And then presumably either fucking off back into the woods or killing him horrifically I did I don't know. I didn't read the book and I didn't investigate any further past jumping down in front of him Oh shit Hey, dude, could you imagine? Dude, how fat like how fast does this thing have to be where you're on a horse?
And this thing is keeping up with you but also keeping up with you right in the trees in the trees Yeah, jumping around all nimbly pimbly on tiny ass legs these little corgi legs these little corgi legs disproportionately You said it's the size of a bear size of a bear with Okay It just said sure stubby legs. I added in the corgi bit. I don't know if they're actually that short
I just know that it said it stubby legs. So I was the one that had that little like little little foot stools for legs Before we dive into The next bit, uh, we'll take a minute to promote another podcast on the wonderful pod moth network that we are now a part of Uh, so let's do that real quick Do you love unraveling a good old-fashioned hood on it? Oh honey me too I'm alicia armchair detective and host of dead on a true crime podcast
Join me every friday. We'll dive into a case that scratches your itch for true crime dark history and mystery Streaming now everywhere. You love to listen Um, okay, we're back. Uh, yeah, you didn't hear anything. I i'm gonna I'm gonna i'm gonna edit that in later. It's uh, did we just time travel? Damn those bass watches are hitting hard you blacked out for a minute, man Are you okay? I this is my first one. I don't drink anymore. So yeah, that hit hard. Oh, well, i'm glad I could uh break you
Of your sobriety. It's fantastic. No, it's just parent foot. I don't get to I don't get to enjoy my libations as much as anymore. Yeah. Well, that's what having kids will do to you Sure does. You know, I real quick side note. I can't wait to draw this thing This thing's gonna be amazing. Yeah, i'm gonna send you some uh, some pictures I know what i'm thinking of what are you thinking? Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, no, it's all you baby You remember the herculoids
Hercule the cartoon the herculoids. No, is it like the gargoyles? Oh, it's a what gargoyle is like gargoyles No, it's like an old school like he man looking knockoff but from like hannah barbera made the herculoid and one of the one of the Animals that like was like a main character is what i'm really basing off the the The silhouette of this thing now i'm gonna have to look that up
You're gonna have to look it up man a shot like fireballs out of a hollow tusk in its face. It's fantastic Oh, no It's called the herculoids The herculoids I hate it so much Now When I was giving you the rundown of this episode at work the other day when I was saying how I couldn't find too many like
Real sightings of this thing. There are a few spatted around there, but it was really hard to find like credible like Actual sightings of it now there like I said There aren't many credible recorded recorded sightings of the ozark howler outside of like legend and folklore that have been reported over the past Like 200 years or whatever There are some but thanks to a string of emails sent out in the early 2000s to a shitload of
Cryptozoologists from a bunch of burner accounts claiming to have evidence of the ozark howler um it was kind of Uh, a lot of people just started saying that that the whole thing was just a hoax, but it was it was debunked
The emails were debunked as a hoax. Uh, thanks to lauren colman who's a prominent cryptozoologist who looked into the emails Uh, and he discovered it was just some college kid trying to prove how easy it is to fool the cryptid community Which I mean, it's not that hard It's been done a million times by like dudes in planet of the apes costumes and like bigfoot people just eat that shit up No question like oh, yeah So I mean I'm not surprised that that happened
And okay, but it was caught on pretty quickly other cryptozoologists also claim the ozark howler to be an all-around hoax Uh, like author of cryptozoology chad armand Uh, he also believes it's a hoax due to him receiving the previously mentioned email Uh, but for all these people to claim it's a hoax due to like one bad actor It's kind of bullshit and I feel like it does discredit those who truly Believe they they saw something Yeah now
Uh, anyone who's listening or even maybe uaj. You know that if you if you live in a rural area You have a you have a pretty good idea of what's supposed to be there and what isn't Yeah, especially if you're someone who like frequently hunts Uh hikes or just likes to be out in the woods doing whatever black masses or something. Whatever you do in the woods Uh, so the so the people who claim they've seen People who claim to seen the ozark howler know they're seeing something that
Isn't supposed to be there. You know, I mean like I grew up in new hampshire I I think if I saw like I know there's bears there's deer You know every once in a while you get like a mountain lion Kind of type thing, but I think I would know if I saw something that wasn't supposed to fucking be there like in Yeah, if you're used to seeing a bear and then you see a bear with horns you're going wait a minute
That's shanning, right? Yeah, so I feel like just just just to say that for that guy to say that the whole thing is a hoax all around Is kind of bullshit because I feel like if you live in the ozarks you have you know, what's there?
Yeah, probably although isn't the ozarks like I think part of it is like a just a big vacation spot Yeah, but it also encompasses the extreme southeast Extreme yes, but like I said, uh, like I said up top sightings of the howler go back way further than just some dude Trolling trying to calm the whole cryptic community
In his book chasing american monsters author jason. I think I don't pronounce his last name jason offit Says uh quote many people have dismissed the ozark howler but howler sightings stretch back to the early 1800s With uh lauren colman giving his full endorsement of the book saying quote offit does a special service to the field of cryptozoology With his new book, so I don't know man. No, no one can seem to agree on what the fuck
He was like going on with this thing. It's either. Yeah, it's either not or people believe in it. I don't know Yeah, who knows it's definitely anything yeah, it's definitely a throw your hands up shrug your chest Like I was like that the uh, the emoji of that guy just like oh Uh so aj at this point in the episode you must be asking yourself Well, what is the ozark howler?
What is it? I I am all right. Well, there's a lot of speculation devil cat was another name Uh, yeah, something like that Sure I'm too far down in my script to go back to see what it was. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think it was the devil black cat
I don't know the devil black cat. Well, there's there's a lot of a lot of speculation Some say it's just a simple case of misidentification with the usual bullshit explanation saying it's an escape large cat That got out of its enclosure some say that it's a red wolf a bear The thing is there's no large cat coming out of the
Ozarks. There are bears, but from what I gather they're kind of contained in like one part of the Ozarks And not something that would be seen like all over Okay, you could have like a lone wanderer like a one that just kind of like Decided i'm gonna go on a little trip down to the Ozarks, right? You know what I mean, but I don't know I feel like but not every single one can be An escape from the Ozarks. I mean, I think it's like a
Ozarks, right? You know what I mean? But I don't know. I feel like but not every single one can be an escaped large cat Like how many people fucking have large cats that just escape? I do know of someone actually. Do you really? I do you know someone who's a large cat Well, it was the tiger lady of Jackson Jackson So in Jackson, New Jersey, which which borders like where great adventure is there was a woman several years ago Who had her own tiger population and them shits got out. Nuh-uh
Yeah in jersey like right over the bridge. Yeah Yeah, oh my god, what an extra great adventure. So you have like the safari And shit and then this lady had her own Tiger farm and they got out that is insane Yep, I think like one or two got out but then that caused the whole thing. We everyone knew about it Oh, yeah, so there's tiger lady over there. But also that's wonder that's one or two too many that are not Yeah
That shit that was four miles from my parents house. We heard about that No, was this when you were a kid or is this like recently? um Young adult young adult like like like teenager. I think late teens god damn, dude Yeah We got a peacock stray from great adventure land on the roof of her house. Jesus where the fuck this is in jersey What is going on in that state?
Great adventure. Well, the whole state is a great adventure. There's a lot going on now They keep relocating big animals to what used to be my backyard Really? Yeah, now there's bears like In the surrounding area where I grew up there never used to be I can't be good. You can't just release you can't just release animals Oh, hey, there's a bear in jersey city put him in the ass and pink The what? The ass and pink so it's a while. Wait, hold on. It's called the the ass and pink
Yeah, and it's spelled a s s u n p i n k s on pink. Oh god. Damn it. All right. German, right?
All right. Let's get back to the story Sorry, uh some claim that it's a malevolent spirit one that One claims that it's a Some claim that it is a malevolent spirit one that preys upon the weak and unsuspecting While others claim it's a protector of the region keeping it safe from those that would want to do it harm Uh now to my this is my favorite explanation as to what the whole The the howler could be
Uh, some say that since the area has a lot of was a lot of like Scottish Irish and waltz shuttlers in the region Who brought along with them? Obviously their stories and traditions That it could be the mythological hound known as the kushi Now koo means hound and she meaning of the fairy realm and this is according to some guy I found on youtube Who helped me with the pronunciations of the word? uh
Is fear like this one? This is a good one. It is feared by those who believe Uh who believe in it to be the harbinger of death an entity that would come to take the soul of a person to the afterlife Uh now i'm not very knowledgeable on scottish folklore or any folklore from that area of the world But from what I gathered this creature also known as the hound of death is said to have shaggy dark green fur
A long coiled or braided tail with the appearance of a wolf but about the size of a young bull And the paws are about the size of a man's hands Jesus yeah so Uh, the kushi would hunt in almost complete silence, but on occasion would let out three loud haunting cries Only three no more no less Everyone gets three Now according to legend These bays could be heard for miles around even out at sea and if you heard the kushi's bay
Saying you have to reach safety before the third or you would be so overcome with fear and dread and terror that you just die So it doesn't actually like kill you you just die from yeah, then it takes your soul uh to the underworld Giant reaper wolf. Yeah, it's a nightmare. Uh, I love that. That's amazing. So
This it gets even better. The other part of the legend Says that it's also a warning to lock up Any woman who was nursing or the kushi would snatch them and take them back to the fairy mound? Uh to supply milk for the children of the fe Oh shit Yeah, so they would just steal nursing mothers and then Use them as like a dairy farm for little baby fairies. Yo That's whack right there It's pretty good though, right?
Yeah Now the welsh have a similar legend of the I had to look this up how to pronounce this too and i'm still probably butchering but it's called well, she's crazy It's called it's called the uh the kuna noon That sounds about right the kuna noon, uh, who's how who's howls if heard, uh pretty much meant certain death uh, and It's it's growl Its growl is at its loudest when it's at a distance But grows softer as they draw near and by the time it gets real soft, you're pretty much fucked
So you just hear like a faint Yeah, sultry whisper in your ear and you're like, oh that's it. I'm dead. You're fucked I somehow that's more terrifying than hearing a distant growl. It gets to get louder as it comes towards you Hey But I but I wonder if All right, so Hear me out conspiracy theory time. You ready? Oh, yeah. All right. So the ozark howler has a howl that sounds like three different animals combined together Okay, the kushi Is known to bark or howl three times?
What if that be that is your house haunted? What if that what if that was me? I hit I hit something but like Hold on But like what if that are you getting another beer? Yeah, what if that trinity is like? Something important Oh shit the celtic trinity that does from fuck right like what it so has so this is three animals together The kushi has three howls Maybe it is it's just
Americanized to be three animals instead of three howls. Yo, is this just like a celtic chimera? Yeah, I guess I'm fine with it I'm fucking I love this. This is my favorite cryptid yet. I think yeah, so yeah, so so the kuna news This is my heritage. I gotta look into this. So the kuna noon is a nightmare
The kushi is a nightmare. The ozark howler is a nightmare. It's all bad But who knows what the ozark howler like really is where it comes from or even if it's real or not strange geology calm Worded it best at the end of their article about it by stating quote The story of the ozark howler is an interesting one despite the confusion and conflicting information End quote and i'm I have to agree. It's a wild ride and I like to think it's real
But who knows I guess it's real. Yeah, it's real i'm endorsing it but uh, but yeah, that's the story of the ozark howler What do you think that's amazing? It was a good one. I like it. Yeah, it's different. It's weird I had a question. I forget about it. Are there oh, I remember are there a lot of uh, You might not know this is probably have to like follow up research Um, are there a lot of like irish or kelts in the osarks?
Well, that's so that's the the area was settled mainly by irish scottish welch and english Fantastic, that's great. So they brought over all those like stories with them and if I know anything about
Belief structures and all these I mean I don't who am I kidding? I don't know anything about anything But there's so there's this amazing Entity called a tolpa now a tolpa is something that you manifest into the real world basically by believing in it So if enough people in one area believe in a certain thing you can possibly make it real If that makes sense
Sure. Yeah. Okay. Let's say you're in the woods at night and you just happen to hear somehow simultaneously like a wolf howl a Elk Bugle I would say a hyena, but that's not really possible But you know, maybe you hear accommodation noises and you're like, oh shit. That's the The kushi. Oh shit, the kushi is coming. Yeah, and then like enough people start believing it's in the area You could possibly make it real And now that and that could be the osar cowler could be Yeah, the tolpa
Maybe I like it. Anything could be a tolpa. Yeah Topo sounds like a fish It really does All right. Well, that's the episode Uh, I want to thank you. I want to thank you aj for coming on also aj is the one Who did our wonderful podcast artwork? so Yeah, thank you aj Do you have anything you want to do any final thoughts on the osar cowler? Uh, you you'd mentioned that one of the
Uh, like one of the things that it could be is like the spirit a spirit of the forest protector of the forest. Yeah I uh, I dig that you know, that's a cool Idea that it's there as a protector, but I really like the idea of like a reaper wolf Yeah, that's just there to just fucking I'm just gonna take your soul. It's pretty brutal, right?
River sticks and so yeah what I was reading as it whispers in your ear when I was reading about the kushi and the uh, the kuna noon They basically pretty much just like the kushi The kuna noon, uh, they basically pretty much said that it is like a grim reaper type Deal Yeah, or who was the guy that ferried people across the river sticks that guy? You know talk about you know, yeah. Yeah that guy. Yeah
Isn't he a grim reaper now? No, I don't know. He's just a guy. All right. Well Thank you so much everyone listening Uh, please follow us on instagram at cryptic cocktail. Uh Yeah, that's it I don't think I got anything else to plug Yeah, thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much to aj and thank you man for having me. This was fun Yeah, yeah, yeah and come back anytime. Maybe next time we can do it in person instead of over the phone
I mean now that I figured it out. I think it would be easier next time All right, see you later You