Recording. Hello, spooky friends. I'm John, your host, and welcome to another episode of Derryland Frights, the paranormal podcast that covers everything spooky, creepy, and mysterious areas in the midwest. And on today's show, I am so lucky to have from the dead. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know if you remember, I have Brooke, one of my former co hosts on that started all dairyland frights, who made this all possible.
I'm so excited that she agreed to come on, take some time out of her busy schedule. If you guys remember, I did a joke on everybody back a few months ago saying that Brooke and Megan went to an investigation and they accidentally got lost or something. We don't know where they are. I'm very happy to report that I freaked out enough people that I got emails to ask if they're okay. And yes, they're okay if you listen to the episode. And.
Here, although Megan might still be lost out there, we don't know.
Yeah, maybe she got bought by a cryptid that we might talk about.
Maybe.
So, Brooke, why don't you catch people know what you've kind of been doing and everything. I miss you. We miss you. But we're always lucky to have you back on the show when you can make it.
Yeah, no, I appreciate it so much. I'm so excited to do this again. I mean, you know, I love researching cryptid stories in all the random locations, like looking at Reddit stories and doing a little bit of more deep research than just kind of like the surface level stuff. So I'm very excited to talk about some fun stuff today. But, yeah, I haven't really been up to too much outside of work.
And we were just chatting before we started recording about how it kind of consumed me a little bit in 2023. So I'm excited to this year, get back to diving a little bit more into the passions and the exciting things, not just all about the job. Yes, I'm happy. I'm doing good.
And like I said, brooke has carge blanche. There you go. I like that. Hello. Wee to come back on the show. Like I said, as you know, people out there and podcasters, I know my fellow podcasters who listen to me. It takes a lot out of you do this research. Hey, I'm living proof. I do two podcasts, plus I got a whole bunch of other things. That's okay, though. We do this because it's so much fun.
And it's so much fun to have brooke back on because remember, folks, I gave her the moniker or nickname, the cryptid queen. So kind of a little tease in what we're going to be talking about today. So, hey, let's get into it. Brooke, what are we talking about?
Yeah, so, okay, I'm going to give you a little teaser because there is something else that I want to talk about before, is this is my teaser to get you caught up. Make you want to listen to the whole thing. So, Wendigos, a cannibalistic monster that lurks in the woods at night, stalking humans with a speed as swift as the wind, killable only by cutting out its ice cold heart straight from its chest could this creature be lurking in the forest of our home state of Wisconsin.
I guess we'll have to wait and see and find out, because first I want to talk about the Chicago Mothmanic.
Yes.
So if you don't know, I think it was episode ten. We did them.
Yeah, it was early episode back, and.
It was like February or something like that. So a little bit of background. This is not the Mothman that most people are used to and have heard of before. Not the West Virginia Mothman, the silver bridge collapse, all that. But there is a different Mothman who is actually frequently seen in Chicago and around the greater Lakes area. So actually, even in Wisconsin, I think it's been seen in the Milwaukee area, in Indiana, Indianapolis. And there's so many sightings of this thing.
And this guy, his first name is Lon. I cannot remember his last name, but he has a website called phantoms and monsters where he kind of documents all of the sightings. And it's kind of fun. So I decided to take a look at some of the more recent sightings because there are a few. Sorry, my cat is dragging my charging cord off the table. 1 second.
Love it.
All right. My gosh, he is too much. If you want more background about kind of the lore and the history behind the Chicago Mothman, listen to episode episode ten. But a couple of recent sightings. So this one occurred on September 7 of 2023. So just a few months ago, and again, this was just northeast of O'Hare airport. If you remember back, O'Hare is like, I don't know, the main hub of where these sightings happen. For some reason, Mothman loves to hang out around the airport.
I don't know if he just feels at home with other things flying around. Who knows? But this sighting happened when a woman was driving around 10:00 p.m. Near the northeast part of O'Hara airport. And she remembers having an uneasy feeling out of nowhere while she was listening to Lady Gaga. Specific about that. And no one ever has uneasy feeling while they're listening to Lady Gaga. So she thought it was weird.
And so she was driving by a forest on Westlake Avenue, and she saw something on the side of the road. And as she got closer, she realized that this was a creature that was standing upright on two legs, like a human would. And she thought it was about six to 7ft tall, had a dark gray body and eyes, what she described as red, like bicycle reflectors. So, like, when her headlights hit it, and she thinks that it had wings, but they were not unfurled at the time.
And notably, I thought this was kind of interesting. This witness had actually never heard of the Chicago Mothman prior to having this encounter. And she only learned about it after she described the experience to one of her coworkers, who is, like, into the spooky, creepy things. And her coworker was like, hey, I think this might be a Chicago Mothman sighting. You should reach out to this guy. So she called Lon and gave her her story.
And Lon, in the description said that she seemed, like, very shaken up and freaked out by this encounter. Um, so he know that it was very credible experience. So that one was kind of interesting. It was interesting to me that she didn't see it, like, flying or anything. It was just kind of chilling. And she didn't specifically see its wings, which I will kind of come back to later on when we talk about the Wendigo a little bit. So it's all going to tie together.
There we go.
Yeah. So this other one actually happened in January, but it wasn't reported until, I think, like, October. And this happened in Kelly Mitt City. And this was kind of a brief description, but this woman describes being terrified for months by this experience she had in January, and she finally had to tell someone about it.
So she reached out to this guy, and she saw a creature keeping pace with a car in front of her as she was driving near Kelly Mitt City, which is, like, right on the border between Illinois and Indiana. So I think it's a little bit, like, southeast of Chicago. And she said she couldn't figure out what it was because it was moving really fast and it was pretty big. So she sped up to see what it was.
And as she got closer, the creature disappeared behind the car and then popped up and spread its huge wings and flew, like, right over her hood. Dang. So that also creepy. And she didn't have really graphic descriptions of what it looked like, besides that, it was huge and it had wings. But since she was still shaken up about it months later, her sister encouraged her to report it. So that also happened. And then this one, I thought was just kind of interesting.
This was actually, again, reported in November of 2023, but it actually happened in 2014. And this was in Greensburg, Indiana, which is quite a ways from Chicago. It's actually, like, southeast of Indianapolis, I believe.
Yeah.
But this guy had a really interesting experience, too. So he vividly remembers this. He went outside because his dog was outside. He was going to get his dog because the dog was gone longer than usual. And so as he got out there, he noticed his dog was barking at something in the sky towards the tree line, because the sky lives really close to the woods. And when he looked up, he saw a six foot tall winged humanoid creature, which he described as distinctly purple in color. Like its body.
Yeah. Which I was like, oh, that's a new one. Yeah. And then the creature, I guess he also said that it had a large head in comparison to its body, and he didn't see its eyes, so he couldn't say whether they were, like, glowing red or whatever. But the creature climbed up through the trees, and he thought it looked like it was trying to fly away, but the trees were too thick and he couldn't spread its wings. And the guy got scared, so he grabbed his dog, ran inside.
But I thought it was kind of interesting because there were actually a couple of other sightings in Indianapolis and around Indianapolis that we talked about during episode ten around that same time. So there was one in 2012 in Indianapolis, and then the Prairie Creek reservoir, which is north of Greensburg, there was one in 2007, 2011, and 2018. So kind of seems like either this thing is traveling around the area or it's multiple beings.
Yeah, who knows? But this one's purple, so it's probably multiple.
Before we get to our main subject really quick, one thing I've heard of recently is that the mothman is not evil, that it's kind of like warning people about something. Like, it's kind of like your dog or your cat, where they'll start whimpering or whining. You're like, what's going on? And then, I don't know, maybe the arm or something coming. What do you think of that theory?
I think it's really interesting. A lot of people think of it more of like an omen that is kind of foreshadowing something bad is going to happen. Because in the West Virginia story, to keep it very brief, people were seeing this creature, I think, in the those. And there were tons of sightings over the course of six months to a year. And then the silver bridge collapse happened, which was, I think, the most deadly bridge collapse in us history.
Yeah. Still to this day, I think, like, 47 people died and, like 100 people were injured in West Virginia, of all places. So this is not a very populated area, but so many people passed away. And as soon as that happened, all of the sightings of Mothman seemingly just stopped.
So a lot of people thought that Mothman was like, I don't know if he was trying to warn them or like it was just some kind of omen, maybe not an actual creature, but some kind of supernatural occurrence that was happening, or maybe people were having these visions or. I don't know.
It's a lot of different interesting theories, but I do think it's kind of interesting to think maybe Mothman isn't like a real being, but people, there's something like the human psyche where they see like a winged figure, and that means something bad is going to happen or something along those lines.
Right?
Yeah, I think that's kind of an interesting. Yeah, I don't know. It's kind of weird that these sightings happen so frequently around the O'Hare airport. Kind of makes me like, well, maybe I don't want to fly through the O'Hare until people stop seeing this thing. But, yeah, I definitely think there's something to that.
Yeah, I really do think so. But then again, there's so many omens and so many, there's ghosts of black cats. If it shows up, there's so many stories out there. Oh, it shows up. You're going to die in seven days. I don't know. It's something interesting. So let's get on to the main topic because this sounds frightening.
Yeah, I think this will be really interesting. So we're going to talk about wendigos, and I want to shout out a couple of sources that I use to kind of gather some research and information. So the canadian encyclopedia website was really helpful. This site called facinghistory.com, specifically an article called more than monsters, the deeper significance of Wendigo stories.
And then actually, oh, well, wisconsinfrites.com, which we use pretty frequently, I think, and then Reddit, which I am excited to tell you, the Reddit stories, they're very funny. And then there's actually a show called in search of monsters that's on the travel channel. So there was an episode all about Wendigos that primarily took place in Wisconsin. So we'll talk about that a little bit later. But that was really interesting as well. So sorry, I just hit my microphone.
Hopefully you didn't hear that super loudly. We have fun in this new. Got it. I had a new microphone that I bought like, six months ago, and it's not my little snowball anymore. It's like one with a real microphone. So I'm not used to taking up so much space. I'm getting used to it. I'm excited to use this. My first time using it.
Yeah, it sounds good.
Good. So I want to set the scene a little bit, tell you about the background and lore of the Wendigo, because I think that's so important and something that I really didn't know a lot about. Like, I've seen Wendigo stories and heard of the Wendigo in a lot of recent pop culture, but I didn't know a lot about the actual background of Wendigo stories in native american culture.
And I think it's super important to kind of shine a light on that because in a way, we've kind of bastardized these stories and turned it into something that it just never originally was. And that's kind of a theme kind of going through this. So we're just going to talk a little bit about kind of the background. So the Wendigo comes from algonquian roots also. I apologize if I'm not pronouncing something right. I'm doing my best. I think I have most of the things down.
And also, if I get anything wrong or anything like that, I did most of my research last night, so I did the best job I could. But if anyone is like, hey, that's totally wrong, I encourage you to reach out and let me know, because I think it's important to tell an accurate story about this, but I'm going to do my best. So the algonquian people are one of the most populous and widespread north american native language groups. That's according to Wikipedia.
So the algonquian groups, historically, they have lived in what is now the northeastern United States, the region. So, you know, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a lot of middle and eastern Canada. And in Wisconsin, a lot of the algonquian kind of like, subgroups of people who lived around where we live would be the Kickapoo and then Anishinaabe groups like the Ojibwe, Padawatomi, and menomine groups.
So these are like native american groups of people that we're pretty familiar with, at least the names in Wisconsin. But there's so many algonquian groups. I didn't really realize that, because Algonquin is a subgroup of algonquian, and there's 30 to 40 different tribes and groups of people that fall under that. But all the Elgonquin kind of shared a similar language, and they shared similar legends and stories.
So they have a lot of similar, I guess, like, tales and stories between all of them, and the Wendigo is one of them. So Wendigo lore has been a part of algonquian tradition for many centuries, long before Europeans showed up in North America. But interestingly, the first european report about a wendigo occurred in 1638. This was by a jesuit missionary named Paul Lejune, or Paul Lejuan, who another french word. And he lived among the algonquian people back then.
And I didn't put his exact words in here, but he basically was saying that one of the algonquian women was telling him that a wendigo was going around through the woods at night and killing their people. And he fully believed this.
And I think that's important, too, because I think sometimes, I don't know, white Americans or just European Americans in general, kind of look at some native american legends and think, like, oh, I would never believe something, like, so supernatural and elaborate, but we have our own stories that people believe and that are, in a lot of cases, more unbelievable than a lot of these things.
Yeah.
And at the time, this was not unusual to believe stuff like this at all. 60 years after this is when the Salem witch trials happened.
And I think it's also important to realize that a lot of the native american legends and lore were very, at least from what I've seen, very steeped in moral goodness and why it's important to be, like, a good person and a good community member, whereas you have these european Salem witch trials, where they were tying rocks to women and seeing if they floated or sank or whatever.
I think it's kind of important to note that we not look at these tales as being, like, these outlandish things that people. Absolutely, totally unbelievable or anything like that. They were very real. And to a lot of people, they still are very real.
Yeah.
So what is a Wendigo? So, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia, and there's a lot of direct quotes in here, but Wendigos are powerful monsters that have a desire to kill and eat their victims, their victims being humans. Nice. And in most versions of the legend, a human becomes a Wendigo after his or her spirit is corrupted by greed or weakened by extreme conditions such as hunger and cold.
They are dangerous not only because of their thirst for blood, but also because they have an ability to infect otherwise healthy people or communities with evil. So essentially, in most legends, Wendigos are these cannibalistic monsters who prey on the weak and socially disconnected, which is kind of interesting.
And because of this, Wendigo legends are seen as cautionary tales about the dangers of isolation and selfishness and also the importance of community, which was so interesting to me because I never even considered that or thought about that. That's not something you really associate with Wendigos and pop culture is the importance of community.
But if you think about it, kind of makes sense, because back hundreds of years ago in these communities, the cold and harsh winters meant that survival really depended on relying on the people around you and on cooperation. So sharing food and resources with each other and creating this community where you would help one another and give people shelter if they needed it and give people food when they needed it. And these were extremely important ideals to the Algonquin people.
And so they kind of saw the Wendigo as the antithesis of this. Like, if you didn't help the people around you, you would turn into a Wendigo, and nobody wanted to do that. So it was really about that. And they were very anti greed, and that was kind of seen as one of the worst traits you could have is being greedy and keeping things for yourself when you knew that other people needed it to survive. So I thought that was really interesting.
But something that people kind of have a lot of thoughts about is what does a Wendigo look like? So I was wondering, John, when you think of a Wendigo, what do you think of, like, what do you picture in your head?
Well, I think, and I would love to have you back on the show for skinwalkers. I still have not done that, but kind of like that. And kind of I'm going to do a wraith, and people will be like, what's a wraith? That's a whole different thing. Kind of like skinny, like big claws, kind of like a sullen face, big eyes. That's what I think it is.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So that's definitely very frequently described. So there's a lot of different takes on what wendigos are supposed to look like. One of them being, like you said, very thin, emaciated, kind of like gray skin, almost mummy like skin, and a lot of times with big black eyes. Some people describe them as having no lips, and they'll say, oh, they basically ate their lips off of their own face, which is kind of gross to think about.
And a lot of times with long, gangly arms and legs, say arms that hit the ground almost. Or some people say that they're a giant similar, but that they also get larger as they consume more people.
Interesting.
Yeah. Which I thought I had never heard that before, but that is kind of creepy to think about. Like, how big can they get? But something, too, that I see a lot more in pop culture is Wendigo's being described as having animal like ears and specifically horns or antlers. And this seems to be a lot more common in modern media, and it's hard to say whether this has any base in reality.
In elgonquian legends, it seems to be that this is just kind of something that came up in media and was just, like, people kind of stuck to it. But it kind of depends on what you're watching. Like, how people portray Wendigo's, I guess.
Exactly. And really quickly remember, these are totally different from skinwalkers. That's a totally different thing. It is, yeah. Don't get them confused when you think, are they the same as skinwalkers? They are not.
I believe skinwalkers also have, like, native american origins, but they're not the same thing. And they might even come from different groups. I'm not really sure.
Yeah. They're not even in the same thing.
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, they are different. A couple of things that seem to be kind of consistent, though, with all descriptions of Wendigo's is one, they have eyes like glowing hot coals, like red, like, creepily glowing eyes.
Nice course.
Yes. And sharp, pointy teeth, which makes sense. They're tearing flesh off of people's bones that you need that. Notably, they always smell bad, almost always with bad breath, which I would imagine. And always, without a doubt, they're always emaciated, like exposed rib cage. Some ancient portrayals of Wendigos even have their organs kind of coming out of their stomachs and stuff like that. Very just emaciated. And they look, like, hungry, like they're hungry as hell. They're never satiated.
That's how they're portrayed. So we'll talk about a couple of different portrayals of them in media a little bit later, but, yeah, so that's kind of what we're talking about. And then in terms of what makes them. I mean, that already makes them scary, but what makes them so scary? And do they have superpowers? And sometimes they do. And sometimes they're talked about as having superhuman powers, but sometimes they're not.
But if they do, it's usually superhuman strength and speed, especially speed. And that they have really good eyesight and hearing and a sense of smell. So they're very good at stalking and hunting and hunting people through the woods, that kind of thing.
To add to the terror, by the way.
Yeah, to add to the overall terror, this is not something you want to see. And interestingly, so that in search of monsters show people who they were interviewing were kind of saying, of all the cryptids, the Wendigo is kind of the scariest, the one that you probably do not want to see. Bigfoot. He could be a friendly guy. Mothman is just trying to warn you of stuff. But Wendigo is. Yes, exactly. You do not want to come. That's why you watch. Exactly. It's terrifying.
But how are they killed? Like, what do you do if you come across?
Please tell us.
Yes, we need to know. So, again, it kind of varies, and some of these are much easier than others. So some legends say that it can be killed with a traditional weapon. So hopefully, if you're out there, you see one that is true and you can shoot it or knife it, I don't know, and it can die. But there's also, like, a pretty commonly held belief that the only way to kill a Wendigo is that you have to subdue it, cut its ice heart out of its body, and then melt it in a fire.
Okay.
Yeah. It's just as simple as one, two, three, jump it. Just jump it. Get it easy as it's running and jumping and way stronger than you. It's fine.
We're good.
You could do it. Still others say that the only way to get rid of one is to have a shaman basically perform a ceremony or spell to dispel it. Also, another thing that you just got to find a shaman real quick. It's fine.
Piece of cake.
Yeah. So not really sure which one of these is supposed to be the most accurate, but hopefully, again, if you come across one, the first one is the one that is true. So I want to talk about, since Wendigo's are really common, I think, like, in Wisconsin, we maybe hear about them more than in other parts of the US. There are a lot of stories and experiences that people have had in Wisconsin with Wendigos, or what they think is Wendigos.
So I want to talk about a couple of different eyewitness experiences, and a lot of these came from the in search of monster show which aired in 2019 on the Travel channel. So it's season one, episode five, called the Wendigo and fun. Actually, I'm going to save this. I don't know if you still talk about some of our common characters that we used to have back in the first, like, 20 episodes that a little bit. Yeah, they seem to come up quite often.
So we'll discuss which of our frequent characters makes an appearance. One of the things I thought was kind of interesting, and this doesn't have to do with Wisconsin, but they show this kind of creepy video of an alleged Wendigo stalking a moose in Canada on the side of the road that someone's filming the moose. And then you can see, like. And it kind of looks creepy. It kind of looks like a white head and a long, gangly arm kind of dragging below it. But I think it's a smudge on the.
Yeah, but a lot of people think that it's actually a Wendigo. So maybe we can look at it at the end and you can tell me what you think, John. But there you go. It's interesting, for sure. But going back to Wisconsin, I have a couple of interesting stories. So this first one, this happened in Trago, Wisconsin, in 2014. So Trago is like, I had to look it up because I'd never heard of it. But it's in very northern Wisconsin, like Northwest, so Northwoods, very forested.
And this woman, Laura Ritchie, is a bartender. And at 01:00 a.m. She was driving home from work and she saw a creature emerge from the woods. And she actually described this creature as being 10ft tall, so taller than we would normally hear when it goes being. So maybe there's something to. The more they eat, the bigger they get.
Bigger they get, sure.
Yeah. Maybe this one was very well fed. We don't know. But she describes it as having very. Yeah, maybe she says long arms, gray. And the arms were almost long enough to the point that they dragged on the ground. And she said that it had very large eyes that glowed like an orangeish color, which I just think is funny because the Mothman story from earlier, Chicago kind of described it the same way.
Right.
She even said they glowed like reflectors, I believe in the story. So it's like gray in color, very tall, large eyes, large, like reflector eyes. It's just kind of interesting how similar some people describe some of these stories. But her immediate thought, which I also think is interesting, is that it was an alien. That's what she immediately thought. In her head was like a gray alien.
But after she kind of told a couple of people about her experience, she learned about wendigos, and then she thought that that kind of fit the description better of what she saw than an alien. So now she believes that it was a Wendigo, now that she's learned more about wendigos. So that's interesting. She said she was driving, so it didn't attack her or anything like that, but definitely an interesting experience. I would recommend watching this episode.
It is kind of interesting to watch the interviews, for sure, although you do have to pay, it's on Amazon prime. You have to pay $3 to watch it. But unless you have discovery plus, then you can.
Okay, great. I do.
Oh, there you go. Then you can watch it whenever. So, yeah, that was interesting. And then the next witness. This happened in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, in 2006, which I believe is actually pretty close to Trago. Yeah, pretty close from what I saw, yeah. And this woman is Christy Rogers. She's actually a paranormal investigator.
So I think she was with a couple friends of hers and they were investigating, I can't remember if they were investigating the wendigo or if it was something else, but they were in a canoe in the water. And she said that suddenly they felt something come up under their canoe and push it up. And it knocked her and her friend into the water. And it was like night, like, it was a calm lake that they were on, so there's no reason that something like that should happen.
And she felt all of a sudden like she was being pulled down into the water, like by her ankles. And eventually she got free and was able to swim to the top of the lake. But then she had red marks on her legs and stuff like that. And she believed, based on her research, that this was a wendigo, because there are stories about Wendigos either being born from the water or being around the water a lot. That's what she believed. So that was another one. And then this one is kind of interesting.
So this was two brothers, and they were pretty young. Their names are justice and John Santana. This happened in Spooner, Wisconsin, in 2018. And I want to say the older brother, justice, I believe the older brother is justice. No, John is the older brother. He looked like he was maybe, like 16. And the younger brother, justice, looked like he was maybe like twelve or 13.
So they both experienced seeing this Wendigo creature around their cabin while they were at a camp with other kids on two separate nights. So John saw it first, and he said he saw it outside. Oh, my gosh. No, I got them confused again. It is justice who's the older brother. So confusing. Justice saw it first. The older brother, he was playing cards with a friend in the cabin, and he said he almost thought he saw like a big moth outside. And so he caught his eye and he looked out.
But then he realized that it wasn't like two wings, it was two eyes that he was seeing. And he saw this thing's face kind of leaning down to look into the cabin. And he made eye contact with it for like 5 seconds. And he said he was just terrified. And then the thing ran off, as you would be if that happened. But I think that is the only time he saw it. And he didn't report it to anyone. I think his friend saw it too, but he know kind of freaked out and didn't know if he believed what he saw.
So he just kind of kept it to himself. But then the next day, I believe his brother John saw it while he was outside, like returning to the cabin. So he was near the door of the cabin and he kind of looked to his side and he was with another kid his age. And he saw a creature that was like six to 7ft tall. And he said it looked like a person, but it was so big and it was so skinny and white. And he knew it wasn't a human.
And apparently, according to him, this thing started running at he and his friend and they took off running, eventually got back to the cabin, and they actually immediately went and told the camp counselors about this because they were like, that went over well, actually. This is actually very surprising. But the camp counselors actually believed them and they went really for it.
Yeah, they actually went out and looked for it, and they apparently saw it in the clearing and then it ran off and they didn't get a good look at it. So I don't think they didn't interview the counselor. So I don't know if they necessarily believe that it was a wendigo or something like that.
But yeah, they did believe them because I guess it's good that they know, concerned enough that something might be out in the woods and cared that these kids might be in some kind of danger, that they took him seriously and went out and looked. But, yeah, I thought that was surprising as well. I was like, oh, wow, good for them. But his interview, specifically John, the younger kid, it was interesting because you could really tell he was very freaked out by it.
Talking about his experience, I did not get the impression at all that he was making something up. He seemed very shaken by it. Still, even though I think this was, like, a year later that he was being interviewed about it. So that was really interesting. And Spooner is not quite as north, I think, but it was a very woodsy, forested area that they were in.
Yes, it is.
Yeah. So that seems to be a very common thing, is that it's woodsy, very heavily forested, where a lot of these experiences happen. Lastly, this is kind of interesting because this experience we actually talked about during our Holy Hill episode, which I looked back, and that was the fifth episode that we did, dairyland Fright.
It's a fun one.
Yeah, it was a fun one. This is the same experience that was had by a mom and her daughter in 2014 near Holy Hill. And their names are Mindy and Aurora Rosette. And, yeah, literally, we talked about this as being, like, a potential goat man sighting, actually, because we were talking about goat man during the Holy Hill episode. So they kind of described their experiences a little bit different in terms of what the creature looked like. They said brown in color, not gray.
But the picture, there's like a kind of a. I don't want to say famous picture that this woman drew, but I've seen it quite a few times. She drew, like, a little picture of what she saw. And it looks like it has shorter arms that kind of, like, bend at a weird angle and kind of wider thighs, and the knees are bent awkwardly.
And that's kind of why people thought that it was, like, a goat man sighting, because that would kind of fit that description more, because the Wendigo usually has long arms and really skinny legs. But she kind of said that maybe she was thinking it was a Wendigo also had a very large head, notably. And Aurora, the daughter, said the first thing that, again, that she thought was that it might be an alien, which is interesting, too. That kind of keeps coming up.
Right.
But actually, J. Nathan couch. So he's one guy that I think we talked about quite a few times, because he actually wrote a book about Goatman, and he's, I believe, from Wisconsin and talks about the holy Hill goat man. And he was interviewed in this episode and talked about Wendigos a little bit and about this experience that Mindy and Aurora had. But they didn't. They didn't mention the goat man, though. I was a little disappointed. I was like, well, it might not be a wendigo. It might be.
Might be Goatman or might be an alien, who knows? But, yeah, so that was another experience I just thought was kind of fun, that it was something we had already talked about. Before. But overall, though, I just wanted to say the show, it's interesting. And I really do like the eyewitness accounts and the fact that they show these people actually being interviewed so you can actually see them and see how they react to it, rather than just reading about what they experienced.
But it's so overdramatic. And something that really annoyed me is they actually talked about. I don't know if you are familiar with the story, but it was maybe like ten years ago in Canada, there was this awful thing that happened where this guy, it was like a middle aged guy, I can't remember his name. I think his last name was Lee.
But he got on a bus and he sat next to this younger guy who was like, in his twenty s. And the guy was sleeping and randomly, kind of out of nowhere, the guy who got on the bus started stabbing the guy who was sleeping and everyone freaked out. They all got off the bus because very quickly it was, I think, apparent that this guy was dead. And the guy continued dismembering this guy and he was like eating bits of his flesh and stuff. It was like really an awful, awful.
Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. It's an interesting story, but it's really.
Look that up.
Yeah. If you just look up, like Canada Greyhound bus incident, I'm sure stuff will show up about it. But they actually talked about this and acted as though maybe this guy was actually a wendigo. But I am 100% positive that this guy was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Yeah.
Yes. I don't know. I'm always annoyed by these because it's like, don't. It's fine to talk about people's experiences and what they're seeing and what they believe they saw, but let's not just make stuff.
Yeah.
For no reason, right?
Yeah. So they do things like Brooke walked into the woods.
Yeah.
She had eaten a pizza a day before. Maybe that affected her. When she saw they go crazy. They show a close up of your face. I don't know. Stop it.
Yeah. It's so annoying. And all the people that they interviewed and stuff were interesting. And there was a lot of good info in there about the lore and these people'sightings and stuff, but just like, the way it was edited and stuff, I was like, oh, my God, come on.
It's really over the top.
Yeah, it is.
So if you like that, you'll have a good time. I laugh my *** off at that stuff. Super funny. But it's not supposed to be funny. It's supposed to be scary. Right, right.
And that's the thing that's kind of frustrating, I think, is people who more easily believe things probably watch this and are just so freaked out, like kids might be watching it and think like, oh, my God, I don't want to go to bed tonight.
Yeah, I don't want to go to bed.
And granted, that can happen with a lot of different things, but I think when you're making a show that's supposed to be based in reality, it's a little crappy to do, but whatever, I guess. But something else that was cool is that Chad Lewis was on and Chad Lewis I think we've talked about so many times back in the day, but they interviewed him a lot, actually. And he was the one who actually talked to John and justice, the two kids, about their really.
I don't know, I just really like Chad Lewis. I feel like he's such an empathetic person and he knows so much about the lore behind these different cryptids and stories, but he doesn't really seem to be like a fear mongering person. He just genuinely wants to learn more about these people's experiences and try to find the truth behind what's happening. And so I really liked what they were talking about and everything, so that was really cool to see him pop up again.
But something that he said that I thought was kind of interesting was over the last two decades, interest in the Wendigo has exploded. I think it's because it's so unique and so terrifying that something about it resonates with us like it did 400 years ago, which I think is kind of interesting. And we can talk about it a little bit more in depth in a little bit.
But when you think about, like I kind of mentioned at the beginning, 400 years ago, the fact that these stories about community were so important because you needed to rely on your fellow citizens to survive the winter and share food and resources.
Correct.
And the fact that where we currently are right now in society, with so many people being in poverty and just things being more and more out of reach in terms of shelter and food and everything's getting more and more expensive, it does kind of seem like in a totally different way, that kind of story is very relevant now in a way that it was back then, but just in a different way. Like just the greed that exists in society and stuff like that.
So just this quote about that, I was like, wow, that's actually like a really kind of insightful point.
Yeah, that's super interesting because, again, we went from communities where everyone had a purpose, and everyone helped each other, whether you were the hunter, whether you were the farmer, whether you did the sewing, whether you. On and on and on, right?
Yeah.
And now everybody, it's like everyone for himself. Yeah, everyone's for himself. And that's the way it's going to be. And yeah, sure, we have specialized people, like specialized nurses, specialized doctors, specialized mechanics, but it's not the same. You can't go to a doctor and say, boy, my gut's not feeling so great here. And he specializes in whatever, gastroenterology. He's not going to be like, let me take a look and I'll bill you later. No. What's your insurance?
Oh, you don't have any insurance? Well, you're screwed. Get out of my. Or do you have the money to pay for this? Or you went bankrupt paying.
People don't look out for each other like they used to. There's not really that same sense of community. I think individual people are good people and care about their neighbors and stuff, but it's not really like a communal thing. It's not like you live in a community where, you know, everyone has your back and you can count on anyone if you need something. And you can go to your neighbor's house and be like, hey, our heater went out and we need blankets or something.
It's like you worry that you might show up at your neighbor's house and they'll have a loaded gun behind their door because they're like, correct. Get off my property or something. It's a totally different vibe.
Yeah. And again, there's always exceptions to the rule. I'm sure people are listening. They may have say, hey, I'm in a small town. I can go to this person. I know they're going to let me in if I'm scared, because I think there's so many. Right. There's always exceptions that, but it's very few and far between.
Yes. Which sucks 100%. It does suck. And it's just kind of interesting that it's still like the myth of the Wendigo can still be so relevant today.
Absolutely.
Yeah. But, yeah. So one other thing I wanted to mention, too, and I kind of hinted at it with two of the stories, is that they talk a lot about how these Wendigo sightings are. Like, a lot of times the people who see them, their immediate thought is that it was an alien. And just how similar these sightings are to sightings of great aliens in a lot of cases. And I do have a couple of discussion questions at the end. That'll come back to that.
But first, I kind of want to talk about what I labeled as absolute buffoonery on Reddit. Yeah. Because I wanted to see if there were anything, like any interesting stories. Yeah, we always love going back to that.
I love Reddit.
Me too. It's so fun. But I was looking for legitimate sightings in Wisconsin, and I did find a couple interesting, but I didn't include them because I felt like the other ones were more verifiable people actually getting interviewed and telling their stories rather than just typing on Reddit. But I did find a couple very funny things that I wanted to share.
Absolutely.
So there is this subreddit called Wendigo stories. And so this exchange happened three years ago, and NY syrup Gaming posted, are there Wendigos in Wisconsin? I really hope it's a no. And Gerber the undead responded, yes, but it's summer, so you're fine. And then Wendigo Max responded, and he said, actually, at this point, you can find Wendigo's in pretty much every country that isn't always hot. Most people believe they only live in Parts of America, but that's wrong.
So Wendigo Max is clearly Wendigo Max, way to go.
But then Skinwalker Ranch one.
Welcome to Skinwalkers.
He responded, nope, they're only in Canada and the great Lakes states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota. The reason why you're wrong is because Wendigo spirits are only in Canada and the great Lake states that I mentioned earlier. But Wendigo spirits will wear down your insanity and give you thoughts of cannibalism until you actually consume human flesh or you become insane, and then it will possess you and turn you into a wendigo.
Or another way you can become a wendigo is by being extremely greedy, and then it will possess you and turn you into a wendigo. Please follow the traditional legend Wendigo max, and not become someone who theorizes and believes in the pop culture version of the Wendigo. Also, if you respond, I'm not going to argue with you because I know the actual legend. Bye.
I thought that was a funny mic drop.
I was like, wow, Skinwalker ranch is like, I am not here to play. I read the Wikipedia page and I know what it was.
That is awesome.
Yeah, I thought that was hilarious. And then there was one other one that I oh, my God, this one was so funny to me. So this was in the hunting subreddit, so r hunting, and I forgot to grab this person's username. But the stuff this guy was posting was so funny to me that I just had to mention it. It's totally outlandish. So this is what he said, warning to anyone. And this. Oh, sorry, this was three years ago. If I didn't mention that.
Oh, three years.
Yeah, which also the other one was too. So maybe a lot of people were concerned about Wendigo's three years ago in Wisconsin. Yeah. But this guy said, warning to anyone hunting this year in northern states, Minnesota and Wisconsin especially. We've spotted Wendigo coming down from the mountains. Check comments for details. If you don't already know what a wendigo is, then he continues.
A wendigo is a human being that is infected with a rare form of rabies, rapidly changing the human body to be very fast and almost immune to frigid temperatures. Do not attempt to kill one. I've been hunting them since I was 13. I use a punt gun that fires 80 caliber tungsten balls at a velocity of 600ft/second ****. I know. Holy ****. Even with that, it's very hard to kill them. They are very fast and strong.
If you get scratched or bitten, first chance you get, put the barrel of your gun against the roof of the mouth and pull the trigger. Okay. He also attached a picture which is like, it's just black. Like there's like two balls of light on it. But then he says, the picture above is a real Wendigo, nine to 12ft tall, twelve foot long arms, probably 500 to 300 pounds. This one is probably a young Wendigo. Older ones never come down this far.
And then he continues, they shouldn't go any further than the top line of northern states. They can't survive in warmer, hot temperatures because their bodies are at a constant state of stress and need to be cold and to not overheat and die. You can tell they are nearby because they are very loud. They sound like someone blowing a warhorn. It's a very deep pitch sound that gives you the worst goosebumps you will ever have. Fireworks are good to ward them off.
You can keep them from smelling you if you cover yourself in skunk stink. It's nasty, but Wendigo won't go anywhere near something that smells like skunk. I've heard weed works too, but I don't smoke weed, so I'm not the best advisor on that. Cilantro also is something they hate. Basil too. Plant it around your property or have it on you. So that is his advice, which I just love because I was like, I don't know where any of this came from.
See a bunch of guys smoking weed and putting.
Their 80 caliber tungsten ball.
Rifle shoot through the know.
Right. I'm like, what is this guy? Actually, I don't think it's Wendigo's. I just don't know.
What I love about this is someone took. Think about this for a second, Brooke. Someone took the time to actually put this together.
Yeah.
I love it.
I love, like, he was concerned for his. He was like, you guys need to know all about.
You really need to know this. Like, there is a guy out there right now who believes this.
Yeah, there is.
Oh, I love that.
I don't think this came across as him just like making something up. I think he genuinely.
No, this is not written by a twelve year old kid. This is written by someone who put thought into this.
Yeah. So funny. So I had to share that.
Thank you. That's the best.
Yeah, just a little light humor since we were getting a little dark.
Yeah. Cannibals and eating you and getting bigger and put a gun in your brain. Okay.
Exactly.
I got you.
I need to move my cat again because he's.
It's a windigo. Can you hear him? I can. It's a windigo. Very friendly one.
He keeps trying to climb into my lap, but I'm sitting on a stool and I can't balance him.
Like, mommy, come on.
I know. Like, I'll cuddle with you in a couple of minutes. Calm down.
Yeah. Right.
Now that we have heard a couple true stories that are, well, maybe not true stories, or at least stories that people believe in their head to be true.
Yeah.
Okay.
There we go.
I want to talk a little bit about a couple portrayals of wendigos in the media that I thought were interesting. A couple from shows that I've actually watched and really liked in the past that were just kind of interesting. Supernatural, one of the first episodes of the first season is about a Wendigo, and I thought it was kind of interesting. So their portrayal does not have antlers or horns. It actually does look more like this. Emaciated, almost like Nosferatu. Vampire is creature.
Gray, emaciated. So I think that is a little bit more accurate to what maybe the original legends described Wendigo Zaz. And they describe it in the show as once a human who became something else. Once forced to eat human flesh to survive. So basically that, oh, they had to eat human flesh to survive. They turned into this creature. So there's a little bit of truth to that. But something they also say is that Wendigos hibernate and like to store live prey while they hibernate.
I was like, don't think there's really any truth to that, but part of the episode. All right. And another thing that I just wanted to mention because I just think it's interesting, again, with kind of just the overall disrespect toward the actual culture of who came up with these stories. And the algonquian people in the episode, Dean says that they have to draw Anastasi symbols to protect from the Wendigo because the Wendigo is, like, afraid of these Anastasia protection symbols.
And I was like, I haven't heard of that in any of the lore reading about.
So I never.
Yeah, so Anasazi are a different people. There's two things here. One, the anasazi is actually not a word that is something that people should be using anymore to describe this group of people because it means ancient enemies, which is just not really like the way anyone wants their ancestors described. So the word that you're actually supposed to, or like the phrase you're supposed to use when referring to this group of people is ancient puebloans, I think, if that's how you pronounce it.
But this group of Native Americans actually lived in the four corners regions of the US. So, like Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, like the desert. And they have nothing to do with elgonquian people. So it was just interesting to me. So obviously, the Wendigo was not even part of their lore at all. And I was like, oh, I don't know. It took me like 5 seconds to learn about that. And it's kind of interesting.
Right. Research department at supernatural notes. Come on, get like five people doing research.
Right? I know. And not that I really look to supernatural as being like an accurate portrayal.
Of this kind of stuff, what they always say.
Right.
Same thing with the X Files. X Files would say that too. It's a show, like relax for sure.
And there is actually an X Files episode about a Wendigo as well. Although I do not know about that. I don't think I've watched it. But I think it's just kind of interesting because, I don't know, it just kind of goes along with just people not trying to understand the original source information about what Wendigos actually are and where they came from and what they mean. The other show that I wanted to talk about briefly is Hannibal. So have you watched Hannibal?
I've seen a few episodes, yeah. It's not too bad.
Yeah. I watched, like, the first two seasons, and I really liked it. But, yeah, it's a good show. But in the first season, Will Graham, the main character. So Hanibal is obviously about Hannibal Lecter, kind know sounds of the lamb stuff. And Will Graham is like an investigator who kind of gets visions almost of, like, he's very hyper aware of things. And he can profile serial killers really well because of, know, special kind of abilities.
They're not really, like, supernatural, but they're kind of supernatural. And so throughout the first season, he keeps having these visions of a horned man, like a very dark in color. You can't see his face, but he has antlers. And he keeps being freaked out by these visions that he's having. And eventually it's kind of revealed that this antlerd man that he's seeing is actually Hannibal Lecter, who is his psychologist.
And he realizes that this cannibalistic killer that they've been looking for is his psychologist, Hannibal Lecter. And. And it's interesting because it is portrayed as though Hannibal is a wendigo, and Hannibal Lecter is obviously a cannibal. So just kind of interesting that they kind of made that parallel. But they do portray the Wendigo as having antlers in that one.
Nice.
Kind of just interesting. But yeah, there's so many examples, though, especially from, just like Chad Lewis was saying from the last 20 years of Wendigos and pop culture. Like they're in Marvel comic books. There's a character called the Wendigo. There was a movie called antlers that came out in 2021. I think it was like Guillermo del Toro movie. I didn't watch it.
Yeah, so do I. Yeah.
So that one obviously portrays the Wendigo as having antlers. Apparently, there's Wendigo's in pet cemetery, which I did not know about, and then the X Files and also video games. So I play Fallout 76, and there's actually a lot of cryptids in it, which I think is really fun. There's Mothman and the Flatwoods monster and the Snelly gaster. There's so many cryptids in West Virginia where it takes place, so it kind of makes sense. But, yeah, there's Wendigo's as well in Fallout 76.
So they pop up a lot. And I was wondering, can you think of a movie or a tv show that you've seen a Wendigo, and how is it portrayed?
There was a movie and now drawn a total blank. It was on probably three or four years ago on Netflix. It's a really good movie. I'll forget the title and I'll put it out there on my social media sites. Basically, these three guys were in this netherlands, and they were camping, and they kept on bumping into this really strange antler creature. Yes.
Thank you.
Kind of similar to that, but it was more of a bigger creature, and they worshiped this creature, but they had to give it, like, sacrifices and stuff. It was a very interesting, very spooky movie that kind of guessed, was this a real creature or was it a man in a costume? Yes. Very good movie. The other thing is, I play Assassin's Creed and an assassin's Creed Valhalla.
They have Windigoes in there that are, when you do the Ireland campaign, are kind of magical, mystical, and you don't want to get in a fight with them because they jump on your back and rip your throat out. Try to, but they're very hard to kill in the game, unless you're at a higher level. Then I just stomp on them and I kick their butt. Viking kick ***. Yeah. But on earlier levels, they just rip your guts out and just destroy you, and there's not much you can do about it, but they do it really.
So in there, they do it really well because these Windigoes will pop out like this kind of fog. So you'll go into, I don't know, like an old graveyard or something like that, or some magical ritual place in the game, and then these things will pop out, and it's fun. It's a lot of fun. And yes, they're in a bunch of other video games, too. I do know that, too, and I just can't think of off the top of my head, but they're nasty, very nasty creatures to fight. I'm going to need that gun.
Yeah.
Or you're going to that guy.
Had and get some basil and cilantro for sure.
Cilantro. Maybe I have a chance in this video game, but anyway.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's really interesting. So Assassin's Creed Valhalla, does it take place in the nordic area?
Yes, it is. The Vikings. I highly recommend it if you like any of the Assassin's Creed games. It's one of my favorite ones, where it's chock full of history and will take you a very long time to play, even if you're an adamant gamer. And so it follows all viking history to their raids, to the time they meet up, the Christianity, to times they raid Paris, the whole thing.
That is interesting.
Yeah, it's really interesting. It's really. Well done. You build villages, and now I'm like talking to Assassin's Creed. This ain't a video game podcast, but there we go.
That sounds cool, though. It's interesting because I hadn't heard of, I guess I think the Wendigo is only like a North American.
It's like a weird, how do I say, like hybrid of it.
Yeah. Right.
Yeah. You have to look at the pictures if you really want to go look at the pictures. Some of the game screenshots out there, and it's kind of very similar, but they call it something very similar to that. But, yeah, nasty stuff.
Very interesting. Yeah. So definitely a lot of examples of Wendigo's, especially recently for some reason. And again, like, we were kind of saying maybe it has something to do with the fact that we have kind of, like, strayed from the path that the Algonquin people were trying to emphasize back then of caring for your neighbors and things like that. It's interesting because no one really associates the Wendigo with that, but it is something that we kind of need as a society right now.
One other quick thing that I wanted to mention is this thing called Wendigo psychosis, which actually is like a medical term that started to be used in the 1920s as talk about a mental condition where a person is consumed with the idea of eating human flesh, which I didn't look into it too much. I didn't know that this was a thing. It kind of was like, oh, interesting.
But it's kind of debated whether this is like an actual legitimate diagnosis or if it's like part of a different mental condition. Something like, I mean, I don't even know what would cause someone to have those types of urges. But, yeah, so when to go psychosis is like a thing that is kind of mentioned in the medical field, which I didn't know about. So I thought that was kind of interesting.
I kind of just had some, I guess, last minute things to kind of talk about, kind of relating back to that idea of, like, do we in, like, modern american society, like, could we use tales like this as to warn about the importance of things like community and the importance of things like not being greedy? Because I don't really think that we have anything like that know, it's kind of like we've strayed from. I don't know the importance of that concept.
I blame Facebook.
Me, too. Me too. When in doubt, blame Facebook.
Zuckerberg.
I agree. A quote, too, that I thought was interesting from that backstoryradio.org website because they talked a lot about how important the Wendigo was to native people and kind of how it's totally changed. But this quote from that article said, among many native peoples, the Wendigo remains a warning against greed. But now they associate it with the excess of capitalism and colonialism, rather than the wilderness or barren winters.
And then another article that I read, too, from facing history. They had said, what if the monstrosity we face is actually not an otherworldly presence, but are all too human selves? I'm like, wow, that's deep. That's pretty deep.
Pretty deep here.
Yeah. But it got me kind of thinking, like, I don't know, I'm just going to kind of ramble a little bit, and then I want your take. But something that I was kind of kept coming back to was the fact that so many of these cryptid sightings from things like rakes and wraiths and gray aliens and flying humanoids and wendigos and goat men and dog men and sasquatches, like, so many different sightings, so many people describe them in a similar way. A lot of people will use similar traits.
Like, they were seven to 8ft tall, they had gray skin, they had a big head, they had black eyes. They looked at me funny, but they didn't really do anything. Or they saw them along the side of the road and they disappeared. And it got me kind of thinking, what if it's all the same thing? Because I do believe that people are having these experiences where they're seeing this. I don't believe that everyone's just making this stuff up. I think people are seeing something that's freaking them out.
And I think that back in 400, 500, 600 years ago, they were probably also seeing something that freaked them out. But I think when people see something like that and it scares them and they don't understand it, we as humans, want to ascribe some kind of meaning to it or some kind of reasoning. Yeah, we want to put a label on it. We want to rationalize in our head, like, what could this be? What could it mean?
And I think back when the algonquian people were trying to survive the wilderness, what made sense to them was probably like, oh, this thing that we're seeing that we don't understand. Maybe it's a person who was consumed by greed because of the harsh winters and because of them trying to survive and maybe stealing from other people or keeping resources from other people. And over time, that mythology kind of changes.
Maybe people are seeing the same thing today, but now because of technology, we are like, well, maybe it's aliens. Maybe they are coming here from another planet and they're trying to understand more about us, or maybe they're abducting us and performing experiments on us. And maybe it's always been the same being that people have been seeing, and it's just depending on the culture or who sees it, then the meaning behind it changes.
The more I read and learn about cryptids, the more I think that. I don't know if I believe that there's so many different cryptids out there that I think there is a lot of, they're all maybe the same thing or maybe something similar, and that we're just kind of assuming different things about it based on culture and whatever is happening in the world at the time, I guess.
Right?
Yeah. So, I don't know.
That's really interesting. That's something I would love to do. Maybe a roundtable discussion on or something like that. I've been thinking about this year. I'm trying to get maybe like yourself or some other of my podcast friends, spooky friends out there and talk about different subjects and talk about what I had an author on, and his name was Dr. Randy overback. Do a shout out to him. And he was talking about in other cultures, you know, how they view ghosts as a help, as they're helping.
These spirits are there to help you. They're to frighten you, not to take anything away from you, not to kick you out of your house. They're there like in tibetan cultures and other cultures where they're there because they're trying to show a message. They're trying to help. They're trying to do something to make you a better person one way or another.
Yeah.
In our culture, thanks to. Well, again, I don't blame the media and the movies, because who really wants to go to a movie and see this nice, friendly ghost like Casper? Unless you're a little kid, right? Who's saying, hey, Brooke, let me help you with your life, and I'm going to help you do this, and I'm going to be a better person. You'd be like, how long does this **** movie go on? No, you want somebody, like, ripped off and their blood coming out of that shower head.
Yeah.
You want to see that, right? Right. And so we're part of the problem, too. But I do think, again, are we really? There's so many stories out there who, people with too much greed. And that's the problem with America, in my opinion. Not to get too political here. Like, I always tell my children, just because some dude, like, Mr. Beast is this multi billionaire. Now, do you know what he had to do to get there? What do you think? He just woke up, but now he's giving away his money.
Now he's doing a lot of good things with that, supposedly, according to my kids.
I don't follow him.
But the point is, that's what you should do, right? You should get to a certain level in your life and say, you know what? I have $20 billion in the bank. Maybe I should help literacy campaigns. Maybe I should help hospitals and schools. Like, I can't spend this **** money. Let's bring a community know. But that leads to then other things like cults, right? So people are fascinated with cults. And how is a cult get started. Is, hey, Brooke, I believe what you believe. You believe what I believe.
Let's get a bunch of people together and put it together, and then let's wear nike uniforms. What just happened? Wouldn't it be really nice? Right? You have a community garden. Okay. Hey, I made this. Hey, my kid's not feeling well. Well, you know what? I can help you with this. Okay. That's what we're trying to do here, right?
Yeah. I think we need a happy medium because it seems like it's one or the other. It's either, like, every man for themselves. The only people you should care about is, like, yourself and maybe your spouse and your kids, and that's it. And everything needs to revolve around getting more money and more power so that you build this wall around yourself and you're isolated from everyone else.
Or it's like, okay, we all trust this same person and we're going to follow the same person and believe everything that they say. And our entire worldview is going to revolve around this. And it's like there's a happy medium where we can all just be caring and respecting of the people around us and try to help the people around us. And when we have an excess of money or an excess of food, that we share it and we make sure that the people around us are safe, too.
And like this communal approach to living and existence that just doesn't exist anymore. At least, like you said, there's exceptions.
So it's not everybody. There are exceptions. But just remember your history. Which, as you know, Brooke, I'm a big history guy. And I know you love history, too, is when the pilgrims came here, they were going to dive. It wasn't for the Indians to be like, hey, we got extra food, and we got extra this and extra that. Hey, we'll come on over and we'll help you, and we'll show you where the food is, and we'll show you how to. Oh, thank you. What happened to that?
Right?
Because they didn't have to do ****. They could have just watched them die. Oh, a bunch of people, let's watch them die. And that's what a lot of people do nowadays. Well, let's just watch those people die, right?
Because it's like we're so used to just not even really thinking in our head. Like, that's a real person. That's a person, the same as me. It's like you see it on social media, and it's just almost like a movie. Like, you don't even really register that it's real human suffering, because it's like, oh, well, they live in a different country. They have a different skin color. They speak a different language. I don't know. That's barely even real to me. It's like how we see it, which is so awful.
And like you said, facebook and social media is, I think, a big part of why we feel that way and.
Right. And we can use it for other things. And there are times which, thank goodness, people are like, hey, I have a friend. They couldn't pay their heat bill this month, and they have a couple little kids at home, could spare $10. Yeah. And you look it up, and that's scary that you have to look it up. See if it's a bunch of scumbags out there trying to take your money. But, yeah, sometimes you have to do that. Sometimes you have to vet it, which is stupid.
But most of the time, it usually is true. Usually. Is somebody, a friend of a friend of a friend, even if it's a Facebook friend saying, I can't pay the heat bill. Let me give you a couple of bucks. Let me see if I can get a bunch of other people to help me out. Come on. Yeah, so this is interesting that we've gone from this windigo ripping your face off. You got to kill it with a big gun. It's got shark teeth.
You got to have your cilantro, but.
Right. Cilantro and your basil, whatever the hell else. And you're having some gummies. Whatever. I think it's great. This is a great story. I love this story. I love the buffooner.
Yes.
Love Reddit. So, anything else to wrap this up other than I have to ask you the question, because you're the guest today. We'll kind of guess the whole thing together kind a little bit. But still, you're the guest. You believe in it?
Yes, I believe that there is something there. It's always hard. I always am like, yes, I guess I'm more no or more yes than no, but I believe that. I don't know.
I think it's great story that I wish was true because again, from my research, I did a Christmas episode and it was so funny, Brooke, like, all the creatures in the Netherlands, UK, Ireland were all like, if you're a bad kid, I'm going to eat you.
Oh, yeah.
Burn you.
Cut off your toes.
Every character in there were like, right, if you are not a good kid, I'm going to eat you. There was, I'm trying to think the niece or the nice, they were kind of like. They're kind of like dwarves spirits. But what they do is basically, if you're not a good kid, they kind of, well, just drag you out of bed and kill. You're telling that to like a six year old kid, by the way.
Yeah, you're going to die from the.
Niece who are going to drag you out of your bed and kill you.
Interesting.
I'm going to straighten up. I'm going to take the garbage out. Jeez, leave me alone.
Well, maybe that worked. Maybe kids need stories like that. But I get what you mean, though. I believe that there is something out there that back then was like maybe hunting people, maybe some kind of monster, maybe it was a bear, who knows? But I don't really think that the Wendigo lore is true. Like the whole cannibalistic side of it. You turn into a Wendigo if you driven to eat human flesh. I don't believe that.
I think that was created by the elders to meaning to it and to help instill values into kids and people.
Absolutely.
But I think, yeah, that there maybe is some kind of monster out there that's doing that. People are seeing, that people are experiencing. But I don't think I believe the lore, but I believe that it was very important to the culture and to how people viewed the world and how they grew up and stuff. At that point, it's like, does it matter if it's real in their head, maybe it is real. Maybe what is real? I don't know.
Yeah. Does anyone know anymore?
I don't know.
Well, this, Brooke, this was excellent. I love this. That's why you're the cryptid queen. I would love to have you on again. Like I said, when you can spare some time, we do some more cryptids, maybe have a roundtable. It's just really exciting to me to have you back and have my audience enjoy your great research. I know you work so hard for it and do a great job on it. It's great. Yeah, it's very fun. Very fun.
So, as you know, well, it's been a little while, but remember, we always say, say hi to your ghost.
Yes.
So, hello, ghost. And stay spooky.
Stay spooky.
Thanks, Brooke.
Thank you, John. Talk to you soon.
Yep. Bye.