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This is a little out of the ordinary for intros, but I came across this and I thought it would be kind of cool. It's gonna be a very short intro, but I thought it'd be fun. It's a journal article I found entitled the Fermi Paradox Revisited Technosignatures and the Contact Era by Amory Wandel published in December 2022 in the Astrophysical Journal. And I thought it'd be interesting because we have covered the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation in a previous episode.
I'm just gonna go over the abstract and if you find it enticing by all means go check out the Astrophysical Journal. The article is right there for you to read in full. So a new solution to the Fermi Paradox is presented. Probes or visits from putative alien civilizations have a very low probability until a civilization reaches a certain age.
Called in this paper the Contact Era. After the onset of radio communications, if biotic planets are common, putative advanced civilizations may send probes not to any planets showing biosignatures, but rather to planets with technosignatures such as radio broadcast.
The contact probability is defined as the chance to find a nearby civilization located close enough so that it could have detected the earliest radio emission called the radiosphere and sent a probe that would reach the solar system at present. It is found that the current contact probability for Earth is very low unless civilizations are extremely abundant. Since the radiosphere constantly expands with time, so does the contact probability.
So the contact era is defined as the time since the onset of radio transmissions at which the contact probability becomes of order unity. At that time alien probes or messages become more likely. Unless civilizations are highly abundant, the contact era is shown to be of the order of a few hundred to a few thousand years and may be applied not only to physical probes, but also transmissions.
Consequently, it is shown that civilizations are unlikely to be able to intercommunicate unless their communicative lifetime is at least a few thousand years. So just to break that down a bit, this was not one of the answers that we had to the Fermi paradox. But what they're saying is if you are a technologically advanced civilization, you're going to want to focus on things that are more likely to give you a positive response when you're sending out messages.
So what they're saying is you're going to look for planets or stars that are giving out radio communications that seem odd or seem like they're manufactured instead of just spraying every planet that has biosignatures on it so that you could actually communicate with what you're trying to communicate. And that means that what you would actually be looking for specific windows where the radio signals that you've sent out can actually reach other planets.
So until Earth's radio signatures are far enough out that they might be seen or heard by other life forms, we can't really expect to hear communications back. Oh, and I feel like did we talk about this? I can't remember. It was so long ago. But if we're sending something out into space, it's such a tiny pinpoint. The odds of it hitting anything, I think. But every year it expands. And that's the big thing.
And that's why they say for there actually to be communications, your technological window needs to be a few hundred or a few thousand or a few hundred thousand years so that you can actually receive a response to. Yeah. And space is so big, though. It's just going out in one direction, is it not? Not all directions. It's going in all directions. Oh, it is. OK. Yeah.
Because you would be doing the radio signal. Oh, it was I wrong. Yeah. OK. But yeah, because we are at the dawn of the radio age, more or less. If you look at it at the grand scheme, specifically, we're talking about a few thousand years for your window. We're very unlikely at this point to receive your responses back. But as time goes on, you're more and more likely if there is other life forms out there to receive a response.
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And that's just a very rough breakdown of what these guys are talking about. So go check it out if you want something a little dry, but exciting to read nonetheless, because at the end of the day, it is a scientific paper. Yeah, it is. But it's an exciting thing to think about. Like, what if it gets out there and hits a planet or terrifying, happy or terrifying?
Yeah, because that also runs into that other problem of the Fermi paradox is that there is a malevolent life form out there that is just looking for radio communications to eat up everybody. Yeah, we must have good sources on this planet to be living. So, yeah, I do really like that there are the two exact opposites right there. They're waiting till we get that to them so that they can come eat us. Exactly. We are delicious.
But yeah, I feel like it's a fun read. So go check it out. For now, let's get on with this episode.
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OK. From the unexplained to the mundane, why don't you come join us on our journey to the fringe? Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe, now recorded in the past, which is much easier than the omnipresent we were doing. We are, or at least were at the time, your podcasters, Taylor and Chelsea. Here today talking about some cryptids. It's been a while since we did that. All the way back to our New Year's episode, technically, more specifically, it's been a much longer than that.
But let's not hold back anymore. Let's get into those cryptids. Chelsea did them, so I don't know what we're talking about. I'm just trying to think what was the last cryptid that we talked about? Mothperson. Oh, right. That was a while ago, though. I think it was November. And plus I came up with a new follow up to Mothperson, Owlman, which is going to become Owlperson when we do that episode. Owlman. Because you have not. Owlman. Because there's no sightings of owl penis on it, I understand.
Okay, well, it's cryptid time. I put together a random. Oh, God, Chelsea, I hope you're ready for the genital related questions that will come. I always am. Oh, God. I'll just click on the heading genital when the questions come up. You've got a heading for each genital. Genital sightings. Backstory. The backstory of the genital. Let's move off the genitals and to this episode. It's cryptid time. I put together a random. You can't separate those two topics, Chelsea. Episode and genitals are one.
Damn it. That's only anything related to do with Mothperson or anything ending in person because they're labeling it man. Of course we want to do it. Now for the third time, I've put together a random assortment of cryptids you more than likely have not heard about. So let's talk about them and see what we think. The first cryptid of choice today is the Lovelang Frog coming to you straight out of Ohio.
What is so cryptid about the Lovelang Frog and how is it different from an everyday regular frog? Well, this creature is said to be a humanoid creature with the face of a frog and body of a person. Essentially, it's a bipedal cryptid with the face of a frog. It's been described as roughly four feet tall with green leathery skin. He or she. Oh, shit. I didn't put a genital section in this one. I was just going to say because you said the head of a frog, body of a human. No, it's a frog.
Can't frogs be both? Well, it can be hermaphroditic. It usually has to do with the environmental factors. Yeah, I remember with that Alex Jones split. Yeah. This is crap. Gays. Frogs. Freaking frogs. It's not funny. I'm going to say it real slow for you. Gays. Frogs. Yeah, and to be fair, if it is frog genitals, I wouldn't know how to gender it. So I just say it's he, she. Sure. Yeah, it's an it. That's good enough. But to be fair, it wasn't gendered to begin with. It's the Loveland frog.
So we can continue. Well, I gendered it by accident. We sure talked about his genitals anyways. Don't worry. As any cryptid episode does. Okay. It walks upright and has webbed hand and feet. And all the sightings have been specifically in Loveland, Ohio, which I didn't even know was a place. So we learned that on this episode at the very least. And he's famous in the Ohio parts and he's it has even been made into a musical. It's called Hot Damn. It's the Loveland Frog.
The legend goes back to 1955 when a businessman, but I'm not sure which business he was the man of. It didn't say he was he was driving along. The businessman was driving along an unnamed road late at night. It's all very vague. For business purposes. Yes. Yeah. Sometime in May. It's all very great. He was heading out of the Branch Hill neighborhood. No idea where that is in Loveland. They put it in. So it must be important when he spotted three figures standing up on their hind legs.
Now, I just want to point out right here something I find interesting, which is the way they describe this because how would you otherwise know they weren't just standing regularly on two legs? That's not how we would describe just a person walking generally. That's bipedal. You wouldn't say, no, you wouldn't say they're standing there on their legs. Those damn punk kids were standing there on their hind legs. I couldn't believe it.
Yeah. I found that odd could just be a part of the storytelling of a part of the legend that they're trying to get to that it was abnormal or something. Maybe. But I just wanted to point that out. Anyhow, each was about three to four feet tall with leathery skin, frog faces, lopsided chest, whatever the fuck that means. I have no idea. Wide mouse without lips and wrinkles instead of hair.
In most versions of the story, the creatures are spotted under or over a poorly lit bridge and one was holding a wand sometimes described as a bar device that shed sparks. That sounds like a much more scientific logical way to say wand. Yeah, that really is. Yeah. It's not sounds crazy. I've already spotted a frog on its hind legs. At that point, why don't you just say Roman candle there? Or does he not know the term Roman candle at this time?
Because that seems like the better way to explain it. A bar like object shooting sparks. Yeah, they really broke it down to the most logical thing possible. Well, he had to use what his businessman brain could like just comprehend with the business. Exactly. I got to wonder what business he's in. Humans do not generally stand on hind legs. That is for sure. These are our hind legs that we walk on. Yeah, so it definitely wasn't a Roman candle. That is the business that he was in for sure.
Otherwise, he would have really pushed that and use it to his advantage. No, you know what? But he could be in some sort of competitor firework where it's kind of like taboo to bring up Roman candles. It's true. That is so true. That actually makes a lot more sense. You can't even say Roman candle. It's a lot of sense. It's good advertising. It's all coming together now. Yeah. Okay, so next part of the story. Want to take a stab at the aroma that filled the air when he saw these creatures?
I'm going to go with sulfur. You know what? That's what I was thinking too. But it was get this alfalfa and almonds. It's true. It's true. I for sure was guessing sulfur as well. God, this businessman confuses the hell out of me. I know. I could not tell you those smells like no, I have no idea what the fuck alfalfa is other than a little rascal. He was talking about the kid. He's got a lot of hair gel. Smell the hair gel, you know, like alfalfa. Yeah. Okay. Forget this.
Forget all of this happened. We're moving on to another exciting. Well, you can still remember it. Wait, is that where it ends? It was just sparking bars and smell the alfalfa and that was it. Alfalfa and almonds. That was it. Anyhow, that's the end of my. Yeah, he just drove home and like lived his life. Went on with his business ways. Exactly. Probably making fireworks. See, now that he knows so much about alfalfa, I'm kind of feeling different. I know. It's weird.
It's that that's the weirdest part of this story. I think. And to me, if you're identifying that smell, like that means that you wouldn't be expecting to smell alfalfa, but at the same time, know the smell and are smelling it. So I kind of feel like with alfalfa and all. Yeah, it's not like there's a field right there where they were growing alfalfa where you can like easily identify. Oh, that's the smell. Even though I couldn't do that because I don't know what else looks like.
This is so unexpected. I'm like, oh, I'm going to do this. It's so unexpected. I'm smelling alfalfa and almonds. I don't even know if I could tell you that I'm smelling almonds in a moment. See, that one is a little easier just because I know what marzipan smells like, and I don't know if that would necessarily be the smell I would identify as almond, but I could see that as at least a smell. Marzipan isn't exactly almond. It's pretty much all almond. Yeah, it is, but I wouldn't.
I've also put almond extract. If I smell marzipan, I'd be like, this smells like marzipan, not almonds. Anyhow, we can move on from this because there's another lighting. Can we? It changed our lives. Yeah, it changed our lives. I feel like this is going to stay with us. I'll be forever in search of the smell of alfalfa, not the little rascal. I also figured out where I really want our logo to be now is a four-foot frog-like creature standing on its hind legs with a spark-shedding bar in it.
That would be really nice. And I don't know where I've seen before, like a frog. Is it like Futurama or something? The Hypnotode? No, that's the Hypnotode on Futurama. Oh, it is. Yeah, that is what I'm picturing because they're a race, aren't they? Yes. And a keep. Okay, that's what I'm picturing. He must have had like a, what are they called? Cipher? Like the thing you rule with. Oh, a scepter. Scepter. I was close. Okay, so onto the next sighting.
And that you can forget, we'll never forget the alfalfa. We can forget the businessman. In 1972, there was a sighting by a police officer. That's right. March 3rd, 1972, of course, Ray Schaucke, a Loveland police officer, was driving on Riverside Drive near the Toats Boot Factory and the Little Miami River. It actually goes by Little Miami River, but little sounds so much better and it means the same thing. And yeah, it's Lil, you got to shorten the word. Yeah, Lil, I have no time to say little.
The word little should not be bigger than big. It shouldn't. You're right. It seems wrong now. It should at most be the same size because then you're not showing any deference, but yeah. Point of the matter is an unidentified animal scurries across the road in front of the vehicle Ray was driving. Said animal was illuminated in the vehicle's headlights and Ray described it as about four feet long and about 50 to 75 pounds, which I find to be a weird detail.
Like I just saw something that's 50 to 75 pounds. I wouldn't say that unless I tried to lift it. And even then it's sketchy if I'm telling you how much something's weighed based on me lifting it. Would you just estimate something's weight like that? I could not mostly because it would be in frog form and I just couldn't like, I can't estimate how much frogs weigh. Anything, even a human. I don't think I can tell you how much it weighed accurately. I'm not one of those freaks at the carnival.
I think cops kind of have to do that because they're constantly giving like if a suspect is on the loose, they have to say like rough estimates of like height and weight. Do you think they get tested on that? Like the police academy and then they're practicing for the test. They're just like walking around to their like family and loved ones being like 125, 165. You look like you put on two and a half pounds. Am I correct? I'm going to update your record.
Just like asking how much they weigh and if they got it right when they guessed. Anyhow, I find that a weird detail that he estimated that. But you bring up a good point. Maybe he has to do that. With a frog or something scurrying in front of your car? Like I just don't see something scurried in front of my car. It's about four feet long and 75 pounds. Yeah, exactly. It's just odd. It is odd.
But maybe as a police officer, just as much as you have to be constantly doing math, you also have to be guessing how much things weigh. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. So he first spotted the animal crouched like a frog, obviously, because it's a frog cryptid. Then it stood erect to climb over a guardrail towards the river. Notice how we didn't see it stood on its hind legs. We're just glad we're past the genitals part. Yeah, that was our own doing, by the way. It wasn't a part of the story.
Two weeks later, a second Love Land police officer, Mark Matthews, reported seeing an unidentified animal crouched along the road in the same area of ray sighting. I wonder if this is anywhere near a nuclear power plant, by the way, to see frogs just get up on their hind legs and walk around like a human. I don't know if that's a thing though in real life. I think it's just the Simpsons episode.
No, and this is somewhat reminding me of the Warner Brothers frog, where that it only like gets up and moves around and then Warner Brothers sings and dances when only one person is there. Oh yeah. That was a good, I was just thinking about that episode the other day, actually. That's a good one. Yeah, that's completely right. It could be based on this. You never know. So anyhow, this officer takes a completely different method to seeing this creature. And he actually hit it. I shot it.
That was a complete spelling error in my notes. He shot it. He didn't hit it. He pulled out his gun and he shot it and recovered the body and put it in the trunk of his vehicle to show Ray. In an interview, Matthews recounts, I know no one would believe me, so I shot it. He said. Man, I don't know if I want to go to Love Land or never go to Love Land. These people seem different. They're estimating the weight of things they see. They shoot things that if they think no one would believe them.
And there's frogs with wands. Yeah. Thank God it wasn't some unicycler on the side of the road. No one's going to believe me. Cut to him throwing the unicycle into the trunk of the car. He said the thing was half dead anyway when I shot it. According to Mark, it was a large iguana about three to three and a half feet long, and he didn't immediately recognize it as an iguana because it was missing its tail.
Now, the other thing in his story that I found strange is that the iguana was squatting on the side of the road. Did it not like stand on its hind legs? No, it doesn't stand on its hind legs. We kind of get to that later in the story, but I don't like I I'm familiar with what an iguana is and I don't think they just squat there. They just like be. Huh. They don't squat, right? I wouldn't generally say an iguana would squat. I'm just looking at a description of an iguana from National Geographic.
So they can be six point five feet long with their tail because their tails are huge. Yeah. They're eleven pounds at six and a half feet. So that's sounding very different. He didn't know, but I mean, that other guy would have to be really off on his estimate. Like really. And I mean, if what we made up is true about them having to constantly be estimating people's weight, that wouldn't leave room for error. So not with nothing. Yeah. That's scientific proof that he's wrong.
So it was speculated that the iguana was either someone's escaped pet or a pet that wasn't wanted any longer and was released into the wild. I'm going to say it probably wasn't someone's escaped pet because someone whose escaped pet was shot by the cops would probably be pissed. And you probably would have heard that it was like, um, that was my iguana. Just on the darker side, the police actually kill a lot of pets per year. It goes widely unreported. Really? Un and underreported.
Yeah. I don't like that at all. So it could have been is what we just found out there. So I'm going to continue because that was a depressing piece of information. And this is a fun episode, right? Yeah. It was probably the most depressing piece of information ever said on this podcast. That's not true. No, it's not. It's not true at all. So anyway, according to Mark, Ray confirmed that the creature was in fact the animal he had seen only a few weeks earlier.
So this is where we can say, didn't he see it take a step over the guard rail as iguanas do? They're definitely tall enough to just step over guard rails. If I did see an iguana step over a guard rail, I got to say, I would probably be having nightmares about that iguana doing that because it's not natural. Or maybe it is. I don't know. I've never seen it happen though.
So Matthew's recounted the incident to an author of a book about urban legends, but says the author omitted the part that confirmed that the creature was an iguana rather than frogman. Hence, starting all the commotion about frogman. This directly contradicts another article I read that says no one gave interviews and it was just local word of mouth in which the story got around and leaked into the media. Matthew's also recounted the frogman story in 2016 again on WCPO Channel 9.
In their interview, Matthew's recounts, quote, Naturally, I didn't believe him in regards to Ray, but I could somehow tell from his demeanor that he did see something Matthew said, unquote. Matthew's eventually left the Love Land Police Department and went on to serve with the police in Milford and later Glendale.
He has since moved to Florida where he said people still sometimes seek him out for his experience with frogman because of the story's strange allure, though he no longer grants interviews. So that's the official story.
I did hear in a few places, I was listening to some podcasts about this, I didn't actually see it written down or anything, that there was actually a lot more time between the two encounters with Ray, the first one, actually seeing the Love Land frog and the second guy with the iguana. And what they said was that Ray just kind of wanted to put an end to.
Yeah, I was actually just going to ask, is that just like, it doesn't guarantee, but it could be an easy out from belittling and questions from people about what was actually seen.
I didn't come across that in anything I read, but it was brought up in more than one podcast that I listened about this, that it happened a while apart and that he just wanted to put an end to the ridicule that he was getting for witnessing something like this because he did stick with his story, obviously, but then when this came, it was kind of something to say, yeah, that's what I saw. It just doesn't fit exactly what his original encounter was.
There's no way it could have a iguana with no tail and iguanas live without tails. Yeah, they can in fact shed their tail to like escape. Oh, that's gross. Yeah, as a detail, I didn't that that's going to give me nightmares, too. Apparently iguanas in multiple situations would give me nightmares. They're kind of creepy. There's a reason we live so far north. It's true. It's specifically because of iguanas and moth persons. They haven't been sated above the Great Lakes.
Or west, or west of the Great Lakes. It's true. Yeah, so that's the Love Lamb Frog and we're moving on. Unless you have something to say about the Love Lamb Frog. I don't think so. You wouldn't think of a frog as a cryptid, slash human, something that has human-like qualities because it's an amphibian, but that was a nice one. Yeah, I've actually, I thought there were more sightings of it, but it is unique that there are a couple, including by businessman. Yes, businessman.
From Ohio. God, I'm so curious about his business. I know. That's the most fucked up part of that, Dory, right there. What was he doing? What was his business? He seemed so busy that he didn't stop. But he did somehow, somehow, see, we see he didn't stop, but he did smell the alfalfa and the almond. Yeah, but that could have been the snack that he was just having in between business meetings he forgot about because he was so busy. That's true. That's true.
I got to seek out some alfalfa in the near future just to know. See if it's a distinct smell. I'm just going to carry around almonds as well. So if I do come across it, I can just combine the smells and know exactly what the Love Lime Frog supposedly smells like.
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So, of course, we're talking about multiple cryptids, so I was like, let's take a look around and see what else we have for weird cryptid encounters. And did I find one? Of course I'm going to find one. So this one is the Hopskinville Goblin encounter. Have we heard of it? Ooh, I've heard of a goblin. I can't remember if it's this one, but I believe it would be. I don't know that there's many goblins out there.
So this encounter took place in Kentucky, of all places, so you know it's going to be good. Even just the episode on Kentucky cryptids would probably make for a good one. Oh, this is between the communities of Kelly and Hopkinsville. It must have been closer to Hopkinsville because that's the one you usually hear associated with the encounter. But it was, in fact, between the two. I wonder if there's a fight over the name, like if they've each tried to push the...
Well, it could be, like in Kelly, they call it the Kelly Goblin encounter. But generally it's called the Kelly Hopkinsville Goblin encounter. But that's what you hear most commonly. That's why I labeled it that. So the story goes like this.
The evening of August 21st, 1955, so that's a long time ago, five adults and seven children, which are two families, arrived into the Hopskinsville police station visibly shaking, claiming that small alien creatures from a spaceship were attacking their farmhouse and that they had been holding them off with gunfire for nearly four hours. That sounds exhausting. And by the way, the guns had no effect on these creatures that were attacking them in the farmhouse.
Two of the adults, Elmer Sutton and Billy Ray Taylor, claim that Billy Ray, whatever happened to that name, plummeted in popularity, claimed that they had been shooting at 12 to 15 short, dark figures who never entered the house, repeatedly popped up at the doorway and peered into the windows.
There were dozens of eyewitnesses to these incidents, which included two families present at the farmhouse and others in the area, some of whom had no connection to the families at the farmhouse and even one in another state. What are they doing there then? Yeah, perhaps most significantly, the witnesses also included several local policemen and a state trooper who saw and heard strange phenomena such as unexplained lights in the night sky and noises that very same night.
Not when they went to investigate, but... See, you say there's police officers that have seen them, but I have not heard a heightened weight estimate yet. So I don't believe you. No, there's not one, so it's probably a hoax. Yeah. Seven people present at the farmhouse claim that they were terrorized by an unknown number of creatures, even though I literally just said, how many did I just say? Nobody can know. That's the weird thing. I was sure that I just said how many it was, but...
And moving on, because I can't... I believe you said multiple. Let's just say you said multiple. I thought I said 14 or something like that. Who knows? I thought it was like 14 people were present. Yeah, I don't know. Okay, I'm not even going to go back and read because I don't want to. Okay, so the creatures are similar to gremlins, which have since often been referred to as the Hopkinsville Goblins in popular culture. Even on our podcast, that's what we refer to them as.
The residents of the farmhouse described them as around three feet tall with upright pointed ears and thin limbs. The beings legs were said to be almost non-functional or devolved, even in a state of atrophy. Wow. Long arms and claw-like hands or talons, the creatures were either silvery in colour or wearing something metallic.
Their movements on occasion seemed to defy gravity with them floating above the ground and appearing in high up places, and they walked with a swaying motion as though wading through water. Concerned about a possible gun battle between local citizens or city police, five state troopers, three deputy sheriffs, and four military police from the nearby US Army Fort Campbell drove to the Sutton farmhouse. They really thought they had an epic gun battle going on here.
Yeah, if they're shooting as much as I'm guessing. And sorry, I don't know how often they're shooting. I'm just assuming it's like nonstop shots out the door. That's what the picture conjures up, doesn't it? That's what we're all picturing, I'm sure. Yeah, and sorry, as a Canadian, I'm just picturing a very stereotypical gun response from an American family, particularly in the Bible Belt. It's true, because this is where it's happening.
And that's in all likeliness, the reality of the situation. They're even thinking it. They're bringing in people from the US Armed Forces. So I'm just wondering, do they get into like the start of this altercation and how it devolved to gun violence, or did it just start with gun violence? Like, did they knock at the door? Did they just see it and say... We do not get into it. I think they just saw it and were afraid that... I don't know, they're just afraid.
It doesn't say, but that's what I'm assuming, is they were just trying to protect themselves. It doesn't say that a friend had just seen them and they wanted a body to prove to a friend? No, but we did run into this on the other episode where he just saw something that he couldn't explain. Yeah, nobody will believe me. So that could have been what they were doing in this situation as well. So they went to this farmhouse. It seems like it's in a rural area between the town of Kelly and...
Neither of which towns I've ever heard of, so they can't be changed. No, neither. I haven't heard of Love Land either, so we're really covering some geography on this episode. The police and other military, whoever they brought with them, their search yielded nothing apart from evidence of gunfire and holes in the window and door screens made by firearms. I mean, at that point, you got to believe there is something there, at least for them to have been shooting and damaging their property.
Or they really need an excuse for shooting someone. Yeah, or not, given what we just admitted that we were picturing in our heads. Okay, so sorry, I just wanted to give a little bit of background. Hopkinsville has a population now of 31,180. And the picture of the town that they put for the Wikipedia page is the Presbyterian Church. So I don't think it has many monuments or things to do, so it seems rural. I was expecting you to say actually that it's the Goblin.
So they do have more going for it than this. Residents of the farmhouse included Lenny Lankford... Why do we have to list all the names? Lenny Lankford, her children Lonnie Charlton and Mary, two sons from a previous marriage, Elmer Sutton, John Charlie Sutton, and their respective wives Vera and Aileen. Oh God, this sounds... Aileen's brother, Opie Baker and Billy Ray Taylor and his wife June. Both the Taylors and Vera Sutton were reportedly carnival workers who were visiting the farmhouse.
Oh gosh. The next day, neighbors told two officers that the families had packed up and left after claiming the creatures had returned about 3.30 in the morning. So that's the incident. And I just went through the whole family that was there. I'm not sure why that's an important detail of the story, but it is. I was waiting for a Cletus to show up in that family. There almost was. Yeah. The sighting supposedly inspired E.T. critters and a Pokemon called Ruby and Sapphire is based on this as well.
Officially, it is looked at as a complete hoax. However, there's not a whole lot other than the above information on the incident. So to me, it's a mystery. That's all I could find. Nobody saw them. And the police and military that showed up, they didn't actually see anything, did they? No, they just saw destruction. But apparently in one part of the story, there were sightings of strange lights in the sky in the same night.
Okay. Yeah. They don't actually seem violent or like they were trying to attack. Although at the same time, a gun fight and a gunfight did break out. So I mean, we don't know the start of the. Yeah, it doesn't say the creatures had guns. And as far as we can tell, nobody was killed in that family or wounded or hurt. No, nobody was at all. Everybody escaped unscathed. Perfect health. I don't know about the Kearneys, but.
Okay, so I have one last cryptid story and I'm going to keep the strangest going. The next one, I'm very proud of this one. We're really getting around a really rotund cryptid feature today. It's a well-rounded and cultured episode is what you're saying. Very incredibly. If you end up in a black pie affair in the next little while, like you have your talking points. You have your fodder, yes. In between munches of caviar and sips of martinis or whatever it is that fancy people drink these days.
This one's definitely going to help you with the. What do they call it when you're like bumping elbows? What do they call that? The small talk? The social parlay? Yeah, that sounds better than whatever I'm trying to say. Okay, vegetable man.
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I get why you needed the fancy word. I wasn't coming with it, but you really. You just wait until the vegetable board. There's a fancy word for it. Crudite. When the crudite comes out, you can say, by the way, have you heard of vegetable man? If you're struggling on this night, just stand by the vegetables and any. Crudite. Comes up. You ever hear a vegetable man as someone's taken a bite of a carrot? Guaranteed no one will talk to you ever again. So it's a true story.
It happened to a friend of a friend of mine during the waning hours of a day in July in 1968, a bow hunter by the name of Jennings Frederick was out hunting outside Fairmont, West Virginia as he moved through the woods. I had to click on vegetable man and I was like, holy shit, this story is crazy. Chelsea, quick clarification. Was he hunting with a bow or for a bow? Like a bow you put in your hair? Well, I don't know. You said it was a bow hunter. So I'm just curious.
Hunting with a bow or for a bow? I think with. Unless he lost his bow. And he was hunting for it. And he does it a lot so much that he's considered a bow hunter. He loses it all the time. He actually just asks his friends to hide it in the woods. Because Jennings is a dumbass. I mean, I don't know if this story proves otherwise. Sorry. It's a true story. This happened to a friend of a friend of mine. I'm sorry. It actually happened. As Jennings moved through the woods in search of game.
Okay. He's searching for animals. Frederick heard an odd noise. It sounded like a record player running faster than it should. A sort of high pitch jabbering. When he tracked down the source of the sound, he came face to face with a creature. I need to say something. I mean, a record player shouldn't run fast at all. It shouldn't run at all. Yeah, you can't. It should run. No, it should play. It should not run. Okay. It just conjured up it was moving faster than it should, which is at all.
Jennings is quoted as saying, Suddenly there is a being with semi-human facial features, long ears and yellow slanted eyes. Its arms are no bigger than a quarter. Its bodies resembled the stock of a plant in shape and color, for it was slender and green. None of that fucking made sense to me in my head. Did you get that? I really tried in my head. I did not. Neither did I. And it's laid out right here in front of me. Its arms were no bigger around than a quarter. That's very small.
Its body resembled the stock of a plant. No, but around. So how long were they? So they're normal sized arms, quarter? It doesn't say how long. They must be regular. But not, they're skinny. Yeah, I'm picturing like stick-made arms. Okay. Yeah. Its body resembled the stock of a plant in shape and color. What kind of plant? Like is this a tree trunk? A flower? Yeah. Oh, it was slender and green. Pepper plant. Yeah. Yeah, so pepper plant. Okay. Okay, we can go with pepper plant.
Jennings would go on to say that the being looked weakened and sickly. The jabbering increased. Suddenly he could make out the words. Hints at telepathic communication as it says in brackets. In quotes, you need not fear me. I wish to communicate. I come as a friend. We know of you all. I come in peace. I wish medical assistance. I need your help. Okay. With that, the creature lunged at him and wrapped Frederick up in his surprising strong arms. Is this turning into a romance?
Frederick was unable to break away from the embrace as the creature pierced his skin with the thorns on his fingers that were close to seven inches long. These prickly needles or thorns. Okay, now I understand vegetable man. Okay. He tapered down into section cup shapes where the first knuckle would have been on a human finger. While it drained blood from him, Frederick found himself enthralled by the flashing colors of the creature's eyes.
Then almost as quickly as it had pounced, the vegetable man raced away up a hill. Before he could even react to this eccentric entity's plea for help, it seems weird that he would say, please help and then attack him. It goes against all. Maybe it thought it had consent for help and it just needed blood and it was a vampire. That's true. That's true. You bring up a good point.
As soon as the vegetable man and its hypnotic gaze had vanished, Frederick felt the throbbing pain rush back into his now poke marked hand. Interesting detail. It went into his... Wait, sorry. When you were describing him getting stabbed, was he talking about his hand or the vegetable man's hand? His. Okay. It took his blood. So when it disappeared over the hill, it had... I missed this part. It had gravity defying steps that had carried it no less than 25 feet.
Okay. So it ran away weird, I guess, and fast. As the pain returned, he also felt a swell of panic. As he raced away from the scene of his encounter, he heard a deep humming sound, which Frederick later surmised may have been the propulsion system of the UFO taking the ostensibly alien entity home. I don't think he would use that word right. Frightened by the ridicule that would almost inevitably... Okay. I just have to say this here. Humming of a UFO.
I say this every time I hear a Tesla drive by. Teslas make the sound that I imagine that UFOs would make. I don't know why. I think that's intentional. I think it's to make it seem like a science fiction technology. Yeah. I don't know why, but every time I hear a Tesla, I'm like, that's exactly what I imagine a UFO to sound like. So then it could either, in this story, it could be there be a UFO or Tesla driving by. Yeah. But this seems like it was well pre-Tesla. Oh, it probably was pre-Tesla.
Because it's 68. It was... Yeah. 68. Was it? It was 68. You have such a good memory. Okay. So he was frightened by the ridicule that would almost inevitably accompany his account of this run-in with the vampiric varmint vegetable. They specifically went with alliteration on that one. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite odd, some of the words that are used in this. And I'm quoting directly. These are not some of my words. Some of them are. I won't tell you which ones. That's true integrity right there.
Just in case I use some of my words wrong. And you don't like those ones. Exactly. Frederick resolved to keep the story to himself and told his family that the wounds on his hand had been caused by a briar patch. Some years later, however, he found that he could no longer live with the secret and revealed his strange story. Okay, get this. Get how this story ends. And revealed his strange story to an author, paranormal investigator, and occasional hoaxer by the name of Gray Barker. What a twist.
I feel like we need to do an episode on Gray Barker. He seems like quite the character based on that one sentence. I know. It is so important to the story that we said occasional hoaxer. To date, the 1968 encounter is the only signing of the vegetable man. Okay, what a riled ride that episode was. Yeah, geez. I know. I did such a good job on this one. I, if you have to run into one, I think it's got to be the Loveland frog. I would choose, yeah, I think I would choose the Loveland frog too.
There's something just like whimsical about him and his wand. Well, and there's no like loving embracement happened there. Yeah. His heart was farting. Yes. Those are my stories. I would say like I have so many questions, but I know there's no answers. There's none. And in most of these cases, well, two of them for sure. Loveland frog, there was more than one incident and encounter. But for the other two, they are, they are, they are one off solo one off. Never to happen again.
And I think at least we got one follow up episode possibly from Gray Barker coming from this. Yeah, I have him up. So I'm going to add him to the list. Why not? Why the hell not? Why not throw Gray Barker on there? The occasional. What if he's related to Bob Barker, brother? Never came up. Can't say. No, that'll be something to look into for the actual episode. And that that's my episode. Well, Chelsea, thank you so much for this episode.
I know I'll be very happily sipping on my sherry talking about the finer things in life and just happening to mention a vampiric vampiric vegetable varmint that lovingly embraced and penetrated a man in the woods. Yeah, I like that. That's the theory of the story that you focus on for that. Yeah, I mean, there will be likely be more like because they will have more questions. I have to assume. But that's how you intrigue.
And for those of you listening for etiquette purposes for black tie affairs, you bring people into your stories with intrigue so that they feel like they can't leave the store. And for that, you are welcome. We are here for our higher society tips for the most part. I think that's what the end of the day this podcast is all about. That's our mission statement. Quite often. No, that's our secret mission statement. Yeah, I said the quiet part. And for that, we have to end the episode now.
I have been Taylor here with Chelsea. We are journey to the fringe. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Journey to the Fringe. If you have liked what you have listened to, please like, share, subscribe or follow, depending on what venue you are listening to us through. Also, please, if possible, leave a five star review as that really helps us in the algorithms. Should you wish to interact with us, please check us out on your social media of choice.
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