The Monster Missive: Sn. 20 Ep 45 & Sn. 20 Ep. 46 (Patreon)

Our weekly newsletter, brought to you by MAU team members, Delainey Bowers and Conor Ryan, every Friday.

-Show Notes Spotlight-

A more in-depth look at some of the research covered in this week's Tuesday and Thursday episodes.

In Tuesday’s episode, we caught a ride with The Devil all the way down to Georgia. And although we heard a lot about how much ghosts love to set off door alarms and wear JNCO jeans in the Peach State, we didn’t hear as much as we expected about the cryptid fauna of the region. Luckily, there’s a whole map of elusive creatures that we used to familiarize ourselves with Derek’s future bodyguards our new spooky friends!

Okefenokee Swamp Beast

Sightings of this creature first emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, and a local newspaper, The Gainesville Times, covered a number of the earliest reports. Witnesses describe the monster as being covered in a thick coat of fur with a bear-like body, canine head, long, sharp claws, and feline tail. The Swamp Beast is purported to be between 6 and 7 feet long and moves like a quadruped. 

Altamaha-ha

According to Georgia folklore, the Altamaha-ha is a legendary aquatic creature said to inhabit the small bodies of water and rice fields near the Altamaha River in the southeastern part of the state. Rooted in Muscogee tradition, the Altamaha-ha has a sturgeon-like body that ranges between 20 and 70 feet with a bony ridge along the spine. The Altamaha-ha has front flippers, the snout of a crocodile, a pale yellow underbelly, and swims like a porpoise.

Georgia Raptor

In 2008, an 18 year-old man and his grandfather were hunting in the woods when they suddenly heard a strange noise in the brush ahead of them. Approximately 150 yards up the trail, they witnessed a 5’ tall bipedal, raptor-like creature with a long, stiff tail and two short arms emerge from the trees. The witnesses claim the lizard-like cryptid raised its head and sniffed the air before the two men quietly walked back to their car without being seen. Robert Muldoon should have really taken some notes from these men.

Plat-Eye

In Gullah lore, a Plat-Eye is the malevolent spirit of someone who wasn’t buried properly. In some cases, Plat-Eyes are aggressive shapeshifters who wander aimlessly around the location of their untimely demise. Plat-Eyes are described as pale, thin humanoids with eyes as large as dinner plates (hence the name). And while at first these creatures might seem like a fun mascot for an all-you-can-eat buffet, you might be a little bit more afraid of them after reading these accounts of the Plat-Eye compiled by The Moonlit Road.

Cody called in to give us a warning about the ghosts wandering the halls of Central State Hospital due to its horrifying past, but that is far from the only haunted place in Georgia. In fact, judging by this list from Ghosts and Gravestones, if you’re traveling around the state it’s probably a good idea to keep your spirit box turned on at all times just to see if you can pick up any hot ghost gossip. Here’s just a small sampling from that list of good spots to bust out your EMF meters and REM pods:

The Olde Pink House (Savannah)

“A Georgian-style mansion built in 1771, the Olde Pink House is an elegant restaurant located in Savannah’s historic district…The Olde Pink House was originally the home of Joseph Habersham Jr., who built the house and lived in it until he died in 1802. The most often seen apparition is that of Habersham himself, who is said to appear mostly between October and March. Others have been spooked by the sight of a man dressed in Revolutionary-style clothing sitting at the end of the bar, only to disappear when people turn their back on him.”

Heritage Hall (Madison)

“This classic Greek Revival Home is located in downtown Madison and is open to the public daily. Built in 1811, it was a private residence throughout its history until 1977 and since then it has been Madison’s most visited attraction. The most famous ghost that looms within Heritage Hall is that of Virginia Nisbet who died in the master bedroom in 1851 while giving birth.

On the fireplace in the room there’s an indelible mark that resembles a woman holding a baby. Many have seen her spirit in the room and others have felt her presence. A young man who was visiting the house heard a woman speaking to him – yet no one was there. And others report seeing Virginia lying on the bed.”

Oakland Cemetery (Atlanta)

“Originally called the City Burial Place, the 40-acre Oakland Cemetery is the final resting place of close to 70,000 people, including governors, generals, clergymen and several famous Georgia residents.

It is said that on the Confederate side of the burial grounds, people have heard names being called out in a military-like roll call. Responses to the names being called have also been heard. Other disturbing sightings include visitors seeing a Union soldier being hanged from a tree and the sight of Jasper Newton Smith, an eccentric entrepreneur, rising out of his statue in the middle of the night to watch over the cemetery.”

In Thursday's episode, an anonymous caller from England shared a story about a shadow man making quite the exit by bursting into multiple floating black gooey blobs. All these shadow people that simply disappear into thin air better step up their game! 

While we haven’t heard any other calls exactly like that one, we are certainly familiar with unknowable, amorphous floating blobs that are the color of an endless void. The most recent example of this having been on SN 20 EP 36, where another anonymous caller from England saw a black blob float up to her window on New Year’s Eve. Although we often like to share sightings, sometimes it’s nice to think in symbols. For a symbolic interpretation of this phenomenon, we like this entry on “Ominous Obsidian Ooze” from TV Tropes. Per the entry, 

“...indeed, there's a growing tendency for harmful, deadly or just plain evil substances to be depicted as glistening black slime, often reminiscent of oil, tar, or ink. It seems likely that these depictions of evil pitch-black liquids were inspired by the threat posed by oil spills or tar pits, both of which are well known for being serious hazards. They are also environmental blights that can turn a place into a polluted wasteland. 

Also, consider hazardous water and the primal fear it evokes. Water can be dark and inhospitable, it can engulf and drown you, and it may conceal nasty creatures. Ominous Obsidian Ooze shares these scary qualities and exaggerates them. Whatever the case, if an unidentified black liquid crops up in fiction, it'll probably mean something very, very bad.”

Well, well, well it looks like we’ve got egg on our face! This whole time we thought those forbidding clouds of darkness that appear without warning meant that we had good things coming our way!

Now, we here at MAU fully understand that a lunar eclipse occurs when a massive, invisible being accidentally spills their Mountain Dew: Code Red on our moon while playing a video game. We also know that a solar eclipse happens when that same being decides to try to eat the moon (because it’s made of swiss cheese), but spits it out when they remember they are lactose intolerant. For whatever reason, it seems like aliens are able to predict these random occurrences and time their visits to Earth accordingly.

One of the most well-known instances of this occurred over the skies of Mexico City in 1991. As this article from Unsolved Mysteries explains,

“On July 11, 1991, the last total eclipse of the century occurred. For the residents of Mexico City, the eclipse prompted a festive celebration. Thousands took to the streets as one of the world’s largest cities was plunged into total darkness in the middle of broad daylight. No one imagined that the entire country was about to be swept into a wave of UFO hysteria.

That afternoon, a television executive named Guillermo Arragin, was videotaping the eclipse from a rooftop when he noticed an unusual object overhead. Jaime Maussan, a respected television journalist in Mexico…produced, directed and hosted Mexico’s edition of ‘Sixty Minutes’ or ‘Sesenta Minutos’. Eight days after the eclipse, Jaime presented the Arragin footage as part of a special UFO broadcast. According to Jaime, the network was inundated with phone calls:

‘The telephone lines blew up. I mean 40,000 calls at the same time. Then the system was completely shut out. We received more than 15 videos and we now know for sure that in at least 7 of them, we can see the same ship that was recorded by Guillermo Arragin.’

Since the eclipse in July of 1991, there have been thousands of sightings throughout Mexico. There is no clear pattern, although the majority have occurred in and around Mexico City.”

Luckily, much of the coverage from that day has been archived by various sources. This clip from the History Channel show The UnXplained provides a lot of great context. FindingUFO did a nice job of putting together a lot of the old-school coverage of the various sightings from that day. And our perennial favorite channel Eyes on Cinema compiles some of the rarer footage in this video, including the craft apparently performing a hyperjump!

So, if you happen to figure out a way to know when an eclipse is going to happen, then make sure to keep your eyes out for any strange ships in our skies!

-Here There Be Headlines-

A round-up of bizarre, curious, head-scratching news stories that leave you saying, "huh."

And before you find out that we’re actually a clump of human brain cells trained to write newsletters, we’re going to have to say goodbye for now! But in the meantime, we’ll leave you with a few strange stories we stumbled across this week!

Butts, biceps, and other body parts made of glass

“Bone-Eating Snot-Flower” is my next band name

“Zombie filler” is the latest beauty trend (Slightly NSFW!)

Earth got you feeling down? Pop over to TRAPPIST-1 d!

Midwestern marsupial on the loose

This clump of brain cells learned to play a video game