HBM099: Spell for the Repulsion of Astral Vampires

/

👆 Video version 👆 👇 Audio only version 👇

 

There’s currently an invisible, supernatural pandemic affecting the world, or so claims HBM host Jeff Emtman.  What else could explain the wide-ranging malaise of our current times? He thinks that the most logical conclusion is that astral energy vampires are draining humans of their lifeforce en masse.  Jeff’s never encountered one of these beasts, but that’s probably because he’s developed an elaborate spell to trap them in an alternate timeline.  In this video episode of Here Be Monsters, Jeff shares his special spell of repulsion.

Content Note:
Stylized blood and flashing images

Ingredients: 

A note from Jeff on the creation of this episode:

I spent my teenage years listening to Coast To Coast AM each night from 10PM until I fell asleep.  It’s a 4 hour nightly show about the supernatural that exists in a world of increased potential for the unusual.  Guests, callers and hosts are so densely packed with stories of the strange that eventually what used to seem ludicrous becomes possible, and what used to seem possible seems likely.   

Like many, I was deeply saddened to hear of Art Bell’s recent death.  Bell was the original host of Coast To Coast.  While I grew up in the George Noory era, Bell would still host most weekends.  

But on further reflection of my years dedicated to this program, I came away conflicted.  It is truly an amazing feeling to have one’s world blown open on a nightly basis by some new ‘truth’ revealed, it’s also a format that often peddles in fear of the unknown.   It’s a fear that I internalized, hard. Now nearing 30, I’ve likely cumulative years of my life in fear of evils that don’t actually exist. And of the evils that do exist, I fall into nearly every demographic group that statistically protects me from them.  

If I were a sociologist, I’d study whether there’s inverse correlation between the amount of generalized fear a person feels and how much danger that they actually live in.  I have a hypothesis about misplaced fears and their relationship to the supernatural, but I am no sociologist.

So in this episode, I take a fanciful view on the enemies of the astral plane.  The astral plane is a favorite location of Coast To Coast, probably because its inherent indefinability means that just about anything goes.  But with that being said, please don’t bathe in blood, or electrocute yourself.

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Editor: Bethany Denton
Music: The Black Spot, Serocell, The Other Stars

This episode features illustrations by Fortunio Liceti from the 17th century.  Fortunio did not believe his subjects to be hideous, as he considered deformity to be the intersection of nature and art.  

👇 Video stills 👇

 

HBM095: The Bats that Stay

/

Illustration by Jeff Emtman

 

Not all migratory bats migrate.  We don’t know why some choose to stay behind at their summer roosts.  But according to the University of Washington’s Sharlene Santana, the bats that stay tend to die.  

Content Note: Fleeting language

In this episode, HBM host Jeff Emtman attempts to make a metaphor about bats and humans.  Perhaps it’s anthropomorphic, perhaps it’s unnecessarily poetic, or perhaps it’s a fair one.  

Jeff leaves his home in Seattle to move cross-country to Boston.  Along the way he takes a five day layover in Colorado to meet up with an old friend (Helen Katich) and her girlfriend (Laura Goldhamer).  The three drive from Denver to the San Luis Valley of Central Colorado.  They visit Valley View Hot Springs and walk to the mouth of an abandoned iron mine 10,000 feet above sea level called “The Glory Hole.”  

 
 

The Glory Hole houses an estimated 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats each summer.  These bats migrate in from Central and South America to eat bugs and raise their pups.  They fly together at dusk in gatherings visually similar to the murmurations of starlings.   This bat species, also known as the Brazilian free-tailed bat, is extremely social, and perhaps nature’s most gregarious mammal species.  

Despite this, their social and hunting calls are completely inaudible to humans.  They produce ultrasounds, sounds too high pitched for human ears. But some audio equipment (see below) can still record these sounds, then computer algorithms can pitch them down into human-audible sounds.  

 
Helen Katich

Helen Katich

A preserved Mexican free-tailed bat at the welcome center of Valley View Hot Springs

 

One evening, Jeff and Helen and Laura hike to the mouth of the mine.  At this vantage point, they watch some of the bats flying out and Jeff manages to record some of their loud, ultrasonic vocalizations, before the storm forces them back downhill.  The next day, Jeff flies to his new home in Boston.

Jeff recorded the bat calls in this episode with a Tascam DR100MK3 at 192kHZ sample rate and an Echo Meter Touch 2 Pro at sample rates of 256kHZ and 384kHZ.  The calls were recorded at frequencies of approximately 21kHZ to 36kHZ and time/pitch-shifted with Elastique 3.2.3 Pro.

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Editor: Bethany Denton
Music: The Black Spot and Laura Goldhamer

 

HBM093: The Brain Scoop

/

Divya Anantharaman’s brain scoop.

 

In school, Divya Anantharaman used to get teased for having long skinny fingers like ET.  But now she sees them as valuable asset for the intricate work she does.  Divya runs Friends Forever Taxidermy in Brooklyn, New York.  

Content Note:
Fleshy sounds

In this episode Divya carries a recorder with her while as she slowly disassembles a deceased pet parrot: snipping joints, scooping brains, removing eyes, separating the skin from the body. Birds’ skin is very thin—Divya likens the peeling to removing a delicate silk stocking.

We found out about Divya through Erika Harada, another skilled artist in the Brooklyn taxidermy scene.

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Editor: Bethany Denton
Music: Serocell (new album out!) and Phantom Fauna

 

Divya Anantharaman with a deceased Himalayan pheasant.

HBM090: Two Small Creatures with Human Eyes

/
Lucy and her mate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

Lucy and her mate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

 

Natural history museums are art galleries.  Scientifically focussed art galleries, but art galleries nonetheless.  

Ian Tattersall, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, is a paleontologist who sometimes oversees the construction of models for the museum.  Of personal interest to Here Be Monsters producer Jeff Emtman are reconstructions of very lifelike early humans, one with an arm draped over the other.  Ian calls these the “Laetoli Figures”—named for the place in modern-day Tanzania where some remarkable footprints of two hominids were found preserved in volcanic ash.  

As far as early humans go, Australopithecus Afarensis are well understood.  There are 300+ individuals in the fossil record, including the famous ~40% complete fossil of “Lucy”.

Given the evidence, there’s a lot scientists can be pretty certain in declaring: they lived in the trees, but they could walk upright.  They had small brains and big jaws, but their canine teeth looked a lot like a modern human’s.  

There are other questions that are answerable through inference, through studies of modern animals and other fossils.  These techniques can yield a strong degree of certainty.

But if the artist were to stop constructing at the edge of certainty, the models would never be completed. There are certain things that are essentially unknowable about these early hominids, like: “What did their skin look like?” “What color was their hair?” “Did they have the dark sclera of an ape, or the whites-of-the-eye of a modern human?”

These uncertainties are ultimately up to the artist to answer.  “When you’re making a museum exhibit,” Ian (not an artist) points out, “you’re trying to create an illusion.  And to work at all, the illusion has to be complete.  And so you have to have all the details in there.”

HBM090-01.jpg

Ian Tattersall, Curator Emeritus of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History and a replica of an early human colloquially named “Lucy”.

 

But these details are a form of artistry used as evidence by biblical creationists to lambast hominid reconstructions.  They see it as part of an effort to deceive the public, to lead them to believe that these ancient hominids were more human-like than they actually were.  Of particular interest to them is that question of the light sclera vs. dark sclera.  One author writes:

Notice that a fossilized eyeball was not found.  So how would anyone know that the sclera was white, which would cause it to look more human. [sic] The reconstruction is pure speculation about how Lucy’s eye looked.

Natural history museums are faced with a decision: create full-flesh reconstructions that by necessity contain elements of artistic license, or, present the public with mere bones.  Most seem to opt for the former, and understandably so.  The museum serves the public, and, like HBM producer Jeff Emtman, they want to see something relatable and remarkable, a piece of scientifically-oriented art.  

 
 

And this question the artist must face, the question of the dark sclera (more ape-like eyes) and the light sclera (more human-like eyes) reveals something interesting about the artist and the process used to create the art.  The choices an artist makes can speak to their worldview, their biases, and their knowledge per their location in the world and the current moment in time.  

Ian recognizes this, saying,

You could not do a reliable reconstruction of an ancient human being or a dinosaur, or an extinct mammal without the science; and you certainly couldn’t do it without the art.  And this is where the two really intersect in a meaningful way.

And the AMNH itself houses exhibits related to the ways in which modern assumptions about the past have affected the way the past is present, such as:  Griffins in the Gobi Desert (protoceratops), Cyclops of the Mediterranean (dwarf elephants), and the infamous unicorn horns of Western Europe (narwhal).

 
 

Ian says that, in the quarter century since the construction of the Laetoli Figures, dominant scientific perception has changed to suggest that Australopithecus afarensis might have actually had dark sclera. As he puts it, “science is a work in progress.”

Jeff Emtman produced this episode and took the photos.
Voicemails from HBM listeners including Daniel Greene, Rachel Schapiro and Tony Baker.   

Music: The Black Spot, The Other Stars

 
 

We want your questions for an upcoming mailbag episode. Maybe you’ve got a question about how we make the show.  Maybe you have a question for someone we’ve talked to on an episode.  Maybe you want some relationship advice.  Maybe you can’t fix your damn microwave and you just need someone to tell you what to do.  

Give us a call: (765) 374 - 5263 or send us a voice memo: HBMpodcast@gmail.com.

Also, check out our new meat poster, designed by Adam Fein, of HBM circle shirt fame.  Get your HBM meat poster today!

 

HBM088: Riptides and a Sinking Ship

/
 

A riptide recently pulled Ariana into open water off the shore of Santa Monica.  She thinks it’s her closest brush with death thus far.  A lifeguard rescued her.

Even before the incident in Santa Monica, Ariana had a deep fear of water and drowning—so deep that she wondered if some previous version of herself sunk in a shipwreck.  

The are different kinds of panics, some more helpful than others.  

Music: The Black Spot

Episode produced by Jeff Emtman with help from Bethany Denton.  Please review us on Apple Podcasts.

 
IMG_20171024_231721549.jpg

The $1* DIY Hydrophone

1. Find a condom

2. Rinse the lube off

3. Dry it out

4. Put it on a microphone

5. Tie off end w/ rubber band

* Microphone not included. Cheaper if you buy in bulk.

This "pro tip" brought to you by our Instagram feed

HBM086: Eve is Hungry

/
HBM086.jpg
 

In HBM085: Ascended Fiction, we explored a rumor about Scientology and whether there exists a belief that founder L. Ron Hubbard will return to Earth.

Content note: language and substance abuse.

Sources we talked to within and outside of the Church of Scientology gave different answers, and it's hard to know the actual truth, because the church's most sacred texts are kept secret.

It got us thinking about hidden knowledge, and whether it's moral to withhold information. So in this follow-up episode, we delve into that more, but this time with Christianity.  

 
 

Chaplain Vanessa Zoltan (co-host of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text) re-tells the story of Eve seeking knowledge from a fruit tree. We also have additional info from Tony Ortega, and a couple of secret-knowledge-voicemails from our listener line.

You can call us, too. Right now, we're asking listeners this question: what is it about our moment in time that will be unknowable to archaeologists of the future? The quiet pink glow of fresh snow fall? Texting and driving? Something else? Let us know what you think.  
Call us: (765) 374-5263

This episode was produced by Jeff Emtman. Editing help from Bethany Denton and Nick White.

Music: Swamp Dog, Phantom Fauna, The Black Spot