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[theme music plays, fades out: The House is Haunted, Roy Fox, 1934]
Devon: You are listening to Ouija Broads, this is Devon…
Liz: ...this is Liz.
Devon: Liz, what do sea monsters eat?
Liz: Kelp? Fish?
Devon: Fish and ships.
[both laughing]
Devon: This is a good one, right?
Liz: That's a very good one.
Devon: I didn't make it up. I found it, but I thought it was pretty great.
Liz: I like it anyway.
Devon: It's such a good segue because I want to talk to you about sea monsters today.
Liz: Yay!
Devon: Yeah. Can you name any famous sea monsters?
Liz: There's the Loch Ness Monster.
Devon: Absolutely.
Liz: There's Champy, the Lake Champlain Monster.
Devon: I knew you'd know that one since you were born in New York.
Liz: [faking irritation] Woman!
Devon: [laughs mischievously]
Liz: Uhhhh... I know that we've had a lot of sea monsters around the Northwest because I tend to see them. But-- in terms of like, when I'm doing research, not when I'm driving around in boats and shit. But I tend to leave them for you because I just really feel like this is so your territory for some reason.
Devon: God, I love them. I love them. Well, you know how into cryptids I am, and how into the ocean I am, and how I don't mind touching gross slimy stuff, which is a huge part of sea monsters according to the research that I've done today.
Liz: [laughs] Well, there's different kinds because there's like, sea serpents-- I had a whole book about this: there's sea serpents, and then there's globsters and blobsters. Like, we just get a big lump of stuff?
Devon: Yup!
Liz: You know, and everybody pokes it and takes pictures.
Devon: Mmmhmm. They're like "What was that? And most of the times it was a basking shark, but nobody believes the scientist and they say "No, it's totally, totally a plesiosaur or whatever."
Liz: Oh, definitely. And then there's um... There's krakens and multi-armed creatures of various sorts.
Devon: Well, so you mentioned, you mentioned Champ, who's from Lake Champlain in New York, Vermont and Quebec in North America. There's also Chessie up in Chesapeake Bay... or I guess, down in Chesapeake Bay? Is Maryland and Virginia down from Washington or is it lateral?
Liz: I don't know, actually.
Devon: Yeah.
Liz: I think it's south. It's gotta be south, right? In terms of [saying these words very carefully] lat-it-ude and long-it-ude? Yeah, ah, we're... good at geography.
Devon: Oh, God, we're good at geology. So good at it.
Both
[laughing]
Devon: And um, in terms of North America, there's two others that I was going to tell you about today. Ogopogo...
Liz: [as 21 from Venture bros] "'Ogopogo."
Devon: [starting to laugh] "He's a fucking plesiosaur!' I can't see that name without thinking of Venture Brothers.
Liz: Exactly.
Devon: Ogopogo is up in Okanagan Lake in British Columbia, which I found out is exactly five and a half hours away from you in Spokane and five and a half hours away from me in Seattle.
Liz: Yeah, that's not far, because we've got an Okanogan County in Washington.
Devon: We do have an Okanogan County in Washington. But I'm thinking, you know, if you and I ever want to meet in the middle of the state and go, "Oh, boo, there's nothing here," we just go five and a half hours north and and middle for each of us. And we can go see a sea monster at the same time. Let's hook it up.
Liz: Excellent.
Devon: How good is that? So Ogopogo lives just a little bit above us, but then.... Caddy, the [pronounced cad-bree-o-saurus] cadborosaurus of Cadbury Bay over here on my side of the state is the one I really want to talk to you about, because that's the one I found a ton of information about.
Liz: It's a cad-BORO-saurus or it's a cad-BREE-o-saurus?
Devon: Uh, well, it's spelled c-a-d-b-o-r-o? So cad-BORO-saurus? I've heard cadbriosaurus, but I've also been told I pronounce things incorrectly on many occasions by... I won't name names. But you know... by Liz Blodgett. [Note: I'll put the first pronunciation as Cadborosaurus and the second as Cadbriosaurus for the rest of the transcript.]
Liz: [giggling] You pronounce certain things incorrectly, such as my last name. [Note: She pronounced "Blodgett" correctly but I'm giving her a hard time for not remembering that I changed it.]
Devon: What are you talking about? Your last name is pronounced "Butt," isn't it?
Liz: I mean, you nailed it.
Devon: Yup. "Liz Butt."
Liz: Most importantly, it's not a Cadbury-saurus made of delicious chocolate.
Devon: I'm so sorry, it's not. I think that the Loch Ness monster should be a Cadbury-saurus because he's up there in the English area. [hears what she just said, repeats it derisively] "The English area."
Liz: "You know!"
Devon: Jesus Christ, Devon, get it together.
Liz: Listen, the accuracy of our geography decreases proportionally to how far away from Washington it is.
Devon: Oh, man! If I can't touch it, if I can't stretch out my arms and touch it, it might as well be twelve miles away. I don't know where it's at.
Liz: A whole twelve miles?!
Devon: A whole twelve miles, Liz:.
Liz: Wow.
Devon: I'm so done with you.
Liz: [laughs]
Devon: Cadboro Bay is near the southern tip of Vancouver Island, which is north and east of Victoria. I mean, Victoria was my-- because I've been to Victoria. I knew that as a, as a, like, a map pin to orient from? So maybe that doesn't mean anything to you.
Liz: But it's, like, part of the [Puget] Sound?
Devon: It's part of the Sound. It's really close. You could get to it, you know, if you took the hour ferry, uh, from Anacortes up to Victoria, then it's like less than an hour drive and it's right there. So it's part of the Sound. Cadboro Bay is between the Washington coast and the Vancouver Island coast. So it's definitely a protected Sound area, but that is the area where Caddy is reported to live most of the time. You talked earlier about the different kinds of sea monsters, and I thought that was really super smart because unlike a plesiosaur, which is what I always think of when I think of sea monster, you know, like a brontosaurus, but with flippers?
Liz: Mmhmm.
Devon: A-- Caddy is supposed to resemble a serpent with a horse-like head. So it's got the vertical coils or humps that undulate like a serpent would, but then it's got this kind of weird horse-ish head and front flippers. Throughout the last two hundred years or so of documented Caddy sightings, some people--
Liz: Two hundred years?!
Devon: Two hundred years are the most recent Caddy sightings, but it's been in Native American lore for thousands of years.
Liz: Wow.
Devon: But I was looking into the last about two hundred years because they've got, you know, written records.
Liz: Yeah.
Devon: Depending on who you talk to, it's either got small little hind flippers or it's got a tail that has a, a fan-like tail on it that does propulsion. So it's either got one of those flipper tail things, like you'd see on, what, a dolphin?
Liz: Mmhmm.
Devon: Or little, little feet flippers.
Liz: Okay.
Devon: Yeah. So it's this, it's this long serpenty dude with a funky head and he's just all flapping about in the water using his dumb little flippers to get by.
Liz: Yeah, the hump-back thing is kind of strange to me when I think about creatures like this, because I know it's so, the classic sea monster look>
Devon: Yeah.
Liz: But like, water snakes don't get around like that.
Devon: They don't, no.
Liz: They go side to side.
Devon: Exactly, exactly. So that's a really bizarre point for me as well, because why would you come... Why would you breach the surface of the water and do this bizarre, like jumping hump motion when, like you said, a sea snake would go side to side undulating?
Liz: Yeah. [quietly] That's not efficient.
Devon: But still-- It's not efficient, damn it! That's still one of the, I guess hallmarks of Caddy sightings? Or a lot of sea monster sightings? Are those weird looking humps. Every time I've drawn one, I make sure to draw those in, even though they don't make any sense.
Liz: Right.
Devon: But he's supposed to be about 15 to 20 meters long.
Liz: Whoa, that's big!
Devon: Huge, right? And he's really similar in appearance to how Ogopogo is described up in the Okanagan, like in B.C. I told you that I looked at maybe about 200 years of history, but of course, I mean, just like with Sasquatch, right? The Native American-- whatever region we're in, however they call the people who lived here a long time before white folks were coming in and like Instagramming sea creatures, they are in lore for a super long time and he's got all kinds of names. So he's-- he was named Cadbriosaurus because the bay was named Cadboro Bay after the first European vessel went into that bay.
Liz: Okay.
Devon: But he's got a ton of different names, depending on what tribe you're talking to. The-- this creature, or a creature that's similar to it, has actually been seen up and down the Pacific coast from Alaska all the way down to Canada-- or-- pfft-- [starts to laugh]
Liz: "All the way down to Canada!"
Devon: How about Alaska, all the way down to California?
Liz: Oh!
Devon: They're-- in the 60s, there were, uh, reported sightings of-- I mean, and they called it Caddy as well. People in California said that they were seeing Caddy and other sea creatures playing in San Francisco Bay.
Liz: Oh, it has friends.
Devon: He has some friends, Liz. He's got some little buddies. There's actually a reported sighting of a daughter of Cadbriosaurus and his mate, which I will tell you about.
Liz: [unnecessarily sassy] Why can't it be Cadborosaurus and her husband, Devon: ?
Devon: Because the people in the 1930s, my friend? Were not progressive, even a little bit.
Liz: What's the point of being a sea monster if you can't even escape the patriarchy?
Devon: Oh man. You-- [laughs]
Liz: I'm drinking, okay?
Devon: Getting political! What are you drinking?
Liz: [laughing] I'm drinking Washington Cherry Hard Cider. Where is this from. Washington Gold Cider...
Devon: Probably Washington.
Liz: Yeah, probably Washington. Definitely Washington. "Made from the best apples in the world." Correct. From the Lake Chelan Trading Company.
Devon: Yeah, but it--
Liz: It's good!
Devon: It sounds good.
Liz: [laughing] It's made out of sass and political feelings.
Devon: God, dude, you don't need help with sass and political feelings. You have those in spades. So talk to me. You said it was made out of apples, but you also said cherry was in the name. I don't understand beer. So tell me--
Liz: There's apple-- well, it's a cider. It's a hard cider. There's apples and cherries in the mix.
Devon: Ooh.
Liz: They mix it all up and they let it get all fucked up and it gets you fucked up. That's my understanding of how you make cider.
Devon: It's a fruit salad that fucks you up.
Liz: Yeah! You know!
Devon: Maybe I'm going to start drinking because it sounds pretty damn good.
Liz: It is good. [laughs] I always like to drink Washington stuff. I like to drink stuff of wherever I was. When I was in North Carolina, it was North Carolina stuff. But we have such good microbreweries, good wine, good cider. Don't overthink it. Buy local.
Devon: Whatev--
Liz: Except if it's Starbucks. Did you see the thing I posted on Twitter?
Devon: No. What did you post on Twitter. What are you doing?
Liz: [laughing] It was at Albertson's. And it had Starbucks labeled as a local product.
Devon: [laughs] It is local!
Liz: I mean, yeah? But---
Devon: Don't hate on them just because they went global, friendo.
Liz: "I'm going to support local businesses, like Starbucks."
Devon: [laughing] "You know, like Microsoft!
Liz: Yeah, or Boeing.
Devon: Amazon's a local business.
Liz: Yeah.
Devon: I support them almost every day.
Liz: A lot of people never think about Washington State, but you all sure use a lot of our stuff.
Devon: Damn right, you do. We're full of smart people and sea monsters, I tell you what.
Liz: Yeah! Smart sea monsters!
Devon: Smart sea monsters! Super smart sea monsters! But well, I don't know if they're that smart because according to some people, they keep showing up dead on our shores. and I don't know how smart you are if you're dead.
Liz: It's the only game in town, my friend.
Devon: It's the only game in town. I know it's crooked.
Liz: [giggles]
Devon: When the supposed Cadbriosaurus carcasses wash up on shores, there are almost always [sic] another explanation as to what that carcass belongs to, other than an unidentified giant sea lizard… with a massive--
Liz: Science ruins things.
Devon: Science ruins things. I read an article from 1934 about the, well, it was called the.. Oh, goodness, I'm getting there. The Prince Edward? Prince Albert? Let me find my notes.
Liz: No, keep guessing. Prince Charlie!
Devon: Prince Rupert!
Liz: Prince Tedward!
Devon: Prince Shut The Fuck Up!
Liz: [cackles]
Devon: In 1934, there was a, a carcass that washed up on-- near Prince Rupert, and it was called the Prince Rupert Sea Serpent. And the newspaper... When a scientist said, "Uh, no, guys, it's not a sea serpent, it's a basking shark." They called him a "joy killer."
Liz: That's correct.
Devon: He's a joy killer! Poor dude.
Liz: [laughs] Don't be a joy killer. Oh, people...
Devon: Oh, man. Basking sharks are kind of the scapegoat, not the scapegoat. Basking sharks are kind of the... Can I say red herring? But that's not right. It's just a pun that I wanted to make. But it's not the right use of that word. Basking sharks are... When people find out--
Liz: [crosstalk, unintelligible]
Devon: Fucking basking sharks, man. It's like lupus. It's always lupus. It's always basking sharks. When people are like, "Dude, I found this really weird looking creature and it's dead and it's on the beach. And I'm positive nobody's ever seen it before." It is almost always a basking shark carcass. Have you seen a basking shark picture? I mean, they're weird looking alive.
Liz: Yeah. They're not... they're not all the way right, to me.
Devon: They're not all the way right, no. They've got the real big mouths, you know, and then their tiny little butts and they just come and they scoop up all of the stuff on the surface and you can see all their, like, ribby gill things when they open their mouth. I don't know. I'm gesturing with my hand in these wild arcs and you can't see that, but I know what I mean.
Liz: I'm picturing it. No, those sharks... Sharks with big mouths and whales with big mouths kind of distress me?
Devon: Yeah.
Liz: Because I know people are like, "Oh, they don't eat people, they eat plankton." But I think they would probably just go for it.
Devon: I think if you were in the way of the plankton, they're not going to strain you out, right?
Liz: Yeah!
Devon: It's not me picking around a tomato in a salad here.
Liz: Yeah. Did you ever see that video of, like, there's these predatory fish that are gathering these little prey fish into a ball and then there's these birds.
Devon: [gasps]
Liz: I showed you this, right?
Devon: [affirmative] Mmm-hmm!
Liz: They're picking at it from above and they got all the fish panicking in a big ball. And this big whale just comes up and eats, like, prey fish, predator fish, and the birds.
Devon: And the birds!
Liz: [gulping/scooping noise]
Devon: Outta nowhere! Just done. One and done, my friend.
Liz: The photographer made the ocean a little bit warmer just then, when he saw that.
Devon: I think he was reconsidering his profession after that. I know I would have. Jeez, Louise. Well, they're freaky looking alive. They're freaky looking dead.
Liz: And they rot weirdly, right?
Devon: They rot weirdly, yeah.
Liz: Because the cartilage hangs out.
Devon: Exactly.
Liz: And it makes it look like the original creature was a totally different shape than basking sharks actually are.
Devon: Yeah, indeed. I would not I mean... I wouldn't even have told you that was a fish--
Liz: Yeah.
Devon: --when I can see their carcasses. I also would have thought, "Oh, bizarre alien lizard things swimming around in the water and hanging out in Alaska and San Francisco and doing all kinds of shit."
Liz: "Sounds legit."
Devon: "I believe that for sure."
Liz: I mean, creatures that we know about that live in the ocean in that area definitely go from Alaska to California and beyond.
Devon: Oh, yeah, yeah. You have all kinds of whales doing that.
Liz: That part sounds reasonable.
Devon: I don't think that range is unreasonable at all. I did think it was funny that one of the places I was researching on was saying that it's, you know, postulated that they come up to, or they come down to the warmer waters of Vancouver. And I'm like, "Well, I guess compared to Alaska."
Liz: [skeptical sound]
Devon: But I have been in the ocean around here and I would not say it was warmer than anything.
Liz: Yeah, you could keep going and improve on that.
Devon: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Maybe hit up California, maybe hit up Baja. Maybe... I'm just going to keep going to the equator and hang out there.
Liz: Yeah!
Devon: Well, so we've got basking sharks, right?
Liz: Mmhmm.
Devon: Another, uh, 1943 sighting was really promising. It was these two police officers. They saw what looked like this huge undulating sea serpent with a horselike head in the Georgia Strait up there near the island. And it was doing that, you know, the thing that we were talking about is so weird with sea monster sightings where they kind of hop out of the water in these big humps and these cops were like, "Bam, dude, nailed it. We know what this is." They pulled out the binoculars and they saw it was a giant bull sea lion leading six other sea lions?
Liz: Haha!
Devon: And their movement and being in a line was what was creating what looked like humps.
Liz: Oh, okay.
Devon: And that undulating--
Liz: All jumping out of the water at different times.
Devon: Yeah. Isn't that weird?
Liz: Yeah, okay!
Devon: It's pretty cool. So sea lions have also been misidentified as sea creatures. Giant oarfish are also called the King of Herrings and they're another one like basking sharks--
Liz: I thought herrings were more of a Democratic people.
Devon: [laughing away from mic] I don't even know where to go. I can't make a pun or anything, I just love it.
Liz: I don't like oarfish, man. They freak me the hell out.
Devon: Tell me-- tell me why?
Liz: Because they, they… instead of being horizontal like a fish, they're vertical, like something that makes no sense.
Devon: Yup, just like something that makes no sense. Did you know the oarfish can be up to 17 meters long and the largest--
Liz: [firmly] Not on my watch.
Devon: [laughing] Oh, it can! It's like fifty something feet dude.
Liz: No, they may not.
Devon: They're found worldwide. You can't escape them.
Liz: They can't escape me, more like. Swim horizontally, like a real fucking fish! Get it together!
Devon: While we're at it, can we talk about halibut and how stupid it is that their eyes are on one side?
Liz: Is that what halibut do?!
Devon: Yeah, because they're this stupid flat fish and they swim like a pancake. It's just floating through the water with their eyes on one side.
Liz: Listen, when I got enough money to take a year off, I'm just going to have to take it a tour and set a lot of fish straight. "Listen, Mola Mola, stop looking like half a giant fish. Stop having freaky dead eyes."
Devon: [laughing]
Liz: "Hey, sunfish, get it together while you're at it."
Devon: "Yeah, you look like a Mola Mola"
Liz: "Don't care for that. Not one bit. Unacceptable. Shape up."
Devon: [laughing] Oh, my God....
Liz: "Salmon! Stop turning into zombies when you're trying to make more salmon."
Devon: Exactly. Aren't they so gross, dude? [laughs] Eels. That's enough out of you.
Liz: "Enough out of you, eels!"
Devon: "Tired of this!"
Liz: "Pipe down!"
Devon: Speaking of pipes, pipe fish are also sometimes pointed to as possible sea creature sightings, so...
Liz: Pipe fish... Okay, what are pipe fish?
Devon: They're long and thin and they've got really funny looking pipe-y snouts. It's like if you stretched out a seahorse I feel.
Liz: Oh a little trumpety nose?
Devon: A little trumpety nose.
Liz: Oh yeah, okay so speaking of: pike and muskelunge? Get your dental situation under control.
Devon: Can we talk about how gross pike are and how upset I am that they are in the world in freshwater where I expect to be able to step without being eaten by a fish?
Liz: Not allowed, not allowed.
Devon: Can we also disallow barracuda?
Liz: Mmhmm. They're really covered under this whole dental situation ruling. However, clown fish that live in anemones and, like, float around real cute? Keep it up.
Devon: Dude, you're just plugging Dory for your kiddo.
Liz: Yeah?
Devon: You're just trying to get free Dory shit from Disney for your child.
Liz: I want to go to the aquarium, because I want to see... No, it's cool. We went to Petco and I mean--
Devon: That's close.
Liz: Yeah. [laughs] Petco, the Spokane Aquarium!
Devon: [laughing]
Liz: It's just like Northwest Seed and Pet, the Spokane Zoo. When you want your kid to see sickly breeder farm puppies.
Devon: Oh, yeah. You want to know what parvo looks like up close? Boom! Handled. Oh, that's so sad, my friend.
Liz: Mm.
Devon: What's the name-- what's the name of that, it's an extinct--- I hope it's extinct... It was a shark or something, but it's got that lower jaw that goes in like a spiral and--
Liz: Helicoprion!
Devon: How did you do that?
Liz: I think about sharks a lot!
Devon: Yeah, you do. I was the one that wouldn't go in the Atlantic Ocean when I was with you because I was pretty sure that the sharks were going to eat me in about four inches of water. How do you know this and I don't?
Liz: Because I think about sharks a lot!
Devon: Uh huh.
Liz: Like, there was a point when I was swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and I was just having a grand old time. And then all of a sudden a bunch of little fish swam past me real fast in a panic. And I was like, "Oh, no. I'm getting out of here before..."
Devon: You got out real quick?
Liz: Yeah, I got out real quick. I didn't want to encounter whatever those fish were concerned about.
Devon: Probably a giant oarfish.
Liz: [unhappy grumble]
Devon: King of the herrings come to subjugate you.
Liz: [negating grumbles]
Devon: That's what it was.
Liz: So these are all the things that people think Cadborosaurus is, or they think are Cadborosauruses and they get confused, but like...
Devon: Yeah.
Liz: Tell me-- don't be a joy killer, man.
Devon: I won't be a joy killer
Liz: Tell me some Cadboro stories.
Devon: Yeah, I'll tell you some good stuff. You want to hear about some notable sightings?
Liz: You know I do.
Devon: Yeah, you do. I mentioned the Prince Rupert Sea Serpent, that one of the biologists was a killjoy for it. But I just loved this. I read an article that actually appeared in the Galveston Daily News in Texas. I don't know why I didn't find a Seattle newspaper about this, but the Galveston Daily News in Texas reported on the decomposed remains of a creature that washed up on Henry Island that, like I said, was called the Prince Rupert Sea Serpent. The locals had named it Jorda because there was the Jordan River nearby and the locals said it, quote, "Must be the daughter of--" I'm going to butcher this name, but I'm going to try it. "It must be the daughter of Hiaschuckalick Cadbriosaurus, the 80 foot serpent in these waters, and his mate Penda, who is a 60 foot monster, both who have been reportedly seen by hundreds of persons between 1932 and 1934."
Liz: They sound extremely familiar with these creatures. They know their names!
Devon: --I couldn't find--
Liz: And how long they are!
Devon: Yeah, I couldn't find any other information about [carefully] Hiaschuckalick and Penda but---
Liz: [confidently, in order to be a butt] Hiaschuckalick and Penda and Jorda!
Devon: And Jorda! But they felt like this creature that was washed up was their daughter Jorda.
Liz: [whispering] How'd they know it was a girl, Devon: ?
Devon: I don't know how they knew it was a girl! I don't know how they knew it was anything other than this bizarre blobby mess. The picture of it that I found looks... Oh, buddy. It looks an awful lot like that fake Ballard Sea Monster that you posted a while back.
Liz: Oh! The one that's just a piece of driftwood they put a face on?
Devon: Just a piece-- yeah, exactly. I mean, this isn't driftwood. It looks... It looks like a 20 foot submarine sandwich just laid out on a plank. There are these little kids in the photo and they're holding their nose because it stinks. There's a dog in the picture who I think wants a bite of the sandwich and its little, y'know, 1930 grainy photographed faces looks like this weird deflated hippo-y thing.
Liz: Oh, dear.
Devon: So poor little Jorda. Jorda was examined by Dr. Neil Carter, who was the director of the Dominion Fisheries Experimental Station, whatever that is? But--
Liz: Sounds cool.
Devon: It sounds like--
Liz: Sounds like fish experiments.
Devon: Badass job. He's probably attaching lasers to eels and stuff.
Liz: Good.
Devon: He described it as sinewy and serpentine and thought it had been dead for about two months. And he said, quote, "Seagulls had been feeding upon the flesh, and about all that was left was skin, sinew, hair and quills and a somewhat elevated backbone."
Liz: Hair?! Quills?!
Devon: Hair and quills.
Liz: Hair and quills!
Devon: You know, one thing that people find on a lot of sea monster carcasses-- I'm doing air quotes around 'sea monster'-- is that they look hairy. And I've seen that when whales decompose, that's what their baleen looks like it looks hairy.
Liz: Mmm.
Devon: And that when their skin starts to come across, the muscle tissues and fibers also look hairy. So that's what I assume he's looking at. One of the things that people think-- or, one of the reasons why people think giant oarfish could be being confused as sea monsters is because they almost have a mane around their head? They've got some red hairlike things.
Liz: Ohhh.
Devon: So if this was an oarfish, maybe that's the hair he's talking about? I don't see any hair in this photo, my friend. I see a floppy, long Subway sandwich.
Liz: Do they have any suspects in the murder of Jorda?
Devon: Well, yeah. I mean, Dr. Killjoy here said it was a basking shark...
Liz: But what killed the basking shark? That's the real question.
Devon: Yeah, right?
Liz: Or not.
Devon: Or not. Dr. Carter says it was a basking shark, but other sources say the newspaper, The Galveston Daily News said Dr. Carter said it was a basking shark. Other...
Liz: Swamp gas!
Devon: Swamp gas! Other sources have said that there was an interview in which he said it was an unidentified creature, that he thought that it was definitely not a fish, that it was of the Mammalia class.
Liz: Okay.
Devon: He thought it was a deep sea dweller and that he thought that there were four fins or flapper-like projections on the cartilaginous material off of the body.
Liz: Hmm.
Devon: There we go.
Liz: Okay.
Devon: That-- when it's described that way, it reminded me a lot of a... I think it's called a... I mean, this sounds stupid. I think it's called like a basileosaurus or something? It's a, an extinct dinosaur, an extinct sea dinosaur that kind of looked like a big angry pointy fish that had little flappers on it. Because he said that's where--
Liz: [starts to interrupt, stops] Oh, go ahead.
Devon: I was gonna say, he said that two of the flappers were about four feet from the head and the other were 20 feet lower. And that's how this dinosaur, um... I remember it looking-- Y'know, it didn't like have a neck like a plesiosaur.
Liz: Mmhmm.
Devon: It was just a whole bunch of teeth and then little flippery, uh... Little flippery guys right there.
Liz: Yeah. I think I'm picturing the thing you're talking about.
Devon: Yeah.
Liz: Well... here's the thing that's hard for me because I'm not a biologist, like my actual expertise in life is never coming in handy on the show at all, but--
Devon: We'll get there.
Liz: [laughing] "We'll get there," she says. [in spooky voice] "The Seeeecrets of Meeeeedicare!"
Devon: Ooooooh.
Liz: What-- you don't see a lot of mammals with cartilage frameworks. We tend to have the bones.
Devon: "Have the bones" is important, I thought. Yeah, I don't understand why he said that it was of the class Mammalia when he really still thought that it was-- I mean, like, lizards aren't of the Mammalia class. Right? I'm also not a biologist.
Liz: No, they're not mammals.
Devon: Yeah. I mean I knew that. I knew they weren't mammals, sorry. Um... Yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't know what he meant.
Liz: Is it possible that the category of scientists who's willing to come out and look at your rotting Subway sandwich is not maybe the guy that you wish was coming out to look at this in 1934?
Devon: I would buy that if you were selling it.
Liz: Mm hmm.
Devon: I would say...
Liz: Well, I'm going with what he's doing, though... especially with our new house? Anytime we see anything, we don't know what it is, Matt will be like, "Is that the knob and tube wiring?" I'll be like, "No, it's a basking shark."
Devon: It's a basking shark is exactly what it was.
Liz: "Is that the hot water shutoff?" "No, it's a basking shark."
Devon: It's a basking shark.
Liz: Are basking sharks real?
Devon: Basking sharks are so real.
Liz: Okay.
Devon: So real. Like for legit. I know it sounds really insincere right now, but they're so fucking real.
Liz: It'd be really funny if it went the opposite direction: that there's actually all these cryptids, but they just all happen to decompose in a way that causes scientists to believe that there are such creatures as basking sharks.
Devon: That'd be so fucking funny. That would make me so happy. Dude, that's hilarious. But no, we've seen we've seen real life basking sharks. They're the second largest, second largest, um, thing in the oceans. You got whale shark and then you got basking shark. So there you go.
Liz: Thing, or fish? Aren't, aren't--
Devon: Did I say--
Liz: Blue whales are bigger--
Devon: Blue whales are bigger than that. They're [basking sharks] the second largest *fish.*
Liz: Okay.
Devon: And they're-- They're cartilaginous fish, they're not bony fish because the largest bony fish is the oarfish, whom you hate.
Liz: I don't hate, I just need it to shape up.
Devon: [laughing]
Liz: I need it to straighten out its act and act right.
Devon: You don't get straighter than an oarfish, Liz, they're a line.
Liz: No, it's perpendicular. It's a perpen-dick-ular fish.
Devon: [through laughter] I fucking love you. Mmm! "I don't need any more of your latitude, fish!"
Liz: [cackles like a witch]
Devon: Mmm, so good. Little sass-burger!
Liz: Yeah!
Devon: Another... Another supposed Cadbriosaurus that you'll like, because people got real ornery about this one, my friend...
Liz: Yeah!
Devon: It was only three years later. It was in 1937, a whaling ship in Naden Harbor caught a sperm whale. And when they opened it up, they found what they called, quote, "a juvenile Caddy," quote, in its stomach. They said it was a, quote, "odd creature," like... No shit, right? "The odd creature the odd creature had a camel-like head fins and a ten foot body." That's why they thought it was just a juvenile Caddy, because it was only 10 feet long.
Liz: Okay.
Devon: And the dudes that found it, they took photographs and they had tissue samples taken.
Liz: Wow, good job!
Devon: Right? So they were, they were thinking about it. They sent it to the British Columbia Provincial Museum. And the director of that, Francis... someone or other... identified--
Liz: [as though familiar] Mmhmm, Francis.
Devon: [chuckles] Francis.
Liz: You know, Francis!
Devon: Director Francis... His last name is, mmm.... my notes say Kermode [pronounced ker-mode] or Kermode [pronounced ker-mode-ee]. K-E-R-M-O-D-E. I'm just gonna call him Francis.
Liz: Francis Commode.
Devon: Yeah. [starts to laugh] Old Frank Toilet identified this as a fetal baleen whale. He thought...
Liz: The Dr. Joy Killer title is a hotly contested honor.
Devon: [laughing] People were so mad at Francis, people were pissed at Frank over here.
Liz: Mmhmm.
Devon: They said the tissue samples that were sent to Nanaimo, which was a different agency they were sending tissue samples to, vanished. And the samples that were sent to Victoria, to Dr. Frank were wrongly identified by curator Francis Kermode as belonging to a fetal baleen whale and no one knows what happened to them after Kermode examined them. So the only tangible proof of the existence of heretofore previously legendary animals was lost forever.
Liz: Wow.
Devon: Pissed! Pissed that this guy was like "Um, not a Cadbriosaurus. This is probably, like, a dead little whale baby.
Liz: Wait, so it was a baleen whale-- it was a fetal baleen whale?
Devon: Yeah.
Liz: And they found it inside what?
Devon: Inside of a sperm whale.
Liz: How'd the sperm whale get a fetal baleen whale inside it?
Devon: Presumably the fetal baleen whale miscarried, is my thought. Or it died and it ate the baby out of it. I don't know.
Liz: [dubious] Mmmm...
Devon: We didn't, uh... I'm going to go with my miscarried thing and that it ate it.
Liz: I've chosen to believe in Cadborosaurus, even though I didn't know anything about it before this.
Devon: You just like it because it sounds like Cadbury. That's the only reason you're going to go with it, because you want to find one and then hope that it has that runny little egg yolk center.
Liz: Yeah, the old kind, before they started making them at Hershey's factories.
Devon: My favorite, favorite Caddy sighting was in 1991.
Liz: Wow, okay. Contemporary.
Devon: In 1991, Phyllis Harsh, who was a resident of Johns Island in the San Juan Islands, says she helped return a stranded baby dinosaur to the water.
Liz: [gasps] Who did you say this was?
Devon: Her name is Phyllis Harsh.
Liz: Phyllis!
Devon: Phyllis, my new friend.
Liz: Good job, Phyllis!
Devon: She said that he had become, become beached and she used a tree branch to lift him back into the sea where he was able to make his way back into deep water
Liz: Awww.
Devon: I love Phyllis, but for the record, she also says that she found a dinosaur skeleton beneath an eagle's nest and has also seen a full size Caddy in John's Island passage.
Liz: Phyllis is the woman on the spot. Phyllis knows what's up.
Devon: Phyllis is our boots on the ground.
Liz: Yeah!
Devon: Reporting on all the bizarre-ass dinosaur activity happening in the islands.
Liz: She's on it, dude.
Devon: So if there are Cadbriosauruses, I assume they are endangered. And if they're endangered, then we have Phyllis to thank for putting one back in the wild so that it continue to breed and eat whatever it is they eat. Probably Cadbury eggs.
Liz: [as though it is obvious] Fish and ships, Devon.
Devon: [laughs]
Liz: You told me this.
Devon: [still laughing]
Liz: I pay attention.
Devon: I'm hoisted on my own petard!
[both laughing]
Devon: What good recall. I don't think we can wrap up an episode any better than that.
Liz: [laughs] Let's not try.
Devon: I don't think we can. You've been listening to Ouija Broads. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at the Ouija Broads. We would love it if you would follow us on iTunes and review and subscribe there. [pauses] I don't remember what else we say at the end of this, but Liz will chime in here in a moment and correct me.
Liz: Mm-hm. Mm-hmm
Devon: [waits]
Liz: Oh! We say "live weird."
Devon: Live weird--
Liz: Die weird--
Liz: Stay weird. Thank you for listening.
Devon: I knew you were going to say thank you. I told you!
Liz: That's what I do!
Devon: That's what you do.
[theme music fades in, plays to end]