Metal Man of Falkville and The Bunyip
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Welcome to Theories of the Third Kind. Welcome to Theories of the Third Kind. My name is Aaron. The other host joining me is Daniel Sun. Hello. Now, before we start today's episode, we do have a quick announcement to make.

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And that is the end of the announcements. So for today's episode, we were going to pick one cryptid to cover.

Instead, we decided to each select our own cryptid, do the independent research, and then come to the table, sort of like a Theories Thursday, and present our cryptid that we have chosen. That's right. And just like a Theories Thursday, this episode is going to have the difficult part of deciding who goes first. So I will ask you, Dan, odds or evens? I'm going to go with evens.

Evens. All right. Let's get out the 20-sided dice. First roll. Best two out of three. Fifteen. Okay. One me. Zero you. Next roll. Eleven. Six. Six. One, one. All right. Final roll. Final roll. Seven. That's you. That's me. So that means I go first and you go second. That's correct. All right. So the cryptid that I picked this week is called the Metal Man of Falkville.

Metal Man? Metal Man. Not really a cryptid, more like a siding, but some consider him a cryptid. Okay, okay. Yeah. Now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. All right, welcome back. So this entire encounter that I'm going to talk about today took place in the year of 1973 in a town called Falkville. Now, this town is located in the northern part of Alabama.

It is fairly small, having a total area of only 3.8 square miles. Now, do you want to take a guess at how many people lived in this town back in 1970? 3.8 square miles back in 1970. I'm going to say...

170. No, 946. Okay, more than I thought. Yeah. Damn. So this town was so small that they only had one police officer. Of course, this one police officer was also given the title of the chief of police pretty much by default. Yeah. So now that you are aware of the town, let's talk about the individual that this story revolves around. Jeff Greenhall.

Now, Jeff Greenhaw growing up was an average kid. He grew up in northern Alabama and graduated in 1968 at a nearby high school. Two years after graduation, he would end up getting married. Then in January of 1973, Jeff was hired as the one and only police officer of Falkville, Alabama.

And his starting salary was $6,000 annually, which that's equivalent to around $44,000 in 2024. That's like an entry-level job. Oh, yeah. Now, real quick, I wanted to clear something up. If you look into this story, almost everyone will report that Jeff was 26 years old. I'm talking every single report, every YouTube video, everything. But that's not true.

That is false. He was not 26 years old. In January of 1973, Jeff was 23 years old when he was hired. Ten months later, when the incident took place, he was 24 years old. How do I know this? I was scouring through old newspapers of the area and came across a newspaper article from May 12, 1968, and it shows a photograph of a local high school's graduating class.

In that graduating class photo is Jeff Greenhalgh. And it's him. There's a photograph of him and it looks exactly like him. So if he graduated high school in 1968, that would make him 23 years old in January of 1973. And then, of course, when the incident took place in October that year, he would be 24. And I do have a photograph of that newspaper article and I'll provide it on our website, theoriesofthethirdkind.com for everyone to go take a look at and verify for themselves. Okay.

And just another little side note, I wondered why so many articles and people stated that he was 26 when he wasn't. And it all stems back from a newspaper article that was published on November 16th, 1973 in the Decatur Daily. They incorrectly stated his age is 26 years old. And when you look this encounter up, that specific newspaper article pops up on the page one of the Google search results and everyone uses it as a reference.

But it's wrong. It's completely wrong. You're that Decatur newspaper. You're wrong. Yeah. All right. Just figured I just point that out, you know? All right. So let's get back to the story. So it's 1973. Jeff Greenhall was the one and only police officer in that small town in Alabama for the first 10 months as a police officer, everything seemed normal in the town. However, that would all change.

On Wednesday, October 17th, 1973, at around 10 p.m., Jeff was in his bed, cuddling up to his wife, you know, just relaxing, sleeping, when all of a sudden, their telephone rings. Jeff is like, who the hell is calling? It's 10 o'clock at night. It must be an emergency.

People in the town had his home telephone number in case of emergencies. So throughout the night, they could call him for whatever. I'm off the clock, bitch.

So Jeff picks up the phone and on the other end of the line is a woman. Now this woman is hysterical and the unknown woman tells Jeff that a spaceship had just landed in a pasture near her house, which was just located outside of town. This spaceship had blinking lights on it and it had been there before.

The lady then told Jeff of the location where he could find this pasture at and then hung up the phone, not saying who she was or anything else. Of course, Jeff got dressed, hopped in his patrol car and headed towards that location. Now, something worth noting here is that Jeff had been keeping a camera in his patrol car with him.

Now, this was due to the amount of UFO reports in the surrounding areas. There was a lot. So like I had previously stated, Jeff got dressed, hopped into his patrol car, and headed towards the location where the lady on the phone had stated the spaceship had landed. Jeff arrived to the area, parked his patrol car, got out, and began looking around the pasture. However, he did not see anything.

So he decides to jump back into his patrol car. And before he goes home, he thinks to himself, you know what? I should probably drive around the perimeter of the pasture. That way I know for sure that I didn't miss anything. So as he's driving down the dark dirt road, which is pretty much the perimeter of the pasture,

something strange appears about 75 feet in front of him, standing in the middle of the road. And it was in the shape of a humanoid figure. So Jeff stopped his patrol car, got out of it, stood next to his patrol car, staring at this humanoid creature in the road, trying to figure out what the hell he was looking at. Jeff shouted out loud, Howdy, stranger!

But the strange figure didn't respond. It just stood there staring at him. After a few seconds, this humanoid figure began walking towards Jeff and started to become more illuminated from his vehicle's lights. As the strange being got within 50 feet of Jeff, he realized something was very wrong. The humanoid figure was about the size of a man that was standing around 5'6".

and appeared to be wearing some kind of silvery metallic suit that resembled thick aluminum foil. This entity was really bright, like rubbing mercury on a nickel, but just as smooth as glass, is what Jeff stated. Jeff also stated that this creature had no facial features,

Its shoulders were round. Its head and neck looked like they were pretty much made as one. And it had an antenna-looking object sticking out the top of its head. At this point, Jeff was, and I quote, scared stiff, which wrong choice of words, I would say, if you're scared stiff. But, uh, okay.

However, even though he was scared stiff, Jeff decided to grab his camera that he had with him, pointed it at the being, and began taking photos. The humanoid figure just stood there as Jeff took five photographs. After that, the creature continued walking till it was around 15 feet from Jeff.

And this is when Jeff was like, look, I got really scared. So he decided to reach back into his patrol car and flip on the switch for his blue flashing lights. Now, as soon as those lights turned on, the humanoid figure took off running down the road. Jeff is quoted saying, I jumped in my patrol car and took off after him, but I couldn't even catch up with him in my patrol car.

He was running in a very odd manner from side to side and his arms were down to his sides and it looked like he had springs under his feet propelling him. He could take 10 feet more or less at one step. He was running faster than any human I had ever seen, end quote. So during the pursuit, as Jeff was trying to drive him down, he ended up losing control of his patrol vehicle and slid into the ditch.

at which point he watched as the creature slipped away into the darkness. Jeff got out of his patrol car, pulled his spotlight out, and turned the beam on the pasture, the fields, and the wooded area nearby. But he didn't see anything. There was nothing there. He ended up leaving the area and going to his police station, where he began looking over the Polaroids that he had taken. So he had taken five Polaroid photographs.

The first one showed absolutely nothing but an inky darkness and like a flash of silver. The next four photographs were money shots. Now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

Crime Door TV is now a podcast. I'm your host, Sydney Schofield. Join us as we dive deeper into the world of true crime and go one-on-one with legal analysts. There is a presumption of innocence. There really does have to be some factual evidence. Your exclusive interviews with families of victims. When my daughter was kidnapped and we found out the truth, I couldn't imagine that anybody could feel as awful as I felt.

and get an inside perspective from the experts closest to the cases. I really appreciate platforms like this that are there for the victims and to give them a voice. Listen now to the Crime Door TV podcast, your home for true crime analysis. All right, welcome back. In these photos, you can clearly see a human-like figure with a wrinkly, metallic-looking suit, which is reflecting the flash from the Polaroid bulb.

Now I do have all four Polaroids and it's a photograph of all four of them together. And then I have another photograph of two of the Polaroids. And then I have a separate one of each of them pretty much enhanced with today's technology. And we'll provide all of those photographs on our website, theoriesofthe3rdkind.com under today's episode for everyone to take a look at. Just scroll down. And the first one is all four Polaroids together, which you can't really make it out that well.

The further you scroll down, the better quality the Polaroids become. But you can clearly see that it's some humanoid creature in some type of suit that is shiny. All right. So at this point, it was around 1130 p.m., and Jeff had just finished looking over the Polaroids. He decided to call his local news station and tell them what had happened. The following day, on Thursday, October 18th, 1973,

The Decatur Daily published an article, and on the front page of the newspaper, it was titled, Spaceman? And this article talked about everything Jeff had encountered the night before, along with the Polaroids. The news of Jeff's encounter ended up going viral in the small town, and that night on October 18th at around 11 p.m., someone ended up calling Jeff's home and waking his wife up.

His wife answers the phone and the individual on the other line says, and we quote, I am the monster. I am mad at your husband for taking my picture. Because of that, I'm going to get him. Jeff's wife hangs up the phone, goes to her husband, tells him about it, and he pretty much laughs it off. The following day, on Friday, October 19th, the Decatur Daily publishes another article along with an interview with Jeff.

In this interview, Jeff stated that since the incident, everyone in the town had been asking him about it and asking if he had seen any more monsters.

Now, right after this article was published that Friday morning, Jeff and his wife began receiving a large amount of harassment, including threatening phone calls and even hate letters accusing him of being a mental case, idiot, crackpot, a faker, and even accusing him of being the devil. Then, two days later, on October 21st, the engine to Jeff's car randomly blows up.

Three days after that, on October 24th, the harassment just continues. Jeff's wife is pretty much fed up, leaves the house, and tells Jeff that she is filing for divorce. Five days later, on October 29th, the divorce is granted, and Jeff is officially single.

Then on November 9th, as Jeff is away at a local football game, his trailer home ends up randomly catching fire and burns completely down. I do have a photograph of Jeff standing next to his trailer home that's burned down, which that sucks. And it just continues because five days after his home burns down on November 14th,

Jeff goes to get in his vehicle, notices an odd note that had been placed on the windshield of his car. This note says, and we quote, look for this, obituaries, Jeffrey Greenhall died, Mr. X. So pretty much it was a note from an individual named Mr. X saying that Jeff would be dying soon and he would be in the obituaries of the local newspaper. And that was placed on his windshield.

These bad things happening just continued because the following day on November 15th, the town council called in Jeff to discuss what was going on. During the discussion, the local mayor, J. Wade Tomlinson, ended up forcing Jeff to resign from his position.

The town council and mayor were both asked about this, and they were quoted saying, Jeff's resignation had nothing to do with the series of incidences that Jeff was involved in or with the pictures taken of the creature, end quote.

So after that news pretty much hit the town, Jeff was interviewed by the local news station. And on November 16th, which was the following day, an article was published about it. In this article, Jeff was quoted saying, I'll just have to go wherever I can to find another job. I had planned to stay here in Falkville in spite of all the problems I've been having. But now it doesn't look like I can.

I hope to stay in law enforcement and will go to police school. If I can't find a police job, then I will get so much education that somebody will have to hire me, end quote. Which that tells me, in there he said, I hope to stay in law enforcement and will go to police school. So you're telling me that he had no police training, he didn't go through the police academy or nothing, they just hired him straight off the streets? That's what it seems like.

Oh man. So I do have a photograph of Jeff holding up the Polaroid along with him in his police suit. And for individuals that want to, they can cross-reference this image with his graduating high school class image and you'll see it's the same person. All right. So following that article in November, many people just assumed that the entire thing was a hoax and that the creature was just someone in a fire suit. That was the common belief.

However, MUFON and APRO stated that they had investigated this claim and that his photographs were valid. They were quoted saying, Word leaked out that NASA's fire department had these impressive silvery uniforms with boots and helmets, just like those in the photographs of the creature. A friend of mine visited the firehouse.

and wanted to see these new suits and was shown something old and runky. So that's pretty much what they used to invalidate the claims that they weren't NASA suits. So on September 5th, 1974, a staff writer for the Birmingham News named Mr. Frank Sikora ended up publishing an article with the headline of A Good Chance Falkville Space Creature? Only a Hoax!

In this article, Frank, who is the staff writer, states that he dressed in a NASA Air Force firefighting uniform and added tinfoil to it. He then took a photograph of himself wearing the uniform and placed it in the article alongside the Polaroid that Jeff took. And I do have that photograph right there. And it does look a little similar. It does look like he has aluminum foil wrapped around it, but.

That has to be some high quality aluminum foil because usually if you have it on there, you wrap it around stuff, it starts ripping. So if it was wrapped in aluminum foil, I figured there might be some aluminum foil on the ground or something from him running. If he was doing those hops that he was saying. Oh, no, no, no. So the aluminum foil that I'm talking about is saying that the Air Force firefighting uniform, that uniform to the right is what the staff writer, Frank, put on. And then he wrapped tin foil around it.

Frank is on the right. The Polaroid that was taken is on the left. Yeah, that's how he stated how it's all reflective is because he wrapped it in tinfoil. So that article ended up getting published and this only added to people believing that this entire thing was a hoax. And to this day, you have people who believe that it's fake, that it was some kids in a NASA uniform.

Or the police officer, Jeff, faked it himself for attention. Or you have people that believe that Jeff had seen a real spaceman that day. And that right there is the story of the metal man of Falkville. I liked it. And it reminded me of the Silverman of Risley. Of that picture of the little girl and has the spaceman behind her. Suit kind of looks the same. It does look similar.

And what year was that one? 1963. That was like 11 years before the metal man of Falkville. If you are a loved one, know that the metal man of Falkville is real. Or if you yourself are the metal man of Falkville, please send us an email to Aaron, A-A-R-O-N or Dan, D-A-N at theoriesofthe3rdkind.com. And we would love to hear from you.

It almost reminds me of like a bee suit. Yeah, I have a theory. Tell me, what do you think it is? I don't even think this happened. You think Jeff made it all up? I think he made it all up and created this elaborate story with these elaborate Polaroids because he got a call and it was his mistress. Late at night, he goes over there.

creates this fake story as a cover-up. His wife ends up finding out, which is why she really divorced him. And then to contain the bad publicity, the mayor and the city council forces him to resign. It's weird. Why would his wife automatically divorce him like a week or two later? And then why would the city council and mayor force him to resign?

I don't know, I figure a small town, everybody knows everybody. So she's probably going to the town and people are just like, oh, there she is. She married Jeff, that f***ing crazy man. Jeff did say that everyone was coming up to him and being like, hey, you see any more monsters? She probably was having the same thing. Like, did your husband see any more monsters? You gonna tell us about it? Was he silver? Was he f***ing flying this time? I could easily recreate that Polaroid. But back in 74, I don't know if I could. Yeah, back in 74, I don't know. But...

The original photo looks very reflective. The helmet is wider. Well, they might have tucked it in on the Polaroid. That's what I'm thinking because you can kind of see where it connects into the suit on the left side one. Yeah, and the gloves, you can clearly see they don't connect. They're just over. Yeah. But regardless, there you go. That's the Metal Man of Falkville. I hope you enjoyed it. I passed the microphone over to you, Dan, to tell us of your cryptid.

I like these not 100% officially cryptid, but like mysterious entities or whatever that show up. Yeah, kind of like the Sandown Clown. Sandown Clown, the Silverman and Rizli, the Metalman, then...

What was the one that we did not too long ago? I can't remember now. Oh, the television man. Oh, the TV man. Yeah. Yeah. It was in Virginia, right? Yep. Yeah. All right. Thank you for that one. I did like that. You're welcome. So what is your cryptid, Daniel?

So I originally picked one that I thought was hilarious. But then the more I read into it, it started to seem that it was created by somebody as a joke. And it just kind of like picked up steam. And I think they made like a game about it and all that. But I'm just like, all right, so there's no real proof that this thing is real. It was just like made up. So I was just like, can't go with that one. Which that one was the Skun Ghillie Man.

That's a weird name. It's a very weird name, but it was kind of funny when I read it and everything. So the one I decided to go with is the Bunyip. Now, before we get into that, we're going to take a quick break. This is our last one. So don't go nowhere. All right. Welcome back, which is the Australian cryptid, which is very interesting. So the Bunyip, also known as the Kian Prati, it's a mythical creature from Australia. It's from the Aborigine folklore.

and they inhabit swamps, billabong, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. The name of this creature is translated from the Aborigine words for devil, evil spirit, or pretty much some other ominous nickname. Now, it is described as having a round head, an elongated neck, a body resembling that of an ox, hippopotamus, or a manatee.

So they are a massive, a size of 10 to 15 feet long. They have spotted some that were about five or four to five feet. So I'm guessing those would be the probably like babies. Okay.

Are they humanoid or are they like horses? That's where it gets kind of confusing because it seems like the description of them for each encounter, there's a few that are the same, but the description always changes. So I believe this bunyip is like a shapeshifter depending on where it's at. So they shift into different things? They shift into different things, taking parts from different animals, reptiles, and everything into one.

Because they even said, like, it could be reptilian in nature. They'll have bird-like characteristics. There's, like, a long beak. Head like an emu. So, like, a bird. Legs like those of an alligator with long talons. So, it's like this thing is taking... It's like seeing all these other creatures and taking parts from it. So, it's very odd. And like I said, it has to be, like, a shapeshifter of some sort because...

There are accounts of it looking humanoid as well, which there is a folk tale that I found that the bunyip does shapeshift. Okay. But no matter the appearance, though, they were always described as being very aggressive and territorial.

They would eat whatever they could, which would usually be humans, like children or women, some livestock, that got close to the water's edge when it was dark. So they would chill in the water? They would chill in the water. Okay. Now, the aboriginal people saw the bunyips as not just menacing and dangerous creatures, but they also saw them as ancient protectors of their waterways. Except, though, if you got too close at night, you were at dinner.

Now, the description of the bunyip sounds weird, but they even talk about how it reproduces. That is not talking about how it fornicates, but how it gives birth. Okay. All right. They said that this bunyip would lay white turtle-like eggs in what they said looked like a platypus nest. They would attack anybody that would get near their nest, and you could tell when they were around because you would hear a bull-like roar.

And some of the aboriginal people would describe it as almost hearing like a sonic boom, even though I don't think they know what a sonic boom is. But they said that pretty much whenever you heard it, it was super loud and it caused fear and made you pretty much want to get the hell out of the area. Now, I do have two images of examples of what people have drawn of this bunyip. Okay, because I got to put a...

an image to this creature because as of right now i have no idea what it looks like what the hell well that top image of him eating somebody looks just like a like a big panther some of the images are like that and when i first saw it it looked like a big saber-toothed tiger yeah and some of them then you got the one on the right which that one has been seen multiple times as well

The one with the hair that looks like a horse with a lot of hair. Yep, they say it was like a jet black hair with like a dog-like face. Hmm, okay. You got that one. Then some of them say the bunyips usually have tusks. Like I said, the description of it changes depending on like the region that they're found in and all that. So it's like they adapt to the area.

Reading that, I'm just like, alright, I'm hooked. I want to know more about this bunyip. So I was just like, alright, what was the first documented mention of the bunyip? The earliest documented evidence of a bunyip was a set of enormous bones belonging to a mysterious creature found by the famous explorer Hamilton Humes in 1818. Now, Hamilton didn't name the bones as it belonging to the bunyip. Instead, he believed that they actually might have come from a hippopotamus or maybe a manatee. However...

Some scholars who had got wind of this discovery couldn't help but believe that the bones, especially in the area that he found them in, had to be what the aboriginal people described as the bunion. So the scholars that belonged to the Philosophical Society of Australasia offered Hamilton a deal. They were like, hey, we want to study these bones. We want to put it in our museum type thing. How about this?

You go back, you travel your ass back all the way to that area, collect those bones for us, and bring them back to us. What does he get out of it? He was going to get paid. Oh. But you know what he said? No. No. Good for him. He didn't want to go back there. So they never got those bones, so they were never able to figure out what it truly was.

Then in 1830, another set of bones were discovered in Wellington Cave. The anatomist Sir Richard Owen identified these bones belonging to a giant extinct marsupial species. At the same time, the surrounding local tribes told stories about a giant creature that lived in the nearby waterways that would attack women and children at night when they got too close to the water's edge. So they believe that what these bones that were discovered in Wellington Cave, the local tribes,

believed that they found the bones of a bunyip. Yet, Sir Richard Owen believed that it was just like an extinct marsupial. Then in 1845, the Geelong Advertiser, which was a newspaper, had talked about the discovery of a fossil found near the Geelong River. Immediately after finding these, the aboriginal people identified them as belonging to the previous unknown species that they called the bunyip.

So anytime people were finding fossils, they're just like, that's it. That's the bunion. That motherfucker ate my wife. So it was after this article that a spree of like monster sightings all across Australia started happening. But then in 1847, another bizarre skull was found and was claimed as a bunion skull. But unfortunately, experts identified the skull as belonging to a deformed fetal calf.

Still, it was accepted into the Australian Museum in Sydney as being the skull of a bunyip. Oh, God. Then unfortunately, someone just said, you know what? I want that fetal calf skull. So they stole it and they never got it back. Oh, wow. So that fake bunyip skull that they had is gone. And those were like pretty much all the documented mentions of the bunyip, of them finding fossils or bones and all that. And I'm just like, all right.

That's cool, but are there actual any sightings? Like, written sightings of it? Not just finding fossils and shit like that. And folktales. And folktales. The first one was actually in 1847. There was a young herdsman who saw a long-necked bunyip grazing while he was looking for some cows in a flooded area. The herdsman...

described it as being as large as a small calf having a thick mane of hair from the head down to its neck with two large tusks as well. So that right image, think of the hair going from top of its head to back of its neck, and it had two tusks. That was the first mention of a sighting. The second one was in 1851. The newspaper called the Australasian published a report about a bunyip that had been killed by a spear after killing an aboriginal man.

The report said that the bunyip measured 11 paces long and 4 paces wide. After this incident, the aboriginal would make it a tradition of going back and visiting the spot where the bunyip was killed. And for years, they would go back and retrace the outline of where the bunyip died. And they said they did this for many years until pretty much the outline kind of disappeared.

And then they stopped. Like, damn it, we didn't do it last month, and now we don't know how big it is. Exactly. Story of our life. Was it 11 paces or 10? It was 12 inches. It was centimeters. And that happened around Fiery Creek near Ararat, Victoria, which, like I said, the outline of it's been lost. Then in 1852, an escaped convict, William Buckley,

gave an account of the many bunyips that he saw when he was living with the aboriginal people. He stated that he saw the back of a very large creature that was dusky gray in color and covered in what looked like feathers and was the size of a full-grown calf. The sighting of this took place near a lake, and according to Buckley, the creature is common at this lake but also near the Barwon River.

He also cites hearing a story from an aboriginal woman being killed by a bunyip. So, of course, he was hearing stories. Now, as soon as he said his citing that he saw something, the aboriginal people were just like, oh, yeah, that killed a woman not too long ago. Not us. We didn't do it. The bunyip did it. The bunyip did it. And then the Galong Advertiser had written another article that recounted a story about an aboriginal woman who was killed by a bunyip and a man named Mambawan.

who was with the woman, had several deep wounds across his chest. He claimed it was the bunyip that had given those wounds to him by its giant's claws. So that was the, what, first, second incident of it actually attacking a man? Then in 1872, there were three men who claimed they watched a dog-faced bunyip swimming in New South Wales for about half an hour with one of the men saying that it had pure jet black hair.

Then in 1886, some horsemen who were fording around a river near Canberra reported seeing another dog-faced bunyip, which was only the size of a dog, but with a coat of white fur, not the usual jet black fur. Then in 1847, went back some, a bunyip was seen sunbathing by a river in Melbourne, and supposedly a crowd of witnesses were there gathering to see it.

But this thing actually was like out in the open. Everyone was like watching like, oh, that's a bunion. All right. Nobody took any photograph. Nobody took any photographs. And it only rushed back into the water and disappeared when three fishermen sped up to the bank on their boat trying to capture it. I'd be afraid to capture it. They weren't. Makes me start to think it might be a seal. But anyways, a seal? Yeah, I was thinking a hippo.

Then in 1890, a bunyip with white fur was supposedly shot in New South Wales, but after it was shot, it retreated into the lagoon, was never found. Now, those were all the way back in the 1800s. I'm just like, is there anything recent, though? Yeah, is there any modern encounters? There was one in 2018 that I found. Ooh, I like that. So he wrote a long post describing his encounter with this bunyip. Okay. So he goes on to say,

It was a couple years ago when I went on a little adventure camping trip with my girlfriend. We traveled down to Colindo National Park at the Shoalhaven area, about a three-hour drive south of Sydney. We were camping along the river during a long weekend with a two-person kayak. It was the second morning of the trip, just before dusk, and we were camping near the main river. About a 15-minute walk inland from our campsite, there was a billabong.

which is similar to a pond but much more overgrown with a pretty deep and quick moving stream feeding into it. I was finishing taking care of some business when I heard a thick splash in the water. Was he taking a shit? He was taking a shit. Okay. Immediately, I spun around and looked in the water. I used my iPhone light to look into the pond and I shit you not, I saw a horse crocodile head in the water with two horse-sized eyes floating on top of the water looking at me.

In this part of Australia, there is no way in hell there could be crocs in this area. For a minute or two, I was in a state of awe and fear just staring at this thing. I could see whatever this thing was slowly floating towards my general direction. This animal or whatever it was had a relatively strong thick tail floating on top of the water about a meter behind where its head was, but it did not look reptilian. I turned around and ran back to our tent as fast as I could.

I told my girlfriend to quickly pack up everything, jump back into the canoe or the kayak and continue down the river. Never saw the thing again. Naturally, I looked up on the net whatever information I could find about this thing. I was never into cryptids, but the only explanation that could explain it was that it was a bloody bunyip. It was either that or a crop, but it was far too south for it. Never been back there. Never will. Most terrifying experience in my life. Hmm. Okay. Odd. You know,

The second time I read that, have you ever heard of a Kelpie? No. So the way they describe it, a Kelpie is a dangerous shape-shifting water creature that can appear on land as a horse. From what I remember, like it has like a horse neck and head and the body is more aquatic, like fins and tail and all that. That's what I remember what a Kelpie looks like from all the shit I read. And the way he was describing it kind of reminded me of that. Yeah. But they don't have Kelpies in...

like Australian Lord. So that's more of a Scottish thing. Lockness swimming around. Yeah. So that was the story of his account of the bunyip in, uh, South of Sydney. And of course, like I said, there are no actual photos or videos of a bunyip. That's what I was about to ask. Yep. Only thing that was ever found were the fossils, but yet those are all missing. Okay. Now I did find a bunch of folk tales told by Aboriginal people. All right. Now,

There's a ton of them, but I'm only going to read this one because this one right here is very interesting to me. So this is the tale of the Bunyip and Tayagam. Tayagam? T-I-A dash G-A-M. Okay. Tayagam. Tayagam. Yeah. I'm going to call him Taya. Okay. Now this is how the story goes. Taya was a child who loved to tease and play tricks on people. He would hide people's belongings so that they would spend time looking for them.

He would trip the other children as they ran past him. He would do anything that distressed the other members of his tribe. And when his tricks caused a ruckus, he would laugh and laugh to himself. And he would congratulate himself for being so smart. The people of Taya's tribe were always upset with him. He was often scolded, but he was never punished. Despite the mischief he caused, Taya was loved by the entire tribe. So Taya continued playing tricks, knowing that he would not be punished.

He thought he could do whatever he wanted. Now, Taya often wandered away from the women who were supposed to be looking after him. He liked to explore the forest and land around his home. One day, he went deep into the rainforest. He went so deep into the forest that he found himself in a place that was considered forbidden to go. Now, the evil spirit Bunyip lived in this rainforest. Bunyip could appear in many different forms. This day, he appeared to be a hunter.

and Tia assumed that the Bunyip was a hunter from his tribe. At first, the Bunyip did not see Tia. The Bunyip was looking up towards the tops of the tall trees in the rainforest. Sunlight was starting to leak through the branches and the Bunyip was not happy about it. He did not want the sunlight in his rainforest. Finally, the Bunyip spotted Tia and asked him to climb the trees and move the branches so that the sunlight would not beam into the forest.

Now Tia, being a child, was happy to oblige as he thought that the hunter knew how clever he was and knew that he was such a great climber, so he wanted to show off. So once Tia had climbed the tree and moved the branches, the bunyip saw what a good climber he was and decided right then and there he was going to keep Tia in his forest so that he could climb the trees and keep the sunlight out of his rainforest anytime he asked.

So the bunyip casted a spell on Tia, and Tia became a slave, never able to leave the forest. And to this day, Tia is in the rainforest. The bunyip will never let him go. Now he spends his time going from tree to tree looking for a way back to his tribe. That's Mowgli. That is Mowgli, ain't it? Off the Jungle Book. So yeah, so Tia still likes to play tricks, though. Animals and hunters alike, if they travel into this part of the rainforest, he trips them. So animal or human...

He's going to trip your ass. What a dick. Yeah. So that's the story of Tia and the bunion. All right. Sounds like one of those tales that the people tell their children to keep them away from certain things. And this one was to keep the children from wandering off into the forest by themselves. Yep. That's what I was thinking exactly when I read that. But supposedly there are other tales of it, like other things that they shouldn't do. But this is from the book called

Aboriginal Dreamtime Stories by Ujuro Nunukul. Okay. Dreamtime Stories. Yeah. There you go, kids. Have you a nice dream about getting stuck in the forest? Becoming a slave to climb trees and block the sunlight out. All right. Well, yeah. So that's pretty much what I have for the story and the tale, the folktale of it. Then, of course, there's theories.

which you nailed one of them. I think it was a tale just to scare kids from going too far or going too close to the water's edge when they're not supposed to. So a lot of people thought it was a seal, but seals don't have big tusks like that. I mean, you have the walrus, but they're in colder conditions. Australia, I think they'd be freaking melting, considering how hot it is. So if you did want to see a walrus in Australia, they have one at the Ocean Park Experience.

Yeah, walruses live in the northern hemisphere. There are two subspecies of walrus, each different geographic distribution. Atlantic walruses live in the Atlantic Ocean from Canada to Greenland. Pacific walruses live in the Pacific Ocean above Russia and Alaska. Okay. Yeah, so they like colder areas. Mm-hmm. So it wouldn't be a walrus, maybe a hippo? Maybe a hippo. I'm trying to think what else has tusks other than like an elephant, but they said it was no bigger than a full-grown calf. What about a hog?

Like a pig? Uh-huh. They have hair. They do have the hair from the top of their head to the back of their neck. They got tusks. They got tusks. They bathe in the water. They bathe in the water. They do screech very loud. They do. They screech very, very loud. See, but I feel like those would be more aggressive towards, like, if you got near it. Yeah. They would get, I mean, they're aggressive towards anything. If you come to the water while they're bathing, they will friggin' come out and attack and kill you. I mean, it could be a hog.

A warthog or a hog. One of those two. I'd probably say a warthog. That's what I'm going with. The other one was that it was just a made-up story by, like, adventurers that went exploring and then just, like, nothing really exciting happened. So there's, like, oh, we saw this creature. The aboriginal people told us this story that they go around killing women and children. But I don't know. The more you say the way they described it, sometimes they have a shape of dog's face. But, I mean, when they're smaller...

Only thing though is the ones that mostly were seen were like four to five feet. They can get that big. Yeah. So there's, I don't know about the 10 to 15. Yeah. That seems like a little bit of a stretch. That might've been a hippo. That might've been a hippo. Anyway, if you are a loved one, live in Australia and you've seen a bunyip, send us an email. We'd like to hear from you. I know we got some Australian listeners. And I know you're going to say that I pronounced names wrong. And I know I did. So I apologize.

All right. Well, you have anything else you want to add to your cryptid today, Dan? Oh, supposedly they did find some cave paintings, I think, of what they think is a bunyip, but I think it's just like a deformed animal. Yeah. Some of those cave paintings are like, hmm, that's like child finger art. Pretty much. Yeah. But they're just like, oh, we think we might've found an actual painting of a bunyip. And it's like this deformed calf. All right. Well, thank you for that, Dan.

And with that being said, that is the end of today's episode. Yep. I hope everyone enjoyed it. And if for some reason you can't get enough of us and you want to hear more cryptids on today's Patreon episode, we did the exact same thing. We selected a cryptid and talked about it. That's right. So sign up. It's only five bucks a month and you get access to 199 episodes. Dude, our next Patreon? 200. Yeah. We're going to throw a party.

All right. Well, I want to thank you for joining us today. And again, thank you for your support. You are all amazing. Every single one of you. So with that being said, Dan, do you want to roll us out? Sure will. It's okay to be out of this world with your thoughts. Because you are not alone. Boom.