The Cryptid Iceberg Reborn
The Cryptid Iceberg Reborn
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00:00 would work for the series and how I said it was going to be about the same size
00:03 well I had one of my moments and decided to just keep adding more and more stuff
00:09 and then the iceberg that was previously like 80 to 100 terms now looks like this
00:16 so I don't think we're finishing this in December at least not this December I
00:21 have compiled an iceberg of 350 different cryptids now I don't think I
00:27 got every cryptid in the world but I do think I at least got nearly every type
00:34 of cryptid in the world for example nearly every culture has some kind of
00:38 werewolf figure or some kind of Bigfoot figure so maybe I didn't get every
00:42 specific one but I got all the big ones so hopefully this massive list can
00:47 satisfy whatever I'm trying to prove to myself a link to the iceberg image will
00:52 be in the description and when I posted this on Twitter some people were
00:56 confused as to why it seemed that some things near the bottom of the iceberg
01:00 were more well known than stuff around the middle and the reason for that is I
01:05 didn't entirely structure this iceberg off of known to unknown because then
01:11 like the bottom three tiers would be just a bunch of really obscure dog
01:15 looking things that were reported in the jungle one time and I don't really think
01:19 that would make for an interesting finale to the series so instead I have
01:24 ranked this iceberg by vibes like with the beginning we're still sticking with
01:29 the well-known stuff but as the iceberg goes down it gets to a lot more of the
01:33 obscure and strange especially around the middle but then at the bottom it
01:37 gets to the ethereal or the spectral like sure the iceberg still starts with
01:42 a lot of the well-known famous cryptids but then as you go down it starts to get
01:46 to more of the unknown cryptids and then at the bottom it starts to get to the
01:51 more obscure or paranormal or almost ethereal cryptids that's because I
01:56 wanted to rank this iceberg by more so the enjoyment factor that you all should
02:02 get throughout the series for now we continue to talk about the creepy and
02:06 the monstrous and then we get into more implications things that maybe didn't go
02:11 to extinct or things that restructure how we look at the biological tree and
02:16 then by the bottom of it we get into things related to ghostly sightings or
02:21 things that shouldn't exist or warp our understanding of reality at the end of
02:26 the day I'm trying to entertain you all so I have structured this iceberg off
02:30 what I believe to be the most entertaining way to do this and I'll be
02:33 completely honest there were a lot of terms that didn't really fit in anywhere
02:37 so I just used a random number generator and assigned them to one of the 18 tiers
02:42 again we've already covered the first two tiers of this iceberg in parts 1 & 2
02:46 of this series and I apparently wasn't miserable enough so we'll see how it
02:51 goes from here I'm also gonna leave links in the description to a lot of the
02:54 websites that I pulled these names from websites like the cryptozoology files or
02:59 the cryptid wiki go a long way into giving me a bunch of names of things
03:03 I've otherwise never heard of to be honest I have no idea why I did this to
03:08 myself I when I began the series thought that a hundred terms may be a bit much
03:13 and then I'm like okay I'll do it for myself and make it 350 it probably
03:18 speaks to some greater level of imposter syndrome or self-deprecation that I have
03:24 or other things that I don't have time to think about but what I do have time
03:28 to think about is creepy monsters since we're getting into a list of things that
03:32 are weird and unsettling and frankly long and this series will almost
03:38 certainly be something that leads to another one of my episodes let's tread
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06:49 We are gonna go ahead and get into it but as always thank you for watching. I'm
06:54 also realizing looking at this that I'm gonna have to make the names a lot
06:58 smaller to fit 350 terms up there but um we'll cross that bridge when we get to
07:04 it. With all of that out of the way we are now on to tier 3. Beginning with the
07:09 Kelly-Hopskinville Goblins. On August the 24th 1955, Christian County, Kentucky
07:15 became the site of a new addition to America's Boogeymen. That night, 12
07:20 members of the Sutton household arrived at the local police station, claiming to
07:25 have held off over a dozen small creatures with gunfire for the past four
07:29 hours. 16 officers from several departments investigated the Sutton
07:34 household and determined that, while no creatures were found, a shootout took
07:39 place from within the home. Late that night, the family left town after telling
07:44 neighbors that they had seen the creatures again. In the years since, the
07:48 legend has grown into that of three feet tall, beady-eyed, green aliens who are
07:53 residents of the Kentucky woods and attack any who happen upon the
07:57 Kelly-Hopskinville area. The goblins are fun creatures. I was born in Kentucky and
08:02 a lot of my family had stories about being out in the woods late at night and
08:05 running into these like little gremlin things peering out from behind a tree.
08:09 And I also just really love whenever a cryptid has like an origin moment, like
08:15 there's one specific event, like with things like the Jersey Devil or the
08:19 Flatwoods Monster, that caused the legend to birth from a starting point. Both
08:23 because I think it's more interesting narratively and also if one of these
08:27 creatures was to be real, then there probably would be a single sighting that
08:31 changed cultures and mindsets in the region. It's cool, it's creepy, and it's a
08:35 classic, so I'm calling it A-tier. After that, we have the giant rabbit. Tales of
08:41 giant rabbits, or hares, have existed across the world's cultures for centuries.
08:46 Notable among these legends is that of Australian prospectors who, in the
08:51 1800s, claimed to see rabbits nine feet long and twelve feet tall. Other sightings,
08:56 like the five-foot-tall Tit Canyon rabbit spotted in 1969 near Los Angeles,
09:01 add to the sum of legendary bunnies across the globe. These diverse and
09:07 reoccurring appearances implies that a rare, undocumented species of hare may
09:12 exist just beyond our understanding. You'll hear giant rabbits mentioned in a
09:17 lot of tall tales or legends from the American West, stories of a group of
09:22 settlers being attacked by an entire nest of giant rabbits, or you'll hear
09:27 stuff from the Australian continent of people who see giant rabbits like
09:32 destroy their crops or attack their wildlife. I do want to mention, though,
09:36 that I think the note of giant rabbits inside of the Australian interior is
09:40 really stupid because, do you know what prospectors in the 1800s were probably
09:45 seen? Duh. But that being said, giant rabbits appear in a lot of different
09:51 cultures and can sometimes be used for comedic or interesting effect, which
09:55 barely makes it get into D tier for me because otherwise it's just a big rabbit.
10:01 Up next we have a term that isn't a cryptid but something I want to talk
10:04 about, and that is the 1934 Beebe dive sightings. Basically, from 1930 to 1934 a
10:12 biologist named William Beebe and a bathysphere designer named Otis Barton
10:17 became the first people to observe deep-sea creatures in their natural
10:21 habitat. They did this by hooking a bathysphere up to the side of a boat
10:24 descending to great depths, and in addition to breaking several diving
10:29 records during their excursions, they also discovered several new species of
10:33 fish. Through the small 8-inch portholes in the bathysphere, Beebe described
10:38 creatures that he called the giant dragonfish, the pallid sailfin, the
10:42 five-star constellation fish, and many more. It's interesting that such a short
10:47 glimpse into underwater life can yield so many new discoveries, but perhaps the
10:51 most terrifying part of the discovery is that these fish that Beebe found have
10:56 never definitively been seen again. There's a lot of theories that maybe the
11:00 constellation fish was what we know now to be a type of jellyfish, or that maybe
11:05 the dragonfish was in actuality an oarfish. The reason I wanted to bring it
11:10 up as a non-applicable, even though it's not really a cryptid, is because it
11:13 serves as a testament to how mysterious the ocean can be. It seems that every
11:17 time we go down there, we discover something new, and it serves as a
11:21 grim reminder that we shared this planet with something that is almost entirely
11:25 unknown. After that, we have Pepe. Pepe is the monster of the Mississippi River.
11:31 Named after Lake Pepin of the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, Pepe is said to
11:36 stalk the whole of the river, with popular sightings of him occurring in
11:40 and around Iowa. What makes Pepe intriguing amongst the competition of
11:44 sea serpents in inland bodies of water is that native people along the massive
11:49 Mississippi River all held legends of a beast beneath the water, despite never
11:54 encountering one another, implying that sightings of Pepe could extend beyond
11:59 cultures and traditions. This, in combination with sightings of massive
12:04 serpents spotted near Lake Pepin dating back to newspaper reports from the 1870s,
12:09 further support the legend. In 2008, a $50,000 bounty was placed for definitive
12:16 evidence of the creature, a reward that is to this day unclaimed. Pepe's cool and
12:22 all, you know, another Loch Ness monster type creature inside of an inland body
12:29 of water, never seen one of those before. And yeah, the Mississippi has a lot of
12:33 legends and lore behind it, so I get it, but we all know how I feel about really
12:39 big fish. It's a D tier for me. You know, honestly, I don't even have a problem
12:43 with big fish. As a matter of fact, like lakes having legends of giant bass or
12:49 bluegill or whatever, or one we're actually gonna look at in a second, those
12:53 are cooler to me than just taking the Loch Ness monster and putting it in a
12:57 different lake. It's just so reductive. These are gonna get moved down to F tier
13:01 if I keep thinking about it. We'll move on. And now, you all get to hear more of
13:05 my horrific mispronunciations because up next we have the Mukade Kujira.
13:10 Japanese for whale centipede, this creature was first reported in 1709 and
13:16 is described as the size of a whale, having five fins, a mane, red skin, and is
13:22 highly poisonous. While this specific sighting is often relegated to legend in
13:28 Japanese culture, it does coincide with other sea centipede sightings across the
13:33 world. These many finned creatures could be some undocumented species of
13:38 arthropod or a great species of ancient sea monster. See, here we're getting some
13:44 uniqueness, something interesting. It's as big as a whale, but it's a whale
13:48 centipede because it has all these different fins and it's got a lion's
13:51 mane. That's neat. I like that. It's not like there's a ton more to it. I'm gonna
13:56 put it at C tier, but it's not just copy pasting the Loch Ness monster into
14:00 whatever you want your tourist destination to be. That was a bit harsh. I
14:03 don't know why I'm so mad at like Champy and the Ogopogo, but I'll address that
14:10 part of myself later. Now we have the legend of the Skinwalker. The Navajo have
14:15 a legend of an accursed being that can mimic the appearance and voices of their
14:20 victims. Witches, those who practice sinister magic composed of malice and
14:25 death, can give themselves to their practice and become a beast capable of
14:30 stealing the skin of others. In some variations, the Skinwalker is able to
14:35 take the form of those they kill and in others mimics animals of trickery such
14:40 as a coyote. The Skinwalker serves as an antagonist to many Navajo legends, yet
14:46 stories of animals and even people seen behaving strangely in the American West
14:51 lead many to believe that this myth isn't a myth after all. There's a lot of
14:56 misinformation around the Skinwalker. A lot of people just think it's a
15:01 Wendigo out west, but the legends are very different. Legends of Skinwalkers
15:06 come from stories of people who practice taboo arts and medicine and eventually
15:11 turn themselves into a spirit of trickery, a mimic of evil. I'm sure that
15:15 we've all probably heard stories or seen videos of animals acting strange or of a
15:20 call in the night that doesn't sound quite right. And the Skinwalker places
15:24 itself perfectly in the uncanny valley of our knowledge of nature. It's really
15:29 cool and really scary, so I'm calling it A-tier. After that, we have the
15:34 Malagillage, aka the tailed men. These creatures were first spotted in the
15:39 southern region of Chad in the early 1800s. They are described as having
15:44 reddish skin, tails, a humanoid face, and long hair. Reportedly, these beings even
15:51 managed livestock in the form of black camels. According to legend, the king of
15:56 Kurdish Sare once gave a Malagillage to the Sultan of Bakmimi. I am so sorry for
16:03 mispronouncing everything I just said. Many believe these stories to be of an
16:07 undocumented or missing link humanoid that, if discovered, could reshape our
16:12 understanding of humanity. There's several legends like this, especially in
16:17 areas like Africa or South America that have these vastly uncharted regions of
16:23 wildlife. There's always some kind of legend of either a really short humanoid
16:28 group of people or a really tall humanoid group of people living in
16:32 tribes in the middle of the wilderness. And the Malagillage is an interesting
16:37 example of that. The note of them having tails is unique as well. There's been
16:41 some historians who theorize maybe it was a group of shorter people who wore
16:46 like animal pelts and from a distance it just looked like they had a tail. But
16:51 then there's other legends of them being captured in cages and sent as like
16:55 diplomatic gifts to other kingdoms. Even if it doesn't say a lot about biology, it
17:00 does say a lot about cultures and storytelling, so I'm putting it at C-tier.
17:05 Next up, we've got the Lutouyulang. This cryptid hails from the rural plains of
17:11 China and its name means donkey-headed wolf. Its appearance is exactly that, a
17:17 wolf with the head of a horse or donkey, meaning the animal has the ability to
17:21 both neigh and bark. Legends of a horse-like carnivore date back centuries,
17:27 and as recently as the mid-1900s, many have reported seeing or even killing one
17:32 of these creatures. This apex predator could be an either undiscovered or
17:37 unnatural canine that has carefully avoided mankind while preying on it from
17:42 the shadows. This one's pretty to the point. It's a wolf and its head looks
17:47 like a horse. That's weird. But people up until the last century have reported
17:52 seeing them and even hunting them. So maybe this is a species of wolf that has
17:57 gone extinct in recent history, and rather than being the head of a horse
18:01 just transplanted onto a wolf, is instead a wolf that had an oddly shaped head.
18:08 Because if you've seen some pictures of how animals look around Tibet, especially
18:12 that weird fox thing, I can't think of its name right now but I'll put a
18:14 picture up. Sometimes animals can just look weird for some reason. I'm calling
18:19 it D-tier because it doesn't have a lot going for it, but it's always interesting
18:22 to hear a story of a cryptid that could very plausibly be real. Next up, we've got
18:28 the Wawasee sturgeon. Lake Wawasee of Indiana is home to a tale of a giant fish.
18:33 Sturgeons are known as one of the largest species of freshwater fish in
18:37 North America, and although uncommon, historical records point to evidence of
18:43 sturgeons being caught on rare occasions in the lake, with the most recent report
18:48 of a catch and release occurring in 1991. However, local legend says that at one
18:54 point, the lake was teeming with the species before a single member grew to a
18:59 size and appetite beyond the rest. Reports of a super sturgeon up to 20 feet
19:04 long appear in local circuits on occasion. Given that known species of
19:09 sturgeon can live in excess of 100 years, this mega variant could date true to the
19:15 old legends it has become tied to. The rare case of people feeling a quick tug
19:20 from beneath the water implies that a creature of voracious appetite may be
19:26 testing the surface for new prey. Okay, so remember how earlier I said I don't like
19:31 just taking the Loch Ness Monster and putting it into lakes? This one's
19:35 different enough for me. I do love a good fisherman's tale, and the story of one
19:41 fish that out ate the rest and became this gigantic record-setting member of
19:46 its species is pretty cool. Especially when there's like historical evidence to
19:51 kind of drive the point home. Like sure, sturgeon were caught in pretty good
19:56 amounts at one point in the lake, but they've quit for some reason. Maybe that
20:01 reason is one of them got really big and started out eating the rest. Also,
20:05 sturgeon have always just kind of freaked me out because they can get to
20:10 massive sizes and just exist in freshwater lakes around northern parts
20:15 of the United States. So as a kid, whenever I'd be swimming in a lake, I
20:18 would have that knowledge in the back of my head that biologically one of those
20:23 things could be in the water. I was saying this to myself in East Tennessee,
20:27 but it made sense to me. Sure, it's just big fish, but I like it more than a lot
20:31 of these ripoffs, so I'm gonna put it at C-tier. Next up, we've got a personal
20:35 favorite of mine. The Hodak. The lumberjacks of Rhinelander, Wisconsin
20:40 told tale of a beast that roams the tree line. The legend gained fame in 1893 when
20:46 lumbermen reported a series of altercations with the creature,
20:50 culminating in a dynamite killing and photograph. Its appearance is described
20:54 by explorerhinelander.com as "the head of a frog, the grinning face of a
21:01 giant elephant, thick short legs set off by huge claws, the back of a dinosaur, and
21:07 a long tail with spears at the end. The Hodak also had green eyes, huge fangs, and
21:14 two horns sprouting from its temples. This creature can reach lengths of up to
21:19 seven feet and even breathe fire. Legend says that the Hodak are born from the
21:25 ashes of oxen burnt in the woods after experiencing cruelty at their master's
21:30 hand and now, invigorated with hellfire and revenge, seek to harm those who find
21:36 themselves alone in the woods of Wisconsin. I love the Hodak so much and
21:41 for a few reasons. For one, I'm so tired of different regions just stealing Bigfoot
21:47 or Nessie like we've talked about and just making that they're cryptid. They
21:52 need to be unique with it and it is hard to get more unique than the Hodak. A
21:56 little gremlin, tiny dinosaur, bulldog looking thing that breathes fire and has
22:02 got horns, that's cool, that's unique. And also the idea that the Hodak is born
22:07 like a phoenix from the ashes of oxen that were put through the ringer and
22:12 abused before being killed and their bodies not even buried but burned in the
22:17 forest. The Hodak is also a part of this greater realm of cryptids I like a lot
22:22 called the fearsome critters which is basically stories like this that
22:26 lumbermen would tell each other, hunters or trappers would tell each other.
22:30 Basically creatures that they need to be afraid of at camp at night or that have
22:35 really interesting rules or appearances or behavior about them. Some of the most
22:40 interesting ideas from American folklore come from these fearsome critters and
22:44 the Hodak is one of them. Because in a mini a tale you'll hear stories of
22:48 lumbermen out in the woods being chased off by these fire breathing dog things.
22:53 Or in other stories there's warnings to not go sleep in a cave because you may
22:57 run into a Hodak nest. It checks all the boxes for me. It's cool and scary, it's
23:03 got a cool backstory, it's used in interesting ways. To be honest I think it
23:09 might be an S tier because like sure these are probably my three favorite
23:13 cryptids, the ones that are already up there, but I don't just want to have
23:16 three S tier for the whole series and the Hodak's personal favorite mine. So
23:20 yeah, yeah it's gonna be an S tier. You know after doing that it doesn't seem
23:25 right that the Hodak is above the Jersey Devil.
23:30 All right fine. Jersey Devil's an S tier as well. What's the point of having a
23:36 whole tier up here if I don't use it, right? And looking at it those are my
23:40 five favorite cryptids that I've covered so far. Cool, I like it. Next up we have
23:44 the Siren. Cultures throughout our history hold legends of feminine figures
23:49 that drag men to their death, but few are as prevalent as that of the Siren.
23:54 Sirens date back to Greek mythology, the legends of creatures with the body of a
23:59 bird and head of a woman that tear apart men without remorse. Similarly, ancient
24:05 sailors told legend of a mermaid rendition of the beast. Passerby's were
24:09 tempted to enter the water by beautiful women with sweet songs, only to then be
24:15 dragged to the depths. Stories of the Siren made their way into several
24:19 eastern hemisphere cultures, such as that of the Siren, and stories of mysterious
24:24 women leading men to their grave continue around the world to this day.
24:29 We're all probably familiar with the Siren. I'm sure that all of us when we
24:33 were kids heard how the mermaid story isn't just about, you know, like the
24:38 Disney version and is actually about these women that kill people. It seems
24:43 that the original, at least written versions of the Siren, were the bird
24:48 figure, like the body of a bird and the head of a woman, which isn't as popular
24:52 as the mermaid variant. But that bird figure did work its way into a lot of
24:56 cultures. Like a lot of early Germanic beliefs involved the Siren, the spelling
25:02 with the R-I-N, then the R-E-N. And that Siren pops up in a lot of early European
25:07 mythology, and then the mermaid rendition of course shows up in a ton of Greek
25:12 myths. What's the most interesting thing about the Siren to me is the idea that
25:17 it's not different creatures that just do similar things and is instead the
25:22 same race or group of creatures that just mold themselves to the environment.
25:27 So for example, if this Siren is looking to, let's say, lead away soldiers who are
25:33 off to war, maybe it will appear as a bird creature in the mountains. Or
25:38 instead, if it's looking to lure away sailors, it will appear as a mermaid in
25:42 the water. So you can follow that train of thought and say maybe some modern
25:46 legends of these ghostly hitchhikers appearing on the side of the road who
25:51 were lure men off into these abandoned trails only to never be seen again might
25:56 be the same beast. So sure, while they lose some points because they're more of
26:01 a mythological being than cryptid, I do think it's interesting to tie in the
26:05 Siren mythos to a lot of modern cryptid or paranormal sightings. So I'll call it
26:11 right in the middle of the road at C-tier. There's debate on which version
26:15 of the spelling is more correct, but I already misspelled Megalodon earlier in
26:20 this series and have yet to change that. So we're just gonna leave it. And
26:23 speaking of things that are mega, up next we have the Megaconda. The Amazon
26:29 rainforest is home to the largest serpents in the world, but one may exist
26:34 at lengths beyond the rest. While the largest documented species of snakes can
26:39 get up to 33 feet long, rumors exist of a snake well over a hundred. This
26:44 Megaconda, or what is locally called the Matataro or "bull eater," has been
26:50 sighted by the natives and explorers of the region for the past century. British
26:55 explorers have claimed to kill snakes as long as 62 feet, and reports from the
27:00 1940s detail a creature of up to a hundred and thirty-one feet in length.
27:06 Local legend, as well as impossible six-foot wide paths in the most remote
27:12 regions of the Amazon, suggests that perhaps a legendary Titan boa may exist
27:18 in the Green Inferno. The Megaconda makes a lot of sense, right? There's these
27:23 giant swaths of the Amazon that are completely undiscovered, or at least
27:29 undocumented, and it's also a known fact that some of the largest species of boas
27:33 spend a lot of their life underwater and they hunt things from within the water.
27:39 So when you combine those two things, that there's uncharted territory and the
27:44 biggest ones that we know of live underwater, then it stands to reason that
27:48 if there are some giant ones, maybe we just haven't seen them yet. That in
27:52 combination with the locals saying that they easily get over a hundred feet in
27:56 length, as well as trampled paths through the jungle that are six feet wide
28:00 leading from one source of water to the other, that would take a lot of effort if
28:04 someone was just doing it for a prank. Maybe there is some truth to this legend.
28:08 And it also leans more into the horrifying idea of what might happen to
28:13 some people who go missing in the forest. So sure, even though the cryptid is just
28:18 big snake, I think it's creepy and kind of cool and leans into a lot of the
28:23 already creepy things that we know about the region, so I'm gonna call it a B-tier.
28:26 With that, we are on to dwarves. Dwarves have found their way into a myriad of
28:32 folklore. While their influence was apparent across European mythos, they are
28:37 most often associated with Germanic and Norse mythology. Typically, dwarves are
28:42 described as a race of craftsmen with strong connections to mysticism and the
28:46 spiritual. Common aspects across tales describe them as short humanoids who
28:52 live within rocks and mountains, or more broadly, in cohabitation with nature. Some
28:58 believe these legends to originate from a forgotten species of humanoid now
29:02 extinct. However, with sightings of small people appearing then disappearing from
29:07 various locations around the world, perhaps the stories are based on
29:11 something more than just fantasy. Dwarves, I'm sure we're all familiar with them, and
29:17 they definitely count more towards mythology. The reason I wanted to mention
29:22 them isn't because I think they're necessarily that much of a cryptid. As a
29:26 matter of fact, I'm gonna put them at an A, I think. Because while they're not
29:31 necessarily a cryptid, it is interesting how they've worked their way into the
29:35 cultural mindset. But I more so just want them to be in your mind as we talk about
29:40 stuff later in the iceberg. We've already talked about some, like the Mala Gilage,
29:44 how there's this idea of these undocumented humanoids that are really
29:49 short and really good with nature or in tune with nature that live out in the
29:53 wilderness. And dwarves are an example of them at least making their way into the
29:57 stories we tell across different cultures. So not really a cryptid, but
30:01 something to keep in mind as we talk about more examples of creatures like
30:05 that later on in the series. After that, we have the Gigantopithecus Blackie. This
30:11 extinct species of ape was similar to modern orangutans save for one aspect,
30:15 its size. This mega primate, believed by science to have been extinct for at
30:21 least half a million years, is estimated to have grown anywhere between 9 to 12
30:26 feet tall and weighed over 600 pounds. Giant ape sightings occur around the
30:32 world to this day. However, the more interesting inference to be made
30:36 regarding Gigantopithecus is the credibility it lends more popular
30:41 cryptid sightings. The majority of fossils are found in South China, placing
30:47 the creature's habitat in the midst of the Yeti legend. Furthermore,
30:51 legends of Bigfoot are given legitimacy by Gigantopithecus's existence
30:57 because the argument is no longer a creature such as Sasquatch exists, but
31:02 rather it may simply have lived longer than we currently believe. Now judging it
31:07 solely as a cryptid, because like sure there's all that stuff relating to
31:12 Sasquatch which is cool and all, but judging it just as a cryptid, just as a
31:16 big orangutan that sometimes gets found, that's an F tier. Because all that it is
31:21 is a big ape that did at one point exist and people say maybe it did exist and
31:26 once again similar to the Thylacine, sure maybe it does. I don't care. Big monkey,
31:31 not interested. But what's fascinating about it is since tall ape things did
31:37 exist at one point, well then maybe stuff like, you know, Bigfoot or the Yeti or
31:42 whatnot is given more credence because of that. I mean we see with things like
31:46 the coelacanth that something can believe to have been extinct for
31:50 millions of years and then just one day show up. Well as a cryptid I don't think
31:54 it's that cool. I think it is cool what it does for other cryptids. But with that
31:58 out of the way, let's move on to the man monkey. On January the 21st of 1879 in
32:04 what is now the Shropshire Union Canal of Great Britain, a mysterious figure was
32:10 seen. According to an eyewitness, a ghostly black figure appeared from a
32:15 field before stealing a horse and riding off into the night. When the witness
32:20 attempted to hit the figure with a whip, the whip passed through the figure
32:24 entirely. As this case was investigated, locals confirmed this event to be no
32:30 rare occurrence. In fact, this creature known as the man monkey was infamous for
32:35 attacking travelers near the Staffordshire-Birmingham area who found
32:40 themselves alone at night. While this may sound spectral in some renditions of the
32:46 tale, such as that of Old Ned's Devil, one of these creatures was beat to death by
32:51 a man the creature attacked and then mounted in a local pub. The reoccurring
32:56 sightings lead many to believe that, at least for a time, an ape-like wild man
33:01 species plagued the roadsides of the UK. So the man monkey's cool and all. It is a
33:08 monkey man thing that randomly attacks people who are out alone at night.
33:13 Classic, you know, cryptid scary stories of things that go bump in the night. My
33:18 biggest problem with it is that it's very poorly defined. Like, sure, the locals had
33:22 their legends of it, but their legends weren't exactly coherent. Like, in some
33:29 stories it's a ghost that your hand passes through and in others some old guy
33:33 beat it to death and put it in his local pub. So while it's got potential, I don't
33:37 think it's as cool because it's kind of more nebulous than things like the Devil
33:44 Monkey we're gonna talk about in just a minute. So while that holds it back a bit
33:47 for me, the idea of a creature that attacks those who are alone on the road
33:51 at night and can steal your horse and all that, it's still pretty fun. So I'm
33:55 calling it a C-tier. Alright, well this next one's just, uh, good luck. The
34:02 Skjeljaskrimsli. Skjeljaskrimsli, sure. The shores of Iceland hold the legend of a
34:09 terrifying beast. Stories of this creature date back to the 18th century
34:14 with fishermen along the frigid Icelandic waters describing encounters
34:18 with a bear the size of a hippo covered with blue armored scales. The name itself
34:25 translating to "shell monster." Its blood is said to be toxic and its mouth
34:31 fluorescent. They are said to live in the ocean using their long claws to anchor
34:36 into the seafloor and wait for prey, occasionally crawling to dark shores or
34:41 bright homes after a storm. This horrid legend kept a many a sailor at port and
34:48 some believe a ghastly presence may exist on the ocean floor around Iceland.
34:53 This creature is absolutely terrifying. Imagine being a sailor in like the 17-18
34:58 hundreds, your ship is lit by candles and lanterns, and then out of the darkness a
35:05 hippo-sized armored bear climbs up on your boat and just starts slaughtering
35:11 people. And a lot of the details of the creature are very fantastical. Like
35:14 there's stories of men shooting them after they come into their barn but the
35:19 blood gets all over the farmer and then he dies of a horrific illness that night.
35:24 There's stories of sailors seeing what appears to be a glowing light out in the
35:29 middle of the water but then when they go to investigate it's just this thing's
35:33 mouth open just beneath the surface. It's horrifying and it's very scary in a way
35:38 that I wish a lot more cryptid stories were. Some of the best cryptid stories to
35:42 me are the ones that make you afraid to go in the woods at night or make you
35:46 remember to lock your door. And this one definitely hits those beats for me. It
35:50 loses some points because there's not like a lot of core narratives or a lot
35:56 of you know direct description of where it comes from or what what its purpose
36:02 is. It's kind of just a creepy animal but sometimes being a creepy animal is good
36:06 enough so I'm calling it beat here. Another one that I want to mention that
36:10 goes in the non-applicable category is the macaws mammal. And I wanted to
36:14 mention it because it's one of the most famous false cryptids reported. Basically
36:19 in the mid 90s someone was at a store in Ecuador and they found a taxidermized
36:26 animal that was believed to be an unidentified species. So for a while this
36:31 thing made the rounds online and in cryptozoology communities of a possibly
36:36 undiscovered creature in South America. However, the creature was eventually found
36:40 and investigated and just found to be a manipulated taxidermy of a water possum.
36:46 So I mentioned the macaws mammal because we're gonna see a lot of examples of
36:50 carcasses or taxidermies that have been found in different cryptozoology fields
36:56 or different historic sightings. And this is just a reminder along with others
37:00 like the Minnesota Iceman of things that were at one point believed to be a
37:05 cryptid but have since been debunked. After that we have the Makalé Mbembe.
37:09 In the Congo River Basin, legend exists of a creature near identical to modern
37:15 depictions of the Brachiosaurus, albeit a bit smaller, roughly hippo to elephant
37:20 size. The being is described as a sort of herbivore yet violent to those who are
37:26 unfortunate enough to cross paths with it while in the river. Rumors and
37:30 documentation of this creature grew along with European colonies in the area
37:35 in the early 1900s and even led to some controversy. Several expeditions were
37:41 made into the region to prove the creature's existence as a means of
37:45 disproving the theory of evolution. Needless to say nothing conclusive was
37:50 found but legends of a dinosaur within Africa's interior persist to this day.
37:54 There are several cryptids that are effectively arguing that a dinosaur
37:59 didn't go extinct and some of them still exist to this day. And the Makalé Mbembe
38:03 is probably the best example because I believe it was like German colonies in
38:09 the region around like the 1920s began to hear stories of them so they reported
38:14 it to the greater scientific community of Europe in the United States and in
38:18 the 40s and 50s that caused a huge rush of researchers to go to the area because
38:24 there were a lot of like young earth creationists who believed if they could
38:28 find a living dinosaur it would disprove theories of evolution at the time and
38:32 effectively be another point towards young earth creationism. So it's
38:36 interesting how it lends a lot to cryptids involving you know dinosaurs
38:43 that didn't go extinct or more broadly species that didn't go extinct but it
38:47 also leads into like sort of Bible Belt American culture and how they reacted to
38:52 it and it's fascinating how it kind of finds itself at the next point of a lot
38:58 of different cultures trying to get their own thing out of the legend all at
39:01 once. So while the creature would typically be like a D tier for me
39:05 because it's just like Nessie with legs running around in the river attacking
39:10 people I think it gets some bonus points because of the impact that it had so I'm
39:16 calling it C tier. Next up we have the Yeren. In the mountains of China a group
39:21 of hairy men have been reported descending from the hilltops to steal
39:25 food and women since 300 BC. Said to sound like a bird and have incredible
39:31 strength. In several legends the Yeren have no females to their race and
39:35 therefore must kidnap human women to reproduce with hence the reputation of
39:40 murderous barbarians. Biologically many believe early legends of the Yeren to be
39:46 remnants of a homo sapien relative now lost. Culturally the Yeren has found root
39:53 in Chinese belief with legends of Yeren kidnappings adopting a comedic tone and
39:58 some women even claiming to have had a child with one of these creatures. In the
40:03 midst of deforestation in China around the 1970s the Yeren became a symbol of
40:09 the natural world and a part of a campaign to save the forest. By
40:13 appearance Yeren are pretty similar to just a species of Bigfoot but it's the
40:18 stories around them that make them so unique. A group of men that live in the
40:22 mountains and will come steal your food and take away your women. And while a lot
40:26 of the classic stories are more malicious in tone a lot of the modern
40:30 ones tend to be lighthearted. For example there's one popular legend where the
40:35 genders of the creatures and the humans are flipped so it's a group of women
40:40 hairy monster people up in the mountains who have to come steal men to father
40:46 their children. And the tone of the stories is often comedic with the hairy
40:50 women being described as being beautiful and the men willingly leaving their
40:54 wives to be kidnapped by the creatures. And like I said in some cultural aspects
41:00 Yeren have become a symbol of nature pretty similar to how in the northwest
41:05 parts of the United States Bigfoot can be seen as a friend of the trees or a
41:10 something that speaks for the trees and... is that the Lorax? I just quoted the
41:15 Lorax. I'm so sorry. Effectively the Yeren has become a symbol of natural
41:19 preservation as well. That being said still kind of a Yeti/Bigfoot ripoff
41:24 but it's a fun ripoff so I'm calling it C-tier. And then lastly for tier 3 we
41:30 have the Devil Monkey. The woods of the United States host a particularly odd
41:35 sighting. According to reports four foot tall baboons with incredible speed and
41:41 agility stalk the American woods with extreme aggression. Early accounts place
41:46 the creature in the southeast United States across areas like Tennessee and
41:50 Virginia but sightings continue into the American West and even Canada. Attacks
41:56 are common and whereas many cryptids seem to avoid humanity the Devil Monkey
42:01 appears to be exclusively violent towards us. Reports of unidentified
42:06 feral attackers and things like the Derrida roadkill images posted online in
42:11 1996 support the notion of some unknown beast in the North American tree line.
42:17 Now if you're from somewhere in the southeast you have probably heard a
42:21 story or know someone that's heard a story about a wild monkey or wild
42:26 baboon out in the hills. It's a joke a lot of old-timers would tell. People
42:31 would go out deer hunting and they'd warn them to watch out for that crazed
42:34 monkey out there. But of course with any legend it lends to the notion if all
42:39 these different people are talking about the same creature then maybe there's
42:42 something to the myth. And things like the Derrida roadkill I mentioned, the
42:46 idea that in Louisiana there was just this thing found dead on the side of the
42:52 road, what else might have died off in the woods? What rare species might still
42:57 be out there attacking people that we're just not aware of yet? Devil Monkey kind
43:01 of works its way into jackalope territory in a lot of stories and that
43:06 the details are purposefully fantastical or over-the-top for the sake of a joke.
43:11 And while yeah a monkey or basically a baboon attacking people isn't that
43:16 insane outside of the region it's taking place in, it's still fun how it can make
43:22 its way into a lot of local legends. So I'll call it C-tier. And with that we are
43:27 done with tier 3 of the iceberg and begin our voyage into this behemoth I
43:32 have made for myself. I realize looking at this I'm gonna have to change a lot
43:37 to make all of this fit on these two whiteboards but that's problems for
43:42 future Windigoon. Current Windigoon's just not gonna worry about it. So I'll go
43:46 ahead and wrap this up so I can get to editing and get it out to you all as
43:49 quickly as possible. But I just want to say thank you for watching. This series
43:53 is something that's been in the back of my head for a while so then I start with
43:56 the initial iceberg but then I just thought you know why make anything easy
44:01 for myself and why not make it some super series that we can take our time
44:04 on and there's no reason to rush it through December when I think it can be
44:08 more if I just let it take whatever time it naturally has. I don't know if 350
44:13 terms is natural but it's too late now. But for real I want to say thank you so
44:17 much to everyone for the support you've shown the series. I know that it's shorter
44:21 than a lot of my normal uploads and I know it's more broken up and I think a
44:25 lot of you guys prefer having long stuff all at once but the fact that you're
44:30 willing to watch these parts as they come out and be so supportive and
44:34 engaging with them it really does mean the world. And thank you to the kind
44:37 comments I've seen from people, the kind comments I've received from other
44:40 creators I look up to. It really is special and thank you. I do, even if I
44:45 don't reply to all your comments or I don't engage a lot just because I'm busy
44:49 with other stuff, I do see them and I do appreciate them. So thank you all for the
44:53 support you've shown the series. It really does mean the world. So I'm gonna get
44:57 started with editing this and then the other parts. I will say the next video
45:03 that's going to come out after this one isn't going to be another part of the
45:11 Cryptid Iceberg because if I just did like the whole Cryptid Iceberg is every
45:15 upload then the next like three months on the channel would just be Cryptid
45:19 Iceberg and that's lame. So I've got a cult related video hopefully going up
45:24 soon. So hopefully you guys enjoy that. But yeah I'm gonna break this up maybe
45:30 every two or three videos will be another Cryptid Iceberg because now that
45:34 I've made the iceberg it's easier to wrap my head around and do research. But
45:38 yeah it's not going to be all in a row. It'll be broken up similar to how the
45:41 conspiracy theory iceberg series was done for those of you that remember that
45:45 or the serial killer iceberg or what have you. So yeah another iceberg series
45:50 hopefully you all enjoy and thank you so much to those who have said kind words
45:53 or constructive criticism about it thus far. It means a lot. I do want to add that
45:58 the podcasts are going great. Thank you all so much for the attention you've
46:01 shown that. The Red Thread got to number two overall on Spotify, at least in the
46:06 US. Number two right behind Joe Rogan for like a couple days and that's insane. And
46:12 then Creepcast, the first episode of that, which the third episode just came out,
46:16 there's not that many episodes, the first episode already has over a million views.
46:20 But the second one close to it and the third one's doing great. Just you guys
46:24 have been incredible. The support means the world. Again for those that don't
46:27 know I've got a podcast with Moist Critical and Jackson Clark called The
46:33 Red Thread. Link to that's in the description. And I have another podcast
46:36 with Meat Canyon. Link to that's in the description as well. But both have been
46:40 great and it really does just mean the world that I can try new things, I can
46:44 step out and do something creatively that I want to test out, and you guys
46:48 show up in droves. And similar to this series, it means the world. Thank you. So
46:53 I'll quit yapping even though it's got me this far. I'll shut up and get to work
47:00 on this so you all can see it. But again, thank you guys so much for everything. I
47:03 really appreciate it. And I believe that should do it for now. Look out for new
47:08 podcast episodes linked in the description, new episodes of this series,
47:11 and new regular videos as well as stuff going on on the second channel. Be in
47:16 tune for all of that as we go into 2024 and I hope all of you have a very happy
47:20 new year. But I believe all of that should do it for now. But I just want to
47:24 say thank you for watching. I hope that you enjoyed and I will see you in the
47:30 next one. Bye!