The Squonk Cries Until It Disappears | The Raven Mocker & Appalachia’s Darkest Legends (Ep 313)

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and that is when he saw it the most hideous creature he had ever seen the woman dissolves into a murder of crows and vanishes into the night oh my gosh right talon-like claws can puncture into your chest they're eating your soul but we're here today for our third part of the appalache series best topic Cryptids Cryptids very

Ostara and Persephone / spring witch stuff

spooky hi what's up this is two girls one ghost two girls one ghost and we are your ghostesses that is Karin hello I am Sabrina and we are approaching

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the Spring Equinox yes we are to tell us which we can celebrate even if you're a baby witch like us you can celebrate if you're practicing Wiccan you might celebrate ostera which is like Easter literally the Catholic religion just ripped off oera so I wanted to uh spread my witchy class knowledge which I have been doing so it's once a month for six hours on a Sunday so Ash and I were at the last one and we learned all about the Spring Equinox and it's so wild that you it's six hours long I feel like would not be able to digest it's wild anything we also make crafts we like planted we planted little seeds that you got to take home yeah and pots I did wild flowers oh I like that yeah okay so March 20th 2025 is the Spring Equinox and it changes I think it's between the 19th and 21st every year it varies but it is a time of renewal rebirth and New Beginnings it symbolizes the transition from Darkness to light and it's a time when Nature begins to bloom again and I also thought this was like the perfect time to record this episode because the

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last two days have been so nice like the warmest weather in so long it's going to be in the like 50s or 60s in a few days all of the snow is melting yeah you don't have to balance on a sheet of ice to get my I don't have ice skate here anymore yeah and in the wicin practices the Spring Equinox marks the celebration of ostara which is OST s a a very similar to Easter I wrote holy [ __ ] on a goose Catholicism literally ripped it off and inserted Jesus yeah well we we already knew that we did traditional pagans would celebrate with the exchanging of eggs and Gifts leaving offerings to the goddess of spring offerings that literally look like Easter baskets today W I thought the Easter Bunny created those believe it or not no okay so pan witches did yes oara did so there are two goddesses that are traditionally celebrated or given offerings during the Spring Equinox or oara one of them is ostara who is the goddess of spring and she is often dep picted with her companion hair because

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in the lore in the legend of osara she found a bird that was really badly wounded and in order to help heal the bird she briefly turned it into a hair a rabbit gosh yeah but this rabbit still had the ability to lay eggs and as a thank you to ostara every time it laid an egg it would give them to ostara as a gift so this is literally just a combination of ostara and her being and her beliefs and exact all her magic all her magic wow so you can gift eggs and like chocolate and traditional Easter gifts to oara on your altar or wherever you do your practices and you can call upon her when in need of abundance or during fertility rituals so I also really like that name ostara oara I know and then the goddess prapan which is the Greek goddess is another goddess celebrated during the Spring Equinox and if you remember any of Greek mythology which I needed a refresher but I had like some knowledge so pranie is the daughter of deer and and Hades stole her like ripped

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her away from Earth because he wanted her to be his wife and so when he happened a lot in greekology yes so he took her down to the underworld and deer per stepan's mother was just devastated rightfully so and she fell into a depression which literally controlled the weather on Earth and it turned into a dark Bleak cold winter her depression eventually over time Zeus helped negotiate with Hades that pran could spend half of the year on the upper world as they call it and half of the year on the underworld so now we have fall and winter which is the time that prapan is in the Underworld where demer is upset and like everything's dying because demer is so sad but the moment that she returns which is spring the Spring Equinox the world starts to bloom again and blossom and grow it's really beautiful but it's also really good time for new beginnings and I think that's what it all symbolizes so if you have if you want to plant a new idea or if you

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want to plant flowers spring equinox is the time to do that okay I have a packet of wild flowers that was given to my family from the vet when wrinkles passed in 2012 and I was meaning to plant it my mom gave them to me and she was like who knows if these will Bloom like it's these seeds are years and years and years old and dried out and weren't like preserved or kept in any sort of condition you don't have a seed bank no underground bunker doesn't have the seed bank quite yet I'm working on it but I do wonder if maybe if like since this seems like such a magical time and it's all about reborn regrowth like that that whole vibe this is the time to plant those seeds because it seems like if ever there was some magical intervention that makes wrinkles wild flowers grow it would be on this date you can have like a wrinkles plant bed oh I I'm going to I love this so yeah this is the time to do it start new projects if you want to celebrate in like a if you're baby witch like we are going outside going on walks and picking flowers if you're allowed

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and thanking the flowers for their gift to you and bringing them home and having a bouquet is a good way to celebrate it's also just a very powerful time in the year to set intentions to leave things behind you can like go out in the woods and bury the old and then to the universe set the new huh yeah and then but like don't bury trash exactly no it's like the energy of negative ideas yeah I just wanted to clarify that's that's what this meant no littering please but yeah that's a spring equinox I love that so much isn't that fun yeah it's so easy to celebrate this is what I like is that now that we're actually learning these things and you're going and you're taking the classes and sharing these things with us and we have so many people sharing these things I feel like for years we were so intimidated by the idea of calling ourselves witches or trying to explore because it is such an expansive practice and it can be so broad but there's so much accessibility so much

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and I feel like we were already doing a lot of it but we just didn't understand or we wer when to do it and we weren't calling to name like the reason why we were doing it like we weren't celebrating specifically an equinox or a lunar eclipse or anything yeah yeah and not that there was anything wrong with that but this is just the times that can enhance what we were already trying to do yes which is really lovely it's so fun yeah so set your intentions start a new rebirth get pregnant I don't know new you new year do you not me not this year watch me name my daughter oera I like that name a lot you're welcome from the wiccans from the pagans many generations I'm Gonna Change Noah's name to Jesus so it'll be Jesus in oera but they can battle it out oh no it will be so confused I thought my name was Noah we also have a

new book club book

new book of the two girls one go patreon book club H it is good you very started

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yes can you believe it I'm shocked normally I am 24 hours before book club begins I go on Audible and I listen at three times speed I have started this because it has been recommended by so many people that I was like okay I'm done and also the plot of it is so my VI it's like yeah you know they're in the ader rondak mountains of New York there's a summer camp a camper goes missing my so it's called the god of the Woods by Liz Moore and we will be discussing it on patreon on April 20 something join our patreon to find out more yeah and if you're someone who isn't sure about if you like reading or not I will say so many books are the types of books where you're like kind of waiting 100 Pages for it to pick up or 50 pages to pick up like page three you're you're in it you're hooked so this is a good one to kind of restart your reading Journey if you've been looking to pick up more books and haven't felt motivated and even if you don't want to read the book and you just want to come hang out with us it's a fun we usually do like an hour book club and it's on a Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern

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4 p.m. Pacific and all mics unmuted on Zoom we all just collectively hang just hang chat books and then come up with like weird ideas we call ourselves the literary vampires and I think it's the best shout out to Rachel who came up with that and our last book club but amazing but we're here today for our

topic introduction: part 3 of series, appalachian cryptids

third part of the appalache series oh yeah best topic Cryptids Cryptids and there are plenty it is a very plentiful many but and also I guess what we've repeated over the last two episodes is that Appalachia is a huge region it spans many states 14 14 states on the east coast of America and it Ventures outside of America too and there is just such a rich history there there's a lot of culture varying cultures there and there's also lot Cults lots of Cults maybe cannibals we don't know man eating beasts in the woods but yeah there's just a lot of superstition a lot of lore

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a lot of like weird is this just a lore or is this a crypted and then there's very much like oh my God people are surviving these things today and chronicling them constantly online and that is basically the reason why the rules of the Appalachia are if you see something no you didn't if you hear something no you didn't because these cryptoads are alive they are living in the Appalachia and if you don't know how to play by the rules get the [ __ ] out yeah don't even try is yours scary no not really okay is yours no wow you wake to the sound of

the Raven Mocker

wind battering the walls of the cabin though when you went to sleep the night had been still the fire in the hear is no more than glowing Embers now casting long skeletal Shadows along the walls but something is wrong you can feel it there's a heavy presence pressing down on your chest as if an unseen hand is reaching into to you searching pulling

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and then you hear it a rasping breath a whispering voice ragged and dry it circles you though you see nothing and your heart pounds as you force yourself upright your breath coming in short sharp gasps you know the stories your grandmother and the elders have warned you but you never really truly believed them until now the Raven mocker a shape-shifting witch that prays on the sick and dying but you are not sick you are not dying are you the room feels colder now the Embers in the fireplace Flicker and die leaving you suffocating in darkness and then a sound low and guttural like a crow gurgling through its own death your eyes Dart to the far corner where something stirs a shadow unfurls too long too thin it's joints cracking as it straightens its the stench of decay rolls over you and your stomach is now

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in knots and then you see them the eyes red as fresh blood glowing in the darkness and they fix on you hungry the shadow moves closer the air grows thick your limbs are now sluggish you try to speak to pray but the words Lodge in your throat the creature lets out a sound a cruel rasping mockery of a human laugh and then it lunges pain lances through you though no hand touches your flesh it is inside of you it is sinking it's sharp bony long talon-like hands into you deeper through your muscle into your bone a terrible pressure builds behind your ribs a pulling sensation as if your very soul is about to be ripped from your body the weight the pain it's all just so unbearable but then suddenly it stops and you hear the chants an echo through the night an old familiar voice rising in song it's your grandmother the

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pressure lifts the red eyes flicker the shape recoils and then it is gone you collapse onto the floor you're gasping for breath you're trembling and outside carried by the wind you hear it a single mocking I have a bone to pick with you what you said yours is not scary how is this not scary I think your tolerance has gone up okay it must have then well because it's a scenario I know terrifying based on the lore of this creature yeah this creature is actually I don't know what I was saying this is one of the most terrifying Cherokee uh Cryptids yeah have you encountered this are you [ __ ] kidding me no it's very feared I recant my previous statement okay so the Cherokee Nation of the Appalachians they have long guarded the secrets of the mountains they have whispered warnings of creatures that lurk in the darkness Spirits so terrifying that they make even the bravest hesitate before

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stepping onto the Misty Foothills we talked about the Cherokee a lot in the previous two episodes sure did and they really are the champions of this area and a lot of the Traditions a lot of the Cryptids the spirits a lot of those beliefs stemmed from the Cherokee Nation and a lot of it was oral tradition to tell over generations and generations and it still very much is a part of the Appalachia today this I feel like we've heard about where there are a lot of Cryptids and creatures in appalaches that are known and talked about but are more small town yeah or even where it's like you know like the The Melon Heads or the moony people like things like that where you're like okay it's kind of like a weird science experiment or is that aliens or like where did this come from where it might feel potentially more modern but with an attempt at feeling ancient right whereas this has Deep Roots yeah these things existed before the Cherokee Nation was here they yes so these are Notch's old stories

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they are secred truths passed down through generations and among the horrors that haunt their lore one is feared more than the rest kalu aisi meaning the one that Robs a dying man of life also known as The Raven mocker it's interesting that it's specifically someone who's already dying yeah well it is interesting because it doesn't feel like yeah we're all technically dying and that kind of feels like the only criteria for the Raven mocker because it's not like the people are ill that okay are prayed upon so yes we must be living in order to die and they pray upon the living and take away their lives so they they die right so the Raven mocker kalu I highi in Cherokee is a shape-shifting witch a predator of the weak and the Raven mocker is no ordinary Phantom it does not merely take lives it devours the essence of the dying so I guess it does go for people who are a

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bit weaker at the time PR yeah yeah it consumes their final breath to stretch on its own existance and what's really interesting is it's not just like it takes your soul and it's like I'm alive it takes the final years that you would have had and tax that on to its life so it's almost like interesting you would have known how long you would have lived based on how many years it takes yeah so it would Tak 17 years you would have lived another 17 years that's fascinating yeah it does remind me a bit of the Mona ngal like especially in the way that it creeps into your bed sleeping bed and right the Mona ngal takes children and guts but similar and slurps your soul out long this one has a long bony finger all just long long limbs long anything is unsettling yeah it's it feels unnatural long toes too long toes too long finger toes as I call them I have them so the Cherokee believe that when someone is near I'm just glazing by that so the Cherokee believe that when someone is near death The

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Raven mocker will Circle unseen waiting to strike unlike other Spirits The Raven mocker does not seek revenge or torment for pleasure instead it is specifically trying to gain access to the years that that dying person had left to preserve its own life it kind of reminds me of in Harry Potter when the Unicorn Blood is drank you know it's like strictly for it's not for like the sport of killing unicorns it's for preservation of life right right so this is why those who live un naturally long lives are sometimes suspected of being Raven mockers in Disguise because it's like how did you last so long how are you 100 years old you must be a raven mocker because I can't believe one hasn't come for your soul yet right they say the arrival of a raven mocker is marked by strange sounds so usually there's an eerie wind that will rise from nowhere a rustle of unseen wings and most chilling of all this rasping unnatural breath oh which makes me think that the

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Raven mocker is closer to its last years and so it needs to it's like the The Legend of a witch stealing the soul of a young Maiden right like they don't go seeking out when they're in their prime years it's when they really need it like a redeeming quality it's like they're getting their Botox they forgot about it because they had gotten it and then all of a sudden like oh [ __ ] my wrinkles are back I need to I need to go I need to go refuel those unfortunate enough to witness a raven mocker describe it as being shrouded in darkness its form shifting between human and bird with eyes glowing and this unnatural fire behind the eyes that pierced your soul so it's wearing a fiery eye shirt how appropriate serendipitous yeah they have talon-like hands so very Raven likee again or or crow like and I did light up our Crow for this episode your fingers are quite elongated and it's not just for aesthetic or to be creepy it is

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literally so that their long fingers talon-like claws can puncture into your chest crack their bone and muscle and lasso your soul around their finger and rip it out they're eating your soul it moves with unnatural speed it's invisible unless it wants to be seen which is also terrifying that is terrifying so just you hear the wind right and then there's nothing you can do and those it touches says that they feel their life force being pulled from them one of the most well-known Tales amongst the Cherokee tells of an elder who recognized the signs of a raven mocker presence he summoned the strongest of medicine men from his tribe and the medicine men they all surrounded this dying person's home chanting prayers and burning sacred herbs and as the night stretched on a terrible Screech rang through the forest and those present saw a dark shadow streak across the sky retreating so basically there is a way to survive this where it's like power numbers power and

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numbers and prayer and positive intentions and and I guess just like trying to put that positive energy into the person who's dying or around them to protect them I'm curious if because I know with the Cherokees there's a lot of like offerings and respecting the spirits and the nature that's there like are there practices that they do to kind of appease The Raven mocker that's an interesting question I didn't read of anything but it is it's an interesting question because you would think like is there a ritual that could exist where like there's an offering that sustains The Raven mocker life enough that they aren't seeking out a human so in this scenario the men did say that they saw the glowing red eyes as well watching from the tree line so it's like this thing is is hunting but it's not as beastly to the point where it's just going to plow down an entire town or group of men to get to What It Wants it's it's hunting for a purpose and it seems like it's picking one specific individual yes and you can come together to protect that that person right which is also interesting so then it like

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makes me question the Raven mockers morals like do they really want to do this or is this like an avatar situation where they're in their own little language and their rasping breath being like thank you for giving me life to sustain you know like we're they don't view us as the way that we view ourselves we are we're food it's a circle of life yeah survival yeah so they don't want to do it they have to how weird that for the past few episodes we're really trying to excuse the behavior of appacha honestly it's like we as humans have been doing this for forever where we leech we are greedy we we're by definition parasites we're parasites and for some reason we're like yeah that's totally fine because we're humans we're like the most advanced we get away with it but no if we can get if we are allowed to do that let's let's honor and respect the fact that other animals and creatures are doing it as well yeah it's scary to be hunted but Circle of Life yeah another story tells of a young Warrior who while hunting in the mountains he heard Whispers carried by the wind and so he followed the sound and he was

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like oh I wonder if there's someone nearby that I that might need help is there someone that I know and he finds an old woman standing over this sick man and her mouth is moving but it's making no sound ah and as he approached she suddenly turns looks at him and what appeared to be a woman starts to kind of shift into this inhuman form and the warrior then draws his knife but before he could act the woman dissolves into a murder of crows holy [ __ ] that is so cool and vanishes into the night oh my gosh right it's a shape shifter so it can really take on any form that's amazing typically it chooses Birds but it can be anything wow the sick man survived and when he awoke he spoke of terrible dreams where something dark was trying to steal his final breath the only defense against a raven mocker is the power of Cherokee medicine men and women their chance and rituals and this is really just the last chance that you have against the creatures grasp if you don't have access to those people

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sorry to you you're gone you're dead you're dead so Sabrina in the book that you had bought for research it also states that these rituals the specific rituals that they use include placing knives scissors or other sharp objects beneath the bed of a dying person as the Raven mocker is believed to fear these objects oh and additionally chanting sacred songs and prayers can help protect the soul of The Departed which there was a lot about song in the last in part two mhm yeah I feel like song and storytelling and music just in general is so important in the appalaches yeah even if you're not dying and we're all dying as we previously declared and is fact we should all just sleep with scissors under our bed I do many nights I believe it I have a panic button next to my bed too A Life Alert I do I literally do a real life alert well like I have my um my security system panic button oh okay yeah some say a spirit can be driven Away by those who know the old ways of the Cherokee but

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few have ever claimed to actually defeat one cuz I feel like those people are dead right so there's no story to be told right like how would you know that they were taken yeah unless there's another witness in the home that was like oh it suddenly got really extra windy and I was hearing weird stuff and I didn't really think much of it and then their relative is dead in the morning yeah it is said that when a raven mocker dies its body is consumed by Flames leaving no Trace behind so there's literally no evidence of the Raven mocker you can't just happen upon their carcass there's no way to prove the Raven mocker existence whoa postmortem but I'm curious if like I'm thinking of Like a Phoenix Rising From the Ashes right so it will burn into ashes but if you were in the nearby Woods would you see a fire and be like oh there's another group of people camping or how long does it burn I'm not sure and then also like when it comes when its life ends is that just because it wasn't able to sustain another life or is there truly like okay when they reach 3,000 years or something it's a natural point where any life isn't it

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doesn't do enough for them interesting and then how do they procreate I don't know I have great questions about these right or or is it like did they used to be human and then they were turned into this unanswered questions we don't know still fascinating so while the Raven mocker is a feared malevolent force it also serves as a guardian to Cherokee traditions and values it embodies The Duality of life and death good and evil reminding the Cherokee People of the spiritual world's power and the import of living a virtuous life Y and in Cherokee culture death is not an end but it's this transition period yeah so the legend of the Raven mocker reinforces this belief it highlights the enduring connection between the living and the spirit world and if you're a Bigfoot

Bigfoot in Raven Mocker lore

hunter apparently the Raven mocker is a reminder that Bigfoot is real what do you mean in the Appalachia okay this is where I was like what the [ __ ] a shape-shifting Bigfoot equals Raven mocker essentially so people believe that the Raven mocker some people

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believe I'll say I don't know that the Cherokee believe this but some people believe that the Raven mocker is actually a Bigfoot of sorts that this big giant black fur shape-shifting Beast can be this like wispy shape-shifting redyed Raven mocker interesting and I not sure where this belief started but what I found online was Mountain Monsters Bigfoot Edition it's the TV show season 2 episode 13 oh my gosh Bigfoot of County Raven mocker so I watched not all of it but half of it yeah so the team heads to Lee County Virginia and they're in search for the Bigfoot Raven mocker which I was like is this is a different different Raven mocker but no it turns out they spoke about the Cherokee belief that there is a creature so they're claiming that this is a Cherokee belief which I'm not really sure because I couldn't actually find it anywhere else but they're claiming that there's this Cherokee belief that this creature could enter the soul of a raven and see through its eyes and right before it would kill its victims it would call out like a raven

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and they spoke about how some of the Elder relatives and Elders in the area said that hearing a raven meant death which was interesting because in part one you gave a list of like all the things that Ravens are seeing crows meant yeah and if you see one crow it meant bad news is coming your way so death would certainly be bad news but in this episode there were quite a few witnesses that came forward to talk about their sightings and these are like modern witness like these are people that are alive Lee County Lee County Virginia Virginia okay yeah and one of the things that was said by one of the witnesses is the potential connection between a Bigfoot and a raven mocker there's this guy that was in the woods and he found big Footprints but alongside the big Footprints or like maybe in the big Footprints were also a woman's Prince and the Raven mocker is often shape-shifting into a woman and so this was the idea that like interesting maybe not necessarily that it is exactly the Raven mocker but that Bigfoot can shape shift into different forms and creatures and our understanding of just

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a Bigfoot is incorrect well I would agree that our understanding of Bigfoot is misguided or just we don't know we don't have the answers so why notar an appach of the bigot could also be Raven mocker it's you and Bigfoot and you know how like usually like as with the little foot you step on top of the Bigfoot but you're like hey you step on my feet and all walk us yeah or we're just like foot by foot like just always have to be touching like always touching yeah IAL touches me and Bigfoot yeah so who knows but the next time you find yourself alone at night in the Appalachia do listen carefully the wind begins to rise without any reason if you hear some hushed voices if you hear rasping breath too close to your ear know that the Raven mocker may be near and that your life is certainly at risk that scary it is that's that's scary I feel like the Bigfoot part is interesting to me but it also makes me mad because then I'm like if this is real and true that this thing that feels

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so different from descriptions of Bigfoot could also be a Bigfoot it makes me think well then is everything Bigfoot but I'd much rather encounter a Bigfoot than a raven mocker absolutely it's like a dementor I mean who's to say that they don't come and go from the same portals or right dimensions and that's just an entryway in Lee County who knows and we talked last week about the devil's parties that he throws so perhaps there's just some confusion because Bigfoot and the Raven mocker sometimes they travel together you know Bigfoot walks the Raven mocker home after party yeah they need a little extra help getting home because you know the Raven mocker had a little bit too much to drink they didn't have enough life they had too much to drink just all went to their head you would think after 3,000 years they build up a tolerance but they're still a lightweight no yeah there weren't enough Poor Unfortunate Souls at this party so I mean I like the Raven marcker in the sense that it's a very spooky story like I imagined sitting around a campfire late at night in Appalachia telling that story right

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which is so scary everyone would go to sleep terrified well and if you're camping too of course the wind is going to pick up at some point and you're going to hear birds you're going to hear rustling and it's gonna you're going to be like is that the rasping sound of someone's voice you know someone's going to be snoring in the tent next door and you're like oh my God it's the Raven mocker if anyone's camping or hiking do do take this story with you and if you

the Squonk

would like to end your evening around the campfire with something less scary I'm going to tell you about the best crypted I have never felt so connected to something in my life it's depressed it scares people it loves to spend time alone and it cries a lot and it hates Its Reflection oh my God this poor creature poor you but like I found it's like my kindred spirit I'm like in love what is it called the squonk the squonk and it's

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nickname is Pennsylvania's saddest creature but I think it's the world's saddest crypted oh poor guy or girl or thing um yeah a lot of so a lot of Articles give it like a feminine so they say her but there's I don't know the squonk they them the squonk first made its debut it presented itself to the world at the end while it was crying while it was crying always crying at the end of the 19th century and it was first spotted by Lumberjacks and the Pennsylvania Hemlock Woods so as The Story Goes the squank spent many of their like early years moving from location to location they tried living in the desert they tried living in the swamps and they were displaced kind of constantly but they need to do their astrocartography line so they can see where they could be happiest because clearly they're not really vibing with where they've been but no I think they are happiest in Pennsylvania okay and so they found and made their way to the woods in the Forest Street of Pennsylvania but I love that my ation of the squ I know they've really they've

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come a long way each time they had to move they were displaced in some way but finally they found their way to the forest of Pennsylvania in the late 1800s beautiful plenty of trees so much space for them to be alone and to hide and they felt good for a time but then the forest began to disappear it was slow the trees were being cut down and entire forests were being demolished I looked this up but by the end of the 19th century I think it was about 60% of Pennsylvania's woods and forests were gone I thought you were going to say 60% of the squonks had been 60% of the squ well I mean the sang population was depleting it was depleting wow that's yeah that's quite upsetting Timber picturing them as The Lorax too I'm picturing them as these like small little kind of troll like beings you're picturing it great am I is this squonk energy there will be photos in the YouTube but I don't want to show you a photo until I get to the description of them because I don't want to paint your experience okay so yeah Timber barans

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had basically chopped down all of Pennsylvania's trees I looked it up an Iron Works furnaces required an acre of trees a day okay why I think it was like a vital part of making charcoal well increase your efficiency and figure out how to not use charcoal right and even The Lumberjacks so a lot of this story of the squonks come from Lumberjacks who you know they were making a living doing this work but they were themselves seeing firsthand the way that this was being done irresponsibly the devastation of the forest the wastefulness of it so they are friends to squonks and of the trees and of the woods and then also this is their livelihood cutting down trees and working in the forest if all of Pennsylvania's forests are gone or diminishing their jobs are at risk right they would live in Lumber camps set up in the woods they spent a lot of time with the trees and in the woods and they were the first to see the squonk so there's no real first encounter so I

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decided to take some creative Liberties and create the first encounter okay I'm excited for this and I wanted to with you brainstorm some names to call our Lumberjack the star of the story should we go like Forest stump oh oh we're giving him like a lumberjack name like a lumberjack name okay yeah okay Forest stump or Forest Gump yeah or Timber like Timber I like that what else uh I like Tim Tim Timber Timber Douglas fur Banks but but let's see what other trees are there Chester nut Chester nut Sawyer my log we'll go timber timber feels appropriate timber timber was a second generation Lumberjack he grew up with stories from his father Sawyer mlog for some reason they have different last names they becoming Cryptid of their own Tim spent his life working in the Pennsylvania woods and he inherited more in just his father's toe fingers and his father's unruly beard hair I did

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put unruly beard hair but I just added toe fingers because we talked about them earlier he'd also inherited the rules of the woods his father always told him that the forest was alive and he swore once that when he was cutting down a tree he heard it cry and as he took a final whack with his axe the tree came falling down with the most painful whale he'd ever heard oh so Tim's father warned him to never wander off by himself and to always think the tree for their sacrifice when Tim turned 15 he followed in his Father's Footsteps and began his first job as a lumberjack at the point of this story Tim is now nearing 50 eating 8,000 calories a day was a lot and it was wearing on him that was that's a stat like Lumberjacks would eat 8,000 calories a day to sustain the energy for their jobs I absolutely believe that because when I was pregnant I think I was easily taken down 3500 I'm sure breastfeeding probably 4,000 I'm sure truly yeah like a snack would be a th000 calories but this was weighing on his body and he was coming to a point

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where maybe his career would be coming to an end soon but for the last 45 years Timber never forgot the rules of his father he never wandered off alone and he always thanked the trees he felt a profound love and connection to the forest but he started to notice that something was changing the forest he once knew as a spry 15-year-old boy were all but gone so on this day it was a long day of work Tim joined his fellow Jacks around the fire where they cajoled and commiserated about the day and life and that is when another man another Lumberjack Forest stump told the others what he'd overheard there's a rumor going around we're not long for workout here our jobs are become less and less I don't know where he's from it's funny because you're giving him the exact same accent that I give to the park ranger in get dressed Sasquatch which is a book one of our listeners gifted that's cute if there are no Forest left there will be no jobs either and Tim Burr had heard

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these rumors but you know he felt it long before because he had seen for 45 years the devastation firsthand he knew he wasn't long for work any longer anyways but he was struck with a really profound sadness and he felt a tear drop from his eye down his cheek settling into his beard not wanting his fellow men and women Lumberjacks to see him he dismissed himself for a we he said and without thinking he broke the very first rule he wandered off into the woods alone he walked through what is now the graveyard of trees where once life sprung up to the sky now laid Barren tree stumps slowly decaying that single tear had friends and they started leaking from his tear Ducks he fell to his knees sobbed for the land sobbed for the trees and that's when he heard it another cry not his another's and there's nothing like a mysterious sound coming from the woods to consume and

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swallow up your tears yeah so he wiped his tears and looks around is anyone out there the foreign sobs continued and that is when he saw it the most hideous creature he had ever seen the squonk no squonk you're beautiful don't hate your own reflection of course he didn't have a name for it then but it was a creature piglike on all fours covered in warts and moles its skin was loose and wrinkly and it truly was sobbing forming a pool of Tears beneath it Tim was startled but also concerned and despite his instinct to run he wanted to know more so he took a step closer to this creature and it began crying more and more and suddenly it dissolved into a pile of its own tears Tim was shaken he ran back to camp and was like I don't know what I just experienced but the next night around the campfire he decided to share his story and he was surprised to learn that he was not the only Lumberjack who had had seen this creature they were all just keeping it quiet the squonk had

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long been seen by The Lumberjacks in Pennsylvania and thus began the story in the legend told around campfires at night forever ingrained in Pennsylvania history the story of the squank so it's not documented literally in history books but there is a text written in 1910 called fearsome creatures of the lumberwoods and it was written by William T Cox who was a Forester by trade and he was the first to document the story of the squonk As Told through his time as a lumberjack and told by other fellow Lumberjacks around the campfire wow he wrote The Following the squonk is of a very retiring disposition generally traveling about at Twilight and dusk because of its misfitting skin which is covered with warts and moles it is always unhappy Hunters who are good at tracking are able to follow the squonk by its tear stained Trail for the animal Weeps constantly oh my god when

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cornered an escape seems impossible or when surprised and frightened it may even dissolve into tears it is probably the homeliest animal in the world and it knows it this is so upsetting so here's one picture of the squonk oh but my favorite picture of the squonk is actually a me it does kind of look like a hog it does wild hog this meme is maybe my favorite picture of the squonk oh oh you know what it looks like it looks like that um like a bacteria like the the something bear the give me one second okay I was thinking of a tardigrade which is a microscopic animal looks like gummy bears and they're called Moss piglets or water bears as nicknames and what this is uh what it looks like oh it does look like that I'll screenshot it and put but I kind of love those cuz I love the squonk so the appearance of the squonk has truly never changed where I feel like a lot of Cryptids like evolve and their habits change the squonk is

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consistent there are certain aspects that it has gotten more character development over the years it is said that squonks are slower on moonlit nights because the light means that they're more likely to see their Reflections in illuminated bodies of water and they don't want to see their reflection so they move slower or they stay still on those nights one evolution of the squonk gave them two webbed feet not all four and I think it's like one front and one back so like it's just like this poor thing it's ashamed of its appearance and often hides and spends much of its time weeping there's a legend of a hunter named JP wling who claimed to have Tracked Down The squonk Following its Trail of Tears and he captured it in a sack and he threw the sack over his shoulder and he's like wandering out of the woods with his prize all like high and mighty as the thing is weeping in the back as the thing is weeping in the bag but as he gets closer and closer to the outside of the forest he notices his bag is a lot lighter so he stops and he opens op s it and all that is left no squonk in sight

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all that is left is the puddle of Tears because it literally evaporates into its own tears which makes me so confused like is that like its way of dying that it just like dissolves into tears or does it just kind of poof is it kind of like a lizard that drops part of its tail when you pick him up yeah and he just kind of yeah disguise himself and move and change particles I guess yeah I think he's like a he can teleport through tears oh the little squ if you cry enough you can teleport gather your tears for teleportation crying is good for you the legend that came from this story is that the squank tears were mixed with the DNA of a Boston terrier and that is how pugs came about isn't that amazing makes so much sense H the squonk is more than just a legend the squonk represents lessons that we can learn the squonk represents the sadness specifically around the forest devastation the squonk's ability to dissolve into tears when cornered can

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be seen as a metaphor for the way ecosystems collapse under humans pressure or destruction when threatened the squonk disappears leaving behind only a pool of Tears in the same way that when a habitat or Forest is deforested and destroyed the entire species can vanish leaving only just traces of their existence right but the squank is also a reminder that it's okay to have floss it's okay to be vulnerable it's okay to cry and that sometimes yeah you need to dissolve into a puddle of tears to release your pain in your insecurities usually we do feel better afterwards and that you don't have to stay somewhere that makes you unhappy yes no matter what insecurities you feel you do belong and you do have a place like the squonk has stayed in the Pennsylvania Forest it's that's where it belongs and it lives there and there are other people out there that want to protect you that want to help you that want to Champion you that love you exactly and after the 19th century when

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like the forestry in Pennsylvania was almost completely wiped out there was a change and there was a shift and there was a call to action of people realizing the destruction that they had done and granted we have ruined a lot of our environment but like trees have been planted since then and Forestry has regrown in the way that the squank has kind of persevered throughout time and the squank has been immortalized in many ways there is a famous song by Genesis called squonk yeah and then there's this is my favorite there's a celebration every year in Johnstown Pennsylvania all about the squonk it is called Squan paloa oh my God hey what do they do there they like crying Corners no it's like a celebration of Cryptids and specifically the squank and his history Squan of paloa and it's August 2nd 20125 this year it's an all ages crypted Festival celebrating squank and other creatures of appalachin and Americana folklore and cryptozoology so great

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Squan paloa Sanka paloa but they do a lot of like pigs in a blanket and like other foods that are a little you know squonk s like yeah but that's the squonk my spirit animal oh these poor little creatures I want to adopt one right I'll make a bed for you in my backyard we'll cover all the mirrors yeah I don't have anything in my shed do you want to live there but I'll remind you how beautiful you are I love this clunk me too that's the story I can't believe we've never heard of this before we can never cover Cryptids again this is the best one right I'm with you it's amazing I was so thrilled to find the squonk I think the squonk found me you guys are two peas in a pod oh man two squonks in the woods two squonks in the woods you and Bigfoot are off in the woods and I'll be with squonk in Pennsylvania me and Bigfoot are just like walking hand in hand and we just hear weeping we're like oh don't worry in the squonk

Cryptid Conclusions

but those are two of so many cryptids in

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the Appalachian region we'll have to revisit it again because there are so many there are some that are absolutely terrifying that I think spearfinger maybe that's the one that we were talking about earlier yeah there's like I'm trying to remember from the book but like do demon Jersey Devil Bigfoot the the Apple devil like there's so many and there's so many iterations and I feel like if you were to study every single one maybe they just have different names based on the region that they are seen in but they might be interconnected maybe they have parties down in the tunnels the cave system of the appalaches yeah how far do they travel right I wonder too if Cryptids have like a travel bucket list too like if up in Maine some of the Cryptids up there that right are just like oh we always hear about the squonks like should we go to squonk territory and hang out with the squonks or like the squonks are like Hey we're going to have a a crying party like everyone come cry with us yeah it's therapy they host a retreat in Pennsylvania it's during the Spring

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Equinox yes this is KMI it's all coming together together you just can let it all out bury all the bad and be and plant some trees in Pennsylvania right toing New Life this makes so much sense yeah I understand why we're doing this squonks on okay but we have emails from

listener story: log throwing cryptid

all of you who have encountered Cryptids and odd things a on the Appalachia and general crypted stories all right so this is called Appalachia lore or something something something hi I have lived in and out of Appalachia for my whole life from the hills of Tennessee to Western North Carolina and into the mountains of Virginia now I am currently a student at West Virginia University living in the beautiful state of West Virginia I've had plenty of creepy weird things occur but I think that this is one that takes the cake this occurred about two years ago two days before New Year's my boyfriend at the time lived in a small place in West Virginia and I

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currently live in Central Virginia so the quickest way was to drive over the mountains through the Mon Mon monaha Mon monoga National Park in Forest okay that's what we're gonna call it it's a beautiful place Jamie I hope you keep be trying to pronounce trying to pronounce it man it's a beautiful place but at the time I'd only seen this part during the day but this time was different I unfortunately had work and the earliest that I could get off was 5:00 p.m. from his house to mine it was a 4 to 5 hour drive so I was driving during the night yep I was all alone and I was just simply creeped out so my anxiety was already through the roof my drive went well I stopped at a small town in the mountains in Virginia before I crossed over the state line to West Virginia it was dark it was around 8:00 p.m. I was going down a windy road it was just me I hadn't seen another car in almost an hour I had just went around a curve when

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finally I got to the street portion and I saw a deer dead on the side of the road okay it's literally normal here but what I saw next horrified me there was a tall black figure with glowing eyes I honestly couldn't tell what color because I had my brights on and the dashboard was really bright so I slowed down thinking that this was a bear I was super wrong as I slowly went by it I realized this was not a bear it was tall I want to say maybe 7 or 8T tall it was taller than the car that I was driving in which was my dad's F-150 with a 2in lift on it I was horrified it looked at me and it started walking towards me when I was trying to go around the deer I was so creeped out I was horrified I just simply sped off I had no cell service I was too terrified to even think about taking a picture I slowed down once I sped off trying to collect myself and in my mind I was going through all of the appalachin lore things and things I'd known and at first I thought maybe it was my music but then

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I started to hear something something being thrown I looked at my rear view to see a log being thrown I spit off again because I was so scared but also I couldn't shake the fact that my dad would kill me if there was any damage to the truck so I finally got to my boyfriend's house with no issues after that and when I got there his mom came to greet me at the door as my boyfriend was still at work I said nothing and later that night while my boyfriend was as sleep next to me I woke up I looked at my GPS of my journey and was able to pinpoint exactly where I had been where IID had that experience thanks to Life 360 you were useful for once I realized I was in the national park and I began going down the rabbit hole of experiences that others have had in that area and all of the lore that surrounded that place I went back about 3 days later with no issues in that exact same spot but this time it was during the day and there were more cars on the road and I could see when I drove back through that exact same spot there was nothing suspicious the deer had been removed and I could not find any piece

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of wood or anything that had been thrown at my car nothing so I arrived back home and still told nobody oh my gosh I'm now 22 and about to graduate college I will always love the state of West Virginia the waterfalls the hikes the places to see and the people this will always be home to me but I will still never forget the experience I had in the mananga Hala National Park to this day I still watch videos about the park in the creepy West Virginia lore but I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that it actually occurred to me but I think I've settled that this is most likely Bigfoot I'm not really sure I always thought the lore was really interesting but I never really thought that I would experience anything firsthand and since this experience I've had some other weird experiences but this is the one that I will never ever forget I've still barely told anyone when I do tell people most laugh at me and the only people that have believed me are some of my West Virginia native friends and now my current fiance my interest will still be in all of the lore but in the meantime

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I'm going to take a break from appalache Fair thank you for listening to my story I promise I'm not crazy this [ __ ] happened Becca Becca we beyond believe you and the story I'm about to read is very similar whoa okay I'm also in agreement with Becca that this does sound like a Bigfoot thing especially the throwing of rocks that's like one of the classic PS of a Bigfoot and the fact that it can it can close so much distance so quickly there's a lot lot of talk about Bigfoot being this sort of interdimensional being and it can kind of like hop through portals and it doesn't necessarily have to chase you on its own two giant feet so it makes sense that like you know Becca sped off kept driving then slowed down and then was but it's also like again like there are so many different creatures in the appalaches but it does have you know flesh pedestrian type energy or a dog man a not deer so many things vampire it's also crazy because it's like in Appalachia there's so many stories that are I think associated with Bigfoot or some of these other Cryptids that can be kind of similar where

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there's stories of you know deer being hung in the almost like as a feast like hung up in the woods in the middle of the woods people will encounter this like deer ccass where the head is like clean off and stuff like that so deer do seem to be a part of potentially the diet of Bigfoot or some of the similar creatures yes the story does not take place in the same area but it does take place in Appalachia in Maryland and the creature sounds so similar that I'm like okay Becca here we go yeah Becca you're

listener story: roadside dogman cryptid

not alone this is from our listener Misty and it's called encounter hello I recently found your channel so I thought I would drop by and share a couple instances I live in the mountains in Maryland and yes it is the appalachin mountain range I do not often recount the story because I get looked at as if I'm crazy or trying to pull a prank my town is small so it's not uncommon to travel a bit and go to Live Events or to go away to school so traveling to hang out with friends is common one evening after Hanging With Friends it was very late around 3: in the morning and I was

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driving home alone and it was quiet and peaceful it was not a very high traffic road and it had been there since before the highway was built I had my music on low and my windows slightly lowered for crisp Breeze as it was late September and a clear night suddenly the radio began to static which is strange because it was not on the radio my Bluetooth was playing listening to music on YouTube but it made me jump and I clicked it off cuz I was like I don't want to deal with this and I refused to move my eyes from the road as deer getting hit is common because it's the woods in seconds after turning the radio off I spotted something I could not explain my brain knew there was something not right about what I was seeing before I could figure out what was wrong with this creature it was running along the road it darted into the road leapt over the hood of my car and bounded across the road to the other side of the median the this is like this is a parkour Cryptid it was so close that if I had put my hand out of

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the window I could have touched it I had this awful feeling that made my heart race and my Need to Escape kicked in so viscerally that without conscious thought I pressed on the gas pedal and zoomed out of there all the while I could feel the hair on the back of my neck raised and that sense of being watched and if you've been a hunter or anyone who spent time in the woods you know that feeling it felt like I was being hunted I Now understand why my brain was having so much trouble understanding what I was seeing I was sure it was a deer but the legs were all wrong too long in the front compared to the back legs and it didn't have fur but it had a gray leathery hide and a head that was even more wrong it was not the head of a deer but more like a dog for the next hour I was speeding trying to get home and more than once I could see this creature just running inside the tree line at the same pace of my car no no no no no no oh my God what do you even do this thing is like taunting you how do you escape just keep

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going you got to pray that that thing just is this is for the it's own game and it's not actually going to come for you because obviously it's exercising yeah once I got to my house I didn't even turn my car off I opened the door ran inside practically hysterical to my boyfriend that I had called during my frantic rush home he was trying to talk me down from my Panic my boyfriend went outside and turned the car off for me but even he felt that he was being watched while he was doing so so he turned off the car and hurried inside I hate this because that means that it went off of the Mountain Road or the the wooded Road and like actually went into a residential area I refused to drive that road after that if it got dark before heading home and while it almost forgotten about that encounter almost 3 months later my boyfriend helped a friend move and they were driving that same road when late afternoon was setting in and it began to rain my boyfriend flinched because the radio suddenly screeched and his friend asked in a very quiet voice what's that at the edge of the road my boyfriend slowed down and sure enough he could see a

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creature just like I had described to him months earlier looked a lot like a deer but front legs were far too long and the head was more like a dog this time it was looking at them and my boyfriend said its eyes were glowing red this is a not deer or a dog man my boyfriend stopped the car after a time because no matter how fast he drove or how far it was this thing was just keeping up with the car my boyfriend's friend begged him not to stop my boyfriend insisted he was not going to keep having something stalking them without confronting it so he tried to approach the creature why the [ __ ] would you do that you've seen the speed of it but it took off into the woods thank goodness however there were soft prints in the muddy ground and it was not Hooves or paw pads but looked more like three toes with claws my boyfriend was dragged back to the car by his friend and they drove away apparently they've seen it a couple more times always in the woods just within sight but not close enough to get a better look at after he told me story I fully refuse to ever go on that road again and I really do my best to avoid it completely

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believe it or not this is entirely up to you but I will say there's definitely something in those forests and mountains here and caution when traveling as you never know what you might encounter Misty yeah that is [ __ ] up that is really really scary it's terrifying no matter what if this thing is keeping Pace with the car in the tree line but what freaks me out is that we know from Misty that it has the ability to and the mo motivation to get so close to you that it's literally hopping over your car so yeah it doesn't just stay to the tree line it can access you if it decides to and it sounds like if it ever wants to it will yeah this is the like Edward Twilight like I can outrun you speech yeah this is mon yeah I can rip you as if you could outrun me that's what it is that's what I was looking for yeah so um Beware of the appalaches thank you for joining us for this three-parter there will be more because there's never enough episodes about

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Appalachia because there are so many encounters so many crypted so many ghosts so many Legends and so much lore I love this me too happy camping season Happy Spring yeah get outside thanks tell us what the trail is like yeah make sure you respect the land yeah and if you encounter anything like this cry like the squonk cry like the squonk that's all you can do keep your eyes down pretend you didn't see anything and then as soon as you're home email us yeah oh email us at two girl1 GH podcast gmail.com also if you want episodes one week early and AD free you can join us over on patreon it's $5 a month you get every episode one week early and AD free you get a bonus episode every month you can join us every Tuesday for campfire stories you can join book club you get stickers holiday cards so much more you can watch us on YouTube follow us on social media shout out to our editor and producer Jamie Ryan and thank you to all of you we love you so much so so much and we will see you on the other

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side very spy