575: The Underground Grid: Electricity Linking Four Famous Monsters
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In 2015, a routine study by the United States Geological Survey, or USGS, discovered strange electrical patterns and vast cave networks beneath New Jersey's Pine Barrens, formations that shouldn't exist in that area. When researchers compared their data with other surveys, they found identical formations and energy signatures in three other places: the hills of West Virginia, the Congo Basin, and eastern Oklahoma.

Each site had vast underground cave systems, and each site showed unusual electrical activity, repeating patterns of energy too precise to be natural. The more the data was analyzed, the more connections were found. And there was one connection the government did not want to talk about.

All four locations were connected to cryptid sightings. In 2018, the USGS quietly issued a final report. Despite being thousands of miles apart, the tunnels are laid out in the same mathematical grid, a grid that's slowly expanding toward a central point. It looks like that not only are the creatures living in the underground caves, now they're digging, and they're digging toward the same destination.

So, two questions: How are these cryptids connected? And what happens when their tunnels intersect? The earliest mention of the New Jersey Devil is 1735. Deborah Leeds gave birth to her 13th child. According to the legend, she cursed the child, saying it would be the devil. Then the child transformed into a monstrous creature. "Yeah, teenagers, am I right?"

One sentence? Can I build drama for more than just one sentence? Sorry, I know you don't like cryptids, so I'm trying to help you keep it moving. You don't need to. We're going to talk about four different cryptids today. Fine. I'll write four times as many jokes. No, please don't. You're welcome.

Local folklore says the Jersey Devil has bat wings, a goat's head, and a forked tail. You can sometimes see it flying around the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. The only thing scarier in New Jersey than a drive is, you ever see them on a dirt bike trying to wrangle a left turn out of a jug handle? All right, that's enough. Yeah, up to me! The most documented appearance of the New Jersey Devil was January 1909. Hundreds of residents across multiple counties reported seeing it.

The wave of sightings transformed the local legend into national news. The creature was described the same way by many witnesses. It had wings like a bat, a head like a horse or a goat, and walked on two legs. From the side, its face was like a kangaroo, a long neck and eyes that were described as glowing red orbs. Several people said they smelled sulfur.

It was awkward looking, but fast and agile. It could launch itself straight up into the air and take flight. There were even hoof prints in the snow. The prints would suddenly disappear as if it jumped into the air. It was a big deal in the area. Schools were closed. Factory workers refused to work nights. Police officers, politicians, businessmen, they all filed reports. The Philadelphia Zoo offered a reward to anyone who could catch it.

Multiple newspapers, including the New York Times, covered the incidents. Law enforcement records showed consistent physical evidence at multiple locations. Witness reports flooded in from Burlington, Gloucester, and Salem counties. A Burlington hunter reported being attacked and clawed by the creature. In Woodbury, a group of boys threw rocks at it, which caused it to screech and flap away. Modern analysis gives a clue why this area might be home to the devil.

The New Jersey Pine Barrens sit on top of one of the largest aquifer systems in the country. More than 17 trillion gallons of water. Recent studies revealed extensive cave networks threading through the aquifer system. Geologists say these caves shouldn't exist in this type of sedimentary rock. During the 1909 sightings, there were also electrical anomalies reported. Telegraph equipment behaved erratically. Messages were garbled with strange sequences of numbers.

When modern cryptographers analyzed these sequences in 2018, they found a pattern. One that matched electrical wavelengths now being recorded by the USGS. In 1909, police reports documented footprints in the snow. Cloven hooves that started and stopped impossibly, as if the creature just vanished. They even took plaster molds of the tracks. The Jersey Devil moved with an unusual gait unlike any other animal on record.

In 2021, the Philadelphia Police Department finally released their complete files from 1909. Among them was a sealed report about the plaster casts. Modern analysis revealed rare minerals in the prints that don't exist in surface soil. They only exist in deep cave systems, thousands of feet underground. They finally discovered the lair of the New Jersey Devil.

On September 12th, 1952, seven people in Flatwoods, West Virginia saw something that changed their lives and the town forever. Witnesses included Kathleen May and Eugene Lemon serving in the National Guard. Their encounter would become part of Project Blue Book, the Air Force's official UFO investigation program.

The entity they described was at least 10 feet tall. It hovered above the ground in a column of mist with glowing orange eyes. Its body appeared both mechanical and organic. A metallic, dark-pleated, skirt-like structure tapered to a point. Most distinctive was its head. People said it was shaped like an ace of spades, and it had small claws on its sides. It emitted a nauseating metallic odor that made witnesses violently ill.

There was physical evidence as well. Seven witnesses suffered nausea and throat irritation lasting several days. Ground analysis revealed an unusual oily residue at the site, and military investigators said radiation in the area was twice the normal level.

The Air Force had an official explanation. It was an owl perched on a branch. An owl? What about the physical evidence? Oh, they ignored it. No, they didn't. They just didn't tell anyone. That's probably true.

That night, dozens of people across four counties reported similar lights in the sky. Local radio stations complained about widespread electrical interference. Military radar tracked an unknown object moving at over 13,000 miles per hour before stopping over flatwoods. Project Blue Book investigators arrived almost immediately. The report was declassified in 1975. The electrical readings at the site matched no known pattern.

But the radiation signature did match other locations, readings taken in New Jersey and later Oklahoma. Recent geological studies revealed why the creature may have appeared in Flatwoods. It's the same story. The location is the intersection of three underground rivers. This creates electrical conditions like those found in the Pine Barrens. And according to the USGS data, that energy is getting stronger.

When the reports from 1952 were reanalyzed, they found that precise geographic coordinates of sightings happened near the electrical disturbances, and the highest energy readings matched the most vivid accounts of the Flatwoods Monster. Based on the locations of the reports, the creature seemed to be leading people somewhere, and it turned out that that place was the entrance of an underground cave system.

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For generations, the tribes living deep in the Congo have told stories about a monster living in the swamp. According to legend, it's a massive creature with a long neck, tiny head, and powerful tail. And it leaves behind huge footprints. They call it Mkelebembe. Why? It's fun to say. Go ahead, try it. Can we just get through... Mkelebembe.

It feels good in the mouth. That's what she said. Oh, there he is! I was wondering when you'd wake up. Mkelebebe has brownish-green scaly reptilian skin and three huge claws on each foot. The locals were describing a sauropod, a dinosaur. But this was before the first dinosaur was discovered. For centuries, these were just local stories and nothing more.

But that changed when Western explorers started reporting their own terrifying encounters with Mkelebebe. In 1913, German explorer Captain Ludwig Führer von Stein led an expedition near Lake Tele. He was searching for a race of dwarves rumored to be living in the area. What he found instead were enormous footprints over three feet long. They showed signs of a massive body being dragged. Local guides weren't surprised at all. They said the tracks belonged to Mkelebebebe.

More sightings emerged over the following years. In 1919, American missionary Eugene Thomas reported a dinosaur-like creature crossing the Jha River. In 1932, famous cryptozoologist Ivan Sanderson was charged by a huge animal during an expedition. He described it as a reptilian beast about six feet high.

The scientific community remained skeptical until the 1980s. Dr. Roy Mackle's team uncovered a fresh set of three-foot-long footprints near Lake Tele. They could only have been left by an extremely large, heavy bipedal reptile. In other words, a dinosaur. In 1992, a Japanese film crew captured footage of a large creature swimming across the lake. - A Japanese expedition traveled to remote Lake Tele in the heart of the Congo forest.

Other witnesses have come forward over the years with similar reports. In 2003, a group of miners claimed to have seen a rhino-sized creature with a long tail and small head drinking from a river.

Locals reported a dinosaur attacked their crops in 2021. All these sightings occurred in the same area, directly above one of the sprawling underground tunnel systems identified by the USGS. And all are electrical hotspots.

In 2016, researchers from National Geographic were exploring those caves. Carved into the walls were a series of ancient illustrations. They depicted Mkelebebe, small head, large body, and the artwork dated back over 20,000 years. When first discovered, researchers assumed the drawings were fiction. Now it seemed like whoever lived in those caves all those years ago was writing down history.

In eastern Oklahoma for years, something has been stalking the dense forests. Locals call it the eight-air beast or the Oklahoma Bigfoot. It's a massive creature covered in hair. It walks upright like a man, but its footprints are definitely not human.

The earliest reported sightings date back to the 1970s around Siloam Springs. Delbert and Ernestine Harris were driving home one night when a huge hairy beast crossed the road directly in front of them. It was at least eight feet tall with an overpowering stench like a skunk.

In August 1971, Adair County Sheriff saw a creature he couldn't explain. It stood over eight feet tall, its body covered in dark reddish-brown hair. Witnesses described a face that looked like a cross between an ape and a dog, or an ape and a wolf. It has long, powerful arms and hands with claws. Whoa, it sounds like a crab kit. No, I think it's... It has the body of a crab and the face of a cat. I know what... Feed a crab kit!

Its eyes are amber-colored and reflect light like a predator's. Fear the crab kid.

But the witnesses say behind those eyes is an unsettling intelligence. Multiple police officers encountered the eight-air beast that summer. They said it moved much too quickly for its size. A deputy tracked it through creek bottom. It left behind a trail of mutilated livestock and footprints 17 inches long with distinct claw marks. The pattern showed it wasn't wandering aimlessly. It was hunting for food.

More encounters were reported over the following years across Cherokee and Adair counties. In 1976, a truck driver almost ran into it as it lumbered across the highway. He said it was half man and half animal, with matted reddish-brown fur and glowing eyes that reflected his headlights. In 1997, a state wildlife officer took casts of enormous footprints found near Siloam Springs.

Footprints that measured 17 inches long and eight inches wide with clear definitions of an arch and five distinct toes. The sightings continued into the 2010s. There was a 2012 encounter where a young woman and her children reported being followed by something big and growling when they were driving home. When they finally got home, they found a series of 14-inch footprints leading up to the front door.

I don't know if anything was found inside. I can't find what happened to them. I'm sure they're fine. All these incidents occurred directly above the underground electrical hotspot identified in the USGS reports. The area has the same cave networks found at the other cryptid sites. A local rancher captured the creature on film in 1971. Eight seconds of footage that still defies explanation.

Analysis confirmed the subject's height is exactly 8 foot 3 inches. But the footage showed something else. It was examining the ground in a grid pattern that matched the underground geometric formations. In 1971, no one knew about the underground water system or the cave networks beneath Adair County. When they were finally discovered in 1982, the readings were identical to the other three locations.

When researchers mapped sightings against the electrical anomalies, they formed a perfect pentagon, with each point corresponding to a deep tunnel in the cave system. The local sheriff's final report included one chilling detail. Deep in those caves, they found claw marks in solid granite. Chemical analysis confirmed the rock was 300 million years old. But the claw marks? They were fresh. This episode is sponsored by Greenlight.

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Four locations, four creatures. For over a hundred years, there have been sightings of the Jersey Devil, Flatwoods Monster, Mkelebebe, and the Adair Beast. Today we covered a theory that the sightings weren't isolated events. They were connected, tied to locations that hide vast underground tunnel systems and unusual electric phenomena. But is it true? Well, hard evidence is tricky. There is hard evidence of all four of these, but is it definitely evidence of a cryptid?

Well, we don't know. Skeptics say the 8 Air Beast footprints are a hoax. But that part of Oklahoma is a Bigfoot sighting hotspot. There's been so many reports that for the past 16 years, Honobia, Oklahoma has hosted an annual Bigfoot festival. Now, I don't know if these people have seen a Bigfoot, but I believe that they've seen something. The Jersey Devil has been seen by thousands of people, over a thousand in January 1909 over the course of just a few days.

But the story has a few problems. First, there's no record of Deborah Leeds or her 13 children. But I didn't expect there to be. But Daniel Leeds was a local politician in the early 18th century.

He was so unpopular that locals called him the Devil. In fact, the Jersey Devil creature was first known as the Leeds Devil. The 13th child legend emerged from around that, but the truth is this was political name-calling that stuck. 300 years before Trump did it. Yup. It was so effective that Daniel Leeds left the country.

In 1909, thousands of people did see the Jersey Devil. But what they saw was proven to be a hoax. It was a live kangaroo that had wings attached to it with a harness. And the people fell for this? People believe what they want to believe. I'll prove it. Look, are alien abductions real? Of course they are. See? But the hooves! The hooves! Now, to be fair, there were prints in the snow. Aha!

What they never tell you is they were tiny, maybe an inch or two wide. Lots of birds in the area have prints just like them. And of course, birds can fly. Still, there are official reports of people being terrorized by something in South Jersey. Yeah, the drivers. You did that joke already. Sorry, sorry. I lost my place in the script. Can we pick it up from... Kelly Benbeck. Would you stop that? Come on, we can get a new t-shirt out of this. Mmm.

Yeah, it's not worth it. That footage from 1992 is real, but it's up for interpretation. Without being prompted, most people don't see a dinosaur. I didn't. They see a canoe. Just like the Loch Ness Monster. There's that footage of it that looks pretty compelling, until you realize you're looking at a boat. Even if Mkelebebe is real, it's not going to be a water-based sauropod. They didn't stay submerged that long. They breathed air.

The ancient legend of Mkele Bembe can be traced back to the early 20th century. Captain Ludwig Ver von Stein, he's the first person to document the story, and he was repeating local folklore, but even he said he didn't believe the story. Mkele Bembe took off in 1907 when actual giant dinosaur bones were found in the area. Finally, the Flatwoods Monster. To me, this is the weirdest one. It's classified as a cryptid, but technically it started out as a UFO sighting.

Just after 7:00 PM, a light streaked across the sky. A few boys were playing football outside. They called for help and chased it. Eight or nine people followed it over a hill and they were trapped in a mist that smelled like sulfur. Then they saw the creature hovering near a tree. Now the group was terrified. They ran to the sheriff who was already out investigating a plane crash. - Oh, I should've seen it was a plane. - Probably not. There was no wreckage. The creature was gone. All that was left was the smell and something oily in the grass.

Later, we learned that one of the witnesses drove his truck over the area, which would explain the oil and the tracks. And there are sulfur springs in the area which could explain the smell. But there still isn't a full and reasonable explanation for any of this. Whatever was in the sky, it was important enough for the Air Force to send investigators.

Now, the theory about aquifers and electrical energy is interesting. Aquifers do create energy. We covered this a few times. We go into detail in the episode about the Pyramid Power Plant Theory. Link to Tesla Pyramid down in your pickle barrel.

Connecting the four cryptids together is a stretch. The cave systems are there. The aquifers are mostly there. There might be a pattern, though I don't see it. According to believers, the electrical readings at these sites produce numeric sequences that shouldn't be possible in nature. The implication being they're being generated by advanced technology. Okay, I love the theory, but I don't see the pattern.

Another theory is that these beings are extra-dimensional. They slip into our world through cracks in reality created by the electrical anomalies. This would explain their prehistoric origins and how they appear and disappear without a trace. It kind of reminds me of The Liminal Spaces and The Back Rooms. That's still one of my favorite episodes. Back room link down in your munchpacks. So that's a thing now, huh? Eh, just giving the people what they want.

So we can rationalize footprints as hoaxes or pareidolia. We know most of the videos and photos are fake. This is true with just about every cryptid story. That's why I don't like them. But when I stumbled upon the electrical connection theory, I became interested. That's the kind of theory that keeps me coming back because it's scientifically grounded. Electrical pun not intended. But it's a stretch to connect cryptids to electromagnetism. But that's only for now.

Connecting space and time and electromagnetism wasn't a thing 150 years ago, but general relativity says that any form of energy can cause space-time to curve. Extra dimensions also might be physically proven one day. The math works. As science progresses, we'll find more and more connections to things that were once considered supernatural.

And who knows? Maybe someday someone will invent a machine that can pierce through our reality and show us another reality, invisible yet bright in front of us. This device would be like X-ray vision, but for other dimensions. And wouldn't it be fun if we turned on that machine, looked through the lens, and there was a family of eight-foot-tall hairy humanoids staring back at us? Without missing a beat, one of them stares at the camera and says, We've been here the whole time. Oh.

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Thanks so much for hanging out today. My name is AJ. There's Hecklefish. This has been the Y-Files. Get fun or learn anything. Do him a favor. Subscribe, comment, like, share. That stuff really helps out the channel. And like most topics we cover on the channel, today's was recommended by you. You know it was because I would never cover cryptids. And today we did four. And we have more cryptids coming. So if there's a story you'd like to see or learn more about...

including cryptids, go to thewattfiles.com slash tips. Remember, The Watt Files is also a podcast. Now, look, I know I've been slow on there lately, but I've got eight scripts coming at you, coming at you fast. So it's going to be a great month. So twice a week, I'll be posting there on the podcasts, audio versions of this show, plus unique pieces of content that wouldn't be allowed on YouTube. Those are called unredacted. Those are kind of the

Thank you.

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Bye.

No, it never ends.

Fear the crab cat and got stuck inside Mel's home with MKUltra being only two away. Did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing alone on a film set or were the shadow people there?

♪ The Roswell aliens just fought the smiling man ♪ ♪ I'm told, and his name was cold ♪ ♪ And I can't believe I'm dancing with the fishes ♪ ♪ Heckle fish on Thursday nights with AJ2 ♪ ♪ And the werewolfs have been eating all through the night ♪ ♪ All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth ♪ ♪ So the werewolfs do the night ♪

The Mothman sightings and the solar storm still come to have got the secret city underground. Mysterious number stations, planets are both two. Project Stargate and where the Dark Watchers found.

We're in a simulation, don't you worry though. The black knight said a lot, he told me so. I can't believe I'm dancing fish. Heck, I'll fish on Thursday nights with AJ too. And the white balls are gonna beat all through the night. You know what it was, did you hear the truth? So the white balls are gonna beat all through the night.

And the fish on Thursday nights when they chase you. And the wild boars have been beat all night. All I ever wanted was to just hear the truth. So the wild boars have been beat all too good.

because she is

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That's why Visa checks over 500 data points on transactions to help stop fraud before it happens. Over the last five years, Visa has invested $11 billion into fraud prevention and network security technology. And last year, Visa prevented more than $40 billion in attempted fraud. What you buy is your business. Protecting how you pay is Visa's.