49: Goosebumps, (Not) Alien Pyramids, and Nessie & Cryptids

Episode notes

Why do we get goosebumps when we hear nails on a chalkboard?  Obviously aliens didn’t make the pyramids, but how were they made and what does that teach us about humanity?  And what’s the story behind nessie and why the queer community loves cryptids?

Things we talk about:
Egyptian painting of using water to pull a statue
Video of modern people pulling a block
The famous Nessie photograph

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Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:05:59) Goosebumps
(00:48:43) Not Alien Pyramids
(01:23:13) Wikimania and Perpetual Stew
(01:50:50) Outro

We also learn about:

The bumpies you get on your skinnies, the gem trade can be pretty shitty!, Tom read 5 books for this, ahhhh! oh wait have I got goosebumps? the many and few names for goosebumps, piloerection, I just got objective chills, animal goosebumps, famous geologist and pigeon lover Charles Darwin, “I took a stuffed snake to the monkey house”, porcupine piloerection, gustatory stimuli, grima, it’s not ew it’s euggghh, Easy Lovery by Phil collins, Screaming Ape; Loop. the Head Wizard tm, biomimicry, nails on a chalkboard, Scraping Sounds and Disgusting Noises, (SOUNDBITE OF FINGERNAILS ON CHALKBOARD), so is that better or worse? I guess the kids are listening to screeching sounds for music, prehistoric chalkboard monster, ruining Ella’s spooky cold open, 118 pyramids! you’re both racist! when did the ancient aliens theory stated, von Daniken’s racist conspiracy, the racism in believing only wwhite people could make architecture, plumbobs! moving 5000 pound limestone blocks, the genius post ramp system, it took 100 years to realize the painting was showing how to move stuff with water, Gregory Marouard’s demonstration of moving a block, the Nile used to run right by the Giza pyramids, the mundane power of having a lot of people, 20,000 people to build the great pyramids, the oldest papyrus ever found: the diary of merer, the pyramid builders weren’t slaves, the bent pyramid, the plesiosaur, cryptids that turned out to be real like the thylacinem, fake cryptids, cryptid comes from cryptozoology in the 80s, Nessie swimming down the nile, you gotta try Irn Bru, Columba the Monk’s encounter with nessie from the 565 AD, Columba was a dual class monk cleric, Marmaduke’s hoaxes, hippo leg umbrella, the Nessie-sary search, eDNA, you pee you poop you die, eels in the loch, cryptids and the queer community, cyptids are the people’s mythology, token straight scientist friend.

Sources:
The Biology of Fear
Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Porcupine Piloerection
The Psychological study of Emotional Piloerection
Chills in Different Sensory Domains
The emotion of Grima
Scraping Sounds and Disgusting Noises
NPR Chalkboard Transcripts
Psychoacoustics of a Chilling Sound
Psychoacoustics of Chalkboad Squeaking
Anatomy of the Ear
—
Medium Article on the “impossibility” of Giza Pyramids
The great pyramid of Giza
Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism Behind Ancient Aliens
Tools Used in Ancient Egyptian Construction
Ancient Ramps
Using the Nile for blocks
Sliding Friction on Dry and Wet Sand
The Diary of Merer Papyri
—
Cryptozoology Museum: What is Cryptozoology?
National Catholic Register: Story of the Loch Ness Monster
University of Aberdeen: The Picts
Highland Pictish Trail: Pictish Stones
New York Times: Loch Ness Fiction is Stranger than Truth
Loch Ness Sightings Website
Science Focus: eDNA and Loch Ness
The Guardian: eDNA and giant eels
Daily Mail: Psychology of Loch Ness Monster Believers
Nessie is My Girlfriend! Cryptids and Queer People
Vox “How the Babadook became the LGBTQ icon we didn’t know we needed”
Cryptid Queer Icons