110 - Columbus Had a Tail! ("Detour")

0:00Kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters. That's why TradePros trust FiberSement Party Backer Board to keep tile firmly in place, resist cracking, and help block moisture. Chosen over 40 million kitchen's and bathrooms, Party Backer Board, what the best build on. Shop now at participating Home Depot, Lowe's, and floor into core stores. For more information, visit JamesHearty.com slash HeartyBacker. Welcome colleagues, it's Liz. I just wanted to remind you about our listener survey. It would be so delightful if you took it. We would appreciate it. And if you take it sometime before next Tuesday, which is September 29th, 2026, you'll be entered in a drawing to win a book. So you should go do that. You can find a link on our website, which is we want to believe pod.com, on Instagram, at we want to believe pod, or in our show notes for today's episode. So go take it. It'll take you all of like, I don't know, 30 seconds.

1:02You don't have to take too much time. Go take the listener survey. Okay. Now that we've taken the listener survey, I assume now you are allowed to listen to the episode. I'm Helen, and I'm Liz, and we're sisters, scientists, and lifelong ex-files fans. And this is We Want to Believe. Welcome colleagues. Hopefully you can tell that I have a new microphone. I hopefully sound shockingly good, and you're like, oh, this is what Liz sounds like. It's amazing. I realized I thought I'd been recording using the microphone on my headphones, plugged into my computer. And I just realized last week, there is no microphone on my headphones. I've just been using the audio input of my computer, which is crap, obviously. So now I've got a little fuzzy guy.

2:03So yeah, very exciting. Yeah, I was going to say hopefully everyone has found our listener survey. Oh yes, hopefully they have. Yeah, I have seen some results so far, because as we record this, it's been open, but hasn't, but it's only been announced in my little intro of our last rerun. Yeah, it's exciting. It's, I'm learning things. It's good. Oh, good. Oh, I can't wait to see. Yeah, I don't know how you can share that with me, but I would love to see. Oh, yeah, I should share it with you. Yeah, yeah. I was tempted to take it just to, I don't know, like, confused things. Yeah. How about you learn a better podcast? Yeah. Other. It pinned to me. Yeah, I had the idea for it. Yeah. Awesome. Do you have any other business? Today, we're talking about detour. Yeah, the only other business I have is that last week we mentioned the room in which I record my podcast or my end of the podcast.

3:03Oh, yeah. And how it's kind of nightmare-ish. And it only occurred to me yesterday. You've been in this room recently, of course. Over the summer. Over the summer, Helen, while I was in Europe, Helen had to grab some donations for the event for her charity, the Miracle Foundation. Go look it up. Go give them money. Anyway. And so she had to go into this upstairs. You know, used to be a bedroom. Technically has half a bed. Nightmare room. And I then remembered, oh, God, that green-gol-ass chicken is somewhere in my house, I think. You would chew my recall last season. I hit it in Helen's house. Why did it come from to begin with that chicken? You know, I don't, I think we're a market. Okay. That's my- Oh, I don't remember. I don't know how to do that. Yeah, or one of, I think me or our mom, yeah, maybe was there. I don't know. It's been a really long time.

4:05Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I just thought I'm going to look around the room. Yeah, wouldn't that be something? If I see, it could be in this room. Right here. There's an empty paper bag. Yeah, the other thing about the new mics is that they're very portable. You don't even need a computer. We can just, and there's two transmitters. So we can just use this Helen if we want to go out and about and record things in the field. I don't know what field. The field right. The field right. I already died. Yeah. I'm going to look in a box. Nope. There's no chicken in the box. Okay, I'm going to look in this bag full of my stepson's old toys. Now you saw, I took a picture of it, didn't I? No. Would you took a picture of what I thought what you sent me was the chicken in your car? So I thought I made a stage shift. Oh no, no, no. It was in your house. I took a picture of the chicken house. Oh my god. I've been assuming this whole time that that was in my car.

5:06No, no. No, no. I took a picture of the chicken in your house. Oh my god. I can say that was 30 years. I don't know where the chicken is. I don't. I'm going to do something more research. I'll have to do some more research. I'll get back to you next week. Listeners. Yeah. Okay, so I can finally clean that room. That's going to be the something needs to. Yeah. Because it is. I mean, you could make such a cute little podcasting space though. My god, it's Adam. It's going to have a lot of stuff. Yeah, that's why we got that's partially what got us to get the new microphone is. Adam is going to be recording a podcast. If you've been listening to our podcast, we've been talking about it for literally years at this point. But he's going to be doing one called Lost in History. And he's going to spend the first season talking about this Japanese man named Maashero. And I will leave it at that. It'll probably be a while. Because he wants to record all the episodes before posting them. Oh, okay. Kind of be ready. Yeah. Whatever. But yeah, I'll remind everyone again. It'll be, I think, very different.

6:07than ours, but also for sure. Oh, sure. No, it sounds like something I would very much enjoy. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he's good at talking. Yeah. But yeah, it would be nice to have this as a cute little podcaster. Yeah. You would be so nice in there. Yeah. Maybe you'll find some cool stuff. I like want to show the listeners what this room looks like, but also I don't like. Well, maybe you can do like a before and after. And you can see the first and after. And once again, I do. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Great. All right. Yeah, let's talk about D-Tour. Yeah. So unless you got other announcements or anything. Nope. Nope. That's it. I'm, I'm ready. I have gone down a rabbit hole. A D-Tour? Yeah. Very good. Stuff I'm trying to do instead of Doom Scroll. That actually connects to the episode. So perfect. Yeah. I think I mentioned it briefly last week. So this is season five episode four. D-Tour.

7:09Okay. And so it opens with two people, two men that are in Leon County, Florida. And it's surveyors. And so there are many good words. Okay. I just remember is this the Ponce-Sylon episode? Yes, it is. Oh my god. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. Yeah. So these two surveyors are surveying. They've got their cameras and sticks and, you know, survey equipment. And they're talking about kind of casually about how, you know, oh, this is all going to be developed. And, you know, one of the guys says, oh, this sooner they pave over this part, the swamp, the better. And the other guy. The other guy. The other guy who's older is like, you know, it's not a swamp, but you're standing in a forest with Indigenous plant and animal species. You're probably too ignorant to appreciate. That's awesome. And yeah, and it's like kind of, and the other guy is just going on

8:09about how he like hopes it turns into a blockbuster. The blockbuster will be over here or something. And the other guy, the older guy is getting annoyed with him. And so we see them kind of walking off. The younger guy is kind of walking off and is slightly out of the shot. And the older guy is like calling for, you know, like time for the next shot. Can you unstick the stick thing and move it? Yeah, I don't know what they're called. And I have to use them for the record. Wait, if you use survey equipment really? Yeah, sometimes archaeologists do because it's a good way of getting like really precise measurements of places. There's a lot of trig involved, yeah. Oh, I don't know. I have been, I've by used it. I mean, I've been the person where they'd be like, Helen, go hold the stick. I'd be like, okay, I'm the dumb young guy in this scenario. So I don't think that anyone is, is I'm sure trigonometry is involved because it's about a lot of angles.

9:12They're not like, I don't think it's like automated trigonometry. Okay. Yes, yeah. Because sometimes I will give like trig practice problems that are like pretend surveying problems. Oh, we're like, I just gave one yesterday. This guy looks at a tree across a river and then he walks a hundred meters along the length of the river and then he turns and he looks back at the tree and it's a 35 degree angle. So then we can use that to figure out the width of the river. Cool. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's, it's all computers. Yeah, that makes sense. Still. Yeah. And so, so the young guy is like trying to get it and he's like, oh, it's stuck and he's like trying to get the stick unstuck. And he touches the ground to try to like move it and pick up his hand and notices that his fingers have blood on them. Blood. And then yeah, and then we see bright red eyes open on the first floor and screaming starts. And so the older guy starts to run and it's confusion.

10:12So, okay, same forest and guy and his son who we later find out are Michael and Louis are hunting possums with their dog. Not just real weird. But the dog is real cute. And they're talking about like how good Bo with the dog is at doing the work to help the dog. Bo's fine. Okay, all right, Bo's fine. Okay. And so they're talking about like animal survival and how dogs are really good at hunting because it's how they have to like survive. It's coming from like their wolf ancestry and stuff. It just kind of like precursors for like what this is going to be. Yeah, setting up the themes of the episode or whatever. Yeah. Right. And so they're out walking and they see surveyors equipment. And the dad is like obviously a alarm didn't like why would a surveyor leave leave their stuff here. And then the dog starts barking, Bo starts barking. And the dad is like, you know, motions to his son to stay close to him.

11:14And then he notices that the dog is looking at the bloody jacket of the surveyor. And so the dad tells Louie the son to take Bo and run straight home. And so at Louie and Bo are running home and then we hear a gunshot. Because the father was in the woods still. Yes, are we done on it? And had a gun on it. The father shot someone or was shot? We have no reason to believe anyone else in the woods has a gun. Okay, I guess I'm confused about why they wouldn't all three leave. Why would the dad stay there and not like run with his son? I think it was like a to me at red is like a Jurassic Park. The raptors are stalking the big game. Oh, so she has the feeling like we're being hunted right now. Not just a we found evidence of a crime. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. And so they they run and then we get the intro.

12:15That's a long intro. Yeah, it was a long intro. So the truth is out there. It is. And now we see a car driving in a similar looking area. And there are two people wearing suits and looking like FBI agents in the front of the car with Southern accents. Yeah, we're talking about, yes, this team building seminar and how last years was so great and how they were given two minutes to build a tower out of ordinary office furniture. And the female agent says when I stood on my shoulders and I put that electric pencil sharpener on top of the pile, we built new we never could have done it alone. That's amazing. I know there were two other agents in this episode. I didn't remember the details. That's fantastic. And then we see Mulder and Scully sitting in the back seat. And Mulder mouth like kill me now to Scully or something. And so I was very unhappy. And they're like they're trying to make small talk and the other agents are like asking

13:16like, oh, have you ever done one of these things before? And they're talking about, oh, it was so fun. We did one where you couldn't use any negative words. And Mulder says something like I'm having the same problem right now of trying not to use negative words. So I'm just there. Can you imagine either one of them having to do team building stuff? Like, oh my god, it's incredible. Yeah, yeah, it would, yeah, or having to be with these people. Yeah. So they come to a roadblock and so they stop. And Mulder naturally gets out of the car. And he says like thank you, Jesus. And then just jumps out. And Scully just kind of watches Mulder leave. And then we see a woman standing there who seems to stressed. And she's like, oh, are you from search and rescue? Can you give me any information? And Mulder was like, no, I'm sorry, but what's going on?

14:19And the woman says that she's looking for a word of what happened to her husband. So this is the wife of Michael. And she explains that Michael was teaching their son to shoot. And the dog got spooked and so the dog and the son ran home. And now no one has said anything or been in the fine her husband. So did the son not see the bloody jacket or hear the gunshot? No, no, he did. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was thinking, not just the dog who was spooked. I feel like they should all be spooked. Oh, I mean, sure. Yeah, but like the dog was barking first. It was like the dog, the dog found the bloody jacket. Okay, got it. I would just want to do it. I was sure she had the information she needed. Yes, I was taking a walk in the woods with my dogs. And I was like, this is how people find bodies. Why am I doing that? And then was like, is it better? Should I be the one to find the body though? Should I like do the service of being a good man? A good point. Yeah, you'd be really good at it. I mean, yeah, I guess anyone is too.

15:20Also, mostly when people walk their dogs in the woods, they don't find bodies though. No, but you know, that's just like that. I'd say less than 50% of the time. That's the stereotype though. It is though. It really is. Yeah. And then my dog, you know, and then Gatsby wouldn't stop. They got what interested in something. I mean, Gatsby would eat the evidence whole. It would be a problem. It would be a big problem. He would grab that bloody jacket and just wolf it down. And it would have to be moved surgically. Yeah. He's got a limp right now. He's not putting weight on one of his pots. There's always something wrong with this dog. I don't understand what he lives hard, you know? Yeah, he's hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, you know, I can sleep on him dead. Go hard. Yeah, he'd have some sort of like no fear t-shirt sort of lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah. So, molder just heads off into the woods and is like, I'll go find who's in charge trying to get this woman some information. And so the agents in Scully Park and kind of pull up

16:22and get out of the car. Scully starts to follow molder into the woods. And the other two agents are like standing there looking at like the little, they've got like a, you know, like a park service, a park sign with information about the, you know, and there's like a giant cross section of a tree showing like the rings and the years and stuff. And it's got little like date markers on it. And the guy, the agent is like, this tree was here 20 years before Ponce de Leone landed. And so they're, they're constantly on mentioned on the ring of the tree. Or does this guy just have a lot of, oh, okay. I thought, yeah, no, one of the little red things got it. Got it. It wasn't like this guy just has a lot of Ponce de Leone knowledge that the full fun of his mind. Yeah. So they walk into the woods and they find the agent in charge who's this very capable looking woman named Michelle. And I'm sure they're like Amanda Sister Michelle, who's very capable looking who I would trust. Kind of, but with red hair.

17:24Okay, got it. Yeah, she's also a redhead. And the woman is kind of like, okay, why are you here? Mulder, you know, says, oh, I'm from the FBI. And she's like, we've got a covered like we just have like missing survey equipment. Sorry, also they're going to a team building seminar in Florida. Yeah. Yeah. Why would they not, they don't have one closer? They got, and also they have to carpool. It's so horrible. I once walked out of a meeting of like before it was when I was doing the summer program at UW Madison teaching at it. There was everybody in a room and we were going to go around in a circle and start names and a fun fact about ourselves. And there was like 50 people there. And I just left. I was like 50 people. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. How insane is that? Like that's when you like have people do that in small groups. Like yeah, that's yeah. I was mostly just there for the free food anyway.

18:24And at that point, I was like, I never get in this food. I got to get out of here. So I just like was like, I got to go to the bathroom and then just, you know, oh, I got to bring my purse and my back. You know, so wait. And you just never came back? No, I never went back. I mean, I went back to teach the next day, but I didn't go to the like meeting or anything. I just left because it was supposed to be like a fun kickoff event for this week of teaching. And it was, or maybe a few weeks, it doesn't matter. But it was a fun kickoff event that we're going to spend like literally an hour going around. Yeah, I don't know. No, that's terrible. I don't hate icebreakers. I like a good icebreaker if it is well done. Yeah, but I think that they can be poorly done. I also think I like, and this was probably what like over a decade ago. Yeah, yeah, this is I think 2008 maybe. Yeah, I think people know about, but like saying an interesting fact about you is like the worst ice breaker anyone could ever try to give. Like no one can pull an interesting fact.

19:24Like I think that's just the dumbest, hardest question. Like I feel really, really strongly about this. Yes, I think that is like the dumbest thing to have to ask people because it's so much pressure on you to have to think of what's interesting about me. And like you're in a group of new people who you don't know what they think is interesting. And so what if you say something like really hot off the cuff and then like no one knows to it and like no, that's a terrible icebreaker. Terrible. I feel do you think it's okay if hypothetically someone asked all of the new rookies who were getting drafted on to hypothetically some sort of context sport team roller skates to submit amongst other info. A fun interesting fact they'd want to share about themselves with the league with the prop that it can be. That's so much. It can be anything. It was for rookie bingo to try to get people to interact with our rookies at this party. And they had an unlimited amount of time in which to write, no not unlimited,

20:29but they had like a week or whatever. Oh, okay. So they didn't have to think on their feet and I gave some suggestions of like it could be something as simple as a hobby you enjoy or an interesting event that happened in your life where you met a celebrity or had something crazy happen or it could just you know or anything else. So I tried to yeah many of them like five hurts. That was where they went. Yeah. Don't we all I mean pretty much. Yeah. One person's was something like how they control a miniature horse finger puppet and some sort of show. What? And I like everyone was waiting the whole time going who has this horse finger puppet show. And I still don't really have any answers and I was the MC. So yeah someone else and I was like this is what I'm looking for. Yeah, no, it was like I played a tap dancing rock in a play. And I was like that that's what I want to know about people. See but like I have nothing to contribute to that.

21:31I have I have through nothing to you don't have anything interesting but I have a podcast with the ex files. I guess that's interesting. Yeah. I mean but like again it's so much is so much is dependent on the group of people you're with and what they might find interesting you know like I don't know. I prefer more like pointed questions like sometimes I'll do like what's the most what's your least favorite sandwich topping or okay or like I don't know. I think we were just talking about like what's your favorite way to eat a potato. Oh yeah that's a good one. Yeah I don't know. I just I feel like having to come up with something interesting is way too much pressure. I have had students I've asked them to try to find something really boring they have in common. Oh yeah that's fun. Yeah I like that too. I also will always hear about anyone's pets. Anyway I just yeah I spray girls. But they're in the woods now and Michelle this agent or cop I didn't write down.

22:36I think she's just a local police. And yeah because she's like why why do we need the FBI we have like the left over survey equipment and one man has been missing for like a little bit like why are you here. And and Mulder is you know trying to get involved and it's it's clear to that you know he is just trying to get involved because he doesn't want to be going. Yeah yeah yeah. So Michelle does say that like they do have some tracks that they haven't been able to identify at and Mulder says like well you know human or animal or she was like well that's kind of the question we don't know what they are exactly. And so they Mulder is very like like oh I better you know again making a big deal of it and Scully is kind of giving him like come on looks like yeah enough of this.

23:40And so they're they're kind of talking about like is there are there panthers are there bears are you know whatever and then he said he is. Yeah there's black bears in Florida. No kidding. Yeah. I don't need to be too humid for them. Anyway. Oh what do I know? I don't like that mind. Okay. And Mulder says then says you do know of a good motel in the area and and Muld Scully is like we've got this conference they're waiting like we can come on. And and Scully says you want me to tell them that you're not going to make it to the Sears teamwork seminar and Mulder says yeah you see that we don't need that conference we have communication like that unspoken. And so then we see then it's later that night at the kids residence at the the family. Yeah. What are bo lives? We're bo lives, bo's residents. And Louis the little kid fell asleep watching some sort of horror movie which I feel like

24:41is like the worst idea on the day your father goes missing is to like put on a scary movie before bed. Yeah. And his mom comes in and kind of like checks on him and turns off the TV and Louis wakes up and says you know oh he's not coming back is he in. Oh god. The mom is like well why would you say that and and Louis says well you know dad's a good shot if he hit what he was aiming for he'd be home by now. And then we see like the mom like having to go downstairs and like clean up the dinner plates and it's it's overwhelming seeming I don't know. I mean it's like quite sad. I think I was projecting a little bit because I was like god now she has to clean up dinner and like hold it together for her son and like yeah yeah I was watching this at night and it was just like oh so then Mulder is in a hotel room and he's looking at a pages of big cats and predators and like trying to figure out you know what could have made the tracks what could have

25:45been hunting them. And Scully opens and opens the door knocks on the door and opens it and she's got like a little thing of wine and cheese because they'd been talking about the other agents had been talking about the wine and cheese part of it. Oh that's awesome. And she says she reminds him that this goes against the Bureau's policy of male and female agents consorting in the same hotel room on assignment and then that opens the wine. And so then they start talking about how like what could have been making those tracks and what would have been attacking the strongest animal presence. So Mulder is talking, starts talking about how like predators in the wild are going to be going after the much easier kill which in that case would have been Louis and so what would have let Louis escape and only gone after the dad and how he finds that suspicious and how that's not like normal predator behavior which is true and and fair. Yeah yeah they talk for a little bit and then Mulder just gets up to leave as he does always and

26:50says he's touching out. Is that his hotel room? Yeah yeah. And says he'll be back soon and they can build a tower furniture and get some up and walks out. And so back at the Asakoth residence, the family back at the Bo's house. Bo is upset and barking at the door. Bo is okay I'll remind you but he is unhappy with something outside and Louis is like mom and she's like no it's okay go back to sleep and so she's kind of like looking looking outside and doesn't see anything and so she opens the door and Bo like runs into the yard like very on the hunter whatever. Yeah and so she's like calling him back in and he won't come back in and so she goes out there and and here's like all this rustling and the bushes and stuff and it's like Bo is that you and we just hear rustling and then she goes back to the door and the door has been dead bolted shut. Oh my god she just walked out of.

27:52Oh yeah and so she starts yelling for Louis. Oh that's so scary I don't remember that. Yeah she yells for Louis and Louis gets out of bed and is like you know looking for her and sees this like weird humanoid looking thing with red eyes running down the hallway towards him and it's like awesome. I mean no it's not awesome. I mean it's pretty awesome. Yeah short-ish and you know and then we get like monster vision and so we see like it's fuzzy coming from the monsters looking at Louis and Louis like runs down he's like trying to get out and he like smacks into something and starts screaming and it's molder who was there to check out the house. Yes or maybe Louis made it outside he runs he runs outside. Okay it's okay. It's not so good. Okay. Okay and he says it's in the house. The next day then we it cuts to the next day and they're like at the house investigating

28:53and skulls. I just need to say maybe this will get brought up and maybe this is the point but like when the theme is like communication and team building and Mulder walks out without telling the skullie where he's going. Yeah why can't he tell the skullie I'm going to their house like come on man. Yeah well there's yeah there's a uh I think that is kind of so point. Yeah yeah. So they find that he'd been watching the invisible man before going to see and so skullie is kind of like okay. It's a ball okay. It would be what you know he says he saw this like kind of hard to see creature could you know is this with glowing red eyes could it just be that he had a nightmare but they had the door and the door. The door is that right so that that could spread up the door getting dead bolted and there's some prints were shacked in from the outside and it's similar to the prints that were found in the woods and it's humanoid but with the weight distribution wrong I wrote this down. People walk healed a toe whatever this thing is walks on the ball of its foot.

29:57So it's tiptoeing and or you know like yeah I don't know running on the ball it's foot. If you were tiptoeing isn't that what your prints would look like more or like yeah I don't know. Yeah. Depends on how much on your toes you are. Yeah. It doesn't seem that mysterious to me. I mean the rest of it does but yeah. Yeah and so there again it's like you know oh weird and so Michele arrives the officer and sees the prints and she's like yeah that's the same like the weight distribution strange that's like the same thing that I saw in the woods that it appears to be human but whoever was walking was like using the balls of their foot more like an animal than a human. So this is reminding me of home in a way and it's better in this talk because in home there's a lot of talk about how the peacock family are like more like animals than people and they have their animal instincts because they're in bread so that makes sense and like a lot of talk about

31:00animals versus people and like I don't know this seems like it's doing it better. Oh yeah I mean yeah yeah so they're in the woods again and there's this new guy named Jeff who has flydare for a forward looking infrared radar dark and it detects body heat at 300 yards okay it got like this like body heat detection thing which is yeah apparently very cool and Mulder even says it's pretty sophisticated for government issue and it is not and so Jeff's like their you know local tech guy and so they're the four of them are gonna walk through the woods and do a sweep with Jeff's thing to see if they notice anything. So they're they're scanning the area and they're kind of in two groups of um Scully and Michelle and Jeff the guy with the flydare and Mulder and flyer it doesn't matter

32:06anyway that's not the point and and they soon get a reading on the thing so like they see okay they see something they see something warm yeah yes um and so they keep like trying to follow and having trouble following the whatever it is and so they end up essentially splitting up and they then they see that there's like another one and so they run in the other direction and so it's like yeah it's like divided them like they've been divided and so the two guys are in one area and um Michelle and Scully are in the other. I've never seen predator but I imagine it's like this oh yeah I've never seen predator either yeah I know literally nothing about it Carl Leathers isn't it oh really yeah that's what I know about it. It takes place in the same universe as the rest it didn't it does take that I was should remember that yeah everything that Helen is describing takes place in the same universe as a restive development yeah yeah excellent so there's like some sort of kerfuffle um and the guy Jeff is uh attacked by one of the creatures

33:15and Mulder is grabbed by the other um and Scully and you can see it's like a camouflaged thing and it's like really hard to like see what's got a hold of him and so and but Scully shoots it which I thought was very risky lots of yeah because it's got a hold of Mulder and so it just seems like she must have a lot of she's shot Mulder before on purpose so she's she's good yeah um uh I was just watching that episode of Brooklyn 99 where uh yeah where Amy has to shoot Jake yeah yeah yeah yeah and I would have said my remarkable Scully and Mulder first but I had to be like that wasn't just Jake and Amy and Brooklyn 99 right oh oh so ex files I needed to make sure I hadn't mixed them up yeah yeah so Scully manages to to wound it or hit it or something and gets it off of him and he runs away so they've been split up now Michelle is missing and Jeff they think was

34:16injured and so it's and it's getting to be night time um and so it's just Mulder and Scully in the woods and so they're like they don't know where they're going they don't have any sort of map equipment this all seems like very poorly thought out um yeah so um so they have like no way they like had been uh what's we're trudging around for a while and we're clearly lost and so they like just kind of are like okay well we're gonna just like sit here for the night um and so Mulder is still kind of hurt after having been attacked by the animal and uh Scully is is like fiddling with something and they're just like sitting by a tree trunk and you can see she like finally is like uh and she had opened a bullet of hers and then she's like trying to use that fire out to start a fire yeah yeah um and it doesn't work and so the two of them are just sitting there in the dark and uh and uh Mulder's injured and so she's like you go ahead and

35:21sleep like one of us you keep a lookout now I'm fine I'll look out uh and this is when he says uh you know can you sing so that I know that you're still here um that you're still awake and uh and so this is when she sings the joy to the world oh my god so this this is I mixed this up with the other swamp episode basically with big blue yeah and I remember I watched that one and was like wait why isn't she singing Jeremiah was a bullfrog in this episode I thought she was oh this is delightful I love this yeah yeah yeah yeah and so uh thing of it also I kind of skimmed over they were also talking about like about like death and stuff and about Scully's cancer and it's clear they're kind of freaked out and yeah um and then Mulder brings off Moth brings up Mothman um Mothman and uh yeah yeah which was exciting so yeah so Mulder's gonna try to sleep Scully is gonna sing um and she says you know she can't carry a tune and he says it doesn't matter and they're very

36:24it's very cute she's got like yeah her arm around him and uh starts uh singing yeah Jeremiah was a bullfrog and it's great that's amazing so yeah um in the morning Mulder wakes up and he's alone and is momentarily freaked out but see Scully just like standing there um eating some berries or something she was like foraging and looking for food and he says you know oh don't go too far um and then she like immediately falls in a pit and uh and so Mulder's like Scully and she's like I fell down a hole um and he like runs over and she had fallen on some softish dirt and so she's okay but it's stark down there and she doesn't have her gun on her and she's kind of moving around and it starts bumping into hanging bodies so there like body is that kind of like cocooned down there oh my and one of them is Michelle and she says like oh no yeah and uh but she's

37:28she's alive but not much longer so she is currently living but not in great shape she sees she says like oh there might be some sort of network like she can try to explore a little bit but then she hears a noise and we see one of the creatures standing there and it's like they're kind of like have bark like faces kind of camouflage yeah it's it really like the the sign when we are the I was forgot to mention this the scene when we first see it when the guy surveyor looks at his hand and it's bloody and then we see the the red eyes open it's very much like Pita and the hunger games like when he's like people have referenced this I read it I don't think I ever saw it you never saw the movies no because no have you read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Nual? no but I've read a lot of other things oh I've watched a lot of the I forgot that we talked about how I've never seen basic instinct um and I ran and she

38:32my friend no and I'm right we apparently talked about this years ago I ran into my friend Marbeca who is now listening to our podcast oh and she was like have you seen basic instinct yet and I was like no I totally forgot it's really great I mean it's so campy and it's so great yeah I mean it's so good to this episode yeah you'll hear me roughly and ask me at that yeah yeah so yeah we see one of these creatures with the red eyes oh Pita and the hunger he like um it's it's in the books it's just not like a visual he decides himself as a river rock yeah is that true yeah I remember this because of I believe it's in Brooklyn 9.9 somebody says maybe they disguise themselves as a river rock like a real life Pita whatever his name is and so I was like Pita Malark and I thought hearing that for years when I would watch that episode I thought a Pita Malark was a type of bird like disguise itself it just sounded like a

39:33type of bird I don't know and I didn't remember the name of the guy in the hunger games so I was like I'm gonna look at what that Pita Malark yeah so I was like I'm gonna google what a Pita Malark is and find out what type of bird this is and then was like oh oh I got this very wrong okay so yeah yeah it's it's very much like that so she sees it standing there and tells Mulder she's not alone but she doesn't have her gun on her when she fell um and so Mulder says well hold on I'll drop mine down and so he drops his gun down into the hole with Scully but he hears rustling behind him and so like it's clear like there's another one coming for him um and so he just jumps into the hole behind him so he just jumps down there and just kind of in pain from having been injured and so the the creature whatever it is starts moving towards them uh in Scully shoots it three or four times um and she hits it um and so they go and they look at the body and it looks

40:37human but again like camouflage kind of like made out of wood um and she says Mulder look there has to be a scientific explanation for this which I think has got to be a joke uh I mean I don't think it's you know what I mean like yeah she means that it's one okay it's not it's one it's not just one in the episode but it's not yeah she's not saying it is a joke right yeah that's awesome yeah so the way that they get out is they stack the dead bodies that are hanging there into a pile my god like the office furniture oh my god I didn't remember that yeah that's hilarious yes uh oh my god and there's they also notice in the in the hole there's a pole that reads ad noctum which gets brought up okay um so yeah so they're they're stacking things up um and Mulder says too bad we don't have any office furniture and then we hear the other agents um and

41:38they're like oh here and so the other agents had been looking for them and came and we're able to like rescue them um the rest of the way and uh scully says you know we've got injured people down here and so now everyone everyone is saved uh okay so the road the like uh road next to the forest where they had to all originally come in and now there's like ambulances and we see uh Michelle is on a gurney loaded into an ambulance we also see that the father is also on a gurney loaded into an ambulance oh so she's not dead oh wow okay no which is great and the mother is there and she's super relieved and uh so she goes over to Mulder and oh I don't have to clean up the kitchen yeah thank god and so she's like very grateful and shaking their hands and stuff and um she like thanks uh the male agent first and you know and the male agent goes over I didn't get their names goes over to Mulder and is like oh you know we just got all the thanks for you doing all the work and uh and Mulder says no on the contrary we never would have gotten involved if this

42:43had been for you or something like that and uh Mulder is kind of looking there right by that tree the cross-section and he sees 1521 punched on the own lands looking for fountain of youth is what it says like so it shows it more clearly and uh and so Mulder and the other agent are standing there and Mulder says that tells them about how when scully fell into the cave there was an inscription that said agnoptum and Mulder talks about how that means into darkness and says that the spanish conquistedor is used to carve it on the posts that they would lash the natives to as a warning um she says I couldn't find any I went looking I didn't look very hard though so I didn't see if that was correct or not but at first glance you didn't find anything no okay um and then Mulder says that punched in the own came here 450 years ago looking for the fountain of youth and uh the other agent is like you mean that these that that that body that agent scully shot uh and Mulder is like well

43:44after 400 years in the woods don't you think they may have adapted perfectly to their environment it's so unhinged like yeah it's it's I mean I love it like the idea that punched a lion yeah bound the fountain of youth and has been evolving into like a camouflage with the tree man with glowing eyes I feel the need just because I am a biology professor that I have to stop and tell people that evolution does not work this way yes thank you I mean I know that I was thinking that like yeah like it would be that like okay can I just say it and you can tell me from you wrong you go for it like right yeah the whole idea is that I'm trying to make it work with the ponstole on thing like here white can't so maybe I can think of an example so like let's say it turns out when they land there and ponstole on and whatever this other creature is are like perfectly suited to living in the wilderness because um oh it turns out at night their skin looks like trees

44:50or something and they just happen to you're tasting that they just happen to have and no one appreciated it in Spain and uh and then they start having they left yeah they were so just getting teased too much about their tree skin yeah that's what's bad news about yeah yeah I like that let's spread like untrue shit about conquistadors yeah yeah um oh colombus had a tail um yeah yeah absolutely I think we're in our episode title yeah yeah they're not here they're bad people yeah let's spread rumors about them like mean girls yeah yeah yeah um so so in this scenario their their skin looks like trees at night and oh that's

45:55great and so they have kids with each other and now their kids keep having this tree skin mutation yes they make them perfectly suited for living in the wilderness and so then all of their children that happen to have tree-like skin are the ones to survive to longer age and reproduce versus their children that don't look like trees because they didn't have a mutation and they don't live long enough to survive and reproduce yes yes so really the fountain of youth thing would do nothing for evolution like it doesn't no no it would give him more time to practice looking like a tree if that's a steal doing his makeup right yeah like a literal adaptation in groundhog day when he has all that time yeah right yeah yeah so they could produce some cultural adaptations to their environment um that would help them be better suited to it um yeah okay yeah face painting and such but no even if he lived longer that wouldn't mean that he was evolving that that isn't how that works it happened in super generations yeah so anyway I had to say maybe it's like no I've got the order

46:57of this wrong but I feel like Pokemon uses the word evolved in the same wrong way oh see I don't know enough about Pokemon I mean I'm able to come in I think you do or at least you know or maybe I don't I don't know I can't imagine I know more about Pokemon than you no I'm pretty sure you do I think you dated guys more into Pokemon like 30 years ago yeah yeah 25 yeah yeah I mean but they evolve you know like like Pikachu can evolving so yeah no yeah okay and so it's like the same Pikachu that can like change and level up I think it's the same thing yeah yeah because I believe I'm not sure but doesn't Pikachu the one on the show choose not to become a what's the next one a right shoe is there a right shoe or a okay no neither of us know quite okay but like like this is my life I know there's there's like a

48:02you know Evie I do there's even not the dog but the yeah yeah yeah Pokemon and I think that Evie can become like I think a Jolteon is a type of Evie oh yeah that's like a like electricity Evie oh I could have there's a little bit wrong but I believe they say evolved and so I believe it's still like the same one but like change so yes that would be incorrect yeah that would be okay what they mean is like glow up yeah yeah yeah they don't have a glow up yeah yeah yeah um also so I I did do some research on this constantly owned was not looking for the fountain of youth by the way he wasn't I thought he was no that actually was oh my god that actually was a rumor that

49:02got started after his death by so girls are you kidding yeah I think that's yeah see we need to combat those sorts of rumors because that just makes it sound cool and that's I mean it's kind of embarrassing I guess like I guess that's true like you went all the way across the world to look for something that doesn't actually exist yeah so he died in 1521 or did he right okay yeah yeah of course from an infected arrow wound got when trying to colonize stuff okay yeah that goes man yeah sure does and the first reference was in 1535 for him oh so not long after he died no not too long it wasn't podcasters who started oh no but there was like there's no at least no references to that actually being why hand or tuck he had originally actually come to the

50:07Americas with Columbus with one of one of his expeditions oh no good as a gentleman volunteer which is just the stupidest thing I've ever heard I really feel like you were implying they were sleeping together but like but I mean that could be another rumor although I don't want to like make that like it's bad thing yeah that's yeah yeah although they would hate it though is the that's like that's true yeah but anyway yes no he actually was not was not looking for the fountain of youth okay by all the senses so anybody or no they just like somebody else said that he was it's like a kind of long term legend that people have looked for so there there is a place called I'm gonna butcher this but bimini near the Bahamas which is thought to have the fountain of youth and like bimini is another like term for the fountain of youth and so people maybe thought that it was near there and there have been like there have been other myths of like life giving waters

51:12kind of across the world so it's a relatively like common legend actually Alexander the great I believe was kind of obsessed with it yeah so it's it's like a thing but they're you know I mean obviously it's also not a thing so yeah in in Japan they have like a list of like 100 incredible waters or 100 the 100 waters of Japan or something like that and it's just like a really pretty place where you can go fill your water bottle with really great water to drink no jar yeah wow one I mean I feel like it's got to be better than that because that's a pretty low bar but I mean you would be surprised jar day it can live in some like pretty nice clear water that's how people often get it is they're like hiking and they're like this looks so clean and perfect I'm gonna drink from it and I mean this is I should be clear I assume it's processed in some way it's coming out of a tap oh it's just in nature it's like here's a pretty stream and here's some rocks and here's

52:17the tap that you just fill your water bottle okay yeah okay like I see it's it's still a fountain so okay okay not a view but a hydration of like really great hydration I mean you can't see hydrated yeah I mean honestly I spent this whole episode so thirsty and I texted out can you bring me a glass of water because I left my water downstairs and he was in the shower and so he brought it to me right as you were claiming Columbus had a tail and I am now just like well this is absolutely life giving water this is fantastic yeah yeah sometimes when I've drank too much coffee and then I'm like oh I'm really tired should I make myself another cup of coffee and then I get water from the water cooler and it's dead and it's nice and cold and I'm just like oh this is the right dress yeah like you can almost feel like your cells getting like clumped up or something yeah what I was gonna say that I mean that's it that's the episode yeah no it's not quite the episode actually sorry so what happens is Mulder had been talking to this other agent and then suddenly

53:23realizes that skull he isn't there and they realized that they had only shot one of the right yeah and so he gets all like panicked and runs to her to the motel room and it's like banging on her motel room door and she's not answering and then we see her answer the one next door and pop her head out and it's like oh Mulder and he's like oh okay and like had thought that like the other creature had gotten her and so they're she's like no I'm here and so they're walking out to the car and then we see underneath her bed was the red eyes and that was the end of the episode you do need to see basic instincts because it has a similar ending of like everything's fine oh what's this and it is something by a bedside oh okay yeah all right although I mean we're just talking about how you barely have time to watch things that kids can't watch and that yeah really is not on the list for children to watch so yeah yeah yeah the related habit that I have been going into is becoming really good at geography I have decided that I thought you're gonna

54:27leave me behind so I'm yes so for me to have I think yeah I mean I can if you tell me a country in Africa I can point to it on a map I know all of the countries in Africa really yes all of them now I know all of Africa Europe and Asia whoa yeah yeah and South America yeah Central America I'm currently working on okay I'm not even 100% at which countries are South America and which countries are Central America yeah I mean it's I've it takes practice so how are you studying this well I like I got part of my algorithm got onto these like videos where someone will be like oh what is the you know for this the country on mainland Africa that's furthest to the east which do you know what's the country I mean sometimes I mix up east and west I prefer to use left and right which I know is not traditional so I have to think it through and I have to go okay east that one is to the right

55:27yes I really have to just take a beat I don't know okay in the US I have it down and in Germany I have it down because I know where eastern east Germany is you know western Germany but um sometimes it's just you know just yeah a second yeah so it's furthest to the right um to the right and it's just the country in Africa that's furthest east was that the question yeah is it Egypt no it's is it South Africa oh it's Somalia okay Somalia South Africa would be the furthest south well I know that yeah I know it to be clear also I don't mix up south and east okay so yeah that much I'm okay with okay I'm not bad with directions I just I don't know I'm not anything special either yeah um yeah I am bad with geography though so yeah well and so right and so I was like I want to be good at these things and then like I thought about how I'm just bad at geography and was like I'm not even 40 and I'm just gonna be like well guess I can't learn geography I mean that's interesting

56:30because I mean that's what I've done yeah yeah it turns out it is something you can learn um and just learn new things yeah yeah and so I've got all sorts of apps that have been fun um so I've got um one for like just guessing the the countries called satire um man you would kill it out of some app quiz now yeah I want to take it whoa okay what I want to do uh and this is like so ridiculously over competitive that it makes you feel like are you gonna hustle your husband no although I did the other day I was like here look take this nap of your app and then watch him do terribly and was like I can get 100% you are like monoco I want to like see who can get the highest percentage of uh of countries on a world map correct meet me or you oh I was thinking me or Adam oh oh okay yeah I'm like because it's hopefully you yeah that is interesting that is interesting uh-huh

57:35he's a busy man but maybe I can I can see what he can do because I think it's possible he could get close to 100% yeah I would love to have a showdown oh do you have to do you think you'd have to do it in person it couldn't just be like yeah I think we do it on paper is what I'm imagining yeah a holiday yeah yeah yeah yeah it's our family is like that's yeah I mean that's just like a good time to me yeah and then we can see who comes and you know the other places too I'd like to see you know yeah I'd like to see if I could be William oh you definitely could you don't really okay yeah I think so yeah um but the other one I've been loving is geoguesser uh for this is this where like they show you a photo and you have to guess where it is it's like they put you in google earth so it's you can move around okay and it um oh that's cool fascinating because sometimes I'm really good at it and sometimes I'm really bad at it um so it's like yeah the other day I was like oh my god this is the Netherlands and I like it looked so much like where our stepdad's parents are

58:37oh my nopa where they used to live that I felt like oh my god is this their neighborhood like it looked like so much like their neighborhood that I was just like oh my god it's the Netherlands it's like I'm sure to him yeah oh that's awesome yeah I was like whoa yeah and sometimes like I can recognize the Netherlands and not even know why I'll be like another experts are correct I can just tell yeah um but then the one from the same thing yesterday I think it was I was like oh this has got to be Texas like I swear this is like southwest United States I think it's Texas there's like the right type of cacti there's like the you know English looking road signs and then it was like the UAE like oh whoa that's interesting from like an oil perspective isn't it oh yeah that did you sense oil maybe yeah oil money nice highways but yeah so sometimes sometimes I'm so I'm working on that skill sometimes I'm on and sometimes I am really not that is cool yes but I would I would like to challenge you to a show yeah I will let them know I think you'd be do up for that

59:42and then um I just wanted to plug a YouTube show that we've been watching I might have mentioned before because we've been watching it for a while and it's one of those things where it's like it sounds kind of boring but we're learning things and it's interesting it's called not just bikes and it's by this Canadian guy who moved to the Netherlands and it's all about like city planning and infrastructure and like what makes cities good to live in versus city and like how to have less car-based societies and like it's been really really interesting because like I think I assume going to old European cities that like the reason they're downtowns and stuff are so cute and nice is just because they're old and it's like no they are making conscious choices today to maintain this to change things like there's areas of Amsterdam that we like have walked around like a lights up line for example oh yeah like used to have cars there in the 70s and it's crazy looking yeah and Instagram account I follow I can't think of the name of it and they don't post often but it's like before and after cars or something like that and they show like like overviews of places

1:00:49that have like gotten rid of like cars where they're like used to be big car parks and now they've made them like pedestrian friendly and stuff and like and it's fascinating yeah it's really cool yeah so I recommend not just bikes there's something really great about it the guy Jason who hosts it is like I don't know he talks in sort of a monotone but in a way that I have feel great affection for I don't know I like Jason yeah I've been wanting to rewatch the Michael Paylon travel series oh god I forgot about those yeah yeah yeah I was kind of thinking I wonder if my kids could see them I oh yeah I would think so I might have to explain like the USSR and stuff but that's fine yeah I mean I don't think it's a key existence of hidden from children yeah yeah like I've been more like am I am I intellectually prepared and to explain this not that they couldn't know I have another recommendation and you know what I'd like to do I'm gonna say this will I do it look

1:01:54listeners will find out if I do it I'd love to put all our recommendations in the show notes to make it easier to find that would be great it would be great we'll see what happens okay I have a recommendation for a book it is called London Falling and it's by Patrick Radon Heath telling me about this oh my god there's a lot I mean you just you just told me that it was yeah I'm gonna put on my list for you shit it's really good deal with it so in 2019 this 19 year old British kid named Zach fell out of a window of a skyscraper and fell into the temps and died whoa and it turns out there was footage of it because it happened to be in a skyscraper across from the MI6 building so they had oh cameras whoa and it looks like it was not a suicide like it's clear there's somebody else like in the apartment behind him and so it turns out that this kid's act they discover has been lying and claiming to be the son of a Russian oligarch who has moved to London and is

1:02:57pretending he's rich and of a Russian descent and lying to people and getting involved with things he shouldn't and it's like a deep dive into all these different people who it turns out we're involved in his death and like oh it's really really good and it's also one of those things where you're like looking with the police did and going why did you do it this way oh and when did this happen I missed the year it happened in 2019 oh it happened in 2019 oh yeah okay I was picturing something much longer ago now it was recent and then the book just came out in April oh awesome you said Patrick Radden Keith yeah okay great I've just found it on Libby I'm gonna place my whole cell yeah I yeah my hold I had a hold on it since it came out in April and it finally came through and I read it so yeah oh my god I really recommend it like oh cool to everyone yeah great oh that's awesome cool one more recommendation if you're feeling like I'd like to learn geography too yeah I found the most helpful thing has been like looking at an area of the world

1:04:02and being like oh I have absolutely no idea what's going on here and then this recommendation for Wikipedia and then and then reading stuff about it like I found that I cannot memorize objects on maps like I can't just memorize like oh this is here but I can memorize that like oh sure it's like you know Guiana and then Serena which used to be Dutch Guiana and then French Guiana because all the Guiana's were all in a row in South America like and like so if I don't know what's about it on Guiana wise I've never yeah well in like it turned yeah so I highly recommend learning the content stuff you're able to learn the context yes and also like speaking of detour like 90 percent if you're ever like that's a weird border why did someone do that it's because of colonialism like 99 percent of the time if it's like why did that weird little part of a country end up attached to that other country it's like oh colonialism right that's why yeah it doesn't make any sense also I'm sorry no please did you know that Madagascar was had people come over

1:05:08from southeast Asia so Madagascar is off the coast of Africa yes I knew that first I saw Madagascar there are lemurs yeah some of the first people to get there came from Taiwan that the Taiwanese settled parts of southeast Asia and then people from southeast Asia went all the way across the Indian ocean on boats and that was who settled parts of Madagascar not people from Africa initially whoa I had no idea that is interesting I've had I really want to go to Taiwan I've been oh really consuming a lot of content about Taiwan recently yeah yeah it looks awesome really yeah I've also been drinking more bubble tea there is one place that invented bubble tea like it's recent enough we know the cafe that invented it and you can go wow oh that's pretty cool yeah cool well you should make it happen I should I might yeah you can say yeah cool anyway all right well until next

1:06:12time awesome stuff you're learning geography this is amazing geography I know have you learned any US states like or is that just like kind of boring it's pretty boring but I I did that that was one of the first things I did to be able to be like okay can I can I need my yes I can I can place all the US states I get like pretty frustrated in the northeast yeah but can make it happen now what so what I can do is like the app that I work with it says like you know it'll show you a map of Africa and say you know Tunisia and then you click on Tunisia what I want to be able to do what I need to practice me to before Thanksgiving probably as I need to be able to like just see the fill it in blank if you know what I mean like it says being prompted to find a specific one I can find specific countries but I want to be able to call what should be there got it yeah that's my my next goal after learning central America awesome I'll talk to him I'll see what he says yeah see

1:07:14if he's got me like smack talk or anything yeah Helen couldn't find Antarctica so yeah like Antarctica's technically not a sovereign nation we're so cool all right bye everyone see you next time see you next time for postmodern permethias yes postmodern permethias yeah yes yes yes yep okay all right bye bye we want to believe is hosted by Helen Warner and Liz Holden it's produced by Zach Werner that we want to believe theme music was created and recorded by Zach Werner find us at we want to believe pod dot com on instagram at we want to leave pod or send us an email at we want to believe pod at gmail dot com kitchen and bathroom professionals know what goes behind the tile matters that's why trade pros trust fiber cement party backer board to keep tile firmly in place resist cracking and help block moisture

1:08:15chosen over 40 million kitchens and bathrooms party backer board what the best build on shop now at participating home depot lows and floor into core stores for more information visit jameshardy.com slashhardybacker