Encore: Owl pursuits

0:00Support for Endless Thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com. Hey Endless Threadheads, it is a holiday weekend and one where a lot of people are headed back to college. Or arriving for the first time. Well, we've got a story about college, but no matter who you are, it's not your usual story. This one's a bit of a throwback, like an old yearbook maybe, or freshman Facebook. Remember when that was actually a thing you could hold in your hand and not a massive terrifying tech company? Anyway, there's a story we did a few years back about a mysterious creature haunting the freshman dorm at UNC Chapel Hill. It comes via lots of help from a Chapel Hill grad, our own Grace Tatter. It's an old wee bit of goody.

1:01Enjoy. WBWR Podcasts, Boston. Grace Tatter. Yes, that's me, Ben Brock Johnson. That's you. Who are you again? I'm a producer for Endless Thread. And this is a two for a week. It was a Grace Week last week and it's a Grace Week this week. I love it. Yeah, yes, hopefully people aren't getting tired of my Jules Sittons. How could they ever? One thing I know about you is you're the person who introduced the HBO show The Staircase to me. Now, why are you marking? Why why? She had an accident. What kind of accident? She's filled with the stairs.

2:02But she's not gone. She's not really gone. Really? Is that true? Yeah. And one of our Highloes and Lessons? Yeah. What else? Up the millions of people on Twitter talking about it? No, no, it was you. It was you who, Endless Thread folks listening out there, Endless Thread and our Podcast Department gets together once a week. And we tell each other what our high was for the week and our low and also our listen. And Grace hit us with the listen. This was months and maybe years ago now. Months ago. Yeah. So, what's the deal with the HBO show The Staircase, which involves some owl action? Yes, at least an owl theory. Now I can't remember if the owl theory ended up in the HBO version, but definitely in the real life case, the real life murder case that the HBO show is based on. There's plenty of owl content in the HBO. But you come to us today with more owl content. Yes, from that same part of the country, from the triangle of North Carolina, for people

3:04who don't know the staircase, the theory appears that this woman, Kathleen Peterson, was murdered by her husband. But some people think that she was actually killed by an owl. And that always seemed pretty far out there to me because I lived in the Piedmont of North Carolina for most of my life and really hadn't encountered that many owls at all, much less any killer owls. But owls be out there, though. Yeah, they do. And I was talking to a friend recently and she was telling me that in Chapel Hill where I went to school, there was a lot of chatter about a pretty, I think, violent would be the word, violent owl. I'll send you actually some of the Instagram videos that were going around. Okay. I'll slack them to you. Oh God. Oh my God. Whoa, this owl is like cruising very close to the ground in a parking lot. You like, good night, y'all.

4:05I'm out. Bye. I don't, I don't blame him for, it's very funny who over this person is. I don't blame them for going home after this because they seem to be dive bombed by an owl except it's not really dive bombing because the owl is like flying so close to the ground in this parking lot, like maybe a foot off the ground and then just like, carining into the person shooting the video, the caption says, this hojo owl got me fucked up back to North Campus I go. Yeah, so some context because that probably doesn't make any sense to you. This is very, I feel like this is very Chapel Hill, like, you know, people who know the campus, this is makes sense to them. Exactly. Yeah, so Hinton James is a dorm, I think, a thousand freshman living Hinton James. It's one of the biggest dorms definitely on campus and it's also kind of the shittiest

5:06dorm, like when you get your housing assignment, going to your freshman year, if you get Hinton James, you're bummed out because it's the farthest away from the rest of campus. Somehow it's uphill both ways a mile. I don't know how that works. But it's definitely true. I did live there. And for nickname, we call it hojo. So in North Campus, what he's referring to are where I like, there's these beautiful, historic buildings with like the dorms have like pianos in the lobby. That is not at all the case with Hinton James. It's rough. Hinton James got owls in the parking lot. North Campus has pianos in the lobby. Exactly. It's always been character building to live in Hinton James. But when I lived there, we did not have any dive-bong owls. I'm going to send you one more video of the owl. This video is hilarious. So yeah, this is a girl. Or tell you, it's a little tough.

6:09It's like, this should not be funny, but it's very funny. It's very funny. It's like, I don't know, really know how to describe it because it's such a chaotically sharp video. But it's like, you see like an owl again, like flying around sort of like close to the ground and like all over the place in this video. But then you see this woman kind of like nope out. Like she just like turns and runs and screaming and the owl gives pursuit right behind her. And it's like very funny, although I imagine in the moment it would be absolutely terrifying. But like when I watched the video, I'm like, this is hilarious. She's just getting owl chased. It's really good. As if it's not hard enough to be a college student, sport girl. I know.

7:09I know. But actually, so I have more context about her specifically. So I heard about this owl living outside of my old dorm and I did a Google to see what else was about it. And I found this calm in the daily tar hill, which is the student newspaper at Chapel Hill from a first year who was writing in defense of this owl. He says, yeah, that it's collectively harassing all the freshmen and that it's kind of scary. But is it freshmen only? Yeah, because it's only lives outside this dorm. That's only freshman. So it's like anything, man. There's something truly delicious about that to me. I'm not sure why, but okay, sorry. Go ahead. So, yeah, so this guy, Alan Chen, who's also first year, he lives in the dorm that's slightly up the hill. So it's also crappy, but it's a little less crappy because it's a little bit closer to everything. But he writes this column saying that he thinks this owl is a good thing, that it's character

8:09building, that it's bringing people together. So I was intrigued by that. So I called him up and I asked him how he originally became introduced to the owl if it was like through these Instagram videos that were all being posted on this account UNC Chicks, which is like a meme account that's affiliated with Chicks, which is something bar stool related. And his first encounter with the owl was actually courtesy of that girl who we just saw. Do we have a name for that girl? We do. And sorry, that girl. Kaylee. I don't want you to start referring to her as like a UNC Chicks. That's true. Yeah, because it turns out even though the meme account is named UNC Chicks, it's usually bird content is an outlier. Kaylee. Okay. Yeah. So Alan was introduced when Kaylee came running into a suite because he lives with her boyfriend. She just sort of came running in frantically one day.

9:11She was like, Alan, the weirdest thing just happened. I was chased by an owl for 30 minutes. And I was like, what an owl. And she was like, yeah, an owl. I was naturally, I was like, I want to go see this owl, which is when I went out and tried to talk to the owl. And I sort of implanted myself in the mythos of the owl from that day on. I sort of became really fascinated by it. And I was reaching out to people who had owl encounters on Instagram and whatnot. Yeah. So Alan then went to talk to lots of the people who have submitted some of these videos Oh, I didn't even show you the video. Like there's a video of someone giving the owl a cigarette. What? Yeah, I'll show you. Actually giving the owl the cigarette. Yeah. I'm going to smoke. Oh my God. Don't give the owl the cigarette.

10:14No. Come on. It's also like such a, it's a. It looks a suite there, right? I know. How is it so? God, what are amazing creatures there? Yeah. So this owl did become, it became kind of online famous because people were submitting videos to this meme account. And yeah, and lots of people are talking about it in real life too. So because of all of its online fame, it became something that people were excited to like have their own spotting. So Alan. This person is shooting it. Like it's like, it's in a tennis court. Now it's in the tennis court. Now it's like lit up at night by the headlights of a car. Like it's in some kind of crime movie. I'm sorry. It's just, it's truly, this owl is clearly like it's a mascot. It's becoming a mascot on Instagram. And like people clearly love this. Yeah, exactly. And Alan told me that like people would just gather and go watch owl watching or like,

11:17you know, like call people over who entire floors of this huge dorm would like come out and all like watch the owl together. People would bring snacks and it gave them something to talk about. It was like a bonding experience for people. Sure. Yeah. Which like when you go to a huge school, like I feel like it could be really helpful. Like I remember what it was like to be like one of a thousand kids in a huge dorm. It's like nice to have something to talk about before basketball season. Common experience. Yeah. And it's where like everybody can kind of be like on the same side. You know, everybody's like, oh, check out the owl. You know, like it's not like a, this is not like an othering experience except maybe for the owl. Exactly. Exactly. So here's another thing that's coming up for me that I haven't really said yet. Which is like knowing nothing about this owl. This is a piece of wildlife that's living outside in an environment that has been completely taken over by a massive university.

12:19And so like I guess I would keep my distance but out of respect for the animal. Like I might sort of get closer to an animal so I can get like a thrilling view of it. Like I do that, you know, like when I see, I get bobcats where I live. And if I see a bobcat, I'm definitely trying to like get a better vantage of the bobcat. But I ran into a bear the other day. Oh my gosh. And it had its babies with it. And I was like, I nope out of there real fast. So I think like I would keep my distance out of respect for the animal and out of like wanting it to have its own space in the environment that we share. I admire your respect for wildlife. I think I would probably have steered clear of it just because I would be scared. But anyway, it turns out that Reddit loves an owl attack. Story. So this has been mostly confined to the UNC community. But around the same time that this was happening, there was a post on the subreddit r slash

13:21well, this sucks from a woman who got attacked by an owl in her neighborhood twice. And this actually got picked up by NPR because this Reddit post had so much attention. So you can see some pictures there of what owls can indeed do if they getcha. And we already talked about when I was in college, the podcast criminal did an article about owls in Chapel Hill because of the owl theory about the staircase, which was in Durham, which is like eight miles away. So they like started that episode with stories about owls swooping down. So I'm running and I actually lowered the brim of my hat and about 20 seconds later, I felt a scratch on my head and then my hat disappeared. So there is precedent for this happening, especially in the fall apparently, barred owls feeling territorial. For a lot of the reasons you just said, I mean, this part of North Carolina has just developed

14:24an insane amount in the past couple of decades. So there are a lot of houses being built, which means a lot of trees are being cut down. All sorts of critters are running out of the woods. And you can't blame them because wild animals are going to be wild animals to your point earlier. Except for this owl actually might not be totally wild. Grace, you do have, as I understand it, a kind of conclusion to this story about this mysterious owl, but folks will have to wait for another minute while we take a break. We'll be right back. There is something powerful about the sound of the human voice. Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire.

15:24Tell your organization's story with a custom podcast from city space productions, the Creative Studio from WBUR's Business Partnerships team. I'm a thought leader. We're a Cretan New Talent. Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at www.org-creative-studio. It's Ben Brock Johnson, director of digital audio at WBUR. You've probably been following our consistent coverage of the Lindsey Clancy case, along with people around the country and around the world. Well, if you want to hear even more from WBUR's own veteran reporter Deborah Becker, who has been covering the story for three years. We're putting deep dive podcast episodes and analysis about the Clancy case in a podcast feed. You can listen by searching Beyond All Repair, wherever you get your podcasts. Every episode of Planet Money begins with a question. Can we help people rise out of poverty by improving the neighborhood where they live?

16:25What would you build on a piece of land when all the normal rules go out the window? What do robots that mean for the restaurant industry? Planet Money helps you find answers by going to places, watching people, and sometimes robots at work and asking questions. Listen to Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, Grace. I'm loving this story. I need to know more what's next. So I'm going to send you one last Instagram post. So this is from an account called UNC Quirks. People submit pictures of quirky things around UNC. And yeah, student saw this woman feeding this owl, a dead mouse, and the woman said that she'd raised the owl from an egg. So it turns out this owl was perhaps not a wild owl, but a pet owl. What? Just somehow makes the story all the more fun.

17:27What's happening? Yeah. And then after this encounter, after this freshman named Izzy saw this encounter, the students stopped seeing the owl, at least for a while. So wait, does that mean that she took the owl back home? Unclear. Like if she just rescued it. Oh, God. You go to the next one. You can see her kind of kissing the owl. Yeah. Well, they're kissing each other. Yeah. They clearly love each other. So like, unclear. Did she take it back home or did she just rehabilitate it? I saw one comment on TikTok saying that the woman was the commenter's mom. So I did reach out to that person on TikTok to be like, this is really your mom? She did not go back to me. She didn't get back to me. Yeah. So the identity of the little owl owner is a mystery. Oh, what an interesting and strange tale of this mysterious owl. And it's mysterious owner. And it's mysterious behavior. Thank you, Grace, for bringing this story.

18:28Thanks for listening. And that is where our short episode would have ended. Except that woman Grace reached out to on TikTok hoping to talk to her mom well. Yep. On Monday morning, I received a text from the woman who helped raise the Hojo owl. Hojo mom. And she was a hoot. She sure was. Oh, come on, Grace. Give me one chuckle. Geez. God. Alright, Grace, what did she have to say? Well, she started out with the important stuff. You know, I'm not a crazy person. Barb told me that she's been rehabbing wildlife in the Chapel Hill area for decades. She asked us not to use her last name because in North Carolina, you actually need a special license to rehab raptors.

19:29Last March, a friend from Durham, which again, basically is the town over from Chapel Hill, called Barb about a baby owl that had fallen out of its nest. You know, you could fit her in the palm of your hand. You know, she was just a tiny little thing. Barb took the baby owl home and her son-in-law, a soda with the name owl-lesson, like Allison, but you know, with an owl. And over the next few months, Barb fed Allison a study diet of frozen mice. Her family got used to having Allison around and Allison got used to them. She would have a bonfire in the backyard at night and she would fly and she would be on the back of my chair and she just sit there and fiddle with my hair, believe it or not. And so she just didn't have that fear, I guess, that she needed to have. So that's the one thing I did wrong. I imprinted too much, as they say. And the fall Barb said they started seeing Allison less and less until finally she'd been

20:34gone for three or four days. I said, well, maybe this is the time. Maybe she's down the other owls. You don't know, it's a wild animal. And then she would come home. You know, so we never went very long without seeing her. And the last time she flew off and I hadn't seen her the whole week. And then I got a call. The call came from someone who lives or works in a student apartment complex on South Campus and who knew about Barb's passion for wildlife. Barb realized that the owl he was calling about was probably Allison. I guess she just liked the people he said she would sit on the window sill and look in at the students, you know, when they were in the rooms and that's when I knew. Even though Barb had heard that the students really liked Allison, she was worried that the owl might accidentally hurt someone. So she took Allison home for the night and then to a wildlife rescue near Pittsburgh, North

21:39Carolina. She told me that she always planned to release Allison into the wild eventually. Barb is still able to keep tabs on her owl friend. The folks who work at the rescue will send Barb pictures of Allison from time to time. She has hundreds of acres to fly around him. So she's doing whatever owls do. Indeed, whatever owls do, which is maybe dreaming about her checkered past of terrorizing freshmen. Maybe although I have to admit then after talking to Barb, I felt a little bit guilty about calling Allison possibly violent. I think she was just friendly. Shoot your son play with some people's hair. Exactly. Come over and hang out. Exactly. I think she was misunderstood. So misunderstood. I was like trying to figure out how to make a joke about like, you know how owls don't poop? I did not know that. You didn't know that? No, wait, no, they do.

22:39Oh my god. But I almost put a cut in about this owl wearing a diaper. They do poop and I have to prove it. They do poop. They don't poop grace. I'm going to beat this sound. I have. I hate to tell you how much would you like to bet grace? I literally have to hate about an owl wearing a diaper to play for you. Hey, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean the owls poop and if the owls wear in a diaper. No, I think she talked about poop. What should we bet? Oh, this is tough. This is tough, dude. What would you like to bet? I don't know. Ice cream, ice cream sandwich and a drink. Ice cream goes all three. All right, you're on. Okay. Well, how are you going to pivot that because Barb who seems like an owl expert to me told me that this owl was pooping on her awning. Are you googling? Okay, here's this is tough.

23:41This is tough. I think pellets, pellets. I knew that because we've all dissected. Did you dissect an owl pellet in school? Yes, I did. I think that counts as poop. No, it doesn't because they regurgitate them. That's not poop. Okay, but also why did it? If it comes out of your mouth, I'm pretty sure it's not poop. We don't describe this. I'll go into the next most relevant popular Google search, which is do owls have butles in search in spite of common misconceptions. This owls do have butles. Well, obviously, according to Alexa answers, owl pellets are coughed up from the mouth because they eat food whole so they have to admit the bones in fur. They still pee. They still pee and poop. Yes, thank you. Okay, you owe me because bird poop is not bird poop. It's just like the white like it's like like what do you stop? It's a kind of ice cream like.

24:41I mean, think about it. Anyway, I think that. Yes, I lose. I guess I lose. But I'm just going to say, I hope an owl never poops on either of us. I have that too. Or or pellets on either of us because that's just crust. It's also crust. Grace, thank you for never giving up on solving owl mysteries. Oh my gosh, you're welcome. Gotta keep it real for my Alma Mater and for endless thread. See you next week, owl fans. Bye. Endless thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. This episode was produced by me Grace Tater and co-hosted by me, Ben Brock Johnson, who

25:43we just lost a bet about whether owls poop or not. Mix and sound designed by Emily Jenkowski. The rest of our team is Amary Seavinson, Quincy Walters, Dean Russell, Noris Sachs, Amy Garell, Matt Reed, and Paul Vitekis. And yes, owls do poop. And vomit, apparently. So we leave you with that, folks.