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- [00:00]
Brian
This episode is sponsored by Mount Athos. Results Purity and sustainability in every bott Indragluin the Fell Wolf of Angbond came forth from the shadows of the mountains, and his eyes shone like burning coals in the night. Excerpt from the Silmarillion Robert Fortney walked through the nighttime fields of Bridgeton. The day's rains now ceased, had brought a thick cloud of fog up no more than four feet from the earth, and as his legs pushed through this ocean of humidity, ripples of cloud went out before him in a turbulent wake, trailed behind. It was a muggy night, with only faint traces of cloud remaining, ethereal wisps of light in the sky, backlit by a strong moon. The rolling hills of springtime Michigan looked like shadowy throws poured over an unmade bed, serene and soft, almost inviting, though Fortney knew that only the darkest dark would be inside of any of their downs and copses. It was 1938. The world was quiet, at least there, and at least on that night Fortney was on the hunt for pests of all types. He did this from time to time for neighbors to get some extra money. Possums, porcupines, woodchucks. Fortney prided himself on being able to snuff them all out under the COVID of night's shade, better than anyone else in the little township. He cradled his blued 20 gauge single shot in the bend of his elbow, broken open and at rest. From the knoll he stood on, he could look down and see the fog begin to break, forming islands of black that was the ground of the field beneath him. On the opposite side of that field was the wooded bank of the River Muskegon, all silvery green behind its veil of trees. That field was still his neighbors, so he zigzagged down the hill and and made briskly across for the river, thinking he'd find a trove of pests inside that he could take as receipts for a nice payday once the sun rose. But as he walked and as the fog continued to clear, a breeze gusted and chilled the sweat on his back, sending a shiver up his spine that made him stop. He shook out the shiver and went to begin his trek once more when he heard a sound that he did not expect, the faint whimpers of a puppy somewhere in the section of fog off to his left that still lingered. He walked quietly over to it, forgetting that he had just been taking massive strides, without a care for the noise, and failing to wonder why the dog had not been frightened. Then maybe, had he noticed this, he would not have cared anyways. Through the night he saw a moonbeam glare through the fog, and two shimmering eyes looked back up at him from the grass. The puppy had stepped into a bog from the rain and was stuck, shivering and covered in mud. Fortney moved his shotgun to be balanced over his shoulder and between his neck and pack strap. He lowered himself into a squat and reached his hands out to the helpless animal. But when his hands had gone half the distance between his chest and the suffering puppy, the loud crash of feet in the grass behind him sent him rolling off next to the bog and turning around as quickly as he could. Five dogs stood on the other side of the bait they'd planted and snarled at him with grimacing teeth and raised spines and ears pointed back as if by a strong wind. He slowly backed away, never taking his eyes off the uncanny pack of beasts, and he thought for a moment that they would leave him be. But they did not. The first of the pack hopped over to the trapped puppy, and Fortney turned slow enough to see the dog land on the other side. On his side, in a nearly full sprint, he ran for all of his life through the empty echo chamber of the Michigan countryside, vicious barks resonating behind him and seeming to get closer and closer with every one of his steps. He ran towards the COVID of the riverbank and the river itself, the Muskegon, where he'd hoped to uproot whatever hiding thing was there before he now hoped to join it in its hiding. His legs began to feel heavy as his breath was simply not enough. He could feel his heart pounding like a great drum against his ribs, and he felt sure it would soon stop. He could see the reflections of the silvery moon off the ripples through the gaps in the trees now, so close. The dogs were close, too. He wondered if it was their breath he was feeling on his ankles or if it was just the wind made by his running. He started to rock this way and that. As he ran, the world started to swim. He had not pushed himself like this in decades. He had not been so desperate in all his life. The trees welcomed him into their darkness with branches extended like Mother's arms open for an embrace, he jumped over a thin birch that was fallen and charged through a spider's web of brambles hanging between two birches. Still standing, he slid down the still wet clay banks of the Muskegon and threw his shotgun as hard as he could before diving in. He heard the gun land on the soft soil while he was still in the air, and then his head utterly out of breath went under the rolling and uncaring waters. They were cold and stronger than he had anticipated. By the time he'd swam or water walked the 50 or so yards to the other side, he drifted the same length down. Once out, he looked back across to see the posse of dogs shouting terribly at him from the other side. They sprinted back up the river to where he'd entered and tossed themselves in as well. He jogged back to his gun and dug a shell from his coat pocket. As he did so. He got to his gun with his head still spinning. He blinked hard and fast as he tried to fit the shell into the chamber with wet, shaking hands. Finally, he lined up the casing with the bore and drove it home with his thumb. He blew hard on the primer before closing the break, and it was not a moment too soon. He turned down the bank and saw the first of the dogs already at him, sprinting full speed with incredible bulk. The others followed not far behind. He knew he would only get one shot. He hoped it would send the others running. The trigger released the tension in the air. The firing pin clicked against the brass and sent a swarm of pellets like poisonous bees into the head of the dog now lunging at the man. It fell from its leap in a lump of mangled flesh and hit the earth with a dull thud. The three dogs behind it turned to run with their tails tucked tightly into their stomachs. But it was only four dogs. What of the fifth? The man turned around wildly, looking into what he now realized was a dark wood, trying to see movement. There was none. He stilled himself and looked back across the river. On top of the clay bank he had rushed down, there was a mass of black, blacker than shadow. It opened its eyes and they blazed with a fiery gold. He swallowed his fear and broke the shotgun open to try and load it again. But he could not look away from the beast. He dropped the shell he pulled from his coat and then dropped the gun altogether as he backed away, petrified at the monster, now rising up on its hind legs to stand like a man. It was taller than him. The wind gusted again and moved the branches above the two foes enough to let the light of the moon creep in. For just a moment, the man regarded the face of the creature. Hellish and bloody and tortured, it wore a smile on its face. When the wind subsided and the darkness returned, the man discovered himself to have collapsed. But it didn't matter. The monster turned its back and walked back into the field from where they'd all come Robert Fortney had just survived an encounter with a thing known as the Dogman of Michigan. But what of its doppelganger, the Beast of Bray Road, across the great lake in the farms of Wisconsin, Mount Athos Performance is a family owned fitness brand that gives you the tools you need to cultivate a lifestyle of health and fitness. Bro, you know I'm doing an ad right now, right?
- [08:38]
Ben
Oh, yeah. No, no, you're doing great, man. Keep it up, keep it up.
- [08:40]
Brian
But can you. Can you stop shaking the bottle just for a minute?
- [08:44]
Ben
Oh, wait, you want me to stop shaking my Mount Athos Performance shaker bottle filled with Mount Athos Performance protein?
- [08:51]
Brian
Yes, that would be great.
- [08:52]
Ben
Oh, okay, yeah, sure.
- [08:54]
Brian
Well, as I was saying, Mount Athos sources their goat way from their family owned farm so they can create a product that's not full of crazy chemicals or additives.
- [09:03]
Ben
Oh yeah, dude, you can tell this is the good stuff. I'm drinking this goat so that I can get goated.
- [09:14]
Brian
Oh yeah. Well, they have products like protein powder, creatine supplements for your mind, as there should be one for sleep somewhere. Head to athosperform.com and use code NCP20 for 20% off your order today.
- [09:50]
Ben
See the girl. She lives in Spring Prairie, Wisconsin, a small settlement which at the time of our story only boasted about a thousand residents. Her life is spent driving up and down the rural roads between her home and in the city of Elkhorn, where she and her neighbors and all of her friends go to school. She is the prototypical young Midwestern woman, living in the glory of her youth at the tail end of the previous century. Clothes are more important to her than they were to her parents. Technology is new, and she puts herself in situations of great risk on a computer that she won't appreciate until much later in life. Her acne gives her anxiety and her maturing frame gives the boys that live near her even more. Her father more than any of them, but for very different reasons. She is an American girl to the core, hardened, but without any knowledge of it, by her sheltered life on the prairies and farms off the coast of the Great Lakes. Not only sheltered, she's fed and clothed, too, by a family that loves her. Her education is ongoing and going well. Her hopes and dreams in life are myriad. A mistake many of the young people in her generation made undaunted by the dangers of such unsatisfying delusions. But none of them come into this tale. She knows the roads around her home impeccably well, for it does not take much to know them. They are flat and straight, with ditches on either side that grow menacing and cold and dark of winter months. Seldom do trees cover the roads over more often than not she can see a thousand miles in any direction, on any part of any one of them, far ahead to the horizon where the bent world curves too deep and becomes an upside down place, foreign to her and therefore not real. It is these roads that concern us, these stages of life, so mundane but capable of holding terrible things. It was Halloween in 1991. The girl's name was Doris Gibson. She was driving down Bray Road toward the larger settlement of Elkhorn to attend a party and later to pick up a friend to take back home. The weather was crisp and cold. Days had already grown short in that part of the world, such that, though it was only just after suppertime, it was full night. Bray Road was never exactly busy, but it being well into trick or treating time meant that virtually nobody was sharing the road with Gibson. Her high beams were on, and she was certainly grateful for them. Before her on the tarmac lolled a layer of muggy fog that gave the already mystical air of Halloween a theater of wonder and timidity. It was thick, too, as it wafted sometimes up and over the windshield as she drove on. Because of its thickness and its proclivity to occasionally cloud more than just her vision of the road underneath it, she got into a mode of sensory focus that I'm sure we can all relate to. She sat up more in the driver's seat and put her hands right at the 10 and 2 position. That was after she turned the volume on her radio down, though she wanted to see better, so naturally the music couldn't be too loud. In this way, pushing like an icebreaker on Superior through the dense and undulating layer of vaporous moisture, she steadily drove down the almost arrow straight Bray Road, watching keenly for the dim sight of the yellow lines through the thinner sections of fog and slowing down many times until she was crawling on at a steady state of about 30 miles per hour. The thud sent her into a gasp. She knew she had not drifted near to the road's edge, but the sudden jolt from her passenger side tricked her into thinking for a moment that she had. But she recovered quick enough, straightening out the wheel and calming herself down for the push to her nerves. It was, after all, her dad's car. She didn't want to wreck it if she ever wanted to take it out again, and that she did. It took her about 60ft to come to a full stop. She figured it was the neighborly thing to get out and move whatever stone or stick or roadkill she had hit to save any other nighttime driver the risk of suffering something far worse than she had. Besides, the fog was getting worse and most drivers later that night would not be as sober as she was then. As Gibson walked back to whereabouts the impact had occurred, she struggled to find anything that could be the culprit. Given the state of the fog, this didn't concern her much at first, but it soon started to. The night was so quiet and the fog was so otherworldly and thick, it seemed to her that she was the only person left in the world at all, living out an endless nighttime drive over and over again in some post apocalyptic hellscape. There was nothing and no one, and she thought this frightening. But what came after was the true fright, the sound of a hulking frame pounding its feet over and over on the road, the dim red light from her car's brakes casting her long shadow like a tentacle into the night. From the hallway of that shadow came the black form of a massive beast with a heaving chest running towards her, blowing two tubes of hot breath out of a snout that was inhuman but also in animalistic something demonic and fueled by fear. She saw its approach and her legs started to numb with the shock. She demanded they lock up and she turned with all the speed she had to run back to the safety of the car. The fog felt like a syrupy air that is in a dream which makes one feel incapable of running away from a threat. The beast, this monster from Dis, was catching up. She screamed as she ran in a blind panic and only just made it back in time to slam the door shut and lock it as the mass of thing grabbed on to the rear bumper and began to lift with an uncanny scream that was more akin to the yowl of a cat, only much, much deeper and louder. She slammed her foot on the gas and prayed that the car had not lifted too much already. It hadn't. She sped off into the night, no longer caring for the density of the fog. She trusted her adrenal instincts to know where the road would be, and she didn't slow down until she came into the well lit streets of Elkhorn I full five minutes later. In that time she did nothing but try to calm down. It wasn't until she parked that she began to collect any thoughts whatsoever about what she'd seen. And what she'd seen was, well, she had never seen anything like had been dark, but the immense surge of fear had given her a clear enough picture of this grotesque monster that she was sure wanted blood. It was massive and covered with a thick pelt of grimy and matted hair. Its legs were like a dog's with the hocks pointed backwards. But it wasn't a dog. For starters. It was too big, far bigger than Gibson, but it also only ran on the two legs that were twisted the wrong way. The bulk of its chest stuck with her nearly as much as the raving maw, a bloody thing, scarred and weathered as though the monster had rubbed its face on a wall of barbed wire. It opened to what she would sure were rotted teeth that somehow never died, and a demonic tongue like a serpent coiled itself up and waved around, inside and out of the teeth. And the speed. When she first saw its shadow, the figure must have been 50 yards away from her, and she was only about 50 yards from the car. But they both arrived at the car at more or less the same moment. What's more, she became convinced that it was the thing she had somehow hit. Had it used itself as bait? Had her car run over its leg or arm? Had the speed done anything to hurt it or slow it down? In her moments of silent debrief, Gibson decided not to tell anyone about her encounter. She was worried no one would believe her. Besides, even if they did believe her, what would anyone do about it? What would she do about it? She would never go and look for it. She would never let anyone else go and look for it either, as far as she could. It became a thing solidified in her mind, as a horror beyond her comprehension and therefore beyond her ability to linger on. The fear of the memory would never petrify, but even that night she felt as though she began to remember it as a dream and nothing more. She drove on through Elkhorn until she came to her Halloween party. The small packs of candy crazed children dressed as goblins and fae comforted her her as her car rolled slowly through the winding rows of houses. When the party was over and she walked back out to her car with the friend that she was to ferry home, those same rows of houses were sound asleep. The sodium vapor street lights hummed their tune in warm candescence just above the heads of the partiers filing out. There were no other sounds save the crackling noise of crickets, like a bed of nuclear energy glowing beneath everything Gibson marked the serenity of the moment. It contrasted sharply with her earlier experience. And yet the monster was already a wisp to her, a thing she wondered at the truth of. Even she herself as she stepped carefree to the driver's side of her car. The fog had cleared hours earlier. The two friends closed their respective doors and sat back with a sigh of satisfaction at the night gift. Gibson pulled herself up and after some searching for her target, drove the key home to the ignition and turned it. The blue Plymouth shuffled to life. She pulled the E brake up and then pushed it back down with a squish. Her foot was on the clutch and the car had been parked in gear, but into the piece there came the sound of a sharp inhale from her friend on the other side of the car. When Gibson turned to her, she was already looking out the window with wide eyes back toward the front of the house. They had come to. The friend exclaimed, look at that thing. Gibson did in there, standing as embodied shadow that was immovable, as if to remind her that it had not all been a dream, was the creature. It was giant, and all of what she thought she'd seen from earlier was confirmed in the stillness as the creature stood on the horizon of light cast down by a lamp across the street. What she had failed to notice before, though, were the eyes, piercing coals of vibrant bronze, staring back from their beds of black and gray and bloody blue. Just as the monster opened its mouth, she slammed on the gas and lifted the clutch and peeled away into the night. The next morning, under the sun's protective warmth, Gibson examined the rear of the car. She found claw marks and jagged silver cut into the blue paint of the trunk. In the 1820s, a Cree man walked alone through the deep northern snow of Saskatchewan. It was night and it was cold. The man was journeying to a fur trading post that he knew plenty more people would be at. It would be warmer, fires would be raging all over the camp. He just needed to get there before the cold took him. Saskatchewan's southern half is entirely dominated by plains. Gentle hills wave on like a calm ocean for miles all around. Seldom does one see any trees there, and so the wind whips like a maelstrom. All year in the winter that wind comes heavy from the northern arctic forests and blows over the plains until the air over it hardly breaks the single digits in Fahrenheit. The Cree man knew this, but walked on nonetheless. He knew all the more that two foolish decisions don't make a single wise one. He had been a fool to leave when he did, and that by himself, but he had done it. And so, as the open heavens held none of the earth's ambient heat back for him, he had nothing else to do but press on. The ground was already deep with snow from the previous week's storms, and he found himself post holing more frequently than he found solid footing. It was the most despairing thing he had ever done before, running on little food and only burning snow for water. The man withered and felt akin to a reed near to being uprooted by a summer thunderstorm on the shore of a lake. But all the lakes were frozen and the rivers that fed them, and he was no reed but a man dying and leaving his family to pay dear for his own folly. His feet became numb and he was forced to stop every couple of steps to catch his breath before continuing on with wobbling dizziness in the night through a world pitched completely white. As the hours passed, the man grew despondent at boiling clouds rolling in to cover the moon's light. Soon it was much darker and the wind had somehow grown stronger, and snow began to fall like pellets all around, stinging his eyes anytime he dared to glance upwards to find a line through the prairie. He was a broken shell of a man in an entirely inappropriate moment of reflection. He marveled at man's ability to be so resilient in some moments while being so fragile in others. He was being broken to death by a single night of hardship, though he had endured days of what he could swear had been harder living before. But those days were warmer, and the cold is a sink that sucks in everything. Finally he collapsed and could not get up again. He shuffled up to a drift of snow. He couldn't perceive any protection from the wind it may have been offering, and he closed his eyes to die. He could not tell how much time had passed when he woke up again. His mind had picked up on the heaving grunt and heavy steps that shook the ice his body stowed on. He saw through the snow and night a black bulk of something approaching him, like a dog, only more or perhaps somehow less. He regarded its eyes aflame like oil candles and penetrating, seemingly full of life and malice. Alongside, he complained to the gods as one who had been ready to die from the cold, must he now suffer the pain of death from this monster? He couldn't move, and so he didn't try to. The beast carried itself up to him and rolled off of its feet so that its mass of fur and muscle pressed down on the man. He wailed with a strained face for the devouring to begin, but it never did. The thing just laid on him, warming him with its own heat and soothing, or so it seemed at the time. After a while the pain of the man's limbs and fingers and toes thawed out and passed, and he could move his body freely with renewed strength. Almost at that very moment, the creature rose from off of him and walked some paces forward before turning to look back at the man as if to beckon him, as if telling him to follow. And so the man did. The beast led him through the wilderness all night until the dawn's breaking, saw the storm pass and the sun light down on the fur trading station the man had set out for. When he turned to see the creature again, it was gone. In a world that isn't just stuff, our bodies are no different. They are embodied spirits. As part of God's creation, we are called to steward both body and soul, taking dominion over our health with purpose and care. Mount Athos Performance, a family owned company, embraces this calling. Their protein powders, pre workout formulas and supplements are crafted to build lasting strength by sourcing goat way from their own goat farm. They deliver pure, pure, nutrient dense products free from harmful additives. So whether you're striving for peak performance or simply pursuing a healthy life, Mount Athos equips you to cultivate strength for body and soul. Visit athosperform.com today and use code NCP20 for 20% off your order. That's athosperform.com and use code NCP20 at checkout for 20% off your order. How many demons, ghosts or vampires are lurking in your investment portfolio? If you're invested in the S&P 500, it's probably more than you think since it's full of companies that actively oppose your faith. Stonecrop Wealth Advisors is here to help Their faith based portfolios redirect your hard earned dollars away from destructive agendas and into companies making a positive impact on society. Get the demons out of your portfolio and invest in God's kingdom while you grow your wealth wealth. Contact Stonecrop Wealth Advisors today by visiting StoneCropAdvisors.com Haunted Cosmos Investment Advisory Services offered through Stone Crop Wealth Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the U.S. securities and Exchange Commission.
- [26:07]
Brian
Hey Ben, I just read that our great grandparents probably experimented with butter on their dry skin as a moisturizer. Is that why you look so radiant?
- [26:16]
Ben
Maybe. Maybe it's Grandma's butter recipe. Or maybe it's gray toe tallow.
- [26:21]
Brian
Their tallow products are 100% organic and naturally contain the good stuff your skin craves. No mystery there.
- [26:28]
Ben
So say Sayonara Sammy to kitchen experiments and say hello to healthier skin. Great o Tallow Trusted by skin, Envied by Great Grandma's butter recipe.
- [26:41]
Brian
For more information and to get. Get a sample pack, check out gray toad tallow dot com. Don't forget to use the code COSMOS15. That's all caps COSMOS15 for 15% off your order. So I think we need to ask the obvious question.
- [27:02]
Ben
Is the Beast of Bray Road an angel? An angel? And the answer is, unequivocally, yes.
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Brian
We didn't plan that, by the way. He knew what I thought the obvious question was. Well, here's the thing. Like creating man, he's. Wait a second.
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Ben
Wait a minute.
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Brian
Animistic demon worshipper.
- [27:19]
Ben
Wait a minute. That was one of the cre. Gods.
- [27:21]
Brian
It's not.
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Ben
He is a demon beast. Br Is a demon. We can confirm.
- [27:25]
Brian
Not an angel. It's a demon. He wanted to keep him alive longer to keep worshiping his animistic spirit gods.
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Ben
Yeah. So I guess, like, that's.
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Brian
Maybe the Beast of Bray Road is, like, in a manifestation of one of the demon gods of North America.
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Ben
Yeah.
- [27:40]
Brian
That haunts the regions that are yet conquered by. Yet to be conquered by the gospel.
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Ben
Yet to be conquered fully, at least. Or it's like, you know, because when was that?
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Brian
18.
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Ben
1820S.
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Brian
And what's the area again?
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Ben
Saskatchewan.
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Brian
It's Saskatchewan. Yes. Saskatchewan's full of Pagans. In 1820, it was still frontier. Like, full of pagans.
- [28:01]
Ben
Yeah. I mean, to this day.
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Brian
To this day, Colter Wall is there now.
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Ben
He's not.
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Brian
I don't know if he's a Christian.
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Ben
He's not.
- [28:08]
Brian
He's not. He makes good music.
- [28:10]
Ben
But he does make good music.
- [28:11]
Brian
Turns out that doesn't actually mean you're a Christian.
- [28:13]
Ben
No. However, maybe Colter Walls in on something because one of his album covers was.
- [28:17]
Brian
A wolf smoking a cigarette.
- [28:19]
Ben
Could be a reference to the Cree man running into the beast.
- [28:22]
Brian
There's actually a story that I heard from. From Utah that is. It's in the Dogman. Wolf Man. Kind of love it, dude.
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Ben
Vain were people.
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Brian
And it was on the. It was on the Navajo reservation. Okay. So the Navajo reservation, it's kind of deserty, sort of. It's classic Utah deserty and then mountainous kind of terrain.
- [28:41]
Ben
Yeah.
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Brian
And this guy is doing night patrol, as one does on the Res, because there's a lot of crimes being done on the Res. A lot of firewater. A lot of crimes. Not to be culturally insensitive, but a lot of drunk people.
- [28:54]
Ben
Yeah.
- [28:54]
Brian
And so he's. He's driving his Res car out, you know, doing his monitoring and he gets to this. This bridge over, like, the river washed out. It's not a river. Not the river quad. It's over, like, a dusty, you know, probably a seasonal creek type thing.
- [29:10]
Ben
Like a runoff creek.
- [29:10]
Brian
Yeah, runoff creeks, it's not. It's not watery. That time of year. It was like summer, you know, dead and night past midnight. And he sees a guy. It's like the middle of nowhere, pretty much the outskirts of the reservation. He sees a guy on the bridge, like, in a long coat, just sort of shuffling along the side. And so he thinks, like, I'm gonna go see if this guy needs help.
- [29:31]
Ben
Automatic, automatic. Turn the car around, go the other way.
- [29:34]
Brian
Get out of there. First of all, like, nine out of 10 people who get lost in the woods and die get lost in the woods and die because someone came along and could have helped them and then thought they might have been a dog man or a skinwalker or a goat feeded.
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Ben
Listen, the Good Samaritan did not have the lore that we have.
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Brian
You didn't have the law.
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Ben
Look, same situation, Good Samaritan, same situation. Only difference with the lore we have the only. No, there's. There's a couple differences.
- [30:02]
Brian
Okay.
- [30:02]
Ben
Okay. The differences being it's at night.
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Brian
Okay.
- [30:05]
Ben
One check. No other people are around. It's not just, like, on the side of a road that three other people walk by.
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Brian
Yeah.
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Ben
And third, instead of, like, laying dead, the dude is shuffling along in tattered clothes.
- [30:19]
Brian
Oh, yeah, no.
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Ben
And he has a beard that scrapes the earth. Whoa.
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Brian
And you hear the wailing. I yawned. And you hear the wailing of distant, like, skinwalker or kaisen. Wendigo. But the guy comes up. You know the story. Like, he stops things in his headlights. He gets out of the truck. He's like, hey, man, do you need anything? I don't. How do you do a Native American accent?
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Ben
Something like this. Something like, oh, no, that's Japanese.
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Brian
Okay. So he said, I'm just gonna do it. Don't be distracted by my normal American accent.
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Ben
He says, amen. Do you need anything?
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Brian
That's better.
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Ben
Wing uppo.
- [30:58]
Brian
Exactly.
- [30:59]
Ben
That's what they do.
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Brian
And guy doesn't turn. He gets closer. He's like, hey, did you hear me? Is everything okay?
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Ben
Is everything okay? Thank you.
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Brian
Perfect.
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Ben
How?
- [31:08]
Brian
And then Guy turns around with all.
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Ben
The colors of the wind.
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Brian
Guy turns around. It's a dogman smoking. Seriously, It's a dog, man. He's smoking. So they. Of course. This is a skinwalker.
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Ben
Wait, this is such a reference to Colter Wall's album. I didn't.
- [31:24]
Brian
Yeah, that's what made me think of it.
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Ben
Oh, wow.
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Brian
That one is like a wolf smoking. This was like the classic dog man. So he's kind of has characteristics of the dog and the man.
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Ben
Here's the thing.
- [31:33]
Brian
And the dog characteristics are that he's smoking what? That any dog I own smokes.
- [31:37]
Ben
What that was. Was just a Midwestern lady. Okay. And it is. I won't stand for it. I will not. This is classless of you to call to say that.
- [31:47]
Brian
That's a dog man. Second time. I'm not gonna stand.
- [31:50]
Ben
I'm not standing the first time.
- [31:51]
Brian
Honestly. Midwest ladies are chill because they thought it was really funny.
- [31:54]
Ben
Yeah. Shout out to you Midwest ladies.
- [31:56]
Brian
When. When Ben, in our main episode that brought up dog men was like, no, that. That was just. That's what Midwestern women look like.
- [32:02]
Ben
Yeah. I don't mean it.
- [32:04]
Brian
Wow.
- [32:05]
Ben
I don't mean it.
- [32:06]
Brian
Y' all are like, he doesn't mean it.
- [32:07]
Ben
Every Midwestern woman I know is. Is just very sweet.
- [32:10]
Brian
Yeah.
- [32:10]
Ben
You know, we have a lot of them at our church. They're not dog men.
- [32:14]
Brian
They're definitely not. They're actually some of the funnier people I know.
- [32:17]
Ben
Stop saying that. They are like, stop accusing me of this horror, this slander.
- [32:22]
Brian
This is the Spider Man. Ben. Ben. Stop. Stop doing it. If we. If this weren't a dusty tome without all of our full editing off season episode, I'd say Martin put up the meme right now. That's Ben. Those two spider men, both labeled Ben.
- [32:34]
Ben
Yeah.
- [32:35]
Brian
Telling Ben. Telling Ben not to call Midwestern women dogmen. Anyway, anyway, so this, this, this whole. But the dogmen lore, the thing that's interesting about it is like the wolf, dogman, werewolf sort of thing is this goes back far.
- [32:49]
Ben
The Beast of Givaudin, the Beast of Gevaudan.
- [32:55]
Brian
Lebet du Gevaudan. So it goes way back.
- [32:57]
Ben
One of the. One of the ideas that we've. I don't know, maybe we've like adjacently glanced at it on the show. Maybe not. Is the Tulpa. You know Tulpa?
- [33:06]
Brian
Yeah.
- [33:07]
Ben
It's like an Eastern mystic thought form where you can basically create your own. It's like a golem in Judaism as well, where you. You create this demon, this thought form demon that then actually comes to life, especially if more people are thinking of it. And with folk religions, especially in paganism, being founded on sort of animus type stuff where they know that the world is not just what they can see, but they don't totally. Sometimes they don't have all the details of the unseen. Like, not every culture was founded by a pantheon of gods. That was like, the Greek pantheon, which I believe did find the Greek culture. And so it does make you wonder if maybe the chicken at times actually was the folklore.
- [33:57]
Brian
Yeah, I think so.
- [33:58]
Ben
And then the egg that came from it maybe was a thought form.
- [34:02]
Brian
But here's the thing. It's not the psychical power of people. It's a demon who's manifesting what they expect to see.
- [34:10]
Ben
Like, the deception is then being taken over. Yeah. I want to make clear. I'm not saying people can make ghosts appear.
- [34:17]
Brian
Like, man, there's a famous example of this, and I think it was a vampire of Highgate Cemetery. There was a cemetery and that some lore built up about, like, a vampire type thing. And we know that it wasn't real. It was, like a creepypasta type of thing. But this was before the Internet, and people came up with this story. They told the story, but they know that the origin story, like, isn't true. It was about this one grave, this one mausoleum, and supposedly this guy. There's a whole backstory. But then people looked into it later and said, that's just not true. Demonstrably, that's not even who's buried there. It's not the story at all. But people started to have very credible sightings of this thing.
- [35:03]
Ben
Yeah.
- [35:04]
Brian
And so one of the questions I've always had was if they were real, like, if they were actually credible and they really saw something, maybe that was what it was.
- [35:12]
Ben
Yeah. Yeah.
- [35:13]
Brian
It was presenting what they expected. To further deepen the deception, you have.
- [35:16]
Ben
To come up with some explanation for it. Explanations could be it was made up. It wasn't made up, but the thing was a hoax. It was like somebody in a suit or something or. It was a genuine deception. An unseen entity that took on this form that it knew somehow was a fear of all these people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [35:38]
Brian
Dude, that is crazy. And here's the other thing. If you ever see a Dogman, I want to know that. I want to know your. Your answer to this question. Are you allowed to do a preemptive strike? Can you shoot it? Like it's not doing anything. Let's just sit. Let's say you're the Navajo guy. It's sitting there smoking a. You know, it's ripping on a heater, and it's minding its own business. You. You stopped. It's not chasing you. It's not trying to eat you. Are you allowed to just pull out your Colt Python?
- [36:07]
Ben
Yeah.
- [36:07]
Brian
And put six in its ten ring?
- [36:09]
Ben
Yeah.
- [36:09]
Brian
Are you allowed to do that or is that bad form? Look, look, the people need to know.
- [36:19]
Ben
I. Here, here's why. I don't think it's bad form.
- [36:22]
Brian
Okay, let's hear.
- [36:23]
Ben
Here's why. I think not only should you do it, you must with silver bullets.
- [36:28]
Brian
I only keep my Glocky Glock loaded with silver bullets.
- [36:30]
Ben
Yeah, you actually can buy silver bullets online. They're really expensive.
- [36:34]
Brian
Do they perform well?
- [36:36]
Ben
Holistically, from what I understand? No. Okay. But they. They like, come in this really great package that has a vampire on it or elf on it.
- [36:45]
Brian
They're loaded. They're not just.
- [36:47]
Ben
Oh, they work.
- [36:48]
Brian
They're not just bullets.
- [36:49]
Ben
Yeah, there's video. Like, they do bullets testing on them and everything.
- [36:52]
Brian
Nice.
- [36:52]
Ben
What I was going to say was a. A person. Okay.
- [36:58]
Brian
A.
- [36:59]
Ben
A mere human being cannot be a dogman. I don't know if you know this.
- [37:05]
Brian
Have you been to a local junior high lately?
- [37:07]
Ben
Fair enough. If you see a furry, can you shoot it?
- [37:11]
Brian
There might be a fine line.
- [37:12]
Ben
Here's the problem. You actually can't because it's a kid.
- [37:15]
Brian
You can't.
- [37:16]
Ben
Even if they're over 18. Anyone that acts like a furry is just a child.
- [37:20]
Brian
You can't just shoot someone, like, random.
- [37:23]
Ben
Like, in America, legally, I'm talking, is it a someone, not a furry thing.
- [37:28]
Brian
So let's. Let's take the furry out. Let's say, like, you know this.
- [37:31]
Ben
You brought the furry thing up.
- [37:32]
Brian
I know. I was muddying the waters.
- [37:34]
Ben
You are muddying the waters. You know, basically a dm, A dog.
- [37:38]
Brian
So your argument is that, you know, it's a dog, man.
- [37:41]
Ben
Yeah.
- [37:41]
Brian
Ergo, like, such as the Iraq, you know, it's not a person.
- [37:44]
Ben
And, and, and, and not only do you know it's not a person, you know that if it's actually a dogman, like, that thing is just evil.
- [37:51]
Brian
It's bad.
- [37:53]
Ben
Shoot it.
- [37:53]
Brian
Unless you're a Kree guy, shoot it. Lizbeth.
- [37:56]
Ben
Anyone know that from Swamp People?
- [37:58]
Brian
No.
- [37:58]
Ben
Lizbeth. The Alligator Queen.
- [38:00]
Brian
Shoot him. Shoot it. None of us know our listeners, dude. Everyone knows that. Your references are out of control.
- [38:05]
Ben
Our listeners will know. Brian, I got bad news the other day. I was using one of the big box soap products to wash myself. And I got this weird urge to go buy a Stanley cup and fill it with iced coffee. And it started to feel a little cold in the house. I just wanted to wrap myself up in, like, a heavy wool Blanket. And then also I started googling ticket prices to Taylor Swift concerts.
- [38:29]
Brian
Ben, what are you doing? Don't you know that these big box soap companies just jam all their soaps full of hormone disrupting chemicals? They're probably turning you into a girl.
- [38:38]
Ben
Well, I know that now, but what am I supposed to do about it then?
- [38:41]
Brian
You ignorant Normie? All you've needed to do is go to indigo, indigosundrysoap.com and support a great Christian family business that's making all sorts of soaps that are completely free of hormone disrupting chemicals and other nasties.
- [38:55]
Ben
Okay, I am literally going to indigosundrysoap.com right now. Tell me what to buy.
- [38:59]
Brian
Ben, what I would recommend doing is clicking on bundles and then selecting the best one for you. You could get the men's six pack. You could get my favorite, the clay bundle.
- [39:08]
Ben
Ooh, I like the pipe and jug bundle. That seems cool. Or a men's six pack, because that'll make me feel like I have something that I actually don't.
- [39:15]
Brian
So true, King. And you know what else I heard? Because they're such good friends of the show, Indigo Sundry Soap Company is offering 10% off your order if you just use all caps, discount code Haunted Cosmos, no spaces.
- [39:28]
Ben
Wait, Brian, you're going way too fast. I didn't get all that. Is that information in the show description?
- [39:32]
Brian
Ben, you ignorant Normie. It's always in the show description.
- [39:36]
Ben
Okay, so I'm gonna go to indigosundrysoap.com I'm gonna pick the men's six pack bundle, and I'm gonna use code Haunted Cosmos at checkout. All caps, no spaces. And if I forgot all that, it's in the description of the show.
- [39:48]
Brian
Of course, Ben. And if you just do that, then you will stop wanting to do all of those girly things and maybe you'll, I don't know, maybe wanna buy a classic car to restore or something dignified. Hey, Ben, can you pass me the butter?
- [40:02]
Ben
Yeah, sure, man. Do you want the white camel butter or the gold golden cow butter?
- [40:06]
Brian
No, not that butter.
- [40:08]
Ben
Well, what other butter is there?
- [40:09]
Brian
I'm talking about design Butter. Who specialize in digital product design. Whether it's a mobile or web app, David at DesignButter can help make sure your product is best on the market. DesignButter helps you identify problems your users are having and makes the experience better, which results in more sales, return customers, and a level of trust that makes your brand memorable.
- [40:31]
Ben
Dang. Design Butter. I can't believe it's not actual Butter. Because it's so dang smooth.
- [40:36]
Brian
Sounds like they need to head to design butter.com for more information.
- [40:46]
Ben
Brian, do you want to know what I've been drinking more of lately?
- [40:48]
Brian
I actually woke up this morning and thought to myself, I want to know what Ben's drinking more of lately.
- [40:52]
Ben
Coffee. Can you believe that?
- [40:53]
Brian
Unbelievable. I thought you were in a tea.
- [40:55]
Ben
No, no, I'm into coffee now. In. And you know who makes the best coffee in the world?
- [40:58]
Brian
Who?
- [40:58]
Ben
Is it Squirrely Joe's Coffee.
- [41:01]
Brian
Oh, are that. Is that that thoroughly Christian business that doesn't hate you in everything you believe in?
- [41:06]
Ben
Yes. Not only that, but they also love their neighbor by donating many of their proceeds to a worthy cause called Operation Underground Railroad Man.
- [41:14]
Brian
Everybody should check out Squirrelly Joe's Coffee at squirrellyjoes coffee dot com.
- [41:18]
Ben
That's right. Squirrely Joe's Coffee. Share coffee. Serve humbly. Live faithfully.
- [41:27]
Brian
Okay, so yes, you can shoot the dog man. Unprovoked. That's your position. What do you think then about. There's regions of Washington. Maybe California too. I know there's one in Washington. Hang on. Got an itch.
- [41:40]
Ben
What about like the direwolf thing at skinwalker Ranch?
- [41:42]
Brian
Well, there. There's a region in. Hang on.
- [41:44]
Ben
Oh, okay.
- [41:45]
Brian
Okay. There's a region in Washington where the. The local government has declared a Bigfoot preserve.
- [41:51]
Ben
What?
- [41:52]
Brian
And instituted actually binding legal penalties on somebody if they shoot a Bigfoot.
- [41:57]
Ben
All right, look. Romans 13.
- [41:59]
Brian
It's similar to murder. Like it's a big deal. It's a bad crime.
- [42:02]
Ben
Romans 13. Romans. Wait. What if you're getting attacked by a Bigfoot?
- [42:06]
Brian
Well then I mean self defense law.
- [42:07]
Ben
Okay, sure. Romans 13.
- [42:09]
Brian
Yeah.
- [42:10]
Ben
Shall we obey man rather than. Or like acts. Whatever. Acts 4. Shall we obey man rather than God?
- [42:17]
Brian
You're saying there's definitely a positive command in scripture to kill. Kill big feet on site?
- [42:22]
Ben
Yeah, because what if we're.
- [42:25]
Brian
What if it actually is just like an ape creature? It's just out there vibe and mind its business building its nest. By the way, have you seen the most recent episode.
- [42:34]
Ben
No, I haven't.
- [42:34]
Brian
Of Expedition Bigfoot?
- [42:35]
Ben
No. You know that I haven't.
- [42:37]
Brian
Flipping believable. What they catch on film, they see full cover, not flir. Not thermal. They see a tall, bipedal hairy thing about 300 yards away, walking down a little thing. I am not kidding you. It is a Bigfoot. Confirmed.
- [42:54]
Ben
You know who it was? Brian's mom.
- [43:00]
Brian
Hey, I want to know in the comments.
- [43:02]
Ben
You know, I'm gonna.
- [43:03]
Brian
I'm gonna. What is the position of our. Of our listeners on killing Bigfoots and dog on site unprovoked? It's literally like you come across a family of Bigfoots.
- [43:13]
Ben
Listen.
- [43:13]
Brian
Little juveniles picking daisies, smelling them, like, having a good time. Ben all of a sudden, barrels out of the woods like the Kool Aid man. He's got a flipping.
- [43:23]
Ben
Oh, yeah.
- [43:24]
Brian
300 blackout, subsonic, suppressed. And he's just. He's plinking the children. First who. And then he takes out the mom and the dad, and then he.
- [43:35]
Ben
Who is going to sit here and tell me, first of all, there's no such thing as a child Bigfoot. It's a demon. All right? That's what they want you to think you're already giving into there. Here, like, are we gonna trust so we can watch? Are we gonna trust the discernment of Seattle or of Washington state government, first of all, to tell me what I should and should not kill?
- [43:55]
Brian
No, no. Those people don't know half of what needs to be killed.
- [43:59]
Ben
Having said that, I am gonna walk back a little bit.
- [44:01]
Brian
Yeah. Walk it back.
- [44:02]
Ben
Because I don't want someone to be on a Navajo resi.
- [44:05]
Brian
Walk of shame.
- [44:06]
Ben
Okay. Down in, like, outskirts of St. George, Utah, they go onto the reservation to do some hiking or something. I don't know, rock climbing. And they see someone that. They're like, that's an ugly person. Dog, man. And they just. Anyway, they stop lasting. Don't do that.
- [44:20]
Brian
That's a good point. Don't do that scenario. To be fair, you knew it was a dog.
- [44:24]
Ben
You had just war theory.
- [44:26]
Brian
You had epistemics, like certainty. Yes.
- [44:29]
Ben
Which I don't know how you'd have that, but in this hyper. Hyperbole.
- [44:33]
Brian
Can I be honest with you right now? Can I be honest with you? The dogman thing, I don't know why, but let's say I have certainty. It is a dogman. I'm fine with. With, like, preemptive strike. But Bigfoot, for some reason, I feel different. See, I'm giving in.
- [44:47]
Ben
You're giving in.
- [44:48]
Brian
I'm getting conditioned.
- [44:49]
Ben
Hey, you got to be careful with that.
- [44:50]
Brian
It's Maria Mayer.
- [44:51]
Ben
You got to be careful with that.
- [44:52]
Brian
She's like, oh, it's a primate.
- [44:53]
Ben
Kanye said it best.
- [44:54]
Brian
Okay?
- [44:55]
Ben
Kanye said it best. Okay? What did he say? He said, cut it out.
- [45:02]
Brian
He said, I need that. Kanye said, beth.
- [45:06]
Ben
He said in one of his songs, he said, if I see the devil, it's on site.
- [45:10]
Brian
Oh, yeah. If I see the devil, it's on site.
- [45:11]
Ben
When I see the devil on site. Same thing. Okay. If the devil offered you a fiddle.
- [45:21]
Brian
Well, if I'm. If I'm. If I'm in a competition to win a golden fiddle from him, obviously, I want to win the golden fiddle.
- [45:27]
Ben
But that's the thing. You had to. You had to. Of course I could outfit to the competition.
- [45:32]
Brian
Yeah. And then. And then you got to be a man of your own.
- [45:34]
Ben
And so instead of considering.
- [45:35]
Brian
I love how the devil's, like a man of his word at the end, he's like, oh, you won the golden fiddle.
- [45:38]
Ben
There you go. Hey, now, he was the judge.
- [45:40]
Brian
Like, the devil in the scenario. Got to be the judge. Now, like every. It's obvious I lost humility.
- [45:46]
Ben
He could have used that in heaven before he fell.
- [45:48]
Brian
Yeah, he could have. You know, that would have gone a long way.
- [45:50]
Ben
Yeah.
- [45:50]
Brian
Anyway, here, I do want to say one thing before we wrap it up, unless you have anything important.
- [45:54]
Ben
Nah, not important.
- [45:57]
Brian
I was going to say that everybody listening to this right now needs to immediately go get tickets to the new Christendom Press Safety Third Conference coming up June 12th to the 14th here in New York.
- [46:07]
Ben
Safety Third. Reclaiming the American spirit to greatness. Or something like that.
- [46:12]
Brian
It's actually Safety Third. Recovering the American will to blast Cryptids on site.
- [46:17]
Ben
Which is to say greatness.
- [46:19]
Brian
Yeah, it is. NewChristianImpressed.com 2025 is where you can get more info, but Ben and I are going to be putting on live full sound design, full live music episode of Haunted Cosmos before the audience.
- [46:33]
Ben
It's gonna be an epic story about some of the, like, American lore that built America and the ethos of America. It's really gonna be cool.
- [46:41]
Brian
It will be there. It will be unreleased material, totally new, like we won't have. Not an old episode. Rehash.
- [46:47]
Ben
Yeah. Hey, tn. No tn.
- [46:49]
Brian
You will be hearing it for the first time at the conference. Okay. So you should come hang out. Whole family's welcome. Bring your kids, bring your dog. Bring your dog, man. Uncle. Bring your. Bring your friends if you have any. If you don't, come and make some.
- [47:05]
Ben
Yeah. And there's going to be food trucks.
- [47:08]
Brian
Tons of other stuff.
- [47:08]
Ben
Dude, there's going to be.
- [47:09]
Brian
I'm going to do a live concert. Hey, by the way.
- [47:11]
Ben
Oh, yeah.
- [47:12]
Brian
When this episode comes out, my album's out. Awake the Dawn.
- [47:15]
Ben
Yeah.
- [47:16]
Brian
My new full album. And some people are like, you make music? Yes, I actually do make music.
- [47:20]
Ben
And it's really good. It's quite good. You know why? It's really, really good.
- [47:23]
Brian
Lay it on me because actually, like.
- [47:24]
Ben
God wrote the lyrics, like, a lot because most of them are psalms.
- [47:28]
Brian
There's eight psalm settings.
- [47:29]
Ben
And so you actually are not allowed to say that they're bad.
- [47:32]
Brian
That's true.
- [47:32]
Ben
So just keep that in mind.
- [47:33]
Brian
It's one of the things I do to avoid being accurately judged for the quality.
- [47:37]
Ben
Brian and I say this all the time. Whenever we invite feedback, we want to be very clear. We're inviting positive feedback.
- [47:43]
Brian
Like when we say, leave us a comment. Tell us how you like this episode, we're saying positive vibes only. Like, I don't know why Apple podcast allows reviews below 5 stars.
- [47:52]
Ben
I'm fine if you give us a 1 star review, but it's glowing, dude.
- [47:56]
Brian
We had a 4.9 star average review over like 3000 reviews until like 2 months ago.
- [48:01]
Ben
Yeah, and you know the places you can't go episode put a dent.
- [48:06]
Brian
You know, it wasn't that. It was actually the gory sound effects. Season four, episode one.
- [48:10]
Ben
Oh, way to go, Martina McBride.
- [48:14]
Brian
We don't take any responsibility for our own work.
- [48:17]
Ben
No, no.
- [48:18]
Brian
Guys, check it out. We're. This is the longest dusty tome of all time. So I think we're going to land this plane right now. Just say fast and elente. Make heads slowly. Catch you. Next time on on Cosmos. Dusty Tome, let's go.
- [48:27]
Ben
That was a better landing than that pilot that just messed up. The landing landed upside down.
- [48:32]
Brian
Did he really?
- [48:33]
Ben
She.