The Midnight Debrief
Midnight Debrief is a late-night dive into horror, sci-fi, conspiracies, and the unexplained. We figure out what’s real… and what probably isn’t.
The Midnight Debrief
Cryptids Among Us
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In Episode 5, Karl and Kevin investigate three of the world's most enduring cryptid mysteries:
👣 Bigfoot (Sasquatch) – The legendary creature that has inspired thousands of eyewitness reports across North America.
🌊 The Loch Ness Monster – Is there really something lurking beneath the waters of Loch Ness, Scotland?
👽 The Flatwoods Monster – One of the most bizarre encounters in UFO and cryptid history, complete with eyewitness testimony, mysterious illnesses, and decades of unanswered questions.
Were these misunderstood animals... elaborate hoaxes... or evidence that something far stranger exists?
Join us as we examine the eyewitness accounts, historical evidence, and competing theories behind these legendary creatures.
If you enjoy paranormal investigations, UFOs, cryptids, mysteries, and unsolved cases, be sure to subscribe and join us every week for new episodes.
Tonight's episode of Midnight Debrief is brought to you by Lux Art Agency, located in the heart of downtown Austin, Texas. Lux Art is a premier creative production and talent agency specializing in luxury events, high-fashioned runway showcases, and connecting exceptional brands with curated creative talent. And now, welcome to Midnight Debris, the show where we explore the unexplained, uncover hidden truths, and dive deep into the mysteries shaping our world. If you enjoy the show, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow us on all platforms so you never miss an episode. And now, here are your hosts, Kevin Stone and Carl Morkunas.
SPEAKER_01Carl, what if I told you there are thousands of eyewitnesses? People who've never met each other, they're all over different countries, and they're all experiencing the same thing. The exact same creature they're seeing.
SPEAKER_02A creature that's anywhere from seven to ten feet tall, covered in hair, leaves footprints over a foot long and somehow always manages to disappear before anyone gets a clear picture. Yeah, tonight we're diving into cryptids. The creatures that exist supposedly just outside what science has been able to prove.
SPEAKER_01Some are probably folklore, some may be mistaken identity, and maybe, just maybe, one of them is actually true. I'm Carl. And I'm Kevin. Welcome back, everybody. Tonight we're talking about cryptids, and honestly, this has been one of our most requested episodes.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, because everybody has that one creature they swear is real, right? Some people say Bigfoot, some swear they've seen the Mothman. Uh, some are convinced there's something living in the deepest lakes on Earth. And then you've got Florida.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and where apparently every swamp has something to hide and ruin your day. So exactly. For anyone new to the term cryptid, it's basically an animal or a creature that's been reported by witnesses, but hasn't necessarily been recognized by mainstream science. So it's different than a ghost, different than an alien, and supposed to be an actual living creature, which is kind of weird.
SPEAKER_02Right. If someone somewhere captured a Bigfoot alive, congratulations. It's no longer a cryptid. It's just really unfortunate that it can't be a zookeeper's problem.
SPEAKER_01Tonight we're covering five of the most famous cryptids, and we're actually going to start with the king of them all, Bigfoot. So if you've lived under a rock, you've never heard of Bigfoot, um, picture a massive ape-like hairy monster creature thing, seven to ten feet tall, anywhere between five and one thousand pounds, depending on who you ask, covered in dark brown or reddish hair, walks upright like a human, leaves enormous footprints, and you know, hence the name.
SPEAKER_02And apparently has mastered the art of being photographed exclusively with grainy photos from the 1900s.
SPEAKER_01Which is actually impressive because we have these high-tech iPhones that you know can capture planets, but for some reason we get this grainy footage of like Bigfoot.
SPEAKER_02He's blurry, he's always blurry.
SPEAKER_01That's his defense mechanism, Kevin. And what's really interesting about this is this didn't start with modern Americans. This is actually kind of a traditional folklore with indigenous tribes. They've described Bigfoot as different sizes, they even use different names. Other tribes describe this as a wild man, and sometimes it would even cross paths with hunters.
SPEAKER_02Which is fascinating because these stories existed long before television, long before movies, long before anybody could just make something up for internet clicks, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the name Bigfoot actually took off in 1958. So the story has it, a construction crew working near Bluff Creek, California kept finding enormous footprints around their equipment. One of the workers, Jerry Crewe, had photographs taken of the tracks. The newspapers ran with the stories, and suddenly Bigfoot became a national sensation.
SPEAKER_02And years later, one family claimed those footprints were part of a prank. But by then, it didn't matter. The legend had already exploded.
SPEAKER_01Then actually came probably the most single famous piece of Bigfoot evidence. You've seen this before. On October 20th, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin are horseback riding through Bluff Creek. They claim they suddenly see a large hairy creature walking across a sandbar. Patterson jumps off his horse, grabs a 16 millimeter camera, and records about one minute of footage that everyone has seen by now.
SPEAKER_02If you've ever seen Bigfoot, you've probably seen this clip, right? Uh the creature walks away, then briefly turns its head towards the camera before disappearing into the trees.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and about 60 years later, people still argue about it. Some experts believe that, you know, the body proportions look unlike a man in a costume, and others say it is exactly that. A man in a costume, nobody's ever definitively proven either side.
SPEAKER_02Well, here's where things get interesting. Depending on which database you look at, there have been well over 10,000 reported Bigfoot sightings in North America. Most come from the Pacific Northwest, Washington, Oregon, Northern California, but sightings have been reported in nearly every U.S. state except Hawaii. Canada has hundreds. There are reports from Russia. Australia has the Yowie. Even parts of Asia has similar legends.
SPEAKER_01And the eyewitness descriptions are very similar. It's kind of eerie. So they talk about a huge hair-covered strong order giant with heavy footsteps, makes whistling sounds, which I didn't actually know about, wood knocks long strides, and most witnesses say the encounter lasted only a few seconds, which honestly, I mean, if I stumbled across a giant eight-foot, ten-foot ape, I would probably go running in the other other direction. It's pretty scary. Supposedly nesting structures, even thermal images.
SPEAKER_02And skeptics point out none of it is held up. Hair samples almost always come back as bear, deer, cow, dog, human, or something completely explainable. No verified bones, no confirmed DNA, no body, no living specimen.
SPEAKER_01Which raises the biggest question. So how can something supposedly exist in breeding populations and yet almost no physical evidence exist?
SPEAKER_02Here's why Bigfoot refuses to die, because every few months somebody reports another sighting, another footprint, another strange sound in the woods, and unlike ghosts, Bigfoot doesn't require you to believe in the supernatural. It's just an undiscovered animal.
SPEAKER_01And science has discovered surprisingly large animals before, so this isn't anything new. And there's the mountain gorillas that weren't discovered until 1902. There's also the giant squid, which is kind of a more larger mythological creature that wasn't even photographed till 2004.
SPEAKER_02Well, the question is: could something as large as Bigfoot stay hidden in North America in 2026? That's where most scientists say probably not.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So, Carl, um, final verdict here. Real misidentified bears, hey critter. Um, or the greatest campfire story ever told?
SPEAKER_02I think it's somewhere in the middle, to be honest. Um, I believe people are seeing something. Now, whether that's bears standing upright, optical illusions, or human brains trying to make sense of something unexpected, I'm not entirely sure. But I don't think there's some breeding population of giant primates roaming around North America.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I'm pretty much with you. I would love for Bigfoot to be real, because honestly, that would be one of the coolest scientific discoveries of all time. But most extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. So after decades of searching, we're still missing that one piece of undeniable proof.
SPEAKER_02Although if Bigfoot is real, he's officially undefeated against trail cameras. However, there have been accounts of these sightings of Bigfoot where there's missing time and flashes of uh blue light, and people can't recollect what happened, and all of a sudden hours have gone by. So, could that mean that Bigfoot is an interdimensional being? Um, I think that could be a pretty like interesting theory there. What do you think, Kevin?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think about the last show we did when we're talking about the men in black. This is eerily similar when there's some sort of alien activity. The men in black show up and they get the new neuralizer and zap, they're flashing lights, and you can't remember what just happened. So it begs the question or goes deeper where if the men in black are real, have they somehow been involved in these Bigfoot activities or these cryptid activities? Right. Yeah. So coming up, we're headed to Scotland where something may or may not have been swimming beneath the surface for the last thousand years. So if Bigfoot is the king of the forest, the Loch Ness monster is the queen of the lake.
SPEAKER_02Now, unlike Bigfoot, which could theoretically be anywhere, Nessie supposedly lives in very one specific place, Loch Ness. A freshwater lock in the Scottish Highlands, and this isn't just some tiny pond at all. It's about 23 miles long, roughly one mile wide at its widest point, and reaches depths of nearly 750 feet. In fact, Loch Ness holds more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined.
SPEAKER_01So the legend really exploded in 1933. A couple named George and Grace Spicer were driving alongside Loch Ness. They later claimed a huge creature crossed the road in front of their car before disappearing into the water. George described it as having a long neck, a bulky body, and moving with what he called a rolling motion. The story made newspaper headlines throughout Scotland, and almost overnight people began looking at the lake differently.
SPEAKER_02It's amazing how one story changes everything. Before that, it's just a lake. After that, every ripple, every floating log, every wave could suddenly be Nessie.
SPEAKER_01And throughout the 1930s, sightings poured in. Tourists, locals, boaters, fishermen. People claim to see humps, long necks, dark bodies, and something surfacing briefly, but then disappearing just quickly. Today, there's been well over a thousand reports and everybody saying different things associated with Loch Ness. Now, this doesn't mean they're all credible, far from it, actually, but it does explain why the mystery refuses to disappear. So probably the most famous image ever taken, never associated with Nessie, is something called The Surgeons. It was published back in 1934. It's a black and white photo, we've all seen it. It appears to show a long neck um rising from the water. Right. So for decades, it was considered the definitive proof that something mysterious actually lived in Loch Ness.
SPEAKER_02And honestly, if you grew up before the internet, you've probably seen this picture somewhere. It's the Loch Ness photo.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and back in 1994, this was actually revealed as a hoax. So what it was was a toy submarine with a long neck, something fake attached to it. And you know, the person that was actually using that said, Yeah, this is totally fake. This is made up. So that wasn't revealed until decades later, obviously.
SPEAKER_02Which had to be one of the most disappointing admissions ever, right? I mean, imagine waiting 60 years to find out you've got fooled by a bathtub toy.
SPEAKER_01So it's funny because even still, that really hasn't stopped people from trying to find the truth. They're still looking. So over the decades, researchers have used sonar, underwater photography, uh submersibles, drones, even environmental DNA testing. When the one of the largest efforts actually happened back in 1987. So this was something called Operation Deep Scan. 24 boats lined up across the width of the lock using sonar, and they also actually saw some unusual readings that were detected, but nothing conclusive. So there was no monster, there was no Nessie, uh, nothing definitive, of course.
SPEAKER_02Well, then in 2018, scientists collected hundreds of water samples to study environmental DNA. Basically, every living thing sheds tiny bits of genetic material into the water. Fish, plants, bacteria, everything. If there is a giant unknown reptile swimming around, you'd expect to find some evidence.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the results actually came back from the DNA. So thousands of organisms, lots of fish, birds, humans, dogs, even plenty of eels, but no evidence of a giant reptile, no uh plesiosaur, no unknown monster. Sounds kind of like Bigfoot a little bit as far as the findings. Precisely.
SPEAKER_02So if it's not Nessie, what are people actually seeing, right? I mean, some scientists think it's a it's floating logs. Others point to unusual wave patterns, large fish, swimming deer, otters, or simply optical illusions caused by the way light reflects across the loch.
SPEAKER_01One of the more interesting theories involves large European eels. So Loch Ness has plenty of them. You know, they're not enormous, they're not like prehistoric dinosaur large, but there's still plenty of them, and certainly big enough to surprise anybody.
SPEAKER_02Especially if you only catch a glimpse from a few hundred feet away. Your brain starts uh filling in the blanks, right? Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01One of the most popular theories and ideas is that Nessi is somehow a surviving pleseosaur, a marine reptile that lived alongside the dinosaurs. It's a fun theory. There's just one problem, actually, several problems here. So plesiosaurs, first of all, are saltwater animals. Loch Ness is freshwater. The lake itself only formed after the ice age, and that was about 10,000 years ago, long after plesiosaurs went extinct, and that was roughly 66 million years ago. And if a breathing breeding population existed, we'd probably have found some more blurry photographs by now.
SPEAKER_02Plus, if one somehow survived for 66 million years, it deserves privacy at this point, right? Leave it alone, it's earned it.
SPEAKER_01Despite everything, despite all of that, people still travel from all around the world. They want to see Nessie, they want to get a close-up shot. The legend has become really the biggest thing of Scottish culture. Right. It brings in millions in tourism, first of all. There's museum, there's boat tours, there's observation points, and still people submit new sightings every single year, whether it's real or not. And Nessie has become something bigger than a cryptid, actually. It's become more of Scotland's identity. Exactly. So is there anything living in Loch Ness that science hasn't discovered?
SPEAKER_02Something undiscovered, maybe a giant prehistoric lake monster? I don't think so. I I mean, I think it's a perfect combination of a huge, mysterious lake, human imagination, and 80 plus years of people wanting to believe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think there's plenty of strange things on our oceans. Um, that was one of my theories about aliens that they live underwater. So there's definitely a lot out there, certainly lakes, and there's certainly things that have not been documented. But if there was a population of 30-foot monsters living in Loch Ness, I I think modern sonar DNA something, a decade of research would have given us something other than just strange blurry photos by now.
SPEAKER_02Right. Still, though, uh, if I'm on a boat in the middle of Loch Ness and something bumps the hull, I'm leaving. I'm not sticking around to find out whatever science got wrong.
SPEAKER_01Well, coming up next, we're headed to West Virginia. So this is a far departure from Scotland. It's one of the most strangest and honestly one of the most creepiest encounters ever reported. A creature so bizarre, people still argue over what they actually saw. The Flatwoods monster.
SPEAKER_02All right, we're about to take a hard left turn because unlike Bigfoot or Nessie, the Flatwoods monster doesn't really fit into one category. People have called it a cryptid, an alien, a demon, even some kind of interdimensional being. And honestly, after reading the reports, I can understand why.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is one of those stories where no matter what you think happened, something definitely scared a group of people. The story begins on the evening of September 12th, 1952, in the small town of Flatwoods, West Virginia.
SPEAKER_02Around 7 15 p.m., several boys were outside playing football when they saw bright objects streak across the sky. They described it as fiery, orange, leaving a trail behind it. The object appeared to come down a nearby hill belonging to a local farmer. Naturally, being kids, their first thought wasn't maybe we should call someone, it was let's go find it. Yeah, and of course it was, uh, because children have absolutely zero survival instincts. Precisely. So the boys grabbed one of their mothers, Kathleen May, along with another young boy and the family's dog, together they headed toward the hill where they believed the object had landed. As they climbed, they reported noticing a strange mist, almost like a fog, although with a strong metallic smell. Some witnesses later described it as something similar to burning metal. Others compared it to sulfur.
SPEAKER_01Which already sounds like the beginning of every horror movie ever made. Do you smell that? Nope. We're leaving. Uh I'm gone.
SPEAKER_02As the group reached the top of the hill, their dog suddenly ran ahead. Moments later it came sprinting back, terrified. Then they saw it. According to Kathleen May, a towering figure roughly ten feet tall, its face or what appeared to be its face glowed a bright reddish orange. It had large round eyes that seemed to emit greenish light. Its head was described as being shaped almost like an ace of spades or a hood. Its body appeared dark, almost black, covered by what witnesses described as a metallic-looking skirt or robe.
SPEAKER_01And instead of walking, some said it appeared to glide. Yeah, and if you're trying to invent the creepiest thing imaginable, congratulations. Uh mission mission accomplished. That's great.
SPEAKER_02So according to the witnesses, the creature suddenly made a loud hissing sound. Then it seemed to move forward toward them, not running, not charging, just advancing. The entire group panicked. They turned, they ran back down the hill as fast as they could.
SPEAKER_01Which again, the correct decision. I don't think anyone in history has ever said, you know what, let's go just investigate this giant ten-foot monster thing making hissing snake sounds. Right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. News spread almost immediately. Police arrived. Reporters showed up. Military personnel were reportedly seen in the area shortly afterward. Some witnesses complained of nausea, vomiting, um, throat irritation, and burning eyes. One newspaper even reported lingering odors at the scene the following day. Now, whether those uh symptoms came from fear, exposure to something in the environment, or something else, nobody knows for certain.
SPEAKER_01Why do all these monsters smell so bad? Like it's pretty offensive. You're not, I mean, you're scary looking, but you also smell like I'm not just leaving you just because you're scary looking, like you you smell bad. I'm going. So and that's kind of where and this is where the story breaks into two camps. One side believes they've encountered an unknown creature, possibly extraterrestrial, possibly something we've never classified. The other side says this actually is a fairly reasonable explanation. There's something to this that can be explained.
SPEAKER_02Right. So, according to several investigators, including astronomers who looked into the event, the bright object seen in the sky was likely a meteor. In fact, there was documented meteor activity over the eastern United States that evening. So that explains. The object, but what about the monster that these people saw? Believe it or not, the leading explanation is a barn owl.
SPEAKER_01So barn owls, they actually appear surprisingly large, okay? They have these pale heart-shaped faces anyway, so it can be mistaken. Especially when illuminated by flashlight flashlights at night, they can actually reflect brightly. So if they're perched on a tree branch, you know, with leaves hanging around them, it's possible that the silhouette actually appears larger than it is. Um now, if everyone's already scared, if they already believe they just saw something crash and land from space, that just makes this ten times more terrifying.
SPEAKER_02Add darkness, fog, adrenaline, a little imagination, and suddenly you've got one unforgettable encounter. But believers aren't convinced. They point out that multiple people described essentially the same creature. Not one witness, an entire group. The descriptions remain remarkably consistent over the years. Some researchers also question whether an owl could explain the reported smell, the hissing, or the physical symptoms afterward.
SPEAKER_01And that's really what keeps this case alive because the owl it explains a lot, so that theory holds up to a degree, but it doesn't explain everything. Um, at least not to everyone's satisfaction.
SPEAKER_02The Flatwoods monster has become one of America's most recognizable cryptids. It's appeared in documentaries, video games, comic books, television shows, and even has its own annual festival in West Virginia. Not bad. For something that may or may not have been an angry bird.
SPEAKER_01So you've talked really in great detail about this, about the encounter and people's accounts of what happened. So what do you think actually happened that that night in 1952?
SPEAKER_02Personally, I think everybody absolutely experienced something. Um, I don't think they invented the story here. Uh, memory is strange, right? I mean, especially after a frightening event. Uh, the meteor is well supported. I mean, the owl theory, plausible, but there's still enough little details that make me hesitate before saying case closed here. Also, these people that witnessed this thing, a lot of them died from cancer, too. Really? Did you know about this? No. Uh I mean, we're talking about throat cancer, lung cancer. So this gas that this thing emitted obviously had some type of a like horrible, like fatal effect on most of these people that saw this thing back in 1952.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it makes you kind of think, is this man-made? Because we don't ever hear about any sort of animal or monster, even in theory, that just emits something that automatically ate cancer from. So it's a group of people, and now all of a sudden they're stricken with these horrible diseases just from this one counter. Very strange.
SPEAKER_02It really is bizarre. Um, and obviously these people saw something that scared the hell out of them. And an owl, I don't think so. Yeah. I think they really did see something that night, and this thing is definitely nightmare fuel.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. And this is one of those mysteries where every explanation leaves a couple of unanswered questions. Could it have been a combination of events? You mentioned the meteor, you mentioned an owl, panic, memories becoming stronger over time. So, do I think that they met a 10-foot owl in the woods? Uh probably not, but I also understand why this story has survived and kind of taken on a life of its own.
SPEAKER_02Because whether it was an owl, an alien, or something we'll never fully explain. There's one thing for sure. If my dog runs back looking terrified, I'm listening to the dog. Okay. In this case, the cat. Right.