Lunatics Radio Hour: The History of Horror
Lunatics Radio Hour is a non-fiction history podcast about the history of horror and the horror of history. Each episode explores real, documented events where fear, violence, survival, and the unknown shaped human lives and cultures. The show also traces how historical events influenced film, examining how real-world horrors became the stories and images that appear on screen.
Topics include dark history, psychological phenomena, folklore rooted in fact, and the historical roots of horror cinema. Most episodes focus on researched historical subjects. Occasional short fiction stories are included and clearly labeled.
If you’re drawn to the darker side of history and the real events behind horror films, Lunatics Radio Hour explores where history, fear, and cinema intersect.
Lunatics Radio Hour: The History of Horror
Episode 140 - Horror on The High Seas: Paranormal Geography
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Abby and Alan kick off their mega series on ocean themed horror with The Bermuda Triangle, The Mariana Trench and Atlantis. Haunted ocean geography if you will.
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Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.
Sources
- NPR article by Andy Bowers: We’ve Found the Lost City of Atlantis Again.
- History.com article by the site’s editors: Bermuda Triangle
- History.com article on Atlantis
- An article from Naval History and Heritage Command: The Loss of Flight 19
- DiscoverMagazine.com article by Tree Meinch: How Deep is the Mariana Trench and what have we discovered in its depths?
- Ars Technica article by Nate Anderson: Release the Kraken! 2,000 years of Tall Tales and a Smattering of Truth
- 2009 History.com article on the Titanic: https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/titanic
- An article from thecollector.com 5 of the most famous shipwrecks from the ancient world: https://www.thecollector.com/ancient-famous-shipwrecks/
- New Zealand Maritime Museum article, Top 20 Sailing Superstitions
- Thank you to April Brenker for research help, as always!
Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. I'm Abby Brinker sitting here with alan kudan hello and today we are talking about the history of horror on the high seas what's a pirate's favorite letter r?
Speaker 2you'd think that would it be the sea that was a good accent.
Speaker 1He sounded a lot like what's his name the old pirate from pirates of the Caribbean.
Speaker 2Captain Barbossa.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's your Barbossa voice. So, from ghost ships and mermaids to the lost city of Atlantis, there are almost an unending amount of legends of terror from the ocean's watery depth. Our summer series for the next few months will explore all of this and more. And so what does horror on the high seas include, you might ask.
Speaker 2I have no idea.
Speaker 1Most of what we're going to discuss can be defined as maritime folklore and mythology. However, if it is at all adjacent to the ocean not a lake, not a river, but the ocean and it's creepy it'll probably come up.
Speaker 2So I've been doing a lot of independent research for this episode.
Speaker 1Which always makes me a little nervous.
Speaker 2And I've come to a conclusion.
Speaker 1Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2The reason that the ocean is such a horror trope is that you can't breathe it. There's lots of times when everything would be fine, except for that one thing.
Speaker 1What? What do you mean? Everything would be fine.
Speaker 2Like that is. The scary thing is you just can't breathe water.
Speaker 1But what makes it different from lake horror or river horror?
Speaker 2Because usually you're always by land, I mean, I guess the middle, you can sure, the middle of the Great Lakes. It's pretty far from shore but there's not many middle of the Great Lake horror movies.
Speaker 1I mean, I also my two cents about this is that there's so much rich history with oceans right, like rooted in reality. You have pirates, you have Atlantis, the Bermuda Triangle, all of these things that we're going to discuss in this series, and so that's also what makes it really interesting. Right, there's been a lot of traumatic and real history and events that have happened that have set the scene for a horror trope here.
Speaker 2Well, I'm really excited to like find out more mythological stuff, because all of the movies and stories and whatnot that I've been reading for this come down to one of two things that make the water scary.
Speaker 1You can't breathe it.
Speaker 2Can't breathe it and sharks, that's it.
Speaker 1Oh, there's way more than that.
Speaker 2I'm sure there are, but those are the things that I keep running into.
Speaker 1Sure, we're going to talk about sharks a a lot. Don't worry, I I didn't specifically research drowning, but I I think it'll come up really yeah, I mean this isn't like a true crime podcast. You know I'm not gonna be like there's, not like a lot of films or things where people just drown. Like there's, it's a byproduct of another thing disagree it's a byproduct of something else that happened, like the titanic. A bunch of people drowned.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1But they didn't just like go out and drown on their own.
Speaker 2What, what, does that mean?
Speaker 1You're saying that the fact that people can't breathe is the reason there's a trope. Yes, I'm saying the fact that ships wreck is the reason that there's a trope, and people drowning or dying is a symptom of this other thing. The ship didn't wreck because people couldn't breathe. It was the other way around.
Speaker 2Okay, Well, a great example, and we'll get to it once we start talking movies. But the entire open water franchise, all three movies have to do with you're just in the water and you can't get out of the water.
Speaker 1Yep.
Speaker 2So you're going to drown and it's spooky.
Speaker 1Yep.
Speaker 2Yep water and you can't get out of the water. Yep, so you're gonna drown and it's spooky. Yep, yep the. The idea of an impending doom via drowning is that that's.
Speaker 1That's where the horror comes I mean, that's a good example of what you're talking about, but sharks are also involved in other factors in that series as right they. Yeah, it ramps it up yeah, so sometimes alan, not always if you had to guess how many ships are wrecked at the bottom of the ocean floor.
Speaker 2How many shipwrecks are like to date?
Speaker 1Yep.
Speaker 2That's. I mean, how does one even calculate that? How did you get a statistic? Where does your statistic come from? This is important.
Speaker 1From the Smithsonian Ocean Institute.
Speaker 2Is this just like officially licensed vessels, or does this also encapsulate people that maybe got a little too ambitious in a canoe?
Speaker 1It's not canoe, it's shipwrecks.
Speaker 2What's the difference between a boat and a ship?
Speaker 1So obviously there's a bit of a size requirement for it to be a ship. Usually it has multiple sails, multiple engines. It's a bit larger. I'm not talking about like motorboats, right, I'm talking about ships, shipwrecks.
Speaker 2But this can go all the way back to ancient times.
Speaker 1And it does.
Speaker 2Because you can have the Viking rowing ships.
Speaker 1And we do.
Speaker 2And there's not multiple sails. There Are there. Do they have sails or just rowing? I don't know.
Speaker 1It sails.
Speaker 2Well, okay, just I guess you're not not gonna have a really informed guess either way, so I'm not sure why we're splitting hairs. I'm gonna say six to seven hundred, six to seven hundred that's your best guess higher or lower. Three million.
Speaker 1Three million. Yeah, who put them there? Humans, disasters, oceans, storms.
Speaker 2Three million and that doesn't include canoes it does not include canoes if you include canoes we'll have to submit an inquiry. That's got to be a lot higher Ocean.
Mysterious Bermuda Triangle Boat Disappearances
Speaker 1Institute. Yeah, All right, let's get into it. Let's talk about our sources for today, now that we've been teased with what's to come.
Speaker 2That was a great conversation.
Speaker 1So we have an NPR article by Andy Bowers we found the lost city of Atlantis again A History article by the site's editors bermudatriangle historycom article on atlantis and I also link all this in the description of the podcast with the links. An article from naval history and heritage command the loss of flight 19. A discovermagazinecom article by tree mensch how deep is the mariana trench and what have we discovered in its depths? In ours? Technica article by nate anderson release the kraken 2000 years of tall tales and a smattering of truth. A 2009 Historycom article on the Titanic. An article from TheCollectorcom Five of the most famous shipwrecks from the ancient world. A New Zealand Maritime Museum article Top 20 sailing superstitions. And a big thank you to April Branker for research help, as always.
Speaker 2Top 20 sailing superstitions.
Speaker 1Just wait, it's coming.
Speaker 2You'll never believe number five.
Speaker 1So that was a BuzzFeed joke. Yeah, I got it, that was good.
Speaker 2For all you Gen Zers out there.
Speaker 1Yeah, before your time, before TikTok, we had BuzzFeed. You have to go to BuzzFeedcom, just refresh it.
Speaker 2Looking for new content. Oh wow, sad it was a dark time for abby.
Speaker 1Okay, so we are going to kick things off with one of my favorite and the most, one of the most paranormal topics that we're going to discuss in the series sharks the bermuda triangle. Okay, are you already gonna hit me with opposition to the very first thing I'm going to say?
Speaker 2Yeah, okay. So the Bermuda Triangle it has some geographic features that make navigation tricky. Compasses go kind of wild there, swells go in weird directions, all that crap.
Speaker 1Yes, why don't we get into it and we'll see what we find there.
Speaker 2No, I'll just keep saying things and you say true or false.
Speaker 1At 25 degrees north and 71 degrees west, you will find the bermuda triangle, also known as the devil's triangle, and I do just want to say that I have snorkeled, wow abby, you daredevil I like to look fear in the eyes and stare him down.
Speaker 2Okay, is that why you have that shirt saying I survived snorkeling in the Bermuda Triangle?
Speaker 1I wish so we can credit journalist Edward Von Winkle Jones as being the first person to collect the lore and disappearances around this area and create the Bermuda Triangle urban legend with his 1950 article published in the Miami Herald. The article included a map that outlined the disappearances around Bermuda visually. As of today, there are about 11 aircraft incidents and 14 boat incidents.
Speaker 2That's it. Last I heard there were millions of shipwrecks. This is Edward Von Winkle Jones. There he is. He died in 1993.
Speaker 1We'll post a picture. He looks a little old-timey for his day. Are you sure you're looking at the most modern? That could be a common name.
Speaker 2That's a common name. Yeah, he's in kindergarten, he's all. That was the popular name. All the Von Winkle Joneses running around he was a time traveler from the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1So after Jones's article was initially published in the Miami Herald, right, it was syndicated broadly by other newspapers. So other newspapers picked it up and ran it, which kind of spread this hypothesis like wildfire. Soon other coverage joined the ranks, including an article in the long running paranormal magazine Fate, written by George X Sand. And Fate magazine is a little passion of mine. I have a few of them. It's the longest running paranormal magazine. They have covered over the years the craziest topics. It's just a really fun. If you ever see it at a thrift store, grab it. They're so fun to read.
Speaker 2I assume it's out of print.
Speaker 1No, it's still running, but there's like ones you can find from all decades, like so long.
Speaker 2When did it start?
Speaker 1It was founded in 1948.
Speaker 21948. Okay, so by then Mr Von Winkle Jones was already very established as a reporter.
Speaker 1Right, but this was the article that appeared in Fate magazine came after Jones's article. It was written by George X Sand. In 1964, vincent Gaddis finally coined the term Bermuda Triangle in a third magazine article. There's much criticism of the theory of the Bermuda Triangle, but even still there are unexplained disappearances that cannot be accounted for. Quoting from the Historycom article quote when Christopher Columbus sailed through the area on his first voyage to the New World, he reported that a great flame of fire, probably a meteor, crashed into the sea one night and that a strange light appeared in the distance a few weeks later. He also wrote about erratic compass readings, perhaps because at that time a sliver of the Bermuda Triangle was one of the few places on Earth where True North and Magnetic North lined up. End quote.
Speaker 2Okay, I googled. True north is the direction towards the Earth's geographic north pole, which is a fixed point on the globe. Magnetic north is the direction that a compass needle points as it aligns with the Earth's magnetic field, which is not uniform and shifts over time.
Speaker 1Where are you reading from?
Speaker 2Nothing, because this is just AI. Now you just type into Google and it just tells you things, because it's a robot.
Speaker 1But what does that mean? Why would it impact compasses?
Speaker 2So it's always pointing towards magnetic north right, Because that's literally what a compass does.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And I'm assuming that's just like a roving point towards the top of the globe. You know it's generally in the same spot but still kind of shifts around. But why true north, andetic North? Lining up would be a problem, I can't say.
Speaker 1Okay, so you had the same amount of information that I had.
Speaker 2But now we know the difference between True North and Magnetic North.
Speaker 1Now we know, in 1918, one of the worst incidents connected with the Devil's Triangle took place. The USS Cyclops, a US naval boat, was completely lost without a trace sometime around March 4th 1918. There were 306 souls on board, making the incident the largest loss of life outside of a combat situation in the history of the US Navy. And it remains a mystery to this day. There were known issues with the boat going into the voyage she was overloaded with manganese ore. Issues with the boat going into the voyage she was overloaded with manganese ore. The starboard engine had a cracked cylinder and could not be used, and so she had to stop unexpectedly in Barbados because the water level was too high. But all that being said, when the Cyclops was checked on in Rio, she was deemed fit and properly functioning.
Speaker 1The Cyclops set out for Baltimore on the 4th of March and never made it to her destination. Some aboard a molasses tanker called the Amulco claimed to see her on the 9th, but the captain of that ship vehemently denies that possibility and in all likelihood, logistically she could not have been spotted there, given the time frame. The disappearance was during World War I, so some believe that she could have been taken down by a German submarine or she could have sunk because she was over capacity with ore. The German authorities denied any involvement. The US officially claims it was most likely that she went down due to a storm. So that is not the earliest, but certainly one of the more prominent because of the number of people and because of the scale and the size of the ship and the fact that she's never been recovered.
Speaker 2I mean, is the Bermuda Triangle specifically? Is it really offshore, I imagine? I assume it's just totally open ocean.
Speaker 1So the best way to think about the Bermuda Triangle is that it is a triangle between Miami, bermuda and Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2Oh, so it is open ocean.
Speaker 1Oh, that's a lot, that's huge, but it's sort of the triangle between these three points.
Speaker 2That's way bigger than I thought it was.
Speaker 1How big did you think it was?
Speaker 2I thought this was like 100 square miles or something.
Speaker 1And according to this Britannica article, it says that 50 ships and 20 airplanes are said to have mysteriously disappeared here, so the count is higher than what I said.
Speaker 2And billions of canoes.
Speaker 1That's right. Here's a picture of the Cyclops so you can see there it is. It's a big ship to be missing. I mean it doesn't look that big, 306 people on board.
Speaker 2How many people fit on a New York City subway train?
Speaker 1A car can fit about 200 people, so how many cars are in a train?
Speaker 2Okay, so it's about two subway cars.
Speaker 1But that's at full capacity subway cars 200 people on a single subway car?
Speaker 2That'd be miserable.
Speaker 1Yeah, wow, some are 150, but yeah.
Speaker 2Still, even if it's 100 people, that sucks, yeah. I wonder if we've experienced that and not even realized it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm sure I'm just thinking of that time when Hurricane Sandy hit and the L train which I lived off of didn't work for a year, so I had to take the J and everybody had to take the J because the L train didn't work. It got flooded. Then I think I took it twice and I was like I'm walking to work. It was the worst. I've been in a lot of crowded subway situations and this was really bad.
Speaker 2Yep, been there.
Speaker 1Perhaps one of the most startling aircraft disappearances associated with the bermuda triangle is the loss of flight 19. Around 2 pm on december 5th 1945, five tbm avenger torpedo bombers took off from the us naval air station in fort lauderdale, florida. This wasa fairly typical training flight, nothing out of the ordinary here.
Speaker 2What's a torpedo bomber?
Speaker 1It's a small sort of, you know, like when you watch movies like Top Gun. It's like that kind of a small, I think one or two person bomber, but it has torpedoes on it.
Speaker 2So it's a plane that launches with torpedoes. So it drops them into the water and they fire from there. I assume torpedoes are always for boats.
Speaker 1That's a question for a naval captain.
Speaker 2Unless they're photon torpedoes, because then you fight in space.
Speaker 1The weather was forecast to be calm, with maybe a few scattered showers. A few scattered showers. Lieutenant Charles C Taylor, an experienced pilot, led the training run successfully up until the second leg of the journey. Pilot led the training run successfully up until the second leg of the journey and I just want to reiterate how established and you know this was someone who was very, very seasoned as a pilot. So at this point, around 3.45pm, the station received communication from Taylor. He sounded confused and concerned. He kept repeating we cannot see the land, we seem to be off course. He kept repeating. After about 10 minutes of silence, another voice was heard on the radio not Taylor saying we can't find West, everything is wrong. We can't be sure of any direction, everything looks strange, even the ocean. 20 minutes later, one final transmission. Minutes later, one final transmission. We can't tell where we are. Everything is can't make out anything. We think we may be about 225 miles northeast of base. End quote. Followed by some mumbling until the final words it looks like we are entering white water. We're completely lost. End quote. Not only did the five planes disappear forever, but one of the two rescue crafts that were immediately launched was also lost, never to be found again. All in all, 27 men died, 14 pilots as part of flight 19, and 13 men on the rescue craft.
Speaker 1What is remarkable about this incident is that one, there were multiple planes involved. Right, so it wasn't just one person, it was six planes. Two, the conditions were supposed to be near perfect. Three, the crew was very experienced and capable. One leading theory is that the pilots ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean, but to me this doesn't explain the mysterious transmissions and long periods of silence.
Speaker 1So that remains sort of one of the more haunting, I suppose, incidents that have happened there. Simply because you have this experience that happens to six planes, not just one vessel or boat at the same time, with hundreds of hours of experience across these men, you have different pilots from different planes transmitting in very similar radio messages, and the conditions are meant to be perfect. Their experience they've done this run multiple times. Essentially, they sort of fly off the coast, they drop some test bombs and they fly back. They had made it through 60 of their mission and then suddenly something changed. They dispatch these rescue planes and the same thing happens to one of the planes. So it's, it's a very intriguing, I imagine, set of circumstances where, sure, there could have been some sort of freak storm, but that's never come up as like. There's been no evidence of any of those things.
Speaker 2What year is this?
Speaker 11945.
Speaker 2Okay, so it was, you know, a while ago. I really wonder because, like you, don't hear too much about incidents and accidents recently in the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1There's some modern ones, for sure. But I do think it's interesting because even if this pilot right, even if it was a storm, even if it was whatever this guy is so experienced, he's a lieutenant pilot Like he would know what a storm was. He would say oh my God, there's a storm. Like instead they're saying things like everything is white, we't see, we don't know where we are, like it's just the. The verbiage of these radio transmissions are so bizarre to me for somebody who's a very experienced pilot. Who would be, who would understand oh, there's a freak stormer, oh there's whatever yeah, these navy pilots are honestly, just most pilots in general.
Speaker 2The plane can be on fire, missing most of its its wings Right and been like, yeah, we're experiencing some trouble. We're trying to bring the aircraft to a safe landing.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Not just like freaking the fuck out.
Speaker 1And for that to happen to all six planes you know.
Speaker 2I mean, it really does seem like there's some kind of geographic phenomena that causes old timey instruments I say old timey just like pre-gps uh to behave strangely yeah, but the other interesting thing too is like okay, so they can't see.
Speaker 1They, he says everything looks strange, even the water. So maybe there's some sort of you know some kind of like saying almost fire type thing where there's some kind of weird geographic phenomena, like what you're saying, that makes visually some kind of mist or something right. But they fly this course.
Speaker 2This was a typical training route for them oh, it was in die hard two uh-huh yes when they upload the the malfunction to the planes yeah that makes it so that, uh, that all the altimeters have faulty readings. That says the ground is much farther than it actually is well, that's scary yeah. So it's like that's, you know, the planes just couldn't land because everyone's so used to using instrumentation, right, that if you're trying to go off the tools that you are hardcore, trained on, and they're saying like, don't worry, the ground is, you know, 100 meters down and it's actually like right there.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's a problem, right Fascinating.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's why they dumped fire all over the runway, and so they made a landing strip.
Speaker 1Right In Die Hard 2.
Speaker 2That is correct In Die Hard 2.
Speaker 1Right In 1963, the USS Marine Sulphur Queen sank off the coast of Florida.
Speaker 2The US Marine Sulphur Queen.
Speaker 1That's right 39 people were killed. This incident is often quoted as a Bermuda Triangle sinking, but I wanted to include it to demonstrate that this is a fair and balanced podcast. In reality, the cause of this disaster is very well known and documented. The ship was not fit to sail, right, so everyone always says, okay, the USS Marine Sulphur Queen is listed in all of the Bermuda Triangle major lists of shipwrecks, but we know what happened to her, so I just wanted to include that there.
Speaker 2To save costs, they made the hull out of pasta.
Speaker 1Oh, Alan.
Speaker 2You know that shit happens Not out of ships, but they replaced concrete with ramen and stuff.
Speaker 1What and when For what?
Speaker 2Not concrete, but in lieu of like wood fill and whatnot and like cheap repairs.
Speaker 1They put in ramen. Yeah, like the block of ramen.
Speaker 2you can shave it to be basically like a chunk of wood and then, once you paint it, it looks the same. But it's not because it's pasta and not hardwood.
Speaker 1Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 2Yeah, but seriously, it's not like rated for any kind of ocean going activity.
Speaker 1I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I mean, if you put pasta in the ocean, it just gets wet. You know it's not, you can't float on it.
Speaker 2That's correct, Abby.
Speaker 1At least the water's pre-salted. You know Also just a fun fact that some believe that Shakespeare's work the Tempest is based on the idea of Bermuda Triangle disappearances.
Speaker 2Wait. So Shakespeare was worried about the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaker 1No one is above the fear of the Bermuda Triangle, except for me, because I stared it down and I went snorkeling.
Speaker 2Went snorkeling. I remember growing up and you're in elementary school, elementary.
Speaker 1Elementary Elementary.
Speaker 2My dear Watson elementary.
Speaker 1Elementary.
Speaker 2Yes, if you're British, you call it elementary school yes, you're from New York. Yeah, elementary versus elementary.
Speaker 1It's elementary school.
Speaker 2Elementary.
Speaker 1What did you say? Are you pranking me?
Speaker 2No, anyways, I was a you know, a wee lad, and the Bermuda Triangle was on the list of things you're going to have to look out for as an adult. It was right up there with like quicksand and tar pits.
Speaker 1I know I really was afraid of quicksand. I really thought quicksand was going to be more of a thing. Yeah, and algebra what I feel like all of middle school just like really prepared you for the use of math which, like, unless you're an architect, is irrelevant.
Speaker 2No, it's very profession specific of how often it comes into play.
Speaker 1But these things can come into play on an everyday basis. When's the last time you did algebra?
Speaker 2Anytime you're trying to build something.
Speaker 1When's the last time you used algebra?
Speaker 2I use it fairly often for ratios, when you just do the one thing over the other thing and then the A over the other thing and then just yeah, that you know you just do the one thing over the other thing, and then the A over the other thing and then you just yeah that you do that when we're trying to get a percentage of a ratio.
Speaker 1yes, For what reason? I actually use it quite a bit at work to calculate percentage change but turns out which they didn't tell you in eighth grade math. There is a percentage change calculator dot com, so I could just put in the percentages and it does it for me. I guess I'd never realized that you were such an algebra pro. It's not come up. Do you use scratch pads?
Speaker 2I wouldn't say that it comes up often, but it does come up. You know, mostly for just like. If you need to just like scale something up like a recipe, right, you know the ratio and then you know, like, what you're trying to make. You just do a little bit of algebra. What is very unused for me personally is the Pythagorean theorem. I just don't use it nearly as often as I thought I would.
Speaker 1Yeah, a lot of elementary school was a lie.
Speaker 2But what they really really lied to us about and very similar to your fancy website uh-huh they said you're gonna have to memorize all these things because it's not like you're gonna be carrying around a calculator in your pocket, right, and like, yeah, I don't have my ti 89 or even my 84 in my pocket on a daily basis but you do have your phone I do have my phone, which is way better than that stupid overpriced calculator ever was you type boobs in it and hold it upside down no, you can't type boobs and you can you type 5 9 0 0, 9 and then hold it upside down and you create the boobs I see that's a good clarification.
Speaker 1Nobody under the age of 30 knows what we're talking about. Okay, from aliens, a supernatural portal in and Atlantis. There are many theories about why the Bermuda Triangle seems to be a hotbed of nautical paranormal activity, but according to the US Coast Guard, it isn't actually that special Quote. In a review of many aircraft and vessel losses in the area over the years, there has been nothing discovered that would indicate that the casualties were the result of anything other than physical causes. No extraordinary factors have ever been identified. End quote. And essentially they also sort of go out to say that while the number of shipwrecks in plane incidents may seem high for that kind of concentrated area, when you you know, look at the factors of, like the traffic in that area and whatever else, that it's not that outstanding. So there are some Bermuda Triangle horror movies.
Speaker 2There's really only one. There's the big one, and then there's all the like, the small, low budget copycats. What's the big one? Scooby Doo, pirates, ahoy it's still up for debate, but this a lot of people feel that this was the direct inspiration for Shakespeare's the Tempest.
Speaker 1I see, what was that show that we watched? That was on Netflix when we had COVID a few years ago. That was like on a ship. Oh, that has sort of a Bermuda Triangle vibe.
Speaker 2It was a number it wasn't 1408, because that's the John Cusack movie. You hate that movie. It's actually really bad. 1899. 1899.
Speaker 1That show was super, super cool. It was When's season two coming? Has it already come?
Speaker 2I doubt it. All those.
Speaker 1It was such a cliffhanger.
Speaker 2Okay, we're going to just derail for a second here, but I had a recent conversation with somebody about all these shows that are coming out and they never get a second season and it's super, super frustrating, frustrating. It feels like shows that we grew up with. They always got to like season five, season eight, whatever, and now we get so many series that people really love. Maybe they get season two, but a season three wow, that's rare you're right, it was canceled.
Speaker 1I just looked at the articles about it, which is so sad. It was good, it was so intriguing and they like built up all these cliffhangers.
Speaker 2I feel like but that's that's the kicker. Like these shows are so good and because they're expensive not because, but like yeah, because they're not skimping on stuff yeah unless a show show makes such a stupid amount of money that canceling it would be a death sentence for the network.
Speaker 2They cancel it because they're all after those whales. That's all they want, because there's. It's not like we have, you're just standard TV networks anymore that only have so many programming hours for live TV. Now we have streaming services that are just pumping out such an oversaturation of content that the competition just among their own content is choking their own network out.
Speaker 1Well, plus, it's such a marketing spend, right, they have to put so much into the marketing of it, and they always do that for season one, unless you have season two standing by. It's been so long now, you lose momentum and there's, I I bet, diminishing returns on a season two and a season three. Because you know it's like when we do a series like this, right, we're gonna put out however many episodes, this is, say it's three parts. Part one will always have the most listeners, part two and it will go down from there. That's sort of just how it goes.
Speaker 2Right, but that's during the initial drop. If your show is really good and you get five, six seasons out of it and then it just lives on streaming forever and goes into syndication, then that can make a lot of money over time. But no one's willing to do it.
Speaker 1It can be a tricky thing also with. You know, a Netflix or Hulu type model is that they and you might be surprised to hear this, but everything is right now subscription revenue right, that's going to change. Ads are being introduced to Netflix and you know there's ads on Hulu, so they can tell right, there's ad revenue tied to certain things. But let's just talk about Netflix pre-ads for a second.
Speaker 2Sure.
Speaker 1It's actually really difficult to know why somebody joins Netflix, right? So the whole thing is to put out a show that's so intriguing that somebody who doesn't already have Netflix buys Netflix and subscribes to it. But it's really hard, even with the data, to know what show made somebody subscribe to Netflix or what show makes them leave Netflix when it's not there anymore or when they've watched it. You know, unless someone comes in and watches one show and leaves, which no one does, right? They come in and they watch all kinds of things and they're like oh, friends is here, whatever, we're going to watch this. That's also why it's very difficult to program in this way, because you have viewership numbers, obviously, and that gives you a lot, but you don't always know why people are coming in or leaving.
Speaker 2Anyway, I miss classic Netflix that had the five star rating. I know you talk about this a lot Because that's their perfect metric. If people watch a thing and leave a one star, you know that's not what got them here and if they cancel, that's what made them cancel. There you go. They were too offended.
The Mystery of the Mariana Trench
Speaker 1The Bermuda Triangle horror movie that I want to talk about briefly, because I did watch it, is a movie called Triangle from 2009. It was written and directed by Christopher Smith and it stars Melissa George. The story centers around five people who set sail on a day cruise but soon encounter a storm. Things start to get really weird when a rescue ship arrives to save them, and I'll sort of leave you there on a cliffhanger. It's not great and none of the Bermuda Triangle films that you know have come up like. There's none that really stand out to me as like oh man, that is the pinnacle of a Bermuda Triangle film. But I wanted to start with the Bermuda Triangle. A, because it's one of the few sort of paranormal ocean topics that we can discuss, and B.
Speaker 2I do think some of this like mysterious, like even like Lost, I think in some ways takes some of that lore from something like the Bermuda Triangle, did they?
Speaker 1go down in the Bermuda Triangle? No, but it's similar, right Like it could be.
Speaker 1It could be, and so that's why I think it can be applied to a lot of different things. Even if people aren't naming the bermuda triangle, this idea of like this mysterious patch of ocean that's like paranormal and causes shipwrecks and plane wrecks and which, again, is like traced back before columbus times right, because he had that experience when he sailed through to colonize the fucking. He sailed through to colonize the fucking world. But the point is, even if a film isn't being called a Bermuda Triangle film or, you know, 1899 or Lost or things like this, they're obviously taking parts of this lore and urban legend and applying it to those horror based films and shows.
Speaker 2Right, and now you've basically made some kind of historical fiction in a weird way, right, uh? And that always adds just that extra little bit of relatability and that makes better horror yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1So, uh, a nut to still be cracked for someone to make a really good bermuda triangle horror movie what would your bermuda triangle horror movie about? It would be about a ship from modern times, like a yacht of rich people, say, or something like that, getting lost in a storm in the Bermuda Triangle and running into like a ship from 1301 or something 1301. It's like a time travel vortex.
Speaker 2So we're back to the canoes.
Speaker 1A Viking ship. If you want to go back to that, it's not really horrifying but it's just kind of it would almost be a comedy because it would be kind of funny. You know, all these billionaires and their yacht like interacting with these vikings from 1301. That'd be kind of cool like a buddy comedy a buddy.
Speaker 2What?
Speaker 1yeah, viking, viking billionaire love story. I think it could be kind of cute yeah, we got.
Speaker 2we got freaking Elon Musk and Torstein the Impaler impaling Elon Musk. It is a comedy. Yeah, that'd be fun. I also like the idea of an area of sea that almost like has Pac-Man rules. Okay, where once you go in, as soon as you try to leave you, just kind of loop.
Speaker 1Yeah, like that game. We played that video game. Hope floats hope floats no, it's not called hope floats. What's it called? Hope something?
Speaker 2hope something.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's part of the dark anthologies like choose your adventure games it's like a new england town at night time, but you're sort of every time you try to leave on a bridge, you just yeah loop back through the town but know if this was just like the laws of this place.
Speaker 2Like, yeah, it's scary if you're all alone and you just can't leave, but if there's other people that are already stuck there and there's only so many supplies to go around?
Speaker 1Yeah, could be horrifying, horrifying, Cannibalism ahoy.
Speaker 2Yeah, and then the only way to do it is to. You know, you give Shaggy and Scooby some Scooby snacks, that's right, and then they just MacGyver their way out.
Speaker 1That's right. The Mariana Trench is the deepest ocean trench on Earth, located about 124 miles east of the Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean. For context, the deepest part of the trench is about 1.2 miles farther from sea level than the peak of Mount Everest.
Speaker 2That is actually up for debate.
Speaker 1No, it's not.
Speaker 2It is no, it's not, because, according to the documentary the Meg, the bottom of the Mariana Trench is not solid. It's actually a layer of super cold water that bounces sonar off. So it looks like it's the bottom bottom, but you can go deeper and they have prehistoric animals down there okay, that sounds like the plot of the meg, not actually anything, true? That's a hundred percent. What happens yeah?
Speaker 1challenger deep is a section of the trench which is dubbed the deepest of earth's seabed. It can be found on the southern end of the trench. It's between 35,768 and 35,856 feet deep. The weight of the ocean above the trench is so great it creates a pressure of about 15,750 pounds per square inch. Similar to my love for old-timey people riding amusement park rides, if you will recall our amusement park series, I also have a deep love for old-timey people riding amusement park rides. If you will recall our amusement park series, I also have a deep love for old-timey people doing ocean research. In 1875, a weighted rope was used to measure the depth of the trench, which initially showed the depth as about 26,850 feet deep. This was called the Challenger Expedition.
Speaker 2How the hell do you know when you've hit the bottom? Were you just like? I think that's it.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2But the rope weighs so much it's just going to keep pulling.
Speaker 1No, it's all the way down. Listen, do you understand what I'm?
Speaker 2saying there's so much rope out that it'll keep pulling.
Speaker 1It's weighted. Yes, so it goes straight down to the bottom. Yes, yes so it goes straight down to the bottom. Yes, I understand, but even one that's touching the bottom. There's so much line out there that that weighs.
Speaker 2I'm not saying that this was a perfect. It'll keep pulling. How do they know?
Speaker 1They don't know they were wrong. That's the point that they were wrong and they were probably wearing ridiculous outfits. Like those Scooby-Doo diving outfits.
Speaker 2The diving bells yeah, scooby-doo. Diving outfits the diving bells yeah. No, they're wearing the same stuff that they play polo in.
Speaker 1Polo. As the years went on, and measurement means improved, researchers were able to get a more accurate sense of its depth. On average, the oceans of the world are typically about 12,000 feet deep. At their deepest parts, about 2.5 miles 2.3 miles While the trench, by some measurements, comes in around 6.5 miles deep, so it's more than double right, the average deepest part of any given ocean. A portion of the trench is named the Hadal Zone, named for Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. Here's where it gets wild. People have indeed been to the bottom of the trench. Yeah, james Cameron did it, including James Cameron, but we'll come back to that.
Speaker 1He goes everywhere there have been about 22 expeditions with humans to the bottom of the trench. The first manned expedition took place in a submersible called tristay, or trist, and january I mean sad that. That's kind of a bummer of a name. In January of 1960, so January 1960, the first manned expedition took place to the bottom of the trench. So the two people on board one was US Naval Officer and Oceanographer Don Walsh.
Speaker 2And the second was Edward von Winklejones.
Speaker 1The other was Jacques Picard, a Swiss oceanographer and engineer. Engineer, despite the massive amounts of pressure. Walsh and picard claimed to see large creatures at the bottom of the trench, large in comparison to the single cell organisms that scientists had thought could only survive down there.
Speaker 2But not the meg okay so the the jason statham documentary shows a huge variety of life down there we're talking about shrimp and flatfish.
Speaker 1Flatfish, that's right what's a flatfish? Though some modern scientists even question these claims that shrimp and flatfish could survive anything can survive down there with what are you preparation.
Speaker 2Okay, there's one bit in the meg to the trench when they're stuck in a part of a station that is on the floor of the mariana trench uh-huh they're gonna drown.
Speaker 2so he has to swim outside without a suit to go in the other, like airlock, right and the only way. But he realizes he can do this if he has no air in his body. So he just gets. He fills his lungs with water, he fills his eyeballs with water and then, because he knows he only has about 40 seconds, so he has to swim real fast, but he does fine, sorry spoilers.
Speaker 1Oh boy, so it's sort of wild that a boat from the 60s could withstand the immense pressures of the depths. I know, alan, that doesn't really compare to someone removing the oxygen from their body.
Speaker 2I like he also just does it manually by just going.
Speaker 1In 2011,. Organisms of about four inches were observed via remote cameras, which again was a major revelation. Crews also went down in 1996, 2009, and James Cameron visited in 2012. Cameron was inside a submersible called deep sea challenger and reached a depth of over 35 000 feet.
Speaker 2So wait you, you say 35 000, oh 35 000 feet 35 000 feet gotcha, I'm thinking like 100 feet. Yeah, that's not even a single mile.
Speaker 1No, 35 000 that's more impressive.
Speaker 2Six and a half miles.
Speaker 1Yeah, a few horror films to touch on here, right? So obviously we have the Meg from 2018 that Alan has been shamelessly plugging, but we also have a few other films a film called the Abyss from 1989, which, if you haven't seen it, is a sleeper hit. The Abyss is really quite a satisfying and, dare I say, beautiful horror ocean film.
Speaker 2The Abyss is one of the best underwater movies.
Speaker 1I agree. Speaking of underwater, there's also Underwater from 2020, which is that Kristen Stewart film. It's kind of dumb, yeah, but it's not terrible, and there's not a lot of these deep ocean topic films?
Speaker 2There isn't, which is why I was so excited and they just kind of squandered the big monsters. Yeah, sorry, spoilers. Spoilers.
Speaker 1When I think about these horror films, I think about the often used anecdote that we know more about space than we know about our own oceans. There is something primarily horrifying about the deepest and darkest parts of the ocean, and when you add in the dangers of the pressure and the unknown sea life, it creates a perfect setting for a horror film, though, again, only a horror film with a healthy budget can really pull it off.
Speaker 2I mean, what is it that the bottom of the ocean is all about dealing with amazing crushing pressure and keeping it out. In space is all about dealing with one atmosphere and keeping it in. And space is all about dealing with one atmosphere and keeping it in. So like, yeah, it's fundamentally easier to survive in a vacuum than it is to deal with the absolute crushing pressure of the bottom of the ocean. Also, it's just not nearly as glamorous because you can't see anything. You can't shine a light. It doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1Well, I also think more so than the filmability of these things. It's really interesting that scientists know less about the oceans right than they do about space.
Speaker 2Well, it's right here and they know even less about how women's bodies works exactly good job alan um, but I mean that's that's kind of the thing of space is at least a frontier. We don't know where it goes. There's all these things left. It's like painfully obvious that there's so much left to explore. We know where the ocean is. We do we know where it goes, and I'm sure it's home to many secrets, but it's not the sweeping discoveries that you'd think of, as opposed to landing on Mars.
Speaker 1Sure yeah.
Speaker 2So I get it. You know, everyone's got to impress the investors.
Speaker 1But it still does have that rich appeal right that those billionaire people last year was it two years ago in the submersible that exploded, Oh's still, I think, a market out there for very rich people to go down in these expeditions to the titanic or whatever else.
Speaker 2And absolutely, and if they built some kind of you know underwater city yeah then there would be a much bigger uh draw, you know, just something that gets some kind of destination, something that people can build towards.
The Legend of Atlantis
Speaker 1Yeah, Speaking of the lost city of Atlantis was first written about by Plato in his works Timaeus and Critias, dating back to 360 BCE. It's a fictional city that Plato uses as an allegory. Plato describes Atlantis as a powerful nation that sank in only a night and a day into the ocean around 9600 BCE. The nation had a constitution that is very similar to the one that Plato outlined himself, and the story goes that as the nation grew and became more dominant, the values of the people were lost. After much conquest and colonization of their nearby nations, the gods sent storms and eventually sunk the island as punishment right. So it's this very classic tale, which in some ways is actually similar to some of the allegory that people take from the sinking of the Titanic, but that the nation got too big and too cocky, if you will right, and was punished and sunk for it will right and was punished and sunk for it.
Speaker 2You know it's. It's just another tale of it's just another version of tale of icarus. They have a technological advancement and they fly too close to the sun, right?
Speaker 1yeah you.
Speaker 2You can see a great iteration of this in aquaman because, there's like the whole thing of atlantis and they have all their wizards and they're playing with their magic crystal and the. You're not supposed to play with the magic crystal because it's too powerful yeah and they play with it and it basically destroys the island with magic's power, uh, and transforms everyone into fish people it's a dramatic day in in the sea and then I guess also in dc.
Speaker 2What was it? Oh, what was this from? It was one of the justice league movies, but vandal savage destroys atlantis who's vandal savage? Vandal savage is like such a freaking cool villain. He's a. He's basically a caveman okay and a meteor hit back in caveman times and it made him immortal. He's just a caveman that has just lived since then and he's a super immortal and that he can't be killed or that he just isn't.
Speaker 2He doesn't have a mortal lifespan he can survive any injury oh wow, that's powerful yeah, and so he's like hyper intelligent because he's all these years to you know, develop sure um you go to oxford I mean there's a lot of vandal savage lore, but anyways, he destroyed atlantis as kind of his like um eugenics experiment yeah uh, because it was like a really advanced society and he just wanted to sink it because he knew that by destroying a it's like in um the movie unbreakable yeah by killing a mass amount of people, the few that survive are going to be powerful as fuck right, and so the I don't know, like when you use hand sanitizer, and it kills 99.9 of the germs, that's.
Speaker 2It's the 0.1 and then he's like, yeah, the 0.1 could now breathe water. And so he's like, ah, that worked right. I mean, that was a real gamble, I'll tell you what?
Speaker 1but it worked out some ancient greeks took plato's story as history and others as metaphor, and, as such, there has been hot debate about the existence of Atlantis ever since. According to Plato, Atlantis was an island that was larger than Asia Minor and Libya combined. It was located in the Atlantic Ocean, just past the Pillars of Hercules, which most people believe refers to the Strait of Gibraltar. But, as we all know, Atlantis and its mythology has evolved far past Plato's initial writings. In 1627, Francis Bacon published quote the New Atlantis. I don't know why I said quote.
Speaker 2I mean, yeah, it's, he named it right, it's his words.
Speaker 1Which depicted an advanced society similar to Plato's version. But it wasn't until 1882 when Ignatius L Donnelly, a former member of the House of Representatives in the US, published his work titled quote why do I keep saying that I don't know? Published his work titled Atlantis the Antediluvian World. It was this work that inspired the great hunt for the lost city of Atlantis, the antediluvian world. It was this work that inspired the great hunt for the lost city of Atlantis. Quoting from the Historycom article on Atlantis, quote Donnelly hypothesized an advanced civilization whose immigrants had populated much of ancient Europe, africa and the Americas and whose heroes had inspired Greek, hindu and Scandinavian mythology.
Speaker 1Donnelly's theories were popularized and elaborated by turn-of-the-20th-century theosophists and are often incorporated into contemporary New Age beliefs. From time to time, archaeologists and historians locate evidence A swampy prehistoric city in coastal Spain, a suspicious undersea rock formation in the Bahamas that may be a source of the Atlantis story. Of these, the site with the widest acceptance is the Greek island of Santorini. Ancient Thera, a half-submerged caldera created by the massive second millennium BC volcanic eruption whose tsunami may have hastened the collapse of Hastened. Whose tsunami may have hastened the collapse of the Minion civilization on Crete End quote.
Speaker 2Did you start a quote? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1That was a quote from the Historycom article.
Speaker 2I understand.
Speaker 1Okay, tell us what you know about Caldera's Allen.
Speaker 2Okay, so a caldera is a crater-like formation. Yeah, left after a volcano erupts, because then all the magma flows, you know away, yep. Makes the nice little peaks and everything, and then hardens and then you're left with this dish, a cauldron, if you will. Sure, calderas are cool and spooky because you're like well, this exploded once and they typically explode multiple times.
Speaker 1Do you believe in Atlantis?
Speaker 2I think it's more plausible than other fabled places, the idea of there's some kind of island that is more advanced and then gets completely erased off the map. Sure, that could just be a big storm, right, and then it becomes legend.
Speaker 1And then, of of course, the legend grows Roanoke, oh, it's storm of the century, that's right. Well, good, good, uh, thought association.
Speaker 2Do I think that there's an underwater civilization?
Speaker 1No, yeah, which is a bummer Cause I do. I just would love to live in a world where there's merpeople. I want that more than almost anything else Mermaids for president, you know. So there's a few Atlantis movies to discuss. Not a lot here, but Siren of Atlantis is an old film from 1949. Beyond Atlantis from 1973 is a Filipino-American horror film set in Atlantis. It was directed by Eddie Romero and stars Patrick Wayne and John Ashley. Cold Skin from 2017 is a more modern take on Atlantis horror. It was directed by Xavier Jens and written by Jesus Olmo. And, of course, films like Aquaman, which are not horror, are set in this fictional city which Alan just mentioned.
Speaker 2Let us not forget Atlantis, the Lost Empire. What's that You've never seen it I don't think so oh my goodness, this was like is it animated?
Speaker 1yeah, maybe it's so good it sounds familiar, it's right up there with treasure planet did it come out like when we were kids?
Speaker 22001 yeah so you were like what three?
Speaker 1no, no, I am having so much fun. I long to write my magnum opus someday when I'm like 75.
Speaker 275? Will be To run for president.
Speaker 1An ocean horror novel that is terrifying and filled with lore. It's just like Novel, not film.
Speaker 1Both. It feels like it's in my blood. You know, like maybe I was reincarnated In one life I was a siren and in one life, if maybe I was reincarnated in one life I was a siren and in one life I was a captain and in one life I was a pirate cyclops yeah, seriously, like I'm like, yeah, I'm here for all of it. So I'm this is. This series has been long overdue and I'm very, very, very excited. This is gonna be a long series and we've kind of talked a lot today about geography, right, we've talked about the Bermuda Triangle, mariana Trench, we talked about Atlantis, these very specific locations. Next part, we're going to get into creatures and things like that mythology a bit more. You know, mermaid siren type discussion, and then it's going to go from there. There's a lot of other stuff that we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1We're going to talk about sailor ghost ships maritime lore, ghost ships, the kraken, sailor lore, anything you can think of really you put it in there, I think it's coming. I put in a lot.
Speaker 2This is our longest outline by magnitudes that's how we're breaking it up, because we're sleeping yeah.
Speaker 1So there's, there's gonna be a lot parts, but hopefully that will make them more enjoyable for everybody. And I do want to say this now because this feels like a feat for me. We received so many an overwhelming amount of well-written, horrifying, ocean-themed horror story submissions that we couldn't limit ourselves, honestly, to one parts worth. So even the Lunatics Library aspect of this series which of course is coming needed a little something extra. So there will be two parts, and those two parts will be full of very, very terrifying and well narrated ocean horror, which I'm really excited because I think that's a great way to round out all the different topics and tropes that we will discuss in the next few parts here. So thank you, guys, so much.
Speaker 1I also just want to say because this is such a big pinnacle series for us emotionally obviously you can see me gushing here we have a new design which is in our merch store, created by our our very, very talented friend, pilar Kep, one of our favorites. You can get horror on the high seas sweatshirts, tanks, t-shirts, tote bags, hats, everything that you need to kind of round out your summer into early fall. Please go check those out. They are beautiful, they're spooky, they are very oceanic and they call upon a lot of the different themes that we are going to explore in the next few parts together. Alan, what ocean horror theme are you most looking forward to discussing in this series?
Speaker 2um, I do enjoy speaking of ocean creatures. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of really cool things that actually exist and even cooler things that probably don't yeah uh, and I also watched a lot of ocean horror movies in preparation for this yeah so I mean I've already been softballing in some real killers looking at you, the meg in the meg to the trench, but uh watched a ton, so I can't wait to discuss those amazing.
Speaker 1Well, thank you guys so much for being here. We love seasonal horror, as is clear if you follow me on Instagram. We will be back very soon with part two of Horror on the High Seas. Until then, stay spooky, stay well and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2Bye, bye.
