HBM155: Ghosts Aliens Burritos

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A beam of green light illuminates a ghost made of aluminum foil. Digital render by Jeff Emtman.

 

Alex Greenfield says that there was no such thing as a normal day when he was a kid.  His dad (Allen H Greenfield) self describes as a “researcher in the shadow world.” And his mom soon grew tired of her husband’s lifestyle, which included a lot of time on the road: chasing rumors of cryptids, ghosts, and aliens.  

Content Note: pervasive language, brief mentions of bigotry.

After his parents split up, Alex, his dad, and an ever changing cast of motorcycle gang members and step-moms kept seeking the occult. 

Some of the topics discussed in this episode: St. Simons Island in Georgia (and reported hauntings), The Okefenokee Swamp (and the ignition of swamp gas), The Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident (and subsequent protests), Mono Lake in California (and the UFO sightings  there), and a movie called Being There (wherein the character played by Peter Sellers appears to walk on water). 

Alex Greenfield is the writer of The Sand, 10.0 Earthquake, and other movies.  He also used to be the head writer for WWE Smackdown. Alex’s dad, Allen H Greenfield (aka. T Allen Greenfield), is a UFOlogist and occultist.  He is the author of Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts, The Story Of The Hermetic Brotherhood Of Light, and other books. 

Unrelated to this episode, but do give a listen to the limited series that Jeff’s been mixing for Crooked Media.  It’s called Another Russia, and it’s about the assassination of Russian dissident Boris Nemtsov, as told by Ben Rhodes and Zhanna Nemtsova.  Available now on every podcast app.  

Also, Jeff’s headed back to Berlin, Germany for about a month.  If you know any good stories/interviews he should record while he’s there, send a DM on Twitter or Instagram, or use the contact form.

Here Be Monsters is an independent podcast supported by listeners and sponsors. 

Producer: Jeff Emtman

Music: The Black Spot, Circling Lights, August Friis

 
 
 

Sponsor:


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All titles from is / ought books are available to buy online via the link below. is / ought books are also distributed via Small Press Distribution (SPD).

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New from is / ought books: James Finnegan’s novel: Das Ka-Ka-Pee-Pee-Tal and Other Works in Progress. Available for purchase here.

The Straight and Narrow

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Interlocked gold rings floating in clouds. Image by Jeff Emtman. Digital render.

 

In 2012, a street preacher walking three small dogs tried to convince Jeff Emtman of his way of thinking about gender and the afterlife. 

In this Here Be Monsters brief, Jeff shares the short essay he originally wrote about the dinner party where they attempted to make an uneasy friendship. 

Jeff re-edited the essay in 2022 and gave pseudonyms to the main characters (“Cliff” and “Sophie”). 

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot

Here Be Monsters is an independent podcast supported by listeners and advertisements from small businesses. If you’d like to support the show, consider sponsoring an episode, or becoming a supporter on Patreon. 

Some other news: 


 

HBM150: Cold Water

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Image by Jeff Emtman

 

The origins of Julia Susara’s chronic fatigue are hard to pin down.  She still doesn’t know exactly how it started but suspects that a deeply broken heart had something to do with it.  

Content Note: Discussions of suicidal ideation.

Juila spent about three years going through some excruciating physical sensations: immense chills, brain fogs, pregnancy nightmares and the feeling that her blood was about to boil through her skin. 

Doctors weren’t able to figure out what was wrong, nor were the array of alternative healers she visited. Feeling that no one was able to help, she was at the edge of giving up. 

But, at her brother’s suggestion, she reluctantly visited a hypnotherapist who gave Julia instructions to swim daily in cold water.  So she started jumping in the ocean each day and felt a strange and near immediate change in her symptoms.  

If you’re feeling suicidal, here are some numbers you can call to speak with someone who will listen:

USA Suicide Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
UK Samaritans: 116 123
Canada Crisis Services: 1.833.456.4566
Japan Tell JP:  03-5774-0992
Australia Lifeline: 13 11 14
Denmark Livslinien: 70 201 201
Other countries: check the list available at suicide.org

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: Julia’s choir group and The Black Spot

This episode marks the end of Season 9.  Season 10 is coming, but the date is currently unknown.  Stay subscribed!  And keep an eye on the HBM Patreon page for an upcoming message with a season debrief and some musings about the show’s future.  That post will be public, so no need to be a member to read it.  Also, please note that due to some summer busy-ness, Jeff will not be able to run an HBM summer art exchange this year.  Thank you for all your support through Season 9.  It is such a pleasure to make this show. 

 
 
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Sponsor: Animasus

Emilius Martinez is an illustrator and designer who runs Animasus.  Animasus can help you design email campaigns, websites and improve the overall branding for your business.  

Speaking of which, Emilius designed the new HBM t-shirt, which is wonderful. Thank you Animasus for sponsoring Here Be Monsters!

Look! It’s the new HBM shirt. Designed by Emilius Martinez from Animasus. Order yours today!

Look! It’s the new HBM shirt. Designed by Emilius Martinez from Animasus. Order yours today!

HBM141: Filthy Riches

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Image by Jeff Emtman.

 

When a group of broke college students start throwing lavish feasts, HBM host Jeff Emtman begins to wonder at the source of the food, initially assuming it was stolen.  But he’s soon corrected.  Confronted with the shocking amount of food waste in the local dumpsters, he quickly turns into a freegan dumpster diving evangelist, but is often thwarted by an angry employee of a local produce stand.  An employee whose face is always hidden by a bright headlamp. 

Content Note: Language and descriptions of violence.

These encounters rattle him, making it hard for him to separate reality from his recurring night terrors about the incidents.  But, years later, and more than a hundred of miles away, he has an encounter in a chocolate dumpster which cures him of those nightmares. 

Many thanks to Jesse Chappelle and Hallie Sloan, who helped in the research of this episode. 

 
 
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Sponsor


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Coffee Beer gets you to and from the best parts of your day.  Located at 4142 SE 42nd Ave, Portland, OR 97206, they serve coffee, beer, snacks and groceries for pick-up and delivery.  Order yours at coffeebeerdelivers.com

Coffee Beer’s merch can be shipped!  Shirts, mugs and more, at coffeebeer.me

Thank you Coffee Beer for sponsoring HBM!

Jeff likes Coffee Beer’s “Leave Me Alone” shirt. 

HBM129: The Underearthlings

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Map of Bornholm, Denmark with orbs. 3d image by Jeff Emtman with source material from a circa 1900 Bornholm map via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Lars Christian Kofoed Rømer claims his red hat is mere coincidence. He wears it because his mother-in-law knit it for him 15 years ago and he quite likes it. However, it also makes him visually match the mythical underground people he spent three years studying on the Danish island of Bornholm. 

Content Note: Language

Bornholm folklore sometimes references “De Underjordiske”, a kind of people that live under the many ancient burial mounds that spot the landscape. Lars sometimes calls the people “subterraneans”, “pixies” or “underearthlings”. They’re known as a militant group, fiercely defending themselves, their homes in the mounds, and the island. But not an unthankful group either, rewarding humans for kindness or bravery.

It’s worth clarifying that Lars is no “troll hunter” (as the press often gleefully mistakes him to be), nor is he in the business of saying whether reclusive, sometimes-red-hatted people are real or legend. He is, however, in the business of collecting those legends and learning what they can teach us about us. And also what the legends can tell us about the archaeological significance of a Batlic Island that’s been conquered so many times that history’s forgotten who actually made those mounds in the first place. 

 
 

Pursuing legends is difficult though, as Lars attests to in this episode of Here Be Monsters. He tells producer Jeff Emtman stories of both the underearthings and the stories of the skepticism he faced when he pointed the anthropological lens on the place where he grew up. He says, “That’s why there was so much talk about this project. Had it been an anthropological study of shamans in Siberia, or something in the Amazon, then there would have been then public expectation that, ‘of course people there have spirits and stuff like that.’...But when it’s about what happens in your own back garden, then I think that’s where it gets more controversial...there’s certainly magic in distance.”

Lars is an anthropologist and the author of Tales in an Underground Landscape, a dissertation he wrote while pursuing a PhD at University of Copenhagen. 

 
 

Many thanks to Rikke Houd, who connected Jeff to Lars and has interviewed him about De Underjordiske for the BBC show Short Cuts. 

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Editor: Bethany Denton
Music: Serocell, The Black Spot
Photos: Jeff Emtman

 

HBM070: The Way The Blood Flows

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“I used to think you were brilliant” Evan Williamson’s dad wrote to him in a letter.  Evan was in treatment for chemical dependency at the time.  His father asked if they could meet in Alaska to continue a family tradition of fathers and sons who fished together.  

The Alaskan waters were teeming, and two spent entire days ending lives together.  Evan’s dad, amid all the death, explained that he too was dying.  

The Way The Blood Flows a short story written and read by Evan Williamson, who currently makes videos and music with his wife Sidra as they travel the world.  Their series is called Sid and Evan Leave America.  You can follow them on YouTube and Facebook.

Music: The Black Spot

Jeff Emtman produced this episode with help from Bethany Denton and Nick White. 

 

Some of the fish Evan and his father caught in Alaska.

The boat chartered by Evan and his father.